Tas Japanese are often spoken of as the most unreligious people upon earth, A light-hearted, heedless race, they form a striking exception, as Oscar Peachel points out, to the rule that the frequent, occurrence of earthquakes in sobering effect' upon the inhabitants. fa given country has a saddening and
It is almost as difficult to find out what ideas are held by a highly educated Japanese on sach subjects as a Personal Deity or a future life, as to arrive at the same conclusion with regard to a Confucianis He is credited with being a Gallio and an Agnostic in all questions relating to the supernatural, and we do not think that, taking it all in all, he is very munch maligned.
It is therefore all the more remarkable that at the present moment a very powerful religious movement is going in Japan, and a movement with three developments. First there is the reformation in the Buddhist Charch, to which we referred at length some weeks ago. In this direction the Reform Party are using their most strenuous efforts to bring about an amelioration in the manners and morals of the priest hood. Secondly, there isan attempt on the part of some of the high officers to influence the Tenuo so as to mako him accord his recognition to Shintoism as the Religion of the State, Christian. ity and Baddhism being regarded as different forms of heterodoxy. And thirdly there is a movement in the Buddhist Church itself strongly hostile to Christianity. These three phenomena are more or less interblended. It is the more zealous of the Roforming Party in the priesthood who are ing the van in the anti-Christian campaign, and who urge the reforms they are attempting to carry through partly on the ground that the purer and stronger their own religion becomes, the weaker will be Christianity; while the Shintoists, whose system is more nearly allied to that of Confucius than to uny other, look down upon both the other creeds contemptuously, Additional interest is imparted to the sitnation by the utterances of an anonymous writer in the Mainichi Shimbun, who begins by professing himself entirely outside the sphere of any religious influences whatever. If I had to choose a religion, he says, virtually, I would adopt Shintoism, simply because it is the religion of my native country. This shows how little importance Lo attaches to religion as such. But inconsistency is shown almost in the next sentence, where he con-dernns Shintoism as unsatisfactory, and a failure. It has no books, no founder, no creed. It is simply system of ethics adopted by people who Know no better. It presents no scope for the play of either reverence or love; there is nothing in it, says the writer, to make me bow down my head before its throne. Those are striking words. They ate the words of a man, surely, who knows what religion is, in spite of his sceptical utterances, and who possesses a heart capable of being bowed down by the contemplation of any object supremely holy, loveable, and good. And this he cannot find in Shintoism, which is little more than a scheme of ethics, decorated with a few cold ceremonies, and based upon a commemoration of the lives and deeds of dead commanders. Nor does Budd bism affect him in any way more strongly. He considers it superior to the Shinto sect, in that it had a founder and a head, who sacrificed himself for others; but the person of Sakya Monni has faded into a very cold abstraction, and is powerless to exercise any elevating or warming influence upon the mind of sceptical and probably highly-cultured Japanese. But how is it, one may ask, that this writer seems to be untouched by Christianity? Is there any people in the world among whom what may be called the Romance of Self-sacrifice is more fully understood and acted: out than among the people of Japan? Is there nothing in the life and death of the Founder of Christianity and: his more eminent followers to air the soul, to excite the noblest passions, to inspire the loftiest deeds, to make one " bow the head before its throne?" The fact is, that that which appeals most in Christianity to the mind of a European has no effect upon a Japanese. The death of Christ is, to him, a very ordinary occurrence, Crucifixion is a familiar iden, and has been until quite recently ® common practice among the people of Japan, and the more fact of a man allowing himself to be put to death instead of some one else fails to move their sympathies in the slightest possible degree. This could scarcely be otherwise in a country so long familiarized with horrible forms of death, self-inflicted in the most deliberate mauver upon the most trumpery occasions. With all their amiable and gentle characteristics, it cannot be denied that the Japanese are strangely callous to physical suffering, and thore-fore they cannot be approached from the same side as Enuropeaus in bringing before them the mysteries of the Christian faith. But they may be attracted to it otherwise. The present religious movements in Japan are probably only one phase of the universal movement in the direction of enquiry and change that has been set on foot with regard to other matters. It is just part of the prevailing restlessness, and but little more. But while the spectacle of a Sufferer fails to excite the emotions of a Japanese, the idea of a Conqueror and King is well adapted to enkindle all those instincts of loyalty which he possesses in such a high degree. The Founder of Christianity is presented in both aspects in the books and traditions of our faith; and we believe that if ever the Japanese are once brought: to enlist themselves: under His banner in the warfare against evil, they will prove one of the bravest, most enthusiastic, and most unflinching regiments in the Christian army.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.