One of the many things described in guides is the beautiful temple, the artistic shrine and the devoted worship. Religion claims the first and last place in nearly every book on Japan. And very often the beauty and excellence of Oriental religion is depicted at the expense of Christianity. Missions are blame ed for every war, every massacre, every diplomatic estrangement, everything. The whole programme of missions is wrong, should be disorganized re-organized and uiade to fit in with the economy of ancient religion and the eastern mind.'
Another discouraging point dealt with in books about Japan is the inability of the Western mind to grasp or understand or comprehend the Eastern mind. The Eastern mind is so unfathomable, _inscrutable, in fact impossible. There is certainly nothing like recognizing one's limitations. If the Japanese are such a mental proposition, in what alarming propensity do " we appear in their eyes? The day before we left Shanghai I went to hear an old Chinese schoolfellow give an address. At home we both worked in the same class room and studied the same subjects together. I don't remember ever troubling myself about what this Chinese fellow-student thought about our religion, our customs, our habits, our manners, our mental disabili: ties. To me there is something very simple and something very subtle about everybody. Take a Jew, or a Scotchman, or a Chinese, or a Japanese, there is something weird and indescribable in the mental makeup of each. J wender what the Japanese think about the Jews or the Indians, many of whom are in the silk business in Japan.
Is adaptability to a Western religion the serious problem it is j_made out to be? We stepped me side a church door in Nagasaki, where a large service was being conducted by a Japanese pastor. We were very deeply impressed by the quiet devout, reverent spirit We visited a shrine in Kobe where the cinema in all its wildest forms was slowly pushing out the Shinto temple in the centre.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.