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Just as a child, no matter what its race and color may be, should know that there are black men and brown men and yellow men, and, no matter what its political convictions may be, that there are Monarchists and Republicans and Positivists, Socialists and Unsocialists, so it should know that there are Christians and Mahometans and Buddhists and Shintoists and so forth, and that they are on the average just as honest and well-behaved as its own father.
But all for in this most antique province of Japan all Buddhists are Shintoists likewise utter the archaic words of Shinto prayer: 'Harai tamai kiyome tamai to Kami imi tami.
Very many of the Japs are Buddhists, but it is a strange sort of Buddhism, not pure like that of the Burmans, and is mixed up with another religion called Shinto, and many of the people are Shintoists altogether. This religion is vague and mystical, with much worship of spirits, especially the spirits of the elements earth, air, fire, and water.
It rings devoutly if we say Christ is our guide. Yet, as Ritschl describes this guidance, in the exigency of his contention against mysticism, have we anything different? What becomes of Confucianists and Shintoists, who have never heard of the historic Christ? And all the while we have the sense of a query in our minds.
Foreign intercourse and the presence of aliens on the soil gave the occasion, but not the cause, of the nation's re-birth. The new government already in power at Kioto, under pressure of bigoted Shintoists, revamped the ancient cult of Shinto, making it a political engine.
But Shinto sentiment in Izumo was too strong to be affected much by any such declaration: indeed, the recommendation of the matches as suitable for use in a Shin-shu temple was of itself sufficient to prejudice Shintoists against them. Accordingly special precautions had to be taken before safety-matches could be satisfactorily introduced into the Province of the Gods.
In Asia, the entire vast area of Siberia is only sparsely settled and its religions include Animism, Taoism, and Christianity. In China, we find the land of three truths, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. India, Tibet, and Burma are dominated by Hinduism and Buddhism; Arabia, Persia, and the rest of the continent are Mohammedan. In Japan, there are the Shintoists.
"Why yes, there was surely no wrong in that. But if they would have you choose well they would first have to let you serve an apprenticeship with the Romans, then another with the Protestants, then another with the Jews and then with the Mohammedans?" "Not to mention the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Shintoists," said I.
This conceit is ancient as Japan, and one not only in usage to this day among the Shintoists of that land, but likewise common throughout Northern Asia and, nearer home, in the Orkneys, in Scotland, in Ireland.
The political bearing of such a doctrine upon the then existing status of the country is apparent. The Emperor, who is a god, the fountain of all virtue, honor, and authority, is now a prisoner at the court of Kioto, under the iron hand of the Tokugawa Shoguns. This state of impiety and irreverence can never be tolerated by the devout Shintoists.
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