all along and down through the lines of Japanese society the idea of early retirement from duty; so that men were considered old at forty, and _hors concours_ before forty-five.[37] Life was condemned as vanity of vanities before it was mature, and old age a friend that nobody wished to meet,[38] although Japanese old age is but European prime. In a measure, Buddhism is thus responsible for the paralysis of Japanese civilization, which, like oft-tapped maple-trees, began to die at the top. This was in accordance with its theories and its literature. In the Bible there is, possibly, one book which is pessimistic in tone, Ecclesiastes. In the bulky and dropsical canon of Buddhism there is a whole library of despondency and despair.

Nevertheless, the ethical element held its own in the Japanese mind; and against the pessimism and puerility of Buddhism and the religious emptiness of Shint[=o], the bond of Japanese society was sought in the idea of loyalty. While then, as we repeat, everything that comes to the Japanese mind suffers as it were "a sea change, into something new and strange," is it not fair to say that the change made by K[=o]b[=o] was at the expense of Buddhism as a system, and that the thing that suffered reversion was the exotic rather than the native plant? For, in the emergence of this new idea of loyalty as supreme, Shint[=o] and not Buddhism was the dictator.

Even more after K[=o]b[=o]'s death than during his life, Japan improved upon her imported faith, and rapidly developed new sects of all degrees of reputableness and disreputableness. Had K[=o]b[=o] lived on through the centuries, as the boors still believe;[39] he could not have stopped, had he so desired, the workings of the leaven he had brought from China. From the sixth to the twelfth century, was the missionary age of Japanese Buddhism. Then followed two centuries of amazing development of doctrine. Novelties in religion blossomed, fruited and became monuments as permanent as the age-enduring forests Hakone, or Nikk[=o]. Gautama himself, were he to return to "red earth" again, could not recognize his own cult in Japan.

In China to-day Buddhism is in a bad state. One writer calls it, "The emasculated descendant that now occupies the land with its drone of priests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and corruption."[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The common people of China are to-day Taoists rather than Buddhists.[41]

If this be the position in China, something not very far from it is found in Japan to-day. Whatever may be the Buddhism of the few learned scholars, who have imbibed the critical and scientific spirit of Christendom, and whatever be the professions and representations of its earnest adherents and partisans, it is certain that popular Buddhism is both ethically and vitally in a low state. In outward array the system is still imposing. There are yet, it may be, millions of stone statues and whole forests of wayside effigies, outdoors and unroofed--irreverently called by the Japanese themselves, "wet gods." Hosts upon hosts of lacquered and gilded images in wood, sheltered under the temple tiles or shingles, still attract worshippers. Despite shiploads of copper Buddhas exported as old metal to Europe and America, and thousands of tons of gods and imps melted into coin or cannon, there are myriads of metal reminders of those fruits of a religion that once educated and satisfied; but these are, in the main, no longer to the natives instruments of inspiration or compellers to enthusiasm. In this time of practical charity, they are poor substitutes for those hospitals and orphan asylums which were practically unknown in Japan until the advent of Christianity.

K[=o]b[=o]'s smart example has been followed only too well by the people in every part of the country. One has but to read the stacks of books of local history to see what an amazing proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions and revelations rests on dreams; how incredibly numerous are the apparitions; how often the floating images of Buddha are found on the water; how frequently flowers have rained out of the sky; how many times the idols have spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays--in a word; how often art and artifices have become alleged and accepted reality. Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature and undergrowth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; for nearly all are copies of K[=o]b[=o]'s model. His cartoon has been constantly before the busy weavers of legend.

It may indeed be said, and said truly, that in its multiplication of sects and in its growth of legend and superstition, Buddhism has but followed every known religion, including traditional Christianity itself. Yet popular Buddhism has reached a point which shows, that, instead of having a self-purgative and self-reforming power, it is apparently still treading in the steps of the degradation which K[=o]b[=o]began.

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.

We repeat it, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance. It is to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins. Its _ingwa_ is manifest. Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to Japanese Buddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done by K[=o]b[=o], as shown in his Riy[=o]bu system. Not from foreign writers and their fancies, nor even from the books which profess to describe these divinities, do we get such an idea of their real meaning and of their influence with the people, as we do by observation of every-day practice, and a study of the idols themselves and of Japanese folk-lore, popular romance, local history and guidebooks. Those familiar divinities, indeed, at the present day owe their vitality rather to the artists than to priests, and, it may be, have received, together with some rather rude handling, nearly the whole of their extended popularity and influence from their lay supporters. The Seven Happy Gods of Fortune form nominally a Buddhist assemblage, and their effigies on the kami-dana or god-shelf, found in nearly every Japanese house, are universally visible. The child in Japan is rocked to sleep by the soothing sound of the lullaby, which is often a prayer to these gods. Even though it may be with laughing and merriment, that, in their name the evil gods and imps are exorcised annually on New Year's eve, with showers of beans which are supposed to be as disagreeable to the Buddhist demons "as drops of holy water to the Devil," yet few households are complete without one or more of the images or the pictures of these favorite deities.

The separate elements of this conglomerate, so typical of Japanese religion, are from no fewer than four different sources: Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shint[=o]ism. "Thus, Bishamon is the Buddhist _Vais'ramana_[42] and the Brahmanic Kuvera; Benten is Sarasvati, the wife of Brahma; Daikoku is an extremely popularised form of Mahakala, the black-faced Temple Guardian; Hotei has Taoist attributes, but is regarded as an incarnation of Maitreya, the Buddhist Messiah; Fuku-roku-jiu is of purely Taoist origin, and is perhaps a personification of Lao-Tsze himself; Ju-ro-jin is almost certainly a duplicate of Fuku-roku-jiu; and, lastly, Ebisu, as the son of Izanagi and Izanami, is a contribution from the Shint[=o] hero-worship."[43] If Riy[=o]bu Buddhism be two-fold, here is a texture or amalgam that is _shi-bu_, four-fold. Let us watch lest _go-bu_, with Christianity mixed in, be the next result of the process. To play the Japanese game of go-ban, with Christianity as the fifth counter, and Jesus as a Palestinian avatar of some Dhyani Buddha, crafty priests in Japan are even now planning.

This illustration of the Seven Gods of Happiness, whose local characters, functions and relations have been developed especially within the last three or four hundred years, is but one of many that could be adduced, showing what proceeded on a larger scale. The Riy[=o]bu process made it almost impossible for the average native to draw the line between history and mythology. It destroyed the boundary lines, as Pantheism invariably does, between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood. The Japanese mind, by a natural, possibly by a racial, tendency, falls easily into Pantheism, which may be called the destroyer of boundaries and the maker of chaos and ooze. Pretty much all early Japanese "history" is ooze; yet there are grave and learned men, even in the Constitutional Japan of the Meiji era--masters in their arts and professions, graduates of technical and philosophical courses--who solemnly talk about their "first emperor ascending the throne, B.C. 660," and to whom the dragon-born, early Mikados, and their fellow-tribesmen, seen through the exaggerated mists of the Kojiki, are divine personages.

The Gon-gen in the Processions.

While living in Japan between 1870 and 1874, the writer used to enjoy watching and studying the long processions which celebrated the foundation of temples, national or local festivals, or the completion of some great public enterprise, such as the railway between T[=o]kio and Yokohama. In rich costume, decoration, and representation most of the cultus-objects were marvels of art and skill. Besides the gala dresses and uniforms, the fantastic decorations and personal adornments, the dances which represented the comedies and tragedies of the gods and the striking scenes in the Kojiki, there wore colossal images of Kami, Bodhisattvas, Gon-gen, Dai Mi[=o] Jin, and of imps, oni, mythical animal forms and imaginary monsters.[44] More interesting than anything else, however, were the male and female figures, set high upon triumphal cars having many tiers, and arrayed in characteristic primeval, ancient, medieval, or early modern dress. Some were of scowling, others of benign visage. In some years, everyone of the eight hundred and eight streets of Yedo sent its contribution of men, money, decorations, or vehicles.

As seen by four kinds of spectators, the average ignorant native, the Shint[=o]ist, the learned Buddhist, and the critical historical scholar, these effigies represented three different characters or creations. Especially were those divine personages called Gon-gen worth the study of the foreign observer.

(1) The common boor or streetman saluted, for example, this or that Dai Mi[=o] Jin, as the great illustrious spirit or god of its particular district. To this spirit and image he prayed; in his honor he made offerings; his wrath he feared; and his smile he hoped to win, for the Gon-gen was a divine being.

(2) To the Shint[=o]ist, who hated Buddhism and the Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o] which had overlaid his ancestral faith, and who scorned and tabooed this Chinese term Dai Mi[=o] Jin, this or that image represented a divine ancestor whose name had in it many Japanese syllables, with no defiling Chinese sounds, and who was the Kami or patron deity of this or that neighborhood.

(3) To the Buddhist, this or that personage, in his lifetime, in the early ages of Japanese history, had been an avatar of Buddha who had appeared in human flesh and brought blessings to the people and neighborhood; yet the people of the early ages being unprepared to receive his doctrine or revelation, he had not then revealed or preached it; but now, as for a thousand years since the time of the illustrious and saintly K[=o]b[=o], he had his right name and received his just honors and worship as an avatar of the eternal Buddha. So, although