The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 102

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102

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

the worship consists in performing acts of purifica-
tion. . A result of this view of sin has made the
Japanese a very cleanly people in person, house,
street, and city. Neatness of person is a passion
with them. Another fruit of Shintoism is the
unique reverence in which the Mikado is held as
the embodiment of all power and the object of all
national hopes and ambitions. Shintoism exalts
patriotism to a religion. Although losing its re-
ligious character more and more and rapidly pass-
ing away as a system, it has lost none of its force
for the nurture of intense patriotism and will prove
a mighty political force for years to come. Shinto-
ism teaches no morals and has no heaven!

A Japanese Family of Rank.

Buddhism came to Japan from China through
Korea, but has undergone such great changes in
the transplanting that in many respects it resembles
the Buddhism of China only in name. A bold and
crafty Buddhist priest, by Buddhaizing the old
popular festivals and names of the gods, made
Buddhism palatable to the adherents of Shintoism ;
but in doing this, he made a religion that was
atheistic, a religion teeming with thousands and
thousands of gods. Several hundred of the native
chief gods were changed into so many different
_ manifestations of Buddha.

Confucianism came to Japan in the seventeenth
century. In the hands of the moral teachers of old
Japan and as practised by the Samurai, or nobles,
it was transformed into an ethical religion known
as Bushido, “The Way of the Warrior.” Its central

doctrine was loyalty and obedience to the superior.
It exalted loyalty over filial piety and ascribed to
both a religious authority. Bushido again built up
the sanctions for social and family life and gave to
each its duties. It brought back into the practical
life of the people those ideals which Buddhism had
sent into the mountains, to Japan’s great injury.
It sought to establish the practical life of the state
and the family on the firm foundation of character
and knowledge. But Bushido had no Supreme
Being; it had no church, no priesthood, no organ-
ization. It had no doctrine of salvation for the
sinner, the downcast, and the helpless. In short, it
was no religion at all, but only a system of morals,
a philosophy of life, without recog-
nition of a Supreme Being.

Christian Missions.

The first Christian mission in
Japan was begun by the earnest Jes-
uit Francis Xavier in 1549. Xavier
himself was in Japan only about two
years, but in this short time he be-
gan a work which was carried on by
others with remarkable success for
almost a hundred years. In a little
more than a half-century the Chris-
tians numbered nearly one million.
What the further progress of Chris-
tianity might have been if the Ro-
man Catholic priests had not been
drawn into the political affairs of
the country, it is hard to tell; but
as it was, the period of rapid growth
was followed by a period of bloody
persecution, in which thousands of Christians were
killed. The bloody chapter was brought to an end
by the closing of Japan to the outside world for
250 years. IEdicts were published against the Chris-
tians, and up to a little more than fifty years ago,
at every gate to both the Flower Capital of the
Mikado and Yeddo, city of the Shogun, at many of,
the entrances to the towns and villages of Nippon,
there stood a wooden sign-board on which was writ-
ten with India ink, in bold, heavy, black strokes, so
that he who ran on the highway might read, the
following order: —

KIRISHITAN JASHUMONNO GIWA, KOREMADENO-
TORI KATAKU KINSEINO KOTO!

That is: —

“The evil sect Kirishitan [Christian] is firmly forbidden
as hitherto!”