34 



THE EEV. PREBENDARY H. E. FOX, M.A., ON 



the Christian Scriptures. Buddhism has been quite ready to 

 accommodate itself to Shintoism, and instead of opposing the 

 earlier religion of the country, succeeded in persuading the people 

 to believe that the two were the same under different names and 

 forms. 



It is common to hear an educated man say that lie is just as 

 much a Buddhist as a Shintoist, and can accept a good deal of 

 Christianity as well. Conciliator}^ however, as Buddhism shows 

 itself to-day, it cannot repress the bitterness which prevails 

 between the sects within it, and it certainly incited the rulers of 

 Japan to the persecutions and terrible atrocities inflicted for 

 many yeais on the first Christian Missionaries and their 

 converts. 



But all these things belong to the past. Xo other nation has 

 passed through so great transitions in so short a time as those 

 which living men have seen in Japan. The Mikado is no longer 

 a mystery. Daimios and Samurai exist only in pictures and 

 poetry. The last of the Shoguns died in obscurity a few weeks 

 ago. In the lobby of the Y.M.C.A. house in Kyoto, the old 

 capital of Japan, I saw hanging one of the old notice boards 

 bearing the proclamation against Christianity, and offering high 

 rewards for the capture of Christian priests and people, and side 

 by side with it a frame containing an autograph letter from the 

 late Emperor, in which he heartily thanked the Association for 

 the services its members had rendered to the sick and wounded 

 during the war and enclosed a contribution of £1,000 to its 

 funds. 



Changes of a less satisfactory character are increasing. The 

 simple habits of life which have so long characterized Japan are 

 giving place among the wealthier classes to the luxury which 

 has been imported from other lands. The educational system, 

 which has been highly developed by the government, is entirely 

 secular. 



The moral precepts inculcated in Imperial Kescripts are 

 excellent, but are based on no religious principles. 



The portrait of the Emperor, to which in every school at stated 

 times the pupils are instructed to pay a reverence amounting 

 almost to worship, is a surviving reminder of the old Yamato 

 Damashii, or the later Bushido. And yet, notwithstanding 

 the Materialism and Kationalism spreading rapidly under 

 European and American influence, it must be admitted that the 

 Japanese, as a whole, are still a religious people. The nature of 

 their piety is not, perhaps, as intensive as that which we expect 

 in ours, but it is certainly genuine. During the last few days 



