The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-10-05

pies is dedicated to some one of the
ancient deified heroes, whose spirits
are thought to be potent forces in the
world today, influencing the affairs Of
men, Here come the multitudes at
special seasons and festivals to praise
their mighty protectors, and to pray
for the blessings desired.
Who that has seen these wor-
shippers can doubt the zeal and the
earnestness of many of them? See that
mother with her infant son tied on
her back; with folded hands and re-
peated clippings she is beseeching the
powerful spirit whose shrine this is
for the recovery, it may be, of some
loved one at home, muttering cease
less mystic syllables. Manu- Amida
Butsu, Manu- Amida Butsu. See how
faithfully that young woman with tear
full eyes is filling up the number of
her prayers, making the hundred cir
cles of the temple gound. Behold yon
leper, amounting his smitten body with,
the sacred incense ashes and holy wa
ter, intoning the while with monoton-
Gus voice the single prayer, Manu- Myo
Ho Rem Go Kyo. And what means
that chorus of many voices at the tomb
of Kato Kiyo Masa, the general who
three hundred years ago conquered
Korea? 1t is the united prayer of poor
possessed victims to the divine healer
who has the power to cast out the spir-
it's of the fox, the badger and of other
animals. and even the spirits of evil
men and of demons. The prayers in
toned with the beat of a drum, con-
tinue with increasing vehemence until
one or more of those possessed, over
taken with violent commissions, loses
all consciousness of himself and his
surroundings-some form, doubtless,
of hypnotic trance.
Or should we visit, strictly Buddhis-
tic temples, we should see idols innu-
merable, of Kwannon, the Goddess OF
Mercy, with her many hands out
stretched to save; of Buddha himself,
seated in calm meditation of the Shi-
| tenno, who guard the four quarters OF
heaven to keep the demons from dis
turbing Buddha's Nirvana. These,
| with multitudes more Of idols and sa-
cred objects, claim the devotion Of pi-
Gus worshipers For although Buddha
himself rejected all belief in superior
beings or gods who could help men in
the battle of life, it is the irony of
history that popular Buddhism, wheth-
er in Japan or in other lands, is gross
| ly polytheistic and idOlatrous.
| But with all the holy objects and
gods offered the pious worshiper by
Shintoism and Buddhism, we have not
vet exhausted the list of the ways in
which the demand Of the human heart
| for suitable expression of it's Utmost
needs has found utterance. In every
nom Christian home in Japan you will
! find the "Kamidana" or god-shelf;
here each night are placed the little
oil lights before the ancestral tablets
/ And at stated periods the entire family
will gather before these memorial tab
lets and offer formal worship to the
spirits of their departed ancestors
who though unseen are thought to be
actually present.
What now is the attitude of Christ
and his gospel to all this pOlythelstlt
worship? Is it only wrong, ano
wholly wrong? Must 1t be condemned
/ and destroyed, root and branch? Is
i there nothing in it we can approve
/ All. what convincing testimony it is
to the need, the profound need OF the
heart, with it's quenchless, unsatisfiet
longings! What an aching void Il
there! How man longs for blessings
and neace and for assurance in his
troubles and doubts, in his efforts ant
disappointments and griefs!
/ But before answering my question
/ would call your attention to the rae
that these polytheistic native religions
are doomed to sure destruction; ane
the hand that destroys them is to bt
the relentless hand of science. It is no
/ evangelistic activity, nor missionary
work: rather it is occidental science
and civilization that will bring then
ia their inevitable doom. The more
than 10000 public schools to be fount
TODAY in all parts of this far Eastern
. land. with their 1O0,0 900 normal trained
school teachers, and with more thar
four and one-half million pupils, o.
whom one and one-half millions art
girls-schools devoted to the principles
of Western learning, teaching chem1s
try and physics, anatomy and astron
, omv-these are undermining the Ole
faiths and overthrowing the old super
situations as no protestant schools OF
eyangelistic preaching could ever hope
to do.
Can he continue to worship the SUI
who has learned that it is but mighty
molten mass of matter? Can he still
Worship the ocean who has learned
that all it's tides and storms are rulet
not as he had supposed by a multitude
of gods, but by infiexible laws, most O
which are we'll known to man? Can az
continue in the old-time way to wor
ship the spirit of ancestors who finds
no possible place for their ACTIVE
agency in this world of law? Impos
sible. And as consequence, there arr
today in Japan, millions of the uppe1
and educated classes who do not wor
ship.
Modern civilization, with its scienc'
and law, with it's translations of Spen
Ger and Tyndall and Huxley, has de
stroyed the belief of the educated il
the old objects of worship, and ha:
no substitute to offer. No, my friends
it is not Christianity; that is to say
formal, organized, evangelistic Chris
tianity, which has destroyed and il
continuing to destroy the old ethni'
religions, and with them the socia
structure based upon them. Be no
deceived. 1t is occidental, that is tt
say, Christian civilization and learn