The morning news., 1899-01-18
JAPANESE PECULIAR IDEAS.
THEY LIKE CEREMONY, WITH A
GREAT DEAL OF TRICKERY.

suited in Complete" Indifference on
the Part of Natives-EverythinS
snbservient to Fun.
From the Pittsburg Dispatch.
Tokio.-Voltaire once made the remark,
after visiting England that the country
possessed fifty religions and only one sauce
and he did not have a very high opin-
ion of either the religions or the culinary
triumphs of the English. If he had Wis
tied Japan he would have found his re-
mark to be literally true that there are
nifty sects and absolutely one sauce eat
en- by noble and peasants alike The
sauce is easy to describe, but the relig-
ions are not.
Religion, as we look at it, a creed, a
church and a day set apart for worship
does not exist in Japan, for here it is
rather continuous adjunct to the happy
life of the people. and furnishes them
with an infinite fund for amusement with
gay spectacles, which every village holds
once or twice year, as an excuse for
the farmer. and the peasant to visit fes-
tivals all over the country. which helps
trade and makes railroads pay handsome
ly.
One of the first objects that strike the
eye of a traveller coming from China and
entering Japan at Nagasaki its western
gate, is a tall white spire of church.
not unlike the religious edifices which
adorn every New England village. con-
spicuously placed on a promontory sew
eral miles from the city 1t is near the
wooded island of Pappenberg. where, dur
ing the sixteenth and seventeenth cen
turiess many native Christians laid down
their lives, with a fortitude of the early
martyrs, for the religion WI Oh st. Fran
els Xavier brought them, preferring to
be hurled over the cliffs to recantation.
Beyond this church, examples of Chris
tan architecture are few and far between
throughout the length and breadth of ia
pan, if we exclude the churches at treaty
ports, which We Americans and English
bring with us to whatever country we may
go, along with our sports and ways of life
that our fathers have taught US. Leaving
aside perhaps a total of 100000 native
Christians of all denominations, the rest
of the population of the empire follows
Shintoism or Buddhism, or, to be more
accurate, both at the same time. Shin
toism, "The Way of the Gods has been,
since the restoration, the state religion.
1t can hardly be called a religion, because
IL mas no MOI dl COGe anu Is utterly uGNOiu
of any pretense of future life. Heaven
and hell arc non-existent. 1t is more of a
political scheme, and the apostles creed of
Shintoism is Honor the Emperor aud
obey the laws of the land" Politically ii
works admirably, though as religion its
hollowness gives 1t no hold upon the peo-
pie
At the time of the restoration, in 1863,
when Buddhism was disendowed and
Shintoism purified the many errors, trap
pings and external decorations it has
for centuries been compelled to borrow
outright from its gorgeous rival, were re-
moved. In fact, before the restoration
ii was hard to distinguish a Shinto tenn
pie from one of the Buddhists, and the
priesthood of the two sects were often
confounded. Even now the japanese min
gle their Shintoism and Buddhism, and
find the mixture quite palatable, for
Shintoism purified is rather a naked spec
tacle-a wooden gate or torli, two up
right posts inclining inward and held to-
gether by a horizontal crosspiece, Eener-
ally decorated with bits of white paper i'm
itations of silk, leading to an implanted
she'd thatched with straw and containing
nothing but an empty shrine.
This religion began its renaissance thir-
ty years ago with a great flourish of
trumpets, dignified by the government as
one of the branches of the state, presid-
ed over by a minister, side by side with
the minister of war and education. But
this council has been on the down-hill
course and has gone down the rungs of
the ladder to the rank of a department,
from a department to bureau and finally
from a bureau to a ub-bureau, and con-
sequently with its decadence at headquar-
ters il has become necessary to borrow
again from the Buddhist ritual to keep
its place In the minds of the people. The
government does not directly appropriate
a fund for a state religion, but officers
specially appointed, and members of the
imperial family delegated by the Empe-
ror, are expected to go every now and
then to the Shino temples and offer up
prayer for the safety of the Emperor and
| of the state
One of the most interesting places in the
| country, though scarcely ever visited by
| foreigners, is the head temple of Shinto-
| ism. which lies off the great route which
| foreigners travel between Toxic and Ky
otto. These are the famous Shinto shrines
| of Ise in the town of Yamada, where this
| religion can be seen in its absolute pur-
! itv. Yamada is now reached by train. The
! town consists of nothing but inns, thea
! ters and shops. The inns, 400 in number.
are mostly lighted with electricity, and
even the streets themselves are nlumi-
mated at night in this way. The board
walk at Atlantic City or the Bowery at
! Coney Island could not display more
varied collection of shell work, tobacco
nouches. sticks, in fact, every conceiva-
HE article offered for sale, and even in
this most holy Of cities, tha Mecca and
Jerusalem of Japan, the religious side is
made subservient to that of amusement.
A step beyond the noise and racket of
these streets is a park of most maguih-
cent ancient trees which have been there
for centuries upon centuries-camphor
fir cryptomaria and oak. In the midst