Japan and the Japanese illustrated . p without God, that religion ofNothingness invented by despair. We would endeavour to persuade ourselves that themultitudes under this rule do not understand tlie doctrine which they profess, or thatthey refuse to admit its consequences. The idolatrous practices which have grown outof the teaching of the book of the Good Law, would seem, indeed, to testify that thatbook could neither satisfy nor smother the religious sentiments innate in man, and everliving among all peoples, THE TROVA. 133 On the other hand, we must not underrate the influence of the phih.
Japan and the Japanese illustrated . p without God, that religion ofNothingness invented by despair. We would endeavour to persuade ourselves that themultitudes under this rule do not understand tlie doctrine which they profess, or thatthey refuse to admit its consequences. The idolatrous practices which have grown outof the teaching of the book of the Good Law, would seem, indeed, to testify that thatbook could neither satisfy nor smother the religious sentiments innate in man, and everliving among all peoples, THE TROVA. 133 On the other hand, we must not underrate the influence of the cf tinidannihilation in a great number of traits of Japanese manners. Tiie Irova, as w.;have seen, teaches the children in the schools tliat life has no more consistency than adream, and that no truce of it remains. When the Japanese has reached a matureage he will sacrifice life, or that of his neighbour, with the most disdainfulindifference, to the satisfaction of his pride, or to sotne trifling resentment. Munlers and. TllK GlIliAT JUDOK OF suii-ides arc so frequent in Japan that there are few gentlemen who do not possess, amimake it a point of honour to exhil)it, at least one sword belonging to the family thathas been steeped in blood. Buddhism is nevertheless superior, in many respects, to the religion which it hasdisplaceil. Its relative superiority is shown in the justness of its point of departure, 134 LIFE IX JAPAN. which i* the acknowledgment of a need of deliverance, based upon the double factof the existence of evil in man, as well as the universal condition of misery andsufferiuo- in the world. The promise of the worship of the Kamis lias reference to thepresent life. The rules of the purification were to preserve the faithful from five great,.yilg •—the fire of heaven, sickness, poverty, exile, and premature death. The pomps
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