“I have read your ‘Threshold Covenant’ with great interest and pleasure. The statements made in respect of Hindu rites all appear to me to be correct, and some of them might be made stronger, notably in the case of the functions of the altar.
“I cannot say that I agree with you in all respects in your inductions from the ceremonial of the Door, but I have at least been furnished with much food for reflection and hints for observation in future investigation on these lines. Your work is a storehouse of useful data, and illustrates many strange customs of India by parallels from other countries, though I should hesitate to refer so much to one primitive principle.
“But, at all events, the facts of the religious phase which you emphasize have been set forth clearly, correctly, and fully, as regards India, to whatever conclusion they may point. I have had great pleasure in following your argument through to the end.”
It may be mentioned that the added facts as to the Door, given in the Appendix, were not in the proof-sheets submitted to Professor Hopkins.
FROM THE REV. DR. WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS.
No American scholar is better fitted than the Rev. Dr. William Elliot Griffis to speak of Japanese manners and customs, and of the religions and modes of thought of the people of Japan. After an extended residence in that country in connection with the Imperial University of Tokio, he has studied and written of it and of its inhabitants. “The Mikado’s Empire,” “The Religions of Japan,” “Japan in History, Folk Lore, and Art,” are among the best known and most valuable of his works in that field. Of “The Threshold Covenant” he says heartily, after an examination of its pages:
“Your general theory is abundantly confirmed in the early life and customs of Chinese Asia, and especially in the history of early Japan. I should, of course, be glad to call together a council of native Japanese friends, and some of my returned countrymen, and talk over your book, but this is impossible at present, and press of many duties prevents me from doing justice to the work, as I should like to do. Such observations as I may throw out, though imperfect, will, I trust, be suggestive. I have read the book twice, and consider it a work of the first order of value.
“In mediæval and modern Japan, it must be remembered, many of the ancient customs and primitive native ideas have been not only changed, but obliterated, by Buddhism, which, by its excessive reverence for life, put an end to those customs which had in them the shedding of blood, or the taking of life. In ancient days it was the pretty nearly universal custom to build human beings alive in the walls of castles or strongholds, and the piers or foundations of bridges. Many are the places rich in traditions of the hito-gashira, or human pillars, who were lowered into the sea to be drowned (to appease the dragon, etc.), or made, as it were, cement for the foundation-stone,–to which I have alluded in my ‘Religions of Japan.’
“What may be called the ‘gate etiquette’ in Japan is elaborate and detailed. More than once have the foreign teachers, denizens, and tourists, had quarrels with the Japanese school, municipal, and national authorities, because they unwittingly often violated ancient Japanese traditions and customs. I myself remember how the mom-ban, or gate-keeper, used to refuse admittance to my jin-riki-sha because I had sitting with me a Japanese student or lad, who could not, in native ideas of propriety, share with me (a guest) the honor of riding inside the chief gate of mansion or college. Concerning troubles with native servants and others, who were inclined to shelter themselves under the foreigners’ prestige and privilege, I need not speak in detail. The term ‘Mikado,’ as you may know, is literally Sublime Porte, Awful Gate, or Portal of Majesty. I believe there is profound significance in the idea of having the gateway to a Buddhist temple a structure which is in many cases almost as imposing as the sacred edifice itself. Each Shintō shrine has before it, at some distance, a tori-i; and every little wayside shrine, in size from a doll-house to a one-room cottage, has almost invariably a little tori-i, or gateway, before it.
“The most elaborate ceremonies and gradations of honor are connected with the threshold of the Imperial Palace, and for a thousand years or more were rigorously observed in Kioto, and doubtless to great extent are yet in the new palace in Tokio.