We have seen that one of the most conspicuous aspects of the Shinto cult is its ceremonial of the Great Purification. Physical pollution of any kind is abhorrent to the Japanese. The touch of a dead body, contact with a foul disease, failure to wash and keep one's person clean, are regarded as of the nature of calamities. We know that there was much in the practices and traditions of the Jewish elders that closely resembled these Shinto ideas of pollution. The Pharisees and scribes found fault with Jesus because of His indifference to their "washings of cups, pots, and brazen vessels." But cleanliness, we all admit, is a near neighbor of godliness. St. Paul said, "Glorify God in your body," for he maintained that "your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit which is in you." Jesus found no fault with Jewish ablutions, and enjoined the highest personal purity. But He pointed out the deeper lesson that the more horrible defilement of man is a pollution of the heart. "For from within," He said, "out of the heart of man, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness:—all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man." This, then, is one fundamental truth which the Shinto worshiper should learn from the teachings of our Lord. The clean body and the pure white robes are eminently proper and beautiful in their way; but they should symbolize the consciousness of a pure heart, and a blameless life that keeps itself "unspotted from the world." Shinto purification needs the supplement of a deeper knowledge of spiritual defilement in order to a deeper knowledge of purity.
More exalted than any mere forms of purification, or rituals of worship, is that notion of a living Presence concealed in all phenomena. There has been and is to-day among all peoples a belief in many invisible spirits that have some sort of power over the clouds, the winds, the waters, the earth, and all its teeming growths. We call it Animism, Shamanism, and in a certain specific form, Fetishism. Belief in a countless multitude of spirits who can influence the elements about us for good or for evil, is firmly rooted in all the ancient peoples of Eastern Asia, from India to Japan. We have seen how deep a hold it had upon the earliest Shinto cult, and the later influences of Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan have tended rather to strengthen than to suppress it in the popular mind.
These animistic conceptions have played a noteworthy part in connection with most, if not all, the religions of mankind. When combined with a groveling fear of the spirits, and with the practice of magic rites and incantations to propitiate them as so many evil demons, the belief has run into the lowest forms of superstition. But is there no element of truth in Animism? Why should we speak disparagingly of the old Japanese worshiper hearing the voices of unseen spirits in the moaning winds, in the sounding waterfalls, in the rolling thunder? Why should he not adore the Sun as the heavenly Benefactor, and see in waving trees and blooming flowers and drifting clouds the presence and activity of beings, perhaps sometimes a Being Supernatural? One-sided, defective puerile notions controlled, no doubt, his thinking, but the one supreme and fundamental fact was that he felt himself in the presence of the Supernatural. And that primeval concept is the one most essential truth of all religion. We have only to divest it of sundry errant, non-essential interpretations in order to come face to face with the grandest, noblest, and most affecting theism, and monotheism as well. For monotheism finds its most advanced exposition in the doctrine of the universal immanence of God,—one God, the Eternal Spirit, in all, through all, over all. How far from such a concept of universal Animism was the old Hebrew psalmist, who sang of Jehovah "laying the beams of His chambers in the waters, making the clouds His chariot, walking upon the wings of the wind, sending forth springs into the valleys, causing the grass to grow upon the mountains," and receiving tribute of praises from the "sea-monsters and all deeps; fire and hail, snow and vapor; stormy wind performing His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying birds." To such a worshiper the world was all alive with God. And Jesus added an intensity and an affecting beauty to this whole concept of an immanent God when He said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," and "not one sparrow falleth on the ground without your Father." I can conceive no Animism and no Supernaturalism more minute or more adorable than the ever acting and ever continuous presence of an unseen but all observant "Father in the heavens." The heavens in which He dwells are above, below, within, and all around us.
And this is the higher Animism which ought to be welcomed by the Shinto pilgrims of Japan as the beautiful fulfilling of their ancient dreams. Not so many gods, not a multitude of unfriendly spirits that need propitiation by our gifts of food and clothing, but ONE Heavenly Father, immanent in every plant that grows and in every dewdrop on the flowers, forever working for our good, caring for every birdling, and numbering the very hairs of our head.
With such a monotheistic conception of the world all mythologic and polytheistic notions of deity and the rule of the spirits of the dead must sooner or later disappear. Japanese scholars of high rank are telling their people and others that the modern Western learning has already destroyed the cosmogony of the Shinto cult. What is now most needed is a class of teachers straightforward and broad enough to show these people a nobler and truer concept of the world. The new conception need have no conflict with the belief that the spirits of the dead are all about us, and are deeply interested in us still. The family cult may adjust itself to the new and higher doctrines, and lose none of the beauty and tenderness and sanctity which old affection connects with the domestic tablets of the honored and beloved dead. Herein the new faith is to fulfill rather than destroy the ancient rites of love. Such a monotheistic cult will find no reason or occasion to commit the blunder of the Jesuit missionaries, and seek interference with the government of the land. The Mikado may still command the reverence and the love of the people and be rationally honored as a child of heaven. Loyal Christians do that under every form of government. "Fear God; honor the king; for there is no power but God, and the powers that be are ordained of God; for they are the ministers of God's service;"—these are the precepts of the earliest apostolic gospel, and the modern missionary of Christ is bound to observe and teach them. He should exhibit common sense and discretion in foreign politics, recognize and honor the legitimate power, and like the Great Teacher, "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
The Shinto cult is essentially a religion of race and national patriotism. It is the secret of Japanese heroism and sacrifice in the day of battle. He counts it sweet and glorious to die for his country. He is not his own; he belongs to the State. We are told that the three principal commandments of the public and official Shinto faith are these:
1. "Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country.
2. "Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of Heaven, and the duty of man.
3. "Thou shalt revere the emperor as thy sovereign, and obey the will of his court."
Surely these principles and precepts are capable of easy adjustment to any form of national government, and the ethics of Christianity are in fundamental accord with their essential claims.