In this connection I may refer to an incident that came under my notice some years ago. A young man applied for membership in the Kumamoto Church, who at one time had been a student in one of my Bible classes. I had not known that he had received any special help from his study with me, until I heard his statement as to how he had discovered his need of a Saviour, and had found that need satisfied in Christ. In his statement before the examining committee of the church, he said that when he first read the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, he was so impressed with its beauty as a poem that he wrote it out entire on one of the fusuma (light paper doors) of his room, and each morning, as he arose, he read it. This practice continued several weeks. Then, as we continued our study of the Bible, we took up the third chapter of John, and when he came to the sixteenth verse, he was so impressed with its statement that he wrote that beside the poem from Corinthians, and read them together. Gradually this daily reading, together with the occasional sermons and other Christian addresses which he heard at the Boys' School, led him to desire to secure for himself the love described by Paul, and to know more vitally the love of God described by John. It occurred to him, that, to secure these ends, he should pray. Upon doing so he said that, for the first time in his life, his unworthiness and his really sinful nature overwhelmed him. This was, of course, but the beginning of his Christian life. He began then to search the Scriptures in earnest, and with increasing delight. It was not long before he wished to make public confession of his faith, and thus identify himself with the Christian community. This brief account of the way in which this young man was brought to Christ illustrates a good many points, but that for which I have cited it is the testimony it bears to the fact that under similar circumstances the human heart undergoes very much the same religious experience, whatever be the race or nationality of the individual.
In regard to the future life, Shinto has little specific doctrine. It certainly implies the continued existence of the soul after death, as its ancestral worship shows, but its conception as to the future state is left vague in the extreme. Confucius purposely declined to teach anything on this point, and, in part, for this reason, it has been maintained that Confucianism cannot properly be called a religion. Buddhism brought to Japan an elaborate system of eschatological ideas, and so far as the common people of Japan have any conception of the future life, it may be attributed to Buddhistic teachings. Into their nature I need not inquire at any length. According to popular Buddhism, the future world, or more properly speaking, worlds (for there are ten of them, into any one of which a soul may be born either immediately or in the course of its future transmigrations), does not differ in any vital way from the present world. It is a world of material blessings or woes; the successive stages or worlds are graded one above the other in fantastic ways. Salvation consists in passing to higher grades of life, the final or perfect stage being paradise, which, once attained, can never be lost. Transmigration is universal, the period of life in each world being determined by the merits and demerits of the individual soul.
Here we must consider two widely used terms "ingwa" and "mei." The first of these is Buddhistic and the other Confucianistic; though differing much in origin and meaning, yet in the end they amount to much the same thing. "Ingwa" is the law of cause and effect. According to the Buddhistic teaching, however, the "in," or cause, is in one world, while the "gwa," or effect, is in the other. The suffering, for instance, or any misfortune that overtakes one in this present life, is the "gwa" or effect of what was done in the previous, and is thus inevitable. The individual is working off in this life the "gwa" of his last life, and he is also working up the "in" of the next He is thus in a kind of vise. His present is absolutely determined for him by his past, and in turn is irrevocably fixing his future. Such is the Buddhistic "wheel of the law." The common explanation of misfortune, sickness, or disease, or any calamity, is that it is the result of "ingwa," and that there is, therefore, no help for it. The paralyzing nature of this conception on the development of character, or on activity of any kind, is apparent not only theoretically but actually. As an escape from the inexorable fatality of this scheme of thought, the Buddhist faith of the common people has resorted to magic. Magic prayers, consisting of a few mystic syllables of whose meaning the worshiper may be quite ignorant, are the means for overcoming the inexorableness of "ingwa," both for this life and the next. "Namu Amida Butsu," "Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo," "Namu Hen Jo Kongo," are the most common of such magic formulæ. These prayers are heard on the lips of tens of thousands of pious pilgrims, not only at the temples, but as they pass along the highways. It is believed that each repetition secures its reward. Popular Buddhism's appeal to magic was not only winked at by philosophical Buddhism, but it was encouraged. Magic was justified by religious philosophy, and many a "hoben," "pious device," for saving the ignorant was invented by the priesthood. It will be apparent that while Buddhism has in certain respects a vigorous system of punishment for sin, yet its method of relief is such that the common people can gain only the most shallow and superficial views of salvation. Buddhism has not served to deepen the sense of responsibility, nor helped to build up character. That the more serious-minded thinkers of the nation have, as a rule, rejected Buddhism is not strange.
One point of great interest for us is the fact that this eschatological and soteriological system was imported, and is not the spontaneous product of Japan. The wide range of national religious characteristics thus clearly traceable to Buddhistic influence shows beyond doubt how large a part of a nation's character is due to the system of thought that for one reason or another prevails, rather than to the essential race character.
The other term mentioned above, "mei," literally means "command" or "decree"; but while the English terms definitely imply a real being who decides, decrees, and commands, the term "mei" is indeterminate on this point. It is frequently joined to the word "Ten," or Heaven; "Ten-mei," Heaven's decree, seeming to imply a personality in the background of the thought. Yet, as I have already pointed out, it is only implied; in actual usage it means the fate decreed by Heaven; that is, fated fate, or absolute fate. The Chinese and the Japanese alike failed to inquire minutely as to the implication of the deepest conceptions of their philosophy. But "mei" is commonly used entirely unconnected with "Ten," and in this case its best translation into English is probably "fate." In this sense it is often used. Unlike Buddhism, however, Confucianism provided no way of escape from "mei" except moral conduct. One of its important points of superiority was its freedom from appeal to magic in any form, and its reliance on sincerity of heart and correctness of conduct.
Few foreigners have failed to comment on the universal use by the Japanese of the phrase "Shikataga nai," "it can't be helped." The ready resignation to "fate," as they deem it, even in little things about the home and in the daily life, is astonishing to Occidentals. Where we hold ourselves and each other to sharp personal responsibility, the sense of subjection to fate often leads them to condone mistakes with the phrase "Shikataga nai."
But this characteristic is not peculiar to Japan. China and India are likewise marked by it. During the famines in India, it was frequently remarked how the Hindus would settle down to starve in their huts in submission to fate, where Westerners would have been doing something by force, fighting even the decrees of heaven, if needful. But it is important to note that this characteristic in Japan is undergoing rapid change. The spirit of absolute submission, so characteristic of the common people of Old Japan, is passing away and self-assertion is taking its place. Education and developing intelligence are driving out the fear of fate. Had our estimate of the Japanese race character been based wholly on the history of Old Japan, it might have been easy to conclude that the spirit of submission to rulers and to fate was a national characteristic due to racial nature; but every added year of New Japan shows how erroneous that view would have been. Thus we see again that the characteristics of Japan, Old and New, are not due to race nature, but to the prevailing civilization in the broadest sense of the term. The religious characteristics of a people depend primarily on the dominant religious ideas, not on the inherent religious nature.