Please give us a statement in the “Curiosity Shop” of what is known as Shintuism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, as now existing in China and Japan.
W. H. Jordan.
Answer.—Shintuism, Sintuism, Sintoism, or Sin-syuism, is the prevailing religion of Japan, the worship of the sun-goddess, Ten-sio-dai-sin. The descendant and viceregent on earth of this deity is the Mikado, who is therefore worshiped as a demi-god. Two ecclesiastical judges, with monks and priests, complete the hierarchy, and the latter minister at innumerable shrines and temples, raised for the worship of the chief deity and a legion of canonized heroes and benefactors. In these temples there is no idol visible, but on the shrine is a mirror, symbolizing purity. Sintuism requires pre-eminently heart purity and general temperance, and as aids to these prescribes pilgrimages to holy places, observance of holy days, and mortification of the body. Buddhism, one of the oldest existing religions, traces its origin 2,460 years back, to Siddhartha, or Buddha, a Hindoo prince. Its two most prominent doctrines are the transmigration of the soul and the cursed condition or total depravity of human existence in its natural state. The first teaches that at death every soul immediately assumes another body, corresponding in form and habitation to the previous character of the spirit. If noble, it may become a divinity, or dwell in some high place upon the earth, while the wicked wander as reptiles and vermin, or inhabit the hells in the interior of the earth. The least term of suffering is 10,000,000 years, of happiness 10,000,000,000 years. But however long or short, it must have an end, and the soul enters a new body. Buddha himself, it is said, has passed through every form of existence. The second doctrine is embodied in the “Four Sublime Verities:” Pain exists; its cause is desire; it may be ended by Nirvana; the way to Nirvana is a rise through eight gradations, from simple faith to complete regeneration. Theoretically this religion has no priests nor clergy nor public religious rites. Every man is his own priest and confessor, and the monks are ascetics only for their own advancement in holy living; but, in fact, Buddhist countries swarm with priests, or religious teachers, so reputed. Confucianism is epitomized in the following words of the great teacher: “I teach you nothing but what you might learn yourselves, viz., the observance of the three fundamental laws of relation between sovereign and subject, father and child, husband and wife; and the five capital virtues—universal charity, impartial justice, conformity to ceremonies and established usages, rectitude of heart and mind, and pure sincerity. Confucius did not profess to have received any revelation from “Shan-te”—the Supreme Ruler—or to have any clear conceptions of Him, although he acknowledged the existence of such a being, and taught that His will as learned by studying and practicing the wisdom of the ancients by the light of nature, should be implicitly obeyed, as the only means of living virtuously and happily and avoiding both in this life and the life to come the penalties of evil-doing.
MERMAID TAVERN AND CLUB.
Chicago, Ill.
Please give in the Curiosity Shop a description of the famous club founded by Sir Walter Raleigh and called the “Mermaid Club.” I have searched in vain for information on this subject.
Fannie Mack.
Answer.—Tradition states that Sir Walter Raleigh, before his unfortunate engagement with Cobham, gathered a number of his most eminent friends in “The Mermaid,” and there instituted what was known as the “Mermaid Club.” “The Mermaid” was a tavern so situated as to have three entrances—on Bread, Cheap, and Friday streets, and was the favorite resort of the leading actors and literary men in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but the Raleigh club was acknowledged to combine “more talent and genius than ever met together before or since.” Here Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Donne, and Shakespeare met for convivial enjoyment, and this was the scene of the famous disputes between Jonson and Shakespeare, the two eminent dramatists.