The Fūzoku Gwahō, a modern illustrated magazine, is a rich store of information respecting modern Shinto and the folk-lore and superstitions which are associated with it.
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL FEATURES.--PERSONIFICATION.
Religion.--Religion, a general term which includes all our relations to the Divine, is a cord of three strands, namely, Emotion, Thought, and Conduct. Emotion comprises gratitude, hope, and fear. Thought yields conceptions and beliefs. Religious conduct consists in doing that which is pleasing to the superior powers, and in refraining from acts which are thought to be offensive to them. It includes worship, purity, and morality.
These elements of religion are inseparable. Emotion stimulates and sharpens the intellectual faculties, which in turn provide fresh food for emotion. Each without the other is evanescent and barren. Nothing worthy of the name of religion is possible without a long succession of alternate moods of thought and feeling.
Emotion and thought lead in all healthy minds to action of some sort. Man is impelled by his very nature to testify his gratitude to the powers on which he feels himself dependent, to express his hopes of future blessings from them, and to avoid acts which might offend them. Moreover, as a social animal, he is prompted to communicate his religious thoughts and feelings to his fellow men. Without such intercommunication, no religion is possible. No individual man ever evolved a religion out of his own inner consciousness alone.
Emotional Source of Religion.--The emotional basis of religion is gratitude, love, and hope, rather than fear. If life is worth living--and what sane man doubts it?--there are necessarily far more frequent occasions for the former than for the latter. The statement of the old Roman poet that "Primus in orbe Deus fecit timor" is untrue even of the Greek and Roman mythology to which he more particularly referred. Zeus, the Shining One, the Father of Gods and Men, though he may occasionally destroy a wicked man with his thunder, is loved rather than feared. "Alma Venus, hominum divomque voluptas," is not the offspring of our terrors. Nor is Ceres, Bacchus, Here Eileithuia, or Kora. In Mars, by an exception the malignant quality predominates.
Shinto is essentially a religion of gratitude and love. The great Gods, such as the Sun-Goddess and the Deity of Food, are beneficent beings. They are addressed as parents, or dear divine ancestors, and their festivals have a joyous character.[1] An eighth-century poet says, "Every living man may feast his eyes with tokens of their love." The Kogoshiui tells us that when the Sun-Goddess emerged from her cave, "Heaven above at length became clear, and all people could see each other's faces distinctly. They stretched forth their hands and danced and sang together, exclaiming, 'Oh! how delightful! how pleasant! how clear!'" The Nihongi says that on the same occasion all the Gods rejoiced greatly. Have we not here a rudiment of the beatific vision which in its higher developments embraces not only the sunlight but all things in Heaven and earth, and hell itself, founded, as Dante says, by the primo Amore? Even the boisterous Rain-Storm God, who of the Dii Majores most nearly approaches the type of an evil deity, has his good points. The demons of disease and calamity are for the most part obscure and nameless personages.