Of Shintō as a system we have long ago given our opinion. In its higher forms, "Shintō is simply a cultured and intellectual atheism; in its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and priestly dictates." "Shintō," says Mr. Ernest Satow, "as expounded by Motoöri is nothing more than an engine for reducing the people to a condition of mental slavery." Japan being a country of very striking natural phenomena, the very soil and air lend themselves to support in the native mind this system of worship of heroes and of the forces of nature. In spite, however, of the conservative power of the ancestral influences, the patriotic incentives and the easy morals of Shintō under which lying and licentiousness shelter themselves, it is doubtful whether with the pressure of Buddhism, and the spread of popular education and Christianity, Shintō can retain its hold upon the Japanese people. Yet although this is our opinion, it is but fair, and it is our duty, to judge every religion by its ideals and not by its failings. The ideal of Shintō is to make people pure and clean in all their personal and household arrangements; it is to help them to live simply, honestly and with mutual good will; it is to make the Japanese love their country, honor their imperial house and obey their emperor. Narrow and local as this religion is, it has had grand exemplars in noble lives and winning characters.
So far as Shintō is a religion, Christianity meets it not as destroyer but fulfiller, for it too believes that cleanliness is not only next to godliness but a part of it. Jesus as perfect man and patriot, Captain of our salvation and Prince of peace, would not destroy the Yamato damashii—the spirit of unconquerable Japan—but rather enlarge, broaden, and deepen it, making it love for all humanity. Reverence for ancestral virtue and example, so far from being weakened, is strengthened, and as for devotion to king and ruler, law and society, Christianity lends nobler motives and grander sanctions, while showing clearly, not indeed the way of the eight million or more gods, but the way to God—the one living, only and true, even through Him who said "I am the Way."
[THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN]
"Things being investigated, knowledge became complete; knowledge being complete, thoughts were sincere; thoughts being sincere, hearts were rectified; hearts being rectified, persons were cultivated; persons being cultivated, families were regulated; families being regulated, states were rightly governed; states being rightly governed, the whole nation was made tranquil and happy."
"When you know a thing to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge."
"Old age sometimes becomes second childhood; why should not filial piety become parental love?"
"The superior man accords with the course of the mean. Though he may be all unknown, unregarded by the world, he feels no regret. He is only the sage who is able for this."—Sayings of Confucius.
"There is, in a word, no bringing down of God to men in Confucianism in order to lift them up to Him. Their moral shortcomings, when brought home to them, may produce a feeling of shame, but hardly a conviction of guilt."—James Legge.
"Do not to others what you would not have them do to you."—The Silver Rule.
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."—The Golden Rule.
"In respect to revenging injury done to master or father, it is granted by the wise and virtuous (Confucius) that you and the injurer cannot live together under the canopy of heaven."—Legacy of Iyéyasŭ, Cap. iii, Lowder's translation.
"But I say unto you forgive your enemies."—Jesus.
"Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer, thy name is from everlasting."—Isaiah.
CHAPTER IV - THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN
Confucius a Historical Character.
If the greatness of a teacher is to be determined by the number of his disciples, or to be measured by the extent and diversity of his influence, then the foremost place among all the teachers of mankind must be awarded to The Master Kung (or Confucius, as the Jesuit scholars of the seventeenth century Latinized the name). Certainly, he of all truly historic personages is to-day, and for twenty-three centuries has been, honored by the largest number of followers.