"When the Creator [through intermediaries that were apparently animals] had finished treating this world of men, the good and the bad Gods were all mixed together promiscuously, and began disputing for the possession of this world."—The Aino Story of the Creation.
"If the Japanese have few beast stories, the Ainos have apparently no popular tales of heroes ... The Aino mythologies ... lack all connection with morality.... Both lack priests and prophets.... Both belong to a very primitive stage of mental development ... Excepting stories ... and a few almost metreless songs, the Ainos have no other literature at all."—Aino Studies.
"I asked the earth, and it answered, 'I am not He;' and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deep and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, 'We are not thy God; seek higher than we.' ... And I answered unto all things which stand about the door of my flesh, 'Ye have told me concerning my God, that ye are not he; tell me something about him.' And with a loud voice they explained, 'It is He who hath made us!'"—Augustine's Confessions.
"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name."—Amos.
"That which hath been made was life in Him."—John.
CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS
The Morse Lectureship and the Study of Comparative Religion
As a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, in the Class of 1877, your servant received and accepted with pleasure the invitation of the President and Board of Trustees to deliver a course of lectures upon the religions of Japan. In that country and in several parts of it, I lived from 1870 to 1874. I was in the service first of the feudal daimiō of Echizen and then of the national government of Japan, helping to introduce that system of public schools which is now the glory of the country. Those four years gave me opportunities for close and constant observation of the outward side of the religions of Japan, and facilities for the study of the ideas out of which worship springs. Since 1867, however, when first as a student in Rutgers College at New Brunswick, N.J., I met and instructed those students from the far East, who, at risk of imprisonment and death had come to America for the culture of Christendom, I have been deeply interested in the study of the Japanese people and their thoughts.
To attempt a just and impartial survey of the religions of Japan may seem a task that might well appall even a life-long Oriental scholar. Yet it may be that an honest purpose, a deep sympathy and a gladly avowed desire to help the East and the West, the Japanese and the English-speaking people, to understand each other, are not wholly useless in a study of religion, but for our purpose of real value. These lectures are upon the Morse[1] foundation which has these specifications written out by the founder: