So far as we can see, the religion founded by one who deserted his wife and babe did nothing to check concubinage or polygamy. It simply allowed these things, or ameliorated their ancient barbaric conditions through the law of kindness. Nevertheless, it brought education and culture within the family as well as within the court. It would be an interesting question to discuss how far the age of classic vernacular prose or the early mediaeval literature of romance, which is almost wholly the creation of woman,[57] is due to Buddhism, or how far the credit belongs, by induction or reaction, to the Chinese movement in favor of learning. Certainly, the faith of India touches and feeds the imagination far more than does that of China. Certainly also, the animating spirit of most of the popular literature is due to Buddhistic culture. The Shin sect, which permits the marriage of the priests and preaches the salvation of woman, probably leads all others in according honor to her as well as in elevating her social position.
Buddhism, like Roman Catholicism, and as compared to Confucianism which is protestant and masculine, is feminine in its type. In Japan the place of the holy Virgin Mary is taken by Kuannon, the goddess of mercy; and her shrine is one of the most popular of all. Much the same may be said of Benten, the queen of the heaven and mistress of the seas. The angels of Buddhism are always feminine, and, as in the unscriptural and pagan conception of Christian angels, have wings.[58] So also in the legends of Gautama, in the Buddhist lives of the saints, and in legendary lore as well as in glyptic and pictorial art, the female being transfigured in loveliness is a striking figure. Nevertheless, after all is summed up that can possibly be said in favor of Buddhism, the position it accords to woman is not only immeasurably beneath that given by Christianity, but is below that conceded by Shintō, which knows not only goddesses and heroines, but also priestesses and empresses.[59]
According to the popular ethical view as photographed in language, literature and art, jealousy is always represented by a female demon. Indeed, most of the tempters, devils, and transformations of humanity into malign beings, whether pretas, asuras, oni, foxes, badgers, or cats, are females. As the Chinese ideographs associate all things weak or vile with women, so the tell-tale words of Japanese daily speech are but reflections of the dogmas coined in the Buddhist mint. In Japanese, chastity means not moral cleanliness without regard to sex, but only womanly duties. For, while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines in his family. In a word, there is the double standard of morals, not only of priest and laity, but of man and woman. The position of the Japanese woman even of to-day, despite that eagerness once shown to educate her—an eagerness which soon cooled in the government schools, but which keeps an even pulse in the Christian home and college—is still relatively one of degradation as compared with that of her sister in Christendom. For this, the mid-Asian religion is not wholly responsible, yet it is largely so.
Influence on the Japanese Character.
In regard to the influence of Buddhism upon the morals and character of the Japanese, there is much to be said in praise, and much also in criticism. It has aided powerfully to educate the people in habits of gentleness and courtesy, but instead of aspiration and expectancy of improvement, it has given to them that spirit of hopeless resignation which is so characteristic of the Japanese masses. Buddhism has so dominated common popular literature, daily life and speech, that all their mental procedure and their utterance is cast in the moulds of Buddhist doctrine. The fatalism of the Moslem world expressed in the idea of Kismet, has its analogue in the Japanese Ingwa, or "cause and effect,"—the notion of an evolution which is atheistic, but viewed from the ethical side. This idea of Ingwa is the key to most Japanese novels as well as dramas of real life.[60] While Buddhism continually preaches this doctrine of Karma or Ingwa,[61] the law of cause and effect, as being sufficient to explain all things, it shows its insufficiency and emptiness by leaving out the great First Cause of all. In a word, Buddhism is law, but not gospel. It deals much with man, but not with man's relations with his Creator, whom it utterly ignores. Christianity comes not to destroy its ethics, beautiful as they are, nor to ignore its metaphysics; but to fulfil, to give a higher truth, and to reveal a larger Universe and One who fills it all—not only law, but a Law-giver.
[A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY]
"Sicut cadaver."
"Et fiet unum ovile et unus pastor."—Vulgate, John x. 16.
"He (Xavier) has been the moon of that 'Society of Jesus' of which Ignatius Loyola was the guiding sun."—S.W. Duffield.
"My God I love Thee; not because I hope for Heaven thereby,