mountain in Shikoku, Ishidzuchi San, some six thousand feet in height, is said to be ascended by ten thousand pilgrims each summer.  These pilgrims eat little or nothing at hotels, depending rather on what they carry until they return from their arduous three days’ climb; nor do they take any prolonged rest until they are on the homeward way.  The reason for this is that the climb is supposed to be a test of the heart; if the pilgrim fail to reach the summit, the inference is that he is at fault, and that the god does not favor him.  They who offer their prayers from the summit are supposed to be assured of having them answered.

But beside these greater pilgranages to mountain summits and national shrines, innumerable lesser ones are made.  Each district has a more or less extended circuit of its own.  In Shikoku there is a round known as the “Hachi-Ju-hakka sho mairi,” or “The Pilgrimage to the 88 Places,” supposed to be the round once made by Kobo Daishi (A.D. 774-834), the founder of the Shinton sect of Buddhism.  The number of pilgrims who make this round is exceedingly large, since it is a favorite circuit for the people not only of Shikoku, but also of central and western Japan.  Many of the pilgrims wear on the back, just below the neck, a pair of curious miniature “waraji” or straw sandals, because Kobo Daishi carried a real pair along with him on his journey.  I never go to Ishite Temple (just out of Matsuyama), one of the eighty-eight places of the circuit, without seeing some of these pilgrims.  But this must suffice.  The pilgrim habit of the Japanese is a strong proof of widespread religious enthusiasm, and throws much light on the religious nature of the people.  There seems to be reason for thinking that the custom existed in Japan even before the introduction of Buddhism.  If this is correct, it bears powerful testimony to the inherently religious nature of the Japanese race.

The charge has been made that these pilgrimages are mere pleasure excursions.  Mr. Lowell says, facetiously, that “They are peripatetic picnic parties, faintly flavored with piety; just a sufficient suspicion of it to render them acceptable to the easy-going gods.”  Beneath this light alliterative style, which delights the literary reader, do we find the truth?  To me it seems like a slur on the pilgrims, evidently due to Mr. Lowell’s idea that a genuine religious feeling must be gloomy and solemn.  Joy may seem to him incompatible with heartfelt religion and aspiration.  That these pilgrims lack the religious aspiration characteristic of highly developed Christians of the West, is, of course, true; but that they have a certain type of religious aspiration is equally indisputable.  They have definite and strong ideas as to the advantage of prayer at the various shrines; they confidently believe that their welfare, both in this world and the next, will be vitally affected by such pilgrimages and such a faithful worship.  It is customary