If this be the position in China, something not very far from it is found in Japan to-day.  Whatever may be the Buddhism of the few learned scholars, who have imbibed the critical and scientific spirit of Christendom, and whatever be the professions and representations of its earnest adherents and partisans, it is certain that popular Buddhism is both ethically and vitally in a low state.  In outward array the system is still imposing.  There are yet, it may be, millions of stone statues and whole forests of wayside effigies, outdoors and unroofed—­irreverently called by the Japanese themselves, “wet gods.”  Hosts upon hosts of lacquered and gilded images in wood, sheltered under the temple tiles or shingles, still attract worshippers.  Despite shiploads of copper Buddhas exported as old metal to Europe and America, and thousands of tons of gods and imps melted into coin or cannon, there are myriads of metal reminders of those fruits of a religion that once educated and satisfied; but these are, in the main, no longer to the natives instruments of inspiration or compellers to enthusiasm.  In this time of practical charity, they are poor substitutes for those hospitals and orphan asylums which were practically unknown in Japan until the advent of Christianity.

K[=o]b[=o]’s smart example has been followed only too well by the people in every part of the country.  One has but to read the stacks of books of local history to see what an amazing proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions and revelations rests on dreams; how incredibly numerous are the apparitions; how often the floating images of Buddha are found on the water; how frequently flowers have rained out of the sky; how many times the idols have spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays—­in a word; how often art and artifices have become alleged and accepted reality.  Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature and undergrowth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; for nearly all are copies of K[=o]b[=o]’s model.  His cartoon has been constantly before the busy weavers of legend.

It may indeed be said, and said truly, that in its multiplication of sects and in its growth of legend and superstition, Buddhism has but followed every known religion, including traditional Christianity itself.  Yet popular Buddhism has reached a point which shows, that, instead of having a self-purgative and self-reforming power, it is apparently still treading in the steps of the degradation which K[=o]b[=o]began.

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.

We repeat it, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance.  It is to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins.  Its ingwa is manifest.  Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to Japanese Buddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done by K[=o]b[=o], as shown in his Riy[=o]bu system.  Not from foreign