This simple doctrine of “land travel to Paradise” was one which the people of Japan could easily understand, and it became amazingly popular.  Salvation along this route is a case of being “carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others sought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas.”

Largely through the influence of J[=o]-d[=o] Shu and of those sects most closely allied to it, the technical terms, peculiar phraseology and vocabulary of Buddhism became part of the daily speech of the Japanese.  When one studies their language he finds that it is a complicated organism, including within itself several distinct systems.  Just as the human body harmonizes within itself such vastly differing organized functions as the osseous, digestive, respiratory, etc., so, embedded in what is called the Japanese language, there are, also, a Chinese vocabulary, a polite vernacular, one system of expression for superiors, another for inferiors, etc.  Last of all, there is, besides a peculiar system of pronunciation taught by the priests, a Buddhist language, which suggests a firmament of starry and a prairie of flowery metaphors, with intermediate deeps of space full of figurative expressions.

In our own mother tongue we have something similar.  The dialect of Canaan, the importations of Judaism, the irruptions of Hebraic idioms, phrases and names into Puritanism, and the ejaculations of the camp-meeting, which vein and color our English speech, may give some idea of the variegated strains which make up the Japanese language.  Further, the peculiar nomenclature of the Fifth Monarchy men, is fully paralleled in the personal names of priests and even of laymen in Japan.

Characteristics of the J[=o]-d[=o] Sect.

H[=o]-nen teaches that the solution of abstract questions and doctrinal controversies is not needed as means of grace to promote the work of salvation.  Whether the priests and their followers were learned and devout, or the contrary, mattered little as regards the final result, as all that is necessary is the continual repetition of the prayer to Amida.

It may be added that his followers practise the master’s precepts with emphasis.  Their incessant pounding upon wooden fish-drums and bladder-shaped bells during their public exercises, is as noisy as a frontier camp-meeting.  The rosary is a notable feature in the private devotions of the Buddhists, but the J[=o]-d[=o] sect makes especial use of the double rosary, which was invented with the idea of being manipulated by the left hand only; this gave freedom to the right hand, “facilitating a happy combination of spiritual and secular duty.”  At funerals of believers a particular ceremony was exclusively practised by this sect, at which the friends of the deceased sat in a circle facing the priest, making as many repetitions as possible.[7]