“Buddhism has had a fair field in Japan, and its outcome has not been elevating.  Its influence has been aesthetic and not ethical.  It added culture and art to Japan, as it brought with itself the civilization of continental Asia.  It gave the arts, and more, it added the artistic atmosphere....  Reality disappears.  ‘This fleeting borrowed world’ is all mysterious, a dream; moonlight is in place of the clear hot sun....  It has so fitted itself to its surroundings that it seems indigenous.”—­George William Knox.

“The Japanese ... are indebted to Buddhism for their present civilization and culture, their great susceptibility to the beauties of nature, and the high perfection of several branches of artistic industry.”—­Rein.

“We speak of God, and the Japanese mind is filled with idols.  We mention sin, and he thinks of eating flesh or the killing of insects.  The word holiness reminds him of crowds of pilgrims flocking to some famous shrine, or of some anchorite sitting lost in religions abstraction till his legs rot off.  He has much error to unlearn before he can take in the truth-”—­R.E.  McAlpine.

    “There in a life of study, prayer, and thought,
    Kenshin became a saintly priest—­not wide
    In intellect nor broad in sympathies,
    For such things come not from the ascetic life;
    But narrow, strong, and deep, and like the stream
    That rushes fervid through the narrow path
    Between the rooks at Nikk[=o]—­so he grasped,
    Heart, soul, and strength, the holy Buddha’s Law
    With no room left for doubt, or sympathy
    For other views.”—­Kenshin’s Vision.

“For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.”—­Malachi.

CHAPTER X — JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

Missionary Buddhism the Measure of Japan’s Civilization.

Broadly speaking, the history of Japanese Buddhism in its missionary development is the history of Japan.  Before Buddhism came, Japan was pre-historic.  We know the country and people through very scanty notices in the Chinese annals, by pale reflections cast by myths, legends and poems, and from the relics cast up by the spade and plough.  Chinese civilization had filtered in, though how much or how little we cannot tell definitely; but since the coming of the Buddhist missionaries in the sixth century, the landscape and the drama of human life lie before us in clear detail.  Speaking broadly again, it may be said that almost from the time of its arrival, Buddhism became on its active side the real religion of Japan—­at least, if the word “religion” be used in a higher sense than that connoted by either Shint[=o]