[Footnote 56:  Chi[=u]-j[=o]-hime was the first Japanese nun, and the only woman who is commemorated by an idol.  “She extracted the fibres of the lotus root, and wove them with silk to make tapestry for altars.”  Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 128.  Her romantic and marvellous story is given in S. and H., p. 397.  “The practice of giving ranks to women was commenced by Jito Tenn[=o] (an empress, 690-705).”  Many women shaved their heads and became nuns “on becoming widows, as well as on being forsaken by, or after leaving their husbands.  Others were orphans.”  One of the most famous nuns (on account of her rank) was the Nii no Ama, widow of Kiyomori and grandmother of the Emperor Antoku, who were both drowned near Shimono-seki, in the great naval battle of 1185 A.D.  Adams’s History of Japan, Vol.  I., p. 37; M.E., p. 137.]

[Footnote 57:  M.E., p. 213; Japanese Women, World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893, Chap.  III.]

[Footnote 58:  There is no passage in the original Greek texts, or in the Revised Version of the New Testament which ascribes wings to the aggelos, or angel.  In Rev. xii. 14, a woman is “given two wings of a great eagle.”]

[Footnote 59:  Japanese Women in Politics, Chap.  I., Japanese Women, Chicago, 1893; Japanese Girls and Women, Chapters VI. and VII.]

[Footnote 60:  Bakin’s novels are dominated by this idea, while also preaching in fiction strict Confucianism.  See A Captive of Love, by Edward Greey.]

[Footnote 61:  “Fate is one of the great words of the East. Japan’s language is loaded and overloaded with it. Parents are forever saying before their children, ‘There’s no help for it.’  I once remarked to a school-teacher, ‘Of course you love to teach children.’  His quick reply was, ’Of course I don’t.  I do it merely because there is no help for it.’  Moralists here deplore the prosperity of the houses of ill-fame and then add with a sigh, ‘There’s no help for it.’  All society reverberates with this phrase with reference to questions that need the application of moral power, will power.”—­J.H.  De Forest.

“I do not say there is no will power in the East, for there is.  Nor do I say there is no weak yielding to fate in lands that have the doctrine of the Creator, for there is.  But, putting the East and West side by side, one need not hesitate to affirm that the reason the will power of the East is weak cannot be fully explained by any mere doctrine of environment, but must also have some vital connection with the fact that the idea of a personal almighty Creator has for long ages been wanting.  And one reason why western nations have an aggressive character that ventures bold things and tends to defy difficulties cannot be wholly laid to environment but must have something to do with the fact that leads millions daily reverently to say ’I believe in the Almighty Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth.’”—­J.H.  De Forest.]

STATISTICS OF BUDDHISM IN JAPAN.