functions and the peasants of the countries in the four quarters of the region under heaven long and peacefully cultivate and eat, and guarding and benefiting them to deign to bless them—­is hidden by the great offering-wands.

In the Imperial City the ritual services were very imposing.  Those in expectation of the harvest were held in the great hall of the Jin-Gi-Kuan, or Council of the Gods of Heaven and Earth.  The description of the ceremonial is given by Mr. Satow.[11] In the prayers offered to the sun-goddess for harvest, and in thanksgiving to her for bestowing dominion over land and sea upon her descendant the Mikado, occurs the following passage: 

I declare in the great presence of the From-Heaven-Shining-Great-DEITY who sits in Ise.  Because the sovran great GODDESS bestows on him the countries of the four quarters over which her glance extends, as far as the limit where heaven stands up like a wall, as far as the bounds where the country stands up distant, as far as the limit where the blue clouds spread flat, as far as the bounds where the white clouds lie away fallen—­the blue sea plain as far as the limit whither come the prows of the ships without drying poles or paddles, the ships which continuously crowd on the great sea plain, and the road which men travel by land, as far as the limit whither come the horses’ hoofs, with the baggage-cords tied tightly, treading the uneven rocks and tree-roots and standing up continuously in a long path without a break—­making the narrow countries wide and the hilly countries plain, and as it were drawing together the distant countries by throwing many tons of ropes over them—­he will pile up the first-fruits like a range of hills in the great presence of the sovran great GODDESS, and will peacefully enjoy the remainder.

Phallic Symbols.

To form one’s impression of the Kami no Michi wholly from the poetic liturgies, the austere simplicity of the miyas or shrines, or the worship at the palace or capital, would be as misleading as to gather our ideas of the status of popular education from knowing only of the scholars at court.  Among the common people the real basis of the god-way was ancestor-worship.  From the very first this trait and habit of the Japanese can be discerned.  Their tenacity in holding to it made the Confucian ethics more welcome when they came.  Furthermore, this reverence for the dead profoundly influenced and modified Buddhism, so that today the altars of both religions exist in the same house, the dead ancestors becoming both kami and buddhas.

Modern taste has removed from sight what were once the common people’s symbols of the god-way, that is of ancestor worship.  The extent of the phallus cult and its close and even vital connection with the god-way, and the general and innocent use of the now prohibited emblems, tax severely the credulity of the Occidental reader.  The processes of the ancient mind can hardly be understood except by vigorous