For nearly twenty years this deliverance of the Japanese Government, which still finds its strongest support in the national traditions and the reverence of the people for the throne, sufficed for the necessities of the case.  Then the copious infusion of foreign ideas, the disintegration of the old framework of society, and the weakening of the old ties of obedience and loyalty, with the flood of shallow knowledge and education which gave especially children and young people just enough of foreign ideas to make them dangerous, brought about a condition of affairs which alarmed the conservative and patriotic.  Like fungus upon a dead tree strange growths had appeared, among others that of a class of violently patriotic and half-educated young men and boys, called Soshi.  These hot-headed youths took it upon themselves to dictate national policy to cabinet ministers, and to reconstruct society, religion and politics.  Something like a mania broke out all over the country which, in certain respects, reminds us of the Children’s Crusade, that once afflicted Europe and the children themselves.  Even Christianity did not escape the craze for reconstruction.  Some of the young believers and pupils of the missionaries seemed determined to make Christianity all over so as to suit themselves.  This phase of brain-swelling is not yet wholly over.  One could not tell but that something like the Tai Ping rebellion, which disturbed and devastated China, might break out.

These portentous signs on the social horizon called forth, in 1892, from the government an Imperial Rescript, which required that the emperor’s photograph be exhibited in every school, and saluted by all teachers and scholars whatever their religious tenets and scruples might be.  Most Christians as well as Buddhists, saw nothing in this at which to scruple.  A few, however, finding in it an offence to conscience, resigned their positions.  They considered the mandate an unwarrantable interference with their rights as conferred by the constitution of 1889, which in theory is the gift of the emperor to his people.

The radical Shint[=o]ist, to this day, believes that all political rights which Japanese enjoy or can enjoy are by virtue of the Mikado’s grace and benevolence.  It is certain that all Japanese, whatever may be their religious convictions, consider that the constitution depends for its safeguards and its validity largely upon the oath which the Mikado swore at the shrine of his heavenly ancestors, that he would himself be obedient to it and preserve its provisions inviolate.  For this solemn ceremony a special norito or liturgy was composed and recited.

Summary of Shint[=o].