Ohashi Junzo bitterly opposed the opening of Japan to modern civilization and the ideas of Christendom.  His book was the swan-song of the dying Japanese Confucianism.  Slow as is the dying, and hard as its death may be, the mind of new Japan has laid away to dust and oblivion the Tei-shu philosophy.  “At present they (the Chinese classics) have fallen into almost total neglect, though phrases and allusions borrowed from them still pass current in literature, and even to some extent in the language of every-day life.”  Seido, the great temple of Confucius in Tokyo, is now utilized as an educational Museum.[17]

A study of this subject and of comparative religion, is of immediate practical benefit to the Christian teacher.  The preacher, addressing an audience made up of educated Japanese, who speaks of God without describing his personality, character, or attributes as illustrated in Revelation, will find that his hearers receive his term as the expression for a bundle of abstract principles, or a system of laws, or some kind of regulated force.  They do, indeed, make some reference to a “creator” by using a rare word.  Occasionally, their language seems to touch the boundary line on the other side of which is conscious intelligence, but nothing approaching the clearness and definiteness of the early Chinese monotheism of the pre-Confucian classics is to be distinguished.[18] The modern Japanese long ago heard joyfully the words, “Honor the gods, but keep them far from you,” and he has done it.

To love God would no more occur to a Japanese gentleman than to have his child embrace and kiss him.  Whether the source and fountain of life of which they speak has any Divine Spirit, is very uncertain, but whether it has, or has not, man need not obey, much less worship him.  The universe is one, the essence is the same.  Man must seek to know his place in the universe; he is but one in an endless chain; let him find his part and fulfil that part; all else is vanity.  One need not inquire into the origins or the ultimates.  Man is moved by a power greater than himself; he has no real independence of his own; everything has its rank and place; indeed, its rank and place is its sole title to a separate existence.  If a man mistakes his place he is a fool, he deserves punishment.

The Ideals of a Samurai.

Out of his place, man is not man.  Duty is more important than being.  Nearly everything in our life is fixed by fate; there may seem to be exceptions, because some wicked men are prosperous and some righteous men are wretched, but these are not real exceptions to the general rule that we are made for our environment and fitted to it.  And then, again, it may be that our judgments are not correct.  Let the heart be right and all is well.  Let man be obedient and his outward circumstance is nothing, having no relation to his joy or happiness.  Even when as to his earthly body man passes away, he is not destroyed; the drop again becomes part of the sea, the spark re-enters the flame, and his life continues, though it be not a conscious life.  In this way man is in harmony with the original principle of all things.  He outlasts the universe itself.