earth, and it answered, 'I am not He;' and
whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea
and the deep and the creeping things that lived, and they
replied, 'We are not thy God; seek higher than we.' ... And I
answered unto all things which stand about the door of my flesh,
'Ye have told me concerning my God, that ye are not he; tell me
something about him.' And with a loud voice they explained, 'It
is He who hath made us!'"--Augustine's Confessions.

"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the
shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with
night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them
out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name."--Amos.

"That which hath been made was life in Him."--John.

CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

The Morse Lectureship and the Study of Comparative
Religion.

As a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York,
in the Class of 1877, your servant received and accepted with pleasure
the invitation of the President and Board of Trustees to deliver a
course of lectures upon the religions of Japan. In that country and in
several parts of it, I lived from 1870 to 1874. I was in the service
first of the feudal daimi[=o] of Echizen and then of the national
government of Japan, helping to introduce that system of public schools
which is now the glory of the country. Those four years gave me
opportunities for close and constant observation of the outward side of
the religions of Japan, and facilities for the study of the ideas out of
which worship springs. Since 1867, however, when first as a student in
Rutgers College at New Brunswick, N.J., I met and instructed those
students from the far East, who, at risk of imprisonment and death had
come to America for the culture of Christendom, I have been deeply
interested in the study of the Japanese people and their thoughts.

To attempt a just and impartial survey of the religions of Japan may
seem a task that might well appall even a life-long Oriental scholar.
Yet it may be that an honest purpose, a deep sympathy and a gladly
avowed desire to help the East and the West, the Japanese and the
English-speaking people, to understand each other, are not wholly
useless in a study of religion, but for our purpose of real value. These
lectures are upon the Morse[1] foundation which has thes