d by many Japanese
Buddhists, who give no place to his idol on their altars, and reject
utterly the teaching as to Paradise and salvation through the merits of
another.

Yet these two special developments by natives, though embodying
tendencies of the Japanese mind, did not reach the limit to which
Northern Buddhism was to go in those almost incredible lengths, which
prompted Professor Whitney[19] to call it "the high-faluting school,"
and which we have seen in our own time under the cultivation of western
admirers.

The Nichiren Sect.

The Japanese mind runs to pantheism as naturally as an unpruned
grape-vine runs to fibre and leaves.

When Nichiren, the ultra-patriotic and ultra-democratic bonze, saw the
light in A.D. 1222, he was destined to bring religion not only down to
man, but even down to the beasts and to the mud. He founded the
Saddharma-Pundarika sect, now called Nichiren Shu.

Born at Kominato, near the mouth of Yedo Bay, he became a neophite in
the Shin-gon sect at the age of twelve, and was admitted into the
priesthood when but fifteen years old. Then he adopted his name, which
means Sun-lotus, because, according to a typical dream very common in
Korea and Japan, his mother thought that she had conceived by the sun
entering her body. Through a miracle, he acquired a thorough knowledge
of the whole Buddhist canon, in the course of which he met with words,
which he converted into that formula which is constantly in the mouth of
the members of the Nichiren sect, Namu-my[=o]-ho-ren-ge-ky[=o]--"O, the
Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law."[20] His history, full of
amazing activity and of romantic adventure, is surrounded by a perfect
sunrise splendor, or, shall we say, sunset gorgeousness, of mythology
and fable. The scenes of his life are mostly laid in the region of the
modern T[=o]ki[=o], and to the cultivated traveller, its story lends
fascinating charms to the landscape in the region of Yedo Bay. Nichiren
was a fiery patriot, and ultra-democratic in his sympathies. He was a
radical believer in "Japan for the Japanese." He was an ecclesiastical
_Soshi_. He felt that the developments of Buddhism already made, were
not sufficiently comprehensive, or fully suited to the common people.
So, in A.D. 1282, he founded a new sect which gradually included within
its pantheon all possible Buddhas, and canonized pretty nearly all the
saints, righteous men and favorite heroes known to Dai Nippon. Nichiren