bumi or trampling on the
cross,[21] was long performed. Thousands of people were made to pass
through a wicket, beneath which and on the ground lay a copper plate
engraved with the image of the Christ and the cross. In this way it was
hoped to utterly eradicate the very memory of Christianity, which, to
the common people, had become the synonym for sorcery.

But besides the seeking after God by earnest souls and the protest of
philosophers, there was, amid the prevailing immorality and the
agnosticism and scepticism bred by decayed Buddhism and the
materialistic philosophy based on Confucius, some earnest struggles for
the purification of morals and the spiritual improvement of the people.

The Shingaku Movement.

One of the most remarkable of the movements to this end was that of the
Shingaku or New Learning. A class of practical moralists, to offset the
prevailing tendency of the age to much speculation and because Buddhism
did so little for the people, tried to make the doctrines of Confucius a
living force among the great mass of people. This movement, though
Confucian in its chief tone and color, was eclectic and intended to
combine all that was best in the Chinese system with what could be
utilized from Shint[=o] and Buddhism. With the preaching was combined a
good deal of active benevolence. Especially in the time of famine, was
care for humanity shown. The effect upon the people was noticeable,
followers multiplied rapidly, and it is said that even the government in
many instances made them, the Shingaku preachers, the distributors of
rice and alms for the needy. Some of the preachers became famous and
counted among their followers many men of influence. The literary side
of the movement[22] has been brought to the attention of English readers
through Mr. Mitford's translation of three sermons from the volume
entitled Shingaku D[=o]wa. Other discourses have been from time to time
rendered into English, those by Shibata, entitled The Sermons of the
Dove-like Venerable Master, being especially famous.

This movement, interesting as it was, came to an end when the country
began to be convulsed by the approaching entrance of foreigners, through
the Perry treaty; but it serves to show, what we believe to be the
truth, that the moral rottenness as well as the physical decay of the
Japanese people reached their acme just previous to the apparition of
the American fleet in 1853.

The story of nineteenth century