are clearly
subjects of profound feeling. See that mother leading her toddling
child to the image of Binzuru, the god of healing, and teaching it to
rub the eyes and face of the god and then its own eyes and face. See
that pilgrim before a bare shrine repeating in rapt devotion the
prayer he has known from his childhood, and in virtue of which he has
already received numberless blessings. Behold that leper pleading with
merciful Kwannon of the thousand hands to heal his disease. Hear that
pitiful wail of a score of fox-possessed victims for deliverance from
their oppressor. Watch that tearful maiden performing the hundred
circuits of the temple while she prays for a specific blessing for
herself or some loved one. Observe that merchant solemnly worshiping
the god of the sea, with offering of rice and wine. Count those
hundreds of votive pictures, thanksgiving remembrances of the sick who
have been healed, in answer, as they firmly believe, to their prayers
to the god of this particular shrine. These are not imaginary cases.
The writer has seen these and scores more like them. Here is a serious
side to Japanese religious life easily overlooked by a casual or
unsympathetic observer.

In addition to these simpler religious phenomena, we find in Japan, as
in other lands, the practice of ecstatic union with the deity. In
Shinto it is called "Kami-oroshi," the bringing down of the gods. It
is doubtless some form of hypnotic trance, yet the popular
interpretation of the phenomenon is that of divine possession.

Among Buddhists, the practice of ecstasy takes a different form. The
aim is to attain absolute vacuity of mind and thus complete union with
the Absolute. When attained, the soul becomes conscious of blissful
superiority to all the concerns of this mundane life, a foretaste of
the Nirvana awaiting those who shall attain to Buddhahood. The actual
attainment of this experience is practically limited to the
priesthood, who alone have the time and freedom from the cares of the
world needful for its practice. For it is induced only by long and
profound "meditation." Especially is this experience the desire of the
Zen sect, which makes it a leading aim, taking its name "zen" (to sit)
from this practice. To sit in religious abstraction is the height of
religious bliss.

The practical business man of the West may perhaps find some
difficulty in seeing anything particularly religious in ecstasy or
mental vacuity. But if I mis