ests use a Chinese
version, and the laity no version at all, though ... they would seem
to have been given to searching the Scriptures a few hundred years
ago. The Buddhist religion was disestablished and disendowed during
the years 1871-74, a step taken in consequence of the temporary
ascendency of Shinto." Although Confucianism took a strong hold on the
people in the early part of the seventeenth century, yet its influence
was limited to the educated and ruling classes. The vast multitude
still remained Shinto-Buddhists.

As for doctrine, philosophic Buddhism with its dogmas of salvation
through intellectual enlightenment, by means of self-perfecting, with
its goal of absorption into Nirvana, has doubtless been the belief and
aim of the few. But such Buddhism was too deep for the multitudes. "By
the aid of hoben, or pious devices, the priesthood has played into the
hands of popular superstition. Here, as elsewhere, there have been
evolved charms, amulets, pilgrimages, and gorgeous temple services, in
which the people worship not only the Buddha, who was himself an
agnostic, but his disciple, and even such abstractions as Amida, which
are mistaken for actual divine personages."[CC] The deities of Shinto
have been more or less confused with those of popular Buddhism; in
some cases, inextricably so.

_Confucianism_, as known in Japan, was the elaborated doctrine of
Confucius. "He confined himself to practical details of morals and
government, and took submission to parents and political rulers as the
corner stone of his system. The result is a set of moral truths--some
would say truisms--of a very narrow scope, and of dry ceremonial
observances, political rather than personal." "Originally introduced
into Japan early in the Christian era, along with other products of
Chinese civilization, the Confucian philosophy lay dormant during the
middle ages, the period of the supremacy of Buddhism. It awoke with a
start in the early part of the seventeenth century when Iccasu, the
great warrior, ruler, and patron of learning, caused the Confucian
classics to be printed in Japan for the first time. During the two
hundred and fifty years that followed, the intellect of the country
was molded by Confucian ideas. Confucius himself had, it is true,
labored for the establishment of a centralized monarchy. But his main
doctrine of unquestioning submission to rulers and parents fitted in
perfectly with the feudal ideas of Old Japan; and