o
know more vitally the love of God described by John. It occurred to
him, that, to secure these ends, he should pray. Upon doing so he said
that, for the first time in his life, his unworthiness and his really
sinful nature overwhelmed him. This was, of course, but the beginning
of his Christian life. He began then to search the Scriptures in
earnest, and with increasing delight. It was not long before he wished
to make public confession of his faith, and thus identify himself with
the Christian community. This brief account of the way in which this
young man was brought to Christ illustrates a good many points, but
that for which I have cited it is the testimony it bears to the fact
that under similar circumstances the human heart undergoes very much
the same religious experience, whatever be the race or nationality of
the individual.

In regard to the future life, Shinto has little specific doctrine. It
certainly implies the continued existence of the soul after death, as
its ancestral worship shows, but its conception as to the future state
is left vague in the extreme. Confucius purposely declined to teach
anything on this point, and, in part, for this reason, it has been
maintained that Confucianism cannot properly be called a religion.
Buddhism brought to Japan an elaborate system of eschatological ideas,
and so far as the common people of Japan have any conception of the
future life, it may be attributed to Buddhistic teachings. Into their
nature I need not inquire at any length. According to popular
Buddhism, the future world, or more properly speaking, worlds (for
there are ten of them, into any one of which a soul may be born either
immediately or in the course of its future transmigrations), does not
differ in any vital way from the present world. It is a world of
material blessings or woes; the successive stages or worlds are graded
one above the other in fantastic ways. Salvation consists in passing
to higher grades of life, the final or perfect stage being paradise,
which, once attained, can never be lost. Transmigration is universal,
the period of life in each world being determined by the merits and
demerits of the individual soul.

Here we must consider two widely used terms "ingwa" and "mei." The
first of these is Buddhistic and the other Confucianistic; though
differing much in origin and meaning, yet in the end they amount to
much the same thing. "Ingwa" is the law of cause and effect. According