s and unchastity, every shade of
vice, hypocrisy, anger, pride, suspicion, greediness, gossiping,
cruelty to animals is guarded against by special precepts. Among the
virtues recommended we find not only reverence of parents, care of
children, submission to authority, gratitude, moderation in times of
prosperity, submission in times of trial, equanimity at all times, but
virtues such as the duty of forgiving insults and not rewarding evil
with evil." This is a pretty exhaustive moral code, and though
Buddhism has often been taunted with the fact that its followers do
not practically carry out its precepts and live up to the level of its
high moral teaching, Buddhism is not, I would suggest, the only
religion against which such taunts can be levelled.

The history of Buddhism ever since its introduction into Japan has
been an eventful one. It has had its ups and its downs. It came into
the country under royal auspices, it has nearly always enjoyed the
royal favour, and I think its existence, during at any rate the first
few centuries it was in the country, has been due to that fact rather
than to any pronounced affection on the part of the mass of the people
for it. One Emperor, Shirakawa by name, is recorded to have erected
more than 50,000 pagodas and statues throughout the country in honour
of Buddha. Many of these works are still, after many centuries, in an
excellent state of preservation, and are of deep interest not only to
the antiquarian but to any student of the religious history of a
nation. The Buddhist priests, like the Jesuits in European countries,
during many centuries captured and controlled education in Japan and
showed themselves thoroughly progressive in their methods and the
knowledge they inculcated. Art and medicine were introduced under
their auspices and, whatever one may think of, or whatever criticism
may be passed on the religion itself, it is impossible, in my opinion,
to deny that Buddhism on the whole has had a vast and, I venture to
think, not an unhealthy influence on every phase of Japanese national
and domestic life. The strength and weakness of Buddhism have
undoubtedly lain in the fact that it possessed and possesses no
dogmatic creed. It concerned itself almost entirely with self-mastery,
self-suppression, the duty of doing good in this world without looking
forward to any reward for the same in the next. It preached
benevolence in the true meaning of that word in every shape and for