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CONFUCIANISM, BUSHIDŌ, BUDDHISM
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teacher under whose instruction the Japanese nation grew up." Or, as Griffis outlines it,[1] the Buddhist missionaries were purveyors of civilization, ministers of art, wielded a mighty influence in military and political affairs, transformed the manners and customs, inspired a tremendous development in education and literature; but Buddhism was "kind to the brute and cruel to man," neglected charity and philanthropy, degraded woman, and left upon the Japanese character the blight of a merciless fatalism and an awful pessimism.[2] It created "habits of gentleness and courtesy" and a "spirit of hopeless resignation." To sum up, "in a word, Buddhism is law, but not gospel."

At present, Buddhism in Japan is exceedingly corrupt, is losing its hold upon the educated, but retains a tremendous influence over the great mass of the people. The majority of the priests are ignorant, illiterate, and immoral, "blind leaders of the blind." The newspapers of the day are unsparing in their denunciation of the immoralities of the priesthood. The following is only one of many such testimonies

  1. ↑ "The Religions of Japan."
  2. ↑ "Emotionally its tenets do not at bottom satisfy us Occidentals, flirt with them as we may. Passivity is not our passion, preach it as we are prone to do each to his neighbor. Scientifically, pessimism is foolishness, and impersonality a stage in development from which we are emerging, not one into which we shall ever relapse. As a dogma it is unfortunate, doing its devotee in the deeper sense no good, but it becomes positively faulty when it leads to practical ignoring of the mine and thine, and does other people harm."—Lowell.
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