This book makes no pretence of furnishing a mirror ofcontemporary Japanese religion. Since 1868, Japan has been breakingthe chains of her intellectual bondage to China and India, and theend is not yet. My purpose has been, not to take a snap-shotphotograph, but to paint a picture of the past. Seen in alightning-flash, even a tempest-shaken tree appears motionless. Astudy of the same organism from acorn to seed-bearing oak, revealsnot a phase but a life. It is something like this—"tothe era of Meiji" (A.D. 1868-1894+) which I have essayed. Hence Iam perfectly willing to accept, in advance, the verdict of smartinventors who are all ready to patent a brand-new religion forJapan, that my presentation is "antiquated."
The subject has always been fascinating, despite its inherentdifficulties and the author's personal limitations. When in 1807,the polite lads from Satsuma and Kiōto came to New Brunswick,N.J., they found at least one eager questioner, a sophomore, who,while valuing books, enjoyed at first hand contemporaneous humantestimony.
When in 1869, to Rutgers College, came an application throughRev. Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, of Tōkiō, from Fukui for a youngman to organize schools upon the American principle in the provinceof Echizen (ultra-Buddhistic, yet already so liberally leavened bythe ethical teachings of Yokoi Héishiro), the Faculty madechoice of the author. Accepting the honor and privilege of beingone of the "beginners of a better time," I caught sight of peerlessFuji and set foot on Japanese soil December 29, 1870. Amid acannonade of new sensations and fresh surprises, my first walk wastaken in company with the American missionary (once a marine inPerry's squadron, who later invented the jin-riki-sha), to see ahill-temple and to study the wayside shrines around Yokohama. Sevenweeks' stay in the city of Yedo—then rising out of thedébris of feudalism to become the Imperial capital,Tōkiō, enabled me to see some things now so utterly vanished,that by some persons their previous existence is questioned. One ofthe most interesting characters I met personally was Fukuzawa, thereformer, and now "the intellectual father of half of the young menof ... Japan." On the day of the battle of Uyéno, July 11,1868, this far-seeing patriot and inquiring spirit deliberatelydecided to keep out of the strife, and with four companions of likemind, began the study of Wayland's Moral Science. Thus were laidthe foundations of his great school, now a university.
Journeying through the interior, I saw many interestingphenomena of popular religions which are no longer visible. AtFukui in