he first Japanese Stanley, who shed the
light of letters upon the night of unlettered Japan and darkest Dai
Nippon.

The Kojiki reveals to us, likewise, the childlike religious ideas of the
islanders. Heaven lay, not about but above them in their infancy, yet
not far away. Although in the "Notices," it is "the high plain of
heaven," yet it is just over their heads, and once a single pillar
joined it and the earth. Later, the idea was, that it was held up by the
pillar-gods of the wind, and to them norito were recited. "The great
plain of the blue sea" and "the land of luxuriant reeds" form "the
world"--which means Japan. The gods are only men of prowess or renown. A
kami is anything wonderful--god or man, rock or stream, bird or snake,
whatever is surprising, sensational, or phenomenal, as in the little
child's world of to-day. There is no sharp line dividing gods from men,
the natural from the supernatural, even as with the normal uneducated
Japanese of to-day. As for the kami or gods, they have all sorts of
characters; some of them being rude and ill-mannered, many of them
beastly and filthy, while others are noble and benevolent. The
attributes of moral purity, wisdom and holiness, cannot be, and in the
original writings are not, ascribed to them; but they were strong and
had power. In so far as they had power they were called kami or gods,
whether celestial or terrestrial. Among the kami--the one term under
which they are all included--there were heavenly bodies, mountains,
rivers, trees, rocks and animals, because those also were supposed to
possess force, or at least some kind of influence for good or evil. Even
peaches, as we have seen, when transformed into rocks, became gods.[14]

That there was worship with awe, reverence, and fear, and that the
festivals and sacrifices had two purposes, one of propitiating the
offended Kami and the other of purifying the worshipper, may be seen in
the norito or liturgies, some of which are exceedingly beautiful.[15] In
them the feelings of the gods are often referred to. Sometimes their
characters are described. Yet one looks in vain in either the "Notices,"
poems, or liturgies for anything definite in regard to these deities, or
concerning morals or doctrines to be held as dogmas. The first gods come
into existence after evolution of the matter of which they are composed
has taken place. The later gods are sometimes able to tell who are their
progenitors, sometimes not. The