tivals with which he
had nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, for the honor was
paid to Heaven, and not to his ancestors. Professor Kumi maintains that
the thanksgivings of the court were originally to Heaven itself, and not
in honor of Amateras[)u], the sun-goddess, as is now popularly believed.
It is related in the Kojiki that Amateras[)u] herself celebrated the
feast of Niiname. So also, the temple of Ise, the Mecca of Shint[=o],
and the Holy shrine in the imperial palace were originally temples for
the worship of Heaven. The inferior gods of earthly origin form no part
of primitive Shint[=o].

Not one of the first Mikados was deified after death, the deification of
emperors dating from the corruption which Shint[=o] underwent after the
introduction of Buddhism. Only by degrees was the ruler of the country
given a place in the worship, and this connection was made by
attributing to him descent from Heaven. In a word, the contention of
Professor Kumi is, that the ancient religion of at least a portion of
the Japanese and especially of those in central Japan, was a rude sort
of monotheism, coupled, as in ancient China, with the worship of
subordinate spirits.

It is needless to say that such applications of the higher criticism to
the ancient sacred documents proved to be no safer for the applier than
if he had lived in the United States of America. The orthodox
Shint[=o]ists were roused to wrath and charged the learned critic with
"degrading Shint[=o] to a mere branch of Christianity." The government,
which, despite its Constitution and Diet, is in the eyes of the people
really based on the myths of the Kojiki, quickly put the professor on
the retired list.[25]

It is probably correct to say that the arguments adduced by Professor
Kumi, confirm our theory of the substitution in the simple god-way, of
Mikadoism, the centre of the primitive worship being the sun and nature
rather than Heaven.

Between the ancient Chinese religion with its abstract idea of Heaven
and its personal term for God, and the more poetic and childlike system
of the god-way, there seems to be as much difference as there is
racially between the people of the Middle Kingdom and those of the Land
Where the Day Begins. Indeed, the entrance of Chinese philosophical and
abstract ideas seemed to paralyze the Japanese imagination. Not only did
myth-making, on its purely aesthetic and non-utilitarian side cease
almost at once, but such myt