shi_. These hot-headed youths took it upon themselves to
dictate national policy to cabinet ministers, and to reconstruct
society, religion and politics. Something like a mania broke out all
over the country which, in certain respects, reminds us of the
Children's Crusade, that once afflicted Europe and the children
themselves. Even Christianity did not escape the craze for
reconstruction. Some of the young believers and pupils of the
missionaries seemed determined to make Christianity all over so as to
suit themselves. This phase of brain-swelling is not yet wholly over.
One could not tell but that something like the Tai Ping rebellion, which
disturbed and devastated China, might break out.

These portentous signs on the social horizon called forth, in 1892, from
the government an Imperial Rescript, which required that the emperor's
photograph be exhibited in every school, and saluted by all teachers and
scholars whatever their religious tenets and scruples might be. Most
Christians as well as Buddhists, saw nothing in this at which to
scruple. A few, however, finding in it an offence to conscience,
resigned their positions. They considered the mandate an unwarrantable
interference with their rights as conferred by the constitution of 1889,
which in theory is the gift of the emperor to his people.

The radical Shint[=o]ist, to this day, believes that all political
rights which Japanese enjoy or can enjoy are by virtue of the Mikado's
grace and benevolence. It is certain that all Japanese, whatever may be
their religious convictions, consider that the constitution depends for
its safeguards and its validity largely upon the oath which the Mikado
swore at the shrine of his heavenly ancestors, that he would himself be
obedient to it and preserve its provisions inviolate. For this solemn
ceremony a special norito or liturgy was composed and recited.

Summary of Shint[=o].

Of Shint[=o] as a system we have long ago given our opinion. In its
higher forms, "Shint[=o] is simply a cultured and intellectual atheism;
in its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and priestly
dictates." "Shint[=o]," says Mr. Ernest Satow, "as expounded by Motooeri
is nothing more than an engine for reducing the people to a condition of
mental slavery." Japan being a country of very striking natural
phenomena, the very soil and air lend themselves to support in the
native mind this system of worship of heroes and of the forces of