ces have become alleged and accepted
reality. Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature and
undergrowth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; for
nearly all are copies of K[=o]b[=o]'s model. His cartoon has been
constantly before the busy weavers of legend.

It may indeed be said, and said truly, that in its multiplication of
sects and in its growth of legend and superstition, Buddhism has but
followed every known religion, including traditional Christianity
itself. Yet popular Buddhism has reached a point which shows, that,
instead of having a self-purgative and self-reforming power, it is
apparently still treading in the steps of the degradation which
K[=o]b[=o]began.

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.

We repeat it, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance. It
is to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins. Its _ingwa_ is
manifest. Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as the
Seven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to Japanese
Buddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done by
K[=o]b[=o], as shown in his Riy[=o]bu system. Not from foreign writers
and their fancies, nor even from the books which profess to describe
these divinities, do we get such an idea of their real meaning and of
their influence with the people, as we do by observation of every-day
practice, and a study of the idols themselves and of Japanese folk-lore,
popular romance, local history and guidebooks. Those familiar
divinities, indeed, at the present day owe their vitality rather to the
artists than to priests, and, it may be, have received, together with
some rather rude handling, nearly the whole of their extended popularity
and influence from their lay supporters. The Seven Happy Gods of Fortune
form nominally a Buddhist assemblage, and their effigies on the
kami-dana or god-shelf, found in nearly every Japanese house, are
universally visible. The child in Japan is rocked to sleep by the
soothing sound of the lullaby, which is often a prayer to these gods.
Even though it may be with laughing and merriment, that, in their name
the evil gods and imps are exorcised annually on New Year's eve, with
showers of beans which are supposed to be as disagreeable to the
Buddhist demons "as drops of holy water to the Devil," yet few
households are complete without one or more of the images or the
pictures of these favorite deities.

The separate elemen