The Project Gutenberg EBook of Religion in Japan by George A. Cobbold,
B.A.

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Title: Religion in Japan

Author: George A. Cobbold, B.A.

Release Date: April 24, 2009 [Ebook #28598]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGION IN JAPAN***

Religion in Japan:

Shintoism--Buddhism--Christianity.

By

George A. Cobbold, B.A.

Pembroke College, Oxford

With Illustrations.

Printed Under The Direction of the Tract Committee.

London:

Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge,

Northumberland Avenue, W.C.; 43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.

Brighton: 129, North Street

New York: E. S. Gorham

1905

CONTENTS

Introductory.
I. Shintoism.
II. Buddhism.
III. Buddhism In Japan.
IV. Buddhism And Christianity.
V. Christianity In Japan.
Publications Of The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Footnotes

INTRODUCTORY.

It may well be questioned whether, in the course of a like period of time,
any country has ever undergone greater transitions, or made more rapid
strides along the path of civilization than has Japan during the last
quarter of a century. A group of numerous islands, situated on the
high-road and thoroughfare of maritime traffic across the Pacific, between
the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and in area considerably exceeding
Great Britain and Ireland,--Japan, until thirty years ago, was a _terra
incognita_ to the rest of the world; exceeding even China in its
conservatism and exclusiveness. And now, within a space of some
five-and-twenty years, such changes have come about as to have given birth
to the expression,--"the transformation of Japan." The more conspicuous of
these changes are summed up by a recent writer in the following
words:--"New and enlightened criminal codes have been enacted; the methods
of judicial pr