f the State, many of the Buddhist
monasteries at the same time suffering spoliation. Within the last few
years, however, Buddhism has been making strenuous efforts to recover its
former power and position, and there is little doubt that it still exerts
a real influence in Japan; while the collapse of Shintoism is, as
certainly, a matter of no distant time. At Tokio, the capital, where the
number of temples is enormous, the proportion of Buddhist to Shinto is in
the ratio of ten to one; and on several occasions during my stay in Japan
I noticed handsome new Buddhist temples in course of erection, or old ones
being redecorated and restored. On the other hand, numbers are closed, or
falling to pieces, for want of funds to maintain them.

At the present time, there are some twelve or more _principal_ Buddhist
sects in Japan, several of these being subdivided. The distinction between
the various schools is much more closely preserved than in China; and, at
least in the larger cities, each sect will be found represented by a
temple of its own. The difference between the schools consists not only in
the varied attitudes adopted towards some controverted question, but
frequently also in the degrees of importance attached to some point which
is held by all in common. For, as cannot be too emphatically stated,
Buddhism is a _many-sided_ religion.(16) The following extract from Sir
Monier Williams' _Buddhism_, for instance, draws attention to the variety
of aspects, from which it may, and indeed needs to be regarded by the
student.

"In different places and at different times, its teaching has become both
negative and positive, agnostic and gnostic. It passes from apparent
atheism and materialism to theism, polytheism, and spiritualism. It is,
under one aspect, mere pessimism; under another, pure philanthropy; under
another, monastic communion; under another, high morality; under another,
a variety of materialistic philosophy; under another, simple demonology;
under another, a mere farrago of superstitions, including necromancy,
witchcraft, idolatry, and fetishism. In some form or other it may be held
with almost any religion, and embraces something from almost every creed."

To the same effect writes Dr. Eitel in his _Lectures on Buddhism_ (pp.
1-2): "Buddhism is a system of vast magnitude, for it comprises the
earliest gropings after science throughout those various branches of
knowledge which our Western nations have long been