the people
generally the Undefiled Ground and its presiding deity are actual,
literal, realities.

[Illustration.]

Kiyomizu-Dera, Kyoto.

We have said that the two sects in which the doctrine of the Western
Paradise appears in greatest prominence are called the Jodo and Shin-Jodo.
The former of these is Chinese in origin, but was established in Japan
about 1200 A.D. by a priest, Enko Daishi by name, who was also a member of
the imperial family. The head-quarters of this sect are at Kyoto, where
the magnificent monastery of Chion-in forms one of the principal sights of
that most interesting of Japanese cities. But of all the temples of Japan,
those of the New-Jodo (or _Monto_) sect are at once the most handsome, the
most frequented, and the most attractive to the European traveller.
Everything here, too, is of a dignified and stately character; there is a
striking absence of the tawdry and the puerile. Founded in the year 1262,
this sect is, at the present day, foremost in learning, influence, and
activity. Another purely Japanese development, it is--owing to differences
about "church government"--composed of two sub-divisions, the
_Nishi-Hongwanji_ and the _Higashi-Hongwanji_, or the Eastern and Western
Divisions of the True Petition,--the reference being to the vow of Amida.
In most of the larger towns, handsome temples of either branch are to be
found, situated usually in the poorer districts.

It is in the temples of the Shin-Jodo that the remarkable similarity, of
which every one has heard, between the Buddhist ceremonial and that of the
Roman Church is most conspicuous. Nowhere, perhaps, did the resemblance in
question,--to which I shall have occasion to refer again,--impress me more
forcibly than it did in the New-Jodo temple at Nagasaki, at the first
Buddhist service at which I was ever present. The day of our visit chanced
to be the founder's anniversary, and from a raised lectern in the chancel,
a venerable priest, of benign countenance,--wearing a rich vestment not
unlike a dalmatic, and a cap resembling a biretta,--was recounting to a
congregation, composed chiefly of women, old men, and children, the
virtues of their deceased benefactor. Presently, the sermon came to an
end, and the colloquial delivery of the discourse was changed for the
monotone of a litany recitation: the people answering with ready response,
and many of them employing the aid o