Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/414

398 Thirty years is far too short a time for the seed sown at the Revolution of 1867 to grow up and ripen literary fruit. We have seen that the intellectual movement to which Iyeyasu's establishment of the Yedo Shōgunate led, did not reach its climax until a century later. No doubt things move more rapidly in the present day, but it seems reasonable to believe that what we now witness is only the beginning of a new and important development.

The process of absorbing new ideas which has mainly occupied the Japanese nation during the last thirty years, is incomplete in one very important particular. Although much in European thought which is inseparable from Christianity has been freely adopted by Japan, the Christian religion itself has made comparatively little progress. The writings of the Kamakura and two subsequent periods are penetrated with Buddhism, and those of the Yedo age with moral and religious ideas derived from China. Christianity has still to put its stamp on the literature of the Tokio period.

There are some considerations which tend to show that important results in this direction may be expected during the century which is nearly approaching us. The previous religious history of the nation has prepared Japan for the acceptance of a higher form of faith. Buddhism did not a little towards fostering ideals of holiness, humanity, and detachment from worldly things. Confucianism provided high, though it may be somewhat distorted, standards of morality, and a comparatively rational system of philosophy. Shinto taught a reverence for the Divine powers which created and govern the universe and man. But none of the three sufficed by itself to meet the heart, soul, and mind want