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248 to be considered a religion by the mass of the people, and thus the full results of disestablishment cannot be immediately realized; yet this official removal of Shintō from the position of a religion is one of the most important reforms of this great reform era in Japan. When Constantine disestablished the religions of Greece and Rome by establishing Christianity as the religion of his empire, the worship of Zeus (or Jupiter), of Aphrodite (or Venus), and of the other deities of Olympus, did not cease at once; nor, on the other hand, did the efforts of Julian succeed in reviving the old idolatry. Shintō will linger and continue to attract thousands of worshippers to its shrines; but it is doomed to die as perished the Greek and Roman religions. Amaterasu, the sun-goddess, will yet have her votaries in Japan as had Apollo in Greece and Rome; but the rays of the Sun of Righteousness will dispel the darkness of this myth. The farmers will continue to make their offerings and their petitions at the shrines of Inari Sama, the rice-god, and will attempt to propitiate the wrath of the god of thunder and lightning; but they will gradually learn of the Almighty, who sendeth seed-time and harvest, lightning and thunder, rain and sunshine. The sailors and fishermen will continue their worship at the shrines of their special deities, until they know of Him who maketh the seas to be calm and the winds to be still. Therefore, although the Japanese government has pronounced the sentence of death upon the Shintō religion, the exe