Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/53

 and like Korea she might have lost many of the qualities that make for national greatness.

Takeda Shingen seems to have been devoid of every feeling that could interfere with the prosecution of his purposes. His nature lacked an emotional side; his will was adamant; his ideas presented themselves with lightning rapidity and in perfect order. He neglected no resources of training and erudition, and he made the welfare of the people an object as important as the discipline of his soldiers.

Oda Nobunaga, on the contrary, was the very type of a jovial, careless warrior. An able leader, an intrepid and daring captain, with all the qualities necessary to secure obedience and attract devotion, his fault was that he relied chiefly on the force of arms, and trusted more to the strength and swiftness of a blow than to the subtlety of its delivery. These two men already towered high above all their contemporaries when the long record of war and confusion reached its last chapter.

Militant Buddhism had now again become a great power in the State. At the darkest hour of the Muromachi epoch, even the priests in Kyōtō succumbed to the general demoralisation, and were found among the gamesters and marauders. One sect only, the Ikko, possessed large influence, owing to the virtue and eloquence of its great preacher, Renjo. But this sect believed in the sword as a weapon of propagandism, and