Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/182

 do the woodpecker business against every convenient post, is to conceive a new respect for bird intelligence. So the praying goes on, and the rattling of cash against the bars of the money-chest, and the burning of incense, and the chattering of monkeys, and the shouting of showmen, and the perpetual rippling of laughter and the babble of cheery talk, as the great, good-humoured multitude flows to and fro, not a bit nearer to hell or farther from heaven because its units have studied no hypocritical mien of sanctimoniousness, nor been trained to deceive their deity by putting a veneer of puritanism over the instincts which he has implanted in their breasts.

But, in such a crowd, what proportion does the literate element bear to the illiterate, the patrician to the plebeian? And if the philosopher is there as well as the bumpkin, the savant as well as the servant, how much of pastime is the motive of each and how much of worship? That is a great question. It amounts to asking what has been the influence of Buddhism upon the educated classes in Japan. Undoubtedly that influence was once very powerful. Undoubtedly the religion possessed, at the time of its advent, numerous features strongly attractive. It brought in its company a noble literature, a literature pregnant with philosophic thought presented to the mind in attractive guise, a literature embodying everything that was profound and beautiful in Oriental speculation. It built for itself temples