Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/192

 placed between the two rows of sutra-readers. He confines himself at first to burning incense, and, as the fumes ascend denser and denser, the intonation of the reading priests grows more and more accelerated, until at last their words pour forth with bewildering volubility. Then suddenly this peal of resonance dies away to a scarcely audible murmur, and while its echoes are still trembling in the air, they are joined by the voice of the chief priest, which by degrees absorbs them into its swelling note, and then itself faints to a whisper, taken up in turn and swelled to a rolling chaunt by the tones of the sutra-readers. These alternations of intoning constitute virtually the whole ceremony. It is grave, awe-inspiring, and massive in its simplicity. It captivates the senses by degrees, and lifts them at last to an ecstasy where reason ceases to discern that the components of the grand ceremony are nothing more than deftly interwoven fragments of a chaunted litany, gorgeous vestments, a heart of glowing gold and soft colours in a vast sepulchre of shadow, and an edifice of noble proportions. But that analytical consciousness certainly comes to the average layman sooner or later. That he has reached it is plainly shown by his mien. The sketchy act of worship that he uses as a passport to such ceremonials bears as little proportion to their magnificence as does the fee paid at the door of a theatre to the tumultuous moods of mirth or sadness produced