Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/212

 as a unit of a large company on the State occasions alluded to above, is not the only ordeal prescribed by custom. Any official, humble or exalted, who is ordered to proceed abroad on public business, must, before leaving Japan, proceed to the Hall of Reverence and perform an act of homage or worship, whichever definition he pleases to adopt. That is a duty; there is no option. Possibly it is regarded in the light merely of a farewell declaration of allegiance. Possibly, also, the main body of the Christians in Japan accept the subtle distinction privately drawn by some of their fellow-believers, that so long as there is no worship in spirit, genuflections performed by the body have no connection with religion. But it is singular that this question has always been excluded from the sphere of public discussion, and singular also that Christians do not apparently recognise how plainly they are differentiated from the rest of the nation by the absence of any representative on ceremonial occasions in the Hall of Reverence. There is no native Christian prelate in Japan. There are Roman Catholic and Protestant hierarchs of European and American origin, — an Archbishop and several Bishops and Archdeacons, — but as yet no Japanese subject has attained such dignity. Each sect, however, has its senior pastor or father of Japanese nationality, and until these attend the ceremonials in the Hall of Reverence, as do the chief representatives of Buddhism, the