Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/227

Rh greatest annual festivals naturally come in autumn that is, our harvest time. It is in these festivals that the saké, the "Japanese rice beer" that "cheereth gods and men," plays such an important part that no festival can be complete without it. The kagura is also indispensable in these festivals. It is a theatrical performance, where music and dancing come together to entertain the gods as well as men. Many other religious dances of both comical and dignified natures are also performed. The wrestling too was at first a part of a religious festival. Of course, during these festivals many and generous offerings are made to the gods to show gratitude, while at the same time alms and gifts are very freely given to the poor. Thus it is plain that in the mind of the early Japanese the gods were not very different from them nor very far from them. The gods and their worshipers lived together, enjoying each other's company. The festivals were as much for gods as for men. The offerings were not for the poor, as in Christianity, but they were real and actual offerings to the gods themselves. The music was not* merely to praise the gods, but was mainly for the purpose of pleasing them.

Thus, Shintō is a religion of merrymaking, a religion of enjoying this life to its utmost extent. I say "this life," but this does by no means imply that Shintō denies the future existence of the soul. Surely it implies the belief in such an existence. On this point a great mistake was made by some. No error can be more superficial than this, but, strange to say, even some missionaries fell into it! Plainly enough Shintō does not expressly teach the eternal existence of the soul or the doctrine of.eternal punishment. It does not know the immortality of the soul, as we have it in Christianity. Such a dogma is foreign to Shintō, as the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration is foreign to it. But the fact that Shintō implies and even teaches some kind of future existence is indisputable from the very fact of ancestor worship, which necessarily implies the belief in the existence of the now deceased ancestors somewhere.

This belief, however, must have been very vague and indefinite. Our early forefathers did not believe their religion in order to be saved from tortures in the next life. To them religion was something of more immediate concern. They did not care much for the next world. All that they cared was to enjoy this present life as best they might. To this end they did what they could, and were happy and satisfied. But they were mortals and could not help dying. No doubt death was not pleasant to them, and they did not like it. Yet to them death did not have any associations of a hideous nature, such as going to hell, eternal torments, and the like. They thought probably that after death one will continue to live somewhere else than here, on this earth.