Page:The Praises of Amida, 1907.djvu/15

 Rh Nestorian days, and it was not before the middle of the 4th century A.D. that the first sect of Amida worshippers pure and simple was formed in China. The first Christian to come to Japan was a Nestorian physician, named Rimi, who was highly honoured by the Imperial Court at Nara during the ninth century. Nestorianism is known in Japan as Keikyō; in China it was sometimes spoken of as the religion that came from Tachin, i.e. the Roman Empire, and the name Taishinji, found here and there as the title of some ancient temple in Japan, would seem to point to the fact that the remnants of Nestorianism had become gradually amalgamated with the predominant Buddhism. The history of Nestorianism seems to have been a history of the abandonment, one by one, of the bulwarks that surround that Inner Citadel of the Christian Faith, the Belief in God, the Creator, the Saviour, the Sanctifier.

But there are certain differences between Christianity and Amida-ism which must constantly be borne in mind. In our simple Christian creed