A Temple In Kioto.

Bronze Horse.

A Japanese Belfry.

The Japanese have really two religions, in some respects rivals of each other. The elder, or original faith, is Shinto- ism; the younger, which has struggled to supplant it for twelve hundred years, is Buddhism.

It is difficult to comprehend exactly what Shintoism is. The name means, literally, "The way of the gods," but it is the vaguest known religion. It has no bible, no dogmas, and not even a moral code. It dimly hints at immortality, but has no definite heaven or hell. Its gods are either deified national heroes or else personifications of nature, such as the glorious sun, the all - surrounding ocean, and the innumerable deities of mountains, rivers, rocks, and trees. Its shrines for worship, with their gray stone lanterns and majestic torii, are severely plain, its services extremely simple, and all its priests appear like laymen in the streets, donning their clerical robes only when they officiate in the temples.

A Shinto Priest.

Entrance To A Jafanese Temple.

Not so the Buddhist priests. Their costume, like their ritual, is imposing. While Shinto priests may marry, the Buddhists take the vow of celibacy. In fact, though wholly different in its creed from the great Roman Catholic communion, some of the ceremonials of Buddhism remind us of it; such as their richly- mantled priests, their altars bright with candles and adorned with flowers, their clouds of incense, grand processionals, and statues of the gods and saints. What wonder, then, since it has such attractions, that this religion, when it came hither from India, about six centuries after Christ, achieved at once a remarkable success? The colder Shinto faith lost ground, and even the Mikados gave to Buddha's doctrines favor and support for centuries; but Shintoism has now once more become the state religion.

Buddhist Priests.

Buddhist Priests In A Cemetery.

Interior Of A Japanese Temple.

The furnishings of the Buddhist temples in Japan are often marvels of artistic beauty, comprising tables, columns, doors, and even floors, composed of ruby red or jet-black lacquer, which is so thick and smooth as to produce the effect of rosewood or solid ebony. Here, too, are altars loaded down with ornaments of gold and bronze, silken screens inscribed with sacred characters, exquisite bronze lanterns, incense-burners, gilded gongs, tall lotus-flowers with leaves of gold, and beautiful lacquered boxes placed on stands about the floor, within which are the precious manuscripts of Buddhist scriptures. In a word, recall the richest specimens of Japanese art that you have ever seen, and know that with such adornment the finest temples in Japan are filled.

In some of the less important Buddhist shrines, however, "all that glitters is not gold." Some temples are repulsive from their shabby ornaments, hideous idols, and gaudy paper lanterns. Some of their deities are enthroned behind a wooden grating, and worshipers tie to the latter a bit of cloth on which has been inscribed a petition. One such deity, we were assured, has for his special function the assisting of women to obtain good husbands. He is immensely popular. We saw, in half an hour, at least a dozen women knock on the grating to rouse him and entreat his services. One old woman, who evidently knew from experience how rare good husbands are, led two of her daughters to the gate, and pounded on it savagely three times. Yet even in that temple we found a proof of how the western world has invaded the customs of Japan; for here, amid the grotesque deities, washung an eight-day clock, which proved on examination to have come from Ansonia, Connecticut!