" Seido, the great temple of Confucius in
Tokyo, is now utilized as an educational Museum.[17]
A study of this subject and of comparative religion, is of immediate
practical benefit to the Christian teacher. The preacher, addressing an
audience made up of educated Japanese, who speaks of God without
describing his personality, character, or attributes as illustrated in
Revelation, will find that his hearers receive his term as the
expression for a bundle of abstract principles, or a system of laws, or
some kind of regulated force. They do, indeed, make some reference to a
"creator" by using a rare word. Occasionally, their language seems to
touch the boundary line on the other side of which is conscious
intelligence, but nothing approaching the clearness and definiteness of
the early Chinese monotheism of the pre-Confucian classics is to be
distinguished.[18] The modern Japanese long ago heard joyfully the
words, "Honor the gods, but keep them far from you," and he has done it.
To love God would no more occur to a Japanese gentleman than to have his
child embrace and kiss him. Whether the source and fountain of life of
which they speak has any Divine Spirit, is very uncertain, but whether
it has, or has not, man need not obey, much less worship him.
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