However this may be, the energy and valor displayed in these
early ages formed the ideal of Yamato Damashii (The Spirit of
unconquerable Japan), which has so powerfully influenced the modern
Japanese. We shall see, also, how grandly Buddhism also came to be a
powerful force in the unification of the Japanese people. At first, the
new faith would be rejected as an alien invader, stigmatized as a
foreign religion, and, as such, sure to invoke the wrath of the native
gods. Then later, its superiority to the indigenous cult would be seen
both by the wise and the practically minded, and it would be welcomed
and enjoyed.
The Inviting Field.
Never had a new religion a more inviting field or one more sure of
success, than had Buddhism on stepping from the Land of Morning Dawn to
the Land of the Rising Sun. Coming as a gorgeous, dazzling and
disciplined array of all that could touch the imagination, stimulate the
intellect and move the heart of the Japanese, it was irresistible. For
the making of a nation, Shint[=o] was as a donkey engine, compared to
the system of furnaces, boilers, shaft and propeller of a
ten-thousand-ton steel cruiser, moved by the energies of a million years
of sunbeam force condensed into coal and released again through
transmigration by fire.
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