Received with open
arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last
phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and
rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and
corruption."[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The
common people of China are to-day Taoists rather than Buddhists.[41]
If this be the position in China, something not very far from it is
found in Japan to-day. Whatever may be the Buddhism of the few learned
scholars, who have imbibed the critical and scientific spirit of
Christendom, and whatever be the professions and representations of its
earnest adherents and partisans, it is certain that popular Buddhism is
both ethically and vitally in a low state. In outward array the system
is still imposing. There are yet, it may be, millions of stone statues
and whole forests of wayside effigies, outdoors and
unroofed--irreverently called by the Japanese themselves, "wet gods."
Hosts upon hosts of lacquered and gilded images in wood, sheltered under
the temple tiles or shingles, still attract worshippers. Despite
shiploads of copper Buddhas exported as old metal to Europe and America,
and thousands of tons of gods and imps melted into coin or cannon, there
are myriads of metal reminders of those fruits of a religion that once
educated and satisfied; but these are, in the main, no longer to the
natives instruments of inspiration or compellers to enthusiasm.
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