In travelling up and down the empire to propagate their tenets,
they found out the necessity of better roads, and accordingly, they were
largely instrumental in having them made. They dug wells, established
ferries and built bridges.[7] They opened lines of communication; they
stimulated traffic and the exchange of merchandise; they created the
commerce between Japan and China; and they acted as peacemakers and
mediators in the wars between the Japanese and Koreans. For centuries
they had the monopoly of high learning. In the dark middle ages when
civil war ruled, they were the only scholars, clerks, diplomatists,
mediators and peacemakers.
Japanese diet became something new under the direction of the priests.
The bonzes taught the wickedness of slaughtering domestic animals, and
indeed, the wrong of putting any living thing to death, so that kindness
to animals has become a national trait. To this day it may be said that
Japanese boys and men are, at least within the limits of their light,
more tender and careful with all living creatures than are those of
Christendom.[8] The bonzes improved the daily fare of the people, by
introducing from Korea and China articles of food hitherto unknown. They
brought over new seeds and varieties of vegetables and trees.
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