JAPAN'S NATIONAL RELIGION.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 246, 17 October 1929, Page 26

JAPAN'S NATIONAL RELIGION.

Shintoism is the national religion of Japan. Ite origin is unknown, and it is a mixture of ancestor and nature worship. The history of Shintoism is divided into three periods, the firet ending about the sixth century, A.D., the second in the eighteenth century, and the third is found in the phase of the present day. In the first period Shintoism had noname, no moral precepts nor sacred writings. There was no particular. class of gods, but everything in nature that excited admiration was worshipped. Buddhism and Chinese civilisation were in .the second period. Buddhiet priests took charge of the temples and the two religions united. In the third period, beginning in the eighteenth century, Buddhism and Confucianism -were denounced and a return to the "pure Shinto" was demanded by the great scholars of the Empire. Shintoism then became the religion of the Government, and officials of the court observed its rites and ceremonies.