[Illustration: 145.--A KAMIS TEMPLE, JAPAN.]
"Thus one particular brotherhood has a monopoly of the patronage of the great family rosary. It must be explained that a Buddhist rosary can only exercise its power if its beads are properly enumerated. Now in a numerous family there is no guarantee against errors being committed in the use of the rosary; whence the inefficiency it is sometimes accused of. Instead of indulging in recrimination, however, the plan pursued is to send for a bonze of the Order of the Great Rosary to set matters right again.
"This good man hastens up with his instrument, which is about as big as a good-sized boa-constrictor, and places it in the hands of the family kneeling in a circle, whilst he himself, standing in front of the shrine of the domestic idol, directs operations with a bell and a small hammer. At a given signal, father, mother, and children, intone with the whole force of their lungs the prayers agreed upon. The small and the large beads of the rosary and the strokes of the hammer fall with a cadenced rhythm that inspires them. The rosary ring grows excited, their cries become passionate, their arms and hands work like machinery, the perspiration streams down them, and their bodies get stiff with fatigue. At last the close of the ceremony leaves everybody breathless, exhausted, but radiant with happiness, for the interceding gods must be satisfied!
"Buddhism is a flexible conciliating, insinuating religion, which accommodates itself to the bent and the habits of the most different races. From the very first, the bonzes in Japan managed to get themselves entrusted with some of the shrines and small chapels of the Kamis, in order to protect them in the enclosures of their sanctuaries. They hastened to add to their ceremonies symbols borrowed from the ancient national faith; and in short, for the purpose of better fusing the two creeds, they introduced into their temples, Kamis deities invested with the titles and attributes of Hindoo divinities, and at the same time, Hindoo gods transformed into Japanese Kamis. There was nothing inadmissible in these exchanges, which were explained in the most natural manner by the dogma of transmigration. Thanks to this combination of the two creeds, which received the name of Rioobou-Sintoo, Buddhism has become the prevalent religion of Japan.