It
was the prayer of old that a man-child should be born to her; and,
poor woman! when one knows what her life must be in this country
should this prayer remain unanswered, it saddens one to think of
it. A living death; another installed in her place; all that woman
holds dear trembling in the balance. How I pitied her! I also saw
men praying before other idols and working themselves into a state
of frenzy. Indeed I saw so much in the temples to make me unhappy
that I wished I had never visited any of them. It gives one such
desponding hopes of our race, of its present and of its future,
when so many are so bound down to the lowest form of superstition.
At one of the principal Shinto temples I saw the sacred dance with
which that great god is propitiated. In a booth two stories high,
in front of the temple, was a small stage upon which sat three old
priests. One beat a drum, the second played a flute, while the
third fingered a guitar. To this music a very pretty young
daughter of a priest, gorgeously arrayed in sacred robes, postured
with a fan, keeping time to the music. This was all. But, like the
tom-tom beating of the Buddhist which we heard at the same moment
from an opposite temple, the dance is thought to dispose the gods
to receive favorably the gifts and prayers of the devotees. We saw
at the same temple a large wooden figure which is reputed able to
cure all manner of diseases.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63