Having glanced at the ritual of Shint[=o], let us now examine the teachings of its oldest book.

CHAPTER III — “THE KOJIKI” AND ITS TEACHINGS

    “Japan is not a land where men need pray,
      For ’tis itself divine: 
    Yet do I lift my voice in prayer...”

      Hitomaro, + A.D. 737.

“Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught done, who could know its shape?  Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the three Deities performed the commencement of creation; the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the ancestors of all things.”—­Preface of Yasumar[=o] (A.D. 712) to the “Kojiki.”

    “These, the ‘Kojiki’ and ‘Nihongi’ are their [the Shint[=o]ists]
    canonical books, ... and almost their every word is considered
    undeniable truth.”

    “The Shint[=o] faith teaches that God inspired the foundation of
    the Mikadoate, and that it is therefore sacred.”—­Kaburagi.

“We now reverently make our prayer to Them [Our Imperial Ancestors] and to our Illustrious Father [Komei, + 1867], and implore the help of Their Sacred Spirits, and make to Them solemn oath never at this time nor in the future to fail to be an example to Our subjects in the observance of the Law [Constitution] hereby established.”—­Imperial oath of the Emperor Mutsuhito in the sanctuary in the Imperial Palace, T[=o]ki[=o], February 11, 1889.

“Shint[=o] is not our national religion.  A faith existed before it, which was its source.  It grew out of superstitious teaching and mistaken tradition.  The history of the rise of Shint[=o] proves this.”—­T.  Matsugami.

    “Makoto wo mote KAMI NO MICHI wo oshiyureba nari.” (Thou
    teachest the way of God in truth.)—­Mark xii. 14.

    “Ware wa Micni nuri, Mukoto nari, Inochi nari.”—­John
    xiv. 6.—­The New Testament in Japanese.

CHAPTER III — “THE KOJIKI” AND ITS TEACHINGS

“The Kojiki” mid its Myths of Cosmogony.

As to the origin of the “Kojiki,” we have in the closing sentences of the author’s preface the sole documentary authority explaining its scope and certifying to its authenticity.  Briefly the statement is this:  The “Heavenly Sovereign” or Mikado, Temmu (A.D. 673-686), lamenting that the records possessed by the chief families were “mostly amplified by empty falsehoods,” and fearing that “the grand foundation of the monarchy” would be destroyed, resolved to preserve the truth.  He therefore had the records carefully examined, compared, and their errors eliminated.  There happened to be in his household a man of marvellous memory, named Hiyeda Are, who could repeat, without mistake, the contents of any document he had ever seen, and never