applied; and therefore many Christians conscientiously refused to perform it. Now, those Japanese words are composed of rei, a very common term indicating any polite act, and hai, which in its original ideographic form was written with a picture of two hands clasped, and therefore naturally indicates worship. But this word hai is an integral part of such words as haiken (a very polite expression for "please let me see"), haishaku ("please lend"), haikei (the humble phrase at the beginning of a letter). In all these cases the word hai expresses a humble request to a superior, originally made with clasped hands and bowed head. These words are in daily use by Christians, including missionaries, without conscientious scruples, because they are apparently cases of what rhetoricians call "fossil metaphors." It would appear, then, that hai, which gives reihai its significance of "worship," may have shades of meaning, just as we speak, not only of the "worship of the one, true God," but also of "hero-worship." It is, in fact, a question of terms in a language and among a people where such fine distinctions are not drawn between the secular and the religious, the common and the uncommon, the holy and the unholy. In a country where each person must humble himself before others and must express that humility in words and deeds that to Occidentals suggest Uriah Heep, and where profound bows are the most ordinary occurrence, bowing to the Emperor's portrait is scarcely "worship." It is no
