Jinrikisha Days in Japan
aries has made no difference with their people, the scholarly and intelligent seeing that the two faiths differ only in a few articles and practices. For the lower orders, these spiritual shepherds declare Buddhism to be the better religion, its practice for centuries having made the masses the gentle, kindly, patient, and contented souls that they are. One priest, sent to Europe to study the effects of Christianity, reported that vice, crime, and misery were greater there than in Japan, and that the belief of the west seemed less able to repress those evils than the belief of the east. These Monto priests, too, express broad views about the reciprocity of nations and the fair exchange of missionaries. Now that English clergymen and thinkers study Buddhism in the monasteries of Ceylon, avowing their acceptance of the articles with much sacred ceremony, Monto apostles may yet preach to the people of England and America. However this may be, the priests do not fear the proselyting labors of the Doshisha teachers in Kioto, and speak warmly of its good works, and particularly of its hospital and training-school for nurses.
In 1885 the first American missionaries came to Kioto, and as the sacred city is beyond the treaty limits, the college and hospital are maintained under the name of the Doshisha company, and the foreigners engaged in the work are ostensibly in Japanese employ. Back of the Christian Japanese, who stands as president of this company, are the rich Mission Boards, which furnish the money, and direct its expenditure and the method of work. Each teacher in the Doshisha school is really a missionary, and outside the class-room carries on active evangelical work. School buildings, hospital, and residences for the foreign teachers all front on the high yellow walls of the imperial palace grounds, significant testimony to the changes that have come, the barriers and prejudices that have given way. The school is
240
