It has just been intimated that the word “religion” is not in all points applicable to Shintō. It has, for instance, no dogmas or creed, except the very simple and general injunction: “Follow your own natural impulses and obey the laws of the State.” Dr. Nitobe says, in his book entitled “Bushidō”: “The tenets of Shintōism cover the two predominating features of the emotional life of our race—patriotism and loyalty.” Its services are very simple, and consist of the presentation of offerings and the recital of formal addresses, which are partly praises and partly prayers. In one ritual, that of purification, it is true that there may be seen signs of moral instruction; but this is now a mere formal ceremony, performed, perhaps, only twice a year in some, not all, of the principal Shintō shrines. Certainly, in the sense that Christianity, with its creeds, whether simple or complex, its moral doctrines, its spiritual teachings, its outlook into the future life, its restraining and uplifting influence upon the individual and society, is called a religion, Shintō has no right to that appellation. But as a system of national as well as of individual worship, including prayers to the deified ancestors or national heroes or to the personified and deified powers of nature, Shintō is properly a religion. And there can be no doubt that, in the eyes of the great mass of the people, it has all the force of a religion. One needs to stand but a few minutes in front of a Shintō shrine to observe that the mode of worship is practically the same as that before a Buddhist temple. This does not refer to the regular public ceremonies at stated times, but to the brief ordinary visits of the common people to the shrines and temples as they may be passing by. In their hearts there is apparently as much “worship” and “reverence” in one case as in the other. And this superstitious attitude of the people toward Shintō has been utilized on more than one occasion in political measures, so that Shintō has often been nothing but a political engine. “In its lower forms [it] is blind obedience to governmental and priestly dictates.” It has thus been unfairly used as a test of so-called patriotism, a kind of ecclesiastical patriotism, founded on mythology and superstition. Thus Shintō has been, as Sir Ernest Satow called it, “in a certain sense, a state religion, since its temples are maintained out of the imperial and local revenues, and the attendance of the principal officials is required by court etiquette at certain annual festivals which are celebrated at the palace.” Similarly, local officials are required to be present and “worship” on certain occasions at local shrines. As Dr. Griffis has remarked, “To those Japanese whose first idea of duty is loyalty to the Emperor, Shintō thus becomes a system of patriotism exalted to a religion.”