This Sûtra sounds to us, no doubt, very different from the original teaching of Buddha. And so it is. Nevertheless it is the most popular and most widely read Sûtra in Japan, and the whole religion of the great mass of the people may be said to be founded on it. “Repeat the name of Amitâbha as often as you can, repeat it particularly in the hour of death, and you will go straight to Sukhavatî and be happy forever;” this is what Japanese Buddhists are asked to believe: this is what they are told was the teaching of Buddha. There is one passage in our Sûtra which seems even to be pointedly directed against the original teaching of Buddha. Buddha taught that as a man soweth so shall he reap, and that by a stock of good works accumulated on earth the way is opened to higher knowledge and higher bliss. Our Sûtra says No; not by good works done on earth, but by a mere repetition of the name of Amitâbha is an entrance gained into the land of bliss. This is no better than what later Brahmanism teaches, viz. “Repeat the name of Hari or of K_ri_sh_n_a, and you will be saved.” It is no better than what even some Christian teachers are reported to teach. It may be that in a lower stage of civilization even such teaching has produced some kind of good.(159) But Japan is surely ripe for better things. What the worship of Amitâbha may lead to we can learn from a description given by Dr. Edkins in his “Trip to Ning-po and T’hëen-t’hae.” “The next thing,” he writes, “shown to us was the prison, in which about a dozen priests had allowed themselves to be shut up for a number of months or years, during which they were to occupy themselves in repeating the name of Amida Buddha,(160) day and night, without intermission. During the day the whole number were to be thus engaged; and during the night they took it by turns, and divided themselves into watches, so as to insure the keeping up of the work till morning. We asked when they were to be let out. To which it was replied, that they might be liberated at their own request, but not before they had spent several months in seclusion. We inquired what could be the use of such an endless repetition of the name of Buddha. To which it was answered, that the constant repetition of the sacred name had a tendency to purify the heart, to deaden the affections towards the present world, and to prepare them for the state of Nirvâ_n_a. It was further asked whether Buddha was likely to be pleased with such an endless repetition of his name. To which it was answered, that in the Western world it was considered a mark of respect to repeat the name of any one whom we delighted to honor. The recluses seemed most of them young men; some of whom came out to the bars of their cage to look at the strangers, but kept on repeating the name of Buddha as they stood there. It appeared to us that nothing was more calculated to produce idiocy than such a perpetual repetition of a single name, and the stupid appearance of