Without doubt, many traits are attributed to the Japanese by the casual observer or captious critic, through lack of ability to read between the lines. We have already seen how the stoical element of Japanese character serves to conceal from the sociologist the emotional nature of the people. If a Japanese conceals his ordinary emotions, much more does he refrain from public exhibition of his deeper religious aspirations. Although he may feel profoundly, his face and manner seldom reveal it. When torn with grief over the loss of a parent or son, he will tell you of his loss with smiles, if not with actual laughter. "The Japanese smile" has betrayed the solemn foreigner into many an error of individual and racial character interpretation. Particularly frequent have been such errors in matters of religion. Although the light and joyous, "smiling" aspect of Japanese religious life is prominent, the careful observer will come incidentally and unexpectedly on many signs of an opposite nature, if he mingle intimately with the people. Japan has its sorrows and its tragedies, no less than other lands. These have their part in determining religious phenomena. The student who takes his stand at a popular shrine and watches the worshipers come and go will be rewarded by the growing conviction that, although many are manifestly ceremonialists, others are clearly subjects of profound feeling. See that mother leading her toddling child to the image of Binzuru, the god of healing, and teaching it to rub the eyes and face of the god and then its own eyes and face. See that pilgrim before a bare shrine repeating in rapt devotion the prayer he has known from his childhood, and in virtue of which he has already received numberless blessings. Behold that leper pleading with merciful Kwannon of the thousand hands to heal his disease. Hear that pitiful wail of a score of fox-possessed victims for deliverance from their oppressor. Watch that tearful maiden performing the hundred circuits of the temple while she prays for a specific blessing for herself or some loved one. Observe that merchant solemnly worshiping the god of the sea, with offering of rice and wine. Count those hundreds of votive pictures, thanksgiving remembrances of the sick who have been healed, in answer, as they firmly believe, to their prayers to the god of this particular shrine. These are not imaginary cases. The writer has seen these and scores more like them. Here is a serious side to Japanese religious life easily overlooked by a casual or unsympathetic observer. In addition to these simpler religious phenomena, we find in Japan, as in other lands, the practice of ecstatic union with the deity. In Shinto it is called "Kami-oroshi," the bringing down of the gods. It is doubtless some form of hypnotic trance, yet the popular interpretation of the phenomenon is that of divine possession.