Few achievements of the Japanese have been more remarkable than the suppression of certain religious phenomena. Any complete statement of the religious characteristics of the Japanese fifty years ago would have included most revolting and immoral practices under the guise of religion. Until suppressed by the government in the early years of Meiji there were in many parts of Japan phallic shrines of considerable popularity, at which, on festivals at least, sexual immorality seemed to be an essential part of the worship. At Uji, not far from Kyoto, the capital of the Empire, for a thousand years and more, and the center of Buddhism, there was a shrine of great repute and popularity. Thither resorted the multitudes for bacchanalian purposes. Under the auspices of the Goddess Hashihime and the God Sumiyoshi, free rein was given to lust. Since the beginning of the new régime such revels have been forbidden and apparently stopped; the phallic symbols themselves are no longer visible, although it is asserted by the keeper of the shrine that they are still there, concealed in the boxes on the pedestals formerly occupied by the symbols. When I visited the place some years since with a fellow missionary we were told that multitudes still come there to pray to the deities; those seeking divorce pray to the female deity, while those seeking a favorable marriage pray to the male deity; on asking as to the proportion of the worshipers, we were told that there are about ten of the former to one of the latter, a significant indication of the unhappiness of many a home. Prof. Edmund Buckley has made a special study of the subject of phallic worship in Japan; in his thesis on the topic he gives a list of thirteen places where these symbols of phallic worship might be seen a few years since. It is significant that at Uji, not a stone's throw from the phallic shrine, is a temple to the God Agata, whose special function is the cure of venereal diseases.