From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupulous cleanliness --indeed, we might say that it regarded physical impurity as identical with moral impurity, and intolerable to the gods. It has [146] always been, and still remains, a religion of ablutions. The Japanese love of cleanliness--indicated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and by the irreproachable condition of their homes has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by their religion. Spotless cleanliness being required by the rites of ancestor-worship,--in the temple, in the person of the officiant, and in the home,--this rule of purity was naturally extended by degrees to all the conditions of existence. And besides the great periodical ceremonies of purification, a multitude of minor lustrations were exacted by the cult. This was the case also, it will be remembered in the early Greek and Roman civilizations--the citizen had to submit to purification upon almost every important occasion of existence. There were lustrations indispensable at birth, marriage, and death; lustrations on the eve of battle; lustrations at regular periods, of the dwelling, estate, district, or city. And, as in Japan, no one could approach a temple without a preliminary washing of hands. But ancient Shinto exacted more than the Greek or the Roman cult: it required the erection of special houses for birth, --"parturition-houses"; special houses for the consummation of marriage,--"nuptial-huts"; and special buildings for the dead,--"mourning-houses." Formerly women were obliged during the period of menstruation, as well as during the time of confinement, to live apart. These harsher archaic customs [147] have almost disappeared, except in one or two remote districts, and in the case of certain priestly families; but the general rules as to purification, and as to the times and circumstances forbidding approach to holy places, are still everywhere obeyed. Purity of heart is not less insisted upon than physical purity; and the great rite of lustration, performed every six months, is of course a moral purification. It is performed not only at the great temples, and at all the Ujigami, but likewise in every home _________________________________________________________________