Kiōto in triumph, exposing the huge head along the streets."[128] =Religion.= Before the introduction of Christianity into Japan, there were but three religions: Shintoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. The first is native to Japan and the other two are importations. Shintoism teaches nature and ancestor worship, cleanliness, and purity. As is the nature of the Japanese, so this native religion has some merrymaking in it. Confucianism teaches implicit obedience to those who are in power, as emperor, parent, and teacher. Buddhism is somewhat similar to Christianity in making its followers kind to those in lower life, as, the poor, and animals. "In a word, 'Shintoism furnishes the object of worship, Confucianism offers the rules of life, and Buddhism supplies the way of future salvation.'"[129] There is no doubt that all three of these religions had much to do in moulding the character of the young in Japan, for in nearly every house of the reigning class were the books or emblems or symbols or idols of these three religions. The school children had a god all to themselves, who was supposed to aid them in their study. This god was called "Ten-jin," or "Heavenly Man." As the boy desired to become a scholar, learned in the Chinese characters and an excellent penman, so he prayed to Ten-jin to help him in all these. =Suicide.= The Japanese did not fear death nor dread the consequences of a future world, so that suicide was not looked upon as in Europe and America today. "As for the young lovers of whom I speak, they have a strange faith which effaces mysteries for them. They turn to the darkness with infinite trust. If they are too unhappy to endure existence, the fault is not another's, nor yet the world's; it is their own; it is _innen_, the result of errors in a previous life. If they can never hope to be united in this world, it is only because in some former birth they broke their promise to wed, or were otherwise cruel to each other. But they believe likewise that by dying together they will find themselves at once united in another world. Sometimes they make a little banquet for themselves, write very strange letters to parents and friends, mix something bitter with their rice-wine, and go to sleep forever. Sometimes they select a more ancient and more honored method: the lover first slays his beloved with a single sword stroke, and then pierces his own throat. Sometimes with the girl's long crape-silk under-girdle (_koshi-obi_) they bind themselves fast together, face to face, and so embracing leap into some deep lake or stream."[130]