Keep the boundary line clear between God and his world and all is order and discrimination. Obliterate that boundary and all is pathless morass, black chaos and on the mind the phantasms which belong to the victim of _delirium tremens_. There is one Lawgiver. In the beginning, God. In the end, God, all in all. CHAPTER II - SHINTŌ: MYTHS AND RITUAL "In the great days of old, When o'er the land the gods held sov'reign sway, Our fathers lov'd to say That the bright gods with tender care enfold The fortunes of Japan, Blessing the land with many an holy spell: And what they loved to tell, We of this later age ourselves do prove; For every living man May feast his eyes on tokens of their love." --Poem of Yamagami-no Okura, A.D. 733. Baal: "While I on towers and banging terraces, In shaft and obelisk, behold my sign. Creative, shape of first imperious law." --Bayard Taylor's "Masque of the Gods." "Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, and tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savor: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD."--Ezekiel. If it be said (as has been the case), 'Shintoism has nothing in it,' we should be inclined to answer, 'So much the better, there is less error to counteract.' But there _is_ something in it, and that ... of a kind of which we may well avail ourselves when making known the second commandment, and the 'fountain of cleansing from all sin.'"--E.W. Syle. "If Shintō has a dogma, it is purity."--Kaburagi. "I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord: and so will I go to thine altar."--Ps. xxvi. 6. CHAPTER II - SHINTŌ: MYTHS AND RITUAL The Japanese a Young Nation. What impresses us in the study of the history of Japan is that, compared with China and Korea, she is young. Her history is as the story of yesterday. The nation is modern. The Japanese are as younger children in the great family of Asia's historic people. Broadly speaking, Japan is no older than England, and authentic Japanese history no more ancient than British history. In Albion, as in the Honorable Country, there are traditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back of genuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in the fifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there are other reasons besides those commonly given for calling Japan "the England of the East."