The Japanese of to-day often speak of these seven religious bodies which
we have enumerated and described, as "the old sects," because much of
the philosophy, and many of the forms and prayers, are common to all,
or, more accurately speaking, are popularly supposed to be; while the
priests, being celibates, refrain from saké, flesh and fish, and from
all intimate relations with women. Yet, although these sects are
considered to be more or less conformable to the canon of the Greater
Vehicle, and while the last three certainly introduce many of its
characteristic features--one sect teaching that Buddha-hood could be
obtained even in the present body of flesh and blood--yet the idea of
Paradise had not been exploited or emphasized. This new gospel was to be
introduced into Japan by the J[=o]-d[=o] Shu or Sect of the Pure Land.

Before detailing the features of J[=o]-d[=o], we call attention to the
fact that in Japan the propagation of the old sects was accompanied by
an excessive use of idols, images, pictures, sutras, shastras and all
the furniture thought necessary in a Buddhist temple. The course of
thought and action in the Orient is in many respects similar to that in
the Occident. In western lands, with the ebb and flow of religious
sentiment, the iconolater has been followed by the iconoclast, and the
overcrowded cathedrals have been purged by the hammer and fire of the
Protestant and Puritan. So in Japan we find analogous, though not
exactly similar, reactions. The rise and prosperity of the believers in
the Zen dogmas, which in their early history used sparingly the eikon,
idol and sutra, give some indication of protest against too much use of
externals in religion. May we call them the Quakers of Japanese
Buddhism? Certainly, theirs was a movement in the direction of
simplicity.