popular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high
and low, who carry on His government, are to be regarded not
as public servants, but rather as executants of supreme--one
might say supernatural--authority. Shinto, because connected
with the Imperial Family, is to be alone honoured. Therefore,
the important right of burial, never before possessed by it,
was granted to its priests. Later on, the right of marriage
was granted likewise--an entirely novel departure in a land
where marriage had never been more than a civil contract. Thus
the Shinto priesthood was encouraged to penetrate into the
intimacy of family life, while in another direction it
encroached on the field of ethics by borrowing bits here and
there from Confucian and even from Christian sources. Under a
regime of ostensible religious toleration, the attendance of
officials at certain Shinto services was required, and the
practice was established in all schools of bowing down several
times yearly before the Emperor's picture. Meanwhile Japanese
polities had prospered; her warriors had gained great
victories. Enormous was the prestige thus accruing to
Imperialism and to the rejuvenated Shinto cult. All military
successes were ascribed to the miraculous influence of the
Emperor's virtue, and to the virtues of His Imperial and
divine ancestors--that is, of former Emperors and of Shinto
deities. Imperial envoys were regularly sent after each great
victory to carry the good tidings to the Sun Goddess at her
great shrine at Ise. Not there alone, but at the other
principal Shinto shrines throughout the land, the cannon
captured from Chinese or Russian foes were officially
installed, with a view to identifying Imperialism, Shinto, and
national glory in the popular mind. The new legend is enforced