A NEW HEATHEN RELIGION IN JAPAN.
By Rev. J. B. Porter
The Tenrikyo is the name of a new religion that is becoming very popular among the peasant class of Japan. It is said to number now more than two million adherents, though it is not more than ten years since it began to attract any attention. It claims as its founder a woman who lived about forty or fifty years ago, named O Miki. She is supposed to have received a number of revelations, in fact, to have been a kind of incarnation of the deity. Their god, Tenrio, is a combination of ten divinities, among whom are the sun, moon, and a number of the old gods of Shinto mythology. Sun and moon are worshiped as supreme creators. There was a time when these were the only beings in existence. Their habitation was in the sea. When they decided to create man, they first discovered two beings, before unknown (how they came into existence is not told), a white dragon and a woman. From these the creators borrowed the model for the man's body. After this they were troubled as to how they could give him a soul, but finally struck upon the happy expedient of using 999,999,999 whitebait for the manufacture of one soul. Among the ignorant only this religion is spreading very rapidly. It teaches repentance and the forgiveness of sin, and has the reputation of being much more austere in its morality than either Buddhism or Shintoism. Its adherents claim that the Tenrikyo is very much like Christianity in its moral requirements, while it is superior to the latter in not requiring the rejection of all other faiths. They teach the defilement of sin and the necessity of spiritual purification. The most usual prayer to their god, Tenrio, is, “Ashiki wo harei” (Take away my sins). As they repeat this, the hands are turned palms outward, and pushed forward, as though pushing the sins away. Then the hands are reversed, palms inward, and drawn toward the breast, while the prayer, “Kigami tamae” (Make me clean), is repeated many times. The Tenrikyo (teaching of heavenly truth)12wins popularity by insuring good luck in the shape of deliverance from sickness, earthquakes, fires, and pestilence. It teaches a kind of faith cure. A poor woman recently came to one of the priests and said, “I am in great distress, because I have nothing to eat; please help me.” After expressing surprise that she had not come to him before, the priest prescribed a prayer, saying, “Repeat this prayer a certain number of times and you will be provided for,” telling her at the same time how the prayers of a man in Nagoya had been answered. While he was talking, another woman came with a sick child and implored his help. Promising to heal the child at once, he gave her a prayer to offer, and also handed her some kind of herb, which she was to boil till it was soft and then take as medicine. Both women went away satisfied and happy. Physicians claim that persons of this faith frequently die because they refuse to take proper remedies, relying upon the prayer of faith to save them. In their worship they rely a great deal upon noise, using the drum, fife, and samisen, accompanied by the dance. A year ago at an annual meeting there was said to have been an assembly of 20,000 persons, and from this meeting many hundred bags of rice were contributed for the poor believers throughout the country. The Tenrikyo is sanctioned by the government as a branch of Shintoism, but it has met with opposition and persecution from the Buddhist priests, whose prestige suffers on account of it.—Church at Home and Abroad.