Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/246

CHAPTER VIII. ELOQUENT ADDRESSES ON THE CHIEF RELIGIOUS LEAD- ERS OF MANKIND. THE Shintoism of Japan, its oldest religion, and in its tra- ditional form representing in one the primitive totem worship, nature worship, and ancestor worship of the Japanese, never had an individual originator, but points to a mythical divine ancestry for its representative objects of historical reverence. The Zhikko sect of Shintoism of Japan, represented on the third day by Rev. Reuchi Shibata, reveres as its founder Hasegawa Kakugyo, who was born in 1541, A.D., entered upon pilgrimages of search for truth in his i8th year, became specially inspired through prayers at the sacred mount Fuji, and up to his death in his io6th year, carried on the creation of a new sect, and the propagation all over Japan of a creed, the essence of which is the practical realization of good teach- ing, the improvement of the present life, and the care of pub- lic interests. In regard to Mohammed, the Prophet of Arabia, Dr. George Washburn, in a fifth day paper, said that the Moslem world accepts him, as Christians do Christ, as the ideal man ; that while the question of his character is a difficult one, the facts create the impression that from first to last he sincerely and honestly believed himself to be a supernaturally inspired })rophet of God ; that he was certainly one of the most remark- able men that the world has ever seen ; that whatever may have been his real character, he is known to Moslems chiefly through the traditions of his life and word ; and that these, taken as a whole, present to us a totally different man from the Christ of the gospels. The Moslem code of morals commands and forbids essentially the same thing as the Christian ; but the Moslem traditions report things in the life and sayings of