medicine and in magic, and had several times imagined himself to be on the point of discovering the formula wherewith to cheat death, yet his search had been in vain. In a moment of despondency arising from one of his numerous failures he came across Bodhiruci, a Buddhist priest of fame. "What?" said Bodhiruci, "you are seeking for eternal life? I will give you the secret." And handing him the books which contained the descriptions of Amida's Paradise and of salvation through faith in His Name, he bade him read and believe. The man did so, and in due course became one of the most successful of the Apostles of Amida in China.

In Japan, the Shinshuist notes with pride that the first image sent over by the King of Kudara in the sixth century was one of Amida, with his satellites, Kwannon and Seishi. The first Japanese patriarch on Shinran's list, Genshin, was attracted, as had been one of his Chinese predecessors, by the simplicity of the doctrine and its adaptability to the needs of simple persons. Ere Genshin died the troubles of Japan had begun, and in the midst of those troubles the sound of Nembutsu from many a troubled heart was a cry of pathetic and half-despairing faith. Such was the cry of the Odorinembutsu, to whom we have already alluded, and that of Ryonen Shonin, to whom Amida appeared in a vision

and bade him leave the Hieizan monastery, as being a den of thieves. Ryonen and the Odori-nembutsu both became founders of small sects, which, however, never succeeded in winning a very large amount of popularity. It is the merit of Genku, better known as Honen Shonin, to have successfully established a definite sect of the Pure Land in Japan; of Shinran, his greater disciple, to have brought the system to its perfection.

Genku was converted by a death-scene. It was in the time of the Civil Wars; and Genku's father was attacked by bandits in his house, and after a brave defence, mortally wounded. The mother and her child escaped to a place of safety, and when the bandits had cleared off, returned to the house, where they found the father dying. "You must forgive your enemies, my son," said the dying man; "there is no end to vengeance and vendetta, for wrath begets wrath, and only forgiveness can heal it." The lesson sank into the boy's mind; he became a monk, and might have risen to high honour in the wealthy and purse-proud Tendai sect, had he not preferred the simplicity of his Amida faith to the noisy worldliness of Hieizan. He suffered for his convictions, yet succeeded in establishing a sect known as the Jodo,