In other parts of the country the lords are in fear. They remit taxes and govern their people with benevolence. But let men do what they will, the famine and the plague still rage, there are beggars on every hand, and the unburied corpses line the roads.

Now, Sir, when we see Sun, Moon, and Stars go on in their courses, when the Three Treasures (of Religion) continue to be respected, and when kings rule peaceably, we know that the world is not going to come to an end. But look around at the misery of the age, at the decay of Buddhism. What can be, think you, the cause of all this?

The Master. That is just what I have been moaning

about to myself. I see that our thoughts are running in the same channels. Pray forgive me if I enlarge on this topic.

When a man embraces the Buddhist religion he expects that his religion will be a means of obtaining Buddhaship; but, at the present day, neither does the power of the gods manifest itself, nor are there any signs to be seen of men attaining Buddhaship. When I look around me, my foolishness fills me with doubts about the future, when I look up to the sky I am filled with resentment, when I contemplate the earth I see matter for earnest thought. But when I come to examine things more closely in the light of the Scriptures, I find that the whole world is in rebellion against what is right, and that men have universally become the slaves of evil; further, that on account of this not only have the good deities left the country, but even the saints abandon the place and refuse to come back to it. Evil spirits and demons have come to take their places, and calamities and sorrows have befallen us. These are matters that we cannot help speaking of, and that we can but fear.

The Visitor. I know that I am not the only one that bewails the sorrows of the Empire and the miseries of my country. But I have never before heard the suggestion made that the gods and the saints were forsaking the country, and that demons and evil spirits were taking their places. Please tell me what Scriptural proof have you for your statement?

The Master. The proofs are many and most varied. For instance, it is said in the "Konkomyokyo," "Although this

[paragraph continues] Sutra exists in the land, it has no proper power or influence, for the people are backsliders at heart. They do not wish to hear it read, they do not offer it worship, nor respect, nor reverence. Neither are they able to pay proper respect and homage to the men of the Four sections when they see them. For this reason both we and our families and all the hosts of heaven have lost our proper dignity and power; for men close their ears to the deep mysteries of the Sutra; they turn with aversion from the sweet dew (of religion), and get out of the current of the stream of true Buddhism.