to the work of religious reformation, and devoted themselves to the propagation of doctrines theological and practical, which gave hopes of something better at hand! Alas, that in every case these hopes were shattered, and that, in every case, the disciples of the reformers exhibited in their lives those very vices which the reformers had sought to eradicate. When the saddest hour of Japan came, the Buddhist sects were not only powerless to help their countrymen, but they had actually become active aiders and abettors of the very evils of those distressful times.

The Tendai monks of Hieizan and Mi-idera had been old offenders in the practice of turning their monasteries into barracks and making religion the bondservant of political intrigue and oppression. The other sects followed suit. The disciples of Kobo had turned the monastery of Koya San into a military encampment. They had become divided into two sects, the leader of the schism (the Shingiha of Shingon, as it was called), had founded a rival temple at Negoro, in the province of Kii, and this daughter temple, which could raise an army of 3000 fighting monks, waged wars on its own account, and ended by being besieged, taken by assault, and razed to the ground by Hideyoshi in 1585. The Jodo-Shinshu were the ruling power in Echigo, Kaga, and other provinces, where they dwelt just as the Prince-Bishops of Germany, ruling their States as temporal barons or lords. These Hongwanji armies had more than one pitched battle with their brethren of Hieizan, and the Monto power counted for very much in the civil quarrels of the time. The older Jodo, the followers of Honen, were quieter in their demeanour, but there were times when even they took to the sword to maintain their opinions; the same may be said of the quieter Zen sects,

who stood very high in the favour of the Ashikaga Shoguns.

The Nichirenists speedily became the greatest offenders of all. They quarrelled amongst themselves, the sectarian differences between the various sub-sects or schisms of Nichirenism being clearly and antagonistically marked. They quarrelled with Monto and Jodo; with the Tendai they had a formal private war of their own, which history designates as Tembun Horan (1532), the "Religious War of the Tembun period." They quarrelled with the authorities. They enunciated a principle known as Fuju fuze, "not giving and not receiving," which may be translated as "intransigeant." The term was adopted as a denominational designation by one of the many Nichirenist sub-sects, and the extremist Fuju fuze sub-sect of Nichirenism was proscribed by the Tokugawa Shoguns at the same time as Christianity. All manner of disreputable characters joined the ranks of the Buddhist clergy to escape from offended Justice (what little there was of her in those sad times); wandering Ko-muso spread the doctrines of the