religious horror. The very fact that it was invented by a contemplative
recluse, in a time when wars and the rumors of wars were incessant, is
well calculated to show that this institution was more than a pastime.
Before entering the quiet precincts of the tea-room, the company
assembling to partake of the ceremony laid aside, together with their
swords, the ferocity of the battle-field or the cares of government,
there to find peace and friendship.

[Footnote 13: Hanging scrolls, which may be either paintings or
ideograms, used for decorative purposes.]

_Cha-no-yu_ is more than a ceremony--it is a fine art; it is poetry,
with articulate gestures for rhythm: it is a _modus operandi_ of soul
discipline. Its greatest value lies in this last phase. Not infrequently
the other phases preponderated in the mind of its votaries, but that
does not prove that its essence was not of a spiritual nature.

Politeness will be a great acquisition, if it does no more than impart
grace to manners; but its function does not stop here. For propriety,
springing as it does from motives of benevolence and modesty, and
actuated by tender feelings toward the sensibilities of others, is ever
a graceful expression of sympathy. Its requirement is that we should
weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice. Such
didactic requirement, when reduced into small every-day details of life,
expresses itself in little acts scarcely noticeable, or, if noticed, is,
as one missionary lady of twenty years' residence once said to me,
"awfully funny." You are out in the hot glaring sun with no shade over
you; a Japanese acquaintance passes by; you accost him, and instantly
his hat is off--well, that is perfectly natural, but the "awfully funny"
performance is, that all the while he talks with you his parasol is down