of awe or supposed danger, have in the slow evolution of centuries
become the innumerable flag-poles, banners and streamers which one sees
at their _matsuris_ or temple festivals. Millions of towels and
handkerchiefs still flutter over wells and on sacred trees. In old Japan
the banners of an army almost outnumbered the men who fought beneath
them. Today, at times they nearly conceal the temples from view.

The civilized Japanese, having passed far beyond the Aino's stage of
religion, still show their fetichistic instincts in the veneration
accorded to priestly inventions for raising revenue.[19] This instinct
lingers in the faith accorded to medicine in the form of decoction,
pill, bolus or poultice made from the sacred writing and piously
swallowed; in the reverence paid to the idol for its own sake, and in
the charm or amulet worn by the soldier in his cap or by the gentleman
in his pill-box, tobacco-pouch or purse.

As the will of the worshipper who selects the fetich makes it what it
is, so also, by the exercise of that will he imagines he can in a
certain measure be the equal or superior of his god. Like the Italian
peasant who beats or scolds his bambino when his prayers are not
answered or his wishes gratified, so the fetich is punished or not
allowed to know what is going on, by being covered up or hidden away.
Instances of such rough handling of their fetiches by the people are far
from unknown in the Land of Great Peace. At such childishness we may
wonder and imagine that fetich-worship is the very antipodes of
religion; and yet it requires but little study of the lower orders of
mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers
among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a
saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used
much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther