Patriarch in the U. S.

If at the age of 40 Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy had been possessed by a God, and if the God now resided in her great-grandson, that young man might resemble a Japanese young man who last week was journeying exuberantly through the U.S. Shozen Nakayama, 28, is Patriarch of Tenrikyo, a Shinto sect claiming 5,000,000 followers throughout the world. Shinto ("The Way of the Gods") is Japan's indigenous religion, a ceremonial system of nature-worship and ancestor-worship. It contains little of theology save belief in immortality, but acquired a religious guise during its long subordination to Buddhism. There are two forms of Shintoism, one non-sectarian and ancillary to the State, the other sectarian and divided into 13 officially-recognized groups, plus many smaller, unofficial ones. Keynote of Shinto belief is to venerate the Sun Goddess, Great Ancestress of the Imperial House. To pray for the welfare of the Japanese Emperor is to pray for the welfare of the whole nation. Next thing is to seek Cleanliness and Purity (washing the hands and if possible rinsing the mouth before approaching a shrine) and to avoid the contamination of Death and Blood. Out of Shinto 95 years ago emerged Japan's Mary Baker Eddy, Mrs. Miki Nakayama. She received her God, preached his doctrine that man is created for Happiness. She wrote psalms, performed cures. Like Mrs. Eddy (but some 30 years before her) she preached that disease is illusion. She warned her followers that trouble comes from eight kinds of "dust" which must be cast away: coveting, grudging, passion, hatred, enmity, fury, greed, haughtiness. In 1887, aged 89, Mrs. Nakayama "ascended into Heaven." Named Tenrikyo after the town where it centred, her cult flourished, first under official control, later (since 1908) as an independent Shinto sect. There are now 60,000-odd preachers, 10,000-odd churches including 30 in North America (half of them in California). Tenrikyo is active in proselytizing, maintaining schools, a publishing house, a mission department and an orphanage. It was partly mission work that brought Tenrikyo's young Patriarch to the U.S., to observe U.S. ways at home just as the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry observed them in the East. With five young secretaries, pudgy, bespectacled Shozen Nakayama visited some of his Western churches, traveled on to Washington, Manhattan, Boston and Chicago, where this month they were to represent Shinto at a World Fellowship of Faiths meeting. The Eastern cities were scarcely aware that they had as visitor a personage whom 5,000,000 people believe to be potentially divine.

Patriarch Nakayama & party heartily enjoy the U.S., especially relishing strawberry ice cream, roast beef and fried chicken but regretting the lack of good boiled rice. The Patriarch greatly desired to go to Chicago by airplane but his five secretaries put their feet down. "Suppose you crashed?" said they. In Manhattan Patriarch Nakayama thrice visited the Empire State Building. He admired St. Patrick's Cathedral because he believes Tenrikyo has much in common with Roman Catholicism -- its ritual is complicated and he as Patriarch wears elaborate robes. (But Tenrikyo includes rhythmic dances, camp-meetings.) One of Japan's best jiu-jitsu wrestlers, the Patriarch admires baseball. In Washington he saw the Yankees and Senators play but liked them less than young, fat, vigorous Japanese players.

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