Note (return) — Chapter VII · - RIYŌBU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

In China to-day Buddhism is in a bad state. One writer calls it, "The emasculated descendant that now occupies the land with its drone of priests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and corruption."40 So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The common people of China are to-day Taoists rather than Buddhists.41