The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2685 page)

 
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(1615–90)
. A Shinto scholar and religious leader of the early Tokugawa period in Japan. As a descendant of the famous Watarai line of priests, who were the hereditary officiants at the outer shrine of
Ise
, Nobuyoshi reversed the flagging fortunes of his school of Shinto. Since the 13th cent., Watarai Shinto had developed a complex syncretic system synthesizing
Confucian
and Buddhist ideas within a Shinto framework. His major work, the
Y
fukuji
, is the most important source of his own religious ruminations, which largely follow the traditional doctrines originally set forth in the Five Books of Shinto (
Shint
gobusho
).

 
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see
ISE
;
WATARAI NOBUYOSHI
.

 
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Watcher
.

A heavenly being in the biblical book of
Daniel
. The
Septuagint
translates the term as
angel
. Watchers also appear in
pseudepigraphic
and later mystical books.

 
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Watchman Nee
(Ni To Shang/Duo Sheng
,

1903–72)
. Founder of the Christian-based Little Flock Movement in China. He was converted while a student at Trinity College, Foochow (Fuzhou), and having been baptized, he began preaching. His fundamentalist approach insisted on the necessity for the human spirit to be broken in order to be released into union with the Spirit of God, so that soul and body can be kept in subjection and obedience. He established Assemblies, which by 1949 had reached
c.
500 in number. He was arrested in 1952 and remained in captivity for the rest of his life. The Little Flock Movement now numbers nearly a million.

 
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Watch-night
.

A dedication service held on New Year's Eve. Derived from early Christian
vigils
, it came, by way of Moravianism, into 18th-cent.
Methodism
.