CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION ON CHINA AND THE CHINESE Cornell University Library BV 3440.A51G66 Thirty eventful years :the story of the 3 1924 023 254 158 Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240232541 58 ^birt^ lEpentful ^cavB THE STORY OF THE American Board's Mission in Japan I 869- I 899 BY fl*S€E REV^. Ad:. I.. (S^ORDON SJlmmcan ^otst of €«inmt«sii»ure for f otetsa iStinsiBiut BOSTON: Congregational Hodse 1901 THOMAS TODD, PRINTER, 14 BEACON STREET, BOSTON. no INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The writer gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to the let- ters and articles of his colleagues as they appear in The Missionary Herald dLTid in Life and Light ; to the biographies of Neesima referred to in Chapter IV ; to " Japan and its Rescue," by Rev. Dr. Hail ; to "Japan and its Regeneration," a marvel of compact and orderly infor- mation, by Rev. Otis Cary ; and to Rev. G. E. Albrecht's careful trans- lation of Ritter's " History of Missions in Japan." He has frequently followed the thought, often using the very words of his own in "An American Missionary in Japan," permission to do this having been kindly given him by the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. He lays down his pen with one strong regret, that a noble story has been so inadequately told and such scant justice done to the devoted services of so many members of the Mission. m. l. g. Boston, April, igoo. The manuscript of the following sketch was prepared during the winter of 1 899-1900. The importance of having such a record had for some time been felt, but no one had been chosen to perform the task. It is only just to say that the undertaking was entirely volun- tary on the part of Dr. Gordon, who was then on a furlough after a long period of the most exacting labor and wearying anxiety of his entire missionary service of twenty-eight years. The toil of these years had unmistakably left its mark upon him, and many of his friends wished he had spared himself this new labor. Nevertheless, he gladly accepted this opportunity of further service, and began to prepare for the work with the utmost care and method. Later, he himself clearly recognized the unwisdom of the undertaking, but kept himself bravely at his task, though with great weariness of the flesh, and although there was even then creeping in upon him the fatal dis- ease which ended his life November 4, 1900. iv Introductory Note. Publication was delayed in the hope that he might be well enough to see the manuscript through the press. He did succeed in reading the proof of the earlier chapters, but his strength failed him before the task was completed. As will be gathered from a remark at the end of his Introductory Note, he felt that " a noble story had been inadequately told ; " but in that unselfish comment does not appear how grievous a burden it was to a mind clear and alert to the very last, that what under normal con- ditions would have been done thoroughly and well, was of necessity so much a matter of shears and paste. It was not his plan that the likeness of himself, on page 12, should appear in this volume. D. g. January 3, 1901. \i- Ul^^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Annaka Church Members .... Rev. N. G. Clark, d.d Doshisha, Its Three Principal Buildings Doshisha, The, Trustees of ... Doshisha, First Building Used by Rev. M. L. Gordon, D.D Rev. Daniel Crosby Greene, D.D. Mrs. Mary J. Greene Rev. T. Harada Hon. Jonathan N. Harris .... J. C. Hepburn, m,d Rev. T. Hirotsu Mr. Juji Ishii Japan, Old and New Kyoto Theological Class .... Kindergarten at Kobe, Glory Kindergarten at Maebashi .... Kobe College . .... Kobe College. Classes of 1897 . Rev. H. Kozaki . . ... Maebashi, Kindergarten at . Matsuyama, Christian Workers at Rev. T. Miyagawa ..... Rev. S. Murakami Rev. and Mrs. Joseph H. Neesima Orphans at Okayama ..... Rev. T. Osada President S. Saibara, m.p Rev. K. Tomeoka ..... Trustees of Doshisha, 1899 Rev. K. Tsunashima ..... Rev. G. F. Verbeck, D.D Faces page 91 10 21 36 12 12 12 43 24 7 36 32 41 95 43 45 36 95 98 49 49 34 69 43 36 49 27 49 OLD JAPAN, J 728. NEW JAPAN, J889. (TRANSLATIONS.) GUARANTY. This is to certify that Jimbei and his younger brothers, Monnojo, Gonlcichi, and Jinshichi, and their sister Tome of Ishigasalci ward in the City of Hikone are parishioners of my temple and belong to the Jodo sect as did their ancestors. I will maintain against all accusers that they do not belong to the Christian sect, and if they should be examined and condemned as Christians I hold myself ready to be condemned as guilty of the same crime. Oyo, Priest of Soan Temple. First tnontk, f2th year of Kyaho {nsS A .V.) CONSTITUTION OF JAPAN. Pkomulgated February, 1889. Article XXVIII. Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as sub- jects, enjoy freedom of religious belief. CHAPTER I. WHAT HAD GONE BEFORE. I. THE SHUT DOOR. Of the enthusiastic devotion shown in the i6th century by Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, and his successors we cannot write. Nor can we do more than refer to their successes, by which hundreds of thousands, or according to the doubtless exaggerated estimates of the Japanese, two millions of converts, were won to' the church. But as bearing upon the work of later years, and so upon the purpose of this sketch, brief reference to the suppressive efforts of the Japanese authorities seems called for. Oda Nobunaga, the famous general, who during the latter half of the century in question held almost supreme power, favored Xavier and his associates, first because he hated the Buddhists, and secondly because he wished to use the Christians as his tools. Soon after his death, however, his successor, the great Hideyoshi, became their enemy. Alleging that he had discovered plots to subjugate the country, Hideyoshi issued a decree of expulsion against the priests, and widespread persecution followed. In 1597 twenty-six persons, including six of the Franciscan fathers who had come over from the Philippines, were crucified together at Nagasaki. A year later Hideyoshi himself died and was succeeded by leyasu, of the Tokugawa clan, which thus became the de facto rulers of Japan from that time till the revolution of 1868. leyasu at first showed some friendliness toward the missionaries, but later he issued a decree, denouncing them as enemies of the gods, of Japan, and of the Buddhas, and deported large nunibers of them to Macao and to the Philippines. He and his successors freely used fire and sword in their work of extermination. Mr. Gubbins, of the British diplomatic service, a careful historian, thus writes of these persecutions : " We read of Christians being executed in a barbarous manner in sight of each other ; of their being hurled from the tops of precipices ; of their being buried alive ; ot their being torn asunder by oxen ; of their being tied up in rice bags, heaped together thus, and burned ; spikes were driven under the nails of fingers and toes ; and some poor wretches were caged and starved to death, with food before their eyes." Under such tortures not a few recanted, but multitudes held on to their faith unflinchingly. Roman Catholic historians estimate that over a thousand clerical and 200,000 lay Christians perished at this time. Even a worm will turn, and in 1638 these persecuted Japanese Chdstians revolted and fortified themselves in the old castle of Shimabara. The revolt, of course, failed, and 37,000 were massacred. It is said that this inscription was placed over the ruins of the captured castle : " So long as the sun shall 2 American Board in Japan. -warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan ; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christian's God, or the Great God of all, if he violate this command, shall pay for it with his head." " After these events," writes Dr. Griffis, " the name of Christ came to be regarded as the synonym of sorcery, sedition, and all that was hostile to the purity of the home and the peace of society. . . . Christianity was remembered only as an awful scar on the national annals. No vestiges were supposed to be left of it, and no knowledge of its tenets, save by a very few scholars in Yedo, trained experts, who were kept as a sort of spiritual bloodhounds to scent out the adherents of the accursed creed." But even then the hatred of the authorities for Christianity did not relax its vigilance. They established and for 250 years maintained a special police service, called " The Christian Inquiry," to ferret out Christians, and by the offer of large rewards and by such tests as compelling Christians to trample upon pictures or images of their Lord, they sought to make assur- ance doubly sure. In some provinces the whole population was brought out periodically and forced to trample upon the cross. The Buddhist priests of the empire were obliged to report from time to time that no Christians were to be found among their parishioners, and certificates were given declaring the bearers free from all Christian taint. A fac simile of one of these is given on the opposite page. Nor did they stop with this. The anti-Christian movement early became an anti-foreign one, the cause of Japan's long seclusion from the world. " In 1624 all foreigners except Dutch and Chinese, were banished from Japan. At the same time the Japanese were forbidden to leave the country, and all vessels fitted for lofig voyages were destroyed. Even the Dutch had to sub- mit to very humiliating terms. They were confined to an artificial islet, 600 feet by 200, in Nagasaki harbor, and a strong guard always held the small bridge connecting it with the mainland. Only one ship was allowed to come to this settlement in six months, and when it arrived two water-gates were opened for its admission which remained closed at all other times. The Dutch denied that they were Christians and, it is averred, even consented to trample upon the cross." (Cary.) By such means the government shut the door against this " corrupt sect." It was the history of 1800 years ago repeated. With the body of Jesus in the tomb, with a great stone against the door of the tomb, with the stone sealed, and the tomb guarded by soldiers they thought the whole matter was ended forever. 2. THE OPENING OF THE DOOR. The shut door has been opened ; how did it come about ? To our own countrymen belongs the credit not only of opening the door by which this hermit nation had sought to isolate itself from the world, but of opening it in such a way that the Japanese became our grateful friends. The Spanish and Portuguese had been banished, and the Dutch, renouncing their Christianity for sake of trade, were cribbed, and confined on the little What Had Gone Before. 3 island of Deshima. The English and Russians had met with similar failure, save as the latter covuitry, anticipating its later methods, had appropriated some of Japan's northern islands by force of arms. Our first attempts were no more successful. In 1837 several shipwrecked Japanese sailors, who had been rescued and placed for a time under the care of Dr. Giitzlaff , were sent to Japan by an American firm in China. But the " Morrison " was fired upon in the two ports which she entered and, much to the disappointment of all, they were compelled to cany the distressed Japanese back to China. Again, in 1845, Capt. Mercator Cooper, with his ship " Manhattan," entered the Bay of Yedo on a similar errand of mercy, having on board twenty-two shipwrecked Japanese sailors whom he had rescued. Captain Cooper's good intentions were recognized, the men were allowed to land, and wood, water, rice, vegetables, and other things were amply supplied the ship, — but that was all. The Americans were not allowed to land. They were told that neither they nor others coming, even in the interests of humanity, would be received, and there being no wind on the day set for sailing, the ship was towed well out to sea by government orders, free of charges ! That the real opening was effected by Commodore Perry in 1854 and made effective by Hon. Townsend Harris in the treaty of 1858, is almost as well known as it is highly creditable to all concerned. The tact, the courtesy, the firmness, the patience, the forbearance shown by these officers in all their intercourse with the Japanese form one of the brightest pages in our diplo- matic history, and still call forth the admiration and gratitude of the Japanese. Internal conditions made Perry's visit far more fruitful of good than it otherwise would have been. It was the electric spark which so developed forces latent in Japanese society that in a short time the last of the shoguiis, who for seven hundred years had usurped imperial power, was overthrown and the emperor once more made the ruler of the whole country. This was the foundation of constitutional government, the first step in that material and intellectual progress which during later years has astonished the world. The study of foreign languages, especially the English, became a national passion. Foreign experts were employed to build a mint, railways, telegraphs, and lighthouses ; to inaugurate a customs service ; to reorganize on European models the army and navy ; to establish postal and educational systems ; and to advise on the conduct of almost every branch of the government. In other ways the influence of Western, i. e., Christian, civilization was felt. The dignity of manhood, and the sacredness of life and liberty were immensely enhanced. The haughty samurai, who hitherto could cut down a farmer or an artisan with impunity, merely " to try a new weapon," were deprived of their two swords and their exclusive privileges ; hara-kiri, suicide as a part of a code of honor, fell forever into disuse ; the lex talionis was abolished ; and the leather workers, the pariahs of Japan, were admitted to citizenship. The lunar year also was given up and the Gregorian calendar adopted, and (with no religious motive whatever) the Christian Sunday was made a day ^f rpst for all officials and for the teachers and pupils of the schools. 4 American Board in Japan. Thus was the shut door opened, and thus did the nation stretch out its hand for the fruits of Christianity. How did it feel toward the religion of Christ itself ? We have just seen how important were the parts played by Commodore Perry and Mr. Harris in the opening of Japan's shut door. It is a remarkable part of this history that both were sincerely, openly, and profoundly religious men. " Though Perry's errand was political and commercial, he was not oblivious to the fact that a successful accomplishment of his task would result in opening the country to Christianity. The first Sunday spent in Japanese waters was a time when the people were taught something of our religion. They had been very curious to inspect the strange vessels that had so suddenly come among them. Large numbers of sight-seers had been permitted to come on deck in order to look about. On Sunday morning those who came were told that the day was one that Americans used for the worship of God, and that, in order to preserve due quiet, no visitors would be received. When the time came for morning service Commodore Perry caused the old Scotch version of the One Hundredth Psalm to be sung : — All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with joyful voice j Him serve with mirth ; His praise forth tell, Come ye before Him and rejoice. It was America's summons to the hermit nation that, in coming out from its long seclusion, it should receive not merely the material civilization of the West, but also that it should learn to know and worship the God of Nations." — (Gary.) Mr. Harris, following the written instructions of Secretary of State Marcy " to do his best by all judicious means and kind influence to obtain a full toleration of the Christian religion in Japan and protection for all missionaries, and others who should go there to propagate it," with great address secured such an article in the treaty he negotiated in 1858. He had secured as a residence in Shimoda a Buddhist temple, and there for the first time the Stars and Stripes floated from a flagstaff planted in Japanese soil, and there on Sunday, August i, 1858, a large number of sailors and marines from two men-of-war were landed and the first Protestant Christian service was held, greatly to Mr. Harris's delight. Although granting by treaty protection to missionaries in their work, the Japanese authorities had no thought of allowing their subjects to embrace Christianity. The shut door policy continued to prevail and with increasing force. For it had been discovered in 1865 that, in the face of a universal and relentless inquisition extending through all these years, a community of Roman Catholic Christians numbering several thousands had lived and worshiped in a group of villages near Nagasaki. " Without priests, without teachers, almost without printed instruction, they had kept alive by tradition through successive generations for nearly three centuries, a knowledge of the religion which their ancestors had professed." New edicts were therefore What Had Gone Before. 5 issued, declaring that " The evil sect called Christian is strictly prohibited j suspicious persons should be reported to the proper officers, and rewards will be given." Violent persecution immediately followed, and it is estimated that from 1868 to 1873 at least six thousand Christians were "torn from their homes, banished to distant provinces, and subjected to cruel tortures, so that nearly two thousand died in prison." To the protests of the American minister '^ Prince Iwakura replied that this was a question of internal administration which concerned Japan alone, and that as Christianity was regarded as tend- ing to dispel the belief in the divinity of the emperor, upon which doctrine the Japanese government rested, " consequently, it was the determination of ' this government to resist the propagation of Christianity as they would an invading army." The story of how this statesman became one of the factors in securing '^ a changed attitude toward Christianity belongs to a later chapter. Here and there little streams of influence, hidden or manifest, were already going forth which, converging and finally uniting into a torrent, swept away all these barriers, and legally, at least, made freedom of religious belief the right of every Japanese subject. One of these streams invites a brief following. The Missionary Herald for June, 1883, acknowledges the receipt by the Board of a legacy of ^500.00 by the will of Mrs. Sarah B. Fisher, and then speaks of " EARLY GIFTS AND PRAYERS FOR JAPAN." This bequest calls to mind again a remarkable incident in missionary history. Mrs. Fisher was one of the original members of a circle formed in 1827, fifty-five years ago, at Brookline, Mass., which had for its object the evangelization of Japan. More than forty years before the American Board sent its first laborer to Japan, while that empire was absolutely closed against foreigners, and when almost nothing was known concerning its condition or its people, this company of godly women met regularly to labor and pray for that distant land. They laid aside their gifts for a mission for more than a generation before it was begun. Many have wondered how it happened that such a deep interest in a country so entirely isolated from the civilized world should have been awakened in the minds of the members of that sewing- circle. It is said that a curiously wrought Japanese ba_sket, on the table of / the Christian merchant at whose house they met, was the occasion of their choosing this particular object for their gifts and prayers. But how many have seen rare and beautiful articles brought from distant and pagan lands, and yet have not been moved to pray and toil for the people of those lands 1 These Christian hearts saw behind that basket the hands that made it, and though they knew so little about the dwellers in that mysterious island, they knew this much — that they needed the light of the gospel. What though the doors were closed and barred, and the Japanese put a price on the head of any one who should be suspected of harboring a Christian — these women believed that this people were yet to be evangelized. "Was not 6 American Board in /apaft. Japan one of those uttermost parts of the earth which were given to Christ for a possession ? " And so they brought their gifts and offered their prayers for the Japan Mission, when as yet there was not one ray of hght except from God's Word. It was the instinct of Christian love which guided them ; .the same holy impulse, wiser than the wisdom of men, which led to the breaking of the alabaster box at the Saviour's feet. The association formed at Brookline, during the years of its existence, paid into the treasury of the American Board over $600 for Japan. Before the time had arrived when the money could be expended for the purpose for which it was given, it amounted, with the interest, to $4,104.23, which sum was set apart for the beginning of the mission. Were there not prayers as well as alms which came up for a memorial before God respecting this mission ? There is something amazing about the opening of Japan and the progress of the empire within the past fifteen years. The political and social changes are not more marvelous than are those of a religious character. Not only are the doors open, but there is to-day no theme of more popular interest than Christianity. How can all this sudden transformation be accounted for ? No Christian can doubt that the hand of God is in it. May we not believe that He who, while governing nations, yet has respect unto the cries of his people, did remember the faith and prayers of those who, in the days of its darkness, pleaded for Japan. Christ, when on earth among men, wrought miracles when he saw their faith. Was not the faith of these women who prayed and gave for Japan as wonderful as was that of the centurion, at which Christ marveled ? And have we not all seen a miracle happening in the land for which they prayed ? 3. THE FIRST TO ENTER. On July 4, 1859, four ports were declared open to commerce and permanent residence. Even before that a few missionaries from China had visited Nagasaki and Kanagawa, and two American Episcopalians were already on the ground, ready to begin permanent residence and work on the day the treaties went into operation. One of these, the venerable Bishop Williams, is still there, preaching the gospel with the zeal of a youth of twenty years. Before the year closed, the Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Church of America also had representatives on the ground. From the former came Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn, who had already seen service in China and who now reached Japan in October, after a voyage of 146 days from New York. Those from the Reformed Church arrived a little later, among whom Drs. Brown and Verbeck labored long and successfully. In i860 Rev. J. Goble who had gone out with Perry's expedition as a sailor, reached Yokohama as a representative of the , American Baptist Free Missionary Society. The difficulties met were very great. There were no dictionaries or gram- mars of the language, and the people were in such fear and dread of both them and the government that for a year they could secure no one as teacher. J. C. HEPBURN, M. D., OF AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN MISSION (NORTH). REV. GUIDO F. VERBECK, D.D., OF AMERICAN REFORMED CHURCH MISSION. What Had Gone Before. 7 Even then their first teacher proved to be a government spy. He helped translate the first part of the Gospel of Matthew, but when about a chapter had been gone over, he resolutely refused to go on, saying it would cost him his life to do so. When Christianity was mooted in the presence of a Japanese, his hand would almost involuntarily be applied to his throat, to indicate the extreme perilousness of such a topic. The fear of Christianity was indeed wide-spread and deep-seated, and this was increased by the almost universal distrust of one another and of the government which prevailed among the people. Under these circumstances the missionaries could only set themselves resolutely to the task of mastering the language and disabusing the minds of the people of the belief that the Christian religion was an enemy to the country and to good morals. Dr. Hepburn treated many thousands of sick folk. His dictionary and Dr. Brown's grammar were produced at this time, and the translation of the Bible initiated. Drs. Brown and Verbeck also did work of great importance as teachers ; the former in training young men who in later years became efficient Christian ministers ; the latter, by becoming the teacher, adviser, and friend of many of the incipient statesmen of New ■ Japan, led the way to the founding of the Imperial University, which was organized and for many years presided over by him. Of course the personal influence of the missionaries was working effect- ively, though quietly, upon those about them, and one who had been a teacher of the language for several years was baptized on his deathbed in 1864. The next baptisms were by Dr. Verbeck, and we can find nothing better with which to close this period than THE STORY OF WAKASA, " THE FIRST PROTESTANT BELIEVER IN JAPAN." In 1854 a fleet of English and French men-of-war entered the harbor of Nagasaki, and the Shogun commanded the daimyo of Saga and Fukuoka to keep a strict watch over them. The commander of the soldiers from Saga was Murata Wakasa-no-Kami, the Kara, or highest retainer of the daimyo. One day, when he was patrolling the port, he saw a strange book floating on the water, and commanded one of his men to pick it up. Neither he nor any one whom he met could tell what sort of a book it was, and on the departure of the fleet he was compelled to return home, the book still remaining a " hid treasure " to him. But the burning desire to know its contents grew into a flame, and later he sent one of his men named Eguchi to Nagasaki, ostensibly to study medicine, really to find out about the mysterious book. Eguchi entered into the spirit of his master and soon contrived to learn from the Dutch that the book was the Bible and told of God and of Jesus Christ. All this he reported to his master in Saga, who, hearing that translations of this Bible into Chinese had been made in Shanghai, secretly sent a man there and bought copies. Then he and his younger brother, Ayabe, and a few other friends earnestly studied the Scriptures day and night. In 1862, eight years after the finding of the New Testament in the water, 8 American Board in Japan. Ayabe went to Nagasaki to get help in understanding the Chinese Scriptures, and now for the first time met a missionary. This was Dr. Verbeck, who supplied him and his friends more fully with Christian books in Chinese, and gladly consented to become their instructor. Owing, however, to feudal restrictions, these men of rank could not pass at will from one province to another, and so this instruction was given in a very unusual way. Two mes- sengers were employed to go regularly to and from Saga and Nagasaki, a two- days' journey, carrying questions and answers between pupils and teacher. This unique Bible class was kept up in this way for three years. (During this time Ayabe made a second visit to Dr. Verbeck to warn him of conspira- cies against his life by reckless conservatives. Dr. Verbeck heeded this warn- ing, and with Mrs. Verbeck went to Shanghai for six months, thus escaping immanent peril, if not the loss of their lives.) In 1866 Wakasa and his brother secured permission to visit Nagasaki. This was his first meeting with his unseen teacher, and he now told of the New Testament found in the water twelve years before, and how deeply he had been moved by the simple record of Christ's person and life. After repeated interviews, lasting a week. Dr. Verbeck baptized the two brothers, and partook with them of the Lord's Supper on the 20th of May, the day of Pentecost, 1866. On their return to " Saga they repeated to their daimyo what they had done. Personally disinclined to, trouble them, the daimyo, even when com- manded by the central government to punish them, did no more than burn a few of their books. Wakasa peacefully departed this life in 1874, at the age of sixty, praying for the Christian conquest of Japan. His- daughter and her husband, a household servant, and at least one of his, grandchildren, are re- ported to be active Christians. Although we shall be anticipating somewhat, here seems the place to introduce an account of the organization of the first Protestant Church in Japan, forming, as it did, the fitting culmination of the faithful labors of those who had been the first to enter. It is from the pen of Dr. Ferris of New York : — " At last God's set time for the organization of his Church came. In January, 1872, the missionaries at Yokohama, and English-speaking residents of all denominations, united in the observance of the Week of Prayer. Some Japanese students connected with, the private classes taught by the mission- aries were present' through curiosity, or through a .desire to please their teachers, and some perhaps from a true interest in Christianity. It was con- cluded to. read the Acts in course, day after day, and that the Japanese might lake part intelligently in the service, the Scripture of the day was translated extemporaneously into their language. The meetings grew in interest and were continued from week to week until the end of February. After a week or two, the Japanese, for the first time in the history of the nation were on their knees in a Christian prayer-meeting, entreating God, with great emotion with the tears streaming down their faces, that he would give his Spirit to Japan as to the early church and to the people around the Apostles. These prayers were characterized by intense earnestness. Captains of men-of-war, English and What Had Gone Before. 9 American, who witnessed the scene, wrote to us, ' The prayers of these Japa- nese take the heart out of us.' A missionary wrote that the intensity of feel- ing was such that he feared often that he would faint away at the meetings. Half a dozen perhaps of the Japanese thus publicly engaged in prayer ; but the number present was much larger. This is the record of the first Japanese prayer-meeting. ' ' As a direct fruit of these prayer-meetings, the first Japanese Christian church was organized at Yokohama on March 10, 1872. It consisted of nine young men who were baptized on that day, and two middle-aged men who had been previously baptized. This church was called " The Church of Christ in Japan." The first article of its simple constitution was as follows : " Our church does not belong to any sect whatever ; it believes only in the name of Christ, in whom all are one ; it believes that all who take the Bible as* their guide and who diligently study it are the servants of Christ, and our brethren. For this reason all beUevers on earth belong to the family of Christ in the bonds of brotherly love." The writer of this will never forget the profound impression produced upon him the first Sunday after his arrival in Japan, six months subsequent to this organization, by this little company of earnest men gathered for instruction and worship in Dr. Hepburn's dispensary. Many of those first believers, by long years of faithful, self-denying service, have given proof of the genuine- ness of the work of God in their hearts in those early days. Okuno, Ogawa, Ibuka, Uemura, Honda, and Oshikawa : what a galaxy they make 1 CHAPTER II. THE WORK OF THE AMERICAN BOARD: THE START. The American Board entered Japan just at the close of 1869, ten years after the country had been opened by treaty and other societies had entered the opened door. If any justification of this delay be needed it may be found in the foregoing chapter. While some of the acts of those in authority indi- cated a weakening of the anti-foreign feeling, while the people in and near the ports were growing more friendly, while the missionaries found some oppor- tunities of reaching the people through the teaching of English, the anti-Chris- tian feeling remained practically unchanged. The dreadful edicts still stared down upon the people at every street-corner ; the pitiless inquisition was in- creasingly active and thousands of Christians banished far from home were suffering and dying in loathsome prisons. Nor was this confined to the mem- bers of the recently discovered Roman Catholic community. A Buddhist priest who was baptized by Dr. Verbeck in 1868 was arrested and lodged in various prisons for five years, and we shall see later on how a very similar experience befell our mission in 187 1. The tension was not only between Japanese and the "outside barbarians," but internal difficulties were most acute. The Shogun's government was in a death-struggle with the southern clans, which, although mutually jealous, had combined to restore the Emperor to his throne. The times had all the characteristics of a revolution. Life was uncertain. The American Secretary of Legation was assassinated in 1861 ; the British Legation was assaulted and its members wounded ; and others, merchants and officers, were killed. So unsettled were the times, so great the danger, that in Tokyo two, and sometimes even four, guards were attached by the government to each foreigner. Not only as foreigners but as the representatives of a hated religion, missionaries were exposed to especial danger.* Moreover it was not yet clear whether or not the Revolution would be successful in giving the country a united and stable government. Under such circumstances of danger and uncertainty the hesitation of the Board to transfer to Japan reapers from other waiting harvest fields was clearly a part of that wise conservatism which is its recognized characteristic. But by 1869 the case was different The war to overthrow the Shogunate had been carried to a successful issue, and peace and a measured degree of tranquility restored. The missionaries on the ground, while not blinking the * Concerning the character of the Protestant missionaries, the Japanese seem to hare been at the first divided. " I like the Protestants better than the Roman Catholics " one was heard to say, " not that I have examined their doctrines, bat Protestant missionaries don't look as though they were going to swallow us up, country and all." Others held them equally dan- gerous, " branches of the same tree, foxes of the same hole." REV. N. G. CLARK, D D., LL.D., Foreign Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1865 to 1894, under whose fostering care and direction the mission of the Board in Japan was commenced and continued for twenty-five years. The Work of the American Board: The Start. ii difficulties and dangers which environed them, saw the future with prophetic eyes and sent to America an appeal for special sympathy and prayer. Young men in the seminaries had caught the inspiration and were asking to be sent to Japan. The time for hesitation had passed. The Board met in Pittsburg that year, as the New School Presbyterians had not yet withdrawn from it. Secretary Treat read a stirring paper ad- vocating the opening of the new mission from such considerations as these : the urgent need, the encouragement from the fact that Japan had entered the path of liberty and progress, the slight hold upon the people of the in- herited religions, the fact that we are Japan's nearest occidental neighbor and the United States had been the chief means of bringing Japan into interna- tional intercourse. I The Rev. Dr. S. C. Bartlett, chairman of the committee to which Mr. Treat's paper was referred, read a report strongly favoring the proposed action, the climax of his thought being that " a young brother who is heir to the Christian sympathies of two generations and personally and favorably known to the committee was present and ready to go." Had he been able to foresee the fact that the work about to be inaugurated would claim his own youngest son, and so make it impossible that he should be with his father in his last earthly hours, who can believe that his voice could have given a less certain sound ? The vote was unanimous and enthusiastic, the whole congregation rising. Dr. A. T. Pierson, who has since given a daughter to Japan, offered prayer, and all joined in the hymn " The Harvest Dawn is Near." The " young brother " referred to above was Rev. D. C. Greene. Though under appointment to China, Mr. and Mrs. Greene at once proceeded to Japan. After a few months' sojourn in Tokyo, they left that field to other missions and went to the newly opened port of Kobe, three hundred miles to the west- ward. With the exception of Bishop Williams in Osaka, they were the only Protestant missionaries between Yokohama and Nagasaki. The importance of Kobe as a center for missionary effort has been amply shown by the subse- quent history of the city and of our Mission. At that time it was little more than a fishing village ; now it is a city of 200,000 inhabitants, with a foreign trade of many millions, a close second to Yokohama. The great cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya, and such smaller cities as Otsu, Himeji, and Okayama are within easy reach. These now form the center of the country's manufacturing and commercial activities, and the provinces which surround them are the richest and most enlightened in the land. In this district, too, have always been our largest stations, our principal educational institutions ; and here today are-the strongest and most aggressive of the Kumiai churches, or indeed of all the churches of Japan. Other places of great importance, both to the east and the west, have since been occupied by the mission, but these three cities of Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto still are, and doubtless will continue to be, the center of our work. During 1871-2 the Mission was reinforced by the successive arrivals of Messrs. Gulick, Davis, Berry, and Gordon and their wives. Mr. and Mrs. Gulick, after their failure to secure permanent residence in Kyoto, and Mr, The Work of the American Board: The Start. 13 might be, the Master would strengthen his servant and make him a faithful witness. Ichikawa was a literary man of quiet demeanor, of much dignity and good sense, and in all the relations of life beyond reproach. He went to the mis- sionaries' houses daily, taught the language, had in his possession two manu- script copies of Dr. Hepburn's translation of the Gospel of Mark, and had also obtained a copy of a written prayer : this was his sole offence. It was clear, then, that the object of the Government's hatred was not the Roman Catholics, but every form of that religion which would introduce into Japan a " second Son of God." The immediate effect of the arrest was, of course, to make the people increasingly afraid of being found at the houses of the missionaries. The attendance at morning prayers fell off, and it became almost impossible to secure teachers of the Japanese language. To complete here the story of Ichikawa, it may be said that his wife returned nearly a year and a half later, to say that her husband on his preliminary examination declared himself a Christian ; that he had died in the faith and comfort of the Gospel in the Kyoto prison ; and that she who had had no faith whatever at the time of her arrest, had out of these experiences become a believer and desired baptism. She was one of the original members of the first church organized by the Mission. That her husband, who passed away without recognition as a be- liever, even by his teachers, and who drank the cup of an ignominious death without a single Christian brother to speak a word of sympathy or cheer, did not die in vain, is clear from the following statement which Dr. D. C. Greene received directly from Hon. C. E. DeLong, who was at the time United States Minister to Japan : — " Towards the close of the year 187 1, Prince Iwakuraand other high com- missioners left Japan for America and Europe in the hope of hastening the revision of the treaties. Their conference with the Secretary of State at Washington, the Hon. Hamilton Fish, was held, apparently, in December, and Mr. DeLong was present. Prince Iwakura early in the conference urged the « immediate cancellation of the extra-territorial clauses of the existing treaty. Secretary Fish replied that the United States government could not consent to place its citizens under Japanese jurisdiction so long as the laws against Christianity remained unrepealed. Prince Iwakura then denied that there was any religious persecution in Japan. At this point Mr. DeLong cited the > case of Ichikawa, which had come under his official cognizance, as evidence of an intolerant attitude toward Christianity. No attempt was made by the Embassy to break the force of this evidence, but on the 24th of February, ' •• 1873, tl^6 famous edict was issued which led to the withdrawal of the procla- mation against Christianity which for more than two hundred and fifty years had been' posted in every town and hamlet throughout Japan. In Mr. j:fc DeLong's opinion there was no room to ^oubt the connection between the conference at Washington and the toleration which this edict introduced.'' In the spring of 1872 in Kyoto, the ancient and, in a sense, sacred capi- tal, a grand exhibition was held, and in connection therewith foreigners were al- 14 American Board in Japan. lowed to visit it and the adjoining Lake Biwa district. Our friends who availed themselves of this privilege, were strongly impressed by the size and beauty of the city, and greatly widened their acquaintance with the people. They were received most cordially by the local officials, who expressed strong desire that Dr. Berry should locate there as a medical teacher and practitioner, and Mr. Gulick as a teacher of English. All were more or less encouraged. One wrote of it as an " ovation," and added : " We are expecting, any morning, to wake up and find all Japan open to us, all Japan wanting to come to us." " We ought to have a strong force, of at least three missionaries, and a phy- sician, or two physicians, to put in there at once." They had interviews with the blind Yamamoto, the counselor of the gov- ernor, and high officials, who told them that they would not be allowed to preach publicly, but that they could speak of Christ to those who visited them in their own houses. Finally the exhibition closed, and the question of remaining in the city was forced to a decision. Mr. Gulick graphically describes the result : — " I was early informed that I could stay only upon entering into some contract with the government, or into some contract which the government might approve. I had no desire to enter into government employ, but was willing to do so, or to teach English gratuitously, if the privilege of remaining in the city might thus be secured. Accordingly a contract for teaching Eng- lish gratuitously, to a certain company, was presented to me for signature. This would have received the approval of the city council but for the fact that I struck out the clause prohibiting the mention of Christianity, before signing it. The contract thus amended was rejected by the authorities, and I was directed to leave the city at once." Notwithstanding this failure, there was no discouragement or wavering on the part of the Mission. At their annual meeting in July the rapid changes,, the waning of the power of the old religions, the incoming of Christian civiliza- tion and modern science, the organization at Yokohama of the first church, the liberation of the Roman Catholic prisoners, the rapid increase of the means of communication between different parts of the country by means of newly es- tablished telegraphic and postal systems, and the spread of the art of printing were rapidly reviewed as a basis for encouragement and hope, and an urgent appeal for more men was sent to the Board. This action of the Mission was followed by strong personal letters in the same strain. One wrote, referring to the apparently contradictory acts of gov- ernment and people ; " When great reforms are imminent, or are taking place, among a great people it is always so, — first dark, then light, and always darkest just l)efore day ; and when these fitful changes follow in swift succes- sion it is an encouraging sign, provided only that the cause be gradually gain- ing ground. Such is the case here. The cause of religious freedom is moving on; the day begins to break. The only question is, how long the twilight may be. Were every missionary driven from these shores, I should not feel discouraged, but should feel that this was God's way to hasten the opening of the land, and I would pitch my tent on Chinese soil and go forward with my preparation in this language, and send a bugle call for more men." The Work of the American Board: The Start. 15 In September of this year the first conference of Protestant missionaries was held in Yokohama, an event of great importance to all concerned. We cannot do better than quote (with some abbreviations) a semi-official account •written at the time. It will be seen that everything was done in a most irenic and catholic spirit : — " The missionaries present were Messrs. Thompson, Carrothers, Loomis, Miller, and Hepburn of the (American) Presbyterian Board ; Messrs. Brown, Ballagh, Wolff, and Scott, of the (American) Reformed (Dutch) Board ; Messrs. Greene, Gulick, Davis, and Berry, of the A. B. C. F. M. ; Rev. E. W. Syle, acting consular chaplain at Yokohama. Upon invitation, the Rev. Robert Nelson, of the American Protestant Episcopal Mission of Shanghai, sat with the convention ; also Capt. J. C. Watson, U. S. N.,* Dr. W. St. G. Elliott, and Mr. W. E. Griffis, elders of the Union Churches of Yokohama and Yeddo, and the elder of the native church were constituted members. Rev. M. L. Gordon, M.D., arriving from the United States to join the American Board's Mission, was also present at the last two meetings." By the combined action of the convention and the various missions, the following-named gentlemen were chosen a committee to translate the Scrip- tures : Rev. S. R. Brown, d.d., J. C. Hepburn, m.d., ll.d., and Rev. D. C. Greene. This committee was in 1874 enlarged by the addition of R. S. Maclay, d.d., M. E. Mission, and Nathan Brown, d.d., American Baptist Mis- sion. After eighteen months Dr. Brown resigned from the committee and con- tinued the work of translation alone. The other four gentlemen carried the translation of the New Testament to completion in 1879. As a first translation it was excellent, and is still in use. The Old Testament, by a larger committee, was not completed till sev- eral years later. " Upon the subject of the organization of native churches, the following resolution was unanimously adopted : — " ' Whereas the Church of Christ is one in Him, and the diversities of denominations among Protestants are but accidents which, though not affect- ing the vital unity of believers, do obscure the oneness of the Church in Chris- tendom, and much more in Pagan lands, where the history of the divisions cannot be understood ; and whereas we, as Protestant missionaries, desire to secure uniformity in our modes and methods of evangelization, so as to avoid as far as possible the evil arising from marked differences, we therefore take this earliest opportunity offered by this convention to agree that we will use our influence to secure, as far as possible, identity of name and organization in the native churches, in the formation of which we may be called to assist, that name being as catholic as the Church of Christ ; and the organization being that wherein the government of each church shall be by the ministry and eldership of the same, with the concurrence of the brethren.'" Owing to a variety of circumstances, this programme was not fully carried * At present Rear-Admiral Watson is in command of our fleet in the Philippines. While in Yokohama he showed the warmest sympathy with missionary work. 1 6 American Board in Japan. out ; but the ideal set up is worthy of attention. The final resolution shows that the great prominence given to the native workers in Japan was no acci- dent or afterthought. " ' Whereas in the work of foreign missions the native element must constitute the chief means for its prosecution, — " ' Resolved, That we deem it of the utmost importance to educate a native ministry as soon as possible.' " CHAPTER III. SCHOOLS OPENED AND CHURCHES ORGANIZED. The difficulties of the situation and the courage and faith with which they were faced have been pretty clearly set forth in the preceding chapter. Two avenues of approach to the people were open and were promptly and persistently used: the teaching of the English language, and medical treat- ment and instruction. In the autumn of 1872 a boys' boarding and day school was opened in Kobe by Messrs. Davis and Greene. It was held in the afternoons, and a good part of the instruction was the teaching of the Bible. It was not a mission enterprise, in the sense that it drew upon the treasury of the Board, it was self-supporting, and the general care of the school was in the hands of a self-constituted board of of&cers from among the pupils. There were about forty pupils from the start. On Sundays, of course, there was no school, but a Bible-class of about twelve was taught at the schoolhouse. The class was very attentive and appreciative. Mr. Greene wrote of it : " For nearly two years, with very little intermission, we have read the Bible daily with a small class, but I never before had an audience like the one this school brings together, and we trust great good may result from the enterprise." And a little later : " In my schoolroom today I had the privilege of preaching, in my broken way, to about twenty young men. It was rather a Bible-class than a preaching exercise, and in something over an hour we read the first thirteen verses of John's gospel. I would not ask for a more interested audience. Most of the scholars came for the sake of the English, but not all. Three at least are thinking very seriously." One of Dr. Greene's earlier students became the Rev. Paul Sawayama, of whom we shall hear later; another, the Rev. T. Matsuyama, one of the principal translators of the Bible. In Osaka there was a similar movement. The pupils of a government school had been cut down from 400 to 40, and they turned to us. They came in crowds, some with English Bibles in their hands, saying, " Please, Master, teach me English Bible." They emphasized " Bible " in their request, but in their hearts " English " was the far more important word. A little earlier than this a member of the station wrote : — " We have a schoolroom fitted up on my premises. It is already filled, about forty scholars being in attendance. (Later it became one hundred and more.) We teach, each of us, an hour a day, and our principal exercise is reading the New Testament. Mr. Gulick has those who need help in trans- lating and I have a few cultured young men who read our English Bible intelligentlv. One truly noble young man, such an one as Jesus would have loved, spends 'almost every forenoon in my study, quietly reading the Bible. 1 8 American Board in Japan. I believe him to be an honest truth-seeker. Mr. Gulick has had a supply of Bibles on hand, and since October we have sold about forty of them. One man who is memorizing several verses of the Bible daily, and who is a small officer in the custom-house, bought the best English Bible we had." How strange it seems now, after more than a quarter of a century, to review the subsequent lives of the two men mentioned in the above extract ! The former read, inquired, understood, but was never quite ready to obey ab- solutely. He feared his mother, then his guardian ; he wanted to read the whole Bible before deciding, and so on. His mother became a Christian and died a Christian's death ; he married a wife and she, too, became a Christian. His children became Christians, his oldest son, also, dying with the Chris- tian's hope. But with him the halting habit became confirmed, and he is waiting still. The custom-house officer never mastered the English language, but he and his wife and children and his mother, who was a devout Buddhist, all became followers of Christ. He became the publisher of our first Christian newspaper, for a score of years the principal publisher of our Christian litera- ture and the trusted agent for Bible distribution all through central Japan. After a life of great usefulness he passed away about a year ago, trusted, loved, and lamented by Christians of all denominations. I have dwelt on these schools unduly, perhaps, but I have done so be- cause they are typical of work carried on in the opening of each new station. Such schools have been direct precursors of churches. The schools gave us not only our opportunity to teach Christian truth in school hours to our stu- dents, they gave us also our Sunday congregations, composed mainly of the students and their friends ; the Sunday congregations grew into churches ; the pupils and helpers became our Christians and not a few of them Christian preachers. The first church of the mission was formed in Kobe in April, 1874. It consisted of seven men and four women. The second was the Osaka church, of seven men, formed a month later. In Osaka the church was organized in the schoolhouse, and all the Christian influences centered in the school and the two missionary homes. In Kobe other influences were at work, as we shall see ; but in the two churches the movement and the results were practically the same. There was on the part of all a strong desire to preach ; " more than half " of those in Osaka ; " eight out of nine " was the report from Kobe, a few months after organization. Nor was this true of the men only. " Of the four women who have united with the church, one is teaching a class in Sun- day school, adapting her words to her pupils as no foreigner could do ; an- other has brought her husband into the church ; a third has gone with Miss Dudley to Sanda." A spirit of pecuniary independence was another marked characteristic, especially of the members of the Kobe church. With not a little vagueness as to what was implied, " self-support, self-govetnment, and self-propagation " may be said to have been the watchword from the very start. Some of the members of these little companies have long sinf e crossed the Schools Opened a?id Churches Organized. 19 river, but it is delightful to think that others, both men and women, are still faithful to their vows and active in Christian work. Two are ordained minis- ters, one is a Bible-woman in Japan, another a kindergartner in Hawaii ; the two venerable Osaka physicians face the future with the Christian's hope. A Kobe physician and his wife (possibly of a little later time) have had the privilege of seeing all their children grow into cultured Christians, the three daughters becoming the wives of three ordained pastors ; and the present writer has had the extreme pleasure of baptizing some of the " children of the third generation." So the beneficent stream widens and grows in volume. Today the Kobe church, with its 535 members, under the leadership of Rev. T. Harada, and the Osaka church of 471 members, which recently sent its eloquent pastor. Rev. T. Miyagawa, to the International Congregational Council in Boston, stands in the very front rank of the aggressive churches of Japan. Having failed to secure permission to reside in Kyoto, Dr. Berry returned to Kobe and immediately began practice there. He found an intense desire on the part of Japanese physicians to learn the European system of med- icine. This desire led them to hire a building for a dispensary and hospital, pay the cost of medicines and the wages of servants, etc., thus enabling Dr. Berry to carry on his work for the sick poor very economically. A slightly different arrangement was made later. " Since July, 1873, o^^ dispensary work is entirely at the expense of the local government and very satisfactory. Daily religious exercises are conducted at the hospital building by four native Chris- tians. Great interest is shown in the Scriptures by medical students and patients. Religious literature is kept at the hospital." Nor was this in Kobe alone. Excursions were made into outlying towns, ten, twenty, forty miles away, where similar action was taken. In these places, Sanda, Akashi, Himeji, and Hiogo, evangelistic work developing into churches followed. Dr. Taylor, who went out in 1873, entered into similar labors, and he alone of all our physicians is still on the ground and actively engaged in his profession. Soon after his arrival he accompanied Dr. Berry on a medical tour through the district west of Kobe. He then wrote : " The result of Dr. Berry's first tour was a plan to build three hospitals, one at Akashi, one at Kakogawa, and one at Himeji. Two thousand five hundred dollars were soon subscribed for this purpose." A few weeks later he reports another tour over the same ground, when these charity hospitals — two of them old Buddhist temples were dedicated. At Himeji 100 physicians and 300 patients were present. One of the most interesting events of this period was the origin of the Sanda church. In the summer of 1872 Dr. Davis and his family spent a few weeks in Arima, a health resort in the mountains twenty miles north of Kobe. The former daimyo of the neighboring district of Sanda was there with his family, and some small courtesies brought the two famiUes into acquaintance- ship and friendship. Not only were the daimyo's family and retainers anxious to get foreign ideas and learn foreign manners and customs, their hearts had been made very tender by the death of a little child. Mrs. Davis and Miss Dud- 20 American Board in Japan. ley helped beautify the casket in which the little form was laid, and by words of Christian hope and consolation they were able to come very close to the be- reaved parents. This led to their going to Sanda on a visit of several weeks, to the opening of medical work there by Dr. Berry, and to protracted evangel- istic work by Dr. Davis, Miss Dudley, and Mr. and Mrs. Gulick. Miss Dud- ley spent months there. " Her labors among the women and families have been far more influential in the way of reaching the people in their homes than have those of any one else. She has had a school of forty children, none of whom can ever cease to feel the effect of the Christian influences ex- erted over them.'' A church of sixteen members — nine women and seven men — was formed. "Twelve of the sixteen are of the former military and literary class, known as samurai, from which most of the converts to Chris- tianity have been made." " Such prayer-meetings as one Miss Dudley held, at which fifteen women prayed in succession, at one kneeling, are unusual." " The company of believers decided for themselves that saki drinking would not do." CHAPTER IV. THE KYOTO STATION AND THE DOSHISHA. We have seen what a prominent part education played in the inaugura- tion of our work, and have also referred to the importance attached to a trained native ministry. But not for ministers alone, — for young men and women in every walk of life higher education was planned. The Mission therefore warmly welcomed Mr. Neesima (for an outline of whose life, see appendix to this chapter) and his scheme for a Christian college, and when efforts to locate this elsewhere had failed, they united with him in attempting the delicate and difficult task of establishing it in Kyoto. Reference has been made to the interviews Messrs. Berry and GuHck had with the bhnd Yaraamoto in 1872. His friendship and interest in Christian things had been fostered by the visits of others. Mr. Neesima wrote of one of these visits, soon after it occurred, as follows : — " Dr. was at the same time in Kyoto for his health, and made himself acquainted with Yamamoto, the adviser of the governor. I suppose he did not say much to him about Christianity, but gave him simply a copy of Tendo Sogen (' Evidences of Christianity,' by Rev. Dr. Martin of Peking). It is a most interesting and convincing work. It has done more in Japan in con- verting men than the Bible itself. For they find the Bible difficult to under- ■ stand. Tendo Sogen is just the thing to meet and challenge our educated and skeptical minds to pay attention to gospel truth and seek for light and life. " Dr. hit the right point by giving this convincing work to one of our best educated thinkers. I must tell you more of this interesting man. He is kept by the Kyoto government as a guest and adviser. He is unable to walk, and is blind also, but his mind is clear and sharp. Speaking to me of Tendo Sogen, he said : ' It has done me great good ; it has cleared away my doubts in regard- to Christianity and has also solved a. hard problem that I have kept in mind for many years. At first I sought to serve my country as a soldier, and then by studying and teaching jurisprudence to secure justice for our people, but I soon found a limit to these. The law could condemn or justify outward conduct ; it could not prevent their thinking evil in their hearts. Now I rejoice that I have found the means to solve my hard prob- lem. Christianity alone can reach and renovate the very spring of the human heart. The day has dawned upon me so that I can see the path that was utterly unknown to me, and for which I have been unconsciously seeking.' " And for days and weeks, as the writer can testify, the burden of his conversa- tion was, " The hearts of the people must be changed ; the religion of Christ can do it." Dr. Davis writes of the same event and its results more in detail : — " Last spring, when Dr. came to the city, he gave to blind Yama- moto a work in Chinese, a little book on the ' Evidences of Christianity,' pre- 22 American Board in Japan. pared by Dr. Martin. The blind man had it read to him, beginning in the evening. He was more and more interested, and sent for the governor of the city to come and hear too. He came, and they read and talked of the wonder- ful book till into the small hours. About this time, Mr, Neesima came to the city and had frequent interviews with the blind man and the governor. Yama- moto had Dr. Martin's book, and the Gospels in Japanese, and also the Chi- nese New Testament, read to him over and over again. He has bought forty- five copies of the little book which first interested him, and given them away to his friends in Kyoto and the surrounding country, often preaching half an hour to his friends before presenting them with the book." Thus prepared in heart, Yamamoto warmly urged Mr. Neesima to locate the proposed school in that city. Kyoto had been for a thousand years the capital and residence of the Mikados. It was the center of the Buddhist re- ligion, which had there 3,500 temples and 8,000 priests. Shintoism, so closely related to the Throne, also had there its 2,500 shrines and priests. The murderous attack on the British Embassjr and the assassination of Yokoi in its streets, only a few years before, because of suspected friendliness to Christianity, were indications of its extreme conservatism. Now to establish a Christian college in such a city, where every foreign teacher must have a residence passport from the central government, was a hazardous undertaking. Even the sanguine Neesima had " thought of Kyoto as the last place to be opened to Christianity," and so late as July, 1875, could not say more than that " his skeptical cloud was almost clearing up." So strong, however, was the Mission's belief that it was being divinely led to establish the school in Kyoto, that it encouraged Messrs. Neesima and Yamamoto to form the Doshi- sha, " Same-Purpose Company," and approved of their purchase for the school, of land just north of the Imperial Palace, — five and one-half acres, at the marvellously low price of {550. And so Kyoto became our third station, and in November, 1875, the first Doshisha school was opened, with two teachers (Mr. Neesima and Dr. Davis) and eight pupils. It was with great difficulty and after many sleepless nights on the part of Neesima, that permission to open the school was secured. If it had not been for his acquaintance with so many leading statesmen, — Iwakura, Okubo, Kido, Ito, and Tanaka, — brought about by association with them as members of the second embassy to the United States and Europe in 1872-3, it would have been impossible to secure this favor, and even with this he was asked to prom- ise to be very careful to do nothing to arouse opposition. But hardly had Neesima and his colleagues entered the city when the Buddhist priests began a series of meetings which resulted in a strong petition to the central gov- ernment, asking that the intruders be expelled. Moved by this petition, the minister of education wrote the governor asking that for the present the Bible be not taught in the school. The governor told him (Neesima) that we could teach Christianity in the school under the name of moral science, and teach everything there except exegesis of the Bible, and that we could teach that and preach in our own homes. This request was made for fear of trouble in the city, as there was great excitement about our coming to open a Christian school. The Kyoto Station and the Doshisha. 23 Mr. Neesima gave the written promise required — without consultation with his colleague. We see how the later troubles of the school were foreshad- owed in its very beginning. The mistake, if there was a mistake, would seem to have been made just at this point. Of the opening of the school Dr. Davis wrote as follows : " We began our school this morning in Mr. Neesima's house, at eight o'clock, with a prayer- meeting, in which all the scholars took part ; then, going to the school-house, two others were received, making seven boarding scholars and one day scholar. I shall never forget Mr. Neesima's tender, tearful, earnest prayer in his house that morning, as we began the school." And so the work of the station began and continued. There was the daily work in the school-room, with the little band of young men, and on Sun- days the preaching services, often largely attended, in the houses of Neesima, Davis, (and later) Learned, Taylor, Doane, and such Japanese friends in the city and vicinity as would listen to the new teaching. One of these last, a physician, was summoned before the prefectural authorities : — " This Davis came up here to teach an English school, did he not ? " " Yes." Then he is Uke a man who has a license to sell deer meat, but who sells dog meat." " Well, is it dog meat ? I used to think so, but on tasting of it I find it is a great deal better than deer meat ; and I would like to ask you one question : this Way is allowed to be taught publicly in Kobe, in Osaka, and in twenty or thirty places in Tokyo ; how is it that here in Kyoto a man is not allowed to hear it in his own house ? Are we not all under the same government ? I do not understand it." " Well, I do not say that the Way is either good or bad, or that you and your friends may not hear it in your own house, but we cannot allow you to let in the common people who cannot understand it. We have good and sufficient religions here, Confucian- ism for scholars like you, and Buddhism for the masses ; we do not want any more." " I would like to ask you one thing : If Confucianism is an all-sufficient religion, why is it, since Confucius lived hundreds of years before Christ and taught during a long life, that this way has not spread beyond China and Japan ? So, if Buddhism is an all-sufficient religion started by Buddha, cen- turies before Christ, and taught through a long life, how is it that it has not extended beyond India, China, and Japan ? And if Christianity is a bad Way, how is it, since its Founder taught only three years, and was put to death when he was thirty-three years of age, that it has spread all over Europe and America, and is spreading all over Africa and Asia, and the islands of the sea ? " " Well, we do not say that it is either good or bad, but you must not allow people to meet at your house ; you are discharged." In September, 1876, about thirty young men entered the school in a body, They were from a school in Kumamoto, where they had been taught English and kindred studies by Captain Janes, a retired army officer who had gone to Japan at the invitation of the daimyo of Higo through one of the missionary societies. This is not the place to tell the oft-repeated story of the Kuma- moto Band, but brief reference to the spirit with which Captain Janes labored and the results of those labors should be made : " My work in the school," he 2 4 American Board in Japan. wrote, " has been accompanied, from the time it was possible to speak of Chris- tianity, by constant and direct religious instruction of my pupils ; in fact, the whole work has been inspired from the first with the one aim, on my part, of making it, under God, subserve the founding and upbuilding of the Kingdom of Christ, and so of the highest welfare of my pupils and their friends." " Christ, the soul's want ; God, the soul's author ; immortality, the soul's destiny," he declared essential elements in teaching that would produce a true civilization. With such a gospel from such an impressive personality, thirty young men, braving perils from their countrymen and from the mem- bers of their own families, covenanted together to spread the religion of Christ through the Empire. On the expiration of their teacher's term of service, these young men came to Kyoto, and their presence greatly changed the char- acter of the school. Its curriculum became broader, its methods more thor- ough, and the religious and evangelistic spirit more dominant and aggressive. The first six years were years of great trial and difficulty. The opposi- tion of the Kyoto Fu, and especially of the Buddhist priests, was very great. During the ninth year of the school, Mr. Neesima began to lay plans to broaden the Doshisha school into a university. A public meeting was held in the spring of 1884, in a public hall in Kyoto, and in May a printed appeal for the uni- versity was issued. On the loth of November, 1888, another appeal for the university was published simultaneously in twenty of the leading papers in Japan. Over thirty thousand yen were contributed by prominent Japanese during this year for the proposed university. A brief constitution was adopted at an early day, which placed the prop- erty in the hands of the trustees and pledged them to its use for the maintenance of Christian schools. It also provided that " Money sent to the school by for- eign friends shall be expended under the direction of the foreign teachers, or other representatives of the donors, after consultation with the president and the teachers of each school respectively. In 1888, a new constitution was adopted, and after its approval by the Mission and the American Board, the financial management was placed in the hands of the Japanese Board of Trustees. This constitution, by its unchangeable articles, made Christianity the foundation of the moral education of the school in all its departments, and made the trustees promise to observe the principles of the constitution when they entered upon their duties. The school reached the zenith of its prosperity, so far as numbers went, in 1889 and 1890. Nearly seven hundred young men were gathered in its halls. About two hundred young women were gathered in the Girls' School and the Training School for Nurses. Permanent brick and stone buildings were erected, ^nd in 1889 Hon. J. N. Harris of New London, Conn., pledged ^100,000 for the Department of Science, which was opened in September of the next year. The following year, Mrs. Byron W. Clarke gave $r 1,500 for a theolog- ical hall, in memory of her son, and some smaller gifts were also received. HON. JONATHAN N. HARRIS, NEW LONDON, CONN., BENEFACTOR OF THE HARRIS SCHOOL OF SCIENCE. KYOTO. The Kyoto Station and the Doshisha. 25 A most important part of the school's history was the seasons of rich spiritual blessings which it from time to time enjoyed. One of these in 1884 is thus described by Dr. Learned : — " The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. We are in the midst of such a revival in this school as has never been seen here be- fore. It began only about ten days ago. Before that, several young men had been feeling unusual joy in Christ, and for a week or two had been praying together late in the evening. Suddenly the revival spirit spread through the school, and for the last week scarcely anything else has been talked or thought of. Few, if any, in the whole school are unmoved by it. Among the note- worthy features of the movement are : (i) The deep sorrow over sin; (2) the exceeding great joy of those who have found forgiveness ; (3) the fact that, so far as human means are concerned, it arose entirely from among the students themselves, no preacher or teacher having had anything to do with it ; (4) the eager desire to tell others of the good news. This went so far that many wanted to go out and preach at once. They were calmed somewhat, and they chose three representatives to go out and tell the churches of the good news. Some extravagances have attended the work, but I cannot doubt that in the main it is truly the work of the Spirit. " Among those converted is the only one in the graduating class who was not already a Christian, one of the best scholars in the school. One can hardly tell which is the more striking, the conversion of young men who for- merly had shown no interest in the truth, or the greatly quickened joy and zeal of those who already were believers. It is a common saying among the young men that this is like the day of Pentecost. Another pleasant feature is the interest taken in the Bible. At the church yesterday, when Mr. Neesima preached, almost every one had his Bible. I think we may confidently hope for great, immeasurable results from this awakening. God grant that it may be so ! " In 1889, the Doshisha, and indeed all the churches of Japan, were blessed by a visit from Mr. and Mrs. L. D. Wishard of the Young Men's Christian Association. Dr. Davis thus briefly sums up the early results at the Doshisha : — " We have had a most precious work here in our school in connection with the work of Messrs. Wishard and Swift, who came here January 25 and stayed three weeks. The Wishards stopped with us, and our house was filled with students, afternoons and evenings, sometimes in three rooms at a time, in- quiring the way of life or seeking for more earnest consecration. It has been a very precious work. It is too early to speak with certainty of the results, but we hope that more than one hundred of the young men have found Christ, and many more are still inquiring. Many in the Girls' School are also interested." A later and most important result was the very successful summer school which met in the Doshisha in the summer of the same year. Nearly all the prominent Christian leaders took part in the instruction, and fully seven hun- dred students (representing twenty-six schools and seven denominations), pas- tors, and evangelists were in attendance. 26 American Board in Japan, The Doshisha was then at the summit of its intellectual and spiritual in- fluence. There were 210 students in the preparatory department, 410 in the college, and 80 in the theological schools. On Sunday we were accustomed to see 700 young men and 160 young women in attendance voluntarily on the chapel services. Mr. Stanford's description of one memorable scene must not be omitted : — " On Sunday, June 16, at 8 o'clock a. m., the college chapel was crowded with students. The teachers and a few others were also present. In front, near the desk, sat those who were to be received into the church on this last com- munion season of the year. They reached from side to side of the chapel in three rows, and numbered sixty. Of this number twelve were members of our Girls' School, twenty-two from our preparatory department, and twenty-six were from our academic department — mostly from the first and second year classes. Pastor Kanamori baptized them and gave them the right hand of fellowship, after they had assented to the confession of the church. After this the Lord's Supper was celebrated, Dr. Gordon conducting the service. Dr. Learned pronounced the benediction. " It was an inspiring and glorious sight. Last year, at the close of the spring term, we had twenty-six students kneeling in a long row across the chapel, and we felt that we were having a glorious climax for the work of the year ; but this time we had threescore to offset the discouraging spiritual tone which we felt had prevailed among some of the higher classes during the winter. The record now stands thus: First year, 123 members, 73 Chris- tians ; second year, 87 members, 72 Christians ; third year, 25 members, 23 Christians; fourth year, 24 members, 21 Christians; fifth year, 16 members, all Christians. The number of student converts during the school year has been 141. We send out sixteen Christian graduates, of whom we expect three or four to return as regular students in the English theological department. We grad- uate one from the English theological department, Mr. Hara, who goes to the province of Echigo as a general missionary, thus helping on the Niigata work. We also graduate nine or ten from the Bekkwa, or special (vernacular) theo- logical department. All these have chosen their fields of labor ; they all go into direct pastoral or evangelistic work. " At the Nurses' School, yesterday, amid the martial strains of the Osaka band of forty pieces, were graduated four Christian nurses. Today six Chris- tian young ladies received diplomas from our Girls' School. I consider that these facts represent solid achievements for the most part, and indicate that we are meeting with success in Christianizing the hundreds of young men and women who enter our Kyoto schools." The School for Nurses mentioned in the preceding extract was started by Dr. Berry in connection with the Doshisha Hospital. It was most warmly welcomed by prominent physicians and leading officials, including the gov- ernor, who read a congratulatory letter at the opening ceremony. The leading physician of the city — • a man not a Christian — said, in his address, that, in former times, in cases of sickness, the husband cared for the wife, the wife for the sick husband, the parents for the children, and the children for the o Q o The Kyoto Station and the Doshisha. 2^ parents — all in accordance with family love. But beyond the family, as there was no love, they had no nurses or nurses' schools. Now the religipn of Christ comes and puts love in the hearts of all men and between all men, and so nurses' schools are a result. That is pretty good testimony, consid- ering its source. During the first year Miss Linda Richards was the very efficient head- nurse. Miss Helen Fraser was her most worthy successor. The school also owed much to Misses Talcott and Denton. Dr. Berry's early withdrawal from these institutions so auspiciously begun, and to which he had devoted so much care and strength, was a great blow to them and to the cause of phil- anthropy in general. But in addition to the fact that they are still being carried on by a Christian physician, Dr. R. Saiki, that they gave a strong and widely-felt impetus to scientific nursing is beyond question. President Neesima died January 23, 1890, an irreparable loss to the school. During the first seventeen years there had been graduated from the English Theological Course forty-five men, and from the Vernacular Theo- logical Course, sixty-five men, one hundred and ten in all. Two hundred and sixteen men had been graduated from the Collegiate Course, and there were less than fifteen who had not made a profession of Christianity. Nearly two thousand other young men had left the school before graduation," and about twenty men had taken a shorter course in theology, and were en- gaged in .preaching. In every station of the Mission, from Sapporo in the north to Miyazaki in the south, the efficient pastors and evangelists are for- mer students of the Doshisha ; and in Korea and the Hawaiian Islands the same class of men are doing valuable service. Fully ninety-five per cent of the ministry of the Kumi-ai churches came from the same source, so that, even after all disappointments are enumerated, the former teachers of the institution can still say of these men, " Ye are our glory and our joy." Of the troubles which came to the school in later years there is now, hap-,, pily, no need to write. The faith, the prayers, the determined fight in the name of God, made by the Prudential Committee, their representatives in Japan, and the loyal sons of the school, were crowned with success. In its darkest hour the faith of Mr. Harris, its greatest benefactor, spoke with prophetic vision : " This is not the end of Christian education at the Doshisha. God will never permit the sun of Neesima to go down in darkness so soon. He is yet to reckon with the unfaithful ones who succeeded that great servant of his. That vine- . yard will be let out to others. I do believe that rich harvests are yet to be reaped from that field. I shall see it, but not now ; I shall behold it, but from , above." This prophecy has had literal fulfillment ; and while it is yet too early to state what obstacles may be placed in the way of Christian education by the narrovz-minded clique that is at present dominating the educational world of Japan, we may be sure that the new president, dean, and trustees will never suffer Christianity to be thrust out of the Doshisha. The population of Kyoto is now about 330,000 ; that of the two pre- fectures which compose its field, nearly 1,600,000. For more than a thou- sand years an imperial city, it is the center of the greatest and best in Japanese 28 American Board in Japan. history and civilization. Here, if anywhere, dwells the spirit of the past. After the removal of the capital to Tokyo in 1868, it fell into decadence, but within the past few years it, too, has caught something of the modern spirit. New Factories have sprung up all through and around the city, and the recent loca- tion here of a new university makes it certain that Kyoto is to be an educa- tional center in the years to come. It is also the Rome of Buddhism. The thousands of temples and shrines, the annual influx of myriads of pilgrims, alhd the gorgeous pageants of showily-robed priests make it clear that the power of Buddhism is not yet spent. There are five churches in the city and twelve in the outlying district. iSTine of these churches are aided by the station. In addition to the churches, there is a much larger number of preaching places where services are held with greater or less regularity. I give a few extracts from letters of different mis- sionaries, to show the openings, the methods of work, and to some extent the successes : — " I went first to the village of Funaida, where the teachers of a large school have beerl interested. I took with me Mr. Chiba, formerly a Buddhist priest, but now a Christian and a theological student. We called on the way at Kameoka, for Mr. Murakami, a colporter of the American Bible Society, ■Who has sold many Bibles during the past six months. " Arriving at the village of Goma, we found the leading man, a physician ; inost of the others being poor farmers and farm-laborers. This physician, though of only very moderate means, has given a small building for a meeting- place, which has been fitted up so as to answer that purpose very well. At- tending one of our public meetings last year, he there heard something of Christianity. In August last he went to Kameoka and had a long talk with me colporter already referred to, and invited him to visit Goma. This he did, and he has gone once every month since, selling Bibles and explaining the way of salvation." - 4. i A CONVERTED GAMBLER. " One of the physician's neighbors is a man greatly addicted to gambling. Hearing of this ' new way,' he was led to think on his sins, and, with another man, he went to the physician's home to read and hear of Christ every night for twenty days. As a result he gave up his gambling, and declared himself a repentant sinner and a humble believer in Christ. The change in this man had no little influence on the community ; and an increased number began seeking this new religion which possesses such unheard-of power. More than fifteen profess to have repented {th&y emphasize this), and to be trusting in Christ. After each address the whole congregation bowed almost to the floor and said in unison : ' Many thanks for your trouble in coming to speak to us.'" " About ten years ago a young student in our Doshisha School (now a A^ell-known pastor) became a Christian, and in his vacation he told his friends in Tamba what he had found in Christianity. Of all who heard him only one man showed then more than a passing interest. This. man, however, proved to be not only the good ground into which the first seed fell, he be- The Kyoto Station and tlie Doshisha. 29 came also a fruit-bearing seed. At his invitation students and teachers from our school have gone there from time to time, and spoken here and there in private houses and shibai-goya (theater-barns), and helped in various ways ; but he is the one man who has been there through it all, and doing more than any one else. This Mr. Murakami has really stood for Christianity there in all these years, so that, as one of the Christians has said, to avow to a stranger that you are a Christian is to call forth the inquiry, ' Are you Murakami ? ' " The work here, though gradual in its development, has not been without its specially interesting personal points. Thus the man I have spoken of was at filrst connected with a saki brewery, and as I write I recall two others who have given up the same business. I recall also a well-known drunkard who has for years led a sober life ; a notorious gambler who, to the joy of his family, has given up his gambling ; one young man is now a member of the Imperial Guard ; and more than one young man is now in our school pre- paring to preach Christ. The church numbers 156, of whom eighty-three are males. They are largely farmers and merchants ; but school-teachers, physicians, etc., are well represented. The principal of one grammar school, two teachers in another, and an earnest inquirer in a third indicate the class of people reached. The state's attorney for the district is an earnest inquirer; his wife and daughters are Christians. " The field of the church is thirty-five miles long. One lady of over seventy walked twenty-two miles to the communion service. They have twelve places where meetings are regularly held, including six small church buildings. The church has now for many years supported its pastor. An evangelist has been supported by the church and the station conjointly." One of the original members of our First Tamba Church was Kakudo Nobayashi, who had had leprosy, but was supposed to have recovered. At first he mingled freely with the Christians, but later there was a virulent out- break of the disease, and he grew totally blind and otherwise disfigured. The non-christian villagers burned his house down and finally drove him out of the village ; his wife, brothers, and other relatives deserted him, after three or four attempts to poison him to escape family disgrace. He lived alone in a rude hut in the mountains, receiving some aid from the govern- ment and more from the Japanese Christians and the missionaries. As he was some distance from the Christians, they at first did not know of his dire dis- tress, so that he cooked his own food, going to and from the spring that fur- nished him water, guided by a straw rope that had been put there for the purpose. Shortly before his death, which was eventually caused by poison, given him by some of his relatives, the evangelist, hearing of his pitiable plight, went to comfort him, but to his surprise, Nobayashi said that he did not need comfort ; that his heart was full of joy because " God is always behind me." Think of itl A pauper, an outcast, deserted by his family and other relatives, the victim of a disease surely fatal, and loathsome be- yond expression, with no one, aside from the occasional visit of a Christian, to speak a kind word or lend a helping hand, yet to the day of his death full of rejoicing because God was with him I Who would not preach such a Gospel of Comfort ? 20 American Board in Japan. Theater meeting in Fukui : "We had an excellent though not very large audience, composed chiefly of teachers and students from the schools, physicians, lawyers, and officials. I should have said there were nearly four hundred present ; but as the Japanese leave their sandals at the door, the men who took charge and checked them off said there were fully five hundred. The four sermons, covering a period of three hours, had the very best atten- tion. In the evening there was just about the same amount of preaching, but the theater was packed, sitting and standing room being all occupied. The local newspapers reported an audience of 1,700, but I should not have put it above 1,200 or 1,500. Crowded as it was, we had good attention to the end \ but I think the Christians were afraid to risk it a second night, and so an- nounced that the public meetings would close with the afternoon session of the next day. At that meeting we had about seven hundred present, and it was a great success in every way. Mr. Hori's preaching was very direct, strong, yet tender. During the day I had other callers, — an ex-judge who now has a small private law-school ; the head of a private English school, who proved a very interesting man ; a retired official who, more than any other of the callers, showed a heartfelt interest in Christianity ; etc. In the evening the Christians had a praise-meeting, and it was evident that they were greatly encouraged and their faith greatly strengthened ; and later reports show that the meetings were a real gain." " A church of forty-eight members, thirty-nine coming by letter and nine on profession of their faith, was organized in Fushimi, eight miles south of Kyoto, last Sabbath. These Christians are gathered from ten different places in the southern part of the province, a district ten miles long and .seven miles wide. They are the firstfruits of the work which has been done in this district by the students from our theological classes during the last few years, and espe- cially during the last two years. " We had an interesting experience in Hikbne. We had traveled thirteen hours from Fukui that day, and reached Hikone late and tired, but found the church packed full. The Buddhist priests and their students had taken possession, and had come to break up our meeting if possible. The pastor and Mr. Yebina spoke first, and they were almost drowned out by the cries and yells of the crowd. " When I went upon the platform I was greeted with cries of ' Ketojin 1 ' the term of reproach for foreigner. I waited till they had quieted 'a little, made a polite bow, and began by saying that I always enjoyed talking to young men, and that I hoped I could do them some good. Every young man wants to succeed in life, and I would tell them some of the elements of success : Take a great aim in harmony with heaven, with man, and with one's own con- science ; have a great zeal to accomplish that aim ; take great models to help us ; all nations have such models ; Japan has them, all religions have them \ Confucianism has Confucius ; Buddhism has Shaka ; Christianity has Christ. For instance, if a Confucianist goes to a Christian church, he will take Con- fucius as his model how he should behave and how he should listen ; if a Buddhist goes to such a meeting, he will take Shaka as his model, and if a The Kyoto Station and the Doshisha. 31 Christian goes to a Buddhist service, he will take Christ as his model, etc. When I began to apply the truth in this way the priests, who had been standing in the crowd in the rear of the church, leading the disturbers, one after another hung down their heads and walked quietly out. They were followed by their students, who were seated, some of them, in the front seats, where they had joined in the chorus of yells. They too walked out by twos and threes, very quietly, so that by the time I had reached the point indicated above, about fifty had left. Half a dozen priests and twice as many students remained with a large audience which still filled the church, and it seemed as if I could hear a pin drop, so quietly did they listen then for forty minutes, while I switched on to my subject and gave them an earnest talk on the necessity and the way of getting a new heart. " In Tango the work is newer and the results more striking. I first visited the important town of Miadzu. One of our theological students spent last sum- mer's vacation here, and in September we were able to put one of our graduates in this city for more permanent work. This visit gave me the great privilege of seeing the results of his work. The applicants for baptism had already been examined twice ; but the evangelist desired that I also should examine them, and so the day following my arrival three special meetings for their examina- tion were held. The examinations included a history of their spiritual life, prayer, reading of the Bible, observance of Sunday, worship of idols, the Chris- tian doctrines of sin and redemption, the use of property. Christian work, etc. Twenty-five persons — twelve men and thirteen women — were accepted. Among these were four men and their wives. The principal of the common school and the leading teacher in the grammar school have been dismissed because of .their new belief, but show no sign of faltering. One of those bap- tized has been a keeper of a house of disrepute, and closes the business at a considerable pecuniary loss. In another such house two daughters have left their home since hearing the Christian preaching. " On the evening of the second day of my stay the zashiki, or parlors, of a leading hotel were rented for a preaching service, and hearers admit- ted by tickets privately distributed. Nearly three hundred were present and many were turned away for lack of room. The evangelists from Miadzu and Mineyama and myself spoke, and throughout the meeting, which lasted till after ten o'clock, we had the closest attention. " The meetings on Sunday were intensely interesting, it being the first time the baptismal and eucharistic services had been held by Protestants in that province. Think of having to explain not only the spiritual meaning of these rites, but the way of performing the rites themselves ! , I was especially interested in the care given to the reading of the Bible, the evangelist not only announcing chapter and verse, but page also, and waiting till the most unac- customed, and therefore slowest, readers could find the place. The twenty- five candidates had each a New Testament in hand, and followed the various speakers in their references^ to the Bible. A ' provisional church' of over thirty members was formed, there being eight or ten resident Christians who had been baptized elsewhere." 32 American Board in Japan. The nature of these tours and their great demands on mind and body are graphically set forth in the following paragraph from Dr. Davis : — " Preaching nine nights in succession ; not being able to retire until after eleven any night, often after twelve ; preaching three communion ser- mons in the daytime ; holding three communion and baptismal services, with all the talking between times, and the travel crowded into a rainy season in which I (Ijd not see the sun for over a week ; living on Japanese food ; and then the hard trip home, to find a pile of letters and work awaiting me, — have not left me very much rested. But I wish some of those people who think that missionaries are out here to have a good time, living in luxury, could have followed me around, eating, walking, and sleeping as I did, — nay, I rather wish that they had some of the love of Christ in their hearts so that they could appreciate something of the joy there is in this work." FUKUIN GAKKWAN. (Kyoto Theological School.) This school was opened in the fall of 1897, just after our separation from the Doshisha. With a very small beginning, its growth and prosperity show that it supplies a real need. Dr. Davis is its head and also teaches sys- tematic theology. Mr. W. L. Curtis has charge of the English teaching ; Dr. Learned that of Church History and New Testament Exegesis (in addition to much other care of the school) ; Dr. Gordon, Homiletics and the Prophecies ; Mr. Cary, Sociology. The pupils have numbered from ten to fifteen, and nearly all have been actively engaged in evangelistic work, especially in Sunday schools. The Airinsha chapel work last March developed into the Airin Kyokwai, Church of Neighborly Love, at which time one faithful worker was ordained, much to the joy of all. Ten of the members of this new church were from the family (including apprentices) of a pattern-maker, master and men being mutu- ally helped by obseirving the good effects of the gospel in each other. REV. JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA. [An outline of the story of this remarkable man can well be given by extracts from his own writings at several periods of his life. For further knowledge of him and his work, see the admirable biographies by Prof. A. S. Hardy (Houghton, Mifflin. & Co.), and by Rev. Dr. J. D. Davis, (F. H. Revell & Co.).] / will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. Yedo, i860. " A day my comrade lent me adas of U. S. written in China letter. I read it many times and I was wondered so much as my brain would melted out from my head, picking out President, Building, Free School, Poor House, House of Correction, machine-working, etc. I cried out myself : ' Why government ? Why not let us be freely ? Why let us be as a bird in a cage or a rat in a bag ? ' " A day I visited my friend, and I found out small Holy Bible in his library. X w H X W o o 2 o > r o > o H O H :» c o H O The Kyoto Statlm and the Doshisha. 2i2i I lend it from him and read it at night, because I was afraid the Savage country's law, which if I read the Bible government will cross my whole family. I understood God at first, . . . and he created man in his own image. ... I understood that Jesus Christ was Son of Holy Ghost, and he was crossed for the sins of all the World'; therefore we must call him our Saviour. Then I put down the book and look aroun-] o u M B O Kobe. 45 of girls. If the daughters of this generation in that country are to be edu- cated, Christians must do it. ■ "Needs. — The control and management of the college are in the hands of the mission. The Woman's Board of the Interior at Chicago has supported the institution from the first. There is need of funds for a permanent endow- ment, for teacherships and a few scholarships for poor but worthy pupils. These funds would be invested in this country by the Prudential Committee of the American Board, or by the Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, the income only going to Japan from year to year. It is safe to say that no institution in Japan is doing more permanent good and exerting a more far- reaching influence for Christ than is this college, which is founded in faith and prayer, and which has not swerved from the principles of its foundation." SELF-DENYING STtJDENTS AT KOBE. Miss Brown relates the following incident as illustrating the spirit which prevails among the students of the Kobe Girls' School : — ■ " The stress of the present hard-times bears very heavily, on the poorer classes of people, and it is said that several people have actually died of starvation here in Kobe. The churches have taken the matter up very vigor- ously and are doing all they can to help. The students are always hard pressed for money at the end of the year ; and for their parents' sake, I felt that we ought not to ask them to make a money contribution, but suggested that for the remaining three Sundays of the term they dispense with the cake which they always have for dinner on that day, and give the money thus saved to the poor fund. Every hand was raised in glad assent to this proposition, and be- fore night a committee -waited upon me to say that the students had unanimously voted to give up one dish of food for breakfast every morning, thus leaving them absolutely nothing for that meal but rice and pickles, that they might in- crease their contribution for those who were starving. I strongly objected, at first, on the score of the girls' own health, but after considerable consultation, it was thought best to allow them to carry out their generous plan,, and for three weeks they had nothing but rice and pickles for breakfast ; moreover, not a murmur was heard all that time. The amount saved by this self-denial was about ten dollars." Miss Holbrook writes : • — ■ " However much we may be pleased with new buildings and appliances, our girls are our greatest satisfaction. I sometimes think our dozen college girls are such material as Mary Lyon had for her first classes — -teachers all of them, earnest and enthusiastic in their classes, of the most helpful spirit, an example and inspiration to all the classes below them. All of these girls are doing direct Christian work, some holding meetings at private houses on Sun- day, under the direction of the pastor, others having a Sunday school here in the school building of such children as they can induce to come. '* These young women go out into the streets or empty fields where the children are playing and bring in each her little group. This kind of effort 46 American Board in Japan. will be no longer needed, for we had seventy restless, mischievous youngsters here last Sabbath. It requires all the skill and patience of half a dozen teach- ers to keep them within bounds, owing to the lack of discipline in their homes. Children of all classes are petted and spoiled, and are not taught to obey, so work for the little ones is exceedingly difficult, and our students need to teach more lessons than are found in the Catechism. These older girls are setting an example and creating a sentiment that I hope will never be lessened. It is a pleasure to give such girls a college education, for they are a solid satis- faction to us now and promise well for the future. These girls, with their - hearts and minds enlarged, make the larger Christians ; and it is a pleasure to work for them." The follpwing letter was sent from Kobe, March i, 1889 : — " By the last mail I sent you a brief notice of the remarkable work of the Holy Spirit which is in progress in this school, but you will wish to know some particulars of the way in which the Lord is so abundantly answering your prayers and ours. " You, who have borne with us the burden and heat of the day, who have been in labors manifold, and in interest and sympathy unceasing for this school, — we ask you now to rejoice with us. " The number of those who have decided to give their hearts and lives to Christ, has now reached sixty-one, and still the work goes on. As usual, we are surprised at the answer to our own prayers.. Even when the blessing began to come, some of us feared that the Lord did not know how to give it to us in such a way that there should be no bad results mingled with the good. " As far as human agencies are concerned, the causes which led to these great results are not hard to find. Faithful, earnest work in the daily Bible classes, the prayer meetings, and the Sunday school had prepared the way and laid in the fuel ; Mr. and Mrs. Wishard, round-the-world missionaries of the Young Men's Christian Association, applied the spark, and teachers, pastors, and Christian scholars have labored incessantly since to keep the flame steady, and true, and. pure. ' ' Since 1898 rich blessings have been continually falling upon the college, and thirty-eight pupils have confessed their faith in Christ. FIFTEEN YEARS 1 DOES IT PAY ? Miss Searle, the head of the Kobe College for Girls, writes : — ". Fifteen years of the prime of 9ne's womanhood invested in a school for girls in Japan 1 We know all the time that it does pay, but there comes now and then such blessed bits of reward that our hearts are filled with thanksgiv- ing for the privilege of working in this corner of the vineyard. " Ten years ago there came to the school a self-willed girl who seemed likely to develop more than average power for good or evil. She belonged to a Christian family, though one in which grace had not yet so far conquered nature ,as to jnake the relation between father and mother a model. The Kobe. 47 daughter, as \yell as her brother, came naturally by the willfulness that made it hard for them to yield to God's claims upon them. " Although H. made little trouble in the school, she was quietly antago- nistic to the Christian life of the institution, and apparently indifferent to Christ. We heard that during the Summer vacations at home she sometimes taught a Sunday-School class, and otherwise identified herself with the work of the little church, but in the school she gained the reputation of being skep- tical and almost cynical. " During the last year but one before she should have finished the aca- demic course, she formed a friendship, not at all helpful, with a girl who was in school but a short time. One fruit of this friendship was the development of a taste for novel-reading, which interfered sadly with her scholarship as well as with her character. At the end of the school year, she, with six class- mates, was conditioned for one term, because they seemed not at all ready for senior work. She did not fulfill the condition, and was told in December that she must go into the next lower class. This was more than her proud spirit could bear, and, obtaining permission to spend part of the Christmas holidays with a classmate, she made all her plans for going to Tokyo without consult- ing parents or teachers. Providentially, one of the Japanese teachers discov- ered her plan, and was able to persuade her to return to the school. We felt that the girl had gained a great victory over her pride and self-will, and we prayed with increased faith for her conversion. " During the spring she was quite unwell, and was unable to stay through the school year. After an absence of more than a year she came back and took up her senior studies. Almost the first thing she did on returning to the school was to profess her faith in Christ, and during the whole year we re- joiced in the marked change which showed itself in her life. Since her grad- uation she has been engaged in Christian work with missionary ladies, who value her services much, though the very force of character which is making her an increasingly useful woman sometimes gets her into trouble. " But the other day a letter from her filled us with rejoicing over the Holy Spirit's work in her heart — a letter of confession'. Years ago we were troubled with pilfering in the school. Two of the girls lost small amounts of money, fifty sen or less. Suspicion fell upon a girl whose reputation for hon- esty was not perfect, but we could not prove anything against her, so the mat- ter dropped. Now H. writes that she was the thief. All those years the sin lay upon her conscience until at last she could hide it no longer. She has written to the friend on whom she knew the suspicion had rested, who is now herself a Christian worker, and has by this time written, restoring the money to those from whom she took it. This work of the Spirit in purifying hearts already in some measure Christ's, seems almost more wonderful and blessed than his work in conversion. " Yes, we are ready to invest the next fifteen years in the same spot, rejoicing to be counted worthy to share in the training of Japanese girls for Christ." The Kobe Station now embraces the Hyogo prefecture with its popula- 48 American Board in Japan. tion of 1,773,000. (A part of this station's field has been transferred to Mat- suyama station.) In the Kobe Station there are eight churches, with a membership of over 1,500. " The Japanese of today are a semi-nomadic people," hence a large number of absentees are included in this huiiiber. Some of these continue their contributions to their churches. Two' of these churches recently observed their twentieth anniversaries. The Akashi church, in Akashi (a country town), has a present membership of only eighty-four, although 420 persons have joined it since its beginning. They have: contrib- uted in all ^9,548 silver. Rev. T. Hara is the earnest and acceptable pastor. The Tamon church of Kobe, Rev. T. Osada, pastor, has 419 members. During the twenty years of its existence 886 persons have been baptized and ^16,000 contributed. This is the twelfth year of the present pastor's success- ful labors, and the church not only pays him a fair salary, but it employs two assistants besides. The Kobe (First) church reports an average attendance of 156; Sunday school, 196; contributions for the half-year, ^1,194.54 gold. The Morning Light, a monthly evangelistic paper, edited by Dr. Atkinson, and having a circulation of 3,000, must be mentioned as one of the efficient means of preaching employed at Kobe. REV. K. TSUNASHIMA, TOKYO. REV. S. MURAKAMI, KOBE. REV. T. MIYAGAWA, OSAKA. K. TOMEOKA, TOKYO. CHAPTER VI. OSAKA. The opening of the Osaka station and the formation of the first church have already been chronicled. Dr. A. H. Adams, who arrived near the close of the same year, united with a Japanese physician in opening a dispensary in the heart of the city, and here in 1877 the second church (Naniwa) was organized. Mr. Leavitt thus wrote of this event : — " Twelve persons — seven members of churches here, four newly profess- ing hope, and Sawayama — banded together for this purpose. They called a council of delegates of the seven churches and the missionaries. Mr. S. was ordained as the first pastor in this country over this small church of twelve, including hirciself. This body of men pledge themselves to raise, or give, rather, seven dollars per month ; one dollar will be required for rent, the re- mainder for their pastor. Their pastor, who has lived in America for five years, and has foreign habits and tastes, and being weak in the lungs, is not able to change his habits back again with impunity, will probably require fifteen dollars a month when he shall have a wife." A little later came this word : — " It should be noticed that the Naniwa church (the second church) is a bold experiment, and every step it takes is watched by us with deep interest. Small in numbers, it carries on regular meetings in five different places, and the pastor has to be held in lest he overwork. He thought he could not live on less than fifteen dollars per month at first, but he is now living on much less, and is desirous to throw aside translating and devote himself entirely to his pastorate. There have been two additions to his church and several have applied for baptism, but have been told to wait. " The church has taken a decided stand against the use of sake and tobacco, and requires of all this test of Christian character. On the whole, while there is a constant anxiety on our part, we have a thousand times more reason for hope and joy than for discouragement." Of this new pastor's remarkable career, and incidentally of the work of this church, we shall speak elsewhere. Another most important enterprise was the starting of the Baikwa Girls' School, in 1878. This was done at the cost of great self-denying devotion on the part of the Christians. The report for the year gives this interesting account of its origin : — " The year has developed a new and important, as well as interesting branch of work among us, — a native girls' school. Early last fall we began to feel the pressure for a school, and finally the idea was started of a native school, to be organized, led, and supported by the two churches of Osaka. The thought grew. The churches, after fully understanding it, took it up, 50 American Board in Japan. appointed a man and his wife of their number to be at tlie head of the school, and asked the missionaries to assist with their advice and teaching. A large native building was rented for a year, ample for a boarding school of fifty girls, and for a day school besides, of one or two hundred. It was fitted up at an expense of thirty-five dollars by the churches, and the school was opened on the ist of January, with a native Christian and his wife at the head, who resided in the building, with another Christian, a graduate of the govern- ment Normal School, as teacher of Chinese and Japanese, and a missionaiy adviser and teacher of English (Miss Stevens, now Mrs. J. T. Gulick), having a room also in the building. Fifteen scholars were enrolled the first day. The number has increased until there are thirty-one, and the school is very nearly, if not entirely, self-supporting. Quite recently the rented building has been lost to the school, by its owner becoming bankrupt, and the property being sold by the courts ; so that the school has had to spend the last month in very unfavorable circumstances. Yet, so far as we know, it has not lost but gained in membership, in that time. We esteem it a great success ; its hardest days seem to be over ; its teaching is the best that can be procured ; and the course is relieved by native and foreign sewing, music, etc. It is ex- pected that many will wish to become pupils who are not able to pay for school privileges even the small sum fixed for tuition. The intention is to aid such, and encourage them to attend, while discouraging any aid from abroad. For this purpose there is an industrial department, into which all kinds of work are received, native or foreign, and the scholars who need to labor for their own support are taught how to do these various needed things. A large num- ber do much, if not all, to support themselves. We are deeply gratified at the result in developing a spirit of independence in the girls, and an appreciation of the value of time, almost unknown in this country. We also notice devel- opment in readiness of resource which promises well for the future." A few words from Mr. Allchin, two or three years later, give a vivid pic- ture of the vigorous life of the school : — "The Girls' School has now 170 scholars, ^ — the largest school in the mis- sion, — the girls sitting three at a desk; and still they come. Miss Doughaday is alone in this large school, teaching five evenings in the week as well as in the daytime. I give one afternoon to the school in teaching vocal music, and Mrs. Gulick two afternoons in sewing. This is all the assistance we can ren- der. One single lady missionary teacher could not possibly sustain such a school if it were not for our method of putting the work upon the Japanese. There are two Japanese men and five women teachers and assistants, and this number is to be increased by two very soon." At one time the number of pupils reached 400, — became quite the fashion in fact, — and the governor of the city repeatedly expressed great satisfaction with it. But with many at that time the new interest in female education was little more than a fad, and when the reaction came, this school, like all others suffered, and years of trial and embarrassment came, during which it was not always able to maintain its high standard of financial independence. But strictly Christian in its personnel and management, it has always been a pow- Osaka. 5 1 erful influence for good over the city and over the churches, and a great honor to the devoted hearts and hands that originated and sustained it. In recent years, Rev. A. Miyake, pastor of the flourishing Third church, has been its efficient principal, and Misses Colby and Case its devoted American teachers. One of the earliest friends of this school was Mr. Naruse, the biographer of Mr. Sawayama. Another was Mr. Koki, now the earnest pastor of the fourth church. A third was the converted custom-house officer spoken of in Chapter III ; and perhaps the staunchest of all, the present chairman of the trustees, is thus described in the very beginning of his Christian career by Dr. DeForest : — " Naturally Dr. ■ would tell you of our last communion ; but his eyes are in a sad condition, and so it falls to me to communicate our glad news. The chief thing was the addition to the church of six new members. One of them is a Samurai of high rank, Dr. Adams's teacher. For quite a while he has been a believer, and has already brought forth good fruit. Not long • ago, on going south to his home, he armed himself with tracts and books, gladly telling his friends and relatives of the New Way ; and two, if not three, of those who united with the church on. Sunday were his first fruits, — a sign, we trust, of what he will accomplish yet for his Lord. Already we regard him as one of our ablest Sabbath-school teachers. For two Sundays now he has explained to twenty-five or thirty people the Ten Commandments, and the ' Short way of knowing the true way ; ' so that we regard his confession of faith as every way a cause for gratitude." This man has been for more than twenty years the main pillar in the Naniwa church, and in this Girls' School. He is one of the Doshisha's new trustees, a brother beloved and trusted by all. Of another friend of the school, no longer living, it may be interesting to see the following picture — to some extent a caricature — from a native news- paper. It was accompanied with an illustration of a man bearing a heavy cross, while his garments were covered with small crosses : — " Every person has a right to believe what he chooses, but one may be too thoroughly given up to his religion. In this city, in Street, No. — (the street and number are given), lives a man by the name of Araki. His business is that of furnishing costumes to theater actors. This business being a profitable one, he has furnished employment to many workmen, and has gained for himself the means for a luxurious living. Until twenty-four or twenty-five years of age he was quite profligate ; but at that time he began to reflect upon his sinfulness, and repenting, asked favor of heaven. Casting aside all worldly lust, he took to serving idols, trying various sects one after another. Finding nothing satisfactory, he concluded that all religions were vain, and that, for his part, he would have nothing to do with any of them. " At this juncture a friend who had become a Christian came to see him, and taught him the foreign religion, telling him that the ' Jesus way ' was the only true way, and urging him to yield himself to it for a while'and see. At first he refused, saying that he had tried all the religions of Japan, and he had found them all of no use, and now why should he believe a foreign religion ? 52 American Board in Japan. His friend was disappointed, but persevered and finally persuaded him to go to the foreigner's church. He went rather against his own will, but was struck with the good reasoning of the foreign preacher. After that he went of his own accord to hear the preaching. Gradually learning the deeper meanings of the new religion, he began to believe that there was a God in heaven, and began to think that to go to the Christian's heaven at death would be better than the dangerous sailing to Amida's heaven on a lotus flower. So he became a strong believer and received baptism of the foreigner. Having plenty of money, he bought all the Christian books he could lay hands on, and unceasingly, day by day, he says ' Amen I amen ! ' And so his deeds have changed from bad to good. " As soon as he began to believe, he closed his shop every Sunday, gave his employees rest on that day, transacted no business with customers, had his cooking done on Saturday so that no extra fires need be made on Sunday, and became in all respects quite like a crazy man. There was no one to reprove him for these things, so his faith continued until it reached the extent of lead- ing him to sell all his costumes and other valuables, and all the things in his house that he did not need. For these he received the sum of 30,000 yen, which he put out at interest, so that now the monthly profit of his money is 300 yen. Living on this interest, he intends to do nothing now for six months but read Christian books and teach the Christian religion. " He now sends his daughter to the foreigner's school, where the expense is fifty sen a day. He has also furnished his house in foreign style, having tables, chairs, mirrors, and pictures, and every day after one room is put in order, he, making his heart in unison with the heart of Christ, sits in that room, saying, ' Amen ! amen I ' This man having become a very remarkable being, his fame has spread abroad, so we thought it worth while to pubUsh the story." One feature of the Osaka station has been the medical work under Dr. Adams (already referred to), and later under Dr. Taylor. Of the latter Dr. Berry wrote in 1894 : — " For fifteen years he has labored assiduously for the relief of the thou- sands of sufferers who have sought his aid. To this work he has brought great capacity for sustained labor and a love for scientific accuracy in investi- gation, and today enjoys a wide reputation as an able physician and surgeon. At the Christian Hospital and Naniwa dispensary in Osaka, and at the dispen- sary in Kobe, he conducts seven medical and two surgical clinics a week, with results for 1893 indicated by the following statistics taken from his annual report : — Total number of patients seen . . . ■\,'',T^ Total number of consultations ........ 21 224 Total number of visits to patients' houses 2,645 Total number of surgical operations 424 " It is impossible to measure the relief to human suffering which such a work has afforded, both in Christian and in non-Christian homes, the encouragement Osaka. 5^ to the Christians which its reputation has given, or the influence it has had, directly and indirectly, in advancing the wide interests of Christian truth in the metropolis." Mr. AUchin has had much to do with the musical culture of the Girls' School and of the churches. Both in the musical part of the excellent hymn- book used now for many years by several denominations of Christians, and in his stereopticon lectures, delivered to large audiences from one end of the Empire to the other, he has done a special work well deserving of this partic- ular mention. As illustrating the whole, the following summary of one tour is significant : — - " During this tour of 1,300 miles I held thirty-one preaching services, be- fore audiences that numbered in the aggregate more than 15,000. Fully 13,000 of these heard the gospel for the first time, and would not have heard it on this occasion but for the lantern to attract them. This is a convincing proof of the great help of the magic lantern when properly used in the work of evangelization. " Reference has already been made to the success of the first, or " Osaka ' Church," under its eloquent pastor, Mr. Miyagawa. To Osaka, and largely to the pastor of this church, is due that most useful organization, the " Mis- sionary Army." " How to reach the, hundreds of thousands that are congested in this busy city is an ever-recurring problem. For twenty years, at irregular periods, the Christians have tried to meet this problem in a practical way by banding themselves into societies, clubs, and associations, and thus moved forward with concentrated effort against this mass. The latest move is a ' Missionary Army,' whose rank and file are made up of a few active Christians from seven Kumi-ai churches, one Presbyterian, and one Methodist church of the city. " Five members of any church can form a ' company,' but every man must be a ' combatant.' Every Monday, except the first in the month, several companies assemble at one of the churches and scatter in the neighborhood about three thousand handbills, informing the community of a rally at the church that evening, where two or three volleys would be fired by prominent officers of the army. These officers are the pastors of the churches. " These are some of the shots fired : ' Is there a God ? ' ' What is God ? ' ' What is Man ? ' ' Why is he here ? ' ' Where is he going ? ' ' Sin and its Pun- ishment,' ' Change of Heart.' The first Monday in the month is kept for a general muster, when every combatant must answer to the roll-call and when the heaviest artillery is fired. " Scattering the three thousand leaflets every week in the vicinity of the churches is a feature of the ' movements ' of the army. They have printed on them not only the names and addresses of the pastors, the places and times of meeting, but also a brief statement of the main teachings of Christi- anity. This is a most interesting movement, and although it may, like other associations, give place shortly to some other form of Christian activity, it will sow much gospel seed and do good in its day." 54 American Board in Japan. CHURCH BUILDING. " You will be pleased to learn what the enterprising Christians of Osaka are doing in addition to their school work. The Osaka church is about closing a bargain for a piece of land on which to build a new church. The land will cost about 1,700 yen and the church about 1,000. I have about completed plans for them. The Naniwa church purchased a site two weeks ago, costing 2,100 yen, and as there are on it some buildings better suited for church purposes than their present small quarters, they will remove next week. Within a year they propose to build also, to the amount of 1,000 yen. The Shima-no Uchi church are already building a new church on the site of their old one, and twice the size, at a cost of about 700 yen. The Temma church is the only one free from such expenses. They have completed their new building a little over a year ago. " These sums represent a total of nearly 10,000 yen which the Christians propose to raise somehow and somewhere within one year 1 And not one dollar of this do we ask from you." " Twenty-five years ago, several dozens of miles from here, in a large ' place called Tango, a death occurred in an important family of ability and wealth. Not much was thought of it, since people must die, and the loss was banished from the minds of the friends by the usual empty Buddhist ceremony and plenty of j«^i-drinking. You may know that the Japanese divide the years into cycles of twelve, each one called after an animal, ' Rat, Bull, Tiger, Hare,' etc., and it was written over the dead that he was separated from this world in the tiger year. Well, nothing more was thought of it until the tiger year came around again, and then the husband and father sickened and died. Superstitious as the Japanese are, the family and friends could not fail to be deeply impressed with this second death ; and though the loss was gotten over in the same way as before, two tombstones belonging to one family, with the tiger year inscribed on both, were enough to make that year a fated one in that household. Nothing farther of interest occurred during that cycle. The widow, a woman of energy and directing power, carried on the silk business, and prosperity followed her plans until the dreaded and fatal tiger year again came along, with January, 1878. At New Year's, all through Japan busi- ness is suspended, and the people give themselves over to unrestrained merry-making and indulgence. But among the outwardly merry there are always some with heavy hearts, concealing a sorrow or dread, and, by con- cealing it, trying to deceive themselves into believing that it is gone forever. " This Tango household also had the sakt to treat their friends and callers ; but within the three days set apart here for New Year's celebration, they met to talk together about the dread that they could not shake off. ' Whose turn is it to die this year ? ' was the question opened. What the talk was I do not know ; but it resulted in this : The old lady, with the hopeless resignation that Buddhism often gives to its followers, volunteered to consecrate herself to death, that the younger ones of the family might live on, as was fitting. " When this was agreed to, though no doubt with earnest protestations Osaka. ^c of horror from all the rest, she determined to make a pilgrimage to the center of idolatry, the province of Ise, visiting celebrated temples by the way, and scattering generous gifts to the gods, that thereby, with a clean heart, she might meet her fate. Attended by a single servant, she stopped in Osaka about three months, and put up at the house of old friends, who, in the lead- ings of God, happened to be the lately baptized old man and his wife, whose gilt god-picture I sent you not long ago. That night, for the first time, she heard about the Christian religion from a believer. She tarried another night to hear, in amazement, her old friends talk about this way. That they had torn down their idol shelves and discarded the old religions ; that they dared openly to profess a way that she had been taught to dread, and that they seemed to be so full of delight in their new religion, — these things led the old lady to say, on the third day : ' The weather is raw, the roads are bad. If the servant wants to pilgrimage it through to Ise, all right ; I will stay till his return andiearn this way.' " She heard for a week, and gave a dollar to the church ; two weeks, and she must buy dozens of parts of the Bible and other religious books to take back home as presents ; another week, and I heard she had given a dollar to the girls' school, and another to the church ; and, I think, she gave still an- other towards supporting a coolie whom the Christians had found dying some twenty miles from here and had put in their hospital. Another week, and it was arranged, that, since she hardly dared go home and face all the ques- tions that would multiply upon her, the old couple with whom she was stay- ing would return with her, and help her tell the new, old story. " They have been, and after five or six weeks have returned. They say that their story made a great commotion, but the altered life of the old lady seemed to make the deepest impression. From being an exacting, quick- tempered person, she is careful not to speak biting words ; and besides the books, she has given away dollars upon dollars to the poor around her. More than that, she has arranged that one of the students from Kyoto shall be her guest during a part of the summer vacation, to teach her and others more of the way of life ; and when the fall comes, she will lead others who may be- lieve to Osaka to request baptism. " This is a poorly told story for one that has given us so much satisfac- tion. We trust this woman, self-condemned to die, has been elected to eter- nal life." So wrote Dr. DeForest a dozen years ago. The baptizing of such a woman — with so little education and so brief a knowledge of Christianity — was a great experiment, but one in which the results amply justified the ven- ture. The writer has had the delight of following that life down to its very close, a little more than a year ago. He visited her in her home, becoming her guest and personal friend, uniting his voice with hers in prayer and thanksgiving and the relation of personal experience. From immediate knowledge he can speak of the little chapel and parsonage she built in her native town, and when that proved unsatisfactory, of a still better one nearer the town's center ; of how she paid one-thiid of the evangelist's salary during 56 American Board in Japa?i. her life, and in her will left $700 — a fair sum for a country town — as a fund for the support of the church. At his last visit, shortly before her death, she spoke of her failing eyesight and hearing, but with eyes suffused with tears of gratitude she spoke of the peace and joy in her heart which time had no power to destroy. The four churches of Osaka all have ordained pastors of education and experience, all have good church buildings, and are self-supporting. Their respective membership, according to the latest statistics, was 408, 247, 362, 122. APPENDIX. AN OSAKA PASTOR. Rev. Paul Sawayama, referred to above, has been called a " pastor of pastors." This preeminence given him by Japanese and foreigners alike is sufficient excuse for giving a brief account of his life and work. A samurai by birth, he saw service as a soldier before he was seventeen years of age. When the war was over, in accordance with a popular tradition that any one seeking more light should go to the coast, he went to Kobe, and there met his first Christian teachers. Dr. and Mrs. Greene. The seed then sown bore fruit, and he was baptized by Rev. E. N. Packard, D.D., of Evanston, Ills., whither he had gone in 1872 by the advice of his Kobe friends. He remained in the United States till 1876, when he went back to Japan, fully bent on preaching the gospel to his fellow-countrymen. To this decision a visit of one of our missionaries. Rev. H. H. Leavitt, directly contributed, and it was at this time that he took the' name of Paul. He brought no dishonor to that apostolic name. After this dedision, it is said that he seemed in a hurry to get away, and to the suggestion that he ought to make more thorough preparation before going, he replied, " I have as much learning as the apostles had." On his return, he was warmly welcomed by .the missionaries and by. his Japa- nese friends, some of whom occupied influential positions. One of these was Mr. Utsumi, vice-governor of Osaka, in whose family he was a guest. Mrs. Utsumi gladly heard the truth, and other members of the family went to hear Sawayama preach. Turning away from tempting openings in government service at a good salary, he became, as we have seen, pastor of the Naniwa church, at a salary of seven dol- lars. He had incurred a considerable debt for his education, but missionaries and their American friends arranged to pay this, so that (with the translation work by which he was able to eke out his living) he might start in that career of self-support which is so closely associated with his name. He was the first Japanese pastor ordained and installed over a church. A month after ordination he wrote to a friend : — " I have in my church only eleven members, — eight men and three women, — but they are all active preachers ; and we have at present five regular preaching places for the church, besides our own chapel, and so we are very busy. But it is a joyful thing to be busy in the Master's work. I never have ejq>erienced so much joy in my heart as these days." That such a spirit bore excellent fruit will surprise no one. An undated letter, written perhaps two years later, says •*- — Osaka. ey \ " Since my church was organized, by the missionary efforts of the members two churches have been formed, both of whose pastors are members of ray church. Last year we received fifty persons by profession and three by letter. Total contri- butions for the year were $726 silver. My church raised this from the poorest people, who own neither house nor anything hardly." The experience of one of his converts is worthy of record : — " One night a woman came to me burdened with her sins, and I tried to show her what seemed to me to be her duty. After praying with her she went home, and be- fore retiring she tried to give up all to Christ and accept his salvation. In the morn- ing her heart was full of joy, and, as she had no desire for the bad habit to which she had hitherto been usually tempted, she took that as one of the signs that her heart had been changed. As her health was very poor, her family urged her to go to her native country for a change. But soon after reaching there she received a letter of divorce from her husband. She was thus thrown upon her family for support, and she must be dependent on her brother, as her parents were not living. " On returning to her brother's house, she did not, as formerly, worship the house- hold gods, and her brother was very angry. He said to her : ' If you will not worship and offer food and flowers to the gods, you cannot stay in my house ; you are a disgrace to the family, even neglecting the ancestral tablets.' Her sister-in-law, although not so angry, urged her to give up her God and worship as they did, while she lived in their house. She replied : ' I cannot give up my God. Even though my brother should whip me to death. I cannot give him up.' " Finally her brother opened the bureau drawers and taking out her clothing and everything that belonged to her, threw them out into the yard, telling her to leave his house. " The woman was in sore trouble, as she in her poor health was being driven away from the only home she had. But she had been praying for guidance, and soon her way was made plain. A man came and told her that he was in search of a woman to teach needle-work to a class of girls in an adjoining town, and had heard of her. Would she be willing to go ? She was of course glad to go. She stayed there a few months, when her husband, having become a Christian, went and brought her back to her Osaka home. They now seem very happy, and are to- gether trying to bring others to Christ." Sawayama married a beautiful young girl, a pupil in our Kobe school. In the succeeding years the varied experiences of life crowded thickly upon him. The fol- lowing extract gives us a glimpse of it and of the spirit with which he, bore it : — • " We had two daughters, but one died last year. Within a few years since I left you I have become pastor, husband, and. father, and have lost father, sister, child, and mother. I thank God, all these joys and sorrows of my life bring me ■ closer to Christ, who is ' the same yesterday, today, and forever.' " That his parents and brother and sisters became Christians before their death was a source of great joy to him. But sorrows were still in store for him. He him- self had for several years been suffering from consumption. At one time the pain was so severe that it is said that for seven days and nights he could not sleep or even lie down. But his courage never failed. " If at any time death comes, it will make no difference to me." " I will die on the battlefield, I will fight the good fight," were his words. Whenever there was a slight improvement, he was again among his people or in his pulpit, moving old and young, saint and sinner by his earnest words. " About a year before her death his wife began to doubt regarding her salva- 58 American Board in Japan. tion, and feared to die. She called her husband, and clinging to his sleeves, cried bitterly on account of the uncertainty of her salvation. Mr. Sawayama, although usually full of affection and tender love to her, at that time turned away from her, saying, ' I am your husband, but I am not your Saviour. You have been relying on me more than Christ. You made a tremendous mistake. I love you, but cannot save your soul. Christ is your Saviour, and He alone. Call upon Him and. seek your salvation.' Then he left her alone and came down stairs. She had a severe struggle, but finally surrendered herself to Christ as her only Saviour." One characteristic of Mr. Sawayama's preaching comes out in the following extract from a personal letter : — " When I was in Arima two deacons of Sanda church came to me and asked me to preach there. I asked about the condition of the church, and they said that the work of God was declining and all the Christians were sleeping. I went there on Friday, and preached that night. Next morning the acting pastor called on me and asked me to preach to unchristians from that day on, because my sermon had reflected too strongly, on the Christians. I replied that I must preach the truths of the Bible, and that a true sermon ought to impress both Christians and unbe- lievers. Then he confessed that he himself had been under deep conviction since hearing my sermon. He confessed his selfishness and sins, and said he was un- worthy not only to be an acting-pastor but to be a church member ; that he wished to resign as pastor and church member, and would join again after his conversion. He shed many tears as he spoke. The deacons also repented with tears, and women of the church confessed their sins and surrendered all things to God. I preached and held meetings there during a week, and many were converted." " At one time Mr. Sawayama fiad been praying for a revival. It did not come. He imagined the fault was in himself, so he consecrated himself anew to his work. After this experience he addressed a woman's meeting in which the interest at once became so great that it was turned into an inquiry meeting. Many went away and related their experience to others. This was the beginning of a revival. All the students in the Girls' School were converted and began new lives.'' But space forbids further account of his zeal as an evangelist, as an advocate of self-support, and as an educator. We close with the tribute of Mr. Miyagawa, one of the most eloquent and successful pastors in Japan. It makes clear the secret of Sawayama's success. After expressing his surprise on learning that the pastor of this particularly zealous and active church was in consumption, " obliged to lie on his sick bed about two-thirds of the year," he continues : — " Then the following questions arose in my mind : ' With what kind of mao-- netic power can he manage his church so successfully ? ' ' Can he move his church members at will as he moves his fingers ? ' ' Or is it by his skill in conversation, his social excellency, or his amiable manners ? ' " But when he departed from us we found a list of the names of his church members, by which he used to pray to our Father for individuals every mornino- and evening, sometimes shedding bloody tears. This list must have been kept for many years, because it was stained with much handling. In some parts the letters were indiscernible, it was so black. I thought ' This much-used list is a monument, tell- ing of his appeal to his Father for every member of his church by name.' From this also I received the answers to all my questions concerning him, that the secret of his success was in prayer." CHAPTER VII. OKAYAMA. In the spring of 1875 physicians in Okayama invited Dr. Taylor to locate there, and a prominent official went to Kobe to urge the matter in person. Dr. T. went on a brief visit, and was most warmly received. A few extracts from his letters will reveal the new spirit that was rising. " The next day, when going with him (the third officer of the prefecture) to a feast in a friend's house, he remarked that none of the many people whom we saw on the street knew the true God ; but if I would go there, they would come to know Him and believe on Him." " We had a substantial feast, and on returning to the hotel we found the governor, vice-governor, and other officers awaiting us. They all urged me to go to Okayama and take charge of their hospital. I then learned that the vice-governor had been reading the Bible, and was much interested in it. At a feast on Saturday I asked if we could not meet the next day and have a talk about the Bible. They readily consented, and the vice- governor invited us to meet at his house." " There were some twenty present at the meeting, mostly of the first men of the place. I learned that they all had the Bible in Chinese, all of the New Testament thus far translated into Japanese, and some tracts in Japanese. 'We spent over two and a half hours in talk, taking the first chapter of Mark as our basis. At the close of the meeting, finding so many earnest inquirers, I asked them if they could not meet alone next Sabbath, as I could stay no longer. They agreed to do so, and the vice-governor asked them to meet in his house." " Since my return the officer referred to has written, ' Give us the gospel first and the hospital after- wards, for we cannot afford to wait for the gospel.' " " Last week, through the influence of this visit to Okayama, a delegation from four provinces to the northwest came to see if I could not form there a chain of hospitals." Various circumstances eventually turned Dr. Taylor away from this in- viting field to Kyoto, but a little later others entered in and secured the suc- cessful and permanent occupation of this district by the Church of Christ. To this happy result an extended preaching tour by Mr. Atkinson also con- tributed. He visited Okayama, Tamashima, Kasaoka, Fukuyama, and Ono- michi. Everywhere he was warmly welcomed, his message listened to by large audiences, and Bibles and other books in considerable numbers were sold. In several places the cordial people insisted on paying his hotel bills. At this time and later, visits were made by Misses Barrows and Dudley and a woman's Bible class formed in the house of Mr. Nakagawa, the friendly official fre- quently mentioned. This Bible class continued for years, and was a most important factor in the church. Early in 1879 ^^- Berry and Messrs. Gary and Pettee and their families made arrangements for the opening of Okayama as a station. Dr. Berry re- ported the outlook as follows : — 6o American Board in Japan. " We have already secured — " I. The good will and hearty cooperation of the highest members of the government, as shown by their assurances of active interest in our plans and willingness to grant liberal concessions. "2. The privilege of placing two of our missionaries in a private school of about seventy pupils (founded by the ex-Daimio Ikeda), to teach but one hour a day each, with the promise of its friends that, at the earliest practicable date, it shall be placed upon a Christian basis. "3. A promise on the part of the government to observe, within three years, all the regulations for the management of the hospital, which were sub- mitted early in the course of my negotiations with them, and which are essen- tially the rules observed in the management of Christian hospitals in the United States. " 4. The appointment of myself as adviser for the medical interests of the prefecture, with full and free powers of action as to my relations to the hos- pital, the medical school, and to any outstation work that I may see fit to organize. " 5. The placing at our disposal, for our exclusive use for house lots, the small public garden on the east of the city, with the assurance from the gov- ernor that he will insure us against loss of money used in building houses, in case our early removal from Okayama should be rendered necessary from any cause. " 6. Our ability to make a contract at once for five years, with the full understanding that our work looks to permanency. " 7. Invitations from Kurashiki and Kojima, places visited, to commence at once dispensary services among them at their own expense. " All these points contribute to make the opening of Okayama, with its population of a million and three hundred thousand souls within a radius of a day's journey from the city, exceptional in the history of missionary effort in Japan." Under such favorable circumstances the new station began its work. Disappointments came, unlooked-for difficulties were encountered, and re- verses have not been unknown ; but despite all this, zeal, tact, and courage have had their reward. Not that the gospel has done its perfect work there. Only a beginning has been made, and a vast deal of labor, equally heroic if less romantic, remains to be done. Nevertheless, it may be truly said that great success has attended the station. Thousands have been given relief from disease, many hundreds have been led to rejoice in Christ as their Saviour, and Christian ideas and principles have been so preached and prac- ticed that a Christian influence strong and tangible has been exerted over the whole district, and even over the nation. If the latter part of this state- ment seem too strong, let the reader turn to the life-stories of Ishii and Tomeoka. For many years Rev. Paul Kanamori was a most powerful coadjutor, not only in the city but in the whole prefecture ; and here, as in other stations, the influence of Japanese pastors and evangelists has been beyond all reckon- ing and above all praise. Okayama. 6i The Okayama church was organized in 1880. Five years later, a com- modious church building was erected. The dedicatory exercises and the methods of raising the money have been well described by Mr. Gary : — " Had you been there you might have thought some of the surroundings of the occasion differed from those commonly seen in America. Turning the corner of the street on which the church is situated, you would have seen over the roofs of the houses a string of bright red lanterns which were stretched above the ridgepole of the church. Similar lines extended from the front gable to the corners of the enclosure, and also along the neat iron fence before the church. Lanterns always form an important part of Japanese festal decora- tions. The gateway was decorated with an arch of green leaves interspersed with oranges and red berries. Just outside of the fence were ranged a number of tables set out with candy and toys ; for the street peddlers are quick to gather in any place where a crowd is expected, and, as they had supposed, the street was filled with people who had come to see what was going on. " Entering the building, you would have found a room sixty feet long and thirty-six feet wide. A space twelve by thirty-six feet at the entrance is not matted, but serves as a vestibule where clogs and umbrellas may be left, and where many persons who will not come in to sit down may stand and hear what is said. At the opposite end of the room is the platform. On the wall behind it is a large frame covered with white paper, on which the leading Chi- nese scholar of the province has written the Beatitudes. Beneath this are draped two Japanese flags. At one side of the same wall is a large picture, presented to the church by a Sabbath-school class in Massachusetts, and rep- resenting the disciples on the road to Emmaus. On the opposite side is a blackboard on which are written the names of candidates for baptism. It contains thirteen names. Sixteen names were added later. "With the exception of the flags already mentioned, the only temporary interior decorations are two large bouquets arranged as only the Japanese know how to arrange them. Let me give you the ingredients of one : A cab- bage, a scraggly pine branch about six feet high, and twenty or thirty chrisan- themums. What could an American florist have made from such materials ? The result here was a very pretty decoration. " In the body of the church there are no seats, and the large audience is crowded together upon the soft mats. The gallery opposite to the preacher's platform is reserved for invited guests, for whom chairs are provided. Here are seated most of the members of the Ken Assembly, corresponding to an American State Legislature, several officials, newspaper editors, etc. " The exercises were such as are common on such occasions. The his- tory of the building showed that it had cost 2,133.414 yen (a yen is now equal to about fifty cents). Of this sum, 280.91 yen came from persons not mem- bers of the Okayama church, while about 500 yen was obtained from the sale in America and Japan of idols, dolls, swords, household goods, etc. The remainder was by cash contributions of the church members, who now number 196. All is paid for, it being the firm resolve of pastor and people that they ' would not dedicate the church with a single rin (one-tenth of a cent) of debt on it.' 62 American Board in Japan. " The dedicatory prayer was by the native pastor, and his earnest manner made a deep impression on all. Probably no part of the exercises has been so much spoken about by those who are not Christians. One of these said : ' I was almost afraid to remain in the room while he was praying.' The Christians say : ' After that prayer, none of us can think of the building as being ours. It is the Lord's.' " I fear I am dwelling on this dedication out of all proportion, but as it well represents the spirit so often shown in other places, I give a further ex- tract as to the way in which the money was raised. The explanatory remark may be made that the American Board has given nothing for church building in Japan : — " It was a glad day for the Christians when the house was dedicated, free from debt, their pastor having insisted that the building could not be thus publicly given to God while a single mill of its cost was unpaid. Many of the people had made great sacrifices for the Lord's house : some had drawn on the scanty store of money laid by for old age or for the education of their children ; some had gone without new clothes ; some had restricted themselves in food ; one old man had done gladly for the church what he would have done for almost nothing else, — given over for sale his precious sword, almost the only prop- erty left in his possession, and which, with the spirit of a Japanese samurai, he had hoped to keep until his dying day ; some who had no money gave of the labor of their hands. We might speak of help from strange sources, for some of the Christians brought out from the dust-heaps discarded idols which they could send to America for sale, and so Amida, Daikoku, and Yebisu were forced, nolens volens, to lend their aid in the erection of a Christian church. Nearly two centuries ago, Oishi, the noted leader of the Forty-seven Ronins, sat down to write a hasty letter to another of that devoted band, little thinking that he was thus helping to spread what he. probably regarded as a most detest- able doctrine, and that a descendant of the recipient of that scrap of paper would devote a part of the proceeds of its sale to a Christian church." The results of the first ten years of the life of this church are thus summed up by Dr. Pettee : — ■ " The Okayama church has just celebrated the tenth anniversary of its organization. Only a tenth of a century, and yet it found much to rejoice over. " The original thirty-two members have increased to over 550. Five daughter churches in the province and two in the adjoining ones have come into life. Including the members of these churches, there are today 1,300 professing Christians who owe their start in the spiritufal life, directly or indi- rectly, to this one organization. " The church is also interested in a Girls' School, with fifty-two students, and a Boys' School, with thirty-four, while Mr. Ishii's Orphan Asylum, with its ninety little waifs, was a direct outgrowth of this church and its work. Of the original thirty-two members only eight were present, a striking proof of the rapidity of change in Japan. " The historical sketch frankly put at the head of a goodly line of workers Okayama. 63 in this region the name of a foreigner, Dr. Wallace Taylor, and several other Americans were gratefully referred to. " Not a single communion service has passed without additions, and hardly a year without the birth of a daughter church." Only a few incidents illustrating the beneficent work of the station can be given : — " There is a revived interest on the part of Okayama's truest Christians in personal work. Mr. Ishii, of the Asylum, leads in this, as in other good works. For the past month he has risen an hour before his usual time and given daily morning Bible readings in the homes of neighbors. Others engage in sim- ilar work at night, after their routine work is finished. It is found that people are ready to listen and study the Bible. This is exceptionally true of the lower classes. One man has given up strong drink and stopped abusing his wife. A woman who cannot read a word has apparently become a Christian, reformed her home life, and found great joy in the new light. A poor, old, besotted, licentious jinrikisha puller, who was lying sick and had given up all hope, saying his only thought of the gods and his own future was that of intol- erable fear, was so melted by the story of the prodigal son that he clapped his hands together over his head in adoration and cried : ' That is the first word of hope and light that has come to me ! I have prayed to Kompeira and other gods. They knew nothing good of me and only hate me. My life has been full of evil, and I supposed there was nothing more to hope for. You tell me of a God that loves me. It is glad news indeed 1 ' " A SENATOR BECOMES A PREACHER. " The story of another life has come to me today, and it may be worth repeating. I have heard snatches of it before, but to-day for the first time met the man and heard it from his own lips. It shows God's leadings in a striking way. " Some eight years ago Dr. DeForest's exposition of the Ten Command- ments fell into the hands of a certain man in our neighborhood. He read the book with interest, and pronounced Christianity a good thing. But he thought no more of it. The idea of becoming a Christian himself seems not once to have entered his mind. He was a member of the local assembly of Oka- yama prefecture, a man of some influence. While in Okayama, attending the sessions of the legislature, he put up at a hotel near the Christian preach- ing place. Here he frequently heard the singing of hymns, and a few times went to the door and listened for ten minutes or so at a time to the preaching by Mr. Kanamori. He became dissatisfied with his life. The barrenness and emptiness of it were oppressive to him. He went to Osaka to seek relief in travel and the new sights. On his return he rode in the same steamer with Miss Barrows, of Kobe. Not a word was said, but her face deeply impressed him. He thought, ' Here is a Christian. If Christianity produces such fruit, is n't it the religion that will give me peace ? ' He thought much upon the kind of men Christianity makes. He was moved by those influences, but not 64 American Board in Japan. to the point of decision. He returned to his home, and while there Mr. Gary chanced to go to his village to preach. On the way Mr. Gary called at his house. He went out to the meeting, and for the first time really listened to a Ghristian sermon. On the way home Mr. Caiy's helper stayed at his house over night and over Sunday. At that time the man promised to attend church at Takahashi the next Sunday. He went, and at that first service the Christians were subjected to a notable persecution. The house was attacked. Stones and clubs were thrown into the room so fiercely as to endanger the lives of the worshipers. At that time he was deeply impressed by the way the Ghristians received such treatment. There were young children and old ladies in the meeting, he says, but there was no great excitement, no special fear, and every person escaped unharmed. " At one time this man studied the Bible earnestly and almost continu- ously for two weeks, praying, ' O God, if thou dost exist, reveal thyself to me.' He at last believed, and was baptized in January, 1885. Still he had not the fullness of light he craved — could not understand the Bible as he wanted to do. A year later he again set about an earnest study of the Bible and prayer. This time he found the fuller revelation he sought, and for days was filled with great joy. Still another year later, having held his position in the assembly in all about six years, wishing to do a more direct work for the Master, he determined, after consultation with other Ghristians, to resign his office and prepare for the work of an evangelist. He entered the special theological course of the Doshisha in the fall of 1887, and has been studying there ever since. There is little doubt that when he has finished his studies he will be an able preacher. The earnestness that led him to lay down his lucrative and influential office for that of a minister of Ghrist will make itself felt in the pulpit and the parish. And how manifestly he has been led in it all ! " A CHRISTIAN VILLAGE. " Mr. Onoda and I went to a village, Koresato, on the top' of the moun- tains in the extreme northern part of the province of Bizen. After a two hours' ride over the new railway, we had a walk of seven or eight miles. The recent snow was still in evidence, being more than a foot deep in some places. As it was dark long before we reached the village, our walking was very un- certain. But there was no uncertainty as to our reception. They received us as though we were ' angels of God.' For three nights and the included days we were the subjects of ceaseless and unsparing hospitality. " This village is composed entirely of the members of the Kondo family, which has been resident here for three hundred years. The one house of the original settler has increased to seven ; and the strange thing about it is this, — that with' several baptisms administered during this visit, all the adult members of five of these seven houses are Ghristians, There is probably not another such a village in Japan. They have no pastor or evangelist, but they have a set of Dr. Learned's Commentaries on the New Testament. These are studied Okaydma. 65 from week to week and form the basis of their Friday night and Sunday morn- ing weekly meetings, which are rehgiously kept up, going from house to house. " The interest in Christianity here all grew out of the conversion of a member of the family who went to Okayama, a dozen years ago, as a medical student. " We had one meeting, tired as we were, at nine o'clock the first night ; three, including communion service, the next day ; and an equal number the day following. Such a community is not without its dangers, grave dangers, but it is a unique evidence of the self-propagating power of Christianity. "How closely we became bound together in those three days! How loath we were to part I " As illustrating one of the best of the country churches, I give a brief account of the Takahashi church. Takahashi is a charming town of 10,000 inhabitants, lying nestled in the mountains, twenty-seven miles northwest of Okayama. From the first the gospel made a strong impression there. Through Dr. Berry's medical work a number of physicians and men of means were influ- enced, and so in 1882 a church was formed. " Of the fifteen candidates for baptism, the first to be examined was Mr. S , concerning whom hope and fear have alternated steadily for two years. He is a wide-awake business man, has been prominent in local politics, is a man of large influence and a generous measure of popularity. One branch of his business was the manufacture and sale of sakk, in which, by his own pluck and push, he had gained the reputation of the best saM producing house in all this region. " Christianity met this man largely through the influence of an old friend and co-worker here, and, as may be imagined, there was a terrible contest which lasted for months. For this man to give up a business which had brought him plenty of ducats, and also to keep the Sabbath, was a test which might well make us tremble for the outcome. But the crisis was safely passed, and though searching questions were asked, no member of the council doubted the genuineness of the man's conversion and new purpose in life. When asked as to the reason for a change in his business and his feelings in view of the pecuniary loss and the persecutions consequent on his new pro- fessions, he quietly answered, ' It is ours to suffer with Christ, as well as re- joice with him.' The balance of his liquor he is turning into vinegar, and the sourer it becomes, the sweeter and stronger grows the heart of its owner. He was a man formerly of a turbulent spirit, and that a change in this respect has taken place is shown by a gift recently received from the governor of this province, of a large autograph motto, ' Blessed are the peacemakers,' now to be seen hanging in the converted store. "Two of the seven women baptized were teachers in a public sewing school. Soon a reaction set in, and they found themselves in an uncom- fortable position. They therefore resigned and started a private school. This has greatly prospered, and for many'years now has been one of the notable institutions of the city and province. When visited by the writer, two years ago, it had 160 scholars. It has excellent buildings, toward which indi- 66 American Board in Japan. vidual missionaries subscribed, and is self-supporting. This prosperity has come not only in spite of, but I believe partly because of, its being known as a Christian school. Its graduates have gone far and wide as teachers of public schools. The principal, a woman of great energy and of strong faith, was cut down in the prime of life by consumption. It was a great struggle, but a great victory, as the writer deeply felt on his visit just before her death, which enabled her to rest in the promise, ' My grace is sufficient for thee.' " Takahashi has been the scene of frequent persecution. One summer, at a heathen festival, some of the people made an image of Christ hanging on a cross. This was placed on a cart and drawn through the streets. Some of the men carried spears, and it was a part of the programme that these should be thrust into the image ; but when the time came no one was found who dared to do it. They tried to hire some boys, but they refused, and both old and young were afraid to use the spears. Probably there was merely a supersti- tious fear that in some way they might bring evil upon themselves. In any case, their intended sport and ridicule .of Christianity was a failure. " One young man, who is a member of the Takahashi church, has suffered much persecution from his father. A few days ago he was bound with ropes to a post, and the father, taking a heavy stick, threatened to kill him unless he would promise to give up Christianity. He did give the young man a severe beating. Though several of the neighbors saw the performance, none tried to prevent it ; in fact, some called out, ' Kill him I kill him ! ' " We shall hear of this young man a little later as Rev. K. Tomeoka. The church has a very neat and commodious church building, and its dedication was the occasion of another outburst. Over a thousand persons gathered before the church, and two bass-drums added their noise to the shouts of the crowd. Stones and sticks were thrown, breaking lamps and window-frames. The police did not interfere, and threats were made that on the next Sunday the building would be torn down and the pastor killed. A large stone thrown at this time now lies on the pulpit floor, marked Hakugai Ishi, Stone of Persecution. EDUCATIONAL WORK. There are no schools in this region that have anything relating to Chris- tian teaching in the curriculum, though there are three sewing schools in Tak- ahashi, Tsuyama, and Katsoyama respectively, and one higher school for girls in Okayama, conducted by Christians. Most of the teachers in these schools are earnest Christians, and the general influence of the schools is so strongly for Christ that they are usually classed as Christian schools. Taka- hashi school has 150 students, the Okayama school 85, the Tsuyama school 40, and the Katsuyama school 26 students. The Takahashi Women's Society has opened a night school for girls who are servants, and so unable to study in the daytime. This evening school is doing a good work for a needy class. Okayama. 67 In Hiroshima the pastor has an English Ckib for young men, with forty members. Every Wednesday he teaches them the Bible in English, in addi- tion to the other lessons. Several from this club haTve joined the church, and there are a number of inquirers. The Hanabatake Jinjo Sho Gakko, Miss Adams' school, has continued its work for poor children, with increasing success. An earnest Christian teacher of several years' experience has been obtained, and the number of children in the day school has increased to forty-three, the number in the Sun- day school being about seventy. One boy graduated in March of this year and is now in a school of higher grade. Rev. S. S. and Mrs. White, members of the station, after years of resi- dence in Okayama, pushed on to Tsuyama, the center of a fine work in the northern part of the prefecture, and occupied it until compelled to return to the United States. For nearly two years past the only missionaries resident have been Misses Adams and Wainwright. Having been their occasional helper for about half that time, the writer cannot but bear witness to the unflagging zeal and the unsparing devotion which these ladies have shown in carrying on the work of the station, caring for the asylum, etc. At Hiroshima, one hundred miles west of Okayama, there is an independ- ent evangelistic movement. This is formally under the Japanese Missionary Society, but practically it is a part of the same work, and for years the Bible woman has been furnished by the Okayama station. During the war with China, Hiroshima was the headquarters of the army, and here also were the admirably conducted Red Cross Hospitals. Two hun- dred Red Cross nurses were on duty here, and fifty of these were from Kyoto and under the charge of Mrs. Neesima, widow of Dr. Joseph Neesima. A large number of the nurses were Christians, and those from the " Kyoto Training School," a Christian institution, won high appreciation. The court physician. Dr. Ishigaro, said of them: " Christianity is a good thing for nurses; I have heard of no jealousies or misunderstandings among them." Miss Eliza Talcott of our Mission, having been the religious teacher of these nurses, spent many months in Hiroshima as their unofficial leader and helper. In this work she won not only words of praise for herself and her Mission, but brought physical and spiritual joy to many a soul. One member of the Imperial Guard, just back from the field, seemed to be dying ; was too weak for more than a single word of sympathy. A few flowers were put into an empty medicine bottle and hung by his bedside. It seemed unlikely that they should see him again, but by the next day he had rallied a little, and the visits were continued. Weeks afterward, when as a convalescent he was about to leave, he sent a postal-card, begging for one more visit from Miss Talcott, that he might once more express his gratitude for that first visit which he believed had saved his life. He had thought he was dying far from home, without a friend near, when the cheering words of the visitors, and the flowers left beside him, brought new courage to his heart ■ and " since then," he said, " through you I have learned the way of 68 American Board in Japan. Eternal Life." No wonder that the patients said, "Your visits do us more good than the doctors' medicines." Captain Choy, a Chinese officer, at one time a student in America, writes thus of Miss Talcott's work for his countrymen : — ■ " Two wounded Chinese officers, who had been under kindest treatment in the Hiroshima hospital for three months, on their recovery were sent to our place of confinement. They said the Japanese doctors and nurses had been attentive to them in every possible way. But louder still were their praises of the kindness of a certain foreign lady, who presented oranges and many tokens of sympathy and interest in them. Their conversation so often drifted to the wonderful benevolence of this lady that my curiosity was aroused to know who she might be. I asked the Japanese interpreter to beg her to call on us. I had been previously favored with a visit from Rev. Mr. Loomis. In his second call he was accompanied by four women. One of these was Miss Talcott, the lady I had heard so much about. Her face was sunlight, beaming with Christian love. She had a mysterious happiness whose deep fountain we could not understand. Our officers had not exaggerated her kindness and acts of charity, for we had the rare opportunity to share them and to appreciate their divine effects. At a second visit Miss Talcott gave me a book called ' Jesus and the People,' and asked me about our progress in Bible reading. She was thoroughly interested in us, physically and spiritually. By the other Chinese prisoners, whom I have since met. Miss Talcott was gratefully remembered. No amount of preaching could have made such an impression as her work and example. They had been shown a Light of whose divine glory they had no former conception." APPENDIX. TWO SONS OF OKAYAMA STATION. In writing this sketch one constant source of regret is that I am unable to dwell as I would upon the lives and labors of our pastors, evangelists, and other Christians. Want of space inexorably forbids detailed description of the many ear- nest followers of Christ in the island empire, but as in some respects representative of others, and because theirs is special work, I devote a few pages to two .sons of the Okayama station : — • JUJI ISHII. Mr. Ishii was born in Takanabe, on the southeast side of the island of Kyushu, in April, 1865. His father was a small local official ; his mother was the stronger character of the two. At the age of eleven, when in a private school, his attention was first called to Christianity, and this crude experience he looks upon as the first link in a chain of causes which have led him into his life of faith. I n reading of the Crusaders in a trans- lation of Peter Parley's history, he saw a picture of the cross, and a school friend told him if he worshiped that, unseen, he could work magic. So he tried it often in his sports, etc., repeating to himself, " O Christ, Lord of the Army of the Cross," and with results which deepened his faith. MR. ISHII, FOUNDER AND SUPERINTENDENT OF THE OKAYAMA ORPHANAGE. THE ORPHANS IN 1 898 IN FRONT OF THE MISSIONARY RESIDENCE. Okayama. 69 After a year in Tokyo, a temporary imprisonment, and a lapse into bad habits, as is the case with so many students who visit the capital, he took the advice of a Christian doctor, reformed his life and entered the Okayama medical school. At that time he had no Bible and knew little more of Christianity than that Faith, Hope, and Love are the fundamentals of the new religion. Turned away by the lack of sympathy of Protestants, he became a Roman Catholic, but craving a freer use of the Bible, he soon joined the Okayama Kumi-ai church. The priest's farewell words to him were, " My son, you are going straight to the devil." In July, 1884, while in Takanabe on his summer vacation, he established a night school for poor children, and on his return to Okayama in the autumn, the school was continued by one of the boys he had saved from beggary. For four years this was kept up, Mr. Ishii furnishing the funds and the faith. And he says that whenever he forgot to pray in Okayama, word would come from Takanabe, " The school is running down; '' and when he was impelled to more earnest prayer, a letter was sure to come, saying, " All goes well again.'' This not once, but many times. He was always caring for others, his fellow-students and chance acquain- tances, and he added night to day in his labors to secure the needed money. In 1886 the Christian with whom he was boarding read to him a letter from his son, a student in the Doshisha, telling of George Miiller's visit to Kyoto and of his Orphanages. This profoundly stirred Ishii's mind, and the phrase " Living Heav- enly Father and his love " for the first time became a reality to him, and he commit- ted his life and all to God's service in the care of neglected children. Going into a village for a time to practice medicine, he there first put into practice the principle of having no reserves, in money or resources, but doing today the utmost possible for others, and trusting God for the future. Hearing of the need of a friend who was studying in the Doshisha, he sent him all the money he had. When he had done this, joy and peace took possession of his soul.- The house adjoining his was a miserable hovel, frequented by the very poor. One day a beggar woman with two children stopped there and remained over night. Seeing their need, Ishii stepped in and gave the eight-year-old boy a bowl of his own rice. It was immediately passed on to the crippled sister. When the mother, who was out begging for breakfast, returned, she thanked Ishii for his kind act, and told how she had been left a widow and was working her way back to her native province; that she could support one child, but not both, etc. Ishii, promptly act- ing on his new rule of life, offered to adopt the boy, finally overcame the mother's reluctance, " scraped the vermin off his body with a brush " (to use his own words), gave him a bath and clean clothes, and took him into his home. This boy, healthy and happy, still lives in the asylum, and is frequently exhibited as the " original orphan." This act saved a family to society, turning them from beggars to bread- winners. The joy of the family was a melting sight. A little later he rented a Buddhist temple, and with the boy just mentioned and two others he had picked up, quietly opened his asylum. Within four months of graduation, and against the advice of all his friends, he now withdrew from the med- ical school, lest a doctoris diploma should be a temptation to him. He sold his med- ical books and a part of his clothing to start the new work to which he felt divinely called. . Since that day of momentous decision the asylum has grown steadily m num- bers, influence, and good works. It has passed through many trials, it has beer- reduced more than once to the last measure of rice, but the prayer of faith has_ brou"-ht relief, often at the moment of direst need and in ways truly wonderful. 7© American Board in Japan. Various industries have been established, — printing, weaving, the manufacture of safety matches, barbering, and farming, — by which the asylum has become a thriving Christian colony which earns about half its full support. It has also been very active in times of disaster, through floods and earthquakes, in relieving the distressed. It has grown steadily until it now numbers 278 children and twenty helpers, about 300 in all. From the beginning it has given a helping hand to 500 different persons. Its influence upon the members of our churches and upon many outside the churches, to whom it has been a great concrete object-lesson in Christian phil- anthropy, has been beyond computation. The first of its kind in the history of the nation, it has led to the formation of eighteen similar Christian institutions, and even the sluggish Buddhist priests have been stirred to like activities. The above account is condensed from writings of Dr. J. H. Pettee of Okayama. He and Mrs. Pettee have been for many years Ishii's most valued and helpful friends. REV. KOSUKE TOMEOKA. The conversion and bitter persecution of Mr. Tomeoka have already been re- ferred to. So relentless was his foster-father that he is said to have tied him up by the thumbs, swinging him clear of the ground. Finally, in desperation, he ran away to Imabari, and I have been told by one of the Christians there that on his arrival he looked like one far gone in consumption. He soon recuperated, however, and, coming to Kyoto, took a four years' course in the vernacular theological depart- ment, studying English at the same time. After graduation he spent several years faithfully and laboriously as pastor of a country church. Then a strange and unex- pected call came to him. In one of the large prisons, in the Hokkaido for long-sen- tence criminals, five hundred of the three thousand prisoners united in requesting the superintendent to give them a Christian "moral instructor," since the Buddhist priests had no message for them. This superintendent, having seen the good effects of Christianity in another prison, acceded to this request, and hence this call. His was no pei-functory service. Every Sunday afternoon he lectured on moral subjects to the three thousand inmates of the prison, attendance being compulsory. Then, after the lecture, there was an hour for special instruction in the Christian religion, attendance being voluntary. Hundreds of them became Bible students. Hours were also spent in talking to the men in the cells and individually. Beyond this, he studied the questions connected with prison management, the Elmira system, the care of discharged prisoners, the reformation of young criminals, and so on. His deep interest in these questions finally brought him to America. By the great courtesy and kindness of Superintendent Scott, Chaplain Batt, and other officers of the Massachusetts Reformatory, he spent several months in that excellent institution making a thorough study of its management. By the help of friends he visited most of the better prisons of the United States. After spending two years in this way, he returned to Japan to find a change of administration and no place for him in the prisons. The next year or two therefore were spent as editor of our Christian news- paper and pastor of one of our small churches. In the spring of 1898, however, he was appointed one of the chaplains to the fine new prison, built in the most modern style and situated at Sugamo, a suburb of the capital. This appointment caused great excitement, especially among the Bud- dhists, who went even so far as to carry through parliament a resolution censuring the government for employing this well-known Christian as an instructor in the Okayama. 7 r prison. But the government, feeling tlie importance at the critical time of enforce- ment of the new treaties, of having this prison expert in its " model prison," stood its ground, and for more than a year Mr. Tomeoka carried on here the same benefi- cent work he had done in the Hokkaido. One particular feature of his work was the creation of a prison library, costing more than I500, silver. This sum was given by the European residents of Yokohama, at the solicitation of Dr. Davis of our Mission. Early last summer came the rumor that Mr. Tomeoka was " promoted " to be an instructor in a school for policemen and prison wardens which the govern- ment was about to establish. The writer confesses to having had some doubts as to the good faith of tlie government in this action, but his doubts have happily been removed, and the school is already an actual fact. Here is what he wrote in a recent letter : — " 1 am exceedingly busy because the prison and police school is opened and I am teaching every day. The pupils are nearly three hundred. They are police sergeants and head-wardens of prisons. They have been selected from every police headquarters and prison in the empire. Their course of study is for six months. Then they go back to their own prefectures, and must instruct policemen and prison wardens. One hundred and ten of these are my pupils. Ten are Bud- dhist priests who were sent by Hongwanji (the most popular sect). After their graduation they will go to the prisons as chaplains. Now I am lecturing on prison systems and their history. When this is ended I shall take up ' The Care of Dis- charged Prisoners ' and ' The Reformation of Young Criminals.' " The above is a good illustration of the indirect entrance into Japan of Christian ideas and methods ! Mr. Tomeoka has another strongly cherished object, — a school for wayward children. Unfortunately he has had to go into debt for a part of the cost of his plant, but aside from that he hopes to make the fees from the rich fathers pay the expenses of the poor children. This school, the Sugamo Katei Gakko, is well de- serving of the gifts of Christian philanthropists. CHAPTER VIII. NIIGATA. NiiGATA is" the only open port on the west coast. It is a city of 50,000 inhabitants, and the center of one of the richest agricultural districts in the country. Here the English Church Missionary Society for a few years main- tained a station. After that society withdrew Dr. Palm, of the Edinburg Medical Missionary Society, and able assistants, labored here for a time with great zeal in preaching and healing. When that society decided to withdraw from Japan in 1883, Dr. Palm offered us the privilege of taking his place, and the offer was accepted. Messrs. O. H. Gulick and R. H. Davis and their families, and Miss Julia Gulick were voted there, and were cordially wel- comed by the Chris- tians. About forty united with them in celebrating the Lord's Supper the Sunday after their arrival. A little later Mr., Mrs., and Miss Guhck made a tour of the prov- ince, visiting San jo, Nakajo, Murakami, and six other important towns, in all but one of which there were one or more believers through Dr. Palm's labors : " We never failed of an audience and were constantly surprised at the numbers who came to see and hear us. We had to adhere to our program, making the successive stages regardless of rain, hail, snow, and floods that beat upon us. I have never traveled in such weather. One of the most flourishing places was Sanjo, a stronghold of Buddhism. Here the Christian doctor and his wife opened their house for a meeting, and though it poured a continuous torrent all day and evening, we had a very intelligent audience of fifty persons. A few days later the police reproved the doctor for allowing the meeting in his house. Strange enough, he had courage to defend himself, and stranger still, the police owned their fault and begged his pardon." We omit further details of the tour and add a very graphic description of some of the discomforts of such an experience : — " Such a tour as this is no holiday recreation ; but, on the contrary, is very taxing to body and mind. We averaged ten or twelve miles a day. With the exception of one fine day, we had either rain, snow, or hail, every Niigata. 73 day we traveled. Soaked or benumbed feet were the rule while on the road. In the hotels we hovered on bended knee over the handful of coals in the brazier, which do duty for the cheerful fireplace, the stove, or the furnace of well appointed abodes in more favored lands. " No matter how cold it is, shoes are not allowed in the clean, matted rooms of any Japanese hotel or dwelling. Slippers are permitted as a conces- sion to the foreigner. After making your prostrations to your callers, the proper position for yourself and all your company is to sit in a circle about the brazier, while tea and cakes or candies are passed around. After the tea the inevitable pipe, each individual carrying his own, is produced. A little pinch of dry fine-cut, half the size of a pea, is pressed into the microscopic bowl, the gentleman bends forward on his knee with the long pipe stem in his mouth, touches the pipe to a live coal, gives a suck, bloats his cheeks for a moment with the warm smoke, and then expels it in two streams from his nos- trils. A second whifE ; then with a sharp rap of the pipe on the side of the brazier, or of a box for the purpose, the ashes are expelled, and he is ready to repeat the dose, or with an air of satisfaction tucks his pipe back into his belt. Each member of the circle is likely to repeat this operation from five to fifteen times in -an hour, and you, the one abstainer, have the full benefit. " This is but one of the discomforts. The polite manner of sitting — the only manner admissible in refined society — is another and very great one. " Your caller is announced. He drops on his hands and knees and touches his forehead to the mat. You do the same. Perhaps a second bow, and you ask him to be seated. Modestly he subsides at a little distance to the rear. You urge him to come up to the brazier and warm his hands. He declines. You urge him again, and he crawls forward. You are seated ; all are seated. Your instep and the top of your stockinged or slippered feet press the floor, while you sit back full weight upon your heels and the upturned soles of your feet, with your knees straight before you. You, or your travel- ing companion, pass the tea and cake. You exchange a few words with your caller, perhaps spread the palms of your cold hands over the few red coals, and try to look serene and composed. If you are an average foreigner, and not of the loose-jointed kind, about five minutes in this position is all you can endure, and you are ready to exclaim, ' Who shall deliver me from bondage to Japanese etiquette ? ' Your agony betrays itself in your face, and one of your polite visitors begs you to unbend and stretch out your feet. Thankful enough, you relieve your aching ankles and knees by assuming the attitude of the Turk, or the Hawaiian, on the mats. Occasionally the hotel-keeper, or your host, knowing the weakness of the foreigner, offers you a chair. But as vain is the efEort of the man in a chair to be sociable with those on the mats as for a man on horseback to identify himself with a company of foot passen- gers. Half an hour of enforced endurance of the standard polite position will render the ripe foreigner as lame as a foundered horse. The once flexi- ble knee-joint refuses duty. But then, the Japanese are the most polite peo- ple in the world, and they will pardon any attitude in one whom they know and respect." 74 American Board in Japan. MIDNIGHT CONVERSATIONS. " Late hours are another of the trials of the missionary tourist. Your evening meeting begins at 8 or 8.30 p.m. and closes at 10. At this late and weary hour, your Christian friends, or more interested hearers, flock into your room for a sociable of one or two hours. Gathered around the brazier, with tea and tobacco, they talk and talk. If the missionary and his helper can watch and wait and talk on and oh through these midnight hours, they will do more for individuals than by all their formal preaching.- These late mid- night talks are not all mere talk. Often the gravest subjects are discussed with admirable ability. For instance, on this tour we have heard the follow- ing subjects discussed : Bismarck's advice to Mr. Ito, that it is the elevation of the people by the gospel that Japan needs ; the character of Washington, Lincoln, Garfield, and Grant; the Liberty party; the Progressive party; elec- tion by ballot ; the Uberty of America ; women's rights ; the education of women; the means of elevating this country; the religious newspapers of Japan ; the theory of annihilation ; and many of the doctrines of the gospel.'' A little later circumstances brought a great change in the personnel of the station. Dr. Doremus Scudder and Miss Kate Scudder took up with great enthusiasm both branches of Dr. Palm's work, and not long after they received large reinforcements; the venerable Dr. H. M. Scudder and wife. Rev. G. E. and Mrs. Albrecht, Rev. H. B. Newell, Mrs. Kendall, and Misses Graves, Judson, and Poole. A school for young men and another for young women were started with considerable contributions from Japanese friends. Dr. Scudder and the other gentlemen of the station were invited by the chief justice of the district, by lawyers and other influential men in the different cities to lecture on such subjects as " Christianity the Corner-stone of Civiliza- tion," " Theism and Atheism," and so on. Pleasant social relations between them and the governor, vice-governor, and other officials of the province were doubtless helpful in making the new teaching familiar to the upper classes of society. This most hopeful situation would doubtless have borne its legitimate fruits had not this spirit of willingness to cooperate with foreigners been over- whelmed by the morbid nationalism which from this time on began to flood Japan like one of her own tidal waves. The same influences which destroyed the Tokwa School in Sendai, as described in a later chapter, blotted out the Niigata schools, despite the self-denying efforts of both Japanese and mission- aries, and a cold wave of rationalism, similar to though not equally strong with that spoken of in the chapter on Maebashi, chilled the budding faith of many an inquirer. This, with the transference of several members to other stations and the enforced return of others to the United States for health reasons, was a great disaster and has made the field doubly difficult for their successors. This province has been called " Darkest Japan." It is certainly one of the strongholds of Buddhism, and one of the places where the new civiliza- tion has had the slightest influence. The missionaries named and their most worthy successors have had, and still have, the greatest difficulties to contend Niigata. 75 ■with, as I can testify from a personal visit to nearly every preaching-place in the district; but in the midst of their heroic, and not always encouraging labors they have the great consolation of bringing the light to those who, sit- ting in darkness, are thirsting for it. That this hungering for intellectual and spiritual light is no mere figure of speech is clearly seen in the authentic history of four young girls who lived in the city of Nagaoka. So burning was their desire for an education that they covenanted together to achieve their purpose or commit suicide. The first asked her father to send her to school. He gave her a rough and repellant reply. The mother also scolded her. Then she fulfilled her vow. The second had a brother in the Imperial University. When he came home at vacation time she asked that she also might go to school. He ridiculed her and declared that it was enough for a girl to learn to cook, sew, etc. She, too, committed suicide. The third, more fortunate, succeeded in entering a nprmal school. The fourth entered a mis- sion school, but her father was so incensed at her becoming a Christian that he sent her off to a distant part of the country where her Christian friends could hold no communication with her. Can Christians be loyal subjects of the emperor ? That is a very practi- cal question to the members of our churches. There is a strong party which takes constant delight in impeaching the loyalty of Christians and in making it difficult for them to serve their country as soldiers or school teachers. We find reference to this class in the following from Mr. Newell : — " At Kashiwazaki I found that the superior officer of the military post had forbidden his inferiors attending Christian meetings ; so the church there was deprived of the presence of several who would be glad to go. "At Niigata, on the other hand, an interesting case came up in connec- tion with the Normal School. Every year one or two graduates of this school, if successful in passing the required examinations, are sent to the Higher Nor- mal at Tokyo, the president of this school making the appointment, that is, the appointment is virtually in the hands of the president, though theoretically it is made by the governor, and based upon the examination papers. This year the man who took the highest stand was one of our Kashiwazaki Christians, a graduate last year and at present a public school teacher. The president of the Normal School, however, refused to appoint him, on the ground that Christianity was contrary to the emperor's Chokugo (the now famous edict on education promulgated just ten years ago), and sent up the "man who was second best. Quite contrary to his expectations apparently, several of the members of the faculty protested against his action and carried the matter to the governor. " The discussion became public, all the newspapers of the province blazing away at it, the three Niigata papers being two to one against the pres- ident. The discussion developed the fact that two of the school faculty were baptized Christians and two others openly in favor of Christianity, — openly now, though all had been silent before 1 A meeting was finally held at the school, at which the governor appeared and made an address in which he practically gave an open rebuke to the president, declaring that there was 76 American Board in Japan. nothing antagonistic between Christianity and the Chokugo, that the constitu- tion gave religious liberty, and that the question of a man's religious faith should have nothing to do with his appointment to or preferment in office. Such appointment should be based on ability alone. He did not go so far, however, as to reverse the president's appointment this year, as it had ^already gone into effect, and the appointee was pursuing his studies at the higher school ; but he practically gave the right of way for next year to the Christian who had been defrauded, and in the meantime he has been given the tempo- rary honor of promotion to a much better school. Mr. Yoshida, the defrauded candidate, is a very bright young man whom I baptized in Nagaoka five years ago, he walking all the way from Kashiwazaki to receive the rite before he should enter upon his normal school studies." This excellent young brother after years of rare faith and devotion, recently died, his faithful life and triumphant death making a deep impression on the community. Of several young men in the Niigata church Mr. Newell wrote : — " One of these is a young Buddhist priest who became a Christian last spring, and who seems to feel ' Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.' His enthusiasm has provoked much opposition from his older brother, who is a priest in the largest temple in the city, and of the sect most uncompromisingly bitter in its opposition to Christianity — the Jo-do Shin-shu. His parents are both dead, and until becoming a Christian he was employed in his brother's temple. Even after that time his brother, under toleration, allowed him to live there, but made his life more or less miserable by his Continual nagging. Not until this fall, however, did any serious trouble come. His frequent and earnest appeals, at the Shima preaching-place, to turn from a life of dead cere- mony to one of living faith, such as he had found so great a blessing to him- self, soon attracted the attention of some of the adherents of his temple, and brought about a demand from them that he either be made to give up his new faith or else be turned out of the temple. For it was not difficult to see that so long as he stayed in the temple with his brother, and at his expense, they, the adherents, were practically supporting him ; and they did not relish the idea of supporting a Christian evangelist — at least one of such earnest type. His brother tried to compromise matters by telling him it would proba- bly be all right if he would only quit preaching. But he told him very plainly that, being so fully persuaded of the utter truth of the gospel and the utter insufficiency of" Buddhism, he should, feel that it was treachery for him now to keep silent. And he continued his public preaching as before. A respite of one week was granted, in which he was told to decide between giving up his religion and leaving the temple — his only home. He decided on the spot that he could riot give up his witnessing, but, if they were willing, he would gladly accept the week of hospitality in the temple. " When the week was up a consultation was held, in which his brother, an uncle (also a priest), and several priestly friends all tried to argue, then to frighten, him out of his position. But he was firm. Then it was suggested to send him to a Buddhist school at Sanjo, and he was given another week in which to think that over. He wants very much to get a good education, but Niigata. 77 wants to get it at the Doshisha. His brother, however, will not assist him in a Christian school, and has finally quite refused to send him to any school. But this offer of paying his way to a fairly good school was at last used as a temptation, the implication being, of course, that he must enter as a Buddhist, not as a Christian. This ruse also failed, but it gave- him another week at home. One expedient after another has been tried, each in turn failing, but each giving him a few more days' respite, which he has always accepted with the utmost good humor, showing that whatever they did they could not anger him, and if he left home at all, it would be only by their positively driving him out ; and when they really got ready to do that, he insisted upon his right to take with him a regularly written statement to that effect, by which he might possibly be set at right in future. Once his brother and companions did in anger drive him out of the temple and refuse him lodging for the night, but the next morning his uncle sought him at the pastor's home and persuaded him to return." If I am not mistaken as to his identity this young man has since become a member of our theological class in Kyoto. The Niigata church, which has been only nominally independent for sev- eral years past, has formally become an " aided " church. An incipient Y. M. C. A. publishes a magazine and has opened a reading room in the city. There are three other regular preaching places in the city and in the chain of important towns which extends through the province — Shibata, Niitsu, Gosen, Sanjo, Nagaoka, and Kashiwazaki, faithful work is being done under the constant supervision of Messrs. Newell and Pedley. The children's Sunday School is an important factor of the work, and on Wednesday evenings the boys are free to spend a social time at the Kogisho, which forms a stepping-stone to the Sunday School. The weekly Bible class for adults continues with good interest. Two joint woman's socie- ties meet at the home of the lady missionaries once a month, with 'an attend- ance of twenty-five. A children's society has regular meetings on Saturday afternoons in this same place, with an attendance of about thirty. Bible lessons and talks on religious subjects are given at these different meetings. Two Bible classes for young men and one for ladies are taught by the lady missionaries, who also have each two English classes, one for young men and one for girls. In addition to these classes some of the nurses from the city hospital are coming regularly for religious instruction. Touring is done during the spring and fall months and meetings held for the women in all the different outstations, with audiences varying according to season and size of town. During a recent short tour of four days meet- ings were held in three towns, with audiences from twelve to one hundred. The above summary of woman's work indicates the excellent work being done by Misses Brown and Swartz. CHAPTER IX. SENDAI. The Sendai station was opened in 1886 under unique circumstances. For ten years the Doshisha had been doing its good work in Kyoto, with such success that its reputation had become national. Moved by this fact, Mr. Tomita, a wealthy and influential gentleman of Sendai birth, who had been a consul in New York, requested Mr. Neesima to lend his name to the founding of a Christian school in Sendai which should gradually develop into a new Doshisha, or into an " Oriental New England College." He told Neesima that if the American Board would provide missionary teachers for ten years, the people of Sendai would furnish buildings, native teachers, and all other expenses. Messrs. Neesima and DeForest were sent to Sendai to make a thorough examination of the situation, and so provide against all possible misunderstandings. They were cordially welcomed by the governor and other prominent men, and at an entertainment given them the governor announced that ^5,000 (silver) were pledged to the new school, and that the religious basis was to be the same as that of the Doshisha. In view of the fact that this would give us a new center, greatly widen our field, and give fine oppor- tunities to reach the young men of the province through the schools, this generous offer was accepted. Dr. DeForest and Mr. Allchin (the latter tem- porarily) went as teachers, and later Messrs. W. W. Curtis and F. N. White and Miss Meyer joined the station. The school was called Tokwa Gakko (Eastern flower-school). It was opened with the reading of Scriptures and prayer, and an address declaring it to be a part of the plan of the Unseen God to bless Japan. The mayor of the city was present and spoke in approbation. The unique element was this, that while governor, mayor, and other prominent persons gave their open and hearty approval, not one of them was a Christian. The great experiment was this union of a non-Christian board of trustees with a Christian faculty to form a Christian school. There were mutual concessions without which suc- cess was, of course, impossible ; and out of a faculty of seven, six were Chris- tians. The large number of the students (122) to begin with, the enthusiastic support of officials and people, and the enlarged opportunities for evangelism, made the outlook for the new station remarkably hopeful. Sendai, it may be said, is a city of about 70,000 souls, finely situated on the railway, 250 miles northeast of Yokohama and about twenty miles from the coast. It is the headquarters of the imperial army for Northeast Japan, and a great commercial and educational center. During the first year various difficulties were encountered, but disposed of in such a way that the year's work was regarded satisfactory. The pupils made good progress in their studies, and the religious interest among the Sendai. >jn students resulted in twenty of them joining the church. By the end of the year a large recitation hall and a dormitory had been erected, and were dedi- cated with general rejoicing : — " The formal opening took place just before examination exercises. The prominent men of this part of the country were present: governor, vice- governor, secretary, mayor, generals, judges, school officials, and others. The minister of education was expected, but was unable to leave Tokyo in time, so that his visit was made a few days later. The United States Minister, unable from sickness to attend, sent a letter of regret and well-wishes by the interpreter of the legation. We rejoiced to see Mr. Neesima, who is president of this school as well as of the Doshisha. In his address he told how, when he was in America two years ago, being forbidden by his physicians to look at books, he had hung the map of his beloved country by his bedside, and, as he gazed at it, the position of Sendai impressed him greatly as the most important point in all this part of the empire, the key, in fact, to Eastern Japan, and his heart was set on having a school here." . Other addresses by Governor Matsudaira, Mr. Tomita, and Dr. DeForest iollowed. Evangelistic work was pushed in the city and outlying district with results that were a rich reward to the preachers and life to those who heard. Five years of brave and successful battling against difficulties of one kind and another followed, and then quite suddenly and unexpectedly this bright light failed. Sendai was a strong center of Buddhism and of other influences antago- nistic to Christianity. Hence it was that opposition, though sometimes slumbering, was never dead. This finally took the form of a movement in the prefectural legislature to establish a public school of similar grade to the Tokwa. It was clearly felt that the success of this movement would sooner or later result in the financial ruin of our school, and it was decided before- hand that, upon the passage of the bill, the teachers, native and foreign, should all resign. Dr. DeForest portrays the outcome : — " The school into which we have put so much strength during five years has closed. The final exercises took place yesterday, in the presence of the 150 scholars, the teachers and trustees, the governor and mayor, and several scores of leading officials and citizens. It was indeed a grand wind-up. It -was the occasion of frank and regretful expression of opinion on the part of all concerned, with reference to the first prominent effort in Japan of non- Christians to carry on a school with Christian principles. The attempt was an honest one on both sides, and as two governors, with many influential citi- zens, have been promoters of this unique movement, you can easily see that it has attracted wide attention, and has won large praise as well as called down a continued fire of hostile criticism. It has been indeed a trying posi- tion for all concerned : first, for the trustees, because not one of them is a Christian ; second, for the teachers, because they were united in Christian principles. "Yet it tells well for the trustees, that they were willing to entrust a 8o American Board in Japan. school to Christian teachers, and to keep it up in face of steady public and private criticism, when the annual deficit of ^2,500 or $3,000 had to come out of their own pockets. The promoters of the school had confidence in Dr. Neesima, and in those with whom he associated. And they would have been willing to carry on the school, provided others had joined the movement and aided it pecuniarily. " Well, it has closed. And it was just delightful to hear Mr. Wada, the acting principal, speak for a half-hour before that audience of distinguished visitors and the students, frankly saying that of course the school had been carried on on Christian principles, and that the fruit of those principles was already seen in the conduct and aim of the graduates and undergraduates ; and he hoped no student would ever disgrace the moral teaching he had re- ceived, but would rather so act that ere many years had passed it would become a common regret all around that a school that had produced such men had been given up ; and out of that wide regret, he hoped, the school would be established anew, no more to be abandoned. " It was equally pleasing to hear the reply of one of the twelve graduates, as he told how in all their studies he and his fellow-students prized not only the morality but the Christianity they had received in connection with their studies. Then I spoke briefly, and was followed by the mayor and the governor, who expressed deep regret that they were unable to carry oh a school that had done so much to inspire the students. It will please you to know that the work of your missionaries was most cordially recognized by these officials. More than that, the trustees sent Mr. Curtis a pair of beauti- ful bronze vases, and sent me two rare boxes of gold lacquer which I wish could be put on exhibition over your way. " Of the students, five or six of the graduates will go to the Doshisha, and some of them will take the theological course. Others go to the various schools of the empire, far or near, bearing the seeds of Christian truth. The school has closed, but the work done has not. It will abide. More and more the authorities are jealous of any foreign hand in their educational institu- tions, and the places for which foreigners have been eagerly sought will here- after, more and more, be filled by those bright young Japanese who have studied abroad." The last sentences of this extract seem to be a prophecy of the educa- tional troubles with which all the mission schools have been and are still wrestling. It is easy to see God's hand in our plans which succeed, and to make the mistake of thinking that he has had nothing to do with labors which appar- ently fail of success. The logic which would pronounce the opening of the Sendai station and the Tokwa school a failure would blot out some of the fairest pages in the history of the Church. After the above result was reached, several members of the station were called elsewhere. For several years past it has consisted of Dr. and Mrs. DeForest (the latter for four years in America) and Miss Bradshaw. With heroic devotion they have been helping the little churches and sowing the Sendai. 8 1 seed of the Kingdom in Sendai and the outlying region, and in the pecuUarly interesting and inviting Aidzu valley, a hundred miles southwest of Sendai. Here are 300,000 people scattered mostly in farming villages and small towns. Among these are about two hundred Christians, but no missionary save a Catholic priest. To this field Dr. DeForest frequently, and Miss Bradshaw occasionally, go ; and, mingling with high and low, they tell the old, old story in chapel, schoolhouse, theater, and Buddhist temple. Here are a few descrip- tive extracts : — " On my last trip I was invited to a silk factory to address the operatives, some fifty young women. In another village I was invited to preach in a Buddhist temple, a thing that astonished both me and the Christians too. This shows a very marked change in public opinion wittiin two or three years; When we asked, ' Will not the priest be angry ? ' we were told it made no difference whether he were or not. He did not own the temple. It belonged to the village, whose committee of four unanimously said we could have it and welcome. So we had it. The whole village largely attended. I had gone there expecting to speak, in part, on comparative religion, but when I found the temple open to our preaching, I dropped comparisons and went straight for the great truths of God and man." " I am sorry to add that the educational department manufactures many belated school teachers whose one idea of Christianity is that it will ^vq a fatal wound to the national life. ' I must ask you,' said one of these bright young men, ' to be careful in teaching Christianity not to wound the national life.' As he repeated this three times in the course of a few minutes, I asked him to specify what wound he referred especially to. He hesitated, and was probably thinking of a possible change that Christianity might bring about in the constitution of the imperial family. But he avoided that and said : ' Oui: people from early ages have been accustomed to go to the sacred shrine at Ise and worship the nation's ancestors. Your religion might do great harm to this one spot in the national life.' To which I replied : ' You need have no anxiety on that point. Christianity will bring a great blessing to this great shrine of Japan. It will put a stop to the hundreds of harlot houses that line the way the pilgrims go to Ise and that are an open shame to your shrine, and will give joy and health to the national life that now suffers so deeply from this immense evil. And it will ennoble the great shrine by teaching the pil- grims to worship the only true God with gratitude for giving them such capable ancestors and such a rich love for their native land. There is not anything good in Japan but that will be bettered by Christ and his great salvation." " The other night a gentleman called who is in the employ of the mil- lionaire Okura, who recently gave 500,000 yen to establish a school in Tokyo — the first gift of the kind in Japan. This employee, Homma, belongs to Mr. Tomeoka's church in Tokyo. A few years ago he was a confirmed Bud- dhist. He read my tract on ' Choice of a Life- Work ' and was somewhat shaken, but threw it away and resisted the Spirit for some years, when he felt impelled to read that book again. He hunted the bookstores for one, and at last got it. He heard Tomeoka preach and it cut him all up. He 82 American Board in Japan. and his wife yielded and were baptized. Last fall Tomeoka's church had reached the bottom round of the ladder, where they could not possibly raise money to repair the church. The only plan in sight was to sell out. Homma and Tomeoka alone resisted. Homma sold his violin and gave 50 yen towards repairs. He invaded a count's house and sold several Bibles at an advance of 9 yen, and got 20 yen subscription towards the church. In short, he raised 500 yen plus, and saved the church. He now moves to Sendai, where our little church needs just such work. When I meet such a Christian it puts a new story onto my old house of faith. I see with wider look." Dr. DeForest has frequently lent a helping hand to other stations. By this and by the large number of tracts which he has prepared he has greatly extended his usefulness. This field is divided into two. i. The Sendai group: Sendai; about 70,000 population. Sanuma ; about 7,000 population. Mizusawa; about 7,000 population. 2. The Aidzu valley group : Wakamatsu ; 25,000 popula- tion. Kitagata; 7,000 population. Bange ; 5,000 population. Takata; 3,500 population. woman's work. Miss Bradshaw returned to Sendai in April, 1899, and threw herself into work with her usual vigor, even spending the summer at home and keeping up classes during the almost intolerable heat, made worse by the persistent friend- ship of innumerable mosquitoes. Her work was sadly disabled by the death of five of the ablest Christian women within a year and a half. There had been no Bible woman during her absence, and it was not until fall that she secured the valuable services of Miss Taenaka, from the Kobe college. Then Miss Bradshaw's house became a perfect hive of work, combining school, church and home, all in one. The regular work for women consists of classes at the church and in her house, as well as visiting the homes of the people for systematic Bible instruction. Besides this, she is especially gifted in reach- ing young men in the Government college, the Middle School, and in the Post Office service, and in securing the willing aid of Christian students and others to make the work successful. The classes number twelve in all. The church and Sunday Schools have taken on new life from Miss Bradshaw's work. Undoubtedly there is a more serious willingness throughout the Empire to listen to Christianity. Moral questions, involving the whole family life, are stirring the people to seek moral light as well as intellectual. While the lower common schools are narrow and markedly anti-christian, the Gov- ernment colleges are beginning to permit Christian lectures in their halls, as has been done in Sendai and Kumamoto, and perhaps in other cities. The churches are more hopeful, the workers more in earnest. Contact with Christian thought is producing a consciousness of sin and of the necessity of higher moral standards. The pastors and evangelists of this field form a harmonious band of workers always ready to assist each other. CHAPTER X. KYUSHU. The large company of young men who came from Kyushu to the Doshisha, and thereby became such important factors in the development of our work, always cherished a warm interest in the evangelization of their native island. In this they had the full sympathy of the mission, which, at ■considerable expense, stationed evangelists in Fukuoka and Kumamoto. Visits by Messrs. Atkinson and R. H. Davis had been warmly welcomed, and in June, 1885, a church of twenty-five members was formed in Fukuoka and its pastor ordained and installed. The oft-repeated request, that we make this island one of our stations, was not acceded to simply because of our inadequate force. Just at this time, however, Rev. Orramel H. and Mrs. Gulick, who had been born and bred in mild Hawaii, found the climate of Niigata two vigorous for them, and so it seemed to all that the hoped-for time to occupy Kyushu bad come. They first visited Fukuoka ; found it and the sister city of Hakata con- taining 50,000 inhabitants, and that Pastor and Mrs. Fuwa, in addition to conducting a successful English school, were maintaining eight or nine preaching services in the city and prefecture. They visited other cities, and, after a careful study of the situation, decided to make Kumamoto their center of operations. Later they were joined by Misses Gulick, Clark, Rev. Sidney L. and Mrs. Gulick, and Rev. Cyrus A. and Mrs. Clark. In company with their Japanese associates, active evangelistic work was done throughout all the region. On one tour Mr. and Miss Gulick " traveled 475 miles, 200 of them by jinrikisha, 150 by steamer, 75 on pack-horses, and 50 miles in an open boat." Later a school for young men, and another for young women were started. For the former the Japanese subscribed ^750, and at the end of the first year it contained one hundred pupils. It would be pleasant to dwell upon the faithful, self-denying and perse- vering labors of the members of this station through the several years of its existence, but we must pass this by with but brief mention. It is enough to say that friction unexpectedly arose, and that one whom the Japanese friends of the school put at its head, a man educated in America and Scotland, proved utterly recreant to his trust, making a wreck of the school and of his own character. Before this result was reached, Mr. and Mrs. Clark had removed to Miyazaki, on the eastern shore of the island, where they and Miss McGandlish are still doing successful work, as we sh9.ll see. Mr. and Mrs. O. H. Gulick having been called to Hawaii to care for the Japanese there, and Mr. S. L. Gulick and family being absent on furlough, it was decided to transfer that part of the island to our Japanese Home Missionary Society 84 American Board in Japan. while we concentrated our strength upon other fields. We proceed at once, therefore, to the Miyazaki station. The first evangelist to enter this district was Rev. H. Kozaki, who spent a short time in Takanabe before removing to Tokyo. Later, Mr. Mashino did most excellent service for the towns all along this coast. In 1888 Mr. O. H. Gulick and sister reported a visit here : — " From this place we took steamer down the coast one hundred and twenty-five miles to Hososhima, a port in the northern part of Hiuga. Here we met Mr. Mashino, the evangelist in this province. He escorted us eight miles to " Mimitsu, the northernmost of the three stations that he has worked in the province of Hiuga. Here, on our first evening we held a preaching service at the large house of one of the Christians, which was crowded to the utmost by an audience of five hundred. We found here three Christian men, and I had the pleasure of baptizing seven persons, five men and two women, as the fruits of Mr. Mashino's labors at this point* We then observed the Lord's Supper with them. My sister held a meeting with the women. A ride of seventeen and a half miles brought us to " Takanabe. This is the central station of Hiuga, and the point which Mr. Mashino has made his home during the sixteen months of his stay in the province. Here we found forty-eight names on the list of believers, and had the satisfaction, after careful examination, of baptizing twelve persons, seven men and five women, and of meeting with the whole company of Chris- tians around the Lord's table. We held two evening preaching services in their stated house of worship, attended by not less than five hundred each evening. Another jinrikisha ride of seventeen and a half miles, still following the coast southward, and we arrived at " Miyazaki, the prefectural center of this province, an enterprising and youthful city, growing up near the spot where the legends relate that the ancestors of the Japanese race originally landed from some celestial shore, and whence they spread over the hills, valleys, and plains of this teeming land. Great success has attended the faithful labors of our youthful evange- list at this place. Here we found sixteen persons, nine men and seven women, apparently well fitted, by intelligent belief and devotion, to make profession of their faith. These, with the four believers whom we found there, constitute as promising a company of Christians as I know of any- where in Japan. A larger proportion than usual of these Christians of Hiuga are in a position to obtain a comfortable support. Among them are petty government officers, a doctor, school teachers, merchants, and mechanics. We have every cause for thanksgiving that such results are here obtained from the efforts that have been made. " The present evangelist has been here for sixteen months, and has done admirable work. There are now eighty-nine baptized believers numbered on his roll in these three cities. Leaving Miyazaki, a jinrikisha ride of thirty- three miles southwestward, two-thirds of it over high mountains, brought us to " Miyakonojo, a city of importance in the southern part of Hiuga, a place Kyushu. 8 <:. never before visited, I believe, by a missionary, and in which a foreign lady had never before been seen. The evangelist of the Reformed Mission, located in Kagoshima, makes occasional visits to this place. At the urgent request of the one Christian man in the city, we held a crowded evening preaching service, attended by a very attentive audience of about three hun- dred persons. As we rode out of the city in the morning, literally thousands of people crowded the sides of the streets to get a glimpse of the foreign lady." ^ When Mr. and Mrs. Clark went to Miyazaki in 1892 they were most cordially received. With slight changes, this graphic picture has often been repeated in other stations : " Eighteen miles from Mimitsu brings us to Takanabe, where we have an evangelist and about forty good Christians. A large group of them met us outside the town, and our welcome here was very hearty. The evangelist and three or four others have come thus far, eighteen miles, from Miyazaki to meet us. Next day we go on to Miyazaki. Three or four miles out we meet a company of fifteen or twenty of the Christian men awaiting our coming with hearty greeting ; and just outside the city the church women were waiting in jinrikishas. We pause just long enough for bows, when all come on to our house, where the bows and exchange of greetings are more elaborate. A half-hour of introductions and sociability, then a hymn, and Evangelist Washiyami reads a chapter from the Bible, and leads us in prayer. Then the company, kindly considerate of our fatigue, leave us to ourselves. Our welcome among the people here could not have been more cordially expressSd than it has been in these and other ways." Nor was this welcome for them alone. Mr. Clark reports the presence of Mr. Ebina, the president of the Japan Home Missionary Society, and his wife, for several days, visiting the schools of Hiuga province. At a theater meeting in Miyazaki, some seven hundred or more persons were present. At other meetings, one of them in Mr. Clark's house, two hundred were present. Mrs. Ebina met the women on several occasions. Of a communion service, at which Mr. Clark baptized six adults and four children, he writes : " Two of these were a judge and his wife, who had walked here that morning from a town eight miles away, over a mountain path, carrying their two heavy children, one four and the other two years old. All four were baptized. They returned home after the service, carrying the children, and in a pouring rain. Such people make good Christians. On Friday, seven of us walked over the same mountain road and had communion services at the house of this man, and I baptized his mother. It is a whole family newly given to the Lord. They are the only Christians in the place. A fellow- judge was present at the service, one of half a dozen whom Evangelist Ueoka meets weekly for Bible study. We all walked on the same afternoon to Hirose, seven miles, spent the evening at the house of a man whom, with his wife, I had baptized the previous day, the first-fruits of evangelistic work in this old Samurai town. At this house gather every week, with Mr. Ueoka, a company of seven or eight men to study the Bible and ask questions about 86 American Board in Japan. Christian truth. Two of these come in for the evening ; both are doctors, and one is a member of the provincial legislature. Wider work is planned for this place, and the prospect of a speedy harvest of souls here is good." The missionary's home in these interior stations is one of the chief means of reaching the people. Of the many who visit it, only a few at the time become Christians, but to all Christianity becomes a more familiar thing, and less an object of fear and hate. In 1893 Mr. Clark built a house, and he gives a vivid picture of the results to the community : " This house is proving to be a great help in the missionary work. Its semi-foreign style and foreign furnittlre and foreign occupants make it unique in Hiuga. From the first, visitors to see the house have been many, and some days very many. For the past three months they literally number thousands, and on some single days hundreds. This is not specially con- ducive to home quiet and privacy, nor to systematic work in the study. But it has given a rare opportunity to sow the gospel seed widely. " Among these thousands who have thus been brought within word-shot and tract-shot, every part of this province has been represented. The usual route of march through the house always ends up with the missionary's study, where are tracts and talk in abundance, which are as tactfully and suitably given to each visitor as is possible under the circumstances. Sometimes with individuals, or with small groups, long and satisfactory talks about the Christ can be had. But often, with the room full and others waiting to come in, only a word and a tract are possible. The great majority listen to the talk, or answers to their questions about Christianity, with more than passive interest, often most eagerly. Some of the seed we have been able to sow in this way has surely fallen on good ground, and is already growing, as we have abundant proof. " Among the cases is one which is somewhat reinarkable, that of Ikime village, seven miles from Miyazaki. On a Buddhist festival day, two months ago, a large number came from that village to the festival. A few, noticing the strange house, called, were civilly treated, and were shown the rooms. They told their friends about it, and before night a hundred or so of the Ikime people had been in and gone away, each with a tract and a word about the Saviour. Since then, on nearly every day, others from that village have come, while not a few have returned again and again to hear more of the talk about Christ. Some have come as delegates from their neighbors, to hear all they could and report on their return. Two weeks ago, special r.equest was sent that many of them might come to the house and hear preaching. Sunday afternoon was fixed upon as the time, and about fifty walked in, and after listening to three sermons, begged for more and that they might come again to hear." While Mr. and Mrs. Clark were absent on furlough, Mr. Pettee, of Okayama, visited Miyazaki, and what has already been written will prepare us for his appreciative words : " It was refreshing to note the love and admiration that all classes of people have for Mr. Clark. The explanation is simple. He loves Hiuga Kyushu. 87 and her people, has worked incessantly for them, and they do not forget it. This is especially true of the Christians. In their view there are three great American Clarks : Secretary N. G. Clark, who has just finished his work; Dr. F. E. Clark, of Christian Endeavor fame ; and C. A. Clark, the mission- ary ; and the greatest of these is Cyrus." From some notes of Mr. Clark, of Miyazaki, the following facts are gleaned : — " Our evangelists have all been doing faithful work, with some visible results ; but with more of the results, invisible for a time, which follow plow- ing and sowing. Evangelists have been secured during the year for three vacancies, Miyakonojo, Miraitsu, and Takanabe. One or two more are needed very much, but lack of funds will forbid employing them this year. " The Nobeoka evangelist is a leader and welcomed co-worker in various enterprises for bettering the town, e. g., a night school, and a woman's club of about one hundred and fifty members. The Kumi-ai preaching place is a recognized center for such work. " The Mimitsu evangelist visits four places. Besides the ordinary methods, English teaching and ' question meetings ' are the special features of his work. He finds many glad listeners even in this very difficult field. " By the kindness and tact of the evangelist at Obi, public sentiment there has been gradually changed from active opposition to Christianity to a very noticeable favoring of it. One evidence of this is the large audiences that always gather at special preaching meetings. At a recent meeting a crowded house, mostly men, listened with the greatest attention for an hour and a half to an address by Miss McCandlish on the subject of ' Christianity and Women.' " For over a year the Takanabe church was without shepherding, except such as we could give from Miyazaki, eighteen miles away. In view of this pastorless condition, and in response to the very urgent appeal for English teaching there, I have given two days every week, since December, to that place, making calls by day and teaching English classes in the evening. Besides this, my helper or I have given two Sabbaths a month there during the year. The much-needed man is at last found for this place, and he begins his work May ist. Sadowara, ten miles distant, has also had bi- monthly pastoral visits from my helper or me, or both. " Miyazaki has been helped hitherto by the Japanese Home Missionary Society; but in November last the society transferred its evangelist to Fukuoka for work on the west side of the island, proposing to give up Miyazaki. But, acceding to the earnest request of the church 'here, they continue help to the extent of half the evangelist's salary for one year longer, when this church expects to become self-supporting. Mr. Noguchi, who had been my personal helper for over a year, was released from this connection that he might take the pastoral responsibility of this church from May ist. " In all these places the work has still to be personal and individual rather than by large public gatherings. The importance of church-going is not yet fully appreciated in Hiuga, though there is a large and an ever-increasing 88 American Board in Japan. number who welcome for themselves religious instruction. The general tour- ing work has occupied the greater part of my time and some of the time of Miss McCandlish, though language study has had to be her main work. Miss McCandlish has had in charge the Children's Sunday School of the Miyazaki church, and a Sunday School at the home of one of the Christians in a village near, also a weekly preaching service at a place about two miles away. Mrs. Miyagawa has been her sympathetic interpreter. " The mission premises is the favorite playground of the boys of this neighborhood, and Mrs. Clark has induced them to organize as a boys' club. She is general adviser, but they are made responsible for all the decisions of the club. Their constitution has only three short articles: i. No sake; 2. No tobacco ; 3. No cruelty to animals. Sunday afternoon is their special meeting time. Mrs. Clark kept up for several months a weekly preaching service in the center of town ; and she has been the school teacher for the four children of the family. The Miyazaki night school re-opened in October •with government recognition as a school. To this Miss McCandlish has contributed the foreigners' share of the teaching." CHAPTER XL TOKYO AND MAEBASHI. We have already chronicled the fact that our first missionaries, after three months' residence in Tokyo, decided to leave that comparatively well occupied field to others, and removed to the newly opened port of Kobe. How is it then that we find Tokyo and Maebashi stations of the mission ? The reply is easy. Maebashi is the prefectural capitol of the district in which Mr. Neesima's parents resided and among whose people such an extraordinary interest in Christianity developed immediately after his return. The mission could not excuse itself from working with them. As to Tokyo, our Christians who gravi- tated to the capital were heedless of our advice that they join other churches and so, almost in spite of ourselves, we were forced to occupy that great center. For a considerable part of their history these two districts have formed one field, but now they are regarded as separate stations. TOKYO. A few years after the organization of our first church there, and several years before it had been made a station, Dr. Greene wrote from Kyoto as follows : — " We ask you to rejoice with us over the prosperity of the Tokyo church, which has been from^ its organization under the pastoral care of Rev. H. Kozaki. It has been from the first weak and dependent on the mission, but we have felt that the work of- the church has justified the expenditure of the considerable sums which have been granted to it. During the recent revival it received about a dozen new members, making its present membership rather more than forty. In spite of its small size it has resolved to take care of itself, and has notified us that it will need no further aid. The immediate occasion of this step is the withdrawal of Mr. Kozaki from the active pastor- ate, though he will continue to be the nominal pastor, and will administer the sacraments. The care of the church will chiefly devolve upon a young man, Mr. Osada, formerly connected with the work in Okayama. His salary is entirely paid by the church, which also, besides all its incidental expenses, contributes one-fifth of the support of a young man, one of its members, who is now studying in our vernacular theological course. Mr. Kozaki gives his whole time to the new newspaper, and to the monthly magazine, of which he has been the editor for several years." A little later another church was formed, and Mr. Kozaki became its pastor. This embraced persons of wealth, education, and position, some of whom had traveled and studied abroad, professors and students in the Imperial University, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, members of noble fam- ilies, the wife of a general in the array, soldiers from the Imperial Guard, 90 American Board in Japan. many lesser officials as well as those from common life. It was located within the moat of the castle surrounding the Imperial Palace, and was from the start, and still is, self-supporting. The editor of a metropolitan daily is one of its deacons, and another brilliant editor of national influence is a member of the first church. Mr. S. Katayama, the founder of a social movement, Kings- ley Hall, has been aided by the mission in his work, but since last year this has become financially independent. During the absence of Dr. and Mrs. Greene, who now constitute the station. Miss Denton labored in Tokyo with an enthusiasm and tact which not only gave great satisfaction to the mis- sion but called forth high praise from influential persons outside its pale. In addition to representing the mission in various inter-denominational enter- prises, such as the Bible and Tract work, the Y. M. C. A., and so on, Dr. Greene superintends our publication interests and is the editor of the Fukuin Soshi, our theological review. MAEBASHI. Christianity in this district is a direct outcome of Mr. Neesima's labors on his return in 1874. A company of thirty inquirers was then formed, and in 1878 a church of the same number, although two-thirds of the individuals were different, was formally organized : " You perhaps recollect that Mr. Neesima visited Annaka on his return from America four years ago, and spent a week or two there. A year ago last summer, one of the best men in our Kyoto school spent nearly three months in Annaka, and was there again in the winter and spring for perhaps a little longer time. Another student went over last summer, and did excellent ser- vice in preaching and teaching. Thus the whole amount of outside help which the Annaka Christians have had can hardly be more than ten months of religious instruction during the past four years. During the intervals, they have held their services with a good degree of regularity, the interest has increased, and outside work, both to the east and west, has been taken up, and an evening school for girls in Annaka has been commenced. They have pro- vided themselves with a convenient chapel, where they hold two services on the Sabbath and one during the week. "The church now numbers forty resident members. It has never received pecuniary aid from the mission, I think, beyond the traveling expenses of the students who have preached to them, and, if I am not mis- taken, the money advanced to the last student on his leaving Kyoto has been refunded by the Annaka Church. They are longing for a pastor, and will give him a comfortable support from the first. I can think of no more promis- ing field for one of the members of the class soon to graduate from our Kyoto- school than that which is opening in and around Annaka. The church hopes to secure the services of Mr. Ebina, the student who was with them in the summer of 1877, and again last winter. " The last morning of our stay quite a number of the Christians came together to bid us good-by, and one man was apparently delegated to accom- pany us to the next large town, some seven or eight miles away. When we ...» i1'i:h«5 %.. --m. < < z < < W n s u S X u ei O X u m ■-'-''M'iiM Ift^ li|p^ ^^"v;^?:-i-? J i^Hik„.jjrii' Tokyo and Maebashi. oi came to settle our bill with the hotel keeper we found there was no bill for us to pay at all, for the church had arranged for its payment. " Annaka seems to be a very prosperous town, lying right in the heart of one of the finest silk districts in Japan. The people during the summer sea- son devote themselves almost entirely to feeding silk-worms and reeling silk. Large quantities of silk-worm eggs are produced for exportation to Italy. Silk reeling machinery has lately been introduced, and seems likely to increase wonderfully the profit to the producers." During the first six years of its existence about one hundred persons became members of the church and they were very active in reaching out to the surrounding towns and villages. Under the leadership of Mr. Ebina great progress was made, so that by 1889 there were seven churches and nine outstations, the Kumi-ai churches being the only body working in the pre- fecture. Nearly all of these churches had fine buildings which they had built with their own funds. At that time seven members of the local legislature were Christians, six of them, including the chairman and vice-chairman, being members of the Kumi-ai churches. There were young men's associations in thirty different places. Not all of the members of these were Christians but they were in sympathy with Christianity as the only sure basis of moral reformation. The Christians in the legislature were active reformers. It was the first prefecture, and I believe is today the only one, where licensed prostitution is prohibited. In Annaka alone five houses of ill-fame were closed by Christian influences. A letter written by Mr. Neesima at the time shows the spirit which was abroad : — " Now allow me to inform you of my last visit to Annaka. I went there in the afternoon of January 26. The people met at their church to receive me that afternoon. I had a good number of the brethren and sisters, although it was a busy week day. I spoke there over one hour. Then I paid a short visit to an adjoining town, Haraichi, where are several Christians belonging to the Annaka Church. I did not speak there, as most of them were present at the Annaka meeting, but simply paid a visit to the sick old man who gave us 700 yen for enlarging our school at Kyoto, when we cele- brated the tenth anniversary of the school, just after my return from America, " This old man was too feeble to sit up, but was raised and held up in bed in the arms of his grandson. When he heard of my safe return from America,, he desired very much to see me, and was greatly disappointed that I went directly to Kyoto without visiting Annaka. When I went to Annaka at this time, he sent me a special request to call on him, so I did. It was a most touching scene. He was very weak, and could hardly speak, but he told me what peace, what trust, what comfort he had in Christ. He is ready to go,, and leaves no anxiety behind him, because his home friends are all Christians and living at peace one with another. He desired to see me, that he might express to me his reason for building in his own town a meeting-house costing 1,500 yen and a large primary schoolhouse that would accommodate over 400 children, and also for giving a donation to our Doshisha. 02 American Board in Japan. " When Pastor Miyagawa, of Osaka, came to Annaka four years ago, and spoke to the people, he told them something of the English Puritans, and also something of the Pilgrim Fathers, and this old gentleman was greatly inter- ested in the story. Since then he has been trying to imitate what the Pilgrim Fathers did when they landed on the wild shores of America, that is, they built a meeting-house, which was also used for a school ; and it was his desire to do the same thing for his townspeople. Through his influence and effort a church-building, and also a schoolhouse were completed within the past year. With the donation to the Doshisha he wishes to raise up Christian youth in Japan to be like the English Puritans. " He told me further that he is ready to depart hence, but if the little he has done in the Lord's name could be a means to bless the coming race he will be much gratified, and be grateful to the Lord for his gently leading a man of old age to the eternal heaven, and giving him a heart to remember his fellow-creatures in his dying hours. I closed our happy conversation with my parting prayer." But this fair field was ere long sadly laid waste. The spirit of insidious and reckless rationalism which entered Japan at this time and in the name of scientific theology and higher knowledge denied the best established truths of Christ's revelation and the most certain facts of his career ; made " atone- ment, salvation and the future life " the " deadest of issues ; " put Christianity on a level with other faiths, turning Christmas-tide into a festival in memory of " the four sages, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus ; " called Christ a morose Jew ; berated America for giving so high a place to woman ; lauded " the value of species in religion," etc., and did not fail to bear fruit ; and in no part of Japan was that fruit more visible than in that of which we are now writing. Here Christianity had spread most rapidly ; here was the greatest attempts to carry it into practical and political life ; here was the least of that careful instruction which the missionaries have always emphasized ; here the blow of Mr. Neesima's death was most severely felt ; and here the influence of certain "wandering stars" had freest course. Under such influences the inexperienced and unindoctrinated Christians relaxed their grip. The Lord's day, the services of his house, the reading of his word, the spread of his gos- pel, purity of life for his sake, and brotherly help for the needy fell into neg- lect. This " reaction " has changed the whole character of mission work and church life during the past ten years and must be kept constantly in mind by those who would understand the present situation. It is a great cause of gratitude that here and almost everywhere in Japan the crisis has been passed and that for several years the tide has been slowly rising. The pain and the loss have indeed been great, but the shrinkage in the size of the congregations and in the membership of the churches and in the ministers was not wholly disastrous ; and even in belief the readjustment on a firmer basis was often a decided gain. The faith and courage of some of the noble band of workers in this field comes out in the following accounts of the movements in recent years : — Mr. Albrecht, who was located in Maebashi in 1897, wrote the next year Tokyo and Maebashi. q, of " the formation among the members of the churches of a provincial mission- ary society, with the purpose of aiding each other, and especially the pastor- less churches. Each member of the society pays two and one-half sen per month, and the pastors, evangelists, and treasurer form the working com- mittee. They have asked me to be with them as a member of this committee, thus taking me fully into their counsels, and inviting me to work side by side with them. I could not ask for more hearty cooperation than they are giving me. " Last December, at the request of this committee, I spent three days with Pastor Okubo, of Takasaki, and Mr. Kashiwagi at Annaka, Dr. Neesima's old home, endeavoring to revive the work there, and three more blessed days I have seldom had. Each day began with a six o'clock prayer- meeting ; then in groups of two we called on all the church members, and in the evening had preaching and prayer services. That this work helped in quickening the life of the church is the cheerful testimony of the pastor. This last week I have spent four days with the same two brethren at Tomioka and vicinity. The church there, scattered in five or six towns and villages, was formerly a fairly strong, self-supporting church. Coldness and quarrels divided it into several factions, so that it could scarcely raise the necessary traveling expenses for Mr. Okubo, who has gone there on Sunday afternoons. We began our work in Tomioka, the center of the field, urging upon the Christians a renewal of their personal loyalty to Christ and the necessity of uniting again in calling a pastor. " Then we went again in groups, accompanied by the Tomioka Christians, to the outlying villages, walking across the snow-covered mountains, sleeping on beds by no means downy, everywhere urging the same plea, with the result that all whom we could reach responded heartily. God has richly blessed our work. Old feuds have been laid aside, and the church has agreed most heartily to raise at least fifteen yen per month, and to invite a pastor, with some aid for a short time from the mission ; so that the outlook for this church has brightened considerably. Tomorrow I go to Omama, where we have one family of excellent Christians; for the whole of next week to Haraichi and vicinity ; while next month is to see similar work in Fujioka, Takasaki, and once more in Annaka. After that I hope to spend considerable time in the north part of the province, where the work is in a very critical condition." With such zeal and cooperation we are somewhat prepared for the joyful report of a year later : — " Miss Griswold's coming has added much strength to the work among the women and thus to the work in general, and, on the whole, the working force is in better trim this year than it has been for several years past. " The churches have all made steady progress. Not one has passed through the year without adding to its membership as well as to its number of attendants. With gratitude we can say that the hopes with which we began this year have to a great extent been fulfilled. Haraichi leads with twenty-one additions by profession of faith. Maebashi follows with twelve, 94 American Board in Japan. almost all young people ; then comes Takasaki with nine, Fujioka with eight, Tomioka with five, Annaka with four, and Shitaka with three. Of the preach- ing-places, Numata and Sukawa have each had one baptism, the first ones in a good many years, while in Sukawa nine children have also been baptized, a proof that the parents are beginning to realize again their responsibilities for the religious life of their children. Haramachi and Sano are the only two places where, so far, there are no signs of renewed life, but the reasons are not far to seek. There is need in both places of deeper plowing before the seed can be sown to any advantage. Tomioka and Fujioka have both reduced their aid requested from the mission, the former by two yen, the latter by one. " The churches of Haraichi and Maebashi deserve an additional word of notice. The renewed life and the number of conversions in the former church can be traced pretty directly to the prayer of a dear, old Christian woman and to the repentance and confession of an erring church member. Early last winter one of the women of that church, nearly seventy years old, and living about two miles distant from the church, felt the lifelessness of the church as a burden upon her own heart, so that she went every morning before sunrise to the church, and there, first alone, and later on with her pas- tor, prayed for the reviving of the church. Was it in answer to those prayers that a leading church member, who had gone to Formosa in government em- ploy, and who there had grievously sinned, one day confessed his sin before all the church, and not satisfied with this, went to the houses of all the mem- bers who had not heard his public confession, asking forgiveness and restora- tion ? The church from that day on gathered every evening for prayer ; the repentant and restored member, together with the pastor, went from house to house, urging repentance and faith towards the Lord Jesus ; and the result is a revived church with an increase of almost twenty-five per cent in church attendance and nearly three times as many baptisms as the whole province had seen the year before. " The church in Maebashi has begun a new era. From May of last year to the beginning of March of this year it was pastorless. But the members held together faithfully ; not a single Sabbath was without the regular services, not a single prayer-meeting was omitted. The attendance, especially at the preaching services, increased steadily from forty or fifty to sixty and seventy. An old church debt was paid off, and when Mr. Hori accepted the call of the church to become its pastor, the church raised its share of his salary from nine yen to fifteen, besides raising over fifty yen for improvements and towards the moving expenses of the pastor. Old dissensions have been healed and Mr. Hori begins his work with a church united and ready to fol- low him in new conquests for the Master. " The Kyofukwai (W. C. T. U.), to which Miss Parmelee has given much attention, was organized last fall and has a membership of over fifty. The president is an old lady, Mrs. Iwasa (Yuasa), baptized by Mr. Neesima when the Annaka church was organized. She and another saint from the Haraichi Church have made several trips to Maebashi this year in behalf of temperance and other good causes. The example and good works of these two women are a great stimulus to the younger ones." < a H o IS w > H w C < o o Matsuyama. nn to be given to Mr. Ninomiya. He needs at least fifteen yen per month, and twenty would be better. " When the report of the action of the church and pastor reached Ima- bari, it was resolved in their aid to ' hang up the mite-box.' (The Japanese cannot endure a contribution box passed along the pews.) When the box was opened at the close of the day, thirty yen were found within. A car- penter's wages there are about one-third of a yen per day, so that you will have to multiply the thirty many times in order to see its real value. This incident also tells its own story of devotion, self-denial and mutual sympathy and love among the Christians." Matsuyama being the center of a prefecture, is also the seat of the pre- fectural prison, and in this prison a good deal of evangelistic effort has been expended. One result is found in the following story : — "During 1888 a man was arrested, tried, and condemned to death — • hanging, now, in such cases — for the murder of three persons, two women and one man. Jealousy and anger were the excitants to the deed. The evangelist found him out and taught him of Christ and of his salvation, up to the day of his death. On the morning of December 19 he was to be hanged. Before ascending the scaffold he was led to a mat and told to sit down. His eyes were then bandaged. After this an officer read off the reason for the official act that was about to be performed. The prisoner was then asked if there was any article of food he would particularly like to enjoy before suffering the extreme penalty of the law. (It is probable that the idea of sakk is involved in this question, though I am not positive.) He replied that as he was so soon to die there was no likelihood of his suffering from the pangs of hunger or of thirst, but if the officials would be so kind as to expend the money that might be used for this purpose in buying something for some of those who were ill, he would be very glad indeed. He then asked to be allowed to engage in prayer for a short time. This being allowed, he prayed as follows : — THE convict's prayer. " ' Heavenly Father, I have been a great sinner and must now die for my sins, but while in prison thou hast deeply blessed me by opening my heart, baptizing me with the gospel of Jesus, filling my heart with joy and peace through the atonement which he made on the cross. And now at this time of suffering the penalty of death thou hast given me hope and peace everlasting. O Father I now I go to thee. Receive my soul, I beseech thee 1 O Father 1 have mercy on my mother and my sister. I beseech thee to lead them to believe in thee. And as thou hast saved me, I beseech thee to save also all these my brother and sister prisoners who are in this jail.' " Rising from his knees, he then said to the officer in charge : ' I leave an aged mother and young sister. Please see that they soon learn to know the truth as it is in Jesus and become believers. Please say to them that this is my dying wish and legacy. Say also that I wish my mother to adopt a son as husband for my sister, that the family name may not perish. Aside from these desires I have no wish.' loo American Board in Japan. " The vice-governor and other officials were present and were deeply impressed with the man's evident sincerity and state of restful calm. The facts I have given I take from the letter of an official, who is a Christian, who was present at the execution. Thus God makes even the wrath of man and his most deadly sins means of spreading abroad his love and saving power." In Matsuyama there is a girls' school, with an attendance of one hun- dred. Mr. Ninomiya, the pastor of the church, is principal of this school, and gives most of his strength to it. Miss Judson is a teacher in it. The evangelist of the church still teaches in the prison, and has a Bible class of six or eight prison officials. Mrs. Stanford is active in Bible teach- ing and Sunday School work. An industrial and night school, with sixty pupils, is in successful opera- tion. Eight of the girls live with the Japanese teacher, support themselves by weaving in the mornings, and take sewing lessons in the afternoons. There are two self-supporting churches, one in Matsuyama, and the other at Imabari. The latter is the strongest Kumi-ai church in Shikoku, and under its faithful pastor, Mr. Tsuyumu, is showing vigorous life. Of Saijo, Komatsu, Takamatsu, Maragame, Uwajima, and other out- stations, there is no space to speak. Rev. S. L. Gulick writes of this district : — " The field connected with the Matsuyama Station is about one hundred and fifty miles long, comprising about one-half of the island of Shikoku. The population of this region is about two and a quarter millions. In this area we have fourteen places in which we are doing Christian work, with a force of seven men and two Bible women, one evangelistic missionary, with his teacher and fellow-worker, and one single lady in the flourishing girls' school in Matsuyama city. Two of the men are ordained pastors of self-supporting churches which are struggling on with no little difficulty. " In this same field with us there are also one Southern Presbyterian family in the extreme east, and two Methodist families, one in the center and one in the extreme west. The Northern Presbyterians have work and evange- lists in three or four centers, and the Baptists in two or three centers, mem- bers of these missions visiting their workers at frequent intervals. It should be stated that all of the Kumi-ai- American Board work was well in hand, and some of it very prosperous, before any other mission entered the field. Where two workers are in the same town, in every case it is the other mission which has come in second. The other missions have no self-supporting work, no schools, and no industrial work. There is, however, no little justification for the coming in of the other missions in the fact that lack of funds and workers have prevented us from expanding and properly occupying the field. Preemp- tion is not occupation. Unless we are ready to press forward and enter the open doors, we must rejoice in the coming of those who will. The relations of all the missions and workers in this field are most cordial. " The Open Door for Aggressive Work. — Never has there been a greater opportunity for the propagation of the gospel than exists today. The popu- Matsuyama. i o i larity of curiosity and of Occidental ideas is gone. The problems of life, in government, in morals, in education, in industrialism, are gaining increasing attention by the thinkers of Japan. The source of moral authority and the real nature of religion are questions commanding serious thought increasingly. The serious minded are searching for truth with an earnestness that was never before so widespread. To say nothing of the fact that the late cabinet reac- tion brought into the highest government and political offices of the land many men who are either professing Cliristians or earnest students of Chris- tianity, and to say nothing of the fact that the religious teaching of the model prison of the land, in Tokyo, has been transferred from Buddhist to Christian hands, I will mention a few instances out of my own experience. " The annual meeting of the Provincial Teachers' Association last year invited me to address them, leaving the subject entirely to my choice. The address, more than an hour in length, on Education in the United States, was published in full by the two local dailies of Matsuyama. The public school of Imabari listened a few days later to another address of an hour by myself, the town mayor and other leading men being present. I have been invited to address the Matsuyama normal school, and shall do so as soon as a convenient time can be arranged. The leading man in Sakaide is a Chris- tian, and arranges for public meetings in his town, contributing all the ex- penses but the travel of the speakers. Members of the local government seem quite ready to. listen, though it is true that they do not come to the preaching places to hear. The opportunities for aggressive work are practi- cally limited only by our lack of workers and time. Had I the time and the means for opening Enghsh classes, all agree in estimating that over a hun- dred students could be secured, not merely student aspirants and callow youth, but police and government officials, advanced school teachers, and business men. The opening which such a school would give, through social intercourse and personal contact with these men, would be practically unlimited. " If the Christians at home reaUzed a tithe of the openings and demands for aggressive work, their purses would fly open, and God would in due season give such a blessing to this and all non-Christian lands as would amaze even the most enthusiastic advocate of missions." CHAPTER XIII. TOTTORI. ToTTORi, a city of 26,922 souls, is situated in the province of Inaba, one hundred miles northwest from Kobe, on a small river, and about two miles from the sea. The climate is colder in winter and less hot in summer than that of the southern coast. Snow-falls, sometimes to the depth of t\ro and a half feet, are common from November until the middle of March. Rain or snow falls probably two hundred days in the year. Tottori was a castle town, whose daimyo held the two mountainous provinces of Inaba and Hoki. In the new civilization both the city and the surrounding country are several years behind the portions of the empire nearer the open ports. Still, the public schools are good, and popular educa- tion receives fair attention. As a missionary station, this city is the natural center geographically and socially of the field which includes 300,000 souls in the provinces of Inaba, the eastern part of Hoki, and the western part of Tajima. This field is con- tiguous on the east to the Kobe, and on the south to the Okayama outstations. Being two days' journey from all other Europeans (except a Roman Catholic priest), over rough mountain roads, the station is the most isolated in the mission. The work here was begun by Dr. De Forest. In 1880 he made his first trip to Tottori from Osaka. From that time, for nine years, occasional visits were made by the missionaries resident in Okayama. In 1889 it was determined to open a station here. That fall Miss Tal- cott and Miss McLennan came and spent some months. The following spring the station was formally opened by the settlement of the family of Rev. Geo. M. Rowland, who labored continuously until 1893. Others were from time to time associated with them. From November, 1 894, till January, 1899, Rev. S. C. and Mrs. Bartlett constituted the station. Since the latter date. Miss Flora Denton has been their valued associate. Mr. Rowland gives this bright picture of the outlook at the time of his first visit : — " We reached Tottori the day before the organization of the church, and almost the first words we heard were, that a revival had come and the Lord was plenteously bestowing his mercy. To make a long story short, they were having a Pentecostal time. Two factions in the band of Christians, that had been a great hindrance to the work as well as to the happiness of all the par- ties, had been, to all human appearance, perfectly brought together in love, so that they were not only living together in peace, but were working together in faith. Tottori. 1 03 " One feature of their work impressed me as especially suggestive and adapted to produce good results, though it might be unwise in some places. In the morning only a Sabbath School is held. In the afternoon the people give up a preaching service, but after a little ' mission ' meeting at the church, all go out, one by one or two by two, from house to house for individual work and to secure a large attendance at the evening service, Sunday afternoon being thus given to personal work. Almost every Christian brings some one with him to church in the evening, and the little room, holding about three hundred, is almost always filled to its utmost capacity. Daily morning prayer- meetings were also being held at 5.30 a.m. Prayer and personal work had thus apparently been the means of bringing the revival. Every person with whom we talked seemed full of gratitude and love for the mercy they were receiving from the hand of the Lord. And not only was it true that the Christians were revived and united, but others had for the first time given themselves to the Lord by faith, so that when the fifty-four men and thirty . women were organized into a church, seventeen souls were united with them in the same service by profession of their faith and by baptism. It was a delightful privilege to be present at the organization of a church that begins its life under such favorable circumstances. " It might be thought that a church of loi members (besides eighteen baptized children) ought to be self-supporting. Most churches in Japan would be. The Okayama church was self-supporting with only thirty mem- bers. But this at Tottori is composed almost entirely of young men and young women, many (some twenty or upwards) of the latter being pupils in the Girls' School. Even though so many are young people, they are eager to become self-supporting, and call themselves not a ' mission church,' but a ' self-supporting church ; ' and, moreover, they are beginning, or really have begun, missionary work in the adjoining provinces of Hoki on the west and Tajima on the east. As this is the first church to be organized in these two kens, and no other mission is working there except the Episcopalians a little, we expect that the Sanindo will enter quite largely into our interests in the future. And when the new treaty is fully ratified and we can travel freely, there will be no limitation to our work except our ability to do it." The mountainous character of this field has been mentioned. This is particularly true of the Tajima part of the field, where the missionary of necessity goes on foot over roads that, in winter, are sometimes impassable even for pedestrians. It is a province not of cities and towns, but of farms and villao-es. The preacher addresses not large crowds, but individuals or little companies, gathered in farmhouses, where the leisure talk often extends into the morning hours. Mr. Bartlett, writing of a tour made by Mr. Rowland and himself, a fare- well to the one and an inaugural to the other, gives us a glimpse of this kind of service : — " Monday, our return to Yumura was for a fresh start on our way to Tando. Conspicuous among the young people of our first night's meeting at Yumura was an elderly man whose face betokened character and thought. I04 American Board in Japan. I learned from Mr. Rowland that his presence was a surprise and a delight. He was the father of a Christian man in whose favor he had, according to custom, some time since abdicated the headship of the family. With his son he seemed to be on good terms, but had been shy of even associating with other Christians, and two or three evangelists had been angling for his acquaintance alone, with indiiiferent success. The reason was, he is a Con- fucian, and one of those rare Confucians — at least in this land — whose life comports well with their belief. " The son had sent us an invitation from Tando to come over, and, lodging in his home (a large farmhouse), hold a lecture meeting there; and the father, who spends most of his time in Yumura for the baths, had done us the courtesy to call on us before our visit to his son. Our hearts were still further gladdened when, on the day we went to Tando, the old man sent up word that he had decided to be at his son's during our visit, and would go ahead to welcome us instead of accompanying us, as he ought. So that night, with about sixty intelligent, frank-looking farmer folk from the neighborhood, he listened to three long addresses on the gospel of Christ, and a shorter one on the cross of Christ as the ground of Christian hope and joy, and he sat with us around the hearth till nearly half-past one. The next day he spent the better part of the forenoon with us, asking questions and listening and reading of God's goodness in the psalms of David. " Then came the return to Yumura — a farewell meeting given by the friends of Christianity there to Mr. Rowland ; and in the evening another lecture meeting in a hired hall, if hall it may be called, till late at night ; and then, dead tired and very happy, we made an early start home to the land of bread and beds." And, later, we have these : FACE TO FACE WITH GOD. " Today we walked three or four miles to the prosperous town of Ura- domi, and called on the wealthiest man there. He was not very cordial at first, but warmed up to the extent of offering us a boat ride and a feast, both of which we reluctantly declined. He was mightily different from the shriv- eled old woman who heard from me today, for the first time, that God is one, an approver of faithfulness in the humblest service, one who loves her, would hear her prayer, too, from that day, little as she knew of him, if she prayed with a child's love in her heart. She put her hands together and bowed down, half crying, half laughing, and said over and over again, ' Thank you for bringing me face to face with God. I can know God now.' She care- fully pared two big luscious persimmons from her tiny shop, and gave them to me without taking anything, because I had paid her already by bringing her face to face with God. Her old husband, too, said, ' You can see it's so when you hear it, but you'll never know it without.' That old couple live in a hovel by the roadside, at a loriely, dismal place where travelers are willing to rest a bit, even in such a house. Tottori. 105 " The faith of one or two recently baptized Christians seems to me the most simple, and at the same time intelligent, I ever met with. They are not hysterical or nervous, but very glad and full of earnestness. They are sorry they did not serve God sooner, and are serving him now for love, not ambition or patriotism." Mr. Rowland has given the following interesting incidents : — " At Kurayoshi, a Buddhist priest from Okayama advertises to lecture. Subject, ' Buddhist and Christian Heaven and Hell ; opportunity given for questions.' Two Christians go. As the priest's exposition of the Christian doctrine was inaccurate, one young man questio&s the lecturer. The latter not replying, the Christian expounds his views. The chairman of the meet- ing, probably not expecting his invitation would be accepted, invites him to come forward if he wishes to speak. He proceeds to the platform, and there, for a few minutes, in a Buddhist temple, in the presence of a Buddhist audi- ence met to hear a Buddhist sermon, won the hearty applause of the meeting by his straightforward exposition of the Christian doctrine of the future. "Another incident that occurred in Tajima shows Buddhist opposition. Mr. G. Hama's quiet, personal work aroused Buddhist opposition. One day, some two hundred or three hundred opposers, incited by Buddhists from a neighboring village, gathered about his lodgings to argue and intimidate and drive him out of town. After taking every precaution, he went to bed at night and slept. But he learned next morning that the police, and some others, alarmed for his safety, had watched the whole night. Next day they besieged him till he consented to a discussion, to be limited to ninety minutes. So, sending his wife and child to another part of the house for safety, Mr. Hama stood alone for the truth in the presence of about one hundred Bud- dhists. Their spokesman cited Christ's words, ' I came not to send peace but a sword,' etc., and loudly decried such a religion (much is made of this pas- sage in some quarters). In many other ways they tried to stop his work, but in vain. A few days later we held quiet public meetings there, at which three of us spoke. Now there are earnest inquirers there.'' Disturbances have been frequent in different parts of this field. At a meeting held by Mr. Bartlett and the writer, in Shikano, two priests who were drunk themselves, and had apparently been giving sake to a crowd of roughs, came, bent on a disturbance. They interrupted the services before the speak- ing began, stood up directly in front of us when we were speaking, took hold of our clothing and tried to force us to sit down, and even went so far as to revile and otherwise ill-treat a policeman who was trying to protect us. For this the priest was brought into court by the policeman, but escaped deserved condemnation because the court ignored the Christian witnesses. People who praise these placid priests have not seen them under such circumstances. Mr. and Mrs. Stanford spent a part of the autumn of 1898 in Tottori, and the former gives an interesting report of two postal cards received by the church from a man in the Tottori prison : — " To the beloved church of God, which sheds abroad his grace and com- fort, and gives the new water of hfe to the brethren : I, Kumagai Torakichi, io6 American Board in Japan. twenty-nine years of age, of the village of Nakabara, Ishigori, Ise, a rebel against the law of God, having incurred his anger, thrust into hell fire, sub- merged in the depths of destruction, send this letter in order to receive the help of God. Not knowing God, selfish and willful, my body was the abode of Satan. My uncle was a Christian, living in Kanda Machi, Tokyo, with whom I went to Yonago to buy lumber. I drew 3,500 yen of my uncle's, money from the bank, ran away, was caught, and so am in prison. After the arrest, my uncle's kindness, and the grace of God, whom I came to know, sof- tened my heart and I confessed my crime. Through my uncle's clemency and intercession the sentence was commuted to four years. Even though I am a criminal in prison, yet, by the grace of God, even I can reveal his glory to those here who do not know him. Please pray for me, that I may receive God's help in my weakness." The second card ran thus : — " You were probably surprised at receiving the letter I wrote day before yesterday, from one whom you never saw. . . . My conscience was deadened by the power of Satan, but through the kindness of my uncle I have come to know God, and am like one awakened from sleep; filled with shame and repentance, I daily pray God for forgiveness. I feel it was by his goodness that my sentence was commuted to four years, and I thank him for it. I feel that I am now here as God's messenger, and I have vowed to reveal him to the hundreds of my fellow prisoners, who, like myself in my younger days, knew not God ; but I fear that I who sinned so long shall not be able to discharge this weighty responsibility. Please have mercy on me, and pray God to give his Spirit to this weak instrument. " I long for the day of my release, when I can see the faces of my brethren at the church. I cannot write freely, because of the rules of the prison. Please come to see me from time to time, and give me the strength- ening influence of the gospel." " There is one Catholic missionary in the city, but with that exception, no other denomination has any work here, so that the whole population of 322,000 is dependent upon the one little church, the evangelists, the Bible- woman, one missionary family, and one single lady. " Of the people in our part of Tottori Ken, fully 200,000 have never had Christian preaching within three miles of their homes. The aggregate popu- lation of the villages and towns where regular work has been undertaken is about 50,000. The population of the villages, where occasional sermons have been preached, is about 10,000." As the following paragraph will show, the country churches in Japan have the same difficulty of loss through emigration as do similar churches in America. In remote fields particularly, but in all parts of the empire to a considerable degree, the opposition of the school teachers is a very serious hindrance. This church had ninety-six members when it was organized years ago, but the rate of emigration can be appreciated by the fact that more than half the people in the church photograph taken four years ago have now left town. Tottori. 107 The Sunday School for children has held its own, but has been strongly opposed by the teachers in the public schools. Several times a majority of the children have been frightened into staying away. However, the Christ- mas celebration and Children's Sunday exercises were well attended, and the programs happily carried out. Woman's work has been carried on about as usual. Tuesday evening, Mrs. Bartlett has a Bible class, and the next day the same lesson is used in another part of the city by the two Japanese helpers. Saturday afternoon. Miss Denton's parlor is a busy scene, when a large group of women and girls meet to sew patchwork and make garments out of the generous box of material sent by the ladies of a church in Hyannis and West Yarmouth, Mass. The attendance at all these meetings varies greatly. Sometimes seven or eight patients from an eye hospital come to swell the numbers ; sometimes no one appears ; once there were forty-four ; and at an entertainment, one hundred and thirty. Bible classes, both English and Japanese, calls, and occasional preaching, fill all the time between tours. Mr. Bartlett has ar- ranged his work so that he can be out of town for ten days every month. Results that are tangible we cannot report very often, but the general condition of affairs is most encouraging. There are boundless opportunities here if only there were men or money. A great work could be done among the soldiers. CHAPTER XIV. SAPPORO. Sapporo is the capital of the northern island, formerly known as Yezo, now called the Hokkaido, and is situated a few miles from the western coast, on the line of railroad which crosses the island from Otaru on the west to Mororan on the east. THE FIELD. The Hokkaido lies between 41^° and 4^^° north, in the same latitude with New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, of the New England States. In area it is equal to those three states, with a couple of Rhode Islands added. The climate is, on the whole, colder than those three states, with longer winters and cooler summers. In the warmer portions New York and New England crops thrive. In the colder localities the season is too short for wheat, and corn and crops that grow beneath the soil are the prin- cipal products. The fabulous catches of salmon, herring, and other of the finny tribes — thousands of dollars in a single day — taken for the current market both at home and in Tokyo, for export chiefly to China, and even for fertilizers ; the almost inexhaustible coal fields, many of them as yet entirely undeveloped ; the considerable deposits of sulphur ; the deep forests, furnishing timber, especially railroad ties for main Japan and for export ; and the fertile valleys, well watered, adapted to agriculture, and with navigable streams, — all these natural riches invite the venturesome and the enterprising from all Japan. The population is, accordingly, both from its origin and present occu- pation, exceedingly heterogenous. Tradesmen, artisans, farmers, fishermen, woodsmen, miners, and convicts are all in evidence. Side by side with tlie aborigirlal Ainu — only 17,000 souls, and decadent — lives the immigrant from the provinces, some 400,000 strong, and annually increasing. All this conglomeration seems to promise a population of keen, alert, able men ahd women in the next generations. Our occupancy of the Hokkaido was not of our own seeking. Years before we had any thought of locating a station there, a Kumi-ai church, composed mainly of members of churches in and near Kobe, who had gone as colonists to the northern island, was organized there. I abbreviate Mr. O. H. Gulick's account of the services : — " Saturday, the 26th, was the first day of the feast. It was a reminder of what I witnessed in my youth, and of the Hawaiian quarterly communion season, or the later time meetings of local associations, to see the people on horseback gathering early, some of them coming fifteen miles : men and women, young men and maidens, children before and children behind the Sapporo. log saddle, in twos and threes on the horses, and all dressed in their Sunday's best ; the maidens with red and blue crape in their hair, and many with red in their belts. Then the horses picketed about the church, and an occa- sional yell from some war-horse who is snorting and pawing for a fight with a stranger horse, though not a devotional sound, is not an unfamiliar accom- paniment of such a religious festival." Omitting Mr. Gulick's interesting details of the organization and ordina- tion, we continue : — " Thus this young church in the wilderness, i8o miles east of Hakodate, starts off with thirty-three members, all in the prime of life ; a pastor of their choice who is a graduate of an agricultural college, able to read English, and one who has had some experience in evangelistic work in connection with the Kobe church, and who has an excellent, educated wife, also a reader of Eng- lish ; a church building capable of seating 150 persons, and all paid for. The pastor receives %?> a month from his people, and ^8 from the farm. The people hope soon to secure his entire services and to support him in full. Mr. Sawa, the leader of the colony and superintendent of the plantation, with his dignified bearing, his perfectly fitting broadcloth coat and spotless linen, would have passed for town clerk or city mayor in New England or in any civilized country. ■ '' In addition to church matters, I must not fail to mention the fact that the Urakawa colony maintains at personal expense a daily school for the handful of children of this valley. The school is held in the little church for five hours a day, for five and a half days in the week, and is attended by from seventeen to twenty-three children. " The truthfulness of the claim of the Christian leaders of the Urakawa colony, Messrs. Sawa and Sudzuki, that they have sought, like the Puritans, to lay the foundations of their institution upon the church and the school- house, is self-evident. The historians of the world have yet to acknowledge how far the light of the exiled Puritans has shone. " The colony now consists of sixty families, and, including children, about 160 persons, divided into three settlements, one of which is three miles, and one fifteen miles, frorh the main body. The principal crops are corn, beans and peas, potatoes, wheat, barley and oats, buckwheat and hemp ; while one division is the stock farm devoted to horses and cattle. My brief statement of these prosperous conditions is liable to give a false impression of the wealth of these colonists. Though the Sabbath congregation of 120 or 130 was well clad, and a large part of the people are possessed of horses, which gain their living in the open fields the year round, yet the homes of a large part of these people are destitute of the comforts of life to which they have been accustomed. These they have left behind for the privations of a pioneer hfe, with its promise of increased vigor and wider fields." This church, with its intimate relations with the " colony," has had to face very difficult questions from year to year, almost all the problems of church and state, on a small scale ; but it still lives, and within a year has welcomed a new pastor. no America7i Board in Japan. The influence of President W. S. Clark and his Christian associates in the Sapporo Agricultural College was marked, and to a considerable extent permanent. An active, independent church is one of these permanent land- marks. Another dominant influence has been the successful Christian evangelism in the prisons for long-sentence convicts, established here nearly twenty years ago to aid in the colonization of the wilds of the Hokkaido. There are five of these great prisons. At first they were independent of each other, but they were afterward united under one superintendent, Mr. Inoye, one of the most experienced and successful of the wardens. Rev. W. W. Curtis writes of him : — " His superior insight led him to the conviction, years ago, that the prin- ciples of Christianity are what are needed for the instruction of the prisoners, and he was anxious to get a Christian instructor for the prison of which he then had charge. Succeeding in this, and his anticipations being fully realized, when he was subsequently transferred to another prison he soon secured a Christian instructor for that ; afterward, when made superintendent of all, he went to the third prison, the oldest of all, and introduced a Chris- tian teacher there ; and to the fourth prison he sent as warden the man who had been next to him in authority in his first prison, and who also had become convinced that the new religion was the right one for the instruction of criminals, so to that prison a Christian teacher was appointed from the start. " Each prison has its chapel, or lecture hall, where the prisoners are assembled every Sunday afternoon for a moral address, after which is held a Sunday School. Attendance at the lecture is compulsory ; at the Sunday School, optional. I imagine that such unique Sunday Schools are to be found nowhere else in the world, where side by side are classes in Bible study and classes in the Buddhist scriptures and the Confucian classics. Here may be seen zealous Buddhists and Confucianists, stimulated in the study of their own religions by the interest of their fellow-prisoners in the Christian religion. However, the study of the Bible, wherein are found the wonderful, new doc- trines of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and of a present salvation from sin, proves by far the greater attraction. " There are many inquirers about Christianity in each of the prisons. Out of 1,506 prisoners in the Kabato prison, where Christian instruction was begun latest of all, 510 are studying the Bible, and of these, 148 pray daily and follow the course of daily Bible readings marked out by the Seisho no Tomo (Bible friend), a course used quite generally by the Christians of Japan. There is no chance while in prison for a public confession of Christ, as by joining the church, but the radical change wrought in the character of some of the men is such as greatly to impress those who have witnessed it. According to the testimony of their teachers, they are ' an example to believers.' " The results of Christian instruction have not yet attracted public atten- tion to any extent, so few have as yet been released, but these results are Sapporo. 1 1 1 beginning to be manifest in the prisons, not merely in the conversion of some, but by a general leavening. In evidence of this, the little effort made of late to escape from prison may be compared with that of a few years ago. From the beginning of the present year up to the latter part of May, when I last visited the prisons, but one man out of all the 7,000 prisoners had escaped. Last year the number of fugitives was 70; the year before it was 160; the year before that, a still greater number. For this improvement two reasons were given me : one that the prisoners are beginning to believe that they can depend on the Christians to befriend them when they are discharged ; the other, that the guards in all of the prisons are becoming interested in the good conduct of the prisoners, and are doing their best, so that a generous rivalry has arisen as to which of the prisons can make the best showing." The general tone in all the prisons has greatly changed under Christian influence ; and what is more, it has created a sentiment favorable to Chris- tianity which has been very helpful outside of prison walls, and which con- tinues after the change of administration which led the Christian moral instructors to resign. Some of the prison officials are members of our churches; and of the discharged prisoners, some are leading new lives. Mr. Rowland reports a visit to one of the latter : — " One night of the same tour I spent in the house of an ex-penitentiary man who is now a most earnest Christian, with his whole house, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. It was a delightful evening. Their simple faith and whole-souled consecration were refreshing. Another ex- prisoner spent the night there with us. The following evening we had a meeting in Utashinai, seven present. Our host and hostess. Pastor Uchida of Iwamizawa, and myself, have not been prisoners, but the other three men all had been. Thus is the gospel leaven at work even in the prisons." It was not to be expected that such remarkable work should continue long without opposition. The Buddhists used all their influence to oust Mr. Inoye, and finally succeeded in doing that and in reinstating many Buddhist chaplains. The Christian chaplains found themselves so hampered that — wisely or unwisely — they all resigned. In this connection see the account of Mr. Tomioka's work, in Chapter VII. The very last word from this station (October, 1899) is a word of joy : — " There is so much of progress and hope in our field of late that we wish to share the good cheer with you. " If we look at the Kumi-ai work in the Hokkaido as a whole, there is much to encourage. There have , already been more baptisms (40) in 1899 than there were in 1897 (n) and 1898 (27) together. A new meeting-house has been built (in Sapporo) and dedicated free from debt. Two churches have been organized, Iwamizawa, April 3, and Urakawa, September 19. Two pastors installed. Rev. M. Uchida, in Iwamizawa, on the day of organization, and Rev M. Nakayama, in Moto-Urakawa, September 17. A prominent evan- gelist Mr T. Kuno, has been secured for Otaru. This, it is hoped, marks the beginning of more aggressive work in this busy city. There seems to be a spirit of earnestness and hopefulness, moreover, on the part of both mmisters and laymen in all our churches. 112 American Board in Japan. " If we look at the difiEerent churches and chapels, one by one, every one, without a single exception, can report gratifying progress for the last few months, and a good hope for the months to come. In Kamikawa, almost every communion season is marked by a goodly number of baptisms, and some left over for the next time. This has been the case for some eighteen months. In Iwamizawa the work of Mr. Uchida's wide parish has been cen- tralized by uniting the believers of half a dozen separate places into one central church. Here the pastor has a4opted the suggestion of the mission to urge 'personal,' in distinction from 'family,' support of the church. The plan has met with favor in all but one family, has been adopted, and is now in operation. Mr. Uchida likes the method; as it increases both contributions and interest. Evangelist Naruyama and his people of Urakawa have faith to set for themselves definite tasks for definite periods in leading new people to faith, and God is honoring their definite faith and prayers. Eleven bap- tisms, September 19, at organization. Space fails to tell of other places." CHAPTER XV. THE KUMI-AI (CONGREGATIONAL) CHURCHES. The first churches formed in connection with the mission had the Nine Articles of the Evangelical Alliance for their creeds, a few brief rules of church government, and the simple name " The Church of Christ." The name Kumi-ai (joined or linked together) was first used informally by out- siders, and formally adopted as a name several years later. It need not be said that this body is wholly in native hands, and that the churches have complete organizations in accordance with Congregational polity. As will be seen in the table which follows, thirty-three of the seventy churches are self-supporting. The missionaries' relation to these is moral and friendly only. Thirty-seven are " aided churches." These, too, are practically self- governing, the missionaries being consulted mainly in regard to calling and dismissing pastors, neighborhood evangelism, and so on. As already intimated, the churches of Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto form the center and strongest part of this organization, and make as strong, if not the strongest. Christian force to be found in Japan. The Dendo-gwaisha, or Home Missionary Society, has its headquarters in Osaka. The following tables show the growth of these churches, as well as that of the mission, from year to year ; also their membership, gifts, and work. REPORT OF THE DENDO-GWAISHA FOR 1898. (Home Missionary Society.) Total receipts Aid of evangelists and pastors Travel in visiting the field Salary of the president Subsidy to the Christian (Kirisuto-kyo Shirabun) Expenses Expenses of the 20th anniversary . The churches aided are : Kumamoto and Fukuoka, in Kyushu. ICochi, in Shikoku. Hiroshima, west of Okayama. ^3.375-63 2,106.00 329.64 180.00 300.00 282.84 107.14 Nagoya, east of Kyoto. Fukui, north of Kyoto. Wakuya, in the Sendai field. 114 American Board in Japan. STATISTICS OF THE KUMI-AI CHURCHES. January ist, 1899. churches. Independent 33 Dependent 37 KOGISHO (Unorganized Congregations). Independent ......... 3 Under the Dendogwaisha ........... 3 Aided by the mission .... ....... 25 Total loi • PASTORS. Pastors installed ............. 35 Acting pastors 37 Evangelists 27 Total 99 CHURCH MEMBERS. Men ..... .......... 5)203 Women 4,813 Total 10,016 Baptisms during 1898 431 Deaths ............... 171 Excommunications ............. 124 Infant baptisms ............. 657 Sunday Schools ............. 98 Sunday School membership 3>50S Ordinary church expenses (in Yen) ......... $15,106 Given for church building . ......... ',539 Given for charitable objects 774 Given for evangelistic work ........... 2,284 Total contributions 21,937 Estimated value of church property ......... 91,461 Amount expended by the mission in 1897 in support of evangelists (in Yen) . . 8,434 Expended in aid of churches ........... 3,490 Number of towns where regular meetings are maintained by the Kumi-ai churches or the mission, about 180 Number of church members absent 3,749 Statistics of the Mission. IIS STATISTICS OF THE MISSION. Mission. Churches. fl •T3 , , ^ UJ l> (U a; a C \l 0. 3.= „ 1 g fl hip A of p 12 M Ill .1^ J2 1 J embers umber in scho a p< < p"" u S 1 2 1870 .... 2 2 .. .. 187 1 6 2 4 .. .. 1872 10 .6 4 1873 14 10 8 1874 20 18 8 I 187s 26 25 6 2 3 1876 32 29 4 4 1877 36 33 7 6 8 1878 40 34 12 3 10 1879 48 • 43 2 14 1880 46 45 I 6 16 514 1881 44 40 2 ^ 17 2o^ 1882 44 37 7 18 881 1883 46 36 7 4 19 1,097 1884 47 39 6 3 22 1,791 1885 52 42 8 6 28 2,752 1886 61 44 12 7 34 3.569 1887 74 49 26 10 41 4,226 1888 77 65 II 3 43 6,340 2 233 1889 8S 73 15 7 49 7,871 2. 705 1890 87 81 15 7 61 9, 1 46 2 693 1891 87 89 8 12 71 ■ 10,142 2 047 1892 85 85 II 16 ^5 10,760 I 999 1893 83 80 5 8 65 11,116 I 506 1894 84 77 , 5 II 70 11,079 I 315 1995 84 71 4 13 99 11,162 I 255 1896 78 62 4 21 102 9,863 1897 1898 1899 73 75 73 45 55 51 19 5 '6 7 102 103 lOI 10,025 10,081 10,016 349 1900 • 64 50 5 10 97 10,214 • • ■ Missionaries Connected with the Japan Mission of the American Board. The following list includes the names of not only the missionaries under appointment by the American Board, but also the names of many who for a longer or shorter period were associated directly with the work of the mission. These latter are designated by the letter A. The colunm following the names gives the year in which the service of each person began and, if terminated, when the service ceased. The abbre- viations for the names of stations are as follows : — Kobe — Ko. ; Kumamoto — Kum. ; Kyoto — Ky. ; Maebashi — Mae. Matsuyama — Mat. ; Miyazaki — - Miy. ; Niigata — Nii. ; Okayama — Ok. Osaka — Os. ; Sapporo — ^ Sap. ; Sendai — Sen.; Tottori — Tot.;Tsu — Tsu Tsuyama — Tsy. Mission Roll. . Service began. Birthplace. Place of Education. Station. 1 Rev. D. Crosby Greene, d.d. '69 Mass. . Dartmouth. Ko. Y. Ky. Tok. 2 Mrs. Mary J. Greene. 2 '69 Mass. Mt. Holyoke. 3 Rev. Orramel H. Gulick. '71 Honolulu. Oahu. ( Os. Ko. Nii. Ok. j Kum. Honolulu. 4 Mrs. Ann E. Gulick. '71 Honolulu. Mt. Holyoke. 5 Rev. Jerome D. Davis, d.d. '71 New York. Beloit. Ko. Ky. 6 Mrs. Sophia D. Davis. 4 '71-'86* Illinois. Rockford. 7 John C. Berry, M.D. '72-'93 Maine. Jefferson. Ko. Ok. Ky. 8 Mrs. Maria G. Berry. '72-'93 Maine. Abbot. 9 Rev. M. L. Gordon, d.d. '72-'00* Penn. Waynesburg. Os. Ky. 10 Mrs. Agries D. Gordon. 4 '72 Mass. Punchard. 11 Miss Eliza Talcott. '73 Conn. Farmington. Ko. Ok, Ky. 12 Miss Julia E. Dudley. '73 Illinois. Rockford. Ko. 13 Rev. John L. Atkinson, d.d. '73 England. Chicago Sem. Kp. 14 Mrs. Caroline G. Atkinson. '73 Mass. Iowa. 15 Rev. Granville M. Dexter. '73 -'75 Maine. Os. 16 Mrs. Florence A. Dexter. '73-75 Indiana. 17 Rev. Horace H. Leavitt. '73-81 Mass. Williams. Os. 18 Miss Mary E. Gouldy. '73-'85 New York. Mt. Holyoke. Os. 19 Wallace Taylor, M.D. '73 Ohio. Oberlin. Ko. Ky. Os. 20 Mrs. Mary F. Taylor. 10 '73 New York. Oberlin. 21 Miss Julia A. E. Gulick. '74 Honolulu. Ko. Nii. Kum. Ok. 22 Rev. John H. DeForest, D.D. '74 Conn. Yale. Os. Sen. 23 Mrs. Elizabeth S. DeForest. '74 Conn. 24 Arthur H. Adams, M.D. '74-'78* Ohio. Yale. Os. 25 Mrs. Sarah C. Adams. '74-78 Penn. 26 Rev. Joseph H. Neesima, LL.D. A. 6 '74-'90« Japan. Amherst. Ky. 27 Rev. Edward T. Doane. .75.-77* New York. Illinois. Ky. 23 Mrs. Clara H. Doane. 75-'77 New York. 29 Rev. Dwight W. Learned, D.D. '75 Conn. Yale. Ky. 30 Mrs. Florence H. Learned. '75 Ohio. 31 Miss Frances A. Stevens. (Mrs. J. T. Gulick.) '75-'00 Ohio. Oberlin. Os. 32 Miss Justina E. Wheeler. (Mrs. C. Goodrich.) 6 '75-'78* Conn. Os. 33 Mrs. Mary IC. Leavitt. '76-'81 Mass. Os. 34 Miss Martha J. Barrows. '76 Vermont. Mt. Holvoke. Ko. 35 Miss Alice J. Starkweather. 3 '76-'83 Conn. Hartford. Ky. Mission Roll. 117 Mission Roll. Service began. Birthplace. Place of Education. Station. 36 Mr. Dewitt C. Jencks. '77-'87 Conn. Ko. 37 Mrs. Sarah M. Jencks. '77-'87 Conn. 38 Miss H. Frances Parmelee. '77 Ohio. Lake Erie. Ky. Tsu. Mae. 39 Miss Julia Wilson. '77-'80 New York. Ky. Ok. 40 Rev. William W. Curtis. '77-'00 Wis. Beloit. Os. Sen. Sap. 41 Mrs. Delia E. Curtis. '77-'80* Wis. Oberlin, 42 Miss Virginia A. Clarkson. (Mrs. C. M. Cady.) 7 '11-91 Mass. Salem. Ko. Ky. 43 Rev. Otis Gary. '78 Mass. Amherst. Ko. Ok. Os. Ky. 44 Mrs. Ellen M. Gary. '78 N. H. Abbot. 45 Rev. John T. Gulick, PH.D. '78-'00 Kauai. Williams. Ko. Os. 46 Rev. R. Henry Davis. '78-'86* Del. Amherst. Ko. Nil. 47 Mrs. Frances W. Davis. '78-'86 Illinois. 48 Rev. James H. Pettee. '78 N. H. Dartmouth. Ok. 49 Mrs. Isabella W. Pettee. '78 Mass. Abbot. 50 Miss Frances A. Gardner. 8 '78 Ohio. Os. Tsu. 51 Miss Abby M. Colby. '79 N. H. Glenwood. Os. Sakai. Tsu. Os. 52 Miss Anna Y. Davis. 2 '79-87 Del. Mt. Holyoke. Ko. Ky. Ko. 53 Miss E. Louise Kellogg. 1 '80-'82 Mass. Washing'n Un. Os. 54 Rev. George Allchin. '82 England. Bangor Sem. Os. 55 Mrs. Nellie M. Allchin. '82 Mass. Mt. Holyoke. 56 Miss Emily M. Brown. '82 Minn. Carleton. Ko. 57 Miss M. Adelaide Daughaday. '83 New York. Maplewood. Os. Tott. 58 Miss Frances Hooper. (Mrs. J. D. Davis.) '83 Mass. Ky. 59 Miss Susan A. Searle. 3 '83 Mich. Wellesley. Ko. 60 Rev. Chauncey M. Cady. •84-'92 Illinois. Oberlin. K^- 61 Rev. Marshall R. Gaines. '84-'89 Conn. Yale. Ky. 62 Mrs. Louise W. Gaines. 3 '84-'89 N. H. Mt. Holyoke. 63 Miss Effie B. Gunnison. '85-'97 Cal. Irving. Ko. Mats. 64 Rev. Doreraus Scudder. '8S-'89 New York. Yale. Nil. 65 Miss Catharine S. Scudder. 3 '85-'89* India. Nil. 66 67 Miss Linda A. I. Richards. '86-'90 New York. NewEng. Hos. Ky. Rev. George M. Rowland. Mrs. Helen G. Rowland. '86 New York. Middlebury. Ok. Tott. Sap. 68 69 '86 Vermont. Middlebury. Ky. Mat. Ko. Rev. Arthur W. Stanford. '86 Mass. Amherst. 70 71 Mrs. Jennie P. Stanford. Rev. Frank N. White. '86 '86-' 93 Mass. Iowa. Abbot. . Ripon. i Sen. Tsu. Os. 72 73 Mrs. Jennie A. White. Mr. Edmund Buckley. '86-'93 '86-'92 Wis. England. ' Ripon. Michigan Un. Ky. 74 Mrs. Sara C. Buckley, M.D. '86-'92 New York. Michigan Un. Ko. Send. Sap. 75 76 Miss Marcia F. Bliss. Mrs. Lydia C. Curtis. 11 '86-'87 '86-'00 Maine. Ohio. Oberlin. 77 78 Miss Mary E. Wainwright. Rev. George E. Albrecht. '87 '87 Illinois. Germany. Ripon. Oberlin Sem. Oberlin. Tilden. Vassar. Ky. Ky. Mae. Ky. 79 80 81 Mrs. Leonora B. Albrecht. Miss M. Louise Graves. Mrs. Eliza C. Kendall. '87 '87-'92 '87-'89 Penn. Mass. Wis. Nil. Ko. Nil. (Mrs. D. Scudder.) 82 83 Miss Mary Poole. Rev. Henry M. Scudder. A. '87-'91 '87-'89* Mass. Ceylon. Wellesley. New York Un Os. . Nii. 84 85 Mrs. Fanny L. Scudder. A. Rev. Samuel C. Bartlett. '87-'S9 '87 Mass. Illinois. Dartmouth. Ky. Tott. ii8 American Board in Japan. Mission Roll. Service began. Birthplace. Place of Education. Station. 86 Rev. Cyrus A. Clark. •87 New York. Oberlin. Ku. Miya. 87 Mrs. Harriet G. Clark. '87 Ponape. Mt. Holyoke. 88 Miss Almona Gill. (Mrs. C. M. Severance.) '87-'95* Ohio. Cooper Inst. Ok. Tott. 89 Miss Cornelia Judson. '87 Conn. New Britain. Nil. Mats. 90 Miss Mathilde H. Meyer. '87-'93 Wis. Ripon. Sen. Ky. 91 Rev. Horatio B. Newell. '87 Maine. Amherst. Nii. 92 Miss Martha J. Clark. (Mrs. H. Pedley.) '87 Vt. Mt. Holyoke. Kum. Nii. Mae. 93 Miss Mary H. Shed. •87-'94 Mass. Wellesley. Ky. Mae. 94 Miss Annie L. Howe. 18 •87 Mass. Rockford. Ko. 95 Rev. Sidney L. Gulick. '88 Ebon. Dartmouth. Kum. Mat. 96 Mrs. Cara F. Gulick. '88 Mich. New Haven. 97 Miss Florence White. '88-'91 Mass. [N. T. S. Ky. 93 Miss Jane Cozad. (Mrs. H. B. Newell.) '88 Ohio. Nii. 99 Miss Gertrude Cozard. '88 Ohio. Adalbert. Nii. Ko. 100 Miss Mary F. Denton. '88 Cal. Ky. 101 Miss Ida A. McLennan. '88 Ohio. Oberlin. Ok. Tsy. (Mrs. S. S. White.) 102 Miss Ida V. Smith. 8 •88-'91 N. H. Mt. Holyoke. Ky. Nu. Ky. 103 Miss Annie H. Bradshaw, '89 Mass. Sen. 10+ Mr.Charles T. Wyckoff. A. '89-'91 Illinois. Knox. Ky. 105 Rev. Hilton Pedley. '89 New Foandland. McGiU. Nii. Mae. 106 Mrs. Elizabeth S. Pedley. •89-'90* Ontario. Cobourg. 107 Miss Mary Radford. '89-'90 England. Ko. 108 Mr. George C. Foulk. A. '89-'93* Penn. U. S. Naval Academy. Ky. 109 Miss Mary B. Daniels. '89 Mass. Smith. Os. [Mae. 110 Miss Fanny E. Griswold. '89 New York. Mt. Holyoke. Kum. Ko. Kum. 111 Miss Mary A. Holbrook, M.D. '89-'96 Mass. Michigan Un. Ok. Tott. Ko. 112 Miss Cora A. Stone. '89-'94 New York. Mt. Holyoke. Ok. Tott. Ko. 113 Miss Anna M. Vetter. A. (Mrs. F. H. Bassett.) 11 'S9-'92 Ohio. Oberlin. Os. Kum. 114 Mr. Franklin H. Bassett. A. '90-'92 Iowa. Minnesota Un. Os. Kum. 115 Mr. Arthur W. Beall. A. •90-'93 Ontario. Queen's Un. Ky. 116 Rev. William L. Curtis. '93 Wis. Doane. Sen. Nii. Ko. Ky. 117 Mrs. Gertrude B. Curtis. '90 Wis. 118 Mr. Arthur T. Hill. '90-'96 Mass. Ko. 119 Mrs. Louise E. Hill. '90-'96 R. I. 120 Rev. Claude M. Severance. '90-'95 Vt. Middlebury. Tott. Tsu. Ky. 121 Rev. Schuyler S. White. '90 Mass. Harvard. Ok. Tsy. 122 Miss Clara L. Brown. '90 N. H. Mt. Holyoke. Nii. 123 Miss Caroline M. Telford. '90-'9S New York. Mt. Holyoke. Tott. Ko Ok. 124 Miss Elizabeth Torrey. 11 •90 Ohio. Oberlin. Nii. Os. Ko. 125 Miss Alice P. Adams. •91 N. H. Bridgewater. Ok. 126 Miss Abby W. Kent. •91-'96 Vt. New England Conservatory. Ko. 127 Rev. Harper A. Coates. A. '91-'92 Ontario. Victoria Un. Ky. Nii. 128 Miss Helen E. Fraser. '91-'96 Ontario. Bellevue. Ky. 129 Miss Alice E. Harwood. •91-'99 Illinois. Oberlin. Kum. Mats. Nii. 130 Miss Elizabeth Wilkinson. '91-'92 Mass. Mt. Holyoke. Tott. 131 Miss Nina C. Stewart. 7 '91 Minn. Carleton. Ok. Ko. 132 Mr. Orlando N. Benton. A. '92-'92 New York. Williams. Ky. 133 Mrs. Louisa L. Gulick. A. '92- '94* New York. Miya. 134 Miss Lucy E. Case. 3 '92 Mass. Oberlin. Os. Mission Roll, Mission Roll. Service began. Birthplace. Place of Education. Station. 135 Mr. Cameron Johnson. A. '93-'94 Virginia. Ky. 136 Rev. William H. Noyes. '93-' 97 India. Amherst. Mats. Mae. 137 Mrs. Inez C. Noyes. 3 '93-'97 Oregon. Wellesley. 138 Miss Harriet M. Benedict. A. '94 Wis. Ky. Os. 139 Mr. Amos A. Davis. A. '94-'96 Iowa. Doane. Ky. 140 Mrs. Fanny S. Bartlett. 3 '94 Japan. Bradford. Tott. 141 Mrs. Annie L. Davis. A. 1 '9S-'96 Minn. Doane. Ky. 142 Miss E. Pauline Swartz. 1 '96 Penn. Mt. Holyoke. Ko. Nii. 143 Miss Gertrude M. Willcox. '97-'99 Conn. Wellesley. Ko. 144 Miss Cora McCandlish. '97 Nebraska. Chicago. Miya. 145 Miss Cora F. Keith. '99 Mass. Mt. Holyoke. Mae. Kobe. 146 Miss Ada B. Chandler. A. '98 Mass. Gram. Normal. Kobe. 147 Mr. Charles M. Warren. A. '99 Conn. Yale. }^y- 148 Rev. Frank A. Lombard. A. '00 Mass. Amherst. Ky. INDEX. Adams, Dr. A. H., 49. Adams, Miss Alice P., 67. Aidzu Valley, 82. Airin Kyokwai, 32. Akashi, 19. Albrecht, G. E., 74, 92. AUchin, Geo., 50, 53, 78. American Board Meeting, Rutland, 34. Annaka, 35, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94. Arima, 19. Atkinson, John L., 37, 38, 48, 59, 83, 96, 97. Barrows, Martha J., 41, 59, 63. Bartlett, S. C, 11, 102, 103, 105, 107. Bradshaw, Annie H., 80, 82. Berry, John C, 11, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 26, 40, 52. S9> 65. Brown, Emily M., 43, 45, 77. Buddhist Priest at Niigata, 77. Gary, Otis, 2, 4, 32, 59, 61, 64. Case, Lucy, 51. Chiba, Mr., 28. Choy, Captain, 68. Church Building, 54. Church, First in Japan, 9 ; First of the American Board, 18. Clark, Cyrus A., 83, 85, 86, 87. Clark, F. E., 87. Clark, Sec. N. G., 10, 87. Clark, W. S., no. Clarke, Mrs. Byron W., 24. Colby, Abbie M., 51. " Company of the New Covenant," 40. Conference at Yokohama, 15. Convict's Prayer, 99. Cooper, Captain Mercator, 3. Cozad, Miss Gertrude, 41. Curtis, W. L., 32. Curtis, W. W., 78, no. Davis, J. D., II, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 32, 71- Davis, R. H., 72, 83. De Forest, J. H., 51, 55, 63, 78, 79, 80, 82, 102. De Long, C. E., 13. Dendo-gwaisha, 113. Denton, Mary F., 27, 90, 102, 107. Doshisha, The, 21, 22, 25, 26, 32, 36, 69, 78, 83, 92 ; First building used for, 36. Doughaday, Adelaide, 50. Dudley, Julia E., 18, 20, 41, 43, 59. Early Gifts for Japan, 5. Ebina, Mr., 85, 90, 91. Echigo, Province of, 26. Edinboro Medical Society, 72. Eguchi, 7. English Church Missionary Society, 72. Face to Face with God, 104. First Japanese Prayer-meeting 9. Fish, Hon. Hamilton, 13. Formation of First Church of American Board in Japan, 18. Eraser, Miss Helen, 27. Fukui, 30, 31. Fukuin Gakkwan, 32. Fukuin Soshi, 90. Fukuoka, 83, 87. Fujioka, 93, 94. Fushimi, 30. Fuwa, Pastor, 83. Gambler Converted, 28. Glory Kindergarten, 41. Goble, Rev. J., 6. Gordon, M. L., 11, 12, 15, 26, 32. Gosen, 77. Greene, D. C, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 56, 89, 90. Griffis, Wm. Eliot, 2, 15, 39. Griswold, Fanny E., 93. Gulick, Mrs. J. T., 50. Gulick, Julia A., 72, 83, 84. Gulick, O. H., 14, 72, 83, 84, 108, 109. Gulick, Sidney L., 83, 100. Giitzlaff, Dr., 3. Hakodate, 33, 109. Harada, T., 19, 43. Hara-kiri, 3. Hardy, Alpheus, 33, 34. Harris, Hon. Townsend, 3. Harris, Hon. J. N., 24, 27. Hepburn, Dr., 6, 7. Hikone, 30, 31. Himeji, n, 19,39. Hiogo, 19. Hiroshima, 67. Hirotsu, T., 36. Hokkaido, The, 1 08; Kumi-ai, work in, in. Holbrook, M. A., 45. Home Missionary Society, 113. Hon, Mr., 30, 94. Howe, Annie L., 41. Ichikawa, 13. Imabari, 97, 99, 100. International Congregational Council, 19. Ise, J. T. (Yokoi), 97. Ishii Juju, Mr., 62, 63, 68, 69. Janes, Captain, 23. Japan, Old and New, i. Japanese Home Miss. Soc'y, 83, 85, 87, H3. Judson, Cornelia, 74, 100. Kagoshima, 85. Kakudo Nobayashi, 29. Kanamori, Pastor, 26, 60, 63. Index. Kashiwazaki, 75, 76, 77. Kendall, Mrs., 74. Kindergartens, 41, 95. Kobe, II, 17, 18, 19, 37, 59, 63, 88, 96, 113. Kobe College for Girls, 43, 82 ; Self-denying Students, 45 ; Does It Pay ? 46. Koka, Miss, 42. Komatsu, 98. Kozaki, Rev. H., 36, 84, 89. Kumamoto, 82, 83. Kumamoto Band, 23. Kumi-ai Churches, 91, 100, 108, rii, 113; Statistics, 114, 115. Kyoto, II, 13, 21, ,24, 27, 28, 36, 59, 89, 113. Kyoto fu, 24. Kyushu, 83. Lake Biwa, 14. Learned, D. W., 12, 23, 25, 26, 32, 64. Leavitt, H. H., 49, 56. Loomis, Henry, 68. Maebashi, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94. Mashino, Mr., 84. Matsudaira, Governor, 79. Matsuyama, T., 17. Matsuyama, 96, 99, 100 ; Self-help, Generous Giving, 98; Open Door, 100. Matsuura, 39. McCandlish, Cora, 87, 88. Medical Work, 14, 19, 26, 52, 59, 65. Miadzu, 30, 31. Mimitsu, 84, 85, 87. Mission Roll, 116. Missionary Herald, 5. Miyake, A., 51. Miyagawa, T., 19, 49, 53, 58, 92. Miyazaki Station, 27, 84, 85, 86, 88. Morning Light, 48. Murakami, S., 28, 29, 49. Nagaoka, 75, 76, 77. Nagasaki, i, 6. Neesima, Joseph, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 32, 34, 36, 78, 79. 80, 89, 90, 91, 92. Neesima, Mrs., 67. Newell, H. B., 74, 75, 76, 77. Niigata, 72, 75 ; Church, 77. Ninomiya, Mr., 98, 99, 100. Okayama, 11, 59, 86,89; Church at, 61, 62, 69. Organization of Native Churches, 15. Orphan Asylum, 62, 69. Osada, Pastor, 43, 48, 89. Osaka, 11, 17, 18, 49, 56, 92, 113; Church Building at, 54 ; Pastor at, 56. Otsu, II. Palm, Dr., 72. Parmelee, H. Frances, 94. Pedley, Hilton, 77. Perry, Commodore, 3. Pettee, J. H., 59, 62, 70, 86. Prison Work, no. Provincial Teachers' Association, loi. Red Cross Hospital, 67. Richards, Linda, 27. Roman Catholics, i, 4. Rowland, Geo. M., 102, 104, 105, iii. Saibara, Pres., t,(>. Sake Drinking, 20. Sanda, 18, 19, 20. Sanjo, 72, 77. Sapporo, 27, 108; Agricultural College, no. Sawayama, Paul, 17, 49, 56. School for Bible Women, 40. School for Nurses, 24, 26. Schools Opened, 17. Scudder, Doremus, 74. Scudder, H. M., 74. Scudder, Kate, 74. Searle, Susan A., 44, 46. Senator, a Preacher, 63. Sendai, 78, 82. Shed, Mary H., 95. Shikoku, Island of, 96. Stanford, A. W., 26, 105. Stanford, Mrs., 100. Swartz, Pauline, 77. Takahashi, 64; Church, 65, 66; Women's Society, 66. Takanabe, 68, 84, 85, 87. Talcott, Eliza, 27, 43, 67, 68, 102. Tamba, 28, 29. Tango, 30. Taylor, Wallace, 23, 59. Tokwa Gakko, 78. Tokyo, 10, 28, 84, 89, 90. Tomeoka, K., 49, 65, 70, 71, 81. Tomioka, 93, 94, in. Tomita, Mr., 78, 79. Tottori, 102, 106; Face to Face with God, 104. Training School for Nurses, 24, 26. Treat, Sec. S. B., 11. Tsuyama, 66, 67. Uchida, Pastor, in, 112. ' Urakawa, 109, in. Verbeck, Guido F., 6, 8, 10. Wainwright, Mary E., 67. Wakamatsu, 82. Wakasa, 7. Watson, Rear Admiral, 15 White, F. N., 78. White, S. S., 67. Williams, Bishop, 6, 11. Wishard, L. D., 25, 46. Woman's Work, 82. Xavier, 1. Yamamoto, 21, 22. Yebina, Mr., 31. Yokol (J. T. Ise), 97. ata?»te^a'j-ai'i--tfsi6sfew:Miii!ah!Miwai!ilwai