4. I- 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. * If 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 3457 .D4 D38 1914 
 De Forest, Charlotte Burgis 
 The evolution of a 
 missionary 
 
The Evolution of a Missionary 
 
f^tf.mkiak 
 
The Evolution of a 
 Missionary 
 
 A Biography of 
 
 John Hyde DeForest 
 
 for Thirty-Seven Tears Missionary 
 of the American Board, in Japan 
 
 By. 
 
 CHARLOTTE B. DEFOREST 
 
 Introduction by 
 PROF. HARLAN P. BEACH, D.D., F.R.G.S. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Re veil Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 19M, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
In the Cause 
 
 °f 
 
 World-wide Brotherhood 
 
Introduction 
 
 Prof. Harlan P. Beach, D. D., F. B. G. S, 
 
 THE efficiency and eminence of a missionary- 
 are largely determined by endowment, char- 
 acter, environment, method and relationship 
 to man and to God. In most of these particulars John 
 Hyde DeForest was abundantly gifted and happily 
 circumstanced. God gave him a wise head, a pure 
 heart, a sensitive conscience, a buoyancy of life and a 
 faculty for friendship and love which were fundamental 
 in his life of service. 
 
 His character, so faithfully portrayed in this volume, 
 bore the marks of the divine graving tool which had 
 fashioned it by the varied experiences of a life un- 
 usually susceptible to mental and spiritual influences. 
 Its plasticity was linked with a paradoxical yet unusual 
 firmness ; its influence upon others was as communi- 
 cative and compelling as is the spell cast upon artistic 
 Japan by its symmetrically majestic Fujiyama. 
 
 Dr. DeForest's life could not have been lived in a 
 more favourable environment. His eye, his brain, his 
 soul were tabula rasce ready to be impressed by paradisaic 
 scenery, the chivalrous deeds of mediaeval daimyos and 
 their devoted samurai, the modern miracles of a speedy 
 and victorious renaissance, and the philosophical and 
 spiritual aspirations of his beloved adopted countrymen. 
 
 While Dr. DeForest was an able exponent of various 
 methods of missionary procedure, emphasis was placed 
 
 3 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 upon evangelism, with literary and educational work as 
 important minors. Few missionaries have equalled him 
 as an apologetic and evangelistic preacher ; while in the 
 literature of his riper years the Japanese found a most 
 sympathetic, reasonable and intimate appeal to the 
 national spirit and conscience. 
 
 Perhaps he will be longest remembered by appreciative 
 Japan for his personal attitude towards its unique people. 
 He studied them all his life long; he admired their 
 strength and sympathized in their weakness; he be- 
 came all things to them that he might win some for his 
 Lord. His attitude towards them in his later years 
 was happily symbolized by the character which, bor- 
 rowed from China, they used for the idea of friendship. 
 In one of its oldest forms it is a pictograph representing 
 two right hands signifying the strength of a virile man- 
 hood. He always stretched out his strong right hand, 
 not so much to seize hold of the weak left hand of Jap- 
 anese frailty and moral perversity, as to discover and 
 reinforce the brawn and muscle of the nation's higher 
 strivings. Such an attitude begot an admiration and 
 devotion to the missionary which this volume hardly 
 suggests in its fullness. Commoner and emperor alike 
 felt its subtle charm and held this faculty for friendli- 
 ness in highest honour. 
 
 But John Hyde DeForest was first of all and last of 
 all, like Abraham of old, a friend of God. He loved 
 men devotedly because God was his Father and theirs, 
 because in Jesus Christ, their Elder Brother, they were 
 made blood brothers. It was his study and passion to 
 bring men to see these distinctive facts of Christianity. 
 As it was his Father's business to reconcile men to 
 Himself through this Elder Brother, so it was His 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 missionary servant's joy to touch and save all whom he 
 could in any way intimately reach. 
 
 It is such a man as this — one of the truest and best 
 missionaries of our day — whose faithful portrait a 
 filial yet severely impartial daughter has here presented 
 to the Christian public. Among some hundreds of 
 missionary biographies with which the present writer 
 is acquainted, he does not recall one which so happily 
 describes the modern apostolic life. Nor does he recall 
 a single volume which is so full of instruction to the 
 prospective missionary to advanced peoples. Some will 
 disagree with Dr. DeForest's views as to the ethnic 
 religions and even of the Christian revelation. Yet the 
 most conservative critic, unless wholly obsessed by the 
 odium theologicum, will bless God for so Christlike a 
 life and so devoted a ministry. While such an adaptive 
 program is at present most useful in progressive, phil- 
 osophical and critical Japan, it will soon be demanded 
 in most of Asia. Candidates and young missionaries 
 will find in these pages a norm for their own imitation 
 in those methods and activities which are fundamental 
 in missions ; while on the spiritual and God ward side, 
 they may well imitate him, even as he followed Christ. 
 
 Haelan P. Beach. 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
Foreword 
 
 TWO or three times during the last few years 
 of my father's life, when we were walking 
 together on the hills, he broached the question 
 whether the time had not come for him to write a book 
 embodying the mature conclusions of his missionary 
 experience. He intimated that if he did so he thought 
 a suitable line to take would be that of his missionary 
 evolution ; he held that the environment of the mission 
 field in Japan, by opening his eyes to God's working in 
 all the world, had been the divine means of his develop- 
 ing far more than would have been possible, humanly 
 speaking, had he remained in the pastorate in America. 
 
 What he did not do it has been my happy privilege 
 to attempt in this book :— not so much to portray as a 
 complete biography would the man in all his aspects, as 
 to show the interplay of the work and the environment 
 upon his native forces and the way they wrought under 
 the hand of God to make him what he was. Where I 
 have used material irrelevant to this line of thought, it 
 has been to prevent distortion of the portrait through 
 too close an adherence to the main purpose of the 
 writing, — the purpose to perpetuate the message of a 
 life open-hearted and open-minded to God's ever- 
 expanding revelation of Himself. 
 
 To the friends whose faith in the value of this message 
 led me to the writing and strengthened me in it ; to the 
 Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior and to my 
 
 7 
 
8 FOEEWOED 
 
 fellow- workers at Kobe College, who have so gener- 
 ously allowed me time for the task ; to the American 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and to 
 other friends who have ungrudgingly granted me the 
 use of letters or information in their possession ; to the 
 Independent, the Congregationalist, and the Christian 
 Endeavor World, that have freely permitted the use of 
 extracts from their pages ; to the Hon. Kunimune Date, 
 who kindly permits for the cover design the use of the 
 crest of the feudal house of Sendai ; and especially to 
 my mother, who has been to me, as she was to my 
 father, a constant literary adviser and helper, I grate- 
 fully acknowledge my indebtedness. 
 
 Charlotte B. DeForest. 
 Sendai, Japan, 
 
Contents 
 
 I. The Missionary in Embryo 13 
 
 II. The Early Japanese Environment and 
 
 His Adaptation to It 33 
 
 III. " A Preaching Missionary " 69 
 
 IV. Furlough and Readjustment .... 109 
 
 V. The Missionary as Educator 145 
 
 VI. The Missionary Professionally and Non- 
 
 Professionally 185 
 
 VII. The Expansion of the Message .... 225 
 
 VIII. From the National to the International 257 
 
 Appendix 295 
 
 Chronological Tables — 
 
 I. Life of J. H. DeForest . ... 297 
 II. Contemporaneous Events in Japan 298 
 Principal English Writings of J. H. De- 
 Forest 299 
 
 Map of Japan 301 
 
 Index 303 
 
Illustrations 
 
 John Hyde DeForest .... 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. J. H. DeForest in 1874 
 
 J. H. DeForest in His Library at Sendai 
 
 Rev. S. Katagiri and Family 
 
 Cover of Tract on " Mixed Residence" 
 
 In the Military Hospital at Liaoyang 
 
 J. H. DeForest in 1908 
 
 Last Photograph of J. H. DeForest 
 
 . Frontispiece 
 Opposite page 30 
 
 148 
 
 210 
 
 260 
 266 
 280 
 290 
 
 11 
 
I 
 
 The Missionary in Embryo 
 
 " He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never 
 call retreat ; 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before His 
 
 judgment seat ; 
 O be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, 
 my feet ! 
 
 Our God is marching on." 
 
 — Julia Ward Howe. 
 
THE MISSIONARY IN EMBRYO 
 
 THE young teacher was early at his desk in the 
 little country schoolhouse that wintry morn- 
 ing. It was not so much that he had the 
 day's work to prepare, as that he was wondering how 
 to meet his boys. He knew how they had put out his 
 predecessor ; and now he had heard that they were 
 going to put him out too ! Yes, and put him out they 
 could, for he was only sixteen, and rather short at 
 that ; whereas some of his twenty pupils were older 
 and larger far than he. He did not claim to be a 
 thoroughly equipped teacher, but at least he knew 
 more than his pupils did ; and self-respect, as well as 
 the exigencies of self-support, demanded resistance to 
 the rumoured intentions of his scholars. 
 
 As he sat thinking, the door opened and the largest 
 boy in school walked in. He laid down his books and 
 began shaking the snow from his coat. The teacher 
 looked on for a moment, then took the bull by the 
 horns : 
 
 " Jim, do you know, they say the fellows are going 
 to put me out." 
 
 Jim flicked off another batch of snow and slowly 
 stretched himself until his full height blocked the 
 doorway. 
 
 " They'll have to walk over my dead body first," he 
 said, and the teacher knew that the day was won. 
 
 15 
 
16 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 This young teacher, whose name was John Kinne 
 Hyde [DeForest], had had other early difficulties to 
 meet. As fifth of eight children in a country pastor's 
 home, he had had his share of life's training for co- 
 operation and mutual helpfulness in rubbing elbows 
 with five energetic brothers, old and young. A sym- 
 pathetic parishioner in Westbrook, Connecticut, the 
 home of John's birth, has told how she "dropped 
 around " at the parsonage one day to see if she could 
 be of help to the pastor's busy wife, and found that 
 the sensible mother had set the boys to work at the 
 wash-tub " to keep them out of mischief." The strug- 
 gle with poverty, however, was as real as the allure- 
 ments of mischief to fun-loving boys, and from the 
 beginning these sturdy youths learned how to use their 
 brawn and their good sense in earning their way. 
 
 John had the privileges of the public schools, both at 
 his early home in Westbrook and at Greenwich, where 
 in John's eleventh year his father went to take charge 
 of the Congregational Church now known as at Cos Cob. 
 John's father, William Albert Hyde, was one of those 
 " truly good and faithful pastors " of whom New Eng- 
 land in the last century could boast so many, — hard 
 earnest workers in the traditional lines, rewarded by 
 occasional revivals and the loving adherence of their 
 flocks ; genial by nature, but sometimes letting the 
 strictness of their orthodoxy develop an unnatural 
 severity. When John in college once said to his 
 father that he thought "some Catholics would be 
 saved," the latter reproachfully replied, " Why, my 
 boy, how can you say so ? " John had no marked re- 
 spect for traditions as such, and to him in his younger 
 years this strict father, with his conscientious mainte- 
 
THE MISSIONAEY IN EMBEYO 17 
 
 nance of religious discipline at home and his strong ad- 
 herence to his church inheritance from the elders, was 
 hard to appreciate. Perhaps we must admit John to 
 have been rather refractory and willful on his own ac- 
 count sometimes, and thus not always equally well 
 qualified to recognize the virtues of a superior. But 
 with his developing manhood he came to understand 
 what he had not discerned in youth: afterwards he 
 more than once wonders why he did not appreciate his 
 father sooner ; and he records with joyful gratification 
 how an old parishioner, fifteen years after the faithful 
 pastor's death, said to his son, " One look at his face 
 was better than hearing most sermons." 
 
 John's mother, Martha Sackett, was another type of 
 New England saint — a Dorcas : one who brought up 
 her large family with a warm heart and a kind hand, 
 and who extended her ministrations beyond the limits 
 of her own household ; who outlived her husband 
 twenty-four years, — years of practical helpfulness lived 
 among her children, grandchildren, and even great- 
 grandchildren, — mentally active in leading her Bible 
 class of old ladies, and preaching the Gospel even in a 
 foreign land through a patchwork quilt extensively 
 embroidered in her eighty-second year with Scripture 
 texts. John lavished on her in the years of her widow- 
 hood a double devotion. Faithful letters from another 
 hemisphere bore constant witness to the part she had 
 in his life through past aid, present sympathy, and 
 eternal mother-love. " I thank Thee," rose his prayer 
 from distant soil, " for the dear mother and her ever 
 hopeful, trustful smile. Grant that all her children 
 may inherit that smile of peace and inward joy and 
 faith." 
 
18 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 John's school life, interrupted by that winter's term 
 of teaching in Bozrahville, Connecticut, was continued 
 at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After 
 a year and a term there, he graduated in 1862, fifth in 
 a class of forty-five and honoured with a Greek oration. 
 Not without many a struggle, however. His poor 
 preparation necessitated the burning of much midnight 
 oil, in (as he afterwards said) " the hardest study I 
 ever did, so that I occasionally fainted over my books." 
 He was partly paying his way by being chore-boy for 
 a kind householder and caring for her cow and her 
 garden. The earnest parents did what they could to 
 help, and " Aunt White," a sort of fairy godmother, 
 sent an occasional five-dollar bill. To this good aunt 
 John opened up his heart in confidential letters about 
 his spiritual condition. Chores and books were not the 
 only things that were filling his thoughts those days. 
 The effort for an education, the death of a younger 
 sister, the religious atmosphere of Phillips Academy, 
 were contributing to the development of the moral and 
 spiritual nature of the eager, warm-hearted boy of 
 seventeen. He was worried because he had not the 
 conventional signs of conversion ; he tried in vain to 
 attain to a profound conviction of sin and to a state of 
 steady thinking upon unworldly and spiritual things. 
 But a talk with a theological friend showed him that 
 perhaps a sudden conversion was not the only genuine 
 kind ; and with less uncertainty of tone he wrote Aunt 
 White before he graduated that he felt himself to be a 
 Christian. 
 
 One sermon heard in those school-days went on record. 
 To the fame of it, already acclaimed by many, he adds 
 his boyish tribute of appreciation : "I last Sunday 
 
THE MISSIONARY IN EMBEYO 19 
 
 heard a sermon by Professor Park which he has 
 preached over three hundred times ; it was beautiful ; 
 the subject was, ' Peter Denying Christ.' " 
 
 The fulfillment of his ambition to go to Amherst 
 College, like his father, and then, — " if I ever get to be 
 good enough," — to be a minister, was postponed to the 
 indefinite future by lack of means. Intending at first 
 to teach on leaving Phillips Academy, he instead en- 
 listed for service in the Civil War and was for nine 
 months a member of Company B, Twenty-eighth Con- 
 necticut Volunteers. Of actual fighting he saw but one 
 skirmish. At various points in Florida and along the 
 lower Mississippi he did duty as a common soldier when 
 not detailed as clerk in the quartermaster's department 
 or as regimental postmaster. 
 
 Though outwardly uneventful, those nine months of 
 enlistment had for his inner life a deep significance. 
 To Aunt White again he confided the nobler thoughts, 
 the strength in temptation, the Christian convictions, 
 that were growing in him through contact with danger 
 by land and sea, through resistance to prevailing camp 
 vices, and from the quiet meditation of an earnest heart 
 on lonely picket duty. The ideal of the Christian min- 
 istry renewed its appeal, and even the thought of be- 
 coming a missionary found its way onto paper for 
 Aunt White's eyes. The organization of a regiment 
 church, " called the Church of Jesus Christ," at Bar- 
 rancas, Florida, in May, 1863, was the occasion of the 
 public profession of his faith. " I fear I had long ago 
 made up my mind to be converted after deep and last- 
 ing convictions ; now I am satisfied that the secret, 
 silent moving of the Spirit is full as good a way as 
 any : all of God's ways are right. . . . Perhaps it 
 
20 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 is because I had resolved on my way that I was disap- 
 pointed ; but I am more than satisfied — I am thankful 
 if God has thus by His Spirit and through the blood of 
 Jesus saved me." 
 
 On the expiration of his term, in the summer of 1863, 
 he was honourably discharged and returned to his Con- 
 necticut home somewhat worn with the malarial fever 
 that he had contracted in Mississippi and that had at 
 one time threatened his life. His energy revived in 
 the bracing home atmosphere, and with the pittance 
 he had left from his soldier pay he entered Yale Col- 
 lege that September ; but finding in a few months that 
 no adequate means of support was open to him, he left 
 college and secured through an agency a teacher's 
 position in a private boarding-school for boys, in the 
 beautiful town of Irvington on the Hudson. The vital 
 thing for which the months at Irvington were remem- 
 bered in after life was the friendship they brought 
 with the leader of the Bible class of which John be- 
 came a member. This leader, Mr. H. F. Phinney, of 
 the New York publishing house of Ivison, Phinney & 
 Co., was a man whose religion demonstrated itself in a 
 very practical interest in the young men of his Bible 
 class. Many years later John wrote for his own chil- 
 dren the story of Mr. Phinney's friendship, that he 
 might keep green the memory of one who had his life- 
 long gratitude. Here it is : 
 
 "... I was at Irvington only a few months, and 
 then was notified by Professor Northrop, now presi- 
 dent of Minnesota University, that I could have the 
 DeForest Fund of $333 a year by coming at once and 
 agreeing to take as good a stand in Yale as I had taken 
 at Phillips. I told my Sunday-school teacher that I 
 
THE MISSIONAEY IN EMBEYO 21 
 
 was going, and he kindly invited me to his house to 
 dinner. Now Mr. Phinney was a very wealthy man. 
 He had a magnificent house, and one of his rooms was 
 shelved all around and loaded with books of every 
 kind. I admired immensely his exceptionally fine 
 establishment. I don't remember meeting his wife or 
 any children, but we had a first-class dinner. Then he 
 took me into the parlour and played on his grand 
 piano, which quite surprised me, as he was rather an 
 oldish man. He said he played to keep from melan- 
 choly, as his physician had advised him to do so. In 
 our conversation, or rather his, he asked me about my 
 plans in going to college, and I told him I expected to 
 be a minister, if I succeeded in getting through the 
 course. He delicately inquired about the prospects, 
 and I told him about my fund. Then he said that 
 doubtless I'd find it hard to pull through on that 
 amount, and in case I did have difficulty, if I'd let him 
 know he'd be glad to assist me. I thought this was 
 just a good-natured after-dinner speech and placed no 
 dependence on it. "When I started to leave he went 
 into his library and took down eight volumes here and 
 there and gave them to me. It was the first armful 
 towards my library. I don't know what has become 
 of those books. I can't find one here. If I had them 
 now I'd give them an honoured place. 
 
 " Hardly a term went by before it was apparent I'd 
 have to have more money somehow. Mother interested 
 Aunt "White in me so that she sent me a hundred a 
 year, but still that wasn't enough. So it occurred to 
 me towards the end of the term that Mr. Phinney 
 might possibly lend me some money. I wrote him 
 that his prophecy had come true and I was hard up ; 
 
22 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 if he would lend me $50, I'd pay it back after gradua- 
 tion, though in case I should die it would be a total 
 loss to him. To my surprise he replied by next mail, 
 enclosing a check for $50 and simply saying, ■ When 
 you need more, write again.' That was splendid. I 
 knew then that I was sure to go through Yale. I do 
 not remember how many times I wrote him, but when 
 graduation day came my account was somewhere near 
 four or five hundred dollars in debt to him. 
 
 " Of course I began to pay him off. For in the Di- 
 vinity School Professor Northrop secured me the office 
 of librarian in Brothers' Library at $225 a year for 
 two hours' work after dinner from 1 to 3 p. m. Then 
 I became the principal of the first City Night School at 
 $4 a night for two hours' work. I also had private 
 tutoring at $1 an hour. And before long I had 
 preaching at $20 a Sunday. So I could afford to 
 pay my debts ! But when Mr. Phinney found my 
 checks for $25 and $50 coming in, he took occasion, 
 on Christmas and some other days, I think, to write 
 me a nice note and ask me to accept $50 of that 
 debt. So he forgave me a generous share of the whole 
 amount. And when I left the seminary I had several 
 hundred dollars in the bank. 
 
 "Yery few men ever took such interest in me and 
 had such faith in me as Mr. Phinney. He was a friend 
 in a most substantial way when I greatly needed aid. 
 And because he helped me I have always been glad to 
 help one or two students in the same way and so pass 
 along the kindness shown me. And I want my children 
 to remember this name and to keep his photograph 
 when I get through with it. Also, in case you are 
 prospered and able later on in life to help some poor 
 
THE MISSIOKAEY DT EMBEYO 23 
 
 but promising student, I hope you will do it in memory, 
 in part, of the good and kind Mr. Phinney who so gen- 
 erously aided me to go through Yale." 
 
 Thus John went through college and seminary: — 
 but not under the name of Hyde, as we have hitherto 
 known him. For this Saul is also called Paul. The 
 terms of the DeForest Scholarship at Yale at that time 
 required its recipient, if not already bearing the name 
 DeForest, to adopt it. With the consent of his parents 
 the change was made by act of legislature, and thence- 
 forth he was known as John Hyde DeForest, by college 
 friends familiarly called " Jack." 
 
 As a scholar he was above the average, graduating 
 with Phi Beta Kappa rank, but he was not brilliant. 
 He evinced no unusual aptitude for languages ; science 
 and mathematics made but an ordinary appeal to him. 
 History, philosophy and literature seem to have been 
 his favourite branches. He had, however, at times an 
 original way of looking at things and of stating them 
 that made the friends that knew him best expect from 
 him a more than ordinary career. To others, we con- 
 fess, he was nothing unusual. For the casual observer 
 he was a young man of average size and appearance, 
 with a happy-go-lucky, unconventional air and a gay 
 necktie, and sometimes too an independent manner that 
 might have seemed dare-devil, but in reality covered a 
 proud and sensitive heart. What he did he did with his 
 might. " I work when I work," he wrote to a cousin, 
 " and when I play I am equally radical." He had his 
 seasons of religious depression, but work and friendship 
 were effective tonics, and his optimistic nature always 
 rebounded to the call for action. His love of humour, 
 too, often saved the day, and his capacity for friendship 
 
24 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 found rich return in the companions of his college 
 years. Of these he had many, for whether rowing on 
 the class crew, helping earn his way as steward of a 
 boarding club, or entering into organized society life in 
 Alpha Delta Phi and Spade and Grave, his various ac- 
 tivities were such as brought him into contact with 
 other men ; and the lifelong friendships begun then in- 
 cluded men of widely different interests and walks in 
 life. One of them later wrote of him : " He was a 
 muscular oarsman, a genial companion, an obliging 
 librarian, a far from sedate theological student, who 
 preached every Sunday after he was licensed and no- 
 body knows how many times before." 
 
 How his inner experience led this " far from sedate " 
 youth to become a theological student, we who have 
 seen him at Phillips Academy and in the army can 
 guess. But even at the expense of going back a bit, 
 let us hear his own account of it, written in reply to 
 a distant daughter's question about his choice of a 
 life-work : 
 
 "As to how I came to be a minister at all, that's a 
 rather long story. It took shape on a transport off 
 Cape Hatteras one night during the war, when I walked 
 the deck till after midnight and told the Lord I'd serve 
 Him as a minister if He'd bring me through the war in 
 safety. It was a rather cowardly feeling mixed with a 
 sense of utter weakness that led me to that decision. 
 The next night a tremendous storm arose and we barely 
 pulled through the peril. I felt glad then that I had 
 made my decision. So I joined the church after we 
 landed in Florida. I'd like to see the place once more. 
 It was on the bluffs overlooking the Gulf of Mexico 
 and under a broad oak tree. The chaplain made up a 
 
THE MISSIONAEY IN EMBEYO 25 
 
 little church out of such materials as he could get from 
 the regiment and that was the church I joined. All I 
 recall of my examination was the question, ' What is 
 faith ? ' I replied, ' Faith is the substance of things not 
 seen,' etc., and felt a little as I used to when I recited 
 to my teachers in book language glibly without know- 
 ing a bit what in the world it all meant. 
 
 " In college I felt bound by my vow — otherwise I 
 fancy I'd have broken off. For I got into a rather 
 worldly spirit and was offered one or two good places 
 as teacher. But I went right on, — though some of the 
 fellows thought it very queer I was going to be a min- 
 ister. One time in senior year a pile of us were gab- 
 bing together and I was asked what I was going to be 
 and replied, ' A minister.' ' The devil you are ! ' said 
 one of my classmates in surprise. That rather stumped 
 me. If it appeared to others that I was so totally un- 
 fit for the ministry I began to think I had better give 
 it up. So I took Joe Greene aside and asked him as 
 my best friend to tell me frankly if I seemed so unfit. 
 He comforted me with very emphatic assertions that 
 4 the ministry needs just such fellows as you,' and so I 
 kept on." 
 
 Without losing time between the college and the 
 theological course, he graduated from the Yale 
 Divinity School and was ordained in 1871. Before 
 graduating, however, two events had made the future 
 bright with promise. He had accepted a unanimous 
 call to the pastorate of the Congregational Church at 
 Mount Carmel, Connecticut, a town seven miles from 
 New Haven, where he had partially supplied a vacant 
 pulpit. Then too the star of love had dawned for him ; 
 and in his marriage engagement to Miss Sarah C. 
 
26 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 Conklin of New Haven his cup of joy was filled to the 
 brim. They were married and settled in the parsonage 
 at Mount Carmel, radiantly happy in home and in 
 work, winning jointly the loving devotion of the people 
 they served. But short-lived joy ran its course : in the 
 spring the young wife and her new-born babe were 
 laid to rest in the neighbouring churchyard. 
 
 The young pastor was stunned by the completeness 
 and suddenness of his loss. In the ensuing struggle 
 with his grief, with his pulpit, and even with his faith, 
 he was laid low by a malarial fever ; at this dire mo- 
 ment, despair of his chosen life-work had well-nigh 
 conquered but for his loving people and the tonic 
 power of nature. Weeks of tramping and trouting in 
 the woods of Maine drove out the fever, brought balm 
 to sorrow, and renewed the iron of courage in his 
 blood. The natural beauty of Mount Carmel, too, 
 furnished a preservative supply ; and in lines which he 
 quotes about this time we trace the experience of those 
 years, extended into a lifelong habit of hill-tramping : 
 
 " If thou art worn and hard beset 
 With sorrows that thou wouldst forget, 
 If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep 
 Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
 Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
 Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 
 
 Twenty-five years later, on receiving in Japan the 
 account of a visit that two of his daughters had made 
 to Mount Carmel, he renewed the memories of his 
 pastorate in the following letter : 
 
 " I don't know when I've received letters that gave 
 me so much solid satisfaction and joy as yours about 
 your Mount Carmel visit. They took me back over 
 
THE MISSIONARY IN EMBRYO 27 
 
 the parish and the mountain and I seemed to be walk- 
 ing in the old paths. Mount Carmel is a precious 
 place to me for many reasons, chief of which are, 
 because the people loved me (which was a real surprise 
 to me), and because I went through a very critical 
 spiritual crisis there in which I nearly lost my faith ; 
 and I actually resigned expecting never to preach any 
 more, though I didn't say that to any one. It was the 
 time when skeptical views were in their first rush, and 
 I was nearly carried off my feet. The Independent 
 had fallen into the hands of a brilliant young skeptic, 
 and it seemed to me the old church and the old faith 
 would go to the wall. I was saved by the love of 
 those Mount Carmel folks for me, especially Mrs. 
 George Ives, who took me in her home to board. I was 
 virtually a Unitarian for a while, I suppose, but gradu- 
 ally and naturally I saw the glory of the old faith, and 
 when the revival came, it lifted me into the missionary 
 business. 
 
 " While at Mrs. Ives', being right at the foot of the 
 mountain, I often went up on the top and took to climb- 
 ing those steep cliffs, d la Tyndall in the Alps, and nearly 
 lost my life twice, as I came within an ace of slipping 
 from the rocks when about fifty feet up. I love the 
 people and the mountain and am glad you saw them, 
 and also the grave there. It was my loss there that 
 tended to unsettle me, but the kindness of the people, 
 who gave me six months' vacation and continued my 
 salary, held me till I recovered myself. I tell you 
 these things, since you are now in a position to 
 appreciate them. Arguments and doctrines, etc., never 
 will save any one when in doubt and sorrow and 
 despair — nothing but love will." 
 
28 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 And love did. In a few years he could look back 
 upon his experience at this time and read what it had 
 wrought for him. " God meant something for me five 
 years ago ; I know that my whole heart-life and my 
 whole life-work were changed by my loss ; and God has 
 led me until I'm far happier than ever before, because 
 now I have laid aside the petty ideas and the half- 
 skeptical heart I used to have, and am trying to love 
 and help my brothers wherever I find them." 
 
 He went back to two years more of faithful ministry 
 upon which the seal of approval was set in a steadily 
 growing religious interest throughout the parish, cul- 
 minating in a sincere and fruit-bearing revival in the 
 winter of 1873-1874. Scenes abounded that Mount 
 Carmel had not known for twenty-five years. Crowded 
 prayer-meetings, frequent extra preachings followed 
 by inquiry meetings, personal work successful in unex- 
 pected quarters, the appointment of women from among 
 the church-members to work in the outlying districts, a 
 large Bible History class of new Christians who studied 
 and recited on their subjects, the formation of a 
 Woman's Missionary Auxiliary, — these were some of 
 the activities called into being by the influx of new 
 spiritual life. 
 
 There was, however, in this revival more fruit than 
 the upbuilding of the church. To the pastor it was the 
 sign for which he had been waiting, the answer to his 
 prayer for guidance about becoming a foreign mission- 
 ary. The thought that he had breathed to Aunt White 
 from the army had awaked from its lethargy. "I 
 have been wondering," he wrote his parents during the 
 revival, " whether it is not both a duty and a privilege 
 for me to go as a missionary. . . . I see no reason 
 
THE MISSIONARY IN EMBRYO 29 
 
 in my circumstances for staying in our country . . . 
 but my fitness is the main point. I hold it true that 
 no man should go as a missionary unless he is a man of 
 large ability and undoubted consecration. Could I 
 satisfy myself on these points, I should be all ready." 
 The attitude of his parents towards missions may be 
 seen from what he himself told the audience in his 
 farewell address at the American Board meeting before 
 starting for his field : " My father is the happy father 
 of many children. The first few that came along he 
 named after our uncles and aunts, and when he had 
 pretty much exhausted that source, being a good man, 
 he turned to the Bible for comfort. He called me 
 John. Still the children came ; and just about then 
 came the news that two of his classmates who had 
 gone out as missionaries had been murdered ; so he 
 perpetuated the memory of that in our family by call- 
 ing his youngest boy Lyman Munson. Thus I learned 
 how the early missionaries were treated. And in those 
 days what was the great petition that went up from 
 mission-loving hearts ? I know how my father prayed, 
 in his pulpit and at the family altar : the petition was 
 that Almighty God would open the nations of the 
 earth to missionaries." Therefore these parents an- 
 swered their son's letter without opposition to his en- 
 tering upon missionary work. They merely raised such 
 questions as a proper prudence dictated ; to which he 
 replied : " As to my health, I do not suppose that one 
 clergyman in five is my equal in strength and likeli- 
 hood of lasting forever. . . . You will have to 
 cast about for some better excuse for me. However, 
 before the matter approaches a crisis, I shall come home 
 and do my pleading." " More and more it seems both 
 
30 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 a duty and a privilege to go where so few are willing 
 or able to go. Because I believe in the power of the 
 Gospel, I want it to be carried outside of our Gospel- 
 ridden country ; a hundred ministers would be glad of 
 my place here and not one of them would be able or 
 willing to go abroad." 
 
 Thus the decision was made, and made with the 
 blessing of his godly parents and the regret, but also 
 the affectionate Godspeed, of his people at Mount 
 Carmel. When he told his purpose to his old friend 
 and teacher, Professor Fisher of Yale, the historian had 
 answered, " Go to a people that has a history." In 
 later years, as the treasures of Japan's history and tra- 
 ditions began to open up to him unexpected wealth in 
 every phase of Japanese life, and unlooked-for oppor- 
 tunities of Christian service, he recalled those words 
 with a deepening appreciation of the insight that 
 prompted them. India, his first choice of a field, was 
 recognized as impracticable for him, since his army ex- 
 perience had demonstrated his unfitness for residence 
 in the tropics. Hence the American Board appointed 
 him to its newer mission in Japan. 
 
 The joy of this appointment was doubled by the 
 fact that it was not for himself alone. He had found 
 in Miss Sarah Elizabeth Starr, of Guilford, Conn., the 
 worthy partner of his life purpose. Born and brought 
 up in a farming town and being an ambitious student, 
 she combined with a strong physical constitution prac- 
 tical experience and intellectual gifts further developed 
 by several years of school-teaching in Vermont, Min- 
 nesota, and Connecticut. Then, too, a saintly mother 
 had trained the daughter from girlhood in the vitality 
 of spiritual things, and had taught her to believe in the 
 
THE MISSIONAKY IN EMBEYO 31 
 
 missionary obligation resting upon the church and the 
 individual. The father, although accepting these doc- 
 trines in theory, could not brook them in practice when 
 they threatened to remove to a distant country the 
 daughter who was his pride ; and it was with his bitter 
 opposition that she persisted in the course to which her 
 conviction of the right impelled her. The mother, 
 with a rare combination of strength and sweetness, 
 maintained the conjugal peace while supporting her 
 daughter's resolution ; and so sincerely did she live out 
 her own teaching that she could say in the midst of her 
 suffering, " I rejoice to make the sacrifice of letting my 
 only daughter go as a foreign missionary." To this 
 daughter the call of love came with a double joy, be- 
 cause in it the twofold ideal of home-making and of 
 missionary service beckoned to fulfillment. 
 
 They were married September 23, 1874, were bidden 
 farewell at the annual meeting of the American Board 
 at Kutland, Vt., and sailed from San Francisco on the 
 Colorado, a side-wheel steamer that without stopping 
 at Hawaii took twenty-seven days in crossing to Yoko- 
 hama. With them, also for mission work in Japan, 
 were Dr. and Mrs. A. H. Adams and Eev. Joseph 
 Hardy Neesima. The last months in America, with 
 their busy planning, packing, and purchasing of outfit 
 supplies, were irksome to the eager young spirit that 
 pressed forward to his chosen work. " I shall be glad," 
 he wrote to the American Board secretary, Dr. N. G-. 
 Clark, " when the business part of my life-work is 
 ended, and the solid work of the Master is entered upon. 
 I am very tired of this heartless work of packing : it 
 is so foreign to my enthusiastic work of last winter 
 that I seem to have lost almost all of my religion. I 
 
32 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 endure it, however, by knowing that it is a duty that 
 can't be avoided, and is therefore one of the things 
 that should be done to the glory of God. I am sure 
 God always meant me for some distant work." 
 
 In the happy faith of such a call, he took his depar- 
 ture to that " distant work." " As the great steamship 
 Colorado moved slowly from her pier," he wrote back, 
 " cannon after cannon spoke out a loud farewell, until 
 the mountain-lined harbour was filled with thundering 
 echoes ; less noisily, but from the heart, our friends 
 were waving us farewells from the bow of the steam- 
 ship Japan. Naturally we felt some bunches in our 
 throat which were hard to swallow : a proper feeling 
 indeed, but by no means to be interpreted as for a mo- 
 ment regretting our choice for life ; we counted the 
 cost long before leaving, and mean to take hopefully 
 all the disagreeable side-dishes of the missionary call- 
 ing." 
 
II 
 
 The Early Japanese Environment 
 and His Adaptation to It 
 
 " Climes remote and strange, 
 Where altered life, fast- following change, 
 Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
 Shall stir, turn, dig the spirit's soil ; 
 Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
 Till a new garden there shall grow." 
 
 — Charlotte Bronte, « The Missionary." 
 
II 
 
 THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT AND 
 HIS ADAPTATION TO IT 
 
 " 'W "X" TE landed Thanksgiving Day. Oh, how 
 \/\/ glad we were to see the land and to feel 
 ▼ ▼ that our voyage was over ! We just gave 
 extra thanks, and determined that henceforth Thanks- 
 giving should mean more to us than ever before." 
 
 Thus runs the first home letter from Japanese soil ; 
 and then it proceeds to give incidental mention to some 
 of the most honoured names in the history of Christi- 
 anity in Japan. But not in the setting that mission 
 history gives them — these heroes of dictionary -making, 
 Bible-translating, missionary statesmanship, philan- 
 thropy, and evangelization ! Let us rejoice that they 
 sometimes relaxed from their labours by eating turkey 
 and going sightseeing. 
 
 " Mr. Greene [Rev. D. C. Greene, first missionary of 
 the American Board in Japan] came out to meet us and 
 took us to his own home ; it was delightful to meet his 
 wife and four little ones, and to feel at once as if we had 
 got into a real American home. Here are Methodist, 
 Dutch Reformed, Baptist, Congregational, and Presby- 
 terian missionaries ; and all of them have given us 
 most hearty hand-shakes and good grub. For instance, 
 last night we were invited to Dr. Hepburn's to tea, or 
 rather to Thanksgiving Dinner, which they had post- 
 poned. We had a tremendous turkey, worth out here 
 fifteen dollars. It was a present to the doctor and the 
 
 35 
 
3(3 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 first one he has had in this country, though he has been 
 here fifteen years. I told him if I waited fifteen years 
 without a turkey I should want one worth fifteen dollars. 
 . . . Oh, I wish I could tell you of my visit to Yedo 
 [Tokyo], the great city of this empire. . . . We 
 had two of the best guides in the empire : Rev. Mr. 
 Ballagh, Dutch Reformed, took us on Monday, and 
 Dr. Yeeder, one of the teachers in the ' Great College,' 
 on Tuesday. ... I can only tell you of one inci- 
 dent. We went to a tremendous temple [Asakusa] ; 
 its gateway was as large as the Mount Carm?I Church, 
 and we went between two hideous images, high and 
 large, the guardians of the temple. The people that 
 are sore-footed stop and worship these giant creatures 
 by hanging their shoes before them and leaving them 
 there as an offering. You often hear people say, ' I'd 
 give all my old shoes if so-and-so could happen.' Well, 
 the heathen really do it. I saw I should think forty 
 pairs hung up for the old guardian gods to smell of. 
 We kept ours on. 
 
 " Then we entered a courtyard, and beyond was a 
 real temple where the people did their best worship. 
 . . . You remember my telling how they wrote their 
 prayers on paper, then chewed them and made spit- 
 balls and threw them at the objects they worship. 
 Well, there were thousands of spit-ball prayers all 
 around and I had a good mind to try one myself, but 
 was a little afraid to do it ; I reckon mine would have 
 stuck. . . . The god was a queer thing indeed : a 
 wooden image about as large as Henry, sitting in a 
 chair. . . . Whoever has any disease or pain comes 
 and rubs the god where the pain is, and so many thou- 
 sands have rubbed the old fellow that his eyes and nose 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 37 
 
 and belly are rubbed pretty nearly out of existence. I'm 
 sure the god will have to go to some bigger god before 
 long to get patched up : indeed there is one somewhere 
 that has had his shin all rubbed off and has had a new 
 one put in. I saw a poor diseased old woman, all bent 
 over and full of pain, come up ; with folded hands she 
 prayed, then rubbed the god pretty much all over ; 
 poor thing, I wished she knew of One to whom all 
 heavy-laden creatures might go." 
 
 With this introduction to Japan in Yokohama and 
 Tokyo, " kept by friends whom we had never seen, but 
 who greeted us for our common Master's sake," the 
 newcomers took ship for Kobe, where they saluted the 
 brethren ; then, taking all the railroad there was to 
 take, they went to their appointed place in Osaka. 
 Osaka was the second station of the American Board 
 in Japan, and had been opened two years before by 
 Mr. and Mrs. O. H. Gulick. These pioneers were soon 
 joined by Dr. and Mrs. M. L. Gordon, in whose home the 
 Osaka Church, the second Congregational Church in 
 Japan, had been organized with seven members in the 
 spring of 1874. 
 
 The first DeForest home in Japan was a small Jap- 
 anese house with some foreign features, situated in 
 Yoriki-machi, an annex to the foreign concession in 
 Osaka. To have started at housekeeping directly on 
 arrival would have been difficult, though the enthusiasm 
 of the young couple would not have hesitated to make 
 the attempt. As, however, their household goods, 
 shipped from Boston by way of Cape Horn, were de- 
 layed some months by an accident to the ship, their 
 first winter was happily spent in the home of their 
 colleagues, Dr. and Mrs. Gordon. " We are really for- 
 
38 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 tunate in not having our goods," wrote Mr. DeForest, 
 " for Dr. Gordon is the best scholar of Japanese in this 
 part of Japan, and he willingly tells me all he can and 
 is an excellent help towards getting a start at this most 
 twisted language." 
 
 Of their own domestic arrangements, when com- 
 pleted, little need be said. There were in those early 
 years the usual explanations to be made to the home 
 friends as to why they employed servants. " With 
 help so cheap we can't afford to do any other way. A 
 missionary's time is valuable : he must learn the lan- 
 guage, and then use his knowledge to spread the 
 Gospel, not to wash and make gardens. Yet we deny 
 ourselves many, many things ; and if necessary, we all 
 would deny ourselves every servant, and pretty much 
 everything else — a missionary means business." There 
 were the usual questions from home people as to what 
 they ate and wore and how they lived, eliciting dis- 
 closures that tended to prove the fundamental simi- 
 larity of human nature everywhere. " You ask about 
 my clothes. Yes, I wear some still. I've got a brand 
 new stack of them, made by John Chinaman J for thir- 
 teen dollars ; and although the Chinaman made a mis- 
 take in guessing how big I am and got the vest all put 
 into the rear of the trousers, yet Lizzie thinks I look 
 very much as I used to when I went to Guilford on 
 business." " Lizzie got a cambric dress by mail, all 
 made up ; mail was twelve cents only [from America]. 
 She put it right on and was as tickled as any carnally- 
 minded, stay-at-home Christian is under the same cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 The daily menu was a good one, in spite of a few 
 
 1 The Chinese tailor is still frequently found in Japanese ports. 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 39 
 
 local problems. The plentiful, juicy, little Japanese 
 orange acted as part substitute for drinking water in 
 those days before Osaka had its city waterworks ; 
 otherwise filtered rain water was used for drinking, as 
 the well water that rose and fell with the daily tides, 
 and took some surface drainage in addition, was unde- 
 sirable. Condensed milk (it was before the days of the 
 evaporated varieties) and canned butter were of familiar 
 appearance on every foreign table. " We have good 
 substantial food and plenty of it," runs a letter. " I 
 like rice very much. . . . We have had no butter 
 for over three months, and I don't miss it so long as 
 we have a cow." Perhaps the gradual passing of the 
 olden cow will justify quoting at length on this sub- 
 ject : "I went to Kobe and bought a cow and a calf for 
 twenty-four dollars. JSTow the cows of this country 
 are peculiar every way : the natives have never used 
 milk, but use cows to plough and carry burdens. The 
 result is that these ' critters ' are very sparing of their 
 milk; most of them won't give three pints a day. 
 Then they are generous kickers ; I've seen my cow 
 keep her hind leg going almost as if she were grinding 
 a hand-organ, and my cow is remarkably gentle. To 
 ensure good behaviour all cows have a ring through 
 their noses, and if you jerk it well they give up the 
 contest. But in this country there is no such thing as 
 [pasture] grass, and so the cows are not much to blame 
 for their low characters. They eat leaves from brush 
 and such rank stuff as will grow on the mountains ; 
 besides that, we feed a little grain. Of course we can't 
 make butter with such a cow, but we use the milk to 
 eat with rice, etc." 
 
 " I laugh day and night to see and hear these comical 
 
40 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 Japs," wrote Mr. DeForest after more than a year's 
 residence : the humorous aspect of his environment did 
 not wear off with the novelty. Indeed, in those days 
 there must have been much more to strike the amused 
 and wondering eye of the foreigner than there is now : 
 — the women with their shaven eyebrows and black- 
 ened teeth and invariably the Japanese style of hair- 
 dressing ; the men with the ancient Japanese queue, 
 consisting of a narrow wad three or four inches long 
 projecting over the shaven strip on the top of the 
 head ; the samurai stalking the streets with their two 
 swords of different lengths suggestively conspicuous at 
 their sides. And to what newcomer even now does 
 not the jinrikisha appeal with an admixture of feelings 
 in which humour is one ingredient ? The jinrikisha of 
 those days offered clumsy contrasts to the modern 
 vehicle with its light rubber-tired wheels and compact 
 equipment for rain or sunshine ; and the puller was 
 not the well-clothed man that the police of to-day in- 
 sist upon. Still the picture given is unmistakably 
 Japanese : 
 
 " One can hardly move a block in any of the cities 
 without being addressed in this double-twisted, back- 
 handed, excruciatingly polite and non-understandable 
 language by some of the half-dressed natives who 
 would be most happy to become one's horse for a slight 
 consideration ; and the only word a newcomer is sure 
 of is the everlasting ' jinrikisha ' ! It is a large baby- 
 cart, capable of carrying one or two full-grown persons 
 or six babies as they average. . . . Yery undigni- 
 fied accidents sometimes happen to those who ride. 
 The Japanese are a marvellously polite people ; when 
 they bow, their heads go down to the level of their 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIKONMENT 41 
 
 knees ; and it is not uncommon to see three such 
 sweeping bows for a single salutation. One such bow 
 divided up would last some Americans a year. Now 
 bowing on one's feet is a comparatively safe thing ; 
 but bad luck to him who rides regardless of the equilib- 
 rium of things ! The other day while walking out, I 
 saw a Japanese friend riding towards me. He braced 
 himself to do me the usual honour. His little coolie 
 of course did not suspect that an additional weight 
 would be suddenly thrown on the shafts ; and when 
 the rider smilingly bent forward to the showing of his 
 back hair, down went the shafts, my friend went head- 
 long from the jinrikisha, taking his astonished horse 
 right between the shoulders, and both together meas- 
 ured full length in the road. ... I did try to be a 
 good missionary and tell him how sorry I was, — while 
 I was aching to have him hurry away round the corner 
 out of sight ; and then I laughed the longest laugh on 
 record — it was three-quarters of a mile long." 
 
 Besides long laughter there were long, deep breaths 
 of admiration for the beauty of hills and valleys and 
 green fields, — the natural contour of a land where Na- 
 ture has been lavish with some of her most attractive 
 forms. " Never think of us as ' poor missionaries ' — 
 the land is beautiful, a lovely land," was his surprised 
 confession on arriving. Delight in the deep, soulful 
 tone of the temple bells, in the quaintness of the 
 dwarfed trees and the brilliance of the triple-tailed 
 goldfish in the pond in his ready-made garden, in the 
 luxuriance of the winter-blooming japonicas and the 
 springtide peach and cherry blossoms far and wide, — 
 this delight breathes through the letters of those early 
 years. 
 
42 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 There were also long, long sighs of sympathy and 
 pity : for human misfortunes are many in a city of half 
 a million, as Osaka was then. On a Sunday morning 
 in the missionary's first winter there, one of those great 
 fires, still only too well known in Japanese cities, broke 
 out near the centre of Osaka and raged for some 
 twenty-four hours, leaving over a thousand ruined 
 homes, shops, and temples in its track. Dr. Gordon 
 rose to the emergency. " He started out early Monday 
 morning," writes his admiring young comrade, " and 
 hired two hotels to cook for him. Then he bought 
 rice, etc., and bamboo plates and chop-sticks, and with 
 the help of some native Christians he distributed nine 
 hundred warm meals on that day ; they carried loaded 
 baskets through the burned district, and wherever they 
 saw the poor women and children sitting on the ground 
 where their houses had been, they gave them a bamboo 
 plate of rice and a pair of chop-sticks ; they were very 
 thankful indeed. On Tuesday I joined them in the 
 distribution ; I gave away about a hundred and twenty 
 hot meals that morning. I learned to say, ' Did 
 your house burn up ? Then I will give you this.' In 
 two days after that new houses were going up all over 
 the burned place, and now you wouldn't know the 
 spot. But the most marvellous part of this story is 
 the cost of the meals : everything, all told, made each 
 meal a trifle over two cents ! Our missionaries sub- 
 scribed one hundred dollars out of their own salaries to 
 help these poor people. Dr. Gordon also telegraphed 
 to Kobe for help and immediately through the mission- 
 aries there some three hundred dollars were subscribed. 
 This was offered to the government to aid the needy, 
 but with a strange pride it was rejected." This rejec- 
 
THE EARLY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 43 
 
 tion was before the development of the fraternal con- 
 sciousness by virtue of which the Japan of to-day can 
 alike receive from other nations for her own relief and 
 contribute to other nations for theirs in time of flood, 
 famine, or earthquake. 
 
 From time to time there were outbreaks of cholera 
 with long death-lists in their train. Of one epidemic 
 in the autumn of 1877 Mr. DeForest wrote : " They 
 die on the cars, they die in the tea-houses and on the 
 road. Yesterday on the way to church we passed a 
 dead jinrikisha-man sitting in his wagon as if asleep. 
 The police saw to it immediately." Among such scenes 
 the writer voices his admiration for timely action on 
 the part of the authorities. " The government is doing 
 its best to check the disease, disinfecting drains, dis- 
 tributing proper medicine and preventives, quarantining 
 every house where it is, arresting spurious druggists 
 and doctors, furnishing free medical aid to the poor, 
 etc. Indeed there probably is not on the face of the 
 earth a government like this for doing such a thing. 
 We have no fears, but are cautious, not letting our 
 servants go to the [public] bath, etc." 
 
 Another evidence of the confidence that the Ameri- 
 cans felt in the government is given in a reference to 
 the Satsuma Kebellion of 1877. For the benefit of 
 home friends they explained that the struggle, though 
 fierce, was confined to the southern island of Kyushu ; 
 but they added, " Should the trouble spread, we for- 
 eigners are as safe as if in New York." 
 
 Two events had strengthened this confidence. One 
 was indeed one of the minor causes of the rebellion it- 
 self — the edict depriving the samurai of the right 
 hitherto enjoyed of wearing swords. This edict, that 
 
44 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 helped rouse to a last formal resistance the spirit of 
 such samurai as had been embittered and alienated by 
 the policies of the government that they had helped to 
 reinstate, was to resident foreigners a distinct reassur- 
 ance of their personal safety, and seemed also from the 
 civic point of view " a great step in favour of peace 
 and good-will." The other event was the notification 
 of 1876 regarding Sunday, of which Mr. DeForest 
 gives the following translation : 
 
 "Notification 27 
 " It is hereby notified that up to the present time 
 the first and the sixth days have been observed in 
 the government offices as the clays of rest. But 
 from the first of April next all government offices 
 will be closed on Sunday, and will be open only 
 until noon on Saturday. 
 
 " Sanjo Saneyoshi, Prime Minister. 
 " March 12, 1876." 
 
 In giving an illustration of the effect of the new 
 step upon the church of those days, Mr. DeForest takes 
 occasion to summarize from a year and a half's ac- 
 quaintance with Japan his view of her policy : 
 
 " Japan is a progressive nation. Let any one spend 
 an hour on the history of this people, reading the dark 
 times of Iej^asu three hundred years ago, or let him talk 
 with an intelligent samurai of advanced years concern- 
 ing the heartless and barbarous things he himself has 
 shared in or known of ; and then see how united, quiet, 
 safe the country now is : the sword laid aside, manu- 
 factures encouraged, schools multiplied, education ex- 
 alted and persecution abandoned ; and he will see the 
 word ' progressive ' belongs to Japan as it does to no 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 45 
 
 other nation on earth. And this desire to be progress- 
 ive, which led her to introduce steamboats, railroads, 
 telegraphs, etc., has also led to the adoption of Sunday, 
 not at all because it is the Kesurrection Day, but be- 
 cause she desires to accept as rapidly as is practicable 
 the customs and also the laws, as well as the wonderful 
 inventions, of the most civilized nations. ... It 
 will be noticed that the edict refers not to the people of 
 Japan, but to the government. The people are not asked 
 to observe Sunday, but are only informed that on that 
 day they need bring no business to the courts, nor to 
 any public office in the empire. . . . But one direct 
 advantage of this edict is that it gives a regular oppor- 
 tunity to those who desire to hear about Christianity. 
 Last winter a young official and his wife at Osaka were 
 frequently seen at evening meetings, and on being ap- 
 proached said that they had heard with admiration the 
 teachings of Jesus and desired not only further instruc- 
 tion, but permission to enter the company of believers. 
 He was accordingly asked to attend church, at which 
 his countenance fell : ' he was an official and could not 
 leave his post ; but he w T ould come to all evening meet- 
 ings, and on the more frequent government rest-days 
 w r ould study by himself the teachings of Jesus.' His 
 sincerity won the church -members, and his frequent 
 regret that he could not receive baptism created a 
 strong movement in the church in favour of abolish- 
 ing the Sunday rule and receiving him. It was claimed 
 on one side that to observe Sunday would cost him 
 his position and his means of support, and God did 
 not require such sacrifices. It was claimed on the 
 other hand that a church-membership that did not ob- 
 serve Sunday would imperil the cause of Christ. It 
 
46 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 was then said that to be obliged to work on Sunday 
 while the heart wished to observe the Lord's Day was 
 better than to go to church with a careless heart ; to 
 which it was replied that that had nothing to do with 
 the question. The official then made a truly beautiful 
 request that his wife might be received, while he would 
 pray God to open the door for himself. Being an offi- 
 cial, he received news before we did ; and one Friday 
 evening in March, coming into the prayer-meeting, he 
 astonished us all with the announcement that his prayer 
 was answered and he could henceforth keep the Sab- 
 bath. That night the prayer-meeting was not as usual : 
 it was a kind of praise meeting, thanking God that this 
 great step had been taken by the government." 
 
 To these glimpses of the physical and civic environ- 
 ment should be added the newcomer's impressions of 
 the moral and religious aspects of his surroundings. In 
 the absence of studied statements, chance phrases and 
 spontaneous expressions of the first five years abound to 
 show that he had little respect for either the morals or 
 the religions that he saw about him ; that in this new 
 and unfamiliar world it was the vices that had most 
 forcefully struck his attention ; and that the distorted 
 and degenerate forms of religious expression in Japa- 
 nese life had taken strong hold upon his thought. A 
 few quotations will reveal in a variety of contexts, and 
 sometimes in a merely accidental way, what impres- 
 sions he was getting : 
 
 " This life is little by the side of the life to come, 
 and that is one great reason why I gave up home and 
 society : I hoped my going away would be a continual 
 reminder to my friends that the life hereafter is a thou- 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 47 
 
 sandfold more worth striving for than this life. I do 
 not want to preach to them, but I do want them to 
 know that being out here in the midst of vice and 
 idolatry, where there is no Sabbath and where true 
 love and friendship are hard to find, is good, because I 
 think it is just what God wants me to do." 
 
 " I have just taught my class in Sunday school, and 
 in teaching these heathen fellows some very amusing 
 things often happen. Dr. Gordon, for example, was 
 telling his scholars once how the devil tempted Christ, 
 and one of them replied, ' The devil must have been ex- 
 ceedingly impolite to tempt so good a man as Jesus.' " 
 
 " There is nothing the Japanese need so much as 
 grit. One of the great evils we have to contend with 
 in Osaka is this abominable weakness of doing evil be- 
 cause others do it, or, rather, because it is the standing, 
 recognized custom of the land." 
 
 " The other day I received your first chapter of Lam- 
 entations with reference to my thinness and ghastly 
 countenance. As a piece of composition, your letter 
 was certainly excellent ; if Jeremiah had only seen it 
 before he wrote Lamentations, there is no telling how 
 much he would have changed several parts. Indeed, it 
 made me feel half sick : I became scared, consulted 
 Lizzie, and then rushed off to get weighed, expecting 
 the scales would turn somewhere around sixty or 
 seventy pounds ; but when the hundred-pound weight 
 was put on and the machine didn't budge a millimeter, 
 once more I felt like a man. Then when it turned at 
 one hundred and forty-four, exactly my orthodox weight 
 for seven years before leaving home, I knew the 
 photographer had made my picture to lie ; and why 
 shouldn't he? He doubtless lies himself a hundred 
 
48 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 times a day, and to have a machine that always told 
 the truth would be simply to put himself into disagree- 
 able company." 
 
 A dialogue with a Buddhist priest : 
 
 Be Forest : " What are the principal points in your 
 teaching ? " 
 
 Priest : " Keverence to the gods and obedience to 
 the laws of the country." 
 
 DeF. : " But don't you teach any more important 
 things ? " 
 
 P.: "The duties, 'Lie not,' 'Steal not,' 'Commit 
 not adultery,' etc." 
 
 DeF. : " Do you teach these things always ? " 
 
 P. : " Yes." 
 
 DeF. : " And when you teach the people not to lie, 
 I suppose they obey you ? " 
 
 P. : " No, not a bit." 
 
 DeF. : " How about adultery ? Do the people 
 follow your teachings on this ? " 
 
 P. : « Oh, no ! " 
 
 DeF. : " Then what is the use of your teaching and 
 preaching ? Does not the very condition of your 
 country prove that there is no power in your religion 
 to reform the people ? Your commandments are good 
 and everybody knows them, but who follows them ? 
 Now contrast the religion of Jesus. "We have the same 
 laws and we preach them constantly, and see with what 
 result ! In all Christian countries lying and prostitu- 
 tion are considered abominable. In all America and 
 England not one such harlot street as this right near 
 can be found ; and the reason is because there is power 
 behind this religion. We preach an almighty God and 
 
THE EARLY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 49 
 
 an almighty Saviour, without which preaching forever 
 amounts to nothing." 
 
 " Poor priests ! They will soon have hard picking if 
 they try to live by clapping hands, burning candles, 
 ringing bells, and muttering old Sanscrit words which 
 priests themselves don't understand." 
 
 " The work is just what I like, only I am not fit to 
 be a missionary. I never knew while in America how 
 much of evil was in my nature, until a new line of 
 difficulties arose out here to try my patience and love. 
 To be repeatedly cheated out of little sums, to baptize 
 persons and then find them committing gross sins, to 
 lend money and have the borrower talking evil of you, 
 to have the most fault found by those whom you love 
 the most — these are some of the trials of work here. 
 But to see these liars becoming truthful and ashamed 
 of a lie, to have free and easy young men shake off 
 their old companions, to see them suffer being disowned 
 for Jesus' sake, to see them refuse government employ 
 and take a bare living to work for Christ — these and 
 numberless things that I can't tell on paper are our 
 
 These then are glimpses of his environment as this 
 missionary saw it. He saw, too, certain processes 
 involved in his adaptation to that environment. Of 
 these processes, he recognized two as being funda- 
 mental, and he had the foresight early to establish 
 means for their completion. These two were the 
 processes of becoming acclimated and of learning the 
 language, — both necessary before full missionary work 
 could be entered upon. 
 
50 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 The American Board mission was five years old when 
 he joined it, but six of the nine men who were there 
 before him had had either prolonged illnesses or threat- 
 ened or actual breakdowns. " Such was the continued 
 temptation to overwork," he writes, " that Gulick had 
 sent to the Board to send out one fat and lazy man to 
 be a constant pattern to the rest ; and in the first public 
 meeting after I came he said he hoped the Board had 
 granted his request in sending me, who certainly was 
 not fat, but who he hoped would prove lazy enough to 
 meet the conditions." " When I came I found a weak 
 and sickly mission ; and no resolution of mine was so 
 strong as this : * I will not break down from over- 
 work.' " This resolution meant persevering, conscien- 
 tious regard for health in a climate to which he did not 
 readily accustom himself. Every spring for years his 
 old malarial enemy, " dumb ague, painless, but depriv- 
 ing one of the power to work," came upon him. The 
 Japanese house was abandoned for a one-story foreign 
 house on the Concession, of which he later wrote : " If 
 my house is damp, it certainly is not so damp as some 
 of Paul's residences." His mission mates, however, 
 discountenanced his sleeping on the ground floor, and 
 in due time voted a second story on the house. 
 
 " My first two and a half years in Japan," he has 
 said, " were passed without my averaging over an hour 
 a day with my teacher ; day after day and month after 
 month, I had to send my teacher home from sheer 
 inability to peg away. My experience is by no means 
 solitary," he adds, with a plea for giving newcomers a 
 fair chance to get acclimated without overwork. For 
 himself the process lasted into his fifth year. Nature's 
 powers of adaptation seem to have been helped " by 
 
THE EAKLY JAPANESE ENYIEOMIENT 51 
 
 occasionally eating a box of Dr. Taylor's pills, and by 
 religiously observing every Saturday with mountain 
 tramps." These tramps were made possible by taking 
 the train to Kobe, and their only drawback, as far as 
 history records, was that the comrades who joined in 
 them were from Andover instead of Yale. " It is very 
 trying to have to tramp Saturday after Saturday with 
 fellows who never heard the ' Lathery Tutor,' who 
 never caught a crab with a steam-bent oar and who 
 never helped carry a cow up into the third story. 
 Can't you send out some more Yale boys ? " 
 
 The sultry summer weeks, in accordance with the 
 Board's policy for its missionaries, were spent in cooler 
 spots among the hills, — Arima's maple groves or Mino's 
 waterfalls. These vacations from city life, with its 
 rounds of regular work and its irruptions of irregular 
 opportunit}^, were conscientiously planned to yield the 
 best possible physical results, not only for restoring 
 health, but also for preventing the loss of health. A 
 hint that missionaries were being criticized for over-long 
 vacations elicited from Mr. DeForest the explanation 
 that these weeks, which if spent in the city would be 
 worthless to the work on account of his inability to do 
 efficient work in the enervating heat, were, by being 
 spent where work was possible, being of the greatest 
 advantage to the cause. For they were not mere 
 vacations, but most welcome times for systematic study 
 and renewal of the thought-life so often pushed to the 
 wall in the pressure of missionary work. To these 
 sufficient justifications for a reasonable time of absence 
 from the city work, another was added from the life at 
 Arima : " While we are summering, we have many 
 opportunities of great work. The Japanese love the 
 
52 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 mountains, and hundreds and thousands travel along 
 over this range where we are. We meet them, talk 
 with them, and such meetings and talks have resulted 
 in the conversion of several and in the establishment 
 of one church. My present teacher is a medical student, 
 but I felt sure that he would turn favourably to Chris- 
 tianity ; so I asked him to spend the summer with me 
 on four dollars a month, just enough to board him. 
 He came, and now he proposes to give up his medicine, 
 go to our training school in Kyoto, and become a 
 minister. Again and again such things occur here. 
 The lazy missionary does accomplish something, even 
 in his laziest vacation." 
 
 If time for acclimatization was a stern necessity, 
 still more uncompromising was the necessity of time 
 for language study. At the beginning, of course, such 
 time was taken ; there was little else an absolute new- 
 comer could do. But no sooner had he the meagrest 
 working vocabulary than the temptation was upon him 
 to spend his time attending meetings and talking with 
 the inquirers who flocked to hear, yea, to see, this new 
 religion. One incident is typical of many in the first 
 five years : " To-day three persons came asking me to 
 show them Jesus Christ, as they would very much like 
 to worship Him ; I seated them, and when they found 
 that I had no image of Christ they were disappointed ; 
 but two hours' talk opened the door a little, and I hope 
 they will be led to inquire more and more for Jesus 
 Christ until they find Him." The missionary had to 
 brace himself perpetually against drifting with the 
 strong current of present opportunity away from the 
 moorings of preparation for a more efficient service. 
 " I wish to say in self-defense," he wrote, " that although 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE EXVIEONMENT 53 
 
 others can preach after one and a half years of study 
 and meet with success, I do not feel equal to attempt 
 it. Until I have a fair understanding of the people's 
 language, it is waste time for me to learn the religious 
 vocabulary. The temptation throughout the length 
 and breadth of the kingdom is to run before you can 
 walk." If Daniel and his companions, he argued, 
 were allowed three years to learn the language and 
 customs of a cognate people, much more should mis- 
 sionaries to so absolutely foreign a land as Japan be 
 allowed at least five years to learn its "rhinoceros- 
 skinned language " that had nothing in common with 
 the tongues of the West. 
 
 After two and a half years in Japan he wrote this 
 exhortation to his fellow-missionaries : " It seems to 
 me that we ought to look forward to a life-work here 
 and to drop the fever-haste with which we all have 
 plunged into work from the time the edicts against 
 Christianity were taken down. Next year will need 
 us more than this year ; ten years from now will need 
 us far more than now ; the enlarged and growing work 
 will need us more than the work just begun." And to 
 the Board he wrote : " My whole future now is mapped 
 out with sole reference to a long and exclusive study 
 of the language before beginning any special work. 
 The whole work of the mission, I think, does not de- 
 pend at all on any more feverish efforts, but on a thor- 
 ough study of the language ; and if my health lasts, I 
 wish to be regarded hereafter as a student rather than 
 as a missionary until 1880. In this resolution of mine 
 I firmly believe that I am doing what duty to the home 
 churches, to the native churches, and to our Lord and 
 Master requires." A few months later: "I am over- 
 
64 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 run with work ; but looking forward to long work, I 
 have deliberately and prayerfully stopped going to 
 evening meetings except on Friday evening ; I teach 
 Matthew to beginners one afternoon in the week, have 
 a Bible class in Acts on Sunday morning, and go to 
 Takatsuki once a month. I feel that a life-work de- 
 mands a solid foundation in the language and a thor- 
 ough acquaintance with Japanese customs and char- 
 acter, and therefore I shall be the slowest of the slow 
 in speaking to public audiences." He was : with un- 
 skilled teachers and few of the language helps enjoyed 
 to-day, he plodded on through nearly four years of 
 living in Japan before he preached his first formal 
 sermon and could write home : " Rejoice with me, for 
 I am at last booked as a preaching missionary." "I 
 didn't mean to do it until I had been out five years," 
 he added apologetically, " but really the pressure was 
 getting too great to withstand, and I have made the 
 sacrifice. I have come to believe from what the na- 
 tives tell me that could I only have a good teacher and 
 an hour a day leisure for a year or two more, I should 
 be able to express myself quite freely and could hope 
 to stand before large audiences. It is indeed a joy to 
 stand before our well-filled churches and tell them in 
 their own tongue the things that lie close to our hearts." 
 Some of the mile-stones on the path of this progress 
 to the point of preaching may be sighted from home 
 letters. ". . . My maiden effort [at Sunday school 
 after seven months in Japan] : it was pushed on me 
 unexpectedly this morning, since Mr. Neesima and 
 Dr. Gordon were both absent ; so of course I had to 
 take charge of the exercises. First I gave out the 
 hymns and sang in Japanese ; then I told Mrs. Gordon 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENYIK0M1ENT 55 
 
 I'd call on her to pray, as she had been here the longer ; 
 but she smiled and told me to do it myself. As I didn't 
 know any words, I called on one of the church-mem- 
 bers and said, ' Sugi San, please pray.' Then we studied 
 the lessons; and after that always comes the Lord's 
 Prayer, by the audience. I didn't know the prayer, 
 nor did I know even the words to start them at it. So 
 I called Dr. Adams' teacher to me and got him to tell 
 me what to say. These are the translated words : 
 ' Following the copy that Jesus taught us, let us pray 
 all together.' When I had said that, I had forgotten 
 the first words of the prayer ; and there I stood with 
 my eyes shut, pumping for the right words ; but they 
 wouldn't come. And as they were all waiting for me, 
 I thought I must say something, and so, making a great 
 effort, I got out just one word, which was, ' Us.' And 
 when I had said, ' Us,' they, perceiving that that was 
 not the copy our Lord had taught us, took the matter 
 into their own hands and left me to do what I had a 
 mind to. Then I told them as follows : ' This after- 
 noon from four o'clock Dr. Gordon will do the preach- 
 ing.' Thus ended my first attempt to lead a Japanese 
 audience in worship. Now whenever you hear of any 
 persons joining this church, don't think it is the result 
 of anything I said to them to-day." 
 
 Six months later : " I pronounced the benediction in 
 Japanese to-day for the first time." Then shortly : 
 " Lizzie and I have begun prayers in Japanese, and we 
 have six or seven people in every morning : our two 
 teachers come and take turns with Lizzie and me. 
 Lizzie is a huge missionary : she insisted that we ought 
 to begin prayers and said it was easy. I said it was 
 hard ; but we started, and at my first prayer our old 
 
56 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 man T. jumped up and said, ' Why, master, you did 
 splendidly ! ' I had to shut the old fellow up. The 
 next morning Lizzie prayed, and right in the midst of 
 the prayer she got stuck, trying to get out a word 
 straight that insisted on coming out backward, and old 
 T. giggled right out with delight. I wanted to get up 
 and use the shovel on him, but thought it wouldn't do 
 for a missionary. Lizzie, however, can use more 
 language than I can so far, but I hope to gain on her 
 yet." " I have begun talking a little in this tongue : 
 I have an out-station prayer-meeting every Monday 
 evening to take care of now. The first talk I made, I 
 prepared a short discourse on * The True God,' how He 
 made all things, how He is everywhere, and how He 
 knows all things. I came near dying with laughter 
 when I was preparing it with my teacher. I was say- 
 ing that God made mankind : he said, ' But some will 
 say that the parents made us.' So I asked him who 
 made the parents. He said he knew, but that kind of 
 question wouldn't do for the folks I was going to talk 
 to. ' I'll show you how to do it,' he said ; ' if they say 
 that our parents made us, then ask them how it is that 
 some rich merchants never have any children, while 
 the poor farmer who hates them has any number of 
 them ; and then again, some people have only girls, 
 and if they try with all their might they can't make a 
 boy.' At this point, although my teacher was very 
 sincere, I broke into a laugh, and have hardly got over 
 it yet." 
 
 His first impromptu talk, after a year and a half in 
 Japan : " Yesterday, as there were six persons to join 
 the church in Sanda, Mr. Leavitt and I went over. 
 Mr. Gulick is the pastor of that church, and he asked 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENYIEONMENT 57 
 
 me to take part. I had made no preparation and never 
 spoke to a church audience in Japanese, but I wanted 
 very much to try it. So I told them what it is to con- 
 fess Christ before men : I talked only three or four 
 minutes, for I tell you it makes the perspiration run to 
 talk in this language ; but I hope to get to it one of 
 these days." That same summer at Arima : " I made 
 it part of my summer work to have morning prayers 
 with the servants ; but some of the people from the 
 village began to come, and at last we had quite a 
 regular audience who came half a mile to prayers. I 
 began to think I was a pretty smart fellow. I ex- 
 pounded Scriptures to them in Japanese and they looked 
 very much interested. There was one old man from 
 two hundred miles south of here who seemed hungry 
 to learn all about the Bible ; so after a few mornings I 
 undertook to talk to him alone, and every question I 
 asked him, he replied laughing, ' Well, really, I don't 
 understand you a bit.' Now that was just a little too 
 bad, wasn't it ? Then again, one morning after I had 
 prayed, Lizzie remarked how well and smoothly I did 
 it ; but I asked the teacher about it, and he took it 
 sentence by sentence and showed me how it wouldn't 
 do at all. So I have concluded to pull in my horns 
 and not be too confident in talking to folks. Yet if a 
 man will sit down with me, I can talk hour after hour 
 so that he will understand about all I mean." After 
 three and a half years in Japan : " I am beginning to 
 teach the Bible quite a deal. Those who are used to 
 me can understand, but I shall never be eloquent at it. 
 Everybody thinks I am on the right methods to secure 
 a good use of Japanese, and one or two years more may 
 see me preaching." 
 
58 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 Wisdom was justified of her children. The fore- 
 sighted policy of those patient years of effort and self- 
 restraint proved itself in a long career of successful and 
 effective public speaking — as well as in the student 
 attitude that he maintained towards the language all 
 his life, and which prevented his use of it from grow- 
 ing stale in later years. 
 
 Besides the processes of adaptation to environment, 
 there are peculiar temptations in the first years of a 
 missionary's life. The change from the aggressive 
 pastor's work to the hand-bound and tongue-tied student 
 is a wrench that even the strongest must feel. Many 
 are the men and the women to whom this temporary 
 inability to express their religious life in the familiar 
 methods of work has seemed like spiritual lethargy, or 
 has even threatened to become such. Anticipating 
 this danger, Mr. DeForest, on first arriving in Osaka, 
 penned this determination : " Lest I rust while learning 
 the language, I am going right into school next week 
 [a small day-school started by Mr. Leavitt], to teach 
 through an interpreter and to interest myself personally 
 in some young men. Then I shall have something to 
 pray about and something to keep me from losing my 
 power of sympathy." 
 
 Another temptation of the new missionary is to feel 
 " out of it " — shelved, as it were, for the time being : a 
 dangerous germ feeling that begets homesickness, dis- 
 content, and various brother ills if the proper antidote 
 is not applied. Mr. DeForest applied it, to his own 
 profit and that of another in America to whom he 
 wrote : " You wrote me rather a sad letter the other 
 day. It is very natural that one who has been so 
 publicly situated as you should notice the change when 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIKONMENT 59 
 
 you leave public life and duties ; your position made 
 you noticed, and so you were consulted and made leader 
 in lots of ways. . . . Would you believe it, I also 
 this year have felt my changed situation very much. I 
 was looked up to in Mount Carmel ; and now to be off 
 here working almost alone, with no good parishioners 
 to natter me and tell how hard it was to get along 
 without me, — why, sometimes I'd like to be back at 
 Mount Carmel just one Sunday to have a dozen folks 
 tell me how much they thought of me. . . . But 
 after all, the best way to get rid of such feelings is to 
 do the little work God gives us to do. . . . Don't 
 let the blues get a hold of you : do what you can for 
 Christ clear up to the edge of life." 
 
 In this way he himself kept up courage and cheer by 
 doing such limited work as he felt he could during the 
 preparatory years. Sometimes it was being a " figure- 
 head " to accompany native Christians, as in the open- 
 ing up of the historic city of Sakai to Christian work ; 
 sometimes it was doing a deed of mercy, as in the res- 
 cue of a wounded beggar boy ; often it was in literary 
 work. He had charge of the publication and distribu- 
 tion of Christian literature for the mission, and al- 
 though at times begrudging the hours spent " figuring 
 on two-cent books," he was happy to note the growing 
 popularity of Christian publications as evidenced in the 
 fact that the sales for December, 1876, were five or six 
 times as great as in the previous December. " One of 
 our Christians," he adds, " has applied for and received 
 from the government permission to translate and sell 
 Williamson's ' Natural Theology.' This is said to be 
 the first permission given by Japan to print a work 
 pleading for the Christian religion." Through his 
 
60 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 Japanese teacher and secretary and the offices of trans- 
 lators he himself was able early to prepare various 
 manuscripts for publication ; in fact, the first volume of 
 an illustrated Bible dictionary was ready for print in 
 time to celebrate the close of that introductory five- 
 year period. Occasional articles for American papers 
 were written in response to the expressed desire of the 
 American Board secretary, although at first Mr. De- 
 Forest demurred a bit, saying, " Such work tells on 
 one's strength and its worth is questionable." Of this 
 doubt he later repented ; he came to consider it a vital 
 part of a missionary's work to keep that work in its 
 broad relations before the public mind at the home 
 base. 
 
 If then the missionary successfully escapes or con- 
 quers the temptation to grow cold and the temptation 
 to feel neglected, there is his third enemy ready for the 
 attack, — the temptation to Pharisaism. Such precon- 
 ceptions of the Japanese as Mr. DeForest had had be- 
 fore going to Japan pictured them merely as historic 
 " heathen " with possibilities. That was all that the 
 West, except for a few specialists, knew of them in 
 those days, and what those possibilities were it was as 
 yet beyond the power of an Occidental to predict. 
 The evidences of idolatry and vice on every hand only 
 confirmed to the newcomer his previous characteriza- 
 tion of the nation. His heart burned within him to at- 
 tack and overthrow the citadels of evil about him. 
 The edicts against Christianity had been removed from 
 the sign-boards only the year before his arrival in Japan ; 
 and as the realization grew in the mind of the Japa- 
 nese public that the hitherto hated " Yaso (Jesus) Way " 
 was no longer a proscribed teaching, with eager in- 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 61 
 
 quiry for all new things the people sought the teach- 
 ers of this foreign religion to see if it was as much 
 wanted as the science and the inventions that were 
 coming from the West. This eagerness and the disciple 
 attitude on the part of many would tend further to 
 confirm, although often unconsciously, the missionary's 
 sense of having everything to impart and nothing to 
 receive that could be of value as spiritual nutriment. 
 
 Fortunately life itself furnished the balance-wheel to 
 offset this attitude ; it kept him too busy to indulge it. 
 The demands made on his sympathy in times of calam- 
 ity, the constant opportunity to help struggling stu- 
 dents, the necessity of fighting temptations and dis- 
 couragements within as well as without, the pioneer 
 quality of the task to which he was set, compelling to 
 the thoughtful construction of working policies for the 
 future, the recognition of the staunch heroism of early 
 converts, — these things kept the warm generous blood 
 flowing to carry off from the veins the ready poison of 
 the " holier-than-thou " attitude. He had the two uni- 
 versal antidotes for both missionary blues and Pharisa- 
 ism. On the subjective side, there was the conscious- 
 ness of contact with and dependence upon the Source 
 of spiritual power ; he wrote home : " No prayer of 
 yours, if offered with true heart for these people, is 
 useless ; do all of you help me daily in this way." On 
 the objective side, there was his high ideal of the worth, 
 dignity, and possibilities of the native church. The 
 power of some of the Christians deeply impressed him, 
 especially in an early visit to the Doshisha school. 
 There he saw " seventy young men, some of whom have 
 been threatened with assassination, have been disowned, 
 and have been imprisoned for the sake of believing in 
 
62 JOHN HYDE DeFOBEST 
 
 Jesus. Some are studying sciences, English, etc., but 
 the most want to be preachers ; it was just fun to sit 
 there and hear them recite and see how keen and sharp 
 they were. They were as bright as the fellows in 
 Yale, and will make a bigger mark in this country 
 than most Yale boys ever do in America. It was my 
 good fortune to happen there when these young men 
 met to form a church. They are full of work. I 
 reckon that the average Christian here does eight or 
 ten times as much work as the average Christian at 
 home." 
 
 No question of early mission policy was as critical as 
 that of the financial relations of the new churches to 
 the mission. In that " unyielding champion of self- 
 support," Kev. H. H. Leavitt, a year his senior on the 
 field, Mr. DeForest had a colleague whose high ideals 
 for the Japanese church were of great help and stim- 
 ulus. In those days when it was often necessary, and 
 always easy, to have a missionary for pastor, it was 
 Mr. Leavitt who launched the first enterprise of a 
 Japanese church supporting its own pastor, the Rev. 
 Paul Sawayama. " A little band of less than a dozen 
 Christians in Osaka," runs Mr. DeForest 's account, 
 " wanted Mr. Sawayama as their pastor, and he was 
 eager to accept their call, but how could they support 
 him ? They frankly said they could only pay the rent 
 of a preaching-place and the running expenses, and 
 even that cost self-denial on their part. Sawayama 
 needed forty dollars a month, but offered to live on 
 twenty-five. These few Christians reconsidered with 
 prayer what they could do, and with great effort they 
 subscribed six dollars a month for their pastor's salary. 
 When Mr. Sawayama, in the same spirit of prayerful 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIEONMENT 63 
 
 self-sacrifice, accepted this offer, saying he would trans- 
 late and teach enough to make up the rest of his living 
 until his church could fully support him, there wasn't 
 a missionary in Japan save Mr. Leavitt but thought it 
 would end in failure. It was, however, a grand suc- 
 cess. His church grew in membership and in faith. 
 Yery soon they had paid him twenty -five dollars a 
 month, and the telling words in his biography do not 
 match the reality of the victory he won : ' The 
 Naniwa Church at the end of five years had increased 
 its yearly contributions from seventy dollars to seven 
 hundred dollars. It had started another independent 
 church in Osaka, and made a beginning of Christian 
 work in nine other places. It had also established a 
 Christian girls' school in the city.' " This school, the 
 Baikwa Girls' School, was particularly noteworthy as 
 the first one of its kind in Japan. On New Year's 
 night, 1878, " while we missionaries were praying for 
 the spirit of prayer to come upon all our churches, the 
 two churches were assembled to settle a great question, 
 namely, ' Can these two churches of about twenty-five 
 members each establish and sustain a girls' boarding- 
 school in Osaka ? ' They voted that they could and 
 would establish it," and it opened the seventh of Jan- 
 uary with fifteen scholars. 
 
 Mr. DeForest's connection in those years was not 
 with Mr. Sawayama's church, but with the First 
 Church, of which Dr. Gordon was then pastor. A few 
 extracts from letters show the attitude he and his fel- 
 low-workers took. "December 30, 1876. We have just 
 closed a three days' mission meeting here which was 
 every way glorious : we have laid down for ourselves a 
 mission policy that contemplates the putting of a [na- 
 
64 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 tive] pastorate over these rapidly forming churches, 
 which should be perfectly independent of any foreign 
 money. . . . [The meeting was] harmonious, ear- 
 nest, and prayerful, looking forward to a work already 
 inclined to run ahead of us, and by no means unlikely 
 to run away from us, leaving us to see the glory of the 
 Lord pass by." 
 
 As Dr. Gordon was leaving on furlough in the spring 
 of 1877, Mr. DeForest writes : " They talked to me as 
 Dr. Gordon's successor, but I told them that their 
 truest growth could be secured in no other way than 
 by getting at the earliest possible date a native pastor, 
 and that both Dr. Gordon and myself were of the 
 opinion that even were he to stay here the time had 
 come for a movement looking to self -organization. 
 Paul never consented to be pastor over any church, 
 and so we came here not to be pastors, but to make 
 pastors and to start churches." Consequently the 
 church engaged a Japanese acting pastor at a salary of 
 about four dollars a month. This first step towards 
 self-support meant radical changes. It separated the 
 wheat from the chaff of " those who thought they 
 were doing us a favour to be baptized, but were unwill- 
 ing to be at any sacrifice for their profession." It " re- 
 vealed some most shameful lives on the part of sev- 
 eral ; and we had to expel the drunkards, liars, etc., of 
 whom we had once hoped very much." But in spite 
 of its losses and some faint-hearted members, so suc- 
 cessful was this move towards self-support that within 
 six months the church that had not raised fifty dollars 
 in all the previous year was raising about twenty dollars 
 a month and was showing signs of new spiritual vigour. 
 " Yesterday was a high day with the First Church. 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 65 
 
 The public service was of unusual interest because it 
 was a union service of the two churches ; because two 
 men united with the church ; because the services were 
 conducted almost exclusively by Japanese ; and because 
 we had our little girl, the fattest baby the Board has 
 in Japan, baptized by Sawayama San. The meetings 
 were held for the last time in the chapel we have hired 
 for three years. The example of independence set by 
 their daughter church has led to the desire to lean no 
 longer on foreign money ; and though I told the 
 Christians they could have the old chapel until winter, 
 they have rented a place about the same size on the 
 same street and in about as good a locality, for half the 
 rent of the old chapel, and are fitting it up for the first 
 services next Sunday. It is wonderful how well the 
 Christians take to the idea of self-support.'' 
 
 It was, however, a keen struggle for years. " I have 
 as little as possible to do with their money matters," 
 was Mr. DeForest's attitude. " A few days ago their 
 treasurer came and showed me all their accounts, and 
 said that he felt it to be impossible to increase the 
 pastor's salary, and asked me if I felt disposed to help 
 [with mission funds] ; to which I said, ' Yes, I want to 
 give you all the money you need ; it is the easiest way 
 for me to do. But when a church is five years old and 
 steadily increasing in membership, to listen to a request 
 for money is a very grave thing. It would be a very 
 bad example for the young churches now forming, and 
 I am convinced that the truest love will be shown by 
 leaving you to carry on your own finances.' Within 
 twenty-four hours he came back to me, saying, ' I'm 
 sorry to have troubled you ; I think we can do it 
 alone.' " 
 
66 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 The early formation of a home missionary society 
 among these young churches was another evidence of 
 their earnestness, and gave another opportunity for 
 demonstrating the principle of self-support. " Church 
 history makes fast here in Japan. This missionary 
 society has just held its annual meeting, and the 
 churches came together vying with each other as to 
 which should have the best report. How other 
 churches managed I don't know, but the one I know 
 most about was in a poor condition. The acting pastor 
 came to me utterly discouraged, saying that since sum- 
 mer his church had collected only about twenty-eight 
 cents, and asked me if I wouldn't contribute to save 
 them from disgrace : for it was within three days of 
 the meeting, and though he had urged his people again 
 and again to remember the cause, they had paid little 
 or no heed to his words. I told him my heart was to 
 help him and the church in every way I could, but for 
 me to give money so that his church might keep a 
 good reputation was simply acting a falsehood. i Well, 
 then,' he said sadly, ' I can't go to the annual meeting ; 
 I should have no face, only shame.' ' That's just the 
 speech to make to your people,' I said ; ' when they 
 see your shame, they too will feel it.' It is enough to 
 say that he went to the meeting. I fell in with him as 
 he was leaving the cars, and asked, ' What success ? ' 
 With a glad face and no shame he said, ' Four dollars.' 
 And with congratulations I handed him three more ; 
 for the matter of reputation was no longer at stake." 
 
 Thus the young church had its ups and downs : the 
 young missionary likewise had his ; but the ups won 
 out. There was too much of faith, hope, and love, and 
 conscious growth of mind and spirit, to have it other- 
 
THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIKONMENT 67 
 
 wise. " The missionaries do have a nice time," he 
 admits ; "it is their nature. The great missionary 
 Paul said he did, and all his letters show it; some 
 people tried to prevent it in all sorts of mean ways, 
 but they signally failed. The old missionary had a 
 great many pet words, and among them stand con- 
 spicuous the words ' joy ' and ' rejoice.' From that 
 time down through the ages missionaries have had the 
 stamp of joy on their lives. ' What are some of the 
 peculiar self-denials of a missionary ? ' a young man 
 once asked of a veteran. i There are none,' was the 
 quick reply. . . . But a missionary's business is a 
 serious business : all these Japanese have souls to be 
 saved or lost, and I am here to be a blessing to them 
 if possible. In this work I want your warmest sym- 
 pathy and prayers. I am poor enough as a missionary ; 
 I want to be better, more helpful and useful here than I 
 could be anywhere else. ... [I am] filled with 
 hope over my own discouragements, because the whole 
 Christian world seems to be gaining in the expectation 
 of the speedy conversion of all the world." 
 
 " If you should come here to Japan," he wrote to 
 the divinity students at Yale, " you would find your- 
 selves in a perpetual revival, the intense excitement 
 and joy of which cannot be surpassed. You would 
 find room for intellectual expansion such as you can 
 only faintly conceive of. And if you should share our 
 belief that these thirty-three millions of people are all 
 going to hear of the Gospel, all have the Bible at their 
 hands, and all going to stop worshipping idols before 
 1900, you would have got that which, even if you 
 never added more to it, would give an unquenchable 
 delight. ' Brethren, pray for us,' especially that these 
 
68 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 bodies of ours may hold together until the above date 
 or thereabouts, when we confidently expect Japan will 
 be a part of the Kingdom of the Lord. At that time 
 none of us would be as old as Simeon was, but we 
 shall have seen the glory of the Lord and be ready to 
 depart." 
 
Ill 
 
 A Preaching Missionary " 
 
 " Why they have never known the way before, 
 Why hundreds stand outside Thy mercy's door, — 
 I know not ; but I ask, dear Lord, that Thou 
 Wilt lead them now ! 
 
 " Eternal death to live away from Thee ; 
 Eternal loss apart from Thee to be ; 
 Eternal gain to have in Thee some part, — 
 To know Thou art ! " 
 
 — C. C. F. Tytler. 
 
Ill 
 
 "A PREACHING MISSION AEY » 
 
 " Osaka, November 3, 1880. 
 u Tp^ EAK MOTHER, Brothers, Sisters, Nephews, 
 1 and Nieces, Merry Christmas and Happy 
 1 J New Year from John, the (small) apostle to 
 
 the Japanese. 
 
 " Well, it is six years since we parted, and we can 
 none of us shut our eyes to the fact that God has 
 blessed us all. Doubtless every one of you has changed 
 very much in six years : I'm sure I have. And if we 
 all were to come together for a dinner-party, what 
 would we talk about ? Probably many of you, seeing 
 the lack of hair on my head and remembering that I 
 am a solemn missionary, would think it proper to have 
 me ask the blessing. Those of you who have read 
 missionary biographies might expect me then to tell 
 you about the heathen over here and the way we 
 preach. "Well, I should like nothing better. For six 
 years have made me love Japan and the Japanese and 
 the work more than I ever thought it possible. And I 
 guess I could tell you about it in such a way as to 
 make you keep awake. The great trouble would be 
 where to begin. My work constantly changes so that 
 no two years are alike. 
 
 " Last year my particular work was evening talks in 
 the houses of those people who wanted to hear a 
 foreigner tell about the religion of Jesus. I went 
 
 71 
 
72 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 night after night to different places and always 
 received the very best attention. We all sit on the 
 floor around two or three hibachi, ' fire-bowls,' — for 
 you know they don't use chairs or stoves here. Every- 
 body feels chatty, so there are no embarrassing breaks 
 in the conversation. The little teakettle is on the fire- 
 bowl, and the tiny teacups on a tray. After a pleasant 
 half-hour of news-talking, we each take a Gospel and 
 read * a verse around, have it fully explained by them if 
 they can explain it, and h where they fail I correct, 
 telling apt stories and Western customs to make them 
 interested. We sing, too, though perhaps you might 
 be in doubt were you to hear us. But as the Japanese 
 seldom sing except in connection with bad women and 
 wine, 1 they make queer work at it. Many cultured 
 Japanese at first won't go to our churches because we 
 sing. They think it a shame to sing unless it is in a 
 bad house. But we say that God made us with glad 
 voices and we should use them in praising and thanking 
 Him ; and so we insist on our music. Seventeen cats 
 by night are no comparison once in a while, but gradu- 
 ally they are learning to sing after our style. We 
 pray, too, and you might think their way of getting at 
 it quite funny ; but I am used to it. The leader of the 
 meeting will say, 'Hidezo, you please pray.' He 
 laughs and says, 'Keally, I'm mighty awkward at 
 praying ; you'd better excuse me.' ' Oh, no, you can do 
 it first-rate ; try it once.' 'All right, then, I'll give it 
 a trial.' And while they all smile and giggle, Hidezo 
 begins and prays. When he gets through, one and 
 another will say, * Oh, you did excellently.' ' You can 
 
 1 A condition that could not long survive the introduction of musio 
 into the public schools, and the spread of Christianity. 
 
" A PEE ACHING MISSION AEY » 73 
 
 pray first-rate.' ' Indeed, that's a wonderful prayer.' 
 Then if it be a rich man's house, he orders in a tiny 
 dish of little cakes and candies with the tea, and the 
 Bible stories are freely talked over with any other 
 stories that may chance to get into their minds. The 
 soft mats we sit on, the warm charcoal fires, and the 
 perfectly clean rooms enclosed with paper doors, make 
 a very cozy place for little social studies of the Bible 
 and of the people too. When it comes on towards ten 
 o'clock, I start to go ; at which they all bow clear down 
 to the floor ; I, doing likewise, start for the door. 
 One politely hands me my shoes or coat, and with 
 repeated good-night we go home. My fat companion, 
 Dr. Takagi, who last winter always went with me to 
 help on the good work, was with me one night when 
 we both got into one jinrikisha to ride home. But the 
 fat man and I are a big load for one man to haul, and 
 hitting the curbstone on the start, over we went back- 
 wards, carrying the coolie right off his feet up into the 
 air. There we stayed for a few moments, feet pointing 
 to the stars, and we wedged in so tight that we couldn't 
 even roll out. However, I managed to turn a somer- 
 sault and so got out, the fat doctor rolling after me. 
 "Wish I could draw a picture of it ! — Well, last winter I 
 spent my strength in that kind of work ; and besides 
 doing good to those who heard, I learned a great deal 
 about the inside customs, so that I feel far more confi- 
 dence in preaching than I ever did before. 
 
 " This year I am doing a very different kind of work. 
 I am preaching to large audiences, not only in Osaka, 
 but travelling off one hundred or more miles to meet 
 the cordial invitations that keep coming to me. Have 
 lately completed a long tour and spoken to the largest 
 
74 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 audiences any one has yet addressed in this part of 
 Japan on Christianity. Went to Okay am a, where 
 three of our missionary families are stationed, and 
 preached four nights on the Ten Commandments. I 
 tell you, the second commandment makes music for an 
 audience here. When I describe the first old woman 
 that I saw worship an idol at Tokyo, just after I landed 
 in Japan, and go through the motions she made before 
 a red-painted god, it always makes a huge laugh. 
 Then when I pretend that I am an idolater, and repeat 
 their nonsensical prayers through my nose and clap my 
 hands reverentially as they do, they enjoy it as much 
 as though it were a theatre. Then turning away from 
 fun, I tell them about the reasonableness of the true 
 religion and the great gain of knowing and serving God. 
 There are always some who say, ' Keally, it's just as the 
 foreigner said.' Last evening a man called on me ; he 
 turned out to be a deacon of the Okayama church ; 
 said he heard my four sermons there, and that many 
 were exceedingly interested in what I had preached ; 
 also that they were hoping to get me to come again 
 soon. I have just begun in two places here in Osaka 
 a series of meetings for one month on trial ; have had 
 about ten meetings already, and two preachers every 
 night. Hope in January to have three places where a 
 steady stream of preaching will go on night after 
 night until believers are multiplied. Preaching here is 
 very different from what it was in the States. While 
 most of the people are quick-witted and good listeners, 
 yet their moral life is so dead that we have to begin 
 pretty low to get them to understand sin. I expect to 
 go next week to Koriyama, twenty-five miles off, for 
 one night. Have written for a pass to travel through 
 
"A PEE ACHING MISSIONARY" 75 
 
 Central Japan, and expect to start in January some 
 time. 
 
 "Besides this preaching business, am working at 
 making books for the Japanese. They love reading, 
 and so we have to hasten to give them good, substantial, 
 interesting books as fast as possible. In this work I 
 employ a bright young preacher to translate ' Laws of 
 Nature,' and pay him about three dollars a month for 
 an hour a day. If he works two hours he gets six 
 dollars, and so on. I hire another active preacher to 
 read manuscripts and to correct mistakes. I hire a 
 bright student in Kyoto to translate ' The Madagascar 
 Church.' I hire a good writer to write out my sermons, 
 to correct them for publication, and to correct the 
 books other missionaries make. So you see, I have my 
 hands full to overflowing. 
 
 " Well, what my work will be next year I can't fore- 
 see. But just as God leads me, I will try to do the best 
 I can. Much love and many happy New Years to 
 you all. 
 
 " As ever your 
 
 " Jno." 
 
 These glimpses of what a " preaching missionary " 
 did and how he went about his evangelistic work give 
 a general view of the types of activity that occupied 
 the next few years. Those early hihachi meetings 
 seem to have been a wonderful combination of Bible 
 class, inquirers' meeting, workers' class, and experience 
 meeting. "The hihachi is a first-class invention for 
 helping sociability : I don't know how we could have 
 gotten on so fast, had we been obliged to sit in chairs 
 at respectful distances and try to introduce serious sub- 
 
76 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST , 
 
 jects ; but on the floor with our heads close together 
 over an open Bible, with hibachis enough for as many 
 as are present, the truth is taught naturally and far 
 more eagerly than any ordinary information is conveyed. 
 . . . These hibachi classes furnish Christian work 
 for every grade of ability. We have splendid old men 
 and women whose daily delight it is to give themselves 
 to the work. We have even boys and girls that are 
 thus leading others out of darkness into eternal light. 
 . . . We are everywhere drilling it into the hearts 
 and minds of the converts that Jesus Christ is the 
 centre and substance of the Bible, and that to know 
 Him is eternal life. Hence the Gospels are taught 
 more than anything else : these four books are gone 
 over again and again, in order that Christians may be 
 sure to tell about Jesus whenever they talk about this 
 < Way.' " 
 
 It is a temptation to digress by citing incidents to 
 show the fruitfulness of this hand-to-hand work. It 
 was the inevitable result of the long period of national 
 hatred and persecution of Christianity that the early 
 church should have been built of small congregations 
 gathered from small groups of inquirers. It was later 
 no less natural that, official opposition being gone and 
 a favourable impression having been created, an era of 
 popularity ensued, of which Mr. DeForest wrote in 
 1880 : " I wish every Christian in America fully realized 
 that within the last six months there has come a mar- 
 vellous charge over this nation, so that now the largest 
 theatres in the largest cities cannot hold the thousands 
 that will crowd together to hear about the ' new Way.' 
 Even the native papers feel the deepening interest, and 
 are informing their readers in long editorials and items 
 
" A PEE ACHING MISSION AEY » 77 
 
 that Christianity is spreading like a great irresistible 
 wave over the whole land. Some, choking with rage, 
 are calling upon the people to keep clear of this cursed 
 religion of Jesus ; while others affirm that it will surely 
 supersede Buddhism and Shintoism unless it is speedily 
 checked ; and others yet boldly assert that Christianity 
 is the only worthy religion, all others degrading the 
 nations that practice them, and depriving them of the 
 one glory of mankind — liberty. With the press thus 
 drawn into the contest, of course the priests are at last 
 alarmed. Heretofore they have reviled the Jesus Way, 
 and it is said that one of the chief men of Buddhism 
 told Miss Bird [author of " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan "] 
 that Christianity could do no harm to Buddhism, for 
 the missionaries have been here some twenty years and 
 have only some five or six hundred followers. But 
 now Buddhism and Shintoism, in spite of their great 
 wealth and influence, are both thoroughly alarmed and 
 are preaching and publishing against the new Way, — 
 all of which is an immense help to us in actually spread- 
 ing the knowledge of the truth. Indeed, I believe that 
 more Christian truth has been sown within the last six 
 months in Japan than can be measured by all the work 
 of the missionaries since the landing of Commodore 
 Perry, and that largely by the ill-advised labours of the 
 enemies of the truth." But the Christians, trained in 
 hibachi meetings, " are not only not scared by this wide 
 intellectual uproar, but they are even eagerly entering 
 into every class of society, teaching soldiers and citizens, 
 rulers and the ruled, the educated and the ignorant, the 
 rich and the poor, about the one true God and His Son 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 Those were indeed days to stir the fighting blood in 
 
78 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 missionary veins. The Buddhists, aroused from indif- 
 ference, started a paper in Kyoto, the sole purpose of 
 which was to check Christianity ; a booklet on " The 
 Unreasonableness of Christianity " was freely distrib- 
 uted by the thousands, and preaching services in im- 
 itation of the Christians' methods were carried on. 
 Another gift-tract represented Christianity as injurious 
 to national life, — for had it not incited many horrible 
 wars ? Buddhist priests bought the Bible in order to 
 make use of it in their own preaching. " In the sale of 
 Bibles and religious books our colporteurs report that 
 the heaviest buyers are always the priests. They buy 
 openly, many study openly, and some carry boldly and 
 smilingly our books to their preaching desks, and holding 
 them up in the middle of a sermon, give their opinion, 
 praising some things, and quietly affirming that others 
 are below even the most inferior of Buddhistic writings." 
 " The Buddhist brethren are not slow to appropriate a 
 good idea : indeed, in Osaka only the other day a Bud- 
 dhist priest was heard boldly reading to his audience the 
 Sermon on the Mount, substituting the word ' Shaka ' 
 [Buddha] for Jesus : ' Shaka says, " Blessed are the 
 poor in spirit," etc' " 
 
 Opposition to Christianity was included with opposi- 
 tion to all foreign things in the activities of some or- 
 ganizations, whose labours were more amusing than 
 influential, to judge by the following incidents : "Dur- 
 ing a recent visit around Lake Biwa, being invited to a 
 feast by a wealthy merchant, we learned of a few in- 
 stances in which protection [for Japanese products] had 
 been tried in the interior. Our host, though a Buddhist, 
 was not backward in raising a laugh at the expense of 
 a certain priest from Kumamoto. This teacher of re- 
 
1 < A PKEACHING MISSIOSTAEY ' ' 79 
 
 ligion had been preaching around here with great zeal 
 upon the necessity of abstaining from the use of every 
 foreign article, no matter what it might be. Even 
 railways and steamboats received a proper amount of 
 his condemnation. But on his return to Osaka, finding 
 that walking was altogether too slow, he at last took 
 to the cars, with a mental somersault that our Buddhist 
 friends are ever capable of, and immediately published 
 a newspaper article showing that there was no doubt 
 that the inventor of railroads was a reincarnation of 
 one of the disciples of Shaka. Few sermons could be 
 more grateful to a Buddhist protectionist who was 
 walking from Otsu to Kobe than this." Again of a 
 speaker who freely condemned the use of everything 
 foreign, Mr. DeForest wrote : " At Otsu one of his 
 hearers, a butcher, was so touched that he went home 
 and smashed all his kerosene lamps. His neighbour in 
 amazement inquired the reason. ' Foreign things ! ' 
 ejaculated the patriotic butcher. ' JSTo, you must be 
 labouring under a mistake ; they are all made here,' 
 was the reply. The butcher gradually bought some 
 more Japanese lamps." 
 
 In contrast to open opposition to, or sly appropria- 
 tion of, Christian truth, there was an occasional Gama- 
 liel to say as of old, " If this counsel or this work be of 
 men, it will be overthrown ; but if it is of God, ye will 
 not be able to overthrow them." Such was the writer 
 of a remarkable editorial that appeared in September 
 1881 in the JVichi Nichi Shimbun, a leading Tokyo 
 daily ; a part of this editorial Mr. DeForest translated 
 as follows : " The rise or decline of a religion lies in the 
 existence or non-existence of truth in its system, and it 
 is therefore wholly a matter inherent in itself. It can- 
 
80 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 not be increased or decreased, expanded or contracted, 
 by any human power. If Buddhism in the main corre- 
 sponds to truth, though oppressed for a time by the for- 
 eign religion, in the end it will shine before all the world. 
 If Christianity contains the more truth, Buddhism may 
 contend against it to the limit of power, but it will only 
 hasten the time of its own overthrow." In consequence 
 of this argument the writer then admonished the priests 
 that if they were really anxious for their religion, the 
 way to maintain it was not by blind attacks upon their 
 opponents, but by the improvement of their own vir- 
 tues and the increase of their knowledge and love of 
 truth, whereby they might gain a hearing and a follow- 
 ing. 
 
 That this kind of appeal was voicing a spirit already 
 felt in Buddhist circles was evident from the account of 
 a visit that Mr. DeForest was permitted to make to a 
 Buddhist theological school in Hikone while on an 
 evangelistic trip to that city. Of this school he wrote : 
 
 " There are now about seventy pupils, the younger 
 portion of whom study the ordinary branches taught 
 in the common schools. Such a course must reform 
 radically the old Buddhist way of teaching sacred geog- 
 raphy : for example, a priest once told me that eighty 
 thousand miles north of here was a great square moun- 
 tain, the other side of which was heaven. Such train- 
 ing schools as they now have here and there in Japan 
 will explode that old heaven of theirs, and they will 
 have to locate it anew. The older scholars, from 
 twenty to thirty years of age, study the sacred books. 
 I was fortunate enough to be admitted to one reci- 
 tation, which in its method was quite novel. Five 
 richly robed priests sat on the mats on one side of 
 
" A PKEACHING MISSIONAEY » 81 
 
 the hall as questioners ; five more sat on the opposite 
 side to reply. Each questioner confined himself to 
 the person sitting opposite ; they laboured rather 
 heavily, both sides having to receive constant help 
 from the chief priest, who evidently was a man of 
 considerable power. The performance struck me as 
 one ill-calculated to make the scholars able workers, 
 when contrasted with our schools ; but it is a great step 
 in advance, and so to be appreciated. . . . Another 
 strange mark of progress is the fact that some promi- 
 nent Buddhist priests are openly preaching and teach- 
 ing that it is nonsense to worship idols, and that only 
 the lowest classes, those of densest ignorance, do such a 
 foolish thing. The two priests who have so taught 
 are young men who were educated in Europe on pur- 
 pose to learn Western science for the sake of strength- 
 ening Buddhism ! And this is the way they do it. 
 May all their priests speedily acquire this same en- 
 lightenment ! What in the world can come out of a 
 house so divided against itself is a puzzle to me. 
 
 " Another item will illustrate the changes that Bud- 
 dhism is undergoing. I found a book in Hikone on ' The 
 Cholera : How to Prevent It.' What was my surprise 
 on learning that the government had issued it especially 
 for Buddhist priests, sending it to all the temples with 
 instructions that the priests should preach what was in 
 this book. If you could only know what mountains of 
 nonsense and superstition the priests taught the peo- 
 ple last year during the cholera, saying that this three- 
 cent charm or that ten-cent idol was a perfect prevent- 
 ive, until at last the native papers broke out upon 
 them with tremendous indignation and ridicule, you 
 would see what a great step in advance is this govern- 
 
82 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 merit order to preach the gospel of the cholera prevent- 
 ive. It is also very evident where Christianity stands 
 in comparison with Buddhism in the minds of the 
 educated classes, since the same papers that lashed the 
 covetous and ignorant priests told them to go and learn 
 of the Christians, who used common sense in such mat- 
 ters." 
 
 The corruption and ignorance of the Buddhist priest- 
 hood was so deeply impressed upon Mr. DeForest in 
 those days that he never afterwards liked to use the 
 figure of priesthood in presenting the work of Christ. 
 He felt that such presentation would give his hearers a 
 false impression and a natural prejudice against Christ. 
 That noble-minded Japanese felt the same is illustrated 
 by a conversation that he had with a student who was 
 acting one summer as his Japanese teacher. As the 
 two were sitting one day at the foot of the Mino water- 
 fall, Mr. DeForest, seeing that the other was touched 
 with the claims of Christianity, expressed the hope that 
 he would become a Christian and a preacher, where- 
 upon the proud samurai, offended at the thought of 
 ever coming to resemble what he detested in the Bud- 
 dhist priesthood, flashed back, " I should hate to be a 
 Jesus priest ! " He did, however, become a minister, 
 and the Rev. T. Koki remained through life an earnest 
 worker for the Jesus whose priest he had abhorred to 
 become. 
 
 The struggle with Buddhism, as we have seen, was 
 gaining publicity all along the line. Yet not only 
 Buddhism, which was strong, but also Shintoism, which 
 was weak as an organization, was making its attempt 
 to stem the tide of oncoming Christianity. Previous 
 to a theatre meeting in Osaka, at which Mr. DeForest 
 
" A PBEACHING MISSIONAEY » 83 
 
 among others was advertised to speak, " the Shinto as- 
 sociation sent the following communication on the sub- 
 ject to the South District Office : ' We have noticed 
 placards in various places calling attention to a Chris- 
 tian meeting in Dotombori. It is there stated that 
 " great preaching " is to take place, and we observe the 
 names of several Japanese among the preachers. For- 
 eigners are free to act in this way, but as regards Japa- 
 nese we learn that the notification issued by the De- 
 partment of Keligion prohibited all natives from preach- 
 ing without their obtaining permission from the 
 authorities. We think the matter deserving of your at- 
 tention.' " The South District officials replied, how- 
 ever, like Gallio of old, that they " didn't care whether 
 the preachers were licensed or not," and declined to in- 
 terfere. 
 
 In those days when Japan's interest in Christianity 
 was rapidly expanding, theatre preaching was one of 
 the methods used to meet the growing opportunity. 
 " The time is fully come," wrote Mr. DeForest, " for 
 Christianity to give the reasons for its invasion of 
 Japan. Books begin to appear — I have already heard 
 of four — attacking Christianity with all the old reasons 
 that can be raised from the dead. The apologetic age 
 is begun ; no other topic now will draw the multitudes 
 together in Japan like discussions on Christianity. The 
 masses are appealed to as judges, and, surprised that 
 they are of so much importance, they gladly accept 
 the honour. That in such a crisis such an able body of 
 native workers should providentially be in connection 
 with our mission, is a matter of congratulation." 
 
 The account of the Dotombori theatre meeting shows 
 how some of these Japanese workers as well as the mis- 
 
84 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 sionaries were trying to make the point of contact 
 with their thronging listeners. It is all in a letter for 
 American Sunday schools, addressed to " My dear Four 
 Hundred Thousand Christian Friends," which, after 
 telling of preliminary obstacles to be overcome in hir- 
 ing the theatre and advertising the meeting, proceeds : 
 
 " Now shall I tell you about the speakers and what 
 they said ? How many of you could sit through 
 twenty sermons ? I almost see you squirming now, 
 and wondering when this letter will end. But when 
 such splendid fellows — myself excepted — speak, you 
 can't help but listen. There was Neesima, a name 
 widely known and loved in America. . . . ' Why 
 is it,' said a Christian to me one day, * why is it that 
 when Neesima speaks we are always affected ? ' His 
 name is already a tower of strength in Japan. Sawa- 
 yama is another name familiar to the churches in 
 America. We almost dreaded to have him speak, for 
 he is not strong, except in faith. . . . Dr. Gordon 
 was another speaker, and his subject was Buddhism. 
 He has studied this religion and found some very queer 
 errors. That a foreigner should teach them the his- 
 toric facts that they never before had heard of, made 
 one of the most entertaining speeches of the day. 
 The people laughed at their ignorance ; but the priests 
 were very uncomfortable. 
 
 " Miyagawa, a teacher of the Training School, was 
 the chairman of the theatre meeting in Kyoto, and his 
 zeal and influence so enraged the haters of Christianity 
 that they sent him an anonymous letter accusing him 
 of being a traitor to his country and threatening to 
 kill him. This is the first instance of the kind here, 
 as far as I know. But Miyagawa is not easily scared. 
 
" A PEEACHING MISSIONARY » 85 
 
 In the middle of his speech he thrilled the audience by 
 reading the letter. ' This calls me a traitor,' he said. 
 ' No, I love my country and desire for her the very 
 highest form of true civilization. I want all that is 
 good and ennobling, from whatsoever quarter, to be- 
 come the inheritance of Japan. I, a traitor ? Bather 
 he who would violate the laws of our land by exciting 
 murder like this.' 
 
 " But I cannot tell you a tithe of the good things. 
 The speeches went on and on till well-nigh midnight. 
 When my name was called, as I stepped forward, the 
 chairman whispered, ' They are quite tired with serious 
 talking ; please make them laugh a little to rest them.' 
 A queer request indeed to make of a sober missionary ! 
 But as my subject was, ' How to Eegulate a Family,' 
 there was ample room for cheerful talk. ' You hardly 
 know,' said I, ' how strange it seemed to me when I 
 first came to Japan, to see your family customs. When 
 a young man wants a wife, he has her come to his 
 father's home to be his slave and the servant of his 
 father and mother. Your celebrated book on " The 
 Great Learning of Woman " begins with this sentence : 
 " A bride must serve her father-in-law and her mother- 
 in-law." Now if that is so, the poor thing has three 
 masters. Eeally, is not that too bad ? You yourselves 
 have a proverb that " many captains wreck the ship." 
 And no wonder so many marriages are little else than 
 wrecks when the wife has to live at the bidding of 
 three lords. Now long before Confucius' day our re- 
 ligion knew the cure for this state of things. In the 
 opening verses of our Bible we read that when a man 
 takes a wife, " he shall leave his father and mother." 
 Eeally, I never thought of this while living in America, 
 
86 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 but when I came to Japan and saw how you do it — I 
 don't mean you who are here to-night, for that would 
 be very impolite, but I guess some of your friends do 
 it — I knew then the wisdom that of old has ordered 
 that fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law shall keep out of 
 the children's families. There is no more fruitful 
 source of family quarrels and unfaithfulness than is 
 found in the Confucian doctrine — adopted by Bud- 
 dhism — that a bride is the servant of her husband's 
 parents.' And so I went on, ending thus : ' You 
 have a land filled with beautiful scenery. . . . But 
 remember this : there is no more beautiful sight under 
 all the wide heavens than one family dwelling under 
 one roof in love.' . . . The next day, Sunday, was 
 a thanksgiving day in the three little churches. . . . 
 How the priests are stirred up ! But, as of old, the 
 enemies of Christianity are doing more to make it 
 known than all the believers can possibly do." 
 
 Not all theatre preaching was as undisturbed as that 
 in the preceding account ; for there is a story of " an 
 invitation to preach from a chief of gamblers who lives 
 in a city ten miles away. He is a huge fellow, evi- 
 dently accustomed to lay his fist heavily on any one 
 who arouses his wrath, and he looks as if the sum total 
 of human happiness consisted in thrashing a fellow-be- 
 ing. He promised to fill the theatre with hearers free 
 of cost and to pay our hotel bills if we would come. 
 So we went, and the house was crowded. Our great 
 friend sat on the stage with us, ready to show his 
 power if anybody should care to disturb us. Mr. 
 Naruse [later founder and president of the Woman's 
 University in Tokyo] had not proceeded far before a 
 few persons in the back of the house began to shout 
 
"A PEE ACHING MISSION AKY" 87 
 
 their dissent. The gambler arose and impressively 
 gestured towards them, whereat they became quiet for 
 a few moments ; but soon they were again disturbing 
 the meeting. This was too much for our defender of 
 the faith ; striding down to the offenders, with a jerki- 
 ness peculiar to the Japanese language when it gets 
 mad, he said a few things that effectually stopped any 
 further opposition. After the meeting was over two 
 priests came forward and requested permission to 
 speak. The gambler told them he hadn't called the 
 people together to hear Buddhist priests, but Christian 
 teachers ; and if priests had anything to say, let them 
 go to their temples and say it ! " 
 
 Another theatre experience of interest occurred on a 
 trip to Tottori, on the west coast of Japan, in 1880. 
 A Doshisha student from Tottori had done some Chris- 
 tian preaching there during the summer vacation ; and 
 at his request Mr. DeForest and Mr. Kajiro of the 
 Osaka Church made an evangelistic visit to the place. 
 The account of this visit includes so many side-lights 
 on the nature of the touring work of those days that I 
 quote from it quite fully. An introductory word, how- 
 ever, should be said about the passport system that 
 had so vital a connection with a missionary's travels. 
 Under the extraterritorial conditions of those days, the 
 foreigners in Osaka lived on the Concession as an 
 organized community, having its own mayor, police- 
 man, and fire-brigade (memories of whose helmets 
 and red coats still thrill the heart of a child of those 
 days). On this Concession, no passport was required 
 for residence ; but a travelling passport was necessary 
 if one was to spend a night outside of the treaty ports. 
 These passports were granted to foreigners through 
 
88 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 their respective legations for one of two reasons — for 
 purposes of " science " or of " health." Some mission- 
 aries felt that they could not conscientiously use such 
 passports for evangelistic work, and therefore they 
 confined themselves to such areas as did not require 
 them. Others, among them Mr. DeForest, felt that as 
 the object of the government in imposing this limita- 
 tion was to restrict, not missionary work, but com- 
 merce, in the interior, it was not an infringement of 
 the spirit of the passport to use it for evangelistic 
 travelling; especially as the authorities themselves 
 recognized and permitted this use of it. Mr. DeForest 
 cites an instance of this : " A chief of police once gave 
 orders that no foreigner should be allowed to preach 
 in his jurisdiction, on the ground that the passport 
 could not be stretched to cover preaching. But within 
 twenty-four hours the chief was compelled by a far 
 higher authority to rescind his unwarrantable order ; 
 and this superior command was accompanied with the 
 statement that foreigners might speak anywhere in the 
 country on any subject whatever, — only if, in speaking 
 of political matters, the laws were violated, the local 
 police should have the right to close the meeting." 
 
 On such a passport, then, Mr. DeForest and his com- 
 panion took the three days' trip to Tottori across the 
 backbone of Japan. 
 
 "We were not prepared for the cool reception we 
 met. A foreigner had been seen there once three 
 years before, but the sight of one is so rare that it sets 
 the whole town in commotion. When it was known 
 that the foreigner was going to preach the Jesus re- 
 ligion, the old dread of that forbidden Way fell upon 
 
"A PEE ACHING MISSIONARY" 89 
 
 the hotel-keepers, and with one accord they declined to 
 receive me. A Christian, however, succeeded in secur- 
 ing me lodgings at a private house. . . . The out- 
 look was discouraging: no arrangements had been 
 made for preaching, and only six or eight persons 
 cared to hear the Way. I told Mr. Kajiro that I felt 
 like Jonah and wanted to run away. He, laughing, 
 pulled out a letter that he had just written to his wife, 
 and showed me that he had written the same idea. 
 But on reflecting that Jonah did not better himself 
 very much by his flight, we determined to see what 
 could be done. With no idea of what the morrow 
 would bring forth we slept that Saturday night, and 
 waked up to spend one of the strangest Sundays I 
 ever saw. 
 
 "Before I was up, an officer who is an earnest 
 student of the Bible sent up his card. Then soon Mr. 
 Kajiro found an old friend who had studied three years 
 in New York and was head teacher of the normal 
 school. Of course he knew Christianity, had Bible and 
 commentaries, and spoke English well ; but he had 
 never given himself to a hearty belief in Christ : he 
 was drifting. Then five or six others gathered to 
 welcome us and to plan for work. In all the city 
 there was no fit place for preaching ; but as is the case 
 with all the castle towns of Japan so far as I have 
 seen, there are vast harlot-quarters and large theatres 
 on one side of the city. ' Shall we go to the theatres ? ' 
 was the only question left us to consider. The young 
 men who went there to preach during the summer 
 would not go to such a place, and perhaps they were 
 wise in their action. But I felt that some of the places 
 where Jesus and Paul preached were not one whit 
 
90 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 better than the theatres of Tottori. My only inquiry 
 was, ' If we hire a theatre will the better class of people go 
 to hear ? ' They assured me there was no doubt about 
 it ; there would be a good audience of as good people as 
 the city held. So it was determined to hire the theatre 
 that day and to advertise three days' preaching by an 
 American. Some went to prepare the theatre, some 
 wrote and caused to be put up through the city about 
 forty placards, and the necessary notice was sent to 
 the police station. The head school-teacher cheerfully 
 promised to make the opening speech introducing 
 Kajiro and myself. Shortly after that, what was my 
 surprise to hear wooden clappers rattling away in front 
 of my house, and to see a clownishly dressed fellow 
 shouting at the top of his voice, ' Preaching to-night ! 
 Religion of Jesus ! By an American ! Seats free at 
 the theatre ! ' I was told that the owner of the theatre 
 always sent out such a notice ; so that, with the forty 
 placards and the exertions of this clapper-clown, the 
 twenty thousand people of Tottori became pretty well 
 aware of the new movement in a very short space of 
 time. 
 
 " Evening came, and the head teacher called for us 
 with his wife and two little ones — just such a lady as 
 could do a glorious work were she a Christian. On 
 entering the theatre, we found about one hundred 
 gathered, but as soon as it became known that the 
 American was really behind the scenes, the house 
 filled rapidly until there was not a foot of standing- 
 room left. Six hundred is the ordinary capacity of 
 this theatre, but pressure steadily applied swelled that 
 number by one or two hundred more. Our introduction 
 was fair, the speaker saying that Christianity is divided 
 
" A PREACHING MISSIONARY " 91 
 
 into three great branches : Roman and Greek Catholic, 
 and Protestant ; that Kajiro and myself are Prot- 
 estants, and that where the Protestant custom prevails, 
 there the greatest prosperity is found ; while he loved 
 the Christian civilization, he personally was not a Chris- 
 tian and was not advocating Christianity, but only in- 
 troducing the advocates of it. With this, Kajiro went 
 forward and told how Japan was awakening under the 
 quickening influences of this new Way ; that it was noth- 
 ing to fear ; rather, through this religion, Japan would 
 gain the greatest possible prosperity and blessing. Then 
 I spoke nearly an hour. The Japanese believe in pro- 
 tracted meetings : one speaker in an evening is not 
 half enough, and the last speaker's position is the place 
 of honour. How such an audience feels when a for- 
 eigner comes before it I do not know. Evidently they 
 had no idea the speaker could make himself understood. 
 But when one after another began to say in a suppressed 
 voice, ' Really, we can understand,' the desire to hear 
 increased and the crowd that could not get in increased, 
 until the outsiders burst through one or two weak 
 places in the sides of the poorly built theatre. But as 
 taught in natural philosophy, the pressure from within 
 outwards being equal to the pressure from without 
 inwards, nothing of benefit resulted to those without. 
 One thing was clearly seen by the little band of Chris- 
 tians who had the matter in charge : that that theatre 
 was too small. So they gave that up and rented for 
 the next night the largest theatre in all that region — 
 one that would hold, under pressure, twelve hundred. 
 
 "The next day Kajiro and I were busy without 
 cessation with those who came to congratulate us, to 
 inquire more about the Way, and to invite us to a feast. 
 
92 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 Among our callers were the preacher of the Greek 
 religion, who is trying to gather a church here, and 
 several of his followers not yet baptized. As their 
 respectful manner and kindness brought us into close 
 relations with them, we discussed in the most friendly 
 way the differences in our beliefs, and I urged that 
 since we both felt called to work in Tottori, there 
 should be no unpleasant feelings ; and that since several 
 were in doubt as to which to join, we should unite our 
 efforts in public to convince everybody that we cared 
 more for Christian love than we did for any church 
 creed. In short, I urged the Greek preacher to speak 
 at the theatre with Kajiro and myself. He readily 
 accepted, and that night we three attempted to teach 
 the largest and most uncontrollable crowd I have yet 
 seen in Japan. The theatre filled up to its edges, over- 
 flowed on to the speaker's platform, and crowded into 
 the actors' room where we were waiting ; before we 
 could commence, the place bid fair to be the scene of 
 an uproar for which the new religion was likely to be 
 called in question. Hoping to quiet the audience, 
 Kajiro stepped forward and beckoned with his hand, 
 and began the first speech. But not only was the press 
 too great, but several fellows of the baser sort were 
 evidently aching to cause an outbreak. Kajiro made a 
 brave and prolonged stand, but was repeatedly inter- 
 rupted by fellows within and by the hundreds without 
 who couldn't get in. When he came back into the 
 actors' room, it was plain that he was seriously anxious. 
 We sent for police, but several said there were not 
 police enough in Tottori to control that crowd. Mean- 
 while the Greek stepped forward, and he being of 
 commanding appearance and a new face to them, they 
 
1 1 A PEE ACHING MISSION AEY ' ' 93 
 
 quieted down for a few moments ; but when he tried 
 to explain the ' narrow gate,' they refused to listen ; the 
 interruptions grew more decided, local disturbances 
 took place, and at last, insulted, he was forced to retire. 
 " It was now my turn. Some of my friends thought 
 I ought not to adventure myself into the theatre before 
 them ; others, that I should step forward and dismiss 
 them with a brief remark or two. A large part of the 
 audience was yet in good order, and I felt sure no 
 insult was intended towards me. There was not the 
 slightest fear of personal harm — only that the evil- 
 minded fellows would force a free fight then and there, 
 for which the preaching of the Jesus religion would be 
 naturally held responsible. So I stepped out before them. 
 The better portion, perhaps over half the people, im- 
 mediately became quiet, but there were no signs of 
 yielding in other parts of the house. At last I shouted 
 out that in America the Japanese had the reputation 
 of being the politest people on the face of the earth ; 
 but if they didn't stop this uproar and be quiet, there 
 was one American who would never say that the Tot- 
 tori-ites were polite. This being applauded by the few 
 hundreds who could hear, the rest suddenly wanted to 
 hear too. One or two hundred who couldn't hear me 
 still kept up a disturbance, whereupon I shouted to 
 them that if their desire was to see the foreigner, pro- 
 vided they would only content themselves for a few 
 moments with hearing me, I'd wait till midnight to 
 show them my face. This provoked general applause ; 
 and after that, though some made slight interruptions, 
 there was excellent attention given by over a thousand 
 of them for nearly an hour, while I opened up the folly 
 of worshipping dried wood and ridiculed the absurd 
 
94 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 customs that inevitably arise from idolatry. I was 
 compelled to keep a-going, as any pause would have 
 been only an opportunity for an outbreak. They met 
 my statements of what I had seen in Japan with sur- 
 prise that I had found out so much and with repeated 
 applause, until I turned to the inevitable injury that 
 idolaters everywhere and universally must receive, in- 
 tellectually and socially. At last, upon my appealing 
 to the ambition all true Japanese have to take their 
 place among the foremost nations of the earth, and 
 assuring them that such stultification and licentiousness 
 as came from idolatry would prevent their sure advance 
 into true civilization, their applause gave way to a 
 serious thoughtfulness, and the boisterous audience 
 became like a good old-fashioned church in America 
 on Sunday. It was no little relief by this time to see 
 a policeman here and there in the audience ; and when 
 we dismisssd the people they for the most part quietly 
 withdrew. But fearing the crowd would become even 
 worse on the next night, we called on our way home at 
 the central office, thanked them for their assistance, 
 and asked for police in abundance for the next night. 
 Then we prayed for rain, or any obstacle that would 
 prevent such a gathering again. 
 
 " Again and again the following day we congratu- 
 lated ourselves on the snow and hail and rain that 
 came fitfully all day ; just about the time for gather- 
 ing, it was all we could desire. We felt sure that noth- 
 ing but a true interest would bring out hearers. But 
 the whole city was agitated and the theatre quickly 
 filled. The head teacher, who was now very much in- 
 terested, made the first address, telling how deeply he 
 felt over last night's speeches. . . . With such an 
 
"A PEE ACHING MISSION AKY" 95 
 
 earnest opening, my confidence was entirely restored. 
 But some in the audience grew restless, began inter- 
 ruptions, grew worse and more insulting than the pre- 
 vious night, and actually broke the speaker down, forc- 
 ing him to retire in anger and disgust. The police had 
 no authority, or else would not show it. There was 
 little hope left for any successful talking ; but Kajiro 
 went forward, and after repeatedly trying to catch at- 
 tention he quieted the larger portion. He then poured 
 out an unbroken stream of wit and truth, until he had 
 his audience at will ; then, bearing more directly on the 
 great aim of our work, he had the closest attention for 
 an hour, the people forgetting that there was a for- 
 eigner behind the curtains ; and the foreigner, listen- 
 ing with delight, forgot that his turn was next. . . . 
 My sermon was well received, as I urged them to com- 
 pare the commands of Christianity with those of Bud- 
 dhism ; but it was very evident that Kajiro had done 
 more than the rest of us put together. 
 
 " Well, what did it amount to ? For one thing, it 
 is evident that this nation is ripe for throwing away 
 idolatry. . . . Another thing is that public opinion 
 is being shaped rapidly in favour of Christianity. 
 . . . Yet best of all : the day after our three nights' 
 course we intended to return ; but so urgent were the 
 requests for us to stop one more day that we remained 
 over and met nine men who with their families and 
 friends wished to form a company to study the Bible 
 every Sunday evening. Kajiro with great tact made a 
 little Book of Life, in w r hich their names were written 
 and in which they pledged themselves to begin im- 
 mediately the searching of the Scriptures. They drew 
 lots to determine at whose house the first meeting 
 
96 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 should be held. Then Kajiro, calling on them to thank 
 God for His great love in leading them to the light of 
 His Gospel, prayed from his full heart before those 
 first-fruits. The head teacher was there, promising to 
 work with and for this little band. His wife is full of 
 joy, and is one of the ' honourable women ' who see the 
 worth and need of Christianity from its first presenta- 
 tion. She became a Christian on the spot. I spent an 
 hour with him on the reasonableness and need of daily 
 prayer. In the evening Kajiro slipped out, leaving me 
 to talk to the endless string of visitors. When he came 
 back I was alone ; the look of pleasure on his face was 
 too apparent. ' We've just had the first family prayers 
 in this city, — father, wife, mother, and two sons unit- 
 ing in it, and thanking me for teaching them how to 
 pray.' With that, our cup was full. Weary with the 
 exciting and ceaseless work, we kneeled for our last 
 evening prayer, thanking God for all His loving lead- 
 ing." 
 
 The subjects that Mr. DeForest chose in his preach- 
 ing were largely determined by the types of his au- 
 diences. So much of his work was touring in new or 
 recently opened fields that his lines of thought were 
 distinctly those of apologetics — effective introduction 
 of his hearers to what was often their first knowledge 
 of the religion against which they had heard much. A 
 tour to Ise, the land of the imperial shrine of the Sun- 
 goddess, visited annually by tens of thousands of pil- 
 grims, illustrates the way he came into contact with 
 various classes of people. To one small audience con- 
 taining a number of priests, he spoke of " the three 
 great men Asia had produced— Confucius, Shaka and 
 
"A PEE ACHING MISSIONARY" 97 
 
 Jesus. They seemed surprised that a foreigner should 
 know anything about Confucianism and Buddhism. But 
 when they heard that Jesus was an Asiatic like them- 
 selves, and if they did not know as much of Jesus as they 
 did of Shaka, they could not be said to have an ac- 
 quaintance with the great men of even their own race, 
 they were amazed. The vast majority supposed thought- 
 lessly that Jesus was an American or an Englishman." 
 
 To a mixed general audience in a theatre, he preached 
 on " What is Man ? " giving the answer of Christianity 
 with reference especially to the body, which should be 
 kept pure and holy as made by the God who gave it : 
 this was his way of approach to speaking against preva- 
 lent vices. " I am a foreigner and it is none of my busi- 
 ness, you think," he said in closing. "Yes, but the 
 same God made you and me, and we are brothers. I 
 have left my land to live here and to die here ; my 
 children too are growing up in Japan. I am virtually 
 a Japanese. And when I see the shame that covers 
 this land, I want to call to you, my brothers, to look 
 about you and see if you cannot hasten to cure this 
 deadly evil. God and God alone made your bodies. 
 Glorify Him in your use of them." 
 
 In a schoolhouse on the same trip, when asked to 
 speak, he took occasion to show how true religion was 
 not opposed to reason, but that as nations accepted and 
 obeyed Christianity, science and law came to occupy a 
 prominence never otherwise attained. He pointed out 
 that it was from Christian countries that the Japanese 
 government had secured teachers for its new science 
 and law schools. " Do you suppose," he added, " that 
 among these scholars right before you studying as- 
 tronomy, twenty years from now there will be one 
 
98 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 worshipper of the sun ? If there be, you might well 
 put him in a box, and exhibit him as a show for two 
 cash a head. What is the sun ? It is a huge lantern 
 that God has hung up there for His children on earth. 
 And for a man, endowed with the power of thought 
 and speech, with free-will, placed by God at the head 
 of the visible creation, to worship a lantern that has no 
 brains nor tongue nor eyes, that has no free-will — what 
 possible gain can there be ? " 
 
 This type of preaching cleared the ground for direct 
 Gospel work : it opened the eyes of hearers and led 
 them to look at the new religion from a different stand- 
 point ; it removed prejudice against Christianity and 
 aroused questioning, that hopeful sign of a mind grop- 
 ing after truth. The direct results in immediate res- 
 olution and reform were too numerous for detailed 
 mention here. In general, however, the last meeting 
 and the results of this Ise trip may be taken as typical : 
 
 " [After the preaching service] we invited to the 
 hotel that night any who might wish to make inquiry 
 about this Way. Fifteen of as bright, thoughtful men 
 as I have ever met here came. One, a young man, 
 with unusual modesty said he had heard the preaching, 
 and, while wondering, he could not help having doubts. 
 Could we tell him, * What is this power in man that 
 enables him to conquer ? What is the soul ? What is 
 the ruin of the soul ? Can a man love his enemies out- 
 side of Christianity ? Is love natural to man, or is it 
 acquired only in Christianity ? ' With such questions 
 he made me wonder. After they had all gone, I asked 
 who he was. ' He is the mayor of the city,' was the 
 reply. — But the mail closes soon, and this story must 
 come to an end. I wonder what Paul would have done 
 
" A PEE ACHING MISSIONARY " 99 
 
 if in the middle of the letter to the Eomans he had 
 been told that the mail would close immediately. I 
 can only add that we preached twenty-two times in six 
 days ; that in three of the places no foreigner had ever 
 before been seen ; that in four centres there were already 
 before my going and as the result of the young man 
 sent out by the Osaka churches, little bands of Bible 
 students who had read together nearly all of Matthew ; 
 that these four bands number about thirty who have 
 formed the ' Christ's Ever-Persevering Company ' and 
 have engaged Hattori to stay with them ; that over 
 two hundred books were sold and many others ordered ; 
 that some gave up their concubines, and some husbands 
 and wives were reconciled ; that we had several hours' 
 talk with a priest in lineal descent from the great Sun- 
 goddess, and who has been in secret a student of the 
 Bible for a year ; that we had several hours also with 
 one of the teachers of the Shinto school, who also has 
 the Scriptures in his closet. — To God, only wise, be 
 glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen." 
 
 Another quotation will illustrate the kind of questions 
 that a missionary met when visiting, not new hearers 
 and inquirers, but a small and isolated group of Chris- 
 tians in the interior. " As always and everywhere in 
 Japan, [so here at Hikone] the Christians gave me a 
 very pleasant welcome ; they arranged to guide me to 
 all the interesting places and to pay my hotel fare. We 
 held three meetings, always prolonged by their asking 
 question after question that to them had a very prac- 
 tical bearing, such as : * On the third year after my 
 father's death, shall I have a feast in memory of him ? ' 
 6 How do you show honour towards the dead ? ' * Ought 
 we to give to the missionary society such money as we 
 
100 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 used to squander in wine and feasting ? ' ' Shall we 
 admit to the communion those who are seeking for 
 baptism ? Not doing so, for us to eat and drink in 
 their presence, is it not impolite ? ' * Shall we celebrate 
 the Lord's Supper with sponge cake as usual, or did 
 you bring some bread for that purpose ? ' There is 
 nothing I enjoy in my work so much as the sociables at 
 the end of the preaching ; I there learn much about 
 those around me, and again and again get my next 
 sermon from some things they innocently confess to, or 
 from their inquiries." 
 
 Some of these questions, real in their day, have now 
 passed into history : the increasing prevalence of 
 bakeries, for instance, has largely eliminated the bread 
 problem. The question of honour to the dead and of 
 the Christian's relation to memorial ceremonies for 
 deceased Buddhist relatives is still a live one to many a 
 loving heart. But in those clays the question had a 
 different aspect ; for the legal right to conduct burial 
 services was in the hands of the priests of the native 
 religions, and a Christian, if not enrolled in one of 
 their parishes, had no claim to even a burying-place. 
 Among Mr. DeForest's papers is a clipping dated 1881 
 from the Japan Herald, illustrating the inconvenience 
 to which Christians were subjected : " A native Christian 
 at Iwaki was charged with having, contrary to the law, 
 buried one of his children with Christian rites — the 
 priest of the Buddhist temple being the informant. 
 The following judgment was given in the Fukuoka 
 Saibansho [court] : — The culprit, an adherent of Chris- 
 tianity, having buried his child after the Christian 
 manner without resorting to the assistance of a priest, 
 is sentenced to forty days' imprisonment with hard 
 
"A PEE ACHING MIISSONAKY" 101 
 
 labour ; but considering the circumstances, the sentence 
 will be commuted to a fine of three yen. The cross (on 
 the grave) is to be removed, and the funeral rites will 
 be again performed according to the ceremony of the 
 established religion." However, as in 1876 the legaliz- 
 ing of the Sunday holiday had been a great blessing to 
 the young church, so in 1884 the official disestablish- 
 ment of the state priesthood {Kyoddshoku) became the 
 earnest of complete religious liberty to come. The 
 priests, having no longer the authority of government 
 officials, could not enforce legal claims ; thus, as a 
 natural outcome of the disestablishment, it was shortly 
 followed by an edict, to quote from a letter of Mr, 
 DeForest's, " that burial rites, which the law heretofore 
 gave into the hands of the priests, could henceforth 
 take place with or without a priest, the only legal re- 
 quirement being a notification of the death at the 
 nearest local government office. You can hardly 
 imagine the unendurableness of seeing one's parent or 
 friend buried with the rites of a rejected idolatry. And 
 when I told the news to one of the Ise Christians, tears 
 of joy filled his eyes, and bowing his head to the floor, 
 he was speechless in his gratitude." 
 
 Of all the subjects of Mr. DeForest's preaching in 
 those days, the deepest impressions seem to have been 
 made by his sermons on the Ten Commandments, 
 alluded to in the opening letter of this chapter. So 
 profoundly did the idolatrous and vicious elements in 
 his Japanese surroundings impress him, that he felt he 
 could not preach a Saviour from sin until the moral 
 sense of his hearers was quickened to perceive sin and 
 the need of a Saviour from its power. Thus came his 
 John-the-Baptist type of preaching, with its call to a 
 
102 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 generation of vipers to repent. One source of his in- 
 formation about the superstitions that he held up in 
 the lime-light was a study of the ema, "votive pic- 
 tures," that hang in large numbers on the walls of 
 many a shrine and ema-shed throughout Japan. The 
 study of these pictures and their significance — sins re- 
 pented of and prayers for help, vows of reform, thanks- 
 giving for favours — seemed to show him, not so much 
 the religious aspirations, as the depths of degradation, 
 from which they sprang. "The offerer," he wrote 
 with reference to one class of ema, " has asked the gods 
 to save him henceforth from wine and women. . . . 
 Here is a land where it is the custom to hang up in the 
 most public places these confessions of shame and these 
 prayers of repentance. Without doubt a few more 
 years of advance into the manners of civilization will 
 find every one of these ema forbidden ; and the class is 
 by no means small." 
 
 A fellow-worker in Osaka, Kev. W. W. Curtis, gives 
 the following contemporary account of one of Mr. De- 
 Forest's series of addresses on the Ten Command- 
 ments : " The lectures were well announced by the 
 Christians, and notice of them soon got into the papers 
 and attracted attention all over the city. . . . His 
 method of contrasting religions by their natural, legiti- 
 mate fruits has been very attractive ; and although he 
 has not hesitated to hold up the sins and vices and 
 follies of heathenism in strong light, he has not failed 
 while doing so to keep the good will of his audience. 
 For instance, his last lecture was upon ' Lying,' and he 
 made the point that as a rule worshippers of idols 
 are untruthful, calling that which cannot be a god 
 — wood, stone, the sun, the moon, etc. — their god ; 
 
"A PEEACHING MISSION AEY" 103 
 
 false in this, they will be false in other things. It was 
 pretty hard doctrine for many of his hearers, but when 
 he began to illustrate by the habits of speech of all 
 classes — common labourers, merchants, physicians, 
 officials, coolies, townspeople, samurai — the fact was so 
 apparent and the illustrations so pat that they had to 
 laugh again and again. When he told them that the 
 Christian teacher could not be polite to his audience at 
 the expense of truthfulness, that he must speak straight- 
 forwardly even though it be unpleasant to do so, they 
 were very much impressed." 
 
 The sermons on the Ten Commandments, put into 
 attractive literary form by a talented secretar}^, were 
 published as tracts under such taking titles as, " The 
 Evils of Worshipping Dried Wood," — this one had the 
 remarkable run of fifty thousand copies — " The Great 
 Learning of Parents and Children," "Medicine for 
 Thieves," and " The Funeral of the Seven Gods of 
 Good Luck," — this last being on the tenth command- 
 ment, which, in abolishing the covetous spirit, will, it 
 is argued, abolish also the gods whose worship springs 
 from that spirit. These booklets had a wide sale, 
 arousing comment pro and con. Some incidents of 
 their sale came under the observation of their writer 
 himself, as he relates : 
 
 " I was on my way to Ise with Nakai, the champion 
 book-seller of Japan. We stopped for a night at Hase, 
 a city of no mean reputation, since the marvellous god 
 (or goddess) Kwannon has one of his thirty-three 
 temples there — a fat place for many sleek priests. We 
 wandered through the long halls, and wondered at the 
 golden painted dragons and the pictures of ancient 
 heroes in battle. Then buying a delicate image of the 
 
104 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 god of doubtful gender, we went to the hotel, took 
 our rice and tea, and I, being tired with the journey, 
 immediately went to bed. Just as I was getting un- 
 conscious of my surroundings, and Kwannon and the 
 true God, fierce dragons and my wife, were strangely 
 intermingled in my dreams, I was aroused by an 
 apology from the mouth of one of the priests, saying 
 to Nakai, ' I just heard that the teacher of the Jesus 
 Way was stopping here for the night, and that you 
 had books to sell. So, fearing that you would get 
 away in the morning before I could see you, I have 
 intruded. Pardon me, I pray you ; if I am disturbing 
 the honourable sleeper [on the mats in the same room], 
 I will retire at once.' He was assured by Nakai that 
 he could talk without disturbing me ; whereupon he 
 asked for the books. These being spread out before 
 him, he immediately selected some of mine on the 
 Commandments, and asked the price. Nakai told him 
 they came in sets that could not be broken, to which 
 he replied : ' But I already have four of them ; they 
 were sent to me by a friend in Osaka. As these will 
 complete my set, I pray you sell me these only.' ' I 
 am sorry for you,' was the reply, 4 but I can't break a 
 set. You have many friends who have never seen 
 these books. Hadn't you better buy a complete set ? 
 — and then you can give away your duplicates.' This 
 the priest immediately agreed to do, and then went on 
 to say, * Where does the author of these books live ? 
 I want very much to meet him. He has made some 
 statements in here that show him to be misinformed 
 on some things. Would he resent it if I were to call 
 on him when I go to th j city ? ' ' Oh, no, he lives at 
 No. 26, and would be glad to see you at any time,' re- 
 
" A PREACHING MISSIONARY " 105 
 
 plied Nakai. I wanted to arise and tell him he needn't 
 go to Osaka to meet me, and that I should be glad 
 then and there to be corrected in any respect ; but the 
 thought of five successive nights of preaching close 
 ahead, and the necessity of storing up all the strength 
 I could for the campaign, made me keep quiet. Then 
 with profound salutations the priest withdrew, and 
 Xakai crawled under the comfortables that had been 
 spread for his bed. 
 
 " Again I was fairly asleep, when another voice of 
 apology roused us. Lying perfectly quiet as before, I 
 let Nakai meet the visitors while I listened to the con- 
 versation. ' I just now heard from my friend,' said 
 another priest, ' that you were here with books to sell ; 
 and though it is very rude to arouse you, I beg you to 
 pardon my late coming. Will you kindly sell me a set 
 of books on the Commandments ? ' While Nakai was 
 getting them out, the priest went on to say, ' I have 
 read some of these books before, and should like very 
 much to meet the author. I hear he lives in Osaka. 
 Do you think he would mind if I were to call on him ? 
 I should like to discuss just a bit some of the statements 
 of his books. He seems to be rather at fault in some 
 minor points.' ' Oh, call by all means,' said Nakai ; 
 ' he'll be very glad to talk with you.' Whereat the 
 priest No. 2 bowed low, and apologizing with all the 
 fullness of this suave language for breaking our rest, he 
 added yet another apology : ' Pardon me for coming 
 here after indulging in sake, but it is our custom to 
 study until ten o'clock at night, then to drink, then to 
 lie down to sleep. And as I had taken my drink before 
 I heard you were here, I had to come, drink and all, or 
 else run my chances of not finding you here in the 
 
106 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 morning.' With these polite words, he touched his 
 forehead once more to the mats where he was kneel- 
 ing, then gathered himself and his books together and 
 departed. If he reads what I wrote on the sixth com- 
 mandment, he will learn that it is possible for a man to 
 commit slow suicide by drinking sake." 
 
 In later years Mr. DeForest wondered, with a twinge 
 of regret, at the boldness and the baldness with which, 
 in some of his early sermons and in these booklets, he 
 had scored popular superstitions and religious customs. 
 In so far, indeed, as they gave a merciless presentation 
 of some foolish and evil aspects of Japanese life, they 
 were of a destructive order ; but they carried a message 
 of something better and higher than that which they 
 mocked and overthrew, — the message of the one true 
 God and the life in harmony with His divine laws. 
 The books on the Commandments were providentially 
 used for much good, and that not merely in the way 
 immediately intended by their writer. Many years 
 later he received a neatly bound copy of the set with a 
 manuscript introduction that reads, when translated, as 
 follows : 
 
 " On reading this book, ' The True Argument on 
 the Ten Commandments,' seeing how thoroughly it 
 pointed out and exposed the evil customs of a bad 
 country, I thought it a severe criticism made from 
 shallow insight and superficial observation, and would 
 have none of it. That was my feeling on a first read- 
 ing. On a second reading, I began to assent to it : on 
 a third, there were parts that I admired as an example 
 to myself, for in them it was not hard to discern the 
 attitude of the missionaries that come to us from abroad, 
 
" A PREACHING MISSIONARY » 107 
 
 with the true evangelistic spirit as taught in 1 Thessa- 
 lonians 1 and 2 showing itself powerfully in their 
 words and actions. After I had meditated on this fact 
 and had cometo understand it, I borrowed the thoughts 
 of this book, and using them frequently as material for 
 sermons, I know not how many times I have exhorted 
 my fellow-countrymen with them. Finally, I had the 
 volume rebound and was keeping it as a rare book, and 
 one loved by the early Christians. 
 
 " At first when I heard some time ago that my hon- 
 oured spiritual brother, regretting that he had kept no 
 copy of this book and wishing to secure one, was think- 
 ing of advertising for one in the papers and through 
 friends, I thought, since I was fortunate enough to 
 have one, I would present it to him. But the oppor- 
 tunity has not offered until now. This time, however, 
 I have had the unexpected delight of meeting him per- 
 sonally in our Fukushima Church and of hearing him 
 preach. Out of the fullness of this joy and as a small 
 expression of my gratitude, recalling my former inten- 
 tion I have written this word of explanation, and pre- 
 sent this book in memory of the occasion. 
 " With respectful salutations, 
 
 " Your younger brother in the faith, 
 
 [Signed] — , 
 
 « Pastor of Church. 
 
 " November U, 1909. 
 
 " To my spiritual elder Brother ', 
 
 " The Honourable Dr. DeForest, Fourth Order 
 of Merit." 
 
IV 
 
 Furlough and Readjustment 
 
 "The prime quality of a real critic is sympathy." — Goethe. 
 
 " There is no other approach to a man or a race. Truth- 
 speaking is of prime importance ; but truth is revealed to 
 the sympathetic only. None can understand a foreign 
 people until he studies them in the light of their ideals." 
 
 — Hamilton W. Mabie. 
 
IV 
 FURLOUGH AKD READJUSTMENT 
 
 IN 1882 Mr. DeForest's work was interrupted by a 
 breakdown. That which he had succeeded in es- 
 caping during the earlier years was brought on by 
 the " delightful, murderous " work of touring and by 
 the summer heat, to which he was especially sensitive 
 when tired ; so that a furlough of a year and a half in 
 America was necessitated two winters before the then 
 prescribed term of ten years was completed. 
 
 Good care, tramps among California canyons, Maine 
 woods, and New Hampshire hills, and the inspiration 
 from touch with old friends and ideals, brought back 
 much of his former vigour. "The only thing that 
 raises a doubt," he wrote when ready to start back to 
 work, " is the sun of Japan. It seems reasonable to 
 me that by going earlier into the mountains and stay- 
 ing later, I can preach winters, and do literary work 
 summers, in Japan." He was allowed then to return, 
 under the conditions of the following " charge " from 
 the Board secretary, Dr. N. G. Clark, whom he loved 
 with a filial affection and called his " father in Bos- 
 ton " : " We send you back with the understanding that 
 you are not to do full work ; that you are to limit your- 
 self strictly to your ability in accordance with your 
 best judgment and the judgment of Mrs. DeForest : she 
 is to have important supervision over you in this re- 
 Ill 
 
112 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 spect. We feel that half- work from you will be better 
 than full work by any new man we can send out for 
 the next five years. Therefore we charge you to be 
 prudent and careful, and to forbear all exhausting 
 labours. Please refer to this charge when you are 
 pressed to overwork yourself by missionary or native 
 friends." Both Mr. and Mrs. DeForest seem to have 
 obeyed these instructions and guarded his health, for 
 he was able to take his second term of eleven winters 
 and his third term of twelve without serious debilita- 
 tion ; although it should be added that in each of those 
 terms he took a six-months trip to America on family 
 business. 
 
 The return trip to Japan was marked by the delight- 
 ful companionship of congenial fellow-travellers ; 
 among them, he writes, " is a Hindoo, a celebrated 
 member of the Brahmo-Somaj of India, who has been 
 speaking in different cities in America. He believes in 
 the one universal Spirit God, and regards Jesus as the 
 best prophet that ever lived. He is a very able man, 
 kind, thoughtful, devout, and seems to live very near to 
 God. I have had many talks with him and have 
 learned many things. I hope his labours will be 
 blessed to the good of India. Your papers have doubt- 
 less spoken of him, — his name is Mozoomdar." From 
 a letter written afterwards by Mr. Mozoomdar to Mr. 
 DeForest, the following paragraph is worthy of note 
 because it was underlined by the recipient as express- 
 ing thoughts that struck him : " Accept my cordial 
 sympathy with every department of your work. My 
 natural affinities with undenominational Christianity 
 are great. But I have always held that all religion, to 
 be truly beneficent and saving, must receive a constant 
 
FUELOUGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 113 
 
 increase of tJie Spirit, and a steady advance in morality 
 and practical usefulness. A religion that shows no real 
 progress is a dead organism. A religion that has not 
 in it the gift and the growth of the Spirit is a whitened 
 sepulchre. Hence I have always kept aloof from mere 
 dogmatism, both Hindoo and Christian. My dear 
 brother, let us pray that the indwelling God may kindle 
 our souls to find His living providence both in and out 
 of all denoininationalism. Let us pray that we, and all 
 those of whom we have charge, may grow steadily in 
 faith, hope, and charity." 
 
 This appeal for a growing religion untrammelled by 
 dogmatism and denominationalism expressed what was 
 increasingly the desire of the missionary's own heart. 
 Of union movements and interdenominational coopera- 
 tion he had always been in favour. He was happy to 
 find on his return what he called " one of the best signs 
 of the times," when one of the Osaka Christians said to 
 him, " We used to call ourselves the four churches 
 [Congregational], but now we call ourselves the eight 
 churches" — including in fellowship the other Protestant 
 denominations. An extract from the diary of an Ise 
 trip shows the same attitude that he had taken in 
 Tottori towards the Greek Church, taken this time 
 towards another branch of the Christian Church : " Ito 
 came and spent three hours with me yesterday. Is 
 getting thick with Catholic priests too. So I took the 
 bull by the horns, and as he asked me to a foreign din- 
 ner next Friday eve, I suggested he ask the priests too, 
 which he agreed to do ; and when he asked me the dif- 
 ference betw r een Protestant and Catholic, I told him 
 there were differences in Christian nations, but Japan 
 ought not to inherit them, rather should be one from 
 
114 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 the start, as Christ urged. So I would strive to fulfill 
 the law, and would be glad to have priests preach with 
 us at the theatre next Saturday and Sunday evenings. 
 He agreed to give the invitation, which I wish might 
 be accepted in good faith. I told Ito to join either 
 branch, but to do it from faith in Christ as Saviour 
 from sin, and ever to believe that all Christians should 
 be one." 
 
 A very practical instance of interdenominational 
 cooperation was the building of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association Hall in Osaka, the first Young 
 Men's Christian Association building in Japan. Mr. 
 DeForest's emphasis on the need of a large central hall 
 for Christian meetings resulted in the formation of an 
 interdenominational committee to raise the necessary 
 building fund. " Such a hall," wrote Mr. DeForest in 
 promoting the cause, " would now be to Christian pub- 
 lic opinion in Central Japan what Faneuil Hall was to 
 the cause of liberty." At first the mission boards rep- 
 resented in Osaka were asked to contribute ; but this 
 method of securing the money was later given up in 
 favour of applying for it to the International Com- 
 mittee of the Young Men's Christian Association in 
 New York and in London. In connection with this 
 change of plan, Mr. DeForest wrote to the American 
 Board : " If the Associations of London and New York 
 don't take up this matter, rather than let it fail I should 
 let the honour of the movement fall to the American 
 Board [which had already raised some money for the 
 purpose]. My great ambition is to have all the Chris- 
 tians in Osaka united in heart and works, — though the 
 membership of the churches in connection with us is 
 double that of all the other churches combined, and 
 
FUKLOUGH AKD KEADJUSTMENT 115 
 
 were we simply desirous of ' grabbing ' all we can, we 
 should build a hall for Congregationalists. But since 
 the Young Men's Christian Association is the only in- 
 stitution that unites all the denominations, we long to 
 pour strength into that." 
 
 As hoped, the money came from the Young Men's 
 Christian Associations addressed ; the Australian Young 
 Men's Christian Association also sent a contribution. 
 When he wrote in 1886, " The corner-stone of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association building is being 
 laid to-day ' To the Glory of God,' " he added enthu- 
 siastically, " This splendid gift from three con- 
 tinents, Europe, America, and Australia, will give an 
 added impulse to every form of Christian activity." 
 It was the non-sectarian character of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association that made him its lifelong friend. 
 He himself worked as far as possible on non-denomina- 
 tional lines. Of a conversation with a fellow-mission- 
 ary of another board when the occupation of a given 
 field was under discussion, the following record re- 
 mains : " Saw G. and told him that, much as we owed 
 our boards, we owed Christ and Japan more, and our 
 great business should be to make Christians and not 
 sectarians." When the question of union between the 
 Presbyterian and the Congregational churches in Japan 
 was under discussion from 1886 to 1889, he was en- 
 thusiastic for the plan. " Personally I am committed 
 to this grand movement with all my heart. I have 
 worked for it in public and in private for years." 
 
 His enthusiasm for the independence of the native 
 church, so marked in his early years, did not diminish ; 
 rather, it increased with experience. To a questioning 
 American Board secretary he wrote : " You speak in 
 
116 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 your late letter to us, discouraging the union movement 
 here in process. The fact is, we foreigners are only the 
 tail of the comet and are whisked around whithersoever 
 the nucleus leads. Moreover, we have for years de- 
 liberately chosen the tail position, giving all the rights 
 of independence to our native brethren. They have 
 taken the initiative in this as in other movements. 
 . . . They are going into it cautiously. . . . 
 There will be nothing done in a hurry. The whole 
 movement — so far as I have observed it — is marked 
 with a spirit of deep, earnest prayer for a mighty out- 
 pouring of God's Spirit upon the churches and upon 
 Japan." 
 
 When there arose a question of church polity in 
 Niigata, he expressed himself thus : " To attempt to 
 keep our Christians in Congregational methods only 
 excites their suspicion that there's a screw loose. So I 
 suggested the following : Not to oppose the tendency 
 to Presbyterianism, but to give the group of Christians 
 full liberty ; tell them that our methods are Congre- 
 gational and we work on those lines till churches get 
 established in self-support and self-propagation, and 
 then if they wish to change, no foreigner has the right 
 to say, ' You shan't.' " 
 
 Of this " self-support and self -propagation " an inter- 
 esting illustration comes from this period. " The other 
 day Kev. Mr. Koki came to invite me to go with him 
 on another trip to idolatrous Ise. Let me emphasize 
 the fact that / was the invited party. Not many years 
 ago, we missionaries had to plan the tours and do the 
 inviting and pay the bills. But now it is the other 
 way : the Christians come to us with well-planned 
 work, and ask us kindly to go along and witness with 
 
FUELOUGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 117 
 
 them for the Master. This gives us an immense ad- 
 vantage wherever we go. In a sermon at Tsu, the 
 capital of Ise, before a crowded house I said : ' Your 
 talented Fukuzawa of Tokyo has recently published in 
 his widely read newspaper that Christianity is bound to 
 win here in Japan for five reasons, the first of which he 
 strangely says is money. He has been abroad and, im- 
 pressed with the immense wealth of Christian countries, 
 has hastily concluded that money will win in religion 
 as it too often does in other matters. But the fact is, 
 true Christianity has never spread in any nation under 
 heaven by the power of money. On the contrary, 
 many of its most conspicuous victories have been won 
 amidst deep poverty. You people of Ise doubtless 
 think I am leading about this gentleman, Kev. Mr. 
 Koki, and footing the bills while he does the preach- 
 ing. If so, you are very much mistaken. The few 
 Christians of his church in Osaka, not one of whom is 
 a man of wealth, while gladly paying him a little 
 salary, have also from their poverty gathered a little 
 money — just about a dollar — and in order to show their 
 love of you whom they have never seen, and to hasten 
 the day when you with them will love the one God 
 and Father of us all, they have sent their pastor to tell 
 you the way of life — this Jesus Way. The few Chris- 
 tians of Hisai added one more dollar, and the yet fewer 
 brethren of Matsuzaka raised three more, and with this 
 little sum this gentleman invited me to come with him 
 these hundred miles and help tell you of the only Name 
 under heaven whereby we can be saved.' I don't 
 know whether it was this or not, but on leaving Tsu 
 we were told that we could pay no hotel bills there." 
 Another happy piece of expansion took place at 
 
118 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 Annaka, the old home of Dr. Neesiraa, where on his 
 return to Japan he had founded one of the first inde- 
 pendent churches in the empire. In 1879 Mr. DeForest 
 had assisted at the ordination of Mr. Danjo Ebina 
 and his installation as pastor there. Now after four 
 years, Mr. DeForest goes as mission representative to 
 the council dismissing Mr. Ebina, "their influential 
 and beloved pastor," after a spreading and fruitful 
 work, and ordaining his successor. "Four hundred 
 can gather in the audience room, and it was about full 
 at three o'clock to witness a ceremony that filled me 
 with amazement and also delight. Mr. Ebina read his 
 letter of resignation, recounting God's mercies in his 
 relation with them, and giving a few words only of 
 tender farewell to his people. Then the moderator 
 called on the representative of the church to answer 
 this question : ' Is your church willing to dismiss Mr. 
 Ebina ? ' and the unhesitating reply was, ' We are.' 
 ' What reason have you for this action ? ' ' None other 
 than that he may do for Maebashi what he has done 
 for Annaka,' was the quiet reply. This was just grand ! 
 — worth going twice four hundred and fifty miles to 
 see a prosperous church give up her noble pastor in 
 order that they might send him forth as their mission- 
 ary ! A little of that kind of work was done some 
 eighteen hundred years ago in Antioch when the church 
 there sent Paul off, but I supposed that no church 
 would be simple enough to furnish another specimen 
 of like sacrifice. Ah, I forgot that the same Holy 
 Spirit can produce the same precious fruits now as 
 then. And indeed, this Annaka story rather throws 
 in the shade that Antioch church in one respect at 
 least: for here they not only send their pastor, but 
 
FUELOUGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 119 
 
 they send also his regular salary after him, besides 
 providing generously for his successor." ' 
 
 If the independent activities of the native churches 
 thus elicited commendation, so also did the continued 
 progressiveness of the government. The disestablish- 
 ment of the state priesthood, and the influence of this 
 step on religious liberty, were noted, chronologically out 
 of place, in the last chapter. Mr. DeForest did not fail 
 to deplore in public the postponement of new legisla- 
 tion regarding marriage— a postponement (in 1885) 
 attributed to the concubinage existing in many upper- 
 class families whom the legislation might have seriously 
 affected. But the efficiency of the local government 
 in dealing with emergency conditions again commanded 
 his admiration. In July, 1885, occurred one of the 
 gravest calamities that had befallen the empire for a 
 century — a great flood in which, according to one 
 estimate, fifteen thousand lives and ten million dollars' 
 worth of property were lost. Lake Biwa rose ten feet 
 above its usual level, causing wide-spread desolation. 
 As for Osaka, approximately one-half of the city was 
 flooded, while dozens of villages in the low-lying 
 country around were inundated or even obliterated. 
 In this calamity, the authorities had prompt relief meas- 
 
 1 This quotation is from a " familiar letter " printed anonymously 
 by the American Board. In sending to the Board a long account of 
 one of his evangelistic tours, Mr. DeForest had written : "Sickness, 
 absence from Japan, regular school or other fixed duties have tied all 
 my brothers down so that all outside work has fallen to me alone. 
 They ought to appear as prominent as another whose lot it is to do 
 the joyous and exciting work. So should you care to print, how 
 would it do to leave out my name ? ' ' Thus it happens that many 
 leaflets issued by the Board on the touring work in Japan in thosa 
 days are unsigned. 
 
120 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 ures for the thousands of hungry, homeless people that 
 flocked to the high ground around the castle, or, less 
 fortunate, were imprisoned for days in cramped second 
 stories or on roofs amid surging waters. In the midst 
 of the universal distress, Governor Tateno and General 
 Takashima took especial care to provide for the foreign 
 residents on the Concession, and invited them all to re- 
 move to the new and commodious military hospital 
 near the castle. 
 
 " I'll just make a long story short," wrote Mr. 
 DeForest to his mother. " We live between two wide 
 rivers and on low ground. The water generally is six 
 or eight feet lower than the bank on which is our 
 house, while in heavy rains the waters rise five or six 
 feet ; but last week the rivers, having an immense 
 body of water from the great lake above running into 
 them, broke banks and became wild in their reckless- 
 ness. So much water coming up and up till our front 
 yard and all the streets around us were like rivers, 
 made me feel shaky, and I insisted on Lizzie and the 
 children going up into the city on higher ground. I 
 stayed two nights longer, but at last the house was 
 surrounded by a violent current that I was afraid would 
 undermine it and let it over, and so I, with nearly all 
 others, left the Concession just as the last bridge broke. 
 I had rowed around a large part of the night in my 
 canoe, warning the people and getting them off, so I 
 was very tired ; and all of us — some thirty or forty 
 people — were very much used up with anxiety. But it 
 is all over, and we are safe and well, and very thankful. 
 It was curious to turn out as it did : — On Wednesday, 
 July first, Allchin and I were out helping rescue the 
 people that were being driven before the flood. We 
 
FUKLOUGH AM) KEADJUSTMENT 121 
 
 succeeded in getting some forty women, children, and 
 aged ones in a safe place, and at a suggestion of mine 
 to one of the rich Christians to do something, he went 
 to work and had five boats carted over a long hill, and 
 launched into the flood, by means of which hundreds 
 were rescued. On Thursday, July second, we were 
 rescued ourselves. The storm fortunately began to go 
 down from the time we left our homes. . . . The 
 American consul at Kobe, twenty miles distant, sent a 
 relief boat to us with provisions ; but when it reached 
 us, we were safely housed on high ground in a govern- 
 ment hospital where we were receiving every attention 
 from the government, as though we were distinguished 
 guests. . . . Thirty years ago they would have 
 shouted with delight to see us all swept away, but now 
 they vie w T ith the best nations of the earth in benevo- 
 lence and generosity towards all." This time the help 
 offered from foreign sources was accepted by the govern- 
 ment, and wisely used for clothing and industrial im- 
 plements to enable the sufferers to start at earning a 
 livelihood once more. 
 
 A furlough, or even a six-months absence from Japan, 
 always made a temporary difference in the ease with 
 which Mr. DeForest used the language. One of his 
 first speeches after his return from America was on the 
 occasion of presenting his miyage, or gifts given after 
 an absence — the " Pastors' Library " for Osaka and its 
 out-stations, for which he had raised a considerable sum 
 in America, and a hanging lamp (in those days before 
 electricity) to each of the four churches and the Baikwa 
 Girls' School. For this address, in spite of his previous 
 experience in Japanese public speaking, he so felt his 
 lack of recent practice in the language that he used an 
 
122 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 interpreter — to insure, he said, its intelligibility and the 
 comfort of the listeners. 
 
 " Do you remember," he once wrote his mother, 
 " when I came home from the war, how I stopped at 
 Mary's because I could go no farther, and you came to 
 see me ? I often tell that story when I preach, to show 
 the power of love in the hearts of true parents towards 
 their children, and then speak of the far deeper love of 
 the Father in heaven for each one of His children. 
 People always prick up on this story, and once a man 
 afterwards said to me, 'If you could only use our 
 language as we do, you would have made us all cry 
 over that story.' I'll fetch 'em yet if I live." He kept 
 persistently at his study, finding in his work perpetual 
 stimuli to progress. When he delivered the address at 
 the laying of the corner-stones of the chapel and the 
 library of the Doshisha School — now University — at 
 Kyoto in 1885, it was the result of no accident that he 
 should have been complimented by a worthy critic on 
 its being the best speech he had ever heard a foreigner 
 make in Japanese. "I learned later," runs a home 
 letter, "that the students speculated much about it, 
 some saying DeForest must have spent two or three 
 days on it, others saying five or six days. The[fact is, 
 it took my best strength for nearly three weeks, and I 
 committed it entire." 
 
 He had soon after his furlough begun the serious 
 study of the Chinese characters used in the written lan- 
 guage of Japan, giving time to this especially in the sum- 
 mers ; he hoped to become able to read the language 
 as well as speak it — an ambition that comparatively 
 few missionaries in those days felt it worth the neces- 
 sary sacrifice of time and effort to attain. He soon 
 
FUKLOtJGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 123 
 
 found, however, that a knowledge of the character not 
 only promoted his intelligent use of the language, but 
 also furnished new and effective illustrations for his 
 public addresses ; as when, in telling of the influence of 
 Christianity in the elevation of woman, he made his 
 most pointed contrast by showing how many of the 
 Chinese ideographs of every-day use in Japan depict 
 her degradation. Developing a suggestion found in a 
 quotation from the Chinese scholar Remusat, Mr. 
 DeForest used impressively in his preaching a line 
 of thought that, common nowadays, was then novel. 
 An extract from a published article shows the thought 
 in clearer detail : " The men who invented the ideo- 
 graphs of China saw fit to represent many of the worst 
 passions of the human heart by the free use of the 
 onna-hen [the character for woman used as a component 
 part of another character], to the exclusion of anything 
 that would indicate that a man could originate an evil 
 act or thought. . . . Why should the character for 
 slave be compounded with a woman rather than a 
 man ? Why should anger and jealousy and unmannerly 
 and covetous and loose character and opposition and 
 crafty and envious be likewise compounded ? Did it 
 never occur to the originators of these ideographs that 
 an otoko-hen [component for man] might have justly 
 done one-half of this filthy business? I know that 
 many words expressing beauty, elegance, refinement, 
 etc., are compounded by means of the onna-hen, but 
 that is no reason why her character should be black- 
 ened by exclusively using her when portraying many 
 of the hateful depths of an evil heart. We would not 
 say that these characters are a shame to the people who 
 in the remote past agreed upon their use. But since 
 
124 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 they represent a state of society which the civilized 
 world has disowned, it may well be claimed that to 
 persist in their use is a blot upon the character of the 
 nation. Hence it seems proper to suggest that some of 
 the leading newspapers of Tokyo should discard those 
 characters that totally misrepresent the position Japan 
 is rapidly taking concerning women." 
 
 These remarks on the position of woman were, how- 
 ever, merely an interesting addendum to deeper thought 
 by which he had already traced one reason for her rel- 
 atively low position in the Orient. He ascribed the dif- 
 ference in her position under different ethical systems to 
 the relative emphasis laid upon one or another of the 
 five relationships pointed out by Confucius. China, 
 he said, took as the fundamental relationship that of 
 parent and child, and shaped its life upon this as its 
 greatest social and moral force. Japan took the re- 
 lationship of lord and retainer, or prince and subject, 
 and exalted this to prime importance as the basis of 
 society. " [In these two nations] it seems to me," he 
 wrote, 1 " that the persistent attempt through long ages 
 to make these two doctrines the foundation of society 
 and of morals accounts better than any other one fact 
 for their national character and their social condition." 
 But Christianity, taking the third relation pointed out 
 by Confucius, that of husband and wife, declares this 
 to be the real foundation of society, and thus comes 
 " into antagonism with the social science of both Con- 
 fucianism and Buddhism." The pointing out of this 
 
 1 " The Basis of Society," in the Missionary Herald, December, 1889 ; 
 written in substance six years earlier. For a general discussion of 
 Confucianism, see "The Ethics of Confucius as Seen in Japan," by 
 J. H. DeForest in the Andover Review, Vol. XIX, p. 309 sqq. 
 
FUBLOUGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 125 
 
 fundamental difference as one of the most striking 
 claims of Christian ethics to superiority over other 
 ethical systems met the thoughtful attention and fre- 
 quently the assent of his hearers. 
 
 He was drawing his contrasts now, however, in a 
 different spirit from before. He was learning in these 
 post-furlough days a lesson fraught with the most vital 
 consequences to his future work. He had come to 
 realize that the critical attitude of his early years in 
 Japan was not that by which he could win the people 
 for a Master who came, not to judge the world, but to 
 save it. It must be through love that they were to be 
 won ; and this love, a human as well as a divine thing, 
 was to be attained through sympathy. Sympathy 
 could be cultivated — a point of view could be attained. 
 Evil was evil, but it need not be dwelt on to the ex- 
 clusion from sight and thought of those good qualities 
 that must be discoverable still in man once made in the 
 image of God. He would seek for the good in the 
 Japanese character, find it, dwell on it in his own 
 thought and in conversation with others, use it as a 
 seed from which to develop greater good. Whatsoever 
 things were honourable, just, lovely, and of good report, 
 on these things he would think. Thus sympathy would 
 spring up between him and those he sought to lead, 
 and love would conquer uncongenialities, misunder- 
 standings, exasperations. Not that he had not already 
 loved them — but it had not been with the love of in- 
 sight and understanding. This he would henceforth 
 put himself in the way of acquiring, — by entering upon 
 a course of self-education in the Japanese point of 
 view. 
 
 Many years later he related the story of this decision 
 
126 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 to his son-in-law just entering on missionary work, who 
 gives the following account of the conversation: " He 
 told me that during the first ten years of his life [in 
 Japan] he was very critical of the Japanese and could 
 see very little good in them. At that time he resolved 
 to search for the better things in the life of Japan, and 
 he soon found sufficient to occupy his attention ; and 
 in order to fasten the good things in his own mind, as 
 well as to help other people to the better point of view, 
 he definitely refrained from speaking about the irritat- 
 ing and unfavourable things and told the better things. 
 He soon found, so he said, that this new attitude and 
 new practice gave him an insight into Japanese life 
 and character that he had never had before, and he 
 recommended it to me for my intercourse with the 
 Chinese. I raised the question as to whether it was 
 not really a case of self-deception, and he said most 
 strongly that it was not, — that the irritating things are 
 ever the most apparent to a foreigner, and that since 
 one's mind can grasp only a limited amount at one 
 time, one should choose the best. He placed great 
 stress upon the importance of choosing carefully the 
 things that one will tell. I have tried to follow 
 the advice in China, and have found it good. . . . 
 I know of no one conversation I have ever had that has 
 affected my attitude towards other men as much as 
 that one." 
 
 Late in life, Mr. DeForest on a tour wrote home to 
 his wife of a conversation with some of his audience 
 after a public address : " The question and answer that 
 excited the most interest were, ' What do you think 
 are our worst defects ? ' asked by a sincere elderly man ; 
 and my reply, * Had you asked me that twenty years 
 
FURLOUGH AND READJUSTMENT 127 
 
 ago, I could have told you lots of defects, for I searched 
 for defects during my early years here ; but when I 
 began to know the real Japanese heart, I began to 
 search for the best traits of Japanese character, and 
 have become so much interested in these that I don't 
 care to talk about defects.' " 
 
 There were other changes, besides that of his own at- 
 titude, going on in him and around him. Prior to his 
 furlough he had, as we have seen, given a good deal of 
 time to overseeing publication and translation work ; 
 but he was asked by the Board on his return to devote 
 himself to direct evangelistic activities. This he gladly 
 undertook. The times were showing on the one hand 
 the shallowness of some of the popularity of Christian- 
 ity a few years before ; its rapid spread then had 
 blinded many of the missionaries to the real strength 
 of the enemy. In those days Mr. DeForest had spoken 
 of "the already startled systems of Shaka and Con- 
 fucius," and had considered it a waste of time to study 
 a " dying Buddhism." He now began to see that the 
 hold of Buddhism upon the people was more than that 
 of mere superstition. He began to have a new type 
 of interview with Buddhist priests, such as the diary 
 records as having taken place on a tour, at Otsumura. 
 After a preaching service in the hotel, " a large number 
 remained to question me, or, rather, to hear four priests 
 who had a knowing leader question me. I felt unable, 
 as it evidently was a match for conquest, but couldn't 
 retreat well. He asked me what sin is ; to which I re- 
 plied it was sin to harm one's own nature, to harm 
 others, and to violate God's laws. So he took my first 
 and asked if the one who violated his own nature was 
 different from that nature. But that was too meta- 
 
128 JOHN HYDE DeFOBEST 
 
 physical for me, and I failed on it. Then followed 
 salvation by good works and salvation by faith. Here 
 we got along better, but he declared he could see no 
 reason in believing what he couldn't understand. Our 
 talk lasted till eleven o'clock, and then I invited them 
 to come to Kishiwada next day and talk leisurely about 
 things. They said they would, and kept their promise. 
 This time I excluded all hearers, and took the three 
 alone in rear room of chapel where we got better ac- 
 quainted. Our talk was mainly on strength of knowl- 
 edge and of faith, in which I claimed that faith was 
 the stronger and that it led knowledge and increased 
 it. We also talked long about the origin of evil. His 
 thought that, as a potter would make out of one hun- 
 dred vessels ninety or ninety-eight or nine good, as a 
 carpenter would make most of his houses so as to stand 
 well, why didn't God make men and women so that at 
 least they would stand as well as man's work ? — was 
 somewhat new to me. We parted after a pleasant talk, 
 though they frankly declared themselves not con- 
 vinced." Not only did he come to have more respect 
 for the intellectual ability of some members of the 
 Buddhist priesthood : he even drew a lesson for himself 
 in fair play and open-mindedness from an incident that 
 he thus recorded : " Matsumoto told me a story — that 
 when Utsumi was henrei [prefect] some young fellows 
 got up an enzetsukai [lecture meeting], advertising it 
 with posters, ' Demolish the Jesus priests ! ' The police 
 were told to tear down the objectionable posters, and 
 in the course of the lecture the young men were 
 stopped and the audience dismissed by the police. The 
 young men were afterwards called to the police station 
 and cautioned not to repeat the offense ! Surely we 
 
FUKLOUGH AND READJUSTMENT 129 
 
 all should be more careful then not to recklessly attack 
 Buddhism." 
 
 If, on the one hand, Christianity had lost its former 
 popularity, it was, on the other hand, being refreshed 
 and built up from within. The period was one of re- 
 vivals, breaking out in many places throughout Japan, 
 cleansing and strengthening the young churches, and 
 arousing hopes of a great ingathering from among 
 those who had long been unresponsive hearers of the 
 Word. Mr. DeForest was in sympathy with these re- 
 vivals, believing with Mr. Mozoomdar in the necessity 
 of " the increase of the Spirit " in a growing religious 
 life. He joyfully resumed his touring activities as well 
 as his local work, with earnest definiteness of purpose 
 coupled with a sense of his own weakness ; " Churches 
 are springing up all around, — in and out of our mis- 
 sion, — and I thought if God would only use me as He 
 is using others to bring people directly into the Chris- 
 tian life, I'd rather do that than all things else. It is a 
 branch of work that I have never been successful in, 
 that I attempt with many fears and asking your prayers 
 for a divine blessing." " I begin to feel, as father 
 used to tell me, that we can do just nothing unless we 
 have the Holy Spirit. And I have been reading 
 Moody's sermons, and they are as water to a thirsty 
 throat. I can interest my audiences, either in English 
 or Japanese. But to preach so that people will be con- 
 victed of sin and repent right there and then, this is 
 something I now pray for more than ever before, and 
 you must remember this in your prayers for me." 
 
 Now upon the basis of the apologetic sermons in his 
 earlier tours, he was able to build more definite pres- 
 entations of Christian truth, and such topics as, " Jesus 
 
130 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 More Than Man," " Jesus as God," " The Morals of 
 Jesus," " The Name of God "—that name of " Father " 
 by virtue of which he declared the religion of Christ 
 to be universal as no other religious system can be, — 
 such subjects of his sermons and addresses show how 
 he felt his hearers to be progressing and himself to be 
 able to make an appeal along lines somewhat different 
 from those he had previously followed. The call to 
 repentance still sounded, but it was with the emphasis 
 on the joyful motive — " The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand " ; and the fruits of love, joy, peace and eternal 
 life were the features dwelt upon, with stress on " Now 
 is the accepted time." His note-book gives one illus- 
 tration of " how Western nations were now at hand — 
 near, in contrast to past ages. Then Japan didn't know 
 anything of the West ; now daily news, communication 
 and intercourse free. So heaven, formerly unknown, 
 now becoming well known — God near, blessedness 
 near." 
 
 A few diary extracts show the spirit of his work : 
 
 Koriyama. — " I preached on ' Witnessing for Christ,' 
 its importance, what it is, its results ; the milkman [a 
 backslider] bowed his head, and after the preaching 
 burst into tears and confessed his sins." 
 
 " Preached on the ' Three All's ' in Matthew xxviii. 
 Was not at all gifted in the presentation of it, but am 
 content to leave it with Christ to bless, and will try to 
 do better next time." 
 
 Matsuzaha. — " Hard trip and much headache. 
 Preached in evening to a few people. Not the joy I 
 need for work. Heavy. I am impatient to see re- 
 sults ; envious, I fear, of others' successes." 
 
 Koriyama. — " Preached in evening on * Fight the 
 
FUELOUGH AND KEADJUSTMENT 131 
 
 Good Fight,' and had excellent attention ; about twenty- 
 five adults present. Have enjoyed these two evenings 
 very much, and see reason to thank God for a growing 
 interest here. If I might only have faith ! " 
 
 Tondabayashi. — "The principal of the school is a 
 Christian. He heard eight years ago at Kobe from 
 Atkinson, and five years ago at Kishiwada from Nee- 
 sima. Was very profligate and so wretched that he 
 contemplated suicide, when he read my tract on suicide 
 and felt the need of a new, reformed life, and not of 
 death. So God is leading out His own from among 
 this people, planting a Christian here and another 
 there, to be His witness-bearers. Thine is the power 
 — may it be on us to-night as we speak ! " 
 
 Sakai. — " After long absence, once more preached 
 here. ... I met several bright, able young men ; 
 but they are shy of Christianity. So I preached on 
 reasons why people don't accept Christianity ; had ex- 
 cellent attention. As God blessed this same sermon 
 just a year ago in bringing O. and Y. into Temma 
 Church, so may He bless it here." 
 
 Tottori. — " Kajiro has been out this morning, and re- 
 turns saying that my speeches have produced great dis- 
 appointment. Many feel that the foreigner looks with 
 contempt upon everything Eastern ; but they also feel 
 that what I said is true, and hence not anger, but dis- 
 appointment. I was aware that speaking in my tired 
 state made me liable to incline towards a fault-finding 
 tone. I must be doubly on guard under such circum- 
 stances again." 
 
 Tsu. — " Saw S. in the evening ; had long talk. He 
 was very cordial, but frankly said he couldn't believe 
 Christianity yet, as he hadn't time to examine facts. 
 
132 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 I told him he knew enough of facts already to have 
 a reasonable belief of God's love in Jesus Christ. 
 He, however, still wanted more time to examine, but 
 was too busy now to do it. I asked him how long it 
 would take to decide whether he would love and 
 honour his parents. But he is to be led not all at 
 once." 
 
 Koriyama. — "Came for a month's stay to help, if 
 possible, and to cheer, this little afflicted church. 
 Spoke on the ' Future World,' John v. 28, 29. Had 
 excellent attention. Power was given me for unu- 
 sual directness of appeal. May it be that our prayers 
 will be answered and to-night some souls repent ! 
 K. remarked afterwards that surrender to Christ was 
 the only course left open." (Ten days later.) " Called 
 to-day on K., and after salutations his first words were, 
 i I am repentant.' " . . . " Sunday evening spoke 
 on ' True and False Philosophy,' Col. ii. 3, 8. Had 
 house full and spoke an hour, contrasting lives of phi- 
 losophers, and affirming that we can judge the worth of 
 systems by their fruits. Was thoroughly waked up by 
 this. Many teachers and scholars present. Such 
 meetings must tell. The Holy Spirit seems to be work- 
 ing here, but the hearers are resisting." . . . 
 " The month ended. Fruit is apparent, but only in the 
 shape of interest. No deep decision. Preached on 
 ' We will not have this man to rule over us,' or, ' The 
 power of the soul to decide.' Spoke without much 
 feeling. A large number of people in this city have 
 known Christianity for a long time, and if they would 
 only repent, this whole province would feel the power 
 of the change. Oh, that my poor words may have an 
 abiding effect ! " 
 
FUKLOUGH AND EEADJUSTMENT 133 
 
 " [When asked by some Christians] how to answer 
 such questions as, ' Why does God permit sin ? ' and 
 how to meet Buddhists, I gave with some hesitation 
 two ways: 1. If you meet arguers with arguments, 
 both sides will be likely to desire nothing so much as 
 victory, and the struggle will be for that. The winner 
 will feel exultant, and the defeated will be bitter. A 
 few can use this successfully, but seldom indeed are be- 
 lievers made so. So generally argument should be re- 
 fused for a better weapon, which is : 2. Pray on the 
 spot for the aid of the Holy Spirit, and let Him speak 
 through you, remembering that your experiences of 
 God's forgiving love will enable you to speak with 
 power of your faith. Exalt your faith, show how if 
 you could understand all God's ways you would be as 
 great as God ; but because He has revealed so much of 
 Himself, you will trust Him for the hard spots. Any- 
 way, love must control our replies to all inquirers. 
 Then speak of Christ, and leave it with God to use. 
 You can't convince nor convert anybody. Tell the 
 story ; tell your faith ; and leave it with God." 
 
 This was his own best answer to himself, in the midst 
 of longings for great visible results of his work in the con- 
 version of many. His yearning prayer for such results, 
 however, was not granted. It was only little by little, 
 one gained here and two won there and others coming to 
 listen, that he could see his efforts blessed. He would 
 have asked for some striking manifestation of the Holy 
 Spirit's power through him ; but instead he was learn- 
 ing the lesson that it was God who should give the in- 
 crease, — his was only the faithful planting and water- 
 ing. To this ministry he gave himself with earnest 
 love ; and in it he found the answer to his prayers. As 
 
13± JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 when a boy at Phillips Academy he had longed in vain 
 for some special experience of conviction of sin, and had 
 been led to see that the work of the Spirit was none 
 the less genuine because of slow and unostentatious 
 growth, so here his answer came in the quiet, steady 
 progress of line upon line and precept upon precept, a 
 message lovingly imparted to others as it was imparted 
 to him, deepening his own spiritual life. " December 31, 
 1885. My old year has brought me a new love in my 
 work. I know myself better than ever before, and I 
 know that in myself I can do nothing. I am quite 
 well convinced, too, that it is mine to do ordinary, not 
 extraordinary, things, and I am grateful to be per- 
 mitted to do anything for Him whom I believe more 
 and more to be the great Teacher and Saviour of all 
 men. In trying to teach the Japanese about Jesus, I 
 have found out many new things about Him." 
 
 His missionary motive was practical, not theological 
 — love, not theory. When the question of future pro- 
 bation was arousing argument in America, he regretted 
 that some earnest missionary candidates might be 
 prevented from joining the field forces, " owing to the 
 unfounded assertions of certain prominent men, that it 
 is necessary to a true missionary spirit that missionaries 
 should have positive views as to the condition of dead 
 men. If any one finds a powerful motive to missionary 
 work in the condition of living men, he ought not to 
 be pushed too hard on the state of the dead." 
 
 The answer to his prayers came not only in the 
 deepening of his spiritual experience and the growth of 
 sympathy, but in an intellectual quickening that marked 
 an epoch in his life. That this was a definite leading 
 of the Holy Spirit he had no doubt, and he followed 
 
FUELOUGH AND KEADJTJSTMENT 135 
 
 this kindly light, beckoning him to study more of God's 
 methods of work in human minds. The diary tells us 
 something of this in extracts from the early part of 
 1886, while in the interior on evangelistic work : 
 
 " Have spent three mornings writing a letter to Yale 
 Seminary, and have enjoyed it. — Have learned a new 
 trick — to write down in a note-book all matters that I 
 don't understand, to be looked up on my return home. 
 I have been slovenly in my reading and studying, slid- 
 ing over things that I didn't understand. Now on this 
 new year, I mean to turn over a new leaf and study 
 hard things. It's a shame to rest content in the belief 
 that we have the truth and so needn't trouble our 
 brains about philosophies. I must know more of the 
 science of man and of mind, and the laws of true 
 reasoning, and not content myself with a quibble." 
 " This year begins with a new intellectual life for me. 
 Being led by the pamphlet size of McCosh's ' Philo- 
 sophical Series ' to carry one or two on my trips, for the 
 first time in my life I have become interested in 
 metaphysics. Now I eagerly read Porter's ' Human 
 Intellect,' which has always seemed an elephant to me ; 
 I delight in Hopkins' ' Outline Stud}^ of Man,' and 
 have planned to spend now as many years as are neces- 
 sary to learn the science of man — though Froude says 
 there can't be any. I plan hereafter to task my mind 
 in some definite study or studies, and to progress, 
 instead of resting under the fatal idea that I am getting 
 old and past my prime. With God's help, I am no- 
 where near my prime. The laws of logic must be 
 mastered, the great idea of evolution and the statements 
 of materialistic scientists mnst be learned at first hand. 
 It is a shame to have drifted forty-two years. The 
 
136 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 next thirty shall be progress. I will know the best 
 thoughts of the best minds. Kant, Locke, and other 
 great dead shall be my teachers, as well as the great 
 living. The growth of political economy, the great 
 socialistic problems, the history of my own language, 
 etc., etc., shall be inquired into." " Feeling the im- 
 portance of Christians becoming lights in every good 
 direction, I have encouraged them here to tackle A-B-C 
 and join Romaji-Tcwai [society for encouraging the use 
 of the Eoman alphabet in writing Japanese]. . . . 
 I have also been taking titles of prominent books that 
 have been translated for all our evangelists to read and 
 study. Our men must be leaders of thought in political 
 economy, in philosophy, and other branches of thought 
 that have their centre in man rather than in matter. 
 Ethics, law, religion, and all sciences that pertain to 
 man must flourish in connection with Christianity." 
 
 In the letter to Yale referred to above, he gives some 
 of the features of the times that had been God's instru- 
 ments to lead him to the conclusions voiced in his diary. 
 This letter was the last of a series written to the sem- 
 inary during these first twelve years in Japan ; and 
 there is no more appropriate way of closing this chapter 
 of his life than by quoting it. 
 
 " Koriyama, Japan, Jan. 18, 1886. 
 " My dear Mr. Morse and other Friends 
 in Yale Seminary : 
 
 " Your pleasant letter asking me to write 
 you with reference to my every-day life here was duly 
 received, and I thank you for the invitation. Before 
 replying, however, let me frankly scold you for sending 
 me only an invitation to write you. Knowing that I 
 
FUELOUGH AND READJUSTMENT 137 
 
 am a Yale man, why didn't yon follow the Golden 
 Rule and fill up the rest of that small sheet of paper 
 with some of the gossip of the seminary ? . . . 
 
 " But, forgetting the things that are behind, let me 
 give you an idea of my life in connection with the pres- 
 ent condition of Young Japan. I am spending this 
 month twenty-five miles from my home in Osaka, in 
 the castle-city of Koriyama. The old castle lies just 
 west of the city. ... Its imposing walls are 
 tumbling down and its moats are filling up. . . . 
 In the centre [of the grounds], as if to mark conspicu- 
 ously the great reformation that is transforming Japan, 
 stands the academy of the province, with its faculty of 
 eleven teachers and its one hundred and fifty advanced 
 scholars ; while in the city of only ten thousand inhabit- 
 ants are four large common schools, with some eight 
 hundred scholars and with scores of teachers. . . . 
 
 " You cannot visit one of these schools without being 
 impressed with the fact that Japan is intensely earnest 
 in the study of modern sciences, and that through the 
 English language. You have doubtless heard that 
 after canvassing the merits of the various languages of 
 Western nations, Japan has at last formally adopted 
 English as the one to be taught in her schools and used 
 as widely as possible in her public offices. I regard 
 this as a most providential step in Christianizing this 
 empire. The English language is saturated with Chris- 
 tian thought. Peter Parley never could have had the 
 remotest idea that his simple ' Universal History ' would 
 be one of the means of spreading the Jesus Way in 
 this far-off nation with its ' eight hundred thousand 
 gods.' Yet a physician, recently baptized here, said to 
 me the other day, ' The reason my friend the lawyer 
 
138 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 doesn't become a Christian is because he doesn't know 
 history. If he could read Parley, he would have some- 
 thing to build on.' To be sure, this was his way of 
 modestly telling me that he himself had read Parley, 
 but yet it must be confessed that Parley is one of our 
 active missionaries. Some two months ago, while 
 spending a night a hundred miles from here in a hotel, 
 two or three of us were talking together about Chris- 
 tianity. Now a Japanese hotel is simply a great hall 
 divided into little rooms by paper slides, so that no 
 room can be fastened, and each one opens into every 
 adjoining room and privacy is utterly out of the ques- 
 tion. Conversation is heard as easily by the neighbours 
 as by the one to whom you are talking. So of course 
 our words were heard by the young fellow who had 
 the adjoining room, and wanting to see as well as to 
 hear, he pushed aside his paper door and, bowing clear 
 to the floor, politely begged the privilege of sitting on 
 the edge of our room and listening to the talk. We 
 invited him to come right into our circle where he 
 could warm his hands over our fire-bowl, and in the 
 course of the talk he asked me the difference between 
 Lord, and God. I found he had learned the words from 
 Parley's history. 
 
 " Do not think, however, that Young Japan is eager 
 to embrace Christianity. On the contrary, the young 
 men, seeing the inconsistencies that exist between the 
 old religions of Japan and modern science, have broken 
 so violently from former restraints that they go too far, 
 and it is very common to hear them say, ' I hate re- 
 ligion — all religion.' But they love English, and are 
 grateful for any help given in this line. Even men and 
 women in middle life are bending over their English 
 
FUKLOUGH Als T D KEADJUSTMENT 139 
 
 primers, longing for a tithe of the power and wisdom 
 that are hidden in our language. Eager policemen, 
 when off duty, study A-B-C. Judges who realize their 
 lack of knowledge come home from office and humbly 
 sit with some bright schoolboy and receive his instruc- 
 tion in the language into which is translated all the 
 accumulated best wisdom of the ages. We frequently 
 meet, among these lovers of English, persons well 
 acquainted with the sciences and having the Bible 
 among their books, but without any curiosity to know 
 the power of Christianity. It was my good fortune to 
 spend two hours in conversation with a gentleman 
 employed in one of the provincial academies. He is an 
 unusual man in the purity of his morality, and his love 
 of languages extends to German as well as to English. 
 He had settled quietly into the belief of one true God, 
 but felt no need of pushing religious inquiry any further. 
 I tried to convince him that ' if there be one God, He 
 must be your Maker and Benefactor, and therefore you 
 as an individual have an immediate and lifelong duty 
 with reference to this God.' On parting, I put in his 
 hand the first of Dr. McCosh's ' Philosophical Series ' on 
 i Criteria of Diverse Kinds of Truth.' A month later I 
 received a full letter in which the central sentence was, 
 4 1 am in a terrible dilemma. If I acknowledge there 
 is only one God, I must accept the religion of Jesus.' 
 
 " There are other teachers, thousands of them, who 
 are devouring English as a means of self-advancement, 
 many of whom are like the above gentleman in that 
 they have fairly correct habits of life ; but in far too 
 many cases the school-teachers of Japan are openly and 
 recklessly impure. They have no religion. . . . 
 Though many of them are fair scholars and capable in- 
 
140 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 structors in the class-room, they are awful examples for 
 the boys and girls who know their unblushing lives. Of 
 course there is no reason in their minds why they should 
 trouble themselves about religion. It isn't the style 
 here. They are ready enough to go to hear preaching, 
 provided the speaker will start with reason and stick to 
 reason. Any direct appeal to Jesus as an authority 
 over men in this age they will not endure. They demand 
 to know what has made Jesus an authority on proper 
 conduct. If the speaker can bring forward the central 
 teachings of the wisest men of ancient and modern 
 times, — men who spent scores of years in trying to find 
 truth, — and in the spirit of fairness contrast the mature 
 and unhesitating words of Jesus, who was unaided by 
 the wisdom of the schools and was brutally crucified 
 while yet a young man, they will listen with applause, 
 and marvel at the wonderful words that proceeded from 
 His mouth. Tell them that every claim of Jesus is so 
 reasonable that our great General Grant, to whom tens 
 of thousands surrendered and who was twice elected 
 president of fifty millions of people, in the fullness of 
 his mental vigour and while the recipient of the praises 
 of every civilized nation of the earth, felt his need of a 
 Saviour and in humility surrendered to this Jesus, rec- 
 ognizing Him as King of kings and Lord of lords ; or, 
 show them that the laws of nations are approaching 
 one standard of justice, and that the scholar who was 
 twenty-five years president of Yale and whose book on 
 international law has placed him among the foremost 
 thinkers of the age, has always been a devoted disciple 
 of Jesus ; or tell them that ' during a session of the 
 British Association at Southport, England, there was 
 an afternoon meeting for devotion and prayer, and that 
 
FUKLOUGH AND READJUSTMENT 141 
 
 four out of the six calling this meeting were Fellows of 
 the Royal Society ' : and these young men will listen 
 even with gratitude. 
 
 " They will endure no story of mere miracle, nor 
 listen to pious reflections on the judgment to come. I 
 know a talented young editor who began the Gospel 
 of Mark, but when he struck the twenty-sixth and 
 thirty-first verses, he flung the book from him in con- 
 tempt. A missionary once preached on invitation be- 
 fore an audience of thoughtful, but skeptical, Japanese, 
 taking as his subject one of the miracles of Christ. 
 They listened politely as they always do, and they 
 even respectfully escorted the preacher part way home ; 
 but ' Tell that stuff to old women,' they said to one 
 another, and that was the last invitation the missionary 
 had from that audience. Yet if a speaker will offer, 
 in company with them, to reject the vast majority of 
 reputed miracles in past ages, and then show that 
 nevertheless large numbers of thoughtful men — 
 presidents of colleges, professors of the sciences, and 
 statesmen who direct the intricate affairs of the most 
 progressive nations of the world — do most firmly be- 
 lieve in a few miracles, and that therefore it is neither 
 gentlemanly nor a sign of large brains to refer these 
 living intellectual leaders to i old women ' for sym- 
 pathy, these lovers of our Western science will meekly 
 accept the reproof and gladly listen to the end of the 
 argument. . . . 
 
 " You see by this the condition of multitudes of 
 young men here. I am purposely giving you but one 
 side of the picture, but it is the conspicuous one. 
 Knowledge is demanded, and there is naturally but 
 little power to discern the true value of what is 
 
142 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 offer . . . While I am writing this, a daily 
 paper (Japanese) announces a meeting to be held in 
 Kyoto in honour of Socrates and Kant. That much is 
 by no means bad, but another daily also announces 
 that in Osaka alone there are now under arrest one 
 hundred and thirty-three persons under suspicion of 
 high treason, and one of these, a leader among them, 
 is an educated lady on whose person were found ex- 
 tracts from Eousseau ! ' There are little Mills and 
 Spencers even in the country,' is a remark now and 
 then heard. To be sure, these two are giants in 
 thought ; but I submit that if Japan must have some- 
 thing more recent than John or Paul, the book called 
 'The Human Intellect,' by Porter, and the stirring 
 baccalaureates of your retiring president, would be a 
 far better foundation for this people just emerging into 
 the responsibilities of a treaty power. 
 
 " And now, in closing, let me ask you a question : 
 Why don't more of you Yale Seminary men come out 
 and help us strike heavy blows in the empires of the 
 East ? If a dozen of your graduating class should 
 come out here, the pressure on the churches at home to 
 fill your places would be an unqualified blessing, and 
 the United States would suffer no more loss than when 
 she gave those first men seventy-five years ago. Ten 
 or twelve of you now — a band of Yale men — could 
 leave a stream of blessings here that would swell to 
 mighty rivers of influence in generations to come. 
 Come, and you shall have all the trials and tribula- 
 tions you can stand, and all the joy and glory that 
 come through suffering for Him who loved us and 
 gave Himself for us. You each, if you want it, can 
 have exclusive right to a parish of half a million ; and 
 
FURLOUGH AND READJUSTMENT 143 
 
 you will have the supreme indifference of your entire 
 parish till you win by your politeness and love and 
 brain-power your right to have your say. Come, do 
 come, and it is by no means improbable that it will be 
 yours to witness a more powerful religious movement 
 than has yet been recorded among the victories of Him 
 to whom every knee shall bow. — But another thought 
 comes over me of late — a most gloomy one — that un- 
 less you or some others do come quickly and throw 
 your very lives into showing the blessings that Christ 
 only can give, this nation, after having advanced to 
 where the promised land of peace and joy and love is 
 in full sight, may drop back into a long night of athe- 
 istic philosophy. . . . 
 
 " Our Yale brothers, Professors Learned, Gaines, and 
 Cady of Kyoto and Dr. Scudder of Migata, if they 
 knew of my writing, would certainly send you Chris- 
 tian greetings, and would join with me in the above 
 question : Why don't you come ? 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "J. H. Deforest." 
 
V 
 
 The Missionary as Educator 
 
 " The soul quickens the mind to its most complete 
 fertility."-- Phillip Brooks. 
 
THE MISSIONABY AS EDUCATOE 
 
 IN 1884 Mr. Neesima, being in precarious health, 
 was sent to America to recuperate. He was for a 
 time at Clifton Springs ; and when too ill to be 
 allowed books, he had the solace of a map of his be- 
 loved Japan hanging by his bedside. As he gazed 
 upon it, the location of Sendai impressed him as strate- 
 gic for the northeastern part of the empire ; and he 
 whose heart was bound up in the future of his country 
 as a part of the Kingdom of God set his desire upon 
 the establishment of a Christian school for young men 
 in that centre. 
 
 The answer to his prayer was in preparation. Some 
 ten years before, a Japanese from Sendai, Mr. Tetsuno- 
 suke Tomita, had been consul in New York ; and the 
 strong moral influence he found exerted by the higher 
 institutions of learning in America made on him one of 
 the profoundest impressions received during his sojourn 
 there. The result of this impression was, — to quote 
 Mr. DeForest's account, — that later, " while serving his 
 country as vice-president of the National Bank in 
 Tokyo, he felt that the time had come to plan for a 
 school that should give as high a place to Christian 
 morality as do the colleges of New England. He con- 
 ceived the idea of organizing a company to erect 
 school buildings and equip the school with needed na- 
 
 147 
 
148 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 tive teachers, provided some missionary board would 
 furnish the foreign teachers. The tenth anniversary of 
 the Doshisha in Kyoto, with its marvellous conquest 
 over the prejudices of the old capital, brought the 
 names of Mr. Keesima and the America Board promi- 
 nently before those Japanese who are interested in edu- 
 cational problems. And though we were separated 
 five hundred miles from Sendai, other boards equally 
 able to do the work were passed over, and Mr. Neesima 
 was asked to give his name and to secure the coopera- 
 tion of the American Board in founding a Christian 
 boys' school. This unique call led the mission to send 
 Mr. Neesima and myself to Sendai in May [1886] to 
 meet the promoters of this movement, and to hear di- 
 rectly from them all their plans." 
 
 The envoys were cordially received, and were invited 
 by Governor Matsudaira to a feast with heads of the 
 governmental departments and other leading citizens. 
 The diary account of this congenial occasion gives a 
 vivid picture that may be considered typical of many 
 other similar dinners of later date. " The governor is 
 a Niigata man ; pleasant, jolly fellow ; has son in 
 Switzerland. Supper till nine o'clock, at which we 
 told stories and had a very easy and dignified time. 
 The governor announced that five thousand yen had 
 been pledged for the school, and requested "N eesima to 
 send in plans at once for buildings for fifty boarders 
 and fifty day scholars. ... I talked of United 
 States presidents, the two who were assassinated, about 
 Grant's reelection by previous bargain, — which they 
 enjoyed immensely ; about war between North and 
 South ; and asked questions about Japan's progress in 
 all directions. Made music with finger-bowl, and all 
 

 
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THE MISSION AKY AS EDUCATOK 149 
 
 followed suit. I was promised a permit to fish salmon 
 when I come again. Must get out my rusty hooks and 
 flies." 
 
 The next day he was accompanied by some of his 
 hosts to the famous mausoleum of Sendai — the first of 
 many pilgrimages he made thither in after years, often 
 himself as host. On the small toll-bridge of those 
 days they crossed the river that winds its serpentine 
 course between the city and the low hills bordering it 
 on the southwest. Through a long avenue of lofty 
 cryptomerias they ascended to the mausoleum of Date 
 Masamune, the great warrior and diplomat daimyo of 
 Sendai, famous also for the interest that he at one time 
 took in Christianity, and for the embassy that he sent 
 to the pope at Rome in 1614. " At his death," runs 
 the diary in connection with this visit to his shrine, 
 " so deep a hold had this one-eyed prince on the affec- 
 tions of his subjects that twenty committed harahiri to 
 accompany their lord on his journey into the unknown. 1 
 Such love and reverence ! The people that have it in 
 them to do such acts voluntarily and with joy have a 
 future history and a place among the nations that in- 
 fluence the world. A descendant of one of these sui- 
 cides (they are worthy of a better name) 2 is the keeper 
 of the shrine." 
 
 In pleasant companionship, looking over the ground, 
 becoming acquainted with the missionaries already in 
 the city, and consulting about the proposed school, the 
 two and a half days of this mission to Sendai passed 
 quickly. " The Christian basis of the school was 
 
 1 Their graves are placed around his own. 
 
 2 The Japanese, indeed, use a special term to designate this kind of 
 death. 
 
150 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 assured," continues the report, " in the liberty of morn- 
 ing prayers and in the teaching of the Bible as one of 
 the text-books of the school. There was, however, one 
 objection to our entering upon this work, namely, the 
 fact that it interfered with the plans of the Kev. Masa- 
 yoshi Oshikawa, one of the ablest leaders of the Chris- 
 tian Church in Japan. He had been labouring for 
 years in this city, at first under heavy obstacles, but 
 had gradually won the confidence of many prominent 
 citizens, and had established a very flourishing inde- 
 pendent church without any direct missionary co- 
 operation. Seeing the many advantages of working 
 with missionaries, he joined the Presbyterians, 1 and 
 began to plan for both a boys' and a girls' school just 
 about the time that Mr. Tomita was conferring with 
 Mr. JSTeesima. As there could be no need of two Chris- 
 tian schools in Sendai, which would be at once forced 
 into rivalry, we proposed that the burden of settlement 
 should be left to Messrs. Neeshna and Oshikawa. We 
 were confident that Mr. Oshikawa with the Presby- 
 terians was fully able to carry to success any edu- 
 cational movement, and his long labours and successes 
 entitled him to the first chance. But after full and 
 prolonged inquiry covering several months, it became 
 evident that the men who desired to open this school, 
 while they recognized Mr. Oshikawa's good work and 
 his ability, insisted on having at the head of the school 
 a name known all through Japan, one as familiar in 
 the Emperor's cabinet as in the churches, — Mr. Nee- 
 sima's. We saw then that it would be impossible to 
 
 1 More correctly, the mission of the Reformed Churoh in the United 
 States (German), one of the missions cooperating with the Presby- 
 terians in Japan. 
 
THE MISSIONAKY AS EDUCATOE 151 
 
 turn over to Mr. Oshikawa the large offer that had 
 come to us." 
 
 The diary shows how vital the decision was to all 
 concerned. " June 3d. — At last the whole card is 
 played. Have been to dinner with Hoy l and Oshi- 
 kawa, and again showed them how I had tried to do 
 as I would be done by in all these negotiations, and 
 had kept their interests steadily before our men. But 
 now that the movement had come to us unsolicited and 
 we were willing for union, yet because of the obstacles, 
 it seemed wise to accept what we could not turn over. 
 Of course, I should have to report to my mission before 
 final action was taken. Then Oshikawa opened his 
 whole heart to me in a very affecting and Christian 
 manner. He had approached the governor, Tomita, 
 and Matsukura, and all had told him that a united 
 movement would be a good thing ; but since union just 
 now seemed to be fraught with difficulties and might 
 do harm, he had decided to withdraw entirely, give up 
 the hope of his heart, and wished us all success in the 
 great call we had received. Hoy followed in the same 
 strain, not concealing his disappointment, but believing 
 we are all led by the same Master and that His leading 
 can't bring us to strife. It was a tearful occasion, a 
 sad kind of victory for me. But I felt that our 
 hearts were then and there united in one Master, 
 and that our hopes and disappointments were in His 
 hand." 
 
 The envoys reported to the mission the development 
 of the situation in Sendai. The mission then voted to 
 send Mr. DeForest there, " not " — as he expressed it — 
 
 1 Rev. William E. Hoy, of the German Reformed Mission, later the 
 pioneer of his denomination in China. 
 
152 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 " to be tied up in school work, but to help get things 
 going, and then to be a rover in North Japan, helping 
 in the new movements that are springing up all along 
 the northern line." There is a tradition that when the 
 call came to go to this new field of work, Mr. DeForest 
 said, " Here am I ; send I" This story may be apocry- 
 phal, but it has a phonetic value : it will dispel any 
 doubt about how to pronounce the name of the place 
 in question. Now a city of a hundred thousand in- 
 habitants, it had then only fifty thousand ; but it was 
 already the military, civic, and commercial centre of a 
 large territory. 
 
 The railroad had not yet been put through, and the 
 journey thither had to be taken by stage-coach or 
 coasting steamer. In spite of the danger of September 
 typhoons, Mr. and Mrs. DeForest, with four small 
 children, chose the latter form of conveyance. They 
 met two severe storms that not only delayed their 
 journey, but imperilled their safety. " We passed an 
 anxious night," wrote Mr. DeForest to his mother, 
 after describing the storm, " and I felt we might never 
 see shore again. . . . But our perilous voyage is 
 over. We are deeply grateful to our Father for His 
 kind care over us. I hope our safety means that He 
 has yet much work for us to do before He calls us 
 home, and that He will abundantly enable us to glorify 
 Him in our home, our hearts, our children, our friends, 
 and our work." As Shiogama, the port of Sendai, was 
 closed on account of cholera, they landed farther up 
 the coast and took the remainder of the journey to 
 Sendai by jinrikisha. "We found a Japanese house 
 waiting for us, and as it is unfit for foreigners to live 
 in, we are tearing up drains and fitting it up so as to 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 153 
 
 keep out the winter cold." (By the second winter, 
 mission houses had been erected.) 
 
 The work for which they had come began at once. 
 " The Sendai friends " — to quote the report of the new 
 station — " were eager to start the school as soon as 
 possible; and so we opened the eleventh of October 
 with pretty much everything temporary. Two 
 wretched shanties, hardly deserving of the word 
 6 temporary,' were fixed up for the reception of one 
 hundred and eighteen scholars, a temporary course of 
 study for two years preparatory and five years academic 
 was marked out, and a temporary board of trustees had 
 the school in charge, while the teachers put up in 
 earthly tabernacles that threatened to be dissolved 
 more than once through the winter." 
 
 In spite of such small obstacles, the school grew. 
 The acting principal, Mr. Morihiro Ichihara, who had 
 been generously given up by the Doshisha on behalf of 
 Sendai, was a young man of unusual ability, eloquence, 
 and Christian enthusiasm. With him was a faculty of 
 six Japanese, two of whom were from the Doshisha 
 and five of whom were Christians ; and two Americans, 
 Mr. DeForest and Kev. George Allchin, who was lent 
 by the Osaka Station for two months until released by 
 the arrival of Eev. W. W. Curtis and Rev. F. N. 
 White from America. JSTone of the trustees of the 
 school at its start were Christians, and the experimental 
 nature of " this union of a Christian faculty and a non- 
 Christian board of trustees to form a Christian school " 
 was clearly recognized by at least the missionaries con- 
 nected with it. But the genuine and open Christian 
 character of the school and its instruction was not com- 
 promised by this connection. The voluntary Bible 
 
154 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 classes were well attended ; students began to ask for 
 baptism ; the teachers took aggressive part in city 
 evangelistic work ; at the request of influential citizens, 
 a night school was opened in December, bringing 
 within range of the hearing of Christianity numbers of 
 merchants, officials, army officers, and members of the 
 legislature. A Sunday school and a preaching service 
 were among the first work started, in a Buddhist tem- 
 ple that had been lying unused and was rented to the 
 Christians. 
 
 The next step was the founding of a church early in 
 the following spring. " On March 13, [1887], we or- 
 ganized our little church in the Buddhist temple. I 
 baptized six young men, all belonging to our school ; 
 and they knelt on the platform where once the great 
 Amida received the worship of his believers. . . . 
 Besides the six new brothers, there were fourteen resi- 
 dent Christians who united by letter." 
 
 In June came the formal opening of the school, with 
 the dedication of its permanent buildings. These were 
 a dormitory and a neat two-story recitation hall, bear- 
 ing on its white gable front in brave black letters the 
 motto that the Japanese had chosen for it : " Seek 
 Truth and Do Good." The exercises were a striking 
 illustration of how the common cause of education 
 could bring together many men of differing ranks and 
 creeds. Mayor Jumonji presided; Governor Matsu- 
 daira as president of the board of trustees, Dr. Neesima 
 as principal, Mr. Tomita as promoter, and Mr. DeFor- 
 est as trustee recently elected to represent the mission- 
 ary element, had each his different message. The 
 governor, as reported by Mr. Curtis, gave the origin of 
 the name of the school : " Governor Matsudaira in his 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 155 
 
 able address told of the discovery of gold in this region 
 a thousand years ago, and how a poet, thinking it a 
 good omen for the reigning dynasty, wrote the lines : 
 
 " *To augment the glory of the royal dynasty 
 In the mountains of the East gold blossomed. ' 
 
 " The name of this school, Tokwa, ' Eastern Blossom,' 
 is taken from the poem, but it is not in a boastful spirit 
 that the name is adopted ; it is simply with the thought 
 that the school so founded — by the voluntary contribu- 
 tions of the people — is a sign of the times showing the ad- 
 vance of civilization in this Meiji dynasty. . . . He 
 closed with the thought that since ' education is the 
 mother of happiness,' this school may be most truly 
 likened to gold blossoms." 
 
 The propitious opening of the school and the general 
 favour it received were in one way echoes of a public 
 sentiment voiced in Tokyo by the great educator, 
 Fukuzawa, and spreading thence through the empire. 
 This is what happened in Sendai : " The daily paper 
 here has recently published two editorials on Christian- 
 ity, urging all young men to press forward and be bap- 
 tized, and become openly members of churches; as- 
 serting, however, that real belief is unnecessary — ' only 
 become nominal Christians, and that's enough.' Our 
 scholars, at least, know that no one can successfully 
 play that game. Mr. Ichihara, in his most impressive 
 vein, begged the boys always to be true to their con- 
 victions and never follow such shallow advice. ' Bet- 
 ter have a whole school of avowed infidels than liars 
 and hypocrites,' was the substance of his twenty-five 
 minutes' talk to a hundred and forty boys." 
 
156 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 The openings for direct Christian work among the 
 students and their homes were far more than could be 
 entered by the little band of workers in those first 
 years. "While waiting for reinforcements to release 
 him from routine school work for the evangelistic op- 
 portunities of the city and the country " for a hundred 
 miles around," Mr. DeForest was filled with a vision of 
 the great possibilities in Christian educational work. 
 Professor Toyama of the Imperial University had pub- 
 lished among other articles one advocating the estab- 
 lishment of girls' schools well provided with foreign 
 teachers ; while criticizing the usual evangelistic method 
 of missionary work, he declared such schools to be the 
 most likely means of rapid and extensive Christianiza- 
 tion. To this Mr. DeForest replied in an open letter 
 in the Japan Mail : " The people of every non-Chris- 
 tian land have the right to say freely how they would 
 like to have missionaries work, and of course mission- 
 aries have the right to listen or not to the suggestions 
 that may be made. But if they are wise men and 
 women, they will not waste their strength in working 
 on lines that create only a prejudice against both them- 
 selves and their religion ; rather they will gladly em- 
 brace every opportunity of removing existing prejudice 
 by encouraging the suggestions of thinking people 
 among whom they are working." 
 
 Just such an opportunity of removing prejudice and 
 winning confidence, also of training Japanese Christian 
 leaders and building up the Christian church, seemed to 
 be open to the missionaries through Christian education ; 
 and this thought filled to overflowing the correspondence 
 of 1887: " The great responsibility is on us of making 
 a better English school than any government school 
 
THE MISSION AEY AS EDUCATOE 157 
 
 north of Tokyo. We believe we are doing it, and we 
 believe in no other way could we possibly do nearly so 
 much for Christ. The great break in favour of Chris- 
 tianity is about to take place. . . . Now is the 
 accepted time, and education is the great means God 
 has put in our hands by which to reach the people. 
 . . . I believe the time is at hand to devise some 
 new plans for the evangelization of Japan. The present 
 way of doing things does not begin to keep up with the 
 open doors. The work of the boards is indeed a grand 
 one, but I begin to believe it must be supplemented by 
 several new methods. The time has come for Christian 
 young men to offer their services for a short period of 
 years at a rate within the means of this nation, and a 
 society of some kind should be formed to supply any 
 deficiency arising from travelling expenses, etc. . . . 
 Now the thought in my mind, aroused by Wishard's 
 letter from Moody's summer school, is something like 
 this : Let the Young Men's Christian Association come 
 in to supplement the boards by sending us young men, 
 graduates of our colleges, for a period of three years in 
 such schools as missionaries may advise, where their 
 work would fasten right on to, and immensely help, the 
 Christian work now going on. . . . The Christians 
 of America must be somehow aroused to see this fact : 
 that there is no way in which Japan can be so rapidly 
 evangelized as by putting two Christian teachers into 
 every city of twenty thousand people to do educational 
 work in connection with the boards already at work 
 there. ... If this plan won't do, is there any 
 better one ? I firmly believe none other will, but some 
 grand educational work tied together with the regular 
 missionary. As in the war three-months men were 
 
158 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 needed, so now we need three-years men : let them 
 enlist." "The Christians of America ought to find 
 some way to give Japan a Christian education. This, 
 and nothing less than this, will ensure the firm establish- 
 ment of the Kingdom of Christ at an early day." 
 
 Fired with this vision, he consulted with Japanese 
 Christian leaders and fellow-missionaries, who heartily 
 agreed with his main proposition. He called on officials 
 in Kyoto and Osaka in the summer vacation, and found 
 that they too favoured the plan. A committee was 
 formed to head the movement. Lengthy letters and 
 cablegrams to and from Japan and the American Board 
 and Mr. Moody brought out the difficulties of coming 
 to an immediate arrangement at such a long distance ; 
 how to finance the journey, how to guarantee positions 
 after landing, how to secure suitable middlemen or a 
 permanent committee of arrangements, were some of 
 the questions that arose and at times threatened to 
 overthrow the movement. To one partial rebuff from 
 the Board, Mr. DeForest responded : " Like a mild, 
 submissive youth, I take to heart your kind scolding 
 and suggestion that Allchin and I have been a little 
 ' previous.' Don't think you can restrain me without 
 more vigorous English. I supposed I was sent here to 
 be previous ; and until further instructions I hope to 
 keep so far ahead that you will need a telescope to keep 
 in sight. Eeally, in the grandest opening for Christian 
 work ever known, I feel a sort of right to assume that 
 some existing agency can be used, or some new one 
 created, to step into such an absolutely essential supple- 
 mental work as providing Christian teachers." 
 
 Delay, however, did not mean failure. Neither the 
 Board nor the Young Men's Christian Association was 
 
THE MISSION AEY AS EDUCATOB 159 
 
 ready to undertake the task ; but as a compromise the 
 " Foreign Educational Committee " was formed in New 
 York before the year was out ; an interdenominational 
 committee of missionaries cooperated with them as 
 advisers at the Japan end; and early in 1888 Mr. 
 DeForest could write joyfully : " The Teachers' Move- 
 ment has begun with three royal boys. If it goes on, 
 it will be one of the most powerful side-helps to mission 
 work that can possibly be set going. None are accepted 
 but such as have a real missionary spirit — no ' picnic ' 
 chaps can pass the committee." 
 
 This movement was indeed one of great promise. 
 Had it not been for the rise of an anti-foreign spirit in 
 Japan within a year after its inception, it might have 
 lived to do more than seven years of work through the 
 fifteen teachers it sent out. But it was the parent of 
 the later large and successful organization known as the 
 " Association Teacher Movement in Japan " ; and its 
 fruit cannot be measured by its years or its statistics. 
 
 During the years of school work in Sendai, it was 
 but natural that Mr. DeForest's thought should turn 
 with new emphasis to the possibilities of various edu- 
 cational lines of work. In addition to the movement 
 for securing Christian American teachers for Japanese 
 boys' schools, there were other " supplementary meth- 
 ods " of Christian work that he felt were necessary to 
 the strengthening and the educating, as well as the 
 propagating, of the young church in Japan. One such 
 method was the extension that Professor Toyama had 
 advocated of Christian education for girls ; not so much, 
 however, by mission schools, as by schools like the 
 Tokwa, conducted and financed by the Japanese and 
 aided by one or more American teachers. The historic 
 
160 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 example of this kind of school was the Baikwa Girls' 
 School in Osaka, which, as we have seen, was founded 
 by the independent early Christians with the stimulus 
 and moral support of Mr. Leavitt. The extensive 
 increase in this sort of work for which Mr. DeForest 
 pleaded in print and in private was never made. But 
 the American Board mission, whose policy perhaps 
 suggested the plan, has worked with seven such schools 
 in centres ranging from Kumamoto to Niigata. 
 
 As counterpart of these plans for American coopera- 
 tors in Christian education, arose the desirability of col- 
 lege or special courses in America for Japanese pastors 
 and Christian educators. Mr. DeForest would have had 
 opportunities for such courses abroad put upon a sys- 
 tematic basis, instead of having their attainability 
 limited to good fortune or the power to obtain assist- 
 ance. While non-Christian young men in large num- 
 bers were sojourning in America for business or for 
 study, and reporting their impressions on their return 
 to Japan, should not the church afford its representa- 
 tives equal advantages in seeing at first hand its aims 
 and ideals in a community and a nation professedly 
 Christian ? He believed that to hold out the promise 
 of graduate courses in America for English-speaking 
 pastors and evangelists that by successful labour had 
 won the confidence of their neighbouring churches and 
 of the missionaries connected with them " would not 
 be of the nature of a bribe, but would help the final 
 decision of many Christian students who keenly feel 
 that the political disabilities that rest upon all relig- 
 ious teachers, Buddhist and Christian alike, narrow 
 their prospects for usefulness, and apprehend that the 
 low place religious teaching holds in the public estima- 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 161 
 
 tion will yet more hold them off from the share they 
 long to have in moulding the future of their country. 
 Such young men should have every incentive that 
 Christian helpfulness can extend to enable them to win 
 for the sacred office of the pastorate a national recog- 
 nition." Also for promising young teachers, men and 
 women, looking forward to a life of educational work, 
 would he have a similar systematic means provided for 
 brief courses of study abroad. He felt that the na- 
 tional consciousness of the Japanese, disliking to be 
 wholly indebted to foreigners or supervised by them, 
 would not long permit purely mission schools to pros- 
 per ; that, as in the case of the Doshisha School and the 
 Meiji Gakuin, Tokyo, the Japanese should have the 
 lead ; that this was coming about much more rapidly 
 and naturally in boys' schools than in institutions for 
 girls, owing to the lesser degree of advancement in the 
 latter ; and that hence a special opportunity offered it- 
 self in the training and preparation of women teachers 
 of marked ability and consecration, to take the leader- 
 ship when the opportunity should come. 
 
 At a period when the American Board was suffering 
 from great financial stringency, there was little hope 
 of enlisting its support for such movements as are here 
 suggested; its secretaries sympathized, but could act 
 only as individuals in securing the cooperation of other 
 individuals for the help of individual Japanese. Thus 
 the impetus of these expansive visions worked itself 
 out in the use of personal time and effort for the few 
 that came particularly under his notice. This, after 
 all, better embodied the spirit of his proposals than any 
 organization dependent upon a missionary board could 
 have done ; for he had no mind to impose denomina- 
 
162 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 tional restrictions upon the men and women that were 
 to be thus assisted. He would have had Christians 
 give their money broadly, without considering which 
 sect was to profit most by the additions that the worker 
 thus educated might bring to the church. His ideal in 
 this line found its best expression in the work of Miss 
 Yoshi Kajiro, the daughter of his early co-worker 
 in Osaka. The story is briefly as follows, written 
 in 1908 : 
 
 " When I first went to Japan, believing in education 
 as one of the powerful forces that extend the knowl- 
 edge of Christ, we took into our home a little girl, and 
 educated her at the first girls' school that was ever 
 founded by Japanese Christians. It was called the 
 ' Plum Blossom Girls' School' [Baikwa]. In time our 
 little girl was graduated and was offered two positions, 
 one as the helper of a lady missionary, the other as a 
 teacher in a small girls' school in the city of Okayama. 
 She came to us to ask which offer she should ac- 
 cept. ' Don't ever be a helper to a missionary if you 
 can get any other work where you can use your Chris- 
 tian influence,' was my advice, which she took ; and 
 thus she started in her life-work as a teacher. Here 
 she showed such talent that various missionaries began 
 to covet her ; and one even offered her a college educa- 
 tion in America, provided she would agree to teach in 
 his denominational school when she returned to Japan. 
 . . . Our little girl wrote for our advice, and I 
 again cautioned her against binding herself to any 
 missionary. At the same time I wrote to my royal 
 friend, Dr. A. J. Lyman of Brooklyn, and asked if he 
 could not provide some way to put ' O Yoshi ' into 
 Mount Holyoke; and he did. She went there with 
 
THE MISSIONABY AS EDUCATOK 163 
 
 perfect freedom from any promise of future work, grad- 
 uated with honour, and in time returned to Japan. 
 The Plum Blossom School, mission schools, and even 
 government schools wanted her services ; but with 
 loyalty to her first school, she went back to Okayama 
 with a mere pittance of a salary, determined to make 
 her work a power in the moral life of that city." So 
 successful was she in building up the school in both at- 
 tendance and equipment, that she was later appointed 
 to its principalship — a comparatively rare position as 
 yet for a Japanese woman. She has clung to this 
 school in spite of flattering offers from other and 
 larger institutions. Her strong Christian character 
 and her lovableness have won the loyalty of her pupils 
 and fellow-teachers, and the voluntary prayer-meetings 
 and Bible instruction are a live part of her work in an 
 institution where government recognition excludes the 
 official teaching of religion. " The glory of Miss 
 Kajiro's work is that it is not Western work supported 
 from Boston ; but it is one of those glorious develop- 
 ments of large Christian work outside of missionary 
 control, bearing the lamp of life where no missionary 
 could go, and helping make a Christian atmosphere for 
 the homes of hundreds of girls, and for the city in 
 which she is a great moral power." 
 
 Another " supplementary method " that Mr. DeFor- 
 est promoted was that of securing from abroad distin- 
 guished specialists for lecture courses in Japan. It was 
 his desire that the church should organize a movement 
 to send out to " the growing numbers of English-speak- 
 ing Japanese, not ministers nor missionaries, who are 
 regarded as professionals and therefore biased, but 
 Christian lawyers, historians, geologists, political econo- 
 
164 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 mists, statesmen, and educators, who have no title of 
 D. D. or Reverend that must be discounted, and who 
 shall give an account of Christianity from their stand- 
 point by means of annual courses of lectures in Tokyo." 
 He argued that although the English works of great 
 Christian thinkers were on sale in Japan and were as 
 easily read by Japanese scholars as those of some of the 
 brilliant non-religious philosophers of the West, still 
 " the broad and deep skeptical current and the indiffer- 
 ence here require more than the bloodless page — they 
 need the living man to be, as of old, a personal witness 
 to the power of Christ and of His resurrection." 
 
 In 1889 Mr. L. D. Wishard, college secretary of the 
 Central International Committee of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, visited Japan to note the pros- 
 pects for Young Men's Christian Association work there, 
 and among other meetings conducted at the Doshishaa 
 successful summer school after the Northfield plan, at 
 which Mr. DeForest assisted, going to Kyoto " on the 
 first night train between the two capitals." This sum- 
 mer school, he thought, furnished the needed opportu- 
 nity for beginning the plan of yearly inviting some dis- 
 tinguished scholar to lecture on some phase of Chris- 
 tianity ; and he hoped that the Korthfield School would 
 act as the committee in America for such arrangements. 
 Although this did not prove feasible, the summer school 
 as an institution had come to stay, with or without the 
 assistance of speakers from abroad. Under various other 
 auspices such speakers began to come. Dr. F. E. Clark 
 made a Christian Endeavour trip to Japan, from which 
 the work in general received a helpful impulse. Prof. 
 George T. Ladd of Yale came at the invitation of 
 the Doshisha for a lecture course. The value of the 
 
THE MISSIONAKY AS EDUCATOB 165 
 
 personal touch for which Mr. De Forest had argued, had 
 striking proof in the spontaneous statement of one of 
 Professor Ladd's Japanese hearers : " I admire his lec- 
 tures on account of their logic and clearness and high- 
 tonedness of their thoughts — but more I admire him. 
 If I did nothing but hear and see him these days, it 
 would pay me for spending these two months in Kyoto." 
 
 Lack of funds prevented the Doshisha from further 
 carrying out its plan for an annual lecturer from abroad. 
 Mr. DeForest, however, asked for more than that for 
 the Doshisha, namely, the yearly loan of a professor 
 from America. " In view of the great importance of 
 this college, and the hold it has gained, both here and 
 in the hearts of the Board and churches and seminaries 
 at home, and also in view of the demand on the part of 
 the students for the latest researches in Biblical knowl- 
 edge, it seems to me that our seminaries at home might 
 gladly loan for a year each in turn a young professor 
 who has studied in Germany as well as in the United 
 States, to teach theology or some branch of it in the 
 Doshisha. The advantages seem to warrant this new 
 step in missionary science. A nation like this must have 
 the best a Christian nation can give. Even at home a 
 seminary has to introduce new lecturers every year, no 
 matter what the power of its regular faculty. Much 
 more is it necessary here, where the act would link the 
 Doshisha at once with the home seminaries and churches 
 as nothing else could." 
 
 Although the Doshisha has not yet had its loan of a 
 professor nor its annual lecturer from abroad, it is not 
 too much to expect the realization of these or similar 
 hopes in the expanding future of the university. 
 
 Mr. DeForest's ideal for a Christian lectureship for 
 
166 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 Japan was in a measure realized for India in the found- 
 ing in 1894 of the Barrows-Haskell Lectureship as a 
 contribution towards the sympathetic presentation of 
 Christianity in that country. Japan has already prof- 
 ited from time to time by this lectureship, when its 
 lecturers have included the island empire on their 
 journeys. Without an organization to promote the 
 sending of lecturers to Japan, the coming of many has 
 in these days been naturally brought about by Japan's 
 rise in the family of nations, and by those developments 
 that have so largely increased American travel to China 
 and the Philippines. Then, too, great movements like 
 the World's Student Christian Federation, the Salva- 
 tion Army, the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and 
 organizations for promoting international peace, have 
 sent their leaders to Japan, always having as a result 
 that inspiring and strengthening of the Christian move- 
 ment that Mr. DeForest so eagerly foresaw from such 
 visits. The coming of such men as John R. Mott, 
 Borden P. Bowne, George Frederick Wright, Henry 
 Churchill King, William Jennings Bryan, David Starr 
 Jordan, and others, was to his mind part of the divine 
 plan in the leading of the nation to a knowledge of 
 God and Christ. And the recent establishment on the 
 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace of an ex- 
 change lectureship between Japan and the United 
 States, sending to Japan interpreters of the best in 
 Christian civilization, is another fulfillment of his vision. 
 Supplementary methods did not, however, keep him 
 from emphasizing his main work of preaching the Gos- 
 pel. When he could get away from school, he toured 
 his long parish from Kanegasaki on the north to Waka- 
 matsu on the south, encouraging the local evangelists, 
 
THE MISSIONAKY AS EDUCATOB 167 
 
 preaching, teaching, and baptizing. One spring tour 
 took him to j^iigata : " I had a hard trip of four hun- 
 dred miles across four ranges of mountains, and the 
 snow filled the passes so that often I was walking on 
 six feet of snow. Or as it sometimes happened, the 
 snow gave way and let me down into the ditches be- 
 low. I walked about twenty miles some days, and my 
 legs were very well used up. But I had a deligatfui 
 time with friends, spoke to four theatre audiences and 
 to two churches, and came back quite tired, especially 
 as I rode the last day twenty-five miles in a jinrikisha, 
 and then topped off with fifty miles on my bicycle." 
 
 In Sendai, besides regular church services, occasional 
 theatre preachings were held. After the promulgation 
 of the Constitution, with its guarantee of religious 
 liberty, the local military authorities passed a majority 
 vote allowing their soldiers to study Christianity ; thus 
 a new field of activity for Bible work was opened. 
 " Every Sunday now," wrote Mr. DeForest, " soldiers 
 are seen in our audience : at the last communion one 
 stood up with a school-teacher and a groceryman to re- 
 ceive baptism in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Often the seed sown in 
 Sendai bore fruit elsewhere. " One officer with his 
 wife was expecting soon to be baptized when he Avas 
 taken ill and died. The aged father from Tokyo 
 hurried to the afflicted home, and was entreated by 
 the widow to permit a Christian funeral. ' But,' said 
 he, ' we must burn the body and take the ashes to our 
 family tomb in Tokyo ; and does your religion allow 
 cremation ? ' She could not answer that, but sent the 
 inquiry to me. As many of the noble martyrs had 
 been burned while the flesh was living without im- 
 
168 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 perilling their hopes of the resurrection, I saw no ob- 
 jection to burning a believer's dead body, and was 
 therefore asked to take charge of the funeral. The 
 next day the father took the family to Tokyo, where 
 at the following communion the widow was baptized." 
 There she afterwards said to the missionary, " I have 
 permission to attend church with my children, and also 
 once a month have a woman's meeting here at home. 
 My parents too are reading the Bible, and mother told 
 sister the other day that I had changed much and for 
 the better." Bits of work for convicts in prison opened 
 up also through correspondence and the sending of 
 Christian literature. 
 
 His main work, however, aside from preaching, was in 
 his Bible classes for students. " I tremble with joyful 
 excitement in handling these young men," he wrote of 
 one specially responsive group. Of a Bible class of 
 students from the government college, he wrote, " It 
 is about the hardest work I have to do. If I didn't 
 believe more solidly than ever in Christ, I should just 
 have to pull out and give up my work. But the 
 toughest question of questions, how to meet educated 
 Japanese who ask you to prove that they have souls, 
 has kept me thinking for a long time." 
 
 More characteristic than this question, however, was 
 the tendency to think morality all-sufficient without 
 religion. The Imperial Eescript on Education, issued 
 in 1890 and made the moral basis of the national edu- 
 cation from that time, gave sanction to this tendency. 
 The way it was received is shown by the account Mr. 
 DeForest gives of the meeting held at the Tokwa 
 School in celebration of it. In his congratulatory 
 address on that occasion, he took the ground "that 
 
THE MISSIONABY AS EDUCATOK 169 
 
 this rescript, being the first ever issued from the throne 
 on a moral subject, and one in which the Emperor 
 coupled himself with his people, showed that the olden 
 times were gone by forever and that the Tenshi [" Son 
 of Heaven," i. e., the Emperor] had come out of his 
 seclusion to labour openly for the good of the nation. 
 I took the occasion to say," he continues, " that while 
 the principles of morality were forever the same, the 
 methods of teaching morals must vary with every ad- 
 vance of knowledge and with every onward move of 
 a nation. The governor followed, asserting that it was 
 not the object of this rescript to advocate a return to 
 Shinto ethics, as some averred, nor a backward move- 
 ment towards Confucianism, as others deprecatingly 
 stated ; but that the times demanded even the words 
 of the Emperor to call the people everywhere back to 
 the principles of morality, which in the deluge of 
 Western thought had been largely ignored both in 
 practice and in education. — It seems a little strange 
 that in the midst of the national excitement of opening 
 the first parliament a brief moral treatise from the 
 throne should have aroused so much discussion. ' What 
 is it for ? ' was widely asked. Some boldly interpreted 
 it to mean that the system of morality Japan already 
 had was ample and that there was no need of anything 
 more in that line — even though it be Christian morals. 
 Many Christians, too, felt that it might possibly give a 
 blow to Christianity, even though it was not so in- 
 tended. That it has weakened the backbone of a few 
 Christians and turned away some who were studying the 
 Bible, there can be no doubt. But that under a consti- 
 tution granting religious liberty it can have any lasting 
 interpretation against Christianity, I do not believe." 
 
170 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 The following illustration of the necessity of religion 
 as the dynamic for morality, though written for 
 American readers, will show how he presented the 
 matter to Japanese. 
 
 " [The relation of Christ's moral teachings to re- 
 ligion] is well seen in the difference between Confucius' 
 Golden Eule and Christ's. China's great moral teacher 
 says, ' Do not unto others what you would not they 
 should do to you.' If you ask how this differs from 
 Christ's Golden Eule, you will be sure to get the poor 
 and insufficient answer, * One is negative, the other is 
 positive.' If the Golden Eule as Christ taught it were 
 only known by Christians as well as the disciples of 
 Confucius know his rule, we certainly should not tarry 
 to explain ' negative ' and ' positive.' I doubt if one 
 Christian in a hundred, or even in a thousand, can re- 
 peat Christ's Golden Eule correctly. I have tried it 
 with audience after audience, and never yet have found 
 one who repeated it correctly. They all say, ' Do unto 
 others as you would that they should do unto you ; ' 
 and this is the only way I have ever seen it printed on 
 Sunday school cards, or heard it recited. If this be all 
 that Christ taught, He gave out only simple morality ; 
 and if He taught simple morality, He surely could 
 not have expected men to carry out so impossible a 
 rule. No ; He gave this moral precept based on the 
 most potent religious fact — the Fatherhood of God. 
 He did not hang it in mid-air ; He put it on an eternal 
 foundation. i Because God is your Father, therefore 
 do unto others,' etc. If God the Almighty be my 
 Father and the coolie's Father, the white man's Father 
 and the black man's Father, then we have a mighty 
 motive that drives every one that believes it to carry 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 171 
 
 out that rule. Jesus gave us morality, but He glori- 
 fied it by building it on religion. It has a ' therefore.' 
 
 " While Shaka was shaping his Five Commandments, 
 ignorant of a personal God, Moses was bringing down 
 virtually the same commands, and yet not at all the 
 same. For Shaka's are pure morality, nothing more. 
 But Moses' are morality based on religion — five com- 
 mandments full of God : the one God, the jealous God, 
 God the Creator, God the Re warder ; followed by five 
 more that cannot be separated from their religious 
 foundation." 
 
 Not only did Mr. DeForest emphasize the necessity 
 of religion as the basis of a vital morality, but he taught 
 his students the necessity of active Christian service, 
 and the danger to themselves and to the cause of Christ 
 if they failed to be aggressive workers. He thus 
 narrated for the Japanese Christian press his experience 
 with young Christians, and the conclusion he had 
 drawn from it : 
 
 ''Several young men say, 'I have considered this 
 great matter and have concluded to work all my life 
 for Christ ; but I am not fitted for direct work, so I 
 will work indirectly.' Now this word indirect is per- 
 haps one of the greatest enemies to the Christian 
 cause. . . . Among young men of my acquaint- 
 ance who two or three years ago were earnest in 
 Sunday school and church work, who loved the Bible 
 and the prayer-meeting, there are some who seemed to 
 me especially fitted and led by the Holy Spirit to 
 become pastors and evangelists. When spoken to 
 about this, they reflected and even prayed about it, 
 and said they surely would work all their lives for 
 Christ, but thought it best to work indirectly, instead 
 
172 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 of in the pastorate or as evangelists. At first I did not 
 know how to reply, and thought perhaps they were 
 right. But now some of them have lost their interest 
 in Sunday school and prayer-meeting and do not invite 
 friends any more to church ; on the contrary, they have 
 often to be invited to attend church. They used to 
 contribute gladly to the pastor's salary, but now neglect 
 the pastor's support, and have lost even the idea of 
 indirect work. 
 
 " Seeing this self-deception by means of the word 
 ' indirect,' is it not well to fight this word and drive it 
 out of the hearts and minds of young men? Did 
 Christ ever use it to His disciples ? Never. How 
 strange it would sound to hear Jesus exhort His 
 disciples : ' Let your light shine — indirectly ; ' or, ' Take 
 up your cross and follow Me indirectly ! ' And when 
 He left His great and final message, He did not say, 
 ' Go into all the world and preach to every one in- 
 directly.'* No ; this word is the enemy of all great and 
 noble life-work. It often means simply making one's 
 own plans the first thing, and Christianity second ; it 
 means working without zeal instead of earnestly. Of 
 course there must be Christian editors, teachers, lawyers, 
 merchants, wives ; and they are all needed for direct 
 Christian work. . . . The word * indirect ' has its 
 proper place, and in that place has a good meaning. 
 We use it correctly concerning results, but never con- 
 cerning duty. . . . Whatever a Christianas occupa- 
 tion, his work for Christ should always be direct, open, 
 earnest." 
 
 One of his chief thought-centres in these school years 
 was the resurrection of Christ. " There are many 
 hard up-hills in mission work," he wrote to a brother. 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 173 
 
 "Many of the more thoughtful people resist, and 
 naturally too, the accepting of Jesus as the Son of God. 
 They will yield after a while, I believe; but to 
 preach the resurrection here requires more mental and 
 spiritual strength than it does at home. I have to 
 divide carefully historical evidence from moral evi- 
 dence, and have to show a closer reason for everything 
 here than at home. Does me good, though. I see as 
 never before that Christianity is on an invincible 
 basis." This study of the resurrection involved the 
 correlating of several years of reading and thought on 
 philosophy and history, the results of which he put 
 forth in a Japanese book, treating of the historical 
 evidence for the resurrection, and the relation of the 
 resurrection to miracles, to the great plan of history, to 
 immortality, to literature, laws, morality, liberty, and 
 practical life. His own faith in the resurrection was 
 not only strengthened and deepened by this study, but 
 also brought into relation to his own life in a new way, 
 colouring his work thereafter with an ever-growing 
 optimism. "I preached twice yesterday, and my 
 morning sermon on the ' Resurrection of Us All ' so 
 touched a school-teacher that he requested baptism. 
 He had been hearing Christianity for a year and a half, 
 and as he urged me to baptize him in remembrance of 
 the day in which he decided to serve Christ, I con- 
 sented. — I am deeply interested in the subject of the 
 future life. I begin to realize that death to the Chris- 
 tian is a joyful and magnificent blessing ; and I am so 
 preaching it as the greatest motive to a pure and self- 
 denying life." "In my early days I used to hear a 
 great deal about rest in heaven, a sort of eternal rest. 
 But now I believe in eternal work and new acquisitions, 
 
174 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 and progress that never wearies one. Not to grow in 
 the other life would be a sort of hell for me ; and I'm 
 looking forward to the same kind of joy, but better far 
 than that we have here, in gaining new truth. God's 
 truth is endless, and to have the privilege of that 
 ocean of truth and life and love — that is heaven." 
 
 Not only in regard to the resurrection did his 
 philosophic studies strengthen his Christian faith. 
 They bore similar fruit in connection with pantheism. 
 Of a Japanese article that he published on " The 
 Influence of Pantheism," he wrote : " It is the result 
 of a year's study, and I hope will arouse thought in 
 others as it has in me. The Christian religion never 
 seemed so glorious as it does in contrast with the 
 pessimism of pantheism." 
 
 His contact with student life afforded him constant 
 opportunity to give out the knowledge he was contin- 
 ually absorbing from books and from life. The morn- 
 ing chapel exercises called for brief addresses on sub- 
 jects helpful in character-building. Into these he put 
 his best thought, and the inspiration of his eager 
 audience made the chapel talks one of his keenest 
 pleasures. After the school closed, some of these talks 
 were published in a volume dedicated to his former 
 pupils. There are biographical talks on George Wash- 
 ington, Sister Dora, Lord Macaulay ; there are histor- 
 ical, social, scientific, philosophical subjects, starting 
 from some familiar point of departure : " I am," one of 
 the earliest phrases acquired in learning English, be- 
 comes the text for a little discourse on the modern 
 philosophy that emphasizes the dignity and freedom of 
 the individual, and on the religion that recognizes per- 
 sonality in its God ; the " Sparrow " becomes a centre 
 
THE MISSIONABY AS EDUCATOE 175 
 
 for thought on physics, mathematics, geography, physi- 
 ology, and finally metaphysics ; " Bridges," with the 
 Brooklyn Bridge as chief illustration, are interpreted in 
 the light of their relation to growing knowledge and to 
 growing civilization, as signs of " that peace and good 
 will that first came through the work of Jesus " : — 
 " We live in the age of bridges, and that means, in the 
 age of growing brotherhood." 
 
 This thought of " growing brotherhood " was taking 
 stronger hold on his mind in the years of teaching. He 
 was finding in it a powerful motive. To the prefectural 
 educational association he said in an address on " The 
 Besponsibility of Teachers " : "I am sometimes asked, 
 * How can you spend your time in such elementary 
 work as teaching A-B-C ? Is it not a bore ? ' Of 
 course it would be intolerable if that were all. But I 
 cannot forget that I am a representative of another 
 country and am teaching Japanese students. This is a 
 grand and inspiring age, one in which the East and the 
 West are coming together for the first time. . . . 
 Mutual knowledge of each other's language is the first 
 step towards international intercourse. ... To teach 
 English, therefore, is to be helping on the great work of 
 binding the East and the West together in harmony, in 
 just treaties, and in brotherly intercourse. Were it not 
 for this great thought, I would not be a teacher in 
 Japan." 
 
 The political situation gave special meaning to this 
 allusion to treaties and international intercourse. In 
 1889 the Constitution had been promulgated. The 
 establishment of a national assembly, the abolition of 
 trial by torture, and the proclamation of freedom of 
 religious belief, had so raised Japan's rank in the family 
 
176 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 of nations that the people called loudly for the abolition 
 of the old system of extraterritorial relations with 
 foreign powers. Ke vision of the existing treaties had 
 been under contemplation from before the promulgation 
 of the Constitution : after that promulgation, such re- 
 vision became one of the burning questions of the day, 
 and its delay, due partly to foreign causes, partly to 
 internal disagreement as to the terms to be accepted, 
 and to the postponement of putting into operation 
 Japan's new civil and commercial codes, made the feel- 
 ing against "Western nations run high. In the five years 
 that elapsed before the treaties were revised, all forms 
 of mission work suffered, as did everything associated 
 with the hated extraterritorial system that seemed to 
 put the foreigner on a different plane from that of the 
 Japanese. To the American Board Mission it meant in 
 time the reorganizing of its relations with the Kumiai 
 (corresponding to Congregational) churches that it had 
 founded or fostered. Looking back upon it years after- 
 wards, Mr. DeForest said of the mission history during 
 this period : 
 
 " The bitterest wave of hostile criticism that Japan 
 has known was sweeping over the land and entering 
 the minds and feelings of the people everywhere. It 
 was perfectly natural that these spirited Christians 
 should share the national feeling that Western nations, 
 by their continued insistence on extraterritoriality, were 
 unjust to Japan ; and that so-called Christian nations 
 had one standard of righteousness for their own inter- 
 course and another for the nations of the East. We 
 seemed to our Japanese brethren to be carrying our 
 work, not as co-labourers with them on equal terms, 
 but as a band of foreigners who acted together, as it 
 
THE MISSION AKY AS EDUCATOE 177 
 
 were, with closed doors, and who, after forming plans, 
 asked them to help carry them out. . . . Doubt- 
 less we were not so sympathetic and considerate as we 
 might have been. So friction increased, until after a 
 few years an abrupt break took place. The independent 
 churches refused to cooperate any longer, and the scores 
 of evangelists scattered over a thousand miles of territory 
 were divided up between the churches and our mission. 
 . . . We rapidly adapted ourselves to the situation, 
 and not only learned to respect their autonomy, but 
 also to glory in it. We recognized their right to be 
 wholly independent of us in forms of faith as well as 
 in methods of work." 
 
 Two contemporaneous quotations will show his 
 attitude during the period of strain. The first is from 
 his reply (1891) to the editor of a Japanese Christian 
 magazine, who had asked his explanation for the wide- 
 spread coldness in the churches, and his thought for its 
 cure: 
 
 " We rejoice that the time has come for us to take 
 secondary places, and that we are assistants instead of 
 principals. . . . [But] there is growing up a very 
 serious barrier between the Christian churches and the 
 missionaries who have aided in establishing them. We 
 used to go together on preaching tours ; we used to eat 
 and sleep together ; . . . we used to pray together, 
 and our very souls seemed tied together in the love of 
 the mighty cause of Christ. But our ignorance of 
 your ways of thinking, our inexperience of all the en- 
 vironments that have made you Japanese instead of 
 foreigners ; our too frequent assumption of power and 
 superiority ; your growing knowledge of our sectarian 
 differences and of the imperfections in every branch of 
 
178 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 the Church of Christ ; together with the national feel- 
 ing against all foreigners owing to the difficulties at- 
 tending treaty revision, — this combination of reasons 
 has caused you Christians justly to regard us as less 
 worthy of respect and confidence. From such a be- 
 ginning, doubts, mutual suspicions, misunderstandings 
 and loss of confidence are the natural results. This is 
 one of the reasons why we cannot effect as much as 
 formerly in our aggressive work, and I sincerely be- 
 lieve this is why you too cannot accomplish as much as 
 formerly. 
 
 " How then can Christian work be brought onto a 
 more self-sacrificing and aggressive basis ? . . . By 
 mutually recognizing at once the barrier that has arisen 
 between us, and using all possible means of breaking it 
 down forever. You all and we all must come more to- 
 gether, generously recognizing each other's gifts, refus- 
 ing even to think evil of each other, believing that the 
 mighty love of Christ is able to overcome all obstacles 
 and to hold us together in spite of the failure of treaty 
 revision or in spite of difference of opinion on political 
 or theological questions. God has made us to differ, 
 nationally, intellectually, and in a multitude of minor 
 ways. These differences cause friction and hate until 
 we all become one in Christ. Then our very differ- 
 ences become sources of strength, variety, joy, and 
 love." 
 
 The other quotation is from a letter to the American 
 Board in 1893 : " The [Kumiai] leaders in Tokyo in- 
 vited Dr. Greene and myself to a conference. They 
 say the time has come for missionaries to cease being 
 c guardians ' of the Japanese churches and middlemen 
 between them and the West. . . . They want all 
 
THE MISSIONARY AS EDUCATOR 179 
 
 appearance of foreign control to cease. . . . There 
 is justice and courage and conviction in what they 
 say. Whether the time has come for the great 
 change remains to be seen. ' As long as we furnish 
 the money we shall control the work,' is a saying 
 that naturally crops up in missionary talk. It really 
 is the devil's text. . . . The fighters in the 
 Kevolutionary War were none the less independent be- 
 cause a sympathetic France came in and helped them ; 
 and it may be that the really independent Church 
 of Christ in Japan may effect the most by a similar 
 kind of sympathetic help from abroad. ... I am 
 not sure but that the seeming guardianship of foreign- 
 ers is one great reason why the spirited men of Japan, 
 who are turning to Christianity, will have nothing to 
 do with the present churches. . . . The sore feel- 
 ing over extraterritoriality is without doubt influencing 
 many both within and without the church to avoid any 
 extension of that hated principle to the spread of Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 If such was the situation in the Christian body, out- 
 side of it equally striking changes were taking place. 
 Passports hitherto liberally interpreted to cover Chris- 
 tian work were now interpreted more strictly and 
 granted less fr^: y. The numbers of inquirers after 
 Christianity fed off, and fewer were led to decision. It 
 was spiritually " hard times." Some missionaries of 
 long experience began to wonder whether the day of 
 missionary work by foreigners was not drawing to a 
 close, that the work the missions had started might be 
 more effectively carried on by the native church alone. 
 The independence of the national spirit, as shown in 
 many of the Japanese Christian leaders, aroused at 
 
180 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 times the question whether more harm than good was 
 not likely to grow out of abortive attempts at coopera- 
 tion. These, however, w T ere extreme cases. The effect 
 in Sendai of the anti-foreign feeling was to limit the 
 extensive, but quicken the intensive, work of the mis- 
 sionary body. The missionaries of various denomina- 
 tions held union prayer-meetings together, and thus 
 during those years of opposition from without built up 
 within a strong spirit of loyal cooperation that has 
 ever been a great blessing to the Christian work in that 
 city. The period brought opportunities also in ways of 
 individual preparation, as some of the letters show : 
 " We who were welcomed so enthusiastically in Sendai 
 three years ago are of little account now. But things 
 will mend some time, and I regard this breathing spell 
 as very valuable to missionaries in many ways. We 
 need a chance to review our lives and prepare for new 
 work. We need to get out of ruts. New missionaries 
 need this chance to get the language." "For some 
 years I have kept a record of my reading, with brief 
 notes on it. The passport system has become very 
 strict, and so I have done little touring. But I have 
 had an exceptional time in writing and reading. My 
 book shows [for the last year] sixteen volumes, averag- 
 ing about four hundred pages, of historical and scien- 
 tific reading, besides newspapers and magazines, etc. 
 I've published thirteen articles and sermons. " 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to represent those 
 years of anti-foreign sentiment as a dead level. They 
 had their local and individual variations, and one of 
 them called forth even as strong a statement as the fol- 
 lowing : "I am satisfied that my work here is telling 
 more for Christianity than when I was free to go 
 
THE MISSIONAEY AS EDUCATOE 181 
 
 around with Osaka as a centre. My contact with the 
 educated classes has opened secrets to me that I could 
 not have found out otherwise. I am busy all over. I 
 never have had so many individuals come to me for 
 Bible instruction as have come this fall. I am seldom 
 asked to preach, but I cannot do all the Bible work I 
 am asked to take up." And then the next year times 
 were hard again : " Missionary work is getting to be 
 exceedingly difficult for me here. The feeling against 
 missionaries is so common that very few comparatively 
 will have anything to do with us. So I'm studying the 
 written language, which is quite different from the 
 spoken ; and after the treaties are revised I hope to be 
 of more use." 
 
 During these years, the school, as well as the direct 
 evangelistic work, suffered its ups and downs; and 
 partly as a result of the times we have been consider- 
 ing, it came at last to an end. At one point in its 
 career, the abolition of the government academy had 
 left it without an educational rival in the field. Then 
 anti-foreign and anti-Christian sentiment had risen 
 against it. Dr. Neesima, whose name, even as absent 
 principal, had been a source of strength, died in 1890 ; 
 the non-Christian trustees felt that the removal of the 
 Bible from the curriculum was a necessary step to pros- 
 perity ; the missionary teachers, feeling that hostility 
 to the school would continue as long as they remained 
 members of the faculty with attendant rights, resigned 
 after due consultation with the principal trustees and 
 their fellow-teachers. The trustees regretfully accepted 
 their resignations, presented them with gold medals, 
 and secured their consent to teach in the school unoffi- 
 cially a few months longer, until provision could be 
 
182 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 made for their class-work. But another circumstance 
 sealed the doom of the school. The establishment of a 
 government middle school, of the same grade as the 
 Tokwa, and affording its pupils the superior advantage 
 of exemption from military draft until after gradua- 
 tion, made financial success impossible for the Tokwa. 
 It closed in March, 1892, after five and a half years of 
 work — closed with flying colours and Christian prin- 
 ciples uneclipsed. 
 
 " The final exercises took place yesterday, in the 
 presence of the hundred and fifty scholars, the teachers 
 and trustees, the governor and the mayor, and several 
 scores of leading officials and citizens. It was indeed a 
 grand wind-up. It was the occasion of frank and re- 
 gretful expression of opinion on the part of all con- 
 cerned, with reference to the first prominent effort in 
 Japan of non-Christians to carry on a school with Chris- 
 tian principles. The attempt was an honest one on 
 both sides ; and as two governors, with many influen- 
 tial citizens, have been promoters of this unique move- 
 ment, you can easily see that it has attracted wide at- 
 tention, and has won large praise as well as called 
 down a continual fire of criticism. ... It tells 
 well for the trustees that they were willing to entrust 
 a school to Christian teachers, and to keep it up in the 
 face of steady public and private criticism, when the 
 annual deficit of twenty-five hundred or three thousand 
 dollars had to come out of their own pockets. . . . 
 They would have been willing to carry on the school, 
 provided others had joined the movement and aided it 
 pecuniarily." "The school has closed, but the work 
 done has not. It will abide. Of the students, five or 
 six of the graduates will go to the Doshisha, and some 
 
THE MISSIONABY AS EDUCATOK 183 
 
 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 years have shown that the Tokwa School did 
 not live in vain. Its students may be found now, 
 twenty years later, in responsible positions in army and 
 navy, educational institutions and Christian work, 
 while the majority are serving their fellow-men in 
 business ways, the better in life and the nobler in as- 
 piration because of the years in a Christian school. 
 
 And as for the missionary, what had those years 
 done for him ? This is what he said for himself at the 
 end of them : " My five years in Sendai have been the 
 hardest I have ever known in my life, yet by all odds 
 the most blessed. If the school work has done for our 
 students spiritually, intellectually, and morally what it 
 has done for me, they will never cease to be grateful 
 for these years." " Personally I feel that these five years 
 have fitted me in a wonderful manner to preach the 
 Gospel. I now know the people, their ways of think- 
 ing — especially their thoughts on religion ; and more 
 than that, why they think as they do. I now feel 
 equipped to meet the educated classes, the indifferent 
 classes, as well as the lower classes. Of course I don't 
 mean that I know everything, but that I know some 
 things essential to a missionary's success. To be sure, 
 this knowledge won't convert anybody ; but it will 
 show those who converse with me that I know them at 
 least as well as they know themselves, and it will help 
 strengthen every turning towards the light. The work 
 is a hard one, far harder than I used to think ; but the 
 gospel of living love will surely win." 
 
VI 
 
 The Missionary Professionally 
 and Non-Professionally 
 
 " Not by the page word-painted 
 Let life be banned or sainted ; 
 Deeper than written scroll, 
 The colours of the soul." 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 " It is not what the best men do, but what they are, 
 that constitutes their truest benefaction to their fellow- 
 men." — Phillips Brooks. 
 
VI 
 
 THE MISSIONARY PROFESSIONALLY AND 
 NON-PROFESSIONALLY 
 
 FROM the closing of the Tokwa School, there are 
 no distinct periods in Mr. DeForest's life. For- 
 saking, therefore, the chronological order that 
 has been followed in reviewing the first eighteen years 
 of his missionary life, I take up as the clearest way of 
 presenting its latter eighteen years the logical method, 
 following no longer time divisions, but lines of thought 
 and activity. Forsaking also the attitude of an unre- 
 lated biographer, since I am now to write of things that 
 I remember more vividly or know more directly than 
 I could those of the earlier chapters, and especially 
 since in the last eight years of his life I knew him not 
 only as daughter, but as co-worker, I ask the reader's 
 permission to assume my daughterhood. 
 
 The three lines along which I shall group the out- 
 standing facts of this second half of his life in Japan 
 are : his personality, his spiritual enlargement, and the 
 extension of the sphere of his activities. 
 
 My father's second furlough took us all to America 
 in 1894. The war with China and the long-looked-for 
 revision of the treaties in that year — to go into opera- 
 tion in 1899 — marked the approaching close of the 
 painful anti-foreign period. But there were reasons 
 for his considering seriously whether or not to return 
 
 187 
 
188 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 to Japan. One was the financial difficulties of the 
 Board, which spelled retrenchment ; another was the 
 education of the children, which necessitated their re- 
 maining in America ; but the chief one was the ques- 
 tion, Were foreign missionaries to be needed, or wisely 
 retained, in Japan much longer ? For a while he hesi- 
 tated in the uncertainty that this question raised. 
 Then the invitation to become candidate for the 
 pastorate of an influential American church forced on 
 him a decision as to his future course. A family 
 council was held ; my mother clinched the argument 
 for his return to Japan by thus summarizing the situa- 
 tion: He had the language, he knew and liked the 
 Japanese, they knew and liked him ; these facts seemed 
 to indicate there was a place for him in Japan, whether 
 or not the general missionary force was to be reduced ; 
 moreover, withdrawal would not be understood in 
 America and would harm the missionary spirit there. 
 So the candidacy was rejected, although offered a 
 second time ; and while awaiting a message from the 
 American Board deputation then in Japan, he made 
 preparations to return. The message came in the form 
 of a cablegram corroborating the fact that his return 
 was desired by his co-workers, both American and 
 Japanese ; and he went back. 
 
 " The world owes you a debt of gratitude," wrote 
 Dr. William Elliot Griffis to my mother in the first 
 days of her widowhood, " for holding your good and 
 great husband to Japan in the day of his discourage- 
 ment." He went back alone, that the children might 
 have the mother's care a little longer ; and in the next 
 four years of separation from his family, he added to 
 his life one common phase of missionary experience. 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 1S9 
 
 The first year was one of intense loneliness and 
 attendant discouragement ; he afterwards confessed 
 that he could hardly have returned to Japan alone 
 had he realized what the experience was to bring. But 
 ever responsive as he was to the touch of love and the 
 call to action, his work and his friends brought him 
 safely through those trying first months. The pastor 
 at the out-station of Wakuya, Kev. Seiji Katagiri, came 
 to him in his study, where he had been inclined to bury 
 himself in his books, and drew him out on evangelistic 
 trips that quickened his blood and whetted his appetite 
 for aggressive outside work. Moreover, a young 
 bachelor from another mission came to live with him ; 
 and companionship at home and cordial relations out- 
 side helped to tide over the days of the great empti- 
 ness. " Though I growl, the growls are superficial," 
 was his characteristic remark when he counted his 
 blessings. " While I should very much have liked to 
 stay in America, I knew my moral backbone would be 
 broken if I refused to take up again the work the Lord 
 has given me out here. So I am pitching in full tilt, 
 and I believe the risen Christ w T ill bless me and mine." 
 
 An earthquake wave within forty miles of Sendai 
 did its ruinous work along the coast, obliterating entire 
 villages and carrying away hundreds of lives. The 
 neighbouring provinces rallied to the help of the sur- 
 vivors with money and other gifts. The missionaries 
 too did what they could to relieve the resultant want. 
 Rev. E. H. Jones (Baptist) and my father made a joint 
 trip of eight days through the desolated region, dis- 
 tributing clothes and blankets and preaching Chris- 
 tianity. Touring work opened up more and more with 
 the freer passport system that followed treaty revision 
 
190 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 and the increasing facilities of transportation ; and thus 
 he became indeed the " rover " that the mission had in- 
 tended him to be when he went to the north. For the 
 rest of his life, his work was that of preacher, evangel- 
 ist, lecturer and writer, in Sendai, in his evangelistic 
 district in three prefectures, and even in distant parts 
 of the empire, as the opportunity and the call came. 
 For he had no school work to bind him at home, and 
 he stood in no official relation to the Sendai Church, 
 of which, although one of the founders, he had never 
 been pastor. He was free to go and come, always 
 sure of a welcome back to Sendai. " We don't call 
 him ' teacher ' or ' master,' but ' brother,' " a pastor 
 said of him ; "he never seems like an American, but 
 always like a man sympathetic with all our plans." 
 
 The mission had learned through experience that its 
 best results were to be gained by allowing each of its 
 members, as far as was consistent with its main policy 
 and methods, " full liberty to be himself in any line 
 of work." Thus with harmony and mutual helpful- 
 ness its men and women were enabled to develop 
 specialties to which their natural endowment and their 
 opportunities called. One agency for promoting this 
 harmony and mutual helpfulness was the Outlook and 
 Evangelistic Committee, whose members visited mis- 
 sion stations other than their own, became acquainted 
 with the local problems, learned to know the local 
 pastors and evangelists, and thus acquired a far more 
 intimate knowledge of Japan as a mission field than 
 would be possible with limitation to one district. As a 
 member of this committee, my father visited the ends 
 of the main empire and many intermediate points, 
 preaching in churches, chapels, hotels, or wherever the 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 191 
 
 opportunity opened, talking with inquirers and Chris- 
 tians, old and new, and meeting with great varieties of 
 people, — merchants, school-teachers, priests, soldiers, 
 farmers, professional men, officials, — men, women, and 
 children. Always alert to hear of the local history, 
 the industries, products, and social conditions of the 
 places he visited, he accumulated in his note-books rich 
 treasures of incident and information. Always alert, 
 also, to discover new means of approach and new 
 points of contact, he learned not less about human 
 hearts and needs, and the way to meet them with his 
 message. 
 
 "The essentials of a good missionary tour in the 
 interior," he wrote after a two weeks' trip in his Aizu 
 district, " are a fairly sound bod}^, a purpose to eat the 
 food of the country and to enjoy it as far as possible, 
 patience to endure being eaten by the almost invisible, 
 yet exceedingly lively, occupants of nearly all hotels 
 and houses, a love of the people without condescension, 
 a belief that they are in some good sense God's children 
 and not the devil's, a knack at overcoming petty difficul- 
 ties and being confident in larger ones, a real living 
 message to deliver, with ability to put it into under- 
 standable language : — these and more are needed. 
 Then there should be centres where are pastors and 
 evangelists and groups of Christians who want you to 
 come, not so much as a bishop, but rather as a friend 
 with an older faith and a different experience. If, in 
 addition to these, one can have good weather and in- 
 spiring scenery, his two weeks will slip away fast." 
 The scenery always counted with him. His geological 
 studies had taught him to read in Japan's towering 
 peaks, mountain lakes, waterfalls, hot-springs, cliffs, 
 
192 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 rocks, rivers, and plains, the story of their formative 
 processes ; and year by year, as he saw more of her 
 hills and valleys, they deepened in him the sense of 
 reverence and love, because they always told him that 
 the Hand that made them was not only divine, but 
 " my Father's." He came also more and more to see 
 the influence of the land upon the people's character, 
 and to trace in their love of beauty one benign influence 
 from the Source of all beauty. 
 
 His touring in these years was not generally pioneer 
 work. He recognized in himself the lack of the quali- 
 ties of a leader or organizer ; his forte was in suggestion 
 and stimulation as a companion. His work was more 
 that of strengthening and encouraging the local Chris- 
 tian forces, than of breaking ground in new territory. 
 When he preached in new places, it was under the 
 auspices of Christians in some neighbouring place, or 
 by the invitation of some one of local influence. He 
 did not do disconnected work, desultory tract distri- 
 bution, or street-preaching ; of the last mentioned, he 
 seriously doubted the effectiveness in Japan. But he 
 was not blind to the fact that some of these means had 
 been used by other missionaries with good results ; and 
 the note-book has a paragraph entitled, k ' One New 
 Leading of God," as follows : 
 
 " Don't look at the side of probable failure of mis- 
 sionaries whose methods of work you don't believe in, 
 or can't use yourself. Let God bring success out of all 
 conditions. Pray for such. Don't court conversation 
 that dwells on failure probabilities ; yet face difficulties 
 with hope of victory." 
 
 " My plan," he said, " is to take the line of least 
 resistance, both in methods of work and in presentation 
 
THE MISSIONABY 193 
 
 of Christian truths." In general, his methods, " as far 
 as I have any," he wrote the Board in a period that 
 may be taken as typical, were as follows : " There are 
 now seven workers in this field, and I do nothing 
 virtually as far as controlling them is concerned. I 
 employ nobody and give no orders. This band is com- 
 posed wholly of men who have natural relations to each 
 other, and all additions to it, all subtractions from it, 
 their places of work, their methods, are almost wholly 
 in their hands, I being an adviser and helper in every 
 possible way. ... I do not visit any place at fixed 
 times, but hold myself ready to go at the invitation of 
 any one, and to stay as many days as I can stand it, or 
 merely for a given address." 
 
 This condition of cooperation, however, had not 
 always existed in the Sendai field : it had been de- 
 veloped somewhat as in Osaka. An illustration of the 
 process is found in the northern out-station of Mizusawa, 
 where a group of some twenty-five Christians had been 
 baptized soon after the opening of the Sendai Station. 
 The account runs as follows : 
 
 " According to methods then in use, I sent them an 
 evangelist, and his pay came from the American Board. 
 For fifteen years, during the anti-Christian and so-called 
 anti-foreign period, this work did not grow. It was 
 wholly under my direction ; whenever an evangelist 
 left, I sent them another. When they asked me to 
 send the last evangelist, I replied, ' We have given you 
 evangelists for over fifteen years ; it is time now for 
 you to assume responsibility and call your own evangel- 
 ist.' 
 
 " ' We will of course do it as soon as we are able, but 
 we cannot possibly raise any money as we are.' 
 
194 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 " * Well, then, if after we have spent hundreds of 
 dollars in helping you for fifteen years you are unable 
 to do anything, I suggest you go without an evangelist. 
 You can get an occasional preaching from some passing 
 missionary or pastor, and so keep alive until better 
 times.' 
 
 " ' No, we can't do that way ; we must have the man 
 we have our eyes on. Please send him to us.' 
 
 u I urged them to pray over it, and see how much 
 they could raise for the evangelist ; and at last they 
 pledged one dollar a month out of the ten that were 
 needed. Knowing they would be far more enthusiastic 
 if it were their own work, I told them I should never 
 again send them an evangelist, but would aid them as a 
 body of Christians to employ any one they wanted, 
 and the full responsibility for evangelizing that region 
 should be theirs, not mine; and that I would never 
 visit them unless they sent me an invitation. It 
 worked like a charm. They called the man they 
 specially wanted, and to their own surprise as well as 
 mine, raised two dollars and a half towards moving 
 expenses. It was not long before they were raising 
 three times as much as they promised ; and in time I 
 was invited to the dedication of the new church they 
 had built, that cost three hundred dollars and to which 
 a generous friend had enabled me to contribute fifty." 
 
 The churches that he thus aided and counselled were 
 often very weak, suffering from many vicissitudes. 
 But they were the result of the self-sacrifices of their 
 pastors and their members, and thus had in themselves 
 a deep source of vigour and of growth. 
 
 The touring work was greatly enjoyed by my father, 
 not only for the consciousness that it brought help to 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 195 
 
 the scattered groups of Christians, but also for the new- 
 thoughts and the new life that it gave him. It brought 
 him nearer to the people with whom he was working, 
 and to the heavenly Father upon whom he relied for 
 strength and wisdom in the work. " How often, in 
 preparation for preaching," runs a note-book jotting, " I 
 have prayed that I might have correct idioms, right 
 pronunciation, and then a heart flooded with a spirit of 
 love and truth, so that I might have liberty of tongue 
 to say my message ! " Of the evangelists with whom 
 he work 1, he said : " Being with these men, and seeing 
 their faith, and hearing their earnest prayers and 
 addresses, and perceiving also their real sacrifices for 
 Christ, have made an impression on my soul for good, 
 and I never w T ork with one of them without coming 
 home a better man myself. It is as blessed to receive 
 as to give." 
 
 He learned from his Japanese friends lessons in 
 tactful replies to delicate questions, as in this incident 
 from the diary : " Then the half -drunk head teacher 
 came forward and said with determined air that he had 
 several questions to ask ; and first, ' What defects are 
 there in Japanese morality that you should be spread- 
 ing Christianity ? ' — a line that most foreigners would 
 have tripped up on, — would have gone for sake, women, 
 etc. But Katagiri skillfully dodged the whole matter 
 by saying, ' That isn't the question ; but truth found 
 anywhere is truth for the whole world, not for one 
 country. When we received Buddhism, w r e didn't argue 
 what our defects were, but w T e saw the truth therein, and 
 took it. So with Confucianism ; so with Christianity.' " 
 
 Other rich sources of instruction were found in Japa- 
 nese history and current literature. From the history 
 
196 JOHX HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 and from selected Japanese fiction, he learned of domi- 
 nant motives carried down from Japan's past into her 
 present ; from Japanese newspapers and magazines he 
 learned at first hand the things uppermost in the public 
 mind. Once on a railroad journey, in conversation 
 with an educated stranger, the subject turned to the 
 then absorbing topic of the " text-book scandal," when 
 many prominent educators throughout the land were 
 convicted of receiving bribes from publishers of school- 
 books. The stranger expressed his sense of shame that 
 a foreigner should know of so disgraceful an o :urrence. 
 My father replied that shame for what had been in the 
 past was not so vital as the question whether Japan 
 had sufficient moral power to prevent the recurrence of 
 similar scandals in future. This led the conversation 
 to the great basis of morality in the teachings of Christ. 
 The man later followed up the conversation by a study 
 of Christianity, and became a Christian. 
 
 A favourite historical incident used by my father in 
 his sermons was the self-sacrifice of Sakura Sogoro, the 
 head man of a village in the province of Shimosa, who 
 was crucified in the first half of the seventeenth century 
 as the result of his righteous attempt to deliver his 
 village from the cruel oppression of an overlord. A 
 strong Christian pastor in Tokyo to-day, formerly a 
 Buddhist priest, traces part of his first interest in Chris- 
 tianity to an address on the principle of self-sacrifice, 
 in which my father used this incident to lead up to the 
 world's supreme example of life-giving for others. 
 
 In his general attitude towards the Japanese he was, 
 as one of his fellow r -missionaries termed him, an 
 " advocate " rather than a " judge." His place and 
 work did not require him to be the latter, but often 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 197 
 
 did call on him for the offices of the former. He was 
 not blind to the faults of the Japanese ; but in making 
 his moral estimates he made liberal allowance for mis- 
 understandings that might arise from differences of 
 custom and language. He said, " What sad, heavy, 
 discouraging days and nights every missionary of ex- 
 perience has suffered ! How near to wreckage some 
 great Christian works have gone because of racial dif- 
 ferences, because the Japanese terms of righteousness, 
 justice, virtue, chastity, honour, love, worship, have 
 shades of meaning that we are strangers to ! " He was 
 particularly on his guard against the danger of letting 
 himself become suspicious or unsympathetic : " That," 
 he said, " is the saddest thing that can happen. It 
 dries up our love and makes it formal ; it quenches the 
 Holy Spirit, who would otherwise give us the victory." 
 One thing that helped him to avoid sweeping gener- 
 alizations about bad Japanese characteristics, and that 
 prevented him from attributing to the whole nation the 
 faults of some classes or individuals, was his study of 
 their history and his understanding of the way sections 
 or strata of the nation had been differently influenced 
 by varying environment and training. He also dis- 
 tinguished between those failings that are common to 
 human beings everywhere and those that seem locally 
 emphasized. In his own mature judgment, the greatest 
 fault in Japanese character was the weakness of the 
 individual to act in new lines. When asked by one of 
 the commissions preparatory to the World Missionary 
 Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 to state any special 
 conditions or influences antagonistic to the spread of 
 the Gospel in Japan, he made among others the follow- 
 ing statement : 
 
198 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 "Those parts of Christian civilization that fit the 
 national characteristics so that the whole nation can 
 join in or agree with them, — like the Red Cross Society, 
 the humane spirit in philanthropic work, the growing 
 value of the individual, universal education, better 
 moral living, — are welcomed everywhere. But the 
 power of the Gospel for every individual, compelling 
 each deliberately to choose life or death, does not appeal 
 to individuals widely. They love to act en masse, and 
 are powerful in this line. The individual initiative is 
 weak. I have heard some of their own Christian 
 leaders lament this as the one great defect in Japanese 
 character. " 
 
 Of the good qualities of the Japanese, on the other 
 hand, there were many of which he loved to speak, and 
 which he found of inestimable help in his work as a 
 Christian missionary. Chief among these were loyalty, 
 open-mindedness, and love of righteousness. 1 
 
 He was a friend to all classes of men. He wrote the 
 bookbinder's English sign-board for him; he was in- 
 vited to a party by a group of local artisans, and re- 
 galed them with the story of his early attempts at self- 
 support ; he found points of contact with the jinrikisha 
 pullers behind whom he rode, and in bargaining with 
 them he always preferred to run the risk of overpay- 
 ing, rather than to underpay them. He had a warm 
 heart, to be sure, but it was not merely sympathy that 
 led him to generous treatment of those whom he em- 
 ployed. He had come to understand that in Japan the 
 sliding scale of charges often met was due in part to 
 the idea of noblesse oblige under the old regime, when 
 
 1 For more on this subject, see " The Moral Greatness of the People 
 of Japan/' by J. H. DeForest, in the Independent, July 9, 1907. 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 199 
 
 those who could pay more were expected to do so ; and 
 that therefore too strict an insistence upon an absolute 
 standard of value seemed, especially in places where 
 modernism and Western methods of trade had not yet 
 penetrated, like the expression of a stingy, mercenary 
 spirit. Thus it was a characteristic act on his part 
 when once, in bargaining with a jinrikisha man before 
 the journey, he argued the price down to a suitable 
 figure, and then at the close of the trip gave the puller 
 as a tip, with a friendly word or two, the balance of 
 the sum he had originally asked for. He thought too 
 of the welfare of the pullers. "When his enlarging 
 sphere had brought corresponding social obligations 
 and opportunities, he had an enclosure made near his 
 front gate, where the jinrikisha pullers of his guests 
 might wait under cover round a hibachi during the 
 cold evening hours. 
 
 The servants in his home were always closely at- 
 tached to him. At morning family worship he taught 
 them the Gospel and how to pray to their Father and 
 his ; and generally this bore fruit in their coming of 
 their own accord to profess their Christian faith. He 
 was, however, not only their religious teacher ; he was 
 their friend ; he treated them generously and sympa- 
 thetically in times of sickness or want, and took a 
 genuine interest in their family affairs. 
 
 Soldiers would come and spend many hours in his 
 study. His having been a soldier himself made a point 
 of contact, and to strengthen this he joined the Loyal 
 Legion as successor to an older brother who had been 
 an officer in the Civil War. He once came from his 
 study with his face beaming from a conversation with 
 a non-Christian samurai who had opened his heart to 
 
200 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 him in telling about his feeling for his sword — the sword 
 that has been from of old " the soul of the samurai" 
 After that, he saw new meaning in Isaiah's text, " My 
 sword is bathed in heaven." 
 
 His friendships extended also among men high in civil 
 and educational positions, who came through him to a 
 deeper realization of the vitality of spiritual things. 
 Said one of them at his funeral, in an address read to 
 his " valiant spirit," " It is only since I have known 
 you that I have come to see that the position of the 
 United States in the world to-day is due to the power 
 of religion and the knowledge of a reverential faith ; 
 and through knowing you I have come to understand 
 the truth in those words of the Confucian classic Chuyo, 
 ' The right should never be departed from ; that which 
 should be departed from is unrighteousness." 
 
 A Japanese once asked him what he liked best, and 
 his unhesitating answer was, " People." 
 
 His friends were not only among the Japanese. In 
 the foreign communities of Tokyo, Yokohama, and 
 Kobe, there were, outside the missionary circle, homes 
 of business or professional men in which he was always 
 a welcome guest. His talent for friendship was partly 
 due to the fact that there was no clerical professional- 
 ism about him that prevented him from being a man 
 among his fellow-men. He was one of them every- 
 where, interested in the broadly human things, believ- 
 ing that all aspects of God's world, not wrong in them- 
 selves, were part of His plan for His children's educa- 
 tion and enjo} 7 ment. He deplored the narrow separa- 
 tism of some missionaries, to whose failure to be genu- 
 inely and graciously human he attributed in part the 
 existence of the " anti-missionary belt " on some of the 
 
THE MISSIONAKY 201 
 
 Pacific steamers. He believed in the fullest type of 
 humanity, and held with the apostle Paul that the 
 larger the number of points at which he could touch 
 others' lives, the greater the chance of winning some to 
 Christ. Even clothes had their bearing on his mission. 
 "J. really pushes me," he once wrote home to my 
 mother, " asserting my duty to have a swallow-tail suit, 
 and clothes to enter the highest circles. He says I'm 
 sure of invitations that I can't afford to refuse. I firmly 
 said ' No ' last night, as I thought of you wearing such 
 poor clothes for the sake of educating the children. 
 But this morning a half doubt comes up — whether to 
 get a swallow-tail or a Prince Albert. I never prayed 
 about clothes before. May the good Lord guide me 
 into either a swallow-tail or some other kind, as will 
 glorify Him and me most." 
 
 His relations with his fellow-missionaries were of the 
 most cordial nature. Giving and receiving social, in- 
 tellectual, and spiritual help, his companionships with 
 his foreign co-workers were a rich part of his life. 
 Jovial by nature, he could be counted on for his share 
 of merrymaking on a social occasion ; he used to quote 
 the saying that God's sense of humour was proved by 
 His having made monkeys ; and he considered his own 
 love of humour a divine gift that had helped him and 
 his fellows over many a hard spot. Sympathetic, he 
 was one to go to in trouble or perplexity ; generous, he 
 was sought as peacemaker in cases of difference. A 
 friend especially of the new missionary, he often by 
 timely counsel and practical suggestion helped such a one 
 to get his footing and "find himself." One fellow- 
 worker has given two examples of this trait : 
 
 " At a business meeting in Sendai, in giving his 
 
202 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 views as to the best method of helping the flood suf- 
 ferers last fall, he spoke of the influence this relief work 
 would have upon the officials and upon religious work 
 in the future. A new missionary misunderstood him, 
 and criticized 'catering to classes in society.' With 
 nothing but kindness and love he carefully explained his 
 reasons and motives, as if that young missionary just 
 out from the Middle West had been his equal in ex- 
 perience and judgment." " Once at a little missionary 
 prayer-meeting at our house in Sendai, he said, ' Before 
 I take my furlough, which comes soon, I want to leave 
 a word for the young missionaries here. Always think 
 of the Japanese, not as you see them on the street, but 
 at their best. Carry only the noblest about them in 
 your thoughts. Do not allow yourself to dwell on 
 their faults and so lose respect for them.' " 
 
 His attitude as expressed in this advice had a deep 
 influence on some of his American fellow-workers. 
 One of the leading missionaries in Japan to-day has 
 said, " My general attitude towards Japan and the 
 Japanese is the result more of his influence and words 
 than of those of any other one man." And this same 
 attitude he maintained towards his fellow-workers ; one 
 of them said of him, " I never heard him criticize his 
 fellows. He always found something to admire in all 
 his friends, even those who were opposed to him in re- 
 ligious views." 
 
 Perhaps this was because he was himself so sensitive 
 to praise or blame. He had frequently to resist the 
 temptations that came from hearing himself well 
 spoken of, and his level head often saved him from 
 taking at full value the praise and even flattery that 
 came to him. While open to advice and frank speak- 
 
THE MISSIONARY 203 
 
 ing, he shrank from harsh criticism as from an enemy. 
 On one occasion a Japanese speaker had almost bitterly 
 criticized a missionary of sweet temper and thorough 
 Christian devotion. Afterwards my father said to an- 
 other who had also been in the audience, " I hope no 
 
 one will tell Dr. what that man said. It would 
 
 take the heart out of him. ISTo man can do his best 
 work if he knows such things are being said about him. 
 If any one knows any such things said about me, I 
 hope he will not tell me of it." 
 
 His theory and practice of the unity of the sons of 
 God bred in him a broad Christian charity towards the 
 other sects. The one thing of which he was intolerant 
 was intolerance. One day after a conversation with 
 another missionary, he said to me with a groan, " To 
 think that a university man could say so blindly that 
 he must * follow his conscience,' without recognizing 
 that a conscience can be educated." 
 
 His early attitude towards union and cooperation 
 was only confirmed by his later experience. He grew 
 more and more to believe that sectarian divisions surely 
 postponed, if not actually imperilled, the victory of 
 Christ in Japan. "The future of Christianity in 
 Japan demands that we preach Christ, and not some 
 inherited form of church government or of divisive 
 creed. . . . Until the great influential denomina- 
 tions themselves form such alliance or union as will de- 
 mand of their missionaries on the field that they co- 
 operate in every possible way in schools, in seminaries, 
 in occupation of places, and in evangelistic work, the 
 one answer to the inquiry [why missions have not ac- 
 complished more] must be the humiliating confession, 
 ' We have disobeyed the instructions of our Chief, who 
 
204 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 commanded us to have such a conspicuous unity as 
 would conclusively demonstrate to the world that He 
 was divinely sent from heaven to bring all men into 
 brotherhood.' " 
 
 He wrote the above for readers in America. For his 
 part on the field, he acted as far as possible as if such 
 unity were a fact, and was ever glad to find ways of 
 expressing his desire for it. During all his residence 
 in Sendai, whether in evangelistic work with evangel- 
 ists or missionaries of another denomination, or as lec- 
 turer in the school of another mission, or in giving sup- 
 port to the union enterprises of a poorhouse and an 
 orphan asylum in the city, he rejoiced to be free from 
 the trammels of anything that seemed to him to narrow 
 the grace and truth of God. One record runs : " I 
 spent a delightful three days in the work of the Re- 
 formed Church Mission last December, and was re- 
 warded with a vote of thanks from their evangelistic 
 committee. I should like to get a similar reward of 
 merit from our Episcopal and Catholic brethren before 
 I shuffle off this mortal coil." In prayer for the Pope, 
 and for the coming together of the three great branches 
 of the Christian Church, he bore the matter of Chris- 
 tian unity upon his heart. 
 
 One of the chief union activities of his later years 
 was his work on the Famine Eelief Committee of the 
 Sendai Foreign Community in 1905 and 1906. The 
 three northern provinces of which Sendai is the centre 
 suffered from so extensive a failure of the rice crop as 
 to threaten with starvation three-quarters of a million 
 people. As the gravity of the situation became real- 
 ized, the government with wise and far-sighted plans re- 
 mitted nearly two million yen of taxes, conducted 
 
THE MISSIONARY 205 
 
 nearly four million yen worth of public works — con- 
 struction of roads, bridges, river banks — to provide 
 labour for those that had no means of support, and 
 supplied to the impoverished farmers free seed of pota- 
 toes, rice, and wheat for the next year's crop. A liberal 
 imperial gift and private contributions from other Jap- 
 anese sources gave substantial aid. The foreign com- 
 munity of Sendai, including government school-teach- 
 ers, and Catholic as well as Protestant missionaries, 
 elected a committee that early published an appeal to 
 foreigners resident in the East. A generous response 
 was made. Then the appeal, sent abroad and copied 
 widely in England and America, was followed by re- 
 ports from the famine district as seen by members of 
 the committee. England through the Mansion House 
 Fund and similar collections, and America through the 
 Ked Cross Society and the Christian Herald, sent large 
 sums for relief ; Germany also contributed. A million 
 yen was thus sent from abroad to the Japanese govern- 
 ment or the Ked Cross Society ; over a hundred thou- 
 sand more came directly to the hands of the foreign 
 Eelief Committee, whose members visited the stricken 
 districts and presented the sums to local officials. The 
 efficiency of these officials in controlling the distribu- 
 tion of aid so as to avoid pauperizing the people was 
 worthy of admiration. It was not an absolutely un- 
 known thing, however, for the old samurai spirit of a 
 man to rise and refuse aid, preferring death to the dis- 
 grace of becoming an object of charity even from his 
 own nation. Thus the foreign Eelief Committee took 
 pains to present its contributions with the emphasis on 
 the friendly human spirit of which they were tokens. 
 Incidents from the visits of the committee might be 
 
206 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 multiplied, but a few selected paragraphs from my 
 father's reports will sufficiently indicate the nature of 
 the need and the relief. 
 
 " Our methods of work are wholly new, and we think 
 the best possible for foreigners in a land like Japan, 
 where the people are high-spirited and resent any 
 assumption that they need foreign aid. It certainly is 
 admirable — the brave fight that nearly a million men, 
 women, and children are making under the most dis- 
 couraging circumstances. But just as during the war 
 they prized the sympathy of the Anglo-Saxon race, so 
 now they prize the humanitarian spirit of any foreigner 
 who wants to show his sympathy and does it in a tact- 
 ful way. 
 
 " In three provinces there are some forty-six coun- 
 ties, thirty-five or six of which are in need of aid ; and 
 in some over half the population are near the edge of 
 starvation, and tens of thousands are actually without 
 to-day's food. We have been cordially introduced 
 from the governors to the heads of these counties, to 
 whom we take in fair proportion the money contrib- 
 uted through us, with the request that it be turned 
 into food. I took last week $920 to three counties. 
 It was the toughest winter job I ever had. I rode 
 fifty-five miles through deep snow, and it nearly used 
 up nineteen men to pull me. 
 
 " The cold and snows of this winter are almost un- 
 precedented. Such stinging, cutting, biting winds ! 
 It is pitiable in the extreme to see thinly clad, bare- 
 footed children who have had but a taste of miserable 
 food once in twenty-four hours. It is worse to hear 
 that a woman froze to death in childbirth ; that another 
 froze under the temple steps, where she had gone in 
 
THE MISSIOKAEY 207 
 
 her extremity to pray for deliverance from hunger. 
 In the worst village I visited, there were fifty houses, 
 forty-five of which were in total destitution. Not only 
 was food gone, but everything that would bring a few 
 cents— clothing and bedding and tools— had been sold ; 
 and the wretched soup of daikon (coarse radishes) and 
 leaves from grape-vines, into which a handful of cheap 
 rice-flour was stirred, was all they could get." 
 
 A union orphanage for the destitute children of the 
 famine district, established in Sendai with part of the 
 relief funds or such gifts as came in after the new 
 crops had begun to yield, remains to-day as an effective 
 witness to practical Christianity. How far-reaching 
 are the influences of the good-will aroused by the 
 famine relief work it is impossible to say. But it may 
 be that one seemingly insignificant incident has done 
 as much for the spread of this good- will as many more 
 striking ones. One day a Tokyo reporter called on my 
 father to get some information about the relief work. 
 
 " I'd like to have you meet the committee," said my 
 father. " Come around to-night, and I'll get as many 
 of them as can come together for dinner." 
 
 The impromptu party proved a great success ; and 
 the reporter, with the keen eye and ear of his profes- 
 sion, did not confine his attention to famine relief 
 items. He wrote for the Tokyo Asahi a news letter, 
 narrating the details of the occasion, from the asking 
 of the blessing before the meal to the jokes exchanged 
 over the home-raised celery. His account, as a good 
 sample of journalism, was inserted in a popular set of 
 girls' high school readers that has been widely used 
 throughout Japan ; and thus the story of an unsuspect- 
 ing dinner-party has given to thousands of Japanese 
 
208 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 girls a glimpse of a Christian home open for social in- 
 spiration and the fellowship of good works. 
 
 The social side of that home was indeed an important 
 part of its life. When games and songs for the young 
 people made up the program, my mother generally 
 presided : the kodak and the stereopticon — gifts from 
 American friends — were my father's favourite means of 
 entertaining guests. Both in and out of the home 
 they preached the Gospel of the coming Kingdom. 
 Or his case of minerals and fossils, largely collected in 
 Japan, would be used to tell the story of the great on- 
 ward march of the universe under divine control ; and 
 the books that lined his study walls would come down 
 from their shelves to speak some new message of truth 
 and light to an eager caller. 
 
 He knew how to bring big topics into little conver- 
 sations. A maker of the well-known Sendai cabinets — 
 of lacquered wood with elaborate iron trimmings — once 
 came to him to ask his advice in some business deal- 
 ings with a foreigner in a port city. This foreigner 
 had ordered three cabinets, giving the exact measure- 
 ments desired ; and the cabinets had been made accord- 
 ing to instructions and shipped. On their arrival, 
 however, word had been sent back to the maker that, 
 although two were acceptable, the third was not as 
 ordered, and would only be accepted at a price much 
 lower than the original. What should the maker do ? 
 My father advised him to write, asking that the cabinet 
 be returned at the maker's own expense. " But," the 
 man demurred, " it will be a great loss to me to have 
 so large an article, made by special order, left on my 
 hands." " It was made exactly as ordered ? " " Yes." 
 " Then it will be a far greater loss to you virtually to 
 
THE MISSIONAKY 209 
 
 deny your own honesty and lower your goods." The 
 cabinet-maker saw the point and accepted the advice. 
 This time the reply came back that on a second exami- 
 nation the cabinet had proved satisfactory. It was 
 evidently a case where the clerk or secretary that had 
 charge of the correspondence at the other end had 
 tried* a little " graft," and had been baffled by the un- 
 expected display of backbone on the part of the 
 cabinet-maker ; who, on his side, had learned a lesson 
 in self-respect and business integrity. 
 
 These little home talks with all grades of people 
 were no insignificant part of the missionary's work. 
 He was often busy, too, with writing, both for the 
 Japanese and for the American press. His early writ- 
 ings for America were chiefly for the Missionary 
 Herald and the Religious Herald. When the Inde- 
 pendent, after publishing an occasional article of his 
 on timely subjects connected with the constitutional 
 development of Japanese government and the treaty 
 revision, asked him for contributions of monthly items, 
 he declined the request on the ground that such con- 
 tributing would be unfair to the Board, which had the 
 first right to information from its missionaries. When 
 the question was broached to the Board, however, its 
 editorial secretary, Dr. Strong, took the generous atti- 
 tude that some topics might be treated on a wider 
 basis than was convenient for the Missionary Herald, 
 and that therefore his contributions need not be limited 
 to that magazine when he had something to say to the 
 wide Christian public. With this permission he be- 
 came recognized as a regular contributor to the Inde- 
 pendent, to which he thereafter sent annually, with 
 few exceptions, a summary of the principal political, 
 
210 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 economic, and religious events of the year in Japan 
 The Board also left to his own disposal the income 
 from such writings, which proved a material necessity 
 in the later years when his widening circle of activities 
 made upon him correspondingly widening financial de- 
 mands. 
 
 For the Japanese press he wrote extensively. He 
 produced no great work, but he wrote to meet definite 
 situations, and to the timeliness of many of his tracts 
 was due their success. He drew his subjects from the 
 thought and the movements of the Japanese, as he 
 touched them in his Christian work : when he found 
 from the reception of a talk that it had struck a vibrant 
 chord in his hearers, he gave it the wider voice of the 
 printed page. Some of his subjects, he said, he would 
 not have thought of taking, but for the suggestions of 
 the evangelists with whom he was working, who knew 
 so well what lines of thought would touch a popular 
 audience and open the door for the presentation of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 In his early years in Japan, his writing for the 
 Japanese press was done in English and translated by 
 some competent Japanese. His later work, however, 
 was done by dictating in the higher colloquial to a 
 secretary who afterwards made the necessary literary 
 changes for print. Mr. Katagiri, whom we have 
 already met in the out-station work, was called to the 
 pastorate of the Sendai Kumiai Church in 1897, and 
 from that time shared my father's work as his able 
 literary helper. Their friendship was a close one, and 
 in this friendship and others like it, bound by Christian 
 ties, lay the stimulus to the erecting of the DeForest 
 Memorial Church in Sendai. 
 
THE MISSIOJSTAEY 211 
 
 Another close friendship was with Kev. D. B. Schne- 
 der, of the German Kef ormed Mission in Sendai. During 
 the last ten years of my father's life, Dr. Schneder and 
 he, as the two Americans of longest residence in Sendai, 
 were frequently associated in council and activities. 
 Dr. Schneder, as president of the North Japan College, 
 had an opportunity of experience and knowledge that 
 supplemented my father's in his less organized form of 
 work ; and in their consultations and exchanges of 
 thought there grew up between them a spiritual 
 sympathy outliving the occasions that bore and fos- 
 tered it. 
 
 His closest friendships in America were those of col- 
 lege days, which seemed only to strengthen as the years 
 went by. He was intensely loyal to his Alma Mater, 
 loving her more as the years showed him what she had 
 done for him. To be a Yale man he felt was a distinct 
 advantage to him in his work, often giving him a 
 favourable introduction as from a college well known 
 in Japan. He attended when possible the Yale-Harvard 
 alumni dinners in Tokyo, and rejoiced in this opportu- 
 nity of showing his college spirit, as well as of getting 
 acquainted with both Japanese and Americans that 
 shared his college inheritance. 
 
 An additional link with Yale came when the univer- 
 sity conferred upon him in 1889 the degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity, in recognition — to quote the official notifica- 
 tion — " of your success in the difficult field to which 
 you have been called, and thus to remind you that 
 faithful labour in such a field, however distant, is 
 eagerly followed and warmly appreciated by those who 
 care for the interests of Christian learning here." His 
 pleasure in this unexpected sign of appreciation was 
 
212 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 sincere, for he felt that it honoured the cause to which 
 he had given his life ; but it humbled him with a sense 
 of his own unfitness and the belief that Yale had other 
 men in the same fields of labour more worthy of it than 
 he. " I have no idea how it happened to strike me — 
 this Yale lightning," he wrote his mother. "Every 
 day a laugh goes up over me — it is so funny. The 
 trouble is, it will never cease to be funny, and I shall 
 have this burden to bring my gray hairs in sorrow to 
 the grave — provided the hair holds out." 
 
 In our family life, the long separation between father 
 and growing children was of course a regrettable neces- 
 sity. But it had one compensation in the intimate cor- 
 respondence that arose between them. His letters were 
 pervaded with a warm human quality that made every 
 word alive with his personality ; and to his children he 
 wrote with such commingling of the grave and the gay 
 as only an instinctive father could. Anticipating the sep- 
 aration, our parents had from early childhood trained 
 us to self-dependence in action and principles ; and pa- 
 rental authority, though strictly maintained, was never 
 arbitrary. Hence one of his children's richest legacies 
 was the faith he had in them. He could write to a 
 daughter in the midst of college perplexities : " When- 
 ever you find that your judgment differs from ours, I 
 want you to feel at perfect liberty to follow yours. 
 For we cannot see things in the same light at this 
 distance." " I often refer in my sermons to my 
 children, as helping me to explain the relation of God 
 to men," he wrote at another time. If his own ex- 
 perience of fatherhood helped him to understand the 
 heart of God, so none the less did his fatherhood in- 
 terpret to his growing children as nothing else could 
 
THE MISSIONAKY 213 
 
 have done the meaning of the Name Christ gave when 
 He taught us to say, " Our Father who art in heaven." 
 
 I do not remember that my father ever talked to 
 any of us about becoming missionaries, except as we 
 broached the question. His own enthusiasm for the 
 greatness of his calling kept that calling ever before 
 us ; but he always emphasized character above occupa- 
 tion, and gave God's claim to the love and service of 
 every human being the priority over the question of the 
 form that service should take. None the less, however, 
 did he glory in the form of service to which God had 
 led him. Once when he was on a journey with his 
 small son, the two stepped out at a station to watch the 
 engine and the work of the train hands. Lost in ad- 
 miration for the men and their activities, the boy looked 
 up and said, " Papa, why don't you be somebody — an 
 engineer or a conductor, or something f " A more so- 
 phisticated friend in later years suggested to my father 
 that a diplomatic position in the Orient would give freer 
 scope to his powers than merely being a missionary 
 could do. But the thought offered no temptation. To 
 him there was no calling of greater opportunity and 
 greater glory than that of his ambassadorship for 
 Christ. To fulfill this was his highest ideal. 
 
 " We are here to pass on to others, not a creed, nor 
 the Bible as such, but an influence," he once said to me. 
 This he conceived was what Christ did, and what His 
 representatives should do. This conception of his 
 mission made upon the man a demand for the fullest 
 perfecting of his every power and for his fullest hu- 
 manity, that it might be the better medium for trans- 
 mitting the influence of God's Holy Spirit. 
 
 I append a few extracts selected with difficulty from 
 
214 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 the wealth of his family correspondence covering many 
 years. 
 
 At Mission Meeting. 
 " At the table to-night we had an uproarious time. 
 I told some of my college experiences, and after a while 
 Sydney Gulick remarked, without a smile, ' You must 
 have been converted since then ! ' It added to the fun. 
 I remarked, ' Just as though once would have been 
 enough ! ' Indeed, it really seems as though I had been 
 converted many times. New experiences and a break- 
 ing away from old thoughts and lower ideals seem like 
 a new life." 
 
 " I have a pretty little story to tell you, — at least, it 
 seemed very sweet to me. 
 
 " At Mizusawa, seventy miles north, lives a Christian 
 family . . . whose youngest little girl is only four or 
 five years old. She heard her parents talking about the 
 missionary's coming soon ; so one morning when she 
 waked up, she asked her parents, ' When will Christ 
 come ? ' They didn't catch on at first, but soon found 
 she had mixed Christ and me. They told me this last 
 Sunday evening when I was calling at their home. 
 . . . How splendid a thing it would be to have 
 people think of me as so much like Christ ! I felt that 
 the little one's question was a divine message to me to 
 be better and to carry far more of love and joy to those 
 around me." 
 
 " I got back with Mamma last night after three 
 weeks of the hardest touring I've ever done [in the 
 Hokkaido], and with the least food within me ; but it 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 215 
 
 was the best spiritually I've ever had. ... At one 
 meeting, the most exciting one, a young man fell in a 
 fit of epilepsy, the worst enemy of Christianity in those 
 regions was converted, and one of the strongest Chris, 
 tians sobbed aloud ; I began to suspect the devil was to 
 pay, and decided to cuff his ears, but the meeting 
 quieted down and was a rare one in its results. It was 
 at a little village where were but few Christians, and 
 they proposed to raise twenty-five yen for a shed in 
 which to teach a Sunday-school. It seemed impossible 
 to get the money at first, but it ended in one Christian's 
 giving twenty-live yen; the shed is to be a church 
 costing three hundred and fifty yen, and the Christians 
 are going to spend Sundays in the woods cutting down 
 trees and floating the timber down the river for the 
 new church ! It's the Lord's house to be built by labour 
 on the Lord's day ! I thought it a fine idea of these 
 uncultured Christians to consecrate their time and 
 money this way. . . . Well, Mamma stands tour- 
 ing like a * tough,' . . . crossing swift rivers with 
 the water up to the saddle and the pony bracing to save 
 being washed into the pony-spirit-world. . . . She 
 led some meetings, modestly declaring she couldn't. 
 She endured friendly fleas with something almost like 
 patience. She naturally would have been the one to 
 fall off her horse, but it was I who did it, with my 
 horse at a dead gallop and beyond my control. Ordi- 
 narily it would have killed me, and the next Missionary 
 Herald would have had my picture and a sketch of 
 my life ; but being done on a sand-dune, I ricochetted 
 like a cannon-ball, — the sand flying like spray, — and 
 got only a bruised hip and two kicks from my horse. 
 Glorious to be a missionary ! " 
 
216 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 " It's a long time since I've written you, for my two 
 weeks in Aizu were pretty well filled in with addresses, 
 consultations, and, for a wonder, with mountain-climbing. 
 Somehow I didn't feel very full of life, and only a few 
 of my addresses were full of get-up. I found an unusual 
 amount of trouble and perplexity on the part of the 
 evangelists and prominent Christians, and I had to have 
 my sympathies pretty well stretched. I also ran into 
 some new experiences that fretted me. For one thing, 
 I discovered that the bath-tub of one hotel was filled 
 from the town-drain ! — where all street filth enters and 
 where the public wash their clothes, babies, dishes, etc. 
 Of course the water was a rather swift-flowing stream 
 and looked pretty clean, but all the same I didn't like 
 my baths in that hotel after that. ... I noticed 
 that John the Baptist might have had a good time in 
 Aizu, as far as his fare of locusts is concerned. One of 
 the evangelists said he was treated to these crisp insects 
 at one house where he called, but not being used to 
 such fare, he couldn't eat them. . . . This reminds 
 me of what probably you heard long ago : when translat- 
 ing the Bible in Hawaii [Micronesia ?], where neither 
 locusts nor wild honey were known and for which there 
 were no names, the nearest the pious translators could 
 come was to say, 'His food was cockroaches and 
 molasses ' ! " 
 
 " Dysentery is prevalent all through my field, and 
 there are many places where all meetings are forbidden 
 until November 15th ; so I skipped down here where 
 diseases don't flourish, and am making seven addresses 
 in a week. . . . There's no doubt some good is 
 done by rushing around and speaking with conviction 
 
THE MISSIOtfAKY 217 
 
 about God and Christ, and I get good attention and 
 enjoy the work. But without personal work, such gen- 
 eral work as this tends to evaporate. I must get at 
 individuals this winter more and more." 
 
 1898. 
 " I have a new tract in the works, called ' The Japa- 
 nese Family.' I argue the case from the standpoint of 
 the new family law, which is very much below the 
 level of our laws in two respects : (1) Marriage is a 
 simple contract, just about like any other contract, and 
 takes no account of the fact that new relations are 
 thereby croated that lift the contract on to a high and 
 new plane. (2) Divorce therefore is at the convenience 
 of the two parties concerned, and can take place any 
 time with no judicial interference ! In case only one 
 party wants divorce, the case may be taken to the 
 court. I give the customs and laws of the West on 
 these points, and end by asserting that Christianity is 
 the moral force that has given us our ideal family life." 
 
 Hokkaido. 
 " It is pleasant to find that three of the workers up 
 here heard the Gospel first from me, — two in Tottori : 
 one a woman who heard me in the theatre ; she is the 
 Bible- woman here. One is pastor of the independent 
 church in Uragawa, who went to the theatre at Tottori 
 to hear me, but couldn't get in for the crowd. So he 
 got around till he found a crack in the walls, and lis- 
 tened. He heard me say it was unreasonable to hope 
 to know things fully before believing : people ride in 
 cars without dreaming of understanding all about the 
 engine, etc. He said it disposed him to believe." 
 
218 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 On hoard a Japanese steamer. 
 " I've just had a nice talk with one of the officers on 
 ' Immortality.' He asked me about it, and I went at it 
 philosophically and he seemed really much interested. 
 Then I said to him, ' We Christians have a much shorter 
 way of settling the question — it is by the Kesurrection.' 
 Instantly his face fell, his interest was gone. ' That 
 kind of argument has no force with us,' he said. I told 
 him I knew that, but when a man once got where he 
 was really hungry for hope, there was nothing to com- 
 pare with the Resurrection. Perhaps it will be a 
 thought in his soul that will abide." 
 
 Sendai, 1897. 
 " Went to church as usual, but only fifteen were at 
 the preaching. It looks as if it would take a long time 
 to build up strong organic work. Spurts fit Japan. 
 Great holidays and sacred days when the whole people 
 can turn out, and then rest off another half-year, — this 
 is what Buddhism has educated the people into. How- 
 ever, ' the Kingdom is the Lord's,' and in other ways 
 God is blessing the nation." 
 
 Sendai, 1897. 
 " A new experience befell me to-day. I've been to 
 the court-house at the trial of S. [a Japanese Christian]. 
 This affair has created great excitement in Sendai. He 
 is charged with misappropriating money contributed 
 for tidal-wave sufferers. He certainly is faulty and 
 careless in his handling of it. I was pleased with the 
 pleasant and gentlemanly way the judge questioned 
 him. I myself was reproved twice by the censor, once 
 for having on my overcoat, and once for sitting with 
 
THE MISSIOXAEY 219 
 
 crossed legs ! ! We had the lawyer here to tea to-night, 
 and had a nice talk about law and customs. I told him 
 how little we thought of clothes and etiquette of such 
 a kind, and how much more we thought of character. 
 He was immensely surprised to hear me say I saw our 
 Ambassador Bingham stand beside the Emperor with 
 overcoat on at the opening of the railroad at Osaka 
 twenty-two years ago. He made a note of it and said 
 he would write it up for the papers. ... I go 
 again to the trial to-morrow, and if it is cold I propose 
 to ask permission to keep my overcoat on ' on account 
 of sickness,' this being a universal lie in Japan which 
 will apply to an inch or two on my shoulders that feel 
 like rheumatism ! " Two days later. — " I was at S.'s trial 
 yesterday and the day before. It's a new thing here to 
 have a Christian on trial, and new to see foreigners in 
 the court-room. I took the occasion to study up the 
 affair to see how the courts will work when we are 
 prisoners. S.'s three lawyers did well ; one is a Chris- 
 tian. ... I spent two or three hours with this 
 lawyer, and am quite satisfied that the French system 
 here is on the whole just and careful, though quite dif- 
 ferent from ours. I mean to write it up if I can get 
 time — for my own sake and others." Nine days 
 later. — " ... I thought I'd go and see S. in prison. 
 . . . I went with no introduction, and asked to see 
 S. I was sent to the inner office, where my business 
 was inquired into ; but as I had none, I was refused. 
 Then it occurred to me to ask permission to see the 
 prison inside. This was a poser to the attendant, but he 
 went off and pretty soon invited me into the visitors' 
 room, and the head officer came in. I told him frankly 
 how foreigners were feeling on coming under Japanese 
 
220 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 law, and how I wanted to see for myself, so as to be 
 able to tell from my own observation. ' For instance,' 
 I said, * I hear S. is confined in a dark cell.' He jumped 
 up and cautiously opened a window and pointed down 
 into the court. ' There he is.' And I saw he was in a 
 light cell with books. After a little talk, he said he 
 himself would show me around. So I spent two hours 
 there and saw pretty much everything, I should judge ; 
 and he unhesitatingly answered all my questions. It 
 was a good thing to have spent a morning thus." 
 
 "I've finished my article on 'Japanese Criminal 
 Law,' and shall send it to the Independent. As usual, 
 I can't tell whether it will be regarded as worth any- 
 thing. I show it up with the prison system in con- 
 nection with the apprehension of foreigners at the com- 
 ing abolition of extraterritoriality. It has cost me 
 a lot of time and inquiry, but it has paid to study up 
 the system— it's a shame I didn't do it before." 
 
 " I scribble away at topics that occur to me as I have 
 time. It does me good, and widens my horizon to 
 study things that seem way outside my work, but I 
 find it pays. I send you my latest on ' Asama ' [vol- 
 cano]." 
 
 " All my fears that my Independent article wouldn't 
 be accepted came to naught, and Mamma emphatically 
 affirms, ' I told you so.' Curious, isn't it ? — this phrase 
 is inspired, or its equivalent is — ' Ye ought to have 
 hearkened unto me ! ' Acts xxvii. 21. Well, it's often a 
 great relief to have things happen as ' I said,' and even 
 Paul must have felt a bit nice as he got off the above. 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 221 
 
 I got twenty dollars for it, and now am going to order 
 some books — a thing I've refrained from doing for a 
 year or two, and I can't stand it much longer." 
 
 Sakata, 1897. 
 " M. got the teachers to invite me to address them in 
 one of the Sho Gakko [primary schools]. They were 
 very particular about it, didn't want any religion. 
 . . . The principal, in introducing me, expressly 
 said that though I was a Christian missionary, I had 
 been asked not to mention Christianity. . . . The 
 audience comprised the teachers of several schools, the 
 village head, and prominent men from near villages, so 
 that I had about sixty adults and two hundred small 
 students. I looked at the children, and fired away for 
 the benefit of the adults. Then there was an after- 
 meeting of an hour for tea and cake and questions of 
 all sorts. ... I found it was a fine thing for a 
 missionary to know lots of things besides shukyo [re- 
 ligion]. The leading citizens and others fired questions 
 of all sorts at me — on geology of Japan, when made, 
 difference between Japanese coal and ours, how the 
 globe was made, etc., etc. Of course they were spe- 
 cially interested to learn how the Sakata region was 
 formed ; it's very simple, and I could tell at a glance. 
 Then they asked about farming in the United States, 
 and were amazed at the way Western farmers use ma- 
 chinery for this work. Then about raising rice, silk, 
 wheat, etc. At last they asked about the distinctive 
 tenets of Christianity, and I had my chance there to 
 tell them about the universal Fatherhood of God and 
 the consequent Brotherhood of Man, with the result as 
 seen in the history of Western nations. It is the first 
 
222 JOHN HYDE DeFOBEST 
 
 time since my return to Japan that I've had so fine a 
 chance and so steady and polite questionings." 
 
 " February 22d. 
 " Almost thou persuadest me to tell a fib and write 
 for the date ' February 23d,' but my bringing up rather 
 militates against jumping time even for your birthday. 
 But to-morrow is Sunday, and I've got a contract to 
 deliver a lecture on ' The Evolution of Patriotism ' in a 
 schoolhouse five miles south of here. That, too, rather 
 militates against my bringing up. But I like to accept 
 the few invitations I get to speak in schools, so that I 
 may win some even by that means. Of course the 
 teaching of religion in any public school is forbidden, 
 so I take the above subject, and mean to show its vital 
 relation to religion. It is a historic fact that the first 
 impulse towards building a nation is from religion. 
 And here in Japan the ancient word for government is 
 the religious rites. So I have ample room to edge up 
 to our religion and leave it there." 
 
 " A visit to the big [prefectural] prison here, for an 
 interview with two prisoners, is a rather new event in 
 my career, being the second time I've been called. 
 The men had read some of my publications and wanted 
 to ask me about God and the Holy Spirit ; and both 
 wanted to join the church when released next year." 
 
 " Isn't it queer how we are led by what seem trifles ? 
 I'm reading novels nowadays with all the vim possi- 
 ble ; I read fifty pages yesterday. It came about this 
 way : one of my old students became very profligate 
 and wasted four years in riotous living. Then a Japa- 
 
THE MISSIONAEY 223 
 
 nese novel on Christian lines arrested his attention and 
 brought him to repentance. He came and made a full 
 confession. So I bought the book." 
 
 TaJcata, 1902. 
 "I brought along a Japanese novel — 'The Cherry- 
 Blossom of the Morning Sun,' or, ' The Spirit that 
 Dominates Japan.' I find lots of new things in novels 
 nowadays. I see as never before the deep and ruling 
 ideas that have conserved Old Japan and that enable 
 New Japan to catch on to our civilization so easily. 
 The intense desire to keep the family line from dying 
 out is one of these most prominent ruling ideas. I'm 
 doing more novel reading than I ever dreamed of, and 
 the knowledge gained is a real help in sympathetic 
 preaching." 
 
 " I'm glad you are taking ethics for one of your 
 courses ; especially if you are coming to Japan. This 
 is one of the burning questions of this people now ; 
 many volumes are continually coming out. So I have 
 a lecture on ' Universal Ethics' that is everywhere well 
 received, though some of my hearers criticize it pretty 
 severely. My heads you would be at a loss to guess. 
 They are: Suicide, Lying, Drunkenness, and Unchas- 
 tity. Of course I have to be careful how I sail into 
 such themes, for they are vital to this people. But I 
 take it historically, and so relieve it of some of its ag. 
 gressive nature. I also plan to speak sympathetically, 
 for when one has lost the sympathy of his audience, 
 the game is up. Indeed, it is better not to speak at all." 
 
 " What a life touring is ! I've been out now about 
 two weeks and have two more. Mght after night I 
 
224 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 am at it with audiences until twelve o'clock. Then I 
 swap off and have an afternoon meeting, hoping to rest 
 early in the evening, but a caller prevents. I have rice 
 and raw eggs sometimes three times a day ; but last 
 night I had a chicken stew on my hibachi, and managed 
 to put away four bowls of rice too. And as Mamma 
 sent me a box of cocoa, I topped off with some of that, 
 and stale crackers. But the audiences are so nice that 
 I really enjoy my food ; and I feel that God is using 
 me to help bring the great East and the powerful West 
 together in a brotherhood founded in one deep faith." 
 
VII 
 
 The Expansion of the Message 
 
 «« We limit not the truth of God 
 To our poor reach of mind, 
 By notions of our day and sect, 
 Crude, partial, and confined. 
 
 " Who dares to bind to his dull sense 
 The oracles of heaven, 
 For all the nations, tongues, and climes, 
 And all the ages given ? " 
 
 — G. Rawson. 
 
 « For the love of God is broader 
 
 Than the measure of man's mind, 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully kind." 
 
 —F. W. Faber. 
 
VII 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 
 
 WE have already seen how the type of the 
 audience affected the missionary's method 
 of presenting Christianity ; how his sense 
 of the spiritual condition of the hearer led him to take 
 his stand now on apologetics, now on the essentials of 
 Christian morality, now on the need for decision, now 
 on the entering in upon the riches of the high calling 
 of the children of God. There was beneath the vary- 
 ing forms of presentation a profound growth within his 
 own soul in his conception and understanding of his 
 message. 
 
 There were two converging lines of thought and ex- 
 perience in this development : his study of the products 
 of Western thought in philosophy, history, and theology ; 
 and his study of the products of Eastern thought as 
 seen in the religions, ideals, and history of Japan. The 
 former was the result of his intellectual awakening in 
 his early forties ; the latter, of his resolution at about 
 the same time to acquire the Japanese point of view. 
 
 The former had its closest relation to his work as a 
 missionary through its relation to the Bible. In his 
 early years in the ministry, when the wave of Biblical 
 criticism was invading America, he, like many others, 
 had feared its influence upon the authority of the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures and had shrunk from the destructive- 
 
 227 
 
228 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 ness that seemed at first its most striking characteristic. 
 Then gradually came this thought, as he himself ex- 
 pressed it : 
 
 " We may have to change our theory of inspiration. 
 . . . Our fathers modified their ideas of God and 
 the Bible, and based their creeds and theologies on their 
 growing knowledge and their larger environment : and 
 their God was all the more a living God to them, and 
 their Bible all the better for the enlarged interpreta- 
 tion they reverently made. In like manner our en- 
 vironment has vastly increased, bringing immense 
 treasures of new knowledge, and we should not be true 
 to the spirit of our fathers unless we were ready, in the 
 face of new facts, to change our ideas about God, about 
 the Bible, about the world, and about our inherited 
 creeds and theologies." 
 
 This was the kind of argument he heard his Japa- 
 nese friends use with their countrymen for open-mind ed- 
 ness towards the religion of Christ. Could he, with the 
 words of Christ in his ears, " The truth shall make you 
 free," be less bold in the pursuit of that truth than the 
 people to whom he was trying to bring the knowledge 
 of it ? Then, too, his studies in science, history, and 
 philosophy were raising a crowd of questions that he 
 could not honestly ignore. " The new knowledge of 
 man that is flooding the world," he afterwards wrote, 
 " forced me to questions in many directions. By what 
 methods was this book [the Bible] made ? How hap- 
 pens it to record stories that my reason would at once 
 reject if I found them in the records of any other re- 
 ligion ? Why should my faith in God and in Christ be 
 loaded and burdened with faith in ancient traditions 
 and reputed miracles and unscientific statements ? I 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 229 
 
 should have given up my Bible, I would have discarded 
 the title of minister and missionary, had not relief been 
 found in the evolutionary knowledge of the methods 
 by which God works." 
 
 Many members of the American Board mission spent 
 their summer vacations for a good part of the eighties 
 and nineties tenting on the sacred mountain of Hiei 
 near Kyoto. Here they often held their annual meet- 
 ing of reports and conferences about the work. Hither 
 they brought their Japanese teachers and studied. 
 Here they had short courses of study for their children, 
 to many of whom the association with other American 
 children made those summer weeks one exciting gala- 
 day. Here was the chapel tent, sacred in the memories 
 of many of the mission children who there first pro- 
 fessed their allegiance to Christ. Here also were 
 weekly prayer-meetings, lectures, entertainments, that 
 made the community life richer and closer. Sometimes 
 those who were to contribute to this community life 
 were given long notice ; and in the summer of 1892 my 
 father, already interested in methods of modern Bib- 
 lical investigation, was asked to lead the next summer's 
 Bible class of missionaries on Deuteronomy. As the 
 views of modern criticism on this book have a far- 
 reaching bearing upon a large part of the Old Testa- 
 ment, his preparation for this class involved an investiga- 
 tion of the grounds in general on which the conclusions 
 of critical scholarship rest. He found this most stimu- 
 lating and enlightening. Half of the class held a week- 
 day meeting for fuller discussion of the technical ques- 
 tions than was desirable in the Sunday session. Great 
 was the helpfulness of these meetings to the leader at 
 least, for the discussion of mature minds and reverent 
 
230 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 spirits of a variety of moulds gave breadth of view, and 
 safeguarded conclusions. 
 
 It took time, however, for this new head knowledge 
 to become assimilated into heart knowledge, — for its 
 bearings upon life to grow into his experience. For 
 years he was cautious about uttering his acceptance of 
 Biblical criticism in general ; for it would have been a 
 Saul's armour to him instead of his own tested stone 
 and sling. If it was true that the revelation of God in 
 the great past was a progressive one, growing through 
 the ages; if it was true that the early beliefs and 
 institutions of the Israelites had their analogies in the 
 nations around them and were not " determined in 
 every feature by a direct revelation from heaven," 
 how were these facts to affect his attitude towards the 
 past of the Japanese people ? — how that towards 
 Buddhism and Shintoism ? 
 
 The a priori conclusion was that the guiding hand 
 of God had led the Japanese, like the Israelites, by 
 using their environment and the borrowed or inherited 
 elements of their religion as stepping-stones in the path 
 to Christ. This conclusion, moreover, bore the test of 
 being applied to the history of the Japanese. As his 
 studies of their past, their ideals, their moral teachers, 
 revealed to him more and more the witness to Himself 
 that God had been implanting in the nation during its 
 preparatory centuries, he bowed his head and lifted his 
 heart with a new awe, and a new understanding of the 
 greatness and the glory of his God. No longer did he 
 fear to change his theory of inspiration : he realized 
 now the great constructive service that Biblical criti- 
 cism was doing for him ; and the Bible became more 
 living, more personal, more intimately related to him 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 231 
 
 and the work God had given him to do, than ever be- 
 fore. As he expressed it : 
 
 " We are learning that the Word of God is of no use 
 until it is interpreted, first into the thought of the age, 
 and second, into the living experiences of those who 
 teach it. Any revelation of God is powerless until it 
 is the discovery of man. . . . Whatever in the 
 Bible rebukes my Pharisaic temper ; makes me want 
 to live a higher moral life towards my fellow-men; 
 braces me when tempted and discouraged ; makes me 
 sweet-minded towards people who disagree with me ; 
 enlarges my altogether too small vision of God ; brings 
 Christ into my daily life even in a small measure; 
 helps me to see God in the lives of others, in all 
 churches, — Catholic, Greek, Protestant, — in all nations, 
 whatever the colour of the people ; makes my message 
 great ; deepens my sympathies with these peoples of 
 the East because they too are God's dear children : is 
 to me inspired. Inspiration is intensely personal." 
 
 In time, when the new knowledge had been thus 
 transmuted into spiritual experience, he could speak it 
 forth. Not that he preached Biblical criticism as such 
 in his sermons to Japanese audiences, although these 
 sermons were filled with the new life that had come to 
 his own spirit through its study ; but in Karuizawa, 
 that summer centre of refreshment and invigoration 
 for Westerners in Japan, when asked to preach to his 
 fellow-missionaries, he uttered his conviction on this 
 matter by speaking on "The Missionary's Need of 
 Knowledge." He pointed to the experience of the 
 race and the individual in the acquisition of knowledge 
 through the two parallel lines of God's revelation and 
 man's discovery ; and urged the equal necessity of both 
 
232 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 means to those who were called to Christian work in 
 Japan. He felt that too conservative a stand on the 
 part of some missionaries, in view of the new knowl- 
 edge of the Bible, was a positive hindrance to Chris- 
 tianity in Japan, because it tended to produce a perma- 
 nent dislike of the Bible on the part of Japanese 
 thinkers. To quote : 
 
 " All real knowledge of God is to be accepted with 
 sincere thanksgivings. When we raise our higher 
 criticism to the rank of truth that the Holy Spirit aids 
 us in discovering, when we find in political economy, 
 international law, and sociology the same basis of love 
 that lies at the root of the Kingdom of Heaven, we 
 are better equipped for the great intellectual contest 
 over religion that the next ten years is sure to witness 
 in this land. . . . 
 
 " We are in the very centre of most powerful world 
 movements of action and of thought. The great pan- 
 theistic East is for the first time coming in close con- 
 tact with the great theistic West. In the early days 
 we were inclined to think the victory would be easy, 
 because we took the promise of revelation that every 
 tongue should confess and every knee bow. But the 
 victory will come through us only in proportion as our 
 faith is rooted in knowledge. Said one of our gifted 
 Christian scholars in America to me ten years ago, 
 ' You missionaries have the hardest intellectual prob- 
 lems to solve that have ever confronted the mind of 
 man.' Think of that : think of the weighty responsi- 
 bility and privilege that we are honoured with. The 
 president of the Imperial University ten years ago sent 
 out his challenge to the missionaries of Japan, saying, 
 * If you want to capture Japan for Christ, you must 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 233 
 
 first capture this university.' One of the ablest 
 officials of the north recently said to me, * If you can 
 show us that Christianity is true, we shall accept it.' 
 
 " Friends, the work of converting this gifted nation 
 is peculiarly an intellectual task. Whatever application 
 the words, ' Take no thought what ye shall say,' may 
 have had for certain ones working under despotism, 
 they have no applicability to us working in this land 
 of liberty. To be sure, there is need of the wide work 
 of the Holy Spirit upon this people to convince of sin, 
 to illumine the conscience, and to lead to sincere re- 
 pentance. But there is also need of the Holy Spirit as 
 the God of the intellect upon us, who are blessed with 
 conditions of work such as no other body of mission- 
 aries ever had, and who have an intellectual task of 
 vaster proportions than ever fell to prophets or 
 apostles." 
 
 Another summer it had been borne in upon him that 
 in the great missionary community of Japan, with its 
 representatives of the most varied and diverse sects, 
 there was in places, towards new lines of thought, a 
 repressive atmosphere that threatened to stifle newer 
 missionaries of other training and beliefs than some of 
 their predecessors on the field ; then, with the sense of 
 being called to a task that he, like Jeremiah, shrank 
 from but accepted, he summoned his fellow-missionaries 
 to an open-minded consideration of truth in all its forms, 
 and to a generous practice of " The Glorious Liberty of 
 the Sons of God." 
 
 " In the discovery of new fragments of God's limit- 
 less truth," he said, " we in our day and for our time 
 have God-given problems reverently to face, even if we 
 cannot fully solve them. And my prayer for myself 
 
234 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 and for all the society of the Sons and Daughters of 
 God is that we may have the same fearless faith in the 
 truth that the Eisen Christ inspired in His greatest 
 apostle, and in His greatest of reformers and preachers 
 and prophets and teachers ever since. 
 
 " There is no atmosphere but that of the liberty of 
 the Sons of God in which it is possible to solve even 
 approximately the questions that ceaselessly confront 
 us. When I think that the Christian life and purpose 
 of multitudes hang upon our right attitude towards 
 these new problems, and that we ignore these some- 
 times at the peril of our intellectual honesty, and 
 possibly incurring the danger of our spiritual degrada- 
 tion, I feel a burden upon me that I cannot refuse to 
 bear. I have an experience of thirty-five years in the 
 ministry of this Gospel, during which I have suffered 
 periods of mingled doubt and faith, trying to be honest 
 with God and with myself : also trying to be true to 
 the traditional teachings of my fathers, and to the 
 splendid fellowship of the saints who are giving the 
 Gospel to the peoples of the East. 
 
 " This, brothers and sisters, is a great complex prob- 
 lem that has come to stay, until it is so solved as 
 to bring us a richer faith and a more blessed fellow- 
 ship. "When I look over this Karuizawa audience, one 
 thought is : here surely is a Society of the Sons and 
 Daughters of God. We meet here with all varieties of 
 religious experience, that are due to our education and 
 environment on the outside, and to the workings of 
 the Holy Spirit within. In such a society as this, the 
 blessedness of our fellowship lies in our mutual freedom, 
 — which shall never become a cloak for selfish in- 
 dividualism. 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 235 
 
 " Let us live, then, and work together, none living 
 unto himself, all being bearers of one another's burdens, 
 generously trusting each other; not tolerating each 
 other, — for there is no strength nor love nor sympathy 
 nor blessed friendship in toleration, — but sincerely 
 believing that God is behind all our varieties of relig- 
 ious experience for the divine purpose of making a 
 glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such 
 thing. You and I must be in that society, — progress- 
 ives and conservatives, those who emphasize the 
 emotional and devotional side of religion, those who 
 love the intellectual problems that come from con- 
 templation of the Absolute Being, those who give 
 themselves to lowly, loving works, those who delight 
 in the priestly side with ceremonies and rituals, those 
 who draw their inspiration from the free voices of the 
 prophets, those who passionately love the discoveries 
 of science, the secrets of the Creator, those who rule in 
 the affairs of nations, helping on the brotherhood of 
 man — the Society of the Sons of God will welcome all 
 these." 
 
 To his Japanese brethren he conceded the same 
 liberty of thought, as the birthright of every child of 
 God; and considering the difference in the way in 
 which the truth had come to them, and that in which 
 it had come to him as an American in a different en- 
 vironment, he was particularly loath to condemn their 
 theological attitudes, even when contrary to the ac- 
 cepted creed of the evangelical church. During the 
 anti-foreign reaction, there was on the part of some 
 Kumiai leaders a reaction also against a narrow ortho- 
 doxy, — a reaction that seemed to some missionaries an 
 
236 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 alarming defection from the faith. But he clung to a 
 belief in their spiritual integrity as long as they could 
 bear Christ's own test of followership, " By their fruits 
 ye shall know them." He wrote to the Board during 
 that period as follows : 
 
 "Japanese well know that the Christian world is 
 reshaping its theology, and it seems childish to them 
 for us to make it a condition of working with them, 
 that they shape their faith in our moulds and regard 
 the American Board as summing up the whole of Chris- 
 tianity. Personally I cannot help but believe, in spite 
 of their semi-defiant statements of faith and their semi- 
 insulting addresses, that in the providence of God these 
 men have a great work to do for Christ here; and 
 since in God's providence we have, lo, these eighteen 
 years, worked together, what should hinder us from 
 looking for another baptism of the Holy Spirit, such as 
 will bind us together for another eighteen years ? 
 There is occasion for anxiety, for we and you are 
 facing new problems that require the utmost confidence 
 in both parties to solve. The great general Hideyoshi 
 was once cautioned not to trust a certain person who 
 was suspected of being his enemy. Hideyoshi there- 
 fore took the first opportunity of handing his own 
 sword over to this suspected man and asking him to 
 hold it for a little while, thus putting his life absolutely 
 into the hands of the suspected man. Hideyoshi was a 
 brick ; he knew men. By his very trusting them, he 
 saved them to truest friendship. . . . Japanese, 
 while of course they make mistakes, are to be trusted 
 as friends trust friends. ... I watch carefully the 
 Christian periodicals, and am as a rule wonderfully 
 pleased with the evangelical spirit of the articles \p 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 237 
 
 these very leaders, as well as by others. ... I 
 believe these men are loyal to Christ, even if they 
 absolutely refuse to accept the doctrine of the divinity 
 of Christ as we have shaped it. And I don't want our 
 mission even to seem to prefer a straight ' Lord, Lord,' 
 to the doing of His will." 
 
 A few years later he wrote of a sermon he had heard 
 by one of these same leaders, still at the time partially 
 under ban from the strict theologian : " I cannot recall 
 any sermon that more powerfully impressed me in all 
 my life. Not a negative word in it from beginning to 
 end, but a most magnificent appeal to the hearts and 
 minds of the hearers on the subject, ' My God.' " 
 
 How he came to his attitude towards the religions of 
 Japan, he thus told an American audience : 
 
 " As I look back over the first half of my career, I 
 confess I was not able to meet in a fair and courteous 
 spirit the fierce attacks on Christianity by able men. 
 What did I know about Buddhism and the life of its 
 great founder ? — or Confucianism and the mighty moral 
 work it had wrought through long millenniums in the 
 most populous empire on earth ? Therefore I had to 
 study, and learn with open mind all the good I could 
 discover in those 1 systems ; and this is one of the 
 greatest blessings my life in the East has brought me. 
 I had to see what my own Bible has always taught, but 
 what I had failed to discover — the universality of the 
 light that lighteth every man coming into the world, 
 east or west, and the universality of the Fatherhood of 
 God. Just in proportion as I saw those greatest of 
 blessed doctrines, I rejoiced to find lofty moral and 
 spiritual truths in their religions ; for then I began to 
 know that God had always been there, loving them as 
 
238 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 He does us, but giving them a different moral and 
 religious education in order that, in the fullness of time, 
 He might use us who have learned His name of Father 
 to carry the glad news to His children of the East, and 
 thus make us co-labourers with Him in binding into one 
 blessed brotherhood the great East and the great West." 
 
 To recognize the good in Buddhism and Confucianism 
 as he did would perhaps seem to some to " cut the 
 nerve of missions." Not so with him. For now God's 
 voice seemed to say, — not as before, " Go and prepare 
 men's hearts to receive Me," — but, " Go and bring the 
 knowledge of Me to those whom I have long been pre- 
 paring for your message." So strong was his sense of 
 this divine preparation that when he delivered a series 
 of ten lectures on missions in Hartford Theological 
 Seminary in 1908, he entitled the course, " The Vast 
 Environment God has Prepared in the East, into which 
 He Calls Us to Come and Work With Him." Of one 
 example of this preparation he wrote thus : 
 
 " There is no one man who has given to the Tokugawa 
 period such a line of moral prophets and so much of 
 spiritual power as has Nakae Toju, the beloved and 
 honoured ' Sage of Omi.' There is no other of Japan's 
 moral teachers whose words seem so close to the ex- 
 alting words of John, ' There was the true light which 
 lighteth every man coming into the world,' as Nakae's 
 inspired statement on man's conscience : ' Man's con- 
 science is Heaven ; it is the Divine Life ; it is the Su- 
 preme Being above.' It is thus infinitely more easy to 
 preach Christ, the Light of the world, to people who 
 have had it deeply impressed on them that a spark of 
 divine life is given every man as his most precious 
 treasure." 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 239 
 
 "With this joyful vision of God's preparatory work, 
 he refused to call the native religions " false," — imper- 
 fect they were, but not devoid of divine truth. He 
 refused, too, for the sake of " courteous Christianity," 
 to call the Japanese " heathen,"— that word so offensive 
 to the Japanese for its often implied contempt. " The 
 Book that has no ' heathen ' in it," he wrote on the 
 fly-leaf of a New Testament in the Revised Version, 
 which he presented to an American friend after a talk 
 upon this point. Once at Northheld, Mass., he was 
 " moved after a remark of Mr. Moody, * Don't let's call 
 them heathen,' to rise and ask that a resolution be passed 
 discouraging the use of the word. To which Mr. Moody 
 replied, ' Oh, no, don't let's have any resolution : let's 
 act it.' " 
 
 Once on furlough he was in conversation with a leader 
 of Christian thought whom he supposed to be familiar 
 with, and friendly to, the view-point that recognizes 
 God's hand in the early religious history of every 
 nation. Speaking naturally and non-polemically along 
 this line, he referred to Shaka and Confucius as 
 "the moral prophets to fit the East for Christ," and 
 was surprised to have his new acquaintance say, " * All 
 who came before Me were thieves and robbers.'" 
 " Yes," replied my father, " Moses, Isaiah, and all the 
 rest ! " 
 
 This faith in the good in their history helped open 
 the door for him to the hearts of the Japanese. Said a 
 Japanese editor in an address at a memorial meeting 
 held in Sendai on the second anniversary of his death, 
 " It is not so much because he worked so devotedly for 
 Japan that we are grateful to him ; but chiefly because 
 he saw the nobility in our people, and recognized that 
 
240 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 we are a nation loving justice and righteousness and 
 having ideals." 
 
 In 1903 he wrote, and in 1908 revised, " Sunrise in 
 the Sunrise Kingdom," the text-book on Japan in the 
 mission study series prepared for the Young People's 
 Missionary Movement. The main outline of the book 
 was made out by a member of the promoting commit- 
 tee, Prof. Amos E. Wells, who also supplied its happy 
 title. The book had an extensive circulation, having 
 been used by more than forty mission boards of the 
 United States and Canada in their young people's work. 
 Dr. W. E. Griffis wrote in the Independent, " It is full 
 of grit, grace, tact, and power." This is in part due to 
 the abounding optimism of its writer. The joy of the 
 assured coming of the Kingdom rings through it. It 
 is also due in part to the thoughtful care taken to write 
 in such a way that the book could be read by Japanese 
 without its giving offense ; in fact, one Japanese editor 
 even recommended it to his readers as a suitable Christ- 
 mas or JSTew Year's gift to students. One particular in 
 which it endeavours to be just is in its recognition of 
 the good as well as the evil of the old religions of 
 Japan. Especially interesting is the testimony it quotes 
 of a Japanese who found himself prepared for Chris- 
 tianity by the training he had previously received in 
 three fundamental principles foreshadowed in the ear- 
 lier religions : universal brotherhood in Confucianism, 
 the future life in Buddhism, and loyalty in Shintoism. 1 
 
 The introduction to the book was written by Dr. 
 
 Charles Cuthbert Hall of Union Theological Seminary, 
 
 with whom the author had formed a close spiritual 
 
 sympathy. Dr. Hall wrote, among other remarks, " It 
 
 1 Revised edition, p. 171. 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 241 
 
 is strange that Christians ever should begrudge the ac- 
 knowledgment of good in non-Christian faiths, when 
 the presence of that good attests the universal work of 
 the Holy Spirit." The manuscript of the book and its 
 introduction fell for censorship into the hand of one 
 who adhered strictly to former theological conceptions 
 of the state of the non-Christian world. He attempted 
 to cut out heretical phrases or sentences, but before he 
 had proceeded far he found the heresy so deeply woven 
 into the texture of the work as to be ineradicable ; and 
 for conscience' sake he gave up the task, relinquishing 
 it to one of different view-point who permitted the 
 manuscript to go to print substantially as submitted. 
 And well it was : for this very recognition of God's 
 Spirit working in all lands and all ages was an essential 
 part of the message that my father felt impelled to 
 utter in his little book. To his faith it was a necessary 
 and vital part of God's revelation in His Word, and of 
 consequent importance to all Christians at work in 
 spreading the Gospel, whether at home or abroad. 
 
 How this faith affected his work as a missionary he 
 stated most fully in an address given in 1909 to the 
 missionary conference in Kuling, the summer gathering- 
 place for Europeans in the Yangtse valley and Central 
 China. Eev. F. B. Meyer of London was the chief 
 speaker at the conference, conducting each day's devo- 
 tional sessions and Bible study. In addition, there 
 were lectures by summer residents on subjects of general 
 interest to missionaries. My father, who was spending 
 the summer there with his daughter, Mrs. W. B. Pet- 
 tus, was asked to speak on " The Bearing of Biblical 
 Criticism on Missions." He accepted the invitation as 
 a call of God to witness to the larger light he himself 
 
242 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 had received. A few paragraphs from his address will 
 best summarize the influence of the new view-point on 
 his own missionary evolution : 
 
 " We missionaries can put ourselves in deeper sym- 
 pathy with these peoples of the East by noting how 
 easily and naturally the Old Testament absorbed many 
 religious elements that belonged to other religions and 
 to the surrounding nations. God not only permits, He 
 inspires Israel to gather up from the folk-lore of the 
 older nations around them such legends as can be put 
 to use in the first monotheistic literature of the world. 
 He gives His guiding inspiration so that the best part 
 of that very high moral code of Hammurabi is saved 
 to the world in the name of Israel's God. And as men 
 must have a name for their God, He inspired Moses to 
 take the sacred name ' I AM ' from Egypt, and fill it 
 with personality and holy authority. 
 
 " This, it seems to me, is one of God's methods of 
 working manifested also in our Christian history, which 
 has manifold traces of what it has gathered from our 
 early European ancestors, as we see in festivals, in cus- 
 toms, in the names of our days and months, in those of 
 our near planets and the distant stars, and very mark- 
 edly in our religious philosophy and our ideas of com- 
 mon law. And are we not all the richer for being 
 providentially and religiously bound to the past by 
 these fragments of faith that were so precious to our 
 distant ancestors, and for having made them tributary 
 to our larger faith in the one great Father of them and 
 of us? 
 
 "Is not this suggestive of how the missionary of 
 God, bearing the accumulated message of the ages, 
 may meet these great historic nations of the East? 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 243 
 
 God has been in their legends and folk-lore ; in their 
 moral systems that have stood for ages ; and in that 
 name of profound meaning, ' Heaven,' by which they 
 at times seem almost to touch the personality of the 
 one living God ; then is it not ours sympathetically to 
 purify their cosmogony and vitalize their strong moral 
 codes, and enlarge their various names for the Supreme 
 One, by showing them fi that the one Creator of all 
 things and the Father of all men was in them all, edu- 
 cating the people and preparing them for His divinest 
 revelation through Christ ? — So that our message, in- 
 stead of being foreign and extraterritorial, shall be na- 
 tive to God's great preparatory work here and capable 
 of such rapid naturalization that it shall give a Chris- 
 tian atmosphere to the East, as it is doing in the West. 
 
 " . . . Do not we missionaries, the vanguard of 
 Christ's Church, need this knowledge if it really helps 
 us to understand better God's ways of educating the 
 race, including these nations of the East ? I could not 
 think as I now love to think of God in this populous 
 eastern hemisphere ; I could not meet my thoughtful 
 audiences in Japan with the essential message of our 
 religion ; I could not face with sympathy the honest 
 doubts of students and teachers ; and I may add, I 
 could not meet the anxious questions that an increasing 
 number of young missionaries bring to me in this very 
 different atmosphere of the East, unless I had been led 
 (and it seems to me providential leading for which I 
 often thank God) to study Biblical criticism and related 
 questions enough to feel at home in talking with others 
 about the personal adjustment each one has to make in 
 the light of newly discovered facts. 
 
 " . . . To sum up in a paragraph the value to me 
 
244 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 of Biblical criticism, I do not know of any better way 
 of putting it than to say it helps to make the Gospel 
 truly great. The Gospel is the greatest thing under 
 the skies, and all the knowledge of all the ages, and all 
 the sacrifices of loving hearts, must be made tributary 
 in giving this Gospel its supreme place among the 
 peoples of this hemisphere also. . . . It is because, 
 in my study of how to deliver to thoughtful Japanese 
 the two great messages of Christ — the Fatherhood of 
 God and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth — I find the 
 principles of Biblical criticism help me to separate the 
 essential from the non-essential, the local and temporary 
 from the universal and eternal, that I prize the new 
 methods of Biblical research and gladly commend 
 them to all. It is because they give me a larger 
 Gospel." 
 
 It was an ever-enlarging Gospel that he preached up 
 to the end. Late in life he wrote : " I am doing the 
 best preaching I know how, of the great Gospel — the 
 trouble is, it is so great that it is hard to handle it." 
 How he handled it, a few extracts from letters and 
 other writings will show in part. 
 
 A Sunday in Tokyo. 
 "Mrs. DeForest and I went to hear Mr. Ebina. 
 What a fine audience of six hundred, mainly university 
 professors and students ! And what a splendid un- 
 folding of the text ' I Am,' making the deepest Bud- 
 dhist truth of the Great Self {Taiga) and the Minor 
 Self (Shoga) fairly shine with the Christian light of per- 
 sonality in God, the God of Love ! Oh, if we mission- 
 aries only knew this royal road of fulfilling rather than 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 245 
 
 destroying, we should have ten times the power we 
 now have. It makes me feel how small I was twenty- 
 five years ago when I wrote that tract, ' The Evils of 
 Worshiping Dried Wood.' " 
 
 October, 1896. 
 " The recent little Parliament of Religions (gotten 
 up by a Christian, Togawa, with whom I used to work 
 in Osaka), held in Tokyo with Buddhists, Shintoists, 
 Confucianists, and Christians, is laughed at by some, 
 but I rejoice in all such movements. It shows, as the 
 Christian says, that Christianity has already won a 
 commanding place in Japanese thought, when high 
 representatives of the old religions consent to meet 
 Christian leaders as their peers. It would have been 
 impossible five or ten years ago, when Buddhist orators 
 were holding public meetings and shouting themselves 
 hoarse over ' Drive out Christianity from Japan ! ' " 
 
 Sendaij January, 1903. 
 
 " There is a growing friendliness between Buddhists 
 and Christians that I think will do much good. Some 
 Christian leaders have recently been invited to speak 
 before a Tokyo Buddhist school, and the lectures have 
 been published. One has to be careful to be thought- 
 ful, sympathetic, and much in earnest, when invited to 
 such a place. 
 
 " A student — very bright — came to tell me his faith 
 the other day, and said he liked Christianity, but it 
 was only a step towards the deeper Buddhist faith. 
 He said among other things that ' all the paths of a 
 mountain lead to the same top,' which is a pet way out 
 here of saying that all religions lead to salvation and 
 peace. I took him up on that illustration by saying it 
 
246 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 didn't correspond to the facts. The facts are that 
 there are two paths that lead in quite different direc- 
 tions — one towards hope and eternal life, the other con- 
 fessedly tending to pessimism. Men may indeed get a 
 certain grade of comfort and peace out of ethical 
 pessimism ; but the path that leads to joy and peace 
 and life, with its optimism, its trust in the infinite 
 Father, is a very different path. I mean to use this 
 illustration hereafter, as it is quite common to hear 
 that * all religions are good if you really believe 
 them.' " 
 
 Sendaiy 1903. 
 
 " Calls for addresses every day this week but one. 
 The unique one was from a bright Buddhist priest, 
 asking me to speak with him in his own temple with a 
 select audience of twenty or thirty officials, scholars, 
 military men, and students. It was a delicate place to 
 be put into but I felt I had the message needed. So 
 after two Buddhist speeches, I spoke on the two great 
 religious thoughts that control the world of to-day, 
 pantheism and theism. One could have no better 
 attention. One day a college student called to say he 
 happened to be present and was surprised to hear that 
 talk. He spent two hours of earnest questioning such 
 as only a bright Easterner can do. The next day came 
 four teachers, one of whom had been present, and I 
 had another good time under fire — not under opposition, 
 but under religious warmth. . . . One of the daily 
 papers gave a report of this meeting in both Japanese 
 and English. I fancy it was by the priest." 
 
 " I preached on ' The Blood of Christ ' for the first 
 time in my life ; and as the line of thought was novel 
 to me, and worked out for Buddhistic people, I put 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 247 
 
 much interest in it. The East seems shocked that we 
 teach the blood of Christ as a valuable moral renovator 
 of man. So I went into the cause of the shock, the 
 unreasonableness of it, and the real blessings that come 
 from such a sacrifice. . . . Some Buddhist priests 
 were present ; and as I quoted from a letter received 
 from a Buddhist priest sharply criticizing ' salvation by 
 blood,' it must have left its mark on my Buddhist 
 hearers. Then with no time to rest, I had to address 
 some thirty post-office officials and Middle School 
 students. . . . Then I went to preach in English 
 before the missionaries, and as I'd had no time to 
 write a sermon, I gave my morning sermon in Eng- 
 lish. . . . H. said it made him feel that much of 
 his preaching had been of no use at all, and he wondered 
 how I got hold of Japanese thought so." 
 
 Northampton, Mass., October, 1903. 
 " Speaking at Smith College vespers, I took ' The 
 Old Religions as Schoolmasters to Lead to Christ,' 
 stating that men first worshipped visible objects, with 
 open eyes, like the sun, moon, etc., and then spiritual 
 objects like dead ancestors ; and stated that there never 
 would have been a family on earth but for ancestor 
 worship, with which family life began, etc. . . . 
 Professor Wood said he was pleased to have the girls 
 hear that from a missionary." 
 
 From a Furlough Sermon, 1908 : 
 
 " Do not fall into the old error of thinking that the 
 
 Eastern family is immoral, impure, degraded, and about 
 
 so bad as can be. There are some such families out there, 
 
 and also, sad to say, here in our own Christian "West. 
 
248 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 We all know that lust and licentiousness, if persisted 
 in, will wreck any family line, making criminals out of 
 some members, sending diseases through others, and 
 weakening the line until it disappears. We also know 
 that if a family exists through generations and cen- 
 turies, it is because of the moral life that bears it on. 
 If, then, we find all through the East family lines that 
 have a history of hundreds, and even thousands, of years 
 of duration, the only open-minded conclusion you and I 
 can arrive at is that they are on the whole moral lines. 
 
 " Now God is in those long-lived Eastern families, 
 conserving them by His divine virtues of filial piety, 
 ancestral worship, patience, thrift, temperance, and 
 their wide spirit of mutual sacrifice. While their women 
 and children have no such high place as the blessed 
 teachings of Christ give, we must never forget that 
 there are often splendid women in those homes, and a 
 parental love over the children that deepens and en- 
 riches the moral and spiritual life of the family and the 
 community. Nor must we forget that these families, 
 over which God has watched with infinite love, have 
 been richly educated and prepared by ages of training, 
 for the final message of the Kingdom of God in which 
 women and children are, equally with men, children of 
 God. 
 
 " Just here I should like to impress upon your minds 
 that so-called ancestor worship is one of the moral 
 forces that has built up these strong family lines. 
 Missionaries of the nineteenth century, as a rule, were 
 thoroughly opposed to ancestor worship as a violation 
 of God's commands, and as the greatest obstacle to the 
 acceptance of Christianity. But a great change is 
 taking place in our thoughts about it. We see that 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 249 
 
 worship does not always have the high meaning we 
 give it in the Christian religion. We have hero 
 worship, and it is one of the best forces that build up 
 character and patriotism. Moreover, we tend to a kind 
 of worship of all whom we love. For myself, I have 
 long believed ancestor worship is one of the best of 
 preparations for the worship of the one great Ancestor 
 of all men, and one of the strongest of moral bonds in 
 the life and the progress of non-Christian peoples. 
 
 " Now when such families come in contact with the 
 Gospel of the Kingdom, and learn what Christ can do, 
 far beyond what Confucius has done, they open their 
 homes to all that Christ can bless them with. Here is 
 one illustration : 
 
 " A young physician married into a family where the 
 members had all become Christian. He therefore 
 became a Christian, and made his house a preaching- 
 place. Shortly after the marriage, to the grief and 
 horror of the bride, it appeared that her husband had 
 the dreaded disease of leprosy. She fled back to her 
 own home, saying she could never live as the wife of a 
 leper. But her elder brother said to her, ' You are now 
 a Christian. He is a Christian. It is hard, but if 
 Christ has laid this burden on you, is it right to run 
 away from it ? ' 
 
 " That brought out her splendid spirit of sacrifice, 
 and she and Christ went back to her stricken husband. 
 And for fifteen years, while I never saw so repulsive 
 and terrible a case of leprosy, that devoted wife, ever 
 smiling and joyous, stayed by her husband's side, his 
 blessed comfort until the day of his release. She made, 
 in spite of shocking conditions, a real little Kingdom 
 of Heaven in her home." 
 
250 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 From an Address at the Annual Meeting of the 
 American Board at Manchester, i\T. H., 1903. 
 
 " The Religious Situation in Japan. — Within one 
 generation the traditional religions have been wonder- 
 fully modified by contact with the West. The grosser 
 forms of idolatry and superstition that were visible on 
 every hand thirty years ago have largely disappeared 
 from sight. One of the significant movements of the 
 times is the recent action of the central shrine of 
 Shintoism at Ise, — the sacred seat of the worship of the 
 divine founders of the empire, — where those in authority 
 have announced that their organization no longer claims 
 to be a religious body, but is an association for the pres- 
 ervation of national traditions. Other Shinto sects are 
 bitter against this action ; but it seems to say that as 
 Shintoism never can become a universal religion, it is 
 better to drop any claim to rank as such, and become 
 simply a cult limited to the nation. 
 
 " Buddhism has undergone marked changes for the 
 better. . . . ' Christianity has been an immense 
 blessing to us,' said an earnest Buddhist priest to me 
 not long ago. History shows that men everywhere 
 give up their inherited religious traditions with great 
 difficulty. It is the glory of Japan that though at first 
 Buddhist priests were bitter against Christianity, they 
 now freely recognize that they themselves were intru. 
 ders a thousand years ago, and that they gained their 
 place of influence simply because they supplied a relig- 
 ious want that Shintoism could not satisfy. They are 
 seeing with open eyes that Christianity has elements of 
 truth that Buddhism never had, and that the only fair 
 way is to embody these in their own great religion. 
 Buddhist priests are among the best purchasers of Bibles 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 251 
 
 and Christian literature. Buddhist schools of learning 
 have in many cases courses of lectures on Christianity, and 
 even regular study of the New Testament. You rejoice 
 over one Buddhist priest that becomes a Christian ; but 
 this wide transformation of Buddhism is of far greater 
 significance." 
 
 From a furlough sermon, 1908 : " The Coming King- 
 dom in the East." 
 
 (The Story of Ilomma Shumjpei) 
 
 " If God has always been in the East, establishing the 
 beginnings of His Kingdom in the hearts and homes 
 and national life of those peoples, we shall expect 
 wonderful transformation of character and wide and 
 most hopeful results whenever the Gospel of His King- 
 dom is presented to them in all its greatness and sim- 
 plicity, not hampered by the addition of our Western 
 creeds, theologies, and denominational forms. Let me 
 tell what I have seen of the splendid power of the King- 
 dom when it takes full possession of a single individual. 
 
 " Twenty years ago there was a young carpenter in 
 Sendai, with no special education, of a deeply religious 
 nature, but hating Christianity as an enemy of his 
 country. One of my tracts on ' How to Choose a Life- 
 work ' fell into his hands ; after reading it, he burned 
 it in anger, very likely with the wish that its author 
 might be burned too. Something, however, must have 
 gripped his mind, for later on in Tokyo, as he was 
 accidentally passing a Christian chapel, he stepped in 
 and heard a message from a Japanese preacher that his 
 sincere soul could not hate. It aroused a desire to read 
 again the tract that he had burnt, and he searched the 
 bookstores of Tokyo until he found a copy. He began 
 to see that the religion he had so bitterly hated might 
 
252 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 be just the thing that would satisfy the deepest longings 
 of his soul. In short, Christ captured him, body and 
 soul. His mind, hitherto cramped with prejudice and 
 ignorance, opened in every direction with visions of 
 what he could do for Christ and His Kingdom. He 
 was engaged as a workman on the new palace of the 
 Crown Prince ; yet that delightful work did not pre- 
 vent him from giving his best thought and prayers to 
 the saving of one of the independent churches of the 
 capital that almost tumbled over in the reaction of fifteen 
 years ago. He saved it ; and it is now a church not 
 merely of national power, but of international influence. 
 
 " He was sent south to examine marble quarries and 
 to search for some fine qualities of marble for the new 
 palace. He went over the hills and searched in vain : 
 nothing but poor stuff could be found. Then, since his 
 heart was always filled with God, he very naturally 
 kneeled down on one of the hills to ask his Father why 
 He had sent him there and what He would have him 
 do in that place. And suddenly — I hardly venture to 
 tell it, lest you disbelieve this marvellous story — an 
 earthquake violently shook the hill and split it close by 
 him. Now in Japan when an earthquake comes along, 
 no matter whether a man be eating, sleeping, or praying, 
 he gets up with a start ; by that time, generally, the 
 earthquake is over. My friend jumped to his feet, took 
 one look into the narrow chasm, and with joy again fell 
 on his knees and thanked God for the marble veins 
 revealed in the depths below — the good marble, 
 worthy of a place in the palace of the Crown Prince. 
 
 " If that be a miracle, then we must confess that 
 greater miracles followed the life of this Christ-filled 
 man. For he bought the quarry and built his work- 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 253 
 
 shed at the foot of the hill, and on the side of his work- 
 shop a rough chapel, where every morning he prayed 
 with his workmen, and every Sunday preached to all 
 whom he could gather. It was not long before he 
 wrote me to come and baptize a dozen of his labourers, 
 — who, by the way, were men of low class and ex-con- 
 victs, people with whom ordinary employers would 
 have little or nothing to do ; but Homma, with his 
 great heart, took these undesirable people right into 
 his own home, ate with them, perpetually talked with 
 them and the neighbours, in his earnest and winning 
 way, about Christ and His Kingdom, and slept with 
 them as members of his own family. Every one he 
 met was impressed with this unique personality. 
 People began to come nights to talk with him, — work- 
 men, school-teachers, local officials, policemen ; and 
 night after night these people would be held until the 
 dawn of the day, charmed by the cordiality and sincerity 
 of this young man, whose great eyes looked so lovingly 
 into their faces and even into their hearts. Twelve 
 miles away was Yamaguchi, a city in which were 
 missionaries and churches doing a good work ; yet 
 every Saturday night a number of students from that 
 city would cross the mountain range on foot and spend 
 Sunday in Homma's home, where they heard the Gospel 
 of Christ as no missionary nor pastor in that large city 
 could tell it. * 
 
 " Now here is a question I wish to put to you, — 
 Homma's answer to it is surely a larger miracle than 
 the earthquake's work in revealing the good marble. 
 If a desperate man should seize a knife, and with swift 
 stroke stab your wife right before your face, what 
 would you do ? We of Anglo-Saxon lineage, educated 
 
254 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 into our rights, especially the right of self-defense, 
 would have seized the first thing at hand and dashed 
 his brains out — so little of the real Christ-heart have 
 we. But Homma, catching his bleeding wife in his 
 arms, instantly and naturally forgave the would-be 
 murderer. ' Brother, Christ would not have done so : ' 
 — this was the strongest rebuke that came from this 
 great-hearted, this Christ-hearted man. Before the ex- 
 convict could beg forgiveness, both husband and wife — 
 she with a three-inch gash that had almost been fatal — 
 spoke such a winning pardon that the knife fell from 
 the convict's hand, and he fell on his face in an agony 
 of remorse, bewailing his wretched moral collapse. 
 
 " Only two days after this, when I ate and slept with 
 those people and on the following morning was privi- 
 leged to baptize a band of seventeen, composed of stu- 
 dents, ex-convicts, and low-class workmen, this man, 
 who had attempted the life of his benefactress, read the 
 Scriptures and offered the opening prayer of the service. 
 Talk about miracles ! That husband and wife, who had 
 learned so much of Christ that it was natural to for- 
 give a horrible crime before they were asked, saved 
 that offending brother. The police quickly heard of 
 the murderous act, and hurried to arrest again the man 
 who had served out one long term in prison and whose 
 new crime showed him to be unfit for freedom in so- 
 ciety. Homma said to the police : ' If you arrest this 
 man, he will surely go to irrevocable ruin. Leave him 
 with me, and I will save him.' 
 
 " In short, here is a young man so well prepared by 
 the religions of his ancestors — and we must not over- 
 look this providential preparation — that when the Gos- 
 pel of the Kingdom of God took possession of him, 
 
THE EXPANSION OF THE MESSAGE 255 
 
 when Christ became his real life and passion, he could 
 do those ' greater things ' that Christ foretold would be 
 done. . . . Homma's pardon brought his enemy to 
 instant and absolute repentance, and not only saved 
 him, but made him a little saviour of others, as this 
 quotation from Homma's loving letter shows : ' The 
 dear boy who wounded my wife repented of his con- 
 duct. He has organized an association for protecting 
 ex-convicts in Osaka and is working very bravely and 
 gloriously. I am very thankful that all works done in 
 accordance with the command of the Lord prove excel- 
 lent materials for the establishment of the Kingdom.' 
 
 " Do you see ? — this is the grand purpose of this 
 Japanese friend of mine : To establish the Kingdom of 
 God. Here is one individual whom Christ has found 
 and filled with Himself. What he wants with all his 
 heart is to Christianize his marble-works and make 
 them a part of the Kingdom of God ; then to Christian- 
 ize his whole neighbourhood. Said he with a sigh, 
 ' I've been here three years — as long as Christ preached 
 on earth — and I've done almost nothing. But with 
 God's help in the next three years I'll see this whole 
 village brought to Christ.' . . . 
 
 " I take so much time in telling this story, to show 
 what the relation of one God-filled man is to the com- 
 ing Kingdom in the East. . . . And there are 
 scores of such men and women there, individuals whose 
 power for Christ is manifested in all varieties of ways, 
 unlimited by any church and unfettered by any creed, 
 who are making the Kingdom of God come so that 
 Christian standards are recognized far outside of 
 churches, so that a Christian atmosphere is being created 
 for an empire of fifty millions." 
 
VIII 
 
 From the National to the 
 International 
 
 " For mankind are one in spirit, 
 
 And an instinct bears along, 
 Round the earth's electric circle, 
 
 The swift flash of right and wrong ; 
 Whether conscious or unconscious, 
 
 Yet humanity's vast frame 
 Through its ocean-sundered fibres 
 
 Feels the gush of joy or shame. 
 In the gain or loss of one race 
 
 All the rest have equal claim." 
 
 — James Russell Lowell. 
 
ym 
 
 FEOM THE NATIONAL TO THE INTER- 
 NATIONAL 
 
 IT remains to trace the way in which the expand- 
 ing message enlarged the sphere of the mission- 
 ary's activities during the last fifteen years of his 
 life. 
 
 The treaties revised in 1894 did not go into effect 
 until July, 1899. In the meantime, many were the 
 practical questions arising in the popular mind with 
 reference to the incoming conditions of " mixed resi- 
 dence " — a term used to denote the free residence of 
 foreigners in any part of Japan, without the require- 
 ment of passports and under the jurisdiction of the 
 Japanese civil authorities. The press discussed the sub- 
 ject from time to time, but generally from a local view- 
 point, resulting in one-sided opinions. Thus in 1897, to 
 quote my father's account, " it occurred to me to try 
 the subject on a young men's society where I was in- 
 vited to speak. What they needed was to see it in the 
 light of international law instead of merely national 
 ideas. And as this led easily to the great blessings 
 Christianity has been to our whole Western civilization, 
 I had a fine chance to deliver an apologetic for Chris- 
 tianity. It took so well that I was asked to repeat it 
 three times, and then to publish it for distribution. 
 . . . It was a new sign to see a city councillor, heads 
 of villages, leading physicians, school-teachers, officials, 
 
 259 
 
260 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 students, etc., in my audiences; and I never enjoyed 
 personal talks more. One young man of thirty, whom 
 I met six months ago, had told me it was impossible to 
 believe in the existence of God. He was baptized this 
 time. Another, who had studied law in Tokyo, had 
 said indifferently, ' Oh, Christianity is pretty good in its 
 moral teachings, but such superstitions as belief in God 
 and in a future life had better be left out ! ' He opened 
 his house to a preaching service and got over fifty of 
 the leading people to hear us, and has just joined the 
 Christians in a request for an evangelist." 
 
 The publication of this address on "Mixed Eesi- 
 dence "as a tract was most timely. The first addition 
 of three thousand copies was sold out in two weeks ; 
 summaries or reviews of it were widely circulated in 
 the newspapers, and it was said to have gone even into 
 the palace. In a tour to Kyushu shortly afterwards, 
 the most frequent method of introducing the speaker to 
 his audiences there was as " the only foreigner who has 
 written on the problem that we are all interested in — 
 mixed residence." The tract explained in a popular 
 way how it had come about that Japan was the first 
 non-Christian nation with which Western nations had 
 been willing to make treaties of equality ; how never- 
 theless, on account of differences in language, customs, 
 and thought, more or less friction might follow the 
 radically changed conditions that these treaties would 
 bring about ; how Japanese were mistaken in thinking 
 that they understood the West, inasmuch as they had 
 studied mainly its material civilization, to the neglect 
 of the spiritual forces from which that civilization had 
 sprung, and how, therefore, a knowledge of Christianity 
 on the part of the Japanese was essential to the happy 
 
COVER OF TRACT ON "MIXED RESIDENCE" 
 A foreigner and a Japanese exchanging cordial greetings before 
 decorated with New Year symbols 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTEBKATIONAL 261 
 
 outworking of the new political and social conditions. 
 The necessity of this knowledge was further empha- 
 sized in a tract on " Modern Civilization and Christian- 
 ity," which likewise had an unusual sale. 
 
 The new political and social conditions worked them- 
 selves out in Sendai with phenomenal success — a suc- 
 cess that has helped largely in creating in that city one 
 of the most favourable environments for Christianity 
 that can be found in Japan to-day. In tracing the steps 
 of this success, I would not give undue prominence to the 
 part my father had in it. As the oldest American res- 
 ident and at times chairman of the foreign community, 
 he naturally took a leading part in this development. 
 But with a missionary community numbering from 
 thirty to forty people, it involved working together, 
 and without the noble cooperation of Dr. and Mrs. 
 Schneder, and others who saw the vital relation of the 
 environment to the work, the results would have been 
 impossible. 
 
 In the first place, a year before the treaties went into 
 effect, some prominent citizens proposed a union social 
 meeting of Japanese and foreigners for the purpose of 
 getting better acquainted. They felt that the mission- 
 aries contented themselves with intercourse with 
 Christians or inquirers after Christianity, whereas the 
 non-Christians desired a better opportunity of social ex- 
 changes. At my father's suggestion, the foreigners, 
 instead of being the invited guests of the occasion, were 
 included with the Japanese as " originators " of the 
 meeting, and invitations were sent out in the name of 
 a joint committee. The feast, — this time on Japanese 
 initiative, — was without geisha and sake, and thus dem- 
 onstrated that these features were not social necessities. 
 
262 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 Another step forward came through the visit of the 
 United States minister, Colonel A. E. Buck. Colonel 
 Buck was a man of noble Christian statesmanship, and 
 one who welcomed missionaries as cordially as any 
 other class of Americans to both the social and the 
 official life of the legation. My father was one of the 
 many who enjoyed his friendship ; and when my fa- 
 ther invited him to visit Sendai, saying that as yet no 
 United States minister nor consul had paid a visit to 
 the groups of American missionaries living outside the 
 open ports, Minister Buck's reply was, " Then I will ; 
 as citizens of our Kepublic they are worthy of recogni- 
 tion. " So he visited Sendai as the guest of the mis- 
 sionaries; and when approached by the mayor and 
 other prominent Japanese gentlemen with an invitation 
 to a feast, his courteous reply that he should be de- 
 lighted to accept if it did not interfere with the plans 
 of his hosts the missionaries, at once gave the latter a 
 standing they had never had before. 
 
 They began to need to give more time to the formal- 
 ities of social life in the higher circles of the city. 
 Farewell receptions to retiring governors and welcomes 
 to incoming ones ; attentions shown by the Japanese to 
 American visitors, such as Dr. F. E. Clark and Dr. 
 D. S. Jordan ; a memorial service for President Mc- 
 Kinley, — such were some of the occasions that brought 
 the two nationalities together. But not all at once. 
 " Aside from formal congratulatory dinners six months 
 ago," wrote my father early in 1900, " there is no 
 marked drawing together of Japanese and foreigners. 
 I think they see that political equality makes even 
 more marked the social inequality. Moral standards 
 are different." Moral standards were indeed being 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTEENATIONAL 263 
 
 much discussed throughout the nation. The press had 
 been beating out what one Japanese leader of thought 
 had termed the "one unassimilatable element" in 
 Christianity. 
 
 " The conservatives have at last come out of their 
 shell," wrote my father, " and say flatly that Chris- 
 tianity, being a religion of strict monogamy, will 
 surely imperil the imperial line, and therefore should be 
 opposed and discouraged in every possible way. . . . 
 And what better thing could we ask for than to have 
 this question raised at once ? The best men of Japan 
 will, if pushed, openly side with the Christian standards, 
 on the ground that Japan will never be able to escape 
 from the charge of inferiority and semi-barbarism un- 
 less this stand be taken. The deeper moral conscience 
 of the nation that is being evolved sides with us." 
 
 The marriage of the Crown Prince in 1900 and his 
 establishment of a strictly monogamous household was 
 a sufficient object lesson to the authors of these patriotic 
 protests. That a national system of morals, or a na- 
 tional religion peculiar to the Japanese could not stand 
 the test of international intercourse, was coming to be 
 seen. At this juncture two new tracts of my father's, 
 on " The Japanese Family," ' and " Universal Re- 
 ligion," had a hearty reception. The withdrawal of 
 Pure Shintoism, as represented by the Ise shrine, from 
 the claim to be a religion, 2 soon marked the progress of 
 thought in this same direction of universality in human 
 fundamentals. 
 
 The next social step in Sendai was a large garden 
 party, in which the missionaries were invited to unite. 
 This time Japanese ladies were present with their hus- 
 
 1 P. 217. 2 P. 250c. 
 
264 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 bands. The Japanese had excluded from the list of 
 invitations households that contained concubines ; and 
 thus, as a city editor said, the occasion marked an era 
 in social and moral movements of the city. 
 
 Space forbids mention of all the other occasions that 
 in the next ten years drew the Japanese and the foreign 
 residents of Sendai together, but a few special incidents 
 demand a place. When Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, 
 Barrows lecturer for India, was lecturing in Japan also 
 and was expected in Sendai, the natural first thought 
 was that the arrangements for his lectures should be 
 made by the missionaries and the churches of the city. 
 My father felt, however, that if Dr. Hall were the 
 guest of the churches his message would meet mainly 
 the Christians ; whereas if a non-Christian committee 
 could be organized that would take the matter up in 
 earnest and make the necessary arrangements, a much 
 larger audience would be reached. He therefore sug- 
 gested this plan to the mayor, who eagerly acted on 
 the suggestion and formed a committee of prominent 
 citizens to take Dr. Hall's program in charge. The re- 
 sult was, to state the interesting reverse of the ordinary 
 situation, " the non-Christian citizens invited the native 
 and foreign Christian representatives to hear these 
 Christian lectures " in the hall of the government col- 
 lege, that had been fitted up with electric lights for the 
 occasion. Two thousand tickets were issued ; the 
 moral value of the lectures was felt alike by Buddhists 
 and Christians ; and leading people of the city did all 
 in their power to entertain Dr. Hall and to show their 
 appreciation of his services. As he sailed for America, 
 Dr. Hall wrote : " Nothing in Japan has approached 
 the result at Sendai. I am amazed, as I think it all 
 
FROM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 265 
 
 over, by the splendid open-minded ness towards Chris- 
 tianity exhibited by the Sendai officials and army offi- 
 cers. And I love to remember the presence of the 
 Japanese ladies in everything, and the grace and dig- 
 nity of their demeanour. I thank God for this experi- 
 ence." Again later he thus expressed his sense of the 
 value of the atmosphere that had been created in 
 Sendai, by saying that that city represented " that 
 which is best and highest in the vocation of the twen- 
 tieth century missionary." 
 
 The outbreak of the war with Russia was one more 
 occasion for the increase of friendly relations. When 
 the city gave its farewell reception for the officers of 
 the Sendai Division leaving for the front, the foreign- 
 ers were included among the hosts, the military men 
 being the only guests. " I wanted to go," wrote my 
 father, " especially to see the moral level of such an 
 occasion. I attended a Loyal Legion banquet in New 
 York last fall where five hundred of our civil war of- 
 ficers feasted, and I delighted in the real spiritual un- 
 dertone that prevailed. Here too was a deep moral 
 feeling of responsibility." 
 
 Missionaries joined the Japan Red Cross Society, and 
 the women among them enrolled themselves in the 
 Volunteer Nurses' Association, aiding in meeting 
 wounded soldiers from the front, and visiting them in 
 the military hospitals with gifts of flowers, books, 
 tracts, and other comforts for mind or body ; Christian 
 talks and Christian singing were also permitted from 
 time to time. Such of the Christian workers as could 
 take up work for soldiers found it rich in its seed-sow- 
 ing possibilities, not only because it reached the soldiers 
 themselves, but also for the association that it gave 
 
266 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 with the ladies of Sendai, who were ungrudgingly 
 giving themselves to patriotic service for soldiers. So 
 cordial did the feeling towards America become in 
 Sendai that when Dr. Schneder returned to America on 
 furlough in 1905, some leading citizens sent by him a 
 handsome Japanese sword to President Koosevelt, who 
 expressed due appreciation of this unexpected token of 
 international friendship. 
 
 On the occasion of the entente between the United 
 States and Japan, as expressed in the open letters of 
 Secretary Koot and Baron Takahira in 1908, the Amer- 
 ican residents were invited as guests of the city to a 
 gathering in celebration of the event. Kepresentatives 
 of every department of the city life participated in 
 this gathering, and the mayor exchanged congratula- 
 tory telegrams with the United States ambassador, Mr. 
 O'Brien. An address in response to the addresses of 
 the governor and the mayor was made by my father, 
 and Dr. Schneder led the audience in Banzai for the 
 Emperor of Japan. The Americans in turn took the 
 occasion of President Taft's inauguration in 1909 to 
 invite a hundred of their Japanese hosts to a dinner in 
 the hall of the Baptist Girls' School, which was deco- 
 rated for the evening with the sparrows and bamboo of 
 the coat-of-arms, or crest, of the feudal lord of Sendai. 
 The after-dinner speeches of cordial understanding 
 were no less genuine and significant because Sendai 
 was getting used to that sort of thing. It had become 
 oriented to a sense of international good- will and fel- 
 lowship: it was beginning to understand what the 
 brotherhood of man might mean in overcoming racial 
 and religious differences. 
 
 To retrace our steps a little, however, the war of- 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 267 
 
 fered my father a far broader field than Sendai for the 
 preaching of the Kingdom of God and the social con- 
 ditions of peace, liberty, and love that are to charac- 
 terize it. Soon after the outbreak of the conflict, on a 
 tour he was given an opportunity to speak extempora- 
 neously on " How Americans Regard This "War." 
 
 " I happened to be fairly alive on this subject," he 
 writes, "and told them that since Japan had so heart- 
 ily adopted those free institutions that our ancestors 
 had fought for and that we prized so much, we could 
 not but deeply sympathize with her against the despot- 
 ism and repeated cruelties and untruthful diplomacy of 
 Russia. And as the Japanese are most open-minded 
 towards all friendly criticism, I told them frankly that 
 now the eyes of all the world are on them and every 
 defect stands out in white light. Therefore every one 
 should do all that is possible to remove the two na- 
 tional stains of lack of commercial morality and the 
 evil reputation of their women in all the open ports of 
 the East. It is a splendid characteristic of this people," 
 he added, " that they hate flattery and love the criti- 
 cisms of one whom they regard as a friend." 
 
 The first thoughts of this impromptu address were 
 worked over into a tract, " Why America Sympathizes 
 with Japan." The gist of it is in the following para- 
 graph from the English version : 
 
 " It is because Japan stands for those great liberties 
 of constitutional government, of universal education, of 
 equal justice, of religious faith, that we are attracted to 
 her in this crisis. It is because her international inter- 
 course has been honourable. We feel that the battle 
 Japan is now fighting is for humanity. If Russia 
 should win the victory, all these precious liberties 
 
268 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 would be lost in the East and the progress of the whole 
 world set back. If Japan wins, the light of political 
 and religious liberty will flood the whole East, and will 
 aid the salvation of China and also the final reforma- 
 tion of Kussia. As a missionary of Jesus Christ," he 
 added in closing, " I deeply regret that there should 
 ever be war between two nations. . . . The Chris- 
 tian principle is for universal peace and true brother- 
 hood. But when a nation tries by injustice and tyranny 
 to prevent the good of the world, it is right and noble 
 to resist, and to pray that God will defeat all injustice 
 and inhumanity." 
 
 This tract seemed to meet the spirit of the hour. 
 " If it serves to elevate the moral purpose of the war," 
 said the writer, " or if it is only an educator as to the 
 political and religious differences of the two nations at 
 war, it will have paid for the morning or two it took to 
 write it." It was reproduced in China and the United 
 States ; it had an extensive circulation in Japan, an in- 
 troduction by General Miyoshi having added to its 
 favour ; and it followed its predecessor on " Mixed 
 Eesidence " into the palace. One or two distinguished 
 gentlemen in Sendai took enough interest to ask Ad- 
 miral Ito for a commendation of it, to be published in 
 the second edition. This was granted, and a thousand 
 copies each were presented by the author to the army 
 and the navy. 
 
 Through the offices of the United States legation, he 
 was registered early in the war as war correspondent 
 for the New York Independent, which had cabled a re- 
 quest to him for such service. During the first year 
 of the war, he wrote for that magazine sketches of war 
 conditions or war heroes as seen from the Japan point 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 269 
 
 of view. But in 1905 came the opportunity to go to 
 Manchuria, the field of battle. The Young Men's 
 Christian Association had been permitted to open Chris- 
 tian work among the soldiers at three stations in Man- 
 churia. Mr. Kansford S. Miller, later of the Oriental 
 Bureau of the State Department at "Washington, was 
 then interpreter to the American Legation at Tokyo. 
 He had long had helpful relations with the Young 
 Men's Christian Association in Japan, and was a mem- 
 ber of its advisory committee. Being a warm personal 
 friend of my father's, he secured for him the opportu- 
 nity of visiting the seat of war to give addresses to 
 soldiers at the various Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion headquarters. My father's long-standing admira- 
 tion for the work of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation in Japan made this chance to join forces with 
 them doubly grateful. His office of war correspondent 
 gave him additional opportunities of seeing conditions 
 at the front. Further, his acquaintance with many of- 
 ficers and soldiers from Sendai made easier the access 
 to them in Manchuria. 
 
 Before starting for his six weeks in Manchuria, he 
 was granted interviews with Viscount Terauchi, Minis- 
 ter of War, and Premier Katsura, who on his own ini- 
 tiative furnished him with letters of introduction to all 
 the commanding generals at the front — " except Kuro- 
 patkin." 
 
 At Dalny he was cordially received by his Sendai 
 friend, General Nishi, Military Administrator of the 
 Liaotung Peninsula, who put at his disposal for two 
 nights the large Chinese theatre in the city. There he 
 delivered his first addresses to the soldiers, on " War 
 and Religion," and "The American Spirit." These 
 
270 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 were afterwards printed as tracts and distributed in 
 military hospitals both in Manchuria and in Japan. In 
 order to facilitate his movements in Manchuria, Gen- 
 eral Nishi gave him in his passport the temporary rank 
 of a sakwan, or " field officer," making him virtually 
 the guest of the army ; or, as General McArthur stated 
 it to him at a lunch of the American attaches in Muk- 
 den, " You are now the guest of H. I. M. the Emperor 
 of Japan. For he provides from his private purse the 
 expenses of all the foreign military attaches in the 
 army, the Diet having failed to make any appropria- 
 tion for such a purpose." General Mshi also gave him 
 permission to visit all the battle-fields and to photo- 
 graph freely, excepting general views that involved 
 fortifications. 
 
 These privileges allowed him to go farther than the 
 Young Men's Christian Association centres ; thus his 
 visits to hospitals and his addresses to soldiers were not 
 limited to the places of his original expectation. At 
 Mukden he was further given the liberal permission to 
 go forward to the firing line, and to remain with the 
 army as long as he desired ; but the weariness of the 
 unusual life and the excitement and ardour of his work 
 had told on his health ; and counting discretion the 
 greater part of valour, he turned east to Antung and 
 returned to Japan by way of the Korean ports. I 
 quote from his report of "What I Found in Man- 
 churia," in the Missionary Review of the World, as his 
 best summary of the experiences and impressions of 
 those weeks. 
 
 " I found the army in dead earnest over the immense 
 work before them. They had already fought twenty 
 great battles, every one a grand victory ; but there was 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 271 
 
 not a particle of ' swelled head,' nor any boasting of 
 power, nor easy talk of future victories. The men 
 were serious. The last battle alone (Mukden) had cost 
 them fifty-seven thousand killed and wounded, and all 
 southern trains, sometimes seventy cars behind one en- 
 gine, were loaded with the sick and wounded. The 
 
 hospitals were more than full There were no 
 
 drunken feasts, no geisha girls, no gambling, no demor- 
 alizing loafing after the victories, but ceaseless prepara- 
 tion for the next battle. I heard of instances of looting 
 and violence by a few of the soldiers, but they were so 
 rare that I can only conclude there never was a large 
 army on foreign soil that behaved so well as this Japa- 
 nese army of half a million men. To be sure, I did not 
 see the real army — that was way above Mukden ; but 
 in the rear of an advancing army you can easily hear 
 things if there is anything to be told. And judging 
 from what I saw, ... I am glad to tell the people 
 of America that the Japanese army is one of the mor- 
 ally cleanest and most orderly that ever existed in war 
 times. 
 
 " Here I must mention the universal spirit of kind- 
 ness towards the Russians. I saw thousands of Russian 
 prisoners, both well and wounded, and I confess it was 
 a revelation to me of the kindness of the Japanese 
 heart to see how they treated these men. . . . Not 
 even once did I see a contemptuous look towards the 
 captives. On the contrary, I saw officers with kindest 
 of looks unload all their cigarettes and hardtack on to 
 these prisoners — not officers, mind you, but the igno- 
 rant, dirty privates. . . . 
 
 " I found ' hell ' — there is no other word for war in 
 some of its aspects. I stood on trenches around Port 
 
272 JOHN HYDE DEFOREST 
 
 Arthur where the skulls and limbs and bodies of 
 mingled Japanese and Kussians were visible, piled on 
 top of one another in layers. I saw the ' tiger-traps,' 
 covered with barbed wire, where men had charged 
 with bayonets, fighting, killing like devils, until the 
 tiger-trap holes were literally filled with corpses. . . . 
 The wounded were left to die, or to be stabbed to 
 death by some barbarian hand. I saw men with eyes 
 shot out, with a jaw shot off, with arms and legs gone, 
 men whose faces were drawn in torture, who would 
 to-morrow be in the morgue. I saw places where 
 villages had been, and where now is one extended 
 graveyard. It is as General Sherman said : ' War is 
 hell.' 
 
 " But I found heaven also. On that little peninsula 
 called Liaotung, God is working out some of the 
 greatest problems that concern the salvation of the 
 East, and that bear upon a far better mutual under- 
 standing of the East and the West. In the progress 
 and education of the human race God has used war to 
 deepen the spirit of righteousness, to overthrow wide 
 iniquity and rotten governments, to give liberty to the 
 peoples of the earth. War is one of the terrible things 
 that bring men to their knees in dependence on a 
 righteous God. The sword is not all bad : it is good 
 when ' bathed in heaven ' and drawn only for righteous- 
 ness' sake. 
 
 "I think I never had a deeper impression of the 
 presence of God working for the overthrow of despot- 
 ism, for the awakening of these Eastern nations, for the 
 essential brotherhood of man, than I had on approach- 
 ing this little piece of earth, where such vast problems 
 are being solved in floods of blood and pain. We have 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 273 
 
 the blessings we now enjoy because of the sword of 
 our ancestors and the blood they shed. So it is here. 
 Nothing will move the hearts of the Russian people as 
 this useless war, waged in the interests of a despotic 
 government, backed by a despotic church. Nothing 
 will so arouse the millions of China as the sight of 
 Japan fighting, not only for its own existence, but also 
 for the integrity of China. God is indeed here shaking 
 the nations. And out of this struggle is coming liberty 
 for Russia, safety and progress for China, a more rapid 
 extension of Christian thought and life through Japan, 
 and a better international law for the world." 
 
 After his return to Japan, there was a new note of 
 courage and triumph in his preaching of the coming 
 Kingdom of God. He had seen as never before how 
 God can work through the strife and horror of war to 
 bring about His great designs. Such topics as " Man- 
 churia with God," and " The Fatherhood of God, as 
 applied to the society and world of this age," were 
 among those used by him to bring out the old truths 
 with a new emphasis. " I never felt that I had such 
 a message before," he wrote, " and Japan is now ripe 
 for it." 
 
 The next call for international work came to him in 
 America, when he returned on his third furlough in 
 the spring of 1907. He took the route by India and 
 Marseilles, and lingered the good part of a month in 
 France and England. The glimpses from Hongkong 
 to Egypt of England's colonial policy, and of the 
 power and blessing of her influence, were supplemented 
 by voyage reading that further enlarged his knowledge 
 of the way the two great hemispheres were coming 
 together. It was also from the point of view of race 
 
274 JOHN HYDE DeFOBEST 
 
 progress that France and England interested him most. 
 " What impresses me in France," he wrote back to the 
 Japan mission, " is the contest between a belated 
 church and a progressive government, and the church 
 is badly left. England seems to me to be a wonder- 
 fully Christian nation, but the priestly side of things 
 is being overhauled by the prophetic side." 
 
 The autumn before leaving Japan, desirous of having 
 for his American addresses a wide basis of information 
 about the Christianization of Japan, including all help- 
 ful influences outside of direct Christian work, he had 
 spent a week with Mr. Miller at the United States 
 Embassy (which had replaced the former legation) ; 
 with the latter's help he got into touch with some of 
 the leading men of the capital, learning from them 
 how Christianity was indirectly, as well as directly ? 
 influencing the nation through the national leaders. 
 " It was rich — this last week's education in your uni- 
 versity," he wrote back to his host : " and it will 
 colour much of my next year's work in the United 
 States." 
 
 Kumours of anti-Japanese feeling in America had 
 reached him in Japan ; but on his arrival in the United 
 States he found the wideness and the intensity of this 
 feeling far beyond his expectation. Especially per- 
 sistent and prevalent was the rumour of Japan's inten- 
 tion to wage war against the United States. This mis- 
 apprehension he made it his mission, as far as in him 
 lay, to correct. With his knowledge of Japan's history, 
 of her present movements, and of the spirit of her 
 leaders, he was able to speak authoritatively of her 
 dislike for war and of the reality of her friendship for 
 the United States. This he did not only from the pul 
 
FKOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 275 
 
 pits where he was asked to preach, but to a wider 
 audience through the press. A calm statement by him 
 of the reasons that made war with Japan improbable 
 was published in the Congregationalist under the title, 
 " American Misunderstandings of Japan ; " and through 
 the action of a public-spirited citizen, this was reprinted 
 in pamphlet form, circulated in the national congress 
 at Washington, and sent to every main library in the 
 United States, as well as in quantity to every United 
 States battle-ship going to the Pacific. 
 
 Some months later, in 1908, while in Hartford for his 
 series of lectures at the Theological Seminary, he heard 
 an address under the auspices of the city Young Men's 
 Christian Association by Congressman K. P. Hobson 
 on " America's Mighty Mission," the mission of peace— 
 to preserve which it would be necessary to be prepared 
 for war with Japan. Of this nation the speaker de- 
 clared that she had had the " war habit for more than 
 eight hundred years " ; and that " it is inevitable that 
 as Japanese emerge from wars of their own, they 
 engage in wars with other countries." The next morn- 
 ing my father wrote home : 
 
 "Last night heard Hobson with astonishment and 
 indignation. Couldn't get to sleep for a while, and had 
 I my materials here, I should have rushed into print 
 against this agitator and breeder of ill-will. ... I 
 went to Young Men's Christian Association and have 
 just had a long talk with the secretary that introduced 
 Hobson. I told him that Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation is the greatest Christian work in Japan, but 
 when Hobson's speeches under auspices of Young Men's 
 Christian Association are published in Tokyo, as surely 
 they will be, the stock of Young Men's Christian As- 
 
276 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 sociation will fall tremendously in all the East. The sec- 
 retary was astonished at this international significance, 
 and owned he had been troubled over what Hartford 
 would do about it, but hadn't thought of Tokyo. So 
 he's going to write Mott & Co., repudiating the lecture, 
 and ask him to write to Tokyo repudiating it, so as to 
 have that on tap in case the papers there come out. 
 . . . 5 p. M. — My morning's work paid. The 
 secretary comes out in the Times disclaiming any 
 responsibility for Hobson's views." 
 
 On returning to his home base and his books and 
 papers, my father launched a vigorous protest in " An 
 Open Letter to Hobson " in the Hartford Courant, 
 exposing the false basis of history and diplomacy on 
 which the congressman's statements about Japan were 
 founded, and demonstrating the non-existence of war 
 probabilities between Japan and the United States by 
 quoting declarations from leaders of both nations. A 
 closing paragraph from this missile summarizes its 
 principal arguments : 
 
 " For the sake of Japan, whose people I respect and 
 love, and whose spirit I believe will bring generous 
 help to the world in the peaceful solution of the greatest 
 of all twentieth century problems — the coming together 
 of the East and the West— I openly affirm that your 
 statements about the war habit of the Japanese and 
 their war designs on our Eepublic have no better 
 foundation than that furnished by your ignorance of 
 history and of diplomatic usages between governments. 
 And for the sake of the religion that I believe is the 
 greatest force that will bind the race of man, north, 
 south, east, and west, in one abiding brotherhood, I 
 must protest against your using Christian platforms 
 
FKOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 277 
 
 and quoting Christian Scripture while poisoning the 
 minds of your hearers against a people whose friend- 
 ship the millions of this land prize." 
 
 The immediate result of this letter in Hartford was 
 the holding of a citizens' meeting, which my father was 
 invited to address. The meeting was of a purely 
 constructive nature, and no mention was made of the 
 man who had started the train of thought in Hartford ; 
 but on the motion of President Mackenzie of the Semi- 
 nary, the assembly passed by a unanimous rising vote a 
 resolution of friendship, protesting " against the wide- 
 spread and systematic efforts that have been made by 
 some journals and individuals to foment distrust and 
 enmity between two friendly nations," and further 
 branding as " malicious and unwarrantable all the 
 statements which have tended to throw suspicion upon 
 the integrity of the governments of both our own 
 nation and Japan." These resolutions were transmitted 
 by order of the meeting to the Japanese ambassador at 
 Washington. 
 
 Moreover, outside of Hartford, the " Open Letter " 
 met a reception that proved its timeliness. The Amer- 
 ican Peace Society reproduced it with an account of the 
 Hartford meeting under the title of " The Truth About 
 Japan," printing it not only in its organ, The Advocate 
 of Peace, but also as a broadside, which it sent to 
 every important newspaper in the United States. 
 
 This society further printed as a booklet an address 
 given by him at a Saturday luncheon of the Twentieth 
 Century Club in Boston, on " Is Japan a Menace to the 
 United States ? " — in which he at once brands his sub- 
 ject as an "unspeakable question." He reviews the 
 usual charges against Japanese character — commercial 
 
278 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 dishonesty, immorality, brutality (in Korea), and secret 
 plotting against the United States — and shows that 
 whatever truth there is in these, they are not a menace 
 to the United States ; he then demonstrates that the 
 greatest barrier to peaceful intercourse between the 
 two nations is the barrier of language. This barrier, 
 he says, the Japanese are doing their best to break 
 down on their side, as they have now in commercial, 
 journalistic, educational, and diplomatic circles a large 
 body of specialists in the histories and languages of 
 the West, and are thus able to interpret the West to 
 their people as it is revealed in its press and present-day 
 civilization. 
 
 " There is no other way to secure hundreds of com- 
 petent mediators between the East and the West than 
 for us to do as Japan has so splendidly done," was his 
 closing appeal. " We should send our gifted graduates 
 to the East for the one purpose of becoming specialists 
 in every department of Eastern life. They cannot go 
 of themselves, therefore our universities should have 
 three-year scholarships that would enable young men 
 on their return from the East to become journalists, 
 ministers, and business men capable of interpreting the 
 East to our chambers of commerce, our churches, and 
 readers of the daily press. The government and our 
 numerous universities and our expanding commerce 
 owe it to the people of this great republic that they be 
 not again stampeded by a sensational and semi-ignorant 
 press as they were last year. The churches by their mis- 
 sionaries are doing their part ; but for the peaceful com- 
 ing together of the millions of the East with the millions 
 of the West in mutual respect and on lines of brother- 
 hood, the government and our universities, and even 
 
FROM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 279 
 
 our chambers of commerce, should as soon as possible 
 give a boom to this greatly needed movement. . . . 
 As long as we are content with our ignorance of the 
 East, the jingo influences of the whole world will have 
 their largest successes on our soil." 
 
 This appeal for Americans to study the East voiced 
 what was to his mind an increasing necessity of the 
 times. On furlough, both through the press and in inter- 
 views with university presidents, he advocated the plan 
 of oriental fellowships for American students. The 
 steadily growing number of Japanese chairs or lecture- 
 ships in American universities is a development along 
 the lines of constructive peace work as he saw it ; as is 
 also the recent reorganization of the Japanese Language 
 School in Tokyo on the joint initiative of the Japan 
 Peace Society and the American Peace Society of 
 Japan, which have thus provided efficient means of 
 instruction in Japanese for would-be students from the 
 West. 
 
 After returning to Japan, he further emphasized the 
 need of American students of the East by a pamphlet 
 for the American Association for International Con- 
 ciliation, on " American Ignorance of Oriental Lan- 
 guages." In this the argument of the other pamphlet 
 is elaborated with illustration and quotation, and adds 
 the testimony of two later events, — one the cordial 
 welcome and entertainment accorded the American 
 battle-ships under Admiral Sperry, on their peaceful 
 visit to Japan in 1908 ; the other, the similarly cordial 
 treatment of the party of commercial commissioners 
 from the Pacific coast that same year. In each case 
 the advantages to be gained by a knowledge of both 
 languages were heavily on the side of the hosts. 
 
280 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 Such international visits as these, especially that of 
 the commercial commissioners, were to his mind of 
 great importance as means of mutual information; 
 and with joy he quotes the report of the commissioners, 
 issued on their return to America : " Before visiting 
 the Empire of Japan, none of us had the slightest con- 
 ception of the sentiments which the people of that 
 country bear to our people. . . . The people of 
 the United States ought to be proud of the friends 
 that they have in the Far East." This was an illus- 
 tration of how mutual knowledge would breed sym- 
 pathy between the races, a fact that he had realized 
 afresh on furlough, when the welcome given his articles 
 and addresses had shown that the heart of America 
 was still true to its historic friendship with Japan, and 
 that the misunderstandings about that nation came 
 chiefly from the lack of reliable information. "On 
 five different occasions," he wrote, " I tested this with 
 large representative audiences in different cities, every 
 one of which unanimously passed the most cordial 
 resolutions of unbroken friendship for Japan." 
 
 On his return to Sendai, he was given a warm re- 
 ception by citizens of every class, to whom his work 
 in defense and interpretation of Japan had become 
 known through the press. Said one editorial, " To our 
 mind his work was worth more than Sperry's sixteen 
 battle-ships in cementing the friendship [between Japan 
 and America], and in this sense we extend to Dr. 
 DeForest, our new national benefactor, warm welcome 
 hands." 
 
 Soon afterwards, in November, 1908, he was deco- 
 rated by the Emperor of Japan with the Fourth Order 
 of the Eising Sun. The official reasons given were his 
 
J. H. DE FOREST IN 1908 
 Showing order of the Rising Sun and Loyal Legion Badge 
 
FKOM NATIONAL TO INTEENATIONAL 281 
 
 work for soldiers during the Kusso-Japanese War, and 
 his relief work during the famine of 1906 ; but coming 
 as it did on the heels of his arduous American cam- 
 paign, the decoration seemed to imply official acknowl- 
 edgment of that also. His account of the conferring 
 of the decoration runs thus in a family letter : " It is 
 to be worn only with swallow-tail, and the button only 
 with frock coat. I was ordered to appear at the 
 governor's office in frock coat, and, to make sure, I 
 wore my tall hat too. The chief of police was present. 
 He took me before the Imperial Shrine and tried to 
 put the button in my coat ; but as it was a new coat, 
 bought just as I left Boston, the show buttonhole had 
 never been cut. So he called for needle and thread and 
 was going into the tailor business, when I drew my knife 
 and soon had a hole big enough for any decoration." 
 
 Upon the exhilaration of receiving this national 
 honour, there followed the reaction of a temperament 
 sensitive to others' thought of him, — to the ascription 
 to him of worldly motives in his work for international 
 peace, to the suspicion that he had left his first love for 
 direct and intensive Christian work. It was a friend 
 indeed that wrote him : " As for your fear that ' his 
 decoration killed his Christianity ' — has what you have 
 been preaching in Manchuria and America, the work 
 for which you were decorated, been Christian or not ? 
 I confess I can regard it in no other way than a very 
 high expression of Christianity, applied to nations as 
 well as to individuals. Is the nation less than the 
 individual, and are peace and good- will among nations 
 less Christian than peace and good-will in the hearts of 
 individual men ? God help us if missionary work is to 
 be confined to work for the individual." 
 
282 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 This encouragement was, after all, but a restatement 
 of his own convictions of years' standing. His first 
 purpose as a young missionary had been to convert a 
 group of Japanese to Christianity and found a church 
 like that of which he had been pastor in America. 
 After he had acquired the language and had had a few 
 years of experience in close contact with the people, 
 he had begun to realize that missions were not the 
 isolated individual phase of human activity that he 
 had once supposed them to be; that they were inti- 
 mately related to the political conditions, the economic 
 and social status, the traditional thought, of the whole 
 nation. Some of the work of Christian missionaries, 
 he saw, was comparatively unfruitful because unrelated 
 to much that was vital in its environment. 
 
 " The missionary movement has become one of inter- 
 national significance," he wrote, " and has now a deep 
 political meaning." He once said to Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, 
 after hearing his inimitable stories about the beginnings 
 of Christian work in Constantinople : " Dr. Hamlin, I 
 see now why you are called a great missionary. It 
 isn't because you know the Bible better than others, 
 nor is it on account of your preaching ability ; but it is 
 because you know the methods of international inter- 
 course and the influence of the legations, and how to 
 use them." " "Well," replied Dr. Hamlin, " I knew 
 nothing about international law when I went out ; but 
 I soon discovered that if I was to accomplish anything, 
 I must learn it." 
 
 Less dramatically insistent in Japan than in Turkey, 
 but equally deep-seated, was the necessity for using 
 international factors to help the preaching of the 
 Gospel of the Kingdom. International relations had at 
 
FKOM NATIONAL TO INTEKNATIONAL 283 
 
 times been serious hindrances : so-called Christian na- 
 tions had, by " huge inconsistencies in war preparations 
 and in inability to suppress vice and crime," put upon 
 the missionary a heavy burden of proof to show that 
 Christianity had really the spiritual power claimed for 
 it. " The anti-Japanese movement in California has 
 done incalculable damage to aggressive Christian work 
 in this empire. The wicked cry of the ' yellow peril ' 
 in the West has set back Christian work all through the 
 East for decades, in my judgment. The war with 
 Russia revealed a Christianity so overloaded with 
 defects and glaring inconsistencies that we had to hang 
 our heads in shame." The evangelization of the world 
 in this generation he felt to be impossible. " We are 
 not good enough }^et," he said. " There are hindrances 
 to their accepting the Christ we are able to preach, just 
 in proportion to hindrances in us, in our churches and 
 nations, that prevent as yet a perfect presentation of 
 our Lord and Saviour." 
 
 Not only the spirit, but also the method, of Christian 
 missions he felt was affected by international relations ; 
 and the rapidity of Japan's Christianization was de- 
 pendent in large measure upon whether missionary 
 methods were in keeping with the political and psycho- 
 logical conditions of the twentieth century. Of course 
 he had no doubt of the ultimate Christianization of 
 Japan : he believed that " there never was a nation so 
 richly prepared morally and spiritually for the reception 
 of the Gospel," and that, " in spite of the slow progress 
 of organized Christianity, it stands true that no great 
 nation was ever before so rapidly permeated with 
 Christian thought as this." But he held with equal 
 conviction that the new times demanded changes of 
 
284 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 missionary method ; and much of the work of the last 
 few years of his life was related to the increasing 
 " naturalization " of Christianity in Japan. 
 
 Five years after the abolition of political extraterrito- 
 riality by the operation of the revised treaties, the 
 Russian war with its remarkable series of victories 
 aroused in the Japanese a new national consciousness 
 of power and a growing feeling, more and more fre- 
 quently expressed, that the native church should be 
 free from foreign control. "The great fact still 
 remains," wrote my father to the Board in 1905, " that 
 the work done by the missions of Japan is a kind of ex- 
 traterritorial Christianity, controlled by foreign bodies 
 with their responsible agents here ; the legislation is 
 largely that of foreign sects, and the methods those 
 that are applicable to undeveloped peoples. . . . The 
 greatest problem before the missionaries of Japan to-day 
 is how to hasten the abolition of religious extraterri- 
 toriality. As things are, it is wholly impossible to 
 really and deeply affect the life of the nation, and this 
 is the great hope of our hearts. We are not content 
 with the wretchedly slow manner in which individuals 
 are converted or brought into the churches. We want 
 to see a religious movement that shall sw r eep over the 
 nation, commanding the respect and willing sacrifices 
 of tens of thousands, until the whole people feel the 
 new spiritual fire. It is impossible on the old lines. 
 The people are ripe for an unusual aw r akening, morally 
 and spiritually. ... I do not think the day for 
 missionaries in Japan has gone by ; but unless their 
 methods are rapidly changed to fit a nation that stands 
 among the few foremost nations of the earth, their day 
 is rapidly going by. ... I believe we may yet do 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTEENATIONAL 286 
 
 our greatest work if we can find the way of doing it so 
 as to win the hearts of the leaders here. It is now a 
 question of extraterritoriality in mission methods, and 
 the possibility of abolishing it." 
 
 The American Board Mission and the Kumiai 
 churches were already on a basis of cooperation ; but 
 besides the independent churches, there were some 
 thirty that were receiving financial aid from the mission. 
 Such dependence upon foreign support was galling to 
 the independent spirit quickened by the national 
 successes. Hence a joint committee of the mission and 
 the churches, my father being a member, met to con- 
 sider how this organized cause of friction might be 
 removed. The committee conferences resulted in the 
 formation of a plan by which the responsibility for the 
 dependent churches should be assumed by the inde- 
 pendent Kumiai body, which was to be aided during 
 the period of necessary readjustment by a diminishing 
 annual grant for three years from the evangelistic funds 
 of the mission. This plan was hailed with joy by the 
 Japanese Christians ; and for the missionaries it meant 
 new opportunities of cooperation and extension of work. 
 To quote again from my father's official correspondence: 
 
 " I regard this as a most important contribution to 
 the solution of extraterritorial Christianity. It opened 
 the door at once to the sweetest kind of invitation — to 
 become honourary (or associate) members of their 
 Missionary Society, with as much or as little of re- 
 sponsibility as individuals might like, each at full liberty 
 to work as heretofore in the aided churches and any- 
 where else, only now we should stand with the full 
 Kumiai body behind us. And especially those of us 
 engaged in direct evangelistic work can be sure of a 
 
286 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 cordial welcome and backing from the independent 
 churches wherever we go throughout Japan . . . — a 
 change that will be of vast benefit to us foreigners here, 
 to the Japanese nation, to our constituency at home, 
 and to the cause of missions at large." 
 
 This form of cooperation left room for the Kumiai 
 churches to give the call for new missionaries. At the 
 annual mission meeting of 1909, one of the Kumiai 
 leaders addressed the mission with a rousing call for its 
 advance with enlarged forces into new territory, in 
 cooperation with the Kumiai churches, which, he inti- 
 mated, would at their next annual conference take 
 formal action requesting the mission to make such ad- 
 vance. The mission, in the pressure of last business, at 
 its closing session passed a hasty vote, repeating its tra- 
 ditional request that the Board send out a certain num- 
 ber of new missionary families. To this vote my 
 father was strongly opposed. " It is purely extrater- 
 ritorial," was his position, " a bit of religious legislation 
 for Japan — a method we have outgrown. . . . We 
 owe it to the Japanese to give them the right of way 
 that for the first time they have shown a disposition to 
 take. We owe it to the new missionaries who may 
 come to give them the real advantages of being 
 invited to Japan by Japanese." By quiet conversa- 
 tions in the more leisurely atmosphere after the session, 
 he succeeded in winning to his point of view so large a 
 number of the mission that the vote, when reported to 
 the Board, was accompanied by explanatory letters 
 conveying the spirit in which the reinforcements were 
 desired. 
 
 The summer of the same year his interest in study- 
 ing the influence of the political situation upon missions 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTEENATIONAL 287 
 
 was further stimulated by his visit to China. At the 
 annual meeting of the North China Mission of the 
 American Board, he learned with surprise of the con- 
 trol exercised by the missionaries over the native Chris- 
 tian bodies, and of the partial denationalization of 
 Chinese Christians through the special mention made of 
 them in the treaty with the United States. Through 
 his very astonishment at the extreme forms of extra- 
 territoriality seemingly necessitated by the backward- 
 ness of the Chinese empire, he could say with even 
 greater emphasis than before that " Japan, of all the 
 great mission fields, has the best political environment 
 for missionary work." The detailed study that he 
 made of the political status of foreigners in China pre- 
 pared him to voice his conclusions in regard to the in- 
 fluence of that status upon international good- will and 
 the work of Christian missions in that country, in a 
 paper, " Extraterritoriality in China," published by the 
 American Association for International Conciliation. 
 
 In Japan the new form of cooperation that was, as 
 we have seen, worked out between the Kumiai churches 
 and the mission, gave new sanction to special invita- 
 tions to the missionaries from the Kumiai body, — the 
 mission in such cases supplying the needed travelling 
 expenses of its members. My father's last working 
 year, 1910, was marked by two such invitations, one 
 for work in Osaka, one for work in Korea. 
 
 In Osaka the Christians of all denominations united in 
 an evangelistic campaign, in which Christian preach- 
 ing was held five consecutive nights in each of the 
 forty-two churches and chapels of the city. This kind 
 of campaign, in centres where Christian organizations 
 have existed long enough to have what he called a 
 
288 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 " penumbra," has become an accepted method of work 
 in Japan. The campaign in Osaka that spring was 
 directed entirely by Japanese, at an expense of some 
 four thousand yen. It had been preceded by weeks of 
 prayerful preparation in the local churches. It was 
 followed by three hundred and sixty baptisms on one 
 Sunday in the five Kumiai churches of the city, and 
 many besides in churches of other denominations. My 
 father's joy in sharing in this movement was twofold : 
 it showed on a scale " unique in the history of Chris- 
 tianity in the East " how effectively a truly naturalized 
 church might carry on the work of bringing in the 
 Kingdom of Heaven ; and it gave him, as he said, per- 
 haps with a premonition that his time was short, " a 
 grand chance to gather up all the experiences of my 
 life, and make them tell for the Fatherhood of God and 
 for the human-divine Jesus, the eternal Christ." 
 
 The visit to Korea in the autumn was made primarily 
 for work among the Japanese Kumiai churches there ; 
 but with the added invitation of the Japanese Young 
 Men's Christian Association in Korea to give talks un- 
 der its auspices to railroad men, he went the length of 
 the peninsula from Fusan to New Wiju with the mes- 
 sage of the Kingdom. Meeting with old and new 
 friends among the Christians, with military men whom 
 he had known in Sendai, and with officials with whom 
 he had become acquainted on his Manchurian trip, he 
 had unusual opportunities for learning the political 
 situation from the Japanese point of view, in addition 
 to the missionary point of view, where these differed. 
 He was particularly desirous of seeing the effect upon 
 Christian work of the new political environment intro- 
 duced by the protectorate and continued under the an- 
 
FROM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 289 
 
 nexation. In educational, financial, industrial, and 
 sanitary reforms conducted by the Japanese adminis- 
 tration in Korea, he saw the dawn of a new era of 
 civic and social righteousness in that peninsula, mak- 
 ing the crooked straight and the rough places plain for 
 the oncoming Kingdom of God. 
 
 He was struck with differences in the moral history 
 and development of the two races dwelling side by side 
 there. Much of the weakness and corruption that had 
 brought Korea to her present state of dependence 
 seemed to him clearly explained by the absence of na- 
 tional moral leaders during the five hundred years of 
 the last dynasty. This thought is best summarized in a 
 few sentences from " The Moral Purpose of Japan in 
 Korea," in the Independent : 
 
 " There are certain lines of morality in which Japa- 
 nese are defective, but they are strong in other lines, 
 especially in what we may call public morality, as con- 
 trasted with private. . . . Westerners often wonder 
 at the unusual power of the Japanese to make such 
 rapid progress as they have done during the last cen- 
 tury, and mistakenly think it is because of her imita- 
 tive and adaptive powers. The only fact that really ex- 
 plains her phenomenal progress is the width and depth 
 of her public morality during hundreds of years. This 
 basis of national life was developed by men of splendid 
 moral powers, who themselves lived as they taught, 
 and who cared for men more than for things. . . . 
 Unfortunately, there has been in Korea no [such] line 
 of moral prophets, and therefore no moral ideals to in- 
 spire the upper classes to do unselfish things for the 
 state and for the public good. They have produced no 
 moral literature for the uplifting of the people. . . . 
 
290 JOHN HYDE DeFOEEST 
 
 One [Japanese] general said to me, ' They have the 
 same Chinese classics that we have, the same fine Con- 
 fucian ethics ; and many Koreans are men of high 
 moral character on narrow personal lines, such as per- 
 tain to the permanency of the family : but political 
 ethics, which we have always emphasized, they have 
 overlooked, as far as practice goes.' " He became con- 
 vinced as never before that in God's providence Japan 
 had a great mission to this weak sister nation. 
 
 That the work of Christian missionaries in Korea 
 had been a helpful preparatory step to Japan's mission, 
 he believed, according to the following statement that 
 he repeatedly heard in Korea : " Had it not been for 
 the large bodies of order-loving Christians in the large 
 cities, the excitement and hatred against Japanese at 
 certain critical times would have broken out into un- 
 controllable riots that would have made the streets run 
 with the mingled blood of Japanese and Koreans. But 
 the Christians, by refusing to countenance resistance, 
 acted as a brake on the unbalanced crowds, and thus 
 made it vastly more easy to maintain order." 
 
 He did not blind himself to the friction and disturb- 
 ances to mission work that had followed upon the 
 Japanese occupation of Korea. But he knew from his 
 long acquaintance with Japan and from his study of 
 mission history in the Orient that this friction was not 
 due to governmental opposition to Christianity — rather 
 to the readjustment and misunderstandings inevitable 
 in the process of transition from the extraterritorial 
 methods of early Korean missions to the methods nec- 
 essary under the new regime : a process further com- 
 plicated by difference of language and customs. He 
 wondered rather that the disturbance to Christian work 
 
LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF J. H. DE FOREST 
 Taken in Korea, 1910, at the age of 66 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 291 
 
 had not been greater. " It is because the missionary 
 body is so splendidly Christian in its character, and be- 
 cause the government is so sincere in its purpose to be 
 true to the principle of religious liberty, that this mis- 
 sionary problem has not flared up into international 
 proportions." 
 
 On returning to Sendai from Korea in November, 
 1910, he started to make the belated autumn rounds of 
 his evangelistic parish. But the fatigue and excite- 
 ment of the trip, and its incessant addresses, interviews, 
 and writing, had told on him more than he knew. A 
 short trip to Fukushima, involving three addresses 
 within twenty-four hours, brought on an attack of 
 heart trouble that necessitated giving up, for the time 
 being, other plans for touring. He spent the next few 
 weeks at home, leisurely doing his " odd jobs " — closing 
 the annual station accounts, writing his year's summary 
 for the Independent, and putting his papers and scrap- 
 books in order. " I'm bowled out of the game for a 
 week or two," he cheerily wrote to the Board, " after 
 one of the most interesting times of my life — in Korea. 
 A bit of rheumatism has butted into my chest, but I'll 
 butt him out before long." 
 
 This optimism, however, did not justify itself : the 
 arterial sclerosis that had been insidiously creeping on 
 him for some years now proclaimed itself an open 
 enemy ; and a more violent attack of heart trouble 
 three days before Christmas confined him to his bed. 
 
 His five months of invalidism were rich with the 
 tokens of love and sympathy from two hemispheres. 
 To him, as perhaps to few, was given the sweetness of 
 human appreciation to enjoy while yet he had ears to 
 
292 JOHN HYDE DeFOKEST 
 
 hear and a heart to feel it. Forbidden though he was 
 to take part in mission business or any worrisome affairs, 
 his heart and thoughts still went out incessantly to the 
 work he loved so well. He rejoiced in the formation 
 of the American Peace Society of Japan, whose inau- 
 guration he was thus prevented from attending. His 
 thoughts were of the coming Kingdom, of love, joy ? 
 and peace to all men in the growing realization of their 
 brotherhood through the one Father and the universal 
 Saviour. He saw few friends, but with those he saw 
 he left an imprint of good cheer in spite of the phys- 
 ical weakness that galled his active mind. The tender 
 care and companionship of my mother was his perpetual 
 benediction ; while a diversion daily anticipated was 
 afforded by a jovial chat with his friend and physician, 
 Dr. A. S. Yamamoto. 
 
 The seeming convalescence ended in April, 1911, in 
 a relapse. He was removed from his home in Sendai 
 to St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo. But the disease only 
 hastened its course : pneumonia set in, followed by 
 days of unconsciousness, until on May 8th, at eventide, 
 the spirit slipped away into the light. 
 
 In accordance with his own wish of many years, the 
 remains were cremated. The funeral took place in 
 Sendai on May 11th in the large Presbyterian church, 
 the Kumiai building being too small for the occasion. 
 He had expressed the desire that Dr. Schneder should 
 preach his funeral sermon ; and this friend, in selecting 
 as text, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory," 
 fulfilled another expressed desire that the tone of the 
 occasion should be one, not of mourning, but of courage 
 and triumph. 
 
 At sunset the ashes were laid away in the little for- 
 
FEOM NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL 293 
 
 eign cemetery adjoining the Japanese Christian burial 
 ground on a hillside on the edge of the city. Around 
 his monument stand trees that are the memorial offer- 
 ing of many a loving heart in different parts of Japan ; 
 while at the gate of the cemetery the Oriental Peace 
 Society has placed its cedar sentinels in his honour. 
 The view looks out on one side upon the mountains 
 where he loved to tramp, on the other upon the broad 
 Pacific over which his thought had so often flown in 
 the yearning to bridge the greater chasm of misunder- 
 standing between the hemispheres. 
 
 " When you have got a permanent brotherhood 
 treaty sealed forever between Japan and the U. S. A.," 
 his American pastor had written him, " then we will 
 let you die and have a rest ; but not till then, — remem- 
 ber, not till then." But in that ever-expanding life of 
 activity to which he looked forward, who can say but 
 that he is even now doing a brotherhood work in some 
 other of God's worlds, or perchance, with some new 
 gift that may await God's workmen in the world be- 
 yond, upholding the hands of his fellow- workers in this 
 one? 
 
Appendix 
 
 Chronological Tables 
 
 I. Life of J. H. DeForest. 
 II. Contemporaneous Events in Japan. 
 
 Principal English Writings of J. H. DeForest 
 Map of Japan 
 
Chronological Tables 
 
 I. Life of J. H. Deforest 
 
 1844, June 25th— Birth at Westbrook, Conn. 
 
 1854 — Removal to Greenwich, Conn. 
 
 1860-1861— Teacher at Bozrahville, Conn. 
 
 1861-1862— Student at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 
 
 1862-1863— Soldier in 28th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 
 1863-1864— Teacher at Irvington, N. Y. 
 
 1864-1868— Student at Yale College. 
 
 1868-1871— Student at Yale Divinity School. 
 
 1871 — Ordination. Marriage to Miss Sarah C. Conklin. 
 
 1871-1874 — Pastor at Mount Carmel, Conn. 
 
 1872— Death of Mrs. DeForest. 
 
 1873-1874— Revival at Mount Carmel. Call to the foreign field. 
 1874 — Marriage to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Starr. 
 1874-1911 — Missionary in Japan. 
 
 1874 — Location at Osaka. 
 
 1882 — Breakdown and furlough. 
 
 1883— Return to Osaka. 
 
 1886— Removal to Sendai. Opening of the Tokwa School. 
 
 1889 — Degree of Doctor of Divinity received from Yale University. 
 
 1890 — Six months' trip to America. 
 
 1892— Close of Tokwa School. 
 
 1894-1895— Second furlough. 
 
 1903— Six months' trip to the United States. Writing of "Sun- 
 rise in the Sunrise Kingdom." 
 
 1905 — Manchurian tour. 
 
 1905-1906— Famine relief work. 
 
 1907-1908— Third furlough. Campaign on behalf of American 
 friendship with Japan. 
 
 1908— Decoration of the Fourth Order of the Rising Sun received. 
 
 1909 — Summer in China. 
 
 1910 — Korean tour. 
 
 1911, May 8th— Death. 
 
 297 
 
298 , CHEONOLOGICAL TABLES 
 
 II. Contemporaneous Events in Japan 
 
 1854 — Opening of Japan by Commodore Perry. 
 
 1859 — Beginning of Protestant mission work. 
 
 1864 — First Protestant baptism. 
 
 1868 — Abolition of Shogunate. Beginning of Meiji Era. 
 
 1869 — Opening of American Board Mission in Japan. 
 
 1872 — Iwakura Embassy to the West. 
 
 1873 — Withdrawal of prohibition of Christianity. 
 
 1874 — Organization of first church connected with American Board 
 
 Mission. 
 1876— Sunday declared an official holiday. Samurai deprived of 
 
 privilege of carrying swords. 
 1877 — Satsuma Rebellion. Ordination of first native pastor connected 
 
 with American Board Mission. Beginning of discussion on 
 
 self-support. 
 1880 — Publication of New Testament in Japanese. 
 1884 — Abolition of state priesthood. 
 1886 — Name Kumiai formally adopted by Japanese churches connected 
 
 with American Board Mission. 
 1888— Publication of Old Testament in Japanese. 
 1889 — Promulgation of national Constitution. 
 1890 — Issue of Imperial Rescript on Education. 
 1894 — War with China. Revision of treaties with the West. 
 1895 — Independence of Kumiai Home Missionary Society from mission 
 
 aid. 
 1899— Operation of revised treaties. " Mixed residence." 
 1900 — Japanese co6peration with Western powers in relief of Peking. 
 1902— Anglo- Japanese alliance, renewed 1905 and 1911. 
 1904-1905— War with Russia. 
 
 1906 — New basis of cooperation between Kumiai churches and Amer- 
 ican Board Mission. 
 1907 — Protectorate established in Korea. 
 
 1908— Mutual declaration of policy between United States and Japan. 
 1910 — Annexation of Korea. 
 
Principal English Writings of J. H. DeForest 
 
 For the American Association for International Conciliation: 
 
 " American Ignorance of Oriental Languages " (Feb., 1909). 
 "Extraterritoriality in China " (Oct., 1910). 
 
 For the American Peace Society : 
 
 " Is Japan a Menace to the United States ? » (1908). 
 
 11 The Conditions of Peace Between the East and the West " (1908). 
 "American Misunderstandings of Japan" (1907; privately printed 
 and sent to principal libraries in the United States). 
 
 For the Independent : 
 
 Annual Surveys of Japan, with few exceptions from 1889 to 1910. 
 Russo-Japanese War Correspondence, 1904-1905. 
 
 For the Monday Club Series : 
 
 Three Sermons on Sunday School Lessons in the 1910 and 1911 
 volumes. 
 
 For the Student Volunteer Movement : 
 
 "The Broad Culture Demanded of Missionaries" (in The Call, 
 
 Qualifications, and Preparation of Missionary Candidates). 
 " Shintoism " (in Religions of Mission Fields). 
 
 For the Young People's Missionary Movement : 
 
 " Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom." (Text-book on Japan in the 
 
 Forward Mission Study Series.) 
 Sketch of the Japan Mission of the American Board, 1869-1904. 
 
 (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
 
 Boston.) 
 
 "Ethics of Confucius as Seen in Japan, The," in The Andover Review, 
 Vol. XIX, p. 309 sqq. ; reprinted later in pamphlet form by 
 the Methodist Publishing House, Tokyo. 
 
 299 
 
Si 
 
 
 1 
 

 
 JAPAN AND KOREA 
 
Index 
 
Index 
 
 Adams, Dr. and Mrs. A. H., 31 
 Advocate of Peace ', The, 2yj 
 Aizu, 216 
 Allchin, Rev. George, 120, 153, 
 
 158 
 American Association for Interna- 
 tional Conciliation, 279, 287 
 American Board, annual meeting 
 
 at Manchester, N. H., 250 
 
 mission in Japan : annual meet- 
 ings, 214, 229, 286 
 beginnings, 37 
 policy for individual mem- 
 bers, 190; (see also 
 Cooperation) 
 mission in North China, 287 
 " American Ignorance of Oriental 
 
 Languages," 279 
 " American Misunderstandings of 
 
 Japan," 275 
 American Peace Society, 277 
 American Peace Society of Japan, 
 
 279, 292 
 " American Spirit, The," 269 
 American sympathy with Japan in 
 
 Russian War, 267-268 
 Amherst College, 19 
 Ancestor worship, 247, 248-249 
 Annaka, 118-119 
 Anti-foreign agitation in Japan, 78- 
 
 80 
 Anti-foreign period, 159, 176-182, 
 
 187, 235 
 Anti- Japanese feeling in U. S., 274- 
 
 277 ; influence on mission work, 
 
 283 
 Apologetic age for Christianity in 
 
 Japan, 83 
 Apologetic preaching, 84-86, 91, 
 
 93-94, 95» 96-98, 259 
 Arima, 51, 57 
 Army, Japanese, in Manchuria, 
 
 270-273 
 
 Asakusa Temple, 36 
 Asama, Mt., 220 
 Atkinson, Rev. J. L., 131 
 " Aunt White," 18, 21 
 
 Baikwa Girls' School, 63, 160, 
 
 162 
 Ballagh, Rev. J. H., 36 
 Barrancas, Fla., 19 
 Barrows-Haskell lectureship, 166, 
 
 264 
 « Basis of Society, The," 124 
 Bible teaching, 54, 58, 72, 75, 167- 
 
 168, 181 
 Biblical criticism, influence on 
 
 theory of inspiration, 227-228 ; 
 
 on missionary attitude, 230-231, 
 
 237-238 ; on missionary method, 
 
 232-233, 242-244 
 Bird (Bishop), Isabella, 77 
 Biwa Lake, 78, 119 
 Bowne, Borden P., 166 
 Bozrahville, Conn., 18 
 " Bridges," 175 
 Brotherhood, 175, 203, 224, 266, 
 
 268, 276, 293 
 Bryan, William Jennings, 166 
 Buck, Col. A. E., 262 
 Buddhism, changes in, 80-82, 246- 
 
 2 5 J 
 
 growing friendliness to Chris- 
 tianity, 245-246 
 influence in Japan, 1 27-128, 
 218,237-238,244,245; (see 
 also Shaka) 
 Buddhist opposition to Christianity, 
 
 76-79 
 Buddhist priest, conversion of, 196 
 Buddhist priesthood, 82 
 Buddhist priests, talks with, 48, 
 
 127-128, 247 
 Buddhist schools, 80-81, 245, 251 
 Buddhists, how to meet. 133 
 
 303 
 
304 
 
 IKDEX 
 
 Buddhist temple, church begun in, 
 
 154; lecture in, 246 
 Burial rites, 10 1 
 
 Cabinet-maker, incident of, 208- 
 209 
 
 Cady, Rev. C. M., 143 
 
 China, 241, 273, 287 
 
 Chinese ideographs, 123 
 
 Cholera, 43, 81, 152 
 
 Christ, missionary confused with, 
 214 
 
 Christian Herald, The, 205 
 
 Christianity in Japan, era of popu- 
 larity, 76, 127 
 
 naturalization of, 284, 288 
 " unassimilatable element " in, 
 263 
 
 Christianity, reasonableness of, 
 140-141 
 
 " Christianity, the unreasonable- 
 ness of," 78 
 
 Christianization of Japan, condi- 
 tions antagonistic to, 197-198 
 conditions favourable to, 198, 
 
 287 
 early expectation of, 67 
 historic preparation for, 237- 
 
 238, 240, 284 
 ultimate, 283-284 
 
 Christian literature in Japan, 59, 
 75» l 37 > ( see a ^ s0 Literary 
 Work, under DeForest) 
 
 Clark, Rev. F. E., 164, 262 
 
 Clark, Rev. N. G., 31, III 
 
 Commercial commissioners from 
 Pacific Coast, 279 
 
 Confucius, 239 ; ethics of, 84-86, 
 124-125 ; Golden Rule of, 170 
 
 Congregationalist, The, 275 
 
 Conklin, Sarah C, 25-26 
 
 Constitution of Japan, promulga- 
 tion of, 167, 175 
 
 Cooperation between Japanese 
 churches and American Board 
 mission, 176-179, 285-286 
 
 Cos Cob, 16 
 
 Cows, Japanese, 39 
 
 Cremation, 167, 292 
 
 Current events, used by mission- 
 ary, 195 
 
 Curtis, Rev. W. W., 102, I53, 154 
 
 Date, crest of the house of, 266 ; 
 
 mausoleum, 149 
 Date Masamune, 149 
 DeForest, J. K. H., acclimatization 
 in Japan, 49-52 
 
 appointment as missionary to 
 
 Japan, 30 
 army life, 19, 24 
 attitude towards other Chris- 
 tian workers, 92, 113- 114, 
 1 16, 192, 202, 233-237 
 attitude towards union, 203- 
 
 204 
 birth, 16 
 breakdown, III 
 change of attitude towards 
 Japanese, 125-126 
 
 towards native religions, 
 237-238 
 change of name, 23 
 childhood and youth, 16-26 
 children, 65, 126, 152, 188, 
 
 212-213, 241 
 Chinese ideographs, study of, 
 
 123 
 conversion, 18, 19, 24, 214 
 co-workers, helped by, 195 
 influence on, 201, 202 
 death, 292 
 
 decision to be a minister, 19, 
 24, 25 
 
 missionary, 28, 30 
 decoration, 280-281 
 diary, 127, 130-134, ^S"^ 6 * 
 
 *95 
 
 doctorate of divinity, 21 1-2 1 2 
 education, 16, 18, 20-22 
 friendships, 198-201, 210- 
 
 211 
 furloughs, ill, 187, 273-279 
 intellectual awakening, 134- 
 
 136 
 
 Japanese characteristics, early 
 estimate of, 46-49 
 
 later estimate of, 197— 
 198, 267, 271, 289 
 Japanese language, study of, 
 
 52-57, 121-123 
 letters, chief extracts from, 24- 
 
INDEX 
 
 305 
 
 25, 26-29, 35-37, 46-49. 
 5 2 -59> 67, 71-75, 136-143* 
 
 212, 214-224, 244-247 
 
 literary work, 59, 75, 1 19 
 
 (note), 209-210 
 marriage, to Miss Conklin, 25- 
 
 26 
 
 to Miss Starr, 31 
 methods of work, 190- 194 
 missionary calling, conception 
 
 of, 213 
 missionary motive, 29, 30, 46, 
 
 134, 238 
 mountain tramping, 27, 51, 
 
 293 
 
 ordination, 25 
 Osaka, settling in, 37 
 pastorate in Mount Carmel, 
 
 25-30 
 question of return to Japan, 
 
 187-188 
 school-teaching, in Conn., 15 
 in Irvington, N. Y., 20 
 in Sendai, 15 1— 1 55, 174- 
 175, 181-183 
 sectarianism, attitude towards, 
 
 Sendai, preliminary mission 
 
 to, 147-15 ' 
 
 settling in, 152-153 
 servants, treatment of, 199 
 skepticism, struggle with, 27 
 subjects of lectures and ser- 
 mons, 96-97, 101, 129- 
 l 3 2 > x 73» x 96. 222, 223, 
 231, 233, 241, 246, 259, 
 267, 269, 273, 275, 277 
 summers, 51, in 
 tracts, 103, 131, 217, 251, 267, 
 
 270 
 war correspondence, 268-273; 
 (see also Manchuria) 
 DeForest Memorial Church, 210 
 DeForest, Mrs. J. H., 30, 38, 55, 
 
 120, 188, 215, 224, 292 
 Dinner-party, of Gov. Matsudaira, 
 148 
 of Famine Relief Committee, 
 207 
 Doshisha, 61, 122, 148, 153, 161, 
 165, 182 
 
 Dotombori theatre preaching, 83- 
 86 
 
 Earthquake wave, 189 
 Ebina, Rev. D., 118, 244 
 Education, as a missionary method, 
 156-163 
 
 Imperial Rescript on, 168-169 
 Ema, or votive pictures, 102 
 England, 273-274 
 English, studied in Japan, 137, 
 
 13*- 1 39 
 motive for teaching, 175 
 Entente between U. S. and Japan, 
 
 266 
 Ethics, Confucian, 85-86, 124-125 
 
 universal, 223 
 " Extraterritoriality in China," 287 
 Extraterritoriality in Japan, polit- 
 ical, 87-88, 176, 220, 284; (see 
 also Passports) 
 religious, 285-286 
 
 " False" Religions, 239 
 
 Family lines in the East, 248 
 
 Famine in North Japan, 204-207 
 
 Fire in Osaka, 42 
 
 Flood, Osaka, 1 19-121 
 
 France, 273-274 
 
 Friendship between U. S. and 
 
 Japan, 274, 277, 280 
 Fukuoka, 100 
 Fukushima, 107, 291 
 Fukuzawa, Y., 117, 155 
 
 Gaines, Rev. M. R., 143 
 Gambler and Christian preaching, 
 
 86-87 
 Golden Rule, religious basis of, 
 
 170-171 
 Gordon, Rev. and Mrs. M. L., 37, 
 
 38, 42, 47, 54, 55, 63, 64, 84 
 Greene, Rev. D. C, 35, 178 
 Greene, Mr. J. W., 25 
 Greenwich, Conn., 16 
 Griffis, Rev. William E., 188, 240 
 Gulick, Rev. O. H. s 37, 50, 56 
 Gulick, Rev. S. L., 214 
 
 Hall, Dr. Charles Cuthbert, 
 240, 264-265 
 
306 
 
 IKDEX 
 
 Hamlin, Rev. Cyrus, 282 
 Hartford Courant, The, 276 
 Hartford Theological Seminary. 
 
 238, 275 
 Hase, 103 
 " Heathen," 239 
 Hepburn, Rev. J. C, 35 
 Hibachi meetings, 71-72, 75-76 
 Hiei, Mount, 229 
 Hikone, 8o-8i, 99 
 Hindrances to Christianity in 
 
 Japan, 197-198, 283 
 History, " a people that has a," 30 
 History, use of illustrations from, 
 
 195-196 
 Hobson, Congressman R. P., 275 
 Hokkaido, 214-215, 217 
 Homma Shumpei, story of, 251- 
 
 2 55 
 Hoy, Rev. W. E., 151 
 Hyde, Martha Sackett, 17 ; William 
 
 Albert, 16 
 
 Ichihara, Mr. M., 153, 155 
 Idolatry, influence of, 36-37, 74, 
 
 94, 101-103 
 Independence of Japanese churches, 
 
 115,285 
 Independent, The, 27, 209, 220, 
 
 240, 268, 289, 291 
 Intellectual aspect of missionary 
 
 work in Japan, 137-143* *73» 
 
 232-233 
 International law and missions, 
 
 259, 282-283 
 Ise, 96-99, 116 
 " Is Japan a Menace to the United 
 
 States ? " 277 
 Ives, Mrs. George, 27 
 
 Japanese Characteristics ; (see 
 
 DeForest) 
 " Japanese Criminal Law," 220 
 " Japanese Family, The," 217, 
 
 263 
 Japanese Language School, 279 
 Japan Mail, The, 156 
 Japan Peace Society, 279 
 Jinrikisha, 40, 41, 73, 199 
 Jones, Rev. E. H., 189 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, 166, 262 
 Jumonji, Mayor, 154 
 
 Kajiro, Rev. T., 87-96, 131 
 Kajno, Miss Yoshi, 162-163 
 Kanegasaki, 166 
 Karuizawa, 231, 234 
 Katagiri, Rev. Seiji, 189, 195, 210 
 Katsura, Premier, 269 
 King, Henry Churchill, 166 
 Kishiwada, 128 
 Kobe, 37 
 
 Koki, Rev. T., 82, 117 
 Korea, 287, 289-291 
 Koriyama, 74, 130, 132, 136 
 Kuling, China, 241 
 Kumamoto, 160 
 
 Kumiai ehurches, Home Mission- 
 ary Society of, 66, 285 
 
 relations with American Board 
 Mission, 176-179, 285-287 
 Kyoto ; (see Doshisha) 
 Kyushu, 260 
 
 Ladd, Prof. G. T., 164 
 Language an international barrier, 
 
 278-280 
 Language, Japanese ; (see De- 
 Forest) 
 Laymen's Missionary Movement, 
 
 166 
 Learned, Rev. D. W., 143 
 Leavitt, Rev. H. H., 56, 58, 62, 
 
 160 
 Lectureships in Japan, 163-166 
 Leper's wife, story of a, 249 
 " Liberty of the Sons of God, The," 
 
 233- 2 37 
 Liberty, religious, in Japan, 10 1, 
 
 119, 167, 175, 267-268 
 Lord's house and Lord's day, 215 
 Loyal Legion, 199, 265 
 Lyman, Dr. A. J., 162 
 
 Manchuria, 269-273 
 
 Marriage in Japan, 85-86, 1 19, 
 
 217 
 Matsudaira, Governor, 148, 154 
 Matsuzaka, 117, 130 
 McArthur, General, 270 
 
LXDEX 
 
 307 
 
 McKinley, President, 262 
 
 Meiji Gakuin, Tokyo, 161 
 
 Meyer, Rev. F. B., 241 
 
 Miller, Mr. R. S., 269, 274 
 
 Mino, 51, 82 
 
 Miracles, Japanese attitude towards, 
 
 141, 218 
 Missionary Herald, The, 124 (note), 
 
 209, 215 
 Missionary motive ; (see DeForest) 
 Missionary opportunity in Japan, 
 
 142-143, 188, 284 
 Missionary Review of the World, 
 
 The, 270 
 Mission work, broad relations of, 
 
 282-285, 287, 288-291 
 " Mixed Residence," 259-260 
 Miyagawa, Rev. T., 84 
 Mizusawa, 193-194, 214 
 " Modern Civilization and Chris- 
 tianity," 261 
 Moody, Dwight L., 129, 158, 239 
 Morality vs. religion, 168-17 1 
 - Moral Purpose of Japan in Korea, 
 
 The," 289-290 
 Mott, John R., 166 
 Mount Carmel, Conn., 25-30, 59 
 Mozoomdar, Protap Chunder, 112, 
 
 129 
 
 Nakae Toju, 238 
 Nakai the Bible-seller, 103-106 
 Naruse, President J., 86 
 Neesima, Joseph Hardy, 31, 54, 
 
 84, 118, 131, 147, 148, 150, 154, 
 
 181 
 Niigata, 116, 160, 167 
 Nishi, General, 269, 270 
 Novels, Japanese, 222-223 
 
 O'Brien, U. S. Ambassador to 
 
 Japan, 266 
 Okayama, 74, 162-163 
 " Open Letter to Hobson," 276- 
 
 277 
 Open-mindedness of Japanese, 1 28, 
 
 267 
 Osaka, American Board station at, 
 
 37 
 evangelistic campaign in, 287- 
 288 
 
 foreign concession in, 37-38, 
 50, 87, 120 
 Osaka Church, 37, 63-67 
 Oshikawa, Rev. M., 1 50-15 1 
 Outlook and Evangelistic Commit- 
 tee, 190 
 Overcoat etiquette, 219 
 
 Pantheism, 174, 246 
 Park, sermon by Prof., 19 
 Parliament of religions in Japan, 
 
 2 45 
 Passports, 74, 87, 179 
 Pastorate of early Japanese Church, 
 
 61, 63, 190 
 " Patriotism, The Evolution of," 
 
 222 
 Personal work, 51-52, 58, 71-73, 
 
 95, 98-99, 131-132, 196, 217 
 Peter Parley's Universal History, 
 
 l 37 
 Pettus, Mrs. W. B., 241 
 Pharisaism, missionary, 60 
 Phillips Academy, 18 
 Phinney, H. F., 20-23 
 Prison, Sendai, 219-220 
 Prisoners, work for, 168, 222 
 
 Questions met by a missionary, 
 98, 133. IQ 5> 221 
 
 Red Cross Society, 198, 265 
 Religious Herald, The, 209 
 Resurrection, study of, 172-174 
 
 how regarded by Japanese, 218 
 Revivals : at Mount Carmel, 28 ; 
 
 in Japan, 129 
 Romaji Kivai, 136 
 Roosevelt, President, 266 
 Rutland, Vt., 31 
 
 Sakai, 59, 131 
 
 Sakata, 221-222 
 
 Sakura Sogoro, 196 
 
 Salvation Army, 166 
 
 Samurai, 40, 43-44, 82, 200, 205 
 
 Sanda, 56 
 
 Satsuma Rebellion, 43 
 
 Sawayama, Rev. Paul, 62, 65, 84 
 
 Scenery of Japan, 41, 191-192 
 
308 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Schneder, Rev. D. B., 2X1, 261, 
 266, 292 
 
 Schoolhouses, addresses in, 221 
 
 Scudder, Rev. Doremus, 143 
 
 Sell-support in Japanese churches, 
 62-66, 193-194 
 
 Sendai Kumiai Church, 154, 210 
 
 Sendai Orphanage, 207 
 
 Sendai, missionary unity in, 1 80, 
 204-206, 261 
 
 opening of American Board 
 
 work in, 148-154 
 pronunciation of, 152 
 social developments in, 261- 
 266 
 
 Servants, 38, 200 
 
 Shaka, 78, 96-97, 127, 17 1 
 
 Shinto opposition to Christianity, 82 
 
 Shintoism preparatory to Christian- 
 ity, 240, 247 
 
 disclaiming to be a religion, 
 250, 263 
 
 Smith College, 247 
 
 Social side of missionary life, 208, 
 261-266 
 
 Soldiers, Christian work for, in 
 Manchuria, 269-270 
 in Sendai, 167-168, 199, 265- 
 266 
 
 St. Luke's Hospital, Tokyo, 292 
 
 Starr, Sarah Elizabeth ; (see De- 
 Forest, Mrs. J. H.) 
 
 State priesthood, abolition of, 10 1, 
 119 
 
 Strong, Rev. E. E., 209 
 
 Students, Christian work for, 168, 
 171-172, 174, 245-246; (see 
 also Education) 
 
 Suicide of Date's retainers, 149 
 
 Sunday declared an official holi- 
 day, 44-46 
 
 " Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom," 
 240-241 
 
 Sun-worship, 98 
 
 " Supplementary Methods " of mis- 
 sion work, 159-165 
 
 Sword, edict in reference to, 43- 
 
 44 
 
 feeling of samurai for, 200 
 
 Taft, President, 266 
 
 Takashima, General, 120 
 
 Tateno, Governor, 120 
 
 Teachers' Movement in Japan, 156- 
 
 *59 
 
 Temma Church, 131 
 
 Temptations of new missionary, 
 
 58-61 
 Ten Commandments, sermons on, 
 
 74, 101-107 
 Terauchi, Viscount, 269 
 Text-book scandal, 196 
 Theatre preaching, 83-97, 167 
 Tokwa School, chapel talks in, 174- 
 
 closing of, 1 8 1- 1 83 
 founding of, 148-154 
 meaning of name, 155 
 Tokyo, glimpses of, 36-37, 1 78, 
 
 274 
 Tomita, Mr. T., 147, 150, 151, 154 
 Tottori, 87-96, 131, 216 
 Touring, evangelistic, in Japan, 
 
 86-99, 103-106, 189-195, 214- 
 
 218, 221-222, 223-224 
 Toyama, Prof., 156, 159 
 Treaty revision, 176, 187, 259-260 
 Trial in Sendai court, 218-219 
 " Truth About Japan, The," 277 
 Tsu, 117, 131 
 Twentieth Century Club, 277 
 
 Union Movements in Japan, 113— 
 
 115, 203-204 
 " Universal Religion," 263 
 University, Imperial, of Tokyo, 36, 
 
 232 
 Utsumi, Baron, 128 
 
 Votive Pictures, 102 
 
 Wakamatsu, 166 
 Wakuya, 189 
 
 " War and Religion," 269 
 War, with China, 187 
 
 with Russia, 265, 267-273 
 Wells, Prof. A. R., 240 
 Westbrook, Conn., 16 
 White, Rev. F. N., 153 
 Williamson's " Natural Theology * 
 in Japanese, 59 
 
INDEX 309 
 
 Wishard, Mr. L. D., 157, 164 Yale College, 20-25, 51, 67, 135 
 Woman, position of, in Japan, 85, 136-143,211-212 
 
 119, 123-124 Yamaguchi, 253 
 
 World's Missionary Conference, Yamamoto, Dr. A. S., 292 
 
 Edinburgh, 197 Y. M. C. A., 114-115, 269-270, 
 World's Student Christian Feder- 275, 288 
 
 ation, 166 Young People's Missionary Move- 
 Wright, Prof. G. F., 166 ment, 240 
 
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 ted, i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Gives a vivid, many-sided picture of missionary work. 
 It is, in fact, an answer to such questions as, How is mis- 
 sionary life practically lived? It is of engrossing interest 
 alike to the advocates of missionary work and general readers 
 who enjoy real glimpses of foreign and pagan civilization."—* 
 Presbyterian Advance. 
 
Ill 
 
 Theolog.cal Sem.nar y 
 
 ™012 01042 8599 
 
 
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