iBS JAPAN ■ "V pmm, HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY OUR NEIGHBOR JAPAN A Book for Adult Classes in the Sunday School By Helen Barrett Montgomery 1917 Prepared for the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society PRINTED BY The Vermont Printing Company Brattleboro, Vt. THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN AREA POPULATION □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ POPULATION □ OF □ □ □ □ AREA □ THE □ □ □ □ OF AREA UNITED □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ THE D OF STATES □ □ □ □ UNITED JAPAN □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ STATES Q POPULATION OF JAPAN □ □ □ □ Let forty little boxes represent the area of the Half as many people live in Japan’s one box as live in our forty. United States, of Japan. One of them would equal the area OUR SHARE AT HOME AND IN JAPAN UNITED STATES Northern Baptists number 1.500.000. Northern Baptists equal one- sixteenth of Protestants. Protestant communicants equal one in four of the population. Ministers number one to five hundred of population. 1,500,000 Baptists have as their share of the unevangelized 5.000. 000. Here we have 1 1 ,000 churches, pastors, Sunday Schools, with free schools, libraries, philanthropies and Christian tradition to help. For our task in America we give $18,000,000. JAPAN Japanese Baptists number 4,292. Japanese Baptists equal one- twentieth of Protestants. Protestant communicants equal one in five hundred. One Protestant Missionary to 60,000 people; one native Pastor to 40,000. 4,292 Baptists and 58 Mission- aries have as their share of the Non-Christians 5,000,000. Here a handful against old en- trenched religions, superstitions, idolatry, with almost no Christian traditions to help. For our task in Japan we give $130,000. CONTENTS Chapter I. The Land and the People .... 7 Reasons for studying Japan 7 Outlines of the present study 8 The land of Japan 8 The people of Japan 9 Japanese characteristics 10 The story of Japan 12 The closing of Japan 13 The opening of Japan 14 Changes and progress 15 Questions for class use 17 Chapter II. How Christianity Came .... 18 What Christianity found 18 The missionary task 21 The seed sowing 22 Centuries of seclusion 23 Heralds of the dawn 25 First Protestant missionaries 26 Questions 27 Chapter III. How Christianity Grew ... 30 The second planting 30 Disabilities of the Roman Catholic Church ... 30 Influences favoring Protestantism 31 Periods in growth of Protestant missions ••• 33- Evidences of growth 38 Land yet to be possessed 42 Ability of American churches 43 Questions 44 Chapter IV. Our Baptist Task 45 Early on the field 45 Subsequent growth 47 Nature of the work 48 Statistics 48 Weaknesses 49 Outstanding features 50 Pressing needs 54 A challenge 58 Questions 60 Brief Book List 61 Periodical and Pamphlet Helps 62 FOREWORD The four studies contained in this book are adapted for use in organized classes in the Sunday school which may be able to undertake mission study during the period set apart for the presentation of foreign missions in the Sunday school, viz., the three months preceding Easter. The book, however, may advantageously be studied at any time during the year. It is hoped, also, that it will be used extensively by men’s classes and brotherhoods. Eight charts with five-minute lessons to accompany them have been furnished to those Sunday schools willing to use them during the eight weeks preceding Easter. A demand was made on the part of some of the organized classes for material that would use the lesson period during several weeks. The four chapters of the present book, which have been prepared to meet this demand, are adapted to be used either as four successive half-hour lessons, or once a month for four months, or in eight fifteen-minute periods preceding the regular lesson. The most effective way of using the material is to devote a month or six weeks to its exclusive presentation. The presentation is necessarily very brief. It is hoped that outside reading may be recommended in order to deepen the impression made. Illustrative material will be found in current numbers of The Baptist Teacher, Missions, Gleanings and the denomi- national press. 5 6 Our Neighbor Japan A copy of the text-book should be in the hands of each member of the class, if real work is attempted. Maps may be made, a list of books accumulated, the co-operation of the public library secured, pictures gathered from periodicals. The National Geographic Magazine has some beautiful Japanese views. Files of Missions are valuable. A collection of twenty-nine Orient Pictures of Japan may be purchased for twenty-five cents from the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Ford Building, Boston, Mass. From the same place, for twenty-five cents, may be procured The Handbook , which gives all the missionary statistics of the past year and brief accounts of every station. OUR NEIGHBOR JAPAN CHAPTER I. JAPAN: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE I. Reasons for Studying Japan. There are at least five reasons why every intelligent person should desire to be informed about Japan. 1. Japan is one of the great world powers of the present age. By her army and navy, her great manufacturing enterprise, her dominance in the commerce of the Pacific, her part in the World War, her international relation- ships, Japan has won her place as equal among the fore- most nations of the globe. 2. Japan is our nearest neighbor on the West. The big oceans are rapidly becoming the ferries of commerce. When we think in terms of the world, Japan and America are somewhat in the same relation to each other as New York and Brooklyn. They are bound to trade together, to travel each in the other’s country and to be united by a thousand ties of common interest. 3. Japan is the leader among Oriental nations. Only one Oriental people has definitely stepped out into modern industrialism, constitutional government, and applied science. Japan has adopted western civilization, made it her own, and proved her ability to live under the modern type of political, economic and social organization. Japan’s success in playing the western nations’ game according to the rules has made her the most influential people in 7 8 Our Neighbor Japan Asia. She is destined for at least a generation to mould the ideas and aspirations of that half of the human race who live in the Orient. 4. There is wide-spread ignorance and misunderstanding about Japan. A tissue of falsehoods, prejudices and mis- understandings in regard to Japan has been woven together in this country. If not removed this is powerful to work harm to both countries. It is our business to know the facts about Japan in order that we may combat the mischievous delusions so prevalent in regard to her people and their aims and characteristics. 5. Japan is one of the strongholds to be won for Christ in his conquest of the world. Every intelligent Christian must covet the conversion of the Japanese people to Christ. Japan won could win the Orient. Japan could interpret Christ to other Oriental people. Japan presents one of the clamant opportunities for missionary service in the world. II. Outlines of the Present Study. We shall study first, the land and the people; second, the story of the introduction of Christianity; third, the progress of Christian missions in Japan; fourth, the part played and to be played by Baptist missions. A chapter will be devoted to each of these topics. III. The Land of Japan. 1. Beauty. Some countries are just land; others have charm. Japan belongs to the group of countries that are supremely beautiful, and fitted by nature to allure and stimulate human genius. The sea, the mountains, the forest are all needed for the noblest beauty. Japan’s broken coast line is like that of Greece in its perpetual Japan: The Land and The People 9 summons to the daring of the sailor, in its facilitating of commerce and travel, in its bewildering beauty. Rimmed round by the sea that interlocks the land in a thousand bays and harbors, Japan is overtopped by the pure cone of snow-capped mountains. The beauty of Fujiyama has sunk into the soul of a race and made them artists. The pines that live on the mountains and whisper of the sea are everywhere in Japan. A beautiful land, rich enough for support, difficult enough for hardihood, protected by the seas and overshadowed by the mountains, a land flower-crowned like Athens — such is Japan. 2. Area. The three thousand and more islands that make up the Japanese Empire are about equal in area to the state of California. Because of the ever-present moun- tains, but a small portion of Japan’s area is under cultiva- tion: fourteen per cent, as against twenty-three per cent in England and fifty-five per cent in France. 3. Population. Much of the land is too mountainous to be arable, yet it supports a population of 53,000,000 with a density of about 350. Compared with that of the United States which is twenty-seven to the square mile, and again with South America with its seven to the square mile, the contrast is startling. It is because this very large population is trying to live on a cultivated area half the size of Ohio that the people are poor and groaning under taxes: taxes on land, house, inheritance, income, bicycles, autos, wagons, railway tickets, street-car tickets. In some cases half the family income goes to pay taxes. IV. The People of Japan. 1. A Mixed Race. The Japanese are a mixed race — Mongolian and Malay almost certainly, with all sorts of J o Our Neighbor Japan learned conjectures as to the presence of other strains, not even omitting the Anglo-Saxon. It is especially inter- esting to note that the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and the English — all imperial peoples, have been formed by the blending of many races, and that the same mysteri- ous process is now taking place on a vast scale in our own country. 2. A Young Race. The Japanese traditions make them out an old race; but modern historical criticism has com- pelled the consignment of much of their so-called history to the realm of myth, and has proved that the Japanese are among the youngest of the great races of the present. The Chinese and the Koreans are ancient peoples; long established on their lands. The Japanese race is still adolescent, it being doubtful whether the real history of the Japanese as an organized nation in their present habitat runs back of the Christian era. 3. Aborigines. The remnants of the aboriginal people of Japan still live in the northern islands which make up the Hokkaido. These people are called Ainu and number less than twenty thousand. V. Japanese Characteristics. 1. The Japanese are an exceedingly gifted race. In com- petition with Europeans in the leading universities of the world they carry off their full share of the honors. 2. They are perhaps the best racial example of open- mindedness. They have never been afraid of a new custom or a new idea. From China and Korea they have borrowed freely, letters, industries, philosophies, religions. They are now borrowing from the West. But when they have found something better than their own they straightway Japan: The Land and The People ii adopt and assimilate and put upon the borrowed better thing their own unmistakable imprint. 3. One of the marked national traits is loyalty. This is their basic virtue. A passionate, deathless loyalty to country. One of the stock objections to Christianity has lain in the fear that devotion to Christ would weaken loyalty to Emperor and country. A remarkable example of Japanese loyalty was found in the survival through two hundred and fifty years of persecution and proscription of some thousands of Roman Catholic Christians. In utter secrecy from father to son the Christian rites and beliefs were passed along until the re-entrance of Chris- tianity at the middle of the last century. 4. Another marked trait is the concealing of emotion. Pain is to be borne in silence; affection is not to be demon- strative; the features are to be impassive. To such an extent is this discipline carried that expressions of endear- ment are seldom indulged in except between mothers and young children. This stoical manner has often been taken to indicate cold hearts. A missionary was asked by a Japanese Christian what was the greatest trial in missionary life. He answered without hesitation: “The fact that I never get near to any of you. You treat me politely and kindly and pleasantly, but I do not find your hearts. I have gone half way again and again, but I get nowhere.” “Go more than half way,” was the reply. “The heart is there, but it is stifled. For centuries we have been taught to repress all signs of emotion, but the heart hunger is there. Go more than half way and you will find it.” “So I did,” continued the missionary, “and I found my Japanese brother. Today I have no warmer, more con- 12 Our Neighbor Japan fidential friendships in the world than those I enjoy with Japanese.” 5. The courage of the Japanese is famous. As soldiers they give their lives with superb daring. In daily life they know how to scorn danger. 6. Among the less desirable traits are often mentioned a certain levity and lightness of conviction and an absence of high moral standards. Licentiousness is, perhaps, the most conspicuous example of national laxity of view. Take them all in all the Japanese are a race worthy of our friendship and respect. They have the stuff in them to make splendid Christians. 7. Need of Understanding. We and our neighbor on the West need to study each other’s best traits; need to learn mutual tolerance, and then, mutual admiration for the other’s good qualities. 8. Race Prejudice. There is plenty of race prejudice on each side. The Japanese jingoes hold us up as a race of mercenary wretches lost to all fine feeling in our pursuit of wealth. The American jingo would close restaurants and hotels to respectable Japanese. It is rather wholesome to see our own race contempt reciprocated as in the half humorous passage in The Diary of a Japanese Convert (Harpers), in which the author says that he does not blame Christianity for the failings of the Americans and English, for considering that Christianity has had only about a thousand years of contact, he feels it has done very well with so cruel and barbarous a race as the Anglo-Saxon. VI. The Story of Japan. The history of Japan, like that of most peoples, begins in myth and legend. Their Mikado, according to the Japan: The Land and The People 13 chroniclers, traces his descent from the sun goddess. Even after historians have pared away the legendary features, it is still true that Japanese royalty represents a line running back almost to the beginning of the Christian era. Government. The Mikado attained his position of power through the consolidation of warring clans to form a basis of nationality. Fuedalism developed in Japan as it did in Europe, and ran a somewhat similar course. The great nobles owned most of the land as vassals of the Mikado. They in turn parceled it out to their retainers. A unique feature in Japanese feudalism was the Shogunate. The Shogun, or military head, was the real ruler rather than the Mikado who was too sacred to be even looked upon by his people and was kept in strict seclusion at Kyoto. Beneath the Shogun, ruling at Yeddo, were the great land- lords or Daimios, and beneath them their fighting vassals, the Samurai, the intellectual and moral force of the nation. The common people and the outcastes, like those in other feudal lands, had few rights that any one above them had to consider. VII. The Closing of Japan. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Japanese ports were closed to intercourse with the rest of the world through a revolution that resulted in the expulsion of many Roman Catholic missionaries and the cruel perse- cution of all Japanese Christians. (See Chapter II.) The motives were in part religious and in part political. The tragic story left in Japan a bitter and lasting prejudice against Christianity, sufficient to bar the door against the rest of the world for nearly two hundred and fifty years. Our Neighbor Japan 14 VIII. The Opening of Japan. In the good providence of God, America had a part in summoning Japan back to intercourse with other nations. The printed page of the Christian revelation was sealed and the testimony of the Christian church was sealed, but God was silently preparing the way for the reentry of Christianity. Within, the Shogunate was becoming weaker; without, other nations were ambitious to enter into commercial relations with the hermit nation. Our own dear America was permitted to be the first nation whose summons the Japanese did not refuse. Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne. On a bright beautiful day in July, 1853, Commodore Perry on his flagship, the Susquehanna, steamed into Yeddo Bay at the head of the fleet of four American ships, two of them the first steam vessels in our navy. Commodore Perry utterly refused to leave or to treat with any subordinate until he had de- livered with a great deal of pomp and ceremony a letter which he had brought from President Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan. When the letter was delivered he promised to return the next year, and sailed away so that the Japanese might have plenty of time to think about it. While Commodore Perry came to open the country to trade he was not unmindful of the Gospel, and on July 10, while the ships lay at anchor in the beautiful bay, he told the visiting Japanese officers that visitors could not be received on that day as it was the day when Americans worshiped God. A Bible was laid on the flag, the chaplain read the lesson, then the band played “Old Hundred” and all the Americans sang, “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne,” so Japan: The Land and The People 15 that the crowds on the shore and the throngs in the little boats dotting the bay heard the full-throated volume of praise as it echoed over the wooded hills. The First Treaties. The next year Commodore Perry returned with ten ships and many presents from the President of the United States to the Mikado. Operators put up a telegraph line, and the Japanese heard messages sent in their own language. The little railway train was even more delightful with its “rosewood car, tiny velvet seats, real windows that slid up and down and a baby engine that flew around the track, a mile in three minutes.” There were dinners and parties, return presents from the Mikado and at last the precious treaty signed and delivered to the polite but firm Commodore Perry. By this treaty signed March 31, 1854, two ports were opened to American trade, an American consul was allowed to live in Japan, and kind treatment was promised American sailors. Townsend Harris, the first consul, was able four years later to negotiate a more favorable treaty under whose provisions the first missionaries were tolerated in the four open ports, and the exercise of their own religion per- mitted to them. Mr. Harris represented Christ as truly as any missionary ever sent out. IX. Changes and Progress. Since the time of our Civil War, Japan has experienced more changes than any other nation has ever had in so short a space of time. The period of five hundred years which it took Europe to travel from feudalism to con- stitutional government she has covered in fifty years. The Shogun is gone, the land is out of the power of the great princes, the Mikado is no longer a secluded divinity i6 Our Neighbor Japan but a constitutional ruler under a modern constitution. There are railways, government owned, a wonderful postal system, a public-school and university system, modern medicine and big hospitals, an army, a navy, big foreign commerce, ocean liners, thousands of students in foreign universities, newspapers, telephones, street cars, electric lights, public parks, factories, big business. Japan has learned to use all the material and intellectual tools of the western world. She has won her “place in the sun” by two successful wars. She has shown herself a successful colonizer. Such progress, such efficiency demand the un- grudging admiration of other nations. Japan s Need. The one thing needful to make of Japan an apostle of things of the Spirit is the spirit of Jesus. That, her leaders are beginning to recognize. Said Count Okuma, ex-prime minister of Japan: “China and Japan have taught many wonderful things, but they have too much neglected the spiritual. Now no nation which neglects the spiritual can permanently prosper. Modern civilization takes its rise in the teachings of the Sage of Judea, in whom alone is found the dynamic of progress.” Japan: The Land and The People 17 Questions for Class Use 1. Name reasons given for study of Japan. 2 . What others occur to you? 3. How may Christians help to build up better feeling toward Japan ? 4. What books about Japan are in the public library? 5. How many Japanese students are in this country? 6. What opportunities have they to know Christian people ? 7. What is the World Alliance to Promote International Justice and Friendliness through the Churches? CHAPTER II. HOW CHRISTIANITY CAME I. What Christianity Found. When Christianity was introduced into Japan it found three religions already in the field: one of them native, the others of foreign origin. In practical life and thought these three had become so interlocked that a man might at the same time be an adherent of all three, or of two, or of one, as he chose. i. Shinto. Shintoism, “The Way of the Gods,” was the national cult of Japan. It combined in its ceremonies features of animism and ancestor worship. It had no moral code, no authoritative sacred scriptures, no theo- logical dogmas. It touched the lives of the people chiefly through its elevation of the Mikado and his family to divine honors, and of the ancestors of all to a position demanding reverential worship. Shinto Beliefs and Practises. There are no elaborate Shinto temples, but only shrines in front of which is placed the tor ii, a sacred arch, seen in so many Japanese pictures. The shrine has no idols or altar. The worshiper finds a mirror and floating strips of paper hanging from a wand. He claps his hands to call the god’s attention, offers a coin, makes a prayer to the spirits of his ancestors and leaves the shrine. “Follow your natural impulses and obey the laws of the State,” sums up the creed of Shinto- ism in which loyalty and patriotism are two chief virtues. Shinto Decline and Revival. Shintoism was profoundly 18 How Christianity Came 19 affected by the introduction of Buddhism, and was over- shadowed for more than a thousand years. With the wonderful national awakening in the nineteenth century a revival of Shintoism occurred, by which it was made the State religion. The entrance of modern science into Japan in the last half of the nineteenth century doomed Shinto, with its myriads of gods and crude folk lore, as a religion. In the eyes of the government, Shinto shrines and cere- monials are already regarded as forms of patriotism and as such enrolled under the care of the Bureau of Education, although to the common people Shinto is still a religion. This disestablishment of Shinto as a State religion is one of the great steps in preparing the way for the Gospel. 2. Confucianism. Confucianism, the ethical system of China, was introduced at an early date into Japan through Korea. The teachings of Confucius were undoubtedly beneficial to Japan, and the more educated classes supple- mented their Shinto superstitions and ceremonies by the acceptance of the Confucian ethical code. In Japan as in China, Confucius had little message for the ordinary man, his eye being fixed upon the superior person. The greatest influence of Confucianism was felt in Bushido, “The Warrior’s Way,” the code of ethics which moulded the thoughts and fixed the ideals of feudal Japan. Bushido has, in fact, been called a “Japanized Confucianism.” Bushido had many noble elements but many funda- mental defects. It emphasized courage, self-control, justice, politeness and patriotism. But it ignored chastity in man, encouraged revenge and suicide, and a contempt of the rights of those below the knightly class. Dr. Nitobe, a Japanese Christian, a professor in the Imperial University, has written, “The only other system powerful enough to 20 Our Neighbor Japan cope with utilitarianism and materialism is Christianity, in comparison with which Bushido is like a dimly burning wick which the Messiah was proclaimed not to quench, but to fan into a flame.” 3. Buddhism. Although foreign in origin, Buddhism has become the accepted religion of the great mass of the Japanese people, and has penetrated with its influence every portion of the national life. It came by way of Korea in the sixth century after Christ, after it had been taught for a thousand years in other Oriental lands. It now num- bers in Japan alone more than thirty-five sects, some of them bitterly hostile in their mutual antagonism. Services of Buddhism. In the train of Buddhism came great movements in art, architecture, literature and philosophy. “All education for centuries was in Buddhist hands,” says Prof. Chamberlain, “Buddhism introduced art and medicine, created dramatic poetry, deeply in- fluenced politics. In a word Buddhism was the teacher under whose instruction the Japanese nation grew up.” Buddhist Teachings. Buddhism is the one religion which has no doctrine of God, but is at bottom Philosophical Atheism. Outstanding doctrines are transmigration of souls, Karma, and a pessimistic view of human life. The Japanese have so deeply modified Buddhism that this form of it in many respects flatly contradicts the primitive Buddhism of Southern Asia. In its ceremonials, priest- hood, asceticism, candles, incense and processions, Japanese Buddhism presents many curious likenesses to Roman Catholicism. Present Day Buddhism. While Buddhism is still enor- mously influential, it has become corrupt and lost its hold over the educated classes. The priests are for the most How Christianity Came 21 part ignorant and immoral. Japanese newspapers are full of denunciations. This, for example, from an influential paper: “Of the immorality of the priests it makes me blush to speak . . . The religion has no rallying power left, no inner life ... It has contributed much to our civilization in the past, but is now exhausted.” An even more striking illustration is found in the fact that among the eight thousand students of the Imperial University in Tokyo almost none enrolled themselves as Buddhists. Buddhist Revival. The presence of Christianity in Japan has stimulated a Buddhist revival. There is now a Y. M. B. A. as well as a Y. M. C. A. Buddhists have been forced to open Sunday schools and imitate Christian services. Some of our Christian hymns have been taken over bodily, with only the substitution of Buddha’s name for that of Christ, to be sung at Buddhist celebrations in imitation of Christmas. The striking point is that these activities are imitations. They are not writing new Buddhist hymns out of an experience of joy and pardon, but trying to defend themselves against the inroads of Christianity by adopting its hymns and methods. II. The Missionary Task. These three and the other minor religious forces of Japan must be met and overcome by Christianity. They are woven into the very life of the nation. They are dear to the tenderest feelings of the people, but by the experience of the nation itself they are each and all of them proved inadequate. The religion which has met and vanquished the religions of Greece and Rome and the dark gods of the Teutonic tribes need not fear lest it prove inadequate to cope with these old entrenched religions of Japan. 22 Our Neighbor Japan III. The Seed Sowing. It was the Roman Catholic Church which planted the seed of Christianity in Japan in the sixteenth century. The great missionary, Francis Xavier, instructed and baptized a Japanese who had fled from Japan for his life on account of a murder which he had committed. At Malacca he met the great apostle, Xavier, repented of his sins and was given in baptism the name, “Paul of the Holy Faith.” In 1549, this first Japanese Christian set sail for his own country in company with Xavier. 1. Growth of Christianity. The seed planted by Xavier with heroism and self-sacrifice flourished amazingly. Within thirty years there were two hundred churches in Japan and within a century it is said by Japanese historians that there were more than a million Christians in Japan. Among the Christians were generals, men of rank and governors. Unfortunately, persecution of the Buddhists was resorted to in order to further the growth of Chris- tianity. 2. Church and State. In 1585 the city of Rome saw a strange sight, a group of young Japanese nobles in rich dress who had come to pay homage to Pope Gregory XIII. They were treated like royal guests and after traveling in Europe for a year they returned to Japan with a big retinue of priests. Their journey to Rome occupied three years and it was four years before they again reached Japan. But the Japanese were beginning to be suspicious of this religion that owed allegiance to a foreign potentate. The Catholic missionaries were suspected, with far too good reason, of being connected with the ambitions of the Catholic nations, Spain and Portugal. It was charged How Christianity Came 23 that plots were discovered involving Japanese Christians. 3. Expulsion of Christianity. In the middle of the six- teenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century arose two of the greatest national heroes of Japan, Hideyoshi, the unifier of Japan, and his successor, Iyeyasu, a man even more powerful and patriotic. Convinced that Christianity was a menace to the independence of the nation these two men began and carried out a policy of ruthless persecution and extirpation of all Christians. The foreign priests were expelled, the Christians subjected to assault, exile, torture and death. Outward evidences of Christianity were completely wiped out, and the islands closed to all intercourse with foreign lands for over two hundred years. 4. Anti-Christian Edicts. In 1638 an edict was issued and ordered to be placed on public buildings and at all the cross roads. Some of those old edict boards worn smooth with the storms of centuries are now in collections in the United States. “So long as the sun shall continue to warm the earth let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan, and let all know that the King of Spain himself or the Christian’s God of all, if he dare violate this command shall pay for it with his head.” IV. The Centuries of Seclusion. After the Government had killed off the Christians it adopted the most thorough exclusion act known to man. No Japanese might travel abroad; if shipwrecked he might not return to his own country. No foreign ships might land in Japan, except on one small island. Like an eye watching the rest of the world Nagasaki looked out through the Dutch telescope. In this port Dutch traders 24 Our Neighbor Japan under close surveillance brought into Japan scant tidings of the outside world, and took back in their stout ships the goods which the Japanese permitted to be exported. The Strategy of Providence. On short view this long seclusion of Japan seems a calamity; on longer view it seems as if it were God’s hand that shut her in until the time was fully come. There was danger of the political domination of so-called Christian powers with the lust of conquest in their plans. In silence and seclusion the diverse elements of the people were fused into one nation; the peculiar genius of the race flowered, the Japanese were made ready to make their distinctive contribution to the inheritance of mankind. Hidden for a season the nation emerged at a time when a riper, more spiritual type of Christianity was prepared to lay ane wthe founda- tions for the unseen empire of Jesus Christ. Persistence of Christianity . Although every trace of Christianity was supposed to be wiped out, it was found when the Catholic missionaries returned to Nagasaki in the middle of the nineteenth century that there were whole villages that had remained secretly Christian for two hundred years. Fathers on their death beds had passed on to sons the prayers and Christian traditions, and Christian sacraments had been administered under the cloak of absolute secrecy. At the first Easter celebration in the newly erected Catholic church in Nagasaki fifteen hundred people came to church. It was estimated that there were some twenty-five hundred secret believers in the country around about. The Japanese officials were angry at this evidence of the persistence of Christianity, and soon awful persecutions began again. About four thou- sand rediscovered Christians are said to have been driven How Christianity Came 25 from their homes and sent to work in the mines. Dr. W. E. Griffis states that in 1871 he saw hundreds of these Roman Catholic Christians roped together being driven off to the mountains. V. Heralds of the Dawn. During the years when Japan was shut off from the rest of the world there were not wanting Christians who were thinking and praying about her. A little band of women in Brookline, Massachusetts, met regularly to pray that Japan might be opened to the Gospel, forty years before the first missionary could be sent; and in this service they continued for years. As they prayed they gave, and in a few years they had turned over six hundred dollars to the American Board, the Congregational Foreign Mission Society. This money was invested, and when mission- aries were allowed to enter Japan it had amounted to more than four thousand dollars. It was a wonderful chain of circumstances which brought to China some Japanese shipwrecked sailors who were found in cap- tivity to the Indians in Oregon. There they fell into the hands of S. Wells Williams who learned Japanese from them. A company of American merchants fitted out a ship in China in which Dr. Williams with another mis- sionary and his Japanese proteges set sail on a mission to Japan in 1837. They were refused the privilege of landing, and returned to China, where Dr. Williams continued his Japanese studies and made a first attempt at translating the Gospel of Matthew into Japanese. It was these studies which enabled him to be the interpreter on Com- modore Perry’s ship in 1853. Dr. Williams lived to be 26 Our Neighbor Japan present at the baptism of Okuno in 1872, and to enjoy the Lord’s Supper with Japanese Christians. VI. The First Protestant Missionaries. After Townsend Harris, the first consul of the United States to Japan, had secured the treaty of 1858 which permitted missionaries to live in the few treaty ports open to foreigners, American Christians hastened to take the Gospel to Japan. The Episcopalians sent the first two missionaries, then the Presbyterians and the Dutch Reformed and the Baptists went, until within a year seven missionaries were working in Japan. In this group were Dr. S. R. Brown, Dr. J. C. Hepburn and Guido Verbeck, three of the very greatest missionaries ever sent to any country. Of Verbeck the Independent said in 1898: “The Independent does scant justice in setting the name of Guido Verbeck beside the names of Ulfilas, Augustine and St. Patrick.” Trials and Limitations . The missionaries were hampered at every turn. They could not openly teach, they could not sell Christian books, they were in imminent peril of their lives because the Government and people were both still bitterly anti-foreign. Great difficulty was found in securing teachers of Japanese, and those who consented to teach were under suspicion and sometimes active persecution. One of Dr. Hepburn’s teachers confessed long afterward, “I did it because I thought it would give me a good chance to kill you.” The Boards at home began to doubt the wisdom of continuing the missionaries in this hostile land. But the missionaries made good use of their enforced idleness. They mastered the language, began How Christianity Came a? translation, extended their friendships and taught English in Japanese schools. Great Achievements. This persecuted, suspected, ham- pered band of pioneers have great achievements to their credit. Dr. Hepburn compiled the Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionaries, one of the monumental accomplishments of scholarship. Dr. Brown and Dr. Hep- burn made the first workable translations of the Scrip- tures. Dr. Verbeck, as the head of what is now the Imperial University, became the teacher of young men who were to remake Japan. He translated works of international law, and was the originator and planner of the first Commission which the Japanese Government sent around the world to study the civilization of the West. During the fifteen years in which Dr. Verbeck was at the head of the Univer- sity the greatest men of the nation came to ask his advice and no important step was taken without consulting him. These first missionaries laid the foundations of the public schools and the modern medical education of Japan. The First Believers. It was in 1866 that the first young converts, men of high rank, came to Dr. Verbeck, all because of a little testament found floating in Nagasaki harbor by one of them in 1854. It was in 1872 that the missionaries and a few Japanese were gathered together during the week of prayer. One day a wonderful thing happened. The young Japanese who had come to the meeting, supposedly to improve their English, began to pray. With streaming eyes they prayed that God would pour out His Spirit on Japan. After weeks of meetings of wonderful spiritual power, eleven Japanese believers, among them the young men, organized a church of eleven members on the very spot where Commodore Perry had 28 Our Neighbor Japan made the first treaty. Here in a little stone chapel began the first Protestant church in Japan. Creed of the First Japanese Church. The creed of this first “church by the seashore” is of interest. The first article of the creed reads: “Our church does not belong to any sect whatever; it believes only in the name of Christ in whom all are one; it believes that all who take the Bible as their guide and who diligently study it, are the servants of Christ and our brethren. For this reason all believers on earth belong to the family of Christ in the bonds of brotherly love.” How Christianity Came 29 Questions for Class Use 1. Name the three religions of Japan. 2. Which is most alive today ? 3. Why is Christianity needed in Japan ? 4. What light does the persecution of Roman Catholic Christians shed upon the quality of Japanese Christians? 5. What peculiar responsibility is laid upon Protestant Christians for the evangelization of Japan? 6. What wonderful instances of Providential preparation are shown in this Chapter? 7. Tell the story of the Testament found floating in Nagasaki harbor. See February Missions. 8. What great services were rendered by pioneer Amer- ican Missionaries? 9. Why ought Americans to be especially enlisted in missionary work in Japan ? CHAPTER III. HOW CHRISTIANITY GREW I. The Second Planting. We have seen how the first planting of Christianity was all but uprooted by bitter persecution, and how after an interval of nearly two hundred and fifty years the Gospel was again brought into Japan by Protestant missionaries. Roman Catholic missionaries who had made the first planting had also a part in the replantings, as had mis- sionaries of the Russian or Greek Church. The limits of this present study forbid consideration of either of these missionary bodies, except to say that the Roman Catholic has greater difficulties to contend with than either of the others, and this for several reasons. II. Disabilities of Roman Catholic Missions. (i) There is the deep-seated suspicion handed down from the former days. (2) The allegiance to a foreign potentate and the lodging of final ecclesiastical authority outside of Japan are both exceedingly obnoxious to Japanese thought. (3) The very similarity in ritual and outward form is a hindrance to thousands who are weary of the empty splendor of Buddhism. (4) The emphasis on mediaeval dogmas in religion, and the opposition to democratic aspirations repel the progressive Japanese. (5) The demand for the abrogation of individual opinion comes without strong appeal to a nation awakening for the 30 How Christianity Grew 3i first time to a sense of the rights of the individual. Hence, while there are not wanting fine schools and devoted mis- sionaries, the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church have had a discouraging reception. It seems evident to a thoughtful student of the situation that the Protestant interpretation of the Christian religion is that which at the present crisis is best adapted to bring the Gospel to bear upon the Japanese nation. This lays an added responsibility upon Protestants. III. Influences Favoring the Growth of Protestantism. The hand of God is plainly seen in the Providential guidance of the early missionaries, and in the bringing of strong auxiliary forces into the field. To mention a few: 1. The first missionaries were men of remarkable intellectual vigor fitted to be the guides and inspirers of the Japanese leaders. 2. Christianity laid hold first upon the Samurai, the knightly class, men best prepared to understand the message of Christianity. The young men’s classes of Dr. Brown, Dr. Hepburn and Dr. Verbeck included men who were to shape the destiny of the nation. 3. The first embassy sent round the world through the influence of Guido Verbeck brought back a message con- cerning the place and influence of Christianity in Western lands which caused the abandonment of the anti-Christian edicts on the part of the Government. 4. The United States sent as its first representative Hon. Townsend Harris, an earnest Christian man whose life and outspoken testimony had great weight. It was 32 Our Neighbor Japan he who secured a provision in the treaty guaranteeing to Americans the free exercise of their religion. 5. The American teachers who found positions in the government schools and colleges so rapidly developed along lines of Western education were of strong Christian character. An illustrious example of this sort of promotion of Christianity is Mr. M. E. Clark who was engaged by the Government to teach science in the city of Shizuoka. He refused to sign a paper promising not to speak of Christianity, though this meant the risk of losing his posi- tion and all his investment of time and money. He stood firm for principle and the Government yielded. President Clark, of the Massachusetts College of Agriculture, was invited by the Japanese Government to come to Japan and lay the foundations of modern agricultural science at Sapporo. He was refused permission to use the Bible in teaching ethics. Upon his declaring that he knew no science of ethics apart from the Scriptures the prohibition was removed. Many of his students became Christian and Dr. Clark’s name and influence were revered through- out the islands. 6. In 1872 the Prince of Kumamoto opened a school in which he employed as teacher Capt. L. L. Janes, a graduate of West Point. The young teacher prayed and said nothing about his faith for two years. Then armed by the knowledge of the language and the friend- ship of his pupils he invited them to study the Bible. He presented Christ with such passionate conviction that one Sunday forty of these young men met and signed an oath to preach the Gospel even if it cost them their lives. Thirty of these held firm under heavy persecution, entered the seminary and, as The Kumamoto Band , were How Christianity Grew 33 among the early leaders. Thus this young military in- structor strengthened the infant church by a choice group of remarkably able leaders and preachers. IV. Periods in the Growth of Protestant Missions. Professor Ernest W. Clement in his valuable book, Christianity in Modern Japan, recognizes five periods in the planting of Protestant missions: (i) preparation, 1859-1873; (2) foundations, 1873-1883; (3) popularity, 1883-1889; (4) reaction, 1889-1899; (5) revival, 1899-1917. The first period has been covered in the previous chapter. During this period of preparation the missionaries mastered the language, prepared a dictionary, translated funda- mental Western books and documents, won the first con- verts and organized the first church. The anti-Christian bulletin boards were taken down by the Government, the Gregorian or Christian calendar was adopted, feudal- ism was abolished, the outcasts recognized as human beings, and modern education and modern medicine had made a beginning. 1. Foundation Laying 1873-1883. Although only fifteen converts had been baptized during the first fourteen years much more had been accomplished than appeared on the surface. The heroic labor of Bible translation, a feature of this second period, had really been getting under way during the years preceding. In this greatest of all literary undertakings in any language it is gratifying to know that our own Dr. Nathan Brown had an honored part. It is significant of the difference in emphasis between Roman Catholic and Protestant missions that the former in a century of popularity during which more than a million converts were won gave no Japanese Bible to the people, 34 Our Neighbor Japan nor did they attempt it during the first three or four decades of modern mission effort. The Protestants during this second decade not only translated the whole Bible, but also began the work of the distribution and sale of Christian literature through the entrance, during the decade, of three Bible Societies (Scotch, English and American) and two tract societies. Other foundations were laid in the opening of the first four theological semi- naries from which were graduated the present elder leaders of the Christian Church. During this same period great Christian schools were established. The first Christian hospital was established in Tokyo in 1875. Of this it has been said: “Far out upon the sea shone its banner with the red sun of Japan and in it a white cross, inviting sufferers into its spacious, cheerful waiting room upon the walls of which were hung the Lord’s Prayer.” Other foundations laid by the young Christian Church during this second decade were the beginnings of the education of girls, the foundations of philanthropic in- stitutions for the suffering and dependent, the ordination of a Japanese ministry, and the publishing of the first Christian weekly and monthly papers. During this time Sunday was made the weekly day of rest by the Government to be observed by all Govern- ment offices and agencies. 2. Period of Popularity. After this good foundation came a sudden spring-time of popularity. Christianity became almost fashionable, converts flocked to the churches. It was even proposed that the Emperor receive baptism. Japan seemed minded to take over Christianity with the other Western improvements she was so eagerly How Christianity Grew 35 adopting. The number of missionaries more than doubled and the number of stations quadrupled. A new word was born into the Japanese language, the word rebaibaru y “revival,” because a new experience had come into the nation. In the Doshisha, the great Christian college founded by Japan’s noblest Christian, the classes spent hours together in prayer and praise. This period cul- minated in the proclamation of constitutional govern- ment, the granting of local self-government, and the securing of religious liberty. The inclusion of the article regarding religious liberty was directly traceable to mis- sionary influence, as was a similar inclusion in the con- stitution of the Chinese Republic when missionaries brought forward the fact that the Japanese constitution following that of the United States guaranteed full religious liberty. The twenty-eighth article of the Japan- ese constitution reads: “Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antago- nistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief.” Truly this was a marvellous result of the brief impact upon Japanese thought of less than thirty years. In i860 it was death to a Japanese to enter a Christian church, only tolerated in a few centers as a worshiping place for foreigners. In 1889 the Government that had for nearly three hundred years suspected, feared and hated Christianity allowed it free access to all its subjects. 3. The Reaction. In the years from 1889-1899 there followed a sharp reaction. Converts fell off, crowds refused to listen, the Government turned its back, many church members withdrew from the church, the demand for Bibles declined, a sharp Buddhist and Shinto opposition developed. The causes of this reaction were many and 36 Our Neighbor Japan some of them plain. Many had been swept into the church without real understanding or conversion. When the radical nature of the demands of Christianity were better understood it ceased to attract those who held on to sin. A tide of materialism swept into Japan as into other nations and found the Japanese even less prepared to with- stand it. The sudden development bred national conceit and dislike of things foreign. Japan was to be self- sufficient even in religion. Among all causes within and without perhaps the greatest was the un-Christianized conduct of the so- called Christian nations. The smug walling in of Christian principles to individual conduct while the nation blustered and plundered, the unjust discrimination against Japan and China in humiliating treaties forced upon them by more powerful nations, the refusal of so-called Christian powers to admit Japan to the comity of nations aroused fierce and justified resentment among the Japanese and caused distrust of the Christian religion. Added to the un-Christian conduct of the nations was the apathy of the Church that took hold feebly, upon the great enter- prise of winning the intellectual leaders of the Orient to Christianity. 4. The Revival. Slowly the tide began to turn with the dawn of the new century. The nation had tried to build its civilization upon the foundation of material progress and atheism and the results began to frighten thoughtful and patriotic men. A juster and deeper appreciation of the value of religion and of the Christian religion in particular, began to dawn. This is reflected in the utterance of many eminent men, not Christian. Hon. T. Tanaka, Charge d’ Affairs, Japanese Embassy, Washington, says: How Christianity Grew 37 “Christianity has more than anything else diffused among our people the notion of international brotherhood. Secluded as we were from the outer world for more than two centuries, we had very little conception of what the rest of the human beings were doing in the meanwhile. At least the mass of people thought that we were the only civilized nation existent on the globe. Commodore Perry’s expedition and many other events brought about the opening of the country, and the denizens of the island empire became more and more alive to their real inter- national position. “It would be amiss if I failed to mention the enormous benefit Christianity is contributing to Japan in the line of women’s education and philanthropic works, which would never have attained their present magnitude and develop- ment but for the guiding hand of foreign missionaries. “I believe that in Japan freedom of conscience obtains more than in any other country; but religions will become the integral part of a nation only when they are thoroughly acclimatized. I hope and believe that in the fulness of time a real Japanese Christianity will evolve and be a beacon light in the path of the Japanese people in the progress of civilization.” Count Okuma, the recent Prime Minister of Japan, publicly made the following statement regarding the past and the future of Christianity in Japan. This is especially striking in view of the fact that half a century ago death was the penalty to those who became Christians. “Although Christianity has enrolled less than two hun- dred thousand believers, yet the indirect influence of Christianity has poured into every realm of Japanese life. . . . Christianity has affected us not only in such 38 Our Neighbor Japan superficial ways as the observance of Sunday, but also in our ideals concerning political institutions, the family, and woman’s station. It has been borne to us on all the currents of European civilization; most of all, the English language and literature, so surcharged with Christian ideas, have exerted a wide and deep influence over Japanese thought. “Concerning the future it is my own conviction that no practical solution of many pressing problems is in sight apart from Christianity .” V. Evidences of Growth. 1. Numerical. So late as the beginning of the seventies there were less than a score of Protestant Christians. The statistical tables given in The Christian Movement in Japan (1916) show that there are 97,350 communicant members of the Protestant churches in Japan. Adult baptisms during the year numbered 11,886. There are also 2,485 Sunday schools enrolling 148,333 pupils and teachers. Including Roman and Greek Catholic converts there are about two-hundred thousand Christian believers in Japan. 2. Organization. Christianity has become to such a degree indigenous that the Japanese have their own church organizations, periodicals and missionary societies quite independent of and separate from the work carried on by Mission Boards through the missionaries. Take the Kumiai churches — the Japanese Congregationalists — for example. They build and maintain their own churches, call and ordain their own pastors, carry on their own schools. The Doshisha, the foremost Christian college in Japan, is now under the control of this body. There are missionaries on the teaching staff, three out of the twenty How Christianity Grew 39 trustees are American missionaries, but for years no financial aid except the payment of the salaries of mis- sionary teachers has been given by the American Board. The President is a Christian Japanese, the management is Japanese. This Kumiai Church conducts active foreign mission work in Korea and Hawaii. 3. Christian Literature. Another evidence of growth is in the Christian literature written and published by the Japanese for the Japanese. There is no non-Christian land that makes a more remarkable contribution in this line. To take only a few examples. Professor Yamada prepared himself to write a life of Christ by study in the Holy Land. He says: “Jesus Christ has for a long time been the Jesus Christ of Occidentals alone . . . but the hands of Japanese must cause Lives of Christ to be born.” Colonel Yamamuro, of the Salvation Army, has written a popular life of Christ called The Gospel for the Common People which has gone through more than ninety-one editions. There are a Life of Paul , Philosophy of the Christian Religion , books of religious verse, novels, essays and apologetics. In addition to these original compositions there are many translations of Christian books made by Japanese; for example, Fosdick’s Manhood of the Master, J. R. Miller’s Come Ye Apart , and F. W. H. Myers’ epic St. Paul, translated by Professor Saito of the Imperial University. Sabatier’s St. Francis of Assisi appeared last year in two translations. One of the greatest undertakings in Christian literature was the preparation and publication of the Union Hymnal used by all Protestant churches. Hundreds of thousands of these have been sold. 4. Philanthropy . Christianity is bringing its sure fruit- age in the Japanese soul in the creation of institutions of 4 o Our Neighbor Japan mercy and rescue. Among these may be mentioned the homes for discharged convicts. That of Mr. Hara in Tokyo has sheltered and redeemed thousands of hopeless men. Mr. Ishii in his orphanages conducted by faith on the pattern of the Muller orphanages in England, has re- cently been led to undertake the neglected field of minis- try to the feeble-minded. The Emperor at the time of the coronation bestowed a decoration upon Rev. K. Tomeska for his work in the Home School for Wayward Boys. The two men selected for such honors out of hundreds of so- cial workers were both Christian. Christian families are beginning to give for such philanthropies. Note the Sum- itoni family’s gift of one hundred thousand Yen for an in- dustrial school for poor boys in Osaka. 5. Public Recognition. From the beginning Christians have had an influence disproportioned to their numerical strength. In the first parliament, elected in 1890, there were thirteen Christians out of a membership of three hundred, although the Christians at that time did not number one-tenth of one per cent of the population. On more than one occasion the speaker of the house has been a Christian. The chief justice of Korea, Judge Watanabe, is a Christian, as are leading officers in the army. The work of the Y. M. C. A. has been honored by large sub- scriptions from the Emperor as has St. Lukes, the Christian hospital in Tokyo. General Booth of the Salvation Army was welcomed as a hero, and accorded the supreme honor of a personal interview with the Emperor. The Emperor later conferred a similar honor upon Dr. Clark, the leader of the Y. P. S. C. E. The conference of the World’s Student Christian Federation held in Tokyo in 1907 was given an address of welcome by the Prime Minister, and How Christianity Grew 4i a similar recognition was made at the fifteenth anniversary of the planting of Protestant missions. The World War interrupted and postponed meetings of the World’s Sunday School Alliance scheduled for Tokyo in 1917. Count Okuma had accepted the Chairmanship of the Committee of Arrangements. During the Russo-Japanese war the Government appointed Christian as well as Buddhist chaplains for the army. 6. Growing Spirit of Evangelism. The best evidence of the growing power of Christianity is seen in the three-year evangelistic campaign now entering upon its last year. The suggestion for this nation-wide movement was made by Japanese Christians. The plans were laid by a com- mittee composed of Japanese and missionaries. College professors, bankers, mayors of cities, legislators and leading business men, as well as pastors, have given their services on the evangelistic teams. Great gospel halls have been erected in the large cities, where night after night thou- sands gather to hear the message of Jesus, and to unite in Christian hymns. Among notable speakers are Colonel Yamamoto of the Salvation Army; Madam Hirooka, a woman of great wealth and social distinction converted when past sixty, and giving her whole time to evangelism; and President Harada, of the Doshisha Uni- versity. The effects are marked. Thousands of Bibles are sold to non-Christians who pledge themselves to study carefully the claims of Christ. Thousands have signed decision cards (it is said one thousand in Tokyo alone) and later joined the churches. To many of the missionaries the sight of these Japanese Christians ministering the things of Christ to thronging thousands brings joy too great for self-control. 42 Our Neighbor Japan VI. Land yet to be Possessed. The growth of Christianity in numbers and influence is marked enough to be full of encouragement. The task yet to be accomplished is great and difficult enough to send us to our knees. Most of the Christian forces are in the city. The backbone of the nation is in the country. 1. The Agricultural Classes. It was estimated in the conference conducted by John R. Mott that eighty per cent of the total population of Japan, more than forty millions, live in the rural districts. Of these not four per cent are reached by any Christian agencies. Take for example, Ibaraki Province, where thirteen million people live. There are 2,033 villages; Christianity is represented in thirty-six of these. There are 336 towns; only two of them have Christian workers either Japanese or foreign. There are only thirty Christian workers in the whole province. In no prefecture in the province is there one Japanese pastor to less than fifty thousand people. Up and down the land there are thousands of places where a Bible has never been seen and a Christian prayer never been uttered. 2. The Student Classes. The great mass of young men in the institutions of higher learning are avowed atheists or agnostics. A small minority declare themselves to be Buddhists or Christians. But these future leaders have lost faith in the old religions without adopting Christianity. This fact menaces the nation’s future. 3. The Working People. In the cities Christianity has touched for the most part the middle class or the Samurai. The vast awakening class of those who toil in mines and factories is unreached. To these men, open to all the How Christianity Grew 43 destructive theories in economics and government put forth from Europe and America, the Gospel must be taken if the nation is to endure. It was an awakening sense of the peril to the nation from the irreligion of these millions that led the Government to call the Conference of the Three Religions (Shinto, Buddhism, Christianity), thereby recognizing Christianity as one of the religions of Japan. VIII. Ability of American Churches. The challenge of Japan’s need is not flung out to a helpless people. We are abundantly able to meet it. There is all told a missionary force of about one thousand in Japan. American Christians could easily provide ten times this number without impoverishing but actually stimulating the work in the home land. In the United States over one-third of the congregations take no part in the expansion of Christianity beyond our borders. Even more serious, we give annually an average of not more than seventy cents each to carry the Gospel of the Son of God to the perishing. We build twelve churches a day in our own country. “Our nation possesses but seven per cent of the area of the earth, but industrially we equal about half mankind. We have twice as much life insurance as all the rest of the world. Half as much money on deposit in savings banks as all the rest of the world. We spend two-thirds as much on education as all the rest of the world. One-third of all the revenue collected by governments is ours, while our debt is but one-thirtieth of the debt of the world.” We can give the Gospel. We have the men, the money and the education. “We need a personal and widely distributed conscience on missions. The professed Chris- 44 Our Neighbor Japan tian who does not give or cannot be educated to give for missions for which his Lord gave up heaven and life itself, in very truth needs the Gospel, the prayers of Saints, and the pity of angels.” Questions For Class Use i. What circumstances make it easier for Protestant than for Roman Catholic missionaries to gain a hearing in Japan? i. Give examples of splendid Christian services ren- dered by American laymen in Japan. 3. Mention the five periods in the growth of Protestant missions. 4. During which period was our Baptist mission planted? 5. Name some of the advance steps taken by the Japanese Government during the last half of the nine- teenth century. 6. Name the principal causes for the reaction against Christianity. 7. What is the most striking statement in the quotation from Count Okuma? 8. What are the evidences of the growth of Chris- tianity in Japan? 9. Which impress you most deeply? 10. What is the duty of American Christians in view of all the facts? CHAPTER IV. OUR BAPTIST TASK I. Early on the Field. Although not the first to send missionaries to Japan, American Baptists were one of the denominations repre- sented during the first year after the signing of the treaty. On Commodore Perry’s ship was a sailor, Jonathan Goble, an earnest Christian who had joined the expedition because he thought he might learn something about the people of Japan and perhaps open the way for missionary service. On board the ship was a Japanese sailor rescued from a wrecked Japanese boat, who was too terrified to land in his own country and so came back to America with the rest of the crew. Jonathan Goble was very kind to the lonely Japanese, took him to his own home and taught him English and all about Jesus Christ. It is probable that this poor exile, received by baptism into the church in Hamil- ton, N. Y., was the first Protestant Japanese Christian. Mr. Goble returned to Japan in i860 as the first Baptist missionary, and took with him the first Japanese Baptist, Sentaro, the shipwrecked sailor. Mr. Goble had mean- while received ordination and went out under the Baptist Free Mission Society, a body organized and supported by abolitionists. An Interesting Character. Although not of commanding ability, Jonathan Goble’s name will always be remembered 45 46 Our Neighbor Japan for an invention of his which has captured the Orient. He gave a Japanese workman the design and directions from which the first jinrikisha was made. He also trans- lated and sung the first Christian hymn, “There is a Happy Land.” While working at his trade he employed the scant opportunities he had for Christian work by making a translation of Matthew’s Gospel into colloquial Japanese, the first printed portion of the New Testament. When the Baptists of the north took over the Free Mission in 1872, they adopted Jonathan Goble as their missionary. He soon after terminated his connection with the mission. A Great Pioneer. Rev. Nathan Brown is rightly regarded as the pioneer of Baptist work in Japan. He had been a pioneer in Assam where he had translated the New Testa- ment into Assamese, written a life of Christ and many hymns, and after twenty years suffered a complete break- down in health that sent him to the home land in 1855. He had been in America eighteen years, and was sixty- six years old when he was asked to become the pioneer missionary to Japan. This he did, and rendered great service for thirteen years. His unique genius in language enabled him to so master the difficult Japanese language that he was able in seven years to publish the first trans- lation of the entire New Testament into Japanese. Al- though this version was later superseded in popular use by that of the Union Committee it has always held a high position among scholars. Professor E. W. Clement, him- self an accomplished Japanese scholar, says: “The version does not enjoy a wide circulation, but it is generally acknowledged to be clearer, simpler, and more in harmony with the original than is the other translation.” When the old missionary died, greatly beloved by the people, the Our Baptist Task 47 reiterated prayer of his life was carved upon his tomb- stone: “God bless the Japanese.” Entrance of the Woman s Society. Only two years after the establishment of the Baptist mission, the newly formed Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society sent out in 1874 its first two missionaries, Clara Sands, and Anna H. Kidder, who laid the foundations of the educational work for girls now so splendid a feature of the mission. II. Subsequent Growth. The first Baptist Church organized in 1873 can hardly be called a Japanese church as the missionaries were its only members; but a few months later the first convert was won, and in 1879 the first Japanese pastor, Rev. T. Kawakatsu, was ordained. It was in the Kanda River that in 1875 Mr. Arthur had the honor of baptizing the first Japanese woman known to have confessed Christ. As in most Oriental countries the first converts had all been men. Uchida Hama is still living and working for Christ as a Bible woman. She has lived to see the mustard seed become a great tree. During the next fifteen years forty missionaries were sent out, some of them to die, some to return home broken in health. In 1888 twenty-three were in active service. During this period missions were established in Yoko- hama, Tokyo, Kobe, Morioka and Sendai (at that time two hundred miles beyond any railway). These continue to be centers of Baptist work. In 1901, through the good offices of Colonel Buck, United States Minister to Japan, the Mission secured the incorporation of a “Shadan” through which the Mission 4 8 Our Neighbor Japan could hold real estate for mission purposes. This was the first time the Government had granted such a right. By the year 1903 the Mission had expanded to the occupation of the field now cultivated. Osaka and Mito had been entered, the Fukuin Maru was sailing the In- land Sea and the far-flung line had been extended to the Liuchiu Islands, a thousand miles from Tokyo. III. Nature of the Work. From the beginning the emphasis has been upon evan- gelistic work. In the prosecution of this aim the necessity for schools in which leaders of the Christian community might be trained has been thrust upon the attention of the Mission. The agencies by which the Gospel in all its fulness is brought to bear are churches and preaching places, a theological seminary at Tokyo, a boys’ school, four girls’ schools, kindergartens, a kindergarten training school, a Bible training school, Christian dormitory at Waseda University, a night school, business men’s dormi- tory in Yokohama, a great institutional church in Tokyo, a gospel ship on the Inland Sea, numerous Sunday schools and Bible translation. Every one of these contributes directly to the evangelizing of Japan. IV. Statistics. Our Baptist Mission numbers fifty-eight missionaries, twenty men and their wives and eighteen unmarried women. We have sixty-one Japanese pastors, only twenty- one of them with full theological training and ordination. We have thirty-four organized churches, 152 outstations and^places for regular meetings. We have 109 Japanese teachers; forty-seven of them men. There are also thirty- Our Baptist Task 49 two Bible women and six other workers, making a total of 208 Japanese Christian workers. There are 4292 church members and 409 baptisms are reported during the past year. The Sunday schools number 216, with 13,646 en- rolled. We have nineteen students in the theological seminary, twenty-two women in the Bible training school, and eighteen in the kindergarten training school. There are 1 1 5 boys and 359 girls in high schools, 420 boys and thirty girls in secondary schools, and 187 boys and 584 girls in primary schools. The total number under in- struction is 1768. V. Weaknesses. The weaknesses in our Mission have most of them been connected with the failure to correlate the work of preach- ing with that of education. This weakness is now being removed. It was due to the mistaken policy of Baptists in many fields, setting the educational and evangelistic types of work in opposition, and neglecting the first. Thus the broad seed sowing for want of suitable cultivation and harvesting fell, much of it, by the wayside. The reason for the numerical weakness of Baptist churches in spite of our devoted and able missionaries has been be- cause of our failure to nurture and train in our Christian schools Japanese leaders, capable of real leadership. A sharp realization of this error has come to the denomination in all its mission fields and steps are being taken to repair it. The lack of suitable buildings has been another fruitful source of weakness. The Presbyterian policy of refusing to organize a church unless it could be suitably housed has been in striking contrast to the Baptist practice. A church meeting in a shabby private house, rented on a 5 ° Our Neighbor Japan back street has little opportunity of attracting the atten- tion of the non-Christian, and little likelihood of winning those able to put it on a self-supporting basis. A third weakness has been the failure to keep the Mission fully manned. Great gaps in the “thin red line of heroes” have continually weakened the force of the mission. A fourth weakness has been the separateness and in- dependence of each station and each section of the work. Baptists are now fully alive to the fact that unrelated work is ineffective, that “spottiness” on the home field or abroad, is costly and that team work should characterize Christian effort quite as strongly as it does athletics. A new day is dawning. The mission is receiving appro- priations in gross, and expending them in the interests of the whole work. School work and evangelistic work are being tied up to the local church; converts won in these splendid schools are being prepared to become the leaders of the Baptist churches in Japan. VI. Outstanding Features. Certain strong pieces of work begin to be seen in which our mission has an opportunity not excelled by that of any Christian body in Japan. These have been mentioned by Rev. Frederick L. Anderson of the Newton Theological Institution, who has recently visited Japan with Secretary Franklin, as girls’ schools, the Fukuin Maru , dormitory work and the Tokyo Tabernacle. To mention these is not in any way to disparage or undervalue the steady work in all the churches and stations of the mission, but simply to call attention to the features which differentiate our mission, and not to those which it has in common with all other well-conducted missions. Our Baptist Task 5i 1. Girls' Schools. The Woman’s Board has from the beginning thrown its strength into the Christian education of girls, and by concentration has done a piece of work of which all Baptists may be proud. There are modern and well-equipped buildings at Sendai, Himeji, Kanagawa and Tokyo. Three of the schools have secured the coveted government recognition. All of them are centers of character-building and evangelism. There were fourteen •baptisms last year in Sendai out of an enrollment of ninety- five pupils; eight in Suruga Dai out of the fifty-three en- rolled; seventeen in Himeji with 104 enrolled, and eleven in Kanagawa with 114 pupils. Besides these fifty added to our own churches, twelve pupils of these schools have joined churches of other denominations. The spirit of the schools is such that even the girls who come from Buddhist homes seldom graduate without becoming Christians. The pupils in these schools conducted Sunday schools in which were enrolled more pupils than we have church members in Japan. As many as fifteen Sunday schools each week were conducted by the young women in attendance on one of our schools. Closely connected with the girls’ schools are the train- ing schools for kindergartners and Bible women main- tained at Tokyo and Osaka. The Bible training school graduated seven. One from the Liuchiu Islands has gone home to work as a missionary in the country districts. She is supported by three Japan- ese teachers in the training school, out of their scanty salaries. There were seven graduates from the kinder- garten training school, one of them the long-awaited teacher for the Naha Kindergarten in the Liuchiu Islands. 2. The Fukuin Maru. The gospel ship on the Inland 52 Our Neighbor Japan Sea is a unique feature of our Baptist mission. The Jap- anese name for the gospel ship is Fukuin Maru (pronounced Foo-koo-in Mah-roo). The ship was a gift to us of Mr. R. S. Allan, the well-known shipbuilder of Scotland. It is a memorial to his mother, who had realized the spiritual destitution of the 1,500,000 people who live on the hundreds of islands dotting the Inland Sea, and had given generously to the work during her lifetime. God gave us a great sailor-evangelist, Captain Luke Bickel, who skilfully navigated the white-winged sailing vessel among the dangerous reefs, and now commands the larger steam yacht. No other denomination is working among these people. It is our field. In sixteen years Captain Bickel has overcome the bitter prejudice and active opposition of the people so that he is welcomed to land on all the four hundred islands. He has established sixty- two Sunday schools and three kindergartens and gathered a church of brave, pioneer believers from many islands, which numbers 214 members. He has built up a band of devoted helpers and evangelists who are patiently and with splendid methods sowing all the islands with gospel truth. The story of Captain Bickel’s work reads like fiction. What might he accomplish if all Baptist Sundays schools would take a twenty-five dollar share in his work so that there might be a fleet of ships, and a Sunday school on every island. Twenty-five dollars will secure a meeting place for a year. 3. The Waseda Dormitory. In Tokyo there is a great university, much larger than Harvard, in which our Baptist mission has been allowed to build a student dormitory where Christian teaching may be freely given. Here Dr. Benninghoff is having an opportunity to leaven Our Baptist Task 53 the whole student body with a knowledge of Christianity. The atmosphere of the dormitory, or hostel as it is called, is so homelike and friendly, the religious meetings are so appreciated that there is a long waiting list. Leaders among the student body live here, some have openly con- fessed Christ. We can have another dormitory and a big meeting place for Christian meetings. The college authori- ties are friendly — Christian teaching is welcome. Ought we not to enter this wide-open door in a strong way? A hostel is self-supporting except for the salary of the mis- sionary in charge. The initial outlay is all that is needed to place many Christian outposts among the five hundred thousand students of the Empire who are most of them cut adrift from the old religions. Says Dr. Axling: “As far as my experience and observa- tion go, and I have covered Japan from the Hokkaido to the Liuchiu Islands, I know of no opportunity for Christian work more pregnant with possibilities and promise than is offered in this work at Waseda University. Twelve thousand students! a clear field! backed by the hearty support of Count Okuma, President Takata and the faculty! Does not that fire the imagination and fill faith’s horizon with visions?” Another form of dormitory work, that among business men, has been carried on successfully by Dr. Dearing in Yokohama, and in connection with the night school has succeeded in bringing Christianity to the attention of young men outside the influence of the church. 4. The Tokyo Tabernacle. A great fire destroyed the first building in which Dr. Axling was undertaking to build up an institutional church in Tokyo. It seemed a tragedy, but it was God’s way of making a clearing. The new 54 Our Neighbor Japan Tabernacle is the first reinforced concrete structure in the Orient. It is the best church plant in Japan, and a credit to the Christian movement. It includes a kindergarten, night school for apprentices and business men, afternoon school for girls, mothers’ meetings, reading room, social rooms, evangelistic hall and roof garden. The busy hive is humming with activity. Standing in the heart of the city the building commands the attention and respect of non-Christians. The dedication exercises were notable: Press Day, Baptist Day, Community Day, Educational Day, Evangelistic Day. Baron Sakatani, former minister of finance, Hon. S. Shimada, President of the House of Representatives, Mayor Okuda, Governor Inouye, Dr. Takata, Minister of Education, were among the speakers of national repute who gave or sent congratulatory addresses. Since the opening thirty men have already been converted. The young university men of Dr. Ben- ninghoff’s dormitory have volunteered to teach in the night classes for apprentices. A Free Legal Advice Bureau has shown the working men that Christianity cares. A playground takes children off the streets. During a recent eight-day preiod twenty-five hundred people were brought within the circle of the Tabernacle activities. VII. Pressing Needs. i. Duncan Academy. Our one boys’ school is to be re- organized with a Japanese principal, proper buildings and a modern course of study, a big step toward doing our share to reach the boys. It is not generally realized that in spite of the many splendid government schools, the supply is still far below the demands, and that thousands of boys for lack of facilities cannot be admitted. For Our Baptist Task 55 example, the island of Shikoku, with a population of four million, has not one Christian boys’ school. Yet in Toku- shima, one of the three provinces of this island, over one thousand boys are refused admission every year at the government high schools owing to lack of accommodations. Where are the American Christians keen for this and other good openings for the King’s Business? We ought to have not merely the enlarged, properly housed Duncan Academy, but at least four other schools equally good. The Southern Presbyterians are planning to open ten new boys’ schools in their portion of the field. Why should Northern Baptists be content to plan for one ? 2. Theological Seminary. We cannot prosper without strong, earnest pastors. A poor building, poorly located, “cast-off, second-hand, rented school building” as the report calls it, is no proper setting for the seminary. Some years ago a fine site commanding a view of Mt. Fuji was bought, but the site remains a grass plot still. Yet the spirit of the school is good. Dr. Tenney has been elected president, Dr. Kawaguchi has been called to the chair of Systematic Theology. Pastor Imai has been called to a professorship of Evangelism. An evangelistic hall on one of the busiest streets in Tokyo has been opened and here the students are trained in evangelism and Sunday school work. We must give them that building on the better site. 3. Church Buildings. It is largely owing to inadequate housing that so few of our Baptist churches have become self-supporting. The nine Baptist churches in Tokyo and many others north, east, south, west, are existing in little Japanese apartments, “one-room front,” that puts them in the same rank as the one-room shop kept next door by the wife of the working man to eke out the family in- 56 Our Neighbor Japan come. That dingy room on the back street will not stay the steps of a man who has taken his family out on a feast day to the attractive temple grounds. It is only after conversion that he will enter such a place to worship. Mr. Wynd, one of our evangelistic missionaries, says: “If the little scattered churches throughout the city of Tokyo and our fields in general could only be equipped as they ought to be, there is every reason to believe that the work of Baptists would enter upon a new phase.” That new phase is coming. Arrangements have been made for a fund which will be lent to Japanese Baptist churches to enable them to build, the church becoming their property as soon as the loan is repaid. 4. Enlargement. This is the greatest need of all. More men, more money, more prayer in order that we may do the work already begun with adequate equipment and dare to attempt more and better work. Look up! Con- sider the field, by the common consent of the other Chris- tian missions, left to the Baptists alone to cultivate! In the Morioka field there are fifteen hundred thousand people who belong to us alone to evangelize. We have two missionaries and their wives — the Steadmans and Toppings, three churches, a kindergarten, fifteen out- stations, one ordained Japanese preacher, eight unor- dained, six women workers, four hundred and sixteen church members. The baptisms numbered sixty-one. Are we adequately manning this field ? Take Sendai as another example. Here we have nine hundred thousand people for whom Baptists are solely responsible. We have one missionary and his wife, Rev. and Mrs. C. H. Ross, and two unmarried women, Miss Buzzell and Miss Jesse, in charge of the girls’ school. We Our Baptist Task 57 have two ordained ministers, five unordained, and twelve women workers. There are five organized churches, one entirely self-supporting. There are two chapels, 634 members, fifty baptisms last year. Let us compare this with an American community of the same size. We average one Protestant minister to every five hundred of the population. We should then, have eighteen hundred ministers besides all the schools, Christian homes, libraries, Y. M. C. A. and other agencies, and the diffused knowledge of Christianity imparted through centuries of Christian tradition. If we do not feel that we have too many ministers and Christian agencies in America to cope with the forces of evil, what shall we say of Sendai field with its three ordained ministers — one a missionary — and its five unordained men? Turn again to the Inland Sea with fifteen hundred thousand people densely ignorant about Christianity, and for centuries prejudiced against the hated doctrine. We are the only Christian witnesses, yet we have only one missionary to oversee four hundred islands with sixty-two preaching places, and eleven Japanese helpers. He has a scattered church numbering 214 members who added thirty-one to their number last year. Then there are sixty- two Sunday schools with thirty-five hundred members. Are we sowing bountifully on the Inland Sea? 5. Money Contributions . If we turn to our gifts we find that the Baptists of the North expend each year in Japan about $130,000, an annual contribution averaging about ten cents for each communicant. Why, the Sunday schools alone could do that easily if each one would give up two moving-picture shows a year, one or two cigars, or an ice- cream soda, or a little bag of candy, or one cheap magazine 58 Our Neighbor Japan or any of the hundred little luxuries that each allows him- self so thoughtlessly. If each one would do it! The one- seventh among Baptist women who give at all to carry the Gospel to the non-Christian lands give their work in Japan about $44,000 annually. That means that each hour it costs $5.23. But do you know any $5.23 that ac- complishes so much? Think of carrying on four boarding schools with 368 pupils, paying the salary of eighteen missionaries, carrying on eleven kindergartens and Bible training schools, paying thirteen Bible women, and running sixty-nine Sunday schools for an hour for only $5.23. There is many an organized woman’s Bible class that could contribute all that it costs to run all this blessed woman’s work in Japan for one whole day, $125.52. Twenty-five dollars will pay the rental of one of the rooms used for the smaller Sunday schools for a year. Twenty-five dollars will take a share in kindergarten, gospel ship, or dormitory. Ten dollar and twenty-five dollar shares in our splendid Japanese work are offered to Sunday schools. Each school taking either one of these shares will be entitled to a cer- tificate of stock for the amount taken. Shall we not pray that Baptist Sunday schools may take up every share of the $50,000 needed to insure the whole amount not now pledged to carry on our work in Japan ? A Challenge. “The impact of the Gospel upon Japan has led multi- tudes of the people to break with their past religious ideas and ideals. With their backs to the idols and temples and with their faces toward the sunrise they stand with their hearts and minds open to the light, ‘the Light that lighteth Our Baptist Task 59 every man that cometh into the world.’ Hungry-hearted and conscious of a great famine in their souls they are casting about for a haven in which to anchor their faith. “The five hundred thousand students of the Empire almost to a man have broken with the old creeds and stand hesitating between Christ and agnosticism. The pupils in the primary and secondary schools of the Empire, six million strong, will also soon be ready for a new order. In 1915 there were one hundred and fifteen thousand Christians among Japan’s sixty million people. To give the Gospel to this unevangelized host there was one missionary to every forty-six thousand and one Japanese worker to every thirty-eight thousand. Of temples and shrines there were four hundred and ninety-five thousand. Of churches and preaching places there were only 1,860. “In the Orient Japan stands in the position of leader- ship. That leadership she is making potent and powerful. As goes Japan, so in a large measure goes the Orient. Japan for Christ means the Orient for Christ. Japan against Christ means the Orient with its teeming millions with their backs to the Christ. The challenge that comes ringing across eight thousand miles of sea and land is that the Church in America shall do everything possible to win this land for Christ. How are we going to answer this challenge ?” — William Axling. 6o Our Neighbor Japan Questions for Class Use 1. What first things are associated with Jonathan Goble? 2. Outline the remarkable facts in the life of Rev. Nathan Brown. 3. Name the two first women missionaries sent to Japan by the W. B. F. M. S. 4. What lines of work have developed in the Baptist mission in Japan? 5. In what way do our schools promote evangelism? 6. What weaknesses developed in our Japanese work? 7. In what way may a “religious democracy” like the Baptist church avoid such weaknesses in its work at home and abroad without the sacrifice of its foundation prin- ciples? 8. What are the outstanding and encouraging features in our Japan mission at the present time? 9. Why is the education of women peculiarly em- phasized in Japan? 10. What policy ought the Baptists to pursue regarding the Inland Sea? 11. Mention the strategic advantages of Christian dormitories for men. 12. In what ways does the Tabernacle serve as a sign post for Christianity? 13. What can this class do to help evangelize Japan ? Our Baptist Task 6i BRIEF BOOK LIST Ernest W. Clement: (1) Handbook of Modern Japan (2) Christianity in Modern Japan Brief, readable, authoritative R. B. Peery: The Gist of Japan Condensed , valuable J. A. B. Scherer: Japan Today Young Japan Readable and reliable F. E. Hagin: The Cross in Japan A Stirring presentation, well written, intensely interest- ing, a splendid book. Clement-Hildreth : Japan as It Was and Is [2 vols.] A revision by Prof. Clement of a fascinating old classic giving the history of Japan s intercourse with Europe. G . H. Moule: The Spirit of Japan Fine account of Japanese religions , introduction of Christianity and study of present problems. Belle Brain: All About Japan Delightful chapters for younger readers. Good account of Neesima and Verbeck. Sydney Gulick: The Working Women of Japan Informing study of present-day conditions America and the Orient A Constructive Policy, 25c. Very valuable and timely 62 Our Neighbor Japan Margaret Burton: Education of Women in Japan Invaluable for li%ht on the chan%in% status o f Japanese women. Herbert Moore: Half Hours in Japan An illustrated description o* daily li f e , customs , schools , etc. ( Cassell Co. y N. Y.). Periodical and Pamphlet Helps Gleanings: Published bi-monthly by our Baptist Mission in Japan. Subscription 25c. a year. Single copies 5c. Subscribe through American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Ford Building, Boston, Mass. Missions: Monthly. Special emphasis on Japan during foreign-mission period in the Sunday school. Baptist Teacher: Monthly. Illustrative material on Japan during Sunday-school period. Missionary Review of the World: Monthly ($2.50). World Outlook: Monthly ($1.50). Has superb pictorial numbers. Christian Movement in Japan: An annual survey, inval- uable, enlightening. May be ordered each year through Department of Missionary Education, John M. Moore, D.D., 23 East 26th Street, New York City. Pamphlets on Japan may be ordered from American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Ford Building, Boston, Mass., or from Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 450 E. 30th St., Chicago, 111 . 45— 5M— 12-15-1916