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PROGKESS AND PROSPECTS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 By Eev. Willi A] ir E. Taylor, 
 
 In the year of grace 1542, a Portuguese adventurer, 
 Pinto by name, sailing in a Chinese junk commanded 
 by a pirate, landed on the small island of Tane, 
 being, as is believed, the first European to set foot on 
 Japanese soil. He was kindly received by the natives, 
 and the profitable trading he did with them was the 
 beginning of a considerable foreign commerce. 
 
 While his boat was lying off the coast, a Japanese 
 murderer, named An jiro, fled to it for safety, and was 
 carried by Pinto to Portugal, where, after professing 
 Christianity and mastering the Portuguese tongue, 
 he became interpreter to St. Francis Xavier. To a 
 question of the famous missionary, whether the Jap- 
 anese would be likely to accept Christianity, Anjiro 
 answered that “his people would not immediately 
 assent to what might be said to them, but they would 
 investigate what I might affirm” (Xavier records the 
 words himself) “respecting religion by a multitude 
 of questions, and, above all, by observing whether 
 my conduct agreed with my words. This done, the 
 king, nobility, and adult population would flock to 
 Christ, this being a nation which always follows rea- 
 son as a guide.” 
 
 It was not long (1549) before Xavier was on the 
 ground with his assistants. His personal work was a 
 
2 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 failure, through his inability to speak the language; 
 and he retired discouraged after a brief stay. But 
 out of his failure came an astonishing success. By 
 eloquence, by lavish gifts, by the use of images and 
 pictures, by imposing ceremonials, by intrigue, and 
 (after they had gained some of the feudal lords for 
 adherents) by fire and swcrd and threats of banish- 
 ment, his companions and successors pushed their 
 cause until the number of converts reached 600,000. 
 In some parts of the empire Christian churches were 
 as numerous as pagan temples; and crosses glittered 
 on the banners and helmets of the warriors. 
 
 But after sixty years of prosperity, the discovery of 
 a plot among the priests and the native converts to 
 subject Japan to Portugal proved the climax of a long 
 series of provocations, and drew down upon the 
 Church the inextinguishable wrath of the govern- 
 ment. For thirty years, at intervals, it raged with 
 barbaric vehemence. In the blood of scores of thou- 
 sands of Japanese, the hated religion was at last ob- 
 literated, and Japan, leaving the company of nations, 
 closed her ports, and went back to her old hermit 
 life. The princ’pal result of nearly a hundred years 
 of contact with Christianity was, among the ruling 
 classes, an undying hatred; and among the masses, a 
 fear which made the very name of Christ a terror. 
 “ For centuries,” says the author of “ The Mikado’s 
 Empire,” “the mention of the name would bate the 
 breath, blanch the cheek, and smite with fear as 
 with an earthquake shock. It was the synonym of 
 sorcery, sedition, and all that was hostile to the puri- 
 ty of home and the peace of society. All over the 
 empire, in every city, town, village and hamlet; by 
 the roadside, ferry, or mountain pass; at every en- 
 trance to the capital stood the public notice boards, 
 on which, with prohibitions against the great crimes 
 that disturb the relations of society and government. 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 3 
 
 was one tablet, written with a deeper brand of guilt, 
 with a more hideous memory of blood, with a more 
 awful terror of torture, than when the like super- 
 scription was affixed at the top of the cross that stood 
 between two thieves on a little hill outside Jerusalem. 
 Its daily and familiar sight startled ever and anon 
 the peasant to clasp his hands and utter a fresh 
 prayer, the bonze (Buddhist priest) to add new venom 
 to his maledictions, the magistrate to shake his head, 
 and to the mother (it gave) a ready word to hush the 
 cryins; of her fretful babe.” 
 
 No just estimate of the progress of the Giospel in 
 Japan can be made without keeping in constant view 
 her history and civilization, the moral characteristics 
 of her people, and the ancient religions which have 
 engaged their faith and swayed their destiny. Her 
 tweuty-five centuries of national life, centering in 
 the God descended royal family, whose name and 
 throne no usurper haa ever ventured to assume, how- 
 ever much of the actual authority he may have held; 
 her cimlization, which blossomed into beauty while 
 the Western tree was enduring the long winter of the 
 Dark Ages, and which bore its fruit in a voluminous 
 literature, in the education of nine-tenths of the popu- 
 lation to read and write the vernacular, in an art 
 which was the surprise and is still the delight of the 
 cultivated Occidental taste; the Japanese character, 
 strong in its individuality, reverent of the past, as- 
 spiring, industrious, polite, cheerful, patient, now 
 and then under excitement flaming out into heroic 
 bravery,and not infrequently into savage ferocity, and 
 yet withal poisoned in its vitals with Asiatic and 
 heathen licentiousness; Shintoism, the ancient na- 
 tional religion, “a pale and shadowy cult,” with its 
 worship of ancestors, and deification of the forces of 
 nature, who^e cardinal doctrine is the divine descent 
 of the Mikado, and whose first and greatest com- 
 
4 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 mandment “requires absolute obedience to his will;” 
 Buddhism, with its loftv morality and its philosophy 
 of despair, the force which has done more than any 
 other to modify the Japanese character and make it 
 what it is; ihe mighty revolutions vihich. have taken 
 place in our day, and the long series of events and 
 the slow gathering of popular sentiment which pro- 
 duced them — all these things are essential factors in 
 our problem. But the time requires that the knowl- 
 edge of these more remote things be assumed, while 
 we speak of some whose bearing is more direct. 
 
 In the year 1853, Commodore Perry anchored in 
 the Bay of Yedo, delivered his message for the Gov- 
 ernment, and sailed away. In 1854 he returned for 
 an answer, and a treaty was signed. The Pesbyte- 
 rian Board of Foreign Missions at once dispatched 
 one of its representatives in China to Japan to sur- 
 vey the field with a view to the sending of missiona- 
 ries. But the right of the permanent residence of 
 foreigners had not then been secured, and nothing 
 further was done. In 1859, however, that right was 
 granted, and before the close of the year representa- 
 tives of three Christian missionary societies were on 
 the ground. The first to arrive under a regular ap- 
 pointment were two missionaries of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of the United States. The Presby- 
 terian Church of the United States was the second 
 to be represented, in the person of Dr. J. C. Hep- 
 burn, the distinguished author of the Japanese-Eng- 
 lish Lexicon. The third company were the honored 
 servants of our own Board, Dr. Brown and Dr. Ver- 
 beek, with D. B. Simmons, M.D., who resigned from 
 the service the next year. In 1860, the year follow- 
 ing, the American Baptist Free Mission Society joined 
 the ranks. These four societies held the ground alone 
 until 1869, when they received important reinforce- 
 ments in the missions of the Church Missionary Soci- 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 5 
 
 ety, and the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions. To these six societies, and more 
 especially the first four, belongs the honor of the pio- 
 neer work in Japan. 
 
 The legacy of hatred and fear left by the dying Jesuit 
 missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 was kept for the Protestant missions of the nine- 
 teenth. For 250 years the omnipresent edicts pro- 
 hibiting “the vile Jesus doctrine” and denouncing 
 “the Christian criminal God” had kept alive in the 
 memory of the people the awful tales of persecution 
 and suffering in which their histories abounded, and 
 had allowed neither the bitterness of the nobles, nor 
 the terror of the masses to grow less. In his “ His- 
 tory of Protestant Missions in Japan,” read before 
 the late Conference at Osaka, Dr. Verbeck quotes 
 the testimony of a number of the first missionaries in 
 the country to the intensity of the native hatred of 
 Christianity. “The missionaries,” he says, “soon 
 found that they were regarded with great suspicion, 
 and all intercouse with them was conducted under 
 strict surveillance.” In an old letter of his own, he 
 writes: “When such a subject [religion] was mooted 
 in the presence of a Japanese, his hand would, almost 
 involuntarily, be applied to his throat to indicate 
 the extreme perilousness of such a topic.” For ten 
 years after the first missionaries arrived, the hatred 
 of foreigners, in general, and the representatives of 
 the Christian religion in particular, was one of the 
 most active and potent passions at work in that time 
 of “storm and stress.” The cry, “Expel the barbari- 
 ans,” rang through the streets of Tokio, as the cry, 
 “ Christians to the lions,” had rung through the 
 streets of Rome, and Antioch, and Alexandria many 
 centuries before. Even the new imperial government 
 re-enacted the old edicts. “The evil sect called 
 Christian is strictly prohibited. Suspected persons 
 
6 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 should be reported to the proper officers, and ’rewards 
 will be given.” As late as 1871, a convert who had 
 not yet been baptized, was arrested at dead of night, 
 thrown into prison, and confined until his death, late 
 in the following year. 
 
 With a courage as strong, and a foresight as wise 
 as their faith, the early missionaries began their 
 work. Public preaching was not permitted; but 
 private teaching was not interfered with, and the 
 right to sell the Scriptures or other Christian books 
 was secured by treaty. The.se concessions gave them 
 the only opportunities they had for many years for 
 direct missionary work— opportunities they made the 
 best use of. But of necessity their labors were chiefly 
 preparatory. They studied the language; they won 
 the confldence and respect of the people. Several of 
 them were employed as teachers in the government 
 schools; Christianity ceased to be regarded with the 
 former aversion and horror; they established schools 
 of their own for boys and girls ; they began the trans- 
 lation of the Scriptures and other Christian litera- 
 ture, and they set up medical dispensaries. While 
 fault-flnders at home were raising the cry that Japan 
 was “not open to missionary labor,” and that the 
 missionary enterprise there was premature, these men 
 were doing a work which ranks in importance with 
 any that has since been done, and without which the 
 large results of later years would have been im- 
 possible. 
 
 The Week of Prayer, January, 1866, found “a lit- 
 tle company of believers of several nationalities ” re- 
 siding in Yokohama, engaged in importunate prayer 
 for Japan. Six years of working and waiting had re- 
 sulted in but one convert, the teacher of Rev. J. H. 
 Ballagh of our own Board, and he had recently died. 
 Anxious and well nigh discouraged, they issued an 
 address to the Christians of the West, setting forth 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 7 
 
 the condition of the country, and asking special 
 prjfyer in her behalf. Besides quickening the interest 
 in the missions and increasing the contributions, these 
 prayers were answered during the course of the year 
 in three conversions. But the next year, 1867, there 
 were none. Eight years of labor and four converts! 
 ’Sixty-eight witnessed the baptism of two men — one 
 of them a young Buddhist priest. Nine years and 
 six converts! ’Sixty-nine brought in a young man 
 and an old lady. Ten years and eight converts! 
 ’Seventy, no additions. Eleven years and eight con- 
 verts! ’Seventy-one, one baptism. Twelve years and 
 nine converts! 
 
 But the dark days were nearly done. In January, 
 ’72, the Spirit descended in power upon the mission- 
 aries and natives in Yokohama, engaged in the obser- 
 vance of the Week of Prayer. For two months 
 scenes of spiritual exaltation, like those at Pentecost, 
 were witnessed; the fruits were gathered in the or- 
 ganization, on March 10th of the same year, of the 
 first Japanese Christian Church, bearing the Catholic 
 title of “ The Church of Jesus Christ in Japan,” and 
 the year closed with twenty converts in the missions. 
 
 From this time on the figures grow with a rapidity 
 which fairly makes the Christian heart leap. There 
 were 538 church members in ’75; 1,004 in ’76; 2,700 in 
 ’79, and 4,987 in ’82. If last year’s rate of increase 
 has been maintained during the current year there are 
 more than 5,600 Protestant Christian converts in Ja- 
 pan to-day. What hath God wrought! 
 
 Stated in figures the progress of missions in Japan 
 may be given as follows from the statistical'tables of 
 the last report (1882) of the Evangelical Alliance of 
 Japan: There are 18 missionary societies, employing 
 89 male and 56 female missionaries, a total of 145, not 
 including the wives of the 81 married male mission- 
 aries. Of the 4,987 church members, 4,367 are adults, 
 
8 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 of whom there are nearly three times as many men as 
 women. These are gathered in 93 organized churches, 
 of which 21, or nearly 25 per cent, receive no for- 
 eign pecuniary aid. There are 70 secular Christian 
 schools, with 2,611 scholars. In this number are in- 
 cluded the 7 theological schools, with their 71 pupils. 
 A disappointing, not to say alarming fact, and one of 
 which I have seen no explanation, is a falling off of 
 22, or more than 25 per cent, in the number of pupils 
 in the theological schools this year, as compared with 
 last. An equally suggestive fact, and one which must 
 be closely connected with the preceding, so far as 
 causes are concerned, is the decrease of assistant 
 preachers, catechists, etc., from 128 in ’81 to 100 in 
 ’82. These two facts, it seems to me, demand the 
 prompt attention of the missions and the home 
 church. The Sunday-schools number 109, with 4,132 
 pupils. Twenty-five thousands patients were treated 
 at the dispensaries. One of the most notable items 
 of the report is that of the amount given by the 
 native churches for all Christian purposes: Yen 12,- 
 064, an increase of yen 3,292, or 37 per cent, over 
 that given in ’81. 
 
 The result may be further summarized, in general 
 terms, as follows: (1.) The language has been ma- 
 tured and reduced to a scientific form, greatly facili- 
 tating its acquirement. (2.) Protestant missionaries 
 have won the confidence and respect of the natives of 
 all grades. (3.) The Scriptures have been translated 
 — the New Testament entirely, the Old Testament 
 largely. The work is still going on, and thousands 
 of copies -distributed, chiefly by sale. The circulation 
 is now unlimited. (4.) The beginnings of a Japanese 
 Christian literature are seen in a catalogue, issued in 
 May, ’82, containing the titles of 157 separate publi- 
 cations, including commentaries, works on apologet- 
 ics and the ancient religions of the empire, practical 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 9 
 
 theology, religious experience, moral duties, etc. (5.) 
 The secular schools of the missions have sent out 
 into the walks of home and business life many hun- 
 dreds of native youths of both sexes with a sound 
 Christian education. (6.) The edicts against Chris- 
 tianity have all been removed, and while the hostile 
 laws have not been rescinded, they are not, and will 
 not be, enforced. Although the residence of mission- 
 aries as foreigners is still confined to treaty limits — a 
 serious hindrance — passports can be obtained allow- 
 ing them to travel and to reside for a specified time 
 at places in the interior; and native preachers can 
 now go anywhere in the Empire and proclaim, with- 
 out molestation or fear, the message of salvation. 
 
 We must not, however, forget, (7.) That the coun- 
 try is still essentially heathen. The court, the nobil- 
 ity, and the masses of the people are either heathen 
 or infidel. The number of converts in comparison 
 with the whole population is quite infinitesimal, be- 
 ing less than one six-thousandth part. The number 
 of those still in total Ignorance of the Grospel mounts 
 up into the tens of millions. The general tendency 
 of the education received by the young men sent to 
 Europe and America, and of that now given in the 
 higher government schools whose most influential 
 teachers are decided unbelievers, has been, and is, ir- 
 religious. The bitter hostility towards Christianity 
 and its emissaries has largely disappeared; but its 
 place, as an obstacle to missionary progress, has been 
 taken by scientific materialism and cool indifference. 
 Christian thought and sentiment has wrought a per- 
 ceptible change in the moral aspect of the country — 
 a gratifying and hopeful sign ; but it is more than a 
 question if the greater decency of life is not as yet 
 rather a part of the higher civilization adopted, than 
 the result of the preaching of Gospel righteous- 
 ness. (8.) The Gospel has made a place for itself in 
 
10 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 Japanese civilization. It is in, and it is in to stay. 
 The ground has been broken and the seed sown. The 
 leaven is in the dough. The salt has been applied to 
 the flesh. The light has been struck in the darkness. 
 No intelligent forecast of Japan’s future can be made 
 into which Christianity does not enter as an element 
 in the calculation. 
 
 In determining the Prospects of the Gospel in 
 Japan, there are to be considered : 
 
 .) lihe constant factors in every problem of this 
 sort — the sin and misery of man, the love of God, 
 the fitness of the Gospel to human needs, its self-evi- 
 dencing force, the power of the Spirit, the divine 
 promises and prophecies. From these factors alone 
 the eye of faith foresees the inevitable result. 
 
 (2.) Japan's toctraor dinar y history. It cannot be 
 that He who created the civilization of Egypt, that 
 in it He might cradle His ancient Church ; who gave 
 the Greeks their culture, that they might pay rich 
 tribute to His Son, and the Romans their dominion, 
 that the known world might be open to His servants; 
 who held the Germanic hordes back in their forest 
 homes, and grafted upon the wild and hardy stock the 
 scion of Latin Christianity ; who kept the secret of this 
 Western world until Europe’s waking from ignorance 
 and bondage, that He might people it with a free and 
 enlightened race — it cannot be that He has had no 
 purpose of grace in the shaping of Japan’s long and 
 strange hermit life and the development of her 
 unique civilization, and in the origin and growth of 
 that mighty “impulse from within,” which, just at 
 the dawn of these most enlightened and aggressive 
 days in the history of the Church no less than of the 
 world, threw open her doors to the civilization and 
 religion of the West. To the reverent student of the 
 ways of providence, the history of Japan is a proph- 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 11 
 
 cy of a noble and momentous part for her — we know 
 not what, in the winning of the world for Christ. 
 
 (3.) The ancient religions of the country, and spuri- 
 ous forms of Christianity. The testimony of the most 
 competent authorities is unanimous in declaring that 
 neither Shintoism, with its 128,000 shrines and 21,000 
 officials, nor Buddhism, with its 98,000 temples and 
 76,000 priests, as religious systems calling for the 
 steadfast allegiance <f the people, are to be numbered 
 among the most formidable obstacles to the Gospel. 
 The attempt of the new imperial government to re- 
 vive Shinto has “failed vastly and ignominiously.’^ 
 “ Shinto can never sway the heart and mind of mod- 
 ern Japanese people.” “Buddhism is still the re- 
 ligion of the Japanese people, though doubtless on 
 the wane.” The chief obstacle presented by these 
 ancient faiths and Confucianism, which also largely 
 prevails, is in the deterioration and perversion of the 
 moral nature of the people which have taken place 
 under their influence, and which make it exceedingly 
 difficult to impart just ideas of the nature of 
 God and of sin, and to prevent fatal misunderstand- 
 ings arising out of a superflcial resemblance of some 
 of their heathen doctrines to those of Christianity. 
 Neither of the ancient faiths can stand the investiga- 
 tions of the modern Japanese mind. The contest of 
 the future will not be between Christianity and 
 Shinto, or Buddhism, or Confucianism, but between 
 Christianity and irreligion. 
 
 In 1879 the Church of Rome had three bishops, 
 more than thirty priests, a large number of nuns, 
 and claimed many thousands of converts in Japan. 
 The Greek Church, up to that time, had six foreign 
 representatives, and were spending $37,500 annually 
 on their missions, with movements on foot for largely 
 increasing the working force. Their opposition in 
 Japan does not differ materially, I presume, from 
 
12 
 
 PliOGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 that they offer in the Protestant countries of Europe 
 and America. 
 
 (4.) Western civilization and science have jointly 
 won a complete and splendid triumph; but the West- 
 ern religion has not. Before our knowledge, our 
 power, Japan has prostrated herself to the earthj in 
 the presence of our faith she yet stands covered, and 
 apparently quite unconscious. The question is, will 
 she, can she, appropriate our civilization without also 
 appropriating that heavenly power which has made 
 it what it is? The spirit of materialistic science is 
 already so widely spread among the educated classes, 
 that the supernatural element of Christianity is now 
 probably the most serious obstacle to the progress of 
 the Gospel among them. They have an ancient 
 proverb, “Good doctrine needs no miracles,” which 
 embodies their present feeling toward Christianity. 
 
 But the triumph of scepticism must be short- 
 lived, if it is ever won; for no people can remain 
 long without a religion. Sooner or later circum- 
 stances must arise in the lives of both individuals and 
 nations which will force from them a cry to the Infi- 
 nite, and set the current of feeling flowing toward 
 the Unseen. “No human arithmetic,” says President 
 McCosh, in one of his earlier works, “can compute 
 the velocity with which this current. . . .will rush in 
 to fill the vacuum which may have been produced in 
 the heart of an individual man, when the worldly 
 hopes which filled it have been torn away, or in the 
 heart of a nation when it is without a creed, or when 
 its creed has become obsolete, and is felt to be indis- 
 pensable.” If this state of things should ever come 
 to pass in Japan, and the next generation should be- 
 hold her civilized and de-religionized, crying out after 
 God and Immortality — we know what God and what 
 immortality it would be. But I do not apprehend 
 even the temporary ascendancy of unbelief among 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 13 
 
 the people at large. For scepticism is satisfied with 
 denial; but faith is aggressive. In the race before 
 them, I have few misgivings in watching the earnest, 
 determined faith of the infant church of Japan, 
 against the cold, sneering, self-confident unbelief of 
 the aristocracy. Various native newspapers have re- 
 peatedly pointed out the peril of the irreligion into 
 which Japan seems to be in danger of drifting. 
 
 (5.) There is hope in the social condition and 
 moral characteristics of the Japanese. They are not 
 savages. Tneir civilization, though corrupt, is not 
 effete, like that of the greater part of India. The 
 Gospel there but seldom comes into conflict with the 
 grosser forms of superstition it meets in other heathen 
 countries. Their education, their training in patient 
 industry, their gentleness and courtesy, their kind- 
 ness to animals, their passion for flowers, for every- 
 thing beautiful in nature and art, their love of play, 
 (of which, however, they have lost much since the ad- 
 vent of the stern and busy foreigner), their filial obe- 
 dience, the honor they accord to woman, as compared 
 with the other nations of the East, their affection 
 for home and their happy family life, their constancy 
 in persecution, their disposition to help themselves — 
 these are pronounced elements of Japanese character 
 and furnish a most encouraging basis for Christian 
 work. 
 
 (6.) Very recent and trustworthy information, from 
 missionaries and prominent native Christians, reveals 
 a degree of indifference passive hostility to Chris- 
 tianity on the j)art of the press and the ruling classes 
 which at first thought is disappointing, if not dis- 
 couraging. But while it would thrill the heart of 
 Christendom to hear that the Mikado had found the 
 Christ, and that the influence of the wealthy and 
 powerful was being sanctified by the iove of Jesus, 
 no wise and spirituaily-minded Christian can doubt 
 
14 
 
 PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF 
 
 that the outlook of the Church is far brighter to-day, 
 even with the existing state of feeling in the higher 
 circles of Japanese society, than it would have been 
 if she had floated into her present success upon a 
 tide of court favor and official patronage. Edwin 
 and Ethelbert, idolatrous kings of the Heptarchy, 
 won to Christianity by their beautiful wives, Bertha 
 and Ethelbursa, were followed to the water of bap- 
 tism by hundreds of their warriors — a result, doubt- 
 less, gratifying enough to Gregory, and Augustine, 
 his missionary, but one which no modern Protestant 
 missionary or Christian would desire to see paralleled 
 in Japan. The success of the Japanese Church, 
 without official or public aid of any sort, and in the 
 face of the most tremendous odds, is itself a guaran- 
 tee that the growth has been spiritual and sound. It 
 is a cause for thanksgiving that Christianity has en- 
 tered and established her position in Japan as a 
 purely spiritual force. When all the facts are taken 
 into consideration, including the numerous excep- 
 tions to the indifference prevailing among the higher 
 classes, the Church is seen to be occupying her nor- 
 mal position in the State, and with the most encour- 
 aging prospects. Alt we have to ask of the imperial 
 government is the removal of the few remaining re- 
 strictions upon missionary labor, and that the Church 
 be simply left unhindered to do her God appointed 
 work. 
 
 This is the simnle story of the progress of the Gos- 
 pel in Japan, and this, I believe, a sufficiently calm 
 and impartial view of its prospects. With the prac- 
 tical questions of missionary work now engaging the 
 attention of the Home Boards, questions arising 
 principally out of the growih of the work and inci- 
 dental to a transition stage, and with our own most 
 prosperous, growing, and honored mission there, this 
 
THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN. 
 
 15 
 
 paper was not intended to deal ; and here I leave the 
 subject. 
 
 I do not believe that the first twenty-four years of 
 missionary labor in any other country on the globe 
 can show results which approach those reached in 
 Japan. How marvellous is Christianity’s progress 
 when it is considered that it took nine hundred years 
 to convert the Japanese to Buddhism! I know of no 
 expenditure of missionary funds that could be more 
 profitably made than in the immediate and extensive 
 enlargement of the work in Japan. Enlarged gifts 
 and labors now, will shorten by many years the exist- 
 ing need for such gifts and labors. The startling 
 prophecy was made not long ago by an eminent 
 Christian scholar, that a Japanese Constantine is not 
 far off. It is not an extravagant expectation that the 
 present generation of youth will see the last of for- 
 eign missions in Japan. 
 
 May God hasten the time when the pine tree or 
 stork, which they embroider so constantly on their 
 robes as emblems of longevity, shall speak to every 
 one of them of the life and immortality brought to 
 light in the Gospel; when the gentleness, which they 
 are so fond of symbolizing by the willow and the 
 swallow, the bamboo and the sparrow, which we find 
 on so many of the delicate specimens of their art 
 which beautify oar homes, may be the gentleness of 
 Christ, made theirs by the grace of the Holy Ghost; 
 when the heir to the imperial throne may be, in the 
 highest sense, what his ancient title implies, a 
 “ Light-Inheritor;” and every Japanese fulfil the 
 meaning of the native word for “ man,” a “light- 
 bearer.”