>5. ^- •%^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 l:i |2 8 ^ ■- lii 40 1^ 12.5 2.2 12.0 U ill 1.6 V] * ■9k, ■■' ''r .^v ?^w /^ 'V '^ y v 7 /A w .^ . 92 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRIUMPH III Enf^land, to Germany and France, to study at the universities ol: those countries, and to acquire a knowledge of their political institutions. All this shows that while the leaven of Chris- tianity was no doubt workinf^ in a most wonder- ful manner, the leavin of new political life was working also ; and in 1875, the Emperor seeing that the establishment of some form of con- stitutional government was inevitable, began to prepare the way for it by establishing a senate and forming local councils or assemblies every- where throughout the country. Although com- paratively little benefit resulted directly to the country from these councils, yet they served a good purpose in preparing the people for main- taining representative institutions when in due time they were established. Some five or six years afterwards, in October, 1881, the Emperor took the final step precedent to estab- lishing representative institutions, when he issued the following proclamation : " We have long had it in view to gradually establish a " jnstitutional government. ... It was with this object in view that in the eighth year AND HER REPULSE. 93 of Meiji (1875) we established the Senate, and in the eleventh year of Meiji (1878) authorized the formation of local assemblies. . . . We, therefore, hereby declare that we shall, in the twenty-third year of Meiji (1890), establish a parliament in order to carry into full effect the determination we have announced, and we charge our faithful subjects bearing our com- missions to make, in the meantime, all necessary preparations to that end." The five years that elapsed before the period named in the proclamation were years of won- derful progress in all departments of connnercial, economic and political development. Railways, telegraph lines, tramways, telephone lines and factories were established everywhere. Military and naval establishments were organized on most approved modern scientific principles. Civil and criininal codes of procedure in the courts were elaborated, being based on the soundest principles of modern jurisprudence. Commerce with the outside world, especially with Europe, the United States and Canada, was encouraged and grew to striking propor- h\ i 94 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRIUMPH tions in a comparatively short time. Thus, when the date fixed for the promulgation of the new constitution arrived, the country was in a measure prepared for it, and had already antici- pated some of the results it was designed to effect. Under the new constitution there are two Houses of Parliament — the House of Peers and the House of Representative*!. The House of Peers is composed of the princes of the blood and other hereditary nobles who sit in their own right ; of certain persons nominated by the Emperor for meritorious services or for learning, and of representatives sitting for a term of seven years. The Lower House, or House of Representatives, is elected by the people, and sits for four years. The experiment has now been tried for about ten years, and although it has not been without friction and sometimes not without signs of danger to its continuance, yet, when we look at the results, we cannot fail to admire the success achieved. Under the new constitution the country has triumphantly passed through a war with its vast neighbour, China, and has made AND HER REPULSE. 95 itself feared by other nations whose interests lie in different parts of the Pacific Ocean. And, at the present, when the si(rn,s of the times seem to indicate a conflict of interests between China, Russia, France, Germany and EncrJand and the United States, that may issue in war, by a kind of tacit consent it is taken for granted that Japan will stand slioulder to shoulder with Encrland and the United States in the contest, if it should come—indeed, that a secret treaty to that effect already exists. If that condition of affairs should arise, there will be seen for the first time in history, two of the njost hi^rhly Christianized nations in alliance with a heathen country, in a war whose other anta^ronists will all be Christian. In any case, however, Japan must be enumerated among the great powers of the worl.l, and beyond question .she will play an important part - the task of deciding the future of much of Asia, at least, even if, at some time or other, she should not have to be counted with in making the destiny of Europe itself. I 96 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRIUMPH W^-^'W. VI. And thus at this very mom^n" hat do we see ? For the first time in the history of the world, we see a nation, highly civilized, with European civilization, with large cities lighted by electricity, and having hospitals for the sick and institutions for the orphan and the maimed members of society ; with an elaborate school system, from the common school up to the university, whose professors stand side by side with the learned men of any other country in the world ; with learned societies, whose scien- tific observations in seismology, in medicine, geology, bacteriology are accepted everywhere ; with railways, steamships, telegraph lines and a post-office sj'stem not surpassed anywhere ; with an army and a navy which not only showed its prowess in the recent war with China, but which has already put the nation among the great powers of the world ; with manufactures that are reaching gigantic proportions; with a vast commerpe with all the civilized nations of AND HER REPULSE. 97 the world ; with ambassadors, or other represen- tatives, at the capitals of all the important countries in Europe, Asia and America ; with a system of jurisprudence and legal machinery of the best type ; with presses pouring forth millions of newspapers, books and magazines ; and, above all, with responsible government carried on by an Emperor with a House of Lords and House of Representatives modelled after the systems in Great Britain, Germany and the United States ; — we say, at the dawn of the twentieth century of Christian history, we see for the first time a nation possessed of all these things which have their roots in Chris- tianity and are its legitimate fruit, practically rejecting Christianity itself. For when the Emperor opened Parliament and the constitution was given to the country, its preamble began by ascribing the Emperor's imperial position to the influence of his " ancestors " : — " Having, by virtue of the glories of our ancestors, ascended the throne of a lineal succession unbroken for ages eternal." The first article declares " The empire of Japan shall be reigned over and gov- ^ 98 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRIUMPH erned by a line of emperors unbroken for aj^es eternal." And the imperial oath, taken when the constitution was promulgated, declared "That we have been so fortunate in our reign . . . as to accomplish this work, we owe to the r/^t>rio?^« spirits of the impervd founder of our House and of our other imperial ancestors." It seems almost grotesque to have the ruler of the country, as he is about to put the crown upon the civil- ization which Christianity has furnished him, by giving to the people a constitution and parlia- mentary government such as Christianity has made possible and of which it has provided the very roots, to stand forth, so to speak, not only before his own peopl*^ but, as it were, before the world, to ascribe it all, according to the teachings of his heathen Shintoism, to the benign and potent influence of the spirits of his ancestors. Is there a parallel to it in the history of the world ? It may, perhaps, be urged that the Japanese have not rejected Christianity, and that it is too early to reach any conclusions on that point. But that they have made their choice is evident. AND HER REPULSE. 99 Christianity and western civilization were held up before them, not that the missionaries and the Christian churches consciously oifered them the choice, but that only makes the case the more serious. They listened to the preaching of Christianity, and had its Bibles and all its appliances for enforcing its claims, and then quietly passed it by and accepted the civilization of the west, which had never urged its claims and which was not a matter with which the missionaries were concerned at all. We do not say no results have been produced that were well worthy the expenditure and the toil ; but we do say that, by some means and for some reason or other, matters have been so pre- sented to the Japanese mind that western civil- ization has appeared to them the great thing and Christianity almost nothing at all. What are the results so far as Christianity is concerned ? There were in Japan, in the year 1896 (these are the most recent statistics at hand and will not vary much from those of this present year), thirty-seven different societies and denominations at work in the empire, ex- 100 CHRIST/ANirrS GREAT TRIUMPH elusive of the Roman Catholic Church, but including the Greek Church. There were 479 churches, with a membership of G1,514. The number of adherents of the Roman Catholic Church was 52,177. Probably 125,000 would cover the whole nuiriber of nominal Christians in the empire at this present time. This means that on the average there is in Japan one nominal Christian for every 350 heathen. That the present condition of the Christian churches in Japan is satisfactory cannot be affirmed, for there seems to be much unrest among them. It is two or three years only since the Congre- gational Church of the United States felt called upon to send a deputation to v.is't its missions there, and to deal with some very difficult ques- tions — questions of which some still remain unsettled. And on the return of the deputation one of its members wrote in the New York Outlook, under date of November 14th, 1896, as follows : " The difficulties of the situation in Japan are already well known. There is no violence there, but many of the Japanese feel that the time is already at hand when mission- AND HER REPULSE. 101 aries will be no Ioniser needed, anrl there is not the slightest doubt that their influence for the time at least has greatly waned." Only this summer the Methodist Church here in Canada sent its General Superintendent to visit its missions among the Japanese, for the purpose of investigating, on the ground, certain matters that have for some time caused friction, that during the General Conference of 1894 were discussed at great length, and that even still continue to give anxiety to those charged with the responsibility of managing the work in the foreign field. Not only do these things indicate this unrest referred to above, but the decline in membership of some, if not all, of the Japanese churches, points in the same direction. In all this, how little do we see of the triumphal tread of the Christian march of the first centuries. Then almost everything com- bined with the power of Satan to prevent the triumph of Christianity. Now all things seem to join to make straight a highway for our God. In Japan everything seemed to invite the mis- sionary ; in the Mediterranean world all things 102 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRICMPTf seemed to conspire to resist and oppose him. In the ancient days the preachers of Christianity were persons who, in their own country, mi<;ht be called " unlearned and ignorant," and how much more in foreign lands to which they went; for although, in later years, some to whom that term could not justly be applied became preachers of Christianity, yet there never was a time before Constantine when it would not have been largely true. In Japan, however, the preachers of Christianity have been able, educated and well-taught men, many of whom have been graduates of British, Ger- man or American universities. In the former case, they went out to preach, trusting to what the people might be disposed to contribute for their support or to the precarious liberality of Christian churches, whose members were ill able to afford them help; so that sometimes they needed to spend in manual labour, to earn their bread, the precious time that they should have been free to devote to preaching. In the latter case, they have been supported generously by powerful missionary societies or other organiza- AND HER REPULSE, 103 tions, so as to be free from perplexities of worldly care in onler to give their whole time to their work. In the former case, the oricfinal preachers came from an obscure country that had lost its distinct nationality, whose capital with its temple had been utterly annihilated. In the latter, they belonf^ed to the greatest nations in the world — Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. In the former case, they could be burned alive, could be thrown to the lions in the amphitheatre, could be butchered to make a Roman holiday, and no voice would be raised in their defence. In the latter, let them suffer injustice, not to say death or destruction of property, and the power of the country to which they belong would be used in their be- half ; and let reparation be denied, and the fleet and armies of their nation would be r^ioved to avenge their wrongs. In the former case, their religion was proscribed in the empire that they sought to lead to Christ, and was hated and despised by the majority of the people of Pales- tine, where it had originated. In the latter case, it was the religion of the nations from which 104 CHRISTIANITY'S GREAT TRIUMPH IS, a ;- 1 t&. ^ the missionaries came, and was welcomed with enthusiasm and (gladness, so that Japan seemed already at the feet of Christ. Is the battle lost because there has been a repulse ? Christ's armies have oftentimes been driven back, but the promise stands sure. " He shall not fail nor be discouraged till H have set judgement in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for His law." " The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of oar Lord and of His Christ." And the triumphant shout shall be raised, even in Japan, "Hal'^lujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ! " But if that triumph is to be seen in our day — in our children's day — in our children's children's day — is to be seen by those who shall greet the dawn of the twenty-first century, there must be a change of the policy of the Christian Church which, under the spur of denominational rivalry, is duplicat- ing and reduplicating several times over its agencies at home, and making this very ex- travagance an excuse for a ne^jlect of the starving millions of heathen abroad, which excuses itself for sending to Japan a score or so dB AND HER REPULSE. 105 of missionaries, when there is ample field for hundreds and urgent need of them if the empire is to be won for God: and need of the re- discovery of that secret power by virtue of the possession of which the early apostolic mission- aries could say, " thanks be to God that always causeth us to triumph." / FINIS.