tihvavy of t:he trheolo^ical ^tminary 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 PURCHASED BY THE 
 HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND 
 
 BV3445T5419I2 
 
 Pieters, Albertus, 1869- 
 
 Mission problems in Japan, theoretical an 
 
 praciical; leclures delivered before Ihe W< 
 
MISSION PROBLEMS 
 IN JAPAN 
 
 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE /' 
 THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY NOV ''21 1! 
 HOLLAND, MICHIGAN V -^v 
 
 BY THE 
 V 
 
 REV. ALBERTUS PIETERS, M. A 
 
 TWENTY YEARS A MEMBER OF THE 
 REFORMED CHURCH MISSION IN JAPAN 
 
 New York 
 THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 
 25 East Twenty-second Street 
 
Copyright, xgxa, by the 
 
 Board OF Publication of the Reformed Church 
 
 IN America 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 No one can proceed far in the perusal of these Lec- 
 tures without discovering that they constitute a vigor- 
 ous and a strong discussion of some of the most im- 
 portant of missionary questions. They are also a his- 
 torical presentation of the development of these prob- 
 lems in Japan by one who has had a personal and a 
 controlling share in the issues. The discussion is there- 
 fore vitalized by personal experience and the interest 
 is thoroughly aroused. 
 
 The author would not claim that all who read must 
 give assent to his arguments, nor does the writer of 
 this introductory note find himself in entire agree- 
 ment with all the positions taken. But all who read 
 will find themselves affected by the strength of the 
 arguments presented and enriched by the information 
 given. 
 
 This is in a very real sense a strong book written 
 by one who knows the conditions and has felt the en- 
 vironment amidst which he has rendered an important 
 missionary service. As such it carries its own com- 
 mendation. 
 
 W. I. Chamberlain. 
 New York, April, 1912. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introductory Note 3 
 
 I The Missionary Purpose 7 
 
 II The Conditions Under Which the Mis- 
 sionary Purpose is to be AccompHshed 
 in Japan 31 
 
 III The Organization of the Christian Church, 
 
 the First Great Step in the Accomplish- 
 ment of Our Purpose 58 
 
 IV The Mission and the Native Church 84 
 
 V The Evangelistic Work After the Estab- 
 lishment of the Church 108 
 
 VI The Educational Work, Essential to the 
 
 Permanence of Results 134 
 
 VII What God is Doing in the Far East 164 
 
MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Missionary Purpose. 
 
 The subject of the present lecture is the purpose 
 of foreign missions in general. What is our work de- 
 signed to accomplish? 
 
 This question is fundamental to the understanding 
 of all missionary problems. If properly answered, the 
 reply will enable us to understand the specific charac- 
 ter of missions as distinct from other activities of the 
 church. It will also help us to draw the line between 
 Domestic Missions and Foreign Missions. It will in- 
 dicate to us the difference between legitimate and il- 
 legitimate methods, and especially will it furnish us 
 with the means of measuring our progress and decid- 
 ing when our task is accomplished. 
 
 Our starting point in this inquiry is the command of 
 our Lord to go into all the world and preach the gos- 
 pel to every creature. This is a great missionary text, 
 and has been well called "the Marching Orders of the 
 Church." It is, however, much more than a mission- 
 ary text. It includes the whole activity of the Chris- 
 tian church, in all ages, in all countries, and under all 
 conditions. There is nothing to which the church may 
 legitimately set her hand that is not in obedience to 
 this command. The work at home, no less than the 
 work abroad, is included in it. What is stated here is 
 the whole, of which the missionary work is but a part. 
 All replies to our question that are merely paraphrases 
 
8 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 of the great commission, such as that it is our purpose 
 to make Jesus Christ known to the world, to save the 
 souls of men, to preach the gospel to every creature, 
 to evangelize the world, etc., fail to be satisfactory 
 statements of the aim of missions because they are not 
 sufficiently distinctive. 
 
 To find such a distinctive statement, we must divide 
 the work of the church of Christ into two parts, the 
 activity of the church within herself, and her activity 
 without her own bounds. If, now, we bear in mind 
 our Reformed position in regard to the visible church, 
 the line of demarkation will become tolerably clear. 
 The church consists of believers and their children, of 
 all such as are included in the covenant and are en- 
 titled to baptism as the sign and seal of that covenant. 
 Without are those who either have never had any re- 
 lation to the church, i. e. heathen, Mohammedans, and 
 Jews, or who have deliberately or negligently renounced 
 such relation, as seen in the irreligious communities 
 and classes in Christian lands. To this class belong 
 also those organizations, if any, which bear the Chris- 
 tian name, but are devoid of the characteristics which 
 distinguish the true church of God. 
 
 Within the bounds of the visible church, varied, nu- 
 merous, and important activities claim her attention. 
 The public worship must be maintained, believers are 
 to be edified in the faith, erring members must be la- 
 bored with, the sick are to be visited, children must be 
 instructed, in Sunday-schools or in catechetical classes, 
 young people must be trained to Christian service 
 through various agencies. Christian literature must be 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 9 
 
 produced and distributed, the charity of the brethren 
 must be wisely dispensed, schools and colleges must 
 educate the youth, seminaries must train the future 
 ministry, churches unable to bear their own burdens 
 must be assisted, and in numberless other ways the 
 principles of religion must be applied to the life of the 
 individual, of the family, and of the community. All 
 of this internal activity, varied and important as it is, 
 finds its inspiration in those pregnant words : *'Teach- 
 ing them to observe all things, whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you." In round numbers, nine-tenths of the 
 financial strength, and much more than that propor- 
 tion of the time and talent of the church are devoted to 
 this "ad intra" labor. By means of it the church is 
 sustaining and nourishing her own life. 
 
 In distinct contrast with this is the work of the 
 church in which she turns herself to those who are 
 without, sending her messengers into the highways and 
 by-ways and extending to all a loving invitation to 
 come into the fold. This is the activity "ad extra" 
 and this alone is in any proper sense missionary work. 
 To be sure, the internal and external labors of the 
 church, although thus distinguished in thought, are fre- 
 quently commingled in practice. Many a pastor de- 
 votes much time and strength to reaching irreligious 
 persons and classes in the community where his church 
 is located, and many a missionary busies himself with 
 the internal affairs of the church in the days of her in- 
 fancy. Nevertheless this distinction between the two 
 kinds of effort is fundamental, and a correct under- 
 standing of it is essential to the solution of not a few 
 vexed questions of missionary policy. 
 
10 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 The missionary as an individual is a member of the 
 church and thus is within it, but his official work is out- 
 side of it, just as a soldier campaigning in a foreign 
 country is himself a citizen of his own land, but carries 
 on his work beyond her bounds. Hence the work of 
 the missionary is a temporary phenomenon in the life 
 of the church. It belongs to the imperfect, not to the 
 perfect state of the church. When all countries are 
 Christianized, there will be no more missionaries, but 
 the office of pastor and teacher will abide so long as 
 this dispensation continues. The missionaries are, so 
 to speak, the military arm of the church, which loses 
 its importance when a country is fully subdued, while 
 the regular pastorate corresponds to the civil govern- 
 ment, which permanently assumes the direction of af- 
 fairs. 
 
 Mission work being, then, the "ad extra" work of 
 the church, as distinguished from that which is "ad 
 intra," what is the proper line of distinction between 
 Domestic Missions and Foreign Missions, as two cog- 
 nate branches of mission work? If the terms are 
 used in the strictly scientific sense, the difference is 
 merely geographical, and hence of practical but not of 
 scientific interest. Work among the unassimilated 
 foreign classes in our large cities, among the mountain 
 whites, among unevangelized Jews, Mormons, ne- 
 groes, and Indians, among heathen Chinese or Japan- 
 ese in this country, as well as in cities or districts where 
 the church is not yet established, or where the inhab- 
 itants acknowledge no relation to her, is really mission 
 work, as well as similar activity abroad. Scientific ob- 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE ii 
 
 jection can be made to the application of the same 
 term to the work by which financially strong churches 
 extend assistance to their weaker sisters, for the main- 
 tenance of the regular ordinances of religion. This 
 belongs distinctly to the "ad intra," not to the "ad ex- 
 tra" activity of the church, and might be equally nec- 
 essary even if all men everywhere had come within 
 the circle of the covenant. The term "Domestic Mis- 
 sions" should therefore be limited to that which is 
 properly "ad extra" to the church, although within the 
 political boundaries of the country, while some such 
 term as "Church Sustentation" should be applied to 
 the financial support of the weaker congregations. 
 
 We are now ready for the question : "When a re- 
 Hgious denomination enters a new field, such as Japan 
 was in 1859, what does it propose to accomplish 
 there?" It is evident that the correct reply to this in- 
 quiry will describe such a condition as, when it is at- 
 tained, will justify the church in withdrawing her 
 forces, with the thankful declaration that, by the grace 
 of God, her work in that land is finished, because her 
 purpose has been accomplished. 
 
 Some of the answers proposed need but a passing 
 notice, being either quite inadequate or wholly erron- 
 eous. It is not our object to civilize the people or to 
 educate them, to change their social customs or politi- 
 cal institutions, to help them medically or in any other 
 department of philanthropy. Our aim is not to de- 
 stroy their ancestral religion, or even to elevate their 
 moral life. Some of these things may incidentally 
 result from our labors, but they are not our aim. 
 
12 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Neither do we look forward to converting the entire 
 population. However desirable that may be, we have 
 no reason to think that such a thing will ever take 
 place in any country, at least not in this dispensation. 
 
 There are two solutions of our problem differing 
 widely from these, in that they are put forward by 
 well-informed persons as the result of careful study. 
 They may be called "The Church Establishment The- 
 ory" and "The Evangelization Theory," although 
 these designations do not fully indicate their char- 
 acter. 
 
 Dr. E. A. Lawrence, who, in his valuable work, 
 "Modern Missions in the East," gives very clear ex- 
 pression to the church establishment theory, informs 
 us that this solution was recognized as the correct one 
 in a tract published by the American Board in 1856, 
 and that it was expounded a little later by the Rev. 
 Henry Venn, former secretary of the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society. It was advocated also by Dr. Rufus 
 Anderson, one of the most noted secretaries of the 
 American Board in his "Lectures on Missions," and 
 particularly affirmed in connection with the work in 
 Japan by Dr. G. W. Knox, writing in the Presbyterian 
 Review, 1886. 
 
 Dr. Anderson says : 
 
 "The grand object of foreign missions is to plant and multi- 
 ply churches composed of native converts, each church com- 
 plete in itself, with presbyters of the same race, left to de- 
 termine their ecclesiastical relations for themselves, with the 
 aid of judicious advice from their missionary fathers." 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 13 
 
 In another place the same writer says of the Apostle 
 Paul: 
 
 "When he had formed local churches, he did not hesitate to 
 ordain presbyters over them, the best he could find, and then 
 to throw upon the churches thus officered the responsibilities 
 of self-government, self-support, and self-propagation." 
 
 It may be remarked in passing that this is the earli- 
 est use I have met of the phrase, "self-government, 
 self-support, and self -propagation" which has since 
 become a stock expression. 
 
 It is evident from this and other passages that Dr. 
 Anderson was speaking of local churches on the one 
 hand and of individual missionaries on the other. A 
 more developed view, but also in some respects more 
 open to objection, is that of Dr. Lawrence, who says: 
 
 "God's great agent for the spread of his kingdom is the 
 church. In every land he operates through the church, and 
 missions operate distinctly for the church. They have both 
 their source and their aim in that. They are the reproductive 
 faculty of the parent church, the constituting agency of the 
 native church. Every church should work out into a mission, 
 every mission should work out into a church. The conversion 
 of souls is a necessary part of this. The primary aim of mis- 
 sions is to preach the gospel in all lands, the ultimate aim is to 
 plant the church in all lands. When they have done that, 
 their work is accomplished. Then the church of each land, 
 thus planted, must win its own people to Christ. The con- 
 verts must convert, the new church must evangelize and 
 Christianize. India, China, Japan, are each to be turned to 
 Christ, not by missions, but by the Indian, the Chinese, the 
 Japanese churches, when these churches shall have been 
 securely planted by missions." 
 
14 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Dr. Lawrence here quotes with approval the words 
 of the Rev. Henry Venn, who says : 
 
 "The object of missions is the development of native 
 churches, with a view to their ultimate settlement upon a self- 
 supporting, self-governing, and self-extending system. When 
 this settlement has been effected, the missions will have 
 attained its euthanasia, and the missionary and all missionary 
 agency can be transferred to the regions beyond." 
 
 Again Dr. Lawrence says : 
 
 "Missions are but a step, although the first and, it may be, 
 the longest single step in the conversion of the world. The 
 main part of the task devolves upon the native church in each 
 land. Our part is to organize individuals whom we may con- 
 vert into an indigenous, independent, and expansive church, 
 which shall be the type of a native and productive Christian- 
 ity. We are to found this church upon Christ and the apostles, 
 to train it from the start in the principles of self-reliance, self- 
 control, and self -propagation. We are to develop its ministry, 
 found its institutions, organize its work." 
 
 Dr. Knox's view is precisely similar to this. He 
 
 says: 
 
 "Our missionaries organized the United Church of Christ 
 in Japan. Our mission aim is the organization and training 
 of this church. With its establishment our work will be com- 
 plete, and foreign missions will be transformed into the home 
 missions of the Japanese church. . . . The commission of 
 the church is to preach the truth to every creature, but the 
 distinctive aim of foreign missions is the organization of the 
 native church." 
 
 It will be noticed that the term "Church" is used 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 15 
 
 by both Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Knox not as meaning a 
 local congregation, but in the wider sense of a num- 
 ber of such congregations united under a scheme of 
 church government into an ecclesiastical body, a 
 Christian denomination. 
 
 This view of the aim of Foreign Missions contains 
 much that is valuable. It properly lays great emphasis 
 upon the native church. Thus conceived, mission 
 work finds its end, not in the conversion of uncon- 
 nected units of humanity, but in the establishment of 
 institutions that shall outlive their founders and bless 
 the generations yet to come. He who thus under- 
 stands the missionary purpose will never demand long 
 lists of converts as evidence of success: he will look 
 rather to the organization, vitality, and spiritual power 
 of the native church. 
 
 This solution, however, has also serious defects, if 
 it is accepted as a complete and adequate statement of 
 the missionary purpose ; as a missionary in Japan has 
 especial reason to know, for in that country it was for 
 years the dominant theory of missionary work, and as 
 such it led to false hopes of speedy success, produced 
 discouragement among the workers, confused the 
 sphere of the church and of the missionary organiza- 
 tions, cultivated among the native leaders expectations 
 that could not be realized, checked the despatch of nec- 
 essary reinforcements, and altogether resulted in no 
 little injury to the work. Indeed, it furnishes us with 
 a remarkable illustration of the evil effects of a con- 
 ception of our purpor ; which, in spite of all the good 
 it contains, is so inadequate as to be essentially false. 
 
i6 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Those of us who were reading the missionary mag- 
 azines twenty years ago, or who heard the missionary 
 addresses of Dr. Verbeck, Dr. Knox and others in the 
 latter eighties, will distinctly remember how rosy the 
 future of missionary work in Japan appeared at that 
 time. 
 
 Dr. Verbeck said, in 1889: 
 
 "I am less sanguine than many others, but it is my confident 
 belief that if the missionary societies are faithful to their 
 charge up to the end of this century, you need not, after 1890, 
 send any more missionaries to Japan. You will need to sup- 
 port the men already there, and the institutions, for a while, 
 but no new men will need to go. The finishing up of the work 
 can be safely left to the foreign force which will be by that 
 time there, working in conjunction with the ever increasing 
 number of native pastors and evangelists. Some put 1890 as 
 the date, some 1895, but no one puts it later than 1900." (Gos- 
 pel in All Lands, 1889, p. 411). 
 
 It is but just to the memory of Dr. Verbeck to say 
 that he heartily repented, later, of having written such 
 things, and that he did his best to remedy the evil they 
 had caused. 
 
 The Twelfth Annual Report of the Council of Mis- 
 sions, an annual assembly of the Presbyterian and Re- 
 formed missionaries, contains the following expres- 
 sions of confidence in the speedy completion of the 
 missionary task in Japan : 
 
 "Our present force is enough to reach every part of Japan. 
 . . . With our present centers we can conveniently do all 
 that remains for us to do. . . . With wise plans, with 
 earnest work, with the co-operation of missions, with the 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 17 
 
 union of the Japanese church, most of all, with the continued 
 presence of the spirit of our Lord, we may anticipate the close 
 of this foreign missionary enterprise by the close of the 
 nineteenth century." 
 
 Reading such utterances today, nearly a quarter of 
 a century later, when no one professes to anticipate 
 the speedy close of the foreign missionary enterprise 
 in Japan, we stand amazed, and wonder how such 
 ideas ever came to be entertained. The explanation of 
 this mystery is that underneath all of these confident 
 expressions lay the theory of missions we are dis- 
 cussing, the theory that the purpose of missions is 
 to plant the church, and nothing more. The leading 
 missionaries were not so ill informed as to think that 
 the country was then, or would be by the year 1900, 
 fully evangelized, or anything like it. What they did 
 expect was that by such a date we should have in 
 Japan Protestant Christian churches, including all 
 evangelical bodies, with a membership of a hundred 
 thousand communicants. They expected that this body 
 would be fairly well supplied with an educated and 
 devoted ministry, would be sound in the essentials of 
 the faith, and would be supplied with a Christian lit- 
 erature and Christian institutions. 'When such con- 
 ditions prevail," they said, "we may call our work 
 done. We can then gradually withdraw our mission- 
 aries and commit the work of evangelizing the rest of 
 the population, however great, to the Japanese 
 churches. We may still need to assist them with con- 
 siderable sums of money, but the whole administra- 
 tion of the work, and responsibility for it, shall be 
 
i8 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 theirs." The event has shown that this expectation 
 was over sanguine. Instead of a community of one 
 hundred thousand communicants in 1900, we have 
 now, ten years later, but sixty thousand. The confi- 
 dent expressions of speedy victory, however, were 
 based not only upon what they expected the church 
 to be, but also upon what they considered to be the 
 ultimate aim of mission work. The cry that the mis- 
 sionary enterprise is approaching its completion is now 
 practically unheard either in Japan or in Korea, al- 
 though the conditions supposed to justify withdrawal 
 of the missionary force are now more nearly present 
 in both countries than they were in Japan in 1889. 
 The reason for this is that this theory that church es- 
 tablishment is the sole aim of missions is no longer 
 dominant among the missionaries. 
 
 The reasons why it has lost influence so largely, al- 
 though still held by some missionaries and still far too 
 influential with the Boards in New York, are as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 (i) Because it fails to satisfy the evangelistic 
 spirit. 
 
 Suppose that the Japanese church had attained by 
 this time the growth that was expected, would any 
 missionary upon whose heart the burden of souls was 
 laid be content to go home and leave behind him large 
 districts and numberless villages in which the message 
 had never yet been heard, in the confidence that sooner 
 or later the Japanese church would reach them? In- 
 deed, it may fairly be asked whether the Church of 
 Christ in Japan does not today present the very pic- 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 19 
 
 ture which Dr. Venn drew as the "euthanasia" of the 
 missionary work, when the missionary and all mis- 
 sionary agency could be transferred to the regions be- 
 yond. He says this must take place when the native 
 church is self-supporting, self-governing, and self- 
 propagating. This is true to-day of the Church of 
 Christ in Japan. Not a single one of its congregations 
 but is self-supporting, and for several years no mis- 
 sionary or missionary agency has directly or indirectly 
 any direction of its affairs. It is completely self-gov- 
 erning. Its missions dot the empire of Japan, For- 
 mosa, Korea and Manchuria. It can truly be said to 
 be self -propagating. Yet can any heart that yearns 
 over a lost race be satisfied to withdraw from an em- 
 pire in which heathenism is still everywhere dominant, 
 just because the church has been securely planted 
 there? This idea that our aim is merely to establish 
 the church is far too cold a theory. It does not glow 
 with the love of Christ and anxiety for the souls of 
 men. It does not ring with the enthusiasm that has a 
 message of light and life to bring to a dying world. 
 
 (2) This theory fails to reckon with the vast in- 
 ternal problems of the native church. When such a 
 church is organized in a non-Christian land, the dis- 
 tinction of '*ad intra" and ''ad extra" labor at once 
 arises. All the different forms of church activity are 
 called into being. There is scarcely a problem to be 
 solved or a work to be done within the church here 
 in a Christian land that does not occur on the mission 
 field, while as a rule the work, if it is to be well done, 
 requires more time and labor instead of less. Take 
 
20 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 the work of instructing and edifying believers, for in- 
 stance, what is Hkely to be more difficult, to do that in 
 a congregation of people acquainted with the gospel 
 from childhood, or to do it among those almost wholly 
 ignorant of Scripture doctrine and history? This in- 
 ternal work is everywhere the first drain upon the 
 strength of the church. By the necessity of the case it 
 takes precedence of the "ad extra" work, no less 
 in Japan and in China than here. If, now, we observe 
 that nine-tenths of the resources of the American 
 churches are required for this department of the work, 
 we may be pretty sure that the churches in Japan will 
 need no less. Moreover, grave questions of discipline, 
 creed, organization, worship, education, etc., present 
 themselves, and claim attention. The missionaries may 
 indicate the principles involved in their solution, but 
 the application of the principles is so intimately con- 
 nected with racial peculiarities and social customs that 
 the permanent settlement can come only from the 
 church itself. Can such a church, with such a heavy 
 burden, be left to evangelize a large and growing pop- 
 ulation? This theory expects too much from the na- 
 tive church. It lays upon the shoulders of a child a 
 burden that would stagger a man. It under-estimates 
 the work to be done and over-estimates the rein- 
 forcement brought us by the infant church. We 
 cannot accept it as a correct and adequate solu- 
 tion of the problem. 
 
 At quite the other extreme from this "Church Es- 
 tablishment Theory" lies a view of missionary work 
 extensively found among youthful and superficially 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 21 
 
 informed people. We have called it the "Evangeliza- 
 tion Theory," because it well-nigh loses sight of every- 
 thing else in its enthusiasm for the immediate evange- 
 lization of the whole world. It is almost universal 
 among members of the Student Volunteer Movement 
 who have never been on the field, and much of the lit- 
 erature of the Laymen's Missionary Movement is in- 
 fluenced by it. It has not been so exactly and authori- 
 tatively formulated by students of the missionary 
 problem, and hence is less tangible for the purposes of 
 this discussion. The most prominent exponent of it, 
 although in its most moderate form, is Mr. John R. 
 Mott, who has written a book with the title : "The 
 Evangelization of the World in this Generation." In 
 general it may be defined as that view which consid- 
 ers it obligatory upon the church and possible for the 
 church to evangelize the world in this generation. 
 From much that is said and written, one can hardly 
 avoid the conclusion that this is not only the duty, but 
 the whole duty, of this generation of believers, and 
 certainly one is not disposed to add to a programme al- 
 ready so extensive. 
 
 However, evangelization is not to be superficially 
 understood. Mr. Mott says : 
 
 "The evangelization of the world should not be regarded as 
 an end in itself. The church will not have fulfilled her task 
 when the gospel has been proclaimed to all men. Such evan- 
 gelization must be followed by baptism of converts, by their 
 organization into churches, by building them up in knowledge, 
 faith and character, and by enlisting and training them in 
 service. While the missionary enterprise should not be 
 
22 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 diverted from the immediate and controlling aim of preaching 
 the gospel where Christ has not been named, and while this 
 work should have the right of way as the most urgent part of 
 our task, it must ever be looked upon as but a means to the 
 mighty and inspiring object of enthroning Christ in individual 
 life, in family life, in social life, in national life, in interna- 
 tional relations, in every relationship of mankind, and, to this 
 end, of planting and developing in all non-Christian lands 
 self-supporting, self-directing, and self-propagating churches." 
 
 Superficially considered, this viev^, with its imme- 
 diate and controlling aim of preaching the gospel where 
 Christ has not been named, and its ultimate aim of 
 making Christianity effective in the national life by 
 planting and developing churches, bears a close resem- 
 blance to the other theory, which also says : 'The 
 primary aim of missions is to preach the gospel in all 
 lands, the ultimate aim is to plant the church in all 
 lands;" but the difference between the two is pro- 
 found. 
 
 The one proposes to preach the gospel to all lands, 
 to be sure, but not to all the people, only so far as is 
 necessary to gather and train a church, to which the 
 rest of the responsibility for evangelization may then 
 be committed, while the other intends not only to 
 evangelize the entire population, but to do this within 
 a generation, and afterwards to organize churches, as 
 a means of rendering the conquest complete and per- 
 manent. The former chills the evangelistic spirit by 
 declaring it to be no part of the aim of missions to 
 preach the gospel to every creature; the latter glows 
 with evangelistic fire, and allures us by telling us that 
 the completion of the whole evangelistic task is possi- 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 23 
 
 ble in our own time. The former lays upon the na- 
 tive church the crushing burden of evangehzation 
 from which it excuses the churches at home, the latter 
 scarcely recognizes that the native church as such has 
 any part in evangelization at all. Between the two, 
 if obUged to choose, I greatly prefer this view, as 
 moderately stated by Mr. Mott. 
 
 And yet, I am not prepared to accept this as the true 
 answer to our question "What is the Missionary Pur- 
 pose?" Neither am I able to admit that 'The Evange- 
 lization of the World in this Generation," which is the 
 watchword of this whole school, is a legitimate motto 
 to inscribe upon our banners. My objections to it 
 are, first, that it is illegitimate to insert the words "in 
 this generation," and, secondly, that this view lays too 
 little emphasis upon the native church as not only a 
 valuable, but an indispensable ally in the work. 
 
 To say that we should aim to evangelize the world 
 in this generation, is to express the conviction that the 
 thing is possible. Such a conviction must be based 
 upon either reason or faith, but it is my opinion that 
 upon neither of these grounds can we beUeve such a 
 thing possible. We have no right here to appeal to 
 the omnipotence of God, since miraculous interposi- 
 tion is not to be expected. The promise of God to be 
 with his church in this great work contains no time 
 element, either directly or indirectly, and an appeal to 
 faith not based either upon a divine promise or upon 
 sound reason is presumption instead of faith. 
 
 Much is said by some writers of the resources of 
 the church. They are no doubt great, and wonderful 
 
24 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 blessings would be enjoyed if they were fully em- 
 ployed in the Lord's work. Great as they are, how- 
 ever, there are other things to be considered, and there 
 are processes to be gone through with in which the 
 lapse of considerable time is a necessary element. 
 Some of the literature of the Laymen's Movement 
 would give one the impression that it is altogether 
 merely a matter of arithmetic. So many men, so many 
 dollars, and the whole business will be finished in so 
 many years! Thus one hears now and again of cal- 
 culations as to how many men and how much money 
 would be necessary to evangelize a given country in 
 thirty, forty, or fifty years. Our mission, a number of 
 years ago, was requested by the Board to submit a 
 ^] statement indicating how many men were necessary 
 to evangelize our field. I proposed respectfully to in- 
 form the Board that no one was wise enough to an- 
 swer such questions, but the mission thought better of 
 it and prepared some sort of a reply. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say, however, that no calcula- 
 tions of this kind are worth much, by whomever pre- 
 pared. There are too many unknown elements, which 
 nevertheless are decisive of the issue. Let us take 
 only one, the native church. As I protested a little 
 while ago against an overestimate of this church and 
 its official responsibility, so now it becomes my duty to 
 protest against an underestimate of it as an essential 
 element in the case. Great as are the resources of the 
 church in Christian lands, it is clear to me that it 
 would be impossible for it to bring the gospel to every 
 creature without the conversion of large numbers of 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 25 
 
 men and the organization of Christian institutions, and 
 that not after the completion of evangehzation or sub- 
 ordinate to it, but proceeding step by step, in intimate 
 association with it, as in fact, indispensable to it. To 
 be convinced of this we have only to glance at the 
 necessity for a large number of native helpers, both 
 paid and unpaid. Mr. Mott estimates that for every 
 thousand missionaries we require ten thousand paid 
 helpers, besides multitudes of volunteer workers. But 
 if we are to have these, we clearly need large num- 
 bers of conversions, greater than anything we have 
 had hitherto. Otherwise, whence the able and conse- 
 crated leaders, whence the multitude of unpaid mes- 
 sengers ? Men are not eligible to this work unless they 
 are distinguished for good intellectual qualities, faith, 
 piety and zeal. Such men are, of course, only a rela- 
 tively small proportion of the church. If there be 
 hundreds of thousands of these there must be millions 
 of church members, from whom they are chosen. This 
 need of large numbers of genuine converts, organized 
 immediately into churches, must not be minimized, for 
 without it the evangelization of any given district is 
 impossible, at least in any real and permanent sense. 
 For, to mention only one thing, suppose that by the 
 exertion of all our forces we did succeed in evangeliz- 
 ing the world without a great many conversions or 
 without organization, how long would it stay evange- 
 lized? Would not the whole work have to be done 
 over again in the next generation, nay, in the next 
 decade? We should resemble an invading army that 
 is strong enough to defeat the enemy at every point, 
 
26 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 but not strong enough to hold the country that has been 
 fought over, and that is, therefore, constantly obliged 
 to repeat its victories. There is no progress in that. If 
 we could do such a thing, it would not be worth the 
 doing. 
 
 The report of the Cleveland Student Volunteer 
 Convention says of the watchword: 
 
 "It does not mean the conversion of the world, because the 
 acceptance of Christ rests with the hearer, not with the 
 speaker." 
 
 And Mr. Mott says : 
 
 "Our part consists of bringing the gospel to bear on un- 
 saved men. The results are with the men whom we would 
 reach and with the Spirit of God." 
 
 Precisely. The extent to which and the rapidity 
 with which they will listen and believe and join in the 
 work of evangelizing their fellows are unknown quan- 
 tities, and yet these are the most important of all hu- 
 man factors, and until you know them, all your calcu- 
 lations of money and men and time required are noth- 
 ing more than vanity. Thus the whole programme of 
 the evangelization of the world in this generation goes 
 overboard. It charms by its enthusiasm and allures 
 with its rosy promise of a dash to victory, but it will 
 not bear analysis in the face of practical missionary 
 experience. So far as the enthusiasm of the Laymen's 
 Movement is based upon the hopes this theory has in- 
 spired, I fear that it will ultimately do no little harm, 
 for after twenty or thirty years they will begin to ask 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 27 
 
 us why we have not made good, and I fear we mis- 
 sionaries will get the blame for not carrying out the 
 programme that has been mapped out for us. 
 ^ What, then, is the true object of our work? 
 
 It is neither, on the one hand, organization without 
 complete evangelization, nor, on the other, such evan- 
 gelization with organization ignored or relegated to a 
 subordinate place. It is found rather in the indissolu- 
 ble union of the two, distinguishable in thought, but 
 not in practice : evangelization and organization, one 
 and inseparable, now and unto the end of our work. 
 Neither is entitled to constant precedence over the 
 other. It depends upon circumstances. At one time 
 preaching to the heathen will be the more urgent part 
 of our task, at another time it will yield the right of 
 way to instructing and organizing converts. Evan- 
 gelization will push ahead into new regions as fast 
 as the old are occupied, but never too fast for organi- 
 zation to follow close upon it. The army cannot ad- 
 vance with the speed of the cavalry, or even the in- 
 fantry, but must wait for the supply trains. It is the 
 same in our work. The missionary who gets evangeli- 
 zation too far ahead of church organization is like the 
 general whose lines of communication are too long to 
 be well protected. He must fall back, or his labor will 
 be lost. 
 
 The purpose of our missionary work is thus to re- 
 
 l produce abroad the conditions existing in our own 
 
 ! country, where no considerable district and no numer- 
 
 ; ous or important class of society is out of touch with 
 
 the Christian church. To state the missionary purpose 
 
28 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 in a single word, it is not merely to plant the church in 
 a country, nor merely to evangelize the present genera- 
 tion of its inhabitants : It is to Christianise that coun- 
 try. I mean by this to establish and so to distribute 
 the institutions of the church that the gospel shall be 
 kept before practically the whole population of a given 
 field all the time, so that the cases shall be compara- 
 tively few where a person can grow from childhood to 
 mature age without having the knowledge that is nec- 
 essary to faith. To use a military term, it is the "ef- 
 fective occupation" of a territory by an invading 
 army. When we have in this manner garrisoned a 
 field with Christian camps in sufficient numbers and 
 with sufficient appHances to bring the gospel to the at- 
 tention of each new generation as it appears upon the 
 scene, then our task in that field is accomplished, and 
 not till then. We thus discharge our obligations, not 
 only to our own generation, but also to those who 
 V come after us. f As Mr. Robert E. Speer has well said: 
 **Our duty lies certainly to our own generation, but it 
 does not stop there." 
 
 Thus conceived, here are three stages in the mis- 
 sionary work among any people. First comes the time 
 when there is nothing but evangelization, in one of its 
 many forms, preaching, teaching, healing, visiting, 
 publishing, etc. This is followed by a period when the 
 chief attention of the missionary must be devoted to 
 the organization and training of the native church. 
 Finally comes the longest period of all, that in which, 
 side by side with the church thus founded and trained, 
 the missionaries undertake to evangelize the entire 
 
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE 29 
 
 population. Such work belongs no more to the church 
 in that land, in its organized capacity, than it does to 
 the church in America, working through its represen- 
 tatives in the field. It belongs most to the one that 
 can best spare the strength required for it. In this 
 work the chief part will at first be that of the foreign 
 church ; later, as the native church grows stronger, its 
 share will increase, but neither will be justified in 
 withdrawing until the work is practically done ; for so 
 long as there exists any portion of the population that 
 the foreign church can but the native church cannot 
 immediately evangelize, the primary obligation of the 
 command of Christ remains in force. 
 
 The time for withdrawal will be when liberty has 
 not only been proclaimed throughout the land, to allf 
 the inhabitants thereof, but when provision has also 
 been made for the permanence of the proclamation, by 
 establishing local organizations everywhere. Then or- 
 ganized heathenism will have disappeared. Instead of 
 the village temple, will arise the village church ; in- 
 stead of the household gods and their worship will be 
 found the family altar. Then the church of such a 
 land may safely be left to accomplish her own proper 
 task, internally, to nourish her children, externally, to 
 overcome the lingering vestiges of opposition and to 
 apply the Christian principles to the national life, until 
 every thought has been made subject to the obedience 
 of Christ. 
 
 It would be pleasant if I could hold out to you the 
 prospect that so grand a purpose can be realized in a 
 brief space of time. But this I cannot do. If the ex- 
 
30 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 perience of the past means anything, it means that the 
 struggle will be long, and that the goal is distant. The 
 progress of the kingdom in heathen lands hitherto ex- 
 hibits unmistakably the phenomena of growth, and 
 when you say growth, you speak of something that 
 must be waited for. God has a process for making 
 oaks. It is not to be buried. He who desires an oak 
 must plant his acorn and be content to wait. 
 
 So let us, also, my brethren, not as impatient chil- 
 dren, but as thoughtful and determined men, gird our- 
 selves and lead on our churches to this great work. If 
 it seem sometimes that the promise of God tarries 
 long, we may not on that account lower our ideal, nor 
 dare we hold out to our people unfounded hopes of 
 speedy victory. But what we dare to do is this : To 
 perform our work, steadfastly, unfalteringly, trust- 
 fully, looking away from all present things to the 
 blessed assurance of that time when the idols shall be 
 utterly abolished, and when the knowledge of the Lord 
 shall cover the earth as the waters cover the bottom of 
 the sea. If, like the patriarchs of old, we have not 
 the joy of beholding the fulfillment of these promises, 
 yet it is much to have seen them and greeted them 
 from afar. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Conditions Under Which the Missionary 
 Purpose is to be Accomplished in Japan. 
 
 Although Christianity is a divine institution, bring- 
 ing into the world truth and grace, life and light from 
 no created source, but from the Father of mercies, by 
 Jesus Christ, His Son, through the operation of the 
 Holy Spirit, yet its manifestation stands in intimate 
 relation to its earthly surroundings. There is a duality 
 about it that is seen both in its inner nature and in its 
 outward form. It is genuinely divine, but no less gen- 
 uinely human. The union of the two natures in the 
 person of the Redeemer finds its corollary in the na- 
 ture of the Holy Scriptures, and no less in the histor- 
 ical development of the Christian church. 
 
 That there is a direct activity of God in the mission- 
 ary work is, it seems to me, too often forgotten. We 
 ought never to think or speak of a spiritual work as 
 if it were subject absolutely to the ordinary laws of 
 cause and effect. There is behind all outward condi- 
 tions the will and work of God, whose plans are be- 
 yond human calculation, and whose leadings frequent- 
 ly upset out most careful reckonings. But while this 
 supreme sovereignty of the Heavenly Father is at all 
 times to be remembered by the worker in His king- 
 dom, trustfully in adversity, thankfully in prosperity, 
 we may never allow ourselves on that account to lose 
 sight of the human element in our work, the element 
 
32 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 that connects it with the racial, poHtical, moral and 
 social conditions of the men among whom we desire to 
 set up the kingdom. It is to this phase of the question 
 that we are to devote our attention to-day. Our view 
 in the previous lecture was general, for the purpose of 
 the missionary work is the same everywhere : in the 
 present discussion and hereafter it will be strictly par- 
 ticular, for the outward conditions that we must meet 
 in the accomplishment of our work are found to vary 
 widely with the different countries where we under- 
 take the work. 
 
 I. General Conditions. 
 
 The general conditions in Japan may safely be 
 called remarkably favorable. The country in which 
 we are to work out our problem of Christianization is 
 not large, the total area being not far from that of Cal- 
 ifornia, or equal to the combined areas of Michigan, 
 Wisconsin, and half of Illinois. Every part is easily 
 accessible by water, rail or by other means of convey- 
 ance. The race that inhabits these islands is compact 
 and homogeneous, the customs, ideas, and language 
 being everywhere practically identical. Travel from 
 one province to another, and even from end to end of 
 the country to another is remarkably common. Not 
 only the government, but also the various popular in- 
 terests, are centraHzed in the capital to a marked de- 
 gree. There is thus nothing of the isolation that is 
 complained of in the provinces of China. Neither do 
 the dialects give us any trouble. There are certain 
 variations in the common speech, notably in the prov- 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 33 
 
 ince of Satsuma, where even a Japanese from another 
 part of the country finds it difficult to understand the 
 peasantry; but the national language is everywhere 
 understood and spoken by the intelligent and taught 
 in the schools. The only thing to be complained of in 
 the language is its extreme difficulty for a foreigner. 
 Taking the word language in its widest sense, as em- 
 bracing all the varieties of oral and written commun- 
 ication, it may well be doubted whether there is any 
 other to compare with it. Dr. Hepburn, the great lex- 
 icographer, who came to Japan after several years' 
 residence in China, says of it: "It is a difficult lan- 
 guage, much more so, in my opinion, than the Chi- 
 nese." This judgment is invariably confirmed by mis- 
 sionaries who have been transferred from China to 
 Japan or the reverse. 
 
 The Japanese are a civilized people. Almost the 
 only thing that strikes the observer as uncivilized is 
 the indecent exposure of the body. For the rest, 
 Japan bears everywhere the marks of civilized society, 
 in the security of life and property, under the protec- 
 tion of excellent laws, well administered, in the refine- 
 ment that marks social intercourse, in her sanitary reg- 
 ulations, in knowledge of medicine and of the fine arts, 
 in her literature, in her educational system, in division 
 of labor, in the use of labor-saving machinery, in her 
 commercial and banking systems, in the easy commun- 
 ication between all parts of the country by good roads, 
 railways, postoffice and telegraphs, and in the superb 
 organization of her police, army and navy. 
 The Japanese are an intelligent people. Ability to 
 3 ^ ^~ ^" 
 
34 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 read and write the simpler forms of the language is 
 almost universal. The common school and the news- 
 paper penetrate to the remotest recesses of the coun- 
 try. More than three thousand newspapers and mag- 
 azines are in circulation. 
 
 Japan is also an independent, warlike, and powerful 
 nation. No foreign foe has ever so much as set foot 
 upon the soil of the empire, and in no war has she ever 
 been defeated. We are proud of our independence, 
 purchased, as it was, with a heavy price, but Japan 
 was free born and has remained free. Naturally, the 
 people are very self-conscious, very proud of their in- 
 dependence, and extremely sensitive. Such pride has 
 its objectionable side, and the missionary who would 
 work among such people has to keep himself in the 
 background with self-forgetful love and wisdom; but 
 this characteristic of the people is also a great bless- 
 ing, in that it prevents any of the servility and help- 
 less dependence on the missionary that are the curse 
 of missionary work in some countries. The military 
 power of the Japanese empire also relieves our work 
 of all that suspicion of hidden political purpose that so 
 unjustly, but so naturally, attaches to missionaries la- 
 boring among the weaker races. 
 
 Japan is fortunate, also, in that the wealth of the 
 country is rather evenly distributed. The many small 
 manufacturers and shopkeepers are one of the striking 
 features of a Japanese town. In the production of 
 tea, silk, matting, and other staples, one meets with 
 but few large factories. Such work is carried on in 
 numerous small establishments in towns and villages. 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 35 
 
 The evils of crowded life, industrial slavery, and the 
 strife between labor and capital have hitherto been 
 escaped. These conditions are changing, however, 
 with the increasing use of labor-saving machinery. 
 
 The population is not less evenly distributed than 
 the wealth. It has not yet been gathered into a few 
 large cities, but is found mainly in small villages of a 
 few scores of houses each. The farmers do not live 
 on their farms, but in such villages. The result is to 
 render the people physically and geographically far 
 more accessible than if they were either in congested 
 centers or subject to the isolation of farm life as we 
 know it. On the other hand, it operates also to pro- 
 duce a strong local organization and a fossilized local 
 opinion, which very greatly hampers the stranger who 
 strives to gain entrance, be he Japanese or foreign, and 
 deprives the individual to a remarkable degree of his 
 personal liberty to modify his ancestral religious con- 
 nections. 
 
 A point of special importance in the social life of 
 any people is the position of women. This is far bet- 
 ter in Japan than in any other non-Christian land. Her 
 legal rights are behind those of our own country only 
 in one conspicuous point, that she has no legal remedy 
 if her husband is unfaithful to her. The popular 
 standard of opinion and practice, however, lays con- 
 siderably behind the law. Practically, there are seri- 
 ous evils yet in the position of women. Marriage is 
 too greatly a matter of business, to be regulated with- 
 out the consent of the bride. Mutual affection is not 
 given its rightful place. Divorce and concubinage are 
 
36 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 in consequence fearfully common, and other deplor- 
 able vices undermine the permanence and sanctity of 
 family life. Yet while the position of woman is far 
 from being what it should be, on the whole we may be 
 thankful that it is so good. Conditions in this respect 
 are constantly improving. Women are entirely acces- 
 sible to the gospel, and if reasonable care is used, may 
 be reached by men as well as by women. 
 
 The family is an element in the social structure of 
 Japan that deserves careful attention. As embodied in 
 the Civil Code, which went into operation in 1899, it 
 is the most prominent feature of Old Japan that has 
 been deliberately preserved. The family, in the sense 
 of consisting of husband, wife, and children, only 
 these and no more, is of comparatively little import- 
 ance in Japan. It exists as a subordinate part of the 
 larger group of relatives united under the headship of 
 one person, called a "House." In certain respects, 
 the relation of a person to the head of a "House" 
 takes precedence of his relation to his father and 
 mother. The "House" may be composed of several 
 families, or of one family, or of two or more individ- 
 uals who, under our social system would have no re- 
 lation to each other at all. It is a survival under mod- 
 ern conditions of the patriarchal, or clan system. It 
 is an anachronism in a country like New Japan, and 
 we may expect its eventual disappearance, but for the 
 present it is too deeply rooted in popular esteem to be 
 set aside. It is practically a considerable hindrance to 
 our work, in restricting the liberty even of the adult 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 37 
 
 individual; and lies at the basis of some of the objec- 
 tionable features of the existing marriage customs. 
 
 When I delivered a similar course of lectures ten 
 years ago I devoted considerable space to the political 
 conditions, and expressed the apprehension that, in 
 spite of the theoretically perfect religious liberty en- 
 joyed in Japan, the government might in various ways 
 hamper our educational and evangelistic work, not 
 necessarily from a desire to restrict the spread of 
 Christianity, but from the natural tendency of a bu- 
 reaucratic government to regulate everything. I am 
 happy to say that the developments of the past ten 
 years have not confirmed these apprehensions. What 
 the future may contain we do not know, but for the 
 present we may dismiss the whole subject of our rela- 
 tions to the government with the thankful acknowl- 
 edgment that we could ask nothing better than a con- 
 tinuance of present conditions. 
 
 II. Religious Conditions. 
 
 Important as are the conditions thus far discussed, 
 in their bearing upon the Christianization of Japan, 
 they touch our problem in a far less direct manner 
 than that to which we now turn, viz. : the religious and 
 moral condition of the people. As we have certain 
 doctrines to teach them and certain permanent insti- 
 tutions to organize among them, we are deeply inter- 
 ested in knowing how far such ideas or methods are 
 foreign to the Japanese mind and in how far they 
 have been prepared for the reception of Christianity 
 by their own ancient beliefs and practices. The Apos- 
 
38 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tie Paul, in the epistle to the Galatians, speaking of the 
 rudiments of religious knowledge which his converts 
 had long outgrown, but were in danger of returning 
 to, seems to include in that term not only Judaism, 
 but also heathenism, as having to a real, though small 
 degree prepared their minds for the reception of the 
 truth. That the same thing has taken place in Japan 
 becomes evident when we analyze the systems current 
 there, to discover what elements of moral and relig- 
 ious knowledge each has taught the Japanese people. 
 
 The Japanese have two religions, Shinto and Budd- 
 hism. Some scholars assert that Confucianism also 
 has filled the place of a religion to choice souls among 
 the Japanese, but this class was at best small, and is 
 now practically extinct, so that we need not consider 
 Confucianism under the head of religions. 
 
 Shinto is the immemorial belief of the Japanese, and 
 is a compound of two kinds of polytheism, viz. : na- 
 ture worship and ancestor worship, culminating in the 
 reverence paid to the Imperial line, both dead and liv- 
 ing. This, sometimes, among the more thoughtful, 
 passes into an apotheosis of the state that reminds us 
 of some phases of thought in ancient Greece and 
 Rome. In this worship of the spirits of the dead, the 
 ideas of the existence of the soul and of its immor- 
 tality are necessarily involved. Shinto has the merit 
 of being in some sense a spiritual religion, for it makes 
 no use of images, the absence of which is one of the 
 most striking features of a Shinto temple. Worship is 
 thus directed towards unseen deities and spirits. 
 Shinto has many prayers and sacred hymns, most of 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 39 
 
 them in the ancient language, which is not well under- 
 stood by the people. It has also sacrifices. It is said 
 that formerly bloody sacrifices, and even human sac- 
 rifices, were offered, but, so far as I can learn, they 
 are now confined to offerings of rice, fish and other 
 food. Shinto has much to say about defilement, which 
 is primarily physical, but transferred also to moral 
 evil. This is the nearest idea to our idea of sin, and 
 pervades the entire system. Such uncleanness re- 
 quires various ceremonies of purification, by fire, by 
 water and by salt. For the whole nation the ceremony 
 of purification is performed by the Emperor once a 
 year. This is called "The Great Purification," and 
 clearly involves the idea of a great high priest and of 
 the efficacy of intercession. In this idea of ceremonial 
 uncleanness and of purification both by the individual 
 for himself and by the Emperor for the whole people, 
 as well as in the offerings of food, we cannot help 
 noticing an interesting, although, perhaps, superficial 
 resemblance to the Mosaic code. 
 
 Shinto has the advantage of being the state religion 
 of Japan. The chief temples are supported by the 
 government funds, and when great public ceremonies 
 are to be performed, the Shinto priests are sure to 
 conduct the religious services. 
 
 In its organization, Shinto is weak, having no for- 
 mulated creed and no regular parish system. It has 
 temples, where the people worship singly or in crowds, 
 but no regular public worship or meetings for prayer 
 or instruction. It is divided into a number of sects. 
 It is optimistic in its view of life, has many feasts, and 
 
40 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 its general tendency is not towards a solemn and 
 thoughtful frame of mind, but rather to a light-heart- 
 ed and careless enjoyment of present things. It takes 
 no note of the tremendous fact of suffering in human 
 life, and makes no provision for alleviating it. 
 
 Herein lies perhaps the widest divergence between 
 Shinto and Buddhism, for the latter system takes its 
 starting point from the fact of suffering, and reaches 
 its end in its complete cessation. In its original form 
 Buddhism is an atheistic philosophy, based upon the 
 idea that the individual nature is indestructible by 
 death, and therefore subject to successive rebirths, in 
 a higher or lower condition, according to its merit, op- 
 erating, not by the judgment of a personal divine law 
 giver, but by an inexorable law of cause and effect. In 
 this process the individual is constantly exposed to 
 suffering unless and until he, by his own efforts, 
 reaches a condition where he can repress all desire or 
 passion, which is the highest enlightenment. 
 
 This system is no doubt studied and comprehended 
 more or less by the higher priests and scholars of 
 Japan, for there are some of them who have made a 
 specialty of the Sanscrit language and both in Europe 
 and in India have made a study of the original sources 
 of their religion. This is, however, not the Buddhism 
 of the common people. So far as it is found in Japan 
 at all, it must be considered an esoteric philosophy. In 
 the common form of the religion, Japanese Buddhism 
 is a compound wherein, to be sure, remnants of these 
 philosophical principles are present, but where they 
 are overshadowed by later developments, until more 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 41 
 
 than forty divergent sects teach as many forms of 
 faith. In general, Japanese Buddhism may be de- 
 scribed as an idolatrous system presenting as religious 
 elements nature and ancestor worship, absorbed from 
 Shinto, Hindooism, and other sources ; worship of im- 
 aginary deities who were originally personifications 
 of the virtue of Buddha; and saint worship, wherein 
 especially the founders of the sects have prayers and 
 worship addressed to them. All this is accompanied 
 by the abundant use of images of wood, stone and 
 metal, some of them of great size; the one at Kama- 
 kura, for instance, being nearly fifty feet high and one 
 hundred feet in circumference. There is no coarser 
 and crasser idolatry possible than is in evidence 
 throughout Japan. 
 
 Absolutely essential to Buddhism in all of its forms 
 is the doctrine of a future existence, and of the rela- 
 tion of our good and evil deeds to our condition after 
 death. In this respect it is a wonderful advance over 
 Shinto. It touches the deepest thoughts and aspira- 
 tions of suffering humanity in a way that is quite for- 
 eign to the other religion. In some of the most popu- 
 lar sects, this doctrine of a future life has taken the 
 form of a belief in heaven and hell, described in ways 
 that correspond to the lower mediaeval conceptions of 
 both in European Christianity. Sin is presented as 
 uncontrolled selfish passion, leading to every form of 
 moral evil. The way to salvation is through self-re- 
 pression, renunciation of the world and meditation. 
 The recognition that this way is hard, not to say im- 
 possible, to the average man, worked in thoughtful 
 
42 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 minds a feeling that upon such conditions escape is 
 hopeless. It will be recognized that this effect is an- 
 alogous to the office of the law in producing the 
 knowledge that no man can be saved by works. 
 
 Such a way of escape as is thus felt to be needed is 
 offered by the Shin sect of Buddhists. Nothing can 
 be imagined more contradictory to the original spirit 
 of Buddhism than this doctrine, which is nevertheless 
 accepted by the most numerous, wealthy and progres- 
 sive section of Japanese Buddhism. This sect teaches 
 the doctrine of Amida. The Rev. Arthur Lloyd, of 
 Tokyo, who has made an especial study of this sect, 
 says: 
 
 "Amida is the ONE BUDDHA, a Being of infinite life and 
 light, without beginning of life or end of days. Countless ages 
 ago he, out of His mercy, became man, and in his human form 
 and for man he undertook austerities and penances, until he 
 was able as man to return to that glorified state from which 
 he had descended. But before returning, he registered a vow 
 not to accept his glory until he had worked out a way of salva- 
 tion for mankind, an easy way, which should not depend on 
 man's individual exertions. Having made this vow, he estab- 
 lished a Paradise, and decreed that faith in his name and 
 vow should suffice to enable the greatest sinner to enter and 
 be saved." 
 
 Mr. Lloyd is making some very interesting investi- 
 gations in regard to the origin of this faith, and occa- 
 sionally publishes the results. So far as he has gone 
 he regards it as probable, although not yet certain, that 
 this Amida doctrine is of Christian origin, and that 
 Amida is but another name for Christ. He says that 
 the earliest books in which it is found are from the 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 43 
 
 year A. D. 147, and that it reached China, not from 
 India, but from Central Asia. 
 
 Buddhist worship is conducted with gorgeous rites 
 and ceremonies, including the use of incense and can- 
 dles, and the adoration of relics. Preaching services, 
 Sunday Schools and Young Men's Buddhist Associa- 
 tions, and even revival meetings are characteristic of 
 modern Japanese Buddhism. 
 
 As an organization, with its monks, nuns and hier- 
 archy, and especially its parish system, by which it 
 reaches almost every hamlet and home. Buddhism is 
 very strong. It is not supported by the government, 
 but does not on that account lack financial resources, 
 as the income from endowments, lands, and voluntary 
 contributions is very great. It is by all odds the chief 
 opponent of Christianity from the standpoint of or- 
 ganized religion. It is no mean opponent, either. Its 
 strength has never been tested, as no great defections 
 from Buddhist ranks have yet taken place directly in 
 consequence of mission work. Our converts have 
 come, for the most part, from classes over whom the 
 Buddhist priests had no influence. 
 
 It must not be understood, however, that these two 
 systems, Shinto and Buddhism, are considered by the 
 Japanese to be mutually exclusive, or even that the un- 
 educated clearly distinguish between them. Even such 
 a man as Prof. Kume, of the Imperial University, in- 
 sists that he does not believe in the one to the exclusion 
 of the other. In public festivals he is a Shintoist, and 
 at funeral services a Buddhist. Prof. Basil Hall 
 Chamberlain says, in speaking of the pilgrims who 
 
44 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 visit famous shrines in great crowds each year, that 
 they do not so much as realize that Buddhism and 
 Shintoism are two separate cults. Moreover, mingled 
 with both of them is a mass of superstition concerning 
 fetishes, charms, amulets, witchcraft^ fox possession, 
 etc., that is properly neither the one nor the other. 
 
 Let us review the list of religious ideas which these 
 systems" present. They have the ideas of the existence 
 of God, or gods ; prayer, both public and private ; 
 sacred houses, places, times and ceremonies; the indi- 
 vidual existence and immortality of the soul, with its 
 happiness in its future state dependent upon its con- 
 duct here; heaven and hell, although in crude form; 
 the worship of invisible spiritual deities ; sacrifices ; 
 sin as defilement and as uncontrolled selfish passion ; 
 the consequent necessity of purification and salvation, 
 and that such salvation may be by works or through 
 faith in the merits of another. 
 
 These ideas certainly constitute no small spiritual 
 inheritance. So far as they can be separated from 
 accompanying error, they are a real preparation for 
 receiving the truths of Christianity, as no one will 
 doubt who has heard a Japanese preacher point to the 
 ancient sacrifices, prayers and doctrines as proof that 
 what he says has always been acknowledged in prin- 
 ciple by the Japanese themselves. The words "so far 
 as they can be separated from accompanying error" 
 are important to the accuracy of the above statement, 
 for these primary religious ideas are not found in 
 Shinto and Buddhism in a pure state, but overlaid 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 45 
 
 with a mass of error that forms a mighty hindrance to 
 the reception of spiritual teaching. As everywhere, so 
 in Japan, the root idea of polytheism is pantheism, the 
 identification of the Creator with the creature, with 
 all the loss of personality in the deity and consequent 
 loss of personal responsibility in the worshipper that 
 pantheism implies. I need not dwell upon this, as it 
 must be evident to every thoughtful person what a 
 degradation of the religious impulse idolatry involves. 
 This is especially seen among the Japanese in the 
 weakness of their sense of sin. Although as shown 
 already, it is to be found in their systems, it is rare to 
 find it in individuals. The lack of conception of a per- 
 sonal relation to a personal God has worked out this 
 result in Japan perhaps more perfectly than anywhere 
 else. 
 
 Moreover, even if we recognize the primary relig- 
 ious ideas involved in these systems as true and valu- 
 able, it does not follow that these ideas could not have 
 been preserved except through such a system, or that 
 the existence of the system is itself a benefit. On the 
 contrary, the partial satisfaction of the religious in- 
 stinct which a system like Buddhism supplies may de- 
 stroy instead of stimulating the religious appetite for 
 the real and complete truth. It is probable, for exam- 
 ple, that the present more rapid advance of Christian- 
 ity among the Koreans is due, in part, at least, to the 
 complete absence of Buddhism in that country, leaving 
 the heart free from any supposed satisfaction of its 
 primary religious need. 
 
46 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 III. Moral Conditions. 
 
 In turning now to consider the moral ideas and 
 practices of the Japanese, we must guard ourselves 
 against the danger of looking for anything strange or 
 striking in such a sphere. Primary moral ideas are 
 everywhere the same. They are human rather than 
 national or racial. There are certain differences be- 
 tween the morality of one country and another, and 
 jiaturally these differences receive the greatest atten- 
 tion in any discussion of the subject, but in point of 
 fact the resemblances are always much more profound 
 and significant than the differences. The sources of 
 Japanese morality, or, rather, the formulations of it — 
 for apart from the Bible the source of moral knowl- 
 edge is everywhere the revelation of God's will in the 
 conscience — are to be found in the two religions men- 
 tioned and in the two moral codes, Confucianism and 
 Bushido, or the code of knightly honor. Bushido is 
 really nothing new. Its sources are to be found in 
 Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism, with the em- 
 phasis laid upon such virtues as naturally come to the 
 front under a system of military feudalism, such as 
 existed in Japan from the twelfth century to the be- 
 ginning of the present era. 
 
 From the great Chinese teachers, for the general 
 term "Confucianism" includes the teachings of Men- 
 cius as well as those of Confucius, the Japanese 
 learned a system of moral philosophy complete in it- 
 self, depending upon no religion to give it sanction and 
 power. Five relations of men in the social order are 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 47 
 
 distinguished: those of ruler and subject, father and 
 son, elder brothers and younger brothers, husbands 
 and wives, and friends. Upon these five relations 
 Confucius builds his moral system, which accordingly 
 lays great emphasis upon the duty of reverence and 
 obedience from the lower to the higher. The duties 
 of the higher ranks to the lower are also recognized, 
 but receive very little emphasis, at least, in the Jap- 
 anese apprehension of the system. The ideal man is 
 represented in the classics as the "Kunshi," or Super- 
 man, the philosopher, and in extended conversations 
 between the master and his disciples, the latter are 
 taught how the superior man acts under different cir- 
 cumstances, and how they should imitate him. In 
 point of influence, there is no ethical system in Japan 
 to compare with the teachings of these Chinese 
 classics. They were for centuries the chief text books 
 of the nation, and are to-day the sources from which 
 the teacher of morality in a Japanese school draws his 
 maxims and illustrations. In the famous Rescript on 
 Education, issued in 1889, their overwhelming influ- 
 ence is clearly seen. The sermons and lectures of 
 Shinto and Buddhist teachers are also largely tinged 
 with Confucianism. That this influence is a pervasive 
 rather than a formal or public force is evident from 
 the fact that there is not to-day any magazine that can 
 be regarded as outright an organ of Confucianism, 
 although the Confucian ideas are continually crop- 
 ping out in Shinto, Buddhist, non-religious, or even 
 Christian journals. Doubtless the absence of any Con- 
 fucian propaganda is primarily to be ascribed to the 
 
48 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 lack of any Confucian establishment, in the sense of 
 temples and a priesthood. 
 
 From or through these different systems the Jap- 
 anese have learned to recognize all of the ordinary 
 moral duties. So long as we confine ourselves to the 
 outward conduct, the chief, if not the only, essential 
 difference between their ideas and ours lies in the pro- 
 portion and rank of the virtues. 
 
 In each of the four systems tremendous emphasis 
 is laid upon the fact that duties arise from relations — 
 relations to other men, not to God. Hence what the 
 superior demands, or what benefits the family is duty, 
 the contrary is sin. The moral quality of an act that 
 concerns the individual only is of secondary impor- 
 tance. This is the ruling principle in all but Buddhism, 
 where it is replaced by the duty of self-repression, 
 not less adapted to kill the feeling of individual moral 
 responsibility. Accordingly, the individual has little to 
 say. He is swallowed up in the mass. He bows to the 
 will of another, so that the idea of deciding for one's 
 self what is right and doing that, in the face of a con- 
 trary command from father or mother or ruler, yea, 
 of the Mikado himself, is utterly foreign to Japanese 
 ethics. This may be the reason, as is sometimes urged, 
 why the supreme value which we attach to the per- 
 sonal virtues of truthfulness and chastity is by the 
 Japanese accorded to the social virtues of obedience, 
 submission and loyalty. 
 
 If it be asked how far, with all this moral teaching, 
 the Japanese have succeeded in realizing their ideals 
 in their conduct, and what is now the practical moral- 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 49 
 
 ity of the people, we enter upon a delicate and difficult 
 subject, upon which the most divergent judgments 
 have been pronounced, and in regard to which al- 
 most any opinion can be sustained by a fair degree of 
 evidence. I must be understood as merely giving my 
 judgment, a judgment not carelessly formed, but yet, 
 in view of the complicated nature of the problem a 
 judgment not even remotely possessing a claim to 
 finality. 
 
 There are certain virtues that are very conspicuous 
 Among the Japanese. They are, on the whole, cheer- 
 ful, gentle, industrious, law-abiding, respectful and 
 kind to parents and to the aged, mutually helpful, and 
 polite. In some things they are distinctly superior to 
 ourselves. They are more law-abiding. They are 
 more patient and courteous in trying circumstances. 
 
 On the other hand, there are not less prominent 
 vices. The two that are most prominent are insincer- 
 ity and unchastity, using both terms in the widest 
 sense. These are the chief moral hindrances to the 
 acceptance of the gospel by the Japanese, and they 
 are of fearful power. The more I associate with the 
 Japanese and study their writings, whether ancient or 
 modern, the more deeply I am impressed with their 
 undervaluation of truth for its own sake. It would 
 be too much to say that they have no conscience about 
 lying, for they do perceive the greater moral beauty 
 and value of the truth when contrasted directly and ab- 
 stractly with falsehood, with nothing to offset it, but a 
 lie that seems to serve the purposes of filial piety, or 
 loyalty, or benevolence, or religion, at once loses its 
 4 
 
50 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 enormity and becomes a virtue. Hence they are so 
 impregnated with the idea that reHgion is a pious 
 fraud, a He invented to make men good, that they find 
 it almost impossible to take it seriously. The follow- 
 ing opinion has become very prevalent, which was ex- 
 pressed by a Japanese writer in the ''J^P^'^ Mail :" "If 
 the great men in past ages professed faith in Chris- 
 tianity, it is quite within the Hmits of probability that 
 they only pretended to believe in it in order to set a 
 good example for the lower classes to follow." That 
 the writer was honest in making this particular state- 
 ment I have no doubt, but clearly he could not get 
 such a thought into his head unless a profound and 
 habitual insincerity pervaded his own life and the so- 
 ciety in which he moves. Such a man has not even 
 caught a glimpse of that enthusiasm for truth which 
 animates Christian men. 
 
 The next great moral obstacle is the sexual impurity 
 of the country. In this I refer not so much to open 
 prostitution as to the widespread callousness with re- 
 gard to the moral evil of illegitimate sexual inter- 
 course, and the low ideas of marriage. Trouble of 
 this kind begins very early. In our school, the stu- 
 dents are from fourteen to twenty years of age, but 
 we have to be on our guard, not only against self- 
 abuse, but especially against sodomy, and numerous 
 cases of discipline arise out of this form of impurity, 
 as well as out of improper relations to women. In 
 society at large co-habitation without marriage, concu- 
 binage and fornication are extensively practiced, with 
 very little protest except from Christian sources. 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 51 
 
 Other evils along the same line are the extreme lax- 
 ity and prevalence of divorce; the presence of the 
 geisha, or dancing girl, in well-nigh all social entd- 
 tainments, public and private; unlicensed prostitution, 
 concerning which no figures can be given ; and public, 
 licensed prostitution, of which the published statistics 
 are sufficiently appalling. 
 
 In Tokyo one person in every 219 of the population 
 is a licensed prostitute. In Osaka the proportion is 
 one in 163, and in Nagasaki it is one in 76.* 
 
 What these figures mean becomes clearer when we 
 reflect that one-half of the population are males, and 
 that of the remaining one-half only about forty per 
 cent, by an extreme calculation, are of suitable age. 
 It means, then, that in the city of Nagasaki one wo- 
 man in every thirteen or fourteen of suitable age is a 
 public prostitute. Of course, this is exceptional. This 
 proportion is far from holding for the whole coun- 
 try. Nevertheless, the country over, it is so serious, 
 and the supply of women willing to engage in this 
 business is so great that they are exported in large 
 numbers, so that Japanese houses of prostitution arc 
 found in considerable numbers in Siberia, Manchuria, 
 Korea, in the large cities of China, in Singapore, and 
 in Dutch and British India. A Japanese journalist in- 
 formed me after an examination of government rec- 
 ords, that at the end of 1908, out of 56,000 Japanese 
 
 *These are official figures, published in the "Japan Weekly 
 Mail," June 25, 1910, p. 937. The figures there given for 
 Nagasaki is one in 46, but comparison of number of prostitutes 
 with population shows this to ba an error for 76. 
 
52 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 women and girls in the Korean peninsula, more than 
 4,000 were to be reckoned as either nominally or prac- 
 tically prostitutes. 
 
 Any person of a little experience and moral insight 
 understands that such things do not arise by accident, 
 but that behind them lies a condition of moral callous- 
 ness on this particular point that is a serious hindrance 
 to the gospel. 
 
 The limits of time do not permit an adequate dis- 
 cussion of the question whether the religious and 
 moral condition of the Japanese people is advancing 
 or retrograding. Opinions in abundance could be 
 quoted from high Japanese authorities in support of 
 the position that Shinto is no longer a religion, but 
 only an elaborate ceremonial to indicate respect for 
 the Imperial house and the national heroes ; that 
 Buddhism is on its last legs, subject to hopeless de- 
 cay; and that the morality of the country is rapidly 
 declining. I am myself, however, unconvinced on all 
 of these points. 
 
 Ten years ago I was far more confident in regard to 
 the decay of Shinto and Buddhism than I am now, 
 and, if I mistake not, this is quite a common experi- 
 ence among the missionaries. That I am not so sure 
 of it now is due, in part, I hope, to the more intimate 
 contact with the people which I have recently enjoyed 
 and to a deeper insight, but is to be ascribed also, I 
 think, to a real revival, both of Shinto and of Budd- 
 hism during recent years. The great victory over 
 Russia, won, as many believe, through the help of the 
 Imperial ancestors, and resulting in a number of new 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 53 
 
 additions to the national Pantheon, has done much to 
 strengthen Shinto. The evidences of an increasing 
 interest in Buddhism and of greater activity in Budd- 
 hist circles are also too numerous and patent to be ig- 
 nored. The impulse to a revival of Buddhism has no 
 doubt come largely from the Christian movement and 
 results from a deeper interest in religion as such. So 
 far as this is the case, it must eventually work out 
 for good. What it will lead to we cannot at present 
 say, except that Buddhism still abides in its strength 
 and may prove itself, in the next generation, to be a 
 much more formidable antagonist than has hitherto 
 been supposed. 
 
 As to the moral decline, I am more inclined to agree 
 with the prevalent opinion, not only because this opin- 
 ion is supported by many facts in the literature and 
 life of the people, but also on a priori grounds. There 
 are certain causes at work in Japan which can hardly 
 have any other effect than to break down both the re- 
 ligious beliefs and the moral standards of the people. 
 
 The first of these forces is the commercial and ma- 
 terial occidental form of civilization with which Japan 
 is now coming into such intimate contact. There has 
 been a mighty upheaval in Japan within the last forty 
 years. Ancient landmarks in society and government 
 have been removed. New industries, laws, opportuni- 
 ties, ideas, and customs have come in. The ancestral 
 moral and religious landmarks have been in many 
 minds removed with the rest. When we remember 
 how many people base their morality rather upon 
 the custom of the community or circle within which 
 
54 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 they move than upon principle, we cannot help antici- 
 pating that in a country where almost everything is 
 in a state of flux, morality will suffer. 
 
 Further, the commercial progress of Japan has 
 greatly increased her available wealth. Thus thou- 
 sands have the means for the gratification of their 
 lusts who lacked opportunity before. What can this 
 result in but an increase of moral evil ? 
 
 Finally, a very powerful influence in the same di- 
 rection is the system of education, both in its higher 
 and lower departments. The increase of the common 
 schools has resulted in a rapid increase of intelligence 
 among the people. Intelligence is not inconsistent 
 with Christianity, perhaps not with some forms of 
 Buddhism, but it is utterly inconsistent with a beUef 
 in Buddhism and Shinto as known to the odinary per- 
 son in Japan. The consequence is that, knowing no 
 other religion, they identify religion with idolatry and 
 superstition, and having become too intelligent to be- 
 lieve in these, they become dead to religious feeling 
 or conviction. In this way the common schools, 
 merely by teaching the elements of knowledge, do 
 their part towards destroying the religious life of the 
 nation. This process is completed in the higher 
 schools, where the student is supplied with a scientific 
 defense of such a position by studying the agnostic 
 philosophy of the day. Absolute scepticism is in most 
 cases the inevitable result. To this the educated Jap- 
 anese mind is predisposed by the influence of Confu- 
 cianism, by the idea that religion is a fraud to regu- 
 late the conduct of ignorant men, and by the lack of 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 55 
 
 profound philosophical insight in the Japanese mind, 
 a characteristic that is noticed by almost all students 
 of the national character. 
 
 The result is that agnosticism is at present every- 
 where triumphant in Japan. 
 
 I need not take the trouble to point out how com- 
 pletely this agnostic and materialistic philosophy cuts 
 away the ground from under the moral law as well as 
 the religious belief. Japanese educators teach the 
 old moral maxims diligently, but they are bound to 
 discover, and some of them are already discovering, 
 that their philosophy is stronger than their maxims. 
 
 Two results already appear. On the one hand, 
 some of the noblest natures are driven to despair. The 
 suicide of a certain Fujimura Misao, in 1903, who was 
 driven to despair by the study of philosophy was in it- 
 self startling enough, but his example was so frequent- 
 ly followed that the police were obliged to place senti- 
 nels near the spot where he died to prevent similar 
 suicides, and in spite of this precaution scores of 
 young men have cut short their own lives because 
 their philosophy had left them no sufficient cause to 
 live. 
 
 The other result, occurring, of course, with infinite- 
 ly greater frequency, is that the lusts of the flesh pre- 
 vail over the conscience, unenlightened and unin- 
 structed by any adequate religious principles, and 
 that the life which, throwing off all restraint, gratifies 
 only its own desires is not only led, but is justified as 
 the only reasonable and proper course. Hence arises 
 the influence of what is called in Japan "Naturalism," 
 
56 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 which is hardly more than another name for the prin- 
 ciple of lust, deliberately adopted and philosophically 
 defended. Many educators have expressed themselves 
 as greatly alarmed over the moral decline of young 
 men and women, but they do not seem to recognize 
 the fact that the Imperial University sows the seed 
 from which the police courts reap the harvest. 
 
 We have finished our brief and necessarily very in- 
 adequate review of the conditions under which the 
 missionary purpose must be accomplished in modern 
 Japan. No one can thoughtfully consider all the ele- 
 ments that go to make up the social, political, religious 
 and moral life of the people of Japan to-day without 
 feeling that, although the outward conditions are fav- 
 orable, the inner conditions make it a very difficult mis- 
 sion field. So it is now generally regarded. Some 
 writers have even pronounced it the most difficult field 
 of all. Certain it is that the problem presented here 
 has no parallel in the history of the church since the 
 evangelization of the Roman Empire, if, indeed, that 
 be a true parallel. Since that time the message of the 
 gospel has always been borne to uncivilized races, or, 
 at least, to races on a lower plane of advancement 
 than the missionaries were. This is not so with us. 
 We come as equals, not as superiors, and we come to a 
 nation armed against our persuasions by the most 
 modern intellectual weapons taken from the arsenals 
 of western infidelity. Need we wonder if many a by- 
 stander asks whether there is any chance of success 
 for Christianity in Japan? Under God, it is ours to 
 answer that question. If we are alert and faithful. 
 
CONDITIONS IN JAPAN 57 
 
 we need not doubt the result, but certainly the victory 
 will not be obtained without a mighty exertion of the 
 resources of the churches in America. To secure this 
 it is essential that the magnitude of the task be real- 
 ized, and that the idea that the work in Japan will 
 soon be finished should be utterly put away. 
 
 On the other hand, the prize is worth all its costs. 
 Where else can we find a nobler people looking for- 
 ward to a greater future? The words of Milton m 
 regard to the English people ring out as if written for 
 the Japanese of to-day. 
 
 "Consider what a nation it is, a nation not slow and dull, 
 but of quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, 
 subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any 
 point the highest that human capacity can soar to. The shop 
 of war hath not more anvils and hammers there, working to 
 fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in 
 defense of beleaguered Truth, than there be pens and heads 
 there, sitting by studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving 
 new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their 
 homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation; others 
 as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of 
 reason and convincement. 
 
 "What would a man require more from a nation so pliant 
 and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to 
 such a towardly and pregnant soil but wise and faithful labor- 
 ers to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, 
 and of worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to 
 harvest, there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift 
 up: the fields are white already." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Organization of the Christian Church, the 
 
 First Great Step in the Accomplishment of 
 
 Our Purpose. 
 
 In our first chapter we saw that the grand object of 
 missions is not merely to evangeHze a country, but to 
 organize within it a permanent agency for keeping the 
 truth before the people, an agency so well established 
 that we can presently withdraw, in the confident ex- 
 pectation that future generations no less than the pres- 
 ent will have the blessings of the gospel. There can 
 be no doubt as to which form such a permanent 
 agency should assume. The Christian church is the 
 divinely ordained organization for the preservation 
 and propagation of the gospel. To her are committed 
 the oracles of God, to her is given the task of preach- 
 ing the gospel of a risen Lord to the ends of the 
 earth. She is "the pillar and ground of the faith," 
 for without the organization of the church that truth 
 would be lost to the world in a single generation. 
 
 The church, in her essential life, is one, as her task 
 is one; but if we hold the conception of the church 
 that has always prevailed among the Protestant, and 
 especially among the Reformed believers, it is evident 
 that churches established in two very distant countries 
 or among two diverse races can do their work best 
 when independent of one another, and that such inde- 
 pendence is not in conflict with their essential one-ness. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 59 
 
 For this reason the Reformed Church in America felt 
 it no offense to be distinct from the Reformed Church 
 in the Netherlands, and even the Episcopal bodies in 
 England and in the United States consider it unde- 
 sirable to be one in outward form. There will be no 
 question, then, that in lands like China and Japan the 
 church ought, as soon as she has gained sufficient 
 strength, to be organized on a basis of absolute inde- 
 pendence of the parent churches in America and Eng- 
 land, although in cordial relations of fellowship with 
 them. This is therefore the principle upon which the 
 chief missions in Japan are proceeding. 
 
 As it is impossible to follow out the history of all 
 the different branches of the church in this lecture, I 
 invite your attention. 
 
 I. To a brief review of the development of the 
 church at large. 
 
 II. To a more particular examination of the body 
 resulting from the labors of the Presbyterian and Re- 
 formed missionaries. 
 
 III. To a few remarks on the present condition of 
 the church and its peculiar problems. 
 
 I. The Development of the Church at Large. 
 
 We may pass rapidly over the years before 1872, 
 the story of which is doubtless famiHar. It was a 
 period of hard and faithful labor, with considerable 
 danger, but the fruits were not at once apparent. Here 
 and there a single convert gave no hint of the great 
 blessing to come, but the publication of Dr. Hepburn's 
 Japanese dictionary, in 1867, was a great and perma- 
 nent gain. Three events mark the close of this period. 
 
6o MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 the publication of the Gospel of Matthew in the ver- 
 nacular, in 1872; the organization of the first Chris- 
 tian church, in the following year ; and the inaugura- 
 tion of practical religious liberty after the removal of 
 the public anti-Christian notices, in 1873. The way 
 was now fairly open for advance. 
 
 The advance, when it came, was truly remarkable. 
 Including both 1872 and 1889, we have a period of 
 eighteen years, at the outset of which -there were no 
 churches and not more than a dozen converts, while 
 at the close there were no less than 29,000 believers 
 organized in 274 churches. The average annual in- 
 crease for the whole period amounts thus to more than 
 fifteen hundred, while the progression is by geometri- 
 cal ratio, for the figures show that from 1877 to 1889, 
 a period of twelve years, the number of converts dou- 
 bled every three years. 
 
 In 1877 there were 1617 believers. 
 
 In 1880 there were 3256 believers. 
 
 In 1883 there were 5591 beHevers. 
 
 In 1886 there were 13269 believers.. 
 
 In 1889 there were 28977 believers. 
 
 The more one thinks of this, the more remarkable it 
 appears. It would be interesting to know how fre- 
 quently in the history of the Christian church a simi- 
 lar rate of progress was maintained in a heathen coun- 
 try for such a space of time. There are certain rea- 
 sons connected with the state of Japanese society at 
 that time that can be offered in partial explanation of 
 this phenomenon. These are the natural curiosity of 
 many to hear what the Christian religion was, espec- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 6i 
 
 iaily the interest attaching to something so long and so 
 strictly prohibited by the Tokugawa government, 
 which had been driven from power; the exaggerated 
 value put upon all things Western at that time; the 
 desire of many young men to learn the English lan- 
 guage, which brought them under the influence of the 
 missionaries ; and, most of all, the existence in socie- 
 ty of a large class, the socalled "samurai" or literary 
 and military class, to whom the new order of affairs 
 meant a complete revolution in private as well as in 
 public interests. 
 
 The Samurai were not generally Buddhists, they 
 were trained to take a lively interest in the discussion 
 of moral and intellectual matters, and most of them 
 had leisure to attend to such discussion. Accordingly, 
 for a time, it became a sort of fashion with them to at- 
 tend meetings and in other ways inquire into Chris- 
 tianity. In this process, many were converted. So 
 prominent were they and so completely did they shut 
 out of consideration the rest of the population that al- 
 most everything hitherto written in regard to the ideas, 
 habits, and character of the Japanese proceeds upon 
 the supposition that the Samurai are the Japanese peo- 
 ple. For a long time no one seemed to notice that be- 
 neath this upper crust slumbered the majority of the 
 nation, an inert mass, subject, in their inner life, to 
 no such mercurial changes, to be moved, if moved at 
 all, only by the much slower processes of education 
 and evangelization. 
 
 The situation v^as therefore comparable to a mass 
 of forest wood, consisting almost entirely of heavy 
 
62 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 green logs, but containing also a small quantity of dry 
 brush. When the torch is applied, such a pile of wood 
 will take fire readily and burn with a fierceness that 
 suggests to an observer the speedy consumption of the 
 whole mass. In a short time, however, the brush is 
 burnt out, and the logs are seen to have been barely 
 touched. This illustration gives one a fairly correct 
 idea of what took place in Japan during the eighties. 
 While we must recognize these various elements in 
 the situation, however, they supply no explanation of 
 how the torch came to be applied. This, the spiritual 
 element in the work, is after all the most important. 
 'This is found in the remarkable out-pouring of the 
 fHoly Spirit that began about 1883. The result was a 
 ' series of revivals, that spread to all parts of the coun- 
 try, and lasted for several years. 
 
 Dr. Ritter, in his "History of Protestant Missions 
 in Japan" gives an extensive review of these revivals, 
 a review that is all the more interesting because the 
 learned Dr. is not in hearty sympathy with them. In 
 summing up he says : 
 
 "Let us once more survey the whole in order to arrive as 
 nearly as possible at an impartial judgment. As constantly 
 recurring features there stand out prominently: a strong real- 
 ization of the sinner's lost condition; confession of sin and 
 prayer for forgiveness with tears and strong excitement, fre- 
 quently in the presence of the assembled congregation; peace 
 and joy in the consciousness of the forgiveness effected 
 through the Holy Ghost ; the asserted impartation of the Holy 
 Spirit to individuals and to whole assemblies, at times sud- 
 denly perceptible. A growing interest in Bible study is also 
 mentioned as a happy result. Another striking manifestation 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 63 
 
 was a great zeal on the part of those reached by the revival 
 in telling others of their own inner experiences and in laboring 
 for their conversion. There was also a desire on the part of 
 those not yet reached to be brought under Christian influence, 
 and, moreover, constant prayer for revivals and for the out- 
 pouring of the Holy Spirit. Revivals also occurred in women's 
 meetings and in boys' and girls' meetings down to children of 
 most tender years." 
 
 Further evidence of the remarkable character of 
 those years in Japan, especially of the latter half of 
 the eighties, is supplied by the missionary magazines 
 of the time and by the reports of the Council of Mis- 
 sions. These latter are very condensed summaries of 
 the work of the year, but still they contain on every 
 page notices of churches organized within a few 
 months of the beginning of work in those communi- 
 ties, or interesting accounts of notable conversions, ac- 
 companied with surrender of property for the use of 
 the gospel, especially property previously used for the 
 manufacture of liquor or other immoral purposes. 
 
 One great advantage of the rapid increase of con- 
 verts was that the organization of the church could 
 now be proceeded with. By the end of the period the 
 Christian churches of Japan were an established fact. 
 On the other hand, the exaggerated ideas as to the fu- 
 ture prosperity of missions in Japan, to which I al- 
 luded in the first lecture, were also born out of the 
 circumstances of the time. The idea that mission- 
 aries could soon be withdrawn was based partly upon 
 a faulty theory of the missionary purpose, but this 
 fact escaped detection so long as Japanese and foreign 
 
64 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 workers, as well as the church at home, were intoxi- 
 cated with their wonderful success. We smile sadly 
 now at their enthusiastic predictions, but he must be 
 a cold-hearted missionary who can read the accounts 
 in contemporary sources without wishing that he had 
 been there. If he had been, no doubt he would have 
 been as much deceived by the prospect as the rest. 
 
 The fact remains, however, that they were deceived, 
 and that completely. 
 
 The Thirteenth Annual Report of the Council of 
 Missions, covering the year 1889, records a decrease 
 in the number of baptisms and of the contributions. 
 This was the beginning of what we call "The Great 
 Reaction." The causes were very various and com- 
 plex, too much so to permit of their discussion in a 
 condensed lecture. They were of a nature partly sec- 
 ular and partly religious. The secular causes include 
 the refusal of Western governments, for a long time, 
 to revise certain treaties, the growing influence of the 
 educational system, and the remarkable advance of 
 the country in every respect, with the natural feeling 
 of self-satisfaction thereby engendered, so that the 
 Japanese to some extent lost the very docility to which 
 they owed their progress. The more directly religious 
 and moral causes include the unavoidable reaction that 
 follows every revival, the introduction into the coun- 
 try of all kinds of unbelief, both openly, — in the ag- 
 nostic teaching of the University or the translations 
 of all kinds of agnostic literature, — and under cover 
 of the Christian name. The Hberal German theolo- 
 gians entered the field in 1885 and the Unitarians in 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 65 
 
 1888. Perhaps it is hardly fair to name these two to- 
 gether without recognizing the fact that the Evangel- 
 ical Protestant Missionary Society must be admitted 
 to stand for many of the fundamental doctrines of the 
 faith, while Unitarianism, at least as it appears in 
 Japan, has no just title to be called a religious, not to 
 say a Christian system. Other causes were the issue 
 of a rescript on education by the Emperor, interpreted, 
 — I think mis-interpreted — by one of the most famous 
 professors in such a way as to make it appear an act 
 of disloyalty for any Japanese to become a Christian; 
 the prevalence of liberal views among missionaries of 
 the regular boards ; and the return to Japan of young 
 Japanese who had studied the Higher Criticism and 
 other similar destructive theories at American univer- 
 sities. All this led to much discussion and controversy. 
 The most serious conflicts of faith were thrust upon 
 the infant church. It was like Hercules, obliged in 
 his very cradle to give battle for his life. 
 
 The result of all these component forces was that 
 we saw dark days during the decade from 1890 to 
 1900. We had a hard struggle to hold our own. The 
 spiritual life of the church grew cold, evangelistic zeal 
 left the believers, Sunday observance declined, contri- 
 butions fell off, and the lives of many Christians were 
 a disgrace to their profession. Consequently the num- 
 erical advance during that period was very slow in- 
 deed. This was not so much from lack of baptisms 
 as from heavy losses through removals, withdrawals, 
 and discipline. I have not the figures at hand for the 
 whole Protestant body, but in the Church of Christ 
 5 
 
^ MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 alone the admissions on confession for the ten years 
 from 1890 to 1899, both inclusive, were about 6,600, 
 while the net increase for the entire ten years was 
 about 600. Out of 6,600, 6,000 had disappeared ! 
 
 But we should make a great mistake if we failed to 
 remember that in spiritual, no less than in temporal mat- 
 ters, "sickness and health, barren and fruitful seasons, 
 prosperity and adversity, come to us, not by chance, 
 but from God's fatherly hand." While we recognize 
 the secondary causes we have enumerated, we know 
 perfectly well that He had forces in reserve that could 
 have neutralized them all and made the victory of the 
 church to proceed unchecked. The reason why He 
 did not do it is simply that it was better not to do it. 
 Certain benefits were ultimately to accrue to the 
 church and its work, and for this reason trial was 
 permitted to come. We can not yet point out all the 
 advantages the reaction contained, but we may discern 
 some of them. The first of these was the sifting of 
 the membership. During the period of rapid growth 
 not a few had gotten into the church who did not be- 
 long there. Their leaving was a benefit to the body. 
 They went out from us because they were not of us. 
 
 It was also a great benefit that the church was for a 
 time less in the public eye. Retirement into compara- 
 tive obscurity gave it time to grow inwardly, as when 
 a gardener covers the leaves of a plant that in the 
 darkness its roots may go down deeper into the soil. 
 Again, on account of the slower growth the tendency 
 of the missionaries to leave things prematurely in the 
 hands of the Japanese church was checked. They de- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 67 
 
 voted themselves in increasing numbers and with re- 
 newed zeal to the work of evangelization, which in the 
 time of greatest prosperity had been largely left to 
 the native preachers. They made a deeper study, also, 
 of the principles of missions and of the spiritual need 
 of the Japanese people, a study that led to important 
 and salutary results. 
 
 The decade 1900 to 1909 opened with a wide- 
 spread special evangelistic effort inaugurated by the 
 Evangelical Alliance. A large work was done all 
 over the country and it was evident that the Chris- 
 tian forces were much larger and better organized 
 than had ever been the case before. In some places 
 revivals were reported, and a number of remarkable 
 conversions took place. On the whole, however, the 
 immediate and visible results were small, and it did 
 not, as many hoped, inaugurate a new period in the 
 evangelization of Japan. The real revival power was 
 lacking. Consequently the general character of the 
 advance during this decade has remained the same as 
 in the one before, viz., slow progress gained at the ex- 
 pense of much hard work. In view of the increase in 
 the number of workers, both native and foreign, their 
 better distribution throughout the country, their im- 
 proved qualifications from every point of view, and 
 their riper experience, it is safe to say that far more 
 work and better directed work has been done in the 
 past ten than in the previous twenty years ; and yet 
 the tabulated statistical results are disappointing. The 
 increase in communicant membership during the de- 
 cade was nearly nineteen hundred per year as against 
 
68 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 nearly thirteen hundred a year from 1889 to 1899, 
 which yields almost exactly the same percentage, 44 
 or 45 per cent, of increase in ten years. 
 
 The internal growth of the church in this decade, 
 however, has been very marked. The Christian schools, 
 both for young men and young women, have made 
 immense gains, self-support has made great strides 
 forward, Sunday School work, Christian literature, 
 hymnology, publication, and Bible distribution have all 
 made notable progress. These various kinds of growth 
 ought sooner or later to express themselves in rapidly 
 increasing church attendance and numerous conver- 
 sions, and we may not doubt that such a time will 
 come, but for the present we have to confess that 
 there is less apparent progress than could be desired. 
 
 One encouraging item we should not omit to notice, 
 however, and that is that we are constantly gaining 
 on the population, and that in spite of the fact that the 
 population increases at the rate of half a million souls 
 a year. In 1888 there was one communicant Protestant 
 Christian to 1661 of the population; in 1898 the pro- 
 portion was 1-1067, and in 1908 it was 1-85 1. 
 
 According to the latest returns, some of the most 
 important statistical items are as follows. 
 
 Statistics of the Missionary Work in Japan. 
 
 From the "Christian Movement" for 1911. 
 
 Communicants, 63,915 
 
 Total Membership, including Probation- 
 ers, Baptized Children, etc 78,875 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 69 
 
 Missionaries, Married Men, 289 
 
 Ditto, Unmarried, 36 
 
 Ditto, Unmarried Women, ^44 
 
 Total Missionaries, including Wives 958 
 
 Organized Churches, 586 
 
 Self-supporting Churches, 173 
 
 Contributions for all purposes, Yen 300,367 $150,183.50 
 
 The Church of Christ in Japan. 
 
 Among the different ecclesiastical bodies, we, as 
 members of the Reformed Church, are particularly 
 concerned with what is known as the Church of Christ 
 in Japan, the fruit of the labors, gifts and prayers of 
 the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in America 
 and Scotland. It is not only in the past that we have 
 to do with this church, but our work for the future 
 must be greatly influenced by our relations to it. 
 
 In March, 1872, the first church in Japan was or- 
 ganized at Yokohama, as the result of a special series 
 of prayer-meetings of great fervor and power. '*It 
 consisted of nine students, partly pupils of the Rev. 
 J. H. Ballagh, of the Dutch Reformed Church, who 
 were baptized on that day, and of two older Japanese, 
 who had been previously baptized." Mr. Ballagh was 
 chosen pastor of this church, while the two older men 
 became, one an elder, the other a deacon. This local 
 organization is now known as the Kaigan church. A 
 second church was organized Sept. 20, 1873, under the 
 guidance of the Rev. David Thompson, at Tokyo. This 
 church was closely associated with the one at Yoko- 
 
70 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 hama, the two meeting twice a year for counsel and 
 necessary action. This formed the nucleus of a de- 
 nomination, to which two other churches, one in the 
 province of Ueda, and one at Nagasaki, were added be- 
 fore 1877. These four local churches therefore 
 formed "The Church of Christ in Japan," which has 
 never had the slightest ecclesiastical relation to any 
 foreign body. 
 
 Five other churches, however, were organized by 
 the Presbyterians, and were, with the missionaries 
 themselves, formed into a Presbytery, according to the 
 constitution of that church. 
 
 In 1877 all the churches under the care of the Amer- 
 ican and Scotch Presbyterians united with those es- 
 tablished by the Reformed Church into one body, with 
 the cordial consent of the authorities at home. The 
 rules of church government were in the main like 
 those of the home churches, and the standards of doc- 
 trine were the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the 
 Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith, and the Canons of Dort. Nine churches joined 
 in this union. The number of members was 623. A 
 Presbytery was organized, and remained the govern- 
 ing body until 1881, when it was divided into three, 
 and the Synod, already provided for in the constitu- 
 tion, was formed. It met in its first session in No- 
 vember, 1 88 1. 
 
 While the churches were thus joined in organic un- 
 ion, the missions allied themselves in a council, al- 
 ready several times referred to in these lectures as 
 The Council of Missions. This has annual meetings, 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 71 
 
 and transacts business of common interest. Although 
 its decisions are advisory only. It has been from the 
 beginning a body of great influence. In 1885 the mis- 
 sion of the Southern Presb. Church, in 1886 that of 
 the German Reformed Church, and in 1889 that of the 
 Cumberland Presb. Church, joined the Council and 
 united their efforts with those of the Church of Christ. 
 Thus was the United Church of Christ in Japan 
 called into existence in 1877, Presbyterian in its or- 
 organization, and in line with the historical Reformed 
 churches in its doctrinal position. That union is a 
 striking proof of the fraternal disposition of the mis- 
 sionaries and of the unselfish purposes of the Pres- 
 byterian and Reformed churches of America and Scot- 
 land. Seldom has the desire for Christian unity found 
 more admirable and practical expression. 
 
 Attempted Union With the Congregational 
 Churches. 
 
 This same anxiety to escape the evils of sectarian- 
 ism, however, led both the missionaries and the Japa- 
 nese into great dangers, for under its influence they 
 were led to attempt to unite also with the Congrega- 
 tional churches, founded by the missionaries of the 
 American Board. After prolonged negotiations, the 
 attempt failed, chiefly on account of opposition among 
 the Congregationalists. Opposing articles appeared in 
 the "Pacific" and in the ''Advance"; the Congrega- 
 tional State Associations of California and Nebraska 
 protested against the proposed action; two missionar- 
 
72 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 ies, the Revs. Sidney L. Gulick and Oramel H. Gulick 
 wrote strong articles on the evils of Presbyterianism, 
 and Dr. Joseph Nishima stood out steadfastly against 
 it, even threatening, in case it was carried, to with- 
 draw from the "Doshisha" and the church. 
 
 The failure of this attempt at union was deeply re- 
 gretted at the time, but most of the missionaries and 
 Japanese ministers are satisfied now that we escaped 
 a great danger, for the extremely liberal teachings of 
 many missionaries and Japanese in the Congregational 
 Churches have since that time placed the difference be- 
 tween them and us in the clearest light. Unrestrained 
 either by the deep spiritual Hfe and sacred traditions 
 that have characterized the Congregational churches 
 of America on the one hand or by any ecclesiastical or 
 credal barriers on the other, certain of the Congre- 
 gational leaders in Japan have become notorious for 
 flying the Christian flag without any basis of Chris- 
 tian truth. Our Presbyterian and Reformed work has 
 suflFered enough from the tendencies of the times. Had 
 the proposed union with the Congregationalists been 
 consummated, the loss would have been appalling. 
 
 Constitutional Position of the Church. 
 
 Closely associated with this movement to unite with 
 the Congregational Churches, and no doubt more or 
 less affected by it, is the subsequent revision of the 
 Constitution and Confession of the church, which was 
 completed in 1890. The constitution then adopted is 
 still in force, with certain amendments. The consti- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 73 
 
 tution as it now stands follows, in the main, the ordi- 
 nary Presbyterian lines, having the three assemblies, 
 besides the general church meeting. Originally the 
 Synod was composed of representatives of the Pres- 
 byteries, but within a year or two this has been 
 changed, so that the churches elect their representa- 
 tives directly, which makes of the Synod little else 
 than a large Classis. This tendency has been accentu- 
 ated by another recent resolution to make the exam- 
 ination and ordination of candidates for the ministry 
 the work of the Synod, not of the Presbyteries. By 
 the Synod is meant the General Synod, but it is not so 
 called, because there has never been a Particular Syn- 
 od. A peculiar provision in the church law is that not 
 every ordained minister votes in Presbytery, only 
 those do so who are installed pastors of churches or 
 professors in theological seminaries recognized by the 
 Synod or who have been appointed by the Classis to 
 take charge of some definite work. In addition to the 
 regular assemblies, recognized in the constitution of 
 the church, there is still another, existing merely by 
 virtue of a resolution of the Synod, viz. the Executive 
 Committee, to which all sorts of matters are referred 
 and which transacts the business of the church during 
 the interim between meetings of the Synod. The com- 
 plaint is frequently heard that this committee is as- 
 suming too much power, and developing into some- 
 thing like a board of bishops. The church at large, 
 however, seems to feel the need of some such body, 
 and continues the same persons in office year after 
 year. 
 
74 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 One more peculiarity of the church organization 
 must be mentioned. After defining a local church as a 
 body of believers organized according to the rules ot 
 the church at large, the constitution distinguishes two 
 kinds of churches, viz., mission churches and churches 
 properly and fully so called. Mission churches are 
 loosely organized groups of Christians, having neither 
 elders nor full rights of representation in Classis. The 
 standard is self-support. A body too weak to pay the 
 salary of a pastor and other ordinary expenses can 
 not be a fully organized church in fellowship with 
 the Church of Christ in Japan. 
 
 It will appear from what has been said that the po- 
 sition of the Church of Christ on the matter of church 
 government is, in general, very satisfactory. The work 
 of the committee to whom the task of preparing a con- 
 stitution was entrusted occupied a whole year, so 
 carefully was it done. The proposed constitution was 
 published in Japanese and in English six months be- 
 fore final action was taken. Finally, in the resultant 
 document the Japanese church availed herself of the 
 principles of ecclesiastical procedure established by the 
 Presbyterian and Reformed churches with which she 
 is in line of historical development. Amendments 
 have been made later as it was considered that the ex- 
 perience and development of the church indicated their 
 wisdom. All this is a sound and admirable procedure. 
 No small credit is due, among others, to Dr. William 
 Imbrie, one of the Presbyterian missionaries, who was 
 especially responsible for drafting the document, a 
 task for which he was peculiarly well adapted, both by 
 nature and by training. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 75 
 
 Confessional Position of the Church. 
 
 It is deeply to be regretted that the procedure of the 
 church in the still more vital matter of the doctrinal 
 standards was in striking contrast to the sound meth- 
 ods employed in preparing the constitution. The mat- 
 ter was originally entrusted to the same committee, 
 but in its report the committee said that while recog- 
 nizing the need of a new confession, it shrank from 
 the work of preparing one, and unanimously offered 
 the EngHsh Articles, i. e., the confession of faith 
 which had just then been adopted by the English Pres- 
 byterian Church, for the acceptance of the Synod. 
 Some of the members of the Synod, however, pro- 
 posed that the Apostles' Creed, and that alone, should 
 be adopted. When, in opposition to this, the obvious 
 insufficiency of that confession was pointed out, it was 
 suggested that a supplementary statement could be in- 
 serted as an introduction to the Apostles' Creed. Dur- 
 ing the recess the following confession was prepared 
 by Dr. Imbrie, and on presentation to the Synod it was 
 adopted unanimously. It should be remarked in pass- 
 ing that the sacraments, not mentioned in the Confes- 
 sion, appear in the Constitution and Canons. 
 
 Confession of Faith. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ, whom we worship as God, the only 
 begotten Son of God, for us men was made man and suffered. 
 He offered up a perfect sacrifice for sin, and all who are made 
 one with Him by faith are pardoned and accounted righteous ; 
 and faith in Him working by love purifieth the heart. 
 
^t MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 The Holy Ghost, who with the Father and the Son is wor- 
 shipped and glorified, reveals Christ to the soul; and without 
 His grace man, being dead in sins, cannot enter the kingdom 
 of God. By Him the prophets and apostles and holy men of 
 old were inspired; and He, speaking in the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testaments is the supreme and infallible judge 
 of all things pertaining to faith and living. 
 
 From these Holp scriptures the ancient church of Christ 
 drew its confession, and we, holding the faith once delivered 
 to the saints, join in that confession with praise and thanks- 
 giving :— 
 
 (Here follows the Apostles' Creed.) 
 
 I have said that this action presents the greatest con- 
 trast to the action in regard to the constitution. That 
 document was the result of a year of labor ; this con- 
 fession was written during a recess between two ses- 
 sions of the Synod : the constitution was printed in 
 both English and Japanese and submitted for inspec- 
 tion and criticism six months before a vote was tak- 
 en: this confession was at once adopted on presenta- 
 tion to the Synod, before the church and the mission- 
 ary body at large had any opportunity so much as to 
 read it. Finally, in the document itself the Japanese 
 Church cut herself ofif from the historical development 
 from which she sprang, for of distinctively Calvinistic 
 ideas there is not the slightest trace. 
 
 The action of the Synod has nevertheless received 
 much praise in many influential quarters. The grounds 
 upon which it is approved are generally those set forth 
 by Dr. Imbrie in the Fourteenth Report of the Coun- 
 cil. Briefly stated, they are that the church must have 
 a creed suited to its own needs, which were not those 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP fj 
 
 of the sixteenth century; that other ancient churches, 
 those of the Nicene and Reformation periods especial- 
 ly, adopted creeds to suit the times; that the Presby- 
 terian Church in America was revising its confession 
 — all good examples for the Japanese church to fol- 
 low ; and that the need called for a simple, irenic con- 
 fession, one binding equally upon pastor and people, a 
 statement that should set forth the great truths of 
 historical Christianity, but should not be a symbol of 
 division among those who love and worship one Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 To my mind, these grounds will not bear careful ex- 
 amination. The first, that "the needs of the church 
 should be the determining element in the adoption of a 
 confession for the church in Japan" is best met with a 
 flat denial. The determining element in a confession 
 is the body of truth to be confessed. The state of the 
 church and the prevalent errors of the day do indeed 
 have their influence on the form of the creed, but as 
 to the substance to be admitted, a creed is a solemn 
 act of self-expression by the church in the domain of 
 faith. She seeks first of all a complete and accurate 
 expression of what she believes. 
 
 Further, the appeal to the example of the ancient 
 church fails to take note of the fact that neither the 
 Nicene fathers nor the Reformers began by throwing 
 overboard what they already possessed. The Nicene 
 fathers retained the Apostles' Creed, and added there- 
 to the truths of which the church had since attained a 
 clearer apprehension. The Reformers did the same; 
 keeping the old creeds, they built upon that founda- 
 
78 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tion. If they rejected anything, they did it because 
 after careful examination they were convinced that it 
 was not in accordance with the Scriptures. No such 
 conviction influenced the Church in Japan. 
 
 Again, that there should be no severer test of orth- 
 odoxy for the leaders and official teachers of the 
 church than for the humblest member, is a proposi- 
 tion that refutes itself. 
 
 Finally, the example of the modern churches to 
 which reference is made should have led the Japanese 
 church to a very different attitude. The Presbyterian 
 Church in America did not revise its confession in any 
 such radical way as the church in Japan. 
 
 No fault can be found with the church for desiring 
 a new statement of her faith. Descended from the 
 Presbyterian churches of England and Scotland on 
 the one hand, and from the Reformed churches of 
 Holland and Germany on the other, there was no rea- 
 son why she should adopt the symbols of the one 
 rather than of the other. To adopt them all, as was at 
 first done, was obviously a compromise, and inappro- 
 priate after the Cumberland Presbyterian Church had 
 been admitted to the body. If the Synod had adopted 
 the report of the committee which recommended the 
 confession of the English Presbyterian Church, or if 
 she had soberly addressed herself to the task of pre- 
 paring a new confession — a task for which her own 
 committee felt that she had not yet the competence, 
 nothing could be said. 
 
 There were not lacking missionaries who strongly 
 disapproved of the action taken. Dr. Verbeck was one 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 79 
 
 of these. They were apparently, however, either in- 
 disposed to raise their voices in such a conflict or de- 
 void of influence. Possibly, in view of all the cir- 
 cumstances they thought it would do more harm than 
 good. It cannot be denied, however, that many of the 
 missionaries erred in undervaluing the supreme im- 
 portance of doctrine. This creed revision affair, as 
 well as other developments in the history of the 
 church finds its explanation partly in New School 
 ideas among the missionaries. 
 
 The creed itself, however, is better than its extreme 
 brevity and the circumstances of its adoption would 
 lead men to expect. It does present the elementary 
 truths of oui religion in easily comprehended, non- 
 scientific language. Its expressions are largely taken 
 from the older confessions. It is, moreover, entitled 
 to the credit of containing nothing but what is heartily 
 believed by the church. This is a negative excellence, 
 the result partly of its poverty, but it is entitled to rec- 
 ognition. The faith of the ministry and of intelligent 
 laymen is probably greater, not smaller, than the pro- 
 fession. 
 
 The Condition and Problems of the Church. 
 
 We have no time to do more than to glance at the 
 last division of our subject, the condition and prob- 
 lems of the church in Japan. To do it justice would 
 require a volume. 
 
 The ordinary church work is conducted very much 
 as it is among us. I should be puzzled to mention any 
 
8o MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 particularly Japanese feature in it. Church attend- 
 ance Js^ small, in proportion to the membership, owing 
 partly to the scattered condition of the believers, part- 
 ly to the lack of church going habits and traditions in 
 the individual and in the community. The average at- 
 tendance at church services in the Church of Christ in 
 Japan is about one-third, and the number actually 
 communing is about one-half of the total membership. 
 Prayer-meetings, however, are well attended. In this 
 respect the Japanese Christians excel the members of 
 our churches. 
 
 Sabbath observance is a perplexing question. The 
 proprietary and duty of it are generally admitted, and 
 the ministers do not fail to urge it, but the organiza- 
 tion of society and the habits of the people are, of 
 course, all against it. It is not made a matter of dis- 
 cipline or a test of fellowship. Many of the members, 
 those who are teachers, civil and military officers, 
 clerks in banks and other similar establishments, can 
 and do observe the day, and there are even some cases 
 of farmers and merchants doing so, but such cases are 
 rare. 
 
 Private prayer and Bible reading are well observed. 
 As to family prayer, the custom of asking a blessing 
 at meals is well established, but I have no reason to 
 think that the more formal erection of a family altar 
 is as yet general. 
 
 The religious instruction of the children is left al- 
 most entirely to the Sunday school, after the Ameri- 
 can fashion, and with about the same results. Cate- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 8i 
 
 chisms are used to some extent, but not for children; 
 for adults preparing for baptism. 
 
 Church discipline is, in the main, well enforced, 
 especially for offenses against chastity. This means 
 much in a country where divorce, concubinage, and 
 similar evils are so common and so open. 
 
 The preaching of the Japanese ministers sometimes 
 leaves something to be desired in simplicity of lan- 
 guage, directness of spirtual aim and completeness and 
 symmetry of doctrinal content. Positive heresy there 
 is, I think, very little among the ministers of our 
 church. Generally the preaching is fair, and often it 
 is surpassingly good. The Japanese pulpit has already 
 produced some notable pulpit orators. 
 
 Self-support has made remarkable progress during 
 the last decade. In fact, it may be called one of the 
 distinguishing marks of the period. Although, as 
 stated already, the membership increase in ten years 
 was only 45 per cent, the contributions during the 
 same time rose from 94,275 Yen to 259,498, an in- 
 crease of 175 per cent. The amendments to the con- 
 stitution of the church were intended to eliminate 
 from any share in the control of the denominational 
 interests all congregations not bona fide self-support- 
 ing. From the standpoint of spiritual conceptions of 
 church government it is impossible to justify such 
 rules, but they may have some practical advantage. 
 
 It is a matter for sincere congratulation that the 
 church has made such progress that an excellent week- 
 ly religious paper can be maintained. It receives no 
 subsidy of any kind from the missions. The editor in 
 6 
 
82 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 chief* is a man of remarkable ability and is regarded 
 among the Japanese as a champion of orthodoxy, al- 
 though extreme in many of his views and methods, 
 and rather unfriendly towards missionaries. He is at 
 the same time pastor of a church in the capital, and 
 both by his pulpit and by his editorial work is entitled 
 to the name of leader of the church. 
 
 The spiritual and moral life of our churches in Ja- 
 pan is, on the whole, gratifying and encouraging. It 
 is not such as to justify the expectations of that very 
 considerable, and very unreasonable class who think 
 that a Christian community just brought out of irreli- 
 gion or heathenism should surpass in grace and zeal 
 those who have had the blessings of the gospel for 
 generations, but no one who is willing to make the 
 proper allowances need be disappointed in our Japa- 
 nese Christians. Their daily morality is far above 
 that of their unconverted neighbors. Their religious 
 knowledge is limited and their doctrinal conceptions 
 are often painfully elementary, but I believe that they 
 have a good degree of purity so far as they go. This 
 is true of the average, while among those who are 
 above the average there are men and women for 
 whose Christian character, clearness of comprehension 
 of the way of salvation, and unselfish zeal one cannot 
 help having the greatest respect. Touching stories 
 could be told of their simple faith and mutual love. 
 Monuments they are of divine grace, blameless and 
 harmless, the sons of God, holding forth the word of 
 
 *The Rev'd M. Uemura. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT STEP 83 
 
 life, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, 
 among whom they shine as lights in the world. 
 
 With all that may be justly said in criticism of the 
 church, especially of its confessional position, it re- 
 mains true that many, both laymen and ministers, have 
 merited the emphatic expression of confidence con- 
 tained in one of the writings of Dr. Robert E. Speer, 
 who says : 
 
 "How much credit the church and its leaders deserve can 
 only be realized by those who have themselves passed through 
 periods of intense intellectual and spiritual uncertainty, and 
 yet have at the same time had to fight the battle of faith and 
 certitude against agnosticism and naturalism. This is what 
 the men of the Church of Christ have had to do. Less than a 
 generation out of the old life of Japan, with no inherited 
 equipment of moral and intellectual tendency drawing them 
 to the truth, beaten as by the billows of a great storm, by 
 surge after surge of error and fancy pouring in on them from 
 Christian lands, a little handful, misunderstood and maligned, 
 perplexed by the conflict of influences they could not stop to 
 scrutinize and slay at cool leisure, dazzled and bewildered by 
 the lights that flooded them, swung along constantly by the 
 mad rush of the nation, they have kept their faces boldly 
 towards Christ and his cross, and they have fought the battles 
 of evangelical religion in a way that takes away from my 
 heart any feelings but those of admiration and regard." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Missions and the Native Church. 
 
 Of the many problems in connection with the mis- 
 sionary work, the most numerous and the most serious 
 arise after the church on foreign soil has come into 
 existence. To a study of these problems we propose 
 to devote this lecture and the next. Those we shall 
 consider at this time center about the missionaries, 
 their organization among themselves, and the relations 
 that ought to exist between them and the church. 
 
 The Mission Organization. 
 
 Let me first call your attention to the organization 
 in which the missionaries, by direction of the Boards, 
 are united. This is called the Mission. Usually all 
 the missionaries in one field constitute one mission, but 
 in Japan, by reason of the great distance between the 
 two sections in which we operate, there are two mis- 
 sions, called respectively the North Japan and South 
 Japan Missions. They are composed of all the mis- 
 sionaries of our church in these sections. These or- 
 ganizations are not large, but their business is very 
 carefully conducted and their powers are very exten- 
 sive. A missionary is largely under the control of his 
 associates. They fix his residence, assign to him his 
 work, pass upon his plans, direct him in the use of his 
 time, examine him in his progress in the language, 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 85 
 
 send him home when he is so ill as to require it, de- 
 termine the times when he shall return to the United 
 States on furlough, and in other ways exercise au- 
 thority over him such as is not found in any ecclesias- 
 tical assembly with which the American minister is 
 acquainted. 
 
 If the mission has institutions, such as schools or 
 hospitals, the mission is a Board of Directors with full 
 charge of the same, and in that capacity determines 
 the lines upon which they are to be conducted, en- 
 gages and discharges at discretion the teachers and 
 other employees, fixes their salaries, etc. It is the 
 same in the evangelistic work. Who are to be em- 
 ployed as evangelists, where they are to be located, 
 what compensation they are to receive, and similar 
 questions, are all, directly or indirectly, under the au- 
 thority of the mission. It is a body without any ec- 
 clesiastical standing, and carefully refrains from as- 
 suming any of the authority that belongs to a consis- 
 tory, a classis, or a Synod, but its practical power is 
 very great. 
 
 Its proceedings are necessarily private. By the rules 
 of the Board no native of the country where the mis- 
 sion is located can be a member of it. Neither are its 
 sessions open to any outsider. Its acts are never pub- 
 lished, and it is a commonly understood and observed 
 point of etiquette among missionaries that its affairs 
 are not discussed with outsiders. No appeal lies 
 against its acts by any person or body outside of its 
 own membership. If one of its own members thinks 
 it wise and right to appeal to the Board he can do so, 
 
86 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 but he must have a strong and important case, indeed, 
 to stand any chance of success. In nearly twenty years 
 of missionary experience I have known only two 
 cases of appeal and but one of these was sustained. 
 
 You will readily understand that the presence of 
 live or six organizations of this nature alongside of a 
 youthful church, in constant touch with it in one way 
 and another, with considerable money to spend, gives 
 rise to some important problems. The very first is 
 whether on the basis of the Reformed and Presbyte- 
 rian principles of church government, to which we 
 stand committed, such an organization has any right 
 to exist. Has the Presbyterian church polity, as laid 
 down at Dortrecht and historically developed in the 
 churches of Holland, Scotland and England, any place 
 for it? It must be confessed that it has not. But 
 then, for the matter of that, neither has that form of 
 church polity any place for the missionary himself! 
 To be sure, at present one may, in our church, be or- 
 dained as a missionary, but that is a comparatively 
 recent provision. Originally no one could be ordained 
 who did not have a call from a church. I understand 
 that the churches in the Netherlands still feel this em- 
 barrassment, and are trying to overcome it by giving 
 each missionary a call from some local church and 
 then ordaining him on the strength of such a call. 
 This is, at best, an awkward method of maintaining 
 a theoretical consistency. It is better, in my judg- 
 ment, frankly to admit that the missionary, and, 
 a fortiori, the mission, have no place in the order un- 
 der which we regulate our church life. 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 87 
 
 Embarrassment on this score, however, is much re- 
 lieved, if it does not disappear altogether, when we 
 remember that the Reformed church order was in- 
 stituted for the benefit of the church in a Christian 
 country. From beginning to end it contemplates the 
 church as established and in undisputed possession of 
 the field, which, indeed, was the case in Holland in 
 the seventeenth century. The church order, therefore, 
 is that of "ecclesia constituta," and has nothing to do 
 with conditions existing in ''ecclesia constituenda." 
 Everything relating to the activity "ad intra" is ac- 
 cordingly provided for, but the activity "ad extra" is 
 not touched upon. The situation corresponds to the 
 distinction between civil and martial law. The au- 
 thority of the officers who administer martial law is 
 not defined in the regular civil codes, because such 
 codes contemplate the country under loyal and peace- 
 ful conditions. The ordinary laws do make provis- 
 ion for a military force, and in general recognize the 
 existence of such a thing as military law, but they do 
 not specify in detail the manner in which it is to be 
 exercised. They need not, for the authority of mar- 
 tial law is temporary, and exists either in a conquered 
 or in a disturbed and rebellious country. As soon as it 
 has accomplished its purpose, it gives way to the civil 
 law, which is the permanent authority. 
 
 The case of the missionary in relation to the Re- 
 formed church order is similar. He is like the mili- 
 tary officer who administers the martial law. He op- 
 erates where the regular establishment is not yet set 
 up. He may, therefore, rightly exercise remarkable 
 
88 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 powers, distinctly beyond those which any minister in 
 the home land may lay claim to, but his work is tem- 
 porary. The missionary is not one of the officers es- 
 sential to the permanent life of the church. In an 
 ideal condition the other officers remain, he disap- 
 pears. He is somewhat analogous, in the extraor- 
 dinary powers he wields and in the temporary charac- 
 ter of his office, to the apostles, who founded the 
 church and left no successors. 
 
 The system established by the fathers of Dort and 
 Westminster is, therefore, open to the objection of be- 
 ing too ideal, and of failing to recognize the impor- 
 tance of the activity "ad extra," but the office of the 
 missionary is not in conffict with their system — it is 
 only overlooked. Considering their system as intended 
 to regulate conditions within the church, no embar- 
 rassment need be felt on account of the omission of 
 the missionary, inasmuch as he, in his official capacity, 
 has no place inside of, but always remains outside of 
 her established life. 
 
 In the light of these principles, I wish briefly to 
 discuss the question whether the ordained missionary 
 should be a member of a classis in the native church, 
 and then a little more fully to set forth the relations 
 between the mission organizations of the Reformed 
 and Presbyterian churches and the Church of Christ 
 in Japan. 
 
 The Missionaries and the Native Presbyteries. 
 
 If the views that have been set forth have obtained 
 your assent, it should not be difficult to see that the 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 89 
 
 missionary, in his official capacity, is out of place in 
 any assembly where the life of "ecclesia constituta" 
 finds expression. This is equally true of the church 
 in America and of that in the foreign field, consid- 
 ered as already well established. This does not hin- 
 der his having such a place during the immaturity of 
 the church, for then the conditions of "ecclesia consti- 
 tuta'' do not yet obtain. Our theoretical conclusion, 
 therefore, is that a missionary ought not to sit in any 
 church court, either at home or abroad, as a mem- 
 ber with full powers. 
 
 He has, however, a relation of peculiar responsi- 
 bility to the church that has sent him out, and, there- 
 fore, it is proper that he should be under its ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction, which relation is best expressed by 
 his being and remaining a member of some classis in 
 the home church. The question whether he should 
 not become a bona fide member of one of the native 
 presbyteries has been much discussed, and some mis- 
 sionaries, especially of the Presbyterian Church, have 
 become members of presbyteries in Japan, but the 
 trend of opinion is away from that practice at pres- 
 ent, and the authorities of the Presbyterian Church, 
 who at one time favored it, are now taking the oppo- 
 site view. It is, however, not only a theoretical, but 
 also a practical matter, and in spite of the views here 
 set forth, if I were convinced that important advan- 
 tages would result from my joining a Japanese pres- 
 bytery as full member, I should not hesitate to ask for 
 a transfer. At present I am not so convinced. My 
 theory and practice, therefore, on this point coincide. 
 
90 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 The history of the relations of the ordained mis- 
 sionaries to the Japanese presbyteries has followed 
 pretty well the lines here laid down. At first they 
 were full members of those bodies, or rather, were 
 endowed with the full powers of members without 
 surrendering their membership in the home churches, 
 and without putting themselves under the jurisdiction 
 of the native church. They enjoyed this exceptional 
 position ex-officio, as missionaries. In 1890 this was 
 changed, and they had no longer any ex-officio rights, 
 but could be, and invariably were, elected Advisory 
 Members, able to speak and to serve on committees, 
 but not to vote. This lasted for sixteen years, when 
 advisory membership was again made ex-officio, but 
 on certain conditions, which were accepted by the mis- 
 sions of the Presbyterian and German Reformed 
 churches, but were rejected by us and the Southern 
 Presbyterians. What these conditions were and what 
 is the significance of the whole movement must now 
 be considered. 
 
 Previously to the year 1886, there were no formal 
 relations before the Church of Christ in Japan and 
 the several Presbyterian and Reformed Missions. 
 These missions were, however, united among them- 
 selves in a Council called at first "The Council of 
 United Missions," which name was later changed to 
 "The Council of Missions Co-Operating with the 
 Church of Christ in Japan." In 1886 a sort of part- 
 nership was formed between this Council and the 
 Church, according to which the missions were to put 
 in three dollars for every dollar that was contributed 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 91 
 
 by the Japanese, and the resultant fund was to be used 
 for evangeHstic work, being administered in each 
 Presbytery by a committee composed of Japanese and 
 missionaries in equal numbers. The underlying prin- 
 ciple of this arrangement is the view of the missionary 
 purpose to which I referred in the first lecture as the 
 Church establishment theory, namely that upon the 
 native church rests the responsibility of evangelizing 
 the country, and that in this enterprise the American 
 cEtJrches, if they are to work at all, must do so 
 through the native church organization. Accordingly, 
 although the Japanese contributed but one-fourth of 
 the expenses, they had one-half of the control. Ac- 
 cordingly, also, all the members, foreigners, as well as 
 Japanese, were the appointers of the Japanese assem- 
 blies, and responsible to them. Personally they were 
 members of the missions, officially, in directing the 
 evangelistic work, they were responsible, not to their 
 respective missions, but to the Church. Receipts for 
 the money contributed by the missions were written to 
 the effect that such a mission had appropriated so and 
 so much to the evangelistic work of the Church of 
 Christ in Japan. 
 
 At the outset, it was expected that, with the growth 
 of the Church, which was then doubling in member- 
 ship every three years, the contributions would also 
 rapidly increase, so that soon the money to be appro- 
 priated by the missions would absorb the entire sum 
 at their disposal. In that case all such work would \ 
 automatically pass into the hands of the joint com- 
 mittees, and the missions, as such, would cease to do 
 
92 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 any evangelistic work. It was, therefore, in one sense, 
 a preparation for the time, expected soon to come, 
 when missionary work in Japan would cease, and the 
 missionaries be withdrawn, except for financial as- 
 sistance to be extended by the church in America to 
 that in Japan. You will remember the statement quoted 
 in the first lecture from the Twelfth Annual Report 
 of the Council of Missions: "We may anticipate the 
 close of this foreign missionary enterprise by the close 
 of the nineteenth century/' With such expectations it 
 was surely not too early, in 1886, to begin preparations 
 for a suitable organization to carry on the work after 
 the withdrawal of the missions. 
 
 These expectations were not, however, realized. 
 When the reaction set in, about the year 1890, so far 
 from the church being able to make constant gains in 
 contributions, it did not even live up to its contract to 
 pay one-fourth of the expense of the work in hand, 
 and a debt of 290 yen thus incurred was remitted by 
 the Council in 1895. I" the meantime the increasing 
 liberality of the American churches placed larger ap- 
 propriations in the hands of the missions, so that the 
 portion of the evangelistic work administered by then 
 grew larger instead of smaller, and the probability ol 
 its being taken over by the joint committee becamt 
 more and more remote. No one could be enthusiastic 
 over such a scheme, and the church made certain pro 
 posals for amendment, which were not accepted by tht 
 missions. During the discussion, it was suggested by 
 the Council that it would be more satisfactory in 
 every way if the church had its own independent 
 board of missions. This suggestion was acted upon, 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 93 
 
 and in 1894 the Synod organized its own Board, with 
 both financial responsibiUty and control entirely in the 
 hands of the Church. This was a great step forward, 
 and this Board has done splendid work. It has 
 brought a number of churches to self-support. It 
 raises now the sum of about five thousand dollars a 
 year, and during 1909 maintained or assisted work in 
 twelve places, of which four were in Japan, one in 
 Formosa, three in Korea and four in Manchuria. 
 
 The partnership between the Church and the mis- 
 sions came to an end with the organization of this 
 Board. Let us now note that in the year 1890, while 
 this partnership was still well established, the consti- 
 tution had been revised, and the missionaries of the 
 missions co-operating with the Church of Christ in 
 Japan had been made eligible to election as Advisory 
 Members of Presbytery and Synod. The word used 
 was ^'Co-operating," but the nature of the co-opera- 
 tion was not defined. No one felt any need of defining 
 it, as every one knew perfectly well which missions 
 were intended. 
 
 After the partnership between the missions and the 
 Church had ceased, however, the question was raised 
 what relations existed or ought to exist between the 
 Church and the missions. The Synod, in 1895, di- 
 rected the presbyteries to appoint committees to in- 
 quire into these relations, and the reports of these 
 committees were considered in 1897. The result was 
 the declaration that not a single case of proper co- 
 operation could be found, and the following definition 
 was adopted : 
 
94 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 "A co-operating mission is one that plans and executes all 
 its evangelistic operations through a committee, composed of 
 equal numbers of the representatives of a mission, working 
 within the bounds of a presbytery of the Church of Christ 
 of Japan, and of the members of the said presbytery." 
 
 The new points to be noted in this definition are 
 that this speaks of ''air the evangelistic w^ork, and 
 that the church proposes to assume none of the finan- 
 cial burden. By this definition the church claimed that 
 the missions, if they wished to "co-operate" with the 
 Church of Christ in Japan, ought to put her in the 
 position she would have attained through the old plan, 
 if it had worked well. Had she developed in size 
 and consecration as that plan contemplated, she would 
 have obtained one-half the control of the evangelistic 
 work as soon as she had the ability and willingness 
 to shoulder one-fourth of the expense. In this defini- 
 tion she came forward with a proposal that she be 
 granted the same degree of authority over the work as 
 she would in that case have had, without possessing 
 any such degree of financial and spiritual development. 
 
 There was no disposition whatever on the part of 
 the missions to agree to this proposal. They courte- 
 ously responded, giving their own ideas of true co- 
 operation, as follows: 
 
 Co-operation is, in the opinion of the Council, best carried 
 on where the Japanese church organization, in its sessions, 
 presbyteries and synod, directs all ecclesiastical matters, avail- 
 ing itself of the counsels of the missions or missionaries as 
 occasion arises, while the missions direct their own educa- 
 tional, evangelistic and other missionary operations, availing 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 95 
 
 themselves, likewise, of whatever counsel or assistance they 
 may be able to obtain from their brethren in the Japanese 
 church. 
 
 I, 
 The Ideal of the Synod was, therefore: A formal 
 
 partnership, in which the Church should have equal 
 control without any financial responsibility. That of 
 the Council was: Each supreme in his own depart- 
 ment, and an informal alliance whereby each should 
 be consulted by the other. Various committees were 
 appointed and conferences were held for the purpose 
 of reconciling these divergent views, but the negotia- 
 tions ended in nothing but expressions of mutual es- 
 teem, and the matter was dropped for a period of 
 nearly ten years, during which the work grew and 
 prospered, and the personal relations between the mis- 
 sionaries and the Japanese were, with the inconsidera- 
 ble exceptions that are always unavoidable, of the most 
 pleasant and fraternal kind. 
 
 These years were years of development along vari- 
 ous Hues. The war with Russia intervened, and of 
 necessity left the nation in a state of aroused national 
 self-assertion and elated with a pardonable national 
 pride. The churches had recovered from the effects of 
 the reaction, and felt themselves constantly gaining 
 financial, intellectual and spiritual strength. A con- 
 siderable number of them had become self-support- 
 ing, and as local churches had no longer any connec- 
 tion, direct or indirect, with foreign missions or mis- 
 sionaries. Many of the older missionaries, intimately 
 acquainted with and highly esteemed by the leaders 
 of the Japanese church, retired, or died, or lost the 
 
96 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 controlling influence in their respective organizations 
 which they formerly enjoyed. The result was a nat- 
 ural and inevitable loss of acquaintance and contact 
 between the men who controlled the policy of the 
 missions and those who guided the Japanese church. 
 Moreover, there was not only a change of personnel ; 
 the younger men, in many cases, held radically differ- 
 ent ideas in regard to the missionary work from those 
 which ruled in the latter eighties. At the time when 
 the original partnership between the missions and the 
 church failed, it was regretted by the leading mission- 
 aries as postponing the time when the work of the 
 missions could be turned over to the church, which 
 turning over was nevertheless looked forward to as 
 certain to come some day when the church was bet- 
 ter developed. This view was shared by the native 
 church, which had been thoroughly indoctrinated with 
 this idea in the period of prosperity and had clung to 
 it. It was shared also in another very influential quar- 
 ter, viz. : among the officers of the Boards at home, 
 who had not forgotten the roseate prophecies of the 
 latter eighties, and were still waiting for the original 
 program to be carried out. 
 
 Neither the waiting church nor the waiting Boards 
 fully realized that in the meantime a great change had 
 come over the missions, which had become, to large 
 extent, converts to the view expressed by Mr. Robert 
 E. Speer, to the effect that church and mission are rad- 
 ically distinct conceptions, with distinct functions, and 
 that these must not be confused. From this it follows 
 that the work of the mission is never to be turned 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 97 
 
 over to the church, any more than the work of the 
 church is to be turned over to the missions. This 
 was nothing less than a revolution in the fundamental 
 conception of the matter. According to this view, not 
 only had the original partnership failed to accomplish 
 its purpose, but the purpose itself was bad ! Such men 
 were not waiting for the time to come when the orig- 
 inal purpose could be carried into effect, but were 
 ready to resist to the bitter end all attempts in that di- 
 rection. 
 
 A notable change of view of the opposite kind was 
 found in Mr. Speer himself. In his report on Japan, 
 in 1898, he stated and defended in the clearest man- 
 ner the principles advocated in these lectures, but 
 seven or eight years later was found, to our great sur- 
 prise, in the other camp. 
 
 A cloud as big as a man's hand appeared in the 
 Synod in 1904, in the form of a motion that all 
 churches not wholly self-supporting in two years 
 should be disbanded. One of the reasons in favor of 
 this action, urged upon the floor of the Synod, was 
 that a supported congregation was necessarily some- 
 what under the control of the supporting mission and 
 that so long as there were such congregations in the 
 Church of Christ in Japan, the said church was not 
 completely and really independent. A strong party in 
 the Synod was opposed to this motion, and succeeded 
 in defeating it for the time being. It was sure, how- 
 ever, to come up again, and in order to deprive this ar- 
 gument of any force, the party opposed to the motion, 
 in the interval between the Synod of 1904 and that 
 7 
 
98 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 of 1905, began unofficial negotiations, to see whether 
 the basis of co-operation offered by the Synod in 1897 
 might not, after all, be adopted. They presented the 
 matter to the Council in the summer of 1905, but that 
 body, after full discussion, adopted resolutions prac- 
 tically re-affirming its own action of 1897. 
 
 The Synod then took the unusual step of preparing 
 a communication to the churches, a sort of pastoral 
 letter, in which it set forth a history of the discus- 
 sion, and of sending a formal communication on the 
 subject to the Boards in America. These Boards 
 thereupon did the unprecedented, and, to our minds, 
 unpardonable thing of replying to this communica- 
 tion directly, without any consultation with the mis- 
 sions. The replies of the Presbyterian Board and of 
 our own were practically identical, indeed, our Board 
 said that it adopted as its own the letter of that Board. 
 These letters were couched in general terms, and yet 
 were afterwards explained by our Corresponding Sec- 
 retary as committing and as intended to commit the 
 Board to the admission that in principle the demand of 
 the church was reasonable and ought to be granted. 
 Really, there was something of truth in the astonish- 
 ing statement made by Dr. Ibuka, one of the Japanese 
 leaders upon the floor of the Synod, that the mission- 
 aries who opposed the demands of the church did not 
 understand the position of their own Boards. 
 
 The church did not altogether lack champions with- 
 in the circle of the missionaries. Dr. William Imbrie, 
 already referred to as the Presbyterian missionary 
 who wrote the constitution and the confession of faith 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 99 
 
 of the Church of Christ in Japan, was the recognized 
 advocate of the church, and managed that side of the 
 campaign in the struggle that followed. 
 
 The first thing he did was to propose to the Synod a 
 new definition of a Co-operating Mission. This was 
 adopted in 1906, and is as follows: 
 
 A Co-operating Mission is one that recognizes the 
 right of the Church of Christ in Japan to the general 
 supervision* of all evangelistic work done by the mis- 
 sion as a mission within the church or in connection 
 with it; and which carries on such work under an 
 arrangement based on the foregoing principle, and ap- 
 proved by the Synod, acting through the Board of 
 Missions. 
 
 In this definition nothing is said about having a 
 joint committee with equal numbers of Japanese and 
 missionaries, which had been the great stumbling 
 block, but this omission is of little importance, for it 
 is provided that any arrangement entered into must 
 have the approval of the Japanese Board of Missions, 
 and it was at once made clear that the said Board 
 would insist upon the joint committee. 
 
 The most significant difference between this defini- 
 tion and the former utterances of the Synod is found 
 in the open and definite assertion of a principle that 
 was really involved in the entire attitude of the 
 Church from the beginning, viz. : that the church 
 might of right claim supervision over the evangelistic 
 
 *Often translated "general care." The original, however, 
 does not properly admit so mild a rendering. It deservedly, 
 asserts supervision, authority, control. 
 
loo MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 work of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, so 
 long as those churches wished to stand in any sort of 
 alHance or connection with itself. Hitherto the church 
 had been content to ask that a certain method of pro- 
 cedure should be followed. In this action she brought 
 forward a demand that not only this rejected method 
 should be adopted, but that the principle involved in 
 it should be clearly recognized and formally accepted. 
 This principle was nothing less than that the Pres- 
 byterian and Reformed missions should acknowledge 
 themselves to be, in their evangelistic work, officially 
 subordinate to the Church of Christ in Japan.f Let 
 it be remembered that when we speak of the Presby- 
 terian and Reformed Missions, we really speak of the 
 Presbyterian and Reformed Churches of America, 
 considered in their evangelistic activity within the Jap- 
 anese empire. The question may, therefore, be fairly 
 re-stated thus: Should the American churches work- 
 ing in Japan henceforth do so as the equals of the 
 Church in that country, or in subordination to it; 
 should they judge for themselves in regard to times, 
 places, methods and persons through whom they work, 
 or should they in all of these respects work under the 
 supervision of the Japanese church retaining for them- 
 selves only so much control of their own work as is 
 
 fThe correctness of this statement will be strenuously de- 
 nied by some, who hold that the Church claims merely a 
 place of equal, not of paramount authority. Let its readers, 
 however, carefully examine the wording of the Definition as 
 well as the arguments of Drs. A- J. Brown md Geo. W. Ful- 
 ton, quoted below. 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH loi 
 
 acceptable to the church and continuing it only so 
 long as that church desires their assistance? Accept- 
 ing it as admitted on all hands that they do not de- 
 sire to establish any new church, but to contribute all 
 the results of their efforts to the growth of the Church 
 of Christ in Japan, does that logically involve the 
 idea that they are working within the field of the said 
 church by its permission, or is it also possible to con- 
 sider them as allies, laboring together for a common 
 object, but alongside of one another, as equals, not in 
 a relation of official supervision on the one side and 
 subordination on the other? 
 
 It is easy to see that this is no superficial question, 
 but a very deep one, depending for its solution upon 
 our views of the nature of the church and of the mis- 
 sionary work: It is also a very broad question, for 
 there is nothing in it that limits it to local conditions 
 or confines it to the Church of Christ in Japan. I 
 have no hesitation in saying that within missionary 
 circles it is a problem of world-wide importance, for 
 in one form or another, sooner or later, this question 
 will demand an answer in every field and in the rela- 
 tions of every missionary church to the child it has 
 begotten on foreign soil. 
 
 The discussion that followed was a notable one, in- 
 volving much spiritual conflict, argument, negotiation 
 and correspondence. The result was a drawn battle. 
 Three of the missions, viz. : the German Reformed 
 Mission and those of the Presbyterian Church North, 
 accepted the definition formulated by the Synod and 
 are now working under it. Three others, that of the 
 
102 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Southern Presbyterian Mission and those of the Re- 
 formed Church in America, rejected the definition and 
 definitely refused to work under it. It must be ad- 
 mitted that the three agreeing are stronger than the 
 three in opposition. On the other hand, the three in 
 opposition have taken this stand with practical una- 
 nimity, while in the case of the others the action was 
 taken in the face of opposition from strong minori- 
 ties, and under pressure from the home Boards. 
 Among the Boards, all but the Southern Presbyterian 
 Executive Committee approved the position of the 
 Church of Christ. The stand taken by our own Board 
 was so decided that for a time it looked as if a serious 
 conflict must take place between the Board and its 
 missionaries, but that was happily averted when the 
 Board, earnestly protesting its dissent from the posi- 
 tion of the mission, nevertheless left the final decision 
 to its representatives on the field. 
 
 It is, of course, not possible here to go into the ar- 
 guments by which the opposing positions were sus- 
 tained. Many of them were based on local conditions, 
 and were legitimate enough in the presence of a con- 
 crete proposal, without having any interest for us as 
 students of the principles of missions. Others, 
 stripped of their verbiage, meant nothing else than 
 that peace must be preserved at any price. To yield 
 important points for such a reason may avoid trouble 
 for the present, but sows the seed of more trouble in 
 time to come. 
 
 It the last analysis, however, one's position on this 
 point, both in Japan and elsewhere, will depend on 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 103 
 
 one's view of the emphasis to be laid on the church, 
 in relation to the fundamental purpose of missions, 
 as developed in the first lecture of this series. This 
 comes out clearly in the following quotations from 
 arguments in favor of approving the position of the 
 Church of Christ in Japan. 
 
 Dr. Arthur J. Brown, secretary of the Presb. Board, 
 in his Report on Japan, says : 
 
 "The Native Church does not exist in the interest of the 
 Mission and the Board, but the Mission and the Board exist 
 in the interest of the Church. If the two clash, every effort 
 should be made to bring about harmony, but if compromise is 
 impossible, then the Mission and the Board should yield." 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 "Our responsibility for a people continues after the Church 
 is in the field, but it continues through and in co-operation 
 with the Church, and not independently of it." 
 
 The following 'illustration from the pen of the 
 Rev. G. W. Fulton, D. D., one of the Presbyterian 
 missionaries, puts the position very plainly : 
 
 "Now, if I own a garden, and a man comes along and wants 
 to dig, I will let him hoe and plant and water to his heart's 
 content, if he will only do it where and how I want it, but if 
 not, he will have to stay out of my garden. He may think 
 he can do it without direction from me, in fact, he may know 
 more about gardening than I do, but nevertheless it is my 
 garden, and I am supposed to have some ideas as to how I 
 want it, and I will certainly insist on my rights to have my 
 fruits and vegetables grown according to my purpose and 
 desire. 
 
104 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 "To apply this, the Church of Christ thinks that we are try- 
 ing to work in its garden, without its direction. Very recently 
 it has arisen in the dignity of ownership and demanded that 
 either we work according to mind or leave the premises. The 
 church is within its rights in this demand, and the mission 
 should recognize this. ... I would express my conviction 
 that the Church of Christ has reached such a size and strength 
 and influence that the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches 
 in America have little if any moral right to continue Christian 
 work in this country for any length of time unless they can 
 arrange to conduct their enterprise in connection with that 
 church." 
 
 Thus far Dr. Fulton. 
 
 Here we have the naked issue. Upon the basis of 
 the Church Establishment theory of Missions, dis- 
 cussed and rejected in our first lecture, these men are 
 right, and if they are right then the demands of the 
 Church in Japan also are just and reasonable. 
 
 Upon the basis of the theory we have held to be 
 the true one; that it is our purpose to overthrow the 
 heathenism of Japan and to plant Christianity in its 
 place, we oppose to the above view a most emphatic 
 contradiction. The American churches hold their com- 
 mission to evangelize Japan, not from the church they 
 have themselves called into being, but from a much 
 higher source. Their responsibility to perform it does 
 not continue through and in co-operation with the 
 Church, as Dr. Brown says, but independently of it, a 
 responsibility to God alone. It is their earnest wish to 
 continue to do this work in alliance with the Church 
 of Christ in Japan, but such an alliance is too dearly 
 bought if it involves an acknowledgment of subordina- 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 105 
 
 tion. The alleged right of the church to demand that 
 either we work according to its mind or leave the 
 premises, as Dr. Fulton states it, is absolutely denied. 
 Dr. Brown asserts that: The Mission and the Board 
 exist in the interest of the Church. We admit no such 
 thing. This is to substitute the means for the end. 
 The Mission and the Board exist to evangelize and 
 Christianize Japan. As a means to that end the Church 
 of Christ in Japan was established. We neither desire 
 nor intend to establish any other, but we would estab- 
 lish ten more, if necessary, to attain the end. 
 
 Historically, we charge upon the theory here con- 
 demned the colossal and disastrous miscalculation of 
 the latter eighties, the discouragement and retirement 
 of many a young missionary, and the absurd and par- 
 alyzing misapprehensions so current in the American 
 churches in regard to the conditions of missionary 
 work in Japan, for none of these things could have 
 been suffered but for the virus of the sentiment: The 
 Mission and the Board exist in the interest of the 
 Church. 
 
 Turning to the future, we are confident that a suc- 
 cessful and vigorous work is ultimately possible only 
 to that mission which, cultivating relations of the 
 closest alliance and the most cordial harmony with the 
 native church, so far as that may be possible by the 
 exercise of every Christian grace and virtue, never- 
 theless remembers that it represents an American 
 church in its activity "ad extra," and that, therefore 
 refuses to surrender its power of independent initiative 
 and operation, maintaining always a clear vision of its 
 
io6 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 purpose and a keen sense of responsibility to preach 
 Christ to the heathen, in alHance with the native 
 church organization, if it may, without it if it must — 
 subordinate, never. 
 
 Let no one attribute such a position to race pride, 
 to a love of power, or to an obstinate unwillingness to 
 be subordinate where sudorbination is in order. It 
 springs from none of these things, but from rejection 
 of the fundamental principle upon which the notion of 
 the subordination of the American churches in their 
 work in Japan is based. If the evangelization and 
 Christianization of Japan is the task of the Japanese 
 church, and if we are there merely to assist in what 
 is really her work and not ours, by all means let us be 
 subordinate. But in that case the Japanese church has 
 the right not only to give directions, but to indicate 
 whether it wishes many missionaries or few, and of 
 what kind. It is not surprising that we find words like 
 this in Dr. Brown's report : 
 
 The Japanese leaders insisted that appointments 
 should be limited to men of first-class abiHty who can 
 co-operate with the Japanese church. Missions that 
 transfer to others the right of judging how many men 
 and what sort of men are needed for the work will 
 hear more of this insistence in time to come. 
 
 Moreover, in such a case the church has at once the 
 right to indicate when our services are no longer re- 
 quired. If we are merely assistants of the church, to 
 do a work that is really hers, this follows as a mat- 
 ter of course. Could we, then, urge young men to 
 offer themselves to be missionaries in Japan? Could 
 
MISSIONS AND NATIVE CHURCH 107 
 
 we assure them that there was a Hfe work waiting for 
 them in that country ? I think not, if the desire of the 
 Japanese church is to be the standard, for I do not see 
 how any one can possibly predict the spirit and temper 
 of that church, ten, twenty or thirty years hence. If 
 we are officially subordinate to that church organiza- 
 tion, I am not at all sure that there is a life work for 
 a young man in Japan. Accordingly, where you find 
 missionaries in Japan retiring without apparent cau?e, 
 or discussing the approaching end of missionary work 
 in that country, or advising young men to seek fields 
 of labor elsewhere, or insisting that only a few men of 
 extraordinary talents should be sent, you will almost 
 invariably find that they are adherents of this idea, 
 that we are merely the helpers of the native church. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we as a church have a pri- 
 mary responsibility of our own, to preach Christ 
 where He has not been named, then large and popu- 
 lous districts issue to us the Macedonian call. It is 
 because I hold this view, because our missions in 
 Japan hold it, and because our Board has had the wis- 
 dom to defer to the almost unanimous convictions of 
 its missionaries on this vital point that I am able with 
 heart and soul to extend to the students of this sem- 
 inary a pressing invitation to come out to Japan, as- 
 suring you that there is work enough and to spare for 
 us and for our children after us. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 I 
 The Evangelistic Work After the Establish- 
 ment OF THE Church. 
 
 In the previous lecture we discussed the nature and 
 function of a mission, and the relation which the mis- 
 sions bear to the native church. In the present lec- 
 ture we shall first consider the relations between the 
 native church and those congregations and believers 
 who are connected with the missions, and then turn 
 our attention to the task which the missions have to 
 accomplish, the persons through whom and the meth- 
 ods by which that work is to be done. 
 
 From the organization of the Church of Christ in 
 Japan until the year 1905, the relations between that 
 church and the congregations receiving help from one 
 of our missions were very simple. All believers be- 
 longed either to an organized local church or to what 
 was called a "Preaching Place," which was a group of 
 believers too small to be organized into a church. In 
 the case of the local church there were, of course, 
 elders and deacons, who had the rights and duties con- 
 nected with those offices. The "preaching places" 
 stood under the direct spiritual oversight of the 
 classis. Local affairs were managed by a committee 
 selected from the membership, but as there was no 
 consistory, the important spiritual functions of admit- 
 ting members to the communion and, in case just cause 
 existed, debarring them from the same, were per- 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 109 
 
 formed by the classis, acting through a committee of 
 ministers and elders. Besides these fully organized 
 churches and ''preaching places," there were many 
 places where only a few believers were found. 
 These had their membership in the nearest organiza- 
 tion, and were thus subject to the oversight of the 
 proper authorities. It will be noticed that no eccle- 
 siastical function of any kind was exercised by the 
 missionary. He could, indeed, baptize whomever he 
 thought fit. That right missionaries have exercised 
 since the days of Philip the evangelist, and the propri- 
 ety of their doing so is not open to dispute, but no 
 such baptism by a missionary made the baptized per- 
 son a member of the Church of Christ in Japan. He 
 could become such only when regularly admitted. 
 
 Alongside of the ecclesiastical supervision exer- 
 cised by the Church, there was another sort of super- 
 vision that was exercised by the mission. This was 
 the practical oversight resulting from the fact that 
 the missionaries were the representatives of the Amer- 
 ican churches that were assisting the Japanese with 
 their maturity of religious experience, their deeper 
 spiritual knowledge, and their superior financial 
 strength. At first all the fully organized churches were 
 receiving financial assistance from the missions, and 
 the preachers who ministered to the smaller groups of 
 believers were in their employ. To withdraw the as^ 
 sistance given a church, or to discharge the evangelist 
 was obviously within the authority of the mission, and 
 became its duty as soon as it was clear that the funds 
 were not well bestowed, 
 
no MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Under these circumstances practically everybody in 
 the church had a two- fold connection: on the one hand 
 to the mission, as a member of a supported congrega- 
 tion or as an evangelist ; and on the other to a church 
 or presbytery. There was no conflict between these 
 relations, since the one form of supervision was 
 strictly practical and the other was spiritual; the one 
 temporary, and the other permanent. No sooner did a 
 church attain to self-support than all connection with 
 the mission ceased ; no sooner was an evangelist called 
 to the pastorate of such a self-supporting congrega- 
 tion than the same thing took place in his case. As the 
 self-supporting churches were certain, in the course 
 of time, greatly to exceed, both in numbers and in in- 
 fluence, the work that had any connection with the 
 missions, one had only to wait for time to bring about 
 a natural and easy solution of the difficulties and prob- 
 lems involved. In spite of all the discussions of the 
 past few years, this arrangement still seems to me to 
 be based upon sound principles. It gives to the church 
 the things that are the church's, and to the mission the 
 things that are the mission's. 
 
 The first important change took place in this situa- 
 tion six years ago, when the Synod passed a resolution 
 providing that only self-supporting churches should be 
 permitted to exist in the Church of Christ in Japan, 
 and that, accordingly, all the churches unable to sup- 
 port themselves after two years should become 
 "preaching places." The necessary amendments 
 were made to the constitution, and the name 
 of "preaching places" was changed to "mission 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK in 
 
 churches," which does not imply that these organiza- 
 tions receive support from the missions (some of 
 them, in fact, do not), but only that they are "mis- 
 sion enterprises" as that term is often used in this 
 country, to designate something that is expected to de- 
 velop into a church in the course of time. 
 
 Much can be said in defense of this action. The 
 idea that no congregation should be recognized as a 
 full-fledged, self-governing local church until it can 
 support itself is not peculiar to the Church of Christ 
 in Japan. In our Amoy Mission it is the rule, and has, 
 I think, been the rule from the beginning, that no 
 group shall be organized as a church before it is ready 
 to assume self-support. The Council of Missions in 
 Japan had already, in 1897, recommended that this 
 rule should be adopted in regard to all churches or- 
 ganized thereafter. 
 
 This practice has also obvious advantages. The 
 company of believers is not endowed with the func- 
 tions and responsibilities of a church before it is ready 
 to exercise those functions and to discharge those 
 obligations. The chief functions of a local congrega- 
 tion are to govern itself through elders and deacons 
 and to provide for the regular preaching of the gospel. 
 Neither of these functions can be perfectly discharged 
 so long as the congregation is dependent on a mission. 
 Self-government is interfered with even under the 
 best conditions so long as the church is bound to con- 
 sult an outside party, the mission, in some of its most 
 important acts, such as the choice of a pastor. That 
 it stands under the authority of the presbytery is no 
 
112 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 such interference with its liberties, because the author- 
 ity of that body is recognized and provided for in the 
 church government, but when a congregation is really 
 governed, in part, by a mission, a body quite outside 
 of the denomination to which the congregation be- 
 longs, its self-government is certainly imperfect in 
 fact, however much it may be admitted in theory. 
 
 Another consideration that influenced the Synod in 
 passing such a rule was a strong desire to show before 
 the world that the denomination known as the Church 
 of Christ in Japan was in no sense under the govern- 
 ment of foreigners. This could not be maintained so 
 long as the representatives of mission-aided churches 
 sat in presbytery and Synod, with full powers. Hence 
 all supported churches were disbanded and reorgan- 
 ized upon a provisional basis, having no real elders 
 and deacons, only a committee. Their representatives 
 were permitted to come into the presbyteries as ad- 
 visory, or corresponding members, but not to vote. 
 This action effectually eliminated from the denomina 
 tional assemblies all votes that had any connection 
 with the foreigners. 
 
 We can thus see how the Synod came to take this 
 action, and what it was intended to accomplish. It is 
 another question whether such a rule ought to be ap- 
 proved upon the basis of the system of ecclesiastical 
 government to which the Church stands committed. 
 It does not seem to me to be defensible, upon those or 
 upon any other sound and scriptural conceptions of 
 the nature of the church, since it sets up a financial 
 standard for the exercise of spiritual functions. The 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 113 
 
 way to test any principle is to apply it, not to abnor- 
 mal, but to normal conditions. If the principle is 
 sound, it must be applicable to the settled and estab- 
 lished conditions of church life. It seems clear that 
 it would not be admitted to be sound when so applied. 
 Can any one say that the churches assisted by our 
 Board of Domestic Missions are not real churches and 
 are not competent to perform the real functions of 
 churches just because they lack money enough to pay 
 all their expenses ? What possible basis can be found in 
 Scripture, or in the practice of the Christian church 
 down the centuries, for the requirement that a body of 
 believers must have a certain degree of financial 
 strength before it can be organized as a church? 
 
 However, to return to Japan, the deed was done, 
 and all churches not self-supporting lost their stand- 
 ing as churches in 1907. In the meantime the defini- 
 tion of a Co-operating Mission had been adopted, and 
 the missions had been invited to agree to its provis- 
 ions. Since only one mission had accepted this invita- 
 tion by the time the Synod met, in 1907, that body took 
 up for consideration the question what was to be done 
 with those missions that refused, and the following 
 resolution was passed : 
 
 In order to preserve the unity of the Church of Christ in 
 Japan a clear distinction shall be made between the evangelis- 
 tic work of 
 
 (a) Missions which by September 30th, 1908, do not co- 
 operate according to the Definition, 
 
 (b) of our own church, and 
 
 (c) of Co-operating Missions, 
 8 
 
114 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 and it shall then be made perfectly clear that the former shall 
 have no connection whatever with the Church of Christ in 
 Japan. 
 
 Dr. Ibuka, President of the Meiji Gakuin, issued an 
 explanatory statement, in which he says : 
 
 By a clear distinction between the evangelistic work of those 
 missions which do not co-operate and that of the Church and 
 of the Missions which do co-operate is not meant a simple 
 distinction in classification, but a real separation in fact. 
 
 Such aided churches and such members of aided churches 
 as decide to remain in connection with the Church of Christ 
 in Japan will be aided by the Church to the best of its ability. 
 No undue pressure will be brought to bear. Aided churches 
 which prefer to retain their connection with non-co-operating 
 missions will be entirely free to do so, but they must take 
 their choice. The natural result will be that non-co-operating 
 missions and the aided churches which retain their connection 
 with them will organize a new church, or new churches. 
 
 Bluntly stated, this meant that after September, 
 1908, a certain number of weak congregations and 
 their members would be put out of the Church of 
 Christ in Japan, bag and baggage, if they continued to 
 receive assistance from missions which refused to de- 
 clare themselves officially subordinate to the Synod. 
 There was brought against these assisted congrega- 
 tions and the missions with which they were associated 
 absolutely no charge of irregularity or unfaithfulness 
 in conduct or doctrine. This action was taken by the 
 representatives of the self-supporting churches almost 
 every one of which owed its existence and develop- 
 ment to the very connection which had now become so 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK its 
 
 great an offense that those who received it could not be 
 tolerated within the church ! 
 
 This proposal naturally aroused much opposition. 
 One prominent Japanese minister, a teacher in the 
 theological department of the Meiji Gakuin, compared 
 the action of the Synod to the murder of the children 
 in Bethlehem, by King Herod. The opposition to it 
 secured, by parliamentary manoeuvering, a temporary 
 majority in the Presbytery of Tokyo, and took advan- 
 tage of that fact to memorialize the Synod to rescind 
 this action. The memorial was rejected, but the oppo- 
 sition to Synod's action was not altogether without ef- 
 fect. It was one of the contributing causes which led 
 to the adoption, in the Synod of 1909, of what is 
 called the "Affiliation" plan. Although the Synod of 
 1907 had declared in the most emphatic terms of which 
 the Japanese language is capable that there should be 
 absolutely no connection between the evangelistic 
 work of a non-co-operating mission and the Church of 
 Christ in Japan, and had apparently contemplated with 
 equanimity the prospect of the organization of a new 
 denomination, it had relented a little by the fall of 
 1909, and offered a kind of compromise in certain Ar- 
 ticles of Agreement. 
 
 Briefly stated, the missions undertook, in these arti- 
 cles, to organize no churches and to employ as evan- 
 gelists only men who had been examined and licensed 
 by the Church. Further, that when the congregations 
 gathered by them became churches, they should apply 
 for organization to the Church of Christ in Japan. As 
 the missions had all along observed these practices, 
 
ii6 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 consent to such conditions was not difficult. On the 
 other hand, the missions obtained, for themselves, defi- 
 nite recognition as allies of this church. The exclusion 
 of the congregations receiving aid was not revoked. It 
 was even re-affirmed in the words : "Qiurches and 
 preaching places aided by the Missions shall have no 
 organic connection with the Church of Christ in Ja- 
 pan;" but at the same time they were directed to re- 
 port to Presbytery annually their spiritual and financial 
 condition, and their statistics were to be given in a sep- 
 arate column. They were thus quasi members or step- 
 children of the Church. Japanese evangelists and min- 
 isters connected with the missions were to have the 
 standing of Advisory or Corresponding Members in 
 Presbytery and Synod. 
 
 The missions that had refused to co-operate accord- 
 ing to the definition of 1906 promptly accepted this 
 compromise. It did not require anything of them 
 which they were unwilling to do, and as for the action 
 in cutting ofif the aided churches, while they strongly 
 disapproved it, they considered it a question between 
 those churches and the Synod, with which they were 
 not obliged to interfere. If there had been any desire 
 to organize a new denomination, the circumstances of- 
 fered a splendid occasion, but every one was sincerely 
 anxious to avoid such a calamity, and so the ousted 
 congregations were advised that it was better for the 
 time being to bear the injustice of the Synod's action 
 patiently than to rush into the evils of a schism. 
 
 That the action was unjust surely requires no argu- 
 ment. Considered from the standpoint of the Scrip- 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 117 
 
 tures or upon the basis of any kind of ecclesiastical 
 government ever seen in the Church universal, the ac- 
 tion of the Synod in excluding from denominational 
 fellowship a number of congregations and members 
 against whom no offense was even alleged is so extra- 
 ordinary, so unjustifiable, so inherently unreasonable 
 and un-Christian that it is difficult to discuss it in 
 terms of respect. If any one should build upon this 
 whole transaction and certain other things an argu- 
 ment that the Church of Christ in Japan is not yet 
 really fit for self-government, it would not be easy to 
 answer him. When we think of the many excellent 
 qualities of faith and zeal which are abundantly seen 
 in the life of the Church of Christ in Japan, we must 
 admit that her views of church government are the 
 least respectable part of her outfit. What shall we do, 
 then, as missionaries and supporters of the missionary 
 work in Japan ? Nothing at all, but to be patient with 
 the church, to pray for it, and upon proper opportun- 
 ity to advocate the highest conceptions of the spiritual 
 nature and divine authority of the church and its gov- 
 ernment. It is of no use to scold the church, or to rail 
 at it. Let us wait calmly, patiently, prayerfully. Bet- 
 ter days will come by and by. There is already a 
 considerable party that knows better, as witness the 
 action of the Tokyo presbytery. Many churches and 
 individuals who have been cut off will presently re- 
 sume their places in the Church. With deeper spirit- 
 uality and growing maturity of conception will come 
 other thoughts, and sooner or later this matter will be 
 set right. Only, we shall take good care to maintain 
 
Ii8 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 our independence as missions and see to it that the 
 Church of Christ in Japan exercises no control over 
 our work, even in part. 
 
 Certainly the very worst thing we could do in con- 
 nection with all the problems hitherto discussed would 
 be to make the attitude of the native church a reason 
 for being less concerned over the spiritual destitution 
 of Japan. Let us be true, in our mental and spiritual 
 attitude no less than in our official action, to our fund- 
 amental conception of the missionary purpose, viz., 
 that missions and missionaries exist, not for the bene- 
 fit of the church, whether at home or abroad, but for 
 those who are without; that our place and work lie, 
 not "ad intra" to the church, even to the church in a 
 heathen country, but "ad extra" to it, in spiritually un- 
 explored, unoccupied, and unconquered territory. Our 
 relations to the Church are indeed important. If prop- 
 erly adjusted (as I think they will be, in course of 
 time) they will help, and if improperly adjusted they 
 will hinder us greatly, but when all is said and done, 
 the importance of these relations is secondary and not 
 primary. The primary thing is our calling as sent to 
 the gentiles, to open their eyes, and to turn them from 
 darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto 
 God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and in- 
 heritance among them that are sanctified. We are 
 unfaithful to this calling if we allow the defects and 
 mistakes of the native church to dampen our ardor 
 for the accomplishment of our work. 
 
 It is not easy for one who has never been in Japan 
 to realize the greatness of the missionary task that still 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 119 
 
 remains in that country. The impression made by all 
 the extravagant accounts and predictions in regard to 
 the progress of the work still lingers, so that even in 
 well informed circles the truth is heard with surprise, 
 and is considered well nigh incredible. The fact is that 
 in proportion to her population Japan has fewer Chris- 
 tians than India, and not half so many as Africa. In 
 Africa the figure is one Protestant communicant to 
 324 of the population, in India, one to 563, and in Ja- 
 pan one to 851.* Not only that, but the population of 
 Japan is increasing at the rate of half a million a year, 
 which means that every day there are 1,350 more Japa- 
 nese to be evangelized than there were the day before, 
 and that the number of unevangelized heathen in the 
 country is greater to-day by ten millions than it was 
 when the first missionaries set foot upon its shores. To 
 put the same facts in another way, the increase in the 
 number of unevangelized Japanese every three months 
 is greater than the total number of all the converts 
 of all the missions since the beginning of the work. 
 
 It results that there are extensive districts where 
 the gospel has never yet been preached. Some years 
 ago I was travelling through one of the fertile dis- 
 tricts in Kiushiu, and I counted on the surface of the 
 plain sixteen or seventeen villages. Many of the peo- 
 ple were at work in the fields, and the country was like 
 a great bee-hive. The question could not help arising 
 how soon these villages would hear the gospel. It 
 has not been answered yet, for so far as I know there 
 
 ♦Calculated from the statistics of the Edinburgh Conference. 
 
120 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 has not yet been a single sermon preached in that 
 district. A similar impression was made upon me on 
 another occasion, when travelling by steamer with a 
 friend along the coast. Village after village had been 
 passed when I asked him how soon he thought the gos- 
 pel would penetrate to these remote places. He re- 
 plied sadly, but with profound conviction : "These peo- 
 ple will die in their sins, and their children after them, 
 before they have any chance to hear the gospel of 
 Qirist." 
 
 As there are extensive districts, so there are great 
 classes yet unreached. The Protestant movement in 
 Japan is undeniably to some extent a class movement. 
 Almost untouched as yet are the artisan, merchant and 
 farming classes, comprising nine-tenths of the people. 
 Especially must one be impressed with the almost 
 hopeless case of the agricultural population. "Climb 
 up any hill and look out over the plain where the rice 
 fields stretch out like a great green lake dotted over 
 with islands. Every wooded "island'' is a village full 
 of people, and for every hamlet you see there are hun- 
 dreds which you can not see, hidden away in the 
 mountain valley or by the deep sea inlet." (Edin- 
 burgh Conference Reports, Commission 4, p. 79). 
 
 Here are the "regions beyond" of Japan. The na- 
 tive church, however zealous, is not in direct contact 
 with these people, and can reach them only by definite- 
 ly sending out men as missionaries from herself. This 
 she has not the strength to do, except to a very limited 
 extent. In those villages lies the missionary field of 
 the future. 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 121 
 
 The Christianization of Japan, considered as a 
 whole, involves all the work "ad intra" as well as the 
 work "ad extra", and in this view the position of 
 greatest responsibility and leadership belongs unques- 
 tionably to the native church. In the definitely "ad 
 extra" work, however, she stands side by side with her 
 American sisters, able to furnish but a small fraction 
 of the men and means required. The remaining heath- 
 en, whom she cannot touch, make the same demand 
 upon the American church that is made by a similar 
 mass of unevangelized humanity anywhere in the 
 world. 
 
 The response of the American church to this de- 
 mand must be made primarily through her own sons 
 and daughters, that is, through missionaries. Finan- 
 cial help is not what is most needed. This, at best, will 
 only avail to enable the Japanese church to make full 
 use of the Christian manhood and womanhood she al- 
 ready possesses. Much more precious and important 
 than that is the importation of deep spiritual life, un- 
 shaken religious conviction, and intense evangelistic 
 fervor, all this embodied in consecrated and highly ed- 
 ucated Christian manhood and womanhood. This is 
 the highest contribution which any country can make 
 to the welfare of another, the most costly to give and 
 the most precious to receive. 
 
 Such men and women will find now and for unmeas- 
 ured years to come, an abundant opportunity for the 
 highest usefulness in Japan, and that, first of all, in 
 their individual work, as preachers, Sunday School 
 teachers, personal workers, in house to house visita- 
 
122 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tion, in tract distribution, and in numerous other ways. 
 In this work they will encounter great difficulties, but 
 if they are worthy of the missionary calling they will 
 not be daunted by them. They must learn the lan- 
 guage, let them do it. The Japanese language is not 
 the bugbear that some make of it. It is true that, tak- 
 en as a whole, in its spoken and written, lower and 
 higher, scientific and idiomatic aspects it is probably 
 the most difficult language the human race has ever 
 known, but it is also true that a missionary need not 
 learn all of it, and that so much of it as one needs to 
 do good missionary work is not beyond the reach of 
 any person of fair ability, good education, and willing- 
 ness to study. 
 
 The habits and customs of the people are strange to 
 us and their ways of thinking are not like our own. 
 Very well, let the missionary go to work with sympa- 
 thy and patience and much of this darkness will be 
 cleared up. If he is willing to be all things to all men 
 he can learn to eat unwonted food with chop-sticks, to 
 take off his shoes when he enters the house, to sleep 
 on the floor, and to do numerous other things accord- 
 ing to native customs. Let him honestly seek to find 
 common ground with the people, assuming that there 
 is some good sensible reason behind even the strangest 
 customs, and little by little he will have gained their 
 confidence, will feel at home among them, and will dis- 
 cover that the things in which men are alike are far 
 more numerous and of profounder importance than 
 the things in which they differ. Meanwhile the people 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 123 
 
 will discover the same thing in regard to the mission- 
 ary, and then the way is open for real influence. 
 
 To be sure, there are difficulties that are never fully 
 overcome. To the last he remains a foreigner, and 
 hence he is in many points at a serious disadvantage as 
 compared with a Japanese of equal ability and educa- 
 tion. This conscious and hopeless inferiority, of which 
 he is often reminded, sometimes in a friendly and 
 sometimes in an unfriendly way, remains one of the 
 bitterest things for a high spirited American, a con- 
 stant school of humility and self-control. However, 
 it is also true that there are circumstances and places 
 where he has the advantage. Take, for example one 
 of the smaller towns where there is a Middle School. 
 In such a place the Japanese evangelist will often re- 
 ceive the cold shoulder, while an American missionary 
 is welcomed with open arms. The reason is because 
 students and teachers of such a school hope to secure 
 his assistance in mastering the intricacies of the Eng- 
 lish tongue. If he is willing to be accommodating and 
 friendly, the way is open to acquaintance and influence 
 such as a Japanese evangelist does not enjoy in the 
 same community. To many ardent spirits among the 
 students such an American resident in the town is a 
 prize, and they are ready eagerly to absorb from him 
 all they can of the great outside world from which he 
 has come and of which they have heard so much. This 
 feeling no longer obtains so greatly in the largest cit- 
 ies, but in many small places it is yet possible for the 
 missionary to become to a select circle their interpreter 
 of Western ideas, civilization, and religion, in much 
 
124 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 the same way as the earliest missionaries were to the 
 men now at the head of the nation. No one can begin 
 to measure the extent of the influence that may be thus 
 exerted. It has long been my dream that there might 
 be a missionary family in every town where there is a 
 Middle School. 
 
 Whatever the difficulties to be overcome, the first 
 duty of the missionary is to approve himself as a faith- 
 ful and capable individual worker. It is sometimes 
 said that the great work of the missionary is not to do 
 the work himself but to train natives to do it, and cer- 
 tainly this contains a great truth, but how in the world 
 is he to train others to do a work that he has never 
 done himself? And how can he expect men to seek 
 training at his hands for work in which he has never 
 shown himself active and skillful? Whatever, there- 
 fore, be his hopes for the future, the first thing for the 
 missionary to do is to show himself a workman that 
 needeth not to be ashamed, in his personal and indi- 
 vidual activity. Whatever may be the case in other 
 countries, in Japan he will command no respect, even 
 within the Christian circle, simply because he is a mis- 
 sionary. If he is to be respected he must show him- 
 self worthy of respect as a man of real spiritual lead- 
 ership. If he can do that, he will not fail to receive 
 the homage which character and ability always exact 
 from men. 
 
 The missionary, however, is not merely an indi- 
 vidual, he is the official representative of the American 
 church. He is not only her first and best gift to Japan, 
 but also the agent through whom she mediates all her 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 125 
 
 other gifts. He is the chief channel through which the 
 spiritual need of the perishing millions is made known 
 to the Occident and is the chief channel through which 
 the reply of the Occident to that cry of need flows out 
 to the Orient. Therefore the missionary is and ought 
 always to remain in charge of the work which the 
 American churches do to evangelize Japan. He ought 
 to be the responsible and authoritative agent for the 
 disbursement of American funds and for the manage- 
 ment of the work done by means of them. 
 
 This is not to say that it may not sometimes be wise 
 and right for American Christians to give a grant in 
 aid for this or that purpose to the Japanese church di- 
 rectly. In exceptional circumstances that may be the 
 best thing to do, but this does not destroy the validity 
 of the rule that the American church, engaged in evan- 
 gelizing the unreached districts and classes of Japan, 
 ought to place the funds she has for that purpose in 
 the hands of men known to her churches, pledged to 
 her principles, selected by her officers, and subject to 
 her jurisdiction. That is business, that is common 
 sense. That conserves the independence of the Japa- 
 nese church no less than the independent right and 
 duty of the American churches in their missionary 
 work. It is also the only way in which, in the long 
 run, the interest and support of the congregations in 
 this country can be retained. Not long ago, in Sioux 
 County, Iowa, in a meeting of pastors, elders, and dea- 
 cons numbering sixty men, I was asked the question : 
 "We are informed that now our missionaries are being 
 set aside, as inferior to the Japanese ministers. Is 
 
126 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 that true?" I explained that missionaries had no po- 
 sition within the church, but that the missionary work 
 as such was entirely in their charge, and the inquirer 
 was satisfied. Would he have been satisfied with any 
 other answer? I think not. 
 
 What use does the missionary make of the funds 
 placed in his hands by the home church ? He uses them 
 chiefly to associate with himself a number of Japanese 
 workers, and together with them to plant the seed 
 from which presently self-supporting local churches 
 are to spring. It is now a well established principle in 
 missions that the laborers from foreign lands can nev- 
 er hope to do the work alone, or even to do the prin- 
 cipal share of it. They speak the language imperfect- 
 ly, at best; their manner of life and habits of thought 
 are strange to the people; they do not understand the 
 national prejudices and difficulties as natives do; they 
 can not gain access to the homes so easily, and in num- 
 berless other ways they are distinctly and hopelessly 
 inferior to those "to the manner born." Moreover, 
 the expense involved in the maintenance of a foreigner 
 is several times as great as that of a native, so that 
 it is out of the question to accomplish the evangeliza- 
 tion of any country of considerable size by means of 
 missionaries only. That may do in a small island in 
 the Pacific, but not elsewhere, least of all in Japan. I 
 need not take your time to prove what no one disputes. 
 
 Comparisons between the efficiency of foreigners 
 and native preachers, however, must not fail to recog- 
 nize, what is often forgotten, that the most talented 
 Japanese preachers are not available for missionary 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 127 
 
 service. It is often said that the Japanese ministers as- 
 sociated with the missionaries are men of inferior abil- 
 ity, and, barring notable exceptions, the charge is true. 
 Not only is it true, but a little reflection will show that 
 it can not be otherwise. Suppose the case of ten men 
 graduating from a theological seminary in Japan. 
 Most, if not all of them will be found to have been 
 sent to school and maintained by the missionaries. 
 They go back to the provinces and labor with them and 
 under their direction. Within a few years they will be 
 found to have separated into three classes. Some will 
 be found quite unfit for the work and will have been 
 dismissed. Others will have distinguished themselves 
 by the possession of unusual mental and spiritual tal- 
 ents. What becomes of these? They will have been 
 called to the pastorates of self-supporting churches, or 
 to editorial and educational work. In all of these cases 
 they pass from the circumference to the center of 
 church life. They become the leaders on the floor of 
 Synod. Their services are demanded by the church 
 for the development of her work "ad intra", and so 
 they are not available for the "ad extra" work. 
 
 The mediocre men, excellent, earnest, and compe- 
 tent workers, but without the highest talents, will be 
 left to the mission. These are the men with whom the 
 evangelistic missionary eats, sleeps, travels, plans and 
 prays. They are his closest associates ; happy and suc- 
 cessful is the missionary who can also win them to be 
 his most sincere and intimate friends. In order to do 
 this, he must give them gladly his own spiritual fel- 
 lowship, love, sympathy and assistance. He must stand 
 
128 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 so emphatically for personal holiness, spiritual power 
 and triumphant faith that it will be an inspiration to 
 the Japanese to come into contact with him. It ought 
 to become a matter of experience with the Japanese 
 evangelist that he seldom comes away from a long vis- 
 it with his foreign brother (and very few Japanese 
 calls are short !) without having some text become 
 more precious to him or seeing some truth and duty 
 in a new light. A missionary in Japan will do well to 
 invite the evangelists frequently to his table, to take 
 long walks with them, and to open his heart to them 
 with frankness and confidence. All this must be per- 
 meated with genuine spirituality. There is no more 
 important work than this for the missionary, and noth- 
 ing more difficult for the natural man, but in view of 
 the abundant riches of the grace of Christ and the 
 promise of the Holy Spirit, no department in which 
 failure is more akin to sin. From such conferences 
 the Japanese is not the only gainer. The missionary 
 himself will be refreshed and delighted with the ideas 
 that come to him from the inner experiences of a life 
 so different from his own. But a Japanese is naturally 
 very reserved. He will not unlock his thoughts and 
 grant confidence except in return for confidence. The 
 young missionary must therefore not expect too much 
 at first. Least of all must he assume the attitude of a 
 formal teacher. This becomes possible to some men 
 of exceptional power and tact after they have gained 
 the hearty friendship and respect of their brethren in 
 the way I have described, but not even then to all. 
 This spiritual relation between the missionary and 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 129 
 
 the evangelist ought quite to overshadow the relation 
 of superintendence in which the former stands to the 
 latter. Yet there is such a relation. The missionaries 
 in their assemblies decide who is to be employed and 
 who is to be rejected or discharged, fix salaries and 
 assign places of labor. The individual missionary as 
 he goes about the country takes note of the efficiency 
 of the evangelist, and his recommendations are likely 
 to be followed by his mission. In a sense, then, the 
 evangelist is certainly under the supervision of the 
 missionary. Call it what we will, disguise it as we 
 may, such remains the fact. This superintendence 
 should be always exercised on the part of the mission- 
 ary with the utmost tact and consideration, but if a 
 Japanese preacher finds it intolerable to be associated 
 on such terms with the representatives of the Ameri- 
 can churches, he should not be willing either to receive 
 his support from their gifts. Happily, such a man has 
 now increasing opportunity to find work elsewhere. 
 
 In association with such Japanese preachers as are 
 content to work with him, the missionary plans for the 
 accomplishment of the task that is assigned him by his 
 mission, usually with the sad consciousness that the 
 resources at his disposal are not even distantly ade- 
 quate to the work, but inspired at the same time by the 
 challenge which the very greatness of that task offers 
 to his powers. 
 
 The methods by which we operate are for the most 
 part the old and simple ones of public speech and pri- 
 vate conversation with all who can be induced to hear. 
 Usually the Japanese ministers take up their residence 
 9 
 
130 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 in the principal towns of the district and maintain reg- 
 ular Sunday services, even though at first, there is 
 hardly a single person who is willing to attend except 
 the members of their own families. By forming the 
 acquaintance of people in the neighborhood this num- 
 ber slowly increases, but generally it takes a number 
 of years before as many as fifteen or twenty persons 
 regularly assemble. The preacher does not confine 
 himself to the place of his residence, but generally 
 seeks to obtain a foothold in two or three of the neigh- 
 boring villages, and if successful holds meetings there 
 once or twice a month. 
 
 As often as possible the missionary, who is located 
 in the chief city, visits the various towns where the 
 preachers reside, and such a visit is commonly made 
 the occasion for more public meetings, at the hotel or 
 in a public hall, at which a larger crowd than usual 
 gathers, partly from mere curiosity, partly from genu- 
 ine interest. Tract distribution, Sunday school work, 
 and house to house visitation are constant features. 
 After the public meetings, an invitation is given to any 
 who desire to remain and get acquainted with the mis- 
 sionary, and it is no uncommon thing to have these 
 conversations extend far into the night. Magic lan- 
 tern meetings are also a successful feature of the work 
 of some missionaries. 
 
 Such work as this, with Bible classes in English 
 and in Japanese at the town of his permanent resi- 
 dence, forms the greater part of the work of a mission- 
 ary, and takes up most of his time. It is laborious and 
 obscure work, fit only for men who do not shrink from 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 131 
 
 labor and who dare to be obscure, looking and long- 
 ing not to be known and praised of men but to be ap- 
 proved of God. 
 
 It is, in one sense, not a highly successful work. For 
 many years the results have been but meagre. Yet it is 
 the only way in which a beginning can be made. Of 
 all forms of Christian work it is the only one that is 
 positively indispensable, the one that precedes and un- 
 derlies every other sort of activity. There are forms 
 of Christian work that are very much more in the pub- 
 lic eye. The work of the Y. M. C. A. and of the Sal- 
 vation Army, although lying at opposite extremes 
 from each other in character and methods, may serve 
 as examples. Many people look upon the Y. M. C. A. 
 as one of the most successful forms of work. It is 
 far easier to raise large sums of money for it than for 
 the regular evangelistic work. On the other hand, the 
 Salvation Army is to many persons the ideal of pure 
 evangelism. Yet it is a fact that neither the Y. M. C. 
 A. nor the Salvation Army ever establish themselves 
 in a place where there is not already a considerable 
 Christian community. They would not know how to 
 begin in such a place. It is impossible for them to do 
 anything before the obscure, plodding work of the pio- 
 neer evangelistic missionary and his associates has pre- 
 pared the way. 
 
 So difficult is this work, so large the investment of 
 patience, talent, and capital required to make a begin- 
 ning that the Board of Missions of the Church of 
 Christ in Japan, although operating in its own country, 
 and therefore in the most favorable position to under- 
 
132 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 take it, has very rarely ventured to open work in a new 
 district. Dr. Imbrie, in his little book, "The Church 
 of Christ in Japan" states the case correctly: "To a 
 considerable extent the policy of the Board has been 
 to select congregations of more or less promise and 
 bring them to self-support. In this work it has cer- 
 tain advantages over a mission." (Church of Christ 
 in Japan, p. 1 1 1 ) . That is an intelligible policy and 
 one to be commended. I quote it here, not to criticize 
 it, but to illustrate the point that even the Board of 
 Missions of the Church of Christ in Japan shrinks 
 from the years of plodding work and meagre success 
 which nevertheless are the indispensable conditions of 
 planting the church in the villages and towns of Japan. 
 Obscure and difficult as the work is, it has a keen 
 attraction to the man who can see beyond the obscurity 
 and difficulty of it the largeness of the problems it 
 presents for solution. For instance, upon my return to 
 Japan next fall I shall most probably be assigned to 
 the district called Oita Ken, which is a territory about 
 as large as three counties in our own state, with a pop- 
 ulation of nine hundred thousand. The Christian 
 forces will probably be represented by one other mis- 
 sionary, a Methodist, and ten or twelve Japanese 
 preachers. These are also charged with the care of 
 three hundred scattered believers of three denomina- 
 tions. The problem before me will be, therefore, in 
 company with the other workers, "How can we reach 
 the people of this district in the most rapid and effi- 
 cient way with the message of the cross, so that they 
 shall not only hear it but love it and shall establish the 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC WORK 133 
 
 beginnings of the Christian church?" Can you imag- 
 ine a problem more attractive? Can you find in the 
 United States a field like this? I have had the honor 
 to lay before our Board the prospectus of a new meth- 
 od to reach the people through the advertising columns 
 of the newspapers. The Board has approved it and I 
 hope to put it into practice upon returning to Japan. If 
 successful, it will help materially in the solution of our 
 problem. There remain yet many subsidiary problems 
 of how to approach the people, how to speak in the 
 language best understood by them, how to overcome 
 local prejudices, and how to reach the poorest and 
 most ignorant as well as the highest. To study prob- 
 lems like these is worthy of the greatest powers; to 
 have a share in solving them is the best reward. 
 
 I have endeavored to give you a glimpse into the 
 conditions of present day evangelistic work in Japan. 
 I have not hid from you, my brethren the anxieties, 
 the difficulties, the unappreciated obscurity and toil of 
 a missionary's life, and I have done it purposely. If 
 you are men to be daunted by things like these, by all 
 means stay at home. For myself, I would rather be a 
 missionary in the loneliest village of Japan than to be 
 in the most prominent pulpit of America, for with 
 twenty years of missionary service behind me, and 
 facing, please God, as many more, I am glad that I 
 can say with the Apostle Paul ; "Unto me, who am less 
 than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I 
 should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Educational Work, Essential to the Perma- 
 nence OF Results. 
 
 The knowledge of God and the study of his works 
 ought to go hand in hand. Neither can be well under- 
 stood without the other. Originally, in the time of 
 man's innocency, they did go together, but they were 
 separated by the fall, for the children of Seth pre- 
 served the knowledge of the true religion, while the 
 family of Cain distinguished themselves in the sciences. 
 From that time on they developed along separate lines. 
 In Judah was God known, His name was great in 
 Israel, but among the gentile flourished culture, art, 
 science, and philosophy. 
 
 This unnatural separation came to an end in the ful- 
 ness of time, when the Christ appeared. He broke 
 down the middle wall of partition between Jew and 
 Gentile, and thus also between Religion and Science. 
 Henceforth Science was to find her most brilliant de- 
 velopment in the schools of the church, while the 
 weapons she forged were to be used by Religion in 
 the conquest of the world. 
 
 Two attempts have been made by Satan to rebuild 
 the barrier that Christ destroyed; the first when the 
 church returned to the legalism of the Old Dispensa- 
 tion in the Roman Catholic perversion of the Middle 
 Ages, when learning was well nigh buried under a 
 mass of bigotry, and the church vainly fancied she 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 135 
 
 could have Religion without Science. This ended with 
 the Reformation. We are now Hving in the midst of 
 the second attempt, which seeks by a complete secular- 
 ization of education to bring about a return to the old 
 heathen condition of Science without Religion. Against 
 all such attempts it is the privilege of the church to 
 maintain an uncompromising and victorious warfare. 
 
 Nowhere would a defense of Christian education 
 seem more superfluous than upon this platform. This 
 audience, this community, this nation, are its fruit and 
 its justification. That such a defense should still oc- 
 casionally be necessary upon the mission field is be- 
 cause some ardent workers persist in comparing its im- 
 mediate efficiency with that of evangelization, not un- 
 derstanding that their spheres, though different, are 
 mutually complimentary. 
 
 Evangelization has to do with the present generation, 
 education with the next. Evangelization gathers men 
 into churches, while education secures the permanence 
 of the institutions that evangelization calls into exist- 
 ence. Education forges the weapons of offense and 
 defense that evangelization wields against heathenism 
 and scepticism. It teaches men to decipher the truth 
 contained in the hieroglyphics of nature; it brings to 
 light the record hid under the scrawled and blotted 
 palimpsest of history, and from both of these sources 
 illustrates and confirms the message of revelation. That 
 message itself, given at sundry times and in divers 
 manners, can not be fully understood unless the times 
 and manners be traced by reverent scholarship. In 
 spite of all opposition, therefore. Christian education 
 
136 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 has won and firmly holds for itself a place among the 
 great missionary agencies in every land. 
 
 These general principles are of universal applica- 
 tion. The development of the work in each country, 
 however, is subject to the influences arising out of so- 
 cial conditions. For example, Christian schools of pri- 
 mary grade, which are so great a feature of mission 
 work in India and China, have never been estabUshed, 
 to any considerable extent, in Japan. There are, to 
 be sure, numerous kindergartens, but these serve rath- 
 er as a method of approach in evangelistic work than 
 as a part of a Christian educational system. 
 
 The limits of time and accessible information obHge 
 me to omit all discussion of theological seminaries, 
 which follow the same general lines as such institu- 
 tions do in America ; and of female education, which is 
 a subject by itself. Our discussion is thus narrowed 
 down to educational work for young men, and we pro- 
 pose to glance briefly at the Development, Results, and 
 Prospects of this work. 
 
 In Japan the place of Christian education has been 
 peculiarly important, for it has served the purpose 
 usually accomplished by medical work, viz., to act, as 
 an entering wedge, for the purpose of attracting the 
 attention of the public and removing prejudice. As 
 early as the year 1865, only six years after the arrival 
 of missionaries in the country, the following statement 
 of their teaching activity and of its usefulness as a 
 missionary agency was made by the missionaries in an 
 address to the Christian people in America and Eng- 
 land. 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 137 
 
 "The first decisive symptom of the abatement of suspicions 
 on the part of the government was the sending of about a 
 dozen young men of rank from Yedo (i. e. Tokyo) to Kana- 
 gawa, to be taught English by one of the missionaries. More 
 recently the governors of Nagasaki and this place (Yoko- 
 hama) authorized schools to be opened for a similar purpose 
 under their auspices, and the Protestant missionaries were 
 invited to take charge of them. One missionary at Nagasaki 
 has, during the past year, devoted three or four hours a day 
 to the school there. The school at Yokohama has over fifty 
 members, and for more than two years past three and some- 
 times four of the missionaries have been engaged in it, 
 teaching an hour or two each day. A large supply of Ameri- 
 can school books has been imported by the governor for this 
 school, and the teachers have in no wise been restricted as 
 to the matter or manner of their teaching. Through the use 
 of these foreign school books more or less of Christian truth 
 is almost daily brought into contact with the minds of the 
 pupils, and has been freely made the subject of explanation 
 and remark in classes. The effect of this is manifest in the 
 unhesitating manner in which the pupils make inquiries and 
 seek information on religious subjects, and in the frequent 
 expression given to religious facts and doctrines in their 
 school exercises. Four years ago, when copies of a book 
 entitled 'The Christian Reader' were bought of a mission- 
 ary by some young men who were desirous to learn Eng- 
 lish, they at once erased the word 'Christian* from the title 
 page and cover, for fear it would be noticed by others and 
 bring them into trouble. Now a considerable number of 
 those who have been under instruction have purchased Bibles 
 for their own use. In the school rooms and in our houses 
 there is no reluctance to speak, and many do speak, from day 
 to day, of God, of Christ, and of Christianity. The name of 
 Jesus is no longer uttered with bated breath." (Minutes of 
 Osaka Conference, page 47). 
 
 Being a strictly contemporary statement, this quota- 
 
138 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tion shows clearly how very valuable this teaching was 
 as a missionary agency, even though carried on in the 
 schools of a government that was at that very time 
 sternly threatening with death any one who ventured 
 to profess the Christian religion. That Christianity 
 should have been discussed with impunity in the insti- 
 tutions of such a government is comparable to the sit- 
 uation of the infant Moses, nourished in the palace of 
 the Pharaoh who had decreed the destruction of the 
 Hebrew children. 
 
 Th€ missionaries were not in a position to estabHsh 
 their own schools until the second decade of their 
 work, when such schools were founded in two centers. 
 The first was the Yokohama-Tokyo district, where it 
 was undertaken by the Presbyterian and Reformed 
 missionaries, among whom were Dr. and Mrs. Hep- 
 burn, and Dr. S. R. Brown. The institution thus 
 founded has developed into the Meiji Gakuin. The 
 second school was in Kyoto, where the Congregational 
 missionaries Drs. Greene and Davis made a beginning 
 in 1873. With this school was later combined the 
 work of Mr. Joseph Neeshima, a great name in the his- 
 tory of Japanese Christianity, and from this resulted 
 the Doshisha, the most famous of the Christian schools 
 of Japan. Other schools were established later, as the 
 various denominations opened work in Japan. 
 
 Up to the year 1890 this educational work enjoyed 
 uninterrupted prosperity. Mission schools sprang up 
 on every hand, and it was only necessary to announce 
 the time and place where students could apply for 
 entrance, to secure an abundance of pupils. The op- 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 139 
 
 portunity to learn English and to enjoy personal in- 
 tercourse with foreigners was the tempting prize that 
 brought scores of young men to the missionaries for 
 instruction, a tendency that was accentuated by the 
 insufficiency of the government schools, both in num- 
 ber and in quality. 
 
 During the decade 1890 to 1900, the mission schools 
 suffered first a marked decline, and then a considerable 
 recovery. The decline was due to the great anti-for- 
 eign and anti-Christian reaction, already several times 
 referred to in these lectures, to the growing improve- 
 ment of the government schools, and to the difference 
 in policy that developed between them and the mis- 
 sion schools. The managers of mission schools were 
 aiming to produce thinkers and students, and with that 
 object in view were laying great emphasis on the study 
 of the English language, so that a graduate from their 
 courses might be able to read the literature of the 
 world with interest and understanding. Necessarily, 
 many departments of knowledge were slighted or 
 omitted in the course itself. The government schools, 
 on the contrary, having a practical aim, judged it bet- 
 ter to reach the student a little of almost every branch. 
 It is the old question whether one should teach '*mul- 
 tum" or "multa," a problem not by any means set- 
 tled in our own educational circles. 
 
 Whatever may be the intrinsic merits of the two 
 educational ideals, however, it gradually became clear 
 that the students in government schools had over- 
 whelmingly the advantage from a practical standpoint. 
 They were exempt from military conscription, which 
 
140 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 took away many mission school students in the midst 
 of their studies. They were more readily employed in 
 the civil service, and if they wished to continue their 
 studies after graduation, they not only did so in 
 schools whose curricula were correlated to their own, 
 but into which no one was admitted who did not hold 
 a certificate of graduation from a government school. 
 In theory, to be sure, graduates of lower government 
 schools were entitled to enter the higher institutions 
 without examination, and also any one else who was 
 competent to enter could do so upon passing the neces- 
 sary tests. It soon came to pass, however, that the 
 number of applicants bringing certificates of gradua- 
 tion from lower public schools exceeded the possible 
 accommodation of the higher colleges, so that even 
 those theoretically entitled to enter without examina- 
 tion could not do so, but had to submit to competitive 
 tests, by which the best of them were chosen. Natur- 
 ally, when even the graduates of government schools 
 were not all able to find accommodations, there was no 
 chance for others. Under these circumstances, mis- 
 sion schools found themselves obliged to conform their 
 curricula to that of the government, and to obtain li- 
 censes as part of the public school system. Upon do- 
 ing so they obtained the official name and standing of 
 "Chu Gakko," or Middle Schools, with all the attend- 
 ant rights and privileges. This they could do without 
 in any way abridging their religious instruction or de- 
 nying their Christian character. 
 
 The results of this change were at once seen in re- 
 turning prosperity, and the Christian schools were con- 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 141 
 
 gratulating themselves upon their improved prospects 
 when a serious difficulty appeared in the shape of an 
 Instruction, issued by the Minister of Education, 
 August 3d, 1899, which reads as follows : 
 
 It being essential from the standpoint of educational admin- 
 istration that general education should be independent of re- 
 ligion, religious instruction must not be given, or religious 
 ceremonies performed, at government schools, public schools, 
 or schools whose curricula are regulated by provisions of law, 
 even outside the regular course of instruction. 
 
 Missions schools that had accepted the name and 
 standing of Middle Schools were included in the scope 
 of this order. They were not ''government" or ''pub- 
 lic" schools, but they were "schools whose curricula 
 are regulated by provisions of law." Indeed, there is 
 good reason to think that they were the institutions 
 against which the Instruction was especially aimed, 
 inasmuch as the practices forbidden in it had never 
 been carried on in the other schools. 
 
 With two exceptions all the mission schools that 
 held licenses from the government immediately sur- 
 rendered the same. Then began a long series of nego- 
 tiations with the Department of Education, which 
 finally resulted in a curious solution of the difficulty. 
 The Instruction was not modified, but new regulations 
 were issued by which the government recognized not 
 only the kinds of schools enumerated in the Instruc- 
 tion, but also "schools equal or superior to Middle 
 Schools," and granted to such institutions almost all 
 the privileges of the Middle Schools ; only, they were 
 
142 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 not allowed to call themselves by that name. Since 
 they were not under the Instruction, they retained per- 
 fect religious freedom. At the present time there are 
 twelve mission schools in Japan, of which three are 
 Middle Schools, and, therefore, bound by the Instruc- 
 tion. The others have nearly, if not quite, all obtained 
 recognition as "schools equal or superior to Middle 
 Schools." 
 
 Most of these institutions have Japanese principals. 
 I think that the only exceptions are the Tohoku Ga- 
 kuin, at Sendai, a school of the German Reformed 
 Church, and Steele Academy, at Nagasaki, of the Re- 
 formed Church in America. Their affairs are some- 
 times directly administered by the missions, but more 
 commonly by a Board of Directors, composed partly or 
 wholly of Japanese. This raises an interesting ques- 
 tion. In discussing the evangeHstic work I insisted 
 that work done by means of funds collected in Amer- 
 ica should be under the control of the missionaries. 
 Does this apply also to educational work? My reply 
 is. No, not altogether. Let us apply again our funda- 
 mental distinction between the work of the church 
 "ad extra" and "ad intra." To which department does 
 educational work belong? Manifestly, to the work 
 "ad intra," for even in an ideal condition of the 
 church, with all heathenism and scepticism overcome, 
 there would still be need of Christian instruction. The 
 educational work is, therefore, a permanent feature of 
 the church's life, the evangelistic work among the hea- 
 then is temporary. The work we do in the field of 
 Christian education must presently be done by the 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 143 
 
 church for herself, and will never be laid aside. Our 
 evangelistic task, on the contrary, must some day be 
 finished, and will then cease. Hence there is some- 
 thing to be "turned over" to the native church in the 
 educational department, but nothing in the evange- 
 listic. The native church must continue our work in 
 the one department, but not in the other. It is true 
 that the evangelistic work produces permanent insti- 
 tutions as well as the educational, but the permanent 
 church life which results from our evangelism among 
 the heathen does a work differing in kind from that 
 which we do, while the educational work remains the 
 same, whoever does it. The local churches resulting 
 from evangelization become self-supporting, and hence 
 no transfer of mission funds needs to accompany their 
 entrance as full churches into the denominational fam- 
 ily. So to speak, they need no dower. Educational in- 
 stitutions, on the other hand, are never self-support- 
 ing, and hence, if transferred to the Japanese church, 
 it would be appropriate that a certain amount of sup- 
 port, either in the form of endowments or of grants in 
 aid should accompany them. 
 
 If we do thus look forward to eventually transfer- 
 ring our educational institutions to the Japanese, it is 
 natural and proper that from time to time, as circum- 
 stances seem to indicate. Boards of Directors should 
 be organized, consisting of both Japanese and foreign- 
 ers, with the expectation that finally the Japanese will 
 be in complete control. Thus the very method which 
 we oppose in evangelistic work is seen to be natural 
 and appropriate in educational work, although here 
 
144 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 also any demand of the Church of Christ in Japan, 
 through its General Synod, to share in such control as 
 a matter of inherent right would be stoutly resisted. 
 
 The Results of Christian Education. 
 
 Let us now ask what we have to show for the work 
 of fifty years in this department. In other words, 
 what are the results of Christian education in Japan, 
 within the limits laid down in this discussion ? 
 
 We propose to take up this subject under the three 
 heads of statistics, general influence upon the progress 
 of society, and specifically Christian influence. 
 
 A careful calculation makes it probable that from 
 twenty to twenty-five thousand young men have re- 
 ceived more or less instruction in the Christian schools 
 of Japan. Of this number approximately three thou- 
 sand are graduates, either of the Middle School course 
 or of a higher course, or of both. The percentage of 
 these graduates engaged in the various callings, so far 
 as could be ascertained in the summer of the year 
 1909, was as follows : 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 In the Ministry or some other Christian Work. ... 3 
 
 Teachers 12 
 
 Civil Service 5 
 
 Business Men, Farmers, etc 28 
 
 Military Service I 
 
 Miscellaneous Callings . 2 
 
 Still at School in Higher Courses 35 
 
 Deceased 7 
 
 Unknown 7 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 145 
 
 These figures refer only to occupations and condi- 
 tions at the time of investigation. Especially must this 
 be remembered in regard to those in Christian work, 
 for the number of those who have taken a theological 
 course and for one reason or another are not now in 
 the ministry is comparatively large. 
 
 Considered merely from a statistical standpoint, 
 these figures are disappointing, both in the total num- 
 ber of graduates sent out and in the proportion giving 
 themselves to religious work. We must guard our- 
 selves, however, here, as elsewhere, against an over-es- 
 timate of mere statistics. A more important question 
 is what part the Christian schools, through their stu- 
 dents and graduates, have had in the remarkable prog- 
 ress of the Japanese people. 
 
 It is a striking fact that there are certain professions 
 in which almost no graduates of Christian schools are 
 found, and therefore certain departments of life upon 
 which they can scarcely be said to have had any influ- 
 ence. These are the military, medical, and legal pro- 
 fessions. This is all the more noticeable as the latter 
 two are precisely the professions in which, next to the 
 ministry, the greatest numbers of graduates of Chris- 
 tian schools are found in America. The chief reason 
 for this is that access to the medical and law schools 
 was for so long a time impossible to our graduates, by 
 reason of conditions already described. 
 
 A considerable number of graduates are found in 
 the callings classed in Japanese as "jitsugyo," which 
 term includes farming, and the work of an artisan, as 
 well as manufacturing and commerce. Nearly seven 
 
 10 
 
146 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 hundred of the graduates are in this class, most of 
 them clerks and other employees in banks and com- 
 mercial companies. So far as known, not one of them 
 has accumulated a great fortune or holds a command 
 ing position in the business world, but on the whole 
 they are efficiently and faithfully contributing their 
 share to the progress of society. Banking is the busi- 
 ness most favored by them, and not a few are mana- 
 gers of banks, presidents of commercial companies, or 
 in other posts of influence. 
 
 It is, no doubt, from one point of view, disappoint- 
 ing that so many of our graduates choose secular call- 
 ings. An earnest missionary would like to see large 
 numbers press into the ministry. And yet, it will not 
 do tc take a narrow view of such matters. The earth 
 is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Uncjuescion- 
 ably God calls men to the counting house as well as 
 to the pulpit. No country ever needed more than 
 Japan to have its resources developed and its in- 
 dustries reorganized. Such development and reorgan- 
 ization are at the root of all progress, and a Christian 
 school has the same right as any other school to take 
 satisfaction in the fact that its boys are doing their 
 share in this great and vitally important work. 
 
 The number of those who have gone into official and 
 political life is smaller, being 117, but the proportion 
 who have risen to eminence in this field is greater, and 
 their influence upon the country has been more direct. 
 Most of them hold positions of greater or less impor- 
 tance in city and provincial offices, in the postal and 
 customs services, or in similar lines of work, but 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 147 
 
 among them are found also members of the upper and 
 lower houses of Parliament, a mayor of Yoko- 
 hama, the governor of Gifu Ken, the postmaster of 
 Nagasaki, and holders of numerous offices in the diplo- 
 matic service, from that of Minister downwards. 
 
 It is, however, in the world of ideas rather than in 
 business or official life that the graduates and former 
 pupils of mission schools have especially distinguished 
 themselves. Even when such graduates are not Chris- 
 tians, it is easy to see that this impulse to consider 
 ideas as more important than dollars is the legitimate 
 fruit of Christian education. Nor is this by any means 
 an inferior contribution to social and national progress. 
 Fundamentally, the difference between Old Japan and 
 New Japan is a difference in the prevailing ideas. The 
 natural resources are the same, the character of the 
 people, also, cannot have undergone a magical change. 
 The energy, docility, and loyalty which so largely ac- 
 count for their recent progress were all there before. 
 Japan under the old regime was comparable to one of 
 those valleys in the Rocky Mountains, where condi- 
 tions of soil, temperature and sunshine are well nigh 
 perfect, but which are comparatively barren for lack 
 of water. Let an aqueduct be built, and the richest 
 crops reward the labor of the husbandman. As the 
 water flowing through the aqueduct in such a valley 
 transforms a scene of barrenness and desolation into 
 one of fertility and beauty, so the new ideas which 
 were introduced into Japan during the first part of the 
 last half century, ideas of liberty, equality and popular 
 rights, ideas of the value of the individual, of the dig- 
 
148 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 nity of woman, of the purity of the family life, etc., 
 have transformed that empire from the comparative 
 barrenness of the Tokugawa era into the wonder of 
 the world. 
 
 If the new ideas thus introduced may fitly be com- 
 pared to the life-giving water, what is the aqueduct? 
 It is that which contains and conveys the ideas, in 
 other words, the foreign language, in this case, the En- 
 glish language. It follows from this that no one is a 
 greater benefactor to society than he who builds this 
 intellectual aqueduct. Viewed from this standpoint, 
 the mission schools take their places among the most 
 beneficent agencies that have contributed to the crea- 
 tion of new Japan. From the educational work done 
 in the government schools by Dr. Verbeck, Dr. Brown 
 and others, down to the present time, the teaching of 
 English by the missionaries, both in and out of the 
 regular school organizations, has brought in a flood of 
 new ideas, so that the sign 'Importers of New Ideas," 
 might appropriately be hung over the gate of every 
 mission school. At present there is hardly a Middle 
 school that has not one or more of our graduates 
 among its pupils, so that it may be doubted whether 
 the government schools could maintain this most im- 
 portant part of their curriculum without the aid given 
 them by the mission schools. There is not a mission 
 school but has sent a number of its graduates into the 
 teaching profession, and they are found in the higher 
 colleges and even among the professors in the Imperial 
 universities. 
 
 The importation of new ideas is carried on also by 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 149 
 
 newspapers and magazines, and here the influence of 
 mission school graduates is very prominent. Indeed, 
 they may be said to have started magazine Hterature 
 in Japan, for the pioneers in this Hne were Mr. Toku- 
 tomi, with his "Kokumin no Tomo;" Mr. Uemura, 
 with the ''Nihon Hyoron," and Messrs. Shimasaki, 
 Togawa and Hirata, with the "Bungakkwai." All 
 these received their education in mission schools. 
 
 Neither is this interest in journalism a matter that 
 has decreased of recent years. Down to the present, 
 many of the graduates of Christian schools go into 
 journalism, and many of the most influential periodi- 
 cals employ them. The following is a hastily con- 
 structed and imperfect list of journals having gradu- 
 ates of Christian schools as editors-in-chief or as mem- 
 bers of their staflfs. The Mainichi Shimbun, Kokumin 
 Shimbun, Hochi Shimbun, Osaka Asahi Shimbun, Na- 
 goya Fuso Shimbun, Kagoshima Nichi Nichi Shimbun, 
 Chinzei Nippo, Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, Yorozu Choho, 
 Kahoku Shimpo, Sendai Nichi Nichi Shimbun, Jitsug- 
 yo no Nihon, Eibun Shinshi, Boken Sekai, Bunko, 
 Waseda Daigaku Shippan Bu, Chuo Koron, Taiyo, 
 Jinsen Chosen Shimpo, Moji Shimpo. 
 
 When we consider what graduates of Christian 
 schools have done in the field of authorship, we meet 
 with an astonishing record, which space allows us 
 merely to touch upon by pointing to Shimasaki Toson, 
 the poet ; Matsumura Kaiseki, the lecturer and his- 
 torian; the late Dr. Onishi, eminent as an author on 
 topics connected with education and psychology, and 
 Tokutomi Kenjiro, the novelist. These men and others 
 
150 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 like them have led the way in creating a new literature 
 for Japan, a literature that is fast familiarizing the 
 whole nation with the best ideals of the West, and the 
 influence of which upon the national thought and char- 
 acter is simply beyond all calculation. 
 
 The directly Christian influence of mission schools 
 is of three kinds, general influence upon society in 
 removing prejudice and scattering information in 
 regard to our religion ; the influence exerted upon the 
 individual student, in moulding his character and lead- 
 ing him to a saving faith; and the influence of the 
 graduates upon the establishment of the kingdom of 
 God in all of its forms. The first of these three kinds 
 of influence is in its very nature incapable of clear 
 demonstration and exact measurement, but there is no 
 question that it exists and that it is a powerful factor 
 in producing a more favorable public opinion. The 
 very fact that the missionaries establish schools pre- 
 vents the idea that the Christian religion is afraid of 
 knowledge, or is fit only for ignorant people. Students 
 who attend these schools, even for a brief period can- 
 not entertain the unreasonable prejudices which still 
 are so prevalent among the common people. Teach- 
 ers who give instruction in them for a time and later 
 become teachers in the public schools frequently have 
 occasion to defend missionaries and the Christian re- 
 ligion from the unreasonable suspicions and attacks of 
 their colleagues who have never in any way come into 
 contact with Christian men or institutions, and they do 
 so, even when not themselves gained for the faith. 
 Parents and relatives of the students may not in large 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 151 
 
 numbers become believers, but they are generally to be 
 reckoned among the favorably disposed. In regard to 
 this entire subject of general influence, the late Dr. M. 
 N. Wyckoff, one of the most experienced missionary 
 teachers in Japan, says : 
 
 "1 have no means of estimating the amount of influence 
 which our schools exert in disseminating Christian truth, but 
 I am certain that it is large. That the schools have been a 
 powerful means of getting a hearing for the gospel admits of 
 no doubt. This was more remarkable in the early days, for 
 then the schools and English classes were almost the only way 
 of getting a hearing, but now also our schools have great 
 influence in preparing the way for the entrance of the truth. 
 I cannot prove it, but I believe that the changed and friendly 
 attitude of government schools towards Christianity is due 
 more to the influence of Christian teachers who have been 
 pupils in mission schools than to any other cause." 
 
 As to conversions, the few schools which have ven- 
 tured to submit statistics point to a very good record. 
 The Doshisha claims 2,000 baptisms among 6,000 stu- 
 dents who entered the institution. The Tohoku Gakuin 
 reports 240, Momoyama Chu Gakko 104, Kwansei Ga- 
 kuin 150 and Chinzei Gakuin 700. These are neces- 
 sarily estimates rather than exact returns. 
 
 One would take greater satisfaction in these figures 
 were there not such widespread and apparently such 
 well-founded criticism of many of these converts after 
 they leave school. Extensive inquiry among pastors 
 and Christian workers has brought to light, in- 
 deed, numerous instances where such graduates are 
 pillars in the church, an inspiration to the pastor and 
 an example to the believers ; but on the whole the pas- 
 
152 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tors are not able to make such reports. On the con- 
 trary, they complain of the fact that many graduates 
 take no interest in the church or its work, that they are 
 very worldly in their manner of life, that not a few are 
 a scandal even to unbelievers, and that some seem im- 
 mune to any Christian influence, not only in spite of 
 the fact that they have been educated in Christian in- 
 stitutions, but even on account of it, as if they had 
 once for all had enough of the matter. 
 
 However, here, as elsewhere, it is of the highest 
 importance to distinguish the characteristic and signifi- 
 cant phenomena from those of a general nature. The 
 causes that make men irreligious, immoral and selfish 
 are obvious. They operate within as well as without 
 the circle of those touched by Christian education. 
 That many of the graduates of Christian schools 
 should be men of very common clay is neither surpris- 
 ing nor especially significant. It is otherwise when 
 some of them, young men who entered school with the 
 views and ambitions of their fellows, leave it with re- 
 ligious principles that transform their lives. Here is 
 a phenomenon that requires explanation and demands 
 recognition, be the cases many or few. It is not a 
 question of numbers, but of values. Not the likeness 
 to type but the divergence from the type marks an ad- 
 vance. The diamond digger takes no account of the 
 worthless pebbles, but treasures the gems, and counts 
 himself fortunate if now and then a brilliant rewards 
 his efforts. > 
 
 To trace adequately the influence of Christian edu- 
 cation upon the Christian church in Japan would be 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 153 
 
 to write a history of that church. As Dr. J. F. De 
 Forest writes: "It is safe to say that there never 
 would have been any considerable Christian move- 
 ment in Japan but for the large Christian schools." 
 The first organization effected was composed almost 
 exclusively of students receiving instruction from the 
 missionaries. In the history of the Congregational, or 
 Kumiai, churches in Japan, a company of students 
 known as "The Kumamoto Band," has a unique place. 
 Hardly had the students of the mission schools in the 
 early years completed the few years of preparation 
 when they stood forth as the leaders of the Christian 
 church, and to-day one cannot mention the names of 
 the men who are most honored and influential in the 
 great denominations without calling the roll of gradu- 
 ates of mission schools. 
 
 Especially were the first fifteen years of organized 
 Christian education, from 1872 to 1887, extraordinar- 
 ily fruitful in men who combined conspicuous ability 
 and earnest faith. That the first few years should 
 have produced men like Messrs. Uemura, Ibuka, Ta- 
 mura, Ebina, Miyagawa, Honda, Motoda and numer- 
 ous others, is from every point of view remarkable. 
 The time has not yet come for fully estimating their 
 services, but at least this may be said, that, as at the 
 time of the Reformation, God gave a galaxy of great 
 men to the church, so He enriched the early church 
 in Japan with a group of men of unusual power. 
 
 The later years have not been quite so fruitful. As 
 the seven years of plenty were followed in Egypt by 
 seven years of famine, so a period of about fifteen 
 
154 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 comparatively lean years in Christian education suc- 
 ceeded that wonderful first period. Constantly, how- 
 ever, men have been coming forward, and especially 
 among the y®unger men there are many of great prom- 
 ise. It is to be regretted that so few of our graduates 
 have entered the ministry, so that of the ministers and 
 evangelists now at work only ten per cent have en- 
 joyed the full preparation which our schools offer, but 
 the men who compose this ten per cent are found 
 largely in the influential churches, and in the various 
 forms of activity which represent and interpret Chris- 
 tianity to the world. 
 
 The Christian press is one of these agencies. Next 
 to the pulpit nothing is more indispensable to the 
 Christian church. Investigation shows that without 
 the graduates of Christian schools there simply could 
 not be any Christian press. All the editors-in-chief 
 are from such institutions, being almost without excep- 
 tion graduates from both lower and higher courses. 
 Most of the assistant editors and contributors, also, 
 received their education at the same schools. The 
 "Shin j in" is the only prominent Christian magazine 
 that has a large majority of writers from other 
 schools, and even here the two chief men are from 
 mission schools. 
 
 The same is true of the Y. M. C. A. movement. 
 This organization has sought and found a number of 
 excellent men from government schools, but begin- 
 ning with Mr. Niwa, a Doshisha man, who has been so 
 long and so intimately connected with building up that 
 movement, down to the present time, a large propor- 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 155 
 
 tion of the workers have been from mission schools. 
 During the Russo-Japanese war, when the Y. M. C. A. 
 tent work attracted the favorable comment of the 
 whole world, it was found that out of twenty-two 
 Japanese secretaries, at least fifteen were from mis- 
 sion schools. 
 
 Perhaps one would hardly look for the influence 
 of Christian education in the Salvation Army, but 
 who can doubt that whatever success the Army has en- 
 joyed in Japan has, under God, been largely due to the 
 personality and enthusiasm of Mr. Yamamuro, the 
 editor of the "Toki no Koe?" Mr. Yamamuro is 
 from the Doshisha, and writes that several of the 
 most efficient workers now in the army have come 
 from the Christian schools. 
 
 How is it with hymnology ? One of the most strik- 
 ing and far-reaching facts in recent mission history 
 is that during the last five or six years over two 
 hundred thousand copies of the union hymn book have 
 been sold. The Japanese work on that hymnal was 
 largely the work of two men, one of whom was from 
 Aoyama, while the other was from the Doshisha. 
 
 Organized only a year or two ago, one of the most 
 vigorous branches of Christian work is the Sunday 
 School movement. The three Japanese leaders most 
 conspicuous in that work to-day are respectively from 
 the Aoyama Gakuin, Meiji Gakuin and Kwanzei Ga- 
 kuin. 
 
 It is the same story over again when we ask who are 
 the leading spirits in the great temperance movement, 
 for both Mr. Ando Taro and Mr. Nemo to Sho were 
 
156 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 students under missionary influence, the former before 
 the formal school organization took place, studying 
 under Dr. Brown, and the latter in the first stages 
 of the Meiji Gakuin. 
 
 To sum up what has been said, the results of Chris- 
 tian education are disappointing in the following par- 
 ticulars : in the fewness of graduates, considering the 
 number and equipment of the schools and the length 
 of time they have been at work ; in the failure to influ- 
 ence to a deep religious conviction such a large portion 
 of the students; in the unsatisfactory character of so 
 many who profess conversion, and in the fewness of 
 candidates for the ministry. 
 
 On the other hand, the services of Christian schools 
 to society at large and to the Christian church have 
 been abundant and valuable. Their graduates have 
 contributed largely to the material, intellectual and 
 moral development of the nation, as business men, offi- 
 cials, teachers and editors. Their influence has in- 
 spired the new literature of Japan, has vitalized its civ- 
 ilization with spiritual ideas, and has been prevailingly 
 on the side of righteousness and purity in national, 
 family and private life. Christian education has given 
 birth to the Christian church, has supplied it with 
 leaders, literature and hymnology and has made possi- 
 ble well-nigh every form of its manifold activities. As 
 the strata of rock beneath the fertile fields, although 
 themselves invisible and forgotten, yet underlie and 
 sustain the soil, so Christian education underlies and 
 sustains Christian civilization and the Christian 
 church. 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 157 
 
 Problems of Christian Education. 
 
 Although the existing Christian schools are thus 
 seen to have been very influential in the past, it is a 
 serious question whether they are in a position to be 
 equally influential in the future. The schools of Acad- 
 emy, or Middle School, grade need not give us much 
 concern. They require, to be sure, considerable im- 
 provement in equipment and teaching force to hold 
 their own in competition with the government schools, 
 but this will no doubt be furnished by the various 
 boards. A much greater problem is how to make 
 Christian education a potent factor in the advancing 
 intellectual life of the nation by introducing it into 
 the sphere of college and university training, from 
 which it is now practically excluded. 
 
 The cause of this phenomenon is a striking differ- 
 ence that exists between education in Japan and in 
 America. An American college offers the student no 
 professional training, but prepares him to obtain such 
 training later. He has, therefore, no need to select his 
 profession until his outlook upon life has been broad- 
 ened and his insight into its meaning has been deep- 
 ened by general culture. In the meantime. Christian 
 forces are brought to bear upon his mind and heart 
 which not infrequently lead to his conversion, with a 
 resultant consecration to a very different course of 
 life from the one he would have chosen had he been 
 obliged to cast the die several years earlier. Whatever 
 his choice, he may enter upon his professional studies 
 wherever he likes, for with his college diploma in his 
 
158 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 hands, the doors of every technical institute in the 
 country are open to him. 
 
 In Japan, on the contrary, specialization begins very 
 early, so early that the choice of a profession is prac- 
 tically forced upon the graduate of a Middle School, 
 immature and uncultured as he of necessity is. To be 
 sure, if he is one of the favored few who gain admit- 
 tance to one of the government colleges, he does not 
 actually begin his professional studies until three years 
 later, in the university, but even in these colleges the 
 division into classes is based upon the course to be 
 pursued in the university, and the curriculum varies 
 accordingly. 
 
 Hence there is really no place in the education of 
 Japan for the counterpart of the American college 
 course, where the humanities are supreme, and the 
 question of bread and butter is temporarily out of 
 sight. We need not stop to point out how great a loss 
 Japan suffers by this elimination of the college course, 
 how unfavorable such a condition is to the cultivation 
 of the spiritual aspirations, or how directly it tends to 
 the predominance in her social order of a narrow 
 vision and a materialistic attitude. We desire espe- 
 cially to call attention to the fact that by this circum- 
 stance Christian education is excluded from the very 
 domain where she most longs to assert herself, a do- 
 main peculiarly her own in other hands. The great 
 sciences which interpret human life and destiny, viz. : 
 history, logic, literature, sociology, psychology, philos- 
 opy, etc., are too advanced to be taught in the Mid- 
 dle School. They belong in the college course. To be 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 159 
 
 satisfied with Christian secondary education is to give 
 up all hope of substituting for the rationalistic view 
 of these sciences prevalent in Japan one more in har- 
 mony with the principles of our religion. To acqui- 
 esce in this is impossible. Hence the irresistible im- 
 pulse to establish Christian colleges or their equivalent. 
 So much is clear, and in obedience to this impulse a 
 number of ''Higher Departments," or "Colleges," have 
 been established, in which a high-class curriculum of 
 three years or more promises an intellectual feast. 
 But alas ! if the truth must be told, they are for the 
 most part failures. As a rule, two or three tens of 
 students, either candidates for the ministry or other- 
 wise supported by scholarships, are the only guests at 
 the banquet. What is the reason? Simply that the 
 course leads nowhere except to the theological sem- 
 inaries. The Imperial Universities are the only insti- 
 tutions in the country that demand for entrance an 
 education of this grade, and they are practically open 
 only to graduates of the government colleges. All 
 other professional schools are organized on the basis 
 of the Middle School as the source of supply. The 
 three years spent in the "college department" of a mis- 
 sion school would, therefore, be of no advantage to a 
 young man in preparing for a professional career. At 
 best they would appear to him and his friends as lost 
 time. This fact fully accounts for the failure of such 
 departments to attract students. The conclusion of the 
 whole matter and the lesson of two decades of failure 
 is this : A college course that does not open the way 
 to a professional career cannot succeed. 
 
i6o MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 If this is true, it is clear that Christian higher ed- 
 ucation must remain in its present state, as a prepara- 
 tory department to the divinity school only, or Chris- 
 tion professional courses of higher grade must in some 
 way be provided. To some extent this has already 
 been done by the Aoyama Gakuin, the Methodist 
 school in Tokyo, which some years ago obtained a 
 charter by virtue of which graduates from its collegi- 
 ate department were entitled without further exam- 
 ination to receive certificates as licensed teachers of 
 English in schools of middle grade. Since that time 
 they have had plenty of students. More recently the 
 Rikkyo Dai Gakko, a school of the American Episco- 
 pal church, has introduced a commercial course, and 
 hence reports more than fifty men in the collegiate de- 
 partment. We are thus forced to the conclusion that 
 the Christian educators of Japan must either teach the 
 young men in their "Higher Departments," or "Col- 
 leges," something by which they may earn a living or 
 confine themselves to work of academy grade. A 
 purely literary college course^ however excellent, can- 
 not succeed. 
 
 An ideal solution of the difficulty would be to es- 
 tablish one great central Christian university, a school 
 turning out doctors, lawyers, civil engineers and other 
 experts, but requiring the applicant to have already a 
 college education. If this were done, each existing 
 school would speedily grow into a genuine college, 
 and act as a feeder to such a university. This need is 
 keenly felt among Christian educators in Japan, and 
 the matter has repeatedly been under discussion. It 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK i6i 
 
 is clear that such an institution should have a union 
 character, for the cost would be immense, and there 
 is not really room in Japan, at present, for two such 
 schools. It is also clear that it should be an endowed 
 institution, for the difficulty of securing" adequate and 
 reliable support from the treasuries of the mission 
 boards would be insurmountable. 
 
 However, suppose there were such a union univers- 
 ity adequately endowed, would there be real union 
 enough among the forces involved to ensure ultimate 
 success ? I am afraid not. Much is said in these days 
 about union. In gatherings like the Edinburgh Con- 
 ference every reference to it is applauded to the echo, 
 and, to be sure, many of the old barriers are being 
 swept away. At least, we have learned to see that 
 some questions important enough to divide us as de- 
 nominations need not prevent our joining hands in cer- 
 tain lines of work. It would not be difficult for me 
 to co-operate in such a university with Methodists, 
 Baptists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists and Luth- 
 erans, and I think that most missionaries would be 
 able to do so. 
 
 However, while certain lines of cleavage in the 
 Christian body are less marked than formerly, other 
 lines are appearing, and these new lines are precisely 
 such as, in my opinion, make united higher Christian 
 education difficult, if not impossible, for they are ulti- 
 mately based upon the acceptance or rejection of the 
 supernatural, and, therefore, their effect must be seen 
 in every interpretation of the cosmos. Inasmuch as 
 such interpretation is the very heart of higher educa- 
 II 
 
i62 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tion, two parties differing on this point could never 
 permanently work in harmony in a Christian univers- 
 ity. That there are two such parties, both here and in 
 Japan, is too well known to require proof. Bald, a pri- 
 ori denial of the supernatural may be rare among pro- 
 fessing Christians, but a constant minimizing of it, a 
 persistent refusal to admit it as a legitimate element 
 in our view of the world and as an acceptable inter- 
 pretation of the great facts of the Christian history 
 is not only common, but is at the bottom of almost 
 everything that goes by the name of New Theology, 
 advanced thought, "assured results of Higher Criti- 
 cism," etc. 
 
 To my mind no person or institution has any right 
 to the name of "Christian" that does not heartily ac- 
 cept the Apostles' Creed, barring only the obscure and 
 disputed article, "He descended into hell." I should 
 not care a cent for a Christian university in Japan un- 
 less all of its directors and every full permanent pro- 
 fessor were required to declare his adherence to these 
 articles, and to teach in accordance therewith. This 
 is the least that could be asked. Yet I have no idea 
 that a union Christian university in Japan is possible 
 on such conditions. The articles in regard to the Vir- 
 gin Birth, the Resurrection of Christ and the Resur- 
 rection of the Body would, I believe, form an insur- 
 mountable obstacle. They would either be denied out- 
 right, or would be interpreted to mean something dif- 
 ferent from the plain and historic sense. Such is the 
 power of the miserable credophobia that has emascu- 
 lated our Christianity that even many who heartily ac- 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 163 
 
 cept the Apostles' Creed themselves would refuse to 
 insist upon such a standard. This is the chief diffi- 
 culty. It is not that the orthodox party is outnum- 
 bered. On the contrary, genuine faith in historic 
 Christianity is the rule among ministers and Chris- 
 tians in Japan as elsewhere, not the exception. If they 
 would join hands and insist upon some formula of 
 concord, they could accomplish it, but for the present 
 the generous enthusiasm for unity has dazzled their 
 eyes. Apparently our churches will have to play with 
 the fire a little longer before they are sufficiently 
 burned to dread it. 
 
 If I knew of some way to make a Christian uni- 
 versity really Christian and to keep it so, nothing 
 would enlist my ardent and enthusiastic support like 
 the proposal to establish one. As it is, I am less op- 
 timistic over the prospects of this branch of our work 
 than of any other. It is a problem that is vital to the 
 future of the church in Japan, but one that is at pres- 
 ent, to my mind, insoluble. This does not hinder my 
 looking to God in faith that He has a solution and will 
 show it to us in His own way and at His own time. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 What God Is Doing in the Far East. 
 
 Our subject is : What God is doing in the Far East. 
 The words, The Far East, must be understood from 
 the standpoint of Europe rather than from that of 
 America. The East in general is all that portion of 
 the world lying eastward from Europe. In common 
 parlance three sections of it are distinguished, viz. : 
 the Near East, which includes Asia Minor, Palestine, 
 Egypt and Arabia ; the East, simply, without any qual- 
 ifying adjective, which means India, Siam and Bur- 
 mah; and the Far East, including China, Korea and 
 Japan. 
 
 The union of these three countries, China, Japan 
 and Korea is more than a geographical accident. They 
 are really united by many and important bonds of Ian- j 
 guage, custom, tradition and religion. They have notj 
 a common spoken language, but the literary written 
 language is the same, for the Chinese script is read by 
 the educated men of Korea and Japan as well. Over 
 them all Confucius threw the spell of his great system 
 for centuries, so that they studied the same classic 
 literature and held the same ideas of law, morality and 
 government. Without intercourse with the rest of the 
 world, they were sufficient to themselves, and felt no 
 need to learn more than the ancient sages had taught. 
 The civilization of China was already well established 
 in the days of Moses, while in Korea there are records 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 165 
 
 of a king who was contemporary with David. When 
 we consider the population that inhabits these lands, 
 we find that it comprises not less than five hundred 
 millions of men, approximately one-fourth of the hu- 
 man race. 
 
 We are invited to consider at this time what God is 
 doing in this great gection of the world. Our subject 
 includes as one of its chief elements what God is do- 
 ing through the preaching of the gospel, but it is not 
 limited to that. We gladly confess our faith that God 
 has other tools with which to work, and that his doings 
 include the entire range of Divine Providence, work- 
 ing through Commerce, Diplomacy, Education and 
 War, as well as through the direct missionary work. 
 The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. His- 
 tory is but the record of his acts, and the ambitions 
 of kings, the plans of statesmen and the passions of the 
 nations are overruled by Him to the coming of that 
 one far off divine event to which the whole creation 
 moves. 
 
 Sixty years ago there were only five ports in China 
 where Europeans were allowed to reside, and these 
 had been opened only a few years before as the result 
 of the first opium war. The entire interior of China 
 was not only closed to the missionary work, but to all 
 travel and residence by foreigners. It was practically 
 an unknown land. Nevertheless, the situation in China 
 was at that time far more favorable than it was in 
 Japan, for it was death to any one but a Hollander to 
 enter that land, and the Dutch were able to bring but 
 one ship each year. They were permitted to reside 
 
i66 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 only at Nagasaki, where the greatest pains were taken 
 to prevent communication between them and the rest 
 of the country. As for taking advantage of their pres- 
 ence to introduce some knowledge of Christianity, that 
 was quite out of the question, for the religion of Christ 
 was more hated, despised and dreaded by the ruling 
 powers of Japan than any other thing. To the Dutch 
 Envoy, Jonkheer Donker Curtius, the Japanese offi- 
 cials said that they would be willing to allow foreign- 
 ers all trading privileges if only a way could be found 
 to keep opium and Christianity out of the country. 
 
 Public notices were everywhere to be seen denounc- 
 ing it as a vile religion and strictly forbidding the peo- 
 ple to have anything whatever to do with it. Not con- 
 tent with that, it was the custom of the government 
 once a year to call upon the people to stamp and spit 
 upon the cross, confident that in this way any hidden 
 Christians would be at once detected. This condition 
 of affairs had lasted for more than two hundred years, 
 and there was, judging from outward appearances, not 
 the least reason in the world to think that it would 
 soon be overthrown. As for Korea, it was, and long 
 remained, the Hermit Nation, having a limited inter- 
 course with China and Japan, but none at all with the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 In the year 1853 the government of the United 
 States sent Commodore Perry with a squadron of war- 
 ships to insist upon a treaty with Japan, which was 
 accomplished the following year, and opened the way 
 to the settlement of Dr. Verbeck and other mission- 
 aries in the country in the year 1859. I^ the mean- 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 167 
 
 time the second opium war had opened other ports in 
 China and secured the privilege of traveling in the in- 
 terior. 
 
 All this was by way of preparation, but was not in 
 itself of any great importance. Things remained very 
 much as they were both in Japan and in China until 
 the latter part of the sixties. The Civil War had been 
 fought and finished before there took place the first of 
 that wonderful series of political changes in the Far 
 East which have transformed it to what we see today. 
 This is called the Restoration of 1868, because it con- 
 sisted of the overthrow of the power of the military 
 chiefs, the Shoguns and the restoration of the Em- 
 peror of Japan to his rightful power at the head of the 
 state. This was much more than a mere change of 
 masters : it marked the downfall of the ancient system 
 of seclusion and the opening of Japan to free inter- 
 course with all the nations of the world. It was fol- 
 lowed, in 1873, by the removal of the notices against 
 Christianity and the granting of practical religious 
 freedom. 
 
 The progress of Japan since that time is a familiar 
 story. It is one of the fairy tales of history. The 
 foundation was laid when, the very year after the Res- 
 toration, regulations relating to universities, middle 
 schools and elementary schools were promulgated by 
 imperial decree, thus committing the empire to the 
 great conception of public education. Two years later 
 the Code of Education was promulgated, wherein it 
 was declared that knowledge was to be sought 
 throughout the world, and the high ideal was held up 
 
i68 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 of a nation in which there should not be a village with 
 an ignorant family or a family with an ignorant mem- 
 ber. The development of New Japan is but the nat- 
 ural consequence of such a policy. The most notable 
 political changes which this development included were 
 the granting of the Constitution, in 1889, the adoption 
 of entirely new laws, on the European model, ten 
 years later, and the two great wars, that with China 
 in 1894 and the recent struggle with Russia. 
 
 China yielded much more slowly to the impact of 
 the new forces that entered the Far East. Although 
 opened to trade and residence earlier than Japan, there 
 was lacking on the part of both government and peo- 
 ple that cordial recognition of the superiority of West- 
 ern knowledge and that systematized effort to appro- 
 priate the best that could be found that are the secrets 
 of the rapid advance of Japan. Consequently new 
 ideas and improvements had to win their way one by 
 one, not as a result of government encouragement, but 
 generally in the teeth of government opposition. Rail- 
 roads, telegraphs and postal service were, however, 
 slowly introduced during the eighties. 
 
 In spite of all her intercourse with the outside 
 world, China maintained up to the beginning of the 
 last decade of the nineteenth century, her traditional 
 attitude of haughty superiority towards the rest of 
 the world. When I first went to the Far East, in 1891, 
 and for several years thereafter, China was spoken of 
 as almost hopeless, as unwilling to learn and incapable 
 of learning anything. The first great event that made 
 a marked change was the war with Japan in which her 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 169 
 
 ancient claim to suzereignty over Korea was shattered, 
 some of her greatest fortresses and one of her fairest 
 provinces passed into the hands of others, her navy 
 was annihilated and her pitiable military weakness ex- 
 posed to all the world. Then followed a period dur- 
 ing which the partition of China was openly discussed, 
 and point was lent to the discussion by the presence 
 of Germany in the province of Shantung, by the claim 
 of Great Britain to a sphere of influence in the valley 
 of the Yangtse Kiang, and by the steady advance of 
 Russia in Manchuria. 
 
 All this set old China to thinking, a process in which 
 the recently established newspapers gave her no little 
 assistance. The conviction that something was the 
 matter, and that something must be done to save the 
 state, became common among the Chinese people. Out 
 of all these and many more similar causes came the 
 Reform movement of 1898, a critical year in the his- 
 tory of China. Early in January of that year men 
 were startled in Peking by the report that the Em- 
 peror had sent to the American Bible and Tract So- 
 ciety for a copy of every book and tract that the depot 
 could supply for his own reading. He did read them, 
 too, with the result that he placed himself at the head 
 of the reform party, and undertook to bring into op- 
 eration in a short time the most sweeping changes. Six 
 months later he began to issue a series of splendid 
 edicts, about forty in number, which, if they had been 
 carried out, would have revolutionized the life of 
 China. He was not, however, strong enough to carry 
 them out. He came into conflict with the Empress 
 
170 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Dowager and her party, was practically thrown into 
 prison, and his friends were scattered or put to death. 
 Then came the Boxer war, a bitter struggle of the re- 
 actionary elements to cast off the growing influences 
 that made for reform. When the foreign armies were 
 triumphantly in possession of the capital and the Em- 
 press herself was a fugitive, she had at last learned her 
 lesson. Although she came back to power, she was too 
 wise any longer to oppose all reforms. New edicts 
 were issued, some of them confirming the laws of the 
 emperor. Among the most important of these is the 
 abolition of the ancient system of examinations and 
 the adoption of modern learning as the standard by 
 which the fitness of candidates for office is to be meas- 
 ured. To make this good, a system of public schools 
 upon a modern plan had to be established, and thus 
 China also has entered upon the path which, in the 
 course of thirty or forty years, will accomplish in her 
 the same kind of thing that we have seen in Japan, 
 only upon a far grander scale. 
 
 Even now, a Chinese parliament, or the nucleus of 
 one is sitting in Peking, and the chief topic of dis- 
 cussion has been the need of hastening the time when 
 the Constitution, already promised, is to be granted to 
 the people. 
 
 In the meantime, what was happening in Korea? 
 That unhappy country did the same on a small scale as 
 China did on a large one, viz. : resisted all impulses to 
 change. If history could have waited until Korea got 
 ready to move, all might have been well. But the 
 hermit had come out of his seclusion too late. Japan, 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 171 
 
 Russia and China were converging upon each other at 
 that very point, and in the collision the little king- 
 dom was crushed. It has disappeared from the map 
 except as a province of Japan. 
 
 It is impossible to describe fully the blessings God 
 has bestowed upon the people of the Far East in these 
 political changes. They mean the substitution of an 
 entirely new civilization for the one they had had for 
 centuries. This difference of civilization means again 
 that knowledge takes the place of ignorance and lib- 
 erty the place of oppression. A difference in the civili- 
 zation involves, at the root of the matter, a difference 
 in the prevalent ideas. The difference between old 
 Japan and New Japan, between the China that now is 
 and the China that is soon to be, is at bottom due to a 
 host of new ideas that have come in and are coming 
 in all the time; ideas of liberty, equality and popular 
 rights ; ideas of the value of the individual, of the dig- 
 nity of woman, of the purity of the family Hfe. Let 
 me give you one or two instances of the operation of 
 these new ideas. 
 
 Only forty years ago, if a young "samurai" had 
 purchased a new sword and wished to try the edge, he 
 needed only to go out into the country and find a man 
 of the lowest caste and cut off his head. This was 
 called "Tameshi-giri," and was frequently practiced. 
 The idea of the value of every human being came in 
 with our Christian civilization, and today the life of 
 every man is protected by the law. 
 
 Up to the year 1899 a father could sell his daughter 
 into a life of shame and if she tried to escape from the 
 
172 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 brothel the police would bring her back. In that year 
 an American missionary successfully appealed to the 
 new ideas of the right of personal liberty and of the 
 dignity of women, embodied in the revised statutes of 
 Japan, and now it is impossible to bind a young woman 
 legally to a life of sin. 
 
 Sad as is the loss of Korean nationality from the 
 standpoint of national feeling, there is no doubt that 
 the common people of Korea are better off than they 
 were under their own rulers. When I passed through 
 that country last spring one of the missionaries, who 
 was not particularly friendly to Japan, said that the 
 terrible tales of injustice suffered by the common peo- 
 ple at the hands of their own Korean tax collectors 
 were no longer heard. Farmers in Korea are not now 
 afraid to make a little money, for there are no greedy 
 officials waiting to rob them of it. 
 
 Let me call your attention also to the channel 
 through which these new ideas are coming into the Far 
 East. If we compare these ideas themselves to the 
 water which irrigates a desert, transforming it from 
 a scene of barrenness and desolation into one of fertil- 
 ity and beauty, what shall we liken to the aqueduct, 
 through which the water is conveyed ? This is nothing 
 else than language, for ideas are carried through writ- 
 ten and spoken words. In two ways it may be said 
 that God has given and is giving a new language to the 
 Far East. In the first place by giving them a new 
 learned language. In the old order of things the 
 classic language of China was the common language 
 of educated men in the Far East. In the new order 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 173 
 
 of affairs it is English. More than one hundred thou- 
 sand young men in Japan are studying the EngHsh 
 language as the chief thing in their education. Last 
 spring an item appeared in the papers that was hardly 
 noticed by the press, but that was really of the highest 
 significance. It was that by Imperial Edict the gov- 
 ernment of China had ordered that henceforth all 
 schools of middle and higher grade should teach En- 
 glish. This is beyond question the greatest event in 
 the history of the English language. 
 
 To make the significance of such an order clear let 
 us suppose for a moment that the language chosen 
 had been Portuguese. In that case a great many Por- 
 tuguese teachers would have to be sent for to come 
 and teach that tongue, and the natural result would be 
 that along with the Portuguese words, the educated 
 Chinese would get their heads filled with Portuguese 
 ideas, and that they would presently understand and 
 sympathize with Portugal better than with any other 
 nation. Precisely the same result has been worked 
 out in Japan and will be the result in Korea and 
 China within another thirty or forty years, only the 
 language, instead of being Catholic Portuguese is 
 Protestant English. No man can pretend to any 
 standing as a scholar in the Far East of the future who 
 is ignorant of the English language. Even now it is 
 no uncommon, as it is certainly a most significant ex- 
 perience, to see an educated Chinaman and an edu- 
 cated Japanese conversing together on the deck of a 
 steamer — in the English language. 
 
 There is, however, another and still more signifi- 
 
174 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 cant side to this language problem. It is the effect 
 which this incoming of the English language with its 
 Christian ideas has upon the native tongues. Nothing 
 is more striking than the great change which the Jap- 
 anese language has undergone since the introduction of 
 Western thought. It is not only that there have come 
 into use a great many words that were unknown be- 
 fore, such as "duty," "rights," "responsibility," etc., 
 but that the old words have their meanings greatly en- 
 larged. For example, take the Japanese word mean- 
 ing Qod, "Kami," or the one meaning love, "ai." These 
 words, in the old Japan, had very much lower mean- 
 ings than we associate with the words. "Kami" did 
 not, by any means, mean the infinite and only creator, 
 but at most one of the deceased emperors. But the 
 word God had to be translated in the classroom and 
 explained to the students. There was no other word 
 to use but "Kami," but after the explanation of that 
 word it no longer meant what it had meant formerly, 
 it was remembered as the rendering of the English 
 word "God," and carried all the meaning that the En- 
 glish word possesses. So the old word "Kami" is 
 really a new word, or rather a word new born, for 
 there is a second birth of words as well as of men. So 
 it is with the word, "ai," love, and so it is with a large 
 number of words. Between the new words that have 
 been introduced and the old words that have new 
 meanings, it is said by the Japanese that a well edu- 
 cated man of fifty years ago would be quite unable to 
 understand the language that is spoken in educated 
 circles to-day. 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 175 
 
 The result is that God is practically making the na- 
 tions of the world of one language and one speech. 
 The sound of the words and the construction of the 
 sentences may be different, but that is of little impor- 
 tance if only the ideas are the same. One man may 
 say "Kami" and another "God;" let them; it is no 
 matter, so long as they mean the same thing. So what 
 we see in the Far East to-day is really the reversal in 
 the profoundest sense of the miracle of Babel. God is 
 removing the barriers that separated the nations and is 
 making them again and in reality of one blood. St. 
 Paul tells us that Christ broke down the middle wall 
 of partition between Jew and Gentile, for to make of 
 the twain in himself one new man, that is, one new 
 humanity. That is exactly what he is doing today in 
 the Far East— breaking down the middle wall of parti- 
 tion between the East and the West, for to make of 
 the twain in Himself one new humanity. Oh, the won- 
 der of it, that this great divine process is going on be- 
 fore our eyes, and that we may look upon it ! 
 
 There is yet a greater thing ! We have compared the 
 old Far East to a barren desert and the new language 
 to God's aqueduct, flooding that barren soil with the 
 fertilizing ideas of a Christian civilization. One more 
 thing is required, and that is good seed, for neither in 
 soil nor in water is there life, they only supply the 
 conditions under which the life can develop. What 
 is the seed ? 
 
 The good seed are the children of the kingdom! 
 The word of God, yet not that word abstractly, but 
 as embodied in consecrated lives, as proclaimed by 
 
176 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 sanctified lives, and as perpetuated in divine institu- 
 tions — this is the seed from which the harvest of God 
 is to spring. We may, therefore, fitly compare the 
 work of God in the Far East to that of a husbandman. 
 He has broken up the hard surface of the soil by 
 mighty political upheavals, and by the sharp plow- 
 shares of war and revolution ; He has watered it by a 
 flood of new ideas, and He finally casts into the field 
 thus prepared the seed of the missionary work. 
 
 This work was begun in the Far East more than 
 a hundred years ago, for the work of Robert Morri- 
 son, in 1807, is generally accepted as the beginning of 
 the Protestant missionary work in that land, but all 
 the remarkable developments have taken place in the 
 period we have undertaken to review, and, indeed, in 
 the latter part of this period. Missionary work in 
 Japan began in 1859, but here also, little was to be 
 seen of any result for many years. In 1870 there were 
 not Japanese Christians enough to count. In 1880 
 there were three thousand. Ten years later there were 
 thirty thousand, and the number of converts in Japan 
 was about the same as in China, where the missionary 
 work had been going on for eighty years. Then began 
 the period of slower growth in Japan, while that in 
 China was accelerated by the events that followed the 
 war between Japan and China. In the meantime the 
 gospel had entered Korea, and was winning its way 
 with truly wonderful strides. The work was begun in 
 1884. In the reports of the great missionary confer- 
 ence in London in 1888 that country is hardly men- 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 177 
 
 tioned. To-day it is one of the most wonderful works 
 of God anywhere to be found. 
 
 According to the figures of the Edinburgh Confer- 
 ence, there are now in Japan and Formosa in round 
 numbers 67,000 Communicant Christians, in Korea 
 57,000 and in China 177,000, making a total of over 
 three hundred thousand souls, representing a Chris- 
 tian community of at least one million. To show you 
 how rapidly this whole work of God has gone forward 
 in the last years, let me remind you that in the year 
 1886, there were no Christians at all in Korea, and in 
 the whole of the Far East there were only fifty thou- 
 sand, less than one-sixth of the number now. The in- 
 crease in twenty-five years has been six hundred per 
 cent. Oh, if we could only enter into the spiritual 
 realities back of these figures, and could count the sins 
 forgiven, the lives changed, the hearts sanctified, the 
 consecrated service rendered, the tears dried, the 
 homes made happy, the idols abandoned, the chains of 
 superstition cast off, the dying sustained, the bereaved 
 comforted and the redeemed welcomed by the angels 
 into the communion of the spirits of the just made 
 perfect, how would then the exceeding greatness of 
 the work of God in the Far East appear to us, and 
 with what grateful hearts should we join in the joy 
 there is in the presence of the angels over so many that 
 have repented and returned to the Father's house ! 
 
 But there is something further to notice than the 
 
 number of souls redeemed, and something even more 
 
 important than this, for as the body is more than the 
 
 members, so is the establishment of the Christian 
 
 12 
 
178 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Church a greater event than any number of individual 
 conversions. If we look at the matter in that light, the 
 events of the transformation of the Far East appear of 
 the highest historic importance. It is characteristic of 
 the kingdom of God that the events connected with its 
 history invariably fail to attract the attention of the 
 world when they occur, and with equal regularity are 
 seen to have been the most significant and important 
 events of the age, when the final verdict of history is 
 made up. 
 
 Just as now the public men of the world pay little 
 attention to the feeble efforts of a few fanatics to in- 
 troduce their exploded superstitions into the ancient 
 nations of the Far East, so the learned men of Greece 
 and Rome either were entirely ignorant of the begin- 
 nings of Christianity in those countries, or considered 
 the matter as beneath their notice ; yet who that has a 
 particle of the historic spirit would not love to get an 
 inside view of the beginnings of a movement so mighty 
 and would not cherish above all else the privilege of 
 having had a share in it? It is the peculiar privilege 
 of our generation that it has spread out before it the 
 beginnings of the Christian Church in Asia, beginnings 
 of a future certain to be not less significant than that 
 which developed in Europe, and conducted so far as 
 we now can judge, on a far grander scale. 
 
 The church as a body with independent and self- 
 sustaining life, has attained a higher degree of devel- 
 opment in Japan than in either China or Korea. In 
 Japan we really have already a self-governing, self- 
 sustaining, self-propagating church, one that is grow- 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING 179 
 
 ing from its own root, a tree bearing fruit, whose seed 
 is in itself. When I started from Japan I left the 
 country on April 28th, but not till several days later 
 did I pass beyond the borders of the Japanese church, 
 for in Fusan, Seoul, Pyeng Yang and Antung I found 
 Christian churches for the Japanese. Besides those 
 I saw, they were to be found in Peking and Port 
 Arthur, and Dalny and Tientsin, and Shanghai, and 
 other ports of China. Finally, when I was bidding 
 farewell to the brethren at Antung they told me they 
 had telegraphed to the brethren further along the line 
 of the railway to meet us at the station, and really, the 
 next day, in the very heart of the Manchurian moun- 
 tains a few brethren came to the station to meet us, 
 entirely unknown to us, as we were to them, either by 
 personal acquaintance or by reputation, but bound to- 
 gether by the common faith and the loving fellowship 
 of the redeemed in Christ. To me, this constant pres- 
 ence of the Christian church wherever a little group 
 of Japanese were settled, was the most significant and 
 cheering thing I had seen for years, for so far as I 
 knew not in a single case had the church in any such 
 place been started with American money or by the 
 work of American missionaries. 
 
 The Korean church, as an organization is not so well 
 developed as the one in Japan, but far excels it in the 
 vigor and fervor and zeal of its young life. It is 
 easy to get an exaggerated idea of its progress. It is 
 not true to say that well-nigh the entire population 
 has come under the influence of the gospel, for the 
 communicants number only one in 263 of the popula- 
 
i8o MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 tion, and even with a generous calculation hardly more 
 than one million of the fifteen millions in that land can 
 be considered as in any sense under the influence of 
 the church. Nevertheless, there is no more inspiring 
 sight than to attend the services in a Korean church 
 and to see a thousand or more gathered to worship 
 God. The growth of the church in Korea is certainly 
 one of the miracles of missions. 
 
 I am not personally acquainted with the church in 
 China, but its history during the past years, especially 
 since the Boxer troubles, when the church in North 
 China received its baptism of fire, is not less marvel- 
 lous than that of Korea. In Manchuria, in Foochow, 
 in Central China, and in other places there have been 
 outpourings of the Holy Spirit as notable as many of 
 the famous passages in the history of the early church. 
 If the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, 
 then a more abundant harvest is to be expected in 
 China than in Japan or Korea, for the Chinese church 
 alone in the Far East has been called upon to seal its 
 confession with the blood of its noblest sons. 
 
 I have tried to tell you something of the things God 
 is doing in the Far East, but as I come to the end of 
 my address I am oppressed by a sense of failure. To 
 some extent I am able to feel the greatness and the 
 passion of it myself, for I have spent nearly twenty 
 years in that section of the world, and every one of 
 these years has unfolded its own page in the wonder- 
 ful panorama of the history that is making there, but 
 
WHAT GOD IS DOING i8i 
 
 how should I be able to communicate this vision to 
 you, who have only the hearing of the ear ? 
 
 As I look back over the great historic crises of the 
 past; over the rise of ancient empires in Egypt, Baby- 
 lonia and Assyria; over the great Aryan migrations 
 that peopled Europe; over the wars of Alexander and 
 the rise of the Roman Empire; over the Christianiza- 
 tion of Europe or the great days of the Crusades ; over 
 the Reformation, the Renaissance, or the discovery of 
 America; over the founding of our own great Re- 
 public or the onward march of freedom and light in 
 Europe in the nineteenth century, nowhere do I dis- 
 cover an epoch— barring only the days of our Lord 
 and His apostles—when the movement of History was 
 on so grand a scale or was pregnant with greater pos- 
 sibilities of good to the future of the race. 
 
 Oh, when I think of these things I wonder that 
 young men can bear to stay at home; that they do not 
 hear the bugles of the Lord sounding the charge or see 
 the hands of the Future beckoning to them to come 
 and have a share in such a work at such a time ! I 
 wonder that the whole church is not singing with a 
 throbbing heart: 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 
 
 Lord, 
 Be swift to answer Him, my soul — 
 Be jubilant, my feet ! 
 
 Let me close by quoting the words of Robert E. 
 Speen^'No history has even been greater than that 
 which is making now. Our times are prosaic only to 
 men of prosaic minds. The romance that hangs over 
 
i82 MISSION PROBLEMS IN JAPAN 
 
 Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, ovir Jenghis Kahn 
 and his sons, over Saracen Mogul and Sikh — is as the 
 play of children beside the stern struggle of our own 
 day in Asia. Systems of thought and morals and so- 
 cial customs which were old before we were peoples, 
 and which had set themselves never to be moved, have 
 been challenged and shaken. Commerce, Diplomacy, 
 Civilization, have violated their repose. Righteousness 
 has demanded a reckoning of them. And Christian- 
 ity, of which these are the children, is calmly con- 
 fronting them from foundations which cannot be 
 moved, while new foundations are laid for her on their 
 enlarging ruins. It is a privilege to live with open 
 eyes in the age of such a conflict, to hear the tumult of 
 the chariots and the horsemen, and to discern in all 
 the master hand of God." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accessibility, 35 
 
 Activity "ad Intra" and "ad ex- 
 tra," 10, 11 
 
 Advertising, Metliod in Evange- 
 listic Work, 133 
 
 "Affiliation Plan," 115 
 
 Agnosticism in Japanese Schools, 
 54, 55 
 
 Agricultural Classes Unreached, 
 120 
 
 American Board A. B. C. F. M., 
 71 
 
 Amida, Buddhist Teaching of, 
 42 
 
 Amoy Mission, R. C. A., Ill 
 
 Ancestor Worship, 38 
 
 Anderson, Dr. Rufus, View of 
 Purpose of Missions, 12 
 
 Aoyama Gakakuin, 155 
 
 Apostles' Creed, 75, 162 
 
 Appeals Against Action of Mis- 
 sion, 86 
 
 Area of Japan, 32 
 
 Artisan Classes, 120 
 
 Authors, Japanese, Educated In 
 Mission Schools, 149 
 
 Ballagh, Rev. James B., 69 
 
 Baptisms, Administered by Mis- 
 sionaries, 109 
 
 Bible Classes as Method of Evan- 
 gelistic Work, 130 
 
 Bible Distribution, 68 
 
 Board of Missions, Church of 
 Christ in Japan, See "Den- 
 do Kyoku," — 
 
 Boards in America, 96, 97, 98, 99, 
 100, 102 
 
 Brown, Dr. A. J., 100, 103 
 Brown, Dr. S. R., 138, 148, 156 
 Buddhism, 38, 40, 41, 42, 52 
 "Bungokkai" Magazine, 149 
 Bushido, General Discussion of, 
 46 
 
 Calculations of Time and Forces 
 Required for Evangelization, 
 24 
 
 Canons of Dort, 70 
 
 Catechetical Instruction, 80 
 
 Ceremonies, Buddhist, 43 
 
 Chamberlain, Prof. B. H., 43 
 
 Chastity in Japan, 50 
 
 China, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 
 180 
 
 Chlnzei Gakuin, Conversions in, 
 151 
 
 Christians, Statistics of, 60 
 
 Christian Education, 134-163 
 
 Christianization, 28, 29 
 
 Christian Church, Historical Im- 
 portance, in Far East, 176 
 
 Christianity, 166 
 
 Christian University, 160 
 
 Church Attendance, 80 
 
 Church Discipline, 81 
 
 Church Establishment Theory, 
 12-19 
 
 Church, First Protestant, 59, 69 
 
 Churches, Native, 13, 19, 21, 27, 
 58, 60 
 
 Church of Christ in Japan, 14, 
 19, 65, 69, 72, 75, 79, 90. 93 
 
 Church Sustentatlon, 11 
 
 Church Union, 70-72 
 
 Church Universal, "ad Intra" and 
 "ad extra," 8 
 
i84 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Civilization, 11, 33 
 
 Cleveland Student Volunteer 
 Convention, 26 
 
 Colleges, Christian, 158-160 
 
 Competitive Examination, Why 
 Held, 140 
 
 Concubinage, 35, 50, 81 
 
 Conditons, General, 32 
 
 Conduct, Moral, of Japanese, 48 
 
 Confucianism, General Discus- 
 sion of, 38, 46, 48 
 
 Confucius, Influence in the "Far 
 East," 164 
 
 Congregational Church, (see Ku- 
 miai Church) 
 
 Conscription, Military, 139 
 
 Constitution of Japan, 1889, 168 
 
 Conversion of Entire Population, 
 10 
 
 Converts in Mission Schools, 151 
 
 Cooperation Between Church of 
 Christ in Japan and Presby- 
 terian and Reformed Church- 
 es, 90-101, 113-116, 124 
 
 Council of Missions, 18, 64, 70, 
 90-94, 98, 111 
 
 Creed, Apostles, 162 
 
 Cumberland Presbtyerian Mis- 
 sion, 71, 78 
 
 Customs, National, Not Mission- 
 ary Purpose to Alter, 11 
 
 Davis, Dr. J. D., 138 
 
 DeForest, Dr. J. F., Quoted, 153 
 
 Dendo Kyoku, (Board of Mis- 
 sions Church of Christ in 
 Japan), 90, 92, 93, 131 
 
 Destitution, Spiritual, of Japan, 
 119-120 
 
 Dialects, in Japan, 32 
 
 Discipline, Ecclesiastical, 81 
 
 Divorce, 50, 81 
 
 Domestic Missions, Scientific 
 Definition of, 11 
 
 Donker-Curtius, Dutch Envoy to 
 
 Japan, 166 
 Doshisha, 138, 151, 154-155 
 
 E 
 
 Ebina, Rev. D., 153 
 
 Ecclesia Constituenda, Church 
 Government in, 87 
 
 Edinburgh Conference, Union 
 Spirit in, 161 
 
 Education, Not the Purpose of 
 Missionary Work, 11 
 
 Education Christian, See Chris- 
 tion Education 
 
 Education, Japanese Govern- 
 ment. (See also Govern- 
 ment Schools), 48-50, 54-55, 
 140, 158, 167 
 
 Emperor of Japan, Performs 
 Ceremony of Purification, 39 
 
 English Language, 148, 172-173 
 
 English Presbyterian Church, 
 Confession of, 78 
 
 Ethnic Religions, 11, 46 
 
 Evangelical Alliance, 67 
 
 Evangelical Protestant Mission- 
 ary Society, 65 
 
 Evangelistic Work, Method Used 
 in, 129 
 
 Evangelists, Native, 109, 116, 126 
 
 "Evangelization of the World in 
 this Generation," 21-26 
 
 Evangelization Theory of Mis- 
 sions, Stated, 12-21 
 
 Examinations, Competitive, Why 
 Held, 140 
 
 Falsehood, 49 
 Family, 36 
 Family Worship, 80 
 Farmers, Japanese, 35 
 Far East, 164-177 
 Financial Help, Not What Is 
 Most Needed, 121 
 
INDEX 
 
 185 
 
 Forces Required for Evangeliza- 
 tion, No Calculation Possi- 
 ble, 24 
 
 Formosa, Work of Japanese 
 Church in, 19 
 
 Fornication, 50 
 
 Forward Movement, 1872-1889, 
 59-61, 67 
 
 Fulton, Dr. Geo. W., Argument 
 on "Co-operation," 103 
 
 Geisha, 51 
 
 General Condition, 32 
 
 German Reformed Mission, 71, 
 
 101 
 German Missionaries, 64 
 Government Schools, 139-142 
 Greene, Dr. D. C, 138 
 Gulick, Rev. Oramel H., 72 
 Gulick, Rev. Sidney L., 72 
 
 Heaven, Buddhist Conception of, 
 41 
 
 Heidelberg Catechism, 70 
 
 Hell, Buddhist Conception of, 41 
 
 Helpers, Native, Large Numbers 
 Required, 24-25 
 
 Hepburn, Dr. J, C, 33, 59, 138 
 
 Heresy, Comparatively Rare, 81 
 
 Higher Criticism, 65 
 
 Hindrances to Gospel in Japan, 
 50-51 
 
 Hi rata, Mr., One of the Found- 
 ers of the "Bungokkai," 149 
 
 Hollanders, Special Privileges in 
 Japan, 165 
 
 Honda, Bishop, 153 
 
 House, According to Civil Code, 
 36 
 
 Hymnology, 68, 155 
 
 Hymns, Shinto, 38 
 
 Ibuka, Dr. K., 98, 114, 153 
 
 Ideas, 44, 148, 169-173 
 
 Idols, 38-41 
 
 Imbrie, Dr. William, 74, 75, 76, 
 98, 132 
 
 Immortality of the Soul, 38 
 
 Incense in BuddWst Ceremonies, 
 43 
 
 Independence of Native Churches, 
 59, 111, 125 
 
 Industrial Conditions, 34-35 
 
 Insincerity, in Japan, 49 
 
 Intelligence, Popular, 33, 54 
 
 Instruction of Minister of Edu- 
 cation, 1899, 141 
 
 Itinerating in Evangelistic Work, 
 129-130 
 
 Japan, 32, 34, 164-166 
 Japan Mail, Quotation from, 50 
 Japanese Language, 33, 174 
 Japanese People, 33, 128 
 Journalism, Christian, 81, 154 
 Journalism, Secular, 149 
 
 K 
 
 Kargan Church, Yokohama, 69 
 
 Kindergartens, 136 
 
 Knox, Dr. Geo. W., Quoted, 14 
 
 Korea, 19, 45, 51, 164, 172, 177 
 
 Kumato Band, Influence of, 153 
 
 Kume, Prof, 43 
 
 Kumiai ( Congregational Church), 
 
 71. 153 
 Kwansei Gakuin, 151, 155 
 
 Language, 172-173 
 Language, Chinese, 164 
 Language, English, 61, 173 
 
i86 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Language, Japanese, 33, 122, 174 
 Lawrence, Dr. E. A., View of 
 
 Purpose of Missions, 13, 14 
 Laws, Japanese, Revised in 1899, 
 
 171-172 
 Laymen's Missionary Movement, 
 
 21, 24 
 Liberty, Religious, in Japan, 37, 
 
 60, 165-167 
 Literature, New Japanese, 149 
 Literature, Christian, 68, 81 
 Lloyd, Rev. Arthur, Quoted, 42 
 Lying, Prevalence of, in Japan, 
 
 49 
 
 M 
 
 Magazines, Influence of Chris- 
 tian Education Upon, 149 
 
 Magic Lantern, Use in Evan- 
 gelistic Work, 130 
 
 Manchuria, Japanese Churches 
 and Work in, 19, 179 
 
 Mancius, Teachings of, 46 
 
 Marriage in Japan, 35 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of. Translated, 
 60 
 
 Medical Relief, Not the Purpose 
 of Missionary Work, 11 
 
 Meiji Gakuin, 138, 155, 156 
 
 Merchant Class, as Yet Un- 
 reached, 120 
 
 Methods of Operation In Evan- 
 gelistic Work, 129 
 
 Military Conscription, Students 
 Exempt, 139 
 
 Milton, Quotation from. Applied 
 to Japanese People, 57 
 
 Ministers, Native, 85, 126-127 
 
 Missionaries, 10, 85, 86. 88, 124, 
 126, 109 
 
 Missionary Work, 10, 132, 126, 
 177 
 
 Mission Organization, 84, 86, 90 
 
 Miyagawa, Rev., 153 
 
 Modem Missions in the East, 
 Dr. E. A. Lawrence Quoted, 
 13 
 Momoyama Chu Gakko, Conver- 
 sions in, 151 
 Morality in Japan, 11, 46-52, 80 
 Morrison, Dr. Robert, 176 
 Mosaic Code, Parallels in Shinto, 
 
 39 
 Motoda, Rev., 153 
 Mott, Dr. John R., 21, 26 
 
 N 
 
 National Spirit of Japanese, 112 
 
 Native Church, 18, 121 
 
 Naturalism, 55 
 
 Nature Worship, 38 
 
 Nemoto, Mr. S., 155 
 
 Netherlands, Churches in, Meth- 
 od of Appointing Mission- 
 aries, 86 
 
 Nihon Hyoron, 149 
 
 Neeshima, Dr. Joseph, 72, 138 
 
 Niwa, Mr., Y. M. C. A., Work- 
 er, 154 
 
 North Japan Mission, R. C. A., 
 84. 101-102 
 
 Olta Ken, Extent and Christian 
 Forces of, 132 
 
 Onishi, Dr., Noted Author, 149 
 
 Opium, Determination of Japa- 
 nese Government to Exclude, 
 167 
 
 Organization of First Protestant 
 Church, 60 
 
 Orthodoxy in Japan, 162 
 
 Pantheism, 45 
 
 Perry, Commodore, Expedition, 
 166 
 
INDEX 
 
 187 
 
 Personality of God, 45 
 Philanthropy, Not Purpose of 
 
 Missionary Work, 11 
 Political Conditions, 37 
 Polytheism, 45 
 Population, Increase of, 68 
 Prayer-meetings, Attendance, 80 
 Prayers, Shinto, 38 
 Preachers, Native, in Employ of 
 
 Missions, 110-111 
 Preaching of Japanese, 81 
 Preparation for the Gospel, 37- 
 
 45 
 Presbyterian Churches, 70 
 Presbyterian Mission, North, 
 
 101-102 
 Presbyterian Mission, South, 102 
 Prostitution, 51, 171 
 Protestantism In Japan a Class 
 
 Movement, 120 
 
 Rationalistic Tendencies, 161-162 
 Reaction of 1890, 65-66 
 Reformed Church in America, 
 (Dutch Reformed), 84, 102, 
 69, 70 
 Reformed Church in United 
 States, (German Reformed), 
 71, 101 
 Religion, 50, 134 
 Religious Conditions, 37 
 Religious Liberty in Japan, 37, 
 
 60, 165, 166 
 Rescript on Education, 65 
 Responsibility, Sense of. Weak 
 Among Japanese, and Why, 
 48 
 Restoration of 1868, 167 
 Revivals, 1872 to 1889, 1900, 61- 
 
 68 
 Rikkyo Dal Gakko, Higher De- 
 partment of, 160 
 Ritter, Dr. Julius, Quoted, 62 
 Russia, Effect of War With, 95 
 
 Sabbath Observance In Japan, 80 
 Sacrifices, Shinto, 38-39 
 Salvation Army, 131, 155 
 Salvation, Buddhist Way of 41- 
 
 42 
 Samurai, 61, 171 
 Satsuma Dialect, 33 
 Scepticism, 54 
 
 Schools, Christian, See "Chris- 
 tian Education," 
 Schools, Government, See "Gov- 
 ernment Schools" 
 Science, Relation to Religion, 134 
 Self-Abuse, 50 
 Self-government of Native 
 
 Church, 13, 22, 112 
 Self-support of Native Churches 
 
 68, 81, 97, 111, 113, 114 
 Sense of Sin, Weak Among Jap- 
 anese, 44 
 Sexual Impurity, 50 
 Shimasaki, Mr. T., 149 
 "Shinjin" Magazine, 154 
 Shinshu, Sect of Buddhism, 42 
 Shinto, General Discussion of, 
 
 38-41, 52 
 Sin, 39, 44 
 Shoguns, Driven from Power 
 
 167 
 Sincerity, Among Japanese, 49 
 Sodomy, 50 
 Soul, Belief In its Existence and 
 
 Immortality, 38 
 Southern Presbyterian Mission, 
 
 71, 102 
 South Japan Mission, R C. A. 
 
 71, 101 
 Speer, Dr. R. E., 28, 83, 96, 97, 
 
 181 
 Spiritual Destitution of Japan, 
 
 119, 120 
 Spiritual Life of Japanese Chris- 
 tians, 80-82 
 Stages in Missionary Work, 28 
 
i88 
 
 INDEX 
 
 standards of Morality, Japanese, 
 
 48-49 
 Statistics, General, for 1910, 60, 
 
 65-66, 68, 69, 119-120, 177 
 Steel Academy, 142 
 Stereopticon, Use in Evangelistic 
 
 Work, 130 
 Suicide of Fujimura Misao, 55 
 Sunday Observance, 80 
 Sunday School, Buddhist, 43 
 Sunday School Work, 68, 80, 155 
 Superstition, 44 
 Supervision, 109 
 Synod of Church of Christ in 
 
 Japan, 98, 115-116 
 
 Tameshi-giri, 171 
 
 Tamura, Rev. Naomi, 153 
 
 Taro, Mr. Ando, 155 
 
 Temperance Movement, 155 
 
 Thompson, Dr. David, 69 
 
 Togawa, Mr., 149 
 
 Tohoku Gakuin, Conversions In. 
 
 142, 151 
 Tokutomi, Mr. Kenjiro, Novelist, 
 
 149 
 Tokutomi, Mr. T., Pounder of 
 
 "Kokumin no Tomo," 149 
 Tokyo, Presbytery of, 115 
 Translation of Holy Scriptures, 
 
 60 
 Truth, Undervalued by Japanese, 
 
 49 
 
 Uemura, Rev. M., 149, 153 
 
 Unchastity In Japan, 49 
 
 Union In Japan, 70, 161-162 
 
 Unitarianism, 64 
 
 United Church of Christ In Ja- 
 pan, 14-15 
 
 University, Christian, In Japan, 
 160 
 
 V 
 
 Verbeck, Dr. Guido P., 16, 78, 
 148, 166 
 
 Venn, Rev. Henry, View of Pur- 
 pose of Missionary Work, 14 
 
 Vices, Japanese, 49-50 
 
 Village Life in Japan, 32-36 
 
 Virtues, Japanese, 49 
 
 Volunteer Movement, 21, 26 
 W 
 
 Wars with China and Russia, 
 Effects of, 168 
 
 Westminster Confession, 70 
 
 Westminster Shorter Catechism, 
 70 
 
 Withdrawal of Missionaries, 17, 
 63, 92 
 
 Woman's Position in Japan, 35 
 
 Wyckoff, Dr. M. N., Quoted, 151 
 T 
 
 Yamamuro, Mr. G., Salvation 
 Army Worker, 155 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion, Work In Japan, 131, 
 155