WORKS OF WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D. D., L. H. D. The Mikado's Empire. Japanese Fairy World. Corea, the Hermit Nation. Japan : In History, Folk-lore, and Art. The Lily among Thorns. The Religions of Japan. Matthew Calbraith Perry. Brave Little Holland. Townsend Harris. The Pilgrims in their Three Homes. The Romance of Discovery. The Romance of American Colonization. The Romance of Conquest. The Pathfinders of the Revolution. In the Mikado's Service. The Students' Motley. The American in Holland. America in the East. Verbeck of Japan. , » * » o » • « SAMUEL ROBBINS BROWN. A Maker of the New Orient Samuel Robbins Brown Pioneer Educator in China, America, and Japan. The Story of his Life and Work BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, L. H. D. Author of " Verbeck of Japan,'' ''The Mikado's Empire,'* and ''Brave Little Holland'' The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman, took and hid in three measures of meal. —Jesus. If I had a hundred lives, I would give them all for Japan. — S. R. Brown. * ' J J i •> New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh B7S-^7 Copyright, 1902, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY {^September) » • THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. WITH A "banzai" FOR EVERLASTING GREAT JAPAW I DEDICATE TO THE PUPILS OF SAMUEL ROBBINS BROWN THIS STORY OF THEIR BELOVED TEACHER 302447 For we cannot tarry here; We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful, sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers ! O Pioneers. Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson. Pioneers! O Pioneers! —The Pioneer— V^ oXt Whitman. Preface There is a new Orient, and the chief instru- ments in its making have been the EngHsh- speaking peoples. A century ago that part of the world ruled by Chinese ideas cared nothing for human beings, even for its own people, be- yond the border. Now the once hermit nations have entered humanity's brotherhood. China has all the living nations of Europe for her neighbors. Korea has been reborn. Japan is a world-power. The changes within, wrought by the leaven from Christendom, are even more wonderful than those phenomenal and external. In this twentieth century we can see in clear perspective how the transformation has been wrought. TTiere were many agencies and influ- ences stimulating evolution, but none were more potent than the personality and work of the American missionaries in China, Japan, and Korea. To tell the story of the life and work of one of the makers of the New Orient, who in China initiated Protestant Christian education and started the first Chinese students to study abroad, who in America was pioneer in the for- mation of the first chartered woman's college, 7 f t 8 Preface and who, as accomplished scholar, taught the Japanese during nearly twenty years, translated the New Testament, began the training of a native ministry, and whose works follow long after he has rested from his labors, is the aim of this work. In its preparation I have had Dr. Brown's letters to his parents and friends and to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America, notebooks and journals, besides assistance from so many friends, Chinese, Japanese, American, and British, that I trust that they will pardon me for not mentioning their names and receive this general acknowledgment of thanks, which I make most gratefully and heartily. Four years of close personal acquaint- ance in Japan, while I was engaged in the edu- cational service of the Mikado's government, and nearly eighteen of fellowship in the Reformed Church in America, besides visitations to most of the places he dwelt in, have enabled me to give to the background some firmness of touch and warmth of coloring, I trust, while allowing the chief actor to speak for himself. W. E. G. Ithaca, N. Y. August, 1902. Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. A Missionary Mother, .... 15 II. In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood, . . 25 III. School-Teaching — Grit and Grace, . 35 IV. North and South — Elms and Violets, . 45 V. Trade and the Gospel-— A Call to China, 57 VI. Pioneer Educator in the Middle Kingdom, 69 VII. Under the British Flag, ... 85 VIII. Professor Brown at Rome Academy, . 108 IX. The Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake, 117 X. A Pioneer in Woman's Higher Edu- cation, 127 XI. Ho FOR Japan! 137 XII. Life IN A Buddhist Temple at Kanagawa, 147 XIII. All Things to All Men, . , . 161 XIV. Amid Wars and Rumors of War, . 171 XV. Life and Work at Yokohama, . . 185 XVI. The Old Order Changing, . . , 201 XVII. In the United States Again, . . 213 XVIII. Overland to Niigata, . . . .221 9 lO Contents. CHAPTER PAGE XIX. The Era of Enlightened Civilization, 235 XX. A Spiritual Engineer, .... 249 XXI. Training a Native Ministry, XXII. A Voyage in Southern Seas, XXIII. Thrusting in the Sickel, XXIV. Last Home Coming, XXV. Falling on Sleep, 265 283 297 307 315 List of Illustrations Samuel Robbins Brown, Scenes of Dr. Brown's Boyhood, The Brown Cottage at Monson, Chinese Shops at Canton, The Reformed Church at Owasco Outlet Verbeck, Brown, and Simons in 1859, Dr. Brown's Temple Home, . • A View of Yokohama in 1872, Dr. Brown and His Pupils at Yokohama, Union Church, Yokohama, . The Rev. O Kuno Masatsuna, At Rest in God's Acre, Facing title 18 26 72 118 138 148 192 208 238 254 316 A Missionary Mother A MAKER OF THE NEW ORIENT I A Missionary Mother BORN on that May day in 1783, when the news of the ratification of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America was received, Phoebe Allen Hinsdale was playfully named " The Olive Branch." In the Providence of God, she was to become one of the first and best of early American hymn- writers and the mother of Samuel Robbins Brown. Descended in the maternal line from ances- tors in the Pilgrim church that had crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower, her father, George Hinsdale, also of English stock, settled at Har- rington, Conn. Early left an orphan, Phoebe's career was a very varied one, of poverty, suffering, and even, for a time, cruel treatment at the hands of stran- gers. In her old age she wrote her biography, well worthy of print, which showed that she was not only a reader of solid literature, but also a « » r ji-d' > • A Maker of the New Orient poet and a thinker. She was married at Ca- naan, N. Y., June, 1805, to Mr. Timothy Brown, the son of a Revolutionary veteran, who had served under Washington and known the hor- rors of Valley Forge. The newly wedded couple removed to East Windsor, Conn., where on the i6th of June, 18 10, the future missionary, Samuel Robbins Brown, was born, and in which his babyhood and the first three years of his life were spent, and where his white-haired old grandfather, whom he dimly remembered, died. Yet his mother, even though busy with young children in a household not noted for wealth, had already begun hiding her leaven. At this time Central New York was being settled by streams of immigrants from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Busy with cutting down the forests, breaking up the virgin soil, building log cabins, and laying out roads, these newcomers needed aid for the life of the soul. Poor as she was, one of Mrs. Brown's greatest pleasures was in giving, finding therein the promised blessing. Out of her poverty went small sums of money to the missionary society in Hartford, which sent books and preachers to the new settlements in the central and western parts of the Empire State. She kept up her studies in the Bible and even wrote a little com- mentary on the Song of Songs. Her husband was not yet a member of the church. As her children were born, she had them baptized. A Missionary Mother 17 After she had looked upon the face of her first- born son, the future missionary, she wrote in her journal, " Sickness prevents me from carrying my Samuel to the house of God, but he was as fervently and sacredly devoted to God in the ordinance of private baptism." Heartily interested in making real her daily petition, " Thy kingdom come," Mrs. Brown be- sought God for years that organized missionary effort should be put forth in foreign lands by her own American people. She kept herself well in- formed by reading. A prayer meeting held in 1806, by students in Williams College under the shelter of a haystack, grew into the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Samuel R. Brown was thirteen days old when the American Board was formed. When Mrs. Brown heard the news, she took her baby boy in her arms and in a thrill of rapture dedicated him to God to bear his good news of love to dis- tant lands. Mrs. Brown had to suffer penalties. A living woman praying, talking, working, giving for foreign missions was too far above the average villager and called forth many a sneer, but she hid her leaven with true faith in God. In her case it was true that *' seeing that which is in- visible does not blind the eyes to duty near at hand." She was found faithful in all her duties as wife and mother, besides having public and even cosmopolitan spirit. 1 8 A Maker of the New Orient In his bright and sunny childhood, at East Windsor, Robbins, as we shall call him, grew up under the ministry of the Rev. Shuabel Bartlett, for fifty years the devoted pastor of the Congre- gational Church in the village. It was his daughter Elizabeth, born July i6, 1813, three years and one month after Robbins Brown, who afterwards became his wife and helpmate. The old manse still stands, in possession of a distant descendant of the parson. As the boy's eyes were not strong, he learned his letters with spectacles on, yet by wise use of his eyesight and of the day for work, these win- dows of the soul were undimmed throughout life until finally closed forever. To secure more permanent employment, the father with his family removed November i, 1813, to Ellington, Conn., six miles distant, where the mother united at once with the Con- gregational Church. During their stay of five years in this place, two other children, daughters, were born. Here also the father, Mr. Timothy Brown, confessed his faith in Christ and united with the church on the day in 1814 that his daughter Mary was pub- licly dedicated to God — a. day of joyful thanks- giving. It was at Ellington that Mrs. Brown wrote the familiar lines, ** I love to steal a while away. From every cumbering care,'* Home of Mr. and Mrs. Brown East Windsor, Conn. Congregational Church, East Windsor, Conn. Th.e Old Brown Homestead, East Windsor. Conn. Ellington Road, where Mrs. Brown wrote " I love to steal awhile away." SCENES OP DR. BROWN'S BOYHOOD. A Missionary Mother 19 • which, for nearly a century, have been sung to the tune " Monson," that her son himself com- posed, the other tune, ** Brown," being written by WilHam B. Bradbury and named in her honor. In the original draft, the second line reads •* From little ones and care,'* and the future missionary was one of these " little ones." * One quotation, often used by the mother, which greatly influenced the life of her son was this: " Never do good with the expectation of being rewarded by gratitude; gratitude is an exotic plant, cultivated in the greenhouse of a holy heart, but seldom found in the cold wild soil of the world around you. Do good for its own sake and you shall not lose your reward." Nevertheless Samuel Brown was, in a sense, the discoverer of a grace the very existence of which had been doubted by many — " gratitude in Orientals." For the first three years of Mr. Brown's resi- dence in Ellington business was very brisk, but during the last two building seems to have sus- pended. With a large family to support, includ- ing his mother and sister, there was some diffi- *For other hymns composed by Mrs. Brown, see Julian's "Dictionary of Hymnology" and Duffield's "English Hymns." 20 A Maker of the New Orient culty in obtaining sufficient revenue, so in 1818 it was decided to remove to Monson, a town among the hills on the southern edge of central Massachusetts in Hampden County. The great attraction, perhaps even greater than the hope of obtaining remunerative employment, was the Academy, which at this time already enjoyed a noble reputation. We have noted hereditary forces and the ener- gies latent in his environment which were sure to compel young Robbins, then eight years old, into future orbits of usefulness. Let us now glance at his future fields of labor, then hidden from him. At this time Japan was a sealed island empire, with only a breathing hole at Nagasaki, where a few Hollanders lived and traded; a single ship bringing once a year news of the outer world. The continental empire of China was almost the same sort of a political hermit, with only one open port, Canton, and Macao in Portuguese possession. 'Both coun- tries, with Korea, ignored all humanity be- yond their own frontiers, and refused to recog- nize even their own people who left their shores. In America a great wall of tradition isolated women from learning. Not their feet, but their brains, were bound, nor had anyone dreamed of a college in which the lore of the ages should be freely opened to them. Meanwhile the mother and father looked to see whence help should come. Their hope and A Missionary Mother 21 aspirations were for the education of their chil- dren. In Monson, in the neighboring State, was an academy, presided over by a master of abiHty, in which a boy could be prepared for college. This was the magnet. So hither in 1818 Tim- othy Brown, in faith and hope, with his wife and little ones came. In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood n In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood FOR the place of the developing boyhood of Samuel Robbins Brown, one must look at one of those hill towns in New England, whence are the fountains of streams that have fertilized the world. On the map of Massachu- setts, east of the Connecticut Valley, not far from the southern boundary line of the two States, be- tween Springfield and Southbridge and below the railway that traverses the whole State, we read the name Monson. Longmeadow, Aga- wam, Wilbraham, and other places which are classic in American history and literature lie not far away. The region of lakes and ponds lies to the east. Monson is in Hampden County, among the hills and above the valley through which flows the Chicopee river. It is four miles south of Palmer, and fifteen miles east of Springfield, whence we ride on the New London Northern Railroad. It consists chiefly of one long street on the hillside, with mills and various industries at the southern end. In the center stands the Academy, whose students were so long animated as 26 A Maker of the New Orient with a zeal for missions, and the original magnet which drew the Browns out of Connecticut into Massachusetts. The neat and attractive Congregational edifice, with its heaven-pointing spire, is a nota- ble " finger of God." It stands with plenty of room around it, where grass may be green and flowers show masses of color, while hard by is the commodious parsonage. The excellent Sunday School was organized May 5, 18 19, soon after the Browns made their home in Monson, and the primary or infant department was founded by Mrs. Brown herself. Northward, at the end of the village, one comes to a modest- looking cottage, in front and around which generations of flowers have bloomed, vines have trailed, and great trees have grown. Here may we look upon one of the first American centers of prayer for Asia. Across the road is the place of the beginning of Chinese education in America. The build- ing is somewhat altered from its first form, while yet substantially the same. Here lived the first Chinese lads brought to this country for Chris- tion education by S. R. Brown. Within the grounds, a little to the southeast, stands the carpentry and paint shop in which Mr. Timothy Brown, the father, worked. To the north is a stream of water flowing in a little gorge. Crossing this, over a stone bridge, we reach the last home where abides the dust of 1 ) 1 In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood 27 father and mother, of the missionary son and his devoted companion, and the ashes of their son Robert. It is an encampment with many a " low green tent, whose curtain never outward swings." Not far away, indeed but a few feet to the eastward, are the graves and monuments of two Japanese lads. To Monson, with New Brunswick, N. J., belongs the honor of being one of the places of the beginning of Japanese edu- cation in America. Frontward of the cottage is the hill crest which makes sunset a little earlier for those who dwell under its shadow. In the good old days, when Christians '' kept Saturday night," ** the Sabbath " was very bright and cheerful to those who loved the Lord's Day. The children of the Brown family laid aside all labor and boisterous amusements, just as soon as the golden disk was lost to sight behind the hilltops. On Sunday afternoons, they waited with decorum and rev- erence, until old Sol had again " pillowed his chin " on the western waves of granite and said his " warm good-night." Then the day of rest was over, joyful sports at once began, and mer- riment was the order of the evening. There seems to be nothing more sensible than this Puritan Sabbath. Seen from within, it stands in happy contrast to the abominable modern waste of force on Saturday night at the theater, the dance, the card party, the working on the fashionable dress or hat until midnight, for the 28 A Maker of the New Orient parade to church next day when the worshiper arrives ill fitted for devotion. Solidly sensible, and decidedly more aesthetic, was the idea of a rest day lying between sunset and sunset. There was less robbing of God in those days than in some modern methods of cheating the Almighty. In the larger Sunday School of 1824, when Robbins Brown was fourteen, the work of the pupils at home consisted to a considerable ex- tent of " memorizing Scripture, sacred songs, and the catechism." In five months of that sum- mer, among 146 pupils in seven classes, the record shows that the two highest names on the roll were Alfred Ely, Jr., and Samuel R. Brown. The first recited 751, and the second 750 verses of Scripture. Out of the Sunday School went at least seven missionaries — to the Cherokee In- dians, to the freedmen in Georgia, to India, Hawaii, Persia, Korea, China, and Japan. Be- sides S. R. Brown, his school- and play-mate, James Lyman Merrick, three years younger than he, after a notable record of life work in Persia, returned to Monson to sleep with his fathers in the village God's acre. The Rev. Simeon Colton was for many years (1806- 1 807 and 182 1 -1830) the able and inspir- ing principal of Monson Academy, but young Rollins, when first set to the study of Latin, at the age of nine, had not yet come under the mas- ter's personal instruction. He was ordered at In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood 29 once, as it were, to butt his infant noddle at the language of Caesar and Cicero, as against a dead wall without any meaning. Hear him tell the story: " I was set to the study of Adams' Latin Grammar under a private tutor who boarded in my father's family and was a teacher in the academy, but as he gave me no hint as to what Latin or Latin Grammar was, nor explained any of its technical terms, I remember well the day I attempted to learn the first lesson assigned me; that after having read the page that con- tained the declension of penna, with the English equivalent set opposite to the cases, I closed the book in perfect wonder at what it all meant. Not many months afterwards I was sent to the academy . . . and I verily believe that for two or three years I thought Latin was simply a puzzle made for schoolboys." Again he wrote in 1879: " I was given a copy of Adams' Latin Gram- mar, with instructions to learn the first page. I shall never forget the wonders excited in my mind, when I took the book, and going across the street from my father's house, seated myself in the shade of a poplar tree, and opened the volume to read the first lesson. I as yet knew not the meaning of the word ' grammar,' and less still of the expression ' Latin Grammar.' When I had read the declension of penna, with its English equivalents, ' a pen, of a pen, to a 30 A Maker of the New Orient pen, O pen, with a pen,^ I closed the book and thought * What does all this mean? Why has my tutor given me this to learn?' As no one then, nor afterwards explained the terms, gram- mar, parts of speech, declension, etc., and I was but eight years old at the time, I think that my conviction for about two or three years was that Latin Grammar was just a puzzle made for schoolboys. Had someone informed me that Latin was a language once spoken by a great nation, it would have relieved me from great perplexity and made the acquisition of Latin more rapid and pleasant than it could be while I was left to flounder on amid these mysteries, until time and my unaided cogitations at length furnished me a clew to their unraveling. I men- tion this fact merely to show what change has come over the methods of instruction in schools since the days of my boyhood." That terrible experience of being set to study Latin in true Chinese fashion, without the slightest idea as to what Latin was, made him, when he had entered into the spirit of the lan- guage and of Roman history a sympathetic, kindly, helpful, and masterful teacher. While father Brown as carpenter, cabinet- maker, painter, paper-hanger, and glazier pro- vided for his family, young Samuel spent his summers in helping his parents, attending the Academy during the winter months. He was not ashamed to work. Indeed he wondered that In Monson — A Yankee Boyhood 31 so many sons of persons in the village, whose parents were wealthy, should content themselves with being merchants or storekeepers, without any higher ambitions. He had no desire to fol- low their example. Thus at the age of seven- teen, after four years* instruction in the Academy, his boyhood over and looking forward to manhood, he found himself fitted for college according to the standards of the day. What were his ideals of life at this time? Let himself answer. " My parents did not suggest to me the course I preferred (from my early childhood I had had one chosen line of life before me, namely, to get a liberal education, to study for the sacred min- istry, and then to be a missionary to some heathen people), nor asked me what I proposed to do with my education if I should ever be able to attain it, though their character and example as devoted Christians, whose efforts to do good were not confined to their family or neighbor- hood, but extended to the remotest parts of the earth, before the first foreign missionary society existed in this country, doubtless had much to do in shaping my course in life." School-Teaching — Grit and Grace in School-Teaching — Grit and Grace HAVING to earn his own way through the world, Robbins first tried his hand at a small district school, in the town of Brimfield, Mass. Here " in his noisy mansion skilled to rule," he persevered with the goal ever in view. During twelve weeks he was paid at the rate of nine dollars per month, with board from house to house in the district. While he taught " the three R's," he was fed largely on the three P's — potatoes, pork, and pie. He brought home as his earnings twenty-seven dol- lars, which he handed over to his delighted father, whose exchequer and faith in his boy were alike enlarged. After another winter of work with his father, he went the following summer to West Spring- field, Mass. Here he opened a select school and taught three months. At the end he took home his net earnings, thirty-six dollars, giving them all to his father for the family support. He now opened his heart to his parent and told him of his wish to enter college. He had been already fitted for two or three years, and 35 36 A Maker of the New Orient his classmates had gone on before him, while he remained behind because he had not the means of support. He promised that, if permitted to enter Amherst College, he would devote his first earnings after graduation to lifting the mortgage from the place which had been bought as their home. Again the father, probably to test the spirit of his son rather than to discourage him, replied that his heart was with him in his purpose, but that in all probability the money he could earn for some years after graduation would go to pay his student debts. Robbins'own words are, " I confess it seemed so to me, but yet there was back of all this ob- stacle in my way, a firm, but unexpressed, con- viction that somehow I should succeed. My father allowed me to make the attempt." So early in the autumn of 1828, with his father's horse and buggy, money enough in his pockets to pay for the horse's feed on the way and some crackers and cheese for himself, he set ofif on the ride of twenty-four miles to Amherst. In the college halls he was examined, and passed. When he reached home he was " pen- niless, but a freshman in Amherst ... I had no money to carry me further. . . In sailor's phraseology I had set my sails, but there was no breeze to fill them." " While thus becalmed, I was called upon by a gentleman from a neighboring town, who wished School-Teaching — Grit and Grace 37 to secure my services as teacher of the district school in the place where he resided. He of- fered me eighteen dollars a month and my board at a village hotel. I did not hesitate to accept the offer, but went to Wales, Mass., and taught the school three months." This village, seven miles from Monson, was hardly a prepossessing place at that day. The church building, then in its paintless, dilapidated appearance, was a fitting representation of the religious condition of the community. The inn, at which the young schoolmaster boarded, was the nightly resort of the village idlers. In going out Robbins had to pass through the bar- room, meeting the same persons every day, and the hangers on at the taproom all knew him. On his arrival he was told that the school was a difficult one to manage, and that the winter previous the master had been pitched out into the snow by some of the big boys. " But I never knew what it was to be afraid of my pupils. Not that I was strong and muscular, but I felt that I could manage them." On the first morning he forestalled any attempt at in- sult by making a pleasant speech. Looking into the bright and intelligent faces about him, he told the lads that he had probably been mis- informed, and that they had been slandered. However, if anyone wished to try the same trick upon him, then and there was the time to settle 38 A Maker of the New Orient the question. No champion stepped forward and young Brown had no trouble. Nevertheless the pedagogue's patience was often sorely tried, and discipline was not always easy. Those pupils that came from homes where scarcely any law except that of force was known, were the worst offenders. But, as we shall see, Robbins made up by intellect and tact what he lacked in sinew. Happily, by heredity and culture he had that power which rends rocks and softens savages. He was a fine singer and a good musician. How this Yankee Apollo more than once in his lifetime raised walls, called back beauty from the unseen, and even flayed many a Marsyas must now be told. Indeed, music made up a large part of Robbins' life as boy, student, teacher, and missionary. He seemed to be a well-stringed harp^ on which the faintest breath would awaken melody. How often do I remember him in Japan, with his rich tenor voice lifting up delightful song. Once in Tokio, at the house of Dr. P. T. Veeder of the Imperial University, when we were all around the piano, Mrs. Veeder laid upon the rack a fresh sheet of music, just received from the United States. Dr. Brown proceeded to read off the notes and sing while she played. The first verses were pleasant, the last two or three were entrancing. It was the now well-known tune and hymn, " Tell me the Old, Old Story." Delighted and thankful, as we poured out our School-Teaching — Grit and Grace 39 congratulations, I, not knowing its age, asked him whether it was one of his old favorites. He repHed, " I never saw it before. This is the first time I ever sung it, but it's a good one, isn't it? " His musical gifts, in a sense hereditary, were de- veloped by careful cultivation. We shall now see how, at Wales, the music in him softened a savage breast. One day when his wild colts were unusually frisky, he had taken up, for a slight offense, a very small boy and put him for a few minutes in- side the great oaken desk designed for the mas- ter's use. The large knothole in the lid, and many gaping cracks in other parts of this choice bit of furniture, banished all fear of lack of venti- lation for the urchin within. Yet no sooner was the young plague incarcerated, than his brother, twelve or thirteen years old, asked leave to go out. Permission given by the unsuspecting master, he ran home, telling his father, who was a shoemaker, that the teacher was smothering his little brother. The father could neither read nor write, but was a great fiddler at country balls in the village inn. As Robbins did not know that the small boy had gone to his father's house, and as the culprit was soon released, he was not pre- pared for the explosion of the next day. These were the days of quills, and the p^da^ gogue's regular evening task was to mend his pens and set copies for pupils. After supper of that day, as Robbins sat in his room upstairs, he 40 A Maker of the New Orient heard the shoemaker burst into the room below, cursing and swearing, while telling the story of the schoolmaster's cruelty to his little boy, deco- rating it gayly in order to gain the sympathy of the crowd. His hearers, however, justified the teacher, believing he had done no harm. At this, the man of wax ends went ofif, uncomforted and cursing. The next morning the slim schoolmaster must pass the shoeshop on his way to his daily toil. There was deep snow lying on the ground, and he must needs find his way in the track of the sleighs. As he neared the shop out rushed the shoemaker without hat or coat, but with leather apron on, and shirt-sleeves rolled up. He took his position in the path directly in front of young Brown, who had his copy books under his arm. The disciple of Crispin at once assailed the schoolmaster with a volley of questions and oaths. He seemed ready to follow his words with blows from his clenched fist. The out- look was decidedly dark. Robbins maintained silence, allowing the noisy fellow to ventilate his passion, but kept up a vig- orous thinking as to what he should say. At last, he thought of the beloved fiddle. With a smile he asked most blandly: " Mr. Moulton, don't you play the violin?" Crispin's disciple seemed stayed by the ques- tion and growled out, " Yes, I do sometimes." " Yes," said Brown, " I know you do. I School-Teaching — Grit and Grace 41 heard you play at the ball a while ago. I am ex- ceedingly fond of music, and I intend to come to your house and get you to play for me." The little tack had so punctured the tire of anger that the whole machine of passion col- lapsed in a moment. The shoemaker roared out almost gleefully: "That's right, come on! I'll play for you at any time you please to come." Never did a towering passion subside so sud- denly. The soft answer had turned away wrath. Young Brown went often afterwards to the house of the man who was shoemaker by voca- tion and violinist by avocation. He had dis- covered the ideal side of his life. His wife, who probably sympathized with Robbins' ideas of discipline, set before the schoolmaster her best cooking and tickled his palate with her dainties. Thus victorious, young Brown learned a les- son thereby that was of use to him in all his sub- sequent years. For self-defense, tact was often more than thews. Years afterwards, he saw how one little Japanese policeman, by the fine art of jujitsu, could lay two or three burly for- eign sailors sprawling. As we shall see, his voice and his masterv of music won him his The offer of a kind friend of his mother's to help her son at New Haven deflected Robbins' course from Amherst to Yale, and we shall next find our hero in his native State of Connecticut. North and South — Elms and Violets IV North and South — Elms and Violets THE Japanese author of that twelfth-cen- tury classic, " The Romance of Prince Genji," names each one of her chapters after some flower in the garden. We may be pardoned for entitling ours after the trees of New Haven, under which old Yale University grew up, and the blossoms of South Carolina, whose beauty and perfume Robbins Brown, as a student, loved so well. It was a Japanese student, a half century afterwards, who spelled New Haven, " New Heaven," though he added that " the climate is too cold for my health." The future missionary started for Yale College in a coat remodeled from his father's, though it was still several sizes too large for him. When he arrived he had six and a half cents in his pocket, reserved on the margin of his calculated expenses. With the capital remitted from home he settled in his room, with a very eco- nomical outfit as to furniture, as a member of the class of 1832, in second-term Freshman. A number of his classmates who were aided by the American Education Society took their 45 46 A Maker of the New Orient exercise daily by sawing wood in the college woodyard. As nothing else offered, Robbins bought the tools for wood sawing and splitting, and sturdily began making acquaintance with American hickory. This was the wood, very light and very strong, preferred for heating. Its virtues are next to unknown in Europe, thereby explaining, as some think, why Britons, less than Americans, understand how lightness and strength can be associated; hickory representing the American, oak the British genius. Nevertheless, before Robbins Brown had earned enough to pay for the tools, he tired of the toil of which he had had more than enough at home as a boy, and which furnished no recre- ation. It was not for him to be a dull Jack, with all work, and no play. Being a good Bible stu- dent he early learned the difference between labor and work. To saw, split, and pile up hard hickory logs eight feet long, brought only seventy-five cents a cord. The fruit of such toil was literally "striving after wind." So, as in- dustrious as a prophet, or a Paul in seeking work with his hands, by which he might, while keeping up his studies, earn money to pay his expenses, he looked for some other bird to bring him Elijah's food. They came, and lo! the orebim, that were to deliver his bread and meat, turned out to be not ravens, but larks. Inquiring among his fellow-students, he found that they wanted vocal music. He could get up North and South — Elms and Violets 47 a singing class that would pay him better and please him more. He could teach music both vocal and instrumental, and teach it well. There- upon laying down the ax for the tuning fork, and the saw-buck for the baton, he started a class in music which helped finely to pay his ex- penses. He rubbed through the Freshman year with little help from his good friend Mr. Backus, de- termining never to apply to him for help till he had exhausted every other resource. He kept a check upon his purse by keeping a strict ac- count of income and expense. During six months he waited on the tables in the dining room and thus paid for his board. To save room rent he slept during part of his first year in a recitation room, with his schoolmate in Mon- son Academy, Amasa Dewey. It was from this friend's house, a half century later, that he was to pass into the House of Eternity. In his Sophomore terms his quarters were in the old South Middle, with Corydon Philemon Perry, whose sister, the accomplished wife of Rev. Dr. Maclay, was later his neighbor in Japan. During half of this second year he served as waiter in the upper hall, putting the food that came up from the kitchen below in dumb waiters, on the table. From the beginning of his Junior year he had no further anxiety. A member of the faculty came to him, informing him that his name was 48 A Maker of the New Orient the first on the list of applicants for the college bell ringing. As he had never put it there or asked anyone else to do it for him, he was both delighted and surprised. He ministered to the needs of the college and supplied his wants for that year by making " music in the air." As responsible bell ringer he guarded against propensity to sleep in the morning by putting an alarm clock at the head of his bed. Only once did he fail to obey its prompt and noisy sum- mons. The winter chapel service of morning prayers was held by candlelight, and when, by that one infirmity of a second nap, he gave the whole college a happy half hour of lateness and loss, he was the hero of the undergraduates for one day at least. " What a fright it gave me," he wrote, " though I think I was the most popu- lar man in college that morning." Warned by the faculty, he never overslept himself again. He took this lesson of lateness to heart for his good. Thereafter he was a man of the clock. Without haste or waste, his life was spent in faithful work, in punctuality and diligence, ever enjoying hard work and plenty of friends. In the Senior year he paid all his expenses by teaching music in the boys* school at New Haven. With a quick eye and ready mind for languages, he stood well in his class. He was a hearty good fellow. A social gathering among the students and his New Haven friends was hardly complete without young Brown's pres- North and South — Elms and Violets 49 ence. Just as the three months' vacation before Commencement began, he was invited to go to New York to teach deaf mutes. He accepted, and returned to New Haven in time to rehearse his piece for the Commencement stage. He brought with him, as his quarter's pay, money enough to settle his bills, and a subject for his Commencement address, which was " A Disser- tation on the Language of Signs," which he duly delivered. When he graduated, ranking in the second of the three divisions of his class, he had a sheepskin in his hand, fifty dollars in his pocket, and around him a large circle of culti- vated and influential friends. Thus, keeping within his income, this Yale student had become a capitalist. He delighted in the Lord, and the Lord gave him the desire of his heart. He lacked no good thing then or in after-life. Who could then foresee that Yale University would become the favorite of students from Japan, at that time a sealed empire, and that here at the quarter-millennial celebration in 1901 the Mikado's premier Ito, should, gowned and capped in the scholastic garb of the Occi- dent, receive the degree of LL. D.? After college life Brown taught school for three years, thus carrying out his promise to his father of financial assistance. Besides this filial purpose, he had other motives. In 1879 he wrote : " A friend in Philadelphia wrote to me at the 50 A Maker of the New Orient beginning of what was called the Senior vaca- tion, three months before Commencement, urg- ing me to go to Princeton Theological Semi- nary, and offering to pay all my expenses. I thanked him for his generosity, but told him I had two reasons for declining to accept his offer. One was that when I asked my father's consent to enter college, I told him I would devote my first earnings after being graduated to paying his debts; and secondly, I did not think I was mature enough to commence the study of the- ology, but needed more knowledge of men and things before assuming the responsibility of a minister of the gospel. I therefore accepted a call to the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in the city of New York, and went there at the beginning of the Senior vacation in 1832. ** I remained there until the autumn of 1835, when I was advised by my physician to go to a warmer climate, in order to recover from the effects of a severe attack of pneumonia, that I had had in Boston, while on a visit to my elder sister in that city." In other words, Robbins Brown learned by ex- perience that next to knowing the Hub City and the radiations of its spokes in the suburban om- nibus, " tram," or electric trolley lines, it is well to know the peculiarities of Boston's climate. This ancient center of wisdom may not boast what Mark Twain ascribes as frequently pos- sible to Connecticut — one hundred and thirty- North and South — Elms and Violets 51 three kinds of weather in twenty-four hours — but it has an East Wind, that we may be ex- cused for capitalizing and personifying. With this servant of Boreas, we declare, after seven years' residence on Tremont Street, it is not safe to run risks or take liberties. Indeed, even in summer it is not wise to go very far without an overcoat. Young Brown, with too close adher- ence to the scriptural injunction, by failing to take two coats, succeeded in taking pneumonia. After recovery from a long illness, he looked southward for healing in the region of the pal- metto tree. He entered the Theological Semi- nary at Columbia, S. C, and supported himself during two years by teaching vocal and instru- mental music in the Barhamville Young Ladies' Seminary. His pupils came from many parts of the coun- try. One of them was the lady who became the wife of Bishop Boone, whom he knew later in China. Another was Miss Martha Bulloch of Georgia, who afterwards married Theodore Roosevelt of New York and was the mother of four children, one of whom became the twenty-fifth President of the United States, though she died " before the sight " of her illus- trious son's inauguration. When, in April, 1902, President Roosevelt on his way to the Charles- ton Exposition stopped a few minutes in Co- lumbia, there was handed to him a bunch of violets grown on the grounds of Barhamville. 52 A Maker of the New Orient The incident touched deeply the apostle of the strenuous life. Two years of life in this genial southern cli- mate found Robbins Brown fully restored to health, with his lungs strong, and so he looked northward. There were magnets drawing him with subtle force thitherward. One was the pretty face of the minister's daughter at East Windsor, to whom he was betrothed. Another was the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, then indeed in its infancy, but a giant child, destined to be one of the noblest institu- tions in the land. Last, but not least, was the offer of a position as teacher, with good salary, in the New York City Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. Here the potential missionary could bide his time. The promoters of Union Theological Semi- nary, the first full class of which Mr. Brown entered, were almost entirely men of business, merchants who consecrated their talents and money to the service of God. This fact had its influence upon S. R. Brown. He learned to ap- preciate business men and to look upon them as his comrades and co-workers. He was always able to take the right business view of things, and this made him eminently practical. It pre- pared him to do the great work which is being accomplished in China and Japan, in disarming prejudice and winning the missionary and the merchant into unity of service, thus helping to North and South — Elms and Violets 53 solve one of the mightiest problems in missions. One of the first ambitions of a missionary should be to win the merchant as his helper for Christ's sake. S. R. Brown was also one of the first and pioneer students earning his own living in the great city, while also pursuing his studies in the science of Christian truth. Union Seminary has been a leader in helping to hasten the day when the profession of the preacher, more manly and independent, will break from the old traditions and be better fitted for its environment in the American democracy and in the world, by mak- ing young men more serviceable in the cause of truth. The houseless institution which opened on the 5th of December, 1836, despite the awful losses by the great fire of 1835, was at first peripatetic. The students went to Leonard, Eldridge, and Nassau streets to be taught of Professor White, Robinson, Bush, or Skinner, as the case might be. In the following quoted sentence, from the first printed catalogue, one may recognize a reference to Mr. Brown: " No dormitories hav- ing yet been provided, the students came from every quarter of the city, as far away as the Deaf and Dumb Institution on Fiftieth Street." Be- sides thus teaching daily, the future missionary led the choir in the Allen Street Presbyterian Church, then at the height of its power and use- fulness. Trade and the Gospel — A Call to China V Trade and the Gospel — A Call to China IMMEDIATELY after graduation "the Reverend " Samuel R. Brown, as he was now, offered himself at once to the Ameri- can Board, desiring to go to China. At this time both Japan and Korea seemed to be hope- lessly and hermetically sealed against all out- side Christian influences. Even China had but the one port, Canton, open to foreign trade and residence. The times were far from propitious. The country had not yet recovered from the panic of 1837. Money was scarce, and the Board was in difficulties. Fifty applicants were before our hero and on the waiting list. No missionary appointments could be made until the financial fog lifted. So Robbins Brown continued his teaching of the deaf and dumb. While thus waiting as a prisoner of hope, a new way was opened into the Middle Kingdom. Even as Union Seminary was the gift of business men to the American metropolis, so again it was primarily through the initiation of Christian 57 58 A Maker of the New Orient merchants, British and American,* that edu- cation on modern methods was begun in China. The renowned Rev. Robert Morrison, D. D. (* 1782 f 1834), was the founder of Protestant missions in the Chinese Empire. He was a Northumbrian EngHshman, who, with a letter from James Madison, our Secretary of State, found warm friends among the Americans at Canton. After prodigious labors, as pathfinder, for English-speaking people, in the Chinese language and as translator of the Bible, he fell asleep after twenty-seven years of unselfish toil for God's almond-eyed children. His tomb is at Macao. Dr. Morrison died on the ist of August, 1834. Some of the nobler-minded men of trade, who were eager to do something on behalf of the Chinese, circulated a paper containing sugges- tions for the formation of an association to be called " The Morrison Education Society." The paper was dated January 6, 1835. By the 24th of February twenty-two signatures had been ob- tained, the sum of $4860 collected, and a com- mittee of men of honored names, Robinson, Jar- dine, Olyphant, Dent, Morrison, and Bridgman, was formed to propose the best method of carry- ing out the plan of diffusing " among one-fourth of the human family that true religion which is * For the beginning of American trade with China, see " America in the East," New York, 1899. Trade and the Gospel 59 one day to pervade the whole earth. . . As a knowledge of the Chinese language has been of great advantage to foreignersj^ so an acquaint- ance with the English will be of even greater ad- vantage to the people of this empire. . . The object of this institution shall be to establish and support schools in China in which native youths shall be taught, in connection with their own, to read and write the English language; and through this medium to bring within their reach all the varied learning of the western world. The Bible and books on Christianity shall be read in the schools." The isolation of the China of that day, when very few indeed of China's millions had ever, except as sailors, visited Europe and America, was something which we find it hard to imagine in this twentieth century. The founders of the society said, " Our posterity, if not ourselves, may see the Chinese, at no very distant day, not only visiting Europe and America for commer- cial, literary, and political purposes, but, having thrown away their antipathies, their supersti- tions, and their idolatries, joining with the multi- tudes of Christendom in acknowledging and worshiping the true God." In order to make the society known in Eu- rope and America and obtain aid and sympathy, the first public meeting was deferred until Sep- tember 28, 1836, when at No. 2 American Hong a small number convened. The report showed 6o A Maker of the New Orient that $9977 were in the treasury and 1500 vol- umes of books in the library — a heterogeneous and not overattractive collection. Officers were elected and a constitution adopted. At an ad- journed meeting held on November 9, 1836, six- teen persons were present. Most of them bore names that now shine with luster as those of men who have helped to make China the progressive nation she is to-day. By the constitution, the trustees were to meet four times a year. " Chi- nese youths of any age, of either sex, and in or out of China may be received, though children of six, eight, and ten years of age were pre- ferred." It was decided to procure from Europe and America two or more young men, ambitious to become perfect masters in the science of teach- ing who, " with the spirit and enterprise of a Pestalozzi or a Lancaster, will at once come to China, learn the language of this people, ex- amine their books, and investigate their method of teaching, giving their whole strength to the work." At first most of their time would be occupied in acquiring knowledge. Meanwhile a few pupils might be placed under their care and be trained up to become the teachers of others, who in their turn would be qualified for the discharge of the same duties.* *The authority for the above outline of fact is a pamphlet of sixteen pages, printed at the office of the Chinese Repository in 1836, Samuel Wells Williams Trade and the Gospel 6i The second annual meeting was held October 3, 1828, at which fourteen were present. One of the members of the society was an American merchant who had a name, David Washington Cincinnatus Olyphant, which suggests shining virtues and a link of friendliness between Eng- lish-speaking peoples, and to this name he lived up. He was one of that firm of American Chris- tian merchants and China's tireless benefactors Talbot, Olyphant & Co. When in America he went to Yale College and interested Professor^ Silliman, Goodrich, and Gibbs in the Morrison Society's movement for Chinese education. Finding them warmly interested, he appointed them as trustees to procure a teacher. These gentlemen at once approached the young but experienced teacher Samuel Robbins Brown, who had already instructed the deaf and the dumb, besides those in full sight, hearing, and voice. They offered him, on the 4th of Oc- tober, 1838, the appointment. The summons came to one ever alert for duty, at short notice. The nobly named ship Morri- son was to sail on the i6th. There were there- fore but twelve days to find out from his be- trothed whether she would go with him to the ends of the earth on so short notice, to obtain release from the Institute, to visit New Haven, having been already three years in China as printer and founder, with Dr. Bridgman, of the Chinese Re- pository. 62 A Maker of the New Orient Monson, and East Windsor, and to secure a complete outfit. She would. After that initial problem was settled, all the rest of the way was clear. He re- ceived first his commission at New Haven, bade his parents and friends at Monson good-by, and then hied to East Windsor to rejoice as a bride- groom, before starting out on his long mission- ary race. Perhaps it was not so easy for the prospective bride to make all her preparations for the wed- ding and get all things ready at short notice be- fore sailing on the four-months' voyage round the globe. On the loth of October, the mar- riage took place. He stood with his bride, the minister's daughter, in his own and her own birthplace, where as children they had played together. On Manhattan Island the bride and groom were entertained at Mr. Olyphant's home — " that mansion of Christian hospitality " — in Rivington Street from the 12th to the 17th of October. To this house the gifts which con- stituted their outfit for the voyage were sent. These came from Monson, East Windsor, Hart- ford, Norwich, Lyme, New Haven, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and New York. Thus a series of delightful events filled up the time between Mon- day the 8th, and Wednesday the 17th, of Oc- tober. The Connecticut Observer of Hartford, Conn., Trade and the Gospel 63 for Saturday, November 10, 1838, tells some of these events and about the ordination and sail- ing, so we turn to its pages. This paper is a curiosity. It gives pictures of other forms of Christian life and work, seventy years ago. It tells of the Colonization Society's meeting in Hartford; of the movement of the Cherokees to their western home, and the removal of Indians from Florida; the arrival of whaling ships at Poughkeepsie, N. Y.; and of a Baltimore clip- per, fifty-three days from Chili, besides giving many other interesting items. The profits of this paper were devoted to the Domestic Missionary Society of Connecticut. On page 2 is the notice of " Missionary Ordina- tion and Departure," wherein it is told that Mr. Samuel R. Brown, a licentiate of the Third Pres- bytery of New York, was married October 10, and on the next Sabbath evening was ordained to the Christian ministry by the same presbytery in the Allen Street Church, of which Mr. Brown had for several years been a member, and where he had labored with very happy success for the improvement of the choir in the knowledge and practice of sacred singing. Rev. Dr. Peters presided, and in the name of the Presbytery, in union with Rev. Mr. Bradley, pastor of the church, affectionately invited three of their brethren, pastors from Congregational churches in New England, to take part with them in ordination to the ministry of reconcilia- 64 A Maker of the New Orient tion. Rev. S. Bartlett, his father-in-law, of- fered the introductory prayer and read the 47th Psalm, second part, in church psalmody. Rev. D. M. Lord of Boston made the prayer before the sermon. Rev. Mr. Bradley, the pastor, preached the sermon on " The Christian Min- istry as an Institution of Christ." Rev. Dr. Peters offered the consecrating prayer, and with all the members of the Presbytery, the congre- gational ministers. Revs. Bartlett, Whittelsey, and Lord, joined in laying on of hands : " For the separation of this young brother as an am- bassador of the Lord Jesus to the idolaters of China, to labor for turning them from the power of Satan unto God." Professor White of Union Seminary gave the charge, and all the members of the presbytery and the three New England ministers gave the right hand of fellowship. Then the Rev. S. R. Brown read the 137th Psalm and pronounced the apostolic benediction. The sacred song was under the care of Mr. S. L. Hart, a dear friend of the young missionary. On Wednesday morning, October 17, with clear sky and favorable winds the missionaries embarked, Rev. David Abeel being one of them. At twelve o'clock parting salutations were ex- changed, and the returning company left the ship for the steamboat, singing when on board, *♦ With joy shall we stand, when escaped to the shore." Trade and the Gospel 65 Thus happily began the voyage of 125 days, around the Cape of Good Hope to Macao. The Morrison was the same good ship which had al- ready in 1837 voyaged to Japan, sent by the American Christian merchant, Mr. King, to re- store shipwrecked waifs who were natives of that sealed country. Then it had been driven away at the mouth of hostile cannon. Now, under God, it was on a more successful mission to the oldest of empires. Her flag at the peak carried in its blue field twenty-six stars. Pioneer Education in the Middle Kingdom VI Pioneer Education in the Middle Kingdom BY way of the Cape of Good Hope, the In- dian Ocean, and the Dutch East Indies, the Morrison arrived at Macao on Feb- ruary i8, 1839. Some of the " Fa-ke Yuns," as the Americans were called, in the ship Morrison, had wives, but how to land them was a problem. Foreign women and opium were not then allowed to enter Chinese ports. What should be done? Mr. S. Wells Williams, the missionary printer, came out in a covered boat to the ship, which lay at anchor nine miles from Macao, and brought the newcomers to the Customhouse. The gov- ernor, being half Portuguese, was willing to ad- mit Mrs. Brown and the ladies as " goods," or " freight," into the country. So the Browns were soon safely ensconced under Mr. Williams' roof. There they remained during eight months, while " tutor Brown " was mastering the Chi- nese language — " the oldest child of Babel," as Mr. Williams dubbed it. Strange experiences awaited the Yankee 69 70 A Maker of the New Orient teacher. It was in the midst of events leading to the opium war, and on the day of his arrival in Canton he saw a Chinaman strangled to death for selling the " dirt," as the natives called the hated drug. The next year he saw the cap- ture of the Bogue forts by the British fleet. It was something like a " baptism of fire." It was soon after his arrival that Mr. Brown went up to Canton in one of Mr. Olyphant's ships, the Roman. From Whampoa, in the cap- tain's gig, he was rowed nine miles to the Fac- tory, or foreign quarter, at Canton. All along the river they were saluted with mud, stones, and bad names, of which that of " foreign devil '* was heard oftenest. This was his welcome to China. Very different from what he had sung at home, " They call us to deliver," etc. At Canton Mr. Brown, with the Rev. David Abeel, met Dr. William Lockhart of England, and Mr. Lionel Dent, president of the Morrison Education Society, who thanked him very heartily for bringing his wife with him. One pleasant episode in May, 1839, was the visit of the U. S. frigate Columbia and the sloop of war John Adams. Very pleasant acquaint- anceship was made with Commodore Reed and a number of the officers, some of whom were ear- nest Christian men. The letter describing this event, like the others in Mr. Brown's China cor- respondence, is folded, and a square portion of the outer sheet is addressed without envelope or Education in Middle Kingdom 71 postage stamp, the post-office mark being New York, October 12. Two letters written from Macao, April 3 and May 29, 1839, are upon the blank sides of the circular printed on Mr. S. W. Williams' press and sent out by Mr. Charles Elliot, chief super- intendent of British trade in China. They de- scribe the methods of the mandarins' coercion. Under pressure, the foreign residents surren- dered twenty thousand chests of opium, worth two million pounds sterling. With thirty-four ships manned by fifteen hundred seamen lying at anchor in the Macao roads, where they were denied water and food for offered payment, though they could easily take what they ask for as a boon, it is asked, " How long will England continue to wear the lion as her crest, and yet play the part of the hare? " Mr. Brown wrote, " Do not be anxious on our account. We have no fears of personal danger." In the autumn of 1839 ^ large Portuguese house at Macao, 1 10 x 60 feet in area, formerly occupied by Mr. Gutzlaff and in which Mrs. Gutzlaff, assisted by her cousins the Misses Parkes, sisters of the lad who afterwards became Sir Harry Parkes had taught Chinese girls, was rented for a residence and school. It was close to the cave of Camoens, in which, according to tradition, the banished poet in 1568 wrote his " Lusiads," in which he prophesied the full open- ing of Japan to the gospel 72 A Maker of the New Orient The time was one of tremendous excitement on account of the vigorous measures of the Chi- nese government to get rid of opium. The old town of Macao had seen its best days as to com- merce, and Canton was the only port yet open to foreign trade. The Chinese did not yet care to have their sons taught English, being content to use " pidgin " or business English as a trade lingo, which answered their purpose sufficiently well. Further, no normal Chinese in the An- cient Land of Shams, of painted eyes, of paper tigers, and canvas forts, could understand how anybody without a selfish purpose could ever want to come from afar to teach their sons. With all the talk of the Chinese about " benevo- lence," despite the abundance of gilt paper mottoes inculcating liberality, they could not understand unselfishness. It was difficult to get any pupils for this reason, and a beginning had to be made with half a dozen boys only by offer- ing them board, clothing, and tuition free. This promising initiative did not portend great results. The records of the Morrison Education So- ciety show that there was no meeting held in 1837, as had been expected, for the whole British community had left port and were gath- ered on deck. Macao and Canton were empty of aliens, and for a while they lived on the ships at Hong Kong. There was no gathering until 1840. Then the Society was convened at the o 1— I H Ul m M o Ul > O > rz: H O :z: Education in Middle Kingdom 73 house of Rev. S. R. Brown in Macao, Wednes- day, September 29. Thirteen members were present, of whom six were ministers. Mr. Brown's first report to the Society shows that he had devoted his mornings to his personal study of Chinese and the afternoon and evening to teaching EngHsh. He, Hke the pupils, gave himself to the mastery of the characters and the language in both its spoken and written forms. An elderly Chinese teacher taught the boys in the Chinese classics, after the noisy manner of the country, which consists in bawling out the sounds, in committing the ideograms to mem- ory, in learning to write the characters, a matter of pure penmanship, and in expressing them- selves correctly in their native tongue. His first purpose was to know the Chinese mind and conduct his pedagogics in the most philosophical and efifective manner. He called attention to the absurd character of the books read and their stilted style, which made a nation of prigs. Theirs was education turned upside down. It compelled small boys to read and talk about themes fit only for their elders. " We should rarely look for or find young persons like them, even in England or America, who could discourse on moral or political economy, and these are the topics which fill entire volumes of the books which are put into the hands of tyros in China." The other difficulty of the Chinese boy was the 74 A Maker of the New Orient nature of the Chinese language, which is neither alphabetic nor syllabic in its written expression. " The English child has only to learn the powers of twenty-six letters and then he is master of most of the phonetic elements that compose all words. Not so with the Chinese youth; he has no such royal road to the art of reading. . . He must commit to memory the names and mean- ings of at least as many characters as there are words to be read." Nevertheless, he declared " that there is more philosophy than absurdity in the method of instruction pursued in the schools of China." Hence Mr. Brown would make no change in the methods of Chinese schoolmasters. Until he had qualified himself as soon as possible to interfere with this part of their education. ** If it is necessary for a teacher among his own countrymen to understand the minds of those whom he instructs, how much more imperative is the necessity in order to insure its success among a strange people in a foreign land. Now language is the portrait of the mind in action, and he who would be familiarly acquainted with it must become qualified to judge of its picture with the skill of an artist." The Yankee tutor had already noticed that it was because such an attainment as a knowledge of the language of China was so rare among for- eigners, that there was so much misconception and ignorance as to Chinese feelings, prejudices, and habits. Who indeed can understand a Education In Middle Kingdom 75 people unless he understands their history? He wrote, '* There is Httle or no play of sympathies between us. Our intercourse is much like that of two untaught mutes that meet with ideas cir- cumscribed by the limits of what their eyes have seen, and picture to each other in pantomime the mere outlines of the true thoughts they have in common, and then part again in utter ignorance of each other's spiritual being." In attacking the Chinese language, the American teacher found that some of the first links in the chain that should unite the alien and the native in mutual understanding were still wanting. The simplest questions in grammar were at that time " unasked and unanswered in any work on Chinese philology in the English language." Hence his determination to achieve some mastery of the Chinese before attempting to revolutionize old methods. His idea through- out life was evolution rather than revolution. He laid emphasis on the fact " that if we should hope to effect any great change in the system of education prevalent in China, it must mainly be done by efforts made in China itself." He then points out the unwisdom of establishing schools for the Chinese in Chinese colonies, as had been done, rather than in China itself. By inquiring, he found that in those days only three or four in a hundred of emigrants from China ever returned. " Our point of attack, all friendly as it is, should be in China itself, and nowhere 76 A Maker of the New Orient else. . . In this service I am ready to toil until I die." He soon found out how excessively rare it was that a foreigner in China could read a Chinese book, or write the Chinese language, while even among the natives of this reputed " nation of scholars," it was the exception rather than the rule to find a man who could read freely in Chinese literature or write fluently the language in general, rather than a limited stock of ex- pressions or technical or trade terms. His pupils could more quickly and pleasantly write English than their own native tongue. With tens of thousands of ideographs or '' characters " the Chinese have no alphabet. '* Nor is it at all strange that the boys in our school find it easier to write English than Chi- nese. Every alphabetic or syllabic language must, in the nature of things, be less difficult of acquisition than one formed after the model of the Chinese, which exhibits only in the remotest manner any design to meet that demand of the mind which has usually resulted in the inven- tions of alphabets." After discussing with acuteness, ability, and insight the defects of Chinese education, he adds, concerning his pupils, " They are exceedingly fond of Western music, and I should have yielded to their repeated solicitation to instruct them in vocal music, had the pressure of other duties been less. When I shall have the happi- Education in Middle Kingdom 77 ness to welcome an assistant to China, this branch of education must not be omitted, both because of the habits it inspires and the soften- ing, elevating influence it exerts upon the minds of the young. As it is, they are now familiar with quite a number of English melodies." What progress the Chinese boys soon began to make may be guessed at from a letter to Mrs. Brown in Monson, from one of her son's pupils, named Awan. His father was one of Dr. Mor- rison's proteges, a son of an old servant of his father's. Dr. Robert Morrison. Mr. Brown had at first almost despaired of the boy's being any- thing, but lately, as he wrote. May 7, 1842, " he has brightened up wonderfully. He was fifteen years old, and made nothing of algebra." It re- veals some of the difficulties which enlightened lads had to contend against from elderly rela- tives in a land so populous with idols and gov- erned out of the graveyard, as China is. The letter is reprinted verbatim: Macao, May 7, 1842. My Dear Mrs. Brown: Mr. Brown left his father, and mother, and friends and came to China to teach the Chinese boys. When he came to China, after eight months, he had some Chinese boys living with him. In about a year and a half some of them ran away, and no longer did many boys come to Mr. Brown's house. Sometimes the father, and 78 A Maker of the New Orient friends call the boys home to worship the idols, and at the graves. The English and Americans have made a great many Chinese books about Jesus Christ, and give them to the Chinese. Sometimes when walking round about the streets, some men ask them, and they give them to them. By and by the Chinese men look at them, and find out Jesus Christ, and God in the book, and mock, and laugh. Sometimes the Chinese tear them into shreds, and burn them up. Some of them go to a distance, with the books, and meet the Chinese soldiers, and they are beaten. The Chinese mandarins are very severe. One of the officers is named the Tso-Tong. When he wishes to go out, he calls some of the beggars to be sol- diers, and two of them beat gongs, and the sol- diers hold some whips in their hands. The Tso- Tong sits in a sedan chair, and all the men go before him through the streets, and everybody stands up. If they don't do so, they beat them with their whips. Sometimes the soldiers catch a man, and say, You do opium business? Yes, says he. They take him to the mandarins to be tried. Sometimes he is beheaded. Some of them are rich, and give many dollars, and the officers let him out. Some of them are poor, and have not any money to pay out, and are put to prison for life. The Chinese mandarins do not improve at all ; but they are always about the same. The Chinese are proud, and easily pro- Education in Middle Kingdom 79 Voked, and envy each other, and everyone is bad. They care for nothing but money. Every week there is a monitor in the school. When the boys get up at six o'clock in the morn- ing, the monitor rings the bell, then all the boys come up into the school, and read Chinese books, till half-past seven o'clock. The monitor rings the bell again, and all the boys go to the dining room, and read the Bible, and pray to God. Then Mr. Brown explains it to us and we sing a hymn every morning, and every evening. Mr. Brown has a Chinese teacher to teach the boys from nine to twelve o'clock, then all the boys go to play. At one o'clock all the boys come again to the school, and then he explains history to us, and afterwards we write it out in the evening. Another letter dated Macao, June 7, 1842, is from Afun, in the first class, but the youngest of the boys and very promising. He says to Mrs. Brown, " I have never heard of any Chinese who would give his own son to go so far as from China to America for other men's good. They are always afraid they will lose their lives." Moral training and the building of character were set before merely intellectual discipline at the Morrison School. One day Mr. Brown, after looking for certain books to use, found that his oldest pupil, during one year, had stolen them. The lad had gone back to his father's 8o A Maker of the New Orient house in the country, whither he had taken also the purloined property. There conscience smote him. He felt very bad and finally brought back the books; coming with flowing tears to Dr. Brown in his study at evening, he told his storv. " It seems as if I had two hearts within me, one heart said ' don't take them back,' the other said * take.' " Raising his right hand, he smote his breast and said, '' I put down that bad heart, and resolved to bring these books back. So here they are and now will you forgive me?" Mr. Brown forgave cheerfully and told him to ask God to forgive him. It was a true conver- sion to repentance. Another pupil, Awing, fourteen years old, small and smart, had been in school one and a half years when he wrote, June 7, 1842, to Mrs. Brown at Monson, Mass., as follows: "In the school there were sixteen boys, six of whom form the first class and ten of them form the second." He had been on board an English man-of-war and on the ship Surprise. " Few Chinese have been over to America. In our country the people are so proud that they swell up as balloons." The climate during the first summer was try- ing. " We are so softened and enervated by the summer heat of this latitude that we feel it if a cloud obscures the sun. We never see frost here, but we keep fires for our comfort during about three months of the year." He enjoyed Education in Middle Kingdom 8i the tea and fruits of China, but did not Hke the cramped quarters, for there was Httle room for walks or exercise in the space within which for- eigners were shut. He sent home curiosities to his young friends in New England. This was the time when the wave of enthusiasm for silk culture was passing over the United States, and tens of thousands of people were infected with the idea that silkworms could be profitably raised in our northern climate and with our sys- tem of labor. He purchased at the request of some friends in Connecticut ten dollars' worth of mulberry-tree seed, that is, two and two-thirds pounds, and no doubt the good people of the Nutmeg State who experimented soon found that neither as to soil, climate, or labor prices was Connecticut likely ever to be a rival of southern China. The monuments of failure are found all over the Eastern and Middle States, in those avenues of plantations of mulberry trees which to-day make the uninformed wonder how they came to be where they are. I remember a pleasant summer spent at Mount Airy, near Philadelphia, under rows of these trees. Under the British Flag vri Under the British Flag THE issue of the " opium war " was the cession of the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain. After four years at Macao, at the dawn of peace, the governor of Hong Kong offered the Society an ehgible lot on Morrison Hill for its edifice. The president of the Morrison Education Society, Mr. Dent, gave three thousand dollars toward the erection of a new building. This gave Mr. Brown the opportunity for founding the school under the Union Jack, and on British soil, where his ideas could be better carried out. The school was re- moved from Macao to Hong Kong, November I, 1842. In the dormitory there were rooms for twenty-four boys. On April 7, 1843, the Eng- lish department was ready. Dr. D. B. McCartee, in 1894, thus pictures the Hong Kong of 1844, the year of his arrival in China. " Hong Kong gave little promise of being, what it has since become, one of the best known and most important of Great Britain's foreign 85 86 A Maker of the New Orient possessions; with its splendid landlocked har- bor, its numerous handsome public buildings, the palatial establishments of its merchant princes, its beautiful botanic gardens, and its well-built streets crowded with a bustling throng made up of people of almost every nation and tribe under heaven, speaking discordant lan- guages, and dressed in almost every kind of garb. '' The sides of the hills were ragged with exca- vations. Streets or building sites were being dug out; huge round masses (' bowlders,' as the un- learned called them) of syenite or basalt lay here and there, to the uncovering and disintegration of which was then attributed the great mortality that prevailed among the European and East In- dian residents. With the exception of the resi- dence of the Chief Justice of the Colony, the Morrison School taught by the Rev, S. R. Brown and the London Mission's Hospital under Dr. Benjamin Hobson (these two side by side upon one of the smaller hills), and the mercan- tile establishment of Messrs. Jardine & Mathe- son, at Eastpoint, European buildings were few and interspersed promiscuously with mud houses and mat sheds. " Among the foreigners then at Hong Kong were Sir Henry Pottinger, the negotiator of the new treaty; Sir Hugh (afterwards Lord) Gough and Sir Gordon Bremer, the military and naval Commanders in Chief in the war that had so Under the British Flag 87 lately terminated. They could generally be seen at the early Sunday service in the large mat shed, long since replaced by the Cathedral of the Bishop of Victoria." In the Morrison School the pupils devoted half the time of each day, except Saturday and Sun- day, to the study of Chinese under native mas- ters and half to English under himself. He was now working to much better advantage with a text-book of his own preparation. Seeing the need of such a work, Mr. Brown had, during a seven weeks' visit with his wife to Singapore in 1 84 1, prepared, on the basis of Dr. James Legge's " Lexilogus," a new language book for Chinese pupils studying English. In the origi- nal the colloquial portion was given in English, Malay, and Chinese literary style and the Foh- kin and Canton colloquial dialect. At Singa- pore he met Dr. J. C. Hepburn and his wife. After five years in China, they were afterwards to work together for twenty years in Japan. Mr. Brown's fifth annual report, in 1843, was duly printed and sent out, though no meeting of the Society was held. His philosophical insight and grasp of the educational situation in China are shown in his report. He says: " The Morrison Education Society would set the wheel in motion by which the old superan- nuated process of making men mere peaceable machines shall be exchanged for another, in which human nature shall be aided to put forth 88 A Maker of the New Orient a vigorous growth of knowledge and virtue. As things now are, these are nipped in the bud. It is no thanks to the Chinese system of training if here and there a blossom survives and comes to wholesome maturity. We come then to res- cue the youth of China from this destructive blight, and what do we find upon our hands at the outset? When a pupil is received into our school he is young, ignorant of almost every- thing but the little affairs of his home, prejudiced against all that is not of Chinese origin, the dupe of superstition, trembling at the shaking of a leaf as if earth and air were peopled with malignant spirits, trained to worship all manner of sense- less things, and in short having little but his mental constitution to assimilate him to the child of Christendom, or to form the nucleus of the development we will give him. It is quite im- possible for me to describe my emotions when looking for the first time on a class of new pupils." The Chinese pupil then had to have " his mind emptied of a vast accumulation of false and superstitious notions that can never tenant an enlightened mind, for they cannot coexist with truth." Young as they were, the pupils were victims of habits among which were " an utter disregard of truth, obscenity, and cowardliness. I have never known a Chinese boy who was not at first possessed of them all. Is it possible to transform these beings who have grown up . . . Under the British Flag 89 under a false and defective training into enlight- ened Christian men?" The American teacher believed that the ful- crum to rest his lever upon for the elevation of degraded minds was in the affections. He soon found that kindness met with a quick re- sponse. Both the colloquial and the book languages were ill suited to right education, the school- books then in use being the " Four Books " and the " Five Classics," written by men who lived before the Christian era. The primer or first elementary book was in poetical form, three characters to a line, and in most concise and elliptical style. The other works are chiefly interesting on account of their antiquity, the pupil " drinking only the froth of words, without once tasting of the water beneath." Mr. Brown's report, in nineteen printed pages, is a masterly analysis and summary of the staple of Chinese education. He writes that after a few months the false notions of the lads respecting the physical uni- verse have vanished away, " their very counte- nances have exchanged their original leaden as- pect for one of comparative activity and life. The slumbering mind has been awakened to a consciousness of its own power, exercises have increased their fondness for reflection and ob- servation, and their spontaneous inquiries are frequent and often puzzling. Many of them are 90 A Maker of the New Orient not satisfied until they know the truth of the matter." At the seventh general meeting of the society- held September 24, 1845, ^^ the society's house on Morrison Hill, twenty-seven members were present, Mr. Brown's summary of progress chows that he was overcoming the suspicions of the Chinese and raising up a new kind of mind in the land of Confucius. Seeing the need of a class book on political economy which should be a thousand or two years nearer present conditions than the writ- ings of Confucius and Mencius, Mr. Brown pre- pared an elementary work on this science which he translated into the Chinese and had published at Canton, in 1847. The eighth annual report at the meeting of the Society, September 30, 1846, when seventeen were present, was read by Mr. Brown. In this he urged that the order of development in China should be first the school, then the academy, and then the college, as in Christendom. He be- lieved in stooping down first to the child's intel- lect, teaching the Bible with its wealth of wis- dom and simplicity of power, and then going forward in the regular order of training in the higher branches of science. There was not much variety to break the monotony of steady toil, so the Browns found their joy in work and home, and their recreation in social interchange. The seven weeks* travel Under the British Flag 91 and rest at Singapore made one notable break, and besides there were occasional trips to Can- ton. One was to spend Christmas of 1843 with the Parkes (two sisters and a brother), at Can- ton. The boy who was to grow up to be Great Britain's able minister and consummate diplo- matist in Japan, China, and Korea, was then fif- teen years old, and serving as interpreter on the staff of Sir Henry Pottinger. Of his two sisters, the elder had married Dr. William Lockhart, who founded the first hospital in China. The sight of Christian children born in China was a rare one in 1843, and the two Brown chil- dren made a decided sensation. They were petted almost to the spoiling of them by those whose language they spoke, while the Chinese were very eager to see these " children of devils " as they then spoke of aliens. Of his visit to Canton, December 28, 1843, he writes: ** My dear wife and her two bairns, Julia and Robert, with their nurse and Miss Gillespie to- gether with myself formed the party. We have spent eight days at Canton, passing Christmas there, and having spent the time most agreeably. Our American and English friends were very happy, it appeared, to see us, and did much to express this gratification at having the company of the ladies and children. The little ones were rare visitors, even more so than the ladies. The Chinese were loud in their expressions of ad- 92 A Maker of the New Orient miration at seeing these kwai tsai (children of devils), as they very modestly and politely styled them. We went out in boats into the country once or twice, to a considerable distance, and nowhere met with any obstruction to our rambles. There has been a great change here since 1839, when I first ascended the river. Then I was stoned and saluted with mud all along on the banks of the stream as I passed up from Whampoa to the city. Now no such thing. A beginning of change has made its appearance, which I confidently regard as only the begin- ning. A few years more will exhibit still greater changes. " While at Canton Mrs. Parkes and the other ladies all went one day to see the judge of the district, Hwang by name, who was formerly at our house in Hong Kong, on an evening's visit. He met Mr. Lay, the British consul, and Sir Henry's aid-de-camp. Captain Brooks, on the day first mentioned, to hand over to them the supplementary treaty, with the Emperor's sig- nature attached to it. Hwang is very much of a gentleman, a really refined man in his manners, and he went into the side room to shake hands with the ladies and take a cup of tea with them. He chatted away for nearly an hour with them, and the ladies returned home much pleased with their visit. A respectable Chinese merchant of Canton came to me at Dr. Parker's, to secure a place in our school for two of his nephews. I Under the British Flag 93 think it will not be long before the wealthy Chi- nese will send their sons to us to be educated. The reproach of the thing is fast passing away." Another pleasing incident was the arrival of the U. S. S. S. Brandywine, the man-of-war named in honor of Lafayette's visit to America and to the battlefield of that name, and which Captain Matthew C. Perry commanded when an American squadron gathered at Naples in 1832. The Rev. Mr. Jones, former tutor of Mr. Brown, at Yale College, was chaplain. Besides meeting his old friend, the exile from home keenly en- joyed the music. " The band of the U. S. S. S. Brandywiney which is now in this harbor, has just closed a serenade to one of our neighbors. Dr. Ander- son, on the hill next to us, and it has reminded me so much of home in Yankee land that I feel a strong penchant for writing to the dear ones of the cottage under the sycamores. That band, though small, has given us such a musical treat- as we have never had on this side of the world. * Oft in the Stilly Night ' was played beautifully, and sent its solemn, lengthened notes around this amphitheater of mountains and hills and over the star-lit waters, most thrillingly. I wanted to hear * Yankee Doodle.' Little Julia, who was out on the brow of the steep in front of the house with us, part of the time, could hardly contain herself. She whispered every half min- ute, * That's nice, that's nice. Is that * Monkey 94 A Maker of the New Orient Doodle '? Is it Yankee?' Then she added/ I've never been in America.' She was on board the Brandywine some weeks ago, and the band filled her ear then." Other agreeable friends were Mr. and Mrs. King, who had voyaged on the ship Morrismv to Japan to return shipwrecked natives, only to be driven away by powder and ball. Mrs. King was the daughter of the Rev. James M. Math- ews, Chancellor of the University of the City of New York and pastor of the South Dutch Re- formed Church in New York, in which later, in 1859, the mission to Japan was planned and financed. In the Morrison, she was probably the first white woman to look upon Japan. Warm friendships sprang up between the Browns and the English missionaries, many of whom, especially on their first arrival, found hearty welcome from the American educator. ** Yankees though we arc, they seem to enjoy us," he wrote home to his father, who was long- ing to see his grandchildren, born in semi- tropical China, ** coasting down the Monson hills, on which lay snow a yard deep." His mother sent contributions regularly to sustain the work in China. To the children at home he wrote, " Large-hearted people are the happiest, because they are most like God." From a letter to his sister Fanny, from Vic- toria, Hong Kong, 29th of March, 1844, we have a lively picture of his surroundings: Under the British Flag 95 " From our windows wc have a panoramic view of the harbor and town, a charming pros- pect that never tires. We only want a little verdure to look at, to make it one of the prettiest spots you might wish to see. We are now put- ting an additional covering of tiles on the roof, and inclosing the rear veranda (or piazza, as you would call it) to keep the rain and wind out. On the top of this hill there is nothing to break the force of the wind. A typhoon would be no trifle to us, I fear. The veranda extends round the four sides of the house, and the wind might lift it up and lay it one side some day, without much ceremony. But notwithstanding it is a good house and accommodates forty-four indi- viduals very well. This much for the * house we live in.' Now for what is done in it. We rise betimes in the morning, that is, at the time we get up. I dare not mention the hour, lest you should think us late risers, though I can as- sure you we are not a whit behind you in that respect, for we can boast of rising at least twelve hours earlier than our folks do at home. Presi- dent Day and the faculty used to say that, if a man was up the proper time in the morning through his college years, he would acquire the habit and it would not easily forsake him. Per- haps this may account for my habitual early rising. If not, I don't know how to explain it. " Before breakfast the boys (twenty-eight are now here) go to the schoolroom. At half-past 96 A Maker of the New Orient seven they come into the dining room to family worship, when all the older boys read with us. The seraphine stands before a fglding door that leads from the parlor to the dining room, and when this door is thrown open, the room is vir- tually double. After reading we sing and * kneel before the Lord our Maker.' Then at eight o'clock comes breakfast, a light meal. At nine the boys, who have likewise breakfasted, re- turn to the schoolroom, and their English studies commence. Elizabeth and a lady by the name of Marshall, who is now here, then ac- company me thither, and we teach, talk, and ex- plain, and expound till one o'clock, when we go to our dinner and the boys have a recess till two. At two they commence their Chinese studies again under a native master, and the rest of the day till half-past six is spent by us in the various duties that call for our attention. At five the boys go to their dinner and from that time till half-past six they do what they please, provided it is proper. They are generally at play on the hill. At half-past six we again assemble for family worship and then we take tea, with little besides, and the boys go to their studies till nine, when they are dismissed for the day. At ten they are all required to be in bed. Each has a room to himself and none sleep together, except one or two little shavers, brothers. Ten is our professed hour for retiring, but it is often twelve. Under the British Flag 97 " Such is the general outline of the routine of our daily performances. Wednesdays we have no school in the afternoon, and the boys study Chinese in the forenoon. On Saturday they study English in the forenoon and have a half- holiday after that. This is to allow them time to wash their clothes. All the boys do their own washing. It is the custom of the country. We give them their board and tuition. They fur- nish their own clothes in most cases and Chinese books and stationery. We now have thirty on our catalogue, two are absent. They are in the government service as interpreters at Shanghai. They will return in about a month to be replaced by two others, thus spending six months away and six months at school. The first six months are nearly expired, and soon one of the boys now at school will go up to relieve one of those who are absent. Elizabeth's hands are very full of work as well as mine, what with teaching a class or two, and superintending her household affairs. We are greatly in want of a teacher to help us. It seems as if I could secure one in a day, were I in the United States. When will that New Haven committee get one? * I dinna ken.' I am afraid they do not. But really it is too bad to have everything suflFer as it now does, for want of a man." We must now relate an adventure in which, besides incurring deadly peril, our educational pioneer left some of his blood on China's soil. 98 A Maker of the New Orient The Chinese coast was infested with pirates, and the good work, of improving this species of human vermin off the face of the earth, so ably carried on afterwards by British and American sailors, had not yet been vigorously begun. More than one missionary fell a victim to these murderers on sea and land, nor was our pioneer educator wholly to escape their attacks. It was while Dr. Brown's first daughter was four or five years old and his son Robert a baby, and Dr. D. B. McCartee, a newly arrived guest, and some Chinese boys were in the school with him, that the startling episode took place. The house on Morrison Hill overlooked the sea on one side and the flourishing new settlement on the other, the slope on either side being very abrupt. The inclosure, or " compound," contained, besides other outbuildings, a large henhouse. Several Chinese workmen were employed in the garden and about the place, and were in the habit of coming and going freely. One night, about midnight, Mr. and Mrs. Brown were awakened by hearing angry voices just outside the window. The talk was in Chi- nese, and it was naturally supposed that the speakers were quarreling workmen. Stepping to the door, Mr. Brown called to them in a com- manding voice to keep quiet. " It is I, your master; you must make less noise and go away." But instead of a calm, the tumult increased. He heard men moving about, though in the darkness Under the British Flag 99 he could see nothing. Meanwhile the pirates, for such they were, kept lunging with their long spears where the speaker stood. They thrust first on one side and then on the other, at ran- dom. Suddenly Mr. Brown felt the hot burning sensation of a spear or dagger entering his right leg. Then he knew that the noisy rascals were not workmen, but robbers. At once he called out to Mrs. Brown to fly with the children and hide herself and them. With the aid of Dr. McCartee and his Chinese pupils, she took the two little children, and they fled to the henhouse and hid quietly there. Among the Chinese boys was Yung Wing, who showed nerve and presence of mind and was of great assistance. Mr. Brown, though wounded and suflFering from loss of blood, seized a box containing valu- ables, and dragging it to the edge of the bluflf, overlooking the town, pushed it over. It rolled down and fell into some bushes, where it was afterwards found and recovered. Then he too escaped and hid with the others in their strange shelter. With such materials as they had at hand, scraped from the floor of the henhouse, they stanched the flow of blood, and tearing off some of his clothing bound up the wound, thus undoubtedly saving his life. Meanwhile the rob- bers, finding nothing portable to satisfy their greed, broke in the doors and windows, cut the beds in pieces with their swords, hoping to find hidden treasure, then gathered up the clothing, lOO A Maker of the New Orient made a heap of it on the floor, and setting every- thing on fire, returned to their ship. In their frightful situation the family re- mained till daylight, not knowing but that at any moment they might be discovered, and be mur- dered in the barbarous manner in which Chinese pirates delighted, for the foreigner was an es- pecial tit-bit for them, and the process of slicing up, or the " thousand cuts," was one of their methods of amusement with unransomed cap- tives. Happily the baby made no cry, and all the others kept bated breath, while the pirates did not think of looking among the chickens for their prey. The next morning Mr. Brown had his wound properly dressed. Luxuries were not altogether absent. It was not yet the day of importation of American flour, petroleum, cotton, clocks, and machinery, but from the Eastern States of America ice, apples, and butter for foreigners, and ginseng for the Chinese, with furs from Oregon and san- dalwood from Hawaii, were then the staples. A dish of " greenings " from Massachusetts, a keg of Orange County butter, and some home-made ice-cream, were the usual indulgences celebrat- ing the arrival of a ship from New York or New England. In literary activities and in preaching Mr. Brown's labors, though without money and without price, were notable. He contributed steadily for years to the Chinese Repository, Under the British Flag loi preached in Chinese once a month in a chapel to a full house, and frequently in his own tongue to the congregation of English-speaking people in Hong Kong. Before being a teacher, missionary, or parson, Robbins Brown was, first of all, a man. Hear an anecdote told in 1901. While Dr. Brown was at Hong Kong a half dozen American boys landed one day. They had wanted to go to sea, and had, at first, a plan to run away which their sensible parents had frustrated, sending them ofif in a body on a ship bound for Hong Kong. By the time they reached that port they were pretty homesick. The captain told them they might have a day on shore. " But," said they, " where shall we go? We don't know anybody." "Well," said he, "you go and see Mr. Brown, the missionary; he's a good fellow." They went with fear and trembling. Mr. Brown met them at the door with a warm wel- come, took them into his house, which was American enough to be homelike, and made their hearts glad with witty stories and friendly talks. But the climax was reached when he opened some bottles of soda water, which went to the right spot. Many years afterwards, when Dr. Brown's son Robert had enlisted in the Union army and was taken by Colonel Bissell into his tent as orderly, the colonel, who had been one of those I02 A Maker of the New Orient same boys, discovering the relationship of the young man, told this story (not once, but often); always ending off with the remark, " I have tasted that soda water ever since." Thus happily unfolding his plans, his work en- larged grandly. He was living in high hopes of spending uninterruptedly the greater part of his life in China. During part of the time, for short periods, other persons assisted him: Mr. Bonney; Mrs. Gillespie, a Scottish lady; Dr. Happer, and Mrs. Brown. During his last year of service his assistant was the Rev. William A. Macy from Yale College, of the class of 1844, ^" earnest and promising man, who, however, soon succumbed to pulmonary disease, dying in 1859. Mr. Brown's high hopes of long service in China were dashed by the failure of his wife's health. Three children had been born in his home, one of whom had died. At first it was thought that careful nursing and a change of air would restore her vigor, but it soon became evi- dent she must return to America, if her life was to be saved. So, regretfully, the decision was made to start for Massachusetts. Nevertheless, part of the school emigrated with the master, for with the Browns went three of the most promis- ing lads, as we shall see. The school of the Morrison Education So- ciety, which at first was the only educational es- tablishment of its kind in China, receiving for a time the undivided support of the community, Under the British Flag 103 survived a few years longer after the departure of Mr. Brown, and then passed out of existence. Such a school as the Morrison, founded on the broad principle of Christian philanthropy alone, was overlooked, or passed by, as possessing in- ferior claims to support. Nevertheless it was the parent school. Instead of one, there are now hundreds of such schools in China. The mother died, but the children live. In a word, the Morrison School died in the same sense that they die who confer a more glorious life. Just as some of our New Eng- land towns, now shrunk to mere hamlets or ab- sent from the map, after sending out scores and hundreds of educated men and women to enrich the nation at large and even the world afar, so the school of the Morrison Education Society ceased its life, because, as soon as China had other ports open beside Macao and Canton, edu- cational interests were expanded rather than scattered. Each branch of the Christian Church had then its own educational activities to strengthen and develop. The results of Mr. Brown's work were to be seen later on. The subscription lists show a total of $100,500 collected from the beginning to 1848, the largest donation from one person being $3000. Mr. Brown hoped to be able to visit Europe and ob- tain funds to maintain the Morrison School, but in this hope he was disappointed. Arriving in the United States during the excitement and un- I04 A Maker of the New Orient. certain state of affairs attendant upon the Mexican war, he was able to collect no more than $750. The work was carried on until 1848 by Mr. Macy. Then the calamity that Mr. Brown had foreseen, in the atmospheric possi- bilities, took place. A typhoon, or tornado, having partially destroyed the school edifice, Mr. Macy's strength proving unequal to further demands, and subscriptions failing, the work was abandoned. The Chinese statesman Yung Wing, writing in 1901, says: "In the schoolroom Dr. Brown was at home. He had tact, patience, and kindly ways. He easily won the confidence of his scholars, by coming down to their level. There was none of that austerity and sham loftiness which characterize some school-teachers, who wish to hide their shallowness and lack of peda- gogic resources by keeping their pupils of¥ at a distance. He was one of those rare men who mold and shape the character of the age through the men whom they have trained. The men who had the privilege of the doctor's early train- ing, though few in number, have yet all turned out well, and have done work in after-life credit- able to any teacher. The doctor took pride in them, while they cherish his memory and that of Mrs. Brown, the companion of his toil, with the deepest gratitude and reverence." Professor Brown at Rome Academy VIII Professor Brown at Rome Academy WE Americans in the early forties had no " Pacific Coast," as we understand it now, and certainly no California as yet. So the ship bearing the Browns homeward took the old and orthodox route from China through the Dutch East Indies, and around the Cape of Good Hope to New York. As the vessel drew near the homeland, in April, 1847, the American passengers, so long away from mothers and fathers, allowed their thoughts to dwell on what they should have to eat. Each one named his favorite dish, whether in or out of season. Codfish balls, hot corn on the cob, succotash, brown bread and baked beans, noodles and schnitz, apple dumplings, turkey and cranberry sauce, terrapin. Saddle Rock oysters, canvasback duck, egg plant and sweet potatoes — what should it be? The Chi- nese boys, being less familiar with American specialties of diet, had indistinct visions of what was to come, but Mr. Brown cast his vote in favor of baked beans. It being in New Eng- 107 io8 A Maker of the New Orient land almost an article of orthodoxy to serve the beans on the day of rest, these were, with brown bread, in a sense synonymous with the Sabbath. Yet the day of delectation was Wednesday. What prospect for baked beans, and on Man- hattan Island, too? Leaving the ship, he came with his own family and the Chinese boys to the house of his sister, Mrs. D. E. Bartlett, on Fiftieth Street. How she was prepared for such a sudden influx of population, she could not, when writing in 1901, remember. Nevertheless, what was al- ready in the larder was quickly set on the table for the voyagers, hungry for land food. Enter- ing the dining room, the educator from China took his seat at the table, and behold, a crock of baked beans! Surprised and dehghted, he told the story of his inward cravings. Then, with hearty appetite, he attacked the reminder of boy- hood's days. After a short stay in New York, the Browns left for M'onson, Mass. It was a great day for the village when he came back from " the Land of Sinim." The three Chinese boys were in a garb never before seen in western Massachu- setts. A returned missionary was not as fre- quent a sight then as at present and such very young " Sons of Han " were indeed rarities. The three lads, Wong Shing, Wang Afun, and Yung Wing, made a great impression. Al- though they were at once the " lions " of Mon- At Rome Academy 109 son, the boys all thought they were girls. Their long hair impressed the ladies. The average local ** nine days' wonder " paled before such a sensation as this that lasted for weeks. Their caps and cues and silk coats furnished themes for conversation in church, school, and street. Nevertheless, the pleasing manners of the Chi- nese boys won the hearts of the people. There was no fear as yet of a " Mongolian " deluge, por were the " Sand Lots " of San Francisco then known. The boys were lodged in the house opposite the Brown cottage and kept steadily at work at their studies, in order to enter the Academy. They quickly learned to enjoy American life, even the fun and jokes which the Yankee young folks played upon and with them. To the end of their lives they delighted in Yankee humor. The gong which they sometimes struck made an immense sensation, for nothing like it had been seen before. Curiously enough, the imple- ment used in China to scare the moon-swallow- ing dragon and make him disgorge the planet soon became an " institution " in American hotels and railway stations, to summon hungry guests to their meals. After a tour of several cities making addresses on China, and raising some money for the school jn Hong Kong, several months of rest were de- lightfully enjoyed in Monson, to the profit of all. Mr. Brown and his wife impressed their neigh- no A Maker of the New Orient bors and townsmen as earnest people, living with a definite aim in view and that an exalted one. He was honored as the consecrated son of a de- voted mother, whose ideas, particularly in re- spect to Christian missions, had been far in ad- vance of those of her generation. As oppor- tunity offered, the Christian educator spoke to pleased audiences in various places concerning China and the Chinese. The Mexican war was at this time occupying public attention,' though only a few could then see that its issue, in the possession of California by the United States, would be the direct occasion for the opening of Japan to missionary occupation, and to the world's commerce. Further labors in distant lands had been pre- cluded by his wife's health. Until it was fully restored he must work at home. He looked now to Providence to open a door of usefulness and service. He expected to settle down in the pastorate, but the Lord opened a different door and bade his servant enter. It was on this wise. In 1848, on his way to Chicago to seek a field, he stopped at Rome, N. Y., to visit a relative, and there all unexpectedly the angel of oppor- tunity met him, stood in his path, and showed him new areas of endeavor. An academy of higher learning was to be opened in the town. A principal or master was needed. The posi- tion was offered to Mr. Brown. It was semper parattis with this schoolmaster from abroad, At Rome Academy 1 1 1 and he accepted. He took his Chinese pupils with him. " Professor " Brown, as he was locally called, began at once the work of organization and teaching. In the first year there were 42 stu- dents taking a classical course, 25 of whom were young men and 17 young women. In English studies there were 231 registered, loi men and 130 women, while in the primary department there were but 37, making a total of 310 who at- tended during the first year. A majority of the students were from Rome, but some were registered from Chicago, 111.; Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Michigan. Nearly every town of Oneida County had its representative. Among the students was Hon. Lyman J. Gage, former Sec- retary of the Treasury of the United States of America. The great financier, writing April 17, 1902, says: " I remember him very well as being the head of the academy at Rome, N. Y., in about the years 1852-53, when I was a student there. You ask my impression of his personality. Al- though I was quite young, he did leave a very distinct impression upon my mind, though I did not come close enough to know him with any in- timacy; but he was a highly refined, cultivated gentleman of scholarly attainments — that was noted everywhere. This was received and ac- 112 A Maker of the New Orient knowledged by all the students, and it is this im- pression merely that I have carried with me through the years." A correspondent from Rome writes: " The old Rome Academy was at this time (1848), a private institution and conducted as such. Inquiring in 1901 I could find only one person, who remembered Dr. Brown as a genial, warm-hearted man whose influence seemed to be always on the right side. The old building had a life covering exactly one-half a century, and is now replaced by a modern twenty-five room building accommodating something over six hundred pupils." During the summer vacations, besides journeys for recreation to the Eastern States, Mr. Brown explored the delightful lake region of central New York, home of the ancient Iroquois Con- federacy of the Six Nations, and redolent with their poetry and lore. Fond of the study of rocks and soils, he tramped over the country, hammer in hand, in search of fossils and speci- mens. New York contains " the Old Testament of geology," and at Trenton Falls the book is wide open and the pages easily read. Here he fed his imagination and filled his wallet for the enrichment of his cabinet. On New Year's Days he enjoyed the fine old Dutch-American custom of calling on his friends, on one occa- sion making thirty-four calls. After three years of service at Rome, the At Rome Academy 113 Academy, as then conducted, under private ownership and direction, not proving profitable, Professor Brown resigned on March 31, 185 1. He turned his thoughts to the great West, but his Heavenly Father had work for him to do even nearer home. The Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake IX The Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake IT was in the spring of 185 1, at the sugges- tion of Mr. and Mrs. E. Throop Martin — fragrant names — that the people of the Re- formed Dutch Church of Sand Beach, at Owasco Outlet, near Auburn, N. Y., sent a call to Pro- fessor S. R. Brown, whose title and affectionate designation was henceforth, as became the pas- tor of a Reformed (Dutch) Church, " Domine." * He gladly accepted, for he had longed for the pastorate and to preach steadily the gospel, as he had done at Rome occasionally. It was from no motives of earthly ambition or personal ease that the returned missionary was led to the decision. To " relieve " him " from worldly cares and avocations," the " domine " * Unfortunately some of our unrevised and very in- correct dictionaries still keep in newspaper use, as if it were correct, either as Dutch or English, the purely Scottish term " dominie," which means " a stickit minister," or schoolmaster only. The correct term, in unaltered Latin, for the regularly ordained and in- stalled pastor of a Reformed Church is Domine. The sinister influence of the ' ' printer's devil " in American country newspapers is sometimes seen in their printing even our Lord's title thus — " Quo Vadis, Dominie ?" 117 1 18 A Maker of the New Orient was promised a salary of $230.50 and expected to call to resurrection an almost dead church, and to raise the money for a new house of wor- ship. In one sense, indeed, it seemed classic, even idyllic, to live near Auburn, " loveliest vil- lage of the plain," and be " passing rich at forty pounds a year." The Browns moved to Owasco Lake in April, 185 1, and the domine was duly installed by the ministers of the Classis of Cayuga, according to the impressive forms and liturgy of the Re- formed Church in America. To insure a living for himself and family, the domine bought a farm of seventy acres, built a large house upon it for his household, and re- solved to carry on a select boys' boarding school with pupils limited to twenty-five. For this pur- pose he secured the Waring farm, now Spring- side, and soon his splendid abilities as a leader and organizer were shown in a flourishing school by the side of a flourishing church. In a word, he became farmer, teacher, and preacher in one, and here he was to work for eight years. The necessity for a new church edifice was soon apparent. The wooden structure reared by the pioneers, who had come from Gettysburg, Pa., and from New Jersey, was nearly a half- century old. Besides being out of repairs it was too small. So In the winter of 1852-53, Domine Brown called a meeting of the parish to consider THE REFORMED CHURCH AT OWASCO OUTLET. ■■^^*>f Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake 119 what could be done. Under his encouragement, the people decided to rebuild in the spring. Three thousand dollars were raised for the pur- pose and this sum was increased by the sale of the parsonage property, and by gifts from friends. He wrote to a New Haven architect for plans, specifications, and working drawings for an edifice in brick with stained glass of the Norman Gothic style, with bell tower, to cost seven thousand dollars. The general features were planned by the domine himself. The con- tract was given out July 5, 1854. While the pastor gave his daily attention to the details of the rising edifice, his wife formed the Ladies' Sewing Society, which provided for the inside furnishing of the building and the comfort of the worshipers. On July 26, 1855, the new house of worship was dedicated with fitting ceremonies, the ser- mon being by the Reverend Professor Samuel M. Hopkins of Auburn Theological Seminary. He had been a classmate of S. R. Brown at Yale. He lived to be the last survivor of the class of 1832. Domine Brown had a genius for friendship, for raising up disciples, and firing them with his own enthusiasms. Three ladies in his congre- gation afterwards became notably connected with the modern Christianization of Japan. One was Miss Caroline Adrian, who went out at her own charges with him to the Mikado's empire I20 A Maker of the New Orient in 1859, in the hope of beginning Christian work among the native women. The time was not, however, yet ripe for this, and she was disap- pointed in being unable to do any considerable work in the Sunrise Kingdom. Afterwards she joined the Reformed Church mission at Amoy, China, where, after a brief season of labor, she died in 1863, ** lamented by all who knew her." Another lady, a teacher in Mr. Brown's school, was Miss Mary F. Kidder, the daughter of a physician in Brooklyn. In August, 1869, she went to Yokohama and thence to Niigata with the Browns. She was the first unmarried lady missionary sent directly from the United States to Japan, and she successfully initiated female education in the Mikado's empire. Later she married the Rev. Edward Rothesay Miller. After some years of earnest work at Yokohama and in Tokio the Millers settled for their life work at Morioka in the northern part of Hondo, or the main island, whence in 1901 they wrote biographical reminiscences of Dr. S. R. Brown. Another lady was Miss Maria Manyon, who became the wife of Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, as is shown in the biography of " Verbeck of Japan " — that work being dedicated by the author to her. Glimpses of the domine's life of sunny toil on the shores of lovely Owasco are afforded by some now in mature life, who were then youths Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake 121 growing up under his loving care. One lady at Phelps, N. Y., recalls his mild and pleasant man- ners and his genial and warm-hearted ways with his people at Springside. Another tells of his impassioned eloquence in the sermons at the morning church services and in the afternoons at the schoolhouses, as he urged men to accept Christ as their Saviour. Another writes of his being very practical in his habits. He was as wise-hearted as Bezaleel, the Phoenician artificer in Hebrew employ, or as he " who rounded Peter's dome," for " Himself from God he could not free." He helped around the house in papering or painting a room. If he did not like the paper, he would decorate the room to suit himself. As Dr. Yung Wing says of him, " He was as skillful in constructing a piece of mechanism as in penning a sermon. In all things the domine was a student and master of the graces of life, and a man of taste and re- finement. Not infrequently he enjoyed the so- ciety of Auburn, of the theological professors and the families of the Seminary household, and occasionally that of the brilliant political lights that gathered in the home of William H. Seward, afterwards United States Senator, Secretary of State, and traveler round the world, whose au- dience with the Mikado in Tokio in 1870 gave the precedent for all foreign guests thereafter." With a lifelong passion for music, he played the piano, organ, and violin, and composed not 122 A Maker of the New Orient a little. At church, when the organist was ab- sent, the domine would come down from the pul- pit, play the hymns on the melodeon at one side of the pulpit, and then return to preach. As the changeful surface of the blue lake's mirror, that reflected alike the colors of dawn and sunset and the trailing cloud shadows, so varied the life at Springside. News of his father's decease on December 29, 1853, came to him after the close of a school term. Timothy H. Brown, the beloved parent, made a verbal will the night before his departure, leaving among other gifts one hundred dollars to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. After this bereavement his widow, Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, came to live in the home of her son at Owasco Outlet. As educator, pastor, friend, or neighbor, Rob- bins Brown was always fond of fun and jokes. From childhood to old age, sunny mirth light- ened much toil. One incident which furnished the domine with one of the many stories of early clerical life was of a couple that came to his home to be married. After the ceremony the groom came up and gave the minister seventy- five cents, and then stood as if waiting for some- thing. When asked if there was anything else he wished to say, the new-made husband stam- mered out, " Well, I did not know but there was some change a-comin'." Evidently he expected to get the job done for " five shillin'," or sixty- Dutch Domine at Owasco Lake 123 two and a half cents. This was almost equal to another fellow Benedict, who on receiving his bride asked the parson: "How much is it?" " What do you mean? " asked the man of the white necktie. " I mean how much do you charge for the job of marrying us? " " Oh, I have no regular charge, but the law allows me two dollars." " Oh, then, if that's the case," blurted out the fellow quickly, *' here's fifty cents. That makes two dollars and a half," and he threw down a half dollar and left. In the report to the Classis of Domine Brown's last year at Sand Beach, 1859, ^^e figures show the high-water mark of the church records, that is, 260 members of the congregation, of whom 120 were communicants, with 130 young people in the three grades of the Sunday School. Of the work of Mrs. Brown and those women " who labored in the gospel " with their hands, then and later, in the Sewing Society, it has been written : " Many a pastor, many an outgoing mission- ary, many a struggling church in the West, many a soldier of the rebellion, many a needy family at home has seen the result of the society's efforts with the needle, while considerable sums of money have been raised by it and devoted to like objects of benevolence.' » 124 A Maker of the New Orient He wrote later : " These were the most labori- ous, wearing years of my life. I never asked the people of my parish to increase my salary, but I began at once to call upon them for benevojent purposes, such as domestic and foreign mis- sions.'* He soon found that to make people help themselves, there is nothing like awaken- ing in them a hearty interest in helping others. His policy was as the River of Heaven upon soil barren because of dryness. New life and energy marked the congregation. Instead of depend- ence upon the Home Missionary Society, the church was soon raised to a condition of self-sup- port, and even to the ability of contributing from one to four hundred dollars yearly to the benevolences of the Reformed Church in America. A Pioneer in Woman's Higher Edu- cation X A Pioneer in Woman's Higher Education SAMUEL R. BROWN was a pioneer edu- cator in three lands. One of the first men to beHeve in a first-class academic education for girls, he worked hard to secure also a woman's college in central New York. Indeed, how could he help following in the faith of his mother? This, strong even in the eigh- teenth century, was as a dayspring of the long, bright morning that has opened upon Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Holyoke, and Bryn Mawr. With the name of Mary Lyons should be writ- ten that of Phoebe Hinsdale Brown. The records show that the initiatory move- ment for the founding of Elmira College, the first woman's college chartered as such, was at Albany in the year 1851, in the consistory room of the Second Reformed Dutch Church. They also show that Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown was one of the incorporators, chairman of the first executive committee, active in securing a site, in drawing up the curriculum, and in securing funds. At first Auburn was thought of as the Z27 128 A Maker of the New Orient proper location, but Elmira was finally decided upon. Those who founded Elmira College were pio- neers bravely clearing a new pathway in an un- trodden territory. For many years there was no clear apprehension of the real worth and the best work done at Elmira. Yet just as surely as Harvard College, founded by a few Congregational ministers at Newtown, Mass., in 1636, gave the precedent and opened a new era of education in North America, so the first chartered woman's college in America, at Newtown, N. Y. (the ancient name of Elmira and in use until 1828), set the mark, and set it high, for the wonderful development of woman's education in America. Both name and site were significant of decisive events in history, which opened new eras of progress. Before a white man had settled in the Chemung Valley, or Elmira received its name, there was an Indian village where the future city was to arise, and hard by was the New Town of the Iroquois Indians. Here, on the 29th of August, 1779, was fought the decisive battle of civilization against savagery by Gen- eral John Sullivan and his four brigades of Con- tinentals, from New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, which shattered to pieces the Iroquois Confederacy of the Six Nations. This victory opened the lake country and the western half of the Empire State to the Woman's Higher Education 129 settlement of white men. The Newtown battle of 1779, the red man's Culloden, knocked the In- dian's clan system to pieces. How appropriate, in poetic justice, that the system that doomed the squaw to hopeless drudgery under the reign of savage force should receive its deathblow in the very place where the crown jewel of Chris- tian civilization — the higher education of woman — should first sparkle! The Empire State, in which was opened the first public school in America, on Manhattan Island, again gave noble precedents to the nation, first in Elmira and later in Vassar College. We read that on June 20, 1854, Elmira being chosen as the site. Rev. S. R. Brown was re- elected chairman, and Mr. Simeon Benjamin treasurer. The latter proved a generous bene- factor, giving in all to the college eighty thou- sand dollars. In April, 1855, the charter was amended and the name changed to " Elmira Female College." Later, in harmony with the other American col- leges for women, the word " female " was dropped, and the name Elmira College adopted. It was a great joy to Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, poet and dreamer, yet one of the most practical of women, and mother of the pioneer educator in China, to see Elmira College and her grand- daughter a student within its walls. She paid a visit to the college, grateful to God that she had not died without such a sight. The hope and 130 A Maker of the New Orient faith of long years had at last been crowned by the sight of a woman's college which still chal- lenges honorable comparison with the wealthier colleges for women, in the fullness of its required course of study, in the excellence and thorough- ness of instruction, and in the scholarship of its graduates. Domine Brown's interest remained warm and constant, until his preparations for going to Japan had to be made. Human history is usually dictated by success- ful precedents, which become examples. It was Pilgrim grit and tenacity in Plymouth Colony, issuing in assured success, that led the Puritans to cross the sea with wealth, learning, and social power, to begin the Massachusetts Bay Colony and State. Did the demonstrated success of Elmira influence Matthew Vassar to his own noble enterprise at Poughkeepsie? This work in the interests of the higher edu- cation of American women was done amid the national excitements just before the Civil War, when the country was convulsed with the slavery agitation and thousands were in intense anxiety over the safety of the union of States, and amid a round of toil that would have discouraged many a man. Lest this seem too strongly stated, let us look at one of the letters of his mother, at this time supported by her loving son in his home. She is writing at the school at Owasco Lake Outlet, in which are twenty-five boys. She Woman's Higher Education 131 pictures a specimen Sabbath, early in December, 1857, which shows what her son was doing: " At six in the morning held the family prayer meeting, which a few of the boys attended. After breakfast had family worship. I then sat down in my room to study the Bible lesson. (He has a Bible class of his pupils on Sabbath afternoons, and is going through the Acts of the Apostles; uniting historical, geographical, and religious instruction in his teaching.) Went to church at 1 1 a. m. He preached on * The Love of God in Christ': * God commendeth his love toward us,' etc. Returned home at one. At 3 p. M. he taught the Bible class from the Acts of the Apostles. Gave the boys an affectionate and solemn talk. Attended family worship — took tea — and went up the east side of the lake, about six miles, to visit a dying member of the church, and preached to an audience of 150 on 'The Conversion of Zaccheus.' To-day, Monday, he looks tired, but he said to me : * I had rather try to save souls than to be the emperor of the Rus- sias. How grandly has the lake country in central New York become a great missionary and edu- cational area, more especially since S. R. Brown enriched its borders with an academy and col- lege! When the nineteenth century opened the Auburn Theological School — started as Congregational, and still leavened by the free spirit of inquiry that makes it the Union Semi- 132 A Maker of the New Orient nary of central New York — had, besides Hobart College, and a few academies and elementary schools of fair repute, indeed been started. Now nearly every one of the lake cities, towns, or villages has its high school, academy, or col- lege, all of them led by the most typical modem American University, Cornell, which at Ithaca crowns the heights of Lake Cayuga. One may look with pride upon the Universities of Roch- ester and Syracuse, upon the schools of various grades and disciplines on Cayuga, Seneca, Owasco, Onondaga, Oneida, Cazenovia, and Keuka lakes, whence has issued a mighty host of men and women grandly equipped to do the world's work. In the ranks of the missionary soldiers and workers the list of honored names from New York's lake region is a long and shin- ing one, as notable for the talents and consecra- tion and results wrought as for its length. From Domine Kirkland, missionary to the Oneida Indians, pioneer and founder of Hamil- ton College, to Parker and Marcus Whitman on Pacific slope land, to Brown, Verbeck, and Nevius beyond seas, to the first Ramabai circle founded at Cornell, to the Students' Volunteer movement, the record is a noble one. Grand as was Domine Brown's toil at Owasco Outlet, his work was to be even more glorious in a new land across the Pacific. Again was he to taste the glorious freedom of a foreign missionary, to toil indeed amid the Woman's Higher Education 133 sights and sounds of uncanny heathenism, but to be rid of what many pastors have to struggle against — the hypocrisy, the selfishness, the worldliness of nominal Christianity at home, and to be free of the cantankerous church officers who will rule or wreck. Like Verbeck, Robbins Brown gloried in the unique freedom and superb opportunity of the missionary. His was the spirit of " Childe Roland," as Browning pictures him, as he *' to the dark tower came." Ho for Japan! XI Ho for Japan ! HOW the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America determined to plant a gospel mission among the hermit people, whose doors Matthew Perry and Townsend Harris had persuaded them to open, has been told in " Ver- beck of Japan." Happily it was the angel of the olive branch, and not of sulphurous war, that had persuaded the Japanese to do this, and thus again attract Robbins Brown to the ends of the earth. At nearly fifty years of age many men would have shrunk from entering an unknown and untried field like that of Japan, but Samuel R. Brown had the spirit of a pioneer and leader. He was probably the very first to receive appoint- ment as an American missionary to Japan. Both the American Episcopal and Presbyterian mis- sionaries preceded him; in actual arrival on the ground, though he had urged his church to be first. In his letter of application, dated Spring- side, December ii, 1858, he expressed himself as ready for either China or Japan, as the Board might direct. Further, he believed in " the reflex influence of missions." Hear him as he closes his letter: X37 138 A Maker of the New Orient " I think my going abroad would benefit the Church here more than my stay. It would be a trial to an affectionate people to part with their pastor, but, if I mistake not, it would open their hearts and purse strings in favor of the mis- sionary work not a little." After returning from China, in 1847, Mr. Brown had hoped to go back to his work there in two years, but the health of his wife would not then permit. As soon as her health was settled, came the agitation consequent upon Commodore Perry's treaty with Japan, and later the deter- mination of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America to plant a mission in Japan, as already told in " Verbeck of Japan." Appointed senior missionary, with Rev. Guido F. Verbeck and Dr. Duane B. Simmons, Domine Brown visited some of the churches, especially those in the Classis of Cayuga, and also the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick^ N. J., to rouse missionary zeal and provide for re-en- forcements. He sailed with his wife and two daughters on the ship Surprise from' New York May 7, 1859. From a letter which he sent to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church when, ** within a week's sail of Java Head," we learn the character of the crew and the daily routine of the voyage. The eighteen passengers had been eleven weeks out. No profanity was heard on the ship and on Sundays almost all the crew with the passengers <1 w H O W td o o o :z: TO 00 en CO Ho for Japan ! 139 attended divine service, with preaching on the quarter-deck. At 7 p. m. family worship in the cabin, with Scripture reading, singing, and prayer, closed each day. Seasickness over, a plan of daily work was laid out. No English-speaking person, it must be remembered, could at that time read a Japanese book. A class in Japanese, meeting at 9 a. m. was started, of which Mr. Brown was made head. The books on hand were a small vocabulary and work on botany. At the end of the voyage 250 Japanese words had been learned by heart and he was able to write according to the katakanu, or syllabary of " square " characters, numbering about fifty. The mastery of hira-kana, or run- ning script of the same number of signs, but with apparently infinite variety of form and vagaries of private penmanship, making prac- tically several systems, was to be the work of years. Mr. Verbeck taught the gentlemen Dutch, so they could talk a little and read more in that language. This was a necessity, since the one medium of European culture and language of communication with Western people employed by the Japanese was the language of the Nether- lands. Fun and recreation were not forgotten. Domine Brown had the divine gift of humor. For five weeks they kept up a weekly ship's news- paper called The Main Sheet, which was read on 140 A Maker of the New Orient Saturdays, furnishing much merriment. On the Fourth of July a grand celebration was enjoyed. The ship was decked with colors, salutes were fired, and an oration on deck by " the elder domine " was delivered. A grand procession, fore and aft, with banners, was followed by a good dinner. Fireworks, charades, and music filled up the evening, making a very patriotic day afloat. A thousand questions arose in the mind of Robbins Brown as, now the senior pioneer for the second time^ he mused on the problem of the future. He was to hew his own way through difficulties, for he had been sent uninstructed to found a new mission. Where should he locate, at Nagasaki or Kanagawa? Twenty-one years before, he and his bride had sailed over these seas bound to China. Now retracing his way to the Far East, he was about to enter a newer and more uncertain field of labor than ever China was. " Is it possible, I ask myself," he wrote, — " is it possible that we are really missionaries again, bound to China, to pass on beyond to the most distant empire on the globe. . . We are thankful that God in his sovereign pleasure saw fit to honor us with this mission." Seeking the Far East along the same old route, through the straits of Sunda, they arrived July 2jy at Anjer in Java — the port of call so long familiar to voyagers to China, but under the waves since the Krakatoa eruption of 1883. The Ho for Japan ! 141 ship got aground in the Straits of Banka, and they had to wait six days for the spring tide to float them off. Reaching Hong Kong August 23, 108 days from New York, they received news of the British reverse of May 28, 1858, at the Peiho forts in the far north, when our own Commodore Tatnall, in dashing forward to help the British wounded, with his surgeons, uttered the ever memorable words, " Blood is thicker than water." Dr. S. Wells Williams, Brown's old friend, was on the U. S. S. S. Minnesota, off the Peiho, where thirty vessels of the four Powers were gathered. He saw the battle, which was more exciting than the one which he and his friend Brown had seen in August, 1839, at the Barrier Forts near Canton. Dr. Williams' letter was finished at Tientsin, which he reached May 30. He saw a beautiful landscape under highest cultivation, its lively green contrasting with the hovels of the people, whose persons and clothes were much less attractive than those of the Chinese further south. Very different was this coming into North China from that of Gutz- laff in 1 83 1. Rev. E. W. Syle, another old friend of Mr. Brown, was also on board the American man-of-war as the guest of his relative Captain Dupont, afterward rear admiral. China, as seen the second time, was not wholly a land of strangers, for the Master had many more disciples in 1859 than when Robbins Brown had landed, nearly twenty years before, in the 142 A Maker of the New Orient Middle Kingdom. On going ashore, one of the first friends he met was his former pupil Dr. Wong, who gave him an inside view of politics. He explained that the Chinese emperor did not wish to keep off ambassadors from Peking, but that the imperial purpose, in refortifying and obstructing the Peiho, was to keep out pirates. He wanted his British friends to go to Peking by another way, but they refused and hence the battle and disaster. Thus each time of Mr. Brown's arrival in China was a time of war. Naturally foreigners were excited and some were afraid. Hearing of a missionary who talked of sending back his wife, Mr. Brown wrote : " None of these things move me. . . It would be cowardice to stop short of the summit and take council of your fears.'* Looking toward Japan, he thought the Japanese might be alarmied at the sudden rush of traders into the open ports, since commerce with other nations, after the long and almost entire ex- clusion of aliens from their shores, was so new and strange to them. He was all the more heartened for his Japan work by meeting his Chinese pupils and seeing what steadfast Chris- tians they proved to be and how useful they had made themselves. Another one of his former boys, whom he had taken to the United States in 1847, "ow thirty-three years old, was in charge of the mission press in Hong Kong. Rev. Dr Chalmers, colleague of Dr. J. Legge, said of him, Ho for Japan 143 *' He is the best Chinese in the region." Yung Wing, who had been graduated with high honors from Yale in 1854, was another shining hght in the new China. As the biographer concludes this chapter, in June, 1902, Dr. Yung Wing is again on the soil of America, Of Dr. Wong, his pupil who had studied medicine in Scotland, and who was in charge of the London Society^s Hospital in Hong Kong, Mr. E. H. Parker, in his lively book entitled " John Chinaman," has written to the extent of two pages, praising him very highly, but omitting to mention that he was Dr. Brown's pupil ! One must read Mr. Parker's sketch to see how funny the so-called " Agnostic " can be. From Amoy, his brethren of the Reformed Church mission, Messrs. Doty and Rappleje, wrote, sending greetings and cheer. It was voted that Mr. Brown should be treasurer of the mission. After reaching Shanghai, where four days were spent, the missionary families were left under the care of Rev. E. W. Syle. Mr. Verbeck went to Nagasaki. Dr. Simimons, Mr. Frank Hall, and S. R. Brown, in the American bark Mary Louisa, set sail toward the Land Where the Day Begins, to reach Yokohama, the mush- room port of yesterday in Everlasting Great Japan. It will be seen that Domine Brown had superb preparations for life and work in Japan. He 144 ^ Maker of the New Orient had a fair knowledge of the ideographs of the Chinese, and was familiar with much of their literature. This meant ability and preparation to read Japanese also. What in the long run was better, even than a knowledge of Japanese language as spoken, was the mastery and famil- iarity with the molds of thought and the liter- ary phrases, ideas, and allusions with which the Japanese, after fifteen hundred years of steady borrowing from China, had saturated their litera- ture. Dr. J. C. Hepburn had had a similar, though not so thorough an experience. But to think of learning such a language as Japanese, which has almost no analogies with European tongues, without trained teachers or apparatus of mastery! Years ago I wrote: " Did you ever try to leap through a wall, or pump water out of a deep well with no apparatus, or make bricks without molds or straw? I knew a negro with a weak stomach for whisky and an amazing thickness of skull, who would allow rude fellows to rap his noddle with a hickory ax-handle for the sake of a dram. Something like any one of the four processes above mentioned is the learning of an Asiatic language when there are no grammars, diction- aries, or trained teachers. You must butt the opposing wall, pump the supposed receptacle of knowledge, shape your bricks of theory as you can, and suffer many a rap of mistake and dis- couragement." Life in a Buddhist Temple at Kanagawa XII Life in a Buddhist Temple at Kanagawa ALL had dreaded " the stormy Japanese seas," against which foreign tradition, ^ woeful experience, and Chinese poetry were one in indictment, but the nine days' journey was over tranquil seas, and on November 3, 1859, anchor was cast at Kanagawa and the three " religious invaders " set foot on shore. Yokohama of 1859 was a narrow strip of land, extending from Benten to the canal since cut through, two hundred yards wide at the northern end and fifty yards wide at the southern end. All else was marsh often covered with water, and fishing boats were sometimes seen on what is now the larger part of a city of two hundred thousand people. Fourteen vessels lay in the harbor, including the U. S. S. S. Pow- hatan and a British man-of-war. Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Hepburn, missionaries of the American Presbyterian Church, were already on the ground. In years before these pioneers in Japan had been fellow workers at Macao. Now they " met again in this strange and newly opened country as laborers in the same cause." The newcomers were welcomed by the U. S. 147 148 A Maker of the New Orient consul, General Door, who had already procured a Buddhist temple for these new guests of the empire. It seems curious that the Japanese should so readily lend their temples as residences to for- eigners, but so they did, for even then these canny islanders loved lucre, and they love it more now. Indeed they are in the world's race for dollars. The idols, tables, temple furniture, incense burn- ers, and what-not had been stowed away in a recess beside the main altar and shut up there in darkness and disuse by a board partition. This was to be so long as the " hairy foreigners " should occupy the building. Outside of the main edifice was the building for the priests who had gone elsewhere to live, though an old bonze — almost a bronze in color — ninety years old, still dwelt in an adjoining house. General Door, the consul, was also a tenant of a temple in a most picturesque spot on a hill surrounded by trees and shrubbery. In his first walk Mr. Brown, fresh from his farm on Owasco Lake, noticed peas, turnips, and buckwheat growing in patches near each other. He believed that what the Americans call " Irish " and the Japanese " Dutch " or " Java " potatoes would grow easily there. The fish in the markets was most excellent. Fowls and eggs were plentiful, but meat, other than poultry, was difficult to get. Native wheat flour, though far from snow-white, was good and cheap. He o td o ID W O Life in a Buddhist Temple 149 began at once with the help of native carpenters to transform a Buddhist temple, which consists chiefly of a section of all outdoors with a roof on, into the semblance of a dwelling house. It was while thus working that he rushed out, like Archimedes, to Dr. Hepburn, one day announcing that he had discovered the future tense. He soon learned also what earthquakes were. Some months later his teacher told him in detail and with many a graphic touch, of his experiences of the great earthquake in Yedo in 1854, by which, popularly and in tradition, " one hundred thou- sand " and in reality about ten thousand people were actually killed. All this was very horrible, but there were com- pensations. It is alleged that more people lose their lives in the United States in one year by lightning than are killed by earthquakes in Japan. The Japanese embassy to ratify the Harris treaty with the United States was nearly ready. On November 2 Commodore Tatnall told Dr. Brown that in three days he would go up to Yedo in the Powhatan and take the embassy to Washington. Nevertheless, as Japan is the " Land of Approximate Time," the motley com- pany of seventy-one persons did not get off until February 13, i860. On March 6, at invitation of Minister Harris, with U. S. Consul E. M. Door and attended by " a mounted knight," Mr. Brown went up to 150 A Maker of the New Orient Yedo to the United States Legation. His pur- pose was to secure a good teacher. Eager to attack the language at once, he had sought one, only to be disappointed. All his efforts to get one at Kanagawa were in vain. Was official in- terference the cause? It is certain that at first the government opposed in their people all com- munication of knowledge to foreigners. For years the prisons had held men who wrote books or gave away maps to foreigners. Even while the rivet heads of the political boiler were just ready to fly, the Tycoon*s officers were climbing on the safety valve and piling up fresh falsehoods to hold it down. Already, though Mr. Brown knew it not, there was a catacomb, and Chris- tianity in Japan had a subterranean history. In our day the tombs of the men once imiprisoned are built high and gloriously garnished. When the ladies arrived in Yokohama they transformed the shelter into a home, and named it " The Evergreens." In summer their temple house was delightful. In the raw autumn they found that " living in the house is almost living out of doors here. No wonder that the Japanese never suffocate from the use of their charcoal braziers." As a religious invader S. R. Brown was thoroughly tactful and sympathetic. In opening a box for Mrs. Hepburn, containing ten gilt- framed pictures, such as Mrs. Doremus had in her schoolroom in the old South Reformed Life in a Buddhist Temple 151 Church in New York and which were presented by her Sunday-School scholars to Mrs. Hepburn, the first one taken out was an engraving of the Crucifixion. Mr. Brown wrote: *' I told Mrs. Hepburn that I could not have that picture in sight. I do not like the thing as a matter of taste, and I fear some Japanese spy might see it and report us as Roman Catholics. She quite agreed with me and turned it upside down on her bed in the bedroom. Soon after, the governor of Kanagawa, with interpreter and suite of sworded gentry, arrived. The door from her sitting room opened into the bedroom, and while her back was turned one of the Japanese slipped into the bedroom and began to examine the pic- tures. Soon after this Dr. Hepburn came in, and while he was showing the pictures, not knowing what sort of things they were, one of the Japanese turned up the picture of the Cruci- fixion. At once they all began to cast glances at each other and began to ask if that were Jesus. Dr. H., himself surprised, could only answer that it was. They asked why they were killing Jesus, and who were the persons on the right and left of the picture. Dr. H. explained about the thieves and the humiliation of Jesus, and entered considerably into the preaching of Christ in answer to their questions." Thus he was providentially obliged to be the first to preach Christ here, and that to a governor and his suite. 152 A Maker of the New Orient " The governor's object was to ask that he might take all the doctor's Chinese books to his office to examine them, and seemed quite to ex- pect that Dr. H. would give them up at once, which the doctor refused to do till he had referred to the American Consul." Mr. Brown was gluing chairs together, and did not go to see the notables, knowing that they had come to spy out the land. The American Consul Door at once informed the Japanese governor that his demand was contrary to treaty stipulations. " But what we all regard most is that God has taken the matter out of our mission, out of our own hands, as it were, and made a pro- vidential disclosure of our objects in coming here, quite contrary to our expectations, and in a man- ner which we should have tried to avoid. I should much rather have the matter where it is, in God's hands, than in mine. I fear no ill con- sequence from it, though we may be watched and hampered for a while in consequence of this early disclosure." No ill consequences ensued. For convenience and safety, the American minister, Mr. Harris, gave Dr. Hepburn the nominal appointment of physician, and Mr. Brown that of chaplain to the American legation. At first domiciliary visits were made by the government officers, to see whether these mission- aries were dangerous persons, but these after a while ceased. Life in a Buddhist Temple 153 Nevertheless, thousands of the suspicious island-hermits imagined that the mercantile oc- cupation of sea-ports was only the thin end of the wedge of conquest by the hated aliens. Christianity was under ban as a sect accursed by priests, outlawed by government, and in popular notion a system of sorcery and diabolical miagic. Thousands of polished ruffians, gentlemanly scoundrels, and ferocious patriots, lacking in information, were quite ready to murder the new- comers. They considered it a knightly act to do so — so far had Bushido, or Japanese chivalry, become a narrow cult. Some even entered the missionaries' premises in order to assassinate them, but were disarmed in their minds by what they saw and heard^ and thus saved from being fools as well as felons. Indeed, for the improve- ment of their civilization, the Japanese needed a native Cervantes quite as much as for purer religion they needed to profit by the presence of Christian missionaries. It was a thrilling experience, when Mr. Brown took his first ride on the historic Tokaido. It was not then the " cool sequestered way," nearly deserted in these days of railroading, but was the most famous highway of the emipire, gay with cavalcades and as full of life and color as the sentimental tramps and voluptuaries, Yajirobe and Kidahachi, in the delightfully graphic book ''Shanks* Mare" (" Hizakurige "), the wittiest work in the Japanese language, have described it. 154 A Maker of the New Orient Mr. Brown found Mr. Harris, the American minister, living in the fine old Buddhist edifice of Zempukiji, or the Temple of Virtue and Pros- perity, about one mile southwest of Shiba. It belonged to the Shinshiu sect, and the famous old jinko tree fronting it is said to have been planted by the illustrious founder, Shinran. Years afterward Mr. Brown met the same legend on his journey to the west coast. On that day of this his first vision of the City of the Bay Door, a dozen priests were chanting prayers together with interludes upon bamboo flutes, interspersing their intonation while read- ing the sutras. They were slow in movement and all in unison. The music reminded the American musician of the ancient Gregorian measures. He noticed that two parts were played, " which," said he, '' is the first approach to harmony I have ever heard in the music of the East." The next day the party rode out on horseback to see the O Shiro, or castle. It was a great fortified inclosure, five miles in diameter, with wide moats, causeways, drawbridges, grassy embankments in the hilly part of the castle and massive stone walls in the lower portions, with white ramparts, imposing towers, and all the striking features of feudal architecture. In the very heart of the city, in the castle moats, thou- sands of wild fowl, geese, ducks, and cranes were feeding quietly, not a gun being allowed to be Life in a Buddhist Temple 155 fired within the city Hmits of the municipality. Inside of the great inclosure there were no crowds of people and comparatively few individual pedestrians, but there were many daimios, or feu- dal barons, and their processions. In the country at large, as it was with the people before Joseph and Pharaoh, everybody must get down on his knees at the forerunner's cry, when the nobles with their trains passed through the towns and villages. Nevertheless, in Yedo there was one greater than these daimios, even the Shogun, and so in the great city the daimios, being vas- sals of the Yedo ruler, received no such public homage, while, on the contrary, before the palan- quin or even the Tycoon's tea- jars or other mov- ing freight, all must get down on the ground. Within the castle walls there were no pack horses or wheeled vehicles to be seen. Yedo was a city of princes, priests, and people who occu- pied areas diminishing in extent according to the order named. While the 364 *' princes " (daimios) with their thousands of retainers filled up the larger part of the city, and the temples and monasteries occupied enormous space, the people were huddled closely together. On a map showing ecclesiastical property, old Yedo is literally " painted red." " I think no other city in the world," he wrote, *' contains so many places of worship or so many priests. A temple of Kuanon, the center of pilgrims from all parts of the empire, was then so crowded with people 156 A Maker of the New Orient that we did not attempt to get into it." I{t required from four to seven guardsmen to get the party in and out of the crowd. The avenue between the outer gateway and the temple, one thousand feet long, was filled on both sides with shops of toys and curiosities. In a word, this was the great Asakusa temple. Dismounting and sending the horses forward to meet them at a certain point, they embarked on pleasure boats and descended the Ogawa, or Great River, of Yedo, passing by the Imperial storehouses for grain and money. These were nine long one-storied buildings running back to the river, divided by canals, which were closed with gates at the riverside. Many of the man- sions of the daimios were also visible from the river. There was scarcely a stone or brick house in Yedo and but few in the empire. Instead of the imaginary " stone " or " brick " edifices of the hasty tourist who had caught a glimpse of Yedo, *' what appeared so firm to the writer . . . would scarcely withstand a smart kick from a horse." The letter describes the features of the mu- nicipality, the firemen, the landscape, the exceed- ingly pretty, but very modest, and to an Ameri- can, utterly cheerless houses, without a pane of glass or a chimney, and warmed only by a char- coal brazier, in which the beds were mats or quilts and in which privacy was almost im- possible. Life in a Buddhist Temple 157 With Mr. Heusken, the ill-fated young Dutch- man, secretary of the Legation, afterward cut to pieces by assassins, he took a long ride of about twenty miles to the Temple of the Five Hundred Rakan, or Primitive Disciples of Buddha. It stood in loneliness, unrepaired after the terrible earthquake of 1854. The gilded wooden images had been thrown down by the shock, and though most of them had been set up again on their pedestals, yet arms, heads, and legs were lying all around in confusion. Another visit was made to Uyeno and Shiba, where were the superb mauso- leums of the Tokugawa shoguns. On Sunday, the nth of March, at the request of the American minister, divine worship and preaching were held in the American Legation, the auditors consisting of nine gentlemen from the legations of Great Britain and the United States. Mr. Harris gave Chaplain Brown his Bible, probably the first in the English language brought (November 30, 1857) to Yedo, and there statedly read till the 7th of March, 1858. The text chosen was the first verse of the Bible. This service was a landmark in the history of modern Christianity in Japan. All Things to all Men XIII. All Things to all Men LIKE his Master and the great apostle to the nations, Robbins Brown made himself ser- ^ vant unto all that he might gain the more. Well might he say, " I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some," as the experiences and incidents recorded in this chapter will show. Probably it was from this very mo- tive — desire to be in friendly touch with his fel- low men, and especially with those who spoke the English tongue — that he was a freemason, though more active in the benevolences than in the ceremonies of the lodge. At his home in Kanagawa during i860 public worship and preaching were enjoyed every Sab- bath, to attend which many English-speaking persons came over from Yokohama. From the first Mr. Brown plead for a church edifice so that the Japanese would not think that foreigners were atheists. He asked for one thousand dol- lars to build the first Protestant house of worship in Japan. Having studied the possibilities in the ports about to be opened, including Niigata, he wrote 161 i62 A Maker of the New Orient home to the Board, begging for more helpers. He hoped that Nagasaki might be kept as a station and Mr. Verbeck be allowed to remain there. His ideal of a missionary worker among the keen and intelligent Japanese was very high. " We want the best men as to respectability, attainments, and piety that the Church can pro- duce. . . I may speak freely. No half-educated man, nor one who has not a good degree of tact in adapting himself to men of all sorts, nor one whose piety and enlightened views would not commend him to the best churches at home . . . should, in my opinion, be sent to this country. Above all other natural qualities what is called good nature, a cheerful, equal, genial tempera- ment, is desirable here. The Japanese are courte- ous and polite, very smiling even when they are counterworking against an enemy, and they will not be driven. They are very unlike the Chinese in that respect. They will not bear browbeat- ing. A good-natured, patient course of treat- ment accomplishes much more with them than asperity and blustering." With what keen insight the new missionary read the character of the people among whom he had come; subtly discriminating them from the Chinese, for example! Only the best ought to be sent out from home to tell these islanders of the Infinite Father of all, both theirs and ours. Ever ready to embrace opportunities to know more of Japan, he went to Nagasaki on the 28th All Things to All Men 163 of September in a British steam transport, re- turning to Kanagawa on the 25th of October by the U. S. S. S. Hartford. He sailed through the beautiful Inland Sea, as yet uncut by the keel of a steamer. Returning by the same route he visited three tawns on the way, Shimonoseki, Hiogo, and Osaka, the last two to be opened to foreign trade and residence January i, 1862. Thus he saw parts of the country which no Protestant missionary had yet looked upon. On deck he interpreted for Captain Lowndes, who had three Japanese pilots aboard, not one of whom was able to speak a word of English. He wrote, " The scene is one of surpassing beauty, not unlike that of a lake among mountains, studded with islands which are all inhabited and cultivated wherever the steepness of their de- clivities does not prevent it." This was perhaps the first time that foreign vessels had passed through the Inland Sea. Half of this delightful month was spent with Mr. Verbeck in Nagasaki. The Hartford had not yet become Farragut's flagship. In the early seventies, long after the Civil War, he saw again in Japanese waters la belle frigate, as the French officers called this superb vessel. The spirit of romance is necessary to sustain missionaries of a certain tenuperament, but in this veteran the sanguine emotions so common to novices were finely tempered. After surveying the field he warned his friends in New York not 164 A Maker of the New Orient to be " too much carried away by the excitement of the new mission to Japan." They were not indeed too much interested in it, but perhaps they were too enthusiastic in their feehngs, " too much disposed to laud men, and even us poor missionaries." Having once been in the field to which he was warned that international sowers of tares would soon come, he was well aware that ** the couleur de rose is less appropriate to the aspect of things in either land than the couleur de nuit." He knew only too well that soon would come the emissaries of the synagogue of Satan to persuade the Japanese that Chris- tianity was only for children and the ignorant, and that it was " discredited " at home, — which we know is, and always has been, true of Christ's gospel to those who do not believe in Him. Continuing his investigations into the native speech and literature, he noticed that despite the use of the Chinese characters even by children, and the many words borrowed from Chinese, " the genius of the two languages is so different that it is a marvel to me that the one should have ever been thus wrought into the other . . . yet these two languages which seem scarcely to have any ground for affiliation are mixed and com- pounded into one." Indeed the linguistic labor of these first pioneers. Brown and Hepburn, at Kanagawa, was prodigious, almost appalling. Yet, as usual with this master, he trained up dis- ciples. All Things to All Men 165 The present British minister to Peking, Sir Ernest M. Satow, one of the greatest of the four or five great EngHsh-speaking Japanese scholars in the world, has gladly acknowledged his in- debtedness to S. R. Brown. On his arrival in Japan, having entered the British Consular ser- vice as student interpreter, he was taken by his fellow student Russell Robertson over to Kana- gawa to call on Dr. Brown and Dr. Hepburn. There existed at that time only a rather poor collection of sentences rendered into Japanese by the Rev. S. Liggins, and an essay on Japanese grammar, by Sir Rutherford Alcock, of very little practical use. Dr. Brown was just then printing the first sheets of his book " Colloquial Japanese," and kindly gave them some spare proofs, and on these the two young mfen made a start in the language. This was the beginning of the superb scholarship in Japanese for which the minister to China is noted. In October Colonel Neale sanctioned the arrangement by which Dr. Brown gave the two young men two hours' teaching every week. The first book they read under their teacher was the famous popular sermons of the Buddhist priest which A. B. Mitford has given in translation in volume i. of his classic, *' Tales of Old Japan." These lessons continued until 1863. In a letter written from the legation in Peking to the biographer, June 2^ 1901, Sir Ernest writes : " Dr. Brown's teaching was of the greatest assistance to me and instilled into 1 66 A Maker of the New Orient me a taste for Japanese literature, apart from the study of official documents to which a student interpreter has to apply himself. He was an extremely kind and faithful teacher, and without his help it would have been very difficult to make any progress with the language, for in thosa days there existed nothing m the shape of a colloquial grammar. . . I have the most vivid recollection of Dr. Brown's kindly countenance, his fine aquiline nose, bright eyes and the gray hair, altogether a noble head." From the second Sunday after his arrival, in November, 1859, he had begun religious services with preaching once a day, and these were con- tinued at Dr. Hepburn's house for about eight months. In June Rev. John Nevius, from Ningpo, came over to recruit his wife's health and relieved him on alternate Sundays. In July, i860, at the request of English-speaking merchants in Yokohama, he went across the bay and preached to a congregation of eight gentlemen. The very next week a request came for continuous, per- manent public worship. A room was procured and the congregation, averaging thirty, occasion- ally rose over forty. A committee of business men was appointed to purchase a lot for a church edifice and procure subscriptions for the building of a church, and the salary of a chaplain — to be a clergyman of the Church of England. The amount raised was over four thousand dol- lars. Except the French Catholic Church, this All Things to All Men 167 was the only outward sign of a Christian com- munity in Yokohama. The thousand dollars necessary to print " Col- loquial Japanese " was voluntarily furnished by a Scottish merchant in Yokohama, while the pas- sage to and from Shanghai to oversee the print- ing of the book was given by a Jewish gentle- man, so that this publication cost the Board nothing. Let us read here an incident told by Mr. Brown's sister-in-law in 1901 : " It was said of him at his funeral, by Dr. Stout, a fellow missionary, that he was equally popular with foreigners and natives. This was not, in most cases, considered a compliment, as it implied a slacking of religious character, but in Dr. Brown's case it was the result of a general spirit of fellowship and common sense, which gave him a common ground with all sorts of men. One sea captain, returning to this country, said, " I have found one real mission- ary — I was very sick, and I think the surgeon thought I was going off this time. He spoke of sending for Mr. Brown, whom I had met in America, but I said, * No, I don't want to see any missionary.' When he came at first I would have nothing to say to him, but he had a friendly way of talking, and when he said, ' Eh, Roger, have you got any tobacco ? ' that broke the ice, he could say all he wanted to then." Amid Wars and Rumors of Wars XIV Amid Wars and Rumors of War SO far as visible or statistical results were concerned during these years at Kana- gawa, the missionary seemed to count as little as a coral insect. To the average observer his work seemed as useless as that of the miner or foundation layer does to the trivial-minded. These were dark, sad days during the first half of the war for the Union at home, and when Japan also was in the turmoil of coming civil war; but there were bright days too. Of his coming helpers, Rev. J. H. and Mrs. Ballagh, he hoped that " the good Lord will permit us long to labor together in his cause in this land." That prayer was answered. The comrades in gospel service had eighteen years of mutual friendship in Japan. One happy surprise was the receipt of a letter of credit for two hundred pounds sterling, which Chaplain H. Wood of the U. S. S. S. Powhatcm had collected at Honolulu. "It is certainly remarkable," wrote Mr. Brown, " that the money should have come from such a source. I well remember the time when the 271 172 A Maker of the New Orient first company of missionaries sailed for the Sand- wich Islands. One of the number was my wife's first teacher, and I knew her in my childhood also. Some forty-one years have passed and what has God wrought? I am in Japan, a country not then thought of as a possible mis- sionary field, and there comes from the Christian kingdom of those then pagan islands the first donation toward the first mission chapel in this country. And such a donation too, so large an amount, is a striking demonstration of the effects of the gospel upon these islands. . . The con- trast between 1820 and 1861 amazes me. Surely the Lord our God has good in store for this land." By mid spring of 1861 Mr. Brown had been three times in Yedo, each time spending a week at the United States Legation. He rode not fewer than one hundred miles on horseback in various directions in and around the city, but saw no sign of dislike or ill will among the people. All this was very different from statements of lively newspaper correspondents. With Dr. Hepburn, but separately, he was working at a translation of the Gospel of Mark into Japanese. They had it repeatedly revised and the Gospel of John was begun. A knowledge of Chinese was requisite, for " Chinese is the classic element in the Japa- nese language." Chinese Christian books were still called for. His teacher wanted Martin's " Evidences of Christianity " " to introduce into Wars and Rumors of War i ']2y a Japanese school, not, he said, to adopt the faith of Christians, but to learn what it is and to see its proof." He made to the Board a proposition to pubHsh a Christian periodical of some sort in the common people's language. Two bright little Japanese girls were being taught daily in the family school by Miss Adrian. This was the era of law based on the codes of China, and he thus pictures some phases of the native life around him: " Last week there was an execution by burn- ing at the stake near Yokohama. The culprit was an incendiary. Incendiaries are always punished in this way here. A strong post was erected in the ground, fastened at the top to a sapling bent in the form of an arch, so that both its ends were inserted in the ground. The culprit was bound to the upright post by cords about the ankles, below the knees, and about the hips and neck, his hands having been previously tied behind him. His feet were some eighteen inches from the ground. Drugged sakeixxz^ spirit) was given him to drink before the fire was kindled, and from appearances I should judge that he was also strangled by the cord about his neck. The fire of bamboo and straw was built in a circle around the post, and at a distance of three or four feet, so that the body was badly scorched and blackened with smoke. "I saw the body hanging there the next day guarded by a few soldiers, and was told that it 174 A Maker of the New Orient is customary to expose it thus for three days, for the sake of the moral effect upon the people. It is a horrid sight to behold, certainly. It is said there is to be another execution, by impale- ment with spears, in a few days. Thousands of people flocked to the execution ground the other day, men, women, and children — a promiscuous crowd. As in other countries, it often happens that there is much crime committed among the spectators at such scenes." The reference here is to the punishment by crucifixion on the bamboo cross, when two long lances were thrust cross- wise from thigh to shoulder, the vital parts being avoided so as to prolong the suffering. The political clouds were lowering to black- ness in Japan, portending a storm, and the Yedo government was pressing the missionaries to leave Kanagawa to go to Yokohama. At home, civil war was raging and missionary con- tributions were falling off. The outlook was not bright on January i, 1862. While he was musing the fire burned. Soon after midday a young gentleman from the British consulate at Yokohama landed, and calling on Mr. Brown, handed him a document in behalf of F. Howard Vyse, Esq., H. B. M. consul, and twenty-four gentlemen, British, American, and Dutch. It was addressed to Mrs. Brown, begging her acceptance of the inclosed paper, which was offered to her family as a small token of regard, and of the esteem in which the valuable services Wars and Rumors of War 1 75 of Mr. Brown were held. The document read as follows : " The friends of Rev. S. R Brown having learned that he will be required to give up his premises at Kanagawa and remove to the foreign settlement at Yokohama, and that no funds are provided to build him a suitable resi- dence, have in consideration of the high esteem they entertain toward Mr. Brown and his family, and in consideration of the valuable services ren- dered by them since two years passed, resolved to present Mrs. Brown with a house and lot, toward which we subscribe the sum set opposite our respective names." This New Year's present, amounting to $1450, apart from personal gratification, relieved the Board from the immediate necessity of building a house for Mr. Brown. The services referred to were preaching since 1859, and the work of drawing the plans and specifications and contract for the British Consular Chapel, about to be erected, all of which Mr. Brown did without the remotest expectation of any earthly reward. He was only happy to do what was possible to help his fellow-men around him. Without this contribution, it is even possible that the Reformed Church in America might have been obliged to recall her missionaries at Yoko- hama. The amount allowed by the Board for the year was $2646, but the extra expenses of the new missionary and loss by exchange caused this amount to be overrun. How the veteran 176 A Maker of the New Orient looked to others about this time is told by Mr. Frank Hall in a letter of 1902: " He was loved and respected by the resident foreign community and easily won his way to the attention and regard of the native people. His attachment and loyalty to his native land were very great, and he was always ready to join with his compatriots to promote social and political advancement. His home in those early days was ever the center of generous and attractive hospitalities. His traits were of the amiable rather than the aggressive sort. His life was that of the full placid stream rather than of the boisterous river." Mr. Ballagh in 1901 thus writes his impres- sions : "Arriving in Yokohama November 11, 1861, myself and wife were met in the early evening by a Mr. Richards and Mrs. Brown and con- veyed in the mission house-boat to Kanagawa, where we were comfortably located with Dr. J. C. Hepburn, in the same ' compound ' with the Browns. . . Those were happy days in our old Jobutsuji temple home. Dr. Brown's daughters and younger children, the calls of diplomatists, student interpreters, merchants, and visitors, made the Kanagawa compound an important social center. Here also on Sunday and week nights religious meetings were held. The Sab- bath A. M. services were held at Yokohama in various places, at the time of my arrival in the Wars and Rumors of War 177 parlor of H. B. M.'s Legation, Sir Rutherford Alcock, H. B. M's Minister, being often present. Dr. Brown conducted these services. Not only Sco:tch, English, and American attended, but also Jews and Gentiles alike." For such a heterogeneous company, differing in many things, " but one in their common humanity and spiritual needs, the sunny mis- sionary was just the man. " Dr. Brown's early training as a Congregationalist, his theological education in a Presbyterian Seminary in South Carolina, a teacher in the Robert Morrison school in China, associated with the English Church services in Hong Kong and Macao, a Reformed Church minister and missionary, he was pre-eminently catholic, liberal, and toler- ant." Nevertheless, as we have seen, it happened that after all Dr. Brown's catholic labors, looking to the erection of a church, by the strange anomaly of ecclesiasticism — man's affair, rather than God's — he was never asked or allowed to preach in the edifice he had planned. It was because of this that the American com- munity and a few British " Dissenters " insisted on the continuance of the union service, even after the coming of a parson from England and the establishment of the English ritual service. " Dr. Brown being an accomplished musician, an Asaph in sacred song, an earnest evangelical preacher with agreeable voice and manner, was 178 A Maker of the New Orient a most acceptable pastor long before he was called officially to that position on the organiza- tion of the Yokohama Union Church in 1872." From the first, Robbins Brown had that gift of insight — so necessary to the success of a mis- sionary — in which the Master was pre-eminent. He noted the ideal side of life. He discerned the nobler nature of the people among whom he was a guest. Writing from Kanagawa, February 18, 1862, he said: ''Our Japanese neighbors show the same kindly disposition toward us which they did from the first, and with some of them such relations of friendship have grown up that it would be a grief to them to have us removed. Such persons say that, if we go from this place to Yokohama, they will follow us. No doubt something of this feeling arises from the fact that these persons derive some pecuniary benefit from the supply of our table. But there are feelings of friendship on other grounds that make them speak thus. The remembrance of deeds of kindness done them in the time of sick- ness makes them feel that they have found true friends in the missionary families. If the Japa- nese are revengeful, they are also susceptible to kindness in no less degree." So, to the end of his life, almost to his dying breath, talked this optimist. " Had I a hundred lives to live over again, I would give them all for Japan," he said repeatedly. To him it was a privilege, a delight to work for Japan. Wars and Rumors of War 1 79 The bread which he had long ago cast upon the waters was now coming back. Two former Chinese pupils sent Mr. Brown seventy-four dol- lars each, to educate his son, John Morrison Brown, in Rutgers College. The Bishop of Vic- toria, who had for weeks been his guest, sent him one hundred dollars for his domestic comfort. One feature of Dr. Brown's activity was his constant and acceptable contributions to the public press at home, especially to the Spring- field Repiihlican, concerning current political and religious events in Japan. He was a keen inter- preter and brilliant commentator, possessing truth and accuracy, and the writer's sixth sense, of being interesting. While the Civil War at home was raging and the missionaries in Japan were left without money at the ends of the earth, with the currency frightfully disturbed on account of the fluctua- tions in the value of silver, Mr. Brown occupied some of his leisure and sunny hours in mastering the fascinating art of photography. He was thus one of the very first to photograph Japanese cos- tumes, works of art, and varied human charac- ters. One result was the instruction of Renjio Shimooka, still living at the age of over four score years, the first native of Japan to learn the fascinating art of photography, in which so many of his countrymen now excel. It is no wonder that this artistic craft has so flourished in the island empire, for few countries on earth, both as i8o A Maker of the New Orient to landscapes and seashore, have scenery more beautiful. Nearly every famous place has its list of lovely features or phenomena. On the 5th of October, 1862, Mr. Brown sent forty-three large photographs of Japanese scenes, with proper notes and explanations, to be delivered to the Reformed Churches at Owasco Outlet, Utica, Syracuse, Geneva, Farmer, and Ithaca, the people of which had contributed to purchase apparatus and chemicals for his use. He had promised these when in America, expect- ing that Dr. Simmons would make them. The Americans at Kanagawa, the missionaries and the consul, amid the smoking volcanoes and rumbling earthquakes of Japanese politics, were entirely without protection from their own government. If protection were needed, it must come from the Japanese. The Confederate cruisers had swept American commerce from the seas, while, under pressure of the fanatics, the Mikado had issued orders to sweep the aliens out of the country and close the ports. In this alarm- ing crisis Mr. Pruyn sent word to Captain McDougal of the U. S. S. S. Wyoming at Hong Kong, then on the lookout for the Alabama, to bring his ship to Yokohama, and " be ready to use her guns for the protection of the Legation and American residents in Japan." Her arrival brought joy to all who loved the starry flag, as the emblem of home and proof that they yet had a country. Wars and Rumors of War i8i As for the British fleet then in Japanese waters, it was sufficient to injure and provoke the Japanese, but was not large enough to conquer or hold anything. Kanagawa people were carry- ing their goods into the country, but a Japanese friend, who brought Mr. Brown a new native work designed to teach English, said that his neighbors would not be alarmed until they saw him start to move. " He asked me if foreign nations would not think the Japanese government crazy, were they for a similar cause to send men- of-war to London and threaten to fire upon it, if their demands were not complied with in twenty days. I replied that I thought they would." As matter of fact, the proceedings of the British representatives in Japan were most severely condemned in Parliament. Matters approached a crisis. On the last day of May Mr. Brown crossed the bay to Yokohama to preach. After a conference with all the foreign consuls, the Japanese governor said he was personally responsible for foreigners, and as there were bad men about, ready for deeds of violence, in order to bring the Taikun's govern- ment into trouble with the treaty powers, he wanted them all to dwell in Yokohama and he offered to pay expenses of removal. Thereupon the American consul decided to leave Kanagawa, and that night put the female portion of his family on board the U. S. S. S. Wyoming. Cap- tain McDougal offered to take Mrs. Brown, Mrs. i82 A Maker of the New Orient Ballagh, and the children on board, but Mr. Brown decHned moving until next day. Then Mr. Pruyn came down from Yedo, his house having been burned eight days before, but whether by accident or design was then unknown. Mr. Pruyn would not leave Yedo, and told the authorities it would take more than one fire to burn him out of the city. So on June 20, 1863, on the boats of the sloop of war Wyoming, the Browns crossed the bay to Yokohama, entering a hastily hired house, with but a little furniture. The books and much house- hold stuff were left behind. The Ballaghs were oflfered two rooms at the American consulate, which they gladly occupied. Three days afterward, at Yokohama, while the four hundred and forty thousand dollars in sil- ver paid by the Satsuma people to the British as indemnity after the bombardment, was being put in the holds of H. B. M. ships-of-war Euryakis, Encounter, and Pearl, the imperial order for the closing of the ports and due notice to foreigners to leave the country was duly received. It was a case of Mrs. Partington in Kioto, where hermits with the mind of the funny old lady imagined they had triumphed, and the ocean would be washed back. Life and Work at Yokohama XV Life and Work at Yokohama THE sloop of war Wyoming missed the Confederate commerce-destroyer, but at Shimonoseki, July i6, 1863, Captain McDougal wrote his name large in American naval history.* Firing fifty-five rounds in 1 10 minutes, he en- gaged five batteries and three war ships, clear- ing out one of the former and sinking two of the latter. It was the most brilliant action of a single commander in a single ship in all the annals of the American navy. War, " the flash of the sword in the darkness," because phenomenal, startles more than every- day sunshine and commonplace rain, but these give food and make the world. So even more important than military and naval operations for the new life of Japan was the leaven of education, which the missionaries were hiding in the meal of a noble nation. On August 25, 1863, Mr. Brown wrote of his class of interpreters in the government school, which he, with his brethren in the Presbyterian and Reformed missions, was *See " America in the East," chap, xxv, »85 1 86 A Maker of the New Orient teaching; the class had increased to fifteen, one of whom was a physician: *' I am happy to have an opportunity to deal with some of the better class of men. I am at liberty to teach what and how I please. It is as easy to illus- trate the principles of English grammar, you know, by means of quotations from the Bible as by any other. Hence I have not refrained from such quotations and put them on the blackboard as often as they would serve my convenience." Ten copies of " English Grammar," by Principal Spencer of Utica, N. Y., were sent for. Mr. Brown had a long conversation with a Japanese, who of his own accord came to talk on religion. For this earnest inquirer neither Buddhism nor the doctrines of Shinto shed any light upon the dark and unknown future. He believed Christianity would meet his needs. He thought there was a difference between the Americans' Christianity and that of the French priest, and he wished to understand more about the subject. " We took up Genesis in the Chinese version and read the account of the creation. When we came to the creation of man, the last and noblest work of God, he exclaimed: " * How is this? Man is better than trees and animals or earth, etc. The Japanese say that he was created first.* " I told him that was a preposterous state- ment, for man must have a place of habitation, Life and Work at Yokohama 187 and food and light and air and water and all the other things on which his natural life depended, or he could not live. The argument seemed to be convincing at once to him and he said, * True, true; the Bible is right and the Buddhist or Shinto works are wrong.' " This inquirer came often to see Dr. Brown. He had little faith in Japanese veracity, whether as respects words spoken or written. He knew that the most vital need of his people, then as now, was truth in the inward parts. Looking over the American's collection of Japanese his- torical works, he pointed to one which purported to give an account of the conquest of Yezo by Yoshitsune,* which he said was chiefly fable. This visit revealed the receptive condition of many minds of men in Japan, glad of the true light, and Mr. Brown began again with fresh zeal his study of the Japanese intellect, as photo- graphed in literature and revealed in the living student. . t^ His work among the sailors, begun on his ar- rival in Japan, was continuous and often toilful. Many of them attended his Bible readings or held meetings for prayer at his house. " Drink is the pest of these men. Unless we can keep that from them little good can be done." He re- ceived one hundred pledges of total abstinence, * Probably also exploiting the idea that Yoshitsune, or Gengi Ke, was Genghis Khan. See " The Mikado's Empire," p. 144. 1 88 A Maker of the New Orient but many of them broke their pledge. He made a proposition to open a reading- room and place of prayer for sailors. There could be no re- straint to the temptations besetting sailors unless Christians were strong to aid them. He sent home for one hundred hymn books. He had very large congregations, among whom were diplomatists and naval officers. There were resident in port, in 1863, 108 British and 85 Americans. The Dutch were numerous and the French increasing. Some Prussians and Portu- guese made up the total, of which two-thirds were English-speaking. A year later when the allied fleet was in the harbor, he wrote: "Con- tinued good work among the sailors proceeds, with three new communicants, now numbering thirty in all. We have a reading room and tem- perance refreshment house in Mr. Pruyn's old house. Yet drunkenness is fearfully prevalent. Officers are sent home for having delirium tremens, invalided to save them from expul- sion from the navy, and every case for court martial is caused by liquor. . . They seem to wonder why Americans should take so much interest in British sailors, while no British sub- jects seem to care for their welfare and salva- tion." On January 4, 1864, the governor of Yoko- hama made a grant of land, lot 200 x 114 feet, on the public square, near the site of Com- modore Perry's treaty ground, in place of the Life and Work at Yokohama 189 long-promised lot on the bluff. On this site the Union Church still stands. Although at home the Union armies were steadily marching to victory, yet at the ends of the earth the outlook was less assuring. The Confederate Shenandoah had cleared the Pacific of the American whalers, and the commerce- destroyer Alabama had almost swept the American flag off the seas. At times the Ameri- cans in Japan felt as if they had no country. Everything was shipped home with the proviso " if it reach you at all." By the American ship Contest Mr. Brown had sent home photographs, books, etc., worth not less than five hundred dol- lars, " but the Alabama sent them all to the bot- tom of the sea." When the government school for interpreters was first opened, professional spies, or govern- ment inspectors, were always in the schoolroom, but after 1864 they came no more, the Yedo government failing to find either treason, strata- gems or spoils in the teaching of the men of the West. Probably these servants of government were there, less on account of the alien teachers, than of the students, who were politically di- vided into two parties, the Jo-i, foreigner- haters and port-closers, prototypes of the " Boxers " in China, and the Progressives, who were in favor of intercourse with foreigners. The pupils were males of all ages and there was or could be little school discipline of the IQO A Maker of the New Orient strict sort, though the pupils were polite enough. All wore two swords and pulled out their tiny pipes for a whiff or two of tobacco smoke at any time and at all hours. Dutch, which had hitherto been the one European lan- guage of culture and communication, was now giving way to English, the world-language. Two Japanese gentlemen from the Dutch college in Yedo came and sat through an hour and a half of Mr. Brown's teaching. Afterwards, call- ing on the American, they were amazed to find in his private library so large a collection of books, thinking it equal to a government library, and still further surprised at the number of ver- sions of Scripture in so many languages. They had themselves read some portions of the Dutch Scriptures, under the guidance of '' Tommy," then a member of Dr. Brown's arithmetic class. In August Mr. Brown wrote, " We are so pro- foundly ignorant of the internal affairs of the government that none knows how matters stand between the Taikun and Choshiu." Far-sighted men like the retired baron of Echizen,* Matsu- daira Shungaku, former premier in Yedo, were seeing clearly the need of political reconstruc- tion. When Mr. Brown read this nobleman's memorial to the Shogun, finding it to be a very noble document, he was so much impressed by its spirit that he translated it in full. It is the *See "The Mikado's Empire" and "Verbeck of Japan," passim. Life and Work at Yokohama 191 masterly manifesto of a far-seeing statesman, many years ahead of his time, and worthy of the baron who first introduced foreign teachers in his domain. The opening passage in this docu- ment is worth copying: " Western foreigners of the present day differ widely from those of for- mer times. They are much more enlightened and liberal. But while other nations are united in the bonds of friendly intercourse, Japan, standing apart in her solitude, has not known the changes of Heaven's course and has lost the friendship of the world." By June 30, 1864, the Browns were in a new house built especially for them. For thirteen months they had moved from place to place, to the grief of the scholar who coveted every mo- ment of his fleeting time, which in Japanese poetry, along with fading flowers and running streams " waits not for man." Mr. Brown wrote: " If you feel the need of the trial of your patience just come to Japan and build one house, and I am sure you will be satis- fied. There is no such thing as hurrying the workmen. They will work as fast, or rather as slowly, and as infrequently, as they please. Fretting does not go. You will only be laughed at for your fretting, for a Japanese will laugh at any and every thing under the sun. I think I have seen them and heard them tell of the death even of a child with apparent glee. The beggar will laugh while he solicits your charity. The 192 A Maker of the New Orient idolater laughs at the shrine of his god. The mourner laughs at the funeral of his friend or relative. So you must not expect to meet with any sympathy in your experiment at house- building, but must be prepared to be laughed at in your greatest worry and difficulty." For further readings on this point, see Rud- yard Kipling's poem on " Hustling the East," and Lafcadio Hearn's masterly psychological prose study, *' The Japanese Smile." An Ameri- can verse-maker has called Japan " The Land of Approximate Time." THE LAND OF APPROXIMATE TIME. ** Here's to the Land of Approximate Time! Where nerves are a factor unknown; Where acting as balm are manners calm, And seeds of sweet patience are sown. ** Where it is very ill-bred to go straight to the point, Where one bargains at leisure all day, Where with method unique ' at once ' means a week, In the cool, easy, Japanese way. *' Where every clock runs as it happens to please, And they never agree on their strikes; Where even the sun often joins in the fun. And rises whenever he likes. "Then here's to the Land of Approximate Time, The Land of the Leisurely Bow; Where the overcharged West may learn how to rest. The Land of Inconsequent Now!" Japan^s political volcano was still rumbling and smoking. Satsuma had settled down, but < I— t O o o 00 In3 Life and Work at Yokohama 193 the Choshiu men, with their batteries on the heights of Shimonoseki, were determined to keep the straits closed. Mr. Brown watched the gathering of the allied fleet, British, French, and Dutch, with the American sloop-of-war James- town, a sailing vessel. He did not foresee the failure of negotiations which was to issue in the autumn war storm of September 5, 1864. On the Fourth of July the Jamestown led ofif in the salute, probably the largest ever fired up to that date in the East, in honor of the American flag — now triumphant at home and abroad. Peace — honorable to Confederate and Federal alike — seemed about to dawn, and the " indis- soluble Union of indestructible states " was safe. Mr. Edward A. Freeman's " History of Federal Government ... to the Fall of the United States of America'' was never com- pleted. At the gayly decorated American Con- sulate, in which the wife of the consul, a Vir- ginian, " was dressed with a waist of blue be- decked with white stars, covered with a light gauze and a skirt of red and white stripes per- pendicular and a coronet of blue encircled with white stars, representatives of the eight nations having treaties with Japan, United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Holland, Port- ugal, and Switzerland did honor to the day and gathered for a pleasant time." As the Japanese government could not guard the American Legation, or rather the Shogun's 194 A Maker of the New Orient government wanted all the legations out of Yedo, General Pruyn was going back to the capital with the Jamestown, and a guard of sixty or one hundred men, to insist on treaty rights. The American Minister carried out his plan, but thirty of the Jamestown's men, under Lieutenant Pearson, with a 30-pounder Parrott gun, in the little propeller Ta Kiang, saw more exciting service at the bombardment of Shimonoseki by the allied squadrons. Side by side with the British, French, and Dutch, amid their heavy battering ships, like a barking terrier among mastiffs, Ta Kiang lay, while the Yankee lads, with their one muzzle-loader, actually beat in rapidity of fire the breech-loading Armstrongs.* There appeared on the scene at this juncture of events a Japanese, now, in our century, the best known of all his countrymen in the world at large. Mr. Brown wrote : " A week ago last Sunday two Japanese arrived in the mail steamer from London. They were dressed as Europeans, with stove-pipe hats on, and came on shore and stopped at the house of an English merchant hwog. to the government. They passed for Portuguese clerks in the house. I saw them as they landed, and at once suspected them to be Japanese in disguise. They brought a let- ter of introduction to me, from the Rev. Mr. Muirhead of Shanghai, which was sent to me, but not handed to me by the bearers. I therefore * " America in the East," chap. xxvi. Life and Work at Yokohama 195 did not meet with them. A few days after they started for the Inland Sea in H. M. S. Barossa which, with the Cormorant, was sent there to convey a letter from the British minister to the Prince of Nagato (Choshiu) who has shut up the straits of Shimonoseki. It turns out that these two Japanese are retainers of that Prince." Readers of Japanese history will see at once that these two young men were none other than he who was later called " Father of the Consti- tution " (of 1889), the Present Premier Marquis Ito, LL. D., and the other ** the white lily among Japanese statesmen," Count Inouye. These last days of the Tycoonal system Mr. Brown called a very precarious situation. He noted the " utter inability of the foreign minis- ters to fathom the policy of the government, characterized by deceit and concealment of all the facts. It is impossible to believe them, even when they tell the truth. The whole head and heart of this nation is corrupt to the last de- gree." With such a big fleet in harbor, fifteen hundred men in camp on the blufif, and nine ves- sels and more troops on their way here, a war storm was brewing. The storm broke at Shimqnoseki, when the Choshiu batteries crumbled under the terrific fire of seventeen ships and two hundred and eight guns, and the cannon of the doughty clansmen were carried away^as trophies and an indemnity of three millions of dollars laid on the 196 A Maker of the New Orient Yedo government. The air was cleared. The first striking indication of improvement was in the way the authorities handled the ruffianly and cowardly assassin who waylaid two British offi- cers near Kamakura and cut from behind, kill- ing both of them. When arrested, instead of being allowed to commit seppuku, or honorable suicide, — which was in practice often the making of a villain's posthumous reputation, — this mur- derer was publicly beheaded at Yokohama in presence of the British troops, in the place where thieves and felons were put to death. Mr. Brown was witness of the victim's ride to execu- tion and of the vindication of justice.* So long as drunken ronins, the product of Bushido gone to seed, were freely allowed to win posthumous glory by being assassins in the name of patriotism, there would be no end of murder. It was as in the story of Pliny's ass, which loaded with salt and falling by chance in the river, ever afterward plunged into the water whenever it came near a stream. Thereupon its owner packed the animal's panniers with sponge. The added weight cured the beast of its tricks. Japan's cowardly ruffians, though " gentlemen," became as jackasses loaded with sponge. Their fun was spoiled when they were ordered to the execution ground of the vulgar, there to feel the weight of civilization's displeasure. Before his death the late Mr. Fukuzawa con- *See Adams' " History of Japan," Bk. III. chap. i. Life and Work at Yokohama 197 demned the tendency of his countrymen to glorify hara-kiri, or suicide, and to transfigure murder for revenge. Indeed, not a few Japa- nese of the twentieth century begin to see that as long as the graves of the Forty-seven Ronins are made shrines of worship and a perpetual Decoration Day, so long will the self-justifying murderer flourish. The time will come in en- lightened Japan when the murderers' corner in the cemetery of Sengakuji in Tokio will be closed as a public nuisance and a school of crime. It was shortly after the ronin's decapitation in 1865 that one of his pupils came to ask Dr. Brown what he thought of human nature, whether it was good, neutral, or bad originally. He had brooded much upon the subject, con- cluding that originally human nature was neutral. Should one add to these sketches of the moral condition of Japan the actual picture of beggary, outcast humanity (eta and hinin) defiling and disfiguring disease everywhere visible, debased Buddhism and the priesthood, the need of Japan's moral renovation would be more mani- fest. Had no other blessing come to Japan than the renovation of Buddhism as a moral force, the coming of the missionaries would be justified. The Old Order Changing XVI The Old Order Changing THE summer of 1865 passed away. Added to the joy of the triumph of the Union armies at home was the pleasing news, made known in November, that the Mikado had given formal sanction to the trea- ties. The '* Old Dutch fashion " of speaking of the '' spiritual " and '' temporal " emperor, and the fiction of a dual supreme power in Japan, was about over. Mr. Brown predicted that no daimo, or other subject, would hereafter chal- lenge the rights of foreigners in Japan. The conceit of single Japanese clans in supposing that they could oppose the foreigners had been taken out of them. All signs as discerned by the far-seeing pointed to the passing of the old order of things and the coming of the new day of unity and closer nationality. The coming of the new British Minister to Japan, Sir Harry Parkes, from Shanghai, June 2y, put a new face on diplomatic affairs. Mr. Brown had known him in the early forties, as a rosy-faced boy in China, and had even then a very high opinion of his abilities. Now he gave Sir Harry great credit for attempting to get the 20X 202 A Maker of the New Orient imperial assent to the treaties. This British Minister set himself at once to find where the source of authority in Japan lay; and he found it. " It seems now as if we had entered on a new phase of affairs in this country." With his fellow-worker Verbeck, Mr. Brown believed, and believing made no haste, except in harder toil, that " When Japan is fairly opened, there will be an amazing quick and large work of grace all over the land." At the opening of 1866, in a printed circular, dated Yokohama, January 14, the missionaries sent out an address to God's people through- out the world, asking their prayers in a special manner for Japan, and showing also the prog- ress that had been made. One hundred young men of the higher class were to be taught in English, and the missionaries were to have charge of the work. Dr. Hepburn's Japanese- English dictionary of about forty thousand words was nearly ready for the press. Groups of from two to three, or six or seven young men came to the missionaries' house to read the Eng- lish Bible, preferring this to the study of school- books. " These intelligent young men frequently express their earnest desire that the day may soon come when all their countrymen shall have the Holy Scriptures and the free political institu- tions of which they are the basis." The call was to earnest prayer that the last obstacle to the spread of the gospel might be removed. The Old Order Changing 203 Hitherto every inhabitant must be registered at some Buddhist or Shinto temple, or else be de- nied a decent burial. " Thus every Japanese is within the grasp of the iron hand of the govern- ment," and under menace of death if suspected of favoring the Christian religion. No one can know a people until he has learned their history — the mirror of their experience. To qualify him more thoroughly for the work of translating, Mr. Brown began a course of read- ing in Japanese history. In the school he taught physics and grammar. Two of his advanced pupils were translating the Constitution of the United States, one proposing to publish his translation with comments. Indeed this is the document which the Japanese studied first and longest. He hoped God would spare his life long enough to accomplish something that should last and become to the Japanese people what the English Bible is to the English-speak- ing people. Teaching occupied half the working hours of five days and the labor of writing ser- mons all of Saturday. He longs to drop some of these occupations, and give himself wholly to translations, but he girds up his loins and spurs into the work again, fearing that he is indulg- ing in an indolent spirit. He wondered whether the Church was prepared for a great opening in Japan. Meanwhile it was whispered that Sir Harry Parkes wanted the government to send forty 204 A Maker of the New Orient young men to be educated in England. In June, 1866, it was notified from Yedo that Japanese were allowed to go abroad. This was a positive indication of advance, and partly the result of the moral persuasion of the British Minister. A dozen years ago death by decapitation was the punishment of a native if he sought to go abroad. The movement indicated also an internal pressure from the people upon the gov- ernment. It demonstrated also what had never been conspicuous among the Chinese — a desire to learn from, and a respect for, foreign nations. All this was in accordance with the statement of the lord of Echizen in his memorial a year or two ago. Such a long stride Mr. Brown hoped would stimulate prayer at home. God's hand was to be seen in the movements in Japan. " Opening, opening, and overturning " was the law of the time. Again he expressed his high ideal of a mis- sionary: "You cannot too soon send us good, sensible, educated, gentlemanly men, men who will command the respect of foreigners and natives, men who will make their mark at home. Send no others. . . Let us have the right men in this great field, with wives, if they have them, who are helpmates for such as they, and you will soon see the result. . . Again and again have I heard of its being said by merchants in foreign lands and travelers, that this and that missionary came abroad because he could not The Old Order Changing 205 get a living at home, and sometimes there has been too near an approach to the truth." In national politics the Tycoon was hesitating to invade rebellious Choshiu, for the latter v^as on his own ground and base of supplies. Sir Harry Parkes, determined to solve the problem of Mikadoism, thrust in the probe to know where the real power in Japan lay. Making a visit to Satsuma, he enjoyed a fine entertainment, fur- nished by the daimio, and a hunting bout in which seven deer and four wild boars were bagged. The English marines drilled for the Japanese and the Satsuma men drilled for the British. The lord of Uwajima in Shikoku had refused to send troops to fight Choshiu. Parkes also visited this nobleman, and was treated with great cordiality. Forty of the ladies of his palace came out to meet Lady Parkes. This was a grand stroke of policy on the part of Sir Harry. He had explored the unknown regions of " darkest Japan " and was now able to see which was to be in time the winning side. I heard him tell the story in detail, at his own dinner table, in 1873. The light of the long, bright day of Japan was breaking. The lord of Satsuma took the hint and sent three of his own young men, and two others from a neighboring fief, to study in Eu- rope. They went in disguise as foreigners. Years afterwards I knew them as college mates at Rutgers. 2o6 A Maker of the New Orient Another lad, Mr. " Ashiwara," sailed from Yokohama in an American bark August 27, 1866, to Monson, Mass., and Mr. Brown hoped he would not receive too much attention, but study hard and come back to be useful in Japan. Inquiries were coming from other daimios as to the cost of an education abroad. By the end of the year 1867 there were six Japanese stu- dents in Monson. Almost simultaneously, New Brunswick, N. J., and Monson, Mass., became centers for the education of the Japanese in America. Those first sent by Satsuma came afterwards to New Brunswick and entered Rut- gers College.* In the civil war which followed Choshiu was victorious, and the prestige of the Yedo gov- ernment was ruined. General Van Valkenburg, the new American Minister to Japan, arrived in the bark Swallow. Foreigners thought our government short of men-of-war, in thus com- pelling the ministers to charter merchant ships, but in port lay the Hartford, Wachusett, and Wyoming, and Admiral Bell — soon to lose his life by drowning off the bar at Osaka — with his ships and a large escort of marines inducted the new envoy in the United States Legation in Yedo. In that city the Americans noticed a great relaxation in customs, the adoption of foreign dress, trousers instead of skirts, gaiters and boots instead of sandals, and the troops in ♦See " The Rutgers Graduates in Japan." The Old Order Changing 207 semi-foreign dress. Many natives said, "Japan will soon be opened." It began to look this way. The old Mikado Komei died in January, 1867, and the present emperor, Mutsuhito, a boy of fourteen, became emperor. It was during this year, 1867, that the Rev. Samuel Beal, an Eng- lish scholar, wrote a pamphlet proving that the Mikado, and not the Shogun, was the real ruler of Japan. The new Taikun, Keiki, was studying Eng- lish and his physician was a former pupil of Mr. Brown. " It could be no easy task," he wrote, " for the Taikun to change the social fabric of a nation so numerous and so ancient as this is." A picture of Dr. Brown is thus given by the Hon. Ando Taro of Tokio, formerly the Japa- nese consul at Honolulu: " From among the students of this school many distinguished men have come out to serve this new empire in the course of the development of modern civilization, such as Baron Otori, a celebrated general of the Restoration, known as the Lee of Japan and afterwards minister to China and Korea, etc.; but among them I am happy to note there are many who have been and still are serving the country for the still more important work, the propagation of the will of God, the gospel, and temperance. In fact the memory of this worthy doctor [Brown] will be long revered, not only by the students, 2o8 A Maker of the New Orient but many others who had chances to associate with him." Mr. Ando further adds: "It was about the year 1865 that I met Dr. S. R. Brown in a school at Yokohama belonging to the Custom- house, and though very poorly provided, it was then the only English school in Japan in which instruction was received directly from foreign teachers. These were all Americans, consisting of Drs. Brown and Hepburn, and Rev. J. H. Ballagh and David Thompson. All the teachers were kind and diligent, but Dr. Brown was par- ticularly noted for his strict and skillful methods of teaching pronunciation and grammar. The sound th was very hard for Japanese to utter, and the doctor trained them by showing the motion of his mouth; or, he would come to the student and hold the point of his tongue so as to place it under the upper teeth. Having never been trained to recitations, this was the most difficult task for the student. " The majority of students in this government school at Yokohama were not boys, but grown men, including customhouse officers and various professionals. When the lazy or unprepared found the doctor calling on the right of the line, they generally placed themselves in the middle, so that by counting paragraphs they could get the one they wished to recite upon. One day the smart teacher with his penetrating eyes, which he often lifted up above his glasses, instead The Old Order Changing 209 of pursuing- his long-adopted course, directed the recitations to begin from the left. This caused the students no small confusion, but it was worse for them when he called on the one in the middle to come next. Such careful methods brought about very successful results, not only in their intellectual, but in their moral training, for he taught them to be diligent and honest." This first English school in Japan was called the Shubunkwan. The official head of the school was Kawamura Kaizo. In the photograph taken several years later, Kawamura sits at Dr. Brown's side, and beside Miss Brown is the governor of Kanagawa Ken, Oye Taku; and among his pupils are President Ibuka, Mr. Maki and Mr. Kumano, and a large number of those who are now in high official position, including Mr. Suzuki Keiroku. So writes Mr. Ogawa Yoshiyasu, September 9, 1901. In the United States Again XVII In the United States Again IN May, 1867, the routine of Dr. Brown's life was broken by fire. In a few minutes, house, furniture, library, manuscripts, the notes and jottings of years, disappeared in the flames. Fortunately he had taken out insurance on his property about five months before, but being without a home or books for study, and the time being propitious, he decided to visit America. At this time his son Robert was in Rutgers College, and he wished to put his daughter Hattie in school also. He arrived home as " Doctor " Brown, the University of the City of New York having in June, 1867, con- ferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. This time he took his first ocean voyage in a steamer, coming home by way of the Pacific Ocean and the Isthmus of Panama. How he looked on his arrival to Rev. Joseph Twitchell, then the young and popular pastor of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church at Hartford, but three years in the ministry, is thus told by him: 3Z3 214 ^ Maker of the New Orient " I remember that Dr. Brown was notably well dressed, to his credit, and that he wore a diamond on his shirt front (not at all to his dis- credit). I remember that he urged me to go to Japan with him, pleading that the opportunity there opened of investing my life in Christian service was quite unprecedented and incom- parable. Returning subsequently to America, he told me that he regretted it had not been in his power to take me with him by force — so thankful would I have been to him for doing so when I got there and saw the chance to work." Scarcely had the sunny missionary reached his native soil than he received a call from his old flock at Owasco Outlet to be their pastor. This would give him an opportunity also to send his daughter to Auburn High School. He had ex- pected, however, to be summoned at once by the Board to present the claims of missions to the churches. Before accepting the call to a pastor- ate and settling down to rural life and to crops and books, he wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions on January 28, 1868. He thought the church machinery for benevolent purposes rather rusty and out of gear. It was a mistake in policy that kept returned missionaries from work among the people, and from telling them how the kingdom of Christ was coming. A live man, fresh from heathenism, would awaken an interest on the subject of missions among the churches, being much more effective than the In the United States Again 215 printed page, even as an earnest, living preacher is better than a printed sermon. From Lake View Parsonage January 18, 1869, Dr. Brown wrote to the editor of the Northern Christian Advocate concerning Japanese con- verts. For eight years he had labored in Japan doing pioneer's work, and had known of but one native's acceptance of Christianity. In this let- ter he showed that the first Japanese, Neesima, who received baptism in the United States, was admitted to the church of Christ at Andover, Mass., in 1865-66, about the same time that Dr. Brown's and Mr. Ballagh's former teacher, Mr. Yano Riu, in October, 1864, was baptized, this latter being the first public baptism of a Japanese in his own land, in modern times; then at Na- gasaki on May 20, 1866, Mr. Verbeck's converts were baptized. By January 18, 1869, there were seven Japanese Bible Christians in Japan, and one in the United States. At New Brunswick, N. J., Nagai, baptized by Dr. Tiffany in the Methodist Church, and Sugiura, in the Reformed Church under Dr. C. D. Hartranft, Kudo at Monson, Mass., and lastly Ohara Reinoske, made in all twelve or thirteen natives of Japan who had made a Christian confession.* The morning of hope was breaking on a long, bright day of glory. When the year 1869 opened^ Dr. Brown was * See Verbeck's "History of Protestant Missions in Japan,'* 1883. 2i6 A Maker of the New Orient anxious to get back to his work in Japan. On the 9th of January he wrote to the Board, hoping to be sent next summer by the new Pacific rail- way. He wanted to give all his time to the translation of the Scriptures. In the years from 1859 to iS6yht had had too many things to do: a church to care for, mission finances to attend to, schools to teach, work of the Seamen's Friend Society to carry on, while his own private affairs consumed too much time. Now fifty-eight years old, his children grown up, he was still a good insurance risk, but he realized that not many years of work were before him. He wished to get the Bible into print as soon as pos- sible. Good tidings came in the mail from Japan of June 15, 1869. His son-in-law, Mr. J. C. Low- der, British consul at the newly opened port of Niigata, on the west coast, wrote, stating that the Japanese authorities, former pupils of Dr. Brown, wanted a school opened, with their for- mer teacher as principal, the salary to be three thousand dollars a year. Passage and traveling expenses would be paid. The first officer, a for- mer governor of Kanagawa, wanted books and apparatus for thirty pupils. The place was not overrun with Europeans. On the i6th of April, 1869, the total foreign population in Niigata was three, the consul, his constable, and a German. These facts, as stated, so far from being deter- rent, only acted as a spur to desire. Dr. Brown In the United States Again 217 was only too glad to go where he would be free from many foreigners, with the distractions and obstructions to missionary work. He could give much time to translation. Happily the Board gave consent, and with his wife and Miss Mary E. Kidder (now Mrs. E. Rothesay Miller) he crossed the continent on the new transcontinental railway, sailed on the Ore- gonian August 4, and arrived at Yokohama Au- gust 26, 1869. They found Mr. Lowder in the British Con- sulate at Yokohama, he having been there ten days in place of Consul Fletcher, who had just died. Great political changes had taken place, the civil war was over and there was a New Japan, though many were still discontented. Greatest of all the visible changes was the name and reality of the city on the Su- mida, the largest in the empire. It was no longer Yedo, the city of the camp, " the capital of the Tycoon," but Tokio, city of the throne and seat of the emperor. The new chronologi- cal period beginning with 1868 was named Meiji, or the Era of Enlightenment and Civilization. Not a few of Dr. Brown's pupils were in office. On the deck of the new ship of state he could recognize at least a score. One came to get him to be a professor in Tokio University, an- other wanted him to open a school at Yoko- hama. He determined to press on to Niigata, taking the land route, over the mountains. Overland to Niigata XVIII Overland to Niigata IN palanquins with bearers, interpreter, and escorting officers, the journey from Tokio across the main island from Yokohama to Niigata over the Central Mountain region, and through some of the most glorious scenery in the world, was richly enjoyed by the whole party. This overland journey via Takasaki, Annaka, Nagano, and Naosetsu occupied sixteen days. The route taken is now for the most part that followed by the Kariuzawa-Naosetsu railway, the most picturesque in Japan, but in 1870 railways were unknown. The journey was through the silk region, Neesima's birthplace, the glorious high sanctuary of God's mighty mountains in Shinano, past shrines famous in legend and local lore, and amid scenes glorified by romance and poetry, and this scholar, well read in the native lore, lover of nature and of Heaven's beauty on earth, was just the man to enjoy what he was to see. The six knights, or armed guards who acted as escorts, did everything to make the journey agreeable. Each norimonOy or palan- 23Z 222 A Maker of the New Orient quin, was borne by from four to six men, accord- ing to the difficulty of the roads. Only two foreigners, Mr. Lowder and Dr. Willis, had ever before crossed the country on the line of their route. The bearers in the baggage train num- bered about fifty. Honda, a young samurai of Uwajima, the prince in charge of Yedo, tired of fighting in the civil war, wanted to study and went with the party, always going ahead to make provision. As in the England of the Tudor and Pilgrim Father era, there were no post offices or well-made roads as in modern days, but there were posts or relay stations — tateba — at which travelers, and especially persons on government business, could secure pack horses or bearers, which were always in readiness. At the en- trance of every town and village the cortege was met at the entrance by officers, who preceded the train into the main street, crying out to the crowds of curious people to sit down on their hams and heels. Dr. Brown's journal in pencil, written at An- naka, October 13, reads as follows: " Resting at the Honjin. Received a photo- graph of Neesima and Amherst College, by the hand of someone. Recognized both at once and was told that Neesima's younger brother, father, and grandfather resided in Annaka. The first came in at my request, an unexpected meeting truly. As we passed on, went by the grand- father's house and he came out to meet us. A Overland to Niigata 223 fine old gentleman, eighty-four years old. He presented me with a small box containing a small teacup. He seemed greatly pleased and overcome at meeting me. Neesima's father fol- lowed us and overtook us at the next tateha. He too was much pleased to see us, and shed tears on the occasion. I told him about his son's welfare, and that I had no doubt when he came back, his father would be delighted at his im- provement by education. I sent the grandfather a twenty-five-cent piece and gave the father a ten-cent piece as a little memento, that being all that I had to give them. This meeting of Neesima's friends was a very unlooked for occa- sion, and one that seemed very providential. Shall write to Neesima of all this." At Sakamoto they began the ascent of the famous and often restless Asamayama, then smoking and emitting steam also. The road lay over fields of pumice. Dr. Brown with his barometer measured the altitudes. The capitals of the daimios, or feudal barons, with their strongholds, moats, walls, and towers at Ko- mora, Uyeda, and other places were most inter- esting, and of several seen in the sunlight, he could say in Tennyson's phrase, ** The splendor falls on castle walls." Now in 1902 most of these relics of feudalism have disappeared, having been turned into public gardens, or into private grounds or railway property. In one place a pri- vate gentleman, eager for the inventions of the 2 24 A Maker of the New Orient West, railways and telegraphs, entertained them elegantly in his own home. At Nagano he saw and was shown over the great temple of Zenkoji, famed all over the empire, and recalling Asakusa in Tokio, by the high priest in his robes. Pur- chasing a little mirror in one of the shops for a souvenir, he found, when in his inn after supper, that the tradesman had sent back an isshiu (half dime) because he had overcharged by mistake. The domine returned it again, in appreciation of the shopman's honesty. In many of the inns the cards, autographs, or compliments of visitors, written on board or paper, are hung up in pride by the innkeeper. At one place he wrote on paper for framing: From Yedo to Furuma Japan is all beautiful, Its people are hospitable And very polite. S. R. B. Down a steep, rugged, and zig-zag mountain path they now descended to the seacoast. Takata was a very large castle town with covered sidewalks. Occasionally a man in black broad- cloth suit, or with a red blanket on, was seen. All were polite. The only one insolent fel- low seen was drunk. By the seaside they could look over at Sado island, in the blue distance. Two or three villages, the scenes of bloody bat- tles and which were burnt during the late civil war, were in process of rebuilding. This sea- Overland to Nilgata 225 beach road was full of fascinating scenery. On October 24 they arrived at Niigata. The British consular agent, calling on them, handed them a letter brought by the steamer Ocean Queen, then in the offing. The little journal con- cludes: ** Praised be the Lord for all the pleasures and the prosperity attending our sixteen days' jour- ney across Japan. May our coming be a bless- ing to this people in every possible way." The American missionary's travel as a govern- ment official, in comfortable style, was com- mented on in America at the time as something in contrast with his Master or even Francis Xavier, but there was no ground for just criti- cism. It was exactly what was appropriate, without being extravagant. After three days in a native ina they entered the house prepared for them. It was on the out- side of the town, sheltered from the strong sea winds by three parallel ranges of sand hills be- tween house and beach. It was therefore well sheltered from fires, iwhich usually sweep a whole town. There were thirty-six Buddhist temples in Niigata, one entire street being lined with them, and one, a quarter-mile from the house, had been selected as a temporary school build- ing. In another was the reputed relic of a bam- boo staff which the founder of the Shin sect, Shinran, had stuck in the ground. In proof of the truth of his doctrines the staff grew leaves 2 26 A Maker of the New Orient and branches, exactly as in the case of a similar miracle at the temple of Zempukuji in Tokio, oc- cupied by the United States legation, notwith- standing, 'as their own Japanese proverb declares, ** Good doctrine needs no miracle." A lad fourteen years old, son of a former officer of Niigata, had walked all the way from Yokohama, 284 miles, to live with Dr. Brown, and seemed perfectly happy. In the govern- ment offices the master found two or three inter- preters who had been his former pupils, and who were delighted to see their honored teacher. The head interpreter was teaching ten or fifteen lads, who were now to be turned over to Dr. Brown. Promptly his furniture, books, and provisions arrived safely from New York. While he was surprised to find the Japanese could live in such cold weather in their open and draughty houses, they, on the other hand, were amazed that for- eigners should have so much furniture in their houses. As box after box was opened, their ex- clamations were very amusing. A cooking stove was a great curiosity and had many visi- tors. The library seemed to be an extraordi- narily large one, and remarks were made that the Westerners had got the start of Japan by over eight hundred years, but they hoped Japan would by and by overtake them. As usual the government kept its contract perfectly, paying promptly and in full all his traveling ex- penses from home, amounting to $1054. Overland to Niigata 227 Seventeen foreigners were living at Niigata, but the bar at the entrance to the harbor was a continual menace to life and a cemetery was one of the first requisites. On account of this the place had no future as a port of foreign com- merce. On November 6, 1869, Dr. Brown was called on to bury one Englishman and three Ma- lays. With four others — a Japanese, a Swede and two Malays, eight persons in all — these un- fortunates, in attempting to cross the bar in the night after dark, were drowned in the breakers. A bark from Choshiu had also stranded and was liable soon to break up. Although Dr. Brown received an imposing document containing the certificate of Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, and dated Washington, March 31, 1870, appointing him to be the con- sular agent of the United States in Niigata, he never had occasion to use it, since there were no Americans outside of his own family in the place. The possession of the document was an honor, and intended by his friends for his own protection as well as for that of any stray Ameri- cans in Niigata. This western coast city, situated on a narrow strip of land between the Shinano and the sea, covers over a square mile or more and consists chiefly of five parallel streets, crossed at right angles by smaller thoroughfares, which are watered by canals fed from the river. There is no sea view except from the top of the land 228 A Maker of the New Orient ridges. Rain falling soon sank in the sandy soil. The Browns soon learned the function of the overhanging roofs, which they noticed were prolonged far out over the sidewalks. In win- ter when the snow fell sometimes six and ten feet deep, one had to walk under these eaves. The summers were cool, the thermometer rarely rising above 92°. It was a place of little manu- facturing, except of a coarse kind of lacquer ware and porcelain. The ** sea-weed " lacquer of Aidzu, a city in the highlands and famous in the civil war, was also sold there. The petro- leum wells were worth visiting. In winter deli- cious salmon were taken, and the general table fare was good. The officers were very polite and appreciative, and the thirty pupils intelli- gent and well behaved. Although much of his life had been spent in pioneering. Dr. Brown had never before been so shut out from all the world as here, but he was very happy in the work. All were in good health and spirits. Let us here insert a picture from memory, painted in the words of Mrs. E. R. Miller, then Miss Kidder: " Dr. Brown was very fond of reading, and when absorbed in a new book took no account of time. He would often stay in his library till the small hours of night. When he had leisure, he dearly loved to read aloud. I remember his walking slowly back and forth across the room and reading nearly the whole of ' Aurora Overland to Niigata 229 Leigh ' to Mrs. Brown and myself, at one sit- ting. Du Chaillu's * Explorations in Africa/ and Dr. Kane's ' Arctic Expedition/ he read aloud to us. On Sunday mornings during the months we were at Niigata we would frequently read some whole book of the Bible aloud, and sing many hymns. He enjoyed society, but was not at all devoted to it, much preferring reading and study in his quiet library. He liked a joke and was good at telling stories. He was genial and good-natured, with a heart as tender as a woman's and lying very near the surface, so that he was easily imposed upon and several indigent hangers on were usually attached to the premises. He rarely inquired into these mat- ters." The winter passed in steady and continuous work and study. In the springtime gardens were sown with the seeds of flowers and vege- tables from home, and these in summer brought daily delight to their eyes and pleasure to their palates. Nevertheless, such isolation at their time of life, even though variety was not lacking, and part of the time their oldest son was with them, proved to be harder for Dr. and Mrs. Brown than they had supposed. Even more — and this was the supreme motive urging removal to the old field — did Dr. Brown desire to be near his fellow-translator, Dr. Hepburn, and the books and conferences necessary for making a stand- 230 A Maker of the New Orient ard version of the New Testament. When, therefore, in the early summer of 1870, the au- thorities at Yokohama sent word to their for- mer principal that he was wanted to take charge of their new school, he decided to accept the in- vitation. The journey overland from Niigata was made by a new route through superb scenery, and on July 16, after ten days, he was again domiciled in Japan*s greatest seaport. Six of his Japanese pupils followed him from Niigata and twenty more came later. This new school was opened September 11, with thirty-two pupils, and the number was in- creasing daily. He taught from 8.45 a. m. to 2 p. M. His contract with the government was for three years. He had bought a place on *' the bluff," and was now comfortably settled in his own house. It was very pleasant to have mails regularly. Among his first callers were Mr. and Mrs. Verbeck from Tokio. It was in this school edifice of 1870, and before his class, that the biographer first met the sunny missionary. After a hearty greeting that was almost boyish in its warmth, and a chat about things at home, there followed a request for a sermon on the following Sunday, for as soon as he had arrived in Yokohoma again, the pas- torate of the Union Church was saddled upon this useful beast of burden, ever ready ready to serve his fellow-men. " I have no sermon," he Overland to Niigata 231 said, " and do not feel like writing one and " — here he lowered his forehead and looked over his spectacles, as his eyes twinkled — ** I would rather take a dose of ipecac than preach an old one. Oh, say * yes/ " And the "tenderfoot" in Japan said " yes." Miss Kidder began, September 23, teaching a school in Dr. Hepburn's dispensary, taking Mrs. Hepburn's pupils, both boys and girls, but hop- ing to make it exclusively a girls' school, when the number was sufficient. This, except Miss Adrian's episode, was probably the beginning of the Christian education of women in Japan, and is interesting to consider in view of the Woman's University in Tokio organized by Mr. Naruse in 1901. The first recognition by the government of the education of woman was in its school in Tokio, taught by Mrs. P. V. Veeder and Miss M. C. Griffs, which afterwards became the Fe- male Normal School. The Era of Enlightened CiviHzation XIX The Era of Enlightened Civilization AS the year 1870 waned, Japan was still the Land of Approximate Time; clocks ^ and watches, though numerous, were still toys and curiosities, rather than serious regu- lators of habit. Dr. Brown wrote December 21: '' With all their gettings, the Japanese have never learned the value of time. In many re- spects they are like children, but fortunately they have a child's docility and it is pleasant to teach them." Pupils were coming to him from all parts of Japan, and among them Buddhist priests. Webster's Spelling Book was now in great demand. Two months before a member of the imperial family, with three companions, had gone to visit America. Another Miya, or prince of the blood, was about to start for Eng- land. Ito (now marquis and premier) was leav- ing for the United States on financial business, as were also four merchants of Yedo by consent of government. " The schoolmaster is abroad, and the people of the fossilized nation of a few years back have rubbed open their eyes and be- gun to read the spelling book." About this time he received a letter from a 835 236 A Maker of the New Orient former Chinese pupil, who had been at Monson for two years. Now a pillar in the church at Hong Kong, he had had his son educated in England four years, at the cost of one thousand dollars a year. He wished to go to the Unite4 States with his family, but was grieved at the hostility of Congress and of the people in Cali- fornia. Dr. Brown was indignant at this un- christian anti-Chinese feeling in America. '* Sift the matter to the bottom and I believe you will find that it is not Americans born in the land who have started this crusade against the Chinese. American politicians here and there have taken up the Irishman's cause, but it is for the Irishman's vote, not for any valid reason in the nature of things." Earnestly he protested against the shame and disgrace to our country involved in the senseless hatred of the Chinese by aliens with the dog-in-the-manger spirit. With equal hatred of Japanese bigotry, he spoke and wrote freely against the persecution of the Roman Catholic Christians in Japan by the Tokio government, which was still intensely benighted and pagan. They were not pro- Buddhist as had been the Tokugawas, but pro- Shinto, and were still persecutors of men who suffered for conscience' sake. Of the new American envoy, Hon. Charles E. Belong, of Nevada, he wrote: ** Our minister here is showing himself to be a live man and equal in diplomacy to the best of his col- Era of Enlightened Civilization 237 leagues. . . He lately by a very clever and bold stroke of diplomacy compelled the imperial gov- ernment to include or rather not to exclude the island of Amakusa from the treaty limits of Na- gasaki. They had given notice that no foreigner must go to that island henceforth; and why? Because, though they never hinted it, they were going to make the island a penal colony for the persecuted Christians. Pray and agitate for the subject of religious liberty." Late in August, 1871, Dr. Brown, with two naval officers, made the ascent of Japan's lordly mountain Fujisan, being rewarded after the fatiguing ascent with a cloudless morning view of the ocean coast and country and a colossal reproduction through the vaporous air of the Pacific Mail Steamer Alaska, then sailing for California. Instead of traveling in the old kago, or basket palanquin, carried by two men and requiring the traveler to make a bowknot of his legs, the jin-riki-sha was everywhere in use on the level roads. The hiki, or puller, of this two- wheeled man-power carriage, still wore a dress that suggested only a necktie and pair of spurs. Travelers in the East soon get used to the sight of scant clothing. " Our human horses no doubt consider the profuse tattooing of their persons as an elegant covering." Was Dr. Brown the first foreigner to notice, as he did on his visit to Hakone Lake, that strik- ing piece of mediaeval native engineering by 238 A Maker of the New Orient which the rice fields of seventeen villages were irrigated? It is a long tunnel^ nine feet square and many hundred feet long, cut through the heart of the mountain. Returning to the routine of toil, Dr. Brown amid multifarious labors devoted his energies to the growth and consolidation of the Union Church. As the Rev. J. H. Ballagh wrote in 1901: " Dr. Brown's influence was paramount in the formation of the Union Church at Yoko- hama, which was so influential in inducing like religious organizations in Tokio and Kobe, with a distinctly powerful influence on the native church and its union organization. " It was largely through Dr. Brown's efforts and those of his colleagues that a house of wor- ship was provided for the foreign community, at a nominal cost, on the eligible lot of land a part of Commodore Perry's treaty ground near the Hatoba, as it is now called. The previous erec- tion of two imposing buildings, four stories high with basement, rising on the ground, alongside of an extremely modest little chapel for mission- ary purposes, gave rise to a most extraordinary series of slanders, falsehoods, and misrepresen- tations, both verbal, written, printed, and photo- graphic, which traveled round the world on seven-leagued boots. Echoes and allusions to this form of fiction, which among the haters of Christ's religion still passes for truth, are even yet heard. The whole authentic story, however, UNION CHURCH, YOKOHAMA. Era of Enlightened Civilization 239 has been told again and again — the acquisition of the land, the erection of the buildings, and the provision of means for church erection, without financial help from the Board of Missions. It was a perfectly honorable transaction and was possible because of peculiar circumstances." The terrible falsehood and slander referred to was long in dying. One of the many times the biographer saw it in print was in the Boston Herald, about 1890. By the courtesy of the editor he helped to nail the lie then and there, in a full explanation and recital of the facts. Even the photograph was brought into requi- sition and made to lie. Copies of the pictures thus made were sent over the United States. Yet the truth came again to resurrection in a most unexpected form, at the thirtieth anniver- sary of the organization of the first church of Reformed Christianity, held on the loth of March, 1902, at " No. 167," Yokohama. Then the venerable first elder of 1872, Ogawa, besides the president of the Lower House of the Im- perial Diet, two presidents of Christian colleges in Tokio, and ex-pastors and Japanese famous in every line of life were present, the galleries being filled with pupils of the girls' schools in the city. After sermon, prayer, reminiscences, and greetings, as told in the Japan Evan- gelist for April, 1902: "A very unexpected, but interesting incident occurred at the lunch tables in the lecture room. An early Yokohama 240 A Maker of the New Orient Christian, now over eighty years old, and living at Asakusa, Tokio, named Shimooka Renjio, to whom belongs the honor of being the first Japa- nese photographer [having been taught by Dr. Brown], being present, and having heard Rev. Ogawa's recital of the difficulties connected with the erection of the Church buildings on these premises, arose and said he wished to testify to something he had never before given utterance to. It was that early in the ' sixties,' before the church next door was built, but while the large house adjoining, and this little chapel had been built, a high official, he took him to be, of the United States, came to him, wishing him to take a photograph of the house and chapel, and he wanted an inscription, that was supplied, to be also taken with it, or reproduced on it, stating what it purported to be, viz., that ' Mr. B./ a well-known missionary, * had used the church funds for building his house, and only a small part for building a chapel,' and that his object in having the picture taken was to spread it abroad in America, and expose him. To this Renjio said, ' I told him it was false; it was not so. The money was in bank, or in America, and could not be gotten. And I re- fused to take the picture with such an inscrip- tion.' * Well, then,' the official repHed, ' take it without,' and, being a photographer and that his business, he had done so. This was a surpris- ing statement, throwing a strong light on the Era of Enlightened Civilization 241 fact that those photographs were extensively circulated with an inscription in an U. S. offi- cial's well-known hand-writing over the dwell- ing home — ' For Mr. B.'s residence four thou- sand dollars,' and over the little chapel, or * Sacred Dog Kennel,' ' Of the few remaining bricks for the Lord, six hundred dollars.' " The reprehensible part of this story, aside from the fact that it was a worn-out falsehood first asserted at Singapore, then of Bishop Boone's chapel, Shanghai, and now again in Japan, was the fact that the purchase of the house, built by other parties and bought in at a sacrifice to them, cost the Church property two thousand dollars, and was never built by a mis- sionary at all. While the chapel, built for six hundred dolars, of stones saved from a fire, was erected to prevent said U. S. official's prede- cessor from taking illegal possession of the prop- erty. It was a surprise that a matter distinctly referred to the Grand Assize of the Last Day should spring, as it were, from the grave on such an occasion as this! " Dr. Brown's facile pen was often called into requisition to frame resolutions of a general char- acter bearing on Christian liberty or unity. On September 28, 1872, a convention of Protestant missionaries in Japan, forty-three persons in all, met at Yokohama. Of one important episode Dr. Henry Stout writes in 1901: "Again Dr. Brown's pen and heart and brain were called 242 A Maker of the New Orient into requisition to form a resolution expressive of our desire for one church of Christ in Japan. This was at the time of the first missionary con- ference held in Japan, at Yokohama, in the au- tumn of 1872. It was a conference for the trans- lation of the Scripture and the union of the church of Christ in Japan. Although the repre- sentatives of the Episcopalians in Japan de- clined to come, this great body of Christians was represented by the Rev. E. W. Syle, Eng- lish chaplain in Yokohama, and an American Episcopal clergyman from Shanghai. Mr. Syle was very friendly to the proposed union. Dr. Brown was heart and soul for the resolution. " Dr. Brown was a pioneer, then, in the idea of the unity of Christian work and effort in Japan. He was ably seconded by the American church- man Mr. E. W. Syle, sometime rector of Christ's Church, Yokohama, who urged * the recognition of the validity of each others' ministry and of the administration of the ordinances.' " All went well until the report on the organi- zation of the hypothetical church for Japan was presented, when much opposition was shown and apparently insurmountable obstacles con- jured up. " At the meeting, next morning. Dr. Brown brought in a short set of resolutions constructive and so characteristic of his own personality that I copy it complete. " 'Whereas the Church of Christ is one in him, Era of Enlightened Civilization 243 and the diversities of denominations among Protestants are but accidents which, though not affecting the vital unity of beHevers, obscure the oneness of the Church in Christendom and much more in pagan lands, where the history of the divisions cannot be understood; and whereas we, as Protestant missionaries, desire to secure uni- formity in our modes and methods of evangel- ization so as to avoid as far as possible the evil arising from marked dififerences; we therefore take this earliest opportunity offered by this Convention to agree that we will use our influ- ence to secure as far as possible identity of name and organization in the native churches in the formation of which we may be called to assist, that name being as catholic as the Church of Christ, and the organization being that wherein the government of each church shall be by the ministry and eldership of the same, with the con- currence of the brethren/ " To this fidelity to principle, whatever steps had been made in this direction both in the Church of Christ so called and in the principle of union among the Episcopal, the Methodist, and other bodies of believers (besides the Pres- byterial) may be said to be due." Dr. Brown had some time before this written to his Board: " Now, from the ingathering of converts from this land, it seems as if all who love the Lord Jesus must wish to see such a foundation laid as 244 ^ Maker of the New Orient that the Church here shall be one and undivided, the ' Church of Christ in Japan,' rather than a church here of one name, others of another, con- fusing the heathen by its divisions, and weaken- ing the power of the church thereby." Again he had recorded his convictions and prayer : " May God incline all who are interested in the progress of Christianity in Japan to the same catholicity of sentiment and unity of aim, so that the divisions that mar the beauty of the Church in Christendom may as far as possible be excluded from this country." Dr. Berry tells how Dr. Brown arose and offered this resolution, " so happily worded and so gracefully presented as to allay all opposition. He seemed to me the very ideal of a missionary. I shall never forget the impression made upon me as he stood before us reading that resolution ; his face strong, manly, and winsome, his manner gracious and dignified, his language refined, and his voice rich and mellow. He seemed a veri- table father in Israel, a leader and teacher whom all were ready to honor." The resolutions were passed unanimously. Dr. tout says : " All contained in this broad, catholic set of resolutions has not been real- ized, but at the same time in spirit it has been acted upon in whatever could practically be done. Dr. Brown's conciliatory disposition was the directing influence that saved a great prin- Era of Enlightened Civilization 245 ciple from total wreck, in those early days of mission work, and it has resulted in the drawing together of the different families of missions and churches/' To all of this the biographer can bear witness, for he was present, saw and heard all, and took part in sustaining the resolution. One of the interesting events of 1872 was the formation of the Asiatic Society of Japan, of which Dr. Brown was made vice president. He took a lively interest in the meetings, often pre- siding with felicitous introduction of speakers, and making luminous additions to knowledge in the discussions following the papers read. Thirty volumes of " Transactions," forming a storehouse of invaluable information concerning the Japanese and their country, are now among the treasures of literature in English. A Spiritual Engineer XX A Spiritual Engineer IT was a glorious day in the history of Chris- tianity in Japan when on March lo, 1872, the first native Protestant Christian Church was first organized in the Httle stone edifice stand- ing on the Perry treaty ground. It grew out of a class taught by Rev. J. H. and Mrs. Ballagh. The church consisted of twenty-four members, twenty-one of whom were men. Dr. Brown was present and took part, when nine young men were baptized, an elder and deacon ordained, and the first administration of the Lord's Supper in the Japanese language was enjoyed. Five Christian women, all Americans, were also present. Dr. Brown took charge of the Sunday evening meeting, which was for prayer and study of the Bible, at the American Mission Home of the Woman's Union Missionary Society, No. 212 Bluff. Thirty or forty men and a few women were usually present. He wrote : ** The Japanese have lived under such a system of government that it is no wonder they should at first tremble with fear of the con- 849 250 A Maker of the New Orient sequences that might follow their embrace of Christianity. But there is a heroic vein in them after all, and such stuff as martyrs are made of often shows itself in persons who might before have been accounted timid." The editor of the Japan Mail declared that the translation of the Bible into Japanese was like " building a railway through the national intel- lect." Still at this work of spiritual engineering, Dr. Brown wrote on June 7, 1872, that he hoped to leave the Japanese educational service August I, and to devote himself wholly to translation. There were only three men then on the committee with sufficient knowledge of the vernacular for thorough work. By help of his native teacher Dr. Brown brought five block-cutters down from Yedo who began work upon the blocks of the Gospel of Mark, which was to cost 80 or 90 dollars for the cutting work. This Gospel of Mark in Japanese went into circulation in the autumn, some copies going to Kobe and some to Nagasaki. Dr. St. George EUiot, the well-known American dentist, paid for the printing, amounting to $200. The first edition consisted of 1000 copies, and it was customary to print 10,000 impressions from one set of blocks. Already many earnest natives were reading the Book of Books. The Governor of Yokohama had an English Bible, and also such parts in Japanese as were available. On June 24, 1873, at sixty-two years of age. A Spiritual Engineer 251 twenty of them having been spent in eastern Asia, Dr. Brown was in vigorous health, teach- ing, sermon-writing, preaching, and Bible-class teaching. While the faithless and ungodly were busy in informing the Japanese that Christianity was a religion that science has exploded, the faith of this believer and worker was but strength- ened. So has it always been. To the unbeliever Christianity is always " discredited," while to the man of faith it is the power of God, ever work- ing. He wrote : " Send your choice men here, men of brains, and men of common sense, men who not only know what to do, but also how not to do a thing when occasion requires; men well balanced, non-explosive, and self-contained; men of culture as well as men of piety. Here is also a sphere of action for the best women that Chris- tendom affords. The nation is waking up to its want of education in both males and females." A newspaper in Tokio, published in hira-kana, declared that there were 50,000 pupils in the government schools, and that half of them were females. Miss Kidder had 27 pupils, among others the vice governor's wife and two married ladies whose husbands were attached to the Japanese embassy, now in Europe, and one young lady from 250 miles north. Miss Kidder also super- intended the Sunday School of over 60 children, including a dozen or more of Japanese pupils. Rev. E. W. Syle, a dear old friend of China days, 252 A Maker of the New Orient was with him. When the clock had struck twelve it was in midnight silence, but not in midnight darkness, for it was the day after the full moon. " So too the darkness of heathenism is beginning to be broken by the entrance of the light that shines in the face of Jesus Christ." On the 4th of August, 1872, Dr. Brown had the great happiness of baptizing a gentleman named Okuno Masatsuna, formerly officer in the house- hold of the Miya, or uncle of the present em- peror, who took sides with the Shogun's fol- lowers, or rather was set up as a puppet-em- peror. Okuno fell with his master, and the Miya was sent to England to study. In later years Dr. Verbeck, in his " History of Christian Missions in Japan," showed very clearly the benefit of defeat upon many of the brave men who, having lost all their earthly estate with the fall of the Tycoon and the Tokugawas, in the hour of their grief turned their thoughts to the great Captain. In his distress and want Okuno's relatives advised him to try fasting and prayers, with lustrations at the most celebrated shrines in Yedo, and the sending of substitutes to Hakone and Nikko. To aid him, they paid the expenses of these vicarious pilgrimages, amounting to three hundred dollars. Okuno went through the dreadful penance of standing naked in mid-winter before the gods of each shrine and pouring cold water upon his person, hiring proxies to do the same on his behalf in A Spiritual Engineer 253 different places. In fifty days he had made ten thousand douches, " having fasted sometimes for seven days, eating absolutely nothing and only sustaining life by drinking water. Sometimes he would go in weakness so great that he required a friend or two to hold him up as he crawled slowly along, and then, standing before the door of the shrine, poured bucket- ful after bucketful of water cold as ice over his head, until his skin turned black, and his emaciated body was scarcely able to keep him from falling. When his bamboo tallies were all used up, showing that his vow was fulfilled, his friends would help him to go to some house, and seating him by a charcoal brazier, persevered in restoring the vitality of his poor, almost frozen body." After going thus to five hundred shrines, great and small, and performing all the pre- scribed penance, he went back to his family, but no compassionate answer had, after all, been given by the gods to his earnest prayers and intercessions. Some of his friends undertook, by cross-ques- tioning Okuno, to ascertain why the gods were so silent and irresponsive. These inquisitors found that, on account of exhaustion, he had failed to be at this or that shrine at the time promised in his vows. They therefore pro- nounced this to be the probable cause of his failure to get relief. As a last hope Okuno vis- ited many of the shrines again, but failed to get 254 A Maker of the New Orient any answer. He then told his friends that, come what might, he should visit the shrines no more. Okuno's penance was not merely for himself, but for his prince and his fellow-retainers. He had starved himself to a skeleton and almost destroved his own life, but had not one word of consolation, nor had one comforting response been vouchsafed from any of the gods. Travel- ing to Yokohama, he became a teacher of Dr. Hepburn and was for eight months in his Bible class. He then aided Dr. Brown in the transla- tion of the Scriptures. At his own instance, he made a version of Rev. W. A. P. Martin's famous book, '* Ten-do-saku-den," or '* An Examination of the Principles of Christianity, or the Heavenly Way." For the first six months, under his new teachers, he manifested no special interest, except an occasional expression of admiration, but in the early summer of 1872 his enthusiasm awoke. He often paused to give expression to the thought awakened by reading the New Testa- ment, and finally asked to be baptized. I remember after coming from a year's exile from English-speaking people, in the province of Echizen, but when my ears were well attuned to the rhythm of the musical language of Japan, hearing Okuno preach on the parable of the Prodigal Son. I had heard missionaries, aliens, grumble and groan over " this unspiritual pagan language " (this was in the days before the Bible in Japanese, and before the vernacular had been THE REV. O. KUNO MASATSUNA. A Spiritual Engineer 255 made plastic by a generation of regenerated and Christian Japanese), and I came to the American Mission Home on " the Bluff " on Sunday even- ing in March, 1872, expecting an ordinary dis- course. Every available foot of room was crowded by men, women, and children as they sat around Dr. Brown, drinking in his instruc- tion in Bible truths. When he had finished Okuno arose and opened his mouth. I was en- thralled. The Japanese language seemed to have been as fully filled with the Holy Spirit as the preacher himself certainly was. I seemed to understand what was meant by the gift of tongues. Whether or not, whereas I had before seen only a stone, now I saw a flashing jewel. " Until polished the precious gem has no splen- dor." Dr. Brown's theory was here demonstrated that the best way to evangelize Japan would be through her own sons, and he wrought master- fully to raise up a native ministry. He lived to see " twenty Browns," and many more, on the way to the pulpit and pastorate. Behold here, after thirty years of the preaching of the gospel by Okuno to his countrymen and his feeding of the lambs of Christ, his letter to the biographer, written in 1902, and part of his poem in memoriam to his teacher : " Though I cannot behold your beloved face with my bodily eyes, I can see it well in my heart, for I am ever mindful of you. Yes, often your solemn form with the Bible in hand rises before 256 A Maker of the New Orient me, and I can hear, even with my deafened ears, the voice which used to teach me. " You did not speak much, but you have taught me many truths. You have warned me, ' Do not pray long nor preach long, for it pleases not the Lord nor men either. Beware of this, for it is not a slight matter.' I can hear the oft-re- peated words even now. " You have preached to many, but you baptized only three, of whom I was the first. The others are also God's faithful servants. " You taught me the way to preach. It was a way that many people would never think of. One night I was very much troubled, for there were two voices contending in my heart. One was saying: " ' Go and preach the gospel at once, for many souls are perishing,' but the other said : " * Oh, no ! You are yet to study a long while, or else you will teach many mistakes.' " I knew not which to obey. So I went and asked you: "'What shall I do?' " You just gazed at me and said : " ' Obey both, for they are both reasonable.' " I was astonished and asked again : " ' Dr. Brown, how can I obey two voices at one time ? ' " You told me, smiling : " * It is an easy thing. Teach while you study, and study while you teach.' A Spiritual Engineer 257 " And so I have been obeying you from that time — preaching while I study, studying while I preach. I am always thinking of you through all these thirty years, and so I can see you in my heart as clearly as though you were still living." Most felicitously, Dr. S. Wells Williams of China was present at the baptism of Okuno, and told the story of how, years ago, in 1837, at Macao, the shipwrecked Japanese were led to love the Light of the World, and how they held prayer meetings for Japan, and about the send- ing of the ship Morrison, to return Japanese waifs, only in Yedo Bay to be fired on and driven away. Now, after so long a time, when Okuno received the waters of baptism in the presence of forty or fifty Japanese, S. Wells Williams, who was on the Morrison, sat at communion with his Japanese friends. Dr. Hepburn, just back from China, whither he had gone for the printing of his dictionary, was also present, so that three of the American gospel pioneers in China, survivors of many who had gone to their reward, were together on this notable day. Okuno Masatsuna became not only an eloquent orator and preacher of the gospel which had healed his soul, but also an admirable hymnist and poet. Meanwhile we in Tokio, English-speaking Christians, had subscribed money to build the edifice of the Union Church, in Tsukiji (filled- up land), the foreign quarter, and late in July, 258 A Maker of the New Orient 1872, it was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God. As the oldest missionary in Japan, Dr. Brown was invited to preach the sermon. Rev. E. W. Syle opened the services with invocation, Apostles' Creed, and Psalm. Dr. Peter V. Veeder read the Scripture, and Professor J. H. Seelye, president of Amherst College, then visit- ing Japan, offered the concluding prayer and benediction. The congregation consistea of 43 persons, 22 men and 8 women (foreigners), and 13 Japanese. A collection of three hundred dol- lars was taken up, to pay the debt of nine hun- dred dollars on the building. Altogether it was a very happy occasion. Dr. Brown was in the best of spirits, and all of us who had heard the sermon were cheered. This was the second time that Dr. Brown preached in this great city, the first being on the nth of March, i860, at the American Lega- tion, his audience being made up of nine gentle- men from the British and American legations. He had dwelt upon the shortness of the longest life, as suggested by Genesis v. 25. It was a time of murder and incendiarism. Within a twelvemonth Mr. Heuskcn, one of his hearers, was cut to pieces by Japanese assassins, but on this day in 1872 all assembled, without fear of molestation, to consecrate a house of worship to the living God, in the capital of this heathen empire. What had God wrought ! Nevertheless religious freedom had not yet A Spiritual Engineer 259 come, and a good many people who loved " the name that is above every name " were still pining and dying in prison. Probably three thousand native Christians from the region around Nag- asaki, descendants of seventeenth-century be- lievers, were still in the prisons of Japan. For fourteen years Dr. Brown had not asked for nor received a dollar for house rent from the Board of Missions, and had borne that expense himself. As neither Mr. Verbeck nor Dr. Brown were of any expense to the Board, both receiving support by their own efforts elsewhere, he plead for two new missionaries to be sent out by the Reforrmed Church. Of twenty now at Yoko- hama, only three were with the Reformed Church. One man was needed to train a native ministry. As the Reformed mission was the only one that had a native church, its oppor- ity to inaugurate this enterprise seemed a golden one. A good scholar and one apt to teach was wanted. So wrote Dr. Brown on November 19, 1872, when just returned from a month's trip to Shanghai, visiting Kobe and Nagasaki on the way. As the Reformed Church in America was still unable to pay his salary, as it had been unable for years past, he proposed to take ten pupils in his own house, for the rent of which he was paying twelve hundred a year. The pupils were to pay some portion of their expense, so he would be self-supporting. He hoped to translate the Scriptures and do good in teaching. 26o A Maker of the New Orient He thrilled at the report of the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in New York, and plead for money to erect the new Union Church build- ing. He was now sixty-three years old, feeling that he had " accomplished little in life," but saying, " I want to accomplish something for Japan that shall live after me when I am gone. This incites me to work at the translation of the Scriptures." To him all his varied work was Christian work, that is, he was earnest in all he did to the glory of his Saviour. He felt that " all service ranks the same with God." In the year of our Lord 1873 the Christians in Japan, though so few in number, felt a glow of hope, for the anti-Christian edicts had been re- moved. There was no law of Japan prohibiting the religion of Christ. The Mikado's empire was open to the gospel. Dr. Brown's letters con- trast the years 1859 and 1873. What hath God wrought! A meeting was held by the native Christians on Washington's Birthday to celebrate religious freedom. Tell the American Christians, they said through their teacher, " to send more and better men to this country." This was the burden of Dr. Brown's urgent appeal to Miss Hequemborg, who, after some months of noble service in Japan, was going home on account of failing health. " Tell the churches to send their best men and women to Japan. We must have a native ministry soon." Yet there were tares also. Besides the churches of Rome, of Russia, A Spiritual Engineer 261 and of the Reformed faith based on the Bible, there are many missionaries of the synagogue of Satan teaching the Japanese that Christianity is a reHgion fit only for women and fools, and much of the port journalism was not of a sort to recommend either Christianity or civilization to the Japanese. In another interesting visit to Tokio in Febru- ary, 1874, he preached again in the Union Church, wherein the day before Mr. Thompson married two native couples in the Christian way. On Sunday afternoon, with Mr. Edward Warren Clark, he visited the private school of Mr. Naka- mura, who had visited Europe, written a famous memorial to the government on freedom of religion, translated Mill " On Liberty " and Smiles' ** Self Help," the Constitution of the United States, and other standard works in English literature. He was a Christian and a profound scholar in Chinese. His school of one hundred pupils was situated near the Kiristan- zaka or Christian Slope. Dr. Brown talked to eighteen young men on the first chapter of Romans, one of the teachers in the ordinary Bible class of the more advanced pupils being one of his former pupils. Referring to the translation which he had made of the manuscript work of the famous Confucian scholar and philosopher Arai Haku- seki, concerning the Italian priest, Jean Baptiste Sidotti, who in 1607 landed in Japan as a Chris- 262 A Maker of the New Orient tian missionary and was taken to Yedo and here imprisoned until he died. Dr. Brown wrote: ** Now on the site of the prison is a school of one hundred young men with Christian teachers, and a lot near by is already secured for a Chris- tian church. . . Thus the time may not be far distant when the place that once was a prison to those called Christians and intended to stamp out the last vestiges of the religion of Christ, shall be distinguished as a site for a temple to the living God, and crowds of this people shall resort to the house of prayer on the Christian slope in the capital of Japan. May the name, which that locality has retained for more than two centuries and a half, prove to have been a prophecy of better days coming." Training a Native Ministry XXI Training a Native Ministry THE time was ripe for the formation of a native ministry, of men who could speak of the wonderful works of God in their own tongue. By vote of the Church, eight young men under Dr. Brown's instruction, and studying English preparatory to theo- logical study, were selected. Two more, one of them recommended by Mrs. Pruyn, of the American Mission Home, were added, mak- ing ten in all. Their future was not yet without clouds, for pagan bigotry was still rampant, and not a few government officials hated with perfect hatred the idea of free- dom of conscience. One of these was the old conservative Shimadzu Saburo of Satsuma, a cabinet minister. Democracy, Christianity, and the new ideas of the West were not to come in without bitter opposition by men reared in the ferocious virtues of Bushido. Although " Sat- suma " had extirpated Buddhism in his own prov- ince, yet any stick would do to beat a Christian with. Okuno and Ogawa, elders of the Yoko- hama church, and other Christians of the Tokio church were summoned before his court, to 865 266 A Maker of the New Orient answer for burying a woman according to Chris- tian forms in a Buddhist graveyard, she being a Christian convert member of the Yokohama church. In reaHty neither of these men had anything to do with the ceremonies of burial, but merely attended the funeral. The Rev. David Thompson officiated. The elders were roughly treated in court, but Thompson came forward in their behalf and no further molesta- tion was made. Shimadzu soon found the air of modern Tokio too bracing and the current of progress too unpleasant, and so resigned office and left for his native haunts. " Lights are multiplying in the pagan darkness as the lighthouses on the coast are increasing in number," wrote Dr. Brown in April, 1874. The church building was rising on the church lot on the old Perry treaty ground — fit monument of America's good will to Japan. Dr. D. C. Greene was about to organize churches at Osaka and Hiogo. Already steps had been taken for the beginning of theological education, and in Dr. Brown's own house began what was to grow into the superb Meiji Gaku-in of to-day. This class for theological instruction grew out of the pupils taught by Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Ballagh, which resulted in the formation of the First Church of Christ in Japan, March 10, 1872. Among other branches early taught them was music, and the progress of their pupils in this culture marks an epoch in the civilization of Training a Native Ministry 267 Japan. When the missionaries were compelled to remove from Kanagawa to Yokohama, it fell to the lot of Mrs. Ballagh to teach the prepara- tory classes and singing. It was a work of tremendous difficulty to get the Japanese lads to raise their voices to the proper key. Several musicians, and critical students who had also been in China, like Dr. J. C. Hepburn and Rev. E. W. Syle, after a year or more of experiment and failure, had expressed the opinion that our musical scale would have to be altered to suit the low, guttural voices of the Japanese. Dr. Syle had even begun the serious work of arrang- ing a scale of music to suit the Japanese voice.* Mrs. Ballagh, however, believed that, with pa- tience and perseverance, their voices could be raised to the proper pitch. " Oh, woman, great is thy faith ! " It was a very happy morning when one boy, under the eye and voice of his teacher, was psychologically so lifted up that he falteringly, but surely, ran up the scale. Verily this was a moment of triumph in the history of civilization in Japan ! From that hour other lads, fired with true Japanese ambition, and determined not to be left behind in the race, mastered the scale, and sang Occidental music with delight. In a few weeks *See his paper on " Primitive Music, especially that of Japan," in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (vol. v. p. 170) and papers on Japanese music by other writers. 268 A Maker of the New Orient the teacher was enabled to send word to Dr. Syle, " to come and hear our boys sing." He came, heard, and declared himself delighted. He went home, destroyed his tentative musical scale, and sent Mrs. Ballagh a melodeon to assist her voice and theirs in opening a new era in music in Japan. Now Occidental music is the rule in all the Christian and many of the public schools, and is played by the regimental army and navy musicians, and brass bands form a feature of most public festal gatherings. In the Japan Evangelist for December, 1895, the Rev. K. Y. Fujiu wrote, as follows, concern- ing " The Yokohama Band," " a company of young men who, from the year 1872, studied under Rev. Dr. S. R. Brown, in a little room appended to his lodgings at No. 211 Bluff, Yokohama. " Their names were Maki, Oshikawa, Honda, Shinozaki (deceased), Yoshida, Ibuka, Kumano, Uemura, Ito, Igashira (deceased), Kawakatsu, Yamamoto, Amenomori, Sugo (now Furusawa), Fujiu, and several others. Those who were ordained afterward were Messrs. Maki, Oshi- kawa, Honda, Ibuka, Uemura, Ito, Kawakatsu, Yamamoto, Furusawa, and Fujiu. " They were Christians, but they belonged to no particular denomination. Indeed the exist- ence of denominations was unknown to them. The converts of missionaries sent out by the Dutch Reformed Church, or by the Presbyterian Training a Native Ministry 269 Church, or by the American Board, all mingled together, unconscious of any ecclesiastical dis- tinction between them. All they thought about themselves was that they were Japanese Chris- tians. The truth, however, was gradually revealed to them that there were different denomina- tions in America, and that, as they had been converted under the influence of missionaries of different churches, they should each belong to the American denomination under whose mis- sionary they were converted. This threw the young converts into a state of consternation. There were several older Christians, such as Messrs. (now Revs.) Okuno and Ogawa, who were much respected by the younger believers. With these they consulted as to whether they should submit and become members of a foreign denomination, or whether they should organize an independent church, free from sectarian color- ing and spirit. A number of meetings were held and the matter was thoroughly debated. Finally the decision was reached to organize an independ- ent church of Christ in Japan, and a constitu- tion was drawn up. The church was named * Nihon Kirisuto Kyokwai.' (Japan Christian Church). It would be too much to say that the members of the * Band ' were the sole movers in this action, but it is certain that they constituted the predominant factor in it. Messrs. Shinozaki, Honda, Maki, Oshikawa, Kumano, and Yoshida, 270 A Maker of the New Orient being the seniors in age, represented the * Band ' in this matter. " In addition to this step toward the founding of an independent church, the students under Dr. Brown dechned any longer to receive support from the mission. Having no other means of Hvelihood, they were thus reduced to the neces- sity of engaging in manual labor in order to maintain themselves. Some became doorkeepers ; some, night watchmen ; some, pullers of weeds in gardens ; while a few were so fortunate as to find positions as language-teachers to foreigners. It was a strange sight — that of the once proud and ambitious young men engaging in such lowly occupations for one half of the day, that they might study for the ministry the other half. " When finally the relation between the foreign missions and the young Japanese Church became satisfactorily adjusted, the new organization appeared before the world under the title of * Nippon Kirisuto Itchi Kyokwai ' (The United Church of Christ in Japan). It was hoped that this * United Church ' would at an early day be a union of all the different denominations already founded in Japan. " The rest of the young men studied under Dr. Brown until the summer of 1877. Then the Union Theological Seminary having been estab- lished in Tokyo under the auspices of the mis- sions co-operating with the United Church of Christ, they were transferred to that school." Training a Native Ministry 271 Other very interesting items concerning the master and his pupils are given in this " memorial number " of the Japan Evangelist, showing the prominence of Dr. Brown's disciples as heads of Christian schools and colleges, professors, editors, and pastors, in the building of the Chris- tian Japan that is coming and now is. The list of other pupils active in law, medicine, journal- ism, diplomacy, and business is too large to transcribe here. The protracted labors of organizing and teach- ing in the new theological school, with the ex- acting work of translation, were too much for a man in his sixties. They broke down Dr. Brown's health, and he took a sea trip to Kobe to consult Dr. Berry, the medical missionary, who ordered complete rest. Later he went over to Shanghai, the time being between September 12 and December 19. Dr. Berry helped him a good deal, but evidently here was the turning point in his physical power. " It is not likely," he wrote, " that I shall ever be able to work as I have done formerly. My disease is neuralgia and affects my heart. If I can keep up the school for the theological students, by the aid of my daughter and niece, and work at the transla- tion of the Scriptures, I shall be thankful. These young ladies (our daughter Hattie and Miss Winn of Illinois) have had entire charge of the school during my absence, and have done a good work and done it well." 272 A Maker of the New Orient So many active American missionaries at work in Japan meant leaven and its working. The spring of 1875 seemed a time of many and mighty changes, and especially of the freedom of the press, with its unchecked boldness. One writer advocated the abolition of the department of religion with its ninety-seven officers, costing $55,000 a year. '* Religion," the writer says, " should be left to the free will of the people." Another called for a national parliament or con- gress. Another lashed the lazy samurai who received pensions to the amount of $20,000,000 a year, all of which came out of the pockets of the tillers of the soil. Still another article affirmed that '' Christianity seems to be becoming popular and powerful, while our religions are moving in the opposite direction and are decay- ing." In a word, the people were speaking through the new native press, while the govern- ment had as yet given no sign of discontent. The Japanese had embarked on commercial rivalry and were determined to win the coasting trade and the ferry to China. " They have bought steamers for Shanghai in opposition to the P. M. S. S. Co. As often as a steamer of the latter company starts for China, a Japanese steamer weighs her anchor at the same moment to start for China too. Fare and freights have thus been reduced to so low a rate that one or the other of these companies must succumb be- fore long." The issue was a Japanese victory. Training a Native Ministry 273 At the opening of the American centennial year (1876), 5750 copies of the gospel of St. Luke had been published in Japanese, and all except 54 copies disposed of. Romans was half finished, and the translators had just finished the first draft of translation of Acts. The mission- aries were impatient, wanting to get the Scrip- tures circulated, and pressing the committees to issue portions of the Bible in less carefully elaborated versions. The most recent arrivals were loudest in their clamors. Nevertheless, translation was an arduous task. The Japanese, except in rare instances, had not cultivated their own language, but spent their time in writing Chinese; not improving it, but only corrupting the Chinese. As Chinese was entirely a foreign language in Japan, no one read a book in Chinese as it was written. It had to be translated, as one reads, into a mongrel dialect of words in Chinese with Japanese endings and by connect- ing particles. The Chinese characters must be shuffled about from place to place in the sen- tences, in order to make them intelligible or readable by a Japanese. Thus the study of Chinese had not helped the Japanese to improve their own language. Indeed it had prevented them from doing so. The Japanese would have been far better off to have cultivated their own tongue and " missionaries then would not have been compelled to study two such antipodal tongues in order to master one." Another trouble 2 74 A Maker of the New Orient was the absence of any standard native literature. Thus the Japanese paid the penalty of neglect — a neglect seemingly inconsistent with their strong national pride. Is it too much to say that it is largely owing to the missionaries that the Japanese were stimu- lated to restudy and cultivate their language, even as Motley spurred the Dutch scholars to investigate their own history? Indeed it is almost certain that no revival of nationalism, research, or literary activity and expression would have been possible but for " the religious in- vasion " of the " hired converters." " Another consequence," wrote Dr. Brown, " is that the best-informed men of the country are unable to agree as to the literary style best adapted to the people at large, and foreign trans- lators are at a loss to decide this question for themselves. Some want more and some less of the Chinese intermixture with the Japanese, and some would have none at all." The trans- lator's desire was " to produce a version of the Scriptures that shall not only be intelligible to the people, but commend itself as a literary pro- duction, and so become in time a standard book to influence the national mind, as King James* version has affected the English-speaking por- tion of mankind." Considering the rendering of the Greek word haptizo, thirty out of forty-six missionaries were in favor of translitering the word by means Training a Native Ministry 275 of the kana, instead of using the Chinese sen-rai, meaning " washing aright," or of making a trans- lation. The veteran Baptist missionary, Dr. Nathan Brown, had said to S. R. Brown, ** if the word was simply translated, our version would probably be the standard one in Japan, though it was possible that if their own mission pros- pered, they would have a version of their own for purposes of instruction, while ours would be used in the pulpit." As matter of fact, both of this grand old man's intimations became true. The Union version became the standard. Then, mainly by Dr. Nathan Brown's own efforts, and under his supervision, a noble translation of the New Testament was made, especially for use by Christians of the Baptist name, by Mr. Kawa- katsu, one of Dr. S. R. Brown's pupils. Now would the reader like to have a picture of the group of translators of the New Testa- ment in Japanese? Such a picture is given in a letter written April II, 1901, by the wife of a surgeon in the United States army — " Harold Ballagh," not unknown to literary fame. This daughter of the Rev. J. H. Ballagh was born in Yokohama and grew up in Japan as if this fair land of camellias were her own, so that, instead of open- ing her eyes wonderingly at what she saw around her, she took the Japanese world, with all its beauty and glory, always excepting its paganism and ignorance, as her own. She knew 276 A Maker of the New Orient " Verbeck of Japan " even better than Dr. Brown, for she saw him oftener. She writes : " Dr. Brown Hved in a large bungalow, sur- rounded by extensive grounds, on the English Bluff. Anna and I considered it a great treat to go to see the Browns, as they had an aviary in the front garden, before which we stood en- tranced, watching real birds, with real nests, on real branches, keeping house merrily. The walks were of shell and bordered by bushes of bursting pomegranates. Cozy dwarf trees formed fairy-like arbors for little girls with dolls. Now and then we would steal in with overpowering awe, to watch the learned trans- lators of the Scriptures. We knew that the seventy had translated the Old Testament very, very many years before, and we wondered if these men were as great as the 70's. " A large, long table extended down the room and a bay window let in floods of light; under the window the pomegranates blushed at the frivolity of their existence, while such moment- ous work was going on. The table was piled high with books and the chairs were reserved for the same occupants — much as editors' chairs on metropolitan newspapers are. Japanese assist- ants with long white beards filled me with the same awe that the venerable domines did. There was a large buffet in the room, and I often won- dered if these good men ever condescended to refresh themselves like ordinary mortals. Training a Native Ministry 277 t( The daily sessions were opened with prayer. All discussions were conducted with wellbred formality and in low tone. " I have been told that the translation of the Scriptures took years to perform, and the fact that these many lives were spared daily to con- duct this work, impressed me powerfully. Each man worked upon a different portion of the Bible, and I used privately to wonder which had the most difficult task. " My sister and I would tip-toe from the room and whisper, until we got well out of range of the bay window. The awe of that chamber was in my mind associated with the individuals who worked there. I was afraid to laugh in their presence, even in the garden. I do not know if Dr. Brown guessed this, but one day he brought out two young puppies that belonged to his son Bob. " * Guess their names,' he said. My sister and I timidly suggested certain conventional names. " * No, no ! ' he cried, laughing. ' Their name is Belzebub.' ** We were properly shocked. " * Say Bel and Bub very fast,' he ordered. " He laughed heartily as we obeyed, and made inquiry : " * Don't you see why it's Belzebub ? It's so much easier to say.' " Mr. Brown was a very broad-minded man. He drank wine in moderation and shocked some 278 A Maker of the New Orient of his associates by taking his family to the theater or opera in San Francisco, as a treat, after many years' residence in Japan. He re- garded it as perfectly innocent and cultivating." America's centennial year of 1876 was that of whitening gospel harvests in the Mikado's em- pire, and the time to thrust in the sickle had come. The good seed dropped at Niigata had turned into thriving blades above the soil. One of Dr. Brown's pupils named Oshikawa, an elder in the church at Yokohama, and now a pastor, was commissioned by the church to go to the west coast. On his way thither, in Shin- shiu, he found a small band of men who had formed^ a temperance society, taking the Ten Commandments for a constitution. They met on the Sabbath and read such Scripture as they were able to get, as the translation of the New Testament came out in parts. Oshikawa stayed with them three days, preaching and teaching. The consequence was that soon after one of the band came to Yokohama to get a teacher. An- other elder of the church, Shinozaki, decided to go with them. At Niigata Oshikawa * reported fourteen converts. Dr. Brown thus lost two good pupils, but who could refuse such calls? He was now teaching Greek, and lecturing to about a dozen candidates for the ministry on Biblical history. Thus, with the exception of * Afterward founder of Christian churches and schools at Sendai. Training a Native Ministry 279 four or five hours a week, all his work was upon translation. From Kumamoto in Higo, in the island of the Nine Provinces, came the news that Dr. Scud- der's daughter and her husband held prayer meet- ings with twenty pupils. Out of this enterprise grew the famous " Kumamoto Band," so well described in Dr. Gordon's book, " The American Missionary in Japan." From Hirosaki, up in the north of Hondo, was a church of twenty-four members, under the pastoral care of Mr. Honda, a member of the Yokohama church (now Rev. Dr. Honda, President of the Methodist College, in Tokio, Aoyama Gakuin). "Behold, how brightly breaks the morning." Perhaps this helped to improve the doctor's health. " The spasms of angina pectoris are very much less violent, and less frequent than they were formerly. I can work within doors as much as most men. Physical exertion, except of the lightest kind, gives me pain. . . I cannot walk at any pace uphill without suffering pain- fully." There was also a native church at Hirosaki in the north, at Yamanaka, and at Numadz. All wanted more gospel and had candidates ready for baptism. Thus churches were now spring- ing up where, ten years before, were no signs of even single conversions. The era of the seed was past, that of the blade had come. How the years of 1876 and 1877 were spent 28o A Maker of the New Orient may be gathered from Rev. M. Oshikawa's trib- ute in the Japan Evangelist of December, 1895 : " Dr. S. R. Brown was a great man. Of all the missionaries that have come to this country I consider him the most worthy of reverence. I do not think that he was so earnest in direct missionary work, but this was only because he understood so well the true secret of successful missionary effort in Japan, and worked accord- ingly. He always said to us : * I believe that the best plan for the evangelization of Japan is to educate Japanese young men. Just think ! ' he would say ; * twenty Japanese preachers educated in my school ! That means twenty Browns sent out into the world. How much better and greater a work will they perform than I could ! They will understand the habits and customs of the people, and can speak in their mother tongue, while I have an imperfect knowledge of the people and of their language. For these reasons I educate young Japanese.' The Japan of twenty years ago was much different from the Japan of to-day, and it would have been impossible for Dr. Brown to see these things so clearly, if he had not been a truly far-sighted man." A Voage in Southern Seas XXII A Voyage in Southern Seas IN February, 1877, the American bark Agate, sailing through Dampier's Strait — one of the noted highways of the eastern archipelago, north of New Guinea — was boarded by natives of Battanta Island. In broken English, and by the aid of signs, they made it known that on some island to the northward, a company of sixteen white men and one woman had been cast away. At Shanghai the officers of the Alert told this news to the United States consul general. The British Admiral Ryder, who was also informed, notified the British commander-in-chief of the Australian station. Lieutenant Commander A. S. Barker, of the U. S. S. S. Alert, was ordered to proceed at once to look up the supposed cast- aways and also to examine certain dangers to navigation. The consul general at once sent a dispatch to Rear Admiral Reynolds of the American naval forces, who was then at Yokohama on his flag- ship, the Tennessee. He was the brother of Gen- eral Reynolds killed at Gettysburg — the only major general of the Union side who died in battle during the Civil War. There, in the cabin, 283 284 A Maker of the New Orient sat also Dr. Brown, who was making, according to his custom, a call on the American rear ad- miral in command. What follows is told in 1902 in the language of Rear Admiral A. S. Barker, then in command of the U. S. S. S. Alert. He was then lieuten- ant commander and a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the side-wheel steam frigate Mississippi — Perry's former flagship in Japan — under Farragut, on the mighty river of the same name. " In obedience to signal I had gone aboard to report to the admiral. He asked me to leave as soon as possible to go in search of this sup- posed shipwrecked crew. " Seeing that Dr. Brown appeared to be inter- ested in the projected cruise, I, in a half-joking manner, asked him if he would like to go with me. He refused in a non-committal way, and I thought no more of it, until early the next morn- ing the orderly reported that Dr. Brown was on board and wished to speak with me. This was before breakfast. " Dr. Brown said he had come off to see if I were in earnest in asking him to go with me. I laughed and said, ' To tell the truth, I was only half in earnest, as I did not think for a moment that you would care to go with me, even if you could do so, but I would really be glad if you would go as my guest.' " He said he had mentioned the matter to his A Voyage in Southern Seas 285 wife and to some of his friends, and all had agreed that it would do him good, because he needed rest. He was, as you know, a man of fine presence, dignified but pleasant, and the officers and men were glad to have him with us." So, leaving the English part of his infant theo- logical seminary in the care of such excellent teachers as his daughter, Miss Brown, and her cousin, Miss Winn, and with the admiral's per- mission, the domine started on a six weeks' trip to spicy islands and sunny seas. The man-of- war had to go under sail, for coaling stations were few. Their first call was at Port Lloyd on the Bonin Islands,* of which the Japanese govern- ment had recently taken possession as a pos- sible " telegraph pole in the ocean," and against future political contingencies. Thence the Alert moved into a gale between the Bonin and the Ladrone islands. At Port Louis, on Guam, they reached on June 5, at 9.30 a. m., what was then Spanish and now American territory, hop- ing to get fresh food and fruit. A man having the word pratico on his cap-band boarded the ship. The captain of the port lived five miles away. He did not come on board, and Captain Barker, after waiting until 1.30 p. m., hoisted anchor and left the place, notwithstand- ing his great disappointment that no fish, pro- visions, or fruit could be obtained. These were ♦ See " Matthew Calbraith Perry," p. 420. 286 A Maker of the New Orient the days of Spanish ownership, and twenty-three years from the time when the Stars and Stripes were hoisted over this fair island, about one hun- dred miles in circumference. The trade winds blew for several days and until they reached the Mariana Islands, where was a Spanish penal settlement with one thou- sand convicts, rationed by the government, but allowed to do as they pleased and what they pleased, for there was no fear of their getting away from the island. The population of nearly five thousand was ruled by a governor, whose name was Don Manuel Bravo. The mail reached him every six months. A small and an- tiquated fort in the southeast part of the harbor, with a garrison of five soldiers and a corporal, and with an armament of four small guns, was flying the Spanish flag. They were two days distant from Dampier's Strait and in north lati- tude 124° and in east longitude 135° 38', on June 16, 1877, when Dr. Brown was sixty-seven years old. As they celebrated his birthday, he re- called that this was the way through which he had passed on the way to China in 1838. On June 17 they sighted the island, perhaps we should say the continent, of New Guinea, the scene of God's wonderful work through Paton, Lawes, and Chalmers.* On June 19 they steamed slowly through the coral reefs, — * See the biography of James Chalmers, New York, 1902. A Voyage in Southern Seas 287 lovely to look at, but frightful to encounter, — around the west end of King William Island, and cast anchor at i p. m., opposite the small vil- lage of Bessin, visited a few years before by Al- fred Russell Wallace, author of " The Malay Archipelago." Here he had remained about six weeks, July to September, i860, collecting speci- mens and securing data for his profound theo- ries, which rank with Darwin's in constructive influence. Not a soul was to be seen in house or canoe at Bessin, but only a yellow dog. The birds were heard in the woods, but a general panic had seized the natives and all had fled. None appearing, anchor was hoisted on the 21st, and at eight o'clock in the evening the Alert was lying off Easter Island. On June 22, at Gebi Island, three natives came off in a boat to the ship to say that nineteen Englishmen were on a small island near by. A Dutch man-of-war had been around here recently. Perhaps there was some trouble with the Dutch. Whatever the causes of the alleged castaway, nothing further is said in Dr. Brown's journal about the chief object of their quest. The delights of physical existence were fairly ravishing in these eastern seas, and the veteran missionary forgot all cares. At last they were in the Spice Islands, the ancient magnet which first drew the Europeans to the far eastern seas, the Portuguese first, then the Dutch, then the 288 A Maker of the New Orient English. Now all the living nations seem after the prize of Insulinde. Will Germany get it? They steamed into the harbor of Amboynia, on the island of Ceram, finding the water very deep. This is the richest spot on earth for cloves, a half million pounds being here raised every year. The Dutch clergyman, Rev. T. K. Kam, finding that Dr. Brown was, like himself, a genuine domine (not a dominie) of the Re- formed Protestant Dutch Church, was delighted to see him, and Mr. Van Aart invited him to make his stay on shore with him during the four days, or until the sailing of the Alert. As they were to coal ship, Domine Brown was only too glad to accept the hospitality. Ceram, with its area of 264 square miles and a population of thirty thousand souls, had a spicy reputation, even before the Portuguese reached it in 15 12. It was captured by the Dutch in 1605, and the British settlement made in 161 5 was destroyed by the Dutch in 1623. Taken by the British in 1796, the island was restored in 1802, retaken by them in 1810, and restored again in 1814 — a veritable shuttlecock of war and diplomacy. Over the gateway of the fort Dr. Brown read the appropriate inscription, ita relinquenda ut recepta. He visited the church built in 1780, copied some of the inscriptions on the tombs of English officers buried there, and studied the Dutch mausoleums under the carved and sculp- tured tables. The church was full of tombs. A Voyage In Southern Seas 289 Happily, in the Dutch homeland the Dutch have ceased to make graveyards of edifices, and in their newer houses of worship associate reli- gion with life, rather than with death. Domine Brown was happy to find in Domine Kam a lover of music. The Netherlander played on his organ fantasies and national airs, which the American, in his journal, pronounced very fine. The Dutch domine, born on the island in 1833, was the son of " the apostle of Amboyna " and had been here several years. The official resident was named Van Deijnse. Dr. Brown called on this dignitary with the consul or governor and the port captain. After a delightful stay. Dr. Brown left in the Alert, July 3. The Alert anchored at Ternate, July 5, steam- ing out at sunset, bound for the Sulu group, which Dr. Brown declared the most beautiful yet seen on the cruise. They were leaving the Dutch for the Spanish East Indies, little realiz- ing that the Philippines would in a few years be American possessions. Reaching Jolo on the 9th, they found three Spanish gunboats there, and on the nth cast anchor at Iloilo on the island of Panay. The next day Captain Barker and Dr. Brown went ashore to return the call of the United States consular agent, Mr. J. C. Tyler, Jr., of Boston, who with his brothers was engaged in the sugar trade. These exiles from home were 290 A Maker of the New Orient very glad to meet their fellow-American at tiffin, or noon meal, at Mr. Austin's. After this they drove out into the country, visiting three large villages. Each had a cathedral, be- dizened with very tawdry ornaments on the altar, but imposing in the eyes of the natives, whose houses were very lightly built. The Chinese element, chiefly industrial, was large in the island. After seeing the extensive sugar planta- tions, they called with the United States consul on the governor of the province and captain of the port. The former had been nineteen years in the Philippines, and was ranked as lieutenant colonel in the Spanish army. The captain of the port belonged to the navy, with the rank of a commodore in the United States Navy. The latter was somewhat of a martinet. He had recently fined the captains of foreign vessels in the port because they had hauled down their flags on account of the wind or rain, and then did not put them up the next day, it being a Roman Catholic feast day. Subsequently he re- considered his action and remitted the fine. Un- fortunately for his consistency, on the day of the Alert's arrival, although it was a feast day, there was no flag to be seen on the fort. A messenger from the port captain visited the Alert and was very inquisitive in asking the exact number of guns, men, muskets and pistols, the quantity of powder on board, etc. Did the coming event of May i, 1898, cast its shadow A Voyage in Southern Seas 291 before? On Mindanao Island Dr. Brown no- ticed that the Augustinian friars had the best land of that province for themselves. On the later track of Dewey the Alert steamed from Spanish into British Asia. Happy was Dr. Brown to look upon the scenes of forty years before. At Hong Kong the worn-out educator and missionary was fairly ** carried to Paradise on the stairways of surprise," by an unexpected demonstration of " the gratitude of Orientals." In its prodigal generosity it was beyond his wildest dreams. When the Alert arrived at Vic- toria, several of his former Chinese pupils in the early forties, but now from forty-five to fifty- three years old, hearing of Dr. Brown's feeble health, boarded the Alert and brought him ashore. Most of these men were in the govern- ment service. Led by Dr. Wong, they fitted up a house for his temporary occupation at Canton, and provided him with every comfort and deli- cacy that an invalid could desire, while he made excursions and enjoyed sight-seeing. At Hong Kong Dr. Brown visited the site of his former home and found on Morrison Hill a tree he had planted thirty-four years before. Its trunk was five feet in diameter. Other trees, like this one on the site of his old home, served as marks of his own age. At Macao he found his old house in ruins but he brought away a tile as a memento. 292 A Maker of the New Orient On his way to Shanghai a northeaster drove the steamer into Amoy, where Dr. Brown met four more of his former pupils, who were in the Customhouse service. They gave their old teacher a complimentary dinner and proposed for him a pleasure trip to Chifu, Tientsin, and Peking — the whole of which, by steamer, boat, and sedan chair, at his pupils' expense, was hap- pily accomplished. In the Chinese capital Dr. Brown stayed eight days with Dr. W. A. P. Mar- tin, the American missionary and trainer of Chi- nese statesmen in the new China. At Shanghai he found four more of his pupils. They pre- sented him with a tablet of solid silver inscribed with the most grateful sentiments. Everything in China — lodging, steamer passage, and gifts amounting in value to five hundred dollars in gold — was provided by his grateful pupils. Thus they tried to show him that " all they had and were they owed to his early teaching and in- fluence." The silver tablet expressive of the gratitude of Dr. Brown's pupils to their beloved teacher is a characteristic specimen of Chinese art, as rich in suggestive symbolism as it is beautiful to the eye. It has been, therefore, chosen as a cover-stamp for this volume. The thick slab of white precious metal is set in a frame of very dark carved teak wood. Four of the elect " old-seal " characters ex- press, in the terse and fecund phrase for which A Voyage in Southern Seas 293 Chinese is famous, both a sentiment and a history. Literature above becomes art below, and the feeHngs of grateful pupils are expressed in a symbolism that appeals at once to Chinese, and with right interpretation, to cosmopolitan taste. Freely translated by a native scholar, the in- scription reads: As the bountiful showers of Spring induce rich vegetation, So what is good in your pupils Is due to your early instructions. On the right of the four large characters is the name of Dr. Brown, and on the left, in Chinese modern script, are the names of the four donors. Just above the large inscription are the dragons — symbols of intensest vital energy — contending for the flaming jewel. Whether as the moon governing tides and commerce and thus productive of wealth, or as the symbol of the soul and of mystery, the " sacred pearl " represents the prizes of life. The same idea, as of things most precious but attainable only by strenuous exertion, is wrought out in the carved teak-wood setting. The artistic expression of the motto is carried out in the chasing and carving of the silver below. On lofty hills and among the clouds sages and lovers of books are walking, serenely. 294 A Maker of the New Orient One of them is pouring out a broad stream of water, in the ever-widening waves of which various beings, seated on mighty creatures of the deep, are borne along, apparently in stren- uous rivalry. All this symbolizes the broad river of prosperity and success in life flowing forth from wisdom, imparted long ago and maintained by diligence and vigilant endeavor. The reverse of the tablet shows, in the em- blems of peace and calm, the quiet, as com- pared with the strenuous life. The phenixes in happy union, the full-blown peonies, the well-rooted, graceful bamboo suggest happy results after toilsome endeavor. " Unto him that hath shall be given." Long before this silver token and the manifest proofs of 1877, he had beUeved in Chinese gratitude. He was now confirmed in his faith. The return to Japan was made without inci- dent, but with manifest gain to the domine's health. Although no castaways were found, it is comforting to know that to civilization noth- ing is foreign. Wherever the British or Ameri- can flag floats, there will the lost be sought and found. Japan, no longer a morose hermit, is now in the brotherhood of nations, and her ships also steam or sail in every sea, for rescue, as well as for trade and defense. Thrusting in the Sickel XXIII Thrusting in the Sickle 4 T last, in 1878, the theological seminary in ZA Dr. Brown's own house moved to 1 VTokio, and with other schools and stu- dents, the latter as many as the letters of the alphabet, and under the council of three united missions, became the Meiji Gaku-in, or Hall of Learning of the Era of Meiji. One-half of the whole number of the young men, and these the most advanced, came from the school in Dr. Brown's house, which, since Dr. Brown had come under the Bible Society in part for support, was under the care of the two y^oung ladies. Miss Hattie Brown and her cousin Miss Winn, Dr. Brown continuing his instruction in Greek. While he was absent on the voyage to the Malay Archipelago, these thirteen students were wholly under the young ladies' care. They passed a wonderful examination in English, history, geol- ogy, algebra, and geometry. " I have taught more than forty-five years," wrote the doctor, " and I assure you I never saw students do themselves more credit than these Japanese did, and all in a foreign tongue." At the end of 1902, twenty-four years after 297 298 A Maker of the New Orient this declaration, it is very clear that there is no partiality or exaggeration in his judgment, fot Dr. Brown's pupils are still among the most scholarly pastors in Japan. They have stood firm amid every wind and wave of doctrine, re- sisted the corrosion of " nationalism," and, amid the withering influence of fads of all sorts, are standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ made them free. They have illustrated the truth that the passion for righteousness will take pos- session of the Christian teacher's pupils in pro- portion as his own scholarship is genuine and deep. Happily all the Christians of the Reformed churches holding the Presbyterial form of gov- ernment, of every name and from every country, both native and foreign, had October i, 1872, formed the United Church of Jesus Christ in Japan, and with fourteen native churches in the Chiu-kwai (Classis or Presbytery), were working with zeal and harmony. There came a call for a preacher to go to Annaka, Neesima's birth- place, sixty-five miles from Tokio. The transla- tion committee was at i Corinthians, chapter 15, and hoped in a year to complete the New Testament. Dr. Brown foresaw that the new theological school must soon run out, unless preparatory schools were formed as feeders. " Dry up the stream and the mill must stop.'* Dr. Brown was one of the happy men who did not die " before the sight " of the white harvest. Thrusting in the Sickle 299 Indeed he saw some of " the full corn in the ear," on the 3d of April, 1878, at the second semi-annual meeting of the Classis, or Presby- tery, in Tokio. It was held in the church of which Rev. David Thompson was pastor. There twelve elders answered to the roll, besides three Japanese acting pastors, sixteen missionaries, and four evangelists, or thirty-two in all. Dr. Brown was elected president of this meeting. The proceedings were in Japanese, but as de- liberative assemblages were a novelty in Japan, the terms for parliamentary forms and usages had not as yet been definitely settled. Never- theless here began that familiarity with the pro- ceedings of serious deliberative bodies which has given the Christians of Japan such dispro- portionately large membership and influence in the local assemblies and in the Imperial Diet. The American missionaries have been one of the most potent of forces in Japan in steadily build- ing up representative institutions, and in educa- ting the nation to constitutional government. No fewer than thirteen young men appeared to be examined and licensed to preach the gos- pel. Six of these had been pupils in the mission school held in Dr. Brown's house in Yokohama. The examination occupied nearly the whole day, before a large audience of Japanese deeply inter- ested in listening to questions and answers. "To the missionaries," wrote Dr. Brown, " it was a scene such as had never been witnessed before 300 A Maker of the New Orient in this country, and it elicited whispered expres- sions of admiration and gratitude. . . What a contrast to the condition of things in Yedo nine- teen years before, when it was unsafe to walk in the streets of the city even by daylight without an armed guard, when it was a capital crime not only to be a Christian, but even to harbor one, and when words peculiar to the vocabulary of Christians were banned under severe penalties." Then there was not one Protestant believer or preacher in the country. Now with the gospel free, churches in operation, and thirteen well- educated young men publicly offering them- selves to be preachers of the good news of God, how could the veteran toiler properly express his emotions? He wrote: " Words can poorly describe the wonder and gratitude which filled my soul as I looked upon this scene, for God had in his mercy permitted me to be an observer of the great changes which his hand has wrought here from the beginning until now." Of thirteen churches, with a total roll of 807 members, the mother church in Yokohama had the largest, 186, and that at Na- gasaki the smallest number, 13. The money raised for religious purposes in one year was $490. There had been 145 baptisms since Octo- ber I, 1887. Dr. Brown noticed that there were two or there singing meetings, which promised much for the future. The gatherings lasted Thrusting in the Sickle 301 three days and a half, and at the public meetings native brethren made addresses. A committee on praise was appointed to prepare a selection of hymns and chants for the use of the churches. A memorial from Rev. Henry Stout at Nagasaki was read, calling on the Japanese to carry the gospel to Korea. Dr. Brown heartily seconded the idea. " The Japanese Church must be a missionary church for its own sake, as well as for the salvation " of the Koreans. A Japanese merchant from Korea told of the state of affairs in the peninsula and said that if he could " go there again, he would gladly shoulder a tem- bimho [a carrying pole used by coolies or ped- dlers] and push his way into the Korean vil- lages" to tell the people of Christ. The lovely month of June, 1879, found Dr. Brown in Tokio, the capital, for quiet and retire- ment with Professor William A. Houghton and his wife of New Haven. They were very kind to him. *' As attentive to me," he wrote, *' as if I had been their father. A Dutch doctor at- tends my case and Dr. Simmons has me in hand in Yokohama." The trouble was a painful one of the bladder, and unfitted the translator for work. He had been unable to be at church since the 2d of last February, because unable to sit still through a service. " It is an old man's disease, and therefore the more difficult to cure. On the i6th of this month I shall have completed my sixtieth year. . . Now I feel that 302 A Maker of the New Orient unless I have recourse from entire rest and change of cHmate and scene, there is little or no hope of renewing my health." What should he do? Respond to the call of his classmates and be home for the forty-eighth anniversary of graduation from Yale College, with a nearly completed translation of the New Testament? Only the last two chapters of Revelation remained to be done into Japanese. What noble, what conquering patience! Contrast the spirit and method of Dr. Brown with that of the uncultured missionary con- sumed with earth-born zeal, which he mistakes for heavenly inspiration, and who refuses the hard work necessary to learn the language or literature of the people he expects to convert. For thirteen years Robbins Brown toiled as in a mine unseen, while all the time his spiritual vision became clearer, his ideals deepened and clarified, until there was a native church. For twenty years he wrought to master the lan- guage, until the New Testament was done into Japanese. Now, with native preachers of the good news of God, ready to distribute to their countrymen the heavenly treasure of truth, he saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied, ascribing all glory to God. On June 26, 1879, two surgeons examined the worn-out soldier of Christ and pointed out the cause of his distress, deciding that perfect rest and change of scene were needed, and perhaps Thrusting in the Sickle 303 specialists in Philadelphia could help him. He would go home by the Pacific mail steamer. The veteran's work in Japan was done. In his last days before leaving the country and the people he loved, his nephew, Rev. T. C. Winn, was much with him. As Dr. Brown talked over his experiences he used to often say, " If I had a hundred lives, I would give them all for Japan." Such was his devotion to the land and people to whom he had given his best days and consecrated his ripest powers. Last Home Coming XXIV Last Home Coming THE story of the sunny missionary is now of a short walk on the westerly slope of life. On first arrival on the home soil he was restless and unsatisfied, until he had seen Monson and knelt at his mother's grave. We find him at Hartford, October i, 1879, and during the winter at Orange, N. J. In the spring he spent a night at New Haven with his old friend, now professor of Chinese at Yale, Dr. S. Wells Williams. In his haste to catch a street car, he walked too fast, and suflfered bad results next day. At the request of one of his old Chinese pupils in Shanghai he went to Clin- ton, Conn., to see his son, to give him some help- ful advice. While at the station, talking to the lad, he fell unconscious. He had to spend Sun- day at Clinton, but recovered and came on to Albany. Here he wrote June i, 1880, that he had taken a house here for two years from the 1st of May, and had furnished it. His health was feeble and it was hard to improve it. He was unable to supply pulpits or do any work requiring physical activity. " I am shelved at present, perhaps permanently, but the Lord will 307 3o8 A Maker of the New Orient provide, I doubt not, as he has done hitherto for me and mine." During January and February, 1880, the teacher in three empires visited Washington, D. C, as the guest of his friend Dr. Yung Wing, now secretary of the Chinese Legation. What a wonderful change had come over the old Middle Kingdom! Whereas China for- merly knew or cared neither for her own subjects beyond her frontier, nor for foreign nations, she now guarded her own people's rights, had lega- tions and consulates, and no fewer than 120 Chinese lads were receiving education in the United States. It seemed astounding that the Peking government should do so liberal a thing as to appropriate $1,500,000, erect a $50,000 house in Hartford, and at an expense of $100,000 a year send six score Chinese youth to America to be educated in New England, but it was so. It was Samuel Robbins Brown that first inspired the Chinese youth to come to the United States to receive an education, and it was he who first brought three of them to his own home. In- deed he did the same work in Japan. It was Yung Wing, A. M., LL. D., graduate of Yale College, however, who was the mediate influence. He had been eminent in his class in English composition, mathematics, and mental philosophy. Under the elms of New Haven he was tempted to stay in the United States, and win money and position, but conscience and the Last Home Coming 309 Word of God spoke to him in this wise: "If any man provide not for the things of his own, he hath denied the faith." Forthwith he re- turned to China. It was uphill work attempt- ing reform. He tried many positions, British, American, and Chinese, but left them when he found he could not advance his purpose of get- ting Chinese young men educated abroad. He went into business and amassed wealth. Finally summoned before a viceroy, he pleased that statesman by making the astonishing statement that he could not be a general, nor could he take the position or salary belonging to a military officer. He was sent to Europe to buy arms and machinery, and did his work well. Re- turning to China he pressed his suit and won over to his point of view two mandarins in high office, and despite delays, through a period of mourning and the Tientsin massacre, succeeded. In August, 1871, the appropriation of five hun- dred thousand dollars was made. Shortly after this, at Yokohama, I met Yung Wing and accompanied him to the deck of the steamer. We chatted for an hour over educa- tion in Japan and China and the prospects of the new Orient. He was as happy as a boy, and radiant with hope for his country. He used English with a grace and fluency that might be expected of a prize-winner at Yale. Afterwards, in 1875, I saw some of the Chinese lads at their studies. They spent two months of the year at 3IO A Maker of the New Orient Hartford, keeping up under severe and strict Chinese teachers their own vernacular, penman- ship, and book language. Although reactionary influences in Peking pre- vailed and the Chinese lads were recalled, yet many of them gave a good account of themselves and have made good records. One is the new Chinese ambassador in Washington appointed in July, 1902. Yung Wing afterwards fell into disfavor with the Peking mandarins, but during the war with Japan was sent to Europe on an important mis- sion. Again, in 1901, the reactionaries who hate all progress made trouble for him, but he es- caped their clutches, and in 1902 came back to his home in Hartford. Nevertheless, as precedents rule the day in China, the seed-idea of educating native youth abroad has fallen into hopeful ground and fruit has ripened. There are now in 1902 over one thousand Chinese students in Japan, Europe, and America. While in Washington, Dr. Brown had his photograph taken. It represents him as a sunny white-haired old man, benignant and kind, his whole mien suggesting readiness to listen in order to help. One of his nieces, writing in 1901, says, *' I have never seen so beautiful an old age, so perfect a ripening of character. In him we could all see that '* ' Last of life for which the first was made,* Last Home Coming 311 as Browning puts it, in his * Rabbi Ben Ezra/ To be with him during his last days was to stand in the glow of a light from the very throne of God.'' An Albany newspaper reporter, who inter- viewed Dr. Brown as to Chinese gratitude, said of the old pioneer: ** His is one of the most intellectual faces it is possible to meet with, and his snow-white hair gives him a venerable appearance that is pleas- ant to look upon, while his clear, mild voice is one that the listener would never weary in hearing." With what a rush of memories and upwelling of deepest gratitude to God did the veteran translator receive on May 11, a letter from Japan announcing that "A meeting, to com- memorate the completion of the translation of the New Testament into the Japanese language, will be held in the Rev. D. Thompson's church Shin Sakaye Bashi, Tokio, on Monday next, April 19, at 3.30 p. m. Rev. Dr. Verbeck will preside and addresses will be delivered by the chairman. Dr. Hepburn, and the Rev. Mr. Okano." A few days later, from the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church, came to him a letter couched in glowing language, congratulating him on the completion of the New Testament in Japanese. One able to judge by many years of life among the Japanese, using also their language in public 312 A Maker of the New Orient discourse, declared that Dr. Brown's fine taste and discriminating judgment were of great serv- ice in securing so flowing and almost faultless a rendering of the words of Holy Scripture in the musical and rhythmical language of the Japanese. Falling on Sleep XXV Falling on Sleep THE days of the years of the life of the sunny missionary, as numbered by the Father, were neither " few nor evil," yet were not to be three score years and ten. It was a few days short of seventy years when, his earthly voyage ended, he was to drift into the harbor. After twice encompassing the globe, he found euthanasia near his boyhood's home and the resting place of his mother and father. Starting with his wife from Albany, in the month of June, 1880, in order to be present at the reunion of his Yale class, of 1832, at New Haven, he spent a week as the guest of his old friend Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge, Mass., for one week, and arrived at Monson on Friday, June 18, spending the night at the home of his old friend Mrs. Hadassah Thomipson Dewey, who had been from childhood a close friend of the Browns. Her husband, the Rev. Amasa Dewey, then deceased, and Dr. Brown had been class- mates at Monson Academy and roommates at Yale College. On Saturday morning, driving with his wife around the town, he found none of his relatives living in Monson, the late Rev. Dr. Alfred Ely and all the family having died or 315 3i6 A Maker of the New Orient moved away. Again he visited his parents' sleeping place in the cemetery — ^the most hal- lowed spot on earth to him. That evening having retired to bed, " He entered into rest without a struggle, with only a slight change in his breathing, barely sufficient to awaken his wife, soon after midnight. The notice of death occupied only four or five lines in the daily papers, yet two empires had lost one of their chief benefactors." The brother had yielded to " the sister's call." Years before, on the death of his beloved sister. Dr. Brown had given utterance to the haunting feelings that possessed him, and setting his own verses to his own music, sang with a pathos never to be forgotten, the poem which we here trans- THE SISTER'S CALL. " A voice from the spirit land, A voice from the silent tomb, Entreats with a sweet command, • Brother, come home! ' List, list! 'Tis a sister gone; Unseen, yet where'er I roam, She calls from her starlit throne, ' Brother, come home! * '• At eve, when the crimson west Is dyed by the setting sun, She calls like a spirit blest, • Brother, come home! ' Abroad in the stilly night, A stranger and all alone, I hear through the misty light, • Brother, come home! * O d CO > a Falling on Sleep 317 •' In dreams of the midnight deep, When angels of mercy come, I startle to hear in sleep, ' Brother, come home!' When far from my father's hearth I sail o'er the white sea foam, I hear through the storm wind's mirth, • Brother, come home ! ' •* By sorrow and sin oppressed, She answers to every moan, * Come here where the weary rest; Brother, come home ! ' Ah! loved one, I haste to thee; Soon, soon shall I reach thy home. And there wilt thou welcome me. I come, I come." Mr. E. F. Morris of Monson recalls the bright June day in 1880 when he last saw Dr. Brown. The white-haired veteran had arrived that morning and was taking a drive with his wife amid the old familiar scenes. On the fol- lowing morning, the Sabbath, word came that the sunny missionary had passed away during the night. Having often expressed a longing to rest with his mother in his last sleep, he had unwittingly come to his boyhood's home to die within a few rods of her grave. Dr. J. H. Twitchell of Hartford writes, "I attended his funeral and walked from the church where the service was held, to the burying ground, with S. Wells Williams, his old com- rade. Dr. Williams' strange talk, as we went along, I never shall forget — it was pitched to so 31 8 A Maker of the New Orient high a key of exultation. He spoke of how un- profitable a use — in most men's eyes — Dr. Brown had made of his life and powers ; of what he had sacrificed, etc. He exclaimed again and again, * He shall not be ashamed of it ' — glancing side- wise at the hearse as if he wanted Dr. Brown to hear. He seemed also to be speaking for him- self. He fell into further reminiscence, and fling- ing out his hand to the eastward where a long range of hills lies against the sky, Dr. W. said, * And when the plan of God for these great Eastern nations is fully unrolled, Robbins Brown will not be ashamed.' " The memory of the pioneer and his wife is still as green as the grass after a rain at Owasco Outlet. Besides the year 1868, which Dr. Brown spent there, it was hoped that when the twenty- fifth anniversary of the dedication of the new building was to be enjoyed, on the 27th of July, 1880, Dr. Brown would be present. Yet, though the anniversary came, it was turned into a me- morial service, for he who had been twice pastor was a guest in the House of Eternity. Concerning his chief work, the translation of the New Testament into the Japanese, Dr. Henry Stout writes in 1901 : "If the length of time during which this first translation has been the accepted standard version by all classes in Japan — sorme portions for nearly thirty years and the whole book over twenty — be a test of excel- lence, then that translation must have been the Falling on Sleep 319 product of careful, conscientious scholarship. As the work went on his health failed. He prayed that he might live to see it completed, and to ac- complish this seemed to be the first ambition of his last days. He had the satisfaction of seeing the New Testament complete in print. In a very happy event occurring on the Perry treaty ground at Yokohama March 11, 1881, the name and memory of Dr. Brown were recalled. The King of Hawaii was welcomed in the Japa- nese Christian Church at Yokohama, to express their thanks to the Christians of Hawaii for the gift of one thousand dollars to build the first native chapel in Japan. His Majesty was met at the station by Dr. T. W. Gulick, and in the church the words, Aloha, the Christian saluta- tion meaning, " love be to thee," thrilled the members of the royal party. It was the ninth anniversary of the organization of the First Christian Church in Japan. The church edifice, dedicated to the worship of God July 10, 1875, on Lot 167, had stood six years. The Rev. Okuno Masatsuna, the poet and hymn-writer, made an address which was rendered into English by the Rev. Ibuka Kachinoske, one of the five pupils of Dr. Brown who became presidents of Christian colleges in Japan. Mr. Ibuka ren- dered also his Majesty's address in English into Japanese for the benefit of the native Christians. The Hon. Shimada Saburo, editor, historian. 320 A Maker of the New Orient critic, and reformer, writing from Tokio June 30, 1901, of the sending of Perry to wake up the Japanese nation from its long sleep, and of the arrival later of missionaries to open the spiritual eyes of his people, declares that the antipathy and skepticism which the Japanese had against the political policies of the foreign Powers was removed " by the humane and warm sympathies of these missionaries toward the hermit nation." He shows that it took many years to make the Japanese see that " the religion of Jesus is not so wicked as they fancied before." When, in 1873, he came to Yokohama to study English, Dr. Brown said to him, " If you want to study English for the purpose of becoming the pastor of a church, you need not pay any tuition ; but if simply to study English you should pay for it." Mr. Saburo was deeply impressed with Brown's kindness and noble-heartedness, and is deeply grateful for what he received from him. Another student tells how he and his fellow supported students declined at a certain period to receive any further assistance and determined on self-support. Dr. Brown at first thought this proposal sprung from their inexperience and thoughtlessness. " Yet, after knowing our hearts more fully in the matter, he granted our request. His pure and noble character had an unspeakable influence over us." Dr. Brown thought no people were as grateful as the Chinese, and often spoke of the Japanese Falling on Sleep 321 as those who knew and practiced the virtue of grateful appreciation. One who has long been among the Japanese writes : " Foreigners in the East sometimes speak of the * natives ' as * ungrateful,' but expressions used long after his death by Japanese who had been Dr. Brown's pupils taught me differently. They felt they had received real benefit from him, and his memory was precious to them. No teacher can ask a higher reward, and this was Dr. Brown's in no stinted measure. His spirit and his scholarly ideals are incarnate in some of the Japanese who have been most successful in the establishment of the Church, men who are still leaders of their countrymen." During the great revival of 1902 the name of Samuel Robbins Brown was often mentioned in Japan. For the time being, during this Taikyo Dendo Undo, or Great United Evangelistic Movement, sectional lines were obliterated, and tens of thousands of Japanese made earnest in- quiry concerning Christ and his religion. One of the happiest omens for the future unity of Christ's Church in Japan has been the blessing bestowed upon this great undenominational and truly union effort of evangelism. One of Dr. Brown's most faithful comrades, writing in the perspective of long years in 1902, declared that three striking characteristics of Dr. Brown's were, first, his tenderness of heart at 32 2 A Maker of the New Orient mention of the Saviour's name, often bringing tears to his eyes ; second, his real missionary zeal — it was enthusiasm; third, his ardent beUef in the imminence of our Lord's second coming. It: the old hymn book so long used by mother and son, the three places most used are those of hymns in adoration of the Trinity, praise in Christ, and hymns of the resurrection. His favorite was " It is not death to die." Dr. Brown's soul was not " like a star and dwelt apart." His was rather like abundant sunshine that made things grow. He raised up disciples. He was not an Elijah, but an Elisha. " Nothing," says Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott, *' perhaps is more remarkable in religious history than the strange inability of the greatest teacher who works through his own individuality alone to produce in others, however devoted to him, the image of his own life." The bishop's words have been illustrated in the missionary history of Japan, but not in the career of Samuel R. Brown. In this twentieth century Japanese presidents of colleges, editors, pastors, translators, authors, statesmen, men of affairs, and leaders in com- merce and literature by the score are " images of his own life/' while in three countries hundreds acknowledged gladly the inspiration gained under their teacher. " Then in such hour of need Of your fainting, dispirited race, Ye, like angels, appear, Radiant with ardor divine! Beacons of hope, ye appear! Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your word. Weariness not on your brow. Ye alight in our van ! at your voice. Panic, despair, flee away, Ye move through the ranks, recall The stragglers, refresh the outworn, Praise, re-inspire the brave! Order, courage, return. Eyes rekindling, and prayers. Follow your steps as ye go. Ye fill up the gaps in our files. Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march, On, to the bound of the waste, On, to the City of God." —" Rugby Chapel,'' Matthew Arnold. Index Abeel, Rev. David, 64, 70 Adrian, Miss Caroline, 119, 120 Alabama, Confederate cruiser, 180, 189 Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 177 Alert, U. S. S. S., 283-291 Allen Street Church, 53, 63 Amboynia, 288 American Board, C. F. M., 17, 58, 269 American commerce with China, 100 American Mission Home, 249 American missionaries in Japan, 241, 269, 299 Amherst College, 36 Amoy, 142 Ando Taro, Hon., 207, 208 Anjer, Java, 139 Arai Hakus^ki, 261 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 323 Asakusa, 155, 156 Asiatic Society of Japan, 245, 267 Auburn, N. Y,. 121, 214 Auburn Theological Seminary, 121, 131 " Ballagh, Harold," 275-277 Ballagh, Rev. J. H., 238 Ballagh, Mrs. J. H., 171, 176, 249, 267 Barker, Admiral, 284, 290 Bartlett, Rev. Shuabel, 18, 64 Benjamin, Mr. Simeon, 129 Berry, Dr., 244, 271 Bible, 172, 250, 271, 302, 311 Bible Society, 297 3*5 326 Index Bissell, Col., loi Bonin Islands, 285 Boone, Bishop, 51 Boston, 50 "Boxers," 189 Bridgman, Dr., 58, 61 Brimfield, Mass., 35-41 British and Americans, 15, 46, 94 British missionaries, 94 Brown, Rev, Nathan, 275 Brown, Phoebe Hinsdale, 15-20, 122, 127 Brown, S. R., ancestry, 15 ; birth, 16 ; education, 28- 31, 42-53 ; school-teaching, 32-41 ; college life, 45-49; teaching deaf-mutes, 49, 50, 52 ; theology, 50-54 ; marriage, 62 ; at Canton, 70, 91 ; at Macao, 71-81 5 at Hong Kong, 85-104 ; wounded, 98-100 ; love of music, 38-41, 93-122 ; returns to America, 107, 108 ; at Rome, N. Y., 110-113 ; pastor at Owasco Outlet, 1 1 7-124 ; builds new church, 119 ; his mechanical skill, 121 ; love of fun, 139, 277 ; helps to start Elmira College, 127-130 ; offers to go to Japan, 138 ; voyage thither, 139-142 ; arrival at Kanagawa, 148 ; Chaplain U. S. Legation, 152 ; in Yedo, 154-158 ; his ideal of a missionary, 162, 204, 251 ; plans the British consular chapel, 175 ; catholic spirit, 176, 177, 241-243 ; learns photography, 179, 180 ; removes from Kanagawa, 182 ; house in Yokohama, 191 ; as teacher, 104, 207- 209, 280 ; fire in house, 213 ; in U. S. again, 213-216 ; to and in Niigata, 220-228 ; appointed U. S. consular agent, 227 ; habits, 228, 229 ; translator, 318 ; in Tokio, 258, 299 ; his pupils in China, 291-294 ; in Japan, 267-271, 298, 322 ; health fails, 271 ; picture of translators, 276-278 ; voyage in Alert, 283-291 ; in China again, 291-294 ; in America, 307 ; decease, 316; summary of work and character, 322 Brown, Miss Hattie, 241, 285, 297 Brown, Mrs. S. R., 8, 62, 66, 96, 102, 104, 123 Index 327 Brown, Timothy H., 16,18, 21, 25, 97, 122 Browning, quoted, 133, 311 Bushido, 153, 265 Canton, 70, 91 Chalmers, Rev. Dr., 286 China, 20, 69-72, 310 Chinese art, 293, 294 Chinese education in America, 26, 308, 310 Chinese in America, 236 Chinese language, 66, 74, 75, 76, 144, 271 Chinese Repository, 61, 100 Christianity in Japan, 215, 248, 252, 260, 261, 268-271, 300 Clark, Rev. E. W., 261 Classis of Cayuga, iiS, 123, 138 " Colloquial Japanese," 167 Colton, Rev. Simeon, 28 Columbia, S. C, 51 Constitution of the U. S., 203 Contest, ship, 189 Cornell University, 132 Deliberative assemblages, 299 De Long, Hon. Chas. E., 236, 237 Dewey, Admiral, 291 Dewey, Rev. Amasa, 47, 315 Domine, Reformed Church pastor, 117 Dominie, schoolmaster, 117 Door, Gen., 149, 153 Dutch, 139, 188, 201, 274, 287, 288 Early rising, 48 Earthquakes, 149 Echizen, 189, 204 Education in China, 57-61, 71-80, 87-93 Ellington, 18 Elliot, Dr., 250 Elmira College, 127-130 English missionaries, 94, 102 328 Index Forty-seven Renins, 197 Freeman, Edward A., 193 Fujisan, 237 Fujiu, Rev. I. K., 268 Gage, Hon. Lyman J., iii Geology, 112 Gettysburg, 118 Gongs, 109 Gratitude, 19, 294, 321 Greene, Rev. D. C, 266 Griffis, Miss M. C, 231 Guam, 285 Gutzlaff, 71, 141 Hall, Mr. Frank, 143, 176 Happer, Dr., 102 Hara-kiri, 196, 197 Harris, Townsend, 152, 154, 157 Hartranft, Rev. C. D., 215 Hawaii, 319 Hearn, Lafcadio, 192 Hepburn, Dr. J. C, 87, 147, 151, 176, 202, 257, 267, 311 Heusken, Mr,, 157, 258 Hequemborg, Miss, 260 Hickory, 46 Hizakurige, 153 Honda, Rev. Dr., 279 Hong Kong, 85-87, 141, 291 Hopkins, Prof. S. M., 119 Hymns, 18, 19, 38 Ibuka, Rev. K., 209, a6&, 319 Inland Sea, 163 Ithaca, N. Y., 180 Iroquois nations, 112, 128 Ito, Marquis, 49, 194, 235 Index 329 Jamestown y U. S. S. S., 194 Japan, 20, 65, 71 Japan Evangelist, 268, 271, 280 Japanese characteristics, 162, 173, 178, 189, 191, 235 Japanese language, 144, 251 Jujitsu, 41 Kanagawa, 147-151, 180 Kidder, Miss Mary (Mrs. E. R. Miller), lao, 217, 228, 251 King, Mr. and Mrs., 65, 94 Korea, 2, 20 Krakatoa, 139 Lake region of New York, 112, 128, 131 Latin language, 29, 30, 117 Legge, Dr. James, 87 Lockhart, Dr. Wm., 70, 91 Lord, Rev. Dr., 64 Lowder, Mr. J. C, 216 Macao, 70, 72, 291 Maclay, Rev. Dr., 47 Macy, Rev. Wm. A., 102, 104 Mariana Islands, 286 Martin, E. Throop, 117 Martin, Dr. W. A. P., 172, 254, 292 McCartee, Dr. D. B., 85, 87, 98 McDougal, Captain, 180, 184 Merchants, 52, 53, 58 Merrick, Rev. James Lyman, 28 Mikado, 121 Miller, Rev. E. R., 120 Monson, 20, 22-28, 108, 206, 311 Morrison Education Society, 58-63, 72-77, 87, 90, 102-104 Morrison, Rev. Robert, j8 Morrison Hill, 85, 95, 98, 291 Morrison, ship, 61, 65, 66, 257 Motley, J. L., 274 330 Index Music, 93, 122, 154, 301 Music in China, 267 Nagasaki, 20, 259 Nakamura Masanao, 261 Neesima, 215, 221, 222, 225-229, 298 New Brunswick, N. J., 27, 206 New Haven, 41, 42, 49, 244 Newtown, N. Y., 128 New Year's Day, 112 Nevius, Rev. John, 166 New Guinea, 286 Niigata, 216, 225-230, 278 Okuno, Masatsuna, Rev., 252-254, 255-257, 311 Olyphant, Mr. D. W. C, 61, 62 Opium, 71, 78 Oshikawa, Rev. M., 278, 280 Owasco Outlet, 117-124, 214, 318 Parkes, Sir Harry, 71, 91, 201, 205 Peiho forts, 141, 142 Perry, Comodore M. C, 93 Philippine Islands, 289-291 Photography, 179, 180, 239, 240 Pilgrims, The, 130 Pirates, 98-100 Pottinger, Sir Henry, 86, 91 Pruyn, Hon. R. H., 182 Reed, Commodore, 70 Reformed Church in America, 117-124, 138, 175, 259, 311 Rome Academy, 110-113 Roosevelt, President, 51 Rutgers College, 206, 213 Sabbath, 27 Sailors, 187, 188 Index 331 Sand Beach Church, 117, 123 Satow, Sir E. M., 165, 166 Satsuma, 206, 265 Seelye, Pres. J. H., 258 Seward, Hon. Wm. H., 121 Shanghai, 167, 292 Shimonoseki, 185, 195 Shimada Saburo, Hon., 319 Sidotti, Pere, 261 Silk culture in America, 81 Simmons, Dr. D. B., 138 Spanish East Indies, 289 Spaniards in the Philippines, 289-291 Springside, 117, 123 Stout, Dr. Henry, 132, 241, 301, 318 Sullivan's Expedition of 1779, '28 Sunda Straits, 139 Surprise, ship, 80, 138 Syle, Rev. E. W., 141, 242, 258 Tatnall, Commodore, 141, 149 Theological instruction, 197, 299 Thompson, Rev. David, 311 Tientsin, 141, 309 Tokio, 258, 299 "Tommy," 190 Twitchell, Rev. Joseph, 213, 317 Union Church, Yokohama, 177, 239 Union Church in Tokio, 258 Union Theological Seminary, N. Y,, 52, 53, 57 United Church of Christ in Japan, 270, 298 Vassar College, 130 Veeder, P. V., 38, 258 Verbeck, Dr. G. P., 120, 138, T43, 230, 311 Verbeck, Mrs. G. P., 120 332 Index Wales, Mass., 37-41 Washing clothes in China, 97 Winn, Miss, 296 Winn, Rev. T. C, 303 Wood, Chaplain, 177 Williams, Dr. S. Wells, 60, 69, 141, 257, 311, 317 Women's education and colleges, 20, 127-131, 231 Wong, Dr., 108, 142 IVyoming, U. S, S. S., 180-185, 206 Yale College, 45-49, 302, 315 Yedo, 154-157, 172, 300 " Yokohama Band," Yokahama, 147, 188, 217, 268, 299 Yoshitsune, 187 Yung Wing, Dr., 99, 104, 108, 121, 143, 308-310 Zempukuji, 154, 225 Zenkoji Temple, 225 RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 • 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF • Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW OCT 1 1999 12,000(11/95) I LD21-100m-7,'40 (69368) CDE2fl7bS^D 30244? 3^'^ - y UNIVERSITY OF CAJ.IFORNIA l^IBRARY