Kanamori's Life-story told by himself [microform] ; how the higher criticism wrecked a Japanese Christian-and how he came back

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Kanamori's

*'

Life-Story

Told by Himself

How the Higher Criticism wrecked

a Japanese Christian and

how he came back

Introduction by
J. Ross Stevenson, D.D., LL.D.

Philadelphia
The Sunday School Times Company

X

Copyright, 1921, by
The Sunday School Times Company

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

896705

CONTENTS

1 PAGE

THE SERVANT SENT

II
THE SERVANT DISOBEDIENT .......... 34

III
THE SERVANT RESTORED. ..... ..^. ...,., 68

IV
THE SERVANT REAPING ---- . .-. . . . .-. . . 84

V
SOWING IN THE EVENING ............ 103

INTRODUCTION

A LARGE number of Christian students
in this and other lands have adopted
as their watch-word "The Evangelization of
the World in this Generation." They thus
express their conviction that the apostolic
Gospel is the power of God unto salvation,
that it is intended to meet the world's great-
est need, and that the chief business of a
Christian disciple is to make this Gospel
everywhere known, and thus best serve his
day and generation.

Students who have come under the power
of a science that is largely materialistic and
of a philosophy which has no place for the
supernatural regard this evangelistic pro-
gram as being antiquated and narrow, and,
contemplating man as a mere creature of
circumstance, they maintain that the great
objective of the Church should be to im-
prove external conditions, to uplift the
whole social order by education and by every
advantage of an improved environment.
To such, even though they may commend

5

6 Introduction

in a general way a kind of social evangelism,
the preaching of the apostolic Gospel is for
the most part foolishness, and they show
little if any interest in bringing unbelievers
to an acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour
and Lord.

When one notes the small number of ad-
ditions to the Church on confession of faith,
at home and on the mission field, following
the labor of. a large number of ministers
and Christian workers, he must conclude
that very little is being done in the apostolic
business of winning souls to a personal al-
legiance to Jesus Christ. The main reason
for this is a lack of conviction as to the
Gospel's incomparable value. Our minis-
ters and our churches need to be reminded
in the most forcible way that the living
Christ is at work in the world, and that
through the power of his Spirit he is abun-
dantly able to turn men from darkness to
light and from the power of Satan unto God.

The testimony of Mr. Paul M. Kanamori,
often called the Dwight L. Moody of Japan,
should serve to stimulate faith in the power
of God's Holy Word, in the saving power of
Jesus Christ, God's only Son our Saviour,
in the regenerating power of his Holy Spirit,

Introduction 7

to rescue men from sin and make them
apostles of the Gospel of the grace of God,
The story of Mr. Kanamori's conversion,
of his departure from the fold of Christ,
and his reclamation, is the same old message
of God and sin and salvation wherein lies
the only fundamental hope for a lost world.
This dramatic and appealing biography of a
great modern evangelist should serve as a
warning to any who may be inclined to
abandon the simplicity that is in Christ, and
should prove stimulating to all who are en-
listed in the great enterprises of the King-
dom. For a preacher of the cross to win
fifty thousand disciples for Christ shows
that the days of the apostles are not past,
and proves that the evangelization of the
world in this generation cannot be an idle
dream to one who has experienced the Gos-
pel's power, and is convinced that there is
none other name than that of Christ given
under heaven among men whereby they must
be saved..

J. Ross STEVENSON.

CHAPTER I

THE SERVANT SENT

IN THE year 1852 the Government of the
United States sent an expedition under
Commodore Perry to the Far East. He
came to Japan with four ships, manned by
560 men, and concluded a treaty of com-
merce between the United States and Japan,
thus opening that hermit nation of the Far
East to the light of modern civilization. This
was the dawn of new Japan.

About 1870, an American soldier, Cap-
tain L. L. Janes, came to my country. But
his coming was entirely different from that
of the former one. He was not sent by
the United States Government, but was in-
vited by the Japanese Government to teach
military tactics to her subjects.

In those days Japan was divided into
about three hundred small provinces, each
having its own prince or lord, and each
prince having an army of his own to fight
with other princes. One of these feudal
princes of the southern island, called Kyu-

9

10 Kanamori's Life-Story

shu, was quite an ambitious man. He
schemed to have a strong army, which was
drilled in quite up-to-date, modern military
tactics of the "Western Nations," as the
Japanese called the countries of Europe and
America. For this purpose he engaged Cap-
tain Janes, who was a graduate of the West
Point Military Academy, and a captain in
the Union Army, and was said to have
fought four years in the Civil War, to come
to his province and found a military school.

Meanwhile, this prince had selected about
one hundred boys from among his own
subjects, by a special examination, and put
them into this military school. Thus the
school was started. But soon after this a
great political change took place in Japan,
by which all the feudal lords of the country
restored their territories to the Imperial
Government, the whole country now being
ruled by one supreme head, the Emperor of
Japan, and all the provincial armies were
dispersed. There being no longer any need
of a provincial military school, this one was
changed in character, and became simply an
English school, where Captain Janes taught
for seven years.

In this connection I must tell you how God

The Servant Sent 1 1

in his providence turned this school, origin-
ally intended for the training of military
officers, into a nursery for Christian work-
ers. It was a wonderful providence, indeed,
by which God raised up many "children unto
Abraham" out of these rude stones.

Captain Janes was not a missionary, and
had no connection with any mission board in
America. But he was an earnest Christian,
filled with a strong desire to lead to Christ
those boys who came under his instruction.
His wife, too, who was a daughter of Doctor
Scudder, an early missionary to India, was a
praying woman. I was told by her sister,
and her brother, Dr.Doremus Scudder, when
they came to my country as missionaries long
years after this, how in those early days Mrs.
Janes used to spend many nights in prayer
with tears.

In the beginning Captain Janes could not
talk much about Christianity, because he did
not know the language. He could not speak
Japanese at all. He did not even at-
tempt to learn Japanese. He used English
alone from the very beginning of his teach-
ings. When he taught the alphabet to his
boys he spoke English to them. Nobody
could understand him. He did not employ

12 Kanamori's Life-Story

an interpreter, because he did not like the idea
of having a go-between with his students.
He tried from the first to come into direct
contact with his pupils, and to inspire them
through his own personality. And he did
inspire them. The boys were fascinated and
captivated by his unique personality long
before they were converted to his religious
faith.

In the third year of his teaching, when the
older boys began to understand him and he
could talk with them in English, he began to
talk about Christianity. He could not teach
Christianity in the school. It was not a
mission school, and to teach Christianity was
not his object in coming, but he offered to
teach us the Bible, if we would go to his
house Saturday evenings. And he gave us
several copies of the English Bible. At first,
out of mere curiosity, a few of the older boys
went to read the Bible with him every Satur-
day evening. But the Bible was a strange
book to us, and we could not understand it
at all. Also, Captain Janes had a very pecu-
liar way of teaching the Bible. He did not
explain much, nor argue much with his stu-
dents; but from the very beginning of the
Bible reading he asked us to commit to mem-

The Servant Sent 13

ory certain passages, such as John 1 : 1-18,
and 3 : 1-21, and we did so out of sheer re-
spect for our revered teacher. I have for-
gotten almost everything I heard in his Bible
class, but these Scripture verses still remain
in my memory.

Then in addition to this Bible reading,
Captain Janes began to preach every Sunday
morning in his own parlor. Though he had
no theological training he used to preach fine
sermons, and very long ones, often two or
three hours at a time. It may be that I
learned my three-hour sermon from him.
But as he was an eloquent speaker we were
much impressed by his Sunday morning
preaching. One day when he was preaching
on Paul and his great missionary work, he
suddenly turned to me and said, "What do
you think of this man? Is it not a glorious
thing to imitate such a great man as the
Apostle Paul?" From that time the name
of Paul became a part of my name. Through
his preaching, about a dozen boys of the
school were converted. This was in the
summer of 1875.

After we were converted we became very
much interested in reading the Bible. But
while the school was in session we could not

14 Kanamori's Ufe-Stoiy

get much time for it, because we were so
pressed with our daily lessons. So when the
winter vacation of that year came, a few of
the Christian boys remained in the school,
instead of going back to their own homes to
enjoy the holidays. Our purpose in staying
in the school was to read the Bible and
pray together. During this vacation we
tried to put aside all other books, and to
read the Bible only. In those days we had
no Japanese Bible. We had only the English
Bible, which our teacher gave us. We had
no commentaries to explain the difficult pas-
sages, nor a Bible dictionary to consult. But
we spent the whole time of this vacation in
reading the plain English Bible. We read
mostly the Four Gospels, the Acts of the
Apostles, and the Epistles to the Romans. I
remember how we enjoyed this Bible read-
ing. We almost devoured the Book, just as
young people nowadays devour their sensa-
tional novels.

This Bible reading was the preparation
for a powerful revival which soon broke out
in that school. This was the first revival in
modern Japan, or rather it should be called
the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, be-
cause there was nothing yet to revive. We

The Servant Sent 15

did not know that it was a revival of reli-
gion. We had neither heard nor read of
such things. We had not seen a single
missionary. No missionary had ever vis-
ited that part of the country. We were so
ignorant of the Christian world outside of
us that we did not even know the modern
institution of church and pastor. We did
not know that the minister who preaches the
Gospel can be supported by the church. We
thought if we were going to preach the Gos-
pel we must do as Paul did, working with
our own hands and preaching the Gospel.
All we knew were Bible truths and Bible
personages. We knew Jesus Christ and how
he died upon the cross for us. We knew
Paul and Peter and John and James, and
how they were filled with the Holy Spirit
and what mighty works they did. And we
boys simply tried to imitate those great
apostles.

Without knowing that it was a revival of
religion, we had it, and that, too, a powerful
one. It happened on this wise. When the
winter vacation was over, all the boys re-
turned to school. These boys were quite
young. I was one of the oldest among them,
and I was only eighteen. When the younger

16 Kanamori's Life-Story

boys returned to the school, we older boys
who had read the Bible during vacation were
now so full of it that we could not help
talking about it to these younger students.
These students now became very much in-
terested in hearing Bible stories, and they
also began to read the Bible themselves. So
we formed Bible classes and taught them.
The whole school was thrown into such a
fever of Bible reading that, although the
new term had already commenced, the school
could not resume its ordinary work because
nobody cared to read any other book but the
Bible, Bible, Bible. Everybody was reading
the Bible, and everywhere Bible classes were
going on. Consequently, for the whole of
the first week of the term the regular studies
were suspended, and the school was given
over to Bible reading. We thought at one
time that the whole school of one hundred
boys was going to be converted at once.
Conversion after conversion occurred.
There was a boy about fifteen years of age
who preached so powerfully among his fel-
low-students that as a result many were con-
verted.

The revival did not confine itself within
the school walls. We were not satisfied with

The Servant Sent 17

the conversion of the schoolboys alone. We
went out of the school, preaching the Gospel
in our own homes, to our parents, relatives,
and friends. We even went to our former
Confucian teachers, and told them the new
truths we had learned from the Bible. We
were all Confucianists, and brought up in
the Confucian school before we entered
Captain Janes' school. There were quite
often very hot discussions between those old
teachers and the newly converted Christian
boys. But always these boys were able to
confound those old Confucian scholars. As
they could not withstand nor gainsay these
boys' arguments, they were enraged at them.
One day I called on my old Confucian
teacher, who loved me as dearly as one of his
own sons, and I was also very much attached
to him; but as I told him the new truths
which I had learned from the Bible there
arose a hot discussion between us. When he
saw that I would not obey his command to
renounce the Christian faith, he was greatly
enraged, and said, "You must never come
back again to my house to see me."

I was almost driven out of his house, and
I did not see him again before his death.
But I am happy to tell you that not long

18 Kanamori's Ufe-Story

after his death his widow became a Chris-
tian, and one of his grandsons is now the
pastor of a Christian church.

In the midst of such a sweeping revival a
great enemy appeared. Persecution broke
out, not by the government, but by the fami-
lies, parents, relatives, and friends of the
young converts. At the instigation of the
Confucian teachers, the parents and relatives
tried to persuade their boys to renounce
their Christian faith, and to return to the
Confucian teaching.

You know that the first missionaries in
Japan were Roman Catholics, sent about
five hundred years ago, but the Japanese
Government, as well as the people, had for
many centuries bitterly persecuted these Ro-
man Catholics. Any one who professed to
be Christian was in danger of bringing cap-
ital punishment upon himself and his family.
People looked upon Christians as traitors to
the country, and feared that they would be-
come the tools of the foreign nations repre-
sented by the missionaries. So the Chris-
tians were looked upon by the country at
large as very detestable people, dangerous to
the safety of the country.

I remember that when I was a little boy

The Servant Sent 19

we used to see the Government's notice
boards set up everywhere with this state-
ment: "The belief in the evil religion of
Jesus is strictly forbidden by order." In
some places, sometimes, the following state-
ment was added : "If any one knowing a be-
liever in this religion of Jesus will inform
the authorities, he shall be rewarded by the
Government." These rewards were given
in money.

My grandfather was an officer of some
position in our provincial government. At
one time he was appointed chief officer over
a large district. It was the duty of such of-
ficials to examine the religion of the people
over whom they were placed. For this pur-
pose he used to call all the people of his dis-
trict once a year to his official residence.
The day of such a gathering was counted
among the great days of the year. It was
called the "Feast of Picture Trampling." I
remember my grandfather had a small iron
crucifix, such as the Roman Catholic priests
carry with them. This crucifix was put in a
small box, which was covered with an iron
grating, so that the figure within might be
seen from the outside, and this box was
placed in a small hole dug for the purpose, in

20 Kanamori's Life-Story

the middle of a large courtyard, where
usually the criminals were examined. Then
the people were called in, one by one, by
name, in the presence of the Government
officers, all dressed in their official robes,
with swords and spears to guard against
emergencies. The people of each township,
headed by the mayor, were called in by them-
selves, and when they came to the place
where the box was placed they trampled upon
it and passed on. To this feast all people,
men and women and even children, were
ordered to come. When the women came
into the yard, after they themselves had
stepped on the box, they put down their chil-
dren and made their little feet touch the
crucifix, thus testifying that they were not of
this religion. If any one refused to trample
upon the cross he was arrested at once, and
put into prison on the charge of being a
Christian. My grandfather had a prison
in which to put such men.

Once when I was watching those country
folks trampling upon the box I asked my
grandfather, "What is that figure in the box,
on which these people are treading?"

He turned to me and said : "Oh, that is an
unclean worm! if it is not put in that box

The Servant Sent 21

and trampled upon by the people, it will
creep out and do immense mischief to the
country."

This was the first time I came in contact
with the cross of Christ, and I was told that
it was an "unclean worm." And now, only
a little over ten years after those days, I
myself became a Christian. No wonder
that the parents and relatives should be
frightened at the prospect of their boys be-
coming the worshipers of that "unclean
worm." Fortunately, by this time the gov-
ernment which had persecuted Christianity
for so long was overthrown, and the present
Imperial Government came into power, and
there was no danger of persecution coming
from that quarter. But the families tried
in every way to drive out of their boys'
heads what they called "the foolish notion
of believing in an unclean religion''; but it
was too late. Christianity had already taken
such a deep root in our hearts that nothing
could uproot it. The fire once kindled by
heaven cannot be quenched by any earthly
means. Of course there were a few weak
ones among the believing boys, who fell
away from the ranks of believers because of
this persecution,. But there remained about

22 Kanamori's Life-Story

forty boys with the firm determination to
hold on to their new faith, even unto death.

I distinctly recall it now that it was on a
fine Sunday morning, January 30, 1876, the
year after our conversion, that these forty
Christian boys went up a little hill called
Hanaoka, its literal meaning being the
"Mount of Flowers," just outside the city
of Kumamoto, where Captain Janes' school
was located. At the top of the "Mount of
Flowers" there was a big old pine tree spread-
ing out its branches. This pine tree is still
standing there after half a century of the
most eventful life of new Japan. Under this
grand old tree, at the top of the hill, those
forty Christian boys had a service dedicating
themselves to God. First they drew up an
article of dedication, the main meaning of
which, as I remember it now, was as follows ;
"This day we consecrate ourselves to the ser-
vice of Christ, and pledge ourselves to preach
his Gospel throughout the whole empire of
Japan, even though it means death." After
the reading of this article each one signed
his name to it. Then they sang several
hymns.

We had no Japanese hymns as yet. We
knew only the English hymns, which Mrs.

The Servant Sent 23

Janes had taught us to sing. Among them
was that missionary hymn :

"From Greenland's icy mountains,

From India's coral strand,
Where Af ric's sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand,
From many an ancient river,

From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver

Their land from error's chain."

Another was :

"Must Jesus bear the Cross alone,

And all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for every one,
And there's a cross for me."

Our favorite was :

"Jesus, I my cross have taken,

All to leave and follow thee,
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,

Thou from hence my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition,

All I've sought, or hoped, or known,
Yet how rich is my condition,

God and Heaven are still my own !"

This hymn exactly expressed our situation
at the time. Here at the top of the "Mount
of Flowers" we took up our cross, determined
to follow Jesus, even unto death. Here we
forsook all our fond worldly ambitions.
Heretofore we had dreamed of becoming
great men of the world, either statesmen or
soldiers, or business men, perhaps million-
aires. Human nature is the same everywhere.

24 Kanamori's Life-Story

Young people are always dreaming of great
things, but now we had chosen to become
"naked, poor, despised, forsaken," for
Christ's sake. Here we took our firm stand,
and prepared to face a storm of persecution,
which was just bursting upon us, to crush
and overthrow this little band of forty boys.
Then, as the last act of our dedication ser-
vice, I offered a prayer of consecration for
all. Thus armed with power from above
we descended the hill, singing and rejoicing.
This was indeed a bold challenge to the ene-
mies of Christianity.

As soon as the meeting of the Christian
boys at the Mount of Flowers was known
abroad, our persecutors took stronger mea-
sures. Many of the Christian boys were
taken out of the school and imprisoned in
their own homes, or other places, being cut
off entirely from their Christian friends in
the school, and subjected to very severe
treatment, in some cases even to cruelty.

In the home of one of the boys the mother
was so grieved over her son becoming a
Christian that, when she saw no simple per-
suasion would avail to turn his heart from
following Jesus, she betook herself to a last
resort. In the olden days the high class

The Servant Sent 25

ladies in Japan carried small swords in their
bosoms as a means of protection; so now,
with her sword in her hand, she faced her
boy and demanded an immediate renuncia-
tion of his Christian faith. And in case he
would not do so within twenty- four hours,
she threatened to commit suicide, to atone
for the sin of dishonoring her ancestors by
letting her son become a follower of an "un-
clean religion."

It was not a mere threat. The mother was
in earnest. I called on her that very day and
begged her to let me see her boy, who was
one of my dearest friends, just to bid him
good-bye before we should die. In those
days we Christian boys, on our side, were de-
termined to die before we would renounce
our allegiance to Christ. It was a life and
death struggle between us and our enemies.
But when I saw her I trembled, because she
was in such a determined mood that I felt as
though I were standing before a dead person,
pale and ghastly, and she said calmly to me :

"No, you cannot see my boy, but if you in-
sist on seeing him, kill me first, and then you
may see him."

I said to her, "My aunt, I did not come here
to kill you, but only to see your boy."

26 Kanamori's Life-Story

Thus saying, I left her house with a heavy
heart, full of fear and anxiety, thinking that
before the next day dawned either the mother
or the son in that home would die.

Something happened, providentially. I
cannot now recall what it was, but the mother
was prevented from committing suicide, and
her son was saved from renouncing his faith.
And this same mother, long years after,
herself became a Christian, and died in the
faith.

There were several such cases in the homes
of these Christian boys. In another home the
father was so enraged that he came with his
drawn sword in his hand, and actually at-
tempted to take his son's life. You know that
in the olden days the Samurai class, which
was the warrior class in old Japan, used al-
ways to carry two swords, one long and the .
other short, and were in the habit of using
them quite freely. These boys all belonged
to this Samurai class.

I was one of the most bitterly persecuted.,
After receiving severe treatment at the hands
of my relatives for many months, I was
finally disowned and cast out of my father's
house. I lost everything except my Eng-
lish Bible and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Pro-

The Servant Sent 27

gress," which became now my sole posses-
sions.

Though they were made to pass through
the ordeal of much persecution, the Christian
boys finally gained the victory. Persecution
could not accomplish the purpose of our ene-
mies. The more bitterly they persecuted us,
the more we were confirmed in our faith.
We used to comfort one another by saying,
"Is not this the living proof of the truth of
Christianity? We see right here in our
midst the perfect fulfilment of the word of
Christ spoken nineteen centuries ago, 'A
man's foes shall be they of his own house-
hold.' "

This band of forty boys was afterwards
called the "Kumamoto Band," well known in
the early history of Christian missions in
modern Japan.

Thus far I have told you only one side of
this story of the "Kumamoto Band." But
there is another side to it, even more wonder-
ful than this, which I must not omit. In the
summer of 1865, just ten years before the
time of which I am speaking, a young Japa-
nese arrived in the city of Boston. He had
left his country a year before, in an American
schooner. In those days to leave the country

28 Kanamori's Life-Story

was almost certain death to a Japanese. But
the young man dared this certain death, and
after a year of hardship and suffering in a
sea voyage he finally reached his goal, the
land of liberty and enlightenment. He was
poor and destitute, and was without any
friends to look after him in this strange land.
He remained in this helpless condition after
his arrival for many weeks. At one time
he was so discouraged that he almost de-
spaired of obtaining the object of his coming
to America, and was on the verge of insanity.
But Heaven did not forsake him. A gener-
ous and noble-hearted Christian citizen of
Boston, Mr. Alpheus Hardy, owner of the
ship in which he had come, hearing of his
case, took him into his home, and recognizing
the fine spirit and noble ambition of this
young man, Mr. Hardy decided to adopt him
and give him a thorough American educa-
tion. He was first placed in the Phillips
Academy at Andover, then was sent to Am-
herst College, and finally to the Andover
Theological Seminary to be trained for the
Christian ministry.

After ten years of training and prepara-
tion, this young man returned to Japan, in
1874, and the next year, 1875, which was

The Servant Sent 29

the very year when those Kumamoto boys
were converted, he opened a Christian school
under the auspices of the American Mission
Board in Japan, in the city of Kyoto, the old
capital. This was Dr. Joseph Hardy Nee-
shima, a man of God, and the greatest Chris-
tian leader in Japan. He was filled with a
burning zeal for the salvation of his coun-
trymen, and was looking eagerly for like-
minded young men who would come and join
him in the great work of evangelizing Japan.

Here you see again the wonderful working
of the providence of God. While on one
hand God was preparing and disciplining
those forty boys of the "Kumamoto Band"
by special education under Captain Janes, as
well as by bitter persecution, he was at the
same time training this great Christian
leader of Japan through the kind help of
Alpheus Hardy in America. Dr. Neeshima
knew nothing of these Kumamoto boys, and
they knew nothing of Dr. Neeshima and his
school. Though entirely unknown to each
other, we were all in the same Hand, being
moulded and shaped for the coming work of
his kingdom.

In the spring of 1876, when Captain Janes,
through an American newspaper, heard of

30 Kanamori's Life-Story

Dr. Neeshima and his Christian school, he at
once communicated with him, and told him
all about the "Kumamoto Band." It came
as a great surprise to Dr. Neeshima and his
colleagues. I was told by one of the mission-
ary teachers who was with Dr. Neeshima at
the time that it seemed to them as though the
forty boys fell down straight from heaven.
They had never dreamed such a wonderful
thing was going on in such an obscure part of
the country.

On our side it was a great joy and com-
fort in the midst of persecution to hear of
such a Christian man and school existing in
our own country. By the fall of that year
almost all of the "Kumamoto Band," having
been driven out of their homes and their
native province, came to this school of Dr.
Neeshima, and joined him in his great
work. Thus was started the first Christian
college, "The Doshisha University," which
was destined to become a center of Christian
education and Christian influence in Japan,
and from which came the new impulse for
Christian work in that country, and Dr
Neeshima became its first president.

Of the "Kumamoto Band," about fifteen
boys who had already finished their prepara-

The Servant Sent 31

tory education in Captain Janes' school, en-
tered the theological class, the first in Doshi-
sha University. For three years they re-
ceived theological training and preparation
for the Christian ministry. After gradu-
ating in 1879, most of these boys went out as
home missionaries, preaching the Gospel pf
Christ all over Japan, and founding Congre-
gational churches in many parts of the
country.

In Japan the Presbyterian churches now
have the largest number of believers. Then
come the Congregational churches, and after
that those of other denominations. But
though the Congregational churches come
second in membership they have the largest
number and the strongest churches. This is
due mostly to the work of the "Kumamoto
Band." From it came forth the most influ-
ential and foremost preachers and pastors of
the Congregational churches in Japan.

One of this band, a graduate of 1879, nas
been now over forty years a pastor of a large
Congregational church. He is called the
Bishop of Southern Japan, without appoint-
ment. Another of this band is one of the
greatest Christian scholars in Japan, and is
now the President of the National Sunday-

32 Kanamori's Life-Story

School Association. The present President of
the Doshisha University is also a member of
this band. After Dr. Neeshima, the first
President, died, in 1890, four of the presi-
dents of that university came from .this
band. Not only in the religious and educa-
tional work, but also in Government service,
in the House of Parliament, as well as in the
business world, some of the members of this
band were able to hold quite important
positions.

So you see this "Kumamoto Band" was
used mightily by the hand of God for
establishing a Christian testimony in modern
Japan. And you know now how it came
about. It was not started by a missionary,
nor by a minister. It was started by a lay-
man, by a soldier who had no theological
training or ministerial experience, and who
had not come to my country to teach Chris-
tianity, but to teach military tactics, the Eng-
lish language and modern science. But as
a by-product of this layman's work this
"Kumamoto Band" sprang up and became
a power in the Christian world of Japan. A
wonderful working of Providence! In-
deed, God can use anything as his instrument
to execute his own purpose. He used a jaw-

The Servant Sent 33

bone of an ass in the hand of Samson to de-
stroy a thousand Philistines. It may be that
the "Kumamoto Band" and Captain Janes
were as the jawbone of an ass.

My friends, do you think that there are no
such promising young men to be found in my
country now? Oh, yes, there are the mak-
ings of "Kumamoto Bands" always and
everywhere. If you will send out mission-
aries filled with burning zeal for the salva-
tion of souls, who will come into direct per-
sonal touch with young men and women and
inspire them through their own personalities
by the aid of the Holy Spirit, you can find
any number of such bands even now.

Not only in Japan, but in all the mission
fields of the world, there are thousands of
such boys just waiting for some Captain
Janes to come and form them into a band of
Christian workers. Therefore the question
is not whether we can find such "Kumamoto
Bands" now, but whether we can find such
Captain Janes'.,

CHAPTER II

THE SERVANT DISOBEDIENT

IN MY first chapter I gave a brief account
of the Kumamoto Band, their conversion
and dedication, persecution, and victory, how
they came to Dr. Neeshima's school, how
they went out again, preaching the Gospel
and founding Congregational churches in
all parts of Japan, and how this band was
mightily used by God for establishing a tes-
timony to Christ in my country. So far I
have told the good part of this story.

But now I must turn to my own part in it,
because I am to tell you the story of my own
Christian life. But when I turn to my own
part I am sorry to say that I cannot give the
good part only, but I must give the bad part
too. I was not a good boy, as some of my
friends were, working faithfully during half
a century. I was a backsliding, prodigal son
of my Heavenly Father for many years. My
life was shipwrecked on the rocks of doubt
and unbelief. I have nothing to glory of, but
only to confess my sins and failures. It is

34

The Servant Disobedient 35

not a pleasant thing for a man to speak of
his own sins and failings. But I think it
is our duty as Christians to confess our
sins to one another. So I here wish to dis-
charge that first duty, and, if possible, warn
my young friends who are in danger of
treading the same path, and falling into the
same pit I did.

I was the first one of the Kumamoto Band
who came to Doshisha University, in the
summer of 1876. There was not a single
building on the whole University campus, so
I was connected with that school from its
very foundation. Also I was a member of
the first graduating class, of 1879. After
graduating from this school, I went down to
the Province of Okayama as a missionary.
I had no money, no salary, no help. As
Christ told us, I went to a worthy man, who
fed and clothed me for the first year of my
ministry. There was an American Board
mission station in Okayama, and I worked
in connection with it, and after a year there
sprang up a Congregational church of about
fifty members, and I became its first pastor,
receiving three dollars and a half for a
month's salary. But our work was very
much blessed. Besides the central church

36 Kanamori's Ufe-Stoiy

there sprang up many other churches all
around, and this province became one of
the strongest centers of the Christian world
in Japan.

Then I was called back by Dr. Neeshima
to his school as a professor of theology. So
I came back to my alma mater and assisted
Dr. Neeshima in teaching, and also in the
work of the presidency. So, you see, at first
even I was doing some good work for the
cause of Christ. I was regarded as one of
the most promising Christian workers of the
country at the time.

Now comes my bad turn. During my stay
in Doshisha University, as a professor of
theology I read many books on that subject..
Among them were the books of German New
Theology and the Higher Criticism. To me,
brought up in almost Puritan strictness of
doctrine and practise, their easy and free
way of handling the Word of God and in-
terpreting the doctrines of the Bible was so
interesting and fascinating that I was com-
pletely carried away by their cunning argu-
ment. And my positions in orthodox the-
ology were thrown down, one after another,
by those fiery doubts shot from the camp
of New Theology. I thought I was stand-

The Servant Disobedient 37

ing on the rocks of orthodox theology, but
now those very rocks themselves seemed to
melt under the heat of modern criticism.

Finally I became a convert to this new
doctrine, and its devout follower. Not only
that, but I became a very zealous propagan-
dist. I began to propagate the new doctrine
in preaching and writing. I translated Dr.
Pfleiderer's "Philosophy of Religion" into
Japanese, under the title of "The Liberal
Theology." He was the professor of theol-
ogy in Berlin University, and was regarded
as one of the foremost scholars of New
Theology of the day. I myself wrote a
book called "Present and Future Christianity
of Japan." In this book I prophesied that,
though the present Christianity of Japan was
orthodox, the future Christianity would be a
liberal one. Some liberals say that prophecy
has been fulfilled, but I hope not. At any
rate, I am sorry to say that this book has led
astray many young friends, but I am happy
to say that it is out of print now. This book
made some stir in the Christian world of
Japan at the time.

In those days all the Congregational
churches were orthodox and evangelical. Of
course, the Presbyterians, the Methodists,

38 Kanamori's Life-Story

the Episcopalians, and the Baptists were
thoroughgoing orthodox, and Congrega-
tional ministers were the zealous defenders
of the orthodox faith. I was looked at as a
very dangerous heretic, and was almost ex-
communicated. I could not conscientiously
stay in the orthodox church, since my the-
ology so greatly differed from theirs, and so
I left the Congregational church in order to
make my position clear to the world ; but
when I left the church I left the Christian
ministry also.

I wish to call special attention to this point :
Why did I leave the ministry when I
left the Congregational church? Because,
in the first place, my New Theology and
Higher Criticism had destroyed my faith in
the perfect, divine authority of the Bible;
\and in the second place, they had destroyed
\my faith in the perfect deity of Christ.
\When I had lost these two things I had lost
everything. I could not preach Christ alone,
and him crucified. I could preach Christian
theism, Christian morality, and Christian
sociology. In fact, I could preach all the
practical side of Christianity, but not the
central fundamental truths of Christianity,
Christ and his salvation through the cross.

The Servant Disobedient 39

In those days there were many liberals
who were saying, "You may have your own
theology in your study, but retain the com-
monly accepted Christian doctrine in the
pulpit. There is no need of entering into the
discussion of theological questions in the
pulpit, because it is for the common people,
and not for the scholars."

But I said : "I cannot use two theologies in
my ministry, one for myself, and the other
for the people. I cannot handle the Word of
God in such a double-handed way. What I
have learned in my study that I will preach
in my pulpit."

But such was quite the common practise
among the liberals of those days. Not only
in those days, but even now, there are many
liberals who are practising these worldly
counsels of handling the Word of God
cunningly and deceitfully. They are pro-
claiming from their pulpits, not the salvation
of souls by the blood of Christ, but only what
they call social salvation, moral uplift, and
world reconstruction by the example of
Jesus of Nazareth, thus hiding their skep-
tical theology and agnostic philosophy under
the cloak of practical Christianity.

Some liberal churches invited me to come

40 Kanamori's Life-Story

to their side and help to spread the liberal
Christianity in Japan. But I declined all
invitations. I thought if social reform and
moral uplift are the only work of the Chris-
tian ministry, and not the salvation of souls
by the blood of Christ, there is no need of my
staying in it any longer. Such social service
could be rendered out of it just as well, if not
better. So I left the ministry, and joined a
politico-social reform campaign in my
country. Now I became a political and social
reformer, and in this capacity spent more
than twenty years. Thus I squandered away
the best portion of my life in unprofitable
worldly pursuit; thus my life was ship-
wrecked in the midst of my life-work, and
thus I turned away from Jesus Christ, whom
I had found seventeen years before in such a
wonderful manner, and to whom I had
pledged my allegiance at the top of the
Mount of Flowers. The purpose of the
Devil, which could not be accomplished by
bitter persecution, had been now accom-
plished by the help of the New Theology and
Higher Criticism. This is the Devil's way of
working. When he cannot gain his object
by sword or fire, he resorts 1 to an entirely
different method.

The Servant Disobedient 41

Now let me tell how the study of
Higher Criticism and New Theology de-
stroyed my evangelical faith, and what a
baneful influence they exerted upon my
spiritual life, and how they finally dragged
me down to the depths of doubt and un-
belief. But before going farther, I must ex-
plain what I call Higher Criticism and New
Theology.

When I addressed a body of theological
students in a certain seminary where the
New Theology and Higher Criticism are be-
ing taught now, I told them plainly what
havoc this New Theology and Higher Criti-
cism have made in my Christian life, and how
they are sapping the very life of the Chris-
tian churches at present, and I warned them
sincerely against this misleading, dangerous
teaching.

After the address, one of the professors
who heard me came and asked, "What do
you mean by 'Higher Criticism'? Do you
mean by it the destructive Higher Criticism
only, or do you include even the constructive
Higher Criticism?"

I answered him: "I don't know. It is
very difficult to draw a line between 'de-
structive' and 'constructive' in the so-called

42 Kanamori's Life-Story

modern Higher Criticism. But all criticism
which destroys faith in the perfect, divine
authority of the Bible I call Higher Criti-
cism, and all theological teaching which de-
stroys belief in the perfect deity of Jesus
Christ I call New Theology."

These are the definitions of these two
terms which I use in this book. Of course
there are all grades of Higher Criticism and
New Theology, ranging from the mildest,
almost touching the border line of evan-
gelical faith, down to the very deadliest,
which never ceases blaspheming Christ and
the Holy Scriptures; but whether they are
mild or exxtreme, these doctrines are a real
poison to the Christian faith. Not only did
I almost kill my spiritual life by absorbing
such poisons into my own system, but also
by introducing such poisons into the Japa-
nese churches, I did great damage to the
cause of Christ in my country.

A friend has asked me whether I still feel
the evil effects of the study of such books on
my spiritual life.

I answered him, "Yes. If you once absorb
poison into your system it is very hard to
get entirely rid of the evil."

He also asked me whether it is wise for

The Servant Disobedient 43

one to read such books in order to know our
opponents' positions.

"Yes," I said. "Sometimes it is necessary
for us to study books of this kind in order
to find out their fallacies and untruths."

But even then we must be very careful not
to be poisoned ourselves. It is sometimes
necessary for the student of chemistry to
enter the chemical laboratory and handle
deadly poisons, in order to make important
experiments, but at such times the student
must take as perfect precaution as possible
not to take the poison into his own body
and die.

In the same way, when you are going to
make experiments with these poisonous doc-
trines of the enemy of the Gospel, you must
take perfect precautions not to absorb their
poisons, as I did. Moreover, I like to caution
my orthodox brothers and sisters against
handling these poisonous books except under
the urgent necessity of making important ex-
periments. Though we have to provide
deadly poisons in our chemical laboratories
for the purpose of experiments, it is not at
all necessary or advisable to put them in our
kitchens and dining-rooms ; no, it is not wise
to handle them too often.

44 Kanamori's Life-Story

However, I am not going to discuss at
present the question of New Theology. I
am simply going to show you how baneful
and destructive was its influence upon my
own spiritual life. That is all I intend to do
here.

Some of the professors of New Theology
said to me, after hearing my lecture, "You
have the facts which no theory can refute."
Yes, I have the facts, or rather I myself am
the fact, and I am going to give this fact,
and not theory, or argument. Now let me
proceed to tell the processes and steps by
which these studies destroyed my evangelical
faith.

I was a lover of the Bible. I loved it and
revered it as the Word of God. I was con-
verted by reading the Bible. I believed the
Bible was the Word of God, given by the Holy
Spirit through the holy men of old ; that the
Bible contained truth only, and no error. The
Holy Spirit cannot be the author of error.
God cannot make mistakes. I believed, there-
fore, that all the historical facts of the Bible
were true facts, and all the biographical nar-
ratives true narratives, and not made up by
men, and all the Biblical heroes true persons,
and not fabulous ones. I believed that its

The Servant Disobedient 45

doctrines and teachings were all true, good,
and perfect and "profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness." In fact, I believed that the
Bible was a perfect revelation of the will and
wisdom and love of God, that we have only
to dig into it and find out the precious truth
of its deep meaning, and honor it by belief
and obedience. If I found any difficult pas-
sage in the Bible, which I could not under-
stand, or reconcile with my reason, I always
put the blame of the doubt upon my own im-
perfect intellect, and believed that the Bible
was all right, though I could not understand
it. Thus I believed in the absolute divine
authority of the Bible, and on this divine
Book, as on the rock of ages, I built my faith
in Christianity as the absolute religion. Not
a religion, but the religion of the world.

Now came the higher critics and said,
"No," to all of these my beliefs in the Bible.
In the first place, they said, "the Bible is not
the Word of God, given through the Holy
Spirit, in any such sense as you have believed.
The Bible is a book written by men, just as
all other books are written. Therefore thq
words contained in it are hot the words oi
God himself, but the words of men, perhaps

46 Kanamori's Life-Story

pious men, good men, devout men, and re-
ligiously-minded men. But they are all men
and nothing more. And as all men are liable
to make mistakes, and are apt to invent sto-
ries, and manufacture the facts, so the Bible
contains many untrue narratives, and made-
up stories. Many of the historical person-
ages of the Bible are imaginary heroes and
not true persons. Moreover, the doctrines
propounded in the Bible are not all sound
doctrines. Some are quite unsound. The
teachings of the Bible are not all wise and
profitable, and some are not applicable to
modern times at all. They may have been
good enough in the dark ages of the ancient
world, but are not suitable to this modern
age. So the Bible does not contain truth
only, but it contains error also.

"In fact, the Bible is a mixture of truth
and error, good and bad, wise and unwise. It
contains myths, legends, and fables, just as
all the so-called sacred books of the world
religions contain such a mixture. The Bible
must in many cases be interpreted allegori-
cally and figuratively, deducing only moral
and spiritual lessons. You must not swallow
everything in the Bible as true, but must
make careful discrimination. You must sep-

The Servant Disobedient 47

arate what is true from what is untrue, and
what is good from what is bad. You must
search and find out for yourself what part of
the Biblical history is authentic, and what
part of it is not, who are the true persons,
and who are the imaginary ones, using rea-
son and common sense, just as when reading
all other books written by men." This is
what I was taught by Higher Criticism and
New Theology.

According to my orthodox faith I had
looked upon the Bible as the perfect, revealed
Word of God, and as a supreme Judge sitting
on the bench giving an infallible judgment
upon all matters pertaining to the spiritual as
well as the moral welfare of man. This
judgment I had looked upon as final, with no
one to dispute it. I sat before the Bible as a
client or petitioner waiting for a final de-
cision.

Now came Higher Criticism and turned
everything upside down and said, "No, you
are not the petitioner, you yourself are the
judge. You must sit upon the bench of the
supreme judge and pronounce your judgment
upon the contents of the Bible, as to whether
it is true or untrue, good or bad, applicable
or inapplicable. The Bible, as all other

48 Kanamori's Life-Story

books, must become a petitioner before you,
and your reason."

So you see the Bible was in this way
dragged down from the seat of the supreme
judge to the place of the petitioner, and man
with his reason and common sense was ex-
alted to the seat of the judge.

What authority can such a Bible have over
a man when he has to choose from its con-
tents whatever seems good or suitable for his
purpose, and whatever does not seem so he
has a right to discard? Do you think such a
Bible can command us to "meditate therein
day and night," and "turn not from it to the
right hand or to the left" ? What becomes
of those precious promises of God in the
Bible if they are not the word of God in a
true and exact sense? In the Old and New
Testaments there are more than thirty thou-
sand promises, and they have been life and
joy and strength to Christians for nineteen
centuries. But if these are not really the
promises given by God himself, but only the
opinions and conjectures of human beings,
how can we trust them? Do you think we
can build the absolute religion of the world
upon so fickle and unstable a foundation as
this ? The Bible of the Higher Critics is not

The Servant Disobedient 49

rock, but sand, and a house built upon it must
fall, and great will be the fall thereof.

Now they have dragged the Bible down to
the level of the sacred writings of other
world religions, such as the sacred books of
the Brahmans, the legendary stories of Sha-
kamuni, the Koran of Mohammed, and
others. The religion of the Bible must then
become one of these world religions founded
by men. So Christianity also must share
the fate of all other religions of the world.
Once you have dragged Christianity down to
a level with other religions of the world, you
cannot save it alone amidst the wholesale de-
struction of all these superstitious world re-
ligions by the fires of modern civilization.
And I believe the sooner they are destroyed
the better it will be for mankind. And
Christianity, according to New Theology,
must share their fate sooner or later.

In Christian lands we see many who,
while embracing such destructive views of
the Bible and Christianity, are yet holding
on to Christian practise, not as a result of
their own thinking, but as a result of time-
honored customs, life-long habits, and early
training and education in the Christian
homes, Christian institutions, and Christian

50 Kanamori's Life-Story

society in which they were brought up. They
are like men who, when thrown into a deep
well, instead of going down straight to the
bottom, cling to the stony sides, or hold on
to the ropes, and so are prevented from
dropping at once to the bottom. But Chris-
tians newly converted, in a heathen land,
having no such Christian homes or institu-
tions to cling to, when thrown into the well
of doubt and unbelief, will go straight to the
bottom. We are standing only upon our
own thinking, and if that thinking goes
wrong, we shall fall at once and be drowned.
At least I fell to the bottom. I could not
hang on the walls midway. I did not hesitate
to declare in my book that if Christianity is
one of the religions of the world, like
Buddhism and Mohammedanism, then it
must share the common fate of all these re-
ligions. They may have been all right, and
have done their work in their own time and
in their own field, but now they will not be
able to withstand the test of the twentieth
century civilization. In this melting pot of
twentieth century civilization all the world
religions will be melted together and a new
religion, which is neither Buddhism nor
Christianity, neither Brahmanism nor Mo-

The Servant Disobedient 51

hammedanisrn,but which discards all the bad,
and retains only the good, of those religions,
will arise. In fact, a new eclectic religion
will arise out of the chaos of the old religions
of the world.

You may say, perhaps, that this is an arro-
gant and extravagant position to take. Yes,
it is arrogant and extravagant, but it is the
natural and logical conclusion to which
Higher Criticism and New Theology will
lead their devout followers in heathen lands.
There are many such now, but they do not
express their skeptical position as plainly and
bluntly as I have done here.

It is a common saying among the educated
heathen that all religions have the same goal,
and are like the mountain paths leading up
to the same top. Some go up from the east,
and others from the west, some go up from
the north, and others from the south, but they
all lead you to the same top, and when you
get there you find no difference; whichever
path you have taken you are at last at the top
of the mountain and enjoying the fine view.
If that is so, may it not be better to destroy
all the crooked old narrow paths, and build
one new, good road, on which people can
drive their automobiles up to the very top?

52 Kanamori's Life-Story

Even though Higher Criticism and New
Theology may not lead you to such a radical
conclusion as this, yet they will certainly do
away with the claims of the Christian re-
ligion to be the only true religion of the
world, and will make it only one of the world
religions. If Christianity has to exist in this
world side by side with all other religions,
possessing only one portion of humanity,
while conceding the rest of it to other reli-
gions, it can never claim absolute allegiance
from the people of the whole world.

According to the New Theology the work
of foreign missions is not to convert the
heathen, nor to save them from sin and error,
but only to introduce Christianity to them as"
one of the religions of the world. I heard
some liberal missionaries making such state-
ments as this when they were preaching in
heathen lands: "We missionaries did not
come to you to ask you to throw away your
own good religion which you have believed
in for so many centuries, and to be converted
to our religion, but we came here simply
to unite the good in our religion with the
good in yours. The good in your religion
we Christians desire to learn, but Christianity
also has good teachings which would cer-

The Servant Disobedient 53

tainly be of profit to you. So we mission-
aries have come to unite the best in all relig-
ions for the upbuilding of common human-
ity, not to impose our religion upon you, and
make you give up your own religion." These
men call themselves modern missionaries, and
are entirely different from the old ones who
went to heathen lands to convert the people,
and to save them from sin. They call the
earlier missionaries old-fashioned, out of
date. But if this is true, these new mission-
aries are not the messengers of God, but reli-
gious traders, and religious trade is not a
profitable thing at all. I am afraid if such
is the case the missionary enterprise will
cease to exist, and the heathen world will be
left in darkness and sin.

The New Theology says again, "Oh, don't
bother about the Bible too much. We don't
care nowadays whether men believe in the
inspiration of the Bible or not, or what kind
of inspiration they hold, total or partial, ver-
bal or moral. One man believes the Bible
contains truth and no error. Another man
thinks it contains both truth and error. We
don't care about those things. To be too
much concerned with these things was the
old-fashioned religious belief.. Christianity

54 Kanamori's Life-Story

does not stand on the inspiration of the Bible.
It stands on the unique personality of
Christ. As long as we hold on to Christ
there is no danger for Christianity."

Very well; it may be so. Christ is our
sure foundation. Christianity must stand on
this rock of ages. But may I ask a question
here? Who is this Christ? Who is this
unique personality on which you try to stand
as on the sure foundation? Is Christ God,
or man ? Is he the second person of the Trin-
ity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father
himself? Is he "the only begotten" Son of
God, who was in the bosom of the Father
from "before the foundation of the world,"
and who came down to this world and became
flesh himself in order to save this lost world?
Is he the Word of God who was "in the be-
ginning," and "was with God," and who was
God himself, and by whom all things were
made, and "without him was not anything
made that was made" ? In a word, is Christ
the Creator or a creature, infinite or finite?

To these blunt questions New Theology
has no other answer than "No!" Christ,
according to New Theology, is not God,
but man. He is not the Creator, but a crea-
ture. He is not infinite, but finite. He may

The Servant Disobedient 55

be a godly man, or a man filled with God, or
the Spirit of God, but still man, and not God.
He may be the greatest, wisest, and holiest
man among men, but still he is a man, and
not God. New Theology may exalt Christ as
high as possible. It can never exalt him to
the throne of God. Between God and man
there is an infinite distance, and no goodness
or greatness or holiness of mere man can
ever bridge this distance. If you look up
from the plains below to the top of a very
high mountain, you see its peaks almost
touching heaven, or kissing the blue sky
above, but if you climb the mountain and
stand on that summit you find the distance be-
tween the mountain top and the blue heaven
above is just as great as when you were
standing on the plain below. Though a man
could ever attain to such a height of great-
ness, holiness, and goodness as to seem to the
common eyes almost beside God himself, yet
in reality he is as far from God as we com-
mon folks are.

But men are not a whit nearer to God
by their own greatness and goodness, so you
see that though New Theology may exalt
Christ as high as it can, yet it cannot raise
him to God himself.. Their Christ must

56 Kanamori's Life-Story

stand always among men on this earth. Ac-
cording to its teachings, the Christ of God is
gone, and only a human Jesus remains, the
greatest, highest, noblest, and holiest man
among men. As such he is brought down to
the same level as Confucius, Shakamuni,
Mohammed, Socrates, and multitudes of the
holy men of the world. Can Christianity
stand on such a human Christ as this as its
sure and unshakable foundation? Is this
human Christ the rock of ages on which we
can build the structure of the whole Chris-
tian religion?

A religion which has been founded by man
can by no means be the absolute religion of
the world. If it is human in its origin it
must be human all the way through, and it
must share the fate of all other human re-
ligions.

But here comes another exhortation from
the camp of New Theology. "Don't trouble
yourself too much about the nature of Christ,
: whether he is God or man. Some think
that Christ is God, and others think that he
is man. Some think that Christ was born
miraculously of a virgin, conceived by the
Holy Ghost ; others think he was the real son
of Mary and Joseph, born in the same way as

The Servant Disobedient 57

their other sons and daughters. Some say
he rose from the dead after three days, and
others say that he did not rise, and that what
the Bible states as the resurrection of Christ
was a mere vision, seen by his devout but
ignorant and superstitious disciples, as a re-
sult of their own imagination. Thus we have
all kinds of views about the nature and the
person of Christ, each preferring his own
view. In the olden time Christians laid
great stress on these beliefs, but nowadays
we pass over those things and don't make
much fuss about them. We don't care much
which way the people think about the nature
and person of Christ, whether he is God or
man, if we only love him and obey him with
our whole heart. The supreme love and ab-
solute allegiance to our Lord are the only
essentials which we should always hold up as
the life of our Christian faith. : If we hold
fast to these truths then we can safely let go
such non-essentials as the Virgin Birth and
the Resurrection."

Thus we are exhorted by New Theology
to love Jesus supremely and obey him abso-
lutely, regardless of our belief about the per-
son and nature of Christ. These exhorta-
tions sound very plausible, and seem to make

58 Kanamori's Life-Story

the new doctrine more spiritual and practical
than the old-fashioned orthodox belief,
which made so much of the nature and per-
son of Christ. At the present day we hear
such statements even from the pulpits which
are called evangelical. And many people are
deceived by the very plausibleness of this
position, because they seem to be laying more
stress upon the practical side of Christianity
than upon the intellectual definition of the
terms of the Christian doctrine. I was one
of those who were deceived by this teaching,
and was finally led away from the path of
the truth.

Let me show how such unsound teaching
of the essentials of Christian doctrine as
denying the deity of Christ will exert its
baneful influence upon the mind of the be-
liever, especially upon the mind of the newly
converted Christian in a heathen land. Be
sure that the belief in the deity of Jesus
Christ is not one of the non-essentials of the
Christian doctrine, as those New Theolo-
gians try to make us believe, but it is the very
life and essence of Christianity. If you take
away this belief from the Christian faith it
will die.

In the first place, to speak plainly, do you

The Servant Disobedient 59

think that we can love Jesus Christ supremely
if he is not God, but man? What is supreme
love? Is it not a true, living, personal
love? But if Jesus Christ was a mere man,
born of Mary and Joseph, just as all other
men were born, then he must have been dead
for nineteen centuries. And if he is not
risen from the dead, can we love supremely
such a dead man? We sometimes say that
we love such and such great men of history,
such as Washington and Lincoln, but in this
case we mean we love their memory, not the
persons themselves. But we cannot love
them as we love our fathers, mothers, wives,
and husbands, who are really living among
us now. We cannot have the warm, living,
personal love for those historical personages
that we have for those who are living right
among us. What is that supreme love which
true Christians cherish toward their Saviour ?
Is it a loving memory, or true personal, living
love ? To the true Christian is not Jesus the
ever-living and ever-present personal Sav-
iour? Do we not love him more than father
or mother, wife or husband ? Surely we love
him as a person, and not as a beautiful char-
acter who once lived upon this earth, and
who is pictured for us by his biographers.

60 Kanamori's Life-Story

I once listened to an eloquent preacher of
New Theology who pictured the character of
Jesus before his audience as a perfect model
in all respects holy, righteous, kind, lov-
ing* gentle, meek, humble, patient, strong,
brave, and so on. It was a most exquisite
portraiture of human character. But all the
while I was listening I felt as though I was
standing before a marble statue, beautiful
to look at, but cold and lifeless. He was not
introducing a living Saviour to his audience,
but only showing them that there was such
a good man who once lived upon this earth,
and who had this beautiful character. That
was all. This Jesus may have had such deep
love for his disciples who were contempo-
rary with him, but he could not have loved
you and me, because he could not have known
us at such a distant time. He was a man of
nineteen centuries ago. This preacher was
praising the character of Jesus just as the
novelist praises his heroes. By listening to
such a painting of the character of the human
Jesus how can we feel true personal love
toward him? True and supreme love comes
from the living and direct touch of heart
with heart, as a fire flashes by the friction of
steel and flint.

The Servant Disobedient 61

When I lost my faith in the deity of our
Lord Jesus Christ as my ever-living, per-
sonal Saviour, I lost my supreme love for
him also. Henceforth I regarded and hon-
ored him as a historical personage, perhaps
the holiest and greatest and best of all men
who ever lived on this earth. But that
warmth and joy of the living, personal love
to the living, personal Saviour were all gone,
and my Christian faith became dead and cold,
or rather it should be said that it became
simply an intellectual appreciation of the
beautiful character of an old sage.

As to allegiance to Christ, do you think
you can require of any man such absolute
allegiance to a mere man, though he may
have been the greatest and best that the world
has ever produced? My orthodox faith
taught me that I should obey Jesus because
he is my Creator as well as my Saviour. In
the first place, as God he created me, and then
as Saviour he came down from heaven and
died upon the cross to save me, but he rose
again from the dead, and now sits at the
right hand of his Father, making intercession
for me, and he will come again to rule the
whole world. Since Jesus is my living and
personal Saviour, I must obey him abso-

62 Kanamori's Life-Story

lutely and unreservedly. I must love him
more than father or mother, son or daughter,
or even my own life itself. I must sacrifice
my life for him. But if he is not such a
Saviour, but a mere teacher who gave us wise
precepts and doctrines, who led a beautiful
life long years ago, and who died at last upon
the cross at the hand of his enemies, what
right have you to ask absolute allegiance
from me who have no relation at all to him ?
There have been many great and good men in
this world. Confucius, Socrates, Shaka-
muni, and all other founders of the world re-
ligions were more or less great, and we are
indebted to them for their teachings and pre-
cepts and inspired by their fine examples.
But no one thinks of demanding from us
absolute allegiance to these great men, or
asks us to sacrifice our lives for them.
Thus, with the downfall of the belief in the
deity of Christ, the authority of Jesus Christ
as a divine Master must go also.

One of the glories of Christianity is that
we have had such a multitude of martyrs for
the cause of Christ during the nineteen cen-
turies of its existence. Do you think that a
man would face unflinchingly the blazing fire
of persecution simply on the strength of his

The Servant Disobedient 63

belief in Jesus as a great moral teacher ?
Would frail women have calmly faced those
roaring lions approaching slowly but surely
to tear them to pieces with their cruel claws,
merely on the strength of the belief that by
Christ's humane teaching womanhood was
lifted up to the same level with manhood?
It was only in the strength of a belief that the
living Saviour was right at their side with
his outstretched arms to catch and carry
them straight into the bosom of our heavenly
Father that the martyrs braved the fire and
sword. If such unsound doctrine as the
liberals are now teaching had prevailed at the
beginning of the introduction of Christianity
into the world, there would have been no mar-
tyrdom for the Christian faith, and Chris-
tianity must have ceased to exist long ago.

Thus by the study of New Theology and
Higher Criticism all belief in the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity were destroyed one
after another, and I was again left to my for-
mer self. I was introduced into the Chris-
tian religion by the front gate of orthodoxy,
and led out of it by the back gate of New
Theology into my old heathen doubt and
unbelief.

The enlightened heathen hold the same

64 Kanamori's Life-Story

view as the liberals with regard to the Bible
and Christ. They also believe that the Bible
is a good book, but that it contains both truth
and error. They too believe that Jesus was a
great and good man, but a man only, and not
God., So these enlightened heathen are
standing on the same ground as the liberals,
and there is no need of going to them and
teaching them the doubts and unbeliefs they
already have.,

By this time my vision of the future world
and eternal life became very vague and ob-
scure.; The unseen world became now very
misty and f oggy. ; I could not see clearly, and
so I was shut up to this world, I thought,
"Let the future take care of itself ; my con-
cern is in this world alone." Thus I became
a man of the world. : Now my philosophy
was to be healthy, wealthy, happy, and
good. To have a strong body, a comfort-
able living, . a happy home, and a good
reputation in this world is enough for any
man. It was not my theory only, but I
put it into practise as much as I could, and
I attained my objects pretty well, except for
the second one. I had a good wife and nine
children, all well and good, and a happy
home. I was strong and healthy, and was

The Servant Disobedient 65

quite popular, and was regarded as one of
the most successful social reformers in my
country. I was not so selfish as to think only
of my own happiness, but I tried to make
other people happy also. I became a preacher
of thrift and economy; and during twenty
years I was engaged in teaching the gospel of
saving, not souls, but money. I traveled all
over the country, from one end to the other,
and delivered several thousand lectures on
the subject of economy and saving. During
this time I think I preached the doctrine of
saving to over five million people.; I
am known, even now, in Japan, more as a
preacher of saving money than a preacher of
saving souls. I think I have done some little
good in this respect to the people of my own
country, and I believe the government, as
well as my people, recognize this fact. I was
quite satisfied with my worldly success, not
knowing that such satisfaction is the most
dangerous menace to a man's spiritual life.

But all this was simply the outward ap-
pearance. If you look a little deeper into the
matter, you will soon find out what a dread-
ful state a backsliding man can come into.
At first it was a matter of intellectual doubt
and unbelief. I was shaken in my mind by

66 Kanamori's Life-Story

the arguments of New Theology. But the
work of the Devil did not stop here. I was
now shaken morally and spiritually. This
moral shaking made most dreadful havoc in
my spiritual life. Sin crept in, and I was
made a captive again. Oh, what a wretched
man I was in those days of backsliding!
Even to think of those days gives me unen-
durable pain. I strayed so far away that even
my friends lost their hope of my returning.
Yet there were two women, one an American
and the other a Japanese, who, I was after-
ward told, were praying for me without
ceasing during those twenty years of my
prodigal life. God in his faithfulness
watched over me during all those years, and
finally brought me back to fellowship with
himself. He will never forsake those he has
once redeemed.

Between the Bible of the orthodox faith
and that of New Theology there is the dif-
ference of heaven and earth. One is heav-
enly, divine, and holy; the other is earthly,
human, and therefore unholy. One is the
God-given, infallible standard by which we
measure all our conduct; the other consists
of rules and regulations given by men, which
we may use or not, as we may please. One

The Servant Disobedient 67

is the Master whom we must obey absolutely,
the other is the servant whom we may employ
or not. One is an inexhaustible mine of eter-
nal truth stored up by God; the other is a
shallow pit dug by men. One is the living
oracles of God ; the other, dead documents of
ancient wisdom. The Bible in the hand of
New Theology has become an entirely dif-
ferent thing from that of the true Christian
faith of the nineteenth century. It has en-
tirely lost its divine authority, and therefore
its teachings and commandments have no
more binding power than mere human in-
struction.

CHAPTER III

THE SERVANT RESTORED

ONE of my missionary friends in Japan
asked me to write a tract on the prodi-
gal son. I told him I could not do it, because
it would be just like writing my own story.
How can I write such a shameful story?
But now I would like to tell you a little
about it, and show you how patient and long-
suffering was my Saviour toward such a
poor, erring child as myself during those
long years of disobedience and prodigality.
Simply for the glory of God I will give you
the following story of my life.

You know, when the prodigal son left his
father's home he forgot everything. He for-
got his father, his brother, his home, and his
servants, and was entirely absorbed in his
present enjoyment of worldly pleasures until
a terrible calamity brought him to himself
again. Then he recalled for the first time
since he left his father's home, "How many
hired servants of my father's have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hun-
68

The Servant Restored 69

ger." Then he started homeward with a
heavy heart, full of grief and remorse, and
determined to reform and live a life of devo-
tion to his father. But during all those days,
perhaps years, his father had not forgotten
his erring and wandering boy. He was
waiting day and night for his return. Per-
haps he was looking out from his windows
every morning and evening in the direction
his son had gone. One evening when he got
a glimpse of his lost son he did not wait in
his room for him, but jumped up and ran
from his house to meet that wretched son.

Just so, my friend, during those twenty
years of my prodigal life I forgot my heav-
enly Father, and my Saviour, and my spirit-
ual home and inheritance. I had been ab-
sorbed entirely in my ambitious worldly ca-
reer and earthly happiness, but my Father
did not forget me. He had not forsaken me.
He was watching and waiting all the while
for my return. In his own time the Father
himself arrested me in my wild career of
worldly ambition and earthly enjoyment.

It was in this way. In the midst of my
worldly prosperity and happiness my Father
came down and suddenly took away my dear
wife, leaving behind her nine motherless chil-

70 Kanamori's Life-Story

dren, the youngest of whom was not quite
four. I was overwhelmed with grief. But,
oh, my children's grief! They loved their
mother very much. She was a devout
woman, and not a backslider like myself.
During the quarter of a century of our
married life I had never heard a single mur-
mur from her lips, nor a word of discour-
agement. She was always thankful and
grateful for everything. She led such a
beautiful life of love and devotion before her
children that they almost worshiped her.
When she was suddenly taken away from
them, they were all thrown into the deepest
grief, and they cried and wailed day and
night, clinging to their dead mother. My
friends came to comfort them, but they
would not be comforted, because their mother
was gone, and they could not see her again.
Their grief was so intense that at one time I
was afraid some of my children would go
insane. A man may marry a second wife,
and love her just as much as the first, but
when children lose their own mother they can
never have a second one whom they can love
as their own. It was a most heartrending
thought to me that death had made these
nine children motherless forever.

The Servant Restored 71

While their mother was with them they
thought their home was a sweet and bright
home, heaven on earth. They were all so
happy and contented, but when their dear
mother was taken away from them the home
became a dark, dismal hell on earth. Yes, in
those days the home was full of weeping
and wailing day and night.

In the midst of this darkness a light as
from heaven flashed into my home, in this
way. The children were crying because their
mother was gone, and they could not see her
again, but suddenly they changed their tone
and began to say, "No, our mother is not
gone. What we have buried in her grave
was not mother herself, but only her body.
Our mother has gone to heaven to be with
her God. And if she has gone to heaven and
is with God now, as God is everywhere
our mother also might be here in spirit.
Though we cannot see her, she might be see-
ing from there these nine poor motherless
children crying day and night for her."

Then, in order to realize their mother's
spiritual presence in the home, they began
to decorate the whole house with her picture.
They hung up large pictures of her in
the dining-room, in the parlor, in the bed-

72 Kanamori's Life-Story

room, and in other rooms. There was not a
single room in the whole house where her
picture was not hanging on the wall. And on
all of their desks they placed their mother's
picture.

Thus they began to say "Mama, mama,"
once more. "Mama" is an English word,
not Japanese, but as its sound was very en-
dearing to their hearts, all my children used
to call her by that name.

You know children love to say "mama" or
"mother." When they come back from
school the first word they utter is "mama," or
"mother." If they cannot use this endear-
ing word they cannot be happy. Now my
children had suddenly been deprived of this
dear word by the death of their mother, and
so they were crying. But now, once more,
they began to say this dear word.

Pointing to those pictures of their mother,
they began to say: "That is a dining-room
mama, that a parlor mama, and that your
mama, and this mine, on my desk." There
was a picture of her holding the youngest
child in her arms and kissing his cheeks.
This picture the youngest boy always called
his own mama. Thus, you see, as soon as
that endearing word "mama" came into the

The Servant Restored 73

children's mouths, the whole house was
brightened up, and home became sweet again.
These pictures were a great comfort to my
children in those days of sorrow. They even
became a source of inspiration and encour-
agement in the times of trial and difficulty.

One of my boys went to take the entrance
examination of a medical college shortly af-
ter his mother's death. He went down to the
college town before the examination to pre-
pare for it. One day, when I went to see
how he was getting on, I found three boys
studying in the same room. On the desks of
the other two boys I noticed pictures of Glad-
stone and Bismarck. Perhaps these great
men were the objects of their hero-worship,
but on my boy's desk I saw his mother's pic-
ture, right in front, as usual. He thought
his mother's picture was just as good for
him, if not better, than those of great men.
I was much pleased with this expression of
his love for his dead mother, even in such a
place as this.

The examination was said to be hard, es-
pecially in mathematics. There were five
questions to answer. Four of them he dis-
posed of quickly, but he could make nothing
out of the fifth. If he could not answer all

74 Kanamorf s Life-Story

five questions satisfactorily, his failure to
pass would be certain, because there were
ten times more applicants for the examina-
tion than the college could possibly take in
that year. The time set for the examination
was quickly passing ; so, closing his eyes, he
tried very hard to think out the solution.
Just at that moment his mother's figure
flashed before him. In surprise he opened
his eyes, and the solution of the problem was
in his mind. He took up his pen and wrote
it out satisfactorily.

He entered the college at the head of his
class, and wrote to me afterward, saying,
"Surely mama, helped me."

One day my youngest girl came to me
with a curious question. She said, "Papa,
when you go to any faraway place you al-
ways come back, don't you?"

"Yes," I said. "This is papa's home;
papa has to come back always to his home, t
don't you see ?"

Then she said, "Well, then, you all say
mama is gone to heaven from here; and if
she really went there, and is living there now,
why can't she come back, as you always do
from a faraway place? Why can't she come
home again from heaven?"

The Servant Restored 75

I could not answer such a question. But
simply to comfort her, I said :

"Oh, I see ! Perhaps God has some work
for your mama in heaven. Therefore he is
keeping here there, and your mama cannot
come back here. You know, mama must
obey God; whatever God says mama must
do. God does not want your mama to come
back to this world, so she cannot come
home."

I said this simply to satisfy her childish
mind, which was wondering why her mama,
if she is really living in heaven with God,
cannot come back once more to her old home.

Instantly she said, "All right, papa. Then
why can't you go now to heaven yourself,
and do mama's work and serve God in her
place, and let mama come down here for one
month? And when you get tired of heaven,
papa, you might come down, and then we
will send mama up again to heaven. It is
very good to have papa with us always, but
we want mama also."

You see, in her childish mind there was no
partition between heaven and earth. Heaven
is joined to the earth by her dear mother
being there. She could see now right
through to the throne of God, and her dear

76 Kanamori's Life-Story

mother there. In those days they underwent
various spiritual experiences in a most won-
derful manner.

Every evening their favorite hymn was
that one which has in its chorus, "Our friend
is waiting on the other side." In Japanese
"friend" is tomo, and my children changed
that tomo into "mama," almost the same
sound, and were singing, "Our mama is wait-
ing on the other side." To them the unseen
world seemed so near and real that they felt
as if they themselves were living in the same
spiritual world with their departed mother.

In the midst of such a spiritual atmos-
phere, how could I resist the influence pour-
ing in upon me from the other side? You
know, I had been a pastor at one time, as well
as a professor of theology, so I must have
known intellectually things pertaining to the
spiritual world. I had not forgotten them,
only they were clouded by doubt. Thus,
while I was watching these spiritual experi-
ences of my children, gradually the clouds of
doubt and unbelief began to disperse, and
once more heaven opened, and with my spir-
itual eyes I saw Jesus Christ, my Saviour
and Lord, whom New Theology had taken
away from me, still sitting at the right hand

The Servant Restored 77

of God: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
and to-day, and for ever."

Then I could exclaim with doubting
Thomas when he saw the prints of the nails
in the hands of Jesus, "My Lord and my
God !" Jesus is my God, my very God. "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God."

These verses of Scripture, which I had
committed to memory forty years ago in
Captain Janes' Bible class, now flashed into
my mind as lightning from heaven, and the
whole spiritual world was once more lighted
up as in the noonday. Thus I was brought
back to my old simple faith by the words of
my child. Indeed, "out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected
praise." Thus began my return.

On another occasion I was brought back
to my old religious consciousness thus : Just
before my wife died she was talking with me,
with a smile on her face. She was weak in
body, and had lain in bed for many weeks;
but she was perfectly sound in her mind. I
found no sign of mental weakness to the
very moment of her death. Then suddenly
a spasm caught her, as the physician told me
afterward, and in a few minutes she was

78 Kanamori's Life-Story

gone. Only a moment ago there she was,
and now she is not. Where is she? What
has become of her? Her body lies here just
as before, a little cold, perhaps, but where is
that personality which shone so brightly
through those eyes which are now shut?
Has she vanished ? Has she been destroyed ?
Is she annihilated ? Impossible to think such
a thing at such a time. Do you think I could
help following her into that world yonder
whither she went so suddenly? Yes, I did
follow her. I was, as it were, peeping through
the portal of death into that eternal world
where she had just been translated. There
and then I came face to face with the eternal
reality of death.

When you face death, either in yourself
or in your friend, you face eternity. When
you face eternity, all things which are not
eternal, which belong to this world alone,
temporary things, such as wealth and pos-
sessions, houses and clothing, and all other
earthly valuables, which have absorbed your
attention while you were healthy and strong,
now sink into insignificance before the
brightness of the eternal realities., What
use is there of wealth and possessions
to a dying man? He came naked into this

The Servant Restored 79

world, and now he must go out of it naked
again. What comfort can gold and dia-
monds give to the dying girl ? Can the pos-
session of pretty dresses and costly jewels
make ftappy the heart of a dying girl?
When a man comes to the last moment of his
earthly journey, the sense of the nearness of
eternity will overshadow all things earthly
and temporal.

When I faced eternity in the death of my
dear one, that solemn and awe-inspiring
consciousness of the eternal destiny of man
which lay so long dormant in my heart now
came back to me with overwhelming force
and vividness. Then all the clouds of doubt
and unbelief raised by my too much specula-
tive thinking, and all the mists and fogs
caused by worldly ambition and earthly en-
joyment just vanished away, and I was
lifted up into the third heaven.

Death is a sad thing. Especially is the
death of our dearest one the saddest experi-
ence of our life. But when you look at it
in the light of heaven, the death of a dear
friend is the most precious gift God can
ever give in this world. I confess I was re-
vived by the death of my wife. Certainly it
can be said that she died in order to rouse

80 Kanamori's Life-Story

me from the slumber of a backsliding and
prodigal life. Oh, the wonderful method of
God's dealing, always surpassing our human
understanding ! Always and everywhere, the
good suffer for the bad, the righteous for
the unrighteous, and saints for sinners.

As a natural consequence of this death
experience, I was brought back once more to
that glorious scene on Calvary. I saw
plainly why the holy and righteous Son of
God, who knew no sin and in whom was
found no guile, had to face that terrible
death on the cross ; why Jesus, the Lamb of
God, should have been bruised for our iniqui-
ties and wounded for our transgressions;
why the chastisement of our peace must be
upon him, and why we sinners must be
healed by his stripes.

When I look back to those days of sorrow
and grief, I almost forget the death of my
human wife, and feel always as though
I were standing at the foot of the cross
on Calvary. Yes, it was Jesus who was
with me during those long years of my
wanderings, though I was entirely uncon-
scious of his gracious presence. At every
turn of my life Jesus was there protecting
and keeping, loving and suffering. When I

The Servant Restored 81

succumbed to temptation and sin, and stum-
bled, he was there looking at me with sor-
rowful eyes, as he looked at Peter, who de-
nied him. It was by his unseen hand that I
was kept and guarded and lifted up again and
again, and was not utterly destroyed, though
I was struck down numberless times by my
enemies. Though I pierced his heart again
and again with my sins, he never forsook
me. Though I wilfully ran away from him,
he always followed me. It is a terrible thing
to think how I pained his heart, how sor-
rowful I must have made him, and finally
how I crucified him. He died for me on ac-
count of my sin, taking upon himself all my
iniquities and transgressions, and all their
penalties and consequences. Oh, what a
wonderful Saviour is Jesus, my Lord !

I found once more the joy of my salvation
in the cross of Christ. It is not by the work
of social reform, or world reconstruction, or
moral uplift, that this sin-stricken world
may be saved. It is not by the teaching of
Jesus, nor by his blessed life even, that we
sinners are to be saved, but it is only by the
preaching of the cross of Christ that salva-
tion comes to this world.

Then I said, "Now I know the redeeming

82 Kanamori's Life-Story

power of the cross of Christ. Now I will
preach this cross to my fellow- sinners. I am
determined not to know anything among men
but Jesus Christ and him crucified."

I returned to my old simple faith in Jesus
as my Saviour and Lord, after passing for
many years through a tempestuous life of
doubt and unbelief caused by the study of
New Theology. Even after I returned to my
old faith I read many books of New The-
ology, especially of the German authors, in
order to see their present situation in the
theological world. But this time my mental
atmosphere was cleared by light from
heaven, and my perception of spiritual truth
became so real through my own experiences
that no cunningness of mere argument could
lead my mind astray from the path of truth.
Now I saw plainly enough the fallacies and
shallowness in their reasonings, and no
amount of plausibleness in what they call
the scientific method of treating religious
truth could longer shake my conviction, based
on the experimental knowledge of my own
Christian life. i

I tell you, my friends, when you have once
tasted how gracious is your Lord, how real
and true is his personal presence, and how

The Servant Restored 83

sweet are his words, yea, "sweeter also than
honey and the honeycomb," no destructive
criticism, and no evil teachings of New The-
ology, can disturb your faith in the absolute
divine authority of the Bible, as well as in
the perfect deity of Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is only when we have no such experimental
knowledge of spiritual truth, when our minds
are not enlightened from above, and our faith
is cold, formal, and lifeless, that the craft} 7
arguments of the enemies of the Gospel can
shake us. Just as when our bodies are weak
and our vitality is low, we are apt to be at-
tacked by disease, so the best precaution
against this disease of the soul, and the most
effective remedy for the pestilential doctrines
of the present day, is the spiritual health and
strength gained by a vital knowledge of God
and the unseen world. Thus returning to
my old simple faith in my Saviour and Lord,
I became the preacher of his cross, and God
has wonderfully blessed my work.

CHAPTER IV

THE SERVANT REAPING

IN JAPAN I am known as the man of one
sermon, because I preach the same sermon
everywhere. This sermon consists of three
parts, God, Sin, and Salvation. In fact,
I try to give all the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity in one sermon. To preach it,
therefore, requires three hours. Its English
translation, published by Fleming H. Revell
Company of New York, is called "The Three
Hour Sermon." But though this sermon
consists of three parts, in reality it is on one
subject. The first two parts, God and Sin,
are like two posts on which rests the cross of
Christ as the climax of the sermon. Thus I
became literally a preacher of one sermon,
on the cross of Christ.

When I am engaged in an evangelistic
campaign in any one place for several nights,
sometimes a week or two at a time, I repeat
this same sermon night after night. I tell
my congregation each time that I am going
to preach this same sermon every night:
84

The Servant Reaping 85

"Therefore you who have heard it to-night
need not come again. Your part now is to
decide whether you will accept or reject this
offer of salvation through Jesus Christ.
But in this place there are many people who
have never yet heard this Gospel message.
Perhaps such may be found in your own
homes, or among your own friends. Why
can't you send them, or bring them here to-
morrow night, and let them also have the op-
portunity of hearing the Gospel? And if
you don't wish to stay, you may go back,
leaving your friends." Thus I change my
congregation every night, instead of chang-
ing my sermon, which amounts to the same
thing. I need not be troubled about getting
a new audience every night, since I have
sixty millions yet to preach to.

However, though I preach the same ser-
mon, I usually have large congregations. I
do not preach now in the churches. Our
church buildings are too small to hold the
large crowds which come every night to hear
this one sermon. I am obliged everywhere
to rent theaters for my meeting places. The
largest ones hold from three to four thou-
sand, and they are packed every night.

Since the fall of 1915 I have conducted

86 Kanamori's Life-Story

evangelistic campaigns in all parts of Japan,
and also among the Japanese in the island of
Hawaii, and on the Pacific coast of America.
I will give you here the exact figures of these
campaigns, by which you can judge for your-
selves the present situation of Christianity
in Japan.

PACIFIC COAST CAMPAIGN
From September, 1915, to February, 1916, Five months

Places visited 64

Evangelistic meetings held 142

Churches which took part in campaign 67

Denominations or missions co-operating 9

Total attendance 30,000

Number of decisions for Christ 2,400

CAMPAIGN IN JAPAN PROPER

From September, 1916, to June, 1919,
Thirty-three months

Cities and towns visited 204

Evangelistic meetings held 577

Churches which took part in the campaign . . . 404

Denominations or missions co-operating 23

Total Attendance 270,000

Number of decisions for Christ 43>37

HAWAIIAN CAMPAIGN
From July, 1919, to October, 1919, Three months

Places visited 3 2

Evangelistic meetings held 82

Churches which took part in the campaign .... 18

Denominations co-operating 3

Total attendance 10,000

Number of decisions for Christ 2,080

The Servant Reaping 87

SECOND PACIFIC COAST CAMPAIGN
October, 1919, Half a month

Places visited 5

Evangelistic meetings held II

Churches which took part in the campaign ... 14

Denominations co-operating 5

Total attendance 3,400

Number of decisions for Christ 488

GRAND TOTAL

Number of months engaged in campaigns ... 42

Places visited 305

Evangelistic meetings held 812

Churches which took part in campaigns 502

Denominations or missions co-operating 40

Total attendance 313,000

Number of decisions for Christ 48,338

In Japan proper I have already visited
forty provinces out of the forty-seven. I
have held evangelistic campaigns in more
than two hundred cities and towns. Every.
where people flocked to hear the Gospel.
They are hungering and thirsting for the
saving power of the Gospel. Their old re-
ligious beliefs have been shattered and de-
stroyed by the light of modern civilization,
and they are looking for the true religion
which can satisfy their spiritual need.

As I have said, Christianity in Japan was
strictly forbidden for many centuries, and
people had very poor ideas about it. When

88 Kanamori's Life-Story

the missionaries first came they found the
ground so very hard that it seemed almost
impossible even to sow the seed; but for the
last fifty years they have been patiently
working on this hard ground, plowing the
field and sowing the seed, yet without being
able to see the longed-for fruits. Now the
harvest has come. The time of ingathering
has arrived. Throughout the whole country,
from the highest to the lowest, all people are
ready to receive the message if you preach the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity and sim-
plicity. From the figures just given as a re-
sult of my four-years' campaign, you can
easily see how receptive the minds of the
Japanese people have become to the Gospel
message. But as an example of the great
awakening in my country, I wish to tell you
about the largest campaign I have ever had
thus far in Japan.

In the spring of 1919 I conducted an
evangelistic campaign for six nights in the
city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. This
campaign was undertaken by a Presbyterian
church in Tokyo which is one of the largest
and strongest Japanese churches in the
country. The pastor of the church is one
of the greatest Christian scholars, as well

The Servant Reaping 89

as one of the most thoroughgoing orthodox
theologians, in Japan. The total member-
ship of his church is about a thousand,
but those members who are living in
and around the city of Tokyo are not over
five hundred. The campaign was conducted
in the large auditorium of the Tokyo
[Y. M. C. A. building, which holds from
eighteen hundred to two thousand. For
a whole year this church was earnestly
praying in preparation for this great cam-
paign. When the time drew near, for five
successive Sunday mornings the services
were turned over to me, that I might train
the whole church for the coming campaign.
Before beginning on such a campaign I had
to instruct the Christians on the following
points: First, how to prepare for the cam-
paign; second, how to work during the
campaign ; and third, how to follow up later
the work of the campaign. Unless the
churches taking part in the campaign are
thoroughly instructed on these points, it can-
not be a successful one.

When the first preparation Sunday came,
almost the whole church gathered for in-
structions. At this time I set up two ob-
jectives for the Christians to attain. First,

90 KanamoiTs Life-Story

they must try to get a total of ten thou-
sand unbelievers, not Christians of other
churches, to attend our meetings. Second,
out of this number they must try to get at
least fifteen hundred decisions for Christ.

The first thing needed was money. Where
could we get it? War means money. With-
out money you cannot wage a successful cam-
paign. I said to the congregation :

"I don't know how much this campaign
will need in all, but I think we must have at
least fifteen hundred yen ($750) to begin
with. It will be cheap indeed if we can save
fifteen hundred souls with fifteen hundred
yen, which means only one yen a soul. Now
for this fifteen hundred yen you must not
look to anybody else but to yourselves. This
is your campaign, and you must pay for it.
This morning at the beginning of the prepa-
ration I ask every one of you to give as much
as you can for this campaign fund. If there
is any one among you here who says he has
no money to give, I advise him to sell his
clothing and buy a sword, as Christ told his
disciples on the eve of a great conflict."

Then I distributed paper and pencils
among them, on which to write the amounts
which they were willing to give. When those

The Servant Reaping 91

papers were gathered tip and counted, they
brought the result to me, and I found exactly
fifteen hundred and four yen.

Then the people said, "This is not the
work of man, but of God."

To attain these great objectives the next
thing was to advertise the meeting in va-
rious ways. Newspaper advertising was, of
course, the first, and then many big adver-
tising boards were set up in the crowded
quarters of the city. Besides this, three hun-
dred and fifty thousand posters or hand-
bills were printed, and each member of the
church distributed five hundred of these dur-
ing the campaign days. Even the Sunday-
school scholars, numbering over three hun-
dred, were enlisted in this work. Each of
the younger children distributed one hundred
posters, and the older ones three hundred.
Last of all, every church member was re-
quested to find twenty unbelievers who would
promise to attend the campaign meetings.
These we called the "pledged hearers." This
plan of finding the "pledged hearers" before
the campaign opened worked out very well,
as the church people were thus brought into
direct personal contact with most of the
people who came to our meetings.

92 Kanamori's Life-Story

With this training and these objectives we
began the campaign February 5, 1919. But
unfortunately we failed to attain our first
objective. There were two reasons for this :
One was that on the very first morning of
our campaign all the city papers made a
public announcement from the headquarters
of the Police Department, strongly advising
the people not to attend any kind of a mass
meeting on account of the terrible influenza,
which was then raging throughout the whole
city ; the other was such a big snowstorm on
the fourth night that all the city trolley cars
stopped running.

But in spite of these hindrances about eight
thousand people came during the six nights.
Of these about two thousandwere Christians,
so the unbelievers, who were the real object
of the campaign, numbered only about six
thousand, a little over half of our objective.

We had the most unexpected success in
attaining our second objective. From the
six thousand unbelievers we had three thou-
sand and sixty-one decisions for Christ.
More than half of the unbelieving portion of
the audience decided to accept Christ. This
was a great surprise. No one ever dreamed
of such a great result as this. Moreover,

tt

ft

tt

m

Mr. Kanamori's Decision Card

Translation of upper section: "I believe in the
one true living God; I repent of my sin; I accept
salvation through the Cross of Jesus Christ; I
follow Christ even unto death."

The two large characters signify "Heart" and
"Decision." Then follow instructions and space
for writing one's name and address.

94 Kanamori's Life-Story

this audience of eight thousand people was
made up of all classes. Among them were
high government officials, members of Par-
liament, professors of universities, teachers
of all kinds of schools, students from the
universities, as well as high-school boys and
girls, merchants, bankers, and business men;
in fact, all classes of Japanese society were
represented in this audience. But the great-
est surprise of all was that out of the three
thousand decisions we found about two
thousand were all educated young men and
women, the essence of the rising generation
of Japan. Here are the exact figures of the
campaign.

Total Chris- Unbelieving Deci-

Attendance tian Portion sions

First Night 1,000 250 750 390

Second Night 1,200 300 goo 394

Third Night 1,300 300 1,000 429

Fourth Night Bno ^ t S orm) Soo 150 350 267

Fifth Night 1,600 350 1,250 690

Sixth Night 2,200 450 1,750 891

Totals 7,800 1,800 6,000 3,061

But I must tell of the "follow-up
work" of the campaign. We began imme-
diately. For the five nights following the
campaign we had meetings for the new con-
verts, during which I preached the practical

The Servant Reaping 95

side of Christianity, such as consecration,
prayer, Bible reading, and so on. A little
over sixteen hundred out of three thousand
converts attended these after-meetings. Then
for a whole month the pastor and his asso-
ciates conducted special preaching services
every night, just for the purpose of edu-
cating and training these three thousand
converts. After that about fifty Christian
homes of the church were thrown open for
district meetings for the converts living in
that district. And lastly, the names of the
new converts were all printed on one big
sheet and distributed to all the church-mem-
bers, so that every one of these new converts
should come under the care of some member
of the church. To each member were as-
signed from three to ten names, for whose
spiritual training he would be responsible.:
In these ways we carried on our "follow-up
work" after the campaign.. God wonderfully
blessed that campaign.

Immediately after this a Congregational
church carried on the same kind of an evan-
gelistic campaign. In this we had two thou-
sand decisions. After these two big cam-
paigns we had twenty smaller ones in and
around the city of Tokyo, conducted by;

96 Kanamori's Life-Story

twenty churches, in which a little over five
thousand decisions were made. So that the
whole number of decisions during the three
months' campaign was 10,440. Of these
converts about one thousand were taken into
the churches of their choice before the sum-
mer of 1919.

Thus you can easily see how mightily the
Spirit of God is now working among my
people. And it is not man's work, but the
work of God himself., In the presence of
such fire from heaven man must take off his
shoes and praise the Lord only,

In this connection I must tell you one
secret, if it can be called a secret. In that
big campaign in the Tokyo Y. M. C. A., if it
can be said that I had any part in it, it was
not by my preaching so much as by my
praying.. This I say to the glory of the
Lord, and not my own. Though I made fif-
teen hundred decisions the objective for the
church, I had my own secret objective, which
was three thousand decisions. For the last
three years I had been conducting my evan-
gelistic campaigns all over the country, ex-
cept in Tokyo, the capital. And now at last
God had led me to this city of about three
/million ,.,peqple, to conduct a campaign on a

The Servant Reaping 97

larger scale than I had ever attempted.
Surely the result of this campaign must
exert great influence all over the country.
So I prayed to God that he would pour out
his Hoty Spirit in this campaign as he did at
Pentecost in Jerusalem, and show forth his
power and glory, and let all people know that
our God is a living God.

So I prayed for three thousand decisions,
the same number as at Pentecost. For ten
days of the campaign I left my own home,
which is in the same city, and retired to a
private room on the fourth floor of the tower
on the Y. M. C. A. building, and there spent
a quiet time in prayer and fasting. It is my
usual custom during these campaigns not to
see any one in the afternoon. After lunch I
always retire and engage in prayer. When
I preach my three-hour sermon to an unbe-
lieving audience, I never take my evening
meal. I lose my appetite as I feel the bur-
den of my message to those thousands of un-
believers, whose eternal destiny is now in my
hands. If they accept my message and be-
lieve in Jesus, it will be life eternal to them,
but if they reject it the result will be just the
opposite. Who can feel equal to such a
great responsibility as this ?

98 Kanamori's Life-Story

When I was once asked, half jestingly,
why I do not take food before I preach, I
a'nswered, "Could you sit at your table, eat-
ing and drinking, laughing and joking with
your good friends, and in this manner spend
the last critical hour just before you appear
before thousands of souls in the attempt to
settle their eternal destiny?"

No, I cannot do it. I always feel that the
only place from which I can go to my pulpit
is "the mercy seat." Thus I prayed and
fasted for this blessing of getting three thou-
sand decisions, and God answered my
prayer, and gave me exactly 3,061 decisions.
Is not this a real Pentecostal outpouring of
the Holy Spirit? God is working mightily
through his Holy Spirit throughout the
length and breadth of my country.

This condition is not confined to the large
cities alone, but in more than two hundred
places where I conducted similar campaigns
we found the same conditions. Of course
there are some differences in the results of
the campaign. From my own experience I
can say the result of such a campaign almost
entirely depends upon the pastors and
churches which have undertaken it. I always
tell those pastors with whom I work that the

The Servant Reaping 99

work of the evangelist is like that of a wood-
man who goes to the forest and cuts down
the trees big and small, and brings them to
the shop of the carpenter. There the wood-
man's work ends, and the carpenter's work
begins. Now the carpenter must work upon
this raw material which the woodman has
furnished him. He must cut and saw and
plane, and make posts and boards and build
the house. But if the carpenter does not
work, and lets the timber He piled up outside
his shop, the rain and frost will come, and
the timber will surely rot and decay. Who
is responsible for the rotting of the timber?
The woodman or the carpenter? When I
had faithful pastors and working churches I
have always seen fine results.

I have received a printed report of the re-
sult of my five-months' campaign on the Pa-
cific coast. Out of sixty-four places on the
Pacific coast where I worked during five
months, fifty-six churches have sent in a re-
port, one year after the campaign. There
are two churches which have received on
confession of faith all converts within one
year, three churches took all but one, and
thirteen churches have taken in more than
half of the converts during the same period^

100 Kanamori's Life-Story

Altogether, out of 1,773 in these fifty-six
churches, 625 persons were taken into their
respective churches within one year of this
campaign, and 382 persons were still under
probation. So that altogether 1,007 deci-
sions should be regarded as the fruit of that
campaign.

And from Hawaii came another report,
which is as follows: Out of 2,040 converts
during a three-months' campaign 245 per-
sons were taken into the different churches
on confession of faith. I think these figures
show how sound are these decisions, espe-
cially when you remember that the large ma-
jority of my audiences hear from me the
Gospel of Christ for the first time in their
lives.

In many parts of America I have found
great misunderstanding and also gross mis-
representation of the present situation of the
Christian work in Japan. I hear even voices
of discouragement. But I hope by these
statements out of my own experience those
misunderstandings and misrepresentations
may be already cleared up. I can say now
with a good conscience and a firm assurance
that a great time has come for the evangeli-
zation of Japan. Indeed, "the fields . . . are

The Servant Reaping 101

white already to harvest." Or, to change the
figure, the iron is so very hot that if you
strike it at once you can make anything you
like out of it, but if you do not strike the iron
will cool off, and you can do nothing with it,
so, you see, the evangelization of Japan
must be brought about quickly. And I
believe it can be done if we do our part;
that is, if we, obeying the last command of
Jesus, preach the Gospel to every creature
in the country. My experience shows that if
six persons hear the Gospel, at least one will
accept it. Then, if the whole sixty million
can hear the Gospel, there will be a possi-
bility of gaming ten million souls for Christ
at the present time in Japan.

Seeing that such a wonderful opportunity
presents itself before us, I cannot help mak-
ing a desperate effort for the salvation of my
people. So I have resolved, the Lord willing,
to reach the whole nation of sixty million
with the Gospel of Jesus Christ within the
next ten or twenty years. But the question
is, how can I reach so many millions within
so short a time? Of course, I cannot expect
to do it through preaching alone, and so I
have decided upon another way; that is,
through the printed page.

102 Kanamori's Life-Story

For this purpose I have written a book in
Japanese called "The Christian Belief,"
which contains twelve chapters: First, The
One True God; second, The Heavenly Father;
third, The Sin fulness of Sin; fourth, The
Divine Judgment; fifth, The Reality of the
Future World; sixth, The Deity of Christ;
seventh, Salvation Through the Cross;
eighth, Christian Consecration; ninth,
Prayer; tenth, The Life of Trust; eleventh,
Bible Reading ; twelfth, The One Soul Cam-
paign.

If any one will read it through, he may
be able to grasp at least the outline of Chris-
tian doctrine, both theoretical and practical.
Though this is a small book of about two
hundred pages, when I wrote it, four years
ago, I spent five months over it actually upon
my knees and fasting. And God has wonder-
fully blessed it. Within three years after its
publication over 150,000 copies have been
printed. I call these books my "printed
preachers," because they are doing the same
kind of work of leading souls to Christ in
their own quiet way. And now what I call
the new plan of evangelization is this, to
put this book in the hands of every Japanese, .
so that every soul in my country shall have '

The Servant Reaping 103

the opportunity of hearing the Gospel. And
as the book is written in such easy and simple
language that even a child can read it, any
Japanese can read and understand it.

Very fortunately for the free distribution
of this book, my Japanese publisher, who is
himself an earnest Christian, has kindly
promised to let me have it at five cents a
copy, which, in these days of the high cost of
printing, is a great sacrifice on his part. So
now, if I have one nickel in my hand I can
give away one book, and one man can hear
the Gospel message. And if I have sixty
million nickels for this purpose, I can send
out at once sixty million "printed preachers"
throughout the whole Empire of Japan.
This I think is the quickest way at the
present time to preach the Gospel of Jesus
Christ to the whole nation.

CHAPTER V

SOWING IN THE EVENING

IN THE Student Volunteer Convention at
Des Moines, Iowa, there was a motto set
up high on the platform : "The Evangeliza-
tion of the World in this Generation."

When I saw that motto I said to myself,
"This is the very objective, so far as our
country is concerned, we are now determined
to attain."

We cannot wait until the next generation,
which will have its own work to carry on.
The evangelization of the world must be the
work of this generation, and I believe that if
the church of Christ at the present day is
really resolved to accomplish this great ob-
ject, it can surely be done in this generation.
,You have heard from the missionaries re-
turning from all parts of the world what
wonderful openings there are everywhere on
the mission field. Not only in Japan, but in
China, in Korea, in India, in Africa, in
South America, and in all other heathen
lands the doors are widely thrown open foe
104

Sowing in the Evening 105

the Gospel message. The call from the
heathen lands for missionaries is now so
loud and urgent that, if the churches will
really awaken to their opportunities and re-
sponsibilities, they cannot help making a
desperate effort for the immediate evan-
gelization of the whole world.

You have already heard those loud and
urgent calls from the foreign field through
your own missionaries. Of course, they can
represent to you satisfactorily the condition
of the heathen land where they are working
themselves. But if you could hear directly
from the heathen themselves, their need and
their cry for your help, you would perhaps
get a better and keener idea of the urgency of
such calls. You know I come from a heathen
land. And at one time I was a heathen my-
self, and am still the subject of a heathen
country. So I ought to be better qualified to
represent the heathen people, and to furnish
you with first hand information about the
real situation of the heathen world at the
present time. And moreover, I believe I
have a right to represent not only my
own heathen land, but also the whole
world. Because, though I love my own
country very dearly, yet my Christian heart

106 Kanamori's Life-Story

is a little too big to confine itself to my own
country alone. I love China, I love India, I
love Africa, just as much in regard to the
salvation of their souls as I love the salva-
tion of my own people. I always feel that if
God wants me for a missionary in Africa, I
am more than ready to start at once. In our
Christian love there are no national boun-
daries or racial distinctions.

Thus representing the whole heathen
world, I wish to make my humble appeal to
my Christian friends in America. Now
may I be permitted to speak plainly, freely,
and unreservedly, though in deep humility,
how we of the heathen lands feel about for-
eign missionary enterprises ?

While thanking you from the bottom of
my heart on behalf of my heathen brethren
for what you have already done, and are now
doing, for the evangelization of our benighted
land, yet I cannot refrain from asking, "Why
can't, or why won't, you do more for the
evangelization of the whole world? Do you
think that you have done, and are doing,
enough? Are you satisfied with the result
you have already attained? Are you really
trying to fulfill the last command of our
Lord, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach

Sowing in the Evening 107

the gospel to every creature,' according to
your ability or talents given from above?
Are you earnestly endeavoring to carry out
that idea of 'The Evangelization of the
World in this Generation' ?"

Suppose in the last great European war
America had sent out only a few hundred
thousand soldiers to France to fight with the
Germans, do you think you could have
beaten that country and saved the world?
Though the American soldiers may have been
ever so brave and gallant individually, yet
what could a few hundred thousand Ameri-
cans do against millions of Germans and
Austrians ? But you sent two millions, and
were going to send more millions, to fight
the Germans. You not only spent a few
millions of dollars, but several billions.
You not only gave up your men, but you gave
up your white bread and butter, your meat
and sugar. You deprived yourselves of com-
fort and luxury. You did not think any
sacrifice too great for gaining your object.
In a word, you made the beating of Germany
and the saving of the world the supreme
effort of your nation. This was doing the
work according to its magnitude, and you
gained your object.

108 Kanamori's Ljfe-Story

Now turn your eyes to the work of your
foreign missions, which is the same as con-
quering the heathen lands for Jesus Christ.
Do you think conquering a whole heathen
land for Christ is a smaller work or easier
task than conquering Germany ? What is the
heathen force of the world at the present
time? Taking the whole population of the
world as sixteen hundred millions, only a
little less than six hundred millions can be
counted as the Christian population, and that,
of course, including several hundred million
Roman and Greek Catholics; and the rest,
more than one billion, are among the so-
called heathen population of the world. In
Japan and Korea we have eighty million
heathen; in China, four hundred million; in
India, three hundred and thirty million; in
Africa, one hundred and fifty million; and
in all countries taken together the heathen
population of the world is over one billion.
Now your foreign mission work is to evan-
gelize this heathen world. For this pur-
pose, how strong an army of Christian sol-
diers have you despatched ? How many mis-
sionaries have*you already sent out? Are
you doing this work of world evangelization
according to the magnitude of the task?

Sowing in the Evening 109

I know your missionaries. They are brave
soldiers. They are gallant fighters individu-
ally, and they are faithful even unto death
for the cause of their Lord. But what can
this handful of a few thousand missionaries
do against the gigantic mass of a billion
heathen? Do you think they can evangelize
the whole world in this generation ? No, no ;
this is not doing the work according to its
magnitude.

I know the American people, and I love
them, because I was converted by the minis-
try of an American teacher, and was brought
up by the American missionaries. I regard
America as my spiritual fatherland. I feel
perfectly at home in this country. Moreover,
I admire the true American spirit. When
once that American spirit is roused up, and
you are determined to gain any object, you
always get it. Why won't you send out, not
only a few thousand, but a few hundred
thousand, Christian soldiers throughout the
length and breadth of the whole earth to
fight with the Devil ? Why won't you sacri-
fice once more your boys and girls, for this
great conflict of Christ and his enemies ? In
this war girls are just as good a fighting
force as boys, if not better. Why won't you

1 10 Kanamori's Life-Story

once more give up your white bread and
butter, your meat and sugar, and deprive
yourselves of your comfort and luxury for
the cause of Christ? Why don't you spend,
not only a few millions, but billions, or tens
of billions, of dollars for this great work of
world evangelization ? In a word, why won't
you make this foreign mission work, which
is the fulfilment of the last command of Jesus
Christ, the supreme effort of the Christian
churches in America, instead of treating it
as a mere appendix to your work at home?
America is blessed in every way. Yours
is the strongest and wealthiest, most intelli-
gent and most enterprising, country in the
world. No country on earth can compete
with you. But do you think, my American
friends, that God has blessed you so abun-
dantly for your own sake, for your own com-
fort and luxury, for your own enjoyment
and satisfaction alone? Do you think that
God has so wonderfully blessed you because
you are his only favorite among all the na-
tions of the world ? No, no ; God has blessed
America wonderfully, not for America's sake
alone, but for the sake of the whole world..
He has blessed America to make her a bless-
ing to the world through the power of Christ.,

Sowing in the Evening 111

Since I have come to this country your
people call me by various names, such as the
Moody of Japan, or the Billy Sunday of
Japan, and so on ; but I don't like to be called
by such great names. I am not such a big
man. I know I am a small man, not even
worthy of being called a minister of Christ,
because I have backslidden and forsaken my
Lord for many years. Not only for such
reasons, but also because I have my own
name I prefer to be called always by that
name, even though it be an unknown one.
But if you insist on calling me by any other
than my own, I have one name by which I
should like to be called. That is, a Macedo-
nian. I am like the Macedonian in Paul's
vision. He came from heathen Europe to
Asia, and I came from heathen Asia to
America; but the object of the coming of
these two Macedonians is the same, namely,
to implore the help of the Christians for the
heathen lands.

Won't you come and help us? Won't
you, my young American friends, take up
the sword of the Spirit, and march out
from your own beloved land into the
sin-stricken, desolate heathen lands and lay
down your lives for the salvation of the

1 1 2 Kanamori's Life-Story

billion heathen souls? Do you realize that
these billion heathen are all in need of salva-
tion just as much as you were? Don't you
know that the least of these is, in the sight of
God, just as precious as the soul of your own
mother or father, brother or sister ? Do you
think that God wants the salvation of your
kinsmen only, and not the salvation of these
heathen? Oh, I beg and entreat you, my
dear American friends, to look upon this
billion of heathen souls with the eye of
your heavenly Father and the heart of your
Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them and died
for them. Then you cannot help making
a desperate effort for their salvation.

And I believe that if you American Chris-
tians will seriously and earnestly take up the
great work of evangelizing the world in this
generation, and will do the work according
to its magnitude, God on his part will surely
bless you and your work, and the day of great
victory will be at hand.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

THE END

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