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DUX CHRISTUS 



UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS. 



VIA CHRISTI. An Introduction to the Study 

of Missions. 
LOUISE MANNING EODGKINS. 

LUX CHRISTI. An Outline Study of India. 
CAROLINE ATWATER MASON. 

REX CHRISTUS. An Outline Study of China. 
ARTHUR H. SMITH. 

DUX CHRISTUS. An Outline Study of Japan. 
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. 



OTSm VOL VMM IN PRSPARA TICS'. 



BIBEHIJ 
(RUSSIAN 
EMPIRE) 



ftYUKYU ISLANDSAKDFORMOSA 




DUX GHEISTUS 



AN OUTLINE STUDY OF JAPAN 



BY 

WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 



Htfo f arfc 
THE MACMTLLAlsr COMPANY 

LCOTDQN: MAOMILLA3ST & CO., LTB. 

1904 

All rights reserved* 



COPYRIGHT, 1904, 
BY TEE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped, Published June, 1904 

PUBLISHED FOE THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 
ON THE UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS. 



Nottootr $00* 

J. S, Cashing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co, 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A, 



STATEMENT 

OF THE CENTBAL COMMITTEE ON THE 
UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS 

IT is hoped that this fourth volume of the United Study 
Series will find as warm a welcome as those that have pre- 
ceded it. Since the publication of the first book of the 
course in 1900, the sales of u Via Christi: An Introduc- 
tion to the Study of Missions," '* Lux Christi: An Outline 
Study of India," and "Rex Chnstus : An Outline Study of 
China," have amounted to 150,000 copies. 

" Dux Christus: An Outline Study of Japan," appears at 
a time when the attention of the world is centred on this 
island empire. Every Christian woman should feel bound 
to study not only the news of the war and the political 
changes in Japan, but the progress of the Gospel of Peace 
as well. 

Rev. William Elliot Griffis, D.D., the author of our text- 
book, is well known tl rough his standard works, "The 
Mikado's Empire," " Japan in History, Folklore, and Art," 
and u The Eeligions of Japan." He has been a lifelong 
student of the country and its people. 

MBS. NORMAN MATHER WATERBURY, CHAIRMAN, 

Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass 

Miss E, HAERIET STANWOOD, 

70U Congregational House, Boston, Mass. 

Miss ELLEN C. PARSONS, 

Presbyterian JSuildinff, 
156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

MBS. J T. GRACEY, 

177 Pearl /Street, Rochester, N. Y. 

MBS. HARRIET L. SCUDDER, 

Church Missions House, 
kill Avenue and 22d Street, New York Oily. 

Miss CLEMENTINA BUTLER, 

SECBETARY AND TREASURER, 
Newton Centre, Mass. 
V 



PREFACE 

As a field for the prayer and missionary 
labors of Protestant Christian people, Japan 
has peculiar claims and an individuality all her 
own. Here is a young race of people, who are 
islanders, unconquered, sovereign, proud-spir- 
ited, intensely patriotic, and loving their own 
land and chief ruler even to religious devotion. 
Responding in the sixth century to Chinese 
and Buddhist civilization, but in the sixteenth 
century deliberately rejecting what came from 
Europe by way of Spain and Portugal, the 
Japanese in the nineteenth century became the 
docile but discriminating pupils of the English- 
speaking nations, and in the twentieth century 
are a "world-power." Though borrowing some 
features of national life and thought from other 
nations in the West, these people, who do not 
imitate, but adopt only to adapt, are self-con- 
fessed debtors chiefly to Great Britain and the 
United States. But so fresh is the field, and 
as yet but so slightly turned into furrows by 
the gospel plough and seeded for the kingdom, 
that, at this writing, but forty-five years have 
passed since the first missionaries with the Bible 
in their hands came to the Land of Peaceful 



viii PREFACE 

Shores. Yet within that time "what hath God 
wrought ! " 

The author was the first foreigner called out 
to Japan under the "charter oath" of the Mi- 
kado in 1868 to assist in "re-laying the founda- 
tions of the empire," and is the only white man 
living who in the castle city of a baron saw the 
workings of the feudal system. Beyond mission- 
ary and commercial limits, before one national 
school or the army, navy, postal, or educational 
system had been created, he looked upon the 
old divided life of the people, and remembers 
many things now vanished and forgotten. He 
knows well by sight the unspeakable horrors of 
disease, pestilence, famine, nakedness, immoral- 
ity, inhumanity, and oppression which belonged 
to Japanese society in a state of feudalism, ig- 
norance, F " superstition, when gospel light 
had not yeFmrv^ed. This was before Christian 
missionaries had given both the government and 
the people, not only the ideas, but also the object- 
lessons of graded school, hospital, dispensary, 
the training of nurses, the asylums for the blind, 
and manifold forms of blessed charity. Having 
seen also the new civilization, he feels as well 
as knows also the new Japan's dire need of 
the gospel. National conceit and imported 
machinery will never supply the necessity of 
spiritual regeneration. 

To speak in the first person, then, having 
been thus on the soil before one Christian 
church had been organized, or gospel sermon 
preached by a native, or telegraph pole planted, 



PREFACE ix 

or railway laid, my work has, I trust, what so 
many books on Japan have not, perspective. 
I can safely say that, though in government 
service, I have known by experience most of 
what the missionaries, early and late, tell about. 
In place, therefore, of many quotations in the 
text, I have given my own testimony as eye- 
witness. 

A word as to the plan of this book : I have 
begnn at the foundations, nature and man, 
and then proceeded to tell the story of the 
development of the nation in consecutive order 
of time. Apologizing, because of brevity and 
set limits, for the omission of many names, 
events, or lines of works of which I should like 
to speak, I beg earnestly that my readers will 
supplement their reading of " Dux Christus " 
with their own denominational literature and 
the books recommended in the text and lists. 
In noting both the lights and the shadows in 
the picture of a land and people not yet Chris- 
tian, but becoming so, and in thus making a 
study of comparative religion, we are seeing 
ourselves and our fathers as in a mirror, while 
beholding the truth and cross of Christ rise in 
splendor as he draws all men even our ag- 
nostic Japanese brethren unto him. Only 
one result can come by comparing the ethnic 
cults with the universal and absolute religion, 
and that is, to reveal more clearly the truth 
of Christianity and to demonstrate that Jesus 
is the Christ- With Japan's enlarging respon- 
sibilities as a world power, is revealed the pro- 



X PBEFACE 

found and increasing need of her people of the 
gospel for a world of sin. 

In the Christian meaning, we shout with 
heart and voice, " Tei Koku Dai Nippon ! Ban- 
zai ! " May the Divinely Governed Country, 
Great Japan, endure for Ten Thousand Genera- 
tions. In the hearts of all our Japanese friends, 
from the emperor to the infant just born, may 
the cherry flower of loyalty to Christ the Leader 
bloom to the glory of Our Father. 

W. E. G. 
ITHACA, N.Y. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

STATEMENT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE . . v 

PREFACE vii 

PRONUNCIATION OF JAPANESE WORDS . . , xiii 

CHAPTER I 

THE FRAMEWORK OF RECORDED TIME . . 2 

THE ISLAND EMPIRE 3 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 37 

CHAPTER H 

CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 47 

THE MAKING- OF THE NATION .... 49 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 90 

CHAPTER in 

CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 101 

THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 103 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 141 

CHAPTER IV 

CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 148 

MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS .... 149 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 186 



sii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V 

PAGE 

CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 197 

WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN .... 199 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 230 

CHAPTER VI 

FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 240 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 281 

APPENDIX 

LIST OF TWENTY-ONE PERIODICALS . . . 289 

STATISTICS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN JAPAN 291 

INDEX 293 



PRONUNCIATION OF JAPANESE 
WORDS 

STEICTLY speaking, there is no accented syl- 
lable in a Japanese word, but there are long 
and short vowels. There are as many syllables 
as there are single vowels. The consonants 
have the same value as in English, but g is 
always hard, Js instead of e is used, ch and s are 
always soft, and z before u is sounded as dz. 
When two consonants occur together, as in 
Nikko, give each the full sound. / in the 
middle, as in Tokio (Tokyo), and u at the end 
of a word, as in lyeyasu (Ee-yay-yas'), are 
scarcely heard, U is as u in rule or oo in boot, 
never as in unity. JE before a consonant is as 
e in men, but final e is as e in prey. Great care 
must be taken to represent long or short vowels, 
the quantity taking the place of stress or accent, 
as in ju or jiu-jutsu (Jew-juts'). 

a as in father ai as in aisle 

e " " men e " " prey 

i " " pique au " o in lone 

o " " lone iu " u in yule 

u " " rule ua " in quarantine 

EXAMPLES : Mikado (me-kah-do), Mutsuhito 
(muts-h'to), Ebisu (a-bee-s'), Hideyoshi (Hee- 
day-yo-shee), shogun (show-goon), Mei-ji (may- 
ee-jee), Guai-mu-sho (gwai-qioo-shoo), Ai-dzu 
(eye-dzu), Osaka (o-o-saka), li (ee-ee), Are 
(ah-ray), Riu Kiu (ree-yu-kee-yu), etc* 
xiii 



DUX CHRISTUS 



JAPAN'S FRAMEWORK OF RECORDED TIME 

660 B.C.-400 A.D. The prehistoric period, befoio writing 
or calendars, covered by mythology, tra- 
dition; and an official chronology manu- 
factured in later times. Migrations and 
race struggles. 

400 A,I>. Beginnings of history. Rude feudalism. 

552 . . . Entrance of Buddhism. 

G45 . . . Beginning of the system of year-periods. 
649 . . . The centralized system of government es- 
tablished. 

710 ... A permanent capital, ISTara, chosen. 
712 . . . First book, the "Kojiki/' committed to writ- 
ing. 

809 . . . Kobo and the common writing. Shinto ab- 
sorbed in Buddhism. 

1156 . . . Military campaigns over. The clans quarrel. 

1192 . . . Kamakura. Yoritomo. Feudalism begins. 

1281 . . . The Mongol armada repulsed. 

1348-1392 Schism in the imperial line. 

1542 . . . First arrival of Europeans. 

1542-1640 Era of the Three Great Men and of Roman 
Christianity. 

1606 . . . Tyeyasu at Yedo. Castle built. 

1639 . . . The Hollanders at Deshima. Profound peace. 

1604-1868 The TOICUGAWA Shogmis in Yedo Era of 
the literary revival of Pure Shinto. Con- 
fucianism the code and philosophy of the 
educated. 

1827 . . . Rai Sanyo's "History of Japan" published. 

1853 . . . Arrival of Commodore Perry's peaceful ar- 

mada. 

1854 . . . First treaties made. 

1859 . . . Harris treaty opening ports to trade and 
residence. 

1868 . . . Era of Meiji begins. Civil war. Charter 

Oath. 

1869 . . . Tokio made the capital. Vast reforms be- 

gun. 

1871 . . . The feudal system abolished. 

1872 . - . The solar or Gregorian calendar adopted. 

First Protestant Christian church formed. 
1889 . . . The Constitution proclaimed. 
1894 . . . The Chino-Japanese War. 
1900 . . . Political independence. 
1904 * . . War with Russia. 



DUX CHKISTUS 

CHAPTER I 

THE ISLAND EMPIEB 

Unique Japan. Among all the empires of 
Asia, Dai Nippon (Great Sunrise) is unique in 
being insular, unconquered, and governed from 
immemorial antiquity by one unbroken dynasty 
of rulers. Whereas the continental peoples of 
Asia and Europe have formed nationalities 
under pressure from without, by mei^ce or 
invasion, the Japanese, uninvaded and " com- 
passed by the inviolate sea," have had their 
activities of evolution chiefly from within. 
Without war, they have received seed or leaven 
from both the Orient and the Occident. The 
elements of progress from beyond sea have 
come without the sword. The invasions, Con- 
fucian, Buddhist, Chinese, Korean, Hindoo,, 
European, American, or Christian, hav$, been 
those of peace, and the triumphs of the alien 
have been, for the most part, "brain victories." 
Japan is the Land of Peaceful Shores, peerless 
among Asiatic nations. It has received its 
territory, for the most part, without aggression 
or conquest, and is a nation without immi- 



CKRISTUS 

grants. In the whole empire are about fifteen 
thousand foreigners, half of them Chinese. 
The British folk number twenty-one, the Amer- 
icans sixteen, and Germans six hundred. 

In relation to Asia, Japan is as England to 
Europe, and her people to Asiatics are as the 
islanders of Great Britain to the continental 
Europeans. Having all the characteristics of 
insular people, they realize also their position 
relative to the greatest of continents. In the 
twentieth century, with their fifty millions of 
people, divided into the three classes, nobles, 
gentry, and commons, they feel their unique 
importance as the middle term between the 
civilizations of the East and of the West. 

Old and Hew Japan. For the purposes of 
our study we may consider the Old and the 
New Nippon, which historically and in point 
of culture are quite different. Our fathers 
knew the old hermit nation of the Dutchmen 
and the geographies. We know the new em- 
pire which is in brotherhood with the world. 

The empire of the Mikado stretches from 
latitude 21 48' to 50 56' and from longitude 
E. from Greenwich 156 32' to 119 20'. Dai 
Nippon is thus set in a square of ocean super- 
ficies measuring roughly about five million 
square miles. The once "hermit nation " in 
the Far East has now, besides China and 
Korea, for her neighbors, Russia, Germany, 
France, Great Britain, and the United States. 

The old or distinctive Japan consists of those 
three large islands, Hondo (mainland), Kiushiu 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 5 

(nine provinces), Shikoku (four countries), and 
the smaller islands of Sado, Oki, Awaji, Iki, 
and Tsushima, all of which are historically of 
great importance. On these, besides Yamato, 
the ancient holy land of the Mikado's dynasty, 
is the oldest seat of empire, the home of legend, 
history, art, literature, and achievement. Here 
is classic soil, which is rich in poetic associ- 
ations and national traditions, old with the 
"moss of uncomputed ages." One must soon 
learn what is the Yamato damashii^ or the spirit 
of unconquerable Japan, in order to know any- 
thing about the Japanese. 

Yezo (savage or uncivilized) is comparatively 
new and modern to the Japanese themselves, 
but we Western people think of this island 
as belonging to the Old Japan which our 
fathers knew, because it figured largely upon 
the maps ; but, though always inhabited by the 
Aino savages, it was not colonized by the Jap- 
anese until after 1600 A.D. 

Japan an Archipelago. Old Japan was 
crescent-shaped. The Island Empire is really 
a great archipelago of about four thousand 
islands, of which number over three thousand 
may have names. There are four hundred 
and eighty-seven isles which have a coast-line 
'of two and a half zniles, and, except locally, 
only these are officially named and noted, un- 
less they, being inhabited, or having lighthouses- 
or beacons, serve as guides to navigation. The 
Japanese Iwvo the marked traits and tempera- 
ment of insular people, and the names of their 



6 DUX CHRISTUS 

islands form an interesting study, ricli in mate- 
rial of folk-lore. For purposes of government, 
these smaller islands are associated in groups, 
or are under the direction of one of the neigh- 
boring prefectures, into which Japan, like 
France, is divided, each having its governor 
and council. In the north, Chishima (thousand 
islands), or Kuriles (smokers), numbers thirty- 
two, Kiukiu (Loo Choo, sleeping dragon) fifty- 
five, and the Bonin (no man's) twenty islands, 
or in Old Japan four hundred and eleven in all. 
In New Japan, Formosa (beautiful) has twenty- 
one and the Pescadores (fishers) forty-seven 
islands. Both were named by the Portuguese. 

The newer regions of the Hok-kai-do (North- 
ern sea gate) or Yezo and the Kuriles in the 
north, and Formosa and the Pescadores in the 
south, are parts of the New Japan, which came 
to its birth in 1868. Being outside of the gen- 
eral stream of the national history, these are 
reckoned as crown lands. For the most part 
the usual political privileges and methods of 
administration do not apply to them, while to 
the majority of the Japanese they are still dis- 
tant and strange. 

The Old Divisions. Anciently the empire was 
divided into do (roads or circuits) such as 
the Tokaido (Eastern sea road), composing 
fifteen provinces, facing the Pacific from Yedo 
to near Kioto ; the Hokkaido (Northern sea 
road), comprising Yezo and the Kuriles, etc., 
like the terms "Eastern," "Middle," and 
" Southern " states in America. 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 7 

Some of the old circuits are now rarely spoken 
of, while others are still remembered in common 
speech. As convenient and sentimental terms, 
they serve Japanese clubs, societies, railways, 
banks, and various corporations with pleasing 
names, just as u Albion " and " Caledonia " do 
English-speaking peoples. 

In the Japan of feudal days, a native was of 
this or that " country " or clan, hut now feudal- 
ism is past and gone, and all are proud to be 
Japanese, The empire has forty-eight divisions, 
with forty-three prefectures, three imperial 
cities, Tokio, Kioto, and Osaka, and two terri- 
tories or colonies, Yezo and Formosa. There are 
fifty or more incorporated cities, and seven hun- 
dred and five urban and rural subdistricts, the 
latter being often divided into towns and vil- 
lages ; or, in the whole empire, nearly fifteen 
thousand cities, towns, and villages. Single 
habitations are rare, except in the mountains 
or in very poor regions, the country people being 
grouped in villages for mutual comfort and pro- 
tection and especially to save shading the soil 
by houses, which would limit productiveness. 
Heathenism still has its stronghold in the coun- 
try districts, and most of the Christian church- 
members are people who live away from their 
native places and have cut loose from local 
traditions. Christianity spreads more rapidly 
in the cities. In the next century the word 
inaka (countryman, rustic) will mean pagan. 

A Land of Many Names. There are many 
names for Japan in poetry and tradition, though 



8 DUX CIIEISTUS 

in conversation and the newspapers, Nippon is 
the most common term. Meaning literally sun- 
root, this word was first applied by people com- 
ing from the continent to the island, and the 
word itself is but a corruption of the Chinese 
Jili-pen, whence our word Japan. In poetry 
the Japanese call their beautiful country 
Yamato, from the ancient name of one of its 
oldest regions in this mountain-girt land. 
Many other names are found in the native lit- 
erature and employed in poetry or the higher 
style of address. Foreign appellations, besides 
being numerous and varied, are more or less 
complimentary. Was it not Victor Hugo who 
called Japan " The Child of the World's Old 
Age," and did not Joseph Cook speak of the 
Japanese as the " diamond edition of humanity," 
and their country as the " Rudder of Asia " ? 

The Japanese might also give to their whole 
strung-out empire the name which they apply 
to the Riu Kiu Islands, which are like shining 
beads on a rosary, that is, the Long Rope, or 
Extended Thread. When looked at on a large 
map, Japan resembles a huge silkworm, with 
Yezo for its tail, Hondo for its body, and Kiu- 
shiu for its head. Its open jaws seem to be 
spinning a glistening thread to form the cocoon 
of Formosa, near the Philippines, thus making 
an empire roughly two thousand two hundred 
miles long, and only two or three hundred miles 
wide at its broadest portion. 

Climate. Extending so far north and south, 
the Mikado's empire has not only a very varied 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 9 

climate, but also a wonderful diversity of vege- 
tation. Heat and cold, dryness and moisture, 
are not only according as a region ic north or 
south, towards the tropics or the poles, but 
also as the place described is situated with 
reference to the Kuro-Shiwo (black tide or cur- 
rent), the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, which 
brings northward the hot water of equatorial 
seas up past the Kuriles. According to which 
side of the mountain ranges the clouds gather, 
snow or rain will fall during the same storm. 

Roughly speaking, the eastern Pacific side, 
towards America, is the warmest and most 
fertile, while the western or Asian side is 
colder, though in Formosa these conditions are 
reversed. Here in the far south, where cotton, 
sugar, indigo and camphor forests abound, we 
have an island bisected by the Tropic of Can- 
cer. Then also, in " the land where it is always 
afternoon," the sleepy Riu Kiu Islands some 
day perhaps to be an ocean winter sanitarium 
we have subtropical weather conditions. In 
the extreme north, on the far Kuriles, bleak, 
barren, foggy, and cold, we find little sign of 
life of man, beast, or vegetable. Hokkaido is 
much like the region of New York and southern 
Canada, while in Japan proper, with much 
variety, the climate is in general that of the 
United States, whether on the Atlantic or in 
the Mississippi Valley. Speaking generally, 
the average person from Western countries can, 
in this part of the Orient, do a reasonable 
amount of work every day of the year. The 



10 DUX CUEISTUS 

winds blow regularly from the north in winter 
and from the south in summer. One of the 
chief reasons why so many foreigners, especially 
Americans, break down nervously, is found in 
the occurrence of unusual heat and excessive 
moisture at that time of the year when, by cus- 
tom and habit, American teachers at home do 
their hardest brain work in examinations and 
become overwearied in the labors incident to 
school closing. Excellent for children, less so 
for adults, better for men, worse for women, 
bad for persons of weak nerves or with con- 
sumptive tendency, but on the whole good, 
is what one of ordinarily robust health de- 
clares the climate of Japan to be. 

Japan is not subject to the same extremes 
which characterize American weather. The 
steadiness of temperature is more like that of 
the British Isles, except that the greater humid- 
ity in the air makes it harder for Western people 
to bear. Hence also its perpetual greenery. 
The months of June and September are very 
rainy. From April to July the "river of 
Heaven" overflows about every other day. 
There is comparatively little snow except on 
the wesb coast, between the sea of Japan and 
the mountains. Here the snow lies for months 
a yard deep over the landscape, and in the val- 
leys ten and twenty feet deep. In crossing the 
latter, one often needs snow-shoes. Fogs are 
not very frequent, except along the northern 
coasts, but in late summer and early autumn one 
may expect a visitation of the dreaded and de- 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 11 

struct! ve typhoon (tai-fun, great wind). The 
autumn and early winter are the most delightful 
seasons of the year. Sometimes the month of 
December passes without a cloud in the sky. 
Late autumn is the best time for tourists and 
travel. 

It will be seen then, from the excessive vari- 
ety in the physical environment, high mountain 
plateaus, and many low-lying valleys and cold 
lands, with the winds from Siberia and currents 
from the Arctic on the west, and with the warm 
moisture-laden air over the regions facing the 
Pacific gulf -stream, that Japan has a great vari- 
ety of weather. People who reach Japan from 
the tropics feel chilly; those coming by way of 
Siberia are apt to complain of the heat. One 
reason why people from beyond sea feel less 
vigorous when living in Japan is because the 
ozone of the atmosphere is less in quantity, to 
the extent of one-third, than in the air of Eu- 
rope and America. Murray's "Handbook of 
Japan" gives the British view of the situation. 
In our days, with their superbly equipped mete- 
orological stations, the government observers 
issue bulletins of weather probabilities thrice 
daily, foretelling storms and even earthquakes. 

Rivers. Japan has no rivers of any notable 
length, depth, or dignity. Most of the kawa are 
noisy sprawling torrents occupying more space 
than they are worth. Not a few of those fa- 
mous in the national annals win glory from their 
being far. Like Plymouth Rock, they are co- 
lossal in history, rhetoric, and poetry, but in 



12 DUX CHEISTUS 

proportions can be easily measured with an 
umbrella. Of these, some live only In name, 
having utterly dried up. Others are but stream- 
lets hardly able to fill a laundry-man's tub. The 
whole archipelago consists mainly of the emerged 
crests of a line of mountains. These are sur- 
rounded on the west by the comparatively shal- 
low sea of Japan, and on the east by a very deep 
ocean, which along the northern part of the 
empire contains the prof oundest aqueous depths 
in the world. The central spine of the islands 
consists of peaks and plateaus ; and no rivers 
run across Hondo, but all tumble down from 
the highlands to the sea, in short, and for the 
most part, tumultuous channels. Boiling floods 
in the spring when the snow melts, or in June 
and September when the rainy season is on, they 
are, during the quiet winter or the hot summer, 
inconspicuous streams finding their tortuous way 
over wide spaces of pebbles, sand, gravel, and 
mountain debris. In many parts of the country 
an uncomputed amount of labor has been spent 
during ages to protect the fields from inunda- 
tion, and much has to be spent every year. 
Dikes have been built both against the river 
floods and, in low-lying regions, against the sea. 
In fact Japan, besides resembling the Nether- 
lands in many other ways, has to spend every 
year about as much money on her defensive 
walls against river and sea as do North and 
South Holland and Zealand. In some neigh- 
borhoods one can walk miles on the tap of the 
dikes, looking down on the surrounding country 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 13 

\ 

far below, smiling, it may be, in the summer sun- 
shine, but in the time of storm and flood men- 
aced with danger from the terrible waters. 
Millions upon millions of her people have been 
destroyed by floods and tidal waves, so that 
Japan sadly needs the science of engineering 
and the art of an Eads or a Caland to save both 
life and soil. Nor is it any wonder that the 
dragon-symbol of the powers of water, both 
life-giving and destroying, occupies the foremost 
place in her art. 

The Soil and its Fertility. To state the area 
of Japan is by no means to tell of so much ara- 
ble soil or fertile territory. Indeed, the dispro- 
portion between the valuable and worthless land 
constitutes the real problem for Japanese states- 
men. The people must go abroad in. order 
to live. A contrast easily made is startling. 
Whereas in Europe the average of cultivated 
land to the total area of the country is 37.4 
per cent, it is in Japan only 13 per cent. That 
is, 87 per cent of Japan goes almost to waste. 
The empire now contains fifty million souls ; 
but, while population is increasing at the rate 
of about a half million a year, very little new 
land is reclaimed, and most of the old soils have 
reached their limit of production. Unlike 
China, Japan is not a self-centred country. 
Food must be imported. Like the ever in- 
creasing British people, the Japanese, being 
islanders, must emigrate and be enterprising 
in distant larids. In 1901 fifteen million acres 
were under cultivation. The average yield of 



14 DC7X CURISTUS 

rice is about two hundred million bushels. In 
olden times, when the crop failed there was 
famine. Even the soil has but slight natural 
fertility. Newly broken ground yields only 
scant harvests, and without the most careful 
attention and manuring the earth brings forth 
but poorly. The face of the country is almost 
wholly mountainous, and only the river valleys 
and plains are cultivated, though often the 
gullies are terraced and the slopes made useful. 
Heretofore the Japanese have not been much 
acquainted with artificial fertilizers, using al- 
most wholly poudrette and animal droppings. 
Hence, as a rule, and for obvious reasons, the 
land produces the richest crops near large towns 
and cities. Nevertheless, more energy and 
resolution, resulting from a change of mind and 
habits, would make the hill land more valuable. 
Agriculture, then, is confined to a little more 
than one-twelfth of the country's area. 

The Landscape. As Japan is a land poor in 
horses and cattle, there is in general very little 
pasture and no such thing as enclosed estates of 
large size. " There are no farms, only gar- 
dens." One sees no fences and comparatively 
few ditches, walls and hedges being used as 
boundary lines. Earely does a house stand by 
itself. The villages concentrate the population 
and the houses are built close together, usually 
in parallel rows along a single thoroughfare, 
with few or no side streets. Until very re- 
cently vehicles drawn by horses were unknown, 
for the farmer never thought of having such a 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 15 

thing. Burdens were carried on the backs of 
men, women, and horses. In enumerating bur- 
den bearers or workmen, the term for animals 
was used, just as we say of labor so many 
" hands." Instead of trains of baggage wagons, 
Japanese military authorities use armies of 
laborers almost equal in number to those of the 
combatants, but there is no blood caste and 
there are no coolies. 

The average agricultural landscape consists 
of a level of unfenced fields, in which are small 
spaces, fractions of an acre, separated by little 
banks or partitions of earth enclosing water a 
few inches deep, in which rice is planted and 
grown. The pathways are narrow dams be- 
tween the fields and roads, so-called dams or 
dikes, forming the public roads, only a little 
wider, set between the paddy (or wet) fields on 
either side. In winter, when seen in certain 
lights, the low, flat country looks like a great 
looking-glass, cracked into bits and spotted all 
over with the tufts of rice stubble. In the 
springtime the tender green of the growing rice 
is very beautif uL At the beginning of sowing, 
one sees a striking illustration of the scripture 
passage, "cast thy bread upon the waters; 
for thou shalt find it after many days." The 
rice farmer, as in May he stands casting out 
his precious rice grains into his seed bed, seems 
to be throwing them away on water, but this Is 
but faith put into practice, for after a few days 
it comes back to him, first as the pretty green 
tufts a few inched above the water's level. 



16 DUX CIHUSTUS 

These in June he transplants in rows, weeding 
and laboriously hoeing and guarding until 
October, when the golden harvest is ready. 
Concerning the rice plant and grain the Japan- 
ese have a rich poetry and mythology. " Give 
us this day our daily bread " means to most 
of the city and well-to-do people, rice, but to 
most country folk it is a luxury eaten only on 
holidays and special occasions. 

Mountains and Volcanoes. The most strik- 
ing feature of the Japanese archipelago is its 
mountainous surface, which from Yezo to For- 
mosa rises from the little hills up to the highest 
peak in the empire, Nitakayama (Mount Morri- 
son), which is 13,880 feet high. The four 
larger islands are covered with hills, and on 
Hondo one sees the great table-land of Shinano 
rising 2500 feet above sea-level. Thence 
northerly, to the end of Hondo, we behold 
roughly outlined two nearly parallel lines of 
mountains of irregular height. Kiushiu has a 
background of lofty ranges, and most of the 
promontories jutting into the sea consist of 
bold rocks. The most beautiful mountain, 
visible from thirteen provinces, a landmark to 
the mariner at sea, the goal annually of myriads 
of pilgrims, and the centre of poetry, legend, 
and art, from the dawn of history to the days of 
telephones, is Fuji, or Fuji San, which is gener- 
ally called Fujiyama by Europeans. The story 
of its many names and of its origin in a night, 
the earth rising in one place to make a moun- 
tain and sinking in another to make a lake, is 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 17 

told in " Japanese Fairy World," entitled "The 
Lake of the Lute and the Matchless Mountain." 
Millions of religious pilgrims climb the higher 
crests,- and some sects of devotees are named 
after Fuji and other peaks, 

Japan seems to be in the very centre of the 
volcanic activities of the world. Probably no 
other region of similar area has so many open 
vents of the earth's fiery interior. Twenty 
active volcanoes are counted. Indeed, the vol- 
cano and the earthquake have been the chief 
makers of Japan. But for these, which lift 
and depress the crust of the earth and cover it 
with material for soil, much of Japan would 
never have existed. The lava streams, the red- 
hot sand, and showers of ashes, which sometimes 
within a few days will cover the ground six 
yards deep, have formed most of the soil of 
Japan. Certain signs foretell the outbreak of 
activities below the earth's surface. Sometimes 
the warning comes in the untimely blooming of 
the cherry trees, in January instead of in April. 
Or, the water in the wells sinks before the earth- 
quake shock. Even such innocent-looking 
mountains as Fuji, Onzen, and Ontake have 
without warning burst out into flame and steam, 
sending out floods of lava* throwing the sea into 
commotion, and consuming tens of thousands 
of lives. Occasionally the rocky cap of a 
mountain is blown off with sudden explosion. 
In parts of the ocean round Japan the water 
boils and fumes from subterranean volcanoes. 
These give rise also to the abundance of hot 



18 DUX CHRXSTVS 

springs in the country, to the vast beds of sul- 
phur, and to those delightful watering places 
which furnish healing baths for the invalids 
and places of recreation for pilgrims, tourists, 
merchants, and missionaries. 

All these phenomena, continued during ages, 
have been powerful factors in forming the tem- 
perament, character, and general nature of the 
Japanese, and in determining their history. 
Their land and its story are to millions of 
them their religion. There is no homesick- 
ness greater than theirs when away from their 
beautiful Japan. 

Earthquakes. More immediate, personal, and 
terrifying than volcanoes are the earthquakes, 
which, acting right under your feet almost 
daily, affect powerfully both mind and body. 
They are nearly continuous in one part of the 
empire or another. Indeed, Japan is a coun- 
try in which the chances of going to sleep at 
night and waking up to find the chimney in bed 
with you are fair. Shocks vary from slight 
vibrations, which the seismograph records al- 
most with the frequency of the beat of the 
human pulse, to those violent earth-tremors 
over great areas, which lift up and throw down 
animals, human beings, houses, rocks, and hills, 
which toss over steel bridges into ditch or river, 
twist railways until they look like writhing 
snakes, or open the earth in great cracks. 
Such are common phenomena. The wise 
dweller in Japan will catch hold of the lamp 
as soon as lie feels the earth rocking and the 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 19 

house swaying. The house tumbling down and 
falling on lamp or brazier adds fire to the hor- 
rors of the situation. Yet the really destruc- 
tive earthquakes come only about once in twenty 
years, and it is calculated that there are more 
people killed every year by lightning in the 
United States than there are by earthquakes in 
Japan, where thunder-storms are rare. Accord- 
ing to mythology, earthquakes are caused by 
the writhing of a vast subterranean catfish, 
whose head is in the northern part of Hondo 
and whose tail is in Kioto, or southward. For 
this, as in nearly every other phenomenon in 
Japan, there is a popular as well as a scientific 
explanation, for all the creatures in the men- 
agerie of mythical zoology are, according to 
native fancy, kept very busy at their pranks. 
The general ignorance of natural law and lack 
of knowledge of a Creator-Father account for 
much of the popular superstition among the 
lowly and the apparently mercurial disposition 
of the better class. Above all things the Jap- 
anese, as a people, need a loving knowledge 
of the " One Lawgiver, who is able to save and 
to destroy." 

Japan's Indented Coast-line. A glance at 
the situation on the map of the world and a 
study of the configuration of the islands, with 
their coast-line deeply indented in many places 
with bays and promontories and with only a 
fraction of its area available for agriculture, 
show the part which Japan is likely to play in 
the world's future by industry and commerce, 



20 DUX CHRI8TUS 

sea power, and a career on the ocean. One 
might imagine, a priori, that the Japanese 
would have been the Phoenicians of the Far 
East ; and indeed, in large measure, before 
and especially during the sixteenth century 
they were, and in the twentieth century are. 
Legendre in his " Progressive Japan " says : 
"This chain of islands seems to have been 
located especially round the eastern boundary 
of the Old World, to form the advanced post 
of a transformed superior civilization, returning 
with man by a course indicated by that of the 
sun, to seize upon the place of its birth and 
give a new impulse to its suffering races and 
otherwise prepare them for their coming evolu- 
tion in the vortex of ages." 

The coast-line of the empire is over eighteen 
thousand miles long, and is for the most part 
the theatre of varied industries. On or near 
the salt water, deep-sea fishing, whale hunt- 
ing, the drying of marine products, the canning 
of salmon and sardines, and a thousand other 
methods of livelihood occupy tens of thousands. 
Salt is made by dipping up the sea water and 
sprinkling it over beds of sand, evaporating it 
in the sun, and then leaching out the brine, 
which is boiled to crystals. 

The Fisheries. Catching fish in fresh water 
by hook, net, cormorant, torch-light, and spear, 
furnishes livelihood to thousands more. Fish- 
ing is probably a more ancient art in Japan than 
agriculture. Its scenes and situations lend 
themselves readily to the artist and poet, both 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 21 

of whom delight to portray the fishing girls and 
men, the female divers after shell-fish, and the 
fishermen drying their nets or returning home 
with their spoils. In making presents of food, 
which is such a striking characteristic of Jap- 
anese social life, there mnst always be a piece of 
decorated and folded paper tied artistically with 
red and white cord, a polite necessity of which is 
the insert of a tiny slip of fish skin which tells its 
own story as a legacy from primitive civilization. 
Japanese art, poetry, romance, and folk-lore are 
full of the sea, its wonders and its possibilities 
for man. Even the ancient Shinto liturgies cele- 
brate u the blue plain of the sea," the ship and 
her equipment, the fishers and their spoils. Of 
the two gods of daily food, seen in nearly every 
Japanese house, one sits on two bags of rice, the 
native staff of life, and the other holds a to', or 
bream fish, under his left arm, while his right 
grasps a fishing pole. Neither of these idols is 
Buddhist or continental, but of pure Japanese 
origin. 

Varied Industries. The modern contact of 
the Japanese with Occidental nations came in 
the age of steam, electricity, the printing-press, 
and of the manifold applications of coal and 
iron. They have taken kindly to the material 
forces of the Western nations, and have, in a 
generation or two, changed their form of society 
from feudalism to constitutional imperialism, 
and from one almost wholly agricultural to that 
which is industrial and commercial. This is the 
golden age of the craftsman, merchant, and 



22 DUX CHEISTUS 

financial promoter. Besides the great enter- 
prises of ship building and railway construction, 
there are hundreds of minor industries, such as 
sugar raising, paper making, dyeing, glass Wow- 
ing, lumbering, horse breeding, poultry and fish 
culture, ice, brick, fan, match, button, handker- 
chief, shoe, and jewellery making, with pottery, 
lacquer, weaving, embroidery, sake and beer 
brewing, soy, etc. These were all finely repre- 
sented in the Fifth National Exposition at Osaka, 
in 1903. Even in war, the Japanese bring to 
the equipment and transportation of an army 
and the conduct of a campaign the same nicety, 
precision, detail and foresight, keen observation, 
dash and enterprise, which have made them a 
nation of artists. It seems almost incredible 
that the nation pictured in this twentieth cen- 
tury is the same one which we knew fifty years 
ago. Nevertheless very few native writers are 
profuse in explaining the part played by their 
hired employees from 1860 to 1900. Some 
Japanese, like their foolish flatterers and shallow 
admirers, seem to delight in talking about their 
wonderful progress, as if it were a fairy tale. In 
bhis way Japanese with short memories imitate 
bhe sensational newspaper correspondent and sen- 
timental tourist, who forget the forty years of 
varied toil of hand, heart, and brain of hundreds 
of missionaries and teachers, besides pioneer edu- 
cators, organizers, and promoters from Europe 
and America. 

Chinese and Japanese. Many comparisons 
are made between the Chinese and Japanese, to 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 23 

the disparagement or advantage of either. These 
comparisons are not always intelligent. They 
rest too often on partisanship, ignorance, or 
lack of discrimination. When close examination 
is made, it wonld be hard to find two peoples who, 
outwardly so much alike to Western eyes, are so 
different in their history, development, tempera- 
ment, language, and most of those deep things 
which belong to the mind and the records which 
the mind has made. The Chinese are ethical, 
the Japanese are esthetical. " The former have 
race pride, the latter national vanity. ... No 
Chinese but glories in the outward badge of 
his race ; no Japanese but would be delighted 
to pass for a European, in order to beat the 
Europeans on their own ground. " The supreme 
fruit of the Chinese intellect is seen in the moral 
codes of Confucius and Mencius. The whole 
idea of Chinese religion and civilization is that 
of order and propriety, with very little idea of 
beauty or love of comfort, and with ethical con- 
ceptions which by ages of iteration and routine 
have hardened into bigotry, conceit, worship of 
ancestors, agnosticism, and a pragmatic view of 
life, that has no idealism in it and is hopelessly 
opposed to progress. Nevertheless the Chinese 
are conservative of the best things and hold on 
to that which is good. 

On the other hand, the Japanese have not 
carried the study of ethics so far, nor are they 
ordinarily given to the study and practice of 
ethics as such, while for profound philosophy 
they care next to nothing. Their -characteristic 



24 DUX CHRISTUS 

is the love of beauty, that is at once intense 
and passionate. This is not, necessarily, love 
to God or man or righteousness, but of nature 
and art in its decorative, rather than ideal, 
forms. Nor is this trait, as with us, a compara- 
tively modern feeling. It is reflected in their 
literature and art from ancient times. They 
have a keen perception of natural charms. To 
an ordinary native of Japan : 

" A primrose by the river's brim 
A yellow primrose is to him." 

but in a sense different from that intended by 
Wordsworth of Peter Bell, for it is something 
more. A Japanese delights in a flower for 
its own sake. He loves the rocks and trees, 
the ripple marks on the sea sand, the stars, 
the coloring of the skies and landscapes, the 
rosy red of morning, the violet shadows of the 
sunset hour, and he appreciates thoroughly his 
beautiful country. That teacher, preacher, 
missionaiy worker, will reach most quickly and 
hold most enduringly who knows and appre- 
ciates that which is their master-passion,- 
love of country and beauty. 

The Story of the Japanese People. Japan 
is a young not an old country, and the Jap- 
anese are a people no older than the Anglo- 
Saxon. They came "out of the woods" and 
into civilization as late in the world's history 
as did the Teutonic tribes. There is a good 
deal of nonsense written about what was done 
in Japan u ages before Christ'* or in "the 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 25 

time of Cyrus." Their story may be easily 
divided into two parts, the first part prehis- 
toric, that is, before letters, almanacs, and 
recorded history in writing, to the sixth csn- 
tury, A.D., and the second, that which comes 
later with the clear light of authentic records 
of the eighth century and following. No one 
can really understand modern Japan without 
knowing primitive Japan and the Japanese 
before they came under Chinese arid Buddhist 
influences. Let one diligently inquire of the 
real history of these islands, and he will know 
more of the true genius of the Japanese than 
if he attempts to interpret the country and 
people through abstract Western sciences and 
popular beliefs. To call the first part of 
Japan's story, as the natives do, "the age of 
the gods," means little besides mythology and 
human history, for the old "gods," or kami, 
were ordinary men and nothing more. The 
very word kami (upper or superior) does not 
mean necessarily a supernatural being. Indeed, 
the average Japanese has no clear distinction 
be.tween the natural and the supernatural. 
"At least one-fifth of the Japanese people 
worship nothing higher than the fox." Yet 
the kami, or primitive ancestors, are not only 
honored, but worshipped. Originally, even 
according to native theory and religion, the 
kami were all earth-born. In the old Japanese 
writings the origin of the universe is according 
to pure evolution of matter into beings with 
life. In a word, the "gods" came after, not 



26 DUX CHRISTUS 

before, the heavens and the earth, and were 
made by men. In their ancient view, the 
world means Japan, and the gods mean Japan- 
ese only. All the rest of the world and its 
inhabitants are ignored in the primitive insu- 
lar traditions. 

The Japanese a Young Race. There is no 
real Japanese history prior to the fourth or fifth 
century. It is true that there are legends which 
carry the island story backward to nearly seven 
alleged centuries beyond the point we call the 
Christian era, and that the government, in very 
recent years, elaborated a system of chronology, 
which, like what is "made in Germany," shows 
the place of its manufacture. First officially 
set forth in 1872, this system is now rigid 
orthodoxy to every Japanese drawing govern- 
ment pay. Though the Western man may smile 
at the Japanese claims, it is not yet safe for 
native scholars at home to investigate critically 
the popular notions about primeval events, for 
the vulgar belief is part of practical politics 
and is protected by the emperor's advisers as a 
bulwark to the throne. Hence this scheme of 
chronology and outline of early history is offi- 
cially made a part of the school histories, and 
is taught to every child, just as if Japan had 
still a state religion. Read the introduction 
and opening clauses of the national constitution 
of 1889. 

It was not till after 552 A.D. that, in the train 
of Buddhism and things imported from China, 
the islanders possessed facilities for measuring 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 27 

and recording time ; it was over a century 
later when the miscellaneous floating stories of 
the early times were set down in writing. The 
first " emperors," or tribal chiefs in the tradi- 
tional line, seventeen in number, are credited 
with an average reign of sixty-two years, which 
in length is beyond anything known in human 
history. The average reign of a mikado in the 
list of 123 is twenty years, and of those since 
400 A.D., fourteen years. 

Japan's Book of Genesis. The "Kojiki, or 
Record of Ancient Things," contains the prime- 
val legends, fairy tales, and pretty stories of 
various kinds, clean and unclean. It gives also 
the genealogies of the early rulers and mikados. 
It was put into writing in the year 712 A.D. 
The stories in it were told by a man named 
Are, and written down by one Yasumaro, by 
order of the Empress Gemmio. It is a wonder- 
ful picture of the primitive people and of their 
thoughts, customs, and feelings. 

The " Kojiki " has been translated into Eng- 
lish, with elaborate notes and commentary, by 
Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain. Like so many 
Oriental and very ancient books, there are con- 
siderable portions of it which are too filthy or 
realistic to be put into English, so that these 
objectionable passages are expressed in Latin 
by the translator. It must not be forgotten 
also, that the " Sacred Books of the East " as 
we have them in English are not exact tran- 
scripts, but expurgated translations, long pas- 
sages too obscene for public print being omitted. 



28 -DUX CHRIST US 

These same ancient legends, which we read 
in the " Kojiki," but set in a very different style 
and literary framework, are also told in the 
"Nihongi, or Story of Japan." Here we find 
the old myths framed in Chinese rhetoric, sup- 
ported by references to Chinese sources, and 
cast in the general mould of Chinese philosophy. 
This work, issued in 720 A.D., has been trans- 
lated into English, with elaborate notes and 
commentary, by Mr. W. G. Aston, and pub- 
lished by the Japan Society of London. 

Modern Scholarship. In fact, the opening of 
the treasures of both ancient and modern Jap- 
anese literature to the world, and especially to 
the English-speaking nations, is, for the most 
part, the achievement of a little group of schol- 
ars, most of whom were connected with the 
British legation in Japan. While the British 
scholars have excelled in linguistics, literature, 
and history, the American school of writers has 
opened the paths of philosophy and psychology. 
The French have unveiled the world of art, and 
the Germans have exploited in every direction 
the once hidden lodes of knowledge. In the 
works of both popular and scientific writers, 
but more fully and thoroughly in the Trans- 
actions of the Asiatic Societies of Japan, one 
may find almost inexhaustible treasures of 
knowledge relating to the once hermit king- 
dom. A set of the Transactions ought to be in 
every public library in the cities and towns of 
all English-speaking nations. These excellent 
recent writings in English have rendered almost 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 29 

worthless what had been written before by Eu- 
ropeans. With Poole's Index and Bibliography 
we have vast treasures explored and catalogued. 
In Professor E. W. Clement's " Handbook of 
Modern Japan " and in Professor Basil Hall 
Chamberlain's " Things Japanese " are also 
select and very serviceable lists of books on 
Japan. 

Racial Qualities of the Japanese. It must 
be remembered that the Japanese have all the 
racial qualities that fit them to engage in the 
competitive struggle of the world's peoples. 
They are not like certain races which melt 
away in the presence of a higher civilization, 
but rather are capable of becoming one of the 
foremost nations of the world. In capacity for 
increase of numbers and mastery of new forces 
and problems they are notable. "The economi- 
cal, yet convenient, customs of the mass of the 
people for the care of their young, their health- 
ful out-of-door life in most parts of the country, 
the age at which children join their parents in 
productive occupations, their strong family at- 
tachments making it difficult for any one with 
family connections to be in absolute destitution, 
their simple standard of living, all go to show 
that the Japanese are a prolific race, not only 
because the birth rate is moderately high, but 
also because the death rate is low/' Since the 
checks and balances of the elaborate feudal sys- 
tem have been removed, the population of Japan 
has increased steadily. All the doors and out- 
lets to activity, enterprise, and promotion 



30 DUX CHEISTUB 

army, navy, schools, courts, emigration, foreign 
commerce, new professions and occupations 
have been thrown open, and life is now more 
than ever worth living in Japan. The race 
is prolific, and the islands overflow with an 
eager and alert people. Christianity in Japan 
means life, and life more abundantly. 

Other Races in the Empire. Japan is an 
empire with various races within her bounda- 
ries. Besides the pure-blooded Japanese, we 
notice the Ainos of the north, probably a frag- 
ment of the Aryan or Caucasian race. In all 
physical features they are " white men," but 
savages lower than the lowest Japanese. In 
the south are the Riu Km islanders, and in 
Formosa the copper-colored aborigines and the 
Chinese. To all of these peoples the gospel is 
now brought in varying measure, and the isles 
are waiting for his law who " shall not fail nor 
be discouraged till he have set judgment in the 
earth." 

The Islands of the Sleeping Dragon. The 
extended chain of islands stretching like a 
fisherman's net rope between the old empire 
and Formosa ~r the low hills and soil seeming 
like the floats bobbing just above the ocean's 
surface is called by the Japanese Okinawa, 
or long cable. They are chiefly the work of 
coral insects, and have many names. Their 
collective area is about nine hundred and thirty- 
four square miles. The most important island 
is Okinawa, of which Shuri is the capital town. 
The climate, except for the constant humidity, 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 31 

which is very trying to a newcomer, is pleasant, 
the mean temperature being 70. Malarial con- 
ditions abound, and low f ever is very prevalent. 
During the summer months typhoons blow with 
terrible violence. The soil is extremely fertile. 
The chief crops are sugar, sweet potatoes, rice, 
beans, melons, and plantain, with plenty of pigs 
on land and many kinds of fish in the sea. The 
language of the people is much the same as the 
Japanese in structure, but resembles Korean 
even more than does the modern tongue of 
Japan. The natives pronounce the name of 
their little country Du-chu. The name Riu 
Kiu, which the Japanese use, means Sleeping 
Dragon, referring probably to its quiet lying in 
the sea, half manifested and half hidden that 
is, not yet risen to the sties. Of the fifty-five 
islands, only five or six are of any size or im- 
portance, yet the population of the group by 
the census of 1898 was 453,550. The highest 
point in the islands is but a hundred yards 
above the sea-level. 

Formosa. The island Tai-wan, or Terraced 
Bay, is mentioned in the Chinese records as early 
as the seventh century. In the twelfth Japan- 
ese adventurers landed and made conquest 
a bit of history probably reflected in the fairy 
tale of Momotaro, or the Peach Prince. From 
the fifteenth century the Japanese considered 
the eastern half or aboriginal region as part 
of their empire. The Portuguese who visited 
the island in 1590 were struck with its lovely 
appearance, and named it Formosa, the Beauti- 



32 DUX CHRISTUS 

fill. About 235 miles long and 90 miles in its 
greatest breadth, it has an area of 3580 square 
miles, being about the size of New Hampshire 
and Vermont. The forest-clad mountains trav- 
ersing it from north to south have peaks from 
7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high, the lord of all 
being Mount Morrison, or, as the Japanese call 
it, Nitaka Yama, towering even over Fuji. Here 
also are vast camphor forests of great age, for 
Formosa is the camphor preserve of the world, 
the home also of the morning-glory and of the 
sky-blue bamboo. The eastern side is very 
elevated, and on the sea-coast precipitous, with 
very few harbors or rivers, while the west side 
is a slope and presents in every way a great con- 
trast to the bold, rocky face of the east, for here 
are the rivers, the fertile fields and plains, the 
cities, towns, and the dense country population. 
Because of the immense amount of soil brought 
down by the torrential streams from the moun- 
tains and highlands, the land is steadily gaining 
on the sea. While the southern tip of the island 
is comparatively slim, the northern end is spread 
out widely, with rivers, numerous coast towns, 
and a dense population. The rainfall great, air 
heavy with humidity, and the heat very enervat- 
ing make the climatic conditions very trying 
to a stranger. The population by the census 
of 1897 consists of 2,797,543 persons, mostly 
Chinese, who, with the aborigines, of whom at 
least 120,000 are known, make a possible total 
of 3,000,000, including 52,405 in the Pescadores 
Islands, and 16,321 Japanese. The Japanese 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 33 

apart from the military are mostly officials, 
teachers, traders, and fishermen, the aboriginal 
tribes and clans consisting mostly of savages liv- 
ing in the mountains. These are copper-colored, 
have bright eyes, are exceedingly cunning, and 
until pacified by their masters from Nippon 
were wholly given up to head hunting, which 
was the custom in ancient Japan, as it is still 
in Borneo. Usually a man could not get a wife 
until he had cut off a certain number of human 
heads, usually of Chinese, whom he ambuscaded 
or stealthily approached in the forests, or on the 
outlying farms. Shipwrecked men often fur- 
nished him with Ms spoil. Hundreds and thou- 
sands of human skulls, laid in rows upon boards, 
or furnishing dados to the places of assembly, 
adorned many of the villages in olden days. It 
was the cruel treatment of shipwrecked Ameri- 
cans by the Butan savages that first brought the 
attention of the United States to these islanders. 
The Ainos. In Hokkaido dwell from fifteen 
to seventeen thousand subjects of the Mikado, 
called Ainos, or Ainu (men). They are un- 
doubtedly survivors of an ancient and aboriginal 
race that was contemporary with the primitive 
and prehistoric Japanese. and possibly with the 
cavenxen of Europe. Whatever their origin, 
the Ainos are kinsmen by blood, ideas, cus- 
toms, and worship with the ancient islanders of 
Nippon. Science as against sentiment demon- 
strates the affinity of the Ainos and the ancient 
Japanese. The more the Ainos are studied, 
the more it is seen that the majority of the 



34 J>J7.X CHRIS TITS 

Japanese are brothers in thought and ideas 
with the Yezo folk, and that the two peoples 
anciently were one. While the Japanese have 
enjoyed Chinese culture and Buddhist educa- 
tion for a thousand years or more, and have 
had their minds fertilized from time to time 
by fresh influences of civilization, and their 
physique modified by new infusions of blood 
from the continent, the Ainos were left in 
their primitive savagery on an island separate 
and scarcely visited, certainly not greatly in- 
fluenced by the Japanese until the seventeenth 
century. 

The Japanese Abroad. The great internal 
changes resulting from the transit from her- 
mitage to brotherhood with other nations, and 
from feudalism into a modern industrialism, 
have redistributed the population. The gen- 
eral movement is from, the country to the city, 
and whereas most of the world had never seen 
a Japanese, now the Mikado's subjects are found 
in every civilized country. Beginning in 1870, 
the former hermits travelled abroad. At the 
outbreak of the war with Russia, there were in. 
Hawaii thirty, in the United States twenty, in 
Korea thirty, in China five, and in other coun- 
tries about ten, thousand Japanese. We may 
easily reckon at least a million of men, soldiers, 
sailors, and non-combatants, as abroad during 
the war of 1904. All this, in divine Provi- 
dence, must mean the passing away of the old 
Japan of paganism and superstition, and of 
narrow ideas and interests. 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 35 

The Profit of knowing Japan. Those who 
wish to understand the people whose ancestors 
have dwelt in the Japanese islands for two thou- 
sand years or more will not entirely neglect the 
study of their physical environment. If the 
foreign missionary is affected in health, spirits, 
capacity for work, in a word, in mind and 
body, by the climate and the unseen but 
keenly felt conditions of nature, we can realize 
how these same 'conditions, operating during 
the long ages, have with other potent factors 
made the Japanese what they are. Discrimi- 
nation, perception, and sympathy arm the gos- 
pel teacher for his warfare of love. Let none 
neglect the study of the Master's parable of 
the seed growing secretly, nor its adaptation 
to the Japanese field. "Can it be possible 
that, with earthquakes like these, our people 
can become equal to Europeans?'* asked the 
Mikado's envoy, Arinori Mori, of the writer, 
when after the return of the former from Eng- 
land, he had been shaken, and mentally as 
well as bodily shocked, by the ground moving 
during the night. The earth-tremors and rum- 
blings seemed to have taken, for the moment, 
his spirit out of him. If Palestine itself be a 
"fifth gospel," if in the Old Testament the 
environment of Jehovah's people by mountain, 
valley, river, and plain, be continually pictured 
in psalm and narrative, so that the Hebrew 
language itself is a mirror of the landscape, 
the book and the land being as sun and moon, 
so also is it in Japan. The vernacular and 



36 JDUX CHBISTUS 

the home land of the Japanese are as twin 
brother and sister, and its history is a child 
in the same family. When a native preacher, 
after passing in review all the lesser peaks of 
scripture truth, declared that John iii. 16 (" God 
so loved the world," etc.) was "the Fuji Yarna 
text of the Bible," his audience thrilled. When 
Nicolai, one of the greatest of alien preachers 
in Japanese, compared the conquering cross to 
Taiko's banner, Jiis auditors were nearly lifted 
off their feet, for Hideyoshi, the Taiko, was 
invincible. As Jesus knew so well the land of 
Galilee and Hermon, of Jerusalem and Bethany, 
and based his pictorial teaching of parallels on 
it, so may we learn diligently, in part at least, 
of Everlasting Great Japan, and why the people 
love it so. Nor must the alien, even though a 
missionary, want to change, but rather foster 
this feeling. The disciple is not above his Lord, 
who said, " I come not to destroy, but to fulfil." 
The prophet has also said, " And the idols he 
shall utterly abolish." We are called to be 
co-workers with God in redeeming Japan's fair 
landscape from paganism and the minds of her 
people from superstition, and to lead them unto 
the light and liberty of the children of God. 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 37 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIJRST IMPRESSIONS 

Japan ? Is there another geographical term that pre- 
sents to the imagination, another such picture as the word 
Japan ? 

England, Paris, Greece, Rome, these names likewise 
affect the imagination, and each calls up "before the mind 
a variety of scenes and associations which are fall of 
interest; England, the romance of history, the flower of 
character, the spread of empire; Paris, .brilliancy, gayety, 
pleasure; Greece, the perfections of antiquity; Rome, 
age, power, splendor, ecclesiastical domain. Japan stands 
for something different from all of these, and in some 
ways a good deal more, though in most ways on a smaller 
scale. But for situation, for scenery, for venerable years 
and bounding youth, for possessions and ambitions, for 
actual performance and for hopeful promise, Japan is 
almost by itself among the nations. " Unique " means 
the only one of the kind. Japan is " unique." There is 
only one Japan. EDWAKD ABBOTT. 

Dimensions. Take the state of California, cut from 
the end of it a piece as big as the state of Maryland, move 
it almost directly due west across the Pacific Ocean for a 
distance of nearly five thousand miles, until it is within 
two days 7 easy sail by ~steam of the Asiatic coast, turn it 
upside down and over to the left so that its longer axis 
will run from northeast to southwest, break it up into one 
large island, three smaller ones, and several hundreds if 
not thousands of islets too small and too sterile to be 
inhabited, then empty into it half the population of the 
United States of America, and you have Japan. 

EDWAKD ABBOTT. 

It is a land of harmonies and charms, a paradise for 
artists and the poet's theme. EDWARD- ABBOTT. 

It is impossible to describe the first impressions made 
by an Oriental scene upon a stranger from the Occident. 



38 DtTX CHRISTUS 



Many thoughts are suggested and emotions excited in the 
bewildering transition fioni the new to the old world. 
There is nothing familiar beneath the skies. Physical 
conformations, men, women, and children, trees, plants 
and flowers, are novel and intensely interesting; having 
been seen, in the credulous days of childhood, only in pic- 
tures or dreams, of countries unreal and mythical. Per- 
chance in that springtime of life, rose-colored and golden, 
we were transported on some magic roll of carpet to 
these fairy regions, as we had read of heroes and heroines 
having been in the "Arabian Eights' Entertainments." 
We had visited Aladdin's subterranean cavern, and in 
imagination gathered jewels from the trees, and golden 
treasures, until we were fabulously rich. But the rose 
color faded into gray, the jewels dissolved like Cleopatra's 
pearl, and though we stood upon Oriental soil, it was dis- 
enchanted, real, substantial. L. H. PIERSCMST. 

Here in the Orient, of which Japan is truly the gem, 
every hill and every valley are devoted to the grim old 
idols, hideous, senseless, and repulsive, instruments of 
the powers of darkness for the confusion and destruction 
of human beings, for whom Christ the Son of God hath 
died. But first impressions grow dim, and are brushed 
away as the bloom from ripened fruit, never to be re- 
newed. The scenery becomes familiar, the people less 
strange, and wonderment ceases. One awful fact cannot 
be ignored, but oppresses and disturbs the heart of the 
Christians ; it is a heathen country and a heathen people. 
There, as evidence, stands the temple erected to "Hachi- 
man," or here, the shrine of Ebisu, and above that long 
flight of stone steps, under the green trees, on that lofty 
eminence, is a statue of Buddha, which belongs to the 
mineral kingdom, and is far inferior to those who bow 
down before it in worship. Gross darkness covers the 
land and its people. L. H. PIERSON. 

The bad is worse and the good is better than what I 
expected to find. Before arriving nay mind echoed the 



THE ISLAND EMPIEE 39 

enthusiastically expressed sentiments of many a friend 
who was congratulating us upon coming to such an at- 
tractive field, a land of flowers and pretty scenery, a land 
where all is sunshine and sweetness, where the people are 
clean and courteous, and where the children never cry. 
And even now I am ready to write the praises of a coun- 
try that is able to advance with such unparalleled leaps 
and bounds along industrial, educational, commercial, 
and civil lines. It is wonderful ! It speaks volumes for 
Japan's powers of adaptation and assimilation. Never- 
theless, as I begin to breathe some of the ideas prevalent 
among the masses, I am impressed with the fact that 
Japan is in dire need* For in the struggle against the 
tremendous forces which are threatening to retard her 
real progress, the forces of good have to fight in an at- 
mosphere that lacks a stimulus which is supplied, not 
primarily through such a noble means as patriotism, to 
say nothing of the law of expediency, but through a 
well-trained sense of duty toward the one personal God, 
Creator, and Father. E. F. BELL. 



The Japanese farmer differs from the merchant and 
the samurai. He is simpler, more childlike, and doubt- 
less more superstitious. He loves his country shrines, 
and his religion evidently means much to him. In Hawaii 
he is said to have built with his surplus wages sixteen 
fine Buddhist temples. He is not the brains of Japan, 
but he is the heart of the nation, not the flower, but the 
root. Sakura Sogoro was a farmer and reveals the possi- 
bilities of his class. Until he is brought into the church, 
Christianity will not have taken deep root here. I can- 
not keep back the conviction that the God who moulds 
history meant something especially important for the 
future of this nation, when he removed sixty to seventy 
thousand of these simple-hearted folk to Hawaii. And 
if we Americans do our duty there, during the next ten 
years the country parts of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fuku- 
oka, Kumamoto, Wakayama, and Niigata ought to wit- 
ness a mighty transformation. DOREMUS SCUDDER. 



40 DUX CHRISTUS 

LITERATURE AND HISTORY 

Sum total what Japanese literature most lacks in 
genius. It lacks thought, logical grasp, depth, breadth, 
and many-sidedness. It is too timorous, too narrow, to 
compass great things. Perhaps the court atmosphere 
and predominantly feminine influence in which it was 
nursed for the first few centuries of its existence stifled 
it, or else the fault may have lain with the Chinese for- 
malism in which it grew up. But we suspect that there 
was some original sin of weakness as well. Otherwise 
the clash of India and China with old mythological 
Japan, of Buddhism with Shinto, of imperialism with 
feudalism, and of all with Christianity in the sixteenth 
century and with Dutch ideas a little later, would have 
produced more important results. If Japan has given us 
no music, so also has she given us no immortal verse. 
But Japanese literature has occasional graces, and is full 
of incidental scientific interest. 

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN. 

The art of writing history has not made much progress 
in recent years. Modern methods of investigation and 
principles of historical criticism, are known and accepted; 
but a great sifting of the existing heterogeneous material 
must be done before history, as we understand it, can be 
written. Nobody has yet made any serious attempt to 
distinguish the true from the false in the old Japanese 
annals, though it is pretty generally acknowledged that 
this process is indispensable. W. G. ASTON. 



THE LACK OF IDEALISM 

Neither their past history nor their prevailing tastes 
show any tendency to idealism. They are lovers of the 
practical and the real. Neither the fancies of Goethe nor 
the reveries of Hegel are to their liking. Our poetry and 
our philosophy and the mind that appreciates them are 
alike the result of a network of subtle influences to which 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 41 

the Japanese are comparative strangers. It is maintained 
by some, and we think justly, that the lack of idealism in 
the Japanese mind renders the life of even the most 
cultivated a mechanical, humdrum atf air when compared 
with that of Westerners. The Japanese cannot under- 
stand why our controversialists should was so fervent 
over psychological, ethical, religious, and philosophical 
questions, at the interest taken in such subjects. The 
charms that the cultured Western mind finds in the world 
of fancy and romance, in questions themselves, irrespec- 
tive of their practical bearings, is for the most part unin- 
telligible to the Japanese. B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. 

The characteristic in which the Chinese and Japanese 
most agree (and other Far-Eastern peoples, the Koreans 
for example, agree in it also) is materialism. That is 
where the false note is struck, which, when long resi- 
dence [in Japan] has produced familiarity, jars on Euro- 
pean nerves, and prevents true intellectual sympathy. 

B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. 

We foreigners, being mere lookers-on, may no doubt 
sometimes regret the substitution of commonplace Euro- 
pean ways for the glitter, the glamour, *f picturesque 
Orientalism. But can it be doubtful Triieh. of the two 
civilizations is the higher, both materially and intellec- 
tually? And does not the whole experience of the last 
three hundred years go to prove that no Oriental state 
which retains distinctively Oriental institutions can hope 
to keep its territory free from Western aggression ? What 
of India ? What even of China ? And what was Com- 
modore Perry's visit but a threat to the effect that if 
Japan chose to remain Oriental she should not be al- 
lowed to remain her own mistress ? Prom the moment 
when the intelligent samurai of the leading clans realized 
that the Europeanization of the country was a question of 
life and death, they (for to this day the government has 
continued practically in their hands) have never ceased 
carrying out the work of reform and progress. 

B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. 



42 DUX CHEISTUS 

THE FUTURE 

I have absolute confidence in the final acceptance of 
Christianity by the Japanese. There is no race char- 
acteristic in true Christianity that bars the way. Fur- 
thermore, the growth of the Japanese in recent years, 
intellectually and in the reorganization of the social 
order, points to their final acceptance of Christianity 
and renders it necessary. S. L. GULICIC. 

In loyally accepting science, popular education, and 
the rights of every individual to equal protection by the 
government, Japan has accepted the fundamental con- 
ceptions of civilization held in the West, and has thus 
become an integral part of Christendom, a fact of world- 
wide significance. S. L. GULICK. 



A WORD NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SCRIPTURES 

The Japanese are very sensitive over this word 
["heathen"]. It seems to them an offensive and rude 
term, a word of inferiority or even of contempt. It was 
from our English Bible, doubtless, that it came so widely 
into use. Yes; but go to the Revised Version and not 
one single passage in the New Testament can be found 
with this word in it. Christ and his disciples never used 
it. They spoke of nations with respect and hope ; never 
of heathen, pagans, outsiders. The revised Old Testament, 
too, has largely done the same. Our new Bible is pretty 
well cleared up, so far as the word "heathen" is con- 
cerned. The worst people in our so-called Christian 
civilization use this word most freely. Gamblers, hard 
drinkers, pharisaical moralists, and low politicians can- 
not ring changes enough on it. " The heathen Chinese," 
"the heathen Jap," are the words of human beings who 
never had a noble thought toward the people of another 
nation nor a spark of true patriotism. So that I would 
raise the question : Isn't it time that we missionaries part 
company with those who roll the word "heathen" under 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 43 

their tongues as a sweet morsel of contempt ? Shall we 
Christians at home or in mission fields be courteous in 
preaching the gladdest tidings on earth, or not? 

A Veteran Missionary in Japan. 

As long as I fear God and walk in his ways you will 
remain in memory, for "My God" and "My Teacher" 
have such a strong connection that I really cannot think 
about the one without being reminded of the other. 
Indeed, I believe nearly all your old scholars who are 
making their way in this sinful world must often think 
of you, and the benediction will arise in their hearts 
" Blessed old Teacher, imparter of the Truth " as I think 



Letter of a Japanese wife and mother, alumna of " The 
Home." 



44 DUX CHRIS TUS 



THEMES FOB STUDY AND DISCUSSION 

I. Classes and Races in the Japanese Empire. 
n. The Persistent Characteristics of the Japanese in 
every Age. 

III. How the Land and the People have influenced 

each Other. 

IV. Situation of Japan as determining its History. 
V. Situation of Japan as influencing its Future. 

VI. Effect of Earthquakes and Natural Phenomena on 

Temperament and Character. 
VII. Reaction of the Landscape upon the Japanese 

Love of Beauty. 

VIII. Missionary Work as conditioned by Japan's Politi- 
cal Uniqueness. 
IX. Missionary Work as affected by the Geography of 

Japan. 

X. The Ainos, Riu Kiuans, and native Formosans. 
XL The Value for Work and Teaching of a Knowledge 

of Things Japanese. 
XII. The Japanese Abroad. 



WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR ALL THE 
CHAPTERS 

For general reference on this chapter and succeeding 
ones : 

" Encyclopaedia of Missions/' Edited by E. M. Bliss. 
Funk & Ingalls Co. 

Encyclopaedias, the Britannica (1903), New Interna- 
tional (1904), etc. Dodd, Mead & Co. 

J. S. Dennis. " Christian Missions and Social Progress." 
(1902.) F. H. Revell Co. 

B. H. Chamberlain. Things Japanese " (1903) ; Trans- 
lation of Kojiki " (1882) ; " Classical Poetry of the 
Japanese " (1880) ; Handbook for Japan "'(1903) ; 
and " Aino Studies " (1887). Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE ISLAND EMPIRE 45 

Aston. " History of Japanese Literature " (1899) ; 
Translation of the "Mhongi" (1896). D. Apple- 
ton & Co. 

Brinkley, "Oriental Series Japan." (1903.) J. B. 
Millet Co. 

T. A. S. J. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of 
Japan. (1873-1904.) 

E. W. Clement. "A Handbook of Modern Japan." 

(1904,) A. C. McClurg & Co. 

F. O. Adams. "History of Japan," to 1871. (1875.) 

H. S. King & Co. 

W.E.Griffis. "The Mikado's Empire." (1903.) Harpers. 
J. J. Rein. Japan " (1884) ; and Industries of Japan " 

(1889). A. C. Armstrong & Son. 
A. B. Mitford. Tales of Old Japan." (1890.) G. P. 

Putnam's Sons. 
E. S. Morse. " Japanese Homes and their Surroundings," 

(1885.) Houghton, Mifflin Co. 
J. Batchelor. The Ainu of Japan." (1892.) F. H. 

Revell Co. 
J. W. Davidson. " The Island of Formosa." (1903.) 

Macmillan & Co. 
W. Campbell. " Missionary Success in Formosa." (1889.) 

G. L. Mackay. From Far Formosa." (1895). F. H. 

Revell Co. 

I. Bird (Bishop). " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." (1881.) 
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

BOOKS OF REFERENCE FOR CHAPTER I 

D. Murray, "The Story of Japan." (1894.) G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 

J. A. Scherer. "Japan To-day." (1904.) J. B. Lip- 
pincott Co. 

W. E. Griffis, "Japan; In History, Folklore, and Art" 
(1892.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

0. Cary. "Japan and Its Regeneration." (1899.) Stu- 
dent Volunteer Movement. 

R. B. Peery. "The frist of Japan." (1900.) F. H. 
Revell Co. 



46 DUX CHRI8TU8 



M. L. Gordon. "An American Missionary in Japan." 

(1892.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
J. Morris. "Advance Japan." (1895.) J. B. Lippin- 

cott Co. 

H. Norman, The Real Japan." (1892.) Scribners. 
L. Hearn. "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." (1894.) 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
S. L. Gulick. "Evolution of the Japanese." (1903.) 

P. H. Revell Co. 



CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 

667 B.C.-400 A.D. Era of mythology and legend. The 

first seventeen legendary emperors. 
552 . . . Entrance of Buddhism. Opposition of the 

Shintoists. 

602 . . . Chinese calendars introduced. 
645 . . . Measurement of time by year-periods. 
700 . . . Custom of cremation begun. 
709 . . . Court ceases to be nomadic. Nara the capi- 
tal. Great Buddhist activity at the court. 
712 ... "Kojiki" (Record of Ancient Matters) writ- 
ten. 
794 . . . Kioto made the capital (for nearly 1100 

years). 

1091-1192 Period of the civil wars of the military clans. 
Revolts of the B uddhist monks. Decadence 
of the Mikado's power. Seat of govern- 
ment fixed at Kamakura. Duarchy. Feudal 
system developed. 
1219-1333 The Hojo rulers at Kamakura. Repulse of 

the Mongol-Tartar armada, 1281. 
1335-1573 Era of art and luxury, followed by civil war. 

The Ashikaga rulers at Kamakura. 
1542 . . . First Europeans (Portuguese) in Japan. 

Tobacco and firearms. 

1573-1600 Era of the Three Great Men," Itfoburiaga, 
Hideyoshi, and lyeyasu. Invasion of 
Korea. Roman Catholic Christians. 
1640-1870 Scholastic revival of Pure Shinto. 
1715 . . . Publication of Prince Mito's "History of 

Japan." 

1763 . . . Ninth and last of the female mikados, 
1784 . . . Great famine. Over one million deaths by 

starvation. 

1715-1868 Intellectual movements leading to the Res- 
toration of 1868. 

1837 . . . American ship Morrison in Yedo Bay. 
1848 . . . Ronald McDonald teaches English in Japan. 
1853 . . . Commodore Perry at Uraga. 
47 



48 DUX CHRISTUS 

Continued from page 47. 

1859 . . . Foreign trade and residence in the ports. 
1868 . . . Change of government. "Charter Oath." 
Era of Meiji. 

1871 . . . Abolition of the feudal system. 

1872 . . . First Protestant church, missionary confer- 

ence, railway, national army, and school 

system. 
1873-1888 Political commotions, sweeping reforms. 

Modern industrialism. 
1883 . . . Missionary conference in Osaka. 
1889 . . . The Constitution pioclaimed. Liberty of 

conscience declared. 
1894 . . . Chino- Japanese war, resulting in the cession 

of Formosa. 

1899 . . . Japan recognized on equal terms by the 

nations of Christendom. 

1900 . . . Japan allied with Christian nations in China. 

General missionary conference in Tokio. 
1904 . . . Russo-Japanese war. 



CHAPTER II 

THE MAKENG OF THE NATION 

Aboriginal Japan. In the making of the 
Japanese nation we discern four great periods : 
first, prehistoric or original Japan, in which 
were many tribes but little or no unity ; second, 
the thousand years of Buddhism, from the sixth 
to the sixteenth century, when the Japanese 
mind was influenced by the Aryan religion and 
the people educated in ideas and institutions 
imported from the Asian mainland ; third, 
national hermitage and the dominance of the 
Confucian ethics and philosophy, from the 
opening of the seventeenth to the middle of 
the nineteenth century ; fourth, the modern 
era of the decadence of paganism and of inter- 
course and brotherhood with the nations of the 
world, during the era of Meiji, or Enlightened 
Civilization (1868-1904), in which the inform- 
ing spirit is Christianity. 

The great bulk of the Japanese people 
and the Ainos of Hokkaido are brethren. 
These mild savages now inhabiting Yezo 
and the Kuriles were once the inhabitants 
of nearly the whole archipelago. Professor 
B. H. Chamberlain, in his " Aino Studies," makes 
elaborate comparison of the language, mythol- 

B 49 



50 DtfX CHEISTUS 



ogy and geographical nomenclature of the Jap- 
anese with those of the Aino. They are aston- 
ishingly similar. The conclusions of scholars 
point to the fact that "the Japanese realm 
was once an Aino realm." The Yezo people, 
who once fiercely fought against the ancient 
Japanese, bear the same relation to the culti- 
vated and polished people of Japan that the 
fierce Norsemen of the Middle Ages do to 
Christian ladies and gentlemen of Stockholm 
or Christiania, or our own ancestors, the wild 
Germanic tribes in their forests, do to the 
the Christian people of Prussia, the Nether- 
lands, or England of to-day. Culture and re- 
ligion, under divine Providence, have lifted up 
the once lowly races of the Japanese islands. 
The Ainos, separated from the general stream 
of civilizing activities, which the people farther 
south have enjoyed for over a thousand years, 
have stagnated. Untouched savage life has left 
the Aino what he is to-day, a hunter and fisher- 
man amid ignorance, and under conditions for 
ages sadly near the brutes, until in late years he 
has been taught and elevated by Christian men 
and women. 

This does not mean that the Ainos and Jap- 
anese are entirely one in the quality of their 
blood, for the Japanese are in origin a very 
mixed people. Mongol, Tartar, Malay, Nigrito, 
Hindoo, Chinese, and more particularly ancient 
Korean blood, flows in their veins. The various 
bodies of emigrants who reached Japan from 
the continent during the unrecorded centuries 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 51 

had no unity or special knowledge of each other. 
Superimposed upon these strata of humanity we 
find another body of invaders who came from 
"Ama" wherever on the earth, or in the 
realm of fancy, that region may be. These 
were the conquerors who, with superior dogmas, 
weapons, and social and political systems, began 
that unifying process of conquest and civiliza- 
tion which ultimately made the Japanese a 
nation. 

Migrations and Cycles of Tradition. On the 
literary side we may construct from the Kojiki 
a map of the migrations of traditions, as well as 
of the men who made the stories. To them all 
of the Japanese archipelago, either below or 
north of the thirty-eighth parallel, is unknown. 
Korea is the far-off land known only at points 
along its coast. China is heard of only very late 
in the story, but " the world " to the Kojiki 
myth-makers consists of the three great islands 
that we know, with a few islets in the Japan Sea, 
that served as stepping stones from the conti- 
nent. 

Of the three cycles of traditions recognizable, 
two seem to correspond to lines of immigration 
from Korea and the mainland of Asia. The 
first covers the regions south of the thirty-fourth 
parallel of latitude. In this section are the 
accounts of creation, or rather of evolution, and 
the multiplication and quarrels of the gods. 
These " gods " were simply kami^ that is, men of 
rank and influence in the tribes and elans. 

The second cycle of stories may be included 



52 LUX CHRISTUS 

between the thirty -fifth and thirty-seventh par- 
allels covering the region of the southwestern 
coast of Hondo, where it is much indented. 
The general area is the land on the west and 
north side of the mountains, as viewed from 
the region around Kioto the first seat of letters 
and civilization. In this section we have the 
stories of the conquest and peopling of Japan, 
with not a few pretty legends like fairy tales. 

The third, or Yamato legendary cycle, covers 
the region lying on the south side of Japan's 
great mountain range and facing the seashore. 
It extends from, say, the one hundred and 
thirty-fourth meridian east, up to the region 
of Tokio, that is, on the sunny and ocean side 
of the mountains. During this cycle conquests 
were made in what was then considered the 
Far East, around and north of Yedo Bay. Pretty 
much the whole country north of the thirty- 
fifth parallel was then occupied by the barbar- 
ous tribes that had not come under the rule of 
the Yamato chiefs. The land still nearer the 
polar star was spoken of as "the north coun- 
try," or "the pathless." 

The Japanese a Young Nation. The critical 
student finds himself unable to stand with the 
average "educated" Japanese of to-day. The 
latter feels that he must draw the line some- 
where, so he rejects "the age of the gods" as 
historical, but he accepts implicitly the so-called 
"history" of the mikados, from Jimmu, the 
dragon-born hero of legend, down to the pres- 
ent emperor. In a word, he makes out that his 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 53 

nation is old, instead of realizing that the Jap- 
anese are a young race. By and by, the Mi- 
kado's subjects will get over this baseless notion 
of Japan's great antiquity. Most of our unre- 
vised encyclopaedias and those foreign writers 
and people who, after a hasty tour of a few 
weeks, write books on Japan, have followed in 
the steps of, or copied after, patriotic native 
writers, who talk about Japan's " authentic his- 
tory covering twenty-five hundred years," 

To get this long period of time, the early 
makers of chronology took traditions, folk-lore, 
and fairy tales, and out of these constructed 
their own story on a Chinese model, filling up 
the voids with imaginary events and persons. 
Much of the language even, which is used to 
describe events of the centuries before the time 
of Christ, is taken from Chinese books, them- 
selves written a thousand years after the events 
described. A similar instance is seen in the 
Arabian Nights Entertainments, in which the 
people who lived many hundreds of years be- 
fore Mahomet talk according to Mahometan 
words and ideas. In the great body of so- 
called " history," as thus far written in Japan, 
the subjects most interesting to a Christian or 
an Occidental are left out^ It is rank, office, 
figureheads, routine, that we read most about, 
not of real persons, or events of moral signifi- 
cance, and profound human interest. The old 
books tell next to nothing of things foreign and 
Christian in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. Indeed, what "official" history, even 



54 DUX CHRIS TV 8 

in our own day, shows anything of the immense 
debt of Japan to her foreign helpers, advisers, 
and educators ? Nevertheless, a new spirit is 
abroad and a new day coming. 

The Yamato House and the Mikado. The Ko- 
jiki narratives reveal the fact that in central 
Japan in the fifth and sixth centuries what we 
shall call the House of Yamato is gradually 
getting under its control the other tribes near 
by. In time, but hardly before the twelfth cen- 
tury, this rule extends over the whole south 
and east of the main island, Shikoku, and Kiu- 
shiu, although the hold is slight, and there are 
many outbreaks and rebellions. Marauding 
parties occasionally visit Korea and conquer 
parts of the coast land. One bold young prince 
or chief's son, named Yamato Dake, makes a 
journey eastward to conquer the Ainos, or bar- 
barians. Coming to the Bay of Yedo, the sea- 
god raises a storm, apparently to check further 
advance. The chieftain's wife leaps into the 
sea as an offering to the wrathful kami, and is 
drowned, From the sigh "Adzuma" (my 
wife !) uttered by the hero as he returned 
victorious after his adventures in the north 
to the place of sacrifice, the region around 
Tokio is still poetically called Adzuma. In 
1870 Prince "Adzuma," the Mikado's cousin, 
while travelling in America, took this name. 
,The Japanese men-of-war being always named 
after pretty women and beautiful places, one of 
them is the Adzuma. 

The head of the house or tribe dominant was 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 55 

called from his office or place of rule; for the 
Japanese, always impersonal, ignore the name, 
and lay emphasis upon the house, family name, 
place, or rank, and this name, Mikado (awful 
place or sublime porte), reveals that great char- 
acteristic of secrecy and mystery which the 
Japanese will keep up in regard to their em- 
peror and in some few other things. Though 
this mystery play is in process of effacement 
before the light of truth, common-sense, the 
rising spirit of democracy, and the necessities 
of modern life, the ability of the Japanese to 
preserve secrecy in diplomatic and military 
matters is admirable. Even yet it often hap- 
pens that a man is not officially dead until long 
after the breath has left his body. 

Beginning of History. We begin Japanese 
history, then, at the opening of the fifth cen- 
tury, leaving the legends and fairy tales for 
those who enjoy them, either as fact or fancy, 
and letting them serve their purpose in art, 
literature, and that emotional and sentimental 
religion, of which Shinto is the expression, 
which has no necessary connection with right- 
eousness. We notice that from the introduc- 
tion of Chinese letters and writings and the 
civilizing religion of Buddhism, there began 
three processes of welding all the people of the 
archipelago into a commonwealth, and of ex- 
panding the mind and feeding the heart of the 
Japanese man. They were military, civil, and 
religious. Let us look at these two great 
streams of influence and power. 



56 DUX CHEISTUB 

The method of making one nation of all the 
islands was begun within the country by de- 
spatching military forces to the south and west 
and to the far east and north. Gradually these 
soldiers brought the whole body of the inhabit- 
ants in obedience to the Mikado, and under 
one general system of political life. Thus the 
way was opened for the culture, education, and 
religion that carne in the train of the Buddhist 
missionaries. It took six or seven centuries to 
complete this process of conquest, which was 
like that of the Roman Empire over the various 
tribes and peoples of Europe, Western Asia, 
and North Africa. Great social and political 
results followed. One of these deserves special 
notice, for it led to that form of Japanese politi- 
cal life which lasted for a thousand years, 
serving also as a framework of sociology and 
ethics feudalism. 

As war became more and more a system, it 
was found necessary to have a special class of 
men always ready for service. For this the 
stronger and able-bodied men were selected to 
be soldiers, while those who tilled the soil were 
left as farmers and laborers. This meant that 
in the evolution of the centuries the vast major- 
ity of the people should remain at home to 
follow a narrow round of life, with only a slight 
measure of culture, and thtis to become the 
stolid, conservative body of people which we 
find them to-day. From the severely critical 
point of view, the tillers of the soil still follow 
a routine that is almost animal. They are for 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 57 

the most part unmitigated pagans, the prey of 
the priests and given to superstition, and with 
whom the liberal and progressive men and the 
government have the hardest problem, while 
engaged in securing the evolution of the Jap- 
anese into a modern man. Slowest to respond 
to civilizing effort, they make, when abroad as 
emigrants, a kind of Japanese that the tourist 
in Tokio, especially those steeped in the writ- 
ings of the lackadaisical school of foreign 
writers, scarcely sees or dreams of. Neverthe- 
less, kindness and perseverance win them to 
the Saviour, for to them, when away from the 
priest and understanding the message, the gos- 
pel of Christ is indeed the " good news " 
of God. 

The Rise of the Samurai. On the other 
hand, the soldier who was a samurai (now called 
sTiizoku), that is, a servant of the Mikado, was 
started on the line of progress, and began that 
shining career of over a thousand years which 
has made a kind of man that is unique in Asia. 
Abundant opportunities of movement and of 
exciting and enlightening experiences were 
given him. He entered the school of discipline, 
of ethics, and of politeness. Under this system 
there has been evolved that superb system of 
chivalry, manners, self-mastery of the body, and 
culture of the spirit, called Busfiido, or the 
Knightly Way. The existence of this body of 
men, exemplars of courtesy and culture, with 
their faces now turned away from Confucius, 
and, as we believe, to the Christ, is what makes 



58 DUX CHRISTUS 

Japan so different from Korea, and especially 
from China, where, as a rule, the soldier is a 
Manchu and the scholar a Chinese, separated 
from and mutually despising each other. All 
the culture and forces were united and incar- 
nated in the nobler ranks of the samurai, so 
that to-day there is no other man in Asia quite 
like him, superbly trained as he is in body and 
mind. During the millennium of luxury he 
shared also in the delights and discipline of let- 
ters, of religion, and of taste. Thus the samu- 
mi, ^ once soldier and scholar, warrior and 
gentleman, is the consummate white flower of 
Japanese civilization, the creator of public opin- 
ion, who wields the destinies of his country, 
Nearly all the first missionary converts, as are 
now most of the leaders of the Christian church 
in Japan, and of the nation, were of the samurai 
or knightly class. To-day the Christian samu- 
rai are the Mores Ohristi^ Blossoms of the 
Christ. Happily in our era, since feudalism 
has passed away, the Japanese common people 
have inherited the spirit and have adopted many 
of the ideas of the old samurai. Yet so differ- 
ent is now the spirit of the age and the new 
meaning and value given to life by Christianity, 
that it is quite common for men of the rank of 
gentry to step down into the grade of com- 
moners. In the sight of God a man is a man, 
and a king is nothing more. 

The civil development of Japan made the 
" Land of Great Peace " and the varied peoples 
one. Even the rude feudalism of prehistoric 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 59 

time was "a stage of progress," for it meant 
order and advance in agriculture and settled 
government over the wild tribal life of the 
hunter and the fisherman. Naturally this prim- 
itive feudalism melted away before the Chinese 
centralizing methods, which were introduced in 
the seventh century. As the military system 
made conquest, a uniform system of taxation 
was elaborated. Departments or boards of gov- 
ernment were organized at the capital, whence 
governors appointed by the emperor, and hold- 
ing office for three years, were sent out to the 
different provinces. 

With the new system of government from 
one centre or capital, came also orders of nobil- 
ity, nine in number with two degrees to each 
rank, fixed costumes, and a rigid code of court 
etiquette, which survives in many of its features 
even to this day. There are no people in the 
world who value political honors, office, decora- 
tions, and government uniform more than the 
Japanese, a trait which tells powerfully upon 
private and national character. 

A Thousand Years of Buddhism. But even 
greater than the train of events which led to 
political development was the entrance of Bud- 
dhism, for it proved to be the purveyor of art, 
education, and culture throughout the empire. 
Although the particular year 552 A. D., the date 
of the introduction of images and sacred books 
from Korea, is properly celebrated as a single 
epoch-making event, yet the coming of the Ind- 
ian, religion must be viewed rather as the 



60 DUX CHRISTUS 

beginning of a mighty and varied stream of 
influences which fertilized and transformed the 
insular mind. It opened new worlds of vision 
and gave the Japanese what they never had 
before. It meant a thousand years of continued 
action and reaction between Japan and China, 
the passing to and fro between the archipelago 
and the mainland of students, inquirers, emi- 
grants, and colonies, seeking and bringing cul- 
ture and art, and of the introduction of schools 
of painting and poetry, besides the fairy tales of 
India and China. History gives us the names 
of many of the men and women who brought 
seeds for the soul as well as for the soil, new 
books, inventions, costumes, food plants, and 
things of beauty. These purveyors of the civili- 
zations of India and China were the " beginners 
of a better time. " To the gardens, both of man's 
mind and of the soil, they brought seeds and 
cultivated the flowers until was ripened the 
fruit of Japan's unique civilization, which no 
foreign influences will ever fully destroy, and 
which is yet to enrich the world. Japan needs 
no other civilization than her own, enlarged, 
purified, consecrated, by its being brought 
through the Holy Spirit to " the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ." 

We must look to the first clash of Japan's 
Orientalism with the forces and influences from 
Europe in the sixteenth century. 

Japan known to Europeans. When Columbus 
steered his caravels into the unknown West, it 
was with the expectation of finding Xipango 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 61 

(Japan) with its abundance of gold and precious 
gems. He reached, not the American conti- 
nent, but the West Indies, and little did he or 
any one else in Europe know the terrible state 
of things then prevailing in Japan, from pro- 
longed civil war, resulting from the break-up of 
any central government in the fifteenth century. 
It was one of the darkest moments in Japan- 
ese history when the Roman missionaries reached 
Japan. The structure of feudalism had fallen 
into decay, and the country was split up into a 
thousand warring fragments. The priest and 
the soldier were the only people who were well 
off. While the former ensconced himself in a 
fortified monastery and the latter in a moated 
and turreted castle, both preyed upon the com- 
mon people, who were little better than serfs, 
while many thousands of them were genuine 
slaves. The maker of weapons was rich and 
honored. Famine, pestilence, and the destruc- 
tion wrought by earthquakes abounded. There 
was little real religion to lift up and cheer. 
Shinto had sunk into the shadow of a myth, and 
Buddhism had become a national system of 
political gambling, rather than helpful faith. 
Kioto, the capital, had been repeatedly attacked 
and burned. Libraries and books had been 
destroyed. Japanese pirates ravaged the sea 
and coasts. The wof ul " times of Ashikaga " 
(1385-1573) were long the potter's field of 
chronology for the native novelists, where any- 
thing strange or incredible might reasonably 
be supposed to have happened. 



62 DUX CHRISTUS 



Fifty years after the discovery of America, 
or in 1542, Japan was reached by three Portu- 
guese on a Chinese pirate junk, which was 
driven by a storm to Seed Island (Tanega- 
shima). The latter word is now the synonym 
in the mouths of country people for a pistol, 
for these Europeans first showed the Japanese 
firearms. During the six months that they 
lived on the island, the imitative and clever 
natives are said to have made six: hundred 
matchlock guns. Another early arrival was 
Mendez Pinto, who told so many wonderful 
things about Japan to his countrymen, that 
they dubbed him by a pun on his name Mendez, 
the Mendacious Pinto. Hence our word " men- 
dacious." In like manner, Marco Polo, because 
he used the word " million " so often, had been 
dubbed "Sir Millions"; yet research has shown 
the truth of what Polo and Pinto told about 
the Eastern countries. In a word, the Euro- 
peans, as conceited in their way as the Japanese 
themselves, could not at first believe that there 
was any civilization beyond their own continent. 

Trade and Roman Christianity. Trade soon 
began between the Portuguese in China and the 
Japanese. One of the latter, named Yajiro, or 
Anjiro, among those who traded in India, met 
Francis Xavier at Malacca, where the apostle of 
the Indies was laboring. Anjiro became a Chris- 
tian, and with the heroic missionary Xavier 
sailed to Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma, 
landing in 1549. Japan had then no central 
government, and the entrance of the f oreigners, 



THE MAKING- OF THE NATION 63 

whether traders or missionaries, passed un- 
noticed. Xavier, using interpreters, began 
his labors immediately, going from one province 
to another, but ever longing to reach Kioto, 
supposing it to be a glorious city of splendid 
palaces. When he got there, he found only 
ruins, rubbish, unburied corpses, and a general 
situation of war and disturbance. He remained 
in Japan less than two years and then started 
for China, where he died and was buried on the 
island of Sancian in the Canton River. 

Nevertheless, Xavier's shining example at- 
tracted scores of other missionaries, who labored 
(SO diligently that in 1581 there were two hun- 
dred churches and one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand native Christians so called, that is, Chris- 
tians with a little knowledge of the ceremonies 
and catechism, but with next to no acquaintance 
with, the Holy Scriptures. It is rarely, if ever, 
a part of Roman missionary work to put the 
Bible into the tongue of the people. Yet history 
shows that often the difference between a dying 
and a living Christianity among the converts 
of missionaries, when deprived of their teachers, 
is the absence or the presence of the Word of 
God in the tongue of the people. Much of the 
so-called " conversion" by wholesale was ac- 
complished by force, as is told not only in the 
letters of the Jesuits, in "The Mikado's Empire," 
and other works, but in the latest work of re- 
search, Murdoch and Yamagata's most valuable 
"History of Japan." 

From the first the Portuguese priests owed 



64 DUX CHRISTU8 

much, to the friendship of Nobunaga, the Mi- 
kado's junior prime minister. This astute gen- 
eral and politician was the relentless hater of the 
Buddhists. He made it the work of his life to 
put down their rising power, which had become 
a great military and political force, which No- 
bunaga considered a menace to the life of the 
nation. Unfortunately for the Jesuit mission- 
aries, their friend at court was assassinated in 
1582. 

Two of the feudal barons who had professed 
Christianity determined to let the Pope of Eome 
see some of the first-fruits of the work in Japan, 
and in 1583 four young noblemen were de- 
spatched to Europe to declare themselves vassals 
of the Holy See. They were absent eight years, 
and some of their gifts are still in the Royal 
Museum at Madrid. They brought back with 
them seventeen more Jesuit fathers, besides 
printing-presses to diffuse literature in the 
Romanized colloquial. 

The High Tide of Romanism. Nevertheless, 
though the work was outwardly flourishing, 
the death of Nobunaga marks the high tide of 
Roman Christianity in Japan. The new master 
of the country was Hideyoshi (1536-1598), 
most commonly known as Taiko Sama, that is 
the Taiko, or retired regent, who brought peace 
to the country by subduing groups of daimios, 
one after another. Even the haughty Satsuma 
clan was humbled by him, through the medium 
and aid of the Buddhist priest. It is for this 
reason the shaven pates were ever afterwards 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 65 

execrated in Satsuma, so that Buddhism was 
long practically unknown in this region, which 
we associate with pretty crackle and decorated 
faience. 

Although without Scripture and teachers, 
amid much ignorance and darkness, thousands 
of poor Japanese held to their love for Christ, 
worshipped God through the Virgin, talked of 
the Holy Spirit, strove to live chaste lives, and 
be pure in thought, and refused to worship at the 
pagan shrines. In 1859, on the opening of the 
country by treaty, the Roman Catholic fathers 
at Nagasaki found, to their surprise, hundreds 
who still held to the old faith, and that they 
were reopening the old mines, and that their 
new work was to have in Japan a historic con- 
tinuity, of which the Protestant missionaries 
could not boast. Besides the animated work 
of Leon Pages, who gives also a bibliography 
of the old and new European works on Japan, 
one may read with profit Casartelli's twopenny 
pamphlet, published in London in 1893, of the 
Roman Catholic work of the former and latter 
centuries. 

It must be remembered that Christianity 
came to Japan in the sixteenth century, only 
in its papal or Roman form. Thus it was not 
only impure, but was thoroughly saturated with 
the false principles, the brutal vices, and the 
embodied superstitions of corrupt southern 
Europe. It was military, oppressive, and 
political. Yet, bad as it was, it confronted the 
worst condition of affairs, morally, intellectu- 



66 DUX CHEISTUS 

ally, and materially, which Japan has known 
in historic times. The Jesuits in their fresh 
zeal hoped to recoup some of the losses of the 
papal corporation in Europe. Theirs was the 
spirit of the Inquisition. They entered Japan 
with the animus of Alva and Philip II. They 
persuaded the feudal lords to command their 
serf -like people to embrace the new religion on 
pain of exile or banishment. The Buddhist 
priests were exiled or killed, and fire and 
sword, as well as preaching, were employed as 
means of propagation and conversion. Their 
own writings amply testify to the fictitious 
miracles gotten up to utilize the credulity of the 
superstitious in furthering the faith. It is dif- 
ficult to believe that these men did not try 
hard to bring Japan under the control of the 
Pope. Those who cannot study the native 
literature would do well to read Dixon's 
"Japan," and Mr. Murdoch's recent work, of 
great research and vigor, to make up their 
minds on this subject. 

The Wonderful Sixteenth Century. The six- 
teenth century was a very wonderful one for 
the Japanese, especially the last half of it. 
Tired of the long civil wars, which had raged 
for over two centuries, they were ready to hail 
the advent of men of national mind, who could 
rise above local interests and selfish considera- 
tions. Europeans first landed on the shores of 
the island kingdom, and by personal experience 
and narrative made Japan known to the Western 
nations. The Japanese seemed then as eager to 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 67 

travel and see the world as in our own twentieth 
century, and many thousands of them were 
abroad. Roughly speaking, Roman Christianity 
lasted phenomenally nearly a century, or, more 
exactly, from 1542 to 1637. During this time 
Japanese embassies or missions sailed the seas, 
not only of Chinese and peninsular Asia, cir- 
cumnavigating Africa and thus reaching Eu- 
rope, but also crossed the Pacific and visited 
papal Christendom by way of Mexico and the 
Atlantic Ocean. Hitherto Japan had been 
heard of only in a semi-mythical way through 
China, from the vague accounts of Marco Polo, 
the name having become in European speech 
Xipango. " Japan " was now the new word. 
This strange curiosity of a country at the ends 
of the earth was .found to be the same that Polo 
described. Commerce began with Europe, 
stimulating also the mining, coinage, and in- 
dustry of Japan. 

The languages of Europe were enriched with 
Japanese terms, such as soy, moxa, goban^ japan 
(lacquer or varnish), etc. The tongue of Nip- 
pon also received an infusion of new terms, and 
a notable list of inventions was imported from 
Europe, so that to-day one recognizes in Jap- 
anese literature and speech many of these old 
Portuguese and Spanish words, and later the 
infusion of Dutch terms. It is odd, while in 
the interior of Japan, to come across both 
local herbs growing on the mountain slopes, 
where missionaries from the Iberian peninsula 
once lived, and survivals of words on the 



68 DUX CHBI8TU8 



tongue of the people which recall Southern 
Europe. 

Hideyoshi (1536-1598) unified the empire, 
and in the same year, 1592, that the Spaniards 
entered Japan, he sent armies of invasion into 
Korea, in order to keep the large soldier class 
busy. He died in 1598. The armies were 
recalled, and lyeyasu (1542-1618), whose family 
name was Tokugawa, the last of "the three 
great men," became the virtual ruler of the 
country. His crest was a circle containing 
three mallow or asarum leaves. He built the 
city of Yedo, and there established the line 
of shoguns (generals) that ruled from 1604 
to 1868. In 1614, at the siege of Osaka castle, 
Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, and his fol- 
lowing were overthrown, and lyeyasu became 
virtual ruler of the empire, with his seat of 
authority in Yedo. 

The New Era of Peace and Seclusion. Then 
began a new era in the history of Japan. The 
foundation lines were laid for a new social and 
political structure, which lasted from 1600 to 
1868, that is, the distinctive Japan, of which 
we have formed our ideas and around which 
our associations cluster. 

In arranging the new foundations of social 
order, lyeyasu distributed his own vassals 
around the city of Kioto, so that no hostile 
daimio or combination could seize the person 
of the emperor. He began a great internal 
civilizing process, and encouraged the revival 
of learning, while he also scrutinized closely 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 69 

the new force from papal Europe that had 
entered Japanese life. Naturally he followed 
his predecessor in the suspicion that, under 
cover of the Western religion, as brought by 
Portuguese and Spaniards, there lurked politi- 
cal designs. Indeed, how could he avoid this 
train of reasoning? Was not every church 
in Europe, whether Protestant, Catholic, or 
Russian, a state church, political in spirit and 
intent, oppressing all dissenters ? In that age, 
any man, however good a Christian, if he were 
outside of the state church, was looked upon 
as little better than an anarchist. Any states- 
man who then laid down the principle, now so 
common (even in Japan), that the magistrate 
had no right to meddle with the conscience, 
was too far in advance of his age to be under- 
stood, or regarded with patience. 

In 1606, lyeyasu issued his edict prohibiting 
Christianity. Yet, while the native Christians 
were roughly handled in the south, there was 
considerable missionary activity with success 
in the north. By this time the Dutch and Eng- 
lish had reached Japan and told some unpleasant 
facts about Alva and the Netherlands, the In- 
quisition and the Pope, and the ways of the 
Spaniards and the Portuguese. lyeyasu thus 
obtaining new light, yet not desiring to shed 
blood, had the various sectarians of the Roman 
Church, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustines, 
and Jesuits, with hundreds of native priests 
and catechists, shipped away from Nagasaki to 
Macao in China. Yet after the storm blew 



70 DtfX CHEISTUS 



over, many of them came back secretly. Then 
the edicts were carried out more rigorously, the 
church edifices demolished, temples and pagodas 
erected upon the ruins, and under lyeyasu's 
son and successor in Yedo the books of the 
Inferno were opened. This time the "Holy 
Inquisition" was Japanese, and to their own 
awful methods of torture they added new fea- 
tures from the Spanish torture chambers. Some 
of these were long retained in Japanese prisons, 
as I have seen. Even the Eurasian or half- 
breed children were deported from the empire. 
Japanese Christianity, having been banished in 
blood, was supposed to have no existence, and 
Mr. Lecky mistakenly wrote in his " History of 
Rationalism," "persecution extirpated Christian- 
ity in Japan." The country was shut up from 
all foreign intercourse, and in progress of years 
this policy of exclusion and inclusion became 
more and more vigorous. Only on the island 
of Deshima in front of the city of Nagasaki 
were a dozen Hollanders allowed to live, their 
ships coming and going once a year. 

Two Centuries of Dutch Influence. It is popu- 
larly supposed that for over two centuries and 
until Perry's treaty ships arrived in 1853, Japan 
was absolutely shut off from all influences from 
Christendom, even as much so as Thornrose 
Castle in the Teutonic fairy tale. No mistake 
could be greater. Besides having gained many 
ideas and inventions through foreign commerce 
from the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spaniards, 
the minds of her inquiring men were steadily 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 71 

fertilized by the Dutchmen. "Deshima was 
well and prophetically named, signifying Fore 
Island Japan's window through which she 
looked at the whole Occident," during two 
centuries of peace. Japan was never wholly a 
"hermit nation," in the sense of being left with- 
out any creative influences from the outside 
world. We must not suppose that Japan was 
u hermetically sealed," or that she owed nothing 
to Europe during her period of peace and seclu- 
sion. As a matter of fact, seeds for the ground 
and for the mind, books, inventions, medical, 
linguistic, and scientific truths were continually 
dripping from Europe through the Hollanders' 
siphon, upon the so-called hermit nation. De- 
shima, looked at sideways, is shaped like a 
funnel, and the Dutch settlement was the means 
through which, for two centuries, light and 
knowledge were poured into this secluded 
country. By the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, there were scattered all over the country 
men in whose minds Chinese learning had been 
discredited, and in which the Dutch leaven was 
working. Nine years before Commodore 
Perry's flag reflected the stars and stripes in 
Yedo Bay, the Dutch king, William II, sent 
friendly war-ships in time of peace, bearing the 
olive branch and urging the Japanese to open 
their country to the friendship and commerce 
of the world. Thus the way was prepared and 
made easy for the Americans. It was the Hol- 
landers' knowledge of the country which facili- 
tated Commodore Perry's procedure. It was 



72 DUX cnmsTUS 

their charts, made in Holland, by which the 
American ships sailed. Through Dutch inter- 
preters, trained at Nagasaki, Commodore Perry 
and the diplomatists from Europe were able to 
talk with the Japanese hermits. It was the 
native u Dutch scholars" who in 1853 wanted 
their country opened to the world. The Dutch 
prepared the way, by earnest warnings in Yedo, 
for Townsend Harris, first envoy of the United 
States in Japan, and his Dutch secretary, Mr. 
Huesken, who interpreted for all the early 
embassies and legations. The first native 
Christians, made so through reading the Bible, 
were helped and encouraged by the Hollanders 
at Deshima. Until near the dawn of the twen- 
tieth century, an overwhelming majority of the 
liberal-minded officers of the government, en- 
gineers, naval officers, physicians, preachers, 
evangelists, and Christian laymen of light and 
leading, dated their awakening intellectually to 
contact with the Dutchmen, or knowledge of 
what the men of Deshima had imparted, either 
personally, or through relatives or ancestors. 
Without the Dutchmen living in the country, 
it is more than probable that there would have 
been no modern Japan as we know it to-day. 
Their work and influence were not the least in 
the chain of providential influences which in- 
troduced to the delight and surprise of nations 
this " child of the world's old age," this pupil 
of the English-speaking nations. In a word, 
there has not been a year since 1542 that Japan 
has not been indebted to Western nations for 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 73 

ideas and culture. This chapter of the un- 
written history of two centuries helps not only 
to explain much of Japan's supposed sudden 
development, but to throw light on the passage 
penned by the veteran Dr. D. C. Greene, in 
1903, in the pamphlet, "A Third of -a Cen- 
tury of Service in Japan," "In some way, we 
know not how, a foundation had been laid [be- 
fore 1870] and ... a church was to rise to 
the glory of our Lord." 

The Peaceful Armada. During the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth centuries, various attempts 
had been made by the Russians, English, French, 
and Americans to open trade, to return ship- 
wrecked Japanese or ocean waifs, or, as in the 
case of the Dutch, to persuade the Yedo gov- 
ernment to be more sociable, or more human ; 
but all were in vain, until the peaceful armada 
sent by the United States in 1853 broke the 
long seclusion of this Thornrose Castle in the 
Pacific Ocean. At a time of Japan's sorest 
spiritual, moral, and economic need, it pleased 
divine Providence to bring to Japan the influ- 
ences of the West, as represented in the Ameri- 
can squadron, which bore gifts showing the era 
of science and industry and making revelation 
of the Christian civilization of Europe and 
America. The United States fleet of ships and 
of men, fitly commanded, had no superior in the 
world for discipline, power of aggression, abreast- 
ness with the equipment of the times, for war 
or peace, or in general morale. Commodore 
Matthew Calbraith Perry was a typical Ameri- 



74 DUX CHXI8TU8 



can naval officer and a man of science. As his 
biography amply shows, lie had had uncommon 
experiences in diplomacy in Africa, Mexico, 
Europe, and British America. Above all, he 
knew human nature to its depths, both Oriental 
and Occidental. He was a constant reader of 
the Bible and a devout worshipper. He be- 
lieved that the Japanese people suffered from a 
bad system, and that, instead of being real haters 
of foreigners, they would respond to good influ- 
ences, and, when the right objects were pre- 
sented, would appreciate Western civilization. 
Perry, before sailing, spent some months and 
gave unusual care to selecting presents of a use- 
ful and scientific nature, which would best illus- 
trate the resources of the United States and 
show that the Americans were more fond of 
peace and enterprise than they were of war ; 
or, in the words of Daniel Webster, that " our 
object is friendly intercourse and nothing more." 
Divine Providence ordained that in the far 
West and in the far East, two great forces, 
"heirs of all the ages," should move toward 
each other, not to collision, but for a new result- 
ant of forces in the world. On the day that 
Perry received his orders to sail to Japan, the 
present emperor, Mutsuhito, was born. 

So the ships sailed. They were loaded, apart 
from their usual war equipment of food for men 
and cannon, with the new forces of Occidental 
civilization telegraph, railway, locomotive, 
electric apparatus ; ploughs, sewing machines, 
dictionaries, lamps, loots j and whatever, being 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 75 

portable, illustrated the world's progress and 
the American spirit and purpose. Even whiskey 
and cordials were not left out. " With the sons 
of God," though in the majority, " came Satan 
also." The squadron entered the bay of Yedo 
and cast anchor July 7, 1853. In due time 
and with appropriate ceremonies Perry delivered 
the President's letters at the village of Kuri- 
harna, where are now Perry Park and the me- 
morial monolith reared in 1900 by the grateful 
Japanese. ^ 

Christian and Confucian Morals. Much 6t 
the conference between the commodore and the 
Tycoon's commissioner, Professor Hayashi of 
the Chinese College in Yedo, was about human- 
ity and the treatment by the political hermits 
of shipwrecked aliens. It was practical Chris- 
tianity atilt with Confucianism, and the claim 
was urged that ethics are more than politics. 
The system that killed or imprisoned and tor- 
tured men for their belief and opinions was 
here set to defend itself against the free con- 
science of a republic in which church and state 
were separate. The principles of William the 
Silent, of William III of glorious memory, and 
of the Constitution of the United States pre- 
vailed, and the Japanese have since proved 
themselves apt pupils. Yet in the Japan of the 
era of Meiji (1868 +) the political struggle 
has been between the models of government 
furnished by Prussia, and that exemplified by 
Great Britain and the United States. 

Meanwhile the Japanese awoke. Schools 



76 DUX CHRISTUS 

were opened " for the examination of barbarian 
books" and the study of Dutch and English, 
as well as for military and naval tactics. Raw 
recruits were drilled, foundries sprang up, and 
the belfries were emptied for the furnishing 
of the arsenal. From worship to war was now 
the call. To the average native, suspicious by 
nature, and especially to the foreigner hater, 
treaty " concession " meant conquest, and the 
alien's residence to him meant a garrison. 

Even greater than the works of the naval 
officer, Perry, in 1852 and 1853, were the 
diplomatic labors, crowned with triumphant 
success, of the civilian, Townsend Harris, from 
1855 to 1860. He was the first great educator 
of Japan and her statesmen. A graphic picture 
of his activity and the difficulties surmounted 
by him is seen in his published journals. Un- 
armed and with the weapon of truth alone, 
against the falsehoods of agents of a govern- 
ment itself built on falsehood, Harris secured 
a treaty which in 1859 opened the empire to 
trade, to the residence of the merchants, and 
to the activities of the missionaries and the 
teachers of the world. Happily for Great Brit- 
ain, in Lord Elgin, in Sir Rutherford Alcock, 
and in Sir Harry Parkes and their successors 
in Tokio, she has had fitting and impressive 
representatives of her diplomacy and civiliza- 
tion. 

Internal Political Commotions. While out- 
wardly, on the Japanese side, this whole ques- 
tion was political, even that of welcoming or 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 77 

driving away foreigners, and was identified 
respectively with the imperialist and the sho- 
gunal parties, the real issue was whether Asiatic 
tradition or Christian civilization should tri- 
umph. It was whether Japan should remain 
Oriental and die, or join the world's brother- 
hood and live. The new treaty port, Yoko- 
hama, the " Strand Across " the bay from 
Kanagawa on Tokaido, or the main road be- 
tween Kioto and Yedo, shot up out of the 
swamps like a city built in a night. The day 
of ^widespread famines was over. "There 
shall be no more curse " might have been the 
prophecy. Yet the first overlapping of the 
selvages of the two civilizations was not a 
winsome spectacle. The licentiousness of the 
first visitors from the ships and the terrific 
greed and covetousness of the traders outraged 
the native sense of propriety. On the other 
hand, the horribly obscene orgies in the religious 
festivals, or matsuris, and the display of por- 
nographic pictures and phallic emblems in the 
temple processions, surprised even those famil- 
iar with India and the Pacific islanders. The 
frightful immorality of paganism in ante-mis- 
sionary days is nearly incredible, and this, hav- 
ing seen it, we maintain in spite of what writers 
may say who picture primitive Japan as a gar- 
den of Eden. 

The fifteen years from 1853 to 1868 were 
terrible years of political commotion. Yet there 
were some far-seeing men who read aright the 
signs of the times. Matsudaira, the feudal 



78 DUX CHRI8TU8 

lord of Echizen, had made Ms own city of 
Fukui a model of decent government. He 
was backed by Ms teacher of ethics, the re- 
former Yokoi, who, having a copy of the Bible 
in Chinese, taught Christian doctrine in the 
guise of lectures on Confucianism. Yokoi pre- 
dicted that the bright young men of the country 
would accept Christianity. Echizen, summoned 
by the Shogun to reform Yedo and its rulers, 
at once released the daimios from the old cus- 
tom of leaving their wives and children as 
hostages in Yedo, when visiting their own 
dominions. The barons now joyfully gathered 
in Kioto, which became the centre of national 
interests. 

Gradual Enlightenment. Gradually there 
came enlightenment to these insular hermits. 
The people in darkness saw a great light. 
Fukuzawa and Nakamura were among the first 
scholars to read and translate from the language 
of Milton. The latter made a bold and power- 
ful plea, in a scholarly memorial, for the tolera- 
tion of Christianity in Japan. The Constitution 
of the United States, Smiles' "Self -Help," and 
"Mill on Liberty" were among the first books 
put into Japanese. Peter Parley's histories 
formed, too often, the style of the first writers 
of English. An embassy was sent abroad in 
1864 to have the ports closed which the treaty 
had promised to open, but these hermits in the 
market-place were astounded to find, as they 
afterwards reported, " it was not the foreigners, 
but we ourselves, that are barbarians." Yet 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 79 

more light dawned. "The frogs in the well" 
had seen " the great ocean." Their own prov- 
erbs, the growth of a thousand years of insular 
experience, became the mirrors which made the 
proud and learned recluses see themselves as 
they were, and reflected to the ends of the 
empire the truth to the common people. 

Furthermore, the daimios and gentry, as they 
met foreigners in personal intercourse, and es- 
pecially as they had heart to heart talks with 
the missionaries, found that the " hairy foreign- 
ers," even though they had "blue eyes like 
pigs," instead of being wild beasts, were gen- 
tlemen. By inquiry they also learned the dif- 
ference between the political Romanism of the 
sixteenth century and the free Christian states 
and churches of the nineteenth century. They 
discerned between the drunken, lustful, and 
cruel mixed multitude from the ships, whether 
tourist, trader, or mariner, and the settled 
people with families who made homes, dealt 
honestly, and adorned the character of merchant 
or teacher. It was even found, after the first 
seeing of " men as trees walking," that some 
sailors and ship officers were gentlemen, the 
same, in purity of life, abroad as at home. 

Mr. R. H. Pruyn, the American envoy, had 
long urged the sanction of the Mikado to the 
treaties, and negotiations were begun at Osaka 
with the court in Kioto. They were crowned 
with success. The old Mikado Komei died, 
January 30, 1868, and the young Mikado 
Mutsuhito, the one hundred and twenty-third 



80 DUX CHBISTUS 

in the line, ascended the throne at such a time 
and signed the treaties. This act of the em- 
peror, in affixing his signature, was the death- 
blow to the hopes of the foreigner haters, and 
as in Japan, when the emperor nods, millions 
of his people bow, the mind of the nation was 
profoundly changed. Born amid new ideas and 
influences, Mutsuhito, who had had his baptism 
of war in the sound and flash of cannon, in Kioto, 
came to the kingdom with open mind and heart 
for new things. He took his seat on the throne 
of a dynasty "unbroken from ages eternal," 
alert and ready for reform. Here was the 
golden opportunity for the progressists. 

The Charter Oath. In the shifting game of 
politics, the combined troops of Satsuma, Echi- 
zen, and others got possession of the imperial 
palace and person, and on January 3, 1868, 
promulgated a new government and new laws. 
Taking the boy emperor into the great castle 
of Nijo in Kioto, long the seat of the garrisons 
and overawing power and influences of the Yedo 
Shogun, whence the military had so long domi- 
nated the civil power, they then and there piTt 
the oath (written by an Echizen man) into his 
mouth, in which he swore, before all the gods 
of heaven and earth, to seek for knowledge 
throughout the whole world in order to u rebuild 
the empire according to the right way between 
heaven and earth." Dramatic and impressive 
was the scene, in a sense like the proclamation 
of the German Empire in the palaces of the 
French Versailles. Here was the beginning 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 81 

of the real New Japan. It was inaugurated 
under imperial auspices in the Nijo castle the 
stronghold of the old reactionary Yedo govern- 
ment. It meant the subordination of the mili- 
tary to the civil power, and the reform of the 
abuses of seven hundred years. 

This charter oath, in five ' clauses, declared 
that government should hereafter be according 
to public opinion, that the justice and impartial- 
ity manifested in the workings of Heaven should 
be shown in all appointments to office, and that 
men of talent and expertness in all the lines of 
human achievement should be sought for in 
various countries of the world to reestablish 
the foundations of the empire. This "Word 
of the Oath " was the signal for the summoning 
of that great army of foreign yatoi (hired) 
teachers, engineers, * physicians, military in- 
structors, and advisers in all departments, 
numbering probably three thousand in all, who 
for a generation or more helped the Japanese 
in the new ways of civilization, until natives 
were able to give instruction in their own 
schools, build and man their own ships, create 
and lead their own armies, manage their own 
financial, industrial, postal, and railway systems, 
and to teach what and as they saw- fit. It is 
but little to the credit of so many natives that 
they persistently ignore the services of the 
yatoi when writing Japanese modern history. 

The Emperor and Empress in Tokio. Matsu- 
daira, the lord of Echizen, led the procession 
by engaging, through Dr. Verbeck, a faculty 



82 DUX CHRISTUS 



of four experts, to assist in laying tlie foun- 
dations of national education in Japan, which 
was planned by Dr. Verbeck and carried out 
by Dr. David Murray, the cultivated author of 
"The Story of Japan." The writer was the 
first one called out under this imperial oath 
from a foreign country. His call from the men 
of Fukui, scene of Yokoi's labors, was to organ- 
ize schools on the American principle. " The 
Educational Conquest of the Far East" is a 
fascinating story, and has been outlined by Mr. 
R. E. Lewis. 

With the decisive three days' battle of Fu~ 
shimi, January 27-30, 1868, near Kioto, which 
was won by the imperialists, two years of civil 
war broke out. The Mikado was taken to 
ancient Naniwa, the city of "flowery waves," 
called in modern days Osaka, to review his 
war-ships. He saw the sea for the first time. 
In these days of democratic greeting, of hurrah 
and "Banzai" (ten thousand generations, or 
"live forever"), it is remembered that etiquette 
then (in 1886) required the sovereign to turn 
his back on his sailors when he left them, while 
they got down on their hands and knees. Now, 
in this twentieth century, they stand, and their 
faces glow with affection. Soon the boy emperor 
was brought out of seclusion and mystery, and 
his feet set on the solid earth. The Jcio, or capital, 
was removed east to Yedo, which was named 
Tokio, or eastern capital, and properly so spelled. 
The emperor returned for a few days to the old 
sacred city to marry Haruko, the daughter of 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 83 

Ichijo, a court noble. She has since served not 
only as faithful wife and most gracious sovereign 
lady, but is known as the constant friend of 
the sick, the poor, and the unfortunate, the 
patron of the Red Cross society, and the bene- 
factor of hospitals. It was a mighty change of 
status, when from being, according to immemo- 
rial custom, simply a lady of the court, gazetted 
to be the wife, or chief female of the Inner 
Apartment, to the Emperor, but in no sense 
personal, social, official, an empress, or imperial 
according to Western ideas, she has become in a 
true sense the Empress Haruko. Now she rides 
and sits with her husband, and is awarded dig- 
nities and honors unknown to her predecessors 
in ancient days. 

The Foreign Helpers at Work. The " char- 
ter oath" of 1868 was a Macedonian cry to the 
civilized world, which is Christendom, and to 
men of skill and force in many lands to come 
over and help. From America and Europe, 
these men went out in the day of their strength 
to assist the Japanese to rebuild the foundations 
of the empire, by applying the ideas, principles, 
forces, inventions, and machinery of the modern 
world. Japan's helpers and servants from 
among the four peoples in the British Isles 
were led out by the British envoy, Sir Ruther- 
ford Alcock, author of that charming work 
" The Capital of the Tycoon," and these at first 
were instructors in naval science. Under Sir 
Harry Parkes, who early discovered in the light 
of history the legality of the new Mikado's gov- 



84 DUX CHRISTUS 

eminent, hundreds of expert men came out to 
build railways, lighthouses, the mint, engineer- 
ing colleges, and to serve nobly. It was a case 
of taking off the coat. Dixon, in his " Land of 
the Morning," pictures the teacher's life in 
Tokio, as Maclay, in his " Letters from Japan," 
shows it in the interior, while Holtham, in his 
" Eight Years in Japan," and Morris, in his "Ad- 
vance Japan," picture the engineer's work and 
life. The British were the first political and 
financial friends of new Japan, sending her rail- 
way builders, her sailors and organizers of the 
navy, her makers of ships, and directors of ship- 
yards, and her men of expert brain and hand in 
various departments. Besides the invaluable 
researches in history, language, and literature, 
English-speaking men created and have main- 
tained the Asiatic Society of Japan, whose 
Transactions outweigh, in real value, hundreds 
of tourists' books on Japan. From Holland, 
which had trained Japan's first physicians, stu- 
dents, naval officers, and navigators, came the 
engineers and men of science, for the Dutch 
had been for over two centuries the one lan- 
guage, the first gateway of learning, and the 
single link of communication with the Western 
world. From Germany, which furnished the 
new tongue and methods of advanced medical 
science, came the shining exponents of the heal- 
ing art and skill, besides diligent teachers and 
openers of the mines of knowledge in lore, his- 
tory, classified knowledge, forming the German 
Asiatic Society, which has so widened our view 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 85 

of Japan. The French initiated military organ- 
ization and the improvement of the silk indus- 
try, and introduced things of refinement and 
taste. The Swiss, the Scandinavians, the 
Italians, each brought in their gift-laden hands 
some new benefit to the Japanese. In all these 
languages is a rich literature of description and 
experience concerning modern Japan. The 
talents and specialties of each nation were 
drawn upon, but perhaps more numerously than 
all came the Americans as teachers, instructors, 
and advisers in many lines of usefulness, mis- 
sionaries, physicians, financiers, practical men 
in every department. The host, beginning per- 
haps with Kaphael Pumpelly, author of " Across 
America and Asia," still has a few representa- 
tives, even in this day of the return of the edu- 
cated Japanese from the schools of Europe and 
America. The first schools for girls under the 
auspices of the government, taught by Miss M. 
0. Griffis and Mrs. P. Veeder, in 1873, have 
been served by women of ability, even to this day 
of the Peeresses' School and the Women's Uni- 
versity in Tokio, among whom is Miss A. M. 
Bacon, author of " Japanese Girls and Women " 
and "A Japanese Interior." All together the 
helpers from the United States have furnished 
an array of talent and ability, with not a few 
shining lights, that pale not even in the pres- 
ence of Europe's ablest representatives ; while a 
goodly number have shown themselves richest 
in those elements characteristic of the Christ, 
altruism, unselfishness, and consecration. Some 



86 DZJ-T CHRISTUS 

of them, notably Colonel Clark, from Amherst, 
Massachusetts, were active as evangelists and 
led scores of young men. to acknowledge and 
follow Dirx CHEISTUS. In "The Diary of a 
Japanese Convert," by Mr. Uchimura, in the 
life of Rev. Paul Sawayama, and in Mr. Shi- 
gemi's " A Japanese Boy," we have pictures of 
Christian life as awakened in the first instance 
by foreign teachers. In Mr. E. W. Clark's 
" Life and Adventures in Japan," are more pic- 
tures of the daily work of educators and their 
influence as Christians upon their pupils. The 
latest presentation of similar experiences is by 
Dr. Scherer in his " Japan To-day." Perhaps 
the number of these beginners of a better time, 
living and dead, and including the missionaries 
of religion, who came from Japan's nearest 
eastern neighbor, the young republic, does not 
fall far short of two thousand ; while the total 
army of Japan's helpers from all Christendom, 
since the year 1868, the first of the Meiji era, 
must number, living and dead, about four, 
possibly five, thousand. 

The New Nation. During the seclusion of 
the Japanese from the rest of the world, Con- 
fucianism was diligently cultivated on its intel- 
lectual side, and was the living ethical force in 
the nation; while Buddhism, drunk with worldly 
wealth and power, hardened upon tradition and 
continued in a state of stagnation and decay. 
Meanwhile, Christianity, outwardly banned and 
under rigid persecution, had 'rivulets of subter- 
ranean life, flowing both among the southern 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 87 

peasantry in Kiushiu, who held secretly but 
tenaciously to the Roman tradition, and in the 
heart and minds of a few, very few, scholarly 
samurai seekers after God, who, through the 
Dutch or Chinese languages, studied the Holy 
Scriptures. Feudalism furnished the frame- 
work in which Confucianism grew, the trellis 
on which the flourishing vine bore fruit. 
While this Chinese system aided man in the 
cultivation of his intellect, it distinctly lowered 
the position of woman and stunted her growth, 
intellectually, socially, and morally, just as 
surely as in China abominable custom bound 
her feet. So long as feudalism flourished in 
Japan, so long, and only so long, might the 
exotic from China grow and send out its 
boughs. To unify the empire on modern 
principles and to borrow the forms and spirit 
of the West was to deal a mortal blow at the 
Confucian system. 

All this was quickly made clear. No sooner 
had the Dutch students, the pupils of Verbeck, 
the strenuous Mikado reverencers, the Shinto 
scholars and reformers, the exemplars of bushido, 
the advocates of foreign trade, and the haters of 
the Yedo bureaucracy, completed their coup 
d'Stat in Kioto, January 3, 1868, than reforms 
began like a whirlwind. The eta and hi-nin, 
human beings not hitherto counted as human, 
the victims of Buddhist fanaticism, were elevated 
to citizenship. This measure, first advocated 
by the man, suspected to be a Christian, Yokoi, 
who paid for his liberality with his life, was an 



88 DUX CHEISTUS 

act of the emperor of Japan as morally noble as 
the emancipation edict of Lincoln or the edict 
of Alexander which freed the serfs. Disabili- 
ties were removed from the many classes of 
people and the lines of promotion opened. 
National military, naval, postal, judicial, and 
educational systems were formed, which made 
life for the millions worth living. Feudalism 
was abolished without bloodshed. The writer 
witnessed the abdication of the lord of Echizen, 
when, on October 1, 1872, he gathered his two 
thousand retainers in the great castle hall of 
Fukui, and bade them transform personal loy- 
alty into national patriotism. The transfer of 
all land, castles, rosters, power, and resources, 
from two hundred and sixty-three feudal fiefs 
to the emperor, was a peaceful transaction ac- 
complished without riot, rebellion, or disorder 
of any sort. Without much previous historical 
preparation and moral discipline, it would not 
have been thought of. Then the soil was 
turned over to the ownership of the farmer who 
had so long tilled it. The gentry, numbering 
four hundred thousand, and with their families 
nearly two millions, who had hitherto worn 
swords, and were exempt from the payment of 
taxes or tolls, had their pensions commuted for 
fifteen years. Then, laying aside their swords, 
they joined the productive classes. In not a 
few cases, these gentlemen sank in the com- 
petition into poverty. Steadily the Japanese 
were transformed from a purely agricultural 
to an industrial, maritime, and manufacturing 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 89 

people. Instead of the two economic classes of 
feudal days, the landed and the landless, there 
were now manifold industries and occupations. 
Taught by their foreign yatoi, or helpers, they 
built railways, telegraphs, ships, and steamers, 
reclaimed land, improved the live stock, ex- 
panded the crafts, and began to compete for 
the ocean navigation and the commerce of the 
world. Steadily they advanced in political 
evolution, suppressing rebellions, with the new 
army and navy made up of soldiers and sailors 
from all classes, and broadening into representa- 
tive government, both local and national. Not 
a few noble spirits fell victims to the assassin's 
sword and the plots of bigoted reactionaries; 
but finally, in 1889, the wonderfully wise, lib- 
eral, and eminently sensible written constitution 
was proclaimed, and the elected members of the 
Imperial Diet assembled in Tokio. Among 
these were a dozen or more Christians. Free- 
dom of conscience is guaranteed and the possi- 
bilities of enlightened democracy are shadowed 
forth in this grand instrument of enlightened 
government, which in its provisions is so far 
ahead of what all other Asiatic and some 
European peoples have attained. 



90 DUX CHBISTUS 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 
THE JAPANESE MIND 

Great Yaxnato is a divine country. It is only our land 
whose foundations were laid by the divine ancestor. It 
alone has been transmitted by the sun-goddess to a long 
line of her descendants. There is nothing of this kind 
in foreign countries. Therefore it is called the divine 
land. CHIKAFXJSA, 1351 A.D. 

The art of writing history has not made much progress 
in recent years. Modern methods of investigation and 
principles of historical criticism are known and accepted ; 
but a great sifting of the existing heterogeneous material 
must be done before history, as we understand it, can be 
written. Nobody has yet made any serious attempt to 
distinguish the true from the false in the old Japanese 
annals, though it is pretty generally acknowledged that 
this process is indispensable. W. G. ASTON. 

This impersonal habit of the Japanese mind is shared 
by them with other races in the Far East, notably China. 
It is not confined to poetry, or even to literature, but is 
profoundly characteristic of their whole mental attitude, 
showing itself in their grammar, which is most sparing 
of personal pronouns; in their art, which has no school 
of portrait painting or monumental sculpture worth 
mentioning; in the late and imperfect development of 
the drama ; and in their religious temper, with its strong 
bent toward rationalism, and its hazy recognition of a 
ruling personal power in the universe. To their minds 
things happen, rather than are done; the tides of fate 
are far more real to them than the strong will and 
endeavor which wrestles with them. W. G. ASTON. 

The Buddhist believes in a future life, dependent upon 
the principle of cause and effect. 

The Confucian, in a present life, guided by the reason 
of humanity. 



THE MAKING OF TRE NATION 91 

The Sintoos, in a past life, and they live in fear or 
reverence of the memories of the dead. 

All of these doctrines are now suffering a decline and 
are ebbing away. ARINOJRI Mom. 

Though enormously indebted to China, and at times 
hindered in its natural development by a too implicit 
reliance on foreign guidance, it [Japanese literature] has 
remained nevertheless a true index of the national char- 
acter. It is the literature of a brave, courteous, light- 
hearted, pleasure-loving people, sentimental rather than 
passionate, witty and humorous, of nimble apprehension, 
but not profound ; ingenious and inventive, but hardly 
capable of high intellectual achievement; of receptive 
minds endowed with a voracious appetite for knowledge ; 
with a turn for neatness and elegance of expression, but 
seldom or never rising to sublimity. W. G. ASTON. 

The Tai Heiki supplies abundant evidence of his 
[Kojima's] erudition and command of all the resources 
of Chinese and Japanese rhetoric. His pages at times 
are highly charged with Chinese words and phrases, and 
fairly bristle with Chinese historical allusions and quo- 
tations. In this style of writing, "a bamboo grove" 
means a family of princes, a " pepper court " is put for 
the imperial harem; "cloud guests " stand for courtiers, 
the Mikado's carriage is termed the " Phoenix car," and 
his face the "Dragon Countenance." A fair lady is said 
to put to shame Mao Ts'iang and Si She, famous beauties 
of Chinese antiquity. Civil war is a time when " wolf- 
smoke obscures the heaven and whale-waves shake the 
earth." W. G. ASTON. 

Speaking in a general way, Japanese nature is not soil 
for pure philosophy. It has produced many men of the 
type of Aristotle or Franklin, but scarcely any of that 
of Plato, or Kant, or Hegel. Buddhism has flourished 
in Japan, but the most eminent men among Buddhist 
believers men like Nicheren, Kobo, Shinran have in 
every case been eminent for their qualities of religious 
statesmanship. The sects which these men founded have 



92 DUX CHEISTUS 

spread widely among the Japanese, "while more erudite 
and mystical sects, like the Tendai or Kegon sects, have 
never found a large following. REV. T. HARADA. 

Difficulty arises from the fact that a Japanese word 
frequently covers a meaning which is only approximately 
the same as that of a corresponding English term, or 
calls up quite different associations. The karasu, for ex- 
ample, is not exactly a crow, but a corvus Japonensis, a 
larger bird than our species, with different cries and 
habits. The cherry is in Japan the queen of flowers, 
and is not valued for its fruit, while the rose is regarded 
as a mere thorny bush. Valerian, which is to us sugges- 
tive principally of cats, takes the place of the rosebud as 
the recognized metaphor for the early bloom of woman- 
hood. And what is the translator to do with the names 
of flowers as familiar to the Japanese as daisy or daffodil 
to ourselves, but for which he can offer no better equiva- 
lents than such clumsy inventions as Lespedeza, Platy- 
codon grandifloram, and Deaurzia scabra ? 

W. G. ASTON. 

"The Genji" [Monogatari] is a novel of aristocratic 
life. Most of the characters are personages of rank, in 
describing whose sayings and actions a courtly style of 
speech is indispensable. To a Japanese it would be 
simply shocking to say that a Mikado has breakfast 
he augustly deigns to partake of the morning meal, and 
so on. The European reader finds this irritating and 
tiresome at first, but he soon gets accustomed to it. In 
truth, such language is in entire consonance with the 
elaborate ceremonial, the imposing but cumbrous cos- 
tumes, and much else of the rather artificial life of the 
Japanese court of the time. W. G. ASTON. 

One of those [anti-Christian] edicts is said to have 
read as follows, "So long as the sun shall warm the 
earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan ; 
the King of Spain himself, or the Christians' God, 
or the great God of all, if he violate this command, 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 93 

shall pay for it with his head." And two of the later 
edicts, confirming the old prohibition, run as follows: 
"The evil sect, called Christian, is strictly prohibited. 
Suspicious persons shall be reported to the proper offi- 
cers, and rewards will be given." " "With respect to the 
Christian sect, the existing prohibition must be strictly 
observed- Evil sects are strictly prohibited." 



AN ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE CHARACTER 

A striking feature in the Japanese character is their 
intense ambition, a desire to advance and rise, not to 
be below or behind anybody. This feeling pervades all 
classes and must be regarded as a potent factor in the 
nation's astounding progress during the last thirty years. 
It is a valuable and often very laudable stimulus; but 
foreigners might sometimes come into unpleasant contact 
with it. The strongly prevailing national spirit, suffi- 
ciently honorable in itself, frequently manifests itself 
toward foreigners in the form of unbounded conceit and 
persistent self-assertion. Self-sufficiency and self-reliance 
are also prominent characteristics. Mere boys will often 
be seen to rush in where Western doctors would fear to 
tread. Sincerity, frankness, and truthfulness are largely 
wanting. Virtue and anything like high morality, as we 
understand them, are well-nigh unknown here. (I am 
now speaking of the " outside of the churches") Man- 
ners are their morals and " etiquette " is their " etliique" 
all surface work, you know. 

The Japanese are, according to their lights, bright, 
intelligent, quick-witted, and fond of criticising others, 
especially foreigners, but exceedingly dislike being cen- 
sured in any way and are extremely sensitive to public 
opinion, good or bad, nay, to the world's opinion of them 
as a nation. They are remarkably brave, enterprising, 
and capable of great self-sacrifice for a definite purpose ; 
but are frequently found wanting in moral courage. They 
are naturally benevolent, kind, and toward their children 



94 DUX cnmsTUs 

over indulgent ; but are devoid of a forgiving spirit, 
they never forgive what they happen to regard as an 
insult or injury. 

The Japanese are exceedingly frivolous, lacking serious- 
ness in their disposition, and abound in levity, are little 
affected by the grand or the sublime, have few inspira- 
tions and enthusiasms, are too fickle to know true placid- 
ity of mind and too callous to escape from falling into 
cold indifference, have little acquaintance with deep sor- 
row, and "there is no Fifty-first Psalm in their language 
and no Puritan in their history." 

One often hears the Japanese charged with extreme 
fickleness, especially in comparison with the Chinese. 
This charge, I think, requires to be somewhat qualified. 
During the feudal regime, or nearly three centuries, they 
surely were sufficiently steady and conservative. The 
Chinese as a nation have not yet emerged from that kind 
of stagnancy, whereas the Japanese have entered on the 
path of human progress. The present generation of Jap- 
anese lives and moves in an age of change in all depart- 
ments of life, in an age of transition from the old to the 
new. In things material as well as immaterial they are 
making for something better and something higher than 
what they were and had by heredity and by transmission 
from of old. The Japanese are quick-witted and apt to 
jump to a conclusion without sufficient knowledge and 
examination, hence they readily enter upon a thing quite 
new to them. It does not take them long to find out that 
they have made a mistake, or perhaps they are disap- 
pointed, while at the same time it is likely that another 
good thing has attracted their attention. And so they 
go in for that, and (please don't smile) so on. But by 
and by, when they have finally hit upon the right thing, 
they are quite steady and splendidly persevering ; witness, 
e.g., the numerous small and great enterprises, often in- 
volving thousands and millions of money, carried on by 
them without the least foreign aid at this present time, 
with profit and success. You may see the above-described 
processacted out before your eyes "outside of the churches" 
every day, and it is hoped that inside of the churches the 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 95 

last stage in the process will be reached in the present 
generation. 

Probably on account of their unacquaintance with the 
certainties of science, the Japanese have no clear idea of 
the fixity and reality of things, especially of immaterial 
things. They do not conceive that things are what they 
are quite independently of man's opinion and liking or 
disliking. To most Japanese, things are what they them- 
selves and this one or that one make them to be by their 
opinions. 

As regards the present attitude of the non-Christian 
spirit of Japan toward Christianity, I think it may be 
said that it regards our religion with more or less of 
appreciation and respect. But the upper classes look upon 
the native Christians with a good deal of doubt and sus- 
picion. They sometimes express wonder at the confidence 
which we have in them. 

A forty years 1 student of the Japanese. 



TRAITS AND FRUITS or THE KNIGHTLY CULTURE 
(Bushido) 

The Japanese people fit their home. They are inter- 
esting, amiable, attractive. In stature they are short and 
small and light. Their complexion has just a warm rich- 
ness of the blood that goes well with their jet-black hair* 
Intellectually they are bright, quick, keen. Their per- 
ceptive faculties are remarkably developed, and from an 
early age. They have exceptional powers of imitation, 
adaptation, assimilation. They are politeness itself, but 
the astute critic will perhaps claim that a difference be- 
tween " politeness " and " courtesy " is illustrated in the 
Japanese character. EDWARD ABBOTT. 

The resident American or European, with whom the 
novelties of Japanese life have worn away, and who has 
come in contact with the hard facts under the smiling 
surface, sees sometimes a different side of the national 
character. EDWARD ABBOTT. 



96 DUX CHBI8TU8 

Call upon a Japanese friend in time of deepest afflic- 
tion and he will invariably receive you laughing, with 
red eyes or moist cheeks. At first you may think him 
hysterical. Press him for explanation and you will get a 
few broken commonplaces, " Human life has sorrow; " 
"They who meet must part;" "He that is born must 
die; " "It is foolish to count the years of a child that is 
gone, but a woman's heart will indulge in follies ; " and 
the like. 

The suppression of feelings being thus steadily insisted 
upon, they find their safety-valve in poetical aphorisms. 
A mother who tries to console her broken heart by fancy- 
ing her child absent on his wonted chase after the 
dragon-fly, hums : 

" How far to-day in chase, I wonder, 
Has gone my hunter of the dragon-fly! " 

DR. INAZO NITOBE. 

The pride of clan is now changed to pride of race ; loy- 
alty to feudal chief has become loyalty to the emperor as 
sovereign ; and the old traits of character exist under the 
European costumes of to-day, as under the flowing robes 
of the two-sworded retainer. 

It is the same spirit of loyalty that has made it hard 
for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan. The em- 
peror was the representative of the gods of Japan. To 
embrace a new religion seemed a desertion of him and 
the following of the strange gods of the foreigner. The 
work of the Catholic missionaries which ended so disas- 
trously in 1637 has left the impression that a Christian is 
bound to offer allegiance to the Pope in much the same 
way as the emperor now receives it from his people ; and 
the bitterness of such 'a thought has made many refuse 
to hear what Christianity really is. Such words as 
"King" and "Lord" they have understood as referring 
to temporal things, and it has taken years to undo this 
prejudice. ALICE M. BACON. 

It is the same discipline of self-restraint which is 
accountable for the absence of more frequent revivals in 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 97 

the Christian church of Japan. When a man or woman 
feels his or her soul stirred, the first instinct is to quietly 
suppress the manifestation of it. In rare instances is 
the tongue set free by an irresistible spirit, when we have 
eloquence of sincerity and fervor. It is putting a pre- 
mium upon a breach of the third commandment to 
encourage speaking lightly of spiritual experience. It is 
truly jarring to Japanese ears to hear the most sacred 
words, the most secret heart experiences, thrown out in 
promiscuous audiences. " Dost thou feel the soil of thy 
soul stirred with tender thoughts? It is time for seeds 
to sprout. Disturb it not with speech ; but let it work 
alone in quietness and secrecy," writes a young samurai 
in his diary. DR. INAZO NITOBE. 

While the great nobles wrangled for the possession of 
the power, schemed and fought and turned the nation 
upside down ; while the heroes of the country rose, lived, 
fought, and died, the emperor, amid his ladies and his 
courtiers, his priests and his literary men, spent his life 
in a world of his own; thinking more of this pair of 
bright eyes, that new and charming poem, the other 
witty saying of those about him, than of the kingdom, 
that he ruled by divine right; and retiring, after ten 
years or so of puppet rule, from the seclusion of his court 
to the deeper seclusion of some Buddhist monastery. 

A. M. BACON. 



98 DUX CHRISTUS 



THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION 

I. The Japanese a Young, not an Old Race. Consid- 
erations. 
II. The Earliest Books, Kojiki" and " Mhongi." 

III. Mikadoism the Chief Force in Japanese History, 

IV, The Samurai, as the Chief Character in Japan's 

Story. 

V. Art, Architecture, and Literature in Early Ages. 
VI. The Knightly Way, and Japanese Politeness. 
VII. The Ethical Basis of the Japanese. 
VIII. What Supports to Patriotism can Christianity 

furnish? 
IX. Japanese Race Pride as a Help and a Hindrance 

to Conversion. 

X. God's Old Testament with the Japanese. 
XI. Comparison between the Japanese and the Ancient 

Greeks. 

XII. Japan as the Middle and Reconciling Term be- 
tween the Orient and the Occident. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

GENERAL REFERENCES AS BEFORE 

Murdoch and Yamagata. A History of Japan." (1901.) 

Boston. W. B. Clarke Co. 
Hakluyt Society Publications. " The Voyage of John Saris 

to Japan, 1613." (1900.) " The Diary of Richard 

Cocks, 1615-1622." (1883.) 
Brinkley. "Oriental Series. Japan." Vol. I, V, VI, 

VII. (1902.) Boston. J. B. Millet Co. 
Tosa Niki. " Log of a Japanese Journey." Translated 

by Flora B. Harris. (1891.) Meadville, Pa. Flood 

& Vincent. 
"Genji Monogatari." Translated by K. Suyematsu. 

(1884.) Trubner & Co. 



THE MAKING OF THE NATION 99 

I. Nitobe. "Bushido, The Soul of Japan." (1899.) 

Philadelphia. Leeds & Biddle Co. 
A. Knapp. "Feudal and Modern Japan." (1897.) 

Boston. Joseph Knight Co. 
W. E. Griffis. (Life of) " Matthew Calbraith Perry." 

(1887.) Houghton ? Mifflin & Co. 
I. Nitobe. " The Intercourse between the United States 

and Japan." (1891.) Baltimore. Johns Hopkins 

Press. 
R. Alcock. "The Capital of the Tycoon. 17 (1863.) 

Harpers. 
L. Oliphant. " Lord Elgin's Mission to China and 

Japan." (1859.) Harpers. 
W. E. Griffis. " Townsend Harris, First American 

Envoy in Japan." (1895.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
R. Riordan. "Sunrise Stories." (1896.) Charles 

Scribner's Sons. 
Poole-Dickens. " The Life of Sir Harry Parkes." (1894.) 

Macmillan & Co. 
R. E. Lewis. "The Educational Conquest of the Far 

East." (1903.) F. H. Revell Co. 
H. Norman. "The Real Japan." (1892.) Charles 

Scribner's Sons. 
W. Dickson. "Japan." (1869.) Win. Blackwood & 

Son. 
W. Dickson. " Gleanings from Japan." (1889.) "Wm. 

Blackwood & Son. 
S. Hartmann. " Japanese Art." (1904.) Boston. L. C. 

Page & Co. 

E. J. Reed. "Japan." (1880.) John Murray. 
S. Ransome. "Japan in Transition." (1899.) Harpers. 
J. 0. Davis. "A Maker of the New Japan, J. H. 

Neesima." F. H. Revell Co. 
A. S. Hardy. "Life and Letters of J. H. Neesima." 

(1891.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 

The " age of the gods," Prior to 660 B.C. 
The age of mythology and legend. Prior to 

400 A.D. 
552 A.D. First images, writings, and missionaries from 

Korea. 

584 . . . Active propagation under Soga. 
594 . . . Decree ordering the erection of temples. 
602 . . . The Chinese calendar introduced. 
606 . . . Students sent to China. 
624 . . . Hierarchy of priests established. 
770 . . . One million Buddhist charms printed by 

emperor. 
8th to 12th century. Era of conquest of Ainos and other 

tribes. 

835 . . . Kobo dies. Shinto absorbed in Buddhism. 
850 . . . First native painter, Kanaoka. 
987 . . . Custom of mikados abdicating, in full force. 
1004 . . . "Genji Monogatari" composed. Period of 

literary brilliancy. 

1156 . . . Era of conquest over. Military clans quarrel. 
1192 . . . Duarchy. Kamakura made the eastern seat 

of government. 

1263 ... Shinran, founder of the Shin sect, dies. 
1275-1292 Marco Polo in China, heats of Xipango 

(Japan). 

1282 . . . Nichiren, founder of the Nichiren sect, dies. 
13th century. Tremendous expansion of Japanese Bud- 
dhism. 
1333 . . . Kamakura destroyed by Nitta. End of the 

Hojo rule. 

1336-1392 Two rival lines of mikados. 
1335-1573 Era of the Ashikaga rulers and of civil wars. 
1573-1616 Era of the " Three Great Men," Nobunaga, 

Hideyoshi, and lyeyasu. 

1542 . . . First Europeans. Beginning of " the Chris- 
tian century." 

1549 . . . Francis Xavier lands at Kagoshima. 
101 



102 



DUX CIIRISTUS 



Continued from page 101. 

1579 . . . Two hundred churches and one hundred and 
fifty thousand Roman Catholic Christians 
in the empire. 

1583 . . . First Japanese embassy to Spain and Rome. 

1590 . . . Beginning of the city of Yedo. 

1597-1637 Persecutions of the foreign and native 
Christians. 

1615 . . . Revival of learning. Yedo the eastern capi- 
tal. 

1615-1868 Era of great peace. Revival of pure Shinto. 
Cultivation and establishment of Con- 
fucianism. 

1868-1900 Disestablishment of Buddhism. Abolition 
of the Riobu system. State purification 
and patronage and decay of Shinto. 

1889 , , , Constitution granting freedom of conscience. 



CHAPTER III 

THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 

The Lower Forms of Paganism. The story 
of Japanese religions shows that " man," as says 
Sabatier, is "incurably religious." His soul is 
hungry for something to satisfy it, and until 
higher light and truth are brought to him he 
gropes blindly after God, if haply he may find 
him. Long before he has a " book religion " 
he fears and hopes, and worships the mysteri- 
ous forces and objects around him. In prehis- 
toric Japan there existed various low phases of 
native worship, traces of which to sharp eyes 
are still manifest in every part of the empire, 
while the clear evidences to the scholar are 
many. Before the opening of the country to 
foreigners, they were visible on every hand, 
from Riu Kiu to Yezo. Shamanism, the worship 
of spirits or invisible beings ; fetichism, the wor- 
ship of inanimate objects ; phallicism, the wor- 
ship of the reproductive powers of nature ; tree 
and serpent worship were, and are still, widely 
prevalent. The large number of beliefs founded 
on mythical zoology the delirium tremens of 
paganism which daily sway the thought and 
actions of millions of the Japanese, seems to be 
unknown, not only to the average tourist in 
their country, but also to most public speakers 
103 



104 DMT CHEISTUS 

addressing audiences of Japanese. To be born 
and grow up and live under the soughing of the 
forest growths of paganism, or of Christianity, 
makes mind and imagination in each case very 
different. The same words have varying 
meaning and color to the two kinds of auditors. 
The more obscene manifestations of the 
phallic worship, which both the dweller in sea- 
ports and cities and the traveller in the interior, 
in the early seventies, noted on every side, at 
temple festivals, in toy and picture shops, and 
by wayside shrines, in revolting luxuriance, ac- 
companied with shocking personal exhibitions to 
an extent now incredible, have been suppressed 
and abolished by government. Nevertheless, 
this worship is still carried on in out-of-the-way 
places. Is it an accident that streets leading to 
the sacred shrines at Ise are lined on both sides 
with houses of prostitution? The licensed 
house of ill-fame is one of Japan's oldest social 
institutions. As matter of fact, which every 
missionary teacher and even tourist ought to 
know, the average native of Japan had no clear 
idea, or only a very vague notion, of one per- 
sonal God Almighty. Visiting lecturers and 
inexperienced missionaries make a great mis- 
take in talking to an audience of common 
people in Japan as they would to a similar 
gathering in Christendom, where the idea of one 
living and true God is a commonplace thought. 
Indeed, a single glance at Japanese art or a 
knowledge of its literature show what ideas 
the people have as to the activity of myriads of 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 105 

imaginary beings in connection with their daily 
lives. 

The Way of the Gods. The first of the prim- 
itive forms of religion in Japan, kami no 
michi, the path of the gods, received its Chinese 
name, Shinto, only in later centuries. It was a 
rude system fitted for a rude state of society. 
Shinto is, literally, theology, or the god way. 
Before the disciples of Jesus at Antioch were 
called Christians, they were referred to as of 
" that Way," and to this day, in Japan, religion 
is always spoken of as a " do," or way. The 
people of the Jesus Way are distinguished from 
those of the Buddha Way, the God Way, etc. 

Let us look at the books of Shinto. Besides 
the "Kojiki" and "Mhongi" are the chants 
and prayers, and the book called the " Collection 
of Myriad Leaves," in which are many pretty 
poems. A Shinto shrine has no idols or images, 
and the temples are severely plain. The round 
metal mirror which one sees is believed to urge 
the looker-on to gaze into his own heart for 
purity of word, thought, act, in mind and body, 
in both belief and practice. Suspended from 
upright rods or sticks of unpainted wood are 
folded or notched strips of white paper, making 
a zigzag effect. These are modern symbols set 
in place of the ancient offering of hemp, silk, 
and various kinds of food to the gods. The 
spirits are supposed to reside in these. From 
the liturgies we learn much of the ideas govern- 
ing Shinto ; for example, we find that the origin 
of evil is attributed to the wicked Jcami, and to 



106 DUX CHBISTUS 

get rid of them is to free one's self from the 
troubles of life. The object of the ritual wor- 
ship is to compel the turbulent and malevolent 
kami to go out and away from human habita- 
tions to the mountain solitude and rest there. 
The liturgies and prayers are preserved in spe- 
cial books, which give also the number and 
names of the gods, both good and evil ; the gods 
of the wind, land, sea, and sky ; the gentle and 
rough spirits ; the prayers of worshippers for 
their emperor and for themselves ; and tell of 
the sun-goddess, the fire myth, and the ritual, 
specimens of which are given in the section de- 
voted to literary illustrations. Besides the an- 
cient prayers, others have been made in modern 
times for special occasions, as when the Mikado 
left Kioto for Yedo in 1868, and when he pro- 
claimed the written constitution and opened 
parliament in 1890. 

- In Shinto, sin is ceremonial pollution. Hence 
a large part of the forms of worship consist of 
rites of purification, and their inheritance of 
customs and beliefs have made the Japanese a 
cleanly people in person, house, street, and city. 
They carry neatness to a passion. Another 
equally potent and permanent fruit of Shinto 
is seen in the political dogma of Mikadoism, 
making all national reverence, power, and even 
all the memories and hopes of the nation to 
centre in the emperor. 

Patriotism exalted to a Religion. Patriotism 
in Japan is exalted to a religion ; and, as far as 
Japan has a national religion, it is Shinto. No 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 107 

one can live long in the land without meeting 
with Shinto ideas expressed in popular and 
pleasing form, in manners, customs, toys, and 
language. At the end of the house roofs, we 
see the broad terminal tile with the river weed 
moulded on it, for this is the plant with which 
the Clay Hill Maiden pacified the fire god. 
The same symbol of power and victory may be 
seen in a pair of the same leaves in shining brass 
on the crest of the warrior's helmet of old 
feudal days. Not a few of the popular dances, 
games, sports, and amusements take their origin 
from the age of the gods and stories in the na- 
tive mythology. The " Kagura," " the play that 
makes the gods laugh," is an amusing represen- 
tation with many local hits and fun up-to-date, 
of the retreat of the sun-goddess into her cave 
and the methods used to lure her out. For 
many pretty stories of the age of the gods, 
we must go to " Japanese Fairy World," or 
similar collections of mythic lore. 

Although waxing old and fast passing away 
as a system, yet the fruit of Shinto lives in the 
intense patriotism of the people, as a powerful 
motive and undying force a force with which 
Christian teachers have to reckon, and which, 
when purified, transfigured, and reincarnated in 
Japanese Christianity, may be as beautiful, as 
beneficent in its workings, as that race-spirit 
which, in the Germanic nations, gave us the free 
spirit of inquiry and enterprise, the institution 
of chivalry, the Gothic cathedral, and the rev- 
erence of man for woman. 



108 DUX CHEISTUS 

Shinto as a Political Force. There is a po- 
litical side to Shinto, in what we may call Mika- 
doism, or the power of the emperor to compel 
the reverence of his subjects. How far this 
political use made of Shinto is justified by the 
primitive documents of the cult is a question 
for critical scholarship to settle. When, in the 
seventh century, the monarchical system of 
government was established, the people were 
then, and for centuries afterwards, made to 
believe that things had always been as they 
were, and virtually as they are now, under the 
Mikado's rule ; that is, " unbroken from ages 
eternal." Nevertheless, it has been amply de- 
monstrated by both foreign and native students 
that Mikadoism, or state-church Shinto, made 
first a usurpation in worship and then turned 
the primitive faith into an engine of govern- 
ment. Religion was yoked to practical politics 
and the emperor was made the centre of wor- 
ship. Some of the festivals now directly con- 
nected with the Mikado's house, and even in 
his honor, were originally religious ceremonies 
of thanksgiving, with which the Mikado had 
nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, 
for the honor was paid to Heaven and not to 
his imperial ancestry. Thanksgivings of the 
court were also made to Heaven itself and not 
in honor of the sun-goddess, as is now popularly 
supposed. The sun-goddess probably some 
local chieftainess herself once actually cele- 
brated the most sacred of the feasts. So, also, 
the holy temples of Ise, the Mecca of Shinto, 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 109 

and even the shrines in the imperial palace, 
were originally temples of worship of Heaven, 
and not of the Mikado's ancestors. The idea 
of inferior gods, or those of earthly origin, 
forms no part of original Shinto. Not one of 
the original Mikados was deified after death, 
and only by degrees was the ruler of the coun- 
try given a place of worship. This was done 
through a dogma that was political rather than 
religious ; that is, by attributing to hirn a de- 
scent from heaven. The whole custom of dei- 
fying emperors came in only after primitive 
Shinto had been corrupted by Buddhist priests 
and ideas. The contention of scholars is that 
the ancient religion of the people in central 
Japan was, in its origin, a rude sort of mono- 
theism, which, as in ancient China, was coupled 
with the worship of subordinate spirits. 

Outward Manifestations. In Shinto, as or- 
ganized under official supervision, the ministers 
of religion belonged to particular families who 
were honored by titles to offices by the emperor. 
They dressed like other people of the same rank 
as themselves in everyday life, but when offi- 
ciating in their sacred offices were robed in 
white, and wore upon their heads a particular 
form of high cap. They married, reared fami- 
lies, and did not shave their scalp, except that 
the lower grade of shrine keepers wore their 
hair in the ordinary fashion, prevalent until 
quite recently, that is, with shaven midscalp 
and topknot. 

On a Japanese landscape the most character- 



110 LUX CHRISTUS 

is tic object is the tori~i, a kind of gateway under 
which worshippers pass to the shrine. Literally 
it means " bird-rest," but whether used for the 
perch of fowls giving notice of the break of day, 
or for their place of rest before being offered to 
the gods, or that on which the sun, conceived 
of as a bird, rested before sleeping in the west, 
is not certain. The correct toriri is of un- 
painted wood, made of two tree trunks, held 
crosswise on a transverse smooth tree trunk, 
which projects somewhat over the two support- 
ing posts, while under this is a second and 
smaller beam set in between two uprights. The 
law of structure is that a pole held from the 
earth base to the end of the upper beam should 
have the lower or shorter beam touch it. In 
later Buddhist times, the toriri was painted red 
or white and ornamented with tablets. In mod- 
ern degenerate days it has even been made hol- 
low, of boiler iron. In the case of Inari, or the 
fox-god, the little tori-i are set in scores of 
gateways, making a colonnade of approach to 
his shrine. Often reared in high places, amid 
God's beautiful trees, that compel instinctive 
uncovering of the head, one is religiously im- 
pressed by the natural surroundings, and the 
reader of Tennyson recalls 

" The great world's altar-stairs, 
That slope through darkness up to God." 

The Emphasis on Cleanliness. Shinto lays, 
as we have seen, tremendous emphasis on clean- 
liness. So great has this passion been inbred 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 111 

in the Japanese, that the feelings of disgust at 
what was defiling have long prevailed over 
those of pity or compassion, and the stolidity 
in presence of, or contempt for, human suffer- 
ing, especially when the sufferer was a beggar 
or outcast, is much like that of the Chinese or 
Koreans. All the accompaniments of birth or 
death were considered defiling, and it was usu- 
ally customary to burn the house in which a 
person had died. The most beautiful expres- 
sion of this feeling is seen in the lovely " island 
without death," on which neither man nor beast 
is allowed to die, but the sick and those likely 
soon to pass away are carried to the mainland. 
The infected patient or lying-in woman was 
in ancient times put out of the house, in a hut 
of straw, until the time of normal health, the 
hut being afterwards burned. Until a quite 
recent period in some places, notably Yries Isl- 
and, this custom was maintained. This horror 
of death or defilement, with its attendant super- 
stitions, was probably the cause of the frequent 
removal of the capital, or seat of government. 
Before Nara was chosen (in 709, and until 794) 
there had been fifty capitals, most of which to- 
day exist simply as geographical expressions. 
Horror of uncleanliness was so great that the 
priests not only bathed, but bound slips of paper 
over their mouths, lest their breath should defile 
the offerings. Many of the festivals were for 
purification alone. Salt was commonly used to 
sprinkle over the ground, and all who attended a 
funeral must free themselves from contamina- 



112 LUX CHRISTUS 

tion by the use of salt. The high officers and 
even the emperor publicly washed the people, 
or made lustrations in their behalf. Later on, as 
settled habitation became more common, public 
ablution as a sacred rite was supplanted by 
using paper manikins instead. Twice a year, 
figures cut in paper and representing human 
beings were thrown into the river as a vicarious 
cleansing from sin. Later the chief minister of 
religion in Kioto performed the symbolical act 
for the people of the whole country. 

Those who study religion as a growth may 
ask, "Into what would Shinto, so bald and 
rudimentary, have developed, had it been left 
by itself?" Would there have arisen litera- 
ture, codes of morals, great systems of dogma, 
liturgies, festival routine, and most of those 
outward popular features and complexity of 
dogma into which all religions, even the simple 
religion of Jesus, are fashioned by their ad- 
herents ? Such questions are interesting. As 
matter of fact, when the great flood of Chinese 
and Buddhistic literature overwhelmed the 
intellect of the Japanese, and Buddhism, under 
missionary activity, expanded immensely, there 
was no further development of " the god way " 
for nearly a thousand years. It was almost 
completely absorbed into a system called Riobu 
(mixed) Shinto, in which the latter word may 
represent the lamb and the thing digested, 
while Riobu stands for the tiger and the 
eater. Ultimately less than twenty temples 
remained with the pure faith and ritual- All 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 113 

the others were swamped and overlaid by the 
system of Riobu. This was concocted by a 
Buddhist priest, known as Kobo, who is also said 
to have invented the Jcana writing, or syllabary, 
and of whom we shall speak again. 

The Revival of Pure Shinto. After a thou- 
sand years' sleep in Buddhism, there were signs 
of the resurrection of Shinto. In the great peace 
established by lyeyasu, after 1614, scholars were 
encouraged and left free to explore the ancient 
Japanese language, literature, and religion. 
Their task was much like that of the modern 
explorers of Pompeii or the Roman catacombs, 
for the ancient life and civilization had been 
buried under the rubbish and debris of war, as 
well as under the successive layers of Chinese 
civilization and Buddhism. Libraries were 
formed, and earnest study began. The priest 
Keichu (1640-1701) explored and commented 
upon that great treasure house of ancient poetry, 
the " Collection of One Thousand Leaves " ; Adzu- 
maro (1660-1736), founder of the modern school 
of pure Shinto, attempted the mastery of the 
whole archaic native language and literature. 
His pupil and successor was Mabuchi (1697- 
1769) who claimed descent from the crow-god 
that had led the Yamato invaders. Then came 
Motoori (1730-1801), a scholar, who, with a 
German-like thoroughness, analyzed the native 
literature, showing whas was Chinese and what 
was of native origin. Hirata, his pupil (1776- 
1843), continued the work of his master until the 
Perry era. With astonishing learning, Motoori 



114 DUX CHRISTUS 

set forth and defended the native religion. He 
taught that Japan was the land of the gods and 
the country of the holy spirits, because it was 
the first part of the world created. Other coun- 
tries were formed by the solidifying of the sea 
foam, while the stars came into existence when 
the warm mud from Izanagi's spear was flung 
up to the sky. It was the Chinese who invented 
morals because they were immoral people, but no 
true Japanese has need for any system of morals, 
because he will act aright if he will but consult 
his own heart. So also the ancient poet Nito- 
maro, who died in 737 A.D., wrote 

" Japan is not a land where man need pray 
For 'tis itself divine ; 
Yet do I lift my voice in prayer." 

The duty of every good Japanese is to obey 
the Mikado, whether his commands are right or 
wrong. The Mikado is a god and vicar of all 
the gods, and the centre of church and state, for 
government and religion are one. Foreign na- 
tions are very remiss in their duty of not at once 
offering tribute to the Mikado, but then they are 
ignorant and unenlightened ! 

Trivial as the Western man may consider these 
words, written in the seventeenth century, and 
however he may look upon such a rudimentary 
faith, Shinto has been a tremendous political 
force. Its modern revival was contemporane- 
ous with the revival also in Japan of Chinese 
learning, ethics, and philosophy in the seven- 
teenth century. During the eighteenth century 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 115 

these forces generated a mighty energy, which, 
consolidated in the nineteenth, were all ready, 
when Perry's fleet appeared in the Bay of Yedo, 
to burst out into volcanic manifestation. It is 
simply Occidental conceit and ignorance that 
supposes that the secret of Japan's modern 
power lies only in what has come to her from 
the West, or that her modern life is merely an 
addition, instead of a true evolution. Nor can 
we hope for any spiritual uplift or the conver- 
sion to holiness of the Japanese through civiliza- 
tion. As matter of fact, however, in the great 
stream of varied influences which abolished 
feudalism and restored the Mikado, not only to 
the supreme power enjoyed by his predecessor, 
but to a potency and enlargement never before 
known to any of his ancestors, the ideas of the 
old god-way formed not the least potent factor. 
Purging of the Temples. The Three Com- 
mandments. Immediately on being seated in 
power in 1868, the radical Shintoists took ad- 
vantage of their long-awaited opportunity to 
attempt the abolition of Buddhism and the 
propagation of Shinto. They began first by 
purifying the Riobu temples. A change was 
wrought in the outward array of popular Bud- 
dhism as thorough as that which went on in 
the Roman Catholic cathedrals at the hand of 
the reformers and Protestants in Europe. It 
was from gaudiness to austere simplicity. The 
same temple which to-day was luxuriant in all 
its details, both superb and tawdry, gilded, re- 
splendent, blazing with light and color, looked 



116 DUX CHRISTUS 

on the morrow more like a respectable barn 
than a place of worship. Everything that could 
remind a Japanese of foreign elements was cast 
out and a return made to the baldness of the 
early ages before art and letters. 

Failure in Propagation. An attempt was 
made to propagate Shintoism and win adherents. 
But from the first the effort seemed hopeless. 
Looking at the matter to-day in the light of 
over thirty-six years of history, the whole move- 
ment, from the religious point of view, may be 
called a failure, though as a political measure it 
may be considered fairly successful. At first 
the Council of Gods of Heaven and Earth held 
equal power with the Great Council of the Gov- 
ernment. Then as a political revolution was 
made toward the standard of German imperial- 
ism, the Council was made a department of the 
government, later it was called the board, and 
still later a bureau. Now, except as a system 
of guardianship over the imperial tombs and as 
a mode of official etiquette, Shinto is not a re- 
ligion. It is indeed a power to supply the spring 
and motive to patriotism, but to call it a religion 
seems absurd. Even the priests at Ise have 
become laymen. The three main commands of 
the Shinto of to-day are the following: 

1. Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy 
country. 

2. Thou shalt clearly understand the prin- 
ciples of heaven and the duty of man. 

3. Thou shalt revere the emperor as thy 
sovereign and obey the will of his court. 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 117 

Decay of the Aboriginal Faith. Numerous 
sects of Shinto have sprung up, some of them 
quite recent, and evidently borrowing elements 
from Christianity. On the other hand, some 
fruits of the decaying cult, as blended with the 
poisonous elements of Western civilization, have 
been seen in the soshi young rowdies and 
ruffians who for a decade or two so bothered 
cabinet ministers with their advice and impu- 
dence. Such phenomena called forth from the 
Mikado, in 1892, an imperial rescript requiring 
that the photograph of the emperor be exhib- 
ited in every school, and saluted by all teachers 
and scholars, whatever their beliefs or scruples. 
While some insist that this is an act of religion, 
others treat it but as a form of loyalty only. 
To-day the radical Shintoist believes that all 
political rights now or ever enjoyed by the 
Japanese are solely by virtue of the Mikado's 
grace and benevolence. Some curious notions 
and verbal and phrase coloring, derived from 
Shinto, are also seen in the text of the constitu- 
tion of 1889. 

No Morals and No Immortality. As Shinto 
teaches no code of morals and tells nothing of 
life hereafter, the soul of the Japanese, thirsting 
and hungering after more and better spiritual 
food, knowing nothing of the Heavenly Father 
or his infinite love in Christ Jesus, turned to 
other fountains and food. Buddhism ministered 
to the cravings and emotions, and Confucianism 
gave rules of moral conduct. Yet we must not 
forget that the average person in Japan does 



118 DUX CHRI8TU8 

not analyze or separate the three systems. To 
him they are an amalgam, forming one method 
of life. Except the severely bigoted sectarians, 
the mass of the people use various temples and 
the reading classes get their mental pabulum 
from the books of the writers or teachers of the 
native Japanese, the Aryan, or the Chinese sys- 
tem. Only the Christian can afford to ignore 
them all as "rudiments of the world," "beggarly 
elements," while to the Christ-filled child of 
God, to whom Japan is native country, Shinto, 
Buddhism, and Confucianism are things alto- 
gether sMnda (dead), for his Jesus is alive for- 
evermore. 

Essence of Buddhism. Buddhism, though 
outwardly very much resembling Christianity, 
especially the Roman and Greek Catholic forms 
of it, is in its nature and essence radically differ- 
ent from what Jesus taught. Those parallels 
and resemblances, so much dwelt upon by super- 
ficial observers, are almost entirely on the sur- 
face, for real Buddhism is real atheism. It 
starts out without any idea of the Creator, or 
personal, omnipotent God, and deals almost 
entirely with human relations, with the career 
and destiny of man as exemplified in the law of 
cause and effect. The chief lesson taught is 
that "as a man soweth so shall he also reap." 
This doctrine and also that of self-conquest, with 
ten thousand illustrations, form the chief themes 
of the "bonzes, or preaching monks. 

Nirvana is the perfect emancipation from all 
passion. The Buddhist teaches the suppression 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 119 

of all desire, while the Christian doctrine is to 
elevate and purify desire, seeking ever nobler 
objects. Buddha has shown us how to crush 
and kill our impulses; Jesus teaches to apply 
the rein and curb so as to have desire draw in 
the harness of reason, conscience, and the spirit- 
ual affections. Hence Buddhist civilization is 
stagnant ; Christian civilization is progressive. 
Buddha would seclude his people from the world. 
Jesus says, " In the world, but not of the world," 
It is this idea of deliverance from longings and 
passion, which forms the burden of many Bud- 
dhist holy books, and is expressed by plastic art 
in the superb bronze statues, colossal in size and 
overawing in their influence, which are to be 
found in many places in Japan, such as the Dai 
^Butsu at Kamakura. 

This faith, which in its various forms domi- 
nates the intellect and emotions of millions of 
people in Asia, and which is greatly affected and 
admired by a few thousand in Christendom 
(largely because they do not know what Bud- 
dhism is, and because they are unconsciously 
enjoying, as in "The Light of Asia," a form of 
Christianity, tricked out in Asiatic phrase), is 
amazingly elastic. It has an octopus-like power 
of seizing upon whatever it catches hold of, and 
calling it its own, so that its enthusiastic pro- 
fessors will tell you that Buddhism is "truth 
common to every religion, regardless of the out- 
side garments." Indeed, the hierarchs at Kioto 
are quite willing to annex Christianity to their 
system. Others more frankly, like the great art 



120 DUX CHIUSTUS 

apostle, Okakura, will tell you, and with much 
truth, that " Buddhism" is a word that covers 
that long process of over a thousand years, by 
which the intellectual and spiritual influences 
of India were made to dominate the mind of 
eastern Asia. Amiel has said, " The prayer of 
Buddhism is ' deliver us from existence.' The 
prayer of Christianity is 'deliver us from evil.'" 
Buddhism, when honest, is frankly pessimistic ; 
Christianity, when real, is of necessity optimistic. 

The Coming of Buddhism to Japan. Passing 
over the subjects of the origin and growth of 
Buddhism in India and China, 1 we glance at 
its two forms on the Asian continent and 
refer the reader to Japanese works 2 which con- 
tain the story of the founder of Buddhism. 
Its chief doctrine is that of karma, or in Japan- 
ese, ingwa, that is, Cause and Effect, whereby 
it is taught that each effect in this life springs 
out of a cause in some previous incarnation, 
and each act in this life bears its fruit in the 
next, all of which grows directly out of the 
old Hindoo doctrine of the transmigration of 
souls. Buddhism seeks to know only men and 
things, and is atheistic humanism. 

The Buddhism of continental Asia followed 
two channels, the southern and northwestern. 
The southern form, confined chiefly to Ceylon, 
Siam, Burmah, and Cochin-China, remained 
comparatively austere and simple.. In Java 
and the East Indies, where magnificent ruins of 

1 Treated in " Lux Christ! " and " Bex Christus." 

2 Especially to Rev. J. L. Atkinson's " Prince Siddartha." 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 121 

temples are found, it has died out. The north- 
ern form became amazingly varied, florid, and 
idolatrous, in which the old noble, eight-fold 
path of self -conquest and pure morals was 
utterly lost in a forest of superstitions. Gods 
and devils were multiplied into mobs. Charms, 
magic, prayer-mills, and the bric-a-brac of a 
decayed religion filled China. 

Multitudes of Idols. With an overpopulated 
pantheon, and a paradise wonderfully like Ma- 
homet's, Buddhism in the sixth century entered 
Japan, which probably then contained two or 
three million people, who lived in a state of 
civilization that may be compared with that of 
the Aztecs or the Iroquois. The bringing in 
of the golden images, the sacred books, and 
shining vestments, with the chanting of the 
bright-robed choirs of priests, made a tremen- 
dous impression on the susceptible Japanese. 
The peaceful introduction was soon followed 
by quarrels, fighting, and burning of the 
temple of the new faith. The first eminent 
friend of Buddhism was the minister of state, 
Soga, and its second and greatest champion 
was the son of the Mikado, named Shotoku. 
Born in the year 572, and dying 621 A.D., the 
latter was all his life a vigorous defender and 
propagator of the new faith. He founded a 
large number of temples and monasteries, 
framed codes of laws, and introduced the first 
calendar. His posthumous name means Holy 
Goodness. His images are seen in shrines all 
over the empire. At the Osaka Exposition, in 



122 DCTX CER18TUS 

the summer of 1908, a thousand or more shaven 
priests gathered to celebrate his birth, in their 
full canonicals, by chanting the sutras in uni- 
son, and the casting of a colossal temple bell 
to his glory. In Japan, while men cut the 
timber and do the work of erection and decora- 
tion, the women make great sacrifices of money, 
mirrors, and gifts of all sorts, crowning all by 
the sacrifice of their hair. In building the 
new Honguanji, in 1895 (Temple of the Origi- 
nal Vow) in Kioto, two hundred and fifty 
thousand women gave their hair as an offering 
to Buddha, to make the ropes employed in 
hoisting the great stones of the outer wall into 
their place. " We saw," says Canon Tristram, 1 
"fifty-three of these ropes of rich, glossy black 
hair, each two spans in circumference, forty or 
fifty feet in length. What devoted zeal im- 
pelled the daughters of the land to such a 
sacrifice! " 

Changes made by the Japanese. Hundreds of 
Buddhist missionaries followed the first pio- 
neers from Korea, and under the reign of the 
Empress Jito (690-696) a great expansion of 
the new faith took place. In the later centu- 
ries Japanese pupils went oyer into China to 
enter the monastery schools, study Buddhist 
writings, meet the new lights of learning and 
revelation, and become versed in the latest 
fashions of imported religion. Returning to 
Japan, they founded new sects or sub-sects, 
stimulating by tlieir enthusiasm the itinerant 
1 " Rambles in Japan," p. 203. 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 123 

monks. After nine hundred years of multitu- 
dinous labors, Japan was converted and became 
a Buddhist nation. Even the colossal bronze 
image at Kamakura is chiefly the result of the 
devotion of Itano, a Buddhist nun. 

Gradually Japanese Buddhism went through, 
not only a mighty expansion and development, 
but also a tremendous evolution of doctrine, so 
that, to Buddhists of the continent of Asia, 
Japan is the Land of Dreadful Heresies. De- 
tailed lists of sects and founders, with their dis- 
tinguishing doctrines and characteristics, may 
be studied in books devoted to the subject. We 
can only mention the nine principal sects (omit- 
ting the forty-two sub -sects) and the number of 
temples in each in 1903 : Tendai (4602) ; 
Shingon (12,965); Jodo (8343); Rinzai (6120); 
Sodo (13,706) ; Obaku(556); Shin (19,608); 
Niehiren (5194) ; Ji (857). Japanese ecclesias- 
tical writers classify all extant or extinct in 
three groups, the first six, or ancient ; the med- 
iaeval ; and the four modern sects. 

When two centuries and a half had passed by, 
the teachers of the new faith from India found 
that the Japanese people still clung tenaciously 
to their old traditions, customs, and faith ; for 
their gods were like themselves. It was clearly 
seen that something more than teaching and 
ritual was necessary. The whole heritage of 
national customs and ideas as expressed in 
Shinto must be occupied by Buddhism. To do 
this, to make the very ruts and paths of national 
habits shine with the glory of " the wheel of the 



124 DUX CHRISTUS 

law," it was necessary that the popular festivals 
and names of the gods should be Buddhaized. 
The man to do this work, at once bold and 
crafty, was Kobo, the Buddhist priest (born 
A.D/774). 

Shinto swallowed up in Buddhism. Kobo 
made a catalogue of Shinto gods, giving them 
Buddhist names, with liturgies. He did the 
same thing for the festivals. Then, training up 
a band of disciples and employing hundreds of 
artists, he sent them forth to propagate the new 
system and make it attractive to eye and ear as 
well as mind. The people first accepted the 
new version of things from the teachers. Then 
the artists, decorators, and image-makers so 
made over the old Shinto shrines that, instead 
of the former simplicity of these barn-like 
structures, there was now the splendor of Bud- 
dhist temples. Or they built new edifices with 
the latest and most fashionable decorations. 
It was a process much like transforming Quaker 
meeting-houses into metropolitan cathedrals, 
such as those in Italy, which blaze with color, 
gems, and gold, are heavy with the perfume of 
incense, and, mysterious with shadow and dark- 
ness, are lighted up only with holy wax and 
consecrated flame. 

Such a swallowing up of the national religion 
was possible only because Buddhism itself had 
already become so thoroughly pantheistic. The 
sun-goddess became Amida, as we see in the 
great bronze images. Ojin, the god of war, 
son of Queen Jingo, invader of Korea, became 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 125 

Hachiman. For each, of the thirty days of the 
month there was a manifestation of the Buddha 
in Japan, in previous ages, when the Japanese 
were not yet prepared to receive the sage's holy 
law. New gods were invented from time to 
time, as great men died or were deified, while 
out of the eight millions or so of native kami> 
several hundred were catalogued to serve as 
Buddhas. Heroes of local tradition and deified 
forces of nature were called gongen^ or temporary 
manifestations of Buddha. It is for this reason 
that tourists to Nikko hear the great lyeyasu 
spoken of in common speech as " gong r en sama." 
Many of these gongen temples attract crowds 
of pilgrims and yield fat revenues to the priests, 
as regularly as the autumn harvests. So great 
is the stream of pilgrims at the most holy tem- 
ples, as, for example, Zenkoji, at Nagano, on the 
west coast, that it is said even a cow cbuld find 
her way thither. There are also comical and 
amusing instances of the degradation of these 
gongen into tobacco-shop images, with other 
associations that are as ludicrous as they are 
absurd. Thus Shinto was buried in the much 
altered India cult, and the new creed of Japan 
went on to write new chapters of decay, and a 
library of despondency and despair. 

A Story of Degradation. The story of Bud- 
dhism in Japan is for the most part one of deg- 
radation. It won by losing its own original 
purity of thought and noble ethical standards. 
Its history shows what kind of mind the aver- 
age Japanese has, and also its religious quality. 



126 DUX CHRISTUS 

It emphasizes also the folly of preaching the 
gospel of Christ to an average audience of na- 
tives as if it were a company of hearers satu- 
rated with the idea of one God, who is both able 
to save and to destroy. " Where Christianity 
has one Lord, Buddhism has a dozen." " To 
the millions of China, Korea, and Japan, creator 
and creation are new and strange terms." " We 
speak of God, and the Japanese mind is filled with 
idols. We mention sin, and he thinks of eat- 
ing flesh or the killing of insects. The word 
'holiness 5 reminds him of crowds of pilgrims 
flocking to some famous shrine, or of some fa- 
mous anchorite sitting lost in religious abstrac- 
tion till Ms legs rot off. He has much error 
to unlearn before he can take in the truth." 

Kobe's smart example has been followed only 
too well by the people in every part of the 
country. One has but to read the stacks of 
books of local history to see what an amazing 
proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions, and 
revelations rests on dreams ; how incredibly 
numerous are the apparitions ; how often the 
floating images of Buddha are found on the 
water ; how frequently flowers have rained out 
of the sky ; how many times the idols have 
spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays, in a 
word, how often art and artifices have become 
alleged and accepted reality. Unfortunately, 
the characteristics of this literature and under- 
growth of idol lore are monotony and lack of 
originality ; for nearly all are copies of Kobe's 
model. His cartoon has been constantly before 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 127 

the busy weavers of legend. The outcome of 
Buddhism is not even good morals ; rather, 
esthetic culture, which leaves both the indi- 
vidual and the nation helpless for spiritual 
reform. 

By the fourteenth century Kobo's leaven had 
leavened the whole lump, and this and the 
following century, with its propagating zeal, 
form the golden age of Japanese Buddhism. 
In the sixteenth century, feudalism was in frag- 
ments, and civil war was the rule. Sect was 
arrayed against sect, and the monasteries were 
fortified, and, in armor and on horseback, armies 
of abbots and monks, sometimes fifteen thou- 
sand strong, took part in war, often turning the 
scale of conflict. Then followed the clash with 
Portuguese Christianity and the bloody perse- 
cutions and humbling of the bonzes under the 
iron hand of Nobunaga. 

The Changes wrought in Japanese Life. Yet 
let us be just and do all deserved honor to the 
Buddhists, first and last* Though given in the 
past tense, the following is a picture of the re- 
ligious and social situation of to-day : 

" In Japanese life, as it existed before the in- 
troduction of Buddhism, there was, with bar- 
baric simplicity, a measure of culture somewhat 
indeed above the level of savagery, but probably 
very little that could be appraised beyond that 
of the Iroquois Indians in the days of the Con- 
federacy. For though granting that tttere were 
many interesting features of art, industry, erudi- 
tion, and civilization, which have been lost to 



128 DUX CHRISTUS 

the historic memory, and that the research of 
scholars may hereafter discover many things now 
in oblivion ; yet, on the other hand, it is certain 
that much of what has long been supposed to 
be of primitive Japanese origin, and existent 
before the eighth century, has been more or less 
infused or enriched with Chinese elements, or 
has been imported directly from India, or Persia, 
or has crystallized into shape from the mixture 
of things Buddhistic and primitive Japanese. 

" Not only around the human habitation, but 
within it, the new religion brought a marvellous 
change. Instead of the hut, the dwelling-house 
grew to spacious and comfortable proportions, 
every part of the Japanese house to-day showing 
to the cultured student, especially to one famil- 
iar with the ancient poetry, the lines of its origin 
and development, and in the larger dwellings 
expressing a wealth of suggestion and meaning. 
The oratory and the Jcamidana> or shelf hold- 
ing the gods, became features in the humblest 
dwelling. Among the well-to-do, there were 
of course the gilded ancestral tablets and the 
worship of progenitors in special rooms, with 
imposing ritual and equipment, with which 
Buddhism did not interfere ; but on the shelf 
over the door of nearly every house in the land, 
along with the emblems of the Kami, stood im- 
ages representing the avatars [or manifestations] 
of Buddha. There the light ever burned, 
and there offerings of food and drink were 
made thrice daily. Though the family worship 
might vary in its length and variety of ceremony, 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 129 

yet even in the home where no regular system 
was followed, the burning lights and the stated 
offering made, called the mind up to thoughts 
higher than the mere level of providing for 
daily wants. The visitation of the priests in 
time of sorrow, or of joy, or for friendly con- 
verse, made religion sweetly human." 1 

Nevertheless Buddhism failed utterly to 
satisfy the man of thought, to whom life, as 
embodied in noble ideals of conduct, was more 
than the meat of dogma, and to whom the body 
of ethics was more than the gorgeous raiment 
of ceremonials. So at the first dawn of peace 
and leisure, at the opening of the seventeenth 
century, we find Confucianism winning the 
minds of the new generation. 

Confucianism in Japan. Modern philosophi- 
cal Confucianism, the creed of most gentlemen 
and educated men in eastern Asia, except in 
new Japan, is very different in form and even 
in spirit from the primitive religion of the 
Chinese. Confucius put into literary form the 
primitive Chinese religion and traditions. In 
doing this he gave them a new form. Whereas 
the older cult, while more simple, was more 
spiritual, its chief burden, sacrifice, and the wor- 
ship of the Great One in Heaven prominent, 
Confucius made a transfer of emphasis, laying 
stress on social and political duties. He threw 
into the background the idea of communion with 
God and spiritual holiness, and dwelt almost 
entirely upon " the five relations." 

" The Religions of Japan," by W. E. Griffis. 



ISO DtfX CHRISTUS 



Everything which comes into Japan suffers 
a change, because the Japanese do not blindly 
adopt, but always, more or less intelligently, 
adapt. They are not mere imitators, but 
usually improvers. Confucianism in Japan 
became something quite different, both in cul- 
tus and philosophy, from what it had been in 
its first home. The root idea of China's social 
and ethical system is filial piety, obedience of 
the child to parents, reverence of the young 
to the old, and submission of the dependent to 
the master. On the contrary in Japan, while 
order and subordination are enforced, the corner- 
stone of the ethical system is not filial piety, 
but loyalty to the master. This was largely 
because of the environment of feudalism, as 
well as, and on account of, the Japanese genius 
and spirit. The man who deserted parents, 
wife, and children for the feudal lord received 
unstinted praise. The master passion of the old 
typical samurai made him regard life as less than 
nothing, when duty demanded of him a display 
of loyalty by self-renunciation, the loss of family, 
of property, or even of life itself. All this, while 
beautiful from one point of view, has furnished 
the fertile ground, out of which have sprung, 
as from the sown dragon's teeth, crops of vice 
and crime, such as woman's shame and the sale 
of the daughter for filial piety's sake to the 
shambles of lust, the vendetta, the sons of ven- 
geance, the assassin, and the suicide. Out of 
these, private war and self-murder made hon- 
orable, as from perennial fountains, rivers 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 131 

of blood have flowed through Japanese history. 
" Not to live under the same heaven with the 
murderer of father or lord," made the funda- 
mental law which licensed the taking of human 
life with applause and glorification. Besides 
occurring in the world of fact and routine, this 
national habit has furnished also the standard 
plots for the popular novel and drama. Even 
in the Japan of to-day, in the common relations 
of life, it is less love than fear that rules. Our 
ordinary words " father," " mother," " brother," 
and "sister" have not the depth of meaning 
which they bear in Christian lands. In fact, 
there is no simple word in Japanese for brother 
or sister, but only for younger or older, because 
the Japanese family is built perpendicularly on 
the idea of graded subordination, not on that of 
equality and affection. Hence also the glorifi- 
cation of the political assassin, who has so often 
in the new Japan made sovereign and nation 
mourn. Hence also the perpetual decoration 
day held at the tombs of murderers. It is this 
old spirit which has so often, even in the Japan 
of our times, brought sorrow to the emperor, 
through the loss of his ablest servants struck 
down by the murderer's sword. 

Confucianism becomes Philosophy. For a 
thousand years Japan enjoyed Confucianism in 
its simple form, as a rule for the conduct of life, 
but not as a philosophy for the educated. Be- 
tween the tenth and sixteenth centuries, when 
Confucianism in China was undergoing a trans- 
formation from cult to creed, there was little 



132 DUX CHEISTUS * 

intercommunication between the continent and 
archipelago. Suddenly, in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, in the profound peace inaugurated by 
lyeyasu, the Japanese intellect, all ready for 
new surprises, received, as it were, an electric 
thrill. Chinese scholars nurtured under the 
Ming dynasty (1368-1628) fled from China to 
Japan, rather than wear a queue or yield to 
the Tartar Manchus, who in Peking are still 
the political bosses of the conquered Chinese. 
Under the patronage of the feudal lord of Mito, 
these learned guests established schools, that 
presented the new system of Confucian philoso- 
phy, which until 1870 was the basis of a Jap- 
anese education and the creed of a Japanese 
gentleman. Those who differed from the ortho- 
dox Confucianists of the college in Yedo were 
pretty sure, especially if political suspects, to 
suffer banishment, torture, or death. In these 
latter days, when Confucianism in Japan is as 
dead as the traditional door-nail, some of the 
children and grandchildren of these martyrs for 
what they believed, are earnest followers of Jesus 
in the Christian churches of Japan. 

The era from 1604 to 1868 was the most peace- 
ful period known in Japan. Wars were scarcely 
more than a memory, and the military art was 
retained only by means of an elaborate etiquette. 
"In a sense, Japan was husbanding both her re- 
sources and the blood of the nation for a sublime 
future. Yet the reverse of the picture reveals a 
horrible situation. Industrial developments and 
agriculture were pushed to the utmost extent, 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 1SS 

but beyond a certain point these activities of the 
producer could not go, for no outlet existed in 
the form of a foreign market, nor was the normal 
increase of population provided for by emigra- 
tion. The existence of a more progressive civili- 
zation in other lands was not even suspected. 
Japanese theories were thus tested to their 
extreme limits, and failed. Under such circum- 
stances, population not only could not increase, 
but must be kept down, for only a certain 
amount of food could be produced. Even 
famine, child murder, licensed immorality, could 
not save the situation, which was becoming in- 
tolerable. The corning of the American treaty 
ships of 1853 was a godsend to Japan, and in 
itself a missionary work. 

Sumptuary Laws and Social Customs. It is 
always true that when population outgrows the 
supply of food, certain checks and balances 
are necessary to prevent the people from de- 
generating to a low standard of living. Japan's 
standard is even yet low enough from the 
Occidental point of view. Plenty of food is a 
powerful factor in raising the standard. The 
coming of the Christian nations with trade, 
fraternity, and the gospel meant life to the 
Japanese, and life more abundantly* The 
famines, once so frequent and so terribly de- 
structive to human life, are not possible in these 
days of railways and steamers, of international 
sympathy and brotherhood. 

The terrible famines and severe sumptuary 
laws had their effects in making the mass of the 



" 134 DUX CHBISTUS 

people live down to a rigid standard of simplic- 
ity, besides curtailing the number of ordinary 
luxuries or pleasures, and even betrothals and 
weddings. Another way of keeping down popu- 
lation, as well as of deterring from crime, was 
seen in the horrible punishments, such as sawing 
the head off with a bamboo saw, crucifixion 
on the bamboo cross, decapitation and exposure 
of the head, burning at the stake, and exile to 
distant islands. Even children had to die with 
their fathers. Most of these forms of punish- 
ment, as well" as the traces of social oppression 
under the feudal system, the writer has seen. 
Other preventive checks were in public opinion 
and custom relating to family life. Usually a 
samurai did not marry before the age of thirty, 
and it was considered vulgar to have more than 
three children. The head of the house was very 
stoical, for Confucianism always hostile to 
woman's advancement had exerted its blight- 
ing influence. Affection for the wife was dis- 
countenanced. The man rarely showed any 
tokens of regard, and rarely handed her anything 
directly, but placed it so that she could take it. 
The woman's life consisted of " the three obedi- 
ences " to father, husband, and to her son when 
he became head of the family. Suffice it to say 
that pretty much all the horrible and unspeak- 
able vices were common in old Japan. Child 
murder was quite frequent. No deformed or 
defective infant was allowed to live. In some 
districts girl babies were for the most part 
promptly disposed of. It was not at all uncom- 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAP AX 135 

mon nor out of etiquette to ask, when a female 
child was born, " Are you going to raise it ? " 

The Moral Night of Japan. All this, together 
with the prevalence of earthquake, tidal wave, 
and typhoon, had its effect in forming the char- 
acter and temperament of the people. Yet the 
influences thus generated were less from original 
qualities inherent in the Japanese people, than 
the result of a political system. By studying 
Japan's history, we see clearly the terrible ex- 
periences of a nation in the depths of paganism 
trying to grow inside of the clamps imposed by 
poor government and the rigid* limits of the 
earth unsubdued and unreplenished, according 
to the divine command, for God " formed the 
earth to be inhabited." Nature and human law 
taught the people in old Japan to be satisfied 
with a little, without risking new hazards of 
experiment. " These experiences probably gave 
them that air of pathetic resignation which we 
still see displayed among the lower ranks in the 
presence of death. As a people they bear losses 
of every kind more stoically than Europeans or 
Americans. By nature a spontaneously happy 
folk, they have acquired the habit of submission 
to the inevitable." 

Proofs are abundant that morality, in the 
cities at least, was at a very low ebb. While 
poverty and wretchedness prevailed among the 
lower orders, luxury and effeminacy were the 
rule among nearly all classes favored by birth 
and wealth. The pencil of Hokusai, the artist 
of "the passing world," has caricatured the sol- 



136 DUX CERISTUS 

diers too fat to get inside of their armor. Of 
eighty thousand " flag-supporters " of the SJio- 
gun^ supposed to be picked men, ever alert for 
war and fatigue, many could neither walk nor 
ride. This was notably and disgracefully seen 
when, in 1865, they were summoned to fight 
against the more stalwart clansmen of Kiushiu 
in the southwest. Then hundreds and thou- 
sands pleaded the favorite excuse, or falsehood, 
in old Japan, sickness, though in their case it 
was near reality. 

The Anti-Christian Edicts. During this time 
of Japan's seclusion from the world, the gov- 
ernment spies and Buddhist inquisition, by 
means of its lynx-eyed priests, made it next to 
impossible for any Christian to live openly in 
the country. The lonzes penetrated into the 
house and family and guarded the graveyards, 
so that neither the earth of burial nor the fire 
of cremation should embrace the body of a 
Christian, nor his ashes defile the ancestral 
graveyards. Every householder had to swear 
annually, and the gentleman on " the true faith 
of a samurai" that neither he nor any of his 
household were Christian. Twice, in 1688 and 
in 1711, were the rewards increased and the 
Buddhist bloodhounds set on fresh trails. 
Edict boards, made of wood and inscribed in 
India ink, were hung up all over the country, 
at the ferries, at the city gates, on the village 
main streets, denouncing the evil sect (Chris- 
tianity) and offering money to informers. In 
the south thousands of people were made to 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 137 

pass annually through a wicket gate, during 
which passage they trampled on a copper plate, 
bearing the image of the Christ on the cross. 
These engraved plates are still preserved in the 
museum at Tokio, while some of the edict 
boards are in missionary cabinets. Naturally 
the idea which the common people had of 
Christianity was that it was sorcery. It was not 
uncommon for mothers to frighten their chil- 
dren with the name of Yasu (Jesus), who was 
believed to be some kind of a foreign demon. 

Amid such spiritual darkness, when Buddhism, 
fed by government patronage and drunk with 
power, was corrupted with luxury, there were 
from time to time reforming movements made 
by earnest men who deplored the low state of 
morals and the social corruptions of the times. 
The most striking evidence of this we see in 
the formation of several new sects. Most of 
these had the common idea of eclecticism, that 
is, of uniting Confucianism, Buddhism, and 
Shinto for ethical reform and the improvement 
of society ; though, as a matter of fact, the 
average Japanese, as we have shown, holds the 
three religions in an amalgam, not looking at 
them separately, as we do, but taking hir 
patriotism from Shinto, his morals from Confu- 
cianism^ and his hopes and fears from Bu$| 
dhism. One of the most remarkable phases m 
the reforming movement was that of SMngafem 
or heart learning, wherein with preaching wa$ 
combined a good deal of active benevolence 
that was so recognized by the government in 



138 

times of famine for the distribution of rice and 
alms. This promising movement came to an end 
in the political convulsions which followed the 
arrival of the American fleet in 1853, Never- 
theless, other men, like Yokoi Heishiro, who 
wrought with his patron, the lord of Echizen, 
a mighty moral revolution in Fukui, the castle 
city, did in reality preach Christian truth, in 
part at least. Having got hold of a Chinese 
version of the New Testament, this lecturer on 
Confucianism, this moral reformer, taught the 
lofty ethical code of Jesus under the guise of 
dissertations on the philosophy of Chu Hi, the 
twelfth-century representer of ancient Con- 
fucianism. It is no wonder then that Yokoi 
prophesied the acceptance of the religion of 
Jesus in Japan, and in 1868 pleaded for the up- 
lifting of the Eta pariahs to citizenship and for 
the toleration of conscience. Promptly assassi- 
nated in Kioto for such liberalism, rightly sus- 
pected to be Christian, Yokoi belongs in the 
roll of martyrs for God's truth in Japan. He 
has been posthumously honored by the Mikado. 
The Witnesses to Truth. Yet even though 
blasphemous pagans, in their pitiful ignorance 
and savage puerility, might strive to banish 
God from Japan, the Almighty Father left 
himself not without a witness. During these 
centuries of repression, both of Christianity 
and of mental freedom, and during the reign of 
luxury and famine, licentiousness and oppres- 
sion, the smoking flax of those who groped 
after God, if haply they might find him, was 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 139 

not wholly quenched. Pathetic is the story of 
the seekers after Our Father in Heaven, and 
of the inquiring spirits who protested against 
Confucian bigotry, the Buddhist inquisition, 
and Japan's hermit-like conceit and ignorance. 
There were reformers also who tried to improve 
their country and people, who wrote out their 
convictions and then committed hara-kiri, or 
were ordered to death by the Yedo government. 
By boarding foreign ships and secretly reading 
the forbidden books of Christianity, they gained 
light. The narratives of pilgrims hungry for 
truth, who usually sought out the Dutch at 
Deshima, as mariners in distress look for a 
beacon, make thrilling reading. Though fasci- 
nating, their full story is too large and varied 
to be told here, but may furnish themes for 
study and suggestion. Suffice it to say that 
Christianity had a hidden and subterranean life 
in modern Nippon before the Scriptures and 
spiritual nurture were brought by the missiona- 
ries. The Japanese, now building the tombs of 
the prophets, have written biographies of these 
men who " died without the sight " of a Chris- 
tian Japan. 

The Dawning of a New Day. In the very 
midnight, then, of Japan's moral and spiritual 
darkness, in July, 1853, appeared the peaceful 
armada led by Commodore Perry. The first 
sound which the people heard, after the sunrise 
and evening guns, was the invitation given, in 
music and hearty song, to forsake idols and ac- 
knowledge God, the one Father of all. Was it 



140 DUX CHEISTUS 

accident, that on the Lord's Day, on which the 
commodore would transact no business with the 
Japanese authorities, the church flag the one 
ensign allowed above the stars and stripes 
was hoisted on the nag-ship for prayer and 
worship ? No ! for this was the rule and cus- 
tom. Nevertheless, it was noteworthy, even 
prophetic, that the hymn sung on that Sabbath 
morning was this invitation to the people living 
in what was then an idol and priest cursed 
land, but which is now open to the gospel, and 
where conscience is free : 

" Before Jehovah's awful throne 
Ye nations bow with sacred joy ; 
Know that the Lord is God alone, 
He can create and he destroy." 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 141 



LITERAET ILLUSTRATIONS 

SHINTO 

For substance, and in its purity, Shintoism is a com- 
bination of nature-worship and ancestor-worship. The 
elements and objects of the material universe are deified 
in countless numbers. The architecture of the temples 
is simple, the characteristic feature being always a pecul- 
iar form of gateway which is easily to be recognized. As 
a rule, the people do not take any part in the Shinto 
woiship, and the priests are hardly to be distinguished 
from laymen except at the times of sacrifice, when they 
do put on official dress. The sacrifices consist of fish, 
fruits, and vegetable, and the flesh of some animals. 
There is no attempt whatever at moral teaching. 

EDWARD ABBOTT. 

It may not be out of place here to describe the old 
Shinto of the seventh and eighth centuries, which Motoori 
aimed at restoring. It was essentially a nature-worship, 
upon which was grafted a cult of ancestors. It tells us 
nothing of a future state of rewards and punishments, 
and contains the merest traces of moral teaching. The 
Norito (liturgies), in enumerating the offences from 
which the nation was purged twice a year by the Mikado 
or his representatives, makes no mention of any one of 
the sins of the decalogue. What then remains? A 
mythical history of the creation of the world, and of the 
doings of a number of gods and goddesses, the chief 
of whom, namely the sun-goddess, was the ancestress of 
the human rulers of Japan, while from the subordinate 
deities were sprung the principal noble families who 
formed their court. Add to this a ceremonial compris- 
ing liturgies in honor of these deities, and we have the 
Shinto religion. ASTON. 



142 DUX CHEISTUS 

ANCIENT SHINTO RITUALS 

Prayer for harvest-thanksgiving to the sun-goddess for 
bestowing upon her descendants dominion over land and 
sea: 

" I declare in the great presence of the From-heaven- 
shining-great Deity who sits in Ise'. Because the sovran 
great goddess bestows on him the countries of the four 
quarteis over which her glance extends : 

" As far, as the limit where heaven stands up like a 
wall, 

" As far, as the bounds where the country stands up 
distant, 

"As far, as the limit where the blue clouds spread flat, 

" As far, as the bounds where the white clouds lie away 
fallen to the blue sea-plain, 

" As far, as the limit whither come the prows of the 
ships without drying poles or paddles, the ships which 
continuously crowd the great sea-plain, and the roads 
which men travel by land, 

" As far, as the limit whither come the horse's hoofs 
with the baggage cords tied tightly, treading the uneven 
rocks and tree roots and standing up continuously in a 
long path without a break, making the narrow countries 
wide and the hilly countries plain, and as it were drawing 
the distant countries by throwing many tens of ropes 
over them, he will pile up the first fruits like a range of 
hills in the great presence of the sovran great Goddess, 
and will peacefully enjoy the remainder." 

Prayer to the sun-goddess for the Mikado, 17th day 
of 6th moon : 

" That she deign to bless his [the Mikado's] life as a 
long life and his age as a luxuriant age, eternally and 
unchangingly as multitudinous piles of rock. 

t( May deign to bless the children who are born to him, 
and deigning to cause to flourish the five kinds of grain 
which the men of a hundred functions and the peasants 
of the countries of the four quarters of the region under 
heaven long and peacefully cultivate and eat, and guard- 
ing and benefiting them deign to bless them." 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 143 

THE FUTURE 

Buddhism did not a little toward fostering ideals of 
holiness, humanity, and detachment from -worldly things. 
Confucianism provided high, though it may be somewhat 
distorted, standards of morality, and a comparatively 
rational system of philosophy. Shinto taught a rever- 
ence for the divine powers which created and govern the 
universe and man. But none of the three sufficed by 
itself to meet the heart, soul, and mind want of the 
Japanese nation. Can it be imagined that when a reli- 
gion is presented to them which alone is adapted to 
satisfy far more completely all the cravings of their 
higher nature, the Japanese, with their eminently recep- 
tive minds, will fail in time to recognize its immense 
superiority ? They have already accepted European phi- 
losophy and science. It is simply inconceivable that the 
Christian religion should not follow. W. G. ASTON. 



CHANGEABLE BUDDHISM 

There are a great many differences between the old 
and the new beliefs which are hardly reconcilable. They 
are contending with each other for supremacy, and the 
Buddhist society is now torn by dissensions. The new 
spirit that rapidly spreads itself among the rising genera- 
tion is overthrowing old customs one after another. The 
yellow robe, the tonsure, the rosary, the almsbowl, the 
staff, and such like things monastic, together with those 
ancient beliefs that made them sacred, are swept away 
by the new tide. Time will come, we hope, when Bud- 
dhism will undergo a change, a change so great that a 
Japanese Rip Van Winkle will be at a loss to tell whether 
it is Buddhism or not. J. D. DAVIS* 



WHAT is A BUDPHA? 

When I was eight years of age, I asked my father, 
** What sort of a thing is a Buddha?" He replied, " A 



144 I>UX CHRISTUS 

Buddha is something which a man grows into." " How, 
then, does one become a Buddha ? " said I. " By the 
teachings of a Buddha." " But who taught the Buddha 
who gives us this teaching ? " " Pie becomes a Buddha 
by the teaching of another Buddha who was before him." 
" Then what sort of a Buddha was that first Buddha of 
all who began teaching?" My father was at the end of 
his answers, and replied, laughing, "I suppose he must 
have flown down from the sky or sprung up from the 
ground." He used to tell his friends this conversation 
much to their amusement. KENKO (1350 A.D.). 



FOR MORALITY 

Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples being public 
resorts for pleasure should be sparingly visited before 
the age of f orty. KAIBARA (1630-1714). 

The native newspapers had lately mentioned that a 
fresh supply of seven hundred well, say waitresses 
had been engaged by the enterprising proprietors of the 
various houses of entertainments for the pious pilgrims, 
in view of the approaching season. E.G. HOLTHAM. 



BUDDHISM ESTHETIC NOT ETHICAL 

Buddhism has had a fair field in Japan, and its out- 
come has not been elevating. Its influence has been 
esthetic and not ethical. It added culture and art to 
Japan, as it brought with itself the civilization of con- 
tinental Asia. It gave the arts, and more ; it added the 
artistic atmosphere. . * . Reality disappears. " This 
fleeting borrowed world" is all mysterious, a dream; 
moonlight is in place of the clear hot sun ... it has so 
fitted itself to its surroundings that it seems indigenous. 
GEORGE WILLIAM Ksrox. 



THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 145 



THEMES FOE STUDY OB DISCUSSION 

I. The Lower Forms of Paganism in Japan, 

n. The Mythology and Ritual of Shinto, 

III. Is Shinto a Keligion? 

IY. Temple Architecture and Surroundings. 

Y. "What Japan owes to Buddhism. Its Defects. 

VI. Ingwa, or the Doctrine of Cause and Effect. 

VH. The Various Sects of Buddhism. 

ilL Effects of Buddhism on Home Life. On Women* 

IX. Compare as Educators of the Nation, Buddhism,. 

Confucianism, Shinto. 

X. The Dangers to Christianity from Buddhism. 



146 DUX CHRIS 'TVS 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

"Handbook of Japan." (Satow and Hawes.) (1896.) 
John Murray. 

E. M. Satow's "Revival of Pure Shinto," "Shinto 
Rituals," " The Shinto Temples of Ise," and papers 
on Shinto by other writers; chapters on Japanese 
Buddhism. In Transactions of the Asiatic Society 
of Japan. 

P. Lowell. " The Soul of the Far East," and " Occult 
Japan," or "The Way of the Gods." Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 

L. Hearn. "Gleanings in Buddha Fields." (1894.) 
Houghton, MifBin & Co. 

S. L. Gulick. "Evolution of the Japanese." (1903.) 
F. H. Revell Co. 

W. E. Grims. "The Religions of Japan." (1894.) 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 

K. Okakura. "Ideals of the East." (1903.) E. P. Dut- 
ton & Co. 

Mrs. Eraser. " Letters from Japan." (1904.) The Mac- 
mill an Co. 

J. L. Atkinson. " Prince Siddartha." (1893.) Congre- 
gational S. S. and Pub. Society. 

A. C. Maclay. " Budget of Letters from Japan." G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 

E. W. Clement. " Handbook of Modern Japan." A. C. 
McClurg & Co. 



CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 

1859 First arrival of American missionaries, Nagasaki, 
1864 First Christian convert, Yano Ryu, baptized, 

Yokohama. 

Baptism of Wakasa and Ayabe, Nagasaki. 
1867 Publication of Hepburn's Dictionary. 

1871 Japanese embassy starts on trip round the world. 

1872 Gospels of St. Mark and St. John in Japanese. 
First Missionary Conference, Yokohama. 
First Protestant Christian Church, Yokohama. 

1873 The calendar of Christendom adopted. 
Removal of the anti-Christian edicts. 
Large reenforcements of missionaries. 

Second Protestant Christian Church established, 

Kobe. 
Union Church established in Tokio. 

1874 Native Christian Church in Tokio. 

1875 Union Church edifice completed in Yokohama. 
Beginning of the Doshisha School in Kioto. 

1876 The rest day (Sunday) of Christendom made a 

holiday. 

1879 United Church of Christ in Japan. 

1880 The complete New Testament in Japanese. 
Great Public Meeting of Christians in Tokio. 

138 Protestant missionaries and 6698 converts in 
Japan. 

1883 Missionary Conference at Osaka. 

1884 Reaction. Doctrinal Discussions. Commercialism 

and Nationalism. 

1889 Religious Liberty confirmed in the National Con- 
stitution. 
The Complete Bible in Japanese. 

1900 General Missionary Conference in Tokio. 

1908 The Hymnal. Union for Christian work at the 
Osaka Exposition. Council of Cooperating 
Missions. 



CHAPTER IV 

MODEEX CHBISTIAIsr MISSIONS 

Subterranean Christianity. In the history of 
the religion of Jesus in modern Japan, the para- 
ble of the leaven receives illustration before 
that of the mustard seed. We must first speak 
of things hidden but potent, rather than of 
what was visible. Even after bloody persecu- 
tions and the massacre at Shimabara in 1637, 
there still remained the unextinguished embers 
of the Christian faith among thousands of poor 
people in the Island of the Nine Provinces. 
Even as late as 1839 there was an insurrection 
of people with Christian ideas in Osaka, in 
which blood was shed, for the Japanese theory 
of government then branded all dissent from 
the established religion and philosophy as 
treason. The presence of the Dutch at De- 
shima made it possible also for eager and inquir- 
ing spirits searching for God to find help and 
direction, or at least to obtain books from 
which light might be had on the path to God. 
More than one Japanese, who learned of him 
whose " blessed feet . . . were nailed for our 
advantage to the bitter Cross," after finding 
Christ, imitated him in the way they supposed 
best. In a word, they ended their own lives 
149 



150 DUX CHBISTUS 

according to the honorable law of suicide, with 
the sword, in order to save their wives and 
children. They saved others ; themselves they 
could not save. Translations of the Bible in 
Chinese, easily read by Japanese scholars, and, 
in one case, in English, like Moses, " drawn out 
of the water," became, with the help of Dutch 
interpreters and, through divine grace, light 
and life to eager souls. Furthermore the pil- 
grims of science from all over Japan went to 
Nagasaki, and learned not a little of the Chris- 
tians' God and Saviour, In many parts of the 
empire there were little circles of influence 
among the physicians who had studied medicine 
and surgery on European principles, who were 
themselves, with those influenced by them, thus 
made more sensitive to truth, which the mis- 
sionary was to bring in full form. Even as 
Paul in his prison rejoiced in the preaching of 
Christ, " whether in pretence or in truth," so 
even the very edicts publicly denouncing the 
evil sect of Jesus were as so many pulpits ever 
keeping the name of the Christ before the 
multitude, compelling inquiry and searching 
of heart, 

No statement of the reality in Japan would 
be complete without taking account of this 
inward preparation, nor would it be just to the 
Heavenly Father, whose ways are not our ways. 
As in Elijah's time, he reserved to himself 
thousands that did not bow the knee, either to 
idols or to accept the philosophy maintained by 
brute force. 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 151 

Outward Forces. Outwardly the Holy One 
was preparing the forces of His providence, for 
in the lands of Bible light and joy, Japan was 
being made a subject for prayer, while from 
China came the first efforts to persuade pagan- 
ism to open its gates to humanity. The great 
gulf stream of the Pacific sweeps out to sea, 
and in old days swept often to death, the fishing 
boats with men and women on board, who, as 
records show, have helped to people the shores 
of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, British Amer- 
ica, our own western coast, and Hawaii. Even 
on the shores of the Philippines, China, and 
Korea, many instances of shipwrecked Japanese 
are known. From Japanese waifs, some of them 
ransomed from Indian slavery in Oregon and 
brought to China, Dr. S. "Wells Williams learned 
the Japanese language, being thus enabled later 
in 1854 to serve as interpreter to Commodore 
Perry. Of Dr. Williams's three visits to Japan, 
the first in 1837 was in the American ship 
Morrison, fitted out at the expense of Messrs. 
King & Company, the owners. The fascinating 
story is told in full in the book " Voyages of 
the Morrison and Hinmaley " and in the " Life 
and Letters of S. W. Williams." The Morri- 
son was driven away by the cannon shot of the 
batteries in Yedo Bay and also from Kago- 
shima. Dr. Williams lived to enjoy the Lord's 
Supper with Japanese Christians and to be pres- 
ent at the baptism of Okuno in 1872. 

In 1838, at Nagasaki, Dr. S. Wells Williams* 
Rev. E. W. Syle, sailors' chaplain at Shanghai, 



152 2)UX CHRISTUS 



and Rev. Henry Wood, chaplain in the United 

States Navy, met- together. They were much 
impressed with what Mr. Donker Curtius, the 
Dutch envoy, who had just signed a treaty, 
said. He told these three Americans that 
Japanese officers declared themselves ready to 
open their country to trade, provided opium 
and Christianity could be kept out. In a word, 
the simple ignorance of the Japanese officers, 
who considered these two things as inextricably 
associated, deserved more pity than contempt* 
These three Christian gentlemen prayed that 
Christianity, apart from priestcraft, and as 
founded on the open Bible, might be brought 
into the country. Following up their faith by 
their works they wrote home, one to the Epis- 
copal, one to the Presbyterian, and the third 
to the Reformed Church Mission Boards, urging 
that missionaries be sent at once to Japan. 
The three letters fell like seed upon ground 
already prepared, and within the coining year 
this committee of three welcomed in Shanghai 
the pioneers of the trio of missionary societies, 
that have, since 1859, occupied Japanese soil. 

The Roman and Greek Catholics. Let us 
first glance at Christianity in its Greek and 
Roman forms. In reentering Japan the Ro- 
man Catholic missionaries had the advantage 
above all others of historic continuity. Never- 
theless they have had to contend against the 
prejudices aroused by remembrance of the 
troubles of three centuries ago and felt by 
them especially* Most of those now working 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 153 

are French, and among the orders represented 
are the Marianite friars, and Cistercian brothers, 
assisted by nuns. They carry on the usual 
work of nurture in the church, catechetical 
training and theological education, with orphan- 
ages, boarding, primary, and industrial schools, 
dispensaries, hospitals, etc. On August 1, 
1900, they had 54,602 adherents, with 106 
European missionaries under one archbishop 
and three bishops, 103 European and 20 Japan- 
ese teachers, over 251 congregations, 3610 
pupils in primary schools, and 4479 children in 
orphanages. 

Of the Greek Catholic, or Russian, mission- 
aries, the chief officer is Bishop Nikolai, who 
has been in active service in Japan over forty 
years. On June 18, 1901, there were 25,698 
converts, 297 churches, with 173 church build- 
ings, cared for by 376 ordained Japanese priests 
and 162 evangelists. The annual increase of 
converts has been about 1000. 

Pioneers of Protestant Missions. The " His- 
tory of Protestant Missions in Japan," written 
at the request of the missionaries by Dr. G. F. 
Verbeck for the Osaka Conference of 1883, and 
reprinted by the Tokio Missionary Conference 
of 1900, is the Book of Genesis in the modern 
history of missionary effort in Japan. The 
honor of the first landing made and work inau- 
gurated, in 1859, belongs to the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the United States. Rev. John 
Liggins in May and the Rev., afterwards 
Bishop, C. M. Williams in June, both trans- 



154 DUX CHRISTUS 

ferred, after years of service, from the China 
mission, reached Nagasaki. On October 18, 
J. C. Hepburn and his wife, of the Presbyterian 
Church, arrived at Kanagawa, across the bay 
from Yokohama. Dr. Hepburn was joined by 
Dr. S. R. Brown, November 1, and they found 
shelter in an old Buddhist temple rich in dirt and 
idols. Rev. G. T. Verbeck reached Nagasaki, 
November 7. For about ten years, these four 
missionaries, Brown, Hepburn, Williams, and 
Verbeck, practically had the field to themselves 
and under God did a mighty preparatory work. 
The situation of these pioneer missionaries 
was often perplexing and dangerous, without 
their knowing just why or how. They were 
like the man in the fairy tale who walked 
through a field of razor blades. All round 
them were the sharp swords of assassins ready 
and eager to kill. More than once the ferocious 
foreigner haters, who thought they would be 
doing their gods service in killing an alien, 
came into the mission premises expecting to 
leave only with blood-stained weapons and 
gloating over a murder. Instead of brutal 
victory, they were morally disarmed and liter- 
ally conquered by what they saw and heard. 
Often they were self -compelled to believe. 
Besides the gratitude due to an overruling 
Providence, one may well appreciate the earnest 
desire of the government officers to protect the 
foreigners' life and property, and the loyalty of 
the often despised but valorous native guards. 
From the first the imperial Japanese govern- 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 155 

ment has stood strenuously for international 
law and fulfilment of its treaties. 

Naturally the missionaries were suspected of 
being political emissaries, of helping to make 
Japan poor, and of coming to bring all kinds of 
trouble upon the country. Concession of land 
to foreigners, even for settlement and trade, 
seemed to the natives to be the same as con- 
quest, but gradually even the fanatical patriots 
were able to discern the reality. Yet it must 
always be remembered, as distinct from and in 
contrast to China, that it was not the people, or 
mobs, but rather the underlings of the Yedo 
administration, itself rotten and corrupt, and 
the sword-wearing, privileged classes, that sus- 
pected the missionaries of evil. The common 
people almost invariably treated well the guests 
of the nation and read quickly their real inten- 
tions and true character. 

Hostility of Sword and Pea. It requires a 
very vivid imagination to re-create the political 
situation in the Japan of the days before 1868 
and to realize how bitterly hostile were the 
samurai to the foreigners and the religion, or 
even to know the tyranny and oppression, false- 
hood and suspicion, that ruled under the Yedo 
system, which was itself a sham, thus rendering 
the social atmosphere always heavy with sus- 
picion. To the credit of the samurai, be it said, 
they made, though slowly, clear discernmei^t 
and reached enlightenment much sooner than 
the Buddhist priests, both as regards Occidental 
civilization and true Christianity. Further- 



156 DC7X CHRISTUS 

more, in all modern Japanese history there have 
been none of those bloody and destructive riots 
or reactions against progress so characteristic 
of China and her mobs. Superstition, though 
bad enough in Japan, has never taken the vio- 
lent form of evil so noteworthy in China. 

The sword failing to drive out Christianity, 
the pen came into vogue as a weapon. The 
first literary attack was in a pamphlet written 
by a Buddhist priest who had sneakingly come 
into Mr. Verbeck's classes. In it he spoke of 
Romanism and Protestantism as " foxes of the 
same hole. " It was common, when a missionary 
would speak to a native about becoming a 
Christian, for the latter to draw his fingers sig- 
nificantly across his neck, hinting at what 
would happen. The edict boards denouncing 1 
" the evil sect " (Christianity) were posted all 
over the land, in street, market-place, and by 
the ferry. This was also a time of great politi- 
cal upheaval, as we have seen. While there 
was nothing shocking in the religious rites of 
Japanese paganism, as in India, for example 
(though some of the obscene orgies and em- 
blems displayed in temple processions were at 
times almost incredibly vile), and cruelty or 
atrocity was noticeable rather in the matter of 
judicial punishment and neglect of human life, 
yet the gross immorality of the people was as 
disgusting as it was horrible. Deception and 
lying seemed to be universal-, with a general 
ignorance of the commonest ethics concerning 
the relations of the sexes, with perhaps the one 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 157 

exception that a wife should be faithful to her 
husband. As Verbeck prophesied, "Looking 
at idolatry and immorality in the light of obsta- 
cles to the reception and spread of Christianity 
in Japan . . . the latter will prove to be the 
more tenacious and formidable of the two." 
As Dr. S. L. Gulick shows in his "Evolution 
of the Japanese," they have not yet, in ethics, 
passed out of the gregarious into the individ- 
ualistic stage. Dr. J. D. Davis in his paper, 
"The Church and Social Questions," read at 
the Tokio Conference, and printed in The Japan 
JSvangelist, shows that in this twentieth century 
the crowding of industrial operatives of both 
sexes in quarters both morally and otherwise 
unhealthy, causes results that are appalling. 
Japan's population of illegitimates, criminals, 
lepers, physical and moral degenerates, is rela- 
tively as large as under feudalism. Verily, as 
a Japanese editor cries out, the need of the 
nation is not more government or modern ma- 
chinery of any sort, but for " moral oil to run it 
with." 

The First Period of Labors. The mission- 
aries during this first period were, under treaty 
requirements, involuntarily confined to work in 
a few open ports. There were no qualified 
native helpers, and no books, Bibles, or tracts 
in Japanese. So long as they were mastering 
the language, this restriction of locality was not 
a matter of deep concern ; but in the latter part 
of the period, the want of liberty to preach and 
teach outside the settlements was felt to be a 



158 DUX CHRISTUS 

serious disadvantage. To those at home who 
supposed that the missionaries had been sent 
out prematurely, Mi\ Liggins wrote a letter 
published in the Spirit of Missions, in August, 
1861, which is a classic in its masterly vindica- 
tion of the necessity of the preparatory labors 
of the pioneers, upon the results of which 
all later comers have since built. First and 
most important, though not tangible and not 
easily measurable, was the signal result seen in 
the gaining of the people's confidence and the 
respect of the authorities. This prepared the 
way for the later liberal measures of the gov- 
ernment in granting full religious liberty, while 
it awakened also a spirit of inquiry. Let one 
read Gordon's "An American Missionary in 
Japan," or Verbeck's own testimony, to see how 
much Japanese government enlightenment owes 
to missionaries and their pupils. The nature of 
Bible Christianity has been shown in the char- 
acter and lives of those who brought it. The 
Christian literature printed in the Chinese char- 
acters was twice blessed, for, unexpectedly to 
those who had wrought in " the land of Sinim," 
a demand sprang up in Japan for their works of 
translation. Many thousands of volumes of the 
Chinese Bible, besides its derivative and corollary 
literature, were circulated and read by the edu- 
cated in Japan, who are masters of the written 
language of China, which is as Latin to the 
educated in Europe. Dr. W* A. P. Martin's 
" Evidences of Christianity," both in its original 
Chinese and in the island vernacular, has ever 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 159 

been an especial favorite and a great blessing to 
the Christianity of Nippon, while that picture- 
story of the soul, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," with Japanese illustrations, still wins hosts 
of readers. When Viscount Arinori Mori took 
a copy of Dr. Martin's work to Peking, present- 
ing it to the author with the compliments of the 
translator, Dr. Martin suddenly asked the 
Mikado's minister if he were a Christian. The 
viscount gave the characteristic reply, "I en- 
deavor to live so that men may think I am a 
Christian." 

Beginnings of Bible Translation. The ver- 
nacular was at first studied and largely mas- 
tered by men who, from the very fact that they 
had so few helpers, surmounted difficulties more 
thoroughly, made more complete mastery, and 
in their text-books showed others more clearly 
the path of success. The missionaries' helps to 
the acquisition of the language were extensively 
used by beginners, and in 1867 appeared that 
superb specimen of lexicography by Dr. J. C. 
Hepburn, on which all subsequent dictionaries 
used by students of Japanese from many coun- 
tries are based. Of this result of many years of 
toilsome scholarly labor, different editions have 
at times appeared. In 1867 the first religious 
tract, prepared by Dr. J. C. Hepburn, came out, 
to be followed by more from his own pen and 
that of others. 

Preliminary attempts at Bible translation had 
already been made by Grutzlaff, Bettelheim, 
Williams, and Goble, all of which work was 



160 DUX CHRI8TU8 

necessarily imperfect. When, in 1870, ths 
writer arrived in Japan, the scholarly work of 
Hepburn and Brown had so far progressed as 
to be practically useful, so that he was able to 
take with him into the interior manuscript 
copies of the Gospels in Japanese, and begin a 
Bible class. The good news of God by Mark 
and John was printed in 1872, and that of 
Matthew in 1873. 

A convention of all the missionaries, together 
with Christian laymen and women in Japan, 
was called, which met at Yokohama, December, 
1872, to secure a union committee on transla- 
tion, to which also the missions not represented 
were invited to contribute. An earnest at- 
tempt was made here to have the Church of 
Christ in Japan organized without the divisive 
prejudices and inheritances, names and orders, 
prevalent in Europe and America. Why should 
these be saddled on the Japanese ? 

Medical Work* Not least in practical Chris- 
tianity was the dispensary work of Dr. Hep- 
burn, who, besides his daily translation work, 
healed the sick, studying constantly Japanese 
books and bodies, a double work which he 
continued from 1862 to 1878. Those who know 
only the Japan of a certain school of writers, 
from Edwin Arnold to Lafcadio Hearn, can 
never believe in the awful physical condition 
of the lowest classes in the Japan of 1870 and 
before. A stalwart imagination is necessary 
to picture to the mind the rottenness and foul- 
ness of the diseased humanity, then visible 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 161 

daily in the highways and villages, and that 
streamed past Dr. Hepburn every day in his 
dispensary. The writer remembers seeing scores 
of mothers wearying the good man with their 
inquest of beseeching looks to heal their babies, 
whose eyes were eaten out by smallpox, and thou- 
sands of others of all ages still more loathsome 
with unspeakable diseases. While the skilled 
physician ministered, classes of young men were 
ever standing by him as helpers and pupils, 
and thus the very first medical doctors practis- 
ing in the Western manner of modern science 
(apart from those trained under the Dutch at 
Nagasaki) were educated by Dr. Hepburn, who 
was the typical scientific man in the new Japan. 
To-day, among the pupils of these four pioneer 
missionaries, besides scores of those who have 
served their generation and passed on, are 
hundreds who hold highest honors and rank in 
medicine, diplomacy, trade, and philanthropy. 
Especially is it true of a host of young men 
who, In pure motive and with unselfish valor, 
once fought against the Mikado's forces for 
"the lost cause" of 1868, that they found 
springing out of the soil of their sorrow and 
political disappointment the new plant of heav- 
enly hope, through faith in the Lord Jesus. 
Among those who in this generation adorn the 
service both of progressive Japan and of the 
Christian churches, from imperial envoys in 
European capitals to the humblest of servants, are 
not a few who in the later sixties and early seven- 
ties suffered imprisonment or were under ban. 



162 DUX CHBISTUS 

Diversity of Gifts and Graces. It is one of 

the proofs of the diversity of gifts, that whereas 
Verbeck did his greatest work unaided and 
alone, leaving few or no pupils, impressing his 
character on the nation rather than individuals, 
it was the peculiar power of Dr. Brown to raise 
up pupils to carry on the Master's work, as 
presidents of Christian colleges, as powerful 
preachers and wise pastors, active reformers, 
and shining leaders in journalism and business. 
The one was a preeminent imparter of light and 
power to vast audiences. The other excelled 
in the powers of manipulation and adjustment 
which build up churches, and in the trans- 
cendently noble art of moulding individual 
character. 

Glancing over this period of soil-breaking and 
seed-sowing, we see that the education of boys 
and girls had been begun for the making of 
Christian homes. In this period also the school 
at Kumamoto was begun, first of all through the 
influence of Yokoi's nephew, Ise, one of the first 
lads from Japan to come to America for study, 
and whom the writer had the honor of teaching, 
with others of his countrymen, at New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey. Their first training was 
under Captain Janes, and especially that of his 
wife, who was a Scudder. Out of this school 
went forth the " Kumamoto Band " of Christian 
workers and men eminent in ethical and edu- 
cational activities. In Chapter V of his at- 
tractive book, "An American Missionary in 
Japan," Dr. M. L. Gordon has told the story of 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 163 

these brave young men, most of whom are still 
active leaders in good works and influence. 
The missionary institute of Mrs. Carruthers, in 
Tokio, must not be forgotten. Foreign com- 
munities were supplied with the preaching of 
the gospel. An address of the missionaries 
setting forth the state of the country and con- 
dition of the work, and sent to Christian lands 
in 1866, was a noteworthy event. The organi- 
zation of the First Japanese Christian church 
on March 10, 1872, consisting of nine young 
men and two middle-aged men, the elder, Mr. 
Ogawa, living to do veteran service, was the 
crowning incident of the period. The second 
church was organized at Kobe, April 19, 1874, 
and the third at Osaka, in May of the same year. 

The story of Wakasa, one of the first Chris- 
tian converts, who from a Bible found floating 
on the water, learned of Christ, has been often 
told. While he suffered at the hands of the 
Yedo government only nominal punishment, the 
teacher of Dr. Gulick was thrown into prison, 
where he died. In various ways the first fol- 
lowers of Christ in Japan suffered. 

Opening of the Second Period. Thus the first 
decade, which began amid murderous hatreds 
and oppositions, and in an intellectual climate 
frigid and menacing, ended in what may be 
called a perceptible degree of mental enlighten- 
ment with some slight warmth of welcome. The 
year 187E opened unexpectedly to the mission- 
aries in a way that made a Christian Sabbath 
- among the possibilities. The old lunar calendar, 



164 DUX CHRISTTTS 

adopted from China and in every other land 
where used except Japan a token of political 
vassalage, was abolished in favor of the solar 
calendar and the methods of time-keeping in 
Japan were brought into harmony with the rest 
of the civilized world, except Russia. The Julian 
instead of the Gregorian calendar was made com- 
pulsory. In this we see one of several steps of 
progress in which the Japanese are ahead of the 
Muscovites. Much confusion and social disturb- 
ance, such as the use of an intercalary month 
every third year, was thus avoided, though the 
old custom of having Nengo or year periods was 
preserved. That in which the present Japanese 
lives, dating from 1868, or the enthronement of 
the present Mikado, is named Meiji, or enlight- 
ened civilization. Japan was not yet prepared 
to use the term "Anno Domini." Those who 
would study the subject of Japanese time-keep- 
ing thoroughly must consult Mr. William Bram- 
son's splendid book on Japanese chronology, 
and enjoy also Professor E. W. Clement's paper 
in the Asiatic Society's Transactions. Very 
foolishly the Japanese, aping European prece- 
dents, use the word " emperor " rather than the 
ancient and honorable term " mikado." The 
title "mikado," intrenched in the English lan- 
guage, besides being unique, is august and im- 
pressive by its very associations, while uniquely 
characteristic- of Japan and Japan only. 

The Calendar of Christendom. New Year's 
Day, 1873, was the first of the first month of the 
sixth year of Meiji. On February 19, 1873, 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 165 

some of the missionaries, as they took their 
morning walks, noticed that the bulletin boards 
(koBatsu) containing the anti-Christian edicts 
which had hung for centuries in their frames on 
roofed platforms, had been removed. Indeed 
they positively u glared by their absence." The 
government took pains to say to the pagan fire- 
eaters that it was not meant by this to proclaim 
religious toleration. Nevertheless, as the prov- 
erb says, "Proof is better than argument." 
Although the Japanese, far less than the Chinese, 
care about " saving the face of a thing," and the 
men of the new government, in contrast with the 
fraud and deception of the old Yedo system, were 
becoming stalwartly frank and open, yet the 
people got the idea that liberty of conscience 
was henceforth to be allowed. They argued 
that removal of the edict boards virtually 
amounted to religious liberty. Time has proved 
that they were right. It seemed swift moral 
progress that within five years after Yokoi had 
been assassinated in Kioto for pleading for relig- 
ious freedom, his contention should be in sub- 
stance allowed. In 1889, the letter of the 
written constitution went far ahead of Eussia 
and the old papal countries in guaranteeing 
liberty of conscience. 

Already an imperial decree disestablishing 
the sects of Buddhism had been issued on Feb- 
ruary 23, 1871. The subject ia Tokio was 
highly illuminated with a costly and sacrificial 
fire, as- 1 well remember, when the letter of the 
law was enforced as to the Shiba shrines. In 



166 DUX GHEISTUS 

anger and revenge, and in insult to the govern- 
ment, as is believed, some fanatical bonze applie.d 
the torch to the most gorgeous of the group of 
grand temples, which, when the morning sun 
rose, was a level waste of ashes. 

Since the first Protestant Church at Yokohama 
had been organized openly, with no attempt at 
secrecy, it seemed clear that religious toleration, 
a mighty step toward a higher civilization, had 
been taken as matter of fact. Henceforward 
there was 110 direct opposition from the author- 
ities, although the Roman Catholic Christian 
prisoners (charged also with technical viola- 
tions of the law) were not released until the 
spring of 1878. 

The Imperial Embassy around the World. 
The great embassy of nobles, cabinet officers, 
secretaries, and attendants, numbering about 
seventy in all, had been first suggested and 
its route planned by Dr. Verbeck long before 
it took place. When the roster was com- 
pleted and handed to him, he found that more 
than one-half of the names were those of his 
former pupils, whom he had instructed at Naga- 
saki. Significant and innovating was the de- 
spatch, at the same time, of six young ladies 
to America to be educated. Of these, two who 
studied at Vassar College, Miss Yamakawa, 
now Mrs. Oyama, wife of the field-marshal 
and minister of war, Oyama, Miss Nagai, 
wife of Rear Admiral Uriu, and Miss Ume 
Tsuda, whose parents were among the first in 
the Methodist Church in Tokio, are well known 



MODERN CEEISTIAN MISSIONS 167 

as having been leaders in society and woman's 
advancement in Japan. The embassy left Japan 
December 23, 1871, and had audience in the 
White House in Washington of General II S. 
Grant, " the first President of the Free Repub- 
lic." The ambassador, Iwakura, a court noble 
of immemorial lineage, Okubo " the brain," and 
Kido " the pen," of the revolution of 1868, Ito 
(now Marquis), "Father of the Constitution," 
and since five times premier of the empire, 
with Yamaguchi, Minister of Interior, were 
there. They were accompanied by commis- 
sioners representing every government depart- 
ment sent to study and report upon the methods 
and resources of foreign civilization. After a 
prolonged sojourn in the United States the 
embassy, having leisurely traversed Europe, 
returned September IS, 1873. Later the offi- 
cial account of the travels of its members was 
published by order of the Great Council of the 
Government. This book of 2110 pages, printed 
on foreign paper, fully illustrated and entitled 
" A True Eelation of Sights and Scenes in 
America and Europe, in 1872-3," had a tre- 
mendous influence in turning the minds of 
influential men favorably to the civilization 
of the West. It reenforced what had already 
been told* their countrymen by Nakamura and 
by Fnkuzawa, two of the earliest travellers 
abroad, whose eyes and pens were sharp. Of 
the many books of Fukuzawa, one of the ardent 
apostles of reform in every direction, the sales 
reached four millions. From the profits of Ms 



168 DUX CHEISTUS 

pen he established a school which grew into a 
university. Nakamura, whose bold plea for 
freedom of religion and in favor of Christian- 
ity created a tremendous sensation, founded a 
school and was a powerful influence in political, 
ethical, and religious reform. V 

The New Testament in Japanese. The New 
Testament translation committee, appointed on 
December 6, 1872, began this year its work, 
which was happily finished in 1880. Whereas 
during the first period (1859-1873) there had 
come to Japan thirty- one missionaries, there 
arrived in the single year of 1873 twenty-nine. 
This great reenforcement was largely the fruit 
of the evidence afforded to a grateful Chris- 
tendom, through the formation of a Christian 
Church, that the Japanese field was ready for 
the harvest. The American Mission was reen- 
forced, as were also the Baptist and English 
Church Missionary Societies at Nagasaki. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church, U.S.A., had early 
in November, 1872, decided to establish a mis- 
sion, and the staff of five pioneers, the senior 
member, Rev. R. S. Maclay, having had ex- 
perience in China, arrived in June, 1873. At 
their meeting in August, Bishop W. L. Harris 
presided. The Canadian Methodists arrived on 
the ground the same year, as did likewise the 
members of the English brethren of the Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel, 

On the afternoon of April 9, 1880, the native 
church edifice in Tokio was filled to the doors 
by an elect audience, gathered to celebrate the 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 169 

completion of the translation of the New Testa- 
ment into the Japanese language. Two hand- 
somely bound volumes stood side by side on the 
table, with a large copy of the Scriptures in 
English on the speaker's desk "fit emblem 
of the true accord that it is hoped will ever be 
maintained between the Japanese and English- 
speaking peoples." Representatives of four- 
teen missionary societies in English-speaking 
countries and of all the Protestant churches in 
the capital were present, but most of the pro- 
ceedings were in Japanese. In Dr. Dennis's 
u Christian Missions and Social Progress/' one 
may see in conspectus the evolution through 
varied forms of the completed translation of 
the Bible into Japanese. This latter work, 
said an English editor in Yokohama, was " like 
building a railway through the national intel- 
lect." 

Christ published to the Nation. Japanese 
native Christians had been for some time desir- 
ous of giving a public demonstration, somewhat 
in the style of an American camp-meeting, to 
bring the gospel before the people at large and 
to show the uninformed what progress had been 
made. After wide advertisement, on October 
IS, 1872, a beautiful day in autumn, at the 
edge of the Uyeno public park, on part of the 
ground of the great battle-field of 1868, Japanese 
and foreign Christians, preachers and laymen, 
assembled for congratulation and social enjoy- 
ment, with music and addresses. All round 
this place of meeting, in the gardens of the 



170 DUX CHEISTUS 

famous rural restaurant in the park were bronze 
Buddhas, and on the island in the pretty little 
lake was the temple of Benten, goddess of the 
sea and sailors. During the day several thou- 
sand people heard the gospel for the first time. 
In the crowd were, besides Buddhist priests, 
men of the higher and official classes. The 
next day the Japanese newspapers had a full 
account of this most successful affair, which 
was often and happily referred to among Jap- 
anese Christians for months afterwards. 

Unity of Christians in Work. It would seem 
as though the prayer and desire of our Lord 
Jesus for his followers " that they may be one " 
may be fulfilled in the mission field even sooner 
than in the old home lands. Happily in Japan 
the larger missions are affiliated, according to 
their forms or orders, such as the Episcopalian, 
the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist groups. 
For example, the English-speaking churches 
(Episcopal) of England and America have 
formed the Nippon Sei Kokwai. There are 
now six bishops, while the venerable Dr. C. M. 
Williams, after a bishopdom of over twenty-five 
years, still continues his labors as an honorary 
missionary. In " Japan as We saw It " by the 
(author of the poem " Yesterday, To-day, and 
Forever") father of the late honored Bishop Bick- 
ersteth, and in "Rambles in Japan" by Canon 
Tristram, we have most interesting glimpses of 
the work of the English brethren. One of these, 
the venerable Archdeacon Shaw, made so noble 
a record of saintly service during over twenty- 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 171 

five years in Tokio, that the Japanese speak of 
him as one of the Sanji, or " Three Wise and 
Great Friends of Japan," the other two being 
Hepburn and Verbeck. The cathedral, church 
edifices, schoolhouses, dispensaries, and hospital 
in Tokio, under the care of this body of missions, 
are among the notable sights of the Japanese 
capital. The number of Christians under their 
care has doubled every five years since 188S, 
the total now being over ten thousand, well 
provided with excellent schools and various 
other means of grace. 

The Reformed churches of English-speaking 
countries, which hold the Presbyterian system 
of government and doctrine, have six missions, 
and with the Woman's Union Missionary So- 
ciety constitute the Council of Missions coop- 
erating with the Church of Christ in Japan. It 
meets annually for consultation and action. A 
board of Home Missions has been formed under 
the direction of the Synod, which now embodies 
the results of experience and has a position of 
financial independence. The members of the 
council live in thirty-six places scattered over 
the empire, with one hundred and sixty out 
stations. 

In the Baptist group of missions and churches, 
after the first four or five pioneers, few reenf orce- 
ments came until 1889, A mission press was 
established at Yokohama. Dr. Nathan Brown, 
veteran of Assam, being a firm believer in the 
ascendency of Jcana and Romaji, or Japanese in 
Romanized letters, printed much of his work, in- 



172 DTJX CHRISTUS 

IT 

eluding a scholarly version of the New Testament 
in Japanese, in the native script. He died in 
1886. By this time, however, the Japanese had 
taken with enthusiasm to printing with movable 
types, and it was found more economical to em- 
ploy the native printers. 

The Gospel in the Northern Islands, Besides 
evangelical centres in most of the large cities, 
missionaries went in 1891 into the Riu Kiu Isl- 
ands. It was now time to look to the abundance 
of the seas. The gospel ship (JFukuin Maru), 
of one hundred tons, was built in Yokohama, 
launched and dedicated September 13, 1899, 
to carry the glad tidings to the islanders of the 
Inland Sea and the south of Japan, under the 
command of Captain Luke W. BickeL With his 
family and crew of Christian sailors, a noble 
work has been done in preaching, visiting, 
teaching, holding evangelistic services, and dis- 
tributing literature among the fishermen and 
islanders. 

The mission of the Congregational churches 
of the United States, founded in 1869, directed 
by the American Board of Commissioners of 
Foreign Missions, confined its work mostly to 
the region of Kioto, and the eastern shores of the 
Inland Sea. Founded at first by Joseph Neesirna, 
the Doshisha (One Endeavor Society) Univer- 
sity in Kioto, the city of 3500 temples and 8000 
priests, has had a varied history, as set forth 
by Dr, Gordon and others. It has educated 
about 10,000 pupils and " has changed the 
history of Japan." Kataoka, its late president, 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 173 

\ras an eminent and zealous Christian, and for 
many years speaker of the Lower House of 
the Imperial Diet. Mr. K. Shimomura, an alum- 
nus of high sacrifice, attainments, and Christian 
character, is now at the head of affairs. 

The native churches under the care of the 
American Board grew up without any denomi- 
national name, but in 1886, with considerable 
reluctance, they chose a name, the Kumi-ai or 
Associated Churches. For various reasons, pos- 
ibly because most completely "divested of 
foreign regimentals," this body of churches has 
been the one most affected by the adverse in- 
fluences of recent years, while probably not the 
least effective in leavening .the nation at large. 
Yet there has been great growth in membership 
and strength. The Japanese Home Missionary 
Society decided, in 1895, to receive no more 
foreign funds, and is now carrying on its 
work in eight cities with native contributions. 
Founded in 1878, its twenty -fifth anniversary 
was celebrated in January, 1904* With 126 
evangelists in its employ, and 75 mission stations 
served, 17 of its enterprises are now wholly self- 
supporting churches. The Kumi-ai churches 
build and pay for their own houses of worship. 

In the Methodist family of missions, whick 
began work under Dr. R. S. Maelay of Foo- 
chow, China, in 1873, are united for work the 
missions of the Methodist Church in Canada, 
the Evangelical Association, the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal 
Church South. In 1884 the Japan annual Con- 



174 DUX CHRISTUS 

ference, comprising nearly a thousand chiirch- 
members, was organized. In 1898, the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the work in Japan was 
celebrated, and at Nagasaki, in 1899, the South 
Japan Conference with over seven hundred 
members, some being from Formosa and Riu 
Kiu, held its first session. The Methodist Pub- 
lishing House for the increase of Christian lit- 
erature is one of the features of the capital. In 
1898, the annual conference was divided into 
two bodies, according to their fields in the north 
and south. The spirit of self-support has been 
finely developed. 

Auxiliary Workers. Other bodies of Chris- 
tians earnestly working in the empire are those 
under the American Christian Mission, the 
Church of Christ Mission, the Christian Catho- 
lic Church in Zion, the Christian and Mission- 
ary Alliance, the Evangelical Lutheran Mission, 
the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary 
Society (German and Swiss), and Hephzibah 
Faith Mission. The independent bodies are 
the Scripture Union of Japan, the Railway 
Mission, the Postal and Telegraph Mission, the 
Okasaka Hospital, the International Committee 
of the Young Men's Christian Association of 
Japan, the Salvation Army, Scandinavia Alli- 
ance Mission, the Mission Work for Seamen at 
Yokohama under the American Seaman's Friend 
Society, the Seventh Day Adventists' Mission, 
the Society of Christian Endeavor in Japan, the 
Society of Friends' Mission, Temperance Socie- 
ties i namely, Women's Christian Temperance 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 175 

Union, Yokohama Temperance Society, the 
Hokkaido Temperance Society, the Tokio Tem- 
perance Society, the Tract Society, the United 
Brethren in Christ, the Universalist Mission, 
and several other organizations doing a special 
work for particular classes, each in its way 
toiling for the coming of Christ's kingdom ii) 
Japan. 

The Old Christian Story Repeated. Actual 
experiences of Christian work and success in 
Japan were not as smooth and regular as our 
story might suggest. First there were years 
of patient waiting, then a rush of the people 
to hear the gospel. Preaching places were 
crowded. Church membership doubled every 
three years, and self-support was almost in 
sight. "The evangelization of Japan in a 
single generation" was talked, written, and 
printed. Then came sudden change and re- 
action. Patriotism ran rampant. These were 
the years of fierce political excitement about 
internal and foreign affairs. The waves of 
nationalism and Chauvinism swept over the 
land. " Japan for the Japanese " was the cry. 
Native fashions and ideas again came into 
vogue. Confucian ethics were taught in the 
government schools. For a while it looked as 
if Japan were to return to her hermitage of 
insular seclusion and the petty nationalism of 
old days. 

In a word there was a repetition of the Chris- 
tian story of the first century, and perhaps of 
every century of new missionary transforms- 



176 DUX CHRISTUS 

tion. Yet the wise gospel teachers abated not 
a jot of heart or hope, but braced themselves to 
the toils of a long siege. Dreams of the imme- 
diate evangelization of Japan, or conversion of 
its people in one generation, were dissipated ; 
but more faithful labors and fuller consecration 
were entered upon, under the conviction that 
the religion of Jesus must win its way in Japan 
as in the old Christian lands, slowly but surely. 
The casting out of the dead records of Egypt 
and the finding of the sayings of Jesus side by 
side with the older favorite literature, reveal 
to us the comparative slowness with which the 
early Christians entered fully into their new 
world of ideas. So will it be in Japan. The 
books of Shinto are already fairy-tales, the fables 
of Buddhism as nursery stories ; but the Word 
of God is as the rising sun. Instead of the 
four hundred thousand pagan temples of former 
times, there are now many less than half of 
that number. 

The Islands of the Pendant Tassels. Let us 
now look at the outlying portions of the empire, 
which have not been so highly favored with 
missionary effort. The name of the Riu Kiu 
Islands, as expressed by the Chinese characters, 
means Hanging Globes, or Pendant Tassels, for 
they were once considered as a fringe of little 
balls at the end of China's vast robe. The 
Chinese writing, as the only means of com- 
munication with the outer world, was used for 
centuries. Hence the people have no alphabet. 
Buddhism, introduced in 1281, was once estab- 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 177 

lished In the island, existing in two sectarian 
forms, but few temples are now left. An in- 
scribed bell given to Commodore Perry, and 
hung centuries ago in a Buddhist belfry (prob- 
ably as a thing gladly got rid of by the Con- 
fucian rulers), is now on the grounds of the 
Annapolis Naval Academy. Another hangs 
in Wellesley College halls. Although the 
islanders had become tributary to China in 
1372, they sent tribute to the Japanese sho- 
gun in 1451. Here was a characteristic speci- 
men of the old dual sovereignties in Asia. The 
Riu Kiuan foreign policy was summed up in 
the sentence, " Courtesy to the East and respect 
to the West." In other words, being like "a 
shrimp between two whales," they wished to 
be swallowed by neither. As the Eiu Kiuans 
say, they honored China as their father and 
Japan as their mother. 

When Japan, after the Restoration of 1868, 
asserted her full sovereignty over the islands, 
a native embassy came to Tokio In 1878, pray- 
ing that the dual sovereignty, paternal and ma- 
ternal, of China and Japan, might be preserved. 
The Mikado could not receive such a double 
minded petition. The Riu Kiuan kinglet, Sho~ 
tai, twenty-fourth in the succession from Shun- 
ten, was brought to Tokio as a captive, and the 
little archipelago was organized as a Japanese 
prefecture under the name of Okinawa Ken. 
Although the royal and noble part of official- 
dom in the little island kingdom did not relish 
the change, since it took away their monopoly 



178 DUX CHEI8TVS 

and privileges, the people received great benefit. 
All the lines of promotion being now open to 
the islanders, they are happy and contented. 
In fact, the people are relieved from an incubus 
of oppression that crushed out all hope and 
ambition. Commodore Perry writes of the Riu 
Kiu people, that in all his experience of many 
countries he had seen none that he pitied more. 
The rulers, let us hope, for political reasons 
only, fearing their masters, the Japanese, and 
knowing their hatred of Christianity and in- 
novation, kept the people from going near the 
missionary, Dr. Bettelheim, who, as the agent 
of the Naval Mission, landed at Napa in 1846. 
When Shotai, the kinglet, who in the new order 
of Japanese nobility ranked only as a marquis, 
died, August 19, 1901, the last of the dual sov- 
ereignties of Asia came to an end. Now that 
missionaries have occupied this long-deserted 
field, we feel that we know the Riu Kiuans 
better. The beautiful little cemetery on the 
rock-bound coast, with its numerous graves 
of European and American officers and sailors, 
is proof that Napa was often visited in days 
gone by. 

Centuries of oppression have crushed out 
every particle of decision of character, leaving 
the Kiu Kiuans a weak, spiritless, and grovel- 
ling people, and much below the Chinese or 
Japanese. Ground between the two mill- 
stones of their foreign masters and the native 
aristocracy, the Riu Kiuans feared the Chi- 
nese, hated the Japanese, and grovelled before 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 179 

their local rulers. Now Christian people have 
sounded the note of hope even u the greatest 
of all hopes." Japanese evangelists and Epis- 
copal and Baptist missionaries have been at 
work in Christ's name for over a decade. There 
are Christian churches, and humanity in these 
islands is being lifted up. With little to build 
on, it is no wonder that the rate of moral ele- 
vation should be slow. The native dialect as 
spoken by the country people is a great bar- 
rier to the Japanese evangelists. Nevertheless 
progress is sure. * 

" Formosa the Beautiful. Formosa is interest- 
ing in its missionary history, because it is the 
seat of the operations of the first systematic 
missionary effort of any Protestant country con- 
ducted on a large scale. This was attempted 
by the Dutch, who during a generation or more 
preached and taught and built schools, churches, 
and settlements, all of which were destroyed by 
the ferocious Chinese pirate Koxinga, and then 
Formosa was made part of the Chinese Empire 
in 1683. The island was but little visited by 
Europeans during the eighteenth century, but 
from about 1840 large numbers of Chinese emi- 
grated to the island and from the neighboring 
Chinese province of Fukien. The English Pres- 
byterians, having a mission at Amoy under the 
pioneer, Dr. Maxwell, began the establishment 
of one among the Formosans in the south in 
1860. The Roman Catholics were on the ground 
in 1859. The Canadian Presbyterians in the 
north began work in 1872 under Dr. Mackay, 



180 DUX CKRISTUS 

whose amazing success is set forth in the book 
"From Far Formosa." It is a story of apostolic 
power, showing that God is as willing and as 
able to bless his servants in the twentieth as in 
the first century. After the war of 1894-1895, 
Formosa was ceded by China to Japan, and far- 
reaching plans for development and improve- 
ment of every sort were inaugurated and have 
been grandly carried on in the face of tremen- 
dous difficulties. The first thing to be done 
was to inaugurate the reign of cleanliness. 
Chinese filth is proverbial, and the Japanese 
task was a big one. Except missionary hos- 
pitals there had been none in the island, but in 
one decade the Japanese have built a number 
of these institutions of mercy. At Taihoku, 
which is the Japanese name of Tai-peh, the 
wonderful new and clean capital and an object 
lesson in Formosa of Japanese modern civiliza- 
tion, there are ten hospitals, one with fifteen 
specialists on its staff of doctors, with forty 
trained nurses. In 1899 sixty thousand cases, 
fourteen thousand being Formosan Chinese, 
were treated by the Japanese doctors. Plenty 
of fresh water and drainage, besides cheap jus- 
tice, good laws, and schools, are the gifts of 
Japan to the Island Beautiful. 

Davidson, in his great book on Formosa, 
speaking of the Chinese in this island as being 
less conservative and more liberal than their 
brethren on the mainland, says that they look 
with a more kindly spirit toward strangers 
in general, and adds, "Without a doubt the 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 181 

splendid work of the missionary bodies in the 
island, who lived down the disfavor with which 
they were at first regarded, accounts to a great 
degree for the absence of any strong anti-foreign 
spirit among the people at present." In his 
chapter on " Missions," after referring to their 
difficulties, Davidson shows that "prior to the 
arrival of the Japanese practically the only 
modern education available in the islands was 
through the missionaries/' 

Mackay did a wonderful work in healing, as 
well as preaching. As the Chinese women are 
adverse to male medical aid, Christian ladies 
have been trained for special work and have 
had notable success. The Catholic missions 
have been especially successful in preventing 
the murdering of girl babies. In a word, in the 
new Formosa, the lamp of Christian hope burns 
brightly, and the Japanese pupils of the Eng- 
lish-speaking nations are showing themselves at 
once good colonizers, and not only rulers, but 
uplifters of the lowly races and peoples. 

The Canadian Presbyterian missionaries re- 
ported in 1902, 60 native preachers, 24 native 
Bible women, 1738 native communicants, 2633 
baptized members, 60 chapels with medical dis- 
pensaries attached, and 1 central hospital which 
had treated to date 10,736 patients. Twenty- 
three hundred and seventy-five dollars were 
contributed by native Christians. 

Of the English Presbyterian Mission, Rev. 
William Campbell, historian, scholar, and evan- 
gelist, author of " Missionary Success in For- 



182 DUX CHRISTUS 

mosa" and "The Dutch in Formosa," is still 
working. Other laborers have broken down 
or given up their lives, but new reenforcements 
have come. With 77 places of worship, the 
contributions of natives in 1900 were $6823. 
They support a foreign mission among the 
Pescadores Islands. The communicants num- 
bered 2019, besides 1660 baptized children, or a 
total of 10,758 adherents. The Missionary 
School and Theological College is at Tai 
Nan Fu. Rev. Mr. Campbell's School for the 
Blind, founded by him, was taken up by the 
Japanese and its work continued. A mission 
paper in Romanized Chinese, the first news- 
paper on the island, is published, besides other 
Chinese Christian literature* As a remarkable 
instance of the persistence of Christian faith 
and truth, we note that the first ordination to 
the Christian ministry of a native Formosan 
was that of one whose ancestors had been taught 
by the Dutch missionaries of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. 

The Amos of Yezo. The Ainos of Yezo, the 
aborigines and possible " forebears " of the mass 
of the Japanese people, have not been forgotten. 
Rev. W. Dening, of the Church Missionary 
Society of England, living in Hakodate, was 
the first to tell them the good news of God. 
The Rev. James Batchelor of the C. H. S. 
visited these people in 1878, and was regularly 
appointed to the work in 1882, since which 
time he has given to the world in his books a 
wealth of information relating to these people 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 183 

as well as the gospel to them. He has organ- 
ized Christian churches, and translated into 
their language the Bible and Christian litera- 
ture. The first convert was baptized on Christ- 
mas Day, 1885. Others, by twos and threes, 
took up their cross, but in 1898 there was an 
ingathering of 171 souls, and in 1900, 1150 
Christian Ainos were enrolled. 

breaching to the Aino was at first "like 
walking on thin ice." The greatest care was 
necessary lest the teller of the Christ story 
should ruthlessly trample on some superstition 
or other, or offend in etiquette, tradition, or 
religious custom. Yet as every missionary 
with a spiritual discernment notices, God in 
his great mercy did not leave even the Aino 
without light. Without showing surprise at 
what he saw or casting any reflection upon the 
absurdity of it, Mr. Batchelor proceeded to tell 
the gospel story as the feeble intellect of the 
Ainos could bear. He searched also for truth 
in the Aino religion, and, when finding it, 
instead of uprooting it, he gave it nurture. As 
he says, " Truth is eternal, and one truth can 
never be contrary to another, wherever seen or 
however much it may be covered up," Making 
friends of certain of the villagers, Mr. Batchelor 
gradually made progress. He would not 
destroy the idea of communion with God, even 
when expressed in so low a form as the bear 
sacrifice. The Ainos are great lovers of alco- 
holic liquors, and much given to drunkenness. 
It was shown that Paul had said to be " filled/' 



184 DUX CHEISTUS 



not with wine, but with the Spirit, and so the 
festival of slaying, eating, and communing with 
the bear was dropped, and the new man in his 
heart feeds on God by faith, partaking of the 
bread and wine of the Eucharist. Thus the 
chief ritual act in the Aino's debased religion, 
and in the enlightened Christian worship, is in 
its idea one, but, oh, with what a difference ! 
Surely we ought never to despise the pagans, 
for they are doing the best they can, perhaps as 
well, according to their lights, as we are. Evi- 
dently also by studying another's religion, we 
are better able to understand our own. In 
place of contempt we ought to pity and give 
more light and truth. Like Jesus we must 
come not to destroy, but to fulfil. 

The Universal Gospel and the Universal 
Need. The evangelist among the Ainos finds 
no more real difficulty in preaching to the 
sinners of Yezo than to the sinners in Tokio, 
for the idea of sin is not pleasant to either. To 
both the general idea of sin is that of breach of 
etiquette, or transgression against human law. 
Unless the preacher in the metropolis or in the 
savage country is very careful in the use of terms, 
the hearer goes away only with the idea that the 
preacher has violated the laws of politeness, and 
that the pot has called the kettle black, for the 
terms "holy " and " holiness " are not very well 
understood in their personal sense. Happily, in 
the case of the Japanese, a large number of na- 
tive preachers, trained by skilful missionaries 
or in the schools of Christian lands, can talk in 



MODEBN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 185 

their own tongue to their people of the wonder- 
ful work of God and unfold the unsearchable 
riches of Christ. Though the Aino race and 
language are dying out, English Christianity 
has done a most noble, even Christlike, work in 
bringing salvation to the individual and a sun- 
set glory to this dying race. The Japanese gov- 
ernment is also doing what is possible, through 
secular education, to lift up the survivors of a 
dwindling race, whose names linger on the land- 
scape of Japan, like those of Iroquois and Algon- 
quin on the mountains and rivers of our own 
land. 

The Many-sided Work. Thus in almost every 
form known to modern Christians the gospel of 
Jesus is preached in many parts of the empire of 
Japan. According to our Lord's own programme 
in his final command on earth, and his picture 
of the sheep and the goats in judgment, the 
work is carried on. In looking over the past, 
and reserving for a final chapter a glance at 
results, we do not forget the present. At the 
Osaka exposition in 1903, all Christians united 
for work in the Gospel Hall, and influenced a 
half-million Japanese, fifteen thousand of whom 
promised in writing to study further the Jesus 
religion. In 1904, as the armies and navies of 
Japan go forth to war for life and freedom 
against the least civilized nation of Europe, the 
missionaries, as in 1894, are ready with " provi- 
sions to sustain the mind," in the form of tract, 
scripture portions, and chaplains in the field. 
Christian unity grows apace, and the " Council of 



186 DUX CHEISTUS 

Cooperating Missions," formed in 1903, promises 
both wise economy of effort and grander results 
for the Master. Before summing up the results 
in a closing chapter let us look at one, and not 
the least important, branch of the general enter- 
prise, woman's work for woman. 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 187 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 
MISTAKEN IMPRESSIONS 

One reason why the Japanese have opposed Christi- 
anity is that they have mistakenly thought that it makes 
light of the favors and mercies which we receive from 
rulers and parents. If they would understand its real 
teachings regarding gratitude to God, they would gladly 
accept them. 

If they are taught that the chief purpose of prayer is 
to express our gratitude to God, and to walk in the way 
of righteousness is to requite the favors of Heaven, there 
is not one who will fail to understand such teaching. 

REV. T. EAR ADA. 



No REAL REACTION 

In any case, and whatever its shortcomings, this oli- 
garchy (of the "elder statesmen") has guided Japan 
with admirable skill and courage through the perils of 
the last five-and-twenty years. The nation may have 
probably has further changes in store for it. One 
thing is certain : these changes will be all along that road 
leading westward which the men of 1S68 were the first 
to open out. Excellent persons from home, who remem- 
ber the Stuarts and the Legitimists and Don Carlos, 
sometimes ask whether there may not be a Japanese 
reaction in favor of feudalism. No, never not till the 
sun stops shining and water begins to flow uphill. 

B. EL CHAMBERLAIN. 



AN IDEAL FIELD OF MISSIONS 

If you had been asked to sketch an ideal land, most 
suitable for Christian Missions, and when itself Chris- 



188 DUX CHRISTUS 

tianized more suited for evangelistic work among the 
nations of the Far East, what, I ask, would be the special 
characteristics of the land and people that you would 
have desired? Perhaps, first, as Englishmen or Irish- 
men, you would have said, " Give us islands, inseparably 
and forever united, give us islands which can hold their 
sea-girt independence, and yet near enough to the main- 
land to exert influence there." Such is Japan the Land 
of the Rising Sun. " Give us a hardy race, not untrained 
in war by land and sea; for a nation of soldiers, when 
won for Christ, fights best under the banner of the Cross 
for we are of the Church militant here on earth ; give 
us brave men ; " and such are the descendants of the old 
Daimios and two-sworded Samurai of Japan. ... " But," 
you would also have said, " give us a race whose women 
are homespun and refined, courteous and winsome, not 
tottering on tortured feet, nor immured in zenanas 
and harems, but who freely mingle in social life, and 
adorn all they touch," and such, without controversy, are 
the women of Japan. Above all, "give us a reverent 
and a religious people, who yet are conscious that the 
religion of their fathers is unsatisfying and unreal, and 
who are therefore ready to welcome the Christ of God," 
and such are the thoughtful races of Japan. 

THE BISHOP OF EXETER. 



CIVILIZATION NOT CHRISTIANITY 

With all these marks of enterprise and patriotism, the 
signs of a general turning to God among the people are 
sadly wanting. There is apparent an increasing mate- 
rialism, and in some quarters a disposition to idealize 
and clothe with divine honors the nation itself and its 
history. A work on ethics, indorsed apparently by the 
Education Department, has these remarks : " Our coun- 
try's history clearly constitutes our Sacred book and 
moral codes. . Our Sacred book is our history, holy 
and perfect, the standard of morals throughout all time, 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 189 

having not the slightest flaw. We have this divine 
Sacred book of history; do we need to seek another?'* 
Marquis Ito, Japan's leading statesman, has remarked 
that "Japan looks for the function of religion being 
fulfilled by culture and science and the inspiration of 
knowledge." Another well-known Japanese, . . . late 
representative of his country at the Court of St. James, 
has advocated what he terms u the religion of self-reli- 
ance." The failure of such religion is sufficiently indi- 
cated by the condition of the commercial world of which 
a sad picture is given in the following extract from a 
missionary's letter : 

" There is not only the general dishonesty which is so 
marked a characteristic of Japanese dealers, but also 
what is perhaps a more serious obstacle the intentional 
encouragement of immorality as a means of securing 
business success. Clients are frequently invited to even- 
ing entertainments which develop into drunken orgies, 
with all their inevitable accompaniments. Some have a 
feeling that this associating vice with business is bad, but 
th^r excuse is that active opposition would spell failure 
for themselves, and thus they sum up the position with 
a fatalistic phrase which is more commonly on the lips 
of Japanese than any other, 'Shikata ga nai' that is, 
< There is no help for it.' " 

Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society, 1902-1903. 



POWER OF THE CHRISTIANS 

The steady influence which Christianity is beginning to 
exert, out of all proportion to its numerical strength, is 
also apparent from the following facts collected together 
in the Missionary Review of the World for March last ' 
(1) The Christians have never had less than four times 
their proportional number of members in the successive 
Diets. (2) They have thirteen members, besides the 
speaker, in the present Diet, and among them some of 
the most efficient men. One of them was elected in a 



190 DUX CHKISTUS 

strongly Buddhist district by a majority of five to one. 
(3) Three per cent of the officers of the army are said 
to be Christians, and a goodly proportion also of naval 
officers. (4) Christians abound in abnormal numbers 
in the universities and G-overnment colleges, among both 
students and instructors. (5) Not less than three of the 
great daily newspapers of Tokio are largely in Christian 
hands, and Christians are at the head of editorial depart- 
ments in several others. (6) A very large volume of 
charitable work, and the most successful charitable insti- 
tutions, are also under Christian management. 
Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society, 1902-1903. 



SIGNS OF PROMISE IN FORMOSA 

The population [of Formosa] is, according to most re- 
cent notices, 2,697,845 Chinese, 33,120 Japanese, and, it 
is said, 120,000 aborigines. The Japanese are striving 
to educate the Chinese, to develop the resources of the 
country, and to bring civilization and firm rule every- 
where. That they are not unaware of the advantage and 
of the need of religion is shown both by their attitude to 
all present endeavors to evangelize the country, and also 
by their having offered free passes on railways to all 
missionaries of whatever body (Christian, Buddhist, or 
Shinto) . The feeling of the Japanese toward Christianity 
has experienced a vast change. Large audiences readily 
gather to hear Christian preaching. 
Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel m 
Foreign Parts, 1902. 



THE CHRISTIAN SAMURAI 

Loyalty and filial piety demand from us nothing short 
of complete surrender of ourselves to our master or pat- 
ents. It is the spirit of not living unto one's self, but 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 191 

unto our superiors. The samurai considered it a matter 
of course that he should die fighting in front of his lord's 
house. That his life was not his own was his firm con- 
viction. 

We may well say that the spirit of the ancient Bushi 
in his relation to his lord was essentially the same as that 
expressed by the apostle's words, " For none of us liveth 
to himself, and 110 rnau dieth to himself ; for whether we 
live we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die we die 
unto the Lord, whether we live therefore or whether we 
die we are the Lord's." The essential spirit cannot dif- 
fer; theie can only be a higher or a lower, a noble or a 
less noble object of attachment. If this spirit is devel- 
oped by the spirit of Christianity, it will become toward 
God the spirit of loyalty and filial devotion, and toward 
man that spirit of benevolence which gives itself for the 
welfare of mankind. Jesus Christ said, ik I am not come 
to destroy, but to fulfil." Christianity, I believe, is to 
develop such virtues, is to ennoble them, is to lead them 
on to perfection. REV. T. HARADA. 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

The life of Christ is an example of the victory of giri 
(sense of duty) over ninjo (natural feelings). The temp- 
tations of Satan were all directed toward the natural 
feeling of Christ as a man ; but Christ, discerning clearly 
what duty demanded, overcame them. Again, when 
Christ prayed, "0 my father, if it be possible let this 
cup pass from me," he gave expression to his natural 
feelings ; but when he added, " Nevertheless not as I will 
but as thou wilt," he conquered them by his sense of 
duty. This is an explanation which I think is readily 
understood by the Japanese. REV. T. HAKADA. 



CONFLICT OF DUTIES 

What moves the Japanese in novels or theatrical plays 
are those scenes in which the conflict between the giri 



192 DUX CHRISTUS 

(sense of duty) and the ninjo (natural feelings) are rep- 
resented. " If you obey the dictates of the former, you 
cannot obey the latter ; if you obey the latter, you cannot 
obey the former; standing between giri and nasake' (be- 
tween duty and natural affection), there is nothing left 
but to weep." A passage like this moves the Japanese 
to tears. The scene in which Shigemori of the Taira 
clan remonstrates with his father against his plan of vio- 
lence against the emperor is one of the passages in Japan- 
ese history, " If I am loyal, I cannot be filial ; if I am 
filial I cannot be loyal, here is my sore dilemma." This 
is an. example of the conflict between gin and ninjo. 

REV. T. HARADA. 



ETHICS AND INDUSTRY 

In some of the larger Osaka factories as many as two 
thousand girls live inside the factory walls, and other 
thousands go backward to their homes or to lodging 
houses. In some of these lodging houses men and women 
live together. Here are young girls living among crowds 
of rough, debased, drunken men. In the northwest sec- 
tion of Kioto, the Nishrjin district, there are about sixty 
thousand operatives in private silk-weaving establish- 
ments. A large proportion of these are boys and girls, 
principally girls, who are apprenticed, sold by their 
parents for a few yen, for terms of three years. Some 
of the girls are sold three times in succession, and have 
to endure this slavery nine years. They have to work 
fourteen hours a day. In many cases they are compelled 
to sleep promiscuously, boys and girls crowded together 
on the mats in the same room. The results can be im- 
agined. Dr. Saiki, an earnest Christian physician, has 
a Charity Maternity Hospital in connection with his 
Hospital and Training School for Nurses; and he told 
me a year ago that during the year he had received into 
that maternity hospital nearly eighty of these unfortu- 
nate girls, and that he had been called to attend enough 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 193 

of them outside to make more than one hundred, and he 
said that these were only a fraction of the whole. Until 
recently nearly all these children have been put to death ; 
but now, under the Criminal Code, this is more difficult. 

J. D. DAVIS. 



JOT-BRINGING CHKISTIANITY 

Christianity, by thus giving woman a greater sense of 
her own powers, by imparting to her the fructifying 
truths of the Bible, and by imbuing her with a noble 
purpose, has abeady proved itself to thousands of Jap- 
anese women a life-giving power. Go into any miscella- 
neous assembly of Japanese women, and you will find it 
an easy task to pick out the Christians by their brighter, 
more thoughtful, more purposeful faces. In the presence 
of these noble and gracious Christian ladies, the Japan- 
ese women represented by Sir Edwin Arnold's sensuous 
pen are as inferior as they ought to be offensive. 

M. L. GORDON. 



THE OLD WAT IN JAPAN 

Have we explained ourselves? We would not have 
it thought that Japanese women are actually ill-used. 
There is probably very little wife-beating in Japan, 
neither is there any zenana system any veiling of the 
face. Rather is it that women are all their lives treated 
more or less like babies, neither trusted with the inde- 
pendence which our modern manners allow, nor com- 
manding the romantic homage which was woman's dower 
in mediaeval Europe; for Japanese feudalism so dif- 
ferent from the feudalism of the West in all but military 
display knew nothing of gallantry. A Japanese knight 
performed his valiant deeds for no such fanciful reward 



194 DUX CREISTUS 

as a lady's smile. Pie performed them out of loyalty to 
his lord, or filial piety toward the memory of his papa, 
taking up, maybe, the clan vendetta, and perpetuating it. 
Our own sympathies, as will be sufficiently evident from 
the whole tenor of our remarks, are with those who wish 
to raise Japanese women to the position occupied by sis- 
ters in Western lands. B. H CHAMBERLAIN. 



" HOME," THE CREATION OF CHRISTIANITY 

The Japanese really have no such word as "home." 
Until we can teach them, by long and patient effort, the 
practical meaning of that holy word, they cannot have 
entered the spiritual fellowship of Christian nations. 
But just as the gospel in days of old slowly but surely 
iplifted the nations of Europe by teaching the sanctity 
)f childhood, the purity of womanhood, and the manli- 
less of manhood, so at length the same uplifting powoj 
rtaft Jbring like blessings to Japan. J. A, B. SCHERI 



MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 195 



THEMES FOE STUDY AND DISCUSSION 

I. The Subterranean History of Christianity in 

Japan. 
II. Bushido : its Story, its Ideals, and its Survivals. 

III. The Christian Martyrs of Japan. 

IV, Contrasted Missionary Ideals and Methods in Ro- 

man and Reformed Christianity. 
Y. The Place and Power of the Bible in Missionary 
Efforts, as illustrated in the Christian History of 
Japan. 

VI. Are the Japanese Creative or Imitative ? How far 
is this Trait Favorable or Unfavorable to Chris- 
tianity ? 

VII. The Various Types of Missionary Usefulness. 
VIII. Missionary Biography. 
IX. The Three General Conferences. 
X. The Three Imperial Cities, Kioto, Osaka, Tokio. 
XI. Medical Work among the Japanese. 
XII. Music and Hymnology in Christian Japan. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

Proceedings of the Tokio Missionary Conference. (1901.) 

Tokio. Methodist Publishing House. 
R. E. Lewis. "The Educational Conquest of the Far 

East." (1903.) F. H. Revell Co. 
B. Taylor. "Japan in Our Day." (1892.) Charles 

Scribner's Sons. 
K. Uchimura. "The Diary of a Japanese Convert." 

(1895.) F. H. ReveU Co. 
W. E. Griffis. "Verbeck of Japan." A Citizen of No 

Country. (1900.) F. H. Revell Co. 
W. E. Griffis. "A Maker of the New Orient." Samuel 

Bobbins Brown. (1902.) F. H. Revell Co. 
E. W, Clark. Life and Adventures in Japan." (187&) 

American Tract Society. 
M. L. Gordon. "An American Missionary in Japan." 

(1892.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 



196 Dtfx cnmsTus 



M. Bickersteth. "Japan as We Saw It." (1893.) 

H. B. Tristram. "Rambles in Japan.'* (1898.) F. H. 

Revell Co. 

W. E. Curtis. "The Yankees of the East." (1896.) 

New York. Stone & Kimball. 

J. A. Scherer. "Japan To-day." (1904.) J. B. Lip- 

pincott Co. 



CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 

1861 Miss Caroline Adriance in Japan for Woman's 

Work. 
1863 Miss J. R. Conover, missionary teacher at Kana- 

gawa. 
1867 Mrs. J. C. Hepburn and Mrs. J. H. Ballagh teach 

Japanese girls at Yokohama. 
1869 First single woman missionary, Miss Mary Kidder, 

now Mrs. E. R. Miller, begins her work. 
Mrs. Carruthers begins a Girls' School in Tokio. 
Two Christian Japanese women baptized in Tokio. 

1871 The American Mission Home, Yokohama, estab- 

lished by Mrs. Pruyn. 

1872 Baptism of four Christian Japanese women in 

Yokohama. 

1873 American Presbyterian and Congregational women 

missionaries in Tokio and Kobe. 

1874 Episcopal Girls' School in Osaka. 

Methodist Girls' Schools in Tokio and Yokohama. 

1875 English Church Missionary Society inaugurate 

work for women. 
1880 Training of and work by Bible women in full 

activity. 

1884 The Princess Sada born. 
1886 Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Japan 

organized. 
Petition to Diet against transport of Japanese 

women abroad for evil purposes. 
Agitation by Christian women against the social 

evil. 

1892 Dr. J. C. Berry begins the training of women 

nurses. 

1893 National Woman's Christian Temperance Union 

organized. 

United Young People's Society of Christian 
Endeavor. 

1894 Silver wedding of Emperor and Empress. 

1895 Rescue work for girls begun by the Salvation 

Army, 

197 



198 DUX CHRISTUS 



Continued from page 197. 

1896 The Civil Code. 

1898 National Temperance League of Japan organized 
by Mrs. Clara Parrish, 

1900 Twenty thousand Protestant Christian women m 

Japan. 
Twelve thousand Japanese women released from 

immoral slavery. 
Crown Prince and Princess Sada married. 

1901 Woman's University established in Tokio. 

1902 Three generations of Christian believers in Japan. 



CHAPTER V 
WORK FOR 

Position of Woman under the Ethnic Faiths. 
Of all the lines of battle for Christianity and. 
higher civilization in Japan, none is more im- 
portant than that which relates to the elevation 
of woman one-half of Japan and to the 
making of the home on the Christian model. 
Seeing this, we may well introduce our general 
subject by glancing at the position of woman 
in the land poetically called the Princess 
Country. 

Historically this is much like that of her 
sister among the early Germanic nations, with 
whom Japan shares in time about the same 
length of career. It appears at least probable 
that, in the early ages, before the Japanese 
were affected by Buddhistic and Chinese influ- 
ences, woman occupied relatively a much higher 
plane than in the later days, when she was 
rather degraded than exalted by the new 
dogmas imported from India and China, and 
in the social and ethical systems which were 
developed under priests and philosophers. In 
Japanese mythology the chief deity is a woman. 
The custodians of the divine regalia (the three 
symbols of heaven-derived imperial power, 
199 



200 LUX CHRISTITS 

mirror, crystal sphere, and sword) and of many 
of the Shinto shrines were priestesses. In the 
list of one hundred and twenty-three mikados, 
nine were female. In literature, art, poetry, 
and song, the names of women shine like clus- 
tered stars on the national roll of fame and 
honor. It is to the everlasting glory of the 
women, that they, and not the men, made the 
Japanese a literary language. While learned 
men gave themselves up to pedantry and use 
of the Chinese script and vocabulary, women 
poets, novelists, and diarists, by cultivating 
their own more beautiful, musical, and sono- 
rous tongue, fitted it to be the receptacle of the 
literature that enshrines most distinctively the 
Japanese genius. Thus, also, though all un- 
consciously, the mediaeval ladies of the court 
so shaped their native language in its develop- 
ment, as to enable it, eight hundred years later, 
to receive the Holy Scriptures of the inspired 
Word and to express to the people the good 
news of God in Christ Jesus. 

Woman in Japanese History, In the records 
of glory, valor, fortitude, and affliction, great- 
ness in the hour of death, filial devotion, wifely 
affection, in all the crises of life, when codes of 
honor, morals, and religion are put to the test, 
the Japanese woman has held her own. The 
history of literature, romance, and the everyday 
routine of facts show her power and willing- 
ness to share whatever of pain and sorrow is 
appointed to man. In suffering and sacrifice 
for the cause of home, family, clan, country, and 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 201 

religion the Japanese woman has ever been the 
Japanese man's helpmeet for him. As we have 
written before, 1 " In the annals of persecution, 
in the red roll of martyrs, no names are brighter, 
no faces gleam more peacefully amid the flames 
or on the cross of transfixing spears, or on the 
pyre of rice straw, or on the precipice's edge, 
or in the open grave about to be filled up, than 
the faces of the Christian Japanese women of 
the seventeenth century." Such is the position 
of women in the past. The twentieth century 
shows no degradation in ideal or fact, while it 
opens wide the gates of Christian hope. 

The ethical grade and value of a civilization 
may be fairly tested by the position accorded to 
woman. Relatively with continental Asiatics, 
the Japanese accord their women a large meas- 
ure of respect and consideration. Foot-binding 
is not the fashion in Japan, and never'las been. 
There are no zenanas or harems. Among the 
middle and lower classes she is almost as much 
at liberty to walk and visit as among us. In 
fact, an amount of social freedom prevails that 
could hardly be expected in a country that was 
once "Asiatic, idolatrous, and despotic." The 
purely external aspects of her dwelling-place 
have been treated with a masterly hand in 
Edward A. Morse's " Japanese Homes and their 
Surroundings," and in varying degrees of dis- 
tortion and misleading fiction, written by men 
who see and experience only the shadowy and 

i See " The Mikado's Empire," chapter on " Position of 
Women. 17 



202 DUX CHEI8TUS 

foul sides of the subject, that set forth rather 
masculine sin and folly than feminine hope and 
aspiration. Occidental art, whether in poetry, 
prose, picture, or drama, has not yet done justice 
to the typical Japanese woman. The shadows 
and lights of the true picture have been set 
upon the literary canvas by the master hand 
of Miss Alice Bacon. Out of her low estate 
under Buddhism that tolerated, and Confucian- 
ism that degraded, womanhood in Christian 
Japan is rising into the glory of a nobler life. 

Education of the Japanese GirL The Jap- 
anese girl's education from childhood is one 
that makes her pure, sweet, and amiable, with 
great power of self-control and knowledge of 
what to do upon all occasions, so that in a cer- 
tain sense she is a finished product at the age 
of sixteen or eighteen. In a word, she is just 
what a pagan wants her to be fitted for obe- 
dience, subordination, and service, but not for 
growth and power to inspire. Trained in body 
and mind, and accomplished according to her 
station, it is no wonder that Japanese maidens 
and wives have attracted the attention and 
drawn forth the praises of foreign tourists and 
writers, especially of those who are more or less 
alienated from Christian ideas and ways. Trav- 
ellers of immoral life have not usually been 
sympathetic with efforts of the missionary to 
introduce different ideals and an educational 
system based on the teachings of Jesus. Some 
of the vilest flings at their work and the most 
distorting caricatures of the missionaries have 



WOMAN'S WORK FOE WOMAN 203 

emanated from these men, who sometimes wield 
skilful pens and furnish piquant literature. 

Let us note that the old education of the 
daughter of the land was beautiful in many 
things, while sadly lacking in others. Miss 
Bacon thus pictures the brighter side : " The 
unconscious and beautiful spirit of her child- 
hood is not driven away at the dawn of woman- 
hood by the thoughts of beaux, of coming out 
in society, of a brief career of flirtation and con- 
quest, and at the end as fine a marriage, either 
for love or money, as her imagination can pic- 
ture." The normal Japanese maiden takes no 
thought of these things. Her father theoreti- 
cally, or her mother, perhaps practically, will 
by and by attend to the matter of bringing 
together their daughter and some eligible young 
man ; but the selection, if made, will be theirs, 
not hers. There is, theoretically at least, no 
flirtation, perhaps very little romance. Think- 
ing of men only as higher beingg to be deferred 
to and waited on, the Japanese maiden pre- 
serves the childlike innocence of manner, 
combined with a serene dignity under all cir- 
cumstances, that is characteristic of the Japan- 
ese woman. 

The Japanese, even after pondering the 
matter very deeply, show no great desire to 
exchange quickly the native for the foreign 
idea of woman, nor can any lover of Japan wish 
any sudden or violent destruction of the native 
ideal. Some of their writers on ethical and 
social topics have expressed themselves very 



204 DUX CEEISTUS 

strongly, and on the whole reasonably, on this 
point ; nor must we forget that the indigenous 
and exotic ideals, of even physical beauty, are 
as far apart as the sunrise from sunset. It 
would lower our own conceit immensely, were 
we to see ourselves as the Japanese see us. If 
sweet temper and attractiveness, patience and 
faithfulness to " the three obediences," to parent, 
husband, and as widow to her oldest son, were 
all, the case might end here. But there is much 
more to be said. The daughter of the Japanese 
family has, at the age of twenty, but little de- 
velopment of her higher nature, very little 
uplifting indeed of the soul into the atmosphere 
above the routine of daily life. On the other 
hand, her master, man, pushing the principle of 
feminine obedience to the serving of his own 
selfishness, crushes out, by trampling upon, the 
most noble of feminine instincts. To satisfy 
his own needs, he degrades a glorious principle 
into the depths of damnable abomination. A 
father in debt, an ambitious brother to get an 
education in order to win office, will sell the 
body of daughter or sister, even as the beasts 
are sold. Horrible is the significant proverb, 
" A father with many daughters need not fear 
poverty in old age." 

The Shadow on Japanese Womanhood. Usu- 
ally with her childhood, the happiest period in 
the life of a Japanese woman closes. Just when 
her mind is broadening and her hunger for 
knowledge and self -improvement increases, the 
clamps are put on. The chattel is removed 



WOMAN'S WOES: FOE WOMAN 205 

from one family to another. In Mitford's 
Tales of Old Japan," and in Dr. EL C. Trum- 
bull's "The Threshold Covenant," we have 
the fact and the philosophy of marital rites. 
To become a wife is to be a daughter-in-law, 
which name is too often synonymous with 
drudge or slave. Life grows narrower, burdens 
increase, until existence seems intolerable and 
reaches perilously near to the suicide point. 
The woman over thirty is usually the weary, 
disheartened woman. The hideousness of 
Japanese hags, and the multitude of them in 
villages, are sights that have, over and over 
again, given the writer daylight visions like 
nightmares. The list of female suicides in 
Japan is a terribly long one, and in popular art, 
as in Hokusai's, for example, we have the typi- 
cal figure of a bedraggled ghost rising from the 
well, in which it is the woman's fad to drown 
herself, though other ways of exit from flesh 
and blood are too sadly familiar. 

Infancy and Childhood. The Japanese baby 
girl, when born, is usually the cause of rejoic- 
ing, and on the seventh day receives her name, 
when the family partakes of a certain kind of 
festival food. As the Japanese sense of person- 
ality is not strong, the girl has no human 
namesake, but is usually called after something 
beautiful in nature, such as blossom, star, wave, 
sunshine, plum, gold, pearl, or jewel. The cus- 
tom of giving names in compliment to another 
is not known among the pagan and impersonal 
Japanese, though part of the father's or some 



206 DUX CHRISTUS 

ancestral name is given to the boy, or joined 
with, another term denoting strength, power, or 
numerical sequence. The mother usually gets 
more attention, amounting to fussiness, than is 
good for her, often delaying return of her 
strength and health. The next event is to take 
the baby on the thirtieth day to the temple, in 
its finest clothes, duly embroidered with the 
family crest i of the gentry class, and made of 
silk, crape, or cotton, according to the parents 7 
grade in society. Offerings are made to the 
local god and to the priest, their blessings ob- 
tained, and the infant put under the guardianship 
of the patron deity of the temple. Thus pagan- 
ism and priestcraft get their grip on human life 
and never relax it, no, not upon the corpse or 
the soul in purgatory, for, as says a Japanese 
proverb, even " the tortures of hell are graded 
according to money" paid to the priests. In. 
many a temple in Japan, one reads a notice like 
that posted in Romish cathedrals, begging alms 
to pay for masses which are supposed to secure 
the release of suffering souls in the other world. 
One of the most pitiful of these forms of appeal, 
once common and now seen by the waysid^' 
in remote districts, is "the flowing invy 
tion," in behalf of mothers whose life ei 
untimely. / 

After the name-giving, presents are , (J 
the family to friends. Thus the b 
source of great care and trouble as w 
It has no cradle, though sometime 
wives who work in the field ' 



WOMAtfS WORE FOE WOMAN 207 

in a kind of padded basket, like an egg in a 
nest. Folk-lore tells of the baby's unwelcome 
visitors during mother's absence, of wolf, wild 
swine, monkeys, etc., with usually the result of 
deliverance through the mercy of the goddess 
Quanon or some Buddhist saint. Without pins, 
tight sleeves, or much exposure of the limbs, 
infantile garb in Japan is sensible. Yet Japan- 
ese infants have their troubles, internal and ex- 
ternal, and they can cry lustily. Most of baby's 
waking and a good deal of its sleeping time is 
spent upon the back of some member of the 
family, usually an older brother or sister, the 
latter not more, it may be, than, five or six years 
old. Thus the rearing of a Japanese family, 
each baby as it grows bearing the one that 
comes after it, reminds one of a perpetual game 
of leapfrog. Snuggled up under sister's coat 
in winter or strapped more or less securely in 
summer, baby attains a wonderful development 
of arms and legs. This discipline, which every 
baby gets on its carrier's back, explains that 
wonderful agility and muscular quality which 
belongs to the Japanese, especially in the lower 
classes, making them such superb climbers, ath- 
letes, acrobats, soldiers on the march and in 
the fight. Their system of jw-jitfsU) or muscle- 
science, the wonder of the physical trainer in 
every land, may be said to begin in practice in 
infancy. The child must learn to hold on, and 
though its legs may be cramped, it gets a splen- 
did grip power and arm development. Never- 
theless, the exposure of tender eyes to the glare 



208 LUX CHEISTUS 

of the sun is the cause of much of the blindness 
so common in the country. There are no chairs, 
but, when able to sit, the child soon learns to 
make a sofa of its calves and heels. By this 
habit the leg muscles become very flexible, so 
that a Japanese can spend hours on knees and 
ankle bones, without discomfort. Yet this do- 
ing without chairs in Japanese style results, 
not only in varicose veins, but in the national 
deformity of short legs. The introduction of 
better methods of sitting will in a few genera- 
tions add a full inch, at least, to the national 
stature. It has already affected for the better 
the present generation. By lengthening the 
legs of their tables, the Japanese have already 
lengthened their own. 

Enemies of the Home. The custom of con- 
cubinage only polygamy under another name 
formerly made family life, as we understand 
it, next to impossible in many households. 
Even to this day many a Japanese family is a 
curious agglomeration, more like a clan than a 
Christian home, and adoption is carried to ex- 
tremes that seem absurd. Concubinage destroys 
the reality of the family, as Occidentals under- 
stand the term. No Galton could ever have 
made much of a study of heredity in Japan,, 
for few so-called lines of lineage are real or un- 
broken. Adoption is almost a universal custom 
for the maintenance of the " house " or the busi- 
ness. The distinguished son of a famous states- 
man, artist, actor, bronzesmith, sculptor, etc., is- 
the actual son of some one else. The ease and 



WOES: FOR WOMAN- 209 

frequency of divorce makes family life, accord- 
ing to the average standard in Christendom, an 
impossibility. The architecture of a household 
in Nippon is, so to speak, on the perpendicular 
order. Rank and subordination, rather than love 
or affection, is the predominant idea. There is 
no pure word for brother or sister, but only for 
older and younger. An enormous bulk in the 
new Civil Code is occupied with the one subject 
of adoption, and popular proverbs reveal dread- 
ful secrets concerning the overworking of this 
dubious institution of orientalism. 

Among the higher classes, the dread of scan- 
dal and gossip prevents too easy divorce, but 
among the lower classes marriage was, and is, 
virtually dissoluble at the will of either party. 
Tens of thousands of folk in the lower classes 
have been married and divorced a dozen times* 
Official statistics show the condition of things 
in 1897, and also the more hopeful outlook 
under the new Civil Code. From 1891 to 1897 
inclusive, the marriages averaged annually 
381,069 and the divorces 101,098, but through 
more stringent laws and new moral ideals, from 
1898 to 1900 inclusive there were 371,295 mar- 
riages and but 76,621 divorces, a reduction in 
the latter of about 25 per cent. With the im- 
provement of the moral climate through the 
teachings of Jesus, the nation will be stronger, 
homes will be purer, the individual happier, and 
Japan's fair name, now so often besmirched by 
the lustful, the cruel, and the covetous, will be 
clean and pure. 



210 WX CHRISTUS 

Marriage. The old education of the Jap- 
anese women was mostly domestic, and but 
slightly literary. She was usually married at 
sixteen, for, broadly speaking, there was in pre- 
Christian days no such thing as a spinster or a 
bachelor. Marriage was usually simply the 
transfer of a cipher cut off from the integer of 
one family to be set beside that of another. 
If the girl positively disliked the man who was 
submitted to her for inspection, she was not 
usually forced to marry him. As simple toler- 
ation on either side was the thing expected, 
without anything in the way of romantic love, 
most arrangements made by parents were car- 
ried out. Often in old days and in high ranks, 
the bride beheld her future husband ,f or the first 
time as she lifted her blindfolding silk cap, after 
sipping the second cup of the second tier of the 
trio in the "three times three" of the sacra- 
mental wine. The marriage ceremony was not 
one of religion, but purely a ciyil function. In 
wedlock the bride became more closely related 
by law and custom to her husband's relatives 
than to her own. To withdraw her name from 
the list of her father's family register and to 
lave it entered by the local authorities on the 
roll of her husband's family gave legality to 
the act of marriage. Usually if ordinary regard 
existed between husband and wife, more espe- 
cially if children were born, and still more par- 
ticularly sons, the marriage bond held. In this 
case the family was an institution not easily 
changed. Yet since the marriage bond could 



WOMAN'S WQEK FOB WOMAN 211 

be easily annulled by the husband for any one 
of seven reasons, there were in some years as 
many divorces as marriages. In Dr. J. A. B. 
Scherer's " Japan To-day " we have one of the 
best all-round pictures of modern Japanese life. 
Those other and unnamed books, written at the 
selvedges of the two civilizations, Christian and 
pagan, which deal with the episodes of the 
geisha and the women hired for immoral pur- 
poses, though often attractive in style, are both 
unwholesome and misleading. 

The Husband's Power in Pagan Law. Since 
the law gives the father possession of the children 
and he has the riglnrtd" dispose of them as he 
will, even to the babe in arms, while the divorced 
woman must go to her father's house, at once 
discredited and childless, many wives, no mat- 
ter how brutal or worthless their husbands may 
be, will toil and suffer long to keep the family 
together. Yet there must be male heirs. It 
has therefore been a common custom, when off- 
spring was desired, to advertise for and hire a 
young woman to come into the house, who, after 
bearing a child and the period of nursing over, 
was dismissed like a common servant and had 
no claim whatever on her child, seeing it when 
grown only as a visitor. In a word, woman in 
old Japan was ethically a much less fraction 
than half of humanity. Within the era of 
Meiji (1868), however, the improvements in 
law and custom, the adoption of a new civil 
code long fought against and persistently 
postponed by the conservatives the new at- 



212 DUX CHRISTUS 

mosphere of thought, of feeling, and of hope, 
the general and special education, and espe- 
cially the religion of Jesus, have begun the 
making of a new world for Japanese women. 
There is now a variety of new occupations, 
making single life tolerable by one's own labor 
and rendering it possible for woman to choose 
or reject suitors, to enter into marriage from 
love and choice, as an intelligent being, rather 
than from necessity as a mere cog in the social 
wheel. These reforms have already made, for 
one-half of her people, that New Japan, which 
is as different from the old as the pagan is from 
the Christian world. Furthermore, among the 
nobility the law requires that only the true son 
of the true wife shall inherit the title. The 
laws of life rightly obeyed will banish polyg- 
amy, concubinage, easy divorce, and other social 
curses. 

Remarkable Beginning of Prayer for Japan. 
Against the actual condition of woman as pic- 
tured with its lights and shadows in their own 
literature, and, as I have been able to study it 
during four years of life in Nippon, one in 
the interior, and three in the capital, let us 
now look at the half century of woman's work 
in Japan. In that work we count prayer not 
the least factor. It was also the efficient begin- 
ning of the interest of Christian women in their 
Japanese sisters. On the other hand, incite- 
ment to prayer came through the divine Ar- 
tist's gift to his Japanese child, of intense 
susceptibility to beauty and power to express 



WORK FOE WOMAN 213 

it. Long before the year of Perry's advent, 
a little basket of bamboo woven in Japan 
reached America, and fell into the hands of 
a devout woman in Brookline, Massachusetts. 
Her eyes enjoyed .the dainty basket, her heart 
was moved for the women of the unknown land 
whose people fashioned it. Gathering other 
godly women around her, she prayed with 
them to the Father, that he would grant some 
day to the daughters of these isles to know 
him in his Son and their Saviour. 1 

Women Missionaries. In the early sixties, 
some of the home boards with old experience, 
but without the prophetic strain, turning the re- 
flector of knowledge about China upon Japan, 
after inquiring about the expediency of send- 
ing women missionaries to Japan, made curt 
and discouraging answer, "Do not send them 
unless they are old and ugly, or unless they 
come as wards in families." In our days, on 
the contrary, the great evangelizing agency 
in Japan is, most emphatically, by means of 
Christian women. Verily in our day, " The 
women that publish the tidings are a great 
host." 

Nor should we make an invidious comparison 
between married and unmarried missionaries, 
for many who serve as wives and mothers, 
besides rearing families and taking care of hus- 
bands, do noble work in charity, in teaching, 
and in various altruistic activities. 

1 See complete account, "Early Gifts and Prayers for 
Japan," Chapter VI. 



214 DMT CHRI&TUS 

Music and Photography, One of the first 
triumphs of Christian women's work in Japan 
was to make Christian praise an aid to the 
gospel. It was woman who demonstrated the 
power of music as an aid to faith and worship, 
as in all spiritual work and influence. In 
theory, the Japanese throat had been pro- 
nounced incapable of producing either our 
gamut or singing our music, and already 
experts were inventing a new notation based 
on the supposed limits of power. The faith 
and persistence of one woman at once changed 
the whole situation, and the story has since 
been one of progress. Certainly among . the 
psychic moments of success in Japan, that must 
be considered among the greatest, when the 
wife of a missionary taught a Japanese boy to 
sing the musical scale, and thus opened the 
way for the reign of Christian song. To-day 
the schools, army, and navy bands, and popular 
concerts employ the musical scale of the Occi- 
dent and the civilized world. The superb 
" Hymnal " of 1904, the crowning work after 
long evolution and many predecessors, with its 
hundreds of tunes and words in Japanese, is the 
high-water mark of progress in praise. 

It is remembered that the hymn 

"Jesus loves me, this I know " 

though according to the refined taste of to-day 
awkwardly translated, was the favorite then 
and is now. How heartily the people to whom 
it was fresh, good news sang it ! One Chris- 



WOMAN'S WORK FOB, WOMAN 215 

tian woman passed away singing it, and those 
words of hope were chiselled on her tombstone. 
She was the wife of the first native photog- 
rapher, who had been taught by Dr. S. R. 
Brown. The photograph in Japan, as else- 
where, has been to art what printing has to lit- 
erature. To-day the stereopticon by night and 
the camera by day are in grand use for illustrat- 
ing gospel truth and in keeping Christians at 
home informed and sympathetic. 

What would have been the status of Japan 
to-day if one-half of the people girls, wives, 
and mothers had been left untouched by influ- 
ences from Christendom? What, if from the 
first, in 1859, they had not had, with their 
brothers, equal hope in the gospel ? Certainly 
the new Christian 'woman and the Christian 
home, with all that these mean for the future 
of Japan, would not have been. 

Surveying the subject historically, we see 
that with Dr. and Mrs. Brown in 1859, Miss 
Caroline Adriance of the Reformed Church 
came out, at her own charges, to teach the 
good news of God to Japanese women. The 
way was not then opened, and she crossed to 
China, where she died. Honor to her, the 
pioneer 1 

To Miss Mary E. Kidder, now Mrs. E. R. 
Miller, belongs the honor of being the first un- 
married woman who in 1869 came to Japan 
with the express idea of being a missionary 
teacher, and succeeded because the time was 
ripe. In 1875 her school had grown into the 



216 UX GHRISTUS 

Ferris Seminary at Yokohama, which entered 
on a glorious and still active career. One of 
the officers of the Woman's Union Missionary 
Society, Mrs. Mary Pruyn, a widow of great 
intellectual and executive ability, went out with 
Miss Julia N. Crosby and Mrs. L. H. Pierson 
to organize a school intended primarily for the 
benefit of Eurasian children of Yokohama and 
the seaports. They arrived June, 1871. In Oc- 
tober, 1872, the well-known American Mission 
Home at 212 Bluff, Yokohama, was opened here. 
On Sunday nights in one room would be a 
prayer meeting full of English-speaking people, 
both mercantile and military, the sailors of the 
merchant marine, the red-coated British sol- 
diers from the camp, and the blue-jackets from 
the men-of-war. In another room, Dr. Samuel 
Robbing Brown, founder of the first Protestant 
Christian School in China and of the first 
women's college in the United States, would be 
teaching the Bible to scores of attentive Japan- 
ese, or Okuno would be preaching one of those 
sermons that seemed to show that the Japanese 
language had been so baptized by the Holy 
Spirit as to become a new tongue. Mrs. Pruyn 
toiled here for a decade, Mrs. Pierson for 
twenty-five years. 

It was soon seen, however, that the better line 
of work for the new woman missionaries was the 
Christian education of Japanese girls. Work 
therefore among the daughters of the land soon 
began and has continued with mighty benefit 
and blessing to this day. More than once, girls 



WOZK FOR WOMAN 217 

on declaring for their Saviour were disowned by 
their families and suffered persecution. 

Reinforcements from the English-speaking 
Nations. While a solitary exile pioneer of 
education in Pukui, during feudalism's last year 
of 1871, the writer never met a missionary, 
though he saw native Christians borne off to 
prison, but when living in Tokio, in 1878, he 
joined with others in welcoming there three 
women who came out under the American Pres- 
byterian Board and started the Graham Semi- 
nary for young women January, 1874. This 
foundation has since been incorporated in the 
Joshi Gakuin, a fine school with two hundred 
pupils. The American Congregational Churches, 
in beginning work for women, were represented 
by Miss Eliza Talcott and Miss J. E. Dudley, 
who arrived March, 1873. They joined the 
mission at Kobe, where at that time a former 
feudal baron of Sanda was living with his 
family. Full of ideas of progress, this ex- 
daimio encouraged these peaceful invaders and 
soon, in company with Ms mother and sister, 
one of the American women visited the castle 
town. They spent several months in the place 
and began meetings for women, some of whom 
soon opened their lips in prayer. In October, 
1875, the Kobe Girls" School, since developed 
into Kobe College, was established and has done 
a grand work* Other churches in America took 
up women's work for women, sending out their 
ablest representatives. Miss Ellen G. Eddy, 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, opened a 



218 DUX CHRISTUS 

Girls' School in Osaka in November, 1874, and 
Miss Dora E. Schoonmaker, of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, in part of an old temple, at 
Mita, Tokio, and after her Miss Higgins, at 
Yokohama ; Miss Anna H. Kidder and Miss 
Clara Sands of the Baptist Mission, the former 
in Tokio, the latter in Yokohama, initiated ser- 
vice for their Japanese sisters. The Mary L. 
Colby School at Yokohama, known as the Truth- 
seeking Girls' School, and the Sarah Curtis 
School in Tokio are in active operation. 

Although the English Church Missionary So- 
ciety entered the field later in point of time, 
they now outnumber with their workers any 
of the other societies. In 1888 Mrs. Julia Tris- 
tram and Miss Tapson came out, and with these, 
under the one Church Society, several others 
have cooperated. 

The Christian Woman's Task in Japan. What 
was, what is, the Christian woman's task in 
Japan ? To answer this, let us look at the situ- 
ation. Uncover the pleasing surface of things 
Japanese, and immediately the aptitude and 
necessity of the Master's words become appar- 
ent, " Cleanse first the inside." Outwardly 
in Japanese human nature, all is charm, beauty, 
gentleness, politeness. Inwardly are foulness 
and corruption, with plenty of sin both original 
and imported. First of all, there is the language 
which is saturated with insincerity. The Jap- 
anese tongue is not noted for brutal frankness, 
nor, on the other hand, is it the easiest in which 
to speak the truth. Its very structure tends to 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 219 

deception, obliging you to say what you do not 
feel or believe. Behind its two thousand years 
of growth is the atmosphere of paganism, super- 
stition, low ideals of family life, of personal 
purity and chastity, with next to nothing of a 
sense of sin. There is no fifty-first psalm, or 
anything like it, in all the range of the national 
literature. Some foreigners indeed say that the 
Japanese, as a nation, are destitute of any true 
conception of chastity. This, to say the least, 
is a harsh and hazardous assertion. Neverthe- 
less it is true that what is outwardly sweet and 
winsome is often inwardly unclean. Further- 
more behind customs, manners, politeness, as 
spotlessly fair as a whited sepulchre, stand the 
hoary institutions of polygamy, concubinage, 
legalized prostitution, brutality based on the 
sword, and that long reign of Confucianism 
which conceives of woman with infinite con- 
tempt, and it was Confucianism that for cen- 
turies moulded Japanese morals. Under the 
power of priestcraft, which laid its iron hand 
upon the whole life of woman from the cradle 
to the grave, the notions and practices of idola- 
try and witchcraft became universal. Social 
evils of the worst form, including infanticide, 
gambling, the sale and slavery of daughters for 
vilest purposes, divorce of the wife for frivolous 
reasons, the single standard of marital fidelity, 
making the woman always the sinner, a litera- 
ture, popular art, and ways of pleasure degraded 
by obscenity, were rampant in the pre-Christian 
days, 



220 DUX CHEISTUS 

In this twentieth century, in law, society, and 
custom, in the abolition or suppression of the 
Tile, and the general change in favor of human- 
ity, decency, and morals, the change is so great, 
that tourists, well equipped with the colored 
glasses furnished by literary oculists, become 
so smitten with the glamour that they imagine 
things in Japan were always thus. Little do 
they think how a new atmosphere has been 
created. The readers of Loti, Hearn, Arnold, 
know not that the native lawmakers have had 
their eyes anointed with Christian eye-salve, so 
that they see as those nations see that have been 
lifted up by the gospel. To the creation of this 
new moral climate native and foreign women, 
moved by the love of Christ, have nobly con- 
tributed by their work and lives. Women from 
Christian lands gave object lessons ; they taught 
with love, patience, and gentleness for years. 
"Let her own works praise her in the gates." 

" Cleanse first the inside " is what the wise 
teachers do. They are not anxious to alter 
names, innocent customs, or anything good. It 
is the life which they seek to uplift, to instil a 
high, ideal of womanly purity and honor, to cast 
out the devils of superstition and evil craft, to 
relax the grip of the pagan priest, and to build 
up womanhood according to the ideals of Christ 
Jesus. They know well the expulsive power 
of new affections. Nobly have they succeeded. 

Signal Instances of Success. Some signal in- 
stances in personality, methods, and institutions 
have been and are still in the Master's service. 



WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 221 

On the bluff at Yokohama stand edifices that 
are as cities set upon a hill, which are like 
mighty power stations. These are pulsing thrills 
of light in Japanese moral darkness, making 
incandescent glow in thousands of homes from 
which idols are abolished. They are furnishing 
the motor force which propels the cars of prog- 
ress. After a "third of a century hundreds ot 
aluinnte, in every path of service and in Chris- 
tian households, are helping make a brighter 
and happier new Japan. At Kobe, in Tokio, 
in Himeji, in a score of places, the bread of 
sacrifice and toil is being cast upon the waters. 
What was once like a handful of corn on the 
tops of the mountains, is now fruit shaking like 
Lebanon. Not only in the capital, large cities, 
and seaports, but in many an inland town the 
lamps of wise virgins are burning and there is 
gospel oil well supplied by consecrated women. 
Japanese girlhood is being transformed, and the 
home is being won for Christ. The maiden of 
modern Japan is living in a new world of ideas 
and aspirations, a world that is grander and in 
every way more glorious than that in which her 
mother moved. Her heart beats in sympathy 
not only with the history, experience, and wisdom 
of her own native land, but with the common 
heritage of all Christian nations. Pantheism, 
which made personality a cipher, is passing away 
as a vapor, and educated in the idea of one God 
and Father, she thrills with the consciousness 
of her birthright in Christ Jesus, and of her own 
worth and personality in the making of the 



222 DUX CHRISTUS 

nation. By her richer and more beautiful life, 
she is changing man's traditional qpinion of 
womanhood, because the educated Christian girl 
makes a wife that is a true helpmeet for her 
husband, whether he toils and aspires for 
honor and country, or, in larger vision and 
ever more earnest service, builds up a Chris- 
tian home. 

Courage of Japanese Inquirers, Even now, 
in regions remote from centres of Christian cul- 
ture, courage is required for a Japanese woman 
to come to the meetings of what, by popular 
tradition and family training, was so long asso- 
ciated with sorcery and deviltry. For centu- 
ries, mothers in Japan frightened their children 
with the name of Jesus as if it were that of a 
demon, for did not the law, both of Rome and 
of Japan, make Christ an outlaw ? In addition 
there was the great barrier of social custom 
against public gatherings of any kind for women 
held inside of houses. By sad contrast, the 
temple festivals, long moonlight night dances, 
and other assemblies not calculated to improve 
good morals, were open to them. Not a few 
of the oversensitive, in order to escape notice, 
came, like Nicodemus, by night to inquire into 
matters of religion. Yet, as a rule, education 
and intellect were on the side of spiritual prog- 
ress. The young government officers encour- 
aged their wives and daughters to be present 
at prayer meetings and to put themselves un- 
der the instruction of Christian women. In 
the first churches of Japan men were in the 



WOMAN'S WOES: FOE WOMAN 223 

great majority, and most of these were samurai 
or gentry; but gradually the women member- 
ship increased, and some of the very women 
who once ignorantly blasphemed the name of 
the Saviour were seen sitting in adoring love 
at his table. 

Workers in Many Fields. As the field and 
outlook broadened and work developed, more 
helpers were needed and rich experiences were 
gained. By 1882 as many foreign women as 
there had been years in the century had arrived 
on the soil, of whom two-thirds were active at 
their posts. 

Of the nearly three hundred foreign women, 
workers now in Japan, about one-half are di- 
rectly and the other half indirectly engaged in 
influencing the people to Christian living. Be- 
sides these, there are over two hundred wives 
of missionaries, more or less active in propagat- 
ing the gospel truths by the Word, the life, and 
the home. Their method of work varies, but their 
great aim is to build up Christian homes and de- 
velop Christian character. Many of them spend 
most of their time in the schoolroom. They 
also keep the school graduates in their eye 
and thought, helping them by wise counsel to 
make real, by actual sacrifice at home, the 
schoolgirl's vision of a higher womanhood. 
Christians at home, in studying the missionary 
situation, must remember the parable of the 
leaven hid, as well as that of the mustard-seed 
phenomenal. Jesus taught two lessons of the 
kingdom's life and growth as concerning what 



224 DUX CSHISTUS 



was inward and visible but not powerful, as 
well as what could be measured by the eye. 

The kindergarten, under Christian teachers, 
is a superb means of influencing the receptive 
minds of childhood. Even the mill-hands in 
crowded factories are not forgotten. The tour- 
ing system, by which Christian women spend a 
month or more at a time in visiting people of 
the country churches, enables the women reared 
under two different worlds of thought and life 
to know and understand each, other better. 
This work is as delightful as it is wearisome, 
and, like all noble things, very difficult but 
amply repaying. Blessed be, effective is, this 
work of the Christian women of the West, 
which on the social side is powerfully leaven- 
ing the most Eastern of nations. Some of the 
native churches support and send out Bible 
women, who do varied service, in some cases 
scarcely second to that of the pastor. 

A Glance at Results. Looking at results", we 
can see that there are to-day, instead of the 
twenty or so, of three decades ago, about forty- 
five thousand members of Protestant Christian 
churches in Japan. Of these, probably most 
are acquainted with their Bibles and live 
earnest and fruitful Christian lives. In not a 
few cases, it was the desire to know the Scrip- 
tures that stimulated illiterate wives and 
daughters to learn their letters. Not infre- 
quently the weekly church prayer meetings are 
conducted by women, who in addition have 
special gatherings for prayer, arranged and con- 



WOMAN'S WORK FOE WOMAUT 225 

ducted by women, their numbers running often 
into the hundreds. With tact and persistency, 
the new women of Christian Japan carry out 
works of benevolence and charity, pay church 
debts, and keep the sacred edifices in repair. 
Thus directly, or indirectly, non-Christian girls, 
and women, who are yet unable for social reasons 
to meet openly with Christians, are helped to 
spiritual inquiry and conformity to Christian 
models. Every year sees new doors of useful- 
ness opened, but the area of untouched society 
is yet very large. With the increase of material 
prosperity and of members on the church rolls, 
there is even more call to the -workers for con- 
secration, prayer, toil, and unselfishness. 

The Gospel in Country Places. Jesus said, 
" Go out into the highways." Most honorable 
is the self-effacing service of the teacher, physi- 
cian, or nurse, who, among the Ainos of Yezo, 
or mountain tribes of Formosa, serves her 
Master in complete isolation from civilized life. 
Almost as noble in self-denying exile are the 
ministering women who work alone in the 
country districts of Japan proper. A native 
Christian once said of such a missionary's visit : 
" It was like the revolving light on Oshima. 
It leaves us in darkness after one flash of light, 
but we learn by that how to steer until it turns 
us the bright side again." The strong woman, 
when willing* can do this work, carrying God's 
good news to man as Jesus did, on foot ; for 
every year there are more and more Christians 
and inquirers scattered along each route of 



226 DUX CHEISTUS 

travel. In opening new lines of endeavor, the 
gospel ontruns even the railways ; yet a place 
once visited must be visited again. These fresh 
inquirers, " glad to hang on your eyelids," may 
want to be Christians and united into a church. 
" They are the leaven of the country, but bread- 
makers know that leaven must be cared for 
and kept warm if it is expected to work." No- 
where more than among these country folk can 
one realize that the gospel really is the good 
news of God. Those who are not yet Chris- 
tians carry the tidings back into the mountains 
and hamlets, and talk it over their campfires, or 
around the square hole in the middle of the 
floor, which serves as the home hearth. There 
is no greater joy in missionary life than telling 
the new story of God's love to simple-hearted 
dwellers in the country. 

Women are intensely social. " In the world, 
a friend ; in travelling, a companion," is their 
proverb. It is rare that you can find one of 
them who will study alone, but she will gladly 
do so with a friend. When she cannot read, 
personal talk with her is the handiest weapon 
with which to put down prejudice, because it 
raises no question as to whether she can read 
or not, an inquiry which is embarrassing to the 
illiterate. Happily in Japan there is no caste, 
and the woman missionary is free to enter the 
homes of all classes. 

For Temperance, Purity, and Freedom. " The 
day is short, the work is great, the Master 
presses." Realizing these three elements of the 



WOMAN 9 8 WORK FOE WOMAN 227 

situation, the wise women attack the colossal 
problem with, many-sided adaptabilities. Even 
in 1854 Commodore Perry feared for the future 
of Japan because intoxicating liquor was so 
cheap. Those who would see a stalwart race in 
these islands, and wish Japan success in world 
competition, grieve to see millions of Japanese, 
both men and women, slaves to tobacco. As for 
the general licentiousness prevalent all over 
Japan and the export of her women to the ports 
of Asia, that is too well known to need comment, 
but rather attack, the fierceness of which should 
be tempered only by wisdom. The Women's 
Christian Temperance Union has made war upon 
these three forms of evil, while the Salvation 
Army has carried the war into the enemy's camp. 
The agitation thus created, with petitions to the 
Imperial Diet, and pressing for reform in the 
prefectures have produced a public opinion that 
in time will tell for the physical and moral im- 
provement of the nation. It has already struck 
off the chains from thousands of women morally 
enslaved. The work of temperance is now by 
organization, publication, and regular effort in- 
trenched as a permanent force. The abominable 
cigarette habit is regulated by law. One of the 
grandest moral triumphs of the age is seen in 
the ripening of public opinion which, expressed 
itself in a law passed by the Imperial Diet, that 
no woman should be kept in the prostitutes' 
quarters against her will. To enforce this legis- 
lation, brave men and women have risked life 
and limb, penetrating into the dens of vice to 



228 DUX CHRISTUS 

set the captives free. Though roughly handled 
by rowdies and those whose financial interests 
were at stake, they have persevered and won. 
In two years the number of unfortunate women, 
many of them sold by fathers, brothers, and 
husbands for a money consideration to lives of 
shame, decreased from 52,274 to 40,175. Chris- 
tian women have built and maintained Rescue 
Homes to aid the released, to employ, educate, 
and lift them up to holy life. Although judges 
at the bench, fearing unpopularity, still decide 
in favor of selling women, the hope is well 
founded that the worst blot on Japan's fair name 
will be removed as the tide of public opinion 
rises. Christian women have aided at " The 
Prison Gate" thousands of women just re- 
leased from behind bars ; and prison reform,, 
first introduced by missionaries, is now one 
of the methods of working in Christ's name in 
Japan. 

Among the Mill Operatives. The compara- 
tively sudden change from the feudal system to 
manufacturing and commercialism has broken 
up cottage industries and massed feminine hu- 
manity in the factories of the great cities. In 
Tokio about twenty thousand, in Osaka thirty 
thousand, and in Kioto sixty thousand girls and 
women, some as young as eight years old, toil in 
factories. Most of them work twelve hours- 
daily, and, on alternate weeks, at night as well 
as by day. Some factories are little better than 
sheds. With unsanitary surroundings and poor 
ventilation, girls in factories often die from ill* 



WOMAN'S WOKE FOE WOMAN 229 

ness caused by heat and fatigue. To the relief 
of such a situation, the church and the mission- 
aries are addressing themselves as well as to the 
creation of a public opinion that will check 
these evils at the fountain head. 



230 DUX CSRISTUS 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 
CHRISTIANITY ELEVATES WOMAX 

The second remedy that is suggested is Christianity, 
a remedy which is even now at work. Wherever one 
finds in Japan a Christian home, there one finds the -wife 
and mother occupying the position that she occupies all 
over Christendom. The Christian man, in choosing his 
wife, feels that it is not an ordinary contract, which may 
be dissolved at any time at the will of the contracting 
parties, but that it 'is a union for life. Consequently, in 
making his choice, he is more careful, takes more time, 
and thinks more of the personal qualities of the woman 
he is about to marry. Thus the chances are better at 
the beginning for the establishment of a happy home, 
and such homes form centres of influence throughout the 
length and breadth of the land to-day. 

ALICE M. BACON. 



THE ETHICS or DRESS 

According to the Japanese standard, any exposure of 
the person that is merely incidental to health, cleanli- 
ness, or convenience in doing necessary work, is perfectly 
modest and allowable ; but an exposure, no matter how 
slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree 
indelicate. . . . 

As for the ball-room, costumes, where neck and arms 
are freely exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese 
woman, who would with entire composure take her bath 
in the presence of others, would be in an agony of shame 
at the thought of appearing in public in a costume so in- 
decent as that worn by many respectable American aud 
European women. Our judgment would indeed be a 
hasty one should we conclude that the sense of decency 
is wanting in the Japanese as a race, or that the women 
are at all lacking in the womanly instinct of modesty. 

ALICE M. BACOH. 



WOMAN'S WOES: FOE WOMAN 231 

THE HOPELESSNESS OF PAGANISM 

A Japanese woman loses her beauty early. At thirty- 
five her fresh color is usually entirely gone ; her eyes have 
begun to sink a little in their sockets; her youthful 
roundness and symmetry of figure have given place to an 
absolute leanness; her abundant hair has grov^n thin; 
and much care and anxiety have given her face a pathetic 
expression of quiet endurance. One seldom sees a face 
that indicates a soured temper or cross disposition ; but 
the lines that show themselves, as the years go by, are 
lines that indicate suffering and disappointment, patiently 
and sweetly borne ; the lips never forget to smile ; the 
voice remains always cheerful and sympathetic, never 
grows peevish and worried, as is too often the case with 
overworked or disappointed women in this country. 
But youth, with its hopeful outlook, its plans, and its 
ambitions, gives way to age, with its peaceful waiting for 
the end, with only a brief struggle for its place ; and the 
woman of thirty-five is just at the point when she has 
bid good-by to her youth, and, having little to hope for 
in her middle life, is doing her work faithfully, and look- 
ing forward to an old age of privilege and authority, the 
mistress of her son's house, and the ruler of the little 
domain of home. ALICE M. BACON. 



WOMAN'S SELF-RENUNCIATION 

Woman's surrender of herself to the good of the home 
and family was as willing and honorable as the man's 
self -surrender to the good of his lord and country. Self- 
renunciation, without which no life-enigma can be solved, 
was the keynote of loyalty of man as well as of domes- 
ticity of woman. DR. INAZO ^I 



THE OLD CODE 

When a Japanese Virginia saw her chastity menaced, 
she did not wait for her father's dagger. Her own 



232 DUX CHUISTUS 



weapon lay always in her bosom. It was a disgrace to 
her not to know the proper way in which she had to 
perpetrate self-destruction. For example, little as she 
was taught in anatomy, she must know the exact spot to 
cut in her throat ; she must know how to tie her lower 
limbs together with a belt so that, whatever the agonies 
of death might be, her corpse be found in utmost modesty 
with the limbs properly composed. DR. INAZO NITOBE. 



THE CHIEF LADY or THE 

Some years ago, when the castle in Tokio was burned, 
and the emperor and empress were obliged to take refuge 
in an old daimio's house, a place entirely lacking in lux- 
uries and considerably out of repair, some one expressed 
to her the grief that all her people felt that she should 
have to put up with so many inconveniences. Her re- 
sponse was a graceful little poem, in which she said that 
it mattered little how she was situated, as long as she 
was sure of a home in the hearts of her people. That 
home which fire can never consume she has undoubtedly 
made for herself. ALICE M. BACON. 



Two EPOCHAL WOMEN 

Each [Queen Jingu of mythology, and Harnko, em- 
press] marks the beginning of a new era the first, of 
the era of civilization and morality founded upon the 
teachings of Buddha and Confucius; the second, of the 
civilization and morality that have sprung from the teach- 
ings of Christ. Buddhism and Confucianism were elevat- 
ing and civilizing, but failed to place the women of 
Japan upon even as high a plane as they had occupied 
in the old barbaric times. To Christianity they must 
look for the security and happiness which it has never 
failed to give to the wives and mothers of all Christian 
nations. ALICE M. BACON. 



WOMA&S WORE. FOE WOMAN 233 

THE PERSON DIES. THE HOUSE LIVES 

It is strange, but true, that you may often go mro a 
Japanese family and find half a dozen persons calling 
each other parent and child, brother and sister, uncle and 
nephew, and yet being really either no blood relations at 
all, or else relations assumed in quite different degrees 
from those conventionally assumed. Galton's books could 
never have been written in Japan ; for though genealogies 
are carefully kept, they mean nothing, at least from a 
scientific point of view so universal is the practice of 
adoption from the top of society to the bottom. This it 
is which explains such apparent anomalies as a distin- 
guished painter, potter, actor, or "what not, almost always 
having a son distinguished in the same line he has 
simply adopted his best pupil. It also explains the fact 
of Japanese families not dying out. 

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN. 



THE GEISHA WHAT TO Bo WITH HER? 

The geishas, unfortunately, though fair, are frail. In 
their system of education, manners stand higher than 
morals, and many a geisha gladly leaves her dancing in 
the tea houses to become the concubine of some wealthy 
Japanese or foreigner, thinking none the worse of herself 
for such an arrangement, and going cheerfully back to 
her regular work should her contract be unexpectedly 
ended. The geisha is not necessarily bad, but there is 
in her life much temptation to evil and little stimulus 
to good, so that where one life is blameless, many go 
wrong, and drop below the margin of respectability alto- 
gether. Yet so fascinating, bright, and lively are these 
geishas that many of them have been taken by men of 
good position as wives, and are now the heads of the 
most respectable homes. Without true education or 
morals, but with thorough training in all the arts and 
accomplishments that please, witty, quick at repartee, 



234 DZ7X CERISTUS 

pretty, and always well dressed, the ge'isha has proved 
a formidable rival for the demure, quiet maiden of good 
family, who can give her husband only an unsullied 
name^ silent obedience, and faithful seivice all her life. 
The freedom of the piesent age, and as seen in the choice 
of such wives, has piesented this great problem to the 
thinking women of Japan. If the wives of the leaders 
in Japan are to come from among such a class of women, 
something must be done, and done quickly, for the sake 
of the future of Japan , either to raise the standards of 
the men in regard to women, or to change the old system 
of education for girls. A liberal education and more 
freedom in early life for women has been suggested, and 
is now being tried, but the problem of the geisha and her 
fascination is a deep one in Japan. ALICE M. BACON. 



THE SAMURAI 

As the government of the land to-day lies in the hands 
of the samurai men under the emperor, so the progress 
of the women, the new ideas of work for women, are in 
the hands of the samurai women led by the empress. 
Wherever there is progress among the women, wherever 
they are looking about for new opportunities, entering 
new occupations, elevating the home, opening hospitals, 
industrial schools, asylums, there you will find the lead- 
ing spirits always of the samurai class. 

ALICE M. BACON. 



THE NATIVE CHRISTIAN WOMEN 

How do they [the Christian Japanese women] work? 
In the churches they spend much time in calling, look- 
ing up the delinquents, reading the Bible with inquirers 
or those young in the faith, visiting the sick and afflicted, 
caring for the dying and the dead, holding meetings for 
Bible study, and for mutual improvement. They are the 
servants of the church in every good work. They may 



WOMAN'S WORE: FOE WOMAN 235 

be found in both city and country, from the Hokkaido to 
Kiushiu, and one is in Honolulu. In some cases they 
have for years held together pastorless churches. In 
country work, where the church is often scattered over a 
large field, the woman lives in one centre and the pastor 
in another, both going the rounds of the different places. 
When the missionary lady comes to her in her tours, she 
makes long lists of houses to be visited, and gives an 
insight into the peculiar needs of each house, so that the 
spiritual physician may know how to adapt her medicine 
to the patient. As wives of pastors we hope and believe 
they supplement the work of their husbands, both in the 
home and in aggressive work. We have in mind some 
who, without neglecting the home, do the full woik of an 
evangelist in the ehuich, and are well spoken of by all 
who know them, 

In working with lady missionaries, these women are 
eyes and ears and hands and feet and tongues. They do 
the correspondence which the peculiarities of this lan- 
guage forbid our doing for ourselves. They get at the 
heart of the things which would never come to the ears 
of the foreigner, except through them, and bridge over 
the space, which separates her from the people, interpret- 
ing her heart to them. M. J. BARROWS. 



CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 

By the law and order of the kindergarten, by the 
cleanliness and attractiveness of the rooms, by the sun- 
shine and pure air, by the energy and diligence of their 
hours of work, by the rhythm and music, by the kindness, 
love, and cheerfulness, by the obedience and good fellow- 
ship, by the beauty and miracle of nature, by the sacred 
songs and daily prayer, by the stories from the Holy 
Word, from history, fable, and purest fiction by all 
these the ideals of the Christian faith are held up day by 
day to these little ones, and no more quickly do their eyes 
drink in the glory of the blossoms than their hearts take 
in the lessons of right living and right belief. 



236 DtfX CHRISTUS 



One of the most noted of Japanese statesmen has re- 
cently said, " It had been thought that by using superior 
ethical text-books, and by changing the system of teach- 
ing, the whole nation would be transformed, but suddenly 
disclosures are made, which show that the ethical reform 
is a mere make-believe, and that low principles and cor- 
ruption prevail almost everywhere." A. L. HOWE. 

I shall not argue for the benefits of Christian missions. 
I will, however, cite certain instances to show the moral 
standing of the masses, and to explain what heathenism 
really means. Teaching as I did in a Government school 
of five hundred pupils, there were naturally rare oppor- 
tunities of studying the inner life of the people. I once 
gave this subject for essays, " The Noblest Thing I ever 
Heard of." I wished to discover the ideals of Japanese 
boys, What things do they deem noble and good and 
true ? Who are their heroes ? What are their best views 
of life? The China-Japan War had just closed. . . . 
When Admiral Ting's fleet was surrounded, he surren- 
dered it promptly enough, but he felt that it would be a 
supreme disgrace to his Majesty the Emperor of China 
to have one of his highest officials, Ting himself, fall into 
the hands of the enemy. Ting, therefore, killed himself, 
out of respect to the Emperor. 

What would have been the feelings of the North for 
Robert E. Lee, if, rather than share the fate of the gallant 
men he had surrendered, he had committed suicide from 
a sense of devoted patriotism ? STorth and South would 
have alike despised him. And yet nine out of ten of my 
Japanese boys wrote of the suicide of Admiral Ting as 
the noblest thing of which they had ever heard. If a 
suicide is their ideal, and if hara-kiri is the best thing 
they know, what shall we suppose is the worst? . . . The 
system of ethics teaches that, next to the State, one owes 
duty to his parents. This has a pleasant enough sound ; 
Japanese filial piety is a very attractive phrase indeed. 
But here is an illustration of what it sometimes appears 
in practice. Just after we landed, the newspapers were 
full of the story of an ignorant peasant in the interior, 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 

who was greatly troubled in mind by the fact that his 
aged mother seemed to be losing her sight. He tried 
many remedies, but in vain. Then he sought the assist- 
ance of his religion. He went to a priest, perchance to 
a so-called wizard, and asked for advice on the subject. 
Filialism being vital, the oracle inquired, " Are you will- 
ing to do anything to save your mother's sight that the 
gods may require ? " " Yes," the poor man said, " I am." 
Then the hideous answer came, " Feed her a human live**, 
and her sight will be restored." A very shrewd answer, 
one would say, because it could not be obeyed. . . . The 
only possibility of testing the fiendish remedy was by 
slaying one of his own household. He had but one child, 
a mere babe. His love for his child was great. This 
man, however, was more than a father, he was a religious 
devotee. . . . One night he took his sleeping child out 
into the little garden and was about to slay it with a 
knife. In some way the mother heard and understood. 
She begged the man to spare the child. He told her of 
the words of the oracle ; he reminded her of the supreme 
demands of filial piety and, while she agreed with him in 
the theory, her mother love was stronger than anything 
else and she implored him to spare her child. The man 
was inexorable. " Oh," she said at last, " if the gods 
must be obeyed, take me, but spare my baby." At length 
he yielded to her request. The wife died at her hus- 
band's hands and the gods were satisfied. 

Is it not a fearful thing to see one of the holiest feel- 
ings of humanity, this sentiment of filial piety, made into 
a horror at which devils well might shudder? But the 
strangest part of my story is yet to come. I said that 
nine out of ten of my pupils wrote of the suicide of Ad- 
miral Ting as the noblest thing of which they had ever 
heard. One of them, however, actually chose the deed 
that has just been described not the self-sacrifice of the 
mother, but the inhuman sacrifice on the part of the hus- 
band and father. From "Japan To-day," by SCHERER. 

An eminent Japanese Confucianist, in his famous 
treatise on "The Whole Duty of Woman," delights in 



DUX CSEISTUS 

deliverances such as these : The five worst maladies that 
afflict the female mind are, indocility, discontent, slan- 
der, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt these five 
maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, 
and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women 
to men. Woman's nature, in comparison with man's, is as 
the shadow to the sunlight Hence, as viewed from the 
standard of man's nature, the foolishness of woman fails 
to understand the duties that lie before her very eyes, 
perceives not the actions which will bring down blame 
upon her own head, and comprehends not even the things 
that will bring down calamities on the heads of her hus- 
band and children. Such is the stupidity of her char- 
acter that it is incumbent on her, in every particular, to 
distrust herself and to obey her husband. 

From ''Japan To-day," by SOBERER. 

The teachings of Confucius, as recorded by an eminent 
Japanese Confucianist, state these iv Seven Reasons for 
Divorce " : 

1. A woman shall be divorced for disobedience to her 
father-in-law or mother-in-law. 

2. A woman shall be divorced if she fail to bear chil- 
dren, the reason for this rule being that women are sought 
in marriage for the purpose of giving men posterity. 

3. Lewdness is a reason for divorce. 

4. Jealousy is a reason for divorce. 

. Leprosy or any like foul disease is a reason for 
divorce. 

6. A woman shall be divorced who, talking over much 
and prattling disrespectfully, disturbs the harmony of 
kinsmen and brings trouble on her household. 

7- Stealing is a reason for divorce. 

It is little wonder that the disciples of such men hold 
women in unutterable contempt 

From "Japan To-day," by SCHERER. 



WOMAN'S WOES: FOR WOMAN 239 



THEMES FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 

I. The Position of Woman under Shinto, Buddhism, 

Confucianism. 
II. The Story of the Earliest Missionary Interest in 

Japan. 

HI. Woman in Japanese Literature. 
IV. Woman in Japanese History. 
Y . Japanese Love of Beauty. How it may be Utilized 

for Religion. 

VI. The Beginnings of Christian Art. 
VH. The Grip of Priestcraft, from the Cradle to the 

Grave. 

VIII. Foreign Society at the Seaports. Its Influence. 
IX. The Nine Female Mikados. 
X. Japanese Woman in the JBye of the Law. 
XI. The Real Japanese Woman vs. the Geisha, and in 

Fiction. 
XII. The Pagan and the 'Christian Home in Japan. 

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 

A. M. Bacon. "Japanese Girls and Women." Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 

A. M. Bacon. "A Japanese Interior/' Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 

A. C. Hartshorne. "Japan and Her People." Porter & 
Coates. 

E. S. Morse. " Japanese Homes and Their Surround- 
ings." Harpers. 

E. R. Scidmore, " Jinrikisha Days in Japan." Harpers. 

H. Eraser. " Letters from Japan." The Macmillan Co. 

M. S. Bramhall. " Wee Ones of Japan." Harpers. 

I. B. Bishop. "Unbeaten Tracks jn Japan." G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 

SMgerai. "A Japanese Boy." New Haven. G. B. 
Sheldon & Co. 

J. A. Scherer. " Japan To-day." J. B. Lippincott Co, 

N. Tamuxa. " The Japanese Bride." Harpers. 



CHAPTER VI 

FORCES IK THE CONFLICT 

A Semi-centennial of Gratitude. Fifty years 
after the opening to the world of the empire 
of Japan by the treaty of Commodore Perry, 
the anniversary was joyfully celebrated in To- 
kio in the hall of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. At this meeting veteran states- 
men, Japanese and English-speaking Christians, 
in large numbers, were present, packing the hall 
to its full capacity. The speeches of Hon. S. 
Shimada and Count Okuma, the one the pupil of 
Dr. Brown and the other of Dr. Verbeck, called 
attention to the debt of gratitude which Japan 
owed to America for Perry and Harris, and for 
the great courtesy of the American people to 
the first Japanese embassy of 1859. It was de- 
clared that one reason why Japan, unlike China, 
was free from " religious troubles," such as 
conflicts between adherents of Christianity and 
non-converts, was owing to many causes, but 
especially to one; namely, "the superior per- 
sonal character of those who first represented 
Occidental civilization in the fields of reli- 
gion and education " in Japan, of whom some 
were mentioned by name. " Japan," said the 
first speaker, "has definitely identified her- 

240 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 241 

self with the Anglo-Saxon type of civilization 
which was characterized by its love of free- 
dom, equality, and progress." Count Okuma, 
the second speaker, showed how necessary for 
the success of Christian missions it was, that not 
only the pioneers, but also their successors, should 
be persons of high moral and intellectual char- 
acter. It was largely through the embassy of 
1859 to the United States that English instead 
of Dutch became the standard foreign language, 
which has had such a far-reaching effect 
on the mental bias of the Japanese people, 
and the character of the national development. 
Then Bishop McKim proposed the formation 
of a Perry Memorial Relief Fund, in aid of 
the destitute families of Japanese sailors and 
soldiers. Over sixty-three thousand yen were 
raised on the spot. The meeting closed with 
Banzai (long live) and cheers, for Mikado and 
President, and singing of the hymn sung at 
Sabbath worship on Perry's flag-ship fifty years 
ago, " Before Jehovah's awful throne," and 
the national Japanese anthem. Thus was cele- 
brated the fiftieth anniversary of international 
friendship. Other similar associations for relief 
were formed by foreigners in Japan. 

Japan's Spiritual Poverty. " Charity is be- 
yond the pale of politics." In this spirit we 
survey the past and look to the future of the 
new life upon which Japan has entered. Her 
competition with other nations and types of 
civilization will be not only economic and 
military, as it is in this epoch of struggle with 



242 x>rrx QERISTUS 



Russia, but on the nobler heights of moral 
excellence also. To maintain her career it will 
be necessary for Japan to draw, not only upon 
all her own resources, but to develop new forces 
and summon into existence new potencies. 
Ignoring political, military, and economic ques- 
tions, let us survey the situation from the view- 
point of morals and religion. 

How pitiful to think that the Japanese as a 
people have no God, and that many, in their 
ignorance and pride, think that they can get 
along without Him. The soldier, leaving na- 
tive land and home, to face death and eternity, 
can go to no divine Father to seek strength, 
He can only visit the graves of his fathers, or 
before an idol offer sacrifice. Even the rulers 
of the land pray only to that vague bundle of 
laws and forces called " Heaven." First of all, 
beyond locomotives, steamships, or gunpowder, 
the Japanese need God and real religion. As a 
native editor sadly writes, even after Japan had 
her constitution and Imperial Diet, " We have 
imported a great political machine, but w have 
not the moral oil to make it work." 

No splendor of modern civilization in Japan, 
in this day, after forty years of the diffusion of 
Christian influences, should blind the student 
of truth to the awful facts of Japanese paganism 
as they were in 1859, when the missionaries 
first arrived, nor to the spiritual destitution 
of to-day* Vice, crime, cruelty, disease, and 
wickedness in high and low places ran rampant. 
Superstition had reached terrible proportions. 



FOECES IN THE CONFLICT 243 

A thousand years of oppression by the'sword, 
while developing a ruling minority of soldiers, 
had made the majority of the people menial in 
spirit and cringing in attitude. 

About one-tenth of the population, paying no 
taxes or tolls, lived upon the sweat and labor of 
the working classes. About four hundred 
thousand men wore each a brace of sharp 
swords, which were used all too freely. These 
two-sworded gentlemen were too often ruffians 
and looked with contempt upon merchants and 
traders. Probably a million people, called eta 
and fd-nin, were considered below humanity. 
"Horses and beggars" washed in one pooL 
" Brutes, dogs, and women " was the reading of 
many a prohibition at holy places. Gambling 
that kept gangs of men naked even in winter, 
beggary that filled the highroads with filthy 
and diseased importunates, disease that made 
sickening sights and often left long unburied 
carcasses in the road, were among things com- 
mon and seen by the writer in 1870. The 
obscenity of thought, word, and deed in com- 
mon life, in the popular literature, together 
with pubHc exhibitions of vileness even in the 
celebrations of religious functions, was startling. 
The standard of ethics between the sexes seemed 
in many ways to be below that of the Indians. 
There was among all classes little or no concep- 
tion of right for the sake of right. If it were 
of advantage to be honest, a man was honest. 
If dishonesty seemed a benefit, a man was dis- 
honest. The pagan festivals, temple taxes, and 



244 DUX CHRISTUS 

assessments kept hundreds of thousands of 
priests, monks, nuns, and their hangers-on in 
comparative idleness. An enormous amount of 
land "was owned by the temples and monasteries, 
and the revenues were spent in luxury by the 
priests of the hierarchy. The laws were exces- 
sively cruel and the punishments revolting. A 
common sight was that of heads cut off and 
exposed on pillories or set on posts, strapped on 
with iron and by nails driven into the skull. 
Witnesses were examined under torture, and the 
jails were cold and filthy. The Chinese theory 
that an accused man is guilty until he proves 
himself innocent was and is the rule. Disease 
of the foulest sort was prevalent and but 
slightly checked. The classes were marked off 
by rigid costume and severe sumptuary laws. 
In a word, not to multiply details, here were 
the Middle Ages with paganism rampant. 
While many evils were due to bad government 
and to hermit isolation, most of them could be 
set down to human sin and selfishness. Even 
in art there was no conception of the value of 
humanity as such, and sympathy for the lowly 
and suffering seemed lacking in the Japanese 
character. 

The Absence of a Just Sense of Personality. 
Down at the bottom, what real worship the 
Japanese had was ancestor worship. The sense 
of personality and of individuality, always weak 
where paganism rules, even yet makes the 
Japanese very anxious to preserve " the house," 
"the name," the blood line rather than the 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 245 

person or the reality. One may often ask of a 
native near his home, with the Japanese words 
but in our idea, "How long have you lived 
here ? " and get the innocent, and, in the old 
view of things, a perfectly accurate answer, that 
might suggest that Methuselah was still around 
"Four or five hundred years." The house 
is everything, the individual nothing. One 
must ask, " How long have you, yourself, only, 
lived here ? " to get the answer that reality and 
appearances would suggest. A Japanese man 
looks with horror on his name or his house dis- 
appearing. " Why didn't Washington adopt a 
son, and save his house from dying out," asked 
a gentleman of Nippon of an American mission- 
ary, while of the writer one inquired, u Do the 
Americans worship Washington ? " So long as 
the Japanese keep up ancestral sacrifices, which 
they borrowed from the Chinese, they will be 
Oriental and like those from whom the)" bor- 
rowed, and not truly a modern, progressive 
people. One reason why so much of Japanese 
family and so-called national history is worth- 
less, is because, in examining it, we are dealing 
with so many mere names and shadows and not 
with things, persons, and realities. In most 
official books and history, "lineage," "geneal- 
ogy," " succession," " generation," mean next to 
nothing to a critical Western reader. We re- 
peat it with emphasis, that so long as the Japan- 
ese cling to this system, for which Buddhism and 
Chinese notions are so largely responsible, they 
not be recognized either by courts, scholars, 



246 DUX CHRISTU8 

or Christian people generally as intellectual or 
social equals. It is impossible to feel sympathy 
with or go into mourning for relatives, whether 
plebeian or imperial, who are such in name only. 
In a word, common honesty will improve both 
the commercial and the social reputation of any 
nation. 

The Moral Conflict. In the battle for Christ 
and his righteousness which the Japanese Chris- 
tians, aided by their friends and fellow-servants 
of Jesus from lands afar, are fighting, there are 
already arrayed the multitudinous forces of 
both light and darkness. Atheism, paganism, 
agnosticism, pride and conceit, false patriotism, 
intemperance, prostitution, lying, licentiousness, 
and manifold phases of evil confront holy zeal, 
purity, faith, chastity, truth, and the spirit and 
forms of righteousness in the individual, the 
family, and the nation. Nevertheless, there is 
abundant ground for hope, when we make sur- 
vey of the progress made since the whistle of 
the American steamers awoke old Japan out of 
her hermit sleep. So far from being jealous 
of the Japanese doing so much for themselves, 
let us rejoice and give thanks to G-od that 
instead of collision there have been ever grow- 
ing new resultants of forces, and that so much 
good has been wrought even though not in the 
name of Christ. The day will come yet when 
the Japanese, instead of ascribing results and 
giving all praise to earthly rulers and ancestors, 
will, with even increase of personal loyalty to 
their supreme ruler and obedience to the magis- 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 247 

trate, give all glory to the King Eternal, to 
whom it belongs. Year by year the Japanese 
are outgrowing their narrow notions and insular 
character, and none but the God of the whole 
earth will suffice for them and us. As con- 
ceit melts away, deceit and self-deception will 
follow. 

The Christian Home. Nowhere are the re- 
sults of Christianity more evident than in the 
home. It is out of this spring that true national 
life flows. Jn the Christian home in Japan 
love and light rule. The sword is no longer 
the symbol of power here. Instead of a father 
who is a despot, overawing wife-, children 
and various adopted kin, by both legal and 
brute force, we have one whose rule is in love. 
Authority is tempered by wisdom, and a sense 
of responsibility to the Eather, after whom every 
fatherhood is named. The old idols, on the shelf, 
and in the alcove or ancestral tablet room, are 
gone. The degrading and debasing supersti- 
tions are forgotten and die from being untaught. 
Though respect is paid to the Japanese law, now 
based on the Code Napoleon, modified by native 
custom, the Christian Japanese family is one 
more like the institution of the same name 
in Christendom. The names father, mother, 
brother, sister, wife, child, and indeed the whole 
vocabulary of household duty and relation, have 
attained a new depth and perspective of power 
and meaning, while approaching the New Testa- 
ment standard. Even the language has been 
in part transformed by the indwelling of a new 



248 DlfX CHEISTUS 

spirit. There is much less of habitual and in- 
sincere flattery by syntax, prefix, and suffix, 
with less, also, of degrading and disgusting 
insinuation. The grovelling, deceitful, and oft 
spoken but unmeant subordination is much 
less noticeable than of old. " A man's a man for 
a' that " is getting to be more and more the 
fact accepted and believed. In old Japan the 
steps and grades of human and social value 
were numerous. Instead of less politeness, 
there is more Christian courtesy. Speech is 
less fulsome and also less degrading. The 
Christian husband, for example, does not speak 
of his wife as does the pagan, and he rightly 
defies a brutish custom that may do for Con- 
fucian China or Brahman India, but not for the 
new Japan. Marriage is according to Chris- 
tian form and is maintained in the Christian 
spirit, which means closer spiritual equality 
between man and wife, and greater helpfulness. 
It is not the relation of master and servant, or 
of " positive and negative,* 5 so much as comrade- 
ship, the one being " help meet " for the other. 
Reared in such an atmosphere, the children 
become new beings in character and out- 
look. 

The Larger Patriotism. The strongest forces 
in all Japanese history are reverence for the 
Mikado and patriotism founded upon the na- 
tional history and tradition. The delicate task 
of our fellow-workers for Christ in Japan is to 
show that Christianity knows no Asiatic or 
European, and has nothing to do with American, 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 249 

Englishman, Russian, or Japanese, as such, but 
is for need} 7 and sinful man, for Jesus is the 
Saviour of all that believe. On the other hand, 
there is nothing in Christianity, which, rightly 
interpreted and applied, conflicts with anything 
that is morally beautiful in the Japanese family 
or national life. All attempts of the pagans 
to bolster up Shinto, Buddhism, or Confucian- 
ism, as the religion for educated men, or to point 
out any real animosity between the teachings 
of Jesus and sound ethics, are doomed to failure. 
It is hard for men who have been so long hermits 
and whose minds are unphilosophical and matter- 
of-fact, to grasp the high ideals of Christ, or to 
give up the idea that Japan is the one centre of 
the universe ; but the light will dawn in spite 
of their fortified ignorance. For various reasons 
there have been ebb and flow, action and reaction, 
in the remaking of pagan into Christian Japan. 
The best missionaries do not observe the clouds 
but keep on sowing the seed. They hold out- 
ward influences less and preach and follow 
Christ more in both word and work. 

Untruthfulness. Let us note the influences 
that are hostile to pure religion. There is the 
national love of untruthfulness, for it may be 
said that love of truth for its own sake is not 
the characteristic of the natural man anywhere, 
and the blush of shame is not yet, even in this 
"nation of artists," the usual concomitant of 
one's being caught in a falsehood- A tremendous 
revolution in language, literature, and social 
habits is necessary in order to make Japanese 



250 DUX CEEI8TU8 



reputation for truth increase, yet we are happy 
to say that such a revolution is in progress. 
Already tlie Bible and the thoughts gen- 
erated by a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures 
are powerfully affecting the common speech, 
and we believe slowly, but surely, personal 
and national character. Even the low standard 
of commercial integrity in Japan, so rank in 
the nostrils of the foreign merchant, the by- 
word of the civilized world, and in painful con- 
trast even to that of the Chinese, is improving. 
For the spirit of trickery in trade there are 
historical reasons. For centuries the trader 
was socially low. His bad repute was often 
too well deserved. Yet after all explanation 
and allowance, it is sadly true that the race to 
attain a high level of truth and honesty is even 
yet by the steps of the tortoise, rather than by 
the leaps of the greyhound. Nevertheless, the 
lesson of truth for its own sake is through sheer 
necessity being slowly learned. In freely pub- 
lishing facts and instilling lessons of frankness, 
the government of the Mikado has set a noble 
example as compared with the old secrecy, mys- 
tery, and official falsehood. 

Worldliness at the Seaports. One distinctly 
hostile influence which retards Christianity in 
Japan, and acts like perpetual winter in chill- 
ing missionary zeal and influence, is the life of 
many foreign residents at the seaports. We 
wrote, thirty years ago, concerning the inabil- 
ity of many tourists, temporary residents, and 
even old inhabitants to understand the mission- 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 251 

ary's life, work, 01 purpose : "It is hard to find 
an average 'man of the world' in Japan who 
has any clear idea of what the missionaries are 
doing or have done. Their dense ignorance 
borders on the ridiculous." The well-dressed 
people at hong, club, and dinner table, love 
dearly to catch items of stray gossip or slander 
concerning the human failings of the mission- 
aries. One woman, whose life in the East was 
wholly occupied with society functions, came 
home to tell how she had been " two years in 
Japan, and during all that time never saw one 
Japanese enter a Christian church." She had 
lived directly opposite an English church edifice, 
which Japanese do not attend, but had never 
entered nor inquired about any of the four or 
five hundred Japanese church edifices in the 
country. When in the country, I rarely heard 
of a foreign tourist or merchant going to see 
what was done by the missionaries or their 
congregations. Indeed, it is not likely that 
men whose lives are secretly or openly at 
variance with the plainest precepts of the re- 
ligion of Jesus should greatly care for what 
Christian missionaries are doing, except to op- 
pose them. Where heathen women are cheap 
and wives from home are costly, chastity is not a 
characteristic trait of the single men, nor are 
they likely to cooperate with those who would 
lift up womanhood and make it impossible for 
the Japanese to retain their low notions about 
one-half of their people. When both native 
and foreigner look upon every woman as a child 



252 DrX CHBISTVS 

of God. and therefore as a sister, the social 
atmosphere of the seaports, so often charged 
with hostility to aggressive Christianity, as 
well as the world of paganism, will have a new 
spiritual climate. 

The Honorable Christian Merchant. On the 
other hand, relieving the picture, there are the 
honorable foreign merchants with their Chris- 
tian families and the Christian churches, mak- 
ing a community in hearty sympathy with the 
propagation of the gospel. These heartily 
second all real efforts to uplift the native popu- 
lation, to aid them in time of calamity and dis- 
tress, and to save the sailor from the saloon and 
place of vice. Not a few able and broad-minded 
missionaries have done a mighty work for 
God and man in bridging the gulf, not only 
between alien and native, but between the com- 
mercial and missionary elements. At the pres- 
ent time the contrast in social order and the 
practice of holiness in the seaports of Japan 
with the early days, when the worst elements 
of paganism at home and of nominal Christen- 
dom from abroad met together, is great. Then 
drunkenness and licentiousness, dishonesty and 
mutual distrust, ran riot. American kidnappers 
sold Japanese children into slavery, the govern- 
ment supposed that even " missionaries " were 
engaged in this nefarious traffic. The gain in 
mutual brotherhood and the improvement in 
morals and religion are wonderful and are causes 
of rejoicing. 

Enemies of Missions at Home. Looking at 



FORCES IF THE CONFLICT 253 

our own home land, we note the conditions which 
make for the continuance of spiritual darkness 
in Japan. The worst enemies of missions are 
they who ignore or forget the commands of 
Christ. The}' are those so-called Christians at 
home who live in a narrow rut of spiritual ex- 
perience, who are devoid of sympathy and vision, 
whose devotion is of a shallow sort, and who 
do not want their consciences aroused or theii 
pocket-books touched. Alas that there are so 
many millions of this narrow type ! Did the 
Master describe their negative quality, when he 
spoke of salt which had lost its savor? Another 
antagonistic influence is the unfashionable- 
ness of foreign missions, which to many have 
become an old story, so that their lack of imagi- 
nation, of knowledge, and of broad human sym- 
pathy has to be overcome, and their indifference 
stirred by all the influences and means which 
prayerful enterprise can bring to bear. With 
the mad passion for wealth, display, and luxury, 
self-denial is not at a premium. The passion 
for dress, the mania for pleasure, and the organ- 
ization of amusements as an occupation instead 
of diversion, all militate against obedience to the 
spirit and letter of Christ's commands. Some- 
times this indifference to one's duty results di- 
rectly from the idle and often morbid curiosity 
of people who pretend to study Buddhism, or the 
ethnic religions. Most of these learn just about 
enough to paralyze their own faith and to make 
them dangerous to others. When the compara- 
tive study of religions is seriously attempted 



254 DUX CHEISTUS 

and most earnestly and honestly pursued, our 
conviction is that we reach a profounder appre- 
ciation of the truth which Jesus taught and 
lived. In most cases, however, to flirt with 
Asiatic systems of philosophy and idolatry is, 
for most men and women of divided mind and 
shallow feeling, only like taking so much poison 
into their systems. The half -educated Japanese 
pagans are only too ready to mistake the atten- 
tion given to their dead or dying cults, to mag- 
nify its importance, and to make more difficult 
the path of the hard- worked missionary in Japan. 

Added to these drawbacks to missionary power, 
which we have already mentioned, is another 
cause that of withholding gifts for the Chris- 
tianizing or uplifting of the Christian world and 
the spending of money too lavishly on purely 
local or selfish matters, in some Christian de- 
nominations it is a scandalous fact, that as many 
as one-half of the congregations give nothing for 
foreign missions. Did these delinquents, who 
plead poverty or u so many calls at home," but 
know and believe it, unselfish interest in their 
fellows afar, who are without Christ, often re- 
freshes and revives weak and dying churches at 
home. More than once, in the history of the 
kingdom of Christ, has interest in foreign mis- 
sions saved the situation, when error, which 
breeds spiritual paralysis, had permeated the 
churches. 

The Returned Tourist. One notable influence 
chilling missionary zeal at home comes from a 
certain type of traveller, even from those tourists, 



FORCES Z# THE CONFLICT 255 

who have returned from Japan with the glamour 
of the geisha, the beaoty of the scenery, the 
charm of art works, the pleasant impressions of 
the people and country still fresh upon them. 
Most of these smitten ones went out from their 
own land, having had previously, in all proba- 
bility, but a shallow experience of Christianity 
or knowledge of it as a world religion. With 
narrow outlook and cramped sympathies, they 
had been fed too scantily on the facts, and too 
liberally, perhaps, on the idea that the u heathen*' 
are all a dirty and rough set. When therefore 
they found instead art, refinement, a love of 
beauty, and many charming traits in the Japanese, 
and things to be desired in their country and 
civilization, there came a revulsion of feeling. 
Now, there is not one element of value in the 
social, economic, artistic, or esthetical system of 
Japan worthy of praise or imitation, which we 
could wish for a moment to lessen or destroy. 
But the ways and words of these returned people, 
even though Christians so-called, are not calcu- 
lated to make those who hear them more like 
the Master, or to help an unselfish enterprise like 
foreign missions. There are few travellers who 
spend a summer in the country, or few residents 
at the ports even for a year, who can know the 
reality of pagan Japan. Furthermore, in the 
novel, on the stage, and in the whole sensational 
literature generated by literary men who find 
Japanese women so cheap as well as so charming, 
there is bred an unwholesome malarial opinion. 
When will the day come that the Japanese will 



256 z>rx CHEISTUS 

be "ashamed that such books, as we could name 
by the half dozen, can be written. 

Pagan Conceit. On pagan ground, hurtful 
Influences ever militating against pure Chris- 
tianity spring from that conceit which, though 
not peculiar to Japanese human nature, is often 
overweening where the mind of the ignorant 
masses is not dominated by science. Living 1 on 
an island for ages and imagining themselves the 
superiors of the whole world, the Japanese are 
unable to shake off all at once the feelings 
inherited during centuries. The towering, 
almost Fuji-yama-like pride of the natives, fed 
as it is by paganism, is an enemy to the cross 
of Christ. With slight sense of sin or moral 
demerit, they find it hard to understand what 
the real religion of Jesus is, or to see in it any 
beauty that they should desire. So long, too, 
as rank and office, medals and decorations, are 
so valued in Japan, and as long as their political 
system is so permeated with influences hostile 
to spiritual humility, it will be difficult for a man 
holding office and receiving public pay to be an 
humble Christian. Many an instance is known 
of young men of promise, whose Christian careers 
were blighted by accepting a government office 
and salary. The pagans know this only too 
well, and even overwork the argument that to 
be a Christian is to be recreant to patriotism. 
N arrow-minded bigotry in this way often over- 
leaps itself, revealing also its intense insular 
conceit and pettiness of spirit. Again and again 
has it been put to confusion, when men eminent 



FOECES IN THE CONFLICT 257 

in all lines of ability and service to the sovereign 
and nation have lived and died as stalwart 
believers in evangelistic gospel and sincere 
followers of Jesus. 

Yet what we have stated is but temporary, 
and in the Christian Japan which is coming it 
will be less true. Even the conceited students and 
u scientific" men so-called, who think they can 
do without God, can be convinced by thoroughly 
trained Christian men, whose lives adorn the 
doctrines of the Lord Jesus. There are already 
in the highest departments of the government 
Christian men ; and, indeed, the number of those 
walking in the " Jesus Way," who are in influ- 
ence and power, is out of all proportion to the 
numbers of church members in the statistical 
lists. There are over one hundred and fifty 
officers in the army and navy, over a score who 
have sat in the Imperial Diet, besides leading 
judges, editors, publishers, merchants, whose 
Christian light is shining and whose colors are 
shown. Nor is there any reason why these should 
not increase, making for the stability of the 
throne, of law, and of order, and of the expan- 
sion of a great and prosperous nation that shall, 
in its future record, eclipse even the glories of 
this era of Meiji, enabling Japan, in the sharp- 
est competition with most powerful nations of 
earth, to hold her own in the general advance. 

The Freedom of Japanese Society. Happily 
there is no caste in Japan. There are grades of 
society, but there is nothing to hinder the poor- 
est commoner from becoming prime minister, 



258 Drx CH&ISTUS 

head of the army, navy, or judicial system. 
There is therefore none of that invincible apathy 
toward new life, light, or hope, which curses the 
people of some Asiatic countries. Nevertheless 
there is a strain of something like fatalism, 
which ever prevents the Japanese from becom- 
mg a truly great people, and which must be 
Eradicated* before they are fitted to become all 
they are capable of being. The common feeling 
of k *it can't be helped" is the legacy of Buddhism, 
but Christianity, with its richer hopes and surer 
truth, will drive out this too frequent cry of 
despair. Happily for Japan, as compared with 
so much of Asia, she has no foreign conquerors, 
forcing either their good or evil upon her people. 
Happily too, thanks to Townsend Harris, she 
has no opium. This Christian gentleman, who 
initiated the officers of the Shogun's government 
into the elementary principles of international 
law and custom, had a task, which, as Count 
Okuma says, "demanded as much patience as 
an attempt at coaching a primary school boy for 
a university course would demand." Thus, on 
the one hand, saved from many pitfalls in the 
path of foreign intercourse, Japan may congratu- 
late herself. On the other hand, sad to say, her 
education has been agnostic and pagan. Japan 
has tens of thousands of intellectual men who 
have broken -with their past and who scorn idols, 
but who are devoid of moral foundation, with- 
out faith and without God in the world. So 
long as the Japanese man who calls himself 
cultured cares so little for the real bases of civ- 



FORCES iy THE CONFLICT 259 

ilization, as found in the Christian religion and 
in those nobler studies, thoughts, and virtues, 
which have made the Christian nations what 
they are, there will always be an abyss between 
himself and the foreigner, which no mere meet- 
ings at the dinner table, or operations at the 
money counter, can bridge over. His economy, 
his passivity, his politeness, his industry, will 
indeed make him an interesting Oriental, clothed 
it may be in the broad world's general costume, 
but he will still be morally stunted and dwarfish 
when compared with the intellectual and spir- 
itual stature of Christian manhood. 

Solid Ground for Cheer. Looking already at 
what has been gained, there is every ground for 
hope and rejoicing. At home, despite the reign 
of luxury and selfishness, there are signs of 
promise, in an increasing perception of the 
unity of the race and the brotherhood of man, in 
a growing world-consciousness. Despite war, 
arbitration is making progress and the Palace 
of Peace at The Hague will yet have meaning 
and potency, because the international con- 
science is becoming more sensitive- The world- 
wide Christian Endeavor movement and the 
banding of young men and women in the Stu- 
dent Volunteer movement are cheering signs of 
the times. As on the world's mission field to- 
day there are workers in the fourth generation 
of missionary service, even so in Japan there 
are already children in the same length of in- 
heritance of Christian faith and ideals. Hap- 
pily the missionary movement is now linked 



260 Drx CHPJSTUS 



with education and training and backed by sys- 
tematic study and fresh information. The 
missionaries themselves form a more thoroughly 
equipped and disciplined company than in any- 
preceding period. Indeed, we may say it with- 
out challenge that, take them as a class, they 
are the most highly educated men and women 
in any profession on earth. In Japan this fact 
is being appreciated as well as apprehended. 
Nevertheless, may the missionaries of to-day 
and the future never make education or abili- 
ties the substitute for Christian character, and 
ever remember the saintliness as well as abilities 
of the pioneers, and read therein the secret of 
their influence and power. Was it not a blessed 
providence that immediately on the opening of 
the country by the Harris treaty, consecrated 
missionaries were present, to be teachers, ad- 
visers, helpers, and, being in close relation to 
the men who made the present government, 
became foster fathers of that new nation, 
which we believe is yet to be wholly Christian? 
The missionaries gave precedents and object 
lessons, not only in school, hospital, dispensary, 
but in training of young men for representative 
and parliamentary government. They led the 
way in securing the abolition of persecution, 
in the reform of licensed prostitution and the 
abolition of female slavery, while creating a new 
moral atmosphere. Yet for the full regeneration 
of the country, we must not look to the foreigner, 
whatever be his gifts or graces, but to the na- 
tives; for "Japan for the Japanese"is our cry also 



FORCES UV THE CONFLICT 2G1 

and "the Japanese for Christ" is our hope and 
prayer. Happily in the character of the con- 
verts, in the teachers, preachers, pastors, and 
leading members of the church in Japan we 
have a rich augury. As statesmen, soldiers, 
reformers, they have in practical ability shown 
themselves the equal of their non-Christian fel- 
lows, while many have stood the severest tests 
of discipleship. We have not space to tell of 
the persecutions, ridicule, sneers, and pagan op- 
position lived down, and the mighty influences 
generated for Christ in private and public life. 
In multiplying Christian homes, in transforming 
social and moral ideals, in the churches, which 
are not only self-supporting hut are missionary 
in spirit and act, giving abundantly out of their 
poverty in order to make their fellow-country- 
men Christians, and in the varied activities of 
the native home missionary societies, we see the 
coming in of the new day, while in the decay 
of the pagan system we see the passing of the 
night. 

Our Unique Time of Opportunity. The year 
in which this book goes forth, with its title 
as a prayer in brief also, Dux Christus 
may Christ be the leader of the nations, sees 
the hosts of Russia and Japan arrayed in war 
against each other. With the political issues 
we as Christians have nothing to do, and par- 
tisanship ill becomes the people of the republic 
that ma t y be called upon in future to act as 
mediator for peace between European and Ori- 
ental nations. Let us rather watch the opening 



262 DOT CERISTUS 



of the gates of opportunity and enter joyfully 
therein. For years to come, there will be all 
the more need of our prayers, sacrifices, and 
labors for Japan. A veteran missionary writes 
in May, 1904 : ^ This war means for the near 
future, months and possibly years of depleted 
church treasuries, crowded but starving orphan- 
ages, closed schools, and embarrassment in mis- 
sionary work of all kinds, unless increased help 
comes from abroad. . * . It is no time to 
talk of retrenchment. Forces and funds should 
rather be increased. The prayers and gifts 
of workers in America are needed as never 
before. . . . Stand by the missionary boards. 
. . . Remember the Japanese feeling is easily 
stirred now by the sympathy and assistance of 
foreign friends. . . . The iron is hot and a blow 
counts for much in bending to the right or the 
left. . . America has a duty to perform. I 
believe she will rise in her strength and do it." 
A pagan Japanese never forgets an injury and 
to him revenge is sweet, but on the other hand 
the Christian Japanese never forgets a kindness, 
and now is the time to build for ourselves ever- 
lasting habitations of gratitude. When the 
Mikado's ambassadors in the great embassy 
round the world in 1872 found that for several 
years, during their civil war of 1868, the 
Japanese students left without funds in Amer- 
ica were sustained by a company of Christian 
ladies and gentlemen, who, with no hope of ever 
being repaid, met all their expenses, they in a 
letter to Dr. J. H. Ferris, secretary of the 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 263 

missionary board, declared that this " gener- 
ous conduct . . . will do more to cement the 
friendly relations of the two countries than 
all other influence combined." Shall we not, 
then, instead of the order " Retrench/ 1 lift up 
the cry " Freely we have received, now let us 
freely give," and enter the five great gates of 
opportunity ? Into the evangelistic, educational, 
medical, charitable, and literary fields, may we 
bring with us what shall sustain these in their 
highest efficiency. 

The Spirit of the First Church. The declara- 
tion of those who founded the first Protestant 
Church in Japan in 1872 was this : u Our 
church does not belong to any sect whatever ; 
it believes in the name of Christ, in whom all 
are one ; it believes that all who take the Bible 
as their guide and diligently study it are the 
servants of Christ and our brethren. For this 
reason all believers on earth belong to the 
family of Christ in the bonds of brotherly 
love." Nor let us forget their spirit of self- 
support and self -propagation. We may safely 
trust the Christianity that supports itself as far 
as possible, remembering that the fifty thou- 
sand Protestant Christians in Japan gave a 
large proportion of the money which has reared 
the half million dollars* worth of church property 
already standing, and that in 1902 they raised 
over $60,000. Two Japanese missionary boards 
raise 1200 yen ($600) a year, supporting thereon 
fifteen missionaries. Eev. Paul Sawayama, the 
first Japanese pastor ordained in Japan, was 



264 DFX CERISTUS 

the pioneer of the gospel of self-support, and he 
lias had many brave followers. Can there be a 
surer test of Christian sacrifice than that of 
these Christians, who hold to the Christ and 
his Cross even when it means self-denial, 
hunger, and impoverishment? Of these self- 
supporting churches, some have a membership 
of over five hundred, and live and thrive with- 
out any foreign help in purse or pulpit. 

On the other hand, let us not forget that in 
the five hundred church edifices and in thou- 
sands of groups of believers that have no spe- 
cial building for worship, there is immediate 
and constant need of the foreign missionary 
as pastor, teacher, and provider, of the Bible 
woman who must be supported, and of the 
gifts and help from across the sea, in order to 
keep the lamp of truth brightly burning amid 
surrounding paganism, and for the training of 
the young and the maintenance, in manifold 
forms, of Christian activity. The great For- 
ward Movement, planned in 1900 and carried 
on during the Osaka Exposition of 1903, was 
national in its scope, forty-two out of forty- 
five provinces being reached. Over five thou- 
sand seekers after the way of salvation handed 
in their names as further inquirers after the 
truth in Christ. The visits of Messrs. Torrey, 
Mott, and Hale brought forward others who 
would see Jesus. These must be looked after. 
Whatever else is retrenched, the evangelistic 
work must be kept up and expanded. The 
heart of the nation is like wax and, in the 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 265 

Father's name, we must stamp it with the 
image of Christ. 

Education, Past and Present. The gateway 
of educational work must be thrown wide open 
and entered. Grand was the pioneer Neesirna, 
and his coworker Colonel Davis, who trusted 
his Japanese brother, " and they twain were of 
one purpose^ which is the meaning of the 
word Doshisha, and the Christian university 
arose. No threats of assassination or howling 
of Buddhist priests could scare the soldier of 
Christ who had smelt powder, nor could any 
warnings from America that "the Japanese 
were not to be trusted in money matters " 
daunt him. Putting the American cash and 
property under Japanese control, the school 
opened in 1875, having eight pupils and two 
teachers, and the work was consecrated with 
the tender, tearful, earnest prayer of this 
Christian samurai. Surviving all storms within 
and without, the Doshisha has graduated a regi- 
ment of Christian soldiers, most of whom to- 
day stand on the high places of usefulness, 
faithful to the Great Captain. Who can for- 
get also the work of that other Union veteran, 
President W. S. Clarke of the Agricultural 
College in Sapporo in Yezo, who, though but 
six months in that city built in the wilderness, 
shaped the future and character of bis pupils 
with an amazing potency, which still abides, 
widening and deepening. Of Ms two classes, 
thirteen of the first received baptism and nearly 
all the second class became Christians. Over 



266 DUX CHPJSTUS 

a score have since taken degrees in European 
and American universities. Among these men 
of high ideals and noble character are Dr. 
Xitobe, author of " The Intercourse between 
the United States and Japan," and - h Bushido, 
the Soul of Japan/' Uchimura, author of 
U 1he Diary of a Japanese Convert," and the 
president of the institution, Dr. Sato, who is a 
prominent man in the Methodist Church. 

Another pioneer educator was Captain L. 
L. Janes, the head of the Kuinainoto school, 
and teacher of "the Kumamoto Band," who 
was met at first by insult and glaring hatred. 
He discovered and frustrated a plot to kill him 
and his pupils, who later consecrated them- 
selves to richer Christian service. Under 
such * beginners of a better time" and more 
like them, have been educated other followers 
of Jesus, thorough patriots, who, though some- 
times severe and critical of foreign ways, are 
stalwart believers in Christ and true witnesses 
of him. To-day there are the splendid Meiji 
Hall of Learning, St. Paul's College, and other 
institutions in Tokio and the large cities, giv- 
ing higher training to young men. With at 
least a dozen large boys' schools, eleven theo- 
logical schools, with seventy-eight day schools, 
including kindergartens, there are over ten 
thousand pupils of both sexes under Christian 
instruction. Why should there not be fifty 
thousand, and what would such an increase 
mean for the next generation? 

The Triumph for Woman's Education. Tak- 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 267 

ing long views and looking to the future, we 
discern that the slowest processes may be the 
best. While it is impressive to behold the 
posts of public activity and influence filled with 
Christian men of education and character, yet 
for the making of a Christian nation, no work 
is more fruitful, in the long run, than the edu- 
cation of girls and the saving of the home for 
Christ. Christian women have seen this. To- 
day the number of unmarried missionary ladies 
is said to be greater than that of all the mar- 
ried men and their wives. Hence, the sowing 
of Japan with Christian girls' schools. This 
is all the more significant, because in the gov- 
ernment scheme, while statistics show that 
over eighty per cent of the boys are at school 
in the middle grades, there are but forty-seven 
per cent of the girls, while in the higher 
courses there is only one girl to seven boys. 
At Sendai a government officer said: "You 
missionary ladies have done a vastly greater 
work for Japan than you ever dreamed of. 
Our government had no hope for success in 
establishing girls' schools until we were in- 
spired by your successes. You have been to 
us as timely reenforcements to a discouraged 
army, and without your example there would 
be no growing system of higher female educa- 
tion." President Naruse, the man who con- 
ceived the idea of the Woman's University in 
Tokio, with its eight hundred students, and 
amid much opposition and discouragement so 
splendidly carried it out, is a man of Christian 



268 DUX CHPJSTUS 

faith. There are now in Japan thousands of 
women who in girlhood were brought under 
the influence of Christian teaching and now 
lire with vastly higher ideals of the home than 
in days within our memory. They are steadily 
helping to create that public opinion which 
has found expression in the new Civil Code of 
Japan, in which the word concubine does not 
occur, and which limits the old despotism of 
parental authority, allowing grown men at 
thirty and women at twenty-five to marry 
even without parental consent. The new code 
provides also for the making of wills. This in 
time will kill the abominable system of adop- 
tion that prevails in Japan, upsetting our ideas 
of heredity, self-respect, and even decency, 
and violating the true idea of a family. _ ^In- 
stead of the surprise and opposition of thirty 
years ago, there is now a yearning for woman's 
education throughout the whole nation. What 
woman's trained intellect and multiplied power 
of hands, added to the old virtue of sacrifice, 
can do in war time, is seen in organization and 
manifold adaptiveness of effective effort that 
would surprise those ignorant of the Japanese 
woman's abilities. Let us reenforce all the 
agencies that lift up one-half of Japan ! 

The Field for Medical Work. Let none sup- 
pose that because medical science in Japan has 
been so fostered by the government, the medi- 
cal profession so honored and embraced by am- 
bitious young men and because the publicly 
supported hospitals are so numerous and so 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 269 

well equipped, that Christians need do nothing 
in this field of opportunity. We must not for- 
get the mighty initiatory work of Dr. Hepburn, 
whose gentle ministrations were as ram's horns' 
blasts to level the wall of hatred, bigotry, preju- 
dice, nor that of Dr. Berry, who showed that the 
physician could go where the clergyman could 
not, thus opening towns in which churches soon 
sprung up, and who began the first prison re- 
form and first training school for nurses, nor of 
Taylor, or Palm, and others whose names are 
noted in "America in the East." Yet we must 
not forget how wide is the opportunity, in that 
all that is given by combined government and 
private aid in Japan does not yet amount to 
over a million of dollars a year, as compared 
with eighty millions in the United States. We 
must not only sustain and enlarge Christian 
medical missions in benevolence and sympathy, 
but remember in this, as in so many lines of 
humanitarian work, we are creating the public 
opinion which will create and sustain the gov- 
ernment in even grander leadership of develop- 
ment, and thus we help to educate rulers and 
people to greater efforts. Dr. W. N. Whitney 
showed that in 1900, after fifteen years of work, 
about twenty thousand people had come under 
Christian influences as patients, and of those 
scores had been converted. Even better yet, 
Christian Japanese physicians catch this spirit 
of loving service, hold meetings for nurses and 
patients in Christ's name, and thus diffuse in- 
fluences which bring in the new world of love. 



270 D6 r X CHBISTUS 

Besides the fourteen Protestant hospitals and 
dispensaries serving about thirty thousand pa- 
tients in a year, there are also the seventeen 
Catholic dispensaries. 

This gate of opportunity, at first view seem- 
ingly small, opens on a boundless field. As we 
traverse it, we see another gate of opportunity, 
that of charitable work, and here in Japan we 
note one of the great moral revolutions of the 
world wrought within fifty, perhaps we might 
say in thirty, years. The Japanese are as a 
nation getting to have what they did not have be- 
f ore? ideas, and a conscience concerning their 
duty to the blind, the insane, the starving poor, 
the orphans, the outcast and criminals. When 
first in Tokio, I remember reading, with, I con- 
fess, an irreverent and comical feeling, the notice 
boards, especially the one that hung right under 
the anti-Christian edict and sandwiched in be- 
tween the old text and the new proclamation. 
It read: " Human beings must carefully practise 
the principles of the five social relations. Charity 
must be shown to widowers, widows, orphans, 
the childless, and sick." Why widowers should 
be first pitied was not clear, and why the starv- 
ing and hungry were not thought of seemed 
strange. In pagan Japan hospitals, orphanages, 
schools for the insane, blind," and dumb, system- 
atic or voluntary famine relief, reform of the 
criminal, tender relief of the sick paupers, were 
practically unknown 4 The Japanese were be- 
nevolent, but only in a narrow way. They an* 
swered the question, " And who is my neighbor ? *" 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 271 

in the spirit of Confucius, not of Jesus, Now, 
thanks to the statistics of Dr. J. H. Pettee, we 
see that the Christians of Japan have thirty-one 
orphanages, four homes for discharged prison- 
ers, three blind asylums, three leper hospitals, 
two homes for the aged, five schools for the 
Ainos, four free kindergartens, ten industrial 
schools, ten other schools for the poor, ten board- 
ing-houses for students, and fourteen hospitals. 
That is to say, a fraction, one two hundred and 
fiftieth part of the population of the empire, 
support about one-fourth of the organized be- 
nevolence of the land, and that fraction of people 
consists of the Christians. 

The New Spirit of Benevolence. In the old 
famine days, no help came into the regions of 
starvation from other quarters. "Even Bud- 
dhists with their beautiful teachings of mercy 
would offer no help." But so great have been 
the inductive influences of the West upon the 
Japanese, that their narrow ideas and charity 
have been so enlarged that not only has the Red 
Cross Society in Japan the largest membership 
in the world, but the people in general now 
actually respond to appeals for relief for the 
sufferers from earthquakes, tidal waves, and 
famine in distant places. These appeals are 
heard, and contributions made from all parts of 
the empire. For example, two years ago, when 
the rice crop failed at the northern end of the 
main island, and over a hundred thousand people 
were reduced to the verge of starvation, a Roman 
Catholic missionary published an account of the 



272 DUX CERISTUS 

state of affairs. At once the foreigners at the 
seaports made a generous contribution. At first 
the Japanese were slow to take up the subject, 
but the little ball once started, an avalanche of 
gifts rolled down. The newspapers began sub- 
scriptions, and the emperor's contribution of 
$11,000 and that of two millionnaires, each for 
$5000, handsomely quintupled the foreigners' 
gift of 812,000. Not only did the Japanese 
give liberally to the Doshisha university in 
Kioto, but the great Ishii orphanage of Okayama, 
first inspired by the example of George Muller 
of Bristol, begun in 1887, and now caring for two 
hundred and thirty -sis children, has gained a list 
of over ten thousand sustaining Japanese mem- 
bers, who pay one yen a year. As many pupils as 
are now in the Home have been graduated to be- 
come useful members of society. The children 
themselves, with their stereopticon expositions 
and band concerts, earned in one year over 
$7000, and the emperor has decorated Mr. Ishii 
the founder. 

Prison Reform. One of the most Christlike 
features of Christian work is the reform of dis- 
charged prisoners. The government, seeing the 
value of saving to society as many as possible of 
the one hundred thousand prisoners yearly in- 
carcerated, have encouraged this work. Out of 
five hundred welcomed to Mr. Hara's Home in 
Tokio, four-fifths have become honest men and 
many of them Christians. Count Okuma gave 
a chrysanthemum party in aid of the Home, and 
raised three thousand yen in one day. The 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 273 

government allows prison chaplains and the 
circulation of Christian books and literature. 
Mr. Tomioka, who learned his noble craft in the 
reformatories of New York and New England, 
after having made one of the Tokio prisons 
the model for the empire, was appointed in- 
structor in the School for the Training of Prison 
Officials. He has also started model schools 
and farms for saving and educating children 
who might become criminals. The govern- 
ment has taken up the enterprise of teaching 
the blind and caring for the insane. Progress 
will be according to the advancement of public 
opinion. Shall we not reenforce all these forms 
of endeavor in Christ's name ? 

The Great Literary Opportunity. Last but 
not least, the gateway of literary opportunity 
stands open wide. Once it was death to give 
the Japanese new ideas or to print the truth. 
I landed in Japan when it had not one news- 
paper or magazine, and to issue a Christian tract, 
or part of the Bible, meant imprisonment 
and confiscation of property. The first tract, 
a translation from the Chinese of Dr. D. 
B, McCartee's " Easy Way of Understanding 
Christianity," had to be printed secretly. The 
first original tract in Japanese, by Dr. Davis, 
saw the light only after tremendous difficulties 
overcome, but it was circulated in ten thou- 
sand copies within a decade. The missionaries 
quickly saw the benefit of the printing-press 
and sent the leaves of healing and truth all over 
the empire, so that now there are four hundred 



274 Drjr CHPJSTUS 



different tracts, of which millions of pages are 
printed annually. Tlie Japanese are eager to 
read, and some native publishers find that they 
can actually make a living by issuing Christian 
literature. After the tracts came the books 
in translation, DP. W. A, P. Martin's famous 
work on the "Evidences of Christianity" lead- 
ing off. After nearly thirty years of conse- 
crated labor the Bible in Japanese was ready, 
and the winged word of God flew over the 
empire. Yet how can one study the Bible 
without helps, or the preacher or the teacher 
preach and grow without a library ? Dr. 
Hepburn prepared the first Bible Dictionary, 
and Dr. D. W. Learned has given fifteen 
scholarly volumes of commentary on the whole 
New Testament. The vernacular library of 
Japanese Christianity, whether translations or 
originals, is now creditably full. Its contents 
range from the most learned works in all 
departments of theological science down to 
^ The Common People's Gospel/' of which ten 
thousand copies were sold within three years. 
Nearly every phase of Christian literature is 
now expressed in the Japanese, and the adver- 
tising lists of the native publishing companies 
make interesting reading. In Tokio, the Metho- 
dists support an establishment on the Ginza, or 
main street in Tokio, in which fifty persons are 
employed. The Japan Evangelist^ the common 
organ of all branches of the Christian church in 
Japan, is a monthly which should "be widely 
taken in America. The biographies of great 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 275 

men and women, especially of tliose who have 
served the Lord Jesus in high stations, are 
widely read by thousands of Japanese outside 
the church, who are thus led to inquire into the 
secret of holy and forceful lives, and who sooner 
or later study the Book which has made Chris- 
tian nations great. Periodical Christian lit- 
erature also flourishes. While the vernacular 
newspaper of each mission is supported with 
missionary money, there are able Christian 
editors who have made evangelical periodicals 
pay. But far more important than anything 
that foreign missionaries can write are the 
literary productions of native Christians, who, 
having experienced the grace of God, use the 
language as if it had been baptized unto new 
power by the Holy Spirit. There are Christian 
writers on the staff of the so-called secular press 
who in attractive language preach Christian 
truth, and thus call many into the holy path. 
Then there are a dozen or more eloquent 
preachers of the gospel who beyond their pul- 
pits reach tens of thousands through the printed 
page. Christian professors in the universities, 
statesmen and members of the imperial Diet, 
have written books, rich in ethical instruction 
and loyal to Christ. Surely not the last, so 
long as the parables of Jesus are our model, is 
the use of fiction in enforcing Christian truth. 
In the new Japanese romance and novel the 
themes and ideals first set fortK by Jesus are 
presented just where and how millions, who 
would not read a serious book, can be filled 



276 DUX CHPJSTUS 

with new ideas. In the novels informed with 
the spirit of Christianity some of the pro- 
foundest practical questions are treated, and 
the search-light of the teachings of Jesus 
thrown on the whole field of Japanese life. 

Christian Association Work. Other gates of 
opportunity are open for the Young Men's 
Christian Association work. In the capital, 
besides one hundred and twenty-five Christian 
houses of worship, is the imposing brick edi- 
fice for the helping and saving of young men, 
with its five foreign and two Japanese secre- 
taries, devoted to religious and social work. 
Of this the American minister, Colonel A. 
E. Buck, said, fc4 There is perhaps no other build- 
ing in Tokio that stands more prominently 
before the general public as an index of organ- 
ized Christianity." The lectures delivered in its 
great earthquake-proof hall by noblemen, famous 
visitors, men of science, statesmen, business men, 
and leading preachers are published and widely 
circulated. An endowment fund is needed, and 
every large city ought to have such an associa- 
tion and edifice. If this be so for the men, why 
not the same for the women also ? 

The Christian Endeavor Movement. But as 
the Japanese secretary of a Christian Endeavor 
Society says : " A church can't be lively without 
young folks any more than a family can be. 
* . . You can't get work out of the young un- 
less they are organized." In 1886 the mission- 
ary children of one of the missions agreed to a 
simple pledge, and to-day there are about eighty 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 277 

Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor. 
Why should there not be a thousand societies of 
this, or some equally useful organization for the 
training of young people in work for Christ and 
the Church ? 

So with the varied forces of the great army 
of Christ the work goes on, but in a campaign 
there is constant need of reinforcements and 
supplies, and u there is no discharge in that 
war." This is good scripture for the Christian. 
Instead of "retrench," let our battle cry be 
along the whole line of organization at home 
" reenforce." 

Appeal to the Christian Women of America. 
Finally, we appeal to the Christian women of 
America to cease no prayer or effort in behalf 
of their sisters in the island empire, for Japan 
is woman's land of hope for Asia. Despite 
the shadows yet remaining on the moral land- 
scape, the changes wrought within fifty years 
in Japan's attitude to women seem miraculous. 
Both to Perry and Harris, the determined words 
of the Yedo government were, u No foreign 
women allowed in Japan." The Confucian 
envoy of 1853 even wished to put this prohibi- 
tion into the treaty, which proposition Perry 
bluntly refused. Paganism in any and every 
form had no word of hope for Japan's daugh- 
ters. Buddhism taught that if perfectly fulfil- 
ling the law on earth, a woman might inherit joy 
hereafter only by being reborn as a man. Con- 
fucianism knew her only as a thing for use or 
contempt. Yet as compared with other Asian 



278 SUX CHBISTUS 

lands, how happy her life, how high her position ! 
Behold in our day the wonderful transforma- 
tion in public opinion ! The consort of the 
Mikado is an empress, not in the old shadowy 
sense, but while honored as no other Japanese 
empress ever was, is a real model in personality, 
character, and influence for the women of the na- 
tion. How hopeful is the people so marked by 
an open-mindedness and willingness to change 
tradition for truth, prejudice for new light, and 
old customs for genuine reform ! To-day, while 
over three million boys are at school, there are 
also over two million girls, and of the ninety-two 
thousand teachers in the country, twelve thou- 
sand, and in the higher schools two-thirds of the 
teaching 'force, are women. All over the laud 
women's clubs are springing up, and this must 
mean a leavening of the neighborhoods and 
the raising of public taste and opinion wher- 
ever their local habitation may be. Yet let 
us beware of supposing that intellectual light 
and social advantages mean necessarily moral 
purity or spiritual elevation. Indeed, it is an 
open secret that in the interest of idolatry, 
priestcraft, and a false philosophy that ignores 
the Creator, the Buddhist priesthood have 
closely imitated Christian methods and institu- 
tions* They are determined to hold the nation 
in thrall, and they are subtle enough for any- 
thing in mind-stuff or in handicraft. In the 
long run, our great conflict will be with these men 
who can make the worse appear the better rea- 
son- Indeed, they would gladly adopt Jesus 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 279 

Christ as a new avatar or incarnation of the 
Buddha, and are quite ready to seize the levers 
of Christian machinery in order to hold all 
forces under their own control. 

However bright the picture in spots, gross 
darkness yet lies upon the land. The forces of 
evil are not easily vanquished. Of the one-half 
of the Japanese people, twenty-five millions of 
souls in Japan, only a few thousands at best are 
as yet touched by gospel light. The overwhelm- 
ing majority lie in superstition and are still in 
the low estate in which both moral and immoral 
slavery is possible. Looking at the realities, the 
author would urge, as his closing words, what 
he has so often with the living voice begged 
Christian women to do, and that is to relax no 
prayer or effort for their sisters in Japan, and to 
toil on in wisdom and in love in this field, 
where success is surely waiting. It is said of 
one who bears an increasingly shining name in 
our country's history, that when once, as a 
young man, he saw iniquity sheltering itself 
under what was called an " institution," he de- 
clared that if ever he had an opportunity, he 
would "smite it hard." Our appeal is to 
Christian women smite paganism hard ! 

Only in the Christ lands has woman any hope 
of entering into her full inheritance, as help- 
meet for man, as fellow-sharer of the image of 
God, as co-worker with Christ. Until the love 
of God reigns by faith in the hearts of the whole 
Japanese nation, we need not expect Japanese 
womanhood to reach the exalted position of 



280 DUX CHRISTUS 

honor and usefulness which woman occupies in 
our own land. May the Master be able to say 
of each individual worker in his Name, "She 
hath done what she could." 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 281 

LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 
A WOMAN'S INSIGHT 

Japan has set the doors of her secret shrines ajar so 
that we can at any rate take the first step in wisdom and 
realize how little we know. Those who, like myself, 
have had the privilege of spending long years in the 
country, with liberty to " visit any spot and remain in it 
for any length of time," become gradually aware of the 
many-sided and complex character of the people, simple 
to frankness, yet full of unexpected reserves, of hidden 
strengths, and dignities of power never flaunted before 
the eyes of the world. , . . That which you expect from 
them is that which they would wish to show you, and 
very likely all that you will ever see. But if any shared 
emotion suddenly draws you closer together, then the 
veil is rent away, you behold the springs of action, and, 
lo ! they are those which have swayed you in the best 
moments of your life ; and, if you are honest and humble- 
minded, you will say in your heart, " Brother, I misjudged 
thee. Perhaps thou art as near to wisdom and to love 
as I ! " MBS. HUGH FRASEK. 



THE PLEA OF A JAPANESE 

Yet we wonder and stand dismayed sometimes before 
the curious misconceptions of our real motives which 
obtain in European countries and here, also, in certain 
circles. It is true that American scholarship has been 
the foremost to elucidate our civilization, that American 
statesmen are conversant with the inner significance of 
our politics, that in the field of art America can boast of 
the finest collections of Japanese work outside of Japan. 
But to those who have not studied the mental history 
of the Japanese revival, the attitude of the Island Empire 
must ever remain a paradox. To them it can be but the 
country of flowers and ironclads, of dashing heroism and 
delicate teacups, the strange borderland where quaint 



282 DUX CHPJSTUS 

shadows meet each other in the twilight of the Old 
and the New World. They are apt to forget that the 
same untiring spirit which creates the subtle beauty of 
the pottery of Satburua guides us also in the thoiough, 
extreme care we now bestow upon our war equipment. 
And our love for the cherry blossom, which we cherish 
as the national emblem, is not only for its jewelled 
efflorescence, but for the freedom with which it gives 
itself to the winds in glorious self-sacrifice. 

KAKUZO OKAKUBA. 



THE RESOLUTION OF THE FIRST MISSIONARY 
CONFERENCE, 1872 

Whereas the Church of Christ is one in him, and the 
diversities of denominations among Protestants are but 
accidents, which, though not affecting the vital unity of 
believers, obscure the oneness of the church in Christen- 
dom and much more in pagan lands, where the history of 
the divisions cannot be understood ; and whereas we, as 
Protestant missionaries, desire to secure uniformity in 
our modes and methods of evangelization so as to avoid 
as far as possible the evil arising from marked differ- 
ences ; we therefore take this earliest opportunity off ered 
by the Convention to agree that we will use our influence 
to secure as far as possible identity of name and organi- 
zation in the native churches in the formation of which 
we may be called to assist, that name being as catholic 
as the Church of Christ, and the organization being that 
wherein the government of each church shall be by the 
ministry and eldership of the same, with the concurrence 
of the brethren. DR. S. B. BROWN. 

It is by interpreting a people's traditions, by carefully 
listening to the mysterious teachings of the wise men 
who, in remote ages, guided its infancy, that one is apt 
to discover the early promise of its future. LE GENIXRE. 

The moral world is also a magnet with its two oppo- 
site poles on the opposite banks of the Pacific, the demo- 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 283 

cratic, aggressive, inductive America, and the imperial, 
conservative, and deductive China. There have been 
constant attempts for the union of these magnetic cur- 
rents. . . . Grander tasks await the young Japan, who 
has the best of Europe and the best of Asia at her com- 
mand. At her touch the circuit is completed, and the 
healthy fluid shall overflow the earth ! UCHIMURA. 

To reconcile the East with the West ; to be the advocate 
of the East, and the harbinger of the West: this we 
believe to be the mission which Japan is called upon to 
fulfil. UCHIMURA. 



PRAYER FOR UNITY 

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who hast pur- 
chased an universal Church by the precious blood of Thy 
Son, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us into the 
same, and made us members of Christ, children of God, 
and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. Look now 
we beseech Thee upon Thy Church, and take from it 
division and strife and whatsoever hinders godly union 
and concord. Fill us with Thy love, and guide us by 
Thy Holy Spirit that we may attain to that oneness for 
which Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, prayed on the 
night of His betrayal, who with Thee and the Holy 
Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. 
Amen. 



I firmly believe we must have religion as the basis of 
our national and personal welfare. No matter how large 
an army or navy we may have, unless we have righteous- 
ness at the foundation of our national existence we shall 
fall short of the highest success. I do not hesitate to 
say that we must rely upon religion for our highest wel- 
fare. And when I look about me to see what religion 
we may best rely upon, I am convinced that the religion 
of Christ is the one most full of strength and promise for 
the nation and the individual. BAROX MAEJIMA. 



284 Drr CHEISTUS 

There are several advantages to be born a heathen. 
Heathenism I consider as an undeveloped stage of hu- 
manity, developable into a higher and perfecter stage 
than that attained by any form of Christianity. There 
are perennial hopes in heathen nations still untouched 
by Christianity ; hopes as of the youth venturing for life 
grander than that of all his predecessors. And though 
my nation is more than two thousand years old in history, 
it is yet a child in Christ, and all the hopes and possibili- 
ties of the future lie shrouded in its rapidly developing 
days. Thrice thankful am I that I can witness many such 
days. Then I could feel the power of the New Truth 
more. What to the ** born Christian " sounded as time- 
worn commonplaces, were to me new revelations, and 
called forth from me all the praises sung perhaps by our 
first parents, when, 

" 'Neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus, with the host of Heaven, came, 
And lo ! creation widened m man's view." 

In myself I could witness the changes and progress of 
the eighteen Christian centuries, and when I came out 
of all my strifes, I fonnd myself a sympathetic man, ac- 
quainted as I was with all the stages of spiritual develop- 
ment from idol worship up to the soul's emancipation in 
the crucified Son of God. Such visions arid experiences 
are not vouchsafed to all of God's children, and we who 
are called in the eleventh hour have at least this privilege 
to make up for all the loss of having remained in darkness 
so long. . . . 

The ration d'etre of Christian missions? I think I have 
stated it already. It is the raison d'etre of Christianity 
itself. Said David Livingstone : " The spirit of missions 
is the spirit of our Master, the very genius of his religion. 
A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It re- 
quires perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness." 
Once it ceases to propagate, it ceases to live. Have you 
ever thought why it is the God leaves so large a part of 
the human race still in the darkness of heathenism? I 



FCECES IN THE CONFLICT 285 

think it is that your Christianity may live and grow by 
your efforts to diminish the darkness. . . . 

Indeed I can say with all truthfulness that I saw good 
men only in Christendom. Brave men, honest men, 
righteous men, are not wanting in heathendom, but I 
doubt whether good men, by that I mean those men 
summed up in that one English word which has no other 
equivalent in any other language: gentleman, I doubt 
whether such is possible without the religion of Jesus 
Christ to mould us. "The Christian, God Almighty's 
gentleman," he is a unique figure in this world, inde- 
scribably beautiful, noble, and lovable. 

KAXZO UCHIMURA. 



His MAJESTY, THE EMPEROR, MUTSTJHITO 

Politically and actually the emperor leads his country- 
men in new ways, and is, in truth, a man of strong and 
fine character, one of the most upright and progressive 
sovereigns of the world. It was innate power that made 
him what he is, for his boyhood was spent in demoral- 
izing inaction under the tutelage of the Shogun, heredi- 
tary regent and first subject of the throne. Until he was 
sixteen, it is said, the emperor was carried from room 
to room ; he never stood on his feet or even fed himself. 
But when freedom came at that age he sprang to those un- 
used feet with a bound, rid himself and his country of the 
weakening Shogunate, and has since then steadily pressed 
forward in the van of civilization, readily limiting his 
own power by the granting of a parliament and a con- 
stitution, and in all things considering his country before 
himself. He may firstly be esteemed a patriot in the 
loftiest sense of the word. 



EARLY GIFTS AND PRAYERS FOR 

The American Board has recently received a legacy of 
$500 by the will of Mrs. Sarah B. Fisher, late of West- 
boro, Mass., who made this donation, as she expresses it 



286 zrx CHPJSTUS 



in her will, fci having a desire to do all I can for the cause 
of Christ." 

This bequest calk to miud again a remarkable incident 
in missionary history. Mrs. Fisher was one of the origi- 
nal members of a circle formed fifty-fire years ago (1829), 
at Brookline, Mass., which had for its object the evangeli- 
zation of Japan. More than forty years before the 
American Board sent its first laborer to Japan, while that 
empire was absolutely closed against foreigners, and 
when almost nothing was known concerning its condition 
or its people, this company of godly women met regularly 
to labor and pray for that distant land. They laid aside 
their gifts for a mission for more than a generation before 
-it was begun. Many have wondered how it happened 
that such a deep interest in a country so entirely isolated 
from the civilized world should have been awakened in 
the minds of the members of that sewing-circle. It is 
said that a curiously wrought Japanese basket, on the 
table of the Christian merchant (Hon. William Ropes) 
at whose house they met, was the occasion of their choos- 
ing this particular object for their gifts and prayers. 
But how many have seen rare and beautiful articles 
brought from distant and pagan lands, and yet have not 
been moved to pray and toil for the people of those 
lands ! These Christian hearts saw behind that basket 
the hands that made it, and though they knew so little 
about the dwellers in that mysterious island, they knew 
this much that they needed the light of the gospel. 
What though the doors were closed and barred, and the 
Japanese put a price on the head of any one who should 
be suspected of harboring a Christian these women be- 
lieved that these people were yet to be evangelized. Was 
not Japan one of those k uttermost parts of the earth " 
which were given to Christ for a "possession "? And so 
they brought their gifts and offered their prayers for the 
Japan mission, when as yet there was not one ray of light 
except from God's Word. It was the instinct of Chris- 
tian love which guided them; the same holy impulse, 
wiser than the wisdom of men, which led to the breaking 
of the alabaster box at the Saviour's feet. 



FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 287 

The association formed at Brookline during the years 
of its existence paid into the treasury of the American 
Board over $600 for Japan. Before the time had arrived 
when the money could be expended for the purpose for 
which it was given, it amounted, with the interest, to 
$4104.23, which sum was set apart for the beginning of 
the mission. Were there not prayers as well as alms 
which came up for a memorial before God respecting this 
mission ? There is something amazing about the opening 
of Japan and the progress of the empire within the past 
fifteen years. The political and social changes are not 
more marvellous than are those of a religious character. 
Not only are the doors open, but there is to-day no theme 
of more popular interest than Christianity. How can all 
this sudden transformation be accounted for ? Ko Chris- 
tian can doubt that the hand of God is in it. May we 
not believe that he who, while governing nations, yet has 
respect unto the cries of his people, did remember the 
faith and prayers of those who, in the days of its dark- 
ness, pleaded for Japan ? Christ, when on earth among 
men, wrought miracles when he saw their faith. Was not 
the faith of these women who prayed and gave for Japan, 
as wonderful as was that of the centurion, at which 
Christ marvelled? And have we not all seen a miracle 
happening in the land for which they prayed ? 

E. E. STRONG, in The Missionary Herald (1883). 



288 DUX CHRISTUS 

THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION. 

I. The Christian Samurai, Man and Woman. 
II. The United States as Mediator of Peace between 
Nations. 

III. Leaders of Thought and Action in Japan. 

IV. Issues and Results of the Rubso-Japanese War. 

V. Outlook for Japanese Woman in the Twentieth 

Century* 

VI. Results of a Defective Sense of Personality. 
VII. The Christian Merchant at the Seaports. 
VIIT. Baneful Influence of Nominal Christianity in 

Pagan Lands. 

IX. Japan's Moral Progress in a Half-century. 
X. The Spirit of Unity in Japanese Missions. 
XI. Japan's Educational Record in Forty Years. 
XI L Japan a Factor in the Reconciliation and Union 
of the Orient and Occident. 



LIST OF BOOKS 

W. P. Watson. "Japan: Aspects and Destinies." E. 

P. Dutton & Co. (1904.) 
Alfred Stead. "Japan To-day." E. P. Dutton & Co. 

(1902.) 
M. L. Gordon. > Thirty Eventful Years in Japan." 

Boston, A. B. C. F. M. (1900.) 

L. Hearn. - Kokoro." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (1896.) 
C. Lanman. t; Leading Men of Japan." D. Lothrop 

Co. (1S83.) 
M. Huish. "Japan and Its Art." Fine Arts Society. 

London. 
Louis Gorse. ' k Japanese Art." Belford Clarke Co. 

(1891.) 
A. C. Maclay. "Mito Yashiki: A Tale of Old Japan/' 

G. P. Putnam's Sons. (1889.) 
G. Curzon. " Problems of the Far East." Longmans & 

Co. (1891.) 
W. E. Griffis. '<In the Mikado's Service." W. A. 

Wilde Co. (1901,) 



APPENDIX 

TWENTY-OXE LEADIXG MISSIONARY 
PERIODICALS 

JLssemUy Herald (Pres.), U- S. 

Baptist Missionary Magazine (A. B. M. U.) ? U. S. 

Chronicle London Missionary Society, England. 

Church Missionary Intelligencer (C. M. S.), England. 

Foreign Missionary Tidings (Pres.), Canada. 

Friends' Missionary Adiocate (Friends), U. S. 

Helping Hand (TT. B. F. M. S.), U. S. 

The Japan Evangelist (Interdenominational), Tokio, 

Japan. 

Life and Light for Women (Woman's Board, Cong.), U. S. 
Messenger and Record (Pres.), England. 
Mission Studies (Board of Interior, Cong.), U. S. 
Missionary Gleaner (Dutch Reformed), U. S. 
Missionary Herald (Cong.), U. S. 
Missionary Link (Woman's Union), U. S. 
Missionary Outlook (M. E.), Canada. 
Missionary Review of the World (Interdenominational), 

U.S. 

Missionary Tidings (Christian), U. S. 
Spirit of Missions (P. E. Church), U. S. 
Woman's Missionary Friend (M. E.), U. S. 
Woman's Work for Woman (Pres.), U. S. 
Women's Missionary Magazine (United Free Church), 

Scotland. 



290 



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APPENDIX 






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INDEX 



Abbott, Edward, 37, 95, 140. 
Aborigines, 33, 181-185. 
Adoption, 208, 234, 245. 
Adzuma, 64. 
Agriculture, 14-16, 56. 
Ainos, 33, 49, 182-185 
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 76, 83 
Americans, 28, 73-75, 185. 
Ancestral sacrifices, 108, 109. 
Anjiro, 62. 
Anti-Christian edicts, 92, 136, 

137, 156, 165. 
Art, 2, 124, 135, 244, 245, 233, 

281. 

Asiatic Society of Japan, 84. 
Association of ideas, 92. 
Aston, G. W., 40, 90, 92, 140. 

Baby life, 134, 205, 206. 
Bacon, Alice M., 85, 96, 97, 202, 

231, 232, 233. 
"Banzai," 82. 

Baptists m Japan, 168, 170, 171. 
Batchelor, J., 182-185. 
Beauty, love of, 24, 282, 286. 
Bell, E. F., 38. 
Bells, 122, 177. 

Benevolence in Japan, 270, 271. 
Berry, Dr., 197, 269. 
Bible in Japanese, 72, 148, 150, 

159-162, 168, 200, 250. 
Bickel, Captain, 172. 
Blind, 273. 
Bonzes, 118, 166. 
Britisli, 28, 83, 84. 
Brown, S. B., 152, 215, 21G, 282. 
Buddhism, 26, 59, 60, 61, 86, 90, 



91, 101, 112, 117, 118-129, 143, 

165, 258, 277, 278. 
Bushido, 56, 57, 95. 

Calendar, 2, 164. 
Campbell, William, 181, 182. 
Canadian Methodists, 168. 
Canadian Pres. Mission, 179, 

181. 
Chamberlain, B. H., 27, 40, 187, 

234, 
Characteristics, 92, 135, 259, 

278. 

Charter Oath, 80, 81. 
Chastity, 219. 
Chinese, 114, 132. 
Chinese and Japanese, 22, 23, 

114, 132, 178, 180, 240. 
Christianity in Japan, 42, 107, 

136, 137, 139, 143, 189, 257. 
Chronology, 2, 26, 47, 53, 164. 
Churches, first in Japan, 163, 

166, 169, 282. 

Civil Code, 209, 347, 368. 
Civilization of Japan, 60. 
Clarke, W. S., 265. 
Cleanliness, 106, 111, 180. 
Clement, E. W., 29, 164. 
Climate, 9, 32, 35. 
Coast line, 19, 20. 
Columbus, 60. 

Commercial integrity, 189, 250. 
Confucianism in Japan, 75, 86, 

87, 90, 117, 129-132, 219, 238. 
Congregational churches, 172, 

173. 
Constitution of Japan, 89. 



293 



294 



Constitution of the United 
States, 78. 

Council of cooperating mis- 
sions, 186. 

Daimios, 78, 79, 
Davis, J 0., 142, 157 } 192, 273. 
Deshima, 71 
Dikes, 12, 15. 
Divorce, 209, 211,239. 
Doshisha, 172, 265, 272. 
Dutch in Japan, 70-72, S4, 179, 
182. 

Earthquakes, 17-19, 35. 
Echizen, 78, SO, 88, 138. 
Edicts, anti-Christian, 270. 
Education for women, 85, 215- 

220. 
Education in Japan, 188, 258, 

265, 278. 
Embassy round the world, 166- 

168. 

Emperor, see Mikado. 
Empresses, 27, 82, 83, 233, 235, 

277. 

English Pres. mission, 181, 182. 
Episcopal missions, 153, 168, 

170, 171. 
Eta, 87, 138, 243 
Ethics, 86, 131, 175. 
Europeans in Japan, 62-73. 

Fairy-tales, see Folk-lore. 

Family life, 131, 134, 201-212. 

Famines, 61, 132-134, 271. 

Farmers, 39, 57, 88. 

Fatalism, 258. 

Fertility, 13. 

Feudalism, 2, 56, 61, 87, 88, 127, 

130. 

Fish, 20 

Flowing invocation, 206. 
Folk-lore, 6, 19, 31, 53, 107,207. 
Foreigners in Japan, 4, 86, 89, 

250, 251, 272. 
Foreign helpers, 81, 83, 



Formosa, 6, 31-33, 179-182. 

Foxes, 110, 156. 

Fraser, Mrs. Hugh, 281. 

French, m Japan, 28, 81, 85, 

Fuji san, 16, 36 

Fukin, 78, 82, 88, 138, 217. 

Fukuzawa, 78, 167. 

Gambling, 243. 
Geisha, 234, 255. 
Germans in Japan, 84. 
Gods, 21, 25. 
Gordon, M. L., 158, 162. 
Gratitude, 240, 241, 263. 
Greene, D. C., 73. 
Gulick, S. L., 157. 

Harada, T., 92, 187, 191. 

Harris, Townsend, 22, 76, 258. 

Haruko, 83, 233. 

Head hunting, 33. 

" Heathen," 42, 255, 284. 

Hepburn, J. C , 161, 269. 

Heredity, 208, 234, 245. 

Hideyoshi, see Talko. 

Hired help, 81. 

History, 26, 40, 53, 55, 90. 

Hokusai, 205. 

Hollanders' homes, 128, 194, 

201, 20&-213, 247, 248, 261. 
Hondo, 4, 51. 
Husband's power, ' 211, 212, 

248. 

Hymnal, 214. 
Hymns, 140, 214, 241. 

Idealism, 41. 
Ideals, 237. 
Idolatry, 21. 

Immorality, 77, 156, 157. 
Impersonality, 90, 24^-246. 
Impressions of Japan, 37-39. 
Industries, 21, 22, 192, 228. 
Islands, 5. 
lyeyasu, 68-70, 132. 

Japanese abroad, 34, 39, 64, 67. 



INDEX 



295 



Japanese characteristics, 37-43, 

93-97. 

Japanese home missions, 173. 
Jesuits, 64, 66. 
Ju-jutsu, 207. 

Kamakura, 123. 
Kami, 25, 51, 105, 125. 
Kioto, 80, 87, 106, 138. 
Kobe, 163, 217. 
Kobo, 124-127. 
Kojiki, 27, 28, 51. 
Korea, 51, 54. 
Kumamoto Band, 162, 266. 
Kumi-ai churches, 173. 
Kuro-Shiwo, 9, 11. 

Lack of idealism, 40, 41. 

Landscape, 14-16. 

Language of Japan, 179, 200, 

218, 247, 248, 249, 250, 275. 
Learned, O. W., 274. 
Literature, 40, 91, 200, 275. 
Loo Choo, see Riu Kiu. 
Loyalty, 96, 130, 246. 

Maekay of Formosa, 180, 181. 

Maclay, E S., 168. 

Maejima, Baron, 283. 

Marriage, 209-212 

Martin, W. A. P., 158, 159, 274. 

Materialism, 41. 

Matsudaira, 78. 

McCartee, D. B., 273. 

Medical work, 160-161, 268-270. 

Meiji, 164. 

Mendez Pinto, 62. 

Merchants, 252. 

Methodists in Japan, 168, 170, 

173, 174. 
Mikado, 55, 97, 106, 108, 109, 

114, 117, 164. 
Mikados, female, 200. 
Mori, A., 35, 91, 159. 
Mount Morrison, 16, 32. 
Mountains, 12. 
Murray, Dr. David, 82. 



Music, 214. 

Mutsuhito, 74, 79, 80-83. 

Nagasaki, 70, 168, 174. 
Nakaraura, 78, 167. 
Names of Japan, 8. 
Naruse, President, 267. 
Neeshima, 265. 
Netherlands, 12. 
Nicolai, 36. 
Nihongi, 28. 

Nippon Sei Kokwai, 170. 
Nirvana, 119. 
Nitobe, 1,96,97,233, 266. 
Nobunaga, 64. 
Nurses, 197, 269. 

Oath of emperor, 80, 81. 

Okakura, K , 282. 

Okuma, Count, 241, 258, 272. 

Opium, 258. 

Orphanages, 272. 

Osaka, 68, 82, 121, 163, 185. 

Osaka Exposition, 22, 121, 264. 

Palestine, 35. 
Parkes, Sir Harry, 83. 
Patriotism, 106, 107, 175, 249, 

256. 
Perry, Commodore, 71, 74, 75, 

139, 140, 178, 227, 240, 241. 
Pescadores, 6, 32. 
Pettee, I. H., 271. 
Philosophy, 91. 
Pierson, L. H,, Mrs., 38. 
Population, 4, 31, 133-135, 279. 
Portuguese, 31, 62. 
Prayer, 212, 213, 283, 286. 
Presbyterians in Japan, 154, 

168, 170. 
Presents, 21, 74. 
Printing, 64, 172, 273-276. 
Prison reform, 228, 272, 273. 
Prostitution, 204, 219, 227, 228, 

'3*6, 260. 
Proverbs, 79, 105, 177, 183, 204, 

206,226. 



296 



INDEX 



Pruyn, Mrs., 216. 

Eaces in Japan, 30-34, 50. 

Racial qualities, 29. 

Bain, 9, 32. 

Red Cross Society, 271. 

Reformed churches, 171. 

Revival of pure Shinto, 113. 

Rice, 1, 15, 21. 

Eiobu Shinto, 112, 113, 115. 

Rituals, 142, 184. 

Km Kin, 8, 30, 31, 172, 176-179 

Rivers, 12. 

Roman Christianity, 65, 67, 79, 

96, 101, 166, 179, 181. 
Russia, 34, 164, 165, 241, 242, 

261, 362. 
Ryu Kyu, see Riu Km. 

Salt, 111. 

Samurai, 56-58, 134, 243. 

Satsuma, 62, 64. 

Scherer, J. A. B., 211, 238. 

Schools, 75, 76, 138. 

Scriptures, 63. 

Scudder, Doremus, 39. 

Sects in Buddhism, 122, 123, 

137. 

Sendai, 267. 

Shaw, Archdeacon, 171. 
Shinto, 21, 61, 91, 101, 105-118, 

141. 

Shizoku, 57. 
Sin, 106, 126, 184, 256. 
Snow, 10. 
Soil, 13, 
Suicide, 205. 
Sun-goddess, 108. 

Taiko, 36, 64. 

Temperance work, 226-228* 

Tokio, 82, 89, 166, 171, 266, 270. 

Tokyo, see Tokio. 

Tori-i, 110. 

Tourists, 255 

Traditions, 51. 



Treaties, 75, 70, 79 

Uchimura, 266, 283, 285. 
Units- of Christians, 170-172. 
Uyeno meeting, 169-170. 

Vassar College, 166 

Verbeck, G. F., 81, 87, 162, 166, 

240. 

Villages, 14. 
Volcanoes, 16-18. 

Wakasa, 163 

War with Russia, 185. 

Washington, 245. 

Weather, 9-11. 

Whitney, W. X., 269 

Williams, C. M., 153. 

Williams, S. Wells, 151, 159. 

Woman missionaries, 213, 223- 
229,236. 

Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union, 227. 

Woman's education, 85, 166, 
202-204, 236, 277, 278. 

Woman's work for woman, 
85, 213-218, 223-229. 

Women of Japan, 122, 199-202, 
230, 235, 236, 251, 277. 

Xavier, 62, 63. 
Xipango, 60, 67, 101. 

Yamato, 50, 54. 
Yamato Damashii, 5. 
Year Periods, 164. 
Yedo, 68, 78. 
Yezo, 265, 266. 
Yokohama, 77, 221. 
Yofcoi, 78, 82, 87, 138, 165. 
Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, 276. 
Y. P. S. C. K, 276, 277. 

Zenkoji, 125. 



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