mmmmmm fummn i ■> or tlie Inland S CHARLES KENDALL HARRINGTON SEP 20 191 Q BV 3445 .H38 Harrington, Charles Kendall 1858-1920. Captain Bickel of the Inlan Sea Captain Bickel OF THE Inland Sea Captain Bickel on deck of new Fukuin Maru ^/ Captain Bickel OF THE Inland Sea SEP 20 19LQ By CHARLES KENDALL HARRINGTON Missionary of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society y in Tokyo, Japan ILLUSTRATED New York Chicago Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1919, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London : 2 1 Paternoster Square Edinbuigh: 75 Princes Street Dedicated to The ^een of the Cabin ^ The Lady of the Little White Ship^ who made of the " Fukuin Maru " a Chris- tian homey and through the good cheer and sunshine of that home gave to many of the Island Folk of the Inland Sea their first glimpse of the beauty and winsomeness of Him whose membership in the Holy Family y in Bethlehem and Nazareth^ has sweetened and sanctifiedy for East and Westy home life and family affection ^^If we wish to bring help to a man we must be willing to pay the cost^ — Captain Bickel. ^^Is it worth while 2 The man who comes and mocks y the man who cotnes for rice, the Pharisee — is it worth while to spend a life on these ? My God, t7iy God, hoiv could I doubt Thee ? Take my life and use it to the last shred for whom- soever Thou wilty — Captain Bickel. **For, mark you, all love conveys the lover to the beloved. The very secret of love is self-im- partation. Love can never content herself with the gift of things. Charity gives things. Love always gives herself .^^ — J. H. JOWETT, D.D. Preface IT was witli no ordinary regret tliat I learned of the irreparable loss which the cause of foreign missions, and in particular our Bap- tist Mission in Japan, had suffered in the unex- jjected and, humanly speaking, untimely death of our beloved Captain Bickel. His rapidly growing work for the Islanders of the Inner and Outer Seas was not only the pride of our Mission, but a stimulus to every evangelistic enterprise in Japan ; while to multitudes also in other lands the story of the Little White Ship was one of the most fasci- nating chapters of the modern Acts of the Apostles. Even to many who had only a moderate knowledge of foreign missions in general, the Inland Sea, the Fukuin Maru, and Captain Bickel, had become household words. But to me, who have known our Captain in the intimacy of his home, both ashore and afloat ; who have sailed with him many weeks through the blue lanes of the Inland Sea, and have tramped with him many hours over the rough hill-paths of his Island parish, he was not only an ideal missionary, whom I held in the high- est honour both for his own and for his work^s sake, but a warm personal friend, on whose too early grave it is a privilege to lay this humble tribute of affection. I trust that this all too inadequate account of the life and work of our Mariner-Missionary may 7 8 PEEFACE not only serve to keep alive the memory of one of God^s heroes, one of nature's noblemen; but may awaken in the hearts of many a livelier interest in that foreign missionary enterprise which Christ has laid upon His followers as of paramount im- portance, and to share in which is the greatest adventure conceivably possible to the human soul. C. K. H. Sydney, Nova Scotia. The Ides of March, 1918. Contents I. A German Patriot . . . . 13 II. The Making of Captain Bickel . 35 III. The Inland Sea 53 IV. Island Folk 64 V. The Little White Ship 74 VI. Her Maiden Voyage . . . . 90 VII. In Hiogo Bay 94 VIII. The Plan of Campaign . . . . 100 IX. A Voyage of Discovery 105 X. The Camel's Nose .... 126 XL The Transformation of the Crew 132 XII. Shepherds of the Isles . 145 XIII. Winning the Islanders . 166 XIV. Women and Children of the Islands . 178 XV. Christmas in the Inland Sea . 186 XVI. The Home On the Ship . 195 XVII. A New Era . 201 XVIII. A New " Fukuin Maru " . 210 XIX. The Shadow of War . 222 XX. Some Island Stories . 233 10 CONTENTS XXL Some More Island Stories . . 245 XXII. The Captain's Last Cruise » . 254 XXIII. " Sunset and Evening Bell " . 265 XXIV. A Triumphal Funeral . . 270 XXV. After-Glow .... . 284 XXVI. The Victory of Love . . 294 Illustrations Facing page Captain Bickel on Deck of New Fitkuin Maru , Frofitispiece Outline Map Showing the Inland Sea of Japan . . 60 Old Fukuin Maru in Cove at Miyanoura, Omi Shima . 84 Captain Bickel, Family, and Crew • ... 96 New Fukuin Maru in Dock for Equipment After Launching . . . . . . . .112 New Fukuin Maru at Anchor . . . , .132 Bo's'n Hirata and Group He Is Teaching . . . 142 Pastor Shibata with Group of Christians at Agenosho, Oshima . . . . . . . .164 Baptism at Tonosho, Shozu Shima . . . .176 Setoda Kindergarten Graduates, March, 191 7 . . 182 Kindergarten at Mitonnosho, Innoshima . . .192 Baptismal Service on the Seashore at Setoda, Ikuchi Shima 214 "Old Pilgrim's Progress '* 236 Captain Kobayashi and Group of Students . . . 248 Ninth Annual Meeting of Fukuin Maru Church, April, 191 7, at Tonosho, Shozu Shima .... 266 Pastors Ito and Shibata with Group of Christians and Enquirers at Hirado, Hirado Shima . . . 290 11 God tttleth; then with anxious mien "Why doubt and fear, Since He in paths unknown, unseen, In love is near, To counsel, comfort and uphold. Till gently as the dawn of day His plans and purposes unfold. And light is shed upon my way? — Z. W. Bickel A GERMAN PATRIOT ABOUT the middle of the nineteenth century, in that loose aggregation of kingdoms, grand-duchies, duchies, principalities and free cities which was later to become the German Empire, there was great political and social unrest. A widespread movement for reform was on foot, directed not only against the oppressive rule of the several kings and kinglets, dukes and dukelets, who happened to occupy the seats of authority, but also toward the amelioration of the unhappy po- litical and economic condition of the country as a whole. To weld all these incoherent fragments into one broad Fatherland, in which a united Ger- man People should enjoy constitutional govern- ment and popular freedom, such as France, Eng- land and America had achieved ; to add a Germany to the list of great, progressive, modern free na- tions, in which those who sat in high places should not be autocrats, nor those who toiled in lowly places serfs, was the lofty ambition which kindled the souls of the finest men of the German race. As was natural, and inevitable, it was among the choice young men, and especially among the stu- dents in the universities, that the patriotic fervour burned most ardently, and the discontent with things as they were which had long been smoulder- 13 14 CAPTAIN BICKEL ing througliout tlie nation flamed out into open advocacy of revolution. But tlie German people were not yet prepared to carry a revolutionary movement to success. The demand for political union, for constitutional gov- ernment, for democratic institutions, for tlie re- moval of the disabilities under which the common people laboured and the elevation of the peasantry from the condition of practical serfdom in which they were held, was bitterly opposed by the rulers and courts of the various kingdoms and princi- palities, to whom, after the fashion of such folk, the continued enjoyment of their little brief au- thority was of more moment than the welfare of a nation. Bismarck, that man of blood and iron, already secretly planning to erect a German Em- pire under Prussian hegemony, led the Prussian court against the popular demands, whether for a united or for a democratic Germany, and his hos- tility to the reform movement was copied in the other states. The heavy hand of government came down upon those who preached the revolutionary doctri'nes. Many were imprisoned. Others suf- fered the spoiling of their goods. Some sealed their testimony with their blood. Some escaped the edge of the sword by flight, exile the reward of their patriotism. Across the sea to the I^ew World, to find refuge under the shadow of " Old Glory,^' came some of the choicest spirits of Germany, who by their ability and energy were to make a splendid contribution to the development of their adopted country, and to win for themselves position and influence. As notable Instances may be mentioned Edward Retz, and Karl Schurz, of the latter of A GEEMAN PATEIOT IB wliom it has been said tliat only the fact of his foreign birth stood between him and the highest ofice in the gift of the American commonwealth. It is of interest to note also, in this connection, the case of Hans Kudlick, — not a German indeed, but an Austrian, — who at the time of the revolutionary movement among the German States championed the cause of freedom and democracy in his own Fatherland, and brought about the liberation of fourteen millions of Austrian peasants from a con- dition of serfdom, but who also found it discreet to join the procession of emigrants to the New World, and who died the other day, in his adopted country, at the ripe age of ninety-four. Among those Pilgrim Fathers of German blood who for love of the Fatherland were obliged to forsake the Fatherland, was the family of a certain well-to-do farmer of Weinheim, in the southern duchy of Baden, Bickel by name. The early for- bears of the Bickel family had come of hardy mountain stock, with their home among the Tyro- lian Alps. Thence, centuries ago, they migrated to what is now southern Germany and we next hear of them as the von Bickels of Bickelburg. There for many generations they held sway, father and son, as Barons of the Castle, holding the rank and enjoying the culture and training of feudal lords, down to modern times. Goodman Bickel, however, the father of the hero of this chapter, was no baron, but just a plain, hard-working, intelligent yeoman. With the aid of his sturdy young sons he tilled a stretch of fruitful acres, and was also owner and manager of a stage line which crossed the duchy from north to south. 16 CAPTAIN BICKEL The eldest son, Philipp, had shown an unusual aptitude for learning, and at the instance of his teachers had been sent to Heidelberg, in the north- ern part of Baden, for more advanced courses of study than the Weinheim schools could provide. Thence he had returned, in 1847, to his native town, and had joined himself as apprentice to a notary of the place, with the expectation of entering the service of the state. When the agitation for re- form broke out both Farmer Bickel and his eldest son Philipp, then a youth of nineteen, cast them- selves heartily into it ; the former, perhaps, chiefly out of sympathy for the downtrodden peasantry, with whose condition his calling must have made him intimately acquainted, and whose wrongs he probably shared; the latter, as a young man in public life, and fresh from the debating clubs of the University, more for political reasons. When the storm of government opposition to the revolutionary movement burst, the Bickels were among those who sought asylum in the great Ke- public of the West. First came Father Bickel, with his wife and the younger members of the family. Leaving behind them the wide farmhouse and its fertile fields, to be promptly confiscated, doubtless, by the government, they crossed the desert of the salt sea to the Land of Promise, the Home of Freedom. Arrived in America they joined the company of westward bound adventurers on the trail to what was then the far frontier, and settled on a small farm, or rather what was the makings of a small farm, on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Illinois. This little holding, of ten, acres, is now Lincoln Park, one of the beautiful A GEEMAN PATEIOT 17 breathing spaces of the city of Chicago. A fe-w: months later, however, cholera broke out in the neighbourhood, and the Bickels sold out and re- moved to where Evanston now stands, where they secured another piece of land, this time of 180 acres. Meanwhile the son Philipp had taken passage on a sailing vessel bound to New York. The voyage must have been a long one, for we are told that the stock of provisions ran so low that the ship's com- pany was reduced to a rice diet. Three rice meals a day is a synon^Tn for good living in wide regions of the earth; but in our patriot-exile, accustomed to the substantial fare of a German farmhouse, it bred such a dislike for this wholesome cereal that never afterward could he be induced to taste it. W^en the ship at last docked at New York, Philipp at once struck out into the country to seek work as a farm labourer. At the first farmhouse at which he called to ask for employment the farmer pointed to the young man's hands, soft and white from a student's desk, and remarked, " 'Tis not much work you'll do with hands like that." To the wise a word is sufficient. At the next farm- house our student took care to keep his hands in his pockets, and was engaged. The farmer must have been surprised, later, when Philipp's hands came into sight ; but he kept to his bargain, and was delighted to find that he had not merely secured a capable farm hand, but an educated man, who could speak both French and German, and who became an excellent teacher to the farmer's children. After a short stay in the home of this worthy man, young Bickel took the road again, and we next 18 CAPTAIH BICKEL ' find him manager of an Indian trading post at Waukegan, in Wisconsin. It was while here that Philipp Bickel passed through that spiritual experience which is the true starting point of our story. Up to this time he had had no personal knowledge of the grace of God. Born into a Lutheran family at a time when Ger- man Lutheranism had already well-nigh lost its spiritual life, the atmosphere of Heidelberg and the influences which had been about him since the close of his student life had left him practically an infidel. He was a zealot for human liberty, but a stranger to the freedom wherewith Christ makes His people free. At Waukegan he was provi- dentially brought into friendly relations with some pious Baptists, and there was awakened in his heart a longing for that true liberty which is spiritual, and which Christ alone can bestow. Under the ministry of Eev. I. Cogshall, a faithful preacher of the Gospel, he was led into a true experience of repentance and faith, and having confessed Christ by baptism in the waters of Lake Michigan was received into the membership of the Waukegan Church. From Waukegan Mr. Bickel removed to Louis- ville, Kentucky, to assume the editorship of a Ger- man secular paper published in that city. His native literary ability, superior education and legal training fitted him to achieve success as a journalist and politician, while his experience as champion of popular rights in his native land, and the intimate association into which his life in America had brought him with the labouring classes, served to render him an acceptable expo- A GEEMAN PATEIOT 19 nent of democratic ideas. The young reformer, for lie was yet but twenty-three, was so vigorous and outspoken that he provoked a local political storm. The proprietor of the paper took sides against the editor, and went so far as to threaten his life, revolver in hand. Bickel, however, was a man of powerful physique. He wrenched the weapon from the hand that held it, and the pro- prietor suddenly and ignominiously landed at the bottom of the office stairs, and there received the editor's resignation. Our reformer's hands were free for higher service. "Disgusted with man's per- versity, God's time for Philipp Bickel had come." From the very beginning of his Christian life, the pastor and members of the Waukegan Church had been impressed with the conviction that here was a man chosen of God for some special service, and had urged him to prepare himself for the Christian ministry. " The indomitable energy of the man had, however, already secured for him a very desirable position in life, and there was some- thing to renounce if he would accept the dependent position of a Baptist preacher. He resolved to apply himself with renewed energy to his calling, and so to earn as much as possible, in order that he might give freely to the cause of Christ. He aimed especially at assisting others to enter upon the service from which he himself shrank. Still, this was not the Lord's purpose for him, as he soon learned. It was himself, his life, that was wanted for the service of the Master. When he realized this he obeyed the call, and unreservedly yielded himself with all that he had to the work of preach- ing the Gospel." 20 CAPTAIN BICKEL Captain Bickel, in his memorial article, " The Old Blacksmith/' tells us that it was by the words of a godly Scotch woman in a country store that his father was led to realize his obligation to Christ, and in penitence and gratitude to devote himself to the active service of his Saviour; and indicates that it was a feeling of disappointment at the failure of his second attempt to act the champion of popular rights which prepared his heart for the message God sent him through this humble woman. Soon after the revolver episode he entered the Baptist Theological Seminary at Kochester, N. Y., where he remained until 1855, taking the regular course with the English-speaking students, and at the same time acting as tutor to the young men in the German Department. A memorable incident of these seminary days was the visit to Rochester of Pastor Oncken, the founder and beloved leader of the Baptist cause in middle Europe. Dr. Yohann Gerhard Oncken, eminent in learning and piety, and known as the Apostle of Germany, was now in the midst of his half century of fruitful missionary labour. Being on a visit to America, and happening to hear that some young Germans were at Rochester studying for the min- istry, he came to the city to see them. The stu- dents were delighted bej^ond measure, and at their request Bickel, who had already given proofs of poetic ability, composed an ode of welcome to their distinguished guest, little dreaming that he him- self was even then being prepared by God to be Oncken's successor. It was while a student at Rochester that Philipp A GEEMAN PATRIOT 21 Bickel met and wooed and won tlie gentle and winsome Christian girl wlio was to share his home and his labours for half a century. Katherine Clarke, better known to her friends as Kitty, was the daughter of Kev. Samuel E. Clarke, who had the distinction of being the first graduate of Ham- ilton Seminary. He undertook pioneer evangelistic work in the Miami Valley, but his earthly ministry was soon cut short by death. His widow became matron of the Rochester Orphanage, a position she occupied for many years. Kitty, who had been born at Utica, N. Y., May 10, 1834, and who was therefore still in her teens when she made the acquaintance of her future husband, accompanied her mother to Rochester, and secured a position as teacher in a ladies' seminary in that city. Some of the good people of Rochester presently began to take notice of our brawny, brainy young German theologue, and wishing to put in his way the means necessary to continue his studies, or- ganized a young folks' class for the study of Ger- man, which they invited him to conduct. One of his pupils was Kitty Clarke, and while she took from him her first lessons in the speech of the Fatherland they taught each other the golden lore of that which was from the beginning, is now and ever shall be the greatest thing in the world. The widow Clarke, however, did not welcome the pros- pect of her daughter Kitty becoming a German hausfrau and with the hope of preventing the match required the young man to absent himself from Rochester for two years, during which time there was to be no correspondence between the lovers. Philipp agreed to this proposal, and faith- 22 CAPTAIN BICKEL fully observed tlie terms of tlie agreement. But- love lauglis at locksmiths. Love-poems began to appear in the several papers which Kitty was ac- customed to read, and in these she heard the voice of the heart of her lover, and was content. When the appointed time had elapsed he returned to claim his bride, and they were married, February 17, 1857, by Rev. I. Scott, in the city of Eochester. Thus was begun a home life not, indeed, without many trials, but of an ideal beauty in its perfect mutual love and trust and helpfulness. During his two years' probation Mr. Bickel had taken up work among German immigrants in Cin- cinnati, Ohio, as city missionary of the Ninth Street Baptist Church, and to this city to share his labour he now brought his young wife. The new life, in a strange city, among foreigners, was not without its hardships to the American girl; but with a simple faith and love she went forward in the path of duty, taking up cheerfully the tasks that God set to her hand, and daily growing in those Christian graces which won the hearts of all who met her. Mr. BickePs work for the Germans in Cincinnati was at first carried on in the open air, afterward in an old engine house, and later in what was a mere shanty on Mary Street. He had not chosen an easy field. " The godless German district,'* Captain Bickel calls it. The Germans of the ■^neighbourhood were in the main either formalists in religion or avowed skeptics. For a time there was open and strong opposition, extending to at- tempts at personal violence, and culminating in a plot to poison the missionary and his family. But A GEEMAN PATEIOT 23 tlie fearlessness of the preaclier, and the sweetness and gentleness of tlie preacher's wife, either daunted or won the leaders of the opposition, and the work of evangelization went forward with in- creasing success. During the early years of Mr. Bickel's ministry in Cincinnati he added to his city mission activities frequent pioneer preaching trips into the regions beyond. Some of these took him into Kentucky. Those were the days of the great agitation through- out the North for the abolition of slavery, and there was little love lost between the anti-slavery state of Ohio, and the slave-holding state of Kentucky. Some of those who w^ere responsible for providing for Mr. BickeFs support as city missionary ob- jected to these excursions into the neighbouring state, and intimated that their continuance would mean a drop of one hundred dollars in his salary. With the small stipend he was receiving this would involve no little hardship, but Mr. Bickel knew only one road: the path of duty as God revealed it to him. The salary committee reconsidered their action, decided that it was un- called for, and offered no further objection to his missionary journeys. The little group of believers which worshipped in the shack on Mary Street developed, under his earnest ministry, into the First German Baptist Church of Cincinnati, properly housed, and with an influential and flourishing congregation. This church became a Mother of Churches, and of Preachers. From its early membership went forth many ministers and missionaries. Several branch churches, or mission churches, were organized dur- 24 CAPTAIN BICKEL ing Mr. Bickers stay. "Ten years saw five cliurclies established/' Meanwhile the Civil War drew on apace. Mr. Bickel had already taken an active part in helping fugitive slaves on their way north to Canada, the Promised Land of the oppressed black man, as an agent of the " Under-Ground Kailroad." When the war finally broke out he devoted himself to the cause of the North, and of the slave, as fully as circumstances permitted. Was it not his zeal for Union and Freedom that had sent him into exile from the Fatherland? Of those days a member of his family writes as follows: "When war was declared all the young men of the church volunteered. When they went to join the colours it was with the understanding that in case of sickness a welcome awaited them at our home. From time to time one and another claimed this hospitality, and became our guests foj a few days. The only case of serious illness was that of a Christian brother, who had lain uncared for in Andersonville Prison with a bad form of typhoid fever. When he was delirious only a strong man could control him, and it was the wish of the physician in charge of the case to have him taken to a hospital. The poor fellow had such terrible recollections of the prison that he feared even a hospital and begged to be allowed to remain in his pastor's home. Contrary to our fears the Lord blessed the treatment given. He completely re- covered and after three months was able to return to his duty. For many years he was one of the most faithful members of our Cincinnati church." Although Mr. Bickel was excused, on account of A GEEMAN PATEIOT 25 his calling, from active service, lie could not con- tent himself to bide snugly at home while other young men were bearing the hardships and perils of war. He had long ago become a naturalized American citizen, and was willing to fight and die for the principles for which the Kepublic stood. Cincinnati, being a border city, was constantly threatened by the southern forces, but he com- mitted his little family to the keeping of God, and marched away to the war. "While your father was away," Mrs. Bickel afterward related to her children, "I was for- tunate in having with me a woman who had escaped from slavery, and had come to me begging I should give her a home till she could get farther north. She was very faithful, and at night would not leave me and the children, but would bring a mat and lie down before our door. None of us thought of undressing at night, but lay down to rest with our clothes on, and each child knew which package he or she must take if we were obliged to flee before morning. There were many rebels in the neighbourhood. The house in which we lived, and indeed nearly the entire street, belonged to George Pendleton, and we were often roused from our slumbers by horsemen coming to bring him information of the proceedings of these rebels. Their plan was to first of all cut off the water supply, so we always kept our rain-water cistern filled. We used all necessary precautions, but we were thankful when matters became more quiet, and Father could return to his church and family. '^ Mr. Bickel returned from the war with an affec- tion of the throat which practically disabled him 26 CAPTAIN BICKEL for public service. From tlie beginning of his city missionary life lie had occasionally found time to exercise his literary talent, and now he turned his energies into the production of German Christian literature. Keligious articles, poems, translations of English hymns, flowed from his pen. His first serious venture, as a Christian publisher, was a Baptist Young People's Pai3er, and a Sunday- school Hymnal. This undertaking, which was at first at his own private expense, soon developed into the German Baptist Publication Society. At the request of the German Baptists of America he became president of the Society, and editor and publisher of the various periodicals which it issued. The Publication House was established in Cleve- land, and eventually, in 1870 or thereabout, he found it necessary to remove his home to that city. The work of the Society developed rapidly, and soon he was devoting to it almost his whole atten- tion. The first building, erected in 1871, was des- troyed by fire, but was soon replaced by one larger and handsomer, which became a centre of great usefulness. Meanwhile, in Germany Pastor Oncken was feeling the burden of increasing years, and was looking for a man upon whom he might lay the responsibilities he had borne for half a century. In 1876 Mr. Bickel — now Dr. Bickel, having re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Deni- son University — visited Germany and had an inter- view with Dr. Oncken. " The venerable leader recognized in the younger man from America one who, by personal qualifications, by knowledge of the grace of God, and by long experience in a A GEEMAN PATEIOT 27 similar sphere, was peculiarly fitted to carry for- ward the work of the Baptist Mission in Germany and other lands." He laid the matter upon his visitor's heart, and to Dr. Bickel his words were the voice of God calling him to a wider field of usefulness. The next year, with the assistance of the American Baptist Publication Society, he re- turned to Germany, accompanied by his family, henceforth to make the Fatherland again his home. Thirty years before, a mere stripling, a lonely fugi- tive Jacob with naught but a staff in his hand, he had gone to be a sojourner in a strange land. He returns, having " become two bands," rich in wife and children, rich also in the knowledge of God, and in experience of Christian life and work. During those thirty years a new Germany had arisen. The dream of the young revolutionaries of '48 had in part been fulfilled. The various states had been federated into one great empire, prosper- ous and strong. The disabilities of the peasantry had been removed. German democracy, however, was yet only a distant hope. It was doubtless with some feeling of regret that Dr. Bickel exchanged the free institutions of the West for the cast-iron absolutism of the new empire. Keligiously, con- ditions had not improved. In the State Church spiritual life was at a low ebb. The universities were hotbeds of infidelity. The preaching of the Gospel, and meetings for worship, by evangelical Christians, if not actually prohibited, were at least often interfered with and interrupted by agents of the government. Dr. Bickel settled in Hamburg, and there de- voted himself to the two lines of work which had 28 CAPTAIN BICKEL occupied Dr. Oncken: the j)roduction and dissemi- nation of Christian literature, and the training up of a Christian ministry. The German Baptist Union transferred to him the management of its publishing business, and into its reorganization and development he threw himself with character- istic energy and determination. The business prospered and grew, and became a power for good, its influence extending far beyond the confines of Germany, among the German-speaking populations of the adjoining countries. It is mainly due to Dr. BickeFs sagacity and enterprise and unremitting toil that the Baptists of German}^ now own an admirable Publication House, equipped with all modern appliances, in the city of Cassel, in Hessia, to which city the publishing business was removed from Hamburg; and here Dr. Bickel passed the last years of his life. Here he carried on not only the normal work of the publication department, including the issuing of various religious period- icals, hymnals and helpful books, but also that of the Tract Society and of Bible distribution. He performed a valuable service as agent of the Na- tional Bible Society of Scotland, and by the col- porters under his direction nearly two million copies of the Scriptures were distributed among the German-speaking peoples of Europe, many of these copies being placed in the hands of socialists and free-thinkers, to say nothing of the merely nominal Christians of the Established Church. There were about fifty colporters under his direction, who travelled far and wide over Central Europe, preach- ing the Gospel and scattering the printed word of God among the people. Many of them met hos- A GERMAN PATRIOT 29 tility, abuse and violence. Dr. Bickel's lionie was their Mecca. There they found sjTiipathy and counsel and strength. Gathered ahout his table, or at his fireside, they told the story of their journeys in Germany and Austria, among the Balkan Mountains or on Russian steppes ; and their difficulties and trials, their labours and successes, were the theme of conversation and prayer. As a result of the work of these men many persons were brought to a new life in Christ, and in several coun- tries Baptist churches were established, not only among German-speaking peoples, but among those of other languages. German Baptists owe a debt of gratitude also to Dr. Bickel for the part he took in training young men for the Christian ministry. To the building up and development of the Hamburg Theological Seminary he gave unstintingly his time and strength. In his mind the colportage work and the Seminary course were closely connected. From the ranks of the colporters came many students into the school, and on the other hand the work done by the colporters broke up the ground for the evangelistic and pastoral labours of the seminary graduates. The Seminary at Hamburg, the Pub- lication House at Cassel — these remain as sub- stantial memorials of thirty-six years of faithful and fruitful labour on behalf of the spiritual re- demption of the Fatherland. Dr. Bickel was in- deed during all these years the head and front of Baptist work not in Germany only but throughout Central Europe. Dr. Bickel was a lover of children, and was loved by them. He gathered them about him in the Sun- 30 CAPTAIN BICKEL day scliool. He sent out from his presses literatui*e suited to their needs. His ^^ Lingvo glein/' or ^'Singing-Birdie/' with its bright words and mel- odies, became a favourite in all the Sunday schools of the countries speaking the German tongue. Such, told all too imperfectly, is the story of the life-work of Dr. Philipp Bickel, the father of our Cai)tain Bickel. He was a man of great heart, of strong faith, of ardent love of truth and righteous- ness, of wide vision, of tireless energy. He was a great German, a great American, a true patriot, a faithful Christian. The movement for popular freedom and national reform into which he flung himself in his fiery youth failed of its purpose, but he was privileged to labour for sixty years for the highest interests of his fellow-countrymen, in the ISTew World and in the Old. It cannot be doubted that those fundamental principles of democracy, so inseparable from Baptist institutions, so vital in the teachings of the New Testament, which his whole work tended to spread throughout the Fa- therland, will eventually have a place in the creation of a modern democratic Germany. How great have been the spiritual results, in thousands of lives, of those sixty years of faithful service, and how rich are the harvests yet to be reaped from the seed he has sown, only God can know, and only eternity can reveal. When the writer was in Germany in the summer of 1907, having come overland from Japan on his way to Canada, he had the great honour of being the guest of Dr. and Mrs. Bickel, in their delightful home in Cassel, and cherishes the memory of the fatherly and motherly welcome accorded him, and \ A.GEEMAN PATEIOT 31 of the loving hospitality he enjoyed as a friend of the dear son iii far-away Japan, and as a missionary of the Gosjjel. " Loving '' is distinctly the right adjective, even to the patriarchal parting embrace, given in the warm-hearted German fashion. It was a home of a genuinely Christian atmosphere, w^here dwelt the peace of God. They had the year before celebrated their golden wedding. Their sons and daughters had grown up and gone forth to lives of usefulness. Dr. Bickel, though already fourscore, was enjoying a hale old age, the bright quiet evening of a strenuous life. Tall and of sub- stantial physique, he made on one the impression of strength and vigour, while in his voice and face were kindness, goodness and peace. Mrs. Bickel, seven years her husband's junior, although more worn and frail than he, was beautiful in her gentle refinement and spirituality. To be their guest was better than to sit at the table of kings. Their home closely adjoined the great publishing house v/hich he had so long controlled, but the active manage- ment of which he was transferring to Herr J. G. Lehmann, his " right hand,'' who was to him as a son to a father. Under Herr Lehmann's kind con- duct an interesting tour was made of the various departments of the Publication House, a centre of spiritual light for wide regions of Europe ; and also a visit to places of chief interest in the city. Emperor William was to be in the city the follow- ing day, and the writer was urged to extend his sojourn and have a glimpse of His Majesty; but companions in travel awaited his return to Berlin, and he counted it a sufficient honour to have sat at meat with members of a higher than earthly no- 32 CAPTAIN BIOKEL bility. In their comj>any one was not far from Him wlio is King of Idngs and Lord of lords. In these days, when the flagrant crimes com- mitted against nations and against humanity by some elements of the German people have aroused the indignation of the whole world, Christian and heathen, it is pleasant to remember the godly and honourable friends one has met in the Fatherland, and to believe that " somewhere in Germany " are many sweet and lovable souls, who after the war will become mediators of peace and amity between the German nation and the peoples who have been compelled to count it an enemy. The following year Mrs. Bickel was called away to the heavenly land ; and on November ninth, 1914, in his eighty-sixth year. Dr. Bickel passed on to his reward, full of years and honours. Although the growing infirmities of age compelled him during the closing years of life to withdraw from active service, he did not slacken his interest in all that pertained to the Kingdom of God. His intellectual faculties remained clear to the end. We are told that during these quiet evening years of life he devoted himself much to prayer, till in the gray of a November morning the summons came, and he went his way to the heavenly Fatherland, out of the storm of war which was already desolating the earth. We cannot close this sketch of the life of Captain BickePs father better than with words which the Captain himself wrote in honour of his father^s memory : ** The Smithy is empty. The tools lie idle. The long A GERMAN PATRIOT 33 day is spent. The evening has come. The old Smith has passed on down the long road to the beautiful fields by the still waters, on through the Valley of Peace, to the Mountains of the ' Promise Fulfilled.' It was of these fields, this valley, these mountains, that he so often sang to the children who gathered at the Smithy door to see the sparks fly from the anvil. '* But there is no sorrow in the hearts of those who saw the old Smith go. His work was done, well done, and the songs of hope and faith and love remain in the hearts of those who heard them, to cheer them on their way to the fields, the valley, the mountains beyond. ' ' Sixty years of service, active service, in the name of the Baptist churches of the United States, was the record of the old Smith, first under the Home, then under the Foreign Society, a record of a strenuous life, a life of large vision. A man of iron will and high ideals, a poet and h^nnn-writer of no mean merit, honoured by one in- stitution of learning because of his * fearless advocacy of righteousness,' by another for his literary attainments, his legacy to his children was this, — that the Spirit of Christ was in him. To the writer's sadly human heart, however, the most helpful remembrance of the old Smith is this, that old and young, strong and weak, the man of affairs, the official, the student, the mechanic, the labourer, the little child, each and all said, *The Old Blacksmith is my Friend ! ' " As our story proceeds it will be seen that Captain Biekel, in many of his lines of Christian activity, followed in his father's footstejjs, but beyond that he was the true son of his father in his fearless devotion to duty, his intellectual and moral strength and energy, his ability to bring things to pass, and most of all in this, that he won the con- fidence, admiration and love of people of all ages U CAPTAII>f BICKEL and of every condition of life, Japanese and for- eigner, missionary and sailor, heathen and Chris- tian. Literally, throughout his wide Island parish, and wherever else his duty took him, he was recognized as friend by " old and young, strong and weak, the man of affairs, the ofdcial, the stu- dent, the mechanic, the labourer and the little chUd," n THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BICKEL ON the twenty-first of September, in the year of grace 1866, in the humble but happy home of a city missionary in Cincinnati, was born the hero of this story. It is recorded as a matter of interest in the family annals that on the self-same day the head of the household was honoured by appointment to the editorship of the religious publications issued by the German Bap- tist churches of the United States. Luke, as the newcomer was named, was born an American, his German-born father having long since taken out his naturalization papers ; but in blood he was English- American on his mother^s side, and German on his father's. Already four children had come to bless the Bickel home, and later came four others, Luke standing half-way down the family line. His birth fell at an auspicious time. The Civil War was over. Pastor Bickel had been welcomed back from army service by his family and his church. He had built him a house on one of the hills beside the city, and in the pure air of those breezy heights, and in the warm atmosphere of a home where love reigned, the baby boy thrived finely. Early in his second year, however, he suddenly 35 3G CAPTAIN BICKEL fell ill, and so seriously that the Christian doctor who had been called to prescribe for hiin felt com- pelled to prepare the parents to part with their child. "Would you be willing, Mrs. Bickel," he said, "to return the babe to the keeping of Him who has lent him to you? " The mother could only rei)ly through her tears, " Oh, if he might but be spared to me yet another year ! " On the same day, to the doctor's surprise, the disease took a favour- able turn, and the parents knew that their prayers had been answered. A year passed, and again Luke fell dangerously ill. The doctor repeated his ques- tion of the previous year. " Last year," replied the mother, " God heard my petition and has permitted me to keep the child until now. He will again hear me, and still leave the child in my arms." Again her desire was granted, and the disease was over- come. For some years, however, Luke had but in- different health, being nervous and peevish, without the good spirits natural to childhood; and his mother sometimes feared that she had been too importunate in her desire and prayer that his life might be spared. As time passed on, however, he grew into normal health. His sister writes that as a child he was of a quiet and timid disposition, affectionate and witty. He was of a religious bent, with a notice- able love for prayer. By this time the family had removed to Cleveland, in order that Mr. Bickel might be in closer touch with the Publication House. Mrs. Bickel had learned to love the life of a pastor's wife, and to enjoy her own share in city missionary work. She had been as an angel of God in homes of sorrow and sickness. When THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BICKEL 37 she reluctantly parted with her peoj)le — for they had become her peoj^le as well as her hiisband^s — she carried with her the love of many hearts. If Luke Bickel owed much to his father in the intellectual gifts and strong traits of character which he inherited from him, and in the fine ex- ample of noble manhood and Christian devotion which he saw in him, he owed his mother an equal debt. Perhaps he would have said that her share in what he became, and in what he achieved, should have an even higher valuation. He tells us that while his father's fearless advocacy of every good cause, and uncompromising hostility to every evil, won him many enemies, his mother's gentleness and sweetness of disijosition made every one her friend. One or two instances of her kind thoughtfulness for others have been preserved to us. Before her marriage, while a teacher in Rochester, it was her custom every morning, before meeting her classes, to go to the home of a poor bed-ridden negro woman and minister to her needs, aiding her with her toilet, tidying up her room, and making her comfortable for the day. Some years later, when she was a mother with young children about her, it happened that a woman of the neighbourhood died, leaving a babe of the same age as Mrs. BickeFs youngest. On hearing of this she had the child brought to her own home, and nourished it at her own breast, with her own child, until it was mature enough to take solid food. " Our sweet, loving, unselfish, jmtient little mother was our Friend. To see her face sad was our sufficient punishment. Friends used to say that we worshipped our mother. She had a great 38 CAPTAIN BTCKEL love for children, and always stood for their rights. She never punished us when excited. Often she would tallv matters over with us, and then pray with us, and then the corporal punishment would follow. We realized that our punishment was deserved and wise. Sister Penelope, a great strong girl, would often come to Mother of her own accord, and ask to be punished.'' Mrs. Bickel was always the companion of her children, retaining her youthful spirit, keeping abreast of the times, hospitable to new ideas, and thus able to enter into the thought and experience of her sons and daughters as they grew to man- hood and womanhood. When they had flitted from the home nest she still kept in close touch with them through her pen. " Her letters were a great inspiration to our lives. They seemed like mes- sages from heaven, aiding us in the trials and temptations of life to overcome, and to live accord- ing to our Master's will." In Captain BickeFs consummate courtesy and refinement, the bloom of which was not marred by the years he spent among rough seafaring men ; in his delicacy of feeling and readiness of sympathy; in his forwardness to help ; in his unfailing patience and humility, and in an almost feminine gentleness and tenderness toward all the weak and distressed, we see part of his inheritance from his mother, and one result of the lessons in living which he learned in boyhood at her side. The secular education of the Bickel children was not neglected. Full advantage was taken of the public school systems of America and Germany; but in addition to this Dr. Bickel gave his personal THE MAKING OF CAPTATISr BICKEL 39 attention to tlie training of eacli of his cliildren, taking into account the mental peculiarities and proclivities of each one. "Father did all in his power to give us a good education, at the same time considering the natural inclination of each child. Father also had the idea that each child should learn to do for himself, and so soon as suf6.ciently mature should go out into the world and make his own way. ^Always ask the Lord,' he wbuld say to us, ' where He wishes you to go, and then follow.' This advice he repeated again and again, and the consequence is that later vears found us scattered all over the earth. Father's time was fully occupied with his mission work, and we children while at home all had our share in the household tasks, and were too busy and happy to crave outside worldly amusements. Nearly every day brought us new guests and vis- itors, and if they failed to come we enjoyed the novelty of having our parents and our home to our- selves." What gift could a good Fairy bestow on a child greater than to grow up in just such a simple, hum- ble, hospitable, homely little home, the daily atmos- phere of which was cheerfulness, seriousness, godli- ness and love? In 1878, when Luke was twelve years of age, the family migrated back to Germany, to make their home first at Hamburg and later at Cassel. Of the nine children born to the Bickels, three had died in early childhood. Of the six remaining, Karl, the eldest, was just out of his teens, while Beatrice, the youngest, was but a baby. The family home life was American rather than German. There was 40 CAPTAIN BICKEL always an American flag in the house. Meals were cooked and served in the American style. German and English were both in common use in the family intercourse. While in America special attention had been paid to the German, now in Germany, stress was laid on the English. In whichever lan- guage any one of the children happened to be ad- dressed by his parents he was expected to reply in the same language. Luke thus began life with two native tongues, and to these he later added Dutch, French, Si^anish, and of course Japanese, as well as gaining some knowledge of several other lan- guages. We are told that as a child Luke was a great lover of neatness and order, carrying this passion sometimes to excess. It distressed him if there was any untidiness or confusion in the house. " With our many guests it was impossible to have things always in their proper places, as we were frequently obliged to give up our own rooms to visitors. Luke's extreme fastidiousness annoyed his sisters, and one day a motto, intended for his edification, was found hanging in the dining-room : « Mensch Argere Dich NichV It only needed a year of sailor life, his sister tells us, to cure him of the excess of this trait, but his innate love of order remained and stood him in good stead on the FuJcuin Maru^ which owed not a little of her charm to the order and neatness which always reigned in her. Luke had been for some years a pupil in Stirling School, Cleveland, and did not find it easy to ac- custom himself to the quite different methods of THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BICKEL 41 instruction followed in Germany. For this reason he failed to find much pleasure in, his school life in that country. He made good progress, however, and while not a bookworm always stood high in his classes. His favourite studies were geography, music, and the Bible. On being graduated from the Keformed Church Academy, Hamburg, in 1880, he was sent to Soest, where he took three years' collegiate work, after which he silent a year at Wandsbeck Gymnasium. Meanwhile an important part of his education was that which he wa« receiving at home. While Dr. Bickel was a Home Missionary in a very wide sense, his influence extending all over Central Europe, Mrs. Bickel was noted for her interest in missions to the heathen. Both with equal zeal laboured together for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ, and the home atmosphere was warmly Christian and missionary. From such a home one may expect missionaries to go forth, and men and women with a wide outlook and an intelligent in- terest in human affairs. The missionary move- ment is, by the way, one of the most effective educa- tors of modern times. Captain Bickel sometimes expressed regret that circumstances had prevented his taking a course of study in theology before beginning his missionary work ; but it would be well if all who come to the foreign field fresh from the seminary class-room brought as clear and spiritual views of Christian truth, and as marked an ability to present that truth in an effective manner. In his case the mis- sionary home had fulfilled the function of the the- ological school. At his father's table, at the family 42 CAPTAIN BICKEL hearth, he listened to discussions of the funda- mental doctrines of religion, and of the application of those doctrines to Christian work. To that home came men from many lands, men in the true apostolic succession, telling what things God had wrought by their hands among the nations. A boy graduated from such a home hardly needs a semi- nary course. It was no doubt due, moreover, in part at least, to what Luke Bickel learned con- cerning the spirit and method of missionary work in his own home, from the lips of his parents, and of many other experienced Christian workers, that he was afterward able to plan his own work so wisely, and to carry it out so efficiently, making few of the mistakes which mark and mar the early years of the average missionary. While the home influences were thus supremely helpful, it was otherwise with some of those which touched his life in the world outside. The agnosti- cism and materialistic philosophy which had largely replaced religion in the German Empire met him in his school life. Among the teachers in the Academy was an atheist who succeeded in in- oculating Luke with his skeptical views, greatly to the concern of his parents. Though religiously inclined from a child he had not yet committed himself to the Christian life. In her urgent desire for the spiritual welfare of her boy his mother not only herself made the matter a subject of prayer, but addressed a letter to the American Baptist Women's Missionaiy Society, which was about to hold its annual assembly, begging that special prayer be made at that meeting for the conversion of her son. Notice the sequel. At the very time THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BICKEL 43 that the Women's Missionary Conference was in session on tKe other side of the Atlantic, Luke was led into a personal experience of the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ by a devout simple-minded city mission worker named Wendolf, and forthwith confessing his new found faith and being baptized, became a member of the Hamburg Baptist Church. At once he began to manifest a desire to have others share the blessing he had found, showing a lively interest, for example, in the work of the mission to seamen, and in the sailors' home, the " Strangers' Rest," in the city. It may here be mentioned that Dr. and Mrs. Bickel had the joy of seeing all their children converted, and brought into the fellowship of the German Baptist Church, while they were yet young. Luke's interest in the Hamburg Mission to Sea- men may have been partly due to his own longing for a life on the salt water. Although born in an inland city, and without a sight of the ocean until his twelfth year, he had early conceived a passion for the sea. His father used to smilingly say that it was " all Grandma Clarke's fault." She had fired the boy's heart with the tale of Commodore Perry and his famous Expedition to the coasts of the Far East, beyond the wide Pacific, and had taken him so often to the Perry Monument in Cleveland that it had made a profound impression on him. It is safe to say that neither of them dreamed that some day he would enter the door which Perry had thrown open, and spend his life for the people whom Perry had introduced to the modern world. Luke's first ocean voyage, from New York to Hamburg, might well have dampened his boyish 44 CAPTAIN BICKEL ardour for a sailor^s life. He suffered much from seasickness. Indeed, lie seems to have been con- stitutionally susceptible to that unpleasant malady, and even after becoming a professional seaman was frequently troubled in this way. At Hamburg, Germany's great port, he was in touch with the sea and shipping. Great ocean liners came to the city quays from many lands beyond the Seven Seas. He played at sailoring by carving out toy vessels, and by going voyaging in a rowboat, with his younger sister for mate, upon the placid Alster. When Luke first expressed a desire to follow the sea his father, unwilling for him to meet the hard- ships of a sailor's life, considering also no doubt the great temptations incident to it, and the wrecks of more than ships which strew its course, en- deavoured to turn him from his purpose. Thinking to wean him from the salt water he sent him off to school in an inland city. This, however, proved of no avail. Whenever a holiday permitted his first thought was to get to, and on, the nearest water. " If I have no boat, I take a tub," he used to say. On one occasion a woman with two chil- dren was very anxious to get across a certain sheet of water, but the boatman refused to ferry her over on account of the tempestuous weather. Luke vol- unteered his services and rowed them safely across — an incident prophetic of the life of ready and fearless service for which God was preparing him. Dr. Bickel was not yet able to reconcile himself to having his boy become a sailor, and made one more attempt to anchor him to the land. He pro- posed to him to take a medical course, and wrote to THE MAKING OP CAPTAIN BICKEL 45 a doctor who happened to be a friend of the family, asking his advice in the matter. The reply was for some reason delayed, and meanwhile Luke in- formed his parents that he could only take up medical studies on the condition that when they were completed he might become a ship's doctor. His father, finding that he was hopelessly in love with the sea, withdrew his opposition and had him apprenticed, for a term of four years, on an English merchant sailing ship. He was now in his eight- eenth year, six feet in height, a fine strapping young fellow. When he made his first home visit after a year at sea it was evident that he had not mistaken his calling, and that physically and spiritually the sailor life was agreeing with him. He came back as a happy Christian seaman. " He had found his element." His voyages during these four years, following " the trail of the deep blue," took him far afield, to the west coast of South America, to Australia, and to Africa, and their incidents would make a fascinating tale of the sea if we could gather them together. It is worth recording that the voyages Were made under sail, some of them in the famous clipper ships, the Ships of Tarshish of the day, and were far more interesting and eventful than if made under steam, in the prosaic modern fashion. He was literally a sailor, and thus his sea voyages were an especially good preparation for captaining the FuJcuin Maru. Every voyage he went gave him an opportunity to save a human life, an opportunity which his courage, strength and swiftness in action enabled him to seize. On one occasion a sailor had thrown 46 CAPTAIN BICKEL s himself into tlie sea intending to commit suicide. Bickel instantly leaped after him, and overcoming his resistance by sheer force succeeded in rescuing him. The would-be suicide repaid him with curses, on which the other sailors would have thrown the man overboard again had not Bickel intervened. During these years, and during all the years of his seafaring life, his Christian conduct was an example to all his shipmates. His evident sin- cerity, and his manly qualities and friendly ways, made him liked and respected by all, even the roughest sailors of the forecastle, and they never made a mock of his religion. On one occasion, while an apprentice, when he had been sent aloft, a number of the sailors were gathered on deck talking together, and spicing their conversation with lewd jokes, and vile language. When they saw Bickel coming down they checked each other, saying, " Hush ! Don't use such talk now. Here comes Bickel, and he's a Christian." He held fast everywhere the principles of total abstinence in which he had been trained. Dining one day in a restaurant in Valparaiso, a Spanish gentleman present, wishing to show him friendli- ness, had the waiter bring him a bottle of wine. Bickel thanked the gentleman for his kind inten- tion, but pointed to the blue ribbon in his button- hole. The bottle was ordered removed and a basket of fine frnit set in its place. At the end of his four years' apprenticeship, of all the ship's company with which he had sailed on his maiden voyage himself and the ship's dog were all that remained on board. Our young seaman rose steadily and rapidly in THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BICKEL 47 his cliosen calling. He duly passed his officer's examination, and by the time he was twenty-eight had attained the rank of captain, holding, though an American, a British Board of Trade certificate as Master Mariner. Sometimes in after years, when storm or calm compelled the Little White Ship to lie at anchor, giving her Captain some hours of unwelcome leisure, he would beguile the time, as he paced with the writer the vessel's deck, with " sailors' yarns " of the days when he sailed the Seven Seas, tales of doings in the forecastle, of visits to strange lands and foreign cities, of adventures on the Pacific and perils on the At- lantic, of the ways of seamen ashore and afloat. Mightily entertaining, and with a spiritual tonic, were these tales, seasoned with salt of humour and grace, told to the music of idly flapping sails or of dashing waves, and full of a love for the wide sea with its far horizons, its mighty throb, its wonder and majesty and mystery; for though not himself a frequent maker of verse he had something of a poet's vision of the beauty of the world. These ten years of sailor life had much to do with the making of Captain Bickel. He not only gained that expert knowledge of navigation which his work in the Inland Sea demanded, but a body inured to hardship and fatigue. His acquaintance with many lands and association with all kinds of people quickened in him a cosmopolitan spirit, which recognized the human worth of men of every race and condition. Out on the lonely sea, more- over, he became better acquainted with Him who holds the winds in His fist, the sea in the hollow of His hand, and passed through spiritual experi- 48 CAPTAIN BICKEL ences wliicli fitted him for something higher than mere sailoring, when the time should come. Meanwhile, a new interest came into his life, which was to yield a very important jDart of his equipment for his unique mission. From his ocean voyages he ever returned to English ports, and it was in England he found the woman who was to make the Fukum Maru a home, no matter by what strange shore it might anchor, and to do much to create of it a floating Bethel, where men were conscious of the presence of God. Annie Burgess was born in Norwich, a town whose name is a house- hold word with all English-speaking children who have not been defrauded of their rights in the nursery poems of Mother Goose. In London, in 1892, she first met Captain Bickel. He was then Second Officer on the S. S. Norse King, running between Montreal and London, and had added to his seafaring adventures some remarkable experi- ences in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, off the Magda- lene Islands, and in the vicinity of Belle Isle Strait. The meeting occurred at the home of a mutual friend and in the immediate, instinctive way in which such things happen they knew from the first that God meant them for each other. Our Captain, decisive and prompt in all his doings, was no laggard in love, and lost no time in wooing and winning the woman he felt God had chosen for him. The marriage took place in 1893, and the new home was established in the great city. It was a lonely home, however, for the young wife, who could only enjoy her husband's society during the brief days his ship was at its home port, and it was a great joy to her when he decided to THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BIOKEL 49 remain witli her over one voyage, and take his examinations for master mariner. In tkese ex- aminations he was successful, and now stood, in rank, at the top of his chosen profession. For his wife's sake, however, and perhaps also that he might enjoy more frequently that home life to which he had been so long a stranger, he discon- tinued his long voyages to lands over sea, content- ing himself with coasting trips around the British Islands. Even so the young couple could enjoy each other's society only in homeopathic doses, and when their first child, Philip, was born Captain Bickel yielded to his wife's persuasions to seek employment on shore, for a time at least. A kind Providence seconded Mrs. Bickel's desire. Some of the directors of the London Baptist Pub- lication Society, who happened to be intimate friends of Dr. Philipp Bickel and knew of his great success in promoting the work of the German Bap- tist Publishing Concern, invited the young captain to an interview, and as a result of the interview asked him to assume control of the Society's busi- ness. The business was at that time in an almost moribund condition, and was carried on in a small oface on a back street in a very unfavourable loca- tion. The Captain accepted the task and deter- mined to put the business on a better footing or die in the attempt. In its reorganization and rejuve- nation he discovered marked administrative and executive ability. The quality of the output was improved, and its quantity greatly increased, and within a year the business had so developed that the directors moved it into better quarters in a business part of the city, on Paternoster Eoad. Here it 50 CAPTAIN BIOKEL continued to thrive and prosper, Captain Bickel devoting himself to it so earnestly and unremit- tingly, indeed, that there was danger of his break- ing down his health, the free life of a sailor having unfitted him for the confinement of an of8.ce. At the close of four years the London Baptist Publica- tion House was financially sound and strong, was having a large yearly turn-over, and was doing a work of great value to the Baptist churches of Britain. 'Not content with the Christian service he was rendering through the Publication House, he in- terested himself in the spiritual needs of the great metropolis, engaging, like his father, in Sunday- school work, for he, too, was a lover of children. He was in the midst of these fruitful labours when a call came to him to undertake a new work, in a strange land, on the opposite side of the planet ; a call to leave his cozy English home, newly estab- lished after many years of homelessness on the lonely sea, and to become again a wanderer on the face of the waters. A man was wanted to sail a Gospel Ship and carry on a Gospel Mission among the neglected Islanders of Japan. A ship-owner of Glasgow had made an offer of a vessel, and a Missionary Society was looking for a missionary- mariner. Some leading members of that society had come to Europe on this quest, and had visited Dr. Bickel and his Publication House and Seminary at Hamburg. They told of the needs of the Island- ers and of the opportunity now offered to meet those needs. " But all avails nothing,'^ they said, " unless we can find a man. May not your son be he? " " It would not be becoming in me to recom- THE MAKmG OF CAPTAIN BICKEL 51 mend my own son," replied Dr. Bickel, " but your journey takes you to London. There you can meet and talk with liim." Accordingly they crossed the Channel, and arriving in London found the Captain busy with his duties at the Eooms on Paternoster Road. Their proposal that he should become mis- sionary to the Japanese Islanders at first amazed him, he never having taken a course in theology, but finally he recognized in their request the voice of Him who appeared to Isaiah in the temple: " Whom shall we send? and who will go for us? " and humbly replied, " Here am I, send me." His love for the sea, and a long cherished feeling that some day he might become a missionary, made this response an easier one to him, though always when duty called he had ears only for her voice. To Mrs. Bickel it was a real sacrifice to leave the home land, break up her home, and part from kindred and friends. Other missionary wives could have a fixed abode, no matter how humble or amid what unpleasant surroundings, which they might transform into a home, and where they might rear their children. The lady of the FuJcuin Maru must be content to call the ship her home, and to live a wanderer's life. But love and duty prevailed also with her. Resigning immediately his position in the Pub- lication House, Captain Bickel devoted the re- mainder of his time in London to a brief course of study in Spurgeon's College, and in May, with his wife and their little son, made the journey to Japan. Into the making of Captain Bickel there entered the courage, energy, determination, fire and 52 CAPT Am BICKEL^ strength of his German father; the refinement, delicacy, purity, gentleness and self -forgetful love of his American mother; and the companionship, sympathy and loving help of his English wife. There went into it the wholesome atmosphere of an ideal Christian home, the bracing discipline of life at sea, the broadening influence of almost world- wide travel, and an experience in lines of Christian work for which the Inland Sea Mission would call. There entered into it, also, silent influences of the Divine Spirit, deep heart experiences of the pres- ence of God. For when w^e seek to analyze the secret of a man's power we find there are elements with which our scalpel or crucible cannot deal: deep well-springs of life known only to God. And so he came to us, an instrument for God's service which God Himself had chosen and fash- ioned, as surely as He had selected Moses, David or Isaiah for the work to w^hich they were called. Luke Bickel, like our Lord, " began to be about thirty years of age,'' when he entered upon the special work for which God had been preparing him. The years covered by that work were less than a score. But we know that God did not count His labour lost. The public ministry of our Lord Was much more brief. Ill THE INLAND SEA White wings folded to rest Over Banshu's silver fiord, Sunlight and moonlight and starlight And scent of the blossoming hills, Whisper of waves on the strand, Hush of the stars on the sea, — Oft when the night wind calls Do I see the moonlight's gold Glow through the dusk of the pines That sigh to the fisher girls. White wings lifted in flight O'er the blue of the Harima Deep, North wind and west wind and south wind And cool salt breath of the sea, Song of the sailors at work, Song of the children at play, — Oft when the tv.alight falls Do I watch the round red moon Rise through the purple mists On the boats of the fisher lads. White wings drooping In sleep As the day dies down in the west. Sunset and starlight and silence And mystic rune of the tide, Kiss of the breeze on my cheek. Hush of the night in my heart, — 53 64 CAPTAIK BICKEL Yonder the evening star O'er Kitagi's shadowy isle, But far are the pines on the hill That sigh to the fisher girls. GEOGRAPHICALLY, at least, Japan is the Britain of the Pacific and of Asia. With her several large islands, and the multitude of lesser ones which are scattered over the adjacent waters, we may compare Great Britain and Ire- land, and the many islands which lie off their coasts. The chain of the Kuriles, their hills still snow-capped when the writer beheld them on a day in late July, almost links up with the Aleutian chain off the shores of Kamschatka, thus binding the Sunrise Kingdom to America in the far north, while the Liu Chius, steeped in perpetual summer, bridge the southern sea to Formosa, thus making Japan a near neighbour of the United States in the Philippines. From the Kurile Strait to the Bashee Channel is a span of more than thirty degrees of latitude, and of thirty- five degrees of longitude; and if a tourist arrived in Yokohama wishes to find the limits of the realm of l^oshihito he must make a journey of nearly two thousand miles into the northeast, and another journey of about two thousand miles into the southwest, so far flung is the Island Empire of Japan. His westerly journey would bring him, after nearly four hundred miles travel, to the shore of the Inland Sea in the neigh- bourhood of Kobe, and then down its shining, isle- strewn waters to Moji, a voyage of three hundred miles ; and that is as far as we need to accompany him at present. The Inland Sea is fenced from the open Pacific THE INLAND SEA 56 by Shikoku, the Islaiid-of-tlie-roiir-Countries, on the south; and by Kyushu, the Island-of-the-!Nine- Provinces, on the west; while north lie the Sanyo Provinces of the main island, known to Japanese as Hondo. In this sea-wall the Creator has set three splendid gates : the Kii Channel, on the east of Shikoku ; the Bungo Strait, on the west ; and the Strait of Shimonoseki, between Hondo and Kyushu. Through these three gates the mighty waters of the Pacific come sweeping in, in three tidal streams, each holding to its own time-table, and these three presently coming into conflict, writhe and swirl and twist through the tortuous channels which separate the islands with a tangle and confusion of tides most perplexing and embarrassing to the navigator. No one who has sojourned for ever so brief a time in the Mikado's Empire, or has touched at her shores as he went his way across the world, needs any formal introduction to the Inland Sea, — Seto- 'Nai-Kaiy the " Sea within the Straits," as the Japanese call it. Its fame is world-wide as one of the most beautiful parts of beautiful Japan. Every tourist looks forward with delightful antic- ipation to his first glimi:)se of its waters, and its memory abides with him forever as one of the pleasantest scenes of his planet pilgrimage. From the promenade deck of the big ocean liner, speeding on its way from Vancouver to Hongkong, or from Shanghai to San Francisco, one gazes with delight on the ever-changing panorama, or with face glued to the window of a Sanyo Eailway parlour-car has fugitive and tantalizing glimpses of its enchanting loveliness. 56 CAPTAra BICKEL This is but a bowing acquaintance, liowever, witb Our Lady of a Thousand Isles. A degree more intimate is that to which one may attain by taking the round trip on one of the little passenger steamers which ply between Kobe and Shimonoseki, calling at the various ports on the Sanyo and Shikoku coasts. This takes one zigzagging in a most delightful manner into all kinds of un- dreamed-of and picturesque places. The writer remembers with pleasure an excursion of this kind which he made in the Inland Sea one long ago summer, with a friend who had come to Japan on a holiday visit. When one makes this trip he must be sure to have a friend along: there is too much fun and scenery scattered along the route for one to consume it by himself alone. The only draw- back to our enjoyment was that there was that summer one of those epidemics of cholera which used to afaict Japan, and as we cruised up the Sanyo coast at night, at every port we made, all the passengers were routed out of their bunks, or rather, out of the little cabin which served as the universal bunk, and inspected by a squad of doctors and policemen, **By the struggling moonbeams' misty light And a lantern dimly burning," to ascertain whether our cholera germs had not developed since our previous parade an hour be- fore. But for real heart intimacy with the Seto-Nai- Kaiy one must steal out upon its shining waters in a sailing craft, and forgetting the crazy restless modern world with its timepieces and time-tables THE lOTiAND SEA 57 and calendars, float and drift for weeks or montlis togetlier amid tlie uncounted isles, not ^^whither- soever the governor listeth," as a navigator of a ship of sails in the Inland Sea soon learns to his cost, but as wind and tide may dictate. It was the writer's great privilege, during the first three years of the Fukuin Maru's service, to spend a month each summer as the Captain's guest, and in some small degree as an assistant, cruising over the east- ern half of the Inland Sea waters, visiting scores of islands and drifting past the shores of scores or hundreds more. From out the shadow of the white sails of the Little White Ship, or from granite hilltops, beneath the wide boughs of ancient pines, he looked forth upon Our Lady of a Thousand Jewels robed in her morning or evening beauty. He saw her lie asleep with the moonbeams on her bosom. He saw her laugh and dimple and sparkle under the bright blue day, when the wind was warm from the west. Ever since, he has regarded her with the heart of a lover. While he writes, three thousand leagues away, he hears again the song of the tide and the chant of the sailors bringing the anchor home; he sees again the evening star hang like a silver lamp in the dusk above Kitagi, and the round red moon rise out of the purple tide in the Harima IN'ada. " A wheel within a wheel, an archipelago within an Island Empire," wrote Captain Bickel in de- scription of his unique parish, " such is the Inland Sea. The Islands are many, and of all sizes. Some are mere rocks with a single pine tree jutting out at that odd angle so dear to the Japanese lover of nature. Others are large, well cultivated is- 68 CAPTAUnT BICKEL lands, carrying on tlieir bosoms a population of twenty, thirty, forty tliousaud souls. That an island a mile long and half a mile Avide, rising a thousand feet above the rock-bound coast, should be the home of fifteen hundred i)eoi3le, seems im- possible; and yet there are several such. The average height of the Islands is one thousand feet, but one at least lifts its head three thousand. The hills are chiefly granite, hard and beautiful in some places, decaying or decayed to a mere rubble in others. A strange capping of the granite hills with two hundred feet of conglomerate, tossed up by some old-time ujjheaval in one section, and a line of hard black rock traversing the sea in an- other, are the chief exceptions to the rule of granite. To stand on one of the peaks and look down upon island after island, channel upon channel, village beyond village, many miles east, many miles west, the beautiful tints of hill and field mingling with the incredible tints of sea and sky in their varying moods, is to realize at last that the seemingly ex- travagant colouring of the Japanese artist's work is but a true interpretation of nature as seen here." The bed of the Inland Sea is a great valley, or group of valleys, bordered by the mountain lands of Hondo, Shikoku and Kyushu. Through this valley the tides of the Pacific ebb and flow, and the islands which emerge from its salt flood are but the tops of peaks and ranges whose bases are far down beneath the waters. Their granite slopes, where incapable of cultivation, are clothed with a scattered growth of pines which somehow manage to find footing and food. Those which can with any possible expense of toil be brought under till- THE II^LAJ^B SEA 59 age are covered with, fields of vegetables and grain. On their steej) sides one can trace the narrow winding patks by wbicK the peasants climb from their village Monies beside the beach, carrying up the necessary fertilizers and bringing down the scanty crops which, they bave coaxed out of the thin soil. On the occasional low and fertile levels which some of the large islands afford may be seen rich acres of wheat and barley; prolific patches of sweet potatoes and other vegetables, some of which are unknown to western farmers ; a few fruit trees planted about the farmhouses ; and, here and there, a grove of tall bamboos. Culti- vated flowers are comparatively rare, considering the llower-loving nature of the Japanese, and one of Captain BickeFs projects at the time the writer was tramping the Islands with him was the dis- tribution of flower seeds to the village homes, and the encouragement of the people to set out i)lots of flowers about their houses, thus adding some little touch of beauty and refinement to their severely simple and almost squalid lives. Nature, how- ever, especially in Japan, never fails to adorn her- self with such charms as she may, and on hillsides unsuited to cultivation she delights the eye with a profusion of azaleas, wisteria, or other wild flowers, and to all are given with impartial hand the beauty of sea and sl?y. As one looks down the silver stretches of the Inland Sea from the vessel's deck, or from some granite hilltop, he notes here and there the char- acteristic smooth shapely cone of an extinct vol- cano rising from the waters — ^miniature Fujiyamas, which through long millenniums before the dawn of 60 CAPTATK BICK:EL Japanese history gradually piled themselves up from the deep sea levels with the ashes of their internal fires. Now they stand peaceful and green, clothed and in their right mind, so to speak, and are an added element of beauty and interest in the scenery. The Islands lie for the most part in large clusters, with comparatively wide spaces of open water dividing group from grou}). Each of these consists of several large islands and many smaller ones. The open reaches of water between are called nada^ as, the Harima Nada, the Bingo ISTada, or as we might say, the Sweep, or Stretch, of Harima or of Bingo. These nada have a width of fifty miles or more, and in windy weather manage to get up a pretty lumpy sea. They lie in the track of the typhoons which are born off the south coast of China and travel in a northeasterly direction across the Eastern Sea and up the shores of Japan, as far as Tokyo or beyond, leaving uprooted trees and demolished buildings in their wake. On the occasion referred to above when the writer took the Inland Sea round trip, the little steamer was caught in the edge of such a typhoon just as she was making Kobe harbour, and it was interesting to see the gusts of wind blow off the crests of the waves in horizontal lines of water, and pluck away piece by piece our Japanese flag. The writer recalls also a certain wild day when the wind had caught the Fukuin Maru off a lee shore in the Bingo Nada. It would hardly be called a typhoon, but a gale was blowing heavy enough to render our position somewhat insecure, though we had taken the precaution to lay out an Si (—1 P r "^' O I— O THE INLAND SEA 61 extra anchor. The Captain had sent his family ashore to seek refuge in a Japanese inn while the storm lasted, and those who remained on board the pitching and tossing little vessel, lashed with wind and rain, kept an anxious eye on the weather and wondered if the anchors would hold. The Fukuln Maru must have j)assed through many such and worse experiences, during the typhoon seasons, or in the heavy gales of winter. Often in Yokohama or Tokyo, when trees and fences were falling and roof-tiles fiying, we remembered the Little White Ship and T>^ondered what peril she might be in of storm and darkness. If one would know what the force of the waves may be in these comparatively narrow waters, let him notice how great slabs of stone used in the construction of sea-walls or boat- landings have been lifted and shifted. Such is the Sea of Islands within which lay the larger part of Captain BickeFs parish ; beautiful as a glimpse of Paradise, on a fair June morning, but with its roaring gales and swirling tides, its tortu- ous and uncharted channels, its hidden rocks and treacherous shoals, promising a plenty of difficulty and danger to those who would do business on its waters. Our Captain, there to do "business for the Xing," found the promise amply fulfilled. "' This sea," he writes, " represents in fine weather a veritable wonderland of lovely scenery, but for the navigator it has features that at times cause grave anxiety. Powerful currents sweeping through narrow passages, submerged rocks and sand-banks, strong, sudden gales, with an occa- sional typhoon, all have a prominent part in the life of one who plans to use a Mission Ship in the C2 CAPTAIN BICKEL Inland Sea. Typhoons alone have an almost yearly tribute of lives from the Inland Sea, and the Islands suffer heavily through the havoc they work. The writer has seen 75,000 yen (|37,500) of damage done in one night on one island alone by one of these destructive gales." But though the Inland Sea, with its many pop- ulous islands, might be supposed to afford ample space for the activities of any one missionary, it did not satisfy the evangelistic zeal of the Skipper of the Gospel Ship. With a Pauline hunger for the regions bej^ond he looked out across its con- fines, to the isles of the open sea. If one consults the map of Japan he will notice, in the Korean Strait, the Island of Tsushima, made famous by the great naval battle which virtually ended the Eusso-Japanese War, the engagement taking place in the adjacent waters. Tsushima, and the smaller islands beside it, being of great military impor- tance, are naturally closed to vessels under foreign flags; but south and southwest of these are other groups of islands, some of them of a considerable area. Upon these the Captain set his heart, and at his request their names were inserted in the Fukuin Maru's cruising permit issued at the be- ginning of his work, although it was many years before he could make his first visit there. This portion of his parish he has named the Sei-Namhu or Southwestern Division. " Pass out of Shimonoseki Straits, steer south- west seventy miles, and you reach the Iki Island group; keep on and you reach the Hirado, Upper Goto and Lower Goto groups in succession. The latter lie seventy miles west of Nagasaki ; and the THE INLAND SEA 63 four groups constitute the Southwestern Division. There are here some seventy islands, large and small. Thrown up in some terrible upheaval in the dim past, their rock-bound shores have carried on the battle with gale and wave until they appear as stern sentinels forbidding approach." Captain Bickel describes the scenery of these open sea islands as being exceedingly wild and romantic. Deep fiords, like those of the coast of Norway, extend far in among the hills, affording fine anchorage for vessels, and infinite delight to the lover of nature. Travellers by boat from Shimonoseki to Nagasaki enjoy glimpses of the shores and hills of these islands, first sighting Iki on the starboard, and later running between Hirado and the Upper Gotos as the ship swings round for Nagasaki harbour; but they are practically unex- plored territory to Europeans. Some day their v/ild beauty may make them a favourite resort for tourists, but their interest to us lies in the fact that they are included in the Fukuin Maru's visit- ing list. V o IV ISLAJ^D FOLK N the clustered islands of Japan's tiny Mediterranean, islands as lovely in their way as ■ The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, Where burning Sappho loved and sang,'' are the homes, as already mentioned, of a million and a half of people. It has been popularly sup- posed, and not unnaturally, that the Islanders are chiefly fisher-folk; but this is far from being the case, only a small proportion of them winning their livelihood with net and line. Fish, indeed, do not appear to exist in these waters in any great abun- dance, if the writer may judge from his own vain attempts to lure them to his hook. There are, nevertheless, several varieties of good food fishes, such as the tai, or bream, considered a great deli- cacy, and the sawara, a long slender fish, of excel- lent flavour, which are taken in considerable quan- tities. Firms that deal in fish have depots at con- venient places among the Islands, and to these the fishermen bring their spoils fresh from the nets, and thence they are forwarded as rapidly as possi- ble to the big fish-markets of the chief cities, from which they are again hurried out to the small fish- 64 ISLAND FOLK 65 dealers who are found in every street. There is no more lively sight in a Japanese city than the little fish-carts, each pushed and pulled by several stalwart young lads, being rushed on their way, with much whooping and shouting. As fish is the every-day meat of the Japanese people the fisheries are an important industry, wherever carried on; but the most valuable are on the northern coasts, where such staple food-fish as herring, cod, mack- erel and salmon abound, the southern waters being less productive. The Islanders also gather large quantities of other marine animals, such as shell- fish, sea-slugs and octopus. The sea-slug is a particularly unattractive creature, looking about as toothsome as a toad. As for the octopus, to see him crawling around in a fish-tub, with his livid white body, snaky tentacles and wicked, protruding eyes, is anything but an appetizing spectacle. But boiled, sliced, and served with vinegar and horse- radish he is su£S.ciently palatable and wholesome, and the missionary on country tour finds him a welcome addition to his rice and omelet. The chief industry on the Islands, as in all Japan, is farming, of that laborious, intensive, market- garden type which seeks to coax the largest possi- ble yield from a limited amount of available land. Horses and cattle are almost unknown, modern farming implements and machines are of course undreamed of, human muscle, with primitive tools and methods, being the sole dependence. In seed- ing, cultivating, harvesting' and milling the Is- landers follow the tradition of the elders, but by industry and frugality are able to make a living. Sugar growing is an important branch of agri- m CAPTAIN BICKEL culture. Many are occupied in tlie manufacture of soy and macaroni; in the production of salt from sea -water; in the weaving of matting and of cotton cloth, or in braiding straw for hats. There are many quarries, where the granite of the moun- tains is cut out in great blocks, and sent by boat to distant cities. In every village of any impor- tance one finds of course the doctor, the school- teacher, the postmaster, the policeman, and others who sit in the seats of the mighty, as well as trades- men and artisans of various kinds. After what has been said above it is not neces- sary to remark that the Island Folk are by no means savages or barbarians, like the inhabitants of many of the Pacific islands when missionary work was begun among them; though a traveller happening upon a fleet of the unpainted, rakish- looking fishing-boats, their stalwart, naked, copper- hued crews drawing their seines to the rhythm of some wild chorus, might mistake them for such. Being Japanese, all the Islanders, including the fishermen, are civilized. They live in frame houses and dress in the product of the loom. The cour- tesies and amenities of social life are not strange to them. Their communities are organized and policed, and enjoy a fairly good postal and tele- graph service. Most of the people have at least the elements of education, and public schools are within the reach of the children of most of the Is- lands, though the buildings and the methods of instruction may leave something to be desired. It may fairly be said that the Islands lag behind the rest of Japan in industrial, educational and social advancement. ISLAND FOLK 67 The general impression a visitor gets as he goes from village to village, and enters the homes of the peoi)le, is of poverty, though not abject poverty, and there are some who according to Japanese stand- ards are very comfortably off. For the most part, like other Japanese, the Is- landers are a quiet, sensible, industrious, law- abiding people. Pirates are not unknown, and Captain Bickel has occasionally been exposed to danger from this source ; but owing to strict police surveillance they do not become the menace in any part of Japan that they do in Chinese waters. Not that the Chinese are lenient with these gentry when captured. In travelling on the Chinese rivers and canals one sees now and then on the shore a boat sawn asunder. It is the boat of a river-robber, who has doubtless paid with his head for his crimes, and whose boat has been cut in twain and left by the water's edge as a warning to others. The social evil, which is the shame and curse of Japan, is even more rife among the Islands than elsewhere, and is regarded with a degree of indif- ference or complacency which is almost incredible. In the case of one community which Captain Bickel mentions as an example of the conditions that prevail in the Islands, when strangers arrive, the daughters in the village homes are summoned by the local authorities, in regular turn, to enter- tain the visitors, and consider it a privilege and honour to be able in this way to add something to the family income, or even to help an ambitious brother to take a course in the University. Bud- dhism and Shintoism, though there are many tem- ples and priests on the Islands, do nothing to check Q8 CAPTAIN BIOKEL this evil, being entirely destitute of moral or spiritual life. Instead, the priests are notorious for immorality, and the more famous the temple the more nmnerous the dens of vice that surround it. But all this is true, in hardly less degree, of all Japan. It will be interesting, here, to have Captain Bickel's description of the people among whom he laboured : " The term ' Islander ' has ever stood for independence, the world over. The x)eople here are no excei)tion. Some of the Islands never were under the sway of a feudal lord. Some, until a few years ago, knew no taxation. Thrifty, self-reliant, industrious, they have the faults of their virtues in being proud and self-sufficient. The isolation of many of these Islands is far more extreme than people on the mainland can be persuaded to be- lieve. Thousands of the children have never seen a horse, much less a rickshaw or a railway train. The Mission Ship cannot carry a horse, but does carry a model of a train to show the children. Twenty-one smaller islands in one group have but one post-office among them ; in many cases the sick have to be taken in boats to see a doctor, and in probably not more than one out of twenty villages is there an inn of any kind. Accounts all run six months, settlement being made twice a year. Old Calendar reckoning holds almost entire sway, and in some places the hours of the day are still given in the old style periods. " In spiritual matters the average Islander, hav- ing his comprehension dulled by the long-continued influence upon him and his surroundings of re- ligious systems possessing, here at least, no vital ISLAND FOLK 69 power, Ms only tliouglit is for material tilings. All that is ennobling, pure, helpful and uplifting exists for him only in the form of dimly distant imper- sonal theories. It does not touch his life. Speak to him of theories and he is with you; urge upon him a life according to those theories and he seems to remain untouched. If he be intelligent he despises the priests, whose lives are usually more sordid even than his own. If he is ignorant he lives in dread of what he does not comprehend. Let him but earn money that he may improve his external conditions of life, which as a rule are quite up to the average for Japan, and he feels that all will be well. Buddhism in its many forms ; Shintoism, not as a patriotic cultus, but regarded as a religion, with its manifold gods for manifold ills; TenrikyOy Kurosumikyo, TensokyOy Kanamit- sukyo — all have their following; while in many a village the mikOy or soothsaying women, have more power over the hearts of the people than any one else. Allowing all that is good in Buddhism, it is a sad commentary on its degeneracy in these Islands that in those places in which it is most earnestly adhered to, the people are intellec- tually, spiritually and morally on the lowest plane." TenrikyOy the "Eeligion of the Heavenly Rea- son," may be compared to Christian Science, both in its general features, and in having a woman for its founder. It has had a much more rapid spread in Japan than Christian Science has had in America, and has many adherents among the credulous Islanders. The other three supersti- tions mentioned may be likened to Dowieism, Holy- 70 CAPTAIN BICKEL Kollerism and otlier absurd cults that flourish un- der the shadow of Christianity. As for the attitude of the Islanders toward the religion of Christ, it could be matched on the main- land only in such out-of-the-way regions as moun- tain-walled Hida, or the lonely peninsula of Noto. " The Islanders of the Inland Sea/' writes Mission- ary Briggs, of Himeji, who has been long in close touch with the Fukuin Maru, and a warm friend and constant helper of her work, " were, when Cap- tain Bickel went to them, truly of one mind in their thought that Yaso-Kyo was the worst teach- ing that could come to Japan. Had not the fathers and forefathers for three hundred years handed down the story of Christian traitors whom the rulers had to crush out of the national life, as deadly serpents must be mercilessly destroyed? INow the day had arrived when the teachers of this long-time forbidden religion were again in Japan. The spirit of toleration might w^eaken opposition in Tokyo, and the towns of the mainland, but that spirit had not reached the Islands, and they were a unit in their loyal hatred of the traditional enemy." '' The Islanders,'' to return to the Captain's log, " are thirty years behind the cities of the mainland in general thought and life. The old traditions have stronger hold in such localities, and that Christianity is a teaching to be despised and re- jected is a tradition that for three hundred years has been undisputed. ' Christians make bad citi- zens.' ^ Christians worship a separate King, one Jesus.' ' Christianity ruins home life ; wives rebel ; children despise their parents.' ' Christian rites ISLAND FOLK 71 are obscene.' ^ Christians are political intriguers.' ^ Christians eat their dead, or at least a portion of their bodies, and drink the blood.' These and a thousand more are their prejudices." The name Yaso — Jesus — was and still is a word with which mothers frighten naughty children into obedience. When the Fukuin Maru made her first call at some of the Islands the children fled in terror, fearing the " tall foreign devil " would kill them and drink their blood, or use their flesh for medicine. In some places the belief prevailed that when Christians died their bodies were crucified. " Sorrow came to one evangelist through the death of his child. Painful as it was, he decided to use this event for Christ's cause, if possible. Eumour had it that the child would be mutilated and nails driven through its little hands and feet in the casket. All was prepared. The people came, three hundred strong. The evangelist, father of the little one, gave a heart-moving address on the love of God, and the Christian home. We then invited all present to see the little one, that we might prove the rumours false. Keeping the press- ing throng in check with our broad sailor-back, and holding the casket firmly that it might not be over- thrown, many were the expressions of surprise we heard, for what they saw was but a dear little child lying amid soft white cushions as if asleep, with a rose held in one hand." Here and there, far apart, in this dense dark night of ignorance and prejudice, gleamed a dim tiny star; and from the Christian centres on the mainland stole in an occasional misty wavering 72 CAPTAIN BICKEL gleam of ligM, that merely served to accentuate the darkness. When the vessel made her first rounds of the Islands a sharp lookout was kept for Christians and persons interested in Christi- anity. A few, not half a dozen in all perhaps, were discovered who knew something of the Gospel by an experience of its iDOwer. They had become be- lievers when visiting the mainland. The writer, when a guest on the ship, had much pleasure in meeting several of these isolated Christians, and from the Captain's lips he heard some pathetic stories of their loneliness and fidelity, almost smothered as they were by the mass of heathenism about them. The coming of the Gospel Ship was to them literally a Godsend, and as a shower of the latter rain. There v»' ere found a few, also, who had in some way learned enough about the new faith to make them willing to give it a favourable hearing, but their number was almost negligible. In reporting the work of the vessel for the first year of its service, Captain Bickel wrote, in sub- stance : " It was our privilege to visit sixty-two islands large and small, holding meetings in some 350 towns and villages. Into these meetings were gathered, at a low estimate, 40,000 different peo- ple, and of these assuredly ninety per cent, had never before heard a direct presentation of the Gospel. The knowledge of another five per cent, is on a par with that of a friend last night who was the great man of the occasion because he could claim a previous acquaintance with Christianity. Our friend announced with beaming face that the teaching would be all right, for it consisted in ISLAOT) FOLK 73 giving up tobacco and strong drink, and receiving some sort of mysterious power called the Holy Spirit, by which if you knew that your neighbour had a hundred yen in the house you need only pray and it would be transferred by magic to your own pocket. But putting smiles aside let me as- sure you that the need, the desperate need, of these Island people in soul and body is such that but for a sailor's disposition to see the bright side, and a Christian's firm faith in the ultimate triumph of the purposes of an all-wise God for these His lost and erring children, our heart would be sad beyond endurance." It was to a people that sat in darkness, to them that were in the region and the shadow of death, that the Little White Ship came sailing down the west with her message of light and life. THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP IN tlie city of Kobe, near tlie eastern limit of the Beto-Nai-Kai, tliere stood, on the high ground above the business section, on the Yama-Naka-Doriy a missionary home, with win- dows looking out over the city roofs on the shining waters. Here there dwelt, at the time the tale of the Little White Ship begins, Kobert Thomson, a missionary from the land of the heather. He had arrived in Yokohama from Edinburgh in 1884 as an agent of the Scottish Bible Society, but a few years later had joined the Baptist Mission and had been stationed at Kobe. Living close to the In- land Sea, with his field of labour skirting its shores, it is not strange that its Islands and Islanders were often in his thoughts, or that as he sat at his study window looking off into the sunset there came to him again and again the dream of a day when every Island village should have the message of the Cross. And while he dreamed, as we have al- ready seen in part. Providence was preparing a fulfillment of his dream. The ordinary world-tourist, leaning on the rail of the ocean liner as she threads the narrow waters of the Inland Sea, probably bestows but little thought upon either the material or the spiritual 74 THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 75 condition of tlie people who have their homes on its Islands. He admires the ever varying but al- ways lovely scenery. He views with interest the quaint craft that traverse its waters, — ^medieval trading vessels, low of prow and lofty of poop; fishing boats with sails ahoist running up to market with the night's catch. He wonders to see steep island slopes tilled to their summits. As for those who sail the ships and cast the nets and cultivate the hills and live in the gray villages, they win scarcely a passing thought. But among many travellers there came one, a woman, who looked out upon the Islands not merely with the eyes of a tourist, but with a heart like His of whom we are told that He had compassion on the multitude. To a dear old lady from Glasgow, who had carried in her thought and prayer the neglected folli of all the little islands of Japan, and through whose Christian liberality the Liu-Chiu Mission was be- gun, which, however, is another story, the Islanders of the Inland Sea are indebted for the opportunity to hear the Gospel story. It came to them after her earthly travels were ended and God had called her home to Himself. She had the joy of seeing the standard of the Cross set up in the Liu-Chiu capital; but it remained to her son, Mr. Robert Allan, in memory of his saintly and sainted mother, to give effect to her solicitude for the Island Folk of the Inner, as well as of the Outer, Seas. It was a matter of discussion, indeed, for a time, how these Inland Sea folk might best be reached. The great expense of building, equipping, and running a Mission vessel had to be considered, for mission treasuries are not inexhaustible. It had 76 CAPTAIK BICKEL been found practicable to carry on a successful, if limited, work in the Liu-CMus by utilizing for missionary travel existing steamship communica- tion between the mainland and the islands, and by stationing Japanese evangelists at important cen- tres. Might not an Inland Sea Mission be prose- cuted by making use of the steamship lines which navigate that Sea, and the ferry boats and fishing boats which everywhere abound, and by locating workers on the principal islands? Doubtless some- thing could have been accomplished in that way; but the only hope of a general evangelization of the people scattered over the hundreds of smaller islands, within a reasonable time, was a mission ship. As Captain Bickel remarked, " To seek to evangelize an archipelago without a mission ship would seem akin to clearing a forest without an axe." As at once a sailor and a missionary he bears witness to the close relation between ships and missions : *'Some one has said, and that in all reverence, that the first Mission Ship was that of Noah. Be that as it may, ships have played a great part in the evangeliza- tion of the world. Those who have gone in them have over and over again been called upon to break with the conventional ideas of men, and good men at that. They went forth with a mingled boldness and childlike faith into the regions beyond, such as proved at once the source of bitterest criticism at the outset, and mistinted commendation in the outcome. *' * Loosing from Troas, Paul came with a straight course to Samothracia and the next day to Neapolis.' Men objected, but the call of the great and restless deep of men's souls was loud within him. Not all the diffi- THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 77 culties of the wide and untried sea of missions to the Gentiles, nor the dangers of an earthly sea, could deter him. A Carey, a Judson, a Livingstone went forth in ships. Fitting indeed was it, nay, it is even now, when a utilitarian spirit too often crowds sentiment to the wall, that the proverbial boldness and simple spirit of the men of the sea should serve the boldness and simple faith of these Columbuses of the Cross of Christ. "And who shall deny that this earthly barrier of an earthly sea has spoken of the things of God, and had a potent influence over the spirit of the men with the God-given vision of the regions beyond? To some men the sea is but a great ditch and the subject of Christian Missions is no better. To others this greatest of Natm'e 's many mysteries is a veritable forecourt in the temple of their God. What wonder, if these men of large outlook, these messengers of a world-wide religion, should share the experiences of some of those who go down to the sea in ships, and do business on the great waters, and beholding the wonders of their God should go on with renewed faith in His ability to hold them, as well as this great sea of many waters, in the hollow of His hand! Well for the seaman who never loses the impression made upon his soul when first he* beheld the vast expanse of God's great deep stretched out before him and resolved to conquer its difficulties ! Well indeed for the mission- ary who ever lives under the influence of the moment when he first had a God-sent vision of the vast expanse of God's love, and the desperate need of human hearts that have wandered afar ! "Most ships have been used in an ordinary way. There have been ships, however, and not a few, which have been used as distinct and direct agencies in the great work of world missions. Who could forget the John Williams, the Camden, the Dayspring, the SoutJi- ern CrosSy names that are mentors of the fact that God lives? Who can doubt that our God is a prayer-answer- 78 CAPTAIN BICKEL ing God, or that the Moravian Brethren who sent forth the four successive vessels called Harmony did well to put trust in Him, as he reads the strange record of these vessels during one hundred years? Literally, in the words of the grandest of seamen's hymns, " * From rock and tempest, fire and foe/ were they protected in their difficult work. These are but a few of many. Then add to these the vessels of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, together with that Greatheart of both the sick- ward and the sea. Dr. Gren- fell, and whose soul is not stirred? Could one but have shared the experiences of those who sailed in these vessels, how 'great a cloud of witnesses' to God's wondrous power to guide, protect and comfort those who, for His sake, venture into unbeaten ways would we have!" Yes, a Gospel Ship is not a new thing under the sun. Among the islands of the mid-Pacific, on the bleak coasts of the north Atlantic, along the sun- set shores of America, on the great rivers of Africa and China, the word of truth goes forth over the face of the waters. If some one should write us the tale of the Gospel Navy of the modern world it would make fine reading, a breezy chapter of the romance of missions. But for the whole series of island groups that lie off the coast of eastern Asia, from Kamschatka to the tropics, no Gospel Ship had appeared until the Fukuin Maru was launched one summer day in the Bay of Yedo. The writer, being a Blue-Kose, seashore bred, with an inborn love of salt water, had during the early years of his life in Yokohama dreamed of a boat with sails and oars, — it being before the days of motor- THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 79 launclies, — in wliich. to visit the villages on the shores of Yedo Bay: a dream that faded with the increase of missionary duties nearer home. In recent times the enterprising independent Omi Mission, with headquarters at Hachiman, near the famous and beautiful Lake Biwa, the Galilee of Japan, has placed a Gospel launch on the waters of that lake. The boat is appropriately named the Garirai Maru, — the "Galilee," and is of great service in the mission work carried on in the vil- lages beside the lake. Two years after Mrs. Allan's memorable visit to Kobe, Mr. Eobert Allan made to the American Baptist Missionary Union, through Dr. Thomson, an offer to provide means for the building of the vessel needed for the evangelization of the Inland Sea Islanders. Mr. Allan is the worthy son of a worthy mother, and his splendid gift of a mission ship is but one proof of his deep interest in Chris- tian and philanthropic work, as the people of the city of Glasgow can abundantly testify. And, as we shall see hereafter, the gift of the ship was not the last proof of his interest in the Inland Sea work. It goes without saying that the Missionary Society embraced Mr. Allan's offer of a Mission Ship with joy and thankfulness, and we have al- ready seen Providence preparing the man who could be at once the ship's captain and the mission- ary to the Islanders. It was May, 1898, when Captain Bickel, with his wife and their little son Philip, arrived in Kobe. It had been intended that while the vessel should be building the Captain and his family should make their home at Chofu, a mission station on the shore 80 CAPTAIN BICKEL of the Inland Sea, near Sliimonoseki. It was found, hoAvever, that Yokohama offered the best facilities for building, and after making a pre- liminary survey of his island parish that was to be, and spending a few months in Kobe in the study of Japanese, he brought his family up to the north- ern port and made his home there until the vessel was completed, to the great pleasure and profit of all the members of our Yokohama station. We then first made the acquaintance of Captain and Mrs. Bickel, and learned to love them for their own sake, as well as for the sake of the work they had come to do. Captain Bickel's mingled modesty and man- liness, strength and gentleness; his deep earnest piety and fine Christian sanity ; his friendly spirit ; his profound seriousness and wholesome sense of humour; his breezy sailor manner combined with unfailing, instinctive courtesy, won all our hearts. Meanwhile, his days were busy with the superin- tending of the building of the vessel and with the study of the Japanese language. Apart from the short time spent at Kobe, these brief months, largely filled as they were with duties connected with the work on the ship, gave the Captain his only opportunity for continuous and systematic study of the language. What was acquired in sub- sequent days had to be picked up, or absorbed, as best it might amid labours of brain and brawn that more than demanded all available time and strength. Missionary recruits in Japan to-day are required to devote their first three years mainly to language study, following a carefully prepared cur- riculum under expert teachers, and are to be con- THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 81 gratulated if they succeed during that time in becoming somewhat at home in this most difficult tongue. To acquire, without such hel]3S, within a year, a sufficient use of the language to manage a Japanese crew, converse with Japanese evangel- ists, and hold any communication with Islanders who knew no language but the every-day vernacu- lar, was i)ossible only to a man of Captain Bickel's ability. He must have had a natural taste for, and facility in, the acquiring of languages, as in addi- tion to English he could speak German, Dutch, French, Spanish, and one or two other tongues. To this inborn faculty for language, and to the constant contact with the Japanese people into which his life among the islands brought him, he owed the somewhat remarkable fluency wdth which he became able to speak their tongue, both in con- versation and in public address. It was in a little shipyard, or rather a rude ship-building shed at Honmoku Beach, on the out- skirts of Yokohama, that the Little White Shiji came into being. The plans had been furnished by a very distinguished ship's architect of Glasgow, the designer of the famous yacht Valkyrie, The building of the ship went on under the scrupulously careful supervision of the Captain himself, who ex- amined every bolt and timber, but the actual con- structor and builder was an experienced foreign shipwright, a Mr. Cook, whom Captain Bickel had discovered in Yokohama: one of the interesting personages whom fortune brings together in the foreign community of that city. Mr. Cook, though not a man to be painfully concerned for the souls of the benighted heathen, happened to have a ship- 82 CAPTAIK BIOKEL ~ Wright's love for a clean job, and put honest work and sound timber into the little vessel. If she had been intended for the hunting of sea-otters along the wintry Kuriles, or to carry whiskey and to- bacco to the southern seas^ doubtless he would have displayed the same thoroughness. Or may it be that under an assumed indifference to the mission- ary destination of the vessel there was a half un- conscious wish to serve his Maker and mankind by putting all his heart, and the skill won during many years as shipwright, into this task which Providence had brought to his hand in life's fading afternoon? A year of daily association with so sincere and transparent a Christian, so manly a missionary-mariner as our Captain Bickel, might well awaken all that was best in a man's heart. And he was a man of a good heart, was Shipwright Cook. The writer, having been born and bred, as aforesaid, beside the salt water, and with an abid- ing love for tar and oakum, took delight in wan- dering about the ship as it gradually rose into be- ing, and cherishes a friendly mxcmory of the rugged old ship-builder. The contract for building the vessel was signed October 15th, and presently the Captain was able to report that the keel had been laid, and that the little Honmoku shipyard was alive with busy men : the little sturdy, quick-witted, deft-fingered Japa- nese ship-carpenters. She was to carry a precious cargo, and must weather many a wild storm upon dangerous waters, and therefore needed to be as staunchly built as choice material and human skill would permit. " Strength, utility and neatness were alone considered in building, all ornamenta- THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 83 tion being avoided." But never was a prettier sight on the Four Seas of Japan than this dainty, lady-like little vessel, with her fine lines, her pure white hull and sails, and everything as spick and span about her as in a millionaire's yacht. Her very simj)licity, beauty and purity made her a part of the Gospel of the fair white Christ, whose mes- sengers she was to bear. The best available materials went into the little ship. All timbers, strakes and deadwoods were of the best hard woods that grow in the forests of Japan, including the beautiful and costly heyaki, the mahogany of Japan ; while decks and planking, and her larger spars, were of Oregon pine, the smaller spars being of hinokiy another valuable Japanese wood. The hull was copper-fastened and copper-sheathed. From stem to stern-post she measured seventy-five feet, with a length over all of eighty-five, and was seventeen feet in the beam, her carrying capacity being eighty-two tons. In rig she was a two-masted fore-and-aft schooner, with fine lofty spars and a splendid spread of canvas when under full sail. She was registered at Lloyds with the highest rating, " Star Al, 10 years." The 'tween-decks was entirely taken up with cabins and forecastle, providing accommodation for the missionary-captain and his family, as well as for one or more Japanese evangelists and the seven members of the crew. There was also a cozy state- room for an occasional guest, and to be a guest on the vessel for a few days or a few weeks was some- thing to be long anticipated and longer remembered, with pleasure. In July, 1899, the vessel was ready for launch- 84 CAPTAIN BICKEL ing. The sea bottom at Homnoku Beacli stretclies out shoal and flat. In the days when Yedo Bay was the usual baptistry for the Yokohama Baptist Church, the administrator of the ordinance often had to lead the candidates far out through the shallow water to find depth suffi.cient for baptizing ; and a cold experience it was wading back and forth, in winter months, with a bitter wind on the shal- lows. Even at high tide it must have been a work of toil and patience to get the vessel afloat. A few weeks sufficed to step the masts, rig the shrouds, bend the sails, and put everything in readiness for her maiden voyage. On September 13th the Dedicatory Service was held. The name ^^ FuJcuin Maru/' which was to become a household word not only to the Islanders of the Inner and Outer Seas, but to multitudes in America and other lands, was the happy suggestion of the writer's brother, then also a missionary in Yokohama, who, with the born love of a Blue-Nose for the sea and all that sails on it, had been deeply interested in the construction of the vessel. It is pronounced Foo-Koo-een Mah-roo, with the last syllable, too, very short and unaccented, and means " The Gospel," " The Glad Tidings," or the " Ship of the Good News." Truly in God's good provi- dence the little vessel was to prove a bearer of glad tidings to many a dark and comfortless heart. On the ship's deck that day were gathered not only many members of the Baptist Mission, but representatives of other missions as well. In de- scribing the event some years later Captain Bickel wrote : " One friend of another Mission uncon- sciously foretold the facts of the present day when Old Fukuin Mam in cove at Mi3'anoura, Omi Shima THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 85 she called the little white craft ^ Our Ship/ It is indeed ' our ship/ in the highest sense, for all Chris- tians in Japan, and it gives joy to the hearts of those most concerned, to have abundant proof that the results of the vessel's humble efforts are not represented by the converts on the ship's roll alone, but are found in the churches of other denomina- tions, in far-off cities.'' The Fukuin Maru meant to the Inland Sea Mis- sion much more than a means of transportation. Mention has already been made of the impression she was fitted to make on the minds of an Island people, familiar with marine affairs, by her beauty, her neatness and purity, the absolute order that prevailed on her, in a word her shipshapeness. A dirty and slovenly vessel might sail through the Island channels, but could not sail into the hearts of the Island people. Captain BickeFs passion for system, order, and neatness made it sure that the little white ship would be always as spick and span as on the day of her dedication. It meant something to the success of the work that the " Jesus Ship," which was to be to the Islanders a representation of the Christian religion, an em- bodiment in wood and canvas of the spirit of the new teaching, came to them w^ith the charm of beauty and purity, a fitting messenger of the stain- less Christ, the One altogether lovely. It would be well if not only every mission vessel, but every mission building, and every Christian church edi- fice, possessed this charm. An outsider remarked of a certa,in ill-sextoned meeting-house, "People could hardly have clean thoughts in such a dirty room," and the author of " The Builders " has said, 86 CAPTAIN BICKEL ''Make the house where God may dwell Beautiful, entire and clean.'' Such, at least, was the Fukuin Maru, the Bethel of the Inland Sea, whose cabin and deck were to be made sacred by many an assembly for worshij) and for the preaching of the Word, and by the presence of the Lord ; for the ship was a Mission Hall, and a House of Worship, and the workshop and office of the mission force. Captain Bickel, after speaking of various activities of the ship, adds : " There is one more important Mission asset which is not so easily understood. It is the in- fluence of the vessel itself. That it provides a means of transportation for the workers, and a place in which to find rest and clean food after the unsanitary conditions of crowded meetings on shore, is in itself a sufficient justification for the vessel's use. But this is far from being all. As the ship lies at anchor or passes through the chan- nels, she is seen and is well known to the peojDle in the villages and fields and woods on the mountain- side. Keminding them of the last meeting, the last Christian newspaper, or the last personal talk, she preaches a perennial wordless sermon, and is to them a token of the love and self-denial of Chris- tian hearts. The ship is, moreover, a Christian home brought to the very doors of thousands of Christless homes. Just think what w^ould be the added power in the hands of the missionary en- gaged in country work, if in some way, instead of putting up at inns, he were able to take with him his home, and, inviting into it thousands of those whom he meets, could let them feel the subtle in- fluence of a Christian home life ! " THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 87 Every missionary home, indeed, even if not peri- patetic, is for its neighbourhood at least an object lesson in true religion. How ignorant the heathen are of what a true home should be may be illus- trated by the case of a Japanese, an intelligent and respectable man, who was having a friendly chat with a missionary in one of those up-country hotels. Learning, in answer to his courteous inquiries about the missionary's family, that they were spending some years in the home-land, he sym- pathized with the loneliness the missionary must feel, and naively added, " But of course in the meantime you have taken a Japanese wife." He was probably familiar with the reputation of non- Christian foreigners in the port cities. Except when the season prevented, Mrs. Bickel and the children accompanied the Captain on his mission cruises. The utmost use was made of their floating home to promote the interests of the work. Thousands, many thousands, of the Island- ers, have been invited into that home, and have drunk tea in the little cabin, which was dining- room, sitting-room, drawing-room, music-room, work-room and chart-room, as well as chapel, and have curiously examined the tiny cabins which served as bedrooms, and the galley which must be kitchenette for all the ship's company. Day by day, as the ship shifted her anchorage from island to island, they came in their gray, unpainted, weather-stained boats, from the neighbouring vil- lages — officials, teachers and doctors, dignified and well-dressed ; farmers and fishermen in their rough working clothes; and a rabble of women and chil- dren, often unclean and unkempt, but orderly 88 CAPTAIN BICKEL enough in their behaviour, according to the canons of etiquette recognized on the Islands, to do the "worshipful seeing.'' Politely welcomed at the hospitable ladder, the front door-step, so to speak, they enjoyed a personally conducted tour of the ship, and when they were politely f arewelled at the ladder again, and had pushed off for shore, they took with them, along with some simple tracts, an admiration for the neatness and the many con- veniences of the vessel, and an appreciation of the kind ways of the tall foreign Captain and his wife. Well for the ship's company if nothing undesirable was left behind, for many of the Islanders are in their own persons the happy hunting ground, or rather pasture, of certain little beasties which are not mentioned in polite conversation. The lady of the ship would have been more than human, would have been lacking indeed in housewifely and motherly instincts, had she not sometimes inwardly protested against the daily invasion, and frequent pollution, of her little home; and it must have needed constant fresh supplies of grace, to be will- ing, for the sake of the cause, to meet each new group with a smile of welcome. There was true heroism in this for one of womanly tastes, reared in an English home. It was taking up the cross daily. Such, then, was the Little White Ship, and such, in part, was the function she was to fulfill in the making known of the Gospel of the grace of God to the Island Folk, on that fair afternoon in Sep- tember, when a little company of missionaries and Japanese Christians stood on her deck, and com- mitted her to the keeping and blessing of God. THE LITTLE WHITE SHIP 89 A little ship puts out to sea ; A precious burthen she doth bear. '^Now God,'' I pray, "be good to me, My heart goes sailing there. ' ' A little ship she sails the sea ; I follow, follow with my prayer. ''May God," I pray, *'be good to me, My heart goes sailing there." A little ship is far at sea ; The storm grows wild, the night falls drear. ''Dear Lord," I pray, "be good to me, My heart goes sailing there." The little ship hath crossed the sea; I give God thanks with heart sincere. ' ' Thou hast been good, dear God, to me, My heart went sailing there. ' ' VI HER MAIDEN VOYAGE TWO bells, of the morning watch. Fuji, the Sacred Mountain, stands bathed in purple dawn, looking down across the Hakon^ Hills upon the silver stretches of Tokyo Bay. In Yokohama Harbour sampans and lighters are pushing off from the wharves to begin the day's business. Flocks of white gulls are flying lazily over the waters, looking for breakfast. Off toward east and south are the white-sailed sakana-hune of the fisher-lads of Negishi, also out looking for breakfast. Two bells, of the morning watch. It sounds out from a score of ocean-going steamers, hailing from every part of the world, which are moored in the inner harbour. On the Fiikuin Maru^ too, lying be- yond the breakwater, the two bells strikes, sweet and clear, like a cheerful good-bye to the friends on shore. On her deck the sailors, looking very trim in their new white uniforms, are hoisting sail and anchor, adding their strong chanty to the noise of ropes and chains. The Little White Ship is start- ing on her maiden voyage. The Gleaner y the motor-launch of the Mission to Seamen, has come out from her moorings at the foot of Main Street to see her younger and fairer sister in Gospel work safely off, and having given 90 HER MAIDEN VOYAGE 91 her a friendly tow down tlie Bay as far as tlie light-ship, bids her Godspeed and returns, while the Fukuin Maru plmnes her white wings and shapes her course for the open water. Her destina- tion is the port of Hiogo, which adjoins Kobe, at the eastern end of the Inland Sea. Her first voyage was to be an exciting one, be- cause of a typhoon into whose fringe she ran off the wild coast of Kii. Let us have the story in the Captain's own words : " It was a bad time of year, and the barometer began to fall after we left, but we had a good run down the gulf and round the coast into the Kii Channel. We made sometimes five miles, some- times twelve, per hour. We ran neck and neck on the Tuesday morning with the steamer Otaru Maru for several hours. We averaged ' to the good ' nine miles an hour until within fifty miles of Kobe, with a fair prospect of getting in on Tuesday evening, when it began to blow and the sea rose. Well, the upshot of it was that I spent five days over the other fifty miles, and days of hard work. We had three struggles during that time, beat up into the Gulf of Osalva three times, and had to run out before a gale as many times. The last gale was very heavy, and after twelve hours of hard beating and straining to keep my ground I had to give in and run out through the Tennis Straits again in the night. It thundered, it rained, it fairly howled, and the sea ran high, and by flashes of vivid lightning I picked my way through the pas- sage. It was a grand sight though, and all through the vessel behaved splendidly. Twice during those five days I had to beat off a lee shore, and once 92 CAPTAIN BICKEL drifted down to within ten feet of a rock bed in a dead calm. When we got into Hiogo Bay, and I got my clothes off and into bed for the first time in a week, I could not help feeling grateful for the experience. After a few hours' rest I got up hale and hearty, and congratulated myself on having had it out with the young lady at the very outset and once for all," Thus far the Captain's log. Many a day in the years that followed, when typhoon gales have swei3t the Island shores, or on wild and rainy nights when difficult and dangerous channels, unlighted and un- charted, had to be navigated, was there like need of utmost alertness and endurance of mind and body. The difficulty of the voyage from Yokohama to Hiogo, and of all the early navigating of the vessel, was much enhanced by the inexperience and un- reliability of the crew. Perhaps few, if any, of them had ever helped to handle a foreign style sail- ing ship, or had much idea of foreign methods of navigation. Add to this the fact that the Cap- tain's knowledge of Japanese was yet fragmentary, while his crew had no use of English except of such nautical terms as had been naturalized. This would make communication between the skipper and his crew very laborious. The men would lack, too, that experience of strict discipline, and that habit of instant obedience to orders, which would be a matter of course with a British crew. The Captain would need to forestall and supple- ment the deficiency of the men at every turn. To bring a little sailing craft through a typhoon storm, past a dangerous coast, with a raw crew, HEE MAIDEN VOYAGE 93 seems a veritable feat of seamansliip. The Cap- tain used to remark, in recounting the adventures of this voyage, that he could not repress a smile when he recalled the well-meant advice of the Mis- sion Board to lay the burden of navigation chiefly on the crew, reserving his own strength for more spiritual service; and would add that unless the seagoing part of the Japanese people were made over in mind, soul and body, he feared it would be a long day before he would be able to follow that advice. How there came a day when the Japanese mariners who manned the Little White Ship had become all that the skipper could have desired, and more than he could have dared to hope, will be told in the ax)propriate place. Besides the Captain and the seven sailors who formed his crew, there was one passenger who made this tempestuous voyage : the single evangelist with whom the Captain planned to begin his work, and who had been commended to his tender mercies at Yokohama. What this poor fellow, a mere land- lubber and no hardy salt, endured during those wild days and nights off the coast of Kii, we will not attempt to portray. VII IN HIOGO BAY ^ TO bring the FuJcuin Maru to port at Hiogo was one tiling ; to weigh anchor again and sail off down to the Islands was a different story. It was not an easy matter to secure from the Japanese Imperial Government permission to move about at will in what was properly a mare clausum. The ocean liners were indeed allowed, under proper pilotage, to traverse these closed waters between Kobe and Moji, on the appointed tracks ; but it was another matter to permit a for- eign vessel, owned by a foreign Society, flying a foreign flag, and under a foreign skipper, to sail those waters at will. One of the great naval bases, also, that of Kure, is located here, and there are other points of military importance. Might not a foreign captain abuse the privilege of free naviga- tion, and quietly collect information of military value, to be employed, in case of war, against Japan? Captain Bickel had duly sent in his application for a sailing permit, through Colonel Buck, the United States minister, and Colonel Buck had for- warded it to the Japanese Foreign Office. After the lapse of a fortnight word came that matters of this kind must be referred to the Minister of Com- 94 IN HIOGO BAY 95 munication. A fresh, application was accordingly made out and forwarded as advised. Another fort- night passed. Then came word that the applica- tion was couched in too general terms, and that every place which it was intended the ship should visit must be specified by name. As this meant practically every inhabited island and every sea- side village in the Inland Sea, to say nothing of the outlying island groups, it required considerable time to compile the list. The new application, with its formidable queue of names, was sent in, and Captain Bickel had a farther period in which to practice the virtue of patience. In the meantime he went up to Tokyo and passed an examination for captain's certificate before the proper Japanese authorities, so that if the govermnent should ob- ject to a ship under a foreign flag having the free- dom of the Inland Sea he could sail her under the Japanese flag. It would have been some sacrifice to him to haul down '' Old Glory,'' and run up the Sun Banner in its stead, for he was American born and bred, and a true iimerican at heart in his democratic and cosmopolitan ideas; but for the sake of tlie work even " Old Glory " would have to go. As a matter of fact it was the Captain's idea that because of the peculiarly friendly relations which had always ex- isted between the United States and Japan, the Stars and Stripes at her masthead would be a happy introduction for her to the Island villages; and on the other hand he hoped that the ministry of mercy and good-will which the vessel was to ac- complish would add something to the kindly feel- ing of the Japanese for the American people. 96 CAPTAIN BICKEL One of the bj-products of missionary work is the lessening of friction between western and eastern nations. Every missionary is an ambassador of peace, civil as well as spiritual. His j)robity, kind- liness and helpfulness heal the wounds which the haughtiness, selfishness and greed of too many foreign traders and offi.cials have inflicted. His little company of friends and disciples have learned to love him, and some of that love is extended even to the country from which he has come. If peace and good-will are to continue between Japan and America, as is devoutly to be wished, it will be due in part to the many hundreds of American mis- sionaries scattered over the Empire, each con- stantly and unconsciously " taking up the shock " of every untoward impact of America upon Japan. It would be easy to show that the influence of the work of the Fukuin Maru in this respect has been very great, not only among the Islanders but in the Empire at large, so great indeed, that this alone would repay all the expense of the undertaking. Not more war-ships, nor wiser diplomacy, but more lavish missionary effort, is the solution of the question how to keep the peace between East and West. Another reason for sailing the Mission Ship un- der the American flag would be the warmer place this would give her in the hearts of those who sup- ported her work. While the ship herself was the gift of a Scottish ship-owner, her sailing expenses, and the cost of the work generally, had to come from the hands of Americans, the money being largely contributed by the Sunday schools. The romance of the Inland Sea Mission appealed to the IN HIOGO BAT 97 boys and girls, and they took a livelier interest in the ship because she flew the Stars and Stripes. While the Fukuin Maru tugged at her moorings in Hiogo Bay, impatient to be off, Captain Bickel and the Japanese evangelist who had shipped with him were by no means idle. The anchorage at Hiogo is a regular rendezvous for Inland Sea sail- ing vessels, and this was made avail of to scatter the first handf uls of Gospel seed upon the waters, and at the same time to advertise the ship and its purpose among those to whom she was to go. " We are holding meetings on board," wrote the Cap- tain at this time, " for the crews of these vessels, going to them beforehand and giving them a per- sonal invitation. We tell them of the purpose of the vessel, and if they cannot come on board now to look out for us down among the Islands. To most of the men the whole subject of Christianity and the motive underlying our action seem to be new, and the motive gives food for thought. By visiting half a dozen junks and schooners during the day, all of which are within hailing distance, I can get enough hearers for the evening to fill the little cabin, say twenty or thirty, and as these vessels come and go continually we get a fresh lot of men. Coming as they do to us as our guests, as it were, we have a great advantage in maintaining proper order." So presently there were scores of native craft of various kinds of rig beating up and down among the Islands, carrying word to their home harbours or to whatever ports they happened to touch at, of a little white American vessel lying down east at Hiogo, with a tall foreign skipper and a Japanese 98 CAPTAIN BICKEL crew, which vessel was about to come down among the Islands to teach the people about Yaso and the foreigners^ God. At least that was what was pre- tended. What mischief she might really be up to no one could tell, and it was rather strange that the Honourable Government of Great Japan should permit her to come to the Islands at all. For all anybody knew she might be spying for Eussia, Japan's traditional enemy, for all she had the American flag flying. The captain was a fierce looking man, dressed in a uniform, and more like a soldier than a priest. And, anyway, the Islanders had more religion than they knew what to do with, already, what with the good old-fashioned home- made Shinto, and the teachings of Confucius from China, and of Buddha from India. It was quite too much to have a new-fangled religion, of an American god, thrust upon them. But the vessel would be down along by and by, and they could hear for themselves. After lying at anchor for about ten weeks the coveted permit arrived, duly signed and sealed. It happened to be the American Thanksgiving Day, and was doubly a Thanksgiving Day to the skipper of the little ship because he held the precious document safe in his hand. According to its terms the vessel, flying the American flag, might navigate freely the Inland Sea, outside of certain fortified areas, and visit at will the appended list of places. At the same time, or soon afterward, the Department of Communication took a step which did not become known to Captain Bickel until later, but which proved of comfort and help to him in the early years of his work. Communica- IN HIOGO BAY 99 tions were sent out from tlie Department to police and other officials at the places mentioned in the ship^s permit, advising them of the purpose of the little vessel, and requiring them to afford the Cap- tain such help and protection as circumstances might call for. This was doubtless intended rather as an act of courtesy to the American Government than as a sign of approval of Christianity; but it at least served to give the Captain and his ship a favourable introduction to those in authority on the Islands. On December 2, 1899, the blue peter was run up, the anchor brought home, and the sails sjDread for the Harima Nada, among the islands of which the Little White Ship was to make her first mission cruise. VIII THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN WHEN the FuJcuin Maru cleared from Hiogo Harbour that memorable Decem- ber day, her sole visible cargo was a good stock of Bibles, Scripture portions, tracts and other Christian literature, ammunition for her campaign among the Islands, snugly stored away in the lockers in the Captain's cabin, which lockers were also the chairs, sofas and lounges for the Captain and his family. On the cabin table lay spread charts of the Inland Sea waters, prepared by the Japanese Admiralty, not so complete nor so accurate as might have been desired, but still in- dispensable. And somewhere on board, perhaps only in the Captain's heart, and not yet set down in black and white, was the Plan of Campaign, which had a vital connection with these same ad- miralty charts, or rather with the Inland Sea geography and hydrography which the charts dis- played. During the year and a half that had elapsed since he had first set foot on Japanese soil, Cap- tain Bickel had been making a study of the whole situation that faced him in his wide parish, and determining the principles which should govern 100 THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 101 his "work. In this lies one cause of the success that has crowned that work. There has been no "muddling through" in the Inland Sea Mission. It has been a campaign with a plan, a carefully thought out and well digested plan, reasonable, elastic, workable, and pursued with unfaltering fidelity, and has thus been in fine contrast to the happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss, zeal-without-knowledge kind of work with which too many of us whose fields are on the mainland have contented ourselves. The orderly, systematic and thorough methods of the Inland Sea enterprise have made it a good ob- ject lesson for those who are undertaking the evan- gelization of the rural districts. By this we do not mean to say that Captain Bickel sailed out of Hiogo Bay with a detailed and complicated cast-iron system of rules and methods to which all the activities of the vessel must be conformed. He had far too much hard horse sense to commit any such folly. What he did have was a broad outline to be filled out as circumstances should need and experience should guide. " He came with simple principles : that he w^as entrusted by God with a message for this people ; that he was to go to unoccupied fields only; that his message was for all the people, not for classes; and that every Christian should be a worker." There is nothing out of the ordinary, in missionary work, in these principles, thus expressed. Except per- haps for the second, they are the commonplaces of mission policy. What is noteworthy is that Cap- tain Bickel took these general principles, applied them to the circumstances of his parish, and set them down, in terms suited to those circumstances, 102 CAPTAIN BICKEL as the outline of his method of campaign, and held to that outline, filling in the details of course as need arose, through all the nineteen years of his work. That he attached great importance to this outline, and great importance to method and sys- tem in the prosecution of his mission is abundantly evident from his writings. The method of the Inland Sea Enterprise, and the striking success of that method thoroughly and persistently applied, afford to all engaged in rural evangelism a valuable suggestion and stimulus, and this is one of the most important by-products of the Fukuin Maru Mission. It is this, together with the splendid example of consecration and devotion which Captain BickeFs missionary activities dis- played, which has widened his influence from the scattered islands of the Inland Sea to the utmost bounds of the Mikado's Empire, and beyond, into other mission fields. In a very large sense he was not only Captain Bickel of the Inland Sea, but Captain Bickel of Japan. Stated in Captain BickeFs own words Ms mission strategy was as follows : 1. We will never go to any place in which any one of any denomination has any work. The work shall all be advance work. 2. We will go to every place on every island, and persist in Christian effort until by general consent of the people the vessel and its message are welcome. 3. While giving honour to whom honour is due we will bear in mind at all times that the Gospel is for all men alike, irrespective of class distinctions. 4. After ensuring a welcome, to divide the islands into groups. Stationing an evangelist in each group, THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 103 make him responsible for all work carried on in his group. 5. To insist that the number of paid workers in a given district be limited, and upon the duty of every believer to bear a share in the work of spreading the Gospel by personal activity of some kind. Such was the plan of campaign, to cover many strenuous years, with which the Fukuin Maru be- gan her first cruise in the Inland Sea. It may be permitted, however, before taking up the thread of our narrative, to call attention to one or two special features of the work as it was after- ward actually carried on. One of these was the emphasis laid upon the orderly, progressive, sys- tematic presentation of Christian truth to the peo- ple of each village on the ship's visiting list. " The addresses at the public meetings are all care- fully planned and systematized, one, two, three. The literature is carefully selected and graded, one, two, three again." Even the Scriptures were not to be circulated generally till the people had been sufficiently instructed to read them with in- telligence and profit. In fact the audience in each village was to be a big class in Christian doctrine, meeting infrequently indeed but making steady progress in the knowledge of the Way of Life from year to year. Another notable feature has been the attention paid to the conservation of results. What is gained i« gained by hard, hard work, and must be held at all costs. If a village is persuaded to open its doors to the Teaching those doors must never be allowed to shut. If a man "begins to show interest 104 CAPTAIN BICKEL in the Gospel story he must never be lost sight of until he is added to the number of those who be- lieve. When a believer is gained it is considered as important to hold him as to secure a new recruit. System, thoroughness, perseverance, conservation, these were the words that on the human side were to govern the activities of the little vessel. [Note. For the benefit of missionary readers, and of others interested in methods of foreign mission work, it may be m.entioned that Captain Bickel has set forth in detail his Plan of Campaign in an address before a com- pany of missionaries and other Christian workers at Karuizawa, on "Rural Evangelization," and in various writings. These may be found in the Christian Move- ment in Japan, the Japan Evangelist, and other mission- ary publications.] IX A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY WHEN Captain Bickel stood under the blue peter on tlie morning of the second day of December, 1899, and gave orders to hoist anchor and sails for the first mission cruise in the Inland Sea, it was with no rosy anticipations of immediate success. " I will work day and night, as God may give me strength, for ten years with- out looking for visible results,'' he wrote at that time to the Home Board. And, indeed, the field being what it was, and the plan of work so far reaching as it was, it showed optimism to expect results so early. In the chapters upon the Inland Sea and the Island Folk some idea has been given of the difftculties that had to be encountered, due both to the physical nature of the territory to be occupied, and to the mental and moral condition of the people. After describing some of these dif- ficulties, in an article from which paragraphs are there quoted. Captain Bickel adds : "Such then was the field to which the little Mission Ship went. Is it so great wonder that the writer, upon whom lay the burden of the going and doing, shrank from his task? A strange language, a strange people, an unknown and difficult sea to 105 106 OAPTAm BICKEL navigate almost entirely without guiding lights, and wholly without a pilot, — for none has ever been used, — no knowledge of the Islands, much less of where and how many were the villages upon them, not knowing a single soul in any of them, where to begin and what method to adoj)t, was indeed a problem." In another article, published in 1911, speaking retrospectively of the entrance of the Fukuin Maru upon her field of labour, he says : " There was nothing but a little white ship pick- ing her way among the islands at the eastern end of the Inland Sea. The night was dark, very dark, as she crawled up under the still darker shadow of a high mountain and dropped anchor. Not only was the night dark, but the prospects before us were darker still. The difficulties seemed as high as the high mountain under which the little ship lixjy and truly they were. I was among a strange people of whose language I did not know enough to ask for bread and butter, had there been any, which there was not. The islands, the towns and vil- lages, the mountain paths, the channels and sweep- ing tides, the rocks and shoals and winds, all these were unknown, untried. But above all, not a soul did I know in this wide stretch of islands, the hearts of whose hundreds of thousands I had been sent to try to reach. So the night was dark in- deed, and the misgivings of your old sailor friend made it seem darker still.'^ The mere secular side of the work, — the sailing of the vessel in new and difficult waters; the han- dling of the Japanese crew — every man-jack of them an incontrovertible proof of the doctrine of A VOYAGE OF DISCO YEEY 107 total depravity, and yet to be treated with that urbanity and deference which Yamato-Damashii, the Soul-of -Japan, expects of every respectable for- eigner; the hard bone labour on shore, tramping the mountain paths, thousands of miles of them in the aggregate, from village to village; the fre- quently tedious search for a house where meetings might be held, and the laborious advertising of these meetings by word of mouth from door to door, — would have been suf6.cient exercise for one husky man. And upon this, like Ossa piled on Pelion, was the tremendous load of the spiritual part of the campaign, the responsibility for a mil- lion and a half of people, intellectually depressed, superstitious, morally inert, stubbornly conserva- tive, hostile to or suspicious of the Captain and all his works, dwelling in a thousand scattered vil- lages that must be besieged and captured one by one, and all these to be found and won and led and fed, and for it all just one little white schooner picldng her way painfully from island to island, and pacing her deck a restless stranger from the West, who must be both skipper and missionary. Well, yes, and there was God. The Captain hap- pened to know this, and that saved the situation. " Ten years without visible results, if God will," said the Captain in his heart, as the little white schooner rounded the northern end of Awaji, and stood away across the Harima Nada for the first island on the ship's visiting list. It was, as al- ready intimated, not merely the difficulties of the field, but also the plan of campaign adopted, that broad comprehensive scheme outlined in the previ- ous chapter, which led him to set so distant a date. 108 CAPTAIN BICKEL It would have been, hmnanly speaking, a matter of no great difQ.culty to have secured several scores or hundreds of converts within a few years, with a less equipment in men and means than Captain Bickel had at command, by following the usual method of evangelism, the good old Pauline method indeed, of selecting certain strategic points and concentrating effort upon these until the work should be securely planted, and a considerable number of converts gathered. From these points the Gospel would then, in a natural and almost inevitable way, penetrate into the regions round about, until they too were evangelized. Paul laid himself out upon such strategic centres as Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth. Missionaries in Japan have established themselves in the chief cities, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and a hundred other im- portant centres. There they have concentrated their efforts, giving comparatively little attention to the surrounding rural districts. Win the town, and the town will win the country, has been their motto. As goes Tokyo, so goes the Empire, was the word of the wise. This i)olicy had two results. The first was, that in a comparatively short time, as a rule, a considerable number of converts was gathered at these centres. The second was, that the rural districts are yet almost untouched by the Gospel. After sixty years of missionary effort there is a flourishing work in almost every city and principal town in Japan, but four-fifths of the people of the countryside, in village and hamlet, are still waiting for the message of the Cross. The great problem now before our mission forces, and the great task of the next few decades, is the evan- A VOYAGE OF DISCOYEEY 109 gelization of the rural communities. If these com- munities are to be evangelized within this genera- tion the gradual seeping out of Christianity from the cities must be supplemented by a definite, seri- ous attempt to i)resent the claims of Christ to the country folk. The leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened may have been placed in a small mass in the strategic centre of the bulk of flour, but more likely was thoroughly distributed through it, as we mix yeast in our dough. In either case it would be but a question of time till the whole was leavened; but the distributed leaven would fulfill its purpose the more quickly. No doubt Paul's missionary strategy was masterly, nay, of divine suggestion, and the most successful possible in his circumstances and in the then condition of the world ; and those who have copied that strategy in modern missions have for the most part found it yield good results. In Captain BickeFs case, how- ever, the very unusual conditions obtaining in his field, in that it was an island parish, a parish of scattered islands, without much intercommunica- tion, each island a little world by itself, made it essential that each island be brought within the direct influence of the vessel's work. Therefore our Captain, instead of confining his efforts to a few populous islands, like Shozu or Ikuchi, or a few important towns, like Setoda and Tonosho, leaving the other hundreds of islands, with their thousand villages, to receive the Gospel second-hand, in some misty future, felt it incumbent on him, so far as it was not a physical impossibility, to begin work in all the islands, in all the villages, from the ver^ 110 CAPTAIN BIOKEL first, and to carry it forward uniformly over the whole field. That element of Paul's strategy, and of mission strategy generally, which was suited to Inland Sea conditions, he incorj^orated into his plan, by selecting a strategic centre in each group of islands, after the first rounds of his parish had been made, and establishing there a nucleus of Christian work, with the arrangement, however, that from that centre systematic work should be carried on, so far as the workers' strength per- mitted, in every village in the group. Of late years, in missionary circles in Japan, " intensive work " and " concentration " have been words to conjure by. The mission to the Inland Sea has been from, the first a happy example of the possi- bility of combining concentration and diffusion, of a work both intensive and extensive. But to adopt and pursue such a method as this meant that the Fulcuin Maru mission workers must be willing to labour for years without the joy of seeing numbers of the people turning to Christ. " Ten years with- out visible results," said the Captain, but it was not the will of God that he should wait so long. On December 2nd the anchor was dropped off Shozu, the first island to have the honour of a mission visit by the little vessel. It lies about thirty miles almost due west from the north point of Awaji, across the Harima Nada. It is the lar- gest of all the Islands except Awaji itself, which the Captain did not include in his list, because Chris- tian work was already being done there. The high land under whose black shadow the vessel came to anchor that first night out from Hiogo was part of the lofty mountain mass of Shozu Island, the view A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 111 from tiie summits of wMch, soaring three tliousand feet into the sky, the Captain used to describe v/ ith enthusiasm. The town off which the vessel made her first mission anchorage was doubtless Tonosho, the chief place on the island, destined to become the scene of some of the most marked successes of the Inland Sea Mission, and the first of the five chief centres of the work. It would appear that at Tonosho, and among the villages of Shozu generally, the Cap- tain encountered very little hostility. He even speaks of the reception accorded him as cordial. The meetings were well attended, and here and there were individuals who seemed to take more than a passing interest in the vessel. The mis- givings which filled our Captain's heart when he ^ame to anchor that dark December night under the darker shadow of Shozu were speedily changed to thanksgiYiiigs. The morning after their arrival the first visitor came aboard. " He was a policeman. He was so full of dignity that he lost his balance in the sam- pan (native boat) which brought him out, and tmnbled overboard, sword, dignity and all." He is memorable as the first of many thousands who came as visitors to the ship as she went on her way. Without seeking to trace the zigzag course of the vessel from island to island, or the zigzag tramps of her Captain from village to village over the rough granite hills, it is sufficient to record that during the first three months, the windy months of winter, with their heavy weather and penetrating cold, visits were made to thirteen islands, in the eastern section of the Inland Sea, and meetings held at 112 CAPTAIN BICKEL over fifty places. Many of these fifty towns and villages were within easy distance of the shii^'s anchorages, but others were on remote parts of the islands, and had to be reached by wearisome climbs over the hills. Delightful tramps these, to one who had the time and strength to spare : the trail wind- ing over the pine-clad ridges, the air sweet with balsam of the woods and salt of the sea, every turn of the path yielding charming glimpses of the blue water, dotted with green islands and white sails of ships. The writer recalls such tramps in the Cap- tain's comj)any as among the pleasant incidents of his visits to the vessel. As for the Captain himself, overburdened with his other labours ashore and afloat, these long mountain walks made serious de- mands upon his strength, and it was a great relief to him when, in 1902, the kind gift of a 25-foot motor-launch by Mr. Allan, the donor of the ship, enabled him to dispense with most of this hill- climbing. The villages were of course not on top of the hills, but beyond the hills on distant shores of the islands, in places which did not afford suit- able anchorage for the vessel. If the mountain tramps involved much wearing toil, the navigation of the vessel was a still heavier task, for reasons already set down in the descrip- tion of the Inland Sea. " Sweeping tides, hinder- ing gales, danger from rock and shoal to ship and boats " — all these there were, and also, lack of lighthouses, lack of reliable charts, and above all, lack of auxiliary power in the vessel to take her to her desired haven when the wind failed or was con- trary, and the tide swept her from her course. The Captain used to say, and the words reveal the heart b£ -4-> El o 3 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 113 of the man, always eager for tlie hardest tasks, that he ^^ never prayed for a fair wind,'' for what was a fair wind for one ship might be a foul wind for another, sailing in a contrary direction ; but simply for wind, for with a good breeze blowing one could beat and tack and get to the appointed place some- how. ^'Whatever way the wind may blow Some heart is glad to have it so. So blow it east, or blow it west, Whatever wind may blow is best.'' It was a constant regret to the Captain, and to all interested in the work, during these first years, that the ship had been built to depend entirely upon her sails. In ordinary waters the loss would not have been so great, but in such a tangle of winds and tides as the Inland Sea presents, some auxiliary power was almost indispensable. For the lack of this equipment Captain Bickel was not responsible, for he recognized its desirability from the outset, and it was with reluctance and under protest that he yielded in the matter to the judg- ment of others and consented to delete the item of engines from the original plans approved by the generous donor of the vessel. But having so yielded he set himself to build the very best pos- sible ship of sails, and with a cheerful courage laboured to obtain the largest results such a vessel could afford. If he groaned inwardly at times in the midst of a losing fight with wind and tide it was not for his own stress and strain but because of the loss to the work, which always lay next Ms heart. The motor-boat, however, not only relieved 114 CAPTAIN BICKEL him from most of the hard hill tramps, but was also of great service in shifting the vessel's anchor- age, or in rescuing her when about to fall upon dangerous places, thus saving her skipper much anxiety as well as valuable time and strength. It was shortly before the writer's third summer visit to the Inland Sea that the launch was received, and he can testify that she lightened the Captain's toil and was a valuable addition to the vessel's equip- ment. Then, three years later, in 1905, the orig- inal plans for the ship were at length carried out, and she was fitted with auxiliary engines. This was made possible by a liberal contribution toward the expense from Mr. Allan's always open purse. It was a red letter day in the ship's log when she made her first run under her own power, flaunting wind and tide. But we are getting five years ahead of our story. The Captain's general plan of campaign, already roughly drawn up when he started on his first mis- sion cruise, has been already outlined. It may be of interest to learn what was the actual method of attack, or, let us say, approach, when any par> ticular island or community was visited. ^* Whero. to begin, and what method to adopt, was indeed a problem. There seemed no way but to begin at the beginning, at the first island, the first village, and then the next; and from this has grown up by a simple and natural process, as God has led the way, rather than from any premeditated plan, the pres- ent widespread, organized effort." But how was the work in the first island, the first village, and then the next, to be begun? On a clear cold January afternoon a white A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 115 schooner flying a foreign flag is seen by the vil- lagers of J let us say, Shiraislii, working her way in toward their harbour. By the time she has come to anchor and the sails are being stowed, a crowd has gathered on the beach, curious to know what errand has brought the little stranger ship to their doors. Boats begin to push off. Presently a sam- pan propelled by two brawny scullers brings out a policeman in a rather ill-fitting uniform, sword on hip, to the foot of the ladder, where he is received by the Captain with every mark of respect. Com- ing on board he makes enquiry as to the purpose for which the ship comes, her crew, the Captain's fam- ily, and the like, her probable length of stay at her present anchorage, her last port of call and her next port of call. He asks to see the government permit under which the ship sails among the Islands, and is courteously conducted to the cabin where the precious document is submitted to his grave inspection. Having been already advised from Tokyo to afford the vessel and her company protection and necessary help, he expresses his satisfaction with the answers made to his enquiries, makes a conventional offer of aid if any occasion call for it, and over a cup of tea perhaps expresses his fear that the ignorant and backward condition of the people of the island will make the Captain's honourable efforts on their behalf nugatory. So soon as he has been bowed down the ladder, the ship's boat is lowered, and the Captain and Japa- nese evangelist are rowed to the shore. Merely pausing there long enough to announce to the crowd that a meeting will probably be held at some house in their village that evening, they make their way 116 CAPTAIN BICKEL to the village office, to pay a visit of courtesy, and perhaps make enquiry as to whose house may be suitable for the proposed evening meeting. For as a rule the meetings must be held in private houses, there being no halls or theatres to hire and no hotels to throw open their rooms for such a purpose. As on the mainland, meetings may be held in the open air, beside the beach, by the roadside, in a temple grove, or in a schoolhouse, but Captain Bickel pre- ferred a gathering in the home of one of the vil- lagers of good standing, in w^hich common courtesy to the host would compel the audience to listen with quiet and respect, where the message could be spoken in an unhurried way, and where afterward those interested could be gathered about the hibachi — the Japanese hearth — for a more intimate talk. If the interest and friendship of the good- man of the house could be won, so that on future visits of the vessel his doors would be open, it was an asset of great value for time to come. A small o rely or thank-gift, in money, wrapped according to etiquette in paper, and presented with some in- teresting tracts when the meeting had dispersed, served to cover the expense of light and fuel, with a little margin for the trouble incurred. To find a house spacious enough to accommodate a large part of the local population, and convenient of access, and then to persuade the head of the family to lend his rooms to the Jesus Teachers for a lecture-meet- ing was not always easy, was occasionally im- possible. In such cases a meeting might be held by daylight in the open air, some tracts distributed, the work of the vessel explained, some simple truths of Christianity proclaimed, and notice given that A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 117 on her next round tlie vessel would call there again, and if possible an indoor meeting be arranged for. A bouse having been secured, the next step was to advertise the meeting, which w^as done when possible by going in person from door to door, through the entire village, and announcing the time and place, with a polite invitation to the family to attend. The writer when with Captain Bickel took his share of these advertising calls, being accus- tomed to advertising his own meetings in this w^ay in his own country work. One falls into a regular formula : " Please excuse me ! Just a word ! To- night at eight, at So-and-so's, there will be a lecture meeting by the Fukum Mam people. Everybody welcome, children and all. Please arrange to come." When one has got off this formula at forty or fifty doors it comes as easy as sneezing. As a result of this advertising the house would be crowded, a large proportion of the villagers, men, women and children, attending. The meeting would be without singing, Scripture reading or prayer, as these would be unintelligible to the audience, a waste of time, and a hindrance rather than a help. This being the first meeting held at this village its purpose is to introduce the Mission Vessel, remove prejudices against Christi- anity, create an interest in the Ship and a favour- able attitude toward her work, and present certain elementary truths of the Gospel. A roll of maps, charts and pictures is hung up in the best lighted part of the room, among which is a map of the world showing the areas where the several chief religions prevail; a chart showing the number of 118 CAPTAIN BICKBL adherents of these religions, the number of lan- guages into which the Christian Scrijptures have been translated and the yearly output of Bibles, and facts of that nature ; some pictures from Sun- day-school rolls illustrating the truths presented, and a picture of the FuJcuin Maru. The audience is seated on the floor, on their shins, on the mats, as close together as they can sit with comfort. Those who smoke cluster around the JiihacJiiy of which several have been brought in on account of the cold, and punctuate the address with the sharp rap of the little brass bowled pipes on the metal rim of the braziers. All listen seriously and resi)ectfully, and apparently with understanding, the talk being made as simple as possible. When the address is finished, and the audience dismissed with an invitation to come out and visit the vessel, a number of the older people will remain for con- versation, and it is nearing midnight when the picture roll is tied up, and the workers pick their way by lantern light back to the beach and signal for the boat to take them off to the ship. In this way, during the first cruise, as mentioned above, thirteen of the most easterly group of islands, carrying fifty villages, were opened up to the work. In a very few of these villages Christian meetings had been held, once at least, by visiting evangelists from the mainland. One Christian was met, another was heard of. Practically, to all the villages and to all the people, the Gospel was a strange, new message. The reception accorded to the FuJcuin Maru and her Captain in this group of islands was almost everywhere, as on Shozu, more encouraging than he A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 119 had dared to hope ; the Ship, the Captain, and the Message had at least a favourable introduction to the Island peoi^le. The attendance at the meet- ings ran up into an average of several hundred to a village. It was curiosity of course, and a wish for entertainment, that brought them together, not a hungering and thirsting after righteousness ; but it did very well for a beginning, and each one car- ried away some novel ideas to brood over till the next visit of the ship. The experiences of these first three months, in these first fifty villages visited, were duplicated in the hundreds of other villages to which the ship went during the remainder of her first year of service, her first round of the Inland Sea. Occa- sionally a village or an island presented a front of deliberate and stubborn hostility, as at Setoda, on Ikuchi, where every householder in the town signed a pledge binding himself not to lend his house for a Christian meeting. By the way, watch Setoda, the unwilling, and note the entries in the Captain's log in which she figures. Tonosho, the hospitable^ was the chief town of the great Island of Shozu, and so the natural capital of the easternmost group of islands. To be received there in a friendly way was a happy omen. Setoda, the inhospitable, was the most important place on the large Island of Ikuchi, and the natural capital of the island cluster next westward. To be repelled here must have been a great disappointment. As a rule, however, the Captain found open doors, or at least doors not barred and bolted, and as for the few that seemed nailed up to stay he referred them to Him who can break the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in 120 CAPTAIN BICKEL suiider — and knocked again on the next round of tlie Islands. While the vessel was making her first rounds of the Islands her home port was at Banshu, at the head of a deep narrow fiord, a lovely bit of water extending far into the hills on the north side of the Harima Nada. Banshu is within easy reach of Himeji, where Captain Bickel made his shore home, in those brief periods w^hen he granted himself shore leave, and where he left his family when the season made it unsafe for them to accompany him among the Islands. If one should cruise the coasts of the Seven Seas he could hardly find an anchorage more ideal than that at Banshu. No matter what tempest is abroad it rouses no tumult in these hill-sheltered waters, across the width of which a Japanese archer would deem it a poor feat to shoot an arrow. And surely never did the little fiord w^ear a more charming asx)ect than one smiling May morning in 1900, when the Little White Ship, returned from a cruise among the islands of the Ikuchi Cluster, lay there swinging at her anchor. The writer had arrived from Yokohama, via Himeji, the evening before, and this was his first visit to the ship, and the first day of his visit. The narrow bay, all silver and blue in the morning breeze and sunshine, the tree- clad hills in which it was framed, the dainty little vessel at anchor in mid-stream, made a picture to rejoice an artist or a poet. Some matters of mis- sion business detained the ship here for several days, and as we were outside the limits of the Cap- tain's parish and therefore holding no evangelistic services, it afforded a delightful opportunity for A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 121 rest and recreation. Tlie Captain, of course, was busy with many things, preparing for the next cruise, but Mrs. Bickel and a lady guest from Yoko- hama, with the Japanese evangelist and the writer, improved the shining hours by visits to the lower slopes of the hills to gather the wild azaleas, or by excursions on one of the ship's boats down to " The Eocks," where we found wonderful shell-fish, sea-slugs and other marine curiosities. With the going down of the sun, and the hush of the even- ing calm, rose the full moon in glory behind the ancient wide-boughed pines. Now, every Japanese is a potential poet, and at the writer's suggestion Evangelist Katataye, gazing at the golden splendour foiled by the dark boughs through which it glowed, presently produced a poem of the conventional Japanese form and flavour, wherein within the compass of thirty syllables may be found the pines and the moon- light, the hush of evening and the sigh of the sleep- ing tide, and a hint of the strange sadness which the sight of such great beauty wakes in the human heart. After one or two such Arcadian days we got up sail and anchor and slipped down the placid fiord to the open waters of the Harima Nada. Here there was a fine fresh breeze blowing, and presently we were bowling along at a seven knot clip down the west. 'Not far removed from the outlet of the fiord were two tiny twin islands, each with a village on its shore, which it had not been convenient for the vessel to call at on her former cruises. Ac- cordingly we shaped our course for these, and presently coming to anchor off one of them lowered 122 CAPTAIN BICKEL tlie boat and went ashore. Tlie people came running together to the beach, and when a consider- able crowd had gathered, the roll of maps and pictures was hung up against a convenient post, and Evangelist Katataye explained to them the purpose of the vessel, and they heard for the first time of the living and true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He had sent. No attempt was made here to arrange for an evening meeting, xierhaps because there was no safe anchorage near. And as the other twin island lay very near its fellow, and both isles had contributed to our audience, and the day was already far spent, we made no other landing, but got up sail and set the course for one of the larger islands westward. During the weeks that followed we voyaged msmj leagues, landed on many islands, visited many vil- lages, clambered over many granite hills, held many meetings in hospitable farmhouses, or on windy beaches, the full account of which would leave no room for aught else between the covers of this book. Those were memorable days, memorable for the beauty of the Island world amid which we sailed, or drifted, by sunlight or moonlight; memorable for the afternoon tramps across the hills, with the song of the south wind through the pines for marching music, and for the glorious moonlight nights when the sea lay in purple shadow and the silence was broken but by the whisper of the waves along the flanks of the vessel. Memo> rable beyond that were they for the daily glimpses afforded of our Captain's heart, of his supreme devotion to his Master and to the Mission on which the Master had sent him, and of the tact, the wis- A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 123 dom, the courtesy, the patience, the gentleness with which he was introducing that Master and that Mission to the Island Folk. Memorable, too, were those golden weeks, because they were the Be- ginning of the Year of our Lord to many a gray village on the Island shores. In the above account of the vessel's first year of service those trials of the Captain's faith which arose from the perversity of man have been lightly touched upon. There were rebuffs as well as wel- comes. It was not only in the Island of Ikuchi that he found unfriendly faces. True, not many places were so openly hostile as Setoda, but in not a few the people met the Captain's overtures with suspicion and half-concealed enmity. In his re- ports he makes very light of unpleasant experi- ences, rarely referring to them at all, as becometh a missionary and a sailor. Sometimes, though, in conversation, spinning a seaman's yarn as he paced the deck with a visiting friend, he might introduce them as amusing episodes, too good to be forgotten. To see children fleeing in terror, because they had been told the tall fierce looking foreign priest would drink their blood; to be greeted by those same children, grown bolder, with such heartsome epithets as *^ foreign fool,'^ " child-thief," " robber,'' and " Christian pig," names which they had heard at home from their elders' lips ; to be shunned as a Russian spy, an enemy of Great Japan, a despiser of the Imperial House, an introducer of new cus- toms which it was not lawful for the Islanders to observe, being Japanese, a def amer of the ancestral gods, a member of the sect everywhere spoken against, one of those who turn the world upside 124 CAPTAIN BICKEL down — ^inost of these are experiences wMch any missionary in country work on the mainland can duplicate, but no doubt the Islands afforded more than the average number and variety of them. In some places the peojjle sullenly refused to direct him on his way, as he w^ent from village to village, a discourtesy which the w^riter has never himself witnessed in Jai)an. In extreme cases they went so far as to threaten his life if he should rej)eat his visit to their community. In some instances at least the priests were back of this hostility, fore- seeing in the success of the vessel the downfall of their own authority. Occasionally they came out openly against the Christian teachers, denouncing them publicly as dangerous misleaders of the people. But open, frank hostility to the new Teaching was comparatively rare and was the least of the obstacles in the Captain's way. The real fight was with the silent suspicion, the deep-rooted preju- dices, the love of the old heathen customs ; with long standing habits of thought, and with human igno- rance and depravity and inertia. How the open enmity was disarmed, and these covert enemies overcome, must be told in another chapter. When the FuJcuin Maru came to anchor at Ban- shu in the summer of 1900, with half a year's voyaging behind her, she had sailed the broad spaces and the narrow channels of the Seto-Nai- Kai from Awaji to western reaches of the Bingo Nada, and had aroused at least a friendly curiosity in the hearts of thousands of the Island people. The Captain had explored the eastern half of his parish. The conquest of the Islands was begun. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVEEY 125 He had gone out with misgivings, he returned with thanksgivings. A great and effectual door had been opened to him. If there were many adver- saries there were also many who were ready to be friends. ^^We have been getting acquainted," he said later, summing up the experiences of the year. These first mission cruises were voyages of dis- covery not for the Captain only, but for the Islanders as well. Their discoveries were such that they awaited with interest the next coming of the little vessel, the next address on the strange re- ligion she represented. To the Island Folk of the Inland Sea had come the first faint dawn of a new day. X THE CMIEL'S NOSE THE Captain's success, during his Voyage of Discovery, in introducing his Vessel and his Message to the Island com- munities on the shores of the Harima Nada and the Bingo Nada put the future of the Inland Sea Mission in a much more hopeful light, humanly speaking, than that in which it had presented itself to his mind that memorable night when the little vessel lay in the dark shadows of Shozu Shima, with the whole vast field all unknown, untried. With fresh hope and courage, which increased with each fresh adventure of faith, he hoisted sail for his next cruise among the Islands. Passing by hospitable Shozu Shima, with its verdant satellites, and surly Ikuchi, with its ad- jacent isles, the Little White Ship spread her white wings for the two great groups of islands yet un- visited, lying far down toward the sunset, those which we now speak of as the Kurahashi and Agenosho Groups. From island to island, and from harbour to harbour, the little vessel moved on, picking her way carefully among rocks and shoals, charted and uncharted ; and from village to village across the pine-clad granite hills tramped the Cap- tain and the Japanese evangelist, with lantern and 126 THE CAMEL'S NOSE 127 picture rolls; till presently, as mentioned in the preceding cliapter, most of the principal islands had been visited, and most of the more important of their towns and villages had had a glimpse of the trim little foreign ship, had seen the tall for- eign captain walk their stony streets, and had had for the first time an opportunity to hear of that strange foreign religion to make known which, it seemed, had brought ship and captain to their shores. Setting down these islands and island communities of the Kurahashi and Agenosho Groups on the ship's list, beneath those visited dur- ing the earlier cruises in the clusters of Ikuchi and Shozu, the Captain found that he had carried his message to some sixty islands, and to about four hundred Island communities, before the vessel had completed her first full year of service, before the second Christmas Day lit up the Island hills. As in the case of the more easterly groups, the villages and towns of these westward islands, with very few exceptions, accorded a polite if not a cordial recep- tion to the tall white stranger. Houses were opened for the meetings and the peoi)le packed them to the walls, and out past the movable walls into the street or the courtyard. The Captain and his Japanese fellow-worker, who was of course the chief speaker, were heard with at least outward respect and attention, if perhaps with inward in- credulity and amusement. At the least a nexus had been established between the vessel and the Islands ; a footing had been gained of which advan- tage could be taken on subsequent visits ; the camel had gotten his nose into the tent. It was the Captain's steadfast resolution that the hold gained 128 CAPTAIN BICKEL should never be relaxed ; that no door once ever so little set ajar should be allowed to close again; that once the camePs nose was inside the curtain it should never be withdrawn. So the Captain came sailing back to Bansliu with the west wind swelling his canvas, more enriched by his year's voyages than ever was skipper coming home from a season's sealing with a hold packed with green hides or from some prosperous trading venture to the coasts of Cathay, for had he not sixty islands and four hundred Island communities on his list of open doors? On his way back he had even made opportunity to touch at a few of the places visited during his first cruises, and great was his joy and gratitude to find a welcome more cordial even than that previously accorded him. In a letter written to Gleanings in the fall of 1900, the Captain writes : ** Since I wrote my last letter to you in February, the Fukiiin Maru has had a variety of experiences. God's loving kindness has, however, watched over us day and night. We have had the joy since last December of seeing Christmas Day dawn upon fifty islands large and small, in that, for the first time, the 'glad tidings of great joy' has come to the ears and I trust, in some cases, in some measure, to the hearts of the people. We have had a happy, busy time these last months. **Well, despite high winds, low winds, and no winds, and in spite of the necessity of playing a continual game of hide and seek with the tide between rocks and shoals, we have been permitted to visit some seventy anchorages, and have had meetings at which, at a low estimate, we had an attendance of thirty thousand persons. In all but two islands we had a repetition of the experiences THE CAMEL'S ITOSE 129 reported before, abundant willingness to hear and much kindness shown us by the people. In one island thir- teen meetings were held, in the largest houses available, in different villages, during a period of only eight days, and we changed our anchorage four times in doing it. At one place we had a hard tramp on a dark night over hills of 1,200 feet, and losing our way we were late in arriving, only to find that a veritable feast of food and fruit, lemonade, beer and sake had been prepared for us in the best house in the village. After partaking of the more innocent portion of the food we were ushered into a large new school building, packed with people, into which little air could come as the twenty windows and the doors were packed as well. On the way back we got caught by the tide under a cliff, and seeing the prospect of a long wait and a poor chance even then, I took the whole mission outfit on my shoulders — Katataye San (the evangelist), lamp, umbrellas, picture roll and furoshiki (cloth for carrying a parcel in) — and waded waist deep around the cliff for a quarter of a mile, reaching the vessel at 1 a. m. after another four miles in wet clothes.' **In this particular island, as also in some others, the [missionary] sisters who have been with us this summer rendered valuable assistance. Special meetings for women were arranged for, and were much appreciated. At one place in Saki Jima, when the ladies were present, the floor of half the house collapsed, bringing down the dispensary (for the proprietor was a doctor) and all the people into a hole about five feet deep. No one was hurt, however. **Well, then, you may ask, what about the two islands where we had a different reception? Well, the devil holds heyday there. They are two of the chief Buddhist strongholds in the Inland Sea and, strange to say, two of the most immoral places in the same area. At Mitarai, one of these islands, the priests and people had 130 CAPTAIN BICKEL a consultation before we came and decided that no one must let us have a house and any one attending a meet- ing should be driven out. We came, and the people were very hard indeed. We expressed our regret at such a state of affairs, and told them that if we could not have a house we must hold meetings in the open air. We prayed long and hard, and then held some open air meetings and sought to get in touch with individuals, with the result that little by little the people seemed to soften. The last evening we spent up in one of the temples with the priests, assuring them that we had come to come again and yet again. So after I get through with my outfitting and cleaning I hope to go back, and hope and expect to find the people more friendly. ''On my way up to Banshu I called in at my first island, Shozu Shima, again. God had so put my want of faith to shame that I dared not insult Him any fur- ther by doubting that He was leading us step by step in these first visits to island after island ; but coming back to the first island for the second time, after the novelty of the thing had worn off, even in the face of 'so great a cloud of witnesses' my faith wavered, only to be put to shame again. Our reception was as cordial as be- fore, the meetings as wxll attended, the interest of in- dividuals as great as before. *'And so all the way God has been overwhelming us with mercy. And now there are coming in requests for literature and for letters or renewed visits, or visits to places not yet reached. From one place visited last January comes a request: 'Can you send some one or come yourself again, as there are twenty families wish- ing special instruction?' *'And you, my dear friends, have had a large share in bringing these blessings upon us. You have, I feel sure, prayed earn^tly with us, and God in His abundant mercy has heard us and has answered far beyond our THE CAIVIEUS NOSE 131 faith. He has brought glory to His name by again proving that through weak instruments He is able to accomplish His purposes. As you have had a share in bringing the blessings, I am anxious that you should also share the blessing. Hence I write so earnestly of His loving kindness, that rejoicing with me you may be encouraged.'' So it came to pass that when Christinas Day dawned in the year of grace nineteen hundred, in sixty of the chief islands of the Inland Sea, in some four hundred of their most important towns and villages, the camel's nose was already within the tent door. Captain Bickel was determined that, God helping him, it should never be forced to with- draw, but that head and shoulders should follow in due time. Keferring to the difficulties con- fronting him, and the signs of progress that even the earliest years of the work brought, he says, "But the promises of the Lord, who knows it all, yes, all, do they not assure us that the wedge just entering shall be driven in up to the very hilt, and to the rending asunder of the dark, solid mass, if we are but faithful, ever faithful." How the Cap- tain's determination and the divine promises were fulfilled may be found duly set forth in subsequent chapters. XI THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CREW AMONG tlie many difficult problems which faced the skipper of the Fukuin Maru sit the opening of the Inland Sea Mission none was of more inmiediate practical moment than that of a crew for his little vessel. There had to he a crew, for no navigator, however expert and re- sourceful, could hope to sail even a little eighty-ton fore-and-aft schooner single handed. To handle her properly, in such waters as she was to traverse, there were needed seven able-bodied men. It was out of the question, for financial and other reasons, to engage a foreign crew. Japan being a group of islands, a land of fishing fleets, and possessing a large mercantile marine, has no lack of bold and skillful seamen. If only there had been among these seven Christian sailors who would have taken an interest in the little ship for her work's sake, and have shipped on her for the love of God! To run a Mission Ship with a heathen crew is like run- ning a Christian school with heathen teachers. There being no Christian sailors available Captain Bicfeel raked together such a crew as he could, and hoisted sail. He was used to sailors, and to rough and godless sailors. He would get along some- how. It was to do hard things he had come to 132 New Fukuin Maru at anchor THE TEANSFOEMATION OF THE CESW 133 Japan. That tliey were guiltless of a knowledge of the King's English, or even of " English as she is Japped," while he himself had hardly what could be called a speaking acquaintance with Japanese, was a minor difficulty and ready to vanish away. A major difQ.culty was to preserve discipline on the ship without resorting to the disciplinary meas- ures which those who go down to the sea in ships have found necessary from ancient times. Corporal punishment is viewed with disapproval in Japan. In the seclusion of his own home the goodman of the house may, indeed, lay violent hands upon his wife and children, in chastisement for real or fancied faults, or as a ijleasurable exer- cise. It is for them to cherish a lively gratitude toward their lord and master for his honourable attentions. A policeman or a prison warden may do bodily damage to those who have been impru- dent enough to fall into his hands, to encourage them to a confession of their wrong-doing, or to im- press them with the majesty of the law. But in the schools no teacher is permitted to inflict bodily punishment. No cats-of-nine-tails infest a Jap- anese class-room, and even a box on the ear would render liable to arrest for assault and battery. The writer is not sure that the of&cers on board a Japanese merchant ship never lay a chastening hand or a rope's end upon fractious members of their crew; but such a proceeding would be irregular and accomiDanied with considerable risk. At all events, no foreign captain in his normal senses would think of employing the rough and ready ship's discipline of the British mercantile marine, as described in popular tales of the sea, 134 CAPTAIN BICKEL upon a Japanese crew, and most undreamable would this be in tke case of a Missionary Captain. To preserve strict discipline by an appeal to the reason, conscience and sense of honour of even a good crew is no easy task. The makeshift crew which manned the FuJcuin Maru on her maiden voyage proved unreliable and unsatisfactory enough, and added much to the trouble and heart- ache of the Captain during the difficult early years of the Mission. Their conduct on shore, also, when the ship lay at anchor for Gospel work, brought a bad name on the vessel, and tended to render nugatory the Captain's labour. Down in his sailor heart, accustomed to the stern and effect- ive treatment of turbulent mariners on the west- ern main, he must often have sighed, " Oh, that I might lay my hand to a good old-fashioned marlin- spike, that I might teach these sons of Belial not to transgress ! " On one occasion matters got so bad that the whole crew had to be dismissed. But there were mellowing influences at work upon the hearts of these rough, hardened, unprom- ising sailor lads. The mingled firmness and kind- ness of the foreign skipper ; the Christian home life which the little vessel housed, with the gentle goodness of the Lady of the Cabin, and the play and prattle of the children; the daily morning worship, some half understood words of the new Teaching, the evident earnestness and sincerity of the missionary, something about the work or the workers began to soften their hearts. One after another they began to listen, to enquire, to show signs of a changed life. To narrate how, from being the disgrace of the ship, and the despair of THE TEA:N"SF0EMATI0N of the CEEW 135 lier Captain, they became her glory and his com- fort and Joy, is the purpose of this chapter, and this can best be done by borrowing from the Cap- tain's log. The first of the Seven Sailors to show signs of a change of heart was a lad from Sanuki Province, on the Island of Shikoku, by name Kida Etaro. Old Glory is half-mast high in the westerly gale to-day. ''The wind will fray the fly of that flag off!" says the boatswain. ''Let it fray, Bo'sn," said we, "for it suits our mood ! ' ^ This on a day last winter. The Mission Ship had started bright and early that day. Wind there was none, and none was expected. We crept along through the narrow channels, partly sailing, partly towing the vessel with our launch, when suddenly down came a snow-squall off the high hills, and then a lull, then another squall, with the weight of which we shot out into the open, picldng up the launch as we passed and then towing her in turn. Squall followed squall. Keef after reef was taken. The hills and rocks were wiped out of sight by the snow as it drove and swirled. An hour more and we were in sore plight, sea steadily rising, wind steadily increasing. The launch towing astern was every moment more seri- ously endangered. To hoist her on board is impossible. We watch anxiously the sailor lad who sits in her, steer- ing, and try to encourage him and ourselves by an occasional word of good cheer. Five minutes more and we shall be under shelter! We shout and point to the dimly seen line of hills under which we hope to round up in safety. Just then with the onrush of a heavy "fourth sea" the launch gives an ominous yaw, and snap goes one of the stout tow-ropes. If the other rope snaps the launch and man both are lost. We know that, 136 CAPTAIN BICKEL so does he. He with all a sailor's pluck goes to refasten the broken tow-rope, when with a sudden heave he is thrown bodily overboard. Eocks on either side make ' ' bringing the ship to ' ' all but impossible. The attempt is made despite the danger, and a boat gets away with much difficulty. For three long, weary hours in the heavy sea we search for our shipmate, but to no purpose. Stiff with cold, drenched with spray and driving sleet, it was a sorry company that knelt around the skylight in the falling snow, with bared heads, to commit their comrade to God. There were no dry eyes there, not even those of the case-hardened skipper. Then after a brief struggle with wind and wave our vessel was brought into safety, and a three days' search for the body of our friend began, only to end in failure. It is a long story, that of the search, and the breaking of the news to the widowed wife and old father by one of the men, who, in true sailor fashion, went bravely to his task, then broke down like a child and from that very fact did it all the better. Enough of this! The man? Who was he? A lad named Kida Etaro from Sanuki Province, on the main south island. He joined the ship at the beginning, and with the rest led an evil life; gambled, drank, squandered, thieved, lied and what not! The Mission Ship was in bad grace, or rather disgrace. The missionarj^ skipper had a sore heart. Some sneered, some blamed, some few under- stood and pitied, while the men, with oriental assurance, thinking he knew nothing of their evil ways, took him for an easy dupe. The skipper prayed, and waited, and prayed again. A change came. Kida Etaro changed. Others seemed to change too, but this man certainly did. He first, then the others, asked for baptism. We felt the need of cau- tion, and put them off, but finally consented that he, at least, should be baptized; yet now — it was too late, he had gone, gone home, yes, home! His example was to, THE TEANSFOEMATION OF THE CEEW 137 have helped the others, so planned the skipper; and now — he was gone! The skipper's heart was sore. So when Old Glory, half-mast high, frayed in the gale that day, what wonder he replied, ''Let it fray, Bo'sn, for it suits our mood." The Sequel: — Some four months have passed. The Mission Ship is snug in a wee, land-locked harbour on a sunny, laughing day. The men have, of their own ac- cord, * ' dressed ship, ' ' i. e., put flags from the mastheads to the deck. Friends come doAvn and all hearts are glad. The launch is filled with visiting friends and towing a boatful astern glides down the narrow bay to a quiet spot. A hymn of praise is sung, a prayer ascends. A moment's solemn hush, in w^hich we feel that God is near, and then — "In the name of the Father, the Son *' comes the voice of the officiating missionary on the still air, and the first converts from the Mission Ship are buried in the baptismal waters of the very sea on which they lived their evil lives. The first ? No, not so, for their shipmate, Kida Etaro, entered into life through the same waters of the beautiful Inland Sea of Japan and led the way. We returned quietly to the ship, and there, after a word of praise and thanksgiving, a memorial brass plate was affixed to the mainmast : Kida Etaro, Seaman, Died Believing in God. While Serving His Country in the Cause of Christ He was Lost at Sea. He That Believeth in Me, Though He Were Dead, Yet Shall He Live. Thus reads the legend. And so ended a happy day. This happy day, which witnessed the first bap- tismal service in the Inland Sea, was April 18, 1903, the day before the Captain sailed from Kobe on his first brief furlough. That he had been per- mitted to see the first-fruits of the Islands unto 138 CAPTAIK BICKEL Clirist, so long before results of his work were to be expected, and that these first believers were members of his own crew, men who had seemed hopelessly depraved and hardened, must have been a great joy to the Captain's heart, a promise and prophecy of great triumphs of the Gospel among the Island people in the years to come. "They were the first tokens of the ingathering that in God's time must come, reminding us in their early appearing of some chance fruit tree, that stands alone in blossom among its fellows in early spring." One of the sailors whose hearts were touched by Kida'S death, and who became the first-fruits of the Inland Sea Mission, was the boatswain, Hirata. The story of his conversion and subsequent Chris- tian life is a most interesting chapter in the Trans- forming of the Crew. Of all the seven he seemed the most abandoned, the most hopeless, and of them all he became the most conspicuous example of the saving power of the Gospel. The history of the Inland Sea Mission would be incomplete without the narrative of the Awakening of Hirata, a true tale of the sea, and one which illustrates both the utter sincerity of the Inland Sea work, and the transforming power of the grace of God. Hirata, " a short, ugly faced little fellow, built in a Imnp," clambered up over the stern of the vessel one snap- ping cold winter day, looking for a job. But let us hear from the skipper's own lips, The Boatswain's Story. **He came in through the hawsepipe," is a suggestive nautical phrase. My friend Hirata San did not; he came in over the stern, literally. The dsLj was cold, a THE TEANSFOEMATION OF THE CEEW 139 good winter snap was on. That fact presupposed clothes! All he had to support the dignity of his allegiance to the Mikado was half a shirt and a loin cloth, things acquired, and a shock of hair throv/n in by nature. He turned his toes in and made obeisance most elo- quently. His bow fairly spoke. It said, "I'll do you the first chance I get and I won't be long in getting one." His crafty eyes looked straight in the direction of the eight cardinal points of the compass all at once. He claimed consideration on the ground that he had a brother on the ship. That only made things worse. The brother was bad enough in all conscience. No, we did not w^ant him. But he kept his eight-point eye on us, and the next time we needed a man he was there waiting. Well, he had one virtue at least, he was openly, cheer- fully evil. He and the devil went watch and watch. He gambled, stole and lied by preference. He drank heavily and loved to fight, for was he not a jiujitsu expert of seven years' training? All this he did and worse. Man has a soul, they say. We tried to find his, tried for two years, but never got a glimpse. He came to the ship's daily worship with the rest, bowed his head like a saint and looked out of his eight-point eyeS at the rest of the crew all at once with a wink to which they re- sponded. When it was all over they went away forward and laughed at the fun. Being of sailor build, we had seen a craft or two since we first sailed deep water, but for straight e^dl-doing the Mission Ship outsailed them all. Morally, spiritually, it was bedlam with the lid off, and our friend was the man who held the lid. Used to a hard road though we were, our heart was sore at the condition of things. What had we come for but to change such men as these? and yet change there was none. Long and deep were the searchings of heart. Did we so utterly fail to represent the Master that UO CAPTAIN BICKEL these men were not held in check, by shame at least, if not by conviction? This lasted two years, and then something happened. One of the men fell overboard in a winter gale and was drowned. God used this to move our friend's heart. He began to inquire, but how? Must he learn English? No. Would he not have to go to school and study be- fore he could find any help from Christianity? So little impression had the two years on the ship made! Ignorant to the extent of not being able to read or write the simple Japanese lianas or s^^llable alphabet, morally crooked in all his ways, was there any hope of his being changed? In deep disappointment, almost with dis- gust, we answered his inquiries. We did not believe him sincere then nor did we later on when he professed faith in Christ. We refused baptism, but there was a change, even we could not deny it ; yes, a change at last, slight indeed, but growing in force continually until the old man be- came completely new. No mere figure of speech or saintly cant is this, but hard solid fact. He was changed from the gambling, lying, thieving, quarrel- some, ignorant tool of the Evil One to a true child of God. No miracles these days, say some! No, not if this is not one. The quarrelsome man became the peacemaker, and the man of evil life an example to all. So far so good! ''Captain," said an Islander one day, *'I enjoyed the talk immensely last night." ''Whose talk?" "Why, Hirata San, as you know, has been preaching every night for a week in this village." As a matter of fact we did not know. That was the beginning but by no means the end. In the measure of his previous degradation was his conviction of sin. In the measure of this conviction were his appreciation of God's won- drous mercy and his longing to render service of love. THE TEANSFOEMATIOK OF THE CEEW 141 We tried to teach him but failed. He was outside our methods somehow. But he pored over the old Book of books in every spare moment, and so we left him to God's spirit. The harsh hands became gentle in serv- ice for others. The pride of other days became loving humility that would not be refused. The shrewdness of evil times turned to a remarkable thoughtfulness and resourcefulness in finding ways of service. Added to all he developed a remarkable ability to hold a mixed audi- ence with his powerful presentation of God's love and mercy. Long had we desired some systematic plan for col- portage work in the Islands. A word spoken in jest gave the needed clue. We were lowering a boat together. ''How did you fare with your meeting last night?" we asked. ''Oh, very well indeed," said he. "We shall have to get you a little mission ship," said we in jest, "if you keep on like this." "Yes," said he, in jest also, pointing to a little Jap- anese sailing craft, ' ' one like that. ' ' That night we did some thinking and praying. The result, together with the generosity of some friends, was that a little vessel was built and Hirata San was placed in charge of her to carry on colportage work in the many islands we visit. When the little ship was launched we stood on the beach and watched him as he worked up to his waist in water. The tears were streaming down his face as he worked. He was overwhelmed with the thought of God's mercy in bringing him up out of the depths. A foreman shipwright stood by who had known him of old, and said, "Let him alone, he has a vile temper. He is so mad that the tears are running down his face, be- cause the vessel is stuck a bit on the chocks. He is dan- gerous at such times." Three years later that same foreman was baptized, 142 CAPTAIN BICKEL having been led to Christ by our friend. After a most astonishing profession of faith made before the believers assembled on the Fukuin Maru's deck, he suddenly turned to us and said, ''And, Captain, I now know what those tears meant/' Hirata San, the gentle, humble, ever-faithful servant of God and his fellow-men, still lives and serves. May God grant him many days! In another place, in describing the activities of the Colportage Vessel, Fukuin Maru No, 2, Cap- tain Bickel speaks thus of his former boatswain: " The colporter-evangelist who is at the same time sailing master is a joy to our heart. He him- self is a living product of Bible influence. He came to me as one who was, humanly speaking, hopeless. Ignorant and evil in all his ways, all that we might do seemed without effect. When at last a desire for knowledge came to him, his abso- lute ignorance and lack of mental training seemed to be a hopeless bar to his understanding, and yet we saw a marvellous change and rapid growth. The secret lay in the one fact, as we afterward found, that he used every spare moment to pore over his Bible, and at times half the night long would spell out the words and pray and think until the tears ran down his face. Not the least of the strange changes in him is the fact that he can hold a mixed audience for an hour or two with his strong presentation of God's power to change men's lives." The efforts of the Captain and of the evangelists to explain the Christian doctrines to this eager seeker after truth were futile. " We tried to teach him, but failed. He was outside our methods, C o o bo a u s o pq THE TEANSFOEMATION OF THE CEEW 143 someliow. And so we left Mm to God.'^ And God Himself spoke to him througli His word, as lie prayed and wept above it. But first God liad spoken to him througli the Captain himself. In many entries in the Captain's log we meet Bo's'n Hirata, and always as a hmiible and faithful Christian, and an earnest worker. It is he who with gentleness, tenderness, tact, wisdom and fine feeling ministered to the dead and the living at the funeral of Nagai Minora. Three years after his baptism we find him so zealous and successful in evangelistic efforts that a whole group of villages is entrusted to him, that he may teach them the Gospel. As he preaches to a crowd one night. Captain Kobayashi stands with Captain Bickel in a dark corner, listening in wonder at the eloquence of this unlettered sailor, and says, " Captain, I don't understand it, but that is what you people call the power of God. I wish you would let him come and speak to my students.'' It was this twice-born Hirata, "this half-sized sinner with a big sense of shame and a big appreciation of God's mercy," this saint of the forecastle, who at the deck-house door at three bells of the middle watch, when the Captain had just returned from one of his nightly tramps across the hills, said in reply to the request that he convey a Bible to a certain man in the morning, "He is not ready yet for this Bible, but he has another. You are his Bible. He is watching you. As you fail Christ fails ; as you live Christ so Christ is revealed to him." Emphatically was our Missionary-Skipper the in- carnate Gospel, the visible Christ, to the men of his own crew, and because he lived before them 144 CAPTAIN BICKEL tlie Christ he preached, those hardened and dis- solute sailors, seemingly the most hopeless of all whose salvation the Captain sought, became the first-fruits of the Inland Sea Mission. Henceforth we find them brethren beloved and helpers in the Gospel, and none more beloved and helpful than Captain Hirata, of the Fukuin Maru, No, 2, sailing his little Japanese craft among the Islands — preacher, colporter, and Christian mariner. In the Log of the Fukuin Maru are many tales like that of the Awakening of Hirata, and still others in The Log That is Kept on High, of the power of the old Gospel as shown in the work on the Inland Sea. The Gospel narrative may have but a small nucleus of fact, as some professed Seekers after Truth would fain, with a great show of learning, persuade us to believe; but while the true story of Bo's'n Hirata can be duplicated every day on every mission field there will be a great many of us unreasonable and simple-minded enough to take our chances on it. Seriously, these Twice- Born Men are the fulfillment of our Lord's promise to His disciples, " Greater works than these shall ye do,'' and are, in every age and every land where the Gospel is preached, the incontrovertible j)roof of its divine origin. If every miracle recorded by the four Evangelists could be proved to be im- aginary, there are enough miracles of a high spiri- tual order wrought every year in Japan, China, India or Africa to afford vivid and conclusive proof of Christ's Saviourhood, and of His continued pres- ence with His people. XII SHEPHERDS OF THE ISLES IT is a missionary truism tliat the evangeliza- tion and Cliristianization of any race must be, in tlie main, the task of men of tliat race. Jewish missionaries brought the Gospel into Europe, but it was not the Jews who converted the Greeks, nor the Greeks the Latins, nor the Latins the Celts and Saxons. The conversion to Christianity of the East is not the task of the West, but of the men of the East who have become the first-fruits of the Gospel in India, China and Japan. So soon as the Christian propaganda in any country has gained some momentum, when a few converts have been gathered, some little churches organized. Christian schools established, and there begin to api^ear among the native Chris- tians those who have received gifts from the great Head of the Church, fitting them to become the spiritual leaders of their own people, the wise missionary will transfer to them, as rapidly as possible, the responsibility of the work. He must decrease, and they must increase. And their in- crease will be his deepest joy, for it is the proof of the success of his own mission. None knew better than Captain Bickel that it 145 UQ CAPTAIN BICKEL was by the lips and lives of Japanese Christians the Islanders of the Inner and Outer Seas must be evangelized and transformed. Indeed the great bulk of the work must be done, he realized, not merely by Japanese, but by Island Japanese, each new convert to Christianity becoming in his meas- ure a missionary to his own island, his own village. For this reason it was part of his plan of work to associate with himself only a few supported help- ers, evangelists who, at first at least, must come to him from mission stations on the mainland, and through them to bring every j)ossible influence to bear upon the Islanders who accepted the Gospel to lead them to personal active service for Christ. One supported evangelist for each of the five or six districts into which he had divided his parish, and, if it might be, one assistant evangelist in each, was the maximum number of helpers, or associate evangelists, which he allowed himself to desire. Of these, the assistants, the second man for each of the districts, remained an ideal, a hope, the mis- sion funds available not being sufOicient to provide them a living. Five men, then, under the Great Shepherd of the sheep, who has compassion on the multitudes when He sees them unshepherded, must be the spiritual leaders and feeders of the Island Folk, each one seeking with the aid the vessel can afford, and with the aid which only the Divine Spirit can afford, to give a knowledge of the Gos- pel to an average population of some 350,000. No one can say the Inland Sea Mission is overmanned ! At the outset, when the Fukuin Maru made her first mission cruise, there was but a single Japanese evangelist with Captain Bickel, He had a cabin SHEPHEKDS OF THE ISLES 147 on the vessel, and was a sort of chaplain, conduct- ing tKe daily v/orshij) of the shij)'s company, and explaining the teachings of Christianity to the fre- quent visitors. When a village was visited he was, like Paul at Lystra, the chief speaker, and the Captain his assistant. By and by, in the most easterly group of islands, among which the vessel had made her first round of visits, the work had gained sufQ.cient footing to make it feasible to place there a permanent evangelist. A town adapted to become a centre of work for the whole district was chosen, and an evangelist placed in residence there, to devote his whole strength to this group of islands, carrying perhaps 300,000 people. By and by another centre was established in the next westerly group of islands, with another evangelist in charge; till presently the whole In- land Sea had been divided into four districts, each with its resident evangelist. Last of all was added the Southwestern Division, of the island groups of the deep sea. Thus were inducted into their bishoprics the Five Baptist Bishops of the Inland Sea Mission, the Shepherds of the Isles, each one responsible for all the work carried on in his dis- trict; each one responsible, to the limit of his ability, for the evangelization of several hundreds of thousands of souls. Henceforth the Gospel light was shining not from the Little White Ship only, threading the Island channels and casting a transient beam on one village and another, but from five centres, in a constant and steady glow. From group to group goes the vessel, bringing comfort and encourage- ment and inspiration to the evangelists, and to the 148 CAPTAIK BICKEL little companies of believers who have been gath- ered. When the ship comes to Setoda, for example, the centre for the second group westward, Pastor Ito, who is in residence there, is taken on board, and the ship makes a round of all the villages within his circuit, the fifteen or twenty places where he has been holding regular meetings, and others which were beyond his reach. Pastor Ito is brought back to his home in Setoda, some spe- cial meetings are perhaps held there, as it is an important town, and then the prow^ is turned to the next group, where a like program is followed. Thus each of our Five Shepherds, while enjoying a position of trust and honour, and stimulated to earnest effort by the sense of responsibility, feels that he is part of a larger work, and at each visit of the ship receives new comfort and encourage- ment and inspiration for his arduous toil. Cap- tain Bickel was a true Over-Shepherd to all of them. He carried them all in his heart, and they found in him unfailing sympathy and help. In those trying first years of the Inland Sea work our Captain had some heart-breaking experi- ences with his evangelistic helpers, as well as with his crew. The trained and tried men w^hom he needed were too useful where they were to be easily released to serve the new mission. It takes a deal of altruism to pry a missionary loose from a reliable, experienced evangelist, on whom tlie success of the work in some section of his field seems to depend. The man who accompanied Captain Bickel on his first cruise, though unprepossessing in appear- ance and poorly educated, was an earnest fellow, SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 149 with a good degree of native ability, and an accept- able speaker. He was not daunted by the hard- shijjs and hard Avork which his position brought him. His words went home to the hearts of the Islanders. But there was a bad streak in his moral nature, not fully removed by grace, and he failed to live uj) to the standard of truth and hon- esty which a Christian worker must maintain. This flaw lost him his opportunity to be numbered among the Shepherds of the Isles. He came back to Yokohama in disgrace. He repented of his fault, and confessed it before the church with strong crying and tears. For a while he ran well. Then some new temptation overcame him. But the Good Shepherd did not forget him. While on the Islands, among others who were impressed by his words was a young man, principal of one of the Island schools. He followed the light and eventu- ally came out a bright earnest Christian. He was deprived of his position, and disowned by his par- ents and friends. He became a humble i)edlar, tramping the Island paths pack on back. Then he was given a position as colporter, and trami^ed the hills with Bibles in his pack. Finally he came to Yokohama to prepare for the ministry. He re- membered the evangelist from Yokohama from whose lips he had first heard the Gospel. He sought him out, and brought him back to the com- pany of Christian people. If still a weak and erring brother, let us hope he hears in his heart the voice of the Great Shepherd, and follows, though afar off. Another of the Captain's associates in the work, during those early years, and one who gave him 150 CAPTAIN BICKEL more comfort, was Mr. Imai, who was tlie evangelist on the ship her third year among the Islands. Mr. Imai's story, related often by himself with telling effect as an apologia for Christianity, is a most interesting one, and w^orthy a place in the Annals of Missions, but cannot be included within the limits set for this book. He had been a Buddhist priest, holding a position of importance in the sect to which he belonged. The kindness and earnest- ness of a Baptist pastor in Kobe, and a sermon by the late Dr. Deforest of Sendai, were among the means God used for his conversion. He became a Christian evangelist of unusual power. The familiarity with Buddhist doctrine, and the train- ing in moral and religious ideas, which he had gained in the priests' schools, and the experience in public work which his position as priest had brought him, stood him in good stead as a Chris- tian i)reacher. He has a very pleasing address, and a remarkable gift of language. He is every- where listened to Vvdth delight, and is in great de- mand as a public speaker on all sorts of religious occasions. During the writer's visit to the ship in 1902 he heard Mr. Imai address the village meetings many times. According to Captain BickeFs policy, the same theme and the same line of thought was presented in every village, but the preacher's manner and style were so pleasing, and his ideas were presented with such a variety of argument and anecdote, or at least of language, that one never w^earied of listening to him. Cap- tain Bickel found in him a trustworthy and efficient associate. But Mr. Imai felt that he was called to devote his life to a different kind of work from SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 151 that the Islands offered, and i)resently returned to the mainland. Both with tongue and pen he is doing a si^lendid work for the Baptist cause in Japan, and for the cause of Christ generally. Another early Island evangelist was Nagai Minoru. A desire to learn English brought him under missionary influence. He had no wish, along with English, to absorb Christianity. He bore himself as one of those righteous ones who need no repentance. " A Pharisee of Pharisees '^ was he, according to Captain Bickel. But from the despised Cross there flashed forth upon him a new light, in which he stood revealed to himself. He became the disciple and messenger of the newly discovered Saviour. His space of service among the Islands was brief. He fell a victim to the white plague. Medical and hospital treatment proved unavailing, and he returned to his home in Shozu Shima, to die among his own people and among the Islanders whom he loved. In the Log of the Fukuin Mam we have no account of his labours, which were brief and perhaps ineffectual, but only of his death and burial. **The day was not yet done, another duty awaited us. We must go to visit a dying Christian brother. We had not seen him for months. The grip of an intense suffer- ing lay hard upon him, we heard. Longing, as we often long, that the old sailor in us could be turned by some means into the spiritual adviser and missionary we should be, and searching the corners of our soul for some message of comfort, we went. ''The westerly wind with its bitterly cold bite howled about the little thatclied-roof cottage as if to emphasize the fact that life is a struggle. Was it all worth while? 152 CAPTAIN BICKEL We pulled ourselves together and inwardly got our words of comfort all set out in a row with a sense of shame at our weakness. We were ushered into the presence of the dying man. And then — our lips were dumb. Our words of comfort, like some paltry wares which a mer- chant is ashamed to show, we kept stowed away. In the presence of a dying man? No, we were in the presence of the victorious spirit of the Master. ''One day that miracle, wrought when God in Christ walked in tender pity among men, and re- wrought again and again all through the centuries, had come to pass in him. The god of selfishness had been cast out, and Christ, gentle, pure, good, reigned supreme. And when laid upon his bed of suffering, the humble neighbours came and stood and wondered. ' 'Tis like stories the priests tell us of the Buddhist saints who lived long ago, but men do not live and die like this.' And then he died — nay, nay, friend, not so. The gentle, humble spirit, dispensing comfort lavishly upon us all, passed from under the crude shelter of the thatched roof into the beautiful portals of the true home of such souls. Then came the little boatswain from the ship to pre- pare for laying away the poor, worn body. We sat with bowed head in wonder. It seemed but yesterday when this sailor, almost naked, scrambled over the stern. Ignorant, mean, quarrelsome, he gambled, drank and did his worst, and then God's spirit gripped him as it did the other, the educated Pharisee. *'As he moved gently about, with a tact, wisdom and fine feeling we envied, taking quiet charge of all prepara- tions and then turning to care with a woman's tender- ness for the bereaved mother and sister, we bowed our head in shame. Is it worth while ? The man who comes and mocks, the one who comes for rice, the Pharisee — is it worth while to spend a life on these? My God, my God, how could I doubt Thee ? Take my life and use it to the last shred for whomsoever Thou wilt. SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 153 "And then we carried him, the evangelist, out; no, not him, for he was not there; only the poor, weary- body. There was no sorrow — how could there be? — as we laid the body in the grave dug in the stern rock-soil of an island hill. We looked out on the blue waters where the little ship of the good message lay. We looked beyond and saw island upon island, each in its emerald setting. We looked beyond, and still beyond, to the snow-glistening hills of the m_ainland, and on again beyond the snow caps, and the eyes of faith pre- vailed over our dim mortal eyes. We saw the dear Home Land, and it was to us more clear than ever before. Quietly the officiating evangelist 's voice rose on the sun- lit air. To the villagers the words came as some strange mystery : ' He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' To us they brought a message sweet amid the strife of earth. Yes, it is worth while. May we believe it!" In a later letter the Captain gives us another fragment of this story. ''Long had we hoped and prayed for an additional evangelist to take the waiting w^estern field. We thought we had at last found him. He was a young man of ability, deep faith and fine character. But the scourge of the land, consumption, laid its hand with relentless hold upon him and he died, nay rather we ought to say, passed in triumph to a better land. * ' The western field is still waiting ; yet though it waits and the tens of thousands there have no one to warn, to teach, to comfort, still for our brother Nagai Minoru we rejoice, in his having been privileged to lay aside the weariness of earth not only, but in so doing to bear emphatic witness to the power of God to uphold in suf- fering and death. ' No power of man can make one meet suffering and death like this,' said the sorrowing yet 154 CAPTAIN BICKEL wondering mother and sister who watched beside him in the little Island cottage. To-day comes word from a far off mainland city, whither they had gone, that they both have come to share the faith of the loved one gone before, and are to be baptized." But it is time now to introduce to the reader the Five Shepherds of the Isles who became Captain BickeFs permanent associates. And first let us in- troduce Toda Kushiro, or Mr. K. Toda, as we would write it. Mr. Toda has been in the Island work al- most from the beginning. He has not the charming eloquence of Mr. Imai, nor the flaming enthusiasm of Mr. Ito, of whom mention will presently be made. He is what one may call a good, plain, practical preacher, and a patient and faithful worker. In character he is solid, conservative and reliable, and in manner quiet, kindly and serious, not self-assert- ive but self-respecting, a man easy to trust and to love. As evangelist on the ship, or as shepherd of now one and now another of the Island groups, he has won for himself a good report. Mr. Todays story is so well told in the " Log of the Fukuin Maru/' that no apology is needed for transferring it to these pages. Toda, the Samurai '*Toda Kiishiro wore two swords. That meant rank in those daj^s. It meant that he was of Samurai family, one of the gentry. His father was Gokaru, chief min- ister of the feudal lord of the Province of Echigo. The father died just before the Rebellion of '67-71. The son fought a hard, losing fight. He was one of those SHEPHEBDS OF THE ISLES l^S who would not be reconciled, even after defeat. Asso- ciated with a band of others, some of them to-day promi- nent men, he plotted the overthrow of the Imperial power They planned the burning and destruction of temples containing Imperial graves. He and two others were caught in the act and imprisoned for three years. At the end of that time the other two were beheaded, but through some influence stUl unknown to him he was released. ''The "band then plotted the destruction of the Im- perial ministers. He went at night to visit some of his colleagues, who had, contrary to the orders of the band too hastily attacked one of the ministers and aumped him into the Tokyo castle moat as dead, though he after- ward recovered. He was followed and seized and again imprisoned. He had on his person the contract of the confederates to which every one had affixed a keppan or blood seal. This he managed to get into his mouth and chew up. He was tortured to make him tell who his associates were, but rather than do so sought to take his own life. His method was original. He stood before the judge, behind a heavy lacquered beam or bar, with hands bound to his hips, as a sign that he was a political prisoner, a soldier standing guard beside him. Suddenly raising his foot he kicked the attendant guard in the pit of the stomach, and thus gaining time dashed his head against the heavy lacquered bar with all the force of a powerful body, in the hope of ending life and saving his friends. . *'He was unconscious for two days but was revived. Evidence failing he was tortured again, but without avail, and after some months was set free. Still un- convinced of the futility of his cause he plotted farther, finally being hunted and hounded in the hills as an outlaw. According to all accounts, however, he was through all this a man of high ideals and clean personal Ufe, his one failing being an inherited liking for the 156 CAPTAIN BICKEL brew of his fathers, sake, plus a good appetite. The former has been long since set aside, the latter still holds sway in a healthy body. *'Now even outlaws need food, and one with a physique like Mr. Toda's needs a double portion. The hills af- forded but meagre pickings. The Capital looked prom- ising but dangerous, unless, perchance, he behaved him- self politically. Hunger drove him in one night, and Providence did the rest, by letting him turn a corner in the dark and run bodily into and half over an old chum of slighter build. The old chum looked hale and hearty. Mr. Toda looked worried, and as lean as a naturally heavy man can look. ''The chum took Mr. Toda home and asked him how he fared. He confessed to being at the old patriotic game, and, rather resenting the cheerful smile of his chum, asked him what Jie was doing. The answer put new life into Mr. Toda, in that he took to his legs forth- with as though the Evil One were after him. He would have escaped but for his friend's restraining hand. The cause of his intended flight was that his chum had cheerfully confessed to having become a Christian. To have forsaken the Cause was bad enough, but to have become a Christian was to add treachery to treachery ! *'To make a long story short, the Christian's love prevailed, the hard heart was softened. The love of Christ entered the heart, giving a new view-point, new ideals, new hope, new life. Mr. Toda became a Chris- tian and later on a Christian worker. He has two wounds. One is a great scar into which you can lay three fingers, on the calf of his leg. He got this in the Rebellion, when the other fellows got the whip hand, and having ambushed him whittled a piece out of him before he fought his way through. He is proud of it, but he is more so of a finger half bitten off by a man who fiercely attacked him while as a soldier of the King of kings he was proclaiming the love of the crucified and SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 157 hated *Yaso/ The man was imprisoned, but Mr. Toda visited him and led him to Christ. The same spirit that of old did not let him know when he was beaten has caused him in the name of the Lord of Hosts to hold on in places where others would have given up the fight long since/' Mr. Toda is serving the Master, in his quiet, pa- tient, unostentatious way, at Agenosho, in Oshima, in the Southwestern Division, the group of islands at the far end of the Inland Sea. Another of the Five, and perhaps the most re- markable of them all, is Ito Menosuke, who as pastor of the Fukuin Marii Church, is in a way the Chief of the Shepherds, primus inter pares, Mr. Ito, after a youth of wild dissipation, heard the voice of Christ calling him to repentance. He is one of the Twice-Born Men who are the boast of the Gospel, in every land and in every age. The Christian zeal he displayed after his conversion, and his marked ability in public address, brought him to the notice of those interested in the Inland Sea Mission, and he was sent down to the ship on triaL After proving himself a true disciple and an effi-cient evangelist he returned to Yokohama and took a course of study in the Theological Semi- nary. During part of his course, and after his graduation, he was in charge of a very successful mission hall in the city. Having been saved out of the depths himself, he was fitted to sympathize with, and to win infi.uence over, those whom sin had submerged. He was an eloquent and forceful speaker, with true evangelistic fervour. He had a most valuable fellow-worker in his earnest and 158 CAPTAIN BICKEL capable Cliristian wife, wliom he had married after his conversion. Such a man, such a couple, was just what Captain Bickel needed to put in charge of one of the Island districts. Let us ask the Cap- tain, who knows him best, to tell us his story. Ito, the Zealot ''Tourists visiting the Hongwanji Temple at Kyoto are shown great ropes made of human hair. These rep- resent the offerings of thousands of Buddhist women. Chief among the contributing women were those of Goshiu. Ito Menosuke was born there. He was a strongly religious man, a religious zealot. A strong Buddhist was he, of the militant type. He was promi- nent as a lay-leader in Buddhist circles and head of a Buddhist young men's league. True he drank like the proverbial fish, and led such a life that the parents of his wife, into whose family he had been adopted, for- bade him the house and divorced him. All this was openly done and known. Still, if any one thinks this need interfere with his being a religious man and even a leader, that person knows little of the ways and thoughts, social and religious, of the East. ''His zeal was great. The religion of his fathers and their fathers was in danger. A great enemy had ap- peared. The religion of the uncouth foreigner threat- ened to undermine the faith of the faithful. Some- thing must be done. A Laymen's Movement was planned. The recognition of Buddhism as the state religion of Japan was the one hope. Consultations were many and great. Amid much feasting and drinking great plans were made. A delegation must go to Tokyo and interview the political leaders. For this purpose much 'Honourable Thanks Money' would be needed. This was collected from the faithful. Ito San, defender of the faith of his fathers, was one of the delegates. SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 169 ''Tokyo was reached and the 'Honourable Thanks Money' applied to the consciences of many men, as thanks for services hoped for. Now the art of a half promise; procrastination with ample excuses and pro- fuse apologies; postponements and final evasion, is one highly developed in the Orient far and near. Thus the delegation, after delivering itself of the 'Honourable Thanks Money, ' made up its mind to await developments and incidentally to have a good time. "This was the undoing of our friend Ito San, in so far as the faith of his fathers went. While he waited a lady missionary held a meeting in the very lodging house in which he lived. He went to hear and oppose, only to be stricken in conscience and to see himself as a blind leader of the blind. He was converted, thor- oughly converted. His conscience being quickened, he was at once shut off from bribes and emoluments by his own act. But he must live. He therefore joined the Tokyo police force. His zeal in service, and his witness to the new light in his soul, soon gave him the name of *Yaso no omari san/ the 'Jesus Bobby.' "His activity as a Christian led to the thought that he might be made a useful worker. He was sent first to the Fukuin Mam, and then to the Seminary in Yoko- hama. Now some folk sum up a missionary's duties in about the following words: 'Beat a drum, shout halle- lujah, get some people converted, and then go on to the next batch!' Never a greater mistake was made. Setting aside the question of the propriety of drum beating and hallelujahing, it is just after conversion that the work begins, especially in regard to those who are to be leaders. Some are all fight and lack sense. That means not work. Christian work, but a row. Some are all fears and misgivings and call it modesty. Some cannot steer a straight course, but run after fads and 'isms,' and call it special piety or consecration. Some play the fiddle of independence or nationalism and lose 160 CAPTAIN BICKEL all sense of proportion and balance. To guide, to en- courage, to restrain with gentleness, at times with severity if need be, but always with love; being ready to risk resentment and misunderstood motives, until these children become established in the faith, that they again may safely lead others, this is one most important part of a true missionary's work, and is often a long and weary process. This work was needed with our friend Ito San, and badly needed, but the reward of those who bore with him and led him is great, and for their patience we give thanks to God to-day. ''After faithful, valuable service in Yokohama as evangelist in charge of the Mission Hall, in which many through his zeal were led to Christ, he came to the Islands of the Inland Sea. Here as pastor of the Fukuin Maru Baptist Church, he is loved and esteemed by his co-workers, by the believers, and by the Island people at large, for he has now not only zeal coupled with judgment, but he has also a broad, deep sympathy for those who err, be their errors those of conduct or of faith. He himself had erred grievously, erred both in conduct and faith, and having been led by the love of Christ and the example of God's children to better and higher things, his words and deeds are those of one who has passed through the refining fires of experience. They hit home." If the material were at hand, and space per- mitted, doubtless a life story of equal interest with those of Toda the Samurai, and Ito the Zealot, could be told of each of the other district evangel- ists. Years of darkness, perplexity and despair, or of pride and self-righteousness, or of riotous living and deep degradation; a strange leading of Provi- dence into contact with Christian doctrine, or rather with a Christian life, with Christ incarnate SHEPHEEDS OP THE ISLES 161 in one of His disciples; a wonderful experience of conversion, with old things passed away and all things become new; years of loving service of the divine Master, amid persecution, opx^osition and hardship, — each such life would provide material for a story full of meaning and interest. Each is a testimony to the power of the Gospel to renew and transform the lives of men, making those even who were most headlong, or headstrong, in the pursuit of evil, imitators of the holy and lowly Saviour, and fellow-workers with Him in the building of the Kingdom of Heaven. We can give the story of but one more of the Shepherds of the Isles, that of Evangelist Shibata, whose earnest, faithful ministry is bringing many of the Islanders to a saving acquaintance with the Lord Jesus. Shibata, the Prodigal '^ Shibata Otoye by name, he was manager of a modest export firm belonging to his uncle. He felt he was on top. All he had to do was to manage, and have a good time. He did; he drank, gambled and played up gen- erally. He did it all with a will, he made debts to the tune of Ten 10,000 with his uncle's money, and then stepped down and out. He went from bad to worse, becoming a SosJii, a type of semi-political rough and blackmailer. Down the steep ladder to perdition he went, helter-skelter, until finally one cold winter night, clothed in nothing but a thin summer garment, the last thing left to him, he laid his head upon the rails some miles outside of Tokyo and waited for the coming of the train that should put an end to his misery. **The train being late his mind reviewed his life. It was wasted, useless. He had never been a Buddhist, 162 CAPTAIN BIOKEL Of Samurai rank, he had been taught chiefly on the lines of Confucianism. Like a dimly flickering lamp a special thought had always been present with him regarding the meaning of Ten and Ten-tei in the teaching of the great sage of Cathay. With his head pillowed upon the rails, as he looked up to the stars, he felt that if this Ten-tei meant, as some said, a being of power above, an unseen ruler of the universe, then what good could it do, by way of restitution for an ill-spent life, to throw that life away as it was now ? But how could he change ? What hope was there? Had he not tried and failed? Then he re- membered that some one had said that the 'Yaso' peo- ple, the Christians, dealt with such as he. He was seized with a sudden desperate hope, jumped up and ran. He was weak for lack of food, but ran till he reached the confines of the great city, and then day dawned and he, being ashamed, hid himself away till night. When night came, slinking along under the eaves of the houses, he sought a Christian church. He saw a well-lit building. Forgetful of all but his o^vn misery he plunged in, and going to the very front listened in astonishment. The sermon ended, he was so overcome that he forgot those around him and rushing to the platform asked the preacher who had told him of his life and doings. The preacher said he did not know him, and asked what his name might be. 'But you do know me, for you have told my whole life story. My name is Shibata. ' ** 'What,' said the preacher, 'are you he? Your mother is a member here, and has been praying for you and so have we all, that God might find you out.' ** 'There must be some mistake, my mother is not a Christian; though, of course, I have not seen or heard of her for four years or more, nor she of me. She is a strong Buddhist.' " 'Yes, yes, your mother was that, it is true. She fasted and chastised herself, often subjecting herself to the most painful form of the Honourable Hundred SHEPHERDS OP THE ISLES 163 Penances that you might be saved ; but finding no help or peace she was led here by a friend two years ago. Since then she has been pleading with God for your salvation, not knowing whether you lived or not/ "Thus Shibata first turned to the light. Tempta- tions were hard and many. How should he live? No one would trust him, for had he not been a SosJii of the worst type? He found work as a labourer in a print- ing office, and sought permission of the proprietor to learn typesetting after closing time. He did, and be- came a compositor. He was so overwhelmed with God's mercy in saving him that he felt he must work for others. This he did so effectually that his brother, a Christian, urged him to devote all his time to preach- ing, while he, the brother, worked and supported them both. ''Thus he preached here and there in many places with such success that his church urged him to take charge of a chapel as a regularly-recognized evangelist. This he longed to do, but felt he could not with the stain on his character of a Yen 10,000 debt, the result of evil living, still unpaid. While praying and trying to de- cide how to give a final reply to the church, he received a letter from his uncle who was then not yet a Chris- tian. The uncle said he had heard of the great change that had taken place in him, and as a token of the joy at this change, he enclosed a clean receipt for the Yen 10,000 debt! With tears of gratitude Shibata wrote his letter of acceptance to the church. *'He has been an earnest, faithful, effective worker for years now, and has led many to Christ. We value him much in the Fukuin Maru work. What higher praise of him can there be than to say that as it was with the Master so it is with him: the common people hear him gladly. And if, as he speaks of God 's love, at times the tears well up unbidden, what wonder, for some of us that have had much forgiven, love much, and what 164 CAPTAIN BICKEL more noble tears can a man shed than tears of love and gratitude?'' In 1915 Mr. Shibata was ordained as assistant pastor of the Fukuin Maru Church. He is sta- tioned on the Island of Hirado, as the shepherd of the four deep sea island groups, with their 200,000 inhabitants, and holds regular meetings at fifteen places, from Iki to the Gotos. " We thank God for such a worker in such a place. He is a man of peculiar power. Those who have read the sketch of his life will understand the source of this power." It is men like these, whom Captain Bickel gathered about him, and whom he made his evan- gelistic mates, his lieutenants, his District Shep- herds, his fellow-missionaries, his brothers in the labour and triumph of the Gospel. Others had led them to Christ. In distant places God had laid hold on them and had made them His messengers. Captain Bickel had recognized their potential value. He was a keen judge of character, quick to discern both the good and evil, the weakness and the strength, of a man. He was a wise and sympa- thetic leader and teacher, eager to approve and develop the elements of goodness and strength in his chosen helpers. He won their confidence, their admiration and their affection, and bound them to himself and to the Mission to the Islanders by his own example of consecration, and by his spirit of humility, love, and brotherliness. He never said to them "Go," but always, "Come." He called them to no toil, nor hardship, nor self-sacrifice, in which he did not lead the way. If he demanded much of them, he &emanded far more of himself. c3 o o >-M o p bi,' C/2 SHEPHEEDS OF THE ISLES 166 He summoned them to heroism, whicli is the only summons which will win true men, and in his own life showed what Christian heroism is. Some- times they disappointed and grieved him, and mis- understood him, and thought he was a hard master, demanding labour and sacrifice beyond reason. He might have said to them as did Christ to His disciples, " How long shall I be with you? How long must I suffer you? '' But as with Christ, his nobleness, his love and sympathy at length over- came. " The evangelists gradually noticed," writes Mr. Briggs, in his memorial article in the Japan Evan- gelist, "that the Captain worked three hours to their one; that he always carried the heavy ster- eopticon and gas-tank on his own back, and gave them a little bundle of tracts or the lantern ; that he was always planning for their comfort and never for his own ; and it came to be realized that instead of a hard taskmaster he was a splendid leader, and earnest workers became proud to follow him." One of the most vital parts of our Lord^s min- istry was the Training of the Twelve. Captain Bickel has put much of his life into his five evan- gelists. In them he still lives and speaks and toils. Because of what he has been to them, and of what he has made them, the Inland Sea Mission did not die with its founder. Even if the Little White Ship should no more come sailing down the west, the light from the five centres will glow and grow, and the day will come toward which the Captain yearned, when in all the Islands of the Inner and Outer Seas the idols shall be abolished, and the Island Folk shall know no god but God. xni V WINNING THE ISLANDERS BESIDES the material obstacles which, had to be overcome before our Missionary-Mariner could gain even jjhysical access to the vari- ous parts of his widely extended parish, — ^thou- sands of miles of difficult channels to be navigated, and thousands of miles of rough hill paths to be trodden, — there were obstacles of a much more serious nature, moral and spiritual hindrances, which barred him and his message from the Islanders' hearts. In fact, on the spiritual side of his mission he had before him three definite tasks, the accomplishment of all of which was essential to final success. These were, the Chris- tianizing of the Crew, the Training of the Evan- gelists, and the Winning of the Islanders. An earlier chapter has told how the Seven Sailors, through hourly contact with the life of Christ as incarnated in their Captain, were changed from a rough, dissolute, godless gang of thieves, liars and gamblers, to a company of humble, earnest Chris- tian men, confederate with the Captain in his spiri- tual campaign. We have also seen the several evangelists whom he associated with himself in the work become increasingly worthy, under the in- spiration of his example, and through his wise and 166 WINNING THE ISLANDEES 167 sympathetic leadersliip, to be called the Apostles of the Inland Sea, the Shepherds of the Isles. These two tasks accomplished, the fulfillment of the third became automatically far more rapid and easy. Failing in these, even a super-mariner and super-missionary could have only a very limited success in the other. With the ship's company Christian from skipper to cabin boy, and five good men and true in the evangelistic centres working heart to heart with their leader, the Winning of the Islanders was a foregone conclusion. But while a Christian crew and a trained corps of preachers were yet in the making, siege was being laid daily to the Islanders' hearts, and with every passing month came evidences that the siege was not in vain. In our chapter upon the Island Folk mention was made of the strong hold which Shintoism and Buddhism, in grossly superstitious forms, had on the people ; of their conservatism, insularity mental as well as geographical, and of their deeply rooted, dyed-in-the-wool, centuries-old repugnance to the very name of Christianity. KiriMitan was sj^nony- mous with rebel, traitor and outlaw. Yaso was a term of contempt, of hatred and ill omen, a name wherewith to check the naughty pranks of children. Japanese standards of politeness and hospitality might usually ensure a courteous or even kindly treatment of the "long foreign i)riest," merely as a foreigner ; but to help forward his work would be unfilial to the Honourable Ancestors of Many Gen- erations, unpatriotic toward Great Japan, and dis- loyal to the Imperial House, — the three cardinal and unpardonable sins. "Ask for the old paths, 168 CAPTAIN BICKEL and walk in them/' and " Mother's religion is good enough for me," are good sound Island maxihis, in which subsist the beginning, middle and end of true wisdom. The writer, during his three summer visits, of a month each, to the Inland Sea, during the early- years of the Mission, met many of the Island peo- ple, of all ranks and ages, by the wayside, on the beach, in the fields and in their homes, as well as on the vessel when they came as visitors, and at the public gatherings, both on islands where the Fukuin Maru work had already been introduced, and at places then visited for the first time, and he deems it only fair to the Islanders to say that he remembers no occasion when he v/as treated with apparent discourtesy or unkindness. The polite- ness, and at least outward kindliness, which he has almost invariably met among the Japanese of the mainland, during a residence of thirty years, characterized also these simple-minded villagers of the Seto-Nai-Kai. But this does not mean that either the Mainlanders or the Islanders are clam- ouring for the foreign religion and just longing for a chance to get converted. There is a triple wall of ignorance, superstition and prejudice that must be broken through before the new teaching can have any approach to their hearts. On the Islands this wall seemed thicker, solider and more impregnable than elsewhere in Japan. The very first step, then, toward the evangeliza- tion of the Islands, must be to overcome these prejudices and gain a thoughtful hearing for the Christian message. ¥»''ell begun is half done. To make the Little White Ship a welcome visitor, and WINNING THE ISLANDEES 169 the Captain a trusted friend, was to ensure in due time the winning of the Islanders to Christ Hnn- self. . . 1 -1 As every missionary knows, to win a single vil- lage is no light achievement. Here were hundreds of inhabited islands, and on many of the islands several villages each, each village a world in itself, a community apart, living a separate life, with the blue sea for its front door, and a rough hill slope for its back door, and no neighbours. Siege must be laid to each of these villages, separately. By and by, when the Mission Vessel should have be- come a familiar sight, and good reports of her should have begun to spread from island to island, the still outholding communities would grow more ready to give the foreign teacher a hearing; but at first it must be village by village, island by island, that an approach and a welcome must be won. The visible, secular aids toward winning such a welcome were chiefly those comprised in the vessel herself. " No other kind of a messenger," writes Missionary Briggs, " would so hold the eyes of the people, or create so great a desire for closer acquaintance, as this ship, so different from and so much more beautiful than the craft they were accustomed to see. The sight awakened interest, the learning that it was a Jesus ship aroused dis- trust; but all the time curiosity as to what the ship could do and the desire for a closer inspection were busy and brought crowds to see the vessel, while others waited and watched." The Islanders could understand a ship; they hardly knew, except by hearsay, of any other vehicle. There is only one island that can boast 170 CAPTAIN BICKEL even of a rickshaw, mucli less of a carriage. If the Caj)tain could have made his rounds in a Chapel Car, a Missionary Automobile, or an Evangelistic Aerox3lane, it would have created more of a sensation, but less of an abiding interest. These shore dwellers, whose world was composed, like all Gaul, of three parts — islands, sea and ships — could appreciate the little Mission Vessel, her seaworthy and good sailing qualities, the fine lines of her hull, the sweep of her spars, her spread of canvas with the wind abeam, the ship-shapeness of all her equipment, and the absolute order and purity that reigned throughout her. That so goodly a ship, the cost of which might furnish homes for a whole village, should be built and equipped by foreigners from beyond the western ocean, not to trade withal nor for a pleasure yacht, but for the single purpose of bringing to every island a knowledge of the foreigners' religion, and of persuading the Islanders to worship the for- eigners' God, would be matter for much thought, when once believed, as presently came to pass. She was a good sound craft, an^n;\^ay, and perchance the religion whose messenger she was might after all not be so evil and corrupt as it had been painted. But more effectual than the favourable impres- sion made by the vessel was that gradually, and for the most part unconsciously, created by her Captain. From the first his manly strength and courage would arrest their attention. Head and shoulders above the Island men, broad of back and strong of arm, swift in action, virile and capable in mind and body was he, able to sail his ship through their most treacherous channels, to out- WINNING THE ISLANDEES 171 weatlier a gale in tlie Bingo Nada, and to handle an untamed Japanese crew, who feared not God neither regarded man. He could tramp the rough hill paths, leagues on end, in summer's heat and winter's storm. " To the Islanders," continues Mr. Briggs, the Captain was a fierce looking man of rapid, almost wild movements. But the intensity did not seem wild when he was going to the rescue of sailors or fishermen dashed by wind and tide on a lee shore. When the people of a village stood shriek- ing at the sight of a nearly blind old woman, with a baby on her back, fallen from the twenty foot retaining wall into the sea, the Captain's swift plunge to the rescue did not appear wild. When a large building in Shimomura was ablaze, and the whole ship's crew with disciplined rapidity controlled the mob and extinguished the fire, dis- trust was displaced in many hearts by admiration and gratitude." He was a man's man, the practical, hard-headed Islanders discovered. ''The men found that he could talk of the things that interested them. With his wider nautical knowledge and keen eye- sight he could give them points even in regard to the ships that sailed their waters. His opinion of the weather was worth asking ; the intricate tides were known to him." Had he been merely a mis- sionary they might have been inclined to regard him with mild contempt, as they regard the lazy and useless priests of the Island temples; but a Sea-Captain was a different matter, especially such a wide-awake sailor and seasoned salt as he. They became aware, too, that here was a man of 172 CAPTAII^ BICKEL finer stuff than the Islands had produced, one of nature's noblemen. Democratic he was to the core, and plebeian, if to be democratic is to be cosmopolitian in symj)athy and find companions in men of every class, if to be i^lebeian is to con- descend to men of low estate, and see in the humblest labourer a brother. But there was some- thing innately aristocratic in his mien and bearing, something patrician in his spirit, something in- herited from the days when the Von Bickels were Barons of the Castle, some strain of a higher nobility gained from the refining influences of the home in Hamburg, gained most of all in daily companionship with Christ. He was evidently earnest and sincere, however absurd his theology might be, a man of pure heart and a clean life. He was gentle, too, and kindly. Foreigners at the open ports had the name of being rude, harsh and haughty in their dealings with the Japanese common people. But here was a foreigner with proper self-respect, indeed, but self- forgetful ; humble, patient and friendly ; accessible to the poorest and meanest. His tact, courtesy and sympathy, his eagerness to aid any one in diffi- culty, to comfort any one in sorrow, — these were keys that unlocked their hearts. Behind his foreign dress, his foreign face, his yet broken Japanese speech, they saw a real man, of a sort new to their experience, one to be trusted and loved. The immediate impression he made was, that he had come to be a friend, and are not human hearts on the Islands, as elsewhere, hungry for love? More than the word preached at the successive meetings, he was himself the Message. WINNING THE ISLANDEES 173 In a sense, tlie Word vas made flesh and dwelt among them, and it is always the incarnate word which speaks home to men's hearts. It was be- cause he was a veritable Christian, embodying the Christian spirit, a man with the mind of the Mas- ter that the Fukuin Maru Mission meant the dawn of a new day to all the little Island world. Sunple- minded people began to listen to Mm, to appreciate him, to trust him, by and by even to love hma. It was only lewd fellows of the baser sort, or selt- important of&cials, or priests whose particular temple of Diana might suffer loss of revenue through the spread of the new faith, who could continue to oppose. . « +„ " They commenced," says Mr. Briggs again, to pass around stories of little things in the Captain s life He was always unmistakably the master, but instead of making his fellow-workers serve him, he always carried the largest share of the burdens They saw him tramping over the moimtams with the heavy stereopticon and fixtures on his back, while the Japanese evangelist carried a little bundle of tracts and a lantern. The story went around of one of the evangelists being reluctant to wet his good clothes in crossing a swollen stream, so the Captain carried the baggage across, and then took the preacher, good clothes and all, on his back and landed him on the other shore. A fat evangelist would repeat with tears the story of being out on the mountain one night when a cold storm broke upon them, and the Captain insisted on taking off his own coat to wrap around his companion's shivering form. A lighthouse-keeper s wife made much of the fierce looking foreigner 174 CAPTAIN BICKEL taking her baby and bundles and seeing tbem all safely across a dangerous jmss in tbe cliffs. '^ Still, the disapi^earance of distrust and the coming of confidence was so gradual that no one realized the change until the time came when he would be sent for, or waited for, to help decide some important family matter, it might be a boy's future, it might be the dealing with a prodigal son, or an unfaithful and abusive husband, or it might be the principal of a school leaving the matter of punishing some scholar to be decided by the Cap- tain. Not until such calls came to really consume much of his time was it realized that these people, whose hearts were steeled against Christianity and its representatives, had come to wait with eager- ness for the sight of the shii>, and to count it a joy and help to meet the Christian Captain.'' The Jesus-Captain of the Jesus-Ship, like the Jesus of the Gospels, went about doing good, not spectacularly nor professionally, merely as good missionary tactics, but instinctively, inevitably, as Jesus Himself did, in a free service of love. In time of storm he succoured those who were in peril on the sea, in time of accident he afforded first aid to the injured. To the sick he came with medicine, to those whose hearts were perplexed and desiDair- ing, with comfort and cheer. He was everybody's friend. It was a new phenomenon in the Inland Sea. They had never known love after this fashion. The same Christ-filled personality which we have seen winning and transmuting the vessel's crew, and lifting to new heights of service and sacrifice the little company of evangelists, soon began to draw also the people of the Islands. Slowly, slowly it WINKING THE ISLANDEES 175 was, for tlie days or hours of Ms stay at any given place must be few, and it was only glimpses of liis life the Islanders could get; but bit by bit tlieir suspicion, contempt or hostility were replaced by confidence, admiration and affection. If the Cap- tain was a Christian, a Jesus-Teacher, then the new doctrine, they presently began to admit, how- ever strange and mysterious and apparently absurd it might be, could hardly be an unmitigated evil. And when the light of the Christian life which they saw in the Captain began to glow in the Shepherds of the Isles, men in whose hearts he had kindled a divine ardour, men of their own blood and speech in whom the foreigner's Message became vernacular; and Avhen they saw this same unearthly beauty of love and sacrifice in the very sailors of the forecastle, lads from their own is- lands, whose wild lives had been village talk, the Islanders had come a long way on the road to surrender. Nor must we forget the winsomeness of the Gospel itself. In beauty, interest and attractive- ness there is nothing to compare with it in any of the pagan religions, not even in the sacred books of Buddhism. The narrative of the life of Christ, His works of mercy and words of love. His sacri- ficial death on the cruel Cross, His glorious Resurrection, makes a strong appeal to every normal human heart. Even from the mere printed page that story speaks home. The first Protestant Christians in Japan, we are told, were Wakasano- Kami and members of his family, who were con- verted through his finding, in 1855, a Dutch Testament floating on the waters of Nagasaki 176 CAPTAIN BICKEL Harbour. It is not uncommon, in heatlien lands, to hear of individuals, or even villages, being led to embrace Cliristianity through the reading of a cox)y of the New Testament that has come into their possession. But much more winsome is the Gospel spoken in simplicity, earnestness and love, by a hmnan voice. Embodied in the ship, incarnated in the Captain, presented in a simple language which all could understand and a warmth of sincerity and earnestness which all could feel, it is not strange that it early began to meet a re- sponse in the Islanders' hearts. " The sower went forth to sow his seed." Luke, in the original, gives us the words in a line of per- fect poetry, as smooth and sweet as a line from a Greek lyric, as though to hint to us the beauty of the morning and the hope of harvest. In the Inland Sea Mission there has been both sowing and reaping; sowing constant, widespread and bountiful ; of reaping, a sheaf of first fruits, earnest of the real ingathering by and by. The deep faith which possessed the Captain^s soul that the Inland Sea Mission had been ordained of God for the Christianization of these long neglected Islanders we believe God will not put to shame, and we look for days of large ingathering in the not distant future. The facts and figures given in the story of the Mission convey but a very inadequate idea of how broadly the seed has been scattered and how widespread is the hidden in- fluence of the Ship, the Captain and the Message in the hearts of the people. The Inland Sea Is- lands are like a Japanese field of winter wheat, the chief part of which is still under ground. A big p 1. ' ^ r . w. t^ V' i . i in o CO o" J3 o H -4-1 a WINNING THE ISLANDEES 177 mat of roots forms during the long winter months, when above the surface the eye can scarce detect any change, and when the spring rains and warm winds come the wheat rushes up into strength and fruitfulness. One can almost see it grow. In most of the Island world the seed of the Kingdom is still in the period of secret and silent growth. Here and there a few ears have reached an early maturity, but these are only a kind of first fruits of an abundant harvest that may be confidently expected in the near future. " In that day there shall be an handful of corn in the earth, upon the top of the mountains: the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." Whither Thou sendest, Whither Thou leadest, Thither my journey. Eastward or westward, Northward or southward, Dayward or nightward, Joyward or woeward, Homeward or starward, So it be Thee-ward, Thither my journey. XIV WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF THE ISLANDS IN the Missionary Movement in Japan, the honour with which Christianity crowns child- hood and womanhood is not forgotten. For- tunately, the women of the Empire, at least among the common people, are not condemned by custom to lives of seclusion. When evangelistic services are held they form a large part of the audience, and there are about as many women as men en- rolled in the churches. Much has been done, also, in the name of Christ, for the moral and social elevation of the womanhood of Japan. Woman is ceasing to be a chattel, and becoming a person. The right of a man to dispose of his wife or daugh- ter as it may please him, even selling her if he will into a life of shameful slavery, has been suc- cessfully challenged. The Christian forces, with the Salvation Army in the van, are lined up against the powerful brothel-masters, and against the strongly entrenched system of licensed vice with its tens of thousands of female slaves. Concubinage has fallen into disrepute, and Emperor Yoshihito is the husband of one wife. The land is dotted with high grade Christian schools for girls ; and by the establishing of women's universities the state has acknowledged the value of female education. 178 WOMEN AND CHILDEEN OF THE ISLANDS 179 Thanks to the influence, direct and indirect, of the teaching of the Son of Mary, the women of Japan are coming into their own. Childhood has not suffered such wrongs in Japan as in many heathen nations. Babies are almost always welcome, even girl babies. Japanese youngsters as a rule are well fed, well clad, and well cared for, so far as the ability of the parents permits. The cities and towns are full of boys and girls playing happily in the streets thereof, as in the ideal city of Scripture. Modern Japan provides a modern education for practically all her children, even those in the remotest hamlets of the mountains. Christianity is making her own con- tribution to the children's welfare. Christian Kindergartens have brought brightness to many a child^s life. Everj^vvhere is the Sunday school. The Sunday-school army in Japan already num- bers above a hundred and fifty thousand. In our Baptist Missions the Sunday-school scholars out- number the church members by three to one. Providentially, Sunday is the weekly school holi- day, affording an opportunity to gather the boys and girls for Christian instruction. One of the great sights of Tokyo is the annual Sunday-school Rally, when many thousands of gaily dressed, bright faced little lads and lasses gather in Hibiya Park, with banners and music. It is Christianity, too, which is seeking to save the children from failing under the influence of alcohol and tobacco, and is lifting its hand against the hungry Moloch of modern industry, to whose rapacity multitudes of the children of the poor are being sacrificed. In the Inland Sea work the women and children 180 CAPTAIN BICKEL are charter members, so to speak. Wlien Captain Bickel accepted tlie Inner and Outer Isles for his parish he dedicated his life to all the Islanders — all the men, all the women and all the children. There are nearly as many names of women as of men on the Fukuin Maru Church list, and myriads of children have learned to love the Little White Ship and her Captain, and have learned something also of Him who loved the children and gathered them into His arms. The time when the long-suf- fering Skipper was greeted at the village beaches by crowds of disorderly boys crying " foreign fool," " evil pig," and like affectionate terms, soon passed; and instead, as the vessel threaded the island channels, from the hills above would float down the music of childish voices singing some of the songs of Zion. To our Captain, with his chivalrous and tender courtesy toward all women, and his affectionate kindliness toward all children, the blessing which the vessel brought to the women and children of the Islands was one of the deepest joys of his work. One of his published articles, dealing with this topic, is given below, almost entire. This article was written in the eleventh year of the vessel's work. Island Women and Children On the wooded hillsides, in the lowland fields, in the farmyards, in the ships, in the boats, at the looms, in the houses, young and bright, care-worn and thoughtful, old and haggard, independent yet docile, hard-working and patient ever, they are here in their tens of thousands — these Island women. They are here in their hundreds of thousands, these WOMEN AND CHILDEEN OF THE ISLANDS 181 Island children, in the schools or more often not, in thi homes or more often not, helping in the fields, romping under one's feet, playing *'ride a horse to market" by order of parental authority, which in America would mean that eight-year-old Bill must nurse five-year-old Jack, Jack being tied to Bill's back in such a way as to present a strange mixture of legs and arms when Bill plays ''hopscotch," as presently he does. The workers of the Fukuin Maru have set them- selves the task, not of giving a knowledge of Christian truth to certain portions of the population of this wide field, but to giving a knowledge of God and His love to every man, woman and child who can be persuaded or beguiled into listening to the message. That in such a vast undertaking work for women and children must have a large part, need not be stated. That to attempt to meet the wide need by local efforts in the form of kindergarten work, women's societies, mothers' meet- ings, etc., would demand an expenditure and a staff of workers such as we dare not hope to see, is also ap- parent. We had to plan for the women and children as we did for the men, on large, broad lines, seeking to reach all in some way, while not neglecting those whose heart attitude might claim special attention and help. It is true that we have two Yugi-in, a type of kinder- garten not needing an expensive plant. These are doing a successful work. One is situated in the East-Central Island Division at Setoda, the other in the Western Island Division at Agenosho, a town of ten thousand inhabitants. Both are carried on in the spacious local preaching places. The workers of both are engaged in Bible- woman's and Sunday-school work, going often ten or fifteen miles in all manner of weather in a small boat to hold a children's meeting, or women's meeting, after the kindergarten work in the forenoon is over, or on Sundays. It is true that mothers' meetings and women's 182 CAPTAIN BICKEL societies have been formed in some places by the evan- gelists* wives and the kindergarten workers. It is true that in another place a boys' and girls' night school is carried on, and in another a sewing class. We rejoice in these and long to have more such efforts made. That they are not made is due to lack of means and the vast- ness of the field. But our hope is not in these things, good as they are. It is in the work of public appeal and teaching. This is the widespread and general work and mainstay, while the other work, that of the kindergartens, women's societies and mothers' meetings, is but incidental and local. Women and children are present in their thou- sands in the meetings held by the ship in the four hun- dred towns and villages visited. In these meetings a point is made of having a special talk for children be- fore the large general meeting is held. Women and children by their thousands are in the meetings held in the fifty regular preaching places to which the evangel- ists itinerate. Women and children in their thousands visit the ship and hundreds come to special women's or children's meetings held on board. Children in their hundreds attend the special children's meetings on Sun- day-school lines held by the worker in the colportage vessel, No. 2 Fukuin Maru. These children's meetings, held in many places where no regular Sunday school is yet established, are a great feature in the Island work. Children in hundreds, yes, and women too, attend regularly the forty Sunday schools established in as many towns and villages in the Islands. In these Sun- day schools there is uniform instruction based on a series of Scripture lesson-cards, specially prepared, pub- lished and sent out from the ship. These Sunday schools are, moreover, not what are known as "Street Sunday schools." We know these scholars and their parents and have access to their homes, as we have to a thousand other homes, and we have their confidence. 0^ rt ^ 03 a be u er door a dark head peeped to take ob- servations, and finding the visitors still there we were at last invited into the little side room. On a side table v/as arranged a display of whiskey bottles, and we could not help thinking there was 250 CAPTAIN BICKEL some connection between these bottles and our cool reception. But it is amazing bow opposition can be overcome by a man in dead earnest. We did not meet tbe principal, but received a message saying that he would consent to have a meeting in the school. And a good meeting we had, with two hundred and fifty boys present, though we could not but note the difference between the attitude of the boys here, and that of those at Yuge." But to return to our friend, Captain Kobayashi. When the Skipper of the Fukuin Maru was about to sail for America on furlough in April, 1911, an enthusiastic farewell meeting was held at Setoda. One feature of the gathering was the attendance of the teachers and pupils of the Yuge school, who had not grudged the time and labour needed to cross those leagues of water. Captain Kobayashi had composed a poem for the occasion, as an ex- pression of the warm esteem in which Captain Bickel is held for the sake of his labours of love on behalf of the Islands; and one feature of the celebration was the singing of this poem, to a popu- lar air, by the whole body of students. Captain Kobayashi expressed the wish, on behalf of the school, that this poem, with an English metrical translation, should be sent to the Missionary So- ciety in America, as an expression of gratitude for the benefits conferred on the Islands through the work of the Fukuin Maru, The present scribe, at our Captain's request, made the following trans- lation, which is severely literal; and the accom- panying paraphrase, which presents the thought and feeling of the poem in ordinary western style. These, with the original verses, were duly for- SOME MOEE ISLAND STORIES 251 warded to Boston, and are doubtless treasured in the archives of the Society. In Farewell to Captain Bickel Spring at climax, wind east. Willows green, flowers blushing. Laud-laden, prow homeward, Keel rushing, sail swelling, Lo ! the Fukuin her skipper, Him we greet Captain Bickel ! The west world's holy faith, Law of love, he proclaimeth : *'For the dear sake of Christ Love thou even thine hater. Doth one buffet thy cheek, Yield thou also the other.'' Love's behest, ah! how high! But heart-lowly we follow. Kindest Teacher, best Friend, Setting sail o'er wide ocean. At our parting, this morrow. Ah! our hearts, — who may know them? Paraphrase To-day is the year at full flood. And the winds from the warm ocean reaches Sing loud with the answering pines, Sing low thro' the green drooping willows. Again on our fair Island slopes In glory of purple and crimson The azaleas have spread their brocade. Rich as gown of a maid at her marriage. 252 CAPTAIN BICKEL Now our Captain, more bravely adorned, In brocade of the honours past telling Wherewith Heaven hath requited his toil, To the home-land in triumph returneth. Light, light rides his bark on the wave, Wide, wide swell his sails to the breezes, Our Captain, beloved by the Isles, Of the fair white ship, *'The Evangel.'* 'Twas for Jesus' dear sake that he came To our Islands forsaken, forgotten, Bringing us riches more rare Than the costliest bales of the merchant, Bringing that heavenly law Which is lifting the life of the nations, The blessed evangel of love Which the Father hath sent to His children. How holy the Message and high ! And with reverence, heart-lowly, we greet it. How divine is its lofty behest! And our souls leap to life at its challenge. **Eepay thou thy foe with thy love, And deny not thy cheek to the smiter. Eemember thy Lord on the Cross, How He prayed for His slayers, * Forgive them.' " Such is the Message he brought ; That by love are we sons of our Father, Who alike on the evil and good. Sends the gift of His rain and His sunshine; That by love are we brothers of Christ, Who gave up Himself for His haters; That only to love is to live, For of love is the Kingdom of Heaven. SOME MOEE ISLAND STOEIES 253 Ah! Teacher and Friend of our Isles, Who hast taught us to love by thy loving, What gifts — but no hands can repay, Nor our lips our thanksgivings can fashion. To-day must we say thee farewell? Must the lonely expanse of the oceans Rise boundless betwixt us and thee! What tears — Ah! thine own is our sorrow I Good Captain Kobayashi's interest in the Fukuin Maru did not slacken with the passing years, and we shall meet him and his boys again when the last long farewell is to be said. It is told of him also that " though not himself an avowed Christian, he surprised a group of educators at Tokyo, when they were discussing the discipline of schools, by saying boldly that the spirit of the Little White Ship had so far pervaded his own student body as to solve his problems of discipline.'' XXII THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CRUISE THE eighteenth year of the Era of the Fukuin Maru promised to be one of un- usual growth in the Inland Sea Mission. The new mission ship, released by order of govern- ment from her moorings in the pine-fringed bight of Miyanoura after chafing at her cables for a year and a half, was again cruising among the Islands, and everywhere there was a ^' sound of abundance of rain.'^ In the several inner sea groups, in which work had been prosecuted since the first Fukuin Maru made her voyage of discovery, the new Teach- ing had already won a large place for itself. On Shozu, on Ikuchi, on Oshima, in the Kurahashi group, every^^here believers and enquirers were multiplying. The light was spreading. New islands, new villages were opening their doors to the Gospel messengers. Sunday schools, various kinds of Christian societies, industrial enterprises and the like were increasing in number and in- fluence. Out on the newly opened Isles of the Deep Sea, also, the signs of promise were bright. Mr. Shi- bata, recently ordained assistant pastor of the Fukuin Maru Church, had his evangelistic centre at Hirado, on the island of that name, and was carry- 254 THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CEUISB 255 ing on regular work at fifteen of tlie principal places in tlie four island clusters of tlie South- western District. Already, in 1916, lie had gath- ered about him a considerable group of believers and enquirers. Among these were two young men belonging to two of the leading Shizoku families, the gentry as we would say. Not only had they become Christians themselves but had consecrated their lives to the service of Christ as preachers of the Gospel, and were ready to enter the Theological School. The Captain^s health, too, which from the time of his breakdown in the second year of the work he had never fully recovered, and which had given frequent occasion for grave concern, had latterly seemed to be growing more robust. This was no doubt due in part to the physical and mental relief afforded by the splendid efficiency of the new ves- sel. The bone-breaking, heart-breaking tussles with wind and tide, the sleepless nights at the wheel exposed to cold and storm, were things of the past. On the spiritual side of the work, also, the intense strain of the early years was greatly relieved. He had come to his field single-handed, even the evangelist who accompanied him on his first voyage proving to be no true helper. As for the ship's company, it was a case of a man's foes being they of his own household. On all the clus- tered islands which formed his parish, there was not a house where he could expect a welcome, nor a man whom he could count his friend. Now, the seven sailors were brethren beloved, fellow-workers in the Gospel, the joy of their skipper's heart. The Shepherds of the Isles, each in his own district, 256 CAPTAIK BICKEL A- were pusTiing forward tlieir work with sometliing of the Captain's own tireless devotion. Among the Islands were a, thousand homes glad to receive him as guest ; many thousands of persons proud to claim his acquaintance. From among these Island folks, everywhere from Shozu to the Gotos, lay workers were appearing, men and women, assuring the growth and permanence of the work. No won- der that the Captain's health had begun to mend, and no wonder that he looked forward to the year 1917 as one of rapidly developing mission activities. Apart from the three hundred baptized believers there had arisen a great body of adherents, well- wishers and friends of the Captain and his work. The four thousand boys and girls in the Sunday schools, the several thousands of interested persons listed on the ship's books and reading the ship's literature, the forty thousand members of that four-hundred-section class in Christian doctrine which had been meeting for sixteen years, all these and many more counted the visits of the little ship the visits of a friend. In scores of islands she had become a part of the community life. Where her Captain had been a stranger and a foreigner, un- companioned save for the companionship of the ever-present Lord, he was now the universal friend, " the best loved man in the Islands." The membership of the FuJcuin Maru Church had increased tenfold in eight years. Though scat- tered over sixty islands they had been well shep- herded, and the Captain could say of them, " Of those whom Thou hast given me I have lost none." The church was alive and growing, and the day seemed already near when there would be a thou- THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CKUISE 257 sand names on its roll. We of the mainland had begun to anticipate a time when the nmnber of Isfand Christians would overtake and surpass the aggregate membership of all the mainland Baptist churches. The Japanese Baptist Convention, which had been somewhat inclined to look askance on the Inland Sea Mission as an erratic effort on behalf of ignorant and irresponsive peasants and fisher- men, had come to recognize the importance both of the field and of the work, and had asked that the groups of Christians on the Islands be erected into an Island Association, to have equal standing in the Convention with the several other associations. For while the whole body of believers on the Islands were still enrolled in the Fukuin Maru Church, already the local groups of Christians who worshipped at Tonosho, Setoda, Agenosho, Kura- hashi, Hirado, and elsewhere were practically branch churches, ripening for separate organiza- tion. Humanly speaking the day was not far when on every important island there would be a church of Jesus Christ, of men and women saved through His grace and united in His service. The year 1917 was expected to bring that prospect a long way toward realization. There was, however, one feature of the situation which must have caused the Captain much wear and tear of mind and soul. For a year or two the appropriations for the work of the Inland Sea Mission, always inadequate, had been painfully in- sufficient. In the financial year 1915-16, " under the most stringent pressure and painful economies " the cost of the undertaking had considerably over- run the grant which the Mission Treasury felt able 268 CAPTAIN BIOKEL to make. For 191G-17 tlie appropriation was even less, notwithstanding tlie great increase in the cost of carrying on the work caused by the rapid rise in prices through the War. This rendered imperative a swee^Ding reduction in the expenses of the Fukuin Maru enterprise ; which meant that the whole enter- prise was weakened and crij)pled just at the time when to be i)roperly furnished meant rapid and solid growth. The i)lan of providing each of the five evangelists with the assistant so sorely needed had of course to be dropped, even the assistant al- ready placed with Pastor Ito at Setoda being with- drawn. One of the Five Shepherds even, he of the Kurahashi Group, had to discontinue his service. The colportage work of the little Fukuin Maru No, 2, carried on by her zealous Captain Hirata, had to cease. The mileage of the Fukuin Maru's evangelistic voyages was sharply curtailed, for every mile costs money with fuel oil at three prices. One of the trips to the Deep Sea Isles had to be cut out. The use of the handy gasoline launch, which had been saving the Captain so much hard labour, had to be dispensed with. Literature ex- penses, too, had to be greatly reduced. The 4,000 children in the Sunday schools must forego their much prized lesson cards. The ship's newspaper, a monthly messenger of cheer to thousands of lonely island homes, was cut down to half its size. Even with all these and similar heart-breaking economies the work faced a deficit of a thousand dollars. And this in spite of the fact that the Captain put every cent of his personal income, out- side bare family expenses, into the work. What this drastic entrenchment in his beloved work, at THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CEUISB 259 a time so big with promise, meant to hiiii in travail and burden of soul, may be left to the imagination of those who had it in the power of their hand to relieve him. Would that a few thousand dollars of the surplus billions in the hands of American Bap- tists might have found their way to the Little White Ship ! Will any similar sum spent on the War be a tithe as useful? Apart from the financial problem the outlook for the year was most reassuring, and our Captain, accustomed as a sailor and a handy -man to make his tools serve his need, entered upon its work full of enthusiasm. In February a somewhat severe attack of illness of a paratyphoidal nature laid him prostrate, and he did not allow himself time to fully recover his strength before returning to his work. In April the Annual Meetings of the Fukuin Martin Church, an important event of the year, were to be held, and into the necessary arrangements for these he threw himself with his customary zeal. Of the doings at these meetings we have to thank Mrs. Bickel for the following interesting report, contributed to the May number of Gleanings, ''I thought I should like to tell all my fellow- workers about our Annual Church Meetings this year which be- gan April 1st and went along on various lines until the 6th. Such a time of fellowship and encouragement as it was, I shall never forget! ''This year the meetings were held in the town of Tonosho, the centre of the most eastern of our five Island sections. This section is in charge of Murakami San and his good wife. 260 CAPTAIN BICKEL ''For some time before these meetings, the workers with Captain had been planning all sorts of things. The chief feature was to bring up on the ship from the East, Central, Western and Southwestern Groups as many of the believers as possible. They were to gather at Setoda and make the run to Tonosho, a distance of eighty-five miles. This of course sounded very good to the many who had planned to go to the meetings, and they looked forward to the trip with no end of pleasure. Captain and I hoped and hoped the weather would be good, for we knew that journey, as we have been over the ground so many times in the past nineteen years, in bad weather and good; and I laughingly said to Cap- tain, ' I think you had better let the engineer make some tin basins in case of need!' Well, all our fears were needless. *'When April 1st dawned, at 5 a.m., Captain and I were standing at the gangway in Setoda Straits receiv- ing the first load of guests, while the anchor was being weighed and the sailors getting everything ready for our journey. It was an ideal day, with not a ripple on the water, and beautiful sunshine overhead. We left Setoda at 5 : 30 a. m. and running five miles picked up another boat full of guests, then five miles further on slowed down again for more guests, then went on to another village where we picked up the last three at 7 A. M. ''What a happy crowd it was, just like a big family! Some were looking at pictures down in our Assembly Room, some were on the bridge with Captain, some with me in the deck house, some singing hymns on deck or chatting together. One and all were full of joy. Then at luncheon time we sat on the ship's deck enjoying our food and looking around at God's handiwork, rejoicing that we were His children. "A strange feeling of awe seemed to fill the hearts of these Christian delegates from four prefectures as THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CEUISB 261 they passed island after island where other Christians had come to be their brothers and sisters during these few brief, busy years of the ship's work. ''The lighthouse folk at Nabe Shima having read of the proposed run of the ship, saluted with flags and handkerchiefs and babies in arms as we passed by. Tonosho was in sight at two o'clock. All got ready to go ashore when we anchored, but first an impromptu Thanksgiving Service w^as held on deck. When that was finished and the anchors down, the Eastern Group believers were waiting on shore to welcome the guests we had brought. Our intention to go to the hotel direct was dropped in the sea when the two deacons from Tonosho came on board, for they said, 'We have been waiting for the ship to come and all its load of guests to be present at the baptismal service of nine candidates which is now to take place over yonder.' Then there was eagerness to get ashore so as not to keep the service waiting too long. It was a fine service and we came back to the ship for supper thankful for all the bless- ings God is giving to the workers in these Islands; but the day was not finished, for there were officers' meet- ings and welcome meetings in the evening which lasted well on toward midnight. ''Next m.orning the meetings began at 9 a. m. I could not get there until later and I shall not forget the im- pression made on me when I entered that hall (which had been loaned for the occasion by the town, the local preaching-place being too small) and saw it well filled with an earnest assembly of believers, men and women loving the same Father we have been taught to love since our childhood. My mind went back to the first years of my husband's work in these Islands and my first years of ship life, and though I have had many and many unpleasant experiences I could truly say I was thankful that God had called Captain to this work ; and though I have rebelled often at my life on the ship yet 262 CAPTAIN BICKEL it seemed that morning as I sat in that meeting, truly; all was worth while. ' ' The morning meeting was just a helpful service for the Christians. It lasted until noon. Then we all went to the hotel and had our noon meal together as happy as could be. After lunch, the annual church business meeting was held. That lasted until 6 p. m. Captain and I came back to the ship for our evening meal, just a bit tired after sitting Japanese fashion from 9 a. m. until 6 p. M. "That evening another meeting, an open praise and prayer meeting, was held which with the reading of personal messages from 147 members in many places took till midnight. Thus ended the second day. * ' Tuesday, the third day, the meeting began at 9 a. m., with a solemnly joyous Communion Service. Such a precious time it was ! That ended at 11 a. m. and then all came on board with their lunches and were taken round to a place fourteen miles distant called Sliimo- mura, whence they could climb Kankake Mountain, one of the noted places of Japan. '^Wednesday morning all the workers from the dif- ferent centres of the Island work came on board to have a formal workers' meeting, to plan new efforts to help the Island people. That meeting lasted until 2 p. m. Then as all seemed tired with meetings it was suggested that we invite the remaining believers and climb an- other interesting mountain on this island, where every year thousands of pilgrims come to worship. We all willingly went and had another delightful afternoon together, a big family all one in love and faith. ''Thursday morning all the visiting believers and workers, men and women, came on board at 7 a. m. hoping to reach our anchorage at Tonosho in time for the guests and workers to catch the morning steamer, to return to their homes. But just as we were coming into Tonosho Harbour the steamer was going out. But ' 'Tis THE CAPTAIN'S LAST CEXJISE 263 an ill wind that blows nobody good,' and instead of be- ing troubled over it we rejoiced to have one more day together. ''Mr. and Mrs. Murakami invited our women w^orkers and women guests to their home for that day and night. Our evangelist stayed on board. We had a good time that day. After dinner another noted place on the island was visited, with the usual praise meeting in the open air. Then in the evening we all met at Mr. Mura- kami's for a giju-nahe (a stew of meat and vegetables cooked over the Mhaclii 'while you wait ') . I just should have liked all our friends to have peeped in at us that evening, making our gyu-nahe at different tables, laugh- ing and talking and oh, so happy with each other. Thus our Annual Church Kally ended wdth a social meeting, for the next morning, Friday, all the visitors were up and at the steamship landing by 7 a. m., to part in different directions for homes and fields of work, re- joicing in opportunities of loving service for the Master. And as Captain and I waved them farewell, we were tired? Yes; a little, after all was over, but oh, so grateful for all that was being done for these Island people in God's name.'' This was the first time the Annual Meeting had been held at the eastern end of the Captain's far- stretching parish, and there was some fear that the attendance would be slim and the results meagre, but this fear was soon dispelled. Among the groups of Christians whom the ship picked up on her way east from Setoda, and in the gathering at Tonosho, there was evident a deep spiritual earnestness that filled the hearts of Captain and Mrs. Bickel with thankfulness and joy, and with a new confidence in the Island believers as a power behind the future work of the vessel. " They came 264 CAPTAIN BICKEL away from the farewell meeting filled with satis- faction and gratitude and expectant hope." Yes, they looked forward, with reason, to many years of joyful and fruitful, if arduous service. With the daily increasing spiritual momentum of the work what might not be hoped for within ten years, within twenty years, within the years of active labour the Captain might hope to spend in his Island parish? But he had sailed his last cruise in the Little White Ship. This was his last meeting with his people of the Inland Sea, his last public service on the Islands. It was fitting that it should be at Tonosho, of Shozu, within view of those moun- tains into whose dark shadow the little mission craft had crept that first night of active service. It was fitting, too, that the triumphal progress through the Islands to gather up the Christians waiting on their shores should have begun at Setoda — surly, churlish, grudging Setoda, now overflowing with good-will and helpfulness, the Christian Capital of the Inland Sea. XXIII '^SUNSET AND EVENING BELL'' WHEN Captain Bickel arrived in Japan, in May, 1898, we thouglit him the embodi- ment of health and manly vigour. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, with the wholesome colour and clear eye of a hardy seaman, he looked fit for fifty years of arduous labour. His seafaring life had inured him to hardship and exposure. With a sailor's lavishness, and a Christian's consecration, he flung himself upon his task, body and soul. The magnitude of that task, its inherent difQ.culties, his inadequate equipment, were to him but the more compelling challenge to heroic en- deavour. It hardly occurred to him in those first ardent years that he might overdraw his physical resources. When friends urged moderation he smilingly replied that if the burdens were heavy the shoulders on which they were laid were broad. Not that he was in matters of health a deliberate spendthrift. In the matter of diet, indeed, he was more careful than missionaries usually are. He consistently refused to touch Japanese food, and so far as life on shipboard would permit, insisted on an appetizing and wholesome foreign diet, cooked and served in foreign style. 0-mi-o-tsuke, 265 266 CAPTAIN BICKEL fried tofu, shredded cuttlefish, herring- and-kelp, soha-yaki, — from all such native dishes he held himself strictly aloof. He believed that suitable and sufQ-cient nourishment greatly reduces the need for rest and sleep, a contention which the experiences of sailors seem to substantiate, and a doctrine which has been held by other than sea- faring men. His intensely active mind made it impossible for him to rest during his working hours, as other men rest; and as for sleep, he al- lowed himself short rations, hardly hrJf of what ordinary mortals need, and it was no unusual thing for him to keep an all-night vigil, coaxing his little ship along to her next place of call. The intense physical and nervous strain of the work, however, rapidly told upon even his wrought- iron constitution, and already in the second year of his mission he found his health seriously threat- ened. From that time forward he was probably never in sound and comfortable health. Again and again he was comiDelled to lay up the mission craft in some snug cove among the Islands, and lie up, himself, for repairs. For the most part, however, the ardour of his soul overcame the weakness of his body, and he remained at his jDOst, doing more than a man's work, in spite of feebleness and pain. As remarked elsewhere, the conditions under which he laboured became gradually less exacting, as his parish became familiar ground, and the ves- sel's equipment more efficient; and the Captain's health, we thought, was slowly returning to a nor- mal state. Then came the serious illness of Feb- ruary, 1917. It passed, as other attacks had passed, but its effects still lingered when the time in m 6 C/5 O C! O H ;3 U C ^* SUNSET AND EVENING BELL^^ 267 came for tlie Annual Meetings at Tonoslio. To the Avidely scattered Island Christians these meetings were the great event of the year, the one oppor- tunity for mutual acquaintance and fellowship and counsel. Without their beloved Leader's presence half the joy and inspiration would be lacking. So the Captain vras there, spending himself prodigally day by day to be a blessing to them all. So they kept the feast with gladness, not dreaming that they should see his face no more. But when the meetings were ended and the be- lievers had dispersed to their Island homes, the Little White Ship did not turn her prow again to- ward the west. Her Skipper had an errand to Kobe. He would be back in a few days, and ready for a long cruise down the western isles. He saw that the vessel was safely moored, and gave orders to the crew to keep all taut and trim. He cast a last keen glance over the ship, the ship that he loved, that was part of his life, of himself, with which he hoped to accomplish so much for his Island parish in the years that lay stretching into the future. The ship's boat lay at the foot of the ladder. He handed Mrs. Bickel in, and the boat sprang away toward the beach. ^^ Sayonara! "" he cried to the sailors grouped at the head of the ladder, caps in hand. ^^ Bayonara! Hayaku o kaeri nasal! '' ("Good-bye! Come back soon!'') they called cheerily, and returned smiling to their daily tasks. The hospitable missionary home at Kobe, under the pine-clad heights of Mount Eokko, welcomed the Caj)tain and his wife as honoured guests. Had not the Mission to the Islanders been Dr. Thomson's 268 CAPTAIN BICKEL dream back in the 'eighties, a dream which came to fulfillment in the fair white shij) and her noble Cap- tain? They would have some pleasant days to- gether while the doctors put Captain Bickel in repair. It was found necessary to perform a slight sur- gical operation. No serious consequences were anticipated. A few days' rest and he would be back on his ship. What new villages, new islands could he bring into his next cruise? What new features could he introduce, that would further the progress of the work? He must not miss calling on Kato Suji-saburo, the gruff old farmer on Kitagi, and on Tanaka Haru-ko, the sick widow on Innoshima. The operation was apparently successful. The wound quicldy healed. But the i^atient did not make the expected rapid recovery. Something was wrong. He had drawn too heavily on his reserves. The effects of the February illness were still in his blood, a subtle poison that baffled the doctor's skill. Septic peritonitis and septic pneumonia, they called it, for which the materia medica contained no remedy. She who had for twenty years shared his voyages and his labours was beside him, and loving friends about him. All was done that hmnan love and skill could do. There was another Presence, too, in that quiet chamber, as the sun went down, that of Him whom he had loved and whom he had served with a love and loyalty beyond what is common to man, of Him with whom he had companied many a lonely night at the vessel's wheel, of Him who had been with Nagai Minoru in the thatched cot- "SUNSET AND EVENING BELL" 269 tage on Shozu Sliima — tlie presence of Him of whom our great poet lias written, **And I shall see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the Bar." It was the 11th of May, and eventide. The sun- set glow was fading over the Inland Sea. Down on the Little White Ship the " second dog watch '' was ending, and the sailor on duty strolled up the deck to strike the " eight bells " that usher in the first watch of the night. But for the Captain the dawn was breaking. It was morning in heaven. The Captain had made his last port. The Bar was crossed and he had met his Pilot face to face. "Now it befell when the time was come in the which the man of God should die, that God bent over the face of Moses and kissed him. And the soul leaped up in joy, and went with the Kiss of God to Paradise. Then a sad cloud draped the heavens, and the winds wailed, ^Who lives now upon earth to fight against sin and error? ' And a voice answered, ' Such a prophet never arose be- fore.' And the earth lamented, ' 1 have lost the holy one.' And Israel lamented, ' We have lost the shepherd.' And the angels sang, ^He is come in peace to the arms of God.' " XXIV A TRIUMPHAL FUNERAL THE angels sang, " He is come in peace to the arms of God ; " but the earthly body, broken and worn with many years of toil and pain through which the too ardent spirit had driven it, lay at rest at last, in the sleep that knows no waking, in the quiet guest-chamber of the missionary home at the foot of Mount Eokko. The soul God had taken to Himself ; the body in which it had tabernacled He left to us to lay in its last resting place with such marks of love and honour as might be. The sense of loss and sorrow in the hearts of the Island Christians when the news of the Captain's departure was flashed down the Inland Sea was like that felt at the death of a beloved father. At first they were stunned by the suddenness and heaviness of the blow, not knowing which way to turn for help and comfort. Then, as the wonder- ful years which had passed over the Islands since the beginning of the era of the Fukuin Maru rushed back into memory, the beauty of the Captain's life and the splendour of the purpose which had ani- mated him, and of the achievements he had wrought, aroused in them an ardour which made grief forgotten. The news of his death became to 270 A TEIUMPHAL FUNEEAL 271 tlieni a clarion call to do him honour by taking up and carrying forward the work for which he had lived and died. "It is for us," they cried, "to make sure, by the grace of God, that though our leader has fallen his work is not to fail, but to move forward to fresh conquests, through the power of the Undying, Conquering Spirit which wrought through him. Our Captain and Shepherd has been called to his reward, but in his place a thousand Captain Bickels must arise, his spiritual suc- cessors, among our Island villages." For the com- fort of their ovv^n hearts, and to perpetuate the Cap- tain's memory and influence in the Inland Sea, some of the Islanders proposed that a place for his burial be chosen on one of the islands within his parish. Surely no cemetery could offer a spot so beautiful and so fitting. There, under the leaning pines beneath whose boughs he had gone to and fro on errands of mercy, beside the shining waters that had made a path for his ship, would his rest be sweet. Around him would be the islands and the villages of the people whom he loved, and who through him had learned the meaning and the prac- tice of love. It would be a sacred place to all the Island Christians, for generations to come. Thither they would gather year by year in loving pilgrim- age, streaming up from distant isles to spread flowers on his grave, and to kindle anew their zeal for the cause for which he died. There were others than Islanders who hoped that the Captain would be laid to rest somewhere in the Inland Sea. Over in Ajnerica, among those who knew the Captain and the Islands, the wish was ex- pressed that the body should be entrusted fo? 272 CAPTAIN BIOKEL sepulture to the Island believers, and that they should spread his couch on one of the Island shores. He belonged to them, and they to him. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. Mission- aries of experience, and thoughtful men among the Island Christians, foresaw the danger that such a tomb might eventually be transformed into a shrine, where worship with Shinto rites would be paid by simple-minded Island folk, uninstructed in Christian doctrine, to the spirit of the wonderful foreigner who had brought such blessings to the Inland Sea. Such things have happened in Japan. In a sense, every man who dies becomes at death a Ka7ni — if a Buddhist, a Hotoke — if a Shintoist, in either case a quasi-divine being, worthy of wor- shij). An important part of a Japanese funeral is the worshipping of the newly deified spirit, by the priests and the friends of the deceased. In the court of a little temple near Omachi, a few years ago, the writer was present at the funeral service of one of the Omachi Christians, — not of the Bap- tist Church, — ^whose Shinto relatives insisted that the body have burial according to the Shinto rites. At a certain point in the ceremony the officiating priests approached, in turuj the coffin, and ad- dressed the spirit of the dead man, presenting offer- ings of food and drink, and burning incense before the coffin. Then the relatives and friends came for- ward one by one, and paid homage to the dead, with bowing, clapping of hands as in ordinary worship, and offerings of food or incense. Even some of the few Christians present did not hesitate to show respect to the dead by bowing and burning incense. In a land where all the dead are divine, and every A TRIOTiPHAL FUNERAL 273 grave a sacred place, it is not strange tliat the tombs of tlie Hlustrious dead speedily become actual places of worship. Once in a while this happens to the grave of a foreigner, as in the case of WHl Adams, the Kentish shipwright who lived and died in Japan a virtual but honoured prisoner, before the Kestoration, and who may be called the Father of the Japanese Navy. At his tomb high up on the hill overlooking the Yokosuka Naval Dock-yards, worship has been paid, and a yearly festival is kept in his honour in a certain ward in Tokyo. That the tomb of Captain Bickel, the one wonderful, up- standing, outstanding personage known to Inland Sea chronicles, should in time be regarded as a shrine, where his spirit would be worshipped and his blessing invoked upon the fishermen's nets and the farmers' growing crops, was a not unreason- able apprehension. There are thousands of shrines in Japan sacred to persons very much less worthy of receiving divine honours than was our good Captain. The Island believers, therefore, for the Captain s sake, and for the sake of the future of Christianity among the Islands, consented to have the funeral service at Kobe, and that the burial should take place in the beautiful foreign cemetery at Kasu- gano, near the city. In place of an Island tomb they planned a better memorial, of which mention will be made later. The funeral service was in Kobe, held in the Baptist Church at 2 p. m. on May 13th. Previous to this, at one o'clock, there had been held at the home of Dr. Thomson a brief but impressive service for foreign acquaintances and specially intimate 274 CAPTAIN BICKEL friends, after wliick tlie beautiful casket, accom* panied hj these intimate friends, and with a great quantity of floral offerings, had been borne slowlj to the church, with a company of students from the Yuge Navigation School, in naval uniform, as a guard of honour. The building was already filled, and a great crowd was gathered about the doors, unable to enter. Many had come a long distance from the various islands ; the Christian workers as a matter of course, but also many of the chief persons among the believers. These were lilie men that mourn for a departed aged mother, and took part in the service in an agitated manner, as though not able to realize the truth of the suddenness of the Cap- tain's decease. Among them were the first mate of the mission vessel, and the sailors who had for many years been under the Captain's influence; besides the lads from the Navigation School, who stood in sorrow beside the bier. There w^ere also present many members of the missionary body, not only our own Baptist missionaries, but others, including the missionaries working in Kobe, the principals of the Xwansai College and the Girls' College, and others. The funeral service was conducted by Pastor Mitamura. Amid an awed hush, broken only by the sound of subdued sobbing, rose the quiet strains of the organ prelude. Dr. Walne, veteran of the Southern Baptist Japan Mission, made the prayer of invocation. Then came the opening hymn, lifted to heaven as a response of smitten hearts to Him who chastens whom He loves. Pastor Takeda read the lesson from the Old Testament and Pastor A TEIUMPHAL FUNEEAL 275 Ogawa tliat from the New. Pastor Toda, who of all the Island Shepherds had companied longest with the Captain, offered prayer. The personal history of the deceased, always a feature of a Jap- anese Christian funeral, was read by the clerk of the Fukuin Maru Church, Mr. Watanabe Shinichi. There followed two funeral addresses, one by Dr. Thomson, rei3resenting Captain BickePs foreign friends, and one by Pastor Yoshikawa, on behalf of the Japanese friends. Dr. Thomson spoke in English, and his address, though brief, had a power and pathos born of long and intimate friendship, and produced a deep impression upon the English- speaking part of the congregation. Pastor Yoshi- kawa is one of our veteran Christian leaders, a man of unusual ability, spirituality and consecration. His evangelistic activities have reached all parts of Japan, and at times he has come to the aid of Captain Bickel in the Inland Sea Mission. His address, which was of course in Japanese, opened with the words of a well-known little poem, of which only the general thought can be put into English. *'As if yon Star, above the moorland's height But hardly risen, should fall to setting fleet, So is the Teacher rapt from mortal sight, His Mission incomplete." After speaking in the warmest terms of Captain Bickel as a Shipmaster and as a Missionary, and dwelling upon his deep love for the Islanders and his ardent devotion to his work, he repeated the lines with which his sermon had begun, and added, in closing: 276 CAPTAIN BICKEL ''But such words are, after all, only the disappointed sigh of those who are without God, without Christ, with- out hope. Christ said, 'Verily, verily I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abides alone. But if it die it brings forth much fruit.' Is not this indeed a truth of deep and wide significance ? It might be supposed that if our Lord had remained long on earth, like Confucius or Buddha, He would have borne much fruit. I believe this to be exactly contrary to the truth. It was by His death that our Lord bore much fruit. Yes, Captain Bickel himself is one of the fruits borne by the death of Christ. It is a common say- ing that 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.' The Captain's death will be the seed of the Fukuin Maru Church. The kernel of wheat has fallen into the earth and died, and will bear much fruit. So what need to repeat the sigh, " ' As if yon Star, above the moorland's height But lately risen, should fall to setting fleet?* "I like to believe that when he had closed his eyes in his long sleep it was with a song of victory and thanks- giving that his spirit ascended to heaven, rejoicing that he had been the Captain not of an ordinary secular ship, but of the Fukuin Maru, the Ship of Glad Tidings, that he had spent his life as a Missionary rather than in some worldly calling. "Ah! let us keep in memory his toil and pain of nine-, teen years, storm-beaten and rain-drenched, enduring in his body the buffeting of winds and waves, in the naviga- tion of his vessel, and in his spirit the buffeting of the stormy passions of human hearts, as he sought to bring to men the Gospel of Love. **The Scripture saith, 'Henceforth blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, they shall rest from their labours. Their works shall follo\7 A TEIUMPHAL PUNEEAL 277 them/ Ah! their works shall follow them! Their works shall follow them!'' At the close of this address the customary in- vitation was given to any present who might wish to add a word in token of regard for the deceased. This has become a regular feature of Japanese Christian funerals, and takes the place which the offering of worship to the dead holds in the Bud- dhist and Shinto burial rites. Each of those who respond to the invitation advances to the side of the cof&n, where he stands facing it rather than the audience, and after gravely bowing as a mark of respect for the dead reads or utters a few terse sentences of eulogy and regard. Among those who availed themselves of this opportunity to offer a last tribute of respect were Deacon Miyaji on be- half of the Fukuin Maru Church; Mr. Murakami, Shepherd of the Shozu District, representing the Shepherds of the Isles; Mr. Hirata, probably our old friend the converted boatswain, representing the of8.cers of the Fukuin Maru Church; Pastors Akagawa and Nakajima, on behalf of the Japanese Baptist pastors and evangelists of the mainland; Mr. Kaneko, head teacher of the Yuge Navigation School, in behalf of the principal. Captain Koba- yashi; Mr. Koyal Fisher, representing the mis- sionary body, and Professor Holtoni and Mr. Kumano, the faculty and students of the Theo- logical Seminary. One of the deacons of the Fukuin Maru Church now came forward with a sheaf of telegrams and letters, brief messages from friends of Captain Bickel and admirers of his work, from many parts 278 CAPTAIN BICKEL of Japan, -with some from over-seas. At tlie fu- neral of any prominent person many such mes- sages are received, to be either read, if the time per- mit, as a part of the service, or, after the names of the senders have been mentioned, to be placed in the hands of the family of the deceased. In the present instance it was of course impossible to read even all the names of those who showed their friendship and interest in this way. These names were copied into a book by a Japanese friend of Mrs. Bickel, with the telegrams given in Japanese and in English. This book lies before the present writer. The names alone would fill a chapter. There are four hundred of them, of which about two hundred and fifty appear to be of those who sent telegrams. Among those who sent these messages of regret and condolence were people in every walk of life. There were such leading men as Dr. Mtobe, the eminent Christian statesman, educationalist, and social leader ; Mr. Shibata, Chief of the Bureau of Religions in the Department of Education; Mr. Yabushita, Public Procurator of the Kyoto Dis- trict Court; Mr. Kobayashi, Chief of Police at Arita; Mr. Ueda, Chief of the County of Toyoda; Mr. Atachi, Chief of the Setoda Salt-Inspection Office, and Mr. Uchiyama, Chief of the Setoda Police. There were mayors, town officials, railway officials, principals of schools. Messages came from scores of churches. Baptist and other; from many Sunday schools; from missionaries and Japanese pastors of several denominations; from the Secretary of the Federation of Japanese Churches; from several Girls' Schools; from the A TRIUMPHAL FUNEEAL 279 Salvation Army, and so forth. From all parts of tlie Captain's Island Parisli, and from many places on tlie mainland shores of tlie Inland Sea, came these brief pregnant messages of sorrow and love. Perhaps among all these there is none more touch- ing than that from the vessel's crew : '' TeugoJcu de aishite kudasai/' "In the Heavenly Land, be pleased to love us ! " Pastor Ito, of Setoda, on behalf of the bereaved family, thanked those who had gathered for their presence and sympathy, and the service, which had covered about three hours, closed with the bene- diction, in Japanese, by Dr. Axling, of Tokyo. The casket being again placed in the hearse was slowly borne to its final resting place at Kasugano, under escort of the Navigation School students from Yuge. When the last solemn rites were finished, and the eternal farewells said, the dusk of evening was already falling, but some of the women mourners lingered beside the grave reluc- tant to depart, like the women of the Gospel at the tomb of our Lord. " Suddenly the twilight chill fell upon me. I was as one in a trance, and every- thing around me seemed unreal. I only knew that sorrow had descended on my soul.'' The funeral at Kobe was followed by memorial services at a number of other places, as at Osaka, Yokohama and Tokyo, and doubtless at Himeji, on the mainland, and at the several evangelistic cen- tres among the Islands. Among these services, that held at the chief centre, Setoda, was the most important. The day appointed, the 10th of June, saw a great gathering of the Island Folk, from Shozu Shima in the east to Hirado in the far 280 CAPTAIN BICKEL southwest, — Christians, enquirers, and personal friends of Captain Bickel. Among them miglit be seen county chiefs, headmen of towns and villages, principals of schools, and other important Island personages. Across from Yuge, ten miles over the water, came good Captain Kobayashi, accompanied by the officers and students of his school. In the order of exercises, and in the spirit that prevailed, this service so much resembled that held at Kobe that no detailed account is necessary. The memorial addresses were made by Dr. Axling and Pastor Imai, the converted Buddhist priest, one of the early Ftiktmi Maru evangelists. Few foreigners could attend a meeting at Setoda, but besides Dr. Axling there was present also Mis- sionary Briggs, of Himeji, the long-time associate and intimate j)ersonal friend of the Captain. From his letter to the July number of Gleanings the fol- lowing paragraphs are copied : * ' To write about a funeral is not usually the task one would choose, yet when I was asked to write about Cap- tain BickeFs funeral I eagerly said, 'Yes!' ' ' It is not that I wish to write much about the people who came, although at the Kobe service so many Jap- anese and foreigners gathered from far and near, that the undertaker said it was the largest funeral he had ever conducted, and at the FuJcuin 3Iaru Church service at Setoda, June 10th, the little boats kept coming from the surrounding and the distant islands until over six hundred Japanese had gatherel to honour the memory of one who had once been, to their prejudiced eyes, a man to be despised and hated because of his religion; but whose intense earnestness to help them in every way in things both small and great, in matters of both A TEIUMPHAL FUNEEAL 281 body and spirit, had through the years melted the blind prejudice, till they had come to see and respect the Christ spirit revealed in his quiet, persistent, self- sacrificing service. *'This very to^vn of Setoda, which eighteen years ago agreed in council to refuse to let the Captain a house, or to have any dealings with the Fiikiiin Maru, to-day has its streets cleaned and repaired in preparation for the Memorial Service, and sends its mayor, its chief of police, and its principal of schools, with carefully written messages of sympathy and respect. ''Nor is it that I wish to write about the flowers, al- though they were most beautiful and abundant both at Kobe and at the Island service. At Kobe there are florists, and the wreaths, crosses, anchors, etc., were so many that the grave became a great mound of beauti- ful flowers; but in the Islands there are no florists and yet there was a still greater profusion of these marks of love and respect. Some had carefully been brought from the city, many had been beautifully and lovingly made of silk and fine materials, and some of the offer- ings were great artistic baskets of fruit. *^ Again, it is not that I wish to write of the hundreds of messages of sympathy that came from all parts of the Empire and from all ranks of society, from friends known and unknown; messages from well-kno^vn men like Mr. Shimada of the Imperial Department of Com- munications, Dr. Nitobe and Mr. Uchimura Kango; messages of sorrow from unknown farmers and school- boys and schoolgirls, who had come to know that they had a friend in Captain Bickel. *'The one thing I am eager to write about is, The Spirit of the Funeral. '^Of course a funeral is a place of mourning, but though at Captain Bickel's death I lost my closest and dearest personal friend, I came away from the services not mourning and despondent, but enthused, strength- 282 CAPTAIlsr BICKEL ened, inspired ; and I found that to others came the same experience. ' ' It was not of our planning that the funeral services should have a certain tone, but somehow the Captain's death had so emphasized to us all the things he had taught and lived that instead of mourning his going we were roused by his burning spirit sounding a mighty call to us to follow, as he had followed in the Master's foot- steps, in such earnest self-sacrificing service as must speedily win the world to Christ. ''The Japanese custom of interested friends saying a word at a funeral gave the opportunity for this call to come with special force, not so much from those who had been invited to make the funeral addresses, but as a spontaneous cry from the hearts of the ordinary Chris- tians, who had been led, taught, influenced by intimate contact with him, in life and work. ' ' It was the triumph of his spirit over the incident of his death that made his funeral a call for volunteers for the firing-line; that put new enthusiasm for a life of self-sacrifice into every heart. ''It was not the eloquence of the funeral addresses, but the consciousness of the Captain's influence in their own hearts and lives that brought from the Island Chris- tians such words as these: " 'The Captain's death is to be the seed of a mighty revival in the Inland Sea.' " 'The Captain's word to me was, not, See how much we have already done, but, Forward! Forward! Greater service! Greater^ victories ! ' " 'Instead of the Captain's work being ended, there must soon be a thousand Captains in the Inland Sea; every Christian must be one.' ' ' The spirit of the services was the same both in Kobe and at Setoda, and it was so strong and genuine that Mrs. Bickel could not but thank God even through her tears, and we were led to recall what one Japanese A TEIUMPHAL FUNEEAL 283 Christian quaintly wrote: * Perhaps God will make Captain Bickel's death the greatest work of his life.' *^It is a striking proof of the spiritual greatness of Captain Bickel ^s life and character that at these funeral services, and continually, to those close to him in friend- ship and work, the consciousness of the lasting blessing that is ours in having known him as a friend and fellow- worker triumphs over the sense of loss/' In his memorial article on Captain Bickel in the Japan Evangelist for July, Mr. Briggs, after re- ferring to the wide reach of Captain BickeFs in- fluence as shown by the messages received from leading men in all Tvalks of life, adds : ** Still more precious than all this was the revelation of the depth of his spiritual influence, by the members of the Fukuin Mam Church, at the funeral service at Setoda. The note of mourning was hardly to be heard at a service lasting five hours and in which perhaps fifty people took part. **He had been so truly their spiritual leader that he was still leading them. Though serving them in ways innumerable, the spirit's call to spirit was in them all. His life had been inspiration, and his death but empha- sized it. He had lived leading them in loving service and sacrifice, and he died pointing the way, and these simple hearts forgot to mourn in their eagerness to follow him, as he had followed Christ. ' ' **He being dead yet speaketJi.'* tt XXV AFTEE-GLOW <<- Terhaps the most striking testimony to the spiritual power of Captain Bickel is the three- fold experience that his death seems to have brought to the wide circle of his friends and acquaintances, both Japanese and Foreign. First, sorrow for our great loss, then gratitude for having known such a character, and then a deep desire to live more earnest lives of sacri- ficial service. These are not lessons which some one draws from his life ; they are real ex- periences forced into the heart that remembers Captain Bickel." — Rev. F. C. Briggs. H E being dead yet speaketh." The words possess an uncommon pertinence when applied to Captain Bickel. Into what activities his glorified spirit has entered in the invisible world we need not conjec- ture. It will not be strange if many of his Island friends, with their religious conceptions coloured by the ideas of Shintoism, think of him as still closely connected with the Islands and the Island People, a sort of Patron Saint and Guardian Angel of the Isles of the Inner and Outer Seas. In Japan 284 AFTER-GLOW 285 the spirits of the dead are not thought of as far away from the scenes where they have lived. They are invisible but not absent. They have a share in the family life. They are a corporate part of the community. They work together with the living for the national welfare. In the day of battle the souls of those who have fallen in earlier wars mingle with the soldiers on the battle-field, inspir- ing them to nobler heroism. Doubtless in the thought of many of the simple-hearted Island vil- lagers the tall foreign Captain whom they had learned to love and honour is still with them in his spiritual nature. He watches over the little Mis- sion Vessel as she sails by reef and shoal ; he hears the chantey of the Seven Sailors as they bring home the anchor; he encourages the Shepherds of the Isles as they labour for their flocks. Who shall say that behind these naive fancies there is no element of fact? One cannot imagine that ardent spirit, with its passion for service, fully content even amid the blessedness of the heavenly state unless a part of that felicity consisted in sharing the activi- ties of the Divine Spirit on behalf of sinful men. And if personality and character and memory persist beyond the grave we know that the Island Folk will continue to share his love and interest. The request of the orphaned crew was not a vain desire, " Please love us yet, in the Heavenly Land." Our dead shall live 1 There are no dead. We yet shall meet them 1 Nay, they stand, E 'en when our bitterest prayers are said, E 'en when our hottest tears are shed, Hard at our hand* 286 CAPTAIN BICKEL Our humble heartglow shineth yet Through those wide glories they have won Which set to shadow star or sun ; 'Tis not in heaven that friends forget, We hold them by love's blameless debt And benison. But whatever activities may occupy our Captain's glorified spirit, whether on behalf of his beloved Island Parish, or of the world-wide Kingdom, or of other worlds than this, — and the writer has no desire to be wise above what is written, — it is safe to predict that the memory and influence of the Captain's life will long persist. In this sense at least, his soul goes marching on, in the spiritual life and progress of Japan, and especially in that of the Inland Sea Mission. Some idea of the abiding impression the Cap- tain's life has made may be gained from the tone of the many Appreciations and Memorial Articles which appeared in the press after his death, both in American periodicals and in those issued in Japan. It would be possible to publish a large Memorial Volume composed exclusively of such articles. Dr. Franklin, on behalf of the Board of the Missionary Society under whose direction Captain Bickel laboured, writes : ''Captain Bickel was a character of heroic propor- tions, in whom the highest ideals of missionary service were fulfilled to an extraordinary degree. His death means an incalculable loss. While his work was unique in several ways, his own personality, rather than the peculiar conditions under which he laboured, gave force AFTEE-GLOW 287 to his efforts. He was always the sturdy seaman, and able to command, but at the same time unostentatious and ready to serve the most lowly. He lived in closest fellowship with those to whom he ministered. *To minister, and not to be ministered unto' was a passion of his life. In him were found the gifts and graces that make truly great missionaries, and which won for him the high place he held in the affection of missionaries of every denomination and in the confidence of Jap- anese of every class. Missionaries of all societies will feel that the Christian movement in Japan has sustained a great loss; government officials will consider that an influential factor in the promotion of international good- will has been removed; a multitude of the Japanese people on the Islands of the Inland Sea will be grief- stricken; many in America will join the Board of Man- agers of the Foreign Mission Society in personal sorrow. ' ' As indicating the impression made by our Cap- tain on his missionary fellow-workers may be quoted the editorial in Gleanings , the organ of the Baptist Missions in Japan, in the memorial number following the Captain's death : *'Our gallant Captain has cleared the Bar, and entered the Fair Haven of the Far Country. **For nineteen years he engaged in a valiant fight against the powers of evil that darken this fair land. Literally he gave his life for the Island people of the Inland Sea, for 'he spared not his own life, but gave it freely' that he might make known to them the Way of Life Eternal. **What his guerdon? To be accounted the disciple of the living Christ. ''What his decoration? The Cross of his Master ever borne about in his body. 288 CAPTAIN BICKEL ((■ 'What his reward? A blessed company rescued from sin *s darkness and despair, to shine as stars in his crown of rejoicing, through all eternity. ''What his monument in the land for which he died? His name written on the tablets of the hearts of the people who are working to establish a 'religion pure and undefiled' in their beloved country.'' The editor of KyoJio, the Japanese Baptist Weekly, in the issue of May 24th, speaking in behalf of the Baptist ministers and churches of the mainland, writes as follows : **Our Captain L. W. Bickel, who for many years as Captain of the Mission Ship, Fukiiin Mam, has been engaged in the arduous labour of Island evangelization, a man burning with evangelistic zeal to the marrow of the bones of his powerful frame, fell asleep on the 11th day of May. We wish to humbly express to his wife and family, to the Christian workers connected with the Fukuin Maru Church, to all the brothers and sisters in the membership of that church, and to all the friends of the deceased, our heartfelt sympathy and condolence. Our Baptist Church has lost a model Evangelist, the Christian Church as a whole has lost a modern Apostle. Japan has lost a Father whose love for her and her people was greater than that of those born on her own soil. But surely the peoples of the Kingdom of God receive him in his glorified being with songs of wel- come!" From among a number of tributes of apprecia- tion from representatives of various Christian or- ganizations in Japan that of Mr. Galen Fisher, American Secretary in Tokyo of the Japanese Y. M. C. A., may be quoted as reflecting the uni- AFTER-GLOW 289 versal sentiment of the missionary body. Mr. Fisher writes: ** Captain Bickel awakened in me strong admiration and confidence, although I had only three or four chances to meet him intimately. I honoured his fearless devo- tion to his own convictions, matched by his knightly courtesy toward those who differed with him ; his intense sense of the urgency of bringing the Gospel to men, balanced by a rare common sense and humour and tact. '^His Inland Sea work was far more than a pictur- esque novelty; it presented one of the finest examples in missionary annals of a strong leader so merging his personality with his native colleagues as to make common men rise clear beyond themselves, and display a loyalty and unity and passion for souls akin to his own. I join with many others in thanking God for his character and work.'* One of the most interesting memorial articles published in the Kyolio is from the pen of one of the present Shepherds of the Isles, Pastor Shibata, Bishop of the Open Sea Islands. He tells us how he came to be associated with the Captain, and what impression was made on his mind by ten years of fellowship with the Captain in Christian work : <(- 'Immediately on arriving at Arima I went to the Sugimoto Hotel, and there for the first time I met Cap- tain Bickel.'' (The Captain was attending the Annual Mission Conference, and had sent request by telegraph to Mr. Shibata to meet him there.) **He said little, but with his own big hand warmly clasping mine, and speak- ing in a wonderfully kind and humble manner, he in- vited me to take a part in the Island work. *Do please come, ' he urged, I felt truly unworthy such a reception. 290 CAPTAIN BICKEL ''I conceived at once a strong conviction that here was no ordinary missionary, and the desire awoke to become a companion in Christian work with a man so ardent, so loving and so noble. I at once formed my decision and began my labours as an evangelist among the Islands. Thenceforward, during ten years, he patiently bore with my inefficiency and the shallowness of my nature, bestowing on me his loving companionship. With him, missionary and helper were on the same foot- ing, and from the very first he made no difference be- tween me and those who had for a considerable time been associated with him. As a father with a son, or as an elder brother with a younger, he discussed every matter with me frankly, whether great or small. Truly it was of his wide heart, wide as the sea is wide, that he counted me worthy a share in his vast enterprise, over- lookmg my failings and making the most of what in me was good. While I owe this privilege of a share in that undertaking to the goodness of God, I feel that I owe it also to the Captain's profound love; and for this I lack words to express my gratitude. ''No one once caught on the hook of the Captain's loving kindness could escape. Such might has the love whose source is in God. At one's first meeting with him, indeed, he appeared of a somewhat fierce counte- nance. His manner, too, was abrupt ; he did not spend time on every-day conversation, but came at once to the business in hand. This was sometimes rather embarrass- ing, to be sure. But once he came to know and trust a man he never forsook him nor forgot him. *'He was unwilling to leave any duty half done, but pushed everything to a finish, regardless of difficulty. No matter how others might seek to dissuade, his ardent love cried, * Whatever is possible, let me do!' How many have been caught on this hook of love and saved, I know not. "All who had any acquaintance with Captain Bickel, AFTER-GLOW 291 and especially his associates in the work, were pro- foundly impressed by his strenuous activity. He was extremely careful, it is true, about matters of hygiene, especially of diet, and frequently counselled us also in such lines, urging us to allow ourselves plenty of food and sleep, when this was possible. This advice was not only prompted by kindness, but also, I believe, by the wish that we might be thoroughly prepared for the work ahead. When the time for action came he would labour day after day, without sign of fatigue, from morning till late at night. And however brief the time left for sleep v/hen he finally sought his berth, his mind con- tinued to keep the run of things on the ship, and he would next day remind the sailors that during a certain watch the ship's bell had been struck so many minutes late. Thanks to this attention to minute details he navigated the vessel twenty years without disaster. Even professional navigators were deeply impressed by his thoroughness. **In the evangelistic work, what with making prepara- tion for places of meeting, making outlines of the ad- dresses, selecting the lantern slides, and other such duties, he frequently denied himself even time to eat. We weaker ones, too, spurred on by such zeal, laboured each in his own district, and found constant success in our work. '*But even in his busiest times the Captain did not forget to pray. There might be no uttered words, but with silent prayer he went forward with his task. This one might call the prayer of activity." At this point Mr. Shibata, by way of an illustration of the Captain's arduous life, describes in detail the activities of two days and nights spent at the lid group, during the Cap- tain 's last visit to the Deep Sea Islands; and then con- cludes his article as follows: *'Ah, well, never again shall I witness that ardent enthusiasm to serve God and man with body and spirit, 292 CAPTAIN BICKEL by reason of which, even after days of strennons toil, and while he stood on the bridge directing the vessel's course, his heart was still filled with concern for the salvation of individual souls, or with plans for the de- velopment of the work of his mission." In the Kyoho of May 24th is a long article en- titled, " A Sorrowful Journey." The writer, who uses a nom de plume, is evidently a Christian man of education and culture, and a warm friend of Captain Bickel. His home is in Tokyo and in his narrative he takes us with him to Kobe, describes the funeral services held there, and brings us back with him to the Capital. The very prolixity of the article reveals the profound impression made on his mind by the Captain's death, and scattered through it are passages which illustrate the in- fluence which the Captain exerted, and continues to exert, over the hearts of many outside the Island communities. Speaking of the journey to Kobe he says: ** Through the car windows the lights gleamed on the falling rain, and we experienced that feeling of melan- choly which a spring night inspires. Presently my com- panion took from his valise Rokwa's *In the Shadow of Death,' and I from mine Tagore's *The Gardener.' "'The Wise Man warns us that I^ife is but a dew-drop on the lotus leaf/ " * None lives forever, Brother, and nothing lasts for long.' "'Life droops toward its sunset, to be drowned in the golden shadows.' ''These lines alone remained strangely echoing through my mind. At the same time the Captain's AFTEE-GLOW 293 image came floating before me, and my other self, which refused to accept the fact of his death, took possession of me. *That powerful frame,' I mused, * those pierc- ing but kindly blue eyes, that prominent nose, that firm mouth, have they returned to the clay, to be seen no more? Shall I hear never more his earnest words of counsel or reproof? Nay, 'tis false! The Captain is not dead!' **This sorrowful journey has meant much more to me than any pleasant trip could have meant. * Blessed are those that weep now I ' Some one says, * Heaven is high. The prudent man gazes upon the earth.' Moses has ascended to heaven. I lay down my pen with the earnest hope that Joshua may appear." Thine is the night. The grave May cast its shade Where the Dear Dead are laid. All unafraid We lean upon Thy Promise, Strong to Save I To hearts forlorn Thou gavest the Easter Morn. Death's murk shall stars afford. Thine is the Night, Lord. XXVI THE VICTORY OF LOVE THE tributes of affection and appreciation wliiclL were laid, with, the spring blossoms, upon the Captain's casket, and of which, a few of the most striking have been copied into the preceding chapter, together with the deep feeling shown at the time of the funeral and memorial serv- ices, both by the many hundreds assembled and by a host of others who could not be present in per- son, are in themselves sufficient evidence of the large place which he had won for himself in a great multitude of human hearts, and in gaining for him- self had gained also for his Message, and for his Lord, whose Spirit wrought within him. If one shall ask what is the secret of the Cap- tain's influence, it may be answered that several elements enter into it. We have had passing glimpses of these in the course of our story, but they will repay a more careful and extended con- sideration. Missionary Briggs, speaking from a long and close acquaintance with Captain Bickel and the Inland Sea Mission, said, a few years ago, after referring to the charm of the Little White Ship, the winsome personality of her Skipper, and the at- tractiveness of his Message : "I have seen the work intimately and thought 294 THE VICTOEY OF LOVE 295 much about it, and the human elements that seem to me to weigh most in the bringing of this success are, first, the Captain's deej) practical faith that he is called to the work by the Master and there- fore it cannot fail ; next, an enthusiasm in and for the work that keeps hmi everlastingly at it; next, his intense conviction that true service must cost : this underlies even the minor details of the work, nothing is too small to take jiains with. Another factor is the Captain's definite faith in the Bible. His teaching is not modified to Aveakness by mod- ern doubts, but with insistent force he jjresents the foundation truths of salvation in the simplest forms. This clear-cut faith, backed by a forceful personality, makes for a definiteness in aim and methods among all the workers, and a resulting enthusiasm and oneness." To this the present writer wishes to add some thoughts based on his own less intimate knowledge of the Island work. Captain Bickel was a man of marked natural ability. Tall and strong was he, able to take heavy burdens on his broad shoulders. Swift and sure was he in thought and movement, sound in judgment, tireless in effort, a man to bring things to pass. As a sailor he speedily rose to the highest positions in the mercantile marine. As a business man he excelled as organizer and administrator. As a missionary pioneer he had sagacity to lay his plans wide and long, and strength and courage to push them toward fulfillment. When problems of mission policy were to be solved none surpassed him in keenness of analysis and in practical wis- dom. In our Annual Conferences, or in the ses- 296 CAPTAIN BICKEL sions of our Keference Committee, his modestly and thoughtfully expressed opinions were of the utmost value. He was a master of the art of speech, and his occasional writings and addresses were eagerly welcomed for the raciness and aptness of his language, and the freshness and vigour of his thought. His style is quite inimitable: fresh, breezy, with a tang like that of a wind from the salt sea. Amid the rather prosy accounts of regular station work in our Japan Baptist Annual the Fukuin Maru reports are like streams spark- ling in a desert. The ^^ Log of the Fukuin Maru ^' has the hall-mark of real literature. The papers read by him before large missionary gatherings, at Karuizawa and in Tokyo, upon such topics as country evangelization and moral conditions in Eural Japan were acknowledged to be master- pieces. Whether as captain of an ocean liner, ad- ministrator of a big business, i)ioneer of a great movement, or in the field of literature, he was fitted to achieve success. He was a strong man, as men count strength, winning from all responsive souls that instant admiration and confidence which a man of real power naturally inspires. The word hero is a great word, and greatly overworked, but in our Captain we realized that we had a true hero, strong to labour and to suffer, facing dangers and enemies with a smiling courage, meeting insult and injustice with a serene patience, ready to grapple with difftcult situations, and to "carry on " in a forlorn hope. None of our gallant soldier lads enduring the hardships of a winter campaign in the trenches of Flanders, or facing death " some- where in France," can boast a finer heroism than THE VICTOEY OF LOVE 297 that our Captain showed when with a body weak- ened with disease and racked with pain, he set his teeth together and fought his way through the gales of winter and the hostilities of men toward the goal which God had set before him. Captain Bickel was a man of deep piety, and the fountains of his strength were in the Almighty. One could not be in his company without realizing that he was a man of God. Sane and practical, and with a saving sense of humour, there was noth- ing akin to ostentation in his religious life, no taint of asceticism or fanaticism, no morbid aloofness from the wholesome interests of life. But he walked with God, and to him God was an insepa- rable Friend and Helper. Not always able, amid his crowding duties, to observe times and places for secret prayer, he lifted his heart to God as he tramped the granite hills or stood on the bridge of his little vessel. His favourite oratory was the Fukuin Maru's quarter-deck, and there, under the stars or under the blue heaven, he held communion with Him who is invisible, and won new wisdom and strength for his arduous task. Captain Bickel was genuinely humble, as is the way with the spiritually strong. Humility is own sister to piety, and in the presence of God one learns not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. While aware of the importance of the task to which he had been called, and confident that he had been divinely guided in the methods he had adopted, he also appreciated fully the devotion and ability of his fellow-missionaries, and the value of their work to the Kingdom as a whole. He often hesitated to urge upon the Mission, or 298 CAPTAIlSr BICKEL the Home Board, the needs of his own field, lest the resources at the disposal of others should be depleted. In his daily life he could " condescend to men of low estate," meeting the most lowly as friends and brothers, but it never occurred to him that it was a " condescension." He lived close to Him who was meek and lowly in heart. He was a true noJ)lemsin, a real geutlcniixny knightly, courte- ous, chivalrous. Though a loyal American, he was still more a citizen of the world, with that cosmo- politan vision, that true Christian democratic spirit, which recognizes the value and dignity of human nature, regardless of race, colour or out- ward condition. The simple-minded Island vil- lagers found that there was no middle wall of partition between him and them, and that he could be as frankly intimate with the humblest farmer and fisherman as with those who sat in the seats of the mighty. Above all, Captain BickeFs work was done with a heart of love. His strength was not like that of the Super-man, who is strong for himself, but like that of the God-man, "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love/' who is strong for others. There was with his strength a wonderful gentleness and tenderness. He was conspicuous for his kindly spirit and thoughtfulness for others. The distressed, the despised, the weak, the poor, the widow and the orphan — of all such he made the cause his own. If one needed a helping hand, literally or figura- tively, his was instantly outstretched. Whether in his relations with his fellow-missionaries, or with THE VICTOEY OF LOVE 299 Ms Japanese associates, or witk tlie Islanders of his wide parish, he was invariably, spontaneously, sympathetic and helpful. He came to be " friend, philosopher and guide " to thousands of people who brought to him their troubles and perplexities. He was in Japan not to be ministered to but to minister. He went about doing good. His life radiated kindness as a lamp radiates light. Such kindness and sympathy was a new phe- nomenon to the Island Folk. It was a revelation to them of the spirit of Christianity, of the heart of Christ. He *' Whose smile was love by Galilee'' manifested Himself on the Island shores in the person of this apostle, in the warm tones of his voice, in the earnest kindness of his gaze, in a daily ministry to all who were in trouble. They had never known, nor imagined, love after this fashion. When Jesus was about to send Peter forth upon his ministry He made the examination for ordi- nation very brief. There was but one question, and it was three times put : " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? " The first requisite for a suc- cessful ministry is Love. The second requisite is Love. The third requisite is Love. Everything else is the hands or tools with which Love works. At the heart of the work of the Fukuin Maru has been a deep and constant love — love first of all for the loving Christ, and with that a love for lost and erring men for whom He died. So long as the world stands Love is Conqueror. Love, and only love, wins love, and where love is won all is won. The method of the Gospel, the strategy of the 300 CAPTAIN BICKEL Cross, is psychologically correct. The Fukuin Maru Mission has been, all things considered, amazingly successful, and the secret of that suc- cess has not been chiefly the charm of the white Gospel Ship; nor the sagacity, energy and enthu- siasm with which the work has been prosecuted; nor the commanding personality of the leader ; nor even the winsomeness of the Message put into the language of the lips, but the love which has been behind and within all. It is the love of Christ, glowing through the heart of the Captain, and showing in all the work of the vessel, that has won the love of the Islanders, and with that the Island- ers themselves. They have seen in the Captain, and in the Shepherds of the Isles who have caught his spirit, what love is in the Christian sense, and that is leading them on to a comprehension of the love of God. Captain Bickel has not lived in vain, nor has he died in vain. Such lives and such deaths as his are precious in the sight of the Lord. They who live the life of love, and through love lay down their lives, shall surely, like the Lord of Love Himself, who loved us and gave Himself for us, see of the travail of their souls and be satisfied. For aU the Day, O God, We give Thee praise, Blessing and laud always, Glad with Thy Gaze, How rough soe'er the roads our feet have trod. For night and peace Eve's hush and Death's release, And Endless Day restored. We give Thee praise, O Lord. THE YICTOEY OF LOVE 301 NOTE — It may be of interest to those who have followed the story of Captain Bickel and his White Ship to know how the work among the Islands has been cared for since his death, and what are the plans for the future. During the summer of 1917 a Japanese captain was em- ployed to navigate the vessel, and Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, of Himeji, were entrusted with the evangelistic side of the work. In the fall, however. Air. Briggs fell ill, and was obliged to lay down the work and return to America. He died soon after reaching San Francisco. St. Francis of Himeji, his missionary friends called him, and the Japanese speak of him as the Sage of Bantan, that is, of the two provinces of Harima and Tamba in which he laboured. Since the autumn of 1917 the evangelistic work among the Islands has been carried on in a somewhat broken way, mis- sionaries and Japanese preachers from the mainland giving a few weeks' help each to the Shepherds of the Isles. The Japanese Captain has been replaced by our Captain's son Philip, so that the Fukuin Maru has again her Captain Bickel. Recently Mr. and Mrs. Fred W. Steadman, of Morioka, Japan, who have had many years of experience in evangelistic missionary work in Korea and Japan, have been appointed to take charge of the evangelistic work of the vessel. They are to take up their new duties in the autumn of the present year. September, igi8. MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD MRS. H. G. UNDERWOOD Underwood of Korea A Record of the Life and Work of Horace G. Underwood, D.D. Illustrated, cloth, net $1.50. An intimate and captivating story of one who laborad nobly and faithfully in Korea for thirty-one years, pre- senting his character, consecration, faith, and indomit- able courage. /. C. R. EmNG, D.D. A Prince of the Church in India The Life of Rev. Kali Charan Chatter jee, D.D. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net 75c. Robert E, Speer says: "It is a noble picture of a rich and devoted life. No apologetic or argument could equal the appeal and evidence of such a life." CORA BANKS PIERCE and HAZEL NORTHROP Stories from Far Away Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. Missionary stories for little folks, simply yet engagingly told. The scenes are laid in Africa, India, China, Japan, and Persia. BRUCE KINNEY, D.D, Frontier Missionary Problems Their Character and Solution Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. A practical and informative survey of conditions of existence on the American frontiers. Dr. Kinney pre- sents a mass of salient facts relating to the Indian prob- lems, the Spanish in America, Mormonism and what he calls "our own kith and kin." LUCY SEAMAN BAINBRIDGE Hon. Supt. Woman's Branch, N. Y. City Mission Societv Helping the Helpless in Lower New York Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, net $1.00. Margaret Slattery says: "I feel that this book will di- rect the attention able to reach out to the fact that the helpless are with us now and need more than ever a gift from a friend." HARRIET NEWELL NOVES A Light in the Land of Sinim Illustrated, cloth, net $1.50. An authoritative account of the work of the True Light Seminary, Canton, China. A record forty-five years of Christian Service on the part of Miss Noyes and her associates in China. IN OTHER LANDS GAIUS GLENN ATKINS, D. D. Author or Pilgrims of - the Lonely Road,'''' €tc. Jerusalem Past and Present The City of Undying Memories. Illustrated, l2mo, cloth, net $i.oo. Dr. Atkins' book is not a mere archaeological study or dry compilation of historical data. Rather is it a study of the story of the Holy City, treated in a thoughtful, in- spirational fashion, in which the chief landmarks in her history are touched upon and their spiritual significance duly emphasized. CHARLES KENDALL HARRINGTON, P.P. Captain Bickel of * The Fukin Maru ' Illustrated, cloth, net $1.50. The record of a work unique in modern missionary work. Captain Bickel on his gospel ship of the Inland Sea became the best loved man in his five-hundred mile stretch on land. REF. and MRS. ORRAMEL HINCKLEY GULICK The Pilgrims of Hawaii Their own Story of Their Pilgrimage and Life Work. Illustrations, $1.50. Dr. James L. Barton says: "The story of the trans- formation of these people from paganism to Christianity surpasses in interest every romance, ancient and modern. It is a record of marvellous events in human and divine history." MAUD N. WILLIAMS "The Least of These'*— in Colombia Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. A vivid account of colorful experiences in South America. A portrayal of the life and conditions of the major portion of the population as gathered from experi- ences with the servants of the house. While far from being a record of hairbreath escapes or tragical occur- rences, the book contains an element of adventure, which constitutes a most readable narrative. ELIZABETH PUTMAN GORDON Alice Gordon Gulick: ^IritspL Illustrated, net $1.50. The subject of these memoirs was an American woman who did brilliant and useful v/ork as a Christian educator in Spain. The story of this devoted, bright gifted won> an is clearly and interestingly told by her sister. DATE DUE ^^tt*-'>tfr-fc--''^ CAYLORO PRINTED IN U.S.A.