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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 iB V 545 7 
 
 C^Hp..— Oxip^rig^i Jfta 
 
 Shelt;C4-1^ 4 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
Japanese Student. 
 
THE STORY 
 
 A HEATHEN 
 
 AND HIS 
 
 TRANSFORMATION 
 
 BY 
 
 H. L. RE. 
 
 ; 4. 1890 V 
 
 5 4 
 
 WYZtf ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO 
 Congregational ^tinbag-^c^ool anb Jublis^ittg JSotietg 
 

 Copyright, 1890, 
 Bv Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. 
 
To the Boys of this Generation 
 
 WHO ARE WILLING 
 
 TO STRIVE FOR THE HIGHEST, 
 
 THIS BOOK, 
 
 AS BOTH AN INSPIRATION AND A HELP, 
 
 Is Betucatetu 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 The history herein given is true. The sources of 
 the writer's information are wholly authentic. The 
 young man is living and working ; and if his life 
 thus far is both an augury and a pledge of what 
 it is to be in the future, results beneficent and vast 
 wait upon his oncoming years. 
 
 For obvious reasons names of places have been 
 omitted and that of the hero of the history changed. 
 
 Much that would add interest to the narrative 
 can not be told, while all that is told is wholly 
 within the actual facts. 
 
 H. L. R. 
 
®l men tfjere are enough 
 <&{ man tfjere is not. 
 Wake men to be mtn t 
 &no a man gou bill be* 
 <Ect like a man, 
 &no a man gou 'mill become* 
 
 — Stanza of Japanese poetry. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Heathen's Country. — Where it is and 
 
 what it is n 
 
 II. The Heathen's Country. {Continued.) — A 
 
 glance at its history 17 
 
 III. The Heathen's Country. {Continued.) — Its 
 
 recent astounding progress 22 
 
 IV. The Heathen Himself. — Ancestry, birth, 
 
 village and school life 32 
 
 V. How the Heathen went on. — Preparatory 
 
 school and college life 38 
 
 VI. The Heathen at the Capital. — Steps up- 
 ward. Life in Tokyo , . 45 
 
 VII. The Heathen's Transformation. — A 
 
 thoughtful decision, and what came of it . . 55 
 
 VIII. The Transformed Heathen's Crucial Test. 
 
 — Life at a naval station. A beginning ... 61 
 
 IX. Succeeding Events in our Hero's History 72 
 
 X. The Conclusion.— Why the story has been told 80 
 
THE STORY OF A HEATHEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HEATHEN'S COUNTRY. 
 WHERE IT IS AND WHAT IT IS. 
 
 /^FF the south-western coast of Asia, 
 400 miles from China, 270 from 
 Kamtchatka, and about 5,000 miles from 
 California, lies the Empire of Japan. 
 
 It is made up of islands, of which 
 there are nearly, if not quite, one 
 thousand. 
 
 The largest of these islands are 
 Hondo, Kiushiu, Shikoku, and Yesso. 
 
 On the main islands a solid mass of 
 mountainous elevations runs continu- 
 ously throughout their entire length, 
 
1 2 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 and on the smaller islands, in general, 
 the ground rises irregularly from the 
 border to central and lofty ranges. 
 
 In geologic ages volcanic action must 
 have been violent and continuous, hun- 
 dreds of mountains now in repose hav- 
 ing once been furnaces of living fire. 
 In recent times exhibitions of volcanic 
 fury have been of frequent and astound- 
 ing occurrence, in whicj^ vast industries 
 have been overwhelmed and thousands 
 of human lives destroyed. 
 
 Besides volcanic disturbances, earth- 
 quake shocks are common ; and in the 
 history of the country frequent mention 
 is made of the disappearance of moun- 
 tains, and of villages and cities either 
 shaken to destruction or suddenly en- 
 gulfed. 
 
 Cyclones are born and bred in some 
 of its latitudes, and during three months 
 
The Heathen s Country. 13 
 
 of the year that invisible and dreaded 
 agent of ruin, the typhoon, may be 
 expected. 
 
 Turning from the dark to the light 
 side : the seasons come and go with 
 almost perfect regularity ; the climate is 
 the temperate zone in perfection ; ice 
 rarely forms over an inch in thickness, 
 and snow, except in the mountainous 
 regions, is scarcely ever seen over 
 twenty-four hours old. 
 
 The winds from the ocean temper 
 both the heat of summer and the cold 
 of winter, and make most of the country 
 healthful and inviting as a place of resi- 
 dence for all the year. The sky is that 
 of Italy, and many times the air has a 
 softness and a balm unknown elsewhere. 
 
 Nearly all the useful metals are found 
 in this island empire : gold, silver, cop- 
 per, iron, tin, and lead. Petroleum 
 
14 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 issues from the ground in many places, 
 and in some the Japanese peasant cooks 
 his food with lighted natural gas escap- 
 ing from the end of a bamboo tube. 
 The soil is fertile. Rice fields have 
 yielded abundantly for centuries by the 
 ordinary use of common fertilizing ma- 
 terial and irrigation, and vegetables pe- 
 culiar to semi-tropical latitudes grow in 
 wondrous profusion. 
 
 The islands are famous for fine forests. 
 Thirty-six varieties of timber trees are 
 known to exist, meeting every demand 
 of barbarous or civilized life. 
 
 Flowers abound everywhere, and ever- 
 green plants and shrubs give to the 
 country the seeming of perpetual sum- 
 mer. 
 
 Of sea-birds there is no end. The 
 stork and heron, now, as in earlier 
 times, tread the fields in unique beauty, 
 
The Heathens Country, 1 5 
 
 or awaken admiration as they grace- 
 fully sail in the upper air; and wild 
 ducks and geese from time immemorial 
 have summered in the north and win- 
 tered in the south of the M Sunrise 
 Empire." 
 
 Nowhere in the world are edible fish 
 found in such numbers and variety as in 
 Japan ; the countless bays and gulfs are 
 full of them. In the north the salmon 
 supply is inexhaustible, and in the fresh- 
 water streams all over the islands this 
 staple article of food waits alike at the 
 door of the rich and the poor, the prince 
 and the peasant. 
 
 With a healthy climate, a fertile soil, 
 vast mineral wealth, sea-food that grows 
 more abundant, instead of less, as the 
 centuries come and go ; with scenery 
 rendered indescribably charming by 
 mountain and valley, rock and river ; 
 
1 6 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 with irregular and almost endless bor- 
 der-lines that Old Ocean without cessa- 
 tion either laves or lashes, there is 
 hardly a country that is more inviting 
 as a residence, or better adapted to the 
 substantial growth of all that pertains 
 to the good and glory of progressive, 
 civilized life. 
 
Japanese Court Dress. 
 
 (From life.) 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE HEATHEN'S COUNTRY. CONTINUED. 
 
 A GLANCE AT ITS HISTORY. 
 
 / T^HE origin of the Japanese, like that 
 of all other Oriental peoples, is 
 lost in the obscurity of remote and prob- 
 lematical tradition. 
 
 Not long ago a distinguished writer 
 published several volumes in which he 
 undertook to prove that the Japanese 
 were the ten lost tribes of Israel ; but 
 his success was by no means complete, 
 and whether or not they are the remote 
 descendants of Abraham is as yet a 
 matter of dubious conjecture. 
 
 Passing out of the realm of tradition 
 into that of authentic record, the first 
 
1 8 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 emperor lived and reigned about 667 
 B.C., in the years between Lycurgus and 
 Solon of Grecian history, six hundred 
 years before England and Germany and 
 one thousand years before France. 
 
 This line of rulers has continued to 
 the present time, the present reigning 
 emperor being the one hundred and 
 twenty-fourth in direct and unbroken 
 succession. 
 
 Passing over two thousand years, 
 whose history is found in reasonable 
 completeness in Japanese books, it may 
 be said that Japan was wholly unknown 
 to Europe, until Marco Polo published 
 his book of travels, early in the four- 
 teenth century. 
 
 In 1542 three Portuguese sailors, 
 having deserted from their own ship 
 and taken possession of a Chinese 
 junk, were wrecked upon one of the 
 
The Heathen s Country. 1 9 
 
 islands of Japan. These were the first 
 Europeans that are known to have taken 
 up their residence in that empire. 
 
 Three years later a Portuguese ad- 
 venturer, sailing in a Chinese pirate- 
 vessel, was driven by adverse winds into 
 a small Japanese harbor. He was cor- 
 dially received, and soon carried back 
 to the Portuguese settlements in China 
 such a report of the riches of Japan 
 that great numbers of traders immedi- 
 ately flocked thither. 
 
 Missionaries of the Roman Catholic 
 faith soon followed the merchants, and 
 in 1549 the celebrated " Apostle to the 
 Indies," St. Francis Xavier, landed. 
 They were welcomed to the hearts of 
 the people, and the conquest of the 
 country for Christianity seemed but the 
 work of a few years. 
 
 Soon, however, the Japanese became 
 
20 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 distrustful of the Portuguese, whom suc- 
 cess in business and in missionary oper- 
 ations had made disdainfully indifferent 
 to the rights and feelings of the natives. 
 In 1587 the missionaries were ban- 
 ished by a royal edict, and during the 
 next forty years, multitudes of native 
 Christians, who had entered into a con- 
 spiracy with the Portuguese and Span- 
 iards to overthrow the imperial throne, 
 and at length, instigated by these for- 
 eigners, had risen in open rebellion, 
 were massacred, and the country closed 
 to every outside person and influence, 
 except a single port where the Dutch, 
 under most rigid restrictions, were per- 
 mitted to continue a circumscribed and 
 limited trade with the empire, and for 
 two hundred years Japan was practically 
 unknown to the outside world — asleep 
 during the waking centuries. 
 
The Heathen s Country. 2 1 
 
 In February, 1854, Commodore Perry, 
 with a squadron of seven ships of war, 
 entered the harbor of Yeddo ; and in 
 March of the same year, after protracted 
 and difficult negotiations, Japan opened 
 her doors a little and with great reluc- 
 tance to this Western nation. 
 
 Three years later Hon. Townsend 
 Harris, United States Consul - General 
 for Japan, negotiated a new treaty, and 
 this hermit empire became accessible to 
 the civilizing influences of diplomatic, 
 commercial, and Christian intercourse 
 with the American people and the other 
 nations of the world. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HEATHEN'S COUNTRY. CONTINUED. 
 
 ITS RECENT ASTOUNDING PROGRESS. 
 
 "N TEVER in human history has there 
 been change so rapid as has taken 
 place in Japan during the last twenty 
 years. 
 
 Up to 1868 the doctrine of the divine 
 descent of the Mikado, held for more 
 than twenty-five hundred years, was 
 everywhere accepted. His right to the 
 worship of his subjects as God was uni- 
 versally recognized, and the idolatrous 
 practice was equally widely observed. 
 He was the " Son of Heaven," the 
 "Center of the Universe," "Lord over 
 all." 
 
The Heathen s Country. 2 3 
 
 Sacred in his person, his feet were 
 never permitted to touch the ground. 
 His subjects, with the exception of the 
 most meager few, never saw him. He 
 dwelt in magnificent, unapproachable, 
 deified seclusion. 
 
 Under him was a man — the Tycoon 
 — properly, Shogun, meaning " next in 
 supreme command," in whom, either 
 through assumption or otherwise, all 
 temporal power was vested. 
 
 Under the Shogun were scores of 
 feudal lords — rulers over provinces 
 which they had either stolen or con- 
 quered, and from whom his advisers 
 came, and of whom his court was com- 
 posed. 
 
 Under these were the Samurai, the 
 11 two-sworded " men, who had won ter- 
 ritory and renown for their lords, and 
 who were not only the soldiers of the 
 
24 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 empire, but its most public-spirited and 
 best educated class. 
 
 Below these were the unrecognized 
 millions without power, without influ- 
 ence, and without the possibility of 
 change for the better. 
 
 In 1868, in a revolution, for which all 
 the years of this century had been pre- 
 paring, but which the opening of the 
 country to foreigners precipitated, the 
 Shogunate was abolished ; feudalism 
 died; the " two-sworded " men changed 
 masters, and from the shoulders of the 
 millions of common people whom caste 
 had crushed the burden was lifted. 
 
 The Mikado became human. 
 
 He left his spiritual capital, Kyoto, 
 and took up his residence in his tem- 
 poral capital, Tokyo. 
 
 He began to be seen of men ; to walk 
 with them, talk with them, and in 1869, 
 
The Heathen s Country, 25 
 
 in presence of the grandees of the em- 
 pire, solemnly swore: "That a delibera- 
 tive assembly should be formed ; that all 
 measures should be decided by public 
 opinion ; that the uncivilized customs of 
 former times should be abolished ; that 
 impartiality should be the basis of all 
 governmental action ; and that the in- 
 tellect and learning of the world should 
 be sought in laying the foundations 
 of the empire ! " From that time to 
 this he has been the leader of a nation 
 whose progress has no parallel in hu- 
 man history. 
 
 In material matters barbarism is 
 everywhere giving way to civilization. 
 
 On the sea is a navy with all modern 
 appliances and inventions, as formidable 
 as it is complete. 
 
 On the shore are light-houses, and 
 dock-yards, and ship-building stations. 
 
26 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 On the land is an army, modeled after 
 the French and German military systems, 
 railroads, telegraphs, telephones, post- 
 routes, post-offices, etc. 
 
 In the cities are street railways, a fire 
 department, police, national banks, sav- 
 ings banks, mints, newspapers, book- 
 publishing houses ; and here and there 
 all over the country, as time has made 
 it possible and the demands of business 
 required, there are paper-mills, cotton - 
 mills, woolen-mills, foundries, etc. 
 
 In the department of education there 
 is the Imperial University at Tokyo, 
 more than forty colleges, and a common 
 school system, organized on the plan of 
 that in the United States, and where 
 the English language is now universally 
 taught, that is rapidly extending all over 
 the empire. 
 
 In social reforms — the abolition of 
 
The Heathens Country. 2 7 
 
 public and peculiar customs, improve- 
 ments in dress, change in the modes of 
 living, better dwellings and food, and 
 especially in the emancipation of woman 
 — progress is nowhere larger or more 
 beneficent. 
 
 A woman's college, specially for the 
 education of the women of the higher 
 classes, is already in existence, and girls' 
 schools of a high order are rapidly in- 
 creasing. 
 
 The moral progress that Japan has 
 made is most marvelous of all. 
 
 Owing largely to the troubles that 
 arose in the sixteenth century, in which 
 the Roman Catholic missionaries, and 
 afterwards their native converts, had 
 part, there was wide and strenuous 
 opposition to the introduction of any 
 foreign religion ; and for a considerable 
 time, by reason of this prejudice and 
 
28 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 fear, it was almost impossible to circulate 
 Christian literature or preach the gospel 
 in the quietest way. 
 
 To add to the perplexity of the situa- 
 tion, as soon as the doors of the empire 
 were opened, infidelity and materialism 
 came in like a flood. German profess- 
 ors and teachers openly taught both in 
 government schools, and the educated 
 young men of the empire became rap- 
 idly acquainted with the works of Hux- 
 ley, Tyndal, Darwin, Spencer, and Mill 
 — men, who, however great as thinkers 
 and speculatists, were not fitted to lead 
 a heathen nation from its idol darkness 
 into Christian light. 
 
 Infidel and materialistic books of all 
 kinds were introduced and translated ; 
 so that before any part of the New Tes- 
 tament was ready for circulation, and 
 allowed to be circulated in the Japanese 
 
The Heathen s Country. 29 
 
 tongue, the land was filled with specu- 
 lative beliefs, which Christianity found 
 harder to battle against than the original 
 faiths of the heathens themselves. 
 
 In 1859, the year the first three ports 
 were opened, missionaries sent by four 
 different societies entered Japan ; but so 
 great was the opposition and prejudice 
 that after five years only one Japanese 
 had been baptized, and after twelve 
 years only ten had openly professed 
 Christianity. 
 
 But the crowning marvel is this: that 
 during the last seven years, chiefly dur- 
 ing the last three, the change in public 
 sentiment with reference to Christianity 
 has been well-nigh complete. 
 
 At first Japan took Western science 
 and the arts with infidelity. Now, not 
 only government officials, the thinkers 
 throughout the realm, the public press, 
 
30 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 but multitudes of the common people 
 have discovered that it is impossible to 
 have the fruit of the best civilization 
 without having the tree upon which it 
 grows. The reaction is immense, and 
 the cities by the sea and the hamlets in 
 the mountain valleys are sending their 
 voices over the ocean, asking for men 
 and women to teach Christianity. All 
 government impediments to the intro- 
 duction of the Christian religion have 
 been removed, and Sunday has been 
 set apart — established as a day of rest. 
 
 With reference to the data of Chris- 
 tian progress it may be said : — 
 
 That on the first of January, 1889, 
 there were eleven theological semina- 
 ries, more than two hundred churches, 
 between three and four hundred Sunday- 
 schools ; in round numbers, twenty-five 
 thousand Christians, with constant and 
 
The Heathen s Country. 3 1 
 
 rapid increase since ; and, most wonder- 
 ful of all, the reasonable probability that 
 when the clock of time strikes nineteen 
 hundred, Christianity will be as much 
 an established religion in Japan as it is 
 in the United States of America. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HEATHEN HIMSELF. 
 ANCESTRY, BIRTH, VILLAGE AND SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 /^N the third largest island of the 
 
 Japanese Empire, Kiushiu, lying 
 
 in its south-western corner, in the state 
 
 of Kumamoto, in the county of , 
 
 in the town of , on the fifth day of 
 
 March, 1862, eight years after Commo- 
 dore Perry concluded his initial nego- 
 tiation, and five years after Townsend 
 Harris had made the treaty which put 
 38,000,000 of people within reach of 
 a better civilization, and added a new 
 member to the great family of progress- 
 ive nations, our heathen, whom we will 
 call Corecadsu, was born. 
 
 32 
 
Rain Coat, Made from Rice Straw. 
 
 (From life.) 
 
The Heathen Himself, 33 
 
 His family was among the oldest, — 
 a matter of great significance in Japa- 
 nese society, — of great respectability, 
 and obtained a livelihood in a manner 
 common to those of its station and 
 rank. 
 
 Up to six years of age Corecadsu 
 lived the ordinary life of children in all 
 tropical, Oriental lands. He wore, for 
 much of the year, scant clothing or 
 none. He reveled in all manner of 
 childhood sports, and, having the pre- 
 cocity common to many children among 
 the Japanese, he was older at five than 
 the average American boy is at seven. 
 At six he began to attend the village 
 school. Following immemorial custom, 
 the morning session began at six o'clock, 
 which at some seasons of the year was 
 considerably before the break of day. 
 
 The school-house was more than an 
 
34 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 English mile from the family residence, 
 and as his guide and protector in the 
 dark mornings, his grandmother, well 
 on in years, used to lead him through 
 the silent streets to the appointed place. 
 
 This person was a woman of great 
 good sense, with a clear perception of 
 what is absolutely needed, whether in 
 Christian or heathen lands, in a boy in 
 order that he may reach his highest ; 
 and so, properly desirous that her grand- 
 son should become both eminent and 
 useful in some sphere, she took frequent 
 occasion, during these morning walks 
 and at other times, to present to her 
 sensitive and intent charge, then stand- 
 ing on the threshold of life, the possi- 
 bilities that lay before him if from the 
 beginning he did his very best each day. 
 
 And the words, weighty and wise, of 
 the heathen woman were not lost. 
 
The Heathen Himself. 35 
 
 Reaching the school-room, from six 
 o'clock to eight, following another 
 strange custom, the boys shouted their 
 lessons with the fullest strength of their 
 lungs and at the top of their voices, 
 making what would be complete bedlam 
 to unaccustomed ears. 
 
 At eight o'clock they went home for 
 breakfast. At ten o'clock they assem- 
 bled again. At twelve o'clock came an 
 hour's recess for lunch. At four o'clock 
 the study of the day was over ; and 
 away they went to their homes, slates 
 and copy-books in their hands, ink- 
 bottles slung to their girdles, hands and 
 faces smeared with the black fluid, and 
 all making a strange clatter with their 
 clogs as they dashed down the stony 
 streets. 
 
 In this public school Corecadsu con- 
 tinued for five years, from six to eleven. 
 
36 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 He then entered what is called a " mid- 
 dle school," where Japanese and Chinese 
 literature were taught, and where a good 
 foundation was laid, upon which to build 
 in subsequent time. 
 
 At fourteen years of age he graduated 
 from this school, taking rank as a scholar 
 among the highest. 
 
 Reaching this period of his life, with 
 nothing about him that would specially 
 distinguish him from a million other 
 boys in the Mikado's dominion, the 
 question came up in his family for dis- 
 cussion and decision, as it has and will 
 in many another in America as well as 
 Japan, whether Corecadsu should con- 
 tinue to study, or enter upon some com- 
 mon employment, wherein to provide 
 for himself and help in the support of 
 the family. 
 
 The profits of his fathers business, 
 
The Heathen Himself. 37 
 
 increased by such little as at the best 
 the industry of the mother could add, 
 hardly more than sufficed to furnish 
 food and shelter and clothing for the 
 household, and hence it seemed an 
 impossibility to provide the money 
 needed to send him to a preparatory 
 school and afterwards to college. 
 
 But the desire of the boy to continue 
 his studies, and his willingness to make 
 his expenditures as small as possible, 
 finally led to the decision that he 
 should go on with his well-begun edu- 
 cation with such help as from their 
 narrow means the family were able to 
 give. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW THE HEATHEN WENT ON. 
 PREPARATORY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE. 
 
 TN every life there is a turning-point. 
 It generally comes when one is 
 young ; it may come later on. 
 
 Some one has said that in ninety 
 cases out of a hundred we settle our 
 destiny in the first fifth of our three- 
 score and ten years. 
 
 This turning-point came to Corecadsu 
 when, the matter having been settled 
 that his family would pay, so far as they 
 could, the necessary expenses of his col- 
 lege course, there was put upon him the 
 responsibility of the use or misuse of 
 the opportunity which the self-sacrifice 
 
 38 
 
How the Heathen went on. 39 
 
 of those who loved him enabled him to 
 have ; all of which he clearly saw and 
 deliberately assumed. 
 
 From ancient times the Japanese peo- 
 ple have been divided into what may be 
 called hereditary classes, each person, as 
 a rule, remaining through life in the 
 class into which he was born. 
 
 The only possibility of exaltation — 
 going from a lower to a higher class — 
 was through the possession of a worthy 
 character, wide knowledge, and large 
 ability. 
 
 The family of Corecadsu belonged to 
 a class, not an unusual thing anywhere, 
 from which it was possible to go up ; 
 and so, with a purpose the worthiest, the 
 boy resolved that he would rise higher 
 — attain a rank in which he could be- 
 come an official in the government, then 
 one of the supreme ends of Japanese 
 ambition. 
 
4° The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 The obstacles between his present 
 condition and the one upon which his 
 heart became slowly but surely set were 
 all but insurmountable ; but he deter- 
 mined that, at whatever cost, they 
 should be overcome. 
 
 Three things Corecadsu settled upon 
 as means to reach the end he sought, 
 and they, using his own words in telling 
 the story brokenly in the English tongue, 
 are these : — 
 
 " If I will be stand high in my coun- 
 try, / must have character, and so I pro- 
 hibit myself from everything that is not 
 good for me. If I will be fitted to be 
 officer under my government, then / 
 must have knowledge ; and so I make 
 myself to be industry — to study all that 
 I can and not lose my good health. If 
 I am to have good position in my soci- 
 ety, / must have money ; and so I not 
 
How the Heathen went on. \ I 
 
 spend it foolish when I have so little, 
 that when I myself earn and have my 
 more, I do just same." 
 
 These are what the heathen boy of 
 fourteen started with. We shall see 
 what they did for him. 
 
 As to character : — 
 
 Drinking wine and smoking were 
 almost universal among the youth of 
 his class and years in his native village ; 
 but, putting his purpose into practice, 
 he forswore at once wholly and forever 
 both habits ; and in the wider range 
 that includes all that goes to make up 
 a true boy, and thus prepares for a true 
 man, he sought to be perfect, bringing 
 himself, as he states it, to the bar of his 
 own judgment for approval or condem- 
 nation every night. 
 
 With reference to study : — 
 
 The course at the preparatory school 
 
4 2 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 and in college was hard ; the prescribed 
 hours were many ; the necessity for 
 intense application, if the highest was 
 to be reached, was imperative ; but 
 with steady perseverance, concentrated 
 thought, indomitable will, he satisfied 
 each hour's demand, and closed each 
 day in triumph. 
 
 Of the one hundred and nineteen 
 who entered the course with him, only 
 thirty-seven graduated at the end of the 
 six years, of whom he was first in 
 deportment and third in scholarship. 
 
 In the matter of money : — 
 
 The allowance for board, books, and 
 tuition, which, from their meager means 
 the family were able to make, was six 
 yen a month, about $4.80 in United 
 States currency. 
 
 His food was plain ; his bed just 
 answered his need ; his incidental ex- 
 
How the Heathen zvent on. 43 
 
 penses were reduced to the minimum ; 
 and so it was possible, with the cheap 
 living in Japan at that time, to obtain 
 for this small sum the necessaries that 
 pertained to his college life. 
 
 As a specimen of his economy, it may 
 be stated that the fascinating jinriki- 
 sha, a large baby-carriage drawn by a 
 stalwart man and sometimes by two, and 
 moving from four to six miles an hour, 
 was being introduced ; but, during all 
 the years of his college life, instead of 
 riding to and from the school at the 
 beginning and end of terms and at 
 other times, he always walked, thus 
 saving the few sen that payment for 
 transportation would require, for needs 
 absolutely imperative. 
 
 In choosing his college course, as 
 offering the most that his country could 
 in the direction in which his thoughts 
 
44 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 were steadily turned, he had chosen the 
 study of medicine, and at the end of the 
 six years he received the degree of 
 sotsugio-sei, which signifies, in English, 
 doctor of medicine — m.d. 
 
 In the same year he also passed the 
 state or civil examination for license to 
 practice medicine anywhere in the em- 
 pire. This examination was so severe 
 that less than twenty per cent, of those 
 presenting themselves passed, and were 
 admitted to that class and rank to which 
 a certificate from the Royal Examining 
 Board was the passport. 
 
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CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HEATHEN AT THE CAPITAL. 
 STEPS UPWARD. — LIFE IN TOKYO. 
 
 FOLLOWING the bent of his mind, 
 and with the one intent to prepare 
 himself for any place of usefulness and 
 responsibility that might open to him, 
 Corecadsu resolved, when his college 
 days were over, to leave his native vil- 
 lage and seek further professional and 
 intellectual enlargement in the capital of 
 the empire. 
 
 Living up to his conception of what 
 was absolutely needful for ultimate and 
 the largest success — character, knowl- 
 edge, industry, economy — he had led 
 (with his apprehension of right) a 
 
 45 
 
46 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 stainless, studious, prudent life, until 
 the habit of right-doing, the habit of 
 industrious application, the habit of fru- 
 gality, had each become fixed. 
 
 Tokyo was seven hundred miles dis- 
 tant from his native village and island, 
 and by such conveyance as the country 
 afforded he reached in due time the 
 new seat of the government of the now 
 awakening empire. 
 
 All that his family could possibly give 
 him toward his support in his new situa- 
 tion was ten yen a month, about eight 
 dollars of American money. 
 
 With this, as at college, he had to pay 
 for food, lodging, books, tuition, and 
 such incidental expenses as absolutely 
 pertained to his new situation. 
 
 It need hardly be added that a bowl 
 of rice with vegetables and occasionally 
 fish was not as costly a diet as canned 
 
The Heathen at the Capital. 47 
 
 staples and delicacies, brought into his 
 country from other and distant climes, 
 would have been. 
 
 Entering the department of surgery 
 in Tokyo University, he studied with 
 a diligence that knew no abatement for 
 two years. He had acquired a good use 
 of the German tongue while in college, 
 and so he was prepared to get the most 
 out of his German text-books, and 
 secure the greatest benefit from the in- 
 struction of the German professors. 
 
 At the end of this time he graduated 
 with honor, and at twenty-two, eight 
 years after entering the preparatory 
 school, with an equipment that had 
 been slowly, steadily, surely, and yet 
 grandly acquired (as it always is if one 
 ever has it), he was ready for the prac- 
 tical service and duties of active life. 
 
 The first opening, and one wholly in 
 
48 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 harmony with his aspirations, was as- 
 sistant surgeon in the Imperial Japa- 
 nese Navy, and afterwards, something 
 higher, as there always is, if one begins 
 at the lowest level ; and so with eighty- 
 one others he made application for the 
 position. 
 
 These eighty-one young men were 
 from different provinces in the empire. 
 Most of them belonged to the higher 
 classes. Many of them were connected 
 by acquaintance or blood with those 
 already in the imperial service ; but true 
 to her new, if not old, custom, and true 
 in its widest sense the world over, all 
 had the same chance : the best to be 
 the winners. 
 
 The government examination, which 
 ended in the rejection of the candidate, 
 or his recommendation for office to the 
 Naval Department, was all-comprehen- 
 sive and terribly severe. 
 
The Heathen at the Capital. 49 
 
 The first examination was wholly 
 physical. Each young man was meas- 
 ured in every part of his body, and if 
 there was the slightest malformation or 
 physical defect, the examination pro- 
 ceeded no further. 
 
 If the perfect natural physical stand- 
 ard was reached, next came what per- 
 tained to the use that the young man 
 had made in the way of healthful devel- 
 opment of his animal powers. 
 
 Erect standing, walking, running, 
 jumping, striking with the fist or 
 hand, power of muscle in lifting, throw- 
 ing, and sustaining heavy weights, clear- 
 ness and intensity of vision, lung power, 
 etc., by protracted or most violent pro- 
 cesses revealing any weakness that lack 
 of development or bad habits of any phy- 
 sical sort had fixed. 
 
 Of the eighty-one who entered upon 
 
50 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 this examination twenty-seven failed 
 and fifty-four passed to the second, that 
 of the theory and practice of medicine, 
 surgery, etc. 
 
 The third examination was as severe 
 as it was unique. 
 
 The candidate was taken into an 
 apartment in the government buildings 
 with a grim officer, elderly and learned, 
 and a young man whose employment 
 answers to that of our stenographer ; 
 and for hours questions relating to 
 widely different subjects suited to show 
 the readiness of mind and the natural 
 and acquired ability of the applicant, 
 were rapidly put. 
 
 First, the young man was commanded 
 to tell the history of his life — all about 
 it, either good or bad, favorable or un- 
 favorable. Then came the questioning ; 
 for instance : — 
 
The Heathen at the Capital. 5 l 
 11 What is your opinion upon 
 
 features of the present government 
 policy?" 
 
 "Was the recent course of 
 
 government official justified by either 
 reason or expediency ? " 
 
 " What is your estimate of the char- 
 acter of (noted person in Japanese 
 
 history)?" 
 
 " From present indications, and from 
 the characteristics of her people, what is 
 Japan likely to become financially, com- 
 mercially, religiously, during the next 
 half-century ? " 
 
 " What would you do in cir- 
 cumstances if called to immediate and 
 definite action ? " 
 
 "What should be the highest ambi- 
 tion of every young man ? " 
 
 " How can success in any department 
 of work be most certainly reached?" 
 
5 2 The Story cf a Heathen. 
 
 This was continued until the wideness 
 and positiveness of the candidate's gen- 
 eral knowledge, his readiness of thought 
 and expression, and his powers of mind 
 in reasoning and analysis, found in the 
 answers to these questions, all taken 
 down by the ready writer, were on 
 record, and therefore available for sub- 
 sequent examination and comparison. 
 
 Of the fifty-four .who entered upon 
 these two last examinations, only seven 
 were approbated and commended for 
 the desired positions, of whom Core- 
 cadsu stood first, and in October, 1884, 
 he received his appointment as assistant 
 surgeon in the Japanese Imperial Navy, 
 and entered upon the duties of his office 
 at the principal naval station of the 
 empire. 
 
 It should be said here, and in truth 
 must be said, that besides his perpetual 
 
The Heathen at the Capital. 53 
 
 striving- after the highest character, the 
 widest knowledge, the best habits of 
 industry and economy, he was all the 
 time wholly in harmony with all that 
 was healthful in sports and pure in 
 pleasure. 
 
 He could row with the best ; he 
 could play athletic games well ; his 
 feats of walking were remarkable. His 
 were noble purposes, working them- 
 selves out through a healthy mind by 
 the help of a healthy body, all its 
 powers healthfully developed and care- 
 fully conserved. A like development 
 and conservation of one's powers are 
 possible in the case of any one in college, 
 on a farm, learning a trade, anywhere. 
 
 One of the positive requirements of 
 his father from the first was an exact 
 statement at the end of every month, 
 date following date, item following item, 
 
54 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 of every sen that he had expended, and 
 for what it had been paid. From his 
 fourteenth year to his twenty-second such 
 a statement was rendered in exact con- 
 formity to his fathers command, so that 
 at the end of his university course he 
 knew the exact amount that his educa- 
 tion had cost, and how, and why, and 
 where, every mill (English) had gone. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HEATHEN'S TRANSFORMATION. 
 A THOUGHTFUL DECISION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 
 
 T)ORN in a heathen land, the child of 
 heathen parents, Corecadsu was 
 early and faithfully taught the idolatrous 
 observances of his family and his nation. 
 Up to his fourteenth year nothing had 
 interrupted his stated worship of the 
 sun, moon, other forces of nature, the 
 emperor, heroes, great men, with other 
 incidental practices pertaining to the 
 ceremonial of the Shinto or Buddha 
 belief. 
 
 About this time several young men, 
 whose homes were in his native village, 
 and who had become Christians while 
 
 55 
 
56 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 attending a government school where 
 an American teacher taught military 
 tactics and the sciences in English, and 
 who, not being permitted to teach 
 Christianity, did a better thing — lived 
 it, returned to their homes and with 
 proper zeal commended to him the new 
 faith. 
 
 These Christian young men met with 
 opposition everywhere. Many of them 
 suffered persecution ; and to not a few 
 the doors of home were closed by 
 parents whose fealty to old beliefs was 
 stronger than parental love. It is but 
 just to say that these young men stood 
 the test — the test that comes to every 
 new-born child of God everywhere ; and 
 to-day they are the leaders of theological 
 thought in the empire, many of them 
 pastors of native churches and all of 
 them loyal to the conquering Christ. 
 
The Heathen s Transformation. 5 7 
 
 In common with others older, opposi- 
 tion violent and positive at once arose 
 in the mind of Corecadsu against " the 
 Christianity." 
 
 He was loyal to his father's belief, as 
 he thought he ought to be. He was 
 loyal to his government, which had for- 
 bidden those who came as teachers from 
 other lands to promulgate a foreign 
 faith. He was loyal to the lessons of 
 recent Japanese history, as he read 
 them, covering the bloody story of more 
 than two centuries. 
 
 But, acting up to his highest light, 
 putting himself in the only possible right 
 place for any unsettled person, old or 
 young, to be, with his mind honestly 
 open to truth, he resolved to investigate 
 a subject that was beginning to attract 
 attention ; and so, for eight years, in 
 school, in college, in university, in the 
 
5 8 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 interstices of daily study and in vaca- 
 tions, he compared the Bible, especially 
 the New Testament, with his own sacred 
 books, read what unbelievers living in 
 other lands said against Christianity, and 
 what believers similarly circumstanced 
 said for it, and especially contrasted the 
 lives of the few whom he knew who were 
 Christians with the lives of his whole na- 
 tion (generally speaking) who were not. 
 It was a long and honest investiga- 
 tion, but it ended, as all sincere quests 
 for truth will end, in an intellectual 
 decision to embrace " the Christianity" 
 which eight years before he despised 
 and would have joined with others older 
 in attempts to crush. He decided to for- 
 sake the old and embrace the new, leave 
 Buddha and take Christ ; leave (liter- 
 ally) father and mother, brother and 
 sister, for His sake, and the Gospel's, 
 
The Heathen s Transformation. 59 
 
 It is easy to become a Christian in 
 a Christian land where the tide always 
 sets that way and where popularity waits 
 upon the decision. But consider what it 
 was to decide for Christ in Japan when 
 this decision was made ! 
 
 But the intellectual decision was not 
 all or the greatest. Confession in the 
 presence of two persons — a man and a 
 woman, whose names are household 
 words in America as well as Japan, and 
 the value of whose work in the empire 
 eternity only can estimate — followed ; 
 then came confession before God of his 
 new purpose, with an entire consecration 
 of himself to his new Master, all of which 
 was attended by the baptism of the Holy 
 Spirit, always to be expected the world 
 over when the intellectual decision and 
 the total soul-surrender accompanying 
 it are similar to his in purpose and 
 
60 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 completeness. The completing act was 
 his baptism by water and his uniting 
 with the First Church in Tokyo, in 
 March, 1884. 
 
Summer Dress. 
 
 (From life.) 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE TRANSFORMED HEATHEN^ CRUCIAL 
 TEST. 
 
 LIFE AT A NAVAL STATION. A BEGINNING. 
 
 A T the naval station where Core- 
 cadsu was ordered to report him- 
 self for immediate service after his 
 appointment as assistant surgeon, there 
 were a score of persons occupying the 
 same position, a less number filling a 
 higher place, with a chief officer in su- 
 preme command, none of whom were 
 Christians, and most, if not all, of whom 
 were silent enemies, if not active op- 
 posers, of the Christian religion. 
 
 Consider the young man in his new 
 situation. 
 
 6x 
 
62 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 Peace at least and probable prefer- 
 ment depended very largely upon the 
 favor of the chief officer and his good 
 standing with those in the rank above 
 him ; and hence all desire for personal 
 tranquillity, and every demand of world- 
 ly ambition included conformity to the 
 ways and will of the vast majority. 
 
 Among the assistant and full sur- 
 geons at the station were some who had 
 known him in his native island Kiushiu, 
 and in Tokyo. 
 
 True to the principles of Japanese 
 goodfellowship, and loyal to the religion 
 of the empire, they said to him at the 
 outset, and respectfully, that it was 
 useless and foolhardy and might be 
 costly to him to even try to be a Chris- 
 tian in his new situation ; that the first 
 thing and the best thing for him to do 
 was to throw his Bible into the sea, re- 
 
The Tra?tsformed Heathen s Test. 63 
 
 nounce his allegiance to his new Master, 
 and go back to the faiths that had found 
 acceptance with his people for twenty- 
 five hundred years. 
 
 But the response first to importunity, 
 and afterwards to banter and ridicule 
 and threat alike, was : " I am a Chris- 
 tian. Whatever comes I shall not be 
 false to my religion, turn away from *any 
 service which my Master appoints, or 
 shirk any burden He asks me to bear." 
 
 Of course this was assumed to be 
 a declaration of war, and during the 
 months immediately following a system 
 of persecution was devised and carried 
 out, the scope and bitterness of which 
 can only be hinted. 
 
 Services were exacted of him of a 
 character in nowise pertaining to the 
 office which he held. 
 
 Duties were demanded altogether 
 
64 The Story of a Heathen, 
 
 without the ordinary routine of a sur- 
 geon's life. 
 
 His conscientious observance of the 
 Lord's day was systematically interfered 
 with. 
 
 Invitations from superior officers and 
 others, which under other circumstances 
 it would have been the gravest of of- 
 fences to have refused, poured in upon 
 him to accompany them on the Sabbath 
 to the theatre and other places of amuse- 
 ment ; at other times to " tea-houses," 
 where sake, or beer, is drunk with those 
 in attendance, "whose steps take hold 
 on hell." 
 
 He was the target of many a gibe, 
 the butt of ceaseless ridicule, because he 
 spent no money for tobacco or wine, or 
 in other ways which are nameless. 
 
 To the persecutions that pertained to 
 his business he responded by the most 
 
The Transformed Heathen s Test. 65 
 
 willing, ready, complete submission to 
 the commands of his superior officers ; 
 and his discharge of these orders, how- 
 ever disagreeable, and, in the eyes of 
 others, however humiliating and dis- 
 graceful, was cheerful, prompt, complete. 
 
 To the persecutions with regard to 
 the Sabbath and other things, he simply 
 asserted his legal and moral right to 
 spend the Lord's day in his own way; 
 and that no rule of etiquette or custom 
 of society could possibly stand as high 
 or be as binding as the command to 
 " honor God, and depart from evil." 
 
 Soon the assistant surgeon's faithful- 
 ness and ability in the discharge of all 
 the duties belonging to his position, his 
 faithful execution of all orders from his 
 superior officers, whatever their char- 
 acter, his industry in his study and his 
 work, began to tell and to win upon 
 
66 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 those in authority ; and they began to 
 feel, and some of them to say, that if 
 Christianity made men of this character 
 it would be invaluable to the empire, 
 whatever it might be to the individual ; 
 and the rigor of disagreeable demand 
 abated. 
 
 Meantime, by divine ordering, as we 
 are justified in saying, the President of 
 the Naval Hospital was removed to 
 another of the same character, in a dis- 
 tant part of the country, and one equal 
 in rank put in his place, whose wife was 
 a Christian, and who, though not him- 
 self a believer, became the friend of the 
 persecuted officer, and who soon re- 
 moved him from all disagreeable asso- 
 ciations by giving him an independent 
 position in a distinct department of the 
 service at the station. 
 
 But simply bearing for the Master's 
 
The Transformed Heathen s Test. 67 
 
 sake had never been enough for the 
 officer. He must not only bear, but do. 
 
 The city, contiguous to the naval 
 station of which the hospital and other 
 government buildings formed a part, had 
 a population of about twenty thousand. 
 Of these, when Corecadsu entered the 
 government service, there was but one 
 person who had professed Christianity. 
 This individual had united with a church 
 in Tokyo, but removing to this wholly 
 heathen city, he was overcome by ad- 
 verse influences ; had lost his first faith 
 and had gone back to his old life. 
 
 Each officer under the Japanese gov- 
 ernment, according to a custom of the 
 country, has a house of his own, where- 
 in his food is prepared, and a place for 
 lodging provided, with an additional 
 room for the reception of friends and 
 other kindred purposes. 
 
68 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 Soon after his arrival at the naval 
 station, the assistant surgeon proposed 
 to open his house for a regular Sabbath 
 service. 
 
 At the first meeting two persons made 
 up the entire audience, Corecadsu and 
 the backslidden Christian whom he had 
 sought and found. 
 
 For weeks following, the number in 
 attendance was no larger, but soon the 
 leaven of love and prayer began to 
 move in hearts cold and dead. Four 
 came, then six, then eight, then ten, 
 by-and-by a roomful, and our officer, 
 impelled thereto by the circumstances 
 around him and the voice of God within 
 him, took on a new vocation — added to 
 his prescribing for the sick body the 
 proclamation of Christ's unfailing pre- 
 scription for the dying soul! 
 
 The Holy Spirit was manifestly and 
 
The Transformed Heathen 's Test. 69 
 
 on some occasions thrillingly present in 
 these services. Prayer became an en- 
 gine of irresistible power. 
 
 Those who had opposed Christianity, 
 and ridiculed, reviled, and persecuted its 
 defender and representative, became ten- 
 der, then solicitous, then filled with the 
 never-to-be-forgotten joy of pardoned 
 sin. 
 
 The work went on. 
 
 Men and women passing along the 
 street intent on matters wholly apart 
 paused to hear the singing of hymns 
 ascribing thanksgiving and praise, not to 
 Buddha, but to the everywhere present 
 Christ, and to listen to the unwonted 
 words of prayer, not to an idol, but to 
 God. 
 
 Opposition greatly diminished. Con- 
 verts were multiplied, until in July, 1886, 
 a church was formed of thirty-one mem- 
 
JO The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 bers, which a little more than twelve 
 months afterwards was five times as 
 large as it was at its beginning. 
 
 Many of the very men, officers under 
 the government, whose opposition and 
 persecution were at the first so bitter, 
 became then, and have become since, 
 Christians, and are now faithful, zealous, 
 energetic, consecrated workers for Christ. 
 
 Meantime the formation of other 
 churches in the neighborhood is in con- 
 templation or has already taken place, 
 and the evangelization of the whole city 
 waits upon the golden day of which this 
 was the auspicious dawn. 
 
 Three months afterwards, in Septem- 
 ber, 1886, the government, knowing the 
 profession, the life, of its officer ; know- 
 ing all that he had done to introduce the 
 religion of the Lord Jesus Christ among 
 those in the imperial service and the 
 
The Transformed Heathen s Test. 7 1 
 
 community generally, promoted him to 
 the full rank of surgeon and accorded 
 to him privileges from which every one 
 up to that date had been wholly de- 
 barred. 
 
 Northern navigators say that off the 
 coast of Greenland there is an island 
 which was evidently shot up by some 
 subterranean convulsion, that is almost 
 wholly a mass of rock, rising in perpen- 
 dicular majesty to an amazing height, 
 against which, as its worn sides demon- 
 strate, Old Ocean, through geologic 
 periods, wrathful at the intruders pres- 
 ence, dashed and beat, but which now, 
 from some change of currents or other 
 unknown causes, only feels the subdued, 
 invisible, and gentle ripple of the same 
 ocean at its conquering base. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUCCEEDING EVENTS IN OUR HERO'S 
 HISTORY. 
 
 ^pHEM that honor me I will honor." 
 Two years in the service of the 
 Japanese government ; the wonderful 
 progress that civilization and Christian- 
 ity had made in the empire during that 
 time ; the fact more and more apparent 
 that both in State and Church he who 
 would stand highest and, other things 
 being equal, be most influential must 
 have all that a foreign education and the 
 English tongue could bring him, deter- 
 mined Corecadsu that he would seek in 
 one of the leading universities of the 
 United States, and if Providence opened 
 
 72 
 
Boy of the New Japan. 
 
Succeeding Events. J$ 
 
 the way, in England or Germany, the 
 completest qualification that it was possi- 
 ble for him to have for the discharge of 
 the duties of his government office in 
 the profession he had chosen. 
 
 And here what seemed an insur- 
 mountable obstacle presented itself. By 
 a rule of the department in which he 
 was serving, no officer could, on any 
 pretext, have leave of absence with 
 continued pay who had not been in the 
 service five years. Corecadsu, for many 
 reasons, desired to go at once. 
 
 Such education as he could further 
 have he wanted immediately — wanted 
 at the beginning of his career, and es- 
 pecially he wished to be in his own 
 country in the days not far in the future 
 when the governmental policy of Japan 
 was to be settled perhaps for all time. 
 
 True to his simple belief that the 
 
74 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 heavenly Father would do for his chil- 
 dren whatever they asked him to do, 
 which in His sight would be for their 
 good and His glory, he made known his 
 desire to his church and asked that the 
 prayers of the brethren and sisters might 
 be united with his in a common petition 
 that the way might be somehow opened. 
 
 Application was made to the proper 
 authorities for opportunity to pursue a 
 course of foreign study ; his reasons for 
 the request were clearly stated and the 
 desire was modestly expressed that the 
 government grant the wish of its loyal 
 subject. 
 
 The matter was referred to the head 
 of the Naval Department, with commen- 
 dations from those in highest authority; 
 the story of his life and character was 
 told ; and at the emperor's command he 
 was granted leave of absence for four 
 
Succeeding Events. 75 
 
 years on partial pay, and ordered to re- 
 port to his government once in six 
 months. 
 
 And now, another and signal honor 
 was done him. 
 
 The emperor, having learned some- 
 thing, as we have seen, of his faithful, 
 loyal, studious, scholarly Christian sub- 
 ject, desired to see him before his de- 
 parture from his country, and a command 
 for him to appear in his presence was 
 issued. 
 
 The time of the sailing of Corecadsu 
 was already set. His passage money 
 had been paid, and the steamer was to 
 leave Yokohama for San Francisco, three 
 days before the time fixed in the royal 
 summons for the interview. 
 
 This fact was communicated to the 
 emperor, and to suit the convenience of 
 this Christian surgeon in his navy, the 
 
J 6 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 day named for his presentation was 
 changed to one earlier. 
 
 On the morning designated, dressed 
 in the uniform appointed for one of his 
 office, and wearing the insignia of his 
 position as an officer in the imperial ser- 
 vice, he entered the presence of the 
 man who was worshiped but a few r years 
 before as God by thirty-eight million of 
 subjects. 
 
 Every honor compatible with the re- 
 lation was done to the youthful surgeon. 
 An act of idolatrous worship that was 
 then required at the royal Court was 
 waived in deference to his known reli- 
 gious belief, and in closing the interview 
 the emperor said, as much in suggestion 
 as in command: " Study carefully, up- 
 hold the honor of the empire while you 
 are gone, and when you come back 
 serve the emperor to the best of your 
 
Succeeding Events. 7 7 
 
 ability." And that night the steamship 
 bore him away from the country where 
 for long and busy years he had toiled 
 steadily on and up, and which with loyal 
 heart and lips he covenanted to serve 
 to his last, on to the end of his mortal 
 life. 
 
 Eighteen days later, with the ocean 
 peril past, the harbor of San Francisco 
 was reached, and six days afterwards he 
 was welcomed in the heart of an eastern 
 city by one who, knowing something of 
 his history, had become his friend. 
 
 The study of the language and the 
 further study of his profession were at 
 once begun, and have been prosecuted 
 since with surprising results. 
 
 In May, 1887, an imperial order came 
 promoting him to the rank of " Shoha- 
 chii," a Japanese order of great honor, 
 and later in the year he was selected to 
 
yS The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 represent the empire in an International 
 Congress, held in the city of Washing- 
 ton, which for the ability and high stand- 
 ing of its members has rarely, if ever, 
 been equaled. 
 
 To add to all this, in answer to 
 prayer, his family have all become Chris- 
 tians, so that with father and mother and 
 sisters on one side of the world and son 
 on the other, the common prayer of all 
 finds hearing before the common throne 
 of a common God. 
 
 From the American university where 
 he entered as a student, he graduated 
 with high honor, going over a three 
 years' course in fourteen months ; and 
 the next day after graduation sailed for 
 Germany, where he is finishing his 
 school education in, perhaps, the best 
 medical and other universities in Europe 
 or the world. 
 
Succeeding Events. 79 
 
 His connection with his empire is 
 growing more and more close and more 
 and more honorable to him, and his 
 constant prayer is to be " filled with all 
 the fulness of God," so that he may 
 be his highest and do his best for his 
 government and the souls of his emanci- 
 pated and waiting and aspiring country- 
 men. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 WHY THE STORY HAS BEEN TOLD. 
 
 r I ^HE world wants tens of thou- 
 sands of grandmothers to start 
 boys and girls upward. None can do it 
 better ; few as well. Room and work 
 for grandmothers ! 
 
 The world wants hundreds of thou- 
 sands of parents who will put minimum 
 money where it will do maximum good. 
 
 The world wants millions of boys who 
 will " prohibit " themselves from every- 
 thing that will work injury to body or 
 soul, as our "heathen" did; and who 
 will say with him : "I must have char- 
 acter ; I must have knowledge ; I must 
 80 
 
The Conclusion. 81 
 
 be industrious ; I must be economical" ; 
 and who will then build these musts into 
 grand manhood, better and higher. 
 
 The world wants tens of millions of 
 young men who have been transformed, 
 as the subject of this sketch was. 
 
 They are wanted to plant the King's 
 banner all over the world ! 
 
 Japan wants five hundred young men 
 and young women, every twelve months 
 for the next five years. That will make 
 her a Christian nation. 
 
 China wants a thousand a year for the 
 next fifty years. That would settle the 
 trend of four hundred million of the 
 human race. 
 
 The " Dark Continent" will take all 
 the world can spare for the next century; 
 and then the clock of time, striking the 
 last hour of 1999, will send a hallelujah 
 sound all over the earth, which will 
 
82 The Story of a Heathen. 
 
 mean, " Ethiopia is converted unto 
 God ! " 
 
 Every department of business here at 
 home wants men who will write on it: 
 " Holiness to the Lord ; " and will con- 
 secrate its gains to the service of the 
 Master. That will hasten the time when 
 "The kingdoms of this world are be- 
 come the kingdoms of our Lord, and of 
 his Christ ; and he shall reign for ever 
 and ever." 
 
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