UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES IJNIVEKS1TY of CALTFORN14 LOS ANGELES LffiR/ DUX CHRISTUS AN OUTLINE STUDY OF JAPAN DUX -) ^ GHRISTUS From JONES'- BOOK STORE, UK ANGELES. WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS VIA CHRISTI An Introduction to the Study of Mission* Ey LOUISE MANNING HODGKINS, M.A. Papar, 30 cents, net Cloth, 50 cents, net Holiday edition, Gilt, 60 cents, net W. F. WARREN, President Boston University : " Via Christi shows scholarly estimate of the value and enjoy- ableness of historic sources, as contrasted with rhetorical elaboration merely suggested by the sources. Though but a little so-cent vol- ' ume it would be hard to find in any book three times iu size an equal "number of prayers, hymns, and striking appeals, written by the great historic representatives of the missionary spirit themselves. The book is admirably presented by the Macmillan Company. THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD: " One of the results of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference of loco was the uniting of ail the Women's Missionary Boards m the United States and Canada for the publication of a thorough and complete course of a study of missions. The initial volume is entitled Via Ckristi, and is by a most competent and attractive writer, Miss Louise Manning Hodgkins. In six chapters the reader is conducted through the vast course of history, extending from the days of Paul to those of Carey and Judson. The author has not made the mistake of putting in so much that the charm and nvi ness of the narrative are crowded out. One of the most attractive features of the volume is the set of selections from the period undei review at the close of each chapter and the effectively arranged chronological tables." NEW YORK TRIBUNE: " Via Christi gives a bird's-eye view of the missionary efforts of the world from the time of Paul to the nineteenth century. Con- temporaneous events in the secular world are mentioned, with names of prominent people and places of the period, giving a perspective as satisfying as it is unusual ^Miss Hodgkins makes her story read like one delightful romance." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 Fifth Avenue, New Yotk SIBER 'RUSSIAN EMPIRE) FORMOSA OR TAIWAN EXTENSION TO RYU KYU ISLANDS ANoFORM OS A DUX CHRISTUS AN OUTLINE STUDY OF JAPAN BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1904 All rights reserved 146115 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1904. PUBLISHED FOR THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS. J. S. Gushing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. STATEMENT ^ o / C\ OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE O"' UNITED STUDY OF MISSION k IT is hoped that this fourth volume of the United Study Series will find as warm a welcome as those that have pre- ceded it. Since the publication of the first book of the course in 1900, the sales of "Via Christi: An Introduc- tion to the Study of Missions," "Lux Christi: An Outline Study of India," and "Rex Christus : An Outline Study of China," have amounted to 150,000 copies. " Dux Christus: An Outline Study of Japan," appears at a time when the attention of the world is centred on this island empire. Every Christian woman should feel bound to study not only the news of the war and the political changes in Japan, but the progress of the Gospel of Peace as well. Rev. William Elliot Griffis, D.D., the author of our text- book, is well known tl .rough his standard works, "The Mikado's Empire," "Japan in History, Folklore, and Art," and "The Religions of Japan." He has been a lifelong student of the country and its people. Mus. NORMAN MATHER WATERBURY, CHAIRMAN, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. Miss E. HARRIET STANWOOD, 704 Congregational House, Boston, Mass. Miss ELLEN C. PARSONS, Presbyterian Bu ild in g, 156 fifth Avenue, New York City. MRS. J. T. GRACEY, 111 1'earl Street, Rochester, N.Y. MRS. HARRIET L. SCUDDER, Church Missions House, Uth Avenue and 22d Street, New York City. Miss CLEMENTINA BUTLER, SECRETARY AND TREASURER, Newton Centre, Mass. V PREFACE As a field for the prayer and missionary labors of Protestant Christian people, Japan has peculiar claims and an individuality all her own. Here is a young race of people, who are islanders, unconquered, sovereign, proud-spir- ited, intensely patriotic, and loving their own land and chief ruler even to religious devotion. Responding in the sixth century to Chinese and Buddhist civilization, but in the sixteenth century deliberately rejecting what came from Europe by way of Spain and Portugal, the Japanese in. the nineteenth century became the docile but discriminating pupils of the English- speaking nations, and in the twentieth century are a "world-power." Though borrowing some features of national life and thought from other nations in the West, these people, who do not imitate, but adopt only to adapt, are self-con- fessed debtors chiefly to Great Britain and the United States. But so fresh is the field, and as yet but so slightly turned into furrows by the gospel plough and seeded for the kingdom, that, at this writing, but forty-five years have passed since the first missionaries with the Bible in their hands came to the Land of Peaceful viii PEEFACE Shores. Yet within that time "what hath God wrought ! " The author was the first foreigner called out to Japan under the "charter oath" of the Mi- kado in 1868 to assist in " re-laying the founda- tions of the empire," and is the only white man living who in the castle city of a baron saw the workings of the feudal system. Beyond mission- ary and commercial limits, before one national school or the army, navy, postal, or educational system had been created, he looked upon the old divided life of the people, and remembers many things now vanished and forgotten. He knows well by sight the unspeakable horrors of disease, pestilence, famine, nakedness, immoral- ity, inhumanity, and oppression which belonged to Japanese society in a state of feudalism, ig- norance, and superstition, when gospel light had not yet dawned. This was before Christian missionaries had given both the government and the people, not only the ideas, but also the object- lessons of graded school, hospital, dispensary, the training of nurses, the asylums for the blind, and manifold forms of blessed charity. Having seen also the new civilization, he feels as well as knows also the new Japan's dire need of the gospel. National conceit and imported machinery will never supply the necessity of spiritual regeneration. To speak in the first person, then, having been thus on the soil before one Christian church had been organized, or gospel sermon preached by a native, or telegraph pole planted, PREFACE ix or railway laid, my work has, I trust, what so many books on Japan have not, perspective. I can safely say that, though in government service, I have known by experience most of what the missionaries, early and late, tell about. In place, therefore, of many quotations in the text, I have given my own testimony as eye- witness. A word as to the plan of this book : I have begun at the foundations, nature and man, and then proceeded to tell the story of the development of the nation in consecutive order of time. Apologizing, because of brevity and set limits, for the omission of many names, events, or lines of works of which I should like to speak, I beg earnestly that my readers will supplement their reading of " Dux Christus " with their own denominational literature and the books recommended in the text and lists. In noting both the lights and the shadows in the picture of a land and people not yet Chris- tian, but becoming so, and in thus making a study of comparative religion, we are seeing ourselves and our fathers as in a mirror, while beholding the truth and cross of Christ rise in splendor as he draws all men even our ag- nostic Japanese brethren unto him. Only one result can come by comparing the ethnic cults with the universal and absolute religion, and that is, to reveal more clearly the truth of Christianity and to demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ. With Japan's enlarging respon- sibilities as a world power, is revealed the pro- x PREFACE found and increasing need of her people of the gospel for a world of sin. In the Christian meaning, we shout with heart and voice, " Tei Koku Dai Nippon ! Ban- zai ! " May the Divinely Governed Country, Great Japan, endure for Ten Thousand Genera- tions. In the hearts of all our Japanese friends, from the emperor to the infant just born, may the cherry flower of loyalty to Christ the Leader bloom to the glory of Our Father. W. E. G. ITHACA, N.Y. CONTENTS PAGE STATEMENT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE . . v PREFACE vii PRONUNCIATION OF JAPANESE WORDS . . . xiii CHAPTER I THE FRAMEWORK OF RECORDED TIME . . 2 THE ISLAND EMPIRE 3 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 37 CHAPTER II CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 47 THE MAKING OF THE NATION .... 49 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS ..... 90 CHAPTER III CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 101 THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 103 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 141 CHAPTER IV CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 148 MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS .... 149 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS ..... 180 xi xii CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK .... 197 WOMAN'S WOKK FOR WOMAN* .... 199 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 230 CHAPTER VI FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 240 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS 281 APPENDIX LIST OF TWENTY-ONE PERIODICALS . . . 289 STATISTICS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN JAPAN 291 INDEX 293 PRONUNCIATION OF JAPANESE WORDS STRICTLY speaking, there is no accented syl- lable in a Japanese word, but there are long and short vowels. There are as many syllables as there are single vowels. The consonants have the same value as in English, but g is always hard, k instead of c is used, cli and s are always soft, and z before u is sounded as dz. When two consonants occur together, as in Nikko, give each the full sound. I in the middle, as in Tokio (Tokyo), and u at the end of a word, as in lyeyasu (Ee-yay-yas'), are scarcely heard. U is as u in rule or oo in boot, never as in unity. E before a consonant is as e in men, but final e is as e in prey. Great care must be taken to represent long or short vowels, the quantity taking the place of stress or accent, as in ju or jiu-jutsu (Jew-juts'). a as in father ai as in aisle e " " men e " " prey i " " pique au " o in bone o " " bone iu " u in yule u " " rule ua " in quarantine EXAMPLES : Mikado (me-kah-do), Mutsuhito (muts-h'to), Ebisu (a-bee-s'), Hideyoshi (Hee- day-yo-shee), shogun (show-goon), Mei-ji (may- ee-jee), Guai-mu-sho (gwai-moo-shoo), Ai-dzu (eye-dzu), Osaka (o-o-saka), li (ee-ee), Are (ah-ray), Riu Kiu (ree-yu-kee-yu), etc. xiii DUX CHRISTUS JAPAN'S FRAMEWORK OF RECORDED TIME 660 B.C.-400 A.D. The prehistoric period, before writing or calendars, covered by mythology, tra- dition, and an official chronology manu- factured in later times. Migrations and race struggles. 400 A.D. Beginnings of history. Rude feudalism. 552 . . . Entrance of Buddhism. 645 . . . Beginning of the system of year-periods. 649 . . . The centralized system of government es- tablished. 710 ... A permanent capital, Nara, chosen. 712 . . . First book, the "Kojiki," committed to writ- ing. 809 . . . Kobo and the common writing. Shinto ab- sorbed in Buddhism. 1156 . . . Military campaigns over. The clans quarrel. 1192 . . . Kamakura. Yoritomo. Feudalism begins. 1281 . . . The Mongol armada repulsed. 1348-1392 Schism in the imperial line. 1542 . . . First arrival of Europeans. 1542-1640 Era of the Three Great Men and of Roman Christianity. 1606 . . . lyeyasu at Yedo. Castle built. 1639 . . . The Hollanders at Deshima. Profound peace. 1604-1868 The TOKUGAVVA Shoguns in Yedo. Era of the literary revival of Pure Shinto. Con- fucianism the code and philosophy of the educated. 1827 . . . Rai Sanyo's "History of Japan" published. 1853 . . . Arrival of Commodore Perry's peaceful ar- mada. 1854 . . . First treaties made. 1859 . . . Harris treaty opening ports to trade and residence. 1868 . . . Era of Meiji begins. Civil war. Charter Oath. 1869 . . . Tokio made the capital. Vast reforms be- gun. 1871 . . . The feudal system abolished. 1872 . . . The solar or Gregorian calendar adopted. First Protestant Christian church formed. 1889 . . . The Constitution proclaimed. 1894 . . . The Chino-Japanese War. 1900 . . . Political independence. 1904 . War with Russia. DUX CHRISTUS CHAPTER I THE ISLAND EMPIRE Unique Japan. Among all the empires of Asia, Dai Nippon (Great Sunrise) is unique in being insular, unconquered, and governed from immemorial antiquity by one unbroken dynasty of rulers. Whereas the continental peoples of Asia and Europe have formed nationalities under pressure from without, by menace or invasion, the Japanese, uninvaded and " com- passed by the inviolate sea," have had their activities of evolution chiefly from within. Without war, they have received seed or leaven from both the Orient and the Occident. The elements of progress from beyond sea have come without the sword. The invasions, Con- fucian, Buddhist, Chinese, Korean, Hindoo, European, American, or Christian, have been those of peace, and the triumphs of the alien have been, for the most part, "brain victories." Japan is the Land of Peaceful Shores, peerless among Asiatic nations. It has received its territory, for the most part, without aggression or conquest, and is a nation without immi- 3 4 DUX CHRISTUS grants. In the whole empire are about fifteen thousand foreigners, half of them Chinese. The British folk number twenty-one, the Amer- icans sixteen, and Germans six hundred. In relation to Asia, Japan is as England to Europe, and her people to Asiatics are as the islanders of Great Britain to the continental Europeans. Having all the characteristics of insular people, they realize also their position relative to the greatest of continents. In the twentieth century, with their fifty millions of people, divided into the three classes, nobles, gentry, and commons, they feel their unique importance as the middle term between the civilizations of the East and of the West. Old and New Japan. For the purposes of our study we may consider the Old and the New Nippon, which historically and in point of culture are quite different. Our fathers, knew the old hermit nation of ,the Dutchmen and the geographies. We know the new em- pire which is in brotherhood with the world. The empire of the Mikado stretches from latitude 21 48' to 50 56' and from longitude E. from Greenwich 156 32' to 119 20'. Dai Nippon is thus set in a square of ocean super- ficies measuring roughly about five million square miles. The once " hermit nation " in the Far East has now, besides China and Korea, for her neighbors, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States. The old or distinctive Japan consists of those three large islands, Hondo (mainland), Kiushiu THE ISLAND EMPIRE 5 (nine provinces), Shikoku (four countries), and the smaller islands of Sado, Old, Awaji, Iki, and Tsushima, all of which are historically of great importance. On these, besides Yamato, the ancient holy land of the Mikado's dynasty, is the oldest seat of empire, the home of legend, history, art, literature, 'and achievement. Here is classic soil, which is rich in poetic associ- ations and national traditions, old with the "moss of uncomputed ages." One must soon learn what is the Yamato damashii, or the spirit of unconquerable Japan, in order to know any- thing about the Japanese. Yezo (savage or uncivilized) is comparatively new and modern to the Japanese themselves, but we Western people think of this island as belonging to the Old Japan which our fathers knew, because it figured largely upon the maps ; but, though always inhabited by the Aino savages, it was not colonized by the Jap- anese until after 1600 A.D. Japan an Archipelago. Old Japan was crescent-shaped. The Island Empire is really a great archipelago of about four thousand islands, of which number over three thousand may have names. There are four hundred and eighty-seven isles which have a coast-line of two and a half miles, and, except locally, only these are officially named and noted, un- less they, being inhabited, or having lighthouses or beacons, serve as guides to navigation. The Japanese have the marked traits and tempera- ment of insular people, and the names of their 6 DUX CHRISTU8 islands form an interesting study, rich in mate- rial of folk-lore. For purposes of government, these smaller islands are associated in groups, or are under the direction of one of the neigh- boring prefectures, into which Japan, like France, is divided, each having its governor and council. In the north, Chishima (thousand islands), or Kuriles (smokers), numbers thirty- two, Riukiu (Loo Choo, sleeping dragon) fifty- five, and the Bonin (no man's) twenty islands, or in Old Japan four hundred and eleven in all. In New Japan, Formosa (beautiful) has twenty- one and the Pescadores (fishers) forty-seven islands. Both were named by the Portuguese. The newer regions of the Hok-kai-do (North- ern sea gate) or Yezo and the Kuriles in the north, and Formosa and the Pescadores in the south, are parts of the New Japan, which came to its birth in 1868. Being outside of the gen- eral stream of the national history, these are reckoned as crown lands. For the most part the usual political privileges and methods of administration do not apply to them, while to the majority of the Japanese they are still dis- tant and strange. The Old Divisions. Anciently the empire was divided into do (roads or circuits) such as the Tokaido (Eastern sea road), composing fifteen provinces, facing the Pacific from Yedo to near Kioto ; the Hokkaido (Northern sea road), comprising Yezo and the Kuriles, etc., like the terms " Eastern," " Middle," and " Southern " states in America. THE ISLAND EMPIRE 1 Some of the old circuits are now rarely spoken of, while others are still remembered in common speech. As convenient and sentimental terms, they serve Japanese clubs, societies, railways, banks, and various corporations with pleasing names, just as " Albion " and " Caledonia " do English-speaking peoples. In the Japan of feudal days, a native was of this or that " country " or clan, but now feudal- ism is past and gone, and all are proud to be Japanese. The empire has forty-eight divisions, with forty-three prefectures, three imperial cities, Tokio, Kioto, and Osaka, and two terri- tories or colonies, Yezo and Formosa. There are fifty or more incorporated cities, and seven hun- dred and five urban and rural subdistricts, the latter being often divided into towns and vil- lages ; or, in the whole empire, nearly fifteen thousand cities, towns, and villages. Single habitations are rare, except in the mountains or in very poor regions, the country people being grouped in villages for mutual comfort and pro- tection and especially to save shading the soil by houses, which would limit productiveness. Heathenism still has its stronghold in the coun- try districts, and most of the Christian church- members are people who live away from their native places and have cut loose from local traditions. Christianity spreads more rapidly in the cities. In the next century the word inaka (countryman, rustic) will mean pagan. A Land of Many Names. There are many names for Japan in poetry and tradition, though 8 DUX CHRISTUS in conversation and the newspapers, Nippon is the most common term. Meaning literally sun- root, this word was first applied by people com- ing from the continent to the island, and the word itself is but a corruption of the Chinese Jih-pen, whence our word Japan. In poetry the Japanese call their beautiful country Yamato, from the ancient name of one of its oldest regions in this mountain-girt land. Many other names are found in the native lit- erature and employed in poetry or the higher style of address. Foreign appellations, besides being numerous and varied, are more or less complimentary. Was it not Victor Hugo who called Japan " The Child of the World's Old Age," and did not Joseph Cook speak of the Japanese as the " diamond edition of humanity," and their country as the " Rudder of Asia " ? The Japanese might also give to their whole strung-out empire the name which they apply to the Riu Kiu Islands, which are like shining beads on a rosary, that is, the Long Rope, or Extended Thread. When looked at on a large map, Japan resembles a huge silkworm, with Yezo for its tail, Hondo for its body, and Kiu- shiu for its head. Its open jaws seem to be spinning a glistening thread to form the cocoon of Formosa, near the Philippines, thus making an empire roughly two thousand two hundred miles long, and only two or three hundred miles wide at its broadest portion. Climate. Extending so far north and south, the Mikado's empire has not only a very varied THE ISLAND EMPIRE 9 climate, but also a wonderful diversity of vege- tation. Heat and cold, dryness and moisture, are not only according as a region is north or south, towards the tropics or the poles, but also as the place described is situated with reference to the Kuro-Shiwo (black tide or cur- rent), the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, which brings northward the hot water of equatorial seas up past the Kuriles. According to which side of the mountain ranges the clouds gather, snow or rain will fall during the same storm. Roughly speaking, the eastern Pacific side, towards America, is the warmest and most fertile, while the western or Asian side is colder, though in Formosa these conditions are reversed. Here in the far south, where cotton, sugar, indigo and camphor forests abound, we have an island bisected by the Tropic of Can- cer. Then also, in " the land where it is always afternoon," the sleepy Riu Kiu Islands some day perhaps to be an ocean winter sanitarium - we have subtropical weather conditions. In the extreme north, on the far Kuriles, bleak, barren, foggy, and cold, we find little sign of life of man, beast, or vegetable. Hokkaido is much like the region of New York and southern Canada, while in Japan proper, with much variety, the climate is in general that of the United States, whether on the Atlantic or in the Mississippi Valley. Speaking generally, the average person from Western countries can, in this part of the Orient, do a reasonable amount of work every day of the year. The 10 DUX CHEI8TUS winds blow regularly from the north in winter and from the south in summer. One of the chief reasons why so many foreigners, especially Americans, break down nervously, is found in the occurrence of unusual heat and excessive moisture at that time of the year when, by cus- tom and habit, American teachers at home do their hardest brain work in examinations and become overwearied in the labors incident to school closing. Excellent for children, less so for adults, better for men, worse for women, bad for persons of weak nerves or with con- sumptive tendency, but on the whole good, is what one of ordinarily robust health de- clares the climate of Japan to be. Japan is not subject to the same extremes which characterize American weather. The steadiness of temperature is more like that of the British Isles, except that the greater humid- ity in the air makes it harder for Western people to bear. Hence also its perpetual greenery. The months of June and September are very rainy. From April to July the "river of Heaven" overflows about every other day. There is comparatively little snow except on the west coast, between the sea of Japan and the mountains. Here the snow lies for months a yard deep over the landscape, and in the val- leys ten and twenty feet deep. In crossing the latter, one often needs snow-shoes. Fogs are not very frequent, except along the northern coasts, but in late summer and early autumn one may expect a visitation of the dreaded and de- THE ISLAND EMPIRE 11 structive typhoon (tai-fun, great wind). The autumn and early winter are the most delightful seasons of the year. Sometimes the month of December passes without a cloud in the sky. Late autumn is the best time for tourists and travel. It will be seen then, from the excessive vari- ety in the physical environment, high mountain plateaus, and many low-lying valleys and cold lands, with the winds from Siberia and currents from the Arctic on the west, and with the warm moisture-laden air over the regions facing the Pacific gulf-stream, that Japan has a great vari- ety of weather. People who reach Japan from the tropics feel chilly; those coming by way of Siberia are apt to complain of the heat. One reason why people from beyond sea feel less vigorous when living in Japan is because the ozone of the atmosphere is less in quantity, to the extent of one-third, than in the air of Eu- rope and America. Murray's "Handbook of Japan" gives the British view of the situation. In our days, with their superbly equipped mete- orological stations, the government observers issue bulletins of weather probabilities thrice daily, foretelling storms and even earthquakes. Rivers. Japan has no rivers of any notable length, depth, or dignity. Most of the kawa are noisy sprawling torrents occupying more space than they are worth. Not a few of those fa- mous in the national annals win glory from their being far. Like Plymouth Rock, they are co- lossal in history, rhetoric, and poetry, but in 12 DUX CHRISTU8 proportions can be easily measured with an umbrella. Of these, some live only in name, having utterly dried up. Others are but stream- lets hardly able to fill a laundry-man's tub. The whole archipelago consists mainly of the emerged crests of a line of mountains. These are sur- rounded on the west by the comparatively shal- low sea of Japan, and on the east by a very deep ocean, which along the northern part of the empire contains the profoundest aqueous depths in the world. The central spine of the islands consists of peaks and plateaus ; and no rivers run across Hondo, but all tumble down from the highlands to the sea, in short, and for the most part, tumultuous channels. Boiling floods in the spring when the snow melts, or in June and September when the rainy season is on, they are, during the quiet winter or the hot summer, inconspicuous streams finding their tortuous way over wide spaces of pebbles, sand, gravel, and mountain debris. In many parts of the country an uncomputed amount of labor has been spent during ages to protect the fields from inunda- tion, and much has to be spent every year. Dikes have been built both against the river floods and, in low-lying regions, against the sea. In fact Japan, besides resembling the Nether- lands in many other ways, has to spend every year about as much money on her defensive walls against river and sea as do North and South Holland and Zealand. In some neigh- borhoods one can walk miles on the top of the dikes, looking down on the surrounding country THE ISLAND EMPIRE 13 far below, smiling, it may be, in the summer sun- shine, but in the time of storm and flood men- aced with danger from the terrible waters. Millions upon millions of her people have been destroyed by floods and tidal waves, so that Japan sadly needs the science of engineering and the art of an Eads or a Caland to save both life and soil. Nor is it any wonder that the dragon-symbol of the powers of water, both life-giving and destroying, occupies the foremost place in her art. The Soil and its Fertility. To state the area of Japan is by no means to tell of so much ara- ble soil or fertile territory. Indeed, the dispro- portion between the valuable and worthless land constitutes the real problem for Japanese states- men. The people must go abroad in order to live. A contrast easily made is startling. Whereas in Europe the average of cultivated land to the total area of the country is 37.4 per cent, it is in Japan only 13 per cent. That is, 87 per cent of Japan goes almost to waste. The empire now contains fifty million souls ; but, while population is increasing at the rate of about a half million a year, very little new land is reclaimed, and most of the old soils have reached their limit of production. Unlike China, Japan is not a self-centred country. Food must be imported. Like the ever in- creasing British people, the Japanese, being islanders, must emigrate and be enterprising in distant lands. In 1901 fifteen million acres were under cultivation. The average yield of 14 DUX CHEISTUS rice is about two hundred million bushels. In olden times, when the crop failed there was famine. Even the soil has but slight natural fertility. Newly broken ground yields only scant harvests, and without the most careful attention and manuring the earth brings forth but poorly. The face of the country is almost wholly mountainous, and only the river valleys and plains are cultivated, though often the gullies are terraced and the slopes made useful. Heretofore the Japanese have not been much acquainted with artificial fertilizers, using al- most wholly poudrette and animal droppings. Hence, as a rule, and for obvious reasons, the land produces the richest crops near large towns and cities. Nevertheless, more energy and resolution, resulting from a change of mind and habits, would make the hill land more valuable. Agriculture, then, is confined to a little more than one-twelfth of the country's area. The Landscape. As Japan is a land poor in horses and cattle, there is in general very little pasture and no such thing as enclosed estates of large size. " There are no farms, only gar- dens." One sees no fences and comparatively few ditches, walls and hedges being used as boundary lines. Rarely does a house stand by itself. The villages concentrate the population and the houses are built close together, usually in parallel rows along a single thoroughfare, with few or no side streets. Until very re- cently vehicles drawn by horses were unknown, for the farmer never thought of having such a THE ISLAND EMPIRE 15 thing. Burdens were carried on the backs of men, women, and horses. In enumerating bur- den bearers or workmen, the term for animals was used, just as we say of labor so many "hands." Instead of trains of baggage wagons, Japanese military authorities use armies of laborers almost equal in number to those of the combatants, but there is no blood caste and there are no coolies. The average agricultural landscape consists of a level of unfenced helds, in which are small spaces, fractions of an acre, separated by little banks or partitions of earth enclosing water a few inches deep, in which rice is planted and grown. The pathways are narrow .dams be- tween the fields and roads, so-called dams or dikes, forming the public roads, only a little wider, set between the paddy (or wet) fields on either side. In winter, when seen in certain lights, the low, flat country looks like a great looking-glass, cracked into bits and spotted all over with the tufts of rice stubble. In the springtime the tender green of the growing rice is very beautiful. At the beginning of sowing, one sees a striking illustration of the scripture passage, " cast thy bread upon the waters ; for thou shalt find it after many days." The rice farmer, as in May he stands casting out his precious rice grains into his seed bed, seems to be throwing them away on water, but this is but faith put into practice, for after a few days it comes back to him, first as the pretty green tufts a fe\v inches above the water's level. 16 DUX CIIRISTUS These in June he transplants in rows, weeding and laboriously hoeing and guarding until October, when the golden harvest is ready. Concerning the rice plant and grain the Japan- ese have a rich poetry and mythology. " Give us this day our daily bread " means to most of the city and well-to-do people, rice, but to most country folk it is a luxury eaten only on holidays and special occasions. Mountains and Volcanoes. The most strik- ing feature of the Japanese archipelago is its mountainous surface, which from Yezo to For- mosa rises from the little hills up to the highest peak in the empire, Nitakayama (Mount Morri- son), which is 13,880 feet high. The four larger islands are covered with hills, and on Hondo one sees the great table-land of Shinano rising 2500 feet above sea-level. Thence northerly, to the end of Hondo, we behold roughly outlined two nearly parallel lines of mountains of irregular height. Kiushiu has a background of lofty ranges, and most of the promontories jutting into the sea consist of bold rocks. The most beautiful mountain, visible from thirteen provinces, a landmark to the mariner at sea, the goal annually of myriads of pilgrims, and the centre of poetry, legend, and art, from the dawn of history to the days of telephones, is Fuji, or Fuji San, which is gener- ally called Fujiyama by Europeans. The story of its many names and of its origin in a night, the earth rising in one place to make a moun- tain and sinking in another to make a lake, is TIIE ISLAND EMPIRE IT told in "Japanese Fairy World," entitled "The Lake of the Lute and the Matchless Mountain." Millions of religious pilgrims climb the higher crests, and some sects of devotees are named after Fuji and other peaks. Japan seems to be in the very centre of the volcanic activities of the world. Probably no other region of similar area has so many open vents of the earth's fiery interior. Twenty active volcanoes are counted. Indeed, the vol- cano and the earthquake have been the chief makers of Japan. But for these, which lift and depress the crust of the earth and cover it with material for soil, much of Japan would never have existed. The lava streams, the red- hot sand, and showers of ashes, which sometimes, within a few days will cover the ground six yards deep, have formed most of the soil of Japan. Certain signs foretell the outbreak of activities below the earth's surface. Sometimes the warning comes in the untimely blooming of the cherry trees, in January instead of in April. Or, the water in the wells sinks before the earth- quake shock. Even such innocent-looking- mountains as Fuji, Qnzen, and Ontake have without warning burst out into flame and steam, sending out floods of lava, throwing the sea into- commotion, and consuming tens of thousands of lives. Occasionally the rocky cap of a mountain is blown off with sudden explosion. In parts of the ocean round Japan the water boils and fumes from subterranean volcanoes. These give rise also to the abundance of hot 18 DUX CHEISTUS springs in the country, to the vast beds of sul- phur, and to those delightful watering places which furnish healing baths for the invalids and places of recreation for pilgrims, tourists, merchants, and missionaries. All these phenomena, continued during ages, have been powerful factors in forming the tem- perament, character, and general nature of the Japanese, and in determining their history. Their land and its story are to millions of them their religion. There is no homesick- ness greater than theirs when away from their beautiful Japan. Earthquakes. More immediate, personal, and terrifying than volcanoes are the earthquakes, which, acting right under your feet almost daily, affect powerfully both mind and body. They are nearly continuous in one part of the empire or another. Indeed, Japan is a coun- try in which the chances of going to sleep at night and waking up to find the chimney in bed with you are fair. Shocks vary from slight vibrations, which the seismograph records al- most with the frequency of the beat of the human pulse, to those violent earth-tremors over great areas, which lift up and throw down animals, human beings, houses, rocks, and hills, which toss over steel bridges into ditch or river, twist railways until they look like writhing snakes, or open the earth hi great cracks. Such are common phenomena. The wise dweller in Japan will catch hold of the lamp as soon as he feels the earth rocking and the THE ISLAND EMPIRE 19 house swaying. The house tumbling down and falling on lamp or brazier adds fire to the hor- rors of the situation. Yet the really destruc- tive earthquakes come only about once in twenty years, and it is calculated that there are more people killed every year by lightning in the United States than there are by earthquakes in Japan, where thunder-storms are rare. Accord- ing to mythology, earthquakes are caused by the writhing of a vast subterranean catfish, whose head is in the northern part of Hondo and whose tail is in Kioto, or southward. For this, as in nearly every other phenomenon in Japan, there is a popular as well as a scientific explanation, for all the creatures in the men- agerie of mythical zoology are, according to native fancy, kept very busy at their pranks. The general ignorance of natural law and lack of knowledge of a Creator-Father account for much of the popular superstition among the lowly and the apparently mercurial disposition of the better class. Above all things the Jap- anese, as a people, need a loving knowledge of the " One Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy." Japan's Indented Coast-line. A glance at the situation on the map of the world and a study of the configuration of the islands, with their coast-line deeply indented in many places with bays and promontories and with only a fraction of its area available for agriculture, show the part which Japan is likely to play in the world's future by industry and commerce, 20 DUX CHRISTUS sea power, and a career on the ocean. One might imagine, a priori, that the Japanese would have been the Phoenicians of the Far East ; and indeed, in large measure, before and especially during the sixteenth century they were, and in the twentieth century are. Legendre in his " Progressive Japan " says : "This chain of islands seems to have been located especially round the eastern boundary of the Old World, to form the advanced post of a transformed superior civilization, returning with man by a course indicated by that of the sun, to seize upon the place of its birth and give a new impulse to its suffering races and otherwise prepare them for their coming evolu- tion in the vortex of ages." The coast-line of the empire is over eighteen thousand miles long, and is for the most part the theatre of varied industries. On or near the salt water, deep-sea fishing, whale hunt- ing, the drying of marine products, the canning of salmon and sardines, and a thousand other methods of livelihood occupy tens of thousands. Salt is made by dipping up the sea water and sprinkling it over beds of sand, evaporating it in the sun, and then leaching out the brine, which is boiled to crystals. The Fisheries. Catching fish in fresh water by hook, net, cormorant, torch-light, and spear, furnishes livelihood to thousands more. Fish- ing is probably a more ancient art in Japan than agriculture. Its scenes and situations lend o themselves readily to the artist and poet, both THE ISLAND EMPIRE 21 of whom delight to portray the fishing girls and men, the female divers after shell-fish, and the fishermen drying their nets or returning home with their spoils. In making presents of food, which is such a striking characteristic of Jap- anese social life, there must always be a piece of decorated and folded paper tied artistically with red and white cord, a polite necessity of which is the insert of a tiny slip of fish skin which tells its own story as a legacy from primitive civilization. Japanese art, poetry, romance, and folk-lore are full of the sea, its wonders and its possibilities for man. Even the ancient Shinto liturgies cele- brate u the blue plain of the sea," the ship and her equipment, the fishers and their spoils. Of the two gods of daily food, seen in nearly every Japanese house, one sits on two bags of rice, the native staff of life, and the other holds a tai, or bream fish, under his left arm, while his right grasps a fishing pole. Neither of these idols is Buddhist or continental, but of pure Japanese origin. Varied Industries. The modern contact of the Japanese with Occidental nations came in the age of steam, electricity, the printing-press, and of the manifold applications of coal and iron. They have taken kindly to the material forces of the Western nations, and have, in a generation or two, changed their form of society from feudalism to constitutional imperialism, and from one almost wholly agricultural to that which is industrial and commercial. This is the golden age of the craftsman, merchant, and 22 DUX CHBISTUS financial promoter. Besides the great enter- prises of ship building and railway construction, there are hundreds of minor industries, such as sugar raising, paper making, dyeing, glass blow- ing, lumbering, horse breeding, poultry and fish culture, ice, brick, fan, match, button, handker- chief, shoe, and jewellery making, with pottery, lacquer, weaving, embroidery, sake and beer brewing, soy, etc. These were all finely repre- sented in the Fifth National Exposition at Osaka, in 1903. Even in war, the Japanese bring to the equipment and transportation of an army and the conduct of a campaign the same nicety, precision, detail and foresight, keen observation, dash and enterprise, which have made them a nation of artists. It seems almost incredible that the nation pictured in this twentieth cen- tury is the same one which we knew fifty years ago. Nevertheless very few native writers are profuse in explaining the part played by their hired employees from 1860 to 1900. Some Japanese, like their foolish flatterers and shallow admirers, seem to delight in talking about their wonderful progress, as if it were a fairy tale. In this way Japanese with short memories imitate the sensational newspaper correspondent and sen- timental tourist, who forget the forty years of varied toil of hand, heart, and brain of hundreds of missionaries and teachers, besides pioneer edu- cators, organizers, and promoters from Europe and America. Chinese and Japanese. Many comparisons are made between the Chinese and Japanese, to THE ISLAND EMPIRE 23 the disparagement or advantage of either. These comparisons are not always intelligent. They rest too often on partisanship, ignorance, or lack of discrimination. When close examination is made, it would be hard to find two peoples who, outwardly so much alike to Western eyes, are so different in their history, development, tempera- ment, language, and most of those deep things which belong to the mind and the records which the mind has made. The Chinese are ethical, the Japanese are esthetical. " The former have race pride, the latter national vanity. . . . No Chinese but glories in the outward badge of his race ; no Japanese but would be delighted to pass for a European, in order to beat the Europeans on their own ground. " The supreme fruit of the Chinese intellect is seen in the moral codes of Confucius and Mencius. The whole idea of Chinese religion and civilization is that of order and propriety, with very little idea of beauty or love of comfort, and with ethical con- ceptions which by ages of iteration and routine have hardened into bigotry, conceit, worship of ancestors, agnosticism, and a pragmatic view of life, that has no idealism in it and is hopelessly opposed to progress. Nevertheless the Chinese are conservative of the best things and hold on to that which is good. On the other hand, the Japanese have not carried the study of ethics so far, nor are they ordinarily given to the study and practice of ethics as such, while for profound philosophy they care next to nothing. Their characteristic 24 DUX CHRISTUS is the love of beauty, that is at once intense and passionate. This is not, necessarily, love to God or man or righteousness, but of nature and art in its decorative, rather than ideal, forms. Nor is this trait, as with us, a compara- tively modern feeling. It is reflected in their literature and art from ancient times. They have a keen perception of natural charms. To an ordinary native of Japan : " A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him." but in a sense different from that intended by Wordsworth of Peter Bell, for it is something more. A Japanese delights in a flower for its own sake. He loves the rocks and trees, the ripple marks on the sea sand, the stars, the coloring of the skies and landscapes, the rosy red of morning, the violet shadows of the sunset hour, and he appreciates thoroughly his beautiful country. That teacher, preacher, missionary worker, will reach most quickly and hold most enduringly who knows and appre- ciates that which is their master-passion, love of country and beauty. The Story of the Japanese People. Japan is a young not an old country, and the Jap- anese are a people no older than the Anglo- Saxon. They came "out of the woods" and into civilization as late in the world's history as did the Teutonic tribes. There is a good deal of nonsense written about what was done in Japan " ages before Christ " or in " the THE ISLAND EMPIRE 25 time of Cyrus." Their story may be easily divided into two parts, the first part prehis- toric, that is, before letters, almanacs, and recorded history in writing, to the sixth csn- tury, A.D., and the second, that which comes later with the clear light of authentic records of the eighth century and following. No one can really understand modern Japan without knowing primitive Japan and the Japanese before they came under Chinese and Buddhist influences. Let one diligently inquire of the real history of these islands, and he will know more of the true genius of the Japanese than if he attempts to interpret the country and people through abstract Western sciences and popular beliefs. To call the first part of Japan's story, as the natives do, " the age of the gods," means little besides mythology and human history, for the old "gods," or kami, were ordinary men and nothing more. The very word kami (upper or superior) does not mean necessarily a supernatural being. Indeed, the average Japanese has no clear distinction between the natural and the supernatural. "At least one-fifth of the Japanese people worship nothing higher than the fox." Yet the kami, or primitive ancestors, are not only honored, but worshipped. Originally, even according to native theory and religion, the kami were all earth-born. In the old Japanese writings the origin of the universe is according to pure evolution of matter into beings with life. In a word, the "gods" came after, not 26 DUX CHRISTUS before, the heavens and the earth, and were made by men. In their ancient view, the world means Japan, and the gods mean Japan- ese only. All the rest of the world and its inhabitants are ignored in the primitive insu- lar traditions. The Japanese a Young Race. There is no real Japanese history prior to the fourth or fifth century. It is true that there are legends which carry the island story backward to nearly seven alleged centuries beyond the point we call the Christian era, and that the government, in very recent years, elaborated a system of chronology, which, like what is "made in Germany," shows the place of its manufacture. First officially set forth in 1872, this system is now rigid orthodoxy to every Japanese drawing govern- ment pay. Though the Western man may smile at the Japanese claims, it is not yet safe for native scholars at home to investigate critically the popular notions about primeval events, for the vulgar belief is part of practical politics and is protected by the emperor's advisers as a bulwark to the throne. Hence this scheme of chronology and outline of early history is offi- cially made a part of the school histories, and is taught to every child, just as if Japan had still a state religion. Read the introduction and opening clauses of the national constitution of 1889. It was not till after 552 A.D. that, in the train of Buddhism and things imported from China, the islanders possessed facilities for measuring THE ISLAND EMPIRE 27 and recording time ; it was over a century later when the miscellaneous floating stories of the early times were set down in writing. The first "emperors," or tribal chiefs in the tradi- tional line, seventeen in number, are credited with an average reign of sixty-two years, which in length is beyond anything known in human history. The average reign of a mikado in the list of 123 is twenty years, and of those since 400 A.D., fourteen years. Japan's Book of Genesis. The " Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Things," contains the prime- val legends, fairy tales, and pretty stories of various kinds, clean and unclean. It gives also the genealogies of the early rulers and mikados. It was put into writing in the year 712 A.D. The stories in it were told by a man named Are, and written down by one Yasumaro, by order of the Empress Gemmio. It is a wonder- ful picture of the primitive people and of their thoughts, customs, and feelings. The " Kojiki " has been translated into Eng- lish, with elaborate notes and commentary, by Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain. Like so many Oriental and very ancient books, there are con- siderable portions of it which are too filthy or realistic to be put into English, so that these objectionable passages are expressed in Latin by the translator. It must not be forgotten also, that the " Sacred Books of the East " as we have them in English are not exact tran- scripts, but expurgated translations, long pas- sages too obscene for public print being omitted. 28 DUX CHEISTUS These same ancient legends, which we read in the " Kojiki," but set in a very different style and literary framework, are also told in the "Nihongi, or Story of Japan." Here we find the old myths framed in Chinese rhetoric, sup- ported by references to Chinese sources, and cast in the general mould of Chinese philosophy. This work, issued in 720 A.D., has been trans- lated into English, with elaborate notes and commentary, by Mr. W. G. Aston, and pub- lished by the Japan Society of London. Modern Scholarship. In fact, the opening of the treasures of both ancient and modern Jap- anese literature to the world, and especially to the English-speaking nations, is, for the most part, the achievement of a little group of schol- ars, most of whom were connected with the British legation in Japan. While the British scholars have excelled in linguistics, literature, and history, the American school of writers has opened the paths of philosophy and psychology. The French have unveiled the world of art, and the Germans have exploited in every direction the once hidden lodes of knowledge. In the works of both popular and scientific writers, but more fully and thoroughly in the Trans- actions of the Asiatic Societies of Japan, one may find almost inexhaustible treasures of knowledge relating to the once hermit king- dom. A set of the Transactions ought to be in every public library in the cities and towns of all English-speaking nations. These excellent recent writings in English have rendered almost THE ISLAND EMPIRE 29 worthless what had been written before by Eu- ropeans. With Poole's Index and Bibliography we have vast treasures explored and catalogued. In Professor E. W. Clement's "Handbook of Modern Japan " and in Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain's " Things Japanese " are also select and very serviceable lists of books on Japan. Racial Qualities of the Japanese. It must be remembered that the Japanese have all the racial qualities that fit them to engage in the competitive struggle of the world's peoples. They are not like certain races which melt away in the presence of a higher civilization, but rather are capable of becoming one of the foremost nations of the world. In capacity for increase of numbers and mastery of new forces and problems they are notable. "The economi- cal, yet convenient, customs of the mass of the people for the care of their young, their health- ful out-of-door life in most parts of the countiy, the age at which children join their parents in productive occupations, their strong family at- tachments making it difficult for any one with family connections to be in absolute destitution, their simple standard of living, all go to show that the Japanese are a prolific race, not only because the birth rate is moderately high, but also because the death rate is low." Since the checks and balances of the elaborate feudal sys- tem have been removed, the population of Japan has increased steadily. All the doors and out- lets to activity, enterprise, and promotion 30 DUX CHEISTU8 army, navy, schools, courts, emigration, foreign commerce, new professions and occupations have been thrown open, and life is now more than ever worth living in Japan. The race is prolific, and the islands overflow with an eager and alert people. Christianity in Japan means life, and life more abundantly. Other Races in the Empire. Japan is an empire with various races within her bounda- ries. Besides the pure-blooded Japanese, we notice the Ainos of the north, probably a frag- ment of the Aryan or Caucasian race. In all physical features they are " white men," but savages lower than the lowest Japanese. In the south are the Riu Kiu islanders, and in Formosa the copper-colored aborigines and the Chinese. To all of these peoples the gospel is now brought in varying measure, and the isles are waiting for his law who " shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth." The Islands of the Sleeping Dragon. The extended chain of islands stretching like a fisherman's net rope between the old empire and Formosa the low hills and soil seeming like the floats bobbing just above the ocean's surface is called by the Japanese Okinawa, or long cable. They are chiefly the work of coral insects, and have many names. Their collective area is about nine hundred and thirty- four square miles. The most important island is Okinawa, of which Shuri is the capital town. The climate, except for the constant humidity, THE ISLAND EMPIRE 31 which is very trying to a newcomer, is pleasant, the mean temperature being 70. Malarial con- ditions abound, and low fever is very prevalent. During the summer months typhoons blow with terrible violence. The soil is extremely fertile. The chief crops are sugar, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, melons, and plantain, with plenty of pigs on land and many kinds of fish in the sea. The language of the people is much the same as the Japanese in structure, but resembles Korean even more than does the modern tongue of Japan. The natives pronounce the name of their little country Du-chu. The name Riu Kiu, which the Japanese use, means Sleeping Dragon, referring probably to its quiet lying in the sea, half manifested and half hidden that is, not yet risen to the skies. Of the fifty-five islands, only five or six are of any size or im- portance, yet the population of the group by the census of 1898 was 453,550. The highest point in the islands is but a hundred yards above the sea-level. Formosa. The island Tai-wan, or Terraced Bay, is mentioned in the Chinese records as early as the seventh century. In the twelfth Japan- ese adventurers landed and made conquest a bit of history probably reflected in the fairy tale of Momotaro, or the Peach Prince. From the fifteenth century the Japanese considered the eastern half or aboriginal region as part of their empire. The Portuguese who visited the island in 1590 were struck with its lovely appearance, and named it Formosa, the Beauti- 32 DUX CHBISTUS ful. About 235 miles long and 90 miles in its greatest breadth, it has an area of 3580 square miles, being about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont. The forest-clad mountains trav- ersing it from north to south have peaks from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high, the lord of all being Mount Morrison, or, as the Japanese call it, Nitaka Yama, towering even over Fuji. Here also are vast camphor forests of great age, for Formosa is the camphor preserve of the world, the home also of the morning-glory and of the sky-blue bamboo. The eastern side is very elevated, and on the sea-coast precipitous, with very few harbors or rivers, while the west side is a slope and presents in every way a great con- trast to the bold, rocky face of the east, for here are the rivers, the fertile fields and plains, the cities, towns, and the dense country population. Because of the immense amount of soil brought down by the torrential streams from the moun- tains and highlands, the land is steadily gaining on the sea. While the southern tip of the island is comparatively slim, the northern end is spread out widely, with rivers, numerous coast towns, and a dense population. The rainfall great, air heavy with humidity, and the heat very enervat- ing make the climatic conditions very trying to a stranger. The population by the census of 1897 consists of 2,797,543 persons, mostly Chinese, who, with the aborigines, of whom at least 120,000 are known, make a possible total of 3,000,000, including 52,405 in the Pescadores Islands, and 16,321 Japanese. The Japanese THE ISLAND EMPIRE 33 apart from the military are mostly officials, teachers, traders, and fishermen, the aboriginal tribes and clans consisting mostly of savages liv- ing in the mountains. These are copper-colored, have bright eyes, are exceedingly cunning, and until pacified by their masters from Nippon were wholly given up to head hunting, which was the custom in ancient Japan, as it is still in Borneo. Usually a man could not get a wife until he had cut off a certain number of human heads, usually of Chinese, whom he ambuscaded or stealthily approached in the forests, or on the outlying farms. Shipwrecked men often fur- nished him with his spoil. Hundreds and thou- sands of human skulls, laid in rows upon boards, or furnishing dados to the places of assembly, adorned many of the villages in olden days. It was the cruel treatment of shipwrecked Ameri- cans by the Butan savages that first brought the attention of the United States to these islanders. The Ainos. In Hokkaido dwell from fifteen to -seventeen thousand subjects of the Mikado, called Ainos, or Ainu (men). They are un- doubtedly survivors of an ancient and aboriginal race that was contemporary with the primitive and prehistoric Japanese and possibly with the cavemen of Europe. Whatever their origin, the Ainos are kinsmen by blood, ideas, cus- toms, and worship with the ancient islanders of Nippon. Science as against sentiment demon- strates the affinity of the Ainos and the ancient Japanese. The more the Ainos are studied, the more it is seen that the majority of the 34 DUX CHRISTUS Japanese are brothers in thought and ideas with the Yezo folk, and that the two peoples anciently were one. While the Japanese have enjoyed Chinese culture and Buddhist educa- tion for a thousand years or more, and have had their minds fertilized from time to time by fresh influences of civilization, and their physique modified by new infusions of blood from the continent, the Ainos were left in their primitive savagery on an island separate and scarcely visited, certainly not greatly in- fluenced by the Japanese until the seventeenth century. The Japanese Abroad. The great internal changes resulting from the transit from her- mitage to brotherhood with other nations, and from feudalism into a modern industrialism, have redistributed the population. The gen- eral movement is from the country to the city, and whereas most of the world had never seen a Japanese, now the Mikado's subjects are found in every civilized country. Beginning in 1870, the former hermits travelled abroad. At the outbreak of the war with Russia, there were in Hawaii thirty, in the United States twenty, in Korea thirty, in China five, and in other coun- tries about ten, thousand Japanese. We may easily reckon at least a million of men, soldiers, sailors, and non-combatants, as abroad during the war of 1904. All this, in divine Provi- dence, must mean the passing away of the old Japan of paganism and superstition, and of narrow ideas and interests. THE ISLAND EMPIRE 35 The Profit of knowing Japan. Those who wish to understand the people whose ancestors have dwelt in the Japanese islands for two thou- sand years or more will not entirely neglect the study of their physical environment. If the foreign missionary is affected in health, spirits, capacity for work, in a word, in mind and body, by the climate and the unseen but keenly felt conditions of nature, we can realize how these same conditions, operating during the long ages, have with other potent factors made the Japanese what they are. Discrimi- nation, perception, and sympathy arm the gos- pel teacher for his warfare of love. Let none neglect the study of the Master's parable of the seed growing secretly, nor its adaptation to the Japanese field. " Can it be possible that, with earthquakes like these, our people can become equal to Europeans ? " asked the Mikado's envoy, Arinori Mori, of the writer, when after the return of the former from Eng- land, he had been shaken, and mentally as well as bodily shocked, by the ground moving during the night. The earth-tremors and rum- blings seemed to have taken, for the moment, his spirit out of him. If Palestine itself be a " fifth gospel," if in the Old Testament the environment of Jehovah's people by mountain, valley, river, and plain, be continually pictured in psalm and narrative, so that the Hebrew language itself is a mirror of the landscape, the book and the land being as sun and moon, so also is it in Japan. The vernacular and 36 DUX CHRISTUS the home land of the Japanese are as twin brother and sister, and its history is a child in the same family. When a native preacher, after passing in review all the lesser peaks of scripture truth, declared that John iii. 16 (" God so loved the world," etc.) was "the Fuji Yama text of the Bible," his audience thrilled. When Nicolai, one of the greatest of alien preachers in Japanese, compared the conquering cross to Taiko's banner, his auditors were nearly lifted off their feet, for Hideyoshi, the Taiko, was invincible. As Jesus knew so well the land of Galilee and Hermon, of Jerusalem and Bethany, and based his pictorial teaching of parallels on it, so may we learn diligently, in part at least, of Everlasting Great Japan, and why the people love it so. Nor must the alien, even though a missionary, want to change, but rather foster this feeling. The disciple is not above his Lord, who said, " I come not to destroy, but to fulfil." The prophet has also said, " And the idols he shall utterly abolish." We are called to be co-workers with God in redeeming Japan's fair landscape from paganism and the minds of her people from superstition, and to lead them unto the light and liberty of the children of God. THE ISLAND EMPIRE 37 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS FIRST IMPRESSIONS Japan? Is there another geographical term that pre- sents to the imagination another such picture as the word Japan? England, Paris, Greece, Rome, these names likewise affect the imagination, and each calls up before the mind a variety of scenes and associations which are full of interest; England, the romance of history, the flower of character, the spread of empire; Paris, brilliancy, gayety, pleasure; Greece, the perfections of antiquity; Rome, age, power, splendor, ecclesiastical domain. Japan stands for something different from all of these, and in some ways a good deal more, though in most ways on a smaller scale. But for situation, for scenery, for venerable years and bounding youth, for possessions and ambitions, for actual performance and for hopeful promise, Japan is almost by itself among the nations. " Unique " means the only one of the kind. Japan is "unique." There is only one Japan. EDWARD ABBOTT. Dimensions. Take the state of California, cut from the end of it a piece as big as the state of Maryland, move it almost directly due west across the Pacific Ocean for a distance of nearly five thousand miles, until it is within two days' easy sail by steam of the Asiatic coast, turn it upside down and over to the left so that its longer axis will run from northeast to southwest, break it up into one large island, three smaller ones, and several hundreds if not thousands of islets too small and too sterile to be inhabited, then empty into it half the population of the United States of America, and you have Japan. EDWARD ABBOTT. It is a land of harmonies and charms, a paradise for artists and the poet's theme. EDWARD ABBOTT. It is impossible to describe the first impressions made by an Oriental scene upon a stranger from the Occident. 38 DUX CHRISTUS Many thoughts are suggested and emotions excited in the bewildering transition from the new to the old world. There is nothing familiar beneath the skies. Physical conformations, men, women, and children, trees, plants and flowers, are novel and intensely interesting ; having been seen, in the credulous days of childhood, only in pic- tures or dreams, of countries unreal and mythical. Per- chance in that springtime of life, rose-colored and golden, we were transported on some magic roll of carpet to these fairy regions, as we had read of heroes and heroines having been in the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments." We had visited Aladdin's subterranean cavern, and in imagination gathered jewels from the trees, and golden treasures, until we were fabulously rich. But the rose color faded into gray, the jewels dissolved like Cleopatra's pearl, and though we stood upon Oriental soil, it was dis- enchanted, real, substantial. L. H. PIEKSON. Here in the Orient, of which Japan is truly the gem, every hill and every valley are devoted to the grim old idols, hideous, senseless, and repulsive, instruments of the powers of darkness for the confusion and destruction of human beings, for whom Christ the Son of God hath died. But first impressions grow dim, and are brushed away as the bloom from ripened fruit, never to be re- newed. The scenery becomes familiar, the people less strange, and wonderment ceases. One awful fact cannot be ignored, but oppresses and disturbs the heart of the Christians ; it is a heathen country and a heathen people. There, as evidence, stands the temple erected to " Hachi- man," or here, the shrine of Ebisu, and above that long flight of stone steps, under the green trees, on that lofty eminence, is a statue of Buddha, which belongs to the mineral kingdom, and is far inferior to those who bow down before it in worship. Gross darkness covers the land and its people. L. H. PIERSON. The bad is worse and the good is better than what I expected to find. Before arriving my mind echoed the THE ISLAND EMPIRE 39 enthusiastically expressed sentiments of many a friend who was congratulating us upon coming to such an at- tractive field, a land of flowers and pretty scenery, a land where all is sunshine and sweetness, where the people are clean and courteous, and where the children never cry. And even now I am ready to write the praises of a coun- try that is able to advance with such unparalleled leaps and bounds along industrial, educational, commercial, and civil lines. It is wonderful ! It speaks volumes for Japan's powers of adaptation and assimilation. Never- theless, as I begin to breathe some of the ideas prevalent among the masses, I am impressed with the fact that Japan is in dire need. For in the struggle against the tremendous forces which are threatening to retard her real progress, the forces of good have to fight in an at- mosphere that lacks a stimulus which is supplied, not primarily through such a noble means as patriotism, to say nothing of the law of expediency, but through a well-trained sense of duty toward the one personal God, Creator, and Father. E. F. BELL. The Japanese farmer differs from the merchant and the samurai. He is simpler, more childlike, and doubt- less more superstitious. He loves his country shrines, and his religion evidently means much to him. In Hawaii he is said to have built with his surplus wages sixteen fine Buddhist temples. He is not the brains of Japan, but he is the heart of the nation, not the flower, but the root. Sakura Sogoro was a farmer and reveals the possi- bilities of his class. Until he is brought into the church, Christianity will not have taken deep root here. I can- not keep back the conviction that the God who moulds history meant something especially important for the future of this nation, when he removed sixty to seventy thousand of these simple-hearted folk to Hawaii. And if we Americans do our duty there, during the next ten years the country parts of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fuku- oka, Kumamoto, Wakayama, and Niigata ought to wit- ness a mighty transformation. DOUEMUS SCUDDER. 40 DUX CHEISTU8 LITERATURE AND HISTORY Sum total : what Japanese literature most lacks in' genius. It lacks thought, logical grasp, depth, breadth, and many-sidedness. It is too timorous, too narrow, to compass great things. Perhaps the court atmosphere and predominantly feminine influence in which it was nursed for the first few centuries of its existence stifled it, or else the fault may have lain with the Chinese for- malism in which it grew up. But we suspect that there was some original sin of weakness as well. Otherwise the clash of India and China with old mythological Japan, of Buddhism with Shinto, of imperialism with feudalism, and of all with Christianity in the sixteenth century and with Dutch ideas a little later, would have produced more important results. If Japan has given us no music, so also has she given us no immortal verse. But Japanese literature has occasional graces, and is full of incidental scientific interest. BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN. The art of writing history has not made much progress in recent years. Modern methods of investigation and principles of historical criticism are known and accepted; but a great sifting of the existing heterogeneous material must be done before history, as we- understand it, can be written. Nobody has yet made any serious attempt to distinguish the true from the false in the old Japanese annals, though it is pretty generally acknowledged that this process is indispensable. W. G. ASTON. THE LACK OF IDEALISM Neither their past history nor their prevailing tastes show any tendency to idealism. They are lovers of the practical and the real. Neither the fancies of Goethe nor the reveries of Hegel are to their liking. Our poetry and our philosophy and the mind that appreciates them are alike the result of a network of subtle influences to which THE ISLAND EMPIRE 41 the Japanese are comparative strangers. It is maintained by some, and we think justly, that the lack of idealism in the Japanese mind renders the life of even the most cultivated a mechanical, humdrum affair when compared with that of Westerners. The Japanese cannot under- stand why our controversialists should wax so fervent over psychological, ethical, religious, and philosophical questions, at the interest taken in such subjects. The charms that the cultured Western mind finds in the world of fancy and romance, in questions themselves, irrespec- tive of their practical bearings, is for the most part unin- telligible to the Japanese. B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. The characteristic in which the Chinese and Japanese most agree (and other Far-Eastern peoples, the Koreans for example, agree in it also) is materialism. That is where the false note is struck, which, when long resi- dence [in Japan] has produced familiarity, jars on Euro- pean nerves, and prevents true intellectual sympathy. B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. We foreigners, being mere lookers-on, may no doubt sometimes regret the substitution of commonplace Euro- pean ways for the glitter, the glamour, of picturesque Orientalism. But can it be doubtful which of the two civilizations is the higher, both materially and intellec- tually? And does not the whole experience of the last three hundred years go to prove that no Oriental state which retains distinctively Oriental institutions can hope to keep its territory free from Western aggression ? What of India? AVhat even of China? And what was Com- modore Perry's visit but a threat to the effect that if Japan chose to remain Oriental she should not be al- lowed to remain her own mistress? From the moment when the intelligent samurai of the leading clans realized that the Europeanization of the country was a question of life and death, they (for to this day the government has continued practically in their hands) have never ceased carrying out the work of reform and progress. B. II. CHAMBERLAIN. 42 DUX CHRISTUS THE FUTURE I have absolute confidence in the final acceptance of Christianity by the Japanese. There is no race char- acteristic in true Christianity that bars the way. Fur- thermore, the growth of the Japanese in recent years, intellectually and in the reorganization of the social order, points to their final acceptance of Christianity and renders it necessary. S. L. GULICK. In loyally accepting science, popular education, and the rights of every individual to equal protection by the government, Japan has accepted the fundamental con- ceptions of civilization held in the West, and has thus become an integral part of Christendom, a fact of world- wide significance. S. L. GULICK. A WORD NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SCRIPTURES The Japanese are very sensitive over this word ["heathen"]. It seems to them an offensive and rude term, a word of inferiority or even of contempt. It was from our English Bible, doubtless, that it came so widely into use. Yes ; but go to the Revised Version and not one single passage in the New Testament can be found with this word in it. Christ and his disciples never used it. They spoke of nations with respect and hope; never of heathen, pagans, outsiders. The revised Old Testament, too, has largely done the same. Our new Bible is pretty well cleared up, so far as the word " heathen " is con- cerned. The worst people in our so-called Christian civilization use this word most freely. Gamblers, hard drinkers, pharisaical moralists, and low politicians can- not ring changes enough on it. " The heathen Chinese," "the heathen Jap," are the words of human beings who never had a noble thought toward the people of another nation nor a spark of true patriotism. So that I would raise the question : Isn't it time that we missionaries part company with those who roll the word " heathen " under THE ISLAND EMPIRE 43 their tongues as a sweet morsel of contempt? Shall we Christians at home or in mission fields be courteous in preaching the gladdest tidings on earth, or not? A Veteran Missionary in Japan. As long as I fear God and walk in his ways you will remain in memory, for "My God" and "My Teacher" have such a strong connection that I really cannot think about the one without being reminded of the other. Indeed, I believe nearly all your old scholars who are making their way in this sinful world must often think of you, and the benediction will arise in their hearts " Blessed old Teacher, imparter of the Truth " as I think always. Letter of a Japanese wife and mother, alumna of " The Home." 44 DUX CHEISTUS THEMES FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION I. Classes and Races in the Japanese Empire. II. The Persistent Characteristics of the Japanese in every Age. III. How the Laud and the People have influenced each Other. IV. Situation of Japan as determining its History. V. Situation of Japan as influencing its Future. VI. Effect of Earthquakes and Natural Phenomena on Temperament and Character. VII. Reaction of the Landscape upon the Japanese Love of Beauty. VIII. Missionary Work as conditioned by Japan's Politi- cal Uniqueness. IX. Missionary Work as affected by the Geography of Japan. X. The Ainos, Riu Kiuans, and native Formosans. XI. The Value for Work and Teaching of a Knowledge of Things Japanese. XII. The Japanese Abroad. WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR ALL THE CHAPTERS For general reference on this chapter and succeeding ones : " Encyclopaedia of Missions." Edited by E. M. Bliss. Funk & Ingalls Co. Encyclopaedias, the Britannica (1903), New Interna- tional (1904), etc. Dodd, Mead & Co. J. S. Dennis. " Christian Missions and Social Progress." (1902.) F. H. Revell Co. B. H. Chamberlain. Things Japanese " (1903) ; Trans- lation of " Kojiki " (1882) ; " Classical Poetry of the Japanese " (1880) ; " Handbook for Japan" (1903) ; and " Aino Studies " (1887). Charles Scribner's Sons. THE ISLAND EMPIRE 45 Aston. " History of Japanese Literature " (1899) ; Translation of the "Nihongi" (1896). D. Apple- ton & Co. Brink ley. "Oriental Series Japan." (1903.) J. B. Millet Co. T. A. 8. J. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. (1873-1904.) E. W. Clement. " A Handbook of Modern Japan.'' (1904.) A. C. McClurg & Co. F. O. Adams. " History of Japan," to 1871. (1875.) II. S. King & Co. W.E.Griffis. " The Mikado's Empire." (1903.) Harpers. J. J. Rein. " Japan " (1884) ; and " Industries of Japan " (1889). A. C. Armstrong & Son. A. B. Mitford. " Tales of Old Japan." (1890.) G. P. Putnam's Sons. E. S. Morse. "Japanese Homes and their Surroundings." (1885.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. J. Batchelor. The Ainu of Japan." (1892.) F. H. Revell Co. J. W. Davidson. " The Island of Formosa." (1903.) Macinillan & Co. W. Campbell. " Missionary Success in Formosa." (1889.) G. L. Mackay. " From Far Formosa." (1895). F. II. Revell Co. I. Bird (Bishop). "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." (1881.) G. P. Putnam's Sons. BOOKS OF REFERENCE FOR CHAPTER I D. Murray. "The Story of Japan." (1894.) G. P. Putnam's Sons. J. A. Scherer. "Japan To-day." (1904.) J. B. Lip- pincott Co. W. E. Griffis. " Japan ; In History, Folklore, and Art." (1892.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. O. Gary. "Japan and Its Regeneration." (1899.) Stu- dent Volunteer Movement. R. B. Peery. "The Gist of Japan." (1900.) F. II. Revell Co. 46 DUX CHBISTUS M. L. Gordon. " An American Missionary in Japan." (1892.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. J. Morris. " Advance Japan." (1895.) J. B. Lippin- cott Co. H. Norman. " The Real Japan." (1892.) Scribners. L. Hearn. " Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." (1894.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. S. L. Gulick. " Evolution of the Japanese." (1903.) F. H. Revell Co. CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 607 B.C.-400 A.D. Era of mythology and legend. The first seventeen legendary emperors. 552 . . . Entrance of Buddhism. Opposition of the Shintoists. C02 . . . Chinese calendars introduced. 615 . . . Measurement of time by year-periods. 700 . . .. Custom of cremation begun. 709 . . . Court ceases to be nomadic. Nara the capi- tal. Great Buddhist activity at the court. 712 . . . "Kojiki" (Record of Ancient Matters) writ- ten. 794 . . . Kioto made the capital (for nearly 1100 years). 1091-1192 Period of the civil wars of the military clans. Revolts of the Buddhist monks. Decadence of the Mikado's power. Seat of govern- ment fixed at Kamakura. Duarchy. Feudal system developed. 1219-1333 The IIojo rulers at Kamakura. Repulse of the Mongol-Tartar armada, 1281. 1335-1573 Era of art and luxury, followed by civil war. The Ashikaga rulers at Kamakura. 1542 . . . First Europeans (Portuguese) in Japan. Tobacco and firearms. 1573-1600 Era of the " Three Great Men," Nobunaga, Ilideyoshi, and lyeyasu. Invasion of Korea. Roman Catholic Christians. 1640-1870 Scholastic revival of Pure Shinto. 1715 . . . Publication of Prince Mito's " History of Japan." 1763 . . . Ninth and last of the female mikados. 1784 . . . Great famine. Over one million deaths by starvation. 1715-1868 Intellectual movements leading to the Res- toration of 1868. 1837 . . . American ship Morrison in Yedo Bay. 1818 . . . Ronald McDonald teaches English in Japan. 1853 . . . Commodore Perry at Uraga. 47 48 DUX CHRISTUS Continued from page 47. 1859 . . . Foreign trade and residence in the ports. 1868 . . . Change of government "Charter Oath." Era of Meiji. 1871 . . . Abolition of the feudal system. 1872 . . . First Protestant church, missionary confer- ence, railway, national army, and school system. 1873-1888 Political commotions, sweeping reforms. Modern industrialism. 1883 . . . Missionary conference in Osaka. 1889 . . . The Constitution proclaimed. Liberty of conscience declared. 1894 . . . Chino-Japanese war, resulting in the cession of Formosa. 1899 . . . Japan recognized on equal terms by the nations of Christendom. 1900 . . . Japan allied with Christian nations in China. General missionary conference in Tokio. 1904 . . . Russo-Japanese war. CHAPTER II THE MAKING OF THE NATION Aboriginal Japan. In the making of the Japanese nation we discern four great periods : first, prehistoric or original Japan, in which were many tribes but little or no unity ; second, the thousand years of Buddhism, from the sixth to the sixteenth century, when the Japanese mind was influenced by the Aryan religion and the people educated in ideas and institutions imported from the Asian mainland ; third, national hermitage and the dominance of the Confucian ethics and philosophy, from the opening of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century ; fourth, the modern era of the decadence of paganism and of inter- course and brotherhood with the nations of the world, during the era of Meiji, or Enlightened Civilization (1868-1904), in which the inform- ing spirit is Christianity. The great bulk of the Japanese people and the Ainos of Hokkaido are brethren. These mild savages now inhabiting Yezo and the Kuriles were once the inhabitants of nearly the whole archipelago. Professor B. H. Chamberlain, in his " Aino Studies," makes elaborate comparison of the language, mythol- E 49 50 DUX CHRIST US ogy and geographical nomenclature of the Jap- anese with those of the Aino. They are aston- ishingly similar. The conclusions of scholars point to the fact that "the Japanese realm was once an Aino realm." The Yezo people, who once fiercely fought against the ancient Japanese, bear the same relation to the culti- vated and polished people of Japan' that the fierce Norsemen of the Middle Ages do to Christian ladies and gentlemen of Stockholm or Christiania, or our own ancestors, the wild Germanic tribes in their forests, do to the the Christian people of Prussia, the Nether- lands, or England of to-day. Culture and re- ligion, under divine Providence, have lifted up the once lowly races of the Japanese islands. The Ainos, separated from the general stream of civilizing activities, which the people farther south have enjoyed for over a thousand years, have stagnated. Untouched savage life has left the Aino what he is to-day, a hunter and fisher- man amid ignorance, and under conditions for ages sadly near the brutes, until in late years he has been taught and elevated by Christian men and women. This does not mean that the Ainos and Jap- anese are entirely one in the quality of their blood, for the Japanese are in origin a very mixed people. Mongol, Tartar, Malay, Nigrito, Hindoo, Chinese, and more particularly ancient Korean blood, flows in their veins. The various bodies of emigrants who reached Japan from the continent during the unrecorded centuries THE MAKING OF THE NATION 51 had no unity or special knowledge of each other. Superimposed upon these strata of humanity we find another body of invaders who came from " Ama " wherever on the earth, or in the realm of fancy, that region may be. These were the conquerors who, with superior dogmas, weapons, and social and political systems, began that unifying process of conquest and civiliza- tion which ultimately made the Japanese a nation. Migrations and Cycles of Tradition. On the literary side we may construct from the Kojiki a map of the migrations of traditions, as well as of the men who made the stories. To them all of the Japanese archipelago, either below or north of the thirty-eighth parallel, is unknown. Korea is the far-off land known only at points along its coast. China is heard of only very late in the story, but "the world" to the Kojiki myth-makers consists of the three great islands that we know, with a few islets in the Japan Sea, that served as stepping stones from the conti- nent. Of the three cycles of traditions recognizable, two seem to correspond to lines of immigration from Korea and the mainland of Asia. The first covers the regions south of the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude. In this section are the accounts of creation, or rather of evolution, and the multiplication and quarrels of the gods. These " gods " were simply kami, that is, men of rank and influence in the tribes and clans. The second cycle of stories may be included 52 DUX CHRISTUS between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh par- allels covering the region of the southwestern coast of Hondo, where it is much indented. The general area is the land on the west and north side of the mountains, as viewed from the region around Kioto the first seat of letters and civilization. In this section we have the stories of the conquest and peopling of Japan, with not a few pretty legends like fairy tales. The third, or Yamato legendary cycle, covers the region lying on the south side of Japan's great mountain range and facing the seashore. It extends from, say, the one hundred and thirty-fourth meridian east, up to the region of Tokio, that is, on the sunny and ocean side of the mountains. During this cycle conquests were made in what was then considered the Far East, around and north of Yedo Bay. Pretty much the whole country north of the thirty- fifth parallel was then occupied by the barbar- ous tribes that had not come under the rule of the Yamato chiefs. The land still nearer the polar star was spoken of as "the north coun- try," or "the pathless." The Japanese a Young Nation. The critical student finds himself unable to stand with the average " educated " Japanese of to-day. The latter feels that he must draw the line some- where, so he rejects " the age of the gods " as historical, but he accepts implicitly the so-called "history" of the mikados, from Jimmu, the dragon-born hero of legend, down to the pres- ent emperor. In a word, he makes out that his 53 nation is old, instead of realizing that the Jap- anese are a young race. By and by, the Mi- kado's subjects will get over this baseless notion of Japan's great antiquity. Most of our unre- vised encyclopaedias and those foreign writers and people who, after a hasty tour of a few weeks, write books on Japan, have followed in the steps of, or copied after, patriotic native writers, who talk about Japan's " authentic his- tory covering twenty-five hundred years." To get this long period of time, the early makers of chronology took traditions, folk-lore, and fairy tales, and out of these constructed their own story on a Chinese model, rilling up the voids with imaginary events and persons. Much of the language even, which is used to describe events of the centuries before the time of Christ, is taken from Chinese books, them- selves written a thousand years after the events described. A similar instance is seen in the Arabian Nights Entertainments, in which the people who lived many hundreds of years be- fore Mahomet talk according to Mahometan words and ideas. In the great body of so- called " history," as thus far written in Japan, the subjects most interesting to a Christian or an Occidental are left out. It is rank, office, figureheads, routine, that we read most about, not of real persons, or events of moral signifi- cance, and profound human interest. The old books tell next to nothing of things foreign and Christian in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies. Indeed, what "official" history, even 54 DUX CHRISTUS in our own day, shows anything of the immense debt of Japan to her foreign helpers, advisers, and educators ? Nevertheless, a new spirit is abroad and a new day coming. The Yamato House and the Mikado. The Ko- jiki narratives reveal the fact that in central Japan in the fifth and sixth centuries what we shall call the House of Yamato is gradually getting under its control the other tribes near by. In time, but hardly before the twelfth cen- tury, this rule extends over the whole south and east of the main island, Shikoku, and Kiu- shiu, although the hold is slight, and there are many outbreaks and rebellions. Marauding parties occasionally visit Korea and conquer parts of the coast land. One bold young prince or chief's son, named Yamato Dake, makes a journey eastward to conquer the Ainos, or bar- barians. Coming to the Bay of Yedo, the sea- god raises a storm, apparently to check further advance. The chieftain's wife leaps into the sea as an offering to the wrathful kami, and is drowned. From the sigh " Adzuma " (my wife !) uttered by the hero as he returned victorious after his adventures in the north to the place of sacrifice, the region around Tokio is still poetically called Adzuma. In 1870 Prince " Adzuma," the Mikado's cousin, while travelling in America, took this name. The Japanese men-of-war being always named after pretty women and beautiful places, one of them is the Adzuma. The head of the house or tribe dominant was THE MAKING OF THE NATION 55 called from his office or place of rule ; for the Japanese, always impersonal, ignore the name, and lay emphasis upon the house, family name, place, or rank, and this name, Mikado (awful place or sublime porte), reveals that great char- acteristic of secrecy and mystery which the Japanese will keep up in regard to their em- peror and in some few other things. Though this mystery play is in process of effacement before the light of truth, common-sense, the rising spirit of democracy, and the necessities of modern life, the ability of the Japanese to preserve secrecy in diplomatic and military matters is admirable. Even yet it often hap- pens that a man is not officially dead until long after the breath has left his body. Beginning of History. We begin Japanese history, then, at the opening of the fifth cen- tury, leaving the legends and fairy tales for those who enjoy them, either as fact or fancy, and letting them serve their purpose in art, literature, and that emotional and sentimental religion, of which Shinto is the expression, which has no necessary connection with right- eousness. We notice that from the introduc- tion of Chinese letters and writings and the civilizing religion of Buddhism, there began three processes of welding all the people of the archipelago into a commonwealth, and of ex- panding the mind and feeding the heart of the Japanese man. They were military, civil, and religious. Let us look at these two great streams of influence and power. 56 DUX CHRISTUS The method of making one nation of all the islands was begun within the country by de- spatching military forces to the south and west and to the far east and north. Gradually these soldiers brought the whole body of the inhabit- ants in obedience to the Mikado, and under one general system of political life. Thus the way was opened for the culture, education, and religion that came in the train of the Buddhist missionaries. It took six or seven centuries to complete this process of conquest, which was like that of the Roman Empire over the various tribes and peoples of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. Great social and political results followed. One of these deserves special notice, for it led to that form of Japanese politi- cal life which lasted for a thousand years, serving also as a framework of sociology and ethics feudalism. As war became more and more a system, it was found necessary to have a special class of men always ready for service. For this the stronger and able-bodied men were selected to be soldiers, while those who tilled the soil were left as farmers and laborers. This meant that in the evolution of the centuries the vast major- ity of the people should remain at home to follow a narrow round of life, with only a slight measure of culture, and thus to become the stolid, conservative body of people which we find them to-day. From the severely critical point of view, the tillers of the soil still follow a routine that is almost animal. They are for THE MAKING OF THE NATION 57 the most part unmitigated pagans, the prey of the priests and given to superstition, and with whom the liberal and progressive men and the government have the hardest problem, while engaged in securing the evolution of the Jap- anese into a modern man. Slowest to respond to civilizing effort, they make, when abroad as emigrants, a kind of Japanese that the tourist in Tokio, especially those steeped in the writ- ings of the lackadaisical school of foreign writers, scarcely sees or dreams of. Neverthe- less, kindness and perseverance win them to the Saviour, for to them, when away from the priest and understanding the message, the gos- pel of Christ is indeed the " good news " of God. The Rise of the Samurai. On the other hand, the soldier who was a samurai (now called shizokii), that is, a servant of the Mikado, was started on the line of progress, and began that shining career of over a thousand years which has made a kind of man that is unique in Asia. Abundant opportunities of movement and of exciting and enlightening experiences we^e given him. He entered the school of discipline, of ethics, and of politeness. Under this system there has been evolved that superb system of chivalry, manners, self-mastery of the body, and culture of the spirit, called Bushido, or the Knightly Way. The existence of this body of men, exemplars of courtesy and culture, with their faces now turned away from Confucius, and, as we believe, to the Christ, is what makes 58 DUX CURISTU8 Japan so different from Korea, and especially from China, where, as a rule, the soldier is a Manchu and the scholar a Chinese, separated from and mutually despising each other. All the culture and forces were united and incar- nated in the nobler ranks of the samurai, so that to-day there is no other man in Asia quite like him, superbly trained as he is in body and mind. During the millennium of luxury he shared also in the delights and discipline of let- ters, of religion, and of taste. Thus the samu- rai, at once soldier and scholar, warrior and gentleman, is the consummate white flower of Japanese civilization, the creator of public opin- ion, who wields the destinies of his country. Nearly all the first missionary converts, as are now most of the leaders of the Christian church in Japan, and of the nation, were of the samurai or knightly class. To-day the Christian samu- rai are the Mores Christi, Blossoms of the Christ. Happily in our era, since feudalism has passed away, the Japanese common people have inherited the spirit and have adopted many of the ideas of the old samurai. Yet so differ- ent is now the spirit of the age and the new meaning and value given to life by Christianity, that it is quite common for men of the rank of gentry to step down into the grade of com- moners. In the sight of God a man is a man, and a king is nothing more. The civil development of Japan made the " Land of Great Peace " and the varied peoples one. Even the rude feudalism of prehistoric THE MAKING OF THE NATION 59 time was "a stage of progress," for it meant order and advance in agriculture and settled government over the wild tribal life of the hunter and the fisherman. Naturally this prim- itive feudalism melted away before the Chinese centralizing methods, which were introduced in the seventh century. As the military system made conquest, a uniform system of taxation was elaborated. Departments or boards of gov- ernment were organized at the capital, whence governors appointed by the emperor, and hold- ing office for three years, were sent out to the different provinces. With the new system of government from one centre or capital, came also orders of nobil- ity, nine in number with two degrees to each rank, fixed costumes, and a rigid code of court etiquette, which survives in many of its features even to this day. There are no people in the world who value political honors, office, decora- tions, and government uniform more than the Japanese, a trait which tells powerfully upon private and national character. A Thousand Years of Buddhism. But even greater than the train of events which led to political development was the entrance of Bud- dhism, for it proved to be the purveyor of art, education, and culture throughout the empire. Although the particular year 552 A.D., the date of the introduction of images and sacred books from Korea, is properly celebrated as a single epoch-making event, yet the coming of the Ind- ian religion must be viewed rather as the 60 DUX CHBISTUS beginning of a mighty and varied stream of influences which fertilized and transformed the insular mind. It opened new worlds of vision and gave the Japanese what they never had before. It meant a thousand years of continued action and reaction between Japan and China, the passing to and fro between the archipelago and the mainland of students, inquirers, emi- grants, and colonies, seeking and bringing cul- ture and art, and of the introduction of schools of painting and poetry, besides the fairy tales of India and China. History gives us the names of many of the men and women who brought seeds for the soul as well as for the soil, new books, inventions, costumes, food plants, and things of beauty. These purveyors of the civili- zations of India and China were the " beginners of a better time." To the gardens, both of 'man's mind and of the soil, they brought seeds and cultivated the flowers until was ripened the fruit of Japan's unique civilization, which no foreign influences will ever fully destroy, and which is yet to enrich the world. Japan needs no other civilization than her own, enlarged, purified, consecrated, by its being brought through the Holy Spirit to " the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." We must look to the first clash of Japan's Orientalism with the forces and influences from Europe in the sixteenth century. Japan known to Europeans. When Columbus steered his caravels into the unknown West, it was with the expectation of finding Xipango 61 (Japan) with its abundance of gold and precious gems. He reached, not the American conti- nent, but the West Indies, and little did he or any one else in Europe know the terrible state of things then prevailing in Japan, from pro- longed civil war, resulting from the break-up of any central government in the fifteenth century. It was one of the darkest moments in Japan- ese history when the Roman missionaries reached Japan. The structure of feudalism had fallen into decay, and the country was split up into a thousand warring fragments. The priest and the soldier were the only people who were well off. While the former ensconced himself in a fortified monastery and the latter in a moated and turreted castle, both preyed upon the com- mon people, who were little better than serfs, while many thousands of them were genuine slaves. The maker of weapons was rich and honored. Famine, pestilence, and the destruc- tion wrought by earthquakes abounded. There was little real religion to lift up and cheer. Shinto had sunk into the shadow of a myth, and Buddhism had become a national system of political gambling, rather than helpful faith. Kioto, the capital, had been repeatedly attacked and burned. Libraries and books had been destroyed. Japanese pirates ravaged the sea and coasts. The woful " times of Ashikaga " (1335-1573) were long the potter's field of chronology for the native novelists, where any- thing strange or incredible might reasonably be supposed to have happened. 62 DUX CHRISTUS Fifty years after the discovery of America, or in 1542, Japan was reached by three Portu- guese on a Chinese pirate junk, which was driven by a storm to Seed Island (Tanega- shima). The latter word is now the synonym in the mouths of country people for a pistol, for these Europeans first showed the Japanese firearms. During the six months that they lived on the island, the imitative and clever natives are said to have made six hundred matchlock guns. Another early arrival was Mendez Pinto, who told so many wonderful things about Japan to his countrymen, that they dubbed him by a pun on his name Mendez, the Mendacious Pinto. Hence our word " men- dacipus." In like manner, Marco Polo, because he used the word " million " so often, had been dubbed "Sir Millions"; yet research has shown the truth of what Polo and Pinto told about the Eastern countries. In a word, the Euro- peans, as conceited in their way as the Japanese themselves, could not at first believe that there was any civilization beyond their own continent. Trade and Roman Christianity. Trade soon began between the Portuguese in China and the Japanese. One of the latter, named Yajiro, or Anjiro, among those who traded in India, met Francis Xavier at Malacca, where the apostle of the Indies was laboring. Anjiro became a Chris- tian, and with the heroic missionary Xavier sailed to Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma, landing in 1549. Japan had then no central government, and the entrance of the foreigners, THE MAKING OF THE NATION 63 whether traders or missionaries, passed un- noticed. Xavier, using interpreters, began his labors immediately, going from one province to another, but ever longing to reach Kioto, supposing it to be a glorious city of splendid palaces. When he got there, he found only ruins, rubbish, unburied corpses, and a general situation of war and disturbance. He remained in Japan less than two years and then started for China, where he died and was buried on the island of Sancian in the Canton River. Nevertheless, Xavier's shining example at- tracted scores of other missionaries, who labored so diligently that in 1581 there were two hun- dred churches and one hundred and fifty thou- sand native Christians so called, that is, Chris- tians with a little knowledge of the ceremonies and catechism, but with next to no acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures. It is rarely, if ever, a part of Roman missionary work to put the Bible into the tongue of the people. Yet history shows that often the difference between a dying and a living Christianity among the converts of missionaries, when deprived of their teachers, is the absence or the presence of the Word of God in the tongue of the people. Much of the so-called " conversion " by wholesale was ac- complished by force, as is told not only in the letters of the Jesuits, in "The Mikado's Empire," and other works, but in the latest work of re- search, Murdoch and Yamagata's most valuable "History of Japan." From the first the Portuguese priests owed 64 DUX CHRISTUS much to the friendship of Nobunaga, the Mi- kado's junior prime minister. This astute gen- eral and politician was the relentless hater of the Buddhists. He made it the work of his life to put down their rising power, which had become a great military and political force, which No- bunaga considered a menace to the life of the nation. Unfortunately for the Jesuit mission- aries, their friend at court was assassinated in 1582. Two of the feudal barons who had professed Christianity determined to let the Pope of Rome see some of the first-fruits of the work in Japan, and in 1583 four young noblemen were de- spatched to Europe to declare themselves vassals of the Holy See. They were absent eight years, and some of their gifts are still in the Royal Museum at Madrid. They brought back with them seventeen more Jesuit fathers, besides printing-presses to diffuse literature in the Romanized colloquial. The High Tide of Romanism. Nevertheless, though the work was outwardly flourishing, the death of Nobunaga marks the high tide of Roman Christianity in Japan. The new master of the country was Hideyoshi (1536-1598), most commonly known as Taiko Sama, that is the Taiko, or retired regent, who brought peace to the country by subduing groups of daimios, one after another. Even the haughty Satsuma clan was humbled by him, through the medium and aid of the Buddhist priest. It is for this reason the shaven pates were ever afterwards THE MAKING OF THE NATION 65 execrated in Satsuma, so that Buddhism was long practically unknown in this region, which we associate with pretty crackle and decorated faience. Although without Scripture and teachers, amid much ignorance and darkness, thousands of poor Japanese held to their love for Christ, worshipped God through the Virgin, talked of the Holy Spirit, strove to live chaste lives, and be pure in thought, and refused to worship at the pagan shrines. In 1859, on the opening of the country by treaty, the Roman Catholic fathers at Nagasaki found, to their surprise, hundreds who still held to the old faith, and that they were reopening the old mines, and that their new work was to have in Japan a historic con- tinuity, of which the Protestant missionaries could not boast. Besides the animated work of Leon Pages, who gives also a bibliography of the old arid new European works on Japan, one may read with profit Casartelli's twopenny pamphlet, published in London in 1893, of the Roman Catholic work of the former and latter centuries. It must be remembered that Christianity came to Japan in the sixteenth century, only in its papal or Roman form. Thus it was not only impure, but was thoroughly saturated with the false principles, the brutal vices, and the embodied superstitions of corrupt southern Europe. It was military, oppressive, and political. Yet, bad as it was, it confronted the worst condition of affairs, morallv, intellectu- 66 DUX CRBISTUS ally, and materially, which Japan has known in historic times. The Jesuits in their fresh zeal hoped to recoup some of the losses of the papal corporation in Europe. Theirs was the spirit of the Inquisition. They entered Japan with the animus of Alva and Philip II. They persuaded the feudal lords to command their serf -like people to embrace the new religion on pain of exile or banishment. The Buddhist priests were exiled or killed, and fire and sword, as well as preaching, were employed as means of propagation and conversion. Their own writings amply testify to the fictitious miracles gotten up to utilize the credulity of the superstitious in furthering the faith. It is dif- ficult to believe that these men did not try hard to bring Japan under the control of the Pope. Those who cannot study the native literature would do well to read Dixon's "Japan," and Mr. Murdoch's recent work, of great research and vigor, to make up their minds on this subject. The Wonderful Sixteenth Century. The six- teenth century was a very wonderful one for the Japanese, especially the last half of it. Tired of the long civil wars, which had raged for over two centuries, they were ready to hail the advent of men of national mind, who could rise above local interests and selfish considera- tions. Europeans first landed on the shores of the island kingdom, and by personal experience and narrative made Japan known to the Western nations. The Japanese seemed then as eager to THE MAKING OF THE NATION 67 travel and see the world as in our own twentieth century, and many thousands of them were abroad. Roughly speaking, Roman Christianity lasted phenomenally nearly a century, or, more exactly, from 1542 to 1637. During this time Japanese embassies or missions sailed the seas, not only of Chinese and peninsular Asia, cir- cumnavigating Africa and thus reaching Eu- rope, but also crossed the Pacific and visited papal Christendom by way of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Hitherto Japan had been heard of only in a semi-mythical way through China, from the vague accounts of Marco Polo, the name having become in European speech Xipango. " Japan " was now the new word. This strange curiosity of a country at the ends of the earth was found to be the same that Polo described. Commerce began with Europe, stimulating also the mining, coinage, and in- dustry of Japan. The languages of Europe were enriched with Japanese terms, such as soy, moxa, goban, japan (lacquer or varnish), etc. The tongue of Nip- pon also received an infusion of new terms, ana a notable list of inventions was imported from Europe, so that to-day one recognizes in Jap- anese literature and speech many of these old Portuguese and Spanish words, and later the infusion of Dutch terms. It is odd, while in the interior of Japan, to come across both local herbs growing on the mountain slopes, where missionaries from the Iberian peninsula once lived, and survivals of words on the 68 DUX CHRISTUS tongue of the people which recall Southern Europe. Hideyoshi (1536-1598) unified the empire, and in the same year, 1592, that the Spaniards entered Japan, he sent armies of invasion into Korea, in order to keep the large soldier class busy. He died in 1598. The armies were recalled, and lyeyasu (1542-1618), whose family name was Tokugawa, the last of "the three great men," became the virtual ruler of the country. His crest was a circle containing three mallow or asarum leaves. He built the city of Yedo, and there established the line of shoguns (generals) that ruled from 1604 to 1868. In 1614, at the siege of Osaka castle, Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, and his fol- lowing were overthrown, and lyeyasu became virtual ruler of the empire, with his seat of authority in Yedo. The New Era of Peace and Seclusion. Then began a new era in the history of Japan. The foundation lines were laid for a new social and political structure, which lasted from 1600 to 1868, that is, the distinctive Japan, of which we have formed our ideas and around which our associations cluster. In arranging the new foundations of social order, lyeyasu distributed his own vassals around the city of Kioto, so that no hostile daimio or combination could seize the person of the emperor. He began a great internal civilizing process, and encouraged the revival of learning, while he also scrutinized closely TIIE MAKING OF THE NATION 69 the new force from papal Europe that had entered Japanese life. Naturally he followed his predecessor in the suspicion that, under cover of the Western religion, as brought by Portuguese and Spaniards, there lurked politi- cal designs. Indeed, how could he avoid this train of reasoning ? Was not every church in Europe, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Russian, a state church, political in spirit and intent, oppressing all dissenters? In that age, any man, however good a Christian, if he were outside of the state church, was looked upon as little better than an anarchist. Any states- man who then laid down the principle, now so common (even in Japan), that the magistrate had no right to meddle with the conscience, was too far in advance of his age to be under- stood, or regarded with patience. In 1606, lyeyasu issued his edict prohibiting Christianity. Yet, while the native Christians were roughly handled in the south, there was considerable missionary activity with success in the north. By this time the Dutch and Eng- lish had reached Japan and told some unpleasant facts about Alva and the Netherlands, the In- quisition and the Pope, and the ways of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. lyeyasu thus obtaining new light, yet not desiring to shed blood, had the various sectarians of the Roman Church, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustines, and Jesuits, with hundreds of native priests and catechists, shipped away from Nagasaki to Macao in China. Yet after the storm blew 70 DUX CHRISTUS ' over, many of them came back secretly. Then the edicts were carried out more rigorously, the church edifices demolished, temples and pagodas erected upon the ruins, and under lyeyasu's son and successor in Yedo the books of the Inferno were opened. This time the " Holy Inquisition " was Japanese, and to their own awful methods of torture they added new fea- tures from the Spanish torture chambers. Some of these were long retained in Japanese prisons, as I have seen. Even the Eurasian or half- breed children were deported from the empire. Japanese Christianity, having been banished in blood, was supposed to have no existence, and Mr. Lecky mistakenly wrote in his " History of Rationalism," "persecution extirpated Christian- ity in Japan." The country was shut up from all foreign intercourse, and in progress of years this policy of exclusion and inclusion became more and more vigorous. Only on the island of Deshima in front of the city of Nagasaki were a dozen Hollanders allowed to live, their ships coming and going once a year. Two Centuries of Dutch Influence. It is popu- larly supposed that for over two centuries and until Perry's treaty ships arrived in 1853, Japan was absolutely shut off from all influences from Christendom, even as much so as Thornrose Castle in the Teutonic fairy tale. No mistake could be greater. Besides having gained many ideas and inventions through foreign commerce from the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spaniards, the minds of her inquiring men were steadily THE MAKING OF THE NATION 71 fertilized by the Dutchmen. "Deshima was well and prophetically named, signifying Fore Island Japan's window through which she looked at the whole Occident," during two centuries of peace. Japan was never wholly a " hermit nation," in the sense of being left with- out any creative influences from the outside world. We must not suppose that Japan was " hermetically sealed," or that she owed nothing to Europe during her period of peace and seclu- sion. As a matter of fact, seeds for the ground and for the mind, books, inventions, medical, linguistic, and scientific truths were continually dripping from Europe through the Hollanders' siphon, upon the so-called hermit nation. De- shima, looked at sideways, is shaped like a funnel, and the Dutch settlement was the means through which, for two centuries, light and knowledge were poured into this secluded country. By the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury, there were scattered all over the country men in whose minds Chinese learning had been discredited, and in which the Dutch leaven was working. Nine years before Commodore Perry's flag reflected the stars and stripes in Yedo Bay, the Dutch king, William II, sent friendly war-ships in time of peace, bearing the olive branch and urging the Japanese to open their country to the friendship and commerce of the world. Thus the way was prepared and made easy for the Americans. It was the Hol- landers' knowledge of the country which facili- tated Commodore Perry's procedure. It was 72 DUX CHRISTUS their charts, made in Holland, by which the American ships sailed. Through Dutch inter- preters, trained at Nagasaki, Commodore Perry and the diplomatists from Europe were able to talk with the Japanese hermits. It was the native "Dutch scholars" who in 1853 wanted their country opened to the world. The Dutch prepared the way, by earnest warnings in Yedo, for Townsend Harris, first envoy of the United States in Japan, and his Dutch secretary, Mr. Huesken, who interpreted for all the early embassies and legations. The first native Christians, made so through reading the Bible, were helped and encouraged by the Hollanders at Deshima. Until near the dawn of the twen- tieth century, an overwhelming majority of the liberal-minded officers of the government, en- gineers, naval officers, physicians, preachers, evangelists, and Christian laymen of light and leading, dated their awakening intellectually to contact with the Dutchmen, or knowledge of what the men of Deshima had imparted, either personally, or through relatives or ancestors. Without the Dutchmen living in the country, it is more than probable that there would have been no modern Japan as we know it to-day. Their work and influence were not the least in the chain of providential influences which in- troduced to the delight and surprise of nations this " child of the world's old age," this pupil of the English-speaking nations. In a word, there has not been a year since 1542 that Japan has not been indebted to Western nations for THE MAKING OF THE NATION 73 ideas and culture. This chapter of the un- written history of two centuries helps not only to explain much of Japan's supposed sudden development, but to throw light on the passage penned by the veteran Dr. D. C. Greene, in 1903, in the pamphlet, "A Third of a Cen- tury of Service in Japan," " In some way, we know not how, a foundation had been laid [be- fore 1870] and ... a church was to rise to the glory of our Lord." The Peaceful Armada. During the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries, various attempts had been made by the Russians, English, French, and Americans to open trade, to return ship- wrecked Japanese or ocean waifs, or, as in the case of the Dutch, to persuade the Yedo gov- ernment to be more sociable, or more human ; but all were in vain, until the peaceful armada sent by the United States in 1853 broke the long seclusion of this Thornrose Castle in the Pacific Ocean. At a time of Japan's sorest spiritual, moral, and economic need, it pleased divine Providence to bring to Japan the inflii- ences of the West, as represented in the Ameri- can squadron, which bore gifts showing the era of science and industry and making revelation of the Christian civilization of Europe and America. The United States fleet of ships and of men, litly commanded, had no superior in the world for discipline, power of aggression, abreast- ness with the equipment of the times, for war or peace, or in general morale. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry was a typical Ameri- 74 DUX CHRISTUS can naval officer and a man of science. As his biography amply shows, he had had uncommon experiences in diplomacy in Africa, Mexico, Europe, and British America. Above all, he knew human nature to its depths, both Oriental and Occidental. He was a constant reader of the Bible and a devout worshipper. He be- lieved that the Japanese people suffered from a bad system, and that, instead of being real haters of foreigners, they would respond to good influ- ences, and, when the right objects were pre- sented, would appreciate Western civilization. Perry, before sailing, spent some months and gave unusual care to selecting presents of a use- ful and scientific nature, which would best illus- trate the resources of the United States and show that the Americans were more fond of peace and enterprise than they were of war ; or, in the words of Daniel Webster, that " our object is friendly intercourse and nothing more." Divine Providence ordained that in the far West and in the far East, two great forces, "heirs of all the ages," should move toward each other, not to collision, but for a new result- ant of forces in the world. On the day that Perry received his orders to sail to Japan, the present emperor, Mutsuhito, was born. So the ships sailed. They were loaded, apart from their usual war equipment of food for men and cannon, with the new forces of Occidental civilization telegraph, railway, locomotive, electric apparatus ; ploughs, sewing machines, dictionaries, lamps, locks ; and whatever, being THE MAKING OF THE NATION 75 portable, illustrated the world's progress and the American spirit and purpose. Even whiskey and cordials were not left out. " With the sons of God," though in the majority, " came Satan also." The squadron entered the bay of Yedo and cast anchor July 7, 1853. In due time and with appropriate ceremonies Perry delivered the President's letters at the village of Kuri- hama, where are now Perry Park and the me- morial monolith reared in 1900 by the grateful Japanese. Christian and Confucian Morals. Much of the conference between the commodore and the Tycoon's commissioner, Professor Hayashi of the Chinese College in Yedo, was about human- ity and the treatment by the political hermits of shipwrecked aliens. It was practical Chris- tianity atilt with Confucianism, and the claim was urged that ethics are more than politics. The system that killed or imprisoned and tor- tured men for their belief and opinions was here set to defend itself against the free con- science of a republic in which church and stat^ were separate. The principles of William the Silent, of William III of glorious memory, and of the Constitution of the United States pre- vailed, and the Japanese have since proved themselves apt pupils. Yet in the Japan of the era of Meiji (1868+) the political struggle has been between the models of government furnished by Prussia, and that exemplified by Great Britain and the United States. Meanwhile the Japanese awoke. Schools 76 DUX CHRISTUS were opened " for the examination of barbarian books " and the study of Dutch and English, as well as for military and naval tactics. Raw recruits were drilled, foundries sprang up, and the belfries were emptied for the furnishing of the arsenal. From worship to war was now the call. To the average native, suspicious by nature, and especially to the foreigner hater, treaty " concession " meant conquest, and the alien's residence to him meant a garrison. Even greater than the works of the naval officer, Perry, in 1852 and 1853, were the diplomatic labors, crowned with triumphant success, of the civilian, Townsend Harris, from 1855 to 1860. He was the first great educator of Japan and her statesmen. A graphic picture of his activity and the difficulties surmounted by him is seen in his published journals. Un- armed and with the weapon of truth alone, against the falsehoods of agents of a govern- ment itself built on falsehood, Harris secured a treaty which in 1859 opened the empire to trade, to the residence of the merchants, and to the activities of the missionaries and the teachers of the world. Happily for Great Brit- ain, in Lord Elgin, in Sir Rutherford Alcock, and in Sir Harry Parkes and their successors in Tokio, she has had fitting and impressive representatives of her diplomacy and civiliza- tion. Internal Political Commotions. While out- wardly, on the Japanese side, this whole ques- tion was political, even that of welcoming or THE MAKING OF THE NATION 11 driving away foreigners, and was identified respectively with the imperialist and the sho- gunal parties, the real issue was whether Asiatic tradition or Christian civilization should tri- umph. It was whether Japan should remain Oriental and die, or join the world's brother- hood and live. The new treaty port, Yoko- hama, the " Strand Across " the bay from Kanagawa on Tokaido, or the main road be- tween Kioto and Yedo, shot up out of the swamps like a city built in a night. The day of widespread famines was over. " There shall be no more curse " might have been the prophecy. Yet the first overlapping of the selvages of the two civilizations was not a winsome spectacle. The licentiousness of the first visitors from the ships and the terrific greed and covetousness of the traders outraged the native sense of propriety. On the other hand, the horribly obscene orgies in the religious festivals, or matsuris, and the display of por- nographic pictures and phallic emblems in the temple processions, surprised even those famil- iar with India and the Pacific islanders. The frightful immorality of paganism in ante-mis- sionary days is nearly incredible, and this, hav- ing seen it, we maintain in spite of what writers may say who picture primitive Japan as a gar- den of Eden. The fifteen years from 1853 to 1808 were terrible years of political commotion. Yet there were some far-seeing men who read aright the signs of the times. Matsudaira, the feudal 78 DUX CHRISTUS lord of Echizen, had made his own city of Fukui a model of decent government. He was backed by his teacher of ethics, the re- former Yokoi, who, having a copy of the Bible in Chinese, taught Christian doctrine in the guise of lectures on Confucianism. Yokoi pre- dicted that the bright young men of the country would accept Christianity. Echizen, summoned by the Shogun to reform Yedo and its rulers, at once released the daimios from the old cus- tom of leaving their wives and children as hostages in Yedo, when visiting their own dominions. The barons now joyfully gathered in Kioto, which became the centre of national interests. Gradual Enlightenment. Gradually there came enlightenment to these insular hermits. The people in darkness saw a great light. Fukuzawa and Nakamura were among the first scholars to read and translate from the language of Milton. The latter made a bold and power- ful plea, in a scholarly memorial, for the tolera- tion of Christianity in Japan. The Constitution of the United States, Smiles' "Self-Help," and " Mill on Liberty " were among the first books put into Japanese. Peter Parley's histories formed, too often, the style of the first writers of English. An embassy was sent abroad in 1864 to have the ports closed which the treaty had promised to open, but these hermits in the market-place were astounded to find, as they afterwards reported, " it was not the foreigners, but we ourselves, that are barbarians." Yet 79 more light dawned. " The frogs in the well " had seen " the great ocean." Their own prov- erbs, the growth of a thousand years of insular experience, became the mirrors which made the proud and learned recluses see themselves as they were, and reflected to the ends of the empire the truth to the common people. Furthermore, the daimios and gentry, as they met foreigners in personal intercourse, and es- pecially as they had heart to heart talks with the missionaries, found that the " hairy foreign- ers," even though they had "blue eyes like pigs," instead of being wild beasts, were gen- tlemen. By inquiry they also learned the dif- ference between the political Romanism of the sixteenth century and the free Christian states and churches of the nineteenth century. They discerned between the drunken, lustful, and cruel mixed multitude from the ships, whether tourist, trader, or mariner, and the settled people with families who made homes, dealt honestly, and adorned the character of merchant or teacher. ]t was even found, after the first seeing of " men as trees walking," that some sailors arid ship officers were gentlemen, the same, in purity of life, abroad as at home. Mr. R. II. Pruyn, the American envoy, had long urged the sanction of the Mikado to the treaties, and negotiations were begun at Osaka with the court in Kioto. They were crowned with success. The old Mikado Komei died, January 30, 1868, and the young Mikado Mutsuhito, the one hundred and twenty-third 80 DUX CHRISTUS in the line, ascended the throne at such a time and signed the treaties. This act of the em- peror, in affixing his signature, was the death- blow to the hopes of the foreigner haters, and as in Japan, when the emperor nods, millions of his people bow, the mind of the nation was profoundly changed. Born amid new ideas and influences, Mutsuhito, who had had his baptism of war in the sound and flash of cannon, in Kioto, came to the kingdom with open mind and heart for new things. He took his seat on the throne of a dynasty "unbroken from ages eternal," alert and ready for reform. Here was the golden opportunity for the progressists. The Charter Oath. In the shifting game of politics, the combined troops of Satsuma, Echi- zen, and others got possession of the imperial palace and person, and on January 3, 1868, promulgated a new government and new laws. Taking the boy emperor into the great castle of Nijo in Kioto, long the seat of the garrisons and overawing power and influences of the Yedo Shogun, whence the military had so long domi- nated the civil power, they then and there put the oath (written by an Echizen man) into his mouth, in which he swore, before all the gods of heaven and earth, to seek for knowledge throughout the whole world in order to " rebuild the empire according to the right way between heaven and earth." Dramatic and impressive was the scene, in a sense like the proclamation of the German Empire in the palaces of the French Versailles. Here was the beginning THE MAKING OF THE NATION 81 of the real New Japan. It was inaugurated under imperial auspices in the Nijo castle the stronghold of the old reactionary Yedo govern- ment. It meant the subordination of the mili- tary to the civil power, and the reform of the abuses of seven hundred years. This charter oath, in five clauses, declared that government should hereafter be according to public opinion, that the justice and impartial- ity manifested in the workings of Heaven should be shown in all appointments to office, and that men of talent and expertness in all the lines of human achievement should be sought for in various countries of the world to reestablish the foundations of the empire. This " Word of the Oath" was the signal for the summoning of that great army of foreign yatoi (hired) teachers, engineers, physicians, military in- structors, and advisers in all departments, numbering probably three thousand in all, who for a generation or more helped the Japanese in the new ways of civilization, until natives were able to give instruction in their own schools, build and man their own ships, create and lead their own armies, manage their own financial, industrial, postal, and railway systems, and to teach what and as they saw fit. It is but little to the credit of so many natives that they persistently ignore the services of the yatoi when writing Japanese modern history. The Emperor and Empress in Tokio. Matsu- daira, the lord of Kchizen, led the procession by engaging, through Dr. Verbeck, a faculty 82 DUX CHEISTUS of four experts, to assist in laying the foun- dations of national education in Japan, which was planned by Dr. Verbeck and carried out by Dr. David Murray, the cultivated author of "The Story of Japan." The writer was the first one called out under this imperial oath from a foreign country. His call from the men of Fukui, scene of Yokoi's labors, was to organ- ize schools on the American principle. " The Educational Conquest of the Far East " is a fascinating story, and has been outlined by Mr. R. E. Lewis. With the decisive three days' battle of Fu- shimi, January 27-30, 1868, near Kioto, which was won by the imperialists, two years of civil war broke out. The Mikado was taken to ancient Naniwa, the city of "flowery waves," called in modern days Osaka, to review his war-ships. He saw the sea for the first time. In these days of democratic greeting, of hurrah and " Banzai " (ten thousand generations, or "live forever"), it is remembered that etiquette then (in 1886) required the sovereign to turn his back on his sailors when he left them, while they got down on their hands and knees. Now, in this twentieth century, they stand, and their faces glow with affection. Soon the boy emperor was brought out of seclusion and mystery, and his feet set on the solid earth. The kio, or capital, was removed east to Yedo, which was named Tokio, or eastern capital, and properly so spelled. The emperor returned for a few days to the old sacred city to marry Haruko, the daughter of THE MAKING OF THE NATION 83 Ichijo, a court noble. She has since served not only as faithful wife and most gracious sovereign lady, but is known as the constant friend of the sick, the poor, and the unfortunate, the patron of the Red Cross society, and the bene- factor of hospitals. It was a mighty change of status, when from being, according to immemo- rial custom, simply a lady of the court, gazetted to be the wife, or chief female of the Inner Apartment, to the Emperor, but in no sense personal, social, official, an empress, or imperial according to Western ideas, she has become in a true sense the Empress Haruko. Now she rides and sits with her husband, and is awarded dig- nities and honors unknown to her predecessors in ancient days. The Foreign Helpers at Work. The " char- ter oatli " of 1868 was a Macedonian cry to the civilized world, which is Christendom, and to men of skill and force in many lands to come over and help. From America and Europe, these men went out in the day of their strength to assist the Japanese to rebuild the foundations of the empire, by applying the ideas, principles, forces, inventions, and machinery of the modern world. Japan's helpers and servants from among the four peoples in the British Isles were led out by the British envoy, Sir Ruther- ford Alcock, author of that charming work " The Capital of the Tycoon," and these at first were instructors in naval science. Under Sir Harry Parkes, who early discovered in the light of history the legality of the new Mikado's gov- 84 DUX CHBISTUS ernment, hundreds of expert men came out to build railways, lighthouses, the mint, engineer- ing colleges, and to serve nobly. It was a case of taking off the coat. Dixon, in his " Land of the Morning," pictures the teacher's life in Tokio, as Maclay, in his " Letters from Japan," shows it in the interior, while Holtham, in his " Eight Years in Japan," and Morris, in his "Ad- vance Japan," picture the engineer's work and life. The British were the first political and financial friends of new Japan, sending her rail- way builders, her sailors and organizers of the navy, her makers of ships, and directors of ship- yards, and her men of expert brain and hand in various departments. Besides the invaluable researches in history, language, and literature, English-speaking men created and have main- tained the Asiatic Society of Japan, whose Transactions outweigh, in real value, hundreds of tourists' books on Japan. From Holland, which had trained Japan's first physicians, stu- dents, naval officers, and navigators, came the engineers and men of science, for the Dutch had been for over two centuries the one lan- guage, the first gateway of learning, and the single link of communication with the Western world. From Germany, which furnished the new tongue and methods of advanced medical science, came the shining exponents of the heal- ing art and skill, besides diligent teachers and openers of the mines of knowledge in lore, his- tory, classified knowledge, forming the German Asiatic Society, which has so widened our view THE MAKING OF THE NATION 85 of Japan. The French initiated military organ- ization and the improvement of the silk indus- try, and introduced things of refinement and taste. The Swiss, the Scandinavians, the Italians, each brought in their gift-laden hands some new benefit to the Japanese. In all these languages is a rich literature of description and experience concerning modern Japan. The talents and specialties of each nation were drawn upon, but perhaps more numerously than all came the Americans as teachers, instructors, and advisers in many lines of usefulness, mis- sionaries, physicians, financiers, practical men in every department. The host, beginning per- haps with Raphael Pumpelly, author of " Across America and Asia," still has a few representa- tives, even in this day of the return of the edu- cated Japanese from the schools of Europe and America. The first schools for girls under the auspices of the government, taught by Miss M. C. Griffis and Mrs. P. Veeder, in 1873, have been served by women of ability, even to this day of the Peeresses' School and the Women's Uni- versity in Tokio, among whom is Miss A. M. Bacon, author of " Japanese Girls and Women " and "A Japanese Interior." All together the helpers from the United States have furnished an array of talent and ability, with not a few shining lights, that pale not even in the pres- ence of Europe's ablest representatives ; while a goodly number have shown themselves richest in those elements characteristic of the Christ, altruism, unselfishness, and consecration. Some 86 DUX CHRISTUS of them, notably Colonel Clark, from Amherst, Massachusetts, were active as evangelists and led scores of young men to acknowledge and follow DUX CHRISTUS. In "The Diary of a Japanese Convert," by Mr. Uchimura, in the life of Rev. Paul Sawayama, and in Mr. Shi- gemi's " A Japanese Boy," we have pictures of Christian life as awakened in the first instance by foreign teachers. In Mr. E. W. Clark's " Life and Adventures in Japan," are more pic- tures of the daily work of educators and their influence as Christians upon their pupils. The latest presentation of similar experiences is by Dr. Scherer in his " Japan To-day." Perhaps the number of these beginners of a better time, living and dead, and including the missionaries of religion, who came from Japan's nearest eastern neighbor, the young republic, does not fall far short of two thousand ; while the total army of Japan's helpers from all Christendom, since the year 1868, the first of the Meiji era, must number, living and dead, about four, possibly five, thousand. The New Nation. During the seclusion of the Japanese from the rest of the world, Con- fucianism was diligently cultivated on its intel- lectual side, and was the living ethical force in the nation; while Buddhism, drunk with worldly wealth and power, hardened upon tradition and continued in a state of stagnation and decay. Meanwhile, Christianity, outwardly banned and under rigid persecution, had rivulets of subter- ranean life, flowing both among the southern THE MAKING OF THE NATION 87 peasantry in Kiusliiu, who held secretly but tenaciously to the Roman tradition, and in the heart and minds of a few, very few, scholarly samurai seekers after, God, who, through the Dutch or Chinese languages, studied the Holy Scriptures. Feudalism furnished the frame- work in which Confucianism grew, the trellis on which the flourishing vine bore fruit. While this Chinese system aided man in the cultivation of his intellect, it distinctly lowered the position of woman and stunted her growth, intellectually, socially, and morally, just as surely as in China abominable custom bound her feet. So long as feudalism flourished in Japan, so long, and only so long, might the exotic from China grow and send out its boughs. To unify the empire on modern principles and to borrow the forms and spirit of the West was to deal a mortal blow at the Confucian system. All this was quickly made clear. No sooner had the Dutch students, the pupils of Verbeck, the strenuous Mikado reverencers, the Shinto scholars and reformers, the exemplars of bushido, the advocates of foreign trade, and the haters of the Yedo bureaucracy, completed their coup cTgtat in Kioto, January 3, 1868, than reforms began like a whirlwind. The eta and hi-nin, human beings not hitherto counted as human, the victims of Buddhist fanaticism, were elevated to citizenship. This measure, first advocated by the man, suspected to be a Christian, Yokoi, who paid for his liberality with his life, was an 88 DUX CHBISTUS act of the emperor of Japan as morally noble as the emancipation edict of Lincoln or the edict of Alexander which freed the serfs. Disabili- ties were removed from the many classes of people and the lines of promotion opened. National military, naval, postal, judicial, and educational systems were formed, which made life for the millions worth living. Feudalism was abolished without bloodshed. The writer witnessed the abdication of the lord of Echizen, when, on October 1, 1872, he gathered his two thousand retainers in the great castle hall of Fukui, and bade them transform personal loy- alty into national patriotism. The transfer of all land, castles, rosters, power, and resources, from two hundred and sixty-three feudal fiefs to the emperor, was a peaceful transaction ac- complished without riot, rebellion, or disorder of any sort. Without much previous historical preparation and moral discipline, it would not have been thought of. Then the soil was turned over to the ownership of the farmer who had so long tilled it. The gentry, numbering four hundred thousand, and with their families nearly two millions, who had hitherto worn swords, and were exempt from the payment of taxes or tolls, had their pensions commuted for fifteen years. Then, laying aside their swords, they joined the productive classes. In not a few cases, these gentlemen sank in the com- petition into poverty. Steadily the Japanese were transformed from a purely agricultural to an industrial, maritime, and manufacturing THE MAKING OF THE NATION 89 people. Instead of the two economic classes of feudal days, the landed and the landless, there were now manifold industries and occupations. Taught by their foreign yatoi, or helpers, they built railways, telegraphs, ships, and steamers, reclaimed land, improved the live stock, ex- panded the crafts, and began to compete for the ocean navigation and the commerce of the world. Steadily they advanced in political evolution, suppressing rebellions, with the new army and navy made up of soldiers and sailors from all classes, and broadening into representa- tive government, both local and national. Not a few noble spirits fell victims to the assassin's sword and the plots of bigoted reactionaries ; but finally, in 1889, the wonderfully wise, lib- eral, and eminently sensible written constitution was proclaimed, and the elected members of the Imperial Diet assembled in Tokio. Among these were a dozen or more Christians. Free- dom of conscience is guaranteed and the possi- bilities of enlightened democracy are shadowed forth in this grand instrument of enlightened government, which in its provisions is so far ahead of what all other Asiatic and some European peoples have attained. 90 DUX CHRISTUS LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS THE JAPANESE MIND Great Yamato is a divine country. It is only our land "whose foundations were laid by the divine ancestor. It alone has been transmitted by the sun-goddess to a long line of her descendants. There is nothing of this kind in foreign countries. Therefore it is called the divine land. CHIKAFUSA, 1351 A.D. The art of writing history has not made much progress in recent years. Modern methods of investigation and principles of historical criticism are known and accepted ; but a great sifting of the existing heterogeneous material must be done before history, as we understand it, can be written. Nobody has yet made any serious attempt to distinguish the true from the false in the old Japanese annals, though it is pretty generally acknowledged that this process is indispensable. W. G. ASTON. This impersonal habit of the Japanese mind is shared by them with other races in the Far East, notably China. It is not confined to poetry, or even to literature, but is profoundly characteristic of their whole mental attitude, showing itself in their grammar, which is most sparing of personal pronouns; in their art, which has no school of portrait painting or monumental sculpture worth mentioning; in the late and imperfect development of the drama ; and in their religious temper, with its strong bent toward rationalism, and its hazy recognition of a ruling personal power in the universe. To their minds things happen, rather than are done ; the tides of fate are far more real to them than the strong will and endeavor which wrestles with them. W. G. ASTON. The Buddhist believes in a future life, dependent upon the principle of cause and effect. The Confucian, in a present life, guided by the reason of humanity. THE MAKING OF THE NATION 91 The Sintoos, in a past life, and they live in fear or reverence of the memories of the dead. All of these doctrines are now suffering a decline and are ebbing away. ARIXOKI MORI. Though enormously indebted to China, and at times hindered in its natural development by a too implicit reliance on foreign guidance, it [Japanese literature] has remained nevertheless a true index of the national char- acter. It is the literature of a brave, courteous, light- hearted, pleasure-loving people, sentimental rather than passionate, witty and humorous, of nimble apprehension, but not profound ; ingenious and inventive, but hardly capable of high intellectual achievement ; of receptive minds endowed with a voracious appetite for knowledge ; with a turn for neatness and elegance of expression, but seldom or never rising to sublimity. W. G. ASTOX. The Tai Heiki supplies abundant evidence of his [Kojima'.s] erudition and command of all the resources of Chinese and Japanese rhetoric. His pages at times are highly charged with Chinese words and phrases, and fairly bristle with Chinese historical allusions and quo- tations. In this style of writing, " a bamboo grove " means a family of princes, a "pepper court" is put for the imperial harem; "cloud guests" stand for courtiers, the Mikado's carriage is termed the " Phrenix car," and his face the " Dragon Countenance." A fair lady is said to put to shame Mao Ts'iang and Si She, famous beauties of Chinese antiquity. Civil war is a time when "wolf- smoke obscures the heaven and whale-waves shake the earth." W. G. ASTON. Speaking in a general way, Japanese nature is not soil for pure philosophy. It has produced many men of the type of Aristotle or Franklin, but scarcely any of that of Plato, or Kant, or Hegel. Buddhism has nourished in Japan, but the most eminent men among Buddhist believers men like Nicheren, Kobo, Shinran have in every case been eminent for their qualities of religious statesmanship. The sects which these men founded havs 92 DUX CHRISTUS spread widely among the Japanese, while more erudite and mystical sects, like the Tendai or Kegon sects, have never found a large following. REV. T. HARADA. Difficulty arises from the fact that a Japanese word frequently covers a meaning which is only approximately the same as that of a corresponding English term, or calls up quite different associations. The karasu, for ex- ample, is not exactly a crow, but a corvus Japonensis, a larger bird than our species, with different cries and habits. The cherry is in Japan the queen of flowers, and is not valued for its fruit, while the rose is regarded as a mere thorny bush. Valerian, which is to us sugges- tive principally of cats, takes the place of the rosebud as the recognized metaphor for the early bloom of woman- hood. And what is the translator to do with the names of flowers as familiar to the Japanese as daisy or daffodil to ourselves, but for which he can offer no better equiva- lents than such clumsy inventions as Lespedeza, Platy- codon grandifloram, and Deaurzia scabra f W. G. ASTON. " The Genji " \_Monogatan] is a novel of aristocratic life. Most of the characters are personages of rank, in describing whose sayings and actions a courtly style of speech is indispensable. To a Japanese it would be simply shocking to say that a Mikado has breakfast he augustly deigns to partake of the morning meal, and so on. The European reader finds this irritating and tiresome at first, but he soon gets accustomed to it. In truth, such language is in entire consonance with the elaborate ceremonial, the imposing but cumbrous cos- tumes, and much else of the rather artificial life of the Japanese court of the time. W. G. ASTON. One of those [anti-Christian] edicts is said to have read as follows, " So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan ; the King of Spain himself, or the Christians' God, or the great God of all, if he violate this command, THE MAKING OF THE NATION 93 shall pay for it with his head." And two of the later edicts, confirming the old prohibition, run as follows : " The evil sect, called Christian, is strictly prohibited. Suspicions persons shall be reported to the proper offi- cers, and rewards will be given." " With respect to the Christian sect, the existing prohibition must be strictly observed. Evil sects are strictly prohibited." AN ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE CHARACTER A striking feature in the Japanese character is their intense ambition, a desire to advance and rise, not to be below or behind anybody. This feeling pervades all classes and must be regarded as a potent factor in the nation's astounding progress during the last thirty years. It is a valuable and often very laudable stimulus; but foreigners might sometimes come into unpleasant contact with it. The strongly prevailing national spirit, suffi- ciently honorable in itself, frequently manifests itself toward foreigners in the form of unbounded conceit and persistent self-assertion. Self-sufficiency and self-reliance are also prominent characteristics. Mere boys will often be seen to rush in where Western doctors would fear to tread. Sincerity, frankness, and truthfulness are largely wanting. Virtue and anything like high morality, as we understand them, are well-nigh unknown here. (I am now speaking of the " outside of the churches.") Man- ners are their morals and "etiquette" is their " cthique" all surface work, you know. The Japanese are, according to their lights, bright, intelligent, quick-witted, and fond of criticising others, especially foreigners, but exceedingly dislike being cen- sured in any way and are extremely sensitive to public opinion, good or bad, nay, to the world's opinion of them as a nation. They are remarkably brave, enterprising, and capable of great self-sacrifice for a definite purpose ; but are frequently found wanting in moral courage. They are naturally benevolent, kind, and toward their children 94 DUX CHRISTUS over indulgent ; but are devoid of a forgiving spirit, they never forgive what they happen to regard as an insult or injury. The Japanese are exceedingly frivolous, lacking serious- ness in their disposition, and abound in levity, are little affected by the grand or the sublime, have few inspira- tions and enthusiasms, are too fickle to know true placid- ity of mind and too callous to escape from falling into cold indifference, have little acquaintance with deep sor- row, and "there is no Fifty-first Psalm in their language and no Puritan in their history." One often hears the Japanese charged with extreme fickleness, especially in comparison with the Chinese. This charge, I think, requires to be somewhat qualified. During the feudal regime, for nearly three centuries, they surely were sufficiently steady and conservative. The Chinese as a nation have not yet emerged from that kind of stagnancy, whereas the Japanese have entered on the path of human progress. The present generation of Jap- anese lives and moves in an age of change in all depart- ments of life, in an age of transition from the old to the new. In things material as well as immaterial they are making for something better and something higher than what they were and had by heredity and by transmission from of old. The Japanese are quick-witted arid apt to jump to a conclusion without sufficient knowledge and examination, hence they readily enter upon a thing quite new to them. It does not take them long to find out that they have made a mistake, or perhaps they are disap- pointed, while at the same time it is likely that another good thing has attracted their attention. And so they go in for that, and (please don't smile) so on. But by and by, when they have finally hit upon the right thing, they are quite steady and splendidly persevering ; witness, e.g., the numerous small and great enterprises, often in- volving thousands and millions of money, carried on by them without the least foreign aid at this present time, with profit and success. You may see the above-described process acted out before your eyes "outside of the churches " every day, and it is hoped that inside of the churches the THE MAKING OF THE NATION 95 last stage in the process will be reached in the present generation. Probably on account of their unacquaintance with the certainties of science, the Japanese have no clear idea of the fixity and reality of things, especially of immaterial things. They do not conceive that things are what they are quite independently of man's opinion and liking or disliking. To most Japanese, things are what they them- selves and this one or that one make them to be by their opinions. As regards the present attitude of the non-Christian spirit of Japan toward Christianity, I think it may be said that it regards our religion with more or less of appreciation and respect. But the upper classes look upon the native Christians with a good deal of doubt and sus- picion. They sometimes express wonder at the confidence which we have in them. A fort;/ years' student of the Japanese. TRAITS AND FKUITS OF THE KNIGHTLY CULTURE (BusUdo) The Japanese people fit their home. They are inter- esting, amiable, attractive. In stature they are short and small and light. Their complexion has just a warm rich- ness of the blood that goes well with their jet-black hair. Intellectually they are bright, quick, keen. Their per- ceptive faculties are remarkably developed, and from an early age. They have exceptional powers of imitation, adaptation, assimilation. They are politeness itself, but the astute critic will perhaps claim that a difference be- tween "politeness" and "courtesy" is illustrated in the Japanese character. EDWARD ABBOTT. The resident American or European, with whom the novelties of .Japanese life have worn away, and who has come in contact with the hard facts under the smiling surface, sees sometimes a different side of the national character. EDWARD ABBOTT. 96 DUX CHBISTUS Call upon a Japanese friend in time of deepest afflic- tion and he will invariably receive you laughing, with red eyes or moist cheeks. At first you may think him hysterical. Press him for explanation and you will get a few broken commonplaces, " Human life has sorrow; " "They who meet must part;" "He that is born must die; " " It is foolish to count the years of a child that is gone, but a woman's heart will indulge in follies ; " and the like. The suppression of feelings being thus steadily insisted upon, they find their safety-valve in poetical aphorisms. A mother who tries to console her broken heart by fancy- ing her child absent on his wonted chase after the dragon-fly, hums : " How far to-day in chase, I wonder, Has gone my hunter of the dragon-fly ! " DR. INAZO NITOBE. The pride of clan is now changed to pride of race; loy- alty to feudal chief has become loyalty to the emperor as sovereign ; and the old traits of character exist under the European costumes of to-day, as under the flowing robes of the two-sworded retainer. It is the same spirit of loyalty that has made it hard for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan. The em- peror was the representative of the gods of Japan. To embrace a new religion seemed a desertion of him and the following of the strange gods of the foreigner. The work of the Catholic missionaries which ended so disas- trously in 1637 has left the impression that a Christian is bound to offer allegiance to the Pope in much the same way as the emperor now receives it from his people ; and the bitterness of such a thought has made many refuse to hear what Christianity really is. Such words as " King " and " Lord " they have understood as referring to temporal things, and it has taken years to undo this prejudice. ALICE M. BACON. It is the same discipline of self-restraint which is accountable for the absence of more frequent revivals in THE MAKING OF THE NATION 97 the Christian church of Japan. When a man or woman feels his or her soul stirred, the first instinct is to quietly suppress the manifestation of it. In rare instances is the tongue set free by an irresistible spirit, when we have eloquence of sincerity and fervor. It is putting a pre- mium upon a breach of the third commandment to encourage speaking lightly of spiritual experience. It is truly jarring to Japanese ears to hear the most sacred words, the most secret heart experiences, thrown out in promiscuous audiences. " Dost thou feel the soil of thy soul stirred with tender thoughts? It is time for seeds to sprout. Disturb it not with speech ; but let it work alone in quietness and secrecy," writes a young samurai in his diary. DR. INAZO NITOBE. While the great nobles wrangled for the possession of the power, schemed and fought and turned the nation upside down ; while the heroes of the country rose, lived, fought, and died, the emperor, amid his ladies and his courtiers, his priests and his literary men, spent his life in a world of his own; thinking more of this pair of bright eyes, that new and charming poem, the other witty saying of those about him, than of the kingdom that he ruled by divine right; and retiring, after ten years or so of puppet rule, from the seclusion of his court to the deeper seclusion of some Buddhist monastery. A. M. BACON. 98 DUX CHRISTUS THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION I. The Japanese a Young, not an Old Race. Consid- erations. II. The Earliest Books, " Kojiki" and " Nihongi." III. Mikadoism the Chief Force in Japanese History. IV. The Samurai, as the Chief Character in Japan's Story. V. Art, Architecture, and Literature in Early Ages. VI. The Knightly Way, and Japanese Politeness. VII. The Ethical Basis of the Japanese. VIII. What Supports to Patriotism can Christianity furnish? IX. Japanese Race Pride as a Help and a Hindrance to Conversion. X. God's Old Testament with the Japanese. XI. Comparison between the Japanese and the Ancient Greeks. XII. Japan as the Middle and Reconciling Term be- tween the Orient and the Occident. BOOKS OF REFERENCE GENERAL REFERENCES AS BEFORE Murdoch and Yamagata. " A History of Japan ." (1904.) Boston. W. B. Clarke Co. Hakluyt Society Publications. " The Voyage of John Saris to Japan, 1613." (1900.) " The Diary of Richard Cocks, 1615-1622." (1883.) Brinkley. "Oriental Series. Japan." Vol. I, V, VI, VII. (1902.) Boston. J. B. Millet Co. Tosa Niki. " Log of a Japanese Journey." Translated by Flora B. Harris. (1891.) Meadville, Pa. Flood & Vincent. " Genji Monogatari." Translated by K. Suyematsu. (1884.) Triibner & Co. THE MAKING OF THE NATION 99 I. Nitobe. "Bushido, The Soul of Japan." (1899.) Philadelphia. Leeds & Biddle Co. A. Knapp. "Feudal and Modern Japan." (1897.) Boston. Joseph Knight Co. W. E. Griffis. (Life of) " Matthew Calbraith Perry." (1887.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. I. Nitobe. " The Intercourse between the United States and Japan." (1891.) Baltimore. Johns Hopkins Press. R. Alcock. "The Capital of the Tycoon." (1863.) Harpers. L. Oliphant. " Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan." (1859.) Harpers. W. E. Griffis. " Townsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan." (1895.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. II. Riordan. " Sunrise Stories." (1896.) Charles Scribner's Sons. Poole-Dickens. " The Life of Sir Harry Parkes." (1894.) Macmillan & Co. R. E. Lewis. "The Educational Conquest of the Far East." (1903.) F. II. Revell Co. II. Norman. "The Real Japan." (1892.) Charles Scribner's Sons. Vi. Dickson. "Japan." (1869.) Wm. Blackwood & Son. W. Dickson. " Gleanings from Japan." (1889.) Wm. Blackwood & Son. S. Hartmann. ".Japanese Art." (1904.) Boston. L. C. Page & Co. E. J. Reed. "Japan." (1880.) John Murray. S. Ransome. "Japan in Transition." (1899.) Harpers. J. O. Davis. " A Maker of the New Japan, J. II. Neesima." F. II. Revell Co. A. S. Hardy. "Life and Letters of J. H. Neesima." (1891.) " Iloughton, Miffliu & Co. CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK The " age of the gods." Prior to 660 B.C. The age of mythology and legend. Prior to 400 A.D. 552 A.D. First images, writings, and missionaries from Korea. 584 . . . Active propagation under Soga. 594 . . . Decree ordering the erection of temples. 602 . . . The Chinese calendar introduced. 606 . . . Students sent to China. 624 . . . Hierarchy of priests established. 770 . . . One million Buddhist charms printed by emperor. 8th to 12th century. Era of conquest of Ainos and other tribes. 835 . . . Kobo dies. Shinto absorbed in Buddhism. 850 . . . First native painter, Kauaoka. 987 . . . Custom of mikados abdicating, in full force. 1004 . . . "Genji Monogatari " composed. Period of literary brilliancy. 1156 . . . Era of conquest over. Military clans quarrel. 1192 . . . Duarchy. Kamakura made the eastern seat of government. 1263 . . . Shinran, founder of the Shin sect, dies. 1275-1292 Marco Polo in China, hears of Xipango (Japan). 1282 . . . Nichiren, founder of the Xichiren sect, dies. 13th century. Tremendous expansion of Japanese Bud- dhism. 1333 . . . Kamakura destroyed by Nitta. End of the Hojo rule. 1336-1392 Two rival lines of mikados. 1335-1573 Era of the Ashikaga rulers and of civil wars. 1573-1616 Era of the " Three Great Men," Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iveyasu. 1542 . . . First Europeans. Beginning of " the Chris- tian century." 1549 . . . Francis Xavier lands at Kagoshima. 101 102 DUX CHRISTUS Continued from page 101. 1579 . . . Two hundred churches and one hundred and fifty thousand Roman Catholic Christians in the empire. 1583 . . . First Japanese embassy to Spain and Rome. 1590 . . . Beginning of the city of Yedo. 1597-1637 Persecutions of the foreign and native Christians. 1615 . . . Revival of learning. Yedo the eastern capi- tal. 1615-1868 Era of great peace. Revival of pure Shinto. Cultivation and establishment of Con- fucianism. 1868-1900 Disestablishment of Buddhism. Abolition of the Riobu system. State purification and patronage and decay of Shinto. 1889 . . . Constitution granting freedom of conscience. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN The Lower Forms of Paganism. The story of Japanese religions shows that " man," as says Sabatier, is "incurably religious." His soul is hungry for something to satisfy it, and until higher light and truth are brought to him he gropes blindly after God, if haply he may find him. Long before he has a " book religion " he fears and hopes, and worships the mysteri- ous forces and objects around him. In prehis- toric Japan there existed various low phases of native worship, traces of which to sharp eyes are still manifest in every part of the empire, while the clear evidences to the scholar are many. Before the opening of the country to foreigners, they were visible on every hand, from Riu Kin to Yezo. Shamanism, the worship of spirits or invisible beings ; fetichism, the wor- ship of inanimate objects ; phallicisra, the wor- ship of the reproductive powers of nature ; trea and serpent worship were, and are still, widely prevalent. The large number of beliefs founded on mythical /oology the delirium tremens of paganism which daily sway the thought and actions of millions of the Japanese, seems to be unknown, not only to the average tourist in their country, but also to most public speakers 108 104 DUX CHRISTUS addressing audiences of Japanese. To be born and grow up and live under the soughing of the forest growths of paganism, or of Christianity, makes mind and imagination in each case very different. The same words have varying meaning and color to the two kinds of auditors. The more obscene manifestations of the phallic worship, which both the dweller in sea- ports and cities and the traveller in the interior, in the early seventies, noted on every side, at temple festivals, in toy and picture shops, and by wayside shrines, in revolting luxuriance, ac- companied with shocking personal exhibitions to an extent now incredible, have been suppressed and abolished by government. Nevertheless, this worship is still carried on in out-of-the-way places. Is it an accident that streets leading to the sacred shrines at Ise are lined on both sides with houses of prostitution ? The licensed house of ill-fame is one of Japan's oldest social institutions. As matter of fact, which every missionary teacher and even tourist ought to know, the average native of Japan had no clear idea, or only a very vague notion, of one per- sonal God Almighty. Visiting lecturers and inexperienced missionaries make a great mis- take in talking to an audience of common people in Japan as they would to a similar gathering in Christendom, where the idea of one living and true God is a commonplace thought. Indeed, a single glance at Japanese art or a knowledge of its literature show what ideas the people have as to the activity of myriads of THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 105 imaginary beings in connection with their daily lives. The Way of the Gods. The first of the prim- itive forms of religion in Japan, kami no michi, the path of the gods, received its Chinese name, Shinto, only in later centuries. It was a rude system fitted for a rude state of society. Shinto is, literally, theology, or the god way. Before the disciples of Jesus at Antioch were called Christians, they were referred to as of " that Way," and to this day, in Japan, religion is always spoken of as a " do," or way. The people of the Jesus Way are distinguished from those of the Buddha Way, the God Way, etc. Let us look at the books of Shinto. Besides the "Kojiki" and "Nihongi" are the chants and prayers, and the book called the " Collection of Myriad Leaves," in which are many pretty poems. A Shinto shrine has no idols or images, and the temples are severely plain. The round metal mirror which one sees is believed to urge the looker-on to gaze into his own heart for purity of word, thought, act, in mind and body, in both belief and practice. Suspended from upright rods or sticks of unpainted wood are folded or notched strips of white paper, making a zigzag effect. These are modern symbols set in place of the ancient offering of hemp, silk, and various kinds of food to the gods. The spirits are supposed to reside in these. From the liturgies we learn much of the ideas govern- ing Shinto ; for example, we find that the origin of evil is attributed to the wicked kami, and to 106 DUX CHRISTUS get rid of them is to free one's self from the troubles of life. The object of the ritual wor- ship is to compel the turbulent and malevolent Tcami to go out and away from human habita- tions to the mountain solitude and rest there. The liturgies and prayers are preserved in spe- cial books, which give also the number and names of the gods, both good and evil ; the gods of the wind, land, sea, and sky ; the gentle and rough spirits ; the prayers of worshippers for their emperor and for themselves ; and tell of the sun-goddess, the fire myth, and the ritual, specimens of which are given in the section de- voted to literary illustrations. Besides the an- cient prayers, others have been made in modern times for special occasions, as when the Mikado left Kioto for Yedo in 1868, and when he pro- claimed the written constitution and opened parliament in 1890. In Shinto, sin is ceremonial pollution. Hence a large part of the forms of worship consist of rites of purification, and their inheritance of customs and beliefs have made the Japanese a cleanly people in person, house, street, and city. They carry neatness to a passion. Another equally potent and permanent fruit of Shinto is seen in the political dogma of Mikadoism, making all national reverence, power, and even all the memories and hopes of the nation to centre in the emperor. Patriotism exalted to a Religion. Patriotism in Japan is exalted to a religion ; and, as far as Japan has a national religion, it is Shinto. No THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 107 one can live long in the land without meeting with Shinto ideas expressed in popular and pleasing form, in manners, customs, toys, and language. At the end of the house roofs, we see the broad terminal tile with the river weed moulded on it, for this is the plant with which the Clay Hill Maiden pacified the fire god. The same symbol of power and victory may be seen in a pair of the same leaves in shining brass on the crest of the warrior's helmet of old feudal days. Not a few of the popular dances, games, sports, and amusements take their origin from the age of the gods and stories in the na- tive mythology. The " Kagura," " the play that makes the gods laugh," is an amusing represen- tation with many local hits and fun up-to-date, of the retreat of the sun-goddess into her cave and the methods used to lure her out. For many pretty stories of the age of the gods, we must go to " Japanese Fairy World," or similar collections of mythic lore. Although waxing old and fast passing away as a system, yet the fruit of Shinto lives in the intense patriotism of the people, as a powerful motive and undying force a force with which Christian teachers have to reckon, and which, when purified, transfigured, and reincarnated in Japanese Christianity, may be as beautiful, as beneficent in its workings, as that race-spirit which, in the Germanic nations, gave us the free spirit of inquiry and enterprise, the institution of chivalry, the Gothic cathedral, and the rev- erence of man for woman. 108 DUX CHRISTUS Shinto as a Political Force. There is a po- litical side to Shinto, in what we may call Mika- doism, or the power of the emperor to compel the reverence of his subjects. How far this political use made of Shinto is justified by the primitive documents of the cult is a question for critical scholarship to settle. When, in the seventh century, the monarchical system of government was established, the people were then, and for centuries afterwards, made to believe that things had always been as they were, and virtually as they are now, under the Mikado's rule ; that is, " unbroken from ages eternal." Nevertheless, it has been amply de- monstrated by both foreign and native students that Mikadoism, or state-church Shinto, made first a usurpation in worship and then turned the primitive faith into an engine of govern- ment. Religion was yoked to practical politics and the emperor was made the centre of wor- ship. Some of the festivals now directly con- nected with the Mikado's house, and even in his honor, were originally religious ceremonies of thanksgiving, with which the Mikado had nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, for the honor was paid to Heaven and not to his imperial ancestry. Thanksgivings of the court were also made to Heaven itself and not in honor of the sun-goddess, as is now popularly supposed. The sun-goddess probably some local chieftainess herself once actually cele- brated the most sacred of the feasts. So, also, the holy temples of Ise, the Mecca of Shinto, THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 109 and even the shrines in the imperial palace, were originally temples of worship of Heaven, and not of the Mikado's ancestors. The idea of inferior gods, or those of earthly origin, forms no part of original Shinto. Not one of the original Mikados was deified after death, and only by degrees was the ruler of the coun- try given a place of worship. This was done through a dogma that was political rather than religious ; that is, by attributing to him a de- scent from heaven. The whole custom of dei- fying emperors came in only after primitive Shinto had been corrupted by Buddhist priests and ideas. The contention of scholars is that the ancient religion of the people in central Japan was, in its origin, a rude sort of mono- theism, which, as in ancient China, was coupled with the worship of subordinate spirits. Outward Manifestations. In Shinto, as or- ganized under official supervision, the ministers of religion belonged to particular families who were honored by titles to offices by the emperor. They dressed like other people of the same rank as themselves in everyday life, but when offi- ciating in their sacred offices were robed in white, and wore upon their heads a particular form of high cap. They married, reared fami- lies, and did not shave their scalp, except that the lower grade of shrine keepers wore their hair in the ordinary fashion, prevalent until quite recently, that is, with shaven midscalp and topknot. On a Japanese landscape the most character- 110 DUX CHRISTUS istic object is the tori-i, a kind of gateway under which worshippers pass to the shrine. Literally it means " bird-rest," but whether used for the perch of fowls giving notice of the break of day, or for their place of rest before being offered to the gods, or that on which the sun, conceived of as a bird, rested before sleeping in the west, is not certain. The correct tori-i is of un- painted wood, made of two tree trunks, held crosswise on a transverse smooth tree trunk, which projects somewhat over the two support- ing posts, while under this is a second and smaller beam set in between two uprights. The law of structure is that a pole held from the earth base to the end of the upper beam should have the lower or shorter beam touch it. In later Buddhist times, the tori-i was painted red or white and ornamented with tablets. In mod- ern degenerate days it has even been made hol- low, of boiler iron. In the case of Inari, or the fox-god, the little tori-i are set in scores of gateways, making a colonnade of approach to his shrine. Often reared in high places, amid God's beautiful trees, that compel instinctive uncovering of the head, one is religiously im- pressed by the natural surroundings, and the reader of Tennyson recalls " The great world's altar-stairs, That slope through darkness up to God." The Emphasis on Cleanliness. Shinto lays, as we have seen, tremendous emphasis on clean- liness. So great has this passion been inbred THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 111 in the Japanese, that the feelings of disgust at what was defiling have long prevailed over those of pity or compassion, and the stolidity in presence of, or contempt for, human suffer- ing, especially when the sufferer was a beggar or outcast, is much like that of the Chinese or Koreans. All the accompaniments of birth or death were considered defiling, and it was usu- ally customary to burn the house in which a person had died. The most beautiful expres- sion of this feeling is seen in the lovely " island without death," on which neither man nor beast is allowed to die, but the sick and those likely soon to pass away are carried to the mainland. The infected patient or lying-in woman was in ancient times put out of the house, in a hut of straw, until the time of normal health, the hut being afterwards burned. Until a quite recent period in some places, notably Vries Isl- and, this custom was maintained. This horror of death or defilement, with its attendant super- stitions, was probably the cause of the frequent removal of the capital, or seat of government. Before Nara was chosen (in 709, and until 794) there had been fifty capitals, most of which to- day exist simply as geographical expressions. Horror of uncleanliness was so great that the priests not only bathed, but bound slips of paper over their mouths, lest their breath should defile the offerings. Many of the festivals were for purification alone. Salt was commonly used to sprinkle over the ground, and all who attended a funeral must free themselves from contamina- 112 DUX CHRISTUS tion by the use of salt. The high officers and even the emperor publicly washed the people, or made lustrations in their behalf. Later on, as settled habitation became more common, public ablution as a sacred rite was supplanted by using paper manikins instead. Twice a year, figures cut in paper and representing human beings were thrown into the river as a vicarious cleansing from sin. Later the chief minister of religion in Kioto performed the symbolical act for the people of the whole country. Those who study religion as a growth may ask, " Into what would Shinto, so bald and rudimentary, have developed, had it been left by itself ? " Would there have arisen litera- ture, codes of morals, great systems of dogma, liturgies, festival routine, and most of those outward popular features and complexity of dogma into which all religions, even the simple religion of Jesus, are fashioned by their ad- herents ? Such questions are interesting. As matter of fact, when the great flood of Chinese and Buddhistic literature overwhelmed the intellect of the Japanese, and Buddhism, under missionary activity, expanded immensely, there was no further development of " the god way " for nearly a thousand years. It was almost completely absorbed into a system called Riobu (mixed) Shinto, in which the latter word may represent the lamb and the thing digested, while Riobu stands for the tiger and the eater. Ultimately less than twenty temples remained with the pure faith and ritual. All THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 113 the others were swamped and overlaid by the system of Riobu. This was concocted by a Buddhist priest, known as Kobo, who is also said to have invented the kana writing, or syllabary, and of whom we shall speak again. The Revival of Pure Shinto. After a thou- sand years' sleep in Buddhism, there were signs of the resurrection of Shinto. In the great peace established by lyeyasu, after 1614, scholars were encouraged and left free to explore the ancient Japanese language, literature, and religion. Their task was much like that of the modern explorers of Pompeii or the Roman catacombs, for the ancient life and civilization had been buried under the rubbish and debris of war, as well as under the successive layers of Chinese civilization and Buddhism. Libraries were formed, and earnest study began. The priest Keichu (1640-1701) explored and commented upon that great treasure house of ancient poetry, the " Collection of One Thousand Leaves " ; Adzu- maro (16601736), founder of the modern school of pure Shinto, attempted the mastery of the whole archaic native language and literature. His pupil and successor was Mabuchi (1697 1760) who claimed descent from the crow-god that had led the Yamato invaders. Then came Motoori (1730-1801), a scholar, who, with a German-like thoroughness, analyzed the native literature, showing whas was Chinese and what was of native origin. Hirata, his pupil (1776- 1843), continued the work of his master until the Perry era. With astonishing learning, Motoori 114 DUX CHRISTUS set forth and defended the native religion. He taught that Japan was the land of the gods and the country of the holy spirits, because it was the first part of the world created. Other coun- tries were formed by the solidifying of the sea foam, while the stars came into existence when the warm mud from Izanagi's spear was flung up to the sky. It was the Chinese who invented morals because they were immoral people, but no true Japanese has need for any system of morals, because he will act aright if he will but consult his own heart. So also the ancient poet Nito- maro, who died in 737 A.D., wrote " Japan is not a land where man need pray For 'tis itself divine ; Yet do I lift my voice in prayer." The duty of every good Japanese is to obey the Mikado, whether his commands are right or wrong. The Mikado is a god and vicar of all the gods, and the centre of church and state, for government and religion are one. Foreign na- tions are very remiss in their duty of not at once offering tribute to the Mikado, but then they are ignorant and unenlightened ! Trivial as the Western man may consider these words, written in the seventeenth century, and however he may look upon such a rudimentary faith, Shinto has been a tremendous political force. Its modern revival was contemporane- ous with the revival also in Japan of Chinese learning, ethics, and philosophy in the seven- teenth century. During the eighteenth century THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 115 these forces generated a mighty energy, which, consolidated in the nineteenth, were all ready, when Perry's fleet appeared in the Bay of Yedo, to burst out into volcanic manifestation. It is simply Occidental conceit and ignorance that supposes that the secret of Japan's modern power lies only in what has come to her from the West, or that her modern life is merely an addition, instead of a true evolution. Nor can we hope for any spiritual uplift or the conver- sion to holiness of the Japanese through civiliza- tion. As matter of fact, however, in the great stream of varied influences which abolished feudalism and restored the Mikado, not only to the supreme power enjoyed by his predecessor, but to a potency and enlargement never before known to any of his ancestors, the ideas of the old god-way formed not the least potent factor. Purging of the Temples. The Three Com- mandments. Immediately on being seated in power in 1868, the radical Shintoists took ad- vantage of their long-awaited opportunity to attempt the abolition of Buddhism and the propagation of Shinto. They began first by purifying the Riobu temples. A change was wrought in the outward array of popular Bud- dhism as thorough as that which went on in the Roman Catholic cathedrals at the hand of the reformers and Protestants in Europe. It was from gaudiness to austere simplicity. The same temple which to-day was luxuriant in all its details, both superb and tawdry, gilded, re- splendent, blazing with light and color, looked 116 DUX CHBISTUS on the morrow more like a respectable barn than a place of worship. Everything that could remind a Japanese of foreign elements was cast out and a return made to the baldness of the early ages before art and letters. Failure in Propagation. An attempt was made to propagate Shintoism and win adherents. But from the first the effort seemed hopeless. Looking at the matter to-day in the light of over thirty-six years of history, the whole move- ment, from the religious point of view, may be called a failure, though as a political measure it may be considered fairly successful. At first the Council of Gods of Heaven and Earth held equal power with the Great Council of the Gov- ernment. Then as a political revolution was made toward the standard of German imperial- ism, the Council was made a department of the government, later it was called the board, and still later a bureau. Now, except as a system of guardianship over the imperial tombs and as a mode of official etiquette, Shinto is not a re- ligion. It is indeed a power to supply the spring and motive to patriotism, but to call it a religion seems absurd. Even the priests at Ise have become laymen. The three main commands of the Shinto of to-day are the following: 1. Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country. 2. Thou shalt clearly understand the prin- ciples of heaven and the duty of man. 3. Thou shalt revere the emperor as thy sovereign and obey the will of his court. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 117 Decay of the Aboriginal Faith. Numerous sects of Shinto have sprung up, some of them quite recent, and evidently borrowing elements from Christianity. On the other hand, some fruits of the decaying cult, as blended with the poisonous elements of Western civilization, have been seen in the soshi young rowdies and ruffians who for a decade or two so bothered cabinet ministers with their advice and impu- dence. Such phenomena called forth from the Mikado, in 1892, an imperial rescript requiring that the photograph of the emperor be exhib- ited in every school, and saluted by all teachers and scholars, whatever their beliefs or scruples. While some insist that this is an act of religion, others treat it but as a form of loyalty only. To-day the radical Shintoist believes that all political rights now or ever enjoyed by the Japanese are solely by virtue of the Mikado's grace and benevolence. Some curious notions and verbal and phrase coloring, derived from Shinto, are also seen in the text of the constitu- tion of 188<>. No Morals and No Immortality. As Shinto teaches no code of morals and tells nothing of life hereafter, the soul of the Japanese, thirsting and hungering after more and better spiritual food, knowing nothing of the Heavenly Father or his iniinite love in Christ Jesus, turned to other fountains and food. Buddhism ministered to the cravings and emotions, and Confucianism gave rules of moral conduct. Yet we must not forget that the average person in Japan does 118 DUX CHHISTUS not analyze or separate the three systems. To him they are an amalgam, forming one method of life. Except the severely bigoted sectarians, the mass of the people use various temples and the reading classes get their mental pabulum from the books of the writers or teachers of the native Japanese, the Aryan, or the Chinese sys- tem. Only the Christian can afford to ignore them all as "rudiments of the world," "beggarly elements," while to the Christ-filled child of God, to whom Japan is native country, Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism are things alto- gether shinda (dead), for his Jesus is alive for- e verm ore. Essence of Buddhism. Buddhism, though outwardly very much resembling Christianity, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic forms of it, is in its nature and essence radically differ- ent from what Jesus taught. Those parallels and resemblances, so much dwelt upon by super- ficial observers, are almost entirely on the sur- face, for real Buddhism is real atheism. It starts out without any idea of the Creator, or personal, omnipotent God, and deals almost entirely with human relations, with the career and destiny of man as exemplified in the law of cause and effect. The chief lesson taught is that "as a man soweth so shall he also reap." This doctrine and also that of self-conquest, with ten thousand illustrations, form the chief themes of the bonzes, or preaching monks. Nirvana is the perfect emancipation from all passion. The Buddhist teaches the suppression THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 119 of all desire, while the Christian doctrine is to elevate and purify desire, seeking ever nobler objects. Buddha has shown us how to crush and kill our impulses ; Jesus teaches to apply the rein and curb so as to have desire draw in the harness of reason, conscience, and the spirit- ual affections. Hence Buddhist civilization is stagnant ; Christian civilization is progressive. Buddha would seclude his people from the world. Jesus says, " In the world, but not of the world." It is this idea of deliverance from longings and passion, which forms the burden of many Bud- dhist holy books, and is expressed by plastic art in the superb bronze statues, colossal in size and overawing in their influence, which are to be found in many places in Japan, such as the Dai Butsu at Kainakura. This faith, which in its various forms domi- nates the intellect and emotions of millions of people in Asia, and which is greatly affected and admired by a few thousand in Christendom (largely because they do not know what Bud- dhism is, and because they are unconsciously enjoying, as in "The Light of Asia," a form of Christianity, tricked out in Asiatic phrase), is amazingly elastic. It has an octopus-like power of seizing upon whatever it catches hold of, and calling it its own, so that its enthusiastic pro- fessors will tell you that Buddhism is "truth common to every religion, regardless of the out- side garments." Indeed, the hierarchs at Kioto are quite willing to annex Christianity to their system. Others more frankly, like the great art 120 DUX CHEISTUS apostle, Okakura, will tell you, and with much truth, that " Buddhism" is a word that covers that long process of over a thousand years, by which the intellectual and spiritual influences of India were made to dominate the mind of eastern Asia. Amiel has said, " The prayer of Buddhism is ' deliver us from existence.' The prayer of Christianity is 'deliver us from evil.'" Buddhism, when honest, is frankly pessimistic ; Christianity, when real, is of necessity optimistic. The Coming of Buddhism to Japan. Passing over the subjects of the origin and growth of Buddhism in India and China, 1 we glance at its two forms on the Asian continent and refer the reader to Japanese works 2 which con- tain the story of the founder of Buddhism. Its chief doctrine is that of karma, or in Japan- ese, ingwa, that is, Cause and Effect, whereby it is taught that each effect in this life springs out of a cause in some previous incarnation, and each act in this life bears its fruit in the next, all of which grows directly out of the old Hindoo doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Buddhism seeks to know only men and things, and is atheistic humanism. The Buddhism of continental Asia followed two channels, the southern and northwestern. The southern form, confined chiefly to Ceylon, Siam, Burmah, and Cochin-China, remained comparatively austere and simple. In Java and the East Indies, where magnificent ruins of 1 Treated in " Lux Christ! " and " Rex Christus." 2 Especially to Rev. J. L. Atkinson's " Prince Siddartha." THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 121 temples are found, it has died out. The north- ern form became amazingly varied, florid, and idolatrous, in which the old noble, eight-fold path of self-conquest and pure morals was utterly lost in a forest of superstitions. Gods and devils were multiplied into mobs. Charms, magic, prayer-mills, and the bric-a-brac of a decayed religion filled China. Multitudes of Idols. With an overpopulated pantheon, and a paradise "wonderfully like Ma- homet's, Buddhism in the sixth century entered Japan, which probably then contained two or three million people, who lived in a state of civilization that may be compared with that of the Aztecs or the Iroquois. The bringing in of the golden images, the sacred books, and shining vestments, with the chanting of the bright-robed choirs of priests, made a tremen- dous impression on the susceptible Japanese. The peaceful introduction was soon followed by quarrels, fighting, and burning of the temple of the new faith. The first eminent friend of Buddhism was the minister of stata, Soga, and its second and greatest champion was the son of the Mikado, named Shotoku. Born in the year 572, and dying 621 A.D., the latter was all his life a vigorous defender and propagator of the new faith. lie founded a large number of temples and monasteries, framed codes of laws, and introduced the first calendar. His posthumous name means Holy Goodness. His images are seen in shrines all over the empire. At the Osaka Exposition, in 122 DUX CHR1STUS the summer of 1903, a thousand or more shaven priests gathered to celebrate his birth, in their full canonicals, by chanting the sutras in uni- son, and the casting of a colossal temple bell to his glory. In Japan, while men cut the timber and do the work of erection and decora- tion, the women make great sacrifices of money, mirrors, and gifts of all sorts, crowning all by the sacrifice of their hair. In building the new Honguanji, in 1895 (Temple of the Origi- nal Vow) in Kioto, two hundred and fifty thousand women gave their hair as an offering to Buddha, to make the ropes employed in hoisting the great stones of the outer wall into their place. " We saw," says Canon Tristram, 1 " fifty -three of these ropes of rich, glossy black hair, each two spans in circumference, forty or fifty feet in length. What devoted zeal im- pelled the daughters of the land to such a sacrifice! " Changes made by the Japanese. Hundreds of Buddhist missionaries followed the first pio- neers from Korea, and under the reign of the Empress Jito (690-696) a great expansion of the new faith took place. In the later centu- ries Japanese pupils went over into China to enter the monastery schools, study Buddhist writings, meet the new lights of learning and revelation, and become versed in the latest fashions of imported religion. Returning to Japan, they founded new sects or sub-sects, stimulating by their enthusiasm the itinerant i " Rambles in Japan," p. 203. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 123 monks. After nine hundred years of multitu- dinous labors, Japan was converted and became a Buddhist nation. Even the colossal bronze image at Kamakura is chiefly the result of the devotion of Itano, a Buddhist nun. Gradually Japanese Buddhism went through, not only a mighty expansion and development, but also a tremendous evolution of doctrine, so that, to Buddhists of the continent of Asia, Japan is the Land of Dreadful Heresies. De- tailed lists of sects and founders, with their dis- tinguishing doctrines and characteristics, may be studied in books devoted to the subject. We can only mention the nine principal sects (omit- ting the forty-two sub-sects) and the number of temples in each in 1903 : Tendai (4602) ; Shingon (12,965); Jodo (8343); Rinzai (6120) ; Sodo (13,706) ; Obaku (556) ; Shin (19,608); Niehiren (5194) ; Ji (857). Japanese ecclesias- tical writers classify all extant or extinct in three groups, the first six, or ancient ; the med- ieval ; and the four modern sects. When two centuries and a half had passed by, the teachers of the new faith from India found that the Japanese people still clung tenaciously to their old traditions, customs, and faith ; for their gods were like themselves. It was clearly seen that something more than teaching and ritual was necessaiy. The whole heritage of national customs and ideas as expressed in Shinto must be occupied by Buddhism. To do this, to make the very ruts and paths of national habits shine with the glory of " the wheel of the 124 DUX CHBISTUS law," it was necessary that the popular festivals and names of the gods should be Buddhaized. The man to do this work, at once bold and crafty, was Kobo, the Buddhist priest (born A.D/774). Shinto swallowed up in Buddhism. Kobo made a catalogue of Shinto gods, giving them Buddhist names, with liturgies. He did the same thing for the festivals. Then, training up a band of disciples and employing hundreds of artists, he sent them forth to propagate the new system and make it attractive to eye and ear as well as mind. The people first accepted the new version of things from the teachers. Then the artists, decorators, and image-makers so made over the old Shinto shrines that, instead of the former simplicity of these barn-like structures, there was now the splendor of Bud- dhist temples. Or they built new edifices with the latest and most fashionable decorations. It was a process much like transforming Quaker meeting-houses into metropolitan cathedrals, such as those in Italy, which blaze with color, gems, and gold, are heavy with the perfume of incense, and, mysterious with shadow and dark- ness, are lighted up only with holy wax and consecrated flame. Such a swallowing up of the national religion was possible only because Buddhism itself had already become so thoroughly pantheistic. The sun-goddess became Amida, as we see in the great bronze images. Ojin, the god of war, son of Queen Jingo, invader of Korea, became THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 125 Hachiman. For each of the thirty days of the month there was a manifestation of the Buddha in Japan, in previous ages, when the Japanese were not yet prepared to receive the sage's holy law. New gods were invented from time to time, as great men died or were deified, while out of the eight millions or so of native kami, several hundred were catalogued to serve as Buddhas. Heroes of local tradition and deified forces of nature were called gongen, or temporary manifestations of Buddha. It is for this reason that tourists to Nikko hear the great lyeyasu spoken of in common speech as " gong 'en sama" Many of these gongen temples attract crowds of pilgrims and yield fat revenues to the priests, as regularly as the autumn harvests. So great is the stream of pilgrims at the most holy tem- ples, as, for example, Zenkoji, at Nagano, on the west coast, that it is said even a cow could find her way thither. There are also comical and amusing instances of the degradation of these gongen into tobacco-shop images, with other associations that are as ludicrous as they are absurd. Thus Shinto was buried in the much altered India cult, and the new creed of Japan went on to write new chapters of decay, and a library of despondency and despair. A Story of Degradation. The story of Bud- dhism in Japan is for the most part one of deg- radation. It won by losing its own original purity of thought and noble ethical standards. Its history shows what kind of mind the aver- age Japanese has, and also its religious quality. 126 DUX CHBISTUS It emphasizes also the folly of preaching the gospel of Christ to an average audience of na- tives as if it were a company of hearers satu- rated with the idea of one God, who is both able to save and to destroy. " Where Christianity has one Lord, Buddhism has a dozen." " To the millions of China, Korea, and Japan, creator and creation are new and strange terms." " We speak of God, and the Japanese mind is filled with idols. We mention sin, and he thinks of eat- ing flesh or the killing of insects. The word 'holiness' reminds him of crowds of pilgrims flocking to some famous shrine, or of some fa- mous anchorite sitting lost in religious abstrac- tion till his legs rot off. He has much error to unlearn before he can take in the truth." Kobe's smart example has been followed only too well by the people in every part of the country. One has but to read the stacks of books of local history to see what an amazing proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions, and revelations rests on dreams ; how incredibly numerous are the apparitions ; how often the floating images of Buddha are found on the water ; how frequently flowers have rained out of the sky ; how many times the idols have spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays, in a word, how often art and artifices have become alleged and accepted reality. Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature and under- growth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; for nearly all are copies of Kobo's model. His cartoon has been constantly before THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 127 the busy weavers of legend. The outcome of Buddhism is not even good morals ; rather, esthetic culture, which leaves both the indi- vidual and the nation helpless for spiritual reform. By the fourteenth century Kobe's leaven had leavened the whole lump, and this and the following century, with its propagating zeal, form the golden age of Japanese Buddhism. In the sixteenth century, feudalism was in frag- ments, and civil war was the rule. Sect was arrayed against sect, and the monasteries were fortified, and, in armor and on horseback, armies of abbots and monks, sometimes fifteen thou- sand strong, took part in war, often turning the scale of conflict. Then followed the clash with Portuguese Christianity and the bloody perse- cutions and humbling of the bonzes under the iron hand of Nobunaga. The Changes wrought in Japanese Life. Yet let us l)e just and do all deserved honor to the Buddhists, first and last. Though given in the past tense, the following is a picture of the re- ligious and social situation of to-day : u In Japanese life, as it existed before the in- troduction of Buddhism, there was, with bar- baric simplicity, a measure of culture somewhat indeed above the level of savagery, but probably very little that could be appraised beyond that of the Iroquois Indians in the days of the Con- federacy. For though granting that there were many interesting features of art, industry, erudi- tion, and civilization, which have been lost to 128 DUX CHRISTUS the historic memory, and that the research of scholars may hereafter discover many things now in oblivion ; yet, on the other hand, it is certain that much of what has long been supposed to be of primitive Japanese origin, and existent before the eighth century, has been more or less infused or enriched with Chinese elements, or has been imported directly from India, or Persia, or has crystallized into shape from the mixture of things Buddhistic and primitive Japanese. " Not only around the human habitation, but within it, the new religion brought a marvellous change. Instead of the hut, the dwelling-house grew to spacious and comfortable proportions, every part of the Japanese house to-day showing to the cultured student, especially to one famil- iar with the ancient poetry, the lines of its origin and development, and in the larger dwellings expressing a wealth of suggestion and meaning. The oratory and the kamidana, or shelf hold- ing the gods, became features in the humblest dwelling. Among the well-to-do, there were of course the gilded ancestral tablets and the worship of progenitors in special rooms, with imposing ritual and equipment, with which Buddhism did not interfere ; but on the shelf over the door of nearly every house in the land, along with the emblems of the Kami, stood im- ages representing the avatars [or manifestations] of Buddha. There the light ever burned, and there offerings of food and drink were made thrice daily. Though the family worship might vary in its length and variety of ceremony, THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 129 yet even in the home where no regular system was followed, the burning lights and the stated offering made, called the mind up to thoughts higher than the mere level of providing for daily wants. The visitation of the priests in time of sorrow, or of joy, or for friendly con- verse, made religion sweetly human." 1 Nevertheless Buddhism failed utterly to satisfy the man of thought, to whom life, as embodied in noble ideals of conduct, was more than the meat of dogma, and to whom the body of ethics was more than the gorgeous raiment of ceremonials. So at the first dawn of peace and leisure, at the opening of the seventeenth century, we find Confucianism winning the minds of the new generation. Confucianism in Japan. Modern philosophi- cal Confucianism, the creed of most gentlemen and educated men in eastern Asia, except in new Japan, is very different in form and even in spirit from the primitive religion of the Chinese. Confucius put into literary form the primitive Chinese religion and traditions. In doing tins he gave them a new form. Whereas the older cult, while more simple, was more spiritual, its chief burden, sacrifice, and the wor- ship of the Great One in Heaven prominent, Confucius made a transfer of emphasis, laying stress on social and political duties. He threw into the background the idea of communion with God and spiritual holiness, and dwelt almost entirely upon " the five relations." iFrom "The Religions of Japan, 1 ' by W. E. Griffis. 130 DUX CHBISTUS Everything which comes into Japan suffers a change, because the Japanese do not blindly adopt, but always, more or less intelligently, adapt. They are not mere imitators, but usually improvers. Confucianism in Japan became something quite different, both in cul- tus and philosophy, from what it had been in its first home. The root idea of China's social and ethical system is filial piety, obedience of the child to parents, reverence of the young to the old, and submission of the dependent to the master. On the contrary in Japan, while order and subordination are enforced, the corner- stone of the ethical system is not filial piety, but loyalty to the master. This was largely because of the environment of feudalism, as well as, and on account of, the Japanese genius and spirit. The man who deserted parents, wife, and children for the feudal lord received unstinted praise. The master passion of the old typical samurai made him regard life as less than nothing, when duty demanded of him a display of loyalty by self-renunciation, the loss of family, of property, or even of life itself. All this, while beautiful from one point of view, has furnished the fertile ground, out of which have sprung, as from the sown dragon's teeth, crops of vice and crime, such as woman's shame and the sale of the daughter for filial piety's sake to the shambles of lust, the vendetta, the sons of ven- geance, the assassin, and the suicide. Out of these, private war and self-murder made hon- orable, as from perennial fountains, rivers THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 131 of blood have flowed through Japanese history. " Not to live under the same heaven with the murderer of father or lord," made the funda- mental law which licensed the taking of human life with applause and glorification. Besides occurring in the world of fact and routine, this national habit has furnished also the standard plots for the popular novel and drama. Even in the Japan of to-day, in the common relations of life, it is less love than fear that rules. Our ordinary words u father," " mother," " brother," and " sister " have not the depth of meaning which they bear in Christian lands. In fact, there is no simple word in Japanese for brother or sister, but only for younger or older, because the Japanese family is built perpendicularly on the idea of graded subordination, not on that of equality and affection. Hence also the glorifi- cation of the political assassin, who has so often in the new Japan made sovereign and nation mourn. Hence also the perpetual decoration day held at the tombs of murderers. It is this old spirit which has so often, even in the Japan of our times, brought sorrow to the emperor, through the loss of his ablest servants struck down by the murderer's sword. Confucianism becomes Philosophy. For a thousand years Japan enjoyed Confucianism in its simple form, as a rule for the conduct of life, but not as a philosophy for the educated. Be- tween the tenth and sixteenth centuries, when Confucianism in China was undergoing a trans- formation from cult to creed, there was little 132 DUX CHRISTUS intercommunication between the continent and archipelago. Suddenly, in the seventeenth cen- tury, in the profound peace inaugurated by lyeyasu, the Japanese intellect, all ready for new surprises, received, as it were, an electric thrill. Chinese scholars nurtured under the Ming dynasty (1368-1628) fled from China to Japan, rather than wear a queue or yield to the Tartar Manchus, who in Peking are still the political bosses of the conquered Chinese. Under the patronage of the feudal lord of Mito, these learned guests established schools, that presented the new system of Confucian philoso- phy, which until 1870 was the basis of a Jap- anese education and the creed of a Japanese gentleman. Those who differed from the ortho- dox Confucianists of the college in Yedo were pretty sure, especially if political suspects, to suffer banishment, torture, or death. In these latter days, when Confucianism in Japan is as dead as the traditional door-nail, some of the children and grandchildren of these martyrs for what they believed, are earnest followers of Jesus in the Christian churches of Japan. The era from 1604 to 1868 was the most peace- ful period known in Japan. Wars were scarcely more than a memory, and the military art was retained only by means of an elaborate etiquette. In a sense, Japan was husbanding both her re- sources and the blood of the nation for a sublime future. Yet the reverse of the picture reveals a horrible situation. Industrial developments and agriculture were pushed to the utmost extent, THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 133 but beyond a certain point these activities of the producer could not go, for no outlet existed in the form of a foreign market, nor was the normal increase of population provided for by emigra- tion. The existence of a more progressive civili- zation in other lands was not even suspected. Japanese theories were thus tested to their extreme limits, and failed. Under such circum- stances, population not only could not increase, but must be kept down, for only a certain amount of food could be produced. Even famine, child murder, licensed immorality, could not save the situation, which was becoming in- tolerable. The coming of the American treaty ships of 1853 was a godsend to Japan, and in itself a missionary work. Sumptuary Laws and Social Customs. It is always true that when population outgrows the supply of food, certain checks and balances are necessary to prevent the people from de- generating to a low standard of living. Japan's standard is even yet low enough from the Occidental point of view. Plenty of food is a powerful factor in raising the standard. The coming of the Christian nations with trade, fraternity, and the gospel meant life to the Japanese, and life more abundantly. The famines, once so frequent and so terribly de- structive to human life, are not possible in these days of railways and steamers, of international sympathy and brotherhood. The terrible famines and severe sumptuary laws had their effects in making the mass of the 134 DUX CHR1STUS people live down to a rigid standard of simplic- ity, besides curtailing the number of ordinary luxuries or pleasures, and even betrothals and weddings. Another way of keeping down popu- lation, as well as of deterring from crime, was seen in the horrible punishments, such as sawing the head off with a bamboo saw, crucifixion on the bamboo cross, decapitation and exposure of the head, burning at the stake, arid exile to distant islands. Even children had to die with their fathers. Most of these forms of punish- ment, as well as the traces of social oppression under the feudal system, the writer has seen. Other preventive checks were in public opinion and custom relating to family life. Usually a samurai did not marry before the age of thirty, and it was considered vulgar to have more than three children. The head of the house was very stoical, for Confucianism always hostile to woman's advancement had exerted its blight- ing influence. Affection for the wife was dis- countenanced. The man rarely showed any tokens of regard, and rarely handed her anything directly, but placed it so that she could take it. The woman's life consisted of " the three obedi- ences " to father, husband, and to her son when he became head of the family. Suffice it to say that pretty much all the horrible and unspeak- able vices were common in old Japan. Child murder was quite frequent. No deformed or defective infant was allowed to live. In some districts girl babies were for the most part promptly disposed of. It was not at all uncom- THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 135 mon nor out of etiquette to ask, when a female child was born, " Are you going to raise it ? " The Moral Night of Japan. All this, together with the prevalence of earthquake, tidal wave, and typhoon, had its effect in forming the char- acter and temperament of the people. Yet the influences thus generated were less from original qualities inherent in the Japanese people, than the result of a political system. By studying Japan's history, we see clearly the terrible ex- periences of a nation in the depths of paganism trying to grow inside of the clamps imposed by poor government and the rigid limits of the earth unsubdued and unreplenished, according to tin; divine command, for God " formed the earth to be inhabited." Nature and human law taught the people in old Japan to be satisfied with a little, without risking new hazards of experiment. " These experiences probably gave them that air of pathetic resignation which we still see displayed among the lower ranks in the presence of death. As a people they bear losses of every kind more stoically than Europeans or Americans. By nature a spontaneously happy folk, they have acquired the habit of submission to the inevitable." Proofs are abundant that morality, in the cities at least, was at a very low ebb. While poverty and wretchedness prevailed among the lower orders, luxury and effeminacy were the rule among nearly all classes favored by birth and wealth. The pencil of Hokusai, the artist of "the passing world," has caricatured the sol- 136 DUX CHRISTUS diers too fat to get inside of their armor. Of eighty thousand " flag-supporters " of the Sho- gun, supposed to be picked men, ever alert for war and fatigue, many could neither walk nor ride. This was notably and disgracefully seen when, in 1865, they were summoned to fight against the more stalwart clansmen of Kiushiu in the southwest. Then hundreds and thou- sands pleaded the favorite excuse, or falsehood, in old Japan, sickness, though in their case it was near reality. The Anti-Christian Edicts. During this time of Japan's seclusion from the world, the gov- ernment spies and Buddhist inquisition, by means of its lynx-eyed priests, made it next to impossible for any Christian to live openly in the country. The bonzes penetrated into the house and family and guarded the graveyards, so that neither the earth of burial nor the fire of cremation should embrace the body of a Christian, nor his ashes defile the ancestral graveyards. Every householder had to swear annually, and the gentleman on " the true faith of a samurai" that neither he nor any of his household were Christian. Twice, in 1688 and in 1711, were the rewards increased and the Buddhist bloodhounds set on fresh trails. Edict boards, made of wood and inscribed in India ink, were hung up all over the country, at the ferries, at the city gates, on the village main streets, denouncing the evil sect (Chris- tianity) and offering money to informers. In the south thousands of people were made to THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 137 pass annually through a wicket gate, during which passage they trampled on a copper plate, bearing the image of the Christ on the cross. These engraved plates are still preserved in the museum at Tokio, while some of the edict boards are in missionary cabinets. Naturally the idea which the common people had of Christianity was that it was sorcery. It was not uncommon for mothers to frighten their chil- dren with the name of Yasu (Jesus), who was believed to be some kind of a foreign demon. Amid such spiritual darkness, when Buddhism, fed by government patronage and drunk with power, was corrupted with luxury, there were from time to time reforming movements made by earnest men who deplored the low state of morals and the social corruptions of the times. The most striking evidence of this we see in the formation of several new sects. Most of these had the common idea of eclecticism, that is, of uniting Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shinto for ethical reform and the improvement of society ; though, as a matter of fact, the average Japanese, as we have shown, holds the three religions in an amalgam, not looking at them separately, as we do, but taking his patriotism from Shinto, his morals from Confu- cianism, and his hopes and fears from Bud- dhism. One of the most remarkable phases of the reforming movement was that of Shingaku, or heart learning, wherein with preaching was combined a good deal of active benevolence, that was so recognized by the government in 138 DUX CHBISTUS times of famine for the distribution of rice and alms. This promising movement came to an end in the political convulsions which followed the arrival of the American fleet in 1853. Never- theless, other men, like Yokoi Heishiro, who wrought with his patron, the lord of Echizen, a mighty moral revolution in Fukui, the castle city, did in reality preach Christian truth, in part at least. Having got hold of a Chinese version of the New Testament, this lecturer on Confucianism, this moral reformer, taught the lofty ethical code of Jesus under the guise of dissertations on the philosophy of Chu Hi, the twelfth-century representer of ancient Con- fucianism. It is no wonder then that Yokoi prophesied the acceptance of the religion of Jesus in Japan, and in 1868 pleaded for the up- lifting of the Eta pariahs to citizenship and for the toleration of conscience. Promptly assassi- nated in Kioto for such liberalism, rightly sus- pected to be Christian, Yokoi belongs in the roll of martyrs for God's truth in Japan. He has been posthumously honored by the Mikado. The Witnesses to Truth. Yet even though blasphemous pagans, in their pitiful ignorance and savage puerility, might strive to banish God from Japan, the Almighty Father left himself not without a witness. During these centuries of repression, both of Christianity and of mental freedom, and during the reign of luxury and famine, licentiousness and oppres- sion, the smoking flax of those who groped after God, if haply they might find him, was THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 139 not wholly quenched. Pathetic is the story of the seekers after Our Father in Heaven, and of the inquiring spirits who protested against Confucian bigotry, the Buddhist inquisition, and Japan's hermit-like conceit and ignorance. There were reformers also who tried to improve their country and people, who wrote out their convictions and then committed hara-kiri, or were ordered to death by the Yedo government. By boarding foreign ships and secretly reading the forbidden books of Christianity, they gained light. The narratives of pilgrims hungry for truth, who usually sought out the Dutch at Deshima, as mariners in distress look for a beacon, make thrilling reading. Though fasci- nating, their full story is too large and varied to be told here, but may furnish themes for study and suggestion. Suffice it to say that Christianity had a hidden and subterranean life in modern Nippon before the Scriptures and spiritual nurture were brought by the missiona- ries. The Japanese, now building the tombs of the prophets, have written biographies of these men who " died without the sight " of a Chris- tian Japan. The Dawning of a New Day. In the very midnight, then, of Japan's moral and spiritual darkness, in July, 1853, appeared the peaceful armada led by Commodore Perry. The first sound which the people heard, after the sunrise and evening guns, was the invitation given, in music and hearty song, to forsake idols and ac- knowledge God, the one Father of all. Was it 140 DUX CHRISTUS accident, that on the Lord's Day, on which the commodore would transact no business with the Japanese authorities, the church flag the one ensign allowed above the stars and stripes was hoisted on the flag-ship for prayer and worship ? No ! for this was the rule and cus- tom. Nevertheless, it was noteworthy, even prophetic, that the hymn sung on that Sabbath morning was this invitation to the people living in what was then an idol and priest cursed land, but which is now open to the gospel, and where conscience is free : " Before Jehovah's awful throne Ye nations bow with sacred joy ; Know that the Lord is God alone, He can create and he destroy." THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 141 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS SHINTO For substance, and in its purity, Shintoism is a com- bination of nature-worship and ancestor-worship. The elements and objects of the material universe are deified in countless numbers. The architecture of the temples is simple, the characteristic feature being always a pecul- iar form of gateway which is easily to be recognized. As a rule, the people do not take any part in the Shinto worship, and the priests are hardly to be distinguished from laymen except at the times of sacrifice, when they do put on official dress. The sacrifices consist of fish, fruits, and vegetables, and the flesh of some animals. There is no attempt whatever at moral teaching. EDWARD ABBOTT. It may not be out of place here to describe the old Shinto of the seventh and eighth centuries, which Motoori aimed at restoring. It was essentially a nature-worship, upon which was grafted a cult of ancestors. It tells us nothing of a future state of rewards and punishments. and contains the merest traces of moral teaching. The Norito (liturgies), in enumerating the offences from which the nation was purged twice a year by the Mikado or Ids representatives, makes no mention of any one of the sins of the decalogue. What then remains? A mythical history of the creation of the world, and of the. doings of a number of gods and goddesses, the chief of whom, namely the sun-goddess, was the ancestress of the human rulers of Japan, while from the subordinate deities were sprung the principal noble families who formed their court. Add to this a ceremonial compris- ing liturgies in honor of these deities, and we have the Shinto religion. ASTON. 142 DUX CHRISTUS ANCIENT SHINTO RITUALS Prayer for harvest-thanksgiving to the sun-goddess for bestowing upon her descendants dominion over land and sea: " I declare in the great presence of the From-heaven- shining-great Deity who sits in Ise. Because the sovran great goddess bestows on him the countries of the four quarters over which her glance extends : " As far, as the limit where heaven stands up like a wall, " As far, as the bounds where the country stands up distant, " As far, as the limit where the blue clouds spread flat, " As far, as the bounds where the white clouds lie away fallen to the blue sea-plain, "As far, as the limit whither come the prows of the ships without drying poles or paddles, the ships which continuously crowd the great sea-plain, and the roads which men travel by land, " As far, as the limit whither come the horse's hoofs with the baggage cords tied tightly, treading the uneven rocks and tree roots and standing up continuously in a long path without a break, making the narrow countries wide and the hilly countries plain, and as it were drawing the distant countries by throwing many tens of ropes over them, he will pile up the first fruits like a range of hills in the great presence of the sovran great Goddess, and will peacefully enjoy the remainder." Prayer to the sun-goddess for the Mikado, 17th day of Gth moon : " That she deign to bless his [the Mikado's] life as a long life and his age as a luxuriant age, eternally and unchangingly as multitudinous piles of rock. " May deign to bless the children who are born to him, and deigning to cause to flourish the five kinds of grain which the men of a hundred functions and the peasants of the countries of the four quarters of the region under heaven long and peacefully cultivate and eat, and guard- ing and benefiting them deign to bless them." THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 143 THE FUTURE Buddhism did not a little toward fostering ideals of holiness, humanity, and detachment from worldly things. Confucianism provided high, though it may be somewhat distorted, standards of morality, and a comparatively rational system of philosophy. Shinto taught a rever- ence for the divine powers which created and govern the universe and man. But none of the three sufficed by itself to meet the heart, soul, and mind want of the .Japanese nation. Can it be imagined that when a reli- gion is presented to them which alone is adapted to satisfy far more completely all the cravings of their higher nature, the Japanese, with their eminently recep- tive minds, will fail in time to recognize its immense superiority? They have already accepted European phi- losophy and science. It is simply inconceivable that the Christian religion should not follow. W. G. ASTON. CHANGEABLE BUDDHISM There are a great many differences between the old and the new beliefs which are hardly reconcilable. They are contending with each other for supremacy, and the Buddhist society is now torn by dissensions. The new spirit that rapidly spreads itself among the rising genera- tion is overthrowing old customs one after another. The yellow robe, the tonsure, the rosary, the almsbowl, the staff, and such like things monastic, together with those ancient beliefs that made them sacred, are swept away by the new tide. Time will come, we hope, when Bud- dhism will undergo a change, a change so great that a .Japanese Rip Van Winkle will be at a loss to tell whether it is Buddhism or not, ,1. D. DAVIS. WHAT is A BrnmiA? When T was eight years of age, T asked my father, " What sort of a thing is a Buddha?" He replied, " A 144 DUX CHRISTUS Buddha is something which a man grows into." " How, then, does one become a Buddha ? " said I. " By the teachings of a Buddha." " But who taught the Buddha who gives us this teaching?" "He becomes a Buddha by the teaching of another Buddha who was before him." " Then what sort of a Buddha was that first Buddha of all who began teaching?" My father was at the end of his answers, and replied, laughing, " I suppose he must have flown down from the sky or sprung up from the ground." He used to tell his friends this conversation much to their amusement. KENKO (1350 A.D.). NOT FOR MORALITY Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples being public resorts for pleasure should be sparingly visited before the age of forty. KAIBARA (1630-1714). The native newspapers had lately mentioned that a fresh supply of seven hundred well, say waitresses had been engaged by the enterprising proprietors of the various houses of entertainments for the pious pilgrims, in view of the approaching season. E. G. HOLTHAM. BUDDHISM ESTHETIC NOT ETHICAJL Buddhism has had a fair field in Japan, and its out- come has not been elevating. Its influence has been esthetic and not ethical. It added culture and art to Japan, as it brought with itself the civilization of con- tinental Asia. It gave the arts, and more ; it added the artistic atmosphere. . . . Reality disappears. " This fleeting borrowed world " is all mysterious, a dream ; moonlight is in place of the clear hot sun ... it has so fitted itself to its surroundings that it seems indigenous. GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 145 THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION I. The Lower Forms of Paganism in Japan. II. The Mythology and Ritual of Shinto. III. Is Shinto a Religion V IV. Temple Architecture and Surroundings. V. What Japan owes to Buddhism. Its Defects. VI. Ingwa, or the Doctrine of Cause and Effect. VII. The Various Sects of Buddhism. VIII. Effects of Buddhism on Home Life. On Women. IX. Compare as Educators of the Nation, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto. X. The Dangers to Christianity from Buddhism. 146 DUX CHRISTUS BOOKS OF REFERENCE " Handbook of Japan." (Satow and Hawes.) (1896.) John Murray. E. M. Satow's " Revival of Pure Shinto," " Shinto Rituals," " The Shinto Temples of Ise," and papers on Shinto by other writers; chapters on Japanese Buddhism. In Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. P. Lowell. " The Soul of the Far East," and " Occult Japan," or "The Way of the Gods." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. L. Hearn. "Gleanings in Buddha Fields." (1894.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co. S. L. Gulick. " Evolution of the Japanese." (190:).) F. H. Revell Co. W. E. Griffis. "The Religions of Japan." (1891.) Charles Scribner's Sons. K. Okakura. " Ideals of the East." (1903.) E. P. But- ton & Co. Mrs. Fraser. " Letters from Japan." (1904.) The Mac- millan Co. J. L. Atkinson. " Prince Siddartha." (1893.) Congre- gational S. S. and Pub. Society. A. C. Maclay. " Budget of Letters from Japan." G. P. Putnam's Sons. E. W. Clement. " Handbook of Modern Japan." A. C. McClurg & Co. CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 1859 First arrival of American missionaries, Nagasaki. 1864 First Christian convert, Yano Ryu, baptized, Yokohama. Baptism of Wakasa and Ayabe, Nagasaki. 1867 Publication of Hepburn's Dictionary. 1871 Japanese embassy starts on trip round the world. 1872 Gospels of St. Mark and Sf. John in Japanese. First Missionary Conference, Yokohama. First Protestant Christian Church, Yokohama. 1873 The calendar of Christendom adopted. Removal of the anti-Christian edicts. Large reinforcements of missionaries. Second Protestant Christian Church established, Kobe. Union Church established in Tokio. 1874 Native Christian Church in Tokio. 1875 Union Church edifice completed in Yokohama. Beginning of the Doshisha School in Kioto. 1876 The rest day (Sunday) of Christendom made a holiday. 1879 United Church of Christ in Japan. 1880 The complete New Testament in Japanese. Great Public Meeting of Christians in Tokio. 138 Protestant missionaries and 6698 converts in Japan. 1883 Missionary Conference at Osaka. 1884 Reaction. Doctrinal Discussions. Commercialism and Nationalism. 1889 Religious Liberty confirmed in the National Con- stitution. The Complete Bible in Japanese. 1900 General Missionary Conference in Tokio. 1903 The Hymnal. Union for Christian work at the Osaka Exposition. Council of Cooperating Missions. CHAPTER IV MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS Subterranean Christianity. In the history of the religion of Jesus in modern Japan, the para- ble of the leaven receives illustration before that of the mustard seed. We must first speak of things hidden but potent, rather than of what was visible. Even after bloody persecu- tions and the massacre at Shimabara in 1637, there still remained the unextinguished embers of the Christian faith among thousands of poor people in the Island of the Nine Provinces. Even as late as 1839 there was an insurrection of people with Christian ideas in Osaka, in which blood was shed, for the Japanese theory of government then branded all dissent from the established religion and philosophy as treason. The presence of the Dutch at De- shima made it possible also for eager and inquir- ing spirits searching for God to find help and direction, or at least to obtain books from which light might be had on the path to God. More than one Japanese, who learned of him whose u blessed feet . . . were nailed for our advantage to the bitter Cross," after finding Christ, imitated him in the way they supposed best. In a word, they ended their own lives 149 150 DUX CHRISTUS according to the honorable law of suicide, with the sword, in order to save their wives and children. They saved others ; themselves they could not save. Translations of the Bible in Chinese, easily read by Japanese scholars, and, in one case, in English, like Moses, " drawn out of the water," became, with the help of Dutch interpreters and, through divine grace, light and life to eager souls. Furthermore the pil- grims of science from all over Japan went to Nagasaki, and learned not a little of the Chris- tians' God and Saviour. In many parts of the empire there were little circles of influence among the physicians who had studied medicine and surgery on European principles, who were themselves, with those influenced by them, thus made more sensitive to truth, which the mis- sionary was to bring in full form. Even as Paul in his prison rejoiced in the preaching of Christ, " whether in pretence or in truth," so even the very edicts publicly denouncing the evil sect of Jesus were as so many pulpits ever keeping the name of the Christ before the multitude, compelling inquiry and searching of heart. No statement of the reality in Japan would be complete without taking account of this inward preparation, nor would it be just to the Heavenly Father, whose ways are not our ways. As in Elijah's time, he reserved to himself thousands that did not bow the knee, either to idols or to accept the philosophy maintained by brute force. MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 151 Outward Forces. Outwardly the Holy One was preparing the forces of his providence, for in the lands of Bible light and joy, Japan was being made a subject for prayer, while from China came the first efforts to persuade pagan- ism to open its gates to humanity. The great gulf stream of the Pacific sweeps out to sea, and in old days swept often to death, the fishing boats with men and women on board, who, as records show, have helped to people the shores of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, British Amer- ica, our own western coast, and Hawaii. Even on the shores of the Philippines, China, and Korea, many instances of shipwrecked Japanese are known. From Japanese waifs, some of them ransomed from Indian slavery in Oregon and brought to China, Dr. S. Wells Williams learned the Japanese language, being thus enabled later in. 1854 to serve as interpreter to Commodore Perry. Of Dr. Williams's three visits to Japan, the first in 1837 was in the American ship Morrison, fitted out at the expense of Messrs. King & Company, the owners. The fascinating story is told in full in the book " Voyages of the Morrison and Himmaley *' and in the " Life and Letters of S. W. Williams." The Morri- son was driven away by the cannon shot of the batteries in Yedo Hay and also from Kago- shima. Dr. Williams lived to enjoy the Lord's Supper with Japanese Christians and to be pres- ent at the baptism of Okuno in 1872. In 1888, at Nagasaki, Dr. 8. Wells Williams, Rev. E. W. Syle, sailors' chaplain at Shanghai, 152 DUX CHBISTUS and Rev. Henry Wood, chaplain in the United States Navy, met together. They were much impressed with what Mr. Donker Curtius, the Dutch envoy, who had just signed a treaty, said. He told these three Americans that Japanese officers declared themselves ready to open their country to trade, provided opium and Christianity could be kept out. In a word, the simple ignorance of the Japanese officers, who considered these two things as inextricably associated, deserved more pity than contempt. These three Christian gentlemen prayed that Christianity, apart from priestcraft, and as founded on the open Bible, might be brought into the country. Following up their faith by their works they wrote home, one to the Epis- copal, one to the Presbyterian, and the third to the Reformed Church Mission Boards, urging that missionaries be sent at once to Japan. The three letters fell like seed upon ground already prepared, and within the coming year this committee of three welcomed in Shanghai the pioneers of the trio of missionary societies, that have, since 1859, occupied Japanese soil. The Roman and Greek Catholics. Let us first glance at Christianity in its Greek and Roman forms. In reentering Japan the Ro- man Catholic missionaries had the advantage above all others of historic continuity. Never- theless they have had to contend against the prejudices aroused by remembrance of the troubles of three centuries ago and felt by them especially. Most of those now working MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 153 are French, and araong the orders represented are the Marianite friars, and Cistercian brothers, assisted by nuns. They carry on the usual work of nurture in the church, catechetical training and theological education, with orphan- ages, boarding, primary, and industrial schools, dispensaries, hospitals, etc. On August 1, 1900, they had 54,602 adherents, with 106 European missionaries under one archbishop and three bishops, 103 European and 20 Japan- ese teachers, over 251 congregations, 3610 pupils in primary schools, and 4479 children in orphanages. Of the Greek Catholic, or Russian, mission- aries, the chief officer is Bishop Nikolai, who lias been in active service in Japan over forty years. On June 18, 1901, there were 25,698 converts, 297 churches, with 173 church build- ings, cared for by 376 ordained Japanese priests and 162 evangelists. The annual increase of converts lias been about 1000. Pioneers of Protestant Missions. The " His- tory of Protestant Missions in Japan," written at the request of the missionaries by Dr. G. F. Verbeck for the Osaka Conference of 1883, and reprinted by the Tokio Missionary Conference of 1900, is the Book of Genesis in the modern history of missionary effort in Japan. The honor of the first landing made and work inau- gurated, in 1859, belongs to the Protestant Epis- copal Church in the United States. Rev. John Liggins in May and the Rev., afterwards Bishop, C. M. Williams in June, both trans- 154 DUX CHRISTUS ferred, after years of service, from the China mission, reached Nagasaki. On October 18, J. C. Hepburn and his wife, of the Presbyterian Church, arrived at Kanagawa, across the bay from Yokohama. Dr. Hepburn was joined by Dr. S. R. Brown, November 1, and they found shelter in an old Buddhist temple rich in dirt and idols. Rev. G. T. Verbeck reached Nagasaki, November 7. For about ten years, these four missionaries, Brown, Hepburn, Williams, and Verbeck, practically had the field to themselves and under God did a mighty preparatory work. The situation of these pioneer missionaries was often perplexing and dangerous, without their knowing just why or how. They were like the man in the fairy tale who walked through a field of razor blades. All round them were the sharp swords of assassins ready and eager to kill. More than once the ferocious foreigner haters, who thought they would be doing their gods service in killing an alien, came into the mission premises expecting to leave only with blood-stained weapons and gloating over a murder. Instead of brutal victory, they were morally disarmed and liter- ally conquered by what they saw and heard. Often they were self-compelled to believe. Besides the gratitude due to an overruling Providence, one may well appreciate the earnest desire of the government officers to protect the foreigners' life and property, and the loyalty of the often despised but valorous native guards. From the first the imperial Japanese govern- MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 155 ment has stood strenuously for international law and fulfilment of its treaties. Naturally the missionaries were suspected of being political emissaries, of helping to make Japan poor, and of coming to bring all kinds of trouble upon the country. Concession of land to foreigners, even for settlement and trade, seemed to the natives to be the same as con- quest, but gradually even the fanatical patriots were able to discern the reality. Yet it must always be remembered, as distinct from and in contrast to China, that it was not the people, or mobs, but rather the underlings of the Yedo administration, itself rotten and corrupt, and the sword-wearing, privileged classes, that sus- pected the missionaries of evil. The common people almost invariably treated well the guests of the nation and read quickly their real inten- tions and true character. Hostility of Sword and Pen. It requires a very vivid imagination to re-create the political situation in the Japan of the days before 1868 and to realize how bitterly hostile were the samurai to the foreigners and the religion, or even to know the tyranny and oppression, false- hood and suspicion, that ruled under the Yedo system, which was itself a sham, thus rendering the social atmosphere always heavy with sus- picion. To the credit of the samurai, be it said, they made, though slowly, clear discernment and reached enlightenment much sooner than the Buddhist priests, both as regards Occidental civilization and true Christianity. Further- 156 DUX CHEISTUS more, in all modern Japanese history there have been none of those bloody and destructive riots or reactions against progress so characteristic of China and her mobs. Superstition, though bad enough in Japan, has never taken the vio- lent form of evil so noteworthy in China. The sword failing to drive out Christianity, the pen came into vogue as a weapon. The first literary attack was in a pamphlet written by a Buddhist priest who had sneakingly come into Mr. Verbeck's classes. In it he spoke of Romanism and Protestantism as " foxes of the same hole." It was common, when a missionary would speak to a native about becoming a Christian, for the latter to draw his fingers sig- nificantly across his neck, hinting at what would happen. The edict boards denouncing "the evil sect" (Christianity) were posted all over the land, in street, market-place, and by the ferry. This was also a time of great politi- cal upheaval, as we have seen. While there was nothing shocking in the religious rites of Japanese paganism, as in India, for example (though some of the obscene orgies and em- blems displayed in temple processions were at times almost incredibly vile), and cruelty or atrocity was noticeable rather in the matter of judicial punishment and neglect of human life, yet the gross immorality of the people was as disgusting as it was horrible. Deception and lying seemed to be universal, with a general ignorance of the commonest ethics concerning the relations of the sexes, with perhaps the one MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 157 exception that a wife should be faithful to her husband. As Verbeck prophesied, " Looking at idolatry and immorality in the light of obsta- cles to the reception and spread of Christianity in Japan . . . the latter will prove to be the more tenacious and formidable of the two." As Dr. S. L. Gulick shows in his "Evolution of the Japanese," they have not yet, in ethics, passed out of the gregarious into the individ- ualistic stage. Dr. J. D. Davis in his paper, "The Church and Social Questions," read at the Tokio Conference, and printed in The Japan Evangelist, shows that in this twentieth century the crowding of industrial operatives of both sexes in quarters both morally and otherwise unhealthy, causes results that are appalling. Japan's population of illegitimates, criminals, lepers, physical and moral degenerates, is rela- tively as large as under feudalism. Verily, as a Japanese editor cries out, the need of the nation is not more government or modern ma- chinery of any sort, but for " moral oil to run it with." The First Period of Labors. The mission- aries during this first period were, under treaty requirements, involuntarily confined to work in a few open ports. There were no qualified native helpers, and no books, Bibles, or tracts in Japanese. So long as they were mastering the language, this restriction of locality was not a matter of deep concern ; but in the latter part of the period, the want of liberty to preach and teach outside the settlements was felt to be a 158 DUX CHRISTUS serious disadvantage. To those at home who supposed that the missionaries had been sent out prematurely, Mr. Liggins wrote a letter published in the Spirit of Missions, in August, 1861, which is a classic in its masterly vindica- tion of the necessity of the preparatory labors of the pioneers, upon the results of which all later comers have since built. First and most important, though not tangible and not easily measurable, was the signal result seen in the gaining of the people's confidence and the respect of the authorities. This prepared the way for the later liberal measures of the gov- ernment in granting full religious liberty, while it awakened also a spirit of inquiry. Let one read Gordon's " An American Missionary in Japan," or Verbeck's own testimony, to see how much Japanese government enlightenment owes to missionaries and their pupils. The nature of Bible Christianity has been shown in the char- acter and lives of those who brought it. The Christian literature printed in the Chinese char- acters was twice blessed, for, unexpectedly to those who had wrought in " the land of Siiiim," a demand sprang up in Japan for their works of translation. Many thousands of volumes of the Chinese Bible, besides its derivative and corollary literature, were circulated and read by the edu- cated in Japan, who are masters of the written language of China, which is as Latin to the educated in Europe. Dr. W. A. P. Martin's " Evidences of Christianity," both in its original Chinese and in the island vernacular, has ever MODERN CHEISTIAN MISSIONS 159 been an especial favorite and a great blessing to the Christianity of Nippon, while that picture- story of the soul, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Prog- ress," with Japanese illustrations, still wins hosts of readers. When Viscount Arinori Mori took a copy of Dr. Martin's work to Peking, present- ing it to the author with the compliments of the translator, Dr. Martin suddenly asked the Mikado's minister if he were a Christian. The viscount gave the characteristic reply, " I en- deavor to live so that men may think I am a Christian." Beginnings of Bible Translation. The ver- nacular was at first studied and largely mas- tered by men who, from the very fact that they had so few helpers, surmounted difficulties more thoroughly, made more complete mastery, and in their text-books showed others more clearly the path of success. The missionaries' helps to the acquisition of the language were extensively used by beginners, and in 1867 appeared that superb specimen of lexicography by Dr. J. C. Hepburn, on which all subsequent dictionaries used by students of Japanese from many coun- tries are based. Of this result of many years of toilsome scholarly labor, different editions have at times appeared. In 1867 the first religious tract, prepared by Dr. J. C. Hepburn, came out, to be followed by more from his own pen and that of others. Preliminary attempts at Bible translation had already been made by (xutzlaff, Bettelheim, Williams, and Goble, all of which work was 160 DUX CHEISTUS necessarily imperfect. When, in 1870, tha writer arrived in Japan, the scholarly work of Hepburn and Brown had so far progressed as to be practically useful, so that he was able to take with him into the interior manuscript copies of the Gospels in Japanese, and begin a Bible class. The good news of God by Mark and John was printed in 1872, and that of Matthew in 1873. A convention of all the missionaries, together with Christian laymen and women in Japan, was called, which met at Yokohama, December, 1872, to secure a union committee on transla- tion, to which also the missions not represented were invited to contribute. An earnest at- tempt was made here to have the Church of Christ in Japan organized without the divisive prejudices and inheritances, names and orders, prevalent in Europe and America. Why should these be saddled on the Japanese ? Medical Work. Not least in practical Chris- tianity was the dispensary work of Dr. Hep- burn, who, besides his daily translation work, healed the sick, studying constantly Japanese books and bodies, a double work which he continued from 1862 to 1878. Those who know only the Japan of a certain school of writers, from Edwin Arnold to Lafcadio Hearn, can never believe in the awful physical condition of the lowest classes in the Japan of 1870 and before. A stalwart imagination is necessary to picture to the mind the rottenness and foul- ness of the diseased humanity, then visible MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 161 daily in the highways and villages, and that streamed past Dr. Hepburn every day in his dispensary. The writer remembers seeing scores of mothers wearying the good man with their inquest of beseeching looks to heal their babies, whose eyes were eaten out by smallpox, and thou- sands of others of all ages still more loathsome with unspeakable diseases. While the skilled physician ministered, classes of young men were ever standing by him as helpers and pupils, and thus the very first medical doctors practis- ing in the Western manner of modern science (apart from those trained under the Dutch at Nagasaki) were educated by Dr. Hepburn, who was the typical scientific ma.n in the new Japan. To-day, among the pupils of these four pioneer missionaries, besides scores of those who have served their generation and passed on, are hundreds who hold highest honors and rank in medicine, diplomacy, trade, and philanthropy. Especially is it true of a host of young men who, in pure motive and with unselfish valor, once fought against the Mikado's forces for "the lost cause" of 1868, that they found springing out of the soil of their sorrow and political disappointment the new plant of heav- enly hope, through faith in the Lord Jesus. Among those who in this generation adorn the service both of progressive Japan and of the Christian churches, from imperial envoys in European capitals to the humblest of servants, are not a few who in the later sixties and early seven- ties suffered imprisonment or were under ban. 162 DUX CHRISTUS Diversity of Gifts and Graces. It is one of the proofs of the diversity of gifts, that whereas Verbeck did his greatest work unaided and alone, leaving few or no pupils, impressing his character on the nation rather than individuals, it was the peculiar power of Dr. Brown to raise up pupils to carry on the Master's work, as presidents of Christian colleges, as powerful preachers and wise pastors, active reformers, and shining leaders in journalism and business. The one was a preeminent imparter of light and power to vast audiences. The other excelled in the powers of manipulation and adjustment which build up churches, and in the trans- cendently noble art of moulding individual character. Glancing over this period of soil-breaking and seed-sowing, we see that the education of boys and girls had been begun for the making of Christian homes. In this period also the school at Kumamoto was begun, first of all through the influence of Yokoi's nephew, Ise, one of the first lads from Japan to come to America for study, and whom the writer had the honor of teaching, with others of his countrymen, at New Bruns- wick, New Jersey. Their first training was under Captain Janes, and especially that of his wife, who was a Scudder. Out of this school went forth the " Kumamoto Band " of Christian workers and men eminent in ethical and edu- cational activities. In Chapter V of his at- tractive book, " An American Missionary in Japan," Dr. M. L. Gordon has told the story of MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 163 these brave young men, most of whom are still active leaders in good works and influence. The missionary institute of Mrs. Carruthers, in Tokio, must not be forgotten. Foreign com- munities were supplied with the preaching of the gospel. An address of the missionaries setting forth the state of the country and con- dition of the work, and sent to Christian lands n 1866, was a noteworthy event. The organi- zation of the First Japanese Christian church on March 10, 1872, consisting of nine young men and two middle-aged men, the elder, Mr. Ogawa, living to do veteran service, was the crowning incident of the period. The second church was organized at Kobe, April 19, 1874, and the third at Osaka, in May of the same year. The story of Wakasa, one of the first Chris- tian converts, who from a Bible found floating on the water, learned of Christ, has been often told. While he suffered at the hands of the Yedo government only nominal punishment, the teacher of Dr. Gulick was thrown into prison, where he died. In various ways the first fol- lowers of Christ in Japan suffered. Opening of the Second Period. Thus the first decade, which began amid murderous hatreds and oppositions, and in an intellectual climate frigid and menacing, ended in what may be called a perceptible degree of mental enlighten- ment with some slight warmth of welcome. The year 1873 opened unexpectedly to the mission- aries in a way that made a Christian Sabbath among the possibilities. The old lunar calendar, 164 DUX CHEISTUS adopted from China and in every other land where used except Japan a token of political vassalage, was abolished in favor of the solar calendar and the methods of time-keeping in Japan were brought into harmony with the rest of the civilized world, except Russia. The Julian instead of the Gregorian calendar was made com- pulsory. In this we see one of several steps of progress in which the Japanese are ahead of the Muscovites. Much confusion and social disturb- ance, such as the use of an intercalary month every third year, was thus avoided, though the old custom of having Nengo or year periods was preserved. That in which the present Japanese lives, dating from 1868, or the enthronement of the present Mikado, is named Meiji, or enlight- ened civilization. Japan was not yet prepared to use the term "Anno Domini." Those who would study the subject of Japanese time-keep- ing thoroughly must consult Mr. William Brarn- son's splendid book on Japanese chronology, and enjoy also Professor E. W. Clement's paper in the Asiatic Society's Transactions. Very foolishly the Japanese, aping European prece- dents, use the word " emperor " rather than the ancient and honorable term "mikado." The title "mikado," intrenched in the English lan- guage, besides being unique, is august and im- pressive by its very associations, while uniquely characteristic of Japan and Japan only. The Calendar of Christendom. New Year's Day, 1873, was the first of the first month of the sixth year of Meiji. On February 19, 1873, MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 165 some of the missionaries, as they took their morning walks, noticed that the bulletin boards (Jkosatsu) containing the anti-Christian edicts which had hung for centuries in their frames on roofed platforms, had been removed. Indeed they positively "-glared by their absence." The government took pains to say to the pagan fire- eaters that it was not meant by this to proclaim religious toleration. Nevertheless, as the prov- erb says, "Proof is better than argument." Although the Japanese, far less than the Chinese, care about " saving the face of a thing," and the men of the new government, in contrast with the fraud and deception of the old Yedo system, were becoming stalwartly fran-k and open, yet the people got the idea that liberty of conscience was henceforth to be allowed. They argued that removal of the edict boards virtually amounted to religious liberty. Time has proved that they were right. It seemed swift moral progress that within five years after Yokoi had been assassinated in Kioto for pleading for relig- ious freedom, his contention should be in sub- stance allowed. In 1889, the letter of the written constitution went far ahead of Russia and the old papal countries in guaranteeing liberty of conscience. Already an imperial decree disestablishing the sects of Buddhism had been issued on Feb- ruary 23, 1871. The subject in Tokio was highly illuminated with a costly and sacrificial fire, as I well remember, when the letter of the law was enforced as to the Shiba shrines. In 166 DUX CHEISTUS anger and revenge, and in insult to the govern- ment, as is believed, some fanatical bonze applied the torch to the most gorgeous of the group of grand temples, which, when the morning sun rose, was a level waste of ashes. Since the first Protestant Church at Yokohama had been organized openly, with no attempt at .secrecy, it seemed clear that religious toleration, a mighty step toward a higher civilization, had been taken as matter of fact. Henceforward there was no direct opposition from the author- ities, although the Roman Catholic Christian prisoners (charged also with technical viola- tions of the law) were not released until the spring of 1878. The Imperial Embassy around the World. - The great embassy of nobles, cabinet officers, secretaries, and attendants, numbering about seventy in all, had been first suggested and its route planned by Dr. Verbeck long before it took place. When the roster was com- pleted and handed to him, he found that more than one-half of the names were those of his former pupils, whom he had instructed at Naga- saki. Significant and innovating was the de- spatch, at the same time, of six young ladies to America to be educated. Of these, two who stu'died at Vassar College, Miss Yamakawa, now Mrs. Oyama, wife of the field-marshal and minister of war, Oyama, Miss Nagai, wife of Rear Admiral Uriu, and Miss Ume Tsuda, whose parents were among the first in the Methodist Church in Tokio, are well known MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 167 as having been leaders in society and woman's advancement in Japan. The embassy left Japan December 23, 1871, and had audience in the White House in Washington of General U. S. Grant, " the first President of the Free Repub- lic." The ambassador, Iwakura, a court noble of immemorial lineage, Okubo " the brain," and Ivido "the pen," of the revolution of 1868, Ito (now Marquis), "Father of the Constitution," and since five times premier of the empire, witli Yamaguchi, Minister of Interior, were there. They were accompanied by commis- sioners representing every government depart- ment sent to study and report upon the methods and resources of foreign civilization. After a prolonged sojourn in the United States the embassy, having leisurely traversed Europe, returned September 13, 1873. Later the offi- cial account of the travels of its members was published by order of the Great Council of the Government. This book of 2110 pages, printed on foreign paper, fully illustrated and entitled " A True Relation of Sights and Scenes in America and Europe, in 1872-3," had a tre- mendous influence in turning the minds of influential men favorably to the civilization of the West. It reenforced what had already been told their countrymen by Nakamura and by Fukuzawa, two of the earliest travellers abroad, whose eyes and pens were sharp. Of the many books of Fukuzawa, one of the ardent apostles of reform in every direction, the sales reached four millions. From the profits of his 168 DUX CHBISTUS pen he established a school which grew into a university. Nakamura, whose bold plea for freedom of religion and in favor of Christian- ity created a tremendous sensation, founded a school and was a powerful influence in political, ethical, and religious reform. The New Testament in Japanese. The New Testament translation committee, appointed on December 6, 1872, began this year its 'work, which was happily finished in 1880. Whereas during the first period (1859-1873) there had come to Japan thirty-one missionaries, there arrived in the single year of 1873 twenty-nine. This great reenforcement was largely the fruit of the evidence afforded to a grateful Chris- tendom, through the formation of a Christian Church, that the Japanese field was ready for the harvest. The American Mission was reen- forced, as were also the Baptist and English Church Missionary Societies at Nagasaki. The Methodist Episcopal Church, U.S.A., had early in November, 1872, decided to establish a mis- sion, and the staff of five pioneers, the senior member, Rev. R. S. Maclay, having had ex- perience in China, arrived in June, 1873. At their meeting in August, Bishop W. L. Harris presided. The Canadian Methodists arrived on the ground the same year, as did likewise the members of the English brethren of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. On the afternoon of April 9, 1880, the native church edifice in Tokio was filled to the doors by an elect audience, gathered to celebrate the MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 169 completion of the translation of the New Testa- ment into the Japanese language. Two hand- somely bound volumes stood side by side on the table, with a large copy of the Scriptures in English on the speaker's desk " fit emblem of the true accord that it is hoped will ever be maintained between the Japanese and English- speaking peoples." Representatives of four- teen missionary societies in English-speaking countries and of all the Protestant churches in the capital were present, but most of the pro- ceedings were in Japanese. In Dr. Dennis's "Christian Missions and Social Progress," one may see in conspectus the evolution through varied forms of the completed translation of the Bible into Japanese. This latter work, said an English editor in Yokohama, was " like building a railway through the national intel- lect," Christ published to the Nation. Japanese native Christians had been for some time desir- ous of giving a public demonstration, somewhat in the style of an American camp-meeting, lo bring the gospel before the people at large and to show the uninformed what progress had been made. After wide advertisement, on October 13. 1872, a beautiful day in autumn, at the edge of the Uyeno public park, on part of the ground of the great battle-field of 1808, Japanese and foreign Christians, preachers and laymen, assembled for congratulation and social enjoy- ment, with music and addresses. All round this place of meeting, in the gardens of the 170 DUX CHKISTUS famous rural restaurant in the park were bronze Buddhas, and on the island in the pretty little lake was the temple of Benten, goddess of the sea and sailors. During the day several thou- sand people heard the gospel for the first time. In the crowd were, besides Buddhist priests, men of the higher and official classes. The next day the Japanese newspapers had a full account of this most successful affair, which was often and happily referred to among Jap- anese Christians for months afterwards. Unity of Christians in Work. It would seem as though the prayer and desire of our Lord Jesus for his followers " that they may be one " may be fulfilled in the mission field even sooner than in the old home lands. Happily in Japan the larger missions are affiliated, according to their forms or orders, such as the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist groups. For example, the English-speaking churches (Episcopal) of England and America have formed the Nippon Sei Kokwai. There are now six bishops, while the venerable Dr. C. M. Williams, after a bishopdom of over twenty-five years, still continues his labors as an honorary missionary. In " Japan as We saw It " by the (author of the poem " Yesterday, To-day, and Forever") father of the late honored Bishop Bick- ersteth, and in "Rambles in Japan" by Canon Tristram, we have most interesting glimpses of the work of the English brethren. One of these, the venerable Archdeacon Shaw, made so noble a record of saintly service during over twenty- MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 171 five years in Tokio, that the Japanese speak of him as one of the Sanji, or " Three Wise and Great Friends of Japan," the other two being Hepburn and Verbeek. The cathedral, church edifices, schoolhouses, dispensaries, and hospital in Tokio, under the care of this body of missions, are among the notable sights of the Japanese capital. The number of Christians under their care has doubled every five years since 1883, the total no\v being over ten thousand, well provided with excellent schools and various other means of grace. The Reformed churches of English-speaking countries, which hold the Presbyterian system of government and doctrine, have six missions, and with the Woman's Union Missionary So- ciety constitute the Council of Missions coop- erating with the Church of Christ in Japan. It meets annually for consultation and action. A board of Home Missions has been formed under the direction of the Synod, which now embodies the results of experience and has a position of financial independence. The members of th<3 council live in thirty-six places scattered over the empire, with one hundred and sixty out stations. In the Baptist group of missions and churches, after the first four or five pioneers, few reenforce- ments came until 1889. A mission press was established at Yokohama. Dr. Nathan Brown, veteran of Assam, being a firm believer in the ascendency of kana and Romaji, or Japanese in Romanized letters, printed much of his work, in- 172 DUX CHRISTUS eluding a scholarly version of the New Testament in Japanese, in the native script. He died in 1886. By this time, however, the Japanese had taken with enthusiasm to printing with movable types, and it was found more economical to em- ploy the native printers. The Gospel in the Northern Islands. Besides evangelical centres in most of the large cities, missionaries went in 1891 into the Riu Kiu Isl- ands. It was now time to look to the abundance of the seas. The gospel ship (Fukuin Maru), of one hundred tons, was built in Yokohama, launched and dedicated September 13, 1899, to carry the glad tidings to the islanders of the Inland Sea and the south of Japan, under the command of Captain Luke W. Bickel. With his family and crew of Christian sailors, a noble work has been done in preaching, visiting, teaching, holding evangelistic services, and dis- tributing literature among the fishermen and islanders. The mission of the Congregational churches of the United States, founded in 1869, directed by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, confined its work mostly to the region of Kioto, and the eastern shores of the Inland Sea. Founded at first by Joseph Neesima, the Doshisha (One Endeavor Society) Univer- sity in Kioto, the city of 3500 temples and 8000 priests, has had a varied history, as set forth by Dr. Gordon and others. It has educated about 10,000 pupils and " has changed the history of Japan." Kataoka, its late president, MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 173 Yv-as an eminent and zealous Christian, and for many years speaker of the Lower House of the Imperial Diet. Mr. K. Shimomura, an alum- nus of high sacrifice, attainments, and Christian character, is now at the head of affairs. The native churches under the care of the American Board grew up without any denomi- national name, but in 1886, with considerable reluctance, they chose a name, the Kumi-ai or Associated Churches. For various reasons, pos- sibly because most completely " divested of foreign regimentals," this body of churches lias been the one most affected by the adverse in- fluences of recent years, while probably not the least effective in leavening the nation at large. Yet there has been great growth in membership and strength. The 'Japanese Home Missionary Society decided, in 1895, to receive no more foreign funds, and is now carrying on its work in eight cities with native contributions. Founded in 1878, its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in January, 1904. With 126 evangelists in its employ, and 75 mission stations served, 17 of its enterprises are now wholly self- supporting churches. The Kumi-ai churches build and pay for their own houses of worship. In the Methodist family of missions, which began work under Dr. R. S. Maclay of Foo- chow, China, in 1873, are united for work the missions of the Methodist Church in Canada, the Evangelical Association, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In 1884 the Japan annual Con- 174 DUX CHEISTUS ference, comprising nearly a thousand church- members, was organized. In 1898, the twenty- fifth anniversary of the work in Japan was celebrated, and at Nagasaki, in 1899, the South Japan Conference with over seven hundred members, some being from Formosa and Riu Kiu, held its first session. The Methodist Pub- lishing House for the increase of Christian lit- erature is one of the features of the capital. In 1898, the annual conference was divided into two bodies, according to their fields in the north and south. The spirit of self-support has been finely developed. Auxiliary Workers. Other bodies of Chris- tians earnestly working in the empire are those under the American Christian Mission, the Church of Christ Mission, the Christian Catho- lic Church in Zion, the Christian and Mission- ary Alliance, the Evangelical Lutheran Mission, the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society (German and Swiss), and Hephzibah Faith Mission. The independent bodies are the Scripture Union of Japan, the Railway Mission, the Postal and Telegraph Mission, the Okasaka Hospital, the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association of Japan, the Salvation Army, Scandinavia Alli- ance Mission, the Mission Work for Seamen at Yokohama under the American Seaman's Friend Society, the Seventh Day Adventists' Mission, the Society of Christian Endeavor in Japan, the Society of Friends' Mission, Temperance Socie- ties ; namely, Women's Christian Temperance MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 175 Union, Yokohama Temperance Society, the Hokkaido Temperance Society, the Tokio Tem- perance Society, the Tract Society, the United Brethren in Christ, the Universalist Mission, and several other organizations doing a special work for particular classes, each in its way toiling for the coming of Christ's kingdom in Japan. The Old Christian Story Repeated. Actual experiences of Christian work and success in Japan were not as smooth and regular as our story might suggest. First there were years of patient waiting, then a rush of the people to hear the gospel. Preaching places were crowded. Church membership doubled every three years, and self-support was almost in sight. " The evangelization of Japan in a single generation " was talked, written, and printed. Then came sudden change and re- action. Patriotism ran rampant. These were the years of fierce political excitement about internal and foreign affairs. The waves of nationalism and Chauvinism swept over the land. "Japan for the Japanese" was the cry. Native fashions and ideas again came into vogue. Confucian ethics were taught in the government schools. For a while it looked as if Japan were to return to her hermitage of insular seclusion and the petty nationalism of old days. In a word there was a repetition of the Chris- tian story of the first century, and perhaps of every century of new missionary transforma- 176 DUX CHBISTUS tion. Yet the wise gospel teachers abated not a jot of heart or hope, but braced themselves to the toils of a long siege. Dreams of the imme- diate evangelization of Japan, or conversion of its people in one generation, were dissipated ; but more faithful labors and fuller consecration were entered upon, under the conviction thac the religion of Jesus must win its way in Japan as in the old Christian lands, slowly but surely. The casting out of the dead records of Egypt and the finding of the sayings of Jesus side by side with the older favorite literature, reveal to us the comparative slowness with which the early Christians entered fully into their new Avorld of ideas. So will it be in Japan. The books of Shinto are already fairy-tales, the fables of Buddhism as nursery stories ; but the Word of God is as the rising sun. Instead of the four hundred thousand pagan temples of former times, there are now many less than half of that number. The Islands of the Pendant Tassels. Let us now look at the outlying portions of the empire, which have not been so highly favored with missionary effort. The name of the Riu Kiu Islands, as expressed by the Chinese characters, means Hanging Globes, or Pendant Tassels, for they were once considered as a fringe of little balls at the end of China's vast robe. The Chinese writing, as the only means of com- munication with the outer world, was used for centuries. Hence the people have no alphabet. Buddhism, introduced in 1281, was once estab- MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 177 lished in the island, existing in two sectarian forms, but few temples are now left. An in- scribed bell given to Commodore Perry, and hung centuries ago in a Buddhist belfry (prob- ably as a thing gladly got rid of by the Con- fucian rulers), is now on the grounds of the Annapolis Naval Academy. Another hangs in Wellesley College halls. Although the islanders had become tributary to China in 1372, they sent tribute to the Japanese sho- gun in 1451. Here was a characteristic speci- men of the old dual sovereignties in Asia. The lliu Kiuan foreign policy was summed up in the sentence, " Courtesy to the East and respect to the West." In other words, being like "a shrimp between two whales," they wished to be swallowed by neither. As the Riu Kiuans say, they honored China as their father and Japan as their mother. When Japan, after the Restoration of 1868, asserted her full sovereignty over the islands, a native embassy came to Tokio in 1878, pray- ing that the dual sovereignty, paternal and ma- ternal, of China and Japan, might be preserved. The Mikado could not receive such a double minded petition. The Riu Kiuan kinglet, Sho- tai, twenty-fourth in the succession from Shun- ten, was brought to Tokio as a captive, and the little archipelago was organized as a Japanese prefecture under the name of Okinawa Ken. Although the royal and noble part of official- dom in the little island kingdom did not relish the change, since it took away their monopoly 178 DUX CHRISTUS and privileges, the people received great benefit. All the lines of promotion being now open to the islanders, they are happy and contented. In fact, the people are relieved from an incubus of oppression that crushed out all hope and ambition. Commodore Perry writes of the Riu Kiu people, that in all his experience of many countries he had seen none that he pitied more. The rulers, let us hope, for political reasons only, fearing their masters, the Japanese, and knowing their hatred of Christianity and in- novation, kept the people from going near the missionary, Dr. Bettelheim, who, as the agent of the Naval Mission, landed at Napa in 1846. When Shotai, the kinglet, who in the new order of Japanese nobility ranked only as a marquis, died, August 19, 1901, the last of the dual sov- ereignties of Asia came to an end. Now that missionaries have occupied this long-deserted field, we feel that we know the Riu Kiuans better. The beautiful little cemetery on the rock-bound coast, with its numerous graves of European and American officers and sailors, is proof that Napa was often visited in days gone by. Centuries of oppression have crushed out every particle of decision of character, leaving the Riu Kiuans a weak, spiritless, and grovel- ling people, and much below the Chinese or Japanese. Ground between the two mill- stones of their foreign masters and the native aristocracy, the Riu Kiuans feared the Chi- nese, hated the Japanese, and grovelled before MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 179 their local rulers. Now Christian people have sounded the note of hope even " the greatest of all hopes." Japanese evangelists and Epis- copal and Baptist missionaries have been at work in Christ's name for over a decade. There are Christian churches, and humanity in these islands is being lifted up. With little to build on, it is no wonder that the rate of moral ele- vation should be slow. The native dialect as spoken by the country people is a great bar- rier to the Japanese evangelists. Nevertheless progress is sure. Formosa the Beautiful. Formosa is interest- ing in its missionary history, because it is the seat of the operations of the first systematic missionary effort of any Protestant country con- ducted on a large scale. This was attempted by the Dutch, who during a generation or more preached and taught and built schools, churches, and settlements, all of which were destroyed by the ferocious Chinese pirate Koxinga, and then Formosa was made part of the Chinese Empire in 1683. The island was but little visited by Europeans during the eighteenth century, but from about 1840 large numbers of Chinese emi- grated to the island and from the neighboring Chinese province of Fukien. The English Pres- byterians, having a mission at Amoy under the pioneer, Dr. Maxwell, began the establishment of one among the Formosans in the south in 1860. The Roman Catholics were on the ground in 1859. The Canadian Presbyterians in the north began work in 1872 under Dr. Mackay, 180 DUX CHRISTUS whose amazing success is set forth in the book "From Far Formosa." It is a story of apostolic power, showing that God is as willing and as able to bless his servants in the twentieth as in the first century. After the war of 1894-1895, Formosa was ceded by China to Japan, and far- reaching plans for development and improve- ment of every sort were inaugurated and have been grandly carried on in the face of tremen- dous difficulties. The first thing to be done was to inaugurate the reign of cleanliness. Chinese filth is proverbial, and the Japanese task was a big one. Except missionary hos- pitals there had been none in the island, but in one decade the Japanese have built a number of these -institutions of mercy. At Taihoku, which is the Japanese name of Tai-peh, the wonderful new and clean capital and an object lesson in Formosa of Japanese modern civiliza- tion, there are ten hospitals, one with fifteen specialists on its staff of doctors, with forty trained nurses. In 1899 sixty thousand cases, fourteen thousand being Formosan Chinese, were treated by the Japanese doctors. Plenty of fresh water and drainage, besides cheap jus- tice, good laws, and schools, are the gifts of Japan to the Island Beautiful. Davidson, in his great book on Formosa, speaking of the Chinese in this island as being less conservative and more liberal than their brethren on the mainland, says that they look with a more kindly spirit toward strangers in general, and adds, " Without a doubt the MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 181 splendid work of the missionary bodies in the island, who lived down the disfavor with which they were at first regarded, accounts to a great degree for the absence of any strong anti-foreign spirit among the people at present." In his chapter on " Missions," after referring to their difficulties, Davidson shows that " prior to the arrival of the Japanese practically the only modern education available in the islands was through the missionaries." Mackay did a wonderful work in healing, as well as preaching. As the Chinese women are adverse to male medical aid, Christian ladies have been trained for special work and have had notable success. The Catholic missions have been especially successful in preventing the murdering of girl babies. In a word, in the new Formosa, the lamp of Christian hope burns brightly, and the Japanese pupils of the Eng- lish-speaking nations are showing themselves at once good coloni/.ers, and not only rulers, but uplifters of the lowly races and peoples. The Canadian Presbyterian missionaries re- ported iu 1902, 00 native preachers, 24 native Bible women, 1738 native communicants, 2633 baptized members, 60 chapels with medical dis- pensaries attached, and 1 central hospital which had treated to date 10,736 patients. Twenty- three hundred and seventy-five dollars were contributed by native Christians. Of the English Presbyterian Mission, Rev. William Campbell, historian, scholar, and evan- gelist, author of " Missionary Success in For- 182 DUX CHRISTUS mosa " and " The Dutch in Formosa," is still working. Other laborers have broken down or given up their lives, but new reinforcements have come. With 77 places of worship, the contributions of natives in 1900 were 86823. They support a foreign mission among the Pescadores Islands. The communicants num- bered 2019, besides 1660 baptized children, or a total of 10,758 adherents. The Missionary School and Theological College is at Tai Nan Fu. Rev. Mr. Campbell's School for the Blind, founded by him, was taken up by the Japanese and its work continued. A mission paper in Romanized Chinese, the first news- paper on the island, is published, besides other Chinese Christian literature. As a remarkable instance of the persistence of Christian faith and truth, we note that the first ordination to the Christian ministry of a native Formosan was that of one whose ancestors had been taught by the Dutch missionaries of the sixteenth cen- tury. The Ainos of Yezo. The Ainos of Yezo, the aborigines and possible " forebears " of the mass of the Japanese people, have not been forgotten. Rev. W. Dening, of the Church Missionary Society of England, living in Hakodate, was the first to tell them the good news of God. The Rev. James Batchelor of the C. H. S. visited these people in 1878, and was regularly appointed to the work in 1882, since which time he has given to the world in his books a wealth of information relating to these people MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 183 as well as the gospel to them. He has organ- ized Christian churches, and translated into their language the Bible and Christian litera- ture. The first convert was baptized on Christ- mas Day, 1885. Others, by twos and threes, took up their cross, but in 1893 there was an ingathering of 171 souls, and in 1900, 1150 Christian Ainos were enrolled. Preaching to the Aino was at first " like walking on thin ice/' The greatest care was necessary lest the teller of the Christ story should ruthlessly trample on some superstition or other, or offend in etiquette, tradition, or religious custom. Yet as every missionary with a spiritual discernment notices, God in his great mercy did not leave even the Aino without light. Without showing surprise at what he saw or casting any reflection upon the absurdity of it, Mr. Batchelor proceeded to tell the gospel story as the feeble intellect of the Ainos could bear. He searched also for truth in the Aino religion, and, when finding it, instead of uprooting it, he gave it nurture. As lie says, " Truth is eternal, and one truth can never be contrary to another, wherever seen or however much it may be covered up." Making friends of certain of the villagers, Mr. Batchelor gradually made progress. He would not destroy the idea of communion with God, even when expressed in so low a form as the bear sacrifice. The Ainos are great lovers of alco- holic liquors, and much given to drunkenness. Jt was shown that Paul had said to be " filled," 184 DUX CHRISTU8 not with wine, but with the Spirit, and so the festival of slaying, eating, and communing with the bear was dropped, and the new man in his heart feeds on God by faith, partaking of the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Thus the chief ritual act in the Aino's debased religion, and in the enlightened Christian worship, is in its idea one, but, oh, with what a difference ! Surely we ought never to despise the pagans, for they are doing the best they can, perhaps as well, according to their lights, as we are. Evi- dently also by studying another's religion, we are better able to understand our own. In place of contempt we ought to pity and give more light and truth. ' Like Jesus we must come not to destroy, but to fulfil. The Universal Gospel and the Universal Need. The evangelist among the Ainos finds no more real difficulty in preaching to the sinners of Yezo than to the sinners in Tokio, for the idea of sin is not pleasant to either. To both the general idea of sin is that of breach of etiquette, or transgression against human law. Unless the preacher in the metropolis or in the savage country is very careful in the use of terms, the hearer goes away only with the idea that the preacher has violated the laws of politeness, and that the pot has called the kettle black, for the terms " holy " and " holiness " are not very well understood in their personal sense. Happily, in the case of the Japanese, a large number of na- tive preachers, trained by skilful missionaries or in the schools of Christian lands, can talk in MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 185 their own tongue to their people of the wonder- ful work of God and unfold the unsearchable riches of Christ. Though the Aino race and language are dying out, English Christianity has done a most noble, even Christlike, work in bringing salvation to the individual and a sun- set glory to this dying race. The Japanese gov- ernment is also doing what is possible, through secular education, to lift up the survivors of a dwindling race, whose names linger on the land- scape of Japan, like those of Iroquois and Algon- quin on the mountains and rivers of our own land. The Many-sided Work. Thus in almost every form known to modern Christians the gospel of Jesus is preached in many parts of the empire of Japan. According to our Lord's own programme in his final command on earth, and his picture of the sheep and the goats, in judgment, the work is carried on. In looking over the past, and reserving for a final chapter a glance at results, we do not forget the present. At the Osaka exposition in 1903, all Christians united for work in the Gospel Hall, and influenced a half-million Japanese, fifteen thousand of whom promised in writing to study further the Jesus religion. In 1 ( .)U4, as the armies and navies of Japan go forth to war for life and freedom against the least civilized nation of Europe, the missionaries, as in 1894, are ready with "provi- sions to sustain the mind,'' in the form of tract, scripture portions, and chaplains in the field. Christian unity grows apace, and the "Council of 186 DUX CHRISTUS Cooperating Missions," formed in 1903, promises both wise economy of effort and grander results for the Master. Before summing up the results in a closing chapter let us look at one, and not the least important, branch of the general enter- prise, woman's work for woman. MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 187 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS MISTAKEN IMPRESSIONS One reason why the .Japanese have opposed Christi- anity is that they have mistakenly thought that it makes light of the favors and mercies which we receive from rulers and parents. If they would understand its real teachings regarding gratitude to God, they would gladly accept them. If they are taught that the chief purpose of prayer is to express our gratitude to God, and to walk in the way of righteousness is to requite the favors of Heaven, there is not one who will fail to understand such teaching. RKV. T. II AK AI> A. No REAL REACTION In any case, and whatever its shortcomings, this oli- garchy (of the u elder statesmen") has guided Japan with admirable skill and courage through the perils of the last five-and-twenty years. The nation may have probably has further changes in store for it. One thing is certain : these changes will be all along that road leading westward which the men of 18(58 were the first to open out. Excellent persons from home, who remem- ber the Stuarts and the Legitimists and Don Carlos, sometimes ask whether there may not be a Japanese reaction in favor of feudalism. No, never not till the sun stops shining and water begins to flow uphill. B. II. CHAMBKRLAIN. AN IDKAI, KIKI.D OF MISSIONS If you had been asked to sketch an ideal land, most suitable for Christian Missions, and when itself Chris- 188 LUX CHRISTUS tianized more suited for evangelistic work among the nations of the Far East, what, I ask, would be the special characteristics of the land and people that you would have desired? Perhaps, first, as Englishmen or Irish- men, you would have said, " Give us islands, inseparably and forever united, give us islands which can hold their sea-girt independence, and yet near enough to the main- land to exert influence there." Such is Japan the Land of the Rising Sun. " Give us a hardy race, not untrained in war by land and sea ; for a nation of soldiers, when won for Christ, fights best under the banner of the Cross for we are of the Church militant here on earth ; give us brave men ; " and such are the descendants of the old Daimios aud two-sworded Samurai of Japan. ... " But," you would also have said, " give us a race whose women are homespun and refined, courteous and winsome, not tottering on tortured feet, nor immured in zenanas and harems, but who freely mingle in social life, and adorn all they touch," and such, without controversy, are the women of Japan. Above all, "give us a reverent and a religious people, who yet are conscious that the religion of their fathers is unsatisfying and unreal, and who are therefore ready to welcome the Christ of God," and such are the thoughtful races of Japan. THE BISHOP OF EXETER. CIVILIZATION. NOT CHRISTIANITY With all these marks of enterprise and patriotism, the signs of a general turning to God among the people are sadly wanting. There is apparent an increasing mate- rialism, and in some quarters a disposition to idealize and clothe with divine honors the nation itself and its history. A work on ethics, indorsed apparently by the Education Department, has these remarks : " Our coun- try's history clearly constitutes our Sacred book and moral codes. . . . Our Sacred book is our history, holy and perfect, the standard of morals throughout all time, MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 189 having not the slightest flaw. We have this divine Sacred book of history; do we need to seek another?" Marquis Ito, Japan's leading statesman, has remarked that "Japan looks for the function of religion being fulfilled by culture and science and the inspiration of knowledge." Another well-known Japanese. . . . late representative of his country at the Court of St. James, i has advocated what he terms " the religion of self-reli- ance." The failure of such religion is sufficiently indi- cated by the condition of the commercial world of which a sad picture is given in the following extract from a missionary's letter : There is not only the general dishonesty which is so marked a characteristic of Japanese dealers, but also what is perhaps a more serious obstacle the intentional encouragement of immorality as a means of securing business success. Clients are frequently invited to even- ing entertainments which develop into drunken orgies, with all their inevitable accompaniments. Some have a feeling that this associating vice with business is bad. but their excuse is that active opposition would spell failure for themselves, and thus they sum up the position with a fatalistic phrase which is more commonly on the lips of Japanese than any other, ' Shikata ga nai ' that is, ' There is no help for it.' " Procce'linys of the Church Missionary Society, 1902-1903. POWKU OK TIIK CHRISTIANS The steady influence which Christianity is beginning to exert, out of all proportion to its numerical strength, is also apparent from the following facts collected together in the M>.<*i<>n(iry Rf>rie>r of tin.' World for March last (1) The Christians have never had less than four times their proportional number of members in the successive Diets. ('2} They have thirteen members, besides the speaker, in the present Diet, and among them some pf the most efficient men. One of them was elected in a 190 DUX CHRISTUS strongly Buddhist district by a majority of five to one. (3) Three per cent of the officers of the army are said to be Christians, and a goodly proportion also of naval officers. (4) Christians abound in abnormal numbers in the universities and Government colleges, among both students and instructors. (5) Xot less than three of the great daily newspapers of Tokio are largely in Christian hands, and Christians are at the head of editorial depart- ments in several others. (6) A very large volume of charitable work, and the most successful charitable insti- tutions, are also under Christian management. Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society, 1902-1903. SIGNS OF PROMISE IN FORMOSA The population [of Formosa] is, according to most re- cent notices, 2,697,845 Chinese, 33,120 Japanese, and, it is said, 120,000 aborigines. The Japanese are striving to educate the Chinese, to develop the resources of the country, and to bring civilization and firm rule every- where. That they are not unaware of the advantage and of the need of religion is shown both by their attitude to all present endeavors to evangelize the country, and also by their having offered free passes on railways to all missionaries of whatever body (Christian, Buddhist, or Shinto). The feeling of the Japanese toward Christianity has experienced a vast change. Large audiences readily gather to hear Christian preaching. Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1902. THE CHRISTIAN SAMUKAI Loyalty and filial piety demand from us nothing short of complete surrender of ourselves to our master or pa*-- ents. It is the spirit of not living unto one's self, but MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 191 unto our superiors. The samurai considered it a matter of course that he should die fighting in front of his lord's house. That his life was not his own was his firm con- viction. We may well say that the spirit of the ancient Bushi in his relation to his lord was essentially the same as that expressed by the apostle's words, " For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die we die unto the Lord, whether we live therefore or whether we die we are the Lord's." The essential spirit cannot dif- fer; there can only be .a higher or a lower, a noble or a less noble object of attachment. If this spirit is devel- oped by the spirit of Christianity, it will become toward God the spirit of loyalty and filial devotion, and toward man that spirit of benevolence which gives itself for the welfare of mankind. Jesus Christ said, ' I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Christianity, I believe, is to develop such virtues, is to ennoble them, is to lead them on to perfection. REV. T. HAHADA. CHRIST ouu EXAMPLE The life of Christ is an example of the victory of giri (sense of duty) over ninjo (natural feelings). The temp- tations of Satan were all directed toward the natural feeling of Christ as a man ; but Christ, discerning clearly what duty demanded, overcame them. Again, when Christ prayed, " O my father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me," he gave expression to his natural feelings; but when he added, " Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt," lie conquered them by his sense of duty. This is an explanation which 1 think is readily understood by the Japanese. REV. T. HAKADA. CONFLICT OF DUTIES What moves the Japanese in novels or theatrical plays are those scenes in which the conflict between the yiri 192 DUX CHRISTUS (sense of duty) and the ninjo (natural feelings) are rep- resented. " If you obey the dictates of the former, you cannot obey the latter; if you obey the latter, you cannot obey the former ; standing between giri and nasake (be- tween duty and natural affection), there is nothing left but to weep." A passage like this moves the Japanese to tears. The scene in which Shigemori of the Taira clan remonstrates with his father against his plan of vio- lence against the emperor is one of the passages in Japan- ese history. " If I am loyal, I canuot be filial ; if I am filial I cannot be loyal, here is my sore dilemma." This is an example of the conflict between giri and ninjo. REV. T. HARADA. ETHICS AND INDUSTRY In some of the larger Osaka faotories as many as two thousand girls live inside the factory walls, and other thousands go backward to their homes or to lodging houses. In some of these lodging houses men and women live together. Here are young girls living among crowds of rough, debased, drunken men. In the northwest sec- tion of Kioto, the Xishijin district, there are about sixty thousand operatives in private silk-weaving establish- ments. A large proportion of these are boys and girls, principally girls, who are apprenticed, sold by their parents for a few yen, for terms of three years. Some of the girls are sold three times in succession, and have to endure this slavery nine years. They have to work fourteen hours a day. In many cases they are compelled to sleep promiscuously, boys and girls crowded together on the mats in the same room. The results can be im- agined. Dr. Saiki, an earnest Christian physician, has a Charity Maternity Hospital in connection with his Hospital and Training School for Nurses; and he told me a year ago that during the year he had received into that maternity hospital nearly eighty of these unfortu- nate girls, and that he had been called to attend enough MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 193 of them outside to make more than one hundred, and he said that these were only a fraction of the whole. Until recently nearly all these children have been put to death ; but now, under the Criminal Code, this is more difficult. J. D. DAVIS. JOY-BRINGING CHRISTIANITY Christianity, by thus giving woman a greater sense of her own powers, by imparting to her the fructifying truths of the Bible, and by imbuing her with a noble purpose, has already proved itself to thousands of Jap- anese women a life-giving power. Go into any miscella- neous assembly of Japanese women, and you will find it an easy task to pick out the Christians by their brighter, more thoughtful, more purposeful faces. Tn the presence of these noble and gracious Christian ladies, the Japan- ese women represented by Sir Edwin Arnold's sensuous pen are as inferior as they ought to be offensive. M. L. GORDON. THE OLD WAY IN JAPAN Have w r e explained oiirselves ? We would not have it thought that Japanese women are actually ill-used. There is probably very little wife-beating in Japan, neither is there any zenana system any veiling of the face. Rather is it that women are all their lives treated more or less like babies, neither trusted with the inde- pendence which our modern manners allow, nor com- manding the romantic homage which was woman's dower in medieval Europe ; for Japanese feudalism so dif- ferent from the feudalism of the West in all but military display knew nothing of gallantry. A Japanese knight performed his valiant deeds for no such fanciful reward 194 DUX CHRISTUS as a lady's smile. He performed them out of loyalty to his lord, or filial piety toward the memory of his papa, taking up, maybe, the clan vendetta, and perpetuating it. Our own sympathies, as will be sufficiently evident from the whole tenor of our remarks, are with those who wish to raise Japanese women to the position occupied by sis- ters in Western lands. B. H. CHAMBERLAIN. " HOME," THE CREATION OF CHRISTIANITY The Japanese really have no such word as "home." Until we can teach them, by long and patient effort, the practical meaning of that holy word, they cannot have entered the spiritual fellowship of Christian nations. But just as the gospel in days of old slowly but surely uplifted the nations of Europe by teaching the sanctity of childhood, the purity of womanhood, and the manli- ness of manhood, so at length the same uplifting power will bring like blessings to Japan. J. A. B. SCHERER. MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 195 THEMES FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION I. The Subterranean History of Christianity in Japan. II. Bushido : its Story, its Ideals, and its Survivals. III. The Christian Martyrs of Japan. IV. Contrasted Missionary Ideals and Methods in Ro- man and Reformed Christianity. V. The Place and Power of the Bible in Missionary Efforts, as illustrated in the Christian History cjf Japan. VI. Are the Japanese Creative or Imitative? How far is this Trait Favorable or Unfavorable to Chris- tianity? VII. The Various Types of Missionary Usefulness. VIII. Missionary Biography. IX. The Three General Conferences. X. The Three Imperial Cities, Kioto, Osaka, Tokio. XI. Medical Work among the Japanese. XII. Music and Ilymnology in Christian Japan. BOOKS OF REFERENCE Proceedings of the Tokio Missionary Conference. (1901.) Tokio. Methodist Publishing House. 11. E. Lewis. " The Educational Conquest of the Fr.r East." (190:i.) F. II. Revell Co. B. Taylor. "Japan in Our Day." (1892.) Charles Scribner's Sons. K. Uchimura. "The Diary of a Japanese Convert." (lSOf>.) F. II. Revell Co. \V. E. Griflis. " Verbeck of Japan." A Citizen of No Country. (1900.) F. II. Revell Co. \V. E. Gritlis. "A Maker of the New Orient." Samuel Robbins Brown. (1902.) F. II. llevell Co. E. W. Clark. " Life and Adventures in Japan." (1878.) American Tract Society. M. L. Gordon. "An American Missionary in Japan." (1892.) Iloughton, Mifflin & Co. 196 DUX CHRISTUS M. Bickersteth. " Japan as We Saw It." (1893.) H. B. Tristram. " Rambles in Japan." (1898.) F. H. Revell Co. W. E. Curtis. "The Yankees of the East." (1896.) New York. Stone & Kimball. J. A. Scherer. "Japan To-day." (1904.) J. B. Lip- pincott Co. CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 1861 Miss Caroline Adriance in Japan for Woman's Work. 1863 Miss J. R. Conover, missionary teacher at Kana- gawa. 1867 Mrs. J. C. Hepburn and Mrs. J. II. Ballagh teach Japanese girls at Yokohama. 1869 First single woman missionary, Miss Mary Kidder, now Mrs. E. R. Miller, begins her work. Mrs. Carruthers begins a Girls' School in Tokio. Two Christian Japanese women baptized in Tokio. 1871 The American Mission Home, Yokohama, estab- lished by Mrs. Pruyn. 1872 Baptism of four Christian Japanese women in Yokohama. 1873 American Presbyterian and Congregational women missionaries in Tokio and Kobe. 1874 Episcopal Girls' School in Osaka. Methodist Girls' Schools in Tokio and Yokohama. 1875 English Church Missionary Society inaugurate work for women. 1880 Training of and work by Bible women in full activity. 1884 The Princess Sada born. 1886 Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Japan organized. Petition to Diet against transport of Japanese women abroad for evil purposes. Agitation by Christian women against the social evil. 1802 Dr. J. C. Berry begins the training of women nurses. 1893 National Woman's Christian Temperance Union organized. United Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. 1894 Silver wedding of Emperor and Empress. 1895 Rescue work for girls begun by the Salvation Army. 197 198 DUX CHBISTUS Continued from page 197. 1896 The Civil Code. 1898 National Temperance League of Japan organized by Mrs. Clara Parrish. 1900 Twenty thousand Protestant Christian women in Japan. Twelve thousand Japanese women released from immoral slavery. Crown Prince and Princess Sada married. 1901 Woman's University established in Tokio. 1902 Three generations of Christian believers in Japan. CHAPTER V WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN Position of Woman under the Ethnic Faiths. Of all the lines of battle for Christianity and higher civilization in Japan, none is more im- portant than that which relates to the elevation of woman one-half of Japan and to the making of the home on the Christian model. Seeing this, we may well introduce our general subject by glancing at the position of woman in the land poetically called the Princess Country. Historically this is much like that of her sister among the early Germanic nations, with whom Japan shares in time about the same length of career. It appears at least probable that, in the early ages, before the Japanese were affected by Buddhistic and Chinese influ- ences, woman occupied relatively a much higher plane than in the later days, when she was rather degraded than exalted by the new dogmas imported from India and China, and in the social and ethical systems which were developed under priests and philosophers. In Japanese mythology the chief deity is a woman. The custodians of the divine regalia (the three symbols of heaven-derived imperial power, 199 200 DUX CHRISTUS mirror, crystal sphere, and sword) and of many of the Shinto shrines were priestesses. In the list of one hundred and twenty -three mikados, nine were female. In literature, art, poetry, and song, the names of women shine like clus- tered stars on the national roll of fame and honor. It is to the everlasting glory of the women, that they, and not the men, made the Japanese a literary language. While learned men gave themselves up to pedantry and use of the Chinese script and vocabulary, women poets, novelists, and diarists, by cultivating their own more beautiful, musical, and sono- rous tongue, fitted it to be the receptacle of the literature that enshrines most distinctively the Japanese genius. Thus, also, though all un- consciously, the mediseval ladies of the court so shaped their native language in its develop- ment, as to enable it, eight hundred years later, to receive the Holy Scriptures of the inspired Word and to express to the people the good news of God in Christ Jesus. Woman in Japanese History. In the records of glory, valor, fortitude, and affliction, great- ness in the hour of death, filial devotion, wifely affection, in all the crises of life, when codes of honor, morals, and religion are put to the test, the Japanese woman has held her own. The history of literature, romance, and the everyday routine of facts show her power and willing- ness to share whatever of pain and sorrow is appointed to man. In suffering and sacrifice for the cause of home, family, clan, country, and WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 201 religion the Japanese woman has ever been the Japanese man's helpmeet for him. As we have written before, 1 " In the annals of persecution, in the red roll of martyrs, no names are brighter, no faces gleam more peacefully amid the flames or on the cross of transfixing spears, or on the pyre of rice straw, or on the precipice's edge, or in the open grave about to be filled up, than the faces of the Christian Japanese women of the seventeenth century." Such is the position of women in the past. The twentieth century shows no degradation in ideal or fact, while it opens wide the gates of Christian hope. The ethical grade and value of a civilization may be fairly tested by the position accorded to woman. Relatively with continental Asiatics, the Japanese accord their women a large meas- ure of respect and consideration. Foot-binding is not the fashion in Japan, and never has been. There are no zenanas or harems. Among the middle and lower classes she is almost as much at liberty to walk and visit as among us. In fact, an amount of social freedom prevails that could hardly be expected in a country that was once "Asiatic, idolatrous, and despotic." The purely external aspects of her dwelling-place have been treated with a masterly hand in Edward A. Morse's "Japanese Homes and their Surroundings," and in varying degrees of dis- tortion and misleading fiction, written by men who see and experience only the shadowy and 1 See " The Mikado's Empire," chapter on " Position of Women." 202 DUX CHRISTUS foul sides of the subject, that set forth rather masculine sin and folly than feminine hope and aspiration. Occidental art, whether in poetry, prose, picture, or drama, has not yet done justice to the typical Japanese woman. The shadows and lights of the true picture have been set upon the literary canvas by the master hand of Miss Alice Bacon. Out of her low estate under Buddhism that tolerated, and Confucian- ism that degraded, womanhood in Christian Japan is rising into the glory of a nobler life. Education of the Japanese Girl. The Jap- anese girl's education from childhood is one that makes her pure, sweet, and amiable, with great power of self-control and knowledge of what to do upon all occasions, so that in a cer- tain sense she is a finished product at the age of sixteen or eighteen. In a word, she is just what a pagan wants her to be fitted for obe- dience, subordination, and service, but not for growth and power to inspire. Trained in body and mind, and accomplished according to her station, it is no wonder that Japanese maidens and wives have attracted the attention and drawn forth the praises of foreign tourists and writers, especially of those who are more or less alienated from Christian ideas and ways. Trav- ellers of immoral life have not usually been sympathetic with efforts of the missionary to introduce different ideals and an educational system based on the teachings of Jesus. Some of the vilest flings at their work and the most distorting caricatures of the missionaries have WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 203 emanated from these men, who sometimes wield skilful pens and furnish piquant literature. Let us note that the old education of the daughter of the land was beautiful in many things, while sadly lacking in others. Miss Bacon thus pictures the brighter side : " The unconscious and beautiful spirit of her child- hood is not driven away at the dawn of woman- hood by the thoughts of beaux, of coming out in society, of a brief career of flirtation and con- quest, and at the end as fine a marriage, either for love or money, as her imagination can pic- ture." The normal Japanese maiden takes no thought of these things. Her father theoreti- cally, or her mother, perhaps practically, will by and by attend to the matter of bringing together their daughter and some eligible young man ; but the selection, if made, will be theirs, not hers. There is, theoretically at least, no flirtation, perhaps very little romance. Think- ing of men only as higher beings to be deferred to and waited on, the Japanese maiden pre- serves the childlike innocence of manner, combined witli a serene dignity under all cir- cumstances, that is characteristic of the Japan- ese woman. The Japanese, even after pondering the matter very deeply, show no great desire to exchange quickly the native for the foreign idea of woman, nor can any lover of Japan wish any sudden or violent destruction of the native ideal. Some of their writers on ethical and social topics have expressed themselves very 204 DUX CHBISTUS strongly, and on the whole reasonably, on this point ; nor must we forget that the indigenous and exotic ideals, of even physical beauty, are as far apart as the sunrise from sunset. It would lower our own conceit immensely, were we to see ourselves as the Japanese see us. If sweet temper and attractiveness, patience and faithfulness to " the three obediences," to parent, husband, and as widow to her oldest son, were all, the case might end here. But there is much more to be said. The daughter of the Japanese family has, at the age of twenty, but little de- velopment of her higher nature, very little uplifting indeed of the soul into the atmosphere above the routine of daily life. On the other hand, her master, man, pushing the principle of feminine obedience to the serving of his own selfishness, crushes out, by trampling upon, the most noble of feminine instincts. To satisfy his own needs, he degrades a glorious principle into the depths of damnable abomination. A father in debt, an ambitious brother to get an education in order to win office, will sell the body of daughter or sister, even as the beasts are sold. Horrible is the significant proverb, " A father with many daughters need not fear poverty in old age. " The Shadow on Japanese Womanhood. Usu- ally with her childhood, the happiest period in the life of a Japanese woman closes. Just when her mind is broadening and her hunger for knowledge and self-improvement increases, the clamps are put on. The chattel is removed WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 205 from one family to another. In Mitford's " Tales of Old Japan," and in Dr. H. C. Trum- bull's " The Threshold Covenant," we have the fact and the philosophy of marital rites. To become a wife is to be a daughter-in-law, - which name is too often synonymous with drudge or slave. Life grows narrower, burdens increase, until existence seems intolerable and reaches perilously near to the suicide point. The woman over thirty is usually the weary, disheartened woman. The hideousness of Japanese hags, and the multitude of them in villages, are sights that have, over and over again, given the writer daylight visions like nightmares. The list of female suicides in Japan is a terribly long one, and in popular art, as in Hokusai's, for example, we have the typi- cal figure of a bedraggled ghost rising from the well, in which it is the woman's fad to drown herself, though other ways of exit from flesh and blood are too sadly familiar. Infancy and Childhood. The Japanese baby girl, when born, is usually the cause of rejoic- ing, and on the seventh day receives her name, when the family partakes of a certain kind of festival food. As the Japanese sense of person- ality is not strong, the girl has no human namesake, but is usually called after something beautiful in nature, such as blossom, star, wave, sunshine, plum, gold, pearl, or jewel. The cus- tom of giving names in compliment to another is not known among the pagan and impersonal Japanese, though part of the father's or some 206 ancestral name is given to the boy, or joinea with another term denoting strength, power, or numerical sequence. The mother usually gets more attention, amounting to fussiness, than is good for her, often delaying return of her strength and health. The next event is to take the baby on the thirtieth day to the temple, in its finest clothes, duly embroidered with the family crest if of the gentry class, and made of silk, crape, or cotton, according to the parents' grade in society. Offerings are made to the local god and to the priest, their blessings ob- tained, and the infant put under the guardianship of the patron deity of the temple. Thus pagan- ism and priestcraft get their grip on human life and never relax it, no, not upon the corpse or the soul in purgatory, for, as says a Japanese proverb, even " the tortures of hell are graded according to money" paid to the priests. In many a temple in Japan, one reads a notice like that posted in Romish cathedrals, begging alms to pay for masses which are supposed to secure the release of suffering souls in the other world. One of the most pitiful of these forms of appeal, once common and now seen by the wayside in remote districts, is " the flowing invoca- tion," in behalf of mothers whose life ended untimely. After the name-giving, presents are sent by the family to friends. Thus the baby is a source of great care and trouble as well as joy. It has no cradle, though sometimes farmers' wives who work in the field leave the little one WOMAN'S WORK FOE WOMAN 207 in a kind of padded basket, like an egg in a nest. Folk-lore tells of the baby's unwelcome visitors during mother's absence, of wolf, wild swine, monkeys, etc., with usually the result of deliverance through the mercy of the goddess Quanon or some Buddhist saint. Withoutpins, tight sleeves, or much exposure of the limbs, infantile garb in Japan is sensible. Yet Japan- ese infants have their troubles, internal and ex- ternal, and they can cry lustily. Most of baby's waking and a good deal of its sleeping time is spent upon the back of some member of the family, usually an older brother or sister, the latter not more, it may be, than hve or six years old. Thus the rearing of a Japanese family, each baby as it grows bearing the one that comes after it, reminds one of a perpetual game of leapfrog. Snuggled up under sister's coat in winter or strapped more or less securely in summer, baby attains a wonderful development of arms and legs. This discipline, which every baby gets on its carrier's back, explains that wonderful agility and muscular quality whicli belongs to the Japanese, especially in the lower classes, making them such superb climbers, ath- letes, acrobats, soldiers on the march and in the fight. Their system of ju-jutsu, or muscle- science, the wonder of the physical trainer in every laud, may be said to begin in practice in infancy. The child must learn to hold on, and though its legs may be cramped, it gets a splen- did grip power and arm development. Never- theless, the exposure of tender eyes to the glare 208 of the sun is the cause of much of the blindness so common in the country. There are no chairs, but, when able to sit, the child soon learns to make a sofa of its calves and heels. By this habit the leg muscles become very flexible, so that a Japanese can spend hours on knees and ankle bones, without discomfort. Yet this do- ing without chairs in Japanese style results, not only in varicose veins, but in the national deformity of short legs. The introduction of better methods of sitting will in a few genera- tions add a full inch, at least, to the national stature. It has already affected for the better the present generation. By lengthening the legs of their tables, the Japanese have already lengthened their own. Enemies of the Home. The custom of con- cubinage only polygamy under another name formerly made family life, as we understand it, next to impossible in many households. Even to this day many a Japanese family is a curious agglomeration, more like a clan than a Christian home, and adoption is carried to ex- tremes that seem absurd. Concubinage destroys the reality of the family, as Occidentals under- stand the term. No Galton could ever have made much of a study of heredity in Japan, for few so-called lines of lineage are real or un- broken. Adoption is almost a universal custom for the maintenance of the " house " or the busi- ness. The distinguished son of a famous states- man, artist, actor, bronzesmith, sculptor, etc., is the actual son of some one else. The ease and WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 209 frequency of divorce makes family life, accord- ing to the average standard in Christendom, an impossibility. The architecture of a household in Nippon is, so to speak, on the perpendicular order. Rank and subordination, rather than love or affection, is the predominant idea. There is no pure word for brother or sister, but only for older and younger. An enormous bulk in the new Civil Code is occupied with the one subject of adoption, and popular proverbs reveal dread- ful secrets concerning the overworking of this dubious institution of orientalism. Among the higher classes, the dread of scan- dal and gossip prevents too easy divorce, but among the lower classes marriage was, and is, virtually dissoluble at the will of either party. Tens of thousands of folk in the lower classes have been married and divorced a dozen times. Official statistics show the condition of things in 1807, and also the more hopeful outlook under the new Civil Code. From 1891 to 1897 inclusive, the marriages averaged annually 381,069 and the divorces 101,098, but through more stringent laws and new moral ideals, from 1898 to 1900 inclusive there were 371,295 mar- riages and but 76,621 divorces, a reduction in the latter of about 25 per cent. With the im- provement of the moral climate through the teachings of Jesus, the nation will be stronger, homes will be purer, the individual happier, and Japan's fair name, now so often besmirched by the lustful, the cruel, and the covetous, will be clean and pure. 210 DUX CHRI8TUS Marriage. The old education of the Jap- anese women was mostly domestic, and but slightly literary. She was usually married at sixteen, for, broadly speaking, there was in pre- Christian days no such thing as a spinster or a bachelor. Marriage was usually simply the transfer of a cipher cut off from the integer of one family to be set beside that of another. If the girl positively disliked the man who was submitted to her for inspection, she was not usually forced to marry him. As simple toler- ation on either side was the thing expected, without anything in the way of romantic love, most arrangements made by parents were car- ried out. Often in old days and in high ranks, the bride beheld her future husband for the first time as she lifted her blindfolding silk cap, after sipping the second cup of the second tier of the trio in the "three times three" of the sacra- mental wine. The marriage ceremony was not one of religion, but purely a civil function. In wedlock the bride became more closely related by law and custom to her husband's relatives than to her own. To withdraw her name from the list of her father's family register and to have it entered by the local authorities on the roll of her husband's family gave legality to the act of marriage. Usually if ordinary regard existed between husband and wife, more espe- cially if children were born, and still more par- ticularly sons, the marriage bond held. In this case the family was an institution not easily changed. Yet since the marriage bond could WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 211 be easily annulled by the husband for any one of seven reasons, there were in some years as many divorces as marriages. In Dr. J. A. B. Scherer's " Japan To-day " we have one of the best all-round pictures of modern Japanese life. Those other and unnamed books, written at the selvedges of the two civilizations, Christian and pagan, which deal with the episodes of the geisha and the women hired for immoral pur- poses, though often attractive in style, are both unwholesome and misleading. The Husband's Power in Pagan Law. Since the law gives the father possession of the children and he has the right to dispose of them as he will, even to the babe in arms, while the divorced woman must go to her father's house, at once discredited and childless, many wives, no mat- ter how brutal or worthless their husbands may be, will toil and suffer long to keep the family together. Yet there must be male heirs. It has therefore been a common custom, when off- spring was desired, to advertise for and hire a young woman to come into the house, who, after bearing a child and the period of nursing over, was dismissed like a common servant and had no claim whatever on her child, seeing it when grown only as a visitor. In a word, woman in old Japan was ethically a much less fraction than half of humanity. Within the era of Meiji (1868), however, the improvements in law and custom, the adoption of a new civil code long fought against and persistently postponed by the conservatives the new at- 212 DUX CHRISTUS mosphere of thought, of feeling, and of hope, the general and special education, and espe- cially the religion of Jesus, have begun the making of a new world for Japanese women. There is now a variety of new occupations, making single life tolerable by one's own labor and rendering it possible for woman to choose or reject suitors, to enter into marriage from love and choice, as an intelligent being, rather than from necessity as a mere cog in the social wheel. These reforms have already made, for one-half of her people, that New Japan, which is as different from the old as the pagan is from the Christian world. Furthermore, among the nobility the law requires that only the true son of the true wife shall inherit the title. The laws of life rightly obeyed will banish polyg- amy, concubinage, easy divorce, and other social curses. Remarkable Beginning of Prayer for Japan. - Against the actual condition of woman as pic- tured with its lights and shadows in their own literature, and, as I have been able to study it during four years of life in Nippon, one in the interior, and three in the capital, let us now look at the half century of woman's work in Japan. In that work we count prayer not the least factor. It was also the efficient begin- ning of the interest of Christian women in their Japanese sisters. On the other hand, incite- ment to prayer came through the divine Ar- tist's gift to his Japanese child, of intense susceptibility to beauty and power to express WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 213 it. Long before the year of Perry's advent, a little basket of bamboo woven in Japan reached America, and fell into the hands of a devout woman in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her eyes enjoyed the dainty basket, her heart was moved for the women of the unknown land whose people fashioned it. Gathering other godly women around her, she prayed with them to the Father, that he would grant some day to the daughters of these isles to know him in his Son and their Saviour. 1 Women Missionaries. In the early sixties, some of the home boards with old experience, but without the prophetic strain, turning the re- flector of knowledge about China upon Japan, after inquiring about the expediency of send- ing women missionaries to Japan, made curt and discouraging answer, " Do not send them unless they are old and ugly, or unless they come as wards in families." In our days, on the contrary, the great evangelizing agency in Japan is, most emphatically, by means of Christian women. Verily in our day, " The women that publish the tidings are a great host." Nor should we make an invidious comparison between married and unmarried missionaries, for many who serve as wives and mothers, besides rearing families and taking care of hus- bands, do noble work in charity, in teaching, and in various altruistic activities. 1 See complete account, "Early Gifts and Prayers for Japan," Chapter VI. 214 DUX CHBISTUS Music and Photography. One of the first triumphs of Christian women's work in Japan was to make Christian praise an aid to the gospel. It was woman who demonstrated the power of music as an aid to faith and worship, as in all spiritual work and influence. In theory, the Japanese throat had been pro- nounced incapable of producing either our gamut or singing our music, and already experts were inventing a new notation based on the supposed limits of power. The faith and persistence of one woman at once changed the whole situation, and the story has since been one of progress. Certainly among the psychic moments of success in Japan, that must be considered among the greatest, when the wife of a missionary taught a Japanese boy to sing the musical scale, and thus opened the way for the reign of Christian song. To-day the schools, army, and navy bands, and popular concerts employ the musical scale of the Occi- dent and the civilized world. The superb *' Hymnal " of 1904, the crowning work after long evolution and many predecessors, with its hundreds of tunes and words in Japanese, is the high-water mark of progress in praise. It is remembered that the hymn " Jesus loves me, this I know " though according to the refined taste of to-day awkwardly translated, was the favorite then and is now. How heartily the people to whom it was fresh, good news sang it ! One Chris- WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 215 tian woman passed away singing it, and those words of hope were chiselled on her tombstone. She was the wife of the first native photog- rapher, who had been taught by Dr. S. R. Brown. The photograph in Japan, as else- where, has been to art what printing has to lit- erature. To-day the stereopticon by night and the camera by day are in grand use for illustrat- ing gospel truth and in keeping Christians at home informed and sympathetic. What would have been the status of Japan to-day if one-half of the people girls, wives, and mothers had been left untouched by influ- ences from Christendom ? What, if from the first, in 185*. >, they had not had, with their brothers, equal hope in the gospel ? Certainly the new Christian woman and the Christian home, with all that these mean for the future of Japan, would not have been. Surveying the subject historically, we see that with Dr. and Mrs. Brown in 1859, Miss Caroline Adriance of the Reformed Church came out, at her own charges, to teach the good news of God to Japanese women. The way was not then opened, and she crossed to China, where she died. Honor to her, the pioneer ! To Miss Mary E. Kidder, now Mrs. E. R. Miller, belongs the honor of being the first un- married woman who in 1869 came to Japan with the express idea of being a missionary teacher, and succeeded because the time was ripe. In 1875 her school had grown into the 216 DUX CHRISTUS Ferris Seminary at Yokohama, which entered on a glorious and still active career. One of the officers of the Woman's Union Missionary Society, Mrs. Mary Pruyn, a widow of great intellectual and executive ability, went out with Miss Julia N. Crosby and Mrs. L. H. Pierson to organize a school intended primarily for the benefit of Eurasian children of Yokohama and the seaports. They arrived June, 1871. In Oc- tober, 1872, the well-known American Mission Home at 212 Bluff, Yokohama, was opened here. On Sunday nights in one room would be a prayer meeting full of English-speaking people, both mercantile and military, the sailors of the merchant marine, the red-coated British sol- diers from the camp, and the blue-jackets from the men-of-war. In another room, Dr. Samuel Robbins Brown, founder of the first Protestant Christian School in China and of the first women's college in the United States, would be teaching the Bible to scores of attentive Japan- ese, or Okuno would be preaching one of those sermons that seemed to show that the Japanese language had been so baptized by the Holy Spirit as to become a new tongue. Mrs. Pruyn toiled here for a decade, Mrs. Pierson for twenty-five years. It was soon seen, however, that the better line of work for the new woman missionaries was the Christian education of Japanese girls. Work therefore among the daughters of the land soon began and has continued with mighty benefit and blessing to this day. More than once, girls WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 217 on declaring for their Saviour were disowned by their families and suffered persecution. Reinforcements from the English-speaking Nations. While a solitary exile pioneer of education in Fukui, during feudalism's last year of 1871, the writer never met a missionary, though he saw native Christians borne off to prison, but when living in Tokio, in 1873, he joined with others in welcoming there three women who came out under the American Pres- byterian Board and started the Graham Semi- nary for young women January, 1874. This foundation has since been incorporated in the Joshi Gakuin, a fine school with two hundred pupils . The American Congregational Churches, in beginning work for women, were represented by Miss Eliza Talcott and Miss J. E. Dudley, who arrived March, 1873. They joined the mission at Kobe, where at that time a former feudal baron of Sanda was living with his family. Full of ideas of progress, this ex- daimio encouraged these peaceful invaders and soon, in company with his mother and sister, one of the American women visited the castle town. They spent several months in the place and began meetings for women, some of whom soon opened their lips in prayer. In October, 1875, the Kobe Girls' School, since developed into Kobe College, was established and has done a grand work. Other churches in America took up women's work for women, sending out their ablest representatives. Miss Ellen G. Eddy, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, opened a 218 DUX CHEISTUS Girls' School iu Osaka in November, 1874, and Miss Dora E. Schoonmaker, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in part of an old temple, at Mita, Tokio, and after her Miss Higgins, at Yokohama ; Miss Anna H. Kidder and Miss Clara Sands of the Baptist Mission, the former in Tokio, the latter in Yokohama, initiated ser- vice for their Japanese sisters. The Mary L. Colby School at Yokohama, known as the Truth- seeking Girls' School, and the Sarah Curtis School in Tokio are in active operation. Although the English Church Missionary So- ciety entered the field later in point of time, they now outnumber with their workers any of the other societies. In 1888 Mrs. Julia Tris- tram and Miss Tapson came out, and with these, under the one Church Society, several others have cooperated. The Christian Woman's Task in Japan. What was, what is, the Christian woman's task in Japan ? To answer this, let us look at the situ- ation. Uncover the pleasing surface of things Japanese, and immediately the aptitude and necessity of the Master's words become appar- ent, "Cleanse first the inside." Outwardly in Japanese human nature, all is charm, beauty, gentleness, politeness. Inwardly are foulness and corruption, with plenty of sin both original and imported. First of all, there is the language which is saturated with insincerity. The Jap- anese tongue is not noted for brutal frankness, nor, on the other hand, is it the easiest in which to speak the truth. Its very structure tends to- WOMAN'S WORK FOE WOMAN 219 deception, obliging you to say what you do not feel or believe. Behind its two thousand years of growth is the atmosphere of paganism, super- stition, low ideals of family life, of personal purity and chastity, with next to nothing of a sense of sin. There is no fifty-first psalm, or anything like it, in all the range of the national literature. Some foreigners indeed say that the Japanese, as a nation, are destitute of any true conception of chastity. This, to say the least, is a harsh and hazardous assertion. Neverthe- less it is true that what is outwardly sweet and winsome is often inwardly unclean. Further- more behind customs, manners, politeness, as spotlessly fair as a whited sepulchre, stand the hoary institutions of polygamy, concubinage, legalized prostitution, brutality based on the sword, and that long reign of Confucianism which conceives of woman with infinite con- tempt, and it was Confucianism that for cen- turies moulded Japanese morals. Under the power of priestcraft, which laid its iron hand upon the whole life of woman from the cradle to the grave, the notions and practices of idola- try and witchcraft became universal. Social evils of the worst form, including infanticide, gambling, the sale and slavery of daughters for vilest purposes, divorce of the wife for frivolous- reasons, the single standard of marital fidelity, making the woman always the sinner, a litera- ture, popular art, and ways of pleasure degraded by obscenity, were rampant in the pre-Christian days. 220 DUX CIIBISTUS In this twentieth century, in law, society, and custom, in the abolition or suppression of the vile, and the general change in favor of human- ity, decency, and morals, the change is so great, that tourists, well equipped with the colored glasses furnished by literary oculists, become so smitten with the glamour that they imagine things in Japan were always thus. Little do they think how a new atmosphere has been created. The readers of Loti, Hearn, Arnold, know not that the native lawmakers have had their eyes anointed with Christian eye-salve, so that they see as those nations see that have been lifted up by the gospel. To the creation of this new moral climate native and foreign women, moved by the love of Christ, have nobly con- tributed by their work and lives. Women from Christian lands gave object lessons ; they taught with love, patience, and gentleness for years. " Let her own works praise her in the gates. "~ " Cleanse first the inside " is what the wise teachers do. They are not anxious to alter names, innocent customs, or anything good. It is the life which they seek to uplift, to instil a high ideal of womanly purity and honor, to cast out the devils of superstition and evil craft, to relax the grip of the pagan priest, and to build up womanhood according to the ideals of Christ Jesus. They know well the expulsive power of new affections. Nobly have they succeeded. Signal Instances of Success. Some signal in- stances in personality, methods, and institutions have been and are still in the Master's service. WOMAN'S WORK FOE WOMAN 221 On the bluff at Yokohama stand edifices that are as cities set upon a hill, which are like mighty power stations. These are pulsing thrills of light in Japanese moral darkness, making incandescent glow in thousands of homes from which idols are abolished. They are furnishing the motor force which propels the cars of prog- ress. After a third of a century hundreds ot alumme, in every path of service and in Chris- tian households, are helping make a brighter and happier new Japan. At Kobe, in Tokio, in Himeji, in a score of places, the bread of sacrifice and toil is being cast upon the waters. What was once like a handful of corn on the tops of the mountains, is now fruit shaking like Lebanon. Not only in the capital, large cities, and seaports, but in many an inland town the lamps of wise virgins are burning and there is gospel oil well supplied by consecrated women. Japanese girlhood is being transformed, and the home is being won for Christ. The maiden of modern Japan is living in a new world of ideas and aspirations, a world that is grander and in every way more glorious than that in which her mother moved. Her heart beats in sympathy not only with the history, experience, and wisdom of her own native land, but with the common heritage of all Christian nations. Pantheism, which made personality a cipher, is passing away as a vapor, and educated in the idea of one God and Father, she thrills with the consciousness of her birthright in Christ Jesus, and of her own worth and personality in the making of the 222 DUX CHRISTUS nation. By her richer and more beautiful life, she is changing man's traditional opinion of womanhood, because the educated Christian girl makes a wife that is a true helpmeet for her husband, whether he toils and aspires for honor and country, or, in larger vision and ever more earnest service, builds up a Chris- tian home. Courage of Japanese Inquirers. Even now, in regions remote from centres of Christian cul- ture, courage is required for a Japanese woman to come to the meetings of what, \>y popular tradition and family training, was so long asso- ciated with sorcery and deviltry. For centu- ries, mothers in Japan frightened their children with the name of Jesus as if it were that of a demon, for did not the law, both of Rome and of Japan, make Christ an outlaw ? In addition there was the great barrier of social custom against public gatherings of any kind for women held inside of houses. By sad contrast, the temple festivals, long moonlight night dances, and other assemblies not calculated to improve good morals, were open to them. Not a few of the oversensitive, in order to escape notice, came, like Nicodemus, by night to inquire into matters of religion. Yet, as a rule, education and intellect were on the side of spiritual prog- ress. The young government officers encour- aged their wives and daughters to be present at prayer meetings and to put themselves un- der the instruction of Christian women. In the first churches of Japan men were in the WOMAN'S WORE FOR WOMAN 223 great majority, and most of these were samurai or gentry; but gradually the women member- ship increased, and some of the very women who once ignorantly blasphemed the name of the Saviour were seen sitting in adoring love at his table. Workers in Many Fields. As the field and outlook broadened and work developed, more helpers were needed and rich experiences were gained. By 1882 as many foreign women as there had been years in the century had arrived on the soil, of whom two-thirds were active at their posts. Of the nearly three hundred foreign women workers now in Japan, about one-half are di- rectly and the other half indirectly engaged in influencing the people to Christian living. Be- sides these, there are over two hundred wives of missionaries, more or less active in propagat- ing the gospel truths by the Word, the life, and the home. Their method of work varies, but their great aim is to build up Christian homes and de- velop Christian character. Many of them spend most of their time in the schoolroom. They also keep the school graduates in their eye and thought, helping them by wise counsel to make real, by actual sacrifice at home, the schoolgirl's vision of a higher womanhood. Christians at home, in studying the missionary situation, must remember the parable of the leaven hid, as well as that of the mustard-seed phenomenal. Jesus taught two lessons of the kingdom's life and growth as concerning what 224 DUX CHRISTUS was inward and visible but not powerful, as well as what could be measured by the eye. The kindergarten, under Christian teachers, is a superb means of influencing the receptive minds of childhood. Even the mill-hands in crowded factories are not forgotten. The tour- ing system, by which Christian women spend a month or more at a time in visiting people of the country churches, enables the women reared under two different worlds of thought and life to know and understand each other better. This work is as delightful as it is wearisome, and, like all noble things, very difficult but amply repaying. Blessed be, effective is, this work of the Christian women of the West, which on the social side is powerfully leaven- ing the most Eastern of nations. Some of the native churches support and send out Bible women, who do varied service, in some cases scarcely second to that of the pastor. A Glance at Results. Looking at results, we can see that there are to-day, instead of the twenty or so, of three decades ago, about forty- five thousand members of Protestant Christian churches in Japan. Of these, probably most are acquainted with their Bibles and live earnest and fruitful Christian lives. In not a few cases, it was the desire to know the Scrip- tures that stimulated illiterate wives and daughters to learn their letters. Not infre- quently the weekly church prayer meetings are conducted by women, who in addition have special gatherings for prayer, arranged and con- WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 225 ducted by women, their numbers running often into the hundreds. With tact and persistency, the new women of Christian Japan carry out works of benevolence and charity, pay church debts, and keep the sacred edifices in repair. Thus directly, or indirectly, non-Christian girls, and women, who are yet unable for social reasons to meet openly with Christians, are helped to spiritual inquiry and conformity to Christian models. Every year sees new doors of useful- ness opened, but the area of untouched society is yet very large. With the increase of material prosperity and of members on the church rolls, there is even more call to the workers for con- secration, prayer, toil, and unselfishness. The Gospel in Country Places. - Jesus said, "Go out into the highways." Most honorable is the self-effacing service of the teacher, physi- cian, or nurse, who, among the Ainos of Yezo, or mountain tribes of Formosa, serves her Master in complete isolation from civilized life. Almost as noble in self-denying exile are the ministering women who work alone in the country districts of Japan proper. A native Christian once said of such a missionary's visit : " It was like the revolving light on Oshima. It leaves us in darkness after one flash of light, but we learn by that how to steer until it turns us the bright side again." The strong woman, when willing, can do this work, carrying God's good news to man as Jesus did, on foot ; for every year there are more and more Christians and inquirers scattered along each route of Q 226 DUX CHRISTUS travel. In opening new lines of endeavor, the gospel outruns even the railways ; yet a place once visited must be visited again. These fresh inquirers, " glad to hang on your eyelids," may want to be Christians and united into a church. *' They are the leaven of the country, but bread- makers know that leaven must be cared for and kept warm if it is expected to work." No- where more than among these country folk can one realize that the gospel really is the good news of God. Those who are not yet Chris- tians carry the tidings back into the mountains and hamlets, and talk it over their campfires, or around the square hole in the middle of the floor, which serves as the home hearth. There is no greater joy in missionary life than telling the new story of God's love to simple-hearted dwellers in the country. Women are intensely social. " In the world, a friend ; in travelling, a companion," is their proverb. It is rare that you can find one of them who will study alone, but she will gladly do so with a friend. When she cannot read, personal talk with her is the handiest weapon with which to put down prejudice, because it raises no question as to whether, she can read or not, an inquiry which is embarrassing to the illiterate. Happily in Japan there is no caste, and the woman missionary is free to enter the homes of all classes. For Temperance, Purity, and Freedom. " The day is short, the work is great, the Master presses." Realizing these three elements of the WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 227 situation, the wise women attack the colossal problem with many-sided adaptabilities. Even in 1854 Commodore Perry feared for the future of Japan because intoxicating liquor was so cheap. Those who would see a stalwart race in these islands, and wish Japan success in world competition, grieve to see millions of Japanese, both men and women, slaves to tobacco. As for the general licentiousness prevalent all over Japan and the export of her women to the ports of Asia, that is too well known to need comment, but rather attack, the fierceness of which should be tempered only by wisdom. The Women's Christian Temperance Union has made war upon these three forms of evil, while the Salvation Army has carried the war into the enemy's camp. The agitation thus created, with petitions to the Imperial Diet, and pressing for reform in the prefectures have produced a public opinion that in time will tell for the physical and moral im- provement of the nation. It has already struck off the chains from thousands of women morally enslaved. The work of temperance is now by organization, publication, and regular effort in- trenched as a permanent force. The abominable cigarette habit is regulated by law. One of the grandest moral triumphs of the age is seen in the ripening of public opinion which expressed itself in a law passed by the Imperial Diet, that no woman should be kept in the prostitutes' quarters against her will. To enforce this legis- lation, brave men and women have risked life and limb, penetrating into the dens of vice to 228 DUX CHBISTUS set the captives free. Though roughly handled by rowdies and those whose financial interests were at stake, they have persevered and won. In two years the number of unfortunate women, many of them sold by fathers, brothers, and husbands for a money consideration to lives of shame, decreased from 52,274 to 40,175. Chris- tian women have built and maintained Rescue Homes to aid the released, to employ, educate, and lift them up to holy life. Although judges at the bench, fearing unpopularity, still decide in favor of selling women, the hope is well founded that the worst blot on Japan's fair name will be removed as the tide of public opinion rises. Christian women have aided at " The Prison Gate " thousands of women just re- leased from behind bars ; and prison reform, first introduced by missionaries, is now one of the methods of working in Christ's name in Japan. Among the Mill Operatives. The compara- tively sudden change from the feudal system to manufacturing and commercialism has broken up cottage industries and massed feminine hu- manity in the factories of the great cities. In Tokio about twenty thousand, in Osaka thirty thousand, and in Kioto sixty thousand girls and women, some as young as eight years old, toil in factories. Most of them work twelve hours daily, and, on alternate weeks, at night as well as by day. Some factories are little better than sheds. With unsanitary surroundings and poor ventilation, girls in factories often die from ill- WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 229 ness caused by heat and fatigue. To the relief of sucli a situation, the church and the mission- aries are addressing themselves as well as to the creation of a public opinion that will check these evils at the fountain head. 230 DUX CHRISTUS LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS CHRISTIANITY ELEVATES WOMAN The second remedy that is suggested is Christianity, a remedy which is even now at work. Wherever one finds in Japan a Christian home, there one finds the wife and mother occupying the position that she occupies all over Christendom. The Christian man, in choosing his wife, feels that it is not an ordinary contract, which may be dissolved at any time at the will of the contracting parties, but that it is a union for life. Consequently, in making his choice, he is more careful, takes more time, and thinks more of the personal qualities of the woman he is about to marry. Thus the chances are better at the beginning for the establishment of a happy home, and such homes form centres of influence throughout the length and breadth of the land to-day. ALICE M. BACON. THE ETHICS OF DRESS According to the Japanese standard, any exposure of the person that is merely incidental to health, cleanli- ness, or convenience in doing necessary work, is perfectly modest and allowable ; but an exposure, no matter how slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree indelicate. . . . As for the ball-room costumes, where neck and arms are freely exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese woman, who would with entire composure take her bath in the presence of others, would be in an agony of shame at the thought of appearing in public in a costume so in- decent as that worn by many respectable American and European women. Our judgment would indeed be a hasty one should we conclude that the sense of decency is wanting in the Japanese as a race, or that the women are at all lacking in the womanly instinct of modesty. ALICE M. BACON. WOMAN'S WOES FOR WOMAN 231 TIIE HOPELESSNESS OF PAGANISM A Japanese woman loses her beauty early. At thirty- five her fresh color is usually entirely gone ; her eyes have begun to sink a little in their sockets ; her youthful roundness and symmetry of figure have given place to an absolute leanness; her abundant hair has grown thin; and much care and anxiety have given her face a pathetic expression of quiet endurance. One seldom sees a face that indicates a soured temper or cross disposition ; but the lines that show themselves, as the years go by, are lines that indicate, suffering and disappointment, patiently and sweetly borne ; the lips never forget to smile ; the voice remains always cheerful and sympathetic, never grows peevish and worried, as is too often the case with overworked or disappointed women in this country. But youth, with its hopeful outlook, its plans, and its ambitions, gives way to age, with its peaceful waiting for the end, with only a brief struggle for its place ; and the woman of thirty-live is just at the point when she has bid good-by to her youth, and, having little to hope for in her middle life, is doing her work faithfully, and look- ing forward to an old age of privilege and authority, the mistress of her son's house, and the ruler of the little domain of home. ALICE M. BACOX. WOMAN'S SELK-K ENUNCIATION Woman's surrender of herself to the good of the home and family was as willing and honorable as the man's self-surrender to the good of his lord and country. Self- renunciation, without which no life-enigma can be solved, was the keynote of loyalty of man as well as of domes- ticity of woman. DR. INAZO NITOBK. THE OLD CODE When a Japanese Virginia saw her chastity menaced, she did not wait for her father's dagger. Her own 232 DUX CHBISTUS weapon lay always in her bosom. It was a disgrace to her not to know the proper way in which she had to perpetrate self-destruction. For example, little as she was taught in anatomy, she must know the exact spot to cut in her throat ; she must know how to tie her lower limbs together with a belt so that, whatever the agonies of death might be, her corpse be found in utmost modesty with the limbs properly composed. DR. INAZO NITOBE. THE CHIEF LADY OF THE LAND Some years ago, when the castle in Tokio was burned, and the emperor and empress were obliged to take refuge in an old daimio's house, a place entirely lacking in lux- uries and considerably out of repair, some one expressed to her the grief that all her people felt that she should have to put up with so many inconveniences. Her re- sponse was a graceful little poem, in which she said that it mattered little how she was situated, as long as she was sure of a home in the hearts of her people. That home which fire can never consume she has undoubtedly made for herself. ALICE M. BACON. Two EPOCHAL WOMEN Each [Queen Jingu of mythology, and Haruko, em- press] marks the beginning of a new era the first, of the era of civilization and morality founded upon the teachings of Buddha and Confucius ; the second, of the civilization and morality that have sprung from the teach- ings of Christ. Buddhism and Confucianism were elevat- ing and civilizing, but failed to place the women of Japan upon even as high a plane as they had occupied in the old barbaric times. To Christianity they must look for the security and happiness which it has never failed to give to the wives and mothers of all Christian nations. ALICE M. BACON. WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 233 THE PERSON DIES. THE HOUSE LITES It is strange, but true, that you may often go into a Japanese family and find half a dozen persons calling each other parent and child, brother and sister, uncle and nephew, and yet being really either no blood relations at all, or else relations assumed in quite different degrees from those conventionally assumed. Galton's books coulci never have been written in Japan; for though genealogies are carefully kept, they mean nothing, at least from a scientific point of view so universal is the practice of adoption from the top of society to the bottom. This it is which explains such apparent anomalies as a distin- guished painter, potter, actor, or what not, almost always having a son distinguished in the same line he has simply adopted his best pupil. It also explains the fact of Japanese families not dying out. BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN. THE GKISHA WHAT TO Do WITH HER? The geishas, unfortunately, though fair, are frail. In their system of education, manners stand higher than morals, and many a geisha gladly leaves her dancing in the tea houses to become the concubine of some wealthy Japanese or foreigner, thinking none the worse of herself for such an arrangement, and going cheerfully back to her regular work should her contract be unexpectedly ended. The geisha is not necessarily bad, but there is in her life much temptation to evil and little stimulus to good, so that where one life is blameless, many go wrong, and drop below the margin of respectability alto- gether. Yet so fascinating, bright, and lively are these geishas that many of them have been taken by men of good position as wives, and are now the heads of the most respectable homes. Without true education or morals, but with thorough training in all the arts and accomplishments that please, witty, quick at repartee, 234 DUX CHRISTUS pretty, and always well dressed, the geisha has proved a formidable rival for the demure, quiet maiden of good family, who cau give her husband only an unsullied name, silent obedience, and faithful service all her life. The freedom of the present age, and as seen in the choice of such wives, has presented this great problem to the thinking women of Japan. If the wives of the leaders in Japan are to come from among such a claas of women, something must be done, and done quickly, for the sake of the future of Japan ; either to raise the standards of the men in regard to women, or to change the old system of education for girls. A liberal education and more freedom in early life for women has been suggested, and is now being tried, but the problem of the geisha and her fascination is a deep one in Japan. ALICE M. BACON. THE SAMURAI WOMEN As the government of the land to-day lies in the hands of the samurai men under the emperor, so the progress of the women, the new ideas of work for women, are in the hands of the samurai women led by the empress. Wherever there is progress among the women, wherever they are looking about for new opportunities, entering new occupations, elevating the home, opening hospitals, industrial schools, asylums, there you will find the lead- ing spirits always of the samurai class. ALICE M. BACON. THE NATIVE CHRISTIAN WOMEN How do they [the Christian Japanese women] work? In the churches they spend much time in calling, look- ing up the delinquents, reading the Bible with inquirers or those young in the faith, visiting the sick and afflicted, caring for the dying and the dead, holding meetings for Bible study, and for mutual improvement. They are the servants of the church in every good work. They may WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 235 be found in both city and country, from the Hokkaido to Kiushiu, and one is in Honolulu. In some cases they have for years held together pastorless churches. In country work, where the church is often scattered over a large field, the woman lives in one centre and the pastor in another, both going the rounds of the different places. When the missionary lady comes to her in her tours, she makes long lists of houses to be visited, and gives an insight into the peculiar needs of each house, so that the spiritual physician may know how to adapt her medicine to the patient. As wives of pastors we hope and believe they supplement the work of their husbands, both in the home and in aggressive work. We have in mind some who, without neglecting the home, do the full work of an evangelist in the church, and are well spoken of by all who know them. In working with lady missionaries, these women are eyes and ears and hands and feet and tongues. They do the correspondence which the peculiarities of this lan- guage forbid our doing for ourselves. They get at the heart of the things which would never come to the ears of the foreigner, except through them, and bridge over the space which separates her from the people, interpret- ing her heart to them. M. J. BARROWS. CHRISTIAN EDUCATION By the law and order of the kindergarten, by the cleanliness and attractiveness of the rooms, by the sun- shine and pure air, by the energy and diligence of their hours of work, by the rhythm and music, by the kindness, love, and cheerfulness, by the obedience and good fellow- ship, by the beauty and miracle of nature, by the sacred songs and daily prayer, by the stories from the Holy Word, from history, fable, and purest fiction by all these the ideals of the Christian faitli are held up day by day to these little ones, and no more quickly do their eyes drink in the glory of the blossoms than their hearts take in the lessons of right living and right belief. 236 DUX CHRISTUS One of the most noted of Japanese statesmen has re- cently said, " It had been thought that by using superior ethical text-books, and by changing the system of teach- ing, the whole nation would be transformed, but suddenly disclosures are made, which show that the ethical reform is a mere make-believe, and that low principles and cor- ruption prevail almost everywhere." A. L. HOWE. I shall not argue for the benefits of Christian missions. I will, however, cite certain instances to show the moral standing of the masses, and to explain what heathenism really means. Teaching as I did in a Government school of five hundred pupils, there were naturally rare oppor- tunities of studying the inner life of the people. I once gave this subject for essays, " The Noblest Thing I ever Heard of." I wished to discover the ideals of Japanese boys. What things do they deem noble and good and true ? Who ai-e their heroes ? What are their best views of life? The China-Japan War had just closed. . . . When Admiral Ting's fleet was surrounded, he surren- dered it promptly enough, but he felt that it would be a supreme disgrace to his Majesty the Emperor of China to have one of his highest officials, Ting himself, fall into the hands of the enemy. Ting, therefore, killed himself, out of respect to the Emperor. What would have been the feelings of the North for Robert E. Lee, if, rather than share the fate of the gallant men he had surrendered, he had committed suicide from a sense of devoted patriotism? North and South would have alike despised him. And yet nine out of ten of my Japanese boys wrote of the suicide of Admiral Ting as the noblest thing of which they had ever heard. If a suicide is their ideal, and if hara-kiri is the best thing they know, what shall we suppose is the worst ? . . . The system of ethics teaches that, next to the State, one owes duty to his parents. This has a pleasant enough sound ; Japanese filial piety is a very attractive phrase indeed. But here is an illustration of what it sometimes appears in practice. Just after we landed, the newspapers were full of the story of an ignorant peasant in the interior, WOMAN'S WORK FOB WOMAN 237 who was greatly troubled in mind by the fact that his aged mother seemed to be losing her sight. He tried many remedies, but in vain. Then he sought the assist- ance of his religion. He went to a priest, perchance to a so-called wizard, and asked for advice on the subject. Filialism being vital, the oracle inquired, " Are you will- ing to do anything to save your mother's sight that the gods may require ? " " Yes," the poor man said, " I am." Then the hideous answer came, " Feed her a human live*-, and her sight will be restored." A very shrewd answer, one would say, because it could not be obeyed. . . . The only possibility of testing the fiendish remedy was by slaying one of his own household. He had but one child, a mere babe. His love for his child was great. This man, however, was more than a father, he was a religious devotee. . . . One night he took his sleeping child out into the little garden and was about to slay it with a knife. In some way the mother heard and understood. She begged the man to spare the child. He told her of the words of the oracle; he reminded her of the supreme demands of filial piety and, while she agreed with him in the theory, her mother love was stronger than anything else and she implored him to spare her child. The man was inexorable. " Oh," she said at last, " if the gods must be obeyed, take me, but spare my baby." At length he yielded to her request. The wife died at her hus- band's hands and the gods were satisfied. Is it not a fearful thing to see one of the holiest feel- ings of humanity, this sentiment of filial piety, made into a horror at which devils well might shudder? But the strangest part of my story is yet to come. I said that nine out of ten of my pupils wrote of the suicide of Ad- miral Ting as the noblest tiling of which they had ever heard. One of them, however, actually chose the deed that has just been described not the self-sacrifice of the mother, but the inhuman sacrifice on the part of the hus- band and father. From "Japan To-day," by SCHKRER. An eminent Japanese Confucianist, in his famous treatise on "The Whole Duty of Woman," delights in 238 deliverances such as these : The five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are, indocility, discontent, slan- der, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt these five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women to men. Woman's nature, in comparison with man's, is as the shadow to the sunlight. Hence, as viewed from the standard of man's nature, the foolishness of woman fails to understand the duties that lie before her very eyes, perceives not the actions which will bring down blame upon her own head, and comprehends not even the things that will bring down calamities on the heads of her hus- band and children. Such is the stupidity of her char- acter that it is incumbent on her, in every particular, to distrust herself and to obey her husband. From. " Japan To-day," by SCHERER. The teachings of Confucius, as recorded by an eminent Japanese Conf ucianist, state these " Seven Reasons for Divorce " : 1. A woman shall be divorced for disobedience to her father-in-law or mother-in-law. 2. A w r oman shall be divorced if she fail to bear chil- dren, the reason for this rule being that women are sought in marriage for the purpose of giving men posterity. 3. Lewdness is a reason for divorce. 4. Jealousy is a reason for divorce. 5. Leprosy or any like foul disease is a reason for divorce. 6. A woman shall be divorced who, talking over much and prattling disrespectfully, disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and brings trouble on her household. 7. Stealing is a reason for divorce. It is little wonder that the disciples of such men hold women in unutterable contempt. From "Japan To-day," by SCHERER. WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN 239 THEMES FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION I. The Position of Woman under Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism. II. The Story of the Earliest Missionary Interest in Japan. III. Woman in Japanese Literature. IV. Woman in Japanese History. V. Japanese Love of Beauty. How it may be Utilized for Religion. VI. The Beginnings of Christian Art. VII. The Grip of Priestcraft, from the Cradle to the Grave. VIII. Foreign Society at the Seaports. Its Influence. IX. The Nine Female Mikados. X. Japanese Woman in the Eye of the Law. XI. The Real Japanese Woman vs. the Geisha, and in Fiction. XII. The Pagan and the Christian Home in Japan. BOOKS FOR REFERENCE, A. M. Bacon. ''Japanese Girls and Women." Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. A. M. Bacon. " A Japanese Interior." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. A. C. Hartshorne. "Japan and Her People." Portei & Coates. E.S.Morse. "Japanese Homes and Their Surround- ings." Harpers. E. It. Scidmore. " Jinrikisha Days in Japan." Harpers. II. Fraser. " Letters from Japan." The Macmillan Co. M. S. Bramhall. " Wee Ones of Japan." Harpers. I. B. Bishop. " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." G. P. Putnam's Sons. Shigemi. " A Japanese Boy." New Haven. G. B. Sheldon & Co. J. A. Scherer. "Japan To-day." J. B. Lippincott Co. N. Tamura. " The Japanese Bride." Harpers. CHAPTER VI FORCES IN THE CONFLICT A Semi-centennial of Gratitude. Fifty years after the opening to the world of the empire of Japan by the treaty of Commodore Perry, the anniversary was joyfully celebrated in To- kio in the hall of the Young Men's Christian Association. At this meeting veteran states- men, Japanese and English-speaking Christians, in large numbers, were present, packing the hall to its full capacity. The speeches of Hon. S. Shimada and Count Okuma, the one the pupil of Dr. Brown and the other of Dr. Verbeck, called attention to the debt of gratitude which Japan owed to America for Perry and Harris, and for the great courtesy of the American people to the first Japanese embassy of 1859. It was de- clared that one reason why Japan, unlike China, was free from " religious troubles," such as conflicts between adherents of Christianity and non-converts, was owing to many causes, but especially to one; namely, "the superior per- sonal character of those who first represented Occidental civilization in the fields of reli- gion and education " in Japan, of whom some were mentioned by name. " Japan," said the first speaker, "has definitely identified her- 240 FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 241 self with the Anglo-Saxon type of civilization which was characterized by its love of free- dom, equality, and progress." Count Okuma, the second speaker, showed how necessary for the success of Christian missions it was, that not only the pioneers, but also their successors, should be persons of high moral and intellectual char- acter. It was largely through the embassy of 1859 to the United States that English instead of Dutch became the standard foreign language, which has had such a far-reaching effect on the mental bias of the Japanese people, and the character of the national development. Then Bishop McKim proposed the formation of a Perry Memorial Relief Fund, in aid of the destitute families of Japanese sailors and soldiers. Over sixty-three thousand yen were raised on the spot. The meeting closed with Banzai (long live) and cheers, for Mikado and President, and singing of the hymn sung at Sabbath worship on Perry's flag-ship fifty years ago, " Before Jehovah's awful throne," and the national Japanese anthem. Thus was cele- brated the fiftieth anniversary of international friendship. Other similar associations for relief were formed by foreigners in Japan. Japan's Spiritual Poverty. u Charity is be- yond the pale of politics." In this spirit we survey the past and look to the future of the new life upon which Japan has entered. Her competition with other nations and types of civilization will be not only economic a7id military, as it is in this epoch of struggle with 242 DUX CHBISTU8 Russia, but on the nobler heights of moral excellence also. To maintain her career it will be necessary for Japan to draw, not only upon all her own resources, but to develop new forces and summon into existence new potencies. Ignoring political, military, and economic ques- tions, let us survey the situation from the view- point of morals and religion. How pitiful to think that the Japanese as a people have no God, and that many, in their ignorance and pride, think that they can get along without Him. The soldier, leaving na- tive land and home, to face death and eternity, can go to no divine Father to seek strength. He can only visit the graves of his fathers, or before an idol offer sacrifice. Even the rulers of the land pray only to that vague bundle of laws and forces called " Heaven." First of all, beyond locomotives, steamships, or gunpowder, the Japanese need God and real religion. As a native editor sadly writes, even after Japan had her constitution and Imperial Diet, " We have imported a great political machine, but we have not the moral oil to make it work." No splendor of modern civilization in Japan, in this day, after forty years of the diffusion of Christian influences, should blind the student of truth to the awful facts of Japanese paganism as they were in 1859, when the missionaries first arrived, nor to the spiritual destitution of to-day. Vice, crime, cruelty, disease, and wickedness in high and low places ran rampant. Superstition had reached terrible proportions. FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 243 A thousand years of oppression by the sword, while developing a ruling minority of soldiers, had made the majority of the people menial in spirit and cringing in attitude. About one-tenth of the population, paying no taxes or tolls, lived upon the sweat and labor of the working classes. About four hundred thousand men wore each a brace of sharp swords, which were used all too freely. These two-sworded gentlemen were too often ruffians and looked with contempt upon merchants and traders. Probably a million people, called eta and hi-nin, were considered below humanity. "Morses and beggars" washed in one pool. k - Brutes, dogs, and women " was the reading of many a prohibition at holy places. Gambling that kept gangs of men naked even in winter, beggary that filled the highroads with filthy and diseased importunates, disease that made sickening sights and often left long unburied carcasses in the road, were among things com- mon and seen by the writer in 1870. The obscenity of thought, word, and deed in com- mon life, in the popular literature, together with pubUc exhibitions of vileness even in the celebrations of religious functions, was startling. The standard of ethics between the sexes seemed in many ways to be below that of the Indians. There was among all classes little or no concep- tion of right for the sake of right. If it were of advantage to be honest, a man was honest. If dishonesty seemed a benefit, a man was dis- honest. The pagan festivals, temple taxes, and 244 DUX CHRISTUS assessments kept hundreds of thousands of priests, monks, nuns, and their hangers-on in comparative idleness. An enormous amount of land was owned by the temples and monasteries, and the revenues were spent in luxury by the priests of the hierarchy. The laws were exces- sively cruel and the punishments revolting. A common sight was that of heads cut off and exposed on pillories or set on posts, strapped on with iron and by nails driven into the skull. Witnesses were examined under torture, and the jails were cold and filthy. The Chinese theory that an accused man is guilty until he proves himself innocent was and is the rule. Disease of the foulest sort was prevalent and but slightly checked. The classes were marked off by rigid costume and severe sumptuary laws. In a word, not to multiply details, here were the Middle Ages with paganism rampant. While many evils were due to bad government and to hermit isolation, most of them could be set down to human sin and selfishness. Even in art there was no conception of the value of humanity as such, and sympathy for the lowly and suffering seemed lacking in the Japanese character. The Absence of a Just Sense of Personality. Down at the bottom, what real worship the Japanese had was ancestor worship. The sense of personality and of individuality, always weak where paganism rules, even yet makes the Japanese very anxious to preserve " the house," "the name," the blood line rather than the FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 245 person or the reality. One may often ask of a native near his home, with the Japanese words but in our idea, " How long have you lived here ? " and get the innocent, and, in the old view of things, a perfectly accurate answer, that might suggest that Methuselah was still around "Four or live hundred years." The house is everything, the individual nothing. One must ask, " How long have you, yourself, only, lived here ? " to get the answer that reality and appearances would suggest. A Japanese man looks with horror on his name or his house dis- appearing. " Why didn't Washington adopt a son, and save his house from dying out," asked a gentleman of Nippon of an American mission- ary, while of the writer one inquired, " Do the Americans worship Washington ? " So long as the Japanese keep up ancestral sacrifices, which they borrowed from the Chinese, they will be Oriental and like those from whom they bor- rowed, and not truly a modern, progressive people. One reason why so much of Japanese family and so-called national history is worth- less, is because, in examining it, we are dealing with so many mere names and shadows and not with things, persons, and realities. In most official books and history, " lineage," " geneal- ogy," " succession," "generation," mean next to nothing to a critical Western reader. We re- peat it with emphasis, that so long as the Japan- ese cling to this system, for which Buddhism and Chinese notions are so largely responsible, they will not be recognized either by courts, scholars, 246 DUX CHRISTUS or Christian people generally as intellectual or social equals. It is impossible to feel sympathy with or go into mourning for relatives, whether plebeian or imperial, who are such in name only. In a word, common honesty will improve both the commercial and the social reputation of any nation. The Moral Conflict. In the battle for Christ and his righteousness which the Japanese Chris- tians, aided by their friends and fellow-servants of Jesus from lands afar, are fighting, there are already arrayed the multitudinous forces of both light and darkness. Atheism, paganism, agnosticism, pride and conceit, false patriotism, intemperance, prostitution, lying, licentiousness, and manifold phases of evil confront holy zeal, purity, faith, chastity, truth, and the spirit and forms of righteousness in the individual, the family, and the nation. Nevertheless, there is abundant ground for hope, when we make sur- vey of the progress made since the whistle of the American steamers awoke old Japan out of her hermit sleep. So far from being jealous of the Japanese doing so much for themselves, let us rejoice and give thanks to God that instead of collision there have been ever grow- ing new resultants of forces, and that so much good has been wrought even though not in the name of Christ. The day will come yet when the Japanese, instead of ascribing results and giving all praise to earthly rulers and ancestors, will, with even increase of personal loyalty to their supreme ruler and obedience to the magis- FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 247 trate, give all glory to the King Eternal, to whom it belongs. Year by year the Japanese are outgrowing their narrow notions and insular character, and none but the God of the whole earth will suffice for them and us. As con- ceit melts away, deceit and self-deception will follow. The Christian Home. Nowhere are the re- sults of Christianity more evident than in the home. It is out of this spring that true national life flows. In the Christian home in Japan love and light rule. The sword is no longer the symbol of power here. Instead of a father who is a despot, overawing wife, children and various adopted kin, by both legal and brute force, we have one whose rule is in love. Authority is tempered by wisdom, and a sense of responsibility to the Father, after whom every fatherhood is named. The old idols, on the shelf, and in the alcove or ancestral tablet room, are gone. The degrading and debasing supersti- tions are forgotten and die from being untaught. Though respect is paid to the Japanese law, now based on the Code Napoleon, modified by native custom, the Christian Japanese family is one more like the institution of the same name in Christendom. The names father, mother, brother, sister, wife, child, and indeed the whole vocabulary of household duty and relation, have attained a new depth and perspective of power and meaning, while approaching the New Testa- ment standard. Even the language has been in part transformed by the indwelling of a new 248 DUX CHBISTUS spirit. There is much less of habitual and in- sincere flattery by syntax, prefix, and suffix, with less, also, of degrading and disgusting insinuation. The grovelling, deceitful, and oft spoken but unmeant subordination is much less noticeable than of old. " A man's a man for a' that " is getting to be more and more the fact accepted and believed. In old Japan the steps and grades of human and social value were numerous. Instead of less politeness, there is more Christian courtesy. Speech is less fulsome and also less degrading. The Christian husband, for example, does not speak of his wife as does the pagan, and he rightly defies a brutish custom that may do for Con- fucian China or Brahman India, but not for the new Japan. Marriage is according to Chris- tian form and is maintained in the Christian spirit, which means closer spiritual equality between man and wife, and greater helpfulness. It is not the relation of master and servant, or of " positive and negative," so much as comrade- ship, the one being " help meet " for the other. Reared in such an atmosphere, the children become new beings in character and out- look. The Larger Patriotism. The strongest forces in all Japanese history are reverence for the Mikado and patriotism founded upon the na- tional history and tradition. The delicate task of our fellow-workers for Christ in Japan is to show that Christianity knows no Asiatic or European, and has nothing to do with American, FOECES IN THE CONFLICT 249 Englishman, Russian, or Japanese, as such, but is for needy and sinful man, for Jesus is the Saviour of all that believe. On the other hand, there is nothing in Christianity, which, rightly interpreted and applied, conflicts with anything that is morally beautiful in the Japanese family or national life. All attempts of the pagans to bolster up Shinto, Buddhism, or Confucian- ism, as the religion for educated men, or to point out any real animosity between the teachings of Jesus and sound ethics, are doomed to failure. It is hard for men who have been so long hermits and whose minds are unphilosophical and matter- of-fact, to grasp the high ideals of Christ, or to give up the idea that Japan is the one centre of the universe ; but the light will dawn in spite of their fortified ignorance. For various reasons there have been ebb and flow, action and reaction, in the remaking of pagan into Christian Japan. The best missionaries do not observe the clouds but keep on sowing the seed. They hold out- ward influences less and preach and follow Christ more in both word and work. Untruthf ulness. Let us note the influences that are hostile to pure religion. There is the national love of untruthfulness, for it may be said that love of truth for its own sake is not the characteristic of the natural man anywhere, and the blush of shame is not yet, even in this " nation of artists," the usual concomitant of one's being caught in a falsehood. A tremendous revolution in language, literature, and social habits is necessary in order to make Japanese 250 DUX CHRISTUS reputation for truth increase, yet we are happy to say that such a revolution is in progress. Already the Bible and the thoughts gen- erated by a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures are powerfully affecting the common speech, and we believe slowly, but surely, personal and national character. Even the low standard of commercial integrity in Japan, so rank in the nostrils of the foreign merchant, the by- word of the civilized world, and in painful con- trast even to that of the Chinese, is improving. For the spirit of trickery in trade there are historical reasons. For centuries the trader was socially low. His bad repute was often too well deserved. Yet after all explanation and allowance, it is sadly true that the race to attain a high level of truth and honesty is even yet by the steps of the tortoise, rather than by the leaps of the greyhound. Nevertheless, the lesson of truth for its own sake is through sheer necessity being slowly learned. In freely pub- lishing facts and instilling lessons of frankness, the government of the Mikado has set a noble example as compared with the old secrecy, mys- tery, and official falsehood. Worldliness at the Seaports. One distinctly hostile influence which retards Christianity in Japan, and acts like perpetual winter in chill- ing missionary zeal and influence, is the life of many foreign residents at the seaports. We wrote, thirty years ago, concerning the inabil- ity of many tourists, temporary residents, and even old inhabitants to understand the mission- FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 251 ary's life, work, or purpose : " It is hard to find an average ' man of the world ' in Japan who has any clear idea of what the missionaries are doing or have done. Their dense ignorance borders on the ridiculous." The well-dressed people at hong, club, and dinner table, love dearly to catch items of stray gossip or slander concerning the human failings of the mission- aries. One woman, whose life in the East was wholly occupied with society functions, came home to tell how she had been " two years in Japan, and during all that time never saw one Japanese enter a Christian church." She had lived directly opposite an English church edifice, which Japanese do not attend, but had never entered nor inquired about any of the four or five hundred Japanese church edifices in the country. When in the country, I rarely heard of a foreign tourist or merchant going to see what was done by the missionaries or their congregations. Indeed, it is not likely that men whose lives are secretly or openly a*, variance with the plainest precepts of the re- ligion of Jesus should greatly care for what Christian missionaries are doing, except to op- pose them. Where heathen women are cheap and wives from home are costly, chastity is not a characteristic trait of the single men, nor are they likely to cooperate with those who would lift up womanhood and make it impossible for the Japanese to retain their low notions about one-half of their people. When both native and foreigner look upon every woman as a child 252 DUX CHBISTUS of God, and therefore as a sister, the social atmosphere of the seaports, so often charged with hostility to aggressive Christianity, as well as the world of paganism, will have a new spiritual climate. The Honorable Christian Merchant. On the other hand, relieving the picture, there are the honorable foreign merchants with their Chris- tian families and the Christian churches, mak- ing a community in hearty sympathy with the propagation of the gospel. These heartily second all real efforts to uplift the native popu- lation, to aid them in time of calamity and dis- tress, and to save the sailor from the saloon and place of vice. Not a few able and broad-minded missionaries have done a mighty work for God and man in bridging the gulf, not only between alien and native, but between the com- mercial and missionary elements. At the pres- ent time the contrast in social order and the practice of holiness in the seaports of Japan with the early days, when the worst elements of paganism at home and of nominal Christen- dom from abroad met together, is great. Then drunkenness and licentiousness, dishonesty and mutual distrust, ran riot. American kidnappers sold Japanese children into slavery, the govern- ment supposed that even " missionaries " were engaged in this nefarious traffic. The gain in mutual brotherhood and the improvement in morals and religion are wonderful and are causes of rejoicing. Enemies of Missions at Home. Looking at FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 253 our own home land, we note the conditions which make for the continuance of spiritual darkness in Japan. The worst enemies of missions are they who ignore or forget the commands of Christ. They are those so-called Christians at home who live in a narrow rut of spiritual ex- perience, who are devoid of sympathy and vision, whose devotion is of a shallow sort, and who do not want their consciences aroused or theii- pocket-books touched. Alas that there are so many millions of this narrow type ! Did the Master describe their negative quality, when he spoke of salt which had lost its savor ? Another antagonistic influence is the unfashionable- ness of foreign missions, which to many have become an old story, so that their lack of imagi- nation, of knowledge, and of broad human sym- pathy has to be overcome, and their indifference stirred by all the influences and means which prayerful enterprise can bring to bear. With the mad passion for wealth, display, and luxury, self-denial is not at a premium. The passion for dress, the mania for pleasure, and the organ- ization of amusements as an occupation instead of diversion, all militate against obedience to the spirit and letter of Christ's commands. Some- times this indifference to one's duty results di- rectly from the idle and often morbid curiosity of people who pretend to study Buddhism, or the ethnic religions. Most of these learn just about enough to paralyze their own faith and to make them dangerous to others. When the compara- tive study of religions is seriously attempted 254 DUX CHRISTUS and most earnestly and honestly pursued, our conviction is that we reach a profounder appre- ciation of the truth which Jesus taught and lived. In most cases, however, to flirt with Asiatic systems of philosophy and idolatry is, for most men and women of divided mind and shallow feeling, only like taking so much poison into their systems. The half -educated Japanese pagans are only too ready to mistake the atten- tion given to their dead or dying cults, to mag- nify its importance, and to make more difficult the path of the hard- worked missionary in Japan. Added to these drawbacks to missionary power, which we have already mentioned, is another cause that of withholding gifts for the Chris- tianizing or uplifting of the Christian world and the spending of money too lavishly on purely local or selfish matters. In some Christian de- nominations it is a scandalous fact, that as many as one-half of the congregations give nothing for foreign missions. Did these delinquents, who plead poverty or " so many calls at home," but know and believe it, unselfish interest in their fellows afar, who are without Christ, often re- freshes and revives weak and dying churches at home. More than once, in the history of the kingdom of Christ, has interest in foreign mis- sions saved the situation, when error, which breeds spiritual paralysis, had permeated the churches. The Returned Tourist. One notable influence chilling missionary zeal at home comes from a certain type of traveller, even from those tourists, FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 255 who have returned from Japan with the glamour of the geisha, the beauty of the scenery, the charm of art works, the pleasant impressions of the people and country still fresh upon them. Most of these smitten ones went out from their own land, having had previously, in all proba- bility, but a shallow experience of Christianity or knowledge of it as a world religion. With narrow outlook and cramped sympathies, they had been fed too scantily on the facts, and too liberally, perhaps, on the idea that the "heathen" are all a dirty and rough set. When therefore they found instead art, refinement, a love of beauty, and many charming traits in the Japanese, and things to be desired in their country and civilization, there came a revulsion of feeling. Now, there is not one element of value in the social, economic, artistic, or esthetical system of Japan worthy of praise or imitation, which we could wish for a moment to lessen or destroy. But the ways and words of these returned people, even though Christians so-called, are not calcu lated to make those who hear them more like the Master, or to help an unselfish enterprise like foreign missions. There are few travellers who spend a summer in the country, or few residents at the ports even for a year, who can know the reality of pagan Japan. Furthermore, in the novel, on the stage, and in the whole sensational literature generated by literary men who find Japanese women so cheap as well as so charming, there is bred an unwholesome malarial opinion. When will the day come that the Japanese will 256 DUX CHBISTUS be ashamed that such books, as we could name by the half dozen, can be written. Pagan Conceit. On pagan ground, hurtful influences ever militating against pure Chris- tianity spring from that conceit which, though not peculiar to Japanese human nature, is often overweening where the mind of the ignorant masses is not dominated by science. Living on an island for ages and imagining themselves the superiors of the whole world, the Japanese are unable to shake off all at once the feelings inherited during centuries. The towering, almost Fuji-yama-like pride of the natives, fed as it is by paganism, is an enemy to the cross of Christ. With slight sense of sin or moral demerit, they find it hard to understand what the real religion of Jesus is, or to see in it any beauty that they should desire. So long, too, as rank and office, medals and decorations, are so valued in Japan, and as long as their political system is so permeated with influences hostile to spiritual humility, it will be difficult for a man holding office and receiving public pay to be an humble Christian. Many an instance is known of young men of promise, whose Christian careers were blighted by accepting a government office and salary. The pagans know this only too well, and even overwork the argument that to be a Christian is to be recreant to patriotism. Narrow-minded bigotry in this way often over- leaps itself, revealing also its intense insular conceit and pettiness of spirit. Again and again has it been put to confusion, when men eminent FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 257 in all lines of ability and service to the sovereign and nation have lived and died as stalwart believers in evangelistic gospel and sincere followers of Jesus. Yet what we have stated is but temporary, and in the Christian Japan which is coming it will be less true. Even the conceited students and "scientific" men so-called, who think they can do without God, can be convinced by thoroughly trained Christian men, whose lives adorn the doctrines of the Lord Jesus. There are already in the highest departments of the government Christian men ; and, indeed, the number of those walking in the " Jesus Way,"' who are in influ- ence and power, is out of all proportion to the numbers of church members in the statistical lists. There are over one hundred and fifty officers in the army and navy, over a score who have sat in the Imperial Diet, besides leading judges, editors, publishers, merchants, whose Christian light is shining and whose colors are shown. Nor is there any reason why these should not increase, making for the stability of the throne, of law, and of order, and of the expan- sion of a great and prosperous nation that shall, in its future record, eclipse even the glories of this era of Meiji, enabling Japan, in the sharp- est competition with most powerful nations of earth, to hold her own in the general advance. The Freedom of Japanese Society. Happily there is no caste in Japan. There are grades of society, but there is nothing to hinder the poor- est commoner from becoming prime minister, 258 DUX CHEISTUS head of the army, navy, or judicial system. There is therefore none of that invincible apathy toward new life, light, or hope, which curses the people of some Asiatic countries. Nevertheless there is a strain of something like fatalism, which ever prevents the Japanese from becom- ing a truly great people, and which must be eradicated before they are fitted to become all they are capable of being. The common feeling of "it can't be helped" is the legacy of Buddhism, but Christianity, with its richer hopes and surer truth, will drive out this too frequent cry of despair. Happily for Japan, as compared with so much of Asia, she has no foreign conquerors, forcing either their good or evil upon her people. Happily too, thanks to Townseiid Harris, she has no opium. This Christian gentleman, who initiated the officers of the Shogun's government into the elementary principles of international law and custom, had a task, which, as Count Okuma says, "demanded as much patience as an attempt at coaching a primary school boy for a university course would demand." Thus, on the one hand, saved from many pitfalls in the path of foreign intercourse, Japan may congratu- late herself. On the other hand, sad to say, her education has been agnostic and pagan. Japan has tens of thousands of intellectual men who have broken with their past and who scorn idols, but who are devoid of moral foundation, with- out faith and without God in the world. So long as the Japanese man who calls himself cultured cares so little for the real bases of civ- FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 259 ilization, as found in the Christian religion and in those nobler studies, thoughts, and virtues, which have made the Christian nations what they are, there will always be an abyss between himself and the foreigner, which no mere meet- ings at the dinner table, or operations at the money counter, can bridge over. His economy, his passivity, his politeness, his industry, will indeed make him an interesting Oriental, clothed it may be in the broad world's general costume, but he will still be morally stunted and dwarfish when compared with the intellectual and spir- itual stature of Christian manhood. Solid Ground for Cheer. Looking already at what has been gained, there is every ground for hope and rejoicing. At home, despite the reign of luxury and selfishness, there are signs of promise, in an increasing perception of the unity of the race and the brotherhood of man, in a growing world-consciousness. Despite war, arbitration is making progress and the Palace of Peace at The Hague will yet have meaning and potency, because the international con- science is becoming more sensitive. The world- wide Christian Endeavor movement and the banding of young men and women in the Stu- dent Volunteer movement are cheering signs of the times. As on the world's mission field to- day there are workers in the fourth generation of missionary service, even so in Japan there are already children in the same length of in- heritance of Christian faith and ideals. Hap- pily the missionary movement is now linked 260 DUX CHRISTUS with education and training and backed by sys- tematic study and fresh information. The missionaries themselves form a more thoroughly equipped and disciplined company than in any preceding period. Indeed, Ave may say it with- out challenge that, take them as a class, they are the most highly educated men and women in any profession on earth. In Japan this fact is being appreciated as well as apprehended. Nevertheless, may the missionaries of to-day and the future never make education or abili- ties the substitute for Christian character, and ever remember the saintliness as well as abilities of the pioneers, and read therein the secret of their influence and power. Was it not a blessed providence that immediately on the opening of the country by the Harris treaty, consecrated missionaries were present, to be teachers, ad- visers, helpers, and, being in close relation to the men who made the present government, became foster fathers of that new nation, which we believe is yet to be wholly Christian? The missionaries gave precedents and object lessons, not only in school, hospital, dispensary, but in training of young men for representative and parliamentary government. They led the way in securing the abolition of persecution, in the reform of licensed prostitution and the abolition of female slavery, while creating a new moral atmosphere. Yet for the full regeneration of the country, we must not look to the foreigner, whatever be his gifts or graces, but to the na- tives ; for " Japan for the Japanese " is our cry also FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 261 and "the Japanese for Christ" is our hope and prayer. Happily in the character of the con- verts, in the teachers, preachers, pastors, and leading members of the church in Japan we have a rich augury. As statesmen, soldiers, reformers, they have in practical ability shown themselves the equal of their non-Christian fel- lows, while many have stood the severest tests of discipleship. We have not space to tell of the persecutions, ridicule, sneers, and pagan op- position lived down, and the mighty influences generated for Christ in private and public life. In multiplying Christian homes, in transforming social and moral ideals, in the churches, which are not only self-supporting but are missionary in spirit and act, giving abundantly out of their poverty in order to make their fellow-country- men Christians, and in the varied activities of the native home missionary societies, we see the coming in of the new day, while in the decay of the pagan system we see the passing of the night. Our Unique Time of Opportunity. The year in which this book goes forth, with its title as a prayer in brief also, Dux Christus may Christ be the leader of the nations, sees the hosts of Russia and Japan arrayed in war against each other. With the political issues we as Christians have nothing to do, and par- tisanship ill becomes the people of the republic that may be called upon in future to act as mediator for peace between European and Ori- ental nations. Let us rather watch the opening 262 LUX CHBISTUS of the gates of opportunity and enter joyfully therein. For years to come, there will be all the more need of our prayers, sacrifices, and labors for Japan. A veteran missionary writes in May, 1904 : " This war means for the near future, months and possibly years of depleted church treasuries, crowded but starving orphan- ages, closed schools, and embarrassment in mis- sionary work of all kinds, unless increased help comes from abroad. ... It is no time to talk of retrenchment. Forces and funds should rather be increased. The prayers and gifts of workers in America are needed as never before. . . . Stand by the missionary boards. . . . Remember the Japanese feeling is easily stirred now by the sympathy and assistance of foreign friends. . . . The iron is hot and a blow counts for much in bending to the right or the left. . . . America has a duty to perform. I believe she will rise in her strength and do it." A pagan Japanese never forgets an injury and to him revenge is sweet, but on the other hand the Christian Japanese never forgets a kindness, and now is the time to build for ourselves ever- lasting habitations of gratitude. When the Mikado's ambassadors in the great embassy round the world in 1872 found that for several years, during their civil war of 1868, the Japanese students left without funds in Amer- ica were sustained by a company of Christian ladies and gentlemen, who, with no hope of ever being repaid, met all their expenses, they in a letter to Dr. J. H. Ferris, secretary of the 263 missionary board, declared that this "gener- ous conduct . . . will do more to cement the friendly relations of the two countries than all other influence combined." Shall we not, then, instead of the order " Retrench," lift up the cry " Freely we have received, now let us freely give," and enter the five great gates of opportunity ? Into the evangelistic, educational, medical, charitable, and literary fields, may we bring with us what shall sustain these in their highest efficiency. The Spirit of the First Church. The declara- tion of those who founded the first Protestant Church in Japan in 1872 was this : " Our church does not belong to any sect whatever ; it believes in the name of Christ, in whom all are one ; it believes that all who take the Bible as their guide and diligently study it are the servants of Christ and our brethren. For this reason all believers on earth belong to the family of Christ in the bonds of brotherly love." Nor let us forget their spirit of self- support and self-propagation. We may safely trust the Christianity that supports itself as far as possible, remembering that the fifty thou- sand Protestant Christians in Japan gave a large proportion of the money which has reared the half million dollars' worth of church property already standing, and that in 1902 they raised over &60,000. Two Japanese missionary boards raise 1200 yen (^600) a year, supporting thereon fifteen missionaries. Rev. Paul Sawayama, the first Japanese pastor ordained in Japan, was 264 DUX CHEISTUS the pioneer of the gospel of self-support, and he has had many brave followers. Can there be a surer test of Christian sacrifice than that of these Christians, who hold to the Christ and his Cross even when it means self-denial, hunger, and impoverishment ? Of these self- supporting churches, some have a membership of over five hundred, and live and thrive with- out any foreign help in purse or pulpit. On the other hand, let us not forget that in the five hundred church edifices and in thou- sands of groups of believers that have no spe- cial building for worship, there is immediate and constant need of the foreign missionary as pastor, teacher, and provider, of the Bible woman who must be supported, and of the gifts and help from across the sea, in order to keep the lamp of truth brightly burning amid surrounding paganism, and for the training of the young and the maintenance, in manifold forms, of Christian activity. The great For- ward Movement, planned in 1900 and carried on during the Osaka Exposition of 1903, was national in its scope, forty-two out of forty- five provinces being reached. Over five thou- sand seekers after the way of salvation handed in their names as further inquirers after the truth in Christ. The visits of Messrs. Torrey, Mott, and Hale brought forward others who would see Jesus. These must be looked after. Whatever else is retrenched, the evangelistic work must be kept up and expanded. The heart of the nation is like wax and, in the FORCES IN TIIE CONFLICT 265 Father's name, we must stamp it with the image of Christ. Education, Past and Present. The gateway of educational work must be thrown wide open and entered. Grand was the pioneer Neesima, and his coworker Colonel Davis, who trusted his Japanese brother, " and they twain were of one purpose" which is the meaning of the word Doshisha, and the Christian university arose. No threats of assassination or howling of Buddhist priests could scare the soldier of Christ who had smelt powder, nor could any warnings from America that " the Japanese were not to be trusted in money matters " daunt him. Putting the American cash and property under Japanese control, the school opened in 1875, having eight pupils and two teachers, and the work was consecrated with the tender, tearful, earnest prayer of this Christian samurai. Surviving all storms within and without, the Doshisha has graduated a regi- ment of Christian soldiers, most of whom to- day stand on the high places of usefulness, faithful to the Great Captain. Who can for- get also the work of that other Union veteran, President \V. S. Clarke of the Agricultural College in Sapporo in Yezo, who, though but six months in that city built in the wilderness, shaped the future and character of his pupils witli an amazing potency, which still abides, widening and deepening. Of his two classes, thirteen of the first received baptism and nearly all the second class became Christians. Over 266 DUX CHRISTUS a score have since taken degrees in European and American universities. Among these men of high ideals and noble character are Dr. Nitobe, author of " The Intercourse between the United States and Japan," and " Bushido, the Soul of Japan," Uchimura, author of "The Diary of a Japanese Convert," and the president of the institution, Dr. Sato, who is a prominent man in the Methodist Church. Another pioneer educator was Captain L. L. Janes, the head of the Kuinamoto school, and teacher of "the Kumamoto Band," who was met at first by insult and glaring hatred. He discovered and frustrated a plot to kill him and his pupils, who later consecrated them- selves to richer Christian service. Under such " beginners of a better time " and more like them, have been educated other followers of Jesus, thorough patriots, who, though some- times severe and critical of foreign ways, are stalwart believers in Christ and true witnesses of him. To-day there are the splendid Meiji Hall of Learning, St. Paul's College, and other institutions in Tokio and the large cities, giv- ing higher training to young men. With at least a dozen large boys' schools, eleven theo- logical schools, with seventy-eight day schools, including kindergartens, there are over ten thousand pupils of both sexes under Christian instruction. Why should there not be fifty thousand, and what would such an increase mean for the next generation? The Triumph for Woman's Education. Tak- FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 267 ing long views and looking to the future, we discern that the slowest processes may be the best. While it is impressive to behold the posts of public activity and influence filled with Christian men of education and character, yet for the making of a Christian nation, no work is more fruitful, in the long run, than the edu- cation of girls and the saving of the home for Christ. Christian women have seen this. To- day the number of unmarried missionary ladies is said to be greater than that of all the mar- ried men and their wives. Hence, the sowing of Japan with Christian girls' schools. This is all the more significant, because in the gov- ernment scheme, while statistics show that over eighty per cent of the boys are at school in the middle grades, there are but forty-seven per cent of the girls, while in the higher courses there is only one girl to seven boys. At Sendai a government officer said: "You missionary ladies have done a vastly greater work for Japan than you ever dreamed of. Our government had no hope for success in establishing girls' schools until we were in- spired by your successes. You have been to us as timely reinforcements to a discouraged army, and without your example there would be no growing system of higher female educa- tion." President Naruse, the man who con- ceived the idea of the Woman's University in Tokio, with its eight hundred students, and amid much opposition and discouragement so splendidly carried it out, is a man of Christian 268 DUX CHRISTUS faith. There are now in Japan thousands of women who in girlhood were brought under the influence of Christian teaching and now live with vastly higher ideals of the home than in days within our memory. They are steadily helping to create that public opinion which has found expression in the new Civil Code of Japan, in which the word concubine does not occur, and which limits the old despotism of parental authority, allowing grown men at thirty and women at twenty-five to marry even without parental consent. The new code provides also for the making of wills. This in time will kill the abominable system of adop- tion that prevails in Japan, upsetting our ideas of heredity, self-respect, and even decency, and violating the true idea of a family. In- stead of the surprise and opposition of thirty years ago, there is now a yearning for woman's education throughout the whole nation. What woman's trained intellect and multiplied power of hands, added to the old virtue of sacrifice, can do in war time, is seen in organization and manifold adaptiveness of effective effort that would surprise those ignorant of the Japanese woman's abilities. Let us re enforce all the agencies that lift up one-half of Japan ! The Field for Medical Work. Let none sup- pose that because medical science in Japan has been so fostered by the government, the medi- cal profession so honored and embraced by am- bitious young men and because the publicly supported hospitals are so numerous and so FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 269 well equipped, that Christians need do nothing in this field of opportunity. We must not for- get the mighty initiatory work of Dr. Hepburn, whose gentle ministrations were as ram's horns' blasts to level the wall of hatred, bigotry, preju- dice, nor that of Dr. Berry, who showed that the physician could go where the clergyman could not, thus opening towns in which churches soon sprung up, and who began the first prison re- form and first training school for nurses, nor of Taylor, or Palm, and others whose names are noted in "America in the East." Yet we must not forget how wide is the opportunity, in that all that is given by combined government and private aid in Japan does not yet amount to over a million of dollars a year, as compared with eighty millions in the United States. We must not only sustain and enlarge Christian medical missions in benevolence and sympathy, but remember in this, as in so many lines of humanitarian work, we are creating the public opinion which will create and sustain the gov ernment in even grander leadership of develop- ment, and thus we help to educate rulers and people to greater efforts. Dr. W. N. Whitney showed that in 1900, after fifteen years of work, about twenty thousand people had come under Christian influences as patients, and of those scores had been converted. Even better yet, Christian Japanese physicians catch this spirit of loving service, hold meetings for nurses and patients in Christ's name, and thus diffuse in- fluences which bring in the new world of love. 270 DUX CHBISTUS Besides the fourteen Protestant hospitals and dispensaries serving about thirty thousand pa- tients in a year, there are also the seventeen Catholic dispensaries. This gate of opportunity, at first view seem- ingly small, opens on a boundless field. As we traverse it, we see another gate of opportunity, that of charitable work, and here in Japan we note one of the great moral revolutions of the world wrought within fifty, perhaps we might say in thirty, years. The Japanese are as a nation getting to have what they did not have be- fore, ideas, and a conscience concerning their duty to the blind, the insane, the starving poor, the orphans, the outcast and criminals. When first in Tokio, I remember reading, with, I con- fess, an irreverent and comical feeling, the notice boards, especially the one that hung right under the anti-Christian edict and sandwiched in be- tween the old text and the new proclamation. It read: " Human beings must carefully practise the principles of the five social relations. Charity must be shown to widowers, widows, orphans, the childless, and sick." Why widowers should be first pitied was not clear, and why the starv- ing and hungry were not thought of seemed strange. In pagan Japan hospitals, orphanages, schools for the insane, blind, and dumb, system- atic or voluntary famine relief, reform of the criminal, tender relief of the sick paupers, were practically unknown. The Japanese were be- nevolent, but only in a narrow way. They an- swered the question, "And who is my neighbor?" FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 271 ill the spirit of Confucius, not of Jesus. Now, thanks to the statistics of Dr. J. H. Pettee, we see that the Christians of Japan have thirty-one orphanages, four homes for discharged prison- ers, three blind asylums, three leper hospitals, two homes for the aged, five schools for the Ainos, four free kindergartens, ten industrial schools, ten other schools for the poor, ten board- ing-houses for students, and fourteen hospitals. That is to say, a fraction, one two hundred and fiftieth part of the population of the empire, support about one-fourth of the organized be- nevolence of the land, and that fraction of people consists of the Christians. The New Spirit of Benevolence. In the old famine days, no help came into the regions of starvation from other quarters. "Even Bud- dhists with their beautiful teachings of mercy would offer no help." But so great have been the inductive influences of the West upon the Japanese, that their narrow ideas and charity have been so enlarged that not only has the Red Cross Society in Japan the largest membership in the world, but the people in general now actually respond to appeals for relief for the sufferers from earthquakes, tidal waves, and famine in distant places. These appeals are heard, and contributions made from all parts of the empire. For example, two years ago, when the rice crop failed at the northern end of the main island, and over a hundred thousand people were reduced to the verge of starvation, a Roman Catholic missionary published an account of the 272 DUX CHRISTUS state of affairs. At once the foreigners at the seaports made a generous contribution. At first the Japanese were slow to take up the subject, but the little ball once started, an avalanche of gifts rolled down. The newspapers began sub- scriptions, and the emperor's contribution of $11,000 and that of two millionnaires, each for $5000, handsomely quintupled the foreigners' gift of $12,000. Not only did the Japanese give liberally to the Doshisha university in Kioto, but the great Ishii orphanage of Okayama, first inspired by the example of George Muller of Bristol, begun in 1887, and now caring for two hundred and thirty -six children, has gained a list of over ten thousand sustaining Japanese mem- bers, who pay one yen a year. As many pupils as are now in the Home have been graduated to be- come useful members of society. The children themselves, with their stereopticon expositions and band concerts, earned in one year over $7000, and the emperor has decorated Mr. Ishii the founder. Prison Reform. One of the most Christlike features of Christian work is the reform of dis- charged prisoners. The government, seeing the value of saving to society as many as possible of the one hundred thousand prisoners yearly in- carcerated, have encouraged this work. Out of five hundred welcomed to Mr. Hara's Home in Tokio, four-fifths have become honest men and many of them Christians. Count Okuma gave a chrysanthemum party in aid of the Home, and raised three thousand yen in one day. The FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 273 government allows prison chaplains and the circulation of Christian books and literature. Mr. Tomioka, who learned his noble craft in the reformatories of New York and New England, after having made one of the Tokio prisons the model for the empire, was appointed in- structor in the School for the Training of Prison Officials. He has also started model schools and farms for saving and educating children who might become criminals. The govern- ment has taken up the enterprise of teaching the blind and caring for the insane. Progress will be according to the advancement of public opinion. Shall we not reenforce all these forms of endeavor in Christ's name ? The Great Literary Opportunity. Last but not least, the gateway of literary opportunity stands open wide. Once it was death to give the Japanese new ideas or to print the truth. I landed in Japan when it had not one news- paper or magazine, and to issue a Christian tract, or part of the Bible, meant imprisonment and confiscation of property. The first tract, a translation from the Chinese of Dr. D. B. McCartee's " Easy Way of Understanding Christianity," had to be printed secretly. The first original tract in Japanese, by Dr. Davis, saw the light only after tremendous difficulties overcome, but it was circulated in ten thou- sand copies within a decade. The missionaries quickly saw the benefit of the printing-press and sent the leaves of healing and truth all over the empire, so that now there are four hundred 274 DUX CHRISTU8 different tracts, of which millions of pages are printed annually. The Japanese are eager to read, and some native publishers find that they can actually make a living by issuing Christian literature. After the tracts came the books in translation, Dr. W. A. P. Martin's famous work on the "Evidences of Christianity" lead- ing off. After nearly thirty years of conse- crated labor the Bible in Japanese was ready, and the winged word of God flew over the empire. Yet how can one study the Bible without helps, or the preacher or the teacher preach and grow without a library ? Dr. Hepburn prepared the first Bible Dictionary, and Dr. D. W. Learned has given fifteen scholarly volumes of commentary on the whole New Testament. The vernacular library of Japanese Christianity, whether translations or originals, is now creditably full. Its contents range from the most learned works in all departments of theological science down to " The Common People's Gospel," of which ten thousand copies were sold within three years. Nearly every phase of Christian literature is now expressed in the Japanese, and the adver- tising lists of the native publishing companies make interesting reading. In Tokio, the Metho- dists support an establishment on the Ginza, or main street in Tokio, in whicli fifty persons are employed. The Japan Evangelist, the common organ of all branches of the Christian church in Japan, is a monthly which should be widely taken in America. The biographies of great FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 275 men and women, especially of those who have served, the Lord Jesus in high stations, are widely read by thousands of Japanese outside the church, who are thus led to inquire into the secret of holy and forceful lives, and who sooner or later study the Book which has made Chris- tian nations great. Periodical Christian lit- erature also flourishes. While the vernacular newspaper of each mission is supported with missionary money, there are able Christian editors who have made evangelical periodicals pay. But far more important than anything that foreign missionaries can write are the literary productions of native Christians, who, having experienced the grace of God, use the language as if it had been baptized unto new power by the Holy Spirit. There are Christian writers on the staff of the so-called secular press who in attractive language preach Christian truth, and thus call many into the holy path. Then there are a dozen or more eloquent preachers of the gospel who beyond their pul- pits reach tens of thousands through the printed page. Christian professors in the universities, statesmen and members of the imperial Diet, have written books, rich in ethical instruction and loyal to Christ. Surely not the last, so long as the parables of Jesus are our model, is the use of fiction in enforcing Christian truth. In the new Japanese romance and novel the themes and ideals first set fortli by Jesus are presented just where and how millions, who would not read a serious book, can be filled 276 DUX CHEISTUS with new ideas. In the novels informed with the spirit of Christianity some of the pro- foundest practical questions are treated, and the search-light of the teachings of Jesus thrown on the whole field of Japanese life. Christian Association Work. Other gates of opportunity are open for the Young Men's Christian Association work. In the capital, besides one hundred and twenty-five Christian houses of worship, is the imposing brick edi- fice for the helping and saving of young men, with its five foreign and two Japanese secre- taries, devoted to religious and social work. Of this the American minister, Colonel A. E. Buck, said, " There is perhaps no other build- ing in Tokio that stands more prominently before the general public as an index of organ- ized Christianity." The lectures delivered in its great earthquake-proof hall by noblemen, famous visitors, men of science, statesmen, business men, and leading preachers are published and widely circulated. An endowment fund is needed, and every large city ought to have such an associa- tion and edifice. If this be so for the men, why not the same for the women also ? The Christian Endeavor Movement. But as the Japanese secretary of a Christian Endeavor Society says : " A church can't be lively without young folks any more than a family can be. . . . You can't get work out of the young un- less they are organized." In 1886 the mission- ary children of one of the missions agreed to a simple pledge, and to-day there are about eighty FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 277 Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor. Why should there not be a thousand societies of this, or some equally useful organization for the training of young people in work for Christ and the Church ? So with the varied forces of the great army of Christ the work goes on, but in a campaign there is constant need of reinforcements and supplies, and " there is no discharge in that war." This is good scripture for the Christian. Instead of " retrench," let our battle cry be along the whole line of organization at home " reenforce." Appeal to the Christian Women of America. - Finally, we appeal to the Christian women of America to cease no prayer or effort in behalf of their sisters in the island empire, for Japan is woman's land of hope for Asia. Despite the shadows yet remaining on the moral land- scape, the changes wrought within fifty years in Japan's attitude to women seem miraculous. Both to Perry and Harris, the determined words of the Yedo government were, "No foreign women allowed in Japan." The Confucian envoy of 1853 even wished to put this prohibi- tion into the treaty, which proposition Perry bluntly refused. Paganism in any and every form had no word of hope for Japan's daugh- ters. Buddhism taught that if perfectly fulfil- ling the law on earth, a woman might inherit joy hereafter only by being reborn as a man. Con- fucianism knew her only as a thing for use or contempt. Yet as compared with other Asian 278 DUX CHRISTUS lands, how happy her life, how high her position ! Behold in our day the wonderful transforma- tion in public opinion ! The consort of the Mikado is an empress, not in the old shadowy sense, but while honored as no other Japanese empress ever was, is a real model in personality, character, and influence for the women of the na- tion. How hopeful is the people so marked by an open-mindedness and willingness to change tradition for truth, prejudice for new light, and old customs for genuine reform ! To-day, while over three million boys are at school, there are also over two million girls, and of the ninety-two thousand teachers in the country, twelve thou- sand, and in the higher schools two-thirds of the teaching force, are women. All over the land women's clubs are springing up, and this must mean a leavening of the neighborhoods and the raising of public taste and opinion wher- ever their local habitation may be. Yet let us beware of supposing that intellectual light and social advantages mean necessarily moral purity or spiritual elevation. Indeed, it is an open secret that in the interest of idolatry, priestcraft, and a false philosophy that ignores the Creator, the Buddhist priesthood have closely imitated Christian methods and institu- tions. They are determined to hold the nation in thrall, and they are subtle enough for any- thing in mind-stuff or in handicraft. In the long run, our great conflict will be with these men who can make the worse appear the better rea- son. Indeed, they would gladly adopt Jesus FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 279 Christ as a new avatar or incarnation of the Buddha, and are quite ready to seize the levers of Christian machinery in order to hold all forces under their own control. However bright the picture in spots, gross darkness yet lies upon the land. The forces of evil are not easily vanquished. Of the one-half of the Japanese people, twenty-five millions of souls in Japan, only a few thousands at best are as yet touched by gospel light. The overwhelm- ing majority lie in superstition and are still in the low estate in which both moral and immoral slavery is possible. Looking at the realities, the author would urge, as his closing words, what he has so often with the living voice begged Christian women to do, and that is to relax no prayer or effort for their sisters in Japan, and to toil on in wisdom and in love in this field, where success is surely waiting. It is said of one who bears an increasingly shining name in our country's history, that when once, as a young man, he saw iniquity sheltering itself under what was called an " institution," he de- clared that if ever he had an opportunity, he would "smite it hard." Our appeal is to Christian women smite paganism hard ! Only in the Christ lands has woman any hope of entering into her full inheritance, as help- meet for man, as fellow-sharer of the image of God, as co-worker with Christ. Until the love of God reigns by faith in the hearts of the whole .Japanese nation, we need not expect Japanese womanhood to reach the exalted position of 280 DUX CHRISTUS honor and usefulness which woman occupies in our own land. May the Master be able to say of each individual worker in his Name, " She hath done what she could." FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 281 LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS A WOMAN'S INSIGHT Japan has set the doors of her secret shrines ajar so that we can at any rate take the first step in wisdom and realize how little we know. Those who, like myself, have had the privilege of spending long years in the country, with liberty to " visit any spot and remain in it for any length of time," become gradually aware of the many-sided and complex character of the people, simple to frankness, yet full of unexpected reserves, of hidden strengths, and dignities of power never flaunted before the eyes of the world. . . . That which you expect from them is that which they would wish to show you, and very likely all that you will ever see. But if any shared emotion suddenly draws you closer together, then the veil is rent away, you behold the springs of action, and, lo ! they are those which have swayed you in the best moments of your life; and, if you are honest and humble- minded, you will say in your heart, " Brother, I misjudged thee. Perhaps thou art as near to wisdom and to love as I ! " MRS. HUGH FUASER. THE PU:A OK A JAPANESE Yet we wonder and stand dismayed sometimes before the curious misconceptions of our real motives which obtain in European countries and here, also, in certain circles. It is true that American scholarship has been the foremost to elucidate our civilization, that American statesmen are conversant with the inner significance of our politics, that in the field of art America can boast of the finest collections of Japanese work outside of Japan. Hut to those who have not studied the mental history of the Japanese revival, the attitude of the Island Empire must ever remain a paradox. To them it can be but the country of flowers and ironclads, of dashing heroism and delicate teacups, the strange borderland where quaint 282 DUX CHEISTUS shadows meet each other in the twilight of the Old and the New World. They are apt to forget that the same untiring spirit which creates the subtle beauty of the pottery of Satsuma guides us also in the thorough, extreme care we now bestow upon our war equipment. And our love for the cherry blossom, which we cherish as the national emblem, is not only for its jewelled efflorescence, but for the freedom with which it gives itself to the winds in glorious self-sacrifice. KAKUZO OKAKURA. THE RESOLUTION OF THE FIRST MISSIONARY CONFERENCE, 1872 Whereas the Church of Christ is one in him, and the diversities of denominations among Protestants are but accidents, which, though not affecting the vital unity of believers, obscure the oneness of the church in Christen- dom and much more in pagan lands, where the history of the divisions cannot be understood ; and whereas we, as Protestant missionaries, desire to secure uniformity in our modes and methods of evangelization so as to avoid as far as possible the evil arising from marked differ- ences ; we therefore take this earliest opportunity offered by the Convention to agree that we will use our influence to secure as far as possible identity of name and organi- zation in the native churches in the formation of which we may be called to assist, that name being as catholic as the Church of Christ, and the organization being that wherein the government of each church shall be by the ministry and eldership of the same, with the concurrence of the brethren. DR. S. R. BROWN. It is by interpreting a people's traditions, by carefully listening to the mysterious teachings of the wise men who, in remote ages, guided its infancy, that one is apt to discover the early promise of its future. LE GENDRE. The moral world is also a magnet with its two oppo- site poles on the opposite banks of the Pacific, the demo- FORCES IN TIIE CONFLICT 283 cratic, aggressive, inductive America, and the imperial, conservative, and deductive China. There have been constant attempts for the union of these magnetic cur- rents. . . . Grander tasks await the young Japan, who has the best of Europe and the best of Asia at her com- mand. At her touch the circuit is completed, and the healthy fluid shall overflow the earth ! UCHIMURA. To reconcile the East with the West ; to be the advocate of the East, and the harbinger of the West : this we believe to be the mission which Japan is called upon to fulfil. UCHIMURA. PRAYER FOR UNITY Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who hast pur- chased an universal Church by the precious blood of Thy Sou, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us into the same, and made us members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. Look now we beseech Thee upon Thy Church, and take from it division and strife and whatsoever hinders godly union and concord. Fill us with Thy love, and guide us by Thy Holy Spirit that we may attain to that oneness for which Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, prayed on the night of His betrayal, who with Thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen. T firmly believe we must have religion as the basis of our national and personal welfare. No matter how large an army or navy we may have, unless we have righteous- ness at the foundation of our national existence we shall fall short of the highest success. I do not hesitate to say that we must rely upon religion for our highest wel- fare. And when I look about me to see what religion we may best rely upon, I am convinced that the religion of Christ is the one most full of strength and promise for the nation and the individual. BARON MAK.JIMA. 284 DUX CHRISTUS There are several advantages to be born a heathen. Heathenism I consider as an undeveloped stage of hu- manity, developable into a higher and perfecter stage than that attained by any form of Christianity. There are perennial hopes in heathen nations still untouched by Christianity ; hopes as of the youth venturing for life grander than that of all his predecessors. And though my nation is more than two thousand years old in history, it is yet a child in Christ, and all the hopes and possibili- ties of the future lie shrouded in its rapidly developing days. Thrice thankful am I that I can witness many such days. Then I could feel the power of the New Truth more. What to the " born Christian " sounded as time- worn commonplaces, were to me new revelations, and called forth from me all the praises sung perhaps by our first parents, when, " 'Neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of Heaven, came, And lo! creation widened in man's view." In myself I could witness the changes and progress of the eighteen Christian centuries, and when I came out of all my strifes, I found myself a sympathetic man, ac- quainted as I was with all the stages of spiritual develop- ment from idol worship up to the soul's emancipation in the crucified Son of God. Such visions and experiences are not vouchsafed to all of God's children, and we who are called in the eleventh hour have at least this privilege to make up for all the loss of having remained in darkness so long. . . . The raison d'etre of Christian missions? I think I have stated it already. It is the raison d'etre of Christianity itself. Said David Livingstone : " The spirit of missions is the spirit of our Master, the very genius of his religion. A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It re- quires perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness." Once it ceases to propagate, it ceases to live. Have you ever thought why it is the God leaves so large a part of the human race still in the darkness of heathenism? I FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 285 think it is that your Christianity may live and grow by your efforts to diminish the darkness. . . . Indeed I can say with all truthfulness that I saw good men only in Christendom. Brave men, honest men, righteous men, are not wanting in heathendom, but I doubt whether good men, by that I mean those men summed up in that one English word which has no other equivalent in any other language: gentleman, I doubt whether such is possible without the religion of Jesus Christ to mould us. "The Christian, God Almighty's gentleman." he is a unique figure in this world, inde- scribably beautiful, noble, and lovable. KAXZO UCHIMURA. His MA.TKSTY, THE EMPEROR, MUTSUHITO Politically and actually the emperor leads his country- men in new ways, and is, in truth, a man of strong and fine character, one of the most upright and progressive sovereigns of the world. It was innate power that made him what he is, for his boyhood was spent in demoral- izing inaction under the tutelage of the Shogun, heredi- tary regent and first subject of the throne. Until he was sixteen, it is said, the emperor was carried from room to room ; he never stood on his feet or even fed himself. But when freedom came at that age he sprang to those u:i- used feet with a bound, rid himself and his country of the weakening Shogun ate, and has since then steadily pressed forward in the van of civilization, readily limiting his own power by the granting of a parliament and a con- stitution, and in all things considering his country before himself. He may firstly be esteemed a patriot in the loftiest sense of the word. EARLY GIFTS AND PRAYERS FOR JAPAN The American Board has recently received a legacy of $500 by the will of Mrs. Sarah B. 'Fisher, late of West- boro, Mass., who made this donation, as she expresses it 286 DUX CHE1STUS in her will, " having a desire to do all I can for the cause of Christ." This bequest calls to rnind again a remarkable incident in missionary history. Mrs. Fisher was one of the origi- nal members of a circle formed fifty-five years ago (1829), at Brookline, Mass., which had for its object the evangeli- zation of Japan. More than forty years before the American Board sent its first laborer to Japan, while that empire was absolutely closed against foreigners, and when almost nothing was known concerning its condition or its people, this company of godly women met regularly to labor and pray for that distant land. They laid aside their gifts for a mission for more than a.generation before it was begun. Many have wondered how it happened that such a deep interest in a country so entirely isolated from the civilized world should have been awakened in the minds of the members of that sewing-circle. It is said that a curiously wrought Japanese basket, on the table of the Christian merchant (Hon. William Ropes) at whose house they met, was the occasion of their choos- ing this particular object for their gifts and prayers. But how many have seen rare and beautiful articles brought from distant and pagan lands, and yet have not been moved to pray and toil for the people of those lands ! These Christian hearts saw behind that basket the hands that made it, and though they knew so little about the dwellers in that mysterious island, they knew this much that they needed the light of the gospel. What though the doors were closed and barred, and the Japanese put a price on the head of any one who should be suspected of harboring a Christian these women be- lieved that these people were yet to be evangelized. Was not Japan one of those " uttermost parts of the earth " which were given to Christ for a ',' possession "? And so they brought their gifts and offered their prayers for the Japan mission, when as yet there was not one ray of light except from God's Word. It was the instinct of Chris- tian love which guided them ; the same holy impulse, wiser than the wisdom of men, which led to the breaking of the alabaster box at the Saviour's feet. FORCES IN THE CONFLICT 287 The association formed at Brookline during the years of its existence paid into the treasury of the American Board over $ 600 for Japan. Before the time had arrived when the money could be expended for the purpose for which it was given, it amounted, with the interest, to 410-1.23, which sum was set apart for the beginning of tiie mission. Were there not prayers as well as alms which came up for a memorial before God respecting this mission ? There is something amazing about the opening of Japan and the progress of the empire within the past fifteen years. The political and social changes are not more marvellous than are those of a religious character. Not only are the doors open, but there is to-day no theme of more popular interest than Christianity. How can all this sudden transformation be accounted for? No Chris- tian can doubt that the hand of God is in it. May we not believe that he who, while governing nations, yet has respect unto the cries of his people, did remember the faith and prayers of those who, in the days of its dark- ness, pleaded for Japan ? Christ, when on earth among men, wrought miracles it-hen he saw their faith. Was not the faith of these women who prayed and gave for Japan, as wonderful as was that of the centurion, at which Christ marvelled? And have we not all seen a miracle happening in the land for which they prayed? E. E. STRONG, in The Missionary Herald (1883). 288 DUX CHRISTUS THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION. I. The Christian Samurai, Man and Woman. II. The United States as Mediator of Peace between Nations. III. Leaders of Thought and Action in Japan. IV. Issues and Results of the Russo-Japanese War. V. Outlook for Japanese Woman in the Twentieth Century. VI. Results of a Defective Sense of Personality. VII. The Christian Merchant at the Seaports. VIII. Baneful Influence of Nominal Christianity in Pagan Lands. IX. Japan's Moral Progress in a Half-century. X. The Spirit of Unity in Japanese Missions. XL Japan's Educational Record in Forty Years. XII. Japan a Factor in the Reconciliation and Union of the Orient and Occident. LIST OF BOOKS W. P. Watson. "Japan: Aspects and Destinies." E. P. Dutton & Co. (1904.) Alfred Stead. "Japan To-day." E. P. Dutton & Co. (1902.) M. L. Gordon. " Thirty Eventful Years in Japan." Boston, A. B. C. F. M. (1900.) L. Hearn. " Kokoro." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (1896.) C. Laninan. " Leading Men of Japan." D. Lothrop Co. (1883.) M. Huish. " Japan and Its Art." Fine Arts Society. London. Louis Gorse. " Japanese Art." Belford Clarke Co. (1891.) A. C. Maclay. "Mito Yashiki : A Tale of Old Japan." G. P. Putnam's Sons. (1889.) G. Curzon. " Problems of the Far East." Longmans & Co. (1894.) W. E. Griffis. "In the Mikado's Service." W. A. Wilde Co. (1901.) APPENDIX TWENTY-ONE LEADING MISSIONARY PERIODICALS Assembly Hemlil (Pros.), U. S. Baptist Missionary Magazine (A. B. M. U.), U. S. Chronicle London Missionary Society, England. Church Missionary Intelligencer (C. M. S.), England. Foreign Missionary Tidings (Pres.), Canada. Friends' Missionary Advocate (Friends), U. S. Helping Hand (W. B. F. M. S.), U. S. The Japan Evangelist (Interdenominational), Tokio, Japan. Life and Light for Women (Woman's Board, Cong.), U. S. Messenger and Record (Pros.), England. Mission Studies (Board of Interior, Cong.), U. S. Missionary Gleaner (Dutch Reformed), U. S. Missionary Herald (Cong.), U. S. Missionary Link (Woman's Union), U. S. Missionary Outlook (M. E.), Canada. Missionary Review of the World (Interdenominational), U. S. Missionary Tidings (Christian). U. S. Spirit of Missions (P. E. Church). U. S. Woman's Missionary Friend (M. E.), U. S. \\'(nan's Work for Woman (Pres.), U. S. Women's Missionary Magazine (United Free Church), Scotland. 290 APPENDIX X X CQ O ~ cc H 02 P5 -g (Plo2) og-| = uaX x -ne^ ni JB8^ aqi ^uunp sasodand n J oj suBi}8[jqo 9A|^x J saopnqp^uoo o 1 1 1 ii 1 1 1 M cT CO dpisaeqraaj^ inPV WX 1 1 IS 1 1 1 c? 8681 'siaeAnoo ?inpy paztidBg M ISM 1 3! 89qoanqQ pazjaBSaQ 1 1 l 1 1 1 uamoAv-9[qig i -* i sjad[9g pue 8J9qat>9J c j paatcpjouf^ I! l| 1 II SJ9J8lUl^ 9AIJBX 1 1 IS II 1 K)U9pnjs it!Di3o[09qx 1 IS I 01 1 sjooqog 3nipjBog pac X(j n; s[]dnj |2 iSS r-f 1 CO ' euoiii8-4no S3 5 IS IS suopmg OOOi-io - :. SSAIAV Sinpnpuj j^ox (Mi t I t->*O OCC T^ 1 S ugaioAv p9U4iunn 00^1 00 I -**- S9t*K t-OO- I O 1 * ucdsf uj IBAUJ v jo JTJ9.J. CS Ci -rf O C ^- b- *1 ^ h- 1- 1 00 fr t OO OD CO OO 1 Cfi Of) CO " o .... o &< Name of Mission Presbyterian Chnrch of the United States Keformed Ch\irch in America . . . United Presbyterian Church of Scotland Keformed Church in the United States The Church of Christ in Japan . . . Presbyterian Church in the United States Women's Union Missionary Society, U.S Cumberland Presbyterian Church . . APPENDIX 291 < I ej c I I I c:' -M' -r -t I t- to o i- r5 1- o I S5 I I ' "~ '~ 3 o ! - - -. = -N ' M ~4 J; a ,-i ,-. -r co ,-. I ti c I it-coo I rc^" I I O -f -1 I I T-c : i I ?? I I I S2co I g? e'oSSS 33 I I I "* I I I " >*, -J . 2 o c ? fe 'S=~ 'J A O 3Q O < P OD U K , 91, 159. Mount Morrison, 16, 32. Mountains, 12. Murray, Dr. David, 82. Music, 214. Mutsuhito, 74, 79, 80-83. Nagasaki, 70, 168, 174. Nakamura, 78, 167. Names of Japan, 8. Naruse, President, 267. Neeshima, 2(55. Netherlands, 12. Nicolai, 36. Nihongi, 28. Nippon Sei Kokwai, 170. Nirvana, 119. Nitobe, I., 9(5, 97, 233, 266. Nobunaga, 64. Nurses, 197, 269. Oath of emperor, 80, 81. Okakura, K., 282. Okuma, Count, 241, 258, 272. Opium, 258. Orphanages, 272. Osaka, 68, 82, 121, 163, 185. Osaka Exposition, 22, 121, 264. Palestine, 35. Parkes, Sir Harry, 83. Patriotism, 106, 107, 175, 249, 256. Perry, Commodore, 71, 74, 75, 139, 140, 178, 227,240, 241. Pescadores, 6, 32. IVttee, I. II., 271. Philosophy, 91. Pierson, L. H., Mrs., 38. Population, 4, 31. 133-1,35, 279. Portuguese, 31. 62. Prayer, 212, 213. 283. 286. Presbyterians in Japan, 154, 168, 170. Presents, 21, 74. Printing, (54, 172, 273-276. Prison reform, 228, 272, 273. Prostitution, 204, 219, 227, 228, 24(i, 'J(M). Proverbs, 79, 16o, 177, 183, 204, 206, 226. 296 INDEX Pruyn, Mrs., 216. Races in Japan, 30-34, 50. Racial qualities, 29. Rain, 9, 32. Red Cross Society, 271. Reformed churches, 171. Revival of pure Shinto, 113. Rice, 1, 15, 21. Riobu Shinto, 112, 113, 115. Rituals, 142, 184. Riu Kiu, 8, 30, 31, 172, 176-179. Rivers, 12. Roman Christianity, 65, 67, 79, 96, 101, 166, 179, 181. Russia, 34, 164, 165, 241, 242, 261, 262. Ryu Kyu, see Riu Kiu. Salt, 111. Samurai, 56-58, 134, 243. Satsuma, 62, 64. Scherer, J. A. B., 211, 238. Schools, 75, 76, 138. Scriptures, 63. Scudder, Doremus, 39. Sects in Buddhism, 122, 123, 137. Seudai, 267. Shaw, Archdeacon, 171. Shinto, 21, 61, 91, 101, 105-118, 141. Shizoku, 57. Sin, 106, 126, 184, 256. Snow, 10. Soil, 13. Suicide, 205. Sun-goddess, 108. Taiko, 36, 64. Temperance work, 226-228. Tokio, 82, 89, 166, 171, 266, 270. Tokyo, see Tokio. Tori-i, 110. Tourists, 255. Traditions, 51. Treaties, 75, 76, 79. Uchimura, 266, 283, 285. Unity of Christians, 170-172. Uyeuo meeting, 169-170. Vassar College, 166. Verbeck, G. F., 81, 87, 162, 166, 240. Villages, 14. Volcanoes, 16-18. Wakasa, 163. War with Russia, 185. Washington, 245. Weather, 9-11. Whitney, W. N., 269. Williams, C. M., 153. Williams, S. Wells, 151, 159. Woman missionaries, 213, 223- 229, 236. Woman's Christian Temper- ance Union, 227. Woman's education, 85, 166, 202-204, 236, 277, 278. Woman's work for woman, 85, 213-218, 223-229. Women of Japan, 122, 199-202, 230, 235, 236, 251, 277. Xavier, 62, 63. Xipango, 60, 67, 101. Yamato, 50, 54. Yamato Damashii, 5. Year Periods, 164. Yedo, 68, 78. Yezo, 265, 266. Yokohama, 77, 221. Yokoi, 78, 82, 87, 138, 165. Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, 276. Y. P. S. C. E., 276, 277. Zenkoji, 125. "No other woman that we know of has had such an opportunity to see Japan on its loftier side, and her book is very valuable and delightful." The Louisville Post. LETTERS FROM JAPAN A Record of Modern Life in the Island Empire By Mrs. HUGH ERASER New Edition in one volume with all the original 250 illustrations, including portraits, reproductions of the best out of a collection of hundreds of photographs, specimens of Japanese art, etc, Cloth. 8vo. $3.00 net (carriage extra) " These letters were written by the wife of the British Minister to Japan dur- ing three most important years, for they saw the Island Empire casting aside the traditions of centuries, conquering a stubborn neighbor, and asserting herself as a modern nation. 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