THE SERVANT REAPING
In Japan I am known as the man of one sermon, because I preach the same
sermon everywhere. This sermon consists of three parts,--God, Sin, and
Salvation. In fact, I try to give all the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity in one sermon. To preach it, therefore, requires three
hours. Its English translation, published by Fleming H. Revell Company
of New York, is called “The Three Hour Sermon.” But though this sermon
consists of three parts, in reality it is on one subject. The first
two parts, God and Sin, are like two posts on which rests the cross of
Christ as the climax of the sermon. Thus I became literally a preacher
of one sermon, on the cross of Christ.
When I am engaged in an evangelistic campaign in any one place for
several nights, sometimes a week or two at a time, I repeat this same
sermon night after night. I tell my congregation each time that I am
going to preach this same sermon every night: “Therefore you who have
heard it to-night need not come again. Your part now is to decide
whether you will accept or reject this offer of salvation through Jesus
Christ. But in this place there are many people who have never yet
heard this Gospel message. Perhaps such may be found in your own homes,
or among your own friends. Why can’t you send them, or bring them here
tomorrow night, and let them also have the opportunity of hearing
the Gospel? And if you don’t wish to stay, you may go back, leaving
your friends.” Thus I change my congregation every night, instead of
changing my sermon, which amounts to the same thing. I need not be
troubled about getting a new audience every night, since I have sixty
millions yet to preach to.
However, though I preach the same sermon, I usually have large
congregations. I do not preach now in the churches. Our church
buildings are too small to hold the large crowds which come every night
to hear this one sermon. I am obliged everywhere to rent theaters for
my meeting places. The largest ones hold from three to four thousand,
and they are packed every night.
Since the fall of 1915 I have conducted evangelistic campaigns in all
parts of Japan, and also among the Japanese in the island of Hawaii,
and on the Pacific coast of America. I will give you here the exact
figures of these campaigns, by which you can judge for yourselves the
present situation of Christianity in Japan.
PACIFIC COAST CAMPAIGN
_From September, 1915, to February, 1916, Five months_
Places visited 64
Evangelistic meetings held 142
Churches which took part in campaign 67
Denominations or missions co-operating 9
Total attendance 30,000
Number of decisions for Christ 2,400
CAMPAIGN IN JAPAN PROPER
_From September, 1916, to June, 1919, Thirty-three months_
Cities and towns visited 204
Evangelistic meetings held 577
Churches which took part in the campaign 404
Denominations or missions co-operating 23
Total Attendance 270,000
Number of decisions for Christ 43,370
HAWAIIAN CAMPAIGN
_From July, 1919, to October, 1919, Three months_
Places visited 32
Evangelistic meetings held 82
Churches which took part in the campaign 18
Denominations co-operating 3
Total attendance 10,000
Number of decisions for Christ 2,080
SECOND PACIFIC COAST CAMPAIGN
_October, 1919, Half a month_
Places visited 5
Evangelistic meetings held 11
Churches which took part in the campaign 14
Denominations co-operating 5
Total attendance 3,400
Number of decisions for Christ 488
GRAND TOTAL
Number of months engaged in campaigns 42
Places visited 305
Evangelistic meetings held 812
Churches which took part in campaigns 502
Denominations or missions co-operating 40
Total attendance 313,000
Number of decisions for Christ 48,338
In Japan proper I have already visited forty provinces out of the
forty-seven. I have held evangelistic campaigns in more than two
hundred cities and towns. Everywhere people flocked to hear the Gospel.
They are hungering and thirsting for the saving power of the Gospel.
Their old religious beliefs have been shattered and destroyed by
the light of modern civilization, and they are looking for the true
religion which can satisfy their spiritual need.
As I have said, Christianity in Japan was strictly forbidden for
many centuries, and people had very poor ideas about it. When the
missionaries first came they found the ground so very hard that it
seemed almost impossible even to sow the seed; but for the last fifty
years they have been patiently working on this hard ground, plowing the
field and sowing the seed, yet without being able to see the longed-for
fruits. Now the harvest has come. The time of ingathering has arrived.
Throughout the whole country, from the highest to the lowest, all
people are ready to receive the message if you preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in its purity and simplicity. From the figures just
given as a result of my four-years’ campaign, you can easily see how
receptive the minds of the Japanese people have become to the Gospel
message. But as an example of the great awakening in my country, I wish
to tell you about the largest campaign I have ever had thus far in
Japan.
In the spring of 1919 I conducted an evangelistic campaign for six
nights in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. This campaign was
undertaken by a Presbyterian church in Tokyo which is one of the
largest and strongest Japanese churches in the country. The pastor of
the church is one of the greatest Christian scholars, as well as one
of the most thoroughgoing orthodox theologians, in Japan. The total
membership of his church is about a thousand, but those members who
are living in and around the city of Tokyo are not over five hundred.
The campaign was conducted in the large auditorium of the Tokyo Y. M.
C. A. building, which holds from eighteen hundred to two thousand.
For a whole year this church was earnestly praying in preparation for
this great campaign. When the time drew near, for five successive
Sunday mornings the services were turned over to me, that I might train
the whole church for the coming campaign. Before beginning on such a
campaign I had to instruct the Christians on the following points:
First, how to prepare for the campaign; second, how to work during the
campaign; and third, how to follow up later the work of the campaign.
Unless the churches taking part in the campaign are thoroughly
instructed on these points, it cannot be a successful one.
When the first preparation Sunday came, almost the whole church
gathered for instructions. At this time I set up two objectives for
the Christians to attain. First, they must try to get a total of ten
thousand unbelievers,--not Christians of other churches,--to attend
our meetings. Second, out of this number they must try to get at least
fifteen hundred decisions for Christ.
The first thing needed was money. Where could we get it? War means
money. Without money you cannot wage a successful campaign. I said to
the congregation:
“I don’t know how much this campaign will need in all, but I think
we must have at least fifteen hundred _yen_ ($750) to begin with. It
will be cheap indeed if we can save fifteen hundred souls with fifteen
hundred _yen_, which means only one _yen_ a soul. Now for this fifteen
hundred _yen_ you must not look to anybody else but to yourselves.
This is your campaign, and you must pay for it. This morning at the
beginning of the preparation I ask every one of you to give as much as
you can for this campaign fund. If there is any one among you here who
says he has no money to give, I advise him to sell his clothing and buy
a sword, as Christ told his disciples on the eve of a great conflict.”
Then I distributed paper and pencils among them, on which to write
the amounts which they were willing to give. When those papers were
gathered up and counted, they brought the result to me, and I found
exactly fifteen hundred and four _yen_.
Then the people said, “This is not the work of man, but of God.”
To attain these great objectives the next thing was to advertise the
meeting in various ways. Newspaper advertising was, of course, the
first, and then many big advertising boards were set up in the crowded
quarters of the city. Besides this, three hundred and fifty thousand
posters or handbills were printed, and each member of the church
distributed five hundred of these during the campaign days. Even the
Sunday-school scholars, numbering over three hundred, were enlisted
in this work. Each of the younger children distributed one hundred
posters, and the older ones three hundred. Last of all, every church
member was requested to find twenty unbelievers who would promise to
attend the campaign meetings. These we called the “pledged hearers.”
This plan of finding the “pledged hearers” before the campaign opened
worked out very well, as the church people were thus brought into
direct personal contact with most of the people who came to our
meetings.
With this training and these objectives we began the campaign February
5, 1919. But unfortunately we failed to attain our first objective.
There were two reasons for this: One was that on the very first morning
of our campaign all the city papers made a public announcement from the
headquarters of the Police Department, strongly advising the people
not to attend any kind of a mass meeting on account of the terrible
influenza, which was then raging throughout the whole city; the other
was such a big snowstorm on the fourth night that all the city trolley
cars stopped running.
But in spite of these hindrances about eight thousand people came
during the six nights. Of these about two thousand were Christians, so
the unbelievers, who were the real object of the campaign, numbered
only about six thousand, a little over half of our objective.
[Illustration: Mr. Kanamori’s Decision Card
Translation of upper section: “I believe in the one true living God;
I repent of my sin; I accept salvation through the Cross of Jesus
Christ; I follow Christ even unto death.”
The two large characters signify “Heart” and “Decision.” Then follow
instructions and space for writing one’s name and address.]
We had the most unexpected success in attaining our second objective.
From the six thousand unbelievers we had three thousand and sixty-one
decisions for Christ. More than half of the unbelieving portion of
the audience decided to accept Christ. This was a great surprise. No
one ever dreamed of such a great result as this. Moreover, this
audience of eight thousand people was made up of all classes. Among
them were high government officials, members of Parliament, professors
of universities, teachers of all kinds of schools, students from
the universities, as well as high-school boys and girls, merchants,
bankers, and business men; in fact, all classes of Japanese society
were represented in this audience. But the greatest surprise of all was
that out of the three thousand decisions we found about two thousand
were all educated young men and women, the essence of the rising
generation of Japan. Here are the exact figures of the campaign.
Total Christian Unbelieving Decisions
Attendance Portion
First Night 1,000 250 750 390
Second Night 1,200 300 900 394
Third Night 1,300 300 1,000 429
Fourth Night 500 150 350 267
(big snow storm)
Fifth Night 1,600 350 1,250 690
Sixth Night 2,200 450 1,750 891
------ ------ ------ ------
Totals 7,800 1,800 6,000 3,061
But I must tell of the “follow-up work” of the campaign. We began
immediately. For the five nights following the campaign we had meetings
for the new converts, during which I preached the practical side of
Christianity, such as consecration, prayer, Bible reading, and so on.
A little over sixteen hundred out of three thousand converts attended
these after-meetings. Then for a whole month the pastor and his
associates conducted special preaching services every night, just for
the purpose of educating and training these three thousand converts.
After that about fifty Christian homes of the church were thrown open
for district meetings for the converts living in that district. And
lastly, the names of the new converts were all printed on one big
sheet and distributed to all the church-members, so that every one of
these new converts should come under the care of some member of the
church. To each member were assigned from three to ten names, for whose
spiritual training he would be responsible. In these ways we carried on
our “follow-up work” after the campaign. God wonderfully blessed that
campaign.
Immediately after this a Congregational church carried on the same kind
of an evangelistic campaign. In this we had two thousand decisions.
After these two big campaigns we had twenty smaller ones in and around
the city of Tokyo, conducted by twenty churches, in which a little
over five thousand decisions were made. So that the whole number of
decisions during the three months’ campaign was 10,440. Of these
converts about one thousand were taken into the churches of their
choice before the summer of 1919.
Thus you can easily see how mightily the Spirit of God is now working
among my people. And it is not man’s work, but the work of God himself.
In the presence of such fire from heaven man must take off his shoes
and praise the Lord only.
In this connection I must tell you one secret, if it can be called a
secret. In that big campaign in the Tokyo Y. M. C. A., if it can be
said that I had any part in it, it was not by my preaching so much as
by my praying. This I say to the glory of the Lord, and not my own.
Though I made fifteen hundred decisions the objective for the church,
I had my own secret objective, which was three thousand decisions. For
the last three years I had been conducting my evangelistic campaigns
all over the country, except in Tokyo, the capital. And now at last
God had led me to this city of about three million people, to conduct
a campaign on a larger scale than I had ever attempted. Surely the
result of this campaign must exert great influence all over the
country. So I prayed to God that he would pour out his Holy Spirit in
this campaign as he did at Pentecost in Jerusalem, and show forth his
power and glory, and let all people know that our God is a living God.
So I prayed for three thousand decisions, the same number as at
Pentecost. For ten days of the campaign I left my own home, which is
in the same city, and retired to a private room on the fourth floor of
the tower on the Y. M. C. A. building, and there spent a quiet time in
prayer and fasting. It is my usual custom during these campaigns not to
see any one in the afternoon. After lunch I always retire and engage in
prayer. When I preach my three-hour sermon to an unbelieving audience,
I never take my evening meal. I lose my appetite as I feel the burden
of my message to those thousands of unbelievers, whose eternal destiny
is now in my hands. If they accept my message and believe in Jesus, it
will be life eternal to them, but if they reject it the result will be
just the opposite. Who can feel equal to such a great responsibility as
this?
When I was once asked, half jestingly, why I do not take food before I
preach, I answered, “Could you sit at your table, eating and drinking,
laughing and joking with your good friends, and in this manner spend
the last critical hour just before you appear before thousands of souls
in the attempt to settle their eternal destiny?”
No, I cannot do it. I always feel that the only place from which I
can go to my pulpit is “the mercy seat.” Thus I prayed and fasted for
this blessing of getting three thousand decisions, and God answered
my prayer, and gave me exactly 3,061 decisions. Is not this a real
Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit? God is working mightily
through his Holy Spirit throughout the length and breadth of my country.
This condition is not confined to the large cities alone, but in more
than two hundred places where I conducted similar campaigns we found
the same conditions. Of course there are some differences in the
results of the campaign. From my own experience I can say the result of
such a campaign almost entirely depends upon the pastors and churches
which have undertaken it. I always tell those pastors with whom I
work that the work of the evangelist is like that of a woodman who
goes to the forest and cuts down the trees big and small, and brings
them to the shop of the carpenter. There the woodman’s work ends, and
the carpenter’s work begins. Now the carpenter must work upon this
raw material which the woodman has furnished him. He must cut and saw
and plane, and make posts and boards and build the house. But if the
carpenter does not work, and lets the timber lie piled up outside his
shop, the rain and frost will come, and the timber will surely rot and
decay. Who is responsible for the rotting of the timber? The woodman or
the carpenter? When I had faithful pastors and working churches I have
always seen fine results.
I have received a printed report of the result of my five-months’
campaign on the Pacific coast. Out of sixty-four places on the Pacific
coast where I worked during five months, fifty-six churches have sent
in a report, one year after the campaign. There are two churches which
have received on confession of faith all converts within one year,
three churches took all but one, and thirteen churches have taken in
more than half of the converts during the same period. Altogether, out
of 1,773 in these fifty-six churches, 625 persons were taken into their
respective churches within one year of this campaign, and 382 persons
were still under probation. So that altogether 1,007 decisions should
be regarded as the fruit of that campaign.
And from Hawaii came another report, which is as follows: Out of 2,040
converts during a three-months’ campaign 245 persons were taken into
the different churches on confession of faith. I think these figures
show how sound are these decisions, especially when you remember that
the large majority of my audiences hear from me the Gospel of Christ
for the first time in their lives.
In many parts of America I have found great misunderstanding and also
gross misrepresentation of the present situation of the Christian
work in Japan. I hear even voices of discouragement. But I hope by
these statements out of my own experience those misunderstandings and
misrepresentations may be already cleared up. I can say now with a good
conscience and a firm assurance that a great time has come for the
evangelization of Japan. Indeed, “the fields ... are white already to
harvest.” Or, to change the figure, the iron is so very hot that if you
strike it at once you can make anything you like out of it, but if you
do not strike the iron will cool off, and you can do nothing with it,
so, you see, the evangelization of Japan must be brought about quickly.
And I believe it can be done if we do our part; that is, if we, obeying
the last command of Jesus, preach the Gospel to every creature in the
country. My experience shows that if six persons hear the Gospel, at
least one will accept it. Then, if the whole sixty million can hear the
Gospel, there will be a possibility of gaining ten million souls for
Christ at the present time in Japan.
Seeing that such a wonderful opportunity presents itself before us, I
cannot help making a desperate effort for the salvation of my people.
So I have resolved, the Lord willing, to reach the whole nation of
sixty million with the Gospel of Jesus Christ within the next ten or
twenty years. But the question is, how can I reach so many millions
within so short a time? Of course, I cannot expect to do it through
preaching alone, and so I have decided upon another way; that is,
through the printed page.
For this purpose I have written a book in Japanese called “The
Christian Belief,” which contains twelve chapters: First, The One True
God; second, The Heavenly Father; third, The Sinfulness of Sin; fourth,
The Divine Judgment; fifth, The Reality of the Future World; sixth,
The Deity of Christ; seventh, Salvation Through the Cross; eighth,
Christian Consecration; ninth, Prayer; tenth, The Life of Trust;
eleventh, Bible Reading; twelfth, The One Soul Campaign.
If any one will read it through, he may be able to grasp at least the
outline of Christian doctrine, both theoretical and practical. Though
this is a small book of about two hundred pages, when I wrote it, four
years ago, I spent five months over it actually upon my knees and
fasting. And God has wonderfully blessed it. Within three years after
its publication over 150,000 copies have been printed. I call these
books my “printed preachers,” because they are doing the same kind of
work of leading souls to Christ in their own quiet way. And now what
I call the new plan of evangelization is this,--to put this book in
the hands of every Japanese, so that every soul in my country shall
have the opportunity of hearing the Gospel. And as the book is written
in such easy and simple language that even a child can read it, any
Japanese can read and understand it.
Very fortunately for the free distribution of this book, my Japanese
publisher, who is himself an earnest Christian, has kindly promised
to let me have it at five cents a copy, which, in these days of the
high cost of printing, is a great sacrifice on his part. So now, if
I have one nickel in my hand I can give away one book, and one man
can hear the Gospel message. And if I have sixty million nickels for
this purpose, I can send out at once sixty million “printed preachers”
throughout the whole Empire of Japan. This I think is the quickest way
at the present time to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole
nation.