most theological training has been in the English language, and {252}
the language alone has taken up a great deal of the student's time and
strength. And again, very few Japanese young men gain a sufficient
knowledge of English to appreciate or derive full benefit from a
theological course in that language. Against this is urged the paucity
of Christian literature in Japanese, and the wide field of religious
thought which a knowledge of the English language opens to the student.
This is very true; but if the same amount of time and energy that has
been expended in instruction in English had been given to the creation
of a native Christian literature the evil would not exist. I am glad
to note that recently nearly all the theological schools have
introduced courses in the vernacular for those who cannot take the
English course. It would be well if the English course were dispensed
with entirely and all instruction were given in the vernacular.
Many of the missions operating in Japan have sent worthy young men to
America and England for theological training. In nearly every instance
this has proved an unwise investment. The good people at home take up
these young men and nurse and pet them until they are completely
spoiled. They come back to Japan unfitted by taste and education for
the position they must occupy and the work they must do. Most of them
become dissatisfied in the work after a few {253} years. Foreign
education largely denationalizes them and removes them from the
sympathies of their own people. Of course there have been some
exceptions to this rule; but, in general, experience has proved that
locally trained evangelists are best suited for the work and give most
satisfaction in it.
By this it is not intended to imply that Japanese pastors and teachers
should not have the advantages offered by the Western seminaries when
they desire them and are able to obtain them for themselves. They are
as capable of receiving advanced instruction as we are, and have the
same right to it. But the money which foreign boards spend for
training evangelists should be spent in the field.
Besides the theological schools there are large numbers of academical
schools for young men, in which a great deal of mission money is spent.
In justification of these it is argued that they are necessary for the
preparatory training of evangelists. It is said that the education of
these future pastors of the church should be Christian from the
beginning, and this is true. But more than half the evangelists now
laboring in Japan have not received such training. The education they
received from government and private schools answers very well in their
case. Actual experience has proved that, whatever may be the {254} aim
of these academies, as a matter of fact they do not train evangelists.
Most of the men who take their full course enter other professions.
One of the oldest missions in Japan, employing about twenty
evangelists, has among them only one man who has taken the full
academical course in its mission college; but many men have been
educated at the church's expense for other professions.
Again, it is said in justification of these academies and their large
expenditure of mission money that a Christian education must be
provided for the children of the constituency of the mission. The
church provides a Christian education for her sons and daughters at
home; why should she not do it for her wards abroad? Far be it from me
to attempt to minimize the importance of Christian education; but will
it not be time enough for such education when the constituency of the
native church feels its need to such an extent that it will demand this
education itself, support the schools with its money, and send its sons
and daughters to them? At present even the Christian people frequently
prefer a government school to a mission school; and they often send
their children to the latter, when they do send them, because they will
there be given financial aid.
There was a time when Christian schools did a good work in Japan.
Before the government {255} schools were brought up to their present
standard the mission schools were well patronized, and they
considerably benefited the cause of missions. But to-day the
government has schools of every grade, and frequently they are better
than the mission schools. The students who formerly flocked to the
mission schools now flock to those of the government, and the former
have but few pupils. The times have changed, and these large,
expensive schools are now hardly needed. In so far as they are needed
for the preparatory training of a native ministry, and can be made to
serve that end, they may be all right, but certainly as an evangelizing
agency they are not justified. The native church should be encouraged
and stimulated to educate its own children; it might even be assisted
in the attempt, when it has shown an honest effort to do this; but its
children should not be educated for it by the mission free of charge.
To spend so large an amount of the people's money in purely secular
education seems to me a misappropriation of funds.
More than half the mission schools in Japan are boarding-schools for
girls. Nearly all the unmarried women engaged in mission work are in
these schools, and there are many of them. Some of these schools have
very fine locations and buildings, about as good as those of the
average {256} girls' college at home. That they are more popular and
better patronized than those for boys is because the government does
not provide for the higher education of girls as it does for boys.
The purpose of these girls' boarding-schools is to train up earnest
Christian women, who will be the wives and mothers of the new Japan.
It is said that if the mothers of the nation are made Christian the
evangelization of the whole people will speedily follow. This purpose
is a worthy one. Most of the girls who enter these mission schools
become Christians, and the training given them seems to be good. I
recently attended the closing exercises of one of the largest of these,
and was surprised at the progress made by the girls. They could paint
and draw, and recite classical music as well as the young ladies of the
seminaries at home; and I have no doubt that the graduates leave the
schools pure-minded, earnest Christians, with worthy aims and
aspirations, and with a full intention to exert their influence for God
and His church.
But alas! when they go back to their homes the position Japanese
etiquette assigns them so effectually ties their hands that the results
are bitterly disappointing. I will mention one case which came under
my own observation. A young lady was educated by a mission school in a
certain city, who was noted for her piety and {257} earnest Christian
spirit. Her teachers had most extravagant hopes as to the strong
positive influence she would exert for Christianity. After her
graduation she spent several years in the same school as a teacher, and
her Christian life was broadened and deepened by longer and more
intimate contact with the foreign teachers. She finally married and
removed to her new home, in a distant city. There she attended church
once or twice and then stopped entirely. Neither the urgent personal
request of the native pastor nor the oft-repeated invitation of the
Christian congregation could induce her to come any more. Instead of
exerting an influence for good upon others she herself became a fit
subject for mission work. I have known several cases of this kind, and
all missionaries have had the same experience. Social conditions in
Japan are such that a girl marrying into a non-Christian home can exert
little Christian influence.
But admitting for the moment the utility of this Christian training for
the girls, these large schools are open to serious objections on other
grounds. The course is too long, and the instruction given too
advanced. In many of these schools the girls are kept for twelve or
fourteen years. During all this time they are more or less supported
by mission funds, even down to pin-money. They are taught all kinds of
abstract {258} sciences and advanced ideas that can be of no possible
use to them. Latin and Greek, biology, geology, psychology, and many
other things are taught them that they neither need nor can appreciate.
Painting, drawing, vocal and instrumental music form a prominent part
of the curriculum. Girls are made to practise on the piano for ten
years or more who will in all probability never see a piano after they
leave school. Of course these are not the only subjects taught; more
useful ones are taught as well.
If mission schools for the education of girls should exist at all the
instruction should be much more elementary and practical. A course of
two or three years, teaching them how wisely to fill their position as
wives and mothers, would amply suffice.
It is claimed by the Japanese with great reason that these schools
unfit the girls for the sphere they must occupy in after life. A life
of ten, twelve, or fourteen years in constant association with foreign
teachers, in a foreign building, with all necessaries and conveniences
supplied, pursuing a pleasant course of study, does not fit the pupil
for life in her humble home. No wonder she loves the school and dreads
to see the day approaching when she must leave it. Having lived so
long under much better circumstances, her home, with its thatched roof,
narrow walls, {259} and homely duties, becomes distasteful to her. Of
what use now are her music and painting, her Latin and Greek, when her
time must be spent in boiling rice and mending old, worn-out clothes?
There is such a thing as educating people above their sphere in life,
and such education is more hurtful than otherwise.
But it is said, "We are training future Bible-women who will go out and
teach the gospel to their country-women." In reply to this it can be
answered that not a great many graduates of girls' schools become
Bible-women; and it is the experience of nearly every missionary that
the best Bible-women are middle-aged women, who may never have been in
a mission school.
Again, it is said that it is worth while to have these schools if only
to train educated Christian wives for the native evangelists. But many
of the evangelists, even among those who themselves have received a
more or less foreign training, prefer wives who have never been in a
mission school, saying that these girls who have lived so long under
better surroundings will not be contented and happy in the homes they
can provide. It is also true that many of the young ladies who
graduate from these schools object to marrying at all, feeling that
they have been unfitted for the life they would have to lead.
A very serious objection to the present {260} educational method in use
by many missions in Japan is that it hinders self-support in the native
churches. These large foreign plants, with their costly appliances,
can never be supported by the native churches, and the evident futility
of the effort so discourages them that they will not even do what they
can. The day when the churches of Japan can become self-supporting is
very much postponed by the existence of these costly schools. At
present the native churches could hardly keep the school buildings in
repair.
The whole work of missions in Japan was in the beginning projected on
too high a plane. To many it seems a great mistake that such large and
costly buildings were erected and the schools started on a foreign
basis. Should not the buildings have been entirely of native
architecture from the beginning, and the educational work projected on
a plane corresponding to Japanese life? If small wooden houses, with
straw roofs and no furniture, are good enough for these people to live
in and to transact all kinds of business in, then they are good enough
for them to study in and to worship God in. If from the very beginning
the schools and churches had been built on a plane corresponding with
ordinary Japanese houses and life the day would much sooner have come
when the Japanese themselves could undertake their support. When, in
the providence of {261} God, the native church shall have been
sufficiently developed, materially and spiritually, to undertake the
education of her children and the training of her own pastors, the
manner in which she will do it will be very different from that in
which it is now done by the mission boards.
I am aware that many missionaries in Japan, for whose opinions I have
all respect, will not agree with these views. But, after most careful
thought and investigation, the above are the conclusions to which I
have arrived; and I am glad to know that my views are shared by many of
my fellow-missionaries. It is my sincere conviction that most of the
money now being used for educational purposes in Japan is misapplied,
and would yield far greater results if used in other ways.
_Literary Work_
One of the most important and fruitful branches of missionary work is
the literary. The creation of a sound Christian literature is one of
the first and most imperative duties pressing upon the missionary to
the heathen.
This is an exceedingly difficult task. When we think of how much labor
and how many precious lives our own Christian literature has cost us,
we begin to have some conception of the immensity of the task of
creating a Christian {262} literature in a heathen land. In the first
place, the missionary must have a complete mastery of the language,--in
Japan an appalling task,--and then he must create the terms to express
so many ideas. Many of our Christian ideas have no counterpart in
non-Christian lands, and the very words to express them must be coined.
A common device is to take words of kindred meaning and to make them
serve the purpose, endeavoring to attach our own meaning to them by
gradual processes of instruction and use. Thus with the words for God
and sin in use by most missions in Japan. These words are _kami_ and
_tsumi_. Now _kami_ is the word used for numerous mythological
divinities, with natures very different from our God, and is also
applied to the ancient heroes of Japan. As it expresses the idea
better than any other word we have, we use it for God; but we must be
careful always to explain the sense in which we use it. The word
_tsumi_ means crime, or offense against the laws of the land. Our idea
of sin is lacking in the Japanese mind, and hence there is no word that
exactly expresses it. We take the word _tsumi_ as being nearest it,
and endeavor to impart to it our own meaning. In this way we have not
only to translate the ideas, but also to coin or modify the words to
express them.
This work of the missionary is very different {263} from that of
translating English books into a European language which has a circle
of ideas similar to our own, for there the words are found ready-made
to express the ideas.
Generally the first literary work to be done by missionaries is the
translation and publication of portions of Scripture and of tracts. As
soon as their knowledge of the language is sufficiently advanced, they
translate the whole Bible and some good hymns. Then follow
apologetical and evidential works, and treatises on theology and
morality. Afterward biographical and devotional books, magazines, and
Christian newspapers are published. We cannot overestimate the value
of a good Christian newspaper. It will carry gospel truth to people
whom the missionary and the native evangelist cannot reach, and it will
help much to nourish and strengthen the life of the native converts.
In such a paper the latter will probably see their religion set forth
in all its relations to the questions of practical life in a way they
seldom hear it done in sermons. I think parish papers, which are
becoming so common at home, would also exert a splendid influence in
Japan.
In this field a considerable Christian literature has already been
created. Among the most important books translated so far might be
mentioned the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, {264} Luther's Small
Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, Bynyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." A
considerable number of books on apologetical, evidential, dogmatic, and
historical theology have been published, besides biographical, ethical,
and devotional books. There are also several Christian newspapers, and
recently the missionaries of the American Board have begun the
publication of a Christian magazine.
A Christian literature which will be a powerful auxiliary to our work
is at present forming rapidly in Japan.
_Medical Work_
Medical work is one of the youngest departments of missionary labor.
Christ healed the body as well as the soul, and it is peculiarly
fitting that the missionary be able to heal the body likewise. Medical
missions have done more in some countries toward breaking down the
prejudice against Christianity than any other one thing. Doors
effectually closed to the evangelist have been opened wide to the
doctor. The power for good of a consecrated physician in many mission
fields is boundless. The mission boards have fully recognized this
fact, and have wisely used large numbers of medical missionaries.
In former times medical missionaries accomplished much good in Japan.
They helped greatly {265} to break down the prejudice and opposition to
Christianity. Many who came to the hospitals to have their bodies
healed went away having their ears filled with words from the great
Physician, and their hearts moved by the kindness and love of these
Christian doctors. Not only was much direct mission work accomplished
in this way, but the principles of physiology and medicine were also
taught to large numbers of native physicians and students. Among the
men who did most in this work were Drs. Hepburn, Berry, and Taylor.
Although they have accomplished much good, medical missions are no
longer needed in Japan. The Japanese themselves have become adepts in
medical science, and especially in surgery. Every town and city has
one or more hospitals where competent medical consultation and
treatment can be had, and these now occupy the position formerly filled
only partially by the mission hospitals. A few hospitals and
dispensaries are still kept in operation by some missions, but most of
them were years ago dispensed with as no longer profitable. We rejoice
that Japan has so far progressed as to be well able to care for the
health of her own people, and we adapt ourselves to the changed
circumstances, diverting into more fruitful channels the energies
formerly expended in this way.
{266}
XIV
HINDRANCES
Many of the hindrances that oppose the progress of Christianity in
Japan have already been indirectly suggested in other portions of this
book. But that they may be more clearly apprehended by the friends of
missions at home, and that the effect of their militating influence may
be fully felt, we will endeavor in this chapter to arrange them in
order and show just how they oppose our work. For the sake of
clearness and logical order we will consider the subject under two
divisions: 1. Hindrances in Japan common to all mission fields; 2.
Hindrances peculiar to Japan.
1. There are certain things inherent in the very nature of Christianity
that impede her progress. They are necessities of her being, and
cannot be gotten rid of. These things may be either a part of
Christianity herself, belonging to her nature, {267} or they may be
necessary results of her acceptance by non-Christian peoples. For this
reason they are encountered wherever the gospel is propagated; they are
common hindrances to the advance of our faith alike in China, India,
Africa, and Japan.
Although not peculiar to Japan, it seems to me wise briefly to refer to
these universal hindrances, because often they are not realized in
their full force and power either by the people of our home churches or
even by our pastors. To appreciate fully their militating influence
one must go to the mission field, and there observe them actually
hindering the rapid progress of evangelization. There they are seen in
a new light, and are impressed upon the mind as they can hardly be
otherwise. If I can succeed in causing the constituency of the
churches at home to realize the number, magnitude, and power of these
hindrances I will have done good service for the cause of missions.
As the first one of these universal militating influences, inherent in
the very nature of missions, opposing the progress of Christianity
wherever its teachings are newly propagated, I would mention its
_revolutionizing tendency_. Christian missions are in their nature
revolutionizing. The result is inevitable and unavoidable. The
advance of Christianity in a heathen land {268} necessitates the
revolutionizing of many institutions that have obtained for centuries.
Not only must the religious ideas undergo a revolution, but all moral
ideas, and manners and customs as well. The reasons for this are very
evident.
Religion is intimately connected with the life of man. It furnishes
the motive power of his life, controls his actions, creates his
morality, determines his manners and customs, and shapes his laws. The
ethnic religions are just as intimately interwoven with the lives of
their adherents as Christianity is with the lives of Christians; and
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Brahmanism have shaped and determined the
lives and actions of their adherents.
The connection between religion and morality is a necessary and
indissoluble one. The two are united in their growth and development,
and the form of morality is necessarily colored by the dominant
religion. Wherever the Buddhist faith has been accepted there has
sprung up a system of morality peculiar to it; so that we speak of a
Buddhistic in opposition to a Christian morality. This morality is
dependent upon the religion, and a change of religion must bring about
a change of morality.
Christianity, having necessarily developed a morality in accord with
its principles, must, as it advances, destroy the existing systems and
create {269} widely different ones. While the better element in
heathen nations has more or less outgrown its religious ideas and
superstitions, and can calmly contemplate a change of religion, yet its
moral system has a stronger hold, and anything which antagonizes it is
severely condemned. This necessary revolutionizing of moral ideas very
much opposes the progress of Christianity.
The acceptance of Christianity necessitates also a revolution in
manners and customs. These are partially an expression of the faith
that is in us, their nature being determined by it. A change of
religion, therefore, means a change in all of these.
People have great respect for time-honored customs, and that which
antagonizes these brings upon itself condemnation. Christianity
changes the manners and customs, and therefore the people do all they
can to oppose it.
In these ways the work of missions is revolutionizing, and must expect
to encounter the opposition of the spirit of conservatism, which is
much stronger in the East than in the West.
A second principle inherent in the very nature of Christianity which
hinders its progress in heathen lands is its _exclusiveness_. Our
religion is among the most intolerant in its attitude toward other
faiths. We believe and teach that "there is none other name under
heaven given among {270} men, whereby we must be saved," than the name
of Christ. While acknowledging that other religions contain grains of
truth, we must affirm that, as religious systems, they are false.
Christ sent forth His apostles to make disciples of all, winning them
to the Christian faith. And the aim of the church to-day is, not to
cultivate brotherly love and communion with other _religions_, but
rather to exterminate them and make Christians of all. She can brook
no rival. Her adherents must give their allegiance to her alone.