The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1892, Page 34

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Early Difficulties and Present Sppoctunities
in Japan.

In December last the Rey. Dr. J. D. Davis
of Kioto read a paper before the Kobe and
Osaka Missionary Conference, in which he pre-
sented the contrast between the present oppor-
tunities for missionary work in Japan and the
condition of things which he found on land-
ing in Kobe in 1871, the year that ‘‘witnessed
the abolishment of feudalism, the dispatch
of the first great embassy to foreign lands,
the beginning of the first railway and of the
post-office system, and the starting of the first
newspaper.’’ ‘‘The edicts against Christi-
anity, which had been posted upon the bulletin
boards all over the empire for 250 years, and
which made the profession of Christianity a
capital offense, and offered rewards to all in-
formers, had been re-affirmed by the Mikado
upon his restoration, and were still
to be seen in every part of Japan.’’
Early in 1872 Dr. Davis, in com-
pany with Dr. Greene, called upon
the Governor of the Hiogo Ken,
and were told that if it came to
his knowledge, that a Japanese
bookseller in Kobe had sold even
a copy of the English Bible, it
would be his duty, acting under
orders from Tokio, to arrest that
man and send him to prison.

Among the early difficulties of
the situation, Dr. Davis mentions
the fewness in numbers of the mis-
sionaries, the difficulty of travel,
the lack of help in learning the
language, the small number of
Japanese Christians, and the dis-
semination of Western skepticism
and materialism through the ex-
tensive circulation of books in
both Japanese and English. Speak-
ing of the lack of Christian literature, he
says:

No part of the Bible had been printed, and,
so far as the writer knows, no tracts had been
prepared. We were shut up to the Bible in
the Chinese language, without the kunten, and
to Dr. Martin’s evidences of Christianity, in
Chinese. On account of the fear which had-
possession of the people, the preparation and
printing of Christian books were very difficult,

_ and the prejudice of all scholars against writ-

ing anything in popular language was an almost

insuperable barrier against the preparation of
‘any books or tracts for the masses.

In the summer of 1878 the writer sat under
“the maples by the waterfall in Arima, the only

fa “missionary in the place, and wrote in Roman
detters in his broken Japanese, the first draft
of a little tract; two months later, when his
teacher had copied this into Japanese, he asked

ie to revise it, and it came back in such high

that the masses could read it, and after another
month it came back about fifty degrees higher
yet; the writer then took his original draft
and sat down by his teacher and fought it over
word by word and sentence by sentence, de-
manding that the words which could be under-
stood by the greatest number of the common
people should be used, and after two months
it was ready for the block-cutter. But his
teacher begged of the writer not to let any one
know who helped in the preparation of it, as
he would be ashamed to have it known that
he prepared a book in the language of com-
mon people. This was one of the very first
tracts prepared, and within ten years over
100,000 copies of it had been circulated.
There is a different outlook to-day: '
_ The twenty missionaries of twenty years
ago have become, including the wives of mis-
sionaries, nearly 600. Instead of the four

34 The Lutheran Pioneer.

The fear which existed universally twenty
years ago is well-nigh gone; religious freedom
is guaranteed in the constitution, and there is
a readiness to hear on the part of the people,
in most places throughout the empire, which
calls for a manifold larger number of direct
evangelic workers than are at present engaged
in that work in Japan. The Protestant Christi-
ans of twenty years ago have become more
than 30,000, organized into over 200 churches,
with about 130 ordained Japanese ministers,
and nearly 500 other Japanese evangelists and
workers, with nearly 400 men in training in

theological schools.
—The Bible Society Record.

~<a oe

Sunday School Scholars in Japan.

Boys and girls who go to Sunday school in
Japan wear the same kind of dress, cut and
made in the same way; but the
girls always have some red about
them, while boys never wear this
color. All go bare-headed, and
some of the boys and girls have

Traveling in Japan.

unmarried female missionaries, we now have
about 200. The waters of the coast of Japan
are now plowed by steamers in every direction,
nearly 2000 miles of railroad are in operation,
and thousands of miles of jinrishika roads are
found, while a network of telegraph wires is
spread over the land, and the postal facilities
extend to the remotest hamlet; and these rail-

‘roads, steamers, telegraphs and post-offices

are all the ready servants of the messengers
of the cross.

A legion of books has been prepared to
assist the beginner in learning the Japanese
language. A Christian vocabulary has been
created and-fairly good teachers are to be
secured. ‘The whole Bible is published in the
language of the people, and fairly good com-
mentaries on the whole of the New Testament
have also been published; a good beginning
has been made in Japanese hymnology, and a
good beginning has also been made in the pre-
paration of Christian books and tracts. It is
no longer a disgrace to publish a book in a
language which can be read.

their hair cut in very odd ways.
Many shave off all the hair except
a little patch on the top of the
head, while others have hair all
over except on top. They wear
low white socks with a different
place for the big toe, just as Amer-
ican children have a separate plate
for the thumb in the mittens worn
in winter. Over these socks, when
on the street, the Japanese chil-
dren put on straw or wooden shoes.
The straw ones have nothing but
soles, held to the feet by strings
passing between the big toe and
the other toes. The wooden shoes
are on stilts, and are used in
muddy weather. .

When the children reach the Sunday school
they all step out of their shoes and leave them
at the door until they are ready to start home
again. The floor is covered with straw mats
about two inches thick. The children sit on
these mats with their feet under them. They
can sit there for hours at a time without
growing tired. The teacher sits on the floor
too. The children are very quiet and well-
behaved, and give very little trouble. They
seem to like the Sunday school and to be glad
to learn, and are faithful in their attendance.

——

Ir sometimes seems to me as if I were a little
bird whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and
that I had nothing to do now but sing. The
joy of my heart gave a brightness to the ob-
jects around me. The stones of my prison
looked in my eyes like rubies. I esteemed
them more than all the gaudy brilliancies of a
vain world. My heart was full of that which
Thou givest to them who love Thee in the
midst of their greatest crosses.

Madame Guyon in Prison.