The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 190

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190

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Uplift of Womanhood.

The uplift of womanhood alone is worth all the
time and effort expended in missionary efforts in
countries like Japan. Shintoism openly sanctioned
every degradation of womanhood. Buddhism ac-
quiesced in the same. Centers of religious rites and
ceremonies were usually but a pretext for vice and
immorality, and every shrine had its near-by streets
with houses of ill fame and immorality. Only too
often they were adjuncts to the temple. While these
things may still exist and be seen, they are rapidly
decreasing, and public opinion condemns them more
and more. Government restrictions and regulations
are also against them. And if one asks how this
change was brought about, the answer is that this
blessed change has been effected by the silent, but
powerful influence of the Bible. The uplift of
womanhood in Japan and other countries of the
East is to be credited directly to the teachings of
the Word of God.

This is what Miss Kawai, the daughter of a
Shinto priest, descended from forty generations of
priests at the imperial shrines, has to say as to what
the Bible’s influence was in her own life and,
through her, upon other women of the native land:

“T wanted women to be good and wanted to help
them to improve their lot. I found that I could not
accomplish what I desired without religion. That
conclusion sent me to study religion from the wo-
man’s point of view. I found that there is no hope
for women in any of the religions of the Orient.
They teach that, from the cradle to the grave, wo-
men are evil and inferior to men. The Confucian
system of ethics, for example, teaches that fools and
women cannot be educated. A woman cannot be a
‘heavenly creature.’ It teaches that it is better to
see a snake than a woman, for the latter arouses
passion. Japanese women have been so long op-
pressed by this kind of teaching that they no longer
stop to ask why. They are afraid like slaves. When
I read the gospels, I found that Jesus made no
distinction between the sexes. I like that. We are
all, women as well as men, children of God. I came
to the conclusion that the only hope for the women
of the Orient to attain their true position is through

Miss Kawai, since embracing Christianity, has
done much to induce the women of her native
country to turn to Jesus as their Savior, not only in
_ 4 social sense, but as their Savior from sin, death,
_ and the devil. F.J.L.

years which brought additional care.

A Foreign Missionary by Proxy.

Grandma Plank’s hair was white when she took
me, at the age of five, to be her missionary invest-
ment. It wasn’t age entirely that had brought the
silver threads. There had been years of hard toil
and care and sorrow. The daily bread was earned
with her hands, and then there was a little girl
needing shoes and clothes and food, besides the
school pledge, which meant twenty-five days of hard
work over a cook-stove or nursing the sick or per-
haps sewing; but it was her missionary investment.

The years were telling on grandma when at last
she saw me graduated from the twelfth grade; but
she sent me out as a church-school teacher with the
blessed influence of a Christian home fresh in my
memory and the assurance of her prayers at the
family altar.

I can still recall grandpa’s prayer, “Hasten on
this work until all the dark corners of the earth
shall be lighted up by its glory,” followed by
grandma’s petition, “Send forth more laborers into
the great harvest fields.”

Then, when grandpa’s health was gone, came
She had man-
aged to save a few hundred dollars, and this with
the little house would take care of them at the last.
But about two years ago the bank failed and left
them penniless but for the little that grandma could
earn in a near-by canning-factory. The winter was
severe, and the struggle was almost too much.

The last of January, 1930, she laid: grandpa to
rest until Jesus comes, and within a week came the
request from the mission board that she give her
granddaughter to India. In replying, she said,
“They are asking for all that I have left, but I can-
not say no when it is in answer to my prayers.”

And so on July 9 she was standing at the station,
waiting for the train that would carry her mission-
ary investment away from her, doubtless for the last
time in this world. But there was not one word of
self-pity, no reference to the parting, no suggestion
that there might be another mound on the hillside
when I should return. O such bravery, such sacri-
ficing, such love for her Savior! Surely she must
often have repeated to herself, “God so loved the
world that He gave His only-begotten Son.”

The train pulled in, good-bys were said, and
then I turned to that noble soul. Not a tear, not
a word. She just held me close as she had done in
childhood days, and then I boarded the train. As
it moved out of the station, I turned for one more