The people on shipboard were not favorable to missionary enterprise in Japan. They said that it was contrary to the treaty, and that missionaries had no right to go, as such, to Japan at all. We thought differently, and looked above the treaty to One who has commanded his disciples to go into all the world.
The Sunrise Kingdom (1879)
A few months later [after leaving Japan] at San Francisco, I attended a lecture given by an intending missionary, who was accompanied by a poor ship wrecked Japanese. His lecture commenced, secundum artem, by well abusing the Romanists. He thence proceeded to a relation of his own call. He had been a foremast man of Perry’s expedition, and on his return felt that he had received a call to preach the Gospel to the Japanese. His logic was sublime. “I waited,” said he, “till I received promises of support to the amount of 1,000 dollars a year, and then I started off.” His unfortunate follower then sang a song in Japanese, and he himself related a few half-fabulous anecdotes about the Japanese. Now faith may work wonders, but in our age it must be accompanied by high capabilities and arduous training, and to convert Japanese to Christianity requires powers superior to those needed for camp-meetings or tea-party preaching. And, I think, it is due to those charitable persons who give their money and prayers towards a good object, that suitable persons, at least, should be chosen to carry out their intentions.
Japan, the Amoor, and the Pacific (1861)
Since the visit of Commodore Perry of the U.S. Navy in 1854 the gates of Japan have been thrown open once more, and foreigners are again allowed to dwell here. Following upon the soldiers, the sailors and the merchants came the missionaries, ready to spread the truths of the gospel, and to tell the Japanese, not of the power of the pope, but of the power of the Lord Jesus, whose kingdom, though not of this world, is yet an everlasting kingdom whose dominion hath no end.
These missionaries are learning the manners and customs of the natives, and gradually winning their confidence. Much of their time is occupied in studying the difficult language and preparing grammars and dictionaries; also in translating the Bible and other books for popular use. They are now distributing Bibles in the Chinese tongue, and also teach English to those who apply, using Christian books, and sometimes the Scriptures themselves, for that purpose. The missionary doctor treats the physical diseases of his patients and tries to lead them to the Great Physician. The missionaries are watching, praying and waiting for the time to come when the gospel may be publicly proclaimed in Japan, and its people allowed full liberty to worship as they please.
The Sunrise Kingdom (1879)
Some of the missionaries have lately returned from a short pedestrian tour, and give a pleasant account of their trip. They have much to say concerning the beauties of the land—its mountains and valleys, green fields and bright waters; but our interest is chiefly centred in speaking and hearing of the people, especially with reference to their preparation for the reception of the gospel which is to be given them. Much of interest and encouragement has been obtained. Bibles in the Chinese for the upper classes, all of whom read in this language, are being circulated throughout the country. Many are inquiring for them, and are anxious to study them. The teacher of one of the missionaries, who has just come from the capital, brings word that one of the Japanese there has a school of ninety persons expressly for the purpose of teaching the Bible, and that he is determined to teach it even at the risk of his life. He is constantly armed and prepared to resist any attack. He also tells us that a man high in authority expressed a wish to have a Bible, and that he presented one to him.
The Sunrise Kingdom (1879)
On the first Sabbath of December one of the missionaries began a Bible class—the first ever attempted in the Tokio mission. It was held in the parlor of the new house. A fire was kindled in the large stove, benches were brought, and the dark-skinned, black-haired natives gathered in to hear the teaching of the word. Outside, the sun was shining brightly, the bay sparkling in the glorious light, and sailboats were gliding noiselessly by. Some of the young men had English, and some Chinese, Bibles. The verses were carefully explained in Japanese, and at the close the pupils heard a prayer to the true God for the first time. Friends at home would have been much gratified could they have seen the earnest attention paid by the pupils. These meetings were kept up, with increasing interest, for several weeks, and we hoped and prayed that great good might result from them. ...
On Christmas-day the class assembled as usual; but a few days after, we heard that some one had informed the ya-cu-nins at the custom-house of their meeting, and that these officers were going to report to the government, so that the pupils were in danger of losing their liberty, if not their lives. The missionaries felt it to be their duty to warn the pupils of the threatened danger, and it has resulted in breaking up the class. Even the interesting school of little ones has dwindled down to four scholars.
A few young men are coming to read the Bible privately. They creep cautiously, by night, over the fields, or singly in the daytime, to elude the vigilance of the ya-cu-nins. Our new year (1871) has thus dawned rather sadly upon us.
The Sunrise Kingdom (1879)
At Nagasaki I had the pleasure of again meeting the Rev. Mr. Andrews, of the Church of England Missionary Society, who, with Mrs. Andrews, came out in the same ship as ourselves from Suez. They were good enough to show us the little new church and schools in which they hope to labour for years to come in educating, in more ways than one, such of the resident Japanese adults and children as may be willing to receive their instructions and ministrations. It would be well if missionary authorities could always obtain such services as theirs, which, I feel confident, will be conducted with a wise regard to the exceptional, and often trying, conditions under which they have to work. Their church buildings and residence are situated on the western side of the old Dutch settlement of Deshima (where I am afraid the Dutch did not always set a very Christian example), commanding a beautiful view down the harbour, between the blooming hills on either side of it. Fortunately Pappenberg, down the steep sides of which the Japanese Christians were hurled into the sea by thousands two hundred and fifty years ago, is not within their home view, and I hope they will not remember too often that it was at Nagasaki that Christians were before their time crucified. May they and their present work prosper!
Japan: Its History, Traditions, and Religions (1880)
It is by no means to the credit of the average European or American resident of Japan that he speaks slightingly of the work of the missionaries—the men and women who have voluntarily surrendered the attractions of home for service in a foreign field. As a rule, he knows little or nothing of the work of those whose character he thus depreciates, and sometimes asperses. He seldom looks inside a church, and in frankness it must be said, his own course of life gives him little relish for what the church especially represents. The tone of morals in foreign communities in the Orient falls far short of the accepted standards at home. There are honorable exceptions to the rule, but unfortunately they are not in the majority.
From Japan to Granada (1889)
[Japan] appeared to me the very ideal of a noble country awaiting and attracting missionary enterprise, and worthy of the utmost efforts of the Church of Christ. ... And if I may venture to repeat words I used on my return when pleading its cause before the Church Missionary Society,—
“If you had been asked to sketch an ideal land most suitable for Christian Missions, and when itself Christianized most 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 Irishmen, you would have said, ‘Give us islands, inseparably and for ever united; give us islands which can hold their sea-girt independence, and yet near enough to the mainland 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 and two-sworded Samurai of Japan. ‘Give us an industrial race, not idlers nor loungers, enervated by a luxurious climate, but men who delight in toil, laborious husbandmen, persevering craftsmen, shrewd men of business;’ and such are the Japanese agriculturists, who win two harvests a year from their grateful soil; such are the handicraftsmen there, whose work is the envy of Western lands; such are the merchants, who hold their own with us in commerce. ‘Give us men of culture, with noble traditions, but not so wedded to the past that they will not grasp the present and salute the future;’ and such are the quick-witted myriad-minded Japanese, who with a marvellous power of imitation ever some how contrive to engraft their own specialities upon those of Western lands. ...
“There is very much land to be possessed, but we are well able to overcome it, and, God helping us, we will. What will conquer? Not Agnosticism, with its heartless no-creed; not Deism, with its icy distance betwixt God and Man; not Roman superstition, with its Mariolatry and priestcraft; not Plymouthism, that molluscous kind of Christianity with no backbone to it; not the repellent doctrine of limited redemption; not that hideous nightmare of annihilation, nor the baseless dream of Universalism:—but the good old faith of the everlasting Gospel on Bible foundations and Apostolic lines.”
Japan As We Saw It (Bickersteth) (1893)
Missionaries abound in Yokohama, engaged in the work of teaching, and converting the natives to the various forms of the Christian religion. It is a little curious to note the difference in the sentiment concerning missionaries on different sides of the ocean. Coming from the atmosphere and influences of the Sunday-school, the church, and the various religious activities, the missionary seems to most of us an exalted being, who deserves all honor, respect, and sympathy. Arrived among the people in Asiatic ports, one learns, to his surprise, that the missionaries, as a class, are “wife-beaters,” “swearers,” “liars,” “cheats,” “hypocrites,” “defrauders,” “speculators,” etc., etc. He is told that they occupy an abnormally low social plane, that they are held in contempt and open scorn by the “merchants,” and by society generally. Certain newspapers even yet love nothing better than to catch any stray slander or gossip concerning a man from whom there is no danger of gunpowder or cowhide. Old files of some of the newspapers remind one of an entomological collection, in which the specimens are impaled on pins, or the store-house of that celebrated New Zealand merchant who sold “canned missionaries.” Some of the most lovely and lofty curves ever achieved by the nasal ornaments of pretty women are seen when the threadbare topic of missionary scandal is introduced. The only act approaching to cannibalism is when the missionary is served up whole at the dinner-table, and his reputation devoured. The new-comer, thus suddenly brought in contact with such new and startling opinions, usually either falls in with the fashion, and adopts the opinions, the foundation for which he has never examined, or else sets to work to find out how much truth there is in the scandals. A fair and impartial investigation of facts usually results in the conviction that some people are very credulous and excessively gullible in believing falsehoods.
Scarcely one person in a hundred of those who so freely indulge in, and so keenly enjoy, the gossip and scandal about missionaries, realizes their need of human sympathy, or shows that fair play which teaches us that they are but human beings like ourselves. The men of business and leisure for every thing except their tongues are utterly unable to understand the missionary's life, work, or purpose. Apart from the fact that a man who strives to obey the final and perhaps most positive command of the Great Founder of Christianity, to preach the Gospel to every creature, should win respect so far as he obeys that command, it is also most happily true that some of the very best, most conscientious, though quiet, work in the civilization of Japan has been done by missionaries. They were the first teachers; and the first counselors whose advice was sought and acted upon by the Japanese were missionaries, and the first and ripest fruits of scholarship—the aids to the mastery of the Japanese language—were and are the work of missionaries. The lustre shed upon American scholarship by missionaries in China and Japan casts no shadow, even in the light of the splendid literary achievements of the English civil service. Besides this, a community in which the lives of the majority are secretly or openly at variance with the plainest precepts of the Great Master can not, even on general principles, be expected to sympathize very deeply with, or even comprehend, the efforts of men who are social heretics. 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.
On the other hand, a few, very few, who call themselves missionaries are incompetent, indiscreet, fanatical, and the terror even of their good and earnest brethren.
The Mikado’s Empire (1894)
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