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Title: Kanamori's life-story
Told by himself; how the Higher Criticism wrecked a Japanese Christian—and how he came back
Author: Paul M. Kanamori
Contributor: J. Ross Stevenson
Release date: August 15, 2024 [eBook #74257]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia, PA: The Sunday School Times Company, 1921
Credits: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KANAMORI'S LIFE-STORY ***
[Illustration: Paul M. Kanamori]
Kanamori’s
Life-Story
Told by Himself
_How the Higher Criticism wrecked
a Japanese Christian--and
how he came back_
Introduction by
J. Ross Stevenson, D.D., LL.D.
Philadelphia
The Sunday School Times Company
1921
_Copyright, 1921, by
The Sunday School Times Company_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
I PAGE
THE SERVANT SENT 9
II
THE SERVANT DISOBEDIENT 34
III
THE SERVANT RESTORED 68
IV
THE SERVANT REAPING 84
V
SOWING IN THE EVENING 104
INTRODUCTION
A large number of Christian students in this and other lands have
adopted as their watch-word “The Evangelization of the World in this
Generation.” They thus express their conviction that the apostolic
Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, that it is intended to meet
the world’s greatest need, and that the chief business of a Christian
disciple is to make this Gospel everywhere known, and thus best serve
his day and generation.
Students who have come under the power of a science that is largely
materialistic and of a philosophy which has no place for the
supernatural regard this evangelistic program as being antiquated and
narrow, and, contemplating man as a mere creature of circumstance, they
maintain that the great objective of the Church should be to improve
external conditions, to uplift the whole social order by education and
by every advantage of an improved environment. To such, even though
they may commend in a general way a kind of social evangelism, the
preaching of the apostolic Gospel is for the most part foolishness,
and they show little if any interest in bringing unbelievers to an
acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.
When one notes the small number of additions to the Church on
confession of faith, at home and on the mission field, following the
labor of a large number of ministers and Christian workers, he must
conclude that very little is being done in the apostolic business of
winning souls to a personal allegiance to Jesus Christ. The main reason
for this is a lack of conviction as to the Gospel’s incomparable value.
Our ministers and our churches need to be reminded in the most forcible
way that the living Christ is at work in the world, and that through
the power of his Spirit he is abundantly able to turn men from darkness
to light and from the power of Satan unto God.
The testimony of Mr. Paul M. Kanamori, often called the Dwight L. Moody
of Japan, should serve to stimulate faith in the power of God’s Holy
Word, in the saving power of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Saviour,
in the regenerating power of his Holy Spirit,--to rescue men from sin
and make them apostles of the Gospel of the grace of God.
The story of Mr. Kanamori’s conversion, of his departure from the fold
of Christ, and his reclamation, is the same old message of God and sin
and salvation wherein lies the only fundamental hope for a lost world.
This dramatic and appealing biography of a great modern evangelist
should serve as a warning to any who may be inclined to abandon the
simplicity that is in Christ, and should prove stimulating to all who
are enlisted in the great enterprises of the Kingdom. For a preacher
of the cross to win fifty thousand disciples for Christ shows that the
days of the apostles are not past, and proves that the evangelization
of the world in this generation cannot be an idle dream to one who has
experienced the Gospel’s power, and is convinced that there is none
other name than that of Christ given under heaven among men whereby
they must be saved.
J. ROSS STEVENSON.
CHAPTER I
THE SERVANT SENT
In the year 1852 the Government of the United States sent an expedition
under Commodore Perry to the Far East. He came to Japan with four
ships, manned by 560 men, and concluded a treaty of commerce between
the United States and Japan, thus opening that hermit nation of the
Far East to the light of modern civilization. This was the dawn of new
Japan.
About 1870, an American soldier, Captain L. L. Janes, came to my
country. But his coming was entirely different from that of the former
one. He was not sent by the United States Government, but was invited
by the Japanese Government to teach military tactics to her subjects.
In those days Japan was divided into about three hundred small
provinces, each having its own prince or lord, and each prince having
an army of his own to fight with other princes. One of these feudal
princes of the southern island, called Kyushu, was quite an ambitious
man. He schemed to have a strong army, which was drilled in quite
up-to-date, modern military tactics of the “Western Nations,” as the
Japanese called the countries of Europe and America. For this purpose
he engaged Captain Janes, who was a graduate of the West Point Military
Academy, and a captain in the Union Army, and was said to have fought
four years in the Civil War, to come to his province and found a
military school.
Meanwhile, this prince had selected about one hundred boys from among
his own subjects, by a special examination, and put them into this
military school. Thus the school was started. But soon after this a
great political change took place in Japan, by which all the feudal
lords of the country restored their territories to the Imperial
Government, the whole country now being ruled by one supreme head, the
Emperor of Japan, and all the provincial armies were dispersed. There
being no longer any need of a provincial military school, this one
was changed in character, and became simply an English school, where
Captain Janes taught for seven years.
In this connection I must tell you how God in his providence turned
this school, originally intended for the training of military officers,
into a nursery for Christian workers. It was a wonderful providence,
indeed, by which God raised up many “children unto Abraham” out of
these rude stones.
Captain Janes was not a missionary, and had no connection with any
mission board in America. But he was an earnest Christian, filled
with a strong desire to lead to Christ those boys who came under his
instruction. His wife, too, who was a daughter of Doctor Scudder, an
early missionary to India, was a praying woman. I was told by her
sister, and her brother, Dr. Doremus Scudder, when they came to my
country as missionaries long years after this, how in those early days
Mrs. Janes used to spend many nights in prayer with tears.
In the beginning Captain Janes could not talk much about Christianity,
because he did not know the language. He could not speak Japanese at
all. He did not even attempt to learn Japanese. He used English alone
from the very beginning of his teachings. When he taught the alphabet
to his boys he spoke English to them. Nobody could understand him. He
did not employ an interpreter, because he did not like the idea of
having a go-between with his students. He tried from the first to come
into direct contact with his pupils, and to inspire them through his
own personality. And he did inspire them. The boys were fascinated and
captivated by his unique personality long before they were converted to
his religious faith.
In the third year of his teaching, when the older boys began to
understand him and he could talk with them in English, he began to talk
about Christianity. He could not teach Christianity in the school. It
was not a mission school, and to teach Christianity was not his object
in coming, but he offered to teach us the Bible, if we would go to his
house Saturday evenings. And he gave us several copies of the English
Bible. At first, out of mere curiosity, a few of the older boys went
to read the Bible with him every Saturday evening. But the Bible was
a strange book to us, and we could not understand it at all. Also,
Captain Janes had a very peculiar way of teaching the Bible. He did
not explain much, nor argue much with his students; but from the very
beginning of the Bible reading he asked us to commit to memory certain
passages, such as John 1:1-18, and 3:1-21, and we did so out of sheer
respect for our revered teacher. I have forgotten almost everything I
heard in his Bible class, but these Scripture verses still remain in my
memory.
Then in addition to this Bible reading, Captain Janes began to preach
every Sunday morning in his own parlor. Though he had no theological
training he used to preach fine sermons, and very long ones, often two
or three hours at a time. It may be that I learned my three-hour sermon
from him. But as he was an eloquent speaker we were much impressed by
his Sunday morning preaching. One day when he was preaching on Paul and
his great missionary work, he suddenly turned to me and said, “What do
you think of this man? Is it not a glorious thing to imitate such a
great man as the Apostle Paul?” From that time the name of Paul became
a part of my name. Through his preaching, about a dozen boys of the
school were converted. This was in the summer of 1875.
After we were converted we became very much interested in reading the
Bible. But while the school was in session we could not get much time
for it, because we were so pressed with our daily lessons. So when the
winter vacation of that year came, a few of the Christian boys remained
in the school, instead of going back to their own homes to enjoy the
holidays. Our purpose in staying in the school was to read the Bible
and pray together. During this vacation we tried to put aside all other
books, and to read the Bible only. In those days we had no Japanese
Bible. We had only the English Bible, which our teacher gave us. We
had no commentaries to explain the difficult passages, nor a Bible
dictionary to consult. But we spent the whole time of this vacation in
reading the plain English Bible. We read mostly the Four Gospels, the
Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles to the Romans. I remember how we
enjoyed this Bible reading. We almost devoured the Book, just as young
people nowadays devour their sensational novels.
This Bible reading was the preparation for a powerful revival which
soon broke out in that school. This was the first revival in modern
Japan, or rather it should be called the first outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, because there was nothing yet to revive. We did not know that
it was a revival of religion. We had neither heard nor read of such
things. We had not seen a single missionary. No missionary had ever
visited that part of the country. We were so ignorant of the Christian
world outside of us that we did not even know the modern institution
of church and pastor. We did not know that the minister who preaches
the Gospel can be supported by the church. We thought if we were going
to preach the Gospel we must do as Paul did,--working with our own
hands and preaching the Gospel. All we knew were Bible truths and Bible
personages. We knew Jesus Christ and how he died upon the cross for us.
We knew Paul and Peter and John and James, and how they were filled
with the Holy Spirit and what mighty works they did. And we boys simply
tried to imitate those great apostles.
Without knowing that it was a revival of religion, we had it, and that,
too, a powerful one. It happened on this wise. When the winter vacation
was over, all the boys returned to school. These boys were quite young.
I was one of the oldest among them, and I was only eighteen. When the
younger boys returned to the school, we older boys who had read the
Bible during vacation were now so full of it that we could not help
talking about it to these younger students. These students now became
very much interested in hearing Bible stories, and they also began
to read the Bible themselves. So we formed Bible classes and taught
them. The whole school was thrown into such a fever of Bible reading
that, although the new term had already commenced, the school could
not resume its ordinary work because nobody cared to read any other
book but the Bible, Bible, Bible. Everybody was reading the Bible, and
everywhere Bible classes were going on. Consequently, for the whole of
the first week of the term the regular studies were suspended, and the
school was given over to Bible reading. We thought at one time that the
whole school of one hundred boys was going to be converted at once.
Conversion after conversion occurred. There was a boy about fifteen
years of age who preached so powerfully among his fellow-students that
as a result many were converted.
The revival did not confine itself within the school walls. We were not
satisfied with the conversion of the schoolboys alone. We went out
of the school, preaching the Gospel in our own homes, to our parents,
relatives, and friends. We even went to our former Confucian teachers,
and told them the new truths we had learned from the Bible. We were all
Confucianists, and brought up in the Confucian school before we entered
Captain Janes’ school. There were quite often very hot discussions
between those old teachers and the newly converted Christian boys. But
always these boys were able to confound those old Confucian scholars.
As they could not withstand nor gainsay these boys’ arguments, they
were enraged at them. One day I called on my old Confucian teacher, who
loved me as dearly as one of his own sons, and I was also very much
attached to him; but as I told him the new truths which I had learned
from the Bible there arose a hot discussion between us. When he saw
that I would not obey his command to renounce the Christian faith, he
was greatly enraged, and said, “You must never come back again to my
house to see me.”
I was almost driven out of his house, and I did not see him again
before his death. But I am happy to tell you that not long after his
death his widow became a Christian, and one of his grandsons is now the
pastor of a Christian church.
In the midst of such a sweeping revival a great enemy appeared.
Persecution broke out, not by the government, but by the families,
parents, relatives, and friends of the young converts. At the
instigation of the Confucian teachers, the parents and relatives tried
to persuade their boys to renounce their Christian faith, and to return
to the Confucian teaching.
You know that the first missionaries in Japan were Roman Catholics,
sent about five hundred years ago, but the Japanese Government, as
well as the people, had for many centuries bitterly persecuted these
Roman Catholics. Any one who professed to be Christian was in danger
of bringing capital punishment upon himself and his family. People
looked upon Christians as traitors to the country, and feared that
they would become the tools of the foreign nations represented by the
missionaries. So the Christians were looked upon by the country at
large as very detestable people, dangerous to the safety of the country.
I remember that when I was a little boy we used to see the
Government’s notice boards set up everywhere with this statement: “The
belief in the evil religion of Jesus is strictly forbidden by order.”
In some places, sometimes, the following statement was added: “If
any one knowing a believer in this religion of Jesus will inform the
authorities, he shall be rewarded by the Government.” These rewards
were given in money.
My grandfather was an officer of some position in our provincial
government. At one time he was appointed chief officer over a large
district. It was the duty of such officials to examine the religion of
the people over whom they were placed. For this purpose he used to call
all the people of his district once a year to his official residence.
The day of such a gathering was counted among the great days of the
year. It was called the “Feast of Picture Trampling.” I remember my
grandfather had a small iron crucifix, such as the Roman Catholic
priests carry with them. This crucifix was put in a small box, which
was covered with an iron grating, so that the figure within might be
seen from the outside, and this box was placed in a small hole dug for
the purpose, in the middle of a large courtyard, where usually the
criminals were examined. Then the people were called in, one by one, by
name, in the presence of the Government officers, all dressed in their
official robes, with swords and spears to guard against emergencies.
The people of each township, headed by the mayor, were called in by
themselves, and when they came to the place where the box was placed
they trampled upon it and passed on. To this feast all people, men and
women and even children, were ordered to come. When the women came into
the yard, after they themselves had stepped on the box, they put down
their children and made their little feet touch the crucifix, thus
testifying that they were not of this religion. If any one refused to
trample upon the cross he was arrested at once, and put into prison on
the charge of being a Christian. My grandfather had a prison in which
to put such men.
Once when I was watching those country folks trampling upon the box I
asked my grandfather, “What is that figure in the box, on which these
people are treading?”
He turned to me and said: “Oh, that is an unclean worm! if it is not
put in that box and trampled upon by the people, it will creep out and
do immense mischief to the country.”
This was the first time I came in contact with the cross of Christ, and
I was told that it was an “unclean worm.” And now, only a little over
ten years after those days, I myself became a Christian. No wonder that
the parents and relatives should be frightened at the prospect of their
boys becoming the worshipers of that “unclean worm.” Fortunately, by
this time the government which had persecuted Christianity for so long
was overthrown, and the present Imperial Government came into power,
and there was no danger of persecution coming from that quarter. But
the families tried in every way to drive out of their boys’ heads what
they called “the foolish notion of believing in an unclean religion”;
but it was too late. Christianity had already taken such a deep root
in our hearts that nothing could uproot it. The fire once kindled by
heaven cannot be quenched by any earthly means. Of course there were a
few weak ones among the believing boys, who fell away from the ranks of
believers because of this persecution. But there remained about forty
boys with the firm determination to hold on to their new faith, even
unto death.
I distinctly recall it now that it was on a fine Sunday morning,
January 30, 1876, the year after our conversion, that these forty
Christian boys went up a little hill called Hanaoka, its literal
meaning being the “Mount of Flowers,” just outside the city of
Kumamoto, where Captain Janes’ school was located. At the top of
the “Mount of Flowers” there was a big old pine tree spreading out
its branches. This pine tree is still standing there after half a
century of the most eventful life of new Japan. Under this grand
old tree, at the top of the hill, those forty Christian boys had a
service dedicating themselves to God. First they drew up an article of
dedication, the main meaning of which, as I remember it now, was as
follows: “This day we consecrate ourselves to the service of Christ,
and pledge ourselves to preach his Gospel throughout the whole empire
of Japan, even though it means death.” After the reading of this
article each one signed his name to it. Then they sang several hymns.
We had no Japanese hymns as yet. We knew only the English hymns, which
Mrs. Janes had taught us to sing. Among them was that missionary hymn:
“From Greenland’s icy mountains,
From India’s coral strand,
Where Afric’s sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand,
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from error’s chain.”
Another was:
“Must Jesus bear the Cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for every one,
And there’s a cross for me.”
Our favorite was:
“Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow thee,
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I’ve sought, or hoped, or known,
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and Heaven are still my own!”
This hymn exactly expressed our situation at the time. Here at the top
of the “Mount of Flowers” we took up our cross, determined to follow
Jesus, even unto death. Here we forsook all our fond worldly ambitions.
Heretofore we had dreamed of becoming great men of the world, either
statesmen or soldiers, or business men, perhaps millionaires. Human
nature is the same everywhere. Young people are always dreaming of
great things, but now we had chosen to become “naked, poor, despised,
forsaken,” for Christ’s sake. Here we took our firm stand, and prepared
to face a storm of persecution, which was just bursting upon us, to
crush and overthrow this little band of forty boys. Then, as the last
act of our dedication service, I offered a prayer of consecration for
all. Thus armed with power from above we descended the hill, singing
and rejoicing. This was indeed a bold challenge to the enemies of
Christianity.
As soon as the meeting of the Christian boys at the Mount of Flowers
was known abroad, our persecutors took stronger measures. Many of the
Christian boys were taken out of the school and imprisoned in their own
homes, or other places, being cut off entirely from their Christian
friends in the school, and subjected to very severe treatment, in some
cases even to cruelty.
In the home of one of the boys the mother was so grieved over her son
becoming a Christian that, when she saw no simple persuasion would
avail to turn his heart from following Jesus, she betook herself to a
last resort. In the olden days the high class ladies in Japan carried
small swords in their bosoms as a means of protection; so now, with
her sword in her hand, she faced her boy and demanded an immediate
renunciation of his Christian faith. And in case he would not do so
within twenty-four hours, she threatened to commit suicide, to atone
for the sin of dishonoring her ancestors by letting her son become a
follower of an “unclean religion.”
It was not a mere threat. The mother was in earnest. I called on her
that very day and begged her to let me see her boy, who was one of
my dearest friends, just to bid him good-bye before we should die.
In those days we Christian boys, on our side, were determined to die
before we would renounce our allegiance to Christ. It was a life
and death struggle between us and our enemies. But when I saw her I
trembled, because she was in such a determined mood that I felt as
though I were standing before a dead person, pale and ghastly, and she
said calmly to me:
“No, you cannot see my boy, but if you insist on seeing him, kill me
first, and then you may see him.”
I said to her, “My aunt, I did not come here to kill you, but only to
see your boy.” Thus saying, I left her house with a heavy heart, full
of fear and anxiety, thinking that before the next day dawned either
the mother or the son in that home would die.
Something happened, providentially. I cannot now recall what it was,
but the mother was prevented from committing suicide, and her son was
saved from renouncing his faith. And this same mother, long years
after, herself became a Christian, and died in the faith.
There were several such cases in the homes of these Christian boys.
In another home the father was so enraged that he came with his drawn
sword in his hand, and actually attempted to take his son’s life. You
know that in the olden days the Samurai class, which was the warrior
class in old Japan, used always to carry two swords, one long and the
other short, and were in the habit of using them quite freely. These
boys all belonged to this Samurai class.
I was one of the most bitterly persecuted. After receiving severe
treatment at the hands of my relatives for many months, I was finally
disowned and cast out of my father’s house. I lost everything except my
English Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which became now my
sole possessions.
Though they were made to pass through the ordeal of much persecution,
the Christian boys finally gained the victory. Persecution could
not accomplish the purpose of our enemies. The more bitterly they
persecuted us, the more we were confirmed in our faith. We used to
comfort one another by saying, “Is not this the living proof of the
truth of Christianity? We see right here in our midst the perfect
fulfilment of the word of Christ spoken nineteen centuries ago, ‘A
man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’”
This band of forty boys was afterwards called the “Kumamoto Band,” well
known in the early history of Christian missions in modern Japan.
Thus far I have told you only one side of this story of the “Kumamoto
Band.” But there is another side to it, even more wonderful than this,
which I must not omit. In the summer of 1865, just ten years before the
time of which I am speaking, a young Japanese arrived in the city of
Boston. He had left his country a year before, in an American schooner.
In those days to leave the country was almost certain death to a
Japanese. But the young man dared this certain death, and after a year
of hardship and suffering in a sea voyage he finally reached his goal,
the land of liberty and enlightenment. He was poor and destitute, and
was without any friends to look after him in this strange land. He
remained in this helpless condition after his arrival for many weeks.
At one time he was so discouraged that he almost despaired of obtaining
the object of his coming to America, and was on the verge of insanity.
But Heaven did not forsake him. A generous and noble-hearted Christian
citizen of Boston, Mr. Alpheus Hardy, owner of the ship in which he had
come, hearing of his case, took him into his home, and recognizing the
fine spirit and noble ambition of this young man, Mr. Hardy decided
to adopt him and give him a thorough American education. He was first
placed in the Phillips Academy at Andover, then was sent to Amherst
College, and finally to the Andover Theological Seminary to be trained
for the Christian ministry.
After ten years of training and preparation, this young man returned
to Japan, in 1874, and the next year, 1875, which was the very year
when those Kumamoto boys were converted, he opened a Christian school
under the auspices of the American Mission Board in Japan, in the city
of Kyoto, the old capital. This was Dr. Joseph Hardy Neeshima, a man
of God, and the greatest Christian leader in Japan. He was filled with
a burning zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, and was looking
eagerly for like-minded young men who would come and join him in the
great work of evangelizing Japan.
Here you see again the wonderful working of the providence of God.
While on one hand God was preparing and disciplining those forty boys
of the “Kumamoto Band” by special education under Captain Janes, as
well as by bitter persecution, he was at the same time training this
great Christian leader of Japan through the kind help of Alpheus Hardy
in America. Dr. Neeshima knew nothing of these Kumamoto boys, and they
knew nothing of Dr. Neeshima and his school. Though entirely unknown to
each other, we were all in the same Hand, being moulded and shaped for
the coming work of his kingdom.
In the spring of 1876, when Captain Janes, through an American
newspaper, heard of Dr. Neeshima and his Christian school, he at once
communicated with him, and told him all about the “Kumamoto Band.” It
came as a great surprise to Dr. Neeshima and his colleagues. I was told
by one of the missionary teachers who was with Dr. Neeshima at the time
that it seemed to them as though the forty boys fell down straight from
heaven. They had never dreamed such a wonderful thing was going on in
such an obscure part of the country.
On our side it was a great joy and comfort in the midst of persecution
to hear of such a Christian man and school existing in our own country.
By the fall of that year almost all of the “Kumamoto Band,” having
been driven out of their homes and their native province, came to this
school of Dr. Neeshima, and joined him in his great work. Thus was
started the first Christian college, “The Doshisha University,” which
was destined to become a center of Christian education and Christian
influence in Japan, and from which came the new impulse for Christian
work in that country, and Dr. Neeshima became its first president.
Of the “Kumamoto Band,” about fifteen boys who had already finished
their preparatory education in Captain Janes’ school, entered the
theological class, the first in Doshisha University. For three years
they received theological training and preparation for the Christian
ministry. After graduating in 1879, most of these boys went out as
home missionaries, preaching the Gospel of Christ all over Japan, and
founding Congregational churches in many parts of the country.
In Japan the Presbyterian churches now have the largest number of
believers. Then come the Congregational churches, and after that those
of other denominations. But though the Congregational churches come
second in membership they have the largest number and the strongest
churches. This is due mostly to the work of the “Kumamoto Band.” From
it came forth the most influential and foremost preachers and pastors
of the Congregational churches in Japan.
One of this band, a graduate of 1879, has been now over forty years a
pastor of a large Congregational church. He is called the Bishop of
Southern Japan, without appointment. Another of this band is one of
the greatest Christian scholars in Japan, and is now the President
of the National Sunday-School Association. The present President
of the Doshisha University is also a member of this band. After Dr.
Neeshima, the first President, died, in 1890, four of the presidents
of that university came from this band. Not only in the religious and
educational work, but also in Government service, in the House of
Parliament, as well as in the business world, some of the members of
this band were able to hold quite important positions.
So you see this “Kumamoto Band” was used mightily by the hand of
God for establishing a Christian testimony in modern Japan. And you
know now how it came about. It was not started by a missionary, nor
by a minister. It was started by a layman, by a soldier who had no
theological training or ministerial experience, and who had not come
to my country to teach Christianity, but to teach military tactics,
the English language and modern science. But as a by-product of this
layman’s work this “Kumamoto Band” sprang up and became a power in the
Christian world of Japan. A wonderful working of Providence! Indeed,
God can use anything as his instrument to execute his own purpose. He
used a jawbone of an ass in the hand of Samson to destroy a thousand
Philistines. It may be that the “Kumamoto Band” and Captain Janes were
as the jawbone of an ass.
My friends, do you think that there are no such promising young men to
be found in my country now? Oh, yes, there are the makings of “Kumamoto
Bands” always and everywhere. If you will send out missionaries filled
with burning zeal for the salvation of souls, who will come into direct
personal touch with young men and women and inspire them through their
own personalities by the aid of the Holy Spirit, you can find any
number of such bands even now.
Not only in Japan, but in all the mission fields of the world, there
are thousands of such boys just waiting for some Captain Janes to come
and form them into a band of Christian workers. Therefore the question
is not whether we can find such “Kumamoto Bands” now, but whether we
can find such Captain Janes’.
CHAPTER II
THE SERVANT DISOBEDIENT
In my first chapter I gave a brief account of the Kumamoto Band, their
conversion and dedication, persecution, and victory, how they came to
Dr. Neeshima’s school, how they went out again, preaching the Gospel
and founding Congregational churches in all parts of Japan, and how
this band was mightily used by God for establishing a testimony to
Christ in my country. So far I have told the good part of this story.
But now I must turn to my own part in it, because I am to tell you the
story of my own Christian life. But when I turn to my own part I am
sorry to say that I cannot give the good part only, but I must give the
bad part too. I was not a good boy, as some of my friends were, working
faithfully during half a century. I was a backsliding, prodigal son of
my Heavenly Father for many years. My life was shipwrecked on the rocks
of doubt and unbelief. I have nothing to glory of, but only to confess
my sins and failures. It is not a pleasant thing for a man to speak
of his own sins and failings. But I think it is our duty as Christians
to confess our sins to one another. So I here wish to discharge that
first duty, and, if possible, warn my young friends who are in danger
of treading the same path, and falling into the same pit I did.
I was the first one of the Kumamoto Band who came to Doshisha
University, in the summer of 1876. There was not a single building on
the whole University campus, so I was connected with that school from
its very foundation. Also I was a member of the first graduating class,
of 1879. After graduating from this school, I went down to the Province
of Okayama as a missionary. I had no money, no salary, no help. As
Christ told us, I went to a worthy man, who fed and clothed me for the
first year of my ministry. There was an American Board mission station
in Okayama, and I worked in connection with it, and after a year there
sprang up a Congregational church of about fifty members, and I became
its first pastor, receiving three dollars and a half for a month’s
salary. But our work was very much blessed. Besides the central church
there sprang up many other churches all around, and this province
became one of the strongest centers of the Christian world in Japan.
Then I was called back by Dr. Neeshima to his school as a professor of
theology. So I came back to my alma mater and assisted Dr. Neeshima in
teaching, and also in the work of the presidency. So, you see, at first
even I was doing some good work for the cause of Christ. I was regarded
as one of the most promising Christian workers of the country at the
time.
Now comes my bad turn. During my stay in Doshisha University, as a
professor of theology I read many books on that subject. Among them
were the books of German New Theology and the Higher Criticism. To me,
brought up in almost Puritan strictness of doctrine and practise, their
easy and free way of handling the Word of God and interpreting the
doctrines of the Bible was so interesting and fascinating that I was
completely carried away by their cunning argument. And my positions in
orthodox theology were thrown down, one after another, by those fiery
doubts shot from the camp of New Theology. I thought I was standing
on the rocks of orthodox theology, but now those very rocks themselves
seemed to melt under the heat of modern criticism.
Finally I became a convert to this new doctrine, and its devout
follower. Not only that, but I became a very zealous propagandist.
I began to propagate the new doctrine in preaching and writing. I
translated Dr. Pfleiderer’s “Philosophy of Religion” into Japanese,
under the title of “The Liberal Theology.” He was the professor of
theology in Berlin University, and was regarded as one of the foremost
scholars of New Theology of the day. I myself wrote a book called
“Present and Future Christianity of Japan.” In this book I prophesied
that, though the present Christianity of Japan was orthodox, the future
Christianity would be a liberal one. Some liberals say that prophecy
has been fulfilled, but I hope not. At any rate, I am sorry to say that
this book has led astray many young friends, but I am happy to say that
it is out of print now. This book made some stir in the Christian world
of Japan at the time.
In those days all the Congregational churches were orthodox and
evangelical. Of course, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the
Episcopalians, and the Baptists were thoroughgoing orthodox, and
Congregational ministers were the zealous defenders of the orthodox
faith. I was looked at as a very dangerous heretic, and was almost
excommunicated. I could not conscientiously stay in the orthodox
church, since my theology so greatly differed from theirs, and so I
left the Congregational church in order to make my position clear to
the world; but when I left the church I left the Christian ministry
also.
I wish to call special attention to this point: Why did I leave the
ministry when I left the Congregational church? Because, in the first
place, my New Theology and Higher Criticism had destroyed my faith in
the perfect, divine authority of the Bible; and in the second place,
they had destroyed my faith in the perfect deity of Christ. When I had
lost these two things I had lost everything. I could not preach Christ
alone, and him crucified. I could preach Christian theism, Christian
morality, and Christian sociology. In fact, I could preach all the
practical side of Christianity, but not the central fundamental truths
of Christianity, Christ and his salvation through the cross.
In those days there were many liberals who were saying, “You may have
your own theology in your study, but retain the commonly accepted
Christian doctrine in the pulpit. There is no need of entering into the
discussion of theological questions in the pulpit, because it is for
the common people, and not for the scholars.”
But I said: “I cannot use two theologies in my ministry, one for
myself, and the other for the people. I cannot handle the Word of God
in such a double-handed way. What I have learned in my study that I
will preach in my pulpit.”
But such was quite the common practise among the liberals of those
days. Not only in those days, but even now, there are many liberals
who are practising these worldly counsels of handling the Word of God
cunningly and deceitfully. They are proclaiming from their pulpits, not
the salvation of souls by the blood of Christ, but only what they call
social salvation, moral uplift, and world reconstruction by the example
of Jesus of Nazareth, thus hiding their skeptical theology and agnostic
philosophy under the cloak of practical Christianity.
Some liberal churches invited me to come to their side and help
to spread the liberal Christianity in Japan. But I declined all
invitations. I thought if social reform and moral uplift are the only
work of the Christian ministry, and not the salvation of souls by the
blood of Christ, there is no need of my staying in it any longer. Such
social service could be rendered out of it just as well, if not better.
So I left the ministry, and joined a politico-social reform campaign
in my country. Now I became a political and social reformer, and in
this capacity spent more than twenty years. Thus I squandered away the
best portion of my life in unprofitable worldly pursuit; thus my life
was shipwrecked in the midst of my life-work, and thus I turned away
from Jesus Christ, whom I had found seventeen years before in such a
wonderful manner, and to whom I had pledged my allegiance at the top
of the Mount of Flowers. The purpose of the Devil, which could not be
accomplished by bitter persecution, had been now accomplished by the
help of the New Theology and Higher Criticism. This is the Devil’s way
of working. When he cannot gain his object by sword or fire, he resorts
to an entirely different method.
Now let me tell how the study of Higher Criticism and New Theology
destroyed my evangelical faith, and what a baneful influence they
exerted upon my spiritual life, and how they finally dragged me down
to the depths of doubt and unbelief. But before going farther, I must
explain what I call Higher Criticism and New Theology.
When I addressed a body of theological students in a certain seminary
where the New Theology and Higher Criticism are being taught now, I
told them plainly what havoc this New Theology and Higher Criticism
have made in my Christian life, and how they are sapping the very life
of the Christian churches at present, and I warned them sincerely
against this misleading, dangerous teaching.
After the address, one of the professors who heard me came and
asked, “What do you mean by ‘Higher Criticism’? Do you mean by it
the destructive Higher Criticism only, or do you include even the
constructive Higher Criticism?”
I answered him: “I don’t know. It is very difficult to draw a line
between ‘destructive’ and ‘constructive’ in the so-called modern
Higher Criticism. But all criticism which destroys faith in the
perfect, divine authority of the Bible I call Higher Criticism, and
all theological teaching which destroys belief in the perfect deity of
Jesus Christ I call New Theology.”
These are the definitions of these two terms which I use in this
book. Of course there are all grades of Higher Criticism and New
Theology, ranging from the mildest, almost touching the border line
of evangelical faith, down to the very deadliest, which never ceases
blaspheming Christ and the Holy Scriptures; but whether they are mild
or extreme, these doctrines are a real poison to the Christian faith.
Not only did I almost kill my spiritual life by absorbing such poisons
into my own system, but also by introducing such poisons into the
Japanese churches, I did great damage to the cause of Christ in my
country.
A friend has asked me whether I still feel the evil effects of the
study of such books on my spiritual life.
I answered him, “Yes. If you once absorb poison into your system it is
very hard to get entirely rid of the evil.”
He also asked me whether it is wise for one to read such books in
order to know our opponents’ positions.
“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes it is necessary for us to study books of this
kind in order to find out their fallacies and untruths.”
But even then we must be very careful not to be poisoned ourselves.
It is sometimes necessary for the student of chemistry to enter the
chemical laboratory and handle deadly poisons, in order to make
important experiments, but at such times the student must take as
perfect precaution as possible not to take the poison into his own body
and die.
In the same way, when you are going to make experiments with these
poisonous doctrines of the enemy of the Gospel, you must take perfect
precautions not to absorb their poisons, as I did. Moreover, I like
to caution my orthodox brothers and sisters against handling these
poisonous books except under the urgent necessity of making important
experiments. Though we have to provide deadly poisons in our chemical
laboratories for the purpose of experiments, it is not at all necessary
or advisable to put them in our kitchens and dining-rooms; no, it is
not wise to handle them too often.
However, I am not going to discuss at present the question of New
Theology. I am simply going to show you how baneful and destructive was
its influence upon my own spiritual life. That is all I intend to do
here.
Some of the professors of New Theology said to me, after hearing my
lecture, “You have the facts which no theory can refute.” Yes, I have
the facts, or rather I myself am the fact, and I am going to give this
fact, and not theory, or argument. Now let me proceed to tell the
processes and steps by which these studies destroyed my evangelical
faith.
I was a lover of the Bible. I loved it and revered it as the Word of
God. I was converted by reading the Bible. I believed the Bible was
the Word of God, given by the Holy Spirit through the holy men of old;
that the Bible contained truth only, and no error. The Holy Spirit
cannot be the author of error. God cannot make mistakes. I believed,
therefore, that all the historical facts of the Bible were true facts,
and all the biographical narratives true narratives, and not made up by
men, and all the Biblical heroes true persons, and not fabulous ones.
I believed that its doctrines and teachings were all true, good, and
perfect and “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness.” In fact, I believed that the Bible was
a perfect revelation of the will and wisdom and love of God, that we
have only to dig into it and find out the precious truth of its deep
meaning, and honor it by belief and obedience. If I found any difficult
passage in the Bible, which I could not understand, or reconcile with
my reason, I always put the blame of the doubt upon my own imperfect
intellect, and believed that the Bible was all right, though I could
not understand it. Thus I believed in the absolute divine authority of
the Bible, and on this divine Book, as on the rock of ages, I built my
faith in Christianity as the absolute religion. Not _a_ religion, but
_the_ religion of the world.
Now came the higher critics and said, “No,” to all of these my beliefs
in the Bible. In the first place, they said, “the Bible is not the Word
of God, given through the Holy Spirit, in any such sense as you have
believed. The Bible is a book written by men, just as all other books
are written. Therefore the words contained in it are not the words of
God himself, but the words of men, perhaps pious men, good men, devout
men, and religiously-minded men. But they are all men and nothing more.
And as all men are liable to make mistakes, and are apt to invent
stories, and manufacture the facts, so the Bible contains many untrue
narratives, and made-up stories. Many of the historical personages of
the Bible are imaginary heroes and not true persons. Moreover, the
doctrines propounded in the Bible are not all sound doctrines. Some
are quite unsound. The teachings of the Bible are not all wise and
profitable, and some are not applicable to modern times at all. They
may have been good enough in the dark ages of the ancient world, but
are not suitable to this modern age. So the Bible does not contain
truth only, but it contains error also.
“In fact, the Bible is a mixture of truth and error, good and bad,
wise and unwise. It contains myths, legends, and fables, just as all
the so-called sacred books of the world religions contain such a
mixture. The Bible must in many cases be interpreted allegorically
and figuratively, deducing only moral and spiritual lessons. You must
not swallow everything in the Bible as true, but must make careful
discrimination. You must separate what is true from what is untrue,
and what is good from what is bad. You must search and find out for
yourself what part of the Biblical history is authentic, and what part
of it is not, who are the true persons, and who are the imaginary ones,
using reason and common sense, just as when reading all other books
written by men.” This is what I was taught by Higher Criticism and New
Theology.
According to my orthodox faith I had looked upon the Bible as the
perfect, revealed Word of God, and as a supreme Judge sitting on the
bench giving an infallible judgment upon all matters pertaining to the
spiritual as well as the moral welfare of man. This judgment I had
looked upon as final, with no one to dispute it. I sat before the Bible
as a client or petitioner waiting for a final decision.
Now came Higher Criticism and turned everything upside down and said,
“No, you are not the petitioner, you yourself are the judge. You must
sit upon the bench of the supreme judge and pronounce your judgment
upon the contents of the Bible, as to whether it is true or untrue,
good or bad, applicable or inapplicable. The Bible, as all other
books, must become a petitioner before you, and your reason.”
So you see the Bible was in this way dragged down from the seat of the
supreme judge to the place of the petitioner, and man with his reason
and common sense was exalted to the seat of the judge.
What authority can such a Bible have over a man when he has to choose
from its contents whatever seems good or suitable for his purpose, and
whatever does not seem so he has a right to discard? Do you think such
a Bible can command us to “meditate therein day and night,” and “turn
not from it to the right hand or to the left”? What becomes of those
precious promises of God in the Bible if they are not the word of God
in a true and exact sense? In the Old and New Testaments there are more
than thirty thousand promises, and they have been life and joy and
strength to Christians for nineteen centuries. But if these are not
really the promises given by God himself, but only the opinions and
conjectures of human beings, how can we trust them? Do you think we can
build the absolute religion of the world upon so fickle and unstable a
foundation as this? The Bible of the Higher Critics is not rock, but
sand, and a house built upon it must fall, and great will be the fall
thereof.
Now they have dragged the Bible down to the level of the sacred
writings of other world religions, such as the sacred books of the
Brahmans, the legendary stories of Shakamuni, the Koran of Mohammed,
and others. The religion of the Bible must then become one of these
world religions founded by men. So Christianity also must share the
fate of all other religions of the world. Once you have dragged
Christianity down to a level with other religions of the world, you
cannot save it alone amidst the wholesale destruction of all these
superstitious world religions by the fires of modern civilization.
And I believe the sooner they are destroyed the better it will be for
mankind. And Christianity, according to New Theology, must share their
fate sooner or later.
In Christian lands we see many who, while embracing such destructive
views of the Bible and Christianity, are yet holding on to Christian
practise, not as a result of their own thinking, but as a result
of time-honored customs, life-long habits, and early training and
education in the Christian homes, Christian institutions, and
Christian society in which they were brought up. They are like men
who, when thrown into a deep well, instead of going down straight to
the bottom, cling to the stony sides, or hold on to the ropes, and
so are prevented from dropping at once to the bottom. But Christians
newly converted, in a heathen land, having no such Christian homes
or institutions to cling to, when thrown into the well of doubt and
unbelief, will go straight to the bottom. We are standing only upon our
own thinking, and if that thinking goes wrong, we shall fall at once
and be drowned.
At least I fell to the bottom. I could not hang on the walls midway. I
did not hesitate to declare in my book that if Christianity is one of
the religions of the world, like Buddhism and Mohammedanism, then it
must share the common fate of all these religions. They may have been
all right, and have done their work in their own time and in their
own field, but now they will not be able to withstand the test of
the twentieth century civilization. In this melting pot of twentieth
century civilization all the world religions will be melted together
and a new religion, which is neither Buddhism nor Christianity, neither
Brahmanism nor Mohammedanism, but which discards all the bad, and
retains only the good, of those religions, will arise. In fact, a new
eclectic religion will arise out of the chaos of the old religions of
the world.
You may say, perhaps, that this is an arrogant and extravagant position
to take. Yes, it is arrogant and extravagant, but it is the natural and
logical conclusion to which Higher Criticism and New Theology will lead
their devout followers in heathen lands. There are many such now, but
they do not express their skeptical position as plainly and bluntly as
I have done here.
It is a common saying among the educated heathen that all religions
have the same goal, and are like the mountain paths leading up to the
same top. Some go up from the east, and others from the west, some go
up from the north, and others from the south, but they all lead you to
the same top, and when you get there you find no difference; whichever
path you have taken you are at last at the top of the mountain and
enjoying the fine view. If that is so, may it not be better to destroy
all the crooked old narrow paths, and build one new, good road, on
which people can drive their automobiles up to the very top?
Even though Higher Criticism and New Theology may not lead you to such
a radical conclusion as this, yet they will certainly do away with
the claims of the Christian religion to be the only true religion
of the world, and will make it only one of the world religions. If
Christianity has to exist in this world side by side with all other
religions, possessing only one portion of humanity, while conceding the
rest of it to other religions, it can never claim absolute allegiance
from the people of the whole world.
According to the New Theology the work of foreign missions is not to
convert the heathen, nor to save them from sin and error, but only to
introduce Christianity to them as one of the religions of the world.
I heard some liberal missionaries making such statements as this when
they were preaching in heathen lands: “We missionaries did not come
to you to ask you to throw away your own good religion which you have
believed in for so many centuries, and to be converted to our religion,
but we came here simply to unite the good in our religion with the good
in yours. The good in your religion we Christians desire to learn,
but Christianity also has good teachings which would certainly be of
profit to you. So we missionaries have come to unite the best in all
religions for the upbuilding of common humanity, not to impose our
religion upon you, and make you give up your own religion.” These men
call themselves modern missionaries, and are entirely different from
the old ones who went to heathen lands to convert the people, and to
save them from sin. They call the earlier missionaries old-fashioned,
out of date. But if this is true, these new missionaries are not the
messengers of God, but religious traders, and religious trade is not a
profitable thing at all. I am afraid if such is the case the missionary
enterprise will cease to exist, and the heathen world will be left in
darkness and sin.
The New Theology says again, “Oh, don’t bother about the Bible too
much. We don’t care nowadays whether men believe in the inspiration
of the Bible or not, or what kind of inspiration they hold, total or
partial, verbal or moral. One man believes the Bible contains truth and
no error. Another man thinks it contains both truth and error. We don’t
care about those things. To be too much concerned with these things
was the old-fashioned religious belief. Christianity does not stand
on the inspiration of the Bible. It stands on the unique personality
of Christ. As long as we hold on to Christ there is no danger for
Christianity.”
Very well; it may be so. Christ is our sure foundation. Christianity
must stand on this rock of ages. But may I ask a question here? Who is
this Christ? Who is this unique personality on which you try to stand
as on the sure foundation? Is Christ God, or man? Is he the second
person of the Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father himself?
Is he “the only begotten” Son of God, who was in the bosom of the
Father from “before the foundation of the world,” and who came down to
this world and became flesh himself in order to save this lost world?
Is he the Word of God who was “in the beginning,” and “was with God,”
and who was God himself, and by whom all things were made, and “without
him was not anything made that was made”? In a word, is Christ the
Creator or a creature, infinite or finite?
To these blunt questions New Theology has no other answer than “No!”
Christ, according to New Theology, is not God, but man. He is not the
Creator, but a creature. He is not infinite, but finite. He may be a
godly man, or a man filled with God, or the Spirit of God, but still
man, and not God. He may be the greatest, wisest, and holiest man among
men, but still he is a man, and not God. New Theology may exalt Christ
as high as possible. It can never exalt him to the throne of God.
Between God and man there is an infinite distance, and no goodness or
greatness or holiness of mere man can ever bridge this distance. If you
look up from the plains below to the top of a very high mountain, you
see its peaks almost touching heaven, or kissing the blue sky above,
but if you climb the mountain and stand on that summit you find the
distance between the mountain top and the blue heaven above is just as
great as when you were standing on the plain below. Though a man could
ever attain to such a height of greatness, holiness, and goodness as to
seem to the common eyes almost beside God himself, yet in reality he is
as far from God as we common folks are.
But men are not a whit nearer to God by their own greatness and
goodness, so you see that though New Theology may exalt Christ as high
as it can, yet it cannot raise him to God himself. Their Christ must
stand always among men on this earth. According to its teachings, the
Christ of God is gone, and only a human Jesus remains, the greatest,
highest, noblest, and holiest man among men. As such he is brought down
to the same level as Confucius, Shakamuni, Mohammed, Socrates, and
multitudes of the holy men of the world. Can Christianity stand on such
a human Christ as this as its sure and unshakable foundation? Is this
human Christ the rock of ages on which we can build the structure of
the whole Christian religion?
A religion which has been founded by man can by no means be the
absolute religion of the world. If it is human in its origin it must
be human all the way through, and it must share the fate of all other
human religions.
But here comes another exhortation from the camp of New Theology.
“Don’t trouble yourself too much about the nature of Christ,--whether
he is God or man. Some think that Christ is God, and others think that
he is man. Some think that Christ was born miraculously of a virgin,
conceived by the Holy Ghost; others think he was the real son of Mary
and Joseph, born in the same way as their other sons and daughters.
Some say he rose from the dead after three days, and others say that
he did not rise, and that what the Bible states as the resurrection
of Christ was a mere vision, seen by his devout but ignorant and
superstitious disciples, as a result of their own imagination. Thus we
have all kinds of views about the nature and the person of Christ, each
preferring his own view. In the olden time Christians laid great stress
on these beliefs, but nowadays we pass over those things and don’t make
much fuss about them. We don’t care much which way the people think
about the nature and person of Christ, whether he is God or man, if we
only love him and obey him with our whole heart. The supreme love and
absolute allegiance to our Lord are the only essentials which we should
always hold up as the life of our Christian faith. If we hold fast
to these truths then we can safely let go such non-essentials as the
Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.”
Thus we are exhorted by New Theology to love Jesus supremely and obey
him absolutely, regardless of our belief about the person and nature
of Christ. These exhortations sound very plausible, and seem to make
the new doctrine more spiritual and practical than the old-fashioned
orthodox belief, which made so much of the nature and person of Christ.
At the present day we hear such statements even from the pulpits
which are called evangelical. And many people are deceived by the
very plausibleness of this position, because they seem to be laying
more stress upon the practical side of Christianity than upon the
intellectual definition of the terms of the Christian doctrine. I was
one of those who were deceived by this teaching, and was finally led
away from the path of the truth.
Let me show how such unsound teaching of the essentials of Christian
doctrine as denying the deity of Christ will exert its baneful
influence upon the mind of the believer, especially upon the mind of
the newly converted Christian in a heathen land. Be sure that the
belief in the deity of Jesus Christ is not one of the non-essentials
of the Christian doctrine, as those New Theologians try to make us
believe, but it is the very life and essence of Christianity. If you
take away this belief from the Christian faith it will die.
In the first place, to speak plainly, do you think that we can love
Jesus Christ supremely if he is not God, but man? What is supreme love?
Is it not a true, living, personal love? But if Jesus Christ was a mere
man, born of Mary and Joseph, just as all other men were born, then
he must have been dead for nineteen centuries. And if he is not risen
from the dead, can we love supremely such a dead man? We sometimes say
that we love such and such great men of history, such as Washington and
Lincoln, but in this case we mean we love their memory, not the persons
themselves. But we cannot love them as we love our fathers, mothers,
wives, and husbands, who are really living among us now. We cannot have
the warm, living, personal love for those historical personages that
we have for those who are living right among us. What is that supreme
love which true Christians cherish toward their Saviour? Is it a loving
memory, or true personal, living love? To the true Christian is not
Jesus the ever-living and ever-present personal Saviour? Do we not love
him more than father or mother, wife or husband? Surely we love him as
a person, and not as a beautiful character who once lived upon this
earth, and who is pictured for us by his biographers.
I once listened to an eloquent preacher of New Theology who pictured
the character of Jesus before his audience as a perfect model in all
respects--holy, righteous, kind, loving, gentle, meek, humble, patient,
strong, brave, and so on. It was a most exquisite portraiture of human
character. But all the while I was listening I felt as though I was
standing before a marble statue, beautiful to look at, but cold and
lifeless. He was not introducing a living Saviour to his audience,
but only showing them that there was such a good man who once lived
upon this earth, and who had this beautiful character. That was all.
This Jesus may have had such deep love for his disciples who were
contemporary with him, but he could not have loved you and me, because
he could not have known us at such a distant time. He was a man of
nineteen centuries ago. This preacher was praising the character of
Jesus just as the novelist praises his heroes. By listening to such
a painting of the character of the human Jesus how can we feel true
personal love toward him? True and supreme love comes from the living
and direct touch of heart with heart, as a fire flashes by the friction
of steel and flint.
When I lost my faith in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ as my
ever-living, personal Saviour, I lost my supreme love for him also.
Henceforth I regarded and honored him as a historical personage,
perhaps the holiest and greatest and best of all men who ever lived on
this earth. But that warmth and joy of the living, personal love to the
living, personal Saviour were all gone, and my Christian faith became
dead and cold, or rather it should be said that it became simply an
intellectual appreciation of the beautiful character of an old sage.
As to allegiance to Christ, do you think you can require of any man
such absolute allegiance to a mere man, though he may have been the
greatest and best that the world has ever produced? My orthodox faith
taught me that I should obey Jesus because he is my Creator as well
as my Saviour. In the first place, as God he created me, and then as
Saviour he came down from heaven and died upon the cross to save me,
but he rose again from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of his
Father, making intercession for me, and he will come again to rule the
whole world. Since Jesus is my living and personal Saviour, I must obey
him absolutely and unreservedly. I must love him more than father or
mother, son or daughter, or even my own life itself. I must sacrifice
my life for him. But if he is not such a Saviour, but a mere teacher
who gave us wise precepts and doctrines, who led a beautiful life long
years ago, and who died at last upon the cross at the hand of his
enemies, what right have you to ask absolute allegiance from me who
have no relation at all to him? There have been many great and good men
in this world. Confucius, Socrates, Shakamuni, and all other founders
of the world religions were more or less great, and we are indebted
to them for their teachings and precepts and inspired by their fine
examples. But no one thinks of demanding from us absolute allegiance to
these great men, or asks us to sacrifice our lives for them. Thus, with
the downfall of the belief in the deity of Christ, the authority of
Jesus Christ as a divine Master must go also.
One of the glories of Christianity is that we have had such a multitude
of martyrs for the cause of Christ during the nineteen centuries of its
existence. Do you think that a man would face unflinchingly the blazing
fire of persecution simply on the strength of his belief in Jesus as a
great moral teacher? Would frail women have calmly faced those roaring
lions approaching slowly but surely to tear them to pieces with their
cruel claws, merely on the strength of the belief that by Christ’s
humane teaching womanhood was lifted up to the same level with manhood?
It was only in the strength of a belief that the living Saviour was
right at their side with his outstretched arms to catch and carry
them straight into the bosom of our heavenly Father that the martyrs
braved the fire and sword. If such unsound doctrine as the liberals
are now teaching had prevailed at the beginning of the introduction of
Christianity into the world, there would have been no martyrdom for the
Christian faith, and Christianity must have ceased to exist long ago.
Thus by the study of New Theology and Higher Criticism all belief in
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity were destroyed one after
another, and I was again left to my former self. I was introduced into
the Christian religion by the front gate of orthodoxy, and led out
of it by the back gate of New Theology into my old heathen doubt and
unbelief.
The enlightened heathen hold the same view as the liberals with regard
to the Bible and Christ. They also believe that the Bible is a good
book, but that it contains both truth and error. They too believe that
Jesus was a great and good man, but a man only, and not God. So these
enlightened heathen are standing on the same ground as the liberals,
and there is no need of going to them and teaching them the doubts and
unbeliefs they already have.
By this time my vision of the future world and eternal life became very
vague and obscure. The unseen world became now very misty and foggy. I
could not see clearly, and so I was shut up to this world. I thought,
“Let the future take care of itself; my concern is in this world
alone.” Thus I became a man of the world. Now my philosophy was to be
healthy, wealthy, happy, and good. To have a strong body, a comfortable
living, a happy home, and a good reputation in this world is enough
for any man. It was not my theory only, but I put it into practise as
much as I could, and I attained my objects pretty well, except for the
second one. I had a good wife and nine children, all well and good, and
a happy home. I was strong and healthy, and was quite popular, and was
regarded as one of the most successful social reformers in my country.
I was not so selfish as to think only of my own happiness, but I tried
to make other people happy also. I became a preacher of thrift and
economy; and during twenty years I was engaged in teaching the gospel
of saving, not souls, but money. I traveled all over the country, from
one end to the other, and delivered several thousand lectures on the
subject of economy and saving. During this time I think I preached
the doctrine of saving to over five million people. I am known, even
now, in Japan, more as a preacher of saving money than a preacher of
saving souls. I think I have done some little good in this respect to
the people of my own country, and I believe the government, as well as
my people, recognize this fact. I was quite satisfied with my worldly
success, not knowing that such satisfaction is the most dangerous
menace to a man’s spiritual life.
But all this was simply the outward appearance. If you look a little
deeper into the matter, you will soon find out what a dreadful state a
backsliding man can come into. At first it was a matter of intellectual
doubt and unbelief. I was shaken in my mind by the arguments of New
Theology. But the work of the Devil did not stop here. I was now shaken
morally and spiritually. This moral shaking made most dreadful havoc in
my spiritual life. Sin crept in, and I was made a captive again. Oh,
what a wretched man I was in those days of backsliding! Even to think
of those days gives me unendurable pain. I strayed so far away that
even my friends lost their hope of my returning. Yet there were two
women, one an American and the other a Japanese, who, I was afterward
told, were praying for me without ceasing during those twenty years of
my prodigal life. God in his faithfulness watched over me during all
those years, and finally brought me back to fellowship with himself. He
will never forsake those he has once redeemed.
Between the Bible of the orthodox faith and that of New Theology there
is the difference of heaven and earth. One is heavenly, divine, and
holy; the other is earthly, human, and therefore unholy. One is the
God-given, infallible standard by which we measure all our conduct;
the other consists of rules and regulations given by men, which we may
use or not, as we may please. One is the Master whom we must obey
absolutely, the other is the servant whom we may employ or not. One is
an inexhaustible mine of eternal truth stored up by God; the other is
a shallow pit dug by men. One is the living oracles of God; the other,
dead documents of ancient wisdom. The Bible in the hand of New Theology
has become an entirely different thing from that of the true Christian
faith of the nineteenth century. It has entirely lost its divine
authority, and therefore its teachings and commandments have no more
binding power than mere human instruction.
CHAPTER III
THE SERVANT RESTORED
One of my missionary friends in Japan asked me to write a tract on
the prodigal son. I told him I could not do it, because it would
be just like writing my own story. How can I write such a shameful
story? But now I would like to tell you a little about it, and show
you how patient and long-suffering was my Saviour toward such a poor,
erring child as myself during those long years of disobedience and
prodigality. Simply for the glory of God I will give you the following
story of my life.
You know, when the prodigal son left his father’s home he forgot
everything. He forgot his father, his brother, his home, and his
servants, and was entirely absorbed in his present enjoyment of worldly
pleasures until a terrible calamity brought him to himself again. Then
he recalled for the first time since he left his father’s home, “How
many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and
I perish with hunger.” Then he started homeward with a heavy heart,
full of grief and remorse, and determined to reform and live a life of
devotion to his father. But during all those days, perhaps years, his
father had not forgotten his erring and wandering boy. He was waiting
day and night for his return. Perhaps he was looking out from his
windows every morning and evening in the direction his son had gone.
One evening when he got a glimpse of his lost son he did not wait in
his room for him, but jumped up and ran from his house to meet that
wretched son.
Just so, my friend, during those twenty years of my prodigal life I
forgot my heavenly Father, and my Saviour, and my spiritual home and
inheritance. I had been absorbed entirely in my ambitious worldly
career and earthly happiness, but my Father did not forget me. He
had not forsaken me. He was watching and waiting all the while for
my return. In his own time the Father himself arrested me in my wild
career of worldly ambition and earthly enjoyment.
It was in this way. In the midst of my worldly prosperity and happiness
my Father came down and suddenly took away my dear wife, leaving behind
her nine motherless children, the youngest of whom was not quite
four. I was overwhelmed with grief. But, oh, my children’s grief!
They loved their mother very much. She was a devout woman, and not a
backslider like myself. During the quarter of a century of our married
life I had never heard a single murmur from her lips, nor a word of
discouragement. She was always thankful and grateful for everything.
She led such a beautiful life of love and devotion before her children
that they almost worshiped her. When she was suddenly taken away from
them, they were all thrown into the deepest grief, and they cried and
wailed day and night, clinging to their dead mother. My friends came to
comfort them, but they would not be comforted, because their mother was
gone, and they could not see her again. Their grief was so intense that
at one time I was afraid some of my children would go insane. A man may
marry a second wife, and love her just as much as the first, but when
children lose their own mother they can never have a second one whom
they can love as their own. It was a most heartrending thought to me
that death had made these nine children motherless forever.
While their mother was with them they thought their home was a
sweet and bright home,--heaven on earth. They were all so happy and
contented, but when their dear mother was taken away from them the home
became a dark, dismal hell on earth. Yes, in those days the home was
full of weeping and wailing day and night.
In the midst of this darkness a light as from heaven flashed into my
home, in this way. The children were crying because their mother was
gone, and they could not see her again, but suddenly they changed their
tone and began to say, “No, our mother is not gone. What we have buried
in her grave was not mother herself, but only her body. Our mother has
gone to heaven to be with her God. And if she has gone to heaven and
is with God now, as God is everywhere our mother also might be here in
spirit. Though we cannot see her, she might be seeing from there these
nine poor motherless children crying day and night for her.”
Then, in order to realize their mother’s spiritual presence in the
home, they began to decorate the whole house with her picture. They
hung up large pictures of her in the dining-room, in the parlor, in the
bedroom, and in other rooms. There was not a single room in the whole
house where her picture was not hanging on the wall. And on all of
their desks they placed their mother’s picture.
Thus they began to say “Mama, mama,” once more. “Mama” is an English
word, not Japanese, but as its sound was very endearing to their
hearts, all my children used to call her by that name.
You know children love to say “mama” or “mother.” When they come back
from school the first word they utter is “mama,” or “mother.” If they
cannot use this endearing word they cannot be happy. Now my children
had suddenly been deprived of this dear word by the death of their
mother, and so they were crying. But now, once more, they began to say
this dear word.
Pointing to those pictures of their mother, they began to say: “That is
a dining-room mama, that a parlor mama, and that your mama, and this
mine, on my desk.” There was a picture of her holding the youngest
child in her arms and kissing his cheeks. This picture the youngest boy
always called his own mama. Thus, you see, as soon as that endearing
word “mama” came into the children’s mouths, the whole house was
brightened up, and home became sweet again. These pictures were a
great comfort to my children in those days of sorrow. They even became
a source of inspiration and encouragement in the times of trial and
difficulty.
One of my boys went to take the entrance examination of a medical
college shortly after his mother’s death. He went down to the college
town before the examination to prepare for it. One day, when I went
to see how he was getting on, I found three boys studying in the
same room. On the desks of the other two boys I noticed pictures of
Gladstone and Bismarck. Perhaps these great men were the objects of
their hero-worship, but on my boy’s desk I saw his mother’s picture,
right in front, as usual. He thought his mother’s picture was just
as good for him, if not better, than those of great men. I was much
pleased with this expression of his love for his dead mother, even in
such a place as this.
The examination was said to be hard, especially in mathematics. There
were five questions to answer. Four of them he disposed of quickly, but
he could make nothing out of the fifth. If he could not answer all
five questions satisfactorily, his failure to pass would be certain,
because there were ten times more applicants for the examination than
the college could possibly take in that year. The time set for the
examination was quickly passing; so, closing his eyes, he tried very
hard to think out the solution. Just at that moment his mother’s figure
flashed before him. In surprise he opened his eyes, and the solution
of the problem was in his mind. He took up his pen and wrote it out
satisfactorily.
He entered the college at the head of his class, and wrote to me
afterward, saying, “Surely mama helped me.”
One day my youngest girl came to me with a curious question. She said,
“Papa, when you go to any faraway place you always come back, don’t
you?”
“Yes,” I said. “This is papa’s home; papa has to come back always to
his home,--don’t you see?”
Then she said, “Well, then, you all say mama is gone to heaven from
here; and if she really went there, and is living there now, why can’t
she come back, as you always do from a faraway place? Why can’t she
come home again from heaven?”
I could not answer such a question. But simply to comfort her, I said:
“Oh, I see! Perhaps God has some work for your mama in heaven.
Therefore he is keeping her there, and your mama cannot come back here.
You know, mama must obey God; whatever God says mama must do. God does
not want your mama to come back to this world, so she cannot come home.”
I said this simply to satisfy her childish mind, which was wondering
why her mama, if she is really living in heaven with God, cannot come
back once more to her old home.
Instantly she said, “All right, papa. Then why can’t you go now to
heaven yourself, and do mama’s work and serve God in her place, and let
mama come down here for one month? And when you get tired of heaven,
papa, you might come down, and then we will send mama up again to
heaven. It is very good to have papa with us always, but we want mama
also.”
You see, in her childish mind there was no partition between heaven
and earth. Heaven is joined to the earth by her dear mother being
there. She could see now right through to the throne of God, and her
dear mother there. In those days they underwent various spiritual
experiences in a most wonderful manner.
Every evening their favorite hymn was that one which has in its chorus,
“Our friend is waiting on the other side.” In Japanese “friend” is
_tomo_, and my children changed that _tomo_ into “mama,” almost the
same sound, and were singing, “Our mama is waiting on the other side.”
To them the unseen world seemed so near and real that they felt as if
they themselves were living in the same spiritual world with their
departed mother.
In the midst of such a spiritual atmosphere, how could I resist the
influence pouring in upon me from the other side? You know, I had been
a pastor at one time, as well as a professor of theology, so I must
have known intellectually things pertaining to the spiritual world. I
had not forgotten them, only they were clouded by doubt. Thus, while I
was watching these spiritual experiences of my children, gradually the
clouds of doubt and unbelief began to disperse, and once more heaven
opened, and with my spiritual eyes I saw Jesus Christ, my Saviour and
Lord, whom New Theology had taken away from me, still sitting at the
right hand of God: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and
for ever.”
Then I could exclaim with doubting Thomas when he saw the prints of the
nails in the hands of Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus is my God, my
very God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word _was_ God.”
These verses of Scripture, which I had committed to memory forty
years ago in Captain Janes’ Bible class, now flashed into my mind as
lightning from heaven, and the whole spiritual world was once more
lighted up as in the noonday. Thus I was brought back to my old simple
faith by the words of my child. Indeed, “out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” Thus began my return.
On another occasion I was brought back to my old religious
consciousness thus: Just before my wife died she was talking with me,
with a smile on her face. She was weak in body, and had lain in bed
for many weeks; but she was perfectly sound in her mind. I found no
sign of mental weakness to the very moment of her death. Then suddenly
a spasm caught her, as the physician told me afterward, and in a few
minutes she was gone. Only a moment ago there she was, and now she is
not. Where is she? What has become of her? Her body lies here just as
before, a little cold, perhaps, but where is that personality which
shone so brightly through those eyes which are now shut? Has she
vanished? Has she been destroyed? Is she annihilated? Impossible to
think such a thing at such a time. Do you think I could help following
her into that world yonder whither she went so suddenly? Yes, I did
follow her. I was, as it were, peeping through the portal of death into
that eternal world where she had just been translated. There and then I
came face to face with the eternal reality of death.
When you face death, either in yourself or in your friend, you face
eternity. When you face eternity, all things which are not eternal,
which belong to this world alone, temporary things, such as wealth and
possessions, houses and clothing, and all other earthly valuables,
which have absorbed your attention while you were healthy and strong,
now sink into insignificance before the brightness of the eternal
realities. What use is there of wealth and possessions to a dying man?
He came naked into this world, and now he must go out of it naked
again. What comfort can gold and diamonds give to the dying girl? Can
the possession of pretty dresses and costly jewels make happy the heart
of a dying girl? When a man comes to the last moment of his earthly
journey, the sense of the nearness of eternity will overshadow all
things earthly and temporal.
When I faced eternity in the death of my dear one, that solemn and
awe-inspiring consciousness of the eternal destiny of man which lay so
long dormant in my heart now came back to me with overwhelming force
and vividness. Then all the clouds of doubt and unbelief raised by my
too much speculative thinking, and all the mists and fogs caused by
worldly ambition and earthly enjoyment just vanished away, and I was
lifted up into the third heaven.
Death is a sad thing. Especially is the death of our dearest one the
saddest experience of our life. But when you look at it in the light
of heaven, the death of a dear friend is the most precious gift God
can ever give in this world. I confess I was revived by the death of
my wife. Certainly it can be said that she died in order to rouse me
from the slumber of a backsliding and prodigal life. Oh, the wonderful
method of God’s dealing, always surpassing our human understanding!
Always and everywhere, the good suffer for the bad, the righteous for
the unrighteous, and saints for sinners.
As a natural consequence of this death experience, I was brought back
once more to that glorious scene on Calvary. I saw plainly why the
holy and righteous Son of God, who knew no sin and in whom was found
no guile, had to face that terrible death on the cross; why Jesus, the
Lamb of God, should have been bruised for our iniquities and wounded
for our transgressions; why the chastisement of our peace must be upon
him, and why we sinners must be healed by his stripes.
When I look back to those days of sorrow and grief, I almost forget
the death of my human wife, and feel always as though I were standing
at the foot of the cross on Calvary. Yes, it was Jesus who was with
me during those long years of my wanderings, though I was entirely
unconscious of his gracious presence. At every turn of my life Jesus
was there protecting and keeping, loving and suffering. When I
succumbed to temptation and sin, and stumbled, he was there looking
at me with sorrowful eyes, as he looked at Peter, who denied him. It
was by his unseen hand that I was kept and guarded and lifted up again
and again, and was not utterly destroyed, though I was struck down
numberless times by my enemies. Though I pierced his heart again and
again with my sins, he never forsook me. Though I wilfully ran away
from him, he always followed me. It is a terrible thing to think how
I pained his heart, how sorrowful I must have made him, and finally
how I crucified him. He died for me on account of my sin, taking upon
himself all my iniquities and transgressions, and all their penalties
and consequences. Oh, what a wonderful Saviour is Jesus, my Lord!
I found once more the joy of my salvation in the cross of Christ. It
is not by the work of social reform, or world reconstruction, or moral
uplift, that this sin-stricken world may be saved. It is not by the
teaching of Jesus, nor by his blessed life even, that we sinners are to
be saved, but it is only by the preaching of the cross of Christ that
salvation comes to this world.
Then I said, “Now I know the redeeming power of the cross of Christ.
Now I will preach this cross to my fellow-sinners. I am determined not
to know anything among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
I returned to my old simple faith in Jesus as my Saviour and Lord,
after passing for many years through a tempestuous life of doubt and
unbelief caused by the study of New Theology. Even after I returned
to my old faith I read many books of New Theology, especially of
the German authors, in order to see their present situation in the
theological world. But this time my mental atmosphere was cleared by
light from heaven, and my perception of spiritual truth became so
real through my own experiences that no cunningness of mere argument
could lead my mind astray from the path of truth. Now I saw plainly
enough the fallacies and shallowness in their reasonings, and no
amount of plausibleness in what they call the scientific method of
treating religious truth could longer shake my conviction, based on the
experimental knowledge of my own Christian life.
I tell you, my friends, when you have once tasted how gracious is
your Lord, how real and true is his personal presence, and how sweet
are his words, yea, “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb,” no
destructive criticism, and no evil teachings of New Theology, can
disturb your faith in the absolute divine authority of the Bible, as
well as in the perfect deity of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is only when
we have no such experimental knowledge of spiritual truth, when our
minds are not enlightened from above, and our faith is cold, formal,
and lifeless, that the crafty arguments of the enemies of the Gospel
can shake us. Just as when our bodies are weak and our vitality is
low, we are apt to be attacked by disease, so the best precaution
against this disease of the soul, and the most effective remedy for the
pestilential doctrines of the present day, is the spiritual health and
strength gained by a vital knowledge of God and the unseen world. Thus
returning to my old simple faith in my Saviour and Lord, I became the
preacher of his cross, and God has wonderfully blessed my work.
CHAPTER IV
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.
CHAPTER V
SOWING IN THE EVENING
In the Student Volunteer Convention at Des Moines, Iowa, there was a
motto set up high on the platform: “The Evangelization of the World in
this Generation.”
When I saw that motto I said to myself, “This is the very objective, so
far as our country is concerned, we are now determined to attain.”
We cannot wait until the next generation, which will have its own work
to carry on. The evangelization of the world must be the work of this
generation, and I believe that if the church of Christ at the present
day is really resolved to accomplish this great object, it can surely
be done in this generation. You have heard from the missionaries
returning from all parts of the world what wonderful openings there are
everywhere on the mission field. Not only in Japan, but in China, in
Korea, in India, in Africa, in South America, and in all other heathen
lands the doors are widely thrown open for the Gospel message. The
call from the heathen lands for missionaries is now so loud and urgent
that, if the churches will really awaken to their opportunities and
responsibilities, they cannot help making a desperate effort for the
immediate evangelization of the whole world.
You have already heard those loud and urgent calls from the foreign
field through your own missionaries. Of course, they can represent to
you satisfactorily the condition of the heathen land where they are
working themselves. But if you could hear directly from the heathen
themselves, their need and their cry for your help, you would perhaps
get a better and keener idea of the urgency of such calls. You know I
come from a heathen land. And at one time I was a heathen myself, and
am still the subject of a heathen country. So I ought to be better
qualified to represent the heathen people, and to furnish you with
first hand information about the real situation of the heathen world at
the present time. And moreover, I believe I have a right to represent
not only my own heathen land, but also the whole world. Because, though
I love my own country very dearly, yet my Christian heart is a little
too big to confine itself to my own country alone. I love China, I love
India, I love Africa, just as much in regard to the salvation of their
souls as I love the salvation of my own people. I always feel that if
God wants me for a missionary in Africa, I am more than ready to start
at once. In our Christian love there are no national boundaries or
racial distinctions.
Thus representing the whole heathen world, I wish to make my humble
appeal to my Christian friends in America. Now may I be permitted to
speak plainly, freely, and unreservedly, though in deep humility, how
we of the heathen lands feel about foreign missionary enterprises?
While thanking you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of my heathen
brethren for what you have already done, and are now doing, for the
evangelization of our benighted land, yet I cannot refrain from asking,
“Why can’t, or why won’t, you do more for the evangelization of the
whole world? Do you think that you have done, and are doing, enough?
Are you satisfied with the result you have already attained? Are you
really trying to fulfill the last command of our Lord, ‘Go ye into all
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,’ according to your
ability or talents given from above? Are you earnestly endeavoring
to carry out that idea of ‘The Evangelization of the World in this
Generation’?”
Suppose in the last great European war America had sent out only a few
hundred thousand soldiers to France to fight with the Germans,--do
you think you could have beaten that country and saved the world?
Though the American soldiers may have been ever so brave and gallant
individually, yet what could a few hundred thousand Americans do
against millions of Germans and Austrians? But you sent two millions,
and were going to send more millions, to fight the Germans. You not
only spent a few millions of dollars, but several billions. You not
only gave up your men, but you gave up your white bread and butter,
your meat and sugar. You deprived yourselves of comfort and luxury. You
did not think any sacrifice too great for gaining your object. In a
word, you made the beating of Germany and the saving of the world the
supreme effort of your nation. This was doing the work according to its
magnitude, and you gained your object.
Now turn your eyes to the work of your foreign missions, which is the
same as conquering the heathen lands for Jesus Christ. Do you think
conquering a whole heathen land for Christ is a smaller work or easier
task than conquering Germany? What is the heathen force of the world at
the present time? Taking the whole population of the world as sixteen
hundred millions, only a little less than six hundred millions can be
counted as the Christian population, and that, of course, including
several hundred million Roman and Greek Catholics; and the rest, more
than one billion, are among the so-called heathen population of the
world. In Japan and Korea we have eighty million heathen; in China,
four hundred million; in India, three hundred and thirty million; in
Africa, one hundred and fifty million; and in all countries taken
together the heathen population of the world is over one billion. Now
your foreign mission work is to evangelize this heathen world. For this
purpose, how strong an army of Christian soldiers have you despatched?
How many missionaries have you already sent out? Are you doing this
work of world evangelization according to the magnitude of the task?
I know your missionaries. They are brave soldiers. They are gallant
fighters individually, and they are faithful even unto death for the
cause of their Lord. But what can this handful of a few thousand
missionaries do against the gigantic mass of a billion heathen? Do you
think they can evangelize the whole world in this generation? No, no;
this is not doing the work according to its magnitude.
I know the American people, and I love them, because I was converted
by the ministry of an American teacher, and was brought up by the
American missionaries. I regard America as my spiritual fatherland. I
feel perfectly at home in this country. Moreover, I admire the true
American spirit. When once that American spirit is roused up, and
you are determined to gain any object, you always get it. Why won’t
you send out, not only a few thousand, but a few hundred thousand,
Christian soldiers throughout the length and breadth of the whole earth
to fight with the Devil? Why won’t you sacrifice once more your boys
and girls, for this great conflict of Christ and his enemies? In this
war girls are just as good a fighting force as boys, if not better.
Why won’t you once more give up your white bread and butter, your
meat and sugar, and deprive yourselves of your comfort and luxury for
the cause of Christ? Why don’t you spend, not only a few millions, but
billions, or tens of billions, of dollars for this great work of world
evangelization? In a word, why won’t you make this foreign mission
work, which is the fulfilment of the last command of Jesus Christ,
the supreme effort of the Christian churches in America, instead of
treating it as a mere appendix to your work at home?
America is blessed in every way. Yours is the strongest and wealthiest,
most intelligent and most enterprising, country in the world. No
country on earth can compete with you. But do you think, my American
friends, that God has blessed you so abundantly for your own sake, for
your own comfort and luxury, for your own enjoyment and satisfaction
alone? Do you think that God has so wonderfully blessed you because
you are his only favorite among all the nations of the world? No, no;
God has blessed America wonderfully, not for America’s sake alone, but
for the sake of the whole world. He has blessed America to make her a
blessing to the world through the power of Christ.
Since I have come to this country your people call me by various names,
such as the Moody of Japan, or the Billy Sunday of Japan, and so on;
but I don’t like to be called by such great names. I am not such a
big man. I know I am a small man, not even worthy of being called a
minister of Christ, because I have backslidden and forsaken my Lord
for many years. Not only for such reasons, but also because I have my
own name I prefer to be called always by that name, even though it be
an unknown one. But it you insist on calling me by any other than my
own, I have one name by which I should like to be called. That is, a
Macedonian. I am like the Macedonian in Paul’s vision. He came from
heathen Europe to Asia, and I came from heathen Asia to America; but
the object of the coming of these two Macedonians is the same, namely,
to implore the help of the Christians for the heathen lands.
Won’t you come and help us? Won’t you, my young American friends, take
up the sword of the Spirit, and march out from your own beloved land
into the sin-stricken, desolate heathen lands and lay down your lives
for the salvation of the billion heathen souls? Do you realize that
these billion heathen are all in need of salvation just as much as you
were? Don’t you know that the least of these is, in the sight of God,
just as precious as the soul of your own mother or father, brother or
sister? Do you think that God wants the salvation of your kinsmen only,
and not the salvation of these heathen? Oh, I beg and entreat you,
my dear American friends, to look upon this billion of heathen souls
with the eye of your heavenly Father and the heart of your Lord Jesus
Christ, who loved them and died for them. Then you cannot help making a
desperate effort for their salvation.
And I believe that if you American Christians will seriously and
earnestly take up the great work of evangelizing the world in this
generation, and will do the work according to its magnitude, God on his
part will surely bless you and your work, and the day of great victory
will be at hand.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
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