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city wanted to come that a notice had to be hung up-"Only Inquirers Admitted." Even the aisles were crowded.

The thoughts of the speakers were cast, as was natural, in a Japanese mold. No foreigner could have told as Mr. Ebina did why Christ was born in Judea. "It was for the same reason that Togo and Kuroki were born in Japan and not in Korea. No place could have produced Shaka but India, and no history of Greeks and Romans and Chinese could have produced Christ. Only Judea could do that."

I was very much interested at times in the gestures of these men as they spoke from their own experiences. Japanese psychology until recently was very like that of the ancient Jews, locating the affections in the bowels. In all ancient lands the bowels used to yearn, and they haven't gotten over yearning here in Japan yet. When these profoundly earnest men emphasized their appeals to the deepest feelings of their hearers, two hands uplifted high would descend with a whack over the bowels with such force as to make them yearn all through. Or if the appeal was to "open your bosoms wide to the truth," both hands in claw-shape met on the breast-bone and jerked outward with a force that threatened to tear off coat, vest, and even shirt. Gestures that for ages have been associated with Japanese fencing and wrestling were also in evidence when the appeal was to fight for righteousness and conquer for Christ.

So these meetings began and continued until the second Sunday, when thirty-four men and women were baptized.

The movement continued till the following Thursday, when twelve more were baptized. Prominent people of the city called on these men to express their thanks for this helpful work. Merchants were touched as never before by the quiet, modest, and sincere work of the "Banzai Tooth

Powder" man. Every school in the city above the primary grade welcomed these men to their school and had them address the students. Two of this band of workers, Professor Uchigasaki and Dr. Oyama, were students in the government college here six or seven years ago, and the college boys were exceedingly demonstrative in their applause when these graduates appeared on the platform.

These

During these two weeks I have been impressed with many things. men have been our guests the whole time, and our home has been blessed with their delightful presence. The entire house resounded at times with the side-splitting laughter caused by their jokes, many of which even a foreigner could understand. Again, every room (even bedrooms) has been requisitioned to give callers a chance to have a personal word with the different members of this band, and you could easily see as some of these inquirers left the house that the joy of having decided for Christ was theirs. Our home never came nearer to being an international Christian convention and a first-class temple of God than it did during these two weeks.

Before the meetings began Mr. Ebina wrote Mr. Hori that the Sendai movement must be the "Yalu River of Christianity." Just as the nation anxiously awaited news from the first land battle with Russia on the Yalu, believing that the first great victory would mean victory every time, so the other four centers at Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Tosa, and Nagoya, where similar meetings are to be held, will be profoundly moved by the success at Sendai. Just as there was a careful study of conditions on the Yalu, so the conditions of Northern Japan were studied, and two graduates of the college here, who know well the heart of the people, were selected as lieutenants under Mr. Ebina's direction. The work was done "as prearranged." And the newspapers were a most friendly aid by their sympathetic daily reports.

BY CALDER T. WILLINGHAM

Japan has demonstrated her right to this important position. As in many other spheres, so in the religious life Japan's influence is paramount. The Christian world should take note of this and greatly increase its activity in the effort to make Japan a Christian. nation. What will it mean to the Eastern nations if Japan becomes Christian? Notice her influence on the nations!

Japan's influence in KOREA is supreme. If Japan is Christian, the influence which she exerts in Korea will be that of a Christian governmentthat will be elevating, uplifting, helpful to the religious life of the people. If Japan does not become Christian, even tho she grants full religious toleration, missionary work in Korea will be more complex and difficult. The tendency will be for the Koreans to follow the example of Japan and reject Christian teaching, or be indifferent to it. To a great extent, Korea's attitude toward the Gospel depends on Japan's relation to Christianity.

In the recent war between Japan and Russia, the former nation liberated the MANCHURIANS from the yoke of Rusian bondage. It is natural, then, that the Manchurians should respect their liberator and accord her all honor and reverence. If Japan assumes an indifference to Christianity this will have a great weight in making the Manchurians take a similar stand. If Japan becomes Christian, her influence in Manchuria will be for good and not for evil in winning Manchuria for Christ.

But by far the largest sphere of Japan's influence is in CHINA. It is surprising to read "Japanese is now the official language in the Peking University, to which institution a Japanese has been summoned to fill an important position." The following quotation is stranger still: "Professor Magozo, Doctor of Law in the Kyoto

From The Foreign Missions Journal.

University, has been engaged by the Chinese government to compile a new code of laws, and a number of assistants from Japan are to be summoned to help them." Think of it! We are also informed that "others are serving as advisors on the international law to the Chinese government, and others are advisers to the viceroys of the different provinces." Thus China openly acknowledges the great influence Japan is wielding in her bounds. Last year between 4,000 and 5,000 Chinese students were in Japan at school, and this year the number has doubled. These young men, like the Siamese, have gone to Japan to obtain the "higher learning." Oh, that Japan was a Christian country! Then these young men, returning to their country, and dispersing throughout the whole empire to occupy offices of various kinds, might tell of Him "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

This is not all, but enough has been writen to show that Japan's influence in China is great. Will the Christian world do its part in making this influence Christian? It would be a great thing to get hold of the influences at work in either Korea, Manchuria, Siam, or China, and make them Christian. But how much better to get hold of the source from which emanates these influences and make it Christian. Then the source and all the influences emanating therefrom will be for a blessing to mankind and for the glory of God. Let Christians be more earnest in Christianizing Japan. Japan is a land of opportunity, a land of promise, a land of hope; whatever talents have been entrusted to us, if we will invest them in Japan they will bring forth manifold results for the Master's glory. Japan is the key to the East. Let us turn the key and open the doors of the nations that Christ may enter and claim those for whom He died.

Russian by birth, faith, education; Russian in every fiber of his great heart, Bishop Nicholas, surnamed in his own country the "Apostle of Japan," is so devoted to his Japanese spiritual children that for the last quarter of a century he never left them.

In 1880 he was in Russia on some important mission affair, and, toward the end of his stay, was openly longing to be back among the Japanese. His impatience to be gone from Russia did not fail, at the time, to leave an unpleasant impression on friends too narrowly Russian. Some to this day accuse him of pronounced Japanese preferences.

However, Bishop Nicholas' achievement and preference are in the region of faith alone. There are about 30,000 Orthodox Japanese, scattered all over their country. The propaganda of Orthodoxy is conducted by Japanese preachers. Except the bishop and two others, all the clergy are Japanese. The Church celebrations and services are all conducted in their own familiar language, and the imposing, richly decorated Russian Cathedral is one of the sights of Tokyo.

The question of the attitude of the Orthodox Japanese toward Russia in case of war was very grave. Chiefly it lay with Bishop Nicholas to decide this question, in spite of the probability that, if there was war, his own position would be much more awkward than that of any of his flock.

"I pray that there may be no war at all," spoke the bishop at a Church Council in 1903. "But if we fail to escape the misfortune of seeing war, you Japanese certainly must fight for Japan, fulfilling the duty of Christian charity in acts of self-abnegation. Our Lord Jesus Christ said that there was no greater love than losing one's life for the sake of others. Consequently, to fight for one's country is to fulfil the commandment of love left to us by

*Condensed from The Living Church.

the Lord Himself. It is true that you Japanese have received the Orthodox faith from Russia, but, if war is declared against her, she becomes your enemy, to fight whom is your duty. Yet, fighting enemies does not mean hating them.'

When the war was declared, Bishop Nicholas reported to the Council of the Orthodox Missionary Society:

"The Japanese Church can not be left without a bishop, and I shall stay. I most earnestly beseech you to pray that the Lord keep this Church and myself together with it from all evil misrepresentations on the part of our

enemies."

With the opening of hostilities, the Orthodox (Greek) churches of Japan gave up the prayer for the Russian emperor, part of the liturgy, until then never omitted. The Japanese flock of a Russian bishop prayed for the mikado alone, for his victory.

"I naturally can not be present while all this takes place," and so the "Apostle of Japan" had to sever himself from the prayer communion with his flock-a great privation.

Who can realize what he lived through, forced to be a silent and grieving witness of rejoicings over the misfortunes of his country?

"My disciples and friends bring me Russian newspapers, but I refuse them. Whether the victory be Japanese or Russian it gives me equal pain to learn about the hundreds of the slain. My one prayer is that the war should end as soon as possible."

"Our Christians are not merely Christians as are those of other missions. They are heroes. It is not against heathendom alone that they struggle, but against the public opinion of their whole country."

A hero is the solitary Russian who brought them to Christ and has never stopped laboring for them in the last thirty years. His teaching differs from that of Protestants, but he is Christian.

BY ROBERT E. SPEER

I would suggest first four negative considerations:

(1) We do not rest our judgment of the inadequacy of the non-Christian religions upon the acknowledgments and assertions of individuals who have abandoned them. This testimony is valuable, but it is not conclusive. Men have abandoned Christianity.

(2) We do not press the argument from the superiority of Christian civilization overmuch. It is fair to judge by the general influence of religion. upon civilization, but our civilization is very inadequately Christian, and racial and national character are large elements.

(3) We do not denounce the nonChristian religions as of the devil, tho there is warrant for regarding them as retrogressions and not as steps in an advancing evolution.

(4) We do not say that there is no good in the non-Christian religions. There are truths in them, but no truth that is not in Christianity. What truth is in them, is unbalanced by its proper corrective, and is imbedded in and interpenetrated with evil.

A candid consideration reveals characteristics in each which disqualify it for meeting the needs of men. I would refer to the unmorality or immorality of Hinduism, at least one of whose languages has no word meaning "chaste" applicable to men; to the stagnation and unprogressiveness of Buddhism, which springs from its condemnation of the physical world as morally evil; to the puerility and superstition of all fetish conceptions: and to the sterility of Islam, and the moral inferiority of its fruits even to those of the pantheistic religions.

These religions fall into a class entirely apart from Christianity, and are absolutely inadequate to meet the needs of men.

1. They do not meet his intellectual needs. Their philosophy of the world,

which can hold its own in metaphysics, collapses in contact with the physical sciences.

2. They do not meet the moral needs of men.

(1) They do not present a perfect moral ideal.

(2) They offer no power from without, to enable men to realize their ideal. So far as they are moral at all, they present an ethical demand on the will, and not an ethical reenforcement of the will.

(3) They have no adequate conception of sin, and accordingly no secret of forgiveness and deliverance.

(4) They are wholly chaotic. The chasm between their ideal and their real is a widening chasm.

(5) Their atheism kills the moral restraints by annihilation, and their pantheism by liquefaction.

(6) They fail to perceive or to secure the inviolate supremacy of truth. 3. They do not meet the social needs of men. In the case of women and children they are anti-social. They are inconsistent with progress. They deny the unity of mankind.

4. They do not meet the spiritual needs of men. They are in reality atheistic, except Islam, whose monotheism is so negative and mechanical as to deprive it of uplifting power. They represent, at the best, the search of men for God rather than the search of God for men. They darken true natural religion. They do not advance upon it. They give men no tellowship with the Father. They are hopeless as to the future.

The incarnation closes the issue of comparative religion. Judaism is easily superior to all the non-Christian religions, yet it was Judaism to which Jesus came, which he declared inadequate, and which he superseded by the one adequate and satisfying religion-the only religion of which it can be said: "I came forth from God, and I go back to God again.

Extracts from an address at the Nashville Convention,

EDITORIALS

INDEMNITY FOR MISSIONARIES

The daily papers have loudly commended the act of Mrs. B. W. Labaree, of Persia, for declining to receive an indemnity from the Persian government for the murder of her husband. This was a noble Christian deed, but it is not unique in the annals of missions, as the papers would have us believe. Indeed, it is the spirit frequently shown by the Protestant missionaries. Only recently the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions informed the Chinese government that it would decline to receive any punitive indemnity for the attack upon its station and the murder of its missionaries at Lienchou last October. The Chinese minister at Washington has written in reply the following letter to one of the Presbyterian secretaries:

I note with special gratification that it has been unanimously decided by your board not to ask nor to receive indemnity I have lost no of a punitive character. time in advising my government of the conciliatory stand taken by your board in this matter which, I am sure, will be greatly appreciated by my government as it is by myself. I have read with profound interest the extract from a letter recently received from the Rev. John Rogers Peale, one of the murdered missionaries. His words seem to me to have a prophetic ring. In his untimely death America has lost a noble son and China a true friend.

In striking contrast to this attitude is the action of France as the champion Last of the Roman missions in China. February difficulties, dating back three years, between the Roman mission at Nanchang and a native official culminated in the murder of six Roman missionaries. The French Foreign Office has just exacted a treaty from China by which the latter agrees to pay an indemnity of $400,000 to the families of the murdered missionaries and a further indemnity of $200,000 to the mission.

Moreover, it builds a memorial hospital, punishes the ringleaders of the riot, and in the face of the request

of the people of Nanchang, refuses any posthumous honors to the Chinese magistrate whose action was the immediate cause of the outbreak.

A SECRET OF STRENGTH With churches, as with individuals and with bodies of water, purity and strength and growth can only be had where there is useful activity for others an outlet for the streams of re

freshing and strength that flow in. For our own sake, as well as for the sake of others, if we would be successful we must be missionary. This truth has found expression even in far away Uganda, and a series of special mission services was held in Mengo from March 11 to 14. On the first day 1,000 children had to be turned out of the cathedral into another building to make room for the adults. On the last day nearly 700 people remained for Holy Communion. In an account in Uganda Notes, we read:

For eight consecutive days, morning and afternoon, the cathedral was the scene of perhaps the largest gatherings of Baganda that have ever come together. The morning attendances probably never came far short of 4,000. Special services for men and women separately made no diminution in the numbers. The daily scene of processions of orderly crowds passing down the various roads radiating from the top of Namirembe will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The aggregate attendance for the week was about 50,000.

But what is to be the practical outcome of this mission? The immediate purpose was the deepening of the spiritual life of the Uganda church. But beyond that lies the missionary aspect. If the Uganda church is to be a strong church, it must be a missionary church. As we lengthen our cords, so shall we find how we may strengthen our stakes.

This has been the experience of thousands of Christians and of thousands of churches at home and abroad, and yet some are still so selfish and so foolish and so indifferent to the teachings of Christ that they have no sympathy with foreign missions.

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