|Candidates for Chris-tian Work.| The second American Lutheran body to enter Japan was the Danish Synod which established itself in 1898 in the same neighborhood, its chief station being at Kurume. At Kurume it has a baptized membership of one hundred and forty four. From this congregation ten young men have during the last few years offered themselves for training in Christian work. The Danes send to the school at Kumamoto a resident professor, the Rev. J. M. T. Winther, who is a highly efficient teacher.
|A Student Dormitory.| The last of the American Lutherans to establish a mission in Japan was the General Council, which in 1908 began work in Tokyo, the chief city of the Empire. It has now a second station at Nagoya. Besides its preaching and educational work the mission conducts a dormitory for students who come to Tokyo to attend the university. It is hoped by means of Christian influence and by the Christian services which these young men are required to attend to win many. There are two missionary families in residence and a baptized membership of twenty-eight. The General Council maintains a professor in the school at Kumamoto and contributes at present a third of the running expenses of the school.
One of the many happy features of Lutheran work in Japan is the friendly co-operation of the three American Boards. It is the intention of them and their missionaries to build up a single, united Japanese Church. Freely aiding one another, all lending their services to the building up of the school in Kumamoto, they are directed by a common conference and their financial matters are managed by a single treasurer.
|The Christian Church in Japan.| In the words of a missionary of the United Synod in the South, “Every indication points to the ultimate success of the Church in Japan. Only lethargy and unbelief can rob her of the victory.... The leaven of Christ’s Gospel has been working in Japanese society for half a century, and under its influence the whole lump is gradually undergoing a subtle change. There are higher ideals of social and civic righteousness; different conceptions of responsibility toward the weak; a growing consciousness of sin, which never existed before; dissatisfaction with present religious and moral conditions; an impelling desire to progress along the lines of the highest material and spiritual development of the west.... A learned professor in the Imperial University, himself a non-Christian, has said: ‘Buddhism can never again control the thought of Japan; Christianity will rule the life of New Japan.’”
The East Indies.
|Where Every Prospect Pleases.| Southeast of India lies a group of large islands known by the name of East Indies. These are colonial possessions of Holland. Their population numbering thirty-eight million is divided among various tribes of the Malay race whose character is as varied as that of the different tribes of Africa. The land is rich and its products many, among them sugar-cane, coffee, rice, spices and all varieties of tropical fruits. Many sections are covered with forests of valuable timber.
There are Lutheran missionaries on the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Nias, Java and on the group to the west of Sumatra, which are called the Batoe Islands.
|Borneo.| On the fertile and beautiful Island of Borneo the Rhenish Society[[10]] has had its missionaries for eighty years. Beginning along the southeast coast, the missionaries pushed gradually into the interior by way of the rivers. The Dyaks among whom they labored were the fiercest of savages and “head hunters.” Finally eight stations were established and the future appeared bright, when in 1859 during a rebellion of the Malays against their Dutch rulers, the Dyaks became involved. In the struggle which ensued, all the inland stations were destroyed and seven of the missionaries were murdered. In a few years the work was recommenced. To-day there are eighteen missionaries and the native church numbers about three thousand five hundred.
[10]. It should be remembered that the Rhenish Society is largely but not entirely Lutheran.
|Sumatra--A Great Achieve-ment.| For more than fifty years, since 1861, the Rhenish Society has conducted a mission in the island of Sumatra. The larger part of the population is Mohammedan, but in the interior there are tribes who still retain their primitive religion. Among these tribes are the Bataks, who have a speech and written characters of their own. Once cannibals, they had been before the advent of the Rhenish Missionary Society the object of evangelizing work which had failed. In spite of constant danger the early missionaries continued faithful. The annals of missions have scarcely anywhere a greater victory to record. There is now a well organized church partly self-supporting. Thirty Batak native preachers have been ordained and work is carried on at forty-one main stations and five hundred out-stations. Twenty-seven thousand five hundred Batak children are being educated in five hundred schools. There is a training school for native preachers, a hospital, a leper asylum and a large industrial school. The Christian community numbers about one hundred and fifty thousand.