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.