The Gist of Japan: The Islands, Their People, and Missions

by R. B. Peery

The first years were very trying ones. The missionaries were in imminent danger of their lives; attacks without either provocation or warning were very common. Foreigners, and especially those who wanted to teach the foreign religion, were everywhere bitterly hated. The lordly samurai walked about with two sharp swords stuck into his belt, and his very look was threatening. At their houses and when they walked abroad foreigners had special guards provided them by the government.

Great difficulty was at first experienced by the missionaries in employing teachers, because of the suspicion in which foreigners were held. Those who finally agreed to teach were afterward found to be government spies.

The government was still confessedly hostile to Christianity as late as 1869. Shortly before this time some Roman Catholic Christians who had been found around Nagasaki were torn from their homes and sent away into exile. The sale of Christian books was rigidly prohibited. The prohibitions against Christianity were still posted over all the empire, and were rigidly enforced. If a conversation on religious subjects was begun with a Japanese his hand would involuntarily grasp his throat, indicating the extreme perilousness of such a topic.

The following story shows what native Christians had to endure in some parts of Japan as late as 1871. "Mr. O. H. Gulick, while at Kobé, had a teacher, formerly Dr. Greene's teacher, called Ichikawa Yeinosuke. In the spring of the year named this man and his wife were arrested at dead of night and thrown into prison. He had for some time been an earnest student of the Bible, and had expressed the desire to receive baptism, but had not been baptized. His wife was not then regarded as a Christian. Every effort was made to secure his release; but neither the private requests of the missionaries, nor the kindly offices of the American consul, nor even those of the American minister, availed anything. Even his place of confinement was not known at the time. It was at length learned that he had been confined in Kyoto, and had died there November 25, 1872. His wife was shortly afterward released. She is now a member of the Shinsakurada church in Tokyo."

At this early period no distinction was made between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and both were alike hated. There was no opportunity to do direct Christian work, and many of the supporters of missions at home were beginning to doubt the expediency of keeping missionaries where they were not permitted to work. Some boards even contemplated recalling their men. But the missionaries were permitted to remain and await their opportunity, which soon came. With the gradual opening of the country, and especially with the dissemination of a knowledge of foreign nations and their faith, the opportunities for work more and more increased and the old prohibitions were less and less enforced.

During the period of forced inactivity the missionaries were busily engaged in a study of the language and in the writing of various useful books and tracts. At first Chinese Bibles and other Christian books were extensively used, the educated classes reading Chinese with facility. The first religious tract published in Japanese appeared in 1867. One of the most important of the literary productions of the missionary body, Dr. J. C. Hepburn's Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, appeared in this same year. It was a scholarly work, the result of many years of hard, persevering labor. The first edition was speedily exhausted, and a second was issued in 1872. The translation of the Holy Scriptures was also begun and gotten well under way in this period. Several separate portions of the Scriptures from time to time appeared. The first was the Gospel of Matthew, translated by the Rev. J. Goble, of the Baptist mission, and published in 1871. Dr. S. R. Brown had previously prepared first drafts of some portions of the New Testament, but unfortunately they were destroyed by fire. Translations of Mark and John, by Drs. Brown and Hepburn, were published in 1872.

This irregular, piecemeal method of translation was not satisfactory; so in order to expedite the work, and to elicit an active interest in it on the part of all the missionaries in the country, a convention on Bible translation was called to meet in Yokohama on September 20, 1872. As a result of this convention the Translation Committee was organized. At first it consisted of Drs. Brown, Hepburn, and Greene. Other names were afterward added. This committee was ably assisted in its work by prominent Japanese Christian scholars. The great undertaking was brought to a successful conclusion in 1880, when an edition of the whole Bible was published in excellent Japanese.

We have anticipated matters somewhat. Let us now go back a few years and take up the thread where we left off. The work of the missionaries for a long time was fruitless, but the day of reaping was near. The first Protestant convert of Japan was baptized in Yokohama by the Rev. Mr. Ballagh, in 1864. Two years later Dr. Verbeck baptized two prominent men in southern Japan. In 1866 Bishop Williams, of the Episcopal Church, baptized one convert. Who can tell the joy of these missionaries when, after so many years of hard work, they were permitted to see these precious fruits? From time to time others were baptized, but for many years accessions were rare. The first church was organized in Yokohama in 1872. It was left to draft its own constitution and church government, and was a very liberal body.

During all this time the prohibitions of Christianity were still posted over all the land, and the government had never officially renounced its policy of persecution. But the infringement of the laws was permitted, and gradually they became a dead letter. Many Japanese of influence and of official position traveled abroad, and learning of the status of Christianity in the countries of the West, and particularly of the attitude of the chief nations of the world toward the persecution of Christians, exerted their influence to have these prohibitions rescinded. Especially did the strong stand taken by some Western governments influence Japan in favor of toleration. Our own Secretary of State in Washington plainly informed the Japanese committee then visiting there that the United States could not regard as a friendly power any nation that persecuted its Christian subjects.

As a result of various influences, the edicts against Christianity were removed from the signboards in 1873. This was an event of the utmost importance to Christian work, for, although the infringement of the edicts had been for some time winked at, their very existence before the eyes of the people had a great deterring effect. The government announced that this action did not signify that the prohibition of Christianity was now abrogated. It declared that the edicts were removed because their subject-matter, having been so long before the eyes of the people, "was sufficiently imprinted on their minds." And yet their removal conveyed the idea to the people at large that liberty of conscience was henceforth to be allowed, and this virtually proved to be so. Persecutions ceased and the work was allowed to go on untrammeled. The object for which the church abroad had waited and prayed, and for which the missionaries on the ground had longed and labored, was at last realized. Joy and hope filled the hearts of the workers. The cause of missions had received a new and powerful impulse, which ere long made itself felt in a wide enlargement of its operations.