They have one boarding-school for boys, with 14 students; six boarding-schools for girls, with 205 students; and two theological schools, with 21 students.
The Baptist missionaries laboring in Japan are an able, hard-working, evangelical body of men, and there are some good, strong native Baptist ministers.
Lutherans
The Lutheran Church began mission work in Japan only four years ago, and as yet her mission is small. It is supported by the United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South (United States). The Lutheran Church in the United States has occupied a peculiar position. A large per cent. of the emigrants from the Old World are of Lutheran antecedents. Hundreds of thousands of them have come over and settled in the West, and the energies of the American Lutheran Church have been largely expended in caring for these unhoused and unshepherded sheep of her own flock. It seems that Providence has allotted to her this special work. No other church in America is carrying on home mission work on so large a scale, among so many different nationalities, and in so many languages. Because of the great home mission work that has naturally fallen into her hands and demanded her men and money she has not engaged in foreign work as extensively as some other American bodies.
And yet the American contingent of this old mother church of Protestantism has a foreign-mission record of which she is not ashamed. She has supported for many years a mission on the west coast of Africa, at Muhlenberg, that is by universal consent the most successful mission in West Africa. She is also supporting two large and successful missions in India.
The Lutheran mission in Japan was begun as a venture. The after development of the work has amply justified the wisdom of the undertaking. It is not the purpose of the Lutheran Church to antagonize any of the bodies now at work in Japan, but rather to stand, amid all the doctrinal unrest characteristic of Japanese Christianity, for pure doctrine, as she has always done. It is her purpose to teach a positive, evangelical Christianity.
The working force of the mission consists of 2 missionaries and their wives, 2 native helpers, and 1 Bible-woman. The field occupied is small. There is only one station, and that is in the city of Saga, on the island of Kyushu. Much work is done in the surrounding villages and towns from Saga as a center. It is not the purpose of this mission to use large numbers of men and great quantities of money, as some others have done. It purposes working intensively rather than extensively. It attempts to devote all of its time to evangelistic work, and does not engage in educational work further than theological instruction.
Although the missionaries came to Japan in 1892, the station was not opened until 1893. Since that time about 55 converts have been baptized.
There are numerous small Christian bodies at work, such as the Scandinavian Japan Alliance, the Society of Friends, the International Missionary Alliance, the Hephzibah Faith Missionary Association, and the Salvation Army. There are also three liberal bodies working here, generally classed as unevangelical: the Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society, the Universalist mission, and the Unitarian mission.