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

by R. B. Peery

It is very important that prospective missionaries fully count the cost, and be prepared beforehand to endure patiently the trials and hardships that will be sure to meet them. No one should go out without having carefully considered all of these things, and gained the full consent of his heart to endure them. If the cost has not been counted, and the work willingly entered upon with a full knowledge of its hardships and difficulties, the encounter of these upon the field is apt to result in disappointment and dissatisfaction.

Every missionary should be a lover of humanity, even in its lowest and most degraded forms. It is useless for us to attempt to persuade and influence non-Christian men if we do not love them. The audiences we address may not be moved by our logic or rhetoric; our most eloquent sermons may have no effect on them; but practical illustrations of our love for them will always meet with a hearty response. Love is the key that opens all hearts. "Faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

To love refined Christian men and women is easy, but to love humanity in its more degraded forms is hard. And yet the missionary must be prepared to love an alien race, that regards him with coolness and distrust. He must be ready to associate with lowly people, amid humble and immoral surroundings, and to be patient, kind, and loving to the most degraded. No one who has not lived on the mission field and associated freely with the people knows how hard this is. Such love will win more men to Christ than eloquent preaching or most careful instruction. The man who possesses a large amount of it, other things being equal, will meet with success.

The missionary should, as far as possible, present in his own character all Christian graces. He will be looked upon as a product of the faith he represents, and will exercise more influence by his life than by his words. He must not be impatient, quarrelsome, or wilful, and, above all, he must not be proud. Constant association with an inferior race is apt to beget a haughty, domineering manner, and the missionary needs to be especially on his guard against this. He may present no striking defects of character, else his faith will be held responsible for them. Peculiarities and faults that are known to be merely personal at home are regarded in the mission field as the result of a bad religion.

It is very important that the missionary be an attractive man, possessed of personal magnetism. He should by nature draw men, not repel them. Although hard to define, we all know what this power is. Let a little child come into a room where two men are sitting. It will readily go to the one, but no amount of coaxing will induce it to go to the other. The one possesses an innate power to attract, while the other repels. Where the personal element plays so important a role it is essential that the missionary possess the power to draw men.

MENTAL QUALIFICATIONS.—Hardly less important than physical and spiritual are the mental qualifications. A mediocre man cannot do good work in any mission field, least of all in a field like Japan. None but strong men should be sent out. In former years, when the science of missions was little understood, it was thought a waste to send a man of unusual intellectual endowments, because an ordinary man could do the work just as well; but the boards have wisely abandoned that policy. Experience has clearly demonstrated the wisdom of sending the very best men that can be had.

In the first place, the prospective missionary to Japan should have as complete and thorough a mental training as possible. A full academic and theological course is highly desirable. He should know how to reason logically and profoundly, and should be a skilled dialectician, able to meet the native scholars on their own ground. The subtle philosophies of the East, which he will daily encounter, can only be dealt with by a man thoroughly trained. The atheistic and agnostic philosophies of the West are spread over all Japan, and the missionary must be able to combat them.

Another reason why the missionary should be as highly educated as possible is that large numbers of the Japanese people are highly educated, and a man of poor ability and training cannot command their respect. Education is to-day being diffused more and more throughout Japan, and the missionary must work among an educated people. It is necessary that he feel himself to be at least the intellectual equal of all with whom he comes in contact.

In order, then, successfully to combat the subtle philosophies of the East, to show the fallacies of the prevalent skeptical philosophies of the West, and to command the respect of the people among whom he labors, the missionary to this land should have a thorough intellectual training.

Linguistic talent is another essential, and especially so in Japan. No one should be sent here who is deficient in this. This language is perhaps the most difficult of all spoken languages for an Occidental to acquire. It is so thoroughly unlike any of the European languages that the student must change his view-point and learn to look at things as the Japanese do before he can make much progress. To master it one must study both Japanese and Chinese. While a fair linguist can, by hard work, preach with comparative intelligibility after three years of study, a complete mastery of the language is the work of a lifetime.