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

by R. B. Peery

In order that the missionary may be able to build up such a home it is necessary that he be paid a liberal salary. While living in native style is very cheap, living in Western style is perhaps as dear here as in any country in the world. Clothing, furniture, much of the food, etc., must be brought from the West; and we must pay for it not only what the people at home pay, but the cost of carrying it half-way round the world, and the commission of two or three middlemen besides.

Most boards operating in Japan pay their men a liberal salary. They also pay an allowance for each child, health allowance, etc. All this is well. Man is an animal, and, like other animals, he must be well cared for if he is to do his best work. No farmer would expect to get hard work out of a horse that was only half fed, and no mission board can expect to get first-class work out of a missionary who is not liberally supported. The missionary has enough to worry him without having to be anxious about finances.

Especially is it wise that the boards give their men an allowance for children. The expenses incident to a child's coming into the world in the East are very high. The doctor's bill alone amounts frequently to more than $100. Then a nurse is absolutely necessary, there being no relatives and friends to perform this office, as sometimes there are in the West. The birth of a child here means a cash outlay of $150 to $200, to pay which the missionary is often reduced to hard straits. If he belongs to a board that makes a liberal child's allowance he is fortunately relieved from this difficulty.

The allowance is also necessary to provide for the future education of the child. As there are no suitable schools here, children must be sent home to school at an early age. They cannot stay in the parental home and attend school from there, as American children do, but must be from childhood put into a boarding-school, and this takes money. Now no missionaries' salaries are sufficiently large to enable them to lay up much money, and unless there is a child's allowance there will be no money for his education, in which event the missionary must sacrifice his self-respect by asking some school or friends to educate his child. He feels that if any one in the world deserves a salary sufficient to meet all necessary expenses without begging, he does; and it hurts him to give his life in hard service to the church in a foreign land, and then have his children educated on charity.

All mission boards should give their men an allowance for each child, unless the salary paid is sufficiently large to enable them to lay aside a sufficient sum for this very purpose.

The health allowance is also a wise provision because the climate is such as often to necessitate calling in a physician, and doctors' bills are enormously high. If the missionary is not well he cannot work; but if he is left to pay for medical attendance himself out of a very meager salary, all of which is needed by his wife and children, he will frequently deny himself the services of a physician when they are really needed.

The work of the missionary is most trying, and the demands on his health and strength are very exhausting. The petty worries and trials that constantly meet him, the rivalries and quarrels which his converts bring to him for settlement, the care of the churches, anxiety about his family, etc., are a constant strain on his vital force, in order to withstand which it is necessary that he should have regular periods of rest and recreation. Nature demands relaxation, and she must have it, or the health of the worker fails.

It is customary in Japan for the missionaries to leave their fields of work during the summer season and spend six weeks or two months in sanatoria among the mountains or by the seashore. Here their work, with its cares and anxieties, is all laid aside. The best-known sanatoria in Japan are Karuizawa, Arima, Hakone, Sapporo, and Mount Hiezan. In most of these places good accommodations are provided, and the hot weeks can be spent very pleasantly. Large numbers of missionaries gather there, and for a short time the tired, isolated worker can enjoy the society of his own kind; his wife can meet and chat with other housewives; and his children can enjoy the rare pleasure of playing with other children white like themselves. These resorts are cool, the air is pure and invigorating, and the missionary returns from them in September feeling fresh and strong, ready to take up with renewed vigor his arduous labors.

It is objected to these vacations that they take the missionary away from his field of work, and that so long an absence on his part is very injurious to the cause. This is partially true; but a wise economy considers the health of the worker and his future efficiency more than the temporary needs of the work. The absence of the foreign worker for a short period is not as hurtful as one would at first glance suppose. A relatively larger part of the work is left in the hands of the native helpers in Japan than in most mission fields, and these evangelists stay at their posts all through the summer, and care for its interests while the foreigner is away. The same need of a vacation does not exist in their case, because they are accustomed to the climate, and they work through their native tongue and among their own people.

The need of this missionary vacation is so evident that we need only give it in outline. In the first place, the unfavorable climate makes a change and rest desirable. As I have already stated, the climate of Japan is not only very warm, but also contains an excessive amount of moisture and a very small per cent. of ozone, and is lacking in atmospheric magnetism and electricity; hence its effect upon people from the West is depressing. Besides the climate, the missionary's work is so exhaustive and trying, and its demands upon him are so great, that a few weeks' rest are absolutely necessary. The same reasons which at home justify the city pastor in taking a vacation are intensified in the missionary's case.