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

by R. B. Peery

Not least of these reasons is that the missionary may for a while enjoy congenial society. Many of us spend ten months of the year isolated almost entirely from all people of our own kind. The Japanese are so different that we can have but little social life with them; and it is but natural and right that, for a short period, we should have the opportunity to meet and associate with our fellow-missionaries. The work which we do the remainder of the year is done much better because of this rest and fellowship.

Dr. J. C. Berry, in a paper read before the missionary conference at Osaka in 1883, discusses very fully this question of missionary vacations and furloughs. After elaborating the reasons for them, which reasons I have given in brief above, he says: "It therefore follows that, because of the numerous and complex influences operating to-day to produce nerve-tire in the missionary in Japan, regard for the permanent interests of his work requires that a vacation be taken in summer by those residing in central and southern Japan, the same to be accompanied by as much of recreation and change as circumstances will permit."

With all the care and precaution that can be taken, with systematic rests and vacations, there soon comes a time when it is necessary for the missionary to return to his home land, to breathe again the air of his youth, and to replenish his physical, mental, and moral being. All the mission boards recognize this and permit their men in this and in other fields to return home on furlough after a certain number of years. The definite time required by the different missions before a furlough is granted varies from three to ten years, the latter period being the most general. But this has been found to be too long, and failing health usually compels an earlier return. Some boards have no set time, but a tacit understanding exists that the missionary may go home at the end of six or eight years.

At the end of the prescribed period the missionary family is taken home at the expense of the board, and is given a rest of a year or eighteen months. During this time, if the missionary is engaged in preaching or lecturing for the board, as is generally the case, he is paid his full salary. If he does no work he is sometimes paid only half his salary. This is very hard, as the salary is just large enough to support him and his family, and their expenses while at home are almost as great as while in the field. If the salary is cut down the pleasure and benefit of the furlough are curtailed. If the missionary in the service of the board exhausts his health and strength in an unfavorable climate it seems but fair that he should be properly supported while endeavoring to recuperate. When a church at home votes its pastor a vacation, instead of cutting down his salary during his absence, it is customary to give him an extra sum to enable him to enjoy it. Why should not the same be done for the missionary? He should at least be permitted to draw the full amount of his small salary.

Against these vacations is urged their great expense to the boards, the greater loss to the mission because of the absence of the worker, and the moral effect of frequent returns upon the church at home. All of these objections have weight, but they are far outweighed by the reasons that necessitate the furlough. The accumulated experience of the different boards makes the judgment unanimous that these are necessary. The judgment of competent medical men also confirms the statement. Dr. Taylor said in the Osaka conference: "I am convinced that a missionary's highest interest requires, and the greatest efficiency in his work will be secured by, a return home at stated intervals." Dr. Berry said in the same conference: "The new and strange social conditions under which the missionary is obliged to work; the effects of climate, intensified in many cases by comparative youth; the absence of many of those home comforts and social, intellectual, and religious privileges with which the Christian civilization of to-day so plentifully surrounds life; the home ties, strengthened by youthful affections,—all these combine with present facilities of travel to render it advisable that the young missionary be at liberty to take a comparatively early vacation in his native land."

From an economic standpoint it is wise to grant these furloughs. It is poor economy to keep the workers in the field until they are completely broken down, and then have to replace them by inexperienced men, who will not be able to do the work of the old ones for years. Far wiser is it to let them stop and recuperate in the home lands before this breakdown comes. It costs less money to keep a missionary well than to care for him during a long, unprofitable period of sickness. I quote again on this point Wallace Taylor, M.D., who, in the paper referred to above, said: "The present haphazard, unsystematic methods of most missions and boards is attended with the greatest expense and the poorest returns. Some of the boards working in Japan have lost more time and expended more money in caring for their broken-down missionaries than it would cost to carry out the recommendations herein made. Again, I observe that many who do not break down begin to fail in health after the fourth or fifth year from entering on their work. They remain on the field, and are reluctantly obliged to spend more or less time in partial work, while experiencing physical discomfort and dissatisfaction of mind. Very many of these cases would have accomplished more for the means expended by a furlough home at the close of the fifth or sixth year.... Over $90,000 have been expended in Japan by one mission alone in distracted efforts to regain the health of its missionaries."

These furloughs are also needed to keep the missionary in touch with the life of the home churches. The West is rapidly progressing in civilization, in arts and sciences, and in theology as well. The missionary who spends ten or more years on the field before returning home finds himself in an entirely new atmosphere, with which he is unfamiliar. He looks at things from the standpoint of ten or more years ago; his methods of work, his language, all are belated. In order that he may give to the nascent churches of Japan the very best theology, the very best methods, and the very best life of the Western churches, it is necessary for him to return frequently to breathe in their spirit and life and keep up with their forward march.

For the missionary's personal benefit he should be permitted to come into frequent contact with the home churches. A too long uninterrupted breathing of the poisonous atmosphere of heathenism has a wonderfully cooling effect upon his ardor and zeal, and is trying to his faith. He needs to come into contact with the broader faith and deeper life of the home churches, and receive from them new consecration and devotion to his work.

The church at home needs also to come frequently into contact with its missionaries. Nothing will so stir up interest and zeal in the mission cause as to see and hear its needs from living, active workers, fresh from the field. If missionaries were more frequently employed to represent the cause to the churches at home perhaps our mission treasuries would not be so depleted. Mission addresses from home pastors are abstract and theoretical; those from missionaries are concrete and practical. The former speak from reading, the latter from personal experience. The address of the missionary comes with power because he speaks of what he has seen and felt, and his personality is thrown into it.

For the sake, then, of the work abroad, of the missionary himself, and of the home churches, missionaries should be required to take regular furloughs at stated intervals, and should spend them in the home lands.