The effect of Christian missions cannot be measured by the numbers of those who are to be counted on the church rolls; almost unconsciously the nation is absorbing Christian ideals from the hundreds of Christian missionaries and tens of thousands of Christian natives. The necessities of the new social order make their teachings intelligible and acceptable as the older social order did not and could not. This accounts for the astonishing change in the anti-Christian spirit of the Japanese. This spirit did not cease at once on the introduction of the new social order, nor indeed is it now entirely gone. But the change from the Japan of thirty years ago to the Japan of to-day, in its attitude toward Christianity, is more marked than that of any great nation in history. A similar change in the Roman Empire took place, but it required three hundred years. This change in Japan may accordingly be called truly miraculous, not in the sense, however, of a result without a cause, for the causes are well understood.
Among the Christians, especially, the old order is rapidly giving way to the new. Christianity has brought a new conception of woman and her place in the home and her relation to her husband. Japanese Christian girls, and recently non-Christian girls, are seeking an education which shall fit them for their enlarging life. Many of the more Christian young men do not want heathen wives, with their low estimate of themselves and their duties, and they are increasingly unwilling to marry those of whom they know nothing and for whom they care not at all. Already the idea that love is the only safe foundation for the home is beginning to take root in Japan. This changing ideal is bringing marked social changes. In some churches an introduction committee is appointed whose special function is to introduce marriageable persons and to hold social meetings where the young people may become acquainted. Here an important evolution in the social order is taking place before our eyes, but not a few of the world's wise men are too exalted to see it. Love and demonstrative affection between husband and wife will doubtless become as characteristic of Japan in the future as their absence has been characteristic in the past. To recapitulate: these distinctive characteristics of the emotional life of the Japanese might at first seem to be so deep-rooted as to be inherent, yet they are really due to the ideas and customs of the social order, and are liable to change with any new system of ideas and customs that may arise. The higher development of the emotional life of the Japanese waits now on the reorganization of the family life; this rests on a new idea as to the place and value of woman as such and as a human being; this in turn rests on the wide acceptance of Christian ideals as to God and their mutual relations. It involves, likewise, new ideals as to man's final destiny. In Japan's need of these Christian ideals we find one main ground and justification, if justification be needed, for missionary enterprise among this Eastern people.
Chapter v. p. 82.
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