Chapter 2

Madura, the center of Dravidian worship, one hundred miles farther south 121

Temple built about two great shrines for the god Siva and his wife Minakshi 121

Five great pyramidal towers and a court eight hundred and thirty by seven hundred and thirty feet 121

The "Golden Lily Tank," and "The Hall of a Thousand Pillars" 122

Dark alcoves and a festival night, the acme of Hindu religion 122

The palace of Tirumala and his Teppa Kulam tank, one thousand feet on each side 123

The noblest sight of Madura is its American Congregational Mission 123

Under Dr. J. X. Miller, its schools and seminaries are revolutionizing southern India 124

XII. TWO WEEKS IN CEYLON 125-135

Ceylon not a part of India, but a Crown Colony of Britain 127

Colombo, a European city, and English the best means of communication 127

Buddhism, crowded out of India, made its way southward 127

A sacred tooth of Buddha is preserved at Kandy 127

Wesleyan Methodist College and English Baptist College at Colombo 128

The Ananda College, a theosophical institution, unfavorable to Christianity 128

A refuge in Nurwara Eliya, six thousand two hundred feet above the sea 129

Switzerland without its ruggedness, and terraces of tea-plants lining the approaches thither 129

Forests of rubber make a sea of verdure 130

The Missionary Rest-house at Kandy 131

The famous Buddhist temple, and its evening worship 131

Its library the only sign of intelligence 131

Church of the English Baptists welcomes us 132

The botanical gardens, wonderful for their variety of products 132

Anurajahpura and its ruined pagoda, a solid conical mass of brick 133

One thousand six hundred pillars of stone, the foundations of an ancient monastery 133

Cremation of a Buddhist priest, and our reception by the high priest of the remaining temple 134

XIII. JAVA AND BUDDHISM 137-146

Java, the jewel of the Dutch Crown, has thirty-five millions of people 139

The "culture system" makes it immensely productive 139

Mistakes of Holland in matters of government and education 140

A back-bone of volcanic mountains furnishes unsurpassed railway views 140

Endless fields of rice and sugar-cane on hillside and plain 141

A passionate people reveal themselves in their music, their shadow-dances, their use of the Malay dagger 141

The new policy of the Dutch government shown in the botanical gardens 142

More scientific and practical than those of Ceylon, they minister to all the world 142

Doctor Lovink, Dutch minister of agriculture, conducts us 143

The temple of Boro Budor, restored after ruin, the greatest wonder of Java 143

Five times as great as any English cathedral 143

Sculptures in alto-relievo that would stretch three miles 144

A picture-gallery of the life of Buddha 144

Buddhism has no personal or living God, and no atonement for sin 145

Boro Budor, slowly disintegrating, has no power to combat either Mohammedanism or Christianity 145

XIV. THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA 147-161

This essay, a summary of the book of Professor Andrews, formerly of Delhi, now associated with Sir Rabindranath Tagore 149

But with additions and conclusions of my own 149

The Renaissance in Europe needed a Reformation to supplement it, and a similar renaissance in India requires a similar reformation 150

History of religious systems in India begins with the Rig-Veda, and is followed by the Upanishads 152

Hindu incarnations are not permanent, and the Trimurti is not the Christian Trinity 153

The Krishna of the Puranas is a model of the worst forms of vice 154

Deification of God's works fixes the distinctions of caste, and the degradation of woman 154

Christianity is needed to unite the Hindu and the Moslem 155

Signs of an approaching reformation in the weakening of class barriers and the spiritual interpretation of the old religions 156

The Brahmo-Somaj and the Arya-Samaj aim to bring Hinduism back to the standards of the Vedas 158

The Aligarh Movement among the Mohammedans, and the Aligarh College in Delhi 158

Swami Vivekananda, and his denial that men are sinners 159

The Theosophical Society and Mrs. Besant, a hindrance to missions 160

Justice Renade, in his social reform movement, sees in Christianity the one faith which can unite all races and all religions in India 160

In Christ alone India's renaissance can become a complete reformation 161

XV. MISSIONS AND SCRIPTURE 163-178

Some critics deny Jesus' authorship of the "Great Commission" 165

We must examine "the historical method," so called 165

As often employed, it is inductive but not deductive, horizontal but not vertical 166

Deduction from God's existence normally insures acceptance of Christ 168

Deduction from Christ's existence normally insures acceptance of Scripture 169

Scripture is the voice and revelation of the eternal Christ 169

The exclusively inductive process is not truly historical 170

Both Paul and Peter gained their theology by deduction 171

Since experience of sin and of Christ is knowledge, it is material for science 173

The eternal Christ guarantees to us the _unity_ of Scripture 174

Also the _sufficiency_ of Scripture 175

Also the _authority_ of Scripture 176

The "historical method," as ordinarily employed, proceeds and ends without Christ 177

It therefore treats Scripture as a man-made book, and denies its unity, sufficiency, and authority 177

It sees in the Bible not an organism, pulsating with divine life, but only a congeries of earth-born fragments 177

XVI. SCRIPTURE AND MISSIONS 179-198

The "historical method" finds in Psalm 110 only human authorship 181

And contradicts Christ himself by denying the reference in the psalm to him 182

A document can have more than one author, shown in art as well as literature 183

Predictions of Christ in the Old Testament convinced unbelieving Jews 184

The "historical method" finds no prediction of Christ in Isaiah, and so contradicts John 184

Effect of this method upon the interpretation of the New Testament 185

It gives us no assurance of Christ's deity, and ignores Old Testament proofs that he is Prophet, Priest, and King 185

Value of the "historical method" when not exclusively inductive 186

Effect of this method, as often employed, upon systematic theology 187

If Scripture has no unity, no systematic theology is possible 187

Unitarian acknowledgment that its schools have no theology at all 189

Effect of this method upon our theological seminaries to send out disseminators of doubts 189

Effect of this method upon the churches of our denomination to destroy all reason for their existence 191

Effect of this method upon missions to supersede evangelism by education and to lose all dynamic both abroad and at home 193

This method was "made in Germany," and must be opposed as we oppose arbitrary force in government 195

The remedy is a spiritual coming of Christ in the hearts of his people 197

XVII. THE THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS 199-212

Is man's religious nature only a capacity for religion? 201

The will is never passive, the candle is always burning 201

Moslem and Hindu alike show both good and bad elements in their worship 201

Here and there are seekers after God, and such are saved through Christ, though they have not yet heard his name 202

First chapter of Romans gives us the best philosophy of heathenism 203

Heathenism, the result of an abnormal and downward evolution 204

The eternal Christ conducts an evolution of the wheat, side by side with Satan's evolution of the tares 204

All the good in heathen systems is the work of Christ, and we may utilize their grains of truth 205

Illustrated in Hindu incarnations and Moslem faith in God's unity and personality 205

Christ alone is our Peace, and he alone can unite the warring elements of humanity 206

A moral as well as a doctrinal theology is needed in heathendom 208

But external reforms without regeneration can never bring in the kingdom of God 209

The history of missions proves that heart must precede intellect, motive must accompany example 210

The love of Christ who died for us is the only constraining power 210

Only his deity and atonement furnish the dynamic of missions 211

XVIII. MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 213-223

Missionary work results in a healthy growth of the worker 215

The successful missionary must be an all-round man 215

He secures a training beyond that of any university course 216

That training is spiritual as well as intellectual 216

It tends to make him doctrinally sound as to Christ's deity and atonement 217

Or convinces him that he has no proper place on a mission field 218

A valuable lesson for our societies and churches at home 218

New Testament polity, as well as doctrine, is tested by missions 219

Our mission churches are becoming models of self-support, self-government, and self-propagation 219

The physical environment of the missionary needs to be cared for 219

The large house, many servants, and an automobile, are great and almost necessary helps 220

All these can be obtained cheaply, and should be provided 220

Other denominations furnish better equipment than ours 220

Yet the days of missionary hardship are well-nigh past 221

Missionary trials are mainly social and spiritual; and there are enough of these 221

But faithful work, in spite of hope deferred, will be rewarded at last 222

I

A WEEK IN JAPAN

The Pacific Ocean was very kind to us, for it answered to its name, and was pacific beyond all our expectations. Sixteen days of smooth seas and lovely weather brought us by way of Honolulu to Yokohama. Only the last day of our voyage was dark and rainy. But though the rain continued after our landing, Japan was picturesque. On four out of our six days we drove about, shut up in water-tight buggies called "rickshaws." They were like one-hoss-shays, through whose front windows of isinglass we looked out upon the bare legs of our engineer and conductor, who took the place of the horse for twenty-five cents an hour.

There were other sights on these rainy days--endless processions of slipshod men on wooden clogs, clattering their way through the narrow streets, while they protected themselves from the watery downpour by flat oil-paper umbrellas; other strong-limbed men acting as wheel-horses to draw or push incredible weights of lumber; and saving themselves from the wet by bushy coats of straw that made them look like porcupines; women, little and big, carrying babies on their backs, occasionally a girl, aged anywhere from four to eight, loaded with a baby aged two; shops, shops, shops, one-storied, artistic, fantastic, with signs on which Ah Sing and Ah Tong have mingled Chinese characters and English, and which inform you that the proprietors can furnish you with the _sake_ of Japan or the gasoline of the Standard Oil Company; these things convince you that you are in the midst of a crowded population struggling for subsistence and ready to work, a population of inexhaustible vitality and enterprise.

Our first rainy day was distinguished by a visit to the palatial mansion of a Japanese millionaire. Mr. Asano, the President of the Steamship Company that brought us thither, had invited the whole lot of first-class passengers to afternoon tea at his house in Tokyo. That house is a veritable museum of Japanese art. It reminded us of the collections of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. There was a great retinue of servants, and we were escorted upon arrival to one of the topmost rooms, where we were served with tea and presented with symbolic cakes by a dozen gorgeously bedecked young girls, who proved to be the children and grandchildren of our host. This, however, was only a preparatory welcome, for it was followed by the real reception in a great audience-room below, where Mr. and Mrs. Asano, together with their eldest son and daughter, gave us cordial greetings. A couple of hundred of our fellow passengers were gathered there and were partaking of light refreshments, with claret, tea, and mineral waters, while an expert Japanese juggler amused them with his feats of sleight of hand. The tapestries and paintings of this house were exquisite products of taste and skill, and the total effect was that of great wealth accompanied by true love for the beautiful. But it was the mansion of an orthodox Shinto and Buddhist, for in every large room there was an alcove with the sitting figure of a bronze Buddha.

A more distinctly Christian entertainment for that same rainy day was our reception by the Conference of Baptist missionaries and workers at the new Tabernacle in Tokyo. They had been called to meet Doctor Franklin and Doctor Anderson, who had been sent by our Foreign Missionary Society to consult with them as to our educational policy in Japan. We reached the Conference on its last day of meeting, and we had a most valued opportunity of observing its method of procedure. Half of those present were Japanese workers who did not understand English, and it was a new experience to address them when every word had to be interpreted. The social intercourse that followed was delightful, for it enabled us to greet our former pupils in considerable numbers. We then took lunch at the house of Doctor Axling, the pastor of the Tokyo church, while Doctor Tenny is President of the Theological Seminary. The little Japanese missionary home, with its tiny secluded garden, its paper partitions, and its mingled reminders of an American household, were things long to be remembered. Not less to be noted was the gratitude for our visit which was shown by our hosts. We had regarded ourselves as the persons honored and entertained. We learned that missionaries in a heathen land wonderfully appreciate the sight and the companionship of friends from their distant home.

Even more unexpected was our reception at the Women's College of Japan. Since I had been more than thirty years a trustee of Vassar College, and for some years chairman of its board of trustees, Mrs. Strong and I were the guests of honor, and I was the first speaker called upon. Before me were five hundred young women in more somber dress than prevails at Vassar. All rose to welcome me at the beginning of my address, and all rose again to thank me at its conclusion. Most of these students understood only Japanese and needed an interpreter. Doctor Zumoto, the accomplished editor of the Japanese "Herald of Asia," translated my address into his own language after I had finished, having taken notes while I spoke. Until the very end I had the impression that this was a Christian college, and I innocently made the Lord Jesus the center and substance of my remarks, declaring that the renaissance of learning in Japan needed to be supplemented by a reformation of religion. Only when the evening was over did I learn that the institution was not only undenominational, but also non-religious, having Buddhist as well as Christian professors. Doctors Anderson and Franklin were also guests, and when they followed me, they made the same mistake and made Christian addresses. But the Japanese management is very polite and very liberal, and even in the dinner that followed our _faux pas_ did not provoke a word of criticism. The guests at that dinner served by the students were from the most prominent educational institutions of Japan. We highly appreciated the honor done us, and did not regret that in our ignorance of the situation we had given to that distinguished audience the true gospel of Christ.

Another dinner of a very different sort was that which we ourselves gave at the Grand Hotel of Yokohama to the Rochester men. To my surprise twenty-four persons sat down, but this number included at least ten of the wives. Chiba and Axling, Tenny and Topping, the Fishers, father and son, Clement, Brown, Benninghoff, Takagaki, Kawaguchi, all except the last with their wives, made up the list. I was proud of them, for they are leaders of thought and of education in Japan. Only Doctor Bearing's absence on furlough in America, a furlough ended only by his lamented death, prevented us from inviting him, though he was not a Rochester man. Reminiscences of seminary life were both pathetic and amusing at that dinner. One thing impressed itself upon my mind and memory: Our missionaries have not lost their sense of humor. Under all their burdens of anxiety and responsibility they have retained their sanity, their hopefulness, and their good fellowship. The hilarity of our gathering was the bubbling over of cheerful dispositions, and the safety-valve gave evidence that there were large reserves of steam. Missionaries are not a solemn set. They are only a good set of human beings made in the divine image, for is it not written that even "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh"?

The next day was the brightest of the bright. We took advantage of it to visit the great temple of Kamakura, and to inspect the greatest artistic monument of Japan, the bronze image of Buddha. It is a sitting statue, with folded hands and eyes closed, as if absorbed in mystic contemplation of his own excellence as a manifestation of deity, and careless of the sorrows and sins of the world. The great bronze image is fifty feet high, but it is hollow. We entered it, climbed up by ladders to its shoulders, and looked out of windows in its back. Its hollowness seemed symbolic, for it has only the outward semblance of divinity and is deaf to all human entreaties. On that same day we visited the temple of Hachiman, the god of war, most spacious and impressive in its park-like surroundings of ancient trees and noble gateways, but fearful in its accompanying images of revenge and slaughter. Humanity needs compassion in the Godhead. The Japanese have felt this, and they have invented a goddess of mercy, Kwannon by name. Her shrine is the richest in Japan. It constitutes one of the greatest attractions of the capital. Millions visit it every year, and the offerings of its worshipers support a whole colony of Buddhist priests. The avenue leading to the temple is lined with shops where mementoes of the goddess may be purchased, as in Ephesus of old silver shrines might be bought in honor of the great goddess Diana. It is the old story of buyers and sellers in the Jewish temple. It was most pathetic to see a well-dressed and handsome woman bend herself almost double before the image, clap her hands to call the attention of the goddess, and then fold them in prayer, possibly for the child that had hitherto been denied her. It is well understood in this temple that, until the clink of coin is heard in the collection-box, it is vain to suppose that even the goddess of mercy will listen to a prayer.