The Gist of Japan Part 13

This is one of the many reasons why a missionary should be a married man. The single man cannot create this model home, which is to teach the people by example what Christian family life should be. In this respect Catholic missions are deficient, the celibacy of the priests precluding family life.

First, then, the mission home is an example to the non-Christian people around it. It is frequently open to them, and they can see its workings. They often share its hospitality and sit at its table.

Their keen eyes take in everything, and a deep impression is made upon them.

Just here arises one of the greatest difficulties the missionary has to contend with in his private life. The people are so inquisitive naturally, the mission home is so attractive to them, and our idea of the privacy and sanct.i.ty of the home is so lacking in their etiquette, that it is hard to keep {212} the home from becoming public. People will come in large numbers at the most unseasonable hours, simply out of curiosity, wanting to see and handle everything in the house. It is often necessary, in self-defense, to refuse them admittance, except at certain hours. Not only are the seclusion and privacy of the home endangered, but the missionary also is in great danger of having his valuable time uselessly frittered away.

Notwithstanding all that the mission home is to the people, it is much more to the missionary. It should be to him a sure retreat and seclusion from the peculiarly trying cares and worries of his work. It should be a place where he can evade the subtle influences of heathenism which creep in at every pore--a safe retreat from the sin and wickedness and vice around it.

The mission home should be a Western home transplanted in the East. It may not become too much orientalized. It should have Western furniture, pictures, musical instruments, etc., and should make its possessor feel that he is in a Western home. It should be well supplied with books and newspapers, and everything else that will help to keep its inmates in touch with the life of the West. The missionary may not be orientalized, else he will be in danger of becoming heathenized.

For the sake of his children the missionary's {213} home should be as exact a reproduction of the Western home as possible. These children are citizens of the West, heirs of its privileges; and to it they will go before they reach years of maturity. Therefore it is but fair that their childhood home should reflect its civilization.

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 j.a.pan 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-cla.s.s 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 {214} 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 {215} 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 j.a.pan for the missionaries to leave their fields of work during the summer season and spend six weeks or two months in {216} sanatoria among the mountains or by the seash.o.r.e. Here their work, with its cares and anxieties, is all laid aside. The best-known sanatoria in j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan than in most mission fields, and these evangelists stay at their posts {217} 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 j.a.pan 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.

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 j.a.panese 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 {218} a.s.sociate with our fellow-missionaries.

The work which we do the remainder of the year is done much better because of this rest and fellows.h.i.+p.

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 j.a.pan, regard for the permanent interests of his work requires that a vacation be taken in summer by those residing in central and southern j.a.pan, the same to be accompanied by as much of recreation and change as circ.u.mstances 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. {219} 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 {220} 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 acc.u.mulated 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 {221} 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan by one mission alone in distracted efforts to regain the health of its missionaries."

These furloughs are also needed to keep the {222} 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 j.a.pan 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, {223} 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.

How long can the missionary safely work in j.a.pan before taking his first furlough? That will depend upon the nature of the man himself, and the kind of mission work in which he is engaged. The average length of time spent here by the missionaries before the first furlough is about seven years. There are no men more competent to pa.s.s judgment upon this matter than Drs. Berry and Taylor, who have spent the better part of their lives here, in the service of the American Board, and who are thoroughly acquainted with the conditions that surround us. Dr.

Berry says: "I do not hesitate to affirm that the {224} 'ten-year-or-longer rule,' still adhered to by some missionary societies, and by many missionaries as well, is too long for the first term.... I indorse what in substance has been suggested by my friend Dr. McDonald, viz., that the time of service on the field prior to the first furlough be seven years, and that prior to subsequent furloughs be ten years; this plan to be modified by health, existing conditions of work, home finances, and by individual preferences." Dr. Taylor says: "My observations have led me to the conclusion that the first furlough ought to be taken at the close of the fifth or sixth year, and after that once every eight or ten years."

We have yet to look at the trials and sorrows, the encouragements and joys, of the missionary. We have already looked into the missionary's home; let us now endeavor to look into his heart. If the former is his _sanctum_, this is his _sanctum sanctorum_; and I trust my missionary brethren will pardon me for exposing it to the public view.

We will pa.s.s by all physical hards.h.i.+ps, such as climate, improper food, poor houses, etc. Although these are often greater hards.h.i.+ps than the people at home know, they are but "light afflictions" to the missionary. His real trials lie in an entirely different sphere.

The greatest hards.h.i.+p the missionary has to {225} bear is his loneliness and isolation. Separated almost entirely from his own race, he is deprived of all those social joys that are so dear to him. The thought of his kinsmen and friends is ever in his mind, but alas! they are so far away. He must go on year after year living among a people from whom an impa.s.sable gulf separates him, leading the same lonely life. For the first year or two he rather enjoys the quiet and privacy, but by and by it becomes almost unendurable. Dr. Edward Lawrence has correctly styled the missionary "an exile." We cannot do better than quote his words: "Very many of the missionary's heaviest burdens are summed up in the one word whose height and breadth and length and depth none knows so well as he--that word 'exile.' It is not merely a physical exile from home and country and all their interests; it is not only an intellectual exile from all that would feed and stimulate the mind; it is yet more--a spiritual exile from the guidance, the instruction, the correction, from the support, the fellows.h.i.+p, the communion of the saints and the church at home. It is an exile as when a man is lowered with a candle into foul places, where the noxious gases threaten to put out his light, yet he must explore it all and find some way to drain off the refuse and let in the sweet air and sun to do their own cleansing work.... The {226} missionary is not only torn away from those social bonds that sustain, or even almost compose, our mental, moral, and spiritual life, but he is forced into closest relations with heathenism, whose evils he abhors, whose power and fascinations, too, he dreads. And when at last he can save his own children only by being bereft of them, he feels himself an exile indeed."

The missionary's life is full of disappointments. Men for whom he has labored and prayed it may be for years, and in whom he has placed implicit confidence, will often bitterly disappoint him in their Christian life. Boys who have been educated on his charity, who are what they are solely by his help, will frequently be guilty of base ingrat.i.tude, and, worse yet, will repudiate his teachings. The native church not having generations of Christian ancestry behind it, and not being in a Christian environment, is often, it may be unwittingly, guilty of heathen practices that sorely try the heart of the missionary. The struggle between the new life and the old heathenism is still seen in the church-members and even in the native ministry.

Each missionary, if he would be well and cheerful in his work, must learn to cast all burdens of such a character on the Lord, and not be oppressed by them.

One of the greatest trials some of us have to bear is that we must live in an environment so {227} unconducive to personal growth and development There is a great deal of ambition lurking about us still, and we do not like to see our own development cut short because of an unfavorable environment, while our friends and cla.s.smates at home, who were no more than our equals in former days, far surpa.s.s us in intellectual development and in influence and power. Perhaps a missionary should be above such thoughts and should be perfectly content with a life of obscurity and partial development; but missionaries are still men, and to many an ambitious one the limits placed upon his personal development are very irksome.

But why are the conditions unfavorable to high personal development?

Because those stimulants to prolonged, vigorous effort that exist in the West are lacking. The stimulus of compet.i.tion, the contact of thinking minds, so necessary to enlist the full exercise of a man's powers, are largely wanting. One is shut up to his own thoughts and to those he gets from books, and his development, in so far as it does proceed, is very apt to be one-sided. This is the reason why so many missionaries are narrow, unable to see a subject in all its relations and to give due importance to each.

The work of the missionary from beginning to end is one of self-sacrifice and self-effacement. {228} There is no future for him in the councils of the native church. As the work grows and extends he must gradually take a back seat. As the native ministry develops, the foreign minister is less and less needed, and must gradually withdraw.

Again, the home land, father and mother, brothers and sisters, friends and companions, are just as dear to the missionary as to any one else.

Yet it seems inevitable that he will gradually grow away from them and be forgotten by them. Prolonged absence brings forgetfulness; diverse labors and interests put people out of sympathy with one another. When the new missionary first comes out to his field, communication between him and friends is frequent. Letters pa.s.s regularly, little remembrances are sent from time to time, and he is still in touch with his friends at home. But by and by a change comes. After one or two years exchange of presents and remembrances ceases; gradually the letters cease also, and none come except those from his immediate family. Even these become less and less frequent. The arrival of the mails, which at first was looked forward to with so much joy, is now scarcely noted. An old American gentleman who has spent some forty years in the East tells me that he now receives from the home land not more than two or three letters per year. {229} After a few years of residence here one feels that he is largely out of touch with the life of the West, and that he is forgotten, by home and friends.

It seems to me that churches and friends can do much toward preventing this, and toward brightening the lives of their missionaries, if they will. Let pastors and friends throughout the church take special pains to write interesting personal letters to the missionary. It will do him good just to be remembered in this way. It is natural that the same kindness, attention, and love that are shown to the home pastor should not be shown to the missionary, because he is so far away and the strong personal element is wanting. But if the churches would make an effort to share their kindness and beneficence between the home pastor and the foreign one it would be highly appreciated by the latter.

Especially does this seem but fair in a case where a church supports its own missionary and where most of its members are personally acquainted with him. Such churches speak of having two pastors; one at home ministering to them, and one abroad, in their stead, preaching the gospel to the heathen. Why should not these pastors have equal place in their hearts and receive equally their kindness and their gifts? If any preference is shown, it would seem that it should {230} be to the foreign pastor, for he has much the harder work. But the foreign pastor is generally forgotten, while the home pastor, with whom living is much cheaper, is paid a larger salary; he is given a vacation, and a purse to enable him to spend it pleasantly; at Christmas he is substantially remembered, and all through the year he is presented with numerous gifts and shown many favors. The poor lonely missionary is paid a moderate salary and is given no further thought. Imagine the feelings of a man in a mission field, supported by one church which always speaks of him as its foreign pastor, as he takes up a church paper and reads of the favors shown the home pastor; among them such items as "a nice purse of fifty dollars," "a three months' leave of absence, and expenses to ----." He cannot help thinking with a sigh of that unpaid doctor's bill of fifty dollars incurred by his wife's ill health last summer, or of the money needed to send his boy home to be educated.

A church should try to remember its pastor abroad as well as the one at home. The home pastor himself could see to it that this is done. If he should simply say, when handed a present for some purpose, "Our foreign pastor has not been remembered by us, and he needs it more than I, therefore we will send this to him," the result would probably be that he and the foreign {231} pastor would both be remembered. If little expressions of appreciation and kindness, such as this, were occasionally shown the missionaries, it would do much to brighten and cheer their hard lives. These are little things, but the little things have much to do with our happiness.

If the missionary life has its sorrows and disappointments, it has its pleasures and joys as well. It is with great pleasure that I turn from the dark to the bright side of our lives.

First I would mention that sweet peace and joy that come from the consciousness of doing one's duty. The true missionary feels that G.o.d has called him into the work, and that he is fulfilling the divine will. This knowledge brings with it much pleasure. The joy is all the sweeter because of the sacrifices that must be undergone in answer to the divine call. He feels not only that he is in the field by the call of G.o.d, but also that G.o.d is with him in his work, leading, guiding, blessing, helping him. He hears the words of his Master, "Lo, I am with you alway," and he gladly responds, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy." The brooding Spirit of G.o.d is especially near the Christian worker in foreign lands, and imparts to him much joy and peace.

Another of the missionary's joys is to see the gospel gradually taking hold of the hearts of the people and renewing and transforming them.

It {232} is pa.s.sing pleasant to tell the gospel story, so full of hope and joy, to these people whose religious ideas and aspirations are only dark and gloomy. Who could desire sweeter joy than to watch the transforming power of the gospel in the heart of some poor heathen, changing him from an idol-wors.h.i.+ping, immoral creature into a pure, consistent Christian? It is the good fortune of the missionary to see such changes taking place in the people to whom he ministers. And what a change it is! For gloom and dejection it gives joy and hope; for blind, irresistible fate it gives a loving providence. The change is so great that every feature of the face expresses it.

Lastly, the crown of the missionary's life is to see a strong, vigorous native church springing up around him, the direct result of his labors; to see it gradually and silently spreading itself throughout the whole nation as the leaven through the meal, permeating every form of its life and impressing itself upon every phase of its character. To this native church he confidently looks for the evangelization of the ma.s.ses and the accomplishment of all that for which he has labored so long and so earnestly. When the missionary can look upon such a native church with the feeling that it will be faithful to its Lord and do His work; when he can sit in its pews and hear soul-nouris.h.i.+ng gospel sermons from his {233} own pupils, now grown strong in the Lord--then indeed his cup of joy is full. The trials and sorrows that were endured in connection with the work are all forgotten, and his only emotion is one of glad thanksgiving.

In some lands many missionaries have already received this crown to their labors; it has been partially received in j.a.pan, and if we are but faithful to our trust shall yet be received in all lands.