On This Day in 1892 - What We Need Now is Men to Preach
Our need in Japan today is not too different from the SBC's reporting of the needs of Japan from Atlanta, Ga 117 years ago today:
Let none be deluded with the too common notion that Japan is on the eve of turning to the Lord. She has coveted our Western civilization, and with it has embosomed elements which seem to throw her back upon her oriental religious ideas or forward upon the worse ideas of an occidental infidelity. A discriminating member of our mission writes:
"A revolution is going on in Japan, and as is always the case under such circumstances, the country is in a ferment. All sects are struggling for the mastery. Buddhism, like a sleeping lion, feeling the pain at the attempts of other sects to deprive it of its claw, has awakened and begun to roar, rallying its followers and seeking to make proselytes as never before. Shintoism and other forms of idolatry are rampant. Unitarianism and Universalism are aggressive. Skepticism and infidelity are rife among the upper and educated classes. Especially are they affected by men of culture who have studied abroad and think it a proof of their superior minds and advantages to declare themselves ardent followers of Huxley and Spencer."
This means for our missionaries severe work of faith, and should mean for our people constant prayer and ample means to send out coworkers for our little struggling mission.
"This is the age of transformation with Japan, and an age of transformation is the time to give the people the gospel. They are willing to hear in most places. What we need now is men to preach. Surely of the one hundred to be sent out this year we are to have eight or ten missionaries. Surely it is not the intention of the Board to allow another year to pass without more men for Japan. The other fields have all been reinforced.
Is it not Japan's time next? I beg now because I believe that now is the time to put men here; because I believe that if it was right for Brunson and me to come, it is right for others to come; because I believe that to ignore the work now is to allow our opportunity to pass. I am not insensible to the demands of the older fields, nor am I unmindful that Japan is a very small country. But Japan is moving tenfold more rapidly than China, even though China is now in rebellion. The revolution of Japan is twenty years old, and the indications are that reconstruction will soon become complete. The change from monarchic to constitutional government seems to me to be the last step in this reconstruction.
If Christianity is worth anything; if Christianity takes hold of men at one time more easily than another, it will certainly take hold of them when they are seeking for the truth and when their nature is crying out for freedom. May we not have help this fall? Two years must elapse before missionaries can do much work. Hence the sooner they come the better. Our plan of work for the year must depend on the question of reinforcement."
It is chilling to me how little has changed in over a century.
Let none be deluded with the too common notion that Japan is on the eve of turning to the Lord. She has coveted our Western civilization, and with it has embosomed elements which seem to throw her back upon her oriental religious ideas or forward upon the worse ideas of an occidental infidelity. A discriminating member of our mission writes:
"A revolution is going on in Japan, and as is always the case under such circumstances, the country is in a ferment. All sects are struggling for the mastery. Buddhism, like a sleeping lion, feeling the pain at the attempts of other sects to deprive it of its claw, has awakened and begun to roar, rallying its followers and seeking to make proselytes as never before. Shintoism and other forms of idolatry are rampant. Unitarianism and Universalism are aggressive. Skepticism and infidelity are rife among the upper and educated classes. Especially are they affected by men of culture who have studied abroad and think it a proof of their superior minds and advantages to declare themselves ardent followers of Huxley and Spencer."
This means for our missionaries severe work of faith, and should mean for our people constant prayer and ample means to send out coworkers for our little struggling mission.
"This is the age of transformation with Japan, and an age of transformation is the time to give the people the gospel. They are willing to hear in most places. What we need now is men to preach. Surely of the one hundred to be sent out this year we are to have eight or ten missionaries. Surely it is not the intention of the Board to allow another year to pass without more men for Japan. The other fields have all been reinforced.
Is it not Japan's time next? I beg now because I believe that now is the time to put men here; because I believe that if it was right for Brunson and me to come, it is right for others to come; because I believe that to ignore the work now is to allow our opportunity to pass. I am not insensible to the demands of the older fields, nor am I unmindful that Japan is a very small country. But Japan is moving tenfold more rapidly than China, even though China is now in rebellion. The revolution of Japan is twenty years old, and the indications are that reconstruction will soon become complete. The change from monarchic to constitutional government seems to me to be the last step in this reconstruction.
If Christianity is worth anything; if Christianity takes hold of men at one time more easily than another, it will certainly take hold of them when they are seeking for the truth and when their nature is crying out for freedom. May we not have help this fall? Two years must elapse before missionaries can do much work. Hence the sooner they come the better. Our plan of work for the year must depend on the question of reinforcement."
It is chilling to me how little has changed in over a century.
