The evolution of a missionary : a biography of John Hyde De Forest, for thirty-seven years missionary of the American board, in Japan

Front matter

The Evolution of a Missionary f»tu tf/mrtffc

The Evolution of a Missionary

A Biography of for Thirty-Seven Tears Missionary of the American Board, in Japan

Introduction

THE efficiency and eminence of a missionary are largely determined by endowment, character, environment, method and relationship to man and to God. In most of these particulars John Hyde DeForest was abundantly gifted and happily circumstanced. God gave him a wise head, a pure heart, a sensitive conscience, a buoyancy of life and a faculty for friendship and love which were fundamental in his life of service.

His character, so faithfully portrayed in this volume, bore the marks of the divine graving tool which had fashioned it by the varied experiences of a life unusually susceptible to mental and spiritual influences. Its plasticity was linked with a paradoxical yet unusual firmness ; its influence upon others was as communicative and compelling as is the spell cast upon artistic Japan by its symmetrically majestic Fujiyama.

Dr. DeForest's life could not have been lived in a more favourable environment. His eye, his brain, his soul were tabulce rasce ready to be impressed by paradisaic scenery, the chivalrous deeds of mediaeval daimyos and their devoted samurai, the modern miracles of a speedy and victorious renaissance, and the philosophical and spiritual aspirations of his beloved adopted countrymen.

While Dr. DeForest was an able exponent of various methods of missionary procedure, emphasis was placed

4 INTRODUCTION

upon evangelism, with literary and educational work as important minors. Few missionaries have equalled him as an apologetic and evangelistic preacher ; while in the literature of his riper years the Japanese found a most sympathetic, reasonable and intimate appeal to the national spirit and conscience.

Perhaps he will be longest remembered by appreciative Japan for his personal attitude towards its unique people. He studied them all his life long ; he admired their strength and sympathized in their weakness; he became all things to them that he might win some for his Lord. His attitude towards them in his later years was happily symbolized by the character which, borrowed from China, they used for the idea of friendship. In one of its oldest forms it is a pictograph representing two right hands signifying the strength of a virile manhood. He always stretched out his strong right hand, not so much to seize hold of the weak left hand of Japanese frailty and moral perversity, as to discover and reinforce the brawn and muscle of the nation's higher strivings. Such an attitude begot an admiration and devotion to the missionary which this volume hardly suggests in its fullness. Commoner and emperor alike felt its subtle charm and held this faculty for friendliness in highest honour.

But John Hyde DeForest was first of all and last of all, like Abraham of old, a friend of God. He loved men devotedly because God was his Father and theirs, because in Jesus Christ, their Elder Brother, they were made blood brothers. It was his study and passion to bring men to see these distinctive facts of Christianity. As it was his Father's business to reconcile men to Himself through this Elder Brother, so it was His

INTRODUCTION 5

missionary servant's joy to touch and save all whom he could in any way intimately reach.

It is such a man as this — one of the truest and best missionaries of our day — whose faithful portrait a filial yet severely impartial daughter has here presented to the Christian public. Among some hundreds of missionary biographies with which the present writer is acquainted, he does not recall one which so happily describes the modern apostolic life. Nor does he recall a single volume which is so full of instruction to the prospective missionary to advanced peoples. Some will disagree with Dr. DeForest's views as to the ethnic religions and even of the Christian revelation. Yet the most conservative critic, unless wholly obsessed by the odium theologicum, will bless God for so Christlike a life and so devoted a ministry. While such an adaptive program is at present most useful in progressive, philosophical and critical Japan, it will soon be demanded in most of Asia. Candidates and young missionaries will find in these pages a nonn for their own imitation in those methods and activities which are fundamental in missions ; while on the spiritual and Godward side, they may well imitate him, even as he followed Christ.

Harlan P. Beach.

New Raven, Conn.

Foreword

TWO or three times during the last few years of my father's life, when we were walking together on the hills, he broached the question whether the time had not come for him to write a book embodying the mature conclusions of his missionary experience. He intimated that if he did so he thought a suitable line to take would be that of his missionary evolution ; he held that the environment of the mission field in Japan, by opening his eyes to God's working in all the world, had been the divine means of his developing far more than would have been possible, humanly speaking, had he remained in the pastorate in America.

"What he did not do it has been my happy privilege to attempt in this book : — not so much to portray as a complete biography would the man in all his aspects, as to show the interplay of the work and the environment upon his native forces and the way they wrought under the hand of God to make him what he was. Where I have used material irrelevant to this line of thought, it has been to prevent distortion of the portrait through too close an adherence to the main purpose of the writing, — the purpose to perpetuate the message of a life open-hearted and open-minded to God's ever-expanding revelation of Himself.

To the friends whose faith in the value of this message led me to the writing and strengthened me in it ; to the Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior and to my

8 FOREWOKD

fellow-workers at Kobe College, who have so generously allowed me time for the task ; to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and to other friends who have ungrudgingly granted me the use of letters or information in their possession ; to the Independent, the Congregationalist, and the Christian Endeavor World, that have freely permitted the use of extracts from their pages ; to the Hon. Kunimune Date, who kindly permits for the cover design the use of the crest of the feudal house of Sendai ; and especially to my mother, who has been to me, as she was to my father, a constant literary adviser and helper, I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness.

Charlotte B. DeForest.

Sendai, Japan.

Contents

I. The Missionary in Embryo 13

II. The Early Japanese Environment and

His Adaptation to It 33

II The Early Japanese Environment and His Adaptation to It

" Climes remote and strange, Where altered life, fast- following change, Hot action, never-ceasing toil, Shall stir, turn, dig the spirit's soil ; Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, Till a new garden there shall grow."

— Charlotte Bronte, " The Missionary."

II

THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT AND HIS ADAPTATION TO IT

" "V "W" TE landed Thanksgiving Day. Oh, how \/\ / glad we were to see the land and to feel ▼ ▼ that our voyage was over ! We just gave extra thanks, and determined that henceforth Thanksgiving should mean more to us than ever before."

Thus runs the first home letter from Japanese soil ; and then it proceeds to give incidental mention to some of the most honoured names in the history of Christianity in Japan. But not in the setting that mission history gives them — these heroes of dictionary-making, Bible-translating, missionary statesmanship, philanthropy, and evangelization ! Let us rejoice that they sometimes relaxed from their labours by eating turkey and going sightseeing.

" Mr. Greene [Rev. D. C. Greene, first missionary of the American Board in Japan] came out to meet us and took us to his own home ; it was delightful to meet his wife and four little ones, and to feel at once as if we had got into a real American home. Here are Methodist, Dutch Reformed, Baptist, Congregational, and Presbyterian missionaries ; and all of them have given us most hearty hand-shakes and good grub. For instance, last night we were invited to Dr. Hepburn's to tea, or rather to Thanksgiving Dinner, which they had postponed. "We had a tremendous turkey, worth out here fifteen dollars. It was a present to the doctor and the first one he has had in this country, though he has been here fifteen years. I told him if I waited fifteen years without a turkey I should want one worth fifteen dollars. . . . Oh, I wish I could tell you of my visit to Yedo [Tokyo], the great city of this empire. . . . We had two of the best guides in the empire : Rev. Mr. Ballagh, Dutch Reformed, took us on Monday, and Dr. Veeder, one of the teachers in the ' Great College,' on Tuesday. ... I can only tell you of one incident. "We went to a tremendous temple [Asakusa] ; its gateway was as large as the Mount Carmcl Church, and we went between two hideous images, high and large, the guardians of the temple. The people that are sore-footed stop and worship these giant creatures by hanging their shoes before them and leaving them there as an offering. You often hear people say, ' I'd give all my old shoes if so-and-so could happen.' Well, the heathen really do it. I saw I should think forty pairs hung up for the old guardian gods to smell of. We kept ours on.

" Then we entered a courtyard, and beyond was a real temple where the people did their best worship. . . . You remember my telling how they wrote their prayers on paper, then chewed them and made spitballs and threw them at the objects they worship. Well, there were thousands of spit-ball prayers all around and I had a good mind to try one myself, but was a little afraid to do it ; I reckon mine would have stuck. . . . The god was a queer thing indeed : a wooden image about as large as Henry, sitting in a chair. . . . Whoever has any disease or pain comes and rubs the god where the pain is, and so many thousands have rubbed the old fellow that his eyes and nose and belly are rubbed pretty nearly out of existence. I'm sure the god will have to go to some bigger god before long to get patched up : indeed there is one somewhere that has had his shin all rubbed off and has had a new one put in. I saw a poor diseased old woman, all bent over and full of pain, come up ; with folded hands she prayed, then rubbed the god pretty much all over ; poor thing, I wished she knew of One to whom all heavy-laden creatures might go."

With this introduction to Japan in Yokohama and Tokyo, " kept by friends whom we had never seen, but who greeted us for our common Master's sake," the newcomers took ship for Kobe, where they saluted the brethren; then, taking all the railroad there was to take, they went to their appointed place in Osaka. Osaka was the second station of the American Board in Japan, and had been opened two years before by Mr. and Mrs. O. H. Gulick. These pioneers were soon joined by Dr. and Mrs. M. L. Gordon, in whose home the Osaka Church, the second Congregational Church in Japan, had been organized with seven members in the spring of 1874.

The first DeForest home in Japan was a small Japanese house with some foreign features, situated in Yoriki-machi, an annex to the foreign concession in Osaka. To have started at housekeeping directly on arrival would have been difficult, though the enthusiasm of the young couple would not have hesitated to make the attempt. As, however, their household goods, shipped from Boston by way of Cape Horn, were delayed some months by an accident to the ship, their first winter was happily spent in the home of their colleagues, Dr. and Mrs. Gordon. " We are really fortunate in not having our goods," wrote Mr. DeForest, " for Dr. Gordon is the best scholar of Japanese in this part of Japan, and he willingly tells me all he can and is an excellent help towards getting a start at this most twisted language."

Of their own domestic arrangements, when completed, little need be said. There were in those early years the usual explanations to be made to the home friends as to why they employed servants. " With help so cheap we can't afford to do any other way. A missionary's time is valuable : he must learn the language, and then use his knowledge to spread the Gospel, not to wash and make gardens. Yet we deny ourselves many, many things ; and if necessary, we all would deny ourselves every servant, and pretty much everything else — a missionary means business." There were the usual questions from home people as to wThat they ate and wore and how they lived, eliciting disclosures that tended to prove the fundamental similarity of human nature everywhere. " You ask about my clothes. Yes, I wear some still. I've got a brand new stack of them, made by John Chinaman ] for thirteen dollars ; and although the Chinaman made a mistake in guessing how big I am and got the vest all put into the rear of the trousers, yet Lizzie thinks I look very much as I used to when I went to Guilford on business." " Lizzie got a cambric dress by mail, all made up ; mail was twelve cents only [from America], She put it right on and was as tickled as any carnallyminded, stay-at-home Christian is under the same circumstances."

The daily menu was a good one, in spite of a few

1 The Chinese tailor is still frequently found in Japanese ports.

local problems. The plentiful, juicy, little Japanese orange acted as part substitute for drinking water in those days before Osaka had its city waterworks ; otherwise filtered rain water was used for drinking, as the well water that rose and fell with the daily tides, and took some surface drainage in addition, was undesirable. Condensed milk (it was before the days of the evaporated varieties) and canned butter were of familiar appearance on every foreign table. " We have good substantial food and plenty of it," runs a letter. " I like rice very much. . . . We have had no butter for over three months, and I don't miss it so long as we have a cow." Perhaps the gradual passing of the olden cow will justify quoting at length on this subject : " I went to Kobe and bought a cow and a calf for twenty-four dollars. Now the cows of this country are peculiar every way : the natives have never used milk, but use cows to plough and carry burdens. The result is that these ' critters ' are very sparing of their milk ; most of them won't give three pints a day. Then they are generous kickers ; I've seen my cow keep her hind leg going almost as if she were grinding a hand-organ, and my cow is remarkably gentle. To ensure good behaviour all cows have a ring through their noses, and if you jerk it well they give up the contest. But in this country there is no such thing as [pasture] grass, and so the cows are not much to blame for their low characters. They eat leaves from brush and such rank stuff as will grow on the mountains ; besides that, we feed a little grain. Of course we can't make butter with such a cow, but we use the milk to eat with rice, etc."

" I laugh day and night to see and hear these comical

Japs," wrote Mr. DeForest after more than a year's residence : the humorous aspect of his environment did not wear off with the novelty. Indeed, in those days there must have been much more to strike the amused and wondering eye of the foreigner than there is now : — the women with their shaven eyebrows and blackened teeth and invariably the Japanese style of hairdressing ; the men with the ancient Japanese queue, consisting of a narrow wad three or four inches long projecting over the shaven strip on the top of the head ; the samurai stalking the streets with their two swords of different lengths suggestively conspicuous at their sides. And to what newcomer even now does not the jinrikisha appeal with an admixture of feelings in which humour is one ingredient ? The jinrikisha of those days offered clumsy contrasts to the modern vehicle with its light rubber-tired wheels and compact equipment for rain or sunshine ; and the puller was not the well-clothed man that the police of to-day insist upon. Still the picture given is unmistakably Japanese :

" One can hardly move a block in any of the cities without being addressed in this double-twisted, backhanded, excruciating^ polite and non-understandable language by some of the half-dressed natives who would be most happy to become one's horse for a slight consideration ; and the only word a newcomer is sure of is the everlasting ' jinrikisha ' ! It is a large babycart, capable of carrying one or two full-grown persons or six babies as they average. . . . Very undignified accidents sometimes happen to those who ride. The Japanese are a marvellously polite people ; when they bow, their heads go down to the level of their

THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIKONMENT 41

knees ; and it is not uncommon to see three such sweeping bows for a single salutation. One such bow divided up would last some Americans a year. Now bowing on one's feet is a comparatively safe thing ; but bad luck to him who rides regardless of the equilibrium of things ! The other day while walking out, I saw a Japanese friend riding towards me. He braced himself to do me the usual honour. His little coolie of course did not suspect that an additional weight would be suddenly thrown on the shafts ; and when the rider smilingly bent forward to the showing of his back hair, down went the shafts, my friend went headlong from the jinrikisha, taking his astonished horse right between the shoulders, and both together measured full length in the road. ... I did try to be a good missionary and tell him how sorry I was, — while I was aching to have him hurry away round the corner out of sight ; and then I laughed the longest laugh on record — it was three-quarters of a mile long."

Besides long laughter there were long, deep breaths of admiration for the beauty of hills and valleys and green fields, — the natural contour of a land where Nature has been lavish with some of her most attractive forms. " Never think of us as ' poor missionaries ' — the land is beautiful, a lovely land," was his surprised confession on arriving. Delight in the deep, soulful tone of the temple bells, in the quaintness of the dwarfed trees and the brilliance of the triple-tailed goldfish in the pond in his ready-made garden, in the luxuriance of the winter-blooming japonicas and the springtide peach and cherry blossoms far and wide, — this delight breathes through the letters of those early years.

There were also long, long sighs of sympathy and pity : for human misfortunes are many in a city of half a million, as Osaka was then. On a Sunday morning in the missionary's first winter there, one of those great fires, still only too well known in Japanese cities, broke out near the centre of Osaka and raged for some twenty-four hours, leaving over a thousand ruined homes, shops, and temples in its track. Dr. Gordon rose to the emergency. " He started out early Monday morning," writes his admiring young comrade, " and hired two hotels to cook for him. Then he bought rice, etc., and bamboo plates and chop-sticks, and with the help of some native Christians he distributed nine hundred warm meals on that day ; they carried loaded baskets through the burned district, and wherever they saw the poor women and children sitting on the ground where their houses had been, they gave them a bamboo plate of rice and a pair of chop-sticks ; they were very thankful indeed. On Tuesday I joined them in the distribution ; I gave away about a hundred and twenty hot meals that morning. I learned to say, ' Did your house burn up ? Then I will give you this.' In two days after that new houses were going up all over the burned place, and now you wouldn't know the spot. But the most marvellous part of this story is the cost of the meals : everything, all told, made each meal a trifle over two cents ! Our missionaries subscribed one hundred dollars out of their own salaries to help these poor people. Dr. Gordon also telegraphed to Kobe for help and immediately through the missionaries there some three hundred dollars were subscribed. This was offered to the government to aid the needy, but with a strange pride it was rejected." This rejection was before the development of the fraternal consciousness by virtue of which the Japan of to-day can alike receive from other nations for her own relief and contribute to other nations for theirs in time of flood, famine, or earthquake.

From time to time there were outbreaks of cholera with long death-lists in their train. Of one epidemic in the autumn of 1877 Mr. DeForest wrote : " They die on the cars, they die in the tea-houses and on the road. Yesterday on the way to church we passed a dead jinrikisha-man sitting in his wagon as if asleep. The police saw to it immediately." Among such scenes the writer voices his admiration for timely action on the part of the authorities. " The government is doing its best to check the disease, disinfecting drains, distributing proper medicine and preventives, quarantining every house where it is, arresting spurious druggists and doctors, furnishing free medical aid to the poor, etc. Indeed there probably is not on the face of the earth a government like this for doing such a thing. We have no fears, but are cautious, not letting our servants go to the [public] bath, etc."

Another evidence of the confidence that the Americans felt in the government is given in a reference to the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. For the benefit of home friends they explained that the struggle, though fierce, was confined to the southern island of Kyushu ; but they added, " Should the trouble spread, we foreigners are as safe as if in New York."

Two events had strengthened this confidence. One was indeed one of the minor causes of the rebellion itself— the edict depriving the samurai of the right hitherto enjoyed of wearing swords. This edict, that helped rouse to a last formal resistance the spirit of such samurai as had been embittered and alienated by the policies of the government that they had helped to reinstate, was to resident foreigners a distinct reassurance of their personal safety, and seemed also from the civic point of view " a great step in favour of peace and good-will." The other event was the notification of 1876 regarding Sunday, of which Mr. DeForest gives the following translation :

"Notification 27 " It is hereby notified that up to the present time the first and the sixth days have been observed in the government offices as the days of rest. But from the first of April next all government offices will be closed on Sunday, and will be open only until noon on Saturday.

" Saxjo Saneyoshi, Prime Minister.

" March 12, 187 GP

In giving an illustration of the effect of the new step upon the church of those days, Mr. DeForest takes occasion to summarize from a year and a half's acquaintance with Japan his view of her policy :

" Japan is a progressive nation. Let any one spend an hour on the history of this people, reading the dark times of Ieyasu three hundred years ago, or let him talk with an intelligent samurai of advanced years concerning the heartless and barbarous things he himself has shared in or known of ; and then see how united, quiet, safe the country now is : the sword laid aside, manufactures encouraged, schools multiplied, education exalted and persecution abandoned ; and he will see the word ' progressive ' belongs to Japan as it does to no other nation on earth. And this desire to be progressive, which led her to introduce steamboats, railroads, telegraphs, etc., has also led to the adoption of Sunday, not at all because it is the Resurrection Day, but because she desires to accept as rapidly as is practicable the customs and also the laws, as well as the wonderful inventions, of the most civilized nations. ... It will be noticed that the edict refers not to the people of Japan, but to the government. The people are not asked to observe Sunday, but are only informed that on that day they need bring no business to the courts, nor to any public office in the empire. . . . But one direct advantage of this edict is that it gives a regular opportunity to those who desire to hear about Christianity. Last winter a young official and his wife at Osaka were frequently seen at evening meetings, and on being approached said that they had heard with admiration the teachings of Jesus and desired not only further instruction, but permission to enter the company of believers.

He was accordingly asked to attend church, at which his countenance fell : ' he was an official and could not leave his post ; but he would come to all evening meetings, and on the more frequent government rest-days would study by himself the teachings of Jesus.' His sincerity won the church-members, and his frequent regret that he could not receive baptism created a strong movement in the church in favour of abolishing the Sunday rule and receiving him. It was claimed on one side that to observe Sunday would cost him his position and his means of support, and God did not require such sacrifices. It was claimed on the other hand that a church-membership that did not observe Sunday would imperil the cause of Christ. It was then said that to be obliged to work on Sunday while the heart wished to observe the Lord's Day was better than to go to church with a careless heart ; to which it was replied that that had nothing to do with the question. The official then made a truly beautiful request that his wife might be received, while he would pray God to open the door for himself. Being an official, he received news before we did ; and one Friday evening in March, coming into the prayer-meeting, he astonished us all with the announcement that his prayer was answered and he could henceforth keep the Sabbath. That night the prayer-meeting was not as usual : it was a kind of praise meeting, thanking God that this great step had been taken by the government."

To these glimpses of the physical and civic environment should be added the newcomer's impressions of the moral and religious aspects of his surroundings. In the absence of studied statements, chance phrases and spontaneous expressions of the first five years abound to show that he had little respect for either the morals or the religions that he saw about him ; that in this new and unfamiliar world it was the vices that had most forcefully struck his attention ; and that the distorted and degenerate forms of religious expression in Japanese life had taken strong hold upon his thought. A few quotations will reveal in a variety of contexts, and sometimes in a merely accidental way, what impressions he was getting :

" This life is little by the side of the life to come, and that is one great reason why I gave up home and society : I hoped my going away would be a continual reminder to my friends that the life hereafter is a thou-

THE EAELY JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT 47

sandfold more worth striving for than this life. I do not want to preach to them, but I do want them to know that being out here in the midst of vice and idolatry, where there is no Sabbath and where true love and friendship are hard to find, is good, because I think it is just what God wants me to do."

" I have just taught my class in Sunday school, and in teaching these heathen fellows some very amusing things often happen. Dr. Gordon, for example, was telling his scholars once how the devil tempted Christ, and one of them replied, ' The devil must have been exceedingly impolite to tempt so good a man as Jesus.' "

" There is nothing the Japanese need so much as grit. One of the great evils we have to contend with in Osaka is this abominable weakness of doing evil because others do it, or, rather, because it is the standing, recognized custom of the land."