Among Asia's needy millions

Contents

A Glimpse of Japan, _ _ . _ 7

With the Workers in Vigan, - - 52

More Difficult Traveling, - - 71

I. A Glimpse of Japan

Tokyo, Japan, August 6, 1914.

This afternoon, after a very pleasant voyage across the Pacific, our good ship the Empress of Japan sailed into Yokohama harbor. Although Tokyo Bay and the harbor were studded with quaint Japanese boats with their peculiar little sails, we were not fully prepared for the very strange and striking Japanese atmosphere which surrounded us on shore. A group of the missionaries met us on the dock and made us most heartily welcome. They were very anxious that we should catch a certain train for Tokyo, twenty-five miles away, and we occupied just eighteen minutes from the dock to the train, seven blocks away, which time included examination of our baggage in the customs house. It was between the customs house and the train that we got our first real taste of Japanese life. We made the distance by means of the famous jinrikishas or two- wheeled carriages drawn by 7

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men. These little conveyances were invented by a missionary years ago, and are the most common means of travel. There were eight of us all told, and we made quite an interesting procession as we raced along through the busy streets. The jinrikisha has wheels about as high as buggy wheels, a neat little body with seat for one, and two slender shafts between which the "ricksha man" trots. The wheels are rubber tired, there are good springs, and the riding is very comfortable. A strong feeling of embarrassment comes over one at first because he is being pulled by a man who takes the place of a horse. Muscular little fellows these human steeds are, with wonderful powers of endurance. In undertaking a ride in one of these strange vehicles, you proceed as follows : The shafts are rested with their ends on the ground, you climb in, the little man steps between the shafts, lifts them from the ground, and makes off at top speed. If you are heavy you have grave fears that the first jolt on the road will tip you over backwards and suspend your man in the air by the shafts. These men are garbed in tightfitting garments akin to an undershirt and knee drawers, and their feet are shod with heavy socks having felt bottoms. The sock is always divided so that there is a place for the large toe separate from the rest of the foot; a straw or fiber hat is worn, which has the appearance of an old-fashioned inverted butter bowl. These 8

Journey of the Commission oe the Foreign Christian Missionary Society to the Far East.

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The cities marked by circles are the stations of the Foreign Society visited.

A GLIMPSE OF JAPAN.

fellows charge about twenty cents an hour for their services.

The first impression of Tokyo is that you are in fairyland. Everything is so very different from anything else one has ever seen. In the first place, the people are very small, and then their clothing, appearance, and customs are quite foreign to anything one has experienced elsewhere. While there is a sprinkling of American clothes among the men, the great majority of them wear the favorite kimona, or some adaptation of it. All the women you see on the street wear the kimona and a large colored sash around the waist. The women are all bareheaded. One of the most striking things is the ceaseless rattle of the wooden clogs on the pavement. The clogs are kept up from one to two inches from the ground by little wooden strips on the under side. They are usually held on by slipping the toes under a strap, which is divided so that there is a separate place for the great toe. This is made possible by the division in the sock also. This is the hot season and every man and woman carries a fan. The kimona garb is very cool, sensible, and inexpensive. The streets are crowded with people. The women and children are especially picturesque. At night, besides the modern electric lights, the paper lanterns are much used on the streets. Even the policeman carries one in front of him on a little stick.

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August yth.

The most interesting thing to-day has been a visit to the great temple of the Goddess of Mercy in the heart of the city. This famous temple is approached through a long temple street crowded on either side with little stores and bazaars. This street is temple property and a great income comes from the rentals. Another street near at hand is owned by the temple and is entirely taken up by licensed houses of prostitution. The entrance to the temple proper is made beneath one of the famous Japanese wooden arches. On either side of this gateway are the huge wooden guardian images, erected to keep the evil spirits from the temple grounds. These also seem to be looked upon as objects of worship. Inside the gateway the path is lined on either side with little booths where rice and grain are sold to be fed to the flocks of doves which are evident on all sides. It is supposed that much religious merit attaches itself to this feeding of the birds. The temple is anything but beautiful and the colorings are disappointing. The structure is in good repair, but dirty and spotted with the droppings of the doves.

Inside the main part of the temple is the famous image of Buddha, but hidden behind a great screen. It is stated that it has been seen by no one for over two hundred years. The sleek, shaven priests could be seen in the interior, 10

A GLIMPSE OF JAPAN.

sitting cross-legged on the floor, smoking their cigarettes.

Great numbers of people come constantly to worship. Before the shrine of Buddha and every auxiliary shrine is a great wooden collection box with wooden bars across the top. Into the box every worshiper throws a coin before beginning to worship. Then a low bow is made with the hands palm to palm in front while a brief prayer is uttered. To the right of the main shrine is a peculiar idol which is one of the most worshiped in Japan. It is a wooden image in a sitting posture, with a large portion of the body worn away. This image is supposed to have great healing qualities, and different parts of the body have been so constantly rubbed by worshipers that there is little left of them. One hand is completely gone, the eyes and all the features of the face are worn away, and the knees and abdomen have nearly disappeared.

While we were standing near, a group of people came up and worshiped the idol. The group consisted as it seemed of a mother and four children, one of them being a babe in arms. The place where the eyes of the image had been were rubbed by the mother and then her hand passed over the face of her babe. Then each member of the family selected a part of the body of the image which corresponded with some II

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troublesome part of the worshiper's body, and there was much rubbing and massaging. The pity and depression of the whole scene cut one to the quick. No doubt this image, looked upon as the embodiment of healing, is the dispenser of much eye disease and other ailments to the people who come so promiscuously to it.

II. A Few Days In Hongkong

Hongkong, China, August 13th.

This has been a most interesting day in this strange Anglo-Oriental city. We reached here yesterday, late in the afternoon, after a voyage of suppressed excitement and much uneasiness. The Empress of Japan, on which we sailed, was under order of the British admiralty from Yokohama here, and sailed direct instead of making her usual Japanese ports and Shanghai, China. There were vague rumors about the possibility of German cruisers scouting the seas, and we had all our lights out at night. We came for the most part over unfrequented waters and only sailed through the regular channels after rounding the north coast of Formosa into the China Sea. Hongkong is a wonderful, mountain locked port, tremendously fortified by the British. The Union Jack looked good to us when we spied it on a British gunboat patrolling the entrance to the harbor. A curious but exciting incident occurred as we approached the inner entrance to the harbor. We had stopped to receive orders, as the port is under military law. Ahead of us 13

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was a Japanese collier, which proceeded to enter the harbor without answering any of the signals or stopping for inspection. As she came even with the forts all sorts of efforts were made to signal her with rockets and flag signals, but to no effect. A steam launch approached and called to the ship through a megaphone, but to no avail ; she kept right on. Then one of the guns in the fort boomed and a projectile went over her bow and splashed in the water on the other side, but the ship sailed on still. This firing was continued until four warning shots went over the ship's bow, but the collier did not even slow up. Then the gunners at the fort sent a shot straight through the middle of the ship. This at last had the desired effect. The ship stopped, pulled down her flag, and, turning about, proceeded slowly to an anchoring place. It is difficult to understand why the captain of the Japanese boat would be so foolhardy. It is possible he had been some time at sea and knew nothing about the war, still this would hardly account ' for his ignoring the four warning shots. The rules of war are one warning shot and then the ship is to be fired upon if she does not stop. People here seem to know very little about the war. The papers have practically nothing in them which seems to be authentic.

Hongkong is in many ways a wonderful city. England has built her part of it in a magnificent way on the side of a mountain fifteen hundred 14

A FEW DAYS IN HONGKONG.

feet high. The European part is expensively built with structures which would do credit to London or any of the cities of the world. The Chinese part is, of course, Oriental and swarming with Chinese. Even here, however, the buildings are better than one would suspect. We were up early this morning and went along the wharf front. It was an interesting spectacle. Hongkong has a population of about 300,000. Of these, 10,000 are English and foreign, the rest Chinese. Of the Chinese, about 50,000 live on the water in the Chinese junks and sampans. The water along the wharfs simply swarms with these peculiar craft. The sapipans or smaller boats have one family on them, the junks from one to four. Each kind of craft is fitted with a sail or sails made of matting. Long sweeps or oars are also used for propelling. The women work at the oars as well as the men, and the children also if they are large enough. The small children play, sleep, or fly kites on the diminutive decks. If they are too small for this they are either tied on deck with a string, or bound to the back of mother or larger sister so that their care will not interfere with the work. These boat people are born, live, and die on their little floating homes. The junks are most curious craft with a pointed bow and a broad and high stern, cut square off.

The crowds on the wharf at the early hour were great. They were loading and unloading 15

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the boats and carrying burdens hither and thither. Men, women, and children were busy as bees.

The overpowering impression that comes to one here at the very first is that the Chinese are a nation of burden bearers. Every one is at work, old and young. Nearly all the transportation here in the city is done by natives with their burdens swinging from a bamboo pole carried across the shoulders. The weight of the loads swung to either end of these poles is enormous. These toilers have a swinging, springy sort of a dog-trot, which moves them along quite rapidly. The pole across their backs springs, and they seem to keep step with the up-and-down motion of the burden. If the load is too heavy for one, it is swung on a bamboo pole between two men, or even four, as the occasion demands. If the object or objects to be moved require a cart, this is pulled by men and women. Hongkong is one of the great ports of the world.

The sedan chair and the jinrikisha are both used to a great extent here. As the city is built on the side of a mountain, it is too steep for the latter conveyance except as one travels along the water front or on streets parallel to it. For traveling on the steep grades the chair is very efficient. It is carried between two bamboo poles by two coolies, one in front and one behind. These men place the poles on their shoulders and travel quite rapidly, making use of the characi6

Buddhist idol seventy feet high at Sakata, Japan.

Japanese cart-man witl his load of vegetables for sale.

A FEW DAYS IN HONGKONG.

teristic trot. Their movement keeps the chair and the rider springing up and down, a motion unusual but not uncomfortable.

One at first feels not a little ashamed at being either carried or pulled by human beings, but this feeling quickly passes as one sees the eagerness with which these men do the work, and especially after one has tried the experience of a long walk in this tropical sun. The jinrikisha rate is five cents (Mexican) or two and one-half cents our money for the first ten minutes, with a diminishing rate thereafter. The chair rate is about double this.

We all took an hour and a half jinrikisha ride out to the cemeteries this afternoon. The cost was twenty cents each. We visited the Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, and Parsee burial places^all very beautiful and interesting.

There seems to be a strong feeling among the Chinese against the British, and when any of the native storekeepers, or others who speak English, find that we are from America, they eagerly ask us about the war and if Germany will not defeat the English. The British have really made Hongkong what it is, as this was practically a barren island before they took it, but the Chinese rather resent their presence here. This is not to be wondered at, especially with the increased national consciousness and advance in China. I suppose their feeling is akin to what ours would be if the British were entrenched 17

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on Long Island, having taken the island by force years ago, when our Nation was too weak to say nay. It seems inevitable, if China maintains her integrity and continues to advance, that Great Britain will have to relinquish her hold here at some time in the future.

August 14th.

We have had a most interesting time this morning. We got chairs and visited the Chinese Young Men's Christian Association, the Congregational and the London Missionary Society stations, and a Chinese Confucian temple. We went into the heart of the Chinese quarters and saw the people as they really live. What a swarm of humanity! The American secretary of the Y. M. C. A. was out, but one of his Chinese assistants who speaks English showed us through the plant. We found a group of Chinese Christian pastors, together with the Y. M. C. A. workers, planning the evangelistic campaign which is to be held in the fall, when Sherwood Eddy visits Hongkong. They seemed to be very enthusiastic over the prospect. The Y. M. C. A. is rather an old building, but they have bought a fine new lot across the street and paid for it, and have recently raised in a two weeks' whirlwind campaign $25,000 for the erection of a new building. This money was pledged entirely by the Chinese. The association has fifteen hundred members and seems to be doing excel- 18

A FEW DAYS IN HONGKONG.

lent work. It was organized fourteen years ago with one hundred members. There is a good gymnasium, shower baths, billiard rooms, reading rooms, and a volley-ball court outside. There are night classes and the usual activities of a Y. M. C. A. at home. There are also quite a large number of rooms, where a number of Chinese students from nearby colleges board. It was a joy to see the bright-faced, alert Chinese helpers in the institution. There are two colleges in the city under the Church Missionary Society of London, one under the Roman Catholics, and one conducted by the British Government.

Next to the Y. M. C. A. is an independent Chinese church and school (Congregational) which was first organized by the American Board of Boston. It has a membership of three hundred, is entirely self-supporting, and has paid back $10,000 of the original $20,000 put into the building by the Board. We also visited the nearby Anglican independent Chinese church, which has a membership of eight hundred and is also entirely self-supporting. Next to this is a large hospital operated by the London Missionary Society.

The Chinese pastor of the Congregational church was very kind, showing us through the church and explaining his work to us with much interest. He was converted in a little mining town in California about twenty years ago, and 19

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seems to be a rare spirit. His face beams with good-natured sunshine.

Just between these two churches is a large Confucian temple, which we visited. There was quite a crowd in the entrance, and many in the temple. However, they seemed more occupied with trading, visiting, smoking, and sleeping, than with anything like worship. The priest in charge, who was dressed in a shabby pair of trousers and a dirty undershirt, gladly showed us through. At the close he eagerly pressed us for money, but seemed satisfied with a few cents. The temple was a filthy, ill-smelling place, hot and stifling and the air thick with the smoke of incense. We were in the temple for some time and noticed but one worshiper, a woman, who spent some minutes kneeling before the Confucian tablet and touching her head repeatedly to the floor. The priest showed a number of images representing kings, queens, and sages whose spirits also are worshiped, but looked upon as some degrees lower than Confucius. Joss sticks and candles were burning everywhere. A gaping crowd of curious people followed us into the interior of the temple and watched us with great curiosity. We were especially impressed with the lack of any reverence for the place on the part of the people. A number of people were noisily sleeping in convenient places on the floor. The temple seemed to be the neighborhood loafing place. In the entry-way a huge paper image, inflated to 20

A FEW DAYS IN HONGKONG.

four times life size, seemed stationed as guardian of the temple, apparently deemed effective because of its horrible ugliness. The utter hopelessness and stolid indifference of the people, together with the unkempt and nauseating interior of the temple, gave us a most depressing sensation.

III. Manila, the Pacific Crossroads

On China Sea, August i/th.

We expect to reach Manila in the morning. We have had a fairly smooth voyage across the China Sea, but the boat is very small, and the constant pitching has made us all miserable. With one exception we have escaped visiting the railing, but only a careful tendency to lie on our backs has saved us from it. We are all in favor of coming back on a larger boat. We remember Brother Rains's injunction, "When you cross the China Sea, remember me." There are three Germans on board (one of them a consul) who were ordered out of French Indo-China when war was declared. They have had a hard time getting out, and are going to Manila for safety.

Manila, August i8th.

We entered Manila Bay at sunrise this morning, sailing through the same narrow north channel used by Dewey early on the morning of May Day, sixteen years ago. The hills at the entrance are beautifully wooded and the prospect most pleasing. The entrance to the bay lends itself

MANILA, THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS.

naturally to strong fortification. Corregidor, the rugged island at the very entrance, is called the American Gibraltar. It is very strongly fortified and commands practically the whole entrance, although supplemented by two smaller fortressed islands in the south channel. It is difficult to imagine how any fleet could possibly force an entrance to this beautiful bay. The situation is quite different from that in 1898 when Dewey with his fleet crept by Corregidor in the darkness of early morning, made the remaining twenty-seven miles to Manila Bay by daybreak, and destroyed the Spanish fleet before breakfast. What a new destiny his daring act brought to these beautiful islands, and what a responsibility to the United States! Probably no single military engagement in the history of the world has meant so much for a down-trodden, suffering people as did Dewey's sinking of the Spanish fleet in Manila harbor. That act meant the freeing of eight million people from the despotic and degrading tyranny of Spain and the granting to them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for all that has been done by missionary, school, commission, and civil government was only made possible by military occupation.

What an earnest lot of people these missionaries are! Bruce Kershner, Dr. Lemmon, and Mr. Daugherty came far out into the bay to meet our steamer, and we had scarcely anchored when they clambered up the side of our ship from the 23

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launch in which they had found their way out to us. Far more important than even the news of the European war was their mission work, and eyen our eager questions about news from the homeland, from which we had so long been separated, failed to divert them from the great things on their hearts.

The West and the East come into more sharp contact here, perhaps, than in any other part of the Orient. Here is the swiftness of the United States and the slow, plodding movement of the East. Side by side with the ponderous, slowmoving, long-horned caribou, pulling the native cart with his primitive yoke and harness, is the modern automobile with its humming engine and breakneck speed.

One is strongly impressed with the wonderful improvements the American occupation has brought to Manila. It is probably the best improved city in all the Orient, and great plans are being perfected to still further beautify, improve, and harmonize it. The streets are well paved, there is a good sewer system, electric car lines cover well the city, and excellent stores are to be seen throughout the business section.

After helping us in the perfunctory task of getting our trunks and bags through the customs, our missionary friends loaded us into the little native caramatas, or pony carts, and drove us through the city to our central mission house. On the way we passed many interesting things. 24

MANILA, THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS.

We saw the old Spanish city wall, moat, and dungeons, two hundred and fifty years old, and near these the great modern American ice plant. Alongside a cock-pit with its Spanish fighting cocks flourishes an up-to-date department store. The Filipino vegetable peddler with his quaint, broad basket perched on his head, sidesteps to make way for the buzzing tricycle cart of the ice-cream vender. One sees a native maid with her exceedingly wide, highly colored and stifiiy starched skirt and immense crinoline sleeves, standing in her heelless red slippers, while she talks on the street corner with her sister, togged out in a very narrow American skirt, high-heeled French shoes, and a picture hat.

We found our central mission station excellently housed in a large building which was purchased some six years ago for $6,000. It is now worth three times this sum. In it lives a missionary family, and besides it furnishes a home for the present Bible college, a native church, a dormitory for boys, a book store, and the printing press and office of the Manila mission.

This mission house is in the center of the city, on one of the very best streets, and was formerly an aristocratic Spanish home. It is well built with great cement walls and will last a century. The wood finishing in it is largely native mahogany, sawn from the forests by hand many years ago. The boards in the floors are twenty-six inches wide and fastened with wooden 25

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pins. The well-to-do Spaniards of olden days built in commodious and elegant style.

Bruce L. Kershner and wife are now in this house, together with Mr. Daugherty. Mr. and Mrs. Kershner have charge of the Bible college for the training of Filipino evangelists, and Mr. Daugherty manages the mission press, prints the Tagalog Christian paper, looks after the business office of the mission, and works with native evangelists in Manila and the Tagalog province. Leslie Wolfe and wife, who are home on furlough now, will be located again at this center when they return.

It is most refreshing to be here among these earnest, busy missionaries after the long and somewhat tiresome sea voyage.

August ipth.

These missionaries certainly know how to keep one going at the American pace even here in the Orient. To-day we have been so incessantly busy that it has been hard to mentally record our impressions, and becomes doubly hard to do so on paper. Our Commission only has three weeks to visit these stations, somewhat widely separated, and the workers are feverish to show us their work with its problems and opportunities. If the people at home could but know the rare opportunity which presents itself here, the wonderful results already attained, and the almost crushing amount of work that our mis- 26

MANILA, THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS.

sionaries are trying to do, the support of the work would be far larger than it is. Missionaries make some mistakes, of course, but the wonder is that they have made so few when we consider the small resources at their hands and the rapid, almost kaleidoscopic changes in the islands.

To-day Mr. Kershner has given us the forenoon to show us the educational situation in Manila as it, relates itself to the future work of training native evangelists and leaders, and this afternoon Mr. Daugherty has shown us the Filipino outposts which we have in the city. Manila has 250,000 people, and spreads over a very large area, so that we have covered much territory.

One of the most striking results of American occupation is the public school system, so carefully and efficiently introduced, which culminates in the University of the Philippine Islands, located here in Manila. The Government has obtained the property on both sides of beautiful Taft Avenue for a distance of over a mile, and here one of the most modern and all-inclusive universities in the world is being gradually built up. The grounds are most beautiful, the buildings entirely modern, and the whole plan and arrangement very impressive. The United States is school teacher to the Philippine Islands in every sense of the word. Not satisfied with the method of the West toward the East for four hundred years, in which the education has been 27

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superficial, incomplete, and largely through the channels of commerce and military prowess, we have undertaken to give this people the opportunity of real education leading to final graduation. This graduation proposed is not simply completion of specified instruction in educational institutions, but is likewise planned as a graduation from outside governmental direction into a full-fledged nation.

Feeling the need of a better equipment for the training of our native ministry, our mission has purchased a fine piece of land on Taft Avenue, right in the midst of the university properties. This seems to be a very strategic move and will give our training school the opportunities and prestige afforded by the university. It is proposed to build on this property very soon a Bible training school and dormitory building, a missionaries' home, and a chapel for the university church of our people. The dormitory would accommodate the Bible school as well as students from the university. This would be self-supporting from student rentals, and provide a good evangelistic avenue into the student body. It is possible that the chapel, classrooms for Bible students, and the dormitory may be provided in one building. Two of the generous supporters of the work in America have given the $40,000 necessary for this property and plant.

The greatest need of missionary work in the Philippines is for well-trained native evangelists 28

MANILA, THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS.

and leaders. It is easy, therefore, to see the great importance of both the location and the proposed training school on it.

In the afternoon the three of us, together with Mr. Daugherty, took a couple of caramatas and visited the two chapels we have in Manila aside from the one located in the central mission building. We found these to be very plain little buildings, one constructed of bamboo and the other of undressed lumber. In these modest structures good congregations of Filipino Christians meet, ministered to by preachers of their own race. We have a number of other places in the city where there is preaching in the homes of believers. On Sunday afternoon a group of the students in the Bible college go out for preaching and personal work in various parts of the city.