supplement each other. The work, as a whole, is carried on much as it is in the West, except that the measures and methods must be more or less adapted to the peculiar conditions in Japan.[1] Thus Christianity is represented there by certain institutions, which, according to various circumstances, are flourishing in a greater or less degree in different localities, but which, as a whole, are exerting a tremendous influence upon the nation and are creating the ideals for Twentieth Century Japan.
There are hundreds of churches and chapels, but they are seldom indicated by spires and steeples pointing upward as signs of the doctrine which leads mankind onward and upward. For that reason they are not generally discovered by the "globe-trotter," who tries to do Japan in a month or less, and is not usually looking for such things, but yet goes back to report Christianity a failure in Japan. Nevertheless, the churches and chapels are there,—perhaps in out-of-*the-way places, on narrow side-streets, or even on the principal thoroughfares, and they may be only ordinary Japanese houses; but the work is going on there, quietly and unostentatiously. There is also a "gospel ship" (Fukuin Maru), cruising about the long-neglected islands of the Inland Sea.
- ↑ It is unfortunate that there are any missionaries, with more zeal than knowledge, who seem to forget those wise words of Paul, the courageous, but tactful, and therefore successful, preacher, in 1 Corinthians ix. 22. But most of the missionaries, or the best of them, always bear in mind Christ's own instructions in Matthew x. 16.
