RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND

In a short study of this kind, there is not time to analyze the soil of the religious world of Japan, in the eighties of the Nineteenth Century. But some understanding of it is necessary before we can go on with our story. Over against the Quaker emphasis on the value of the individual, and his privilege and obligation of finding guidance for himself from an inward Monitor, comes Confucian reaching with its emphasis on obedience and loyalty to one's superior, the vassal to his lord, the wife to her husband, etc. Shinto which stood in the highest place among the Japanese religious systems at that time, emphasized the exaltation of the theocratic state above the individuals who composed it. Buddhism was to get fresh life later on, party, at least through the impact of Christianity upon it, but at this time it seems to have "collapsed", to use Sir George Sansom's word. Confucian scholars had more influence with thinking people than Buddhist priests'. although Buddhist observances had become the habits of every day life among the common people. In any case the popular manifestation of Buddhism was a mass of superstition and materialisrn.

It is true that certain resemblances are often traced between the philosophical thought of the Zen Sect of Buddhism and that of Quakerism. Both are religions of experience. Both seek an inner transformation through silent and expectant waiting. But while the Quaker sees as his objective, a personality which is the Father God as revealed by Jesus Christ, the Zennist conception is extremely vague. He looks forward to a kind of Cosmic Ego of which he is a part, as are the waves a part of the ocean into which they sink and are lost. The meditation of the Zennist is directed by a teacher who gives him subjects on which to meditate, and to whom he must report later; that of the Quaker like "the wind which bloweth where it listeth", is directed by the Spirit of God within him. Noble as are some of the philosophic conceptions of Buddhism, yet it seems obvious that much effort would be required to prepare such soil to receive Quaker roots.

There was another element in the religious soil of Japan, that had its influence on the situation. The -Nineteenth Century brand of Christianity was not the first to reach Japan. In 1549 Francis Xavier had landed at the southernmost point of the island of Kvushu, and after a stay of slightly over two years, left with an amazing record of success, as judged numerically. Other priests from other orders continued the work begun by Xavier, and by 1605 there were estimated to be 750,000 converts or 4% of the whole population. Perhaps its very success was its undoing. At any rate the rulers of Japan came to fear it as an advance agent of European powers with aggressive designs against Japan, and a period of terrible persecution followed, which came to an end in 1637 with the capture of Hara Castle, where the remaining Christians had entrenched themselves. It was believed at the time that they had been exterminated, but twenty-five years before the arrival of the Quaker emissaries in Yokohama, communities of these Catholic Christians were found, who had kept alive their faith and practice through two centuries without being discovered by the authorities. This highly dramatic episode in Japanese history influenced our story in at least two ways. One was that the Christian faith had come to be associated with foreign aggression,-how justly can not now be known. The other was the creation of a sense of pride, not altogether limited to Christian people in Japan, at the extraordinary steadfastness and heroism with which these people had held on to their ideals and their faith, in the face of devastating persecution. Even today, I think, the thought of it gives the Christian Church in Japan confidence in the national character.

Quaker Beginnings
There. are many localities in Tokyo today, where we might almost fancy ourselves in New York, or in some other modern city, but it was not so when Joseph and Sarah Cosand walked down the gang plank to terra firma in Yokohama, and climbed into jinrikishas. They would doubtless have felt themselves considerably at a loss as to how to proceed, had it not been for the cooperation of one from their own country, who had preceded them by some years. Dr. Willis N. Whitney took them into his home in Azabu, a ward of Tokyo, and later introduced them to Sen Tsuda(4), "with whom they lived, and made a temporary center for their work. A piece of land was soon procured however, in the ward of Shiba, on high ground in the southern part of the city, looking gut over Tokyo Bay on the east, and with a fine view of Mt. Fuji on the west. There the Girls School was built in 1887, and a meeting house in 1890. The Cosands meanwhile had been joined by other friends, Williarn V. and Isabel Wright, sent by the Mission Board of Canada Yearly Meeting. English Friends also had associated themselves with Dr. Whitney in Azabu, and the two groups consulted together about the prosecution of the work in Shiba. As mentioned before, it was a period of eager assimilation of European culture, and we may imagine the compound buzzing with activity. Young men came in Considerable numbers to learn English, and to inquire about Western ways and the Western religion. They were from good families for the most part, --modern people, students and officials. Their sisters came to learn knitting and English. The school girls, although still few in number, were made part of the family life of the compound. Those who attended the meetings on Sunday, organized and called themselves the "Shiba Friends Church". They began to look for avenues to carry the message into other centers. A school for training Christian workers was established in 1890, and although it was not long-lived, yet at one time in these, early days, it enrolled as many as 25 students. One of them, C. Suzuki, is still active in Friends' work. Another was Chuzo Kaifu who continued to serve with Friends through a long life, which ended two years ago.

But it was not granted Friends to attain Christian stature with such ease. A day of testing came. In 1894 the Sino- Japanese War broke out, accompanied as always by strong national feeling, and much civilian activity in the expression of that feeling. Hot arguments arose among the young people who had been gathering in the Shiba Meeting House, and at last they began to use their organization there as an agent for supporting the war effort. This presented a grave problem to the mission personnel. After milder means had been tried without success, they decided they could no longer cooperate, and withdrew all support, and the group scattered. Thus came to an end the first period of Quakerism in Japan (1885-1894). It is not surprising that the little group was not yet ready for the severe testing that came. The advent of war has led to similar rending asunder of the Christian body in other lands, and at other times. But perhaps also its growth had been too mushroom-like. The oak tree grows slowly, but its fiber is strong to resist the winds that blow upon it. By this time the eager acquisition of Western learning had in great degree subsided, and all gains must now be made through patient work. Men do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven except through much tribulation.

Joseph Cosand and his wife stayed on in Japan until the end of the century. They and the other missionaries and the Japanese Friends who remained with the work had to make a new beginning, and with the difficult experience they had just been through in mind, a more centralized organization was effected. Matters were now decided in a central committee of responsible people made tip of both Japanese and American workers, rather than in the open meetings as previously. During this time four meetings were recognized,--that in Shiba, Tokyo (The local name is Saints Hill, and the Tokyo meeting is still known as Saints Hill Monthly Meeting) ; in Yokohama which was later given tip; in Mito and in Tsuchiura, two country meetings to which we will now turn our thoughts.

Quakerism in Ibaraki Province
Northeast of Tokyo is a province largely devoted to agriculture, the name of which is Ibaraki. The meaning of the first of the two characters which make up the word is "thorn", and one is reminded of Scotland's thistle, with its "Nole Me Tangere". Ibaraki people in somewhat the same way have been jealous of the. entrance of influences from the outside. Mito is its capital city, and being on the trunk line of the railroad going north, is At present reached from Tokyo in two or three hours. But in the days of which we are thinking, the railroad had not yet been built, and one had to take a tiring journey of two or three days by boat and jinrikisha to get there. It was through pleasant country however. The two-peaked mountain of Tsukuba(6) rose from the low plain around it, and was visible for a large part of the journey. Little thatch-roofed homes nestled in among the trees, and looked almost like islands, surrounded by a broad expanse of rice fields, where men and women worked bent over, protected from the sun by their umbrella-shaped straw hats. The intervals of woodland were probably more frequent then than they are now. Occasional tea-houses along the way gave opportunity for refreshment to both jinrikisha man and rider. But having arrived at Mito, one was not at all sure of a welcome. The Jesuit movement had come to Ibaraki also, and the traditions that followed it meant sometimes a shower of stones for the intruding foreigner.

Mito Quarterly Meeting

Mito was not just one of many towns in Japan. It had had a very special history and a very special character of its own. It had been the seat of one of the most powerful feudal lords or "daimyo", and parts of their castle still remain Surrounded by a deep moat. They were a branch of the Tokugawa family, and at times when there was no direct heir in the shogunate branch of that family, a scion of the Mito family might be grafted into it. Moreover the Mito Tokugawas had been rather remarkable men, cultivating Confucian learning in their lands, and endowing an institute which wrote a many-volumed and authoritative history of Japan. At the-time of Perry's arrival, the Lord of Mito was very active in opposing the signing, of treaties with foreign powers, and fortified the coastline of his own domain to be ready for possible invasion. It was the thought of this Mito school which more than any other, was responsible for the final restoration of the Emperor to power in 1868.

George Braithwaite, an English Friend from the Azabu group made the trip to this province in 1889. The glories of the feudal period had passed by that time, and the best blood of the surrounding country had been spilled in the civil war that accompanied the Restoration. But the pride in its past remained, and has made, Mito people conservative in religion as well as politics.

A Friend named Kansen Yoshioka had been there since the previous year and it was his influence that secured an invitation to George Braithwaite soon after his arrival, to visit a village about twelve miles from Mito. Some fifty people gathered to near him and Yoshioka-san. They began their meeting at eleven in the morning and continued until mid-night, without food, the speakers spelling each other. That is one of the early memories of the Mito work.

The committee in Tokyo felt that a certain standard of intellectual attainment was necessary for anyone trying to work in Mito, with its scholarly traditions, and finally chose Manji Kato who went there in 1894, and continued there as one of the main workers, until his death in 1932. His figure, with benign face and long white beard, was a well known one in the streets of Mito. He was much interested in work for peace, and published a little periodical, called "Peace(7)."

Gurney and Elizabeth Binford from the Mission Committee joined the Mito staff in 1899 and the work went on actively. One of the early members was Mika Katogi, a bank president, who interpreted for Gurney Binford, and did much to break down the prejudice to the new-old teaching. His spirit has come down to modern days through his daughter and her husband, Seiju Hirakawa. Others came and added their strength to the work. Edith F. Sharpless, Senjiro and Yasuno Kameyama, Herbert and Aladeline Nicholson, the names of all are linked to the Meeting here. These people were not simply preaching the Gospel. They tried to include all the normal interests of life. There have been cooking classes, English classes, an old people's home, a kindergarten, two student dormitories, a night school, groups of women for relief sewing, and many other forms of activity, as well as Bible classes and meetings for worship. A brick meeting house was built in 1912, and the Monthly Meeting was recognized in 1917. The group has always been a small one, but Christian character has come out of it. Mito Meeting as well as other country meetings, has fed the meeting in Tokyo, as many of its young people moved to the capital.

Shimotsuma Kindergarten

Work was started at other centers within the province, in 1891 at Tsuchiura, a prosperous town between Mito and Tokyo; in 1899 at Ishioka; in 1902 at Minato, on the seacoast; in 1906 at Shimodate; in 1909 at Takahagi; and in 1922 at Shimotsuma. In this list as given above, only those groups which attained the status of Monthly Meetings are included. Openings generally came through some personal or chance connection, which gave foothold in new territory. Perhaps someone's friend lived there and opened his home for an evening meeting, to learn more of the new teaching which had come from abroad, and there were some among those who listened who desired to know more particularly, and so an invitation to come and start work there would be received. Or perhaps business would take a family from one town to another, and the new faith would go with them. Minato was a hotbed for such publishers of the truth. A printer, named Tokuzo Osaki moved from there to Takahagi, and opened his house for gatherings of children and adults. When for some reason it became inconvenient to use the house, the children met outdoors, holding up umbrellas when climatic conditions made it necessary. That continued for four years, but finally in 1924 they succeeded in building a meeting house, and the next year were, recognized as a Monthly Meeting. There has never been any resident worker there, but the proved integrity and Christian grace of the printer has made its way for the Word in the town.

One of the reasons for local acceptance of the Christian group in Tsuchiura was the fact that the town, being very low- lying was subject to floods. The meeting house has a second story, and has been able to harbor many flood refugees on several occasions. Mansaku Nakamura who has been in charge of the work in Tsuchiura for over thirty years, and his wife and daughters, did valiant service for refugees, feeding and clothing them for days at a time. Indeed his daughter gave her life to the work during an especially severe flood in 1938. Overwork at that time led to her early death. Two of the leading merchants of the town joined the meeting, and the confidence that their townsmen felt in. them, did much to dispel prejudice. One of them, Tasuke Nomura, a wholesale sugar merchant, became the first clerk of the Yearly Meeting.

Getting a meeting house was a struggle for all the groups. In one locality outside Ishioka, the principal gift of money for that purpose came from a young man who had grown up in the Sunday School. From the time when he decided to join the Christian group, he stopped smoking and also eating between meals, depositing an equivalent amount of money in the postals savings. From this fund, he made a contribution which made a little building possible.

Kindergartens have given a start to the work in other places. In Ishioka, which was a very conservative center and absorbed in the manufacture of soy sauce and sake, the work was uphill for a long time. But the opening of a center where their little children were lovingly and intelligently cared for, proved a sesame to the townspeople's hearts. Chiyomatsu Suzuki who carries on the work at Ishioka, has been with Friends practically from the beginning of their. history in Japan. His wife, Katsu Suzuki, also gave devoted service until her death.

The meetings were grouped into Quarters, depending on their location relative to Mt. Tsukuba. Its form is the dominant feature on the eastern horizon of Shimodate and Shimotsuma, which are therefore known as the Western Quarter. They are off the main line of the railroad, and are centers of an Agricultural district. Juen Ouchi and his wife gave long years of service to the meeting at Shimodate, and both died while in active work some three or four years ago.

Gurney and Elizabeth Binford came to Shimotsuma to live in 1922. There were connections in the town which they had formed in Mito many years before, and no other Christian work was being done in that vicinity, at the time. Young farmers came into the meetings from the surrounding country; shopkeepers took time off from their counters; children gathered in Sunday Schools and kindergarten; mothers gladly listened to modern theories of child training, and a real Christian fellowship was formed, which was singularly like a family group. They are still worshipping there in their little thatch-roofed meeting house, of a Sunday morning, sitting in a circle on the straw mats on the floor. Saburo Kakuya whose Christian life began in their midst, and who felt the call to work among them, graduated from his Christian training school just as the war began, and was soon thereafter called to the army. So the group has had to carry on with little trained leadership.

Work in Rural Communities
From the beginning Friends felt an interest in the farming villages which hold such a large proportion of the inhabitants of Ibaraki Province. In the very early days in Mito, Manji Kato tried experiments with tomato and strawberry plants, hoping thereby to increase the -farmers' resources. From all the established meetings, trips were made into the surrounding villages to take the message to them. One could always begin with the children, who were eager listeners. From them it was not hard to move to the adults in whose lives in those early days there was little that could be called recreation. With a set of stereopticon views one could call together most of the village. Gradually the work came to be done on a larger scale. Beginning with 1914 a large tent was carried to some country district, and set up in a vacant lot loaned by some of the villagers. With a portable organ, hymns were taught to the people who gathered. A very simple exposition of the Gospel was made. With faces tanned and wrinkled by exposure to all weathers, and backs bent by long hours of work in the fields, these men and women had now come into a very different realm of thought, and were struggling to understand it. The method was one of sowing seed broadcast. Some little of it would return to the sower, but there was slight opportunity for following up the work thus begun. A better way was found as the result of a concern felt by Ryuhei Kikuchi for the rural community in which he had grown up. As principal of its primary school, he knew its life intimately, and was depressed by its meagerness. He had known Gurney Binford during his Normal School days in Mito, and now sought him out in Shimotsuma. The two cooperated in forming what were known as "New Life Societies".

 
A Quaker Farmers Institute

Their aim was to train and inspire young men who could go back to their own villages and work there for a more abundant life in the agricultural, economic, social, and spiritual fields. They held ten-day conferences, in the farmers' off-seasons, in different centers, wherever they could find an opening. They chose a limited number of young men to train intensively. Agricultural specialists and experts in cooperative buying and selling were called to come and talk to them. When they tried to regulate community life during those ten days as nearly as possible on Christian lines they did not begin with a religious appeal. But before the conference was over the young men themselves would realize that back of all the new methods, there must be a basic insight into a higher spiritual Power, which they glimpsed, but could not clearly see. This opened the way for definite teaching. After the conference was over, most of its young men desired to continue as members of a permanent organization. They met at regular times and Ryuhei Kikuchi circulated around among the different branches, interesting himself in their personal and local problems. An annual meeting when all the branches met together was held for exchange of experiences, and for fresh inspiration. This work of course has to a great degree been interrupted by the war, but the "new life" has had a real leavening power in more thin one community. Kikuchi-san often consulted with Toyohiko Kagawa in this work, and sent some of his choicest young men to attend Kagawa-san's short-term institutes.

Itinerant Friends
As in the early days of Quakerism, there have been itinerant Friends in Japan, but their pattern is Japanese rather than Occidental. I am thinking of Ikichi Ishizuka, a Friend in his eighties now, (if he is still living) who has spent most of his life on the road. At first it was Bibles that filled the heavy pack on his back, or the cart which he pulled after him, and found believers in all parts of the empire. But as he grew older, he came to have a more specialized concern for spreading the word. He wanted to be able to write so skillfully that men of taste would buy his Bible texts for the sake of the writing, even if they had no interest in the Bible itself. Calligraphy is a fine art in Japan, and two or three Chinese characters, written large by some well-known hand with brush and India ink, are often the sole decoration of a room. With this idea he spent long hours day and night practicing at his desk. His magnum opus is the entire Bible written on a scroll about six feet long and two and a half feet wide, which can be hung up on the wall. A magnifying glass is necessary to decipher it. He has refused offers of thousands of yen for it, because he could not bear to part with it, but this last year, owing to the exigencies of old age and wartime, he at last sold it.

Then there is Unpei Tozuka, a Friend who started the itinerating habit when, as a young man, he worked on the Imperial Railroads. Now an old man, but full of youthful zeal, he continues on the road. With friends in every town, he leads a busy life, visiting and bringing them cheer, and building them up in the faith. His specialty is lepers, and truly there are none who need the consolation that he can bring them more than they do. Another Friend is an agent of a drug manufacturing company and as he goes about the country, dispenses medicine for the spirit of man as well as for his body.

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