The Net Impressions of Christendom: Return Home

Now that my disciplines in Christendom came to end, my readers would like to know what I think of it after all. Did I retain to the last the impressions I received on my first landing upon it? Is Christendom after all better than Heathendom? Is Christianity worth introducing to my country; or is there raison d’etre of Christian mission?

First let me frankly confess that I was not entirely taken up by Christendom. Three-and-a-half years’ stay in it, with the best of hospitality it gave me, and the closest of friendships I formed in it, did not entirely naturalize me to it. I remained a stranger throughout, and I never had exerted myself to be otherwise. Not as Terra-del-Fuegians in a civilized country yearn after their former roamings over the foamy cliffs under the Southern Cross, or as latinized Indians seek for re-companionship with buffaloes in their native prairies, but with aims higher and nobler I yearned after my homeland with “Home-Sweet-Home” yearnings till the very last of my stay in Christendom. Never have I entertained any wish whatever of becoming an American or an Englishman; but I rather reckoned my heathen relationship a special priviledge of my own, and thanked God once and again for having brought me out into this world as a “heathen,” and not as a Christian.

For there are several advantages to be born a heathen. Heathenism I consider as an undeveloped stage of humanity, developable into a higher and perfecter stage than that attained by any form of Christianity. There are perennial hopes in heathen nations still untouched by Christianity; hopes as of the youth venturing for life grander than that of all his predecessors. And though my nation is more than two thousand years old in History, it is yet a child in Christ, and all the hopes and possibilities of future lie shrouded in its rapidly developing days. Thrice thankful am I that I can witness many of such days.—Then I could feel the power of the New Truth more. What to the “born Christians” sounded as time-worn commonplaces, were to me new revelations, and called forth from me all the praises sung perhaps by our first parents, when,

“‘neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,
And lo! creation widened in man’s view.”

In me could I witness the changes and progress of the eighteen Christian centuries, and when I came out of all my strifes, I found myself a sympathetic man, acquainted as I was with all the stages of spiritual development from idol-worship up to soul’s emancipation in the Crucified Son of God. Such visions and experiences are not vauchsafed to all of God’s children, and we who are called in the eleventh hour have at least this priviledge to make up all the loss of having remained in darkness so long.

In forming any right estimate of Christendom, it is essential for us first of all to make a rigid distinction between Christianity pure and simple, and Christianity garnished and dogmatized by its professors. I believe no sane man of this generation dare speak ill of Christianity itself. After reading all the skeptic literatures that had come to my hand, I came to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth remains untouched after all the furious attacks made upon those who are called by His name. If Christianity is what I now believe it to be, it is as firm and fixed as the Himalaya itself. He that attacks it does so to his own disadvantage. Who but fools dare rush at rocks? Some indeed rush at what they imagine to be Christianity, which in fact is no Christianity, but superstructures over the same, built by some faithless believers, who, thinking that the Rock by itself cannot stand all the wear and tear of Time, shed it over with shrines, cathedrals, churches, dectrines, Thirty Nine Articles, and other structures of combustible nature; and some fools of this world, knowing that such are combustible, set fire to them, and rejoice over their conflagration, and think that the Rock itself has also vanished in the flame. Behold the Rock is there, “towering o’er the wrecks of Time.”

But what is Christianity? Certainly it is not the Bible itself, though much of it, and perhaps the essence of it, is contained in it. Neither can it be any set of dogmas framed by men to meet the exigencies of a time. Really we know more of what it is not than what it is.

We say Christianity is Truth. But that is defining an undefinable by another undefinable. “What is Truth?” is asked by the Roman Pilate and other unveracious men. Truth like Life is hardest, yea impossible, to be defined; and this mechanical century has began to doubt both because of their undefinability. Bichat, Treviranus, Beclard, Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel, each has his own definition of Life, but all unsatisfactory. “Organization in action,” says one; “the sum total of the forces which resist death,” says another. But we know it is more. The true knowledge of Life comes only by living it. Scalpel and Microscope show only the mechanism of it.—So Truth. We come to know it only by keeping it. Logic-chopping, hair-splitting, and wire-drawing only make it less true. Truth is there, unmistakable, majestic; and we have but to go there from ourselves, and not call it to us. The very attempt to define Truth shows our own stupidity, for what but the Infinite Universe can de-fine or limit Truth. So we shall give up the definition of Truth, if for the mere purpose of hiding our own stupidity.

So I came to see that the undefinability of Christianity is not an evidence of its non-existence, much less of its humbugness. The very fact that it grows more to me the more I conform myself to its teachings, shows its close relationship with the Infinite Truth itself. I know it is not a thing wholly unrelated to other religions. It is one of “ten great religions,” and we will not, like some, depreciate all others to make it appear as the only religion that is worth having. But to me it is more, very much more, than any religion that I am acquainted with. At least it is perfecter than the religion in which I was brought up, and now after sifting all that has been lectured upon “Comparative Religion,” I can yet think of nothing perfecter than it.

“But no more panegyrics,” you say. “Tell us in what respect it is perfecter than your heathenism.”

Heathenism, like much of what passes for Christianity in Christendom, teaches morality, and inculcates upon us the keeping of the same. It shows us the way, and commands us to walk therein. No more and no less. As for Juggernaut, infant-sacrifice, and so-forth, let us eliminate them from our account of heathenism, for they are not it, as mammon-worship, and infant-killing by other methods than that of throwing them to gavials, and other horrors and superstitions of Christendom are not Christianity. Therein let us be fair and forgiving in judging others. We will meet our enemy in his best and strongest.

I do not hesitate to say that Christianity does the same; i. e. show us the way to walk in. Indeed, it does so more clearly and unmistakably than any other religion. In it there is no will-of-the-wisp-ness of the guiding light that I often meet with in other faiths. Indeed, one prominant feature of Christianity is this sharpness of distinction between Light and Darkness, Life and Death. But let any fair judge compare the Ten Commandments of Moses with those of Buddha, and he will see at once that the difference is not that of day from night. The Rectitude of Life as taught by Buddha, Confucius, and other “heathen” teachers, is something, which if carefully studied by Christians, will make them ashamed of their former self-satisfaction. Do but make the Chinese and the Japanese keep the commandments of their own Confucius, and you make fairer Christendoms out of these two nations than any you have in Europe or America. The best of Christian converts has never given up the essence of Buddhism or Confucianism. We welcome Christianity, because it helps us to become more like our own ideals. Only zealots, “revivalists,” pleasers of some show-loving missionaries, indulge in the auto-da-fe of the objects of their former worship. “I came to fulfill, and not to destroy,” said the Founder of Christianity.

Christianity is more and higher than Heathenism in that it makes us keep the law. It is Heathenism plus Life. By it alone the law-keeping becomes a possibility. It is the Spirit of the Law. It of all religions works from inside. It is what Heathenism has been searching and groping after with much weeping. It not only shows us the Good, but it makes us good, by taking us right at once to the Eternal Goodness Himself. It provides us not only with the Way, but with the Life as well; with the Rail as well as with the Engine. I am yet to be taught by “Comparative Religion” of some other religion that does likewise.*

* The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone’s definition of Christianity is this: “Christianity in the established Christian sense, is the presentation to us, not of abstract dogmas for acceptance, but of a living and a Divine Person, to whom we are to be united by a vital incorporation. It is the reunion to God of a nature severed from God by sin, and the process is one, not of teaching lessons, but of imparting a new life, with its ordained equipment of gifts and powers.”—From Criticism on Robert Elsmere.

With the “Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation” let Philosophical Wisdom concern itself to its heart’s content. The fact of salvation is there, and Philosophy or No-Philosophy cannot unmake facts. The human experience has yet known of none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Of moral science we have more than enough. That any Ph. D. can tell us, if we but pay big fees to him. We know we must not steal, without a doctor to teach us. But oh not to steal, in the manifold and spiritual sense of stealing! “Look at me, and be ye saved.” “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” In this looking at Him is our salvation, whatever be the philosophy of it. The nineteen Christian centuries teach me so, and my little soul too can testify (God be thanked) that it is so.

This then is Christianity. It is at least so to me. Deliverance from sin by the atoning grace of the Son of God. It may be more, but it cannot be less. This the essence of Christianity then; and popes and bishops and reverends and other adjuncts, useful and otherwise, are not the necessary parts of it. As such it is worth having above all other things. No true man can get along without it, and Peace cannot be his without it.

Webster defines Christendom as “that portion of the world in which Christianity prevails, or which is governed under Christian institutions, in distinction from heathen or Mohammedan lands.” He does not say it is a land of perfected angels. It is where Christianity prevails, or is looked up to by the majority of the people as the guide of their lives. Two elements, Belief and Believers, determine the practical morality of any nation. Fierce Saxons, piratical Scandinavians, pleasure-loving French, trying to manage themselves in this world by the tenets of the Divine Man of Nazareth,—that is what we witness in Christendom. Lay no blame then upon Christianity for their untowardness; but rather praise it for its subduing power over tigers such as they.

What if these people had no Christianity? What if no Pope Leos are with them to curb their depredations, and turn them over to Justice and Forgiveness? Buddhism and Confucianism will be to them as Apollinaris’ Water be to chronic dyspepsia,—inertness, insipidity, the return of animalism, eternal destruction. It is only by the Church Militant arrayed against the huge monstrosities of mammonism, rum-traffic, Louisiana lottery, and other enormities, that Christendom is kept from precipitating into immediate ruin and death. A son of a Presbyterian minister, by the name of Robert Ingersoll, said that it would be better for his country to turn all of its churches into theatres. He said so because he was sure that his country would never follow his advice. Say whatever we may of the “beastliness” of Christendom; does not its very disease testify to the vitality of the Life that keeps it alive?

Then observe this optic phenomenon of the greatest darkness with the greatest light. The shadow is the deeper, the brighter the light that casts it. One characteristics of Truth is that it makes the bad worse and the good better. It is useless to ask why this is so. “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath;”-in morals as in economics. The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. If Christianity is light unto all men, it is not be wondered at that it develops badness as well as goodness. We may reasonably expect therefore the worst badness in Christendom.

It is said that the state of New York with a population of 5,000,000 produces more murderers than Japan with 40,000 000 souls. General Grant’s observation in the latter country was that the number and state of its poor were nothing compared with what he saw in his own United States. London is proverbial for the magnitude of its pauperism, and Christendon generally for its gambling and drinking habits. Some of the alcoholic liquors that can satisfy the appetite of these people are strong enough to upset the heads of our drunkards, if taken in any considerable quantity. Scenes in those backstreets of some of the largest cities of Christendom, which no decent men dare even to look into, can be described with no milder words than the vilest in any language. Shameless gamblings, open-day piracies, cool-blooded sacrifice of fellowmen for one’s own aggandizement, are being conducted there on gigantic, business-like scales. You who look with pity upon heathens, and glory in the blessedness of your Christian civilization, read with fair open eyes the following that came to my ears from one of your own philanthropists:

In the suburb of the capital city of one of the most Christian of Christian countries, lived in silence an old couple, in apparent enjoyment of the good things of this world. The cause of their wellbeing remained a secret to themselves alone. One thing peculiar, however. They had a stove which to all outward appearances was altogether too large for their cooking purposes; and the chimney-pipe smoked late in the stillness of night, when no man eats, but all go to sleep. The quaint little household called forth the attention of a heroic woman of the city, who to her keen womanly instinct combined a tact of the most practical kind when in pursuit of the dark things of the world. She investigated the case carefully quietly. Evidences upon evidences were secured, and further skeptism became impossible. One dark night, she with proper authorities breaks into the house. The stove is the object of suspicion. They open it, and what do you think they find it there? Embers of anthracites to cheer the old age? No. The horror of horrors! Human-looking things there! Supple babies being baked! The price of baking, two dollars a piece! Engaged in this business for twenty years unmolested! and made quite a fortune out of it, too! For what purpose this horror? To cover and annihilate the shame that called the unlucky babies into being! The city too full of illegitimacies; hence the prosperity of the old couple’s trade! and my narrator continued, “I do not wonder if some of those poor things owed their advent to this world to................” (disgrace upon disgrace)!

Moloch-worship in Christendom as well! No need of scoring through Indian mythologies to create in one’s imagination the horrors of Juggernaut. The heathen Ammonites sacrificed their infants with distinct religious purposes; but these night-hags, with no higher aim than those “two dollars a piece.” Assuredly you have “heathens at your door.” “Christendom is a beastly land.” So report some of my countrymen who have travelled abroad, and saw only its dark half. True, they are unfair; but as far as the said beastliness goes, the impressions they have received are correct. Heathendom cannot compete with Christendom in its beastliness as well.

But if Christendom’s bad is so bad, how good is its good! Seek through the length and breadth of Heathendom, and see whether you can find one John Howard to ornament its history of humanity. My father, who, as I told you in my first chapter, is a deep Confucian scholar and whose admiration for the ancients of China is very strong, has told me once and again, that from what he knows of George Washington, Yao and Shun, upon whom Confucius spent all his stock of eulogies, were nothing compared with this liberator of America; and I, with more knowledge of Washington than my father, can endorse his “historic criticism” in full. Such combinations of heroism and tenderness of heart, of ability and disinterestedness of purpose, of common-sense and enthusiasm in his religious conviction, as were those of Oliver Cromwell, cannot be imagined of existence under non-Christian dispensation. We have heard of our magnates hoarding millions, and spending them upon temples, or feeding the poor for their own “future’s sake;” but a George Peabody or a Stephen Girard, who hoarded for the sake of giving, and took delight in giving, is not a phenomenon observable among heathens. And not these select few only, but widely distributed throughout Christendom, though necessarily hidden from view, are to be found what might be specially named good men.—souls who love goodness for its own sake, and are bent toward doing good, as mankind in general is bent toward doing evil. How these souls, charily keeping themselves from the view of the public, are striving to make this world any bit better by their efforts and prayers; how they often shed tears for the wretchedness of the state of the people of whom they read only in newspapers; how they lay upon their hearts the welfare of the whole mankind; and how willing they are to take part in the work of ameliorating human misery and ignorance;—these I saw and witnessed with my own eyes, and can testify to the genuine spirit that underlies them all. These silent men are they, who in their country’s peril are the first to lay down their lives in its service; who when told of a new mission enterprise in a heathen land will deliver their railroad fares to the missionary who undertakes it, and return home tramping on their own feet, and praise God for their having done so; who in their big tearful hearts, understand all the mysteries of Divine Mercy, and hence are merciful toward all around them. No fierceness and blind zeal with these men, but gentleness, and cool calculation in doing good. Indeed, I can say with all truthfulness that I saw good men only in Christendom. Brave men, honest men, righteous men are not wanting in Heathendom, but I doubt whether good men,—by that I mean those men summed up in that one English word which has no equivalent in any other language: Gentleman,—I doubt whether such is possible without the religion of Jesus Christ to mould us. “The Christian, God Almighty’s gentleman,”—he is a unique figure in this world, undescribably beautiful, noble, and lovable.

And not only are there such good men in Christendom, but their power over bad men is immense, considering the comparative scarcity of good men even in Christendom. This is another feature of Christendom, that goodness is more possible and more powerful there than in Heathendom. One Lloyd Garrison “friendless and unseen,” and the freedom of a race began with him. One John B. Gough, and the huge intemperance begins to totter. Minority does not mean defeat with these people, though their Constitution seems to imply to that effect. They are too sure of their righteous cause, and too sure of the national conscience, they feel sure to win over the nation to them. Rich men they fear and honor and admire, but good men, more. They are more proud of the goodness of Washington than of his bravery; of Phillips Brooks than of Jay Gould. (Indeed, very many of them are really ashamed of the latter.) Righteousness with them is a power; and an ounce of righteousness goes against a pound of wealth, and often outweighs it.

Then their national conscience,—by that I mean the sum total of the people’s conscience as a nation,—how infinitely higher and purer than their average conscience! What as individuals they freely indulge in, they as a nation strongly protest against. I have heard it stated that many a blasphemer died a Christian death on the battlefields of the late Civil War in America; and I do not doubt the statement. The battle was one of principles, and not of honor and filthy lucre. They marched with a Christian aim in view: the liberation of an inferior race. Never in History has a nation gone into war with such an altruistic end in view. None but a Christian nation can go to such a war. Yet all were not Christians who went to this war.—Observe, too, how scrupulous these people are about the moral perfection of the men whom they choose as their Presidents. The men must not merely be able men, but moral men as well. No Richelieus or Mazarins can be their Presidents. Woe to that poor condidate, who in other respects is the fittest to rule; but a stain or two that mar his character has made him a failure. Morality does not usually count with statesmanship in Heathendom.—Why do they pursue the Mormons with so much rigor? Are not concubinage and polygamy of an “occult kind” actually practiced among these people? A strange inconsistency, you say. Strange, but to be admired. As a nation they cannot allow polygamy. Let those who practice it, do it secretly. The national conscience is not yet sharp enough to look after secrecies of this sort. But polygamy as an institution, under the sufferance and protection of the nation’s laws, that neither Christians nor infidels will wink at. The Mormons must submit: else Utah shall not add one more star to the banner already spangled with so many bright and honorable stars.

The same national conscience that fosters all noble and worthy sentiments, keeps at bay all that are ignoble and unworthy. Broad daylight is denied to hags of all kinds. Such must put on garments of righteousness when they appear among the people; else they will be “lynched” by the very hags like themselves, and handed over to Oblivion and his angels. Mammons walk by the laws of righteousness. Honesty is believed to be the best policy, in politics as well as in other money-getting business. A man kisses his wife in society, whom he beats in his home. Gambling-houses go by the name of billiard rooms, and even the fallen angels by the title of “ladies.” Saloons are all screened from outside views, and men drink in darkness, in evident shame of their evil habit. All very productive of the hypocrisies of the worst sort, you say. But does Virtue mean the licence of evils? I think not.

So then, this differencing of good from evil, of sky-loving larks from cave-dwelling bats, of sheep on the right hand from goats on the left,—this I consider to be a Christian state, the foretaste of that into which we are all going, the complete separation of the good from the bad. This Earth, though beautiful, was not originally meant as an angel-land. It was meant as a school to prepare us for some other places. This educational value of the Earth must not be lost sight of in our poor attempts to make it what it should be. Utilitarianism, Sentimental Christianity, and other shallow things, that, like the ancient Greeks, think this world to be gods’ home, will stumble at Cromwells and other no-sweet prophets, because they cannot make all happy. In too many cases, “the greatest happiness to the greatest number” means just the reverse of a righteous and just government. I suppose nowhere under heaven are more “universal satisfactions” found than in African jungles upon the Congo or the Zambesi. That state is the best in which the best discipline of soul is possible, and hence the original aim of the creation of this Earth is best realized. When this is done, we all may quit this earth, and go, some of us to eternal bliss, and others to eternal no-bliss, and the Earth itseff to its original elements, as a thing that has finished its business.

One more feature of Christendom before I cease to speak good things about it. There is one doctrine in Christianity upon which the recent Biology makes much after-dinner speeches;—I mean Resurrection. Let Renan and his disciples make whatever they please out of this doctrine; but the practical significance of this unique doctrine cannot be overlooked by “historical schools” of any turn of mind. Why is it that heathens in general go into decay so soon, but Christians in general know no decay whatever, but hope even in Death itself? Octogenarians still scheming for future as if they were still in twenties are objects of almost miraculous wonders with us heathens. We count men above forty among the old age, while in Christendom no man below fifty is considered to be fit for a position of any great responsibility. We think of rest and retirement as soon as our children come to age; and backed by the teaching of filial piety, we are entitled to lazy idleness, to be cared and caressed by the young generation. Judson a missionary, after hardships of his life-time, exclaims he wants to live and work more, as he has eternity to rest. Victor Hugo in his eighty-four can say: “I improve every hour because I love this world as my fatherland. My work is only beginning. My monument is hardly above its foundation. I would be glad to see it mounting and mounting forever.” Compare these with a Chinese poet Tao-Yuen-Ming who sought the solace of his old age in cups of liquor, or many of my own countrymen excusing themselves from the busy world as soon as grayness appears upon their heads. The godless Physiology attributes all this to difference in diet, climate, and so forth; but the very fact that we too with our rice and monsoon can be other than what we used to be, calls for some other explanation than physiological.

I attribute the progressiveness of Christendom to its Christianity. Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three Life-angels that defy and shun Death and his angels, have worked upon it for the past nineteen hundred years, and have made it as we have it now.

“Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy Death,—yea sits himself
Upon the tyrant’s throne, the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghostly foe
Makes his own nourishment.”—Bryant.

Enormous yet though their sins are, these people have the power to overcome them. They have yet no sorrows which they think they cannot heal. Is not Christianity worth having if but for this power alone?

The raison d’ etre of Christian mission? I think I have stated it already. It is the raison d’ etre of Christianity itself. Said David Livingstone: “The spirit of missions is the spirit of our Master; the very genius of His religion. A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It requires perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness.” Once it ceases to propagate, it ceases to live. Have you ever thought why it is that God leaves so large a part of human race still in darkness of heathenism? I think it is that your Christianity may live and grow by your efforts to diminish the darkness. One hundred and thirty-four millions of heathens yet! Thank God, there are still so many, for we need not like Alexander weep for the lack of the world to be conquered. Suppose God tells you to stay at home, and keep your purse-strings tight, and your hearts closed toward heathens. Think you you will thank Him for relieving you from useless obligations? If Christian mission is an obligation to you, for which you must have God’s further blessings to reward you, and heathens’ gratitude to keep your hearts warm, I believe you better cease to take any part in it, as neither God nor heathens get any good from you. “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.” That was Apostle Paul. I believe, to him the greatest trial was not to be a missionary. With an expansive life in him, could he refrain himself from expanding into universal charity, which is Christian mission. I believe we better confess right honestly that we have no Christianity to speak of, than to grumble at “the difficulties of the station,” “the insolence of heathens,” and other cowardly things.

But why send missionaries to heathens when you have heathens enough in your own land?

You know this world is a unit, and the human race is one great family. This is what I read in my Christian Bible, though Patriotisms, Christian and otherwise, seem to deny this. You cannot make yourself perfect without making others perfect. An idea of a perfect Christendom in midst of encircling heathenism is impossible. In Christianizing other peoples, you Christianize yourself. This is a philosophy abundantly illustrated by actual experiences.

Suppose you stop your foreign mission, and concentrate your whole energy upon home mission. What will you have? Many more striking conversions, many more homes freed from the curses of whisky, many more children decently clothed, no doubt. But withal what? Many more heresy-huntings, many more denominational backbitings, with perhaps more Sunday-school excursions, and “Japanese marriages” in churches. I think you who have had Christianity now over eighteen hundred years have got over by this time that foolish and heathenish notion, that good done in one direction diminishes good to be done in other directions.—Growth outside always means growth inside. You are troubled with some intestine lethargy. You go to your physician, and he medicates upon you nostrums after nostrums. But nothing heals you, and you begin to lose faith in your doctor. Finally you come to the true knowledge of your trouble. You turn your attention from inside; that is, you forget yourself, and go to some outside work, cultivation of cabbages, it may be. Then you begin to breathe freely, your bicep-muscles get little bigger and firmer. Gradually you feel your trouble is gone, and you are now a stronger man than before. You healed yourself by reflex influences. You gave yourself upon cabbages, and cabbages healed you.

So with churches. Pruning with heresy-huntings, and medicating with New Theologies may never heal them. Nay, they may grow even worse. Now some wise men prescribe foreign mission to them. They take part in it, and they soon get interested in it. They have taken in the whole world into their sympathy, and they feel themselves expanding by having done so. The new sympathy thus engendered calls up the old sympathy that has gone to sleep by heresy-trials and New Theology medicatings. What they failed to revive within them by spending themselves upon themselves, they now see returning to them by spending themselves upon other than themselves. You converted heathens, and heathens now re-convert you. Such is humanity, so intimately are you connected with the whole race. Pity the heathen? Do you pity your own brother in wretchedness? Are you not ashamed of him, and blame yourself for his wretched state? I believe this is the true philosophy of Christian mission; and missions started on any other basis than this are shows, plays, things to be criticized by their enemies, and disregarded by the very heathens to whom they are sent.

But you ask: Do you heathens like to have Christianity?

Yes, we sensible heathens do; and the insensible among us, though they throw stones at missionaries, and do other mischievous things upon them, as soon as they resume their sensibility, will see that they did wrong. Of course, we do not like many things that come under the name of Christianity. Hosts, surplices, compulsory prayerbooks theologies, unless they are absolutely necessary to convey Christianity itself to us in our present state of mental development, we do desire to be spared frome. We also like to have no Americanianity and Anglicanianity imposed upon us as Christianity. I hope none of us ever threw stones at Christ Himself. If we did, we stoned at the Almighty Throne itself, and we shall have the Truth itself to condemn us. But chide us not for throwing stones at missionaries who in the name of Christ teach us their own views,—theologies they call them,—and also their own manners and customs, such as “free marriages,” “woman’s rights,” and others, all more or less objectionable to us. We do this for self-preservation. You who tolerate Catholicism, but not Roman Catholicism, who fling your pulpit addresses and newspaper editorials right at the faces of Piuses and Leos for their interference in your school and other public affairs, sympathize with us in our protest against Americanism, Anglicanism, and other foreign isms.

Then, when you come to us, come with strong common sense. Do not believe the words of those mission-circus men who tell you that a nation can be converted in a day. There is no spiritual El Dorado to be found upon this earth. Nowhere can souls be converted by dozens and hundreds. The same matter-of-fact world here as there. Men do doubt, simulate, stumble, here as elsewhere. I know some missionaries who preach to us as if we were their own countrymen. They seem to think that the Moody-Sankey method that goes so successfully with Americans and Englishmen, should succeed equally well with Japanese and Chinese. But Japanese and Chinese are not Americans, as you well know. They had not their childhood mothered with “Lord is my shepherd,” “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and other angelic melodies. They take as much delight in gong-bells as in Estey pipeorgans. They are “heathens,” and you must teach them accordingly. But some preach Jesus Christ to them, give them a copy each of New Testament, persuade them to be baptized, get their names enrolled in church-membership, and so have them reported to home-churches, and think that they are safe, and will go to heaven somehow. Perhaps they may, perhaps they may not. Hereditary influences, mental idiosyncracies, social environments, to say nothing of the same old Adamic propensity to sin in them, are not so readily conformable to the new and strange doctrines that are preached to them. Though we despise godless science, yet scienceless evangelization we do not put much value upon. I believe faith is wholly compatible with common-sense, and all zealous and successful missionaries have had this sense in abundance.

Come to us also, after fighting out Devils in your own souls. You know John Bunyan speaks of a reverend gentleman who had but very little experience with Devils. As he was not able to cure Bunyan’s soul, so such as he cannot cure us heathens. “Born Christians,” who have only heard of conversions, as “reports from a distance,” cannot help us much in our death-struggles from Darkness to Light. I know a Quaker professor in America, who, when I told him of the doubts and difficulties that I had to overcome in my struggles Christward, said that he could not very well see how that could have been, seeing that Christianity was so simple a thing as was contained in one monosyllable L-O-V-E. Only a monosyllable, but the Universe itself cannot contain it! An enviable man he. His ancestors had fought out the battles for him. He came into this world unconscious of struggles, a ready-made Christian. Like as a millionaire’s son cannot comprehend the miseries and strifes of a self-made man, so this professor and many like him in Christendom cannot comprehend what we heathens have to fight out in our souls before we get settled in peace in that monosyllable. I advise such as he to stay at home as professors, and not come to us as missionaries, for our complexities and sinuosities may confound them, as their simplicities and straight-cuttednesses confound us. Indeed, those of us who have had some earnest experiences with Christianity, have found it not an altogether easy-going, home-sweet-home, and peace-unto-all-men affair. We have found it somewhat like poet Bryant’s Freedom,

“A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
Are strong with struggling.”

We can appreciate “Pilgrim’s Progress;” but as for that happy, happy, honey-moon style religion, we know not what it is, but that it is not the Christianity of the Crucified One. Heathenism first subdued in your own soul; then you can subdue it right successfully in us.

With your Christianity sifted from your own isms, and your common-sense well sharpened (if not sharp already), and best of all, with Devils fought out in your own souls, I see no reason why you fail to do immense good to heathens. Heathendom has had such missionaries (God be thanked,) and it is crying for more of them. We soon take no thought of them that they are strangers. Even their very lack of our language is no barrier between them and us. Christianity is in their very eyes. We feel it in their grasp of our hands. O how they shine among us! Their very presence dispels darkness. They need not preach unto us. We will preach for them; only let them hold us from behind. Rather one such than dozens and hundreds of missionary adventurers and experimenters. “The work which an Archangel may envy,—the work of preaching Christ to the heathen.” Who but an archangel himself can engage in this enviable work?

Yes, Christianity we do need. We need it not so much to demolish our idols of wood and stone. Those are innocent things compared with other idols worshipped in Heathendom and elsewhere. We need it to make our bad appear worse, and our good appear better. It only can convince us of sin; and convincing us of it, can help us to rise above it, and conquer it. Heathenism I always consider as a tepid state of human existence;—it is neither very warm nor very cold. A lethargic life is a weak life. It feels pains less; hence rejoices less. De profundis is not of heathenism. We need Christianity to intensify us; to swear fealty to our God, and enmity toward Devils. Not a butterfly-life, but an eagle-life; not the dimunitive perfection of a pink-rose, but the sturdy strength of an oak. Heathenism will do for our childhood, but Christianity alone for manhood. The world is growing, and we with the world. Christianity is getting to be a necessity with all of us.

For fifty days I was upon the sea on my way home. I sailed under the Southern Cross, saw the True Cross stand, and the False Cross fall. But think you I was happy to see my dear ones soon? Yes, happy in the sense that a soldier is happy, who dreams of conquests after encounter with his enemies. I was found by Him, and He girded me, and intimated me that He would carry me whither I would not. Battles He assigned me in my own small sphere, and I was not to answer Nay. Alas I sought Him with much fightings. I found Him, and He ordered me at once to His battlefield! This the lot of one born in a soldier-family. Let me not murmur, but feel thankful.

May 16, Noon.—Clear, hazy in afternoon.—Came to the sight of my land about 10 A.M. Run 282 miles since yesterday noon. 63 miles more, and home.—Read 32nd chapter of Genesis. Much consoled by the thought that I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies which God hath shewed unto me during these years of my exile. His grace fills up all the vacancies left by the sad experiences of life. I know my life hath been guided by Him, and though I go with much fear and trembling to my homeland, I fear no evil, for He will still manifest more of Himself unto me.

Midnight. Reached home 9.30 P. M. Thank God I am here at last after travelling some 20,000 miles. The joy of the whole family knew no bounds. Perhaps it was the happiest time my poor parents ever have had. Brother and sister grew big, the former an active little fellow, and the latter a quite nice girl. Talked with father all night. Mother doesn’t care to learn about the world; she is only glad that her son is safely at home. I thank God for keeping my family all these years of my absence from them. My prayer has been to see my father in safety to tell him all what I have seen and experienced.

“And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with one staff I passed over the Jordan; and now I am become two bands.” (Gen. XXXII, 9. 10.) This the state of one whom the Lord liketh to honor. Jacob had in Haran all what he had sought after and prayed for: Leah and Rachel, children, sheep. I too, a poor servant of His, had in Christendom all what I had sought after and prayed for. Not indeed the kind with which Jacob was blessed. Indeed, so strait was my condition in this respect that I had only 75 cents left in my pocket after my roamings over 20,000 miles of land and sea. My mental capital too, which I carried home was inconsiderable compared with that which is usually brought back by my countrymen of my own age and circumstance. Science, Medicine, Philosophy, Divinity,—not a sheepskin of this kind I had in my trunk to please my parents as my present to them. But I had what I wished to have, even — —, “unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” True, I did not find it in Christendom in the way as I had expected; i.e. I had not picked it up in streets, or even in churches or in theological seminaries; but in ways various and contrarious, I had it nevertheless, and I was satisfied. This then my present to my parents and countrymen, whether they like it or not. This the Hope of human souls, this the Life of nations. No philosophy or divinity can take its place in history of mankind. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

I reached my home late in evening. There upon a hill, enclosed by Cryptomeria hedge, stood my paternal cottage. “Mamma,” I cried as I opened the gate, “your son is back again.” Her lean form, with many more marks of toil upon it, how beautiful! The ideal beauty that I failed to recognize in the choices of my Delaware friend, I found again in the sacred form of my mother. And my father, the owner of a twelfth part of an acre upon this spacious globe,—he a right hero too, a just and patient man. Here is a spot then which I may call my own, and by which I am chained to this Land and Earth. Here my Home and my Battlefield as well, the soil that shall have my service, my prayers, my life, free.

The day after my arrival at home, I received an invitation to the principalship of a Christian college said to have been started by heathens. A singular institution this, unique in the history of the world. Shall I accept it?

But here this book must close. I have told you how I became a Christian. Should my life prove eventful enough, and my readers are not tired of my ways of telling, they shall have another book like this upon “How I Worked a Christian.”