Alone with God and Me

Missionaries come to us to patronize us, te exercise lordship over us, in a word, to “ convert” us; not to become our equals and. friends, certainly no? to become our servants and wash our feet. Did they ever save a nation, even politically? Did they save Hawaii? Did they save Burmah? Madagascar? Persia? India? Can we expect them to save China? Will they be able ever to save Japan morally and spiritually? We believe that the Gospel. of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; but unless through God’s grace we save ourselves, we shall not be saved,—certainly not by foreign churches and missionaries,

I am a Protestant. I protest against Roman Catholicism. I protest against English Episcopalian'sm, against German Lutherianism, aeainst Scotch Presbyterianism, against American Congregationalism, Methodism, and Baptistism, against every one of over six-hundred sects and isms that go under the name of Protestantism. Yea, I protest against my own ism, if I have any. The gospel I believe in is: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified; and I protest against any doctrine and set of doctrines which go beyond, or do not come up to, this simplest of all doctrines. Protestantism, I understand, is Christ versus human ingenuities, faith versus churches. It is simplicity arrayed against complexities, living organism, against dead organizations.

Says the modern popular Christianity: “ Business is business. Even Christian missions, to be successful, must be carried on business principles. And succnss is the test of Truth; and the sure test of success is NumBers. Majority makes laws, and majority will establish Truth. The work that does not appear in reports and statistics is no work at all. Numbers, numbers,—the biggest church is the best church, and the richest, the strongest. It is nonsense to speak of pure spirits and the Church Invisible. The thing that does not show itself in numbers is nothing.’ This is what we may call Quantitative Christianity, and alas! it is being rapidly introduced into Japan,—mostly by American missionaries.

We know of English and American missionaries who stayed in Japan twenty, or thirty, or forty years, who yet are not able to speak respectable Japanese, and who in their intercourse with us use their King’s or Yankee English with freedom and shamelessness as if English were the official language of this country. As to the reading capacity of missionaries, it is next to nothing. One among a hundred may not be able to read vernacular newspapers, and we know of no one who can read ordinary Japanese literature in the original. No wonder that they cannot understand us, and that after spending half their lifetime in this country, they still remain utter strangers to us. The fact that these missionaries despise our language is a sure evidence that they have no true love for our souls.

What we do for Christ is nothing; what Christ did for us is everything. Our works do not justify us before God; Christ’s works present us holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him And the presentday Christianity, by emphasizing the former, makes void the latter. Not charity-works; not evangelical works; not various and miscellaneous works connected with these works; but the life and death of Christ; especially His vicarious death upon the cross; this it is which are Our works and our salvation. Compared with this work, all other works cannot be called works. And believing in this work and looking up unto it, all other works bear fruit. Right and true it is that Paul said: “ I determined not to know anything, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” With Paul, Christ’s work for him was his only work.

Belief in the Second Coming of Christ may be a madness and irrationality in the eyes of the modern New Theology; but no one can deny the fact that this belief was the groundprinciple that made the New Testament. Take off this belief, and the New Testament becomes an unintelligible book from the beginning to the end. The much-praised New Testament morality is simply based upon this belief. With eyes intensely fixed upon the coming of their Lord, were the primitive Christians able to attain their superhuman morality. Whatever be philosophical explanations given, there is no denying of the fact that were it not for this belief, the world would have had no New Testament. The New Theology itself with its avowed love of fairness cannot deny this fact.

If ever God elected me unto savation, it must not be that I alone might be saved and the rest be lost, but that through me as a chief of sinners, many, if not all, be saved. I can be sure of my salvation only upon the condition’ that God is willing and able to save all sinners, that there never was, and is, and will be a sinner that God is not willing and able to save. Universal salvation as a dogma may be an offense to some particular theologians and

_ecclesiastics, but as an individual conviction and assurance for one’s final savation, it is an extremely comforting doctrine. If Godis going to save all, I am sure and certain that I too shall be saved. Romans xi, 32; I Timothy i, ( 15.

I believe in the Word of God, and not in my experiences of salvation. My experiences may be illusions, but the Word standeth for ever. The Word saith: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.” I look unto the Pierced One by faith, and I believe that I am saved. I will not be one of those who will not believe except they see signs and wonders. Experiences of salvation are not necessary for the assurance of salvation. The Cross is the assurance. Sins may remain, or may not; but 1 am not to look unto my sins, but unto the Cross. The Cross does sanctify,—that 1.believe; but I do not wait to be sanctified to be assured of my salvation. Enough that Christ was crucified for me. The peace which passeth all understanding is mine.

The Virgin Birth of Christ is certainly a miracle, and as such it is not to be explained by science and ordinary experiences. But it is only one of the many miracles which constitute the bases of Christian beliefs. The Resurrection is a miracle, the Ascension is a miracle, and the Second Advent, the Last Judgment, the Consummation of All Things are all to be miracles. A miracleless Christianity is no Christianity at all. God dwelling among men, divinity entering into humanity, the heaven coming down to save and renovate the earth, —this it is which we celebrate on Christmas, We celebrate a stupendous miracle on Christmas, and wait and hope for other miracles which shall bring our redemption to completion. Giory BE To Gop IN THE Hicuust.

I say, life is perfect. Itself imperfect, it is perfect for the purpose for which it was intended. Life is imperfect as an end, but perfect as a means; perfect for perfecting us for some other life. ‘Tribulation worketh patience; patience, probation; probation, hope.” Life through its many tribulations begets in us the sure hope of glory. Life properly used is a perfection. Though the days of our years are threescore years and ten, and their strength, labour and sorrw, yet life by its very transitoriness prepares us for the bliss that fades not away. Knowing the meaning of life, no one like Job curses the day of his birth, and says: “Oh that I were not born!”

The enemies of Christianity are not Buddhism and Confucianism. The enemies of Christianity are American Hedonism, English Oommercialisin, French Indifferentism, Russian Nihilism, German Nietzscheism and Treitsehkeism, and other hateful and horrible isms of the Western origin. The West in introducing Christianity to the East, has introduced with it its most destructive enemies. The East has nothing to be compared with the unbeliefs of the West. Let not Christian missionaries boast of the easy conquest of heathenism, when enemies far stronger than heathenism are accompanying them from their home and uprooting the very faith they are planting. The Christian West carrying deadly poisons in her bosom cannot heal the pagan East. The East needs hcr own

Christianity, strong enough to overcome the deadly unbeliefs of the West.

This is the two hundredth number of this little magazine. (Seisho-no-Kenkyu, The Bible Studies). Forty years ago, when I first accepted Christianity, two ideas were in my youthful mind. One was: evangelical Christianity’ without foreign help; and the other was: Bible studies as my life-work. By God’s mercy, I have been able to realize to some extent these two ideas of my youth. I gave the best part of my life to the study and teaching of the Bible, and I have not received a cent of help from churches and missions in my work. This has been my independent work; and whatever be its true worth, it will be of some use in the Great Day of Judgment to silence the boasting of some missionaries that they did all the Christian works in Japan. God is saving Japan through Japanese, and this little magazine I believe, has been a part of that glorious work.

To a Japanese Baron, who was visiting America, and who in addressing the Bethany Sunday School in Philadelphia, said that the teachings of Confucius snd Jesus were the same, and that there was no need of changing his faith, John Wanamaker, the superintendent of the school, and the Baron’s host at the time, answered as follows: ‘* There is this vital difference betucven Confucius and Jesus. Confucius is dead and buried, and he will remain in dis grave until Jesus Christ tells lim to arise. But our Christ's grave is empty. He is living, He is here in this room to-day.” To which we say Amen, and wish to add our strong conviction, that in tlis case the American was right and the Japanese was mistaken.

Jinsat ITO was a Japanese Confucianist of two hundred years ago He lived in Kydto, and never moved from his place, but students flocked to him frcm all parts of Japan at that time of difficult travelling. He called no man his master; rejected all offers of rich daimyos to be made their tutor; so he was poor all through his life. Withal he was genial, mingled with the common people; and himself a layman and commoner, was at the same time the nation’s teacher. Great Jingai! I would rather imitate him than hundreds and thousands of modern Christian teachers who are constantly moving to make converts of heathens, and _ that by the expense of churches and. societies patronized by worthless millionaires]

Love is of God; God is love.

Love manifested in good works is righteousness; its opposite is sin.

Love intellectually viewed is light; its opposite is darkness.

Love viewed as a moral quality is truth (truthfulness); its opposite is falsehood (lie).

Jesus is the Son of God’s love; he is the light of the world; he is the truth itself.

Christians as God’s children must love; i. e. must do good works, must shine, and must be -always and forever true.

* Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.” A great and wonderful saying! He that loveth is of God, whether he be called a Unitarian, a Rationalist, a Heretic, or a Heathen; and he that loveth not is nor of God, whether he be called a Christian, an Orthodox, a Reverend, a Missionary, a Theologian, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Congregationalist, or an Episcopalian. Love is the test of life, and whatever be a man’s confessions and professions, he only is of God and Truth who loves unfeignedly and spontaneously. Ability to love is the ereatest attainment of life; it is the unmistakable sign of the possession of eternal life. T. Jolin, 1v; 7.

I had a man whom I hated. I desired to forgive him, but I could not; and I was unhappy. Then I remembered the Saviour’s words: ‘‘ Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you.” I went at once to prayer, and prayed that God’s richest b'essings might rest with him whom I called my enemy. And beho'd, a great change came over me, and I began to love him from the bottom of my heart. And I became happy too, and I felt largeness and freedom such as I never felt before. Great are the blessings of prayer. By it, both we who pray, and they for whom we pray, are blessed at the same time. We save ourselves by praying for our enemies.