How I Became a Christian: Out of My Diary

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shall call me no more Baali." — Hoshea, II, 14, 15, 16.

So my Lord and Husband must have said to Himself when He drove me from my peaceful home-church. He did this by creating a vacuum in my heart. Nobody goes to a desert who has his all in his home. Nature abhors vacuum, and human heart abhors it more than anything else in the Universe. I descried in myself an empty space which neither activity in religious works, nor success in scientific experiments, could fill. What the exact nature of that emptiness was, I was not able to discern. 'May be, my health was getting poor, and I yearned after repose and easier tasks. Or, as I was rapidly growing into my manhood, that irresistible call of nature for companionship might have made me feel so haggard and empty. At all events, a vacuum there was, and it must be 'filled somehow with some- ihzng. I thought so7tiethifig there was in this vague universe which could make me feel happy and contented; but I had no idea whatever of what that something was. Like a pigeon that was deprived of its cerebrum bj the knife of a physiologist, I started, not knowing whither and wherefore, but because stay I could not. From this time on, my whole energy was thrown into this one task of filling up this vacuum.

April 12, 1883. — Depression; no spirit.

April 22. — Repented my past sins deeply, and felt my total inability to save myself by my own efforts.

Incontestable signs that the good Angel was coming down occasionally to distui^b the stagnant pool of my soul, that healing might come to it some future day.

May 8. — The Third Great Gathering of Christians opens at 9 A. M. in the New^ Prosperity St. Presbyterian Church. I represented the S. Church. Prayers and business in morning. Eeports on the state of the Faith throughout the land, in afternoon. The believers number 5,000 in all. The meeting adjourned at 6 P. M.

This was some twenty years after Christianity was first introduced into my country. The believers numbered 5,000 among 40,000,000 of the entire population;— a small flock indeed, but fired with holv ambition to leaven the whole mass of ignorance and superstition around them within a quarter of a century! This sanguine hope was based upon a calculation made by one Mr. T., an elderly brother of the most optimistic type of mind, that even if each of the five-thousand Christians be so lazy as to lead but a single soul to Christ in one year, the congregation ought to swell to many times the number of living souls in the whole land within that short period. The fact was the increase in the number of new converts had been from 25 to 33 per cent, for the last three or four years, and the coolest heads among us did not doubt 25 per cent, as the average increase for the coming quarter of a century. Writing now, however, ten years after this memorable meeting, I have a sad task of telling my readers that history has proved quite otherwise from what we expected or prophesied. They say there are now 35,000 Christians throughout the land, and that the yearly average of increase is rapidly falling. Yes, a nation cannot be converted in a day! Let it be! Our aim is qualitative as well as quantitative. A man who for the first time in his life saw a baby grow, thought that as it gained a pound in a week, therefore it ought to be as big as a good-sized elephant when it would get to be thirty years of age. Either our own laziness or God's own wisdom has always kept the numerical value of the believers at comparatively low figures.

Be the future whatever it might, our dream on that day was resplendent with glory. It was unanimously agreed upon that a veritable Pentecost did set in after it had ceased to be a human experience for over eighteen centuries. And there was every sign that such was truly the case. First, there was much groaning for sins. Everybody wept, and he was considered a block-heart who could not weep on such an occasion. Some miraculous conversions were reported. It was said that a group of children of a mission school were so endowed with the power of sx)irit that thej captured a poor Buddhist pilgrim in a street, prayed with him, and argued with him, stripped his sacerdotal robe from him, and compelled him to own Jesus as his Savior. A young man, conspicuous among his fellows for his stammering tongue, was said to have had the restraint removed from him, and to have preached with all the fire and freedom of the Apostle Peter. And what was more, we had among us a Corean, a high-born representative of that hermit nation! He was baptized a week before this, and w^as with us in all the dignity of his native attire. He too prayed in his owm language, not intelligible to us except his closing Amen, but forcible because his presence and unlntelligibility made the scene still more Pentecostal. We only needed a physical tongue of fire to make it entirely so; but this w^e furnished with our own imaginations. We all felt something miraculous and stupendous coming over us. We even doubted w^hether the sun w^as still shining over our heads.

May 9. — Meeting of the delegates in the Morning Grass Presbyterian Church at 8 A. M. The subject of discussion, "the Free Burial."

The gathering continues. Something must be done with a law still extant in the country, which enforced the signature of a heathen priest before a corpse was committed to earth. Legally such a thing as Christian burial was not allowed; and such was procured only by the connivance of presiding priests, or in many actual cases, bj bribing them. I for one maintained tbat tlie dead might be buried by the dead without any detriment to the soul that once dwelt in it, and that since our God was the God of the living, He would not require from us any special mode of disposing of our lifeless bodies. But those of my brethren otherwise-minded on this subject carried the day, and the majority vote decided upon making a special petition to the government to change the said law\ This was thought to be the beginning of a great movement which must ultimately be taken up for bestowal of religious liberty upon the nation. Events proved, however, that legalism was fruitless in all cases. What clamorings for right could not obtain, time and progress of thought freely gave. The nation has now a Constitution with religious liberty as a conspicuous clause.

May 12. — The Great Meeting closes. It had wonderful effects. Churches revived, consciences tried, and love and union considerably strengthened. Very Pentecostal in its general character.

All in all, the meetings were profitable to us all. Enthusiasm ran so high that after-meetings were continued for one week more. To me the scene was one which I had never seen before in my life. The so-called ^'revival" set in upon the metropolitan churches, and to me w^ho was trained a little in Mental Physiology, the movement appeared somewhat insanoid. Carpenter in his Mental Physiology tells us of a case of a whole monastery which went to imitating a cat's mewing, after one of its inmates, a nun, contracted this propensity. Many at least of the phenomena of revivals could be explained as abnormal actions of the sympathetic nerves. But as the movement was fanned and supported by the highest of church-dignitaries and reverend gentlemen, I suppressed my skepticism, and allowed myself to be swayed over by the prevailing sentiment of the hour. When I saw and heard many who spoke of the joy that came over their souls by the mysterious influence of what they could never explain, but no less real on that account, — tlie joy, they told us, exceeding that the eye hath ever seen, or the ear hath ever heard of, — my science was carried over by my desire to have the similar joy myself. Having been taught by a fiery Methodist preacher how to obtain this unspeakable gift of spirit, I applied myself right earnestly at the work, focusing my mental vision upon my "deceitful heart," meanwhile blinding my eyes to Huxley, Carpenter, and Gegenbaur, as to visions which were infernal in their origin. But alas! the w^elcome voice "thy sins are forgiven thee" was not to be caught either by my physical or mental or spiritual tympanum. After three consecutive days of groanings and beatings of my breast, I was the same son of depravity as ever before. To me was denied the much envied privilege of showing myself before my fellow-Christians as a special object of heaven's favor, full of hope and of joy. ^My disappointment was indeed sore. Shall I explain away "revivals" as a sort of h}i)notism, phenomena psycho-electrical in their'origin; or is the profundity of my depravity the real cause of my non-susceptibility to them? Yes, the world was not created in a single day or week, and I may yet hope to be recreated through processes more "natural" than those prescribed by my Methodist friend.

Wrth the daily and weekly increase of friends and acquaintances among tlie believers, my religion was fast inclining toward sentimentalism. Feastings upon religious talks were often carried to excess, and we thought more about Christian tea-parties and dinner-parties than of the grave responsibilities of conquering the dominion of darkness around us. Fresh from my country church, with childish innocence and credulity, I plunged myself into the Turkish-bath-society of metropolitan Christianity, to be lulled and shampooned by hymns sung by maidens, and sermons that offended nobody. God's kingdom was imagined to be one of perfect repose and constant free exchange of good wishes, where tea-parties and love-makings could be indulged in with the sanction of the religion of free communions and free love. Missionaries will pay all the arrears of church expenses, and they too will fight out Buddhism and other obnoxious superstitions around us. But we, dear brethren, who bow no more to wood and stones, and sweet sisters with woman's right bestowed upon you by the new faith, — let us be going to tea-parties and churchsociables, and there sing "Blest be the tie that binds," and pray and weep and dream and rejoice. Away with that Confucian superstition that forbids children of two sexes above seven years of age to sit together in one and the same room, and with that Buddhist nonsens(i that requires from womanhood modesty and subjection so debasing to her noble sex. Love is a mutual affair, and heaven itself cannot interfere in the communion of youthful hearts prompted by this holy and all pervading influence!

O Christian Freedom, thou that withstood black famine and Spanish halberds in the flooded fortress of Leyden, that hissed upon the faggots of Smithfield, and bled upon the top of Bunker Hill, how often hast thou lent thy name to H^irens of Destruction born, and to Jupiter's amorous son! O may fhy name be cautiously held back from the people who to Sinai are not first led, there to learn the majesty of the Law, before thou liftest them above the Law. Thy tidings glad were not meant for those who from restraints are vainly striving to flee, but for those chosen children of God, w^ho in their anxious efforts to conform themselves to the Law, are "helped by Thee to make the Law their will.

But when the numerical increase of converts in geometric progression is had in view by the messengers of the Gospel (though not an altogether unpardonable weakness of humanity), this stern idea of Freedom mu^^t not be very conspicuously placed before heathens. Hence the more or less laxity of practical morality among the converts thus recruited, and the hedonistic view of the freedom of spirit engendered among them.

tears. Gave me great joy and consolation.

Failure in putting off my old Adamic skin at once drove me to find a consolation in the works of my owm hand. And why not? Sentimental Christianity, like all other pleasures of senses, soon becomes insipid, and something more real and substantial is needed to keep a hungering soul at rest. ''Is not practical charity the essence of Christianity," I began to ask myself. Certainly the immortal Buddha taught it as the very first of the four conditions for a man to enter the bliss of Nirvana. ''What doth it profit, my brethren,"

so runs the weighty admonition of the royal Apostle, '^though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" Pra^^ermeeting sentimentalisms and camp-meeting psycho-electricities, — to what do they all amount if not a single beggar has his bellj^ filled thereby! We used to give something solid and substantial to wayside beggars when we paid our monthly pilgrimage to our family-idols; but now that we are converted to Christianity, we give nothing but empty words to them. Such should not be, my soul! As well a man catch a bream by baiting his hook with a lobster, as a Christian enter his heaven by dealing out winds of doctrines to others. So I bought a little volume of the life of John Howard written in English, and read and re-read it with intense applications. ''Such I shall be," I said to myself, and I already imagined myself visiting all the penitentiaries of the world, and dying at last w^hile attending a fever-stricken soldier. I also bought Charles Loring Brace's "Gesta Christi," and found therein all that I needed to convince me of the mission appropriate for all true lovers of Christ. Though my idea of Christian philanthropy has considerably changed since then, the healthy influence of that New York philanthropist upon the whole turn of my thought and action is above all I can thank for.

June 6. — Left my lodging at 7:30 A. M. tlired a boat at Port "Barbaric,^' and rowed by four sailors, started for Cape Eagle to study the neighboring sea-bottom. Stopped at Hotel No. 11 in the Cape.

Once more in the Government employ, I was sent out upon another scientific tour. This boat- excursion during my stay in tlie little island of S. — I specially remember as one wlien my temperance principle was put to quite a test. Still tenaciously holding teetotalism as a part of my Christian profession, I was scrupulously careful not to touch the fiery liquid even if presented with the most plausible reasons. As was hinted in a former chapter, liquor-drinking forms a large part of my national etiquettes, and to refuse cordial cups is to refuse friendship and intimacy solicited by one who presents them. And in no other respect was Christianity a sorer thorn in my flesh than in this constant fear of offending my hosts when asked to partake of friendly draughts of rice-beer. But the sacred pledge was not to be forgone; so I persisted.

But a new trial was to be met at Cape Eagle, for there at the utmost outskirts of civilization, in a lonely fishing-village, "Hotel No. 11" was the only house where travelers could find shelter at night. And the host of the hotel was a confirmed drunkard, known throughout the whole island as a Bacchus out of a 'beer-barrel born, and whose admiration of the "holy water" was so intense, and generosity toward his fellowmen so jealously strong, that he would not allow any mortal to pass a night under his roof without sharing his elixir with him, and so adding one more praise to the liquid that makes even gods to rejoice. I was told that not a single person had ever been known having courage to refuse the cup when presented by his imperious hand, and that this once at least I must put my teetotalism by, if to the Cape I must go. My answer was: "To the Cape I will go, 'but the drink I will not touch." The little community that sent me out was taken up with quite a fuss over the possible outcome of a singular contest which was to take place between the upholders of the two diametrically opposite principles.

It was near the dusk of the day when I found myself at the gate of the much-dreaded ''Hotel No. 11." The man who received me was some sixty years of age, haggard in appearance and short in stature, and wearing unmistakable signs of alcoholic medications of a life-time. I at once recognized in him the man so much spoken of throughout the island, and I was on my guard to behave myself accordingly. All the courtesies and welcomes of country hotel-keepers were entirely lacking in him, and I had to tell him of my official dignity before he agreed to grudge me a shelter for the night. After bathing and teadrinking as usual, the matron of the house came to me, and asked me to "drink" before the supper. "Not a drop of the liquor, madam," I resolutely replied, assured that everything depended upon my first answer. She retired, and in a moment a young man appeared with a wooden stand, upon which were arranged white rice, vegetables and boiled shell-fish in due order. The day's exposure to sun and sea prepared my stomach for the speedy consumption of the plain supper. Then I waited for the real tug of the battle, when the old man would appear with a bottle in his withered arm. But it was not so to be. Soon a bed was prepared for me, and without any interruption I passed a sweet peaceful night. I thought my friends had merely frightened me, and the whole story of the old man's demoniacal habits was manufactured solely for this purpose.

The next morning after breakfast, I was again on my boat. My men on their oars, my anxious inquiry was about the eventlessness of the night before. Tlie whole mystery was now explained to me. ''The hotel-keeper was the same old man," said one of my men, "but it was you, my young lord, who made the whole household so quiet last night. He told his servants that he himself would not drink for the fear that he might distunb the 3'oung guest, at which the whole family was taken with surprise, though not thankless on that account; for now for the first time since they entered the service of the drunkard master, the night was to be without murmurings and brawlings and other confusions." "Yes," said another of my men, "fhe matron expressed her thanks for the blessings of the night before. She said this morning before we left the house, that the sleep she enjoyed last night was the most delicious she ever had." "Victory!" I cried out; and as I was preaching to my men the horrors of the drinking habit and the power of brave resistence, heaven itself seemed to have joined in our triumph, for soon the wind veered to our back, and distending our full-stretched sail, wafted us proudly into the harbor, there to tell my anxious friends of the victory that crowned my steadfast denial, — Bacchus himself disarmed of his bottles, and a peaceful repose given to his innocent household.

But the vacuum in my soul was not to be obliterated by a few such experiences, the more so as Sentimental Christianity, itself a vacuity, had made it larger and more conspicuous than ever before. Failing to find the desired satisfaction in my own land, I, Rasselas-like, thought of extending my search to a land differently constituted from my own, even to Christendom, w^here, — Christianity having had undisputed power and influence for hundreds of years, must, I imagined, be found Peace and Joy in a measure inconceiv- able to us of heathen extraction, and easily procurable bv any sincere seeker after the Truth. The pain of separation from dear ones, the expense almost unbearably heavy to one of my circumstances, and above all, that saddest of all human experiences, roaming a penniless exile in a strange land, — all these were to be cheerfully borne that I might win the coveted prize, and so make my existence endurable.

But the search after personal satisfaction was not the only motive that impelled me to take this bold step. The land which gave me birth requires from every one of its youths some unstinted contributions to its honor and glory; and that I might be a faithful son of my soil, I needed experience, knowledge, and observations extending beyond the limit of my country. To be a man first, and then a Patriot, was my aim in going abroad.

By the willing sacrifice of my poor family, and the result of my economy during the past three years, I provided myself with enough means to secure passage across the broadest of oceans, trusting all the rest in the hand of Him who would not suffer me to die with hunger in a strange land. My good father, who was already a devout Christian, sent me out with cheer and God-speed, giving me, together with all that he had, his heart and love for his beloved son, expressed in a native stanza of his own production:

"Where I see not, Jehovah seeth; Where I hear not. Almighty heareth. Go my son, be not 'fraid; He thy help, there, as here."

The solemnity of the hour of separation called forth from us a nature which dogmas could not suppress. After my father's heart-rending prajers for tlie watchful care of Pro\idence over his son, he took me to the ancestral shrine which w^e still kept, and there ibade me to address myself to the soul of my departed grandfather before I would cross the threshold of my house on this hazardous voyage. ''Had thy grandsire been here/- he said in tears, ''what an amazement it must have been for him that his grandson should go to the people whom he regarded as utter barbarians!" I bowed my head, and my soul, directed alike to my Heavenly Father and to the departed spirits of my ancestors, engaged in a sort of meditation at once a prayer and a retrospection. Our dogmatic teachers might have frowned upon us for our conduct so Buddhistic or Popish; but it was not time for us to argue then. We loved our God, our country, and our forefathers, and we remembered them all on this solemn occasion.

Love of country, like all other loves, is in its best and highest at the time of separation. That strange Something, which, when at home, is no more to us than a mere grouping of rills and valleys, mountains and hills, is now transformed to that living Somebody, — Nature etherialized into a spirit; — and like as a woman speaks to her children, it summons us to noble deeds, — a Cornelia sending forth young Gracchii that they might live and die worthy of their illustrious mother. The yonder imperial peak that hangs majestically against the western sky, whitecapped with eternal snow, — is that not her chaste brow, the inspirer of the nation's heart? The pine-clad hills that encircle the peak, and golden fields that in its bottom lie, — is that not the bosom that suckled me, and the knee that took me up? And the waves dashing at its foot, and breaking into foamy sprays, — are they not pearlset frills tliat fringe her gown as she strides forth in her majestic march? A mother so pure, so noble and lovely, — shall not her sons be loyal to her? I left her coast, and soon I was upon board a ship, flying a color of another nation, and manned by men of other races. The ship begins to move, — farewell to the mother-land, — and after few hours of tossing, only the tip of the peak imperial can be seen. "All to the deck,? we cry; "one more homage to the dear, dear land." Below the billowy horizon she is setting; and our hearts with deep solemnity catch the words of the Quaker poet, and say,

"Land of lands, for thee we give.

Our hearts, our pray'rs, our service free;

For thee thy sons shall nobly live, And at thy need shall die for thee."