Hiroshima by H. F. Benson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 31, 1908

Hiroshima

By H. F. Benson

HIROSHIMA.—Five members of the Kobe church are residing in Hiroshima, and as three of them were new converts, I visited them in October, celebrating the ordinances with them. Dr. Tatsuguchi and his wife have been in Hiroshima for about four years; and as he is the only foreign trained dentist there, he has had a good opportunity to preach our truth to the most prominent natives as well as foreign residents. As the foreign population, about thirty in number, is composed mostly of missionaries and practically all of them are his patients, he has been able to reach a class of people doubtless the most reserved when approached with the special message for this time.

Dr. Tatsuguchi has taken several young men into his family, and is giving them a training in dental practise; three of these have accepted the truth, and one of them is now ready to go out and set up in practise for himself. Besides this, the doctor is holding weekly health lectures for the teachers in the higher normal school; this gives him an excellent opportunity, which he is improving, of acquainting these men with the gospel that is able to save their souls as well as preserve their bodies.

When we celebrated the ordinances, we had with us the former elder of the Nihon Kurisuto Kyokwai (native Presbyterian Church) and his wife; this was the first time they had ever observed the command regarding the ordinance of humility, but after a study with them upon the subject, they were ready to take part willingly and intelligently. Because this man and his wife have been attending the Friday evening meetings which the doctor has been holding, the church to which they belonged appointed another to take the eldership; but the church attendance and membership have dwindled down to almost nothing since he has ceased to be their elder. This man accepted Christianity about twenty-five years ago; at that time the conditions in Japan were much different from the present. He was persecuted by the people of the town in most cruel ways; his house was attacked, and his life was more than once in danger. He says that Christianity is dying out in Japan because there is no longer strong persecution.

Hiroshima is a city of one hundred fifty thousand inhabitants, situated on the famous Inland Sea of Japan, and is the point from which all soldiers and supplies are shipped in the event of an invasion of a foreign country. The hospitals,—countless low, one-story frame buildings with metal roofs,—which were filled to overflowing during the late war, and the thousands of small, thickly set stones in the military cemetery, tell an awful tale of destruction of life. In the harbor lies the island on which the Russian prisoners were kept, and in one corner of the military cemetery a few stones bear an inscription in Russian, and a cross,—all silent reminders of the terrible struggle between the armies of two great nations for the possession of the Liaotung Peninsula.

One of my purposes in going to Hiroshima was to look over the place with the view of locating there (since returning it has been voted that we make Hiroshima our field of labor). The city is one of the most formidable Buddhist strongholds in Japan, and without doubt there will be some time between our arrival and the baptism of our first convert. But many honest-hearted souls are waiting for the truth, and will accept it when it is presented to them in the right way; and as the violent, Christian-persecuting Pharisee, Saul, became the meek, non-resisting, persecuted Christian, Paul, so we may expect to see some of these most zealous Buddhists become staunch Christians. The work in Hiroshima needs your prayers. H. F. BENSON.