p. 17 | Progress of the Message in Lower Japan

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 22, 1910

Progress of the Message in Lower Japan

By W. L. FOSTER.

AFTER seven and one-half months of earnest work, we were compelled, on account of my wife's health, to seek a cooler place for the summer. Now we can see how the Lord was leading us.

Soon after reaching Nagasaki, an old Japanese lady began to keep the Sabbath. She has been present at every meeting from that time to this, and has just asked for baptism. As time passed, I learned something of her history, and found that she was once the wife of a daimio (feudal lord), and had long been a Christian.

There was once a noble Japanese whose title was “Wakasa no Kami.” In the course of his duties as guard of Nagasaki harbor, he found a little Dutch New Testament floating on the water. He learned enough from its beautiful contents to fill him with a deep longing for more, so he sent a man to China for a Chinese translation.

All this occurred before Christianity had gained entrance into Japan. He was the first to accept Christ, and our aged sister is his daughter. She understands some things which we do not; for her faith was very precious to her in those early times, even during the days of great persecution. She is the oldest living Christian in Japan.

We are now holding a series of tent-meetings here in this illustrious old landmark in the history of Japanese missions. Our canvassers have been doing quite well, but there is a great lack of suitable literature. The meetings were opened only one week ago, but we have already received the names of twenty-five inviting us to their homes to teach them, and several have asked for baptism.

Before opening the meetings, we distributed twenty thousand invitations, and the attendance is good in spite of bad weather. We gave one of the daily papers an account of our meetings, and the same day the leading reporter, an educated man, who said he and his family are Christians, asked Brother H. Kuniya to come and teach them. Then the typesetter became interested, and his family is studying to know the better way. A merchant came from his native island on business, and was staying in a small hotel near the place where we pitched our tent. He subscribed for the paper, has been taking all the time he could with us for study, and has invited us to open up work at once in his island of ten thousand houses, where Christianity entered for the first time last year. There are at present pressing calls for help from all points of the compass.

I hope this winter will mark such a grand change in our work in this country that no one will ever be tempted even to think that we have spent a dollar in vain for Japan. Our people are becoming thoroughly awake, and are working for souls from the extreme south to a thousand miles north.

I remember hearing, several years ago, the calls for the Orient, but I did not know how much the writers meant by what they said. But if you, my brethren, are ever called upon to stand in a place like this, you will know, as I have learned to know, what these calls mean. Japan feels the deep moving of God's Spirit as never before. We long to be always where we shall hear his voice when he calls.

W. L. FOSTER.