p. 250 | MISSION FIELD NOTES by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 19, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 16.

MISSION FIELD NOTES.

By Editor

THE newspapers of Japan do not give the most encouraging reports of the proceedings of the recent Parliament to those who desire to see Japan a self-governing country. About a year ago Japan's House of Representatives elected, with what was said to be remarkable unanimity, a president, whom it has now expelled with a two-thirds vote. This was not because of any change in the character of this official, because his opponents bear strong testimony both as to his ability and the manner in which he has discharged his duties. His expulsion seems to have been brought about wholly through political entanglements, and the proceedings of the Parliament thus far show that Japan is hardly equal to the test of self-government. There is another thing which has also been manifest in the recent Parliament, and that is that there is a determination to keep foreigners from residing outside the treaty ports. One of the bills recently introduced contains the following provision: "Any Japanese subject who, by any device whatsoever, holds land in trust for an alien, shall be liable to major imprisonment for not less than one day and not more than one year, with a fine of not less than twenty yen and not more than two hundred yen." The bill further provides similar penalties for those who hold buildings in trust for foreigners.

THE Government of Turkey has at last consented to permit women to practice medicine in that empire. This has come about largely through the efforts of the United States Minister. The first lady to avail herself of this privilege is Dr. Mary P. Eddy, of the American Presbyterian Board, whose medical diploma has been indorsed by Turkish authorities. She will practice medicine in Syria. This permission will doubtless be granted to others.

IN a recent work issued by the Fleming H. Revell Company, entitled "Reality versus Romance in South Central Africa," the writer, James Johnson, M.D., who has made the journey across South Africa from ocean to ocean, unaccompanied by white men, and without firing a shot, presents some friendly criticisms on "self-supporting" and "faith missions." He thinks that the whole scheme is a grand mistake, and says that his preconceived ideas of Bishop Taylor's missions and those of the Plymouth Brethren in Central Africa, received a great shock. He feels that they can in no sense be called successful.

MANY of our readers know how favorably the rose-colored reports of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism were received at the Parliament of Religions, and the speakers of the representatives of those great religions were many times cheered to the echo. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, in an address at a missionary anniversary in Exeter Hall, London, November 1 of last year, tells quite a different story. She says:—

I think we are getting into a sort of milk-and-water view of heathenism, not of African heathenism alone, but of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism also, which prevail in Asia. Missionaries come home, and they refrain from shocking audiences by recitals of the awful sins of the heathen and Moslem world. When traveling in Asia it struck me very much how little we hear, how little we know, as to how sin is enthroned and deified and worshiped. There is sin and shame everywhere. Mohammedanism is corrupt to the very core. The morals of Mohammedan countries, perhaps in Persia in particular, are corrupt, and the imaginations very wicked. How corrupt Buddhism is! How corrupt Buddhists are! It is an astonishment to find that there is scarcely a single thing that makes for righteousness in the life of the unchristianized nations. There is no public opinion interpenetrated by Christianity which condemns sin or wrong. There is nothing except the conscience of some few who are seeking after God "lest haply they might feel after Him who is not far from every one of us." And over all this seething mass of sin and shame and corruption hovers "the ruler of the darkness of this world," rejoicing in the chains with which he has bound two-thirds of the human race.

As to the effect which Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism have upon the women of the oriental countries, take the following from Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, who has seen these results with her own eyes:—

Just one or two remarks as to what these false faiths do. They degrade women with an infinite degradation. I have lived in zenanas and harems, and have seen the daily life of the secluded women, and I can speak from bitter experience of what their lives are,—the intellect dwarfed, so that the woman of twenty or thirty years of age is more like a child of eight intellectually, while all the worst passions of human nature are stimulated and developed in a fearful degree, jealousy, envy, murderous hate, intrigue, running to such an extent that in some countries I have hardly ever been in a woman's house or near a woman's tent without being asked for drugs with which to disfigure the favorite wife's infant son. This request has been made to me nearly two hundred times. This is only an indication of the daily life, of whose miseries we think so little, and which is a natural product of the systems that we ought to have subverted long ago.