T

HE eldest son. of Our old Ainu chief Monokuté, whose patriarchal portrait appears with this article, had been ill for about a year with lung-trouble, that scourge the Ainu of northern Hokkaido. Under the efficient ministrations of the C. M. S. trained nurse, Miss Evans, now officially in charge of the Ainu work here, he had partially recovered and would have no doubt completely regained his health, had he not returned to the drink habit which during his illness he had given up. When I first saw him, he was a living skeleton, if you can think of a skeleton as very black and hairy. With his little daughter who is a member of our household, fitting herself little by little to become a Bible-woman, I hope, among her own people, I visited him several times in his hut in the neighboring Ainu village of Chikabumi, where he lay stretched out beside the long open fire-place in which great logs always burn and smoke. As he had professed conversion during his first illness, it was a great grief to me to see the idolatrous prayer-sticks, inao, the shaved willow stick with the shavings left on, the old Ainu fetish and emblem of the god of the hearth, stuck in the ashes by his fire. I tried to show him that if he believed in the one true God, he could not at the same time worship his old Ainu gods. But he received this with that stolid indifference so characteristic of the Ainu men. Kosange, the wife of the sick man, who up to this time I had credited with having some faith, once after singing with great fervor "Jesus loves me, Jésu en Omap," was found stroking a carved bear head and crooning to herself: “but the bear is Omap too!"

I could not bear to see the man going down into the dark valley unsaved, and when exprisoner and Evangelist Koji was our guest, knowing his great power in presenting Christ to the ignorant, I begged him to go out with me to see the poor fellow. Being a man from southern Japan he was entirely ignorant of Ainu customs, and was perfectly amazed to hear that the great bear cub in his cage at the door of the hut was the chief god of the Ainu and was being fed and nourished in preparation for its sacrifice at the bear-feast soon to be held in the village.

I had not time to tell him about the prayersticks or other Ainu customs, before he was engaged in earnest prayer and exhortation with the sick man who to my delight responded after some time by an audible prayer repeated after Mr. Koji, in which he promised to give up the bear-worship and call on the Lord Jesus only. Mr. Koji was entirely satisfied with this result, but I shook my head and pointing to the prayer-sticks at the head of the sick man I said: "You see, he still has his prayersticks." "What!" said Mr. Koji, "do you mean he worships a thing like that!" and suiting the action to the word (to my surprise and no little anxiety) he pulled up the prayersticks out of the hearth and holding them in his hand addressed the sick man as follows:

"My dear man, I see this is an old custom of yours, and no doubt hard to give up, but unless you do, you certainly can't expect God to save you, soul or body. They that trust in idols throw away their own salvation' (Jonah 5:8 Jap. version)."

"Yes," I said, "that is just it and I have told you that so often. Do listen now, Shitomba, and throw them into the fire and then God can answer our prayers for you."

But the only response from the sick man was a dull "Iya da!" "I don't want to." Then Mr. Koji said: "Well, perhaps it's too much to expect you to burn them, but suppose you give them to me and I will take them away with me." To this the sick man replied, "Yoroshi!" "All right!" Then indeed we had a prayer of thanksgiving. At this moment the wife, Kosange, returning from an errand entered the hut. Believing her to be really a Christian at heart and sure of her sympathy I cried out joyfully: "Look Kosange, the prayer-sticks are gone, Shitomba has given them to Mr. Koji to take home with him." But to my surprise her face flushed angrily and starting to her feet she cried: "What! take the prayer-sticks out of our hut! Never!" And striding wrathfully up to Mr. Koji, she snatched up the prayer-sticks and stuck them up into the thatched side of the hut, high above Mr. Koji's head. I was dumb-founded. So we began all over again and after another hour's pleading, praying, teaching, reminding, she seemed to be softened. Then came the

Then indeed we offered our songs of thanksgiving with a full heart.

This was on November 17th. The next day I went to the hut again with the sick man's daughter. Our errand this time was with Monokuté, the old chief. For, one reason for the wife's great opposition the day before was the fear of her father-in-law's displeasure at the disappearance of the prayer-sticks, for it was he, the old chief, who had consecrated and set them up, and who, for the matter of that, could set up new ones. So it was most important to come to a definite understanding with him, too.

Now Monokuté too had often heard the truth. But Monokuté too "feared the Lord and served his own gods." Now however the crisis had come, his son had decided, and he must at least be prevented from shaking his son's resolution to call on the Lord Jesus only. It was his habit, in accordance with the strong family affection that exists among the Ainu, to visit his son daily, and soon after our arrival at the hut, he appeared. After he had got rid of his great burden, and had warmed himself at the fire and had given me his usual ceremonious but very friendly greetings (for we have always been friends and he is every inch a gentleman), I drew his attention to the empty place where the prayer-sticks had been and told him the whole wonderful story of his son's great resolve, and then urged him as gently and tactfully as I could with much inward prayer, not to set up any new ones. I waited, expecting an outburst of anger, for the Ainu are passionate, and a vital spot had been touched. But instead the old man raised his noble head and looking at me with a gentle

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friendly expression, said very impressively and quietly: "Mo iremasenu," "I will not set up any more." He then listened with evident pleasure as we sang "Jésu en Omap" and at the close uttered a prayer, after me, expressing his trust in the Lord Jesus, and his desire to follow Him only.

Three days after this the old chief suddenly died. To us his death following so soon after what was in effect his confession of faith, was a cause of joy and thanksgiving. But to the Ainu of the village it came as the punishment of the gods for his acquiescence in the burning of the prayer-sticks, the report of which had quickly spread abroad. Great were the lamentations over him and still greater and more bitter the opposition stirred up against the "Jesus teaching." This rose to excitement and tumult when just ten days later his son, Shitombo, the sick man, followed him. His widow Kosanjé, turned against us, some of his relatives attacked the Christian Ainu rest-house recently erected by Miss Evans' efforts and terrified the Ainu Bible woman in charge. A young Christian Ainu girl was persecuted and tumbled roughly into the deep snow. Bear-feasts were held in quick succession, some six within a week, and fourteen more are still to follow. Loud were the regrets that both the chief and his son had been taken just before the happy feasts began at which they would have had the choicest portion of bear-meat and the biggest bowls of white millet wine!

But we are rejoicing that they were taken in the undimmed lustre of their faith and escaping the fiery trial that these wine-feasts would have brought them.

T

HE Christian Church in Japan was born

in the Christian school and it is but natural that a nation which has taken to education like Japan has will not be influenced very profoundly by any religion which is not in spirit and endeavor deeply educational. But it is an open secret that while mission schools once occupied a very prominent place in Japan's educational system they are today hopelessly behind the state schools. Not that they have not made progress, but that the state schools have reached such a high grade of excellency that there is hardly any room for comparison. Christian girls' schools, it is true, still hold their own with the state schools but that is due largely to the fact that the Government has not pushed higher education for women and because the mission schools offer almost as high a course of studies as the daughters of Japan care to take. In schools for boys and young men, however, things stand quite differently. With the exception of the theological schools the mission schools for boys are largely of only a high school grade. A number of these have so-called college departments but these in point of the number of students attending are practically a failure; the students taking this course being confined largely to those who expect to study for the ministry in our seminaries. The great majority of our graduates, from the high schools, or middle schools, as we call them in Japan, who pursue their studies, leave us and enter either a Government Koto School which is preparatory to the imperial universities or they enter some commercial or business college. And to enter these schools is to enter an atmosphere which is usually deadly as far as the Christian life is concerned, for most state schools are either extremely indifferent or antagonistic to religion in general and Christianity in particular. It goes without saying, of course, that the Christian Church of Japan cannot look to the state schools either to provide it with Christian leaders for the various walks of life or to render any assistance whatever in the propagation of Christian ideals and principles.

The problem, then, that confronts the Christian educator in Japan is not a little one. It is, in short, to build up a system of higher education under Christian auspices which shall provide the Church with its Christian scholars, doctors, lawyers, statesmen, business men and leaders in all walks of life. To this problem Christian educators in Japan are addressing themselves now with special zeal. The impetus received from the Edinburg Conference has added to the zeal. A body of representative men have prepared a careful statement of some 6,000 words in which are set forth the conditions of the educational world in Japan and the imperative need for a system of Christian schools of a higher grade to be crowned with a first-class Christian university.

Space does not permit me to give even an outline of this statement but it shows conclusively that if Christianity is ever to really mould the thought of this empire and govern its ideals, it will have to do something very strenuous to supplement the state system of schools which is so woefully lacking in instilling in the hearts of the student world any higher ideals of life. A nation so given to education and which looks with such profound respect to the seats of learning for guidance will not be deeply influenced by Christianity unless it offers facilities for training Christian leaders who shall mould the ideals and thoughtlife of the people.

The Buddhists are recognizing the importance of educated leaders and in the past ten years have developed a number of higher institutions of learning. If Buddhism with its fourteen centuries of history in Japan and with the great mass of the people its hereditary adherents feels the need of this forward movement in education, what shall we say of Christianity with only fifty years of history and but a few hundred thousand adherents? The answer given by thoughtful men today is that we need a well coordinated system of Christian schools crowned with a first-class Christian university.