Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



557 



JAPAN AND RELIGION. 



COUNT OKU MA ON 

 CHRISTIANITY. 



The International Review of Missions pub- 

 lishes a statement by the Japanese statesman, 

 Count Okuma, on Christianity in Japan. He 

 says : — 



Although Christianity has enrolled less than 200,000 

 believers, yet the indirect influence of Christianity has 

 poured into every realm of Japanese life. It has been 

 borne to us on all the currents of European civilisation ; 

 most of all the English language and literature, so sur- 

 charged with Christian ideas, has exerted a wide and 

 deep influence over Japanese thought. Christianity has 

 affected us not only in such superficial ways as the legal 

 observance of Sunday, but also in our ideals concern- 

 ing political institutions, the family, and woman's 

 station. Even our lighter literature, such as fiction and 

 the newspapers, betrays the influence of Anglo-Saxon 

 and German literature and personalities. Not a few 

 ideals in Japan which are supposed to have been derived 

 from Chinese literature are in reality due to European 

 literature. The Chinese influence may still supply the 

 forms, but the soul has come from Christianity. 

 Japanese law to-day is more closely related to Europe 

 than to China. This is noticeably true in the case of 

 our revised law codes, for although our social structure 

 still revolves around the family, yet our laws are in- 

 creasingly recognising the sacredness and worth of the 

 individual, which is pre-eminently a Christian ideal. 



RELIGION ONE AND INDESTRUCTIBLE. 



Count Okuma thinks that doubt and criticism 

 only destroy the forms, the wrappings of re- 

 lig-ion, and enable the vital centre to burst out 

 and grow and propagate itself : — 



The bond between God and man is imbedded in 

 human nature beyond power of criticism to destroy it. 



It is an inspiring thought that the true religious 

 ideals and experience of all races and peoples are bound 

 to persist ant' to form in time one noble and compre- 

 hensive whole. 



We can take courage as we approach nearer and 

 nearer to an era of religious concord and of mutual 

 recognition of the truth which each race possesses. When 

 that era fully comes the kingdom of God will be here. 



The consciousness of immortality, of our relation to 

 the unseen powers of the spiritual world, is ineradicable 

 and universal. It is as foolish to talk of the religious 

 sense being extirpated as of man's appetite for food 

 being destroj-ed. Man always has stretched out and 

 always will after the infinite and the eternal. 



LIFE, NOT LABEL. 



Count Okuma would regard not a little of 

 Christ's teaching and of the miraculous in His 

 life as subordinate and optional : — 



The controversy whether Christ was God or man is to 

 me irrelevant. What I want is to know about His central 

 teachings ; to come into contact with His superlative 

 character and to understand His strange power to draw 

 and inspire men. His miracles and His metaphysical 

 nature are bypaths ; the main road is His character and 

 His principles of love and service and brotherhood. 



So Shakamuni. His aim, like that of the 

 Christ, was the salvation of mankind. 



TO ASIA THROUGH JAPAN. 



Count Okuma would advise all Christian 

 workers to study Japanese history and ethics. 

 He believes it is Japan's mission to make a large 

 contribution towards the blending of the East 

 and the West, and the Christian movement in 

 Japan should conceive its mission in some such 

 spirit. Just as Christianity influenced northern 

 Europe by way of Rome, so should Christianity 

 influence Asia by way of Japan, for Japan will 

 bring up the backward races of Asia : — 



Japan is now in the main current of the world's life. 

 She is bound to become an active factor in it, and at 

 this juncture Christianity must strive to adapt itself to 

 the actual present needs of Japan, must keep pace with 

 the nation's growth, and must help to guide her in this 

 time of stress and transition. I earnestly hope that all 

 branches of Christianity may get into closer co-opera- 

 tion, and may together tackle the great problems before 

 them. 



RELIGION NECESSARY TO EDUCATION. 



Count Okuma expresses his concern about the 

 moral education of Japanese youth. Intellectual 

 education is not enough : — 



Unfortunately the ethical instruction given according 

 to the direction of the Department of Education is 

 shallow — it urges patriotism and loyalty without giving 

 a reasonable and fundamental motive for them. It is 

 not thorough-going. At the same time it is too abstract. 

 Youth needs practical, concrete morality and inspiration 

 by contact with noble, unselfish teachers. Of course it 

 is impossible to introduce religion formally into the 

 schools, but outside of school religion should have free 

 play and be presented earnestly by intelligent exponents, 

 for religion is an indispensable factor in complete man- 

 hood. 



COREA : A CONFUCIAN POLITY. 



Writing of Corea, the old and the new, an 

 anonymous author in the Economic Review says 

 that to Japan belongs the credit of having begun 

 to unwind the Confucian shroud of the Corean 

 people, and she has now taken upon her 

 shoulders the full measure of the civilised man's 

 burden there. She does so at a moment when 

 big political units are again the order of the 

 day, and when democracy is not a little dis- 

 counted ; but also at a moment when nations 

 who take upon themselves the management of 

 other nations' afi^airs cannot escape fierce 

 criticism. 



Education is being pushed apace, and a 

 report gives the number of private schools which 

 had obtained Government recognition in 1909 

 as 2,187, including two high schools, three tech- 

 nical, 1,353 miscellaneous, and 829 maintained 

 by missionaries — somewhat of a cross classifica- 

 tion. The private school returns for May, 1910, 



