NOTE.-It is impossible to get exact reports from all the churches up to December 31. It is probable that complete statistics would have increased the total membership about 10 per cent.-H. L. (a) Approximate. (1) Statistics to July 31, 1889. (2) This mission makes up complete statistics to March 31. A part of those given above are approximate only. (3) Statistics made up to April 1, 1889. (4) No report for 1889. The figures given are mostly the same as 1888. (5) In the report of contributions for 1888 was included a donation of 30,000 yen toward the Doshisha at Kyoto. The ordinary contributions of 1889 exceed those of the previous year to the amount of 19,048.43 yen.

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The

REV. J. B. PORTER, KYOTO. It is often perplexing to a missionary to determine the best methods to be pursued in his work, especially in a country like Japan, where the available methods are so numerous. majority in this country are engaged largely in teaching the English language. To most new missionaries this is a very disappointing sort of work. But after all it is not an unworthy method. The rising generation is decidedly the telling one in Japan. It is the rising generation of young men that is influencing this nation more than any other. By showing a proper spirit, the missionary teacher exerts a strong influence for good over his pupils. It is thus possible for his influence, indirectly and in a very short time, to reach the best class of people. Preaching the gospel, however, is what the ordained missionary usually sets his heart on. There is really no joy in this world that will compare with the perfect elation of soul that the missionary often experiences when preaching Christ to this people in their own language. Especially is this true when on a tour through a country district. He visits a group of believers who have for some time had no preacher and have been without the ordinary means of grace. They will listen for hours to the missionary's discourse, hanging with breathless interest on every word he says. This is his reward.

Much of the missionary's attention (especially the evangelist missionary) is given to superintendence of work and workers. The theological schools at Tokyo and elsewhere educate young men for the ministry; the mission puts into the hands of the missionary funds with which to employ native evangelists. When this is done he must look after their

work. But this work of superintendence by foreigners is becoming more and more unnecessary and undesirable. The Japanese pastors and ordained ministers, who constitute our synod and five presbyteries, are many of them strong men, who can look after the work of their churches and evangelists much better than we can. Consequently it is becoming the policy of the missionary to preach and visit

[September,

churches only where he is invited or appointed to do so.

The Japanese are a very high-spirited people, proud of their history, and very uneasy under constraint or control if it seems to come from a foreign source. It seems to be quite evident that the time is not distant when missions and missionaries must cease to have any controlling power in the Japanese church work. As long as we furnish so much of the money used in the work, it is natural and right that we should have a voice in the management. It may be that the time is near when all the money given for direct evangelistic work in this country should be given directly to the Japanese boards, such as the Dendo Kyoku (native missionary board).

There will, however, remain much work for missionaries to do. It will be a long time before Japan is evangelized. Besides school work, which will continue to absorb a large part of the missionary force, it will always be open to the missionary to go into needy fields and help the work along, either by opening up new work and building, or assisting to build, up individual churches, or in visiting towns and holding meetings at the request of presbyteries or committees. I find that there is nothing more appreciated than house-to-house visitation. There is nothing, moreover, which does the missionary more good, for in this way he is brought into close contact with the very inner self of many persons who otherwise would be kept in the dark.

OPENING IN FUSAN.

Rev. and Mrs. H. G. Underwood, of our Korea mission, in returning from Japan, where Mr. Underwood had been superintending the printing of his Korean dictionary, stopped at Fusan, a port on the southeast coast of Korea, and wrote as follows concerning the opening there for mission work:

Fusan is the centre for the whole of this southern portion, and within a radius of five miles there are a number of villages and towns ranging from one thousand to three thousand inhabitants. There is an area of about four hundred and fifty square miles that can be visited without passport. I looked into the

1890.]

matter of houses. In the Japanese settlement there is not a house to be had. The foreign settlement is only such in name, and is a bare hill. If this were the place to settle, property would have to be bought and a house built. Treaty gives the right to buy anywhere within a radius of three miles on the outside of treaty ports, and on looking here in quite a central location we saw more than one house that could be bought. They were just outside the foreign settlement, and not more than ten minutes walk from the landing. It is a locality which will eventually be part of a town that, as trade increases, must grow up in this place. In Korea property cannot be rented, except of foreigners in Chimulpo, and hence. to purchase is the only way by which it can be obtained. Either of these places that we saw could be fitted up for a foreigner to live in. The place has grown very much during the past few years, and is continuing to do so. During the last year the income from the customs in imports and exports of this place alone have increased $500,000 over the year preceding. Trade is carried on by Japanese dealing with Koreans, who come to this port from all over the south. They appear energetic and active, and a judicious distribution of tracts and Christian literature from this point would be the means of reaching almost the whole of the southern part of Korea. I walked through two of the villages, and found the people very free to converse. A foreigner here would be free to do almost anything he wished. He has treaty rights to take in Christian books to open ports. If he were living there and wished, he could travel over the whole four hundred and fifty square miles of open territory without let or hindrance. It does seem that a station should be opened here.

THE MEIJI GAKUIN.

The Union Theological School was organized in September, 1877, by the missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, the Reformed Church in America and the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Union College was organized in June, 1883, by the missions of the American Presbyterian and the Reformed churches. In June, 1886, these institutions were united and, with the Special Department then organized, became the Meiji Gakuin. In this new institution the Union Theological School became the Jap

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anese Theological Department, the Union College the Academic Department, and the Special Department offered instruction through the medium of the English language in theology and other special studies to the graduates of the Academic Department and to others similarly qualified.

The aim of the Meiji Gakuin is to provide for its students a thorough education under Christian influences, and especially to train young men for the Christian ministry.

The institution is located at Shirokanemura, a southern suburb of Tokyo, about one mile northwest of the railway station at Shinagawa. Sandham Hall, Hepburn Hall and Harris Hall contain recitation-rooms sufficient for the two hundred and fifty students, with library and chapel, besides dormitory and dining-room accommodations for one hundred and fifty boarders. Harris Hall has been erected during the past year through the liberality of the Messrs. Harris, of Philadelphia. A theological hall will be erected during the coming summer.

The Meiji Gakuin Church has been organized during the year, and has 88 members. The whole number of Christians among the students is 129, of whom 40 have confessed Christ during the year. The total attendance of students during the year was 213.

THE RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS OF

TOKYO.

REV. THEODORE M. MACNAIR, TOKYO.

Until very recently religious newspapers held a comparatively small place as a part of the religious press of Japan. A Christian. literature including the completed Bible and a good variety of books and tracts had been provided, but in its development the periodical element was used but sparingly. The enlarged demand for this class of reading, however, has become evident with the growth of the Church, and attempts are making to cultivate and meet it. Instead of the five Tokyo papers that existed prior to 1889, there are now eighteen.

The United Church has the largest number of these, viz., five, amongst them the oldest of all and the most widely circulated. Three are representative of Congregationalism; three

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are controlled by the Methodists; the Greek and Roman Catholic bodies have one each; one is Episcopalian, one Christian, and one is published in the interests of the Bible Reading Union. Several numbers have appeared of a monthly setting forth the opinions and aims of the German Protestant mission; and now the first number of a magazine called the Unitarian is before the public. The last in point of time is the Weekly Evangelist, which is to be the principal organ of the United Church.

Of these eighteen papers three are weekly, three bimonthly and the remaining twelve monthly.

Of the Glad Tidings, begun in 1876, there are published monthly more than five thousand copies. The paper supports itself at the very low price of twenty-five cents a year. It is edited and published in connection with the United Church, but is not denominational. It has a scope similar to that of the Christian Weekly, and like it is suited to readers of various ages. The circulation of the Christian is fourteen hundred, and its price is less than one dollar a year. It was begun in 1883, and was for some time aided by a fund which the Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed and Congregational missions jointly provided. Together with it is published a religious monthly, the Universe, which is equally popular. These two papers are professedly undenominational, but their leaning is strongly toward Congregationalism; something not unnatural, the editor being a prominent Congregational pastor. The Greek Church organ was started nine years ago, and has a circulation of perhaps five hundred copies; while that of the Bible Reading Union publication is upwards of fifteen hundred. These five older papers have thus an average circulation of nearly three thousand per month, and their prices average about fifty cents a year, an average which holds as well for all the religious papers published in Tokyo.

In view of the difference between the spoken language and the language of books, and, further, of the large use made by the press of Chinese words and characters, an important question arises respecting the form in which religious literature should appear that it may

[September,

exert the largest possible influence. A man of culture is not attracted by a paper which contains only or chiefly the ordinary syllabic Japanese text, the Kana as it is called. On the other hand the common people have but little knowledge of the Chinese ideographs. Styles also differ, and it is unfortunately true that clearness and simplicity of statement are not the desideratum of most Japanese writers or readers either. What may be readily understood is thought to be lacking in depth and therefore in authority. In the religious publications a compromise is usually made so far as the text is concerned by a free use of Chinese characters with the insertion of the Japanese Kana alongside of them; while in most of the tract literature and in some of the lesser papers Chinese writing is introduced to only a very limited extent. There are, besides, a few tracts and books that are printed altogether in the colloquial for the benefit of those of little learning.

In the most successful of the periodical publications thus far, viz., the Glad Tidings, a fairly clear style is combined with the use of both the Chinese and the Japanese writing, and such a variety in material as the middle class of people, moderately well educated along the old lines, can comprehend.

The two Congregational papers, however, the Christian and the Universe, have met with considerable favor, as their influence and financial success indicates, notwithstanding their appealing chiefly to the more educated classes. Their tone is "progressive." In the words of a Japanese critic, himself a very "blue" Presbyterian, the editor seems not overfond of orthodoxy," an opinion which of course depends largely on the point of view. Biographical articles, together with a plentiful discussion of the questions of the day, including politics, are mingled with church news, comments on the Sabbath-school lessons, and such extended treatment of the theological doctrine as subscribers are likely, in the editor's thought, to profit by. The Christian is much read by Buddhist adherents who would keep themselves informed of the advance and strength of Christianity. In a recent number of the Universe there were collected the views of prominent