THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 21 January 1939, Page 11

THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

DR. KAGAWA AT HOME I (By Rev. A. M. Chirgwin, M.A.. in "The British Weekly”) Kagawa lives, as you would expect in a modest house amongst working people. His home used to be in the heart of the slums, and his health drove him to the outskirts of the city where he could get sunshine and fresh air. 1 It took me just an hour, first by bus and then by electric train, to get there i : from the centre of Tokyo. A notice about church services showed me that 1 1 I was getting near. and in a few j , minutes I found a little wooden house ' half hidden among the trees. Judged by European standards, it was not only ; j a modest but a tiny place. The door, which was merely paper j stuck on a wooden frame, slid back as j 1 arrived, and there stood Mrs Kagawa j bowing and smiling. I took off my j ; shoes at the entrance, and slipped on ; the sandals that were waiting. By this ! time Dr. Kagawa appeared and shook , i me warmly by the hand, saying, "It is , j 14 years since I saw you in London." j | and added with a wry smile, alluding ] to his trachoma. “They won’t have me | there now.” "MODERN ST. FRANCIS” j i I followed him throuugh a narrow I j passage into his study, about the sizt j I of a student's room in college, but .with- j ! out any armchair. The place was lined with books from floor to wooden j ceiling, and on the desk, above a pile i I of papers, was a well-thumbed New Testament. I knew 1 was standing on | holy ground. For in this tiny room. J set among the homes of working peoi pic. this modern St. Francis prepared himself for his great evangelistic campaigns and wrote the books that move the world "Take off your coat; it’s hot.” ht J said, and put me to sit in his own desk chair. For nearly two hours we sat in ; our shirt-sleeves and talked. I knew he had been ill. and it was n pleasant surprise to find how much better he looked than I expected. He said lie had had a motor accident and had hurt his back, but that he found some relief in bathing in the hot sulphur springs in the mountains. He seemed to be stouter than when I saw him last, and when he took my arm, as we walked afterwards to the gate. I could tell that his was firm and even muscular. It is a standing miracle how this man. riddled with inherited disease. with less than one lung, and with only the partial sight of one eye. gets the strength for all his work. While he spoke I watched his large mouth and strong chin, and I noticed that every now and then his eyes looked far away, and he seemed to forget that anyone was in the room. Like j Galahad, he can see what is denied to | lesser men. But Kagawa is more than • a mystic; he is essentially a practical : man. He edits a journal, runs a cheche. ! guides labour unions, organises rural co-operatives, discusses crop improvement, interviews officials, writes books, and conducts evangelistic campaigns. For all his mystic vision he is practical ' to the finger-tips. A LIFE OF CHRIST In a few minutes Mrs Kagawa brought iii little bowls of tea. and as we drank it Kagawa told me of his latest project He is writing a life of Christ in fiction form. Mr Ogawa. his ; friend and colleague, who cainc in just then, waxed enthusiastic about this ' venture. The Japanese, he said, are a reading people, and they will read anything Dr. Kagawa writes. This book is sure to be a best seller, and its pro- ! fits will help to finance some ot ' Kagawa’s many schemes. Kagawa him- 1 self takes nothing but a mere wage. ; He lives and will die a poor man. j Of course we talked of the SinoJapanese War. “It was a tragedy,”' Kagawa said, "that the Anglo-. Japanese . alliance was brought to an end, and aL equal tragedy that Bolshevism has so ! much power We Japanese are miser-1 able about the war. We have to put on j a courageous front, and to shout and wave flags, but in our hearts we are sad and miserable. What Japan needs . is redemption and remission of her J sins, and I have just come to that chap- 1 ter in my ‘Life of Christ.’ ”

He spoke, os he always does, in short, staccato sentences. “Japan can’t win.” he said. "Nobody can. If the war goes on it will end in the collapse ot both countries. Some way must be found to fc'.ig it to an end before exhaustion comes.” "Has the time come for Christian people as such to take steps to prepare \be way for peace?” I asked. "Not yet,” was his reply. "Just now it would serve no good purpose, and might do harm. Let the Christian* on both sides pray without ceasing. The day of peace will come when it is least expected. It will come by prayer and fasting, and fasting not merely from food but also from political methods.” BAD TIME FOR PREACHERS I asked him about his evangelistic work and the effect of the war upon it. “The people’s minds are too distracted for preaching to be much good,” he replied * Like the French, we are an excitable people, and we sw'ing like a penlulum. One day we follow Voltaire, the next we go after Napoleon.” “I get the chance to do evangelistic work through the co-operatives,” he went on. “There are six and a half million members, and many of them come to the preaching when I go round to them. Also, 1 write religious articles in the journal that is circulated to nearly half a million of them. But there is less evangelistic work than a year ago and fewer baptisms. I am hoping my ’Life of Christ’ will make up for this.” He gave it as his view that the chance for preaching will come soon. "A great change has taken place in the army,” he said. “They are realising the need for moral strength, and are I asking Christian pastors to go and 1 speak to the men from time to time." ]

AT MADRAS We spoke of the Madras Conference, to which he had been invited as a delegate. "It will be very difficult for us from Japan.” he said. "People do not | consider that this is a time for spending money, and it may do the Christian cause harm if many of us go.” We talked of many things, some of which it would not be wise to mention here. Then we knelt in prayer, and I knew at once the source of this man's power. He is a man of prayer. However great he may be in the pulpit, he is much greater on his knees. You can tell it in the beautiful tone of his voice. He is so sure of God. There in that | little book-lined room he prayed for j China and Japan, for the leaders and J the common people, and especially for | the Christian folk on both sides of the struggle, for Britain and America, for all missionaries, and "especially those of the London Missionary Society." In a few minutes I had put ou my

shoes again, taken a snapshot of Dr. and Mrs Kagawa at thefr back and was en my way back to the train praising God for this high-hearted man