VERBECK OF JAPAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2719, 25 April 1906, Page 76

VERBECK OF JAPAN.

By Jessie Mackay. m. Though a military coup had forced the Shogun's adbication, the movement was really a students' revolution. But much bloodshed and turmoil followed the flight of the ex-Shogun in 1868. Little cohesion was in the newborn State as yet. The main object hud been to make the Mikado sole ruler, but few knew what to do next ; the new Government was weak ; a strong anti-foreign element came to the top in Tokio ; it seemed as if the ' labours of Verbeck and other brave missionaries were to be thrown away. Verbeck himself was in little danger, however; he had too many friends on bath sides. In point of fact, almost the first act of the new Government was to call him fjjom Nagasaki, his home for nine years past, 'to lake charge of a larger school at Tokio, the capital. This was again owing to the student revolutionaries. And so Verbeck removed to the city which, with brief intermissions, was the scene of thirty years of his life's labour. Notwithstanding the threatening front of the anti-foreign faction, he held to his post at Tokio, teaching and translating his text -books at the same time. In the following year he sketched out the whole aims, route, and organisation of that great embassy to America and Europe which afterwards was despatched at his instartc, with results well known in the marvellous development of the new empire. The work of translation alone would have been one scholar's work, covering as it did volumes of law and jx*'itical economy, as well as catechisms ;/d portions of the Bible. | Great c!((mges were passing over Japan. By the end of 1869 the civil war was over; and the great makers of the new kingdom had a freer hand. The lead was taken by four patriotic men, whose aim it was to abolish feudalism and create national unity. These men were Iwakura, Kido, Okubo, airl Okuma. Of these the first was Verbeck's friend, the last was his pupil. In all these lightning changes Verbeck_ had the ear of Iwakura, and was consulted point by point on the policy which was destined to raise Japan to the status of a Western nation. The- daimibs felt the strong hand. Some had already cast in their iot with the reformers from conviction ; others yielded to the logic of circumstances, and formally resigned their feudal rights to the Mikado, who reinstated them as princes, but on a totally new basis. A rage for all things Western set in. Ne wspapers sprang up ; the shops were full of foreign* gcods ; foreign dress alternated with native, often grotesquely enough. Japanese of highest rank set out ' to travel 11 estward. What pleased Mr Verbeck most was that he was authorised to ask for "missionaries," though as yet only as teachers (thfi- shrewd people had seen the difference between the conscientious, j well -prepared missionary teacher and the j untrustworthy specimens of secular scholar- | ship who offered themselves, but fell away from duty among the manifold attractions of this new-found Lotus Eaters' Paradise). Among the teachers thus sent by _ the I American churches was William Griffis, j afterwards the author of many standard works on Japan, and Verbeck's biographer. In 1871 the groat embassy to the West get out. These high personages wrote back their impressions. One of the first results j was the swift disappearance of all edicts ag.unst Chiistianity. The envoys had soon discovered that the admired stability ar.d scope of Western institutions had their roots in the religion of the West. From this time the sneers of Confucianism a-nd j the active malice of Buddhism were powerless against the spread of Christianity. Happily, also, it did not fall into the Charybdis that almost engulfed primitive Christianity when Conttantine made it the State religion of his empire. Under the many teachers and sects which have run a golden network through Japan, the new faith has had normal conditions in which to develop; and with fluctuating but on the ■ whole remarkable success has stood up nobly against th« two evils which were eatin j the h^art out of the nation — commercial , immorality and social immorality. Japan, as everyone >no\rs, owned thrw religions, or , &*ther systems of worship. These were the Biick]h sr. the Confucian, and Siin-to sj'S-t-ems. Of these the Buddist, or State religion, ah/ne could ever have been called a religion as we understand the word; and

most that had! once been spiritual, or ai least moral, in that had -long since disappeared under the rule of perhaps the laziest and most corrupt priesthood that" ever disgraced the earth. It was this priesthood that organised the hideous peree-t cutions of the seventeenth century. Cony fucianism is not, and never was, a religion, but a prosy and at times childish collec1 tion of maxims and observances for daily conduct, which doubtless at one time "had {.some kind of elevating effect on the primitive Mongolian mind. There are those-, ' however, who count Confucianism as a worse enemy to progress than even BuddY hism, owing to its systematic degradation ! of women. The Shin-to, which is really ' the faith that holds the mind of Japaa _ most firmly, is a mixture of nature and 1 ancestor- worship, peculiarly agreeable to ' tha proud testhetic little people. The three ; religions contrived to dwell in tolerable" ! amity, as they overlapped so much that it I was- possible to support all three without . much more difficulty than a professing Chis1 tian might have in remaining .a^shelUKmncß 1 Tory in politics "and -dabbling infspiritual- ; ism. As the missionaries 'have-put it, Confucius, but more particularly Shin-tbj' had : the Japanese in life. Buddiha had him, in j death, a saying- originating in the great j elaboration of Buddhistic funeral' ceremony.' _ ' None of these systems had atte&rpted to ■ stem ,the flagrant 'Immorality' f_pf~ '.'Japan ; , but happily' 'much has .Keen don© in this d'xe'et/ion by the many Christian sects now at work in the empire. Not the least point in Verbeck's political influence was the importance he attached to a perfect system of military preparation. It may be tha.t some will blame him for not urging the boating of the sword of the samurai into plough shares; but" "that ~ seamed not good to the son of the men who fought Alva and 1 stemmed tho armies of the i fJrand Monarch. Had it seemed good to f Japan in those days, the Jiairrowi and cor- - : rupt despotism of Holy .Russia would be ', now enthroned- .at Tokio,' instcadrofj the j enlightened Govermneiit , ,of the Mikado ; and either all -Europe had .been in a blaze, or the chain, had' been, rjveted on the^.neck: of the Russian people fdir yet Another generation, ajjd the open door of the East - been closed. > r ''>" After -the Herculean labours" of fourteen , years, Guido Verbeck now. took » brief"furiough in Europe and Aineriea during.lß73. ' (To be- continued:) -" ' '<•