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AT HOME AND ABROAD
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A LOOK OV E R T H E F I E L D
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A MERICAN journalists in Japan are sending home picturesque accounts of the Japanese “Billy” Sunday. Japan has often been called imitative, and this Japan ese preacher has quite openly and confess edly appropriated the' methods and man ners which impresed him when he listened to Mr. Sunday in the United States. The man in question is Rev. H. S. Ki- mura, whose work has been a special ob ject of prayer and contributions at the hands of the Fishermen’s Club of the Bible Insti tute of Los Angeles. Mr. Kimura is a graduate of Moody In stitute in Chicago and an ordained minister of the Church of Christ in Japan, which in cludes all the mission work of the. various Presbyterian boards in that empire. Mr. Ki mura knew Dwight L. Moody, and after his ordination sought to carry Moody’s evangelistic spirit into all his-work. In the years he has been preaching in Japan he has been unusually successful in drawing his unevangelized countrymen into the Christian church. He therefore entered with very great enthusiasm into the plans initiated by John R. Mott on his last visit to Japan for a national evangelistic campaign of three years’ duration ill Japanese cities and towns. But having heard of “Billy” Sunday’s work in America, especially the Pittsburgh cam paign of last year, Mr. Kimura determined to see what of new ways and means he could learn from Sunday for application in this great Christianizing effort in his own land. He arrived in this country in time to hear Sunday preach in Denver last autumn, and was overpOweringly impressed by the force of the sermons he listened to. To study the American further, Kimura followed Sunday to Des Moines and heard him in every ser mon of his campaign there for three weeks.
Then he started back to Japan. In.April he was ready to begin work on a new basis —completely “Sundayized.” A great tént which he secured he pitched in the imme diate vicinity,of the houses of parliament in Tokyo, and there he has been preaching since, engaging the constantly increasing at tention of the people of Tokyo.# The Rev. Mr. Taylor writes to the Mis sionary Bulletin from Tzeliutsing, China: “Among other things, I teach singing iff the school. Out of thirty-odd boys there are only three who can carry a tune any dis tance without letting it fall and break in pieces. You cannot imagine what a treat it was to have a band of four black Miaos, an aboriginal tribe from Kweichow Pro vince, come to visit our station on their way up to Chengtu. These people have had a great revival sweep over their province, and souls by the thousands have turned to Christ They have not only the music of a new life in their hearts, but have naturally, like the negroes, the voices to express it. Well, these four men, all poor as Job’s tur keys financially, but rich in the true riches, just poured out their souls in song at the Chinese prayer meeting. It was a great treat to us foreigners who were so used to hearing these same grand old tunes of the Church so mercilessly, yet so innocently, butchered. Celestials may sing, but their singing, as a rule, is not celestial. I recall a native evangelist undertaking to lead the singing at an outstation. Well, he led it— astray!” A missionary writing from China says: “One feels sure that every bit of capital invested now, of money or time or thought or prayer, is going to bring big dividends.
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