T H E F A R H O R I Z O N A Glance at the Field at Home and Abroad
MISSIONS AT HOME The immensity of the und ertak ing to Christianize th e cities in America is reflected in th e experience which may come to a man who notes th e persons of different nation alities m et in one week. On Monday morning a Rouman ian ash-man cleaned his cellar and a Pole whitewashed its walls. A Hollan der pruned his vines; a German plumber came to stop a leak in his bathroom , and th is m an’s helper was a Dane. He remembered th a t his cook was a Swede and th e w aitress was a Norwegian. As he left his home for his office a seam stress entered to help his wife. She was a Belgian and the man who was painting his fron t fence was from Switzerland. He left his laund ry w ith a Chinaman. L ater he visited his Russian tailo r, ordered groceries of a Welchman, m eat of a Scotchman, and purchased his fish din ner of a F renchm an. As he- waited for an electric car an Italian vegetable man passed, while he was talk ing w ith an Irish policeman. The next day he bought some hardw are from an Armen ian, and learned th a t his m ilkman was a Lapp, and his cobbler was a H un garian. T h at evening a Philippine bell boy showed him to a room in a hotel and h e learned th a t among its w aiters were Slovaks, Greeks and Servians. The next day he lunched in a Turkish resta u ra n t, engaged a Syrian to mend his rugs, and purchased two more of an A rmenian. In th e afternoon he m et by accident a college classmate, a Bul garian who introduced him to a Monte negrin. The following Sunday he m et a Cuban a t church and found a Mex ican, a B razilian, a L ithuanian, a Peruv ian, and a H aitian in a popular Sunday-
school class. T h at evening a Japanese m erch an t and his fam ily attended serv ice, and he learned th a t th e Portugese sexton had died and a Canadian had tak en his place. Soon a fte r th is, in an early train , he counted tw enty-eight passengers in th e car. F ou r were read ing German papers, twelve Jew ish, six Italian , and he saw th a t th e only American-born man in th e car besides him self was a Negro. JAPAN During an evangelistic to u r along th e Inland Sea of Japan, I came across many Buddhist tem p le s,. each w ith a nice looking post, “ Ju n io r’s Church,” which will a t once suggest a Christian in stitu tion . I was fu rth e r informed th a t the priests cunningly devised a scheme on account of th e fact th a t the school children do not like to attend th e Sunday school in a temple and listen to a priest, because they always asso ciate a Sunday School w ith a church and a teacher. The priests sough t to camouflage th e temple w ith a post sig nifying a church, and they are inviting a school teacher to tell some in teresting stories to them instead of attem p ting them selves to ta lk abou t Buddhism. They even induce th è children w ith some kind of cards, copied almost lit erally afte r Christian Sunday School cards; and qu ite often, they please the children w ith some eatables, too. I t is quite common in a temple to have the children’s class on every Sunday w ith organ music, sometimes w ith th e very same Christian tunes, w ith a sligh t modification of words, and also w ith a tract, ano th er im itation of Christian usage. Thej^ began to celebrate th e
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