T-
XZ
G
8092
N366
C83
3727218
р
¡
Home Letters
OF
Gertrude Cozad,
MISSIONARY OF THE AMERICAN BOARD
AT
KOBE, JAPAN,
TO HER FATHER
Justus L. Cozad,
OF
1
Cleveland, Ohio.
*
}
VERSITY
(-)
ferlaf
F
SOY
·itha
MIC

farazoa f

• LIBRARIES ·
CAN.
1
Pluto
Gertrude Cozad, on her return to Japan, writes as follows:
KOBE, September 23, 1897.
I think Japan has impressed me much as it would a new-
comer this time. It seemed to me very miserable and cold and
squalid, as I passed through the native quarter in Yokohama.
There were various types of women to be seen on the streets.
The well-dressed, placid, aimless, emotionless women, and
among the poorer dressed women very rarely a happy face.
They seemed either dull, or crushed and unhappy. That is
the way the people on the street impressed me. But when I
saw the girls who came down to the boat to meet Kajiro San,
(A young Japanese girl who has just graduated from Mt.
Holyoke, and returned to Japan with us,) either students or
teachers in the girls school, all of them with bright, animated,
purposeful faces, I felt the power of a Christian life, of an
education, of an enlargening and widening of thought and view.
The life the missionaries live here does not seem very
luxurious to me; not so much so as it will after a few months,
when I have been off touring awhile. I am sighing for the
flesh pots of Egypt.
The miserable Japanese fruit is a mockery to the name.
The butter smells so I wish it might be left off the table. The
milk has no more taste of milk than so much rice water.
I used to feel when I told about those things in America, as if
I must be stretching it, but really the half has never been told.
There is everything in getting used to things, though, and they
will seem different after awhile.
Our school is going to open up in three weeks. It is
small, but when there is such demand for workers from our
school, and so many of our graduates are doing such excellent
work, we feel as if we must do all in our power to supply the
demand.
Word has just come of the death, by cholera, of one of
our most beautiful and efficient workers, one who entered the
school the first year I came here.
1
2
I am to have the privilege of doing what I have longed
to do, teach the Gospels. My teaching has been the Old
Testament heretofore.
We had Mr. Makino, one of the young evangelists, here
to dinner yesterday, and I was glad to see him. When I went
away he was just going to Kochi, a very hard field in a very
un-get-at-able place. The church was in such condition it then
seemed almost unwise to send a young inexperienced man there,
but they had twenty-two additions to the church last year, eleven
this spring and four more are waiting to be baptized.
There is a great deal that is hopeful and encouraging in
the evangelistic work, and the schools are opening up well.
Down in Matsumura they have a school of 130.
Four years
ago they were down to twenty pupils, and it has only been
kept up at an immense sacrifice on the part of a few Japanese
people.
Fifty thousand dollars couldn't have saved that school,
but the earnest, self-denying work of six-people, four Japanese
and two foreigners, Miss Judson and Miss Gunnison, has
done it. Miss Harwood is doing good work there now; she is
teaching 31 hours a week and has been considered a semi-
invalid for some years.
I firmly believe that if we would do Christ's work we
must do it as he did with suffering and sacrifice. While the
spirit of self-sacrifice continues the work goes on well.
Oh, there is so much to be done, I am glad I am here to
do it, but deary me, I realize on what a small pattern I was cut
out. If I can only make Paul's words true though, "Not I
but Christ," I shall not mind about the pattern.
October 5, 1897.
It hardly seems possible that only one week has passed
since my return.
I find it very easy to slip right back into the same work,
and find my hands full from morning till night. To-day I
attended the educational meeting, teachers' institute, or what-
ever it may be called. All the teachers in this part of the
3
country are in attendance for three days. They have the
largest theater in the place, and it is packed full at every
meeting. People speak of an "ice pack" and a "cool pack," but
to know what a human pack is you have to go to a Japanese
theatre and sit on the floor crowded in with a couple of
thousand people.
Mr. Osada invited me to go with him, and he had my
shoes checked with his own, and then took me in and seated
me with the women, who are always tucked off in one corner,
and then disappeared with the check for our shoes.
For about two hours I sat there on the floor in perfect
agony with my feet, and how I longed to get my shoes and go
home. But no, I was obliged to sit it out for four hours,
during six long addresses, before relief came. I sat next to
Kajiro San; she was suffering almost as badly as I was. I could
not help thinking of the meeting which she addressed in
Fargo, Dak., on our way out, where she told how soft the floors
were with the straw mats, that thick, (holding her hands six
inches apart.) They had grown softer in the four years she
had been away from them. That Saturday she sat there from
8 to 12 and 1 to 5 and 8 to 10, ashamed to acknowledge what
agony she was suffering.
I could not help comparing the surroundings with meet-
ing places at home. The building was divided into sort of
stalls, into which the people were packed. The attendants,
young boys, make their way in and out among the people,
bringing the tobacco trays with all the smoking paraphernalia,
or trays of tea in little tea pots, or boxes of luncheon, to
those who wished it. The furnishings were a strange admix-
ture of Japanese and foreign. At the back of the stage were
plain gilt screens, which made a pretty background for the
beautiful vases with flowers arranged in the queer artistic way,
the study of which is part of the education of every
accomplished woman. At one side was an eight day clock,
which with a loud whizzing strike marked the hours and
brought hope to my soul that sometime the agony would end.
There was an organ, sadly in need of the superfluous vim of
•
4
tone.
the clock, and a grand piano, which was anything but grand in
Then there was the Buddhist shrine at one side, which is
a necessary adjunct of every theater. I was not impressed
with the breadth of thought or eloqunce of the first three
speakers, though it may have been broader than I knew, for
they used such scholarly language that I appreciated the fact
that I wasn't in it. When the fourth speaker began, one felt
that a man of power was speaking. He impressed one as
being a man of beautiful character, frank, straightforward,
clearcut, true and kind. I was sure he must be a Christian,
and sure enough he turned out to be a deacon in one of our
churches in Tokyo. When Christ is in the heart, the face and
manner are changed.
The next speaker I enjoyed so much; a gray-haired man
of the old type, which is, I am sorry to say, passing away. So
courtly, so gentle, so lovable; none of the aggressive and
pompous ways of the men of new Japan.
After dinner I started right off for a meeting held in my
honor by the young married women and girls of the church,
and though it meant sitting for two hours more on the floor,
still it was most kind of them to have this meeting of welcome
so soon after my return.
I hope they will form a King's Daughters' circle. I have
had a most cordial welcome from the church. It makes me
feel very humble to come back here and see the great oppor-
tunities for work which some people would step right into,
but which it seems so hard for me to take advantage of. I do
realize that if any good comes of my work it will be Christ
working in me and not my work. There is work to be done
all around in the touring field, but I am so rusty in the lan-
guage that I cannot go out yet. Perhaps the best thing would
be to brush up on the language by continual speaking.
-
5
KOMATSEE, SHIKOKU, JAPAN, November 8, 1897.
DEAR ONES ALL:
I have rejoiced ever since I came back, that America and
American ways seemed natural, and Japan and her ways
unnatural. But alas! America is receding into the foreground
of pleasant memories, while Japan has become the real thing
and I a part of it. I ought not to say "alas," for that is the
very thing to be desired; but one does like to feel that he
belongs in his own land.
I have only been away from Kobe five days, but those
five days have brought me down to the hard realities of life in
Japan. I have enjoyed those five days though, and would not
exchange the life I am to lead here, even for the pleasant life.
we had at home. The contrast between the two ways of liv-
ing, and ways of thinking and acting, is very sharp now.
Here it seems as if it were one continuous series of stories
of sin and sorrow, until the heart is sick, and you beg for a
cessation of those stories, and for something bright and
encouraging. If only the sin were all outside of the church
it would be most delightful to turn to the church for comfort
and encouragement; but alas! it is the backsliding of the
Christians that is depressing.
I have just spent four days in Saijo, a seaport town on the
west coast of Shikoku, and am now at Komatsee, which is the
mother church of this region. Saijo is a wide awake place
and one where there ought to be an evangelist, but evangelists
are not made to order, and many places where one might work
well are left with no one to help them. Here in Saijo they
have had no one for five years, and it is not strange that
people just out of paganism should not all stand the test of
being left without help for five years. But it is discouraging,
if not surprising, to see the work of many years dissipated
through neglect.
But it is not all dissipated, by any means, and there were
some Christians who were a real comfort and inspiration. One
young man has been gathering the Christians together to
6
explain Pilgrim's Progress to them twice a week, and has been
a great help to them. There is no one there who seems
qualified to teach the Bible. The older Christians seem to
have lost their grip on it, and the younger ones do not feel
qualified to teach the older ones. The first half of Pilgrim's
Progress has been translated into Japanese, and the Christians
have read it. The second half has not been translated, and
this young man reads English and is qualified to explain it to
them. Having thus got in the habit of meeting together, I
think now he will teach them the Bible.
I have a book of short biographies of eminent mission-
aries; Judson, Duff, McKenzie and Makay, that I think he can.
make very profitable and interesting to them in their Wednes-
day night meetings. If I can I shall come down and spend
the month of December with them. I do not know, though,
whether I shall be able to be away from Kobe as long as that,
but I hope to do so. If I do come I will hire a house all
ready furnished; that is, having four walls, with mats on the
floor. Will bring a cot, perhaps, may be a chair; if I want to
live in luxury, a farina kettle and something to cook in it,
and a spoon, and shall be able to set up house-keeping.
The Bible woman will live with me, or I with her. There is
not a decent hotel in the place. I use the word decent,
advisedly, for I speak from experience. I have had more of
a glimpse of the lower regions in Saijo, in my various visits
than in all my experience in Japan. Every room in the hotel
was in use, but I know that none of the inmates of the house,
or the guests, were there for any good purpose, except the
Bible woman and myself. The waitresses at the hotel were
all geisha, and we saw a good deal of them. The first evening
I was there two gaily dressed girls flounced into the room and
sat down to be talked to. I had not an idea what I could say
to them and tried various things only to find that such things
had no interest for them, and at last it occurred to me to sing.
one of the songs in the Japanese hymn book. As soon as we
began to sing every one in the house, guests and all, came in
and we found ourselves with a meeting on our hands. Seed
7
sown in such a place seems to be sown by the wayside or in
stony places, but who knows but what some of it may drift
into good ground. This morning before leaving the hotel I had
a long talk with two of the young girls there. Those girls are
much more to be pitied than blamed. They have been trained
from infancy by their parents for this life. One of them had
been rented to this house for five years. She is now sixteen,
a sweet, pretty, ladylike girl, who, if she were in America,
would be an ornament to some pleasant home, and a delight
and a comfort to her parents. Her parents are both living.
At the end of the five years she will be free from her present
engagement, but will only be fitted for another engagement of
years.
TAMBARA, November 10, 1897.
While waiting for the bill to be brought in before starting
on, I will write what I can. I have only been away from home
eight days, but it seems eight weeks. I have seen so many
people and heard so much of the changes and the pleasures
and disappointments of each one, that it seems as if I had been
here months. At Komatsee I had a very pleasant time. The
hotel there is the old daimyo hotel, that is, it was built and
fitted up for the entertainment of the daimyos passing through.
It belongs now to a farmer who adds the hotel keeping busi-
ness to his farming, and a queer combination it makes. The
imposing separate gate and two pretty gardens belonging to
the three daimyo rooms are a strange contrast to the rest of
the house, with the smoke and dirt and piles of straw and
implements that belong to a farmer. I always feel quite dis-
tinguished when I stay at that hotel.
The Christians in Komatsee are a great comfort and an
aggravation. They are as faithful and true as rock, and as
immovable. The church was founded about sixteen years
ago with seventeen members, and not one of that seventeen
has been unfaithful. But though they seem so faithful there
is not one of them now who seems to think he need do any
other work than hug his own faith, to himself.
We had a
8.
very nice meeting though, at the house of one of the Christ-
ians, who has a very beautiful home. It was thought some
would come there who would not go to the church. There
were about thirty-five present, and I was so glad to see some
new faces among those that I have known before. The evan-
gelist here is doing real good work.
HADEBA-SHIKOKU, November 12.
We had a pleasant day on the 10th, going out in the
morning to see a sick man, of whom I wrote you. We went
in kurumas to the river near which the sick man lived. There
was no bridge so we had our kuruma men take us
on their
backs. It was quite a wide river, and I kept slipping off the
man's back until my feet touched the water, then the man
would stoop clear over and slide me back into the proper
position. We took dinner with the sick man and then walked
about two miles to the next house where we were to call. We
then took kurumas for three miles over very bad roads, reach-
ing Tamba too late for a meeting that evening.
We went to the house of the governor of the county and
spent the evening. He and his wife and daughter are much
interested in Christianity, and it is very pleasant to talk with
them, but like many others, they are waiting for a more con-
venient season before taking a stand for the Master.
From Tambara we walked about four miles to Komatsee
and then took kurumas for the copper mines. But no more
Good bye,
now.
GERTRUDE COZAD.
IMABARI, SHIKOKU, JAPAN, November 15, 1897.
DEAR ONES ALL :
Have just returned to Imabari, where they have such a
model church, and I find the model church is doing quite the
model thing in having a series of meetings, with two of the
leading pastors here. Mr. Tomioka was for years prison evan-
gelist in the Hokkaido, and has recently returned from a three
9
years' stay in America, where he has been studying prison
reform. He is the pure gold kind of Christian; so true and
earnest and spiritual, and unspoilable by flattery, by success, or
by a stay in America. He, with another young man, is making
a tour of this field. The other man I believe I told you about
in the last letter. He is the one who has got to wait three
years for one of our Bible women, or else get someone else.
To go backward in my story, I have had four pleasant
days at the village at the foot of the copper mine, and
one at the shipping station of the mine. I have been
entertained at the house of two most delightful people.
Mr. Harumi has a very fine position in the mine, as superin-
tendent of certain departments of the work. The mine belongs
to a family by the name of Sumitome, and has been worked
for two hundred and fifty years. It now has an output of
$800,000 a year.
It has been very interesting to me to see
the condition of the miners, and the relation between the
employer and employes. The employes look upon the Sumi-
tome family almost as gods, and there is the greatest reverence
for them and everything belonging to them; and they consider
themselves very happy to be in their employ. The whole.
country in that region belongs to Sumitome; the mountains,
the valleys, the plains, houses, farms, and I was going to add
the people themselves. I suppose there are about three
thousand men employed there, in the mines and the works.
The employes receive good wages and can lay up more money
there than in most places, if they are inclined to be saving.
In addition to their wages they have many favors from Sumi-
tome. For example, he furnishes rice to all laborers at five
cents a sho, (about two quarts,) and wheat at half that price.
Rice bought elsewhere costs seventeen cents a sho. Not
only rice but every necessity of life is furnished by Sumitome
at much less than the ordinary price. So, you see, here in
Japan, the miners can become money lenders. They ought to
have compensation though, for it is a dreadful life they lead.
But it is not nearly as hard as the life of such people in
America, I fancy.
;
IO
Perhaps you would be interested to hear something of the
trip up; though the whole experience was indescribable.
From the shipping station up to Hodeba where the Harumio
live, there is a cunning little railroad, with trains running four
or five times a day, a distance of seven miles.
Way up on the side of the mountain above Hadeba there
is another railroad of four miles. The starting point is seven-
teen hundred feet right above Hadeba. The ore and goods of
all sorts are sent down or up the mountains in baskets attached
to an endless revolving rope. A great deal is also sent up by
carriers. The road is three miles long, zigzagging up the
mountains, and it is pitiful to see the scores of people, old and
young, going up that steep hill with burdens on their backs,
little girls of thirteen, not as large as Rosamond, carrying up
forty pounds, and others, according to their strength, carrying
burdens up to 200 pounds. We knew if we walked up the
hill we would be too tired to enjoy the sights, and so I went
up in the buckets. It seemed dreadful to look at it, for in
places the rope hangs three hundred feet above the ground
and the space between the posts is very wide. There are often
stops, too, so you hang suspended in the air for five minutes
or so. When we came to ride up though, we found it was not
as frightful as it seemed. I did wish I had my camera to take
a picture of the evangelist and Bible woman who went up
with him. At the top we found a little mite of an engine
and two little cars waiting, one for freight and one for passen-
gers. The passenger car was five feet by seven feet. They
can not have more than three such cars in a train, because the
curves are so sharp and so frequent, a longer car or a longer
train, could not go around them. The road is only four miles
long and everything is on a small scale. But it is wonderful
that a road could be built at all in such a place, and it makes
one dizzy to think how the men who laid the foundation must
have risked their lives in building the road. At the top we
were transferred to a little platform on four little wheels, (there
was room for only two to ride), which was pushed by a man
through a tunnel a mile long. It is one of the old avenues of
II -
the mine, and there were transverse avenues leading off in
different directions.
The scene as we emerged from the tunnel was one never
to be forgotten. It seemed as if we were looking upon one
great seething caldron, with here and there high smoke-
stacks, looming up out of the smoke and steam, while
all around arose the steep cliffs of the mountains, thousands of
feet above us. Bare, naked, rocky masses with tilts and strata
so unexpected and so marked that I am sure they would have
won the heart of a geologist. Not a spear of grass or a green
leaf to be seen anywhere, though here and there the bleached
trunk and branches of some mighty monarch of the forest of old
stood as a monument in memory of the forest that had covered
those rocks with verdure before the stifling smoke and odor of
the mines and works wrought their work of death. All around
on terraces built up of rock, the houses of the employes stood.
Barren and forlorn, I noticed that they all had glass instead of
paper windows to keep out the odor. I cannot tell about the
mines very much, but it was very interesting and instructive to
see them. There was one building in which there was an
engine turning two great wheels with coils of rope around
them. The rope went over a pulley very high up and then
down an inclined shaft to the very foot of the mine, about
3,000 feet, and the ore was hauled up by this rope. There
were eleven places under the ground from whieh the ore from
different parts of the mine were brought by men and horses to
be hauled up. I saw another place where the engine was
used in breaking up the rocks a half mile below, and which
was worked by compressed air. Another engine was used to
send fresh air to all parts of the mine.
It would only weary you to have me tell of all that
I saw there of the process of getting the pure red metal
out of the gray rock, so I will desist. I was very favor-
ably impressed with the appearance of the employes. They
were dressed comfortably and lived in as good houses as other
people and were well fed and comfortable. Sumitome has
I 2
good schools there, kept up at his expense, and everything is
done to make the people comfortable. It is an awful place to
live in, and I should think people would go insane living down
in that hole beneath those terrible rocky cliffs. For the most
part, the people who come there expect to stay only a short
time, and when they have made their little pile go away. But
after they get used to it, they are very apt to stay, and in time
come to think that it is a very natural and desirable way to
live, and quite look down on the poor mortal grubbing away
on the farms below or living in the cities and eating rice at
seventeen sen a sho.
There was one thing that struck me as essentially Japan-
ese, and that was that no one seemed to be pressed with work.
I hardly saw anyone working, or at least, if I did occasionally
see someone working, as soon as they caught sight of me,
hands and tools were dropped at their sides, and until I moved
on they stood gaping at me. There were anywhere from
twenty to sixty people standing stock still and watching me
all the time I was there. These people all work twelve hours
a day and seven days in the week, but they always have time
to stop and chat or smoke or gape, and there is no one around
apparently, to tell them to go to work.
Another thing was essentially Japanese, and that was the
kindness and courtesy we received. They fixed up the ore
buckets with coarse, pliable matting, and then put in blankets
so we should not get our clothes soiled, for the buckets were
greasy. While we were going up they were very careful to
run the thing slowly and evenly. A man was sent with us to
see that every attention was shown us. He went up ahead to
get the passenger car ready, and all day long was most thought-
ful and attentive. Not a cent did the whole outing cost us,
except our dinner at the hotel. Of course, much of this kind-
ness was due to the position of our host, but if we had gone as
strangers they would have done much for us. Mr. Narumi is
very busy putting in a new electric plant which is to replace
the old endless rope system of portage and could not take time
13
to go with us, but he went up in the bucket and met us at the
train as we returned, and walked down with us. The three
days spent in their home was a great delight. It is an ideal
Japanese home; no, I can't say that, but it is an ideal Christian
home. They have imbibed some foreign ideas to good effect.
They have a stove in their bed room, and a foreign bed, and an
organ and a rug in the parlor, and two rocking chairs on the
front porch. Mr. Narumi drinks milk and would keep a cow
only there is hardly room for her to stand on the mountain
terraces. They have a garden and Mr. N. goes out and
works in it, just for pleasure. They also have a green-house,
or at least a little room with glass windows facing the south,
where they keep their plants. The delightful part of it all was
the pleasant relationship between Mr. and Mrs. N. He is a
busy man and a man of authority, and in his own home he is
the master, but he respects and appreciates his wife, and not
once did I hear him use the derogatory form of the word you.
He used the familiar short forms of verbs instead of the longer
polite forms she used to him, but his language had not the
insulting tone that the language of husband to wife almost
invariably has. She appreciates his kindness to her, and is all
the lovelier to him because of the privileges she has. If only
Japanese husbands were all like him, this small portion of the
world would be a very different place, and the husbands would
be happier as well as the wives.
He is a very earnest Christian and has won many people
to an earnest study of the Bible. Though, of course he does
not try to unduly urge them, for he does not want to gather
round him a lot of "rice" Christians. He is evidently loved by
the people under him and appreciated by those above him.
He receives every new year a goodly present of money from
Sumitome and always gives it away, dividing it among orphan-
ages, schools and needy people. They have no children, but
always have a house full of people whom they are helping;
girls who are in danger of being forced into a hard life, young
men who are liable to yield to temptation, and wayward
children who need careful training.
S
14
E
I have found many earnest, faithful Christians during this
trip, and it is such a pleasure.
Must close in haste.
Will tell the rest in another letter.
GERTRUDE COZAD.
IMABARI, Nov. 18, 1897.
My last letter was brought to a sudden close, so I will
begin this just where I left off.
It is such a pleasure to find wherever I go that there are
one or two or three Christians in the place. We called on a
Christian woman living up in that awful town at the mines.
Poor woman, she was the only Christian in a non-Christian
family, and was married to a non-Christian, and her life is a
pretty hard one. She is evidently very lonely there. When
we spoke of the ever present Comforter her eyes filled with
tears, and it was very evident that though her life was filled
with so many hard things, that she had not lost her one and
only comfort.
At Nuhama, the port of the mine, we found one earnest
wide awake Christian who is doing all he can to keep the light
burning there. We had a meeting in his house in the evening,
with about thirty-five present. That was the day after our trip
to the mines, and we were a lame, weary set of people.
We got to the hotel at three o'clock and had futons
brought out to have a nap, but a day nap in a Japanese hotel
is almost an impossibility. The people in a hotel always think
people deaf, and the running and screaming are anything but
reposeful. We had had our nner at one-thirty, and at four-
thirty, while we were all three lying pretending to sleep, the
maid brought our supper in and squated down to serve the
rice.
It was with great difficulty that we persuaded her that we
couldn't eat so soon, and that if we ate at four-thirty and
attended a meeting till eleven, we would have to have another
meal. She finally desisted in her attempt to force us to eat
and left the dinner there on the floor for us to eat when we
1
I
15
could, which we did two hours later. We had to get up at
three o'clock in the morning and take the boat for Imbari.
When we reached here we found that Mr. Tomioka and
Mr. Matsui were here. It has been like a breeze from home
to see Mr. Tomioka. He is such a hearty, happy, inspiring
man. I'm so sorry, papa, that you did not see him when he
was in America. He went to Cleveland and visited the work-
house and the jail, and if I had only given him your address
he could have called on you.
When he was a boy he went as an adopted son to a cer-
tain family with the expectation that he would become the
husband of the daughter previously adopted. The family had
no children of their own. When he was seventeen he became
a Christian and his father was very angry.
He tried in every
way to make the boy give it up, but could not. His father
took him out to a store-house, like the little model you have,
and kept him shut up there in the dark and damp for three
days without food, but he wouldn't give in. Then the father
in his rage tied him up and was going to kill him, but neigh-
bors interfered. At last the daughter managed to effect his
escape, and he came here to Imbari, where he was protected
and cared for by the Christians. He became a pastor, and
married this same girl. She had no training, though, so he
sent her to our school for three years before their marriage.
Finally an end to their troubles came. She graduated from our
school and was married the same day, I believc, and the next
Sunday the father and mother received baptism. Mr. Tamioka
hasn't been back here in Imabari for many years, so it has been
a great pleasure to him and to the people to meet once more.
They have had splendid meetings with the church packed full.
We all went up to Hashihama for a meeting, but the rain
poured all the time we were there, so we could not have much
of an audience, but I don't know but what the few who were
there may have been helped, and believe that the meeting was
not in vain.
M
Hashihama is the place where the little church was closed
for three years, except for the meetings held there every Sun-
16
day by two women, mother and daughter, At last in answer
to their prayers, and on account of the lift at the wheel, given
by faith and efforts of the pastor and Bible woman at the next
town, Imbari, the debt was paid, and meetings are being held
there regularly. The dear old lady is still polishing away at
her light and I can assure you it burns brightly. When we
got to the place we found that she with two or three others
were over at the church scrubbing, and the floor was clean
enough to eat off of.
It isn't much trouble to keep the windows clean, for there
is hardly a pane of glass left in the windows by the naughty
boys of the town. She had been out with a spade also trying
to bank up the earth round the church so the water would
not run under it. The people of the town will not come to
the meetings much yet, though there is one young man who
has been brought to Christ there recently. The children
though are most faithful attendants, and they will bring the
older ones in time if the faith and patience of the Christians
hold out. Mr. Tsuyuum, the pastor at Imabari, and the Bible
woman. Kanokugi San, and one or two other Christians walk
over three miles from Imabari, every Sunday, simply for that
Sunday School of dirty clamoring children, and for the Bible
study with five or six people.
Mr. Tsuyuum doesn't know the word discouragement, and
he inspires all those about him with his own zeal more or less.
On Monday night he and one or two others go in a row
boat over to an island several miles away where there is
another little company of Christians. Morning, noon and
night, seven days in a week that man keeps at his work with
unflagging energy, pushing the work where others would think
the way was closed. The Bible woman, one of our graduates,
and such a lovely woman, is earnest and hopeful and patient
as he is, though she has to fight against great physical
weakness.
We had a very nice meeting with the Christians the morn-
ing after the meeting at Hashihama, and then all of us came
back on the roof of one of those little house boats. You have
17
the picture of one, you know. It was a beautiful ride among
the islands of this wonderful inland sea.
At Imabari I have been most hospitably entertained at
the home of a young doctor, an oculist. It is a great trouble
for the Japanese to entertain a foreigner, for they will not let
us sit down and eat with the rest, but bring our food to our
own room, if they have a separate room to give, as in this
case. They make themselves perfect slaves to our comfort,
and it troubles me to have so much done. It is very pleasant
and restful, though, to be in such a place. A meeting had been
planned for a gathering at the house of this doctor, and I
found when I reached Imabari they had already printed invi-
tations to it, announcing my subject. I was very much
alarmed to hear what elaborate plans had been made for the
meeting, for I dread speaking in Japanese very much. The
subject was "Home Training." I found this time, as at other
times, that if I can lose myself in my subject and forget whether
it is Japanese or English, that I can hold the attentionof the
hearers as well in Japanese as in English.
TAKAMATSU, Nov. 23.
The last day of this trip, and I am glad to go back home
for a little while. I have never had an easier trip in some
ways, and I think it is because I am so well and rested by my
trip home. The Japanese food has not troubled me at all. In
fact, I rather think it has agreed with me better than the home
food since I came back.
The one trial is the sitting, but there, too, I am much
better off than I expected to be, for my ankle is much stronger
than when I left home. I think much walking is strength-
ening it.
I don't attempt to sit properly even a moment,
for it is simply agony to that ankle, but by putting my feet
out at one side a little I manage to keep the refractory mem-
ber in fairly good humor.
We had such a nice meeting last night, not very large;
perhaps twenty-five sitting down and twenty more standing in
18
the entry to hear. I know the Holy Spirit was there, and a
few more chips of this great wall of heathenism were broken off.
Sometimes it seems as if I were tongue-tied in the meeting
and in calling, and again it seems as if I wasn't even trying to
speak, but the words came of themselves, and those are the
times when they seem to reach the mark.
At Marugarue we had four pleasant days, coming on here
yesterday. The church there is a women's church. Almost
all the women are faithful, earnest Christians, but of the five
or six men only one is in earnest, and he is a thorn in the
flesh and a great stumbling block to others. I reminded the
pastor there of the Lord's commission to Peter to "feed my
sheep-feed my lambs, feed my sheep."
The command to feed the sheep had to be given twice,
because it is no easy matter to feed the sheep, black and
white, and the old bucking ram. Mr. Higashi speaks English
and in our conversation we referred to the young man as the
“bucking ram” to avoid use of names.
Another man used to be such an earnest Christian, but he
is in a business now where he can not carry out his Christian
principles. He is in the employ of a man who has made him-
self rich by furnishing supplies to the army and navy and
building war vessels, and the whole business, I infer, is a
nefarious scheme. Mr. Takano is only one of hundreds of
employees, and has to do as he is told even though he knows
it is wrong.
His conscience troubles him and he is very un-
happy about giving up his Christian life. He knows that his
continuing in a Christian life is incompatible with continuing
in that business, but he has a wife and five children and
nothing else to do, so he thinks he must keep on.
Papa, perhaps you remember my telling you about an old
man, a scholarly, fine man, who had refused to accept Chris-
tianity for years, but whom I was instrumental in helping to
look at it in a new way. I have many times had expressions
of gratitude for what I did not do at that time. This young
man is his son, and he came to the hotel after the Sunday
evening meeting and sat down and almost challenged me to
P
19
help him in his present difficulty.
We talked till twelve
o'clock, but he knew as well as I did that there was but one
way to put his troubled conscience at rest.
Here in Takamatsu there is a family I have been interested
in since I first saw them three years ago. The adopted
son, who is now the husband of the daughter in the
family, is a Christian, and the young wife, mother and
grandmother used to be much interested, but lost their interest.
Two years ago when I was here the wife and mother did not
see me when I called, and the grandmother, such a dear old
lady, seemed to be so over-borne with her own troubles that
she could not think about Christ. She had recently almost.
entirely lost her eyesight. I have been praying for her ever
since, and it was a pleasure last night to learn that the Lord
had heard our prayers and before he took her home, about
two years ago, he gave her new light and joy even in her
blindness.
KOBE, Nov. 26, '97.
I am sitting by our blazing sitting-room fire as stupid
and comfortable as can be imagined, and becoming so used to
home luxuries that I fear it will be pretty hard next week to
tear out again and go down to Shikoku for another three
weeks.
I had a dreadful time getting home from Shikoku. The
mail steamer was to leave at five o'clock and I thought I would
take that and get home at
get home at midnight. I went down
to the landing before five, three young men going with
me, all of them young married
men, and there we
sat at the little tea house, from five o'clock till three-thirty the
next morning, waiting for our boat and talking all the time.
Those poor young men had not had their supper, and I had
not money enough left to buy any for them. I kept urging
them to go home, but they did not like to leave me alone
there, so they stayed on. The aggravating thing was that at
seven o'clock another steamer went, but it was of a line not
patronized by that tea house, and so they did not inform me
•
20
of it. Finally another boat came and we were under way a
little before four. I came second-class, and the compartment
was way at the stern of the boat. There was no room on the
floor, for the people were lying as thick as they could be
wedged in, and so I lay up on the ledge at the very back of
the boat, where I could get all the motion there was to be had,
and we had a plenty, and I was sick, I can assure you, and by
the time I reached home at twelve o'clock, I felt about as thick
as as kinny fish. It seemed almost like coming to heaven
from a place unmentionable.
Our house no longer seems dull and plain. It is lovely to
me, and every time I come home after an absence of some time
I want to kiss the shiny yellow pillar on the front porch. I
don't do it though, for I should feel terribly to be that silly
even by myself.
The Standfords are still here, and may be for some time. :'
Mrs. Clark is also here resting up after six weeks nursing of
four sick children. They have all four been very sick with
bronchitis, pneumonia and influenza. The other sick people
are all doing well except Helen Davis, who is having another
serious relapse.
We had our Thanksgiving at the Atkinson's yesterday
with dinner at 6:30, and such a jolly time after it till eleven
o'clock, and then we broke up reluctantly. One of the Atkin-
son girls is engaged to be married to a young Englishman
here.
Among many other causes for Thanksgiving I felt like
giving thanks because my missing baggage has turned up. I
found such a lot of mail here when I came, among other things
there were twenty cards from papa.
Must close with ever so much love to all.
GERTRUDE.
I find the mail went out last night instead of to-night, as
we supposed, so this letter will not reach you as early as it
should. Am so sorry. Am sending some maple leaves to
show what delicate lace-like leaves we have here. They are
wonderfully pretty on the tree.
2I
KOBE, JAPAN, December 5.
My time at home here in Kobe this year is going to be
very short.
I have been here three times for a week or ten
days, and am ready to start off in two days for another three
or more weeks.
I am
very much attached to our home
and hate to leave its comforts every time, but am glad the
work pulls me away from this life in Kobe. It is simply
impossible to accomplish anything at this-shall I call it—
hotel. We have company all the time. It is very pleasant
but decidedly antagonistic to good work.
My next trip is to Myazaki, in the province of Huiga, on
the island of Kinshiu. My object is to visit the different
stations in that field and help what I can in the women's work
there. Miss McCandish goes with me to get an idea of the
work. She has just come out. Poor girl, I am glad I am not
at her end of the work. I sometimes wish I were at Miss
Dudley's end--(near the last end)--of it, not very often though,
for I enjoy the work as I go along. And I have faith that it is
a work that is going to pay.
The straight journey down to Miyazaki will take me three
days, one by boat and two by jinriksha. It is disastrous to
my work in Kobe to be going about like this, but I
think I shall do more touring than teaching, as formerly.
After my hard trips it is so nice to come back to my homy room
here where I have papa's picture on the wall and Olive and
Jennie's family groups of children, and the painting of the
little white house in which I was born, so nicely arranged,
with my new book case and the photos about. It is
sometimes dreadfully distracting and sometimes makes me
feel kind of homesick, though not often. I can never tell you
what a joy the memory of that year at home is to me.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 02016 7477
These pamphlets can be had by applying to
JUSTUS L. GOZAD,
212 American Trust Building, Gleveland, Ohio.