T PREFACE HIS book with a companion volume that treats of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox missions is an attempt to describe the chief events connected with the history of Christianity in Japan. It labours under the disadvantage of dealing with occurrences so close at hand that it is difficult to see them in their right perspective and so to judge of their comparative importance. It is, however, easier now than it will ever be again to gather materials such as are needed for the earlier chapters of such a book, and the completion of the first half-century of organised Protestant missions in Japan presents a suitable occasion for looking back upon what has happened within that period. I have confined myself for the most part to the simple narrative of events, indulging in but little comment and in no philosophising upon them. Let him who reads draw his own lessons from the story. The narrative centres about the work of the missionaries and does not describe with any degree of completeness what has been done by the Japanese Christians. I wish that it were otherwise: for, after the first foundations had been laid, the upbuilding of the Christian Church has been chiefly accomplished through the earnest efforts of the Japanese workers. To a considerable extent, however, their labours have been of that plodding, uneventful nature that does not furnish much striking material for a book of this kind. Moreover, such material as could be utilised is difficult to collect. Foreign missionary societies publish the correspondence of their representatives, and this naturally deals chiefly with events that have a direct connection with the missionaries themselves; but an exhaustive search through Japanese religious periodicals and a careful working 5 297101 |