of imputation. Confucianist philosophy and Christian rationalism are thus at one and against us, it is most true. " But what then? There is nothing new either in the objection of the heathen, or in the sympathy felt for them by our Christian Gnostics. The educated heathen have ever "sought after wisdom; and in the very first age of Christianity, influential Christians boasted of a "knowledge" which true Apostles condemned as tending directly to frustrate the Gospel. Such men were met by our wise, catholic, greathearted, and withal inspired, Apostle simply with the reiteration and enforcement of the original message, "We preach Christ crucified;"-" determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile." "Preach the Word." The New Testament, the whole blessed Bible, our storehouse and wellspring in one, echoes from end to end, only more and more emphatically towards the close, this saving maxim, "Preach the Word!" It,-it only,-it unaided, except by its Author with His unseen influences,—is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." And, my brethren, the missionary's convictions are strengthened, his hesitation is destroyed, when he looks from documents to his own experience. What has been his remedy for this life's sorrows, for the fear of death, and the apprehensions regarding a future life? How does he deal with the burden, with the loathsome taint of personal sins and sinfulness. "When to will,"-only to will," is present with him, and he finds not how to perform the thing that is good,"-what is his cure for despair? Whither does he betake himself? The Cross of Jesus, the promises of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, his sympathy and revelation of a heavenly home, these, only these, are proved experimentally to avail anything against sorrow, against a burdened conscience, against despair the offspring of his many failures, against the sadness of the present and the fear of the future. His heathen brethren in weakness and sin acknowledge, sometimes categorically, sometimes only by way of an involuntary testimonium animae, the burden of guilt, a fear of future doom, and the helplessness of humanity to save or sanctify itself. Their authentic religious writings and oral maxims alike are searched in vain for any tolerably adequate suggestion of a remedy. The confession of an utterly unsatisfied need thus enhances for the Christian missionary the preciousness of his own proved elixir of life; and adds force, if that were needed, to the documentary authority of the evangelical commission. That commission acted upon, though with grievous interruptions, by sixty generations of Christians, still stands valid for the Apostolic Church, still, in so far as it is executed, proves its divine reasonableness by its aptness to cure the moral diseases and soothe the sorrows of mankind. This is the true "Light of Asia," as well as of all the Continents! This, the original gospel of St. Paul in his missionary life amongst the Gentiles. God grant, in the revival of what is sometimes called "Church Life," and in the application of scientific considerations to religious inquiry, that this primitive, indispensable principle of Christianity may be insisted on and adhered to by the Church. The "preaching of the word," the Gospel of Jesus Christ, alike at home and among the heathen, is the prime source of light and of all good for mankind. "Jesus and the resurrection,' "Jesus Christ incarnate to save sinners;"-"God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself:"faith accepting these mysteries, the sole condition of pardon and salvation, and the Holy Spirit given to them that believe for their sanctification and final salvation:-these are principles of the Gospel which Paul preached of old; and these, it is the Church's duty still unfalteringly to preach among the heathen. THE DIVINE AND MORAL SONGS OF JAPAN. BY THE REV. A. B. HUTCHINSON, HONG KONG. HE great revolution of 1868, which restored to the Mikado the real sovereignty of the Land of the Rising Sun, of which he had been deprived for some seven centuries, was naturally accompanied by other changes full of tremendous import to his people, and well deserving the attention of those who would fain see Japan won for Christ, and set as a brilliant jewel among the many diadems which adorn the Redeemer's brow. With the introduction of foreigners and foreign customs came a great change in the national system of education. During the 700 years of the shogunate, or military government of the country by the commander-in-chief, which reduced the Mikado to a cypher, Buddhism was in the ascendant, and the education of the people was, for the most part, in the hands of the Buddhist priests. Shintoism, which enjoined above everything loyalty and implicit submission to the throne, was naturally distasteful to those who were treating its august occupant as a mere puppet, and Shintoism accordingly was discouraged and discredited. When, however, the Emperor took the reins of government into his own hands, Buddhist ascendancy was broken, and the Shintoists hoped that their day had come. A bitter disappointment awaited them. With the introduction of foreign systems of local government, along with post-offices, railways, and telegraphs, came lower, middle, and high schools, entirely removed from priestly influence, and largely entrusted to the management of foreigners, in many cases decided Christian men, not ashamed to confess Christ boldly. The traveller in Japan cannot fail to notice the outward and visible signs of this great educational revolution in the neat modern school-houses (sometimes of great extent, especially in large centres of population as at Osaka), which have replaced the halls of the monasteries as seats of instruction. Would that the true source of all wisdom-the fear of the Lord were everywhere inculcated as the basis of the new teaching which is to mould the mind of Young Japan! Would that the Word of God were made the text-book of that moral philosophy which alone can supply a true foundation for human life! Meanwhile it may be interesting to glance at the moral teaching which, for some centuries past, has been popular amidst all classes of the thirty millions of the Mikado's empire. The following rhymes are taken from the Shingakudowa, or " Discourses concerning the way to instruct the Heart," and are familiar in Japanese mouths as household words. The book consists of a series of lectures in three volumes-two lectures in each volume-written in a designedly popular style. They are based upon selections from the Chinese classics, i. e. the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, upon which the author enlarges and comments, illustrating his remarks by short odes or verses, which I have designated as above, "Divine and Moral Songs." To the kindness of the Rev. H. J. Foss, the missionary of the S.P.G. at Kobe, I am indebted for the following skilful rendering of these into metrical English. We follow the order of the first lecture, to which alone our attention will now be directed, merely remarking that none of the other five lectures contain so many verses as this. The first extract is not without suggestiveness, even in a Christian land, darkened and disfigured by what is often termed our national vice: Alas! if beasts were in the place Of you, Creation's Lords, your face How melancholy the witness here borne to the self-degradation of man, in spite of God-given reason and intelligence! "Man being in honour hath no understanding, but is compared to the beasts that perish"; and the comparison is to his disadvantage, for "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but my people doth not know." This is the gist of the lecturer's remarks as he proceeds to show that, whilst animals know and do their duty, man both ignores and neglects his. Thus there are but few really deserving to be called men. Man is felt to be undoubtedly designed for high ends, but, through his own neglect, he falls short of that to which he might attain. We ought, says our author, to try and ameliorate this sad state of things as far as our influence may extend: Men are many, people say, Be a man thyself, oh man! Make as many as you can! Noble teaching this, yet unavailing, because devoid, alas! as is also all the teaching of China's sage, of the real requirements of fallen humanity. Need of reformation is recognized, but of the necessity and elements of true renovation nothing is known. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature.' When shall Japan recognize the true humanity of Jesus Christ, who alone of all earth's many teachers hath left us an ensample of perfect manliness? "The path of duty is the path of happiness," and "The treasures of the universe are for those who follow the leadings of virtue," are sentiments which, if carried out in the Christian sense, we could all endorse. At the same time, we should probably apply the following verse to enforce the Apostle's teaching, "If any would not work, neither should he eat": Flowers fair and maples fine, In this world for thee are grown: Work, and take them for thine own. "Idleness," continues the lecturer, "is not one of the five social relations, nor is it to be found amongst the five virtues, which you had better count upon your five fingers, that so you may have them always at hand”—a witticism of a kind very dear to the merry, lighthearted Japanese, and oft recurring in their moral writings, to the dismay of the translator, who frequently finds them untranslatable. Nihil sine labore is the gist of this part of the work, and is followed by the solemn truth that, if your actions belie your words, you cannot expect an answer from Heaven to your prayers. This is a truth which I have seen set forth categorically upon a notice-board in the courtyard of one of the chief temples in Canton, "If you dishonour your parents, it is of no use to pray to God;" "If you tell lies, if you steal, if you commit adultery, &c., it is of no use to pray to God"-a reflection of the truth so keenly felt and so forcibly expressed by the Psalmist, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Our poet thus expresses it :— No answer comes to prayer of mine- Here we are in a region far above the vague and unsatisfactory utterances of Confucius, who, whilst dimly recognizing a supreme Disposer of events, yet seemed very uncertain as to the propriety of addressing him in prayer. Equally vague was his reply concerning the possibility of a future existence. Not so our Japanese mentor :Transient "this transient world" may be, Yet make it not thine enemy: For know" this transient world" alone The results of our life here, in other words, will follow us into How thankful should we be that already some 5000 of the sons and daughters of Japan have been enabled by the Spirit to recognize the deeper meaning of the Christian lines : O Thou by whom we come to God, دو another and future state of existence. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness seems somehow to be borne faintly to our ears by these lines, yet such thoughts are swept away by the next verse:— How glibly they swallow the words of the priests! Why, half of the worship the people pay Is only a chorus to songs at their feasts, It is a question how much of the intense earnestness which distinguishes the worship of the people in Japan may be owing to the influence of such sentiments as these imbedded in the national mind. Is there not too much worship in our own land to which this description would be found applicable? Prayer is not the giving of anything to its Divine object, but rather the effort to obtain purity of heart and a change into the likeness of Buddha : God! help me! oft I cried aloud, And thought I spake His name alone : Into the likeness of his God. "The name," Mr. Foss remarks here, "is not God in the original, but Amida, one of the most revered hotoke of Japan; but I have altered it as above, thinking we shall thus better attain to the true spirit of these remarkable lines." Here again we recognize a half truth, which, in the clear light of revelation, becomes "a beholding in Christ Jesus as in a glass the glory of God," and "a being changed into the same image" "by the Lord the Spirit." Surely we have here, in some measure, a mental preparation-a preparatory education, so to speak-for the intelligent reception of Christian ideas. Again, we are directed to contemplate the paradox of intelligent man being ignorant of his duty, whilst all creation besides knows what it ought to do, and we are told that Before the heavens and earth were made, The hen did cluck, the cock did crow, Just so the path of virtue. The way in which men ought to walk has been involved in the very fact of their existence; but how few find it! Development has had its disciples for centuries in Japan, as we may gather from the above verse; but the philosophers of east and west seem both in the same case, when we would go back a step further and seek to learn from them who decreed this. "Verily the world by wisdom has not known God." Men must be studied and the good imitated in order that inherent good be worked out. The imitation of Christ is the form this principle assumes with us, as I have already noted : Imitate persistently: : |