Fifty Years of Quakerism in Japan

QUAKERISM IN JAPAN91 knowledge and medical and industrial abilities will be heartily welcomed by my nation as a whole. At present we have two hospitals , one of which should be well equipped to meet the call of the poor sick people in West China. 3.In view of the spirit of militarism and hatred and injustice in this generation, we feel it is extremely important to concentrate on one or more schools and make them outstanding expressions of our Quaker message in Szechwan. This will enable us to teach our children in ways of international understanding. 4.We feel that serious consideration should be given by the Friends of the World Conference to opening of a Friends' Centre in Shanghai. It will not only strengthen the Friends' work in Szechwan but also promote international understanding and prepare the way for future co-operation. 5.The development of the work in the city of Chungking is important as it is a progressive commercial centre in Szechwan. There is a special need for a Friends' Institute in which various activities may be carried on along the line of mass education, spiritual fellowship and peace work among the working people. FIFTY YEARS OF QUAKERISM IN JAPAN By Edith F. Sharpless THE working materials of the Mission movement are intangibles . It goes back of action and form to the fundamentals of thought and belief and motive. It confronts one set of ideas with a different set, and expects replacement of the one by the other. If the ideas are judged on their own merits— which set leads to fuller and more harmonious living—this is a fair process. There is no other one by which men may arrive eventually at the truth. But it involves conflict in the process. To the Japan schooled in the Buddhistic faith for more than a thousand years came Quakerism in the year 1885. While there are some points where the two find common ground, yet more fundamental are the divergences. Perhaps one element that adds to the sense of conflict was a lack of unity in the presentation of the Quaker point of view. To readers of the Bulletin, it is only necessary to mention the localities involved in the early period of 92 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION the work of Friends in Japan to make this point clear. The Association from which the movement proceeded was in Philadelphia . The persons thru whom it carried on its work in Japan came from such diverse quarters as Kansas, Canada, London. Thruout the fifty years that have followed, one gets glimpses here and there of the conflict between two types of Quakerism, each seeking acceptance. One has also a gratifying feeling that as the years have passed, a gradual recognition of the other point of view has been achieved and that there is more unity today in fundamentals than there has ever been before. OUR story begins in Philadelphia, where in the year 1883 a group of women Friends met to consider their responsibility toward their "sisters" in other lands who had not had the advantages of the Christian gospel. They desired to share their faith wherever way opened. Syria, Mexico, India were considered. Perhaps the decision to work in Japan rested upon the statement made by two Japanese students who were invited to attend their meeting, that the education of women in their country would be a fruitful field. It is supposed that these young men were Inazo Ota (later, Nitobe) and Kanzo Uchimura, altho this has not been proved. The outcome was the dispatching of Joseph and Sarah A. Cosand, of Kansas Yearly Meeting, who arrived in Japan in December 1885. Under the impact of the work thus begun, the Missionary Association grew in numbers and in financial strength. It admitted men into its membership, and became a Board of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Arch Street) in 1923. It has kept in close touch with the work in Japan, personal rather than authoritative, and has sent delegations of Friends at various critical times in the history of the work, which have greatly increased the sense of sympathy between the two organizations. The Japan into which Joseph Cosand and...