Kanamori's life-story: Told by himself; how the Higher Criticism wrecked a Japanese Christian—and how he came back

In the year 1852 the Government of the United States sent an expedition under Commodore Perry to the Far East. He came to Japan with four ships, manned by 560 men, and concluded a treaty of commerce between the United States and Japan, thus opening that hermit nation of the Far East to the light of modern civilization. This was the dawn of new Japan.

About 1870, an American soldier, Captain L. L. Janes, came to my country. But his coming was entirely different from that of the former one. He was not sent by the United States Government, but was invited by the Japanese Government to teach military tactics to her subjects.

In those days Japan was divided into about three hundred small provinces, each having its own prince or lord, and each prince having an army of his own to fight with other princes. One of these feudal princes of the southern island, called Kyushu, was quite an ambitious man. He schemed to have a strong army, which was drilled in quite up-to-date, modern military tactics of the “Western Nations,” as the Japanese called the countries of Europe and America. For this purpose he engaged Captain Janes, who was a graduate of the West Point Military Academy, and a captain in the Union Army, and was said to have fought four years in the Civil War, to come to his province and found a military school.

Meanwhile, this prince had selected about one hundred boys from among his own subjects, by a special examination, and put them into this military school. Thus the school was started. But soon after this a great political change took place in Japan, by which all the feudal lords of the country restored their territories to the Imperial Government, the whole country now being ruled by one supreme head, the Emperor of Japan, and all the provincial armies were dispersed. There being no longer any need of a provincial military school, this one was changed in character, and became simply an English school, where Captain Janes taught for seven years.

In this connection I must tell you how God in his providence turned this school, originally intended for the training of military officers, into a nursery for Christian workers. It was a wonderful providence, indeed, by which God raised up many “children unto Abraham” out of these rude stones.

Captain Janes was not a missionary, and had no connection with any mission board in America. But he was an earnest Christian, filled with a strong desire to lead to Christ those boys who came under his instruction. His wife, too, who was a daughter of Doctor Scudder, an early missionary to India, was a praying woman. I was told by her sister, and her brother, Dr. Doremus Scudder, when they came to my country as missionaries long years after this, how in those early days Mrs. Janes used to spend many nights in prayer with tears.

In the beginning Captain Janes could not talk much about Christianity, because he did not know the language. He could not speak Japanese at all. He did not even attempt to learn Japanese. He used English alone from the very beginning of his teachings. When he taught the alphabet to his boys he spoke English to them. Nobody could understand him. He did not employ an interpreter, because he did not like the idea of having a go-between with his students. He tried from the first to come into direct contact with his pupils, and to inspire them through his own personality. And he did inspire them. The boys were fascinated and captivated by his unique personality long before they were converted to his religious faith.

In the third year of his teaching, when the older boys began to understand him and he could talk with them in English, he began to talk about Christianity. He could not teach Christianity in the school. It was not a mission school, and to teach Christianity was not his object in coming, but he offered to teach us the Bible, if we would go to his house Saturday evenings. And he gave us several copies of the English Bible. At first, out of mere curiosity, a few of the older boys went to read the Bible with him every Saturday evening. But the Bible was a strange book to us, and we could not understand it at all. Also, Captain Janes had a very peculiar way of teaching the Bible. He did not explain much, nor argue much with his students; but from the very beginning of the Bible reading he asked us to commit to memory certain passages, such as John 1:1-18, and 3:1-21, and we did so out of sheer respect for our revered teacher. I have forgotten almost everything I heard in his Bible class, but these Scripture verses still remain in my memory.

Then in addition to this Bible reading, Captain Janes began to preach every Sunday morning in his own parlor. Though he had no theological training he used to preach fine sermons, and very long ones, often two or three hours at a time. It may be that I learned my three-hour sermon from him. But as he was an eloquent speaker we were much impressed by his Sunday morning preaching. One day when he was preaching on Paul and his great missionary work, he suddenly turned to me and said, “What do you think of this man? Is it not a glorious thing to imitate such a great man as the Apostle Paul?” From that time the name of Paul became a part of my name. Through his preaching, about a dozen boys of the school were converted. This was in the summer of 1875.

After we were converted we became very much interested in reading the Bible. But while the school was in session we could not get much time for it, because we were so pressed with our daily lessons. So when the winter vacation of that year came, a few of the Christian boys remained in the school, instead of going back to their own homes to enjoy the holidays. Our purpose in staying in the school was to read the Bible and pray together. During this vacation we tried to put aside all other books, and to read the Bible only. In those days we had no Japanese Bible. We had only the English Bible, which our teacher gave us. We had no commentaries to explain the difficult passages, nor a Bible dictionary to consult. But we spent the whole time of this vacation in reading the plain English Bible. We read mostly the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles to the Romans. I remember how we enjoyed this Bible reading. We almost devoured the Book, just as young people nowadays devour their sensational novels.

This Bible reading was the preparation for a powerful revival which soon broke out in that school. This was the first revival in modern Japan, or rather it should be called the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, because there was nothing yet to revive. We did not know that it was a revival of religion. We had neither heard nor read of such things. We had not seen a single missionary. No missionary had ever visited that part of the country. We were so ignorant of the Christian world outside of us that we did not even know the modern institution of church and pastor. We did not know that the minister who preaches the Gospel can be supported by the church. We thought if we were going to preach the Gospel we must do as Paul did,--working with our own hands and preaching the Gospel. All we knew were Bible truths and Bible personages. We knew Jesus Christ and how he died upon the cross for us. We knew Paul and Peter and John and James, and how they were filled with the Holy Spirit and what mighty works they did. And we boys simply tried to imitate those great apostles.

Without knowing that it was a revival of religion, we had it, and that, too, a powerful one. It happened on this wise. When the winter vacation was over, all the boys returned to school. These boys were quite young. I was one of the oldest among them, and I was only eighteen. When the younger boys returned to the school, we older boys who had read the Bible during vacation were now so full of it that we could not help talking about it to these younger students. These students now became very much interested in hearing Bible stories, and they also began to read the Bible themselves. So we formed Bible classes and taught them. The whole school was thrown into such a fever of Bible reading that, although the new term had already commenced, the school could not resume its ordinary work because nobody cared to read any other book but the Bible, Bible, Bible. Everybody was reading the Bible, and everywhere Bible classes were going on. Consequently, for the whole of the first week of the term the regular studies were suspended, and the school was given over to Bible reading. We thought at one time that the whole school of one hundred boys was going to be converted at once. Conversion after conversion occurred. There was a boy about fifteen years of age who preached so powerfully among his fellow-students that as a result many were converted.

The revival did not confine itself within the school walls. We were not satisfied with the conversion of the schoolboys alone. We went out of the school, preaching the Gospel in our own homes, to our parents, relatives, and friends. We even went to our former Confucian teachers, and told them the new truths we had learned from the Bible. We were all Confucianists, and brought up in the Confucian school before we entered Captain Janes’ school. There were quite often very hot discussions between those old teachers and the newly converted Christian boys. But always these boys were able to confound those old Confucian scholars. As they could not withstand nor gainsay these boys’ arguments, they were enraged at them. One day I called on my old Confucian teacher, who loved me as dearly as one of his own sons, and I was also very much attached to him; but as I told him the new truths which I had learned from the Bible there arose a hot discussion between us. When he saw that I would not obey his command to renounce the Christian faith, he was greatly enraged, and said, “You must never come back again to my house to see me.”

I was almost driven out of his house, and I did not see him again before his death. But I am happy to tell you that not long after his death his widow became a Christian, and one of his grandsons is now the pastor of a Christian church.

In the midst of such a sweeping revival a great enemy appeared. Persecution broke out, not by the government, but by the families, parents, relatives, and friends of the young converts. At the instigation of the Confucian teachers, the parents and relatives tried to persuade their boys to renounce their Christian faith, and to return to the Confucian teaching.

You know that the first missionaries in Japan were Roman Catholics, sent about five hundred years ago, but the Japanese Government, as well as the people, had for many centuries bitterly persecuted these Roman Catholics. Any one who professed to be Christian was in danger of bringing capital punishment upon himself and his family. People looked upon Christians as traitors to the country, and feared that they would become the tools of the foreign nations represented by the missionaries. So the Christians were looked upon by the country at large as very detestable people, dangerous to the safety of the country.