Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1908 — JAPAN AND CHRISTIANITY. [ARTICLE]

JAPAN AND CHRISTIANITY.

Converts Include Among. Its Clasaea Japan’s Beat Element. Accessions to Christian churches in Japan are estimated by Dr. Scherer at about 3,000 annually, but they embrace mainly the “influential classes” —legislators, judges, army and navy officers, lawyers, bankers and phyal- ' dans. The masses seem as yet almost as immune to Christianity as are Mohammedan masses. Count Okuma is represented by Dr. Scnerer as among the Japanese of light and leading who feel concerned at the moral condition of Japan today. It is a question," says the count, “whether as a people we have not lost fiber as a result of the many new influences to which we have been subjected. Development has been Intellectual and not moral.” Count Okuma, although not a Chrlstion himself, is represented as welcoming the endeavors which “Christians are making to supply to the country a high standard of conduct.” There is, in a word, ample evidence that the action of church-burning mobs in Tokio reflects no sentiment prevalent in the government circles of Japan. Prime Minister Katsura seems to think the American mind may be in the dark on this point, for he has kept the cables warm with assurances of official Japanese esteem * for Christians and for Americans. —Current Literature.