"In Japan there is a lot of harvest"

St. Nicholas of Japan - A letter from a Russian in Hakodate

The extreme failure of the Japanese religious teachings, the spirit of the Japanese people
and their government all prevent the fast progress of the Christian faith. The Japanese
folk religion (Shinto), the worship of ancestral spirits, could not defend itself against
Buddhism; and in comparison with the Christian faith, it falls into the dust before the very
first dogma: the existence of one God, the Creator and Provider of the universe. Buddhism
has also reached the last absurdities in Japan to the point of contradicting itself and it is
easily refuted with the simplest judgments of common sense.

The Japanese people can be divided religiously into four classes: (1) those who believe
in countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and pray to them without any reasonable account,
except for only one, pushed by the bonzes, the urge to escape hell on death (these are old
women and old men from the common people); (2) very weak believers, who do not
consider themselves obliged to pray (this is all the youth from the common people that is
"far from death"); (3) the patriots from the educated class who despise Buddhism but
stand for Shinto, although they are not believers; (4) and finally, those who despise both
Buddhism and Shinto and do not believe in anything other than Confucian impersonal
heaven, or the self-invented spirit of life, etc. (the educated class in general).

The Japanese government has always been distinguished by exemplary tolerance, and the
Christian faith, spread here by Catholic missionaries in the second half of the 16th
century, was expelled from here not as a faith at all, but as "a magic art that deceives the
people, incites them to disobedience to the authorities and has as its ultimate goal
preparing Japan for the subjugation to foreigners" [1]. This very unfair concept of the
Christian faith seems to have been abandoned long ago by the Shogun government, and
if the ancient law of the death penalty for accepting Christianity was still officially
unaltered, it had no application (although cases for this might present themselves).

In the present year the government of Shogun died and power passed to the Mikado. This
revolution was made by several princes that hated the Shogun's power in the name of
restoring Japan to the ancient greatness and improvement that had fallen under the rule
of the Shogun. The princes and the patriots convinced by them have to elevate the Mikado
at all costs (who was still in complete enslavement under the Shogun) and give it its
previous splendor. Only then Shinto, according to which Mikado is a direct descendant
of the heavenly gods, raises its head; all that is ancient and national is highly valued and
Buddhism, as a religion that came from outside, is exposed to insults. Christianity, at this
time of first fervor, of course, has nothing good to look forward to; and indeed, among
the three first and most important edicts of the Mikado, one forbids the adoption of the
Christian faith. But this prohibition is not terrible; it does not follow from the same
motives as the ancient Shoguns had for the persecution of Christianity; it is the result of
efforts to raise historical teaching, without a system or reason, into faith and historical
people into gods. If this government holds, which is almost improbable, since at present
a serious civil war is just breaking out (on the one hand for the Mikado, on the other for
Shogun) this prohibition will hardly be the cause of serious persecution of Christians. One
of the first principles of the new government is friendship with European powers and the
borrowing of all European sciences: can we protect ourselves from Christianity when all
Europeans are Christians, and when the Christian faith is the alpha and omega of all
sciences? And I do not even mention that European diplomats, with serious motives, will
not fail to take care of religious freedom.

As they saw a quick and plentiful harvest, the Catholic and Protestant powers have long
since sent out swarms of missionaries. There are 3 Jesuits living in Yokohama, 4 in
Nagasaki, if not more, 2 in Hakodate, and a post is established in Hongō, which was
opened last year. There are almost as many Protestant missionaries with the exception of
Hakodate, where there are not yet any. From Yokohama I have positive information about
an American missionary who has already prepared many people for baptism and is
recently building a house with an American doctor that will combine a waiting room for
the sick and an oratory for open preaching to the Japanese. The success and hopes for the
future of other missionaries, especially the Jesuits, who are distinguished by their activity
and art, are of course no less. In Nagasaki and its surroundings, according to Japanese
official news, there are up to a thousand Catholics (according to popular rumors, up to 3
thousand, and according to the legend of one of the Jesuits living here, up to 30 thousand).
If you stop at the first figure, then this is a huge success. It is explained by the fact that
the missionaries were joined by secret Christians, who kept from the 17th century from
generation to generation, under a deep secret, some remnants of Christian teaching.

The former government could not have been unaware of these successes of the forbidden
faith; but only last year it was found necessary to imprison several people, who were soon
released at the request of the French Minister. The Minister gave his word that the French
missionaries would stop their activities; but in less than three months, at the change of
government, two missionaries were captured, in fact, in a village far from Nagasaki, and
consequently they violated not only the promise made for them, but also the treaty
forbidding foreigners to go far from their place of residence. The captured missionaries,
however, left, as they say, not without the assistance of those who caught them. A
thousand Christians discovered by the new government are placed under the supervision
of neighboring princes, just as we [in Russia] place under the supervision of the police;
as a warning to others, the government threatens to banish fifty of them to Sakhalin in the
coal mines, which exist, however, only in the considerations of local administrators.

Two Jesuit missionaries settled in Hakodate exactly a year ago. When they arrived here,
they built a house in a few months, almost the best in the whole city, and now they are
preparing to build a Church. They avoid meeting me in every possible way, even turning
into a not quite decent flight from the house where they accidentally find me, and all this,
despite the fact that I already know one of them, having made a visit, among other things,
to the Catholic mission when I was in Yokohama three years ago. But living here side by
side with them, I have the opportunity to observe their interesting actions, which, of
course, are subject to a strict system. Arriving in Hakodate, they first tried to introduce
themselves to the city and to learn about it: almost at any time of the day you could find
them almost at once in all points of the city, walking always alone, in black robes with
hoods, with an important look on their faces, with a gaze ready every moment to rush into
the sky; sometimes they were armed with miniature prayer books and read them while
walking through the city, much to the surprise of the Japanese. When walking, they did
not miss an opportunity to talk to the Japanese and invite them to their home, promising
to show them "a most venerable God".

Thus, in a few weeks after their arrival, everyone in Hakodate, from young to old, knew
that these were the French bonzes who had come to teach the people their faith, and many
willingly volunteered to listen to them. The name of a missionary means so much!.
Having introduced themselves to the city externally, they did not hesitate to go further:
during walks, they began to visit Japanese houses: many, of course, do not like such
intrusiveness; I have sometimes heard astonishment and even murmurs at this rudeness;
but the calculation is correct: if out of the five houses they enter, one will receive them
and return a visit to their kind invitation, then this is a huge gain: in a year you can make
an acquaintance with a hundred houses. Little by little, they found agents to encourage
people to listen to the faith. They distribute Christian books in Chinese, which is easily
understood by educated Japanese, and the Gospel, among other things, to these agents as
well as to everyone who wants to read them. Only to the Gospel do they add, separately
and in large letters, the well-known text that serves as the cornerstone of the papacy –
where Jesus Christ tells the Apostle Peter about creating a Church on the stone of his
faith. The modesty of the font and edition of the gospel itself pale before this gospel of
the Gospels. It is evident that by this we must judge the importance of the dogma of the
Papal supremacy in comparison with other dogmas drawn from the Gospel! To all these
actions, the Jesuits, according to their custom, could not help adding some
embellishments, which follow from the rule: "the end justifies the means."

Immediately upon arrival in Hakodate, they started the rumor that, on the construction of
the church, they will preach to the Japanese "while handing out bread and tea", and "those
who will accept their faith, will be given over 350 rubles". The former, perhaps, is not
difficult to do with money, even if it is unseemly; and the latter is impossible to enforce
even with the wealth of the Jesuits; but the goal is achieved: the rumor spreads through
the city, arousing many people's disapproval and resentment; but even more people desire
to listen to the sermon and accept a lie. About our Orthodox faith, they try to spread
among the Japanese the slander common to all the West, that we have the Emperor as the
head of the Church: however, they have not yet made progress among the Japanese. The
Japanese, when they visit them, are dissatisfied because they treat them as children, they
lead others as Buddhist bonzes with their parishioners to all the religious paintings, which
are hung without number in various corners of the rooms, and make them bow, saying
only that "this is a very respectable person“; or explain the faith by showing an album of
Bible paintings and making explanations that are not clear to the Japanese, although one
of the missionaries has lived for 12 years in Japan, and before that 8 years in China. A
few days ago, the senior Jesuit was recalled to take up his post in Hongo, and another one
is expected to take his place.

8 years ago, I expressed a desire to take a place at the local Consulate, also for a
missionary purpose (who would have decided to go here just to serve once a week in a
completely empty Church, since there are no more than a dozen Russian Orthodox here?).
At the same time, by the way, there was talk about the need for a missionary Academy in
Russia, and, if I am not mistaken, they started to establish it, so I could hope that in case
of need, I would not stay here alone. When I arrived in Japan, I began to learn the local
language as much as I could. A lot of time and effort has been spent while I looked into
this barbaric language, which is positively the most difficult in the world, since it consists
of two: natural Japanese and Chinese, mixed together, but by no means merged into one.
It is not for nothing that Catholic missionaries once wrote that the Japanese language was
invented by the devil himself, in order to protect Japan from Christian missionaries. How
many kinds of spoken language, ranging almost from a purely Chinese dialect to vulgar
speech, in which, however, Chinese monosyllables are inevitably intertwined! How many
different ways of writing, starting from a purely Chinese book to books written with
phonetic characters, between which again Chinese characters inevitably get confused!
From the mutual meeting and interweaving of these two languages, belonging to two
different families, with grammatical constructions completely unlike one another, what a
vast number of the most improbable grammatical combinations, forms, particles, endings,
often without any meaning, but requiring, however, great delicacy in handling them. And
people like that notorious quasi-expert in Japanese, the Frenchman Roni, dares to write
grammars of the Japanese language! Good grammar which has to be thrown into the coal,
as useless garbage, a week after arriving in Japan!

It is clear that for a long time students of Japanese will have to learn it by instinct, through
reading books and mechanically taming themselves to certain changes of spoken and
written speech. So instinctively I learned to speak at last, somehow, and mastered the
most simple and easy way of writing, which is used for original and translated scientific
works. With this knowledge I began to translate the New Testament to Japanese, but not
from Russian: looking for the right Chinese characters for each Russian word is a work
far beyond my power and completely useless. Using Chinese it seems to be an easy task:
almost every word is expressed with a Chinese character, but Japanese reading is written
next to it and all the Japanese grammatical forms are expressed this way, with phonetic
symbols. My work, with a Japanese scholar, was to check and correct the translation.

This work went on very quickly, until I gradually became familiar with the Chinese text
and became disillusioned with its authority. I wrote for another translation of the New
Testament from China. It turned out that one was very literal and often incomprehensible,
the other was embellished, very often to the point of paraphrasing and of omitting or
inserting many words. This made me follow the text carefully in Russian and Slavic
translations. The occasional disagreement between the two (always, as far as I could see,
not in favor of the Russian translation) led me to look further into the Vulgate and the
English text, and finally I got the Greek New Testament. Looking through each verse in
all these readings, and in difficult places reading the interpretation of Chrysostom, I
finally reached such a slowness in translation that in the 5 hours that were devoted to this
work per day, I translated no more than 15 verses.

Recently, I have already started translating by myself, handing the text only after a
Japanese scholar reviewed it. This way I translated: catholic epistles, epistles of the
Apostle Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians and half of the epistle to the
Romans. When I look back at these translations now, I again see innumerable faults in
them. The ones translated first were the four Gospels and Acts, and they require a new
translation. During this work, I translated from Chinese: the Orthodox Confession of St.
Demetrius of Rostov, Catechism for Catechumens, a short history of The Old Testament,
Morning and Evening prayers. I tried to do what I could for the immediate missionary
purpose. For the first time, of course, it was necessary to look for people who, having
accepted Christianity, would be able, in turn, to serve to spread it themselves. Hakodate,
unfortunately, was a very bad place for it: it's a small town in Northern Japan, which
received a value only from the time they opened for foreigners and growing little by little
since then, but it strongly lacked the required elements; there are no scientists that you
could easily find around Edo or other significant places, there are no educated bonzes or
not employed people in general.

Four years after I arrived here, God sent me one man... When he became acquainted with
the Faith, he became disgusted with his previous ministry, he abandoned it, and decided
to devote his energies to the service of the true God. A year later, he found a companion,
and in the course of a year they found a third companion. Of these men and those similar
to them, I once wanted to form real missionaries, but my hopes have long since scattered
to dust! They are, however, intelligent, educated in the Japanese sense, highly moral,
sincerely religious, and ready to sacrifice themselves for the success of their adopted faith.
What would seem to be missing for missionary work? Something very important for
Japan, where even a commoner needs to be philosophically convinced: a logical mindset,
the ability to systematically assimilate the teachings of the faith and, finally, basic
memory, which every educated Japanese from childhood has filled with the study of
Chinese characters. With one of them, for example, I read the New Testament twice
interpreting everything incomprehensible; I told him the sacred history of the Old
Testament twice, and once he wrote it down almost entirely (unfortunately, the document
then burned down); there is hardly anything of dogmatic theology and liturgics that I have
not explained to him several times; almost everything, at my insistence, he wrote down.
What, it seems, would not be enough for a theological education? And what did he have
in mind? Some fragmentary information, without connection or order; everything heard
from me and even recorded a hundred times has been forgotten, a hundred times again
asked, and again forgotten or confused. And with all this, he still had an excellent ability
to use the knowledge that he really learned, a rare inspiration in his speech and a
remarkable eloquence. But how is all this useful without a scientific education? In the
heat of speech, suddenly the listener may stop with an objection; well, if it is a general
idea, with a brilliant comparison or example the speaker will overturn the objection, and
again a lively, fascinating speech will flow. But if the objection needs to be answered
with scientific information, if, for example, they ask to clarify some apparent
contradiction in the Gospels and the necessary information or interpretation is not in the
mind, then the speaker gets confused and the listener triumphs. So in the end instead of
benefit comes harm.

The other two are much inferior in ability to the first, and therefore even less fit for
missionary work. And they are not the only ones I know. I have a school in my house
where I teach Russian to Japanese people with my closest assistant; we have not yet
produced any good experts, but we have had to observe a lot of young people up close;
everyone has the same thing: the lack of any skill to systematically build their knowledge
and lack of memory. And how can it be otherwise, when the fundamental education of
the Japanese consists in senseless memorization of Chinese characters according to
Confucius and in reading various empty, disconnected and aimless books? In short,
experience has convinced me that there is nothing to hope for from Japanese missionaries;
when a complete theological literature appears in Japanese, then, with it behind him, the
Japanese can go to the sermon: but this is still a long way off. Now the Japanese can only
be useful as catechists, under the direct supervision of a real missionary. In this sense, I
decided to use them last winter to expand the range of actions. Instructions were drawn
up, with an exact distribution of the activities of the catechists; part of the time was for
their own further study of the faith by reading books and by personal conversations with
me, and the rest – for spreading the faith among the people. Little by little, there were up
to 20 people, men and women, ready to listen to Christian teaching. The catechists held
meetings for them, or went to their homes. This continued until spring, when a
circumstance occurred which caused us to suspend our studies for a time. I write this out
of my diary.
It was necessary to stop meetings, books were taken from the city, in case of a search (not
to lock up during the investigation, but because all translated books are handwritten, and
the loss of them would be very sensitive). Two or three weeks passed: all was quiet.
Meanwhile, a new Governor was expected any day, with all the government staff from
the Mikado, to replace the Shogun officials. At the same time, it became known that some
officials, partly to avoid reproaches from the expected Governor, partly out of an ultra-
Patriotic feeling, were looking for a person who would undertake to kill my catechizer,
as the main culprit for the birth of a forbidden Christian society here. But it would be too
cowardly to be afraid of any murder from around the corner, and we tried to continue our
studies as before, although most of those who had begun to learn the faith refused to
continue out of fear. But suddenly in Hakodate there are decrees of the new government:
the third of them is the prohibition to accept the Christian faith; after these come the
representatives of the new Governor and the news is received that in Nagasaki the new
government, which had time to take office earlier than in Hakodate, is driving out the
Christians. [...]. Meanwhile, in Hakodate, no matter how modest we tried to act, the rumor
about the Christians penetrated the people. Even if there were no direct informers, the
new government could not have failed to find out about them. [...] In that case, my
catechists would have been put in prison and perhaps executed. Without hesitation, I
decided to save them from this fate. Since they had been prepared for baptism for a long
time, I (on may 18) baptized them, naming them: I provided them with books and sent
them in different directions... The purpose of their journey, in addition to the immediate
one of escaping from danger, is that they should thoroughly investigate the mindset of
people everywhere, try to find people who are necessary for our cause, and finally, if
possible, organize at least the basic parts of Christian communities. For all this, they are
provided with detailed instructions, according to the importance of the case and the
personal character of each. But all this is just in case; in my heart I have very little hope
of their success; let them at least remain intact, and not compromise themselves. After
their departure from Hakodate, there were still those who, out of fear, resolutely stopped
learning the faith, and some doubtful ones... Just in case, I stopped the catechetical classes
with them until the time came. My fears, however, as it turns out, were in vain... All that
the new government has done in Hakodate against Christians is as follows: exactly a week
ago, in compliance with the instructions from the capital, which followed, as it seems,
about the Nagasaki investigation, the prohibition to accept the Christian faith is again
confirmed here: "of course, the merciful government will not take the lives of citizens for
this crime (accepting the Christian faith), but... to Sakhalin, to dig coal" and so on, it is
said in official warnings made to some people in writing and some verbally.

From all that has been said so far, it seems that the conclusion can be drawn that in Japan,
at least in the near future: there is a lot of harvest. And there are no doers on our side,
except for my completely private activities... I would have continued my studies in the
same direction, but the strength of one person is almost as much as a drop in the sea. One
translation of the New Testament, if done distinctly (and can it be done otherwise?), will
take at least two more years of exceptional labor. Then you need a translation of the Old
Testament; in addition, if you have even the smallest Christian Church, it is absolutely
necessary to perform services in Japanese; and other books, like Sacred History, Church
History, Liturgics, Theology? All these are also essential items. And all this and other
similar things must be translated into Japanese, of which we don't know if it will ever be
learned by a foreigner so that it can be written at least half as easily and quickly as a
foreigner usually writes in his own language. And when should I be preaching? And to
be engaged in preaching in any one point of Japan, when others are taking it away from
all possible points – how poor and thin it is with fruits and hopes! Catholicism and
Protestantism have taken over the whole world; there is almost no island or corner in the
world where one does not see either a priest with his teaching about the Pope, whom he
puts almost as the fourth person of the most Holy Trinity, or a pastor with a Bible under
his arm and ready to debate the interpretation of the Bible almost with himself; and
Orthodoxy, our immaculate, bright as the sun, Orthodoxy hides from the world! Here's
yet another country, the last in a series of new discoveries: at least here we could be on
par with others, not to compete and battle, which is not typical of Orthodoxy, but to offer
people the straight truth instead of a distorted one. And will we just stand behind with our
arms crossed? And will I just limit myself with worthless deeds?

"In Russia," they say, "there is no money!" Was there more money in Judea when it sent
preachers to all parts of the world? And in Greece, was there more money than we have
when it enlightened Russia? "There are no People either!". Some Moravian brothers, of
which there aren't more than five or six thousand, had people to go preaching, but Russia
with a population of seventy million does not have people! God, when will we have
enough people? [...].

And I, God willing, will not be abandoned here alone, doomed to fruitless solitary labor.
I came here with this hope, and have been living here for seven years; my most fervent
prayer is for its realization, and finally I believe in this realization so much that I have
submitted a petition for my dismissal on leave, and, upon receiving permission, I am
going to Petersburg to ask the Holy Synod for the establishment of a mission here. [...]

It is only necessary that the choice of missionaries is made carefully. There is no doubt
that the whole of Japan will soon be open to foreigners, and then the Catholics and
Protestants will send out legions of their missionaries; in numbers, at any rate, we cannot
keep up with them – let the quality at least make up to some extent for our quantitative
shortcomings.

June 15th, 1868. Hakodate.

*****

1. From several handwritten notes of Christianity in Japan, which I managed to get and
read (many cannot be obtained, since writing about this subject is forbidden), confirmed
by popular legends, as well as brief instructions and hints from authoritative historical
works, it is clear that the Catholic missionaries, in fact, without scruple and headlong,
used, as an auxiliary means to convert the people to Catholicism, the superiority of
European technical and physical Sciences over the Japanese, passing off various tricks as
miracles.

Show, for example, a Japanese a mirror, on which, under the varnish, artfully drawn,
visible only in a certain light, there is the head of a horse. "Look," they say, "what you
look like." The Japanese is horrified by his ugliness. "Pray," they say, "if you don't want
to be a brute." The Japanese diligently begins to repeat: "sen-subari, sen-subari", (must
be: Jesus Maria or Sancta Maria). When, after the appointed time spent in prayer, he
returns to the missionaries, to his unspeakable joy, he sees himself in the mirror no longer
as a horse, but as an angel.
The missionaries were also able, under the guise of supernatural miracles, to show the
sea, mountain, etc., in a room. The whole ego has borne very bitter fruit! It is worth
listening at present to the confessions of the Japanese, and especially of the Japanese
women, with what fear they hid themselves from the foreigners, imagining in them, as in
Christians, sorcerers capable of anything.

I myself have been asked by many Japanese to show them some supernatural trick, not
believing that I was not a sorcerer. And so far, even in Hakodate, after 16 years of
acquaintance with foreigners, the people have not yet lost the same opinion of Christians.
When, at the beginning of this year, a band of incendiaries appeared here, who for a whole
month with impunity disturbed the whole city, and were extremely clever and quick, the
people decided that they were Christian magicians.

In the writings I have read, there are also direct indications that, during the incessant state
troubles that occurred during the time of Christianity in Japan, when the Shogun's throne
was constantly changing hands, the missionaries were not able to restrain themselves and
keep their proselytes from political intrigues. And the Shimabara uprising under the
Christian banner is a terrible historical catastrophe, which ended with the beheading of
80 thousand insurgents. Finally, there are traces of the fact that some of the Christian
proselytes here were not unfamiliar with the idea, obviously not invented by themselves,
of handing over the Fatherland to foreigners.

*****

Warning: some parts (and footnotes) have been omitted because they did not add anything
important to the text and also because it was hard to understand them after I translated
them. You can still find them in the original source I used. These parts are located in the
places marked with [...].

Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Nikolaj_Japonskij/i-v-japonii-zhatvy-mnogo/#note2_return