OCR Text |
Show The Missionary Herald January Imposing Ceremonial persecution of the Christians in general; and even in the event of the Central Powers being victorious- which in my opinion is improbable- they would considerably influence our position as a state and as a nation. Ungrateful nations are not the Christians, but we who have turned against our 'friends and protectors.' " It is said that Ahmed Riza was arrested on leaving the senate, but was released on the intervention of Prince Yous-souf Izzedin. IT was impressive to note the space that American papers gave to re- Japan's porting the coronation of Japan's emperor. Day by day, for a week or more, dispatches, special articles, illustrations, editorials, were employed by all the leading journals of the United States to portray to their readers this event transpiring on the other side of the globe. It was a striking witness to the fact that the world is being brought together, that the fences are down, and that what concerns one people on the globe concerns all its inhabitants. Another significant fact about the coronation was its mingling of old and new. Special effort was made to revive the historic customs of Japan, to repeat exactly the ancient ceremonial in the enthroning of the new emperor. There was a recrudescence of immemorial rites, a magnifying of old superstitions, such as the performance of religious observances before the mirror, the star, and the sword, that revealed old Japan. And it was done in the midst of new Japan, by the aid of the telephone and beneath the electric light. There was thus a curious mixture of the modern world, with its knowledge, manners, and impulses, and the world of primitive Japan, with its puerile and impossible faiths and fancies. Pagan and Christian ideals were brought into close proximity. As the procession entered the imperial park at Kyoto for the coronation exercises, if any participant in the joyous pageant turned his eyes to the right he saw the spire of a Christian church overtopping the trees. Beyond that park, in the very next block, are the spacious grounds and the buildings of the Doshisha, from the tower of one of which, Harris Hall, one could look down on all that royal inclosure. On the broad street that bounds another side of the park are the homes of several American Board missionaries, whose influence is widely felt in that Japanese city. And all over the empire was being felt, in the midst of these coronation days, the influence of the three years' evangelistic campaign of Christian Japan. The old may be maintained and revived. Surely we all could wish that many of the characteristic traditions of Japan should be preserved; that she should remain truly Japanese. But the new is coming inevitably into power in that empire. The point of concern is as to what type of the new shall prevail. Shall it be Christian or infidel ? As the old gods go and the new arrive, whose shall be the Face of Light? THE spectacle of Henry Ford and his party sailing forth on a peace expedition with no other pro-thefeUm a n d g r a m t h a n " t 0 g e t t h e b ° y S out of the trenches" by Christmas Day, or New Year's, or the Fourth of July, or some convenient date, is pathetic or humorous, according as one looks at it. Certainly there are elements of folly in such an unorganized and weaponless crusade. But a good deal more foolish or tragic, whichever happens to be the point of view, is the spectacle of Europe, drenched in blood, lining up, on one side or the other, allies from all the strange corners of the world, and fighting desperately and with ruthless destruction to settle a controversy that arose between Austria and Serbia over the foul murder of one man. The abysmal folly of the time is the war itself. The pitiful fact, that must |