New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1905-10-11
MISSION OF MODERN JAPAN
Rev. Geo. E. Albrecht Gives His
Opinions.
Believes Japan Will Be Missionary
to Orient.
Communism Strongest Factor in
Nations Strength.

In opening his address to the large
audience assembled in the Congrega-
tional church Friday evening, Rev.
Geo. e. Albrecht stated that he was
pleased to be in the city and to recall
the events that surrounded his first
passionate while a young man doing
missionary work in this city in 1881,
but he did not want to see some of the
events of that time repeated, and in
this connection he referred to the eye
lone which struck the place soon after
he did and did such great damage.
The subject of his lecture was the
Emission of New Japan" and the
thoroughly familiar manner in which
he took up the subject showed that he
was speaking from what he knew by
personal observation and contact with
the people of that country and not from
any superficial knowledge gained from
reading what others had written.
The greatest thought and one that is
more or less new to most of the people
was the idea of the oriental communal
! ism that has obtained for ages in that
country and which he sets down as the
one great factor in the strength of the
nation.
He says that the idea of the individu-
al, until more recent years was COM
pletely absorbed in the idea of the COM
munity. There was really but one
parent as far as duty and obligation
is concerned and that was the ruler, to
him all the people of the country be-
longed as children to a family and
loyalty to him was the one great in
centive to patriotism, in fact was the
only patriotism the people possessed.
His idea of the mission of the country
now that it has been forced out of the
environments that have held it to itself
for all the past, is to open the eyes of
the people of China to the advantages
of a better form of government and
civiliz alton, and this, he contended was
something that Japan could do better
than any other country on the face of
the globe, for the simple reason that
they were of kinship and there was
the racial sympathy that would entitle
them to hearing where other countries
would be barred.
He believed that from the amalga-
nation of the idea of the individual as
we have it in this country and the idea
of community as they have it in the
orient, the Japanese would work out a
civilization that would be greatly
superior to that either in this country
or in their own at the present time.
With this higher civilization, how
ever, he did not think there was any
need to fear what people chose to call
the yellow peril, for he believed that
the new conditions would have for their
leading thought, Asia for the Asiatics
as we have America for Americans,
and their one object would be the de-
velOpment Of their own resources and
the advancement of their own people
first.
Mr.. Albrecht spoke for more than an
hour and the entire time was filled with
the most interesting information. AS
a lecture for thought it is pleasing to
note that the people were all interested
and willing to come out, and they al
enjoyed the time spent in listening tc
this modern topic discussed by one who
is in a position to know of what hi
speaks.