Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-18
SUMMER RESORT IN JAPAN WHERE
THERE IS A UNIQUE GATH
ERING EACH YEAR.

ropeanS las all white folk are called out
nere5. I'm interested brown faces peeping in
hymn many persons. even to little child
in front of me. were affected to tears.
could not understand why anybody should
weep over the hearty singing of familiar
hymn until it was explained that the sight
and sound of 50 many Christians singing
together was too much for the mission
aries, who, for at least a year, had been
shut off in the interior towns and villages,
seeing only Japanese faces and hearing
only Japanese speech. Then l began to
realize the loneliness which is often one of
the heaviest taxes laid upon missionary.
Even worse. as I may as well mention
at the outset. since it is the constant spec
ter at every missionary family board is the
enforced separation of parents from chill
dren. This strikes down to the deeps of
human nature. The breaking of these
ties that as old as the race and
stronger than death. is the ever-recurring
tragedy of missionary life. Children must
be educated in the homeland: it seems i'm
possible to raise a good American in an
Asiatic atmosphere. Even in earliest years
the children inlbibe with the native tongue
more knowledge of evil than comes to the
normal boy and girl at home N twenty
years. AS they approach or enter their
rendered, and frequently they are not seen
again by their parents until they have at
tanned manhood or womanhood Tragic
tales are told OF children who do not recog-
niZe their own parents and of parents who
do not recognize their own children after;
these long separations This appears to me
to be the worst of all the hardships that
come to these accomplishing missionaries
While on the Gcmest;c aspect OF the MS
senarys life X is worth recording that the
second generation may frequently be found
on the field. | have met several instances
of it here. ''clildrens party of second
generation missionaries brought together a
score of young men and women few days
since. Quite unusual was a service in the
Auditorium last Sunday, when Margaret
Hail, the infant daughter of two young
missionaries. was baptized by one grand
father, the other grandfather and an uncle
assisting, and both Srandnothers and an
aunt being present, the entire group being
missionaries. Mark YOU this was not in a
long-settled New England com munty. but
in an ancient village in the heart of Japan.
The grandfather who cfficiated was Cum,
Derland Presbyterian, and he used the new
Presbyterian Book OF Common Worship. $
One is surprised to find in this single
European community OF perhaps coo per-
sons dozen or more whose names have
been for nearly a generation household
words in thousands of American homes.
Here are men whose careers are insep-
araby inwrought with the making of the
new Japan; not only they among the
founders of the Christian church here, but.
they are also conspicuous figures in the.
civil history of the empire. the friends and
counselors@ of statesmen. the pioneers of
higher education. the makers of Japan's
new litera ture. and the introducers CT the
dearly priced western learning
Since the missionaries are the most oblg-
ing folk with whom l have ever had to do, L