The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1918-01-10
SINCERITY IS INSPIRING
Realistic Story of Personal Experience
Impresses AL Who Hear - Speaker
Denounces Buddhism - Has Praise
for American Missions.

Kenoshans who plowed their way
through snow-drifts to be present at
the Park Avenue Church School ON
Sunday morning, were more than COM
pensated for their courage by the ad-
dress of Spmio Uesugi, M. A., formerly
a resident Of Toxic, Japan, but now
graduate student at Chicago Univer-
sity.J Clad in black kimona, adorned
with silver moons and sparrows perch
ed In the branches of bamboo tree, the
Oriental orator made an eloquent APP
peal for Christian missionary service
in the land where cherry-blossoms blow
and images of Buddha are enthroned
in shrines of ivory and jade.
The speech of the learned Jap was
rich in Oriental coloring and vibrant
with sincere devotion to the cause of
Christianity. With whimsicality and
humor that held his audience complete
~ Mr.. Uesugi described religious con-
ditions in Japan and told the moving
story of his own conversion. It was
the straightforward unvarnished record
of personal experience and by its very
simplicity profoundly affected all who
heard it and understood its tragedy.
"My hair is black, said the speak
er by way of introducing himself, "my
skin is brown, I am short-very short.
I am a full-blooded son of old
Japan sincerely working to redeem
my people from superstition, image
worsip, and darkness.
Everything is so different here,
he continued ''You shake hands with
me when we meet in American
Japan we only bow. Here you kiss
each other frequently-there it is
pleasure reserved for lovers alone.
Americans kiss too much and yet be-
meath all of it there is freedom and
sincerity that is not found in Oriental
countries. Then, too, you do not wor-
ship idols. In Japan Buddha is every
Understanding his prayers and his
pay-While. here people who are rehgi-
Gus at all worship a God of mind
and soul and not an image of sense
less brass or marble'
Thereafter the speaker told the story
of his introduction to Christianity
through the work of American mission
aries in Toxic. He emphasized es-
pecialiy the practically and esthetic
appeal of Christian churches in the
Orient and paid touching tribute
to the big man. and "the beautiful
LADY, who first attracted him to the
cause of the Nazarene. .a
"What they did for me", he as
serted, II hope to do for some one
else. Had they never smiled at me,
never invited me to their hQme, where
was served with coffee and cocoa,
never taught me to read the scriptures
and trust the God of which they speak,
! might still be cropping in the darkness
Of image worship, vainly hoping to
reach a sensuous paradise by mumbling
the name of Buddha ten thousand
times a day. They gave me higher
vision and inspired me to do as
much for others who have not known,
who have not felt, the sacred power
of a spiritual God.
cit has been hard at times'', he
concluded. II returned to my father IS
house to find it no longer my home.
No Christian could pass its threshold.
And yet am glad to be an exile if
by my suffering and my sacrifice can
bring my people to a new freedom and
new hope and redeem japan from
the blight of ignorance and the black
ness of paganism."