of Yedo Bay, there were here and there masses of leavened opinion, spots
of kindled light, and fields upon which the tender green sprouts of new
ideas could be detected. To-day, as inquiry among the oldest of the
Christian leaders and scores of volumes of modern biography shows, the
most earnest and faithful among the preachers, teachers and soldiers in
the Christian army, were led into their new world of ideas through Dutch
culture. The fact is revealed in repeated instances, that, through
father, grandfather, uncle, or other relative--some pilgrim to the Dutch
at Nagasaki--came their first knowledge, their initial promptings, the
environment or atmosphere, which made them all sensitive and ready to
receive the Christian truth when it came in its full form from the
living missionary and the vital word of God. Some one has well said that
the languages of modern Europe are nothing more than Christianity
expressed with differing pronunciation and vocabulary. To him who will
receive it, the mastery of any one of the languages of Christendom, is,
in a large sense, a revelation of God in Christ Jesus.


Seekers after God.


Pathetic, even to the compulsion of tears, is the story of these seekers
after God. We, who to-day are surrounded by every motive and inducement
to Christian living and by every means and appliance for the practice of
the Christian life, may well consider for a moment the struggle of
earnest souls to find out God. Think of this one who finds a Latin Bible
cast up on the shore from some broken ship, and bearing it secretly in
his bosom to the Hollander, gains light as to the meaning of its
message. Think of the nobleman, Watanabé Oboru,[16] who, by means of the
Japanese interpreter of Dutch, Takano Choyéi, is thrilled with the story