Geschichte des Christentums in Japan.—The above are general accounts, or résumés, of the subject.—The literature of Catholicism in Japan is very voluminous, beginning with the Jesuits' Letters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and coming down to the special treatises by Leon Pages, Satow, and others. Satow's researches are, for the most part, scattered through the volumes of the Asiatic Transactions; but one of his most interesting essays, entitled The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan from 1591 to 1610, giving extracts and facsimiles, was printed privately as a separate work.
(II. Protestant.)—The Statistics of Missions, published yearly.—The Reports of the various missionary societies and of the General Conferences of 1883 and 1900.—A History of Protestant Missions in Japan, by Pastor H. Ritter, Ph. D., translated by Rev. George E. Albrecht, A. M., revised and brought up to date by Rev. D. C. Greene, D.D.—An American Missionary in Japan, by Rev. M. L. Gordon, D.D.—Thirty Eventful Years in Japan, the Story of the American Board's Mission in Japan, by Rev. M. L. Gordon, D.D.—The Life of Joseph Hardy Neesima[1] LL.D., by Arthur S. Hardy.—How I Became a Christian, by Uchimtira Kanzō.—Die Japaner, by Rev. C. Munzinger.
Moral Maxims. Few Japanese books are more likely to please the foreign student than two small volumes of practical ethics, entitled respectively Jitsu-go Kyō, or "Teaching of the Words of Truth," and Dōji Kyō, or "Teaching of the Young." They are ascribed to Buddhist abbots of the ninth century; but the doctrine of both has a Confucian no less than a Buddhistic flavour, and many of the maxims are transcribed bodily from Chinese sources. Both collections were for many ages as familiar to the youth of Japan as the Sermon on the Mount is to us. The following may serve as specimens:—
"Treasures that are laid up in a garner decay: treasures that are laid up in the mind decay not.
"Though thou shouldst heap up a thousand pieces of gold: they would not be so precious as one day of study.
"If thou, being poor, enter into the abode of the wealthy: remember that his riches are more fleeting than the flower nipped by the hoar-frost.
"If thou be born in the poor man's hovel, but have wisdom: then shalt thou be like the lotus-flower growing out of the mud.
"Thy father and thy mother are like heaven and earth: thy teacher and thy lord are like the sun and moon.
- ↑ Properly Niishima or Niijima; but the awkward transliteration of former days has been usually retained for this particular name.
