Part 13 (1/2)
This is one of the many reasons why a missionary should be a married man. The single man cannot create this model home, which is to teach the people by example what Christian family life should be. In this respect Catholic missions are deficient, the celibacy of the priests precluding family life.
First, then, the mission home is an example to the non-Christian people around it. It is frequently open to them, and they can see its workings. They often share its hospitality and sit at its table.
Their keen eyes take in everything, and a deep impression is made upon them.
Just here arises one of the greatest difficulties the missionary has to contend with in his private life. The people are so inquisitive naturally, the mission home is so attractive to them, and our idea of the privacy and sanct.i.ty of the home is so lacking in their etiquette, that it is hard to keep {212} the home from becoming public. People will come in large numbers at the most unseasonable hours, simply out of curiosity, wanting to see and handle everything in the house. It is often necessary, in self-defense, to refuse them admittance, except at certain hours. Not only are the seclusion and privacy of the home endangered, but the missionary also is in great danger of having his valuable time uselessly frittered away.
Notwithstanding all that the mission home is to the people, it is much more to the missionary. It should be to him a sure retreat and seclusion from the peculiarly trying cares and worries of his work. It should be a place where he can evade the subtle influences of heathenism which creep in at every pore--a safe retreat from the sin and wickedness and vice around it.
The mission home should be a Western home transplanted in the East. It may not become too much orientalized. It should have Western furniture, pictures, musical instruments, etc., and should make its possessor feel that he is in a Western home. It should be well supplied with books and newspapers, and everything else that will help to keep its inmates in touch with the life of the West. The missionary may not be orientalized, else he will be in danger of becoming heathenized.
For the sake of his children the missionary's {213} home should be as exact a reproduction of the Western home as possible. These children are citizens of the West, heirs of its privileges; and to it they will go before they reach years of maturity. Therefore it is but fair that their childhood home should reflect its civilization.
In order that the missionary may be able to build up such a home it is necessary that he be paid a liberal salary. While living in native style is very cheap, living in Western style is perhaps as dear here as in any country in the world. Clothing, furniture, much of the food, etc., must be brought from the West; and we must pay for it not only what the people at home pay, but the cost of carrying it half-way round the world, and the commission of two or three middlemen besides.
Most boards operating in j.a.pan pay their men a liberal salary. They also pay an allowance for each child, health allowance, etc. All this is well. Man is an animal, and, like other animals, he must be well cared for if he is to do his best work. No farmer would expect to get hard work out of a horse that was only half fed, and no mission board can expect to get first-cla.s.s work out of a missionary who is not liberally supported. The missionary has enough to worry him without having to be anxious about finances.
Especially is it wise that the boards give their {214} men an allowance for children. The expenses incident to a child's coming into the world in the East are very high. The doctor's bill alone amounts frequently to more than $100. Then a nurse is absolutely necessary, there being no relatives and friends to perform this office, as sometimes there are in the West. The birth of a child here means a cash outlay of $150 to $200, to pay which the missionary is often reduced to hard straits. If he belongs to a board that makes a liberal child's allowance he is fortunately relieved from this difficulty.
The allowance is also necessary to provide for the future education of the child. As there are no suitable schools here, children must be sent home to school at an early age. They cannot stay in the parental home and attend school from there, as American children do, but must be from childhood put into a boarding-school, and this takes money. Now no missionaries' salaries are sufficiently large to enable them to lay up much money, and unless there is a child's allowance there will be no money for his education, in which event the missionary must sacrifice his self-respect by asking some school or friends to educate his child.
He feels that if any one in the world deserves a salary sufficient to meet all necessary expenses without begging, he does; and it hurts him to give his life in hard service to {215} the church in a foreign land, and then have his children educated on charity.
All mission boards should give their men an allowance for each child, unless the salary paid is sufficiently large to enable them to lay aside a sufficient sum for this very purpose.
The health allowance is also a wise provision because the climate is such as often to necessitate calling in a physician, and doctors' bills are enormously high. If the missionary is not well he cannot work; but if he is left to pay for medical attendance himself out of a very meager salary, all of which is needed by his wife and children, he will frequently deny himself the services of a physician when they are really needed.
The work of the missionary is most trying, and the demands on his health and strength are very exhausting. The petty worries and trials that constantly meet him, the rivalries and quarrels which his converts bring to him for settlement, the care of the churches, anxiety about his family, etc., are a constant strain on his vital force, in order to withstand which it is necessary that he should have regular periods of rest and recreation. Nature demands relaxation, and she must have it, or the health of the worker fails.
It is customary in j.a.pan for the missionaries to leave their fields of work during the summer season and spend six weeks or two months in {216} sanatoria among the mountains or by the seash.o.r.e. Here their work, with its cares and anxieties, is all laid aside. The best-known sanatoria in j.a.pan are Karuizawa, Arima, Hakone, Sapporo, and Mount Hiezan. In most of these places good accommodations are provided, and the hot weeks can be spent very pleasantly. Large numbers of missionaries gather there, and for a short time the tired, isolated worker can enjoy the society of his own kind; his wife can meet and chat with other housewives; and his children can enjoy the rare pleasure of playing with other children white like themselves. These resorts are cool, the air is pure and invigorating, and the missionary returns from them in September feeling fresh and strong, ready to take up with renewed vigor his arduous labors.
It is objected to these vacations that they take the missionary away from his field of work, and that so long an absence on his part is very injurious to the cause. This is partially true; but a wise economy considers the health of the worker and his future efficiency more than the temporary needs of the work. The absence of the foreign worker for a short period is not as hurtful as one would at first glance suppose.
A relatively larger part of the work is left in the hands of the native helpers in j.a.pan than in most mission fields, and these evangelists stay at their posts {217} all through the summer, and care for its interests while the foreigner is away. The same need of a vacation does not exist in their case, because they are accustomed to the climate, and they work through their native tongue and among their own people.
The need of this missionary vacation is so evident that we need only give it in outline. In the first place, the unfavorable climate makes a change and rest desirable. As I have already stated, the climate of j.a.pan is not only very warm, but also contains an excessive amount of moisture and a very small per cent. of ozone, and is lacking in atmospheric magnetism and electricity; hence its effect upon people from the West is depressing. Besides the climate, the missionary's work is so exhaustive and trying, and its demands upon him are so great, that a few weeks' rest are absolutely necessary. The same reasons which at home justify the city pastor in taking a vacation are intensified in the missionary's case.
Not least of these reasons is that the missionary may for a while enjoy congenial society. Many of us spend ten months of the year isolated almost entirely from all people of our own kind. The j.a.panese are so different that we can have but little social life with them; and it is but natural and right that, for a short period, we should have the opportunity to meet and {218} a.s.sociate with our fellow-missionaries.
The work which we do the remainder of the year is done much better because of this rest and fellows.h.i.+p.
Dr. J. C. Berry, in a paper read before the missionary conference at Osaka in 1883, discusses very fully this question of missionary vacations and furloughs. After elaborating the reasons for them, which reasons I have given in brief above, he says: ”It therefore follows that, because of the numerous and complex influences operating to-day to produce nerve-tire in the missionary in j.a.pan, regard for the permanent interests of his work requires that a vacation be taken in summer by those residing in central and southern j.a.pan, the same to be accompanied by as much of recreation and change as circ.u.mstances will permit.”
With all the care and precaution that can be taken, with systematic rests and vacations, there soon comes a time when it is necessary for the missionary to return to his home land, to breathe again the air of his youth, and to replenish his physical, mental, and moral being. All the mission boards recognize this and permit their men in this and in other fields to return home on furlough after a certain number of years. The definite time required by the different missions before a furlough is granted varies from three to ten years, the latter period being the most general. {219} But this has been found to be too long, and failing health usually compels an earlier return. Some boards have no set time, but a tacit understanding exists that the missionary may go home at the end of six or eight years.
At the end of the prescribed period the missionary family is taken home at the expense of the board, and is given a rest of a year or eighteen months. During this time, if the missionary is engaged in preaching or lecturing for the board, as is generally the case, he is paid his full salary. If he does no work he is sometimes paid only half his salary.
This is very hard, as the salary is just large enough to support him and his family, and their expenses while at home are almost as great as while in the field. If the salary is cut down the pleasure and benefit of the furlough are curtailed. If the missionary in the service of the board exhausts his health and strength in an unfavorable climate it seems but fair that he should be properly supported while endeavoring to recuperate. When a church at home votes its pastor a vacation, instead of cutting down his salary during his absence, it is customary to give him an extra sum to enable him to enjoy it. Why should not the same be done for the missionary? He should at least be permitted to draw the full amount of his small salary.
Against these vacations is urged their great {220} expense to the boards, the greater loss to the mission because of the absence of the worker, and the moral effect of frequent returns upon the church at home. All of these objections have weight, but they are far outweighed by the reasons that necessitate the furlough. The acc.u.mulated experience of the different boards makes the judgment unanimous that these are necessary. The judgment of competent medical men also confirms the statement. Dr. Taylor said in the Osaka conference: ”I am convinced that a missionary's highest interest requires, and the greatest efficiency in his work will be secured by, a return home at stated intervals.” Dr. Berry said in the same conference: ”The new and strange social conditions under which the missionary is obliged to work; the effects of climate, intensified in many cases by comparative youth; the absence of many of those home comforts and social, intellectual, and religious privileges with which the Christian civilization of to-day so plentifully surrounds life; the home ties, strengthened by youthful affections,--all these combine with present facilities of travel to render it advisable that the young missionary be at liberty to take a comparatively early vacation in his native land.”
From an economic standpoint it is wise to grant these furloughs. It is poor economy to keep the workers in the field until they are completely {221} broken down, and then have to replace them by inexperienced men, who will not be able to do the work of the old ones for years. Far wiser is it to let them stop and recuperate in the home lands before this breakdown comes. It costs less money to keep a missionary well than to care for him during a long, unprofitable period of sickness. I quote again on this point Wallace Taylor, M.D., who, in the paper referred to above, said: ”The present haphazard, unsystematic methods of most missions and boards is attended with the greatest expense and the poorest returns. Some of the boards working in j.a.pan have lost more time and expended more money in caring for their broken-down missionaries than it would cost to carry out the recommendations herein made. Again, I observe that many who do not break down begin to fail in health after the fourth or fifth year from entering on their work.
They remain on the field, and are reluctantly obliged to spend more or less time in partial work, while experiencing physical discomfort and dissatisfaction of mind. Very many of these cases would have accomplished more for the means expended by a furlough home at the close of the fifth or sixth year.... Over $90,000 have been expended in j.a.pan by one mission alone in distracted efforts to regain the health of its missionaries.”