n the history of the world
than was the Lutheran Reformation.

The recent history of Christianity in Japan supplies many striking
instances of visionary plans and visionary enthusiasts. The confident
expectation entertained during the eighties of Christianizing the
nation before the close of the century was such a vision. Another,
arising a few years later, was the importance of returning all foreign
missionaries to their native lands and of intrusting the entire
evangelistic work to native Christians, and committing to them the
administration of the immense sums thus set free. For it was assumed
by these brilliant Utopians that the amount of money expended in
supporting missionaries would be available for aggressive work should
the missionaries be withdrawn, and that the Christians in foreign
lands would continue to pour in their contributions for the
evangelization of Japan.

Still another instance of utopian idealism is the vision that Japan
will give birth to that perfect religion, meeting the demands of both
heart and head, for which the world waits. In January, 1900, Prof. T.
Inouye, of the Imperial University, after showing quite at length, and
to his own satisfaction, the inadequacy of all existing religions to
meet the ethical and religious situation in Japan, maintained this
ambitious view.

Some Japanese Christians are declaring the need of Japonicized
Christianity. "Did not the Greeks transform Christianity before they
accepted it? And did not the Romans, and finally the Germans, do the
same? Before Japan will or can accept the religion of Christ, it must
be Japonicized." So they argue; "and who so fit to do it as we?" lies
in the background of their thought.

Many a Christian pastor and evangelist, although not sharing the
ambition of Prof. Inouye, nevertheless glows with the confident
expectation that Japonicized Christianity will be its most perfect
type. "No one need wonder if Japan should be destined to present to
the world the best type of Christianity that has yet appeared in
history," writes an exponent of this view, at one time a Christian
pastor. In this connection the reader may recall what was said in
chapter xiv. on Japanese Ambition and Conceit, qualities depending on
the power of seeing visions. We note, in passing, the optimistic
spirit of New Japan. This is in part due, no doubt, to ignorance of
the problems that lie athwart their future progress, but it is also
due to the vivid imagin