I know it. How say
you that none will know it?" This famous saying condemning bribery is
well known in Japan. The references to "Heaven" as knowing, seeing,
doing, sympathizing, willing, and always identifying the activity of
"Heaven" with the noblest and loftiest ideals of man, are frequent in
Chinese and Japanese literature. The personality of God is thus a
doctrine clearly foreshadowed in the Orient. It is one of those great
truths of religion which the Orient has already received, but which in
a large measure lies dormant because of its incomplete expression. The
advent of the fully expressed teaching of this truth, freed from all
vagueness and ambiguity, is a capital illustration of the way in which
Christianity comes to Japan to fulfill rather than to destroy; it
brings that fructifying element that stirs the older and more or less
imperfectly expressed truths into new life, and gives them adequate
modes of expression. But the point to which I am here calling
attention is the fact that the idea of the personality of the Supreme
Being is not so utterly alien to Oriental thought as some would have
us think. Even though there is no single word with which conveniently
to translate the term, the idea is perfectly distinct to any Japanese
to whom its meaning is explained.

The statement is widely made that because the Japanese language has no
term for "personality" the people are lacking in the idea; that
consequently they have difficulty in grasping it even when presented
to them, and that as a further consequence they are not to be
criticised for their hesitancy in accepting the doctrine of the
"Personality of God." It must be admitted that if "personality" is to
be defined in the various ambiguous and contradictory ways in which we
have seen it defined by advocates of Oriental "impersonality" much can
be said in defense of their hesitancy. Indeed, no thinking Christian
of the Occident for a moment accepts it. But if "personality" is
defined in the way here presented, which I judge to be the usage of
thoughtful Christendom, then their hesitancy cannot be so defended. It
is doubtless true that there is in Japanese no single word
corresponding to our term "personality." But that is likewise true of
multitudes of other terms. The only significance of this fact is that
Oriental philosophy has not followed in exactly the same lines as the
Occidental. As a matter of fact I have not found the idea of
personality to be a dif