A WONDERFUL OUTLOOK

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, April 21, 1885

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 16

A WONDERFUL OUTLOOK.

THE advance of the gospel in Japan is one of the most remarkable facts in the missionary records of modern times. Striking testimony to this is borne by Dr. Hepburn, of the Presbyterian mission, who is translating the Old Testament into Japanese, and who, during the ten years of his residence in that country, has built up a self-supporting native church, which has just elected a pastor of its own, relieving him of the work of preaching. He says: “Fifteen or twenty years hence I doubt whether a foreign missionary will be needed in this country. We have already a synod, three presbyteries, twenty-nine ardent native ministers, one hundred and seventeen young men in our colleges, and a thousand church members and Sabbath-school scholars. And I have lived to see all this! Japan is merging rapidly from heathenism; it can never go back. If all the foreign missionaries were expelled to-morrow, the work would be carried on by the natives.”