04 James Curtis Hepburn

Chapter 4 JAMES CURTIS HEPBURN

IT is difficult for a visitor to the Sunrise Kingdom to realize that not until the year 1853 did Japan open her doors to the outside world. For two and a half centuries the Japanese had lived the life of a hermit nation, the government strictly forbidding any of its people to visit other lands, and as strictly prohibiting foreigners from landing on the main islands of old Nippon. If a Japanese junk were driven by an adverse wind to some foreign coast, the sailors were not permitted ever to set foot again on their native shores. The traditions are to the effect that, in the sixteenth century, the labors of the zealous Roman Catholic missionaries, Francis Xavier and his followers, resulted quickly in the conversion of a million Japanese. Political leaders became alarmed, for it was rumored, first, that the Pope had divided the unexplored lands between Spain and Portugal; and, second, that in the wake of the missionary followed soldiers to take possession of countries in the name of their sovereign. Such rumors, unfortunately, were not entirely without foundation. Japanese political leaders made much of the rumors, whatever may have been the motives of the early Roman Catholic missionaries, and soon it was decreed that all foreigners should be banished from the country, except a few Dutch traders and others who might reside on a small island near Nagasaki. It was further decreed that the Christian religion should be abolished. The missionaries were expelled at once, and Japanese who would not renounce the foreign religion were threatened with death. Soon Christianity disappeared except from the hearts of a few simple people who lived in out-of-the-way places and passed on their faith from generation to generation.

One can only wonder if the history of Christianity in the Orient would not have been far different had all missionary effort there been so obviously disinterested as to relieve its representatives of suspicion of ecclesiastical or political motive. Perhaps some day we shall make our plans more nearly in accord with the spirit of Him who " came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give his life a ransom for many." Perhaps some day we shall be more ready to give all and ask nothing in return, save the joy of having given; to serve and ask nothing in return, save the joy of having served.

Perhaps some day we shall see that it is as true for agencies as for agents that he who saves his life shall lose it, while he who loses life in a joyous abandon finds it multiplied. The doors of the Empire were opened in 1853, with greatest reluctance, and even then only because Commodore Matthew C. Perry, with several small ships of the American Navy, dropped anchor in Japanese waters and insisted, if he did not compel, that the portals be left slightly ajar. The gates were not swung open at first. After much persuasion, consent had been given for sailors of other nations, when in need of assistance, to take refuge in three Japanese harbors. But in 1853 the door had really been unlocked, although the Japanese still held their shoulders against it to prevent the admission of the despised foreigners, concerning whose nature and habits they held grotesque views. A few years later Townsend Harris, who was sent to Japan as American Consul-General, took up his residence there in the face of bitter opposition, and continued there, in spite of dangers and innumerable privations, until treaties were signed that permitted foreigners to enter the country. However, the treaty agreements were made only because the Japanese rulers felt compelled to yield, and not until 1868 did those in authority recognize fully that Japan must abandon a life of seclusion and qualify for a place in the family of modern nations. The year 1872, when religious liberty was written into the laws of the land, must forever be memorable.

How rapidly the Japanese have gone forward can hardly be understood except by those who have been privileged, not merely to visit their harbors, but to visit the institutions that have been developed within half a century, and to enjoy friendship with some of the people who are striving so zealously for the advancement and uplift of their country. Few lands are so fascinating to the tourist, and perhaps none is more interesting to the student of the progress of peoples the world around. This is the land that will ever be associated with the life and labors of James Curtis Hepburn. A miniature of Dr. Hepburn’s life is thus traced by one of his biographers: " At twenty-six he began work at Singapore; at twenty-eight he was in China; at forty-four he began the chief labors of his life in Japan; and at seventy-seven he came home for rest, little thinking that twenty years of life yet awaited him."

James Curtis Hepburn was born March 13, 1815, at Milton, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel Hepburn and his wife, Ann Clay. He was the oldest son and next to the oldest child in a family of five girls and two boys. Of his early home life he wrote: " My father and mother were both humble Christians, bringing up their children to fear God, to respect and love the Sabbath day, to go to church, to read the Bible, and commit to memory the Shorter Catechism. My mother was especially interested in foreign missions’ The future missionary attended Milton Academy, where some of Pennsylvania’s most distinguished men were trained. At fourteen years of age he entered Princeton, where he was graduated in the autumn of 1832, in his eighteenth year. At Princeton his outlook on life was broadened. As he expressed it, " I awoke to a new life and was born again of the Spirit." He protested against the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew until President Green convinced him that, since many of the names used in the natural sciences were in Latin, he could hardly expect to master even chemistry without some knowledge of the classics. How valuable his study of languages was to him in later years, we shall discover as we see him a lexicographer, translator, and educator in Japan fifty years later. Indeed, his greatest work would have been impossible without his knowledge of the classics. In the light of later experiences, it appears peculiarly providential that he studied the languages so thoroughly during his college days. His parents had educated him in the hope that he would enter the Presbyterian ministry. His father’s second choice would have been the study of law, but after receiving the degree of Master of Arts, James Curtis Hepburn decided to become a physician. He began the study of medicine with Dr. Samuel Pollock, of Milton. Later he attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, where, in the spring of 1836, he received his diploma.

Equipped with a good medical education, he opened an office in Norristown, Pennsylvania; and it was here that he met the remarkable young woman whom he afterwards married, Miss Clarissa Leete. And here, in Norristown, it was made clear to him that his life should be devoted to medical work in distant fields. This decision to do missionary work was not hastily made. For four years he considered the matter from every point of view. " I did not at first entertain it with pleasure, but more as a stern duty," he said in later life. " I myself tried to cast off this idea, but I found no rest until I decided to go. Everything seemed to favor my going especially finding a wife who was of the same mind and ready to go with me."

Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn were married in October, 1840, and in 1841, they responded to the call of the American Board of Foreign Missions who desired medical missionaries to labor among the Chinese immigrants in Siam. It is not possible here to relate the experiences of the young couple, first at Batavia and later at Singapore, where they decided to locate, instead of proceeding a little farther to Siam. Their stay at each of these ports was brief. The great land of China, a few hundred miles to the northeast, gave signs of opening to missionary work; and the doctor and his wife preferred to reach the Chinese in their homes, if possible, rather than in their settlements on the Malay Peninsula. After stopping a short time at Macao, they proceeded to Amoy, in 1843, where the climate so threatened the life of Mrs. Hepburn that it became necessary for them to return to America, and in November, 1845, they sailed on the Panama for New York. Their missionary hopes seemed blasted. They settled down to establish a practice and a home in the great metropolis. Of their six children, one had died at sea, another in Singapore, and three others died during the thirteen years of their residence in New York. Following the loss of all their children but one, there came a clear call to return to the Orient. In 1859, there were men in the Far East who understood the significance of events, when Consul General Harris, overcoming almost insuperable difficulties, succeeded in persuading the Japanese to sign a treaty that permitted foreigners to live in Japan. Among such men were Dr. S. Wells Williams, formerly interpreter for Commodore Perry, and at that time Secretary to the American Legation in China. A second was the Rev. Henry Wood, chaplain in the United States Navy. A third American was the Rev. E. W. Syle, then the sailors’ chaplain in Shanghai. Each of these men agreed to communicate with the Mission Board of his own church, and to urge that care be exercised in the selection of the pioneer evangelical missionaries to be sent to Japan. The prejudice against Christianity had survived through two hundred and fifty years. The word " Christian ’ had unpleasant associations. Dr. Williams was informed that the Japanese would agree to trade with foreigners ’if a way could be found to keep opium and Christianity out of the country." They were afraid of the "pestilential sect called Christians "; and they were not entirely lacking in grounds for their fears. Little wonder that men who knew the situation should insist that Mission Boards in America send to Japan the very best men available. The Episcopalians transferred C. M. Williams and John Liggins from China. The Reformed Protestant [Dutch] Church sent S. R. Brown and Guido Verbeck. The Presbyterians gladly reappointed James Curtis Hepburn and wife, whose hearts bade them go forth again as ambassadors of Christ. These men in general represented what was really the best in American life.

Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn placed their only living child, Samuel, in boarding-school, and sailed from New York on the Sancho Panza on April 24, 1859. Four months and five days later they reached Shanghai, China, where illness detained them several weeks. By the middle of October they reached Kanagawa, which is now a suburb of the growing city of Yokohama. In those days what is now called Yokohama was a mud flat, dotted with a few small huts occupied by fishermen. For a residence, they could find nothing better in inhospitable Kanagawa than an old Buddhist temple which the Dutch Consul had declined to use as a stable. Idols and accumulated filth were removed, while soda and whitewash were needed to cleanse century-old deposits on walls that retained odors of joss-sticks and oil used in worship. Partitions were then put up, to make apartments in which Dr. and Mrs. S. R. Brown, as well as the Hepburns, found a home. Four men-servants were secured for two dollars each a month. From the servants, the carpenters, and visitors, curious to see the " foreign devils" and their queer ways of living, they picked up many words in their practical study of the language of the Japanese. When Dr. Hepburn entered Japan as a medical missionary, he rented a second Buddhist temple in which he opened a dispensary. Soon multitudes of sick persons came to be treated, until his work was halted. The government closed his dispensary and drove the sick people away. Presently it transpired that its real purpose was to compel Dr. Hepburn and other foreigners to remove to Yokohama, two miles distant, where their lives could be more easily protected, for foreigners were not safe in Japan in those days. Whatever may have been the desire of the government, most of the people hated the " foreign devils ’ and many were ready to do them violence. Twelve or fifteen foreigners were killed in one year. The English Legation was attacked and some of the guards were killed. The house of the American Minister was burned and his secretary assassinated. For the protection of Dr. Hepburn and Dr. Brown and their families, the government built a high stockade around the temple used as a residence and placed a guard of four soldiers at the gate. The missionaries were constantly suspected of designs to conquer Japan. Kindly motives and unselfish service were beyond the understanding of the Japanese at that time. Moreover, the white man had established a reputation for subjugating and exploiting weaker peoples. To-day Japanese laugh at the fears of their fathers, but it was not a laughing matter to the missionaries. Soon after his arrival, Dr. Hepburn found men near his house who afterwards confessed that they were seeking an opportunity to kill him and other foreigners. Another man entered the service of the doctor for the purpose of killing him, but after discovering the real character of the missionaries, he gave up his plan. It required much unselfish service on the part of the missionaries to convince the people that they had not come as the advance agents of conquering military forces. The Samurai, " servants of the Mikado," descendants of ancient warriors, were the aristocrats of the land; the idle gentlemen, if you please, who were supported by the plainer people. A pair of swords was the badge of this privileged class; and despite all the government could do, their swords were frequently unsheathed. Even in the face of such dangers, the Christian physician went wherever his skill was required to relieve suffering. When his hospital at Kanagawa was closed by the government, Dr. Hepburn gave himself wholly to the study of the language, and thus the interruption gave him opportunity to prepare for his greatest service to the Japanese people a few years later. However, when ordered by the government to make his home at Yokohama, where he lived nearly all the time he was in Japan, he reopened his dispensary and treated from six to ten thousand patients annually, until compelled by ill health to give up his medical work. An intimate friend of Dr. Hepburn’s gives this graphic picture of work in his hospital:

’ In a room able to hold about a hundred persons, there were gathered daily from twenty to seventy-five persons, of all ages... Without fuss or visible emotion, though with real sympathy and profound pity, the missionary physician did his work of relief. Near or around him were from five to ten native youths, most of whom have since made their record as men with the letters M. D. after their names. These were preparing medicine, bandages, or dressings, assisting in surgery, or in preparation of the patients.

" Here was an old man hoping for relief from some chronic disease; and here were mothers, holding up their sick babies to the doctor, pleading for one ray of hope... I can never forget those piercing looks into the doctor’s face. Frequently their piteous glances or importunate petitions were of no avail. Disease had gone too far, and often death was prompt and merciful. Happy indeed was the doctor himself when, by a pinch of powder, a bolus, a lotion, a salve, a dressing, or a surgical operation, he could bring joy and hope. Many of his most successful operations had been previously unknown in Japan.

Around the walls were comforting passages from the Book of Books, rich promises, words of hope and tender consolation, messages from the Great Physician. With the help of interpreters, even in earlier years, the waiting-time and fruitful opportunity made this room often the very gate of heaven to souls, whose ransom from the power of guilt, suffering, and darkness began here. Yes, that dispensary was a Bethel to many of the Japanese. Dr. Hepburn’s problems were not geographical, ethical, or philosophical, but immediate and human."

Dr. Hepburn knew that the life of people everywhere depends, for its real nature, upon their faith in God, for unconsciously men become like the gods they worship; he knew, therefore, that men would become righteous as they learned to worship the Sun of Righteousness. His chief contribution was along literary lines, taking a leading part in helping the English-speaking world to a better understanding of Japanese language and literature, and then giving the Scriptures to the Japanese, in their own language. He was certain that Buddhism and Shintoism were insufficient for the moral or spiritual redemption of a people.

After eight years in Japan, he published the first edition of his Japanese-English Dictionary, on which all others are based. The value of his work, which helped the East and the West to understand each other better, can hardly be overestimated. Very soon after the completion of the dictionary, he began to translate tracts, then the Westminster Shorter Catechism and other Christian literature. Later, he revised translations made by others of books of the Old Testament, and in 1880 he transliterated into the Roman letter all of the New Testament. Meanwhile, he had translated the four Gospels into Japanese. In September, 1872, the Protestant missionaries in Japan determined to secure the best possible translation of the entire Bible. The country was surveyed to secure men qualified for such an important task, both Japanese and foreigners. The committee consisted of three missionaries, Dr. S. R. Brown, Dr. Hepburn and Dr. D. C. Greene, who were ably assisted by four Japanese, Okuno, Takahashi, Miwa, and Matsuyama. Dr. Nathan Brown also rendered valuable assistance. Five years and six months after the committee began its labors, the New Testament was published. Individuals had brought out translations earlier, but the translation brought out by the committee represented the combined scholarship of many students. In 1887 the entire Bible in Japanese was published. Dr. Hepburn was regarded as the leader in this monumental work. Later he prepared a Bible Dictionary in Japanese. In the midst of all his literary work, he found time to preach frequently and to show his interest in Japanese church work. As he was nearing the completion of his fifteen years of labor in the translation of the Bible, Dr.. Hepburn was notified of his election as president of Meiji Gaku-in [Hall of Learning of the Era of Enlightened Government], the Presbyterian school in Tokyo. Here he served until 1892, when, at the age of seventy-seven, he gave up active work and returned to America with Mrs. Hepburn for the Indian summer of their lives. It has been said that " Perry won Japan from a hermit life, but Hepburn opened the Japanese heart."

How different was the Japan of 1892 from the Japan which the Hepburns had found in 1859! A miracle had happened in a third of a century. "The father of medical science in this part of Asia" had seen the Japanese develop a large number of well qualified physicians. Concerning this development William Elliot Griffis, after the Russo-Japanese War, wrote as follows:

" The Japan of our day is a land that leads the world in military and public hygiene and in successful surgery, while all the records of war, in saving the lives of the wounded, have been broken by a nation that knows to perfection the fine art of profiting by the experience and abilities of other peoples, but is largely so because of Dr. Hepburn and men like him." The medical missionary had seen in his work that which should be desired by all missionaries the development of native forces who will take the lead in their own land and as speedily as possible make unnecessary the assistance of foreigners. And that which had happened in medicine was happening in commerce, education, and other spheres. It was beginning to come true in the Christian movement as well. In 1859, Dr. Hepburn had found signboards in public places proclaiming Christianity an evil sect which was strictly prohibited by the government. He lived to see religious liberty fully established and Christianity securely planted in the life of the nation. To-day, self-supporting Christian churches, with a membership of a thousand each, may be found, with devoted, scholarly men as pastors.

Upon returning to America, Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn established a home at East Orange, New Jersey. There they lived simply and quietly, as had been their wont in Japan. Perhaps their simple living had helped them to find the hearts of the Japanese. The Emperor of Japan conferred on Dr. Hepburn " The Third Order of Merit of the Rising Sun, for services to spiritual and educational causes in Japan." The American Bible Society congratulated him, " in view of his preeminent services, as the principal translator of the Japanese Bible." His Alma Mater, Princeton University, conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws. From Japan came messages of love and appreciation. At Yokohama a meeting was held by Christians to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of his arrival in Japan, and to express appreciation of his work. On Dr. Hepburn’s ninety-third birthday, he received from the president of his Alma Mater, Woodrow Wilson, a message which in part was as follows: " I hope that you realize the high honor in which you are held by all who know you and all who know of your work, and that you realize in particular the very great pride that all Princeton men have in the life-work by which you have won such honorable distinction." At a memorial service held in Japan, soon after the news of his death had been cabled by Baron Uchida, the Mikado’s Ambassador at Washington, Dr. Hepburn was spoken of by a member of the Japanese Parliament, the Hon. A. Hattori, as " the man who brought Christian civilization to Japan." On September 21, 1911, at ninety-six years of age, this noble servant of God, a recognized benefactor of the Japanese nation, passed away, having been preceded by his wife in 1905. The news of the good man’s home-going was received with sadness on both sides of the Pacific. The Japanese Ambassador cabled the sad tidings to his own land. In America and in Japan there were many to give thanks for such a noble life.

It was not strange that the Japanese should have held Dr. Hepburn in such high honor. Dr. Harada, President of Doshisha University, said of him that, while many individuals and agencies had united to advance his nation, " if one name alone were to be singled out, there could be no doubt that name would be Dr. Hepburn’s." In summing up his impressions of Dr. Hepburn, a missionary wrote:

’ Zeal and work are great things, but in the long run it is character that tells; and in what high and homely, what lofty and intimate, strains had been sung in the life-song of this man, physician, translator, teacher, author, and Christian gentleman!’ When one reviews the lives of such men as Hepburn, Verbeck, S. R. Brown, Nathan Brown, D. C. Greene, and other pioneers of broad culture and genuine love for all men, who labor so devotedly, one can easily believe that " the missionary body has been Japan’s chief instructor, exerting an influence wholly for enlightenment and for good." And one can easily believe also that missionaries are often ambassadors of international good-will in a world that is constantly threatened with conflicts between the races of men. James Curtis Hepburn left an impress on the land he labored to enlighten and uplift, an impress that cannot be effaced.