October 6, 1924 archives

Religion: Mote

The mote-and-beam doctrine had its reiteration in a letter addressed by Tokutomi Kenjiro, famed Japanese littérateur, to U. S. missionaries, on the conclusion of the fourth decade of his Christian life. The Living Age republished from the Japan Weekly Chronicle :

DEAR AMERICAN MISSIONARIES IN JAPAN AND KOREA: It is high time that you went home, where you are urgently needed. Gardeners sent to work in neighbors' yards will find their own gardens covered with weeds upon returning.

Dear America! What a naughty boy you are growing to be! Prosperity has spoiled you; you have grown too fat to retain your tender sensibilities. You are too active, and have got out of control. ... You don't mean to be bad, after all, and you were born a good child. I love you all the same. But nevertheless you are too arrogant. . . . You are giving military drill to your girls. Shame! You are making military preparations day and night. Against whom? Whom are you afraid of? Of Japan? . . .

We want our American missionaries to return home and there to melt up all the heavy cannon to cast a statue of peace, to be erected, say, at the entrance to the Golden Gate. (Signed) TOKUTOMI KENJIRO.