While setting forth this high ideal of what a missionary to this land should be, no one is more sensible than the writer of the fact that many missionaries, including himself, fail to realize it. But he is glad to be able to affirm that a large per cent. of these desired qualifications are found in the majority of the missionary brethren in Japan. {209} XII PRIVATE LIFE OF THE MISSIONARY It is our purpose in this chapter to show the churches at home something of the life which their missionaries lead in Japan. We will attempt to draw aside the veil and look at their private life--the holy of holies. This is a delicate task, and I hesitate to undertake it. And yet I think a knowledge of the trials, perils, discouragements, temptations, hopes, and fears of the missionary may be very profitable to those who support our missions. Missionaries are men of like appetites, passions, hopes, and desires with those at home. They long for and enjoy the comforts and amenities of life. They have wives and children whom they love as devotedly, and for whom they desire to provide as comfortable homes, as the pastor at home. There was a time when missionaries were {210} called upon to forego nearly all social pleasures and submit to endless discomforts, but that time is past. The mission home to-day is frequently as comfortable as that of the pastor in America. It is right that the standard of living in the home lands should be maintained by the missionaries abroad, and that they surround themselves with all available pleasures and conveniences. There is no reason why a man should lay aside all pleasures and comforts so soon as he becomes a missionary. Those who live in the foreign ports in Japan have nice, roomy houses modeled after Western homes. Many of them are surrounded with beautiful lawns and fine flowers, and are a comfort and delight to their possessors. Most of the missionaries who live in the interior occupy native houses, slightly modified to suit foreign taste. By building chimneys, and substituting glass for paper windows, the native houses can be made quite comfortable, though they are colder in winter and do not look so well as foreign ones. The writer has lived in such a home during most of his residence in Japan, and has suffered little inconvenience. Some of the wealthier mission boards have built foreign houses even in the interior, and to-day there are a good many such scattered over Japan. As has been before remarked, the mission {211} home is one of the most important factors in connection with the work; it is a little bit of Christendom set down in the midst of heathendom. It presents to the non-Christian masses around it a concrete example of exalted family life, with equality and trust between husband and wife, and mutual love between parents and children--things not generally found in the native home. It is a beacon-light shining in a dark place.