LETTER VI

Summary

H.B.M.'s Legation, Yedo,

June 7.

I went to Yokohama for a week to visit Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn on the Bluff. Bishop and Mrs. Burdon of Hong Kong were also guests, and it was very pleasant. Dr. Hepburn is about the oldest foreign resident, having been here nineteen years. He came in the strange days of the old régime, as a medical missionary, and, before the Japanese opened hospitals and dispensaries with qualified medical attendance, he received as many as 7000 patients in a year, and they came from great distances to get his advice. He does not consider that the practice of healing is now needed in Japan to secure a hearing for Christianity, and, being in failing health, has retired from medical work. He is a man of extensive acquaintance with many Japanese matters, and the standard Japanese English Dictionary is the fruit of his nearly unaided philological labours during a period of thirteen years. He is now one of three scholars who are translating the New Testament into Japanese, and, although a layman, takes charge of a native congregation in Yokohama. His extensive information, scientific attainments, calm judgment, and freedom from bias, make him a very interesting man. He is by no means enthusiastic about the Japanese, or sanguine regarding their future in any respect, and evidently thinks them deficient in solidity.