Most of the Europeans and Americans in Korea at the time adopted this line.  I travelled largely in the interior of Korea in 1906 and 1907.  Groups of influential Koreans came to me telling their grievances and asking what to do.  Sometimes big assemblies of men asked me to address them.  They believed me to be their friend, and were willing to trust me.  My advice was always the same.  “Submit and make yourselves better men.  You can do nothing now by taking up arms.  Educate your children, improve your homes, better your lives.  Show the Japanese by your conduct and your self-control that you are as good as they are, and fight the corruption and apathy that helped to bring your nation to its present position.”  Let me add that I did what I could in England, at the same time, to call attention to their grievances.

Prince Ito was openly sympathetic to the missionaries and to their medical and educational work.  He once explained why, in a public gathering at Seoul.  “In the early years of Japan’s reformation, the senior statesmen were opposed to religious toleration, especially because of distrust of Christianity.  But I fought vehemently for freedom of belief and religious propaganda, and finally triumphed.  My reasoning was this:  Civilization depends on morality and the highest morality upon religion.  Therefore religion must be tolerated and encouraged.”

Ito passed off the scene, Korea was formally annexed to Japan, and Count Terauchi became Governor-General.  Terauchi was unsympathetic to Christianity and a new order of affairs began.  One of the difficulties of the Christians was over the direction that children in schools and others should bow before the picture of the Japanese Emperor on feast days.  The Japanese tried to maintain to the missionaries that this was only a token of respect; the Christians declared that it was an act of adoration.  To the Japanese his Emperor is a divine being, the descendant of the gods.

Christians who refused to bow were carefully noted as malignants.  In the famous Conspiracy Case, the official Assistant Procurator, in urging the conviction of one of the men, said:  “He was head teacher of the Sin-an School, Chong-ju, and was a notorious man of anti-Japanese sentiments.  He was the very obstinate member of the Society who, at a meeting on the first anniversary of the birthday of the Emperor of Japan after the annexation of Korea, refused to bow before the Imperial picture on the ground that such an act was worshipping an image.”  This one item was the only fact that the Assistant Procurator produced to prove the head teacher’s guilt.  He was convicted, and awarded seven years’ penal servitude.

A strong effort was made to Japanize the Korean Churches, to make them branches of the Japanese Churches, and to make them instruments in the Japanese campaign of assimilation.  The missionaries resisted this to the utmost.  They declared that they would be neutral in political matters, as they were directed by their Governments to be.  Having failed to win them over to their side, the Japanese authorities entered into a campaign for the breaking down of the Churches, particularly the Presbyterian Churches of the north.  I am well aware that they deny this, but here is a case where actions and speeches cannot be reconciled.