BEFORE dealing in any detail with the circumstances under which Bishop Hare turned from South Dakota in 1891, and again in 1892, for brief terms of service as a Missionary Bishop first in Japan and then in Japan and China, an incident of prophetic suggestion must be related. Soon after he became Bishop of Niobrara he entered the mission rooms at the Bible House in New York one day, accompanied by an Indian deacon and student and met there, according to a writer in The Churchman, "the English missionary Bishop to Japan with a Japanese student. The Indian started to note a fancied or real resemblance to an Indian friend, and the young Japanese started also in surprised admiration of the Indian's tall sinewy form and his swarthy features, thinking that he, too, saw some resemblance to a friend in the Orient. Introductions took place, and these students of the same Gospel seemed at once to come very near each other. They registered their names and left the room, but the young Indian asked permission to return a moment, and drew from his finger a ring, a plain circlet of gold that he wore, and slipped it on the finger of his new-found brother. The young Japanese did the same, the rings being thus interchanged." No occurrence could have typified more fitly the essential oneness of all missionary work--especially as Bishop Hare was destined in his own person to represent it.

At the beginning of February, 1891, the House of Bishops met in special session in New York to consider the needs of the mission to Japan. Bishop Williams, in charge of the jurisdiction of Yedo since 1874, had resigned in 1889, and the work was suffering for lack of leadership. The Church of England had its own mission, under Bishop Bickersteth, in Japan, and, besides the administrative needs, there were questions about the division of authority and labor between the two branches of the Anglican communion. It was decided, therefore, to send out a member of the House of Bishops who should act virtually as an ambassador of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, and carry to the mission workers such assistance as a confidential, sympathetic and authoritative adviser could bring. Bishop Hare's rich experience in dealing with a non-Christian people and a national government designated him as the best man for this delicate mission. Accordingly the House of Bishops on February 4, 1891, resolved, "That the Bishop of South Dakota be requested on behalf of this House and as its representative to proceed to Japan for the purpose, so far as may be practicable, of administering the affairs of that jurisdiction for six months or a year, at his option, unless a Bishop shall earlier be elected and consecrated for the Missionary Jurisdiction of Yedo." The Board of Missions promptly pledged its cooperation with Bishop Hare in his important undertaking, asked him to act also as its representative in Japan, and promised to meet all expenses to be incurred.

Bishop Hare immediately wrote the following letter:

NEW YORK, 22 BIBLE HOUSE,

"February 4, 1891.

"To the Clergy and Laity of the Missionary District of South Dakota.

"DEAR BRETHREN: Affairs took a turn today in the House of Bishops to me most unexpected, and so likely to be misunderstood, that I feel I should communicate at once with my dear fellow-helpers in South Dakota.

"As is well known, Japan has for a number of years offered a field for missionary enterprise of extraordinary promise, and ecclesiastical affairs are now approaching a crisis there, which will, in all probability, make this an epoch in the history of the Church. This particular field of missionary enterprise has occupied, therefore, not a little of the time and attention of the House of Bishops for a number of years, and especially at its meeting in New York in 1889, and again at Pittsburgh in 1890. Its needs were the occasion of the gathering together of the Bishops this week.

"The conclusion was reached by the Bishops that one of their own number should be sent to Japan without delay, to act there in their behalf and as their representative. I was selected to perform this duty. The obstacles in the way of my acceptance seemed to me insurmountable, in view of the ordeal through which the South Dakota Mission has been lately passing; depressed in the Eastern Deanery by the results of an extraordinary drought, and strained in the Niobrara Deanery by an outbreak of wild life. This exigency the Bishops did not overlook, but, surveying the whole field of the work of the Church, they were of opinion that I should give a number of months to Japan, and they urged their wish upon me in a unanimous vote and in terms of brotherly affection and confidence, which made it practically impossible for me to refuse to be guided by their will.

"My heart is with you, my dear brethren, to live and die with you, but, all things considered, the resolution of the House of Bishops came to me almost as if it had begun with the words adopted by a council of the Church in the early days: 'It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.' I could not but obey it.

"I expect to return to Sioux Falls about the middle of February, and to start for Japan early in March.

"My absence will, I fear, entail inconvenience upon you, dear brethren of the clergy and laity, but you will bear them with patience and cheerfulness, and make up for my lack of service by special zeal and fidelity, for the sake of the Church, the body of Christ, in which all the members, whether in South Dakota, in Japan, or elsewhere, are one. You will also spare me, I am sure, in these ensuing weeks of preparation for my new duties, all demands upon my time, except those which are most urgent, and let me rest assured, in my absence, that every one of you, clerical and lay, will, in his own vocation and ministry, stand fast in his place, so that I may find you on my return in unbroken rank, and the work of the Lord prospering in your hands.

"I hope to communicate to you later the provision which will be made for the management of the ecclesiastical affairs and the missionary work of the Jurisdiction.

"Your affectionate Friend and Bishop,

"WILLIAM H. HARE.'

With no delay he set about preparing himself for what he had to do. All available information bearing on his task was sought. Phillips Brooks had recently visited Japan, and to him he went for counsel. In a characteristic reply to Bishop Hare's letter he made his plea "for some larger Christian union and cooperation than we are able to reach in America." "It will be dreadful," he wrote, "if we settle down there to the same condition of things which we have here, making close association with the English missionaries there because of their Episcopacy, and keeping aloof from the great free, sensible and effective work which the non-Episcopal Americans have been doing there for years. It is with them that our real sympathies belong. . . . Now is the time and that is the place to see what can be done in the way of genuine unity, and to show what all the abundant talk about the thing is worth." To whatever extent Bishop Hare may have sympathized with these sentiments--and the kinship of spirit between the two men ensured frank speech and mutual understanding--it must have been clear to them both that under the commission from the House of Bishops the visiting Bishop could exercise but a brief and limited authority. Other friends offered other suggestions, and on March 3, 1891, Bishop Hare left Sioux Falls for his long journey.

From the "Bishop's Record" in the March number of The Church News an item of observation on the "Overland Flyer" to San Francisco may be taken: "The most eventful occasion was the half hour I spent promenading the platform at Laramie where I was a witness of a typical mode of salutation indulged in by two friends of the rougher class. One espied the other from the platform of the car where he was standing, and exclaiming, 'Hello!' moved toward him with outstretched hand and a hearty, 'You devil, how are you?' to which the other with equally courteous phrase replied, 'Damn you, how d'ye do?' And so they stood with hands grasped and beaming faces which told of genuine friendship. Profanity has a character of its own on the lips of such men--God forgive them ---and evidently they do not always mean what they say. And I suppose that, so far as the use of language is concerned, if 'Puss' and 'Toad' may be terms of endearment in some circles, 'Devil' may be an expression of friendship in another. Indeed, that very night a mother in the section of the sleeping car next to me, while preparing her little daughter of two years old for bed, clasped her to her bosom with the words, 'You wretched rogue!' and laid her to rest saying 'Good-night, sweetheart.' "

Arriving at San Francisco at three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, he found himself announced to preach at Trinity Church hi the evening, and did so--to a congregation of a thousand persons. "Well," he wrote in his "Record,"--"I pleaded for Missions as earnestly as a very tired man could."

His progress eastward may be followed in a letter from the ship:

PACIFIC OCEAN,

"Belgic, Oriental & Occidental SS.

"March 23, 1891.

"Here I am in mid-ocean, about twenty-seven hundred miles from San Francisco and about twenty- four hundred from Japan; as helpless and hopeless, should anything happen to this little shell that floats on the vast heaving deep as one of the sea-gulls that flies in our wake should it break one of its wings.

"But I set sail auspiciously. Bishop Nichols added to all his other kindnesses an appointment of a quiet celebration of the Holy Communion in Grace Church the day I left, and the rain ceased falling and the clouds broke soon after. The Bishop with two of the clergy 'accompanied me to the ship.' I bade them good-by before the vessel swung loose from the dock and busied myself in my stateroom, finishing letters to send ashore by the pilot, so that I avoided the parting from my native land; and when I went on deck a fog had settled down and shut us in.

"The ship is neat and clean and snugly built, inspiring confidence and also a certain pride in her as she triumphantly mounts the great rolling waves that come marching with a menace toward her, or gracefully recovers herself from a more than ordinarily deep careen as though she were conscious of her power and was amused at our alarm. But she makes slow progress. She is loaded down almost to the water's edge, 300 tons of sugar for Japan, 2,500 tons of flour for Hong Kong, and 1,300 tons of coal for her own use, being part of the cargo. We have had head seas and the wind has been adversely almost all the time, and she makes only about 270 miles a day. Alas, I fear we shall not reach Japan in time to celebrate Easter.

"I had no conception what a lonely waste of waters the North Pacific Ocean is. We have not had a glimpse of land, nor sighted any craft of any kind whatsoever, nor seen fish singly nor in shoals, since we lost sight of land the first day, and the captain tells us we shall fare no better till we approach Japan.

"There are but nine cabin passengers beside myself, so that there is plenty of room. These, with the steerage passengers (175 Chinese and a dozen Japanese) and the officers and men of the ship constitute its living freight. The cabin passengers are a young Methodist minister, and his wife from Georgia, who is going out as a missionary to Japan; a gentleman and his wife from St. Louis, seeking recreation; a Scotch laird, one Irish and one English gentleman, men of business in China and elsewhere; a Japanese gentleman who is returning from Paris where he has been in mercantile pursuits some years; and last, a Chinaman from San Francisco, a successful man of business who has eight or nine shops there, the best fed, the sleekest and most rotund, the most jocund, too, of the company, as full of communicativeness as his moderate command of 'pidgin' English will admit, and evidently well content with himself, his business, and, not least, his wife, whose photograph he produces in select companies and displays her loaded with costly tokens of his love, appareled in richly embroidered silks, her wrists clasped with several bracelets, one pair of which is worth, he says, $300, and precious stones pendent from her ears. Happy wife, one thinks, until the fond husband adds, 'She go out only four times a year. She spend no money except on herself and for herself.'

"The weather has been moderately good thus far, rain and clouds and clear weather having had an equal share; the temperature has ranged from 60 to 70 degrees, so that I have been on deck a good deal. I have escaped seasickness, have been well, and time has not hung heavily on my hands. The quiet and opportunity to read have been as refreshing as they are to me unusual.

"I am writing this March 23, Monday, and am just waking up to the full meaning of an odd experience. It was Saturday when I lay down to sleep last night, but when I awoke this morning, instead of its being Sunday, it was Monday. One day had dropped out of life. We were just half-way round the world from Greenwich, therefore, on reaching the 180th degree of west longitude we had to drop a day in order to keep time with the rest of the world. It requires quite an intellectual effort to fit this fact in with one's ordinary modes of thinking. . . .

"That Sunday, however, might not be utterly ignored, the captain arranged for a service Saturday evening, at which, as on the previous Sunday, I officiated.

"That word, 'pidgin', which I just used, has a curious origin. 'Pidgin English' means 'business English', or English such as is used in trade, 'pidgin' being the nearest approach the Chinese tongue makes toward pronouncing the word business. When first heard, it is intensely amusing, as will appear from the samples of it I send herewith. Let me premise that 'man-man' and 'chow-chow' in the first stanza mean respectively, stop and eat, and that in the second stanza 'chop-chop' means immediately, 'maskee' never mind, and 'chop' a device.

"LITTLE JACK HORNER in Pidgin English.

"Littee Jack Horner man-man one corner,
He chow-chow one Chlisman pie,
He puttee he thumb, he catchee one plum,
'Hi yah! Good boy b'long my!' "

"EXCELSIOR, in Pidgin English.

"Nightee time begin chop-chop,
One man walkee, he no can stop,
Maskee snow, maskee ice,
He cally flag with chop so nice.
Top side, 'Golah!'"

"Two Chinamen have died during the voyage. According to the custom on which their friends strenuously insist, their bodies are to be returned to their native land, not consigned to the deep as they would have been if they were the bodies of Europeans. They have been embalmed and are now lying in large coffins of a special Chinese make strapped fast to the deck near the stern of the ship, a perpetual memento mori.

"We call this desire to be buried in their own native land superstition, and perhaps it is, but it may deserve a better name. Joseph's command, as he lay dying in a foreign land, was 'Ye shall carry up my bones from hence,' and the patriarchal Jacob's request was, 'Bury me with my father in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. There were buried Abraham, and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and his wife. And there they buried Leah.' Here, as in other things, perhaps all hearts are alike. Indeed, as I travel and see more and more of men, this unity impresses me more profoundly. We have a motley assortment of humanity aboard this ship, American, English, Scotch, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, a negro, a Tahitian and others, but as I watch them in their movements, when seasick and when well, when basking in the sun or when huddling together to get out of the rain, or scampering with exclamations to escape a wave that breaks over the ship, there rises in my mind this instinctive comment, reappearing like a refrain, 'As in water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man,' and the prayer will force its passage through the difficulties in the way of its accomplishment which the intellect marshals, that the one heart of humanity may be united in one great adoring love of its common Lord.

"'O God, who hast made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and didst send Thy blessed Son to preach peace to them that are far oif and to them that are nigh: grant that all Thy people everywhere may seek after Thee and find Thee; and hasten, O Lord, the fulfillment of Thy promise to pour out Thy Spirit upon all flesh: through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

"EASTER DAY, 9 P.M.

"We are now sailing up the Gulf of Yeddo and shall drop anchor off Yokohama about 10 P.M. and not go ashore till morning."

In a preaching service to Japanese within two weeks of his arrival Bishop Hare put to the test of practical use the thought to which the sight of the motley assemblage on shipboard had prompted him. In a letter of April 12, he wrote:

"I began my address to-night somewhat thus: " 'You will say, perhaps, as you see me rise, "Who is this stranger?" No, I am not a stranger. I have traveled the world over, among white people, yellow people, red people, black people, and I never was a stranger anywhere; for tears have trickled down these cheeks and they were salt, and I find all the world over that human beings weep and their tears are salt. This body of mine is full of blood, and the blood is red and warm. Bad news has come to me during my life, and my heart has beaten quick, and I have felt a choking at my throat. Has it ever been so with you, my friends? Tell me. Ah, I see the answer in your looks. You have your troubles. And now you are ready to say, 'We do not understand your language, but we do understand your heart. You are no stranger. We call you brother.'

"I felt that I had reached them, and it was easy to tell of the grace that comes by Jesus Christ."

By such insistences upon the essential unity of human nature Bishop Hare had brought himself close to his Indians, and now in Japan the same spirit wrought the same results. Linking his immediate experiences with those still farther in the past, a striking incident may be recounted. When he was General Secretary of the Foreign Missionary Society he made an appeal in a certain church for foreign missions. In the collection that followed was found an envelope containing a diamond ring and a note saying that the owner of it had no income, but wished the ring sold and the proceeds devoted to missions. Mr. Hare--as he was then--felt some uncertainty about the best course to pursue; but friends of the foreign work removed it by buying the ring, and having it set in one of the vessels of a communion service purchased with the price of it. This communion silver the General Secretary sent to the mission at Osaka in Japan, and when at this mission as visiting Bishop he made his first celebration of the Holy Communion in Japan, he instantly recognized the very service which he had bought and shipped eighteen years before. To the official as to the man the Japanese Christians might well have said: "You are no stranger. We call you brother."

It was of course chiefly in his official capacity that he was to make himself known to the Japanese. Between March 30, when he landed, and July 29, when he sailed for the United States, he "preached sixty-seven times, celebrated the Lord's Supper twenty-eight times, confirmed two hundred and fifty-eight persons (of whom seventeen were for Bishop Bickersteth), ordained five deacons, and licensed thirty-one catechists." Immediately upon landing he met Bishop Bickersteth, and during his stay had frequent and profitable consultations with the retired Bishop Williams. After traveling extensively through the country and studying the whole situation he drew up a plan for the divided administration of the American and English missionaries of his own communion, to which Bishop Bickersteth agreed. As he had looked upon much of his work for the Indians as merely preliminary, and conducive to self-help, so he regarded the function of Americans and Englishmen in Japan. In the formal report of his mission he drew upon the agreement between himself and the English bishop: "We regard the work of the foreign Bishops as provisional. The whole state of thought and feeling among the Japanese forbids the introduction into Japan, as permanent institutions, of branches of either the English or the American Church, and nothing would offend the national feeling and hinder the extension of the Church more than the giving the Japanese just cause for suspecting that we desire or intend to impose upon them a permanent foreign episcopate.

"Every wise principle of propagating the Gospel in Japan demands that our work should be regarded as that of so directing the missions of the American and English Churches that a Japanese independent and self-supporting church shall be the result. Indeed these churches have so far committed themselves to this policy that a Japanese Church with its own constitution and canons has been in existence for some years. The English and American Bishops are not regarded by the Japanese, and should not be regarded by us, as having jurisdiction over dioceses finally delimited, but rather as forerunners in the Episcopate of Japanese Bishops who will exercise jurisdiction over such permanently defined dioceses as the expansion of the Japanese Church may in future demand."

This far-seeing counsel was supplemented, in Bishop Hare's confidential report to the Presiding Bishop, by a concluding paragraph which immediately followed an emphatic plea for sending "one of more than ordinary natural endowments, of large acquirements and of special gifts of peace," to become the Episcopal head of the Japanese mission: "I do not fear that there is any danger that such a messenger of the Church's love will find this Episcopal career prematurely cut short by the rapid development of the Japanese Church and the creation of a native Episcopate. In the first place, the Japanese are now looking back upon the former hot haste in adopting foreign thoughts and customs with a feeling of wounded pride and loss of self-respect, and will make haste slowly in the future. In the second place, the work of the foreign bishops will be that of gradually dividing up their present vast jurisdiction and setting off independent Missionary Districts under native Bishops, and this process will hardly be so far completed as to require the withdrawal of the foreign bishops from Japan within a generation."

Bishop Hare did not forget the hope of Phillips Brooks that something might be done in Japan for Church unity. According to his report to the Presiding Bishop, he introduced the subject at a gathering of the clergy of both the English and American missions, shortly after his arrival, "and pressed it as one of the matters which lay nearest to the hearts of the American Bishops." But "alas," he said, "denominational lines are almost as clearly drawn in Japan as in America. Each Mission reproduces there the mind of the home religious body which supports it." What would happen should all foreign control be withdrawn, he could not foretell, but, realizing the "enthusiasm, generosity, enterprise and statesmanship" exhibited by other bodies, feared that the result could not be "favorable to the claims of the Anglican Communion."

His own belief that the branch of the Church which he represented could bring to a people schooled in tradition and order what would suit them best was unwavering. This belief, and the wise encouragement which one of his experience was qualified to give, he carried to the scattered workers in missions, schools, hospitals and Divinity School. On May 29 the clergy and laity of the Japanese Church held a convocation in Trinity Church, Tokio, and heard an address from Bishop Hare. The following passages from it will speak for the union of practical wisdom and spiritual stimulus which marked his work in Japan as well as at home:

"Let us not deceive ourselves. There are stubborn facts and fundamental principles to be encountered. It is easy to express fine sentiments. It is easy to spin theories of cooperation. Yet, as a matter of fact, actual life is a great descent from the realm of airy ideas. It is made up of incongruities, and uncongenialities and inequalities--of duties to be done as well as rights to be enjoyed, of annoyances to be borne as well as privileges to be exercised. Inconvenient facts meet us everywhere. Every plan for improvement will require able men for its execution, and money for its support. Where shall we find them? Manifestly then we must compel ourselves to turn from speculations which have cut loose from things as they really are and fit ourselves in with sober ugly facts. We must leave theories as to how things should be done for the practical question how they can be done. We must descend from the heights of fancy to the arena of real everyday life. . . .

"The question must arise in every thoughtful Christian mind whether our branch of the Catholic Church is fitted for work among the people of Japan. I firmly believe that it is, but not the Church in the guise in which, as it seems to me, some of her converts are disposed to present her, ashamed to lift her head and boldly assert claims; robbed of her Church seasons, despoiled of her beautiful garments, reduced from her supernatural origin to a thing of man's device, her ministers regarded as mere teachers and no longer as 'ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God'; her sacraments degraded to mere signs. Such a Church will give very little offense in any quarter, I am aware; and very little blessing too. A policy which surrenders everything can end only in ignominy. Respect was never secured by servility, nor a battle ever won by cowardice.

"We are bound by a sacred tie to all who name the name of Christ, both theirs and ours, and nothing can be more contrary to our religion nor more inexpedient practically than envyings and disputes among Christian people. Let us bear with and love each other. But the Episcopal Church has its distinct calling and we must have a right self-confidence. We should give liberty to all and should have no hesitation in claiming it for ourselves. Influences from the ultra-Protestant world, which in some quarters in Japan have perhaps overborne us in the past, should be resisted and we should boldly, though generously, hold aloft apostolic faith and apostolic order, bearing the double witness against extremes on both sides of us which has been historically our calling.

"If we be regarded as having come here with other religious bodies that each may make its contribution to a new religion and Church for Japan, why should we present our special contribution so highly diluted as some would make it? And if we have come on a nobler errand, hoping that our branch of the Church, rich in apostolic faith and order, yet capable of adjustment in its current opinions and in its administration to the needs of different times and places, may prove the source from which the people of this land shall eventually derive their permanent Church life and the type according to whose essential form they will develop it, then we should present our Church, not despoiled, nor deformed, nor halting, nor uncertain, but in the glory of her holy confidence and her strength.

"It is one thing surely to ask a fair chance to present our Church as in her fullness she is, and quite another thing to try to impose upon all the adoption of all her minor characteristics. One may advocate the former course and utterly disapprove of the latter.

"Let us never in the midst of the business of the Church lose sight of the fact that there is such a mistake as that of being very busy with the affairs of the Kingdom of heaven and yet of possessing very little personal knowledge of the King; nor let us forget in trying to fit our work in with the conditions in which we find ourselves that the supreme need of men everywhere, whatever may be their superficial desires, is just that need which certain Greeks expressed, as we are told in St. John's Gospel, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' I feel sure that the highest conviction of us all is, however much passing things may for a time divert us, that the supreme desire and effort of a Christian should be to fix his own full gaze, and to fix the gaze of others, upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man.

"But it is the real essential Christ that the Japanese need to know. Christ, not as though the nature which He assumed were merely an Oriental or merely an Occidental nature, but a human nature. Christ as uniting in Himself the common properties of humanity; Christ, not a son of a man, but the Son of man. And Christ not as Englishmen or Americans find that they can appropriate Him, but Christ as the Japanese mind can appropriate Him--Christ seen by the Japanese from their own point of view: but yet one and the same Christ for all; Christ as the Catholic Church presents Him; Christ, 'The brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person'; Christ 'manifested in the flesh,' and 'obedient unto death,' Christ 'raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father'; Christ 'set at His right hand as the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body'; and Christ in the Church and by means of the Church filling the earth with His gifts of grace."

Sailing from Yokohama on July 29, Bishop Hare reached South Dakota in time to take part in the Convocation of seventeen hundred Christian Indians on Rosebud Reserve, beginning-August 29, 1891. For a few months he took up the work of his own mission with vigor. But his work in Japan was not yet fully accomplished, and at the end of the year he issued the following letter:

"SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA,

"December 30, 1891.

"To the Clergy and Laity of The Protestant Episcopal Church in South Dakota.

"MY DEAR BRETHREN: It has become again my duty to make a visit to Japan. That I should do so has all along been the wish of the members of our Mission there, and it has been urged upon me by the Presiding Bishop and the Board of Managers of our Missionary Society.

"A short visit to the brethren in China whom death has recently bereft of their Bishop is included in the programme.

"It is with great difficulty that I can undertake this duty, and I have approached it with much reluctance, but the reflection that those whom I esteem think I can be of service, helps me to its performance and I need now only your sympathy and prayers on my way and in my work to enable me to depart with a cheerful spirit.

"I have so arranged my movements that I shall be able, by God's blessing, to accomplish with expedition the work which most needs to be done. I expect to be absent but a little over three months. I purpose leaving Sioux Falls the evening of January 8, and to sail from Vancouver on the S.S. Empress of India, January 13.

"The steamer stops at Yokohama, Japan, from twelve to twenty-four hours, and during that time I shall have opportunity to confer with the authorities of the Japanese Mission who will come to Yokohama to meet me and arrange for my work in Japan on my return. I expect to proceed then on the same steamer to Shanghai, China, and spend two or three weeks among the Mission Stations in China. I shall then according to my plan retrace my steps to Japan and spend a month in that land, and hope to be back in time to celebrate Easter (April 17), in South Dakota.

"The Standing Committee will be the Ecclesiastical Authority during my absence and I will ask you to consider the arrangement made for the current business of the Mission during my previous absence as being now again in operation. Your faithful friend,

"WILLIAM H. HARE,
"Missionary Bishop."

These plans, modified by necessity in some of their details, were essentially carried out. The letter does not say that the serious illnesses of his father and father-in-law, each nearly eighty-four years old, rendered his leaving America especially difficult at this time. While still uncertain of the outcome of his father's illness he wrote to his sister Mary from Japan: "I can remember nothing concerning him that is inconsistent with the highest integrity, the keenest sense of honor, the most controlling faith in God and in His dear Son. Whether he wake or sleep, therefore, he lives as a present power." During Bishop Hare's absence his father died. As the absence was briefer than that of the year before, and as the work to be done was chiefly the completion of things left unfinished, the present record may also be briefer. A letter from the outward bound ship is to be preserved:

"SS. Empress of India,
"January 25, 1892.

"It is a wild and stormy morning and cold as well. The sea runs high and approaches the vessel in formidable waves. They heave her, roll her, lash her, deluge her by turns. We go to and fro and stagger like a drunken man. As the sea breaks over the vessel it freezes and the whole fore part of the ship is covered, rigging, forecastle and forward saloon, with a coating of ice from two to four inches thick.

"I will try my hand, however, at the commencement, at least, of a letter, hoping to finish as we near Yokohama.

"The weather has been bleak and dreary ever since we left port and we have seen but little sunshine. I doubt whether one ever does up in these high northern latitudes. Day before yesterday we ran so near the Aleutian Isles that we saw several of them like vast masses of snow upon the deep; but our little world aboard ship is, on the whole, a cheery scene. The vessel is a noble one and meets the heavy seas as if she felt she was equal to any emergency. She is well lighted and airy and is, in all her appointments, one of the most satisfactory I ever sailed on. There is an abundance of room, too, for there are but twenty-odd saloon passengers and the ship has accommodations for over a hundred. I have a state-room all to myself in consequence, a comfort highly appreciated.

"We have met with no misadventure except that the second day out a saloon passenger, a lone man whom none of the other passengers knew, and who must have taken to his berth soon after coming aboard, entered on the list as Mr. E. E. Lapham, of Boston, died. This event did not make the impression which would have resulted had we been companions on shipboard; but it was an ominous commencement to our voyage. His body was consigned to the deep. I officiated at his funeral. The body which had been sewed up in canvas and decently covered by a flag was brought to the port side of the vessel, laid upon a smooth bier made of a broad flat surface of board, one end of which was suffered to rest upon the gunwale of the ship. As I uttered the words, 'We therefore commit his body to the deep,' the Captain, who was standing near, said quietly, 'Heave': the bearers raised the bier slightly at the nearer end, the body slid from beneath the flag off into the sea; the ship, which had been slowed up somewhat, resumed her usual speed,--and our little world moved on. So the great world will one day or other pass on and leave us all, only, unlike our ship, it will, perhaps hardly 'slow up' a little.

"January 26, 9 P. M.

"We have come within sight of Japan this morning, and since we ran into the Japan current--a warm stream which runs up along the coast of Japan very much as the Gulf Stream flows along our Atlantic coast--the weather has moderated and become quite mild. We are promised that we shall anchor in Yokohama harbor early to-morrow.

"January 27th.

"This morning dawned bright and pleasant and everything was auspicious until a fog settled down upon us. The fog whistle began to blow and the speed of the vessel was slackened somewhat, when suddenly the fog lifted a little, there was a shout, and we found ourselves close to a rocky coast and the sea breaking over the sharp crests of outlying rocks. One rock alongside was within twenty-five or thirty feet of us. I could easily have thrown an apple on to it, while to the left, and a little ahead lay even more formidable rocks. In a few minutes we should have been crashing upon them had not the fog lifted. The engines were immediately reversed, the ship's advance was stayed, and presently we felt her, to our infinite relief, slowly gliding backward."

The stay in Japan was extended until the first of March, when Bishop Hare set sail from Japan. From letters to his sister Mary and Dr. Langford, Secretary of the Board of Missions, it appears that he reached Shanghai, March 4, spent several days there visiting stations, churches and institutions, and on March 7 took steamer for Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yangtse River. The reports of what he saw and did in China have to do so much more with immediate details than with matters of permanent interest that they may be passed over. On March 18 he took steamer at Shanghai back to Japan and March 26-29 again met the clergy and laity of the Japanese mission in Convocation at Trinity Church, Tokio. A single passage from his address to them--which in general was more a report than a sermon--is all that need be quoted:

"I would urge upon all who are called upon in any capacity to teach religion to the people, that they keep carefully to those salient points in the broad lines of Christian truths of which it may be said that they are Catholic, that they have been held 'always, everywhere and by all.' We are here not of our own motion but of the Church's appointment, and we are commissioned to teach, not our own peculiar views of the things to be believed, and the things to be done, but what the Church teaches. This body of truth is presented to us in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, and in the striking summaries and paraphrases of them which our short Catechism contains. They contain truths so compact and terse in statement, that, as the intelligent teacher, familiar with the Scriptures, dwells on them, texts and incidents,--impressive, pathetic, tender,--from the Historical Books, the Prophets, the Psalms, Gospels, Epistles, rise up in the memory and leap forward ready to expand, illustrate and enforce them. I fear these treasures are not adequately appreciated. Religious emotions are of high value, but they rise and fall. They are not perennial. Religious opinions rise up and flourish in each age, in individuals and little coteries, and are like the passing highly-colored cloud. They attract attention and pass away. But the great truths taught in the formulas just referred to are not dependent upon emotion. They are not matters of opinion. They are seed truth. They are capable of perpetual germination. Once lodged in the mind, they 'spring and grow up and bring forth fruit, we know not how,' even though they be long inactive and apparently dead, and from their renewed life, holy emotions and pious opinions and right living result almost as a matter of course."

On March 31 he sailed for home on the steamer China, and, to his great disappointment reached Sioux Falls just too late for the celebration of Easter. But upon his two visits to the Orient he must have looked back with thankfulness for the opportunities they had brought to him. It was left for others to sum up the value of his service. In 1897 a Japanese correspondent of The Church Standard wrote from St. Paul's College, Tokio: "The influence of Bishop Hare's visit to Japan is still felt here. Every native clergyman whom I meet speaks of him and admires him highly. One denominational minister told me that Japan had had many American commissioners, representing different Christian bodies at home, to investigate the condition of missionary work and give some good opinions for its improvement if needed, but that none of them did it so well and so decidedly as Bishop Hare, from the American Episcopal Church. His testimony is true." In an unpublished letter, Bishop Tuttle, dwelling especially upon the soldierly qualities of Bishop Hare, has written: " The Church was baffled and crippled in directing her important work in the Far East. Looking around she asked, 'Who will deliver me of the weight of this trouble?' She looked at Hare, sorrowful in his loneliness and his homelessness, harassed with border perplexities and burdened with race hatreds, and she asked him to go and set things straight. The soldier went, not once but twice, and then returned to his own work and to his own flock in quiet simplicity and godly sincerity."

In 1893, the year following Bishop Hare's second visit to the East, Bishops McKim and Graves were chosen respectively to direct the missions of Japan and China. But the history of these missions would be incomplete without a record of the service of him who had rejoiced in the preceding decade in ceasing to be a missionary to races and becoming a missionary to men.

Project Canterbury