This expertly edited collection of the letters of a Protestant missionary couple in Japan in the years 1876-1892 offers vivid insights into the forces at work in that country during the period of rapid modernization known as the Meiji era. Nova Scotia-born Belle Marsh served first with the U.S. Presbyterian mission in Yokohama before becoming the wife of Thomas Pratt Poate, a young Englishman who left a government teaching post in Tokyo to become an American Baptist missionary and spearhead a Baptist campaign in the northern part of Japan's main island. The adventurous life of the Poate couple and their five gifted children, here reconstructed in its wider context by their historian grandson, foreshadows some of the problems of cultural interaction in our own time.
"Richard Stebbins' book draws a vivid portrait of the Japan of the late 19th century, as seen through the eyes of an Anglo-American missionary family and described in their letters and reports. The author, an established scholar of international affairs and noted literary biographer, has edited and commented on these letters with a sure and sympathetic touch, placing them in the context of material gathered in painstaking research. The result, of special interest to scholars, is a unique and personal picture of the individual protagonists (the author's grandparents), of their missionary endeavors (which met with but limited success), and of fascinating aspects of Japanese society." (John C. Campell, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations)
"The work of few Christian missionaries has been so fittingly commemorated as in this well-edited collection of letters written from Japan during the crucial years of the Meiji era. With its highly knowledgeable introduction andcommentary, the volume should prove of equal value to specialists in the history of East Asia and in the story of Christian missions." (Alba Amoia, Hunter College of the City University of New York)
"The work of few Christian missionaries has been so fittingly commemorated as in this well-edited collection of letters written from Japan during the crucial years of the Meiji era. With its highly knowledgeable introduction andcommentary, the volume should prove of equal value to specialists in the history of East Asia and in the story of Christian missions." (Alba Amoia, Hunter College of the City University of New York)