Kunshi

"I am only a plodder of average talents and plain common sense," the missionary once said of himself. "If I have been remarkable for anything, it has been for perseverance." Last week in Yokohama, a monument was raised to the remarkable plodder who was one of the first to introduce Japan to Western and Christian ideas.

James Curtis Hepburn of Milton, Pa. disappointed his parents by not becoming a minister. Instead, he studied medicine and got an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1836. But after three years of private practice, he decided to become a missionary. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions sent him and his young wife to China. A few years later malaria forced them to return, and Dr. Hepburn settled down to 13 years of practice in New York City.

$62 a Copy. When Commodore Matthew Perry and his "black boats" opened up Japan to the Western world in 1854, Dr. Hepburn heard a special call for his services which he could not refuse. The Presbyterians wanted to send a missionary, but the Japanese forbade conversion to Christianity on pain of death. A medical missionary was the answer; Dr.Hepburn set sail with his wife in 1859, to become one of the first Protestant missionaries to Japan.

Though they feared and hated all foreigners, the Japanese called grave, spectacled Dr. Hepburn "Kunshi" (Honored Sir). For 32 years he worked among them as doctor and minister of Christ, but for many years his work as a missionary had to be carefully hidden. While working long hours at his dispensary, he found time to compile the first Japanese-English dictionary, which was so much in demand that three years after its publication copies were selling for as much as $62. The system of transliteration which he invented is still used to convert Japanese characters into Roman letters. In 1880, working with other missionaries, Hepburn completed a translation of the Bible into Japanese; for a time the wooden blocks which were being secretly made for a translation of the New Testament were hidden by day behind the bottles of his dispensary. In 1887 Missionary Hepburn became the first president of the Presbyterians' pioneer college in Tokyo, Meiji Gakuin.

The Right Direction. Meanwhile, as the Japanese government became increasingly lenient toward Christianity, Dr. Hepburn was able to preach the Gospel openly. When he returned at last to the U.S. in 1892 to spend the remaining 19 years of his life, the Japanese showered Kunshi with honors, as they did again last week in newspaper articles and at the unveiling of Yokohama's monument. Said Monument Committee Chairman Kumakichi Nakajima: "Lately we Japanese have made a great mistake in the direction of progress. We sincerely desire that this monument, although very small, may be a milestone for modern Japan's progress in the right direction."

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