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GREETINGS TO THE BOYS CAMP OF THE GREENVILLE YMCA

Dear Boys:

I am glad to hear of your Camp and to send you a message. Christianity is not limited to one nation at all. There is no country foreign to any other country. The world is all one. Therefore we must have the Christian Internationale. There have been the First, Second, and the Third Internationale of the workers upon a materialistic basis. What we need now is the Heaven Internationale, the Christian Internationale.

I became a Christian at fifteen. I am so glad that I became a Christian. We Japanese received Confucianism from China and Buddhism from India but both are so hard to understand. This I found when at eleven I was sent to study them from a Buddhist priest. I simply memorized them, but to memorize and to practice are different.

Therefore I thought I could never become a good man, for to memorize and to practice are different, and my surroundings were so bad I feared it was hopeless. My brother lived a licentious life. And tho my father had been secretary to the Privy Council of the Emperor of Japan, he also had lived a licentious life. He looked pretty good on the outside but was not happy at home. Therefore I found out that is is necessary to live a pure life.

I began to go to an English class to learn English. My father was dead, and my brother said to me, "You may study English but I forbid you to become a Christian." But looking at my brother's life, and looking back at my father's life, I thought I wanted to live a pure life. I had to memorize Luke 12; 27-31. Repeatedly I meditated on those verses. And I began to pray. Seven months after beginning to pray, I was baptised. All those months I had been praying to be made holy like Christ, altho in my boyish fashion all I knew how to say was, "Make me a great man like Christ!" God answered my prayer and gave me the gift of holiness.

After I found Christ I studied harder than ever. This was because I found that this world, this great universe, is a created letter from God. I must read the universe. I am God's son, too, in some sense as Christ was. God gave this universe to us. So everything became very mysterious. I loved to study mathematics, physics, chemistry and bacteriology and biology. All science became my enjoyment. And fine arts, too, and many systems of ethics. Christ is an example for life. He has changed me. I wish you to be faithful to Christ, Christ as an example for life. And carry light back in your hearts, the light of Christ.

Huxley, a famous biologist, says to find a savage it is not at all necessary to go to Central Africa. You can find real savages in the slums of big cities. And in each one of us there is also a savage. So I tell you there is the necessity to be born again, to become a Christlike person. When we are born again, the fire of God comes into our hearts and picks out the bad man, and drives him away from our inner shrine. Many of you boys probably look like angels. See that you keep your best self on top, and continue to be angels!

Your friend,
Toyohiko Kagawa

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