Christians Rebuked

Members of the Rotary Club of Tokyo entertained 20 visiting U. S. Rotarians last week with a banquet at which the Japanese speakers completely abandoned the honeyed platitudes with which Rotarians are often entertained. Matosako Zumoto, Vice President of the World Press Congress, roundly declared:

"When Christians come in contact with peoples of other creeds the results are not always conducive to peace and harmony.

"Unfortunately the religion of the nations which now dominate the world is of the masterful, imperialistic and exclusive type, and therefore cannot be counted as a force for harmony, at least so far as relations between East and West are concerned.

"Christianity comes to Asia in a spirit of arrogant superiority and an attitude of narrow exclusiveness. Thousands of missionaries who are sent here at great expense, when confining their activities to language teaching, are not unwelcome, but as religions teachers their presence is an implied insult to the great moral and religious forces built by our noble civilization.

"Missionaries fail, or refuse to see that the East has her own faith and philosophy, favorably comparable to those of the West. . . . The East is capable of progression in spiritual matters without Western guidance.

"Consequently attempts to thrust Christianity on us cannot fail but breed discord, ill-feeling and strife."