I appeal first to the Christian Churches of the United States, Canada and Britain.  I have seen what your representatives, more particularly the agents of the American and Canadian Churches, have accomplished in Korea itself.  They have built wisely and well, and have launched the most hopeful and flourishing Christian movement in Asia.  Their converts have established congregations that are themselves missionary churches, sending out and supporting their own teachers and preachers to China.  A great light has been lit in Asia.  Shall it be extinguished?  For, make no mistake, the work is threatened with destruction.  Many of the church buildings have been burned; many of the native leaders have been tortured and imprisoned; many of their followers, men, women and children, have been flogged, or clubbed, or shot.

You, the Christians of the United States and of Canada, are largely responsible for these people.  The teachers you sent and supported taught them the faith that led them to hunger for freedom.  They taught them the dignity of their bodies and awakened their minds.  They brought them a Book whose commands made them object to worship the picture of Emperor—­even of Japanese Emperor—­made them righteously angry when they were ordered to put part of their Christian homes apart for the diseased outcasts of the Yoshiwara to conduct their foul business, made them resent having the trade of the opium seller or the morphia agent introduced among them.

Your teaching has brought them floggings, tortures unspeakable, death.  I do not mourn for them, for they have found something to which the blows of the lashed twin bamboos and the sizzling of the hot iron as it sears their flesh are small indeed.  But I would mourn for you, if you were willing to leave them unhelped, to shut your ears to their calls, to deny them your practical sympathy.

What can we do? you ask.  You can exercise the powers that democratic government has given you to translate your indignation into action.  You can hold public meetings, towns meetings and church meetings, and declare, formally and with all the weight of your communities behind you, where you stand in this matter.  You can make your sentiments known to your own Government and to the Imperial Japanese Government.

Then you can extend practical support to the victims of this outbreak of cruelty.  There could be no more effective rebuke than for the Churches of the English-speaking nations to say to their fellow Christians of Korea, “We are standing by you.  We cannot share your bodily sufferings, but we will try to show our sympathy in other ways.  We will rebuild some of your churches that have been burned down; we will support the widows or orphans of Christians who have been unjustly slain, or will help to support the families of those now imprisoned for their faith and for freedom.  We will show, by deeds, not words, that Christian brotherhood is a reality and not a sham.”