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Said Gandhi: "I would declare my heresies and be shot. ... I should ask you to declare your views against Japan and in so doing make Japan live through your death. But, for this, inner conviction is necessary." Said Kagawa: "The conviction is there. But friends have been asking me to desist." Said Gandhi, knowing nothing of doing nothing except on the advice of friends: "Don't listen to friends when the friend inside you says 'Do this.' " Purge. First victim of the new nation alist purge in Japan last week was the Salvation Army. After dismissing its for eign officers, cutting off relations with British headquarters and abolishing all military titles, the Army changed its name to the "Salvation Body" so that it might "henceforth conform to genuine Japanese principles." Still hanging in the balance is the fate of other foreign missions in Japan (biggest are Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Congrega-tionalist), with some 700 U. S. missiona ries. But Japanese Protestants met twice last week to organize the Genuine Japan Christian Church, favored the severance of every foreign tie, fusion of all sects, Japanese supervision for all Christian ac tivity in occupied parts of China. Slated for head of the new united church was Bishop Yoshimune Abe, who rules Japan's Methodists. The Japanese Methodist Church formerly elected bishops for a four-year term. Last October, when Bishop Abe was chosen, the Japanese Government stipulated that he should hold office for life. The Methodists obediently changed their constitution. With the favor of Japan's nationalist rulers, Bishop Abe may receive powers over Japanese Christians similar to those which Hitler's Reich-Bishop Ludwig Miiller tried in vain to use on German Protestants.
Bishops at Sea. Hardest hit at the moment is the Japan Episcopal Church.
A rump session of its House of Bishops, meeting under governmental pressure, forced the resignation of the three British bishops and sent word to the three U. S.
members of the hierarchy—Bishops Charles S. Reifsnider of North Kwanto, Shirley H. Nichols of Kyoto and Norman S. Binsted of Tohoku, all of whom were in the U. S. to attend next month's Episcopal triennial General Convention at Kansas City—that they too must resign. The four native Japanese bishops who will now rule the church's 30,000 communicants voted to reject all foreign financial aid. Probable shot: withdrawal of the 85 U. S. Episcopal missionaries in Japan (they could not live on a rice-Christian's income), closing of many an Episcopal mission, slimmer salaries for native clergymen and catechists.
Fortunate are U. S. Episcopalians to have as their presiding bishop in such a crisis the Right Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, Bishop of Virginia. Lanky, practical Bishop Tucker spent 24 years as a missionary in Japan, eleven of them as Bishop of Kyoto, still claims he can preach more fluently in Japanese than in English. .