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He has acted as Far Eastern diplomat for both his church and the U. S. Army. Last week Bishop Tucker hastily summoned Bishops Reifsnider, Binsted and Nichols to Manhattan for consultation, dispatched the two former to Japan for first-hand news, kept Bishop Nichols in the U. S. for advice as the situation develops. Meanwhile he kept mum. Judging from the Japanese Episcopal Church's last two clashes with the Government, the outlook was none too bright. Last year the president of Episcopal St. Paul's University, Tokyo, was forced to resign because, in reading the hallowed Imperial rescript on education in chapel on a national holiday, he stood on the altar steps, below the lectern where the Bible is read, thus ranking the Mikado lower than God.
Not jolted into any unwonted summer activity were the mission headquarters of other U. S. denominations, most of which occupy begrimed buildings on Manhattan's lower Fourth and Fifth Avenues. Mission secretaries complacently recalled China's stand in 1927 when the Nationalist Government insisted that natives head every Chinese Christian college and school. Then pessimists thought missions in China were done for. Now, thanks to dogged heroism during China's war, missionaries have more influence there than ever before. But China was not trying to become a totalitarian state. In Japan the time may soon come when Christians will have to become martyrs or see Christianity disappear in all but name.