This is a complete and accurate transcript of an oral history interview of Rev. Bruce Finley Hunt (Collection 104, #T3) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words which were recorded were omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English. The narrator in this interview speaks slowly and pauses frequently. Only unusually long pauses have been noted.

... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence of the speaker.

.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.

( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.

[ ] Words in brackets are comments made by the transcriber.

This transcription was made by Janyce H. Nasgowitz, Katherine Hofinga, Tara Pokela, and Scott Renshaw and was completed in September 1991.

Collection 104, #T3. Interview of Bruce Finley Hunt by Robert Shuster, May 21, 1980.

HUNT: Do you think that'll hold it's place all right?

SHUSTER: I hope so; we'll find out as we go along. If it suddenly collapses on us we'll...

HUNT: Okay.

SHUSTER: ...have to figure out something else.

HUNT: Okay.

SHUSTER: This is an interview with Reverend Bruce Hunt by Robert Shuster for the Missionary Sources Collection of Wheaton College. This interview took place at Wheaton College on May 21 [1980] at one a.m....one p.m. Reverend Hunt, when you had graduated from seminary, were you interviewed by the Presbyterian Board [Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.] as a candidate for the mission field?

HUNT: Yes, I had volunteered. Not that I was sure I was supposed to be a missionary, but I grew up on the mission field and I felt the whole world was...in a sense, we were responsible to the whole world. But some found it difficult to consider the mission field; they weren't used to it. I was used to it so...while there was a church that seemed interested in calling me, I felt I ought to at least volunteer as a missionary and I had volunteered to go out as a missionary. I asked the Bo...I told the Board I was willing to go any place, though I was born in Korea and knew the language. I was willing to go any place. In fact, I indicated on their application seet...sheets, I think, some other places than Korea where it would be not so easy for me. Others were having to go to difficult fields and so I was willing to go to any field they'd send me.

SHUSTER: What...what were some of the places that you volunteered for than Korea.

HUNT: Well, I don't recall exactly right now. I think Japan, not because it's easy to live (some people think Japan's much easier to live in than Korea), but because it seems to 've been harder to get the Gospel across in Japan. And I knew Japan a little bit, even though I didn't know the language. But I talked of...Africa was a completely different country to me. I talked of Tibet or (I don't think the Board had work in Tibet)...but China. It would be entirely a different language to me. And I offered to go to any place. I think I mentioned Africa and possibly some field in China and Japan, as I remember.

SHUSTER: What was the interview process like by the Presbyterian Board?

HUNT: Well, the only people I met until I think I was finally appointed was the candidate secretary, and I don't know whether you're aware of the term "Auburn Affirmation," but that was something that kind of marked people in those days. You...the northern Presbyterian Church had been having quite a struggle over liberalism. Fosdick [Harry Emerson], he had preached a sermon, "Will the Fundamentalists Win," and so on. And after that the General Assembly felt obliged to reaffirm its belief in the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the substitutionary atonement, the miracles, and...I think about five different things. And then some people...the jus...and the press.... The reason they felt they had to reaffirm it was because the press got hold of this, that when the church felt they should ask the First [Presbyterian] Church of New York to get rid of Fosdick [Rev. Harry Emerson], that it was spread.... Other ministers got up and said, "Well, we agree with Fosdick." And so then the press got a hold of this and it sounded like the Presbyterian Church had given up the virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection, and the substitutionary atonement, an...and some of these things. And so the General Assembly felt it wise to reaffirm five points. Then after the Assembly meeting, a lot of the ministers got together and they drew up what they called the Auburn Affirmation in which they said, "We shouldn't elevate these five points; that these were just theories about Christ's death, or about His resurrection, about His virgin birth, and so on. And thi...this was more what...instead of saying they [pauses]...well, they left it that they're theories, that they could be or not and you could believe either one kind of...idea. Of course, the conservatives didn't see it that way and that kind of drew the line. And from then on many of the ministers of General Assembly would cast their vote for a man or against a man as to whether he was one of the signers of the Auburn Affirmation. And whether you should have a signer of the Auburn Affirmation on the foreign missions committee, on the home missions committee, or so on. Here's a man to whom these are just theories. They aren't essential doctrines. And so this man that was the candidate secretary, here's the one through whom all the missionaries of the field would be checked, was an Auburn Affirmationist. But he used to ask me, the times that I met him, whether I could work with a liberal. And I'd generally say, "Well, the Presbyterian Church has a confession of faith, the Larger and Shorter catechism; I hold to these and every minister of the Presbyterian church is supposed to have subscribed to them and I see no reason why I should have to work with a liberal because this isn't what I call liberalism." But he would answer that, "Well, these are...they're interpretations of these words. Different people have different interpretations of them." And I didn't expect to be appointed, but they finally did appoint me anyway [chuckles].

SHUSTER: What do you think motivated them?

HUNT: I don't know, unless it was the fact that my folks were out there. And many of the missionaries knew me and whether they had asked for me, I don't know. I don't know at all. But they did decide to send me to Korea.

SHUSTER: You were married at this time?

HUNT: No, I was a bachelor at that time.

SHUSTER: How did you...course you had to travel to Korea by boat.

HUNT: Yes.

SHUSTER: You traveled to the west coast?

HUNT: No, I took the [pauses] money that they give you to go.... You're supposed to go...the money is enough to go the most direct way (I don't know what was the most direct from the east coast at that time), but I added some to it and I spent about [pauses] two weeks or sixteen days, I think, going around different places in Europe and about ten days in Palestine on the way. I added a little to the money they gave me to get to Korea and so I took kind of the summer, a little over a month to get to Korea.

SHUSTER: And you went then by sea or overland to....

HUNT: By se...mostly by sea. I went to England and then around Scotland and then across to France and then down to Italy. I took a boat from Naples across to Alexandria, then up to Jerusalem, and on and then from...came back to Port Said and took a boat from there through the Indian Ocean, and Singapore, and China, and to Japan, and then over to Korea.

SHUSTER: What...what are your memories of Palestine from that time?

HUNT: Well, it was very interesting. This was 1928. The trees that many of the people that are gone back to Palestine and planted were still quite young, the orange and grapefruit trees, and so on, and it was growing. The [Hebrew] University was there on the Mount of Olives, and.... But the country was still rather undeveloped, but it was a country looking forward to growth. I got to the Dead Sea and they had a mine where they were mining salt, and things like that (I guess it was across the Dead Sea). But it was still...it hadn't progressed a great deal at that time but it was interesting. It was free, at least, or at least under the British, yes.

SHUSTER: Did you have any contact with any of the Jewish settlers?

HUNT: Not especially, that I recall. I did...stayed at a hospice that the Catholics operated, and I went with some of their priests to visit St. Johns, where Elizabeth is supposed to have met...visited Mary...or Mary was supposed to have come and visited Elizabeth. And I got around to several of the interesting places that the Catholics have as [pauses] special holy spots. It was very interesting to...for me to see the Catholic kind of superstitions around these places there.

SHUSTER: When you arrived back in Korea.... You had been gone, of course, for some time. Did the country...were there changes in the country that you noticed?

HUNT: Some. I didn't notice that sharp a change. I...the Japanese had already been there when I left. I left in 1919. This was nine years later. What surprised me was that I went into the railroad station to ask for a telegraph blank and they understood my Korean. That surpli...surprised me a little bit [chuckles]. But I had some time getting back into talking the language. But there was change, but not that much of a change that you would marvel at it. Yes, there was change.

SHUSTER: What kind o...kind of change?

HUNT: Well, the Japanese [pauses] put in roads, but not our modern roads. They were just dirt roads. They used the farmers to make them. And some of the agricultural methods were...had become a little more government-controlled. And you could see, perhaps, more discipline in some of the things that were being done. I don't know if the railroads were that much better than they had been when I left, but.... They had a certain amount already started, you see, when I left. And it was pretty much the same, as I remember.

SHUSTER: Where were you first stationed?

HUNT: I went to language school in Seoul, but I was stationed in Chungju. It's a station south of Seoul....

SHUSTER: What's that?

HUNT: Chungju.

SHUSTER: How's that spelled?

HUNT: Well, we spelled it C-H-U-N-G-J-U, but how to get that Korean "Chung" [chuckles] in there is hard to say, but... It's in the only province with no sea coast, and it's a province that was famous for its aristocrats and landowners. It wasn't so far from the capitol that.... Politicians would have land down there and after they retired they'd live down there, and things like that. It had a very famous Buddhist temple. It was more of a con...a conservative, old Korea, in a way. And the church had been very slow in growing there.

SHUSTER: Now you say you were at language school first?

HUNT: Well, for two years, but I'd be up there several months, and then back to the station...

SHUSTER: [Under Hunt's voice.] Oh, so you varied between the two.

HUNT: But I spent several months, and so.... I had enough Korean that they put me immediately into the second year in the language course (it's a three-year language course). I sometimes wished they'd put me in the first year so I'd know Korea by grammar...Korean by grammar. I just learned it from hearing people talk. They tell me I speak grammatically, but I didn't lear...I never liked grammar, anyway. But I didn't learn the grammar [chuckles] of the Korean language and a lot of the...what teachers would teach you about the scientific knowledge of the language. I got into the second year where we were reading and [pauses] so on, speaking. But I had two years of language school before finally getting into the work.

SHUSTER: Now you were also doing...working though as a pastor while you were going to language school? Or was it...?

HUNT: No, the old Korean mission had kind of a rule that for the first three years they tried to keep you free as possible to get the language. They felt it was very important to get the language, and they didn't want you to have other excuses for not getting it. And it was a big enough mission that other people could carry the other work on [coughs]. But oh, of course, I got into a little youth work and, oh, some little things that I tried to do. They...I don't think they gave me any churches, at first, to be responsible for. I think it wasn't until after I'd been on the field two years before they gave me churches to be responsible for.

SHUSTER: Was there anything else taught at school besides language, such as Korean customs, or...?

HUNT: Oh, yes. We had some...it was mostly language, but some of our teachers.... We had one, Dr. Underwood. He was the son of the original missionary to Kor...original Protestant mis...Protestant ordained man, and he grew up in Korea as a missionary's son. He gave us some hints on just...Korean language from the cultural angle that I found very helpful. But it was mostly just getting the language and studying Chinese characters. You see, to the Koreans, the Chinese characters is something like Latin and Greek is to us, or perhaps even more so to them. Their.... And a scholar is supposed to know these things (our forefathers used to believe in studying Latin and Greek a lot more than we do now), but the Koreans'...a scholar was supposed to study Chinese characters. And so many of the Korean words, especially scientific words and religious words, are made of combinations of Chinese characters, just like our English, more literary language is made up of Latin or Greek words. And so we studied Chinese characters as well as Korean.

SHUSTER: How useful was the [pauses] material you were taught at language school? [Unclear.]

HUNT: Oh, very, very helpful. And I...I feel it's important you.... It's one thing to sit with the teacher and try to pull it out of him. And...or even if he is a good teacher that knows how to teach the language, I think there's a certain advantage in studying with others. The comp...not the competition, but the exchange that you get in different ones asking questions and trying to understand the...the language, and so on. I feel the school was a good thing. I'm for it.

SHUSTER: The school was in Seoul?

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: The school was in Seoul?

HUNT: The school was in Seoul, yes.

SHUSTER: What was the town...what was the city of Seoul like at that time?

HUNT: Well, it was still pretty much of a Korean city, though it had changed some. And they had one street they had called Chingobey[?] which was a street of Japanese stores and things like that. And they had another area that was more Korean, and there were quite a few Japanese living in the city. It...a lot of the houses, you could see that they were built [pauses] as kind of Japanese houses, yes. The Japanese influence was quite strong in Seoul. And in smaller towns, and so on, there would always be some Japanese: the officials, the school principal, and the police, the post office, and maybe there'd be a store or two. And they would generally have a Japanese home with the Japanese paper doors and the lighter roofs, and it was more Japanese style homes. And you saw a lot of that in the towns and in Seoul especially, because it was the capitol.

SHUSTER: Was it a big city?

HUNT: I'm sorry I don't know what the population was at that time. It's up to eight million now, but this is modern times.

SHUSTER: And what were relations between Koreans and Japanese?

HUNT: [Pauses.] Well, in those days, as I saw it, Japan just governed the country and the Koreans.... I suppose they used to be...they were used to having to knuckle to their own king and their rulers, that China at different times kind of dominated Korea. But the Koreans, over the centuries, have had to knuckle to authority and they generally knuckled to it. They might not be happy with it, but you didn't see any open opposition to it. Now, I did see that (I think I mentioned it before)...the 1919 independence movement, but even then they just stood and cheered. They didn't...there was no rock throwing, there was no shaking their fist, they're just cheering for their independence, that was all. And the Koreans...I haven't seen much.... Now recently, there's been a...a demonstration...several demonstrations, but in those days I didn't see any open opposition. Underneath they might be very unhappy with it, but they went along with it.

SHUSTER: Did you...were you aware of any active partisans of the Korean government in exile? Wasn't the Korean government in exile in China?

HUNT: I would hear of it; that is, later, not that first year or two when I was learning the language. But as I got out in the country I knew that certain Koreans were considered patriots by the Koreans. I heard [squeaky noise] the name of Syngman Rhee [1875-1965, first president of the Republic of Korea] [unclear] as the Koreans called him way back in those days. Kim Gu, and a man that in Pa...he's died now, but they have a memorial organization in Philadelphia to Philip Jaissohn [So Chai-Pil]. Well, I would hear these names amongst the Koreans as heroes or as patriots who were working [squeaky noise] in China or over here in America, or something like that. And we knew of them, but we didn't see any active.... Now, there's where...the Koreans maybe had their parties, pro this man or that man [Shuster comment unclear], but a missionary...at least I didn't know, "Oh, this man belongs to this party or that party." A lot of these things were...they were secret enough, or at least I didn't know it.

SHUSTER: What...you were at this time serving with the North Amer...North Presbyterian Board?

HUNT: Yes.

SHUSTER: What was their strategy for Korea? What...how did they try and reach Korea?

HUNT: What was their strategy?

SHUSTER: Uh-huh.

HUNT: I don't know whether I mentioned this before, but I think it was a very good strategy. Of course, it began way back in...before the turn of the century. The first missionaries were just young men. They hadn't had experience in this kind of work. They volunteered to go out as missionaries. And they providentially saw some articles by...to me, providentially, John L. Nevius [1829-1893], a missionary in China for about twenty-five...well, I don't know how long he'd been there then, but anyway he was twenty-five behi...years behind Morrison [Robert; 1782-1834], the first missionary to China. And he felt that many of the early practices in China were not good missionary practices, and he'd written an article about them. And so these missionaries invited him to come over to Korea to talk about his ideas. Now, there were some people in China that agreed with his ideas, some Presbyterians and some Baptists especially, I think. I forget whether there were others. But then there're some Presbyterians who were very much against his ideas. Anyway, he came and gave the missionaries his ideas and they decided (it was in 1894, I think the date was, somewhere along there)...they decided as a group, "We're going to adopt his methods." Now, he used to call them the New Method and the way the other missionaries had done the Old Method. And yet he believed that his methods were biblical methods and so, in one way, as he said in his paper, I think, that they're really older than the so-called Old Method, because they go back to the Bible. He liked to believe that his methods were both biblical and practical. Now, a lot of people think that biblical methods just don't fit our day or for later years. He believed that biblical methods were good for our day, and they're also practical, and he had put them into practice and he felt that they were very, very good methods. And so he...he gave these and the missionaries, evidently, were convinced that they were biblical and practical and, though they hadn't yet tried them, they agreed to adopt them. Now one of the key things...or that...sometimes I think he stresses it more than is true of his own method, is that he believes in just keeping money out of the picture. That...he says the Old Method, they believed in using money to hire evangelists and to...colporteurs and to build churches and so on. And he kind of called that the Old Method, that they use money more. And he felt that his Newer Method, as he called it then, was to use money...to minimize the use of money and you don't immediately, when somebody, well...somebody be...shows some interest in Christianity, you don't give 'em a job and hire 'em and so on. And buildings were to be their.... If they wanted a building, they should build them themselves with their own money. If they wanted a full-time worker [coughs], they should pay him themselves. Maybe two or three churches could pay him. But the idea was the missionary wasn't to use missionar...money. Now, that's a very difficult thing. A missionary prefers to use money. It's easier, and the natives prefer that you use money. They'd like to have you help them. And not to use money is a difficult thing both for the missionary and for the native. But Nevius believed in this. Now, to me, as I've seen it worked out, when you don't use money, it means that the missionary has to give his life more. You can't just do it easy by hiring somebody, using money. It means you go out and do the work, and...I mean...then they do the work, too, but you inspire them to do it. And another thing I think is rather [pauses].... Well, be...before I say this, he believed a great deal in wide itineration. He did it...he believed a great deal in teaching the Word. And so it wasn't all just not using money. Another...

SHUSTER: Wide itineration, what do you mean by that?

HUNT: Well, to cover the country. You don't just sit.... Now, a lot of missionaries think that if you get to China and Japan and you go into a little country village and you start a church and you preach every Sunday and you have...you've got missionary work. And you...you're way out there, and you're preaching and so you're a missionary. Well now, to me, that's more of a subsidized pastor than a missionary. I mean he's sent and so he is a missionary, but he's a subsidized pastor-kind-of-missionary to me. But Nevius believed in wide itineration, covering the territory.

SHUSTER: Like your father did.

HUNT: Yes, and like I did, and like most missionaries in Korea did, following his suggestions. And covering the territory and coming back over and over, at least twice a year, to...to a territory. You keep going over that territory again and again, but trying to cover the whole territory. But one of his secrets, that I...I think is almost fundamental to his rule, too, was that he taught that every Christian should be a teacher. Well, maybe a learner from someone better informed and a teacher of someone less informed. Every Christian. This would be good in America, it would be good anywhere, that everyone is both a learner and a teacher. Now he has that little sentence that to me is...is very important to his method. And so the early missionaries in Korea, whether they picked this out as one of the key things about what he taught, they used to ask new Christians that they were examining for baptism, "Have you witnessed to ev...anybody? Have you won anybody to Christ?" Well, I don't know that we can necessarily win people to Christ, but witnessing, we all ought to be witnessing. I remember, I...following their example, I used to do that myself. If I was examining anybody for baptism, I'd ask whether they'd witnessed, whether they'd...whether anybody had been brought to the Lord through their witness and so on. I remember one woman up in Manchuria. I knew she was a very active Christian. She was a young Christian but very active. And I asked her, "Have you preached to other people?" "No," she says, "no, I haven't." Well, I knew that...the kind of Christian she was, that she must have witnessed to other people. And I was rather surprised. I said, "What do you mean? Don't you witness to them when you're out by the stream washing your clothes or when you're going to the well to get water or something?" "Oh, that kind of...sure I've done that, lots. But I haven't gone over the mountains to peo...preach to people in the villages." She was a woman with a family and she hadn't gone a distance to preach. But the early missionaries...it almost was a rule that if they hadn't preached they wouldn't baptize them. It was a kind of a unwritten understanding, I guess, and the Christians knew it. I mean, they're supposed to witness. And, also, they were supposed to be learners. They had Bible conferences and they had a Bible institute and they had the seminary and it wasn't just the man who's going to be a minister that was trained. Everybody, if they could, was...tried to attend a Bible conference, in the home church or in the district or something like that. But the Bible conferences were a very important part of the Korean missionary work.

SHUSTER: Did these same rules hold true then when you joined the Orthodox Presbyterian...?

HUNT: For myself they did. I was...the Independent Board...let me see...Charles Woodbridge was the chairman. He was a missionary son from China. I don't know that these rules had been used in China, but he was enough impressed with them that the Independent Board, out under which I went when I first left the U.P.U.S.A., had adopted the Nevius Method as their policy. I don't think they so consistently applied it, and our O.P.C. has not adopted it. I wish they would, but I don't think it has been applied as a committee or a board. But some of our missionaries have seen the importance of it. But the missionaries in Korea, they agreed and...it's easier if you agree to something like this, because if one uses money and one doesn't, the natives, they like to go to the one that uses money and, oh, they [unclear] by running the other one down, "He's selfish," or "He is this or that," and "Oh, you're so generous and so nice," [claps?] and...and "Oh, this church, we need help." And they can make quite a tale, and they're liable to.... Well, it's hard to do it if you're not consistent [claps?]. Now when people come to me, poor people that really have a real need, and yet I know that if I help it, I mean in buildings and so on, it's liable to set a pattern that I feel isn't good, and so I just tell them, "Well, sure, America is a rich country and maybe we do have money, but we have a policy not to do it." And I feel it's nice to have a policy, that you can say, "We have a policy." It's not a case of...we have the money, but...or we don't have the money, and pretence there either, because they all know America is richer [laughs]...richer than they are. And they can see we have a little more money to live with than they do and all of this. And to say, "Well, we just can't spare it today," or something like that.... But if you have a policy, I think it's easier. And then I like to, after telling them that, say, "Look at what Jesus did. He sent them out without money [pauses] when he sent the disciples forth." [Bumps microphone.] If they had money, okay, but if they didn't have it, they could still be successful without money. And I like to go back to that.

SHUSTER: Speaking of money, how...what was the...how was the work of the U.P.U.S.A. supported financially?

HUNT: By churches. And it was, I would say, rather well supported. I mean, it's a big denomination. They built some schools and hospitals and the missionaries' salaries, but they didn't have the policy of the missionary having to go around and raise his salary like some boards do. When they appointed a missionary they...they...it was within their budget. They might interest a church in...a church that was giving to missions anyway, that wanted to have a missionary that they're supporting. I was...a church was assigned to me to...or I was assigned to a church to assume my support. And I came back and visited them on my first furlough and so on.

SHUSTER: I see.

HUNT: But the missionary didn't have to go around begging. He just...well, I don't mean begging, but trying to raise his own money. He told about his work, but...and that's the way the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is doing....

SHUSTER: You mentioned in Chungjo...Chungjau?

HUNT: Chungju.

SHUSTER: Chungju?

HUNT: Yes.

SHUSTER: ...the church had had some trouble growing...

HUNT: Yes.

SHUSTER: ...when you first went. What were the reasons for that?

HUNT: Well, [clears throat] as I said, you had your aristocrats. One thing about them is [coughs] they're generally strong Confucianists and [coughs]...or else they were Buddhists and supporting the Buddhist temple or something like that, but generally strong Confucianists. They were something like the Pharisees in the Bible. They're satisfied with their moral...the morality of Confucianism and they were students and scholars or at least they studied and all this. Then they had the poor [pauses]...well, they used to be slaves, maybe, but at that time they were more share-croppers, the poorer people. And even in the country, where the missionaries had adopted the Nevius Method...in that particular area the missionaries felt that it was difficult to push the Nevius Method in that area, because the rich landlords and the aristocrats, they weren't coming into the church very much. They were the ones that had the money. The poor people might be attracted to the Gospel, as they were in Jesus' day, but they didn't have the money. And so how could you make it self-supporting? And so they broke down a little bit there, and they used mission money to pay evangelists' salaries; maybe not the full salary, but part of the evangelist's salary. But it's interesting to me that.... Anyway, the church hadn't gone ahead very rapidly. My father...

SHUSTER: These are Korean evangelists?

HUNT: Pardon me? Yes, Korean evangelists. But my father told me, "Even down there, I...I think the Nevius Method should be used. Go and use it there." I was a young [claps] fellow starting out. I didn't know some of these things, but he was very strong for it, and he says, "Even in that area, where you have the rich landlords and the poor," he says, "even there the Nevius Method should be used." And I found that so. But, as Nevius himself says, "Where another method has been started, you don't go in and just break up what's been done. You try to go along with it. But where new work...then try to start it the right way." And that is what I tried to practice there.

SHUSTER: Um-hmm. What were the results of it?

HUNT: Well, I was satisfied. I mean, I felt that I was rewarded in what I did. I didn't see a great deal. I wasn't there very long. I was there only seven years all together, counting my two years of language school, or...or almost three years that they considered me a language student. But, I was there only seven years, but I saw some churches started and...from scratch and...that I didn't put money into and, interestingly, they grew, and I felt that they grew more rapidly than some that had been there a long time. But it was a few, not many, in the seven years.

SHUSTER: Now what were your activities while you were in the province? How did you go about preaching?

HUNT: Well, the...the station...we used to work as stations. I don't know whether I mentioned this last time, but the old U.S.A. Board had nine stations, eight in Korea and one in Manchuria. The one in Manchuria only had two missionary families, but the...that was more in later years and for the Koreans up in Manchuria. Manchuria is Chinese country, of course. But in Korea, they had eight stations. And a station, to me, means where missionaries are stationed, and the smallest station had eleven missionaries on it: three ordained men with their wives (they don't have to have wives, but they generally did), a doctor with his wife, a nurse helping the doctor, American nurse, and two evangelistic women (unmarried women), whose work was amongst the women and the children of the area. And they would travel like the men did, but travel to the country churches to do the women's work in the country church, that is, to get into the homes and to...also to hold the women's conferences. In those days, men and women were...were distinctly separated and they didn't like to sit together in a Bible conference, and so the women would have a conference separate, and the men would have a con...conference separate. And these women would hold the women's Bible conferences, and they itinerated just like the...not just like the men, because the men were primarily to baptize and to discipline...doing that part of the work. The women were more for teaching the women. The men also...men taught men and women. But when I got there after language school, the station...where we...had already two ordained men: Reverend Soltau [Dr. Theodore Stanley; 1890- ], whose children came here to Wheaton, I think (I don't know which ones came here), and then Mr. Miller, one of the older missionaries, these two men. And we made the third evangelistic man on the station. And shortly after we got there a doctor was appointed and we had a nurse and two evangelistic women on this station. Eleven was the minimum and we had a minimum number of workers. I don't know that they put eleven as the minimum. But as I've looked at it in later years, I've noticed that eleven was the minimum, whether they fixed that as a minimum or not. But they tried to have at least three ordained men and one doctor for each station. [unclear]

SHUSTER: Now did you all live together in one area?

HUNT: Well, we had a compound, where we had one, two, three...now, let me see, one, two, three, four houses. One we'd call the single ladies' house, and...and so on...a doctor's house and the evangelistic workers' house. We had five houses, excuse me. And when I got there they gave me twelve churches to look after. Now, in later years, of course, once the Korean church got stronger, all of this was really the work of the Korean church. But this was a very weak presbytery, and I think they only had about two ordained Korean men in the presbytery, so we had just about as many ordained missionaries as we had Korean. Maybe later, three ordained Koreans, of course, Korean elders. But at that time the Koreans were kind of dependent on the missionaries taking care of the little country churches that couldn't have pastors and...that is, couldn't afford to have a pastor. So they gave me twelve churches to look after and already these twelve churches had one, two, three evangelists working amongst them, as I remember (I'm not sure about that). And the mission was paying part of the evangelist's salary and the Korean churches were paying part of the salary, and each evangelist would have maybe three or four churches to look after. And they'd go around amongst these churches every Sunday, maybe every other...they'd get to a church every other Sunday or something like that. But this lay evangelist would be the one that did the preaching in these churches, and when he wasn't there, there'd be a local...either deacon or a word, youngsu, which means leader. The missionaries would appoint a leader to a little group. The leader would give a Bible message or a deacon would give a Bible message. (I called it preaching. Over here we seem to think that only prea...ministers can preach.) But, anyway, somebody would lead the service and give a Bible message. But they had the regular services. They had Sunday school, and morning service, and evening service, and Wednesday service, and they even had cottage meetings every Friday in little parts of the community. And these were carried on whether you had an ordained man or not, and whether the evangelist could get there or not. The Koreans believed they should meet for these services...had been taught to believe that they should get together for these services. And...but the evangelist would make his [unclear].... Now, I was the ordained man responsible for these churches, and I was.... The practice that the other missionaries had, that I followed, was that they'd visit these churches that they were responsible for twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. Sometimes a missionary had...now my wife's father had as many as seventy churches at one time. I had...when Mr. Soltau was on furlough one time, I had some of his churches. I had thirty churches to look after, fall and spring. But you'd visit these churches and they would have a church roll. They would have accounts. They'd have a secretary, a treasurer and generally somebody, a deacon or somebody to keep the church roll. And you'd check the church roll to see how the attendance was and who was attending, who had been attending regularly and might be ready for baptism and so on. And then you would examine those. On my trips, I would go to a little group, and they'd bring out the rolls, and I'd look at the rolls to see who was attending regularly. I used to have them make a line one way for morning attendance, another way for evening attendance, another way for Sunday school, another way for Wednesday evening prayer meeting, so I could just look at the...this thing. The Koreans used to joke about it and say it was the character for rice (the Korean character for rice comes out about that way). But if one attended all the services, the little character for rice [laughs] would show on the...in front of each person's name. But I would check. Sometimes, well, they're distant, that's why they couldn't get there. But I could tell where they only got there for morning, where they only got there for evening, or where they were away for so many weeks and so on. Then I would ask the evangelist, who was there much more frequently, you see. He was there, oh, every Sunday if he could get there, every other Sunday if he could arrange his schedule so he could get there. Then I'd ask him why these people weren't there. He wouldn't have to tell me so-and-so isn't coming. I could look at the rolls. And then I'd look at their account books to see how the offerings were. I think that shows something of people's faith, and the Koreans have a certain way of telling what an average family needs, and while I didn't say they ought to tithe, I showed them that the...it is one way that the Bible speaks of, as the Lord prospers. And I could say, "Well now, does this measure up to a real loving the Lord and wanting to give to him?" I wouldn't push it too hard, but I would just teach them a little about the privilege of giving to the Lord's work. Then if I saw them using their money kind of foolishly, I could also point this out. "This giving to the Lord ought to be used for the Lord's work." And I could also show that this church has so much, another church has so much. "Maybe between you, you could have an evangelist," and different things like that. But then I would examine, first of all, for ca...as...the catechumen. And now, if you had a local pastor, maybe you wouldn't have to wait this long. But in the early days the missionaries didn't...they didn't have local pastors. The missionaries were ones that visited these little groups, they say (it could be thirty groups or seventy groups) twice a year. And it meant that it was about six months before they got back, and the missionaries would examine them first as catechum...as the new believers. And the Koreans have a term for them as...a new believer is one who wants to be a Christian and they put him on the roll. He's a...he wants to have his name on the roll and he's...the term waneep [?] means he wishes to come in. And so if they've been on the roll as those who wish to come in for about six months, then you examine them to find out a little of what kind of faith they have. Do they really mean they want to give up their idols? Are they really trusting in Jesus? [Bumps microphone.] Now some of them you find that...just others have urged them to come and they hope that they'll get something from it, but they don't know anything about Jesus. And you explain what it means, and maybe right there you do some personal work with them, but they're people that have indicated their desire to join, so you might...I used to use this as an opportunity to make clear to them what the Gospel was, if they didn't seem to have it. Some of them, they wanted healing or they had some other motive for wanting to be a Christian. Somebody had urged them to come, or something. But I would try to find out what their motive was. And then if [bumps microphone] they didn't really know what it was to be a Christian, then I would try to explain to them very thoroughly what it meant to be a Christian. Do...you might say, do personal work right there. I found it was the best opportunity when somebody wanted to come in already [chuckles], and then do...do personal work with them. And if I could, I would get them actually to pray, themselves, because the Bible says, "Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" [Romans 10:13]. "Until you've called on the name of the Lord, why [chuckles], you can't be saved. You've got to call on Him directly. I'll pray for you, but I can't [laughs] get you through the door. You've got to...only the Lord can get you through." And then you wait another six months before you examine them for baptism. And during that time, I used to give them a certain amount of things to study. The Ten Commandments, the.... Well, first I'd start out saying, "I want you to read through the Bible." Well, now, some of them really did read through the Bible, but most of them wouldn't get very...oh, they'd get a little ways.... Some of them didn't even know how to read. Well, I'd say, "After all, we want to get God's Word directly from Him, and if you don't want to learn to read, I'm not sure just how anxious you are to be a Christian." And I'd push on them the [pauses] learning to read, so they could read God's Word for themselves. Sometimes grandmother, "Oh! I'm too old to learn." I'd say, "Well, this Korean writing, that's one thing wonderful about Korean writing, it's so simple, phonetic." But it...if a grandmother puts her mind to it, she can get it. And so I used to just almost hold off baptism until they would be willing to try to read.

SHUSTER: Were Korean Bibles plentiful?

HUNT: Yes. Oh, the Bible Society, you see, has...and they makes 'em...make them cheap.

SHUSTER: They were not difficult to get a hold of, then.

HUNT: No, no. Of course, they have to go to the city, maybe, but they go to the city for their groceri...I mean, for their various things. And they can...then they have colporteurs going around the country that the Bible Society sends around visiting places like that, so they can get them if they want them.

SHUSTER: Where would they learn to read?

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: Where would they learn to read?

HUNT: Well, often in church. My mother used to teach them. She didn't speak Korean very well, but her job on Sunday often was to take the new people [whispers: "people"], the women...the new women or the girls that hadn't had education. But this g...it's only twenty-four letters, they're very simply made, and they're phonetic, so once you know the letters, you...and how to put them together, you put together a sound...a sound of a word. And so it's really a wonderful thing. And the...often the church was the one that taught them to...to read. And then they could read the Bible. Anyway, I'd got them to.... That's the first thing I'd say, "Read the Bible." Well, somebody that's pretty smart [pauses] if...he could read it if he wanted to. But if he didn't want to, you'd question just how much real faith there is there. Then I'd ask them to recite the Apostles' Creed. Well, not that the Apostles' Creed is (well I believe it's very important)...but it puts into their brains and into their memory something positi...it's not just something in general. And the Ten Commandments, what the law of God is, I'd ask them to memorize this. I'd ask them to memorize the Lord's Prayer. Then I would ask them to [pauses] learn what baptism was and what communion was because they'd come to communion and not know what it was, come to baptism and not know what it was. And then there's some general rules that...course, they'd seen the Ten Commandments, but that non-Christians are not supposed to marry, I mean the Christians not supposed to marry non-Christians, that their [pauses].... It had to do with their social life, and so on. And keeping the Sabbath. And I'd maybe instruct them something about giving to the Lord's work, and things like that, some general things. And I would tell them I wanted them to study. And then the evangelist, you see, would know what I was going to examine them on, and these I'd ask them to study in preparation for baptism. But reading the Bible first, I mean. But I could tell how much they'd read to see how zealous they were; wanting to know the Lord by how much of the Bible they'd read. And so...and to me the Bible was the most important, to get it directly from God.

SHUSTER: [Pauses.] Now, it sounds as if a great deal of your work was visiting, kind of administrating, overseeing the churches. Did you do, during these seven years, any direct evangelism?

HUNT: Well, I considered that rather direct evangelism. In fact I...in recent years, I've been telling the seminary boys that perhaps the greatest opportunity for personal work is when you're examining. You might sound tha...think that this is just [pauses] supervising, or something, but when you're examining them for...as catechumens, that's the great.... They want to come in and really get the Gospel to them, and in my personal work classes I used to push that...what an opportunity it is to really work with them, and the same with baptism. You...you're really getting them to know what it is to be Christians, if they haven't known before. You're not...I used to spend quite a bit of time in examining for baptism and in [unclear] [bumps microphone] and to me it's...a very important part of evangelizing is...these people that...they see the church, they'd like to come in. Some of them have all kinds of ideas what the church is. They're going to get rich, or they're going to get well, or something like that, you know, and they have friends in there. But to get...get them to really see, and to get them to read the Bible, to me, oh, that's evangelism. It's best...most of me, right there [?]. But I've found, too, that often these little churches, some of them have been there a long, long time without much growth and they weren't [bumps microphone] reaching other people), and so one thing I then suggested Nevius's idea that everybody is supposed to be a witness as well as.... And on these fall and spring trips I would go out into the village, which often the Christians, they'd just get together every Sunday, and it was...not that they'd keep everyone else from it. It'd become just a little closed institution, just their little group. And when I'd go out, they'd, "Oh! We haven't reach...." and there still is an interest. They'd tried to reach their neighbors, but often [bumps microphone] they hadn't been able to really...been able to get through to them and they figured, "Well, that's the end of it." And I'd go out and they'd see that there still was work to do amongst the neighbors. And I felt that was a very important part of my work. Then I (this is something the missionaries didn't tell me to do)...but after I'd been there a little while (some of these twelve churches had been there a long time and no growth), and I used to wonder, "Well, did I go to seminary...college and seminary, to come and take care of twelve little churches that just had seen no.... There was no progress in them." And so I began to do a little thinking for myself that the missionaries hadn't told me, "You must do it this way or that way." [Coughs.] And...for one thing, of course, the missionaries, every winter, did have a Bible Institute where, again, they would come in from various churches and you'd teach them. Ultimately, that's pretty strong evangelism. And then they would have a leaders' retreat in the fall. And then if churches wanted special meetings, they would have special meetings during the year. Oh, they'd have a big general conference in the winter, a Bible conference. They'd come in from all the churches for about a week, a Bible conference. But then I began to set kind of a goal for myself. I said one thing I was going to try to get from these twelve little churches that I was responsible for...try to get at least one young person (if I could, I'd get a man for the Men's Bible Institute, a woman for the Women's Bible s...Bible Institute) to come in to the six-weeks Bible Institute that all of us missionaries in the center...in the station would have together. And there's a five-year course that...we were just teaching the Bible: outlines and...and expositions, so on [bumps microphone]. But I would...I set as my goal to try to get one person from each church to come to the Bible Institute. They hadn't been doing that. I mean some had occasionally come in, but I set as a goal to try to get (and they'd have to pay their own way, because it wasn't our practice to pay them; they would come on their own)...to encourage one man and one woman, at least. If I'd get more, fine. That was one thing. Another thing was that I would try to get a Bible conference in each church. Now, the bigger churches, that was the thing. They...you'd have a Bible conference of one week in the local church. And I'd say, "I hoped each one of those twelve churches would have a Bible conference in their local church, a one-week Bible conference. Because in these Bible conferences, they have a time of day-break prayer, they have a time of about two-hour study of the Bible in the morning, they go calling in non-Christian homes in the village in the afternoon, and then they have kind of an evangelistic meeting. And this is a kind of pattern they have in these Bible conferences. The Koreans...the missionaries used to call them classes. The Koreans called them sa-kyung-hoi, sa means to search, kyung, the Bible, hoi means a meeting. So it's a Search the Scripture Meeting, and [pauses] it was something that the early missionaries had started in local churches or on a regional, or the whole area kind of thing. And so I set as my goal to try to get a Bible conference in each church. And I'd tell them, "Now, I'll, if you can't af...(and they'd like to get some special speaker that had a name, and so on, that they could call in non-Christians, and so on. Well, I was just learning the language. I wasn't all that wonderful), but I'll come and help you at no cost to you, if you'll have a...you'll listen to me, if you'll have a Bible conference." And tried to have a Bible conference in each church. And then I tried to...I set as my goal to...from my twelve churches, I hoped that I could find one young man that would be interested in the ministry during my first term of seven years. And...oh, and then I set as a goal to go into at least, I think I started with two and then increased it to four, villages where there was no church. I...in each fall and spring, when I'd be making these tours, I'd have to set the time ahead of time. I'd tell the church, "Make...make it two or three months ahead of time, on a certain day I'll be at your church for examination. Be prepared." And I'd ride out to these churches, and I'd just have a definite date on my program to reach the church. And in the spring the same way. So I set as a goal that I would go into some non-Christian village on my fall itinerating and a non-Christian village on my spring itinerating. That's generally when...well, fall they're generally pretty busy with their harvesting but late...later fall and spring before they got too busy. But I would then begin to se...look to see, "Where shall I go this fall? Where shall I go this spring?" I'd make a list of possibilities. Maybe one place, I'd say, because I found that it was far from any church and a large population. Well, a large population you're liable to find a Christian if you work there for a week, I mean, or somebody interested. Maybe another one is very small, but there is one Christian family there and they haven't started a church. Well, there'd be a little contact on which you could build and a week's work might [bumps microphone].... And there are generally little villages all around, so if you have a contact in one village, there are other little villages that they can come from. And then maybe it might be because somebody invited me. Various reasons why.... So I'd make my list and then I'd decide each year in the fall, "Oh, I'll go to this village." And I'd just put it in the date, though they hadn't invited me. I'd go and maybe I'd [chuckles] have to stay in the village saloon or (it's not our idea of a saloon quite)...but it's kind of like the inn. And in fact one or two places I actually got the innkeeper to allow us to use his yard for the meetings in the evening. We spread mats in the yard and...and one place maybe there'd be a...some kind of little club house or a school that I could get or different things. And...but I enjoyed and felt, though I didn't see a church start every time, I felt it so fruitful that I later began to do two in the spring and two in the fall, into non-Christian villages in this way. And on the basis of Paul going to Thessalonica on three Sabbath days, getting a church started, I figure that a week or ten days was enough. If the Lord wanted to start a church, it could be done. And [bumps microphone]...but I didn't buy a building, I didn't pay anybody to continue it. If there was anybody that showed an interest, I'd teach them how they could continue by themselves. I would visit again, but th...they should continue by themselves.

SHUSTER: [Bumps microphone.] Did these churches generally continue?

HUNT: Some of...well, I didn't have a great many but I can think of one, two, definitely, maybe three and there may have been some others during that...about...well, I didn't start that right off the...just out of language school. But at least three churches that I know of have continued, and maybe more that I don't know because I haven't been back in that area [bumps microphone].

SHUSTER: Were most of the people who became Christians poor? [Pause.] You mentioned the aristocrats didn't seem to be very attracted....

HUNT: Yes. Well, [bumps microphone throughout] one of these [unclear], let me see, one [pauses]...one of them...they're mostly poor. Another one was...two women had been attending one of our churches and moved to an area where there was no church. And they hadn't yet been baptized or yet weren't catechumens, but because they had been attending this other church I followed them into this area and around them I was able to get this.... They...they were a mother and her daughter-in-law and I think their husbands had enough money to have a little land and were farming. They weren't rich, I wouldn't say, but they were just kind of middle class farmer...family, I guess. Later, some of the others who came in, I don't know. I think some maybe better-heeled women, but [pauses]...that came to this church. But they got ahead on this Nevius idea that it was all up to them better than some churches that'd been there for some time, similar kinds of villages.

SHUSTER: In general, though, I mean, were the Christians of all the churches you visited, were they over a wide spectrum of...as far as economic...?

HUNT: Well, you didn't run into [bumps microphone] many real rich people as a rule, but there were rich families. They're...oh, there was one who was even governor of a province became a Christian in one area. That wasn't in my particular...Mr. Soltau was in the same province [unclear]....

SHUSTER: What was his first name?

HUNT: Soltau. His...Stan Soltau. He was a...you may...he's written books on missions and so on from Korea. But, I don't know, you have...I think you...you have his books here on the list you sent me. Yeah. [Unclear, bumps microphone.] The [?] governor of the province in his...in our area became a Christian. And there were some rich, but most of them...the Koreans weren't...there weren't many rich people in those days. But they're just ordinary people.

SHUSTER: How did most of them earn their living?

HUNT: Farming, in those days. Yeah. Almost all farming. About...at that time, about ninety percent of the people were farmers, and very small farms. They...the average Korean farmer in those days, the farm was about five acres. For a family of five, how much can [chuckles] you get off of five acres. And yet that's what they lived on. Yeah.

SHUSTER: [Unclear] intensive farming?

HUNT: The whole country...pardon me?

SHUSTER: It was intensive farming then?

HUNT: Yes. Well, rice. They couldn't afford even stock as a rule, couldn't feed their animals. They had to feed it directly into people.

SHUSTER: Did...what kind of relations, if any, did have with the governing authorities [bumps microphone] in the province?

HUNT: Well, [bumps microphone throughout sentence] those days, it was mostly leaving each other alone. The government had its work and the missionaries had their work. And...we...I made it a practice to call at the police station and witness to them, too. But [pauses], oh, it's...as [?] the missionaries come to see us, and so on. They used to keep...even in the earlier times, they used to keep kind of track of missionaries, and the detectives would come to check on the missionaries when they came to town, or so on. Later, when the shrine issue came up, then they would clamp a detective on him, and...at the services when he spoke and everything. And they were really keeping an eye on the church very much. And in Harbin, when I was in Manchuria, if I left town to visit the country area and visit churches, I would have to report at a police station right at the corner where we lived and then when I got down to the railroad station I'd have to report to the railway police. They would have police on the train. And I had a little...like a passport that...I forget whether I got that stamped at our local police station or not. But the railroad station, they would put their stamp in it that I had been...that I was leaving. And then every place I got off the train I'd have to first go to the police station, report, show my pass and have it stamped [?]. I think I have a copy of that somewhere which is full of all these stamps, arriving and departing, you know, and then they'd generally have a detective from the police station at the service that night, and...keeping an eye on what you're doing.

SHUSTER: Were there any Catholic missionaries in the province?

HUNT: Yes, just....

SHUSTER: Did you have any contact with them?

HUNT: We didn't seek it specially. I remember father, when I was a boy, he went to [pauses] look up the Catholics. I don't think we had any living in Pusan, I mean in Chungju. [Pauses.] Later, I've had some contacts one...once or twice with the Catholics in Pusan but I disagree with them. And they even came and tried to get me to cooperate in some Protestant-Catholic union meetings, but I disagree with that so I told them I couldn't go. They actually came to me, but....

SHUSTER: While you were in Chungju, [pauses] were there disputes or arguments within the church itself, such as between liberals and conservatives?

HUNT: No. [Pauses.] Mr. Soltau, Mr. Miller, and I, we were all kind of one mind and the liberalism was over here in America but pretty far from us. All of us were [bumps microphone]...didn't agree with liberalism. There were missionaries, I don't know, maybe up in Seoul, one or two, and even they.... The Korean mission was largely conservative. They did have one man who was an Auburn Affirmationist, but...and the Korean church didn't know anything about the Auburn Affirmation, but something about the things he was teaching.... I don't really know what he had been teaching, but they objected to it. And they wrote to the Board [Independent Board for Presbyterian Missions] and asked him to be withdrawn, the Korean church did. And the Board withdrew him, but the Board was not happy with being asked to withdraw him and they sent him back to Korea to work amongst Japanese because in Japan liberalism had made quite a...much [bumps microphone] more headway than in Korea. And they had him work amongst the Japanese in Korea, which I thought was a very [chuckles] unhappy thing that they did. But [pauses] there were some that might be a little more sympathetic with the liberals. In their educational work, when the Board wanted to be turned over to the...well, to have shrine worship and...or else turned over to the Koreans when they knew that the Koreans wouldn't be able to stand up to the Japanese. And...and certain other policies: going along with the Japanese when the Japanese wanted them to leave Bible out of the courses, and things like that. The Board was ready to compromise on those things more than the mission was in those days. And [pauses]...but the mission was...there were...were some missionaries who were a little sympathetic with the Board but by and large the mission was rather conservative.

SHUSTER: [Pauses.] Did you observe in this province any impact of Western culture on Korea, causing changes?

HUNT: Well, I saw plenty of change,but the missionaries in those days didn't do like you hear people talking about now that, oh, we must use Korean terms, and we must...we must become more [pauses] (What is it?) [pauses] acculturated [Shuster comment unclear], or something like that. Yes. They didn't do that. In fact, they tried to know the Korean cul...study the Korean culture, know the Korean people. But they didn't try to push Western culture on them. The Koreans were more anxious to adopt Western culture, I felt as a boy, than the missionaries were to push it to them. But [pauses] they saw so much in the missionaries' living and everything that they wanted it and [pauses] they.... But the missionaries didn't live like Orientals. They built their own homes. But Dad used to, and all the missionaries...I...I guess I did hear.... (Now this is something that was before my day and I suppose I could find it. I don't know just where.) But the early missionaries actually did debate whether they should make their houses Western-style houses or native-style houses. And while the houses, to the Koreans, were grand houses (they were tile roofed, and glass windowed, and all this), they rather followed Korean architectural style. The...well, for one thing, the Koreans didn't know how to build a Western house. And they would get in some Korean farm...or Korean carpenters and architects that knew how to build a Korean house, but they'd say, "But we want this and we want this," and they wanted the window...the doors higher so six-foot-two dad, or three...six-foot-three dad, could get through the door without having to duck his head. The Korean door is about so high. And also glass windows instead of paper windows, and things like that, and for heat and all of this. And the missionaries wanted to be able to walk into their houses with their shoes on. The Koreans...you couldn't do that, and the...the mud floors, and all of this. So that they made the houses for Western comfort, but tried to...tried not to just say, "Well, the West does this way so you ought to do this way." The compound was a bunch of houses, [motor whine starts; air conditioner?] more Western style, I mean, with a lot of Western conveniences but somewhat native-style building. Yes.

SHUSTER: I take it from what you've said some time to me before, that Shintoism was not really an issue at this time [unclear].

HUNT: It isn't in Korea. It is in Japan. It seems to be coming back in Japan. And even in Korea, I have seen this: that now that they've become independent sometimes the Koreans think (the Japanese had something to hold their population together), "We need something like that." And there are some Koreans that...in government and in places like that, that want to use government laws for certain [pauses] patriotic actions, and so on, to try to get the people together through these. That, to me, is something unknown they've taken over from Japan, something that isn't so good. But I sometimes sense a little of it.

SHUSTER: But back in the late '20's or early '30's, when you were in Chungjo...

HUNT: Chungju.

SHUSTER: ...Chungju, was the question of Shintoism...?

HUNT: Oh, yes. In fact, the time...from the time they came in, I remember as a boy, they tried to bring the pictures of the emperor into the school and just bow towards him. Of course, we have pictures of George Washington, and this and that, but we don't worship them. And the...for the Japanese, he is descended from the sun. He is a god. And they had Shinto rites and it...I remember Dad bucking it and [pauses]....

SHUSTER: Was the church at this time persecuted for not worshipping the emperor, not...?

HUNT: Well, they...I don't know that they persecuted so much. The...the earliest difficulties came mostly over the schools [motor noise changes to beeps] coming under government control. When the Japanese came in, they said, "Every school now must be under," what they called, "the government's...the emperor's rescript [formal decree or edict] on education." And this was that the school was...the purpose of education is to make good Japanese subjects...

SHUSTER: So this would be back, say, 19...very [unclear].

HUNT: (About 1910 when they first came in.)...to make good Japanese subjects and to some Japanese that meant that you had to worship the emperor. Now, they tried to bring that in. Well, the missionaries, as I remember...in those days the missionaries were the ones who where kind of in control of these things and they had to wrestle with it. But they tried to keep that out. But then along with it was that they must leave out religious education in th...so...in the Christi...they must leave out the biblical tea...Bible teaching. And then they had to have teachers that were graduates of certain schools of...certain normal schools. They had to have only normal school graduates, whereas maybe somebody could teach arithmetic or could teach a little this, but they had been able to get along without having normal school graduates only to be their teachers. And then they...the Japanese [motor noise begins] language must be taught by a Japanese. The Japanese were trying to make the country Japanese. Well, what happened with this was that it practically...i...it closed a great many little schools. In the early days, along with the church, the church would have a little school. The old Korean [pauses] schooling was mostly just teaching the Chinese characters. Some man...it'd be more like a...well, he wouldn't be just a tutor, but he'd have maybe seven or eight boys in his home and he'd teach them Chinese characters. Each village would...oh, they'd have maybe more than just one but you'd have these teachers that were good at the Chinese characters. And [motor noise changes to beeps] they'd gather a bunch of boys around them and teach these boys. The schools that the churches started would teach them arithmetic, there's singing, and writing, and geography, and history, and things like this. And many schools...when the churches were started...along with starting the church, they would start a little school. And often the evangelists...some churches could affor...when they could afford an evangelist, he'd be the school teacher often betwe...in the week and be the evangelist on Sunday. But when the Japanese came in, because they had to have a Japanese teacher, and then they had all kinds of rules about...had to have certain kind of buildings, they had to have a certain amount of endowment, they had to have a school field, and they had to have certain athletic material, and certain teaching...science and materials and so on: snakes and bottles [?], this kind of thing. And they made it so it practically closed all these little private schools in connection with the church. Then the church had above that an academy and above that a college. In the early days, they had visions of quite an educational system. But when the Japanese came in, the little schools were closed and then the mission began to use money, which...the other schools had been self-supporting, like the churches. The Koreans had supported them. But when this came in, they had to have athletic fields, a certain endowment, and all this, then the mission got money from America to help these middle schools or...or high schools. And the college the same thing. They got a certain amount of money from America. And [motor noise ends] [pauses]...but [pauses] the.... And that was the first struggle, really, is the Japanese trying to put the Bible out of the school, trying to make the school meet certain things. And then it wasn't until later that the shrine issue.... But when they first came in, the Japanese were suspicious of the church. I don't know just what their suspicion was, and whether they just thought that missionaries wouldn't be in a country unless they were there with imperialistic ambitions or something like that. And right at the beginning (Dr. Baird's book tells about that)...but they had what they called the Conspiracy Case. I forget whether it was 1910 or '11, and they arrested over a hundred people: sch...students, and teachers, and, I guess, some ministers. And they claimed that these [motor noise] had made a conspiracy against a high Japanese official that was going through Korea, to assassinate him or something like that. And they locked them up, and they tortured them, and...but they got a Japanese Christian lawyer that defended these people and eventually [pauses], I think, the decision was that there was no conspiracy. But they did keep some of them in prison for several years, rather high...high up people. And [pauses]...but it...I think it...once that was over, the suspicion of the church wasn't quite as bad as it [unclear]. [Motor noise stops] I would say it was more of a jealousy. The Japanese wanted to [bumps microphone] control the country and they didn't [bumps microphone] like the [bumps microphone] respect that the missionaries [bumps microphone] had and that Christianity had in the eyes of the people. And it was always kind of a [pauses]...a thorn [knocks on table?] in their flesh.

SHUSTER: What about Buddhism? Did you have any cont...much contact with...?

HUNT: Well, Buddhism...in Korea, it was not as organized as in Japan. Buddhism [pauses], oh, I don't know how many years ago, several hundred years ago, Buddhism had just about dominated [microphone being bumped begins] the whole country and some of the beautiful Buddhist temples, about the only things worth tourists seeing of old Korea, these beautiful Buddhist temples, and all the carvings and so on. But Buddhism became rather corrupt, and, oh, there were Buddhist priests that got into politics and immorality and all kinds of things like that. And so Confucianism, then...the government became kind of Confucian and outlawed Buddhism. And Buddhism...the priests kind of went back into the mountains and had temples back in there. And...and while they did come out into society and do begging once in a while, they weren't that much a part of...of society. And yet Buddhism had [bumps microphone] kind of, well, like in America, [pauses] certain Christian ethics. Well, even non-Christians kind of [bumps microphone]...they..."this is right and that's wrong," and things like that. Well, Buddhism had left its [pauses] ideas of ethics some in the people, but Confucianism became the standard, and....

SHUSTER: What were those ideas of ethics?

HUNT: Well, it's mostly, I would say, [pauses] pacifistic in one way: "O, we mustn't hurt a...." But I...I don't think that became general, but some people would have it. It came from Buddha. They [bumps microphone] wouldn't kill a flea, they wouldn't [bumps microphone] kill a fly [bumps microphone], and things like that. And I suppose the idea of...that marriage could be impure. Buddhist priests, you see, didn't marry and it was pure to be single. Now that doesn't mean that the society felt that way. Kind of...Confucianism wasn't. They...Confucianism says [train noise] that [pauses]...let me see...[unclear] that husband and wife, they're are separated to each other in a special kind of a way. But Buddhism kind of made it as though not to be married was a little purer. That doesn't mean all of society accepts it, but you'd find this kind of thing.

SHUSTER: Kind of a general feeling.

HUNT: Yeah, and [motor noise] then the...all of society accepted it: "Oh, we mustn't hurt anything or kill anything," and kind of a pacifistic thing. And patience. Now let me see. Mercy, they speak of the goddess of Mercy. And yet it hasn't dominated all of society, by any means. But [machinery noise stops] it's that kind of thi...where you...where you do find it, often it comes from Buddhism or Buddhist thinking, without their being Buddhists. Just these ideas maybe are there. I would say another thing about Buddhists, maybe, that Koreans, they almost feel that it's unworthy to work [pauses] for hire. [Bumps microphone.] They think it's...now the Buddhist priests, you see, they [pauses]...they'd una...they unashamedly go door-to-door and beg for rice and for this, but they mostly hold their hands and they [pauses]...to work, you know, to work to fix up the temple a little bit, plant some trees or flowers. That's one thing, but to work for gain...there's a little bit of feeling like that in all of Korea, it seems to me. Now, I wonder if it came from Buddhism or not. The Chinese...the Confucianists, I feel, are much more practical. They say, "sa nung kong sa"...they say, "The teacher is number one, farming is number two, [pauses] industry or manufacture is number three, selling is number four, and I guess it's the solders, number five. I tell them, "Well, this really isn't such a bad order if you don't make a class out of it." But they have often made a class. A teacher is first class and he lets his fingernail grow long, he doesn't get his hands dirty, and so on. He's a teacher. [Unclear.]

SHUSTER: Would a teacher be the same as a government official?

HUNT: He's often exa...and the government official got it by passing the examination in Chinese characters. And so you're the teacher. And then the farmer...

SHUSTER: Mandarin [?].

HUNT: ...but he, the farmer is above the [motor noise] artisan, the manufacturer, getting it out of the soil, and so on, which, I think, "Well, you've got to have the raw material before you can have the manufactured material. And you've got to have the manufactured material before you can sell and be a merchant." [Motor noise stops.] So I think the order isn't such a bad order. But I say, "The trouble with you is that you've made a class out of it, that the first class is the teacher and the...and the governor and the second class man is the farmer." But they do put the farmer high, which is rather interesting. Confucianism...they...they don't do much farming. I mean, oh, they [bumps microphone] may...a farmer may be, I mean, a Buddhist...a farmer may be a Buddhist or his wife may be a Buddhist, but it doesn't seem to be a part of Buddhism. Buddhism is....

SHUSTER: It's more a city religion?

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: It's more a city religion?

HUNT: Well, its just more whe...if you're a Buddhist, you don't work. You become a priest or something. I don't know. They don't have a family. [Bumps microphone.] [Pauses.] I...I really [pauses]...then you.... [Of] course, the interesting thing is that they turn around and have all kinds of images, because they...and the...the images...to ask for material blessings, to ask for healing, to ask for wealth, to ask for all kinds of things. And this is what's curious to me, is that while Buddhism ideally says, "Above heaven and under heaven I only exist," even Nirvana is in your mind, hell is in your mind. It's [bumps microphone]...whatever god or spirit there is, it's in your mind. But actually, they have all kinds of these images, and they go and bow to them, and they want blessings. Why? Because, I say, as it says in Acts 17, that God has made us to feel after him, and we hunger for Hi...he's made us to hunger for Him. The baby is made to hunger for milk, mother's breast, and if it doesn't reach mother's breast, they stick their finger in their mouth. And so we are made to seek God, an external God, and Buddhism says it's in yourself. Confucianism is just kind of nonreligious in a way. It's more [unclear]....

SHUSTER: Patterns of behavior, or....

HUNT: ...and more earthly. And yet they believe in heaven and they speak of the perishing. "He who obeys heaven lives. He who opposes heaven dies." And...but there again, I think that's a natural...where God has shown Himself to us, and Confucianism has enough of that, but it's just not clear on it [?].

SHUSTER: Was there any [pauses] Christian heresies at this time, since there's, well, the Unification Church, as a modern example....

HUNT: [Unclear] now....

SHUSTER: ...or Chondo...Chundo...Chuntokyo?

HUNT: Chuntokyo [group which mixed Christianity and Confucianism]. I don't know too much about the Chuntokyo. Early...there were some who mixed Confucianism and Confu...and...and Chris...Christianity and it was rather a political kind of religion in the early days of missions. Now, I haven't made much of a study of that and I didn't run into much of it. Then there was, oh, during my time, there were different ones. There was a Ee Young Do who held evangelistic meetings and had quite a following. He...I attended one of his evangelistic meetings, all night fasting, and so on. And he really took the ministers, and the deacons, and the elders, the missionaries, he took them to task. And a lot of what he said was good, but.... It was interesting to me. I was just a young missionary with Dad, who was of...often very discerning, said, "Well, I wish that young fellow would talk more about Jesus rather than about just sins and confession." I mean, we need to know about [chuckles] sin confession, but we need to turn to Jesus and...

SHUSTER: How...?

HUNT: But Dad didn't feel that he was quite.... And that man later claimed he was Jesus. But he had quite a following.

SHUSTER: How'd you spell his name?

HUNT: Ee Young Do. I think its Ee Young Do. Oh, Ee Young Do, I think. Ee Young Do. He was a North Korean, up around Pyongyang. But he was....

SHUSTER: But how'd you spell that?

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: How would you spell that?

HUNT: Well, the Koreans generally say Lee, L-E-E, but it's...they...Rhee Syngman, R-H-E, and so on [machine noise], but I would say E, double E, Y-O-U-N-G D-O. And then there was this one...there was one that followed this Auburn Affirmationist and started this kind of independent church. I don't know just what his doctrines were, but he...he left the Presbytery and had kind of an independent church. Those were two, back in those days [pauses], but the others...now there's all kinds.

SHUSTER: Lee, you mentioned that Lee Young Do...

HUNT: Ee Young Do, yes.

SHUSTER: ...he was very critical of the church. For what reason?

HUNT: He was holding evangelistic meetings, and that was the nature of his meetings. He would just say they must confess and...and so on. And later he began to practically say he was the messiah. But at the time I heard him, it was just this kind. And even then, Dad...he felt that, well, he wasn't holding up Jesus enough. He was just [pauses]...sins and this kind of thing, which we need to point out, all right, but, after all, you need to hold up Jesus as the Savior from sin. I...very much interested in Dad's...'cause he generally wasn't critical of anybody that was saying, "Let's get right with God." But he just didn't seem to quite...he sensed something a little bit screwy.

SHUSTER: How did you come to leave Chongju...Jung...?

HUNT: Chungju?

SHUSTER: Chungju.

HUNT: Well, it was when we left the [Presbyterian Church in the] U.S.A. church.

SHUSTER: Uh-huh. And why...how did that come about?

HUNT: We came back on furlough, and the issue had been....

SHUSTER: You were married at this time?

HUNT: Yes, then we were married. And I married after I'd been in Chungju four years. And [pauses] the old rule was you stayed on the field five years for your first term and then you had a furlough. But you were supposed to study during your furlough. But because [bumps microphone] I got married after my fourth year, I had to work off part of my wife's term. She had been in the school there for missionary's children. We grew up together in Korea. She was [motor noise] just a year behind me in grammar [motor noise ends] school in Korea. But her f...folks were in the same mission with our folks, but they lived in Pyongyang and we lived in Chairyung. But [machine noise] [pauses] she came back to teach in the school for missionary's children and I was back as a young bachelor and we got together. But I had to work out her term, so I was there seven years for my first term, instead of five years. And then we came....

SHUSTER: Like Jacob working for Rachel.

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: Like Jacob working...

HUNT: Yes.

SHUSTER: ...for Rachel.

HUNT: Yes, [chuckles] that's right. And then we came back and Westminster Seminary had been started the year after I left seminary...after I'd gone to Korea. And so I thought, "Well, I'll take my...." I was so much on Dr. Machen's side, I thought I'd take my of furlough study at Westminster Seminary. And it was during that year that the break came, that Dr. Machen was put out of the U.S.A. church, disciplined. And so [bumps microphone] when he was disciplined, I felt we should leave too, so we left at that time. And first we [bumps microphone] didn't know what we were going to do, but the Independent Board [for Presbyterian Foreign Missions] had been formed. We applied to the Independent Board, but they didn't appoint us right away. So for a month or two we were kind of...didn't [motor noise] know what was going to happen to us. But when they appointed us, we went...the Byrams, Dr. and Mrs. Byram, who had been under the U.P.U.S.A. church.... And, by the way, their girls both graduated from Wheaton, [pauses] Laura Belle [1943, married Rev. Jack Armes] and [pauses] [bumps microphone].... (Oh, what's her name? [Mertis E., 1943, married Rev. Ernest E. Heimbach]. The two daughters graduated from Wheaton. They...the By...Dr. Byram was at the same General Assembly when Dr. Machen was disciplined. And I was there, but I didn't know he was there. He didn't know I was there, I guess, but we both decided to leave the U.S.A. church at that time, both applied to the Independent Board. And the Independent Board sent us out. Henry Coray had already been sent out. He was in China studying the Chinese.

SHUSTER: Under the Independent Board?

HUNT: Pardon me?

SHUSTER: Under the Independent Board?

HUNT: Under the Independent Board. Ed Coray's brother. And MacIlwaine [sp?], who had grown up in Japan under the...a Southern Presbyterian missionary's son, had already been sent out. I guess he had been sent to.... Was he sent to Japan or China? Anyway, he was already out there when we went out. And Egbert Andrews, whose folks had been missionaries under the China Inland Mission but was in our church, he'd already been sent out. He grew up in China. And so, when we were appointed, I guess Charles Woodridge (who was the Secretary of the Independent Board, born in China, grew up in China)...whether the suggestion originally came from him or we missionaries got together and decided it. But I think [bumps microphone] the suggestion originally came from him. But we got together in Korea, the two of us, Dr. Byram...the Byrams and ourselves, and those who had already gone out (they were taking their vacation or had purposely come to Korea to take their vacation and talk together). And...oh, yes, the Gaffins [sp?] was another couple that had gone out mainly [?] to work in China. And at this meeting in Korea, we organized a mission board...or a...a mission and we called it Trilingual Mission. And we decided there instead of working in Korea, where both the Byrams and we had worked, or just China, where the Andrews, and the Corays, and the...the Gaffins had been studying, we decided to go into Manchuria because the Japanese had just recently [pauses] claimed Manchuria. And it was Chinese country and a lot of Koreans were going in there. The Japanese were kind of sending them in as immigrants. And so we decided to go in as the Trilingual Mission. The Byrams and we were to work amongst the Koreans, MacIlwaine would work amongst the Japanese, the Corays and the Andrews would work amongst the Chinese. The Gaffins preferred to stay in China. They'd been studying in Peking, the language school, and they preferred to stay in China. So just the two to work amongst the Chinese, two to work amongst the Koreans, and one to work amongst the Japanese. But we lived near each other and [motor noise] the medical work that Dr. Byram was doing was for our group. We considered it Japanese, or Korean, or Chinese [bumps microphone]. And so we started the Trilingual Mission there [bumps microphone] an...and we decided on Harbin, way up in the northern part of Manchuria because there wer...weren't so many missionaries working there and we thought this [bumps microphone] would not be competing too much with what other people were doing.

SHUSTER: So when did you arrive in Harbin?

HUNT: 1936, in the fall, September, I guess.

SHUSTER: When you were back in the United States, what kind of impressions, if any, did Americans have about Korea at that time?

HUNT: Well [pauses], except for Christian groups, especially Methodists and Presbyterians, very few people knew anything about Korea. When I was in college here, I...for one thing, I...I'd had one year of high school before I came here, in America, down in St. Louis, but I used to feel very much of a foreigner. On the surface, I might look like an American, but inside...I didn't know all the makes of the cars, all the latest movie stars, and the [pauses] famous football players, and so on, all the things that American boys and girls know about. I...I just felt so much of a stranger. And I remember, after I had been here about a year and a half, somebody asked me where I was born, and I said, "Korea." He said, "What state is that in?" [Shuster chuckles.] And I thought by that time I'd arrived, that he didn't know that I was [chuckles] a foreigner. But [pauses], people didn't know much about Korea in those...wasn't 'til the Korean War [1950-1953] that the general public got to know much about Korea. And even now, they're...but they've got [chuckles]...they've got to hear quite a bit, between Moon...everybody knows about Moon. [Chuckles.] Non-Christians and Christians alike. If I say I'm from Korea, "Well, how about this Moon?" They want to know about the Unification Church.

SHUSTER: Well, I think it might be a good point to end.

HUNT: Okay.

SHUSTER: Thank you once again for this interview.

HUNT: Appreciate....

END OF TAPE

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