Tetsusaburo Sasao was one of the founders of the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS).
He was the last one to join the society, but he played an important role at Tokyo’s Bible Training Institute.
Shortly after the Cowmans and Nakada began their revival meetings at the Central Gospel Mission, they realized they needed help.
Juji Nakada met Sasao through their mutual friend Barclay Buxton, an English missionary living in Kyoto.
Recognizing Sasao’s fine Biblical scholarship, Nakada reached out to his friend when the Cowman Mission needed another Bible teacher. Since teaching was Tetsusaburo’s love, he was happy to accept the position.
Buxton admired both Sasao and Nakada and described them as “mighty men of God that were raised up.”
Who was Tetsusaburo Sasao? The Early Years.
Born in 1868 in Tsu City in Mie Prefecture, Sasao was born the same year as Charles Cowman.
After schooling, he wanted to join the Japanese Imperial Navy, but he couldn’t pass the physical exam.
His second choice was to study in America and become an exporter.
Sasao moved to California and began studying at San Jose Commercial College. His elderly Christian mother regularly prayed for him. Under the influence of his San Jose landlord, Reverend Dodge, he became a Christian in 1887.
In 1888, a revival broke out among the Japanese living on the West Coast. Sasao learned about it from a former missionary to Japan, Bishop Merriman Harris of the San Francisco Methodist Episcopal Church.
Under Harris’ influence, Sasao found his way into the Holiness Church. He spent the next five years evangelizing Japanese residents in the Bay Area and Seattle.
He even organized a songbook called Salvation Songs.
The return to Japan
Eventually, Tetsusaburo returned to Japan, where he studied with Buxton for four years.
Tetsusaburo, his wife Hideko, and their family moved to Tokyo in 1901. He became an instructor at the new Bible Training Institute.
Buxton applauded the move. “Sasao and Nakada were men of Bible knowledge and spiritual quality and power as great as any in England.”
Tetsusaburo’s skills quickly became apparent as he taught Bible studies. As a godly man, he’d ask troubled students, “Did your action spring from a motive of love? I want you to go back and think about that.”
OMS historian Merwin commented on the impact of his question. “This would cause the student to reflect upon his action rather than to try to find excuses for the misconduct.”
A fine teacher, indeed.
The work with OMS: a Sasao family activity.
The Sasao family moved into a building not far from the Gospel Hall in downtown Tokyo in 1905.
Hideko Sasao took Bible women into the Tokyo slums to conduct children’s meetings. Once in the homes, they told the local women about Jesus.
On Saturday mornings, the Bible women cared for children so their mothers could attend services at the OMS Central Hall.
She also made it a point to visit wounded soldiers from the 1904 Russo-Japanese War who were convalescing in hospitals. Nakada often joined her and preached to the patients.
Tetsusaburo himself continued teaching and writing powerful Biblical studies. You can read some here (using Google Translate!).
Sasao’s Later Years
In 1909, Sasao traveled to Seattle for a series of revival meetings with his old friend Barclay Buxton. They traveled together ministering to Japanese Holiness communities in Tacoma, Portland, and Sacramento.
Barclay Buxton’s son, Godfrey, wrote about Sasao’s wisdom at one of their meetings.
Sasao San spoke on holiness in the home, making reference to the book of Joshua in which we read of the men of the two tribes and the half tribe that came to fight in the land of God’s promise but left their families outside in “the howling wilderness,” later to return to them when the task was accomplished.
Sasao San compared them to many Christian workers, who plunge into the battle and, while in it, enjoy the evidence of God’s rich promise, but leave their families far outside such experience; and then, when the work is over, they call themselves to rejoin their families and live a carnal, powerless, unexperimental Christian life.
In 2013, Tetsusaburo Sasao was named the president of the Bible Training Institute. One of his students, Sadaichi Kuzuhara, a BTI translator and professor, described him as “the holiest man in Japanese-Christian history.”
“His mission was to live the holy life, and he lived as such.”
Tetsusaburo worked closely with OMS founder Ernest Kilbourne–who rarely left the Far East. Nakada and the Cowmans frequently traveled outside of Japan. Sasao and Kilbourne were the backbone of the ministry in Japan.
A year later, he retired, and on December 30, 1914, he died of pleurisy.
Well done, good and faithful servant, Tetsusaburo Sasao.
The One Mission Society (nee Oriental Missionary Society) will celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding in June at its headquarters in Greenwood, Indiana, USA.
Interested in more about OMS’s beginnings?
Consider Lettie Cowman’s biography, Overflowing Faith.
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