Pastor Wes Smith writes:

I first encountered Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960) in a large portrait dominating the reading room of Speer Library at Princeton Theological Seminary. I thought, whoever this is, he must be very important. Indeed he is. Kagawa is recognized by Christians today as a Renewer of Society. Kagawa was born in Japan and became a Christian as a teenager. He devoted his whole life to proclaiming Christ and renewing the slums throughout the Japanese islands. For him there was no separation between the two, they were part of the one act of serving God. Kagawa describes this service to God, this renewal of the mind, as carrying Christ with him. Here is how he describes it:

“My real experience of religion came when I entered the Kobe slums. Everything in the slums was ugly: the people, the houses, the clothes, the streets – everything was ugly and full of disease. If I had not carried God beside me, I should not have been able to stay. But because I believed in God, and in the Holy Spirit, I had a different view of life, and I assure you that I enjoyed living in the slums. With active love and the love-motive, every moment was full of joy. Because I felt that the Holy Spirit of the Heavenly Father was living inside me, I was not afraid of anything – not of the many repeated threats from pistols, swords, ruffians, not even from the infectious diseases which infested the slums. My job was to help these people… For me, prayer is very real. If you pray with selfishness it will never be answered, but prayer for the sake of God and for the love of your fellow [people] will surely be answered. A gambler, dying, said to me that he was going back to his Heavenly Father. Then for the first time, like a flash, I was convinced that [anyone] even the most depraved, is able to grasp the idea of Jesus Christ.”

Toyohiko Kagawa, Love: the Law of Life (1951), quoted in Festivals and Commemorations, Philip H. Pfatteicher, Augsburg, 1980, p. 167].