Vories, Wm. Merrell. The Omi Brotherhood in Nippon: A brief history of "The Omi Mission" founded in Omi-Hachiman, Japan, in 1905. Omi-Hachiman, Japan: The Omi Brotherhood Book Department, 1937. Fourth Edition. [10143]
Blue cloth, 7 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, binding very good, dust jacket show some soil on the white half panel, and some edgewear. Dj is now in a clear wrapper. Map end papers. Many b/w illustrations from photographs. x., 180 clean pp. Very good in good dust-jacket. Hardcover.
The first edition was published in 1934.
William Merrell Vories (1880-1964). b. Leavenworth, Kansas; d. Omihachiman, Japan. Vories was a lay missionary in Japan, having gone there as a teacher in 1905 with the Student Volunteer Movement. After being dismissed due to his evangelistic efforts, "with the help of Japanese Christians he founded the Omi Brotherhood as a demonstration of practical Christianity. The Brotherhood came to include not only a YMCA and a church but also Christian schools, a tuberculosis sanitarium, and various industrial and commercial enterprises. He supported such programs mainly through his work as an architect, eventually designing over two thousand buildings throughout Japan." - James M. Phillips, Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions.
After the publication of this book and before the outbreak of WWII, Vories married a Japanese woman and became a Japanese citizen. At the end of the war he was the mediator between General Douglas MacArthur and Fumimaro Konoe. He was honored with many medals and awards by the post-war Japanese government.