Australia and Japan’s ‘Sacred Destiny’ to Rule the World

Abstract

Immediately after the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japanese military police imprisoned a number of missionaries in the Korean capital city, Seoul. Among them was an Australian medical missionary, Dr Charles McLaren. He was born in Tokyo in 1882 where his father, the Rev Samuel McLaren, had come in 1875 to work as a missionary, having given up a promising career in law in Edinburgh, Scotland. Samuel took up a position in Meiji Gakuin and was one of the first teachers of theology in Japan. In 1884, his History of the Old Testament was translated into Japanese by Uemura Masahisa. However, Samuel’s health proved unable to cope with the cold winters and humid summers of Japan, and the McLaren family moved to Australia. His eldest son, Bruce, graduated with honours from the University of Melbourne and went on to Cambridge where again he proved a superior student. When the First World War broke out, Bruce enlisted with two thousand other students from Cambridge, but was killed in France.