The Religious Tract Society planned its organized work in Japan in 1874 and established the Tokyo corresponding committee in the following year.
The report of 1913 referred to a falling off in the sale of this society's own books, because increasingly, missionaries were finding it more convenient to have much of the literature they used printed locally, especially tracts.
The Japanese YMCA Union issued occasional books on religious and Biblical subjects, and dealt with the question of purity and of physical development, especially with a view to helping young men.
[5] The Japanese Church Federation was not finally organized until December 1911, so that it could not enter into the full plans from the first, especially in view of the financial responsibility.
This committee held its first meeting on January 5, 1912, and decided to make a systematic digest of the religious press of Japan, and to compile and publish a comprehensive catalogue of Christian books in Japanese.
(Methodist Episcopal Church, South), was appointed executive secretary of the Permanent Committee, his salary being fully paid by his own mission.
Representing the Federated Christian Missions in Japan, the society was to be correspondingly catholic in spirit, and neither its members nor those supporting it were to be regarded as necessarily holding all the views presented in the books issued.
It was resolved to approach the missions and boards represented in the conference for appropriations of money, on the basis of £1 per member (counting men and women) in their respective stations in Japan.
[8][9] In addition to housing the CLSJ, the Kyobunkwan engaged in publishing, retailing, and printing its own publications of Christian literature in English and in Japanese.
There was a wide selection of stationery and desk supplies, as well as Waterman and Swan fountain pens, Underwood typewriters and Victor phonographs and records.
It sought to encourage the promulgation of the ideas embodied in the literature of the Protestant denominational bodies represented in Japan, though, as a matter of course, strict sectarianism was to be avoided.