A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb

by Paul Glynn

he believed in Japan. His burgeoning knowledge of the Japanese classics gave him a glimpse of the length and depth of Japanese history and culture.

My mother’s eyes told me that the human spirit lives on after death.

an empty tombstone for one hundred and twenty thousand carbonized citizens.

but if he plunged blindly into faith and prayer, would it not be the cowardice of surrender? Faith might be a more subtle form of surrender than morphine, but was it not just as much a surrender?

“I discovered that the words of Scripture are real,”

There were 131 girls in the class before August 9, but now there were 31. All of these had lost friends and many of them parents too.

but he was remarkable in promoting the Sermon on the Mount as the practical charter for world peace. If one is a Christian, he writes, one will not demand that the Communist lay down his sickle before going to make peace with him. The Christian will go weaponless and embrace the Communist, even at the risk of being pierced by that sickle. Utterly impracticable? Yes, unless you know how to pray, he

“Nagai the scientist, Nagai the patriot, Nagai the humanist became Nagai the mystic. He is a mystic of peace for our times.

“The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” These words were the last that Nagai was to write.

Midori’s is Mary’s reply to the angel Gabriel: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to thy word.” His own is Luke 17:10: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”

“Hiroshima is bitter, noisy, highly political, leftist and anti-American. Its symbol would be a fist clenched in anger. Nagasaki is sad, quiet, reflective, nonpolitical and prayerful. It does not blame the United States but rather laments the sinfulness of war, especially of nuclear war. Its symbol: hands joined in prayer.”