Religion: Missionary's Reward

One of the first Protestant missionaries in Korea was an Underwood—Presbyterian Horace Grant Underwood, of the typewriter family. He went out to the Orient in 1885, married a medical missionary who became royal physician to Korea's Queen Min. In his buttoned-up black coat and white tie, doughty Dr. Underwood strode coolly through cholera epidemics and equally formidable Korean political squabbles. He raised his son, Horace Horton Underwood, to labor in the same vineyard.

A Lot of Education. Tilled by the Underwoods and their colleagues, Korea became one of the fastest-growing missionary fields in the Orient. Today 600,000 Koreans are Christians, and still...