LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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QUESTION OF RETURN TO JAPAN. 151 dover in the early fall. Mr. Tanaka now announced his speedy departure for Japan by way of Suez and his earnest desire that Mr. N eesima should accompany him. Decision was not ea..r;y. Mr. Neesima had be­come an indispensable assistant, and from the nature of the case was of all persons most fitted to aid the commissioner in the important work which awaited his return, and to which all that had yet been accom­plished was but preliminary. To leave him at this stage of affairs would, he felt, be almost a desertion. Moreover, his old enemy, rheumatism, had again at­tacked him, and he dreaded another winter in the cold climate of Andover. Health is dear to aU, but to none more so than to him who feels the burden of a great responsibility, to whose purposes and plans for work is added the conviction that he only can best accomplish it. It is noticeable, however, that as the years passed this sohcitude for his health dimmished. Always ready for self-sacrifice, the discharge of duty became less and less a sacrifice, till, like the soldier when the battle is at its height, with an enthusiasm and devotion which the bystander may characterize as rashness, he forgot himself entirely and literally ga.ve his life away; The real question before him was one of ways and means, not of end. It appears from his journal that even at this early date the germ of that idea which led to the foundation of a Christian uni­versity in Japan was in his mind. Feeling deeply the importance of Christian elements in education, should he go back to New England, complete his theological course, and return to Japan as an evangelist, or em­brace this rare opportunity to influence at its very inception the educational movement about to be inau­gurated there? It was, however, by no means certain

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