LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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158 FIRSl' VISIT TO EUROPE. room where we found many piles of the presents on the tables. He gave me a pretty traveling valise. I was much pleased with the festival, not simply that it was rather a new and strange thing to me, but that every one in the room was smiling with the intense admiration. Since that time I have been very busy for getting Mr. Tanaka ready to leave Berlin. He left three days ago for Vienna and Rome, and will start from Paris for Japan this month; so I shall be obliged to finish my report for him before he starts. Besides the educational affairs I was requested by him to write a brief report on the Christian churches in England and America. Perhaps you have already noticed in your paper that our government has given up our old calendar, and adopted the European one. All our eighty Jap­anese students in Berlin gathered at one of the restau­rants and drank beer to celebrate our new epoch. I went there also, but did not enjoy it very much. There was the uncle of our emperor in that gathering. He appeared very humble and gentlemanly. I am also glad to inform you that one of the Japanese students in Berlin came to me the first Sabbath of this year and requested me to explain the Bible to him, and also take him to the Methodist church, where I generally go. I was quite surprised by his request; it is en­tirely voluntary. We took the Gospel of St. John for our first exercise. He had .the Chinese and Ger­man Bibles and I the English and German. Of course we used our native tongue for the conversation. We were very much interested, and two hours of hard study seemed to us very short. He went away quite satisfied and promising to continue his study every

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