LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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200 MISSIONARY WORK IN JAPAN. numbered sixty persons. These services provoked the opposition of the Buddhist priests, who in November forwarded a strong protest to the central government. The owner of the building rented for school purposes gave notice that he required it for his own use. On several occasions Mr. N eesima was refused an audi­ence by the governor, whose friendly attitude had become one of open hostility, and Mr. Neesima was finally summoned to explain the meaning of Seisho (Bible) which occurred in the programme of study. The result of this opposition was a request from Mr. Tanaka that Bible exegesis should be omitted from the list of studies. Compliance with this request allayed the excitement, and by permission of the governor Christianity continued to be taught under the name of Moral Science. During all this time Mr. N eesima was also busily engaged in evangelistic work. July 7, 1875, he writes: "I preached in Osaka last Sabbath and re­ceived two interesting men into our church. One of them is an influential native physician residing in the suburb of Fushimi, who has fifty pupils to whom he lectures on Physiology, Chemistry, Anatomy, etc., and who daily gathers his neighbors into his house for Bible study." This gentleman, with those who frequented their gatherings, were at once summoned before the Kyoto magistrates, and future meetings of this nature were forbidden. The conversation of the physician with the official, as taken down at the time by Mr. Davis, was as follows: -"This Davis came up here to teach an English school, did he not? " "Yes."

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