LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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ESTIMATES OF HIS ASSOCIATES. 205 The estimation in which Mr. Neesima was held by his immediate associates of the station is seen from these extracts from their letters to Mr. Hardy written in 1875-76:-"Your contribution of Mr. Neesima to our Mission and the cause of Christ in Japan is one whose value we feel no multiple of the sum you have contributed or invested in his education can represent. We are charmed by his thoroughly Christian spirit. . . . I cannot say a tithe of what is in my heart. . . • There seems no doubt but that his whole life, being, and pur­pose are consecrated to the Master for the redemption of his people. . . . He is profoundly grateful to you and to the American Board for what you and it have done for him and his land; and he accepts the will of the Board and of our Mission as God's will, no matter how it differs from his own. . . . If he is guided aright by God's Spirit and kept firm to his purpose and work, if his health is spared, I feel that he is destined to accomplish as much perhaps as all our Mis.~ion put together. . . . We need him for a larger place than a pastorate. We need him as a teacher in the training-school. He is better fitted for some department of teaching there than any foreigner can ever be. We also need him as an evangelist, not to use his influence always in the same place, but to go about awakening interest. . . . For a long time after his return we feared he would break entirely down. He was able to sleep but very little. He told me sev­eml times during those first few months that when he thought about these millions of his people passing into eternity without a lmowledge of Christ it seemed as if he would go crazy. Since the opening of the year he has gradually improved and is sleeping better.

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