LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA
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THE KUMAMOTO BAND. 209 men went up on the Hanaoka mountain near the city and organized themselves into a Christian society under the most solemn mutual pledges to dedicate their lives to Christ. This stand was taken with a full knowledge of the consequences, for it involved not only the sacrifice of worldly considerations, and in many cases the abandonment of careers for which they had been preparing, but estrangement from friends and home, and bitter persecution. Early in January the Christian boys had begun to teach the lower classes, gathering in the school-room with their Eng­lish Bibles. On complaint to the authorities Captain Janes advised the discontinuance of this practice, and an apology was offered to the school manager, but the meetings were still held at the house of Captain Janes, whose course was one of tact but firmness. He as­sured the manager that no Christian would disobey any rightful order, but that if such meetings were for­bidden, then also the gathering of those who opposed Christianity and who indulged in threats of personal insult and violence should likewise be prohibited. The governor was one of seventeen who had attacked a party of Frenchmen, some of whom were killed, and had been saved from forced suicide only by the clem­ency of foreign officials after several of his compan­ions had inflicted the necessary self-punishment of harakiri. The well-known liberal sentiments of the central government, and the alarm caused by the ma­lignant form of private persecution ad~pted by the families of those who had embraced the Christian faith, probably account for the apparent indifference of the local authorities, who, for selfish reasons, were inclined to fear if not respect the policy of the Tokyo statesmen. The rations of all who had openly pro-

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