LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

226/372

210 MISSIONARY WORK IN JAPAN. fessed Christianity were, however, promptly stopped by the school manager. This action threw many en­tirely upon Captain Janes for support. Sharing their slender means in common, they organized a mess under his direction,preparing and serving their own food in the school kitchen. Meanwhile the private persecu­tion already referred to had been most bitter. When these young men arrived at Kyoto their English Bi­bles and the clothes they wore were their only posses­sions. They had been subjected to the most cruel treatment at the hands of their relations, and, out­casts from home, disowned by their friends, had liter­ally abandoned everything for the sake of their faith. In proposing their admission to the Doshisha, Captain Janes wrote to Dr. Davis: -"My boys and I have been passing through unusual events, and the mutterings of a sharp, vindictive, and exciting persecution are still in the air. They have four of my Christian boys still shut up in their homes. I think the little band is practically intact. No lives have been taken, although that was seriously enough threatened, and there are no cases of harakiri yet to report, although a mother in one family and a father in another took that method of driving their sons from the faith. The number of faithful to the end has been larger than I expected. I grieve over my impris­oned Christian boys. The physical strength of one is failing, and his unthinking persecutors may kill him. I understand there was an auto-da-fe of his Bibles a few days since." Of Mr. Kanamori, subsequently pastor of the col­lege church and succeeding Mr. N eesima as acting principal and president of the Board of Trustees, Cap­tain Janes writes, June 25, 1876:-

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer10.2以上が必要です