LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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280 TO EUROPE AND AMERICA AGAIN. Neesima then proceeds to enumerate the special needs of the school and to detail his plans for its future.] Some of you may feel that we incline too far towards the intellectual side. But how, without Christian ed­ucation, can a handful of missionaries reach so many swarming millions? You will surely find it a slow and discouraging process. They are not even allowed to live in the interior of the country. Let them cast their net where they can catch the best fish, -I mean the class of students belonging to the so-called samu­rai, the privileged bearers of two swords. [Here fol­lows the description of this class, already quoted on page 170.] The success your Mission has thus far had in Japan is chiefly owing to the training-school which your missionaries so early established in the very heart of the empire, the ancient capital of the sacred Mikado. Without a single exception, the Christian laborers educated there and now so nobly engaged in the work belong to the samurai class. Surely you do not regret that bold enterprise. We do not ask you to sustain our primary schools, as is the case in Tur­key and China, for our people take care of the pri­mary education of their children. Neither do we ask you to help our churches, because most of them sup­port themselves. It is also a shame to the red-blood Japanese to beg for money. But I willingly offer myself to bear it for the sake of giving the blessings of the gospel to my fellow -countrymen. But we are constrained to ask you for this special provision both on account of the mighty pressure upon us and the brighter prospect near at hand. We are now in a revolutionary and transition period. Never was there such an occasion in our past history, and doubtless never will there be such in the future. This may be

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