LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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FAILING HEALTH. 317 more and more the need of such an institution as we are planning ; for, as constitutional government takes the place of the present system, and as the people come to share largely in political rights, the most im­portant need will not be perfect laws or institutions, but self-governing and intelligent people. "This being my purpose, when I consider my own strength I find it far short of accomplishing so great a work ; but I cannot be silent, -the needs of our country and the urgency of my friends forbid rue to decline this task. Thus being stimulated and urged on by the condition of the times, forgetting myself, I devote myszlf to this work, and I pray that with God's grace and the help of my fellow-citizens this university may be successfully established. -Kyoto, November, 1888." Mr. Neesima's health during the summer of 1888 was very precarious. He was warned by physicians in Tokyo that he had not long to live, and by their advice was taken to Ikao, a mountain resort, in a kago, being too weak to travel even by jinrikisha. Many causes had operated to discourage him. While at Andover in 1885 he had kindled a strong interest among the seminary students, and he had long been looking for the advent of several who had pledged their lives to the work in Japan. This movement had been checked by the action of the Prudential Committee in its refusal to appoint candidates for the foreign field who failed to conform to its views upon certain theological speculations then tmder discussion. The resignation of Mr. Hardy, chairman of the Pru­dential Committee, still further depressed him, and his death a year later was a blow from which he never recovered. His own father also died the same

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