Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Missionary Bio's - John Hardy Neesima (Part 2)

Part 2

 
At this time no missionaries were allowed in Japan. So Neesima, recognizing God as the only father to whom he owed life fealty, determined to break the environments of his youth, and to leave temporarily his home and country. With some difficulty he obtained first his prince's, then his parents', sanction to leave Yedo, ostensibly to go to Hakodate, and in the spring of 1864 went thither. Neesima, always thinking of his country and its conditions, watched closely the people of Hakodate, and, painfully cognizant of their corrupt existence, determined that Japan needed moral reformation more than mere material progress. His desire to visit a foreign land he confided to a Japanese clerk employed by an English merchant. This friend at midnight and with great difficulty conveyed Neesima in a row-boat alongside an American vessel, whose kind-hearted captain had consented to take the Japanese boy as far as China. At Shanghai, Neesima was transferred to the American ship Wild Rover, whose captain employed Neesima to wait upon the table ; and not liking "Shimeta," called " his boy" Joe, and was uniformly kind to him. After a four months' voyage the ship reached Boston Harbor ; and through the kind interest of Captain Taylor, Neesima was introduced to the owner of the Wild Rover, Mr. Alpheus Hardy, one of Boston's noblest philanthropists. He became at once interested in the boy, and, with Mrs. Hardy, assumed the responsibility of his education.

    In September,1865, he entered the English department of Phillips Academy, Andover. Here he
remained until 1867, when his benefactors sent him to Amherst. His letters during his student life tell of frequent illnesses, which at times interfered with his work, of his tramps through different States during vacation, of letters from his Japanese parents, of his anxiety about his home affairs during the rise of the princes against the shogun in 1868-1869, of his growing spirituality, and of his heartfelt gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Hardy. In a letter dated March 21, 1871, Neesima writes that he met in Boston, Mori, the Japanese minister sent to Washington by the mikado. Mr. Mori offered to reimburse Mr. Hardy for Neesima's educational expenses, and thereby make Neesima subject to Japanese government. Mr. Hardy at once declined the proposition. On Sept. 17, 1871, Neesima wrote to Mrs. Hardy that he had received a passport from the Japanese government, and that from the same source his father had received a paper saying : "It is permitted by the government to Neesima Shimeta to remain and study in the United States of America.”

   In 1872 an embassy representing the imperial government of the Mikado visited America and Europe on visits of inquiry into Western civilization ; and Minister Mori summoned Mr. Neesima to Washington to meet the embassy, and to assist Mr. Tanaka, the commissioner of education. In this way Mr. Neesima became acquainted with the most progressive men of new Japan, whose friendship in later years was of great value to him. Fearing, however, that his plan to return to Japan as a free advocate of Christianity might be endangered, he carefully stipulated that Mr. Mori should state to the embassy that any service desired of him would be undertaken only under a contract that freed him from all obligation to the Japanese government. Under these circumstances he was engaged, and soon proved so valuable an assistant, that Mr. Tanaka insisted upon his accompanying the embassy to Europe. There he gave all his time to the study of the best methods of learning in schools and institutions of all grades ; and on the basis of his reports was built to-day's educational system in Japan-. From this European trip with the embassy Mr. Neesima returned to Andover in September, 1873.

     In March, 1874, Mr. Neesima formally offered himself to the American Board, and July 2 was appointed corresponding member to the Japanese mission. He was graduated as a special student from Andover Theological Seminary, and ordained in Boston, September 24. The Board held its sixty-fifth annual meeting at Rutland, Vt., that autumn, and Mr. Neesima spoke on the establishment of a Christian college in Japan. By his soul-felt enthusiasm the young Japanese carried his audience with him ; $5 ,000 was at once subscribed, and Neesima's dream became a reality.

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