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I have been repeatedly told by Christians that the first religious satisfaction they ever experienced was upon their discovery of monotheism. How it affected Dr. Neesima, readers of his life cannot have overlooked. He is a type of multitudes. In the earlier days of Christian work many felt that they had become Christians upon rejection of polytheism and acceptance of monotheism.
A few concrete instances may help to illustrate the generalization that these are not fixed because racial characteristics, but variable ones dependent on the social order. Many years ago when the late Dr. Neesima, the founder, with Dr. Davis, of the Doshisha, was on the point of departure for the United States on account of his health, he made an address to the students.
In the same year that Neesima was graduated from Amherst College, Carleton received from this institution the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Carleton could turn his nimble pen to rhyme, when his friends required verses, and best when his own emotions struggled for utterance in poetry.
Ambition is a conspicuous characteristic of New Japan. I have already spoken of the common desire of her young men to become statesmen. The stories of Neesima and other young Japanese who, in spite of opposition and without money, worked their way to eminence and usefulness, have fired the imagination of thousands of youths.
And a few months after his death, when Dr. Davis prepared a short biography of Dr. Neesima, he was severely criticised by some of the Japanese for reproducing the speech as Dr. Neesima gave it. Shortly after my first arrival in Japan, I was walking home from church one day with an English-speaking Japanese, who had had a good deal to do with foreigners.
The speech of Carleton, who had just returned from Dai Nippon, capped the climax of enthusiasm, and the meeting closed by singing the hymn, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." At one of the later meetings of the Board, at Rutland, Vermont, the Japanese student Neesima pleaded effectually that a university be founded, the history of which, under the name of the One Endeavor, or Doshisha, is well known.
There have been many commanding persons in Japanese history; they have been the heroes of the land. There are such to-day. The most commanding personality of recent times was, I suppose, Takamori Saigo, whose very name is an inspiration to tens of thousands of the choicest youth of the nation. Joseph Neesima was such a personality.
Education and religion are bringing forth modern moral heroes. The late Dr. Neesima, the founder of the Doshisha, is a hero to many even outside the Church. Mr. Ishii, the father of Orphan Asylums in Japan, promises to be another. A people that can rear and admire men of this character has in it the material of a truly great nation.
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