desire to please their teachers, and some, perhaps, from a true interest in Christianity. The Acts of the Apostles were read in course day after day; that the Japanese present might take part intelligently in the service, the Scripture of the day was translated extemporaneously into their language. After a week or two the Japanese for the first time in the history of the nation were on their knees in a Christian prayer-meeting. Their prayers were characterized by intense earnestness. Captains of men-of-war, English and American, who witnessed the scene, said, "The prayers of these Japanese take the heart out of us."

"As a direct fruit of these prayer-meetings, the first Japanese Christian Church was organized in Yokohama, in March, 1872. It consisted of

nine young men, who were baptized on that day, and two middleaged men, who

had been previously baptized. They gave their new Church the catholic name of The Church of Christ in Japan,' and drew up their

own constitution, a simple evangelical creed.

FUJIYAMA, JAPAN.

The following year the Government removed the edict against Christianity from the public notice-boards throughout the empire. This did not mean that the law was abrogated by any means. Still it was an indication of what soon became evident, namely, that liberty of conscience was to be allowed to the people.

The last two decades have more than fulfilled the most sanguine hopes of those early toilers, several of whom are still on the field to rejoice in the mighty spoils won for the Saviour. Instead of the one church, of one mission, in one of the treaty ports of Japan, there are now hundreds of churches scattered up and down the four main islands, with scores of well-equipped native ministers, and forty thousand communicants. There is not a

single prefecture on these islands that does not count at least a few earnest Christians among its inhabitants.

The six or seven different missions sent out by the different Presbyterian bodies of England and America have united the results of their toil into one grand native Church, which now is operating extensively throughout the whole land.

The strongest single mission in the land is that of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions-the Missionary Society of the different Congregational Churches of America. This Church alone now numbers over ten thousand converts, and is rapidly extending its operations in all parts of the empire.

Another most hopeful feature of the work in all Churches is the number of earnest, thoughtful young men from among the native converts whom God is thrusting forth into the ministry. In the year 1872 the Prince of Higo invited an American gentleman, named Captain Janes, to come and open a school for the study of English in his city. Captain Janes, although not a missionary, was a man of God, and with his teaching of English he sought to instil into the minds of the young men about him the blessed principles of the Gospel. No less than fifteen of his students, not only gave their hearts to the Lord, but also dedicated their lives to the work of preaching the Gospel. A perfect storm of opposition arose, and these young men were ostracised, disinherited and driven from their homes. Their school was broken up, and, if they clung to the new faith they had espoused, there seemed nothing for them but destitution. But God had His own great purpose in all this and was unerringly working it out. Some years previous to this a young man of the warrior class was impelled by the spirit within him to steal away from his own land, even though there was a ban on such an action, and to seek an education in foreign lands. After many vicissitudes he found his way to Boston and was there taken into the family of a gentleman named Hardy, and received at the hands of his benefactor a most liberal education, and, best of all, he learned to know and love the Saviour. On his return to Japan he gave himself up to the work of preaching the Gospel, and was marvellously successful in winning bis own countrymen for God. This man was Joseph Neeshima, without whose name and the record of whose work no sketch of the rise and progress of Christianity would be complete. The Church of his choice needed a college for the training of her young men, and for the founding of such an institution a clear-headed, far-seeing, faithful Japanese was necessary, and such a one was ready in the person of Neeshima. Through deep discouragement he forced his way until he had the satisfaction

of seeing the young Christian college, the Dôshisha, rise to be the foremost Christian educational institution in the country. Now the remarkable coincidence is that the very first class to enter the theological department of this new school was composed of the band converted under the instrumentality of Captain Janes, and a number of these men are in the very foremost ranks of the Christian ministry in Japan to-day.

But this is not confined to one Church. There is not a single Christian organization that has not witnessed the same Providential dealings, by which a strong contingent of earnest native workers has been put into the field. The significance of this is far-reaching. It means that ere many decades have come and gone, the whole Japanese Church will become grandly self-supporting, and will become a strong factor in the problem of the evangelization of the Orient.

But we must hasten to sketch the work of the Methodist contingent of the Christian forces operating in Japan. It was just when the sky began to clear for the Christian missionary, in the year 1873, that the spiritual descendants of him who said: "The world

is my parish," first set foot on the shores of these far-off isles, and they soon found that Methodism had a mighty work to do there in common with her sister Churches. It was in the same year that the Methodist Church of Canada and the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States sent out their pioneer missionaries; and from that time the two missions have worked along side by side in mutual inspiration and helpfulness. Of course the great Methodist Episcopal Church has outdistanced her humbler Canadian sister in the numerical strength of the force put into the field and in the territory covered; but not one whit has the one exceeded the other in the wealth of zeal and consecration manifested by the different workers.

We must now turn our attention more particularly to the mission of our own Canadian Methodist Church. Firstborn among our distinctively foreign missions, Japan has received a large share of hearty sympathy and support from the Canadian Church, and still holds a very warm place in the affections of those who were instrumental in the formation of the mission, and of those, also, who have contributed so largely to its support. Our Church chose wisely when it committed this new mission into the hands of George Cochran and Davidson Macdonald. The former had already risen to the highest position in the pastorate the Church had at its disposal. From the pulpit and pastorate of the Metropolitan Church, Toronto, this devoted servant of Christ went forth to an untried work. The latter was not only an ordained minister but also a fully qualified physician, and was thus doubly equipped for such a work.

At first our pioneer missionaries settled down in Yokohama to study the language and await the opening of some providential door through which to enter on their God-appointed task. Dr. Macdonald has the honour of being one of the first missionaries, if not the first, to leave the treaty ports to reside and labour wholly in the interior. He received an invitation to become a teacher of a school in the old castle-town of Shidzuoka. From that day to this Canadian Methodists have, by the blessing of God, held the fort in that city and prefecture. Dr. Cochran, in Tokyo, began religious services in his own house, and very soon, under the blessing of God, gathered around him a company of believers. Would you see the results of his earnest toil? They abide to-day in at least three churches in the city of Tokyo, and more especially in men, like the Rev. Y. Hiraiwa, so well and favourably known by the people of this country who were brought to Christ through his instrumentality. Nor is this all, for I am sure there is not a single Japanese pastor in our Church

in Japan to-day who has not the impress of his thought and character upon them. Our native ministry is largely what Dr. Cochran has made it.

Nor was Dr. Macdonald's ministry any less successful in Shidzuoka. Indeed, his success in winning souls during those early days was phenomenal. During the four years of toil in that place he organized a church of no less than one hundred and eighteen members, and among these were a number who have since taken foremost positions in our ministry and educational work.

In 1876 G. M. Meacham and O. S. Eby reinforced the mission. Dr. Meacham was rewarded very speedily by seeing souls brought to the Saviour and a living Church established. Among the new converts was the well-known and highly respected

Japanese gentlemen, Mr. Ebara, M.P., who became an active local preacher and has done more than any other layman to spread the knowledge of the truth among his own people in the vicinity of Numadzu. He is now the representative of his people in the Imperial Parliament, and president of our AngloJapanese College. Dr. Meacham spent the closing years of mission work in Tokyo as professor in our theological school, and to-day lives in the hearts of the leading men in our Japanese ministry.

Over in Kofu, Dr. Eby had like success with his brethren. The services held in the doctor's own hired house resulted in the formation of a church society which through many tribulations has existed until to-day, and has now grown so large as to become a self-supporting church. Dr. Eby has also had