The American Board has had a very curious, not to say disastrous, experience with the spirit of trustful confidence that was the prevailing business characteristic of the older civilization.  According to the treaties which Japan had made with foreign nations, no foreigner was allowed to buy land outside the treaty ports.  As, however, mission work was freely allowed by the government and welcomed by many of the people in all parts of the land, and as it became desirable to have continuous missionary work in several of the interior towns, it seemed wise to locate missionaries in those places and to provide suitable houses for them.  In order to do this, land was bought and the needed houses erected, and the title was necessarily held in the names of apparently trustworthy native Christians.  The government was, of course, fully aware of what was being done and offered no objection.  It was well understood that the property was not for the private ownership of the individual missionary, but was to be held by the Christians for the use of the mission to which the missionary belonged.  For many years no questions were raised and all moved along smoothly.  The arrangement between the missionaries and the Christian or Christians in whose names the property might be held was entirely verbal, no document being of any legal value, to say nothing of the fact that in those early days the mention of documentary relationships would have greatly hurt the tender feelings of honor which were so prominent a part of samurai character.  The financial relations were purely those of honor and trust.

Under this general method, large sums of money were expended by the American Board for homes for its missionaries in various parts of Japan, and especially in Kyoto.  Here was the Doshisha, which grew from a small English school and Evangelists’ training class to a prosperous university with fine buildings.  Tens of thousands of dollars were put into this institution, besides the funds needful for the land and the houses for nine foreign families.  An endowment was also raised, partly in Japan, but chiefly in America.  In a single bequest, Mr. Harris of New London gave over one hundred thousand dollars for a School of Science.  It has been estimated that, altogether, the American Board and its constituency have put into the Doshisha, including the salaries of the missionary teachers, toward a million dollars.

In the early nineties the political skies were suddenly darkened.  The question of treaty revision loomed up black in the heavens.  The politicians of the land clamored for the absolute refusal of all right of property ownership by foreigners.  In their political furore they soon began to attack the Japanese Christians who were holding the property used by the various missions.  They accused them of being traitors to the country.  A proposed law was drafted and presented in the National Diet, confiscating all such property.  The Japanese holders naturally