“7.  The Commissioner thinks that what there is to be known as to
     cattle, land, products, etc., is known to ——.  I love him very
     much.

     “8.  The same applies very largely to ——.  What he does know he may
     know better than ——­, though I am not sure whether his knowledge
     is so extensive.

“9.  I have seen little of ——­; but he is said to be very successful in his present appointment.  Two gentlemen who have been inspecting his place say they could not have believed that such wonderful results could have been achieved in so unlikely a place.

“10.  This man, ——­, has sat on the platform, and prayed when he has been called upon to pray; but he has done nothing more.  I shall instruct K., I think, to ask him a few questions, one of which will be whether he is willing to take a position in another part of the world.”

Of course, I am only snatching such sentences as convey the main ideas, without their fuller development, which would risk indicating the persons referred to.

Will it be believed that, whilst this octogenarian was toiling in the heat to prepare if he could a brighter future for some of the poor, a syndicate of slanderers in London, some well educated, some of the Trafalgar Square bawler type, were seeking to bless “the British public” by enlightening them as to his selfish and foolish designs upon them?  According to their theories his every new scheme was only brought forth to turn aside attention from his entire failure, and ensure a continuous flow of money into his coffers!

Perhaps, the best feature of all about his “dreams” was that they never became less cheery for all that, and their continuously increasing infection of the world, despite every attack.

The General writes, after his great Meeting with some of our native comrades as reported in connexion with his final Congress:—­

“I have been much occupied, as I have already told you I expected to be, with the Native Question; and I am satisfied that one of the greatest things ever done in the history of the world can be done here, and I am determined to make an attempt to do it.

“I do not say that our chance is greater than it is in India—­though I am not sure whether it does not equal it in many ways.  Anyway, it appears to me that it is open to us to realise a mighty success.”

Chapter XVII

Japanese Heroism

Japan, amidst all the records of its modern progress, must certainly count the honour of having properly recognised the value of The General and his Army before the old “Christian” countries of Europe did so.

The Army’s beginning in Japan was almost laughable in its feebleness.  The little company of Officers sent out by The General, in 1895, were indeed truly devoted, and in their anxiety to be from the first “as Japanese to the Japanese,” were so taken in whilst halting in Hong Kong that they landed in the most extraordinary garments—­and it was a long time before they seemed likely to make any impression upon the non-Christian Japanese.  But upon the Christians they, undoubtedly, made, from the first, an excellent mark.