to improve their country and their people.  These men saw that their country was falling behind not only the nations of the West, but, as it seemed to them, even the nations of the East.  They felt that radical changes were necessary in order to reform the awful poverty, disease, licentiousness, national weakness, decay of bodily powers, and the creeping paralysis of the Samurai intellect and spirit.  How they were ostracized, persecuted, put under ban, hounded by the spies, thrown into prison; how they died of starvation or of disease; how they were beheaded, crucified, or compelled to commit hara-kiri; how their books were purged by the censors, or put under ban or destroyed,[13] and their maps, writings and plates burned, has not yet been told.  It is a story that, when fully narrated, will make a volume of extraordinary interest.  It is a story which both Christian and human interests challenge some native author to tell.  During all this time, but especially during the first half of the nineteenth century, there was one steady goal to which the aspiring student ever kept his faith, and to which his feet tended.  There was one place of pilgrimage, toward which the sons of the morning moved, and which, despite the spy and the informer and the vigilance of governors, fed their spirits, and whence they carried the sacred fire, or bore the seed whose harvest we now see.  That goal of the pilgrim band was Nagasaki, and the place where the light burned and the sacred flames were kindled was Deshima.  The men who helped to make true patriots, daring thinkers, inquirers after truth, bringers in of a better time, yes, and even Christians and preachers of the good news of God, were these Dutchmen of Deshima.

A Handful of Salt in a Stagnant Mass.

The Nagasaki Hollanders were not immaculate saints, neither were they sooty devils.  They did not profess to be Christian missionaries.  On the other hand, they were men not devoid of conscience nor of sympathy with aspiring and struggling men in a hermit nation, eager for light and truth.  The Dutchman during the time of hermit Japan, as we see him in the literature of men who were hostile in faith and covetous rivals in trade, is a repulsive figure.  He seems to be a brutal wretch, seeking only gain, and willing to sell conscience, humanity and his religion, for pelf.  In reality, he was an ordinary European, probably no better, certainly no worse, than his age or the average man of his country or of his continent.  Further, among this average dozen of exiles in the interest of commerce, science or culture, there were frequently honorable men far above the average European, and shining examples of Christianity and humanity.  Even in his submission to the laws of the country, the Dutchman did no more, no less, but exactly as the daimi[=o]s,[14] who like himself were subject to the humiliations imposed by the rulers in Yedo.