Kanamori's life-story

by Paul M. Kanamori

I said to her, “My aunt, I did not come here to kill you, but only to see your boy.” Thus saying, I left her house with a heavy heart, full of fear and anxiety, thinking that before the next day dawned either the mother or the son in that home would die.

Something happened, providentially. I cannot now recall what it was, but the mother was prevented from committing suicide, and her son was saved from renouncing his faith. And this same mother, long years after, herself became a Christian, and died in the faith.

There were several such cases in the homes of these Christian boys. In another home the father was so enraged that he came with his drawn sword in his hand, and actually attempted to take his son’s life. You know that in the olden days the Samurai class, which was the warrior class in old Japan, used always to carry two swords, one long and the other short, and were in the habit of using them quite freely. These boys all belonged to this Samurai class.

I was one of the most bitterly persecuted. After receiving severe treatment at the hands of my relatives for many months, I was finally disowned and cast out of my father’s house. I lost everything except my English Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which became now my sole possessions.

Though they were made to pass through the ordeal of much persecution, the Christian boys finally gained the victory. Persecution could not accomplish the purpose of our enemies. The more bitterly they persecuted us, the more we were confirmed in our faith. We used to comfort one another by saying, “Is not this the living proof of the truth of Christianity? We see right here in our midst the perfect fulfilment of the word of Christ spoken nineteen centuries ago, ‘A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’”

This band of forty boys was afterwards called the “Kumamoto Band,” well known in the early history of Christian missions in modern Japan.

Thus far I have told you only one side of this story of the “Kumamoto Band.” But there is another side to it, even more wonderful than this, which I must not omit. In the summer of 1865, just ten years before the time of which I am speaking, a young Japanese arrived in the city of Boston. He had left his country a year before, in an American schooner. In those days to leave the country was almost certain death to a Japanese. But the young man dared this certain death, and after a year of hardship and suffering in a sea voyage he finally reached his goal, the land of liberty and enlightenment. He was poor and destitute, and was without any friends to look after him in this strange land. He remained in this helpless condition after his arrival for many weeks. At one time he was so discouraged that he almost despaired of obtaining the object of his coming to America, and was on the verge of insanity. But Heaven did not forsake him. A generous and noble-hearted Christian citizen of Boston, Mr. Alpheus Hardy, owner of the ship in which he had come, hearing of his case, took him into his home, and recognizing the fine spirit and noble ambition of this young man, Mr. Hardy decided to adopt him and give him a thorough American education. He was first placed in the Phillips Academy at Andover, then was sent to Amherst College, and finally to the Andover Theological Seminary to be trained for the Christian ministry.

After ten years of training and preparation, this young man returned to Japan, in 1874, and the next year, 1875, which was the very year when those Kumamoto boys were converted, he opened a Christian school under the auspices of the American Mission Board in Japan, in the city of Kyoto, the old capital. This was Dr. Joseph Hardy Neeshima, a man of God, and the greatest Christian leader in Japan. He was filled with a burning zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, and was looking eagerly for like-minded young men who would come and join him in the great work of evangelizing Japan.

Here you see again the wonderful working of the providence of God. While on one hand God was preparing and disciplining those forty boys of the “Kumamoto Band” by special education under Captain Janes, as well as by bitter persecution, he was at the same time training this great Christian leader of Japan through the kind help of Alpheus Hardy in America. Dr. Neeshima knew nothing of these Kumamoto boys, and they knew nothing of Dr. Neeshima and his school. Though entirely unknown to each other, we were all in the same Hand, being moulded and shaped for the coming work of his kingdom.

In the spring of 1876, when Captain Janes, through an American newspaper, heard of Dr. Neeshima and his Christian school, he at once communicated with him, and told him all about the “Kumamoto Band.” It came as a great surprise to Dr. Neeshima and his colleagues. I was told by one of the missionary teachers who was with Dr. Neeshima at the time that it seemed to them as though the forty boys fell down straight from heaven. They had never dreamed such a wonderful thing was going on in such an obscure part of the country.