Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/69

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advertisements of Christianity in the Japanese papers, and then occasionally printed a brief attractive account of what Christianity was, with the hope of arousing the curiosity of Japanese readers. At the end he would add that if any one were interested he might correspond with him. As a result of this work he came into correspondence with hundreds of men. In this recent letter he writes: "The total number of people who applied to us for tracts last year was 959, making the total from February, 1914, when the work began, to December 31, 1915, 3,590. There have been seven baptisms since my previous letter, and the total number to date is forty-five. Number Forty-Five is a most instructive case of the Lord's blessing resting upon what was, humanly speaking, a complete failure. The young man in question is a bright young student in the Normal School at this place, who was baptized a week ago last Sunday, after coming to my house off and on for two years, and getting a good deal of instruction. I did not reckon him among the results of the newspaper work, but after he was baptized he told me that he originally got interested in the Gospel when he was attending the primary school in his home town. Among his teachers was one named Okabe Katsumi, who had seen our advertisements and secured some tracts, among which were copies of the Gospels.