LETTER XLVII

Summary

The weather has been abominable since I returned, with the mercury hanging about 80°, the mosquitoes rampant, the air so damp that mildew has to be removed from leather every few hours, and a hot, depressing wind with a hot, drizzling rain. If I complain of the lifelessness of the climate of Japan, and its lack of morning and evening freshness, people always say, “Wait till October,” and I am beginning to think that October and November are the only pleasant months, for the cold of winter is spoken of as “raw and penetrating.”

The steamy atmosphere does not affect Mr. Dening's missionary zeal, which is perfectly indefatigable. Besides the two Sunday preachings and two weekly preachings at Ono and Arikawa, and two weekly preachings and three Bible classes in Hakodaté in addition, he is going to open a new station at Nanai, where there are many samurai, and it is from among these, and not from among the common people–in whom the religious instinct and the spirit of religious inquiry seem quite dead,–that converts have been made. The foundation-stone of an English Episcopal Church has been laid since I returned, by Mr. Eusden, H.B.M.'s Consul, in the presence of the eight Japanese converts, whose names were placed in a cavity in the stone, and a few others, with a considerable crowd of native onlookers. It shows the toleration granted to Christianity that this small body of Christians should have been able to purchase a site on the main street on which to erect a conspicuous religious edifice.