He was a Japanese boy, and his name was Neesima. He was born in a prince’s palace, but he was not a prince’s son. He was the son of one of the prince’s servants. He was ten years old when Commodore Perry went to Japan with a message from America. Neesima learned to read and he studied and read so much that he almost became blind.
One day he went to visit a friend and found in his house part of the Bible written in Chinese. He read it with open-eyed wonder. The very first words of the Book were so strange and wonderful! “In the binning God created the heaven and the earth.” Neesima had never known how the world was made, and did not know about the great God who made us and all things. He put the little Book down and said to himself: “Who made me? My parents? No, God. Who made my table? A carpenter? God let the trees grow up in the earth; although a carpenter made the table, it did indeed come from the trees; then I must be thankful to God. I must believe Him, and I must be upright before Him.”
Neesima began to pray to God, and his first prayer was very simple. It was this: “Oh, if Thou hast eyes, look upon me. If Thou hast ears, listen to me.” You see, he did not yet know God, so he could not pray to Him as his heavenly Father, for we can only know Him through His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
When Neesima was twenty years old he made up his mind to leave Japan and to travel abroad. One day he said good-bye to his parents, promising to return home within the year. He little thought it would be ten long years before he was to see his native land again. The ship took him to China, and there he found a complete New Testament. In it he came to know that the same God who had made the world, the earth, the sea and the stars, had sent His dear Son into this world to be a Saviour. For a whole year, he was out on the sea, aboard ship, knocked about by the rough sailors. They called him Joe. But he had no money and no one to care for him, and for ten weeks after the ship docked he still lived on board.
But God cared for him, and put it into the heart of the owner of the ship, Mr. Harding, who was a kind man, to take an interest in the young Japanese. He took him to his home and asked him his name.
“The sailors call me Joe,” replied Neesima.
“You are well named,” said Mr. Harding, “for God has sent you to tell your people of the Saviour.” He was thinking of Joseph, whom we read about in the Bible, and who was a savior to his people.
Neesima became the adopted son of his newfound friend, and was called Neesima Joseph Hardy. Mr. Hardy sent him to school and college, from whence he graduated with high honors. Neesima became a Christian and was baptized. Then he returned to his own land and worked to bring many of his own people to Jesus Christ, to whom he had given his own heart and life.
ML 07/23/1967