The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-06-19

but Jailed TO receive any answer. lie
repeatedly requested of the tycoon per
mission to go to his family, and was as
often told that he must be content here,
as permission to depart could never be |
allowed. To induce him to stay and in
terest him in the work of ship-building, /
teaching navigation and military tactics, /
he was given large tract of country |
with great number of departments, |
over which he had absolute authority. !
He was ranked among the nobility next /
to the princes of the empire. He was
called Amin, the japanese name of pi- |
LOT, aud q part of Yeddo was, and to
this day is, called Amin Cho, or district
of Amin.
In this way twelve years had elapsed
since he had left England, and although
he had written as often as conveyance
presented itself, no word came of his
friends or family. And 80 hope died in
him of ever seeing the shores of his ma
tive land again, or ever looking again
into the eyes of those he loved. He
saw nothing before him but a lie in Ja-
pan. He went again to his work of
teaching and ship-building for the pur-
pose of drowning thoughts of home and
| loved ones. About this time an alliance
with a noble family was offered him.
| With all other hopes dead, he accepted
| it. By this marriage he had two chill
dren, boy and a girl.
Not far from this time a Spanish ship
| with an embassy from the king of Spain,
arrived in Japan. Although they bore
magnificent presents from Philip II.
to the tycoon, they were refused audi
| ence, and admission to trade was denied
| them. Shortly afterward a Dutch ship
came to trade, and although their cargo
| = L i e.
| through Adams influence, they were
conceded the most liberal privileges,
and thus through this stranger was laid
the foundation of the Dutch trade,
which lasted through three centuries of
Japanese exclLsiveness and hate of for
eigners. I In 1913 or 1914 an English
ship arrived under command of Capt.
Saris. Adams obtained for them even
more liberal terms of trade than he had
for the Dutch. An English factory
was built, the goods landed and all the
steps taken to build up English inter
ests. Alter having been here year or
more the ship was about to sail for Eng
land, and now was presented to Adams
a trial such as comes to few mortals.
Iyeyas, after Is years of persistent re-
fusals for him tO!go home, and as persis-
tently held honor and promotions before
|
ny and raise a family here-suddenly
and voluntarily sent him permission to
go home for some great service rem
dered.
How he must have been torn by his
conflicting desires and interests On
the one hand this land of the Orient,
which had been his home for Is years,
its picturesque beauty, with its soft air,
and its tropical vegetation, must have
taken deep hold of his heart. The
people of Japan had received him, a
shipwrecked sailor, and made him a
lord in the land. He had been treated
and loved by them, with depth and
warmth unknown to the cold climate of
his native England. One of their
dark-eyed daughters had given him her
heart, and all the best years of her
young life. Two children with hair as
black as a ravens wing, called him
father, and climbed over his knees. All
the fortune accumulated IN long years
was here, to be left behind him, and
with the best years of his life and his
youthful vigor gone, he was to go out
into the world empty-handed. More
over, no word of tidings had reached
him of his family for seventeen years.
The shadow of the dark-winged angel
might have covered them all within that
long, weary time, or, worse still, he
might find that his wife, weary with
waiting and watching for his return, at
last, when no tidings came, hope being
dead within her, had given his place in
her heart TO another-whispering in
other ears the sweet words which had
so often been his, and that his children,
his blue-eyed and fair-haired boy and
girl, had learned to call a stranger by
the fond name of father.
On the other hand, what if his Eng
lish Mary cherished the hope that he
would come again and what If she
kept every word and look of his en-
shrined in her heart and if she with
his children still knelt, morning and
evening, and lifted up their supplica-
tions to Him who holds the great waves
and the fierce winds in the hollow of
His hand, to protect their wanderer
and bring him home to them again
These conflicting emotions must have
! wrung q proud and sensitive spirit,
such as that of Adams. He who had
looked danger and death in the eye in
many a wild storm and wilder battle
: strife without faltering might well have
broken down and wept like a child I'M
. der this trial.
But his bitter conflicts of loves, of
, doubts, of desires and of hopes, lie
! buried with his ashes under this stone
column, now before us, and in the OBJ
livion of three silent uRspeaking cen
turtles of Japanese night. He decided
to stay with the certainties of the land
, of his adoption rather than take the
chances of his native land. The ship
departed, and as her white sails receded
from Adams sight, he had put all that
was dear to him in his youthful and
better days behind him forever.
He went on with his work-perfected
p-building, drilled the tycoon's SOL
diers, taught the arts and sciences and
educated his children, elevated and
bettered the condition of his retainers
and followers. He embraced the Budd-
hist faith, built this embewered temple
of To-ka-son, and twice yearyhe came
here to worship. And here, after a
third of a century of great usefulness
and influence, he was buried with i'm
perial pomp and ceremony, loved, hon
ored and mourned by the people of an
empire. Here his people have come.
generation after generation, to this day.
to offer up prayers for his soul at a lit
tie shrine, which has this inscription in
japanese characters
1.-THE brightest bliss is surely thine.
o thou who prayest at this shrinel"
The Way the Cable Talks.