It was not a mere threat. The mother was in earnest. I called on her that very day and begged her to let me see her boy, who was one of my dearest friends, just to bid him good-bye before we should die. In those days we Christian boys, on our side, were determined to die before we would renounce our allegiance to Christ. It was a life and death struggle between us and our enemies. But when I saw her I trembled, because she was in such a determined mood that I felt as though I were standing before a dead person, pale and ghastly, and she said calmly to me: “No, you cannot see my boy, but if you insist on seeing him, kill me first, and then you may see him.” 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.