Kanzo Uchimura (eBook)

I THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY

SAMURAI ORIGINS

This is how Uchimura introduced himself.

I was born, according to the Gregorian calendar, on 23 March 1861. My family belonged to the warrior class; so I was born to fight — vivere est militare — from the very cradle.

Samurai! Immediately heroes of the Japanese cinema spring to mind, figures of a bygone age with fantastical helmets and bristling with swords, perhaps committing harakiri (suicide by slitting open their stomachs).

However, the Samurai (approx. 5% of the population) were not wild tribal warriors. They did indeed develop their skills as warriors, but they were also educated men who acted as advisors either to a Shogun (commander-in-chief) or to a Daimyo (prince) or to a private master. After the Tokugawa government came to power in 1603 — along with the beginning of feudalism and the 200-year long isolation of Japan from the rest of the world — the Samurai served as the country's military defence force.

The Samurai had their own ethical code, "Bushido", "The Way of the Warrior", which had developed over the years and had influenced the morality of the entire population.

Uchimura originated from one of these Samurai families (Takasaki domain). He was proud of his heritage and his family, proud of his father who not only was a warrior like his grandfather but was also an educated man.

My father was more cultured, could write good poetry, and was skilled in the art of ruling men. He was also a man of no small military talent and could lead a most turbulent regiment in a very creditable way.

Uchimura was born a Samurai and he wanted to die a Samurai. Shortly after he came into this world, the Samurai class was abolished (Emperor Meiji 1868 – 1912), but he had no wish to become a samurai after the example of his grandfather.

My paternal grandfather was every-inch a soldier. He was never as happy as when he appeared in his ponderous armour, decked with a bamboo-bow and pheasant-feathered arrows and a 50-pound firelock. He lamented that the land was at peace, and died with the regret that he never was able to put his trade into practice.

Uchimura will not fight with the kind of arrows that were his grandfather's pride and joy, but with arrow words that hit the centre and showed the way.

To live is to fight — that was something he learned very early on. But Christianity was definitely not part of his educational programme. Through his upbringing and the environment he has lived in, young Uchimura learned the teachings of Confucius and Buddhist and Shinto thinking.

My father was a good Confucian scholar, who could repeat from memory almost every passage in the writings and sayings of the sage. So naturally my early education was in that line; and though I could not understand the ethico-political precepts of the Chinese sages, I was imbued with the general sentiments of their teachings. Loyalty to the feudal lords and fidelity and respect to the parents and teachers were the central themes of the Chinese ethics. Filial piety was taught to be the source of all virtues, akin to the Solomonic precept of "Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom".

The story of a filial youth responding to an unreasonable demand of an old parent to have a tender bamboo shoot (the asparagus of the Orient) at midwinter, of his search for it in the forest, and of its miraculous sprout from under the snow is as vivid to the memory of every child in my land as the story of Joseph to that of every Christian youth. Even parental tyranny and oppression were to be meekly borne, and many illustrations were cited from the deeds of ancient worthies in this respect.

Loyalty to feudal lords, especially in time of war, took a more romantic form in the ethical conceptions of the youth of my land. He was to consider his life as light as dust when called to serve his lord in exigency; and the noblest spot where he could die was in front of his master’s steed, thrice blessed if his corpse was trampled under its hooves.

No less weighty was to be the youth’s consideration for his master (his intellectual and moral preceptor), who was to him no mere schoolteacher or college professor on quid pro quo principle, but a veritable didaskalos in whom he could and must completely confide the care of his body and soul.

The Lord, the Father, and the Master constituted his Trinity. Not one of the three was inferior to the others in his estimation and the most vexing question to him was which he would save, if the three of them were on the point of drowning at the same time, and he had ability to save but one. Then, their enemies were to be his own enemies, with whom he was not allowed to share the same benignant heaven. These were to be pursued even to the very ends of the earth, and satisfaction must be had, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

Strong in inculcating obedience and reverence toward our superiors, the oriental precepts are not wanting in regard to our relations to our equals and inferiors.

Sincerity in friendship, harmony in brotherhood and leniency toward the inferior and the governed are strongly insisted upon.

Much reported cruelties of heathens toward women do not find any encouragement to that effect in their moral code, neither is it entirely silent upon the subject. Our ideal mothers and wives and sisters are not very inferior to the conception of the highest Christian woman-hood, and the very fact that some of them achieved high excellence in deeds and character without the exalting influence of Christianity makes me admire them so much more.

Along with these and other instructions, which I sincerely believe are not inferior to those which are imparted to and possessed by many who call themselves Christians, I was not free from many drawbacks and much superstition.

The most defective point in Chinese ethics is its weakness when it deals with sexual morality. Not that it is wholly silent upon the virtue of social purity, but the way in which the violation of the law of chastity is usually dealt with and its connivance with the perpetrators of the same resulted in general apathy in this respect. Polygamy in its strict sense has never entered into oriental minds; but concubinage, which amounts to the same thing, has met only mildest rebukes from their moralists, if any at all. Amidst solemn instructions of my father about duty and high ambition, I discerned words of emulation for study and industry with an opulent harem in view. Great statesmanship and learning may exist without ideas of chastity. He that grasps the rein of the state in sober hours may rest upon a bosom of uncleanliness in less serious moments. Glaring profligacy does often attend acute intellect and high regard for public honour.

Though I am not blind to darkness as great in other countries as my own, I do not hesitate in attributing impotence to Chinese ethics when it deals with questions of social purity.

But no retrospect of my bygone days causes me greater humiliation than the spiritual darkness in which I was groping my way, laboriously sustained by gross superstitions. I believed, and that sincerely, that there dwelt in each of innumerable temples its god, jealous over its jurisdiction, ready with punishment for any transgressor that incurred his displeasure.

The god whom I reverenced and adored most was the god of learning and writing, for whom I faithfully observed the 25th of every month with due sanctity and sacrifice. I prostrated myself before his image, earnestly implored his aid to improve my handwriting and help my memory.

Then there is a god who presides over rice-culture, and his messengers unto mortals are white foxes. He can be approached with prayers to protect our houses from fire and robbery, and as my father was mostly away from home and I was alone with my mother, I never ceased to beseech this god of rice to keep my poor home from the said disasters.

There was another god whom I feared more than all others. His emblem was a black raven, and he was the searcher of man's innermost heart. The keeper of his temple issued papers upon which ravens were printed in sombre colours, the whole having a miraculous property to cause immediate haemorrhage when taken into stomach by anyone who told falsehood. I often vindicated my truthfulness before my comrades by calling upon them to test my veracity by the use of a piece of this sacred paper, if they were at all suspicious of what I asserted.

Still another god exercises healing power upon those who suffer from toothache. I would call upon him as well, as I was a constant sufferer from this painful malady. He would exact from his devotee a vow to abstain from pears as they were specially obnoxious to him, and I was of course most willing to undergo the required privation. Future study in Chemistry and Toxicology revealed to me a good scientific foundation for this abstinence, as the injurious effect of grape sugar upon the decaying teeth is wellknown.

But all of heathen superstitions cannot be so happily explained. One god would impose upon me abstinence from the use of eggs, another from beans, till after I made all my vows, many of my boyish delicacies were entered upon the prohibition list. Multiplicity of gods often involved the contradiction of the requirements of one god with those of another,...