Toyohiko Kagawa, and some social, economic, and religious tendencies in modern Japan

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Content TOYOHIKO KAGAWA, AND SOME SOCIAL, ECONO~ITC, AND RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES IN MODERN JAPAN A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School The University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment ot the Requirements tor the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Arthur Christian Knudten February 1946 This disurtation, written by __________ AB.'r~Ulli .. 9.~I~.T-~A~t-~.N~-~~~--------------- under the guidance of his .. Faculty Comm£ttee on Studies, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Council on Graduate Study and Research, in partial ful fillment of requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY / -------~~~-~-f.~--:r.:~_"::~-~-::-:~------·-- 1 Dean .......... J~.:- .. ~~---···········----- Secretarj' Date ....... .F.ebr..uar.y ... l9.46 .... ~ ... . Committee on Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1 I. THE PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THE STUDY • • • • • • • • II. III. The purpose stated • • • • • • • • ••• The plan • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The chapter divisions •• • • • • • • • • • • The method • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . The materials • • • • • • • . . • • • • • • • • Definition of terms • • • • • • • • • • • • • • THE SOCIO-ETHICAL STRUCTURE OF MODERN JAPAN • • • The feudal heritage • • • • • • • • • • • . . . The Shinto origins • • • • • • • • • • • • • The ethical philosophies of Confucianism • • Buddhist ceremonialism • • • • • • • • • • • 1 7 8 11 14 21 23 26 27 38 47 The Jesuit Religio-political crisis • • • • • 52 Bushido and Kyokakudo • • • • • • • • • • • • 59 The Meiji Revolution ••••••••••• ORIGINS OF LEADERSHIP IN THE LIFE OF KAGAWA • • • • • The origins in heredity ••• • • • • • • • • • The origins in social stimuli • • • • • • • • • 67 78 80 85 The origins in personality • • • • • • • • • • 97 Isolation and lovelessness • • Insecurity and fear •••••• Mysticism and heart-searching • Conversion and decision • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . . . 98 99 102 107 iii CHAPTER PAGE 115 116 122 IV. BUILDING A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE IN THE SLUMS • • • Experiences leading to the slums • • • • Motives in the decision • • • • • • • • • • • • • The problem of Japan's slums • • • • • • • • • 124 Kagawa and the slum people • • • • • • • • • • 130 Love as a philosophy of life • • • • • • • • • 136 Types of love • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 139 Poverty as lovelessness • • • • • • • • • • 143 A purpose in life • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 147 V. NEW APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF LABOR • • • • • 152 The history of the labor movement in Japan • • 156 The first period, 1879 - 1888 • • • • • • • 160 VI. The second period, 1888 - 1904 The third period, 1904 - 1918 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The fourth period, 1918 - 1941 •••• • • • The emphasis of respect for the laborer • • • Re-evaluation of the philosophy of materialism EMANCIPATING THE JAPANESE PE.AS.AN.l' • • • • • • • 160 164 170 178 183 193 The feudal order and rural labor • • • • • • • 194 Kagawa and the rural problem • • • • • • • • • 205 Four major areas of problem • • • • • • • • • 212 Land and its tenure • • • • • • • • • • • • Finance and production • • • • • • • • • • • Farm labor and relationships •••• • • • • 213 216 221 CHAPTER iv PAGE VII. The welfare of the peasant family • • • • • 222 The problem of prostitution ••••••• • • • • Solutions on the basis of love • • • TOWARD RECONSTRUCTING THE SOCIAL ORDER • • • • Concepts of society • • • • • • • • • • • Kyokaku versus bushido in the kokutai • Inadequate movements for reconstruction • The principles of a brotherhood movement • • • • • • • • Social movements and institutions • • • • • • Social work • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 225 232 236 237 238 240 256 263 264 Cooperative movements • • • • • • • • • • • 266 The Friends of Jesus • • • • • • • • • • • 275 The Kingdom of God Movement • • • • • • • • 277 Peace and international organization • • • 288 VIII. INTERPRETING THE WAY OF REDE.MPTIVE LOVE • • • • 298 The Way-concept versus the Teaching-concept • Functional definitions of religion •••• The Way of Redemptive Love • • • • • • • • An outline of the theology of Kagawa • • • • The Way of Love and the Church MOvement • • • Denominations • • • • • • • Church Union • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 298 302 310 318 335 337 339 Religious syncretisms • • • • • • • • • • • 344 CHAPTER v PAGE IX. AN EVALUATION OF KAGAWA AND THE CHANGING SOCIAL ORDER IN J .AP AN • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 350 Four major areas of conclusion • • • • • • • • 350 The distinction between the social-order and the national-body • • • • • • • • • • • • 351 The challenge of loyalty-concepts by love- concepts • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 356 The indigenization of the Christian Church • 361 The work of Kagawa and Japan's reconstruc- tion • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 366 The social order of the post-war period BIBLI OGR.APHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • .APPENDIX • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 369 372 385 LIST OF T.ABLES T.ABLE PAGE I. A Harmony of Life Events and Dates of Toyohiko Kagawa • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 20 II. A Table of Social Thought and Labor ~vements in the Modern Period • • • • • • • • • • • • 176 III. A Table of Kagawa Institutions -- Their Types and Locations • • • • • • • • • • • • • 286 CHAPI'ER I THE PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THE STUDY I. THE PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to examine the life, the work, and the Christian philosophy of Toyohiko Kagawa, with a view to an analysis of some of the elements in the soeio ethical structure or the Japanese nation and their tendencies in the areas of the social, economic and religious life of the modern period. It is proposed to lift out of the many-sided and com plex social structure of Japan some of these tendencies which have been brought into sharp focus in the life and work of Kagawa, and to study a) some of the significant factors in the character of Kagawa and in the social milieu that have contributed to his Christian philosophy of lite, and to his leadership in a non-Christian environment, and b) the movement of some of the tendencies which ap peared in the feudal era, and their part in the Kagawa selection or social problems and conditions which called tor reconstruction on a Christian plane, and c) the problem of whether the life integration of Kagawa as a Christian leader may have significance for the future of the Christian Movement in Japan theologically as 2 well as socially. Japan is a nation which in recent times has been in the throes of violent social currents. Emerging out of the quiet and seclusion of two and one half centuries of life separated from the rest of the world, her doors were suddenly thrown wide open to the onrush of the accumulated scientific civilization of the Occident. In the midst of these currents the Christian Movement in Japan has stood as a modern socio religious influence finding its way into the national struc ture as an indigenous force tor moral and social reconstruc tion. In the onrush of these rapidly flowing currents of the national life, the myriads of Japan's people have been thrown about by these unseen determiners ot their own and the na tion's destinies toward life goals of happiness and sorrow, of failure and success. In the person of Toyohiko Kagawa the ebb and flow of the tides of the social struggle seem to appear in their crucial significance, and the social tendencies for a large part of Japan may be seen as a reflection in his own solu tions of life's problems. In a class-room presentation of a series of lectures on the subject of Sociology ~ Invention, William F. Ogburn of the University of Chicago, made the statement that one of the great marvels in the field of sociology is the fact that Japan, in spite of her long period of isolation, was able to 3 receive the flood of culture goods which she did receive and still live as a nation with as much of her own culture as Japan reveals today. That this was possible is due probably to the con scious intent with which this nation set out, not only to receive but to seek these goods of invention, of knowledge, and of religion; and it may be due to a process of selection, --conscious in large degree,--ot the things she wished to keep as her own. That process has not yet ended, and the crashing currents of World War II may yet reveal that the true nature of the social structure is one of turbulent flux, rather than that of the rigid and mechanical construction known as Kokutai,--the national body built on the remnants ot Bushido, the code ot teudal militarism. The rapid influx of foreign culture influences set in motion equally strong counter forces within the social structure with the result that certain tendencies in the social, economic and religious areas of Japanese life have come to the surface. The violence of the changes and the strength of the ancient heritage have brought about a search tor values by the leaders of the nation -- values which will fit in with those of ancient tradition, and yet will enhance their significance in the light of modern civilization. The masses merely move on in the stream of life in which they are engulfed. The few carry on the search tor meaning, and 4 attempt to bring some of the forces of social interaction in to control for the greatest good of the nation. Various studies have been made of isolated and spe cialized phases of Japanese cultural life by both native and foreign students. These have served to identify and to iso late certain elements in the socio-religious and the socio economic structure of the nation. In the long run, however, they have served to give a segmented picture of the nation. Her eccentricities and her differences have been accentuated, and the nature of the total life struggle has been lost. In the life of a leader, like Toyohiko Kagawa, how ever, there is seen the picture of a nation engaged in the struggle for survival in the maelstrom of international life, and of a nation frequently at cross-purposes with herself in the resolution of her national problems. As a citizen of his nation, he has risen to her defence and claimed the right to criticize her as well. As a Christian, and thus related to the ideals of a world fellowship, he has helped to mould the structure of his nation in the direction of supra-national values in social reconstruction. As one expression of leadership in Japan, Kagawa may seem to represent but an insignificant portion of the total scene. In the life of one individual, however, he has reached out into the life of the masses, and has dared to challenge constructively the very structure which has been 5 thought sacred. The various areas of his life activity - the cross-currents of the social forces that have played on his life -- these appear as the scenes of a drama, unfolding themselves on a stage, of a nation's people in conflict and in turmoil. It is these areas of social conflict and change as seen by Kagawa that are the object of this study. The books that have been written about Toyohiko Kagawa are not very numerous. The larger part of these have been written with apologetic intent from the standpoint of theol ogy and from the standpoint of social religion. He has been described as a Christian samurai, a saint, an Oriental mys tic. To theological orthodoxy, he is a dubious Christian. To liberalism, he is a strange phenomenon. To both, he is a problem because he combines the scientific concepts of the istic evolution with the Bible language of salvation through "the Blood of the Cross." There is need for an understanding of Kagawa as but one man of the Orient, yet a significant man, who, like many of his fellowmen, does not accept the values and the goods of Occidental culture at their face value. There is evident a process of selection, on the individual and on the national level, in regard to Christian philosophical and theological concepts as well as their implications for social living. To judge this process of selection and the ultimate integra tion ot cultural elements of permanence, largely in the light 6 of the established patterns of the West, would be to miss the significance of the radical changes that are in the making in a country like Japan. The desired goal of understanding involves an acceptance of the details of the process with a minimum of interpretation. There has been much misunderstanding of Japan due, in large part, to an unwillingness in many circles to consider the basic nature of her cultural changes, and to regard the present results as inscrutable and strange. The significance of Kagawa himself has been over-appreciated on the one hand, and under-estimated on the other. The apparently different nature of his life integration on a Christian socio-religious plane has been strongly lauded, and just as strongly de nounced. A more objective approach is greatly needed. While this study involves a detailed and organized analysis of the significant factors in the life of Kagawa, it does not undertake to go into biographical detail, except as relevant data arise from the study in its larger aspects. It is believed that all data relating to the social, eco nomic, and religious tendencies being studied should be brought together as objectively as possible. A biographical study could well be the subject of other research in view of the inadequacy of present materials in the English language. This study is not intended to be an analysis of the total Japanese social structure with all of its ramifications. 7 It is rather an attempt to view through the life activities of one man some of the outstanding tendencies of the forces at work in Japanese life in the areas of social maladjustment and conflict. The life and activities of Kagawa are the de limiting factors of this study of the social structure, and at the same time. the sources which reveal information con cerning the impact of the Christian Movement on the lives of individuals in Japan. II. THE PLAN The presentation of the materials of this study will involve a discussion of the socio-ethical heritage of the feudal period and the related problems of the modern Japa nese environment into which Kagawa was born; a study of the crisis periods of his life and their influence on the nature of his leadership and on the development of a philosophy of life; a survey of some of the tendencies in the socio economic areas of urban and rural communities; and an exam ination of some ethico-religious emphases involving the Christian Church in Japan, and Kagawa's place in it. It is proposed to consider the various phases of the study under the chapter headings and in the statement of the problems in the following sections. l. Til! Purpose ~ Plan of lli Study. In this present section the purpose, the plan, the 8 method, and the materials of the study are considered. There is further the presentation of a harmony of the life of Kagawa, so that the data of this study may be kept in mind more clearly. 2. !a! Socio-ethical Structure £! Modern Japan. An understanding of the five great streams of socio et~ical influence in pre-Meiji Japan and their relation to the present social structure is important to a knowledge of the mod~rn problems of the nation. The indication of a social conscience in the Meiji program, and the subsequent reversion to a feudally based modern social body, or Kokutai, reveal the nature of the social order into which Kagawa was thrown, and against which he spent his energy. 3. Origins £! Leadership in !h! ~ £! Kasawa. Social interaction is a thing not only of large groups of people, but of individual lives as well. Persons are affected, and in turn affect society to a greater or lesser extent. In the person of Kagawa, Japan has felt the impact of a counter current in her social structure, which has de manded a horizontal social emphasis of love on an equality with the vertical emphasis of loyalty in the Kokutai struc ture. 4. Building ~ Philosophy £! Life ~ !h! Slums. The significance of Kagawa's life in the slums has been variously estimated, but the study of his contacts, his 9 meditations and his activities in the slums show how gradual was the integration of his concepts and his program for the amelioration of the social ills of his people. The urge to give expression to the new-found hope of God-as-Love in his cataclysmic conversion experience, at first impulsive and ill-defined, gave way to a philosophy of lite and a plan of action. 5. !!! Approaches !2 ~ Problems of !a! Laborer. The development of a national conscience in regard to social justice has been a slow process in modern Japan be cause of the lord-serf concept in all social relationships. It had been intended to nullify that concept by the edict of 1868. Leaders before Kagawa had worked in this area, but the movement for social improvement of the masses seemed to make little headway. To it Kagawa applied the philosophy of love. 6. Emancipating the Japanese Peasant. In the process of unravelling the complicated social strands which were found in the slums, Kagawa was guided to the vast hinterland of rural distress, which fed the slums, flooded the labor market, filled the licensed quarters, and jeopardized the national welfare. The solution of this problem on the basis of his love-of-soil,-neighbor,-God principles is in line with early solutions, yet points the way to modern improvement of rural conditions. 10 7. Toward ~ Reconstruction~ the Social Order. The socio-ethical principle of mutual aid is a prin ciple as valid in social organization as that of conflict. In his studies of plant and animal life and the laws of the universe, Kagawa sees the constructive force of mutual sup port. and is endeavoring to make it real in the social struc ture of modern Japan. To bring his principles of cooperation to realization, his life is dedicated to the task or initi ating social movements on that basis in the various areas of economic, social and religious living in Japan. The Kagawa institutions are the expressions of both principles and movements. 8. Interpreting !h! Way £! Redemptive ~· Religion in Japan was conceived of largely as a Way, or Q2. rather than a Teaching, or !l2• The nature of the teaching of Jesus Christ as a Way of Life in the Kingdom of God fits into the basic pattern of the D~. The construction of a theology of Kagawa in the traditional words and system of theology is not impossible, but it does not do justice to the Way of Redemptive Love. In the problems of church union and religious syncretism, as well as Kagawa's Brother hood Movement, the tendencies in religious thinking find expression. 9. An Evaluation £! Kagawa and 1B! Changing Social Order in Japan. ll The study of Kagawa and some of the tendencies in the area of social, economic, and religious living in Japan re veals a social structure which is subject to the processes of social interaction in spite of the rigid controls of the loyalty-centered national body. The concept of love has found a place in the life of Japan and demands an adjustment in the social structure to meet the changed situation. Many changes already wrought in the Japanese social order have come as a result of the impact of the Christian Movement of the West. The future of the Christian Church in Japan, how ever, may lie in the direction of the Kagawa emphasis on the Way of Redemptive Love and the pattern of his Brotherhood ~ovement. The plan of this study, then, is to look at the life and work of Toyohiko Kagawa as a valid expression of the process of social interaction in a changing period of Japa nese national life, and to seek therein the clues to those values which may be accepted as permanent or indigenous. The place of the masses in the social structure, and the development of a national conscience for an order based on social justice, may be seen as in process of realization. III. THE METHOD In the research work of this study the approach is a modified form of the participant observation method of 12 social research, in which the writings and addresses of Toyohiko Kagawa are used as the field notes and the docu mentary data relevant to the study. The personal experience of the writer and his participation in the problems of the Japanese social situation during two decades of life in Japan provide the participant observation of the social or der and the basis for the selection of the materials of this study. The participant observation method of research was used by R. s. and H. M. Lynd 1 from the standpoint of socio logical investigation; it was also used by J. F. Embree2 from the standpoint of cultural anthropology. These were studies of American and Japanese culture groups in limited urban and rural areas for the purpose of securing an inte grated picture of the community life. In this study, the aim is to examine the life of the larger nation-group in order to gain an understanding of significant tendencies in the area of the social, economic and religious life of that group. The outstanding characteristics of participant obser vation as a method of gathering and interpreting data are as 1 R. s. and H. M. Lynd, Middletown, and Middletown in Transition, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1929 and 1937). -- 2 J. F. Embree, Suyemura, a Japanese Village, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939). follows: 3 a. It involves observation from within the social group by one who has come from without -- it is "dual observation and synthetic interpretation" according to Bogardus. 13 b. It is an objective observation ot all phases of group life, whether it be of primitive or modern society or a committee meeting. c. It considers the group selected as a laboratory in which the exterior and material elements, and the more intangible, subjective and introspective elements of living are recorded. d. It utilizes any and all techniques in the gathering of data -- documents, life history, statistics, case studies, etc. e. It is the study of trends in developing and on moving social activities, and is not a study of static institutions. f. Its purpose is the presentation of a dynamic and functional study of life. g. Scientific imagination, psychological analysis and historical interpretation take the place of instruments of precision and mensurative procedures in the natural sciences. It is proposed to adopt this general approach in a modified form for the study of certain tendencies in the Jap- anese social structure of the modern period. In a sense, the emphasis of this method on "observation from within the so cial group by one who has come from without" might seem to 3 This summary is a composite statement of the opin ions of E. s. Bogardus, Introduction to Social Research, c. L. Fry, The Technigue of Social Investigation, c. A. Ellwood, MethOds in Socio!Osz. Hader and Lindeman, Dynamic Social Research. 14 be inapplicable to this study, because the materials of the study are the one hundred or more volumes of Kagawa's writ ings and addresses. This record of observations of the social interactions of the group are from within the group by one who is within. The selection and assembling of relevant data for the purposes of this investigation, however, is the work of an observer from within the group who has come from without. There is thus a two-fold selection, one a natural selection in the process of living, and the other, a studied selection on the basis of experience within the group with a view to lifting out some of the strands of the social life for an evaluation of their direction. In this sense, it is believed that the method is valid, and may be helpful in giving a truly synthetic interpretation of the more intangible and subjective elements of the social situation in Japan. IV. THE N.:ATERIALS The materials for this study have already been indi cated as being the writings of Toyohiko Kagawa and his ad dresses. These volumes in the Japanese originals and English translations, as well as English originals are the primary source materials. They constitute the notes on the vast amount of historical and statistical information needed, and give the intangible factors required for a valid interpreta- tion of the inner life of the people. Where they do not give the necessary data, other sources, both Japanese and foreign, in this field have been utilized. 15 The writings of Kagawa may be classified as follows: a. Autobiography b. Poetry c. Studies in the Old and New Testaments d. Philosophical and psychological essays on the problems of society e. Essays on the Christian solution of social problems f. Essays on social movements The great bulk of his writing came in the two decades following 19lg, from the age of thirty-one onward. After 1g09, the year of his taking up slum residence, he wrote little. These early records, though few, are very valuable. The thoughts of this early period, reaching back to the days of his conversion and into the first few years of slum resi dence appear in his autobiography, Crossins ~ Death Line. This was his title, and is also a basic thought in his phi losophy of life, picturing as it did a physical and spiritual crisis. Its translation, published some years later, has been called, Before~ ~. 4 A book of poems which are the out-pouring of a heart in sorrow over social injustice is called Songs~~ Slums. 5 These are interpretations 4 T. Kagawa, Before ~ ~· (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924). , 5 T. Kagawa, Songs~ the Slums, interpreted by Lois Erickson, (London: Student Christian MOvement Press, lg35). 1-75 PP• rather than exact translations of Kagawa's poems, by Lois Erickson. There were three other volumes in this early decade one on poverty, and two on Christian teaching. 16 The period of prolific writing began in 1919, a few years after his return from study at Princeton University in the years 1914-1915, at which time he made studies of the social settlements of America and Great Britain. Some fifty two volumes came from his pen during this period, and cover the following subjects: a. Social and labor movements, six volumes b. The problem of suffering, pain, disease, and social reconstruction, fourteen volumes c. The Christ-like life and its application to social problems, thirty-two volumes In the third period of his writing, beginning in 1929, he wrote fully as many books, and in addition went about the country-side in cooperation with the churches on evangelistic crusades. The books dealt with the themes of the previous decade, but had added-emphases as his social movements began to expand. The subject matter may be divided as follows: a. Social, labor, medical problems, thirteen volumes, b. The problem of suffering, and social reconstruc tion, eleven volumes, c. The Christ-like life, and religious education for child and adult, sixteen volumes, d. Public addresses on various subjects, fifteen pamphlets, e. Translations ot American and British books of religion and science, fifteen volumes. These three periods of literary productivity are an invaluable record ot the Japan of the modern era, as a 1? revelation of the surging social currents coursing through Japanese life. These currents sought expression in a social order of the masses, as well as in the ancient national-body of the military minority. The record of these currents and of the efforts of one man to re-direct them for individual, as well as national, good is revealed therein. There appear in these notes of Kagawa a recognizable and progressive emphasis in meeting the challenges of the new areas of investigation. The main currents of his thought and response to social need seem to appear in the following order: a) The problem of cosmic evil, pain and suffering, b) The solutions offered by a Christ-like life, c) The analysis of poverty, its origins and nature, d) The struggle of labor, and materialistic philosophy, e) The inter-relation of rural and urban communities, f) MUtual aid and conflict as social concepts, g) Redemptive love and the Christian Church. As has been stated, this study is not a biographical investigation as such, but from the few biographical writ ings that have appeared, an outline of life data can be gathered together to show the inter-relationship of the vari ous phases of this study. The chief materials in this field are Wm. Axling's, Kagawa, which is the most complete, Helen Topping's, Introducing Kagawa, J. K. Van Baalen•s, Kagawa, !h! Christian, and several brief introductory sketches, as prefaces to Kagawa's books. None of these is a true 18 biography, and the writing of such a work remains a task for the future. There are some few materials in Japanese, but here again there is little more added. In none of the materials available is there a complete ordering of the life data in a time sequence with clearly stated dates. It has therefore become necessary to check and recheck the materials, written as biography, with the scat tered references which Kagawa himself has made concerning his lite in his many works. The record of his conversion expe rience and his early thoughts appear in his autobiographical novel in the story of Eiichi Niimi. The dates and months there assigned are on the whole true, but year sequences are less accurate because of the need tor telescoping the events into a shorter compass. His conversion, his crossing the death-line, and his entrance into slum residence are crowded into one year -- five years are actually involved. The dates used by both Kagawa and writers are some times on the basis of Japanese count, and sometimes on the basis of the actual count. In order to clarify the sequence ot life events, the problem of securing a harmony of dates has not been insignificant. Japanese count is the age-count in common use in the general life of Japan. A child at birth is one year of age. At the turn of the year, at New Year, each person adds another year to his age. A child born on December 31 is two years old on January first. 19 Because the school opens on April 1 of each year. and children seven years of age on April 1 are eligible for en- try. a child born in July, as was the case with Kagawa. is normally delayed a year. Thus there is sometimes a falsifi cation of birth dates to overcome this handicap. Kagawa states concerning his entry into Middle School. that he en- tered at the age of ten years and nine months, having "lied" by saying that he was eleven years of age. 6 This again made him younger than his class, which resented his presence. and likewise he, theirs. For this study the problem of a harmonization of dates has been difficult because of the two ways of counting used, and because there are very few definite month-day-year dates. In this study the actual dates have been determined on the basis of the dominant facts, and where question exists it is indicated by that mark. It has been possible to work out a generally reliable harmony which is appended. The usual form of statement by the biographers is "when he was 2 years of age" or "at the age of 17". In the strict calculation of age dates such counting is confusing, inasmuch as Toyohiko Kagawa, born on July 10, 1888, while only five months and twenty-one days old on January 1, 1889, 6 T. Kagawa, ~ Challenge £!Redemptive ~· (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1940). p. 75. TABLE I 20 A HARMONY OF LIFE DATA CONCERNING THE LIFE OF TOYOHIKO KAGAWA CHILD HOOD IE.AR JAPANESE COUNT ,1888 i 1892 I '1894: :1898 ; l 5 7 11 PERIOD :1899 1899 12 12 1902 15 I 1903 16 I CON- i 1904 !VERSION! PERIOD I 11905 17 17 18 18 19 20 ~~ I 1 PERIOD OF SLUM LIFE 1906 '1907 1908 21 1909 22 22 1909 22 1913 26 ·1914 27 1914 27 1916 29 1921 34 EVENTS - Parents' deaths - SINO-JAPANESE WAR -Brother died of tuberculosis, Korea Feb. ? - Arrival of Dr. Logan - Kagawa entered the Bible Class(English) - Prayed seven months Jan. 31 - RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR - Disinherited by tmc le - Lung hemorrhage Apr-lay - !aft ~iji G&kuin - illness - Entered Kobe Seminary March - Visited slums alone iJ,By - J,Brried Haruko - WORLD WAR I o. Organized LABOR SCHOOLS, newspaper I 1---- - T924 ______ 37- - -- -- ______ ::_~~--~P -~r~J.zed 1925 38 May 25 - Manhood Suffrage Bill passed ' - Japan LABOR PARTY organized \PERIOD 1927 40 I OF '1928 41 I - All-Japan ANTI-WAR LEAGUE !PUBLIC 41 June I LIFE 1929 42 I - All-Japan PEASANT UNION formed I il93l January - To China 1934 March - To the Philippines P3 P4,Q Pl2 L,R R,Q. P7 P'l,Q R,Q X Q,Pl2 Pl Pl P4 P2 P4 EVENTS ACTUAL COUNT ---r-7=-J--::-~----------------------- 0 July 10 - BmTH in Kobe 4 - Removal to the anoes tral home ~.x 6 10 July 10 - Functioned as head of family in social affairs,and collection of farm rentals .1 10 April l - Entered :Middle School, gave age as 11 ~--~--- 11 ! July - Removed to uncle 1 s home, Tokushima Q.,P4 L Q~R L~Q 'I - Kagawa family in financial ruin il----------0 -- ----------- ----- --------------------- ---- ! 13 Feb. ? - Katayama Christian teacher influence Q i ' i r 1 14 July 10 - Birthday 15 July 10 - Birthday 15 Aug. - Dr. Myers: Lk:.12:37, nconsider the 15 15 16 17 17 18 18 19 20 20 lilies"-step toward conversion Jan. - Challenge to Kagawa: "coward" Feb. 14?- Baptism July 10 - Birthday Sept. - Enter Meiji Gakuin July 10 - Birthday April July 10 - Birthday - Gamagori fishing village one year - CROSSING THE DEATH-LINE July 10 - L,R R,P X,R,P4 X,Q for P7,X,R 21 ! Oct. 5 - Preached on Motomachi:"GOD IS LOVE 11 -fainted 21 25 25 26 28 Dec • 24 - Moved to Shinkawa slums Dec. 21 - Haruko baptized July - Went to Princeton University - Returned to the Shinka:wa slums - -- X,~ X,Q,R Q R,Pl,U,Q, P,R,Q JYEAR ! 11888 ! 1892 ·1894 1898 1899 1899 1899 1902 1902 1903 1903 1904 1904 1905 1906 1907 1907 1908 1909 1909 1909 1913 1914 1914 1916 1921 July - Left the slums after 14 years~ 8 mo. T~P3 1924 -t 36 I 36 39 Fall 40 41 Fall - Speech of criticism at Religions Meet - Vision of the KINGDOM OF GOD MOVEMENT - Five years of K. of G. MOVEMENT with the Churches begun P4 P4 1925 1927 1928 1928 1929 :1936 ~February - To Australia 1--------'---- ------- J ------- . - ---. -., ____________ d_ -~- I ~~ber: i~~i~ ~~:~a~:~;rop~---- 1931 1934 1936 jl941 SOURCES: L - Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive ~ P - Kagawa, Iddresses in Pamphlets i X - Kagawa, Before the Dawn 1----L--- ---------- --- --------. - -"""""""'-~-- Q - Wm. Axling, Kagawa R - H.Topping,Introduclng Kaga.wa S - Satchell, Introduction to Before the Dawn T - M. Baumann U - V~ ~_lLf\_~en, --~_g__~-~~ Christian 21 was two years old on that date. After a full year had passed, on July 10, 1889, he was one year old actual count, but still two years old by Japanese count. The harmony helps to avoid confusion, and establishes time sequence especially in the early conversion period. The life or Kagawa may be divided into tour major divisions for the purposes of this study. They are as fol lows: 1. The period of childhood in the ancestral home. 2. The period of conversion and crossing the death line. 3. The period of slum residence. 4. The period of public life and activity. V. DEFINITION OF TERMS By way of definition of the terms used in the study, it may be stated that the term "modern Japan" is intended to include the period from 1890 to 1941, or the immediate pres ent, in particular, and the period from 1858 to 1889, known as the Restoration and post-Restoration periods, or the Meiji and post Meiji periods. By "tendencies" it is understood that the objects of this study are to be the indications of direction in the social currents and problems, which may ultimately, as they become part of the conscious or unconscious behaviour pat- terns of the larger community, express themselves as clearly defined trends over longer periods of thrust into the future 22 of the social structure. In the areas of the social, economic and religious relationships of the social order, many of these currents have moved on their way controlling the life of the masses ot Japan, yet were often held in check by the super-imposed feudal order of the samurai-system for the benefit of the minority upper-strata of society. The policies of Meiji set tree many social currents, which in turn were affected by the influx of Occidental culture, so that even today it is difficult to determine positive trends, but tendencies can be discerned. The focal point of the study is Kagawa and his expe riences in the socio-economic, socio-ethical, and the ethico religious areas of the social structure. These currents arising out of the past influenced him, and he in turn helped to re-direct them. CHAPl'ER II THE SOCIO-ETIUCAL STRUCTURE OF MODERN JAPAN The social currents whose direction and tendencies it is our purpose to consider are part of the long history of the Japanese nation, and reach back into the centuries before Christ. There are three general characteristics of the people as seen in their social organization which may be thought of as unchanged, and thus permanent through the life of the nation. One is the tribal and communal nature of the social structure. The pattern of the family-group, including sll the immediate blood relatives wherever they may be living, as well as the husband-wife-children unit, is a basic oriental pattern, which in Japan has been developed into a strong nation-family concept. In the days preceding recorded history, the simple agricultural life was organized and directed only by the wishes and interests of the family-commune with little inter relation between communes. This made for small groups with distinctive characteristics. This family-pattern has car ried the emphases and the peculiarities of the early group lite into the larger nation-family pattern of the modern period. It has also made it relatively easy for the feudal clan-pattern to maintain its hold on the masses into the 24 modern period. A second dominant characteristic which would seem to be innate in the social structure is the tendency to aggres sive activity more than to purely meditative contemplation. It is possible that the racial mixture of Mongolian, Negrito, and Caucasian blood in the Japanese race, as indicated by Sansom, 7 may have produced this quality. That early migra tions came from both the north and the south into Japan seems fairly certain, and in each ease the incessant struggle against the forces of nature have served to emphasize this trait. To the Japanese the bases of ethical behaviour are found in proper action, rather than metaphysics and pure con- templation. Tsurumi has given expression to some of the elements in this quality as follows: A philosophy for a Japanese is not a pure system of metaphysical thought but is a thing that is to be trans lated into daily conduct ••• The Japanese by nature are not good philosophers. They are more artistic than scientific and are not given to abstract meditation. It was not so much any philosophy or system of morals that counted among the Japanese, as the fact that they could lead contented and peaceful lives as individuals and as a nation for many centuries; and they have a strong resistance whenever their peace of mind and peace of community life have been disturbed by foreign opinions alien to their mode of life. New ideas could find a permanent place only after they were adjusted to Japanese 7 G. B. Sansom, Japan. ~ Short Cultural History, (London: The Cresset Press, 1S36), PP• 4-6. life and thus served to strengthen and perpetuate the individual and community life of the country.s 25 Ethical teaching finds expression in a Way rather than in a system of philosophical thought. The Way of !a! ~ is a modern emphasis of an old theme; Shinto is the Way£!~ Gods, or the Gods-way; Bushido is the Way of !a! Warrior; Kyokakudo is the Way £! Chivalry. In each case the emphasis is action on the basis of certain accepted prin ciples, often accepted intuitively, rather than argued logically. A true systematization of ethical, theological or philosophical thought is not the common tendency in Japan. The Way or ~ concept recognizes certain ends to be at tained and principles, which to a logical mind are abstract and abstruse to attain those ends. But action is the defi- nite result. A third characteristic which is fundamental in the social structure is a certain open-heartedness, or naivete, underneath the apparent stolidity and etiquette of the Japa nese. It is a willingness to receive the new and different in thought, invention and religious concepts. This may be thought of as tolerance on the one hand and as syncretism on the other. It moves in either direction until the point of conflict with the pre-established culture patterns becomes 8 Y. Tsurumi, Present Day Japan, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926), p. 38. 26 evident. If radical change is demanded, then extreme intol erance and opposition follow, and the processes of selection of the desirable and the destruction of the undesirable set in in earnest. In this study these dominating qualities of the people will appear often in many varied forms. This chapter under takes to lift out some of the significant factors in the socio-ethical development of the nation before the time of Kagawa as seen in the five great currents of socio-ethical influence of the feudal period, and the great social change in the modern Meiji era. I. THE FEUDAL HERITAGE The feudal heritage of the Japanese social structure is of course a continuation of the centuries of life as a clan people, reaching back to some two thousand six hundred years, of which almost one thousand years have been unre corded. The complete annals of the development of the nation have not been made available to historians and in all prob ability many important records may yet be uncovered in the private vaults of great families or the temples of Buddhism. In recent years official research did reveal an unknown emperor of the primitive era. The written record of Japanese cultural life is found in the two writings known as the Kojiki, Record£! Ancient 27 Things. and the Nihopgi. Record of Japan. Both of these records were made a century or more after Buddhism had taken over both the religious and sovernmental controls of the na tion in the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era. They give a picture in the language of mythology of the social structure of that period, and may be seen to re veal somewhat of the nature of the struggle of early Shinto, with Confucian and Buddhist thought. to reassert itself. By the time of the Restoration in 1868 there ware five major currents in the life of the nation that contributed to make up what may be called the feudal heritage. 1. THE SHINTO ORIGINS The picture of early Japanese life as given in the early records of Japan. in the shrine rituals, in archeology and in Chinese sources, is that of a simple agricultural people. The earliest religious expressions indicate that, while the primitive form of Shinto is a worship of nature and nature forces, there had already developed a form of institutional Shinto by the time of the extant records. This form of Shinto was administered by classes of priests as an act of government or matsurigoto, a word which originally meant ''religious observances" and is still used with the shrine festivals of Japan. Religion and government were both included under the name, matsurigoto. The simple religion of worship of the myriads of spirits and nature 28 deities was an individual as well as a community affair. The institutional form became the province of a class of priests, who later rose in the defence of their sphere of control over religious observance against the incursions of extraneous social and religious forces. The social organization of early Japan was simple and not on a high level of culture. Sansom concludes his study of this period as follows: The scanty population was distributed in small groups of dwelling houses along the coast or on the banks of streams •• Rice was cultivated, and rice spirit (sake} was made from very early times •• Though fishing and hunting were important means of food supply, it seems that the population from an early date was formed into settle agricultural communities, for in the recital of the offences committed by Susa-no-wo we find the first place given to breaking down the divisions between rice fields, diverting the water supply, sowing tares, and other misdeeds which are prec~sely those most abhorrent to an agricultural community. These small communities were the early clans, or uji, groups or families bound together by blood-ties and by the worship of the clan-god, or uji-gami, to be distinguished from ~ B£ ~· or head of the clan. The uji-gami was usually a protecting or tutelary deity of the immediate family. The question of ancestor worship as a part of the early religious life of the people, as well as the problem of emperor-worship, has been variously argued, because of g Sansom,££· cit •• p. 44. 29 the tact that ancestor-worship is seen as a part of the group life at the time the records open in the eighth century. While it is beyond the province of this study to take up this discussion and its details, it is necessary to trace the development as tar as can be done from the standpoint of the early social organization. Anesaki has stated concerning the relationship of nature deities to ancestral deities as follows: The clan was called the uji, which meant birth or blood relationship, and each of the native clans kept its native soil and communal cult. The clan deity (uji-gami) was conceived as the progenitor of the uji, or as the tutelary spirit of the locality; in many cases the local chthonian deity was identified with the an cestral. Many clans derived their descent from a certain nature-god, such as the spirit of water or wind, as there was no sharp distinction between a deity and a spirit of the dead.l0 The position of Sansom on this same point emphasizes the lack of clarity and system in these early religious practises. His view is of more than passing interest because of its possible implications concerning tendencies in social reorganization which may take place in the post-war period. Ancestor-worship, as practised in Japan, is a cult imported from China. The objects of worship of the early Japanese were nature deities and not their own deified ancestors. It is true that the noble families claimed descent from the gpds whom they worshipped, but making your god into an ancestor and making your ancestor into a god are not the same thing •• In no case do we find, 10 M. Anesaki, The History of Japanese Religion, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner7 l930), p. 34. 30 before the introduction of the Chinese cult, instances of the worship of deified men by the descendants.ll Holtom writing on the subject of sun-worship indicates a similar account of the situation when he says, Sun worship was the center of the religious-economic life of the rice-culture people of Kyushu whom we find on the scene when Japanese pre-history opens. In the course of time these Southerns conquered central Japan and set up a succession of capitals in that district.l2 With their advances into new territories these people sought to control the clans to the north-east and the north-west by an emphasis on the worship of the sun-goddess, as ancestress of the conquerors. The long history of emperor-worship to the modern era has been one of struggle and education to bring the social structure into line -- in other words, em peror-worship has not been the belief of the masses of the people in the Japanese islands. Sun worship and emperor worship were not synonymous for all of the many clans. There are many studies of this development from the standpoint of comparative religion, and trom the standpoint of the national structure, or the Kokutai, but from the standpoint of the larger social structure including the masses as well as the military ruling class, not many inves tigations have been made. 11 Sansom, op. cit., pp. 53 12 D. c. Holtom, Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,-r943), p. 58. 31 The early social structure had the minimum or organi zation and sought the maximum of freedom within the clan group. The moral pattern is also that of the clan-family relationship in which the family-welfare rather than the individual welfare was paramount. Its (Shinto) morality is based upon the sanctity of the communal life amounting to adoration of blood kin ship and the observance of social rules. The individual is almost nothing in the face of the community, and un reasoning submission to social sanction is the condition of the individual life. Authority and tradition, not person and conscience, are the ultimate foundation of morality.l3 From this basic principle of submission to the family will and later to the nation-will, have come many of the distinctive features of the socio-ethical structure of Japan. Through the centuries many new social forces have come upon the Japanese scene, but regardless of their good qualities for the elevation of the individual, the ultimate test has been their ability to adjust themselves to the family-will. The contribution of early Shinto as a socio-ethical force can hardly be systematized or defined. It must be described in rather general terms as has been done by Nitobe, Harada, Anesaki and others. A summary ot what Nitobe under stands Shinto to be gives a picture of the rather loose-knit character of a social structure built upon it as a founda- 13 Anesaki, ~· £11•• p. 36. tion. He has enumerated seven points as follows: 1. The Japanese people are imbued with religious "sentiment" -- the creed of the Japanese is incapable of concise statement. 2. Shinto is kokuju, an old custom of the entire land, a compact bundle of primitive instincts of the race. 3. Shinto is the religion of the reigning house, matsurigoto, or government. 32 4. It is "being like gods," kami-nagara; the words hiko and hime mean sons and daughters of light, and the kami (godsr-lie between super-man and superhuman being. 5. There is no concept of sin, only a belief in the innate purity of the human soul. 6. Shinto instead of "formulating a creed leaves to each worshipper the formulation of his creed. Each may cull whatever flower his fancy loves and carry it in his bosom." 7. It has an "easy-going ethics verging on moral in difference" which was taken advantage of by Confucianism and Buddhism. A struggle between the three resulted, and when peace was restored "Shinto received the dominion of public ceremonies, Buddhism, of religion, and Con fucianism of ethics."l4 The statement that Shinto has no concept of sin, how ever, was probably intended as a comparison with the Chris tian concept of sin, for in Shinto the concept of moral evil is very weak, and a consciousness of the moral nature of sin with a sense of individual and social responsibility is almost entirely lacking. 14 I. Nitobe, The Japanese Nation, (New York: Putnam and Sons, 1912), pp. 117 tf. 33 There are three categories of evil, namely kegare, or pollution, largely of a ceremonial nature such as the pollu tion of child-birth, or death and the like, requiring cleans- ing; ashiki ~· or evil deeds; and wazawai, or calamities of nature and of disease. The word used in the Christian churches for sin is tsumi, which in fact means an act subject to criminal procedure in the courts. Harada has stated that "Hatred of sin and love of righteousness have been but feebly felt." 15 To both Nitobe and Sansom evil is largely ceremonial uncleanness. Evil is identi tied with defilement, something foreign to the soul •• As there is no third party-- say a wrath ful god to propitiate, or a redeemer to atone -- and as the evil in his mind is only an accident so to speak, the problem •• is easy of solution. He can blow it off {harai) like dust, or wash it off {misogi) like a stain and re gain purity.~6 In Sansom's view the social implications of such a ceremonial view of evil and wrong are great, inasmuch as the principles of early Shinto seem to shine through as basic, even when they seem least evident. The early religion is almost entirely deficient in abstract ideas of morality. Its code is not ethical, but customary and ceremonial •• Out of the early concep tion of morality grows the whole complex of religious and social organization in later times, shaping and 15 T. Harada, The Faith of Japan, (New York: Mac millan and Company, 1914), pp. 169 ff. 16 Nitobe, ££• £!!•• p. 125. modifying even the powerful inf~uence of Chinese phi losophy and Buddhist doctrine. 34 Related to this characteristic of early Shinto is the indifference to any systematic statement of theological thought, as indicated by Nitobe's religious "sentiment" and "bundle of primitive instincts." Its polydemonistic struc- ture with some eighty myriad of deities could hardly give a concise picture of the nature of the soul, or of the soul in relation to the divine. Thus the soul is conceived of as consisting of two parts, one the mild, refined and happy soul, or nigi-mitama, and the other the rough soul, or ara-mitama. "The former cares for its possessor's health and prosperity, while the latter performs adventurous tasks or even malicious deeds." 18 This simple concept of the soul is seen in the divided nature of the personality concepts of the present, as private and public opinions of the person, as the soldier who loves the child and the cherry blossom in sentimental love and who is also the ruthless head-cutting warrior. In this early period of unchanged Shinto, then, the individual Japanese is seen as a person whose fine, as well as rough qualities, are taken as a matter of course, whose evil is more ceremonial than moral, and whose relation to 17 Sansom, £2• cit., p. 51. 18 Anesaki, ~·cit., p. 40. the gods is that of a communal protector-ship, and whose social responsibility is based on the family or the clan good, rather than on individual happiness. 35 Shinto is the religion of myriads of nature deities, some of which are the special deities of combined families, or ko, and of the larger clans, or uji. Such a tutelary deity was not an ancestor until the ancestor concept of Con fucianism gained dominance. It seems that the reverence for the clan-head, uji-no kami, and the worship of the clan-god, uji-gami, usually a nature deity, may have been combined. The combined power of the divine and the ancestral controls in the life of the clans tended to make for cohesion in the simple social structure and enabled it to cope with the influx of culture goods from higher culture areas. The basic native structure, though often subordinated, eventually emerged sufficiently strong to select that which seemed of worth and permanence to the great stream of Japanese life. This early period of a thousand years, more or less, was followed by another period of a thousand years, in which the flood of Chinese culture beginning about 285 A.D. with the arrival of the Analects of Confucius, and, continuing with the importation of Buddhism about 550 A.D., reached its peak by the acceptance of Buddhism as the state religion. This meant the submerging of Shinto as a dominating force. Throughout the entire second period, however, the 36 early structure sought re-expression, beginning with the first extant records in the Kojiki and the Nihopgi, which were in the nature of a defense and an apology, tracing the nation's development from the mythological period of the gods -- the sanctions of which remain to the present day. Four centuries later in this period, in 1186, the Minamoto established a military dictatorship which was of great importance to the nation. The Buddhist hierarchy lost prestige to a large ex tent •• The change was, in one of its aspects, a revival of the indigenous spirit, a revolt of the crude ideas and chivalric temper of the warriors and peasants living in the eastern provinces against the over-refinement of the aristocrats of Miyako. The Minamoto gave their clan cult a higher position and the people followed, which meant a renewal of the communal Shinto worship.lg Among the priests of the Shinto shrines there were some who sought to maintain the integrity of early religion. They supported the growing movement for the. revival of Shinto in the founding of the school of Urabe Shinto, a family of diviners, about 11g2, which continued through several cen turies. Another school, that of Watarai Shinto, or the priesthood of the outer shrines of Ise, made itself felt for an emphasis of old Shinto in the person of Nobuyoshi (1615- go). Another school, that of Suiga Shinto emphasized Con fucianism as the basis of Shinto, under the teachings of 1g Anesaki, ~· cit., pp. 167 ff. 37 Yamazaki Anzai.20 Probably the most concrete expression of the revival movement was the publication in two hundred and forty volumes of the Great History of Japan under the direction of Mitsukuni, Prince of Mito (1622-1700). This may be said to be the beginning of the third period of Shinto; which is known as the Revival of Ancient Learning, or Kogaku Fukko. In this movement scholars studied all available mate- rials, and tried to reach through the Confucian and Buddhist accretions of the preceding millenium in order to tap the root sources of Shinto. They were Kada Azamamaro (1669- 1736), Kamo Mabuchi (1697-1769), Motoori Norinaga (1730- 1801), and Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843). These men sought the fountain-head of "pure" Shinto, but in each case there was either a strong Confucian tinge. or an evident Buddhist coloration in their philosophy and teaching. There did result an emphasis on the early social sanctions of the god-centered clan life. There developed an attempt to make the Yamato-clan spirit the center of the nation's life. A form of national unification had been com- plated under Tokugawa Ieyasu, which began the period of the Shogunate. In this supremacy there was involved the break- 20 D. c. Holtom, The National Faith of Japan, (London: Kagan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1938),-pp. 39 ff. 38 down of the minor feudalism of some two hundred and sixty families to about a dozen such families, and the final emer gence of the Tokugawa as the ruling clan. This unification was in process at the time of the Jesuit incursion and annihilation, which resulted in a policy of national seclu sion. An emperor-centered Shinto had sought to rear its head, but, while he was accepted and reverenced, there was no cult of emperor-worship as in the present. This develop ment was to come when the Shogunate decayed, when inter national pressure through Admiral Perry provided the occa sion, and when the imperial clan was restored to power in the Restoration of 1868. The fourth period in Shinto development began with this event and witnessed the reconstruction of the feudal order with its system of loyalties-to-the-Shogun into a national body or structure, kokutai, with its system of loyalty-to-the-emperor. 2. THE ET!U CAL P!ULOSOP!UES OF CONFUCIANISM It is believed that the first important contributions of Chinese culture to Japanese civilization came after the first three centuries of the Christian era, and extended for several centuries after that. It is of interest to note that Confucianism, rather than Buddhism, was the first im portation of consequence out of the rich cultural and 39 religious heritage of that nation. Whether this was due to the entrance of Chinese literary and business families rather than Chinese priests may be a thing for history to reveal. That there was an appreciable influx of Chinese persons, as well as their culture, is known. In the sphere of culture there were many additions, one of the chief of which was the introduction of Chinese writing as an adaptation of the monosyllabic characters of the Chinese to the polysyllabic sounds of the Japanese language. The greatest change wrought by this inflow of a new culture was in the area of the social and ethical concepts. The simple obedience of child to parent yielded to the hier archy of Confucian loyalties. Family loyalty took the form of filial piety, and developed the proper relationships be tween father and son, husband and wife, brother and brother, members of one family to those of another. The fifth Confucian relationship, that of king and subject, was brought to bear on the inter-clan loyalties to secure the respect for the imperial clan. Japanese feudal ism developed this area of loyalty into a state concept such as was never realized in China an emperor-centered na- tionalism with the teaching of an imperial benevolence, and a nation of dutiful subjects with all loyalties totally 40 merged in that toward the emperor.21 The worship of the nature gods and the reverence toward the deceased became ancestor worship, making ancestors of clan-deities and deities of clan-heroes and leaders. There were elements of the Chinese culture which seemed to fit so directly into the primitive Japanese life as to seem almost fulfillments of a natural development. These were so natural, in fact, that scholars of the feudal period regarded the philosophical thought of the Chinese schools as the correct Shinto doctrine on which the protec tion and conservation of Japanese culture depended against the invasion of "foreign" culture elements. Brinkley quotes a Japanese historian, Abe Kozo, as saying: The practical civilization of China was accepted, but not her ethical code •• Already the principles of loyalty and obedience, propriety and righteousness, were recogniz~~ in Japan though not embodied in any written code. To a modern writer like Anesaki there was a parallel and interacting movement in the flow of these great streams. The seventh century marks an epoch in the rising Imperialism •• Not only did the rising influence of Confucianism and Buddhism contribute to the cause, but the old Shinto ideas were modified or elevated from 21 Tsurumi, ~· £!!·• p. 40. 22 F. Brinkley, A History of ~Japanese People, (New York: The Encyclopedia Britannica Company, 1914), P• 104. their association with the cl~g spirit to enhance the power of the Imperial regime. 41 In the period of Buddhist dominance. it, through those high in government who espoused its cause, sought to bring about a central authority under the imperial clan as against the traditional clan-structure. Buddhism helped to mould the Confucian concept of loyalties in the construction of a vertical social order in which the power of the ko, filial piety. became the chief virtue of the family, and the ~· loyalty to superior. the chief virtue in the growing nation-family system. One writer has stated that, "Even Buddhism did not hesitate to say, like some Confucianists, that the chu and the ko were the weight iest matter in life."24 In spite of the attempted synthesis by the three great currents toward an emperor-centered nationalism at this time, however, the clan-family bond of the feudal past expressed itself in the loyalties toward the Shogunate. Chinese thought found its counterpart in several schools of Japanese philosophy, which show further the nature of the cultural interaction of the two racial groups. Offi cialdom had accepted the philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200), 23 M. Anesaki. Katam Karaniyam, Essays, (Tokyo: The Herald Press, 1~34), p. 118. 24 s. Kiyohara, The History of Japanese Morals. (Tokyo: ChubunKwan Shotenr7 p. 4?1. through the efforts of a Japanese Buddhist priest (1561- 1619). The greatest teacher of this school, known as the Shushi school, was Kinoshita Junan (1621-98). The central emphasis is loyalty as a principle, and its definition of evil is disarrangement or confusion. 42 A short description of its chief emphasis by Anesaki is as follows: Virtue is nothing but a realization of the heavenly reason or order in human life; the cardinal virtues are filial piety, loyalty, and obedience, because every individual is bound by gratitude towards father, the lord, and the sage.25 The importance of loyalty as a subservience of the lower to the higher had significance for the nation, as it justified vassalage, depressed the place of woman, and tended to with draw government from the people, as has been the case to the present with minor exceptions. The second great school is known as the 0-Yomei School which followed the teaching of the Chinese scholar, Wang-Yang-Ming (1472-1529). In this school of thought meta- physics gave way to the concept of the thought-process as integral to the life-process, neither beyond it nor apart from it. The two principles of mind, (sin), and reason (li), are one, two parts of one process, knowing-acting, a con- tinuous response of the mind to a certain object. Chien Fu 25 Anesaki, ~· ill·, P• 270 •. 43 Lung has summarized its teaching as "knowing is the beginning and acting the end. n26 Brought into the Japanese frame of thought by its founder Nakae Toju (1608-1648), the sage of Omi, it taught the rule of conscience, and preached a subjective morality. Its belief that the reason (Japanese ri), and the spirit (!!),are one in resolute, determined conduct, was against the official Shushi School which said that reason (ri) di- recta in man's virtue. In the research of Kagawa, both in the realm of the ancient literature of his people and the behaviour patterns of the nation, it is revealed that the philosopher, Nakae Toju, personalized another synthesis of the early feudal period, namely that of the early communal Shinto ethical structure with the Jesuit Christian thought, even though he was not a Christian. The fusion of the early Shinto-Con fucian-Christian streams of thought is seen as follows: The father of the Japanese Oyomei school was Toju Nakae. In his Doctrine of Deus he definitely declares his faith in the fatherhood-or-one God who is infinite and absolute •• It is said that Nakae, until he was thirty-nine years of age, absented himself from all of Japan's shrines. At thirty-nine he paid his first homage at the Great Shrine of Ise. Why this disinclination to worship at the Shinto shrines? It was undoubtedly the result of Christian 26 Chien Fu Lung, The Evolution of Chinese Social Thought, (unpublished Doctor-or Philosophy Thesis, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1935), p. 294. 44 influence. He came under the influence of the Christian retainer of Chokusai Nakata whose master, the famous general Yukinaga Konishi, met a martyr's death at Kyoto because of his Christian faith. When the Tokugawa Shogunate decreed a persecution against Christians, Nakae resigned his government position. retired to Lake Biwa and devoted himself to educational pursuits. Fear of persecution led him to express his Christian convictions in the terminology of the Oyomei school. His great disciple, Banzan Kumazawa, came under the sus picion of the Tokugawa authorities and was imprisoned in his own home for seven years until his death. He also was greatly drawn to Christianity. Heaven, the idea which Nakae and his school made central in their system, and Which to the Japanese mind signifies the fundamental principle of the universe. became the force which finally overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate. The great leaders of the Meiji Restoration, such as Takamori Saigo and Shoin Yoshida, belonged to the Oyomei school of thought~ Many of this school accepted the Christian faith.2~ The term ~ referred to is the word used by the Jesuits to adequately express their concept of God as abso lute and unique, in contrast to the vague implication of the Japanese word for god or gods. namely. kami. The very use of the word in a treatise by a Confucian scholar as a private appropriation is indicative of a development in feudal religio-ethical thought which has been largely overlooked. A third great school based on Chinese philosophical thought is that known as the Classical School. which sought a return to original Confucianism purged of all the trans cendentalism gathered from its contacts with Buddhism. Yamaga Soko (1622-1685) was the chief exponent of this 27 T. Kagawa, Christ ~Japan. (New York: Friendship Press, 1934), pp. 98, 99. school, and systematized the ethics of Bushido by applying Confucianism to the principle of military science. 45 In passing, it is of importance to note that, in Yamaga Soko, the intangible spirit of the social structure, which has been a common heritage of the masses, is actually welded to a military system of the minority. It is this systematized chivalric-thought which produced the extreme emphasis in the loyalty-filial piety concept. Later, on this foundation, the new nationalism and the emperor-worship of the kokutai were to be reared. Kagawa, speaking of Yamaga Soko, has related his school of thought to the Christian movement as follows: He was the teacher of Yoshio Oishi, the central figure of the Forty-seven Ronin. His descendants have all been Christians and from them have come some of Japan's most effective Christian pastors.28 A descendant of the founder of Japanese Bushido, Yamaga Soko, name Yamaga Hatanoshin, is living as a teacher in Aoyama Gakuin, a Methodist school and his whole family is engaged in evangelistic activity. When General Nogi instituted a memorial service in honor of Yamaga Soko, it was done according to the Yasokyo [Jesus religion]. It is interes~~ng to note that Jesus is the fountain-head of Bushido. The finer elements of Japanese tradition and of the 28 Kagawa,~·£!!., p. 100. 2g T. Kagawa, Kami ni Yoru Shinsei, New Life Through God, (Shimonoseki: Fukuin Showan:-1g2g), p. 113. NOTE: The use of Japanese titles in footnotes indicates the use of the original and its translation by the writer of this study. 46 religions of Japan, including the Christianity of the early period, found their way into the amalgam of Bushido, but its dominant quality was the codification of a way of behavior for the warrior. Confucian ethical thought was paramount. These three major schools in Confucian thinking under went considerable modification in Japanese hands. They were rebuilt to serve the various purposes of their founders the enhancement of primitive Shinto, the establishment of the sun-cult of the Yamato clans, or the centralization of state concepts about the person of the emperor. These ethico philosophical movements of China did not bring back into the main stream of Japanese life the "pure" Shinto which the scholars sought. They did bring back the loyalties of the clan-family bond with a greater intensity. The individual and his moral responsibility, even in the light of the Christian emphasis of the pre-Meiji period, was subordinated to the concept of vertical loyalties. Confucian culture passed through the sieve of a simple culture under the genius of a strong-willed people, and was sharpened into a dynamic national force. The conflict between these three basic philosophical emphases burst forth in the Restoration. Officialdom had accepted the orthodox school, the Shushi school, as it served to keep the people in subjection and within fixed restrictions; peasants were mere producers 47 of rice and raw materials; taxpayers of the samurai were mere 30 tools for their ends; trade was a form of cunning. This school was opposed by the Classical School, because it had too much of Buddhist transcendental thought. Practical mili tary behaviour was desired, a goal which was also appreciated by the 0-Yomei philosophers. The latter, however, emphasized action and thought on a wider plane and thus seemed more in line with the main stream of Japanese life, as it included the masses. A brief summary of the Confucian impact on the Japa- nese social structure shows, first, the strong emphasis on loyalty in the family and the feud-family bond, second, family solidarity as the pattern for the larger social soli darity, and third, woman's position as for and in the family, and a depressed social status. 3. BUDDHIST CEREMONIALISM After a long migration from India through China over a period of centuries, Buddhism had reached Japan via Korea about 550 A.D. as the second great wave of cultural exchange from the continent. It was not the bringing in of one small cultural element, nor was it the sudden impact of a specific event. It was rather the result of a series of contacts with both China and Korea, involving both intrigues and clan 30 Anesaki, £R• cit., PP• 284 ff. 48 rivalries in Japan. It was eventually accepted in spite of Japanese reluctance to accept foreign gods. The die was cast when Crown Prince Shotoku openly es poused the cause of this religion. In 593 he undertook the construction of a great temple called Tennoji, in Osaka, as one of the first acts of his regency. He proclaimed Buddhism as the religion of the state, thus compromising the position of Shinto as a religious factor. Concerning the radical changes introduced by Shotoku, Anesaki has stated: The institution called Tennoji was a group of reli gious, educational and philanthropical organizations •• It was composed of four establishments: the temple proper, an asylum, a hospital, and a dispensary •••• In 604 the Prince set up a constitution known as the Con stitution in Seventeen Articles ••• Political principles are interwoven with moral ideas and religious ideals •• and it is no wonder that in later ages this document was regarded as the formulat~in of the fundamental prin ciples of national life. The impact of this highly developed religion of NBhayana Buddhism, with its voluminous sacred books and its refined culture and dramatic rites, upon the very simple folk religion of the Japanese, was that of an avalanche. The simplicity of Shinto and the emptiness of Confucian teaching, as to religious ideals, left the field open for the pan theistic transcendentalism of Buddhism. 31 Anesaki, £R• cit., pp. 58 ff. The need that it met is stated by Anesaki: The religion of Buddhism was first adopted by the people to satisfy thei.r yearnings for a beyond, and it supplied abundant material for transcendental specula tion. It guided the mind of the people to broader visions and deeper mysteries than had ever been dreamt of by them. The arts and literature were vigorously stimulated, methods of spiritual training elaborately worked out, ecclesiastical institutions organized, a system of cosmology and eschatology taught •• and occult practises introduced.32 49 On the problem of pain and suffering it had an answer, and sought to provide a solution through its institutions. With its impersonalism and its pantheism it failed to raise the level of moral appreciation. Its separation of ethics and religion merely re-emphasized the already great lack of moral responsibility. The opinions of two Japanese scholars are as follows: The ethics of Buddhism are pure asceticism; to this are added self-denial and benevolence, as well as the teachings of a clear separation between religion and ethics with the accompanying doctrine that ethics should follow the spirit of the age.33 The ethics of monotheism is that of vigorous will and strong personality, while pantheism often tends to neglect morals and is always more or less mystical and often non-ethical •• The divinity of pantheism •• is super personal or impersonal, because it sees divine life in every existence. Moreover, the ideal of pantheism is an absorption of self into the absolute. and it is no wonder that pantheism tends to a degree of absorption verging on annihilation of self, whether in worshipful 32 Anesaki, 2E• cit., pp. 7, 8. 33 Tada Ono, The Philosophy of Buddhism, (Tokyo: Shiseisha, 1918), p. 95. 50 contemplation. or in acts of self-sacrifice. Hence the well-known impersonalism of the Orient and the oppor tunity for the bondage-like sway of communal ethics instead of the free-play of personal effort.3 4 It is not surprising, then, that the thousand-year sway of Buddhism provided little in the area of social or moral gain. It played an important part in the realm of political control, as a tool of the Imperialist trend as against the more primitive clan-control. The Taikwa Reforms (645 A.D.) were part of this process, as Anesaki has stated: The main aim was to abolish the privileges of the semi-independent clans and to make all the people directly subject to the Throne •• The fundamental prin ciple was made clear and largely respected, that the unit comprising the nation was not the clan but the family and that sole rulership rested with the Throne •• Buddhism played a great part in the reforms •• always stood for national unity as opposed to the tribal ideal. and its propaganda was conducted in cooperation with the united national scheme of government.35 In the sphere of the arts, Buddhism made a large con tribution. The intricacies of Chinese writing had been learned by those of the higher classes, but the temple priests made it their special sphere. Kobo Daishi, also known as Kukai, was a priest of the Chinese race in Japan, who helped to bring about the Japanese system of kana, a simplification of the Chinese character. One of the forma 34 M. Anesaki, ~Religious and Social Problems of the Orient, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), PP• 6 ff. 35 Anesaki, !a! History of Japanese Religion, pp. '79, 80. 51 ot the ~ is the square-shaped katakana, and the other, the cursive hirasana. This brought writing down to the level of the common man. The early literature, including the Kojiki and the Nihonsi were in the Chinese character. Together with liter ature, the art of painting in the Chinese manner received great attention. In religious organization, it was inevitable that the great superiority ot Buddhist thought and religious eccle siasticism should also tend to dominate the simple Shinto thought and free organization. The outright acceptance ot Buddhist organization, however, had to wait until this same Kukai worked out a scheme of syncretism in which the Shinto deities were adopted into the Buddhist pantheon. Its foreign nature had to be made to appear subordinate to the religious and communal sanctions of the social structure. This was known as Ryobu Shinto. or Dual Shinto, in which Shinto de ities were interpreted as manifestations of certain Buddhist deities. It was an "extension of the Buddhist communion to Shinto deities, and at the same time an adaptation of Buddhism to the native religion."56 While its control was not absolute, Ryobu Shinto did bring about the result that many Japanese were both Shintoist 36 Anesaki, £R• £!!•• p. 137. 52 and Buddhist in ceremonial observance, which tended toward religious indifference, and to dualism in ideology. Opposi tion was never silenced, and reared its head in the writings of the eighth century. In the fourteenth century a modifica tion of Ryobu Shinto in favor of old Shinto set in. In the eighteenth century came the revolt of the "pure" Shintoists, and, in the Restoration period, the two were entirely sepa rated as far as organization was concerned -- Buddhism was placed on a par with sect-Shinto and with Christianity. From the standpoint of the social structure of Japan, the contribution of Buddhism was in the direction of cen tralization of governmental control, and toward transcen dentalism in thought, and ceremonialism in religious expres sion; it made little improvement in the social order for the masses, possibly largely because of its impersonalism and other-worldliness in religious living. Morality and religion were largely unrelated concepts. 4. THE JESUIT RELJGIO-POLITICAL CRISIS That there was a lasting Christian contribution to the socio-ethical progress of the nation in feudal times, which has also moved forward with the greater stream of re cent centuries, is an important factor largely overlooked and seldom discussed by historians. The observations of Toyohiko Kagawa in connection with Christian thought in two of the three schools of Confucian philosophy already mentioned L 53 are of great significance. There are other indications that the eclecticism of the basic primitive-Shinto-Confucian fusion. while reJecting organizational elements foreign to, and incompatible with, its structure, found in the Jesuit contribution, enriching elements of permanence, as it did in Buddhism. The general story of this Catholic invasion in 1549 with Francis Xavier with its Occidental culture and religion, based on the political hierarchy of the Roman state, is that of a whirlwind conquest of the religious life of Japan, end ing seventy-five years later in 1624 with the apparent com plete rejection and annihilation of everything Christian in religion or in ethics, and with the deportation or decapita tion of the Spanish priests. The Shimabara rebellion of 1638, resulting from agrarian as much as from religious un rest. saw the extermination of the native Christian movement. Christianity was called the "Evil Teaching" (Jakyo) and "Jesus Teaching" (Yaso-kyo), a term tinged with shame and contempt, the latter being a popular term of the present as well, with the large non-Christian community. Caught in the internal clan rivalries and wars, compromised by the struggles within itself (Dominican versus Franciscan compe tition), and involved in the net-work of international political machinations of Spanish, Dutch and English mercan tile agencies, the early Roman Catholic movement came to an 54 untimely end. This first impact of Christianity had been as far reaching as the first entrance of Buddhism, but its great contribution as a religion with a social message was probably its ruin as well, for its emphasis on love as a horizontal relationship in the social order was against the established pattern of family and clan-loyalty. Even here, however, the possibility of adjustment in the social order was real, for the rigid structure of a loyalty-centered kokutai, or a caste system of the warrior (Bushido), was still to be perfected. In the five decades before persecutions began, a total of three hundred thousand converts had been won, according to the records of the Jesuits. Anesaki, who in recent years has taken a deep interest in the study of early Japanese Chris tianity, has stated that the total number may have reached seven hundred thousand. 37 This figure is not claimed by the Jesuits, and does seem extreme in view of the fact that the population of the country of that time was between twelve and fifteen million people, in contrast to the seventy-seven million of today. The early progress of Christianity in Japan was with the farmers and lower classes, together with the ruling chiefs of the clans in some cases. Later it entered Kyoto, 37 Anesaki, ~· £!!•• p. 244. the capital, where it became a movement of splendor to im press the controlling Shogun, Oda Nobunaga, who held the rule from 1565-1582. An opposition account written about 1755 gives the folloWing picture of the relations of the Shogun and the Jesuits: 55 This Nobunaga being an unprincipled and perverse man tore down the Shinto and Buddhist temples and seized their possessions. His obstinate and unrestrained con duct were so great, the good protecting gods, we may suppose. turned away their eyes. The devil, taking ad vantage of this opportunity to introduce false doctrines and wicked rites, brought over the religion whereby an unknown multitude of people were destroyed. This Christianity is a wicked religion that ca~~ from the country of Namban Southern Barbarians • The method of procedure in the work of the Church at a time when famine, floods, pestilence and brigandage were rampant was of a nature that f1tted the need. In spite of violent Buddhist opposition, the social and moral principles of this religion met the need and secured a good response. The account of the "Real Record of Christianity" places the narration in the mouths of "two Romans" (Jesuit priests): We come to help the sick and afflicted •• As this re ligion has not yet been spread in Japan, the poor and sick people abound; consequently thieves and dissolute persons are numerous ••• Every day persons were sent to hunt up and bring outcasts and beggars who slept under the bridges, the incurable sick left to die in the hills and moors, besides the very sick and hard to cure, from every place. To the poor money was given, and out of every ten that the Romans prescribed for, eight were 38 M. Paske-Smith, Editor, Japanese Traditions of Christianity, (Kobe: Kobe-Osaka Press, 1930), P• 6. 56 restored to health. Clothing was given them; those who were yesterday wearing rags, today were wrapped in silk.3~ Extravagance of statement is evident in these "attri buted" words quoted by a critic, yet the fact is that the early work did emphasize the charitable side of the Christian ministry. Undoubtedly a great need existed. The establish- ment of hospitals and medical work were a primary concern, but this soon proved a drawback to the progress of the church because of the great numbers of the depressed classes that came, and because of the stigma attached to an institution dealing in social disease. The problem of wide-spread pov erty, the loose moral concepts, the lack of an understanding of human values, hindered as well as helped in the develop ment of the church. The Jesuit dream of conquest in a religious sense was of first importance, even if the social emphasis had to be minimized. Whether religion was to be "the stratagem to sub jugate the country without the use of military weapons" is not a problem of this study, but there is little doubt that the early emphasis on the social and humanitarian, as well as the educational, phases of Christian work would have sue- ceeded where the more ostentatious, political approach failed. The ruling classes were the goal. Their conquest 3g Paske-Smith, 2£• £11•• pp. 22. 23. 57 would make Christianity the enforced religion of the nation. The effort failed. Persecutions and edicts fought it. The Shimabara rebellion of 1638 was its death gasp. Christianity had made a strong impact on the ethical concepts of the earlier religio-ethical life of the people. Buddhist formalism had been challenged. The overt Christian movement had been destroyed, but socio-ethical values which are not so subject to the laws and regulations of the state, undoubtedly remained. In a study on religious education in Buddhism, J. Hori states that the Buddhist system known as Terakoya education, while never strong, was affected largely by the Catholic seminaries from 1574 onward and was greatly revitalized. 40 Anesaki undertaking an analysis of the emphases in the new religions that appeared in Japan between 1700 and 1853, the year of Perry's visit to Japan, finds that there is an undoubted Christian influence in the teachings of sev eral of them. One called Konotabi, established by a woman named Kino (1756-1826), and another called~ Kokugen (Important Moment) by Mlki (17g8-1887), show a Christian influence. Another of the more important of the popular Shinto sects, Kurozumikyo (1779-1849), the subject of a 40 J. Hori, The History of Religious Education in Buddhism, (unpublished Master's thesis, The University ot Southern California, 1931), p. 36. 58 dissertation by c. w. Hepner, 41 bears the mark of Christian ethical and religious influence. All three of these base their terminology and their concepts on the mythologies of the Kojiki and the Nihongi but teach a type of Christian monotheism, and show a deep interest in social reconstruc tion.42 There developed a strong trend in the direction of ethical movements apart from religion, among the masses. Thus social and moral ideals came to bear on a social situa- tion even though they came from the impetus of a despised - religion. The air seemed to be full of discontent, and, says Anesaki, Those more religiously minded emphasized piety and purity of heart, yet with a sense of approaching world change, mostly expressed as the coming of a new kingdom of god or gods. In this way the social atmosphere in the first half of the 19th century was redolent with something verging on the Messianic conce~tion of the Jews in the first century before Christ.~3 To all intents Christianity had come and gone. But its influence undoubtedly was more far-reaching than is realized today. Post-war studies on the basis of free inves tigation may make the picture more clear. 41 c. w. Hepner, The Kurozumi Sect of Shinto, (Tokyo: Meiji Japan Society, 1935~ ------ 42 Anesaki, £R• cit., pp. 311 ff. 43 Anesaki, 2R• £!!•• p. 316. 59 5. BUS HI DO AND KYOKAKUDO A fifth great force in the socio-ethical development of the Japanese nation is that movement of the feudal era, known as Bushido, the code of the fighting class of the social order. Its development, or rather its crystalliza tion, was seen to have come under the Classical School of Confucian philosophy founded by Yamaga Soko (1622-1685). It is this code which has been regarded as being the very es sence of the nation's ethic and its structure as being the very foundation of the national life. There are strong evidences, however, that a truer pic ture would be gained by thinking of the Bushido of the feudal era as the code of a minority caste, although it was the rul ing caste, and the new nationalism of the modern era also a minority, rather than a majority, expression of the social order in Japan. There are also clear evidences of a social force of Chivalry which ran parallel to the code of the warrior, and that it may be the stream, which, in the larger social struc ture, has carried forward the basic spirit of the Japanese nation. This is the code of chivalry or kyokaku, known to Nitobe as Otokodate, the Way of Manhood, and to Kagawa, as KYOkakudo, the Way of Chivalry -- in either case, the code of chivalry in defense of the socially depressed and mal treated. 60 That there was a deeper current in the social lite ot Japan than the recognized complex-current ot Bushido is indi cated by the fact that the Kyokakudo-knight frequently crossed swords with the Bushido-samurai in the attempt to break down social injustice. That current may well be what Kagawa has called an "indigenous and intuitive morality aris ing from a sense of duty and fellow-feeling, a democratized chivalry of the people."44 Bushido is one expression of that basic Japanese qual ity, and under a long period of military development it finally became a powerful order, seizing even the control of government from the imperial family. In the early seventeenth century, there was a division of the warrior caste into something like three hundred dis tricts, with a daimyo, or head over each, and two million samurai who were their warrior servants, according to Scherer.45 With its roots in the twelfth century, the system of personal and private warriors developed in an unorganized fashion, and in 1615 their problems on the social and moral plane had become so bad as to require the setting up of special rules of behaviour, by the Tokugawa Shogunate, which 44 Kagawa, Christ~ Japan, pp. 27, 28. 45 J. A. B. Scherer, Romance of Ja?an, (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926}, pp. 238, f. were issued with imperial approval from Kyoto. They were called the b!!! £!the Military Houses. 46 61 Yamaga Soko, in the course of his teaching of philoso phy, had taught many of the warriors who came to him, and had written on the subject of Shi-do, Way of the Warrior. Not until the affair of the Ako Vendetta in 1703, in which the forty-seven retainers, or samurai, of a lord who had been compelled to commit harakiri, succeeded in their vow of loy alty to him by killing their enemy, -- not until then did Yamaga's philosophy gain wide acclaim. Oishi Yoshio, the leader of the band had been a disciple of Yamaga. 47 This class code is a fusion of many of the socio ethical forces of the social structure, building upon the feelings of clan responsibility and loyalty, a structure of special privilege for the military minority with a life and death control over the majority, who were little more than its slaves. Its privileged leaders enjoyed the arts and developed the tea ceremony, the No play, and wrote the liter ature. In government, it held control for two and one-half centuries; in ethics, it gave the concept of swift action for even minor infringements of its code, and developed to a fine point the gentle love of cherry blossom and the little child, • 46 Brinkley, ££• cit., pp. 574, 575. 47 ~·· PP• 606 ff. 62 and the art of decapitation by a stroke of the sword as well. In morals, both the system of licensed houses and promiscuity came from its lax concepts concerning human rights. It had drawn on Confucian philosophy for an unques tioning loyalty to lord, on Zen Buddhism for the denial of self by quiet meditation, on Shinto for simplicity and fru gality in living, on the racial background of the nation for a slightly larger sense of social solidarity, but it was utterly unknowing about the great masses of the people and their needs. Nitobe, who has written the classical work on the subject, Bushido the ~ of Japan, was a samurai of a family of samurai. He was also a Christian statesman in the modern era, who had been marked for death by the modern military fascist. His clan had opposed the Loyalists, who restored the emperor in 1868, and who in turn disbanded the samurai order. It is natural that Nitobe should write of Bushido at its noblest and its best. To him it was an ethical and spiritual legacy; its court of appeal was renkishin, the spirit of shame; its aim was self-mastery. "Conscience, called among us by the com prehensive term Kokoro which may mean mind, spirit, heart, was the only criterion of right or wrong." 48 The two swords 48 Nitobe, ££• £11•• PP• 155 ff. 63 of the samurai were symbols of the spirit of their gallantry as well as the means for expressing it -- the long sword for combat to avenge an insult, and the short sword for self immolation, harakiri, when duty demanded. 49 Under the rule of Bushido and the Shogunate, there developed a ruling class almost entirely separated from the common man in his toil and his sorrows. Woman was given her special places in society and in the home, as child-bearer and caretaker in the home with no place in society; the geisha or entertainer was the woman in society. The man was absolute master. The social organization fairly reeled under the lack of balance in spite of the virtues of the system -- petri- otism, loyalty, benevolence, rectitude, honesty, prudence and diligence. The masses could make no appeal except at the risk of their lives. Thus Bushido could hardly be the main- stream of Japanese social progress. Its structure was a top- heavy rigid order seeking to control the natural forces of social interaction, which would someday come to the forefront in revolt. This happened in the Restoration. Kyokakudo was the other expression of that stream of indigenous and intuitive morality arising from a sense of 49 I. Nitobe, Bushido the Soul of Japan, (Tokyo: Teibi Publishing Company, 1914~pp:-9 ff. duty and fellow-feeling. Hope for the masses and the 1m- provement of the social order in Japan rested in the sense of chivalry toward the needy -- a sense of social, rather than military, justice. 64 To Nitobe, this spirit of Otokodate (chivalry, as the quality of being a man) had its origin in Bushido, but it is quite probable that the reverse was true. How the spirit of Bushido permeated all social classes is also shown in the development of a certain order of men, known as Otokodate, the natural leaders of democ racy. Staunch fellows were they, every inch of them strong with the strength of massive manhood. At once the spokesmen and the guardians of popular rights, they had each a following of hundreds and thousands of souls who proffered in the same fashion that samurai did to daimio, the willing service of "limb and life, of body, chattels and earthly honor." Backed by a vast multitude of rash and impetuous working-men, those born nbosses" formed a formigable check to the rampancy of the two sworded order. O Kagawa's viewpoint seems to place the importance of this group in the true order of chivalry, or as being in the mainstream of Kyokakudo, the Way of Chivalry, a truly indig enous movement of ethical behaviour. During the three hundred years of the Tokugawa regime the forces which resisted the Shogunate and its samurai followers were those among the common people who had adopted the code of chivalry. This group intuitively developed the proletarian morality of protecting the weak and suppressing the strong. It was not necessarily the result of the influence of Shinto, Buddhism or Confucianism. This spirit flowered forth from Kyokakudo, an in-born trait of the Japanese people. 50 Nitobe, ££• £!!•• PP• 149, 150. 65 In the fiction in vogue among the masses the tales of these Kyokakudo enjoy a far greater popularity than the exploits of the samurai. Even when the Meiji government overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate these chivalrous men from tgf masses were the up-rooting, revolutionizing force. Kyokakudo was moving in the mainstream of socio- ' ethical living in Japan, and expressed itself among the farm- ers, the laborers, and the merchants, while the military class strengthened the defenses of their own more conspicuous order. The first outstanding exponent of the kyokaku was Chobei Banzuin, a manager of an employment agency in Yedo, present Tokyo. He fought against the samurai oppression of his men, and paid the death penalty. Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) is another of the great exponents of this stream of social action, who likewise rose in opposition to oppres- sion in a later period. The poet Issa sang of the worthlessness of millions of money as compared to the dew on the bamboo grass, showing their contempt for wealth and position, as well as love of honor and love for the weak. 52 The histories of the feudal and later periods pass over this counter-movement to the military control of the warrior class. But to one like Kagawa, this indigenous 51 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, pp. 24, 25. 52 ~·· P• 28. 66 force for social good, Kzokakudo, is of great significance, especially as there may be a strong remnant of Christian influence indicated in the qualit.Y of its love for the op pressed. The Catholic fathe~s brought chivalry to our country. Before their coming the old records show that in the olden days in Japan men's heads had been exchanged even for the silver trappings on the heads of the harness horses? , but with the entrance of Christianity into Japan, things changed. The martyrdom of the Catholic Christians of that day introduced a new element into Japanese experience ••• A spirit of loyaliy was developed in marked contrast to that of the older days when every man had his price. They learned ~g love to the utter most, and to die for their faith. Just how far Japanese had changed and how much early Christianity influenced the social and ethical life of the nation must await further information. The old spirit of the Yamato Hero, Yamato-damashii, is a Japanese heritage. In the complex interplay of social forces and ideas, there has been a continuous process of unfolding and development, through selection, of ideals thought of as being "Japanese," and thus permanent. Bushido is one expression of a deep current of socio- ethical power, as is Kyokakudo, which, however, has been kept subdued, unorganized, and expressed only to those who know and feel Japan. Feudalism developed an intense loyalty, -- 53 T. Kagawa, Meditations on the Cross, (London: Student Christian MOvement Press, 1936)7 p. 168. 67 loyalty to the feudal lord. The Restoration was to see that loyalty transferred to a new lord. under the old pattern. But the forces of social reconstruction under men like Kagawa would be in the larger stream of loyalty with a social con science as revealed in Kfokakudo. II. T~ MEIJI REVOLUTION The events of the period preceding the restoration of an emperor to the throne and to the reigns of government. were a series of outbursts against social injustice in all areas of Japanese life. ~s Kagawa has stated, it was the men of the spirit of Kyokaku who rose against those oft he spirit of the Bushi, and even though they were not imperial ist, they rallied around the imperial banner to gain the greatest social revolt in Japan in recent time. The basic cause was the general decay of the old order of feudalism, and the increasing suffering among the masses, as seen in later details of this study. The occasion was the arrival of American warships under Commodore Perry in 1853. The clash between the basic forces for a change toward social justice, and those for a maintenance of the status quo was of the proportion of a social revolution. To this was added another clash in ideas concerning the disposition of the pending alien cultural penetration as evidenced in the Amer ican flotilla at anchor ott the shores of Japan. 68 In regard to the latter, there were two schools of - thought, one called the Kaikaku-to, or that favoring the opening-of-the-door policy, and the Joi-to, or the barbarian expelling party. 54 That this struggle was intense is re vealed in the record of this period detailed by Brinkley: The ultimate purpose of foreigners in visiting Japan is to reconnoitre the country. This is proved by the action of the Russians in the north. What has been done by the Western States in India and China would doubtless be done in Japan also if opportunity offered. Even the ~gtch are not free from suspicion of acting as spies. The majority opinion based on this general conclusion was against opening up the country, or in favor of the Joi-to. There was also a strong minority opinion, however, which stated: It is not to be denied that many illustrious and patriotic men, anticipating injury to the country's fortunes and perversion of the nation's moral canons, are implacably opposed to foreign intercourse. But the circumstances of the time render it impossible to main tain the integrity of the empire side by side with the policy of seclusion. The coasts are virtually unpro tected. The country is practically without a navy. Throughout the period of nearly two and a half centuries the building of any ship having a capacity of ov~ one hundred koku has been forbidden ••• .......... Japan must have ocean-going vessels, and these can not be procured in a moment. Her best way is to avail herself of the services of the Dutch as middlemen in trade, and to lose no time in furnishing herself with 54 M. Royama, Problems of Contemporary Japan, (Honolulu: University of Hawail7 1935), pp. 5-7. 55 Brinkley, 2£• cit., p. 665. 69 powerful men-of-war and with sailors and gunners capable of navigating and fighting these vessels ••• The things most essential are that Christianity should not be ad mitted in the train of foreign trade.56 Under these voices of protest a treaty was signed in 1854, but after it, there went out delegations of officials and of students in the search for those cultural goods which would best serve her ends -- the most conspicuous of which were Japan's navy and her army. The years up to 1941 and the beginning of World War II were part of the process begun some ninety years earlier. Within the nation, there were intrigues in Kyoto, the capital, which worked in support of the imperial clan on the one hand, and there were the machinations of the old feudal order seeking a re-establishment of Shinto, as against Con fucianism, Buddhism, and a return of Christianity, on the other. These were violent forces seeking to bring order out of growing chaos. The Shogunate had been disgraced, and the Royalists saw their long delayed chance. The Restoration of the Imperial clan with its worship of the Sun-goddess gave the governmental controls to new factors in the social order. Between the opening of the country by treaty in 1854 and the Restoration in 1868, some fourteen years of turmoil had elapsed. 56 Loc. £!!• ?0 During this decade and a half of confusion. two im portant facts were outstanding, the first being the great influx of Western cultural goods and the entrance of Chris- tian social concepts, and the second, the successful prose- cution of the restoration by young men, most of whom were not members of the imperial clan, nor were they chiefs of feudal territories. The men that conceived and achieved the Revolution of 186? were chiefly samurai of inferior grade. They num bered fifty-five in all, and of these only thirteen were aristocrats, namely, five feudal barons, and eight court nobles. The average §ge of these fifty-five did not exceed thirty years.57 Sansom has given the same picture of this revolution, led by fifty-five men of whom forty-two were of the lesser classes, and of the kyokaku stream of Japanese life. They were supported by humble peasants and townsmen who sought freedom, scholars who wanted knowledge, merchants who desired to break the monopoly of the guilds, dissatisfied samurai and nobles -- all of them "restless spirits, dissatisfied with their condition and thirsting for activity." 58 They came from the various clans, but there was a predominance of men from the Satsuma and Choshu clans of the south who had been assembling there for many years, without 5? Brinkley, ££• cit., p. 6?9. 58 Sansom, 2R· ~·· p. 516. 71 official title or status. They were of the few clans never placed under Tokugawa domination. Through them radical changes in the socio-economic and socio-political life of the nation were wrought, although the ethico-religious foun dations of the nation were not greatly altered. The nature of the change desired seemed to hover be tween the idea of Fukko, or Restoration of the pre-feudal order under imperial government, which would be conservative and nationalistic, and the idea of Isshin, an entire Renova tion of the national life and emancipation from all the usages, and institutions of the feudal era.59 On March 14, 1868 the newly enthroned Emperor Meiji, then a youth of fifteen years of age under a regency, gave to his people a proclamation which showed a decidedly new trend in the national government, and revealed new emphases intended to be worked into a changed social structure. The principles laid down in the proclamation were first, that the importance of public opinion and open assem blage of the people was recognized, second, that the place of a sense of individual, rather than of class, responsi bility, was vital for the nation's welfare, third, that there was need for the alleviation of discontent in all walks of life by constructive activity, fourth, that a world outlook 59 Anesaki, ~· £!!•• p. 329. 72 was important and that outworn customs should be discarded, and last, that knowledge as a means of Imperial prosperity must be sought in all areas of life. 60 This was the Magna Charta of the new era of Meiji. It was the revelation of a social conscience in government. It was a distinct contrast with the past in which government had permitted the destruction of the peasant class to the point of penury; it had allowed ma~terless bands of workers and warriors to roam in brigandage on land and in piracy on the seas; it had encouraged immorality in rural and urban communities, to the point where it had become a curiosity to see young men trying to live lives of purity; it had permit ted womanhood to degrade herself and to be degraded; its children were the victims of infanticide through a quite proper process, known as mabiki, or the thinning-out, like vegetables, in a garden; its social order was held together by the stern bonds of the military control of feudalism. The new era of Meiji was compelled to take steps which would add to the already great social confusion. When it disbanded the order of the samurai and the feudal system, it loosed another large social group into the class of the in secure. The advent of Western industrialization disrupted 60 K. Tsuchida, Contemporarz Thou,ht £! Japan and China, (New York: Knopf and Company, 1Q27 , p. 24. the system of home industries. A money economy supplanted the old rice economy. Group and class-consciousness as capital-labor replaced the old class feelings. 73 A policy of general education was adopted as a level ling influence throughout the nation. Ryobu-Shinto was abro gated, and primitive Shinto was replaced to its position as a national religion, and the movement for emperor-worship was started on its way. The formulation of a constitution was a matter of serious study and came into being two decades after the revolution, -- after some of the issues of individual freedom were compromised with the stern demands of the old loyalty-feudal order. In four years after the Meiji proclamation, in 1872, a clarification of the aims in regard to the religious foun dation of the new state was made in the establishment of an ecclesiastical Board, or Kyobusho. a central board of teach ers for the superintendence of religious instruction in a system, called Daikyo. Its principles were as follows: 1. The principles of reverence for the Deities and of patriotism shall be observed. 2. The heavenly Reason and the way of Humanity shall be promulgated. 3. The Throne shall be revered and the authorities obeyed. In clarification of the "way of Humanity" and obedience. it was stated: 1. The morality of the five human relationships shall be observed. 2. Widows, orphans and other helpless ones shall be aided. 3. Those who commit the crime of robbery, incendi arism, or murder shall be executed.61 74 There is evident in this development a continuation of an int.erest in the direction of social justice, but there is a greater emphasis on the Confucian ethic, which con trolled the feudal past, and the new emphasis on the Throne as the object of reverence and patriotism as a form of reli- gious observance, an issue that was to prevail up to the outbreak of World War II. The movement of the social forces in the direction of liberal as well as conservative policy, resulted in a tug of war type of struggle. There was even a plan to make Chris tianity the religion of the State, as indicated by the state ment of Dr. R. Mizuno, Minister of Education in 1930 that at the time of forming the Constitution the possibility of Christianity being the state religion "was also considered. It looks as if Prince Ito himself was in favor of freedom of religious faith."62 The struggle carried on, but in spite of a growing conservatism, the Constitution of 1889 did guarantee the freedom of religious belief; it also established the type of 61 Anesaki, 2R• £!!•• p. 335. 62 R. Mizuno, "Interview on the Shrine Question," The Japan Christian Quarterly, July 1930, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan 1930), p. 257. 75 socio-ethical structure that allowed for the development of a new nationalism which was loyalty-centered in the direc tion of the emperor, and a Shrine-Shinto as distinct from Sect-Shinto. This was the Kokutai of the new militarism which Kagawa has denominated as Fascism. It is not to be wondered at, then, that this period was one of intense heart struggle, or hammon, and mental as well as emotional disturbance. The interest in Chris tianity was that of a new cultural experience, but it was more than that -- it was the opportunity for a new social order, and the only way of progress indicated in the Meiji proclamation. The names of the leaders of the Christian MOvement were those of the defeated Shogunate. Ebara Soroku, a famous Christian preacher was defeated in the Battle of Tobefushimi; Masahisa Uemura, the strong Presbyterian leader, was of a family of the immediate retainers of the Shogun, and whose brother committed harakiri on the defeat of the Shogunate; Joseph Niijima, likewise of a retainer family, left his country secretly, secured an American Christian education and returned to Japan to begin the educational movement; the Ii family, the Ibuka family, the Date clan, and others, both north and south, each of them produced Christian leaders. Members of the famous Saigo and Iwakura families also became 76 Christians, and leaders in the new social order.63 In spite of this, the old order gained the ascendancy. For each wave of progress for the social order based on jus tice to her millions, a succeeding wave of conserTatism on the military pattern under the Shrine-Shinto and Emperor loyalty emphasis followed. The polemic between the liberal and conservative forces became intense with the publication of the Imperial Rescript on Education in 1890. The extreme Nipponists had gained control and the history of the modern movement is the story of the gradual growth in power of this ideology. It is well stated by Y. Hibino, known to the writer personally, in his interpretation of the Rescript: The Way, which from the dawn of our history has been the chief object of our aspirations, the object which each subject must follow is nothing less than loyalty itself. Other than loyalty there is no way for the Japanese subject to follow. It is. loyalty that guards and maintains the immutable permanence of the Imperial Dynasty •• (3). Filial piety is •• the axle upon which revolves the wheel of human morality •• There are no separate Ways of loyalty and filial piety open to us •• We cultivate filial piety simply in order to round out and embellish that loyalty, not for the sake of filial piety itself (47). Connubial accord is an ornament which adorns the state. It is a basic principal of social morality (90) •• That the husband should command and wife submit •• is the 63 T. Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive Love, (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1940), pp. 141, 142. true teaching which our people can never afford to neglect (g3). 77 In our Empire the Emperor is the State. The Emperor is one substance with the state and shares its destiny.64 This modern statement might have come out of the period of the "puren Shintoists. This concept of the Emperor as the State, however, was challenged and its opposite was freely taught at Tokyo's Imperial University by Professor T. Minobe until 1g31, the time of the Manchurian invasion, when he was imprisoned. This is the Japan of Kagawa's concern. His movements are in the tradition of the old Kyokaku, or the modern lib eral, who is at odds with the established national body. He is not alone, and, as part of the great social movement which seeks the welfare of the still unimproved lot of the masses, his contribution to the life of his times is of importance. 64 Y. Hibino, Nippon Shindo Ron, The National Ideals of Japan, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), pages 3, 47, 4g, go, 93, 158. CHAPTER III ORIGINS OF LEADERSHIP IN THE LIFE OF KAGAWA Within the complex structure of the feudal heritage of Japan as it moved into the Meiji period, it seemed evi dent that the forces of social interest for the masses were rather feeble. Under Meiji there were indications of the rise of a social conscience. but the old social sanctions. rooted in loyalty to superior and filial respect in the family, seemed destined to prevail. A new constitution with a new educational system for the people helped to change some weaknesses in the old order but the struggle between the forces of progress and those of conservation was to be as intense as ever. The entire modern era is a period of transition and readjustment to the violent social currents. The attempt to resolve the problems of conflict and disorganization by the establishment of another rigid order under the impetus of the new nationalism was but a return to the patterns of the past. Under the conditions of a social situation as fluid as that of Japan, the opportunities for alert leadership were bound to be numerous, as the areas of discovery, of adventure, and of information, were opened to the youth of the nation. To many the religious and social challenge of 79 the new Christian message provided the means of escape from the tragic outcome of the social changes, as well as a means of self-expression and an opportunity for social re-organiza tion. Toyohiko Kagawa, coming in the latter half of the modern era, entered the scene of social conflict resulting from the earlier transition of the Meiji era, as a child. He was a product of the unstable social order, and turned to the Christian religion not as a means of escape from the changes, but as an opportunity for constructive action in the midst of those changes. In order to see why it was that he became the type of Christian leader that he is, it is necessary to inquire into some factors of the social situation and the conditions re- lating to his personal life. In his book on Leaders ~ Leadership~ 5 E. s. Bogardus has analyzed the invisible ele ments in leadership, finding their origins in heredity, in social stimuli and in personality traits. The study of leadership as such is not the purpose of this chapter, but the suggestions and outline of that analysis will be of great help in bringing into focus some of the factors that have contributed to the Kagawa type of leadership. 65 E. s. Bogardus, Leaders and Leadership, (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934),-pp. 33-1§2. 60 The first point of inquiry is that pertaining to the possible influence of heredity in his leadership. It is of interest to note that neither his father nor his mother came of Kagawa ancestry, as far as available information reveals, for his father was a son adopted into the Kagawa family; this was a process in which the groom married the daughter of the family, and took her family name, rather than she, his. This daughter was the legal wife, but Toyohiko Kagawa was not born of this marriage. Kagawa has stated this as follows: MY father had been adopted into the Kagawa family as son-in-law to marry the daughter, and also to take the family name ••• Early in his married life my father lost a child by death, and although the family had come of good stock, as I have told you, yet that did not deter my father from falling into evil ways and losing his head over a pretty dancing girl whom he redeemed from the brothel by paying the deb~g and made his mistress, and I was born of that union. In the system of adoption in use in Japan, there are at least ten different arrangements and categories of adopted persons possible, according to Chamberlain. 67 Two of these categories are the adoption of a youth to prevent extinction of the family line, and another, that of the merchant who adopts his head clerk in order to give him a personal 66 T. Kagawa, IB! Challense of Redemptive ~· (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1~40), p. 74. 67 B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, (Kobe: J. L. Thompson and Company, 1~05), reprint 1g27, p. 17. 81 interest in the firm. In the case of the elder Kagawa, the kind of adoption is not made clear other than the son's statement that he did marry the daughter and also took a high place in the family line. His father undoubtedly was a man of great ability, fitting into the samurai family of the Kagawa, who also had been prominent in the business community of the Awa district of Shikoku. Here the clan of Kagawa had control of nineteen villages as headmen, who wore the short sword as a mark of distinction, as they plied their trade in the manufacture of indigo from the year 1688 on. That he carried forward the welfare of the family during the vicissitudes of the transi tion period of the Restoration is sufficiently indicated by the fact that not only was the business unimpaired, and the family fortunes kept intact, but that he and the family made the adjustment to a non-feudal society in line with the con trolling forces of government. He was elevated to a high position directly under the governor of the prefecture who had been the old feudal lord.68 The family was wealthy, not knowing want even during the transition. In the attempt to meet the competitive life of the great cities however, and in the establishment of two shipping companies which later failed, and through 68 Kagawa,~· £!!•• pp. 73, 74. 82 the dissolute life of both father and elder brother, the family was reduced to poverty. From the paternal side of his family there is evident a heritage of ability and talent, as well as of moral laxity against which the youth seemed to be on the alert. His mother came from the other side of the social register, but undoubtedly was a young woman of talent, even though a child of the slums. She had been sold to a brothel to provide rice for the family.69 In her lite.as a dancing girl, her talent attracted the business-man-politician of means in Kobe, who redeemed her from the physical bondage of the family debt. They established a home in Kobe, where Toyohiko was born, a home to which he apparently looked back with longing in later years, as he wrote in his autobio graphical novel: When he was ten years old his mother had died, and he and his elder sister had been placed in charge of the real wife at her home in Itano district, in Awa Province, Shikoku. At that time he had been separated from his younger sister and two younger brothers. He still recalled himself and his elder sister standing on the deck of the steamer. His thoughts passed to the dark gloomy,house where death had separated him from his mother. 0 Even though the novel states that this crisis in his 69 H. Topping, Introducing Kagawa, (Chicago: Willett Clark and Company, 1935), p. 6. '10 T. Kagawa, Before !a! ~· (New York: George H. Doran, 1924), p. 3'1. 83 life occurred at the age of ten, this is probably an exercise of literary license, inasmuch as other factual statements of Kagawa all point to the death of both parents as having occurred when he was four years of age. He refers to this crisis in his young life in the following conversation of Niimi (Kagawa) with Suzuki, another student at Meiji Gakuin in Tokyo: My father forced me to study law and sent me to the First High School, but in the first term of the third year I was suddenly taken ill with hemorrhage of the lungs--my mother and elder sister, you know, both died of consumption--and the doctor told me my lungs were affected ••• ! felt specially drawn toward religion, but as I was tired of Buddhism I thought I would spend a year or two at Meiji Gakuin.7l My mother, you know, died when she was thirty-three, in her unlucky year. I wish that she was alive, - or my sister, at least. There isn't a day passes that I don't wish mother were here. If she was alive I shouldn't be sQ unhappy ••• ! could have gone to school a little more.?2 The words of this latter quotation he had placed in the mouth of his younger sister. In the conversation of friends and relatives who knew their mother, Kagawa, the novelist, has pictured his mother, the redeemed dancing girl, as follows: But, Master Eiichi (Niimi), your mother was a clever woman. If she'd been alive would the master have spent the money in the way he's done? Ah, she was a clever sort. Do you remember her, Master Eiichi? You're just 71 Ibid., P• 21 • ............ 72 Ibid., p. 73. 84 the image of her, -such a pretty thing she was. 73 Heredity on the maternal side in all probability gave him an artistic talent, for the dancing girl who has reached the place in her career where her art has attracted the attention of a high official, and secured the patronage of a man in the position of the elder Kagawa, has reached the highest goal of her profession. With her art, she also be- queathed the weakness of an abused and germ-racked body to the son, who was to return to the slums from whence she came, and to spend a life of moral and spiritual power hidden in his weak body. It was not only the suffering of a weak body, but the courage to bear suffering, which she gave him, and which was later to find its greatest realization in life-dedication to the Christ. He has described it, much as a Paul described his suffering, with little vain-glory: Sorrow for one's own pain is real sorrow; but sorrow and suffering for others is a joy. This I learned when I was in the slums and again when I was in prison ••• ! lived over fourteen years in the slums, and suffered a great deal. I lost the eyesight of my left eye ••• Last year I suffered a great deal ••• Nine times I spit blood from my throat. But I thought that if I had to die in the pulpit it was all right. About nine years ago I was in prison ••• ! had a good time in prison. In the slum the house in which my wife and I had lived for nine years was only six feet by six; by prison house room was a bit wider, - six by nine. In the slums every night in 73 Ibid., P• 49 • ............ summer I had to capture eighty or ni~~ty bedbugs; in prison there was no fear of bedbugs. 85 For me, since my birth, I could not help but be re ligious. Before I became a Christian, I was brought up in an atmosphere of Shinto. I was made in such a fashion that I could not help but worship God ••• A desire to be lieve God inevitably springs up in my heart, and I can not help but seek Him.?5 That there were inherited qualities that made for leadership there can be little doubt, but it is in the realm of social stimuli that the in~cations of the kind of leader- ship, as well as the possible social tendencies toward which that leadership might be directed, become more distinct. Here, in the origins of leadership as opportunity for prep aration and for expression of those qualities, in the associ ation of parents, relatives and teachers, and in the quiet personal experiences, which Bogardus calls "awakening mo ments," there moves that vast complex of socializing cur rents. which in turn become the personal possession of the individual for life, in personality and in character. The raw materials, of which Japanese personalities are made, are just those which a Kagawa has experienced. He, however, has done something that few other Japanese leaders have done, namely, to write them down in bold letters in his 74 T. Kagawa, "The Ethical Teaching of Jesus Christ," Friends of Jesus, IV (April, 1931), 35. 75 T. Kagawa, ~ Relifion £f Jesus, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1931 , p. 22. L 86 voluminous writings in a fashion that his people can reread and relive them in their own struggles in life, and follow through with him the course which leads out of the stormy seas to meaning in life. There was first of all the tremendous contrast be- tween the home of mother-love, which, though socially approved was legally irregular, and the ancestral home of the legal wife of his father, which was legally regular, but socially impossible from the standpoint of social living. The death of his mother was one type of crisis, but his en trance at the age of tour into the ancestral home was anoth er. Here the vengeance of frustrated womanhood in the family system worked out its hatred toward the freer, superficially happier, dancing-girl system which shared in her husband, on the helpless childlife of that relationship. Abuse, torture, and hard work were their lot. Kagawa has put it into the words of his younger sister, as she wrote him in her agony: I am very well, so do not be anxious about me. I am crying every day. Sometimes I think I would rather die. MY stepmother in the country works me hard and is scolding me about something or other every day from morning till night. She says, "You're Mrs. Kame's child, ain't you? What makes you so stupid?" That is the way she scolds me continually. And she doesn't give me enough to eat. She treats me worse than the servant. I can't bear it.76 To him were granted all the cultural and social 76 Kagawa, Before the~' p. 31. 87 privileges of the Kagawa clan. But the life itself was un desirable as he wrote later: I myself belonged to the Japanese bourgeoisie, and I have many friends of this class - dukes or princes of noble blood, who often invite me to ~~eir homes. But I pity them. Their life is a sad one. ~ father was devout, according to the Japanese con ception of devoutness, but morally he was impossible. In Japanese religions and religious devotion, piety and personal morals are wholly unrelated.78 He was sent to the local school at the early age of four years and nine months, and was admitted because of the position of the Kagawa family. Because he was a child of wealth, and because of his age, he was ostracized by his schoolmates. It was natural that he should retreat within himself, and become sensitive to the social injustices that seemed to meet him on every hand. Kagawa has been spoken of as a "samurai," but there is little that he has said or written that would set him apart as one of that order. The Kagawa family were of this group, and had all the trappings of the warrior class, to gether with their literature, carefully stored away in the storehouse of the clan, which became the secret hiding-place of the defeated boy. Here in the dark interior of a build- 77 Kagawa, "The Ethical Teaching of Jesus Christ," p. 36. 78 T. Kagawa, Christ and Japan, (New York: Friendship Press, 1934), p. 106. 88 ing, whose contents were kept a secret by the family, the modern boy came into contact with the ancient samurai cul ture. Axling states that there were huge armor-cases, chests with ceremonial costumes used by the samurai of long ago, and bookcases with books of the period of Japanese Renaissance, and pictures of old Japan. 79 Thus coming from a family of the warrior class with all the instruments of an education in that direction avail- able. it would seem logical to suppose that Kagawa too would show traces of the traditions of the samurai. He has, how- ever, endeavored to lead the thinking of his people and of the world, to an understanding of a better, and still more Japanese expression of chivalry, than that of Bushido, namely, that of Kyokakudo, as indicated earlier. It is the bold spirit of justice for the oppressed. Feudal Lords and feudal Knights taught Japan to love culture. When Christianity came, it taught Japan to honor labor, and resp~8t laborers who constitute the only real Knighthood. In his own life there has been little indicative of traditional samurai behavior, unless it be the reaction to 79 Wm. Axling, Kagawa, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932), PP• 7. 8. 80 T. Kagawa, "What Christ is Doing for Japan," Kagawa in Australia. Friends of Jesus, VIII (February, 1936), 52. 89 the challenge for boldness in his decision to become a Chris tian at the age of fifteen. His Christian teachers, Dr. Logan and Dr. ~~ers, had long tried to bridge the gulf of his troubles. In the end the latter had asked why he did not accept baptism, and implied a sense of timidity, if not cowardice. The reaction of the youth was an immediate decision to step out in baptism. Impulsive decision such as this was traditional with the samurai, but it is also consistent with the general character of the Japanese throughout recorded history. He read voraciously of the rich literature available to him in the ancestral home, but it seemed that, through it all, there was a rising trend of opposition within his being that called for something different and better. He says: Every room in my house, and the storehouse besides, was filled with all kinds of licentious books, and that was true also of the house of my relatives. The Buddhist temple stood out alone in cont~ist as a place where the atmosphere was pure and clean. His education at the school was along the traditional lines of filial piety and patriotic loyalty based on the Chinese classics of Confucius and Mencius, but the contrast of what they taught and how his people lived was too extreme. In Japan we have the teaching of Confucius and the 81 Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive b£!!• p. 75. 90 family system in our country is very strict. We have ancestor worship before the ancestral tablets with daily ceremonies. Nevertheless I know that many of the young people of Japan do not love their fathers in their hearts. They §re forced to honor their parents by the old doctrines.82 In childhood he had accepted the teachings of the Shinto-Confucian-Buddhist complex as given in the educational system of the post-Meiji era with sincerity. but with reser vations. With a wisdom beyond his years, as he has stated, his childish heart longed for the time when he could become a sage like Confucius, or a miniature god, as in Shinto. As a child I was thrilled by the Shinto teaching that when men die the,y become miniature gods. But what a long period of waiting. No possibility of becoming a son of god until after death! And, when I contemplated the tragic world that these men-become-god had left behind them, my soul was filled with unutterable sad ness. To my childish mind there was no hope of becoming a sage as Confucius promised; nor could I make real the elusive transcendentalism of the Buddhistic teaching.83 The attempt to find meaning in the religion of the home and of the temples and shrines was a hazy goal in the background of his mind. He has recalled how, during the lifetime of his father, the family had followed him in the practise of a sect of Shinto. called Fuso-kyo, popular during the reign of Emperor Meiji, and on his death all rejoiced 82 T. Kagawa, "The ~stery of History," Friends 2f Jesus, IV (April, 1931}, 49. 83 Kagawa, Christ~ Japan, p. 105. that he had become a god.84 But to his young mind, there were doubts and uncertainties. In passing it is to be noted that Fuso-Kyo is a popular sect, not part of the State-cult of Shinto. After the death of his father the ancestral home reverted to Buddhism. The exchange from one to the other of these religions is a simple matter, inasmuch as little of the element of intellectual faith or the deeper principles of moral living are involved. ~ father abandoned Buddhism and became a Shintoist. When he died the family returned to the Buddhist fold. The Buddhist faith of my home, however, was entirely of a traditional, formal t,ype. In it there was not the least trace of an experience which transcends this earth born existence. At the age of ten I went regularly to ;~:i~~~a~ist temple and studied the teachings of Con- To this youth, however, the struggle in the realm of religious values, and the life of the spirit, was fully as real as the conflict in the area of the social and material spheres of life. The torrents of conflicting emotions in his attempt to untangle the confused skeins of life's fabric are dramatically expressed in his pre-Christian lite, in "Before the Dawn" -- the struggle of physical love against spiritual love, religiosity versus social indifference, the sterner view of Hinayana Buddhism as preferable to the easy going tendency of Mahayana Buddhism in vogue in Japan. The 84 Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive ~~ p. 62. 85 Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, p. 104. 92 only solution to the whole situation of turmoil was a revo lution, a Buddhist revolution: The essence of Buddhism was in the teaching of Hinayana; the Mahayana was like a slug that melted in the rain. Buddha's revolution was a failure. It started a fire in the future world, not in the present one ••• The (Japanese) priests were engaged in licking the boots ot the Government, when Buddha had taught them that life was a series of blind existence, finally ending in Nirvaftg• He would begin now a great Buddhist revolu tion. In a calmer vein in later years, he evaluated some contributions of these religions as of lasting worth. I am grateful tor Shinto, tor Buddhism, and for Con fucianism. I owe much to these faiths. The tact that I was born with a spirit of reverence, that I have an in satiable craving for values which transcend this earthly life and that I strive to walk the way of the golden mean, I 8 owe entirely to the influence of these ethnic faiths. 7 When he has said this, however, the sense of the for- eign character of these religions, and the awareness of some- thing more fundamental to his people in their own nature as the basic religious force, appears. For, after all, the religion most readily understood by the Japanese is neither Chinese Confucianism nor Indian Buddhism. It is rather the centuries-old, in tuitive spirit of religious devotion which is native to the soil and soul of Japan.88 In the realm of the economic life of society, the 86 Kagawa, Before ~ ~· pp. 110 ft. 87 Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, p. 108. 88 ~·· P• 105. 95 early impressions of the youth were likewise negative and critical. As he began to fit the various parts of the pat tern of his daily life together, there was so much that seemed out of order. His mother, the only one who had offered him love and affection, was the victim of an economic market in human bodies in the name of art and social neces- sity. And in his dealings with his elder brother, who paid him his allowance, the boy was compelled to go to these brothels, whence she came, because his brother kept seven concubines, some of them there. At his age of eleven, this brother died in Korea, hav- ing destroyed the family wealth through his profligacy. This added financial ruin and want to his long list of life expe- riences. MY older brother was an unmanageable profligate ••• He was wild over women and mortgaged the land belonging to the family in order to have money to spend on dancing girls. As more than once I went to the houses where these dancing girls were kept to get my allowance~ I got a pretty fair knowledge of life in these houses.s~ Just a year before, he, Toyohiko Kagawa, at the age of 10, had been one of the respected bourgeoisie in the economic world. He had held the respect of the headmen of the nineteen villages. He had sat in the upper seats of the New Year's ceremonies at the shrine as the head of the house. As head of the house he had gone out to the farms round about 89 Kagawa, !h! Challenge 2! Redemptive ~· p. 76. 94 about to collect the rentals from the peasants, and tenant farmers on the Kagawa fields.90 But in earlier boyhood, the farm in summer had been his joy, -- working on the waterwheel to irrigate the rice fields, picking mulberry leaves for the silk-worm, and harvesting the rice in the fall together with the farmer. Thus thrown into direct contact with the upper and the nether millstones of the economic order in these several heart-breaking experiences, his already sensitive soul was in preparation for some quite specific. response to these stimuli in the social order. There was wealth with ugliness and oppression, poverty with pain and disgrace, work in the midst or social injustice and with a broken body. These experiences of his young life were in line with the next step brought about by the loss of the family inher itance, and by the accusation that he had injured the child of a neighboring family. He left the ancestral home to live with an uncle at Tokushima, the metropolis of the province, at the age of eleven. Here he came into contact with the first Christians. who were to lead him on that path of inte gration of the many loose strands of his young life. There was first the contact with Christianity in the Tokushima Middle School, in the person of Mr. Katayama, a 90 Axling, Kasawa, pp. 9, 10. 95 Christian teacher. There is little record of his influence on the life of the young Kagawa. The fact, though, that be was a Christian teacher indicates the Christian Church as a factor in this community. There is also his own record in his autobiographical novel of Tsuruko Tamiya, a child of one of three outstanding families of his town, a childhood playmate, whose family also had dropped from the heights of social power to the dregs of utter ruin. She had become a Christian and was at tending the Christian meeting house, to which he had drifted in search of the English Bible class announced there. The family relationships are mentioned in a song the townsfolk used to sing: Tamiya has gold, Yamaju has land, But Kanai at the back the 0 ~ Has daughters to command. ~ The social implications were that the family of Tamiya, to which Tsuruko belonged, had the money and wealth of the town. It was this wealth that later proved the fam ily's ruin. The family of Yamaju owned much of the land ot the district. The Kanai family was the Niimi family of the story, or the Kagawas. It seemed to have the daughters, rather than the sons so important to the family system -- 91 Kagawa, Before ~ ~· pp. 65 ff. 96 thus Kagawa's father was adopted, and likewise Toyohiko, although born of a dancing girl, was adopted, due to a short age of male heirs. He entered the English class of Dr. Logan, who had newly arrived from America, and had no knowledge of Japanese. From him he went to Dr. Myers, of the same Mission, to make the contact which was to become the great integrating force of his young life, and the challenge that was to break through all the tangled skeins of his youthful and troubled experience. The accumulation of important events -- the death of the dissolute brother, whom he loved, the spectre of abject poverty, the new life in the school dormitory, church atten dance together with his cousin Itaru Nii, now a literary critic in Japan, as well as his childhood playmates, the gradual dawning of a new religious experience -- these all took on a new aspect of meaning. It was no wonder that he said, "I was left very poor, and thus began to meditate upon life and God."9 2 He was still antagonistic, and a believer in the theory of Darwinian evolution, which had taken the educational world of Japan by storm during the Meiji Transi- tion; 92 T. Kagawa, "Address At Tsinan International Friendship Club," Friends of Jesus, IV (December 1931), p. ?. Human beings have descended from the same stock as monkeys. We are notn~gg but apes! As for God, there is no such thing as God! In these areas of social stimuli centering in the social and cultural life of the confused national structure, there are evidences of the origins of leadership for one that is made of the stuff of leadership. In the life of Kagawa, and in that of many others like him, all was turmoil within the family, and the community; for the nation, war followed upon war, -- China in 1894-5, Russia in 1904-5, Korean annexation in 1910, and so forth. The tendencies in the social milieu were largely negative, frustrated plans and ambitions, conflicts of the old with the new, and the pattern of destruction for the many, opportunity for the few. What these influences were to mean in the area of leadership, would be determined by their relation to the individual involved. Bogardus speaks of a group of stimuli, also of a social quality, called "awakening moments. rt94 These have much to do with the development and growth of personality, belonging to the person himself, and thus of a different order than those influences already recorded. As experienced in the lite of Kagawa one of the 93 Kagawa, ~ Challenge of Redemptive 1£!!• p. 76. 94 Bogardus, op. cit •• pp. 79-91. 98 strongest of these inner experiences of the self in its re lation to the larger meaning of life, was the sense of iso- lation, due to lovelessness, ostracism, and self-withdrawal. The feeling of the loss of his mother as the only one who loved him, the cruelties or the home and the social order, the loneliness of the school in the midst of multitudes of children due to his family's wealth on the one hand, and his personal sensitivity on the other, the want of affection on every hand -- these meant isolation and withdrawal. The expressions of his heart are numerous: I muse upon this solitary isle, Upon the world; The past comes back before me, And God's grace- And oh, the sleeve is wet with tears That hide my face.95 I wept unceasingly over the moral corruption of my home and the iniqui~ or the world.96 Then when he so~ht to reveal God as love to the wide world of men, he wrote: Ah, this famine of love! How it saddens my soul: In city and country, in hospital and factory, in shop and oe7street, everywhere this dreadful drought or love! 95 T. Kagawa, Sonss !!£!~Slums, Interpreted by L. J. Erickson (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1935), P• 57. 96 Kagawa, Christ ~Japan, p. 105. 97 T. Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Chicago: John c. Winston Company, 1929}7 p:-4~ ------- 99 That soul, scarred often in the battles with humanity, and its social and economic order, felt the utter loneliness of that experience: I was a pilgrim journeying upon a long, long road that had no turning. I was weary. I was footsore. I wandered through a dark and dismal world where tragedies were thick. Tears were my meat day and night ••• Until I discovered that God, the creator and ruler of the universe and man's maker, is Sl Father. (Italics not in the original).96 The quality of leadership arising out of a personality built in this pattern would almost certainly challenge any social, economic or religious trend that tended to loneli- ness, segregation, and lovelessness. There is further the sense of insecurit¥, grounded in fears, in social and economic injustice, in cosmic evil and the problem of pain. There were fears of the foster-mother and grand mother, fears of the dark gloomy storehouse w.ith its intrigu ing past, fears of the god-shelf in the ancestral home. Says Ax ling, Whenever he saw his sister punished there surged up in his childish heart an intense hatred of life. At such times the grandmother's wrath leaped out toward Toyohiko as well, w.ith the result that he was made a prisoner in one of the dark outhouses ••• The family store house was a place ot terror. ~remy hair 9 ~aising legends were gathered around its dark interior. 98 Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, p. 109. 99 Axling, Kagawa, pp. 6, 7. 100 Kagawa's picture of himself at the god-shelf is that of fear - MY family belonged to the Shingon sect (of Buddhism); and on the godshelf was an array of many memorial tab lets inscribed with difficult posthumous names, granted by the priests after death to the various members of my family. It was my duty from the time I was six or seven years of age to place an offering before these tablets every morning before I ate my own breakfast. I remember how I would enter the darkened room, light the candles on the godshelf, place an offering on the godshelf, and strike the bell on the godshelf, and then hurry back, for when I struck the bell, a wave of fear would sweep over me (was it the fear of death?) and I would be breathless from terror. For on the whole, the beliefs commonly held among the Japanese people ar~ not joyous faiths, but beliefs founded on fear.lOo There was another fear, resulting from the lax moral conceptions surrounding him in his home, in literature, in society at large, in the brothel. -- the lapse into moral ruin which had engulfed so many of his family, and of his friends. It was about that time that I realized that if I were the least bit careless, I myself might be easily drawn into the whirlpool of vice, and that I would have to watch my step With the strictest caution or I would be led away into a future of which no one could predict the outcome. But while I felt this keenly. I could not see clearly at that time how I was going to rise victorious over this danger.lOl This when he was only eleven years of agel The 100 Kagawa, ~ Challenge £! Redemptive ~· PP• 61, 62. 101 ~·· P• 76. 101 struggle of the soul against the yearnings of the body he has pictured in the story of Eiichi Niimi's love for Tsuruko Tamiya, the childhood playmate, and for Kohide, the geisha. 102 Fear almost overcome by desire, to lapse back into fear and struggle again until the victory of a new affection! Cosmic evil and the problem of pain were a burden to his soul. The problem of suffering was the core of Buddhis tic thought, but its response as he saw it, was a technique of escape and flight from the fact. To the boy of fifteen, the puzzle of pain in youth, of pain in the world at large, of both cosmic and human injustice, remained in the great sphere of uncertainties. He knew pain and all its fears, and has listed its scars on his life - I have experienced considerable sickness all my life. Because of lung trouble I had to stop school in my second year of Middle School. At seventeen there were hemorrhages and at nineteen they became worse. At twenty I had to stop a year. Then for four or five years the fever did not decrease. At twenty I weighed seventy-six pounds, and now about one hundred and forty. For that reason, to say that one is a consumptive, is no cause for worry. Illness is a matter of the spirit •• I had dia betes, kidney trouble, pleurisy, tubercular fistula •• my heart was weak, and I contracted trachoma among the poor ••• ! was in a collision between an auto and a street car and suffered a spine injury ••• Even though I have been ill to this extent, I am full of energy. Because my spirit is joyful, I am at peace. Because I have crossed the death line, there is nothing more. Because I have died once, all that comes after is 102 Kagawa, Before !a!~· pp. 93 ff. and 344 ff. 102 pure gain.l03 To defeated youth, he has spoken out of his own youth in overcoming the insecurities of lite: Recently in Tokyo a youth said to me, "I want to believe, but the temptation to die always possesses my soul." I replied, "I too once got into such a pessimis tic frame of mind, but I noticed that in my heart there was something that remained. It was the consciousness of an impulse to help make the world just a bit better" ••• Even when the temptation to commit suicide comes, we are never to throw away the shreds of aspiration 1 8iward the good, but keep on advancing toward Goodness. The language of suffering and pain is the language of all mankind. but especially that of the Oriental. Thus the leader who can make a contribution in this area of life is more than a humanitarian. M. s. Murao in reviewing Kagawa's book, Kami B1 ~ Shinsei, said: The most important feature in a book of this kind is to give a proper place to the problem of suffering, for no ~vangelistic work today can be successful without it.l05 This Kagawa was well qualified to do, moving the problem of pain out of the atmosphere of metaphysics into the arena of social living. ~sticism is another quality of the person of Kagawa 103 T. Kagawa, Kami ni Yoru Shinsei (New Life Through God), (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kian7 I92~PP• 14, 15. 104 Kagawa, ~ the Law of~· p. 282. 105 M. s. MUrao, Book Review, Japan Christian Quarterly, October. 1929, p. 388. 103 to which may be attributed direction in the course of his leadership development. Wm. James regards mystical states of consciousness as giving insights not usual to the ordinary conscious and intellectual processes. He says "personal religious experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness,"l06 regarding them as not abnormal or peculiar. Normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it. is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie pgtential forms of consciousness entirely different.1 7 As has been pointed out earlier, a fundamental char- acteristic of Japanese thought is that it seeks out prin ciples, rather than meticulous detail, it moves in "paths" rather than in system, its sphere is rather in meditation, than in logic. There is in Kagawa's thinking a type of theology, which is considered later, but it is more like the theology of the Gospels, -- rich statements of discovered truth without any attempt at system. To Kagawa, the appreciation of the redemptive power of Love Incarnate was a thrilling fact of life. 106 Wm. James, The Varieties of Religious Exper ience, (New York: Random House, 1902), p. 370. 107 ~·· P• 378. To me, born a child of sin, this redemptive love tills and thrills every fibre of my being~ It stirs within me a poignant sense of gratitude.Iv8 104 His life has been meditative from its earliest con- scious experiences. His flights to nature, to the river, to the fields, to the flowers, from the hatreds of home, from the chaos of society, were in search of knowledge through communion with the more friendly portion of his environment. It is the mood of the Orient - So strong is the instinctive feeling of the Japanese for nature that if Christ had not been a nature-lover I question whether they would have found it possible to give him their hearts' fullest and finest devotion. Paul and Peter impress the Japanese as being over importunate. Christ pointed to the lily of the field. He lifted his eyes to the birds of the air.l09 Kagawa has divided religions in general into two classes, those centering in meditation, and those centering in prayer. The various sects of Buddhism belong to the former. especially the popular Zen -- they are meditation focused, introspective with no personal relations or impli cations in regard to deity; it seeks the annihilation of the personal, and its end is meditative absorption in the Great All. Against this type of religion, is the other, exem plified by the teaching of Christ, which is prayer-centered, and its meditations seek, not self-annihilation, but self- 108 Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, p. 114. 109 Ibid., P• 39 • ........... 105 realization through commitment to the Will of the Creator Father. It is the seeking of personal relations with the personality-revealing Lord of the Universe. This, tor Kagawa, was the great difference in relig ious outlook, which was to change the basic pattern of loyal ty-filial piety, so as to include the wider pattern of love, in its horizontal social implications. He says: Prayer is one form of desire; but when we pray with firm belief in the God of the universe, we can say that it is super-natural living. This we say is mystical. There is a kind of theology prevalent in Japan which rejects mysticism, but it is the experience of the supernatural in the natural world. A thing like Pfioer is the mystery of mysteries, and it is not theory. When he is called a mystic, it is with reference to his intuitive consciousness of great spiritual realities, in contrast to the rational theories of the logician. Thus it is that one of his colleagues in the ministry has spoken of him: He is a mystic rather than a scholar, or theologian, or philosopher. He is a meditator, a man of prayer ••• From his meditation, his books and speeches are created ••• It is, therefore, no wonder that I t~Ifk this book is most like Kagawa among his many books. The period in which he grew up as a youth was a period of hammon, heart-searching, of yearning for a way out of, or 110 T. Kagawa, Sei Rei ni Tsuite no Meiso, Medita tions About the Holy Spirit:-\Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1932), P• 10. 111 M. Kozaki, Book Review on "Kami ni Tsuite no Meiso," Meditations About God, The Japan Christian Quarterly, July 1930, p. 290. --- 106 a solution within, the social order. The materialism of Occidental inventions and science. together with Darwinian evolution, was countered with pietism and religious devotion by Buddhists and Christians alike, -- in literature and social movements as well as in the church institutions. Religious extremism with prophets and saviours, Christian and Buddhist, appeared. Religious communities with a common life of prayer and devotion developed in various parts of the country, -- largely youth seeking meaning in life during the period of national turmoil. Anesaki writing of this situation states that Tolstoy was regarded by these young men as the true spokesman of "primitive and genuine Christianity, and they recognize in the nascent vigor of primitiveness, a religious spirit of real vitality.ll2 An Arishima in literature was a leader until his moral life lost its bearings. To Tsunashima Ryosen, a rationalist who became a Christian and a mystic, the concept of a god, like the Hotoke of Buddhism, or a son of god, like the~ of Shinto, became a fact of conscious ness, as recorded in his experience: The vision of God came to him as he was writing with a pen--"it was a confluence, a union of me with God; at that moment I myself became almost melted away into the 112 M. Anesaki, ~ Religious ~ Social Problems of the Orient, (New York: The Nacmillan Company, lg23), p. 73. 107 reality of God •• My God, the God of heaven and earth, has now appeared face to face, like a fact of intense day light, a fact astonishing and thrilling ••• ! am a son of God, a son of God who shares the government of human life. of heaven and earth ••• Ah, I am a son of God and must live like a son of God, a life worthy of a son of God.nll3 Kagawa's young life unfolded during this period of heart-searching. Tolstoy's thought was a great influence in his development, likewise the pietism of Wesley, who was also a consumptive, and worker in the slums.ll4 The vision of Kagawa when_he crossed the death-line, again when he heard the voice of God calling him to the Kingdom of God movement, -- these visions are akin to those of great religious lead- ers, as a Wesley, or a Luther who became aware of great spiritual forces released in their lives. There has become evident, in the recording of these data on leadership-origins, the pattern which reached its climax in conversion. It was not a right-about-face from a life of evil to one of righteous living, but an evolution and a development in a life of problems within a social milieu of problems and an impact with the teachings of Christ. resulting in a crisis of decision. His first Christian contacts have been mentioned. Concerning his first relations w.ith missionary evangelism, 113 Anesaki, ~· £1!•• pp. 19, 20. 114 Kagawa, Before ~ ~· p. 264. 108 Kagawa has written: It was in the third term of my third year in Middle School that Dr. Logan, who had just arrived from America, began a series of lectures on the life of Christ ••• It was the first time I had ever heard English spoken by a foreigner and also the first time I had heard anything like Christian teaching. I had seen Dr. and Mrs. MYers (Dr. Y.yers was the younger brother of Y~s. Logan) but I had never spoken to them. His careful preparation for the class drew my heart to him ••• It was a time when my thirst for knowledge was deep and sometimes I felt as though I could ill spare the time to go to Dr. Logan's home, yet because I liked him so well, I was a frequent visitor there. To tell the truth I was the loneliest person in the world just at that time and as I was searching for some one Who would treat me kindly I was naturally drawn to this man, who was so gentle and kindly ••• I was just fifteen when I heard Dr. Logan's lectures on Genesis, and for the first time in my life I really began i£ 5 awake to a sense of being alive, a human being. In the background of these statements, are to be seen the confusions of early life, and an awakening to possible new meanings in life. There is also, to those interested in a chronological order of events in this conversion period, a statement of helpful details. Dr. Logan had arrived in Japan in 1902, probably in the spring of the year, which would accord with Kagawa's statement in the above quotation that "it was in the third term of my third year in Middle School, that Dr. Logan, who 115 H. Topping, "Kagawa's Boyhood Teacher and Friend," Kagawa Comes~· Friends of Jesus, IX (June 1937), 12. 109 had just arrived from America, began a series of lectures on the life of Christ." If the year is correct as given, Kagawa was thirteen years old {actual count) and fifteen years old {Japanese count) at that time. The other statement at the end of the quotation, "I was fifteen when I heard Dr. Logan's lecture on Genesis" probably refers to his age in Japanese count, as Kagawa would be fifteen in Japanese count for the entire year of 1902. His earlier attendance at the little church in Tokushima, the influence of Katayama, his first Christian school teacher, then the first contact with an American missionary all at the tender age of thirteen {in actual year count), to be followed by the challenge to decision by another missionary at the age of fifteen {actual) consti tuted a great crisis in his life. Kagawa's baptism by Dr. H. MYers came after he had attended his class for some months. probably on February 14, 1904, or when Kagawa was fifteen years old, actual count and seventeen years old, Japanese count. This date is not recorded by Wm • .Axling in his Kagawa. Kagawa himself, how ever, has given the date of February 14,116 but has placed it in the same year that he moved to the slums, namely 1909, when he was twenty-one years of age, thus making a 116 Kagawa, Before the Dawn, p. 242. 110 contradiction; this is likely due to literary license in the interest of the plot of the novel. We conclude that the year is 1904, and the date is February 14, a date also borne out by a reference of Miss Helen Topping: After seven months came the turn of the year, the first of January, when every Japanese child becomes a year older ••• He went back to the mission to borrow another book ••• The missionary stopped him, asking, "Kagawa Son, don't you believe in God by this time?" "Yes," he said.ll7 Thus early in the new year when he was fifteen (actual count) the crisis moved toward a public confession of faith. With this chronology established, it is possible to consider the elements of this conversion experience. The events relating to the contacts with Japanese Christians, and friends who were Christians have been re- lated. The contacts with Dr. Logan and Dr. Myers too were a process of preparation -- until the incident "seven months" previous when - the missionary went off on a summer vacation, and gave the boys a number of Bible verses to memorize. He tells us what they were- Luke l2:27-3l •• Kagawa says: "I discovered my Father in heaven and in me." He began to turn all his terrific anxiety about the state of the world, and his own possible future re lationship to it, into prayer.ll8 117 H. Topping, Introducing Kagawa, (Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1935), p. 4. 118 Topping, loc. £11• lll Kagawa himself has told the story and the secret or that seven months of prayer, and related it to the great problem of purity, which had been the ruin of lives dear to him. From the age of four I had wandered freely in the country fields, and probably it was because of my love for wild flowers that this verse impressed me so deeply •• I heard God's voice clearly in that verse from the Holy Word, and it seemed to me as though God were speaking directly to me ••• I heard a voice gently whispering in my ear: "Do you really desire purity? Is it a matter of unconcern to you whether you slip into evil ways? If you wish to have your sins which have already stained your heart taken away, and your heart cleansed, and truly want to enter on a pure life from now on, you must become like the wild lilies that flower in the fields"••• From that moment I was filled with a strange new power ••• ! threw aside the theory of evolution and began to believe firmly in the God of heaven and earth. For the first time in my life I was able to have a clear faith in the God who caused the universe to evolve, because I learned to have the feelings of one of His flowers ••• I did not tell anyone of my experience. Only when I felt like praying, I would draw the quilts over my head and pray all by myself. It was a virY simple prayer I offered: "God make me a good boy 1" ~~ There was also another element in his problem, that of the vengeance of his uncle, with whom he was living, who absolutely disapproved of his attendance at Bible study and Christian gatherings. In Kagawa's words: I began to pray, but had my praying been known to my uncle and his family I would have been turned out of the house. So when I prayed, I hid myself under 119 Kagawa, ~ Challenge £! Redemptive ~. p. ?9. 112 the bed covers.120 Until that time, he had moved in the manner of most young students. studying English. and absorbing some of the teach ing. The memorization of the words had sent the teaching deep into his heart. The struggle had begun. After seven months, he returned to Dr. Myers for books. He asked Kagawa: "Why don't you become a Christian? Why don't you receive baptism?" I said, "Then I would be kicked out of the house. You know a long time ago Christianity raised a big disturbance against the government." Then he said, "Kagawa San, you are a coward." "What?" I replied. He repeated it. "You are a coward." I saidi 2 lAll right, Dr. Myers. I will receive baptism." The decision had been made and he went through with it. It was not the decision of a mystic, but the decision of a youth at grips with very stern realities of life. It was a secret which his family did not learn until after he completed ~ddle School. His refusal to enter law school revealed his desire to be a simple preacher of the Gospel. He was cast out of the only home he had, and in utter poverty. But when all these facts are recorded, they still fail 120 Kagawa, Kagawa in Australia, {Tokyo: Friends of Jesus, 1936), p. 54. 121 Kagawa, loc. £!!• 113 to tell the inner struggle of his conversion and the resolute decision to throw his life into the work of the Church. Some of its details are revealed in his picture of Eiichi before his conversion as he struggled with the problem of Death - "at one time •• he threw himself down on the road crying to his body, 'Diel' but With no effect." He continues the struggle: What were the State, civilization, father, lover, existence, God, virtue, beauty? - were they all nought?. Life was like playing with a flower that bloomed out of nothingness. The nothingness of nothing - a kind of minus of minus! MUst he still go on living? His agony lasted for a month and a half, but the wonder of life had too strong a hold of him and finally it gained the victory. He decided to accept all - yes, all. Life and all its manifestations, that are borne onward upon the stream of time, he would accept. He resolved that he would live steadfastly in the actual world, endued with the strength of death. All things were wonderful - death, he himself, the earth, stones, sand, food, women, girls, steamships - even the void that he sought was wonderful. Colour, sunlight, design, roses, the cherry lips of girls - all were wonderful. He accepted them all. Religion together with all its symbols, he would also accept. He resolved he would enter into the conflict with the courage of a suicide. Thus resolved he was gradually drawn to Christ ••• so it came to pass that on the 14th of FebrY~2Y he decided to profess himself a disciple of Christ. This was but the beginning it was a new start, a re-direction within his life which was to lead him into channels of leadership, different from that of the mystics, 122 Kagawa, Before the ~· pp. 240-42. 114 wider than that of the churchman, yet withal a defense of the great mass of suffering Japanese humanity in the name of Christ. "Life and all its manifestations •• borne onward upon the stream of time" these he would accept as elements of the great conflict, his struggle, as he fought, "endued with the strength of death." CHAPTER IV BUILDING A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE IN THE SHINKAWA SLUMS In the study of leadership origins, it was evident that in the youthful period of Kagawa's life, he had been subject to the fierce cross-currents of the social forces that were at work in Japan. ~riads of Japan's youth were caught in these same currents. Many of them felt their intensity in the bitter experiences of defeat and frustra tion. Others, the few, launched out against these forces with all the energy and talent at their disposal to strike at them, and if possible to bring them under control. Kagawa's decision for a Christ-centered life, rooted in the loyalty and devotion of Otokodate or Kyokakudo, was the first step in the re-direction of his own life. His decision to enter the slums of Shinkawa in Kobe on December 24, lgog, at the age of 21 years, was another important choice in further establishing the direction which both life and leadership were to take. The data in regard to this decision do not allow the oft-implied dramatic emphasis, or the interpretation of misguided idealism in an attempt to transform the slum. There was a very definite response of his being over a long period of time to some of the tendencies in the social milieu, bringing in their train great decisions. A philosophy of life was in the making. 116 It was being forged on the anvil of life in the fires of human suffering. Kagawa lived in the slums for fourteen years and eight months, and for a period of six or seven years before that his attention had been directed toward the slums. In his own story he has recorded what may be his first direct experience with the slums in the incident of two boys on the street in Tokushima. One boy, a ragamuffin with a bag of rice in his hand, was being chased by another boy of "respectable appear ance •• like a child of the middle class," and was pushed to the ground by him. The rice was scattered and the ragamuffin cried, not because of his hurt, but because his rice was ruined, and because fear of punishment was uppermost in his heart. The young Eiichi (Kagawa) went home with him to ex plain to the parents, in defense of the boy. He says: As they went along this winding alley the stench of rotten pickles was at times unbearable; it was an indi cation to Eiichi that he was in the shadow of the slums. In truth he had happened upon a place that was beyond his imagination •• "Is it necessary in~t people should live in such quarters?" he thought. Arriving at the home, he was met by the angered mother, who, repenting her emotions, explained: Really master, I'm thoroughly tired of life. After 123 T. Kagawa, Before the Dawn, (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1~24), p. 10~---- 117 my man had got crippled like that the railway throws him out with only twenty yen compensation, and we had no friends to go to to help us. I work from early morning till late at night winding spools for weaving, but though we live as sparingly as can be, one woman, whatever she does, can't earn enough to feed two people. This evening he said he'd like a little rice as he hadn't tasted any for so long, and so I sent the boy to buy half a quart of the cheapest rice and that's how I'm served.I24 These hovels were just across the bridge, not very far from the house of his uncle, one of the very rich of the city. The youth, Toyohiko, whom the uncle planned to make his heir because of his alertness, 125 wrote of his thoughts, that "Eiichi loved the poor in his inmost heart.~l26 It was natural that the books that interested him moat in his first contact with English were the lives of Canon Barnett, founder of Toynbee Hall and Wesley, who had lived in the alums and worked for the poor of London. 127 Not only did he learn of great men at work in other lands, but in his own city of Tokushima he learned of a man by the name of Mori, an ignorant laborer, who had once stolen five yen, and who had been converted in the same small mission-hall to which Kagawa had come. He had given his 124 ~., P• 105. 125 T. Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Chicago: John c. Winston Company, 192~p:-2.--- ------ 126 Kagawa, Before ~Dawn, p. 107. 127 ~., pp. 218 and 262. 118 life to work for the outcasts of the slums there. Dr. ~ers took the youth to see him and his work. This picture of suffering, and how it developed, left its indelible impres sion on his mind. These people were some of the thousands of pilgrims who visited the eighty-eight sacred places of Shikoku. To these sacred places over fifty thousand pilgrims come every year, who live by begging alms from the island people. Since all these pilgrims are believed to be reincarnations of Kobo Daishi, all must be fed without exception. And therefore those afflicted with leprosy, and the knock-kneed, crippled, blind, and diseased from all over Japan come to Shikoku and make the rounds of these places. Some get too ill to move about, and go to the slums of Tokushima city •• This reality of Mori's living the Cross impressed me, and taught me that I must serve also.l28 There were also an Ishii Juji of Okayama with his orphans, a Homma Shimpei with his convicts, a Miss Zako Aiko trained as a geisha, a profession she refused to continue at the age of sixteen, preferring poverty and physical paral ysis, to shame. These and other heroes of the faith in the generation before him, were lights along the path he was choosing. His own conversion, as recorded, followed, together with his disinheritance, and pennilessness. Cast out from home, he became a protegee of the Church and her educational institutions. First at Meiji Gakuin, the Presbyterian 128 T. Kagawa, "The Ethical Teaching of Jesus Christ," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 37. 119 College in Tokyo, his craving for books on many subjects was satisfied, but his yearning for a practical expression of love and Christian fellowship was unfulfilled. His illness developed, and in the second year there, it was necessary to give up his studies. During the. time of his schooling in Tokyo he had gone to preach in the slums of Tokyo. He had tried to live the self-sacrificing life at school with little success. His frail body did not respond to the demands of his tireless spirit. The student body and society in general had failed to understand him. He left Tokyo in 1907 to spend the summer months in a fishing-hut on the seashore at Gamagori for a period of convalescence, which lasted for more than a year. Here he preached to the people and worked on his autobiographical novel, in utter poverty. His illness, instead of improving, became worse, turning into tubercular pneumonia, which the doctor declared hopeless.l29 But instead of resigning him self to death, he experienced the great crisis, which he has called crossing the death-line: Then for one day I prayed and prayed continuously and suddenly, about three in the afternoon, I received a great joy of illumination, when the afternoon sun shine struck on the polished pillar of the alcove-of- 129 H. Topping, Introducing Kagawa, (Chicago: Willet, Clark and Company, 1935), pp. 5, 6. 120 honor in the room in which I was lying. I felt con vinced that God had entrusted me with the duty of realizing the spirit of Jesus by work among the poor, and that therefore I could not die. At the moment of my illumination, I seemed to leap over death and to thrust myself into the world of miracle and mystery. From that moment I began to recover, and soon was able to entertain myself by reading the Psalms. I was in bed for a month, every day more and more determined to go and live in the slums of Shinkawa.l30 This crisis was an important step in the progress of his life toward the work in the slums, but the actual deei- sion to move into the slums came after another crisis in his illness, whose details appear only in the novel, together with the record of an illumination, very similar to the one at Gamagori. This record of an illumination in 1909 is again very probably the exercise of literary license used to bring the previous event into the story, but at a later time. After his convalescence he went on to Kobe to enter the Theological Seminary, for the moment passing by the determination to give his life for the slums. In ~rch 1909, however, he visited the slums alone, and from then on went on preaching-visits there, and to the busy street of Motomachi, afternoons and evenings. His own story of this development is told in the novel: From September 5th he began open-air preaching in Moto-machi •• He was dissatisfied with the obscure methods of the present-day churches and wished to go forward in 130 T. Kagawa, "What I Owe to Christ," Kagawa in the Philippines, Friends of Jesus, VII (August 1934), 66. ----- 121 his own way •• At the end of September he had a return of the fever •• After just a month had elapsed, on the evening of the fifth of October, about nine o'clock, as he was preaching in the street, it began to rain •• "In conclusion," he cried, "I tell you God is love, and I will affirm God is love till I fall." He dragged his heavy body wet with rain •• till at last he fell down in the rain with a thud.l3l This was another great crisis in his struggle against death. There was a relentless pull of the slum with its poverty, its immorality, its utter hopelessness on the heart and mind of this youth. There were the evidences of struggle in regard to duty and in regard to fate, of the struggle still to find a solution to his own sufferings and those of the world about him. With this illness, came the will to carry out a program of complete identification with those toward whom years of study had drawn him. His picture is that of the helpless Eiichi talking to his nurse: "If I get well I shall certainly enter the slums of Shinkawa and offer myself as a sacrifice to God, - if I get well, thanks to all your kindness.nl32 After recovery, which was never complete, he wrote of Eiichi: He was not quite well, but there was nothing to worry about. Every afternoon he had an attack of fever at four o'clock, but he got accustomed to it and was unconcerned. He determined that if his life was to be short, - if he was to live only one, or two, or, at most perhaps, three years, he would use all his strength to live a thoroughly 131 Kagawa, Before the ~· pp. 257-58. 132 ~·· p. 259. 122 good life ••• When he thought of the cry of the revolu tionists in Russia- "v narod" ("Among the people"), and of Toynbee's University settlements among the poor, he felf ~hat he must certainly go and live in the slums. 3 With a background of such varied experiences and deci sions as those of the years reaching back into family expe riences and the period of his early youth, the nineteen year old Kagawa took the final step by carrying his few belongings from the seminary dormitory, on Christmas eve, "when all the churches were very busy thinking of nothing but Christmas"l3 4 (a casual, though meaningful, aside). Eiichi with his friend Ueki, a one time scavenger, pulled the handcart of goods down into the slums, December 24, 1909. In regard to his motives, Kagawa has given expression to several of them. The ones given in the incidents, above recorded, were, first, a sense that God had entrusted to him the dut,y of realizing the spirit of Jesus by work among the poor. A second one was that of offering himself as a sacri- fice to God. But in neither of these, or others expressed, had the evidences of a plan appeared, other than to preach and to live among the poor. Often in the early years, his will as well as his heart were challenged to their limit, as he says: 133 Ibid., pp. 263-64. 134 ~·· p. 265. One month in the slums, And I am sad. So sad I seem i~!il-possessed, Or mad. 123 Another motive was that of bringing God to the slums, and to share with the suffering, the experience of Love, which had meant so much to him: I came to bring God to the slum; But I am dumb, Dismayed, Betrayed By those Whom I would aid. I would lead them away from their bondage, on and on, To the North Land, the Land of Trees, the lovely Land of Han. It is not to pain that I would bring you a!~!n, There is Love in the world; there is Love. In the background of his thinking there was also the motive of study and investigation,l37 but only after years of preaching and sharing, of living and daily dying, did the indications of a plan appear; the gradual concretion of a life philosophy brought into being the need for purposeful planning, if the slum of Japan were to be changed from the 135 T. Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, Interpreted by L. Erickson, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1935), p. 17. 136 Ibid., pp. 18, 21, 30. 137 Kagawa, 1£!! the b!! of Lite, p. 223. 124 course in which it was moving. He had gone into the slum as a Mori had, to help, but the Kagawa type of help was to be that of a strike at the system, rather than a limited alleviation of its pain. The slum was Japanese society, disorganized and in decay. It was not just Fate and the Impersonalism of Buddhism that must rule; there were social responsibility and a great Love! The problem of the slum in Japan, to which Kagawa addressed himself, was the result, not so much of the influx of large foreign populations, as in America, -- although some of these elements are not lacking, or to movements of population due to rapidly changing communities, although the industrialization of urban areas since the Restoration has tended to emphasize this tendency. It was due, historically, to the radical changes within a normally homogeneous social order, and to the tendency of the family system and the larger system of official controls, to squeeze out of its midst unwanted and undesirable individuals or groups. Rigid classifications of the desirable and undesir able elements of the population have been traditional. From the earliest beginnings the social organization of Japan was on the basis of the Ko, or the family group con sisting of those with a common ancestry either in direct, or in collateral family units; these might have from one hundred to one hundred and fifty persons in each Ko, with 125 one person the head of the Ko. These Ko, then, joined in Uji for mutual benefit and protection, with a head, who had authority over the heads of the Ko. In the Uji there were communities of artisans and specialized workers organized into Be, which cut across the family lines, with the Be sometimes gaining in authority over the dominant family Ko, as they were not descended trom the same ancestor. There was also a small group of Yakko, or slaves in each, who were taken as captives in warfare, or were families of persons, formerly of "good" rank, reduced because of crime or other punishment. This was known as the shizoku system, or "clan-family" organization which came up trom the early primitive period.l38 The division of the people was into two general cate gories, the tree men with a family name, or the ryomin, good people, and those with no family name. or the semmdn, base people. Sansom quotes an imperial decree of the 415 A.D. giving the importance of the family name: In the most ancient times good government consisted in the subjects having each his proper place, and in names being correct. Nowadays superiors and inferiors dispute with one another, and the hundred families are not at peace. Some by chance lose their tr~~ 9 names, others purposely lay claim to high lineage. 138 A. F. Thomas and s. Koyama, Commercial History of Japan. (Tokyo: The Yuhodo Limited, 1936), p. 9. 139 G. B. Sansom, Japan. A Short Cultural History, (London: The Cresset Press, 1936)7 PP• 39 ff. 126 Those without family name were the members of the Be, or guilds of artisans and workers in the employ of the governing class, and were semi-free, but superior to the yakko, or slaves, who were the property of their owners. Prices for a slave of sturdy body ranged as high as one thou sand bundles of rice, or Yen six hundred. Early in Japanese history, there was the further com plication of the entrance of large groups of Chinese and Korean artisans of great skill. In 485 A.D. the sake brewed by Koreans at a fair of the village of Ekaichi was noted. In 540 A.D. the growth of the Chinese Rata family, a family of weavers, had reached the number of ?,053 houses with an estimated number of 130,000 people.l40 For the most part, these immigrants were incorporated into the Be of which they were a part, and their total number reached rather consider- able proportions: Indeed, by the end of the ?th century, according to the Shojiroku, a peerage of that time, over one-third of the nobl~ 4 families of Japan claimed Chinese or Korean descent. It is beyond our purpose to go further into the pic ture of the racial backgrounds of the nation, but a consider ation of the developments just indicated, together with the 140 Thomas, £R• £11·• pp. 18, 24. 141 Sansom,~· cit., p. 43. 12? fact of other mixtures with the early Ainu, and the still earlier pit-dwellers of pre-historic Japan, shows that the social organization, while it had absorbed culture elements foreign to the dominating clans, isolated the larger part of them. The ruling classes throughout the centuries set up a great gulf between themselves and the masses which served them, up until the time of the Meiji Restoration. Even the three great classes of ordinary people, or Heimin -- farmers, artisans, and merchants -- constituting nine-tenths of the population,l42 set up classes within themselves, and drove many into degrading tasks and beggary. The pressures of custom on the part of the upper classes set up communities of outcasts, who dealt with the taking of life, and the dead, both of animals and human beings.l 4 3 The successive changes in the national structure at the time of the Taikwa reforms in the seventh century, in the estab lishment of the feudal system in the twelfth century, and in the destruction of that system in favor of the imperial re forms in the nineteenth century, upset the established pat terns of social life. The economic pressures of the governing groups on the 142 w. E. Lampe, The Japanese Social Organization, (Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1910), P• 63. 143 Ibid., P• 6?. 128 peasantry and artisans in the eighth century drove many to become vagrants, -- pirates on land and on the seas; others became hawkers, and street-venders. 144 With the defeat of the armies of the clans as they successively fought one another, their retainers and families were thrown out of work and rice, and released many of the soldier class into the lower classes of the semi-free and vagabonds. The defeat of the great Taira clan by t·he Ivlinamoto in 1185, led the women of the Taira to give themselves to prostitution, 145 thus beginning the system of public practise of what was all too common in the higher classes as well as the lower in ancient times, as well as in the times of the youth Kagawa. Indifference to human life, and more especially to human wel fare, found no opposing influence in the religious or ethical movements for many centuries. The destruction, or the sale, of unwanted children was also a part of this lack of regard for human values, everything contributing to the maintenance of the upper five percent of the population -- the governing, controlling class of the nobles and their retainers. During the later feudal period, it was natural that much turmoil should result on the part of the masses doing 144 Sansom,~· £!!•• pp. 170, 216. 145 J. A. B. Scherer, The Romance of Japan (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926):-p. 68. 129 the work of the feudal lords. Grinding labor and excessive taxation of the peasant, the isolation of the men of com- merce, usually descendants of foreign racial strains, whose financial success made them creditors, and eventually con trollers, ot both daimyo and samurai, all of this led to serious dislocations in the socio-economic structure, long before the actual breakdown. The petition ot the well-known village elder, Sogoro, ot the castle of Sakura, who dared break with precedent on behalf of the thousands of suffering peasants working in the castle area, and who paid with his lite and that of his family, has stated this situation in part: We, the elders of the hundred and thirty-six villages of the district of Chiba •• most reverently offer up this our humble petition •• Taxes are raised on nineteen of our articles of produce •• not only are we not paid now for our produce, but, if it is not given in to the day, we are driven and goaded by the officials •• The people are reduced to poverty •• seven hundred and thirty men or more have been reduced to begging, one hundred and eighty-five houses have fallen into ruins, land producing seven thousand kokus have been given up •• the poverty- ~!~!c~:~nf~;~:~~ ~~de:~re~~~r~:!:ii 6 no abiding-place, Although this was an incident of the year 1651, the condition continued for another two hundred years until the Restoration of 1868. The rapid industrialization of the Meiji period broke 146 Lord Redesdale, Tales of Old Japan, (London: VBcmillan and Company Limited, 1~28T,-p7 184. 130 up the long-standing system of home industries, as well as the social groupings centering around them. The long isolated communities of the eta (killers and tanners) and others outcast for punishment and for crimes, amounting to a total of 982,800 (28?,111 Eta), were released to the democ ratized society of the nation.l4? The families of samurai, 400,000 of them, or approximately two million persons, were deprived of their rank, their work, and their rice, and thrown into the maelstrom. The Buddhist temples were di vested of the official position they had held, and here again disorganization was followed by want and confusion. Adding these to the already large multitudes in poverty, in want and in degradation, the problem of the slum really became the problem of the total Japanese social structure. Emperor Meiji had given expression to orders showing a social conscience for the first time in history, on the part of government, but the slums were filling with the derelict free-man and slave aLike, with the widow and child, whom it sought to protect, and with the prostitute by choice and the prostitute by necessity. It was into this maelstrom which the youth, Kagawa, placed his venturesome foot, as an act of faith in a God who cares on the one hand, and on the other, as a work of 14? Lampe, £2• cit., pp. ?0, ?1. 131 sacrifice, feeling that his life might not last for long. This can hardly be called fatalism, yet it has some of this quality of the environment from which he came. Neither can it be called a well-wrought plan, although he was not aware of the nature of the slum and its demands upon him. It was, rather, to be the cauldron, wherein he was to feel the in- tense struggle of human-kind in all phases of its life ot work, of sex, of thought, of idealism -- leading him to a deeper understanding of his task, from which after long years was to come a working philosophy of life. The Shinkawa slum area in Kobe was like many others throughout Japan just one ot the large communities of dis- organization, of the outcast, the defeated, the lowly and despised, -- those who lived only because the will to live drove them on. Ten thousand people lived in houses often only six feet square in size, with every inch used as sleep ing space. There was no privacy, there were no windows, there was no sanitation. Filth from cast-out refuse, from overflowing sewers and surface gutters gave odors and a stench that only the resistance of bruised bodies, long immune to normal disease, could stand. It was a place where the wife and the prostitute moved in the same plane, where children could not know the decencies of any home lite. The sufferings of the people, whom he saw there in those early months and years, left indelible impressions on 132 a soul already deeply scarred with his own youth-memories ot a mother, who had been one of them, of a father and a broth- er, who wasted life as these were wasting it, of a foster- mother and a grand-mother who railed and shouted and pun- ished. His philosophy of life and of the Christian religion would reflect these experiences. Of the children. he says: The painted idiot girl Upon whose back Vile pictures Were tattooed In red. Today I saw a monkey-boy standing before a toy-shop His face was red and round, Not quite an idiot face; Sixteen or seventeen he was A bumpkin in tight trousers, Leggings and sandals Made of straw. I wept- Wept for the woe Those little singing girls Must know! Is it a human mother suckling there Her clock-faced boy With filthy nose, or are they animals Far, far removed from man?l48 One little cast-off Kagawa took in as his own; his heart is poured forth in the poem, "Where Tears are ~ngled": 148 Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, pp. 18, 35, 24, 37. And I spring to soothe her to rest, Thin little dirty baby, Wailing With pain all the while, But I taste the bliss that no life should miss When I look in her eyes and smile! Why is this world so cruel? Seen with Ishi's eyes, The earth, and all things in it, Is a mountain-pile of ice. I call; but you do not hear me: I clasp you; you do not move. It is not to pain I would bring you again, 149 There is Love in the world; there is Love% 133 ot the adult in his ridiculous antics of drunkenness, he has painted this word-picture: A drunken man Was going through a soldiers' drill Outside my door. "About Facet Forward .lliiarch!" He called. Suddenly I sprang before him, Mimicking his words, "About Face! Forward .Marchf 50 Repent, and turn to good!" And of slum morality and the family life: A man, legs rotted ott with syphilis, and yet He need not fret that money does not come, Because his wife is rented out, 151 And brings sufficient sum ••••• 149 ~-· pp. 28-30. 150 ~-· p. 43. 151 ~·· P• 19. I ~ ' 134 In the midst of soul-searing experiences, and as year was added to year, Kagawa grew in mental and spiritual stature. The theories and philosophies gleaned from his earlier reading, and the thoughts of a traditional evangelis tic approach in bringing God to the slums, each of these emphases were re-cast as he dealt with the ruffian, and as he struggled with his own heartaches. Often cast down in his inner and outer struggle, he was lifted up by a firm determination, now tempered by strong religious motivation. even as he cried: 0 devil-world, I pile tears upon tears Till I am spent; But not, not yet. will you repent.l52 He had worked tirelessly, preaching on the streets, and at the dock-yards, from five to seven o'clock in the morning, while the men gathered for their work. His days were full and the nights more so. After the first year of work some thirty to forty persons belonged to his "church." They organized themselves into the "Salvation Band," whose purposes were: To study the incarnation of Christ and by living like the poor, for the poor, and with the poor, to lead them to Christ. Constrained by the grace of the Father, the love of Christ, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. to preach 'like mad-men' at all hours on the street-corners, and in the homes. to the poor •• To teach and live the very words of Jesus, just as they are, and to walk in 152 ~·· P• 26. 135 his footsteps; especially in regard to not resisting, opposition to war, loving one's neighbor as oneself, and forgiveness till seven~ times seven, and all the teach ings of the Sermon on the Mount.l53 But preaching was only one of the methods used in bringing the Gospel to bear on the poor; the other approaches to the problem were: 1. The organization of three Sunday Schools in which other churches helped. 2. Helping with funeral expenses which was an opening wedge w.ith the families that were very poor. 3. Free lodging for the down and out till they found work. 4. A room for helpless invalids. 5. Medical attendance, milk, clothing, provided through friends. 6. A sewing school for young women. 7. A night school started but given up. 8. A cheap eating house, but given up due to expense. ~. Children adopted and cared for till homes could be provided.l54 As he later looked back on almost fifteen years of work in the heart of this whirlpool of depressed humanity, his conclusion was that. not preaching, not one man or a few men working their hearts out, could save the slums. Only eighty-five persons had been converted, out of the 10,000 people, in fifteen years. The attack must be made at the great currents of social thinking and behaviour, if not at the very center of control of the national life. It must be 153 H. MYers, "Kagawa and the Slums," Missionary Review of the World, 1913, pp. 285-8~. 154 H. Myers, "Kagawa and the Shinkawa Slums," The Christian Movement ~ Japan, 1~13, p. 41. 136 done through counter movements, and through a challenge to the established social trends. It must be done through great communities of like-minded individuals of the Church, and in or out of the Church. But somehow, and by whatever means, the great Fact of a salvaging Love must be brought to bear on the life of the masses of his people. His own conversion decision, "to live steadfastly in the actual world, endued with the strength of death," had moved into the wider arena of fundamental principles, and to a more mature analysis of the problems of the task, eventu ating in a truly conscious purpose and plan. It is of more than passing interest to note that in practically every step of his life and work, that which seemed cataclysmic was actually quite gradual, and that which seemed revolutionary was but an attempted application of the life of the incarnate Christ. In the developing life-philosophy, his thinking on love and poverty was basic. The really fundamental thought is that the acceptance of the Christ-principle of Love placed a person at grips with the world of lovelessness. Its theory and philosophy are but way-stations or means to its end which is action. This concept is in line with that of the Japanese mind in its response to the Wang-Yang-Ning philosophy of the Oyomei school, and in its search for a "Way," which is fulfilled in the word of Jesus Christ, "! am the Way, the Truth, the Life." Christianity to Kagawa is "The Way of Love'' to which all else is secondary. 137 The concept of "love," however, was a battleground on which many a mental and physical struggle had been fought by him. The struggles of Eiichi. in his autobiography, were the struggles of human passion - Love is madness, after all, and to get Tsuruko I go mad. Oh, happiness% Nirvana% Woman is my Godl father's brute force, Can I accept such 1 g8vagery? I too will adopt it •• Only give me love! will My Yes, His resistance to sensual love before conversion, was largely negative, in that it was revulsion against the fate of his family, friends, and society at large, and not an adherence to ethical principle. Danio Ebina, in an interview, has stated that "students were profligate and the sight of a few young men strict and puritannical in their views caused no little astonishment." 156 His struggle was against the trend of his people. Because of his conversion and because of his dedica- tion to God as a sacrifice on behalf of the poor, when the question of marriage to Haruko, a young woman who helped in his work in the slums, arose. the conflict of love as dedica- tion to God, against love as affection for woman was intense, 155 Kagawa, Before the Dawn, p. 114. 156 D. Ebina, "Interview," Japan Christian Q.uarterlz, January 1Q30, p. 10. and soul-shattering. As he has expressed it: Love, linger not to whisper your temptation; Seek not to bind me with your heavy chain; •• High is the wall that guards my heart from coldness; Big is the barrier to shut me out from sin; A Human Love. aflame with passion's boldness, Storm not this citadel to enter in •• Leave me alone, Love, Leave my heart alone. Flow, 0 my tears, 138 For I have lost the precious ALL I offered God, I turned to human love forgetting God •• Fall, tears, that I may wring you dry. For I would see my God, or failing, Would immerse the world in woe, Then fling my life away.l57 The struggle ended, however, and in the merging of their Christ~dedicated lives in a common devotion, all fears were dispelled and new horizons beckoned: Bright sunshine on a hut - Our little hut -- Where we stand, my love and I, Heart to heart, hand in hand. And our glad souls fly to the scarlet sky, Wing to wing -- And the only voice that can call us home Is the cry of the poor we have left in the slum! 0 brave one, and tender, God-given, 158 Surely our happiness is like Heaven! They were married in Nay, 1914, just a half year after 157 Kagawa, Songs ~ the Slums, pp. 61, 62. 158 Ibid., p. 64. 13g her baptism on December 21, 1g13.1 5 g At the time of their marriage he was just twenty-five years of age, young for the Japanese man, and she was also twenty-five years of age, old for the typical bride, but it was a marriage of love and mutual respect. Together they made their home in one of the slum huts. and after ten years their first child was born. In his classification of the types of love. this type of love is on the physical level; the other two levels are the psychic or psychical level, and that of conscience, or the conscious level in the sense of willed and purposive love.l60 In considering this discussion, which it is impor- tant to have as clearly in mind as possible, one of the great problems in understanding the thought of an Oriental comes to the fore, namely, the idea-content of the words used. The difficulty in accepting English words which seek to reveal Japanese thought-content is seen in the apology of Van Baalen who spoke out in defense of Kagawa who was a classmate at Princeton University, when he said: The translators of the book, Love the Law of Life, have spoiled Kagawa's meaning by speaking of PhYSICal instead of instinctive love, of psychic for moral love. and of love based on conscience rather than love based on consciousness.l61 15g Axling, ~· £!!•• PP• 161-62. 160 Kagawa, ~ the Law of Life, pp. 6g-?l. 161 J. K. Van Baalen, Toyohiko Kagawa, ~Christian, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., lg36), p. 41. 140 The words "instinctive," "moral" and "consciousness" seem to make more sense to Van Baalen, and they do sound better to the American ear, but the tact is, that they do not convey the full picture in the mind of Kagawa, who has written for a Japanese nation, which does not know love. Its-traditions are built on loyalty-filial piety. While some words may have been mistranslated by translators, it is more probable that most of the translations adhere as closely as possible to the thought intended; the inadequacies seem to lie in the words that must be used. The three types of love referred to and their Japanese terms are as follows: 1. Physical - niku-tai-teki, this means pertaining to the body of the flesh, the earthly, or the "world" of New Testament language. It includes sexual love, instinctive love, but also much more: Loyalty and patriotism also, where they are limited to the sphere of a single race, must be assigned to the realm of physical love. Loving one's own brothers and loving the group which supplies one with the necessities of life, whether the group be called a labor union or a socialistic organization, are also physical love. Love of these kinds cannot be regarded as highly developed love. 162 2. Psychic - shin-ri-teki, which means pertaining to the heart (mind)-principle, -- the psychical, of the psyche, 162 Kagawa, ££• £11·• p. 70. 141 or the spiritual as against the physical. Where a husband, apart from sexual desire, loves his wife and respects her personality, he exhibits a love which is higher than the mere physical •• If the Japanese people could awaken to psychic love, they would quickly abolish the system of licensed prostitution.l63 3. Conscience - ryo-shin-teki, meaning, pertaining to the good-heart; the character for ~is the same as in shin-ri-teki, which was psychic and mental, but in the com- bination good-heart, it is more than psychic and conscious. It involves the individual arbiter of each personality, in opposition to the moral principles accepted by the group. It is more than the conscious. it is the chooser of conscious and purposeful good. Thus when Kagawa speaks of "religion of conscience" he means just that, a religion based on and consistent with the individual conscience. and not based on a social morality or ethic expressed, or approved by Confucian, or Shinto, or Buddhist religiowethical teaching to which his people were accustomed, in which religion and morals usually are poles apart. In his God ~ the Gospel of Divine ~ published six years later and intended for the masses in connection with the Kingdom of God Movement launched in 1929, he did use the terms of the "conscious." in trying to bring his 163 ~., P• 71. 142 concept of God's love to bear on the nation. Here the divi- sions were: 1. Love without consciousness, mu-ishiki-teki-ai. 2. Half-conscious love, han-ishiki-teki-ai. 3. Conscious love, ishiki-teki-ai. Non-conscious love is like that of a milk-producing animal which does not think of producing milk, but its provision is taken care of non-consciously. Half conscious love is like that of most mother-love today. Advancing one step further, when love becomes conscious, even though there is a cross, namely, bitter pain, the consciousness that I love (must love} is born.l64 Kagawa's burden with his people was to bring this basic concept to bear on their lives in opposition to the fatalistic materialism to which their social order was dedi- cated. Love-consciousness was essential to social recon- struction. This analysis of the fact of love in its many phases is the basis of Kagawa's thought, it is his philosophy of life. Whatever of theology there is in his books, its roots are in these concepts. His main interest, however, is not in the concept alone, but rather in the issue of these thoughts in the practical Christian life, in general moral living, and in the elevation of these concepts into consis tent behaviours for his people. The other side to this fact of love is the fact of 164 T. Kagawa, Kami to Seiai no Fukuin, (God and the Gospel of Divine Love), lShimonoseki: Fukuin Shokwan, 1930), p. 166. 143 love-lessness in the world, as seen in poverty. This is his second basic concept. To him neither government, nor the church, neither labor organization nor social theory, none of these organizations of the social body, or their thought, have any justification until they have bent every effort to overcome poverty in all of its crass forms. These were the two extremes of human existence, love and lovelessness, human redemption and human rejection, between which the drama of life was being lived, largely in the mad struggle for the control of material wealth. His thinking in this direction showed a development from hazy theory to the understanding of specific problems and solu tions. He read widely of the books available to him in youth from the missionary library at Tokushima, at college in Tokyo and in the seminary. The various theories of social ism, and the social thought in general, of Isoo Abe, Lassalle, Fourier, ~rx, Toynbee, Frederick Maurice and Kingsley, played a large part in the meditations of his youth. A spiritual socialism rather than one based on mate rialism was the thing that he sought,l65 and that was the only worthy goal of human life. His entrance into the slum was the logical move for 165 Kagawa, Before !£! ~~ pp. ?1, ~6, 263. 144 him to take, as was indicated earlier in this chapter, and there theory gave way to the bitter realities of loveless- ness as poverty. There, within the first month, the penni less youth living in the midst of the penniless, -- baby- killers, prostitutes, thieves, murderers, and pimps, -- almost lost his God who is Love. Eiichi "felt that God was not Love, but the Lord of Darkness, Despair, Death and Poverty."l66 His own poverty was humorous, as well as tragic: My clothes are soiled, and torn, and tattered. On the streets, the people stare at m~ Each time I leave the slums •• As for myself, bare legs, short shirt, Sweatband on brow, I gird me up to move the world. And when I wash my one poor garment, Stiff with filth, Naked I wait for it to dry.l67 To move society, to call up to those on the hill, he raised his lonely voice for one of his friends: You ordinary folk upon the hill, To whom the slums are vague, Listen and tremble, a~ I scream to you, "SHE DIED OF PLAGUE%"168 Society in all of its aspects was on the wrong track, so was 166 ~·· p. 277. 167 Kagawa, Songs from the Slums, p. 55. 168 ~-· p. 18. 145 was government, so was the church, so was labor -- poverty was loveless, it was lonely, not merely penniless! It was not because th~ had no money poor, but because of their loneliness. suffering of the poor, - to be in a big friend.l6~ that they were That was the city without a From these early attempts to change society by indi vidual effort, there came a study of many of the life situa- tions of the slums. There was much more to this whole thing than just poverty. The poor were of many kinds. There was a capitalistic system in the slum as certainly as in higher society. Shin [one of the Shinkawa women] continued talking for a long time - about how Uuzuta, who was now rich and powerful, had started from nothing, his wife being a prostitute, and how all the landlords in the place mostly came from the pariah villages and were beggars when they stat~8d; how Tada, who had been a beggar, was now a usurer. They came from the outcast villages, from the casual- labor group, from the tenant-farmer families, to take over the controls in the slums, or to fill up the ranks of those rapidly dying in its filth. There were the lazy, who were never other than lazy, and the many other types. Among the women were great mothers, who impressed him. But with it all, society was in the wrong to allow such cesspools of iniquity and of suffering to develop in its midst. 16~ Kagawa, Before !Q! ~· p. 294. 170 Ibid., p. 333. 146 Kagawa has spoken of his discovery that "poor people and the so-called proletariat are two absolutely different things.nl7l Reacting to this discovery, which he had also read about in the writings of Kautsky, he has put down his thoughts in the form of a comparative chart, 172 as follows: PAUPERISM Physical weakness cripples sickness old age death Mental weakness insanity feeble-minded eccentric idiots Moral weakness ex-convicts gambling licentious living idleness drinking PROLETARIAT Social Unrest Dependency (not of physical weakness type but of land, capital, and tools, - to live on) Non-credit Unemployment The slums were composed of both types of the poor, the pauper and the insecure. For Kagawa, this meant a great stage of progress in the development of his philosophy of life and work. The total task, seemingly hopeless, was breaking up into smaller areas of problem and possible solu tion. In the one case, poverty demanded philanthropy; in the 171 Kagawa, ~ ~ Law of Life, p. 223. 172 T. Kagawa, "The City Problem," The Friends of Jesus, IV {April 1931), 18. 147 other, provision for their place in the social order would cure their poverty. The proletariat is not made up of bankrupts in character, in mind and in body. It is the best of the laboring class. The only trouble is that the members are uncertain as to livelihood, dependent in occupa tions, socially without credit, and standing alone. The poor are not so: they are one stage lower than the proletariat. They are character bankrupts and are physically altered in their natures •• ill or deformed or disabled •• The plundering groups approve of the capitalistic system, and they steal from both the rich and the poor •• The character-bankrupts are quite prosperous, and •• the good working folk are kept gasping under their oppres sion •• The less corrupt groups in the slums are the un skilled workers. The rope and rag pickers, the rat catchers, the funeral porters, the candy venders, and the drain cleaners are among the better groups. Then follow the beggars and the crippled and disabled ••• In the slum of about 2,000 tenements where I lived there were nearly 800 deformed people •• leading sad lives at the very bottom of society.l73 From the brave decision to become a Christian, knowing that disinheritance would be his lot, and from the almost despairing choice of faith, believing that life might last only two, or at most three, years, there had evolved a life philosophy and a life work, and new horizons of service were visible: Eiichi had determined to do his best to assist the poor, as this had now become his life-work, and for the sake of the children in the slums he thought first of all that he would like to publish some illustrated 173 Kagawa, Love ~ ~ of Life, pp. 223-25. 148 stories from the Bible.l 7 4 The fact that there was love in the world, and that love could solve the problem of poverty and suffering -- that Japan had to learn these things -- these were the framework on which all his philosophy, theology, psychology, economics and social thought were to hang. There followed, then, another conviction, namely, that further preparation was needed, if he were to do the task. There had followed in rapid succession the ideas that the whole situation of the slums was wrong,l75 that by eating his way out of causality and fatalism, his impulse to help make the world a little bit better might be realized, 176 that the problem of cosmic evil was not insurmountable because of a great power available in the Christ of the Cross,l77 that "God who dwells in my hand, Knows this secret plan of the things He will do for the world using my hand!" 178 and that the fundamental solution for the slum and all in distress is to help them to help themselves in cooperative effort. Be sides conviction, method and techniques would be important. 174 Kagawa, Before ~ ~· P• 357. 175 Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, P• 21. 176 Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, p. 282. 177 Kagawa, The Religion of Jesus, p. 85. 178 Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, P• 53. 149 In the year of his marriage, after about five years in the slums, he set out for Princeton University for two years of study; his wife furthered her religious education by work at a school in Yokohama. It was not only theology that was his purpose here, but the study of the sciences and their meaning to life. If the God of heaven is our Father. we feel like we want to study everything in the universe that he has made - study botany and zoology and mineralogy and crystallization. And when we have a mind like that, we understand the Bible well.l79 As a student in Japan I read various books and at Princeton I shut myself up in the experimental labora tory and studied hard. I finally came to the conclu sion that the truth of the struggle for existence is not as Darwin stated it.l80 In his research at Princeton, he was given every facility and privilege to seek the meaning of God and relig ion for life, through the tools of science. His innate dis satisfaction with the emphasis attributed to the Darwinians on human evolution as an ape-descent, and as the last word for the interpretation of life on the physical as well as the spiritual level was adequately supported by his inves tigations. He saw in plant life, in the ant-organization, in the modern insights of physics every indication of a 179 T. Kagawa, Meditations On the Holy Spirit, (Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1939), p. 123. 180 T. Kagawa, Kami ni Yoru Shinsei, (New Life Through God), (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, l929), p. 25. 150 mutual support which is the essence of love. Evolution was growth under the laws of God, in purposive and progressive cooperation one with another, finding mutual self-realiza tion in the plan of love. The struggle between religion and science did not exist for him, and the blind opposition of religious men to science was incomprehensible. The tools for the struggle against the crass materialism which had flooded Japan during the Meiji flood of invention, industrialization and social philosophies must be the tools of science. The extreme dual ism of Japanese life in the areas of morality as separate from religion, of private ethic as distinct from public ethic, of happiness as opposed to salvation -- these must be resolved by the philosophy of love worked out with the tools of science. Returning to Japan in 1916, Kagawa bent all his ener gies to the realization of this goal. Back to Shinkawa and to the slums to place his findings in their proper setting. then out to society -- to the origins of the streams of social distress, and to the places of control in government -- this seemed to be the plan. In the 1923 earthquake he was the social engineer of reclamation in Tokyo. In 1926 his efforts secured the abolition of the slum areas in six large cities of Japan at a cost to the state of $10,000,000. Kagawa's philosophy of love, as worked out in the 151 Shinkawa slum for the practical defense of the slum-dweller against recurring rice riots, and its social importance for the improvement of large areas of urban distress, was ex pressed in terms that even the bitterest opponent of Chris tianity and the strongest proponent of the loyalty-philosophy could understand. CHAPTER V NEW APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF LABOR The problem of labor in Japan is as old as the nation. The movements within, and in behalf of, labor in the modern era were the results of decades of leadership both Christian and non-Christian, but the entry of Toyobiko Kagawa into this problem gave it a new emphasis, and secured for it national recognition as a valid challenge to the established social patterns. Here again, the impression that Kagawa is first and foremost a labor leader, or that the labor movement bad its inception with him, is due probably to an over-emphasis on his struggle to find a solution to the problem of loveless ness in this area. He sought to find a way to bring the horizontal emphasis of love into the vertical structure of Japan's society rather than to leave the people to their problems. The first reactions to human suffering in his early youth were to social injustice in a general way, as has been observed. Then, sometime before his conversion, while attending a meeting at the !fission Hall in Tokusbima, he heard the testimony of a converted laborer, which apparently left a deep impression on his mind: He [EiichiJ gave up his visit to the Hanakuma quarter 153 and went to the Gospel Mission Hall in Tamon-dori, where he listened to the preaching till the end. Eiichi was not particularly affected by the preaching. but he was very much affected by a worker's testimony. This worker appeared to be a man of weak intellect, a laborer at the Kawasaki Shipbuilding Yard, it was said, - a man of thirty-five or thirty-six, who earnestly proclaimed that he had been saved by Jesus Christ from a life of crime, and by his salvation had entered into a state of blessed ness. Eiichi was much impressed ••• A strong desire seized him to become pure and devote his life resolutely to social service •• Eiichi's desire was to free himself as quickly as possible and throw himself into the Labour movement •• He felt that he must certainly go and live in the slums. Then, living among the poor, if there came an opportunity for him to do something for the Labour move ment and to start Labour Unions, he would certainly seize it.l81 He found himself becoming a part of the movement for the laborer through his growing interest in the slums, in the study of socialism, and in Christianity. after his conver sion in 1904 and a period of study at Meiji Gakuin and the Seminary, his thinking in this area of the problem began to take form. After he lived in the slums for a year in 1910, he showed a hesitancy to engage in aggressive participation in the labor movement. This may have been due in large part to a fear of police intervention, but it may also have been due to lack of a positive program. He was dissatisfied with 181 T. Kagawa, Before the Dawn, (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924), pp. 223, 236-37, 264. 154 the way his preaching and his work in general)for this part of the slum's population, was going: He felt that it was a pathetic idea, this of his - to seek to save erring souls. The world was plainly wander ing in a wrong direction. He realized painfully what the existence of the slums meant. It was like something boring into his heart; at times it inclined him to burst into sobs. It was the same feeling that made him get up early in the morning and go among the longshoremen at Bentenhama to preach. To preach Socialism was to frighten people and make them refuse to listen. He, therefore, decided to do his best, whether he lived or died or went mad, to spread the Gospel of Jesus.l82 While these were his thoughts in 1910, he continued in visiting the working places of his people, and preaching, and conferring -- at the button-factory, at Nickel and Company, as well as the Dock-yards. His first contact with the police came in the fall of the year, when a more mature friend of his, who had been a class-mate at Meiji Gakuin, and who had some connection with communists in Tokyo who were to be executed because of high treason, came to visit him. It was about this time, after having completed his first manuscript on Friendship, and while working on one on Jeremiah early in 1911, that the incident of a little girl of eleven occurred, as told by one of the workers, named Katsu: 182 Ibid., P• 319. 155 "We ain't working just now," was Katsu's explanation. "It all began about a little girl of eleven who lives in Azumadori. She got burned - right from her feet to her thighs, - nearly half her body. The girl's father, he's in prison just now for gambling, so it was pretty bad on the kid •• We went and asked for some money to get her some medicine. Well, you know, mister, the company wouldn't give a single penny and the reason, they say, was that it was her own fault that she got burned and the company wasn't responsible for money or anything ••• So I come out of the office and I went around everywhere calling out 'Drop your work. Drop your work.' •• I made 'em a little speech, - how wages was falling and that the company wouldn't pay for medicine •• or towards funerals of those what got killed, and that the company was no good and there was nothing for it but to go on strike. You know I've heard it all from you- about Labour Unions over there - so I talk to 'em like that, and then all of 'em, down to the little girls, began calling out 'let's go home.'"·· Katsunosuke told the story with some pride •• He was only about nineteen •• He had recently become very intimate wt~S Eiichi and had gained a knowledge of Labour questions. This was the incident of the Kobe Match Works. There were two leaders of the strike who were to meet with the head of the company, and Eiichi (Kagawa) was to go along "if standing by you is of any use." The two men were discharged from the factory, the girl's family was given Yen Twenty as consolation money (roughly five dollars), and although Kagawa had said nothing in the conference, he was called before the police as an accomplice with the accusation: This person, though he appears guileless, is crafty and by the extreme speeches he makes seems to cherish the idea of inciting a revolution.l84 183 Ibid., PP• 379, 380. 184 Ibid. , p. 397. 156 The labor movement was moving out or the realm or social theory, and into the arena of open conflict, as far as Kagawa was concerned. The movement itself, however, had been in continuous development in many areas or Japan long before that. The history or the labor movement must be passed over as far as complete details are concerned, but a lifting out of the important developments for a clear perspective of the problems and solutions in connection with labor is important, both for the actual history of the modern movement, and for the place that Kagawa has round in it. Axling has quoted a statement in connection with the efforts of Bunji Suzuki and his organization of the year 1912, called Yuai Kai {Laborer's Benefit Society), that, if Suzuki is to be thought of as the rather of the labor move ment in Japan, Kagawa is its mother; this comparison is apt and appropriate. There followed another statement, however, which may tend to cloud the full picture of the movement before this time, when he said: The first outward evidence of the workers' growing consciousness of their place and power came in 1921 when the laborers of the Kawasaki and N~tsubishi Dock yards in Kobe went on a strike •• In order to keep the lid on labor the police had issued regulations making it unlawful for laborers to form associations. In the interest of strategy and in order to control the strikers Kagawa found it necessary to organize them. He, therefore, disregarded the decree and organized the striking workers into a full-fledged labor union - the 157 first one in Japan.l85 Earlier chapters of this study have shown that all persons below the upper five percent of the nation fell into the two general classes of free men and slaves. The free men were divided into the four classes of the Shi-No-Ko-Sho, or the Warrior-Farmer-Industrial-Mercantile classes, all designed to further the interests of the ruling classes. 186 Even the free classes, however, were little better than the slave classes as far as social position was concerned. Be- fore the Meiji Restoration, individual rights and privileges amounted to very little. With the early years of the Chris tian Movement from 1858, and with the liberal policies of the Emperor in 1868, together with the changes of the new Constitution of the State in 1889, the individual in Japan did gain in status. An urban-minded social order was form ing, and the traditions of the past were yielding to science and industrialization. The populations of the great cities of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Yokohama increased three fold or more in the years between 1880 and 1916. Three hundred thousand people from the rural communities were 185 Wm. Axling, Kagawa, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932), pp. 49, 50. 186 A. F. Thomas and s. Koyama, Commercial History of Japan, (Tokyo: The Yuhodo Limited, 1936), p. 107. 158 going to the cities every year.l87 The problems of housing, health, living costs, wages, and rights of the laboring classes, clamored for attention. A totally new experience had come to Japan in the form of the great industrial fac tories with their smoke, steam and machines. Instead of ignoring the masses as in the past centuries, new social forces demanded solutions on a new basis. The early movement tor social reform was connected with the Christian Church, 188 and the early movements on behalf of the laborer had their cradles in the churches. It was not that the churches were radical, but that they were the only organized social groupings that accepted individuals of all social classes and reached out a helping hand in the search for social values. Although Christians took the leadership, non-church leaders also appeared. Kagawa has raised the question of why so many of these early church leaders of the movement left the church, as M. Sugiyama, an evangelist, later leader of the Farmer-Labor party, T. Yamakami, a Salvation Army soldier, I. Oyama, an earnest street preacher, Kitazawa, Kotora and Tanabashi, 187 J. M. Davis, The Christian Movement in Japan, 1917, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan 191?), p. 280. --- 188 M. Anesaki, The History of Japanese Religion, (London: Kagan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1930), P• 356. 159 also leaders. He has implied that it was due to loss of social vision ~n the part of the church. 189 Other great leaders, of course, were members of churches, but those re- maining in the church were the less radical. In the entire movement there were two viewpoints, the one evolutionary, led by Isoo Abe and Murai; the other revo- lutionary, led by Sen Katayama and Kotoku. It was this latter group that dominated the labor movement of the early period. Galen M. Fisher has divided the history of this move ment into three periods, writing as he did near the end of one period and the beginning of another. These three periods were, 1) that from 1879 to 1888, when the social and polit ical doctrines of the French Revolution, as well as the phi losophies of Europe and the social concepts of America, were propagated. These had little direct connection with the laborer, but they did lay the foundations for later planning along this line; 2) that from 1888 to 1904, when the labor movement divided itself into two approaches to the problem, one evolutionary, the other revolutionary; and 3) that from 1904 to 1918, which may be said to be the transition period in which the confused currents of thought and action were 189 T. Kagawa, "The Humanizing of Industry," The Japan Christian Quarterlz, III (January 1928), 47. 160 finding direction for renewed expression in a permanent labor organization. 1 ~ 0 To these must be added a fourth, namely that from 1~18 to 1~41, in which the name of Kagawa has ap peared as a potent factor; he has helped to give a needed impetus to the movement toward the center, where both labor and government alike could find solutions to a great national problem. In the first period there was evident a strong trend in the direction of a study of European and American solu- tiona for the problems of labor, both rural and urban, and the question of human rights and liberties. It is in the second period, however, that the native issues of the labor movement began to take form. Two figures stand out in this period, as they personalize the two main streams of thought in the movement. The leader of the evo- lutionary approach was Isoo Abe, who, born about 1864, was the second son of a samurai of the Fukuoka clan; his father believed in neither Shinto nor Buddhism, and had neither like nor dislike for Christianity. At the age of fifteen he entered Doshisha University, a Christian institution at Kyoto, where he was baptized in 1882, and at the age of nine teen studied economics because he felt that it gave him the 1~0 G. M. Fisher, "Origins of the Labor Movement in Japan," The Christian Movement in Japan, 1~17, (Tokyo: KYo Bunkwan 1917), pp. 317-23.-- I 161 answer to the great question of poverty, which had come to so many samurai families with the Restoration. This opened my eyes •• and I came to the conclusion that the only way to do away with the suffering that comes from poverty was to put into operation a proper economic theory. I came to realize that while Christianity saved the souls of men, economics saved their bodies. I remem ber my graduation address was on the subject, "Religion and Economy." I went to America to study the history of the Bible and social problems •• visiting every possible place about New York that had any relation to this problem. I came to the conclusion then that the present plans for the improvement of society were like trying to draw water with a basket 1 · that these methods would never do away with poverty. 91 In the year 1893 in the course of his studies at Hartford, and his investigations in New York, he read Bellamy's "Looking Backward" concerning which he has said: Perhaps my experience then has some resemblance to that of st. Paul on the road to Damascus. At that time I became an avowed socialist, but by faith I am a Christian as I always have been. From that summer, spiritually I have been a Christian and materially I have been a socialist.l92 On his return to Japan he was a pastor of a church in Okayama, introduced baseball into the athletic life of the youth, and from 1901 was a professor at Waseda University - during all this time his energies were directed toward the one end, of helping to relieve the problems of suffering 191 Isoo Abe, "The Problem of Unemployment," The Japan Christian!!!! Book, 1931, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan,~3l), P• 247. 192 ~., P• 247. 162 humanity in Japan. Tatsuo Morito. quoting Abe, has written: I was brought up in the conventional lite of Chris tianity, but I now live for the love of humanity alone. In my mind Christianity and Socialism dwell in perfect harmony around the central thought of Love for Humanity •• As in those days Socialism did not stand in such sharp contrast to Capitalism as it now stands, it was not con sidered hazardous to take its side •• We •• publicly announced our being Socialists and went to school or church wearing red ties.l93 In Isoo Abe, then, this one school of thought in regard to social change, would emphasize the gradual and orderly process, but with a more than material emphasis. His efforts in the direction of social legislation, his partici pation in politics as an active member of parliament in securing needed reforms, brought real, though not spectac- ular, changes in the social order. It was the intensely active leadership of the other school of thought, however, which seemed so well on the road to accomplishing the aims of the labor movement, namely that of Sen Katayama, the revolutionary. Katayama had gone to America in 1884 as a student after contacts with famous Christian leaders of Japan -- Kanamori, Ebina, Uemura, Ibuka, Kozaki, r~yagawa. He had been left sick and starving in San Francisco, where he had become a Christian. About 1888 he became interested in social problems, and in 1893 193 T. Morito, "Christian Influences in the Lives of Certain Japanese Socialists," The Japan Christian Quarterly, XI (July 1936), P• 262. 163 made a study of Socialism while at Grinnell College. He re turned to Japan in 1893. Later he turned to Communism, fled Japan and finally died in Russia in 1934. 194 On his return to Japan in 1896 he erected Kingsley Hall, the first social settlement in Japan for neighborhood welfare work with a Kindergarten, and threw himself into the work of the labor movement, organizing iron-workers, typog raphers, street-car drivers, boat builders, miners, railway men, and even foreign cooks in Tokyo. Strikes were numerous and followed in rapid succession. In the ten years from 1891 to 1900, a long series of bills had been placed before the government for the improve- ment of conditions among laborers and the poor in general. A Factory law was passed in 1898 as a result of agitation. Other bills for the organization of cooperative industrial societies, for manhood suffrage without a property qualifi cation, for building and loan associations, and for housing reform. Labor clubs were opened, and mutual aid among laborers was fostered. 195 The educated classes formed so- cieties for the study of labor problems. There were no legal obstacles in the way of labor organization, and strong unions 194 ~., PP• 262 ff. 195 Fisher, "Origins of the Labor MOvement in Japan," pp. 316, 317. were started. Some of them were based on the century-old guilds. 196 164 The climax, however, came with the strike of the Fire- man's Union of the Japan Railway Company, when traffic was severely crippled. Leadership seemed to be in the hands of ultra-radicals. The opposition in government that had been weak, took control. The new nationalist movement gained impetus and was spear-headed by ultra-conservative interpre tations of the Rescript on Education by Emperor Meiji in 1890. In five or six years the labor movement was silenced. The gains of labor were lost and the depressed classes again came under the iron heel of control. Unions were abolished, and the collapse of the forces working for the common man was complete. In 1900 a Public Order Police Law was passed, placing all affairs in relation to labor -- their meetings, organizations and activities under direct police control. From 1903 to 1917 aggressive labor organization, such as that realized earlier, was unknown. 197 The third period in the labor movement really began with the year 1903, the period of quiescence in activity for 196 G. M. Fisher, Creative Forces in Japan, (New York: Missionary Education MOvement of the United States and Canada, 1923}, p. 78. 197 ~·· P• 79. 165 the working classes. The Russo-Japanese War took place in 1904-5. Besides the suffering and loss of life experienced, the people were indignant at the peace terms which had been mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905. Social unrest was increasing, and in 190?, miners in two copper mines revolted enmasse against repressions. Marxian thought from Europe and Tolstoian thought from Russia was widely disseminated throughout Japan. In spite of government and police repressive measures, various types of labor organization came into being -- more informal types. The Seamans' Union of Yokohama with 3,000 members was one. Other associations of the ·type set up in an independent church by a Mr. Sugiura, pastor of the True Light Church, became more common -- all within the meaning of the Police Law. The True Light Church organization was a Laborers' Reform Union for converted thieves, drunkards, and jail-birds. It emphasized evangelism, rather than philan thropy, and consisted - in the enlisting of groups of the poorest people of the district, together with tramps and unemployed work men, into companies under the personal leadership of several remarkable personalities who have been saved from lives of crime and are now the back-bone of N~. Sugiura's church. These men have settled in the poorest quarter and have built a successful business through the initial start given them. Three of them have over three hundred people whom they have trained and inspired to self-support by habits of thrift and work. (One organized a corps of pushcart venders, who received their stock in trade each morning, receiving a share of the profits which was placed in a postal savings ac count).l98 166 Bunji Suzuki ventured a bit farther in August, 1912 when he set up an organization affiliated in a general way with the Japan Unitarian Association. He was a law graduate of Tokyo Imperial University, and endeavored to provide a type of organization that would not conflict with the govern- ment, and one that would be free of the Marxian class• struggle concepts. In its aims and organization the Yuai Kai reminds one of the early Trade Unions of the Wes~I~purpose is to befriend the working-man; to stand for his rights in society and before the law; to create a public sentiment in his favor; to elevate life hygienically, intellectu ally and morally, and to make him a more useful member of society.l99 This organization in 1916 had a membership of 30,000, divided into one hundred branches. There were five depart ments of Publication, Lecture, Legal Counsel, Health, and Mutual Aid. As leader of the labor movement, Suzuki re frained from any action designated to align laborers against employers, but at the same time, he refused to accept finan cial assistance from employers, so that the movement would be free to function in behalf of labor during this difficult period. He was Japan's delegate to labor conventions in 198 Articles in The Japan Christian Movement, 1913 and 1914, {Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan, 1914), pp. 312, l43. 199 J. :M. Davis, ''Laborer's Friendly Society," The Japan Christian Movement, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan, 1914), p:-146. 167 Concerning this movement, Kagawa has said: Meiji Christianit,y was covered with a veil of sus picion (being feared as a dangerous foreign religion) •• The day after the Meiji Emperor's death, seventeen labourers from the Ikegami Iron Works met in one room of the Shiba Unitarian Church, and, under the personal leadership of Bunji Suzuki, and with the help of pro gressive capitalists such as Baron Shibusawa, A~. Kuwata and others, started a Laborers' Benefit Society called Yu Ai Kwai. Since then the Labour Movement has been led almost-entirely by Christians.201 The labor movement was conservative due to continuing pressure, but it was not inactive. The Katayama leadership had been driven underground, but the Abe influence was moving forward in legislation, and through a quiet, though relent- less, pressure by means of the organizations described. It also functioned through organizations such as the "Culture Society for Working Men," Shokko Kyoiku Jisshi Kai, and through the efforts of Christian factory owners to encourage employees to initiative in their own interest, by providing health, recreational and educational facilities. 202 A Factory Law had been enacted by Parliament on March 29, 1911, but was not put into effect until September 1916. 200 Fisher, "Origins of the Labor Movement in Japan," p. 318. 201 Kagawa, "The Humanizing of Industry," pp. 46, 47. 202 J. M. Davis, "The Labor Movement in Japan," The Christian Movement in Japan, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan, 1914), pp. 147 ff. 168 It offered little in the improvement of conditions for women and children, although it was in the direction of a change in ideas, however slow, in this period of opposition. It was an attempt at control and stated in part - Children under twelve must not be employed hereafter; children under fifteen and women must not be employed between the hours of ten in the evening and four in the morning •• they shall be allowed at least two holidays a month, and four holidays, when they are employed alter nately in day and night work, a rest time of at least thirty minutes within the first six hours of work, and one hour when the work exceeds ten hours.203 The law had loopholes, allowing children under twelve who were already working, to continue, and exempted some facto ries. The labor movement of the second and third periods has been traced at considerable length because of the sketchy nature of most information on this subject, except in highly technical and specialized studies of economics and commerce. For a true perspective of the place of the Christian movement in the ebb and the flow of the tides of favor and of opposi- tion, its relation to the problems of poverty and of suffer ing, in the period of the rise of individualism must be seen. The Church had not only given refuge, but had provided leadership. It was in the midst of the social conflict. Kanji Sugiyama, writing on the thought-battle that was 203 c. MacDonald, The Christian Movement in Japan, (Tokyo: KYo Bunkwan, 1917):-p. 269. 169 going on through Japan at this time, has stated that in October 1918 the liberals had organized themselves against the reactionary imperialistic school of thought - these professors and their student-followings, organized a society for the study of labor issues called the Ro Gakkwai. Awakened through their study, they gave the strong support of their membership to Bunji Suzuki's nation-wide laborers' society which was then on its way ~~ l:~~~:~ 4 what it is now (1930), the Japan Federation During the summer months of the same year, however, there occurred throughout Japan, a steady worsening of con- ditions in connection with World War I the period known as the Rice Riots. Rice had increased in price over 1917 by 170% without a corresponding increase in wages. Industrial profiteering was widespread with companies declaring from 50 - 80% dividends, while the middle classes were in dis- tress. u. Kobayashi 205 in his study of this period has given the following calendar of events as they followed in rapid succession: August 8, 1918 - Rice riots in Toyama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo. August 12 - Riots assumed serious proportions with rioters in Kobe setting fire to the stores and news- 204 K. Sugiyama, "Social Thinking in Japanese Univer sities and Colleges," The Japan N.:ission Year Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bunkwan, 1930), p. 196. 205 u. Kobayashi, The Basic Industries and Social History£! Japan, (New Haven: Yale University Press, l930), pp. 261 ff. 170 papers of the city. August 16 - The Japanese government expropriated all rice stocks. August 19 - Colliery riots took place in Kyushu. September 12 - The Terauchi Cabinet was forced to resign. These nation-wide acts of opposition brought to the people. who had been forced into a servile obedience as severe as that of feudal Japan, a sense of power. The record of strikes occurring through the country during this period is as follows: 1914 - 50 strikes which involved 7,904 persons. 1917 - 398 strikes which involved 57,309 persons. 1918 - 417 strikes which involved 66,457 persons. 206 1919 - 497 strikes which involved 63,137 persons. Workers. gathering together. united in group singing. in cooperative markets and at eating houses. Thus a group consciousness was being developed. Toyohiko Kagawa had made his trip to Princeton Uni versity and returned to the slums at Shinkawa in Kobe. His conviction that the proletariat of the slums. the casual labor, must be helped to help himself set him on a program of education in night schools for the laborer. He started a newspaper for labor, probably the first of its kind, although publications had been a part of the Suzuki program. When the Rice Riots struck the Kobe area and the Kobe slums, instead of violence and destruction taking place by 206 Ibid., p. 278. 171 people who had every reason to seize this opportunity, the poor of the slums went to get their measure of rice for the day without money, while the police stood idly by. The rice dealers made no protest. The orderly behavior of these people under the tutorship of Kagawa made a deep impression on the authorities. The Nayor of Kobe had already been abundantly impressed by Kagawa's principles and had approved them for a full decade.207 Kagawa's booklet on the Psychology of Poverty had been published, and during his absence his-ideas had been ac claimed by those concerned with the problem of the poor and the laborer. Writing in 1914, J. Merle Davis had said: The most fundamental need of all is an adequate move ment started among the leaders in society and the indus trial world for studying the whole problem of industrial conditions from the standpoint of the employer and of society and of the nation at large, as well as from the viewpoint of the employee. Japan needs more than all else a Wilberforce, or a Howard, or a Jane Adams, who with mighty pen, with eloquent voice and consecrated example, will feel the call of the nation's toilers in their losing combat with steel and steam, and who will awake the nation and arouse her captains of industry to sanely and unselfishly face the appalling conditions that exist among those who are enabling ~~8 country to hold its place among the great powers. Whether these words were intended to reach the heart 207 H. Topping, Introducing Kagawa, (Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1935), pp. 9, 10. 208 Davis, ''The Labor Movement in Japan," p. 153. 172 of Kagawa who was already hard at work in the slums, or whether they ware a prophecy of what was to be, cannot be known, but it was to Kagawa and his work that the labor move ment looked for active leadership and went on to new con quests, -- to find a permanent place in the social order of Japan. This was the fourth period of the labor movement. The suffering and confusion of the Rica Riots had changed the plans of the government. In 1919 Kagawa organized laborers in the Kobe-Osaka area into the Western Federation of Labor. The labor organizations in Tokyo and other parts of the coun try soon felt the impact of this new organization. It was the break in the period of slow development in which action was the keyword -- even though Kagawa sought to control it by education. He founded the Osaka Labor College for the training of labor leaders with a faculty of university and college professors. 209 This organization in the West in cooperation with the organization in the East was irl process of combining to unite all laborers into a common organization under the prin ciples of Kagawa. It developed a spirit and a consciousness of purpose that gave conviction to his movement, that defied government laws, and that gave to the movement of both East 209 Fisher, Creative Forces in Japan, pp. 105-6. 173 and West the initiative to form the Japan Federation of Labor. The leaders in government winked at the laws, although Kagawa was put in prison from time to time, because of the fear of a return to radicalism, and of the fact that radicals were, even then, seeking to gain control of this new emphasis in labor. The Japan Federation gained in power and in influ ence but its growth was slow. Bunji Suzuki, who had so long carried the burden of leadership in the period of repression, gave the picture in 1g23: The list of labor associations is as follows--the General Federation of Labor of Japan, Nippon Rodo Sodomei, the combination of organizations of laborers of East and Vlest, Machine Workers' Union, General Feder ation of Government Workers, Central Federated Laborers' Association, Federated Printers Association, Japan Sea men's Union, Cooks Association, Postal Employees Associ ation, Japan Sailors' Association, Marine Unity Society, Army Workers Federation and Naval Workers' Federation. The total membership of these organizations, together with th~i 0 of some others not listed, is something over 130,000. There were 2,188,868 laborers at work in 1g21, but over one million of these were women workers, who, under the family system in Japan, had little voice in affairs such as labor organizations. Of these only 130,000 were included in the organization. Writing of the situation in 1g3g, Roy 210 B. Suzuki, "The Labor Movement in 1g23, rr The Christian Movement in Japan, Formosa & Korea, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1g24), p.-r9?. - 174 Smith has stated that there were only 314,737 members in all the ordinary labor unions. In August 1~38, however, a new development took place in the labor movement, probably aris ing out of the situation in connection with the war in China (1~37 - 1~45). In it laborers were urged to set up organiza tions within each factory and to choose representatives who were to sit with the president and the board of trustees of their factory to work out their common problems in the in terest of the nation. In less than one year there were 11,~67 such organizations with 2,532,784 members. 21 l In addition to the problem of women workers, there always seemed to be the difficulty of securing capable lead ers who could keep the confidence of the labor members. In Japan criticism has always been ready, and dissatisfaction common. Many refused to pay their dues to organizations which seemed to them to be profiting, so membership de- creased, especially in 1927. In addition, the maneuvering of the communist groups in the nation consistently placed the entire movement in jeopardy before the people as well as the government. The great strike of 35,000 workers in the shipyards of Kobe in 1921, all protegees of the Kagawa labor movement, 211 Roy Smith, "An Economic survey of Japan,'' The Japan Christian Year Book, {Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1~40)~ p. 4. 175 was not according to his program of action, for he believed in education to the point where class struggle as this was unnecessary. An associate who had been under communist in fluence led the men in this General Strike, and Kagawa accepted the responsibility and went with them. He with one hundred and twenty of the men were placed in jail for this agitation. Communism assumed serious proportions in Japan from the year 1920, when the first Nay Day.(Labor Day) was ob served and the movement began to spread. Since then Nay Day parades have been held annually on May First in the large cities, when hundreds of laborers are divided in groups of fifties; each group is led by a policeman, and with convoys of other policemen in automobiles and trucks, ready for emergencies, the laborers march through the streets in quiet demonstration. Also in 1920 the first organized party, Gyomin Communist Party, was begun in secret and was not interfered with by the government until 1924 when the "Peace Preserva tion Law" was put into effect. In 1922 a political party called the Japan Communist Party, led by the socialists, Sakai Toshihiko, and Sane Gaku, was formed. Under the activities of these organizations, radical thought penetrated into the Japan Federation of Labor and affiliated groups, and Kagawa and Suzuki found their TABLE II 176 JAPANESE SOCW.. THOUGHT AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT 1858 OCCIDEN1AL THOUGHT THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT POLITICAL SOCIAL SOCIAL WORK CHURCHES 1879 FIRST PERIOD 1888 1894 1900 1904 1907 1909 1912 SECOND PERIOD RADICALISM CHINA WAR 1 S.Katayama labor orgzn class struggle J.krxian ~ought POLICE LAW RUSSIAN WAR THIRD PERIOD 1914 WORLD-WAR I 1916 ' I Medicine Evangelism Education Doctrinal Charity emphasis SOCIALISM I Isoo Abe labor legislation education Tolstoian thought I Seamen's Union Laborers' Reform Union I Bunji Suzuki Laborers' Benefit Assooiation 100 Groups Factory lAw 1918 RICE RIOTS FOURTH PERIOD Toyohiko Kagawa I Ro Gakkwai support of' Suzuki 1919 1920 COMMUNISM 1st May Da 1921 1922 1st Communist Party 1923 EARTHQUAKE Western Fed. of' labor Osaka Labor Union JAPAN FEDERATION OF LABOR I .... Tokyo Unions Amal~te 1924 PEACE PRESERVATION LAW 1925 ANTI-LABOR ~ 130,000 members Communists expelled - 8000 CoDUnunists expe+ed - 2nd time 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 rescinded I Peasdt Union M.Sugiyama Zenkoku Rodo Domei result from nd and 3rd split 1 1 1938 NEW LABOR ASSOCIATION 11,967 groups __ _M.4~'ZB.i~_mb~.rJL __ ~ ~ ---~-- _ ~ Union members decrease Loss of' Parliament Seats only 314,737 members i ~ _ _j 177 leadership oft-times of little avail in stemming the tide. Three times large groups of the radical element were expelled from the Federation -- in 1924, 1925, and 1929. 212 Rival groups were set up chiefly in the area of Farmer-Labor parties, which were undermining the work of the Peasant Union of Kagawa and Sugiyama, founded in 1921. 213 In 1929 the groups expelled from the Federation in 1925 and 1929 united to form the radical Zenkoku Rodo Domei, All Japan Workers' Federation, which worked through the political party called the National Peoples' Party. They were not communist, but sympathetic to it, and far to the left of the Federation of Labor. The situation in regard to the large laboring class of Japan did improve. The social conscience of the govern ment of the Meiji era was again aroused. The anti-organiza tion law was rescinded in 1925. Through Kagawa's influence and participation, committees of the government on Unemploy- ment, on Labor Exchange, and on Emigration, were formed. The Anti-Exploitation Land Act was enacted. In 1929 an Un- employment Insurance Act for Casual Laborers was enacted, 212 T. Katayama, "The Proletarian Movement," The Japan Mission Year Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930},-pp. 210, 211. -------- 213 T. Kagawa, "The Recent History of the Japanese Labor Movement," The Japan Ndssion Year Book, 1930, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 193"5)." pp. 29 ff. -- 178 whereby the laborer paid five sen a day (about two and one half cents) and the employers likewise. giving the unemployed seventy sen a day (thirty-five cents). which benefited some 700 men in 1930. 214 His program, however. was larger than that, intending to secure sick benefits. to guarantee employ- ment and to establish cooperatives for their benefit, -- all with one purpose. to destroy the slums, and to realize the principle of Love in Japanese society. But Kagawa's interest was not the labor union as an end, it was rather but one of many means to the end. For the moment it was the great means. the one tool, to awaken the conscience of the authorities, but also to awaken the con- science of the laborer himself, to his essential manhood, and to his divine personality. I think of the authority to be created when all the laborers of the world unite; but I doubt if real power is to be expected from a union of laborers of the present day economics-mad, money-making variety. A union based upon profit will dissolve as soon as the profit ceases. A genuine union must be humanitarian 1 founded upon an inner, rather than an outer, power.2 5 One of the important elements of the strike in 1921 was the issuance of a manifesto by the strikers which said: 214 T. Kagawa, "Church Relief for the Unemployed," Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930), 13. 215 T. Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Philadelphia: John c. Winston, 1929), p. 156. 179 Laborers are personalities. They are not commodities to be bought and sold according to a scale of wages based on the market price. Furthermore, they must be given the right to organize. For this reason we who belong to the army of producers make the following resolutions: We are not machines. In order to develop our own in dividualities, to personalize society, and to secure a social order which will provide the producers a real culture and give them security as to their livelihood, 216 we demand the right to regulate our own circumstances. The two great emphases of Kagawa -- of respect for human personality, and the proper evaluation of material goods -- are seen in this manifesto and also in the follow- ing: Unions are necessary but labor problems can only be solved by the inner awakening of the laborers •• The labor movements with which I relate myself do not demand large possessions. They have but three demands -- a chance to live, a chance to work, and a chance to show the marks of a man. I have no desire to participate in labor move ments motivated by greed.217 In a social environment such as that of Japan, where human life is held in cheap regard, the emphasis which a Kagawa placed on the right to live for those habitually re- pressed, and those regarded as slaves, is little short of revolution. That they have not merely this right, but the right to Mutual Love in a society where Love must cut across the long established structure of the nation in its vertical emphases of subservient devotion, and unquestioning loyalty 216 Axling, Kagawa, p. 50. 217 Ibid., pp. 55, 56. 180 to superior, shows clearly an import·ant point of the con- flict. If yielded to on the basis of his challenge, the changes required in the social order would be more than re- formatory. Yet, it was in that direction that he moved. Formerly laborers were not respected in Japan. Until recently laborers were despised in the community and in society. After Christianity came, we found that Jesus, the Founder of Christianity, was a manual laborer, a carpenter. So today we believe in Christ and act upon this belief •• The ex-president of the Japan Federation of Labor was a Christian and tQday we have the third in suc cession who is a Christian.218 In the chapter of this study on the slum, there was an important separation. in the thinking of Kagawa, between the two great classes of the slum-dwellers making up the poor of Japan. They were the pauper on the one hand, and the prole tarian, on the other. The one could be helped to his feet by being given a chance; the other would be helpless, no matter what was done for him. I spent many years in the slums of Kobe, and every year I am giving much of my money. It seems wasteful to give it to these poor people, because the~e is no return. If I give to the proletarian movement there is a great result. One dollar for the labor movement will come back a hundred times, but one dollar, or even one hundred dollars, for the poor brings nothing. Then why do we 219 give to the poor? ,Because they bear the image of God. 218 T. Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936), p. 14. 219 T. Kagawa, "The Application of the Cross to Society," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 13. 181 Unemployment had driven one out of every three casual laborers who sought employment, into the slums; in the middle classes, only 5% of those wishing employment could find it. Among the farmers, 66% did not own their own simple farm homes. and came into the city to eke out an existence in the slums. In the city-factories, women and children worked six- teen hours a day from four in the morning to eight o'clock at night. The factory girls in the silk mills of Okaya worked under the "Denile" system - The Denile system for women factory workers means that many punishments are exacted, and the pay is docked tor imperfect work, causing overstrain upon the girls; while the temperature of the workrooms is kept very high to prevent the breaking of the silk thread, and a great deal of tuberculosis results. The pay is relative to the length of the thread spun, but is docked for thread too thin or too thick.220 Next to be pitied were the fishermen of Aomori, Akita, Hakodate and Kamchatka, about 40,000 of whom lead a very miserable existence. Among miners, similarly wretched con- ditions existed with wives working beside their husbands under work demands that left the workers little more than a mere animal existence. For the unemployed, he coveted a chance to work, and tor the employed, a chance to work as a human being with 220 T. Kagawa, "The Humanizing of Industry," The Japan Christian Quarterly, III (January 1~28), pp. 41 ff. 182 some hope of self-realization. The picture of the working Christ had goaded him on, without concern for the social structure of the nation. The proletarian could be helped to redeem himself. The pauper, then, would stand a better chance. Against the cold calculations of factory output and net profits, Kagawa pitted the warmer values of the human soul - She leaves her bed at five; And it is ten at night When she comes home again. MY little sister Of the factory Is sweet.221 A little figure stands by the sake shop, Her head bowed down against an empty cart. As she starts far the factory, Foodless, She has come so far, and stopped ••• It is Yoshiko, sham!~~ and hungry, and cold, Crying in the snow. Unions were but one way; the labor movement was but a stirring of the national conscience; all of humanity in the Empire must be reconstructed into functioning humanity in the name of the Carpenter of Nazareth; all the nation must rise together in a new respect for human life. 221 T. Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 193~p. 49. 222 Ibid., p. 41. 183 Probably he has stated his demand on the nation in regard to respect for the human personality of every Japa nese, with the right to a chance to live, a chance to work, and a chance to show the marks of a man, better in his own early thinking as seen in Eiichi Niimi of the novel - He respected everybody,--all the people in the slums, Uchiyama, Izu, Fujita. Even if each one was a failure in life. for their failure he respected them, because he had discovered that each of them had some honourable reason for failure •• He respected all the beggars and prostitutes of the slums •• Eiichi had entered into the spirit of Jesus, who came down to the world as the Saviour of mankind. As all must be saved, so all must be respected. Those who were not respected were not worth saving. He hated capitalism, but he could not hate people. He loved capitalists in the same way as he loved prosti tutes and gamblers.223 It was a simple philosophy, direct and to the point, a religious philosophy at grips with bitter experience. On the other main point of his views on labor, namely, the necessity for a re-evaluation of the worth of material goods, he is again more the prophet and preacher, than the labor agitator, or political radical. Long before Marxianism had appeared in the social and intellectual arena of Japan, the emphasis on materialism had been accepted as one of the realities in a world-view which was unconcerned about the personal values of life. The 223 Kagawa, Before the ~~ p. 292. 1S4 pantheism and nihilism 224 of current religion and philosophy had allowed a millenium and more of agony and torture of the masses to go unchallenged under the early clan-family system, (shizoku) under the eighth century prefectural and, later, manor systems, (gunken and shoen), under the feudal system (hokan), and now With the modern factory system all of them weighted with the dead weight of authority of land- possession, and in later centuries, of money-possession. Buddhism, the one hopeful religious factor in Japanese life, was utterly other-worldly in practically all of its expressions. It was a philosophy of escape, so that the problem of pain at its physical sources was left untouched. It recognized the individual, but not as personality and as a social being. 225 The materialism of Marx and the scien tific concepts of Darwin found ready acceptance in Japan as these theories did not interfere with the long-established religious traditions, and the age-long separation of the spiritual and material aspects of life. It was at just this point, however, that Kagawa took up his position of attack. His interpretation of the Chris tian religion based on his study of the Scriptures and 224 T. Kagawa, The Religion of Jesus, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1931), p. 76. 225 s. L. Gulick, The Evolution of the Japanese, ~ew York: Fleming H. Revelr-company, l905),-p7 408. 185 science, and fortified by a deep experience with the masses of his people, placed him athwart the main supports of the old socio-ethical structure of his nation in the area of social justice, and the old politico-economic structure in the area of economic opportunity. He was challenging the old lord-serf concept, and was able to challenge the small ruling classes as well as the great laboring classes of the nation. The entire nation was dedicated to a materialistic view, hence there could be no respect for the laborer, for the child or the woman, for the home, until this accepted trend was placed in proper perspective. Probably the most concise expression of his view point on this problem is seen in his contrast of the main points of the ~arxian concept and those of Jesus Christ - Marxian Principles l. The material.istic interpre tation of history. 2. The theory of surplus value. 3. The accumulation of capital. 4. The theory of class struggle. Christ Emphases l. Life, not matter, is the important thing. 2. Sacrifice, not surplus value, is the basic concept. 3. Consideration of the least of the masses-social solidar ity, not capital. 4. Service on a mutual plane, not struggle.226 The one is dedicated to the proposition that human welfare lies in the control of the material goods of the world. The other is dedicated to the proposition that human welfare 226 Kagawa, "The Application of the Cross to Soci ety," p. 10. 186 lies in the development of the whole of life for groups as well as for individuals. Against the former, Kagawa spoke and fought with his entire might. It was destined to become the major battle ground of his work. Food, labor, capital, poverty, crops, clothing, these were to be the themes of his message. It was shown in an earlier discussion that he taught that poverty as social lovelessness was the result of social liv- ing concentrated on the material and physical levels of life with little concern for the psychical and spiritual. He was impatient w.ith what he called archaic economics in a modern, scienc-controlled world - The world still believes in a ~Ptolemaic" theory of economics. I would thus characterize a society which puts its faith in goods and specie. These people are still ignorant of the fact that the earth rotates! Goods do not constitute wealth. Wealth arises where men absorb things. Value does not reside in materials. Wealth comes into being where the energy latent in matter is transformed into the strength of men. Wealth is born in human life. A~art from life and energy, wealth is non-existent.22 We forget the economic problem is a question of Life. Many people think it is nothing but questions of liVIng, - bread, clothing, and. housing. These are concerned only with the lowest level of Life as a whole. And even these questions are not merely material ones.228 To reconstruct this present society into a better one, Marx suggested to employ a revolution; but •• merely to 227 Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, p. 170. 228 Kagawa, Friends of Jesus, April 1~31, p. 11. 187 flash pistols without purifying our desires and getting rid of our bad instincts will amount to nothing. People will continue to eat luxurious foods, to go to movies, to smoke, to drink wine, and to frequent licensed quarters, also to wear pistols, and indulge in violence as a method of achieving their wishes. No real social progress can be won that way •• We shall never get true social reorganization nor be able to establish the true economic state, until we conguer this greed with the spirit of the Crucifixion.22~ To Kagawa the spread of a philosophy of materialism among the masses, who he knew from experience could gain little from mere material conquests, brought real sorrow he had seen them continue to grovel in their immoralities even as they sat in the seats of power. Thus the question of Soul Value assumed greater place in his thinking than that of surplus value, as a battleground for the protection of the individual; in it the surplus value accruing from museu- lar labor, and made the object of exploitation by capital through rigid wage controls, had its place. True value, however, arose from the effort of man to gain free self-existence, or independent existence. The one ideally free is God. In brief, then, value may be defined to be the effort of man to become like God. Man is, however, placed in a world of relativity, in a conditioned order. Hence, without absolute existence there is no starting point for man to become as God, even though he desires to do so .• Value in this relative order of things differs from absolute value; so that the moments of life are inevitably incomplete. Man must, in order to achieve his purpose, tax his powers variously 229 T. Kagawa, The Economic Foundation of World Peace, V (Tokyo: Friends-of Jesus, 1932), p. 11-.- 188 to leap over the obstacles encountered. 23 0 Thus, while it was important for the laborer to learn the significance of the concept of surplus value in his struggle against capital which sought to control it, he must be taught the true nature of his own being in its search for economic, as well as ethical and religious, values, to really move into that experience of being a man. rather than an automaton in a great industrial machine. It was in man's inner capacity for growth that the emergence of true surplus value takes place; to limit it to the results of muscular labor was belittling the stature of man. Development is possible not alone through muscular labor--~rx regarded this as of almost unique importance --but through all the inner powers, i.e. through every activity, every feeling, every volition~ in short, through every activity of personality.2vl Two books were written by him, one in 1Q21, The Adoration of jh! Laborer, in which he declared that the laborer produced the things which the rest of society needed, and thus he was more important in society than the king (he was placed in jail for it), and another in 1926, !£! Sculpture of ~ ~· in both of which the thesis of the prime importance of human personality over the material tasks at hand was expressed. Love the Law of Life, published in 230 Kagawa. Love the Law of Life, p. 1?5. 231 ~·· p. 185. 189 Japanese in 1925, included the expression of the same truths in terms of the concept of Love. Social capital was not the specie, or the land, that the capitalist or the merchant controlled, but the term social capital signifies the totality of the inner social energy of mankind. It is not simply materials. It includes all- the heredity of human capacities, inventions, syntheses, analyses, systems, productive powers, assimilative powers, confidence in others. knowledge, abilities, and so forth. In other words, social capital means social energy.232 Therefore, the needed change from a social order in which the masses had been repressed and denied opportunity for living, to say nothing of self-improvement, was not a change-over of things to those who have not had them, but rather it must be a challenge for the full development of the human person, which ~rx ignored in his program.233 The quality of love in labor had been utterly destroyed, and with it all real value that could come from labor. I abominate the present world order in which labor and love are divorced. When love discarded labor. labor abandoned love. Labor became punishment and love was changed into treason. To reunite the two, men have de vised all the schemes of anarchism. nihilism, terroris~ despotism. and what not -- but all have proved futile. 232 ~., p. 172. 233 Ibid., P• 57. 234 ~., P• 208. 190 The class struggle, then, even though it involved a readjustment within the realm of the material, must be di- rected away from the strike and violence as the commonly accepted means of social progress, and directed toward the task of educating the entire nation. The laborer was no longer a slave, 235 he was no longer merely the motive power required to increase the returns on capital,236 he was no longer to be thought of merely as an animal in search of bread, but as a producer of social values, as well as social goods, he must be trained and educated for the highest type of manhood. He must help to control the physical and mate rial, and not again fall under their control. He was part of the nation-family, not just an individual to be cast into the discard at the caprice of politician or merchant. 237 This analysis of the main emphases of Kagawa's think ing in regard to the laborer and the economic system of Japan is a fragmentary presentation. It has given the basic trend of his philosophy, but it has also shown that he is not to be classed with the professional leader of labor. His unwill ingness to utilize the political arena or the halls of 235 Kagawa, Meditations Concerning the Cross, (London: Student Christian N~vement Press, l936), pp. 169- 70. 236 Kagawa, ~ ~ Law of Life, p. 204. 237 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 95. 191 Parliament was due to the tact that his struggle was with the wider, and deep-flowing, currents and forces of the social order that controlled the destinies of the masses and of the nation. The slum, labor, the class struggle, capital these were but symptoms, and as such could be handled by men trained for that purpose. He himself must move on to meet the situation in other areas as an architect with plans, and an engineer with techniques. His goal was the entire social order, nothing less. In this area of economics -- the industrial laborer and the industrial capitalist -- each must learn the funda mental truth that "economics is objective; religion is sub- jective. In that the two have a common aim -- the creation of values ot life itself -- they are one and the same thing." 238 The ultimate problem was that of seeing life as a whole, following in the path laid down by Jesus Christ. Religious education, side by side with education in econom ics and labor, was a need for both employer and employee. The modern social movement is with the bread problem, but also for life, a high~r evaluation of ot personality.2~~ concerned not merely with securing respect labor and the freedom Man in his practise ot economics could not escape its 238 Kagawa, 1£!! the Law of 1!£!, p. 199. 239 T. Kagawa, Jesus Through Japanese Eyes, (London: Lutterworth Press, 1934), p. 62. 192 psychological implications. When all is said and done, mammonism means avaricious ego-centric realism •• It is a great mistake to think of capitalism as purely mate rialistic •• If it were possible to have a true material istic movement unaffected by psychology, there could be no ego or exploitation in it. The same thing can be said about the communistic movement. How can you love in an altruistic~ communist life, unless there is a spiritual basis?~40 240 Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, p. 66. CHAPTER VI EMANCIPATING THE JAPANESE PEASANT The problem of rural labor has often been classed with the problem of urban labor in Japan. Among the political organizations set up to defend the cause of labor, the party called the Farmer-Labor Party was formed to represent all areas of labor in Japan. There were, however, many phases in the problem of rural labor in Japan which demanded consideration, even be fore the problems of labor as such could be satisfactorily dealt with. They were basic problems in the socio-ethical structure of Japan's large rural community. The almost unchanged feudal character of the family and village life of her 5,642,000 rural homes, the relation of the village to urban slum centers, the economic problems of large communities, which had been treated as a very different area of Japanese life all of these were related to the problem of rural labor. An understanding of these is important to an appreciation of the reasons for Kagawa's attack on this front, as his next major objective. It is necessary to bring together some of the data already touched on in this study, concerning the earlier social organization, and to enlarge on some of the details relating to the changes that took place. 194 Japan from the very beginning seems to have been an agricultural nation, and every record indicates that even in the days of pre-history her agricultural economy had been fairly well developed. Her farmers who were also her sol diers. constituted the elite of the nation under their own clan-heads, or uji-no-kami. In the pre-Confucian and pre Buddhist era, there were no large cities, and the location in small family-groups along the rivers and the shores of lakes, made for a simple rural structure. With the growth of large groups, clans, under the clan-family, shizoku, type of social structure, however, there was a tendency for the division of labor to develop. The farmer became the farmer in an economic sense, and the soldier became the defender against the aggression of other clans and foreigners. Thus he assumed the highest position in the social scale. The farmer, however, was still second, and higher than the artisan or the maker of things, who had been imported from Korea or China. The fourth rank went to the merchant or trader. who, until the modern era, had been regarded with shame because he lived at the expense of the labor of others. These four constituted the great class of commoners, heimin, who existed only for the small class of the ruling nobles and priests, under the nominal chieftain ship of the Imperial clan, the Yamato. 241 241 G. B. Sansom, Japan, A Short Cultural History. (London: The Cresset Press, 1936), pp. 72, 85. 195 The farmer, formerly of the elite class of the "hundred names," or hyakusho, which designation he still bears. was gradually reduced to the status of peasant or agricultural laborer. He worked for his living on land which largely did not belong to him. Just as the slaves. or yakko, belonged to the clan-head as his chattel, so in time the peasant came to belong to that land and to the owner of the land. Under the Taikwa Reforms of 645 A.D. which were intro- duced in a period of bitter struggle between rival clans, the control of lands by the clan-family was abolished, and the land was nominally returned to the control of the central government. It was largely a policy for rural land. and labor controls, through a readjustment of control districts, or townships, under a central rather than a clan system of government. It said in part - Rural government is to be on the basis of townships of fifty houses, under the superintendence of a headman responsible for the cultivation of crops, the maintenance of order, and the levy of taxes in kind and in labor. The units of area of allotment of land and the rates of land tax are specified. The old taxes and forced labour are abolished, and a new system of commuted taxes introduced. by which silk. or other textiles, or other commodities locally produced, are payable in fixed amounts in lieu of labor. Contri butions are to be made, in a fixed ratio to the number of houses, of post horses, weapons, and manual labor on behalf of officials, with permission in certain cases to supply rice instead of labour.242 242 Sansom,~· cit •• p. 93. The full details of the effect of these changes are stated by Sansom in his history, but only their influence on the social crises of the peasant family will be considered at this point. Instead of improving the lot of the farm- laborer, already under forced conditions, the new system, while granting more exemptions to the favored ruling lords, increased the pressure on the helpless peasant, both because of the tax inequalities and the increased consciption demands on their able-bodied male members. The erection of government buildings in the capital, the making of roads, and public works in general, aug mented the call upon able-bodied men for the corvee, and thus lessened the agricultural output •• l~litary service was one of the forms of forced labour, but it was partic ularly onerous, and much dreaded by smaller families. In contemporary memorials there appear such phrases as "The wretchedness of a soldier is not different from that of a slave. When one man is called up, one household perishes •• " It will be clear from the above description that taxation and the corvee bore with the greatest severity on those least able to endure them. Poverty was heavily taxed, wealth got off lightly.243 In the ninth century another development relating to the further depression of the peasant, was the growth of the system of tax-free territories, or manors, called Shoen. Temple lands had long been tax-free, so also Imperial lands, but now a rather expanded Imperial family extended its land controls, and other powerful nobles appropriated unreclaimed arable land, or pasture, or forest, with the result that 243 Ibid., PP• 98, 99. 19? with tax ememption came extraterritoriality relationships. With pressure on the small family -- because of the tenant- owner problem already acute, the high rent rates of farms tended to dispossess families of their agricultural security, and forced them to leave for the manors, where they hired themselves out as families in virtual slavery.244 The next step in this same trend was the feudal sys- tern, or Hokan, in which the favored lords were given actual ownership of the fief with its land and its people, and in which control was removed from the. Imperial Clan to the sys tem of Shogun-Daimyo-Samurai, in which military control was tending to become absolute -- a result reached in the Toku- gawa Shogunate at the end of the sixteenth century. Under this system, society became feudal in all of its relation ships, reaching down into all walks of life -- the lord-serf concept was applied in its many social ramifications. The Tokugawa clan gained control of forty-seven out of sixty eight provinces by a system of intermarriage, by heavy levies on rich daimyo, and by military conquest. It dominated the national and the social life of Japan for two hundred and fifty years until its decadence, leading to the Restoration. Among the other provinces, called the Outside 244 E. Honjo, The Social and Economic History of Japan, (Kyoto: Jigyokudo, 1935), pp. 5-l?. 198 Provinces. four were outstanding, namely, Satsuma, Choshu, !2!! and Hizen in their opposition to Tokugawa control. From them came the leaders of the Imperialist movement. Within their territories also, the lot of the depressed peasant had been kept within bounds. Industry and commerce had been en couraged without allowing it to fall into the hands of the unscrupulous, as in the Tokugawa domains, and the old feudal virtues of discipline and thrift had been maintained. In the vast Tokugawa territories, however, the agra rian problem had become intense. The life of the peasant, wretched at the best of times, was rendered almost unbearable by the fluctuating prices of rice and by the rising standard of living among all classes but his own. Some got into debt •• and for a peasant to get into debt was to be on the steep road to destruction. Some migrated to other districts •• Some absconded and became vagrants. Some made their way to the towns in search of employment as domestic servants and day-labourers •• The daimyo and their retain ers, pressed by the merchants and money-lenders turned the screw on the already tortured peasants ••• Testimony to the misery of farmers is found through out Tokugawa literature. Its leading scholars concerned themselves with economic problems ••• but they saw it dimly and most of them proposed only neat ethical solutions of the terrible equation of supply and demand. Peasants must work hard and respect their betters, merchants must be honest and content with small profits, and samurai must not be extravagant.245 The farmer had become the butt of the scheming of both samurai and merchant. He was merely a producer of the necessary rice crop, which was the medium of tax payments 245 Sansom,~ £!!•• pp. 506, 507. 199 on the one hand, and a medium of exchange and profit on the other. As these two classes manipulated the farmers' produce for their ends, he suffered whether prices went up or down, because profits never reached down to him. Because the farmer paid out 50-80% of his crop to the owner in taxes and land rents, it was to his interest to raise large crops in order to get rice to eat. To the owner, however, this was objectionable because abundance of rice reduced the money value of the rice on the market. The rise of a money-economy proved a major factor in the disruption of the social organi zation of feudal Japan. Merchants bought their way into the samurai ranks, while samurai sought ways out of their financial dilemmas. some lowly farmers, commoners, worked their way into the ranks of samurai, and one of these lower-grade farmers-becom~ samurai was Prince Ito, who played a great part in the Meiji period and in the writing of the Constitution of 1889. For the peasant class on the whole, however, the story was one of constant suffering and mistreatment. There were two general types of response on their part, the one being that of outright opposition in protest or revolution, and the other, that of submission in spite of a sense of unjust oppression. The first reaction, namely that of violent opposition, was quite common, and usually was met by further repressive 200 measures. In the 14th and 15th centuries there were series of tsuchi-1!!!, riots~ in which warehouses were attacked, and the files of account-records and of debts were destroyed, and appeals made to the rulers to cancel all debts. In the years 1485-6, there were other uprisings of a class nature against the samurai, called kuni-ikki, in which a deep hatred for the samurai was expressed in cries of "Down with the samurai," because of their depredations. In the cen turies following similar riots of the farmers against feudal lord, as well as samurai, took place from time to time. Following the record of Honjo and Sansom in the stud ies already quoted, there was a long history of farm-tenancy disputes with the outstanding dates being 1716, 1735, 1768, 1790, with recurring frequency during the nineteenth century, some of which resulted in outright revolt against the author ities and the rich land-holders. These were raids on the rice supply of the nation, known as uchi-kowashi, knocking and breaking down, or rice-riots, -- the most recent of which occurred in 1918. The name of Sakura Sogoro, whose action of outright protest has been referred to in a previous chapter. is a symbol of this type of opposition. As an elder of a rural village he had seen his people suffer in spite of their every effort, and decided to champion their cause by pre senting a petition to the feudal lord himself over the heads 201 of the lesser lords who controlled his district. He paid with his life and that of his family because of his breach of samurai etiquette, even though his complaint was recog- nized, the injustices rectified, and the offending official reprimanded. The other reaction on the part of the peasant to re pression was that of Ninomiya Sontoku, who accepted the in evitable, and sought by other means to change the lot of the peasant. Sogoro of Sakura has gone down in history as a martyr, and Ninomiya Sontoku stands out as a saint. In Kagawa, an element of each approach, may be seen. Sontoku was born in 1787, and at the age of sixteen his parents died. The family council decided to disband his family, placing him in the family of an uncle. As a youth he enjoyed reading the Ancient Classics of Confucius, but his uncle sharply reprimanded him for using precious oil which did not bring any benefit to the uncle. K. Uchimura 246 has related this story and states ''Sontoku considered his uncle's resentment reasonable and gave up his study until he could have oil of his own to burn." He used his few vacation days to reclaim a small piece of barren ground and grew some rape-seed from which he eventually got his own oil. Having conquered this obstacle he thought his uncle would commend 246 K. Uchimura, Representative Men of Japan, (Tokyo: The Keiseisha, 1908), pp. 96-99. him. Instead, the uncle questioned his waste of time in reading when he could be working. So again Sontoku 202 "realized" the reasonableness of his uncle's viewpoint, and did his reading to and from his work in the fields. After years of service with his uncle, he was finally free to return to the ancestral land, which had fallen into disuse, and to work on refuse-land where he succeeded when others had failed. His reputation for thrift and for ability spread, and thus he became a savior to his peasant class. The Lord of Odaware Castle asked his help in three hopeless villages of his domain. Restoration had been attempted several times but failed, largely because stereotyped methods were used without regard to soil conditions, or the nature of the labor supply. Sontoku's method is of interest - Sontoku asked for permission to carefully examine the situation of the villages he was to revive. Thither he went upon his own feet, a distance of 130 miles, and for months remained among the people visiting them from house to house, and carefully watched their ways of living; made a close study of the nature of the soil, the extent of wilderness, drainage, possible means of irrigation •• and gathered all the data for making his full estimate for the possible restoration of the deserted district. His report was most discouraging: "Grants in money, or release from taxes will in no way help them in their distress. Indeed, one secret of their salvation lies in withdrawing all monetary help from them •• The wilderness must be opened E.z lli. £!B. !!_ sources, and poverty~ be made to rescue itself. Let my Lord be satisfied with the revenue that can rea sonably be expected from his famished district, and expect no more from it. Should one tan one-fourth acre •• yield two bags of rice one bag should go to the sustenance of the people, and the other one ·bag to the fund for the opening up of the rest of the wilder- 247 ness." 203 It was on the basis of these principles of self-help that his disciples initiated a growing movement in mutual aid in the midst of mutual suffering. eventuating in the Hotokusha, a type of communal cooperation which is discussed under that heading in a later section. This applied to lord as well as to peasant. In the famines of 1836, Sontoku asked the caretakers for the keys of the granary of the fief in order to relieve the starving peasants; his request was re- fused. But on his demand that, in that case, all should fast and suffer with the peasants, their sense of responsibility compelled them to agree. They fasted for four days, after which they delivered the keys without securing the approval of the local lord. K. Ogata has summarized the principles of Sontoku as follows: 1. Sincerity - even as God is sincere. 2. Industry - even as Heaven and Earth and all creation are ever at work without repose. 3. Living according to one's station in life -- live simply and never exceed one's rightful means. 4. Helping one's neighbor -- give away unnecessary possessions.248 Throughout the nineteenth century there was a growing concern about solutions for this problem of the lowly 247 ~., P• 104. 248 K. Ogata, The Cooperative Movement in Japan, (London: P. s. King and Son, 1923), p. 3o. 204 peasant, and throughout the century, which was one of dras tic social change, his problem increasingly became the prob lem of the nation. When the Restoration hurled another two million people, this time the large samurai system, into the cauldron of distress together with the peasant and outcast, it is understandable that radical forces should find welcome expression in their midst. To the radical trend. the freedom of the modern era seemed to offer opportunity, even as it did to the more evolutionary and constructive trend, in whose tradition a Kagawa was to proceed. The problems moved enmasse into the modern era very much as they had been in the distant past but with some few changes. The educational program of the new Meiji regime sought to improve Japanese society by leveling all groups and by removing the social stigma of the old classes among the commoner group, as well as the outcast group, the yakko, and the eta. It had not changed the ruling class, nor had it destroyed the military thought patterns of the newly developed defense organizations of the army and navy, which replaced the former feudal structure. Both the rural and urban social order had been over turned by the new policies, by the rise of great cities, by the new money-economy, and by the development of large fac tories. The former first-place warrior of the Shogunate was • 205 thrown into the maelstrom of social distress and became a merchant, a student, or a Christian preacher. The new mili tary caste became the first class of the new order, and the lowly, despised merchant took the position of a close second place. The peasant, no longer a true "farmer," was left to flounder in the social flux, while the modern jockeying for control and power continued unabated even until World War II. The artisan, and maker of things, was likewise left in an uncertain place in the great transition that has been going on in the modern era. Thus, while the Meiji era was called the era of Enlightenment, it may be said that the great rural heart of the nation did not share in it. The rural situation which Kagawa experienced in his childhood on the Kagawa estates, as collector of land rents, was one of insecurity whose mean ing kept pressing closer and closer to his heart and mind, as he later dealt with the suffering in the slums, and with the bitterness of the class struggle on the labor front. There were deep-lying tendencies in this situation which called for radical action if the lot of the peasant home was to be improved. Thus it was natural that he should look about him for some clue to a solution of the conditions which, from child hood, had been pressing on his mind. That he should take his Christian philosophy of life forward into the far-reaching 206 problems of the rural social order is not surprising. That he did not deal with them first is probably due to the fact that the immediate evidences of suffering and of social in justice in the labor problem of the slum districts called for all the attention that he as a lone individual could give. The attitude of the nation in regard to the rural problem through the centuries has been that of laissez faire. In 1899 government took the first official action aimed at alleviating the conditions of the large rural com munity by encouraging cooperative organizations as a means of self-help. This, however, was of benefit to the small owner-farmers, and of little assistance to the peasant who was the real sufferer. To Kagawa, planned action was needed. In the story of his own thinking during his early youth, Kagawa, as Eiichi Niimi in the novel of his life, has pictured his deep love for the farms, and fields, and rivers of his ancestral home in spite of all of the family and social problems. The child who had helped on the water wheels of the irrigation ditches was thinking of the "social improvement of the outcast class" of the country-side. The sister, Emi, also the "child of a mistress" by the same father, telling him of the torment of the ancestral home, aroused in him a "look of determination" as he recalled his own sufferings in that same home. The youth-become-Christian 207 now walking through the barley fields, where he used to wander alone in his misery. was dreaming of building a little hut in the midst of nature, which was more beautiful than the social order, to be "nearer to God.n 249 The little ten year-old, who had sat in the seats of the mighty at festival time because he represented the family of the powerful Kagawa, was now taking the worries of the tenant-farmer on the Kagawa lands into his own hands. His stepmother had called on him for help because of the threat of revolt by some eight tenant-farmers; there had been a rumor that the uncle, now mayor of the city, intended to de- mand an end-season increase in land rents of four percent. The leader of the group had come in protest and had declared: If we'd been told •• when we was preparing our seed beds, that the ground-rent was to be raised, we should 'a' been able to think it over, but now the rice 'a' grown and it's been manured two times, and raising the ground-rent now by four percent will put us in a pretty fix. If we was to make trouble you'd go for the police, so we won't, but just think o' the deal of trouble you're giving poor people like us •• If the police are called in to make us pay the extra rent, we'll just let the police send us to prison.250 Young Kagawa settled it by sending cards to the farmers in his own name, telling them that his uncle would not demand 249 Kagawa, Before the Dawn, pp. 48, 61. 83, 171. 250 Ibid., PP• 164, 165. ·I 208 the increase. The youth had turned defender. In the slums, he had seen the defeated peasant come into the city to compete with the day-laborer. His attack on the labor front, through organization and through a counter-philosophy of non-materialism, was intended to help the peasant-laborer there. The outreaches of the problem, however, were of another sort; their solution called for attack on a broader front than had been undertaken at any time in Japan before this. The forces that had burst forth in the strike of the shipyard workers, and Kagawa's defense of the workers and his incarceration with their leaders in 1921, had brought to the attention of the nation's leaders the fact that the time had again come, when the voices of the peasant and the laborer must be heard. The leaders on the farms came in to him for help in securing an organization in their inter est. The story of Kagawa, however, as a hero of the social ly repressed multitudes, is not the story of one man; it is rather the story of several key men educated for the new era of liberation -- one of whom was a farmer's son, who had drifted to the city and secured work during the great ship building boom of World War I. He had met Kagawa in the slums and under his tutorship had learned the principles of con structive labor representation. He was Nagazo Yukimasa of 209 Banshu, near Kobe, and had learned how to write down h~ thoughts and to publicize them in the laborers' newspaper. It was he who had marched at the head of the strikers in 1921, but because of his record with the company he was not jailed; he was given a retiring allowance of Yen 1,000, and released. Yukimasa also carried the petition of 50,000 laborers for Universal Manhood Suffrage to the National Parliament in 1920-l, which became a law in 1925. To Yukimasa fell the task of setting up with Kagawa, and M. Sugiyama, the organi zation of the peasants in April 1922, known as the Peasants' Union. The first delegation of farmers who came to Kagawa in 1921 ware from his home district of Banshu. To his people, he returned riding a bicycle and taking with him a scissors-grinding outfit. For almost a year he went about the country-side, grinding, earning his living, and having interviews with hundreds and thousands of restless peasants. He had established a solidarity of purpose among the peas ants, in a constructive way, that made it possible for their voice to be heard in the midst of a society opposed to any organized expression, especially from the rural communities. The Peasants' Union resulted. Sugiyama was elected presi dent of this Union, and for many years since has served as a member of the House of Parliament. seventy-two delegates had come from thirty-four provinces to set up this ~ I 210 organization in 1922.251 In a short time, however, it too was shot through with the activities of the communist movement, which in that same year had organized the Japan Communist Party to attain its political ends. In the area of urban labor, however, it had set up its radical program in the newly-formed labor unions and the more recent peasant's union as well. This was a development which caused no end of concern to the Kagawa group, for the end of these radical activities would certainly result in a similar destruction of social gains as had occurred in the case of those earlier movements under Abe and Katayama. The program of the peasant was set forth in a man ifesto as follows: We purpose to nourish knowledge, improve our tech nique, cultivate our moral character, bring the element of enjoyment into life on the farm, and make the reali zation of a perfect rural civilization our goal. Standing for freedom of thought and assuming an attitude which will benefit society as a whole, we will love the truth. In order to realize an emancipation void of compromise, we will fight capitalism by organiz ing producers' guilds and attain the liberation of the poverty-suffering peasant.252 This very moderate statement of purpose was 251 H. Topping, "A Christian Leader of Cooperatives Nagazo Yukimasa," in Kagawa, The Economic Foundation of World Peace, pp. 41, 42. --- 252 Axling, Kagawa, p. 63. 211 satisfactory to the peasants at large, and it was important as a significant declaration of their group as an organized body in Japanese society. There were others, however, who felt that the aims were too conservative -- they were pre pared to offer bitter opposition to present controls. Their number was augmented by the anarchistically-minded communists especially as numbers ejected from the Japan Federation of Labor infiltrated into the peasant organizations, from 1925 on. The Peasant Union of Sugiyama with its 100,000 mem bers, had weathered the growing storm of dissatisfaction in 1924. It had sought to realize its purposes in the political world as part of the Farmer-Labor Party formed in December 1925, which was dissolved by government order almost imme diately. This party was reorganized in Osaka in 1926. Speaking of these disrupting forces in the social movements throughout the nation, Kagawa has said as follows - These extreme Leftists of the radical Left itself are called Tigers by the others. The Peasants Union is full of them. After the split in the Peasants Union and the Farmer Labor Party in the spring of l926, •• they found themselves rather unsuccessful and two years later, in June 1928, they re-united the Peasants Union. That is, the original Peasants Union, which for two years between 1926 and 1928 had become the Extreme Left, re-united with the All Japan Peasants Union which Sugiyama and I had formed out of the non-radical remnants when the Communists had captured the organization ••• Among the Tigers there are many of the former outcasts, or Eta class, who now call themselves Suiheisha, or Water- Level People. About forty per cent of the Peasants 212 Unions are Tiger in complexion.2 5 3 Thus it has become clear that the best interests of the peasant class were not being served by their unions as they developed through the decades of modern history. The problems lay deeper than organized agitation could reach. The solution to the suffering of the peasant was to be found, in the end, in the construction of a rural civilization in which respect for the personality of the peasant and all that it involved was a primary consideration. On that basis, then, the Kagawa emphasis, through all of his efforts and those of his co-laborers, has been on a thorough study of the elements of the problem, and on the education of the entire nation and the Christian Church toward a participation in a constructive program with the peasant, not merely f2! him. There are four main areas of the rural problem, namely, the area of land problems, that of finance, that of labor relationships, and lastly, the area of personal prob lems, as health, education and morals. Kagawa and his co- workers have sought to break the larger problem into its constituent parts so that the people themselves could see its true nature. This was the first step in the solution of 253 T. Kagawa, "Recent Happenings in Radical Groups," Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930), 20, 21. 213 its more pressing needs. The basic problem in rural communities is that of the land, and the security of its use for the peasant. Seventy percent of Japan's farming land is rented, not owned by the peasant. In the modern era when farm land is being with drawn from the peasant-tenant in favor of land-sales to industry, and often held for speculation, the insecurity of the small, land-renting farmer has increased many-fold. According to the statistics of 1933 in Kagawa's anal ysis,254 the cultivated area in Japan was about 14,680,000 acres, which were divided between Japan's 5,642,000 agrarian families. The total rural population of about 44,000,000 as a whole would be insecure if 70% is subject to the caprice of the speculator or the absentee land-owner. The number of tenant-owner disputes in regard to land rose from 2,000 per year preceding 1928 until in 1935 these disputes had reached a yearly total of 5,512. The settlement of land disputes very rarely ended in a successful issue for the tenant as is shown by the figures of Professor Namae who reported at the Sherwood Eddy Con ference on Social Problems in Tokyo, as follows: 255 254 T. Kagawa, "Recent Developments in Rural Commun ities," The Japan Christian~ Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1937), P• 190. 255 Professor Namae, "The General Economic Situation in Japan," Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930) pp. 12, 13. 214 Year Com;Eromises Successful 1'324 1818 - 74.'38% '35 - 4.09% 1925 855 - 50.26% 51 - 3.00% 1926 2025 - 73.61% 101 - 3.67% 1927 1371 - 66.76% 56 - 2.73% The "successful" solutions to disputes are on the whole very low, less than four percent. This is a picture of peasant chances in almost every issue even to the present. The "compromise" solutions show a large proportion, but here the compromise is often the maintenance of the status quo. With 50-75% compromises, there is a balance of 21-46% of un successful or unfavorable results for the farmer. This pic ture indicates the power of the land-owner over the peasant. Of the total number of disputes, over 58% were due to the withdrawal of the land from the tenants by the owners. The law, according to M. Sugiyama, is all in favor of the land-owner, giving him the protection, and the tenant none, as indicated in the following statement: When disputes arise between two parties, the land owner has recourse to the regulation called tachi-iri kinshu, forbidding the tenant the right to cultiva~the land. This is the equivalent of an industrial lock-out, and works great hardship to the tenant. The land problem is really the central issue in rural communities •• Even after the last dispute between land owners and tenants is settled, and the rights of the tenants are assured by the passage of an equitable law, the land problem will remain. Even though his plot be his own, and he belong to the comparatively favored class of peasant proprietors, the farmer who cultivates so inadequate an area as 2.7 acres cannot Dossibly provide for his family the abundant life.2~6 256 M. Sugiyama, "Rural Problems in Japan," The Ja;Ean Mission~~' {Tokyo: KYo Bun Kwan, 1929), p. 4~ 215 This figure of 2.7 acres is Sugiyama's estimate of land available for the peasant when the total acreage is divided by the number of families on the farms of Japan. The amount needed, he believes, is twice that much. The other great area of problem in relation to the land is that of land rents. The old traditional proportion of payment, from the rice crop, far the land used was approx imately 60% for the peasant and 40% for the owner. The common practise, however, is the other way around. In many cases the amount going to the peasant is as little as 28%, and sometimes as high as 55%, with an over-all average of 35.8%. Such rents are far out of proportion to what is equitable. In Europe, following Sugiyama, the system of share farming is similar to that of Japan with one important difference. In Europe, the landowner furnishes the tools and the fertilizer; in Japan, the peasant must buy both, and he gets less of the crop, because of the high rental demands. When Kagawa secured the passage of a law known as the Anti-Exploitation Land Act, at the time of his work on gov ernment commissions in the years lg24-5 after the Great Earthquake, he was moving against the age-old practise of holding the land and keeping it in its unproductive condi tion for speculative purposes; the new law provided that the government could confiscate such land and put it into 216 productive use. In a country such as Japan where 84% of its territory is mountainous, it stands to reason that the arable 16% must be put into intensive use. In addition to this emphasis of change through law, Kagawa has used every means at his disposal to secure a change in thinking on the part of the farmer -- so that he too might turn the land that is available to him to more productive uses, in what he calls "vertical" agriculture. Where there are ponds, the peasant is urged to stock them with fish; where there are hills, he is being shown how to grow the various kinds of trees in tree-crop culture; instead of the blind devotion to the traditional rice-culture, he should include live-stock and crops of a varied nature. If walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, horse chestnuts, pecans, hickory nuts, English beech-nuts and other var ieties of nuts were cultivated and utilized as food for men as well as animals, what a boon it would be for the nation! If every Japanese farmer could be induced to keep one or two milk-producing Swiss goats, Japan could get along without Korea and Manchuria.257 The second large area of problem is that of rural finance and production costs. The farmer, by primitive and feudal tradition, has fettered himself to the two basic prod- ucts of rice and silk, and has relied almost entirely on these two products for his welfare. Even during the period 257 T. Kagawa, Christ and Japan, (New York: Friend ship Press, 1934), p. 12. 217 when economic values were set on the basis of rice, when wages were in terms of rice, when taxes were paid in rice, when prices for human individuals as slaves or as laborers were in terms of rice, the chief element of fluctuation was due to the largeness or smallness of crops of rice. The same was true of the silk production. When, however, rice lost its position as the standard of exchange. and money took its place, making rice values subservient to national urban values, and also contingent on international exchange values, the insecurity of the rice producer became more insecure. The Rice Riots of 1918 arose out of the maladjustment of living in terms of money as against rice -- incomes did not keep pace with living costs, and there were no controls to protect the rural producer and the urban consumer. Kagawa has indicated that the insurrection of the division of soldiers on February 26, 1936, in which two for mer premiers were assassinated and government headquarters were seized by them, had in the background this problem of the cost of rice and its fluctuation without any protection to the rural communities from which many of the soldiers came. It was directed against the capitalistic control of this commodity, and their motives were regarded as patriotic. In a special session of the Diet in ~y 1936, a law for the control of the price of rice was passed without difficulty, 218 whereas the same bill previously had met with failure. 258 The seriousness of this incident calls to mind the times of a Sakura Sogoro and of the other peasant riots, when violence seemed the only way to reach the controlling classes. In the period of the great American depression of 1930-1, the direct effect on rural labor in Japan was seen when girl workers in the silk mills went wage-less because of the panic in Wall Street, New York. In Shinshu, the silk district, over fifteen thousand girls in more than fifty factories have not received their wages for more than six months. They have had food but no wages, and only about half of them are working. In Shinshu this situation is caused by the panic in Wall Street, New York City. because of 2 g~ich raw silk is not being bought from Japan as usual. Industry in Japan has had a tendency to pass on to the worker the ill effects of economic change without a corresponding benefit in times of higher prices and better conditions. The individual farm laborer, and his wife or daughter who work in the silk and cotton mills in off-season labor are not cushioned against the dire effects of changes in the national economy. In the actual work of producing the rice and the silk, which have been the backbone of the nation's economic 258 Kagawa, "Recent Developments in Rural Commun ities," p. 189. 259 T. Kagawa. "The Recent His tory of the Japanese Labor Movement, 1 ' The Japan Niission Year Book. (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930), p:-35. 219 structure from ancient times down through the modern era with its many new products, there has been little evidence of an attempt to adjust market prices and production costs. The findings of M. Sugiyama correspond with those of others interested in this problem, and are as follows: In the production of rice according to the reports of 1921, 1922, and 1923, it cost¥ 40 to produce one bag of rice. Therefore, it would be fair to add a profit of about ten per cent and sell for¥ 45 a bag. But as a matter of fact the market price was ¥ 25. The reason for this is that the farmer has nothing to say about the price he is to receive for the rice which he produces.260 While such a situation may seem inconceivable, it is one of those anachronisms in the national economic order, which have made the lot of the peasant often unbearably difficult. He had been forced to buy his own tools and fer tilizer, to give up more than half of his crop in land rents. and had grown up in a tradition which made the now completely depressed tenant-farmer content to clear a meager share of rice for his family, with no margin for his labor. In addition to this problem of finance and production, the farmer has had to carry a heavy tax burden. According to the survey of the Agricultural Associa tion of Ehime Prefecture. the ratio of taxation for agricultural, commercial and industrial enterprises in that prefecture is 100 for agriculture, 45 for commerce, 260 M. Sugiyama. "A Study of the Rural Problem," The Japan Mission ~ ~· (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930), p. 184. 220 and 28 for industry. 2 61 When these factors are considered, it is not surpris- ing that all reports available indicate a net indebtedness for the entire farming community of the nation at approx imately ¥ 750 per family. According to the survey of the Treasury Department of the Central Government, made in 1910, the indebtedness of the farmers on movable and immovable property was ¥ 378,000,000, but in 1925 it had leapt up to ¥ 2,400,000,000. That is, their indebtedness had in creased six fold in the short period of fifteen years. Not only so, but if to this sum is added credit loans - this sum is not definite but authorities agree that it about equals the loans on property--these two forms of indebtedness amount to a total of¥ 4,800,000,000. If you put their total indebtedness at the conservative figure of¥ 4,000,000,000 it will average¥ 750 for each family.Z62 This figure, which was Sugiyama's estimate for 1930, showed a further increase in an analysis of Kagawa for 1934, as follows: The Department of Agriculture discovered, in a survey in 1934, that the average debt of the small land-owning farmer is ¥ 976.95, or almost ¥ 1,000 per single farmer. MOreover, his average income is only¥ 1,026.26. If you deduct his expenditures, you will find that his annual net income is but ¥ 5?2.53.263 These figures of Kagawa are for the more fortunate small land-owning farmer, but 70 per cent of Japan's farming 261 Ibid., p. 185. 262 Ibid., p. 181. 263 Kagawa, "Recent Developments in Rural Commu nities," p. 190. 221 families must live on rented or tenant land, -- the peasant family whose income is less, and whose insecurity is greater because it is property-less. A third great area of problem for the rural community of Japan is that of farm labor and labor relationships. The question of man-power during peacetime was one of finding enough food for the normal increase per year of almost 500,000 persons, which was one-half of Japan's net population increase each year of one million persons. This manpower reserve in times of war, however, was the first to be drawn on, making for a periodic upheaval of the rural economy. Kagawa has made an estimate of 783,000 persons who leave the rural areas for the cities each year, due to the stringent economic conditions on the farms. These youth. both male and female, enter the labor markets, the slums and brothels of the cities, to again flow back into the farms, when economic depressions sweep over the nation. The family system makes life in the rural family more possible than in urban areas, even though its level of existence is low. The general division of types of labor on the farms is indicated by the statistics given by Sugiyama for 1920, in which the break-down of the total number of 3,120,000 agricultural workers showed that 1,800,000 are day laborers, 920,000 are seasonal laborers, and only 385,000 are year- 222 round workers on the farms of the nation. 264 The economic conditions in the rural areas have always made it necessary for the entire family to work. With the impossibility of earning a living on the farms, emigration to the cities and to foreign countries on the part of the young men was resorted to, and the young women were contrac ted to factories and to brothels in the cities to the number of about 330,000 per year. With the tendency for a growth in craft industries in rural areas, child labor has become a problem, because there are no laws pertaining to child labor in rural districts. Due also to the fact that farm work is a seasonal thing, leaving the winter months for idleness unless other work is found, the men go into the wine shops, bath houses, and also work as peddlers of patent medicines; the women go to the spinning factories and are often the victims of abuses of the uncontrolled system of rural labor employ. There is little or no protection for the female laborer except that which the Kagawa movement and similar groups are able to give through Girl Factory Workers' Co-operatives. The fourth great area of unsolved problems for the peasant community of Japan is that relating to the welfare of the peasant family, -- its health, its morals and its 264 Sugiyama, "Rural Problems in Japan," pp. 45 ff. 223 educational development. As has been indicated, the story of the treatment of the peasant through the centuries leaves a strong impression that the lowly farmer has never been thought of as more than a necessary cog in the total national machinery. This accords with the Oriental concept of the cheapness of human life, and the disregard for the higher values of human worth to which the Occident is accustomed. While there has been an awakening of a social con science in Japanese society and officialdom, its effects as regards the rural population has been negligible apart from the persistent approaches of the Christian Movement, and the economic and political emphases of the Kagawa Group. The basic problem of rural poverty and insecurity has made it impossible for some 3,200 rural villages to secure medical services. With the increase of a great num ber of births each year, the lack of care has also produced a great number of deaths. In the northeastern areas of Japan especially, this situation has been acute, with 220 infant deaths per one thousand of population, compared with a rate of 50 in the southern and more populous areas. The health conditions of the woman on the farm are especially unfortunate. She not only does a man's share of the farm and home work, but she also carries the load of child birth under unsanitary conditions, and then carries the child to work with her. Quoting Sugiyama, who has made 224 this field his specialty in the Kagawa Movement, the picture of need here is clear: When she has graduated from the primary school she must go to work, either as a maid, or as a factory work er. If, when she marries, she finds herself settled in the home of a farmer, she is tormented by poverty and frequent child-birth, and must stand on her feet all day long without a moment of leisure, working in the fields, or in a gloomy, dark kitchen, or at washing or sewing •• There are no midwives in the country to help the women at childbirth • Even if there were, the farm women do not have the ten or fifteen yen necessary for their remuneration. The high infant mortality rate of the rural districts is also a great problem •• In the case of an exceptional village, there were two hundred and sixty-six deaths out of a thousand births. What is it that leads to so many deaths? In the first place, the mother is often undernourished. Then she is often lacking in knowledge of hygiene and sanitation. In the third place, there is no equipment for medical treatment. Lastly there is no adequate distribution of ice, milk, and the like.26o The problem of health from the standpoint of the young girl who is contracted to the factories of the city is also serious. It has already been stated that about 330,000 girls leave their rural homes each year for work in the cities, in the factory or in the brothel. In the year 1919 the statis tics for girl labor in the cities indicated that of 220,222 child laborers under 13 years of age, 122,994 were girls; between the ages of 13 and 17 years, of 722,303 laborers one-half of them were girls. 266 It is more than probable 265 M. Sugiyama, "The Rural Problem," The Japan Christian ~uarterly, VI (April 1931), PP• 112, 113. 266 G. M. Fisher, Creative Forces in Japan, (New York: Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1923), p. 75. 225 that the great majority of these were from rural homes. About ?O% of these girls are returned to their homes within one year due to sickness, and 80% of them are returned in two years. The problem of health and morals in connection with the system of prostitution, licensed and unlicensed, is another area in which the turn-over is rapid and disastrous to the development of a healthy rural social order. The girls that return to the country. broken in body, are the mothers of new generations. The problem of prostitution, while largely a city in- stitution, actually has its roots in the poverty of the peasant home. To a Kagawa whose youth knew the struggle of purity in an environment of impurity, which was taken for granted on all hands, the necessity of an aggressive attack at the source of supply was vital. It was not only a social problem but a deeply personal one as well: The public prostitutes and geisha girls who were bar tered for gold and robbed of their freedom were in stark reality slaves. ~W own mother was a servile geisha girl. Her lot and life led me to dedicate myself to the work of emancipation of these pi~G~ul women and the lower classes which produce them. In each of his great novels of Japanese life, he has included poignant pictures of the women caught in the system of 26? Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 110. 226 slavery and the youth struggling against its foils, or yield ing to its strangle hold of death. These incidents are not figments of his imagination, but the mirrors of a stinging reality, showing the extent of social misfortune and decay in the fabric of his homeland. While the problem is basically one of poverty and a loveless society, there is also evidence of a limited ethical consciousness. which not only sanctions but justifies the selling of human life in debauchery. Japan's social ethic has permitted the belief that. while the body is given to prostitution under necessity, the soul of the prostitute can be kept spotless. Behold the prostitutes of Japan% Do they not fre quently exclaim, "We may sell our flesh, but we don't sell our souls"? Even women such as they, clearly make the distinction between soul and sexual desire, and they know that love is not lust.268 The ground for this tendency to utterly separate the purely physical from the other-than-physical, leading to the permitting, if not the sanctioning, of the vice system, by both Bushido and Buddhism, may be due in part to the imper sonalism of their social philosophies, and to the extreme other-worldliness of their salvation concepts. The facts of the modern situation bear out Kagawa in his attack on this 268 Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Philadelphia; John c. Winston, l~2~p:-86:-- --- ---- 227 long-standing trend. It is a deplorable fact •• that because this sect [Shin], until recently, taught that Buddha would save, regardless of the moral aspects of right and wrong, every house of prostitution, while reciting Namu-Amida Butsu, the sect's prayer formula, has kept right on with its vice. In 1~32 the Buddhist organizations went on record in favor of abolishing public prostitution. Nevertheless where is the brothel that does not still mainta~ a Buddhist god-shelf? •• Unfortunately there are two hundred thousand prostitutes and geisha girls. They tend to affiliate with the religion which, by its moral attitude, serves their economic status. Thus Japan's religions, whose avowed purpose is to save men from vice, on the contrary take the form of tolerating it and postpone salvation from sin until the world beyond.269 The only social, ethical, or religious force in Japan that has raised its voice, in rebuke as well as in a con- structive program, has been the Christian Church and its workers. While Kagawa himself has not been the chief crusader leading a crushing attack against the system of vice as such, he has dealt with it as one of the outbreaks of a diseased social structure, whose entire framework is in danger. Other leaders, as Kazuya Matsum.iya and Ivtt.'s. o. Kubushiro of the purity movements, and Gumpei Yamamuro, of the Salvation Army, have singled out this problem and ana lyzed its details from the standpoint of its social as well as its moral significance. In a study of one of the villages of northern Japan, 269 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, pp. 82, 83. 228 where the drift to the vice system was especially great, Matsumiya discovered that this village of 816 homes and an adult population of 5,554 had 467 girls between the ages of 17 and 25 years. Of this group 57 girls had been sent out as registered prostitutes, but on further investigation it was evident that the system was drawing a far larger number than appeared on the surface. was as follows: 270 His analysis of the situation Registered prostitutes Private prostitutes(Shakufu) Geisha girls Waitresses in cafes, restaurants 57 18 12 26 113 (14.3%) ( 4.5%) ( 3. O%) ( 6. 5%) In addition to these types of work which are commonly regarded as related to the system of vice, Matsumiya came to the startling conclusion that as high as 70% of these young women found their way into work of an immoral nature. The problems of this particular district were poverty on the one hand, and a tradition of moral indifference in the community toward their women and by their women. The poverty condition was similar to that of other areas, but was greatly intensified by the fact that most of the land in the area was government-owned, and thus taxes were high. Land rentals for rice, and the charges for tree-cutting for charcoal to the 270 K. Matsumiya, "Rural Depression and the Traffic in Women," The Japan Christian Quarterly, X (January 1g35), pp. 7 ff. 229 government, were higher than the anticipated income in cer tain cases. Of the 816 families of the village, 514 were engaged in farming; 55 owned their own lands, 280 were tenant farmers, and 179 were charcoal makers. The geisha girl has long been taken as the symbol of Japan's beauty, together with the cherry blossom, but her real place in society has been that of a social problem due to the fact that she had the freedom of her community to practise what the registered prostitute was compelled to do within confined enclosures. Yamamuro reporting on the geisha girl has shown that while the legal age for prosti- tutes is 18, many girls "adopted" by an owner are put to the work of prostitution as geisha as early as 12 years of age. Geisha girls are prostitutes, just as much as the women confined to the Licensed ~uarters, the chief difference being that the former have more freedom than the latter •• The experience of the Salvation Army is that all Geisha girls who come to us for assistance are prostitutes •• Again we cannot overlook the fact that Geisha Houses are trifling with the virtue of young girls and thereby ruining them. In 1900 the age of consent was raised from 16 to 18 for Licensed prostitutes, but~ girl may become~ Geisha at the~ of 12 [italics in the orig inal]. A young girl recently escaped from a Geisha house and came to the Salvation Army, and she informed us that while she had been allowed to wait, other girls had to commence the evil at the age of 12. She had been told, however, that she would have to start during the following year.271 271 G. Yamamuro, "Geisha Girls," The Japan Christian Quarterly, V (April 1930), pp. 107-109. 230 The story of Japan's system of vice, a long and in volved one, is beyond the bounds of this study in modern ten- dencies of the socio-ethical structure. A mere glimpse at the activities of one recognized area, -- that of registered prostitution, -- will show the extent of its grip on the moral, as well as the social, heart of the nation. The sta tistics of o. Kubushiro 272 for 1926 can be taken as typical - The number of licensed quarters The number of licensed houses The number of licensed prostitutes The number of visitors 533 11,690 52,325 22,376,643 For each girl there were 42? registered visitors. If there is added to this the still larger un-registered prostitution system, the problem assumes astounding proportions, when seen in the light of the problems of rural youth both male and female. The workers in this area are pre-dominantly Christian because of their respect for the human person. Their common opinion is that the task is one of community education in respect to the value of human personality, both for the parent and for the girl herself, who often feels that filial piety compels her to make the sacrifice for the family good. By being led to a sounder philosophy of life, its worth and 2?2 o. Kubushiro, "The Year's Events and Progress Regarding 'The Social Evil'," The Christian Movement in ~· Formosa and Korea, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 192?):-p. 231 its value, they believe, families can be helped to find other ways out of their economic dilemma than by the selling of daughters to the system of prostitution. Ancient Japan, we are told, revered womanhood, but from the 11th century onward, the Confucian concept of woman, as the meek and the patient servant of man gained dominance. This tendency continued until in the Tokugawa period it developed into the system known in the modern era. Anesaki has described it as follows: The rise of Confucianism (1600-1868) led to the degradation of the position and the dignity of woman in social life. Her sole virtue consisted in submission •• towards parents, husbands and sons •• Any show of ability of initiative on her part was regarded as a transgres sion •• Love affairs were nothing but wantonness •• the word for sexual love, koi, was associated with degen eracy. The sexual instinct often sought irregular outlets. Houses of ill-fame were established by government license in segregated settlements, which were regarded as outside the regular standards of morality. Both the samurai and the bourgeoisie discovered or rather created a 'paradise of gaiety' where freedom and equality pre vailed in many respects.273 As has been stated, Kagawa had seen this problem from the doorsteps of his ancestral home. His solution for it was that of an attack on a far-flung battle line throughout the rural areas through re-education and through a re-evalu- ation of the accepted feudal concepts under a three fold 273 M. Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner, 1930), p. 287. 232 emphasis arising out of his philosophy of Love: 1. Love of the Soil. 2. Love of Neighbors. 3. Love of God.274 Under the first of these, would come the ceaseless agitation by the peasant for adequate laws for the protec tion of his soil, and an adequate social recognition of the right of the farmer for a greater voice in affairs relating to the medium of his work. Here also would come the vast program of soil study, -- an attempt to improve its condi- tion, and to help it to produce more efficiently and effec tively, so that it could become more than the patriotic soil of a nation, a soil that would truly support its millions of people in the way of self-respect and of love. Under the second principle of this rural philosophy, the primary emphasis was that of a common respect for person- ality, and the mutual treatment of the entire peasantry as human beings, rather than robots in a system which had per- mitted endless outrages throughout the centuries. Respect for both male and female, in a social order bound together in a common cause by the bond of love, rather than by loyalty- filial piety, was the only sound basis for a change in rural 274 T. Kagawa, "Three Principles of Rural Economics," The Economic Foundation of World PeaceJ V (Tokyo: Friends of Jesus, 1~32), pp. 15 ff.-- 233 conditions. It would involve also a willingness to work together for common ends in the great movement of cooperatives. The organization of peasants into Peasants' Unions was a politi- cal phase of mutual effort, but the serious phase of a con structive and mutual development would be found in the system of cooperatives, a subject discussed later. Out of the natural desire to help one another, the peasants would take their places in the councils of government, both locally and nationally. The result of this emphasis is given by Kagawa: It is an amazing fact that now ••• there are some 2,000 proletariat representatives in village councils who are undertaking political reforms in their communi ties. Another significant trend, observed in 1936, is that the proletariat party were able to send five men from rural districts to the National Diet. Whereas in the preceding Diet, the proletariat party had only three representatives, their number today is 23 with the like lihood that this number will be greatly increased in ensuing elections.275 In the last election held before the outbreak of the war with China in July 193?, the number had been increased to 3? members from the laboring class, including the lowly peasant class. The third principle in his program for rural emanci- pation would be the heart of the program, namely that the love for God, and the redemptive love of God as revealed in 275 Kagawa, "Recent Developments in Rural Communi ties," p. 193. 234 Jesus Christ, must be the basic motive power for everything else. Here again, the evidence of Kagawa as a spiritual leader takes precedence over his place as a labor leader, or a leader of social movements as such. The task of bringing the vision of a social structure built on the pattern of the Kingdom of God must be the minimum goal for Japan -- idealis tic, yet intensely practical in the far reaches of his pro gram. In this area of the serious application of the prin ciple of love for the improvement of rural life conditions, there were many techniques involved. Education must be not only intellectual but religious as well. For leadership the use of Peasant Gospel Schools would be vital in creating an intelligent love for the soil and for the human being on the farm. Rural health must be served by clinics, child welfare centers, and agencies of social welfare. Institutes on farm management to better conserve the slender resources in both home and community would be vital. All of these, however, must be centered in a study of the will of God according to His Law of Love, if something better was to be realized for the peasant. Otherwise poverty and prostitution, disease and social injustice would remain as in milleniums past. This analysis of Japan's social structure from the standpoint of her vast rural communities, where as many as half of her people are found, took Kagawa and his workers 235 to the area of origins of social maladjustments and suffer ing. The tributary streams of the social, economic and religious currents flowed together into the maelstrom of Japan's modern social order. The slum had revealed a condition of human wretched ness as an end-result of countless centuries of indifference on the part of the ruling order of the nation. In the urban areas the forces of conflict expressed themselves through labor movements in the modern period. In the rural areas the conflict was subdued, as it was a continuation of the long-standing problem, yet its forces were gaining a momentum which reached a breaking point. It was natural for Kagawa whose life was dedicated to an attack on the social order at whatever cost to himself, then, to take the next steps in the direction of the larger program of social reconstruction on a nation-wide scale, to join with forces which had been at work here too. CHAPTER VII TOWARD RECONSTRUCTING THE SOCIAL ORDER The task to which Kagawa had addressed himself was that of the reconstruction of the social order itself, not merely some of its isolated segments. With each attempt to deal with the individual, or with the groups or communities in which suffering was acute. it became more and more evi dent that the problem was one of a strongly entrenched ide ology in a rigid social order, which was not representative of the masses of the nation. It further denied the funda mental premise in his own thinking, namely, the worth of the individual person. Whether it was the worker, the prosti tute, or the peasant, there was little certainty as to what constituted human prerogative and welfare. The hope for an enlightened era under Meiji had rested on the vision of a new social order in which the feudal, or hoken, order would be done away. It had been destroyed as tar as the external forms of that order were concerned, but its basic philosophy of repression in the interest of a vertical order built on abject loyalties prevailed. The pattern ot filial-piety-loyalty was being trans formed into a loyalty-to-emperor pattern, in place of the feudal loyalty to Shogun. The modern era is a story of con tinuous conflict between the forces of social improvement 237 and the forces of the old, though readjusted, feudal order. It was a struggle by leaders of the masses to broaden the social structure so as to include the horizontal emphasis of love, or Christian altruism, in the vertical structure of loyalty, or indigenous devotion. That the rigidity of the old order, evidenced in the newly developing kokutai, must change, was clear, but that it must be destroyed was a con clusion to which the conservative fled for refuge. The whole concept of society would have to be changed if Japan were to become a truly modern nation, according to Kagawa. Society is an organic whole, because there is an integral relation between all its parts. As a living organ ism it exists for the benefit of all its parts, and not merely for the head. On its pathological side, the healing forces of the organism are thought of as rushing to the area of disease in activities of social redemption, just as the blood-stream of the body does. In the thinking of Kagawa, the diseases of the individual and his social groupings, must always be a challenge to the whole of society for solu tion ~- else the entire social order must remain in Jeopardy. Society, then, we may say, is the aggregation ot in dividuals who supplement each other and cooperate in order to become stronger. more nearly perfect •• Society is the assembling of imperfect individuals for the pur pose of securing something more nearly perfect ••• The ideal society is not imposed from without, but springs up from within. It is not created by an indi vidual but by society itself •• A society of such a nature may be said to constitute one vast personality, 238 each individual member bearing one function of that personality. Thus is created a social organization in which no one is ostracized, no one is unnecessary, every one produces and everyone consumes -- a society possess ing a conscience •• !his is the ideal society-- it is the Kingdom of God. 76 In addition to the concept of social solidarity as it existed in the family-commune emphasis of early Japan, Kagawa would emphasize the importance of a sense of social respon sibility toward all members of her social order both upward and downward. In the existing social order a minority five percent of the nation benefited by the ruthless repressions of the ninety-five percent, or the masses of the nation. True Japa nese chivalry, or kyokaku, had been transformed into a class chivalry, or bushido, whose social result was the destruction of the masses supporting it. xtokaku, as the mainstream of Japanese social concepts, must be combined with the newer and more positive ethic of love to become the social force which would break the caste systems of the nation in feudal thought and militaristic behaviour. Even Japan's modern educational system reeked with the feudal thought of the old order. The relation between teachers and pupils in Japan is a very unhappy one. Teachers do not trust pupils and 276 T. Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Philadelphia: John c. Winston Company:-l929T7 PP7 211:-218. 239 pupils do not trust teachers. In Japan there is always a class feeling hanging about the educational relation ships. In the primary schools they teach brutal stories about So-and-so who cut off the head of somebody else. In the Middle Schools, when children enter their third year, they are taught to carry a gun on their shoulders and have military drill. I wonder whether in the univer sities they teach a man how to make excuses when be kills another man1 Is it not university professors who teach Machiavelli-ism, Treitschke-ism, class struggle, profit making and robbery? The higher the education the more it degenerates.277 Having spoken thus to his own people concerning their faults in accepting a social ethic based on the bushido, his love for country rose to defend another element in that ethic, as the nation stood before the bar of world opinion. Having recognized Mancbukuo, her sense of Justice and honor could not stand interference on the part of the League of Nations. She therefore finally withdrew. In a case where she feels that Justice and honor are at stake Japan will never yield, even though she sacrifices half of her people. Nay, not even though it should mean utter annihilation. To this extent does the feudal spirit of bushido [italics in the original), even today, control the Soul of the Japanese.278 Kagawa was convinced in his own heart that the spirit of true chivalry, based on a social conscience, and not the warrior code, was the way to social reconstruction. Changes in the social order were an undeniable necessity. To under stand the nature of his problem of leadership in such 277 T. Kagawa, The Religion£! Jesus, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, l931), pp. 118, 123. 278 T. Kagawa, Christ and Japan, (New York: Friend ship Press, 1934), P• 68. 240 changes, and his own solutions for them as well, it is neces sary to review briefly some of the major tendencies as re vealed in some of the outstanding movements of the period, some of which have been touched upon previously. In point of time, there were two movements which may be regarded as simultaneous with the opening of the country in 1854. The one was the rise of the new nationalism, and the other, the new educationalism. The West has assumed that Japan always had the modern type of national structure or kokutai, centered in an emperor and emperor-worship, with a strong military system. The his tory, however, of this modern phenomenon, which in recent years has expressed itself in ultra-nationalism, or what Kagawa has called fascism, is a story of the very recent past, within the lifetime of men like Kagawa, who chose or failed to choose to cast their lot with it. In fact, until the last one and one-half decades, from 1930 on, the choice was a free one, although the pressures had grown stronger. The militarism of the feudal rulers had been replaced by a militarism of the royalist rulers with modern trappings. With every advance of this trend, however, there was an al most equally strong liberal movement of the people. The ascent of Emperor Meiji to the throne was the signal for a change in the military control. A movement with strong implications for social improvement had been 241 begun, but was soon side-tracked by the movement for military defense, and international rivalry. Nationalism and emperor worship won their position through a series of political ma neuvers, and by a strong indoctrination through the educa tional system. History will probably show that Meiji was revered because of his support of the masses more than the fact that he represented imperial-family-returned-to-power. When the important matter of treaty revision was de layed in 1887 and 1889, the nationalist movement gained its first great opportunities. The early treaties had dealt with Japan as inferior, and had secured extra-territoriality privileges in Japan for nationals of the United States and Europe.279 Before this, however, the ground was being well laid for the acceptance of the Confucian ethic of the past com- bined with the mythology of Shinto, so that the nation as a whole would accept what had been the desire of the few. In 1873, T. Matoda, who was instructor to the emperor, had written a book called, Principles for the Instruction of Youth, but it found little interest or support. In 1882, however, when nationalist feeling began to mount, the philos ophies of Europe gained attention. Hiroyuki Kato, formerly 279 M. Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, Ltd., 1930), P• 359. 242 a progressive liberal, wrote on the theory of human rights, with right as being nothing more than the right of the stronger. In 1886, the proponents of the imperial-state idea took up Metoda's earlier work on the Shinto-ConfUcian ethical pattern, and initiated educational reforms based on the con cept of reverence to proper authorities. It opposed the popular emphasis on liberal education and individual freedom; it emphasized the concept of the state as being the source of all authority and the highest goal of all moral life. 280 After the Rescript on Education by Meiji in 1890, this movement gained further impetus and raised the Rescript to the position of sacred writing. Through it the interpreta tion of the emperor as the state moved a step forward toward realization, but the struggle against it continued unabated until 1932. It was then that Professor Tatsukichi Minobe, of the School of Law of the Imperial University of Tokyo, was arrested and silenced because of his teaching for over twenty years that the emperor is an organ or instrument of the state, not the state itself, and that the doctrine of divinity of the Emperor was a myth. In the years following 1890, the strengthening of an emperor-centered state cult of Shinto began to assume form. The famous debate between Tetsujiro Inouye and leading 280 Ibid., PP• 362 ff. 243 Christians concerning the place of love in a social order built on loyalty took the attention of Japan's world of thought. Ultra-nationalism became bolder as its military triumphs over China, Russia and Korea followed in rapid suc cession. It was this movement which took over the remnants of Bushido and rebuilt it to suit the new aims. It cast ott, in recent years, the former designation of the spirit of the nation as Yamato-damashii, or the spirit of Yamato, the imperial clan, when patriotic needs demanded a larger term like Nippon-seishin, Japan-spirit, in 1933. Then, in 1940, with the growth of international tension, this was replaced by the phrase Hakko-ichiu, or Eight-Corners-Under-One-Roof, a world concept. In Kagawa's youth, however, this expression of the national structure was but one phase of the struggle for a new social order. He could not support it as the way of life improvement for the wretched conditions of his people. The other movement,of educationalism,was one into which Kagawa, the student, might have thrown his strength with success, as it too was a very popular movement for the attainment of social change. It was through education that the tools of science were being made available to Japan's youth, and that the needed inventions for international com petition could be made a national possession. It was in the halls of learning that the intriguing economic and political philosophies challenged the nation which had been shut from the world for so long. To a discerning mind such as that of Kagawa, however, the most bitter disappointment came in the realization that this movement with all its enlightenment served but to shackle Japan's people to a materialistic viewpoint of life, more than ever before. It failed to lift his people to the attainment of the highest goal of all, namely, the expression of the power of the human spirit, and a society built on the experience of God in life. Knowledge and science were but tools, not ends in them- selves, and used thus could become the means to a more humane social order. Science is not the enemy of the soul. It is the soul's ally. Fraudulent science is indeed the soul's enemy, but genuine science is the ally of life and spirit •• Science is my soul art, the art of truth which God reveals for me. Through science I know how power fully I am loved by Cosmic Will •• To him who dreams of mutual aid, science is the new ·power which plans mills and cities and all the communications that serve to strengthen the ties between men.281 Science, however, when it is merely the study of mate- rial things, is as helpless to improve the lot of the common man as political movements or social movements which are devoid of the religious quality of faith which finds its 281 Kagawa, ~ the ~£!Life, PP• 2?0, 2?3. 245 basic values in the universe of divine Personality. There is no need to regard science and religion as opposing spheres of life experience. Socialists claim they are scientific, but not relig ious. There is a fragment of meaning in the statement, but it cannot be maintained to be entirely correct. Every regularly constituted principle is a self-deter mination which points to a certain course, chosen from among the multiform activities of life, upon which ad vance is to be made. In other words, it is faith. Faith is a creation of values; it is that which, through the individual's own inner creation, tends to draw him onward and upward.282 Thus his own decision was against the common trend of the pursuit of education as the cure for Japan's ills. It failed in that, by and large, it did not direct men's think ing and acting toward the higher goals of personality attain ment, and toward the amelioration of the social ills of the masses. In the area of social theory, there were two movements which had taken Japan's youth by storm during these years of cultural invasion. The one was the movement in radical com- munism, which came in the form of anarchism and revolution toward government and the established social order. Its characteristics of crass materialism and an emphasis on the class struggle with accompanying violence reached consider able numbers of Japan's youth. It has already been seen that theories which are based 282 ~·· P• 198. 246 on the philosophy of materialism with the added concept of the necessity of class warfare were diametrically opposed to Kagawa's type of thinking, even though they made a great appeal to both student and labor groups. These however did not hold the key to the solution of Japan's great social problems. Materialistic communism is utterly unable to care for our economic ills. If the economic life were funda~ mentally materialistic, its problems might be solved in a material way. But, in the last analysis, the economic life is a movement in the realm of values •• There is in the background of the materialistic appearance of (the) simplest form of economic life a high spiritual ele ment.283 A building of spiritual values in place of material ones alone, and a process of mutual aid instead of ruinous class hatreds was necessary. Even the violence of the strike as a normal instrument of social pressure seemed to him too negative to be of real social benefit. Love is creation, evolution, reality. The ethics of Jesus •• proceeds from a world of abso lute values. Destruction and violence are impossible in a genuine society.284 The other movement, which was known by the general name of socialism, was likewise based on the philosophical theories of materialist economics, and its goal was to 283 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, pp. 121, 122. 284 Kagawa, Love !h! Law of~~ p. 167. 247 secure social changes in the economic and political areas ot lite in the interest ot the common man. In Japan, its ex pression was a less radical approach to the problem than that ot materialistic communism. As a movement for the awakening of a social conscious ness through emphases in labor and social welfare, it made a great contribution. In the period of Kagawa's youth this movement seemed to offer the one way out of the condition of frustration, in which the masses found themselves. He had read widely of the various schools ot economic theory and the social movements for the improvement of the lot ot the labor ing man. Very early in his life, however, he rejected so cialism as the movement through which he could make a contri bution to the welfare of his people, for the reason that it was content to deal with man on the physical level of exis tence without adequate consideration of the idealistic or spiritual purposes of life.285 The socialism that would work was of the type of men like Toynbee, Frederick Maurice, and Charles Kingsley, rather than that of Marx or Fourier -- a Christian socialism of constructive effort, rather than class warfare. There were two other movements in the social order 285 T. Kagawa, Before !£! Q!!B. (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924), p. 71. 248 to which Kagawa could well have thrown his strength, namely, the movement of ethical culture, and the Christian movement through the churches of Japan. The movement toward the development of an ethical emphasis in Japanese culture was in part a movement against Christianity as it was developing in Japan in its ecclesias tical forms, and in part a movement against the ethical emphases of the nationalist movement. The ethical and the social emphases of Christianity had made a tremendous appeal to the middle and the higher strata of Japanese society dur ing that period from 1850 - 1890, when the ebb and flow of thought currents, and the give and take of oriental and occidental culture goods, were free and unhampered. When, however, the rigid pattern of filiality-loyalty began to reassert itself as emperor-centered loyalty, the appeal of the new nationalism as against the foreignism of the love-concept in Christianity began to take its toll. Several prominent Christians and church adherents left the folds of the church organizations to set up ethic-centered movements and groupings to express their ideals. Thus separated from the churches they could take the love-concept in human relations into their emerging nationalism in the name of ethical culture. It was through such emphases that liberals, Buddhists and Christians alike, sought to realize the ideals of a new society in harmony with the loyalty- 249 emphasis. The Teiyu Ethical Society, the most prominent of its many expressions, was an offshoot from a movement in relig ious syncretism, a subject which is considered under a later chapter on religious tendencies, in the years following 1896. Says Anesaki: It was composed of Buddhists, Christians and other liberals, who were dissatisfied with the actual condi tions of the organized religions and were against nationalism. Their purpose was not to attack religion but to fight sectarianism. They hoped to elucidate certain fundamental principles underlying various religions and ethical teachings which could satisfy the individual soul and fulfill the needs of social life. In emphasizing the necessity of interpreting human life in idealistic terms of humanity, the Teiyu ethical move ment aimed at broadening the spiritual outlook of the Japanese to something beyond both nationalist morality and theological dogma.286 To Kagawa, however, the movement had its greatest significance in its expression among the masses of Japan's population. These movements, he says, --synthesized the ethical teachings of the different religions and endeavored in this way to give moral leadership to the masses. Today, this innovation has crystalized in such moral culture organizations as the Shuyo Dan -- Culture Association, Kibosha -- the Hope Society:-seinen Q!n -- the Young Men's Association, and the Shojo Kai -- the Young Women's Society. These organizations can justly be charged with being super ficial. Yet they are making a real contribution towards furthering ethical and moral culture in a manner harmonious with the Oriental genius.287 286 Anesaki, £R• £!!•• p. 370. 287 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, PP• 102, 103. 250 He has further stated that in the rural areas the efforts of ethical culture groups among the girls working in the spinning mills have developed societies which are "not absolute Christianity but something near it." 2 88 They are fulfilling the need for an expression of moral idealism in many rural communities. Immediately after the Russo-Japanese War in lgo4-5 there was an influence apart from the church in the form of Tolstoian thought. Its influence on Kagawa himself was not inconsiderable. The writings of Tolstoi had been translated into Japanese and made available to the populace. Coming at a time of national crisis, and in a period when crass natu ralism in regard to sex and morality in literature was rampant, and when naturalism based on the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest seemed to support the Marxian concept of class struggle, the Tolstoian support of an ethical interpretation of human existence filled a great void. But, to Kagawa, even this movement on the high plane in which it seemed to move was an inadequate means to the end he sought for his people. As theory it was of worth to a certain point, and expressed in practical societies for 288 T. Kagawa, "Recent Happenings in Radical Groups, 11 Friends 2£ Jesus, III (December lg3o). 23. 251 the fulfillment ot spiritual needs, the movement gave assis tance, but it was not the answer to the larger social prob lem ot Japan, for he said, If, however, the theories fail to build upon the belief in a Lite above that of humanity -- the super human Absolute, the God-over mankind -- that is, so long as humanity is the standard, there are no great fundamental differences between t~~ 9 theories, however much they may vary superficially. One other movement for the reconstruction of Japanese society at a time when all of Japan's lite and thought was in a condition of flux, was the Christian Church. But to Kagawa as well as to others, the church in its early organi zation seemed inadequate for that task. Won, as he was. to an intense loyalty toward a personal Christ by the witnessing of churchmen and theologians. Kagawa himself has not been first and foremost a preacher, a theologian, nor a church- man. Yet he has not been in separation from the church. The problem of this part of the study is not the theological concepts ot Kagawa nor ot the Church, but the analysis of his social thinking, and the methods whereby he, as a Christian, sought to bring the implications of newly found spiritual values to play upon the forces of the social order. The contribution of the Christian movement of the 289 Kagawa, Love the b!! of~· P• 118. 252 first two decades of its work was largely in the area of charitable work, for which the Church has been known through the ages. Its social contributions had a profound effect on society in many directions because the Church was doing some thing which Buddhism and government had failed to carry out. Yet the first general conference at Osaka in 1883 revealed little attention to the social problems of the growing church. That same conference meeting in Tokyo in 1900. how- ever, did deal with the problems of medical work, the care of the depressed and indigent, and with temperance activi- ties; it also indicated the effect of this social program on the government and Buddhist organizations. Stating that the Christian movement had established a score of orphan ages, three rescue homes (for prostitutes), three leper asylums, three prison gate missions,'a score of hospitals, six charity Kindergartens, three homes for the aged, one social settlement and at least two hundred schools and classes for the poor, J. H. Pettee concluded, In the lifetime of a single generation it (Chris tianity) has set the pace for all forms of practical benevolence and stirred a whole nation from emperor to ex-eta to take an interest in all that tends to elevate and purify society.290 290 Proceedings of the General Conference of Prot estant Missionaries, Tok.YQ, 1900 (Tokyo: Methodist-publiSh ing House, 1901), p. 564. ---- 253 While the Church was the only conspicuous instrument for social amelioration at this time, and while it had in spired the indigenous political and religious institutions to emulate it in the tasks of improving the lot of the common man, it was still by and large a non-indigenous church movement with the social emphasis as auxiliary to its main purpose. It was not a movement for social reconstruction in the sense of being a "society-redeeming" force on the scale that would make of Japan a clean and pure nation, a nation which would place the needs of her poor and oppressed masses on a par with her material and military needs. That there was a point of departure between Kagawa and the Church is evident, and it is not to be thought of as a disparagement either to him or to the Church, for the in tensity of the need as he saw it required the type of inter est and devotion that led him to give himself to work in social areas in which the Church as a whole was not organized to function. Thus while he was of the Church, he moved largely in activities outside of the Church. Of this Kagawa was very much aware. Yet, through the years as he moved in lonely devotion to the realization of the ideal of a Ki~gdom of Love for Japan, he turned again and again to the Church in constant liaison with the move ment which had shown him the way. His own thinking on the problem of cooperation with 254 the Church was not, as it were. a vision from heaven finally and completely defined. The need was clear, but the steps toward its solutions were not so clear. In his autobiography of the years before 1905, the debate between the claims of science and invention as against social reform as adequate means to social change was intense; and his later relinquish- ment of revolution, social reconstruction and idealism as futile instruments for the improvement of society, 291 show the conflict in his own soul. Then, in the later years in the slums, the picture of a lone wanderer in the desert of social desolation is drawn, almost in caricature, by himself Farewell to paper-pasted walls; I get me up And shove my shoddy sandals on. Throughout this land I go to preach, 292 "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" In another picture, the drunkard Tora, a symbol of the human wreckage of his nation, gives expression to the thoughts of Kagawa, He (Tora) entered, saying, "Yes; your words are good. Yet as for me, The God of Heaven Has cast me off. 291 Kagawa, Before !h! ~· PP• 158, 205. 292 T. Kagawa, Songs ~ the Slums, Interpreted by L. Erickson, (London: Student Christian MOvement Press, 1935), P• 26. And now, shall I believe That He will save? But say that you will save me. For I know that you are in the slum To save the poor who come.293 255 The great need for present help for his suffering people and for a relief from the pressures of the social or der, this need was the claim on his life. The visible church in its buildings and its institutions was not a society redeeming force to Kagawa, and for decades the church looked askance at him in his apparently futile attack on the social order. Though he did not become a churchman in the observance of church traditions and techniques, Kagawa did not join the fold of independent theologians, nor the separatists with private church-like organizations. His one motive was to bring into the mainstream of Japanese life the basic prin ciple of the Kingdom of God teaching, namely, the principle of love-in-action as expressed through the sermon messages of Jesus Christ. He cast his lot with the practical, rather than the theoretical, emphasis in Christian living. The church movement had the one religious essential, namely, the redemptive love of a suffering God, but for his Japan it had to express itself as a Way of Life, in social relations. He has envisioned the Christ-like movement for Japan 293 Ibid., P• 43. 256 as a brotherhood movement with the three principles of 1) sacrifice, or non-profiteering, emphasizing the goal of giving, rather than getting for one's self, 2) social soli darity and its faith in mutual aid and cooperation as a challenge to the Marxian class-struggle concept, and 3) redeeming or ministering acts of love after the pattern of the Redeeming Christ. These principles are religious and Christian, and constitute the capstone of all his efforts in the area of social improvement. To him these should also be the goals of the church movement. The brotherhood move- ment, he has said, is the inner circle and the social movement is the outer. The soclal movement is the broadcast of the inner move ment.~~ These fundamentals of social reconstruction, he has stated, were forged in the experiences of the slums, and that, while the emphasis is on a salvation of society, it as certainly involves the salvation of the individual not only through the sacrifice of the Cross but through sacrifice of the self as well. He often sought to clarify the first point, when he said, I simply insist that these strictly individual ex periences of God's grace are not enough. The social life of our day is more complex than any aggregation 294 T. Kagawa, "The City Problem," The Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 15. 257 of individuals. 295 To love men to the uttermost -- that is what Christ does. To that end sin must be redeemed. Simply to be inactive and not commit sin one's self is not enough. Next door is a slum, and in it there are prostitutes and unemployed, living in the crowded housing of slum conditions. To turn blind eyes and deaf ears toward these -- this is sin%296 But he is as critical of those who preach a social gospel without the work and person of Christ, as he is of those who challenge him from the standpoint of Christian truth. Christ was a carpenter, and the apostles of Christ were mostly men from different occupations of manual labor. From the beginning Christianity meant something to reform industry and elevate it ••• on the other hand those who preach the social gospel are inclining too much to the superfi~ial social side, and forgetting the mystical element.29? ~any students forget the priesthood and forget the prayer, and the religious self-consciousness of Jesus Christ, and want to think of only the social or ethical side of his meaning. But if ·in the consciousness of Christ he thought of himself only as a social reformer, he was a small man; and if he was only an ethical teacher, we have many sages and prophets like him. Un less we understand Jesus Christ as a Redeemer in the religious sense, we cannot understand Christianity.298 295 Kagawa, Christ ~Japan, p. 124. 296 T. Kagawa, Meditations Concerning the Cross, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1936}7 p. 41. 297 T· Kagawa, "The Penetration of Japanese Indus try by Christianity," The Japan Christian Quarterly, IV (October 1929), p. 326. 298 T. Kagawa, "The Cross as the Foundation for Social Evolution," !h! Friends£! Jesus, IV (April 1931) 8. 258 Without reconstruction in the inner man society can not be saved. It is for that reason that while I am devoting myself to the labor movement, I am also zealous in the cause of religion. SoQi§l reconstruction is use less without the love of God.299 When the Holy Spirit moves in the hearts of men, making them conscious of the will of God, this redemptive love will leap forth from the desert, the monastery, the hidden mountain retreats and the secluded valleys, into the streets, the factories, the shops and all the varied haunts of men.300 Thus his brotherhood movement is a movement of love in action in which each individual who bas experienced the re birth of the Kingdom of God is a worker in the task of social redemption. Both individual salvation and social salvation must be characterized by the first fundamental principle of sacrifice, -- one individual for the other, and society for the good of each person. Probably the chief social concept of the three basic emphases of his brotherhood movement is the second one, that mutual aid is as basic, if not more so, than the socially-accepted principle of class struggle, and the struggle for existence. That while one must recognize that the social forces in many areas of life seem to lead men in a series of competitive and conflicting activities, fre quently defying human ingenuity to improve society, human kind has by and large overlooked the still greater fact 299 Kagawa, The Religion of Jesus, p. 33. 300 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 118. that in society there are mutually sustaining forces that make for construction and for social improvement. and that social progress lies in that direction. Kagawa has led the fight among his people so that they might see the validity of this concept. as he has argued that. The sole way of deliverance lies through the knowl edge that the true salvation of man is in love. not in conflict. A certain religionist has said, "It has been remarked that since the struggle for existence is the established rule of the world, we must inevitably fall as its victims." But he is wrong: the new point of departure for man must be the recognition that God has implanted the urge ~8 1 amend that which is, even if but slightly, in error. Throughout his many writings this theme stands out as the important emphasis, as if it were the one social force that could bring about the needed changes in the social order to guarantee the happiness, the security, and the satisfactions in life that would save Japan from its long history of so- cial injustice to its masses. The urge to amend and to repair is constructive, not destructive; it is furthermore the expression of an innate yearning to secure the complete and perfect order. Through mutual assistance in rebuilding that which is inadequate due to defect. the conscience of man and his society are kept aware of social wrong. The result is that humankind 301 Kagawa, Love the Law of~~ p. 285. 260 develops into a mutual appreciation of the rights of every individual, proletarian or capitalist alike. Human beings become personalities. rather than tools in the hand of any social class. Religious pietism and social behaviour are integrated for the salvation of both the individual and his society. Thus mutual aid is the basic concept in the under standing of societal behaviour. There is a development from the plane where decisions are made by a throw of the dice, up to the practice more accordant with reason, which Kropotkin termed "MUtual Aid," whereby the individual is no longer crushed by external fate or defeated by internal chance. For example, in time of flood individuals unite their etfso~s and mend a bursting dike with a wattle-work stockade. We do not know the structure or the cosmos. But we do know our own inner structure. It is the unit termed the self; the life which attacks its environment; the inner corrective power which opposes natural selection and makes new selections ••• The new birth of conscience is the great effort to amend the world, which we term salvation. It is here that the new point of departure, within the self, is supplied •• The eye which sees God we call conscience •• Conscience ever produces fresh creative effort •• This, then, is the Way of Life, the life of conscience, the new departure in the amending of the cosmos. When this dynamic of love works within, we feel the recognition of God as the sourc~ 0 gf Love issuing forth copiously as from a fountain. Faith is, after all, a belief in possibility through God. To believe in this possibility itself demands human activity •• Religion has no meaning if one thinks only of God to the disregard of man •• If man considers his deeds of love as of his own volition, then he re gards them as merit to win his own salvation; but if he thinks or them as truly items or progress on a God-made 302 Ibid., P• 50. 303 Ibid., PP• 281ft. 261 pattern, they •• are the results of a God-provoked love •• Indeed, love is God-activity flowing through human channels •• Hence faith is a belief that the power of seemingly feeble love is greater than the power of human violence.304 The need for re-directing the thinking of Japanese society out of the ancient channels of social indifference to a vital concern for the welfare of the entire social order, not a minor segment of it, was a tremendous burden on his heart. The third principle, which Kagawa felt was vital to any program of reconstruction for Japan, was that both in- dividuals and organizations engaged in the tasks of social improvement must be characterized by what he describes as "Cross-consciousness." It is the ultimate step which makes of the sacrifice of self, and of mutual aid, the ideal soci- ety in which these principles are enacted, and carried out in a spirit of Christ-like love for the larger social good. All the various reconstruction movements -- the Con sumer's Cooperative MOvement, the Workers' Education movement, the Labour movement, and the one for increas ing production -- must be founded upon the love of the Cross ••• I must become as awake as God himself to my respon sibility for all living creatures in the universe and realize the tact that I have a relation to them all •• We find widespread unrest among the oppressed, and the right to live, the right to labour, the rights of personality are defended with bitterness and desperation. Such movements as communism and socialism, which are not 304 T. Kagawa. Brotherhood Economics, {New York: Harper Brothers. lg36}, p. 35. 262 founded upon the Cross, take the attitude that it makes no difference what happens to others if only a man has work for himself. Autocrats and social revolutionaries, capitalists and communists, All treat as nonsense this Cross-consciousness Which rises beyond instinct. Without it, Without awakening to this full Cross-consciousness The social revolution is absolutely futile.305 If Cross-consciousness were considered a necessary value of economic activity, without doubt the realiza tion of the Kingdom of God would far exceed communism. The fact that numberless missionaries have died martyr's deaths to carry the gospel to the jungles and to back ward peoples, and that millions of humanitarians have spent vast sums in various philanthropies is nothing but an evidence of Cross-consciousness. The unfortunate thing is that these Christian movements have ended in individualistic Cross-consciouen~ss, and have failed to permeate the whole of society.~06 The three principles in his brotherhood philosophy of individual salvation as involving social sacrifice, of mutual aid as being more basic in social life than the struggle for existence. and of cross-consciousness as an economic force for social reconstruction -- are the basis of all his movements. They are his challenge to both govern ment, industry and society as a whole -- they are aho his challenge to the Church. They moved beyond the purely economic, ethical, social, or religious emphases of life, 305 Kagawa, Meditations Concerning !h! Cross, pp. 171. 178, 216, 14. 306 Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, p. 33. and sought their validity in the life and work of Jesus Christ Himself. 263 On the basis of these principles, Kagawa directed his efforts toward movements that would awaken the conscience of his nation. He established institutions for the concrete expression of his aims as well as for their use as labora tories for further experimentation and research. A study of such movements will reveal how each of them fits into the larger background of tendencies in the on going life of the Japanese social order. This is also the ease with his work in the peace movement, and the movement for world organization. He, who would seek in Kagawa and his work a study of purely economic and social institutions, will find that his great work was not in the institutions or the organizations of the social order, but that it was, and is, in the release of intangible spiritual forces into the arena of the fast-moving social currents which at times blossomed into institutions but more often moved on into the stream of life as re-direction of the nation's path of progress. There has always been a type of social service and social work, which has been associated with religion -- it may be termed, charity. The Christian church and the Buddhist temple in Japan have each in their own way given expression to the merciful emphasis in the religious living of the churches. Yet to Kagawa, this large area of 264 religiously-motivated social work was destined to fail in accomplishing any real benefit or change in the deep-lying problem of social need among the masses. The techniques of social service must be built upon an understanding of the problems of the social disorganiza tions that have contributed to human suffering. There are four curses of modern city life; namely, dependency, uncertainty, lack of credit, and unemployment. These, he has said, produce a so-called proletariat [italics in the origina~ different from the poverty-stricken victims of physio logical, psychological and moral defects. Social work in this new age must find new methods to save this class from these four curses, in order to avert class struggle --thus we find the necessity for a new type of social work, different from the individualistic philanthropy of the past.307 Social work is concerned with the betterment of the individual and of society, -- the physical, mental, spiritual betterment, the economic betterment and the betterment of social customs. It is not only the correction of evil. It is also the advancement of society ••• Social work which cannot put together the bourgeois and proletarian classes -- which means merely giving money out of your pocket -- is not meeting the situa tion. Real social work is that which can combine bourgeois and proletarians int8 one without class struggle and with ~tual Aid.3 8 The problem for Japan, then, according to Kagawa, is 307 T. Kagawa, The Economic Foundation £! World Peace, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1g32), p. 46. 308 ~·· PP• 50, 51. 265 one in which the nation and its citizens are to join in an effort at mutual aid, to lift that large mass of her people to a level of opportunity for work, and security in work. The slums of Japan, and the far-reaching suffering in both urban and rural areas, are not chiefly the result of defec tive mental or moral conditions. They are the result of a society devoid of a sense of social solidarity, and without interest in the welfare of its majority members. Mutual Aid counts on the will of society to assist the depressed to help themselves. There are two methods of social relief, which might be of help in Japan, namely, 1) that of taxation, as in the dole of England, and 2) that of cooperative units, built on the pattern of the old Japanese institution of Tanomoshi !£ (Credit Guilds), a form of mutual aid association. Of the two, the latter is the one on which Japan must build, accord ing to Kagawa. It would have to be enlarged, and protected by the government, so that all classes in Japan could bene fit, especially during the modern period of the industriali zation and mechanization of Japan's social order. Social work, then, whether by the state, or by individuals, or by the Church, meant participation in organi zations of mutual aid. Kagawa conceived of such institutions as a Health Insurance Union on a city-wide and national scale as social work; likewise a People's Bank on the same scale. 266 In the emphasis on such institutions it is evident that he looked forward to a program of social benefit throughout the nation on a state basis as the solution for economic mal adjustments. In addition to this larger program, however, there was the greater necessity for the permeation of the spirit of sacrifice and cross-consciousness into the very heart of the nation, namely, among its citizens in acts of love and mutual help in the areas in which they lived.309 Behind this movement, then, a spirit, rather than a technique, was important. It involved the participation of people in small groups in both rural and urban communities so that a sense of social solidarity in the sharing of mutual responsibility might become a nation-wide way of life. The tanomoshi, in its ancient form, needed to be re vitalized and lifted to a Christian plane. In its older and modern forms, it consisted of a small group of persons who formed a temporary society with the definite purpose of assisting someone in need, or for the accomplishment of a project of importance to the community. The word tanomoshi consists of three Chinese charac ters --~ from the verb tanomu, to request a favor, or to rely on,( ~ ), -- !e• the reading for the character for 309 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 226. 26'7 mother,(~), --and shi, the reading for the character for child(~). The complete word embodies the idea that children rely on mothers for help. In the slums each one of the "babies" usually pays five sen a day to the "mother." In this way he can get one yen in twenty days, and this yen of his cgmes in rotation. He takes his turn in getting it.3l When an association, or ko, is formed the word becomes tanomoshiko. The character for !2 ( ~~ ) means a brother hood or society, largely used in connection with religious organizations in the past. Such organizations had their beginning in the temples and shrines of the early thirteenth century, 311 and according to Ogata their earliest purpose was for mutual aid in raising funds for domestic use, for temple repairing and for temple pilgrimages. 312 The credit amounts varied as the principle of the tanomoshi was very flexible -- the greater the amount of money needed, the greater the amount paid in, or the longer the period in which each would receive his share in rotation. Kagawa has stated as follows: In Niigata •• '77 villages were surveyed. Of 192 Credit Guilds (Tanomoshiko) in which participants promise to pay 310 p. 51. Kagawa, ~ Economic Foundation of World Peace, 311 A. F. Thomas and s. Koyama, Commercial History of Japan, (Tokyo: The Yubodo Limited, 1936), p. '74. -- 312 K. Ogata, The Coo~erative MOvement in Japan, (London: P. s. King and Son, 923). p. to. -- 268 for a five year period only, 87 were for less than ¥ 50; 44 for between ¥ 50 and ¥ 100; and 61 for ¥ 100 to ¥ 5oo.313 In the train of these credit guilds, many other simi lar societies for mutual help developed through the years, such as sick insurance groups, unemployment insurance and other mutual benefit groups. In recent times this form of organization has been taken up by the Kagawa movements in the work of clinics, hospices, milk depots, and in many other areas to be discussed later as instruments of social recon- struction. The tanomoshi principle was a natural basis for the cooperative plans of Kagawa. The government program of a strong cooperative movement, which had been set up as a purely economic measure, also provided an excellent basis for his Christian-based program of mutual aid through re demptive love. It was his great contribution to lift this undeveloped economic asset into a movement for the enhance- ment of the individual, for the abolition of class struggle, and for the welding of the lower and upper classes of the social order into one harmonious whole at work for the wel- fare of all. The story of cooperative movements in Japan began with the tanomoshi about 1275 A.D. A further development 313 Kagawa,~· £!!•• p. 52. 269 of this simple form of social cooperation took place about 1387 A.n.31 4 and was known as mujin, or "the inexhaustible," ( ~ ~), or in a society, as mujinko {~-:A.~). This type of organization seemed to be the more formal type of society, set up as a company for credit and cooperative pro jects of community concern. As these cooperative groups developed through the years, many unsound institutions also appeared, and in 18g6 the government established controls over them. In 1g31, this type of credit association had made considerable prog ress, and, in the report of Kagawa, the total amount of village capital invested was about 4,000,000,000 yen, of which 800,000,000 yen was invested in commercialized Tanomoshiko. In Japa nese villages the money required tor building temples, schools, dams, irrigation canals, and other more or less public works is sometimes supplemented by money from Tanomoshiko treasuries. These latter are filled by monthly or fortnightly subscriptions.315 Another type of cooperation, known as the Hotokusha, was initiated by Ninomiya Sontoku in 1843. It was more permanent and long range in its planning; its purposes were religious and moral as well as economic; and it also in- volved cooperative labor in the rebuilding of ruined 314 Ogata, £R• £!!•• p. 9. 315 Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, p. 139. villages. It eventually developed into business organiza tions covering social, educational and charitable functions. Its outreach into the social structure of Japan, however, was not great. In the federation of Hotokusha societies, more than 600 in number, there was a reserve fund of 380,000 yen and an aggregate capital of one million yen in 1919. 316 These two types of community relationship appeared in the background of all cooperative movements in Japan, but in neither of them was the element of a larger social recon struction emphasized, and certainly none of the element of a challenge to the social structure of the nation. In the stream of social thought which flowed into the nation after the Meiji emancipation, one of the German systems of cooperation for the relief of rural distress, known as the Schultz-Delitz pattern of cooperatives, was introduced into Japan. It was adopted by the government by a law of 1899, and was made effective in 1900. It seemed that the social aims of government had been realized. Under the law, 16,000 credit unions were set up, one or more in each of 13,000 villages of Japan; and 300 consumers' coopera tives ••• It became the more well-to-do farmers who bene fited from the credit unions. Consumers' cooperatives were seized upon by big firms and factories as a 316 Ogata, 2R·.£i!•• p. 48. 271 convenient instrument of paternalism. 317 Thus while, through government initiative, there was placed at the disposal of the large agrarian population of the nation a tool for the relief of economic distress, the needs of the common man were still far from being met. This type of cooperative was on the basis of capitalistic control, namely, those who provided the money secured the profits. This ruled out the peasant in the country, and the credit less laborer in the city. In his analysis of the government cooperatives, Akira Yamagishi has stated that cooperatives in the rural district comprise 70% of the total number of industrial cooperatives in the whole country and 86% of the total membership. "At the end of the year 1g34 there were altogether 14,812 co operatives with 5,511,520 members, and with a total paid-up investment of 250,000,000 and a reserve fund of 136,000,000, plus loans totalling 288,000,000." 3 1 8 In April of 1g32 a bill called the "Five Year Plan tor an Increase of Industrial Cooperatives" was passed by the national convention of industrial cooperatives in Japan. 317 E. M. Hinder, and H. Topping, "Toyohiko Kagawa," in Love the Law of Life, p. 27. ----- 318 A. Yamagishi, "The Cooperative MOvement in Japan Today," Japan Christian Quarterly, XI (July lg36) p. 20g. 272 which proposed "uniting the rour types of cooperative enter prises (credit, sales, purchasers', and utilization) under a single organization." 319 Progress has been made, and gradu ally a type of understanding on the part of the people toward the cooperative movement has developed, but stagnant manage- ment in most of the organizations has caused them to fail in attaining the goal of true cooperation as an instrument of social solidarity, in place of conflict and competition. Yamagishi concludes as follows: The quality of cooperatives now in existence in our country is not to be praised. The social policies of the Government are mere skeletons, forms without souls in them. The masses of the people are more concerned with the appearance than with the spirit of the cooper ative movement. So if we leave conditions as they are, there will be left only capitalistic and egoistic g~ 0 - operatives and not the spirit of true cooperation. Into this movement of cooperatives in the socio economic field, Kagawa has tried to instill the principles of mutual aid. That which originated with the Rochdale weavers of England as a spontaneous need, and which was built on a deep Christian faith in cooperation with a pro fessor of Church History, Frederick D. Maurice, as president of the movement, was brought to Japan via Germany as an economic measure without the real spirit of cooperation. 321 p. 35. 319 Ibid., p. 214. 320 Ibid., p. 220 • ........... 321 Kagawa, !!! Economic Foundation 2! World Peace, 273 With that goal in mind Kagawa has sought to replace the system brought into Japan by the other German emphasis in cooperatives, known as the Raiffeisen movement. In this movement he has discerned a social emphasis, which can pro vide both the spirit of cooperation and the result of bring ing social classes together. This would be his answer to the ravages both of communism and fascism in the modern day, as he has stated: The world today is weighing in judgment two economic systems, capitalism and communism •• We need the best of both the capitalistic and communistic systems. Fascism aims at securing this. The fascists hope by force to captivate, stabilize and standardize for the state or society ideal economic conditions as leaders of the move ment see them. It is here that cooperatives enter upon the scene in almost every nation that has attempted either a communistic or a fascist solution of present day economic problems ••• We need a state or social order in which no exploita tion is possible, no competition and no accumulation of capital or privilege, no class strife ••• Now how can we get this kind of state? Only by the cooperative move ment, which is Christianity in action socially and economically. The principle of no exploitation in modern industry was discovered not by experts, but by chance-- by the Rochdale weavers in 1844 ••• Fascism and communism insist that the profits of business should be turned back to the state. Yet this only means turning them into political channels, and thus eventually into cannon and bullets, as statecraft is now conducted. In 1869, certain German Christian industrialists led by Raiffeisen, began turning profits back to the poorest members of society related to them, through credit eo operatives, and there was launched one of the mightiest economic movements the world has ever seen.322 322 T. Kagawa, "The Philosophy of the Cooperative Movement," Kagawa Fellowship Bulletin, II (April 1935), PP• 2, 3. 274 To the seven principles of the Rochdale movement of 1) open, voluntary membership. 2) one member -- one vote. 3) limited interest on capital. 4) cash trading. 5) reserves for education. 6) rebates on purchases. 7) market price, the social emphasis of the Raiffeisen movement would add the principle that, the profit would be loaned to the poorest members of the system for their capital of production, or it would be used for welfare work for the members. Thus cooperatives would fulfill their highest purpose.323 The Kagawa movement of brotherhood in action has seized on this combined socio-economic emphasis in coopera tives to make of the movement in Japan an aggressive factor in social reconstruction, and the development of an altru istic solidarity of producer and consumer for the relief of the masses. When society is so constructed there is formed what we call the social unit. Then producers are consumers, and consumers are producers. In the social unit there is no profiteering, no competition, and surplus power is not misspent. All power is employed for progress. Christians must devote their power not in com~~4ition, but in the establishment of this social unit. The economic emphasis in cooperatives is turned in the direction of socio-ethical cooperation in social welfare, in the provision for medical services, clinics and hospitals, 323 Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, p. log. 324 Ibid., p. 117. 275 and in other areas of community improvement. Through this type of mutual support on the social, economic and ethical levels, the vision of the Kingdom of God seems possible of realization in modern society. Alongside these two movements for social reconstruc- tion in the economic sphere of Japanese life, Kagawa under took two other movements more in the nature of religious work in society, but with the same end of improvement of the social conditions of the nation in view. The one was the organization of Friends of Jesus Society in 1922, an organization formed outside of the churches, but made up of many church people who were in ac cord with the mystical emphasis of Kagawa's Christian con cepts. as well as the social implications of his brotherhood movement. It was an organization, similar to the Franciscan order, which Kagawa had launched for the purpose of recapturing the spirit of brotherhood which characterized the early Christian community. This society sets up peace, purity, piety, labor and service as its five funda mentals and strives to demonstrate Jesus' way of life in terms of life and action.325 Concerning its spirit and its purposes, the witness of Kagawa himself provides the best description of the goals sought and the influences which led to its formation, when he said: 325 Wm. Axling, Kagawa, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932), p. 165. 276 Wesley, with Whitefield, and his younger brother, Charles Wesley, and with Bramwell, organized a group and worked for social relief ••• They get up at five o'clock and study the Bible three times a day. After university classes •• they visit the slums and the hospitals and brought comfort to the poor and sick. They themselves started an orphanage and rescued unfortunate, parentless children •• MY practise of having six o'clock Bible studies for the Friends of Jesus in the slums, was also in imitation of Wesley.3~ There was a fear on the part of some in the Church that the setting up of this group was the beginning of a Kagawa independent movement away from the Church. He, how ever, was fully aware of this fear and this danger, and showed no inclination to regard this group as more than a circle of loyal co-workers for the spreading of new prin ciples for social reconstruction throughout Japan. When we started the Kingdom of God Movement, my ecclesiastical friends asked me to restrain the Friends of Jesus from activity in it. It was a very peculiar request, but I said, "Yes. Our Friends of Jesus is a service band, a Franciscan order in the Protestant Church, so we are willing even to dissolve our body in the service of the Church." But I say also that even the Church must serve society. If the Church seeks to be great at the expense of society, that Church has none of the spirit of Jesus Ohrist.327 The Friends 2f Jesus, as a movement, was dedicated to the task of permeating Japanese society with individuals who were one with him in the concept of service for the poor and 326 T. Kagawa, Jesus Throlfh Japanese Eyes, (London: The Lutterworth Press, 1934), p. 1 • 327 T. Kagawa, "The Social Side of Religious Educa tion," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), P• 31. 277 needy. It was a group of leaders who met for inspiration and tor mutual encouragement in the task of penetrating the life of the nation through socially-motivated religious experience. It had aimed at the formation of small groups of like-minded people in various centers of Japan, and had carried forward this work in twenty branches with the central office in Tokyo. It did not, however, reach the place of a strong social force commensurate with the needs of reconstruction on a religious plane. Thus, it was natural that Kagawa should turn to the Church Movement, from which he sprang for the realization of the task of the social redemption of his nation. His Brotherhood ROvement was not in opposition to the Church; its aims were one With the Church. Whatever difference there was, was one of method. The Church through its 2,712 church es and preaching places, with its church schools, and insti tutions could be the instrument of a true reconstruction of Japanese society. The Kingdom of God as a cross-conscious movement for social justice was not necessarily in opposition to the ec clesiastical emphasis on preaching and indoctrination. To him, they should be one. He therefore offered his services to the organized Church; thus the Kingdom of God MOvement came into being. The summons to this effort at cooperation with the 278 nation-wide Church ~vement came to Kagawa in a vision. Only three years ago, at Easter 1928, while the Jerusalem Meeting was taking place in that historic city of miracles. God's New Visitation came to Dr. Kagawa in Japan, in his Settlement at Shinkanjima, Osaka, launch ing him on the Kingdom of God MOvement. It was a night vision. Daily early morning prayer meetings had been asked for by a group of about fifty young men who could not meet later than five A.M. before going to their daily labor. Dr. Kagawa was spending his nights in the Settlement, and much of his days in prayer and medita tion, it being Passion Week. In the midst of the night he woke suddenly, unable to feel his body, nor his hands nor feet, but only the blood-circulation. "Whether in the body or out of it," it was a feeling of great ecstacy, such as st. Paul described as the third paradise, in II Corinthians, the twelfth chapter. In a brief moment there came to his mind a dozen or more answers to his recent prayers to God for guidance. They were not as from an external voice, but very clearly to his inner consciousness. Though numerous in detail, they were focussed on a single problem. Dr. Kagawa did not see how he could possibly do all the things that needed to be done to make a better world in time to prevent catastrophe. Specifically, he did not see how he could do his local work and also go out on the nation-wide apostolic work to which God was calling him. God showed him how, item by item •• The main word was, "Be courageous, Kagawa!" Then he told of three other such experiences, including the one at Los Angeles in 1925 when he had been directed to start the Shinkanjima. Settlement in Osaka. "This time also it was as it had been then. -- suddenly I was caught by the Spirit and assured, 'All the difficulties will be met by the Spirit of God'." The Vision had assured Kagawa that the work which most hindered him from travelling in evangelism, the financing of his local settlements, would henceforth be covered by gifts from abroad.328 328 H. Topping, "The Real Presence of God," editori al, Friends of Jesus, IV (December 1931), pp. 36, 37. 279 This vision came in the train of the experiences of . years of writing, speaking, and preaching following 1919, a decade in which he had written fifty-two volumes on social movements, on human suffering, on studies in the Bible and the message of Jesus Christ for Japan. But his writings and his social work still left a great void in reaching the needy of the nation. ~llions of people who want to believe in the Gospel are remaining unreached. After the earthquake of 1923 I preached for one hundred and twenty-four successive nights in the various churches of Tokyo, and received about 5700 decision cards from those who had decided for Christ in the meetings. In 1926 I preached in Osaka and received about nine thousand; and in 1927 I travelled about Japan and received about fifteen thousand. From June 1928 to June 1929, I received twenty thousand. Meanwhile I became so convinced by these experiences that Japan is ready for the gospel that I had appealed to the church, and it decided to take up this matter •• It is evident that the Kingdom of God Movement was launched at the right moment. If we had waited until this year (1931) to start it, it would have been too late. Getting started before the anti-religious move ment (communism} had gathered momentum it headed it off from the beginning, and is already nation-wide in its influence for Christ. Consequently Imperial University professors are commenting on the belated anti-religious movement, calling it unnatural and expecting it will not enlist much support.329 The Church ~vement at first showed little interest in the Kagawa program-- it had questioned the approach of the Friends of Jesus to the socio-religious problem, and it 329 T. Kagawa, "The Kingdom of God ~vement: Its Future Programme and Philosophy," Japan Christian Quarterly, VI (July 1931), P• 209. 280 was not committed to the social emphases of the Brotherhood MOvement of Kagawa. During the years 1926-1928, Kagawa had cooperated in the efforts at special evangelism under the National Chris tian Council of Japan. A large demonstration meeting held at Hibya Park in Tokyo had failed due to adequate support by the pastors and churches of Tokyo. In June 1928, the same Council set up a committee of fifteen to again carry this type of work forward, but through a series of teams of well-known men. Kagawa was a member of several of these teams, which went to the various cities of the nation in an endeavor to reach the millions of her people. The work went forward from the fall of 1928, and was characterized by the first successful effort at a co ordination of "all the evangelistic agencies throughout the country,n330 in a common task. After these attempts at reaching the masses, then, came the Kingdom of God MOvement, launched in June 1929 under a committee of twenty-one, which was known as "The Central Comm1ttee for the ~vement of the Kingdom of God." Kagawa had made his offer of full-time service in such a movement for two years -- an offer which was accepted by the 330 A. Ebisawa, "The National Christian Council of Japan," The Japan Mission !!!!!: ~~ {Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1929) t p:-!25. 281 commdttee on Evangelism of the Council in April 1929 at Kamakura. 331 The experience of intimate cooperation between the Church and Kagawa in a combined evangelistic-social ap proach was later enlarged to three years. For the Church, it meant the acceptance of a deeply sincere Christian leader, even though not an ecclesiastic, to lay the claims of the Christ before the people through its churches and congregations. For Kagawa, it meant the laying of the challenge of his concept of the Kingdom before the churches, as well as society at large. What is the Kingdom of God Movement? •• The churches' three-year campaign is merely one of the elements in the total Kingdom of God ~vement, and at that but a prelim inary one. If it serves to unity the denominational differences sufficiently to create a habit of cooperation (italics in original] in a nation-wide Christian pro gramme, my hopes will have been satisfied. When the •• three year period shall have been completed •• the church should be ready to work as a unity (though the old denominational machinery be still unchanged, ex cept by the happy loss of its competitiveness); and this unit of several hundred thousand Christians will not be working alone. It will be re-inforcing, or rather, re inforced by the Labour MOvement, the Farmers' Union, the Proletarian Political Groups, and to a large extent by the Government itself. To this impressive array of con structive forces should be added the Woman's Movement •• Thus at least six different social forces, interacting and dovetailing may be distinguished in a total synthesis of creative possibilities of a Christian society ••• We want to revive and to embody in permanent social organization the Koinonia of the Early Church, as recorded in the Acts •• We shall not regain the fulness 331 A. Ebisawa, "The Special Evangelistic Campaign," The Japan Christian Quarterly,_!! (July 1929), pp. 277, 278. of their Pentecostal experience until we have re incarnated Incarnate Love in an economic organization of society embodying the best light that has been vouchsafed by the Spirit of God through two thousand intervening years of human labour and intellectual strivings •• 282 The (hoped-for} million new baptized Christians •• are facing unemployment ••• the increasingly desperate struggle for existence •• and Narxism. They know more about Marxism with its concrete gospel focused on economic solutions than do most church members. Unless the Kingdom of God ~vement offers them a better programme of economics,- better in theory, better in sustained action,-- than does the Soviet, 3 !iey cannot be expected to flock into the churches ••• The Kingdom of God ~vement, then, it may rightly be concluded, was a movement for social reconstruction of an intensely Christian character with the Church Movement a con tributing instrument. In each area where the ~vement presented its message, the aims and program were expressed through a series of three messages: 1) New Life Through God, the spiritual emphasis as against the material, 2) New Morality Through God, the ethical emphasis on sin and its destruction, 3) New Society Through God, the social emphasis pointing to the long list of social ills common to Japan, and the summons to a new society. Helen Topping has recorded in detail the contents and the illustrations of the messages that were typical of the Kingdom of God campaign.333 332 Kagawa, £R• £11•• pp. 210 ff. 333 H. Topping, "The Message of the Kingdom of God MOvement," The Japan Christian Quarterly, IV (July 1929), pp. 224 ff. 283 That the entire program was consistent with the Gospel Message was evidenced in the fact that the Movement not only ran its three year course, but continued for another two years with Kagawa working only part of the time, and that the spirit of the movement did bring the Church ~vement to an appreciation of its possible place in Japanese society, as a Kingdom factor in the larger national sense. To a people whose religious tradition has been Buddhism and Shinto, the earlier implication of the Christian message as the way to happier living seemed to recover its brilliance and appeal. The message of a Society of Love with a program of love-in action did much to establish Christianity in the soil or Japan. The statistics after three years of effort through this Movement in lg29-32 reveal that 941 churches out or some 3,000 participated. There were 92 committees which met in 546 local conferences and held 3,556 mass meetings; some 827,000 people attended the meetings and 44,641 signed cards pledging themselves to follow the Christian Way of Life.334 But as in all of Kagawa's work, it was not the mechanics of the movement itself, it was rather the release of spiritual power into the social order and the movement 334 s. Yasumura, "Reflections upon the Three Years of the Kingdom of God ~vement," !B! Japan Christian Quarterly, VIII (July 1933), p. 226. toward goals of human happiness, that counted. There had been injected into the social structure a new element of indigenous strength which later led him to state: If Christianity were not so deeply rooted in the nation's life through its multitudinous activities of social welfare, concretely expressing the love of Christ, Christian persecution would doubtless accompany each 335 succeeding wave of this super-nationalistic crusade. The Kingdom of God movement had developed a program of leadership-training to carry on the work. The emphasis in the churches and in Kagawa's own work, had moved on toward the establishment of Gospel Schools in both country and city, for the training of lay leaders men trained in the ways of practical Christianity, able to finance themselves, and to preach and to teach, each in his own community. Kagawa has described the courses of such schools as including not only the Bible, but also the Social Application of the Gospel, Practical Sociology, Applied Sociology, Co operative Christian Brotherhood Movements, and many other subjects such as Temperance, the evil of legalized prostitution, and also the problem of overpopulation, birth control, etc. from the viewpoint of Christian teaching. We now have about 100 Gospel Schools scattered through out Japan. MY prayer is that we may have about 1,000 churches within 10 years established in the rural areas ••• 1000 groups which will be an indigenous Christian population in the rural area of Japan.336 335 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 93. 336 T. Kagawa, "Our Technique of Kingdom Building," Friends of Jesus, VIII (February 1936), pp. 98, 99. 285 The Kingdom of God Movement has continued through these schools and the many other techniques of the Kagawa institutions, as well as in the churches. Under the super vision ot Kagawa himself, more than fifty schools, coopera tives, churches, social service groups and other institutions have been founded and carried on. Their varied nature and their locations can be seen from the following table. The institutions are the laboratories in which his philosophy of Love, and the principles of a redeeming society find their expression. It is in these laboratories of practical activ ity in the Christian lite -- where church life and community living move side by side -- that leadership on the Kingdom of God pattern is worked out. The schools of various types, the cooperatives in their practical outreach into the prob lems of rural and urban living, give the experience that enlightened leadership can take back to the communities from which it came. That this total program and the work of the churches, namely, the Brotherhood MOvement and the Church Movement, has bad lasting effect on the social structure of Japan is seen not only in the place of the Christian Movement in the lite of the nation, but especially in the social gains that have been cumulative over the modern period of her history. Kagawa has recorded these gains under seven different TABLE III INSTITUTIONS ADMINISTERED BY TOYOHIKO KAGAWA LOCATION --f-_ _Q_OO~~m~---··· . . -Tatsuaobe Tokyo - Honjo - Ishiwara - Nakano Ku - Hongo Ku - Setagaya Ku - Fuchumachi - Tachik:awacho Chitose mura Gotemba Ebie Umamim.ura ! : Credit Palm Shop ' Consumers' Coop. Medical Hospital Student Consumers' Office (16 branches) Osaka-Bhinkajima Dental Clinic -Shilnayachc -Sumiyoshioho ', Purchasing Guild(3) -Ikuno Kawaragim.ura Kobe• Azumadori -Nagatacho Sone Mine. be TOKYO OFFICE Medical Medical Clinic Clinic SCHQ9~-----::~I 0~9~~------- _J ___ ~_QCIAL SERVICE, ETC. Farmers ' Gospe 1 Soh. Far.mers' Gospel Soh. Coop.Managers' Soh. IHonjo Church !Industrial Y .M. Girl Home~kers 1 .Kindergarten-Nursery! :Nursery • · Kindergarten Girls' Sewing Sch. Farmers' Gospel Sch. Farmers' Gospel Soh. Nursery Nursery (2) Nursery Matsuzawa Church Mission Chapel Mission Chapel Mission Chapel Osaka Church Hokko Jido Chapel Banai Church Hirano Chapel , Suminodo Chapel 1 Farmers' Gospel Soh.: :Nursery-Kindergarten' • Kindergarten Kobe Church Nursery-Night Sch. Institutional Ch. S.Sohools (5) Church Night Schools i I , _______ ........ J -- ·-· .... -- ---------- Camp !'or oi ty children Airin Kwan(Ex-convicts) 'Friendly Relief Office Handcrafts,social service ;library, Y .M., Y .w. :Rural Problems ,Social Work ! Friends of Jesus, Publications; Evangelism , N (%) (I) 287 heads, 337 a list quoted by Saunders 338 in full detail, but summarized for this study, as follows: 1. Home b!!! has changed. (a) Concubinage is dying out •• ~Prostitution-- we have had a long struggle against this evil •• within the last three years we have been victorious. (c) The Divorce Rate is decreasing •• {d) Respect for Children. In Japan children were not respected until Christianity came •• (e) Respect~ Women •• After Christianity came respect for women grew astonishingly. That involves respect for home life, and leads to respect for labor. 2. Respect for Labor. In Japan and in the Orient, laborers and manual workers were not respected •• in former days, but when Christianity came, labor began to be respected. 3. The democratic movement, -- democracy in home life, democracy in occupation. For instance we have the out caste system •• When Christianity came the outcastes dis appeared •• 4. Parliamentarism. Mr. Nakashima, the first, and Kenkichi Kataoka, the second, presiding officers of the Japanese Parliament were Christians, earnest Christians •• The democratic movement was from the beginning led by Christians, both nationally and locally. 5. Respect !2£ ~· There is a great deal of suicide in Japan, fourteen thousand cases annually, but since Christianity came, there has been care for would-be suicides. 6. Respect ~ formerly despised occupations. In Japan butchers were treated as outcastes, and fertilizer dealers were looked down (on). Christianity teaches respect for occupations •• 7. PhilanthropY. Now the Buddhists are imitating us, but Christians started and managed such philanthropic 337 T. Kagawa, "The Ethical Teaching of Jesus Christ," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 41-43. 338 K. Saunders, The Ideals of the East and West, {New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934):-pp~ 1?7---- 288 work as that for lepers, the insane, orphans, for the aged, reformatories for ex-convicts, work which repre sents love for sinners. and the temperance and pro hibition movement which was organized first by Mr. Ando, a Christian. In this fashion the ethical teaching of Jesus Christ, centred in the Cross, is a glorious success in Japan. There is a third great area in which the Kingdom prin ciples of Kagawa's thinking and experience have sought expression, namely (on an international level), in the area of peace and war, and in international organization. During the recent years of the war with Japan there has been a tendency to picture adversely, the Christian character of Toyobiko Kagawa on the basis of certain informa tion over the radio from Japan in which he seemed to condone, if not to support the war against the Allies. It may be of value to trace the thinking of Kagawa from his youth up to the present for an insight into his real attitude on this vital subject of war and peace. It was during the period of the war with Russia in 1904-5 that Kagawa was baptized, at the age of fifteen. He states: We had a big war with Russia about that time, b·ut I hated war because I had been influenced by Tolstoi. When I was sixteen I went up to Tokyo to study in the Presbyterian college. There were only three pacifists among the students, two boys who were brothers besides myself. These brothers were very clever fellows and therefore they kept quiet; but I did not. I said boldly that I was against war, even against the war with Russia. So one night the students' assembly decided that I was to be judged. I was called out at night to the 289 playground back of the theological seminary. There the students were gathered together, headed by a senior. This boy, a theological student, asked me, -- "Do you say Japan made a mistake to declare war with Russia?" "Yesl" I replied. "Oh! You are a most foolish fellow! Now obey our orders!" Then one of the students came up to me and slapped me on the cheek. I was Tolstoian, so I didn't resist at all. But I wept because I was very young. I was beaten many times that night, I have forgotten how many •• But I didn't keep quiet. I preached peace.339 After his return to Kobe, and his entrance into the theological seminary there. he turned to the slums in 1909. His espousal of the cause of the laborers of the slums made him an object of suspicion to the police. Under the name of Ei1ch1 in his autobiographical novel, he tells the story of this experience. A man who said he was a higher police official came from the Sannomiya Police Station and inquired what o. had come to talk about, what connection Eiichi had with him, what connection he had with ------ [the omission indicates an unspeakable word, in this case probably anarchistic communism], ••• and what Eiichi's opinions were of socialism. Eiichi stated them clearly. "I am a Christian Socialist," he said, "but at the same time I am a pacifist. I have come to the slums to assist the poor and to convert them •• Perhaps I should rather be called a follower of Christ than a Christian soc1alist.n340 Kagawa's opposition to the use of force in the 339 T. Kagawa, "Address at Tsinan Friendship Club," Friends£! Jesus, IV {December 1931), PP• 5, 6. 340 Kagawa, Before ~ ~~ p. 365. settlement of disputes of a personal, social, or national nature applied to strikes as well as to wars. All issues could be settled on the basis of love, not hate, he said. Thus it was that he incurred the animosity or' the very labor ers he sought to help in the strike of 1g21. In the year 1928 at the time of the military occupa pation of Shantung, he says, I agitated against it •• I organized the All Japan Anti-War League. I asked labor unions to help me with it, as well as the other labor, social and religious groups. We named it the All Japan Anti-War Federation I anticipated that this move would mean some danger for me, and sure enough my friends came anxiously to warn me that all over Tokyo, there were posted bills in many places saying: KILL THE TRAITOR KAGAWA t HE IS AGAINST THE NATIONl HE IS A TRAITOR TO THE NATION! So when the placards were posted against me in 1928, I said, "All right! If they want to kill me, I shall die for the Peace of the World!"341 Writing of the situation which developed in Japan in 1931 with the conquest of Manchuria, he points out the trend toward military fascism, which appeared again in 1937 and 1941 to lead the country into final ruin. The victories of Mussolini and Hitler have aroused the fever of Japanese Fascists. They would slay all who are avowed pacifists and even destroy parliamentary government. It is an arresting fact that the Emperor stands strongly for peace. His New Year's poem, released 341 Kagawa, "Address at Tsinan International Friend ship Club, p. 6. January 1, 1933, proves this beyond the shadow of a doubt. In prayer pleading To the God of heaven and earth For a world without a wave, Calm as the sea at dawn. 291 Japan presents a scene teeming with interest. In high places pacifism reigns. At the base militarism pre vails. How long will this last? •• MY work compels me to travel constantly to and fro across the Empire. In these journeyings I meet many of the nation's informed leaders. Not more than one or two in a hundred of them believe in Fascist principles. In private conversation ninety-nine percent are out-and-out opposed to them ••• I lament the fact that, in the name of patr3~jism the precious cause of humanity has been forgotten. In the meantime, however, the spirit of the nation had changed perceptibly, so that with the 193? outbreak of war with China, Even the Proletariat party, which took an anti government position six years ago, has now completely forsaken that attitude of opposition. This all-pervading war spirit has been the means of erecting a huge dam in the stream of Japan's Christianity whose ideal heretofore has been world peace ••• The following three reasons may account for this lamentable, albeit somewhat natural, retrogression. a) Opposition to Internationalism, b) Opposition to Pacifism 4 c) Revival of Shintoism.3 3 The struggling new nationalism had increased in power and had set about choking all liberal tendencies in Japan. 342 Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, pp. 59 ft. 343 T. Kagawa, "The Church and Present Trends," The Japan Christian~ Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1938), PP• 169 ft. 292 The churches, too, were to be nationalized. Movements for peace were ridiculed, and even the mention of the word, peace, was forbidden. Gradually this pressure reached down into the churches and schools. The basic concepts of the Christian Church were being attacked, and words, such as brotherhood, universal, love, were frowned on until the military mood of the nation began to describe its own pur poses ot war as being in the interest of peace. From that time on, about 1939-40, the subject of peace and related concepts, again, were acceptable, but only trom the mouths of Japanese speakers, not from American or British. A mili tary concept of peace dominated -- peace with limitations. On February 11, 1940 Toyohiko Kagawa preached a sermon at his Matsuzawa church -- the day of commemoration of the founding of the Empire by Jimmu Tenno, and said in part: Many people think the Japanese spirit is identical with "Bushido" but that is not so. It is rather the spirit of Shotoku Taishi who evidenced in a wonderful manner the great principles which we discover by a careful study of the Kojiki and the Nihongi ••• Our country was not founded on a materialistic basis but rather on a religious foundation. We do not read in these ancient books about hordes of soldiers, nor is there any record of Jimmu Tenno taking Yamato with an army. Careful study reveals the great faith of the ancients of Japan. What god did Jimmu Tenno worship? It was not the sun nor any visible thing. Early shrines held no forms nor figures but were rather rooted-in, open structures through which the glories of the distant mountains could be seen. Jimmu Tenno's god and the god of the ancients was the creator of the universe, 293 a god in whom even the Christians can believe.344 In the fall of 1940 Kagawa was seized by the gendar merie and detained for several weeks. He was charged w.ith having violated the peace code of the military group - On September 5, DOME! reported that Dr. Kagawa had been arrested on August 25 by the Tokyo Gendarmerie for alleged violation of the military peace code. Dr. Kagawa was arrested at the Nippon Church of Christ, Setagaya Ward. along with the pastor of the church, Rev. Kiyozumi Ogawa. On September 13 Dr. Kagawa was released because of insufficient evidence against him, the CHUGAI reported. It is generally reported that Dr. Kagawa will spend an indefinite time on the island of 1r~oyoshima in the Inland Sea 1 where he has been developing a tuberculosis sanitarium.3~5 It is believed that this experience was more a warning to him than a charge of disloyalty, but after the lapse of a month or so, he was out in the churches again, and at his work in his own institutions. There were no large mass meetings. In other words, Kagawa had been limited in the nature and scope of his work, but it can be assumed that his attitude toward peace had not changed. But the question of whether Kagawa, too, turned to the defense of militarism in Japan, is one which a report in the magazine Newsweek has raised, and which only surmise based on the known character of the man can answer. An 344 T. Kagawa, ''Our .Ancient Heritage," The Japan Christian Quarterly, XV (April 1940), P• 112. 345 The Japan Advertiser, quoted by M. D. Farnum in "News Items," The Japan Christian Quarterly, XV (October 1940), P• 403.--- editorial in the Christian Century quotes the Newsweek report as follows: Toyohiko Kagawa, personable and persuasive Japanese Christian leader and social worker, once a popular lecturer to u. s. Protestant Church groups, is now broadcasting anti-American propaganda over the Japanese government radio.346 A few weeks later, in response to letters on the sub- ject, Newsweek published a picture of Kagawa preaching under which was the title, "Kagawa: From preacher to propagandist?" In a footnote it also quoted a Kagawa broadcast,347 which later investigation of the records or the Federal Communica tions Commission by the Christian Century has showed to be a purported summary of opinions expressed by Kagawa.348 On July 29, 1945 a news release by the Associated Press was reported in an article in the Oakland Tribune: p. P• A Tokyo Radio speaker who was introduced as Toyohiko Kagawa, Japanese Christian leader, accused the United States today of "horrible cruelty" to Japan but con tended that "reconciliation still was possible." The English-language broadcast •• said, "If America has not lost the spirit of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, her leaders will cease the cruel perfidy of this war against Japan." •• There still was "sufficient ground for America and Japan to reconcile" if the United States would plan ttto give freedom to China, to liberate the Philippines, to cut off the 346 Editorial, The Christian Centurz, June 6, 1945, 670. 347 Editorial, Newsweek, May 7, 1945, P• 11. 348 Editorial, The Christian Centurl, June 6, 1945, 670. iron chains of India, and to give independence to Indonesia.n349 That these were the words of Kagawa cannot be doubted as the writer of this study heard the record of this broad cast and has studied the official copy of the entire message. It is of note, however, that the same broadcast stated, in the words of Kagawa: I do not say that ever since the time of the first great European war Japan's policies towards China had no dark shadows, but at (starting) this present war, Japan made a clear promise to China that she would wipe away the past. Whether Japan will carry out that promise or not constitutes the fundamental premise that declares the real destiny of Asia.350 There is little ground to believe that Kagawa the crusader for social cooperation on both the national and the international scene has changed during the period of World War II. From his standpoint every Christian must be an internationalist. Relief from the ravages of recurring wars, and freedom from the distress caused by the breakdown of constructive human relationships, must be remedied by the development of an adequate international organization. Wars break out in rapid succession because there is as yet no strong international organization. If men could perfect an organization for growth, i.e., for economy, they would realize the wastefulness of war, 349 Article, The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, Califor nia, July 29, 1945, quoting the Associated Preas. 350 Radio Broadcast via Radio Tokyo. July 28, 1945. 296 its detriment to growth and evolution, and would hence forth abolish it.35l The type of national organization which could accom plish the controls needed would be composed or two houses, known as congresses, one a social congress, to initiate legislation on religion, ethics, social problems, diplomacy, military affairs, national enterprises and budgets; the other would be an industrial congress, to initiate legislation on taxes, the change from private controls to cooperative con trols, economic measures relating to this change. This would constitute the legislative branch under a cabinet responsible to the ruler or sovereign.352 A world organization of cooperative states working on the basis of an international credit bank, which could cor- relate international trade on a cooperative basis would eliminate ruthless economic competition and war. I firmly believe that when international conscious ness is sufficiently awakened, it will appear that the world will best shape its destiny by the development of international cooperatives. It would be far more sensible to spend the many hundred millions of dollars which are now being wasted on armament, in the ~~~roving of the economic status of the poorer countries. That there is merit in the suggestions of the Kagawa 351 Kagawa, ~ ~ 1!! of 1!f!, p. 163. 352 Kagawa, Brotherhood Economics, PP• 153 ff. 353 Ibid., PP• 193, 194. 297 plan for cooperation on an international level has been sufficiently shown by the conferences at Bretton Woods, at Dumbarton Oaks, and at San Francisco in recent years. The greatest significance, however, of the Kagawa proposals is probably not on the international level. The immediate problems of the nation of Japan will probably demand every energy that he and like-minded leaders can exert for her social reconstruction. That there are forces for social improvement which can function, when the rigid controls of the vertical national order are removed, there is sufficient evidence. Kagawa has planned in line with main current of social progress in Japan, giving to it the new impetus of the concept of mutual aid, and an economy of brotherhood and cooperation. CHAPI'ER VIII INTERPRETING THE WAY OF REDEMPTIVE LOVE Kagawa's viewpoint was that the religion of Jesus must be at the core of every movement in the social, eco nomic, and religious areas of Japanese life, in order to succeed in improving the lot of the common man. This em phasis of the Christian Movement in Japan, he would call the Brotherhood Movement. The other emphasis on ecclesias ticism and theology, might be called the Church Movement for the sake of clarity in this study. The latter is often not closely related to the social life of the people, the former is intended to move largely in those areas of lite which are called social. In the area of religious tendencies, there are two attitudes toward religion in an Oriental society like Japan that it will be well to lift out. The one is the tendency to deal with religion as a Way, or Do, as has been pointed out. The other is the tendency to distinguish between relig ion as belief in a private sense, and religion as public or organized belief. In an early part of this study, the emphasis on a Way as the most satisfying expression ot ethical, political, or religious thought and action was discussed. It is distinct from the tendency to systematization of thought in a 299 theology, or !lP• based on the metaphysical and philosoph ical concepts of religion in dealing with certain ideas con cerning the divine and man's relations to the divine. A Do is a path of principles along a desired line of behaviour in which there is the minimum of ordered metaphysical thought and a large emphasis on meditative contemplation as the basis for resolute aetion, in relation to the divine. Whether this distinction is due to a trait of char- aeter or not is difficult to state. It is, however, a faet that to the Japanese people at large, truth, when stated in terms of a Way or Path is more acceptable. As an indication of direction toward a goal, it is more pleasing than the defined order of a Teachi~, or Theology. Among other de scriptions of this tendency in modern Christianity in Japan, that of Harada is of interest. The way of the Galilean has been trodden by the purest, the most aspiring, the most devoted of mankind ••• The reality of that way and the universal nature of it, for all men, has never been so tully recognized (even though Christendom today is as far away as ever from a satisfying definition of it). This indefinable idea of a way, as expressed in the ethico-religious conception of the Japanese, partakes very intimately of the nature of man, and may be termed the principle of humanity or that in virtue of which man is man and akin to the divine. The belief in Heaven and its corollary, ~chi (Way), however vague, has had great and lasting influence upon the moral character of the Japanese.354 354 T. Harada, The Faith of Japan, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914~pp. 68.~9. 300 This tendency in Japanese religious thought may, in part, explain the delay in the development of a theology in Japanese Christian circles. In recent years, however, an increase of interest in this direction has been observable, as well as a wider interest in the study of the early church. Original works on phases of Christian theology, and a large number of translations of American and European writers ap- peared in the pre-war years. The second distinction to be kept in mind, is that concerning religious belief and religious organization, one which, in recent years, has been of great importance. Under the Japanese constitution, the freedom of relig ious belief is guaranteed. This was a result of the period before the crystallization of the loyalty-centered emperor cult, based on the Confucian-Shinto fusion. Ever since then, the problem of whether the State-cult was a religion or not has been variously argued, and intense pressure was exerted by the Christian forces because of its importance. Against the Christians, however, state forces pressed the issue of loyalty to God versus loyalty to emperor, as if they had to be mutually exclusive. In Japan, the fine distinction between the idea of belief, and the concept of organization-of-belief in insti tutions, seems based on the conviction that there is an area of private belief, and an area of the public expression of 301 that belief, which can be totally separated. In the in tangible area of what a person thinks and feels to himself, there is freedom, but in the area of corporate expression of those thoughts. limitation must be observed -- there is no freedom. Brought into the arena of the discussion of the kyo versus the do, it may be said that "organization" belongs under the concept of the ru_, and "belief'• under those of the do. This distinction, however, has made it possible for a Japanese to be a Shintoist, Buddhist, Confucianist, Chris tian, and State-cultist in whatever combination he chose for himself. The indefinable quality of a way of belief was sought in many areas of truth -- the only essential require ment under the national-body being, that a person must accept the official politico-ethical concepts of the state-cult, which were conceived as being higher than the religious, or the quasi-religious. For Kagawa, religion was definitely in the category of the practical way, or Do, and whatever there was of the theoretical or the theological in system and teaching, or Kyo, it was secondary. The distinction between way and teaching, between faith and organization-of-faith, finds expression in him, as Christian living over against theol ogy, the Kingdom of God over against ecclesiasticism. The burden of his soul was to get something done for the needy 302 and the oppressed. The task of religion was the penetration of the social order with the practical principles of mutual aid, and the re-enforcement of the social structure with the horizontal framework of the love-concept, to supplement the deficiencies of the vertical structure of the loyalty-con- cept. His statements, concerning religion, are definitions of a functional nature, rather than of a theological nature. Religion is the gospel of love functioning in the material and economic problems of life. 3 55 In a later definition con- earning the inner working of true religion, Kagawa described it as follows - True religion, true Christianity, is nothing else than a means of life. It is the entrance of God's power into sinful souls ••• Religion is not a scheme of death for men Who have to die; it is the art of life for living men. Religion is, mgSgover, the stratagem of love, in which man may glory. In his book written for the common man in connection with the Kingdom of God movement in 1929, he has stated that religion "is a scheme for living" 3 57 -- a definition in which "scheme for living" (ikiru ~) has been made to read "means 355 T. Kagawa, Before the Dawn, (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924), p. 26~---- 356 T. Kagawa, Love the Law of Life, (Philadelphia: John c. Winston Company:-1929}7 PP: 80.~ 357 T. Kagawa, Kami Ni Yoru Shinsei (New Life Through God) , (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, '!92~ PP• 3 'tt. 303 of life" by the English translators. Religion, especially the Christian religion, he has pitted against the world of religious superstition, against nature religion, against utilitarian religion, against the barter-faith of Japan's popular sects. Real religion is shown to be a religion of life principles, and with social significance. The same idea is expressed in a definition quoted by Axling, in which Kagawa stated: Religion is the greatest of all the arts. What generally goes by the name of art is fragmentary and appeals only to the senses. Religion alone is an art which takes in the whole of living, and is an art of life itself.358 Another definition of his, about the year 1931, is a similar description, -- as a way rather than a teaching: But the religion which Jesus taught was a Way of Life, which experiences God intuitively through life and love. For that reason the teaching of Jesus cannot be understood through theory alone.35~ The depth of conviction behind these definitions is well seen in the address by Kagawa before the National Religions Conference in 1927, in which be said: You Buddhistsl Read again your Scriptures and find in them the spirit which animated your pioneers. If you cannot rediscover and reincarnate their spirit, roll up your scrolls and carry them back to India whence 358 Wm. Axling, Kagawa, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932), p. 194. 359 T. Kagawa, The Religion of Jesus, (London: Student Christian Movement Freas, l934), P• 20. 304 they came! You Shintoists! If you cannot grasp the vision which impels to service for the weakest and the most unfor tunate, of what avail are your numerous and elaborate rituals? And you Christians! Shame on you for erecting huge and costly churches and failing to follow the man born in a manger and buried in another's tomb.360 In an interview by Yusuke Tsurumi for the popular King Magazine, read by men and women alike, the response was in a similar vein. "In your religious thought have you ever wavered or become perplexed?" I asked. "Not even once. MY relig ion is the religion of love. As it is not a religion which I accepted upon investigation, I have never wavered in the least. I like philosophy, but I have no interest in so-called theology," his clear answer quickly came back.36l Kagawa's religious choice was the Way of Life of Jesus Christ, and not a philosophy or a theology concerning it. As a Japanese, his reactions and responses in the area of religion were in the mainstream of Japanese life. As his definition of religion was functional, so his approach to, and his execution ot, its principles was in the area of function and practise. To interpret the brotherhood movements of Kagawa, which are rooted in the Way-emphasis, from the standpoint of long-established theological formulae, 360 Axling, ~· £11., pp. 93, 94. 361 Y. Tsurumi, "Toyohiko Kagawa," The Japan Chris tian Quarterly, X (April 1935), p. 115. 305 and to draw a rigid line of demarcation between the two, would be a missing of the true significance of some control ling factors in the socio-ethical development of the modern Japanese social structure. Shinto was the Way of the Gods, and as an ethnic religion had laid the foundation for a type of religious response to the things which the people deemed as of highest worth. It was a nature worship, developed into an ancestor worship, and in recent years, was reconstructed as Shrine Shinto, a way of emperor-worship, -- an ethical system for the bolstering of the new nationalism. Buddhism advancing from India and China by way of Korea had entered Japan as a Teaching, or Bukkyo, Buddha teaching. Its development in Japan, however, went forward not as a system of divine thought, but rather as a Way of transcendentalism, a Way into the mysteries of the unknown world. When, however, the demands of nationalism required a ·clearer statement of the Way, the Buddhist system was shorn of its power, and its contributions to the construction of the "pure" or permanent Way of Japan, were kept. As a teaching, however, it has been left to fend for itself together with ethnic Shinto, and Christianity. To Kagawa, then, and to others like him, the appeal of the religion of Jesus Christ was largely that of a new Way. If, in the words of Christ, "I am the Way the Truth 306 and the Life," there is a real distinction to be made between the three concepts, then Kagawa and Japan seem inclined to lay the emphasis on the Way and the Life, rather than the possible theological emphasis on the Truth, or systems of Truth. That Kagawa, however, has never regarded either of these emphases, as exclusive or contradictory, is revealed in his many writings. While the Church Movement has laid great emphasis on the Truth, Kagawa has seemed jealous that it should also accept the Way-concepts of Jesus Christ, in order to make the Movement not only acceptable, but truly effective, in its functioning in the reconstruction of Japa nese society. The thing which the visible Church cherishes, namely the bringing in of the Kingdom of God to Japan, is also the thing which the needy social order demands. Its Way is not fundamentally contradictory to a Way-of-Life for Japan, which can come by elevating the existing concepts, and by instilling a sense of new values for the strengthening of the horizontal framework of the structure, through the Christ-Way of redemptive love. Through this Way, man entered into a fellowship with God, and into a new fellowship with his fellow-man. This was an actual and experiential fact, based on a new con sciousness and awareness, which was the beginning of, not only a personal, religious experience, but a definitely 307 social one, as well. This consciousness, Kagawa has de- scribed variously as cross-consciousness, love-consciousness, atoning-consciousness, and finally as redemptive-love con- sciousness. The emphasis on "consciousness" in Kagawa's thinking has become increasingly strong, as the years of brotherhood work brought out new facets of the reality, which he sought to bring into being in Japanese society. Whether this con cept assumed importance because Kagawa was dealing with a large Buddhism-based culture. or whether it was an essential part of his philosophy of mysticism, it is difficult to state. In Buddhism, the noble Eight-fold Path involved right views, right aspiration, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concan- tration; its salvation involved a state of consciousness in which freedom from craving was of great importance. To Kagawa, however, consciousness was more than that of the self, or of its growth. Consciousness was an awareness of, and sensitivity to, God, and to His tasks, with a sense of urgency for the realization of God's aims in a human world. Consciousness awakens to purpose. It cannot, of course, know absolute purpose, but becomes alive to momentary inner aims. These inner aims by degrees rise in quality from the mere physical, such as "I want to drink, and eat bread," to the psychic, "I want to study" •• and thence to the ethical, "Let us love one another," "I want to make a better world," -- the aims being transformed to ever-rising ideals.362 308 Such consciousness exists in three stages of develop ment -- as unconscious love, or that which is below the level of awareness, though it utilizes the benefits of love; as semi-consciousness in love, which while it is a state of awareness, is not committed to developed purposes; and as fully-conscious love, or a complete awareness and sensitivity to the will of God and the tasks of His Kingdom. Another division into the physical, psychical, and ethical, also explains the nature of the difference in the levels of con- sciousness. The supreme goal is the God-consciousness which Jesus had, and which must be the ultimate goal of all who profess to follow Him. Kagawa finds that consciousness fully ex pressed in Christ's words: "This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many unto remission of sins." Only a God-conscious ness could give expression to those words. Christ, the God-conscious Savior, taught sinners the love of God. Nay, he did not stop with teaching. He shed his blood. He gave his life. He gave it on the Cross. Only a sinner weeping over his sins can comprehend the marvel of this love.363 Discover for yourselves the rapture of redemptive 362 Kagawa, b£!! !B! Law of Life, p. 263. 363 T. Kagawa, Christ ~ Japan, (New York: Friend ship Press, 1934), p. 114. love and the hope of regeneration. He who shares the consciousness of God is God's son.364 309 Living a life of the Holy Spirit is a thing not to be found in any other religion. In Confucianism and in Buddhism it is not found. Having the feelings of God and living life with a consciousness of God is a teach ing which was first clearly given in the teaching of Christ.365 The Spirit of truth ••• is to have the feelings of God and to see the universe as God sees it. This is a great power ••• ~ny religions do not come this far. They stop with class consciousness, or proletarian consciousness, or bourgeois consciousness ••• In fact, by the truth as man thinks of it, we canno~ 6 gome to understand the redeeming blood of Christ. There is evident an endeavor, by Kagawa, to correlate the empirical data of his own mystical experiences, and to translate them into terms and into experiences within the Japanese social order, so that his people could enjoy them. It seems to be his conviction that experiential Christianity is what the masses will appreciate, rather than its intel lectual presentation. In the philosophical vein of mystical empiricism, he finds that the consciousness of atonement, of love, of the cross, which Jesus Christ possessed, came from that conscious 364 T. Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive Love, (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1940), p. 9. 365 T. Kagawa, Seirei ni Tsuite no Meiso, (Medita tions on the Holy Spirit), (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1934), p. 40. 366 Ibid., p. 6. 310 identity with God that He had. One looks through the early literature for the origins of his consciousness-emphasis, but in his autobiography and in his poems of the slum period there is only that conviction that "there is love in the world. I tell you there is love!"367 It was a deep experience in the moment of need in his early youth. His sense of mission was a simple conviction of need for that same experience of Love, throughout Japa- nese society. This to him was the preaching of the Kingdom of God. As has been seen, his philosophy of Love, and his philosophy of labor and of the social order, were forged on the anvil of experience. The consciousness, which comes to the person won by the God who is Love, is a consciousness that not only feels the fact of redemption, but is convicted of the necessity for participation in the tasks of social redemption. It was this consciousness which motivated Jesus in all of his acts and thoughts. In 1923 he stated: We can discover in Jesus a consciousness of being a redeemer, a redemptive consciousness ••• Without doubt Jesus had the consciousness of redeeming mankind. Though some may say that this was presumptuous, yet it was a psychological fact. We believe in redemption. 367 T. Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1935}, p. 30. If Jesus is our redemption, we also do not refuse to bear sin. In this way we can be said to be the dis ciples of Jesus.368 311 A few years later, in the year 1928, he expressed his thought in a passage, translated with the minimum of inter pretation and without the use of capital letters in Japanese style, as follows: He (Jesus) lived at a high point in history. The will of the holy one moved within his being. He, as a man, as the will of God in the form of man, could not help but be conscious of the duties with which he must walk upon the earth ••• It was impossible that he was not conscious (ishiki sezaru wo enakatta) that, being bound by the thread of aod's-love, he was walking about revealing the providence of God in his love for mankind. Such was the determination of love. That he was born as the summation of the history of love which flowed from 3 iSd was a consciousness from which he could not escape. In the development of the consciousness-concept by Kagawa as God-consciousness, and love-consciousness, he presented it to his people in the Kingdom of God Movement of 1929 under the thought of cross-consciousness. In the published English translation cross-consciousness has been translated "atoning-consciousness," which is an interprets- tion. The following translation has sought to express the 368 T. Kagawa, Jesus Throufh Japanese Eyes, (London: The Lutterworth Press, 1934), pp. 33 ff. 369 T. Kagawa, Kami Ni Yoru Shinko - Faith in God, (Tokyo: Nichiyo-Sekaisha:-!928):-pp. 336, 337. 312 fullest possible flavor of the original: The cross is consciousness (jujika!! ishiki ~ ~). Christ was the very first human being to be conscious of the cross. Consciousness is hidden. The one to discover it was Paul. Paul interpreted the feelings of Christ. Thus he made the consciousness of human beings a precious thing. Unless one makes this cross-conscious ness very clear, the courage necessary for one, who has become serious, to die will not emerge. This eonscious ness-movement ••• is the deep will of God hidden at the heart of the cross, and is said to have proceeded from God. Thus the cross of Christ is the cross of God him self. As the will of God coming from the inner 3 heart of God, his will was thus expressed through it. 70 It may seem inconceivable that this book was written for popular distribution and use among all classes, including those in the slum districts, at the low price of two to three cents per copy for a one-hundred-and-eighty-page book. The use of philosophical as well as theological and psychological language in translating ideas which in themselves are based on empirical personal knowledge, leads to verbal expressions which seem abstruse and sometimes illogical. Yet it is in such concepts that the Oriental mind seems to move -- there is intangible direction, and there are evident unexpressible principles. These undefined paths of thought are the ethico religious basis of the Way, or ~ -- the Path of religious thought whether it be Christian, Buddhist, Shinto or Bushido. The burden on the heart of Kagawa seems to be on bow 370 T. Kagawa, Kami Ni Yoru Shinsei - New Life Through God, (Shimonoseki: FUkuin Shokwan, 1929), p. 72. 313 to awaken man to the power of God within his reach -- for what Jesus Christ experienced, man can also experience and for his own good. In 1934 he stated: When mankind, having been lifted up almost to the same feeling of Christ, enters into the feelings of the Holy Spirit, and enters into the absolute inner heart of God, then he understands how much the Absolute God has suffered for human kind. In a word he comes to understand how much Christ suffered for humankind.371 The English edition of this same book makes a freer trans lation of this passage as follows: When we enter the inner heart of the Absolute God, when we share the feelings of the Holy Spirit, when we are lifted up almost to the feelings of Christ, then we come to understand how much the Absolute God suffers for men and how much Christ works and suffers for man kind.~72 It may be stated that the aim of most translations of Kagawa's writings has been interpretative, and necessarily so, as the western reading public is probably less interested in the study of words than in the general picture. True God-consciousness, then, is an awareness leading to socially redemptive acts, -- a Way of Life whether lived by Christ, or in the name of Christ. The picture of such a redemptive-love-consciousness is seen in his book !h! Qa!! lenge £!Redemptive~· It is Kagawa's most complete word 371 T. Kagawa, Seirei Ni Tsuite No Meise, Meditations Concerning the Holy Spirit, (Tokyo: KYo Bun Kwan, 1934), p. 5. 372 Kagawa, Meditations Concerning~ Holy Spirit, p. 14. 314 on the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the Christ-Way for Japan. Appearing in 1g3s, this message stated: Christ, through this tully-conscious redemptive love pours out God's love upon all, even the most worthless of mankind. Christ's death was the outcome of the intense re demptive-love-consciousness which Christ possessed; it was not the source of that consciousness. It is impossible for anyone to arrive at this state of mind unless he has had a thorough-going experience of the redemptive love of an infinite God. Christ-consciousness is the acme, the apex of the development of consciousness in humanity. It is the consciousness which yearns to save sinners.373 Beginning with Kagawa's definitions of religion as a scheme of living, and pursuing his thoughts on religious consciousness, it is seen that, for him, religion is the Way ot Redemptive Love. The pinnacle of religious experience is Christ-consciousness -- a consciousness which is fully aware of the need for social redemption, and is motivated by a love akin to that of God Himself, revealed in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ. No matter how the religion of Jesus may be described in intellectual terms, there remained to Kagawa the inescap- able fact that God in Jesus Christ worked through human society in acts of love and devotion, as he has stated on another occasion -- The religion of Jesus is the religion of crucifixion, 373 Kagawa, The Challenge of Redemptive 1£!!• pp. 25. 37, 53, 154. 315 that is, of redemption. It is the religion of action which unites meditation and prayer. To walk in prayer, continually asking and receiving power into new actions of love, this was the religion of Jesus. It is the religion of action, of applying plaster and bandages to the wounds of society.37~ Therefore the aims of theology, in explaining the principles of redemptive love, are not to be realized in the study of those principles alone, but in the use of the prin ciples and in the practise of love-in-action. This he has stated at greater length as follows: There is no other way to explain redemptive love except through Christ's divine nature. His divine life was lived for the sake of redemptive love; the purpose of the incarnation was to show forth redemptive love, and without the divine life, Christ is meaningless; there is nothing to be thankfUl for: Theology cannot do without this redemptive love of Christ, for which we are so grateful. For Christ's teaching about the Trinity becomes valueless except as an explanation of redemptive love. The Christian theology of Japan is too abstruse and argumentative and far too difficult to understand; it takes a detour which leads away from its main purpose. I ask myself this -- Is there any other way to explain theology except the way of redemptive love? When we are passing our theology on to the people, we must interpret it in terms of love ••• Mt faith has not changed essential ly since I was fifteen, and I am convinced that this is because my faith is energized by a knowledge of God. I did not come to Christ by way of philosophy or argument. I was born a child of misfortune and when I discovered a Father's love in the Holy Book, I was filled with infin ite joy ••• That was thirty-five years ago, but it was then that I made a vow to God that I would make it my mission in life to give a cup of cold water to one of the least of God's children. This is too simple, too obvious, but there is nothing more than this to my faith. 374 Kagawa, The Religion of Jesus, p. 84. 316 I feel this to be my mission. Some people say that I preach a social gospel, but they are mistaken. What do I care what you call it? Call it anything you please -- I must devote myself to the Purity movement out of love for my mother. This is the mass I offer to her memory. And I am glad when I bear the cross to fulfill this mission of mine. Herein lies the eternal quality of redemptive love.375 In the apparent act of defying theology and a theo logical interpretation of the Gospel~ Kagawa took the em phases of intellectual religion into his Brotherhood Movement to give them vitality in socially-redemptive living. There is no other way to bring back men who have gotten separated from God, and to bind them again to God, but the way of love, redemptive love. Love can bind together the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative. But love is not an abstract thing. Love demands ex pression in personality. Without Christ as a Mediator -- one who loves men with redemptive love -- it is im possible for God and man to be reconciled. God's dom inating purpose in the creation of humanity is that all men may dwell within the love of God.376 I cannot but feel that Christ's life~ as He lived it day by day, was more an act of redeeming love than the few hours He spent upon the Cross.377 In laying such a heavy emphasis on the religion of Jesus as a Way, Kagawa has not ignored the teachings of all the arts and sciences of which theology is one. 375 Kagawa, ~ Challenge of Redemptive 12!!• pp. 128-130. 376 Ibid., pp. 119, 120. 377 ~·· P• 3g. He himself has given a summary of the theological basis of the religion of redemptive love, as follows: 317 This religion of redemptive love teaches that, be cause man is so utterly depraved, he cannot possibly make himself into a person of integrity. But the Lord of Redemption has come down to this earth to do this tor him. The God of the universe forgives all man's past sins, acquits him, makes him over again, and cleanses him so that he will not commdt those sins again. The three foundation principles of the religion of redemptive love are: (1) God is the Father God, who, as He Himself possesses the perfection of heaven, demands perfection in men. (2) God cannot be unfeeling toward men, but entering deeply into sympathy with them, and ceaselessly striving to guide men to higher levels, forgives their sins, stretching out a saving hand to them. He grants them also the strength of the Holy Spirit who broods over men, sharing responsibility with them, and tries to restore even those who have failed to a new life once more. (3) Moreover. God in order to help men to clearly understand His gracious purposes, sent His Son, who to interpret God took the form of man and lived among men.378 In this passage the lack of a theological statement concerning the death of Christ does not mean that Kagawa has failed to consider the intellectual side of the Christian religion. The death of Jesus Christ is tremendously sig nificant, but its significance lies in the tact that it was the completion of a way of lite. Citing the illustration ot a woman, whose family had been reckless and criminal minded, and who had attempted suicide, he has recorded her conversion as follows: 378 ~·· pp. 106, 107. 318 But as she was reading the Bible one day, suddenly she understood the atonement in the blood of ~esus Christ. And in utter reliance on this priceless atone ment through ~esus Christ, and convinced that she had been acquitted of all her past sins, she boldly took a new hold on life.379 Here, the death of Christ as the way to a new life is accepted in the simplicity of the Biblical narrative. It belongs to the fully-developed consciousness of the Christ of the saved. It is quite impossible to make a complete analysis of the voluminous writings of Kagawa with the purpose of developing a system of theological thought.380 This could 379 ~·· P• 109. 380 In order to render this section on theology more understandable, the following symbols will be used at the place of reference, rather than detailed references at the bottom of the page. Books in ~apanese by Kagawa used here are: Zlj, Yesu to Shizen no Mokushi; AAj, Kami ni Yoru Shinsei; A4j, Kamr ni Yoru Shinko; Dj, Kami to-seiar-no-FUkuin; Fj, Sei Rii:ni Tiu~no Meiso. -- - - Books in English by Kagawa either in translation or originally by him are: X, Before~~; Y, Songs~ The Slums; Z, ~esus Through ~apanese !l!!; A, Love the Law of Life; B, The Religion of Jesus; C, Meditations-£B the Cross; F, Meditations on the Holy Spirit; G, Christ and ~apan; L, The Challenge-or-Redemptive Love; M, Behold the Man; P3, A<I'<lresses. Frieiitis--o? Jesus. shanghai Number.- Books by other writers are: ~. Kagawa, by Wm. Axling; U, Kagawa the Christian, by Van Baalen. 319 well be the aim of another study in Japanese thought. An outline of his Christian thinking on the major divisions of theology, however, under the headings of God, Man, and Salvation, may be of assistance in appraising the similari ties and dissimilarities of certain areas of Japanese think ing in comparison with those systems of the West. Kagawa himself has not constructed such a system. First of all his teaching concerning God is both philosophical, and theological. The concept of God in terms .. of philosophy as the Absolute, or as an Abstraction, went against his mode of thinking, yet, for want of a better medium he uses it to express the inexpressible. The God of Jesus is not the theoretical God of the philosopher-- "The Absolute," "The Infinite"; the God of Jesus is Himself very Life (B 20). I do not set up God objectively. I think Life of itself as God •• Lite because ot its reality is absolute. Lite in me has an end in view. It is thus personalized. Why is it strange to call this absolute life, which possesses a purpose, God? (~ 198,199). The loveless do not know God. Only when a man has plunged into the blindly struggling crowd and tried to save them from their sins and failures, can he know this God. Only through the active movement of love will he intuitively come to know the God of Action. It is important to bear in mind this distinction between the God of idea and the God ot Action (B 20,21). Thus it may be concluded that the concepts of God ex pressed in terms of philosophy or theology are inadequate to a Kagawa, and that Life, or that which is both temporal and eternal, is the only Reality-- it is both the symbol and the expression ot God in time. In a similar vein he insists - ~ God is Love; MY God is Love; Tender and deep, I feel His close. sweet presence, Looking down to see The beggar-baby Lying in my arms asleep (Y 54). 320 And in another expression, he sees with the eye of the soul, the Good in the world as God revealed - I become aware that the Good seeks its outlet for evolution within me. The Good is my God •• The man who will not believe that the Good is my God will not be lieve either that love is my God. (A 307) In another similar expression of philosophical mysti cism he has said - The possibility of evolution which reveals the Good becomes. for the soul within, the representation of God. God is evolution itself at work within the ego. To regard evolution as an attribute of God may to some men appear profane; but if God is thought of as Creator, how can it be blameworthy to regard evolution, the con tinuer of Creation, as of the very nature of God? Evolution, as opposed to creation, demands inherent continuity, while creation implies a transcendent inter vention. But this is merely a logical distinction. In reality, there is no difference between evolution and creation (A 305). That Kagawa's concept is that of theistic evolution, built on the possibility of continuous development from the amoeba to man if science can produce the chain of evidence, is quite evident, but in no event would any biological, philosophical, or theological concept alter his basic idea of Christianity as the religion of redemptive love. His concept of God, then, is that of Creator, a Person 321 with Intelligence and Purpose (L 19), who created the uni verse and man. While He is over and above the universe as transcendent Being, yet to Kagawa "a theology which lays emphasis on transcendence alone" not only meets his dis approval but tails to meet the facts of religious experience (Fj 85). The emphasis is on the teaching of Jesus that God is Father, and cares. He is perfect even demanding mankind to seek that perfection (L 106), and is the perfect Personality, wholly complete -- hence it is difficult for man in his in complete condition to adequately comprehend such perfection (B 54). As Father-God He is immanent and concerned with his creation, working through the Holy Spirit in a way that is utterly different from the best that Buddhism, or any other religion known to Japan, has showed God to be (Fj 74, 82). God as Father (B 28) is best seen in the picture of Himself in Jesus Christ as the Mender of the broken heart. as the Provider for the needy, as Love Incarnate (A4j 336), as Redemptive Love. binding the finite to the Infinite (L 119) and healing the soul of the poisons of sin to give it new power (L 25). This picture is made clearer under the subject of the Person of Christ, but here. God as immanent is the emphasis. God as the Holy Spirit is the Restorer of strength (L 106); He is the Revealer of the endless Love of God, and the Giver of the Redemptive-love consciousness from which the experience of the Holy Spirit flows (Fj 88 ff.). 322 While to Kagawa the use of the word Trinity is un satisfactory, the fact of the Trinity is very much a part of his understanding of the Nature of God. He has stated his belief thus: I believe in God the transcendent Father, Christ the Son of God, and the indwelling Holy Spirit. We must lay emphasis on each one of the three. And the experience of the three persons must always be of one God •• As I do not like the word Trinity, without thinking philo sophically let us speak of the experience of God the only Father, the experience of Christ, and the experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Fj 81,83). The Trinity does not mean there are three Gods, but merely that we distinguish three aspects of the work of God's love; that is, that we must see three forms in which God manifests His love in fulfilling His gracious purpose (L 10?). Secondly, his teaching in regard to man and his con dition of sin, is something that is very distinct from the concepts of sin, as something to be washed off, as by water, or to be brushed off as in Japanese religions. Because "the Japanese, with their aversion to criticism and their un- yielding spirit, will not readily recognize the sin in their own soul," as he has said, the problem of an adequate presen tation of this subject has taken considerable attention. Sin is the loss of conscience, the inability to see and think in terms of God (L 23); it is also the loss of love toward God and fellowman (L 64); it is, further, the 323 loss of the sense of any responsibility for life experiences, or for any part in the failure of the social order (L 88). Sin is also much more. Kagawa has pictured the seven life emphases, or possibilities of development -- life, power, change, growth, choice, law and purpose; sin is the negative side of each of the seven, namely, death, weakness, non adaptation, retroversion, wrong choice, law-breaking and loss of ideals (L 88-90). Man, then, as a creature of God, failing in the ac complishment of the responsibility and the duties which are his, is a failure before God. All of his sins, individual and social alike are heinous as revolt against God, and as making of man, a piece of refuse in the sewage of society (AAj 49,80). In the midst of such conditions, Christians are to function as disinfectants and cleaners of the social wreckage -- this is the part of social redemption, the work of the Cross in society. There is forgiveness for sin through repentance and through new life, which is the work of the Holy Spirit. There is a quickening of the conscience (L 68,139), also a repairing of the broken personality (B 25, L 146). In such a new life there arises consciousness of God, and awareness of wrong, and a willingness to follow the new path of Love (L 58,63,148). The new man learns to know the true nature of Love as the power of God in society and in mutual 324 relations -- each man loving even that which he would normal- ly hate and regard as ugly and undesirable (L 48). Man is the object of the sacrificing Love of God. The experience of this fact on the part of unworthy man shows forth the divine nature of that experience. The presence of the great God of heaven and earth is moving within us. We are borrowed things. When we live in God, we feel that we are separated from the world; but as we feel the mission of having God reveal his presence in our limited vile bodies, we have the expe rience of God taking possession of the ugly despicable bodies. God possesses us. It is the experience of God living in us rather than of man living in God (Fj 77). The ultimate issue of salvation, as a member of the kingdom of God, is the realization, here and now, that man can become a "son of God" without having to wait until aeons of time have elapsed, -- then only after endless transmigra tions and incarnations (L 63). The same thought is stated in concepts that sound harsh to the theological ear, as, "you yourself' must be a Christ-- a saver of men" (B 89), "Paul felt that he himself', who had also, in a small way, travailled in the birth of the Cross-Love, had become a participator in it, a second Christ •• " (C 93). The thought of' becoming a Christ or becoming a god (L 63), is a state ment of human desire to overcome the imperfections of life by using the popular terms of extant Buddhism and Shintoism. To the Christian, the way is not that of' the complete denial of the self toward "nothingness, tt nor is it the delu sion of perfection attained through deeds of valor, or of' 325 religious contemplation, but it is the Way of Love in a life bound to God through Christ Jesus in present society, and in the life to come (L 63). In the third place, his thoughts on the work of sal vation through the life and death of Jesus Christ can be brought together in a collation of his ideas, but again there is no attempt at a system. The clue to Kagawa's teaching on salvation is found entirely in the experience of what he knew as the Love of God. Concerning the Person of Christ, there are elements in the records, which are as fleeting notations of the pas sage of thoughts through the mind, and almost defy organiza tion. Axling in his biography has quoted passages of a theological nature (Q 184 ff.), but in none of them is there any area of thought expressed which could be called a Christ elegy in the theological sense. Kagawa himself has spoken of an over-emphasis in 19th century theology on the Person ality of Christ, and its forgetting the necessity for the Blood of the Cross (P3, 9). His own emphasis deals with the period of His ministry. Dealing with the subject of the Incarnation, Kagawa recorded an early thought on this subject when he stated, "Eiiehi had entered into the spirit of Jesus, who came down to the world as the Saviour of mankind" (X 293). As he thought of the change in his life and his own re-creation, 326 he said, "a virgin conceiving and bearing God in her bosom becomes not an ancient tale in far-off Bethlehem, but a present day fact within me" (Q 2). Again he stated that religion was the fact of nGod coming down to earth and ex periencing man's way of living ••• God's incarnation in the body of Jesus -- this is the supreme religious experience" (B 35). On one of Kagawa's trips to America, certain theo logians expressed doubts as to his theology, and on one occasion, he replied, "I believe in the virgin birth, resur rection, ascension, divinity of Christ, but I believe much more" (U 31). That Kagawa is not unaware of the theological import of these concepts and their historical basis is abundantly clear, but, to him, in themselves they do not constitute saving faith, which in the end is his great con cern. In Christ, mankind has, first, beheld the perfect personality (C 103), yet a man who was one with humankind in every respect. His whole life was one of redemptive love, -- a life fully as significant for the salvation of man as his death on the Cross (L 38,39). As a man, he was the first to be Cross-conscious and to accept it as a way ot lite for personal and social salvation (AAj 72). "Christ was the Son of man, but through His earnest love and desire to save others, became universe-conscious. or God-conscious" 327 (L 86), is his endeavor to explain the human-divine nature ot Jesus to himself, and to his people. In regard to the divinity of Christ, it has already been observed that Kagawa thought of Him as God in the Flesh (C 25). He also agrees with the thought of Paul that Jesus is very truly God (Fj gl), and explains this to mean that, because of Jesus' feelings being those of God in re spect to love in the world and the need for the death of the cross as a sacrifice, "Jesus possessed the nature of God, and we say that Jesus is God" (F 92). The problem of Jesus' understanding of His mission in terms of the "Messiah," or the "Christ," is one to which Kagawa devotes considerable space in several of his books. His invariable conclusion is that Jesus never said "I am the Christ," -- not even when Peter made his confession; Jesus did accept its implications, and revealed it only when the experience of the Cross was to become a reality (B 80,83; Zlj 243) (C 17,40,184). The life of Jesus was a very special one, distinct and unique among men (Z 11); it brought into the world picture of God, the concept of God as Laborer (B 93). Jesus was a man of great strength because of his life of prayer which required reserve physical power. According to Kagawa, the most significant thing in life to Jesus was the possibility of the Cross -- significant 328 for three reasons, namely, that it would be necessary in order to make his purpose clear, that the Scriptures had so foretold, and that it was an impending event of the near future (C 50-52). The experience of John in his ministry, and his execu tion showed Jesus clearly that He too must choose between revolution, or the Cross (P3 44, 45). These experiences of John came to Jesus as crises in his own life in the form of temptations to leadership on a purely social plane; His decision, however, was to follow the path of Cross, and thus He revealed his divine nature. The story of this crisis is the message of one of Kagawa's latest works, the novel about Jesus Christ, Behold the Man (M 15,57,83). -- The Cross, as an execution in history, was real, but beyond the historical event there was the religious fact of a great redemptive love revealed in it. Through the Cross, the salvation of mankind was to be effected, and the pacifi cation or propitiation of God was to be realized. To Kagawa, both the life and the death of Christ were necessary in the work of the atonement (L 39). After His death, Jesus rose again, a fact which was both an historical and spiritual necessity (B 104-5). The cross, in the light of that experience, thus truly became the very crystallization of divine Love through the power of the Holy Spirit (Fj 24-5). 32g Kagawa has not ignored the theories of the atonement, but rather than engage in theological argument, he seems inclined to move from the arena of debate and definition. Whether the important theory of the atonement is a theory of the re-purchase of one condemned to death, or of a reconcil iation of one lost and astray, of the substitution of one made-criminal for the many who are criminals, or of a media tion or propitiation of a God in anger, or whether it is the theory of adoption of a non-son by virtue of sin, into a position of sonship -- these were not Kagawa's problem. He accepted these views as Paul's "parables." They showed how wrong man was -- as a debtor, criminal, traveller, a sick man, a dead man, a slave, and a lost child. The thing which counted in the thinking of Kagawa was the same thing that counted with Paul, namely, "that man was somehow wrong, and Christ could set him right" (C 97-9). The three words used most commonly in the Japanese translation of the Bible to picture the fact of salvation, are "salvation," "reconciliation" and "redemption." The first word is salvation, or sukui ( ~ ). It is often used in the form sukui-idasu, to grasp and save. It means the yielding of a broken life in an about-face to a life with God (B 25), an acceptance of Jesus Christ as the new Way of Life, away from the evil habits of the old life (Z2j 246), and the experience of the consciousness of God 330 (Z2j 247). The second word is to reconcile, or yawarageru, yawaragashimuru ({,:JfJ;,. .ul-}; it also means to pacify, to ap pease, to soften, thus to propitiate. Kagawa has used the word propitiation, as of a love which loves at the risk of life itself, which Christ alone has done (L 66). The word is used in 2 Corinthians 5:18 as pacification-reconcilia- tion - God through Christ has pacified us to himself, namely, he has given us the duty of pacification (yawarasashimuru tsutome). Another word, a synonym, is also used, namely nadameru, to appease, to pacify, as in John 2:2 - He, for the sake of our sins is the offering of ap peasement (nadame B£ sonaemono). Thus God is appeased toward us, and relations with God are again possible. The word "redemption," however, is of great import in the Kagawa vocabulary in the expression of the thought of man's salvation. It may mean simply indemnification or pay ment, namely, aganai ( }1~ ) • As redemption or atonement by payment, namely, tsugunau (1jt) it is a general term, but as redemption from sin, or sin-payment, namely, shokuzai ( ~!ft)rfi ) , it is the kernel of Kagawa's understanding of the Way of Christ the Way of Redemptive Love. Under this term is included the love which redeems, both from the man- 331 ward, and the God-ward, side of the atonement. Jesus Christ is the Sukui-nushi, Savior-Lord. But as the Jsanai-nushi, Indemnifier-Lord, He is the Redeemer, the Picker-up of refuse (AAj 53), the Shedder of blood through which diseased society can actually have its bacteria washed away (B 91), the Payer of the ransom-price, required tore lease the condemned (AAj 68), (A4j 340), the Bearer of the punishment of the criminal (C 86), and as the Substitute giving His Life for that of man (L 92). In them all, how ever, there is one great characteristic of the Saviour which stands out, namely, the great motivating power of Love reach ing out toward the imperfect, and helpless, -- the social and spiritual derelict. Kagawa has given much emphasis to the work of redemp tive-love through the blood of the Cross. The shedding of this blood was not merely the yielding of the life of Jesus, causing His death in the pursuit of the Will of God, nor a merely spiritual use of the shed-blood, as a washing white from the stain of sins. It is, according to him, a parallel process in both the physical body of men and the spiritual body of the soul. There is no life in the body except that which courses through the blood-stream, and "the blood, with its power of metabolism, repairs the damages in the body. It restores the broken form and can bring new life into that which is no 332 longer able to work" (C 90); it "cleanses away the filth of the body, and thus the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin" (C 100). Love is the counterpart within the life of man which does the same for his soul, giving a new life for an old one; a decayed one is ransomed by a better one (C 123). The individual organism undergoes a new life experience. Likewise the social organism with its corruptions must be healed by the blood of the spirit, -- the Love of God shed abroad on the Cross. The miracle of redemption, then, is in the shed-Love, of which the flowing blood was a physical parallel. For one man to do that which thousands of other lives might be given, and not do it, this is the miracle of Love-in-action. For there was no other love like His. This is the theme of book after book. It is the mystical experience that so gripped his soul, that his physically weak body did experience new life, even as his soul did. For Kagawa, however, there is one theory of atonement that is valid, more than any other presented by Paul or others. It is that which may be called the theory of apology, and may have little meaning in occidental thought. He (Jesus) died really to apologize on our behalf to God. (B 102) The true deep meaning of redemption is that Jesus apologized to God for all the failures and sins of man kind, taking responsibility for them upon Himself. {B 58) 333 In the struggle of an elder brother to obtain for giveness for the sins of his younger brother, we find the meaning of redemption. Jesus thought the Messiah should take it upon Himself to apologize to the Father in heaven on behalf of the whole world. (B gl) There was in the consciousness of Christ the will to make up for the deficiencies of others to save them - the solidarity-responsibility-consciousness. (C 25) The responsibility of God Himself is involved; and for this reason redemptive love does not enter into the conscious life of the soul except through God. (L 4g) There is, in this emphasis of Kagawa, the evidence of the vertical relationships of loyalty as seen in a social order based on loyalty -- the concept of the stern master toward whom the laws of propriety and the rules of etiquette must be observed. There is the emphasis that the head of the family is the one to discharge all obligations to a superior, usually regardless of how guilty the individual may have been. This is the Japanese concept of family solidarity, and of a social order, built up on the same prin- ciple. In this attempt to construct the outline of a theology of Kagawa by lifting out those statements which have a doc trinal tone, it has become sufficiently clear that, whatever of dogma and teaching may be found in his meditations and prayers, these are also of a functional nature in keeping with the tradition of the Way-concepts of Japan. There is observable an impatience with words and with ordered thoughts, in the effort to bring an empirical reality to 334 bear on the lives of living people. This tendency may be of help in understanding the abstruse nature of the concepts. and the apparently contra dictory nature of some statements of Kagawa. The collation of doctrinal views, as recorded, gives the framework of Kagawa's position, showing the main lines of his thinking and teaching. It is, however, not a theology, in the sense ot a completed system. To him, who would seek out individual sentences in doctrinal statements, there are contradictions; to the theologian with whom salvation is a matter of hewing to the line of a certain doctrinal system, there are diver gences. Such statements as "the belief in the myth of a Creator making something out of nothing" (A 298) is followed on the next page by saying that "the doctrine of evolution carries to completion the revelation which begins in Genesis" (A 299). Faith in evolution to him is the concept of pro gressive development under God, or theistic evolution with a definite purpose. The important thing for man is to see God at work in himself and in his society. His final eon elusion is that "the world is a creation" (L 19). Theology, to Kagawa, is unsatisfying detail -- often an obstacle to a great task to be accomplished. Thus, a theological system with an emaciated Christ and a strong social program, is as unsatisfactory to him as a theological system with its highly developed dogma, and a weak social emphasis. The way of redemptive-love must move somewhere between the two, to be in the pattern of the Christ-life. I believe in God's sense of responsibility for the whole of society as redemptive love •• God's deep love 335 has got into touch with mankind. Fundamentalism, there fore, is only a partial explanation of the love of God, and MOdernism sees only the surface and does not dig down to the root of the matter. Here in Japan it is my earnest hope that our young people may not be carried away by either of these "isms" •• that (they) may rather give their whole energies to the realization of sacri ficial love as wide as the whole of society and as broad as the entire universe.381 In relation to the religious backgrounds of the na tion, he has expressed his hope for Christianity in Japan as follows: How much difference is there between a doctrinal devotion which fails to revolutionize life, and ritual istic Shinto? How far is an atheistic, scientific civilization separated from a Buddhism which advocates an atheistic and impersonal transcendentalism? More over, Confucianism with its earth-born realism will readily countenance the self-centered success of capitalism. A nominal Christianity which does not strive to realize, in actual living, the Christ who revealed the love of God and was impelled by redemptive love to give himself on the Cross -- this Christianity contains all that Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism possess, and still is not real Christianity.382 This may be said to be his viewpoint in regard to theology and doctrine. It is also his basis of relationships with the Church Movement, as has been pointed out in the 381 Kagawa, Meditations £g the Cross, P• 152. 382 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 112. previous section on the initiation of the Kingdom of God Movement. 336 This distinction between the theology of the Church Movement and the way of the Brotherhood Movement did not lead Kagawa to leave the Church as other distinctions had led other leaders away. The outstanding one is probably Uchimura Kanzo, who opposed the organization of the Church more than its theology. There was another, Paul Kanamori, who had been a most ardent evangelist, working interdenom inationally and on the basis of the orthodox Gospel message, and who had fallen a prey to the advance of liberal theolog ical thought. After a period of years of defection, however, he returned to take up the work of evangelism alongside of another great evangelist, Kimura Seimatsu. The story of Kagawa and the Church Movement reveals a large area of unsettled adjustments between the Church Movement and the Japanese social organization. The social forces of the post-Restoration era have been in constant con flict, and at cross-currents with each other. In the socio religious confusions, Kagawa remained in affiliation with the Church, although looked upon by churchmen as a wandering social experimenter. In the work of the Kingdom of God MOve ment, the Church at large showed its confidence in him, as a leader tor the penetration or the Christian movement into the life or Japan. 337 Kagawa's love for the Church was unchanged. His mem ories were of the small chapel in which he first heard the words of God's love, where "the while my heart is full of praise and prayer, my eyes stretch wide, and fill with tears, remembering my sin.n383 From the Church and its institutions he had moved into the slums to begin his mission of redemp tive-love on the pattern of the Christ. The Church was a functional institution for the reali- zation of the Way of Redemptive Love; this was the only reason for its existence, according to Kagawa. It could lead the way, but as an institution for the mere propagation of theological doctrine, it would fail. Its conscience-relig ion, and the social movement, should become one;384 then the true Kingdom of God would be realized for Japan. It is not real Christianity merely to carry a gilt edged Bible and hymn book to church on Sunday, like as an upper class person. Individual worship of God is not enough. The church must be transformed into a mutual aid organization, a society for the realization or Love in-action.385 His viewpoint concerning denominationalism in the Church Movement in Japan would be that of the man who found theology as such a burdensome detail, or even an obstacle to 383 Kagawa, Songs From the Slums, p. 39. 384 Kagawa, Meditations £g ~Cross, p. 179. 385 Ibid., P• 169. 338 religious living; yet he belonged to the Church. As a Presbyterian, he was welcomed, as well as criticized, by members of his own group. It is difficult to find in his copious notes a place where the idea or predestination finds its place, for his belief, that all mankind, no matter what his condition, is reclaimable without condition in the Way of Redemptive Love. is fundamental in everything he has said and done. In a statement by Helen Topping reporting on the pro- gram for the establishment of one thousand villages in Japan, as an evidence of international goodwill and the support promised by the Foreign Missions Council of North America in 1936, there appeared the following picture of the probable attitude of Kagawa on the subjects of denominationalism, as well as Church Union. Kagawa's "damnation" {his famous pronunciation of denomination} is Presbyterian. But we no more think of him as a Presbyterian than we do or Mott as a Methodist, or Moody as a Congregationalist. For years, the National Christian Council ot Japan has been appointing committees and receiving reports about Church Union. But we well know Church Union will not come by exhortation or pro nouncement. It must be a living growth. The rapidly growing body of Christians and Christian activity in spired by Kagawa's life and leadership is non-denomina tional in spirit and it may be an indigenous beginning of the United Church in Japan.386 386 H. Topping, "Notes on Rural Evangelism in Japan," Kagawa Comes~· Friends of Jesus, IX (June 1937), p. 16. 339 He himself has said, "There are no sects in Love. Buddhist, MOhammedan, Christian -- these are not Love's divi sions. Love knows how to embrace, but not to differenti ate."387 The Church Union Movement in Japan, as part of the Christian Movement, had its origins in the very first years of the work in 1872 when the first meeting of missionaries took place and the following resolution was adopted, as recorded by G. Verbeck: We take this earliest opportunity offered by this convention to agree that we will use our influence to secure as far as possible identity of name and organi zation in the native churches in the formation of which we may be called upon to assist, that name being as Catholic as the Church of Christ, and the organizations being that wherein the government of each church shall be by the ministry and eldership or the same with the concurrence of the brethren.388 In a study on the subject of the indigenous church, the present writer summarized the events of this period as follows: Their good intention, however, seems to have been spoiled through misunderstanding. At any rate the Congregational churches, two in number in Osaka and Kobe did organize, and the two in Tokyo and Yokohama, Presbyterian, organized. It turned out that each group had organized differently, and although attempts to bring about an organic union were made for some time, the formation of one native Christian Church for Japan 387 Kagawa, 1£!! the ~ of f!!!, p. 312. 388 Retort or the Conference or Protestant Mission aries, Osaka,882,-rTokyo, Methodist-publishing House, 1883) P• 85. 340 was given up.389 With the growth of a native ministry in the various denominations, there was a general acceptance on the part of that ministry, of the denominational emphasis of his partic ular group. Those who opposed organization, or theology, or denominations, went out on their own, but through the years, the problem of Church Union was left to a minority within the Church, and to those interested in the larger area of a syncretism of Japanese religions. The movement in Church Union went forward with little success until the period after World War I, when world church interest moved toward a plan for union within Christianity, as a solution for world peace. The Lambeth appeal of 1920 gave a vision of a Church with a unity of Christian commun ions. In 1925 Church Union was realized in Canada. In 1926 a similar movement arose in Japan and the questions of such a unification of the Church in Japan was made the subject of a special number of ~ Japan Christian Quarterly.390 This may be said to be the beginning of the recent movement in Japan. The expressions of opinion by the laymen 369 A. c. Knudten, ~ Development of the Indigenous Church in Japan, an unpublished Master of Art's thesis, University of Chicago, 1926, p. 52. 390 H. M. Walton, Editor, The Jat 0 n Christian Quarte~ lz• January, 1927 (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 27), 105 pp. 341 and the pastors of the churches showed a disposition to weigh the issue well. Probably the best statement of viewpoint is by Daichiro Tagawa, member of the House of Parliament, active Christian and political writer, who stated his wish to push the matter, but estimated the difficulties to be great. His analysis of the problem is not only to the point, but is de- scriptive of traits in Japanese character, which will prob ably express themselves in the future as well, as seen in the following summary: There are some five reasons why church union may be impossible, namely, 1. "We, Japanese, seem much stronger or perhaps more selfish in group spirit than Europeans and Americans, i.e. many people come together but they find difficulty in associating within one big party. They are used to oppose, and after all they are compelled to separate into small groups." 2. "To improve or amend one's bad habits according to rational reasons is hard to carry into effect." This is difficult for everyone, but especially so with Japanese. 3. In the teaching of Christianity to the present individualism rather than cooperation has been the rule. 4. Union in Japan would be improbable as long as lack of union abroad is the rule. 5. Japan is realizing more and more power inter nationally. Such a desire for control will appear among the people of the churches and "tend to make mors small groups or small denominations than ever before." 91 The thinking within the churches, however, did develop in the direction of cooperation, and in 1935 a meeting of delegates from the churches of Japan in an All-Japan Chris- 391 D. Tagawa, "Church Unity -- Next Steps to be Taken," The Japan Christian guarterly, II (January 1927), PP• 58, ~ 342 tian Conference took place in Tokyo. At this time a com mittee was appointed with instructions to bring in recommen dations for a plan of union at a similar Conference to be held in 1938. At the All-Japan Christian Conference in 1938 in Tokyo, the writer was present and worked with the sub-com mittee on Evangelism. To the supporters of the union move ment, however, the results of the Conference were a dis- appointment, for the plan was not approved, -- in fact, union as a church movement seemed farther away than before, as each denominational representative rose to state the problems of union for his group. P. Mayer, who was one of the proponents of the movement, stated The plan for church union •• no doubt deserved to fail. It was too mechanical in its operation. There was very little enthusiasm behind it, outside of the small group of its chief sponsors •• The matter has now passed into the hands of the denominations themselves, where it properly belongs. Church union in Japan is not a con summation which can be expected in the very near fu ture.392 The evidence, in October 1938, pointed to little interest, and to little possibility of success of the union movement. On the political front, however, events were shaping themselves, and in 1940, the churches, under the iron 392 p. s. Mayer, "The Protestant Churches in 1938," The Japan Christian I!!r Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1939), P• 191. 343 hand of a totalitarian government, found themselves co-erced into a movement for unification under one head, responsible to the government authorities. This was the ultimate result of a protracted attempt at government control of religious thought. Government had first sought a control of the religions of Japan, by a Bill of Religions in 1926. The Christian leadership of the nation through the National Christian Council, raised serious objec tion, on the constitutional ground of the guarantee of the freedom of religious belief. In the years 1929 and 1935, other bills of a similar nature failed of passage, but in 1939 the attack was not directed toward religion as such, but at the organizations of religious bodies. First presented in 1938, the Bill was made a law in 1939. Each of the denominations of Christianity, as well as of Buddhism, was ordered to bring its constitution in line with government policy, and to select an official repre sentative, or "national head" with whom government could deal. The Christian Church, as such was recognized in re spect to legal and social privileges, on a par with Buddhism and Shintoism. Plans to make these changes had hardly been under taken, when a new order, in 1940, demanded that all denomina tions of Christianity gather under one Christian head; the Buddhists likewise were to bring their forces together under 344 one head responsible to the government. Denominational con- stitutions were ignored, and one Church q! Christ in Japan was brought into being in a series of dizzy maneuvers during the years 1940-1941. C. w. Iglehart has described this process of church union as one of being "hammered into one ball," or, utte ichigan- a continuous striking at opposition through discussion until each individual or group was brought into line.393 Thus the opening of World War II found a Union Church in Japan, three years after a meeting on union was unable to secure that end. There is little doubt that the coming of peace will find this issue one of paramount importance in the Christian Movement in Japan. Kagawa was not a leading figure in this movement for union, although he participated in its deliberations. His aim in the Church Movement is to secure the maximum impact of the entire Church on the Japa- nese social structure, rather than any superficial result. In the matter of religious syncretism, Kagawa's view point is similar. Throughout the history of Japan there has been a trend toward combinations of religious concepts and organizations. The Japanese mind has been tolerant in re gard to religious ideas, as has been seen. Popular Shinto 393 c. w. Iglehart, "Crisis in the Japan Christian Movement," The Japan Christian Q.uarterly, XV (October 1940), P• 321. 345 and Mahayana Buddhism have been easy-going and showed a ten dency toward absorption, rather than exclusion, which has been a tendency in Christianity. In the early life of the nation, the Way of the Gods offered no objection as long as there was non-interference with the basic patterns of the social order. Buddhism, also tolerant, overwhelmed the simple Shinto beliefs, and absorbed Shinto gods into its own pantheon. The Christianity of the sixteenth century also found a welcome, until nationalistic fears drove it away. After the Restoration of 1868, govern ment divorced the Buddhist-Shinto combination in the interest of the establishment of a State-Shinto, whose gods were the nature and ancestral deities of the early cult. This new State-cult was to be re-built under the sue- cessive waves of new nationalism in peaks of power in 1890, 1910, 1920, 1931, 1937 and 1941, when, what Kagawa has called "fascism," took over complete control. During these years, however, there were other forces just as powerful in the social order, working for religious, rather than political, expressions of faith and mystical experience, on the basis of harmony and synthesis. Tsurumi has mentioned the love of harmony as the basis of ideological syncretism, as follows: Love of harmony always drove the Japanese to an at tempt to connect each new thought with the ideas already accepted. Confucianism had to fit in with the indigenous 346 thought or Shinto; Buddhism had to be reconciled with the two systems of thought that existed there •• Japanese philosophers and ethical teachers have sought a way to forge all different systems of thought into one har monious whole.3Q4 Whether it was the love of harmony, or the rather loose tendency of Japanese thought to seek a Way of behaving, rather than a System of thought, is uncertain. In the in tense struggle between the new nationalists and the Christian defenders in the last decade or the nineteenth century, Tetsujiro Inouye declared that neither Buddhism nor Chris tianity met the needs of the times, and therefore men should get together to form a new religion, combining the good in each and adapting it to the needs of Japan. 3 g 5 There have been other attempts at a new religion based on an eclecticism or desirable elements in Christianity, Buddhism and Shinto. Government attempts were made to bring the three great religions together for the "keener mutual appreciation of the responsibility or the religious forces in the race or the spiritual and moral and social needs of the nation" 3 g 6 be ginning with a conference in 1g12. 3Q4 Y. Tsurumi, Present Day Japan, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1Q26), p. 37. 3Q5 o. Cary, The History of Christianitw in Japan, Vol. II, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, l90Q}, p. 360. 396 A. D. Berry, "Religious Syncretism in Japan," The Christian Movement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1Q25), pp:-235 ff. --- 347 After the earthquake or 1923 another such conference was called. In 1924 the question of the Immigration Act of 1924 passed by the United States government was the chief item of united religious consideration. Again in 1927, and 1934, these three religions gathered in conference, in the hope of a closer religious communion. It was at the conference in 1927, that Kagawa made his astounding speech of criticism levelled at all three faiths. Before the 2,000 delegates, he warned without apology against the formalism in all three religions and their failure to lift a hand against the social oppression of the millions in the mines, in the fishing centers, and in the factories.397 There have been attempts at religious syncretism on the level of religious experience by individuals and groups, but not on a large scale. The Buddhist mystics, Saneatsu MUsh koji and Koson Eto, tried to combine Buddhist pantheism and Christian altruism. Ikutaro and Tenko Nishida were Kantian in philosophy and followed the mysticism of Eckhart, combining the pietism of Shinran with Christian mysticism and humanitarianism. 3 98 Another form of syncretism is that form of adaptation 397 Axling, Kagawa, p. 93. 398 T. Kagawa, "Contributions of Christianity to the Thought Life of Japan," The Japan ~ssion Year Book, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1929), p. 204. 348 which takes place in a welding together of culture materials when elements of the newer culture are accepted into the established social order. This may be regarded as the normal and natural result of that exchange of culture goods in all social interaction. It expresses itself in many ways -- in the acceptance of ritual practises and forms in religion, also the use of memorial days and family observances, in the patterns of church architecture and decorations, and in the re-interpretation of the place of native deities, as the original Great Deity of the Central Heavens, Ame-no-minaka nushi-no mikoto. This Deity. Kagawa believes, was the God ot Jimmu Tenno, the first emperor. and the native expression of the Universal God of Judaism and Christianity. This area of syncretism and eclecticism in Japanese religion might well be the subject of separate research. It is an area of very strong tendencies. whose significance for Christianity in Japan may be considerable. To Kagawa, this natural tendency to utilize somewhat of the rich cul tural tradition of the nation in its observance of the New Year's festivals and the many children's festivals 399 and to include somewhat of the native concepts of mercy in the goddess Kwannon of Japanese Buddhism,400 is an indication 399 Kagawa, Jesus Through Japanese Eyes, p. 111. 400 Kagawa, Christ and Japan, p. 26. 349 of the indigenization process of the Christian Movement and its concepts. On the concepts of the Cross and the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, however, there is nothing in Japa nese history, for Kagawa, which can be found to equal the revelation of the Way of Redemptive Love of the Christ; it is unique not only in Japanese history, but also in world history. CHAPTER IX AN EVALUATION OF KAGAWA llli'"D THE CHANGING SOCIAL ORDER IN JAPAN The study of the life and work of Toyohiko Kagawa, and his analysis of the social conditions of his people, have taken this investigation into the very heart of the problems of the social structure of modern Japan. The essen tial nature of the organization of Japanese society, with its complex of inter-relationships of the people and their groups, has been revealed as being like that of other nations in many respects, and different in others. The process of the indige nization of the Christian religion with its philosophy and its ethic, into the native social structure, has been ob served as a continuing, and important, element during this period of modern conflict. The violent social currents that have played on the life of a Kagawa have been seen to be the same currents that are at work in the entire social structure of the nation, affecting the lives of Japan's masses. It remains for this chapter to evaluate the data pre sented, and to interpret the possible significance of some of the tendencies observed in the progress of the nation toward a reconstruction of the social order. It will be im possible to do more than lift out three or four major areas of conclusions or findings, which may have meaning for the 351 future social evolution of Japan. The first conclusion, growing out of the evidence of this analysis, is that there is a valid distinction to be made between the larger structure of Japanese society, and the lesser, though superimposed, structure of the national body or kokutai, of the warrior-caste. The world at large has seen little other than the national-body of Japan, and has accepted it as the full ex pression of the nation's social organization. Kagawa and the Christian Movement, however, have been at work in a social order, during the entire modern period, which had little direct relationship with the controlling caste, and their kokutai. This social order may be regarded as the basic, or sub-structure of society, which, in spite of its size with at least ninety-five percent of the population, has not been vocal, except through the larger movements of a Kagawa. These masses are seen to be a not insignificant factor in the ultimate determination of the direction of the complex forces toward the establishment of a state of social justice. Feudalism and modernism have moved side by side in the cultural life of Japan. They have been symbols of the deeper and more violent social struggle, neither yielding to the other, except under intense social pressure. There are four elements in the resulting social order, which, 352 while they are closely inter-related, can be distinguished in the data of this study. An understanding of these will be of value in estimating the direction of change in Japan as well as her possible place in the post-war world. One factor is the intangible element of the imperial dynasty, apart from the person of a particular emperor, and its imperial family -- an "unbroken" lineage, which, though it has been devious, and broken, throughout history, has con- tinued as the basic force of social continuity in the family clan structure of the nation. It is not to be confused with the problem of emperor-worship, which is modern, and the State-cult of Shinto, which have been movements about the person of the emperor in an endeavor to bolster the position of the royalists and the warrior-caste in the modern era. The position of the imperial dynasty is rather that of a so cial force, than that of a military or political power.401 401 Since this study was made and this evaluation completed many changes have taken place in Japan due to the far-reaching policies of General MacArthur and the American Arrnw of Occupation. The Rescript issued for New Year's Day 1946 by Emperor Hirohito stated that "the ties between us and our people ••• are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine" (Associated Press Dispatch, December 31, 1945). Another report in the magazine Life carries the claims of a descendant of another imperial family, Hiromichi Kumazawa of the family of Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339), which was compelled to yield to the present imperial line (Life, January 21, 1946). Modern research will undoubtedly bring to light much material on the entire subject of the true nature and place of the imperial family in the social struc ture of Japan. 353 A second element that is distinguishable is the main tenance of power by the warrior-castes, in spite of the apparent social changes in modern Japan. In primitive times the warrior was the farmer-soldier; then he became the pro fessional defender within the non-unified clans; under the unification of the nation by the Tokugawa Shogunate, he was the feudal bushi, and in the modern era he appeared as the loyalist-fascist. As the controlling factor in the feudal era, his caste sought imperial sanction or ignored it as occasion demanded, and in the modern era, as loyalist, he built a structure of repression through emperor-loyalty and emperor-worship in the militarist kokutai -- a superstructure of rigid controls over the larger social order of the labor ing classes, -- a structure largely separated from the needs and wishes of the nation's people. A third discernible element is the dominance of socio ethical concepts through which the filial piety-loyalty em phasis of the bushido of the Shogunate was transformed into the emperor-centered loyalty-structure of vertical relation ships, which consistently denied the social gains of the common man. This development resulted in spite of the indi cations of a social conscience on the part of the ruling sovereigns of the Meiji era (1861-1912), and of the Showa era (1926-1945). The fourth and largest emphasis of this study has 354 been on the most significant element of the four, namely, that of the social turmoil within the repressed social order of the masses -- an order subject to the laws of social interaction, and destined to be a dominant factor in the future structure of the nation. That there are distinctions, as these, is sufficiently indicated in the various attempts to clarify the issues dur ing the decades since 1g30 -- by Christian leaders, to show that the Christian Movement is not in conflict with the con- cept of an imperial dynasty, although it is in conflict with the state-cult and emperor worship and the many religious pressures in spite of the guarantees of freedom of belief of the state constitution; 402 by non-Christian leaders, in the attempt to divorce ethics from militarism and sun-worship, and to set up an ethic which would combine patriotic loyalty and religious mysticism; and by politicians and industrial ists, in an attempt to set up an internationally-minded state, in which the emperor is the organ of the state and not the state itself. In all these emphases, the function of the imperial dynasty is taken for granted, but its social, political, economic and religious significance is variously dealt with. 402 D. Tagawa, "Christianity, Shintoism and the Japanese Kokutai," The Japan Mission Yearbook, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1g31), pp. 40 ff. 355 In spite of attempts to the contrary, the controlling influ- ence of the militarist-loyalist emphasis was strengthened; it was bolstered by the ~nchurian invasion of 1931, and the Chinese war of 193?; it ultimately over-reached itself in World War II in 1941. The modern struggle of the warrior-order was probably the death struggle of the old order. Kagawa has described this fascist order as a combination of Oyomei philosophy (thought-action as one process), imperial sentiment, and national socialism.403 Iglehart called attention to this trend of a new driving force of "renovationist" elements, which had much to do with events on the Asiatic mainland since 1931. They made the claim of being the "propulsive en ergy (sui-shin-ryoku) of reforms more thorough-going than even those of the Meiji era.n 4 04 The national-body, which resulted from their activi- ties, overshadowed the truer expression of the national structure in which the emperor was regarded as the symbol of the nation-family, and in which imperial benevolence ex pressed its concern for the family of its people. This 403 T. Kagawa, "As I See Japan Today," Kagawa Fellow ~ Bulletin, April 1935, (Tokyo: Friends of Jesus, 1935), p:-22. 404 C. w. Iglehart, "Crisis in the Japan Christian Movement,r' The Japan Christian Q.uarterly, XV {October 1940), P• 316. 356 latter emphasis was indicated in the Meiji proclamations of 1868. It was further evidenced in the Showa proclamation of surrender in 1945, as follows: The general trends of the world have all turned against her (Japan's) interest •• Should we continue to fight it would only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation •• Such being the case how are we to save the millions of our subjects; or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors.405 There was conflict in this super-structure, but the great conflict existed within the larger social structure of the masses, which constantly sought expression through the ordinary channels of social relationships. It was with the seventy millions of the common man on the farms and in the cities that a Kagawa worked, and in which the Christian leaders sought to defend their rights in the spirit of kyokaku and social chivalry. This social order and the modern national-body were like two separate worlds of social experience, affecting each other. yet not sufficiently re- lated to become an integrated structure for the social wel fare of the people. A second conclusion, which arises out of the analysis of this study, is that the Christian concepts of love and brotherhood, and their social implications, have not only found a place in the human relationships of Japan, but they 405 Tokyo Radio Broadcast, August 15, 1945. 357 have become a challenge to the rigid structure of the Con fucian-Shinto social organization. In the simpler clan-family structure. there was a sense of social solidarity. which was lost in the feudal organization. The nation-family had not carried forward the welfare-concerns of its members. The ready acceptance of the Jesuit Christian movement in the late sixteenth century, and the acceptance of the Christian ~vement of the middle nineteenth century in Japan, in spite of official proscrip tion notices, was due to the contributions of the Church in the direction of social betterment. Extant religions had contributed little in this area. The failure of serious persecutions of the Church to appear in the modern period is likewise due to the significant place of Christians in the work of social welfare through government bureaus as well as in Church and other agencies. The area of social reconstruction may be said to be almost pre-empted by the altruism of Christ-minded indi viduals and organizations. in spite of the increase of benevolence-minded Buddhist groups. Even the "benevolence'' of this religious force has been dovetailed into the verti cal structure of loyalties as impersonal charity -- an emphasis quite in contrast to the Christian emphasis of a society-redeeming Love as the basis of all social relation ships. 358 The struggle of the loyalty-concepts against the in cursion of the love-concepts took the form of ideological challenges. In the year 18QO, the key-note of the counter- movement was that "the Emperor of Japan is the only Son of God in the universe •• and Christianity is the enemy of this faith." 4 06 The structure of emperor-worship was in its in fancy, and the state-cult, in process of forming. In 1Q31, however, the Christians successfully challenged that struc ture, now grown rather strong, on the subject of the freedom of belief, and the question of whether the state-cult was a religion or not. But in 1Q38, the gendarmerie of the Osaka district challenged Christian leaders of that area in a questionnaire of twelve propositions relating to the Church and the State. 407 The final attack came in the demand of the State that the Church conform to its controls through the religious organizations bill in 1Q40, even though free dom of belief was a constitutional guarantee. In spite of the attempts to displace the social em phasis in Japanese life through ideological and through organizational controls, the progress of the love-concepts 406 T. Kagawa, "The Contribution of Christianity to the Thought Life of Japan," The Japan Mission Year Book. (Tokyo: xyo Bun Kwan, 1929), p. 200. 407 D. Tagawa, Kokka to Shukyo, The State and Relig ion, (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1938), pp. 122 ff. and the socialization of human relationships, through the new concepts, usages and associations, was not to be denied. School textbooks recognized the nature of the penetration of the ethical concepts of Christianity -- the emphasis on human equality was seen as working against the family system and the class structure of Japan, a process, however, in which "Christianity is gradually becoming assimilated." 40 8 The strength of communism in Japan was due to the sense of need for a change in the loyalty-structure. The major forces in the area of social reorganization have been Christianity and communism. Under the leadership of Kagawa, the Brotherhood Movement, together with the Church MOvement, has made important contributions in the socio-ethical struc- ture of Japan, whose results will become evident in the future. The great problem of Japan, as far as Kagawa was concerned, however, was not emperor-loyalty. It was rather a question of God-loyalty, with its demands of love on human thought and behaviour. In the combination of loyalty and love, Japan would find the solution to her thousands of years of social injustice. The nationalist superstructure had been compelled to yield step by step. Recurrent wars had been its assertion 408 c. B. De Forest, "The Penetration of Japanese Education by Christianity," The Japan Christian ~uarterly, IV (October 1929), p. 321. 360 of power to maintain prestige, yet, with each eruption of power, social changes were the result. Thus, through the relentless efforts of a general Christian penetration and the Kagawa movements, with the social changes following each war, the warrior-structure had seen the emergence of strong social forces for the improvement of the lot of the common man. Kagawa's list of seven important changes has been previously mentioned. In a later one 409 concerning these same changes, restated in five similar categories -- Personal Piety, Purity, Respect for Labour, the Spirit of Peace, and the Spirit of Social Service -- the place of Christian teach- ing as a means of social reconstruction is important, but every evidence points to the fact that it is the socio religious function of Christianity as the Way, or Do, which has given it its place in the Japanese social structure. The Brotherhood Movement and the Way of Redemptive Love, in a social organization where the cold values of vertical loyalties predominated, and where all these social experi- ences were lacking, was destined to be the instrument of social change for the good of the nation. This study has revealed the detailed nature of the tendencies in this 409 T. Kagawa, "Christ in Japan," Kagawa Fellowship Bulletin, V (December 1938), pp. 9, 10. 361 direction. A third major conclusion, which arises out of the data considered, is that the future of the Christian Move- ment in Japan will depend on its ability to serve as an institution of redeeming love in basic social reconstruction. Its indigenization, as a major ethico-religious force, will be related to its work as a Way of life and behaviour, to a greater extent than to its work as a system of thought, al though both are necessary. Christian ~ssions have challenged the established social order in Japan, but that order was well established and more highly integrated than that of many other non Christian civilizations. Nor is Japan a virgin field in either ideology or idealism; she is not a country to be di vested of her culture, and as has been stated by Katsuji Kato, "she is not a tabula ~.n410 Thus it is natural to ask as has often been asked, "What kind of Christianity?" will be the Christianity for Japan. A critic like Anesaki has stated plainly that the Christian Movement has been more of a problem for Japan than a solution in the past,4ll yet in another book, he 410 K. Kato, The Psychology of Oriental Religious Experience, (Menasha: The Collegiate-press, l9l5}, p. 82. 411 M. Anesaki, ~History of Japanese Religion, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Company, 1930), p. 406. 362 has declared: Today in the Orient the prestige of Christianity as the agent of modern civilization, as the maker of the steam engine and telegraph has fallen down •• This, how ever, is in no way a real loss to Christianity, but a gain, because the time has arrived when Christianity is estimated by its real value as a religion and it is its deeper meaning which is now being sounded by earnest Japanese souls.412 The evaluation of Christianity which appeared in the non-Christian, Japan Year Book for 1940-41, is as follows: Christianity has made a valuable contribution towards civilization of Japan with its world-wide nature and positive teachings. The number of believers is com paratively small, but its influence on the people, thought and morals is said to be even greater than that of Buddhism ••• It has still to amalgamate itself with the life of the people in order to exert a greater in fluence upon them.4~3 Thus the problem before the Christian Movement is not the extent to which it will, or will not, join in syncretis tic or union movements, nor is it a question of how much or how little of the indigenous culture materials may be chosen for the socio-religious structure of the Church. It is rather a question of the natural development resulting from the impact of the Person of Christ and the New Testament . Message, and their penetration of Japanese life in the area of the subconscious, as well as conscious, religious 412 M. Anesaki, The Religious and Social Problems of~ ~Or~i~e=n~t, (New York~cmillan Company, l923), p. 29. 413 Article on "Christianity," !!!.! Japan ~ ~· 1940-41, P• 676. 363 experiences of the Japanese person. Speculation has been rife on the characteristics of a "Japanized Christianity," or Nihon-teki Kirisutokyo. To some this phrase conveys the idea of an Occidental Christian ity reclothed in Japanese garments. In such an emphasis, the problem would be that of the interchange of the more visible culture goods of the East and the West in the area of customs, traditions and organizations. This process has not been a problem with Kagawa, al though he has spoken against the insistence that the Occiden tal expressions of the Church N~vement must be the form which Christianity in Japan must take, theologically and ethically, as well. The kind of Christianity which will be permanent, and thus indigenous to Japan, will be the resultant of dec ades and centuries of life on the pattern known as the Christ-like life. It must naturally be different for Japan, as it has been for Europe, and for America, insofar as its people live in different cultural and social environments. It will be the same, however, as regards its impli cations of a universal religion, and a brotherhood movement, based on mutual aid and redemptive love. Its God will be the God of Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Redeemer, whose Son was only-begotten, and was reconciling through the Cross -- not one of the deities of the Buddhist or Shinto pan theons, or even the great god of the central heavens, 364 Ame-no-minaka-nushi-no-o-mikami -- even though he is thought of as a fore-shadowing of the Hebrew-Christian revelation, or as the god of Jimmu Tenno, as many laymen and theologians alike are thinking today. That there will be less doctrine than practise, for some decades in the post-war era, is evident because of the material destruction wrought in Japan during the war, as well as by the pre-war demand for a practical expression of Chris tian living. The yearning for a concrete expression of Christ-like love has not been Kagawa's yearning alone. From the standpoint of the theologian, a "fellowship of worship" and a presentation of "the Person-Christ" has been the demand rather than discussions about Him -- not another religious teaching, or a symbol. or an ideal, but the "living Person ality."414 And the assuring word of Jesus Christ concerning the problem of death, rather than a religion of morals, has been another common demand.415 Yet even with such doctrinally expressed yearnings, the movement of Christianity into Japanese life, in its huge complex of social, economic, ethical and religious relation- 414 s. Murao, "The Church as an Agency for Individual and Social Regeneration," The Japan Christian j.Uarterly, VIII (October 1933), pp. 340 ff. 415 T. Hirotsu, "The Experience of Christian Conver sion," The Japan Christian Q,uarterly, VII (July 1932), pp. 238 ff.- 365 ships, is largely that of a Way of Life -- a new realization of spiritual values for thinker and laborer alike, -- for farmer and judge, housewife and churchman. ~any of the New Testament behaviour patterns of the individual and society alike, -- in the writings of the Gospels with their parables and their stories of everyday life, -- are often closer to the Japanese and the Oriental mind, than they have been to the Occidental mind, even through centuries of western church growth, by reason of the similarities to present-day social practise in the Orient. The taking off of shoes, and the choosing of lower seats at banquet tables, the outward humility and reticence in social contacts in the home and on the street, these are character istic of the Orient of today. It is to be expected that the message of a God of Love in a society so direly in need of social justice as that of Japan, will find types of religious expression, missed by the Occidental. The emphases of a Kagawa have already pointed out some areas of departure in Christian living and thinking, which may be quite as valid in their expression of the Christ-life in modern society. Tsurumi, after an interview with Kagawa, gave expres sion to the feeling of many an Oriental, that Asia "may pos sess more deeply and in a purer form, even that which Westerners themselves had produced. What about Christianity? 366 Even this religion -- is it not rather finding a resurrection in the Orient from which it sprang?"416 The Christianity of Japan will indeed be a contribu- tion to the Kingdom life, and to man's understanding of the eternal principles of Love, revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ. Less than a century has elapsed -- much can be expected in the new era of free acceptance of the Christian Message in Japan with the advent of peace. It will be a Christianity in Japan, rather than a Japanized Occidental Christianity. The fourth and last major area of conclusions in re- gard to this study is that the life and work of Toyohiko Kagawa moved in the direction of the main, and thus perma nent, currents of Japanese life, and that in the integra tion of his personality, there is evident a type of person ality-integration that may be expected in the larger Chris tian community of the future, in view of the great social and religious needs of Japan. His faith and devotion to both God and country have revealed the combination of love and loyalty that is possible in the family-nation structure of Japan. The details of this study have lifted out of his life- 416 Y. Tsurumi, "Toyohiko Kagawa," The Japan Chris ~ ~uarterly, X (April 1935), pp. 111, 112. 367 story some of the many varied factors that contributed to his character and leadership. The goal of his life work was a reconstruction of the social order with its great in justices, rather than the mere amelioration of social ills. Human welfare in the spiritual, as well as the physical, sense was the burden of his heart. His every approach to the problems of Japan's people has been that of the sincere and devoted Christian. His own writings, and the writings of those who have known him best, have revealed a very humble man. whose one ambition was to be a worthy servant of the Christ. There was none of the politician or the diplomat in him, yet he lived and worked so that Japan's House of Parliament might, one day, be filled with men and women, dedicated to the realistic task of the redemption of the commoner in the urban and rural areas of Japan's social order. A contemporary, in the field of religious history, though of a Buddhist background and faith, has measured the stature of Kagawa as follows: In these and other utterances which have back of them his life and work, we see the strong, but meek, personal ity of Kagawa flooded with rays of hope and faith, even though i~rounded by the most dismal shadows of the slums. 4 417 Anesaki. Religious and Social Problems of the Orient. p. 66. 368 Kagawa's own evaluation of his life and its purposes, can be seen in his own summary of his inner experiences, as reflected in the words which he applied to his Master, Jesus Christ, as He faced crisis after crisis in the social order of His day - But instead of the wish to lead a revolution, there was in the consciousness of Christ the will to make up for the deficiencies of others to save them -- the solidarity-responsibility consciousness.418 0 Son of Man, bearing the Cross upon his exhausted and bruised shoulders, climbing the hill of Calvary, - I myself have seen him.4lg Kagawa has stood firm in his faith concerning the place of the Person of Jesus Christ in Japan's religious life. De liverance from sin, in its practical and its theoretical meanings, could be achieved only at the cost of the Cross, and the suffering of the Son of God. The youth-become-man was consistent in his approach to his life tasks. In the struggle with pain in the world, in the years of fellow-suffering in the slums, in the con flicts of the social order and the merciless inhumanity of man to man, Kagawa is seen as one man of his nation, at grips with its very social structure. It was not a self conceived life ambition, but a burden placed on his shoulders 418 T. Kagawa, Meditations on the Cross, (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1Q36r:-p. 25. 419 ~., P• 11. 369 by his Lord and Master. A Japanese national, in the sense of a patriotic citi zen of his country, and completely identified with her weal and woe, yet a Christian idealist whose faith demanded an international fellowship of mankind within and without Japan, Kagawa gave the highest type of Christian leadership. Today with his heart torn between national and supernational loy alties, he has seen his proud nation bowed low in shame and bitterness. The feudal relics and the old loyalty-structure have been completely shattered with the surrender of 1945. The restrained forces of social chivalry will have a new oppor tunity to express themselves, after the abortive attempts of the early Meiji period. The place of Kagawa, in the great task of social reconstruction on a Christian level, unre strained by military controls, will undoubtedly be signifi cant. The work of this great period of transition, as fraught with danger and uncertainty as with challenge and opportunity as in the Meiji era, will be the task of many decades, and with much leadership of the quality of a Kagawa. The earlier struggle of communism and anarchism, as well as other forms of radical materialism, will challenge the claims of a spiritually-motivated society, whose goals, in the realm of the economic and the social life of the people, were to 370 be reached by mutual respect and responsibility. This study has showed somewhat of the nature of the invisible forces of the social order, and their tendencies in the socio-economic and the socio-religious areas of Japan's modern life through the year 1941. Whatever of so cial progress may follow in the era of peace after World War II, will move in the direction of the social forces seen in the work of men like Kagawa. 420 The basic social struc ture of the millions of Japan's masses has sought expression throughout the modern period from Meiji to the present. The life of the people of Japan has appeared in its 420 It is of importance to note that, in the program of social reform for Japan instituted by General NacArthur, the changes demanded follow the outline of the Kagawa list of changes already initiated and to some extent realized in Japan through the total Christian Movement, namely, the emancipation of women, through the franchise and other means, the encouragement of labor organizations, a more liberal educational policy, the abolition of secret inquisition methods, and the democratization of Japan's entire economy. The lifting off of the military superstructure has released the social forces which have been the object of this study. With the removal of the superimposed kokutai, and its artificial controls, the true social structure stands revealed -- undeveloped but prepared to accept the new oppor tunity that is being offered to the nation. The MacArthur program will succeed insofar as it builds on the foundations laid by a Kagawa and the Church, because the constructive forces are in Japan, and have been there. They can not be superimpose~by another civilization. In this larger program of social reconstruction, Kagawa is already at work, and his leadership is not in significant in spite of the fact that the ravages of war have leaned heavily on his years and on his heart. 371 total perspective in the life of this one man, a representa tive of the Christian movement, in the struggle to bring the levelling influence of love into the social order of loyal ties. The tendencies point to an era of social emancipation, and a structure in which the love-concepts will continue their work for the improvement of the lot of the common man, -- in the Way of Redemptive Love. BIBLIOGRAPHY THE BIBLIOGRAPHY A. BOOKS Akimoto, Shunkichi, The Lure of Japan. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1934. 371 PP• Anesaki, Masaharu, The History of Japanese Religion. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1930. 423 pp. ----~-· The Religious and Social Problems of the Orient, New York: The MacmiTian Company, 1923. ~7 pp. Axling, William, Japan ~ the Upward Trail. New York: Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1923. 180 pp. , Kagawa. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932. ----:::2=0~2 pp. Aston, William G., Shinto. 1Q! Way of !Q! ~·New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1905. 390 pp. Brinkley, Frank, ~ History of the Japanese People. New York: The Encyclopedia Britannica Company, l914. 786 pp. Bogardus, Emory s., The New social Research. Los Angeles: J. R. Miller, 19267 287 pp. ----~-' Leaders and Leadership. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1934. 325 pp. Chamberlain, Basil H., Translation of the Kojiki. Kobe: J. L. Thompson and Company, 19327 ~5 pp. ----~-· Things Japanese. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1905, reprint 1927. 591 pp. Cary, Otis, A History of Christianity in Japan. Vol. II. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909. Embree, John F., Suyemura, ~Japanese Village. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939. 354 pp. ----=--· The Japanese Nation, ~ Social Survey. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1945. 308 pp. Ellwood, Charles A., Methods in Sociology. Durham: Duke University Press, 1933. 214 pp. 373 Fry, c. Luther, The Technique of Social Investigation. New York: Harper and Brothers,-r934. 315 pp. Fujisawa, , Recent Aims and Political Development of Japan. New Haven: Yale UniverSity Press, 1923. 222 pp. Faust, Allen K., Christianity~~ Social Factor in Japan. Lancaster: Steinman and Foltz, 1909. 96 pp. Fisher, Galen M., Creative Forces in Japan. New York: Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1923. 248 pp. Gulick, Sidney L., Evolution of the Japanese. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1905. 463 pp. Harada, Tasuku, The Faith of Japan. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914. 190 pp. Hibino, Yutaka, Nippon Shindo Ron. Cambridge: The University Press, 1928. 176 pp. Honjo, Eijiro, !h! Social and Economic History of Japan. Kyoto: Jigyokudo, 1935. 410 pp. Holtom, Daniel c., The Political Philosophy of ~darn Shinto. Tokyo: Keio Gijiku, 1922. 325 pp. ------~· , The National Faith of Japan. London: Kagan Paul, Trenc~Trubner and Company, 1938. 329 pp. ----~~· Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, l943. 178 pp. Hepner, Charles W., The Kurozumi Sect of Shinto. Tokyo: Meiji Japan Society, 1935. 263 pp-.- Hader, John H. and Eduard c. Lindeman, Dynamic Social Re search. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1933. 231 PP• Harada, Shuichi, Labor Conditions in Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1928. 293 pp. James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Random House, 1902. 526 pp. 374 Kagawa, Toyohiko, Songs From the Slums. Interpretations by Lois Erickson. London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1935. 75 pp. , Before the Dawn. New York: George H. Doran Company, ---=1"""'9~24. 398 pp.-- , Yesu to Shizen no MOkushi, Jesus and the Revelation -----o~f~Nature.--Tokyo: Keiseisha, 1923. 247 pp. -------' Love the Law of Life. Philadelphia: John c. Winston Company, 1929. ---'313 pp:-- , Seizon Kyoso B£ Tetsugaku, The Philosophy of the ----~S~t-ruggle for Existence. Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1925. 349 pp. ----~-· Nokosaretaru Toga, The Remaining Thorn. Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha, 1926. 102 pp. ----~~· Sanjo a£ Suikun, The Sermon on the Mount. Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha, 1927. 176 pp. , Seimei Shukyo to Seimei Geijutsu, Tokyo: Keiseisha, -~S~h-oten, 1927. 345 pp. ----~-· Kami ni Yoru Shinko, Faith Through God. Osaka: Nichiyo Sekai6ha7 1928. 344 pp. ----~~· Saisho no Shakwai Undo, The Social Movements of the Bible. OsakBT Nichiyo Sekaisha, 1928. 264 pp. ----~-· Kami ni Yoru Shinsei, New Life Through God. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan,l'929. 188 pp. , Shukyo Kyoiku B£ Honshitsu, The Principles of -~R~e~ligious Education. Tokyo: Shun Shu Sha, 1929. 200 pp. ----~~· Seijo to Kanki, Perfection and Joy. Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha, 1929. 271 pp. , ~ to Seiai B& Fukuin, God and the Gospel of ----:D~i-vine Love. Shimonoseki: Fukuin Shokwan, 1930. 198 pp. ----=-~· Kami ni Tsuite no Meise, Meditations About God. Tokyo: Kyo-sun Kwan,-r930. 191 pp. ----~-· The Religion of Jesus. London: Student Christian Movement Press, l93I. 126 pp. 375 Kagawa, Toyohiko, Kirisuto ni Tsuite no Meiso, Meditations About Christ. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan7 1932. 200 pp. ----~~· Azarashi no Gotoku, Like a Sea-Lion. Tokyo: Dai Nihon Yubenkwar-Kodansha, 1933. 441 pp. , Meditations on the Cross. London: Student Christian ----~M~o-vement Press, 1934-.--239 pp. ----~~· Sei Rei ni Tsuite no Meiso, Meditations on the Holy Spiri~ TokyO: Kyo Bun~wan, 1934. 144 pp. , Christ and Japan. New York: Friendship Press, 1934. ----::1--:-4-.:-1 p p. ----~~· Nyd to Mitsu B£ Nagareru Sato, Land Flowing with Milk an Honey. Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1931. 472 pp. ----~-· Noson Shakwai Jigyo, Rural Social Work. Tokyo: Nihon Hyoron Sha, 1933. , Kumiai Kokka !2 Rongi Kokka Kaizo Bi Oyobu, ----~A-s-sociated States and State Reconstruction. Tokyo: Gakusei Shohi Kumiai, 1934. ----~-· The Land £! Milk and Honey. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937. 287 pp. ----~-· Sangyo Kumiai Tokuhon, Primer for Industrial Asso ciations. Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1938. 354 pp. ----~-· Meditations £g the Holy Spirit. Nashville: Cokes bury Press, 193~. 160 pp. ----=--' Brotherhood Economics. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936. 196 PP• , Jesus Through Japanese Eyes. London: Lutterworth ----=p~r-ess. 1934. 110 pp. , The Challenge of Redemptive Love. New York: The ----::A~b-ringdon Press, 1940. l60 pp. - , Behold the ~n. New York: Harper and Brothers, -~1~9-:-41. 202 pp:- - Kagawa, Toyohiko, Collections of Addresses and Speeches, H. Topping, editor. Tokyo: Friends of Jesus: Communism and Cooperatives. III, December 1930. 30 pp. Friends £!Jesus, Shanghai. Friends of Jesus, Tsinan. 376 IV, April 1931. 30 pp. IV, December 1931. 75 pp. The Economic Foundation of World Peace. V, August 1932. ~~. - The Christian Internationale. VI, June 1933. VII, August 1934. 54 pp. 90 PP• Kagawa in the Philippines. Kagawa in Australia. Kagawa Comes ~· VIII, February 1936. 135 pp. IX, June 1937. 64 pp. Kiyohara, Sadao, Nippon Dotoku-shi, History of Japanese Morals. Tokyo: Chubun Kwan Shoten, 1930. 756 pp. Kate, Katsuji, The Psychologl of Oriental Religious Expe rience, Menasha: The Col egiate Press, 1915. 102 pp. Kate, Genchi, A Study of Shinto. Tokyo: ~iji Society, 1926. 255 pp. Kawabe, Kisaburo, The Press and Politics in Japan. Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 1921. 190 pp. Kaji, Ryuichi, Japan, ~ Cultural Development. Tokyo: Kokusai Bunkwa Shinkokwai, l939. 74 pp. Knox, George w., The Development£! Religion in Japan. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1907. 204 pp. Kobayashi, Uchisaburo, The Basic Industries and Social History of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930. 280 PP• Latourette, Kenneth s., The Development of Japan. New York: The N~cmillan Company, 1918. 237 pp. Lampe, William E., The Japanese Social Organization. Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1910. 84 pp. Lederer, Emil, Japan in Transition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918. 237 PP• Lynd, Roberts. and Helen M., ~ddletown. New York: Har court Brace and Company, 1929. 550 pp. 377 Lynd, Roberts. and Helen M., Middletown in Transition. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company,-r937. 604 pp. Nitobe, Inazo, ~Japanese Nation. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912. 334 pp. ----~-· Bushido, 1h! ~ £! Japan. Tokyo: Teibi Publish ing Company. 1914. 177 pp. ______ , ~ Childhood. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1934. 71 pp. Ono Tada, The Philosophy of Buddhism. Tokyo: Shiseisha, 1918. 110 pp. Okakura, Yoshisaburo, The Life and Thou~ht of the Japanese. London: J. M. Dent and Son, 1913. 50 pp. Ogata, Kiyoshi, ~Cooperative MOvement in Japan. London: P. s. King and Son, 1923. 362 pp. Paske-Smith, M., Jaeanese Traditions of Christianity. J. L. Thompson ompany, 1930. l3~pp. Kobe: Proceedings of the General Conference of Protestant Mission aries, To-kyo:-1900. Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House, l901. 900 pp.---- Petty, Orville A., editor, Laymen's Mission Inquiry, Fact finder's Report 2Q Japan. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1933. 316 pp. Royama, Masamichi, Problems of Contemporary Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1935. 44 pp. Redesdale, Lord, Tales of Old Japan. London: Macmillan and Company, 1928. 302 pp. Reed, John P., Kokutai. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1940. 274 pp. Report of the Conference of Protestant Missionaries, Osaka, l882. ~kyo: Methodist Publishing House, l883. 1000 pp. Sansom, G. B., Japan,~ Short Cultural History. London: The Cresset Press, 1936. 516 pp. Satomi, Kishio, The Discovery of Japanese Idealism. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, l924. London: 178 PP• Satomi, Kishio, Japanese Civilization. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1929. 238 pp. Saunders, Kenneth, The Ideals of the East and West. New York: The Macmillan Company, IS34:--246 pp:--- Scherer, James A. B., Romance of Japan. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926. 326 pp. 378 Tagawa, Daikichiro, Kokka to Shukyo, The State and Religion. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1938. 304 pp. Tachibana, Shundo, The Ethics of Buddhism. London: Oxford University Press:-1926. 288 pp. Topping, Helen, Introducing Kagawa. Chicago: Willett Clark and Company, 1935. 33 pp. Thomas, A. F. and Koyama, Soji, Commercial History of Japan. Tokyo: The Yuhodo Limited, 1936. l68 pp. -- Tsurumi, Yusuke, Present Day Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1926. 114 pp. ----~~· and Chirol, Reawakening of the Orient. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925. -r7~p. Tsuchida, Kyoson, Contemporary Thought of Japan and China. New York: Knopf and Company, 1927. 239 pp. Uchimura, Kanzo, How I Became a Christian. Tokyo: Keiseisha, 1924. 199 pp-. - - - ----~=' Representative~ ot Japan. Tokyo: Keiseisha, 1908. 233 PP• Van Baalen, Jan K., Kagawa, the Christian. Wm. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1936. Wildes, Harry E., Social Currents in Japan. University Press, 1927. 390 pp. Grand Rapids: 108 pp. Chicago: Chicago B. PERIODICALS - ARTICLES AND ADDRESSES Brown, I. Corinne, "Gandhi and Kagawa in Comparison and Contrast," Friends of Jesus, IV (.April 1931), 3-5. 379 De Forest, Charlotte B., "The Penetration of Japanese Educa tion by Christianity," The Japan Christian Q.uarterly, IV (October 1929), 307-23. Ebina, Danjo, "An Interview," The Japan Christian Quarterly, V (January 1930) Ebisawa, Akira, "The Special Evangelistic Campaign," The Japan Christian Quarterly, IV (July 1929), 277-78:-- Hirotsu, T., "The Experience of Christian Conversion," The Japan Christian Quarterly, VII (July 1932), 238-41. Iglehart, Carles w., "Crisis in the Japan Christian Move ment," The Japan Christian y,uarterly, XY (October 1940), 315-26. Kozaki, Michio, "A Book Review" on Kami ni Tsui te no M.eiso, Meditations About God, The Japan-chriSt1an ~uarterly, V (July 1930), 290-92. Kagawa, Toyohiko, "The Ethical Teachings of Jesus Christ," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 34-43. , "What Christ is Doing for Japan," Kagawa in ----~A-u-stralia- Friends of Jesus, VIII (February 1936), 51-57. -- ----~-· "The Mystery of History," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 47-51. -- ----~~· "Address at the Tsinan International Friendship Club," Friends of Jesus, IV (December 1931), 5-9. --=--:-' "What I Owe to Christ," Kagawa in the Philippines, Friends of Jesus, VII (August 1934), 65-71. --"::'"":..,..• "The City Problem," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 14-20. -- --=--' "The Humanizing of Industry," The Japan Christian Quarterly, III {January 1928), 41-53. ---=---' "Church Relief for the Unemployed,n Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930), 13-14. -- ---~-· "The Application of the Cross to Society," Friends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 10-14. 380 Kagawa, Toyohiko, "Recent Happenings in Radical Groups," Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930}, 20-23. , "The Penetration of Japanese Industry by Christian -___,.i...,.t-y," The Japan Christian Quarterly, IV (October 1929), 324-32:-- , "The Cross as the Foundation for Social Evolution," --~F~r~iends of Jesus, IV (April 1931), 6-10. --=--"""'' "The Philosophy of the Cooperative Movement," Kagawa Fellowship Bulletin, II (April 1935), 2-7. , "The Social Side of Religious Education," Friends --o-:::f~Jesus, IV (April 1931), 30-34. , "The Kingdom of God ~vement -- Its Future Programme ----.:- and Philosophy," The Japan Christian Quarterly, VI (July 1931}, 209-16. ---=---' "Our Technique of Kingdom Building," Friends of Jesus, VIII (February 1936}, 98-102. --~-· "Our Ancient Heritage," The Japan Christian Quarterly, XV (April 1940), 112-14. --=-' "As I See Japan Today," Kagawa Fellowship Bulletin, II (April 1935}, 22-24. --'""'=-' "Christ in Japan," Kagawa Fellowship Bulletin, V (December 1938}, 8-11. 1~tsumiya, Kazuya, "Rural Depression and the Traffic in Women," The Japan Christian Quarterly, X (January 1935), 7-15. Mizuno, R., "An Interview on the Shrine ~uestion," The Japa~ Christian Quarterly, V (July 1930), 249-58. Murao, M.s., "A Book Review," The Japan Christian Q,uarterly, IV (October 1929), 387-88.-- N.lyers, Harry W. , "Kagawa and the Slums," The NJ.ssionary Review of~ World, 1913. Murao, Shoichi, "The Church as an A.gency for Individual and Social Regeneration," The Japan Christian Quarterly, VIII (October 1933}, 340-53. 381 Morito, Tatsuo, "Christian Influences in the Lives of Certain Japanese Socialists,"~ Japan Christian _guarterly, XI (July 1936), 257-68. Namae, Professor, "The General Economic Situation in Japan," Friends of Jesus, III (December 1930), 10-13. Sugiyama, Motojiro, "The Rural Problem," The Japan Christian ~uarterly, VI (April 1931), 107-15. Tagawa, Daikichiro, "Church Unity-- Next Steps to be Taken," The Japan Christian Quarterly, II (January 1927), 57-62. Tsurumi, Yusuke, "Toyohiko Kagawa," The Japan Christian Quarterly, X (April 1935), 111-1~ Topping, Helen, "The Real Presence of God," Friends of Jesus, IV (December 1931), 36-38. -- --......,.=' "Notes on Rural Evangelism in Japan," Kagawa Comes Home, Friends of Jesus, IX (June 1937), 16-22. ---==---' "Kagawa's Boyhood Teacher and Friend," Kagawa Comes Home, Friends of Jesus, IX (June 1937), 12-13. , "The Message of the Kingdom of God Movement,, The ----J=a=pan Christian Quarterly, IV (July 1929), 224-43. ---- Walton, H. MUrray, Editor, The Japan Christian Quarterly, II (January 1929), 1-79. Farnum, M. D., "News Items," The Japan Christian Quarterly, XV (October 1940). Editorial, The Christian Century, (June 6, 1945). Editorial, Newsweek, (May 7, 1945). Yamamuro, Gumpei, "Geisha Girls," The Japan Christian Quar terly, V (April 1930), 106-14.-- Yamagishi, Ak:ira, "The Cooperative Movement in Japan Today," ~Japan Christian ·~uarterly, XI (July 1936), 209-20. Yasumura, Saburo, "Reflections Upon the Three Years of the Kingdom of God Movement," The Japan Christian Q,uarterly, VIII (July 1933), 225-30. 382 C. ESSAYS Abe, Isoo, "The Problem of Unemployment." The Japan Christian Year ~· Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1931.--pp. 241-48. Anesaki. Masaharu, "The Idea of Moral Heritage in the Japa nese Family," Katam Karaniyam, Essays. Tokyo: The Herald Press, 1934. Pp. 117-28 • .Article, "Christianity," The Japan Year Book for 1940-41. Tokyo: Foreign Affairs Association of Japan. Pp. 681-85. Berry, Arthur D •• "Religious Syncretism in Japan," The Christian Movement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1925. Pp. 231-41. Davis, J. Merle, "A Study of Conditions Among Industrial Men of Tokyo - The Laborers' Reform Union, The Laborers' Friendly Society," The Christian ~vement in Japan 1914. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan-:-T9l4. Pp. 134-53. - -- Ebisawa, Akira. "The National Christian Council of Japan," ~ Jaf!n ~fission ~Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan. 1929. Pp. 12 -29. Fisher, Galen, "Origins of the Labor Movement in Japan," The Christian Movement ~Japan, Formosa, and Korea, 1917-.- Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1917. Pp. 317-23. Hinder, E. M. and H. Topping, "Toyohiko Kagawa," Introduction to Love the Law of Life. Chicago: John c. Winston Company,--yg2g:- Pp. 1-37. Kagawa, Toyohiko, "The Recent History of the Japanese Labor Movement," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930. Pp. 29-35 • • "Recent Developments in Rural Communities," The ----~J-a-pan Christian Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan. 1937. Pp. 189-94. --~=--' "The Church and Present Trends," The Japan Christian Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1938. Pp. 169-74. ------,,.....' "Contributions of Christianity to the Thought Life of Japan," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1929. Pp. 193-206. 383 Katayama, Tetsu, "The Proletarian Movement," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930. Pp. 209- 12. --- Kubushiro, o •• "The Year's Events and Progress Regarding the Social Evil," The Christian Movement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, l92?-.- Pp. 189-95. Mayer, Pauls., "The Protestant Churches in 1938," The Japan Christian~ Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1g39. Pp. 1?9-98. I!Y'ers, Harry, "Kagawa and the Shinkawa Slums,n The Christian ~vement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan. MacDonald, Caroline, The Christian N~vement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea:- Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 191?. Smith, Roy, "An Economic Survey of Japan," The Japan Chris tian Year ~· Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1940. Pp. 44-59. Sugiyama, Kenji, "Social Thinking in Japanese Universities and Colleges," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930. Pp. 195-208. Sugiyama, Motojiro, "Rural Problems in Japan," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1929. Pp. 41-48. -- --::--' "A Study of the Rural Problem," The Japan Mission !!!! ~· Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1930. Pp. 1?9-93. Suzuki, Bunji, "The Labor Movement in 1923," The Christian Movement in Japan, Formosa, and Korea. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1924. Pp. 193-200. Tagawa, Daikichiro, "Christianity, Shintoism, and the Japa nese Kokutai," The Japan Mission Year Book. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1931. Pp. 39-49. Walton, w. H. Murray, "Biographical Sketch," The Religion of Jesus. London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1931. Pp. 9-19. 384 D. UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS Hori, J., "The History of Religious Education in Buddhism," Unpublished Master's Thesis, The University of Southern California, 1931. 90 pp. Shizuoka, , ''The Influence of Buddhism and Christianity on Japanese Morals," Unpublished Master's Thesis. The University of Southern California, 1935. 100 pp. Chien Fu Lung, "The Evolution of Chinese Social Thought," Unpublished Doctor's Dissertation, The University of Southern California, 1935. 393 pp. Knudten, Arthur c., "The Development of the Indigenous Church in Japan," Unpublished Master's Thesis, The University of Chicago, 1928. 100 pp. E. NEWS MATERIALS The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, July 29, 1944. TOkyO Radio Broadcast, July 28, 1945. -------' August 15, 1945. .APPENDIX A LIST OF ~ COMPLETE WORKS OP' TOYOHIKO KAGAWA 1. Yogensha Eremiah, The Prophet Jeremiah, Tokyo: Keiseisha Nov. 1913 2. Kirisutoden Ronsoreki, The Debate on the Life of Christ, Tokyo: Keiseisha Dec. 1913 3. Himin Shinri B£ Kenkyu, The Psychology of Poverty, Tokyo: Keiseisha Apr. 1915 4. Seishin Undo to Shakwai Undo, Spiritual Movements and Social Movements. Tokyo: Keiseisha Aug. 1917 5. Rodosha Suhairon, Essay on Labor Worship, Tokyo: Fukunaga Shoten 6. Namida no Nitobun, Divided Tears, Tokyo: Fukunaga Shoten Nov. 1919 Nov. 1919 7. Ningenku to Ningenkenchiku, Human Suffering and Human Building, Tokyo: Keiseisha Apr. 1920 8. Shukan Keizai no Genri, The Principle of Subjectivity Economics,~okyo: Keiseisha Jun. 1920 9. Yesuden no Oshiekata, How to Teach the Life of Jesus, OsakaT Nichiyo Sekaisha Oct. 1920 10. Shisen wo Koete (Bk. I), Crossing the Death-Line, Tokyo: Kaizosha Nov. 1920 11. Chikoku wo Yabutte, Breaking the Grain of Earth, Tokyo: Fukunaga Shoten Dec. 1920 12. Jiyu Kumiairon, Essay on Free Society, Tokyo: Keiseisha 13. Yujo, Friendship, Tokyo: Keiseisha Jun. 1921 Dec. 1921 14. Yesu B£ Shukyo to Sono Shinri, The Religion of Jesus and Its Truth, Tokyo: Keiseisha Dec. 1921 15. Shisen wo Koete (Bk. II), Crossing the Death-Line Tokyo: Kaizosha Dec. 1921 386 16. Seisho Shakaigaku B£ Kenkyu, Study on Biblical Sociology, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha ~r. 1922 17. Hoshi yori Hoshi ~ a2 Tsuro, Passage from Star to Star. Tokyo: Kaizosha ~y. 1922 18. Ningen Toshite ~taru Shito Pauro, The Apostle Paul as a Man, Tokyo: Keiseisha Jul. 1922 19. Seison Kyoso Q£ Tetsugaku, Philosophy of the Struggle for Existence, Tokyo: Kaizosha Nov. 1922 20. Kuchu Seifuku, Conquest of the Air, Tokyo: Kaizosha Dec. 1922 21. Raicho no Mesamuru Mae, Before the Awakening of the Snow-Grouse, Tokyo: Kaizosha ~r. 1923 22. ~ B£ Nichijo Seikatsu, The Daily Life of Jesus. Tokyo: Keiseisha Jun. 1923 23. Yesu to Shizen no Mokushi, Jesus and the Revelation ---or~ature, Tokyo: Keiseisha Jun. 1923 24. Kunan ni Taisuru Taido, Attitudes Toward Suffering, Tokyo: Keiseisha Feb. 1924 25. Ai B£ Kagaku, Science of Love, Tokyo: Bunka Seikatsu Kenkyukai ~y. 1924 26. Chikyu !£ Funbo Toshite, A Globe of Graves, Tokyo: Atene Shein Jun. 1924 27. Yesu Naibu Seikatsu, The Inner Life of Jesus, ~okyo: Keiseisha Jul. 1924 28. Shisen wo Koete {Bk. III), Crossing the Death-line Tokyo: Kaizosha Dec. 1924 29. Fukuin Sho ni Awarerataru Yesu B£ Sugata, The Figure of Jesus in Gospels. Tokyo: Keiseisha Jan. 1925 30. Kami Tono Taiza, Facing God, ----Tokyo: Keiseisha 31. Kami no Futokoro, In the Arms of God, ~okyo: Keiseisha Aug. 1925 Dec. 1925 32. Eien no Chibusa, The Eternal Sustainer, ---T-okyo: Fukunaga Shoten 387 Dec. 1925 33. Kagawa, Toyohiko Koenshu, The Lectures of Toyohiko Kagawa, Tokyo: Dai Nippon Yubenkai Kodansha Apr. 1926 34. Unsui Henro, A Journal of Travels, Tokyo: Kaizosha 35. Jinsei Mondai, The Problems of Human Life, Tokyo: Nihon Seinenkan 36. Kami ni Yoru Kaiho, Emancipation by God, ~okyo: Keiseisha 37. Tamashi no Chokoku, Sculpture of the Soul, Tokyo:-Bunka Seikatsu Kenkyukai 38. Anchu Sekigo, A Single Word in the Darkness, Tokyo: Shunjusha 39. Nokosaretaru Toge, The Remaining Thorn, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha Apr. 1926 Jun. 1926 Jul. 1926 Oct. 1926 Dec. 1926 Dec. 1926 40. Seimei Shukyo to Seimei Geijitsu, Living Religion and Living Art, Tokyo: Keiseisha Feb. 1927 41. Biyonin Ianho, How to Comfort the Sick People, Tokyo: Yesu no Tomokai May, 1927 42. Yesu 1£ Jinruiai B£ Naiyo. Jesus and the Content of Human Love, Tokyo: Keiseisha Sep. 1927 43. Kirisuto Ichidaiki no Hanashi, The Story of Life of Christ, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha Dec. 1927 44. Nampu ni Kisou Mono, Competition with Southern Wind, Tokyo: Haku Bunkan Jan. 1928 45. Jinrui ~ B£ Sengen, Proclamation to the People, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha May, 1928 46. Kami ni Yoru Shinko, Faith Through God, ---osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha 47. Katamukeru Daichi. The Inclining Earth, Tokyo: Kaneo Buyendo ~y. 1928 Jul. 1928 388 48. Saisho no Shakai Undo, Social Movements in the Bible, Osaka: Nichiyo-sekaisha Jul. 1928 49. Kurushinde Kurushimi Nuita Hito no Hanashi, The Story of a Sufferer Until the End:-Tekyo: Shoyodo Oct. 1928 50. Kangofu no Shuyo, Culture for Nurses, Tokyo:-tesu no Tomokai 51. Seijo to Kanki, Purity and Gladness, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha 52. Junkyo ~ Chi !£ Uketsugu ~· Successors to the Blood of Y£rtyrdom, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha Apr. 1929 53. Guzo no Shikai Suru Tokoro, Controlling the Praise of ~he-Idols, Tokyo: Shincho Sha ~y 1929 54. Shukyo Kyoiku B£ Honshitsu, The Essence of Religious Education, Tokyo: Shunjusha Jun. 1929 55. Kami ni Yoru Shinsei, New Life Through God, ---shimonoseki: Fukuin Shokan 56. Kodomo wo Shikaru Kufu, A Device for Disciplining Children, Tokyo: Shukyo Kyo-iku Kenkyukai Dec. 1929 57. Kami ni Tsuite no Meiso, Meditations Concerning God, ~oiYo: KYo Bun Kwan Jun. 1930 58. ~ 1£ Seiai B£ Fukuin, God and the Gospel of Divine Love, Shimonoseki: Fukuin Sho Kwan Jun. 1930 59. Shukyo Kyoiku B£ Nyumon, Guide to Religious Education, Tokyo: Bunka Seikatsu Kenkyukai Jul. 1930 60. Bunmei Ino Hangyaku, Treachery for Civilization, Tokyo: Kokumin Kinshu Domei Aug. 1930 61. Kirisuto no Sanjo no Suikun, Christ's Sermon on the Mount,-osaka: NIChiyo Sekaisha Oct. 1930 62. Kongotu Suhairon, Essay on Worshiping of the North, Tokyo: Yesu no Tomokai Nov. 1930 63. Kami to 4yumu Ich1j1tsu, A Day's Walk With God, Osaka: Nichiyo Sekaisha Dec. 1930 389 64. Hitotsubo B£ Mugi, A Grain of Wheat, Tokyo: Nihon Dai Nippon Yubenkai Kodansha Jan. 1931 65. Kagawa, Toyohiko Shiju, Collections of Toyohiko Kagawa, Tokyo: Kaizosha Jun. 1931 66. Jyujika ni Tsuite ~ Meiso, Meditations Concerning the Cross, Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan Jun. 1931 67. Zakuro no Kataware, A Half Piece of Pomegranate, Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan Aug. 1931 68. Kami to Eien no Shibo, Longing for God and Eternity, ~okyo:-shin-sei Sha Aug. 1931 69. Kessho to Isho no Shinri, Psychology of Cosmetics and Clothes, Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan Aug. 1931 70. Tsukijaru Abura Tsubo, Unconsumed Jar of Oil, Tokyo: Shin Sei Slia Dec. 1931 71. Kodomo no Shikarikata, Discipline of Children, Tokyo: Kinshu .Renmei Jun. 1932 72. Kirisuto ni Tsuite B£ Meiso, Meditations Concerning Christ, Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan Jun. 1932 73. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Knudten, Arthur Christian (author)

Core Title Toyohiko Kagawa, and some social, economic, and religious tendencies in modern Japan

Contributor Digitized by Interlibrary Loan Department (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Religion

Defense Date 02/01/1946

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-500890

Unique identifier UC11298582

Identifier etd-Knudten-586644.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-500890 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Knudten-586644.pdf

Dmrecord 500890

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Knudten, Arthur Christian

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses