内容抜粋 志士の言葉
【二宮尊徳――農民聖者】
[朗読試聴]
「きゅうりを植えたらきゅうり以外のものが取れると思ってはいけない。人は自ら植えたものを刈り取るのだ」
「誠実さだけが不幸を幸福に変えることができる。技術や策略は何の役にも立たない」 「1個の人間は宇宙にあってけし粒のような存在だが、誠実な心があれば天地をも動かすことができる」
「なすべきことは、結果に関係なくなさねばならない」
「一度にひとつのことに専念すること。ひとつの手本さえあれば、いずれ時が来たときに、国中を救うのに役立つ」
NINOMIYA SONTOK - A PEASANT SAINT
【BOOK】
I-JAPANESE AGRICULTURE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY （第1章 19世紀初頭の日本の農業）
"AGRICULTURE is the ground-basis of the national
existence"; essentially so in a
country like ours, where, despite all its
maritime and commercial advantages, the
main support of the people comes
from its soil. Natural fertility alone cannot
support so immense a
population upon so limited an area, - 48,000,000 upon
150,000 sq. miles,
only 20 per cent of which are cultivable. The land must
be made to yield
its maximum, and human genius and industry must be exerted
to the utmost for
that end. We consider Japanese agriculture to be the most
remarkable of the
kind in the world. Every clod of earth receives
thoughtful manipulation,
and to every plantlet that starts from the ground
is given a care and
attention well nigh
bordering upon parental affection. The science we
lacked in we supplied with
strenuous industry, and as a result we have
13,000,000 acres of cultivated surface,
kept with all the nicety and
perfection of market-gardens.
Such a high degree of cultivation is possible
only by more than ordinary industry
on the people's part. A little
negligence is sure to call in desolation of the most
unattractive
character. We know of nothing so disheartening as a once cultivated
field
abandoned by human labor. Without the vigor and luxuriance of the primitive
forest, the desolation of the deserted field is that of black despair. For ten
men who
would dare to break up the virgin soil, not one will apply himself
to recover the
abandoned land. While the Americas invite the thrifty
nations of the world,
Babylon remains as a habitation of owls and
scorpions.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Japanese agriculture
was in a most
lamentable state. The long-continued peace of two-hundred
years brought in
luxuries and dissipation among men of all classes, and
indolence thus introduced
had immediate effects upon the cultivated fields.
In many places, the revenue from
land decreased by two-thirds. Thistles and
bushes invaded the once productive
fields, and what little was left in
cultivation had to bear all the feudal dues levied
from the land. Village
after village wore an aspect of utter desolation. Honest labor
becoming too
onerous, men betook themselves to dishonest ways. From the kind
earth they
ceased to look for her ever bounteous gifts, and by cheating and
defrauding
one another they sought to acquire what little they needed to sustain
their
ill-doomed existence. The whole cause of their evils was moral, and Nature
refusing to reward her ignoble sons, brought about all the miseries that befell
the
land. Then was born a man whose spirit was in league with Nature's
laws.
II-BOYHOOD （第2章 少年時代）
Ninomiya .Kinjiro, surnamed Sontok (Admirer of
Virtue), was born in the seventh
year of Tenmei (1787). His father was a
farmer of very small means in an obscure
village in the province of Sagami,
notable, however, among his neighbors
for his charity and public spirit. At
the age of 16, Sontok, with his two little brothers,
was orphaned, and the
conference of his relatives decided upon the dissolution
of his poor
family, and he, the eldest, was placed under the custody of one of
his
paternal uncles. Here the lad's whole endeavor was to be as little burdensome
to
his uncle as possible. He lamented that he could not do a man's part, and
to make up
what he in his youth could not accomplish in daytime, he would
work till very late
at midnight. Then came a thought to him that he would
not grow up to be
an illiterate man, an "open-blind" to the wisdoms of
ancients. So he procured a copy of
Confucius' Great Learning, and in the
depth of night after the day's full work,
he applied himself assiduously to
his classical study. But soon his uncle found him
at his study, sharply
reprimanded him for the use of precious oil for work from which
he (the
uncle) could not derive any benefit, and could see no practical good to
the
youth himself. Sontok considered his uncle's resentment reasonable, and gave up
his study till he could have oil of his own to burn. So the next spring, he
broke up a
little land that belonged to nobody, on the bank of a river, and
there planted some
rape-seed and gave all of his holidays to the raising of
this crop of his own. At the
end of one year, he had a large bagful of the
seed, the product of his own hand, and
received directly from Nature as a
reward of his honest labor. He took the seed to a
neighbouring oil-factory,
had it exchanged for a few gallons of the oil, and was glad
beyond
expression that he could now resume his study without drawing from his
uncle's store. Triumphantly he returned to his night-lesson, not without some
hope
of words of applause from his uncle for patience and industry such
as his. But no!
the uncle said that the youth's time was also his, seeing
that he supported him,
and that he could not afford to let any of his men
engage in so unprofitable a work
as book-reading. Sontok again thinks his
uncle is reasonable, follows his behest,
and goes to mat weaving and
sandal-making after the day's heavy work
upon the farm is done. Since then,
his studies were prosecuted on his way to and
from hills whereunto he was
daily sent to fetch hay and fuel for his uncle's household.
His holidays
were his, and he was not one to throw them away for amusements.
His
experiment with the rape-seed taught him the value of earnest labor, and he
wished to renew his experiment upon a larger scale. He found in his village a
spot
changed into a marsh-pond by a recent flood, wherein was a capital
opportunity for
him to employ his holidays for useful purposes. He drained
the pond, levelled its
bottom, and prepared it for a snug little
rice-field. There he planted some seedlings
that he picked out of the
surplus usually cast away by farmers, and bestowed upon
them a summer's
watchful care. The autumn brought him a bagful (2 bushels) of
golden grain,
and we can imagine the joy of our orphan-boy who for the first time
in his
life had his life-stuff provided him as a reward for his humble effort.
The
crop he gathered that autumn was the fund upon which he started
his
eventful career. True, independent man was he! He learnt that Nature is
faithful to honest sons of toil, and all his subsequent reforms were based
upon this simple principle that Nature rewardeth abundantly them
that obey
her laws.
A few years afterward he left his uncle's house, and with what
little grain he
gathered with his own hand out of the mere refuse lands he
discovered and
improved in his village, he returned to his paternal cottage
now deserted
for many years. With his patience, faith, and industry,
nothing stood
in his way on his attempt to convert chaos and desolation
into order and
productivity. Declivities of hills, waste spots on
river-banks, roadsides,
marshes, all added wealth and substance to him, and
before many years
he was a man of no little means, respected by his entire
neighborhood
for his exemplary economy and industry. He conquered all
things
for himself, and he was ready to help others to make similar
conquests
for themselves.
III-THE TEST OF HIS ABILITY （第3章 腕試し）
His fame daily increasing, his worth was
recognized by the Lord of Odawara,
whose subject he was, and who as the
then Prime-Minister of the Tycoon's
Government, wielded an influence second
to none in the Empire. So valuable a
subject was not to be left buried in
the obscurity of village life; but in the society of
his time, when
class-distinctions were so strong, the promotion of a peasant to any
position of influence was possible only when he gave unmistakable evidence of
extraordinary ability, enough to silence popular protest that was sure to
be
brought against any such infraction of regular social routine. The job
that was
selected for this purpose was of most disappointing nature to any
but one of
Sontok's indomitable patience. Among the feudal possessions of
the Lord of
Odawara were the three villages of Monoi, Yokota, and Tosho in
the province
of Shimotzuke, which, through the neglect of several
generations, had gone
into fearful desolation. The three villages once
counted 450 families,
and tendered as their annual feudal dues l0,000 bags
(20,000 bushels)
of rice to their rightful Lord. But now that wild Nature
invaded their fields,
and badgers and foxes shared habitations with men,
the population numbered
only one-third of what it had been, and 2,000 bags
were the utmost that would
be levied from the impoverished farmers. With
poverty came moral degradation,
and the once thrifty villages were now dens
of gamblers. Their restoration was
attempted several times; but neither
money nor authority was of any avail
when the villagers themselves were
confirmed thieves and idlers.
A more sanguine master might have determined
upon the withdrawal of
the entire population, and by the importation of new
and more virtuous labor,
might have begun to recover the fields left
desolate by his indolent subjects.
But, these villages, if good for no
purpose, just served the purpose which
the Lord of Odawara had in view. A
man who could restore these villages
to their original wealth and
prosperity might be entrusted with the restoration
of all deserted villages
(of which there were a great many) in the country;
and he who succeeded
where all before him had failed might be brought
before the public as their
rightful leader, and be clothed with proper authority
without fear of
discontent from the titled classes. This was the job then
which Sontok was
prevailed upon by his master to undertake.
The peasant declined the honor
upon the ground of his humble birth and
his total inability for a work of
so public a nature; - he a poor tiller of the soil,
and the utmost he
expected to accomplish in his life was the restoration of
his own
family-property, and that not by his ability, but by the inherited merits
of his ancestors. For three long years the Lord insisted upon his demand
from his subject, who as persistently maintained his modesty and request
for peaceful domesticity under his own thatched roof. When, however,
the
importunities of his worthy superior were no longer to be resisted,
Sontok
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 watching their ways of living;
made a close study of
the nature of the soil, the extent of wilderness, drainage,
possible means
of irrigation, etc., and gathered all the data for making
his full estimate
for the possible restoration of the deserted district.
His report to the
Lord of Odawara was most discouraging; but the case was
not one to be wholly
given up. "The art of love alone can restore peace and
abundance to those
poor people," said he in his report. "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.
Such help
only induces avarice and indolence, and is a fruitful source of
dissensions
among the people. The wilderness must be opened by its own resources,
and
poverty must be made to rescue itself. Let my Lord be satisfied
with the
revenue that can be reasonably expected from his famished district"
and
expect no more from it. Should one tan*[ Tan is about one-fourth of an
acre.]
of such a held yield two bags of rice, one bag should go to the
sustenance of
the people, and the other to the fund for the opening-up of
the rest of the wilderness.
In this way alone was this our fruitful Nippon
opened to cultivation in the days of
the gods. All was wilderness then; and
without any outside help, by their own efforts,
with the land's own
resources, they made fields, gardens, roads, and cities, as we see
them now.
Love, diligence, self-help, - in the strict enforcement of these virtues lies
the hope of these villages; and I should not wonder, if, ten years from
this date,
with patient application of ourselves in the work with all
sincerity, we bring them
back to their original prosperity."
Bold,
reasonable, inexpensive plant! Who will not consent to such a plan? Seldom
was such a scheme of restoration of villages ever proposed, making moral forces
prominent factors in reforms of economic kind. It was the economic
application of
Faith. The man had a tincture of Puritanic blood in him; or
rather he was a
genuine Japanese undefiled yet by the
Greatest-Happiness-Philosophy of the
Occidental importation. He also found
men who believed in his words, his good
Lord the first of all. How did the
Western "civilization" change us within
a hundred years or so!
The plan
was adopted, and our peasant-moralist was to be the virtual governor of
these villages for ten years. But sad was he to leave the restorative work of
his ancestral
property only half-completed. To a man of his ardent
sincerity
anything but a whole-souled devotion to any enterprise is sin;
and now that he undertakes
a public work, his private interests are to be
wholly disregarded. "He that would save
the homes of thousands can do so
only at the expense of his own home," he says to himself.
He gets his
wife's consent to the sacrifice of their cherished hope, tells all of his
decisions
"audibly at his ancestors' graves," finishes up his home, and like
a man bound
for another world, he leaves his native village, "burning all
ships behind him,;
and enters upon the task he so boldly guaranteed to his
Lord and countrymen.
With the details of his "battles with wilderness, and
wildness of his people's
heart," we will not concern ourselves at present.
Of arts and policies he had none.
His simple faith was this, that "the
sincerity of a single soul is strong enough to
move both heaven and earth."
He denied to himself all sweet things, put on
nothing but cotton stuffs,
never ate at his people's houses, slept only two hours a
day, was in the
field before any of his men was, remained there till all left, and
himself
endured the hardest of lots that befell his poor villagers. He judged his
men
with the same standard with which he judged himself, the sincerity of
motives.
With him the best laborer is not he who does most work, but one who
works with
the noblest motive. A man was recommended to him as the hardest
worker, one
who did three men's work, the most affable fellow, etc. To all
such recommendations
our peasant-governor was for a long time indifferent;
but when
pressed by his associates for the due reward of this "affable
fellow," Sontok called
the man to himself, and required of him to perform
the day's labor in his presence
in the same way that he was reported to do
it before other officers. The man owned
his inability to do so, and
straightway confessed the sinister motive he had in
forcing himself to
three-men's labor before the eyes of the attending officials. The
governor
knew by his own experience the limit of a man's capacity, and he was not
to
be deceived by any such report like that. The man was punished, and sent back
to the field with due admonition for his hypocrisy.
Another among his
laborers was an aged man, hardly equal to one man's capacity.
He was always
found working at stumps, - a toilsome job, not the kind of work that
can
make much show. There he would work even when others were at rest, with
an
evident contentment in the lot he chose for himself. "Stump-digger" they called
him, and very little notice was taken of him. But the governor's eyes were
upon
him. On a certain pay-day, when, as was usual with our governor,
judgement was
passed upon each laborer according to his merit and share in
the work, the man
who was called up for the highest honor and reward was no
other than the
"stump-digger" himself, to the great astonishment of all,
and to none more than to
the man himself. He was to have fifteen pieces of
gold (about $75) besides his
regular wages, - an immense sum of money when
a laborer earned only twenty cents
a day. "I, my Lord," exclaimed the old
man, "am not worthy of even one man's hire,
seeing that I am advanced in
age, and am far behind others in the work I have
accomplished. Your
lordship must be mistaken. For conscience's sake, the gold is
not
mine."-"Not so," gravely remarked the governor. "You worked where no body
else liked to work. For men's observations you cared not, and you aimed only
at real service to our villages. Stumps you removed cleared obstructions,
and our work was greatly facilitated thereby. If I reward not such as you,
by what other ways shall I carry on the work that is yet before me.
The gift is from heaven to reward your honesty. Accept it with thankfulness,
and use it to add comforts to your age. Nothing makes me rejoice more
than
the recognition of such an honesty as yours. "
The man weeps like a
child, "his sleeves wet almost to be wringed." Whole villages
are
impressed. One godlike has appeared among them, one who rewardeth
openly
the virtue that is done in secret.
Oppositions he had many, but these he
removed by "arts of love." Once it took
the patience and forbearance of
three years to reconcile to him and his ways
of doing, a man whom the Lord
of Odawara sent as his associate. One of
his villagers was an incorrigible
idler, and a vehement opposer to all of his plans.
The man's house was in a
tottering state, and his poverty he would recount
to his neighbors as a
sure sign of the weakness of the new administration.
It happened that a
certain of the governor's household was under
the man's manure-shed, which,
by the negligence of many years, was
in so rotten a state that a slight
touch brought it down to the ground.
The man's wrath knew no end. With a
club he came out, gave a blow or
two to the suppliant transgressor, and
pursued after him till he reached
his master's house. There in the front of
the governor's gate the man stood,
and recited to the hearing of a large
crowd that gathered around him,
the severe ills he suffered, and the
governor's inability to give peace and
order to the district. Sontok ordered
the man to his presence, and
in the mildest possible way, begged
forgiveness for his servant's transgression,
and continued :
"Seeing
that your manure-shed was in so fragile a state, I am afraid your
residence
also is not in the best of conditions."
"You know I am a poor man," the man
bluntly replied, "and I am unable to repair
my house."
"So," was the
gentle answer of the moralist. "How is it then if we send men to
repair it
for you? Will you give your consent to it?"
Taken with surprise, and already
a sense of shame coming over him, the man
replied.
"Could I object to
so kind a proposal? That is a mercy too great for me."
He was at once sent
back to his home, to pull down the old house, and to prepare
the ground for
the erection of the new. The next day, the governor's men appeared
with all
preparations for the new structure, and within a few weeks there was
finished one of the nicest-looking houses in the whole neighborhood.
The
manure-shed also was repaired, so that it could stand any man's touch.
The
worst of the villagers was thus brought down. Ever afterward none remained
more faithful to the governor than this man. Tears always gushed out when he
told
afterward of the real humiliation he experienced then.
Once
discontent became general among the villagers, and no "art of love" could
subdue it. Our governor thought he himself was to be blamed for all such.
''Heaven
punishes thus my lack in sincerity," he said to himself. One day
he disappeared
suddenly from among his people, and they all became uneasy
about his whereabout.
Some days after it was found that he had resorted to
a distant Buddhist temple,
there to pray and to meditate, but chiefly to
fast for one-and-twenty days,
that he might be furnished with more
sincerity in leading his people.
Men were sent thither to entreat him for
his speedy return, as his absence meant
anarchy among his people, who now
had learnt that they could not get along
without him. The term of his
tasting over, he strengthened himself with a slight meal,
and "the day
after his three weeks' abstinence from food he walked twenty-five miles
to
his villages, rejoicing in his heart to hear of the repentance of his people."
The man
must have had an iron constitution with him.
With several years'
unabated diligence, economy, and above all, "arts of love,"
the wilderness
had fairly departed, and something like tolerable productivity began
to
return. The governor invited immigrants from other provinces, and them he
treated
with more consideration than he did the native-born inhabitants,
"because," said he,
"strangers need more kindness from us than our own
children." To him the complete
restoration of any district does not mean
the mere return of fertility to the soil,
but "provisions enough for ten
years of scarcity." Therein he followed literally
the words of a Chinese
sage who said, "A country without nine years' provisions is
in danger; and
that without three years' is no country at all." According to the views
of
our peasant-saint, then, the proudest of nations of now-a-days is "no nation at
all." -----
But famine set in before these provisions were made. The year
1833 was one of
great distress to all the north-eastern provinces. Sontok
foretold the year's poor harvest
when eating an eggplant fruit in summer. He
said that it tasted very much like that
of autumn, an evident sign that
"the sun had already spent forth its rays for the year."
He at once gave
orders to his people to sow millet at the rate of a tan to a family,
so as
to supply the deficiency of the rice-crop of the year. This was done;
and
the year following, when scarcity reigned throughout the neighboring provinces,
not a single family in the three villages under Sontok's supervision
suffered from lack.
"The ways of sincerity can know beforehand." Our
governor was a prophet as well.
At the end of the promised ten years, the
once poorest land in the empire became
the most orderly, the best provided,
and as far as its natural fertility went, the
most productive district in
the whole country. Not only were the villages made to
yield a revenue of
10,000 bags of rice as in their former days of prosperity, but they
had now
several granaries well-filled with substantial grain to provide for many
years of scarcity; and we are glad to add that the governor himself had several
thousand pieces of gold left for himself which he was to freely use for
philanthropic
purposes in after years. His fame now spread far and wide,
and nobles from all
parts of the country sent in messengers to ask his
instructions for the restoration
of desolated villages in their provinces.
Never before had sincerity alone given so
prominent a result. So simple, so
cheap, a man with Heaven alone can accomplish
so much. The moral
impressions of Sontok's first public achievement was tremendous
upon the
indolent community of his time.
IV-INDIVIDUAL HELPS （第4章 個人的な人助け）
Before speaking of his other public services to
his country, let me narrate here
something of the friendly help he was
called upon to offer to his suffering
fellowmen. Himself a wholly self-made
man, he knew of no case which industry
and sincerity of heart could not
bring up to independence and self-respect. "The
universe moves on and on,
and a stop there is not in the growth of all things
around us. If but a man
conforms himself to this law of everlasting growth, and
with it ceases not
to work, poverty, though he seeks it, is impossible." So he said to
a group
of poverty-stricken farmers, who, complaining of the misgovernment of
their
feudal lord, were on the point of leaving their ancestral homes, and came to
Sontok for his guidance and instructions. "A hand-plough shall I give each
of you,"
he continued, "and if you adopt my way, and abide by it, I assure
you, with it you
can make a paradise out of your desolated field, pay back
all your debts, and can
rejoice once more in plenty, without seeking
fortune outside of your own land."
The men did so, accepted "a hand-plough
each" from the saint's hand, went
earnestly to work as he advised, and in a
few years got back all they had lost
and more.
A village-mayor who had
entirely lost his influence with his people came to
Sontok for his wisdom.
The saint's answer was the simplest that could be imagined,
"Because love
of self is strong in you," he said. "Selfishness is of beasts; and a
selfish man is of beast-kind. You can have influence over your people only by
giving yourself and your all to them."
"How can I do so?" the mayor
inquired.
"Sell your land, your house, your raiment, your all," was Sontok's
reply, "and
whatever money you get thereby contribute to the village fund,
and give yourself
wholly to the service of the people."
No natural man
can easily commit himself to so severe a procedure like this. The
mayor
asked for several days' delay before he could give his decision.
When told
that the sacrifice was altogether too much for him, Sontok said: "I
suppose
you are afraid of the starvation of your family. Think you that if you do
your part, I, your adviser, know not how to do my part?"
The man returned,
and did as was instructed. His influence and popularity
returned at once.
His lack for a time his revered instructor supplied out of his own
store;
but soon the whole village came to the mayor's support, and within a short
period, he was a wealthier man than before.
A rice-merchant in the township
of Fujisawa, who had made a considerable
fortune by selling his grain at
high prices in a year of scarcity, came very near to
bankruptcy by
successive misfortunes that befell his family. A relative of his was
an
intimate acquaintance of Sontok, and the saint's wisdom was asked to devise
some means for the restoration of the lost property. Always very reluctant to
confer
with the people who had personal interests in view, he yielded to
their request only
after long importunity. His moral diagnosis of the man
revealed to him at once
the sole cause of the trouble. "The way is to give
in charity all you have left now,"
Sontok said, "and to begin anew with
your bare hand." To his eye, ill-gotten fortune
was no fortune at all. A
thing is ours only as we have it directly from Nature
by conforming
ourselves to her righteous laws. The man lost his property
because it had
not been originally his, and that which he had left was also "unclean,"
and
hence nothing could be done with it also.
Avarice cannot be made to yield
itself to such a radical reform without long and
painful struggles. But the
reputation of the moral-physician was too great to doubt
the efficacy of
his prescription, and his advice was followed to the amazement, and
(may we
say) consternation of all his friends and relatives. The man distributed all
he had left, amounting to 700 pieces of gold ($3,500) among his townsmen,
and he
himself went to rowing, the only "bare-hand" trade he was acquainted
with from
his boyhood. We can easily imagine the moral effect of such a
decision
on the man's part both upon the man himself, and upon the townsmen
at large.
All the bitterness against him caused by his avarice was removed
at once,
and those who rejoiced in his misfortunes now came to his help,
and he was
upon his oars only for a very short time. Fortune began to smile
upon him,
this time with the good-will of all his townsmen, and we are told
that his latter end
was more prosperous than his
beginning. Only we are
sorry to hear that with age avarice returned to him once more,
and his last
days were spent in penury. Does not a book of Confucius say, "Misery and
happiness come not by themselves; only men invite them"?
Our teacher was not
an easy man to approach. Strangers of whatever ranks were
always repulsed
at his gate with the customary oriental excuse "I am pressed with
duty."
Only the most importunate could get a hearing from him.
Should the
inquirer's patience fail, the teacher would say, "My time of helping him
is
not come yet." Once we are told that a Buddhist priest, who came a long distance
walking to get instruction for the relief of his parishioners, was bluntly
refused audience;
but he a patient man spread his garment upon the ground
in front of the teacher's house,
and there for three days and nights he
sat, believing that by penance and pertinacity,
the teacher might be
induced to give him a hearing. But Sontok was extremely wroth
to hear that
"dog-like" a "beggar-priest" sat near his gate, and he ordered him to begone
at once and "pray and fast for people's souls." Such a treatment was
repeated several times
before he received the priest in confidence, and
this was he, who, in after years,
was to be a free recipient of his gold,
wisdom, and friendship. His friendship was
always very costly to get, but
when once procured, nothing was so precious and lasting.
He could do
nothing with false insincere men. The universe and its laws were against
such men, and nothing in his power or any man's power could rescue them from
misery
and degradation. Them he would first reconcile with the "Reason of
Heaven and Earth,"
and then administer to them whatever human helps that
might be absolutely necessary.
"Think not you can get anything else than
cucumber-fruit when you plant
cucumber. The thing a man planteth, the same
he must reap also." "Sincerity alone
can turn misery into happiness; arts
and policies avail nothing." "An individual
soul is an infinitesimally
small thing in the universe, but its sincerity can move
heaven and earth."
"Duty is duty irrespective its result." Such and many like them
are the
precepts with which he helped out many a struggling soul that came to him
for guidance and deliverance. Thus he stood between Nature and man, restoring to
the former them, who, through their moral obliquity, had forfeited the
right she so
freely bestowed upon them. What are all the wisdoms of the
West that have
recently flooded our soil, in comparison with an evangel
such as this, of our own
kin and blood!
V-PUBLIC SERVICES AT LARGE （第5章 公共の事業）
His faith once worked out in the restoration of
the three deserted villages in the
province of Shimotzuke, and his fame
thus indubitably established, he became an
object of constant interruption
by nobles from all parts of the country. He fenced
himself against such
intrusions by his usual blunt ways of receiving his visitors,
but such as
endured his "test of faith" were not few, and these had all the benefit of
his wise councils and practical help. During his life-time, some half-a-score
nobles
representing a wide extent of land had his services in improvement
of their
impoverished dominions, and the number of villages likewise
benefited was
innumerable. Near the end of his life his service to the
nation became so
invaluable that he was employed by the Central Government;
but the homely
nature of his mission made him appear at his best when he
was among his own class
of poor laborers, unhampered by the official and
social conventionalities of the titled classes.
The wonder is, however,
that he a peasant of the meanest birth and the simplest culture
could have
managed himself like a "real noble" when associating with "men in high
places."
Naturally his own Lord of Odawara was to get most from him. The
large dominion
attached to the castle-town of the same name was placed
under his supervision,
and much of the desolated and waste places in it was
recovered by his tireless
industry and never-failing "arts of love." The
great famine of 1836 witnessed one
of his most signal services to his
fellowmen. When thousands of people were on the
point of death from
starvation, he was commissioned by his Lord (then residing in
Yedo) to
undertake their speedy relief. Sontok hastened to Odawara, then a
journey
of two full days, and asked the men in authority there to hand him the key
to open the castle-granary for the immediate relief of the starving people. "Not
till
we have the Lord's written permission," was their rather contemptuous
answer.
"All right, then," Sontok responded. "But, gentlemen, seeing that
during the interval
between this and the arrival of the written permission
of the Lord many more of
our starving people shall die of hunger, I believe
it behooves us as their faithful guardians
that we should abstain from food
as they are now doing, and should stay here
in this office-room fasting
till the return of your messenger. Thus we may learn
somewhat of the nature
of our people's suffering." Four days' fasting was too horrible
to think of
to these officers. The key was instantly delivered to Sontok, and the relief
was
effected at once. Would that all guardians of people of whatever clime
at whatever time may
be mindful of our moralist's proposal when hunger
waits at the people's door, and officialism
must go through useless
formalities before it can bring relief to the sufferers!
It was upon this
occasion that he delivered his famous discourse upon "the Ways
of
Famine-Relief in default of Means for that end." His chief audience was the
governor of the dominion appointed by his Lord as the chief executive of the
provincial government. We give here some fragments of the discourse, as it
is very
characteristic of the man who gave it.
"That the land famishes,
the granaries are empty, and the people have nothing to
eat, - whose blame
is this but that of the ruler himself! Is he not intrusted with
Heaven's
children , and is it not his mission to lead them into (good and away
from
evil, and so enable them to live and abide in peace? For this service which is
expected from him he is paid abundantly, and he brings up his family, and
they
are safe. But now that his people are reduced to hunger, he thinks not
himself
responsible for it: - Gentleman, I know of nothing under heaven so
lamentable as this.
At this time, should he succeed in devising some means
of relief, well; but if not, the ruler
should confess his sin before
Heaven, and himself go to voluntary fasting and die!
Then his sub-officers,
- country-officers after him, and then village-officers,
- they also should
abstain from food and die, for they too have neglected their duty
and
brought death and suffering upon the people. The moral effect of such
sacrifices
upon the famished people will be evident at once. They will now
say among themselves:
'The governor and his sub-officers held themselves
responsible for the distress that is
upon us, when they have really nothing
to blame themselves with. Starvation is upon us
because of our own
improvidence, luxury, and extravagance in times of abundance.
We are
accountable for the lamentable end of our honored officers, and that we should
now die of hunger is entirely proper.' Thus the fear of famine shall
depart, and with it
the fear of death also. Their mind is now at peace.
Fear once gone, abundance of
food-supply is within their reach. The rich
may share his possession with the poor;
or they may climb mountains, and
feed upon leaves and roots. A single year's famine
cannot exhaust all the
rice and millet of land, and hills and mountains have their supply
of green
things. The nation famishes because Fear reigns dominant in the people's mind,
and depriving them of energy too seek food, causes them to die. As guns
fired without shots
often bring down timid birds, so men in years of
scarcity are astounded with sound of hunger,
and die. Therefore let the
leaders of the people die first of voluntary starvation, and the fear
of
hunger shall be dissipated from the people's heart, and they all shall be ailed
and saved.
I do not believe you need wait for the sacrifice of your county
and village-officers
before you realize the result you aim at. I believe
the sacrifice of the governor
alone is sufficient for this purpose. This,
gentlemen, is one way of saving your hungry people
when you have nothing
left to give them for their relief."
The discourse ended. The governor in
shame and dismay, said after a long silence,
"I should say it is impossible
to gainsay your argument.
The sarcasm, though seriously spoken, was not of
course intended to be carried
into practice. The relief was effected with
the same simplicity as that which
characterized all his other labors, -
promptness, diligence, intense sympathy with
the sufferer, and trust in
Nature and her beneficient laws. Grain and money were
loaned to the
suffering farmers, to be paid back in instalment within five years by
crops; and be it mentioned in honor of the simple-hearted peasants thus
succored,
as well as of the good faith in which the succor was offered,
that the promise was
faithfully and willingly kept, not one of the 40,390
sufferers so relieved proving
himself insolvent at the end of the
stipulated term!
He that is in league with Nature hastes not; neither does
he plan works for the
present alone. He places himself in Nature's current,
as it were, and helps and
enhances it, and is himself helped and forwarded
thereby. With the universe at his
back, the magnitude of the work astounds
him not. "There are natual courses for
all things," Sontok used to say,"
and we are to seek out Nature's ways and to
conform ourselves thereto. Thus
can mountains be levelled and seas be drained,
and the earth itself be made
to serve our purpose." Once he was appointed by his
government to report
upon some possible plans of draining the great marshes' on
the lower course
of the river Tone. If accomplished, such an enterprise would
serve triple
purposes of inestimable public benefit: it would recover thousands of
acres
of fertile land from the shallow and miasmatic marsh; would drain off
surplus water in time of flood, and obviate much of damage yearly done in those
quarters;
and would afford a new and short passage between the river and
the bay of Yedo.
The distance to be cute is ten miles between the marsh and
the bay, and five miles
between the two main sections of the former, - in
all, fifteen miles of excavation through
mud-hills and sand. The attempt
has been made more than once, only to be given up in despair;
and the work
is still there waiting for some master mind, - a Japanese Lesseps - to carry it
into
completion. Sontok's report upon this gigantic enterprise was rather
enigmatic; but it hit the
point upon which many an engineering work of like
magnitude made ship-wreck.
"Possible, yet impossible," said the report:
"Possible, if the natural and only
possible course be adopted and followed;
but impossible, because human nature in
general is loathe to follow such a
course. I see the demoralization of the district
through which the canal is
to be dug, and that must be righted first by 'the arts of
love' as the
essential preliminary to the work to be undertaken. Money spent
among such
people cannot but have vicious effects upon them, to say nothing of the
amount of actual work accomplished thereby. But the nature of the undertaking
under review
is such that little can be expected from either money or
authority. Only a united people impelled
by a strong sense of gratitude can
do it. Let the government therefore apply 'the arts of love'
upon them,
comfort their widows, shelter their orphans, and make a virtuous people out of
the present demoralized population. Once you have called forth their
sincerity, the boring of
mountains and breaking of rocks will be according
to your wish. The way may look tortuous,
but it is the shortest and most
effective one. Does not the root of a plant contain all its
flowerage and
fruitage? Morality first, then work; - you cannot place the latter
before
the former."
Most of the present-day readers may sympathize with his
government that
rejected so visionary a plan as this; but who has watched
the "Panama scandals"
and fails to see that the main cause of the failure
of that gigantic enterprise was
moral and not financial? The gold that
turned Colon and Panama into veritable
dens of thieves lies buried there
like so much rubbish, and to all practical purposes,
the two oceans are as
yet as far apart from each others as when the first shovel of
dirt was
removed from the isthmus.*[Now accomplished by American gold, against our
prophecy.
Great is Mammonism!] Would that the great French engineer had
possessed something of the moral foresight of the Japanese peasant; and
instead of
disbursing his six hundred millions wholly upon the work itself,
had a part of it
invested in human souls through "arts of love;" - then who
doubts that Lesseps
would have had two canals to crown his gray hairs,
instead of the disgraceful
failure of one covering up the glorious success
of the other? Money can do much,
but virtue more; and he who takes into
account moral elements in forming his plan
for canal construction is NOT
after all the most unpractical of men.
The geographical extent of Sontok's
actual accomplishment in his life-time was
not large, though considerable
for a man of his social position at a time of rigid
class distinctions. By
far the most considerable of all his achievements was the
restoration of
the Soma region in the present province of Iwaki, - itself a no mean
district of two hundred and thirty villages, now one of the wealthiest and most
prosperous in the country. The way he set himself to work in any work of
magnitude was perfectly simple. He would first concentrate his whole energy
upon
one typical village, - usually the poorest in the district, - and by
sheer dint of industry would
convert it into his ways. This is usually the
hardest part of the whole business. The one village
first rescued, he had
as a base to start from for the conversion of the whole district. He always
infused a kind of missionary spirit among his peasant-converts, who were
required to help
their neighboring villages as they themselves were helped
by their teacher. With a striking
example furnished before their very eyes,
and with help freely afforded by the men
under the new inspiration, the
whole district was brought to adopt the same method,
and conversion was
effected by a simple law of propagation. "The method that can rescue
a
village can rescue the whole country; the principle is just the same," he used
to say to
his inquirers. "Let us apply ourselves devotedly to this one
piece of work; for the example may
serve to save the whole nation in times
to come," he observed to his disciples while preparing
plans for the
restoration of a few desolated villages in the Nikko district. The man was
conscious
of his possession of the everlasting laws of the universe, and no
work was too difficult for him
to attempt, nor too easy to require his
whole-souled devotion to it.
Naturally he was a hard-working man till the
very close of his life. As he planned
and worked for the distant future as
well, so his works and influences still live with
us. Many a smiling
village of his own reconstruction witnesses to his wisdom and
the
permanence of his plans; while scattered through different parts of the empire
are to be found societies of farmers bound by the name and teaching of this
man, to
perpetuate the spirit he made known to the disheartened sons of
toils.
参考文献
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茶の本（岡倉天心）、
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