ial
ostracism and straitened means. But when his voice came to be heard in
journalism it was recognised as the voice of a man of principle by
people who heard it far from gladly. There is a seamy side to some
Japanese journalism[101] and Uchimura soon resigned his editorial
chair. He abandoned a second editorship because he was determined to
brave the displeasure of his countrymen by opposing the war with
Russia. To-day he deplores many things in the relations of Japan and
China.

[Illustration: _Fuhei_
MUZZLED EDITORS]

Uchimura has written more than two dozen books, mostly on religion.
_How I became a Christian_ has been translated into English, German,
Danish, Russian and Chinese, and is to that extent a landmark in the
literary history of Japan. His Christianity is an Early Christianity
which places him in antagonism, not only to his own countrymen who are
Shintoists, Buddhists or Confucians, or vaguely Nationalists, but to
such foreign missionaries as are sectarians and literalists. His
earliest training was in agricultural science, and the welfare of the
Japanese countryside is near his heart. If he be a Carlyle, as his
fibre and resolution, downright way of writing and speaking, hortatory
gift, humour, plainness of life and dislike of officials, no less than
his cast of countenance, his soft hat and long gaberdine-like coat
have suggested, he is a Carlyle who is content to stay both in body
and mind at Ecclefechan. He is not, however, like Carlyle, whom he
calls "master," a peasant, but a samurai.

"As you penetrate into the lives of the farmers and discover the
influences brought to bear on them," Uchimura said to me in his
decisive way, "there will be laid bare to you _the foundations of
Japan_. You know our proverb, of course, _No wa kuni no taihon nari_
('Agriculture is the basis of a nation')? Have you been to Nikko?"
This seemed a little inconsequent, but I told him I had not yet been
to Nikko. ("Until you have seen Nikko," runs the adage, "do not say
'splendid'.") "How many of the tourists who are delighted with Nikko,"
he went on, "have heard how the richest farms near that town were
devastated? A century ago a minister of the Shogun, who realised that
fertility depended on trees, saw to the whole range of Nikko hills
being afforested. It was a tract twenty miles by twenty miles in
extent. But the 'civilised' authorities of our own days sold all the
timber to a copper company for 8,000 yen. The compa