I was invited to join a circle of administrators who were discussing
rural morality and religion. One man said that there was not 20 per
cent. of the villages in which the priests were "active for social
development." Another speaker of experience declared that "the four
pillars of an agricultural village" were "the _soncho_ (headman), the
schoolmaster, the policeman and the most influential villager." He
went on: "In Europe religion does many things for the support and
development of morality, but we look to education, for it aims not at
only developing intelligence and giving knowledge, but at teaching
virtue and honesty. But there is something beyond that. Thousands of
our soldiers died willingly in the Russian war. There must have been
something at the bottom of their hearts. That something is a certain
sentiment which penetrates deeply the characters of our countrymen.
Our morality and customs have it in their foundations. This spirit is
_Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit). It appeared among our warriors as
_bushido_ (the way of the soldier), but it is not the monopoly of
soldiers. Every Japanese has some of this spirit. It is the moral
backbone of Japan."

"I should like to say," another speaker declared, "that I read many
European and American books, but I remain Japanese. Mr. Uchimura sees
the darkest side of Buddhism and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn expected too much
from it. 'So mysterious,' Hearn said, but it is not so mysterious to
us. We must be grateful to him for seeing something of the essence of
our life. Sometimes, however, we may be ashamed of his beautifying
sentences. I am a modern man, but I am not ashamed when my wife is
with child to pray that it may be healthy and wise. It is possible for
us Japanese to worship some god somewhere without knowing why. The
poet says, 'I do not know the reason of it, but tears fall down from
my eyes in reverence and gratitude.' I suppose this is natural
theology. The proverb says, 'Even the head of a sardine is something
if believed in.' I attach more importance to a man's attitude to
something higher than himself than to the thing which is revered by
him. Whether a man goes to Nara and Kyoto or to a Roman Catholic or a
Methodist church he can come home very purified in heart."

"Some foreigners have thought well to call us 'half civilised,'" the
speaker went on. "Can it be that uncivilised is something distasteful
to or not understood by Europeans and Americans? We have