derstand moralisings or
thinking, but the kind face of a good man has efficacy. There was a
man in the village who was demoralised, and when I told of him to a
distinguished man who lives near our village he sympathised very much.
That distinguished man is eighty-four years old, but he accompanied
that demoralised man for three days, giving no instruction but simply
living the same life, and the demoralised man was an entirely changed
man and ever thankful.

"I am a sinful man. Sometimes it happens that after I have been
working for the public benefit I am glad that I am offered thanks. I
know it is not a good thing when people express gratitude to me, for I
ought not to accept it. When I know I am doing a good thing and
expecting thanks, I am not doing a good thing. My thanks must not come
from men but from Buddha. I am trying to cast out my sinful feelings.
It must not be supposed that I am leading these people. You skilful
farmers kindly come to my village if you pass. You need not give any
speech. Your good faces will do."

But the two speeches I have reported are hardly a fair sample of the
discourses which were delivered. The addresses of the earnest Tokyo
officials and the Governor were directed towards urging on the farmers
increased production and increased labour, and the duty was pressed
upon them, as I understood, in the name of the highest patriotism and
of devotion to their ancestors. This talk was excellent in its way,
but when I got up I hazarded a few words on different lines. If I
venture to summarise my somewhat elementary address it is because it
furnishes a key to some of the enquiries I was to make during my
journeys. I was told the next day that the local daily had declared
that my "tongue was tipped with fire," which was a compliment to my
kind and clever interpreter, who, when he let himself go, seemed to be
able to make two or three sentences out of every one of mine:

I said that my Japanese friends kept asking me my impressions, and one
thing I had to say to them was that I had got an impression in many
quarters of spiritual dryness. I dared to think that some
responsibility for a materialistic outlook must be shared by the
admirable officials and experts who moved about among the farmers.
They were always talking about crop yields and the amount of money
made, and they unconsciously pressed home the idea that rural progress
was a material thing.

But the rural problem was not only a pro