A JAPANESE TOLSTOY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 12 June 1923, Page 3

A JAPANESE TOLSTOY.

APOSTLE OF A NEW RELIGION

PROFIT-MAKING DECLARED TO

BE ROBBERY

A recent Japanese religious book has quickly obtained a circulation of 200,000. It is called "The Life of Repentance,'' and it written by a new teacher named Nishida, one of the products of the religious and intellectual fermentation going on to-day in Japan, says a correspondent of the- Manchester Guardian. i Nishida (Anglise: "Westfield'') may] be described as a compound of Buddhism, Comirnirtism. and CbHLstianitv as | Tolstoy" understood it. Dr. Albertus Pieters. the in an age r ( >V "Shinseik , Kwan," the newspaper evangelisation I movement in Japan. who is in dose j touch with the movements of religions j thought in that country, describe^ him as being 75 per cent. Buddhist, 10 per ; cent. Communist, and 15 per cent. ' Christian., The gz-eat problem for Nishida was the economic tangle of modern society rather than sin in a religious sense. "Why should men make money by buying goods and selling them at a. higher price? Is it not rob- i bery? Why, also, this eternal strug-j gle between Labour and Capital? Why should there be such a thing as interest on capital? Is there no way out? i NLshida turned especially to Tolstoy's] writing in his search for a solution. But he read Tolstoy's teaching through Buddhist spectacles, and came to the, conclusion that the way out for him ] was to die to his old life and begin a I new one in which he would have noth- I ing and seek to gain nothing. Nishida < says that so long as man retains any '• notion of his own individuality being worth while he will seek to gain things for himself, which is the root of all eril. Having come to this point, Nishida went out on to the streets as a mendicant, exactly like the Buddha, of old, with this, exception—that lie added the modern Christian idea of social service. Hence, ho is not content to beg and do nothing, but works wherever he finds something that needs doing, preferably i some dirty manual job, like cleaning out cesspools. This, he' says, calms the mind. He never asks for wages, and prefers even not to accept money when offered to him. If any, in the spirit of doing something for their fellowmen, choo.se to give him the kitchen . scraps, he will eat them gladly, but i will not look upon them as. wages. I From the Christian teachers ho has ' adopted the idea cf faith in some higher power, and of prayer to it, yet his pantheistic conception of that power,, although the words might fittingly be in the mouths of Christians, have a different idea behind them. Nishida's ideal state of society is that we should all eat only such food as everyone can have, wear only such clothing as the poorest can obtain, and dwell only in such houses as all may occupy. Then, he says, there would be no envy, no lust of possession, no quarrels or wars

This Japanese Buddrlhist Tolstoy is having a profound effect on many of the younger generation to-day, for his own life is a very noble one. Young men are seeking to follow it, and are putting on old clothes and taking on manual work and forsaking their previous mode of existence.