 In early June, the leaves of the silver poplar tree on the hill by the
Pierson Memorial House rustle in the breeze, showing their white undersides.
Fresh crinkled leaves budding high up on the branches of the last huge
oak tree remaining on the site are translucent against the sky. The other
trees - elms and silver birches - are already coming into full leaf. When
gazing up through them, the deep blue sky seems beautiful beyond description.
On entering the living room of the house from the shining, neatly-kept
lawn of Kentucky bluegrass, it takes the eyes a while to get used to the
darkness, and to distinguish the various pieces of heavy Victorian-style
furniture favoured by the Piersons. |
| On one of the walls in the room is a photograph of the Reverend and Mrs Pierson with a group of students, at that time studying to enter the Sapporo Agricultural College - Arishima Takeo, Morimoto Kokichi, Hoshino Yuzo, Akemine Masao, Hanzawa Jun and others. |
| |
| The year was 1898. The Piersons were living and working as missionaries in Otaru. They were also teaching at the Smith School for Girls in Sapporo, later to become Hokusei Gakuen. The 20-year-old Arishima Takeo and the other students received lessons in reading the Bible in German from Mrs Pierson, an American of German ancestry. |
| |
| Arishima boarded at the house of Professor Nitobe Inazo, located where the ANA Hotel now stands, while attending classes at the Sapporo Agricultural College buildings near where the Sapporo Clock Tower now stands. He had become deeply imbued in the asceticism of Puritan Christianity. His diary of that period reveals an extraordinary mind tormented by the corruption of society, battling to control sexual desires, sometimes contemplating suicide. |
| |
| Perhaps it is just imagination, but the brooding eyes of his ashen face in the centre of the photograph seem to suggest such inner agony. |
| |
| The following year Arishima committed himself to Christianity. He had been influenced by his friend Morimoto, who wrote the following: [We both became devoted Christians, ardent believers. That led us in our initial zeal to take a public stand based on Christian principles in condemning social decadence, admonishing declining moral standards and advocating reform of the church, with its many hypocrites.] |
| |
|
The two overcame their youthful anguish sufficiently to go out and assist at a night school providing instruction for children from poor families. At the time of their graduation in 1901 they published a biography of David Livingstone, the dedicated British missionary explorer of Africa and advocate of the abolition of the slave trade. The two then travelled to the United States, from where Morimoto brought back to Japan the concept of apartment living and other social innovations. Arishima, deeply ashamed of his wealthy lifestyle earned with no sweat from his own brow, handed over gratis to the 70 tenant farmers living there the four hundred and fifty hectare estate he had inherited from his father at Kaributo, (Niseko) in Shiribeshi (southern Hokkaido). |
| |
| The only records linking Arishima with the Piersons are this photograph and a lyrical entry in Arishima's diary for 17 April 1899: [ This evening I revised my German, which left me even more sleepy than I had been before, so my eyes were half closed as I went through the dutiful motions of reading the Bible.] It seems Arishima was not very enthusiastic about his German studies. |
| |
| However just as Arishima and his friends endeavoured to assist the poor and weak of this world, the Piersons did likewise, campaigning later in Asahikawa and Nokkeushi (Kitami) against officially sanctioned houses of prostitution. As a result they were sometimes subjected to violence. They contributed their own money to help with the rehabilitation of thirty prostitutes in Nokkeushi. So Arishima and the Piersons had more in common than just the study of German. They shared a humanitarian dedication towards helping the less fortunate members of society. |
| |
| These days we seem to have lost faith in pure, single-minded humanitarian principles. But such belief was once very much alive, both in America and in the hearts of young men in Meiji-era Japan. Those thoughts came to mind as I gazed out upon the sparkling, fresh lawn. |
| |
| (from the Kitami City Newsletter, July 1992) |