2
1st. Tuesday. Pale sun. Chilly.
3
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Amen! Jan. 1st, 1924.
4
Seoul home. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
5
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
6
About 10:30 a.m. paid my card-visit to Governor General. After lunch, with 璋善, 琦善 and 明姬, called on Mrs. Hardie, Mrs. Boaz whom I had thought to be away in Japan with the Bishop was there.
7
Called on Mrs. Deming who had called on me a few days ago. She is active in missionary work for the Chinese. She asked me to lend her ¥10,000(00/100) to help out the Chinese work.
9
2nd. Wednesday. Sun a.m. Cloud p.m. Chilly.
10
Seoul Home. Messrs. 洪性友 and 金錫泰 called this evening. They showed me a copy of 時事評論 in which an article appeared exposing the defects of the 彰文社: Mr. 朴勝鳳 has been running the "company?" all by himself during last 4 months. He fired the 支配人, the 爲業部長. I don't blame him so much for dismissing these men as for his doing things in such autocratic fashion. He ignores the directors all together. He doesn't report what he has done in the past 4 months nor what he plans to do in the future. He is as autocratic and dictatorial as a Korean minister used to be. This man talks and thinks as if he were doing all this for the glory of God!
12
3rd. Thursday. Cloud a.m. Sun p.m. Mild.
13
Called on Mr. 李尙在 this morning to ask him tell Mr. 朴勝鳳 to call a meeting of the 重役會. Mr. 李 suggested that I should visit America at this juncture when there seems to be strained relation between Japan and the U.S. The old gentleman doesn't seem to understand that Uncle Sam can't help Korea unless he is ready to fight Japan and that he, Uncle Sam, isn't interested enough in Korea to shed blood for her independence! What can I do in America? To be of any service I must either be a great man to compel the admiration, submission, and consolidation of the factions, or a possessor of unlimited wealth so as to finance the expensive, luxury of political propaganda. Being neither I may, by going there, become another Yi Sung Man or Kim Kajin. If I can do anything worthwhile in America, I may do better in Korea by helping education. Then I must take care of my children!
14
Left Seoul 1:30 p.m. for Song Do.
16
4th. Friday. Bright Mild.
17
Song Do home. Office as usual.
18
Received a nice letter from Helen.
19
Wrote Bishop Candler introducing Mr. 羅樞建.
20
Mr. 李尙在 told me that Mr. Cynn had suggested that he (Mr. Yi) should go abroad. I don't seen what real good the old man can do for Korea by going abroad. Cynn is such a shrewd man that he know more about these things than I do, though. However it is my firm belief that even Cynn would do vastly more good to the ultimate success of the Korean cause by devoting his high talents to the educational institutions like 培材 for instance than he could by speechmaking in America.
22
5th. Saturday. Pale. Chilly.
23
Song Do home. Office as usual.
24
Suppose I or any other Korean were to appeal to an American audience for deliverance from the Japanese yoke. Suppose further that the American audience, say, composed of the most influential men in the Cabinet and in the Congress, were to ask: "Now, Mr. Korean what do you want us to do for you?" Will any sane Korean answer:
25
"Please declare war with Japan for us?" All we could say would be "We want your sympathy!" The great pity is no strong nation ever disgorged a subject race on account of somebody else's sympathy. Has the sympathy of all the Christian nations of the West prevented the Lurks from massacring the poor Christian Americans?
27
6th. Sunday. Pale sun. Mild.
28
Mild as a Spring day. Worshipped at 宗橋 Church. Pastor 吳 preached a splendid sermon on the Living Hope. He introduced his talk with a vivid description of the hopeless of the Korean people. "Those who have everything they want don't need hope" was turn which the discourse took. He admirably argued that of all races in the East we are the most hopeful because we are most hopeless. This seeming paradox was explained and illustrated by the lives of Joseph and Moses whom God made great leaders of their people out of utter hopelessness. He prophesied that within 6 years from now, at most, God will give us such blessings as we dare not dream of today. He said that in 1916 or there about a similar inspiration or presentiment that inside of two years from then Korea would have a great blessings came to him. "In 1919 I went to prison" said he implying that the Mansei movement was the blessing he had the inspiration of "Let us die in hope rather than live in despair."
30
7th. Monday. Bright. Cold.―Windy―biting.
31
Left Seoul 6:15 a.m. train for Song Do where I arrived at 8 a.m. School opened its 3rd term this morning.
33
8th. Tuesday. Bright a.m. Bitter cold.
34
Song Do home. Office as usual. Real show from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
35
Those who promoted the organization of 彰文社 based their calculations on the fact that at least 20,000 of the so called 300,000 Christians or 1/15 of the entire membership of the Church would subscribe one share of ¥50.00. That was an error; but let us say it was rather an error of the head and not of the heart. But new the principal leaders of the scheme are seen to have been guilty of moral turpitude. Both Mr. 李尙材 and 兪星濬 subscribed to 100 and 200 shares with the deliberate intention of deceiving others into the game. They knew they could not pay up. So did 崔丙憲, 李承薰 and others who subscribed 50 shares etc. just to entice others to join the movement. 尹明殷 who headed the list with 300 shares, later reduced them to 100 and finally took back the money which he had paid up as first instalment! 朴容羲 actually embezzled ¥500.00. 朴鵬緖 who publicly promised he would make good 700 shares, didn't redeem his promise not only but embezzled ¥700.00 as the manager (專務取締) . 兪星濬, when I told him that I had so often been fooled by stock―company projects that I didn't want to join the 昌文社 business, piously asked me if I had ever been fooled by God. That man who compassed land and sea to get subscribers actually had the cheek to withdraw himself from the company. All these men think they are Christians. If so is their type of Christianity worth being preached?
37
9th. Wednesday. Bright. Cold.
38
Song Do home. Office as usual.
39
Received letters from 致昌 and Candler.
41
10th. Thursday. Bright. Bitter cold.
42
Song Do Office as usual. Left Song Do for Seoul 1:50 p.m. To visit America again is not my ambition. My experience of the 1910 American tour has left absolutely not a shred of pleasurable sensation or sentiment in my memory. The best thing I can say of it is that it was not altogether unpleasant. A place has no meaning in itself unless it is associated with human interest. Except a few isolated oasis of genuine welcome―like the home and hospitality of Mrs. Hounshell at Chattanooga, of Mrs. Hoss at Muskogee, of Prof. and Mrs. Bonnell at Macon, of Dr. and Mrs. Candler at Atlants―America was a desert to me so far as human affection and sympathy went. My sensibility was cut to the quick by the coldness of some of my former school mates whom I happened to meet here and there. No, I don't care to visit America again. If I have money and time to take a foreign trip I like to visit New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, the Northern Europe or South America or Africa. Not that I may meet with human affection or sympathy in these places but that they have the attractions of novelty to me.
44
11th. Friday. Pale sun. Mild.
45
Seoul home. Mailed letter and bill of exchange for £150/sterling to 致旺.
47
12th. Saturday. Pale. Mild. (TABLE)
48
Seoul home. When I am at home in Seoul I have to be up from 4 to 5 every morning as 琦善 is an early riser. This is no trouble to me but joy to listen to the baby talks of love and innocense of 琦善, 璋善 and 恩姬 who sleep in the same room with me. 琦善 has his own vocabulary.
49
==Tram car==웅==Apple==와와==壯士다==단다다==
50
==Mother==엄마==Candle==부응==Victoria==낭==
51
==Father==움메==김치==무==Shoes==내 구두==
52
==Cat==아웅==Rice==맘마==Milk==위==
53
==Dog==멍머==Cow or Ox==움메==잣==낫==
54
==Pencil==맙부==Brother==나나== ====
56
13th. Sunday. Gloomy. Chilly but thawing.
57
Seoul home. Worshipped at 宗橋 Church.
59
14th. Monday. Cloud and pale sun. Mild.
60
Seoul home. The weather behaves like Spring. With Messrs. 具 and 申 took lunch at Y.
61
The Junior Department in the Y. is to "let" to meet the deficit which the Y. budget of this year faces. Mr. 具 tells me the Y. finance came out last year ¥10,000.00 or more short. "You must spend in order to get money "was the principle with which Cynn started his Y.M.C.A. career. He should have kept in mind and in practice, the correlative principle "You must not spend more than you get." Had some money been laid aside in the boom years of 1919-20-21 the Y. finance might have been on a firmer and safer basis than it is now. One accused me of erring on the side of economy; now Cynn has found it is not safe to spend more than you get. I left the Y. with a reserve fund of several thousand yen untouched. Now 具 has to face a year with not a cent in reserve. With a great plant like the Central Y. to run, I think it is safer and wiser to err on the side of economy than on the side of extravagance.
63
15th. Tuesday. Beautiful. Mild.
64
Up at 6 a.m. A blister between the little and the fourth toe causes much pain; but I had to leave Seoul 8:25 a.m. train for Song Do in order to meet an engagement to talk in the Northward Church. On arriving home I had such pain in walking that I had to consult Dr. Huh. He ordered me to keep quiet.
66
16th. Wednesday. Pretty. Mild.
67
Song Do home. Still in bed the sore foot not allowing me to walk about. The boil like blister broke this morning thus removing the cause of the intense pain I suffered yesterday.
68
This morning's paper reports another big earthquake in Tokyo―another calamity to Korea.
70
17th. Thursday. Pretty. Mild.
71
Song Do home. Another Spring like day. The foot much better.
72
Emma Goldman of the most vociferous radicals of America was departed in 1919 to Russia, her new utopia of the Bolsheviks. After a sojourn of 15 months in the land of promise the famous anarchist, in a volume called "My Disillusionment in Russia; gives a sweeping indictment of Bolshevism. As for the Bolsheviks party:" Tammany Hall has nothing on "it." The rulers of Russia constituted a close corporation bolstered up by persecution, summary arrests and sudden death. "In the common dining rooms the best food went to a number of officials, commandants and inspectors!!" The workers, the poor people had merely changed masters. Said the poverty stricken citizens; "the masters have white bread, clothing even chocolate while we have nothing. Communism, equality, freedom lies and deception."
74
18th. Friday. Bright a.m. Cloudy p.m. Mild.
75
Song Do home. Office as usual. Left for Seoul 7:18 p.m. train.
76
Peace and talks of peace seem to be the fad in America and Europe. When the Westerners talk about peace, they remind me of my friend 朴晃讚. He was a mighty man in our village physically at least. If anybody was ever intended by nature to live three score and ten years or by reason of strength four score years, he was certainly one. But he loved the fire wine(燒酒) a little too much. During the dozen or so years of my acquaintance with, I never saw him without being literally soaked in alcohol. Once he got sick―awfully sick. He got scared. He kept a sharp nail of him vowing that he would stick it into his vitals if his desire for alcohol should return. His native strength plus his abstinence from the fiery liquor gave him health once more. For a month or two he kept his resolution to keep himself dry. But his flesh was too weak for the overwhelming temptation of a life long habit of intemperance. He drank again at first for the sake of his stomach, but gradually he drank for the sake of drink. He died only a year after his first illness. The love of war is in the blood of the Europeans. Their philosophers dream peace; their histories glory in war. Soon enough they, the Westerners, will forget the horrors of war and go to it again.
78
19th. Saturday. Snow. Mild.
79
Seoul home. Biggest snow so far of this Winter in Seoul.
81
20th. Sunday. Pale. Cold.
82
Seoul home. Darling 明姬 has a boil back of her neck. Took her to Dr. 朴啓陽 this morning.
84
21st. Monday. Bright. Cold.
85
Left Seoul 12:15 p.m. for Song Do.
86
From 7 p.m. today began the revival services for the benefit of the Song Do Higher Common School, under Pastor 劉漢翼. He rose from a lowly origin. He was once a common soldier in the Korean army. Thanks to his ability as a singer of (아리랑타령) he became a "Ground Favorite" in the Palace. Rapid promotions followed. In 1898 he was the Chief of Police Department―警務局長. In 1903 he, through the influence of then reigning favorite, 李容翊, succeeded me as the 監理 of Wonsan. Whoever dreamed, then, that 劉漢翼 the singer would turn a preacher of the Gospel! Certainly God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform.
88
22nd. Tuesday. Bright. Cold.
89
Song Do home. Morning watch prayer meeting between 6 and 7. Preaching from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
90
As I was going to the morning watch about 5:30, the moon shone bright and cold on the Western sky. The town sleeps wrapt in silence and the moon light. The eternal hills back of the city―the hills which have witnessed the rise and fall of two Dynasties during the last ten centuries―stand like faithful sentinels mute and melancholy. In these histories surrounding a handful of young men are gathered to pray for a better and higher life. A noble and inspiring sight. We didn't hear the morning stars sing together, but they certainly were there high and serene seeming to listen to the songs of the boys. God grant this revival shall prove a benediction to us all!
92
23rd. Wednesday. Bright. Cold.
93
Song Do home. Morning watch between 6 and 7 and preaching from 7 to 9 p.m.
94
3 p.m. went to the 面廳 or District Office to listen to an Imperial Rescript read(詔書奉讀式) . The Rescript was issued about a month after the September catastrophe in Tokyo, calling upon the people of Japan to be thrifty, loyal, industrious etc. to help forward the prosperity of the Japanese nation. The Rescript and the public reading thereof must have a meaning for the Japanese. But for the Koreans who sees through and suffers from, the Japanese policy of expropriation and exploitation, the Rescript is apiece of mockery pure and simple.
96
24th. Thursday. Cloudy. Chilly.
97
Song Do home. From 6 to 7, morning watch. Breakfast at Mr. Snyder's home.
98
Gave a welcome tea to Pastor 劉 4-5 p.m. It was an informal and enjoyable occasion. Mr. 劉 is full of fun―a bag of anecdotes. He is a good entertainer and will do much good as a preacher―provided he is sincere―"provided"―because having been disillusioned by such characters as Kim Pil Soo, Pak Sung Bong, Pak Yong Hui, Yu S.J., Pak Boong Suh etc. I agree with Confucius who said: 始吾仡人也 德其言而信其行 今吾仡人也 德其言而 觀其行.
100
25th. Friday. Pale. Cold.
101
From 6 to 7 morning watch. Lunch at Mr. Deal's home. Left Song Do 1:50 p.m. train for Seoul. Turned suddenly cold from about 7 p.m. with a thin cover of snow.
102
Lenin the dictator of the Soviet Russia is reported dead for good this time. From all sides I understand that Lenin was a sincere idealist who was ready to sacrifice himself for what he regarded to be the interest of the people. What a pity such a great man should have plunged a great nation into the depth of Hell just for the sake of carrying an academic ideal to its impractical conclusions. That was another form selfishness.
104
26th. Saturday. Bright. Bitter cold 12℃ below zero 9 a.m.
105
Seoul home. Lunch at Y. Called on 金錫泰, one of the directors(重役) of 彰文社.: He is bitter against 朴 S.B. the self appointed dictator of the precious "stock company" which Messrs. 兪 and 朴 and the rest of them insisted to be an enterprise which no Christian Korean could regard with indifference. Pastor 李正魯 is reported to have said that Mr. Pak S.B. is so black in his lust of money that he literally shines.
106
Would to God I were strong enough to have stayed out of a business which I knew and prophesied, would be a failure. Only I had no idea that 朴 S.B., 李容羲, 朴鵬緖 were such rascals and that Messrs. Yi S.J. and Yu S.J. were such irresponsible fools.
108
27th. Sunday. Pale. Bitter cold 14°C. below zero 9 a.m.
109
Seoul home. Today being the 4th birthday of 璋善 and the hundredth day of 寶姬 we had a double celebration. God bless them!
110
It is reported in a paper that some fool in Moscow moved to change the name of Petrograd to Leningrad. It was already absurd to change St. Petersburg into Petrograd. Now to change it again is double absurd. If the name of a city is to change everytime a great event or person appears who can tell what name the city will ever have in future? That alone shows that the Russians are not yet ready for a real, stable democracy.
112
28th. Monday. Bright. Very cold 11℃. below zero 9 a.m.
113
Left Seoul 12:15 p.m. train for Song Do. Quite a snowfall in Song Do last Saturday.
115
29th. Tuesday. Bright. Very cold.
116
Song Do Office all day.
118
30th. Wednesday. Bright. Mild.
119
Seoul home. 彰文社 取締役會 from 11 a.m. Present 李商在, 金宣均, 金正基, 朴鵬緖, 韓一賢, 李觀淳, 朴勝鳳, and myself. All guns were directed against 朴勝鳳, who was charged for having been too dictatorial carrying on the business of the company as if it were his personal property. After much talk, Mr. 金善均 moved to have a Committee appointed to look into the books, accounts and 手形 or collectable bills etc. Mr. 朴鳳緖 is no double a strong man but he is inclined to be arbitrary, arrogant and exceedingly short tempered and sharp tongued. He has succeeded in making enemy of everybody he came into touch in the company. How we may get out this mess is a great problem. 兪星濬 seems to be bent on one thing only―that is to make himself as little responsible as possible in any legal complications that may arise here after. That's contemptible. He urged others to join, the company in the name of God and then, but as soon as he scents dangers, he tries to back out leaving others in a hole. He may be a wise man but a coward all right.
121
31st. Thursday. Gray a.m. Sun p.m. Mild.
122
Seoul home. My birthday.
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