“But which side will these who rule us take in this war?”
“They will take what profits them best,” Yul-han replied.
He longed to stay and comfort her, but the day’s work waited and he went to it as he did on all days. Yet in his classes he could scarcely compel the usual tasks. His pupils were restless, afraid, excited, guessing and wondering how the new war would change their lives and hopeful that in the turmoil their country could find its independence again.
“Have no hope,” Yul-han told them.
“How can a Christian say we are to have no hope?” a young man demanded.
Yul-han could not answer. He felt himself rebuked. “Attend to your books,” he said sternly.
But the young could not attend to their books. They were distracted and rebellious and they broke rules and reproached their teachers. When Japan declared herself against Germany many were surprised, but Yul-han understood what the declaration meant. Korea was only the stepping-stone toward all Asia for that small strong island nation. Germany had taken territories from China, and Japan would claim them as booty of war.
One Sunday after the ceremony of worship in the church, Yul-han told Induk to wait for him under a date tree in the churchyard where were the tombs of Christians, for he had need of special counsel from the missionary. He went into the vestry behind the pulpit and there the missionary was taking off his robes of office. The day was cool with another autumn but this ruddy saint was always hot whatever the season and as he took off his black robes the sweat ran down his cheeks into his beard, now laced with white hairs.
“Brother, come in,” he shouted when he saw Yul-han. “How nave you been?”
Yul-han came in, pale and quiet and courteous. “I have need of counsel,” he said after greeting, and he went on to tell the American his fears.
“No one is deceived,” he told the missionary. “The Japanese will not fight in Europe, but they will take the territories of the Germans in China and there they will put down the roots of coming empire. Even as they came here to our earth with the pretext of war — ah, all their talk was only how they needed a place for their soldiers to encamp in the war against China and then against Russia, not against us, ah never, never against us! Will your President Wilson understand what Japan is doing?”
“Trust God,” the missionary said.
“Does God know?” Yul-han retorted with a crooked smile.
“He knows all things and all men,” the missionary replied.
Yul-han left the vestry room with questions unanswered. He longed for a man with whom he could talk and argue and by whom he could be enlightened, and in this mood he sought his old friend and associate teacher in his old school, Yi Sung-man. They had not met since he left the Japanese school, and he had no wish to return to that place. But he remembered that he and Sung-man used often to take their noon meal at a small cheap restaurant in a narrow side street and there he went the next day about noon. Yes, there Sung-man sat, untidy as usual and gulping down noodles and soup from a steaming bowl. His hair was too long and his western suit was unpressed and not clean. Yul-han sat down at the same table, and Sung-man looked up.
“You!” he exclaimed. “How long since I have seen you? You are thinner. I hear you have made a Christian out of yourself. I have been thinking I might do the same thing — but no, I would lose my job. You are lucky. Soup — soup—”
He snapped his fingers for the old woman who served, and she brought Yul-han a small burning brazier on which stood the brass bowl of hot soup.
More talk passed between them, small talk, questions of this old friend and that, while the restaurant grew empty.
“Have you a class?” Yul-han inquired then.
Sung-man shook his head and tipped his bowl to empty the last of the soup into his wide mouth. He set the bowl down, wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve and folded his arms and leaned forward.
“Do you know the American Woodrow Wilson?” Yul-han asked next in a low voice.
“Who does not?” Sung-man replied. “He is our one hope, a man of peace, alone in the world, who has power. He will save us all, if he can stop the war.”
“Have you a book about Wilson?” Yul-han asked next.
“Come to my room,” Sung-man replied.
Yul-han went with him then to his bedroom in the school building and Sung-man gave him a small thick book, printed on cheap paper. The title was one word, Wilson.
“Read it,” Sung-man said, “but always in secret. Then become one of us.”
One of us? Yul-han would not ask the meaning of such words. He put the book in his sleeve and went home and read the book all night. Out of dim blotted words he began to see, face to face, the figure of a man, a lonely, brave man, a man too sure of himself at times, but a man who tried always to do right. Could there be such a man anywhere in the world in these times? There was this one.
… Under his grass roof Il-han, too, was learning of Wilson. The sheets thrust under his door had continued, stopping sometimes as though the one who put them there might be in prison or killed, but before many days they were always there again. Now they told of Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson and the war, Woodrow Wilson and his own people, Woodrow Wilson and the subject peoples of the world.
Il-han read these pages again and again, pondering their meaning. His memories of America, once so clear and warm, had cooled when he conceived a deep contempt for that Roosevelt who had understood nothing of the significance of Korea in the world. Korea, this country, this gem of rock and earth, its mountains rich in mineral treasure, its rivers running gold, this flame of human fire thrusting itself even into the sea, surely it was one of the treasure countries of the globe. There were a few such places which, because of their strategic position, became the centers of human whirlpools, small in themselves but each an axis about which other nations revolved. Theodore Roosevelt could not comprehend the importance of such a country and in ignorance, admiring the courage of a small Japan over a vast Russia, he had ignored the very means by which Japan had won the victory, which was Korea. Was this Woodrow Wilson a wiser man?
Slowly, pondering every line, gazing at a dim photograph, Il-han created for himself the man Wilson. He was a scholar and this went to Il-han’s heart and to his mind. Scholars could understand one another everywhere in the world. Roosevelt had been only a rider of horses, a hunter of wild animals, a lover of violence. Even Sunia had exclaimed when, his office over, he had left his home to hunt savage beasts in Africa.
“Poor wife of his,” Sunia had said. “After seeing nothing of him during the years of his office, she must lose him altogether to the wild animals! You, at least, when the Queen was dead, retired here to our grass roof. In this way my true life began.”
He had dismissed this as woman talk when he heard it, but her words came back to him now. And Wilson was more than a scholar. He was also a man of deep feeling for his wife and children, the head of his house as well as of his nation. Did not Confucius say that a man’s responsibility was first to his own house? In many ways Woodrow Wilson was Confucian and could therefore be understood. He was a man of ideals and conviction, a man of peace. This Il-han concluded for on one sheet the writer had taken pains to put down certain sayings from Wilson. Thus when Wilson decreed a day of prayer for peace, in the midst of war, he had declared:
“I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do designate Sunday, the fourth day of October next, a day of prayer and supplication, and do request all God-fearing persons to repair on that day to their places of worship, there to unite their petitions to Almighty God that He vouchsafe His children healing peace and restore once more concord among men and nations.”