From accounts the situation between Kishimoto San and his granddaughter was not a happy one.  The passing weeks had not brought reconciliation to them nor to the conditions.  It had come almost to open warfare.  “And,” declared the troubled man, “if she does not render obedience I will reduce her to bread and water, and subject her to a lonely place, till she comprehends who is the master and acknowledges filial piety.”

I protested that such a measure would only urge to desperation a girl of Zura’s temperament and that, to my mind, people could not be made good by law, but by love.

The master of many women looked at me pityingly.  “Madam, would you condescend to inform my ignorance how love is joined to obedience?  Speaks the one great book of this land written for the guidance of women, ’The lifelong duty of women is obedience.  Seeing that it is a girl’s destiny on reaching womanhood to go to a new home and live in submission to her mother-in-law, it is incumbent upon her to reverence her parents’ and elders’ instruction at the peril of her life.’”

“But,” I remarked, “there is something like two centuries between your granddaughter and this unreasonable book.  Its antiquated laws are as withered as the dead needles of a pine tree.  Any one reading it would know that when old man Kaibara wrote it he was not feeling well or had quarreled with his cook.”

In most things Kishimoto San was just; in many things he was kind.  But he was as utterly devoid of humor as a pumpkin is of champagne.  Without a flicker he went on.  “Dead these sacred laws may be in practice, but the great spirit of them must live, else man in this land will cease to be master in his own house; the peace of our homes will pass.  Also, does not your own holy book write plainly on this subject of obedience of women and children?”

Kishimoto San was a good fighter for what he believed was right, and as a warrior for his cause he had armed himself in every possible way.  He had a passable knowledge of English and an amazing familiarity with the Scriptures.  He also possessed a knack of interpreting any phase of it to strengthen the argument from his standpoint.  But I, too, could fight for ideals; love of freedom and the divine right of the individual were themes as dear to me as they were hateful to Kishimoto San.  It had occurred many times before, and we always argued in a circular process.  Neither of us had ever given in.

But this night Kishimoto San gave me as a last shot:  “The confusion of your religion is, it boasts only one God and numberless creeds.  Each creed claims superiority.  This brings inharmony and causes Christians to snap at each other like a pack of wolves.  We have many gods and only one creed.  We have knowledge and enlightenment which finally lead to Nirvana.”

I could always let my friend have the last word but one.  I now asked him if he could deny the enlightenment of which he boasted led as often to despair as it did to Nirvana.  If his knowledge were so all-inclusive, why had it failed to suggest some path up or down which he could peacefully lead Zura Wingate?