Gunpei Yamamuro

Japanese: 山室軍平 - やまむろ・ぐんぺい

Year of death: March 13, 1940
Year of birth: August 20, 1872 (September 22, 1872)
Commander of the Salvation Army in Japan. Born to a middle-class farming family in Noriaki Village (Tetsuta Town), Tetta County, Okayama Prefecture. As a child, he was adopted due to his family's poverty. In 1886, he ran away from his foster home and worked as a printer at the Tsukiji Type Foundry. In 1887, he became a Christian after encountering roadside evangelism. He attended a missionary school in Tsukiji and then studied at Doshisha University. While struggling with the relationship between the salvation of his faith and real life, he met Ishii Juji in Okayama. He dropped out of Doshisha and helped out at an orphanage in Okayama before joining the Salvation Army in 1903. He then devoted himself to the abolition of prostitution and settlement projects. In 1926, he became commander of the Salvation Army. During this time, in 1900, an incident occurred in which a gangster from the red-light district attacked a prostitute, but with the support of the newspaper industry, the abolitionist movement spread. His main work, "The Gospel of the Commoner," published in 1899, is a tale of his rise to power and a theory of his profession. He was an earnest man who, when appointed as an officer of the Salvation Army, declined a monthly salary of eight yen, saying that he could live on six yen a month. There is the "Yamamuro Gunpei Selection." <References> Akira Miyoshi, "Yamamuro Gunpei"

(Yasuhisa Shinozaki)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：昭和15.3.13(1940)
生年：明治5.8.20(1872.9.22)
救世軍日本司令官。岡山県哲多郡則安村(哲多町)の中農の家に生まれる。幼少のころ,家が貧窮し養子に出される。明治19(1886)年養家を出奔し,築地活版製造所で印刷工として働く。同20年基督教の路傍伝道に接して入信。築地の伝道学校を経て同志社に学ぶ。信仰上の救いと現実生活の関係をめぐって苦悩するなか,岡山で石井十次に出会う。同志社を中退し,岡山孤児院の手伝いなどをしたのち,同28年に救世軍入軍。以後,廃娼運動,セツルメント事業などに尽力。大正15(1926)年には救世軍司令官となった。この間,明治33年に遊郭側の暴力団に襲われる事件が発生したが,新聞界の支援を受け廃唱運動は広がった。明治32年に刊行した主著『平民の福音』は立志伝・職分論でもある。救世軍士官に任命されたとき,月6円で生活できるからと,8円の月給を辞退した生真面目な人。『山室軍平選集』がある。<参考文献>三吉明『山室軍平』

(篠崎恭久)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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