Yang Jeon-baek (梁甸伯, March 10, 1869 – January 17, 1933) was an independence activist and one of the Thirty-Three Signatories of the March 1st Movement in 1919. He was a Presbyterian minister. His courtesy name was Jeon-baek (甸伯), by which he was better known, and his art name was Gyeok-heon (格軒). His alternate name was Yang Seop (梁 燮). He belonged to the Byeongbugong branch of the Namwon Yang clan, as a 29th-generation descendant, and was the 19th-generation descendant of Jwajugong (祭酒公).
생애
출생과 가계
Yang Jeon-baek's grandfather, Yang Hye-won (梁惠源), who held the rank of Tongjeong Daefu, moved from Pyongan Province's Uiju County, Gogwan-myeon, to Seonchon County and lived there.
He was born as the eldest son in Sanggo-ri, Gogwan-myeon, Uiju County, Pyongan Province, to his father Yang Hyeong-sik (梁亨植) and his mother of the Suwon Baek clan, and spent a brief infancy in Seonchon County, Pyongan Province, in the past.1
기독교 입교
In 1888, at the age of 19, Yang Jeon-baek abruptly quit his job as a village schoolmaster, left home, and wandered from place to place. He entered the tutelage of the Confucian scholar Yi Jeong-ro (李梃魯), who lived in Songjang-myeon, Uiju County. The following year he returned home and married Park Yeong-sin (朴永信). He again worked as a village schoolmaster to make a living, while also studying the Confucian classics. Three years later, in 1892, Kim Gwan-geun (金灌根), son-in-law of the Uiju merchant Baek Heung-jun (白鴻俊), who had taken part in Rev. John Ross's translation of the Bible into Korean, invited Yang Jeon-baek as a teacher to teach villagers to read and write. Kim Gwan-geun closely observed Yang Jeon-baek's words and deeds, came to like him, and preached the Christian gospel to him.
However, Yang Jeon-baek, a firm Confucian, was not easily moved by Christian doctrine. In September 1892, Kim Gwan-geun visited him again and proposed a trip to Seoul together, offering to cover the travel expenses. When Yang Jeon-baek agreed, Kim Gwan-geun took him to the Presbyterian Church's Dosagyeonghoe (都査經會), a Bible study gathering held at Jeongdong Church in Seoul. The Dosagyeonghoe, which studied the Bible and Christian doctrine, was held for one month with 16 believers from Seoul, Pyongan Province, and Hwanghae Province in attendance. Yang Jeon-baek, who attended the gathering almost by accident, encountered Christianity and Western thought there.
After completing the Dosagyeonghoe and returning to Guseong, Yang Jeon-baek was invited, through the arrangement of Kim Gwan-geun's father Kim I-ryeon, to teach at a school that had been established in Sinsi, Sagi-myeon. There he taught Chinese characters along with Hangul and the Bible. On Sundays he held Sunday worship services at the school with dozens of believers and students. However, he still adhered to Confucianism and regarded Christianity as a secondary discipline. Then, in December 1894, the First Sino-Japanese War turned the Pyongan region into a battlefield and made it impossible to run the school, so he left home and headed for Seoul.
After arriving in Seoul, Yang Jeon-baek met missionary Samuel A. Moffett, held conversations with him, and at last was moved by Christian doctrine. In 1895 he was baptized by Missionary Moffett and converted to Christianity. Missionary Moffett, in a report sent to the Northern Presbyterian mission headquarters, reported on Yang Jeon-baek as follows:
>He is learned and knows much, and will be a leader to a degree that few could follow. Since he has already read the Bible extensively and has a deep faith, I baptized him right away.
Afterward, Yang Jeon-baek sold his house to raise 400 nyang, added about 200 nyang of subsidy sent by Missionary Graham Lee, purchased six rooms of thatched houses, repaired them into a chapel, and established Sinsi Church with Kim Gwan-geun as its assistant pastor. He then visited Missionary Moffett in Pyongyang, received the post of colporteur (勸書), and began to spread the Christian gospel by traveling around the Pyongan region selling the Gospels and evangelistic literature.
Together with the missionaries, he established Shinseong Middle School and Boseong Girls' School in Seonchon, and while working as a lecturer for the Seoul YMCA gatherings, he was counted among the leading Christian educators of the Pyongan region alongside Ahn Chang-ho of Pyongyang and Yi Sung-hun of Jeongju. In 1911, he was implicated, together with members of the New People's Association, in the 105-Man Incident, was sentenced to six years in prison, and served two years. After his release, in 1914 he was elected vice-chairman of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, and in 1916 he was elected its moderator.
목회 활동 및 계몽 운동
In December 1896, Yang Jeon-baek became the assistant of Missionary Norman C. Whittemore, who had newly arrived in Pyongyang. Afterward, he set up a base in Seonchon together with Missionary Whittemore and established churches while traveling around the North Pyongan Province region. He gathered believers who had been worshipping at home in Seonchon and established Seonchon-eup Church in the autumn of 1897. As a result of his efforts in evangelism while traveling around various areas, by around 1899 the number of baptized believers in 26 Presbyterian churches across North Pyongan Province had grown to 202.
Yang Jeon-baek also devoted himself to educational work. In 1900 he received donations from Seonchon notables and church members, and with these he established Myeongsin School (明信學校), an elementary educational institution. Founded with 12 students, Myeongsin School expanded gradually, establishing an affiliated girls' elementary school in 1901.
In February 1902, Yang Jeon-baek was ordained as an elder of Seonchon-eup Church. The following year, by resolution of the Presbyterian Council, he was recommended as a seminarian of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which had opened in Pyongyang, and received theological training to become a minister. Around this time, the Russo-Japanese War broke out, and churches across North Pyongan Province were requisitioned or destroyed for use as barracks or hospitals by Russian and Japanese troops. Feeling the sorrow of a weak nation, Yang Jeon-baek resolved to begin in earnest a popular enlightenment movement.
In 1906, Yang Jeon-baek, together with members of Seonchon-eup Church, established Shinseong Middle School (信聖中學校). Initially it started with 26 students and six teachers, using space borrowed from Seonchon-eup Church. In 1909, Shinseong Middle School was reorganized as a mission school when the Northern Presbyterian mission board received donations from American benefactors to build new teachers' quarters and dormitories and took over management of the school. Independence activists who graduated from this school included Baek Nak-jun,[5] Yi Dae-wi, Gye Byeong-ho, Park Hyeong-ryong, Kim Seon-ryang, Kim Yang-seon, Jang Jun-ha, and Gye Hun-je. Yang Jeon-baek also devoted his efforts to educating women leaders by founding Boseong Girls' School (保聖女學校) in 1907, and with donations sent by Korean-Americans he founded the Daedong Orphanage in 1908.
In June 1907, Yang Jeon-baek graduated from the Presbyterian Theological Seminary together with Gil Seon-ju, Bang Gi-chang, Seo Gyeong-jo, Song Rin-seo, Yi Gi-pung, and Han Seok-jin. These seven men, three months later, when the Independent Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Korea was organized, received ordination as ministers and became the first ministers of the Korean Presbyterian Church. After receiving ordination, he served for two years as a minister touring North Pyongan Province and southern Manchuria, and in 1909 he took up the post of senior pastor of Seonchon-eup Church.
After the Annexation of Korea, in the autumn of 1910 the Japanese government invited 17 prominent clergy of various Christian denominations in Korea, including Yang Jeon-baek, Yi Sang-jae, and Choe Byeong-hyeon, and sent them to Japan for observation. The aim was to win them over and recruit them by showing them Japan's advanced civilization. However, after returning from the trip, Yang Jeon-baek told his congregation, "If Britain accomplished its project over 100 years, and Japan accomplished it in 30 years, is there any law that says Koreans cannot accomplish it in 10 years?" and encouraged them to awaken to religious morality and to devote themselves to various undertakings.
When the attempt at co-optation failed, in October 1911 the Japanese authorities fabricated the attempted assassination of Governor-General Terauchi and arrested all the figures associated with the New People's Association and leaders of the Christian community. At that time Yang Jeon-baek was also arrested, along with students and teachers of Shinseong Middle School in Seonchon, and taken to Seoul. A total of 389 people were implicated in this case, and of these, 123 people, including Yang Jeon-baek, were formally indicted by the Police Headquarters. He suffered severe torture at the hands of Japanese officials, but never broke his will to resist.
On September 28, 1912, Yang Jeon-baek was sentenced to six years in prison by the Gyeongseong District Court. He, together with 104 others who had likewise been found guilty, appealed to the appellate court, and on March 20, 1913, the Gyeongseong Appellate Court acquitted 99 people, excluding six people: Yun Chi-ho, Yang Gi-tak, Im Chi-jeong, Yi Seung-hun, An Tae-guk, and Ok Gwan-bin. Yang Jeon-baek, who was thus released on acquittal and returned to the teaching platform at Shinseong Middle School, submitted his resignation and confessed his own guilt:
>I must now resign from teaching. I, with my frail body, could not endure the torture while in detention, and so I told a lie with this mouth, saying that I had done what I had not done. I have become one who cannot stand on the teaching platform of the Lord.
However, his confession was not accepted. Afterward, in 1914 he was elected chairman of the North Pyongan Presbytery, and in 1916 he was elected the fifth moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, emerging as a leader representing Presbyterian churches nationwide.
On February 6, 1919, Seonu Hyeok, an executive of the Korean Youth Independence Party (新韓青年黨), which had been organized in Shanghai, China, visited Yang Jeon-baek. He informed Yang Jeon-baek that the party had decided to send Kim Kyu-sik as its representative to the Paris Peace Conference to petition for Korean independence, and asked him to raise funds for the independence movement. Yang Jeon-baek agreed with the purpose but answered that, because police crackdowns were severe at the moment and fundraising would be difficult, he should first go across the Yalu River to Andong in Manchuria.
On February 8, Korean students in Tokyo, Japan, carried out the February 8 Declaration of Independence. When this news reached the homeland, Choe Nam-seon of the Cheondoist movement sent a letter to Yi Sung-hun, who was attending a Bible class in Seonchon, asking him to hurry to Seoul because there was a matter to negotiate with the Christian community. Following that request, Yi Sung-hun came up to Seoul on February 11, and at Kim Seong-su's residence in Gye-dong, Seoul, on the same day he met Song Jin-u, received the request that Cheondoism and Christianity should join forces to issue a declaration of independence, and gladly accepted it. Afterward, when Yi Sung-hun returned to Seonchon, at Yang Jeon-baek's house he summoned Yang Jeon-baek, Yu Yeo-dae, Kim Byeong-jo, Yi Myeong-ryong, and others, urged them to join the undertaking, and won the consent of all.
Yang Jeon-baek made up his mind to take part in the independence movement, and at a church gathering held in Pyongyang he met Ha Tae-yeong and entrusted him with the seal to be stamped on documents to be sent to the Japanese government, the Imperial Diet, and the Government-General of Korea. According to what he later stated when questioned by the Japanese police, he had originally considered independence petition rather than independence declaration as the method of the movement, and until just before the event he understood that a first group of 50 people would submit an independence petition, and if those people were arrested, a second and third group would step forward to petition again. However, on the night of February 23, at the second joint meeting of Presbyterian and Methodist leaders held at the parsonage of Ha Tae-yeong at Namdaemun Outside Gate Church, it was decided to accept the opinion of the Cheondoist side, which advocated the announcement of the Declaration of Independence in order to unify the independence movement, and so the policy was firmly set as a declaration of independence rather than a petition.
After Yi Sung-hun notified him that the date of the event had been set for March 1 and asked him to come up to Seoul, Yang Jeon-baek arrived at Namdaemun Station in Seoul on the night of February 28, the day before, and after spending the night at a nearby inn, at 10 a.m. on March 1 he visited Ha Tae-yeong's residence and at last learned that the policy had been changed from an independence petition to an independence declaration. He then headed for the Taehwagwan restaurant branch of Myeongwolgwan in Insa-dong, Jongno, where the Declaration of Independence ceremony was to be held. He attended the Declaration of Independence ceremony held at Taehwagwan at 2 p.m. on March 1, and was arrested by police who rushed in and taken to police headquarters.
Afterward, on October 12, 1920, Yang Jeon-baek was sentenced to two years in prison by the Gyeongseong Appellate Court, and on October 30, 1920, at the final hearing he was sentenced to two years in prison and gave up his right to appeal. He then served his sentence at the Gyeongseong Prison in Gongdeok-ri, Mapo, and was released upon completing his term on November 4, 1921.
After his release, Yang Jeon-baek resumed service as senior pastor of Seonchon Bukgyo Church. Around this time, while devoting himself to ministry, he also set about rebuilding Myeongsin School, which had lost its accreditation in 1917 and had been maintained as a traditional village-school system. In 1923 he built a semi-Western-style teaching building, and in September of the following year it was accredited as a six-year public elementary school. He also raised assets of 56,236 won through donations from local notables and obtained approval as a foundation corporation in 1926. Afterward, it appears that he withdrew from the front lines of ministry in his late fifties. In his place, as a final undertaking, from 1927 he took on the responsibility of compiling the history of the Presbyterian Church in Korea. Staying at the Pierson Bible School in Seoul, he collected materials on church history and began writing the Chosŏn Yesugyo Changnohoe Sagi (朝鮮耶蘇敎長老會史記). Then, after falling ill, he returned to Seonchon County to recuperate.
사망 그리고 장례식
On January 17, 1933, he died of chronic illness at his home in Cheonbuk-dong, Seonchon County, North Pyongan Province.
His funeral was held as a five-day funeral on January 21, as a Christian joint social funeral solemnly and reverently conducted under the direction of Dr. Namgung Eok, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, before a crowd of about 5,000 people.
The following is a passage from the eulogy read at his funeral by Rev. Yi Seung-ha (senior pastor of Haebang Church):
"The Teacher was neither an orator, nor a man of letters, nor a socially expansive person of wide-ranging sociability, nor a person of strategy and resourcefulness with brilliant schemes. He was only an upright righteous man, and a person of deep compassionate passion. Before injustice and unrighteousness he did not bend in the slightest, and when he saw the poor and the weak he shed tears of sympathy. He was truly a man of God."
His burial site is marked with an upright stone on Geowusan (臥牛山) in Wolcheon-dong (越川洞), Seonchon-eup, Seonchon County, North Pyongan Province, and his body was interred.
가족
Following his father, his eldest son Yun-mo joined the anti-Japanese independence movement abroad and served in the Prosecutor's Office.
- Father: Yang Hyeong-sik (梁亨植, birth year unknown – May 18, 1882)
- Mother: Suwon Baek clan (birth and death years unknown)
- Spouse: Park Yeong-sin of the Miryang Park clan (朴永信, January 12, 1875 – death year unknown)
- Eldest son: Yang Yun-mo (梁允模, January 14, 1900 – death year unknown)
- Daughter-in-law: Kimhae Kim clan (December 22, 1898 – October 6, 1953)
- Second son: Yang Yun-jik (梁允直, September 2, 1917 – death year unknown)
- Daughter-in-law:
- Daughters: Yang Yun-seong (梁允聖), Yang Yun-hwa (梁允華), Yang Yun-jeong (梁允貞), Yang Yun-suk (梁允淑), Yang Yun-do (梁允道)
- Paternal grandsons: Yang Seung-yu (梁承裕), Yang Seong-yu (梁成裕), Yang Se-yu (梁世裕)
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