Chapter XX: Part 20

Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined by three others. These newcomers landed at Kagoshima and found that, in spite of the official veto against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief had lost nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade. Two years later, all the Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there; and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in 1579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports, known as the _Annual Letters_, comprise some of the most valuable information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these _Annual Letters_ it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xavier's departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later, this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 1557 two of the fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela, sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking practices. For a sub-feudatory of the Hirado chief, having been converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events, for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese. The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the neighbouring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary honours by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the port, her master declaring that "he could not remain in a country where they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself." Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to receive the Jesuits, once more. This incident was paralleled a few years later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain, embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example; but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his subjects to revert to Buddhism arid made the missionaries withdraw. In fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbour and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the newly opened free port. Sumitada, however, quickly reasserted his authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki, in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada became one of the richest of the Kiushiu feudatories. When in 1573 successful conflicts with the neighbouring fiefs brought him an access of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him, and "these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the neighbouring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few who quitted the State." In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftain's son, a youth of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes. Christianity was then becoming established in Kiushiu by methods similar to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada (Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitada's very dramatic conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitada's iconoclastic methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory, influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitada's prosperity and puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the "Prince Andrew" of missionary records. It is written in those records that "the first thing Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one single idolater in his states." Thus in the two years that separated his baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral faith, and caused "the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be thrown down." Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They threatened to leave Kuchinotsu _en masse_, and as that would have involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general, Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbours, and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the secular arm so adroitly that the fief's chance of survival seemed to be limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the chieftain and his wife were baptized; "all the city was made Christian; they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some materials to build churches."

Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The _Annual Letter_ of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts, of whom some 125,000 were in Kiushiu and the remainder in Yamaguchi, Kioto and the neighbourhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed. They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, "went to the chase of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular pleasure to exterminate them from his states."

First Japanese Embassy to Europe.

In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16, representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura and Bungo. They visited Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, and in all these cities they were received with displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make. That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how great were the riches and might of Western states.

Second Visit of Jesuits to Kioto.

In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made of Christians in Kioto, though we have already seen that the visit by Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second visit, however, made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. He carried letters of recommendation from the Bungo chieftain, and the proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of idols had commenced in Kiushiu. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that only a portion of the old man's authority had descended to his successor. Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good offices of a priest, described as "one of the most respected men in the city," and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatory's letter, Vilela enjoyed the rare honour of being received by the shogun in Kioto, who treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the mouth of a Japanese convert, Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was protected by the goodwill of the shogun, who had already issued a decree threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance of 50 miles from Kioto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests, notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official commissioners to investigate and report upon the doctrine of Christianity. The first conversion _en masse_ was due to pressure from above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the neighbourhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy, the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his family to follow his example. This man's son--Takayama Yusho--proved one of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono. Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals, just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kiushiu. But the Kioto record differs from that of Kiushiu in one important respect--the former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.

Nobunaga and the Jesuits.

Kioto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated in the murder of the shogun (1565), and led to the issue of a decree by the emperor proscribing Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the instance of one of the shogun's assassins and certain Buddhist priests. The Jesuits--their number had been increased to three--were obliged to take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xavier's landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his father's fief, a comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was seated in Kioto, a maker of shoguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power, adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps, their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shogun three years before Nobunaga's victories carried him to Kioto, and the armed monasteries constituted _imperia in imperio_ which assorted ill with his ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted Froez from Sakai to Nobunaga's presence, the reception accorded to the Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of him: "This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the way for our faith." Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who could treat them as this potentate did in 1579, when he plainly showed that political exigencies might at any moment induce him to sacrifice them.[30] His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.

Hideyshi and the Christians.

The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the 15th and 16th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men ever produced in Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi, as Nobunaga's lieutenant, contributed largely to the building of the latter's fortunes, and, succeeding him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunaga's footsteps. He not only accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East. At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that "Hideyoshi was not only not opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.... He is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law." Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and favour a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience, and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshi's greatest military enterprise, the invasion of Kiushiu and its complete reduction. He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587, and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the vice-provincial of the Jesuits: "Why and by what authority he and his fellow-propagandists had constrained Japanese subjects to become Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen and cows? Why the vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make slaves of them in the Indies?" To these queries Coelho, the vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted bonzes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hideyoshi read the vice-provincial's reply and, without comment, sent him word to retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict was published:--

"Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests
have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that
of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples
dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most
extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order
them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that
space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of
that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they
should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the
Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to
continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided
our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests
into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships
and goods."

How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation of Kiushiu, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiushiu, Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiushiu. While still in Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that "he feared much that all the virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs against the empire." There had been no demolishing of temples or overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan provinces. In Kiushiu, however, very different conditions prevailed. There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power, temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.

Sequel of the Edict of Banishment.

Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their faith they would at any time defy the laws of the island. His estimate received immediate verification, for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, assembled at Hirado and received his order to embark at once they decided that only those should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the churches in Kioto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiushiu and seize the port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kiushiu but also found a favourable field of operations in Kioto itself. Care was taken that Hideyoshi's attention should not be attracted by any salient evidences of what he had called a "diabolical religion," and thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal chiefs in Kiushiu, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with 300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few bonzes.

Hideyoshi's Final Attitude towards Christianity.

For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a mood of uncompromising severity. The reasons of this second change are very clear, though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained permission to visit Kioto, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in Kioto, consecrated it with the utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshi's veto. Presently their number received an access of three friars who came bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kioto with having intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi's attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and running--or being purposely run--on a sand-bank as she was being towed into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed account of the doings of the Franciscans and their open flouting of his orders. Hideyoshi, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the "San Felipe." The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spain's dominions, and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway, replied: "Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in accomplishing the rest."

The First Execution of Christians.

On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears cut off, to be promenaded through Kioto, Osaka and Sakai, and to be crucified at Nagasaki. "I have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and caused disorders." Twenty-six suffered under this sentence--six Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians, chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans.[31] They met their fate with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants. But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril, turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she carried 11 of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors. It is not to be supposed that such a manoeuvre could be hidden from the local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that Hideyoshi was about to visit Kiushiu in person, and all Japanese in administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598, really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were demolished in Kiushiu, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation in their favour. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and consigned his "soul to hell for all eternity." Yet no impartial reader of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in Hideyoshi's place would have shown towards an alien creed and its propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits.

Foreign Policy of the Tokugawa Rulers.

Hideyoshi's death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into the hands of Iyeyasu, the Tokugawa chief, and thirty-nine years later the Tokugawa potentates had not only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had also condemned their country to a period of international isolation which continued unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did they close the country's doors to the outside world and suspend a commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared Hideyoshi's misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts. The first occasion of the Tokugawa chief's recorded contact with a Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshi's death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila. This man's conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported from Japan to Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to Manila:--

"When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the
previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had
delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new
colleagues from there--preachers of the divine law--and that I had
returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the
desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like
my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to
smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which
teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that
I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me
kindly, he said, 'Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself,
and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the
Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwanto where my
domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen
desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh
themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals
and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions
may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the
means to take to realize them.' I answered that it was necessary that
Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that
ships might not be lost in future as the 'San Felipe' had been, and
that he should solicit this service from the governor of the
Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has
sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this
message.... It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete
liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order,
for the preaching of the holy gospel.... The same Prince (who is about
to visit the Kwanto) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a
house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his
desires in this respect are keener than I can express."

The above version of the Tokugawa chief's mood is confirmed by events, for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a church--the first--in Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto and asking for competent naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by "declaiming with violence against the fathers of the company of Jesus." In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the "Liefde." Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels, and the Dutch met the situation by turning their prows to the Orient to invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the "Liefde." She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only four-and-twenty alive out of her original crew of 110. Towed into the harbour at Funai, the "Liefde" was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The "Liefde" had on board in the capacity of "pilot major" an Englishman, Will Adams of Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Iyeyasu quickly discerned the man's honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kioto, Osaka and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years' supplies for the mission in Japan.

It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japan's 16th-century statesmen--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu--adopted at the outset a most tolerant demeanour towards Christianity. The reasons of Hideyoshi's change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition is found in an order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, "but we rigorously forbid them" (foreigners coming in such ships) "to promulgate their faith." Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without. The story that he had to tell on his return could not fail to shock the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the pope's overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical sovereigns; of religious wars and of well-nigh incredible fanaticism. Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his emissary's statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times. From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the realm's peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians. These experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and to distrust it as a political influence, were soon supplemented by incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu, conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court, dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded the permission on Japan's side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility, especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that "the Roman priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although his own country preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were non-Christian." Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the Englishman's testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, "If the sovereigns of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse to tolerate them." Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of the fathers and their converts was plainly with the only magnate in the empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority been openly defied by a Franciscan father--the Sotelo mentioned above--in Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize, and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he said, "Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut in pieces by the order of their lord" (feudal chief).

Suppression of Christianity.

The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should be demolished, and that the converts should be compelled to abjure Christianity, was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were then in Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7 secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded the edict, some by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours. Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or resort to extreme measures.

During two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured to Iyeyasu final supremacy as administrative ruler of the empire. That episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment, for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place (June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all their property confiscated, to have any connexion with the ministers of religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in 1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shogun and his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is moreover morally certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Government's edict and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetada's edict was issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away the _bateren_ (_padres_). He appears to have concluded that a striking example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and decapitation of two fathers, De l'Assumpcion and Machado. The result completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle now destined to begin.