listened to the holy man, who spoke to them so affectionately of their dear Redeemer. When they had returned home, they repeated what they had heard, and so induced the adult persons to come likewise and hear the holy preacher. God rewarded his zeal, and granted him, as He had done to the first Apostles, the power of healing the sick, of raising the dead to life, of commanding the storms; in short, the power of working the most stupendous miracles. With untiring energy he went from country to country, from island to island, through all India and Japan, and converted, in the short period of ten years, many tribes and kingdoms. He himself testifies in one of his letters that in one month he administered Holy Baptism to ten thousand heathens. After his death, other missionaries continued the pious work, and introduced the Religion of Jesus into China also, that immense, unknown, and till then inaccessible empire. That these heathens had been truly converted was proved in the most convincing manner when the persecution of the Christians broke out in Japan. About one million, one hundred thousand[1] died for their faith, and the greater part of them were most horribly tortured. Even tender children, weak old men, and women of rank hastened with joy to martyrdom, dressed in their holiday attire, as if they were going to a wedding feast. So sincere and strong was their faith that even the survivors and their children have continued to preserve it under most adverse circumstances. Though shut out for over two hundred years from the Christian world, and without a priest, and subjected to tyranny and persecution, they taught the Catechism, recited the Catholic prayers they had learned, baptized their children, and strove to live piously. Ultimately the Japanese were forced to repeal their laws for the total exclusion of foreigners. Missionaries have again entered, and have found villages
- ↑ Some authors reckon 1,200,000.
