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 Kiūshiū 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 Kiūshiū and the remainder in Yamaguchi, Kiōto 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.”
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, First Japanese Embassy to Europe. 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.
In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made of Christians in Kiōto, though we have already seen that the visit by Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second visit, however, Second Visit of Jesuits to Kiōto. 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 Kiūshiū. 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 shōgun in Kiōto, 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 shōgun, 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 Kiōto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests, notoriously
