who encouraged Xavier to undertake the task, assuring them of unbounded success.
Xavier started in 1549, only five years after the adventurous Pinto had first re-discovered that empire—“where gold was as dross, and the people of gentle manners, though brave:” yet Xavier was not in time to claim the honour of having been the first to introduce his creed amongst the Japanese; for on his arrival at Macao, he learnt that at any rate a faith in the cross, as the real panacea for all mundane evils, was already making rapid progress amongst the people of Bongo. It appears that some priests of the Roman faith, whether Spanish or Portuguese our worthy chronicler does not say, succeeded, before Xavier’s arrival, in reaching the shores of Japan. They had been kindly received; but as the Bonzes of the Budhist faith were common throughout the country, the arrival of strangers strongly resembling them in appearance and professions did not at first excite astonishment, or impress the natives with any great respect for the sanctity of their mission. The profanity of a Japanese prince, however, soon gave the servants of Rome an opportunity of striking awe into the minds of their future converts. This prince, in waggish mood, put up his reverend visitors in a mansion sadly haunted by evil spirits, without telling them of the trick he desired to play them. When night came, and they sought repose, they were disturbed by dreadful apparitions and prodigious spectres, horrid noises, and rattling of chains. The stools and cushions flew about the apartments, and their reverences’ garments were torn off their backs: expecting every minute to be destroyed by these Japanese demons, they prayed, and used all known exorcisms; at last they signed themselves with the sign of the cross, and scored it on the walls and door-posts. The demons of Japan could not withstand this. They fled, and the good fathers slept in peace. Next day, the wicked prince and the people heard with astonishment of this cure for haunted houses; they were almost persuaded to Christianity, and “in token of it,” naïvely says the ancient writer, “and to keep away evil spirits from their abodes, crosses were marked upon all their walls and door-posts throughout that city.” The poor Japanese prince had been caught in his own trap, much in the same way that we find the old adage illustrated by a native artist of Yedo, and the prince could hardly have given the clever priests a better opportunity of proving that they were still more astute necromancers than any his state could boast of.
A Japanese Fox setting a Man-Trap. (Fac-simile.)