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A little after Xavier despatches a messenger to Portugal to complain of the slackness of the Portuguese officials; and the king in reply sends out a new viceroy and grants Xavier the most ample inquisitorial powers. Idolatry was suppressed in the Portuguese possessions; and both threats and promises were used to gain the natives to Christianity. Certainly these were not the only means employed by Xavier in his missionary enterprise. Neither could he without the Portuguese, nor the Portuguese without him, have worked out the extraordinary results which have been the boast of Catholicism ever since. Nothing could be more fitted to strike the mind of the Indian than the character, appearance, and manner of life of the apostle. In person he was tall and rather spare, but well proportioned, with brown hair, fair complexion, and blue eyes. The expression of his face was lively and cheerful; his address affable and winning. He made the same garment to do for frock and mantle, and lived on a morsel of bread. He rarely slept more than four hours a day, and his rest was often broken by extatic visions and pious exclamations. He went about on foot under the burning sun of India; and his whole time was employed in preaching, instructing, and directing his subordinates. His missionary labours on the coast of India occupied three years, and extended from Goa to Meliapur on the opposite coast of the peninsula. Leaving his converts to his assistants and catechists, Xavier then set out for Malacca, from which place he sailed amongst the Moluccas and the adjacent islands, returning to India two years afterwards.

It must be borne in mind that the Apostle of the Indies was both the leader and director of a widely spread missionary movement, conducted by a rapidly increasing staff, not only of Jesuits, but also of priests and missionaries of other orders, as well as of native preachers and catechists. Xavier reserved

islands round about Goa as well as those of the mainland of Salsette were forced to become Christians by Xavier's immediate successors at the College of the Holy Faith.

*In a letter, dated Cochin, 14th January, 1549, Xavier enumerates twenty Jesuit missionaries already in the Indies; four of whom were at the Moluccas, two at Malacca, ten in India, and four at Socotora.

for himself the arduous task of travelling to regions as yet unvisited by any preachers of Christianity; and his bold and impatient imagination was carried away by the idea of bearing the Cross to the countries of the farthest East. The islands of Japan, already known to Europe through the travels of Marco Polo, had been reached by the Portuguese only eight years before, namely, in 1541, and Xavier, while at Malacca, had conversed with navigators and traders who had visited that remote coast. A Japanese, named Angero (Hansiro), pursued for homicide, had fled to Malacca in a Portuguese ship. He professed a real or feigned desire to be baptized, and was presented to Xavier at Malacca, who sent him to Goa. There he learned Portuguese quickly, and was baptized under the name of Paul of the Holy Faith. One of the most curious documents in the 'Epistolæ Indicæ'* is a short account of Japan, written from the information furnished by this man.

The missionaries appear struck for the first time with the external resemblancet between Buddhism and Catholicism: the anonymous author of the Epistle, which must have been written in 1549, finds in Japan most of the doctrines of the infallible church-one God, the Miraculous Conception, the Trinity, Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, Angels, the worship of the saints, and the existence of one living supreme Head of the Church. The doctrines of Xagua (Sankya) were, he says, brought through China to Japan above five hundred years before, from a kingdom to the west of China named Cegnico, which he evidently imagines to have been the Holy Land, little dreaming it was the country in which he then was. Christianity, the writer had just been informed by a bishop of the

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The resemblance between the Buddhist and

Roman Catholic ritual was noticed by Xavier, though it does not appear to have struck him so forcibly as we might expect. See his letter, Kagosima, 3rd Nov. 1549, and the note in the French translation, Brussels, 1838, vol. ii. p. 160. It is noticed by Bouhours, Vie de Saint-François Xavier,' in his chapter on Japan, and by Bartoli, lib. iii. cap. vi. See also Alcock's Japan,' vol. i. p. 336. vol. ii. p. 309. The Catholic ritual has in like Jerome Xavier, while residing at the court of the great Akber, was informed by a traveller that the people of Cathay were Christians, which induced the father to send a missionary to China through Thibet. In the subsequent pages it has not been thought necessary to cite all the autho rities consulted in writing this article. Most of the Literæ Annuæ,' and other rare works of the Jesuit missionaries, are in the library of the Mu seum Calvet at Avignon, where we have consult ed them. Some of them will be found with dif ficulty elsewhere.

manner been mistaken for that of Buddhism.

the

Armenian Church, had once been preached to the privilege of giving titles. The authoin China. It might, he thinks, have been al-rity of the Cubo or Siogun had also become tered and disfigured by some impostor like very much relaxed, and the islands were diMahomet, and thus Xavier, whose intended vided amongst fourteen kings,* who in their voyage to Japan was announced, would only turn counted chieftains under them that prehave to restore the true faith to its original tended to a greater or lesser degree of indepurity. Some of the points of analogy men-pendence, according to their strength or optioned in the little treatise were entirely fan- portunity. Their power depended upon ciful, yet no two religions of independent number of their armed retainers, whose serorigin can resemble one another more close- vices they rewarded by grants in land. ly in external ritual, and yet differ more tho- There were few merchants, and the labouring roughly in spirit, than the Buddhist religion classes were little regarded. Japan was then and the Roman Catholic Church. Every one celebrated for its gold and pearls, but owing who has been in a Buddhist temple cannot to the smallness of trade the country still rehave failed to have remarked its resemblance mained poor. The arts seem to have made to a Catholic chapel: the paintings, the use as much progress as in Europe. Xavier eviof bells and rosaries, the same veneration for dently considers the Japanese as a nation relics, the shaven, celibate priests, with their not behind any European one in civilization, long robes and wide sleeves, the prayers in a and speaks of Miako as a greater city than dead language, the measured chant, the burn- Lisbon. He noticed the same strange cusing of incense, the orders of monks, nuns, toms as our travellers of to-day. Amongst and anchorites, and other institutions, cha- them, the well-known practice of Hara-Kiri, racteristic of both religions, have for ages or suicide, is not wanting. tempted Catholic missionaries to call Buddhism the devil's imitation of Christianity, and induced the learned to conclude that the ritual of the one has been borrowed from that of the other, though it has not been agreed which was the copyist.

Five hundred years before, the religion of Buddha had been introduced from China, and the ancient idols broken (idolis comminutis). This primitive form of devotion, the worship of the Camis or Sintos, which Buddhism has not yet entirely supplanted, seems Having carefully arranged the affairs of to have consisted in the adoration of the the Seminary of the Holy Faith at Goa and powers of nature, and the apotheosis of great the entire machinery of the mission, Francis kings and heroes. We learn from some of Xavier took ship for Malacca on the 14th Xavier's successors that Buddhism was diApril, 1549. On the 24th of June he sailed vided into two great sects, the most numerfor Japan, along with Angero and his two ous of which was called Xodoxins, who decompanions, in a Chinese junk belonging to voted themselves to the worship of Amida. a famous pirate, an ally of the Portuguese, The second was called Foquexus from the who left in their hands hostages for the safe-book Foque, which contained their revelation ty of the apostle on the voyage.* After a dangerous voyage they reached Kagosima, the native town of Angero, under whose auspices Xavier was well received by the governor, magistrates, and other distinguished people. The apostle was unable to commence his mission at once, though, according to his biographers, he possessed the gift of tongues. We are here,' he writes, 'like so many statues. They speak to us, and make signs to us, and we remain mute. We have again become children, and all our present occupation is to learn the elements of the Japanese grammar.' His first impressions of Japan were very favourable, and remind us of those of our own ambassador, Lord Elgin, when, after a long interval, those islands were again opened to European commerce. Japan was then, as now, under the nominal rule of the Dairi or Mikado, who resided at Miako, but his power was well-nigh reduced

Tursellinus, De Vita Francisci Xaverii,' 1596, lib. iii. cap. xix.; Lucena, 'Vida,' livro vi. capitulo xiv. p. 413.

written in a foreign language. They were the followers of Xaca or Xagua (Sankya). Mr. Dickson thinks that the Bonzes or Buddhist priests were now at the height of their power, but it was the opinion of the early Jesuit fathers that the Bonzes had already lost much of their influence and most

* Solier, 'Histoire ecclésiastique des Isles et Royaumes du Japon,' Paris, 1627, enumerates sixty-six independent kings, over whom the Dai ri was nominally paramount. But what exten. sive knowledge would it demand to prove such a proposition? We have taken the number given by Angero in Epistolis Indicis,' ut cit. The Jesuit chroniclers always call the Mikado the Dairi, a name now used for the court of the Mikado; in the same way they call the Siogun the Cubo or Cubosama. The word Tycoon, unfortunately adopted in the recent commercial treaties, is nei ther Japanese nor European, and has now little chance of coming into use since the office of the Siogun has been lately suppressed.

See an interesting article of Father Mounicou, a Catholic missionary, now or lately in Japan, on Mythologie japonaise,' 'Revue de l'Orient,' Feb. 1863; also the introduction of M. Klaproth, op. cit.

of their revenues, which were originally | sels, which had at first always come to Kagolarge. They now subsisted principally upon sima, row sailed to Firando,* enriching his alms, and upon the sums received from their enemy. Mr. Dickson informs us that Kagoreligious ministrations and attendance upon sima is not a place well fitted for a large funerals. We are told, however, by Xavier trade, being too far out at sea, and cut off by that most of the learning of the country and high ranges of hills from the interior. Nethe education of the youth were still in their vertheless, this desertion made the king dishands. posed to listen to the representations of the Bonzes as to the danger of the people renouncing the religion of their ancestors, and he ordered that any one who received baptism should be put to death. This intolerant decree compelled Xavier to leave Kagosima for Firando, but as he and his companions could not yet speak the language fluently, they did not make more than a hundred converts. They then left for Amanguchi, the residence of a powerful native prince, and afterwards went to Miako, but finally took up their abode at Amanguchi. The ruler of this place gave Xavier permission to preach the Gospel within the bounds of his principality, and assigned him and his companions an unoccupied monastery for their residence. Here Xavier lectured twice a day upon the Japanese religion. His discourses were numerously attended by the Bonzes, the nobility, and the common people. At the end of every lecture he answered the objections which were made against it, and, as he tells us, with signal success. He remarks that those who were most eager and pointed in their opposition were the first to be converted, became his most intimate friends, and revealed to him the peculiar doctrines of the different religious sects. Day and night he was besieged by a crowd of importunate questioners, and called without ceremony to satisfy the curiosity of the great. The result of the conferences, which lasted two months, was the conversion, or at least the baptism, of five hundred people. Xavier left Japan on the 20th November, 1551, after a stay of two years and four months.

There was also in Japan a materialistic school of philosophy, as in India and China. It was confined to the upper classes, and only taught in secret. The Japanese, writes Xavier, surpassed in probity all the nations he had ever met with. They were ingenious, frank, faithful, fond of honour and of dignity. They had a passion for bearing arms, were poor, and lived on rice and a spirituous liquor distilled from it. but they were contented, and the nobility despised plebeian opulence. He notices again and again, with admiration, that almost every Japanese can read, and the defective ideographic characters strike him as better than our phonetic symbols, for he observes that people who use different languages, such as the Chinese and Japanese, are equally able to understand the same signs. He also remarks that the people are of an inquiring turn, candid, and ready to yield to the force of argument. When he had learned enough of the language to speak a little of it, he commenced his mission. Angero had already made some converts among his household relations and friends, but these attempts do not seem to have attracted much opposition, and even Xavier's first preachings excited more attention than contradiction. For the first time in Japan, he preached a personal God, the Creator of the Universe, and shewed the materialistic tendency of the Buddhist religion. His old lectures at the College of St. Barbe in Paris no doubt stood him in good stead. He had already had an interview with the King of Satsuma, who had forgiven Angero for his crime, and who now granted to Xavier an edict allowing his subjects the liberty of embracing the Christian religion. On the 3rd of November, 1549, Xavier again writes, directing three of the best missionaries to come out to join him, finding the disposition of the Japanese very favourable to the Gospel. He also mentions that two bonzes intended to proceed to Goa to be educated at the College of the Holy Faith. His next letter is dated nearly a year after; he had passed the time in studying Japanese, into which language he had translated the principal articles of the Creed, and a short account of the Creation. He had made about a hundred converts, but the King of Satsuma began to look coldly on Xavier and his companions, because the Portuguese ves

In his controversies with the Japanese, Xavier had been continually met with the objection-how could the Scripture history be true when it had escaped the notice of the learned men of China? It was Chinese sages who had taught philosophy and history to the Japanese, and Chinese missionaries who had converted them to Buddhism. To China, then, would he go to strike a blow at the root of that mighty superstition. Accordingly he sailed from Goa about the middle of April, 1552, with a merchant, named James Pereira, who was to act as ambassador to the Emperor of China. On arriving at Malacca, this man becoming involved in a quarrel with the Portuguese governor, was

* Solier, liv. ii. chap. iv.

forcibly detained, and Xavier went on alone | formation of a mission which, from Goa as to the island of San-Cean, a place of rendez- a centre, radiated over much of the coast of vous between the Chinese and Portuguese Asia from Ormuz to Japan. Its powers of merchants, distant about half a day's sail propagandism were most felt on those parts from Canton. But no one had the courage of the coast more directly exposed to the to brave the penal laws which guarded the secular influence of Portugal, and especially entrance of foreigners into China; and, be- in the Portuguese possessions, where the ing a prey to continual anxiety to reach the terrors of the Inquisition were put in practice new scene of his labours, Xavier fell ill, ap- to spread the Catholic Faith. The number parently of remittent fever, and died on the of Roman Catholics now existing on the 2nd of December, 1552. According to a Malabar coast probably amounts to half a story which is believed throughout the Ca- million, but a large proportion of them are tholic world, his body was miraculously pre- half-caste descendants of the Portugueseserved from corruption, and was fifteen the result of those dissolute amours which months after landed at Goa, perfectly fresh Xavier condemned. Their religion, however, and soft as if he had died the day before. It is only a base and degenerate graft of was consigned with great solemnity to its last Catholicism upon the rotten trunk of Paganresting-place in the vault of the Church of ism. Even at the present day the native the Holy Faith at Goa, where it still remains Christians are inferior to the Mahometans an object of pilgrimage and religious venera- and Hindus of Northern India in intelligence tion to the native Christians of the Malabar and morality. Thus the attempt of Xavier coast, who regard the Apostle of the Indies to introduce a vigorous and thriving shoot of as in noway behind the immediate disciples of Christianity into India has been, after all, a Christ, and attribute to him a long roll of the failure-a failure which liberal Catholics most astounding miracles and prodigies. themselves acknowledge. One who reads the wonderful tales of the acts of canonisation of Saint Francis Xavier a hundred years after his death will be a little astonished on hearing the manner in which his successor at Goa, Melchior Nunez, speaks of these extraordinary performances a few years after they are assumed to have taken place. Many things became known of him after his death which, while he still lived, remained unknown.' Xavier himself, save in one ambiguous passage of his letters,* never alludes to any of the astounding miracles so freely ascribed to him by his biographers of later date. It would be but a waste of space to celebrate in a formal eulogium the wonderful labours this man underwent, his extraordinary courage, energy, and self-denial; the sweetness of his disposition, and his affectionate concern for the souls of his fellow-creatures. His faults were those of his age and creed, intolerance to other religions save his own, and a too great readiness to resort to the temporal arm for the conversion of the heathen. As portrayed in his own letters, and by Lucena and his succeeding biographers, he stands the very image of a true, brave, accomplished, and persuasive missionary. To this day he is the ideal and pattern of his successors in the work amongst the Roman Catholic clergy; and his example, traditions, and precepts, have everywhere exercised a pervading and lasting influence upon the course and conduct of the different missions which he founded.

The result of Xavier's labours was the

* See letter dated Cochin, 12th January, 1544.

Far different was the history of the church which Xavier had planted in Japan with his own hands, which grew up without the sunshine of political favour, and which, as he had foretold, struck a deep root in the soil. The Jesuits have left us long and circumstantial accounts of the history of Christianity in Japan. They are compiled from the missionary reports, many of which have also been printed in a separate form. These documents give a much more trustworthy account of Japanese history and manners than can be obtained from the stilted information published by residents at the open ports since the recent commercial_treaties. The Jesuit priests learned the Japanese language, and mixed with the people in all the relations of life. They joined with the great in their entertainments, and often in their intrigues and schemes of ambition; they were conversant with the sorrows and joys of the poor; and the deep confidence of the Confessional gave them an insight into the feelings and thoughts of every class of society, which the Japanese government of to-day with their innumerable spies can never obtain. No doubt these accounts are sometimes unfaithful in detail, and rarely do justice to the opposite side; but though one is often wearied with stories of silly miracles and with prosy discourses, it is clear that the authors looked narrowly to the chain of human events, and had an accurate knowledge of the politics and passing history of the countries in which they lived. The unfavourable side of the picture is supplied by the observation of Dutch and English travel

lers of the seventeenth century, and by the complaints of rival orders such as the Franciscans and Dominicans; but we must not look to them for a connected historical narrative.

Mr. Venn, who has carefully studied the 'Letters of Xavier,' did not even perceive the historical value of the Literæ Annuæ' of the Jesuits:—

'I have looked,' he writes (p. 209), 'into the various collections of "Epistolæ Japonica," but, like the "Epistolæ Indica," they are filled with legends, and it is impossible, after reading "Xavier's Letters," to open those pages without the conviction that we have passed out of the regions of truth into those of exaggeration, suppression, and fiction."

Writers on the present condition of Japan have entirely neglected these important documents. Even Mr. Dickson, in his recently published book, which comprises a complete history of Japan, and gives a general account of the history of Christianity in the islands more accurately than any preceding writer in the English language, seems not to have read the original Letters of the Jesuit Missionaries. It is difficult to trace the sources of his information, for his citations are few and vague, and he seems to have drawn most of his facts from a History of the Church of Japan,' apparently that of Crasset. Still his work is the most valuable one that has yet appeared. He has compared the Jesuit history with the 'Japanese Chronicles,' and has had the additional advantage of visiting Japan and conversing with some of the Japanese.

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The two missionaries, whom Xavier had left at Japan, were soon after joined by three others; and in 1556 they were visited by the Provincial of the Order in the Indies, Melchior Nunez, who paid much attention to the Japanese mission and selected for it the best missionaries, as Xavier had recommended. The Provincial was accompanied to Japan by the well-known Mendez Pinto, the author of one of the few well-written books in the Portuguese language. Cosmo de Torrez, a layman who had been induced by the preaching and example of the Apostle of the Indies' to enter the Order of Jesus, remained at the head of the mission, as Xavier had left him. The missionaries guided the trade with the Portuguese; and several of the petty princes of Kiusiu were so anxious to attract to their dominions this lucrative traffic that they repeatedly cajoled the good fathers with hopes of their becoming converts.

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The Jesuits attached themselves to the fortunes of the King of Bungo, a restless and ambitious prince, who in the end added

four little kingdoms to his own, and thus became master of a large part of the island of Kiusiu. In his dominions Christianity made such progress that the number of converts began to be counted by thousands. The King of Bungo always remained the friend of the Jesuit missionaries, and fostered the trade with the Portuguese. He long remained a disciple of the materialistic philosophy; but twenty-seven years after his first interview with Xavier he followed the example of his queen, and was baptized under the name of Francis. The missionaries perseveringly sought to spread their religion by preaching, public discussion, the circulation of controversial writings, the instruction of the youth, the casting out of devils, the performance of those mystery plays so common in that age, by the institution of confréries like those of Avignon, and, above all, by the well-timed administration of alms. Nor need we be surprised to learn that their first converts were principally the blind, the infirm, and old men one foot in the grave. There are, however, many proofs in their letters that they were able both to attract proselytes of a better class and to inspire them with an enthusiasm which promised well for the growth of the mission. In those early days the example of Xavier was still fresh; and his immediate successors seem to have inherited his energetic and self-denying disposition, though none of them could equal the great mental and moral qualities of the Apostle of the Indies. They kept at the same time a watchful eye upon the political events that were going on around them, and soon began to bear a part in them. The hostility between them and the Bonzes became more and more bitter. The first public display of religious violence, however, came from the Christian party,* who, in revenge for the overthrow of a Cross, which they traced to the instigation of the Bonzes, set fire to the dwellings of their opponents, burned some of their idols, and threw the rest into the sea. This excited so much hostility against the missionaries that, although the outrage had been committed without his knowledge and consent, Father Vilela was obliged to leave Firando.

The first chief who publicly professed Christianity, the King of Omura, in the island of Kiusiu, was thrice expelled from his capital, and another time from his palace, by conspiracies of the Pagans, who nearly succeeded in drawing the two principal mis

* Solier, liv. iii. chap. viii. Crasset, Histoire chap. liv. Consult also Maffaeus 'Select. Epistol. de l'Eglise du Japon,' Paris, 1715, tome i. liv. iii. ex India,' lib. i.

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