of the Armenian Church, had once been preached in China. It might, he thinks, have been altered and disfigured by some impostor like Mahomet, and thus Xavier, whose intended voyage to Japan was announced, would only have to restore the true faith to its original purity. Some of the points of analogy mentioned in the little treatise were entirely fanciful, yet no two religions of independent origin can resemble one another more closely in external ritual, and yet differ more thoroughly in spirit, than the Buddhist religion and the Roman Catholic Church. Every one who has been in a Buddhist temple cannot have failed to have remarked its resemblance to a Catholic chapel: the paintings, the use of bells and rosaries, the same veneration for relics, the shaven, celibate priests, with their long robes and wide sleeves, the prayers in a dead language, the measured chant, the burning of incense, the orders of monks, nuns, and anchorites, and other institutions, characteristic of both religions, have for ages 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. Having carefully arranged the affairs of the Seminary of the Holy Faith at Goa and the entire machinery of the mission, Francis Xavier tcok ship for Malacca on the 14th April, 1549. On the 24th of June he sailed for Japan, along with Angero and his two companions, in a Chinese junk belonging to a famous pirate, an ally of the Portuguese, who left in their hands hostages for the safety 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 *Tursellinus, "De Vita Francisci Xaverii," 159', lib. iii. cap. xix.; Lucena, "Vida," livro vi. capitulo xiv. p. 413. occupation is to learn the elements of the Japane, grammar." His first impressions of Japan were very favorable, 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 wellnigh reduced to the privilege of giving titles. The authority of the Cubo or Siogun had also become very much relaxed, and the islands were divided amongst fourteen kings,* who in their turn counted chieftains under them that pretended to a greater or less degree of independence, according to their strength or opportunity. Their power depended upon the number of their armed retainers, whose services they rewarded by grants in land. There were few merchants, and the laboring classes were little regarded. Japan was then celebrated for its gold and pearls, but owing to the smallness of trade the country still remained poor. The arts seemed to have made as much progress as in Europe. Xavier evidently considers the Japanese as a nation not behind any European one in civilization, and speaks of Miako as a greater city than Lisbon. He noticed the same strange customs as our travellers of to-day. Amongst them, the well-known practice of Hara-Kiri, or suicide, is not wanting. Five hundred years before, the religion of Buddha had been introduced from China, and the ancient idols broken (idolis com. minutis). This primitive form of devotion, the worship of the Camis or Sintos, which Buddhism has not yet entirely supplanted, seems to have consisted in the adoration of the powers of nature, and the apotheosis of great kings and heroes. We learn The * Solier, "Histoire ecclésiastique des Isles et Royaumes du Japon," Paris, 1627, enumerates sixty-six independent kings, over whom the Dairi was nominally paramount. But what extensive knowledge would it demand to prove such a proposition? We have taken the number given by Angero in "Epistolis Indicis," ut cit. 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 neither 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, from some of Xavier's successors that Buddhism was divided into two great sects, the most numerous of which was called Xodoxins, who devoted themselves to the worship of Amida. The second was called Foquexus from the book Foque, which contained their revelation written in a toreign 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 of their revenues, which were originally large. They now subsisted principally upon alms, and upon the sums received from their religious ministrations and attendance upon funerals. We are told, however, by Xavier that most of the learning of the country and the education of the youth were still in their hands. 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 honor and of dignity. They had a pasThey 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 at tracted 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 showed 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 3d 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 favorable 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 vessels, which had at first always come to Kagosima, now sailed to Firando,* enriching his enemy. Mr. Dickson informs us that Kagosima is not a place well fitted for a large trade, being too far out at sea, and cut off by high ranges of hills from the interior. Nevertheless, this desertion made the king disposed 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 * Solier. liv. ii. chap. iv. 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. 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 forcibly detained, and Xavier went on alone to the island of San-Cean, a place of rendezvous between the Chinese and Portuguese merchants, distant about half a day's sail from Canton. But no one had the courage to brave the penal laws which guarded the entrance of foreigners into China; and being a prey to continual anxiety to reach the new scene of his labors, Xavier fell ill, apparently of remittent fever, and died on the 2d of December, 1552. According to a story which is believed throughout the Catholic world, his body was miraculously preserved from corruption, and was fifteen months after landed at Goa, perfectly fresh and soft as if he had died the day before. It was consigned with great solemnity to its last resting-place in the vault of the Church of the Holy Faith at Goa, where it still remains an object of pilgrimage and religious veneration to the native Christians of the Malabar coast, who regard the Apostle of the Indies as in no way behind the immediate disciples of Christ, and 66 attribute to him a long roll of the most astounding miracles and prodigies. One who reads the wonderful tales of the acts of canonization 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 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 labors 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 labors was the formation of a mission which, from Goa as a centre, radiated over much of the coast of Asia from Ormuz to Japan. Its powers of propagandism were most felt on those parts of the coast more directly exposed to the secular influence of Portugal, and especially in the Portuguese possessions, where the terrors of the Inquisition were put in practice to spread the Catholic Faith. The number of Roman Catholics now existing on the Malabar coast probably amounts to half a million, but a large proportion of them are halfcaste descendants of the Portuguese-the result of those dissolute amours which Xavier condemned. Their religion, how ever, is only a base and degenerate graft * See letter dated Cochin, 12th January, 1544 of Catholicism upon the rotten trunk of Paganism. Even at the present day the native Christians are inferior to the Mahometans and Hindus of Northern India in intelligence and morality. Thus the attempt of Xavier to introduce a vigorous and thriving shoot of Christianity into India has been, after all, a failure-a failure which liberal Catholics themselves acknowledge. "I have looked," he writes (p. 209), “into the various collections of 'Epistolæ Japonicæ,' but, like the 'Epistolæ Indicæ,' 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 Jes and has had the additional advantage of visiting Japan and conversing with some. of the Japanese. 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 favor, and which, as he had foretold, struck a deep root in 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 history with the "Japanese Chronicles," uit 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 unfavorable side of the picture is supplied by the observation of Dutch and English travellers 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 Annure" of the Jesuits : 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. 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 Chris-. tianity made such progress that the num ber 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 twentyseven 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 inore 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 *Solier, liv. iii. chap. viii. Crasset, "Histoire de l'Église du Japon," Paris, 1715, tome i. liv. iii. chap. liv. Consult also Maffaeus "Select. Epistol, ex India," lib, i, 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 prin cipal missionaries into an ambuscade, in. which a Japanese nobleman of the Christian party was murdered. It would be difficult to say what share the Jesuits bore in these troubles; but if we remember their well-known policy, we shall be disposed to repeat in much the same spirit the accusation of a Bonze of Miako, as early as 1564, that "all the lands where these new preachers placed their feet were suddenly destroyed by war and faction." They had reached Miako in 1559, where they met with toleration from the secular government, and were even suffered to build a church and make several hundred converts. The missionaries led a troubled existence, and had several times to quit the capital from the intrigues of the Bonzes, who only waited an opportunity to banish or destroy them, but found themselves baffled by the caution, tact, and political address of the strangers. The Jesuits found a friend and protector in Nobunanga, who, whilst styling himself the avenger of the murdered Siogun and the protector of his successor, in reality arrogated to himself the whole power of the empire. Nobunanga was tall and slender, with a delicate form and scanty beard; he was a daring and successful soldier, and a shrewd, subtle, and wary politician; he cared little for the princes of Japan, and still less for its idols, which he treated as stupid inventions. He bore a bitter hatred to the Bonzes, whose temples and monasteries he despoiled and demolished to build a new palace, causing the very images of Buddha to be torn from their shrines and dragged with a rope round their necks through the streets of Miako, where, for a time, the Bonzes did not dare to show themselves. He forced the principal citizens to put their own hands to the work, which he superintended himself, wearing a tiger's skin and carrying a naked sword in his hand, with which he occasionally struck off the heads. of those who offended him. The Bonzes naturally took an active part against Nobunanga in an insurrection; but he, gaining the upper hand, led his army against their sacred seat at the foot of the mountain of Frenoxama, burnt their ancient monasteries, and put all those he found to |