The Decline And Fall Of Christianity In Japan

We have described in the preceding tale the rise of Christianity in

Japan, and the remarkable rapidity of its development in that remote

land. We have now to describe its equally rapid decline and fall, and

the exclusion of Europeans from Japanese soil. It must be said here that

this was in no sense due to the precepts of Christianity, but wholly to

the hostility between its advocates of different sects, their jealousy

and abuse of one another, and to the quarrels between nations in the

contest to gain a lion's share of the trade with Japan.



At the time when the Portuguese came to Japan all Europe was torn with

wars, civil, political, and religious. These quarrels were transferred

to the soil of Japan, and in the end so disgusted the people of that

empire that Europeans were forbidden to set foot on its shores and the

native Christians were massacred. Traders, pirates, slave-dealers, and

others made their way thither, with such a hodge-podge of interests, and

such a medley of lies and backbitings, that the Japanese became incensed

against the whole of them, and in the end decided that their room was

far better than their company.



The Portuguese were followed to Japan by the Spaniards, and these by the

Dutch, each trying to blacken the character of the others. The

Catholics abused the Protestants, and were as vigorously abused in

return. Each trading nation lied with the most liberal freedom about its

rivals. To the seaports of Hirado and Nagasaki came a horde of the

outcasts of Europe, inveterately hostile to one another, and indulging

in quarrels, riots, and murders to an extent which the native

authorities found difficult to control. In addition, the slave-trade was

eagerly prosecuted, slaves being so cheap, in consequence of the poverty

and misery arising from the civil wars, that even the negro and Malay

servants of the Portuguese indulged in this profitable trade, which was

continued in spite of decrees threatening all slave-dealers with death.



This state of affairs, and the recriminations of the religious sects,

gave very natural disgust to the authorities of Japan, who felt little

respect for a civilization that showed itself in such uncivilized

shapes, and the disputing and fighting foreigners were rapidly digging

their own graves in Japan. During the life of Nobunaga all went on well.

In his hatred to the Buddhist bonzes he favored the Jesuits, and

Christianity found a clear field. With the advent of Hideyoshi there

came a change. His early favor to the missionaries was followed by

disgust, and in 1587 he issued a decree banishing them from the land.

The churches and chapels were closed, public preaching ceased, but

privately the work of conversion went actively on, as many as ten

thousand converts being made each year.



The Spanish mendicant friars from the Philippines were bolder in their

work. Defying the decree, they preached openly in the dress of their

orders, not hesitating to denounce in violent language the obnoxious

law. As a result the decree was renewed, and a number of the priests and

their converts were crucified. But still the secret work of the Jesuits

continued and the number of converts increased, among them being some of

the generals in the Corean war.






With the accession of Iyeyasu began a rapid downfall of Christianity in

Japan. In the great battle which raised him to the head of affairs some

of the Christian leaders were killed. Konishi, a Christian general, who

had commanded one division of the army in Corea, was executed. On every

side there was evidence of a change in the tide of affairs, and the

Christians of Japan began to despair.



The daimios no longer bade their followers to become Christians. On the

contrary, they ordered them to renounce the new faith, under threat of

punishment. Their harshness resulted in rebellion, so new a thing among

the peasantry of Japan that the authorities felt sure that they had been

secretly instigated to it by the missionaries. The wrath of the shogun

aroused, he sent soldiers against the rebels, putting down each outbreak

with bloodshed, and in 1606 issued a decree abolishing the Christian

faith. This the Spanish friars defied, as they had that of his

predecessor.



In 1611, Iyeyasu was roused to more active measures by the discovery of

a plot between the foreigners and the native converts for the overthrow

of the government. Sado, whose mines were worked by thousands of

Christian exiles, was to be the centre of the outbreak, its governor,

Okubo, being chosen as the leader and the proposed new ruler of the

land.



Iyeyasu, awakened to the danger, now took active steps to crush out the

foreign faith. A large number of friars and Jesuits, with native

priests, were forcibly sent from the country, while the siege and

capture of the castle of Ozaka in 1615 ended the career of all the

native friends of the Jesuits, and brought final ruin upon the Christian

cause in Japan.



During the reigns of the succeeding shoguns a violent persecution began.

The Dutch traders, who showed no disposition to interfere in religious

affairs, succeeded in ousting their Portuguese rivals, all foreigners

except Dutch and Chinese being banished from Japan, while foreign trade

was confined to the two ports of Hirado and Nagasaki. This was followed

by a cruel effort to extirpate what was now looked on as a pestilent

foreign faith. Orders were issued that the people should trample on the

cross or on a copper plate engraved with the image of Christ. Those who

refused were exposed to horrible persecutions, being wrapped in sacks of

straw and burnt to death in heaps of fuel, while terrible tortures were

employed to make them renounce their faith. Some were flung alive into

open graves, many burned with the wood of the crosses before which they

had prayed, others flung from the edge of precipices. Yet they bore

tortures and endured death with a fortitude not surpassed by that of

the martyrs of old, clinging with the highest Christian ardor to their

new faith.



In 1637 these excesses of persecution led to an insurrection, the native

Christians rising in thousands, seizing an old castle at Shimabara, and

openly defying their persecutors. Composed as they were of farmers and

peasants, the commanders who marched against them at the head of veteran

armies looked for an easy conquest, but with all their efforts the

insurgents held out against them for two months. The fortress was at

length reduced by the aid of cannon taken from the Dutch traders, and

after the slaughter of great numbers of the garrison. The bloody work

was consummated by the massacre of thirty-seven thousand Christian

prisoners, and the flinging of thousands more from a precipice into the

sea below. Many were banished, and numbers escaped to Formosa, whither

others had formerly made their way. The "evil sect" was formally

prohibited, while edicts were issued declaring that as long as the sun

should shine no foreigner should enter Japan and no native should leave

it. A slight exception was made in favor of the Dutch, of whom a small

number were permitted to reside on the little island of Deshima, in the

harbor of Nagasaki, one trading ship being allowed to come there each

year.



Thus ended the career of foreign trade and European residence in Japan.

It had continued for nearly a century, yet left no mark of its presence

except the use of gunpowder and fire-arms, the culture of tobacco and

the habit of smoking, the naturalization of a few foreign words and of

several strange diseases, and, as an odd addition, the introduction of

sponge-cake, still everywhere used as a favorite viand. As for

Christianity, the very name of Christ became execrated, and was employed

as the most abhorrent word that could be spoken in Japan. The Christian

faith was believed to be absolutely extirpated, and yet it seems to have

smouldered unseen during the centuries. As late as 1829 seven persons

suspected of being Christians were crucified in Ozaka. Yet in 1860, when

the French missionaries were admitted to Nagasaki, they found in the

surrounding villages no fewer than ten thousand people who still clung

in secret to the despised and persecuted faith.



The French and English had little intercourse with Japan, but the career

of one Englishman there is worthy of mention. This was a pilot named

Will Adams, who arrived there in 1607 and lived in or near Yedo until

his death in 1620. He seems to have been a manly and honest fellow, who

won the esteem of the people and the favor of the shogun, by whom he was

made an officer and given for support the revenue of a village. His

skill in ship-building and familiarity with foreign affairs made him

highly useful, and he was treated with great respect and kindness,

though not allowed to leave Japan. He had left a wife and daughter in

England, but married again in Japan, his children there being a son and

daughter, whose descendants may still be found in that country. Anjin

Cho (Pilot Street) in Yedo was named from him, and the inmates of that

street honor his memory with an annual celebration on the 15th of June.

His tomb may still be seen on one of the hills overlooking the Bay of

Yedo, where two neat stone shafts, set on a pediment of stone, mark the

burial-place of the only foreigner who in past times ever attained to

honor in Japan.