pan. Among the Portuguese missionaries,
beginning with Xavier, there are many noble and beautiful characters,
who exemplified in their motives, acts, lives and sufferings some of the
noblest traits of both natural and redeemed humanity. In their praise,
both the pagan and the Christian, as well as critics biased by their
prepossessions in favor either of the Reformed or the Roman phase of the
faith, can unite.

The character of the native converts is, in many instances, to be
commended, and shows the direct truth of Christianity in fields of life
and endeavor, in ethics and in conceptions, far superior to those which
the Japanese religious systems have produced. In the teaching that there
should be but one standard of morality for man and woman, and that the
male as well as the female should be pure; in the condemnation of
polygamy and licentiousness; in the branding of suicide as both wicked
and cowardly; in the condemnation of slavery; and in the training of men
and women to lofty ideals of character, the Christian teachers far
excelled their Buddhist or Confucian rivals.

The benefits which Japan received through the coming of the Christian
missionaries, as distinct and separate from those brought by commerce
and the merchants, are not to be ignored. While many things of value and
influence for material improvement, and many beneficent details and
elements of civilization were undoubtedly imported by traders, yet it
was the priests and itinerant missionaries who diffused the knowledge of
the importance of these things and taught their use throughout the
country. Although in the reaction of hatred and bitterness, and in the
minute, universal and long-continued suppression by the government, most
of this advantage was destroyed, yet some things remained to influence
thought and speech, and to leave a mark not only on the language, but
also on the procedure of daily life. One can trace notable modifications
of Japanese life from this period, lasting through the centuries and
even until the present time.

Christianity, in the sixteenth century, came to Japan only in its papal
or Roman Catholic form. While in it was infused much of the power and
spirit of Loyola and Xavier, yet the impartial critic must confess that
this form was military, oppressive and political.[25] Nevertheless,
though it was impure and saturated with the false principles, the vices
and the embodied superstitions of corrupt southern Europe, yet, suc