through
Buddhism, to humanity and citizenship. Then hear him urge eloquently the
right of personal belief, and argue for toleration under the law, of
opinions, which the Japanese then stigmatized as "evil" and devilish,
but which we, and many of them now, call sound and Christian. Finally,
behold him at night in the public streets, assaulted by assassins, and
given quick death by their bullet and blades. See his gray head lying
severed from his body and in its own gore, the wretched murderers
thinking they have stayed the advancing tide of Christianity; but at
home there dwells a little son destined in God's providence to become an
earnest Christian and one of the brilliant leaders of the native
Christianity of Japan in our day.

The Buddhist Inquisitors.

During the nation's period of Thorn-rose-like seclusion, the three
religions recognized by the law were Buddhism, Shint[=o] and
Confucianism. Christianity was the outlawed sect. All over the country,
on the high-roads, at the bridges, and in the villages, towns and
cities, the fundamental laws of the country were written on wooden
tablets called kosats[)u]. These, framed and roofed for protection from
the weather, but easily before the eyes of every man, woman and child,
and written in a style and language understood of all, denounced the
Christian religion as an accursed "sect," and offered gold to the spy
and informer;[19] while once a year every Samurai was required to swear
on the true faith of a gentleman that he had nothing to do with
Christianity. From the seventeenth century, the country having been
divided into parishes, the inquisition was under the charge of the
Buddhist priests who penetrated into the house and family and guarded
the graveyards, so that neither earth nor fire should embrace the
carcass of a Christian, nor his dust or ashes defile the ancestral
graveyards. Twice--in 1686 and in 1711--were the rewards increased and
the Buddhist bloodhounds of Japan's Inquisition set on fresh trails. On
one occasion, at Osaka, in 1839,[20] a rebellion broke out which was
believed, though without evidence, to have been instigated in some way
by men with Christian ideas, and was certainly led by Oshio, the bitter
opponent of Buddhism, of Tokugawa, and of the prevalent Confucianism.
Possibly, the uprising was aided by refugees from Korea. Those
implicated were, after speedy trial, crucified or beheaded. In the
southern part of the country the ceremony of E