holding one's own convictions is known in Japan
as elsewhere. There has been a long line of martyrs. During the
decades after the introduction of Buddhism, there was such opposition
that it required much courage for converts to hold to their beliefs.
So, too, at the time of the rise of the new Buddhist sects, there was
considerable persecution, especially with the rise of the Nichiren
Shu. And when the testing time of Christianity came, under the edict
of the Tokugawas by which it was suppressed, tens of thousands were
found who preferred death to the surrender of their faith. In recent
times, too, much courage has been shown by the native Christians.

As an illustration is the following: When an eminent American teacher
of Japanese youth returned to Japan after a long absence, his former
pupils gathered around him with warm admiration. They had in the
interval of his absence become leaders among the trustees and faculty
of the most prosperous Christian college in Japan. He was accordingly
invited to deliver a course of lectures in the Chapel. It was
generally known that he was no longer the earnest Christian that he
had once been, when, as teacher in an interior town, he had inspired a
band of young men who became Christians under his teaching and a power
for good throughout the land. But no one was prepared to hear such
extreme denunciations of Christianity and Christian missions and
missionaries as constituted the substance of his lectures. At first
the matter was passed over in silence. But, by the end of the second
lecture, the missionaries entered a protest, urging that the Christian
Chapel should not again be used for such lectures. The faculty,
however, were not ready to criticise their beloved teacher. The third
lecture proved as abusive as the others; the speaker seemed to have no
sense of propriety. A glimpse of his thought, and method of expression
may be gained from a single sentence: "I have been commissioned,
gentlemen, by Jesus Christ, to tell you that there is no such thing as
a soul or a future life." Although the missionary members of the
faculty urged it, the Japanese members, most of whom were his former
pupils, were unwilling to take any steps whatever to prevent the
continuation of the blasphemous lectures. The students of the
institution accordingly held a mass-meeting, in which the matter was
discussed, and it was decided to inform the speaker that the students
did not care to hear any more such