them entire liberty to teach and to preach, but also
despatched a messenger to his younger brother (who had just succeeded
to the lordship of Yamaguchi), advising him to protect the two
Jesuits then residing there, namely, Torres and Fernandez. Xavier
remained four months in Bungo and then set sail for Goa in February,
1552. He died in December of the same year, and thus his intention of
returning to Japan was defeated. His stay in Japan had lasted
twenty-seven months, and in that interval he and his comrades had won
some 760 converts.

RESULTS OF PROPAGANDISM

It is worth while to recapitulate here the main events during this
first epoch of Christian propagandism in Japan. It has been shown
that in more than a year's labours in Kagoshima, Xavier, with the
assistance of Anjiro as an interpreter, obtained 150 believers. Now,
"no language lends itself with greater difficulty than Japanese to
the discussion of theological questions. The terms necessary for such
a purpose are not current among laymen, and only by special study,
which, it need scarcely be said, must be preluded by accurate
acquaintance with the tongue itself, can a man hope to become duly
equipped for the task of exposition and dissertation. It is open to
grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever attained the requisite
proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima, to care for the converts
made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he baptized a hundred
Japanese in a few days. Now, we have it on the authority of Xavier
himself that, in this Hirado campaign, 'none of us knew Japanese.'
How, then, did they proceed? 'By reciting a semi-japanese volume' (a
translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xavier's pen) 'and by
delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian cult.'

"Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on
the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted
intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xavier's means
of access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the
rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to
acquire in fourteen months, a period of study which, in modern times
with all the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a
student beyond the margin of the colloquial. No converts were won.
The people of Yamaguchi probably admired the splendid faith and
devotion of these over-sea philosophers, but as for their doctrine,
it was uninte