ds and chains, about their arms and legs, and an iron collar about
their necks, were raised into the air, the foot of each cross falling
into a hole prepared for it in the ground. The crosses were planted in a
row, about four feet asunder, and each martyr had an executioner near
him with a spear ready to pierce his side, for such is the Japanese
manner of crucifixion. As soon as all the crosses were planted, the
executioners lifted up their lances, and at a signal given, all pierced
the martyrs almost in the same instant; upon which they expired and went
to receive the reward of their sufferings. Their blood and garments were
procured by Christians, and miracles were wrought by them. Urban VIII.
ranked them among the martyrs, and they are honored on the 5th of
February, the day of their triumph. The rest of the missionaries were
put on board a vessel, and carried out of the dominions, except
twenty-eight priests, who stayed behind in disguise. Tagcosama dying,
ordered his body should not be burned, as was the custom in Japan, but
preserved enshrined in his palace of Fuximi, that he might be worshipped
among the gods under the title of the new god of war. The most stately
temple in the empire was built to him, and his body deposited in it. The
Jesuits returned soon after, and though the missionaries were only a
hundred in number, they converted, in 1599, forty thousand, and in 1600,
above thirty thousand, and built fifty churches; for the people were
highly scandalized to see him worshipped as a god, whom they had
remembered a most covetous, proud, and vicious tyrant. But in 1602,
Cubosama renewed the bloody persecution, and many Japanese converts were
beheaded, crucified, or burned. In 1614, new cruelties were exercised to
overcome their constancy, as by bruising their feet between certain
pieces of wood, cutting off or squeezing their limbs one after another,
applying red-hot irons or slow fires, flaying off the skin of the
fingers, putting burning coals to their hands, tearing off the flesh
with pincers, or thrusting reeds into all parts of their bodies, and
turning them about to tear their flesh, till they should say they would
forsake their faith: all which, innumerable persons, even children, bore
with invincible constancy till death. In 1616, Xogun succeeding his
father Cubosama in the empire, surpassed him in cruelty. The most
illustrious of these religious heroes was F. Charles Spinola. He was of
a noble Genoese f