of the pile of wood
twenty-five feet from the martyrs, and gradually approached them, two
hours before it reached them. F. Spinola stood unmoved, with his eyes
lifted up towards heaven, till the cords which tied him being burnt, he
fell into the flames, and was consumed, on the 2d of September, in 1622,
being fifty-eight years old. Many others, especially Jesuits, suffered
variously, being either burnt at slow fires, crucified, beheaded, or
thrown into a burning mountain, or hung with their heads downward in
pits, which cruel torment usually put an end to their lives in three or
four days. In 1639, the Portuguese and all other Europeans, except the
Dutch, were forbid to enter Japan, even for trade; the very ambassadors
which the Portuguese sent thither were beheaded. In 1642, five Jesuits
landed secretly in Japan, but were soon discovered, and after cruel
tortures were hung in pits till they expired. Thus hath Japan encouraged
the church militant, and filled the triumphant with glorious martyrs:
though only the first-mentioned have as yet been publicly declared such
by the holy See, who are mentioned in the new edition of the Roman
Martyrology published by Benedict XIV. in 1749.

{362}

APPENDIX

ON

THE MARTYRS OF CHINA.

THE devil set all his engines to work, that he might detain in his
captivity those great nations, which, by the inscrutable judgments of
God, lay yet buried in the night of infidelity, and by their vicious
habits and prejudices had almost extinguished the law written in their
breast by their Creator. The pure light of the gospel sufficed to dispel
the dark clouds of idolatry by its own brightness; but the passions of
men were not to be subdued but by the omnipotent hand of Him who
promised that his holy faith and salvation should be propagated
throughout all nations. All the machinations of hell were not able to
defeat the divine mercy, not even by the scandal of those false
Christians, whom jealousy, covetousness, and the spirit of the world
blinded and seared to every feeling, not only of religion, but even of
humanity. Religious missionaries, filled with the spirit of the
apostles, and armed with the power of God, baffled obstacles which
seemed insurmountable to flesh and blood; and by their zeal, charity,
patience, humility, meekness, mortification, and invincible courage,
triumphantly planted the standard of the cross in a world heretofore
unknown to us, and but lately discovered, not by