So, Japanese Christianity, having vanished in blood, was
supposed to have no existence, thus furnishing Mr. Lecky with arguments
to prove the extirpative power of persecution.[23]
Yet in 1859, on the opening of the country by treaty, the Roman Catholic
fathers at Nagasaki found to their surprise that they were re-opening
the old mines, and that their work was in historic continuity with that
of their predecessors. The blood of the martyrs had been the seed of the
church. Amid much ignorance and darkness, there were thousands of people
who, through the Virgin, worshipped God; who talked of Jesus, and of the
Holy Spirit; and who refused to worship at the pagan shrines[24].
Summary of Roman Christianity in Japan.
Let us now strive impartially to appraise the Christianity of this era,
and inquire what it found, what it attempted to do, what it did not
strive to attain, what was the character of its propagators, what was
the mark it made upon the country and upon the mind of the people, and
whether it left any permanent influence.
The gospel net which had gathered all sorts of fish in Europe brought a
varied quality of spoil to Japan. Among the Portuguese missionaries,
beginning with Xavier, there are many noble and beautiful characters,
who exemplified in their motives, acts, lives and sufferings some of the
noblest traits of both natural and redeemed humanity.
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