The Buddhist Inquisitors.
During the nation's period of Thorn-rose-like seclusion, the three
religions recognized by the law were Buddhism, Shint[=o] and
Confucianism. Christianity was the outlawed sect. All over the country,
on the high-roads, at the bridges, and in the villages, towns and
cities, the fundamental laws of the country were written on wooden
tablets called kosats[)u]. These, framed and roofed for protection from
the weather, but easily before the eyes of every man, woman and child,
and written in a style and language understood of all, denounced the
Christian religion as an accursed "sect," and offered gold to the spy
and informer;[19] while once a year every Samurai was required to swear
on the true faith of a gentleman that he had nothing to do with
Christianity. From the seventeenth century, the country having been
divided into parishes, the inquisition was under the charge of the
Buddhist priests who penetrated into the house and family and guarded
the graveyards, so that neither earth nor fire should embrace the
carcass of a Christian, nor his dust or ashes defile the ancestral
graveyards. Twice--in 1686 and in 1711--were the rewards increased and
the Buddhist bloodhounds of Japan's Inquisition set on fresh trails.
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