central and all-controlling secular power in Japan before this period, although, four centuries previously, a change had been wrought in the constitution of the country, which very materially limited the imperial will, and introduced what may be called a lay element into the government. Up to the year 1142 the office of military commander-in-chief had been usually reserved for the second son of the Mikado. But in or about that year a prince of the blood-royal, Joritomo by name, succeeded in rendering the commandership a position of comparative independence, and in securing for the Sjogoun, or generalissimo, the larger share in the administration of secular affairs. Joritomo, in fact, is styled the first of the lay emperors. But, as we read the somewhat dim and conflicting accounts, Joritomo's revolt could not be regarded wholly as a success; and the result of it was, that the sixty-eight provinces of Japan became, so to speak, so many independent sovereignties. The feudal chain was now a series of sundered links; and, on the arrival of the Jesuits, the princes of Satsuma, of Bungo, or Firando, were in possession of a power which was all but absolute. Sjogouns in succession had striven in vain to fuse the several princedoms into a homogeneous whole, and impress their single wills on the entire mass. The "Tiger-skin" fell in the midst of his unitary endeavours. The traitor Aquechi reigned for only twelve days. On the thirteenth morning after his entrance into the capital, his impaled head might be seen amid the piles of the slain, which "quite blocked up the roads around the city." The general who now triumphed over Aquechi at last accomplished the task, causing the various princedoms to revolve in orderly orbits around the Sjogoun's throne; so that we have four eras in Japanese history. The first was inaugurated by Zyn-moo, the second by Joritomo, the third by Taico Sama, while the fourth, the era of omnipresent espionage, dates from the extinction of Christianity. The man who put around a divided people the hoop of a common interest, who did in ten years what high-born rulers failed to do in centuries, was originally a peasant or serf, who lived upon "rice." We beg further to remind Mr. Buckle that this epochmaking peasant was a native of a country in which the "physical laws" press with great severity; for nowhere more frequently and wastefully than in Japan sweep over the land those "ravages of hurricane, tempests, earthquakes, and similar perils which affect the tone of the natural character,"*--but not the tone of the natural character of the Japanese, and certainly not that of Taico Sama.

It would be far too long a story to tell how the short corpulent wood-cutter, with glaring eyes "which threatened to leap History of Civilisation, p. 114.

from their sockets," and "six fingers on one hand," introduced by his master to Nobunanga, and promoted by the latter, who seemed at first sight to discover his capacities, to a subordinate military trust, gradually rose to prominence and power, until he became lord of Japan. It must suffice to say, that the peasant Sjogoun, in the earlier years of his ascendency, did not furnish the Jesuits with any grounds for distrusting him, nor the bonzes with any grounds for expecting at his hands a policy different from that of the deceased "Hammer."

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The Lord Taico, in truth, found that he had a very delicate game to play; on the supposition, that is, that he very soon, through his own imperial instincts, discovered that the good fathers were the agents of a policy as well as the propagators of a creed. Thorough" was not quite practicable. His bravest officers were Christians, and the Catholic element was so strong and pervasive in the army, that he deemed it necessary to be, in the first instance, respectful to the missionaries. Indeed, we are informed that he told the Illustrissimo Señor Padre De Çespadez that he would at once submit to baptism if only the Christian law allowed a plurality of wives; and that he whispered in the ear of Padre Coelho "his hope of being able to purge the empire of the bonzes, and so to bestow their property on the Europeans." Did Taico ever thus express himself? and if he did, was he sounding the fathers, throwing out a bait, or was he simply giving utterance to one of his moods? We have no other testimony than that of the Jesuit letters concerning this side of Japanese matters until a considerably later time; and consequently we must accept what is written under some such conditions as these,-intrinsic coherence of details, accordance with a felt but not definable antecedent probability, and with palpable results. We have no doubt that Taico gave utterance to all that the Jesuits report, but we feel equally confident that, in all his early intercourse with the brethren of Ignatius, he was, to use a recent expression, waiting on "the logic of

events.

In 1587 Taico had effected the subjugation of Kiusiu. In that year, to the unspeakable grief of all the Portuguese settlers, Sumitanda died; and in the same year, like lightning from a cloudless sky, came forth a decree in which all the missionaries were commanded forthwith to leave the empire. After the "gracious audiences" of five hours' length granted to the fathers, -after the sumptuous collations in the palace, with presents of "choice fruit from the empress,"-after the all-satisfactory written answer to a petition which the empress volunteered "to carry in her own hands" to the Sjogoun,-still more, after the bland visit which Taico paid to Father Coelho, the vice-provin

cial, on the very morning of the day on which the banishment of the European teachers was proclaimed, we can imagine the bewilderment produced by the edict. Mr. Oliphant says that it was issued "possibly in a moment of irritation.' If we are to credit De Charlevoix, the "irritation" was not remotely connected with some rare Portuguese wine, of which the emperor had that forenoon received a present; while the Jesuit historian adds, that, not many hours after the visit just adverted to, an exbonze, now Taico's medical adviser, rushed into the royal presence, declaiming vehemently against the Christian teachers because of the high tone which they had effected in female morality. Very probable all this. In his state of peculiar "irritation" Taico exclaimed, "I will abolish Christianity;" but added, "nothing must yet be said." Finding his lord in this mood, Tocun, the physician, is reported to have poured forth a passionate harangue, of which the following is the substance,passionate, but sharp and subtle withal, and too faithfully descriptive of Jesuit procedure, at least as known elsewhere, to have been forged by the fathers themselves: "The European bonzes are stealthily pursuing a most subversive policy; they have come a vast distance, ostensibly to save the Japanese from perdition, but they are dangerous from the union which they have produced among their disciples; they could muster in arms a hundred thousand men, and they may never rest satisfied until they have placed a Christian on the seat of supreme power. Not a moment is to be lost if Taico means to retain his authority, and after death be enrolled among the Kami."

A command was despatched to Coelho, ordering him to gather up all his fellow-labourers, and within six months to carry them all with him out of Japan. The whole nation, as the news spread, exclaimed against the decree. It was an unheard-of infraction of the ancient liberty which every Japanese had enjoyed of choosing his religion. But the mood lasted for a time, and Taico seemed inexorable. Troops were sent to different provinces to destroy strongholds and burn churches. The missionaries were assembled at Firando, and appeared preparing to set sail. Some of them actually did leave the kingdom; but only a few. The majority, as might be anticipated, fled in disguise hither and thither, and at all events no blood was spilt. Taico, in truth, durst not proceed to extremities. The edict, however, had the effect of silencing all public preaching in Kiusiu; while, by another shrewd device, Taico managed to send across the sea the only formidable portion of his army. He planned and carried out an invasion of the Corea; and in that peninsula the Christian soldiers at once added to the prestige of their monarch, and left him at home in greater freedom to carry

out his schemes. That these schemes would have stopped short a great way before any capital measures were resorted to, we have little doubt, if the Jesuits had been left in sole possession of the missionary field. We say "in possession;" for, as Taico seems to have very well known, the majority of the missionaries remained in Japan, and although for the time no public religious services were permitted in Kiusiu, yet high mass was duly celebrated during all the crisis in Miako. Again, the Sjogoun showed all his boasted "affability" to the Japanese ambassadors on their return from Europe. After the more severe forms of "reception" were gone through,-and a very heavy silk and velvet business it was,-the emperor, in his favourite déshabillé, discoursed very freely with the travellers, and even requested them to "sing and play" for his delectation; while Father Valegnani, who conducted the embassy, obtained permission to go whithersoever he pleased, only the "converts must take care not to show too much zeal."

During Taico's lifetime the Jesuits would not be forward to show the "too much zeal." But in 1592, in a day all disastrous to the prospects of Catholicism, some Spaniards from the Philippine Islands made their way to the court of the emperor, and before returning to Manilla deemed it incumbent on them to inform his majesty that the order to which the reverend fathers belonged had been banished from sundry European states, and to warn him against teachers who were now in Japan contrary to the imperial will. In the course of the following year a second embassy arrived from the governor of Manilla, and four of the ambassadors were Franciscans. A second time Taico was enlightened on the history of the Jesuits; and from this period we have in Japan a repetition of the fraternal polemics so painfully familiar to readers of western church-history.

The rivalry, says Mr. Oliphant,* between the Spaniards and Portuguese was "religious rather than commercial." Charlevoix, on the other hand, ascribes the mutual jealousy of the two peoples to commercial rather than ecclesiastical considerations. Now both authors are right, but neither exclusively right. The truth is, that since 1580 the tide of Portuguese greatness had begun to ebb. In that year the throne of Portugal was usurped by the Spanish monarch, and every where Spain strove to make

We have very cursorily referred to Mr. Oliphant in the course of this article. The truth is, that we had arranged all our materials before we saw his volumes. We would now add, that in the few pages which Mr. Oliphant devotes to the subject of Christianity in Japan, the author gives us the results of very careful, extensive, and thoroughly digested reading. What he has written is so clear and comprehensive, that, in the interests of the general reader, we must regret that Mr. Oliphant did not allow himself more space for dealing with this aspect of Japanese affairs.

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the Portuguese realise their position of dependency. It has to be added, and both circumstances, though bearing strongly on the fortunes of Christianity, have been overlooked, that in 1493 Pope Alexander VI., in the exercise of his terrestrial sovereignty, drew a line from pole to pole, a hundred leagues to the west of the Azores; and while he assigned all the sea and land west of this line to Spain, all the space to the east he bestowed upon Portugal. According to this pleasant arrangement, Japan in reality belonged to Portugal; but as the whole includes both halves, this eastern empire had now become the property of Spain, seeing that Spain had made herself heir of all the Portuguese possessions.

men.

Possibly some rumours respecting this remarkable deed of conveyance reached the ears of the Japanese emperors in a later day, through the medium of the Dutch or of our own countryIt is not likely, however, that either of the two claimants to the property would be communicative about the matter. But without any such communication, Taico had very soon, as he thought, occasion to exclaim, "I will not leave a single missionary alive. I have been nursing serpents in my bosom, and (most prophetic words!) if I should now die, I should leave my sceptre in an infant's hands." For the Franciscan ambassadors, instead of returning to Manilla, as they had intimated they were about to do, "after they had seen a little of the wealth of the country," remained in Japan. They began the study of the Japanese language, and ere long, aided by new-come coadjutors, they had, regardless of edicts, instituted the services of the church in Miako and other towns. Moreover, we are informed that about this time (1596) a Spanish vessel, bound for South America, was stranded on the coast of Sitkokf. Her commander, finding that his remonstrances with the provincial authorities, who had seized the treasure of the wreck in the name of the Sjogoun, were unavailing, produced a chart of the world, and, in order to overawe the Japanese officials, pointed out to them the vast extent of the Spanish dominions; not omitting to add, that by means, first of her priests, and then of her soldiers, acting in concert with the native converts, Spain had succeeded in subjecting so many realms to her sway.

It was on hearing a report of this Spaniard's words that Taico gave utterance to the emphatic language quoted above. What measure of fact lies at the basis of this Spanish incident we cannot tell. Certain it is that next year, 1597, the first European blood was shed in Japan. Twenty-four persons were crucified at Nangasaki. Three of these were Franciscan chorister-boys, seven were native Jesuits; but no Portuguese were found amongst the victims. It was the Spaniards now who had