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The Japonese were much surprised to hear the house was now at quiet: the king himself, to whom the Portuguese had said, "That the Christian cross had driven away the evil spirits," admired that wonderful effect, and commanded crosses to be set up in all places, even in his own palaces, and in the highways.
For after he had marked out to him the qualities which were requisite in a labourer of the Society, proper to be sent thither, "That he ought, in the first place, to be a person of unblameable conversation, and that the Japonese would easily be scandalised, where they could find occasion for the least reproach; that, moreover, he ought to be of no less capacity than virtue, because Japan is also furnished with an infinite number of her own clergymen, profound in science, and not yielding up any point in dispute without being first convinced by demonstrative reasons; that, yet farther, it was necessary, that a missioner should come prepared to endure all manner of wants and hardships; that he must be endued with an heroic fortitude to encounter continual dangers, and death itself in dreadful torments, in case of need," Having, I say, set these things forth, and added these express words in one of his letters, "I write to Father Simon, and, in his absence, to the rector of Coimbra, that he shall send hither only such men as are known and approved by your holy charity," he continues thus: "These labourers in the gospel must expect to be much more crossed in their undertaking than they imagine.
They arrived there on the fifteenth of August, in the year 1549. The situation of Japan, and the nature of the country. The estate of the government of Japan. The religion of the Japonese when the Father arrived in that country.
The Japonese, Anger, was amongst them, leading a most regular life, and breathing after that baptism, which had been deferred till the return of the holy man. Xavier did not satisfy himself with having instructed him anew; he consigned him over to the care of Torrez, who fully explained to him all the mysteries of faith.
It is true, that as the Japonese value themselves above all things, in the inviolable observation of their word, when they have once engaged it, he durst not revoke that solemn edict, which he had published in favour of the Christians; but to make it of no effect, he used the faithful with great severity, even so far as to seize upon their goods, and began with men of the first rank in his dominions.
These priests, who are called Bonzas, part of them living in desarts, the rest in towns, all affect a rigid austerity of manners, and are amongst the Japonese what the Brachmans are amongst the Indians, unless that they are yet more impious, and greater hypocrites.
One is that the said settlement and district of these said Indian natives is very close to another district and market, that of the Japonese, so near that they are only about a stone's throw from each other; and the Japonese are fully as bad as the Sangley infidels, both on the score of the infamous sin, and as concerns the need of protecting ourselves from them as from enemies.
"I cannot tell you," wrote he from Cochin to Father Ignatius, "how much I stand obliged to the Japonese; in favour of whom, God has given me clearly to understand the infinite number of my sins; for till that time, I was so little recollected, and so far wandered out of myself, that I had not discovered, in the bottom of my heart, an abyss of imperfections and failings.
As the Japonese are of docible and reasonable minds, the more they pressed him in dispute, they understood the truth the more: So that their doubts being satisfied, they comprehended easily, that there were no contradictions in our faith, nothing that would not abide the test of the most severe discussion.
It is a custom in my family, said she: all my ancestors were learned men, who wrote about the Romans. It sounded more classic, and gave a higher opinion of their literature, to put a Latin termination to their names. All this is Japonese to me, said the emperor; but your ancestors seem to have been a parcel of mountebanks. Does one understand any thing the better for corrupting one's name?
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