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Updated: July 27, 2025
The Bonzas were ready to burst with envy, beholding the pompous entry of their antagonist; and that which doubled their despite was, that they overheard the lords saying to one another, "Observe this poor man, of whom so many ridiculous pictures have been made to us; would to God our children might be like him, on condition the Bonzas might say as bad of them as they speak of him!
The court of Bungo celebrated the election of the new king with great magnificence, while Xavier was yet residing at Fucheo. The saint himself rejoiced the more at this promotion, because he looked, on this wonderful revolution, which was projected by the Bonzas for the ruin of Christianity, as that which most probably would confirm it.
At this time the two converted Bonzas, and two other baptized Japonians, undertook a voyage to the Indies, to behold with their own eyes, what the Father had told them, concerning the splendour of Christianity at Goa; I mean the multitude of Christians, the magnificence of the churches, and the beauty of the ecclesiastic ceremonies.
As to what remains, the monasteries of the Bonzas were daily thinned, and grew insensibly to be dispeopled by the desertion of young men, who had some remainders of modesty and morality. Being ashamed of leading a brutal life, and of deceiving the simple, they laid by their habits of Bonzas, together with the profession, that, coming back into the world, they might more easily be converted.
These reports being spread abroad, exasperated the spirits of men against them, so that as soon as any of them appeared, the people ran after them, not as before, to hear them preach, but to throw stones at them, and revile them: "See," they cried, "the two Bonzas, who would inveigle us to worship only one God, and persuade us to be content with a single wife."
The Bonzas are far from doing any thing of this nature; they who publicly affirm, and swear, that the poor are no more in a possibility of salvation than the women."
This prince, who was upon the point of being converted when Xavier left Japan, had no sooner lost the holy man, but he was regained by the Bonzas, and fell into all the disorders of which a Pagan can be capable. He confessed the Christian law to be the better; but said it was too rigorous, and that a young prince, as he was, born in the midst of pleasures, could not brook it.
It is wonderful, that these new Christians, bereft of their pastors, should maintain themselves in the midst of Paganism, and amongst the persecuting Bonzas, and not one single man of them should be perverted from the faith.
They spoke of our faith in terms of great veneration; but, having founded many monasteries of Bonzas, it troubled them, as they said, to lose the fruit of charity: and thus the fear of being frustrated of I know not what rewards, which the Bonzas promised them, caused them to neglect that eternal recompence of which the holy man assured them.
The king took him by the hand, and led him to the palace amidst the acclamations of the people. The seven Bonzas, represented by the seven kites, were already in the hall, with a confirmed impudence, and so much the more haughty, as they had the less reason so to be; according to the usual character of vain and self-opinioned men.
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