The history of all the Japanese regencies, however, amply illustrates the general rule that inherited authority is ever and everywhere liable to find itself supplanted by deputed authority. The Fujiwara appear to have eventually become the victims of that luxury which they had themselves, for reasons of policy, introduced and maintained. Degenerating into a mere court-nobility, they made little effort to exert any direct authority in other than civil directions, entrusting military matters almost wholly to the Buke. In the eighth century the distinction between military and civil organization had been made upon the Chinese plan; the great military class then came into existence, and began to extend its power rapidly. Of the military clans proper, the most powerful were the Minamoto and the Taira. By deputing to these clans the conduct of all important matters relating to war, the Fujiwara eventually lost their high position and influence. As soon [267] as the Buke found themselves strong enough to lay hands upon the reins of government,—which happened about the middle of the eleventh century,—the Fujiwara supremacy became a thing of the past, although members of the clan continued for centuries to occupy positions of importance under various regents.

But the Buke could not realize their ambition without a bitter struggle among themselves,—the longest and the fiercest war in Japanese history. The Minamoto and the Taira were both Kuge; both claimed imperial descent. In the early part of the contest the Taira carried all before them; and it seemed that no power could hinder them from exterminating the rival clan. But fortune turned at last in favour of the Minamoto; and at the famous sea-fight of Dan-no-ura, in 1185, the Taira were themselves exterminated.

Then began the reign of the Minamoto regents, or rather shogun. I have elsewhere said that the title "shogun" originally signified, as did the Roman military term Imperator, only a commander-in-chief: it now became the title of the supreme ruler de facto, in his double capacity of civil and military sovereign,—the King of kings. From the accession of the Minamoto to power the history of the shogunate—the long history of the military supremacy—really begins; Japan thereafter, down to the present era of Meiji, having really two Emperors: [268] the Heavenly Sovereign, or Deity Incarnate, representing the religion of the race; and the veritable Imperator, who wielded all the powers of the administration. No one sought to occupy by force the throne of the Sun's Succession, whence all authority was at least supposed to be derived. Regent or shogun bowed down before it: divinity could not be usurped.

Yet peace did not follow upon the battle of Dan-no-ura: the clan-wars initiated by the great struggle of the Minamoto and the Taira, continued, at irregular intervals, for five centuries more; and the nation remained disintegrated. Nor did the Minamoto long keep the supremacy which they had so dearly won. Deputing their powers to the Hojo family, they were supplanted by the Hojo, just as the Fujiwara had been supplanted by the Taira. Three only of the Minamoto shogun really exercised rule. During the whole of the thirteenth century, and for some time afterwards, the Hojo continued to govern the country; and it is noteworthy that these regents never assumed the title of shogun, but professed to be merely shogunal deputies. Thus a triple-headed government appeared to exist; for the Minamoto kept up a kind of court at Kamakura. But they faded into mere shadows, and are yet remembered by the significant appellation of "Shadow-Shogun," or "Puppet Shogun." There was nothing shadowy, however, about the administration of the Hojo, [269]—men of immense energy and ability. By them Emperor or shogun could be deposed and banished without scruple; and the helplessness of the shogunate can be inferred from the fact, that the seventh Hojo regent, before deposing the seventh shogun, sent him home in a palanquin, head downwards and heels upwards. Nevertheless the Hojo suffered the phantom-shogunate to linger on, until 1333. Though unscrupulous in their methods, these regents were capable rulers; and proved themselves able to save the country in a great emergency,—the famous invasion attempted by Kublai Khan in 1281. Aided by a fortunate typhoon, which is said to have destroyed the hostile fleet in answer to prayer offered up at the national shrines, the Hojo could repel this invasion. They were less successful in dealing with certain domestic disorders,—especially those fomented by the turbulent Buddhist priesthood. During the thirteenth century, Buddhism had developed into a great military power,—strangely like that church-militant of the European middle ages: the period of soldier-priests and fighting-bishops. The Buddhist monasteries had been converted into fortresses filled with men-at arms; Buddhist menace had more than once carried terror into the sacred seclusion of the imperial court. At an early day, Yoritomo, the far-seeing founder of the Minamoto dynasty, had observed a militant tendency in Buddhism, and had attempted to check [270] it by forbidding all priests and monks either to bear arms, or to maintain armed retainers. But his successors had been careless about enforcing these prohibitions; and the Buddhist military power developed in consequence so rapidly that the shrewdest Hojo were doubtful of their ability to cope with it. Eventually this power proved capable of giving them serious trouble. The ninety-sixth Mikado, Go-Daigo, found courage to revolt against the tyranny of the Hojo; and the Buddhist soldiery took part with him. He was promptly defeated, and banished to the islands of Oki; but his cause was soon espoused by powerful lords, who had long chafed under the despotism of the regency. These assembled their forces, restored the banished Emperor, and combined in a desperate attack upon the regent's capital, Kamakura. The city was stormed and burned; and the last of the Hojo rulers, after a brave but vain defence, performed harakiri. Thus shogunate and regency vanished together, in 1333.

For the moment the whole power of administration had been restored to the Mikado. Unfortunately for himself and for the country, Go-Daigo was too feeble of character to avail himself of this great opportunity. He revived the dead shogunate by appointing his own son shogun; he weakly ignored the services of those whose loyalty and courage had restored him; and he foolishly strengthened [271] the hands of those whom he had every reason to fear. As a consequence there happened the most serious political catastrophe in the history of Japan, a division of the imperial house against itself.

The unscrupulous despotism of the Hojo regents had prepared the possibility of such an event. During the last years of the thirteenth century, there were living at the same time in Kyoto, besides the reigning Mikado, no less than three deposed emperors. To bring about a contest for the succession was, therefore, an easy matter; and this was soon accomplished by the treacherous general Ashikaga Takeuji, to whom Go-Daigo had unwisely shown especial favour. Ashikaga had betrayed the Hojo in order to help the restoration of Go-Daigo: he subsequently would have betrayed the trust of Go-Daigo, in order to seize the administrative power. The Emperor discovered this treasonable purpose when too late, and sent against Ashikaga an army which was defeated. After some further contest Ashikaga mastered the capital, drove Go-Daigo a second time into exile, set up a rival Emperor, and established a new shogunate. Now for the first time, two branches of the Imperial family, each supported by powerful lords, contended for the right of succession. That of which Go-Daigo remained the acting representative, is known in history as the Southern Branch (Nancho), and by Japanese historians is held to be the only legitimate branch. [272]

The other was called the Northern Branch (Hokucho), and was maintained at Kyoto by the power of the Ashikaga clan; while Go-Daigo, finding refuge in a Buddhist monastery, retained the insignia of empire. Thereafter, for a period of fifty-six years Japan continued to have two Mikado; and the resulting disorder was such as to imperil the national integrity. It would have been no easy matter for the people to decide which Emperor possessed the better claim. Hitherto the imperial presence had represented the national divinity; and the imperial palace had been regarded as the temple of the national religion: the division maintained by the Ashikaga usurpers therefore signified nothing less than the breaking up of the whole tradition upon which existing society had been built. The confusion became greater and greater, the danger increased more and more, until the Ashikaga themselves took alarm. They managed then to end the trouble by persuading the fifth Mikado of the Southern Dynasty, Go Kameyama, to surrender his insignia to the reigning Mikado of the Northern Dynasty, Go-Komatsu. This having been done, in 1392, Go-Kameyama was honoured with the title of retired Emperor, and Go-Komatsu was nationally acknowledged as legitimate Emperor. But the names of the other four Emperors of the Northern Dynasty are still excluded from the official list. The Ashikaga shogunate thus averted the supreme [273] peril; but the period of this military domination, which endured until 1573, was destined to remain the darkest in Japanese history. The Ashikaga gave the country fifteen rulers, several of whom were men of great ability: they tried to encourage industry; they cultivated literature and the arts; but they could not give peace. Fresh disputes arose; and lords whom the shogunate could not subdue made war upon each other. To such a condition of terror was the capital reduced that the court nobility fled from it to take refuge with daimyo powerful enough to afford them protection. Robbery became rife throughout the land; and piracy terrorized the seas. The shogunate itself was reduced to the humiliation of paying tribute to China. Agriculture and industry at last ceased to exist outside of the domains of certain powerful lords. Provinces became waste; and famine, earthquake, and pestilence added their horror to the misery of ceaseless war. The poverty prevailing may be best imagined from the fact that when the Emperor known to history as Go-Tsuchi-mikado—one hundred and second of the Sun's Succession —died in the year 1500, his corpse had to be kept at the gates of the palace forty days, because the expenses of the funeral could not be defrayed. Until 1573 the misery continued; and the shogunate meanwhile degenerated into insignificance. Then a strong captain arose and ended the house of Ashikaga, and seized the reins of power. [274] This usurper was Oda Nobunaga; and the usurpation was amply provoked. Had it not occurred, Japan might never have entered upon an era of peace.

For there had been no peace since the fifth century. No emperor or regent or shogun had ever been able to impose his rule firmly upon the whole country. Somewhere or other, there were always wars of clan with clan. By the time of the sixteenth century personal safety could be found only under the protection of some military leader, able to exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. The question of the imperial succession,—which had almost wrecked the empire during the fourteenth century,—might be raised again at any time by some reckless faction, with the probable result of ruining civilization, and forcing the nation back to its primitive state of barbarism. Never did the future of Japan appear so dark as at the moment when Oda Nobunaga suddenly found himself the strongest man in the empire, and leader of the most formidable Japanese army that had ever obeyed a single head. This man, a descendant of Shinto priests, was above all things a patriot. He did not seek the title of shogun, and never received it. His hope was to save the country; and he saw that this could be done only by centralizing all feudal power under one control, and strenuously enforcing law. Looking about him for the ways and means of effecting [275] this centralization, he perceived that one of the very first obstacles to be removed was that created by the power of Buddhism militant,—the feudal Buddhism developed under the Hojo regency, and especially represented by the great Shin and Tendai sects. As both had already given aid to his enemies, it was easy to find a cause for quarrel; and he first proceeded against the Tendai. The campaign was conducted with ferocious vigour; the monastery-fortresses of Hiyei-san were stormed and razed, and all the priests, with all their adherents, put to the sword—no mercy being shown even to women and children. By nature Nobunaga was not cruel; but his policy was ruthless, and he knew when and why to strike hard. The power of the Tendai sect before this massacre may be imagined from the fact that three thousand monastery buildings were burnt at Hiyei-san. The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, with headquarters at Osaka, was scarcely less powerful; and its monastery, occupying the site of the present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest fortresses in the country. Nobunaga waited several years, merely to prepare for the attack. The soldier-priests defended themselves well; upwards of fifty thousand lives are said to have been lost in the siege; yet only the personal intervention of the Emperor prevented the storming of the stronghold, and the slaughter of every being within its walls. Through respect for the Emperor, Nobunaga agreed [276] to spare the lives of the Shin priests: they were only dispossessed and scattered, and their power forever broken. Buddhism having been thus effectually crippled, Nobunaga was able to turn his attention to the warring clans. Supported by the greatest generals that the nation ever produced,—Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu,—he proceeded to enforce pacification and order; and his grand purpose would probably have been soon accomplished, but for the revengeful treachery of a subordinate, who brought about his death in 1583.

Nobunaga, with Taira blood in his veins, had been essentially an aristocrat, inheriting all the aptitudes of his great race for administration, and versed in all the traditions of diplomacy. His avenger and successor, Hideyoshi, was a totally different type of soldier: a son of peasants, an untrained genius who had won his way to high command by shrewdness and courage, natural skill of arms, and immense inborn capacity for all the chess-play of war. With the great purpose of Nobunaga he had always been in sympathy; and he actually carried it out,—subduing the entire country, from north to south, in the name of the Emperor, by whom he was appointed Regent (Kwambaku). Thus universal peace was temporarily established. But the vast military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and disciplined, threatened to become refractory. He found employment for them by declaring unprovoked [277] war against Korea, whence he hoped to effect the conquest of China. The war with Korea opened in 1592, and dragged on unsatisfactorily until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had proved himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but not one of the best among rulers. Perhaps the issue of the war in Korea would have been more fortunate, if he could have ventured to conduct it himself. As a matter of fact, it merely exhausted the force of both countries; and Japan had little to show for her dearly bought victories abroad except the Mimidzuka or "Ear-Monument" at Nara,—marking the spot where thirty thousand pairs of foreign ears, cut from the pickled heads of slain, were buried in the grounds of the temple of Daibutsu....

Into the vacant place of power then stepped the most remarkable man that Japan ever produced,—Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Iyeyasu was of Minamoto descent, and an aristocrat to the marrow of his bones. As a soldier he was scarcely inferior to Hideyoshi, whom he once defeated,—but he was much more than a soldier, a far-sighted statesman, an incomparable diplomat, and something of a scholar. Cool, cautious, secretive,—distrustful, yet generous,—stern, yet humane,—by the range and the versatility of his genius he might be not unfavourably contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had wished to do, and failed to [278] do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished. After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the troops in Korea "to become ghosts haunting a foreign land,"—that is to say, in the condition of spirits without a cult,—Iyeyasu had to face a formidable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim to rule. The terrific battle of Sekigahara left him master of the country; and he at once took measures to consolidate his power, and to perfect, even to the least detail, all the machinery of military government. As shogun, he reorganized the daimiates, redistributed a majority of fiefs; among those whom he could trust, created new military grades, and ordered and so balanced the powers of the greater daimyo as to make it next to impossible for them to dare a revolt. Later on the daimyo were even required to furnish security for their good behaviour: they were obliged to pass a certain time of the year* in the shogun's capital, leaving their families as hostages during the rest of the year. The entire administration was readjusted upon a simple and sagacious plan; and the Laws of Iyeyasu prove him to have been an excellent legislator. For the first time in Japanese history the nation was integrated,—integrated, at least, in so far as the peculiar nature of the social unit rendered possible. The counsels [279] of the founder of Yedo were followed by his successors; and the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted until 1867, gave the country fifteen military sovereigns. Under these, Japan enjoyed both peace and prosperity for the time of two hundred and fifty years; and her society was thus enabled to evolve to the full limit of its peculiar type. Industries and arts developed in new and wonderful ways; literature found august patronage. The national cult was carefully maintained; and all precautions were taken to prevent the occurrence of another such contest for the imperial succession as had nearly ruined the country in the fourteenth century.

[*The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all daimyo. In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six months; in others, the requirement was to pass every alternate year in the capital.]

We have seen that the history of military rule in Japan embraces nearly the whole period of authentic history, down to modern times, and closes with the second period of national integration. The first period had been reached when the clans first accepted the leadership of the chief of the greatest clan,—thereafter revered as the Heavenly Sovereign, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Arbiter, Supreme Commander, and Supreme Magistrate. How long a time was required for this primal integration, under a patriarchal monarchy, we cannot know; but we have learned that the later integration, under a duarchy, occupied considerably more than a thousand years.... Now the extraordinary fact to note is that, during all those centuries, the imperial [280] cult was carefully maintained by even the enemies of the Mikado; the only legitimate ruler being, in national belief, the Tenshi, "Son of Heaven,"—the Tenno, "Heavenly King." Through every period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was the object of national worship, and his palace the temple of the national faith. Great captains might coerce the imperial will; but they styled themselves, none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the incarnate deity; and they would no more have thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they would have thought of trying to abolish all religion by decree. Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seriously interfered with; and the social earthquake consequent upon that division of the imperial house, apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blunder.... Only the integrity of the imperial succession, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp together the indissoluble units of society.

Herbert Spencer has taught the student of sociology to recognize that religious dynasties have extraordinary powers of longevity, because they possess extraordinary power to resist change; whereas military dynasties, depending for their perpetuity upon the individual character of their sovereigns, are particularly liable to disintegration. The immense duration of the Japanese imperial dynasty, as contrasted [281] with the history of the various shogunates and regencies representing a merely military domination, illustrates this teaching in a most remarkable way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we can follow the line of the imperial succession, till it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. Here we have evidence of that extreme power of resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic of religious conservatism; on the other hand, the history of shogunates and regencies proves the tendency to disintegration of institutions having no religious foundation, and therefore no religious power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the Fujiwara represented a religious, rather than a military, aristocracy. Even the marvellous military structure devised by Iyeyasu had begun to decay before alien aggression precipitated its inevitable collapse.



[283]

THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY

"Militant societies," says the author of the Principles of Sociology, "must have a patriotism which regards the triumph of their society as the supreme end of action; they must possess the loyalty whence flows obedience to authority,—and, that they may be obedient, they must have abundant faith." The history of the Japanese people strongly exemplifies these truths. Among no other people has loyalty ever assumed more impressive and extraordinary forms; and among no other people has obedience ever been nourished by a more abundant faith,—that faith derived from the cult of the ancestors.

The reader will understand how filial piety—the domestic religion of obedience—widens in range with social evolution, and eventually differentiates both into that political obedience required by the community, and that military obedience exacted by the war-lord,—obedience implying not only submission, but affectionate submission,—not merely the sense of obligation, but the sentiment of duty. In its origin such dutiful obedience is essentially religious; and, as expressed in loyalty, it retains the [284] religious character,—becomes the constant manifestation of a religion of self-sacrifice. Loyalty is developed early in the history of a militant people; and we find touching examples of it in the earliest Japanese chronicles. We find also terrible ones,—stories of self-immolation.

To his divinely descended lord, the retainer owed everything—in fact, not less than in theory: goods, household, liberty, and life. Any or all of these he was expected to yield up without a murmur, on demand, for the sake of the lord. And duty to the lord, like the duty to the family ancestor, did not cease with death. As the ghosts of parents were to be supplied with food by their living children, so the spirit of the lord was to be worshipfully served by those who, during his lifetime, owed him direct obedience. It could not be permitted that the spirit of—the ruler should enter unattended into the world of shadows: some, at least, of those who served him living were bound to follow him in death. Thus in early societies arose the custom of human sacrifices,—sacrifices at first obligatory, afterwards voluntary. In Japan, as stated in a former chapter, they remained an indispensable feature of great funerals, up to the first century, when images of baked clay were first substituted for the official victims. I have already mentioned how, after this abolition of obligatory [285] junshi, or following of one's lord in death, the practice of voluntary junshi continued up to the sixteenth century, when it actually became a military fashion. At the death of a daimyo it was then common for fifteen or twenty of his retainers to disembowel themselves. Iyeyasu determined to put an end to this custom of suicide, which is thus considered in the 76th article of his celebrated Legacy:—

"Although it is undoubtedly the ancient custom for a vassal to follow his Lord in death, there is not the slightest reason in the practice. Confucius has ridiculed the making of Yo [effigies buried with the dead]. These practices are strictly forbidden, more especially to primary retainers, but to secondary retainers likewise, even of the lowest rank. He is the reverse of a faithful servant who disregards this prohibition. His posterity shall be impoverished by the confiscation of his property, as a warning for those who disobey the laws."

Iyeyasu's command ended the practice of junshi among his own vassals; but it continued, or revived again, after his death. In 1664 the shogunate issued an edict proclaiming that the family of any person performing junshi should be punished; and the shogunate was in earnest. When this edict was disobeyed by one Uyemon no Hyoge, who disembowelled himself at the death of his lord, Okudaira Tadamasa, the government promptly confiscated the lands of the family of the suicide, executed two of [286] his sons, and sent the rest of the household into exile. Though cases of junshi have occurred even within this present era of Meiji, the determined attitude of the Tokugawa government so far checked the practice that even the most fervid loyalty latterly made its sacrifices through religion, as a rule. Instead of performing harakiri, the retainer shaved his head at the death of his lord, and became a Buddhist monk.

The custom of junshi represents but one aspect of Japanese loyalty: there were other customs equally, if not even more, significant,—for example, the custom of military suicide, not as junshi, but as a self-inflicted penalty exacted by the traditions of samurai discipline. Against harakiri, as punitive suicide, there was no legislative enactment, for obvious reasons. It would seem that this form of self-destruction was not known to the Japanese in early ages; it may have been introduced from China, with other military customs. The ancient Japanese usually performed suicide by strangulation, as the Nihongi bears witness. It was the military class that established the harakiri as a custom and privilege. Previously, the chiefs of a routed army, or the defenders of a castle taken by storm, would thus end themselves to avoid falling into the enemy's hands,—a custom which continued into the present era. About the close of the fifteenth century, the [287] military custom of permitting any samurai to perform harakiri, instead of subjecting him to the shame of execution, appears to have been generally established. Afterwards it became the recognized duty of a samurai to kill himself at the word of command. All samurai were subject to this disciplinary law, even lords of provinces; and in samurai families, children of both sexes were trained how to perform suicide whenever personal honour or the will of a liege-lord, might require it.... Women, I should observe, did not perform harakiri, but jigai,—that is to say, piercing the throat with a dagger so as to sever the arteries by a single thrust-and-cut movement.... The particulars of the harakiri ceremony have become so well known through Mitford's translation of Japanese texts on the subject, that I need not touch upon them. The important fact to remember is that honour and loyalty required the samurai man or woman to be ready at any moment to perform self-destruction by the sword. As for the warrior, any breach of trust (voluntary or involuntary), failure to execute a difficult mission, a clumsy mistake, and even a look of displeasure from one's liege, were sufficient reasons for harakiri, or, as the aristocrats preferred to call it, by the Chinese term, seppuku. Among the highest class of retainers, it was also a duty to make protest against misconduct on the part of their lord by performing seppuku, when all other means of bringing him to reason had [288] failed,—which heroic custom has been made the subject of several popular dramas founded upon fact. In the case of married women of the samurai class,—directly responsible to their husbands, not to the lord,—jigai was resorted to most often as a means of preserving honour in time of war, though it was sometimes performed merely as a sacrifice of loyalty to the spirit of the husband, after his untimely death.* [*The Japanese moralist Yekken wrote 'A woman has no feudal lord: she must reverence and obey her husband.'] In the case of girls it was not uncommon for other reasons,—samurai maidens often entering into the service of noble households, where the cruelty of intrigue might easily bring about a suicide, or where loyalty to the wife of the lord might exact it. For the samurai maiden in service was bound by loyalty to her mistress not less closely than the warrior to the lord; and the heroines of Japanese feudalism were many.

In the early ages it appears to have been the custom for the wives of officials condemned to death to kill themselves the ancient chronicles are full of examples. But this custom is perhaps to be partly accounted for by the ancient law, which held the household of the offender equally responsible with him for the offence, independently of the facts in the case. However, it was certainly also common enough for a bereaved wife to perform suicide, not through despair, but through the wish to follow her [289] husband into the other world, and there to wait upon him as in life. Instances of female suicide, representing the old ideal of duty to a dead husband, have occurred in recent times. Such suicides are usually performed according to the feudal rules,—the woman robing herself in white for the occasion. At the time of the late war with China there occurred in Tokyo one remarkable suicide of this kind; the victim being the wife of Lieutenant Asada, who had fallen in battle. She was only twenty-one. On hearing of her husband's death, she at once began to make preparations for her own,—writing letters of farewell to her relatives, putting her affairs in order, and carefully cleaning the house, according to old-time rule. Thereafter she donned her death-robe; laid mattings down opposite to the alcove in the guest-room; placed her husband's portrait in the alcove, and set offerings before it. When everything had been arranged, she seated herself before the portrait, took up her dagger, and with a single skilful thrust divided the arteries of her throat.

Besides the duty of suicide for the sake of preserving honour, there was also, for the samurai woman, the duty of suicide as a moral protest. I have already said that among the highest class of retainers it was thought a moral duty to perform harakiri as a remonstrance against shameless conduct on the part of one's lord, when all other means of persuasion [290] had been tried in vain. Among samurai women—taught to consider their husbands as their lords, in the feudal meaning of the term—it was held a moral obligation to perform jigai, by way of protest, against disgraceful behaviour upon the part of a husband who would not listen to advice or reproof. The ideal of wifely duty which impelled such sacrifice still survives; and more than one recent example might be cited of a generous life thus laid down in rebuke of some moral wrong. Perhaps the most touching instance occurred in 1892, at the time of the district elections in Nagano prefecture. A rich voter named Ishijima, after having publicly pledged himself to aid in the election of a certain candidate, transferred his support to the rival candidate. On learning of this breach of promise, the wife of Ishijima, robed herself in white, and performed jigai after the old samurai manner. The grave of this brave woman is still decorated with flowers by the people of the district; and incense is burned before her tomb.

To kill oneself at command—a duty which no loyal samurai would have dreamed of calling in question—appears to us much less difficult than another duty, also fully accepted: the sacrifice of children, wife, and household for the sake of the lord. Much of Japanese popular tragedy is devoted to incidents of such sacrifice made by retainers or [291] dependents of daimyo,—men or women who gave their children to death in order to save the children of their masters.* [*See, for a good example, the translation of the drama Terakoya, published, with admirable illustrations, by T. Hasegawa (Tokyo).] Nor have we any reason to suppose that the facts have been exaggerated in these dramatic compositions, most of which are based upon feudal history. The incidents, of course, have been rearranged and expanded to meet theatrical requirements; but the general pictures thus given of the ancient society are probably even less grim than the vanished reality. The people still love these tragedies; and the foreign critic of their dramatic literature is wont to point out only the blood-spots, and to comment upon them as evidence of a public taste for gory spectacles,—as proof of some innate ferocity in the race. Rather, I think, is this love of the old tragedy proof of what foreign critics try always to ignore as—much as possible,—the deeply religious character of the people. These plays continue to give delight,—not because of their horror, but because of their moral teaching,—because of their exposition of the duty of sacrifice and courage, the religion of loyalty. They represent the martyrdoms of feudal society for its noblest ideals.

All down through that society, in varying forms, the same spirit—of loyalty had its manifestations. As the samurai to his liege-lord, so the apprentice was bound to the patron, and the clerk to the [292] merchant. Everywhere there was trust, because everywhere there existed the like sentiment of mutual duty between servant and master. Each industry and occupation had its religion of loyalty,—requiring, on the one side, absolute obedience and sacrifice at need; and on the other, kindliness and aid. And the rule of the dead was over all.

Not less ancient than the duty of dying for parent or lord was the social obligation to avenge the killing of either. Even before the beginnings of settled society, this duty is recognized. The oldest chronicles of Japan teem with instances of obligatory vengeance. Confucian ethics more than affirmed the obligation,—forbidding a man to live "under the same heaven" with the slayer of his lord, or parent, or brother; and fixing all the degrees of kinship, or other relationship, within which the duty of vengeance was to be considered imperative. Confucian ethics, it will be remembered, became at an early date the ethics of the Japanese ruling-classes, and so remained down to recent times. The whole Confucian system, as I have remarked elsewhere, was founded upon ancestor-worship, and represented scarcely more than an amplification and elaboration of filial piety: it was therefore in complete accord with Japanese moral experience. As the military power developed in Japan, the Chinese code of vengeance became universally accepted; and it was sustained [293] by law as well as by custom in later ages. Iyeyasu himself maintained it—exacting only that preliminary notice of an intended vendetta should be given in writing to the district criminal court. The text of his article on the subject is interesting:—

"In respect to avenging injury done to master or father, it is acknowledged by the Wise and Virtuous [Confucius] that you and the injurer cannot live together under the canopy of heaven. A person harbouring such vengeance shall give notice in writing to the criminal court; and although no check or hindrance may be offered to the carrying out of his design within the period allowed for that purpose, it is forbidden that the chastisement of an enemy be attended with riot. Fellows who neglect to give notice of their intended revenge are like wolves of pretext:* their punishment or pardon should depend upon the circumstances of the case."

[*Or "hypocritical wolves."—that is to say brutal murderers seeking to excuse their crime on the pretext justifiable vengeance. (The translation is by Lowder.)]

Kindred, as well as parents; teachers, as well as lords, were to be revenged. A considerable proportion of popular romance and drama is devoted to the subject of vengeance taken by women; and, as a matter of fact, women, and even children, sometimes became avengers when there were no men of a wronged family left to perform the duty. Apprentices avenged their masters; and even sworn friends were bound to avenge each other.

[294] Why the duty of vengeance was not confined to the circle of natural kinship is explicable, of course, by the peculiar organization of society. We have seen that the patriarchal family was a religious corporation; and that the family-bond was not the bond of natural affection, but the bond of the cult. We have also seen that the relation of the household to the community, and of the community to the clan, and of the clan to the tribe, was equally a religious relation. As a necessary consequence, the earlier customs of vengeance were regulated by the bond of the family, communal, or tribal cult, as well as by the bond of blood; and with the introduction of Chinese ethics, and the development of militant conditions, the idea of revenge as duty took a wider range. The son or the brother by adoption was in respect of obligation the same as the son or brother by blood; and the teacher stood to his pupil in the relation of father to child. To strike one's natural parent was a crime punishable by death: to strike one's teacher was, before the law, an equal offence. This notion of the teacher's claim to filial reverence was of Chinese importation: an extension of the duty of filial piety to "the father of the mind." There were other such extensions; and the origin of all, Chinese or Japanese, may be traced alike to ancestor-worship.

Now, what has never been properly insisted upon, in any of the books treating of ancient [295] Japanese customs, is the originally religious significance of the kataki-uchi. That a religious origin can be found for all customs of vendetta established in early societies is, of course, well known; but a peculiar interest attaches to the Japanese vendetta in view of the fact that it conserved its religious character unchanged down to the present era. The kataki-uchi was essentially an act of propitiation, as is proved by the rite with which it terminated,—the placing of the enemy's head upon the tomb of the person avenged, as an offering of atonement. And one of the most impressive features of this rite, as formerly practised, was the delivery of an address to the ghost of the person avenged. Sometimes the address was only spoken; sometimes it was also written, and the manuscript left upon the tomb.

There is probably none of my readers unacquainted with Mitford's ever-delightful Tales of Old Japan, and his translation of the true story of the "Forty-Seven Ronins." But I doubt whether many persons have noticed the significance of the washing of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke's severed head, or the significance of the address inscribed to their dead lord by the brave men who had so long waited and watched for the chance to avenge him. This address, of which I quote Mitford's translation, was laid upon the tomb of the Lord Asano. It is still preserved at the temple called Sengakuji:—

[296] "The fifteenth year of Genroku [17031, the twelfth month, the fifteenth day.—We have come this day to do homage here: forty-seven men in all, from Oishi Kuranosuke down to the foot-soldier Terasaka Kichiyemon,—all cheerfully about to lay down our lives on your behalf. We reverently announce this to the honoured spirit of our dead master. On the fourteenth day of the third month of last year, our honoured master was pleased to attack Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke, for what reason we know not. Our honoured master put an end to his own life; but Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke lived. Although we fear that after the decree issued by the Government, this plot of ours will be displeasing to our honoured master, still we, who have eaten of your food, could not without blushing repeat the verse, "Thou shalt not live under the same heaven, nor tread the same earth with the enemy of thy father or lord," nor could we have dared to leave hell [Hades] and present ourselves before you in Paradise, unless we had carried out the vengeance which you began. Every day that we waited seemed as three autumns to us. Verily we have trodden the snow for one day, nay, for two days, and have tasted food but once. The old and decrepit, the sick and the ailing, have come forth gladly to lay down their lives. Men might laugh at us, as at grasshoppers trusting in the strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the head of your enemy with it a second time, to dispel your hatred forever. This is the respectful statement of forty-seven men."

It will be observed that the Lord Asano is addressed as if he were present and visible. The head of the enemy has been carefully washed, according to the rule concerning the presentation of heads to a living superior. It is laid upon the tomb together with the nine-inch sword, or dagger, originally used by the Lord Asano in performing harakiri at Government command, and afterwards used by Oishi Kuranosuke in cutting off the head of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke;—and the spirit of the Lord Asano is requested to take up the weapon and to strike the head, so that the pain of ghostly anger may be dissipated forever. Then, having been themselves all sentenced to perform harakiri, the forty-seven retainers join their lord in death, and are buried in front of his tomb. Before their graves the smoke of incense, offered by admiring visitors, has been ascending daily for two hundred years.*

[*It has been long the custom also for visitors to leave their cards upon the tombs of the Forty-seven Ronin. When I last visited Sengakuji, the ground about the tombs was white with visiting-cards.]

One must have lived in Japan, and have been able to feel the true spirit of the old Japanese life, in order to comprehend the whole of this romance of loyalty; but I think that whoever carefully reads Mr. Mitford's version of it, and his translation of the [298] authentic documents relating to it, will confess himself moved. That address especially touches,—because of the affection and the faith to which it testifies, and the sense of duty beyond this life. However much revenge must be condemned by our modern ethics, there is a noble side to many of the old Japanese stories of loyal vengeance; and these stories affect us by the expression of what has nothing to do with vulgar revenge,—by their exposition of gratitude, self-denial, courage in facing death, and faith in the unseen. And this means, of course, that we are, consciously or unconsciously, impressed by their religious quality. Mere individual revenge—the postponed retaliation for some personal injury—repels our moral feeling: we have learned to regard the emotion inspiring such revenge as simply brutal —something shared by man with lower forms of animal life. But in the story of a homicide exacted by the sentiment of duty or gratitude to a dead master, there may be circumstances which can make appeal to our higher moral sympathies,—to our sense of the force and beauty of unselfishness, unswerving fidelity, unchanging affection. And the story of the Forty-Seven Ronin is one of this class....

Yet it must be borne in mind that the old Japanese religion of loyalty, which found its supreme manifestation in those three terrible customs of [299] junshi, harakiri, and kataki-uchi, was narrow in its range. It was limited by the very constitution of society. Though the nation was ruled, through all its groups, by notions of duty everywhere similar in character, the circle of that duty, for each individual, did not extend beyond the clan-group to which he belonged. For his own lord the retainer was always ready to die; but he did not feel equally bound to sacrifice himself for the military government, unless he happened to belong to the special military following of the Shogun. His fatherland, his country, his world, extended only to the boundary of his chief's domain. Outside of that domain he could be only a wanderer,—a ronin, or "wave-man," as the masterless samurai was termed. Under such conditions that larger loyalty which identifies itself with love of king and country,—which is patriotism in the modern, not in the narrower antique sense,—could not fully evolve. Some common peril, some danger to the whole race—such as the attempted Tartar conquest of Japan—might temporarily arouse the true sentiment of patriotism; but otherwise that sentiment had little opportunity for development. The Ise cult represented, indeed, the religion of the nation, as distinguished from the clan or tribal worship; but each man had been taught to believe that his first duty was to his lord. One cannot efficiently serve two masters; and feudal government practically [300] suppressed any tendencies in that direction. The lordship so completely owned the individual, body and soul, that the idea of any duty to the nation, outside of the duty to the chief, had neither time nor chance to define itself in the mind of the vassal. To the ordinary samurai, for example, an imperial order would not have been law: he recognized no law above the law of his daimyo. As for the daimyo, he might either disobey or obey an imperial command according to circumstances: his direct superior was the shogun; and he was obliged to make for himself a politic distinction between the Heavenly Sovereign as deity, and the Heavenly Sovereign as a human personality. Before the ultimate centralization of the military power, there were many instances of lords sacrificing themselves for their emperor; but there were even more cases of open rebellion by lords against the imperial will. Under the Tokugawa rule, the question of obeying or resisting an imperial command would have depended upon the attitude of the shogun; and no daimyo would have risked such obedience to the court at Kyoto as might have signified disobedience to the court at Yedo. Not at least until the shogunate had fallen into decay. In Iyemitsu's time the daimyo were strictly forbidden to approach the imperial palace on their way to Yedo,—even in response to an imperial command; and they were also forbidden to make any direct appeal to the [301] Mikado. The policy of the shogunate was to prevent all direct communication between the Kyoto court and the daimyo. This policy paralyzed intrigue for two hundred years; but it prevented the development of patriotism.

And for that very reason, when Japan at last found herself face to face with the unexpected peril of Western aggression, the abolition of the dairmates was felt to be a matter of paramount importance. The supreme danger required that the social units should be fused into one coherent mass, capable of uniform action,—that the clan and tribal groupings should be permanently dissolved,—that all authority should immediately be centred in the representative of the national religion,—that the duty of obedience to the Heavenly Sovereign should replace, at once and forever, the feudal duty of obedience to the territorial lord. The religion of loyalty, evolved by a thousand years of war, could not be cast away—properly utilized, it would prove a national heritage of incalculable worth,—a moral power capable of miracles if directed by one wise will to a single wise end. Destroyed by reconstruction it could not be; but it could be diverted and transformed. Diverted, therefore, to nobler ends —expanded to larger needs,—it became the new national sentiment of trust and duty: the modern sense of patriotism. What wonders it has wrought, within the space of thirty years, the world is now obliged to confess: what [302] more it may be able to accomplish remains to be seen. One thing at least is certain,—-that the future of Japan must depend upon the maintenance of this new religion of loyalty, evolved, through the old, from the ancient religion of the dead.



[303]

THE JESUIT PERIL

The second half of the sixteenth century is the most interesting period in Japanese history—for three reasons. First, because it witnessed the apparition of those mighty captains, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu,—types of men that a race seems to evolve for supreme emergencies only,—types requiring for their production not merely the highest aptitudes of numberless generations, but likewise an extraordinary combination of circumstances. Secondly, this period is all-important because it saw the first complete integration of the ancient social system,—the definitive union of all the clan-lordships under a central military government. And lastly, the period is of special interest because the incident of the first attempt to christianize Japan—the story of the rise and fall of the Jesuit power—properly belongs to it.

The sociological significance of this episode is instructive. Excepting, perhaps, the division of the imperial house against itself in the twelfth century, the greatest danger that ever threatened Japanese national integrity was the introduction of Christianity [304] by the Portuguese Jesuits. The nation saved itself only by ruthless measures, at the cost of incalculable suffering and of myriads of lives.

It was during the period of great disorder preceding Nobunaga's effort to centralize authority, that this unfamiliar disturbing factor was introduced by Xavier and his followers. Xavier landed at Kagoshima in 1549; and by 1581 the Jesuits had upwards of two hundred churches in the country. This fact alone sufficiently indicates the rapidity with which the new religion spread; and it seemed destined to extend over the entire empire. In 1585 a Japanese religious embassy was received at Rome; and by that date no less than eleven daimyo,—or "kings," as the Jesuits not inaptly termed them—had become converted. Among these were several very powerful lords. The new creed had made rapid way among the common people also: it was becoming "popular," in the strict meaning of the word.

When Nobunaga rose to power, he favoured the Jesuits in many ways—not because of any sympathy with their creed, for he never dreamed of becoming a Christian, but because he thought that their influence would be of service to him in his campaign against Buddhism. Like the Jesuits themselves, Nobunaga had no scruple about means in his pursuit of ends. More ruthless than William the Conqueror, he did not hesitate to put to death [305] his own brother and his own father-in-law, when they dared to oppose his will. The aid and protection which he extended to the foreign priests, for merely political reasons, enabled them to develop their power to a degree which soon gave him cause for repentance. Mr. Gubbins, in his "Review of the Introduction of Christianity into China and Japan," quotes from a Japanese work, called Ibuki Mogusa, an interesting extract on the subject:—

"Nobunaga now began to regret his previous policy in permitting the introduction of Christianity. He accordingly assembled his retainers, and said to them:—'The conduct of these missionaries in persuading people to join them by giving money, does not please me. How would it be, think you, if we were to demolish Nambanji [The "Temple of the Southern Savages"—so the Portuguese church was called]?' To this Mayeda Tokuzenin replied. 'It is now too late to demolish the Temple of the Namban. To endeavour to arrest the power of this religion now is like trying to arrest the current of the ocean. Nobles, both great and small, have become adherents of it. If you would exterminate this religion now, there is fear that disturbance should be created among your own retainers. I am therefore of opinion that you should abandon your intention of destroying Nambanji.' Nobunaga in consequence regretted exceedingly his previous action in regard to the Christian religion, and set about thinking how he could root it out."

The assassination of Nobunaga in 1586 may have prolonged the period of toleration. His successor [306] Hideyoshi, who judged the influence of the foreign priests dangerous, was for the moment occupied with the great problem of centralizing the military power, so as to give peace to the country. But the furious intolerance of the Jesuits in the southern provinces had already made them many enemies, eager to avenge the cruelties of the new creed. We read in the histories of the missions about converted daimyo burning thousands of Buddhist temples, destroying countless works of art, and slaughtering Buddhist priests;—and we find the Jesuit writers praising these crusades as evidence of holy zeal. At first the foreign faith had been only persuasive; afterwards, gathering power under Nobunaga's encouragement, it became coercive and ferocious. A reaction against it set in about a year after Nobunaga's death. In 1587 Hideyoshi destroyed the mission churches in Kyoto, Osaka, and Sakai, and drove the Jesuits from the capital; and in the following year he ordered them to assemble at the port of Hirado, and prepare to leave the country. They felt themselves strong enough to disobey: instead of leaving Japan, they scattered through the country, placing themselves under the protection of various Christian daimyo. Hideyoshi probably thought it impolitic to push matters further: the priests kept quiet, and ceased to preach publicly; and their self-effacement served them well until 1591. In that year the advent of [307] certain Spanish Franciscans changed the state of affairs. These Franciscans arrived in the train of an embassy from the Philippines, and obtained leave to stay in the country on condition that they were not to preach Christianity. They broke their pledge, abandoned all prudence, and aroused the wrath of Hideyoshi. He resolved to make an example; and in 1597 he had six Franciscans, three Jesuits, and several other Christians taken to Nagasaki and there crucified. The attitude of the great Taiko toward the foreign creed had the effect of quickening the reaction against it,—a reaction which had already begun to show itself in various provinces. But Hideyoshi's death in 1598 enabled the Jesuits to hope for better fortune. His successor, the cold and cautious Iyeyasu, allowed them to hope, and even to reestablish themselves in Kyoto, Osaka, and elsewhere. He was preparing for the great contest which was to be decided by the battle of Sekigahara;—he knew that the Christian element was divided,—some of its leaders being on his own side, and some on the side of his enemies;—and the time would have been ill chosen for any repressive policy. But in 1606, after having solidly established his power, Iyeyasu for the first time showed himself decidedly opposed to Christianity by issuing an edict forbidding further mission work, and proclaiming that those who had adopted the foreign religion must abandon it. Nevertheless the propaganda [308] went on—conducted no longer by Jesuits only, but also by Dominicans and Franciscans. The number of Christians then in the empire is said, with gross exaggeration, to have been nearly two millions. But Iyeyasu neither took, nor caused to be taken, any severe measures of repression until 1614,—from which date the great persecution may be said to have begun. Previously there had been local persecutions only, conducted by independent daimyo,—not by the central government. The local persecutions in Kyushu, for example, would seem to have been natural consequences of the intolerance of the Jesuits in the days of their power, when converted daimyo burned Buddhist temples and massacred Buddhist priests; and these persecutions were most pitiless in those very districts such as Bungo, Omura, and Higo —where the native religion had been most fiercely persecuted at Jesuit instigation. But from 1614—at which date there remained only eight, out of the total sixty-four provinces of Japan, into which Christianity had not been introduced—the suppression of the foreign creed became a government matter; and the persecution was conducted systematically and uninterruptedly until every outward trace of Christianity had disappeared.

The fate of the missions, therefore, was really settled by Iyeyasu and his immediate successors; [309] and it is the part taken by Iyeyasu that especially demands attention. Of the three great captains, all had, sooner or later, become suspicious of the foreign propaganda; but only Iyeyasu could find both the time and the ability to deal with the social problem which it had aroused. Even Hideyoshi had been afraid to complicate existing political troubles by any rigorous measures of an extensive character. Iyeyasu long hesitated. The reasons for his hesitation were doubtless complex, and chiefly diplomatic. He was the last of men to act hastily, or suffer himself to be influenced by prejudice of any sort; and to suppose him timid would be contrary to all that we know of his character. He must have recognized, of course, that to extirpate a religion which could claim, even in exaggeration, more than a million of adherents, was no light undertaking, and would involve an immense amount of suffering. To cause needless misery was not in his nature: he had always proved himself humane, and a friend of the common people. But he was first of all a statesman and patriot; and the main question for him must have been the probable relation of the foreign creed to political and social conditions in Japan. This question required long and patient investigation; and he appears to have given it all possible attention. At last he decided that Roman Christianity constituted a grave political danger and that its extirpation would be an unavoidable necessity. [310] The fact that the severe measures which he and his successors enforced against Christianity—measures steadily maintained for upwards of two hundred years—failed to completely eradicate the creed, proves how deeply the roots had struck. Superficially, all trace of Christianity vanished to Japanese eyes; but in 1865 there were discovered near Nagasaki some communities which had secretly preserved among themselves traditions of the Roman forms of worship, and still made use of Portuguese and Latin words relating to religious matters.

To rightly estimate the decision of Iyeyasu—one of the shrewdest, and also one of the most humane statesmen that ever lived,—it is necessary to consider, from a Japanese point of view, the nature of the evidence upon which he was impelled to act. Of Jesuit intrigues in Japan he must have had ample knowledge—several of them having been directed against himself;—but he would have been more likely to consider the ultimate object and probable result of such intrigues, than the mere fact of their occurrence. Religious intrigues were common among the Buddhists, and would scarcely attract the notice of the military government except when they interfered with state policy or public order. But religious intrigues having for their object the overthrow of government, and a sectarian domination of the country, would be gravely considered. [311] Nobunaga had taught Buddhism a severe lesson about the danger of such intriguing. Iyeyasu decided that the Jesuit intrigues had a political object of the most ambitious kind; but he was more patient than Nobunaga. By 1603 he, had every district of Japan under his yoke; but he did not issue his final edict until eleven years later. It plainly declared that the foreign priests were plotting to get control of the government, and to obtain possession of the country:—

"The Kirishitan band have come to Japan, not only sending their merchant-vessels to exchange commodities, but also longing to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow right doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country, and obtain possession of the land. This is the germ of great disaster, and must be crushed.....

"Japan is the country of the gods and of the Buddha: it honours the gods, and reveres the Buddha.... The faction of the Bateren* disbelieve in the Way of the Gods, and blaspheme the true Law, —violate right-doing, and injure the good.... They truly are the enemies of the gods and of the Buddha.... If this be not speedily prohibited, the safety of the state will, assuredly hereafter be imperilled; and if those who are charged with ordering its affairs do not put a stop to the evil, they will expose themselves to Heaven's rebuke.

[*Bateren, a corruption of the Portuguese padre, is still the term used for Roman Catholic priests, of any denomination.]

"These [missionaries] must be instantly swept out, so that not an inch of soil remains to them in Japan on which [312] to plant their feet; and if they refuse to obey this command, they shall suffer the penalty.... Let Heaven and the Four Seas hear this. Obey!"*

[*The entire proclamation, which is of considerable length, has been translated by Satow, and may be found in Vol. VI, part I, of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.]

It will be observed that there are two distinct charges made against the Bateren in this document,—that of political conspiracy under the guise of religion, with a view to getting possession of the government; and that of intolerance, towards both the Shinto and the Buddhist forms of native worship. The intolerance is sufficiently proved by the writings of the Jesuits themselves. The charge of conspiracy was less easy to prove; but who could reasonably have doubted that, were opportunity offered, the Roman Catholic orders would attempt to control the general government precisely as they had been able to control local government already in the lordships of converted daimyo. Besides, we may be sure that by the time at which the edict was issued, Iyeyasu must have heard of many matters likely to give him a most evil opinion of Roman Catholicism:—the story of the Spanish conquests in America, and the extermination of the West Indian races; the story of the persecutions in the Netherlands, and of the work of the Inquisition elsewhere; the story of the attempt of Philip II to conquer England, and of the loss of the two great [313] Armadas. The edict was issued in 1614, and Iyeyasu had found opportunity to inform himself about some of these matters as early as 1600. In that year the English pilot Will Adams had arrived at Japan in charge of a Dutch ship, Adams had started on this eventful voyage in the year 1598,—that is to say, just ten years after the defeat of the first Spanish Armada, and one year after the ruin of the second. He had seen the spacious times of great Elizabeth—who was yet alive;—he had very probably seen Howard and Seymour and Drake and Hawkins and Frobisher and Sir Richard Grenville, the hero of 1591. For this Will Adams was a Kentish man, who had "serued for Master and Pilott in her Majesties ships ..." The Dutch vessel was seized immediately upon her arrival at Kyushu; and Adams and his shipmates were taken into custody by the daimyo of Bungo, who reported the fact to Iyeyasu. The advent of these Protestant sailors was considered an important event by the Portuguese Jesuits, who had their own reasons for dreading the results of an interview between such heretics and the ruler of Japan. But Iyeyasu also happened to think the event an important one; and he ordered that Adams should be sent to him at Osaka. The malevolent anxiety of the Jesuits about the matter had not escaped Iyeyasu's penetrating observation. They endeavoured again and again to have the sailors killed, according to the [314] written statement of Adams himself, who was certainly no liar; and they had been able—in Bungo to frighten two scoundrels of the ship's company into giving false testimony.* "The Iesuites and the Portingalls," wrote Adams, "gaue many euidences against me and the rest to the Emperour [Iyeyasu], that we were theeues and robbers of all nations,—and [that] were we suffered to liue,—it should be against the profit of his Highnes, and the land." But Iyeyasu was perhaps all the more favourably inclined towards Adams by the eagerness of the Jesuits to have him killed—"crossed [crucified]," as Adams called it,—"the custome of iustice in Japan, as hanging is in our land." He gave them answer, says Adams, "that we had as yet not doen to him nor to none of his lande any harme or dammage: therefore against Reason and Iustice to put vs to death." ... And there came to pass precisely what the Jesuits had most feared,—what they had vainly endeavoured by intimidation, by slander, by all possible intrigue to prevent,—an interview between Iyeyasu and the heretic Adams. [315] "Soe that as soon as I came before him," wrote Adams, "he demanded of me of what countrey we were: so I answered him in all points; for there was nothing that he demanded not, both concerning warre and peace between countrey and countrey: so that the particulars here to wryte would be too tedious. And for that time I was commanded to prison, being well vsed, with one of our mariners that cam with me to serue me." From another letter of Adams it would seem that this interview lasted far into the night, and that Iyeyasu's questions referred especially to politics and religion. "He asked," says Adams, "whether our countrey had warres? I answered him yea, with the Spaniards and Portugals—beeing in peace with all other nations. Further he asked me in what I did beleeue? I said, in God, that made heauen and earth. He asked me diverse other questions of things of religion, and many other things: As, what way we came to the country? Having a chart of the whole world, I shewed him through the Straight of Magellan. At which he wondred, and thought me to lie. Thus, from one thing to another, I abode with him till midnight." ... The two men liked each other at sight, it appears. Of Iyeyasu, Adams significantly observes: "He viewed me well, and seemed to be wonderful favourable." Two days later Iyeyasu again sent for Adams, and cross-questioned him just about those matters which the [316] Jesuits wanted to remain in the dark. "He demaunded also as conserning the warres between the Spaniard or Portingall and our countrey, and the reasons: the which I gaue him to vnderstand of all things, which he was glad to heare, as it seemed to me. In the end I was commaunded to prisson agein, but my lodging was bettered." Adams did not see Iyeyasu again for nearly six weeks: then he was sent for, and cross-questioned a third time. The result was liberty and favour. Thereafter, at intervals, Iyeyasu used to send for him; and presently we hear of him teaching the great statesman "some points of jeometry, and understanding of the art of mathematickes, with other things." ... Iyeyasu gave him many presents, as well as a good living, and commissioned him to build some ships for deep-sea sailing. Eventually, the poor pilot was created a samurai, and given an estate. "Being employed in the Emperour's seruice," he wrote, "he hath given me a liuing, like vnto a lordship in England, with eightie or ninetie husbandmen that be as my slaues or seruents: the which, or the like president [precedent], was neuer here before geven to any stranger." ... Witness to the influence of Adams with Iyeyasu is furnished by the correspondence of Captain Cock, of the English factory, who thus wrote home about him in 1614: "The truth is the Emperour esteemeth hym much, and he may goe in and speake with hym at all times, when [317] kynges and princes are kept ovt."** It was through this influence that the English were allowed to establish their factory at Hirado. There is no stranger seventeenth-century romance than that of this plain English pilot,—with only his simple honesty and common-sense to help him,—rising to such extraordinary favour with the greatest and shrewdest of all Japanese rulers. Adams was never allowed, however, to return to England,—perhaps because his services were deemed too precious to lose. He says himself in his letters that Iyeyasu never refused him anything that he asked for,*** except the privilege of revisiting England: when he asked that, once too often, the "ould Emperour" remained silent.

[*"Daily more and more the Portugalls incensed the justices and the people against vs. And two of our men, as traytors, gaue themselves in seruice to the king [daimyo], beeing all in all with the Portugals, hauing by them their liues warranted. The one was called Gilbert de Conning, whose mother dwelleth at Middleborough, who gaue himself out to be marchant of all the goods in the shippe. The other was called Iobn Abelson Van Owater. These traitours sought all manner of wayes to get the goods into their hands, and made known vnto them all things that had passed in our voyage. Nine dayes after our arriuall, the great king of the land [Iyeyasu] sent for me to come vnto him. "—Letter of Will Adams to his wife.]

**"It has plessed God to bring things to pass, so as in ye eyes of ye world [must seem] strange; for the Spaynnard and Portingall hath bin my bitter enemies to death; and now theay must seek to me, an unworthy wretch; for the Spaynard as well as the Portingall must haue all their negosshes [negotiations] go thorough my hand.—" Letter of Adams dated January 12, 1613.

***Even favours for the people who had sought to bring about his death. "I pleased him so," wrote Adams, "that what I said he would not contrarie. At which my former enemies did wonder; and at this time must entreat me to do them a friendship, which to both Spaniards and Portingals have I doen: recompencing them good for euill. So, to passe my time to get my liuing, it hath cost mee great labour and trouble at the first, but God hath blessed my labour."]

The correspondence of Adams proves that Iyeyasu disdained no means of obtaining direct information about foreign affairs in regard to religion and politics. As for affairs in Japan, he had at his disposal the most perfect system of espionage ever [318] established; and he knew all that was going on. Yet he waited, as we have seen, fourteen years before he issued his edict. Hideyoshi's edict was, indeed, renewed by him in 1606; but that referred particularly to the public preaching of Christianity; and while the missionaries outwardly conformed to the law, he continued to suffer them within his own dominions. Persecutions were being carried on elsewhere; but the secret propaganda was also being carried on, and the missionaries could still hope. Yet there was menace in the air, like the heaviness preceding storms. Captain Saris, writing from Japan in 1613, records a pathetic incident which is very suggestive. "I gaue leaue," he says, "to divers women of the better sort to come into my Cabbin, where the picture of Venus, with her sonne Cupid, did hang somewhat wantonly set out in a large frame. They, thinking it to bee Our Ladie and her sonne, fell downe and worshipped it, with shewes of great deuotion, telling me in a whispering manner (that some of their own companions, which were not so, might not heare), that they were Christianos: whereby we perceived them to be Christians, conuerted by the Portugall Iesuits." ... When Iyeyasu first took strong measures, they were directed, not against the Jesuits, but against a more imprudent order,—as we know from Adams's correspondence. "In the yeer 1612," he says, "is put downe all the sects of the Franciscannes. The Jesouets hau [319] what priuiledge ... theare beinge in Nangasaki, in which place only may be so manny as will of all sectes: in other places not so many permitted...." Roman Catholicism was given two more years' grace after the Franciscan episode.

Why Iyeyasu should have termed it a "false and corrupt religion," both in his Legacy and elsewhere, remains to be considered. From the Far-Eastern point of view he could scarcely have judged it otherwise, after an impartial investigation. It was essentially opposed to all the beliefs and traditions upon which Japanese society had been founded. The Japanese State was an aggregate of religious communities, with a God-King at its head;—the customs of all these communities had the force of religious laws, and ethics were identified with obedience to custom; filial piety was the basis of social order, and loyalty itself was derived from filial piety. But this Western creed, which taught that a husband should leave his parents and cleave to his wife, held filial piety to be at best an inferior virtue. It proclaimed that duty to parents, lords, and rulers remained duty only when obedience involved no action opposed to Roman teaching, and that the supreme duty of obedience was not to the Heavenly Sovereign at Kyoto, but to the Pope at Rome. Had not the Gods and the Buddhas been called devils by these missionaries from Portugal and Spain? Assuredly such doctrines were subversive, [320] no matter how astutely they might be interpreted by their apologists. Besides, the worth of a creed as a social force might be judged from its fruits. This creed in Europe had been a ceaseless cause of disorders, wars, persecutions, atrocious cruelties. This creed, in Japan, had fomented great disturbances, had instigated political intrigues, had wrought almost immeasurable mischief. In the event of future political trouble, it would justify the disobedience of children to parents, of wives to husbands, of subjects to lords, of lords to shogun. The paramount duty of government was now to compel social order, and to maintain those conditions of peace and security without which the nation could never recover from the exhaustion of a thousand years of strife. But so long as this foreign religion was suffered to attack and to sap the foundations of order, there never could be peace.... Convictions like these must have been well established in the mind of Iyeyasu when he issued his famous edict. The only wonder is that he should have waited so long.

Very possibly Iyeyasu, who never did anything by halves, was waiting until Christianity should find itself without one Japanese leader of ability. In 1611 he had information of a Christian conspiracy in the island of Sado (a convict mining-district) whose governor, Okubo, had been induced to adopt Christianity, and was to be made ruler of the country if [321] the plot proved successful. But still Iyeyasu waited. By 1614 Christianity had scarcely even an Okubo to lead the forlorn hope. The daimyo converted in the sixteenth century were dead or dispossessed or in banishment; the great Christian generals had been executed; the few remaining converts of importance had been placed under surveillance, and were practically helpless.

The foreign priests and native catechists were not cruelly treated immediately after the proclamation of 1614. Some three hundred of them were put into ships and sent out of the country,—together with various Japanese suspected of religious political intrigues, such as Takayama, former daimyo of Akashi, who was called "Justo Ucondono" by the Jesuit writers, and who had been dispossessed and degraded by Hideyoshi for the same reasons. Iyeyasu set no example of unnecessary severity. But harsher measures followed upon an event which took place in 1615,—the very year after the issuing of the edict. Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, had been supplanted—fortunately for Japan—by Iyeyasu, to whose tutelage the young man had been confided. Iyeyasu took all care of him, but had no intention of suffering him to direct the government of the country,—a task scarcely within the capacity of a lad of twenty-three. In spite of various political intrigues in which Hideyori was known to have taken part, Iyeyasu had left him in possession [322] of large revenues, and of the strongest fortress in Japan,—that mighty castle of Osaka, which Hideyoshi's genius had rendered almost impregnable. Hideyori, unlike his father, favoured the Jesuits: and he made the castle a refuge for adherents of the "false and corrupt sect." Informed by government spies of a dangerous intrigue there preparing, Iyeyasu resolved to strike; and he struck hard. In spite of a desperate defence, the great fortress was stormed and burnt—Hideyori perishing in the conflagration. One hundred thousand lives are said to have been lost in this siege. Adams wrote thus quaintly of Hideyori's fate, and the results of his conspiracy:—

"Hee mad warres with the Emperour ... allso by the Jessvits and Ffriers, which mad belleeue he should be fauord with mirrackles and wounders; but in fyne it proued the contrari. For the ould Emperour against him pressentlly maketh his forces reddy by sea and land, and compasseth his castell that he was in; although with loss of multitudes on both sides, yet in the end rasseth the castell walles, setteth it on fyre, and burneth hym in it. Thus ended the warres. Now the Emperour heering of thees Jessvets and friers being in the castell with his ennemis, and still from tym to tym agaynst hym, coumandeth all romische sorte of men to depart ovt of his countri—thear churches pulld dooun, and burned. This folowed in the ould Emperour's [323] daies. Now this yeear, 1616, the old Emperour he died. His son raigneth in his place, and hee is more hot agaynste the romish relligion then his ffather wass: for he hath forbidden thorough all his domynions, on paine of deth, none of his subjects to be romish christiane; which romish seckt to prevent eueri wayes that he maye, he hath forbidden that no stranger merchant shall abid in any of the great citties." ...

The son here referred to was Hidetada, who, in 1617, issued an ordinance sentencing to death every Roman priest or friar discovered in Japan,—an ordinance provoked by the fact that many priests expelled from the country had secretly returned, and that others had remained to carry on their propaganda under various disguises. Meanwhile, in every city, town, village, and hamlet throughout the empire, measures had been taken for the extirpation of Roman Christianity. Every community was made responsible for the existence in it of any person belonging to the foreign creed; and special magistrates, or inquisitors, were appointed, called Kirishitan-bugyo, to seek out and punish members of the prohibited religion.* Christians [324] who freely recanted were not punished, but only kept under surveillance: those who refused to recant, even after torture, were degraded to the condition of slaves, or else put to death. In some parts of the country, extraordinary cruelty was practised, and every form of torture used to compel recantation. But it is tolerably certain that the more atrocious episodes of the persecution were due to the individual ferocity of local governors or magistrates—as in the case of Takenaka Uneme-no-Kami, who was compelled by the government to perform harakiri for abusing his powers at Nagasaki, and making persecution a means of extorting money. Be that as it may, the persecution at last either provoked, or helped to bring about a Christian rebellion in the daimiate of Arima,—historically remembered as the Shimabara Revolt. In 1636 a host of peasants, driven to desperation by the tyranny of their lords—the daimyo of Arima and the daimyo of Karatsu (convert-districts)—rose in arms, burnt all the Japanese temples in their vicinity, and proclaimed religious war. Their banner bore a cross; their leaders were converted samurai. They were soon [325] joined by Christian refugees from every part of the country, until their numbers swelled to thirty or forty thousand. On the coast of the Shimabara peninsula they seized an abandoned castle, at a place called Hara, and there fortified themselves. The local authorities could not cope with the uprising; and the rebels more than held their own until government forces, aggregating over 160,000 men, were despatched against them. After a brave defence of one hundred and two days, the castle was stormed in 1638, and its defenders, together with their women and children, put to the sword. Officially the occurrence was treated as a peasant revolt; and the persons considered responsible for it were severely punished;—the lord of Shimabara (Arima) was further sentenced to perform harakiri. Japanese historians state that the rising was first planned and led by Christians, who designed to seize Nagasaki, subdue Kyushu, invite foreign military help, and compel a change of government;—the Jesuit writers would have us believe there was no plot. One thing certain is that a revolutionary appeal was made to the Christian element, and was largely responded to with alarming consequences. A strong castle on the Kyushu coast, held by thirty or forty thousand Christians, constituted a serious danger,—a point of vantage from which a Spanish invasion of the country might have been attempted with some [326] chance of success. The government seems to have recognized this danger, and to have despatched in consequence an overwhelming force to Shimabara. If foreign help could have been sent to the rebels, the result might have been a prolonged civil war. As for the wholesale slaughter, it represented no more than the enforcement of Japanese law: the punishment of the peasant revolting against his lord, under any circumstances whatever, being death. So far as concerns the policy of such massacre, it may be remembered that, with less provocation, Nobunaga exterminated the Tendai Buddhists at Hiyei-san. We have every reason to pity the brave men who perished at Shimabara, and to sympathize with their revolt against the atrocious cruelty of their rulers. But it is necessary, as a simple matter of justice, to consider the whole event from the Japanese political point of view.

[*It should be borne in mind that none of these edicts were directed against Protestant Christianity: the Dutch were not considered Christians in the sense of the ordinances, nor were the English. The following extract from a typical village, Kumicho, or code of communal regulations, shows the responsibility imposed upon all communities regarding the presence in their midst of Roman Catholic converts or believers:—

"Every year, between the first and the third month, we will renew our Shumon-cho If we know of any person who belongs to a prohibited sect, we will immediately inform the Daikwan.... Servants and labourers shall give to their masters a certificate declaring that they are not Christians. In regard to persons who have been Christians, but have recanted,—if such persons come to or leave the village, we promise to report it."—See Professor Wigmore's Notes on Land-Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan.]

The Dutch have been denounced for helping to crush the rebellion with ships and cannon: they fired, by their own acknowledgment, 426 shot into the castle. However, the extant correspondence of the Dutch factory at Hirado proves beyond question that they were forced, under menace, to thus act. In any event, it would be difficult to discover a good reason for the merely religious denunciations of their conduct,—although that conduct would be open to criticism from the humane [327] point of view. Dutchmen could not reasonably have refused to assist the Japanese authorities in suppressing a revolt, merely because a large proportion of the rebels happened to profess the religion which had been burning alive as heretics the men and women of the Netherlands. Very possibly, not a few persons of kin to those very Dutch had suffered in the days of Alva. What would have happened to all the English and Dutch in Japan, if the Portuguese and Spanish clergy could have got full control of government, ought to be obvious.

With the massacre of Shimabara ends the real history of the Portuguese and Spanish missions. After that event, Christianity was slowly, steadily, implacably stamped out of visible existence. It had been tolerated, or half-tolerated, for only sixty-five years: the entire history of its propagation and destruction occupies a period of scarcely ninety years. People of nearly every rank, from prince to pauper, suffered for it; thousands endured tortures for its sake—tortures so frightful that even three of those Jesuits who sent multitudes to useless martyrdom were forced to deny their faith under the infliction;* and tender women, sentenced to, the stake, carried [328] their little ones with them into the fire, rather than utter the words that would have saved both mother and child. Yet this religion, for which thousands vainly died, had brought to Japan nothing but evil disorders, persecutions, revolts, political troubles, and war. Even those virtues of the people which had been evolved at unutterable cost for the protection and conservation of society,—their self-denial, their faith, their loyalty, their constancy and courage,—were by this black creed distorted, diverted, and transformed into forces directed to the destruction of that society. Could that destruction have been accomplished, and a new Roman Catholic empire have been founded upon the ruins, the forces of that empire would have been used for the further extension of priestly tyranny, the spread of the Inquisition, the perpetual Jesuit warfare against freedom of conscience and human progress. Well may we pity the victims of this pitiless faith, and justly admire their useless courage: yet who can regret that their cause was lost? ... Viewed from another standpoint than that of religious bias, and simply judged by its results, the Jesuit effort to Christianize Japan must be regarded as a crime against humanity, a labour of devastation, a calamity comparable only,—by reason of the misery and destruction which it wrought,—to an earthquake, a tidal-wave, a volcanic eruption.

[*Francisco Cassola, Pedro Marquez, and Giuseppe Chiara. Two of these—probably under compulsion—married Japanese women. For their after-history, see a paper by Satow in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. VI, Part I.]

[329] The policy of isolation,—of shutting off Japan from the rest of the world,—as adopted by Hidetada and maintained by his successors, sufficiently indicates the fear that religious intrigues had inspired. Not only were all foreigners, excepting the Dutch traders, expelled from the country; all half-breed children of Portuguese or Spanish blood were also expatriated, Japanese families being forbidden to adopt or conceal any of them, under penalties to be visited upon all the members of the household disobeying. In 1636 two hundred and eighty-seven half-breed children were shipped to Macao. It is possible that the capacity of half-breed children to act as interpreters was particularly dreaded; but there can be little doubt that, at the time when this ordinance was issued, race-hatred had been fully aroused by religious antagonism. After the Shimabara episode all Western foreigners, without exception, were regarded with unconcealed distrust.* [*The Chinese traders, however, were allowed much more liberty than the Dutch.] The Portuguese and Spanish traders were replaced by the Dutch (the English factory having been closed some years previously); but even in the case of these, extraordinary precautions were taken. They were compelled to abandon their good quarters at Hirado, and transfer their factory to Deshima,—a tiny island only six hundred feet long, by two hundred and forty feet wide. There they were kept under constant guard, like prisoners; they were not [330] permitted to go among the people; no man could visit them without permission, and no woman, except a prostitute, was allowed to enter their reservation under any circumstances. But they had a monopoly of the trade of the country; and Dutch patience endured these conditions, for the profit's sake, during more than two hundred years. Other commerce with foreign countries than that maintained by the Dutch factory, and by the Chinese, was entirely suppressed. For any Japanese to leave Japan was a capital offence; and any one who might succeed in leaving the country by stealth, was to be put to death upon his return. The purpose of this law was to prevent Japanese, sent abroad by the Jesuits for missionary training, from returning to Japan in the disguise of laymen. It was forbidden also to construct ships capable of long voyages; and all ships exceeding a dimension fixed by the government were broken up, Lookouts were established along the coast to watch for strange vessels; and any European ships entering a Japanese port, excepting the ships of the Dutch company, were to be attacked and destroyed.

The great success at first achieved by the Portuguese missions remains to be considered. In our present comparative ignorance of Japanese social history, it is not easy to understand the whole of the Christian episode. There are plenty of Jesuit-missionary [331] records; but the Japanese contemporary chronicles yield us scanty information about the missions—probably for the reason that an edict was issued in the seventeenth century interdicting, not only all books on the subject of Christianity, but any book containing the words Christian or Foreign. What the Jesuit books do not explain, and what we should rather have expected Japanese historians to explain, had they been allowed, is how a society founded on ancestor-worship, and apparently possessing immense capacity for resistance to outward assault, could have been so quickly penetrated and partly dissolved by Jesuit energy. The question of all questions that I should like to see answered, by Japanese evidence, is this: To what extent did the missionaries interfere with the ancestor-cult? It is an important question. In China, the Jesuits were quick to perceive that the power of resistance to proselytism lay in ancestor-worship; and they shrewdly endeavoured to tolerate it, somewhat as Buddhism before them had been obliged to do. Had the Papacy supported their policy, the Jesuits might have changed the history of China; but other religious orders fiercely opposed the compromise, and the chance was lost. How far the ancestor-cult was tolerated by the Portuguese missionaries in Japan is a matter of much sociological interest for investigation. The supreme cult was, of course, left alone, for obvious reasons. It is difficult to suppose that the [332] domestic cult was attacked then as implacably as it is attacked now by Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries alike;—is difficult to suppose, for example, that Converts were compelled to cast away or to destroy their ancestral tablets. On the other hand, we are yet in doubt as to whether many of the poorer converts—servants and other common folk—possessed a domestic ancestor-cult. The outcast classes, among whom many converts were made, need not be considered, of course, in this relation. Before the matter can be fairly judged, much remains to be learned about the religious condition of the heimin during the sixteenth century. Anyhow, whatever methods were followed, the early success of the missions was astonishing. Their work, owing to the particular character of the social organization, necessarily began from the top: the subject could change his creed only by permission of his lord. From the outset this permission was freely granted. In some cases the people were officially notified that they were at liberty to adopt the new religion; in other cases, converted lords ordered them to do so. It would seem that the foreign faith was at first mistaken for a new kind of Buddhism; and in the extant official grant of land at Yamaguchi to the Portuguese mission, in 1552, the Japanese text plainly states that the grant (which appears to have included a temple called Daidoji) was made to the strangers that they might preach [333] the Law of Buddha "—Buppo shoryo no tame. The original document is thus translated by Sir Ernest Satow, who reproduced it in facsimile:—

"With respect to Daidoji in Yamaguchi Agata, Yoshiki department, province of Suwo. This deed witnesses that I have given permission to the priests who have come to this country from the Western regions, in accordance with their request and desire, that they may found and erect a monastery and house in order to develope the Law of Buddha.

"The 28th day of the 8th month of the 21st year of Tembun.

"SUWO NO SUKE.

[August Seal]"*

[*In the Latin and Portuguese translations, or rather pretended translations of this document, there is nothing about preaching the Law of Buddha; and there are many things added which do not exist in the Japanese text at all. See Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (Vol. VIII, Part II) for Satow's comment on this document and the false translation made of it.]

If this error [or deception?] could have occurred at Yamaguchi, it is reasonable to suppose that it also occurred in other places. Exteriorly the Roman rites resembled those of popular Buddhism: the people would have observed but little that was unfamiliar to them in the forms of the service, the vestments, the beads, the prostrations, the images, the bells, and the incense. The virgins and the saints would have been found to resemble the aureoled Boddhisattvas and Buddhas; the angels and the demons would have been at once identified with the Tennin [334] and the Oni. All that pleased popular imagination in the Buddhist ceremonial could be witnessed, under slightly different form, in those temples which had been handed over to the Jesuits, and consecrated by them as churches or chapels. The fathomless abyss really separating the two faiths could not have been perceived by the common mind; but the outward resemblances were immediately observable. There were furthermore some attractive novelties. It appears, for example, that the Jesuits used to have miracle-plays performed in their churches for the purpose of attracting popular attention.... But outward attractions of whatever sort, or outward resemblances to Buddhism, could only assist the spread of the new religion; they could not explain the rapid progress of the propaganda.