probable, however, that any seeds of Christianity were at this time left
in the peninsula. Korean Christianity sprang up nearly two centuries
later, wind-wafted from China.[11]

During the war there was always more or less of jealousy, mostly
military and personal, between Konishi and Kato, which however was
aggravated by the priests on either side. Kato, being then and afterward
a fierce champion of the Buddhists, glorified in his orthodoxy, which
was that of the Nichiren sect. He went into battle with a banneret full
of texts, stuck in his back and flying behind him. His example was
copied by hundreds of his officers and soldiers. On their flags and
guidons was inscribed the famous apostrophe of the Nichiren sect, so
often heard in their services and revivals to-day (Namu miy[=o] ho ren
gé ki[=o]), and borrowed from the Saddharma Pundarika: "Glory be to the
salvation-bringing Lotus of the True Law."


The Hostility of Hidéyoshi.


Konishi, on the other hand, was less numerously and perhaps less
influentially backed by, and made the champion of, the European
brethren; and as all the negotiations between the invaders and the
allied Koreans and Chinese had to be conducted in the Chinese script,
the alien fathers were, as secretaries and interpreters, less useful
than the native Japanese bonzes.

Yet this jealousy and hostility in the camps of the invaders proved to
be only correlative to the state of things in Japan. Even supposing the
statistics in round numbers, reported at that time, to be exaggerated,