church. Amid much ignorance and darkness, there were thousands of people
who, through the Virgin, worshipped God; who talked of Jesus, and of the
Holy Spirit; and who refused to worship at the pagan shrines[24].


Summary of Roman Christianity in Japan.


Let us now strive impartially to appraise the Christianity of this era,
and inquire what it found, what it attempted to do, what it did not
strive to attain, what was the character of its propagators, what was
the mark it made upon the country and upon the mind of the people, and
whether it left any permanent influence.

The gospel net which had gathered all sorts of fish in Europe brought a
varied quality of spoil to Japan. Among the Portuguese missionaries,
beginning with Xavier, there are many noble and beautiful characters,
who exemplified in their motives, acts, lives and sufferings some of the
noblest traits of both natural and redeemed humanity. In their praise,
both the pagan and the Christian, as well as critics biased by their
prepossessions in favor either of the Reformed or the Roman phase of the
faith, can unite.

The character of the native converts is, in many instances, to be
commended, and shows the direct truth of Christianity in fields of life
and endeavor, in ethics and in conceptions, far superior to those which
the Japanese religious systems have produced. In the teaching that there
should be but one standard of morality for man and woman, and that the
male as well as the female should be pure; in the condemnation of
polygamy and licentiousness; in the branding of suicide as both wicked