the Christianity of the seventeenth century in Japan, let us look into
the two centuries of silence, and see what was the story between the
paling of the Christian record in 1637, and the glowing of the
palimpsest in 1859, when the new era begins.

The policy of the Japanese rulers, after the supposed utter extirpation
of Christianity, was the double one of exclusion and inclusion. A
deliberate attempt, long persisted in and for centuries apparently
successful, was made to insulate Japan from the shock of change. The
purpose was to draw a whole nation and people away from the currents and
movements of humanity, and to stereotype national thought and custom.
This was carried out in two ways: first, by exclusion, and then by
inclusion. All foreign influences were shut off, or reduced to a
minimum. The whole western world, especially Christendom, was put under
ban.

Even the apparent exception made in favor of the Dutch was with the
motive of making isolation more complete, and of securing the perfect
safety which that isolation was expected to bring. For, having built,
not indeed with brick and mortar, but by means of edict and law, both
open and secret, a great wall of exclusion more powerful than that of
China's, it was necessary that there should be a port-hole, for both
sally and exit, and a slit for vigilant scrutiny of any attempt to force
seclusion or violate the frontier. Hence, the Hollanders were allowed to
have a small place of residence in front of a large city and at the head
of a land-locked harbor. There, the foreigners being isolated and under
strict guard, the government could have, as it were, a nerve which
touched the distant nations, and could also, as with a telescope, sweep
the horizon for signs of danger.