CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 429, 1 July 1881, Page 9

CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

We have often noted, says the Catholic Review, the marvellous preservation ©f the Catholic faith in Japan, notwithstanding the dreadful efforts of the Japanese rulers to extirpate it with fire and sword, and by closing the gate of the Empire against foreigners. Recently fresh details of some of the discoveries of the present missionaries have been brought before us. They are full of interest to Catholics. It is not necessary to recall the missionary fame of Osaca, one of the most famous cities of Japan, formerly the headquarters of numerous religions and of their converts. It will be remembered by all who recall the maryrtrs of Japan, cononized by Pius IX, who lived in Osaca, although martyred in l^angasaki. In all the southern provinces of Niphon and of Chicocon. the missionaries of Osaca found converts. The persecution of these neophytes ceased only when it was supposed there were no other victims. That was even in our own day. Two centures after the beginning of the bloody persecution, Catholic missionaries again returned to Osaca. They again made converts. One of their earliest inquirers was among the descendants of their prdecessors in the faith. Little, or rather nothing was known of them, but the missionaries persevered, satisfied that the missing star was in the field of their telescope, and that a thorough examination would discover it. Finally they succeeded. The narrative of their search and success is most interesting. It is graphically told by Father Plessis, a missionary of Osaca. The good priest had heard from one of his Christians, wh ■> had been baptized by a Russian Pope, that up to 1868, there were Christian inhabitants in the villages surrounding Osaca, who were subjected to conunual persecutions by the authorities. Every time one of them died, the surviving relatives were forced to inform the officials of the prince, to whom they were vassals. 'Jhey immediately rcpiiral to the house of the dead man, witnessed his burial, and drove a stake into his grave, so as to prevent the Christian and Chiistianity rising again ! Another instance of man pioposing and God disposing. The mark of disgrace enabled their fellow (Jhiistiaus to recogui/e and honour the remains of the confessors. Father I'lcssis, on this hint, sent some of his Cateohists to the villages in the interior. In one of them they heard that in a neighboming village this buiial custom was still reraeinbcre.d if not practised. Thither they immediately repaired. In the first house they entered they found a woman who, although sick and lying down, received them cordially. She expressed her surprise at strangers coming to visit so remote and mountainous a district. They said that they came to console poor people, who in the past had had much to suffer, and who had not yet recovered from the fright which their

persecutors had caused. They told her that the religion of the Master of Heaven was the only one that was good and true and that the Government had ceased to persecute it. "Yes," replied the woman, "the religion of God deserves to be loved by all, and every one ought to follow it." The Catechists enquired if she knew what their religion waa. She replied that having no one to teach her. she knew little or nothing about it, but that formerly her village and all those in the neighbourhood were Christians. She related that years ago it was the custom to drive a stake into the grave of the dead Christians, and that her father was buried with that indignity. The only prayer that she knew was the Aye Maria, which was identical with the form used by the Christians discovered in Nangasaki. No wonder that the poor Catechists were overwhelmed with emotion at this meeting of the old and new Christianity of Japan, and hearing the " Hail Mary " from lips that learned them by tradition from the martyrs. Later on Father Plessis found in Osaca two Christian families, of the elcier evangelization. One of them possessed an old and precious crucifix, preserved in a pretty jewel case. The great grandfather of the owner of this crucifix was martyred for the faith. Father Plessis asks for the prayers of the faithful that the new seed of faith which the missionaries are sowing there may be as fruitful as that which was planted by St. Francis Xavier and his contemporaries.