The history of Christianity in Japan from this time downward was that of a scattered and dismembered remnant struggling for existence. A long line of edicts reaching to modern times was directed against “the corrupt sect,” repeating again and again the directions for its suppression. The kirishitan bugyō, or Christian inquisitor, had his office in Yedo, and under him was a numerous and active corps of assistants. Inouye Chikugo-no-Kami for a long time held this position. A place is still pointed out called Karishitan Zaka, or Christian Valley, where once stood the house in which were confined a number of the foreign priests. Here may be seen the grave of Father Chiara, who had under torture abjured his faith, and remained a prisoner for forty years, dying 1685.[224] Professor Dixon says that “there are two bamboo tubes inserted in sockets in front of the tomb, which I have never found empty, but always full of flowers in bloom. No one knows who [pg 268] offer these flowers, but they must be descendants of the Doshin Christians, or believers in Christianity, or worshippers of Koshin.” Here also was confined Father Baptiste Sidotti, a Sicilian Jesuit who ventured to enter Japan in 1707 with the purpose of resuming the work of the Jesuits which the persecution had interrupted.
And yet with all this vigilance and severity on the part of the government, what was the amazement of the Christian world to learn that the old faith still survived! In the villages around Nagasaki there were discovered in 1865,[225] not only words and symbols which had been preserved in the language, but even communities where had been kept alive for more than two centuries the worship bequeathed to them by their ancestors. We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to this interesting memento of the Christianity of the seventeenth century.
Chapter XII. Feudalism In Japan.
Ieyasu was not only a general of eminent abilities, who had from his youth been accustomed to the responsibility and management of great campaigns, but he was a statesman who knew how to secure the advantage to be obtained from victories and conquests. After the decisive battle of Sekigahara, when the control of the empire became fixed in his hands, we hear little more of him as a general, excepting in the battle at Ōsaka, when the fortunes of Hideyori were finally and definitely settled. The common conception of Ieyasu is not that of a great commander like Hideyoshi, but rather of an organizer and law-maker, who out of confused and dismembered provinces and principalities of the empire constructed a firm and abiding state.[226] After his settlement of the dissensions at home, and his admirable adjustment of the outstanding difficulties with Korea and China, which we have already traced, we shall find Ieyasu principally engaged in framing a government which should be suited to the peculiar [pg 270] wants and founded on the historical antecedents of the country.
Ieyasu.
There was one characteristic of Ieyasu which has not received sufficient attention. Although not a great scholar in any sense, even in the age in which he lived, he was more familiar than most men of affairs of his day with the Chinese classical writings, and was in the more leisurely periods of his life a noted patron of learned men. The Chinese classics were said to have been brought to Japan at an early period, even before the first introduction of Buddhism. But the period was too early and the condition of the country too rude to make the reading and study of the philosophical and political writings of Confucius and Mencius an essential part of the [pg 271] education of the people. The culture which Buddhism brought with it, accompanied with a knowledge of the writing and reading of the Chinese letters, was all that obtained any currency during the disturbed and warlike ages of Japanese history. But when peace was at last established by the supremacy of Ieyasu, and the active Japanese intellect had some other employment than fighting, then learning took a great start. And as the only idea which the Japanese possessed of learning was that which prevailed in China and was imbedded in the Chinese writings, they naturally turned to them for thought and systematic training.
Fortunately Ieyasu was a man who appreciated at its full value the effect of learning on the character of his people. He caused the Confucian classics[227] to be printed at a press which he patronized in Fushimi, and this was said to be the first time these works had ever been printed in Japan. He gathered scholars about him at Fushimi, at Yedo, and after his retirement at Shizuoka (Sumpu). He favored education and encouraged the daimyōs to establish schools where the children of their retainers could be taught not only military accomplishments but the elements of a good education. The Chinese classics were made the essentials of such an education, and the chief duty of a school was to teach the [pg 272] pupils to read and write and understand the works which their venerable and learned neighbor had furnished them.