It was with a heart thrilling with pride that this great American took the young man to the window and as he opened the blind and the window itself and saw the stars and stripes proudly waving in the breeze and with tears running down his face said to him: "My dear man, as long as yonder flag waves over the city you may take the Bible and climb up on the ridgeboard of your house at high noon each day, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year and read it as loud as you can and no man shall harm you." Three months later Mr. Stuntz went to that man's home city, spoke from half past seven until midnight, announced that he would speak in the same building at six o'clock the next morning, and an hour before the appointed time five hundred people were in line waiting to get in.
CHAPTER III
The Country America Opened to Civilization—Japan
Three hundred and fifty years ago there were perhaps a million Christians in Japan. The great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, introduced the religion of the Nazarene into Japan in 1849, and it spread like a prairie fire. But in the course of time the Japanese leaders turned against the priests and leaders of the new religion and undertook to obliterate everything Christian from their civilization.
They placed a price upon the head of every Christian. They made what they called footplates, a plate about the size of a shoe sole with a picture of Christ upon it. When a person was brought whom they suspicioned as being a Christian they put this footplate down and commanded the accused one to stamp it. If this was done freely the person was allowed freedom, for they said no Christian would step on the face of Christ. If the accused one refused to do this the horrors of his torture were so great that death was a release. The writer of these lines has seen some of those old footplates that have been preserved to this day.
Stone signboards were placed along the highways of Japan upon which were written: "So long as the sun shall continue to warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to enter Japan; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christian's God, or the great God of all, if he dare violate this command, shall pay for it with his head." I saw one of these old signboards on exhibition in a museum in Tokyo. Japan closed her ports, established a deadline around her domain and allowed no ships to land, shut out the world and became a hermit nation.
It was the eighth of July, 1853, that a fleet of vessels boldly crossed the forbidden line and dropped anchor in what is now known as Yokohama harbor. It was Commodore Perry and the stars and stripes were waving from the ship masts. At once there was great excitement on shore and soon boats with men wearing swords were along the ships' sides trying to explain that they were on forbidden territory.