The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16

by John Dryden

The saint and his companions being gone from thence, pursued their voyage, sometimes by sea, and sometimes travelled by land. After many labours cheerfully undergone by them, and many dangers which they passed, they arrived at the port of Firando, which was the end of their undertaking. The Portuguese did all they were able for the honourable reception of Father Xavier. All the artillery was discharged at his arrival; all the ensigns and streamers were djsplayed, with sound of trumpets; and, in fine, all the ships gave shouts of joy when they beheld the man of God. He was conducted, in spite of his repugnance, with the same pomp to the royal palace; and that magnificence was of no small importance, to make him considered in a heathen court, who without it might have been despised, since nothing was to be seen in him but simplicity and poverty. The king of Firando, whom the Portuguese gave to understand, how much the man whom they presented to him was valued by their master, and what credit he had with him, received him with so much the greater favour, because he knew the king of Carigoxima had forced him to go out of his estates: for, to oblige the crown of Portugal, and do a despite to that of Cangoxima, he presently empowered the three religious Christians to publish the law of Jesus Christ through all the extent of his dominions.

Immediately they fell on preaching in the town, and all the people ran to hear the European Bonzas. The first sermons of Xavier made a great impression on their souls; and in less than twenty days, he baptized more infidels at Firando, than he had done in a whole year at Cangoxima. The facility which he found of reducing those people under the obedience of the faith, made him resolve to leave with them Cosmo de Torrez, to put the finishing hand to their conversion, and in the mean time to go himself to Meaco, which he had designed from the beginning; that town being the capital of the empire, from whence the knowledge of Christ Jesus might easily be spread through all Japan.

Departing with Fernandez, and the two Japonian Christians, Matthew and Bernard, for this great voyage at the end of October, in the year 1550, they arrived at Facata by sea, which is twenty leagues distant from Firando; and from thence embarked for Amanguchi, which is an hundred leagues from it. Amanguchi is the capital of the kingdom of Naugato, and one of the richest towns of all Japan, not only by the traffic of strangers, who come thither from all parts, but also by reason of silver mines, which are there in great abundance, and by the fertility of the soil; but as vices are the inseparable companions of wealth, it was a place totally corrupted, and full of the most monstrous debaucheries.

Xavier took that place only as his passage to Meaco; but the strange corruption of manners gave him so much horror, and withal so great compassion, that he could not resolve to pass farther without publishing Christ Jesus to those blind and execrable men, nor without making known to them the purity of the Christian law. The zeal which transported him, when he heard the abominable crimes of the town, suffered him not to ask permission from the king, as it had been his custom in other places. He appeared in public on the sudden, burning with an inward fire, which mounted up into his face, and boldly declared to the people the eternal truths of faith. His companion Fernandez did the same in another part of the town. People heard them out of curiosity; and many after having inquired who they were, what dangers they had run, and for what end, admired their courage, and their procedure, void of interest, according to the humour of the Japonians, whose inclinations are naturally noble, and full of esteem for actions of generosity. From public places they were invited into houses, and there desired to expound their doctrine more at large, and at greater leisure. "For if your law appear more reasonable to us than our own," said the principal of the town, "we engage ourselves to follow it."

But when once a man becomes a slave to shameful passions, it is difficult to follow what he thinks the best, and even to judge reasonably what is the best. Not a man amongst them kept his word. Having compared together the two laws, almost all of them agreed, that the Christian doctrine was most conformable to good sense, if things were only to be taken in the speculation; but when they came to consider them in the practice, and saw how much the Christian law discouraged vengeance, and forbade polygamy, with all carnal pleasures, that which had appeared just and reasonable to them, now seemed improbable, and the perversity of their wills hoodwinked the light of their understanding; so that, far from believing in Jesus Christ, they said, "That Xavier and his companions were plain mountebanks, and the religion which they preached a mere fable." These reports being spread abroad, exasperated the spirits of men against them, so that as soon as any of them appeared, the people ran after them, not as before, to hear them preach, but to throw stones at them, and revile them: "See," they cried, "the two Bonzas, who would inveigle us to worship only one God, and persuade us to be content with a single wife."

Oxindono, the king of Amanguchi, hearing what had passed, was willing to be judge himself of the Christians' new doctrine. He sent for them before him, and asked them, in the face of all his nobles, of what country they were, and what business brought them to Japan? Xavier answered briefly, "That they were Europeans, and that they came to publish the divine law. For," added he, "no man can be saved who adores not God, and the Saviour of all nations, his Son Christ Jesus, with a pure heart and pious worship." "Expound to me," replied the prince, "this law, which you have called divine." Then Xavier began, by reading a part of the book which he had composed in the Japonian tongue, and which treated of the creation of the world, of which none of the company had ever heard any thing, of the immortality of the soul, of the ultimate end of our being, of Adam's fall, and of eternal rewards and punishments; in fine, of the coming of our Saviour, and the fruits of our redemption. The saint explained what was needful to be cleared, and spoke in all above an hour.

The king heard him with attention, and without interrupting his discourse; but he also dismissed him without answering a word, or making any sign, whether he allowed or disapproved of what he said. This silence, accompanied with much humanity, was taken for a permission, by Father Xavier, to continue his public preaching. He did so with great warmth, but with small success: Most of them laughed at the preacher, and scorned the mysteries of Christianity: Some few, indeed, grew tender at the hearing of our Saviour's sufferings, even so far as to shed tears, and these motions of compassion disposed their hearts to a belief; but the number of the elect was inconsiderable; for the time pre-ordained for the conversion of that people was not yet come, and was therefore to be attended patiently.

Xavier then having made above a month's abode in Amanguchi, and gathered but small fruit of all his labours, besides affronts, continued his voyage towards Meaco with his three companions, Fernandez, Matthew, and Bernard. They continually bemoaned the blindness and obduracy of those wretches, who refused to receive the gospel; yet cheered up themselves with the consideration of God's mercies, and an inward voice was still whispering in their hearts, that the seed of the divine word, though cast into a barren and ungrateful ground, yet would not finally be lost.

They departed toward the end of December, in a season when the rains were continually falling, during a winter which is dreadful in those parts, where the winds are as dangerous by land as tempests are at sea. The colds are pinching, and the snow drives in such abundance, that neither in the towns nor hamlets, people dare adventure to stir abroad, nor have any communication with each other, but by covered walks and galleries: It is yet far worse in the country, where nothing is to be seen but hideous forests, sharp-pointed and ragged mountains, raging torrents across the vallies, which sometimes overflow the plains. Sometimes it is so covered over with ice, that the travellers fall at every step; without mentioning those prodigious icicles hanging over head from the high trees, and threatening the passengers at every moment with their fall.

The four servants of God travelled in the midst of this hard season, and rough ways, commonly on their naked feet, passing the rivers, and ill accommodated with warm clothes, to resist the inclemencies of the air and earth, loaden with their necessary equipage, and without other provisions of life than grains of rice roasted or dried by the fire, which Bernard carried in his wallet. They might have had abundantly for their subsistence, if Xavier would have accepted of the money which the Portuguese merchants of Firando offered him, to defray the charges of his voyage, or would have made use of what the governor of the Indies had supplied him with in the name of the king of Portugal: But he thought he should have affronted Providence, if he should have furnished himself with the provisions needful to a comfortable subsistence; and therefore taking out of the treasury a thousand crowns, he employed it wholly for the relief of the poor who had received baptism. Neither did he rest satisfied with this royal alms, he drew what he could also from his friends at Goa and Malacca; and it was a saying of his, "That the more these new converts were destitute of worldly goods, the more succour they deserved; that their zeal was worthy the primitive ages of the church; and that there was not a Christian in Japan, who would not choose rather to lose his life, than forfeit the love of Jesus Christ."