Such was the respect and reverence in which they were held, even by their most determined enemies in the court of Japan, that they were permitted to say a farewell Mass publicly in their church, and afterwards to receive the adieus of their sorrowful flock. Vast multitudes attended on this occasion; and when High Mass was over, the Jesuits proceeded to the mournful ceremony of stripping the altars, the people weeping piteously all the while, and the fathers nearly as broken-hearted as themselves. All was at length removed that could tempt to sacrilege; the sacred vessels and robes of ceremony were confided to the care of such of the Christians as could best be relied on, the church-doors flung open for all who might choose to enter; and the next morning the fathers, under a guard of soldiers, were far on their way to Nangasaki, whence they were to embark. At that town they were joined by numbers of prisoners, both clerical and lay, collected from all parts of the country, and finally sixty-three Jesuits, with a crowd of converts of every age, sex, and condition were embarked for Macao; while twenty-three others, besides a proportionate number of Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians (for each of these orders had now missions in Japan), were dispatched to the Manillas.
In the same year (1614) in which this wholesale banishment took place, the Christians had to mourn for the death of Luis Cerquiera, bishop of Japan. He is said to have literally died of a broken heart for the ruin that had fallen on the infant Church committed to his love and care. It is true, indeed, that from the first he had undertaken the task in times of great difficulty and danger; but at the period of his arrival, though there was much to discourage, there had also been much to strengthen and to cheer his heart. From Nangasaki, where he had fixed his residence, he had succeeded in making innumerable journeys to the most distant parts of the kingdom; and withersoever he went, thousands had flocked around him for instruction and confirmation. No kingdom or city was too distant, no road too untrodden, no mountains too high or too rugged to be accessible to his zeal; and when he returned from these weary wanderings, he could sit down at Nangasaki, and feel that there at least Almighty God had the entire homage of all hearts; for not only was it wholly inhabited by Christians, but the five parishes into which it was divided were governed by native pastors, the truest test of the conversion of a people, and one which only the Catholic Church has ever succeeded in presenting to the world in the history of the propagation of the Christian faith.
Sadly had this fair scene changed within the last few years, and rapidly had all that was brightest and best disappeared from the picture. At the moment of the bishop's death the emperor had fulminated his final edict against the Christians. Fingo, Amangucchi, and Firando were already deluged in their blood; Nangasaki was the head-quarters of Safiori, their implacable foe, and an army of ten thousand men had been let loose upon Arima, to exterminate religion by fire and sword. Whenever any of these troops were sent into a district, a judgment-seat, surrounded by a palisade, was set up in the most public place of the city; the best known among the Christians were then dragged by the hair and cast into the enclosure, thrown upon the ground, trampled underfoot, beaten until they were half-dead, and their legs, by a cruel contrivance, broken between two pieces of wood; the most intrepid were then put to death, and their bodies, after having been cut into pieces, were cast to the birds of prey. At Cochinotzu sixty Christians were taken, five by five at a time, with their hands tied behind them, lifted high up into the air, and then dashed upon the ground with such violence, that blood gushed from their ears, eyes, and mouths. Many of them were dreadfully lacerated, others had all their bones broken; and as if this were not already sufficient torture, they were afterwards pricked and pierced all over their bodies with sharp instruments. The governor all the while was exhorting them with affected compassion to spare themselves further torments by renouncing their religion; but when he found that they were deaf to his entreaties, he proceeded to inflict a new punishment, so horrible that it is difficult to conceive the cruelty of the mind by which it was invented. The victim was made to lie flat on the ground, and a stone, which four men could scarcely lift, was placed on his back; and then, by means of a pulley, with cords attached to the legs and arms, he was raised from the earth in such a manner that the body was bent completely backwards, the limbs cruelly crushed and broken, and in many instances the eyes forced out of their sockets; the fingers and toes of the victims were then cut off, their teeth knocked out, and if the eyesight yet remained, it was next destroyed. Many were not beheaded until death had indeed become a mercy; while others, less fortunate, after undergoing a yet further mutilation of their persons, were compelled in the midst of their agony to climb up and down a flight of stairs, for the amusement of their tormentors; after which they were consigned to the care of their friends, until one by one, as the strength of their constitutions more or less prolonged the struggle of death, they passed from their painful martyrdom to the crowns prepared for them in heaven.
The bloody scenes of Cochinotzu were only a sample of those which likewise desolated Aria, Obama, Simabara, Swota, and every other city of note in the kingdom of Arima; but more especially the capital, where Safiori presided in person over the cruelties which he had invented for his victims.
To prevent any further addition from without to the number of the missionaries already in the kingdom, all the ports of Japan were irrevocably closed against the vessels of Europe, with the exception indeed of Nangasaki and Firando, which were always under the rigid surveillance of the officers of the emperor. It was also made death to be convicted as a priest, or to be discovered in the exercise of priestly functions; death to introduce a priest into the kingdom, and death to give him shelter; death not only to the person so exercising hospitality, but likewise to his ten next neighbours, with their innocent wives and children,—a reward being generally offered for the discovery of those who, in any of these ways, should have incurred the penalties of the law. From that hour the life of each individual priest was at the mercy of every one to whom he had been previously known; while the lives of those who sheltered him were equally liable to be forfeited to the curiosity or cupidity of such of their neighbours as might chance to discover the fact of their delinquency. To Father John Baptist Machades, a Jesuit, and Father Peter, a Franciscan, the honour was accorded of taking the first place on this long list of priestly victims. The former was going to Omura by order of his superior, when he and his catechist were made prisoners at Goto, and sent by sea to the capital. Contrary winds, however, detaining them at Canomi, the magistrates of that place received Father Machades on his landing with every mark of courtesy and kindness. An unrestricted communication was permitted with the Christians, who flocked to him in crowds; and after the due administration of the Sacraments he made them a most spirit-stirring address, in the course of which he told them that, at seven years of age he had been moved by some secret impulse to a strong desire of preaching the Gospel to the Japanese.
These duties having been fulfilled, the father returned, of his own accord, to his prison on board the ship. But so great was the veneration inspired by his virtues, that the sailors refused to bind him as he wished; and thus unshackled, and almost unwatched, he remained until he arrived at the prison of Omura. There he found a Franciscan father lying under the same sentence of death as himself. Having confessed and communicated each other, they set out to the place of execution,—each carrying his crucifix and exhorting the crowd as they went along, until the final moment came, when each affectionately embraced the other, and then in peace and joyfulness submitted to his sentence.
About the same time six other religious commenced a still longer captivity in the prisons of Omura. Three were Dominicans, one a Franciscan, and the two others Jesuits, Father Charles Spinola, and Ambrose Fernandez, a Brother of the Society. When first they were taken prisoners they had been thrown for greater security into a sort of subterranean cave where they lay huddled together and deprived of light.
It was not until the close of the year 1622, that an order arrived for the removal of these religious and other Christian prisoners to Nangasaki, and for their subsequent execution. They were thirty in number as they marched out of Omura; and partly by sea and partly by land, each with a rope round his neck, and an executioner at his side, they went on their way to the old city of the Christians. It was not considered prudent that they should enter Nangasaki, so the inhabitants went forth in multitudes to meet them, and flinging themselves at their feet, begged with many tears their blessings and their prayers; and thus escorted, the martyrs stood at length upon a high hill between the city and the sea. A moment of suspense followed. Some victim or spectator was yet wanting to the solemnity; and every eye was directed towards the town, from whence a troop of persons might be descried approaching,—men, women, and children; thirty of the former, with, of course a larger proportion of the latter. Every doubt as to the ultimate destination of this company soon vanished when it was seen that they were dressed in their robes of ceremony, and with looks of gladness and of holy joy were ascending to the calvary of the Christians. One of the new-comers had been guilty of giving shelter to a missionary; the others were his ten next neighbours, with their families, besides the wives and children of some previous martyrs; and of this almost incredible number of victims, amounting to upwards of a hundred, some were to be beheaded, while others were to perish by the slower martyrdom of fire. A throne had been erected overlooking this scene of slaughter, and when the governor had taken his seat upon it, those who were to undergo the sentence of fire were fastened to their stakes, but loosely, in order that they might escape if only they chose to apostatize, and then the executioners prepared to decapitate the others. Among these last was Isabella, the widow of the man in whose house Father Spinola had been taken captive, and her son Ignatius, a child now about four years old, but at that time a new-born infant, whom he had baptized on the very evening before his arrest. From the stake to which he was already bound, the father had been exhorting both natives and Portuguese to perseverance, telling them, almost in a spirit of prophecy, that they need not look for any cessation in the persecution, which would go on increasing in fury from day to day; when chancing to see Isabella standing in the crowd, and anxious for the fate of her child, he suddenly cried out, "Where then is my little Ignatius?" The mother held him up, exclaiming, "Here he is, my father, ready and glad to die for Jesus;" and then addressing the infant, she bade him ask the blessing of the good father, who in the waters of baptism had conferred upon him a spiritual life infinitely more precious than that which he was now about to forfeit for his God. Instantly the little creature fell upon his knees, joining his tiny hands together, as if he would supplicate the blessing of the father. So touching in its simplicity was this little scene, that the crowd, already interested by the movement of the mother, now broke into such open murmurs of compassion, that the officers were obliged to proceed at once with the execution, in order to prevent the possibility of an attempt at a rescue. Two or three heads had already fallen close by the child's side, and now his mother's followed; yet it was observed that he neither shrank nor changed colour, but his turn being next, he fell upon his knees, loosened (for there was no one to do the office for him) with his infant but untrembling fingers the collar that would have impeded the aim of the executioner, and without a cry or murmur submitted to the sword.
The remaining victims were speedily despatched; and their heads having been placed opposite to such of their companions as were to die at the stakes, fire was set to the piles of wood by which the latter were surrounded. With the usual diabolical ingenuity of the Japanese pagans, the faggots had been placed full five-and-twenty feet from the stakes; and whenever the fire was seen to gain too fast upon its victims, water was cast upon it, that inch by inch they might taste the full agony of the sentence to which they had been condemned. Many of them died from the mere effects of the heated atmosphere;—among others, Father Rimura, a Japanese priest, after having lived for full three hours in the midst of the flames; and Father Spinola also, whose body was afterwards found unburnt, and wrapped in his cassock, which was literally glued to the flesh by the combined action of the heat and of the water which had been cast upon his person.
Terrible beyond expression as their sufferings must have been, two only of this heroic company showed the slightest symptoms of being even conscious of its anguish. Both were Japanese, and very young; and both simultaneously, and as if from an absolute physical inability to endure such frightful torture any longer, rushed out of the flames, and threw themselves at the feet of the governor, imploring his mercy. They did not, however, ask for life; they asked only for an easier and quicker death. But, poor as the boon was, it was denied them, save upon the condition of apostasy, which they would not accept; and again they were flung back into the flames.