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the termination of the chronicle of the Shoguns ends the 2 vol. of the work before us.
The third Book is devoted to a description of the state of religion in Japan, and its first chapter opens with the following passage:—“Liberty of conscience, so far as it doth not interfere with the interest of the secular government, or affect the peace and tranquillity of the Empire, hath been at all times allowed in Japan.” Hence it is that foreign religions were introduced with ease and propagated with success.
The four religions observed during the 100 years previous to the residence of Dr. Kaempfer in Japan were,
(1) The Sinto or idol-worship.
(2) The Budsdo, or worship of foreign idols, brought from Siam and China.
(3) Sinto, the doctrine of their doctors or philosophers.
(4) Deivus or Kiristando, i. e. the way of God and Christ.
With reference to the last of the four the author observes that “it was owing to the commendable zeal and the indefatigable care of the Spanish and Portuguese Missionaries, particularly the Jesuits, that the Christian religion was first introduced into Japan, and propagated with a success infinitely beyond their expectation, insomuch that from the first arrival of the fathers in Bungo about 1549 (six years after the discovery of Japan) to 1625, or very near 1630, it spread through most provinces of the Empire, many of the princes and lords openly professing the same. Considering what a vast progress it had made till then, even among the many storms and difficulties it had been exposed to, there was very good reason to hope that within a short compass of time the whole Empire would have been converted to the faith of our Saviour, had not the ambitions views and impatient endeavours of these fathers to reap the temporal as well as the spiritual fruits of their care and labour so provoked the Supreme Majesty of the Empire as to raise against themselves and their converts a persecution which hath not its parallel in history, whereby the religion they preached and all those
