CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

Southland Times, Issue 1610, 26 July 1872, Page 3

CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

A correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung, referring to the recent reports of the persecution and torture of Christiana in Japan, says thafc these reports were originated by the Nagasaki Gazette, which is the organ of the French missionaries in that country, and this is not the first time that unfounded rumors have proceeded from the same source. " Tn order to explain the matter (says the correspondent) it is necessary to go back to the history of the Spanish and Portuguese missions in the seventeenth century. These missionaries got up a conspiracy in Japan, similar to those of Vizarro and Corfcez in Pern and Mexico, with the object of facilitating the conquest of the country by means of a religious war. The Japanese Government, however, which was supported by that of Holland, was strong enough to suppress j the insurrection, and to expel the I Spaniards and Portuguese, with their missionaries, from the country, though not withont many sanguinary struggles, which threatened the existence of the dynasty. These events naturally made, a great impression upon the Japanese, notwithstanding which their Government has admitted English and American missionaries without distrust, knowing that they employ moral and not political means to bring over the people to their doctrines. But the French missionaries, and especially the Jesuits, pursued the same course as their Spanish and Portuguese predecessors had done. Tbey wandered about secretly in the villages near Nagasaki, telling the peasants that if I they would accept the Catholic religion they would be protected by France, who would procure their freedom and raise them to important positions in the State. The consequence was tbat the people rose ' in masses, expelled the tax collectors and other Government officials, and attacked those of the neighboring villages where the inhabitants adhered to the national creed. The Government of the Mikado, which was strongly opposed to Buddhism, | at first only looked on, striving to restore | order by proclamations and decrees ; but finding that the insurgents persisted in disobeying its orders and ill-treating its officials, it removed their leaders to another province, the French ambassador having refused to send away the missionaries who were the cause ofthe insurrection. The Jesuits on this occasion also sent to Europe terrible accounts of the tortures inflicted on the rebels, and it was even stated that Sir Harry Parkes, the British Ambassador, bas taken ' 300 Cbristians in a vessel for the purpose ot drowning them in the open sea.' " The recent news, adds the correspondent, of the torture inflicted on the Christians by laying them in a state of nudity on frozen ponds, &c, is equally absurd. Nagasaki lies too far south for such a thing to be possible ; ice could only be procured either from America or by artificial means.