THE honour of being the birth-place of S. Agatha is claimed by Catania and Palermo, in Sicily. The probabilities in favour of either are nearly equally divided, though there seems to be a slight superiority in the claims of Catania. It certainly was the scene of her martyrdom, which took place during the persecution of Decius in a.d. 251, as all her acts testify. If these are not in all particulars to be relied on, their main facts seem to be pretty well established. According to these, S. Agatha was the daughter of an illustrious and wealthy house in Sicily, and was famed for her beauty and her gentle and amiable manners. But her love was consecrated to God from her very earliest youth. Quintianus the Consular of Sicily, as the Governor was then called, admired her exceedingly, and the holy virgin retired to Palermo to avoid his importunities. As often happened in those days of heathen cruelty, his love was turned into hatred when he discovered that she was a Christian. She was seized and brought to Catania; and all the way thither she could only weep and pray to the Lord to strengthen her for the conflict which awaited her. Every means was tried during the space of a month to prevail on her to forget her vow; but she was supported by continual prayer, and at last came off victorious from this lingering martyrdom. She was privately examined before Quintianus as to her faith, and confessed Christ with undaunted firmness, declaring the service of the Lord Jesus to be the highest nobility and the truest freedom: she was then sent to prison, to which she went joyfully, recommending herself to God, and entreating His aid. The day after she was tortured on the rack, and suffered with calmness and constancy. And, when she was put to the cruel torment of having her breasts cut off, she mildly reproached the inhuman Quintianus with the remembrance of his own infancy, and with the tenderness of his mother. She was then led again to prison, and all sustenance and medical aid were denied her. Four days afterwards she was put to still further tortures, and then, being taken back to prison, sweetly fell asleep in the Lord, and was buried by the people with great honour.

Relics in Catania, and some in the Church of S. MÉry, at Paris. Patroness of Catania, La Mirandola, and the Order of Malta.

In Art S. Agatha is represented as a majestic virgin wearing a long veil, and over this, in early figures, a crown, the symbol of her victory over death; she usually holds a clasped book in her left hand, and a palm branch in the right; occasionally the place of this latter emblem is supplied by a pair of pincers, having a nipple between the teeth, in allusion to the fearful torture to which she was subjected. Sometimes she carries both her breasts cut off in a dish, or a sword is passed through them.

S. AVITUS, B. OF VIENNE, C.
(ABOUT 524.)

[Not to be confounded with S. Avitus, P. of Orleans, commemorated on June 27th. Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, Gallican, German, and others. Commemorated at Vienne on August 20th. Authorities:—S. Gregory of Tours, Hist. lib. i. c.2; and his successor Ennodius.]

S. Avitus was the son of S. Hesychius, archbishop of Vienne after S. Mammertus, who baptized him. He succeeded his father in the archiepiscopal throne in 490. Ennodius, his successor, says that he was a treasure of learning and piety; and adds that the Burgundians having crossed the Alps, and carried off a large number of captives, this holy prelate spent all his revenue in redeeming as many as he could. Clovis, king of France, though still a pagan, and Gundebald, king of Burgundy, though an Arian, held him in high veneration. The latter, for fear of offending his subjects, durst not embrace the Catholic faith, he nevertheless did all in his power to advance the cause of Catholicism, and in a public conference at Lyons, in his presence, S. Avitus boldly proclaimed the divinity of Christ and reduced the Arian bishops to silence. Gundebald died in 516. His successor Sigismond was brought over by S. Avitus to the true faith. When this king had executed his son Sigeric on a false charge, brought against him by his stepmother, S. Avitus wrought by his exhortations so great a change in the passionate prince, that he retired to Agaunum, now S. Maurice, in the Valais, where he lived the life of a recluse in a cell on the face of the precipice above the monastery he had built at its foot.

Most of the works of S. Avitus have been lost, but a poem by him in praise of virginity, some epistles, and fragments of homilies remain. It is a blot on the memory of the saint, that with fulsome flattery he excused the murder of his brothers by Gundebald. See June 3, p.26.

S. BERTULF, AB.
(BEGINNING OF 8TH CENT.)

[Additions to Usuardus and some editions of the Martyrology of Bede. No authentic account of S. Bertulf exists. All known of him is from a life written in 1703, from old materials, but of what authority it is impossible to decide.]

S. Bertulf is said to have been an abbot at Renescure, where the church is dedicated to him. He is regarded also as the patron of Harlebeke, near Courtrai. Renescure is a village on the canal between Aire and S. Omer. His body was taken to Ghent, where it was enshrined in an iron coffin, and for many centuries it was believed that on the approach of danger to the city, the dead abbot knocked against the side of his iron shrine. His bones were scattered by the Calvinists in 1578. S. Bertulf is represented in art in monastic habit distributing alms, with an eagle over his head with wings expanded, a legend relating that he was thus protected from rain in a heavy shower.

SS. INDRACT AND COMPANIONS, MM.
(BEGINNING OF 8TH CENT.)

[Ancient English Martyrologies. Authority:—William of Malmesbury, and Capgrave.]

Of old, on the 5th of February, were commemorated in the famous monastery of Glastonbury, S. Indract, S. Dominica, and nine companions, martyrs. He was of royal extraction, son of one of the kings of Ireland; but quitted all this world could give for the love of God. He left his country, with his sister Dominica or Drusa, and seven, or according to another account nine, companions, and settled at Skipwith near Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, where they lived a retired and eremitical life. At length, some wicked men, thinking to meet with great booty, murdered them at night; and to conceal their villainy, cast the bodies into a deep pit. But a column of light standing over the place warned the neighbours that some sacred bodies lay there, and the relics were removed to Glastonbury, in the reign of king Ina.

S. ADELHEID, V. ABSS. OF VILLICH.
(ABOUT A.D. 1015.)

[Cologne Kalendar, and additions to Usuardus. Commemorated with special office at Villich on the Rhine, opposite Bonn. She is variously called Adelheid, Alkeid, Adelaide, Alheidis, and Aleidis. Her local name at Villich is S. Alen. Her life was written by a contemporary, one Bertha, a nun in her convent.]

This holy virgin was the daughter of a Count Megingand of Gueldres, and became abbess of the convent of Villich, founded by her father and mother. Her piety, charity, and gravity are celebrated by Bertha, the nun who wrote her life. She died in 1015. The church and nunnery were burnt in the war between Truchsess Gerhard, the apostate archbishop of Cologne, and the archduke Ernest of Bavaria, and again by the Swedes in the Thirty years' war. It is not known what has become of her relics.

THE MARTYRS OF JAPAN.
(A.D. 1597.)

[Roman Martyrology. Pope Urban VIII beatified 26 of these martyrs in 1627. On June 8, 1862, the twenty-six were canonized as Saints. These were Peter Baptist, Martin d'Aguera, Francis Blanco, Philip de Las Casas, Gonzalez Garcia, Francis de S. Miguel, all of the Order of S. Francis; Cosmo Tachegia, Michael Cozaki, Paul Ibarki, Leo Carasumo, Louis, a child, Antony, a child, Thomas Cozaki, also a child; Matthias, Ventura, Joachim Saccakibara, Francis Miaco, Thomas Dauki, John Kimoi, Gabriel Duisco, Paul Suzuki, Francis and Paul Sukegiro, all these Japanese; also Paul Miki, John de Gota, and James Quigai, Japanese Jesuits. Authorities: Numerous contemporary accounts. The following account is epitomised from the history of the Japanese missions by Miss Cecilia M. Caddell. In the brief space accorded us it is impossible to give anything like a full account of this wonderful history. We refer our readers to Miss Caddell's most interesting account.]

The history of the brief existence of Christianity in Japan and of the terrible persecution by which it was utterly extirpated in that island, is at once a melancholy and a glorious episode in the annals of the Church. In the Japanese we behold the most highly-gifted of the Asiatic races of modern times receiving the Gospel with a joy and a fervour which remind us of primitive ages, when thousands in one single day would run at the divine call to fill the apostolic net, and when the multitude of the faithful, serving God with one heart and one soul, resembled rather the chosen few who in later days have left the crowd to follow the higher path of evangelical perfection, than the mass of ordinary believers. But if the Japanese excite our admiration in their willing reception of gospel-truth, and their fervour in obeying its precepts and counsels, no less, or rather still more exalted are the feelings with which we must regard the spirit in which they met the fiery trial which came upon them. Never in the times of the old pagan persecutions was a more glorious spectacle exhibited of men, women, and children, rushing to claim the martyr's palm, and seeking sufferings and torments as others seek honours and pleasures.

Wonderful are the ways of the Almighty, and inscrutable as wonderful! The conversion of China, for which S. Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, had long and ardently sighed, was denied to his prayers; while that of Japan, of which apparently he had never even dreamed, was given to him unasked. China was the object of all his wishes and aspirations,—the promised land of his spiritual ambition. It was in his dreams by night and his thoughts by day,—the subject alike of his penance and of his prayers; when a young Japanese, tormented by remorse of conscience for a crime committed years ago, and forgotten probably by everybody but himself, arrived at Malacca, where the Saint then was, and throwing himself at his feet, besought of him that peace and pardon which his native bonzes had been unable to bestow. The great heart of Francis exulted at the prospect of winning another empire to the banner of his Divine Lord; while his vivid faith saw in the sinner who had thus sought him from afar a direct ambassador from Heaven, which had doubtless pursued this youth with the fear of retribution, not for his sake alone, but also to effect the conversion of the idolatrous nation represented in his person. Two years afterwards, on the Feast of the Assumption (1549), he and his chosen companion, Father Cosmas de Torres, landed at Kagoxima, the birthplace of the youth who had come to Francis, and who, under his new name of Paul, accompanied the fathers as their guide and interpreter to the nations of Japan.

So the little seed of the Word of God was sown in Japan, and from the time of this visit, Jesuits freely entered Japan, and were established by Papal brief as the chief missionaries for that country. Their eminent success is said to have been based upon their invariably laying down a solid educational foundation, and securing the careful training of the scholars who flocked to them. To each mission were attached a public school, in which Christian doctrine, literature, and ecclesiastical and secular music were taught, and wherever unusual capacity was evinced, the missionaries gathered those boys together in their own houses, and there instructed them how to make mental prayer, to practise virtue, to avoid and overcome sin, and excite the spirit of penance. Every Friday the boys went in procession to the churches, singing psalms and motetts. In this way, the fervour generally induced by corporal austerities, and the generous, uncalculating devotedness flowing from the continual thought of Christ's Passion, sprang up in full vigour from the very beginning of the missions, and ripened to its legitimate harvest, while to die for Christ became the habitual aspiration of the child-neophytes of Japan.

Meanwhile, no foreboding of coming reverses, or dread of trials which might prove fatal, hindered the generous missionaries from their work. Like the Apostles and their early successors, they went about from day to day, literally fulfilling our Lord's commands to carry neither purse nor scrip, nor to provide two coats, nor to abide in any one place, except for the good of the souls around them. When persecutions sprang up in one town or territory, they took their crucifixes and their breviaries in their hands, and went on to another, doing whatever good was nearest at hand, and leaving all the consequences of it to God to make fruitful or not. As in the early ages of the Church, noble women were continually raised up to do great things for Christ, and to show forth that perfection of love in weakness and childlike faith by which good women so peculiarly glorify God. One of them, Maria Kiogscou, gained two sons, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law to the faith, and her house became the centre of good works and alms-deeds, and a place of meeting for all the upper classes in Osaka, most of whom either actually declared themselves Christians, or shielded and helped those who did. Another noble lady named Julia, being accustomed to frequent the houses of the nobility at Meaco, baptized great numbers of other ladies with her own hands, and instructed a crowd of young people in Christian doctrine. One fact, strikingly like those of the first centuries of the faith, is told of a Japanese physician, who happening to read a book lent by one of the missionaries to a friend of his, became convinced that there was only one true God, but as the book was not one of doctrine, he learnt no more than this for four years. Every morning and evening he knelt down and prayed to the "one true God," and as soon as he knew what to do, he applied for instruction at Osaka, and was baptized.

The persecution, sometime brooding, broke out first in Fingo, and the governor, with assumed gentleness, issued certain papers for all his subjects to sign. Those who firmly refused were seized, carried away from their homes, and banished. They must have taken refuge on some other governor's territory, or on a wild border-land, for the band of exiles built themselves miserable straw-wattled huts, and there lived as they could, without food or necessaries, and deprived of all countenance and sympathy whatever, as any one speaking to them was threatened with severe punishment. In this condition, their courage and constancy was unbroken, and as soon as it was possible, a Japanese Priest, Father Luis, visited them in the disguise of a peasant, and comforted them very much. The bishop then sent them books and other things, with beautiful letters, exhorting them to persevere, looking to the reward they would surely earn. Some of the letters written in return are very touching and beautiful, expressing the strongest desire for martyrdom, and humbly wondering that any among themselves should be reckoned worthy of so great a grace as to be "the first fruits of Japan."

They were at length allowed to depart to the town of Nangasaki, where they were received with tenderness by the bishop and clergy. Scarcely had the exiles reached this asylum, ere another edict was published in Fingo, commanding all the remaining Christians to apostatize. Death was to be the penalty of a refusal; and two noblemen, named John and Simon, were chosen as examples of severity to the rest. Both were friends of the governor to whom the order had been intrusted, and he did what he could to save them. "If they would but feign compliance with the king's decree," or "have the ceremony privately performed at their own houses," or "bribe the bonze to allow it to be supposed that he had received their recantation,"—each of these alternatives was as eagerly urged as it was indignantly rejected.

The execution of John took place in the presence of the governor; and from the chamber, still reeking with the blood of one friend, he went to the house of the other on a similar mission, and with equal reluctance.

Simon was quietly conversing with his mother when the governor entered; and the latter could not refrain from beseeching that lady to have pity upon them both, and by advising compliance with the king's commands, to spare herself the anguish of losing a son, and himself that of imbruing his hands in the blood of a friend. The appeal was made in vain; and the governor left the house, indignantly declaring that by her obstinacy she was guilty of the death of her son. Another nobleman entered soon afterwards, charged with the execution of the sentence. Jotivava was a friend of Simon's, and he proceeded with what heart he might to his sad and revolting duty. Knowing his errand well, Simon received him with an affectionate smile, and then prostrated himself in prayer before an image of our Saviour crowned with thorns, while his wife and mother called for warm water that he might wash,—a ceremony the Japanese always observe upon joyful occasions. His wife Agnes, falling upon her knees, besought her husband to cut off her hair, as a sign that she never would marry again. After a little hesitation, he complied with this request; prophesying, however, that she and his mother would soon follow him to heaven; and then, accompanied by the three Giffiaques, or officers of the Confraternity of Mercy, whom he had summoned to be present at the execution, they all entered the hall where it was intended to take place. Michael, one of the Giffiaques, carried a crucifix; the other two bore lighted torches; and Simon walked between his wife and mother, while his disconsolate servants brought up the rear.

Simon and his friends recited the litany; and then, bowing before a picture of our Saviour, until his forehead touched the ground, the nobleman, who acted as executioner, took off his head at a single blow. Foreseeing that her own death would speedily follow upon his, Agnes and her mother continued in prayer, the three Giffiaques remaining in attendance, in order to be able to assist at their execution; and, in fact, twenty-four hours had not elapsed before it was told them they were to die on the cross; the officer who came to acquaint them with their sentence bringing with him Magdalen, the wife of John, and Luis, a little child whom the latter had adopted as his own, both of whom were condemned to a similar fate.

With eager joy the prisoners embraced each other, praising, and thanking God, not only that they were to suffer for Jesus, but also that they were to suffer on a cross like Jesus; and then, robed in their best attire, they set off for the place of execution in palanquins which the guards had provided for the purpose. The Giffiaques walked at their side. Jane, the mother of Simon, besought the executioner to bind her limbs as tightly as possible, that she might thus share the anguish which the nails inflicted upon those of Jesus; and she spoke from her cross with so much force and eloquence, that the presiding officer, fearing the effects of her words upon the people, had her stabbed, without waiting for the rest of the victims. Luis and Magdalen were tied up next. They bound the child so violently that he could not refrain from shrieking; but when they asked him if he was afraid to die, he said he was not; and so they took and set him up directly opposite his mother. For a brief interval the martyr and her adopted child gazed silently on each other; then, summoning all her strength, she said, "Son, we are going to heaven: take courage, and cry, 'Jesus, Mary!' with your latest breath." And again the child replied, as he had done before when, on leaving their own home, she had made him a similar exhortation, "Mother, you shall be obeyed!" The executioner struck at him first, but missed his aim; and more than ever fearing for his constancy, Magdalen exhorted him from her cross, while Michael, standing at its foot, spoke words of comfort to him. But the child needed not their urging; he did not shriek again, nor did he shrink, but waited patiently until a second blow had pierced him through and through; and the lance, yet reeking with his blood, was directly afterwards plunged into the heart of his mother, whose sharpest pang had probably already passed on the instant when the son of her love expired before her. And now the fair and youthful Agnes alone remained, kneeling, as when she first had reached the place of execution; for no one yet had the courage to approach her. Like the headsman of her namesake, the loveliest child of Christian story, her executioners could only weep that they were bid to mar the beauty of any thing so fair; their hands were powerless to do their office; and finding at last that no one sought to bind her, she went herself and laid her gently and modestly down upon her cross. There she lay, waiting for her hour, calm and serene as if pillowed on an angel's bosom, until at length some of the spectators, induced partly by a bribe offered by the executioner, but chiefly by a bigoted hatred of her religion, bound her, and lifted up her cross, and then struck her blow after blow, until beneath their rude and unaccustomed hands she painfully expired. For a year and a day the bodies were left to hang upon their crosses, as a terror to all others of the same religion; but Christians were not wanting to watch the blackening corpses, and, with a love like that of Rizpah, the mother of the sons of Saul, to drive from thence the fowls of the air by day, and the beasts of the field by night; and finally, when the period of prohibition was expired, reverently to gather the hallowed bones to their last resting-place in the church of Nangasaki.

The Giffiaques were the next who felt the tyrant's rage. The governor himself urged on their punishment, for the loss of his friends had made him furious; and, attributing it entirely to the fact of their religion, he resolved to wreak his vengeance upon all others who professed it. "What shall I do with these men?" he cried, in a kind of savage perplexity, upon being told that the Giffiaques had rather courted than evaded their imprisonment: "Death they rejoice in, as in the acquisition of an empire, and they go to exile as a slave to freedom. The cross is a royal throne, which they mount with pleasure and occupy with pride. I will therefore contrive for them a fate which shall make death, under any form whatever, a boon to be desired, but not to be attained." Within the city walls there was a prison which the king had constructed for the reception of his debtors. Open on every side, its inmates were exposed both to the curious gaze of the passing crowds, and to the suffering of alternate heat and cold, as summer or winter revolved over their heads. There, huddled together in this enclosure, the prisoners lay, not upon mats, nor yet upon the damp cold earth, which in comparison would have been a mercy, but upon heaps of horrible filth, the accumulation of many years; for by a hideous cruelty of invention, the monster would never permit the cleansing out of these loathsome places, hoping by the disgusting condition of their dungeon to extort a speedier payment from his victims. Into this den of suffering the governor cast the three Christians whom he had selected for his prey, never doubting that they would be soon subdued by the anguish of a life more terrible than the most lingering and painful death; and so for years the Giffiaques lingered on, breathing this infected air—pillowed, sleeping and waking, on the loathsome dung which matted all the pavement, feeding upon such dry crusts and filthy water as their jailors chose to give them; until at length one among them died, and then the tyrant, weary of such willing victims, commanded the other two to be cut in pieces. According to the usual custom of Japan, their children were condemned to suffer with them; and however hateful such a practice must appear to the natural heart of man, yet was it ever to the martyrs a most welcome boon; for theirs was a Christian as well as a parental love, teaching them to set the spiritual above the temporal welfare of their children, and therefore rather to rejoice in, than simply to meet with calm submission, that double condemnation which, by uniting the fate of their little ones with their own, snatched them from any future chance of perversion, and put them at once in possession of their heavenly kingdom.

One of these little victims was sleeping when they came to fetch him: he was only six years old, and so tiny, that he had to run as fast as he could in order to keep up with the soldier who conducted him to execution; yet, so far from being frightened at his fate, he even gazed without dismay on the disfigured corpses of his father, uncle, and cousin, who had all suffered ere he reached the spot; and then, kneeling down and joining his hands together, looked up smiling in the face of him who was to lay him at their side. That look disarmed his executioner. The man suddenly sheathed his sword, declaring that he had not the heart to perform his office; and when two others sought to do it for him, they also burst into tears, as that innocent smiling face met their downward gaze; nor was the deed accomplished until a common slave, compelled by force to the odious duty, literally hacked and hewed the poor infant to pieces.

While these scenes, and scenes like these, were constantly recurring at Fingo, the kingdom of Firando was likewise giving its quota of martyr-triumphs to the Church; Damian, a blind man of Amangucchi, being almost the first to lay down his life for the faith. From the time when the Jesuit fathers were forcibly driven out of that city, the entire management of the infant mission had devolved upon this poor old man, whose life was henceforth passed in preaching, catechizing and baptizing, visiting the sick, and burying the dead, and doing as much of the work of a zealous missionary as could be accomplished by any one lacking holy orders. This was sufficient for the tyrant, and Damian received his choice between Christianity and death on the one hand, and on the other apostasy and life, with all that could make life most desirable to the heart of man.

The brave old Christian was not long in making his choice; and he died for a testimony to the faith, as he had lived for its propagation, his body being cut to pieces, in order to prevent the other Christians from collecting his relics for more honourable interment.

His death was the signal for innumerable other massacres in this and other kingdoms of Japan; but nowhere was the heathen enmity more unrelentingly displayed than in the once flourishing and Christian kingdom of Arima. The king of that country, Michael, was mean, heartless, and ambitious, and exerted his authority and power every day in committing fresh acts of cruelty against the Christians of Arima. Under the guidance of his chief minister Safiori, he had already pulled down the churches, overthrown the crosses, sent hundreds of the principal Christians into exile, and banished the Jesuit fathers, to whose influence he attributed their constancy in the struggle; and having thus, as he hoped, destroyed every landmark to which they could confidently look for guidance, he published an edict commanding them all to embrace idolatry or die. At the first mutterings of the coming storm, the Christians, by general consent, had enrolled themselves in a confraternity, styled especially "of martyrs," because, beside the usual practices of prayer, fasting, and penance, common to all similar associations, the members pledged themselves to suffer loss of property, banishment, or martyrdom itself, faithfully and joyfully, for the name of Jesus. This confraternity afterwards extended itself over other parts of Japan; and it was even adopted by the little children, who were destined to play nearly as prominent a part in the coming persecutions as their parents themselves, and to whom it was therefore given by the Jesuit fathers, with rules and practices adapted to their tender years. Thus prepared and strengthened for the struggle, the Christians waited in patient courage its commencement; and they had not long to wait.

Michael sent first for a nobleman of the name of Thomas, renowned for his prowess both by sea and by land, and with every art of persuasion in his power, sought to induce him to yield obedience to his orders. The blunt soldier listened impatiently to the miserable sophisms of his chieftain, and then flatly told him, that as a soldier would be deserving of death for deserting his colours, so he should consider himself the most despicable of human beings, if for fear or favour of earthly monarch he could desert that King of kings to whom on the day of his baptism he had sworn allegiance; ending (so great was his indignation that he could not contain himself) with a rough speech, to the effect that he hated traitors as he hated treason, and would prefer death itself to the baseness of committing the one, or of being associated with the other. Such a speech to such a man the Christian well knew could only be uttered at the hazard of his head; no sooner, therefore, had he left the royal presence, than he sent for one of the Jesuit fathers, then lying hid in the city, and prepared himself for death. When urged by his friends, for his own sake, and for the sake of his family, who would otherwise be involved in his ruin, to seek safety by flight, he answered with characteristic spirit, "that so far from fleeing martyrdom, he would go to the end of the earth to seek it; and that he loved his children all too well to think of depriving them of a blessing which he coveted for himself above the empire of the world."

The next day the governor of the city invited him to dinner (so strangely do they manage these affairs in Japan); and Thomas, well aware of his approaching fate, took an affectionate farewell of his wife and children before accepting the ominous invitation. While he sat at table, his host presented him with a sword, asking his opinion as to its capabilities for the decapitation of a human head. Thomas, looking at it carelessly, pronounced it well made, and fitted for such a work; whereupon the governor receiving it out of his hands, stabbed him dead on the spot. A few hours afterwards his brother, quite as uncompromising a Christian as himself, suffered a similar fate; his mother Martha and his two young sons were also condemned; while his wife and daughter were, by a caprice of mercy, or perhaps of cruelty, exempted from the sentence. Very different from the ordinary effects of such opposite judgments were the feelings elicited by them on the present occasion: those who were to die blessed God, in an ecstasy of pious joy, that He had called them to suffer for the faith; while she who was to live—a widow, and now all but childless—gave way to an agony of grief at the double loss she was destined to endure. While she wept over her cruel lot, Martha called her grandchildren, and embracing them tenderly, told them, that as their father had died for Jesus Christ, so she and they were now to do the same, and then to go and live with him in heaven. The children quietly answered, "that there was nothing which they wished for better;" asking, at the same time, "when it was to be." "Just now," she said; "so go and take leave of your mother, and prepare yourselves for death." With smiling countenances, the children hastened to obey; and having distributed their toys among their playfellows, and made some parting presents to their nurses, they clothed themselves in the white robes which Martha had taken care to provide for the occasion, and knelt before their mother, saying "Adieu, dear mother; we are going to be martyred." She was weeping at the instant as if her very heart would break; but fearing to discourage her children, or cast the shadow of her own maternal grief over their coming hour of trial, she embraced them, saying, "Go, dear children; and remembering Him who died for you, tread courageously in the footsteps of your father and your uncle. Behold them stretching out their arms to help you; behold the saints and angels with crowns prepared to set upon your heads; behold Jesus Christ Himself inviting you to His most sweet embraces; and when you reach the place of execution, show yourselves to be indeed His followers by your contempt of death. Fall on your knees, loosen your collars, join your hands, bow down your heads, and cry out Jesus! Mary! with your latest breath. Oh, how wretched am I that I cannot be with you in that hour!" Then, hiding her face in the arms of her little ones, the poor mother burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping, moving the very soldiers to such compassion, that, fearful of yielding to their feelings, they tore the children from her embraces, and almost threw them into the palanquin which was to convey them and their grandmother to the place of execution. During the short transit thither, that venerable Christian took care to occupy the little victims in prayer and pious ejaculations; nor did she cease her guardian-care when they reached the fatal spot; for she stood and saw them one by one butchered before her eyes, and then, advancing with a grave and stately pace, she in her turn submitted to the sword.

After this execution, eight of the principal citizens of Arima were summoned to the presence of their king, and there commanded to abjure the faith; while he, persecuting tyrant as he was, had the face to tell them that he only required an external submission, since he too was in heart a Christian like themselves, though compelled for the present by the emperor's orders to conceal his faith. Five out of the eight agreed to this infamous proposal; but four of them afterwards sincerely repented. The others were not to be cajoled out of their convictions, and were consequently condemned with their families to the penalty of fire. As soon as their sentence was made known at Nangasaki, one of the Fathers came privately to Arima to give spiritual succour to the captives, and thousands of Christians also flocked from every part of the country to witness their execution.

Never before perhaps had the Church presented such a spectacle to the world; and possibly never will she offer such another again. For three whole days that vast multitude remained camped in the open fields, patiently waiting for the execution of their brethren; but their presence struck terror into the heart of the craven king; and dreading lest they should either rescue the prisoners or seize upon the town, he faltered in his purpose. It never occurred to him that they of whom he feared such things would as soon have thought of robbing him of his material crown as of depriving the martyrs of their palm; they had, in fact, been careful to come without even their ordinary weapons of defence, in order to avoid the possibility of a doubt as to their peaceable intentions; and no sooner did they suspect the cause of the delay, than some of the gravest of their number waited on the governor to explain that they were merely there to witness the ceremony, and to promise that there should be neither tumult nor resistance if they were permitted to remain. Thus encouraged and reassured, preparations for the martyrdom went on apace. A wide plain just beneath the castle of the town was chosen for the purpose; the prisoners were confessed and communicated by a Jesuit father; and on the day appointed they came forth, dressed in their robes of ceremony, and with their hands tied behind their backs, accompanied by upwards of 40,000 Christians, bearing lights in their hands and garlands on their heads, and singing the Litanies of our blessed Lady as they went along. Among the victims was a boy not more than eleven years old, and a young girl called Magdalen, who having already made a vow of virginity, had always led a life holy and pure as that of the martyr-virgins of old.

These children, as well as their elder companions, all affectionately embraced the stakes to which they were afterwards tied; then Gaspar, the chief of the Confraternity of Martyrs, unrolling a banner upon which was displayed a figure of the Son of God, bound like themselves to a pillar, made them a brief exhortation to perseverance; and even as he was speaking, fire was set to the piles of combustible materials, which had been laid at a considerable distance from the martyrs, for the cruel purpose of prolonging their tortures. As the first gleam of this fearful element of death shot upwards to the skies, the entire multitude fell with one accord upon their knees; and still, as the fire drew near its victims, the plain re-echoed with the oft-repeated "Jesus! Mary!"—"Jesus! Mary!" of the spectators, who sadly struck their breasts in penance for their own sins, and to obtain the grace of perseverance for their brethren. Nearer and nearer yet it hurried; but even above the roar of the rapidly-approaching flames, and the sighs and lamentations of those who watched them, the voice of the martyrs might be heard praising God, and animating each other to constancy and courage. At length the fiery sea had reached them, and their cords were burst; and then every eye was riveted on the child, to see whether he would stand of his own free will in that burning scorching furnace. A moment's pause—he leaves his stake; but it is only to run through the dense flames, until he has reached and flung his arms around his mother; while the young Magdalen avails herself of her freedom to stoop to the burning embers, and picking up the living coals, set them as a garland of roses on her head. She died almost in the very effort; but the mother of the child James, with a heroism of even perhaps a higher order, found strength in the midst of her own tortures to speak words of courage to her little one, until death released them from their sufferings. The flames had scorched the bodies, but had not consumed them; and they were carried off, together with the blackened and half-burnt stakes, as precious relics, by the assembled Christians. The bodies were laid to rest in the church of Nangasaki; where over their honoured graves was afterwards erected a monument, telling alike of their heroic end, and calling upon all who read to follow in their footsteps.

Enraged at finding himself foiled by the constancy of the Christians, the emperor resolved to banish them by hundreds out of Japan; and in this sentence the Jesuit and Franciscan fathers were formally included. Fortunately most of the former, in anticipation of some such event, had been dispersed throughout the country in various disguises: but it was impossible for those living openly in the college to evade it; and a sad day it was, both for them and for their flock, when they found themselves forced to depart from a Church, which in sunshine and in storm they had now governed for upwards of fifty years. They had dwelt in peace at Miako, even when persecution was rife in other kingdoms of the country; and their college had become the resort alike of Christians and of heathens.

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.

This martyrdom, which was distinguished among the Japanese as the "Great Martyrdom," on account both of the rank and number of its victims, had been preceded by another at Miako, which took place under circumstances of peculiar barbarity. One of the victims was in daily expectation of giving birth to a child; nevertheless she was included in the sentence which sent her husband, a nobleman of the highest rank, and their six young children, with upwards of forty other Christians, to the stake.

The tragical situation in which she was placed had however, no terrors for this heroic woman. She employed her prison-hours in preparing robes for herself and her children to wear at their execution; and when she was brought to the destined place, calmly, and without assistance, she stepped from the cart, and throwing a rich mantle over her shoulders, prepared to suffer with a modesty and composure that won her the admiration of all beholders. It was dark night before fire was set to their several piles; but as soon as the smoke had cleared away, the martyrs were seen by the light of the bright flames amid which they stood, with eyes fixed on heaven and their forms motionless and erect, as though they had been figures chiselled out of stone.

In very horror the spectators were silent, and the stillness and hush of death was upon the midnight air, when suddenly from out of that fiery furnace a flood of melody was poured,—men and women and children singing the praises of the living God as sweetly, and with notes as true as though the red and thirsty flames had been but the dews of heaven upon their brows. The sighs and prayers of the assistants, which could no longer be repressed, the shouts and execrations of the soldiers and executioners, soon mingled with this death-song; and these and the dark night, and the fierce fire that illuminated its gloom, now flashing intolerable light upon the victims, now glancing lividly on the pale faces and shrinking forms of the densely-packed spectators, altogether formed an union of sights and sounds that alternately swayed the feelings to terror and compassion. But the music of that marvellous choir died gradually away; the sudden failing of each gladsome voice, the silent sinking of each upright form, telling that another, and yet another had yielded to their doom, was marked by the watchers with redoubled lamentations; though their tenderest sympathies were still reserved for the mother dying in the midst of her little ones.

From the cross to which they had bound her, Thecla (for such was her name) still kept her eyes fixed upon her children, animating them by gentle smiles and words of comfort to suffer well; while the youngest, an infant only three years old, she held with superhuman courage in her arms during the whole of the terrible scene that followed. Her own anguish had no power to extort a single sigh from her lips; but those who watched her wept to see the useless efforts which she made to diminish the sufferings of her babe. She caressed it, soothed it, hushed its cries, wiped away its tears, sought with her own hands to shelter its tender face from the terrible contact of the fire, and died at last with the little victim so closely folded to her bosom, that it was afterwards found almost impossible to separate the bodies of the mother and the child.

These martyrdoms are only specimens of those which during this period continually took place in Japan. Some Christians were crucified, others burnt, others beheaded; numbers again branded upon the cheeks and forehead with the sign of the cross, their fingers and toes cut off, and their eyes forced out; and thus maimed and helpless, they were sent back to their families, who (to their honour be it written) never failed to receive them with all the more pride and affection, the more deeply and hideously they had been disfigured for the sake of Jesus.

The great majority of the martyrdoms hitherto recorded had been accomplished by fire; but now a different mode of torture was to be pressed into the service. Water was called into requisition; and Father James Caravail, with several lay Christians, was the leader of many heroic confessors who perished from cold. They were left in the first instance, for three hours in freezing water, during which time one of them died; the rest on being carried back to prison and threatened with the martyrdom of fire in case of perseverance, cried out with one voice; "Oh, happy we, to pass through fire and water to the place of our repose!" Instead of the stake, however, the next day they were again placed up to their necks in water; while, the better to attempt them to apostasy, tents, warm baths, and comfortable clothing, were made ready on the banks of the pool, and as near as possible to the spot where their sentence was to be carried into execution. As the day advanced, the water froze more and more; and heavy drifts of snow beating continually upon them, added greatly to their agony. Scarcely able to endure it any longer, one among them sobbed heavily for breath; but Father Paul hearing it, cried out, "Have patience, son, for yet a little while; and these torments will be changed into everlasting repose." At the sound of the father's voice, and his cheering words, the poor victim regained his courage, and soon afterwards happily expired, at the very moment when another reduced to a similar extremity, exclaimed, "Father, my course is nearly finished." "Depart then," replied the latter; "depart in peace to God, and die in his holy grace." Thus one by one they perished in this icy grave; and at length the father, who through the live-long day had cheered his fellow-martyrs to the combat, was left to suffer and to die alone. Night had already closed in heavy and chill around him; and with the exception of his guards and some few faithful Christians, none were there to watch him, for the spectators had all retired to their comfortable homes, and it was not until just midnight, that after fifteen hours of stern endurance, he bowed himself down to the frozen wave, and placidly expired. This martyrdom took place in the year 1624, and shortly afterwards four more religious were burnt at Faco; in June of the same year the provincial of the Jesuits, with eight of the Society, perished in a similar manner; and in the following month Lewis Xanch, a Dominican, was put to death at Omura.

We have mentioned these executions of priests without alluding to the almost weekly massacres which took place among the lay converts, merely to show the virulence and success with which the missionaries were now every where pursued; and when it is remembered that at the commencement of the persecution there were, besides the Jesuits, but a few secular priests and about thirty religious of other orders, in Japan, and that no reinforcement had succeeded in reaching them from without, words will not be needed to point out the deadly nature of the blow which the Xoguno was at last inflicting on the church. Having said thus much, however, upon the fate of the religious, it would be a crying injustice to the rest of the Christians to pass over their sufferings altogether in silence.

The Xoguno having once explicitly declared himself opposed to their religion, the inferior monarchs, as a matter of course, vied with each other in their efforts to uproot it. It was only on an express condition to that effect that Bugendono, the new governor of Nangasaki, had been installed in that office; and taunted continually by his rivals for courtly favour with his little success, he employed himself day and night in the invention of more ingenious barbarities to effect his purpose. The object being rather to produce apostasy than death, every species of torture was made as slow as possible in its execution, and was generally eked out with intervals of rest and refreshment—a thousand times more dangerous to the perseverance of the victim than the sharpest continued agony. Some were placed in deep pits, and there nearly buried alive; while executioners appointed for the purpose, slowly, and with blunt weapons, sawed off sometimes the arms and sometimes the head, salt being thrown on the bleeding wound to sharpen its anguish; physicians were also at hand, whose business it was to prolong the life of the sufferer for as many days as possible, by carefully ascertaining the amount of his physical strength, and administering cordials when it was beginning to fail. Others were hung with their head downwards in a pit, where, with the necessary precaution of occasional bleeding, they were made to exist for a considerable time in all the sufferings of an apoplexy; while others again, by means of a funnel forced far down into their throats, were compelled to swallow enormous quantities of water, which was afterwards forced out of the body by violent pressure. Even the Dutch, themselves more than half the authors of these evils, speak with horror of the deeds which they witnessed at Firando. The nails of the victims were violently wrenched off, holes bored into their legs and arms, great morsels of flesh torn out of their persons by the insertion of hollow reeds which were turned round like a screw, burning brimstone and sulphur forced by long tubes up their noses; and they were, besides, frequently compelled to walk about with executioners holding lighted torches close to their persons. Nor were these cruelties inflicted singly, or upon solitary and more noted delinquents. By tens, by fifties, by hundreds at a time, they were assembled for their trial; one torture rapidly succeeding another, and each new one being so cunningly contrived, that the slightest word of complaint, the most trivial movement of resistance when pain had become almost intolerable, was to be considered as a signal of apostasy, and was greeted by cries of "He is fallen! he is fallen!"—the favourite and most significant words by which the heathen expressed at once the fact of a Christian's recantation, and their own opinion of the weakness through which he had succumbed.

Under circumstances such as these, it is not so wonderful that many failed, as that hundreds and thousands persevered to the end, winning their crown by a long-suffering and patience which, even in the primitive Church, were never surpassed. Men offered themselves willingly to every torture which Eastern ingenuity could devise, or reckless disregard of human life put into execution. Women looked calmly on while their infants perished, and then followed with gladness and joy in the same path to glory. At a city near Omura, a brave Christian plunged his hand into the burning coals, and never withdrew it until commanded to do so by the tyrant who had taunted and dared him to the deed; while at Firando fifty young Christians were made to kneel naked upon living embers, on the express understanding that the most involuntary expression of pain should be considered as apostasy; and having by their unflinching firmness baffled the closest scrutiny of those who watched them, were sent back to die, half roasted as they were, to their several homes. In one place eighteen infants were put to death in the presence of their parents; at another, a child only seven years old, suspected with the rest of his family of the concealment of a priest, lived for as many days in the midst of the torture they inflicted on him, without once flinching or failing in his heroic resolution. To each fresh invention of their cruelty he only answered, probably to avoid being betrayed into imprudent disclosures, "Jesus, Mary! Jesus, Mary! How I long to be in heaven with my God!" Nor could other words be extorted from his lips, even when, in their despair of succeeding, they cut open the little creature's shoulders, and poured boiling lead into the wound; and finally, he and his family were burnt alive, without a single one among them having been induced by weakness to give evidence against the priest.

Opposed to constancy such as this, every ordinary mode of torture must have seemed only useless and unmeaning; but at length another was hit upon, and one so barbarous in its nature, that no tyrant, however cruel or ferocious, who had hitherto ruled in Japan, had ever thought of inflicting it on the most guilty of his subjects.

Between Nangasaki and Sima-bara lies a mountain, bald, bleak, and treeless, whitening beneath the masses of cinders with which it is every where covered, and with a thick and stifling smoke, which can be seen at a distance of several leagues, for ever rising from its summit. The soil that covers its steep ascent is every where soft and spongy, often burning and trembling beneath the footsteps; while so strong is the smell of sulphur which it continually exhales, that it is said no bird can live, or will even attempt to fly within breathing distance of its tainted atmosphere. Deep and unfathomable pools of boiling water lie hidden amid the clefts and fissures which split this gloomy mountain into peaks and precipices of various sizes; but one, deeper and more unfathomable than all the rest, instead of water, is filled with a mixture of sulphur and other volcanic matter, which seethe and bubble and boil within its dark abyss, emitting all the while so horrible a stench as to have gained it the title of the "Mouth of Hell." One drop alone of this fearful fluid is sufficient to produce an ulcer on the human flesh; and when Bugendono thought on the terrible nature of the chastisement he could thus inflict, and upon the fear and superstition with which the Japanese always regarded the sulphurous waters of Unsen, and the mysterious cavern in which they were produced, he felt that he could not have hit upon a more efficient or infallible means for the intimidation of the Christians, and the extirpation of their creed. At the very time when he came to this resolution, there chanced to be dispersed throughout Arima a band of faithful confessors, upon whom all his previously-invented tortures had been tried in vain; and for this reason the governor considered they would prove the fittest objects for his new experiment. Paul Uciborg was the chief, both for courage and virtue, of this troop of victims; and he had already witnessed the massacre of every member of his family, down even to the youngest of his children, who, in company with fifteen other Christians, had been thrown into the sea, after having first suffered every possible cruelty that could barbarously be inflicted upon them.

"Which shall I begin with?" asked the executioner, as he approached the two youngest of Paul's children for the purpose of chopping off their fingers.

"That is your affair, not mine," the old Christian answered bluntly, probably to conceal a softer feeling. "Cut off which, and as many, as you please."

"And oh!" sighed little Ignatius, as, in the very spirit of the brave man his father, he watched his brother's fingers falling joint by joint beneath the knife of the executioner; "how beautiful your hand looks, my brother, thus mutilated for the sake of Jesus Christ, and how I long for my own turn to come!" The child who made this exclamation was but five years old; yet without shedding a tear, he afterwards endured a similarly protracted amputation, and then silently and unresistingly suffered himself to be cast into the ocean. The father and about twenty of the remaining Christians, who were reserved for a different fate, were, after the massacre of their companions, brought back to shore; although so frightfully crippled, from the mutilations they had already undergone, that one at least of their number was compelled to be carried to his house in a kind of coffin on men's shoulders. The governor had hoped that their ghastly appearance would terrify others from following their example; but he soon found that Jesus was more easily and more eloquently preached by such wounds and such deeds as theirs, than by any words that could be uttered; and in his vexation at the numbers who flocked to them for edification and encouragement, he condemned them, as we have seen, to the boiling sulphurs of Unsen.

As the little company of martyrs approached this terrible chasm, one among them, at the bidding of the executioner, and in the spirit of an Apollonia, rushed forward at once, and flung himself into its depths; but Paul, with a more measured courage, commanded the others to restrain their zeal; while to the heathens who taunted him with cowardice, he contented himself by saying, "that they were not masters of their own lives, which God having given, God alone had a right to take away; and that, in reality, there was more real courage in calmly waiting the approach of death, than in rushing into its arms in such a way as to put an end to all its terrors in a moment." Silenced by this answer, so calm and noble in its genuine Christian courage, the executioners proceeded to their duties; and having tied each of the martyrs by ropes, in order to prevent their falling entirely into the chasm, they lowered them one by one into its seething contents. Some were destroyed at a single plunge; others, by being quickly withdrawn, were reserved for the torment of a second immersion; but old Paul, who suffered last, and who had excited the hatred of the heathens by the courage with which it was believed he had inspired his companions, they managed, with dexterous cruelty, to let down three several times into the abyss before life was altogether extinguished; and each time as he rose to the surface he was heard to exclaim: "Eternal praise be to the ever adorable Sacrament of the Altar!"

After this first trial of its power, the scalding sulphurous waters of Unsen became a favourite mode of torture for the Christians. Men, women, children, and infants were sent hither in crowds. Some expired after a single plunge; others after two or three successive immersions; others, again, and the greater number, were with a more elaborate cruelty sprinkled with the boiling liquor day after day, often for a period of thirty days together, until their bodies were one mass of sores and vermin, and they died from the effects of this universal ulceration.