ABSTRACT
NUMBER OF CATHOLICS REACHED Two MILLIoNs.-Catholicism was at first protected by Nobunaga and the feudal lords of Kyushu, and rapidly expanded all over that part of the country, many of the great generals under Nobunaga and Hideyoshi being christened. From its first introduction into Satsuma in 1549 up to the death of Hideyoshi in 1598 more than 500,000 people were baptized; in 1605, when Tokugawa Iyeyasu constructed Edo Castle, the number of believers reached 750,000, and it will be not too much to say that towards the year 1613, when Iyeyasu was besieging Osaka Castle, there were about 1,000,000. If the children of converts be taken into account, the faithful may have numbered 2,000,000, so that if this development had not been checked, Japan would have become a Christian country. In 1581, the year after Lord Otomo Sorin's envoy was dispatched to the Pope at Rome, Nobunaga, the great protector of the Roman Catholics in Japan, was killed by Akechi Mitsuhide, and succeeded as ruler by Hideyoshi, which event proved detrimental to the development of the alien faith in the country. Hideyoshi differed from Nobunaga in his political views, and thinking his predecessor's destructive policy to be too drastic, he leaned towards conciliation, not only in his administration, but in his dealings with the Buddhists, to placate whom he lavished money and labour on the construction of the temple of the Great Buddha's Image in Kyoto. So careful of details was he that he visited the workshop where the Great Image was being constructed and placed his hands upon the timbers, in accordance with the Buddhist rite. It is true that Hideyoshi raised the great Buddha in Kyoto in emulation of the one at Nara, thinking thus to leave a lasting relic of his age, just as he built Osaka Castle, the Shuraku Mansion and Fushimi Castle, but there was a further reason, namely, desire to keep peace with the Buddhists. Nobunaga had razed the temples on Mount Hiei to the ground, and the priests were scattered far and wide; but after his death these scattered monks began to collect here and there, and discuss plans for reconstructing the temples and restoring them to their former state of prosperity. Zenso, lord of the Medical Department of the Government, and Senbu and Gosei of the Kwannonji Temple, asked a prince of the blood, Prince Takatomo, to accept the headship of the rebuilt monastery, and begged
Hideyoshi to grant permission for the work. He met their wishes and gave them a licence to solicit contributions for that religious purpose, and thus the great monastery was gradually reconstructed, largely by the help of the great man's sympathy, though he did not live to see the place restored to its former prosperity.
