ABSTRACT
ATMOSPHERE OF THE DOCTRINE.-Every one of the articles of their faith stood for the advancement of morality and the purity of conduct. There was no ground for opposing or criticizing them as they stood. But no religion, no political doctrine, no philosophical theory, is judged on its tenets, logic, or pnnciples, but generally by the atmosphere in which it is advanced. When Catholicism came to Japan, the civilization of Western Europe, which was the product of Catholicism, the arms which were brought by the Portuguese under the direction of the missionaries, the commercial advantages which they gave, the devotion and the purity of conduct, and other attributes of the missionaries beyond the articles of their faith, surprised the Japanese people, and the new religion spread like wildfire.
