in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for August, dwells at some length on the injurious influences of this mixed system. He complains that the example of the masters, who are trained to profess a kind of indifferentism in religion, is calculated to exercise a bad effect upon the children. The books, too, authorised by the Board, exclude from their pages everything that is Catholic, and the monopoly that is enjoyed by the Board in favour of their books has been the means of preventing the growth of a Catholic school literature, because it renders competition impossible. The Cardinal considers Dr. Whately to have been the great founder of this system in Ireland, and he quotes from his published conversations the following admission of the secret purpose for which it was framed : "I believe," says Dr. Whately, "that mixed education is gradually enlightening the mass of the people, and that if we give it up, we must also give up the only hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. But I cannot venture openly to profess this opinion. I cannot openly support the Education Board as an instrument. of conversion. I have to fight its battle with one hand, and that my best, tied behind me." By the confession of its founder, this scheme of education was meant to be an underhand, dishonest system of proselytism.

These then are some of the reasons why we have no confidence in the Irish National Scheme of Education, and why we trust that it will never be extended to England. The educational hopes of the Catholics in this country must be fixed on the extension and development of the Denominational System. It is our interest to join heartily with those who are working for the maintenance and defence of this system. And we should commit a grave mistake, did we not cooperate ungrudgingly with the proposed Government inquiry into the number and condition of the Primary Schools in the large towns in England, in order that we, as well as the Government, may see the amount of provision that already exists for Catholic primary education, and the best means by which that provision may be improved and increased.

VOL. XI.

R

Japanese Sketches.

III.

IN spite of all the edicts and precautions of the Japanese Government, several devoted Missionaries still contrived to evade the vindictive vigilance of the officials, and to remain on the island in disguise. Among these was Father Spinola, who said that the day on which he put on this disguise was one of even greater happiness than that on which he entered the Society.

He was indeed needed; for cruel persecutions arose everywhere, accompanied by new and hideous tortures. Christianity was to be stamped out by any and every means. At Arima and Chimabara the people were punished with mutilations and slow torture, and on the site of the college and church of the Jesuits two hundred persons were tortured to death in a most sickening manner. A brutal universal threat was issued of forcibly sending all the women to the harems of rich pagans, and of crushing the Christian children to death with stones. During these frightful trials the exiled Missionaries, unconquerable, re-entered Japan in every possible disguise. In the armies of Christian or of favourable princes, as soldiers, labourers, rice-gatherers, porters, scavengers; hidden in the holes and warrens of wild animals, without light or air, under whatever painful and exceptional condition life can exist, these noble Ministers of Christ carried out their mission and kept the light of faith burning in the midst of the storm. By this means the sacraments were still continually administered to the destitute Christians of Japan, and again the early ages of the Church seem vividly renewed. Father Diego di S. Francisco, a Spanish Franciscan, managed to enter Yeddo, disguised as a soldier, and went to lodge in the lepers' hospital, where a little chapel was still preserved, for the lepers of course were shunned by every one. Hither, at the hourly peril of hideous disease and death the Faithful flocked, and their fervour was so great that the Father rallied them on their "folly of the Cross." On Palm Sunday, as he was blessing the palms, he told them his hour was come, and a few days afterwards he was betrayed and taken; but one of the gaolers, being a Catholic, managed to convey into the prison the altar

stone, chalice, a corporal, and the missal. One or two others brought him the habit, cowl, and cord, which he put on under his Japanese dress. He was condemned to worse than deathimprisonment with many others in a kind of cage, where they could neither stand up or lie at length. There he remained

in unspeakable horrors for one whole year.

In 1616, Daïfousama died, leaving the empire to his son FideTada, and enjoining on him to drive every Christian from Japan. The whole rage of Satan and his ministers seemed now to break loose upon the devoted Christians. Every day, and in all places, martyrs went to receive their crown, and the tortures and diabolical inventions for adding pain to pain became too dreadful to record. Men, women, and even children of a year old, were alike burnt, maimed, hacked in morsels, and thrown in heaps into pits. In 1619, fifty-two Christians were martyred at Meaco in one day, opposite the great idol temple, and in sight of the city. The crosses for the men were raised in a circle and surrounded with faggots of wood; the women and children were in the middle. The sufferers were paraded through the streets bound in carts, a crier going before and declaring that the Emperor had commanded them to be burnt as Christians. The prisoners all responded, "Yes, it is true we are going to die for JesusLive Jesus!"

Here again, we are refreshed by the aspect of the brave and noble women and children thronging the centre of this arena of death, and while reading their names and ages, we cannot but cry: Salvete flores martyrum !—Magdalene with her little Regina of two years old, Mary with a Monica of four, Martha with a Benedict of two. Mencia had three children, the eldest only eight years old and blind; Thecla brought five little ones to the sacrifice, three of whom were tied to her own cross. This touching scene, which was afterwards to be repeated on a grander scale, was ended with unabated constancy; and when the flames burst forth and rose higher and higher, surrounding the martyrs. with a huge arch of fire, these mothers were still seen clasping their children to their breasts, and encouraging them with caresses to die for Jesus without uttering a word.

At the same time a Japanese noble, Balthazar, under sentence as a Christian, being respectfully asked "where his lordship wished to die," replied that Christ his Saviour died outside Jerusalem between two thieves and he desired to be treated in the same manner. At the threshold his wife and daughter stopped him and brought water to wash his feet, as a sign of their

reverence and joy, and then his little son of four years old knelt down and begged him to take him also to be martyred. He and the child were accordingly put to death.

"In these days," says a Jesuit Missionary, "we can no longer count our colleges and houses, but our gaols and prisoners." Among these last was the aged lay-brother, Ambrose Fernandez, who sank under the horrors of the "cage" at Omoura, in which Father Spinola, also a prisoner, gave him the Viaticum by the light of a soldier's fusee, and after he had expired, the other prisoners sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes in thanksgiving; but as their biographer remarks, the record of these deaths at this time is like nothing but the verses of a martyrology. In the jaws of death, like the honeycomb in the carcase of the lion, a divine sweetness, and the life of grace-deep calling to deep-flooded these heroic souls with heavenly joy. "I always felt," says Father Spinola, "as if our Lord were waiting for me at the door." When Father Christopher Ferreyra came to Firando, weak, fragile, almost transparent as he was in his extreme delicacy of health, but gifted with extraordinary powers and a devotion which entirely overcame every natural difficulty, the Firandans received him as a kind of guardian angel. Having laboured during the day at other things, he spent the nights on the sea-shore, hearing the confessions of the crowds who came to him in the darkness, to receive once more the cleansing grace of absolution and the words which strengthened them to persevere to the end.

To the end- which now rapidly approached. For a long time, from many causes externally human, but providentially arranged, the Emperor had been kept in ignorance of the re-entrance and successful labours of the exiled Missionaries for their religion, but in 1622 he became aware, as many other sovereigns have had to learn, that in spite of his edicts and persecutions, the Catholic Church still lived and witnessed in Japan. His fury then burst all bounds, and he issued stringent commands that all the Christian prisoners should be put to a cruel death by torture, and that those who harboured Christians should be beheaded. On Assumption Eve that year, perceiving what must occur, a Dominican Priest disguised himself as a gaoler, and went to hear the confessions of all the prisoners at Nangasaki, who spent the night in penance and prayer.

The place of execution was already prepared, and it was one worthy of the terrible but magnificent drama to be enacted upon It was a high table-land stretching out from the mountain*Or Christoval.

it.

chain far into the sea, towards which a promontory fell suddenly down; and being fully within sight of the city, the hills, and the sea, any number of eye-witnesses could be gathered to the spectacle. Here were erected the crosses, the gibbets, the furnaces, and the stakes, upon which the first-fruits and the last gleanings of what is justly called "the great martyrdom" were to fulfil their glorious course. Some way from the stakes, the faggots and fascines were piled up, and round the whole a stockade was erected like the lists of a tournament or mortal combat of former days. The first victims were the Fathers Flores and Zuniga, and the captain and sailors of the ship that brought them. The two Missionaries spoke eloquently before the Governor, and quite put him to shame by the joy they expressed at suffering for Christ. One of them used these words, which we may look upon as prophetic for times yet to come-"The more Missionaries you slay, so many more will come from Europe to preach the Gospel; the more Christians perish under your tortures so many the more neophytes will be multiplied; and the blood you shed shall be as seed to spring up and multiply in years to come."

It was about nine o'clock in the morning, the "third hour" of the Passion, when a mighty voice intoning the Magnificat announced that the procession had left the hall of justice, and was slowly going up "the Holy Mountain" where they were to suffer. This was the voice of the Christian multitude gathered to witness the death-offering of the martyrs.

It would not be well, it would scarcely be possible, to relate the details of this awful scene, nor have we time to linger over what, though full of dread and horror, is still filled to overflowing with beauty and joy. Nearly a month elapsed between the burning of the first Fathers and the final "great martyrdom," in which over two hundred victims suffered. In this, as at Meaco, the crosses were ranged in a kind of semicircle on the outside, the women and children occupied the centre, and the piles of wood and fascines, smeared with clay to slack the action of the fire and add to the tortures, were heaped around all. On a kind of platform, covered with rich crimson carpets and cloth of gold, sat the Lieutenant-Governor of Nangasaki surrounded by all the rank and dignity of the city; while far off, covering the mountain-spurs, the shore, and the sea, were a vast multitude, praying, and singing psalms and hymns, to cheer and encourage the sufferers in the fire.*

* The multitude is variously stated to have been between 20,000 and 100,000 in number.