The departure and death of Xavier did not interrupt the work of the mission in Japan. Kosmé de Torres was left in charge and additional helpers, both priests and lay brothers, were sent to prosecute what had been so conspicuously begun. The political disturbances in Yamaguchi for a time interfered with the labors of the missionaries there. Bungo was the principal province where their encouragement had made their success most conspicuous. The prince had not indeed been baptized but he had permitted the fathers to preach and he had allowed converts to adopt the new religion, so that the work had assumed a promising appearance. The Prince of Ōmura became a convert and by his zeal in the destruction of idols and other extreme measures aroused the hostility of the Buddhist priesthood. In Kyōto the progress of the work encountered many vicissitudes. The political troubles arising out of the contests between Mōri of Chōshū and the rival house interfered with the propagation of Christianity both in Yamaguchi and Kyōto. Mōri himself, the most powerful prince of his time and who once held the control in ten provinces, was hostile to the Christians. By his influence the work in Kyōto was temporarily abandoned and the fathers resorted to Sakai, a seaport town not far from Ōsaka, where a branch mission was established. It was in A.D. 1573 that Nagasaki became distinctively a Christian city. At that time the Portuguese were seeking various ports in which they could conduct a profitable trade, and they found that Nagasaki possessed a harbor in which their largest ships could ride at anchor. The merchants and Portuguese fathers therefore proposed to the Prince of Ōmura, in whose territory the port of Nagasaki was situated, to grant to them the town with jurisdiction over it. The prince at first refused, but finally by the intervention of the Prince of Arima the arrangement was made.(150) The transference to Nagasaki of the foreign trade at this early day made it a very prosperous place. The Prince of Ōmura had the town laid out in appropriate streets, and Christian churches were built often on the sites of Buddhist temples which were torn down to give place for them. It is said that in A.D. 1567 “there was hardly a person who was not a Christian.” We shall have occasion often in the subsequent narrative to refer to the progress of Christianity in the empire. In the meantime we must trace the career of Nobunaga, who exerted a powerful effect on the affairs of his country and particularly upon the condition of both Buddhism and Christianity. He must be regarded always as one of the great men of Japan who at an opportune moment intervened to rescue its affairs from anarchy. He prepared the way for Hideyoshi and he, in turn, made it possible for Ieyasu to establish a peace which lasted without serious interruption for two hundred and fifty years.