For more than two hundred years, notice-boards stood beside highways, ferries, and mountain-passes, containing, among other prohibitions, the following:—‘So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christians’ God, or the great God of all, if he violate this commandment, shall pay for it with his head.’ For centuries the name ‘Christian’ would blanch the cheek and pale the lip. Christianity was remembered only as an awful scar on the national annals. But in the Southern Island the smouldering fire was never quite extinguished; while, as recently as 1829, six men and an old woman were crucified at Osaka.”(31) At the time of the closing of the country to foreigners, an exception was made of the one port of Nagasaki, the scene of the final great massacre, when thousands of native Christians were hurled from a rocky islet into the sea. Here, however, as has been already mentioned, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade; they being closely confined to the small island of Deshima. In addition to having pay a heavy rental, they were subjected to the closest espionage, not being suffered, under any circumstances, to pass beyond the narrow limits assigned to them. Several times in each year they were summoned before the authorities, and required to tread under foot the Crucifix, and other symbols of the Catholic Faith. Several of the trampling-boards employed on these occasions are still to be seen at the Ueno Museum, Tokio. The Dutch, it would appear, quieted any qualms of conscience by regarding their action as amounting to an abnegation, not of Christianity, but of Romanism. It was not until thirty years ago that intercourse between Japan and other nations began to be resumed; and that, after a short period of ill-feeling and suspicion, circumstances were brought about which enabled both Roman Catholics and other Christians to work without hindrance. In 1872 the interdict against Christianity was formally removed; and the release from imprisonment and return from banishment of hundreds of Christians took place. Such is the past history of Christianity in Japan. It has, indeed, its elements of glorious and heroic martyrdom, but it has elements, also, on which few of us can look back without a deep sense of shame. Let us trust that by this time the people of Japan have come to understand that the conflict of their forefathers was not with Christianity, but rather with Christians who had forgotten “what spirit they were of.”