According to the usual custom of Japan, their children were condemned to suffer with them; and however hateful such a practice must appear to the natural heart of man, yet was it ever to the martyrs a most welcome boon; for theirs was a Christian as well as a parental love, teaching them to set the spiritual above the temporal welfare of their children, and therefore rather to rejoice in, than simply to meet with calm submission, that double condemnation which, by uniting the fate of their little ones with their own, snatched them from any future chance of perversion, and put them at once in possession of their heavenly kingdom. One of these little victims was sleeping when they came to fetch him: he was only six years old, and so tiny, that he had to run as fast as he could in order to keep up with the soldier who conducted him to execution; yet, so far from being frightened at his fate, he even gazed without dismay on the disfigured corpses of his father, uncle, and cousin, who had all suffered ere he reached the spot; and then, kneeling down and joining his hands together, looked up smiling in the face of him who was to lay him at their side. That look disarmed his executioner. The man suddenly sheathed his sword, declaring that he had not the heart to perform his office; and when two others sought to do it for him, they also burst into tears, as that innocent smiling face met their downward gaze; nor was the deed accomplished until a common slave, compelled by force to the odious duty, literally hacked and hewed the poor infant to pieces. While these scenes, and scenes like these, were constantly recurring at Fingo, the kingdom of Firando was likewise giving its quota of martyr-triumphs to the Church; Damian, a blind man of Amangucchi, being almost the first to lay down his life for the faith. From the time when the Jesuit fathers were forcibly driven out of that city, the entire management of the infant mission had devolved upon this poor old man, whose life was henceforth passed in preaching, catechizing and baptizing, visiting the sick, and burying the dead, and doing as much of the work of a zealous missionary as could be accomplished by any one lacking holy orders. This was sufficient for the tyrant, and Damian received his choice between Christianity and death on the one hand, and on the other apostasy and life, with all that could make life most desirable to the heart of man. The brave old Christian was not long in making his choice; and he died for a testimony to the faith, as he had lived for its propagation, his body being cut to pieces, in order to prevent the other Christians from collecting his relics for more honourable interment.