Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-03-18
lapan and Christianity.

There appears to be considerable
foundation for the report that the
powers in Japan contemplate the adop-
ton of Christianity by that country as
a national religion.
This does not imply that they them
selves have been converted to Chris
tianity in the sense the term is popu-
larly understood. 1t is said that the
great majority Of them are yet dis
ciples of Confucus or agnostics 1t is
also believed that the real motive un-
DERIVING is desire to see Japan
reckoned as one of the Christian ma
tons, and so considered an enlightened
power
The New York Sun discusses the sit
uation there in an interesting and in
structive article from which we quote
the following:
According to the precedcnts fur
nshed by the history of Far Eastern
countries, it should not be difficult for
the sovereign of Japan to make Chris
tianity the state religion, especially as
the innovation would, undoubtedly, be
accompanied with entire liberation of
other modes of faith. Religious propa-
ganda has never been successful in the
Far East. except when prosecuted from
above downward. that Is to say. with
the approval of the rulers. The first
attempt to introduce Buddhism from
India into China. the attempt made i'll
II rpicrarripd hpr1nSps no i'm
preston could he made upon the reign
ing sovereign. In A. d. 81, however,
the Emperor Ming III sent an embassy
to India to investigate the religion of
Buddha, or Fo. as he is called in China,
and their favorable report caused
Buddhist missionaries to be welcomed
at the court of the Emperor. They
made but few converts among the
Mandarins and Literati, who were, and
still are, Confucianists. or agnostics,
but they, eventually. won over the
sovereign himself. and the result was
the adoption of the new faith by
large part of the people. 1t was in a
similar way that Buddhism entered
Japan. Some of the Buddhstic sacred
writings, together with a golden image
of Buddha, were sent to the Emperor
n.
one of the states into which the Korean
peninsula was then divided. The new
religion met at first with violent oppo-
sition from the upholders of the tradi-
tional Shinto cult, but it eventully Sc
cured federation from the Empero:
Kim Hell, was favored by his sue
cessors and, at last, as we have said,
under the Tokugawa Shosunate. it
dara Mt hnt
impracticable to restore much vitality
to Shintoism when. in our own day. an
effort was made to revive that faith
upon the Mikado's resumption of
temporal authority.
THE Catholic missionaries who es-
sayed the conversion of China and
Japan in the 10Th and 18th centuries
pursued the same far-sighted course
which had been taken by their Bud
dhist predecessors. They undertook 10
permeate the social fabric. not from
below, but from above. In the Middle
Kingdom they began by securing the
good will of powerful Mandarins, and.
after thus securing important local
spheres of influence. the Jesuits Sc
cured the right to erect church with
in the Imperial Palace at Pekin and
became the trusted friends and coun-
sellers of several Manchu emperors
In 1892 they obtained from the EN-
peror Kang Hi an edict of tolerance
by which the seal of official approval
was set upon the remarkable progress
which Christianity had made in China
This promising state of things was
brought to an end by the rancorouS
dissensions between the Jesuits and
the Dominicans, and by some inju-
dicious acts on the part of Papa
legate, which led the same Emperor
Kang II; to believe that foreign
power was scheming to control his
subjects.
"Thenceforward the Court of Pekii
showed itself hostile to the new faith
and the merciless prosecutions began
by which Christianity was almost eX-
tinguished in the Middle Kingdom. Ir
Japan Christianity had been intro
duced by Catholic missionaries a
about the same time, and 1t there lar
similar career. though in a shorter
period The conversion of man,
Daimios, or feudal princes, caused tn,
new faith to be adopted by a large sec
ton of the population, and there was
time when Catholicism seemed likel,
to become the state religion of thu
country. But for the intolerance. pre-
maturely exhibited by the propagan
dists toward Buddhism. which was still
professed by large majority of tin
people. 1t is probable that they Nigh
nave avoided the religious warfar
when resulted in the extirpation o
thrisuanity. 1t must also, be &C
knowledged that the Dutch trader.
VINO were, nomnally, Protestant.
spared no effort to prejudice tn
japanese authorities against the Span
's". portuguese and French Catholics
n" head of the relatively short