He had, however, inspired others, who followed him, and their success was amazingly great. Within five years after Xavier visited Kioto, seven churches were established in the vicinity of the city itself, while scores of Christian communities had sprung up in the south-west. In 1581, there were two hundred churches, and one hundred and fifty thousand native Christians.
In Bungo, in Harima and Omura, the daimios themselves had professed the new faith, while Nobunaga, the hater of the Buddhists, openly favored the Christians, and gave them eligible sites upon which to build dwellings and churches.
In 1583, an embassy of four young noblemen was dispatched by the Christian daimios of Kiushiu to the pope, to declare themselves vassals of the Holy See. Eight years afterward, having had audience of Philip II. of Spain, and fulfilled their mission to the pope at Rome, they returned, bringing with them seventeen Jesuit missionaries. Spanish friars from the Philippine Islands, with Dominicans and Augustans, also flocked to the country. The number of Christians at the time of the highest success of the missionaries in Japan was, according to their own figures, six hundred thousand.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
