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 the various states of Italy. They were welcomed with all possible pomp and ceremony by the aged Pope, who at the close of the audience pronounced the words of Simeon: Nunc dimittis. Throughout Catholic Europe their visit was accepted as the assurance that Japan was soon to become a Christian nation. They reached Nagasaki in 1590, after an absence of eight years. They were received in audience by the Shogun and told their marvelous story. It was anticipated that it would have a favorable effect on the government, but events were taking place which were to bring about other results.

For forty years the Catholic missionaries were freely permitted to carry on their propaganda, and the native Christians enjoyed the same treatment by the authorities as the Buddhists. In 1587 the first indication of trouble with the government arose, when the Shogun dispatched commissioners to make investigations of charges brought against the Christians. These commissioners reported that they were overzealous in pressing their faith on the people, that they had destroyed national temples, insulted and ridiculed the Buddhist priests and assaulted their monasteries, and that Christian traders were carrying away the natives into slavery. Based upon this report, the Shogun issued an edict expelling the priests, but exempting the traders so long as they observed the laws of the empire. But the order was not generally put into force, and the missionaries were able to evade it.