Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/139

 the Jesuit fathers applied to Nobunaga for a charter of propagandism, and received from him an extensive grant of land in Kyōtō, a yearly allowance of money and authority to take up their residence in the capital. The Owari chieftain does not seem to have entertained any respect for Christianity. Religion, in whatsoever guise, occupied an insignificant space on his moral horizon. His unique motive was to set up an opponent to the doctrine that had begotten such troublesome factors in the realm. Christianity was nothing to him for its own sake. As a rival of Buddhism it might be much.

From using the foreign faith for political purposes to suspecting it of political designs the interval was short, and Nobunaga's intelligence soon traversed it. His scrutiny of the Jesuits' methods—their profuse almsgiving, their tendance of the sick, their exercise of unprecedented medical skill—convinced him that they aimed at something more than saving men's souls, and he had begun to revolve plans for their expulsion when death overtook him at the hand of a traitor. But even the brief favour extended by him to Christianity had been disapproved by the man who avenged his fate and succeeded to his power, Hideyoshi, the Taikō.

The annals of the Jesuits ascribe to the meanest and paltriest motives the animosity that the Taikō ultimately displayed towards their faith. It is impossible to accept their evidently preju-