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Catholicism’s Spread in Japan

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 34.

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Catholicism’s Spread in Japan

SPEAKING of that time when the Catholic religion began to spread in Japan, prior to its ultimate banishment from the empire by force of arms, William Elliott Griffis says: “The very idols of Buddha served, after a little alteration with the chisel, for the images of Christ. The Buddhist saints were easily transformed into the twelve apostles. The cross took the place of the torii, and was emblazoned on the helmets of the warriors and embroidered on their breasts. Nearly all the churches were native temples sprinkled and purified, and the new convert could use unchanged his beads, bells, candles, and incense, and all the paraphernalia of his old faith in the celebration of the new.”