It did not take long to answer that question.  There is no country in the world in which Christianity has been more publicly and universally advertised.  For three centuries, in every city, village and hamlet and on every highway, the names of Christianity and its Founder have been proclaimed on the edict-boards and in the public law-books of the empire as belonging to a corrupt and hateful doctrine; which should a man believe, he would be punished on earth by fines, imprisonment, perhaps death, and in jigoku (hell) by torments eternal.  “Whosoever believeth in Christ shall be damned—­whosoever believeth not shall be saved,” was the formula taught by the priests for centuries.  I pointed to the board on which hung the edicts prohibiting Christianity, and told them I believed in that doctrine, and that Christ was the One adored and loved by us.  A volley of naru hodos, spoken with bated breath, greeted this announcement, and I could only understand the whispered “Why, that is the sect whose followers will go to hell!” The old ladies could not walk fast, and we soon parted, after many a strange question concerning morals, customs and the details of civilization in the land of the foreigner.  Be it said, in passing, that the present liberal and enlightened government of Japan, in spite of priestly intolerance and the bigotry of ignorance, resisting even to blood, has decided upon the recission of the slanderous falsehoods against the faith of Christendom; and Japan, though an Asiatic nation, will soon grant toleration to all creeds.

The path wound up through higher valleys, revealing bolder scenery.  Afar off, in the sheen of glorified distance, the water slanted to the sky.  The white bosoms of the square-sailed junks heaved with breezy pulses, the mountains were thrones of stainless blue, the floods of sunny splendor and the intense fullness of light, for which the cloudless sky of Japan is remarkable, told the reason for the naming of Niphon, of which “Japan” is but the foreigner’s corruption, “Great Land of the Fountain of Light.”  Anon we entered the groves of mountain-pines anchored in the rocks, and with girths upon which succeeding centuries had clasped their zones.  They seemed like Nature’s senators in council as they whispered together and murmured in the breeze that reached us laden with music and freighted with resinous aroma.  Reaching a hamlet called Mute ("six hands"), I sit outside an inn on one of the benches which are ever ready for the traveler, and shaded overhead by a screen of boughs.  A young girl brings me water, the ever-ready cup of tea, and fire for the pipe which I am supposed to smoke.  A short rest, another hour’s climb and walk, and we are in the village of Kanozan, which is scarcely more than a street of hotels.  Situated on the ridge of the mountain, it rises like an island in a sea of pines.