Japan and the Japanese

CONVERSION OF THE KING OF BUNGO. 85
the rule of the order did not allow ; and that decision was now
confirmed by the visitor.
There wete, however, other points upon which the vice-provincial
and the visitor did not so well agree. Of Cabral, Charlevoix
draws the
following character one for which many originals might
be found : " He was a holy professor, a great missionary, a
vigilant
and amiable superior ; but he was one of those excellent persons
who imagine themselves more clear-headed than other men, and
who, in consequence, ask counsel of nobody but themselves ; or
rather, who believe themselves inspired, when they have once prayed
to be so, regarding as decrees of Heaven, expressed by their mouth,
all the resolutions which they have taken at the foot of the cross,
where the last thing to be laid down is one's own judgment." Ca-
bral had taken up the idea that persons of such vigorous under-
standing as the Japanese must be duly held in check ; and the whole
twenty-six of them received, up to this time, into the company, and
almost all of whom aspired to the priesthood, he strictly limited
to such studies as would suffice to qualify them for the subordinate
parts of divine service. This policy Valignani did not approve ;
but when he sought to alter it, he encountered such opposition from
Father Cabral, as to be obliged to send him off to Goa, appointing
Father Gaspard Cuello.in his place.
Shortly after the arrival of Valignani, the church gained a new
and distinguished accession in Civan, king of Bungo, who, hav-
ing repudiated his old pagan wife, to whom the Catholics gave the
name of Jezebel, married a new one, and was baptized with all his
household, taking the name of Francis, according to the custom of
the missionaries in giving European names to their converts. Thcro
were even strong hopes of gaining over his eldest son and colleague,
Joscimon, when a war broke out with the king of Satsuma, for the
possession of the intervening kingdom of FIUXGA, which resulted in
the loss of all Civan's conquests, and his reduction to his original
province of Bungo, which also he was in clanger of losing,
a
change by no means favorable to the missionaries. Cochinotzu was
ruined in this war ; and the spectacle of the vicissitudes to which
everything in Japan was exposed induced Valignani to urge upon
the Portuguese merchants and residents to fortify Nagasaki. This
was done in 1579, and that port became thenceforward almost the
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