Note (return) — Chapter XI · - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

The Roman Catholic "Histoire del' Église Chrétienne" shows the political character of the missionary movement in Japan, a character almost inextricably associated with the papal and other political Christianity of the times, when State and Church were united in all the countries of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant. Even republican Holland, leader of toleration and forerunner of the modern Christian spirit, permitted, indeed, the Roman Catholics to worship in private houses or in sacred edifices not outwardly resembling churches, but prohibited all public processions and ceremonies, because religion and politics at that time were as Siamese twins. Only the Anabaptists held the primitive Christian and the American doctrine of the separation of politics from ecclesiasticism. Except in the country ruled by William the Silent, all magistrates meddled with men's consciences.12