Note (return) — Chapter XI · - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY
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Yet in 1859, on the opening of the country by treaty, the Roman Catholic fathers at Nagasaki found to their surprise that they were re-opening the old mines, and that their work was in historic continuity with that of their predecessors. The blood of the martyrs had been the seed of the church. Amid much ignorance and darkness, there were thousands of people who, through the Virgin, worshipped God; who talked of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit; and who refused to worship at the pagan shrines24.