Under circumstances such as these, it is not so wonderful that many failed, as that hundreds and thousands persevered to the end, winning their crown by a long-suffering and patience which, even in the primitive Church, were never surpassed. Men offered themselves willingly to every torture which Eastern ingenuity could devise, or reckless disregard of human life put into execution. Women looked calmly on while their infants perished, and then followed with gladness and joy in the same path to glory. At a city near Omura, a brave Christian plunged his hand into the burning coals, and never withdrew it until commanded to do so by the tyrant who had taunted and dared him to the deed; while at Firando fifty young Christians were made to kneel naked upon living embers, on the express understanding that the most involuntary expression of pain should be considered as apostasy; and having by their unflinching firmness baffled the closest scrutiny of those who watched them, were sent back to die, half roasted as they were, to their several homes. In one place eighteen infants were put to death in the presence of their parents; at another, a child only seven years old, suspected with the rest of his family of the concealment of a priest, lived for as many days in the midst of the torture they inflicted on him, without once flinching or failing in his heroic resolution. To each fresh invention of their cruelty he only answered, probably to avoid being betrayed into imprudent disclosures, "Jesus, Mary! Jesus, Mary! How I long to be in heaven with my God!" Nor could other words be extorted from his lips, even when, in their despair of succeeding, they cut open the little creature's shoulders, and poured boiling lead into the wound; and finally, he and his family were burnt alive, without a single one among them having been induced by weakness to give evidence against the priest.
Opposed to constancy such as this, every ordinary mode of torture must have seemed only useless and unmeaning; but at length another was hit upon, and one so barbarous in its nature, that no tyrant, however cruel or ferocious, who had hitherto ruled in Japan, had ever thought of inflicting it on the most guilty of his subjects.