The state of affairs in Japon after the martyrdom of the saints Fray
Alonso Navarrete and Fray Hernando de Ayala.
[After the martyrdom of these holy religious the Christians of Omura,
ashamed of their weakness, desired to follow their example. Father
Fray Thomas del Espiritu Sancto and father Fray Juan de Los Angeles,
religious of our order, and father Fray Apolinario Franco, commissary
of the Order of St. Francis, went to take spiritual charge of these
Christians in Omura. Fathers Fray Apolinario and Fray Thomas were
arrested, with their servants, and imprisoned. Father Fray Juan de Los
Angeles was not found. The landlord of father Fray Alonso Navarrete
in course of time won the crown of martyrdom by the boldness of his
confession; and he and another Christian were carried to an islet,
and secretly executed at midnight on the last day of September. The
tono of Omura, in perplexity, went to the court of the emperor to
confer with him in regard to the questions raised by the arrest of
the two fathers. The Christian faith extended, and some remarkable
conversions of persecutors took place. The holy fathers suffered
in prison from the rigors of winter, having been deprived of their
clothes, and having no bed or any protection against the cold; for the
prison was made of wood, and did not protect them against the cold,
wind, or snow. They suffered equal tortures from hunger, having but a
small ration of boiled rice without other food--the Christians having
been forbidden to assist them.]