[paragraph continues] Neither was there any pulpit for him to occupy, except that which has always been open to the agitator and the reformer, the street corner. He became an outdoor preacher, and his sermons, plain, simple, and full of conviction, soon attracted a great deal of attention. The earthquake, the famine, the pestilence, the fruitless prayers offered in the temples, the shadow of the terrible Mongol power creeping closer to Japan, all served to give point to his oratory. He was rapidly gaining the popular favour; the priests of the official sects were conscious that power was slipping from them; the Regent had reason to be annoyed at the boldness with which the hermit of Nagoye addressed him in his semi-political, semi-religious pamphlet on the "Reformation of Religion and the Pacification of the Country." Nichiren's enemies combined to bring against him a formal accusation of fomenting rebellion and promulgating heresy. He was arrested, brought before the Regent's Court, found guilty, and banished to Ito in the peninsula of Idzu. This was in 1261; in 1264 he was once more in Kamakura, more outspoken than ever. Another great calamity was impending--a long-continued drought hung over the land, and threatened a failure of the rice-crops. The official priesthood were praying for rain, but there was none to answer. Nichiren laughed at their vain efforts. At last he took his turn at prayer: Heaven answered, and the people were convinced that he was a prophet.

But he had, in the excitement of his preaching, allowed himself to use unseemly expressions. He had told the people that the late Regent, the well-meaning and devoted Saimyoji, was in hell, suffering torments, and that the present Regent, Tokimune, was preparing to follow him. The words were seized, twisted, and exaggerated. His enemies procured his arrest and haled him before the

[paragraph continues] Regent's Court, where, after an eventful trial which his followers to-day read with something of the reverence with which we listen to the recital of the familiar story of our Lord's Passion, he was condemned to death, and led out for execution on the sands of Tatsu no Kuchi, halfway between Kamakura and Enoshima.