r zeal, who undertake it with so many hazards, and who
have no prospect of the least temporal advantage to themselves.

But to return to my story: This French priest, Father Simon, was
appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the mission, to go up to
Pekin, the royal seat of the Chinese emperor; and waited only for
another priest, who was ordered to come to him from Macao, to go along
with him; and we scarce ever met together but he was inviting me to go
that journey with him, telling me, how he would shew me all the glorious
things of that mighty empire; and among the rest the greatest city in
the world; "A city," said he, "that your London and our Paris put
together cannot he equal to." This was the city of Pekin, which, I
confess, is very great, and infinitely full of people; but as I looked
on those things with different eyes from other men, so I shall give my
opinion of them in few words when I come in the course of my travels to
speak more particularly of them.

But first I come to my friar or missionary: dining with him one day, and
being very merry together, I showed some little inclination to go with
him; and he pressed me and my partner very hard, and with a great many
persuasions, to consent. "Why, Father Simon," says my partner, "why
should you desire our company so much? You know we are heretics, and you
do not love us, nor can keep us company with any pleasure."--"O!" says
he, "you may, perhaps, be good Catholics in time; my business here is to
convert heathens, and who knows but I may convert you too?"--"Very well,
Father," said I, "so you will preach to us all the way."--"I won't be
troublesome to you," said he; "our religion does not divest us of good
manners; besides," said he, "we are all here like countrymen; and so we
are, compared to the place we are in; and if you are Hugonots, and I a
Catholic, we may be all Christians at last; at least," said he, "we are
all gentlemen, and we may converse so, without being uneasy to one
another." I liked that part of his discourse very well, and it began to
put me in mind of my priest that I had left in the Brasils; but this
Father Simon did not come up to his character by a great deal; for
though Father Simon had no appearance of a criminal levity in him
neither, yet he had not that fund of Christian zeal, strict piety, and
sincere affection to religion, that my other good ecclesiastic had, of
whom I have said so much.

But to leave him a little, though