use at the end of every
article, and briefly expounding it, in their own language; after which he
declared to them what were heaven and hell, and by what actions the one
and other were deserved.

The Brachmans, who had never heard any thing of Christianity before, and
had been listening to the father with great admiration, rose up, as soon
as he had done speaking, and ran to embrace him, acknowledging, that the
God of the Christians was the true God, since his law was so conformable
to the principles of our inward light. Every one of them proposed divers
questions to him; if the soul were immortal, or that it perished with the
body, and in case that the soul died not, at what part of the body it
went out; if in our sleep we dreamed we were in a far country, or
conversed with an absent person, whether the soul went not out of the
body for that time; of what colour God was, whether black or white; their
doctors being divided on that point, the white men maintaining he was of
their colour, the black of theirs: the greatest part of the pagods for
that reason being black.

The father answered all their questions in a manner so suitable to their
gross understanding, which was ignorant alike of things divine and
natural, that they were highly satisfied with him. Seeing them instructed
and disposed in this sort, he exhorted them to embrace the faith of Jesus
Christ, and gave them to understand, that the truth being made known to
them, ignorance could no longer secure them from eternal punishment.

But what victory can truth obtain over souls which find their interest in
following error, and who make profession of deceiving the common people?
"They answered," said the saint in one of his letters, "that which many
Christians answer at this day, what will the world say of us if they see
us change? And after that, what will become of our families, whose only
subsistence is from the offerings which are made to the pagods? Thus,
human interest, and worldly considerations, made the knowledge of the
truth serve only to their greater condemnation."

Not long afterwards, Xavier had another conference with a Brachman, who
lived in the nature of an hermit. He passed for the oracle of the
country, and had been instructed in his youth at one of the most famous
academies of the East. He was one of those who was knowing in their most
hidden mysteries, which are never intrusted by the Brachmans, but to a
certain select number of their wise m