g their menaces turned to scorn, they made use of
another artifice, to regain their credit.

What malice soever they harboured in their hearts against Father Xavier,
they managed it so well, that, to see their conduct, they might have been
taken for his friends. They made him visits; desired him to have some
kindness for them; they gave him many commendations; they presented
him sometimes with pearls and money. But the father was inexorable; and
for their presents, he returned them without so much as looking on them.

The decrying of those idol-priests contributed not a little to the
destruction of idolatry through all that coast. The life which Xavier
led, contributed full as much. His food was the same with that of
the poorest people, rice and water. His sleep was but three hours at the
most, and that in a fisher's cabin on the ground: for he had soon made
away with the mattress and coverlet, which the viceroy had sent him from
Goa. The remainder of the night he passed with God, or with his
neighbour.

He owns himself, that his labours were without intermission; and that he
had sunk under so great hardships, if God had not supported him. For, to
say nothing of the ministry of preaching, and those other evangelical
functions, which employed him day and night, no quarrel was stirring, no
difference on foot, of which he was not chosen umpire. And because those
barbarians, naturally choleric, were frequently at odds, he appointed
certain hours, for clearing up their misunderstandings, and making
reconciliations. There was not any man fell sick, who sent not for him;
and as there were always many, and for the most part distant from each
other, in the scattering villages, his greatest sorrow was, that he could
not be present with them all. In the midst of all this hurry, he enjoyed
those spiritual refreshments and sweets of heaven, which God only bestows
on souls, who regard nothing but the cross; and the excess of those
delights was such, that he was often forced to desire the Divine Goodness
to moderate them; according to what himself testifies in a letter to his
father Ignatius, though written in general terms, and in the third
person.

Having related what he had performed in the coast of the Fishery, "I have
no more to add," says he, "concerning this country, but only that they
who come hither to labour in the salvation of idolaters, receive so much
consolation from above, that if there be a perfect joy on earth, it