ould I
be to die for thee, O my God! O my dear Japonians, how much are you to be
lamented, and what compassion do you raise in me!"

The master and servants came out of their retirement with so much ardour,
that Xavier wrote into Europe, that he was animated by their example to
the service of God, and that he could not look on them without blushing
at his own cowardice.

In conversing with them, he understood what he had formerly learnt by
hearsay, from George Alvarez, and other Portuguese, that the empire of
Japan was one of the most populous in the world; that the Japonese were
naturally curious, and covetous of knowledge, and withal docible, and of
great capacity; that being generally ingenious, and very rational, if
they were instructed in the morals of Christianity, they would easily
submit to them; and that, if the preachers of the gospel lived according
to gospel rules, the whole nation would subject itself to the yoke of
Jesus Christ, not perhaps so readily at first, but in process of time,
and after clearing of their doubts.

There needed no more to induce Xavier to carry the faith into Japan. The
mildness, the civility, and the good parts of the three baptized
Japonians, made him conceive a high opinion of all the rest; and the
Portuguese merchants newly returned from Japan, confirmed it so fully to
him, that in these three he had the pattern of the whole nation, that he
doubted not, but that the Christian religion would make an admirable
progress there. But that which Anger told him, that there were in his
country many monasteries of Heathen priests; that some of them led their
lives in solitude and contemplation; that every monastery had its
superior, who was a person venerable for his age and learning; that they
came abroad from their lonely abode once a week, with mortified looks,
and uncouth habits, to preach to the people; that, in their sermons,
they drew such lively figures of hell, that the women wept, and cried out
at those dismal representations: All this, I say, appeared to Xavier as
so many doors and inlets for the faith; and he praised God, that, by the
admirable conduct of his providence, which secretly manages the salvation
of men, the spirit of lies had thus prepared the ways for the spirit of
truth.

He adored also the wisdom of the same Providence, which, taking the
occasion of a man who fled from justice, and sought repose for his
troubled conscience, had led three Japonians from their