all
of them should perform the spiritual exercises of Father Ignatius.

At length Xavier embarked, on the 9th of September, for the fishing
coast. There he comforted and confirmed the faithful, who were
continually persecuted by the Badages, those mortal and irreconcileable
enemies of the Christian name. He also encouraged the gospel labourers of
the society, who, for the same reason, went in daily hazard of their
lives. Having understood, that Father Francis Henriquez, who cultivated
the Christianity of Travancore, was somewhat dissatisfied, and believed
he lost his time, because some of those new converts, shaken either by
the promises or threatenings of a new king, who hated the Christians, had
returned to their former superstitions, he writ him letters of
consolation, desiring him to be of good courage, and assuring him, that
his labours were more profitable than he imagined; that when all the
fruit of his zeal should be reduced to the little children who died after
baptism, God would be well satisfied of his endeavours, and that, after
all, the salvation of one only soul ought to comfort a missioner for all
his pains; that God accounted with us for our good intentions; and that a
servant of his was never to be esteemed unprofitable, who laboured in his
vineyard with all his strength, whatever his success might prove.

Father Xavier was not content to have fortified the missioners, both by
word and writing, in his own person; he desired of Father Ignatius, that
he would also encourage them with his epistles, and, principally, that he
would have the goodness to write to Henry Henriquez, a man mortified to
the world, and laborious in his ministry.

Having ordered all things in the coast of Fishery, he returned by Cochin,
where he staid two months; employing himself, without ceasing, in the
instruction of little children, administering to the sick, and regulating
the manners of that town. After which he went to Bazain, there to speak
with the deputy-governor of the Indies, Don Garcia de Saa, whom Don John
de Castro had named, upon his death-bed, to supply his place. The Father
was desirous to obtain his letters of recommendation to the governor of
Malacca, that, in virtue of them, his passage to Japan might be made more
easy.

It is true, the news he received, that the Chinese, ill satisfied with
the Portuguese, had turned them out of their country, seemed to have
broken all his measures, because it was impossible