large, and at greater leisure. "For if your law appear more
reasonable to us than our own," said the principal of the town, "we
engage ourselves to follow it."

But when once a man becomes a slave to shameful passions, it is difficult
to follow what he thinks the best, and even to judge reasonably what is
the best. Not a man amongst them kept his word. Having compared together
the two laws, almost all of them agreed, that the Christian doctrine was
most conformable to good sense, if things were only to be taken in the
speculation; but when they came to consider them in the practice, and saw
how much the Christian law discouraged vengeance, and forbade polygamy,
with all carnal pleasures, that which had appeared just and reasonable
to them, now seemed improbable, and the perversity of their wills
hoodwinked the light of their understanding; so that, far from believing
in Jesus Christ, they said, "That Xavier and his companions were plain
mountebanks, and the religion which they preached a mere fable." These
reports being spread abroad, exasperated the spirits of men against them,
so that as soon as any of them appeared, the people ran after them, not
as before, to hear them preach, but to throw stones at them, and revile
them: "See," they cried, "the two Bonzas, who would inveigle us to
worship only one God, and persuade us to be content with a single wife."

Oxindono, the king of Amanguchi, hearing what had passed, was willing to
be judge himself of the Christians' new doctrine. He sent for them before
him, and asked them, in the face of all his nobles, of what country they
were, and what business brought them to Japan? Xavier answered briefly,
"That they were Europeans, and that they came to publish the divine law.
For," added he, "no man can be saved who adores not God, and the Saviour
of all nations, his Son Christ Jesus, with a pure heart and pious
worship." "Expound to me," replied the prince, "this law, which you have
called divine." Then Xavier began, by reading a part of the book which he
had composed in the Japonian tongue, and which treated of the creation of
the world, of which none of the company had ever heard any thing, of the
immortality of the soul, of the ultimate end of our being, of Adam's
fall, and of eternal rewards and punishments; in fine, of the coming of
our Saviour, and the fruits of our redemption. The saint explained what
was needful to be cleared, and spoke in all above an hour.

The king h