orted to them: Some
out of policy, and to please the king; others to observe their carriage,
and to pick faults in it; many out of curiosity, and to learn something
that was new. All in general proposed their doubts, and disputed with so
much vehemence, that most of them were out of breath. The house was never
empty, and these perpetual visits took up all the time of the man of God.

He explains himself on this subject, and almost complains, in the letters
which he writes to Father Ignatius concerning his voyage to Japan. For
after he had marked out to him the qualities which were requisite in a
labourer of the Society, proper to be sent thither, "That he ought, in
the first place, to be a person of unblameable conversation, and that the
Japonese would easily be scandalised, where they could find occasion for
the least reproach; that, moreover, he ought to be of no less capacity
than virtue, because Japan is also furnished with an infinite number of
her own clergymen, profound in science, and not yielding up any point in
dispute without being first convinced by demonstrative reasons; that, yet
farther, it was necessary, that a missioner should come prepared to
endure all manner of wants and hardships; that he must be endued with an
heroic fortitude to encounter continual dangers, and death itself in
dreadful torments, in case of need," Having, I say, set these things
forth, and added these express words in one of his letters, "I write to
Father Simon, and, in his absence, to the rector of Coimbra, that he
shall send hither only such men as are known and approved by your holy
charity," he continues thus:

"These labourers in the gospel must expect to be much more crossed in
their undertaking than they imagine. They will be wearied out with
visits, and by troublesome questions, every hour of the day, and half the
night: They will be sent for incessantly to the houses of the great, and
will sometimes want leisure to say their prayers, or to make their
recollections. Perhaps, also, they will want time to say their mass or
their breviary, or not have enough for their repast, or even for their
natural repose, for it is incredible how importunate these Japonians are,
especially in reference to strangers, of whom they make no reckoning, but
rather make their sport of them. What therefore will become of them, when
they rise up against their sects, and reprehend their vices?" Yet these
importunities became pleasing to Father Xavi