But already, before leaving for China, he had despatched from Malacca three new missionaries to Japan, Balthaza Gago, a priest, and two brothers, Peter d’Alcaceva and Edward de Sylva, who landed at Kagoshima, in August, 1552, whence they proceeded to Bungo, where, as well as at Yamaguchi, a site had been granted for a residence and a church. Father de Torres, now at the head of the mission, in a sort of general assembly of the faithful, to which the principal converts were admitted, regulated the policy of the infant church. To meet the objection of the bonzes, that the new converts had left their old religions to escape the usual contributions of alms, it was resolved to establish hospitals for the sick and poor, as well pagan as converted,—and the more so as poverty in Japan was regarded as peculiarly despicable, and the poor as condemned by the gods. To suit the taste of the Japanese for spectacles, an impressive burial service was agreed upon. Great attention, according to the policy of the Catholic Church, and especially of the Jesuits, was bestowed on the education of the young. Not to be outdone by the bonzes, the missionaries practised great austerities; regular whipping of themselves in church by all the converts made a stated part of their religious exercises; but what most contributed to the spread of the new faith was, so we are told, the exceeding zeal, self-denial, and disinterestedness of the new converts, including among the number several bonzes of the old religions, some of whom were made Jesuits, and even ordained priests, and who soon gave examples of sublime piety, which even the missionaries themselves found it difficult to imitate. Meanwhile, Peter d’Alcaceva, one of the newly arrived Jesuits, having been sent back to Goa for further aid, on his way to that capital found at Malacca the body of Xavier, preserved in quicklime, and also on its way to Goa, whither he attended it. At Goa he encountered Fernam Mendez Pinto, who, having amassed great wealth in the Indies, was about to return to Portugal. Preliminary to this voyage Pinto made a general confession to Father Nugnes Barreto, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits; after which, falling upon the subject of Xavier, whose dead body lying at Goa was reported to work numerous miracles, he related to his confessor many wonderful stories of the prodigies which he himself had witnessed while with Xavier at Bungo. Passing thence to the zeal and merits of the Japanese converts, he strongly urged Nugnes to proceed thither to take Xavier’s place, even offering himself to go as his companion, and to devote the whole of his fortune (except two thousand crowns to be sent to some poor relations in Portugal), partly to the founding of a seminary at Yamaguchi, whence the faith might be diffused through the whole of Japan, and partly in purchasing magnificent presents for the princes of the country, which he thought would be a good means of securing their favor for the new religion.