The first effort of Xavier upon the Malabar Coast was at Cape Comorin, in a village "full of idolaters," to whom he preached; but as they were unable to understand what he said, they remained unmoved, having been probably attracted, like the people of Goa, by his bell-ringing in the streets. Why the "gift of tongues" was then withheld from him is not easy to determine, unless it was that he might be furnished an opportunity of impressing the ignorant natives with sentiments of awe by performing a miracle. At all events, Butler records what happened in these words: "A woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered, and recovered upon being instructed in the faith, and baptized by St. Francis [Xavier], as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius [Loyola]." How she was instructed in the faith is, of course, not explained, it being left to the imagination of the reader to conceive by what extraordinary process this ignorant woman was instructed in the Christian faith, so that she could be rightfully baptized into the Church, when she did not understand the language in which she was addressed. If she even realized that her safe delivery and instantaneous restoration were occasioned by his intervention, there was no possible mode of conveying to her mind the idea that it was God's work and not Xavier's, for there was no word in any of the languages of India signifying the Deity in the Christian sense. The whole story is not only preposterous, but puerile. But it bears the unmistakable stamp of Jesuitism, like others of the same general character. For example, it is seriously recorded by the same author, that after the happening of this event, "the chief persons of the country listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced the faith." He preached to those who had never before heard of Christ, "and so great were the multitude which he baptized, that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarcely able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe." He healed the sick by baptism, and where his presence was impracticable, he sent a neophyte to touch them with a cross, when, if they signified a desire to be baptized, they were restored to health. In addition, it is also said that he brought back to life four persons who were dead, during the fifteen months he remained upon the Malabar Coast.[87]