After the departure of Bermudez, the Catholic religion had no longer any support: the fathers who had remained in Abyssinia being dead, and the gate of the kingdom closed by the violent animosities of the Turks, and the cruelties they exercised on the missionaries who fell into their hands, the few Catholics remaining in these regions were only lingering out a wretched and hopeless existence. Affairs were in this state, when, in the year 1600, Peter Paez, the most enterprising, enlightened, and successful missionary that ever entered Ethiopia, landed at Masuah. He had been taken by the Turks in the Red Sea, and had just escaped from a seven years' imprisonment: adversity had thus given him a severer lesson and a clearer knowledge of the world than generally falls to the lot of members of his fraternity. On landing at Masuah, instead of rushing forward with hasty, intemperate zeal, in the hope of converting all at once a country, the language, habits, and prejudices of which he had as yet no knowledge of except from books, he calmly and deliberately set himself to work to learn the Geez, or written language. He next set up a school, which gave him privately, and without danger, a thorough insight into the Abyssinian character; and, after he had thus cautiously practised on the minds of his pupils, he at length felt himself prepared to encounter, by argument and persuasion, the passions and prejudices of the Abyssinian court. In April, 1604, therefore, Peter presented himself before the king, who received him with the same honours that he bestowed on his own people of rank: a distinction which the monks of the Abyssinian church viewed with great jealousy, foreseeing that the exaltation of Paez would eventually be the cause of their own humiliation. Mass was now said according to the ritual of the Romish church; and a sermon followed, which was almost the first ever preached in Abyssinia. Such was the eloquence of Paez, and so convincing did his arguments appear, that the king resolved to embrace the Catholic religion; and, guided by the persuasive missionary, he afterward went so far as to write to Pope Clement VIII. and to Philip III. of Spain, to ask for Jesuits to instruct his people. Many of the courtiers soon followed the royal example. Latin prayers were now repeated; mass was said; the incense smoked; and the host was elevated in triumph. A party, however, was suddenly raised against Paez: the abuna not only declared him excommunicated, but pronounced a curse on all those who had supported, or who might support him or his cause. A battle was in consequence fought; and the King of Abyssinia, the first who had publicly avowed the Romish religion, died in the field.