[The circumstances in Japon were such that many of the converts were obliged to spend six, or eight, or even fifteen years without confessing, while some of them had not seen a confessor within forty years. Hence the fathers Fray Thomas and Fray Alonso were anxious to go up into the country to continue the good work which they had begun. The vicar-provincial, Fray Francisco de Morales, sent father Fray Alonso de Mena to the kingdom of Fixen, [49] where there had been no church up to this year 1606. A certain captain, Francisco Moreno Donoso, had taken some Franciscan fathers with him on a journey, and on the voyage had been delivered from great danger by the intercession of our Lady of the Rosary. He was therefore devoted to this our Lady. Although the kingdom of Fixen is very near Nangasaqui, the king had always been unwilling to admit preachers of Christianity; but this king had a great regard for Captain Moreno Donoso, who went to visit the king with father Fray Alonso; and the captain made the king many gifts, refusing to accept anything in return except a chain. The king showed him such favor that the captain took advantage of the opportunity to ask permission that father Fray Alonso might establish convents and churches in the kingdom. The king was pleased to grant it, insisting only that the sanction of a great bonze, named Gaco, should first be secured; he was a native of Fixen, and was the most highly regarded man in Japan because of his learning. The king sent his own secretary to go before the bonze, to tell him of the poverty, the penitence, the contempt for the things of this world, the modesty, the humility, and the courteous behavior of the father. The bonze, seeing that it was the pleasure of the king, said that such a man might very well receive this permission. In conformity with it three poor churches and houses were built--one in Famamachi under the patronage of our Lady of the Rosary; the second in the city of Caxima [i.e., Kashima]. named for St. Vincent; and, after some time, another one at the king's court [i.e., Saga], for which at that time permission had been refused. Father Fray Alonso and his companion, when he had one, got the little they needed for their support from Portuguese and Castilians in Nangasaqui, that they might avoid asking for alms from the Japanese, and might thus give no opportunity for the bonzes to complain against them, and to find a pretext for sending them out of the country. Father Fray Alonso remained in this kingdom; and the order persevered until the persecution, when all the religious who had been hiding there were ordered to depart from Japon. Father Fray Alonso found in this kingdom some Japanese who had been baptized in other kingdoms, but had not been well taught in the faith, or who had forgotten the good teachings that they had received at their baptism. They were guilty of much irregularity in their marriages; and some of them had assumed to baptize others without knowing the