The master and servants came out of their retirement with so much ardour, that Xavier wrote into Europe, that he was animated by their example to the service of God, and that he could not look on them without blushing at his own cowardice. In conversing with them, he understood what he had formerly learnt by hearsay, from George Alvarez, and other Portuguese, that the empire of Japan was one of the most populous in the world; that the Japonese were naturally curious, and covetous of knowledge, and withal docible, and of great capacity; that being generally ingenious, and very rational, if they were instructed in the morals of Christianity, they would easily submit to them; and that, if the preachers of the gospel lived according to gospel rules, the whole nation would subject itself to the yoke of Jesus Christ, not perhaps so readily at first, but in process of time, and after clearing of their doubts. There needed no more to induce Xavier to carry the faith into Japan. The mildness, the civility, and the good parts of the three baptized Japonians, made him conceive a high opinion of all the rest; and the Portuguese merchants newly returned from Japan, confirmed it so fully to him, that in these three he had the pattern of the whole nation, that he doubted not, but that the Christian religion would make an admirable progress there. But that which Anger told him, that there were in his country many monasteries of Heathen priests; that some of them led their lives in solitude and contemplation; that every monastery had its superior, who was a person venerable for his age and learning; that they came abroad from their lonely abode once a week, with mortified looks, and uncouth habits, to preach to the people; that, in their sermons, they drew such lively figures of hell, that the women wept, and cried out at those dismal representations: All this, I say, appeared to Xavier as so many doors and inlets for the faith; and he praised God, that, by the admirable conduct of his providence, which secretly manages the salvation of men, the spirit of lies had thus prepared the ways for the spirit of truth. He adored also the wisdom of the same Providence, which, taking the occasion of a man who fled from justice, and sought repose for his troubled conscience, had led three Japonians from their native country, and brought them to Goa, that they might serve for guides to a missioner; but, that these guides might be the more serviceable, he thought fit they should learn to read and write in the Portuguese language. Anger, whom from henceforth we shall name Paul de Sainte Foy, was easily instructed in all they taught him; for, besides that he was of a quick and lively apprehension, he had so happy a memory, that he got by heart almost all the gospel of St Matthew, which Father Cosmo de Torrez had expounded to him before his baptism.