Xavier took that place only as his passage to Meaco; but the strange corruption of manners gave him so much horror, and withal so great compassion, that he could not resolve to pass farther without publishing Christ Jesus to those blind and execrable men, nor without making known to them the purity of the Christian law. The zeal which transported him, when he heard the abominable crimes of the town, suffered him not to ask permission from the king, as it had been his custom in other places. He appeared in public on the sudden, burning with an inward fire, which mounted up into his face, and boldly declared to the people the eternal truths of faith. His companion Fernandez did the same in another part of the town. People heard them out of curiosity; and many after having inquired who they were, what dangers they had run, and for what end, admired their courage, and their procedure, void of interest, according to the humour of the Japonians, whose inclinations are naturally noble, and full of esteem for actions of generosity. From public places they were invited into houses, and there desired to expound their doctrine more at large, and at greater leisure. "For if your law appear more reasonable to us than our own," said the principal of the town, "we engage ourselves to follow it." But when once a man becomes a slave to shameful passions, it is difficult to follow what he thinks the best, and even to judge reasonably what is the best. Not a man amongst them kept his word. Having compared together the two laws, almost all of them agreed, that the Christian doctrine was most conformable to good sense, if things were only to be taken in the speculation; but when they came to consider them in the practice, and saw how much the Christian law discouraged vengeance, and forbade polygamy, with all carnal pleasures, that which had appeared just and reasonable to them, now seemed improbable, and the perversity of their wills hoodwinked the light of their understanding; so that, far from believing in Jesus Christ, they said, "That Xavier and his companions were plain mountebanks, and the religion which they preached a mere fable." These reports being spread abroad, exasperated the spirits of men against them, so that as soon as any of them appeared, the people ran after them, not as before, to hear them preach, but to throw stones at them, and revile them: "See," they cried, "the two Bonzas, who would inveigle us to worship only one God, and persuade us to be content with a single wife."