An action which was so surprising, moved the minds of all the assistants; and it was in the power of Father Xavier to have baptized that very day five hundred persons, who, being led by the example of the Bonza of Canafama, all of them earnestly desired baptism. He might perhaps have done this in the Indies, where there were no learned men to oppose the mysteries of our faith, and to tempt the fidelity of the new converts by captious queries. But he judged this not to be practicable in Japan, where the Bonzas, not being able to hinder the conversion of idolaters, endeavoured afterwards to regain them by a thousand lying artifices and sophistications; and it appeared necessary to him, before he baptized those who were grown up to manhood, to fortify them well against the tricks of those seducers. Accordingly, the saint disposed the souls of those Gentiles by degrees to this first sacrament, and began with the reformation of their manners, chusing rather not to baptize the king of Bungo, than to precipitate his baptism; or rather he thought, that his conversion would be always speedy enough, provided it were sincere and constant. Thus, the great care of Father Xavier, in relation to the prince, was to give him an aversion to those infamous vices which had been taught him by the Bonzas, and in which he lived without scruple, upon the faith of those his masters. Now the king, attending with great application to the man of God, and having long conversations with him, began immediately to change his life, and to give the demonstrations of that change. From the very fist, he banished out of his chamber a beautiful youth, who was his minion, and also forbade him the entry of his palace. He gave bountifully to the poor, to whom he had formerly been hard-hearted, as thinking it was a crime to pity them, and an act of justice to be cruel to them, according to the doctrine of his Bonzas, who maintained, that poverty not only made men despicable and ridiculous, but also criminal, and worthy of the severest punishments. According to the principles of the same doctors, women with child were allowed to make themselves miscarry by certain potions, and even to murder those children whom they brought into the world against their will; insomuch, that such unnatural cruelties were daily committed, and nothing was more common in the kingdom of Bungo, than those inhuman mothers: Some of them, to save the charges of their food and education, others to avoid the miseries attending poverty, and many to preserve the reputation of chastity, however debauched and infamous they were. The king, by the admonition of the Father, forbade those cruelties on pain of death. He made other edicts against divers Pagan ceremonies, which were lascivious or dishonest, and suffered not the Bonzas to set a foot within his palace. As to what remains, he was wrapt in admiration at the virtue of the holy man; and confessed often to his courtiers, that when he saw