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.

In the mean time, Don John de Castro was rigging out a fleet, with design to possess himself of Aden, one of the strongest towns of Arabia Felix, and situated at the foot of a high mountain, which reached even to the sea by a narrow tongue of earth.  This port is of great importance to shut up the passage of the Indies to the Turks and Saracens, who go thither by the Red Sea; and from this consideration it was, that Albuquerque the Great endeavoured to have mastered it in the year 15_13_, but the vigorous resistance of the Achenois forced him to forsake the siege.  After that time, they were desirous, of their own accord, to have delivered it up to the Portuguese, thereby to free themselves from the tyranny of the Turks.  Yet it was not then done, through the fault of a captain called Soarez, who, having no orders to take possession of the town, was so weak a politician as to refuse it when it was offered to the crown of Portugal.