How great soever his opinions were of the prudence and virtue of Father Gasper, yet he thought fit to give him in writing some particular instructions, to help him in the conduct of that important mission.  I imagine those instructions would not be unpleasing to the reader; I am sure, at least, they will not be unprofitable to missioners; and for that reason I shall make a recital of them.  You shall behold them, neither altered, nor in that confusion which they are in other authors; but faithfully translated from the copy of a manuscript extant in the archives of Goa.

“1.  Above all things, have care of perfecting yourself, and of discharging faithfully what you owe to God, and your own conscience.  For by this means you will become most capable of serving your neighbour, and of gaining souls.  Take pleasure in the most abject employments of your ministry; that, by exercising them, you may acquire humility, and daily advance in that virtue.

“Be sure yourself to teach the ignorant those prayers, which every Christian ought to have by heart; and lay not on any other person an employment so little ostentatious Give yourself the trouble of hearing the children and slaves repeat them word by word after you.  Do the same thing to the children of the Christian natives of the country:  they who behold you thus exercised, will be edified by your modesty; and as modest persons easily attract the esteem of others, they will judge you proper to instruct themselves in the mysteries of the Christian religion.

“You shall frequently visit the poor in the hospitals, and from time to time exhort them to confess themselves, and to communicate; giving them to understand, that confession is the remedy for past sins, and the communion a preservative against relapses; that both of them destroy the cause of the miseries of which they complain, by reason that the ills they suffer, are only the punishment of their offences.  On this account, when they are willing to confess, you shall hear their confessions, with all the leisure you can afford them.  After this care taken of their souls, you are not to be unmindful of their bodies; but recommend the distressed, with all diligence and affection, to the administrators of the hospital, and procure them, by other means, all relief within your power.

“You shall also visit the prisoners, and excite them to make a general confession of their lives.  They have more need than others to be stirred up to it, because among that sort of people there are few to be found, who ever made an exact confession.  Pray the Brotherhood of Mercy to have pity on those wretches, and labour with the judges for their enlargement; in the mean time, providing for the most necessitous, who oftentimes have not wherewithal to subsist.

“You shall serve, and advance what lies in you, the Brotherhood of Mercy.  If you meet with any rich merchants, who possess ill-gotten goods, and who, being confessed, are willing to restore that which appertains not to them, though of themselves they entrust you with the money for restitutions, when they are ignorant to whom it is due, or that their creditors appear not—­remit all those sums into the hands of the Brotherhood of Mercy, even though you know of some necessitous persons, on whom such charities might be well employed.