“Sometimes you will see before you, when you are seated in the tribunal of penance, men who are enslaved to their pleasures and their avarice, whom no motive of God’s love, nor thought of death, nor fear of hell, can oblige to put away a mistress, or to restore ill-gotten goods.  The only means of reducing such people, is to threaten them with the misfortunes of this present life, which are the only ills they apprehend.  Declare then to them, that if they hasten not to appease Divine Justice, they shall suddenly suffer considerable losses at sea, and be ill treated by the governors; that they shall lose their law-suits; that they shall languish many years in prison; that they shall be seized with incurable diseases, and reduced to extreme poverty, without any to relieve them; in fine, that they and their posterity, becoming infamous, shall be the objects of the public hate and curses.  Tell them, by way of reason for those accidents, that no man who sets God at nought remains unpunished; and that his vengeance is so much the more terrible, by how much longer his patience has been abused.  The images of these temporal punishments will affright those carnal men who are not to be wrought on but by their senses, and will bring forth in their insensible souls the first motions of the fear of God,—­of that saving fear which is the beginning of wisdom.

“Before you treat with any one concerning his spiritual affairs, endeavour to understand how his soul stands affected.  Whether it be calm, or tossed with any violent passion; whether he be ready to follow the right way when it shall be shewn to him, or whether he wanders from it of set purpose; whether it be the tempter, or the bias of his own inclination, which seduces him to evil; whether he be docile, and disposed to hear good counsel, or of that untractable humour on which no hold is to be fastened,—­it will behove you to vary your discourse according to these several dispositions:  But though more circumspection is to be taken with hardened souls, and difficult of access, you are never to flatter the disease, nor say any thing to him which may weaken the virtue of the remedy, and hinder its effect.

“Wheresoever you shall be, even though you only pass through a place, and stay but little in it, endeavour to make some acquaintance; and inquire of those who have the name of honest and experienced men, not only what crimes are most frequently committed in that town, and what deceits most used in traffic, as I have already taught you in relation to Ormuz; but farther, learn the inclinations of the people, the customs of the country, the form of government, the received opinions, and all things respecting the commerce of human life:  for, believe me, the knowledge of those things is very profitable to a missioner, for the speedy curing of spiritual diseases, and to have always at hand wherewithal to give ease to such as come before you.