These trials obliged the Father to receive Bravo into the Society.  He admitted him almost immediately to take the first vows; and finding in him an excellent foundation for all the apostolical virtues, he took care to cultivate him, even so far, as to leave him in writing these following rules, before his departure to Japan.

“See here, my dear brother, the form of life which you are constantly to practise every day.  In the morning, as soon as you are awakened, prepare yourself to meditate on some mystery of our Lord; beginning from his holy nativity, and continuing to his glorious ascension:  the subjects of the meditations are marked, and put in order, in the book of Exercises.  Employ, at the least, half-an-hour in prayers; and apply yourself to it with all those interior dispositions, which you may remember you practised in your retirement of a month.  Consider every day one mystery, in such manner, that if, for example, on Monday, the birth of our Saviour was the subject of your meditation, that of his circumcision shall be for Tuesday, and so in course, till in a month’s time, having run through all the actions of Jesus Christ, you come to contemplate him ascending into heaven in triumph.  You are every month to begin these meditations again in the same order.

“At the end of every meditation, you shall renew your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, to which you have obliged yourself.  You shall make them, I say, anew, and offer them to God with the same fervency wherewith you first made them.  This renewing of your vows will weaken in you the motions of concupiscence, and render all the powers of hell less capable of hurting you; for which reason, I am of opinion that you ought never to omit them.

“After dinner, you shall resume your morning’s prayer, and reflect on the same mystery half an hour; you shall also renew your vows, at the end of your meditation.  You are to employ yourself in this manner interiorly through all the variety of your outward business; giving an hour in every day to the consideration of the most holy life of our Lord Jesus, in whatsoever affair, or in whatsoever incumbrance, you are engaged.  You may practise this with most convenience, by allowing half-an-hour in the morning, and another half in the afternoon, according to my direction.

“Before you lie down at night, examine well your conscience, in calling over your thoughts, words, and actions, of all the day; and even observing, if you have not failed of doing something, which it was your duty to have done:  let this discussion be as exact, as if you were just ready to confess yourself.  After you have conceived a most lively sorrow for your faults, by the motive of God’s love, you shall humbly ask pardon of Jesus Christ, and vow amendment to him.  In fine, you shall so dispose yourself to rest, that your sleep may come upon you, in thoughts of piety, and in resolutions of passing the next day with greater holiness.