been sworn by the Heathen priests.  How eager soever those merchants were to get out of a country where their lives were in so little safety, yet their fear for Father Xavier kept them lingering there some days longer; they deputed the captain of the vessel to him, who was to desire him, in their name, to make haste to them.  Edward de Gama, after a long inquiry, found him at last in a poor cabin, with eight Christians, who, having been the most zealous in opposition of the Bonzas, were in reason to expect the more cruel usage at their hands, and were content to offer up their lives, provided they might die in the arms of the man of God.

The captain urged him with the strongest reasons which he could invent, and set before him all the dangers which attended him; that, being at the mercy of the Bonzas, his death was inevitable; and that the means of escaping would be lost when once the tempest should begin to rise.  The Father, far from yielding to these arguments, was offended at the captain and the merchants for desiring to hinder him from the crown of martyrdom which he had taken so long a journey to obtain.  “My brother,” said he to Gama, with a fervour which expressed the holy ambition of his soul, “how happy should I be, if I could receive what you reckon a disgrace, but what I account a sovereign felicity! but I am unworthy of that favour from Almighty God; yet I will not render myself more unworthy of it, which assuredly I should if I embarked with you:  For what scandal should I give, by flying hence, to my new converts?  Might they not take occasion from it to violate their promises to God, when they should find me wanting to the duty of my ministry?  If, in consideration of that money which you have received from your passengers, you think yourself obliged to secure them from the clanger which threatens them, and, for that reason, have summoned them on board, ought not I, by a stronger motive, to guard my flock, and die with them for the sake of a God who is infinitely good, and who has redeemed me at the price of his own life, by suffering for me on the cross?  Ought not I to seal it with my blood, and to publish it by my death, that all men are bound to sacrifice their blood and lives to this God of mercies?”

This generous answer wrought so much upon the captain, that, instead of doubling his solicitations on Father Xavier, he resolved to partake his fortune, and not to leave him.  Having taken up this resolution, without farther care of what might happen to his ship, or what became of his own person, and accounting all his losses for a trifle while he enjoyed the company of Xavier, he returned indeed to his merchants, but it was only to declare to them the determination of the Father, and his own also; that in case they would not stay, he gave up his vessel to them.  They were supplied with mariners and soldiers, and had plentiful provisions laid in, both of food and ammunition for war.  They might go at their pleasure wheresoever they designed; but, for his own particular, he was resolved to live and die with the man of God.