Xavier, who had notice sent him from the king, that his adversary was on the place of combat, came, accompanied with the chiefest of the Portuguese, all richly habited, who appeared as his officers, and paid him all possible respect, attending him bare-headed, and never speaking to him but on the knee.  The Bonzas were ready to burst with envy, beholding the pompous entry of their antagonist; and that which doubled their despite was, that they overheard the lords saying to one another,—­“Observe this poor man, of whom so many ridiculous pictures have been made to us; would to God our children might be like him, on condition the Bonzas might say as bad of them as they speak of him!  Our own eyes are witnesses of the truth; and the palpable lies which they have invented, show what credit is to be given to them.”  The king took pleasure in those discourses, and told those lords, that the Bonzas had assured him that he should be sick at heart at the first appearance of Father Francis.  He acknowledged he was almost ready to have believed them; but being now convinced, by his own experience, he found that the character of an ambassador from heaven, and interpreter of the gods, was not inconsistent with a liar.  Fucarandono, who heard all these passages from his place, took them for so many ill omens; and, turning to his four associates, told them, “that he suspected this day would be yet more unsuccessful to them than the last.”

The king received Father Xavier with great civility; and, after he had talked with him sometime in private, very obligingly ordered him to begin the disputation.  When they had all taken their places, the saint demanded of the Bonza, as the king had desired him, “For what reason the Christian religion ought not to be received in Japan?” The Bonza, whose haughtiness was much abated, replied modestly, “Because it is a new law, in all things opposite to the ancient established laws of the empire; and that it seems made on purpose to render the faithful servants of the gods contemptible,[1] as annulling the privileges which the Cubosamas of former ages had conferred on the Bonzas, and teaches that out of the society of Christians there is no salvation:  but especially,” added he, a little kindling in the face, “because it presumes to maintain, that the holy Amida and Xaca, Gizon and Canon, are in the bottomless pit of smoke, condemned to everlasting punishment, and delivered up in prey to the dragon of the house of night.”  After he had thus spoken, the Bonza held his peace; and Xavier, who had received a sign from the king to make reply, said, at the beginning of his discourse, “that seeing Fucarandono had mingled many things together, it was reasonable, for the better clearing of the difficulties, to tie him up to one single proposition, which was not to be left until it was evacuated, and plainly found to be either true or false.”  All agreed this was fair; and Fucarandono himself desired Xavier to shew cause, why he and his companions spoke evil of the deities of the country.