John Dryden - The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16

But what yet appears more wonderful, the Portuguese themselves lived more like idolaters than Christians. For, to speak somewhat more particularly of their corrupt manners, according to the relation which was sent to King John III. of Portugal from the Indies, by a man in power, and worthy of belief; some few months before the arrival of Father Xavier, every man kept as many mistresses as he pleased, and maintained them openly in his own house, even in the quality of lawful wives. They bought women, or took them away by force, either for their service, or to make money of them. Their masters taxed them at a certain sum by the day, and, for fault of payment, inflicted on them ail sorts of punishment; insomuch, that those unhappy creatures, not being able sometimes to work out the daily rate imposed on them, were forced upon the infamous traffic of their bodies, and became public prostitutes, to content the avarice of their masters.

Justice was sold at the tribunals, and the most enormous crimes escaped from punishment, when the criminals had wherewithal to corrupt their judges.

All methods for heaping up money were accounted lawful, how indirect soever, and extortion was publicly protest. Murder was reckoned but a venial trespass, and was boasted as a piece of bravery.

The Bishop of Goa, to little purpose, threatened them with the wrath of heaven, and the thunder of excommunications. No dam was sufficient for such a deluge; their hearts were hardened against spiritual threatening and anathemas; or, to speak more properly, the deprivation of sacraments was no punishment to such wicked wretches, who were glad to be rid of them.

The use of confessions, and the communion, were in a manner abolished; and if any one by chance was struck with a remorse of conscience, and desired to reconcile himself to God, at the foot of a priest, he was constrained to steal to his devotions by night, to avoid the scandal to his neighbour.

So strange a depravation of manners proceeded from these causes. Its rise was taken from the licence of arms, which permit, and almost authorize, the greatest disorders in a conquered country. The pleasures of Asia, and the commerce of infidels, aided not a little to debauch the Portuguese, as starched and regular as they naturally are. The want of spiritual directors contributed largely to this growing mischief. There were not four preachers, in all the Indies, nor any one priest without the walls of Goa; insomuch, that in many fortified places whole years were passed without hearing a sermon or a mass.

Behold a draught, not unresembling the face of Christianity in this new world, when Father Xavier arrived in it.

The author of the relation from whence mine is copied, seems to have had some kind of foresight of his coming; for, in the conclusion of his memorial, he prays Almighty God, and earnestly desires the king of Portugal, to send some holy man to the Indies, who might reform the manners of the Europeans, by his apostolic instructions, and his exemplary virtues.

As for the Gentiles, the life they led resembled that of beasts rather than of men. Uncleanness was risen to the last excess amongst them; and the least corrupt were those who had no religion. The greatest part of them adored the devil under an obscene figure, and with ceremonies which modesty forbids to mention. Some amongst them changed their deity every day; and the first living creature which happened to meet them in the morning was the object of their worship, not excepting even dogs or swine. In this they were uniform, that they all offered bloody sacrifices to their gods; and nothing was more common, than to see bleeding infants on the altars, slaughtered by the hands of their own parents.

Such manifold abominations inflamed the zeal of Father Xavier. He wished himself able at the same time, to have applied remedies to them all; yet thought himself obliged to begin with the household of faith, according to the precept of St Paul; that is to say, with the Christians: and amongst them he singled out the Portuguese, whose example was like to be most prevalent with the baptised Indians. Behold in what manner he attempted this great enterprise of reformation.

To call down the blessing of heaven on this difficult employment, he consecrated the greatest part of the night to prayers, and allowed himself at the most but four hours of sleep; and even this little repose was commonly disturbed: for, lodging in the hospital, and lying always near the sick, as his custom had been at Mozambique, his slumber was broken by their least complaint, and he failed not to rise to their relief.

He returned to his prayers at break of day, after which he celebrated mass. He employed the forenoon in the hospitals, particularly in that of the lepers, which is in one of the suburbs of Goa. He embraced those miserable creatures one after the other, and distributed amongst them those alms which he had been begging for them from door to door. After this he visited the prisons, and dealt amongst them the same effects of charity.

In coming back, he made a turn about the town, with his bell in his hand, and gave a loud summons to the fathers of families, that, for the love of God, they would send their children and their slaves to catechism.

The holy man was convinced in his heart, that if the Portuguese youth were well instructed in the principles of religion, and formed betimes to the practice of good life, Christianity, in a little time, would be seen to revive in Goa; but in case the children grew up without instruction or discipline, there was no remaining hope, that they who sucked in impiety and vice, almost with their milk, should ever become sincere Christians.

The little children gathered together in crowds about him, whether they came of their own accord, through a natural curiosity, or that their parents sent them, out of the respect which they already had for the holy man, howsoever vicious themselves. He led them to the church, and there expounded to them the apostles' creed, the commandments of God, and all the practices of devotion which are in use amongst the faithful.

These tender plants received easily the impressions which the father made on them, and it was through these little babes that the town began to change its face. For, by daily hearing the man of God, they became modest and devout; their modesty and devotion was a silent censure of that debauchery which appeared in persons of riper age. Sometimes they even reproved their fathers, with a liberty which had nothing of childish in it, and their reproofs put the most dissolute libertines to the blush.

Xavier then proceeded to public preaching, whither all the people flocked; and to the end that the Indians might understand, as well as the Portuguese, he affected to speak that language in a gross and clownish dialect, which passed at that time amongst the natives of the country. It was immediately seen what power a preacher, animated by the spirit of God, had over the souls of perverted men. The most scandalous sinners, struck with the horror of their crimes, and the fear of eternal punishment, were the first who came to confession. Their example took away from others the shame of confessing; insomuch, that every one now strove who should be foremost to throw himself at the father's feet, knocking their breasts, and bitterly lamenting their offences.

The fruits of penitence accompanying these tears, were the certain proofs of a sincere conversion. They cancelled their unlawful bonds and covenants of extortion; they made restitution of their ill-gotten goods; they set at liberty their slaves, whom they had opprest, or had acquired unjustly; and lastly, turned away their concubines, whom they were unwilling to possess by a lawful marriage.

The saint acted with the concubinarians almost in the same manner as our Saviour dealt with the publicans and harlots. Far from treating them severely, the deeper they were plunged in that darling vice, the more tenderly he seemed to use them. On all occasions he declared himself their friend; he made them frequent visits, without fear of being upbraided with so infamous a conversation. He invited himself sometimes to eat with them; and then, assuming an air of gaiety, he desired the master to bring down the children to bear him company. When he had a little commended their prettiness, he asked to see their mother, and shewed her the same countenance, as if he had taken her for an honest woman. If she were beautiful or well shaped, he praised her, and said "she looked like a Portuguese: " after which; in private conversation, "you have," said he to her master, "a fair slave, who well deserves to be your wife." But if she were a swarthy, ugly Indian, "Good God!" he cried out, "what a monster do you keep within your doors! and how are you able to endure the sight of her?" Such words, spoken in all appearance without design, had commonly their full effect: the keeper married her whom the saint had commended, and turned off the others.