The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 16 by John Dryden
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page 162 of 503 (32%)
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argumentation; but the Father still clearing all her doubts, the dispute
only served to make her understand more certainly the falseness of the Alcoran, and the truth of the gospel. She submitted to the saint's reasons, or rather to the grace of Jesus Christ, and was publicly baptized by the apostle himself, who gave her the name of Isabella. He was not satisfied with barely making her a Christian. He saw in her a great stock of piety, an upright heart, a tenderness of mind, inclinations truly great and noble, which he cultivated with admirable care, and set her forward, by degrees, in the most sublime and solid ways of a spiritual life: So that Neachile, under the conduct of Father Xavier, arrived to a singular devotion; that is to say, she grew humble and modest, from disdainful; and haughty as she was, mild to others, and severe to herself, suffering her misfortunes without complaint of injuries; united to God in her retirements, and not appearing publicly, but to exercise the deeds of charity to her neighbour; but more esteemed and honoured, both by the Indians and Portuguese, than when she sat upon the throne, in all the pomp and power of royalty. During the abode which Xavier made in Ternate, he heard speak of certain isles, which are distant from it about sixty leagues eastward; and which take their name from the principal, commonly called the Isle del Moro. It was reported to him, that those islanders, barbarians as they were, had been most of them baptized, but that the faith had been abolished there immediately after it was introduced, and this account he heard of it. The inhabitants of Momoya, which is a town in the Isle del Moro, would never embrace the law of Mahomet, though all the neighbouring villages had received it. And the prince, or lord of that town, who chose rather to continue an idolater, than to become a Mahometan, being molested by |
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