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.

This so sudden a change of manners was none of those transient fits of
devotion, which pass away almost as soon as they are kindled; piety was
established in all places, and they who formerly came to confession once
a year, to speak the best of it, now performed it regularly once a month.
They were all desirous of confessing themselves to Father Xavier; so
that, writing from Goa to Rome on that subject, he said, "That if it had
been possible for him to have been at once in ten places, he should not
have wanted for employment." His catechising having had that wonderful
success which we have mentioned, the Bishop Don John d'Albuquerque
ordained, that, from thenceforward, the children should be taught the
Christian doctrine, in all the churches of the town. The gentlemen and
merchants applied themselves to the regulation of their families, and
banishment of vice. They gave the father considerable sums of money,
which he distributed in their presence, in the hospitals and prisons.
The viceroy accompanied the saint thither once a week, to hear the
complaints of the prisoners, and to relieve the poor. This Christian
practice was so pleasing to the king of Portugal, John III, that
afterwards he writ to Don John de Castro, governor of the Indies,
expressly ordering him to do that once a month, which Don Martin Alphonso
de Sosa never failed of doing every week; in short, the Portuguese of Goa
had gained such an habitude of good life, and such an universal change of
manners had obtained amongst them, that they seemed another sort of
people.