to keep this first commandment.' After which we say the Ave Maria. We
observe the same method through the other nine commandments, with some
little variation, as the matter requires it.

"These are the things which I accustom them to beg of God in the common
prayers; omitting not sometimes to assure them, that if they obtain
the thing for which they pray, even that is a means for them to obtain
other things more amply than they could demand them.

"I oblige them all to say the confiteor, but principally those who are to
receive baptism, whom I also enjoin to say the belief. At every article,
I demand of them, if they believe it without any scruple; and when they
have assured me, that they do, I commonly make them an exhortation, which
I have composed in their own language,--being an epitome of the Christian
faith, and of the necessary duties incumbent on us in order to our
salvation. In conclusion, I baptize them, and shut up all in singing the
salve regina, to implore the assistance of the blessed Virgin."

It is evident, by what we have already said concerning the instruction of
the Paravas, that Xavier had not the gift of tongues when he began to
teach them: But it appears also, that, after he had made the translation,
which cost him so much labour, he both understood and spoke the Malabar
tongue, whether he had acquired it by his own pains, or that God had
imprinted the species of it in his mind after a supernatural manner. It
is at least probable, that, being in the Indies when he studied any
tongue, the Holy Spirit seconded his application, and was in some sort
his master; for it is constantly believed, that in a very little time he
learnt the most difficult languages, and, by the report of many persons,
spoke them so naturally, that he could not have been taken for a
foreigner.