A History of the Missions in Japan and Paraguay - Paperback

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The castle of Ekandono. Sumitando, king of Omura; his zeal tempered with discretion. Father Torres goes to Vocoxiuva, and settles there. Conversion of Sumitando and thirty nobles Conspiracy against him defeated. Jesuits settled at Nangasaki. Conversion of the king of Arima. Christianity introduced into Goto. The king's son converted. When Francis and his companions took their departure from Kangoxima, to seek for a more hospitable city as the theatre of their labours, chance led them beneath the towers of a lonely fortress, seated on a steep rock, and so entirely surrounded by a broad deep moat as to be utterly inaccessible excepting by a drawbridge. Francis paused as he passed; and no sooner was he descried from the lofty roof, than a servant was despatched with a kind and courteous message from the governor of Ekandono (for this was the name of the castle), and a request that he and his way-worn companions would enter and take some refreshment. The true refreshment of Fiancis, -like that of his Divine Master, was " to do the will of Him who sent him, by making perfect His work;" and so well did he accomplish it on this occasion, that before he left the fortress he had instructed and baptised the wife of its chieftain, together with his eldest son and seventeen soldiers of the garrison. Among these last was a venerable old man, whose prudence and virtue had caused him to be respected by the others as a father. To him Francis confided the care of this unlooked-for little flock, giving him for their further and more complete instruction a written form of baptism, an abstract of our Saviour's life, an exposition of the creed, the litanies and penitential psalms, together with a table of Church festivals throughout the year; all in the Japanese language. He likewi...