By ministering to their wants, inventing
innocent sports for their amusement, and attending them in their
sickness, he wholly won their hearts, and they regarded him with
veneration.
Arrived at Goa, Xavier was shocked at the depravity of the people,
settlers as well as natives; for the former had imported the vices
without the restraints of civilization, and the latter had only
been too apt to imitate their bad example. Passing along the
streets of the city, sounding his handbell as he went, he implored
the people to send him their children to be instructed. He shortly
succeeded in collecting a large number of scholars, whom he
carefully taught day by day, at the same time visiting the sick,
the lepers, and the wretched of all classes, with the object of
assuaging their miseries, and bringing them to the Truth. No cry
of human suffering which reached him was disregarded. Hearing of
the degradation and misery of the pearl fishers of Manaar, he set
out to visit them, and his bell again rang out the invitation of
mercy. He baptized and he taught, but the latter he could only do
through interpreters. His most eloquent teaching was his
ministration to the wants and the sufferings of the wretched.
On he went, his hand-bell sounding along the coast of Comorin,
among the towns and villages, the temples and the bazaars,
summoning the natives to gather about him and be instructed.
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