568 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE,

who stood sentinel at our door; to whom we allowed a pint of
rice, and a little piece of money, about the value of threepence
per day; so that our goods were kept very safe.

The fair or mart usually kept in this place had been over some
time; however, we found that there were three or four junks in
the river, and two Japanners, T mean ships from Japan, with goods
which they had bought in China, and were not gone away, having
Japanese merchants on shore.

The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us, was to
bring us acquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were
in the town, and who had been there some time, converting the
people to Christianity; but we thought they made but poor work
of it, and made them but sorry Christians when they had done.
However, that was none of our business. One of these was a
Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon. He was a jolly, well-
conditioned man, very free in his conversation; not seeming 80
serious and grave as the other two did, one of whom was a Por-
tuguese, and the other a Genoese + but Father Simon was courteous,
easy in his manner, and very agreeable company. The other two
were more reserved, seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously
to the work they came about, namely, to talk with and insinuate
themselves among the inhabitants wherever they had opportunity.
We often ate and drank with those men; and though T must confess
the conversion, as they call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so
far from the true conversion required to bring heathen people to
the faith of Christ, that it seems to amount to little more than
letting them know the name of Christ, and say some prayers to
the Virgin Mary and her Son in a tongue which they understand
not, and to cross themselves, and the like, yet it must be confessed
that these religious, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief
that these people shall be saved, and that they are the instruments
of it. And on this account they undergo, not only the fatigue of
the voyage, and hazards of living in such places, but oftentimes
death itself, with the most violent tortures, for the sake of this
work; and it would be a great want of charity in us, whatever
opinion we have of the work itself, and the manner of their doing
it, if we should not have a good opinion of their zeal, who under-