-1896.] HE. D. Maclagan—Jesuit Missions to the Hmperor Akbar. 81 
know what order to give concerning you.’ ‘In truth,’ said Xavier, ‘it is very 
irksome to us to stand idle. Wherefore, Sire, do you not listen to us as you 
said you would listen: you that profess yourself a wise man and a searcher 
after truth?’ ‘I admit,’ said the Emperor,’ ‘that I called you in order to hear 
the truth, so that I might adopt whatever course appeared most consistent 
with truth and reason, but now I go toward the Deccan and shall halt near 
Goa, where I shall go to hear you at leisure.’ He continued the conversation for 
some time, repeating the same language. ‘I called you,’ he said, ‘to speak to 
you and listen to youin private. What? When the Muhammadans wererulers 
would any one have dared to say that Christ was God? He would at once have 
been put to death. Now he is safe.’ I agreed that this was so, and thanked the 
Hmperor, saying that if he would listen to us some time it would be a great 
benefit to him as well as a consolation to us. He promised to do so and 
closed the interview.’ ! 
The Provincial then goes on to say that he proposed sending com- 
panions to help and solace the Fathers. And he concludes this part of 
his report with an account of some incidents which had taken place in 
connection with the mission at Lahor :— 
‘This year at Christmas the Fathers at Lahor prepared.a magnificent 
representation of the manger in memory and honour of Our Saviour: to 
which thronged so great a crowd of all ages and classes that for twenty 
days continuously some three or four thousand persons might worship the 
image of the Child Jesus. One of these, a nobleman, whose wife had borne 
him ason atthe same day and hour as that on which Christ was born, 
brought him to the Fathers, and allowed him to be baptized, himself and his 
wife becoming catechumens. Not so blessed was the fate of another Muham- 
madan mother, though that of her new born child was still more blessed. 
Her child had been baptized with her consent and at her request, but she was 
unable to bear the taunts of her relations and on the day before Ascension 
Day she placed poison in its milk. The poor child after seventeen hours of 
terrible torture bore testimony to Christ not in words but by death (Christum 
non logquendo sed moriendo confessus), and expired before the altar, on the 
feast of the Ascension, forty days after its birth and eighteen days after its 
baptism. Father Manoel Pinheiro writes that after the child had surren- 
dered its soul to Christ, its face still shone with so unwonted a grace that 
the glory of its blessed soul which it had attained on rising to Christ 
appeared to be reflected on its features below.’ 
The Father Provincial’s Report of 1st December 1600. 
Our next original authority is the annual report ® written by 
Father Pimenta, as Visitor, to the General of the Society on Ist 
1 It has been suggested by Bohlen (Alte Indien, I. 105) that in] his refusal to 
‘adopt Christian views Akbar was influenced by the report of the cruelties of the 
Inguisition at Goa, and Prince Frederick of Schleswig Holstein (Noer. Kaiser Akbar, 
I. 486) has repeated the suggestion, but € do not find anything in any of the 
records to show that he had heard of the Inquisition. 
@ “Hremplwm Hpistolae’ (Maintz.) see p. 44 above. 
Bi fie UL 
