MIRZA ZU-L-QARNATN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 125 



To our astonishment they lock themselves up on a certain day of the week in 

 a certain apartment, where after the example of the Governess and her court-ladies, 

 they go through the same practices. 



" Mrize did not allow the fire of his charity to remain pent up within the confines 

 of his Province ; it blazed forth beyond those limits and reached far-off Palestine. 

 Besides the alms which he assigns every month to the Fathers for their upkeep, to 

 needy Neophytes, widows and orphans (all of whom would certainly have been in 

 extreme want [134] now that the King has withdrawn the allowance which he used 

 to grant to Fathers Jerome Xavier and Manoel Pignero [Pinheiro], his great friends), he 

 sent to Jerusalem valuable presents and a big alms for the maintenance of the 

 Religious in charge of the Holy Places. 1 Moreover, on hearing of the above-mentioned 

 hurricane, and how the churches had been badly damaged all over the North, he 

 sent six thousand rupees, a kind of silver money, for repairing the Church of the 

 Blessed Virgin. 2 



" Our Lord does not allow Himself to be outdone by the Mrize's great liberality. 

 The following will clearly show how He pours by torrents into his soul virtue upon 

 virtue. He had a son, the heir to all his riches, temporal and spiritual, a boy richly 

 gifted in body and soul, the Court's delight. 3 He fell dangerously ill, and only those 

 who know how much he and his father were loved by all, can say how deeply all were 

 concerned. All felt aggrieved ; the mother was inconsolable, while the father's heart 

 was rent asunder, on the one hand by his love for so sweet a boy, one so well deserv- 

 ing of his love, on the other by his supernatural desire to please God, desire not a 

 whit inferior to his natural affection for his child. Understanding that the disease was 

 making progress, he made to God — like another Abraham — a heartfelt sacrifice, and 

 bathed in tears burst forth in the following prayer: f Lord, Thou gavest me this son ; 

 to Thee I return him, to Thee I offer him and consecrate him. Receive him, I beseech 

 Thee, clothed in the white garment of innocence with which he was vested in bap- 

 tism. I know well how much more happy he will be in Heaven than in the Mogor's 

 Royal palace.' And to show that he spoke from the heart, he forbade severely all his 

 people to call in [135] the aid of sorcerers, and let the child be contaminated by 

 their pagan superstitions : anyone acting to the contrary must lose his head in the 

 attempt. God accepted the Mrize's prayer. The child died, and the father gave 

 thanks to God from his inmost heart, because He had been pleased to accept the 

 dearest pledge of love which he could offer after himself. Nor did he show less joy 



1 He sent to the Armenian Fathers of Jerusalem Rs. 6,ooo; to the Franciscans at Jerusalem, Rs. 1,000; to the 

 Franciscans of Aleppo, Rs. 500; to the Franciscans of Bethlehem, Rs. 500. Cf. infra Fr. Corsi's account of 1628. I 

 think I have read in one of the MS letters that he sent valuable lamps to be put up in the Church of the Holy Sepul- 

 chre at Jerusalem. 



2 The hurricane of May 17, 1618, which ravaged the coast between Bombaim and Agacaim, destroyed 15 churches 

 of the Franciscans, 5 of the Dominicans, 3 of the Augustinians, 7 of the Jesuits, and 5 of the secular Priests Cf. 

 Frey Luis de Cacegas, Hist, de S. Domingos, Lisboa, 1767, III, L. 2, C. 8 ; Faria y SouSa, Asia Portuguesa, III, P. 3, C. 

 17: Casimiro Christovao de Nazareth, Mitras Lusitanas, Lisboa, 1897, pp. 121, 607, and our notes from the Annual Letter 

 of Goa for 1618 in The Eximiner, Bombay, 1912, p. 48. The money sent by Zii-l-Qarnain was probably employed in 

 rebuilding the Church of Nossa Senhora da Vida of Bassein. 



' The Moghul Court's, doubtless. 



