Note 12 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Their famous missionary, Francis Xavier, whom they canonized, was ignorant of a single word in the languages of the Indians whom he professed to evangelize. He employed a hand-bell to summon the natives around him; and the poor savages, mistaking him for one of their learned Brahmans, he baptized them until his arm was exhausted with the task, and boasted of every one he baptized as a regenerated convert!