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The Christian, strength, with which he found himself animated at the same time, caused all the dangers, which naturally he might apprehend, to disappear, as is manifest by what he wrote from Meliapor on that occasion, to two of his friends at Goa, Paul de Camerin, and James Borba, of whom we have made so frequent mention.
He therefore sent Melchior Nugnez to Bazain, Gonsalvo Rodriguez to Cochin, John Lopez to Meliapor, and Luys Mendez to the Fishery, where he confirmed Henry Henriquez for superior, whom the missioners of that coast had already chosen instead of Antonio Criminal. After this, he bent his whole endeavours to procure an embassy to China.
In the next year, 1558, according to Couto, Rama Raya made an expedition to "Meliapor," or Mailapur, near Madras, where was an important establishment of Roman Catholic monks and the Church of St. Thomas. "The poor fathers of the glorious Order of St.
The merchant, full of confidence in the blessed Virgin, had still preserved the chaplet of Xavier, and feared not drowning while he held it in his hand. The float of planks was hardly adrift upon the waves, when he found he was transported out of himself, and believed he was at Meliapor with Father Francis.
If we will give credit to the inhabitants, it was once almost swallowed by the sea; and for proof of this tradition, there are yet to be seen under water, the ruins of great buildings. The new town of Meliapor was built by the Portuguese; near the walls there is a hill, which they called the Little Mount, and in it a grotto, wherein they say St Thomas hid himself during the persecution.
When Xavier was come into the town, the vicar of Meliapor, who had heard speak of him as a successor of the apostles, and a man sent from God, for the conversion of the Indies, came to offer him a lodging in his house.
In short, the Father did what he could desire to be done at Meliapor; and witnesses of known integrity have deposed on oath, that he left the town so different from what it was, at his coming thither, that it was hardly to be known for the same place; which also gave him so entire a satisfaction, that giving it a thousand benedictions, he said that there was not in all the Indies a more Christian town.
This popular opinion contributed much to the change of manners in the town; and the fear of a disastrous death served frequently to break off in one moment the criminal commerce of many years. There was in Meliapor a Portuguese gentleman, who lived a debauched and scandalous life.
All my hope is in God; and I conjure you by his love, to remember always in your prayers so great a sinner as myself." Though his intentions in coming to Meliapor were only to receive the instructions of heaven in his solitude, yet he employed some part of his time in the good of others.
They were desirous to repair it, in memory of the holy apostle; and, as they were rummaging all about, even to the foundations of it, they drew out a white marble, whereon was a cross, with characters graved round about it, which declared, "That God was born of the Virgin Mary; that this God was eternal; that the same God taught his law to his twelve apostles; and that one of them came to Meliapor with a palmer's staff in his hand; that he built a church there; that the kings of Malabar, Coromandel, and Pandi, with many other nations, submitted themselves to the law preached by St Thomas, a man holy and penitent."
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