Storia do Mogor 359.3.7

359.3.7

Gentlemen, to speak the truth, if these reverend fathers had any — I will not say virtue, but the smallest dose of religion and of concern for their eternal salvation, would they ever act contrary to those two great precepts which call on us to love God above all things and our neighbour as ourself? ' Diliges dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo et proximum tuum sicut te ipsum ' (Lev. xix. 18; Rom. xiii. 9; Gal. v. 14; Jas. ii. 8; Matt. xxii. 37, 39 ; Mark xii. 33). No, without a doubt, gentlemen, they would not. Still, as we have already seen what are their maxims, you can judge equally the purity of their intentions. After we knew from Monsieur Chardin and Monsieur Guety that the Reverend Father Esprit of Tours had been declared excommunicated, we had the confirmation thereof the next day from the Reverend Father Esprit himself, who had travelled post to Madras to justify himself in the presence of the Lord Bishop of San Thome in regard to what had been imputed to him, and to hear from the mouth of his Lordship the cause of his excommunication, and why he had attached the notice to the door of the church of the reverend Jesuit fathers, while neither he nor any one of us was told the reason.