Storia do Mogor 366.3.7

366.3.7

This last is the sole cause of our being so basely treated in these regions. All I will say to you, gentlemen, is that the reverend Jesuit fathers mislead the poor populace by saying these things are done to gain more souls to Jesus Christ; whereas we have at Madras ten times more Malabar Christians than those found in Pondicherry. Although they [the Madras Christians] wear talis with two crosses, one on one, the other on the other side; although they are all seated in church indiscriminately, just as in France; although they all communicate at the same table; although we inter their dead like any other Christians: yet we have ten times more Malabar Christians at Madras than the reverend Jesuit fathers have at Pondicherry. We should have had a hundred times more were it not for the reverend Jesuit fathers. Because I say, as in the presence of God, and were I in the last agony of death I should say the same thing, if we have not a greater number of Christians, if we cannot free those we have from some remaining superstitions, it arises from nothing else than their asking us if we are heretics, since the Capuchins teach in one way and the reverend [308] Jesuit fathers in another.