The Effect He Describes As Most Auspicious; Every Successful Blow Opened Her Eyes More And More To The Truth, And She At Last Declared Herself Wholly Unable To Resist Such Forcible Arguments In Favour Of The Catholic Doctrine.

She, however, hastened to the king, with loud complaints respecting this mode of mental illumination; and the missionaries thenceforth lost all favour with that prince and the ladies of his court, being allowed to remain solely in dread of the Portuguese.

In only one other instance were they allowed to employ this mode of conversion. The smith, in consequence of the skill, strange in the eyes of a rude people, with which he manufactured various arms and implements, was supposed to possess a measure of superhuman power, and he had thus been encouraged to advance pretensions to the character of a divinity, which were very generally admitted. The missionaries appealed to the king, respecting this impious assumption, and that prince conceiving that it interfered with the respect due to himself, agreed to deliver into their hands the unfortunate smith, to be converted into a mortal in any manner they might judge efficacious. After a short and unsuccessful argument, they had recourse to the same potent instrument of conversion, as they had applied to the back of the queen. The son of Vulcan, deserted in this extremity by all his votaries, still made a firm stand for his celestial dignity, till the blood began to stream from his back and shoulders, when he finally yielded, and renounced all pretensions to a divine origin.

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