_ 171 _ absence and of all the colleges of India. Considering my shortcomings, Your Reverence can imagine the confusion I was in. The yearning that I had to sacrifice myself for the Lord in Japan and the Northern Ocean(A) was intense, but I always found the sacrifice of obedience and one's own will more acceptable to God than any other offering. Father Gonçalo Rodrigues and Brother Alvaro Mendes live in Ormuz in my place. They produce great results through preaching, confessing and other pious works, as will be seen from the copy of the news that was sent from there, where certain places in this land are also mentioned(B). This year, the fort, where our members performed great labours, has been besieged by the Turks, but as you will learn later, the siege is already over. We find many provinces here ripe for the Fathers of the Society to produce fruit in them. However, since we are short of men to whom such an undertaking can be entrusted, we have stopped helping them until the Lord opens up another way. The Lord knows how much I regret (A) The Scythian Sea or the Northern Ocean, little known by the ancients. (B) The letter of Gonçalvo has been lost (cf. doc. 87a). However, excerpts exist in POLANCO, Chron II 749 ff. A fragment found on the spot has been lost, but it seems Cardinal Cervino made use of (cf. EX I 204*).
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