Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/67

 RELIGIOUS ZEAL OP THE PORTUGUESE 41 route had brought Nestorian emigrants, and where Christians had long formed a recognized caste. But the zeal of the newcomers could not rest satisfied with their good fortune. They resolved to turn the old " St. Thomas " Christians into Catholics, and the infidels who came under their power they strove, by force or A MONOLITHIC TEMPLE AT MAHABALIPUR IN 80UTHERN INDIA. threats, to convert. The appalling narrative of their cruelty and folly forms part of the general history of Christianity in India, but need not be entered into here. The early intermittent methods of the friars, who arrived with the annual fleets, blossomed into a native church under the apostolic teaching of St. Francis Xavier (1542) and the Society of Jesus. But the saintly fervour of the great Jesuit proved too mild for the Dominican bigots who, in the complaint of the Goa-