Though some of them exemplified Christian virtues that might well have impressed the natives, the greater number relied on the puissant support of the Toledo sword.

Though the natives, as heathen born in invincible ignorance, were exempt from the jurisdiction of the inquisitor, they were driven by terror if not by fire, into embracing the religion of their conquerors.
If some steadfast chiefs told the missionaries that they would rather go to hell after death than live for ever with the cruel Christians, the tribes as a whole, seeing their dreaded idols overthrown and their temples uprooted, embraced the religion of the stronger God, as they quailed before his {408} votaries.

Little could they understand of the mysteries of the faith, and in some places long continued to worship Christ and Mary with the ritual and attributes of older deities.

But nominally a million of them were converted by 1532, and when the Jesuits arrived a still more successful effort was made to win over the red man.
The important mission in Brazil, served by brave and devoted brothers of Ignatius, achieved remarkable results, whereas in Paraguay the Jesuits founded a state completely under their own tutelage.
In the Far East the path of the missionary was broken by the trader.

At Goa the first ambassadors of Christ were friars, and here they erected a cathedral, a convent, and schools for training native priests.