In 1545 he went to Cochin-China, thence to the Moluccas and to Japan, preaching in every place and baptizing by the thousand and ten thousand.
Though Xavier was a man of brilliant endowments and though he was passionately devoted to the cause, to neither of his good qualities did he owe the successes, whether solid or specious, with which he has been credited.

In the first place, judged by the standards of modern missions, the superficiality of his work was {409} almost inconceivable.
He never mastered one of the languages of the countries which he visited.
He learned by rote a few sentences, generally the creed and some phrases on the horrors of hell, and repeated them to the crowds attracted to him by the sound of a bell.

He addressed himself to masses rather than to individuals and he regarded the culmination of his work as being merely the administration of baptism and not the conversion of heart or understanding.

Thus, he spent hours in baptizing, with all possible speed, sick and dying children, believing that he was thus rescuing their souls from limbo.

Probably many of his adult converts never understood the meaning of the application of water and oil, salt and spittle, that make up the ritual of Catholic baptism.
[Sidenote: Use of force] In the second place, what permanent success he achieved was due largely to the invocation of the aid of the civil power.