If it were not for the Brahmins, we should have all the heathens embracing our faith. - Francis Xavier

He took along with him a bell, armed with which he ran about the streets ringing it in broad middday, until he succeeded in drawing after him a troop of boys and others, attracted by curiosity, who greeted him with j ears and laughter. When he had thus got together a considerable auditory, placing himself on some large stone, he forth with began his sermon, which was delivered in the language of the country interladed with fragments of Latin, Spanish, Italian and French, to which , he added much gesticulation with both hands and feet. He then finally produced a large cross, which he piously kissed, and required , the crowd to do likewise, presenting each one who complied with a beautiful rosary, thousands of which he had brought from Portugal. This, however, was only the first part of his method. The second was much more effectual and consisted in pulling down, with the assistance of the Portuguese troops, which he called into requisition, the native temples, and breaking in pieces the idols found therein, not, however, without replacing them by Christian chapels with the image of the crucified Jesus, and erecting in the neighbourhood a handsome building constructed of bamboo canes, for the instruction of the young..... far from making them acquainted with the principles of Christianity, he merely contented himself in teaching them to say the Lord’s prayer, along with the creed, and causing them to understand the same, as also to cross the arms with humility." (Pages 89 & 90).

Later on, he mounted the same iconoclastic campaign on the Malabar Coast. According to the same History, “When the whole village was baptised, Xavier would get them to pull down their village temple and break into small pieces the idols it contained.” He did this at a time the Tiruvadi Raja of Quilon had given him 2000 fanams to build churches. The poor fishermen were in no position to resist him because the Portuguese pirates were always at hand to assist the missionary. Xavier took great delight in what he had done in Malabar. On February 8, 1545, he wrote to the Society of Jesus: “Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them.”

The impatient Xavier, still dissatisfied with the result of his labour wrote to the King of Portugal that the only hope of increasing the number of Christians was by the use of the secular power of the State. As a result of this note, the King issued orders that in Goa and other Portuguese settlements, “all idols shall be sought out and destroyed, and severe penalties shall be laid upon all such as shall dare to make an idol or shall shelter or hide a Brahmin”.