CHAPTER XXVII.

FRANCIS XAVIER, MISSIONARY TO THE INDIES (1506-52).

No man, since the days of the Apostles, has been more commended for his zeal than Xavier. He has been the moon of that “Society of Jesus” of which Ignatius Loyola was the guiding sun. His privations, heroism, and success have been the constant theme of the Roman Catholic Church. And it is impossible to study his life without a conviction that there was in it a devout and gallant purpose to bless the world.

Our limits and our line of thought alike demand of us that we shall not attempt, in any exhaustive form, to treat of Francis Xavier from the theologic or controversial side. He interests us, apart from his personal character, simply because two Latin hymns have been accredited to his pen. These have the same opening line,

“_O Deus ego amo Te_,”

but, after this exordium, they proceed quite differently. The second of them, as we find it placed in Daniel’s collection, has received the greatest share of esteem, and is known to the entire world of English-speaking Christians by the admirable translation of Mr. Caswall:

“My God, I love thee, not because I seek for heaven thereby,” etc.

There is good reason to discredit its authorship, if this be a question of accuracy with us. Schlosser’s language (Vol. i., p. 407) would indicate that he regarded it as “generally conceded” to be the “love-sigh [_Liebesseufzer_] of the holy Francis Xavier.” But no proof has yet been offered which positively identifies this hymn with its reputed composer. Its spirit—and that of its companion lyric—is precisely his own. But so, it may be added, is the spirit of that touching poem,

“I am old and blind— Men point to me as stricken by God’s frown,”

the same as that of John Milton, its once reputed author. No true student of Milton’s times or of Milton’s language was ever deceived by it; and the innocent and amiable Quaker lady of our own century, who wrote it, was perfectly guileless in this impersonation of his grief. But, nevertheless, it passed current for a long time on the strength of some one’s literary sagacity.

This species of argument is a very common inheritance to the editors of Latin hymns, from Thomasius and Clichtove downward. But it is quite as unsafe as to assign

“I am dying, Egypt, dying,”

to the actual Mark Antony when we know it to have been written by William Henry Lytle, an American, born in 1829 and dying in 1863. Therefore, it is scarcely proper authoritatively to accredit these hymns to Xavier, or, indeed, to any other poet. The utmost that we can say for them is that no one can prove the converse of the proposition, and that their style and form are appropriate to the period at which he lived. He is not known to have written other verses. These may have been the only exudations of that bruised and wounded spirit which have hardened into amber and thus have become precious to us. And we would prefer to believe that he truly appears in these lines in such an exquisite mystic apotheosis rather than to intermeddle with lower questions, and so, perhaps, prevent any discussion of himself in these pages at all.

We have been prohibited by much the same destructive analysis from treating of Augustine, who never wrote a hymn, and to whom the _Ad perennis vitae fontem_ has been wrongly ascribed, for we know it now to be the undoubted composition of St. Peter Damiani. In this and in other similar cases where there is any literary question concerned, it may be worth our while to investigate with great carefulness. As a rule, however, the internal evidence offered in the hymns themselves will set us on the true path. They range in structure from the lowest _corundum_ up to the choicest diamond, and are as various as any gems in their prosodic form and spiritual color. Like these gems, also, they are notable for varieties of crystallization—the Dark Ages showing imperfect angles and crude attempts, and the Renaissance exhibiting again the old sharp-cut classicism of a time anterior even to Hilary and Ambrose.

From the higher critical standpoint, then, these hymns are not unacceptable as Xavier’s own work. They _feel_ as if they belonged to his age and to his life. They are transfused and shot through by a personal sense of absorption into the divine love, which has fused and crystallized them in its fiercest heat. It is proper to inquire, moreover, if Xavier did _not_ write them, who _did_? Their author must have been as much superior to his own circumstances and surroundings as Xavier was to his; and he must also have been as much possessed by this same holy zeal. It is absolutely incredible that, with these qualities given, he should not have been known to us in other relations, and, sooner or later, identified as the true source of their being. The sixteenth century was a time when literary knowledge was closer and keener than it had been in the twelfth, and a hymn of that period could not be attributed to Heloise without exposing its own fallacy; for in the _Requiescat a labore_ we have such a comparatively modern lyric, which Daniel rightly tests and finds wanting. “It seems to me,” he says, “that this song is the production of a later age.” And he might well say it, for its crystallization, so to speak, is too accurate, too many-sided, for it to belong in the twelfth century and to the sad Abbess of the Paraclete.

One cannot, however, declare this so positively of Xavier’s two hymns. In style and composition the first is inferior to the second; but both have a simplicity and directness of utterance which may easily secure that pardon which their rhythm is faulty enough to require. If one were to assign any special date to them, it would naturally be in the neighborhood of that pathetic little petition which comes from the prayer-book of Mary Queen of Scots. The _Domine Deus, speravi in Te_ is pitched in the same key with these. And as Mary lived from 1542 to 1587, and Xavier from 1506 to 1552, there is certainly room for these two compositions to have been prepared by another hand, in the days of enthusiasm over his triumphant successes and of sorrow over his early death.

With these arguments for and against the authenticity of the hymns, we must rest content. Bartoli and Maffei, in their Life of Xavier, are silent upon the subject; and the careful Königsfeld enters the better hymn in his collection as anonymous. If we retain the reputed authorship ourselves, it must be, therefore, rather as Christians than as scholars.

But, having done so, we are entitled to speak of Francis Xavier, and of his life and his work. The date of his birth is apparently fixed by a manuscript note in Spanish in a family record possessed by the Xaviers, which places it upon April 7th, 1506. His father was Don John Giasso, a man of legal acquirements and of good social position. He was at one time auditor of the royal council under King John III. For a wife he chose Donna Maria d’Azpilqueta y Xavier, and the child Francis was born at the castle of Xavier, a few miles distant from Pampeluna in Navarre, on the southern slope of the Pyrenees. He was the youngest of a large family, and the castle where he saw the light gave to him the patronymic by which he is always known. The family were originally called Asuarez, but altered their name to Xavier when King Theobald gave them this property. The mother’s title was thus perpetuated in one of her sons, but there seems to be some confusion still remaining, for a brother of the missionary was Captain John Azpilqueta, who also apparently had exchanged his father’s name of Giasso for one of the designations borne by his mother.

The biographies of Francis Xavier are naturally of a kind to excite the critical instincts of a scholar. They are, from the original life by Torsellini, to the latest Jesuit compilation, remarkable for their enthusiasm and unlimited credulity. It is only in such calmer treatises as those of Nicolini, Stephen, Venn, and others, that we get the more just conception of his character. But to be entirely fair to him we should take him from the picture painted by his co-religionists, refusing only those things which are manifestly incongruous or absurd. The work of Bartoli and Maffei may, for example, be regarded as entirely safe in its general statements.

From the portraits left to us and preserved in the pages of Nicolini and Mrs. Jameson, we derive a vivid impression of the man’s personal intensity. His eyes are deep and thoughtful; his nose strong, rather blunt, and withal sagacious; and his face is that of a mystic. He is usually represented as gazing upward in religious rapture and his lips are parted. His features are more rugged and forcible than refined. They indicate a rude strength of body and of will rather than a delicate and sensitive nature. Should we have met him personally, he would have given us the impression of an enthusiast, deeply affectionate and profoundly loyal to anything like a military organization. These opinions would have been approved by the fact.

We read that his parents desired to educate him as a cavalier, and that he was at first instructed at home in the usual topics. But as he showed zeal and intelligence he was sent, in his eighteenth year, to the College of Ste. Barbe at Paris. Here he completed the study of philosophy, received the degree of Master, and began to give instruction to others. His most intimate friend was Peter Faber, afterward to become one of the earliest adherents of Ignatius Loyola. And the biographers are unwearied in their eulogy of Xavier’s and Faber’s purity of life and morals in the midst of the great temptations of a corrupt city.

To these two young men, ardent of mind and eager in their ambition, now enters the influence which shapes their destiny. Faber was a Savoyard, poor and of humble birth, while Xavier was well-to-do and possessed the haughty spirit of a Spanish grandee. They were, however, kindling each other up to some scheme of future glory when Ignatius Loyola made his way to Paris. He had been converted a few years before this and had already begun to gather proselytes to his opinions. His purpose in visiting Paris was not merely to avail himself of better facilities for study, but also to secure more followers. It is not strange to us that Loyola, with his great sagacity, should have singled out the two companions and have set himself to win them. Faber’s allegiance, indeed, it was an easy matter to obtain. But Xavier did not so readily fall in with the wishes of the great general of the Jesuits.

Faber’s conversion was rapidly accomplished. He was supplied with the _Spiritual Exercises_, which is, of all books, the best adapted to produce the proper self-abandonment and plastic condition of soul which befit the neophyte of the Society of Jesus. And this work, composed, say the Roman Catholic authorities, in the cavern of Manresa with the help of the Virgin Mary, may be regarded as the keenest instrument by which men’s lives were ever carved into the patterns designed by a superior will. We have no space for a discussion of Jesuitism further than to indicate its methods when they affect the subject before us, but Faber’s behavior undoubtedly had its weight upon Xavier. The Savoyard took to fasting with a perfect fury. In his debilitated condition he was the fit vehicle for spiritual impressions, for ecstasies, and for mystical dreams. He would kneel in the open court in the snow, and sometimes allow himself to be covered with icicles. His bundle of fuel he made into a bed and slept upon it for the few hours of what one biography “scarcely knows whether to call torture or repose.” In fact, he so outran the instruction of Loyola, that that keen observer checked him and prevented what would have reacted against his own designs. “For,” saith quaint Matthew Henry, speaking of another subject, “there is a great deal of doing which, by overdoing, is altogether undone.”

Xavier was, however, more important to Loyola than Faber. And Xavier was of tougher material and harder to reach. Upon him the intense Loyola bent the blow-pipe flame of his own spirit. He had failed to touch him by texts or by austerities. He therefore changed his tactics altogether and began to soften him by praise, by judicious cultivation of his sympathies, by procuring new scholars for him, and even by attending his lectures and feigning a deep interest in whatever he did. In short, he applied flattery and deference in such a way that he insinuated himself very soon into the confidence of Xavier, and allowed the haughty Don to recognize the high birth and good breeding which he could also claim. This was a master stroke. Faber was after all only a Savoyard; but Loyola was born in a castle, had been a page at the court of Ferdinand, and had led soldiers into the deadliest places of battle. He had also the advantage of being Xavier’s senior by fully fourteen years, for his birth had been contemporaneous with Columbus’s expedition in search of the new world.

Here, then, the influence of this strong, undaunted, unflinching spirit began to focus itself upon the young teacher of philosophy. “Resistance to praise,” says the bitter La Rochefoucauld, “is a desire to be praised twice.” And to so acute a student of human nature as Loyola it soon grew evident that he was making progress. This was proved even by the modesty of Xavier. Therefore he redoubled his energies and utilized that marvellous power of adaptation, which was his chief legacy to his order, in obtaining a definite result. He gained ground so fast that Michael Navarro, a faithful servant of the young scholar, became determined to break off this dangerous fascination, and even attempted to kill Loyola in his private apartments. But he, too, was dealing with a brain which never relaxed its vigilance and with a magnetic personality which felt a danger, and moved safely, cat-like, through the dark. He was halted and challenged by the man he came to kill, and being crushed down in confusion was thereupon treated with magnanimity, and went away revolving many things in his mind.

This was the power of Loyola—a power which sprang, first of all, from his peculiar constitution, and, second, from his fanatical ambition. It has been the key by which the Jesuit has ever since unlocked the doors of palaces and contrived to whisper in the ears of kings. Its extent has been that of the civilized and uncivilized world. In the matter of organization no human fraternity has ever equalled the Society of Jesus. The germs which we behold at Ste. Barbe in Paris have grown into a tree whose roots have taken hold on every soil, and whose fruit has dropped in every clime. The order has invariably employed strategy, intrigue, ingenuity, and perfect combination to secure its ends. It is, as a system, far from being either dead or insignificant. And its real vitality has always sprung from its maxim that its associated members, vowed to celibacy and to the accomplishment of its purposes, should be _Perinde ac si cadavera_—absolutely subordinate and dead to any other will—in the hands of the “general” who is at the head of its affairs. It has worked, first for itself, second for the Roman Catholic Church, and third for the proselytizing of the heathen and the heretics. It has never neglected to procure in every manner the information it needed to the full extent or to employ its principle that the end to be gained justifies the means that are taken to gain it. Thus it is the legitimate outgrowth of the soldier-courtier-fanatic mind of its founder. And this was the mind which was now spending its splendid resources upon Xavier, playing with him like a trout upon the hook, until it should land him, a completely surrendered man, within its own control.

In another sphere and under other influences, Xavier might have been a far different person. He, at least, was sincere in his devotion to the cause. He identified Jesuitism with Christianity and Loyola with Jesus Himself. Hence his character and labors have blinded many persons to the methods which he used and to the results which he sought.

It must be sufficient for us that Ignatius Loyola had now gotten the mastery of Francis Xavier so perfectly that he could be “applied to the _Spiritual Exercises_, the furnace in which he [Loyola] was accustomed to refine and purify his chosen vessels.” A sister of the future missionary had become one of the Barefooted Clares, and had aided in dissuading her father from interference. And now we behold Xavier praying with hands and feet tightly bound by cords; or journeying with similar cords about his arms and the calves of his legs until inflammation and ulceration ensued. There were now nine of these converts, but this man outdid the others in his austerities, and finally travelled on foot with them to meet Loyola at Venice in 1537. The society had really been formed on August 15th, 1534, at Montmartre near Paris, and this was but its natural outward movement.

At Venice, on January 8th, 1537, they again met their leader and were assigned for duty to the two hospitals of the city. That of the “Incurables” fell to Xavier’s share, and we read that with the morbid devotion characteristic of a devout student of the _Exercises_, he determined now to conquer his natural repugnance to disease. In the course of his duties he had an unusually hideous ulcer to dress for one of the patients. And the authentic history relates that “encouraging himself to the utmost, he stooped down, kissed the pestilent cancer, licked it several times with his tongue, and finally sucked out the virulent matter to the last drop.” (Bartoli and Maffei, p. 35.) There could be nothing worse than that certainly. And a man who had resolutely sounded this deepest abyss of self-abandonment was marked for the highest honor that the new society could bestow. We cannot doubt Xavier’s sincerity, but the gigantic horror of this performance is of a sort to place the man who has achieved it upon an eminence apart from less daring minds. It was Loyola’s way of facing human nature and forcing it to concede the supreme self-devotion of his followers. The world looks with amazement upon such actions, but when it sees them, it yields a kind of stupefied allegiance to those who have thus rushed beyond the bounds. And to a close analysis there is as much concealed spiritual pride about this nastiness as there is an unnecessary shock given to the sense of decency. Thus, as Mozoomdar says, in his _Oriental Christ_, “Instead of abasing self, in many cases it serves the opposite end.” It “imposes a sort of indebtedness upon Heaven” (p. 66). Yet the poor wretch who felt those lips upon his awful wound could not but worship the frightful hero who plunged into such nauseous contact with his loathsomeness.

Yes, this was and is the power of it all. It was and it is the key-note of much that is potent with the world. When Victor Hugo pictures Jean Valjean in the toils of the Thenardiers laying that white, hot, hissing bar of iron upon his arm and calmly standing before them while they shrink—ogres as they are—from the stench and the sight, he merely uses this same element. Whatever, in short, among us brings out the old savage nature; whatever plunges outside of the conventionalities, the proprieties, or even the common decencies of life; whatever defies the lightning, or dares the volcano, or tramples upon the coiled serpent, that is the thing which controls the world.

It is worthy of note that this is not a Christian but a Jesuit act. It is born of that exaggerated sentimentalism which chooses to go beyond Christ and His apostles in its fallacious abnegation of self. But wherever such acts are performed they rank as the marks of saintship and as the _stigmata_ of a crucifixion which proudly places itself on the same Golgotha with another and nobler cross. The records, not merely of Xavier’s life, but of the lives of the saints, swarm with these creeping, slimy frogs of Egypt, raised up by enchanters of the human mind to make Pharaoh believe them to be equal to a far higher Providence. And if we say little in these pages about such strange developments and morbid growths of piety, it need not be forgotten that they existed, and that they have been fostered and encouraged by the Roman Church. The Breviary, for instance, commends a roll of self-flagellators who used the whip upon their naked backs, and Xavier heads the list with his iron flail. Cardinal Damiani, who wrote one of our loveliest hymns, introduced this fashion of scourging in 1056, and the holy nun, St. Theresa, after such exercises and an additional repose upon a bed of thorns, was “accustomed to converse with God.” [_Aliquando inter spinas volutaret sic Deum alloqui solita._] This topic, with its allied suggestions, is altogether out of our present scope; but in order to see Xavier as he was, we must appreciate to what extent his spirit was subdued before his belief.

This was the man, tested and edged and tempered, to whom was now committed the “salvation of the Indies.” It was during the papacy of Paul III., the same Pope who excommunicated Henry VIII. of England. And Xavier, who had practised many austerities both in life and in behavior, was at first sent to Bologna, while Loyola, with Faber and Laynez, went to Rome. It was subsequently at Rome that Xavier had his famous vision, in which he awoke crying, “Yet more, O Lord, yet more!” for he fancied that—as the Apostle Paul once did—he had beheld his future career and was glorying in trials and persecutions. Especially did he often have a dream in which he seemed to be carrying an Indian on his shoulders and toiling with him over the roughest and hardest roads. And when at last Govea, the Rector of the College of Ste. Barbe, happened to be in Rome, Ignatius and his companions were brought by him to the notice of John III. of Portugal, and the king desired to have six of them for use in India. The Pope did not show any special desire to secure their services, and when the question came up he referred it to Ignatius to decide it as he pleased. That sagacious general objected to taking six from ten and leaving only four to the rest of the world, for his ambition now extended to the orb of the earth. He accordingly chose Rodriguez and Bobadilla for India, men who were evidently well selected, for the first became a great propagandist in Portugal, and the other was a decided obstacle to the Reformation in Germany. When Rodriguez, however, fell ill with an intermittent fever Xavier naturally occurred to Loyola as the proper substitute. He therefore commissioned him for the service, and the worn and wasted ascetic patched up his old coat, said farewell to his friends, and having craved the Pope’s blessing, set off from Rome with the Portuguese Ambassador, Mascarenhas, on March 16th, 1540. He started in such poverty that Loyola took his own waistcoat and put it upon him, and he left behind him a written paper of consecration to the society, expressing in it his desire that Loyola should be its head, with Faber as alternate, and in which he took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the order under whose auspices he was going forth.

At the Portuguese Court in Lisbon, both Xavier and his companion were diligent in their religious work. The morals of the capital were quite reformed, and when it came time for the ships to sail to the East the king would only spare Xavier and detained Rodriguez, by the advice of Loyola, further to improve the affairs at home.

Xavier now sailed as Nuncio with papal commendation and with a poverty of outfit which had its due effect upon his companions on board the ship. The vessel itself was one of those great galleons of Spanish or Portuguese origin, carrying often a thousand persons, and having from four to seven decks. They were huge, unwieldy constructions and were generally freighted with large amounts of rich merchandise. The course was that pursued by Vasco da Gama—around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean—and the voyage often lasted beyond eight months. It is quaintly related of travellers by these precarious sea-paths that they used to take their shrouds and winding-sheets with them in case they died by the way.

The company on shipboard was as bad as the provisions, which were often execrable. The peninsular sailors never had the art either of discipline or of storing a ship and supplying what was needful for a voyage, as the English sea-kings had it. Hence their vessels were great floating caravansaries of human beings, full of the scum and offscouring of society—with lords and ladies on the quarter-deck, and robbers and murderers, harlots and gamblers down below. The crew was as prompt as that of Jonah’s ship to cry upon their gods whenever the wind blew. Such inventions as the ship’s pump, the chain-cable, and the bowsprit were not known to them. And when we see Sir Richard Grenville in the little Revenge fighting fifteen great Dons for as many hours, or Sir John Hawkins beating his way out of the harbor of Vera Cruz when the _Jesus_ of Lubec was lost by Spanish treachery, we see how utterly cumbrous and awkward these galleons were when compared with English vessels.

Sickness also, in the form of fevers and scurvy, was very frequent. And there was such laxity of discipline that a six months’ voyage generally turned the great hulk into a hell of misery and riot. Here, therefore, Xavier was in his element. He slept on the deck; he begged his own bread, and the delicacies pressed upon him by the captain he divided among the neediest of the poor sufferers; he invented games to amuse those who were inclined toward amusement; and by degrees he commingled his sympathy and friendly offices with the necessities of the crew and passengers until they called him the “holy father.” He constantly preached, taught, and labored in this manner until he finally succumbed to an epidemic fever which broke out when they were not far from Mozambique. Here he was landed and for a time was in hospital, at length completing his voyage to India in a different ship from that in which he had first embarked.

Scattered through his story, both then and afterward, we have accounts of various miracles, of his exhibition of a spirit of prophecy, and eventually of his raising the dead. These demand a moment’s consideration. He is said, for instance, to have predicted the loss of the _San Jago_, in which he sailed from Portugal and which was wrecked after he left her. He did the same with one or two other vessels and assured several persons of their own impending death or misfortune. Sometimes he was observed to speak as though he were holding conversation with unseen companions, and he was apparently conscious of events which were afterward found to have occurred at the very time in distant places. There is also a series of phenomena connected with the “gift of tongues” in his case, by which this power appears to have been intermittent, or at least dependent to a great degree upon a remarkable intensity of scholarship and keenness of analysis combined with a powerful memory. It is not claimed that he exercised this gift in such a manner as “to converse in a foreign tongue the moment he landed in this foreign country.” And then there is a further class of remarkable experiences connected with fevers and diseases and the raising of the dead.

Of these latter miracles it may be well to treat first. He is said to have raised up Anthony Miranda, an Indian, who had been bitten by a cobra; to have restored four dead persons at Travancore; to have resuscitated a young girl in Japan and a child in Malacca, and to have actually brought to the ship, alive and well, a lad who had fallen overboard and been apparently lost. These incidents are related with great gravity by the biographers and are accepted by the faithful as being strictly true. To impugn them is as if one impugned the Scriptures. Nevertheless there is an opening for scepticism in sundry cases, and it may be that we shall do well to agree with the saint’s own statement made to Doctor Diego Borba. “Ah, my Jesus!” he answered, “can it be said that such a wretch as I have been able to raise the dead? Surely, my dear Diego, you have not believed such folly? They brought a young man to me whom they supposed to be dead; I commanded him to arise, and the common people, who make a miracle of everything, gave out the report that a dead man had been raised to life.” For the rest, we may well believe that the same exaggeration and lack of scientific attention to details have accompanied the various accounts, in some such manner as appears in the little sketch of his personal characteristics which a young Coquimban named Vaz has given to us. This enthusiastic admirer describes his going afoot with a patched and faded garment and an old black cloth hat. He took nothing from the rich or great unless he applied it to the uses of the poor. He spoke languages fluently without having learned them, and the crowds which flocked to hear him often amounted to five or six thousand persons. He celebrated Mass in the open air and preached from the branches of a tree when he had no other pulpit. But of this healing of the sick and raising of the dead we are not offered any better testimonials than the “Acts of his Canonization.” Moreover, in a manner quite contrary to the experiences recorded in the Gospels, these various miracles seem to be looked upon as the decisive stroke of Christian policy. Upon their occurrence tribes and kingdoms bow before the truth—a thing which did not happen at the tomb of Lazarus, or before the walls of Nain, or within the house of Jairus. In those cases the evangelists are content to tell us that the influence was limited and confined to a very moderate area.

Yet when we come to the cures of sick people, to the singular predictions, and to the exalted condition into which Xavier must often have been lifted, we must allow to the man a very high degree of mystical and mesmeric and even clairvoyant power. We are wise enough nowadays to observe the influence of a devoted personality, as when Florence Nightingale traverses the hospital wards at Scutari, or David Livingstone moves through savage tribes, to his dying hour at Lake Lincoln. And when profound Church historians will not altogether discredit the miracles of the Nicene Age which Ambrose and Augustine relate, it causes us to be charitable even toward the miracles of Bernard of Clairvaux, who recorded at large his own sense of uneasiness respecting his power of curing the sick. But it somewhat relieves the mind when the very chapters which relate these experiences of St. Francis Xavier, mention also that a crab came out of the sea and brought him his lost crucifix, and that after he had lived in a certain house two children and a woman fell out of the window at different times and received not so much as a single bruise, though they dropped from an immense height upon the sea-wall. The credulity which includes such palpable absurdities must surely have exposed itself to misstatements and exaggerations in other directions.

It is far pleasanter for us to follow Xavier from his arrival at Goa, May 6th, 1542, to the fisheries of Cape Comorin; thence to Malacca, and so to the Banda Islands, Amboyna, and the Moluccas in 1546; again to Malacca in 1547; to Ceylon and back to Goa in 1548, and finally to Japan. In 1551 he planned a visit to China, but was disappointed, and at the moment when he was hoping to accomplish a great purpose he died on the island of San Chan, December 22d, 1552, at the early age of forty-six years.

Closely studying himself and his methods we find him greatly and always devout, his breviary, however, being his Bible. He prayed much and labored incessantly. His charity to small and great was untiring. He would go through the streets ringing a little bell and calling people to come to religious worship, being frequently attended by a throng of children who seem to have loved him and been beloved by him. He had noble and sweet and modest traits in his character. But we often notice the reliance he places on baptism—sometimes conferring this rite until his arm dropped from weariness. And we observe how much of the wisdom of the serpent can be discerned in his ways with the people whom he desired to secure.

The indefatigable exertions of Xavier are above all praise. He never appears to have slackened in his zeal, nor does he ever show hesitation, doubt, or uncertainty of any kind. On one occasion when roused by a great crisis he displayed a military authority worthy of Loyola himself. He stood once in front of an invading host of Badages and forbade them to attack the Paravans, shouting to them, “In the name of the living God I command you to return whence you came.” No wonder that the semi-barbarous people were affected by this fearless and singular presence, and spoke of Xavier as a person of gigantic stature dressed in black and whose flashing eyes dazzled and daunted them.

But upon other occasions he was gentle and amenable to every agreeable trait in his companions. He could even take the cards from a broken gamester, shuffle them to give him good fortune, and send him back to try his luck with fifty reals borrowed from another passenger. The man’s success is thereupon made a basis for his penitence. And so with the wicked cavalier of Meliapore, whose friendship he gained by being unconscious of his vices until the time for exhortation arrived. In these and similar instances we cannot fail to observe a thorough knowledge of human nature, and a Jesuit’s keen power of using it for his own purposes.

He was not always prospered in his enterprises. Once at least he literally shook off the dust from his shoes against an offending tribe. At another time he was wounded by an arrow. But, as a rule, he had a complete moral victory in whatever he undertook. In one of his letters he speaks of the people being maliciously disposed and ready to poison both food and drink. But he will take no antidotes with him, and is determined to avoid all human remedies whatsoever. It is in such superb examples of his absolute trust in God that he presents to us the really grand side of his character. He did not know what fear was, and as for death, he was too familiar with daily dying to be concerned at it. His personal faith was such as to beget faith in others, as when an earthquake interrupted his preaching upon St. Michael’s Day, and he announced that the archangel was then driving the devils of that unhappy country back to the pit. This was said so earnestly as to produce a profound conviction of its truth and to remove all alarm from his audience.

But when we are asked to believe that the two Pereiras ever beheld him elevated from the earth and actually transfigured, or when it is stated that he lifted a great beam as though it had been a lath, we must be excused for being doubtful of the statement. There is nothing more destructive of religion than superstition, and nothing which kills faith like credulity. Xavier, with all his false notions, was a most sincere and even majestic figure—a hero of the faith, who shows us the power of a thoroughly devoted spirit unencumbered by any earthly tie and unobstructed by any earthly want. The entire self-immolation of this career constitutes its amazing power. It is the missionary spirit carried to its loftiest height.

Perhaps one of his most ingenious ways to secure the good-will of his companions was by endeavoring to excite their benevolence. He would encourage them to little acts of kindness and would repay these by similar favors and services. Particularly he used persuasion rather than denunciation, and personal efforts rather than general harangues. He was “all things to all men,” going “privately to those of reputation,” as Paul, his great model, was wont to do. He once wrote: “It is better to do a little with peace than a great deal with turbulence and scandal.”

On April 14th, 1552, he set sail from Goa for Malacca where a pestilence was raging. This delayed him awhile from China, and he was held back still longer by the envious quarrellings of those who aspired to the honor of attending him on his voyage. Xavier was reduced to the necessity of producing the papal authority which constituted him Nuncio, and of threatening with excommunication Don Alvaro Ataïde, the most troublesome person. In addition to this difficulty he found himself insulted and reviled in the open street, but accepted everything with meekness and patience; which, however, did not prevent his finally excommunicating Ataïde in the regular form. The vessel on which he embarked was manned mostly by those in the pay of Ataïde, but he did not shrink from the voyage. The voyage itself is decorated with many legends, as might be expected. The saint is reported to have changed salt water into fresh; to have rescued a child from death in a miraculous manner, and to have become suddenly so much taller and larger than those about him as to have been compelled to lower his arms when he baptized the converts. They sailed from Chinchoo to San Chan, an island in which the Portuguese had some trading privileges. It was here that Xavier uttered a prediction which may serve to explain other singular occurrences. He would seem to have possessed more than an ordinary amount of medical skill in diagnosis, and looking earnestly upon an old friend named Vellio, he bade him prepare for death whenever the wine he drank _tasted bitter_. This might easily be from either of two causes—poison, or a disorganized state of the system. And it is recorded that the result fulfilled the prophecy. Nor is there much doubt that Vellio’s entire faith in the prediction helped on his death.

From San Chan Xavier now proposed to cross to China. He arranged to be smuggled thither in a small boat, but the residents of San Chan, English as well as Portuguese, became alarmed at the consequences which they foresaw from this desperate scheme of intrusion into the forbidden empire. And to crown all his woes he fell sick with a fever, from which, however, he convalesced in a fortnight. He was now more anxious than ever to go on with his project. But all the Portuguese ships had sailed back again except the Santa Cruz, on which he had arrived. And now he was truly deserted and neglected. He had scarcely the bare necessaries of life, sometimes being deprived entirely of food. The sailors were mostly in Ataïde’s pay and inimical to his purpose. At length he became convinced that he would himself soon die, and so would often walk in meditation and prayer by the seashore gazing toward the prohibited coast.

At this time the young Chinese Anthony was his only hope as an interpreter; and he was now deprived of the services of the merchant and his son who had agreed to row him over to Canton. They had deserted him, and only Anthony and one more young lad remained true to the dying missionary. On November 20th the fever again seized him after he had celebrated Mass. He was taken to a floating hospital, but being disturbed by its motion he begged to be landed. This was done and he was left upon the beach in the bleak wind. A poor Portuguese named George Alvarez then took pity on him and removed him to his own hut of boughs and straw. Rude medical care was given him, but on December 2d, about two o’clock in the afternoon, he had reached the limit of his life. His latest words were, _In te, Domine, speravi—non confundar in aeternum_—O Lord, I have trusted in Thee, I shall never be confounded, world without end.

Thus died Francis Xavier, for ten years and seven months a missionary in the most dangerous and deadly regions of the earth. At the date of his death he was of full and robust figure in spite of his privations, with eyes of a bluish-gray, and hair that had changed its dark chestnut color somewhat through his toils and sufferings. His forehead was broad, his nose good, and his expression pleasant and affable. His beard, like his hair, was thick, and his temperament was nearly a pure sanguine.

They buried him first at San Chan, then removed him to Goa, where in solemn procession they conducted his mortal body to its final rest. But his right arm was taken off and it is to be observed that “the saint seems not to have been pleased at the amputation of his arm,” which, however, did not prevent the Jesuit, General Claude Acquaviva, from insisting upon the mutilation.

Down to the present time his memory has received many honors. Churches have been erected, prayers have been offered, and much religious worship has been transacted in his name. But to us who are looking upon him from another angle altogether, there are apparent in him a piety, a zeal, a courage, and a “hot-hearted prudence” (to quote F. W. Faber’s words) which arouse our admiration. And in the two hymns which bear his name we are able to discover that fine attar which is the precious residuum of many crushed and fragrant aspirations, which grew above the thorns of sharp trial and were strewn at last upon the wind-swept beach of that poor Pisgah island from which he truly beheld the distant Land.

O DEUS, EGO AMO TE.

O Lord, I love thee, for of old Thy love hath reached to me. Lo, I would lay my freedom by And freely follow thee!

Let memory never have a thought Thy glory cannot claim, Nor let the mind be wise at all Unless she seek thy name.

For nothing further do I wish Except as thou dost will; What things thy gift allows as mine My gift shall give thee still.

Receive what I have had from thee And guide me in thy way, And govern as thou knowest best, Who lovest me each day.

Give unto me thy love alone, That I may love thee too, For other things are dreams; but this Embraceth all things true.