THE

LIFE OF ST FRANCIS XAVIER,

BOOK VI.

He sends out missioners to divers places. He endeavours an embassy to China. He appoints Barzaus rector of the college of Goa. The form by which Barzæus was made rector of the college, &c. He himself acknowledges Barzaus for superior. In what manner Barzaus receives the offices of rector and vice-provincial. The new instructions which he gives to Barzaus. He makes choice of his companions for China and Japan. He writes to the king of Portugal concerning his voyage to China. He assembles the fathers of Goa by night, and upon what account. He departs from Goa, and what happens him in the way. Before his arrival at Malacca, he knows the plague is in the town. He employs himself in succouring the sick. He raises a young man to life. The embassy of China is crossed by the governor of Malacca. Xavier endeavours all he can to gain the favour of the governor for the embassy. Endeavours are used in vain to get the governor's consent. The governor flies out into fury against the Father. The Father resolves to excommunicate the governor; and what he does in order to it. The grand vicar excommunicates the governor in the name of Xavier. The saint imputes the overthrow of the embassy to his own sins. In writing to the king of Portugal, he makes no complaint of the governor of Malacca. He takes up the design of going to the isle of Sancian, and from thence into China. He departs from Malacca without seeing the governor; and what he does in going out of the town. He embarks, and what happens afterwards. He changes the saltwater into fresh. He restores to a Mahometan his son, who was fallen into the sea. He appears of an extraordinary height, and

much above his own stature. He reassures the captain of the Santa Cruz, and the mariners. He arrives at the isle of Şancian. What passes betwixt Xavier and Veglio. He foretels to Veglio, that he shall be advertised of the day of his death. The prediction of the saint is accomplished in all its circumstances. Other wonderful illuminations. He raises up a dead man, and drives the tygers out of the island. Endeavours are used in vain, to dissuade him from the voyage of China. He takes his measures for the voyage of China. The Portuguese of Sancian traverse the design of Xavier. He defers his voyage, in consideration of the Portuguese merchants. He writes divers letters to Malacca, and to Goa. He gives orders to Father Francis Perez, and to Father Gaspar Barzæus. He foretels the unhappy death of a merchant. He is reduced to an extreme want of all necessaries. The means fail him for his passage into China. He is still in hope, and the expedient which he finds. He falls sick again, and foreknows the day of his death. The nature of his sickness, and how he was inwardly disposed. He entertains himself with God in the extremity of his sickness. He denounces to a young Indian, the unhappy death which was attending him. The Death of the Saint. His age and person. Of the duties which were paid him immediately after his decease. They inter him without any ceremony. The miraculous crucifix in the chapel of the castle of Xavier, He is disinterred, and his body is found without the least corruption. The body of the saint is put on ship-board, to be transported into India. How the body is received at Malacca. The punishment of the governor of Malacca. The town of Malacca is freed from the pestilence at the arrival of the holy body. In what manner the body of the saint is treated in Malacca. They consider of transporting the holy corpse to Goa. The body is put into a crazed old ship, and what happens to it in the passage. How the body is received at Cochin, and the miracle which is wrought at Baticula. They come from Goa to meet the corpse. How the corpse of the saint is received at Goa. The miracles which are wrought, during the procession. The body is placed in the church of Saint Paul. New miracles are wrought in presence of the body. The informations of the saint's life are gathered in the Indies. The people invoke him, and venerate his images. They build churches in honour of him, in divers parts of the East. The praises which are given him by infidels, and the honour they perform to him. How much he is honoured at Japan. His gift of prayer. love of God. His charity towards his neighbour. His zeal of souls. The various industry of his zeal. The condescendance of his zeal, and how dear the conversion of people costs him. The extent of his zeal. His intrepidity in dangers, and his can

His

fidence in God. His humility. His maxims on humility. His submission to God's good pleasure. His religious obedience. His maxims on obedience, and his love for the Society. His poverty, and his mortification. His purity of soul and body. His devotion to the blessed Virgin. His canonization is solicited, and what is done in order to it, by the king of Bungo. He is had in veneration through all Asia. Miracles are wrought in all places through his intercession. Three remarkable cures. The perpetual miracle of the saint's body. He is beatified, and in sequel canonized. The contents of the bull of his canonization. The veneration of the New miracles are

saint is much increased since his canonization. wrought, and chiefly in Italy. What may be concluded from these testimonies, and from all the Book.

THE affairs of the Society being accommodated in this manner, Xavier thought on nothing more than how to supply the missions of the Indies with good labourers; or rather to increase the number of the missioners, who were not sufficient for the common needs. He therefore sent Melchior Nugnez to Bazain, Gonsalvo Rodriguez to Cochin, John Lopez to Meliapor, and Luys Mendez to the Fishery, where he confirmed Henry Henriquez for superior, whom the missioners of that coast had already chosen instead of Antonio Criminal.

After this, he bent his whole endeavours to procure an embassy to China. The viceroy, Don Alphonso de Norogna, with great willingness, granted to James Pereyra that employment which Xavier had desired for him. He promised even to favour it, in all things depending on him; and gave wherewithal to furnish out presents for the emperor of China. Notwithstanding the most magnificent were made at the charges of the ambassador, he had prepared cloth of gold, ornaments for an altar of brocard, pictures of devotion, in rich frames, made by the best hands of Europe, with copes and other magnificent church-stuff, all proper to represent to the Chinese the majesty of the Christian

religion. The bishop, Don Juan d'Albuquerque, was not less favourable to the designs of the Father than the viceroy; and being willing to write to the emperor of China, thereby to give an honourable testimony to the holy law of God, he ordered his letter to be written in characters of gold, and bordered about with curious painting. Nothing more was wanting than only to make choice of such missioners as were to accompany Xavier to China, and to provide others for Japan; for, besides that the saint himself had his dear Japonians always in his in his memory, the ambassador of the king of Bungo, who was come with him to Goa, requested some evangelical preachers in his master's name. The man of God had enough to do, to content all those, who were desirous of that employment. There were at that time thirty of the Society in the college of Goa. Some of them had been in the Indies from the first years of Xavier's arrival in those ports; others were either new comers, or had been lately admitted; all of them were of approved virtue, and well worthy of that vocation, which they so earnestly desired; but there was none amongst them who sought it with more eagerness, nor who more signally deserved it, than Gaspar Barzæus.

Xavier, before his voyage to Japan, had recalled him from Ormuz, with design of sending him to that country, or else of taking him with himself to China. Yet he altered both those intentions; for, after many serious debates within himself, he thought it most convenient to leave Barzæus at Goa, where, since his return from Ormuz, he had laboured in the ministry with great success; but his principal reason was, the necessity of the college of St Paul, which had not yet shaken off all the ill symptoms of the government of Gomez, and which stood in need of a superior, whose conduct should be regular. On

these considerations, he made him rector of the college of Goa, and also vice-provincial of the Indies, by the authority which he had received from the general of the order. For the saint, at his return from Japan, found two patients waiting for him, which had been expedited from Rome in the year 1549, one bearing date the 10th of October, the other the 2d of December, as the minutes which are kept in the archives of the Society declare. By the first, Ignatius constitutes Father Xavier provincial of the Indies, and of all the kingdoms of the East, of which he made a particular province, distinct from that of Portugal; by the second, he endows him with all the privileges which the popes have granted to the head of the order, and to those members of it to whom the general shall please to impart them. For what remains, see here the form of Barzæus's establishment, which is preserved in the archives of Goa, and written by the hand of Father Xavier.

"Master Gasper, I command you, in virtue of holy obedience, as superior of the company of Jesus in these countries of the Indies, to take the government of this college of Santa Fe, in quality of rector; persuaded, as I am, of your virtue, your humility, your prudence, and of all those qualities which make you proper for the governing of others.

"I will, that all the fathers and Portuguese brothers of the Society of Jesus, who are spread over this new world from the Cape of Good Hope, as far as Malacca, the Moluccas, and Japan, be subject to you. I will, in like manner, that all those who shall come from Portugal, or from any other country of Europe, into the houses of the Society under my obedience, should acknowledge you for their superior; if it happen not, that our Father Ignatius name some other rector of this college of Goa,