At sea, the ship tackling served him for a bed; on land, a mat, or the earth itself. He eat so little, that one of his companions assures us, that, without a miracle, he could not have lived. Another tells us, that he seldom or never drank wine, unless at the tables of the Portuguese; for there he avoided singularity, and took what was given him. But, afterwards, he revenged himself on one of those repasts, by an abstinence of many days.
When he was at Cape Comorine, the viceroy; Don Alphonso de Sosa, sent him two barrels of excellent wine. He did not once taste of it, though he was then brought very low, through the labours of his ministry, but distributed the whole amongst the poor.
His ordinary nourishment, in the Indies, was rice boiled in water, or some little piece of salt fish; but during the two years and a half of his residence in Japan, he totally abstained from fish, for the better edification of that people; and wrote to the Fathers at Rome, "that he would rather choose to die of hunger, than to give any man the least occasion of scandal." He also says, "I count it for a signal favour, that God has brought me into a country destitute of all the comforts of life, and where, if I were so ill disposed, it would be impossible for me to pamper up my body with delicious fare." He perpetually travelled, by land, on foot, even in Japan, where the ways are asperous, and almost impassible; and often walked, with naked feet, in the greatest severity of winter.
"The hardships of so long a navigation," says he, "so long a sojourning amongst the Gentiles, in a country parched up with excessive heats, all these incommodities being suffered, as they ought to be, for the sake of Christ, are truly an abundant source of consolations: for myself, I am verily persuaded, that they, who love the cross of Jesus Christ, live happy in the midst of sufferings; and that it is a death, when they have no opportunities to suffer. For, can there be a more cruel death, than to live without Jesus Christ, after once we have tasted of him? Is any thing more hard, than to abandon him, that we may satisfy our own inclinations? Believe me, there is no other cross which is to be compared to that. How happy is it, on the other side, to live, in dying daily, and in conquering our passions, to search after, not our proper interests, but the interests of Jesus Christ?"
His interior mortification was the principle of these thoughts, in this holy man; from the first years of his conversion, his study was to gain an absolute conquest on himself; and he continued always to exhort others not to suffer themselves to be hurried away by the fury of their natural desires. He writes thus to the fathers and brethren of Coimbra, from Malacca:—"I have always present, in my thoughts, what I have heard from our holy Father Ignatius, that the true children of the Society of Jesus ought to labour exceedingly in overcoming of themselves.
"If you search our Lord in the spirit of truth," says he to the Jesuits of Goa, "and generously walk in those ways, which conduct you to him, the spiritual delights, which you taste in his service, will sweeten all those bitter agonies, which the conquest of yourselves will cost you. O my God, how grossly stupid is mankind not to comprehend, that, by a faint and cowardly resistance of the assaults of the devil, they deprive themselves of the most pure and sincere delights which life can give them."
By the daily practice of these maxims, Xavier came to be so absolute a master of his passions, that he knew not what it was to have the least motion of choler and impatience; and from thence proceeded partly, that tranquillity of soul, that equality of countenance, that perpetual cheerfulness, which rendered him so easy and so acceptable in all companies.
It is natural for a man, who is extremely mortified, to be chaste; and so was Xavier, to such a degree of perfection, that we have it certified from his ghostly fathers, and, amongst others, from the vicar of Meliapore, that he lived and died a virgin. From his youth upward he had an extreme horror for impurity; notwithstanding, that he was of a sanguine complexion, and naturally loved pleasure. While he was a student at Paris, and dwelt in the college of Sainte Barbe, his tutor in philosophy, who was a man lost in debauches, and who died of a dishonest disease, carried his scholars by night to brothel-houses. The abominable man did all he could towards the debauching of Francis Xavier, who was handsome, and well shaped, but he could never accomplish his wicked purpose; so much was the youth estranged from the uncleanness of all fleshly pleasures.
For what remains, nothing can more clearly make out his love to purity, than what happened to him once at Rome. Simon Rodriguez being fallen sick, Father Ignatius commanded Xavier to take care of him during his distemper. One night, the sick man awaking, saw Xavier, who was asleep at his bed's feet, thrusting out his arms in a dream, with the action of one who violently repels an enemy; he observed him even casting out blood in great abundance, through his nostrils, and at his mouth. Xavier himself awaking, with the labour of that struggling, Rodriguez enquired of him the cause of that extreme agitation, and the gushing of his blood. Xavier would not satisfy him at that time, and gave him no account of it, till he was just upon his departure to the Indies; for then being urged anew by Rodriguez, after he had obliged him to secrecy, "Know," said he, "my brother, master Simon, that God, out of his wonderful mercy, has done me the favour, to preserve me, even till this hour, in entire purity; and that very night I dreamed, that, lodging at an inn, an impudent woman would needs approach me: The motion of my arms was to thrust her from me, and to get rid of her; and the blood, which I threw out, proceeded from my agony."
But whatsoever detestation Xavier had, even for the shadow of a sin, he was always diffident of himself; and withdrew from all conversation of women, if charity obliged him not to take care of their conversion; and even on such occasions, he kept all imaginable measures, never entertaining them with discourse, unless in public places, and in sight of all the world; nor speaking with them of ought, but what was necessary, and then also sparing of his words, and with a grave, modest, and serious countenance. He would say, "That, in general conversation, we could not be too circumspect in our behaviour towards them; and that, however pious the intentions of their confessors were, there still remained more cause of fear to the directors in those entertainments, than of hope, that any good should result from them to the women-penitents."