The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16

by John Dryden

By this means he restored those Christians to the faith, who had before forsaken it; and brought into it those idolaters who had refused to embrace it when it was preached to them by Simon Vaz and Francis Alvarez. There was neither town nor village which the Father did not visit, and where those new converts did not set up crosses and build churches. Tolo, the chief town of the island, inhabited by twenty-five thousand souls, was entirely converted, together with Momoya.

Thus the Isle del Moro was now to the holy apostle the island of Divine Hope,[1] as he desired it thenceforth to be named; both because those things which were there accomplished by God himself, in a miraculous manner, were beyond all human hope and expectation; and also because the fruits of his labours surpassed the hopes which had been conceived of them, when his friends of Ternate would have made him fear that his voyage would prove unprofitable.

To engage these new Christians, who were gross of apprehension, in the practice of a holy life, he threatened them with eternal punishments, and made them sensible of what hell was, by those dreadful objects which they had before their eyes: For sometimes he led them to the brink of those gulphs which shot out of their bowels vast masses of burning stones into the air, with the noise and fury of a cannon; and at the view of those flames, which were mingled with a dusky smoke that obscured the day, he explained to them the nature of those pains, which were prepared in an abyss of fire, not only for idolaters and Mahometans, but also for the true believers, who lived not according to their faith. He even told them, the gaping mouths of those flaming mountains were the breathing places of hell; as appears by these following words, extracted out of one of his letters on that subject, written to his brethren at Rome: "It seems that God himself has been pleased, in some measure, to discover the habitation of the damned to people had otherwise no knowledge of him."

[1]Divina Esperanya.

During their great earthquakes, when no man could be secure in any place, either in his house, or abroad in the open air, he exhorted them to penitence; and declared to them, that those extraordinary accidents were caused, not by the souls of the dead hidden under ground, as they imagined, but by the devils, who were desirous to destroy them, or by the omnipotent hand of God, who adds activity to natural causes, that he may imprint more deeply in their hearts the fear of his justice and his wrath.

One of those wonderful earthquakes happened on the 29th of September; on that day, consecrated to the honour of St Michael, the Christians were assembled in great numbers, and the Father said mass. In the midst of the sacrifice, the earth was so violently shaken, that the people ran in a hurry out of the church. The Father feared lest the altar might be overthrown, yet he forsook it not, and went through with the celebration of the sacred mysteries, thinking, as he said himself, that the blessed archangel, at that very time, was driving the devils of the island down to hell; and that those infernal spirits made all that noise and tumult, out of the indignation which they had to be banished from that place where they had held dominion for so many ages.

The undaunted resolution of Father Xavier amazed the barbarians; and gave them to believe, that a man who remained immovable while the rocks and mountains trembled, had something in him of divine; but that high opinion which most of them had conceived of him, gave him an absolute authority over them; and, with the assistance of God's grace, which operated in their souls while he was working by outward means, he made so total a change in them, that they who formerly, in respect of their manners, were like wolves and tygers, now became tractable and mild, and innocent as lambs.

Notwithstanding this, there were some amongst them who did not divest themselves fully, and at once, of their natural barbarity; either to signify, that divine grace, how powerful soever, does not work all things in a man itself alone, or to try the patience of the saint. The most rebellious to God's spirit were the Javares,—a rugged and inhuman people, who inhabit only in caves, and in the day-time roam about the forests. Not content with not following the instructions of the Father, they laid divers ambushes for him; and one day, while he was explaining the rules of morality to them out of the gospel, by a river side, provoked by the zeal wherewith he condemned their dissolute manners, they cast stones at him with design to kill him. The barbarians were on the one side of him, and the river on the other, which was broad and deep; insomuch, that it was in a manner impossible for Xavier to escape the fury of his enemies: but nothing is impossible to a man whom heaven protects. There was lying on the bank a great beam of wood; the saint pushed it without the least difficulty into the water, and placing himself upon it, was carried in an instant to the other side, where the stones which were thrown could no longer reach him.

For what remains, he endured in this barren and inhospitable country all the miseries imaginable, of hunger, thirst, and nakedness. But the comforts which he received from heaven, infinitely sweetened all his labours; which may be judged by the letter he wrote to Father Ignatius. For, after he had made him a faithful description of the place, "I have," said he, "given you this account of it, that from thence you may conclude, what abundance of celestial consolations I have tasted in it. The dangers to which I am exposed, and the pains I take for the interest of God alone, are the inexhaustible springs of spiritual joys; insomuch, that these islands, bare of all worldly necessaries, are the places in the world, for a man to lose his sight with the excess of weeping; but they are tears of joy. For my own part, I remember not ever to have tasted such interior delights; and these consolations of the soul, are so pure, so exquisite, and so perpetual, that they take from me all sense of my corporeal sufferings."

Xavier continued for three months in the Isle del Moro; after which, he repassed to the Moluccas, with intention from thence to sail to Goa; not only that he might draw out missioners from thence, to take care of the new Christianity which he had planted in all those isles, and which he alone was not sufficient to cultivate, but also to provide for the affairs of the company, which daily multiplied in this new world.