"Stay not till your arrival at Ormuz before you preach. Begin on shipboard, and as soon as you come there. In your sermons, affect not to make a show of much learning, or of a happy memory, by citing many passages of ancient authors; some few are necessary, but let them be chosen and fitted to the purpose. Employ the best part of your sermon, in a lively description of the interior estate of worldly souls. Set before their eyes, in your discourse, and let them see, as in a glass, their own disquiets, their little cunnings, their trifling projects, and their vain hopes. You shall also show them, the unhappy issue of all their designs. You shall discover to them, the snares which are laid for them by the evil spirit, and teach them the means of shunning them. But, moreover, you shall tell them, that if they suffer themselves to be surprised by them, they are to expect the worst that can happen to them; and by this you shall gain their attention; for a man never fails of attentive audience, when the interest of the hearer is the subject of the discourse. Stuff not out your sermons with sublime speculations, knotty questions, and scholastical controversies. Those things which are above the level of men of the world, only make a noise, and signify nothing. It is necessary to represent men to themselves, if you will gain them. But well to express what passes in the bottom of their hearts, you must first understand them well; and in order to that, you must practise their conversation, you must watch them narrowly, and fathom all their depths. Study then those living books; and assure yourself, you shall draw out of them the means of turning sinners on what side you please.
"I do not forbid you, nevertheless, to consult the holy scriptures on requisite occasions, nor the fathers of the church, nor the canons, nor books of piety, nor treatises of morality; they may furnish you with solid proofs for the establishment of Christian truths, with sovereign remedies against temptations, and heroical examples of virtue. But all this will appear too cold, and be to no purpose, if souls be not disposed to profit by them; and they cannot profit but by the ways I have prescribed. So that the duty of a preacher is to sound the bottom of human hearts, to have an exact knowledge of the world, to make a faithful picture of man, and set it in so true a light, that every one may know it for his own.
"Since the king of Portugal has ordered, that you shall be allowed from the treasury what is needful for your subsistence, make use of the favour of so charitable a prince, and receive nothing but from his ministers. If other persons will give you any thing, refuse it, though they should offer it of their own mere motion. For as much, as it is of great consequence to the liberty of an apostolical man, not to owe his subsistence to those whom he ought to conduct in the way of salvation, and whom he is bound to reprove, when they go astray from it; one may truly say of those presents, that he who takes, is taken. And it is for this, that when we are to make a charitable reprehension, to such of whom we receive alms, we know not well how to begin it, or in what words to dress it. Or if our zeal emboldens us to speak freely, our words have less effect upon them, because they treat us with an assuming air of loftiness, as if that which we received from them had made them our masters, and put them in possession of despising us. What I say, relates chiefly to a sort of persons, who are plunged in vice, who would willingly be credited with your friendship, and will endeavour by all good offices to make way to your good will. Their design is not to profit by your conversation, for the amendment of their lives; all they pretend to, is to stop your mouth, and to escape a censure, which they know they have deserved. Be upon your guard against such people: yet I am not of opinion, that you should wholly reject them, or altogether despise their courtesy. If they should invite you to their table, refuse it not; and yet less refuse their presents of small value, such as are usually made in the Indies by the Portuguese to each other, and which one cannot refuse without giving an affront; as, for example, fruits and drinks. At the same time, declare to them, that you only receive those little gifts, in hope they will also receive your good advice; and that you go to eat with them, only that you may dispose them, by a good confession, to approach the holy table. For such presents as I have named, such I mean as are not to be refused, when you have received them, send them to the sick, to the prisoners, or to the poor. The people will be edified with this procedure, and no occasion left of suspecting you, either of niceness or covetousness.
"For what relates to your abode, you will see at your arrival; and having prudently considered the state of things, you may judge where it will be most convenient for you to dwell, either in the hospital, or the house of mercy, or any little lodging, in the neighbourhood. If I think fit to call you to Japan, you shall immediately give notice of it, by writing to the rector of this college by two or three different conveyances, to the end, he may supply your place with one of our fathers, a man capable of assisting and comforting the city of Ormuz. In fine, I recommend you to yourself; and that in particular, you never forget, that you are a member of the Society of Jesus.
"In the conjunctures of affairs, experience will best instruct you what will be most for God's service; for there is no better master than practice, and observation, in matters of prudence. Remember me always in your prayers; and take care, that they who are under your direction, recommend me in theirs to the common Master whom we serve. To conclude this long instruction, the last advice I give you, is to read over this paper carefully once a week, that you may never forget any one of the articles contained in it. May it please the Lord to go along with you, to conduct you in your voyage, and at the same time to continue here with us!"—
Eight days after Gasper Barzæus was gone for Ormus, with his companion Raymond Pereyra, Father Xavier went himself for Japan; it was in April 1549. He embarked in a galley bound no farther than Cochin, where waited for him a ship, which was to go towards Malacca. He took for companions Father Cozmo de Torrez, and John Fernandez, besides the three Japonese, Paul de Sainte Foy, and his two servants, John and Anthony.
It is true, there embarked with him in the same galley, Emanuel Moralez, and Alphonso de Castro; but it was only that the Father might carry them to Malacca, from whence both of them were to be transported to the Moluccas. The ship, which attended the Father at Cochin, being just ready to set sail they made but a short stay in that place, but it was not unprofitable. The saint walking one day through the streets, happened to meet a Portuguese of his acquaintance; and immediately asked him, "how he was in health?" The Portuguese answered, "he was very well." "Yes," replied Xavier, "in relation to your body, but, in regard of your soul, no man can be in a worse condition." This man, who was then designing in his heart a wicked action, knew immediately that the Father saw into the bottom of it; and seriously reflecting on it, followed Xavier, confessed himself, and changed his evil life. The preaching of Castro so charmed the people, that they desired to have retained him at Cochin, there to have established the college of the Society; but Xavier who had designed him for the Moluccas opposed it. And Providence, which destined the crown of martyrdom to that missioner, suffered him not to continue in a place, where they had nothing but veneration for him.
They left Cochin on the 25th of April, and arrived at Malacca on the last of May. All the town came to meet Father Xavier, and every particular person was overjoyed at his return. Alphonso Martinez, grand vicar to the bishop, at that time lay dangerously sick, and in such an agony of soul, as moved compassion. For, having been advertised to put himself in condition of giving up his accounts to God of that ministry which he had exercised for thirty years, and of all the actions of his life, he was so struck with the horror of immediate death, and the disorders of his life, which was not very regular for a man of his profession, that he fell into a deep melancholy, and totally despaired of his salvation. He cast out lamentable cries, which affrighted the hearers; they heard him name his sins aloud, and detest them with a furious regret, not that he might ask pardon for them, but only to declare their enormity. When they would have spoken to him of God's infinite mercy, he broke out into a rage, and cried out as loud as he was able, "that there was no forgiveness for the damned, and no mercy in the bottomless pit." The sick man was told, that Father Francis was just arrived; and was asked if he should not be glad to see him? Martinez, who formerly had been very nearly acquainted with him, seemed to breathe anew at the hearing of that name, and suddenly began to raise himself, to go see, said he, the man of God. But the attempt he made, served only to put him into a fainting fit. The Father, entering at the same moment, found him in it. It had always been his custom, to make his first visit to the ecclesiastical superiors; but besides this, the sickness of the vicar hastened the visit. When the sick man was come, by little and little, to himself, Xavier began to speak to him of eternity, and of the conditions requisite to a Christian death. This discourse threw Martinez back again into his former terrors; and the servant of God, in this occasion, found that to be true, which he had often said, that nothing is more difficult than to persuade a dying man to hope well of his salvation, who in the course of his life had flattered himself with the hopes of it, that he might sin with the greater boldness.
Seeing the evil to be almost past remedy, he undertook to do violence to heaven, that he might obtain for the sick man the thoughts of true repentance, and the grace of a religious death. For he made a vow upon the place, to say a great number of masses, in honour of the most Holy Trinity, of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and some of the saints, to whom he had a particular devotion. His vows were scarcely made, when Martinez became calm; began to have reasonable thoughts, and received the last sacraments, with a lively sorrow for his sins, and a tender reliance on God's mercies; after which, he died gently in the arms of Xavier, calling on the name of Jesus Christ.
His happy death gave great consolation to the holy man; but the apostolic labours of Francis Perez and Roch Oliveira increased his joy. He had sent them the year before to Malacca, there to found a college of the Society, according to the desire of the people, and they had been very well received. Perez had begun to open a public school, for the instruction of the youth in learning and piety, according to the spirit of their institute. Oliveira had wholly given himself to the ministry of preaching, and the conduct of souls; but tying himself more especially to the care of Turks and Jews, of which there was always a vast concourse in the town. For the first came expressly from Mecca, and the last from Malabar, to endeavour there to plant Mahometanism and Judaism, where Christianity then flourished.