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.