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| BIBLIOGRAPHICA | ||
THE LIFE
AND LETTERS OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.
BY
HENRY
JAMES COLERIDGE,
OF THE
SOCIETY OF JESUS.
VOL. I.
PREFACE.
Although several
beautiful Lives of St. Francis Xavier exist— some of them in our own language—I
do not think that any excuse will be required for the attempt made in the
present work to produce a new Life, which may satisfy in some sort the
legitimate requirements of our own time. We are accustomed to set a higher
value than men of former generations on those indications of personal character,
in the case of great men and conspicuous Saints, which are to be found in their
own words, in their letters, in anecdotes which set them familiarly before our
eyes, and the like. The Catholics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
would take the letter of a Saint, for instance, of St. Teresa or St. Francis
Xavier, and cut it to pieces for the sake of making up a signature out of
letters from separate words, or forming some holy text in the Saint’s
handwriting in the same way. Many valued such relics as these, without caring
much for the actual words and thoughts of the Saint, which they were often
content to have in a translation, or a paraphrase which preserved the general
sense, but not the peculiar colouring and incommunicable character of the mind
from which the words proceeded; we, on the other hand, value above all things
the minute traits of character and shades of feeling which can only be
discerned by close and faithful study of the mind and heart of some one in
whose history we are interested, and we set the highest store on such
biographies as make this study most easy to us, by putting before us in its
native simplicity whatever comes to us most immediately from such a heart and
mind.
There can be no
doubt, that if St. Francis Xavier had lived within the present century, the
first thought of his biographers would have been to collect every detail within
reach, even as to the external circumstances and scenery of his career, and
that, in particular, every scrap of writing that ever proceeded from his pen
would have been religiously preserved and examined, even if it had not been
published. Such was not the way in which biographies were written in the
generation which succeeded that of Francis Xavier and Ignatius, and the lives
which that generation and subsequent generations produced differ in proportion
from those which we require. At this distance of time, and under all the
circumstances of the case, it might be impossible, even for one with far
greater opportunities than it is my lot to possess, to supply fully what is to
us a sort of deficiency in earlier lives of the Saint. A very large number of
his letters have perished altogether. Those which remain to us exist chiefly in
a Latin translation, which appears to have the merit of conscientious fidelity,
but which must certainly fail to give us much of the fire, much of the delicate
grace, much of the intense tenderness, which must have breathed in every line
of the originals. Moreover, a great many collateral facts, which would render
the letters more complete as an integral portion of his biography, have certainly
been lost to us. There are other accessories which might be supplied, even at
the present day, but which I am painfully aware are wanting in the present
work. A knowledge of India and the East, including Japan, an acquaintance with
the scenes of his labours, with the living effects which still remain of his
preaching, notably in the south of India, with the unchanged and unchangeable
aspects of nature in the gorgeous world of the Eastern Isles, with the half
civilized and half savage tribes to whom he preached, and of whose manners he
has given so striking an account—these and other similar qualifications would
have enabled me not only to render the picture more full and attractive, but
to supply many an absolute deficiency, and explain much that is now hardly free
from obscurity.
No one will rejoice
more heartily than myself should any future writer, possessed of such
qualifications, undertake to write a more complete life of the Saint than this
can pretend to be. In the mean time, it may serve to the glory of God and the
honour of St. Francis to have done that which has been now attempted : that is,
to give a clear narrative of his life as it stands in the ordinary biographies,
and to use the whole of the letters and fragments which have survived to us, in
the form in which we possess them, to illustrate the life and to speak to us of
his character for themselves. The only former biographer of St. Francis who has
made much direct use of the letters is Pere Bouhours, whose work is known in
England from its translation by Dryden. But our acquaintance with the letters
has been increased since his time, and he did not use those which he had as
fully as might be wished. He had the advantage, which is shared by the
excellent Italian writer Massei, over the earlier biographers, Turselline and
Lucena, of writing
after the Processes
had been completed and largely used by Bartoli, who, in his Asia, has really furnished
the storehouse from which all subsequent authors have supplied themselves.
Massei, who wrote at Rome, where the documents on which the Processes were
founded exist, tells us that he consulted them independently, and that he has
here and there added details from them which Bartoli had passed over. But in
the main the last named author has furnished the materials, derived mainly from
the Processes and the letters to Rome from the East, on which our knowledge of
the life of St. Francis Xavier has been founded. Bartoli is very full,
accurate, and industrious, but the letters were less perfectly known to him
than to us. We have the great advantage of the very useful though
unostentatious labours of Father Menchacha, who at the end of the last century,
and during the suppression of the Society, published the letters in two volumes
at Bologna, summing up at the same time, in his Prolegomena, all that can be
said about them, and going through them carefully in the ‘ Chrono-taxis’ which
forms a part of those Prolegomena, with a view to their arrangement and
connexion with the life of St. Francis. Father Menchacha once or twice
expresses a hope that a Life may some day be written which may give to the
letters their due weight in illustrating the history. No one could have been
more fit than himself, from his devotion to the Saint and his intimate
knowledge of all that remains to us concerning him, to have undertaken such a
task; but he has been content to make it possible for others.
Father Menchacha’s
collection of the letters has existed for some years in French, having been
admirably translated by M. Ldon Pagbs, who has prefixed to his translation a
succinct life of St. Francis, which, if it had been fuller, and if the letters
had been incorporated with it, would have made superfluous the work which is
now laid before the reader. I feel bound to say that, unpretending as this
memoir is, I have found it of the very greatest service, as it adds dates and
details in a number of places where they were wanting before; and I have so
generally found these additions correct as to have learnt to # give
almost implicit confidence to any statement of M. Leon Pagbs, even unsupported
by a reference. M. Leon Pages is now engaged on a work on the history of
Christianity in Japan, and I should be extremely glad to know that the volume
which relates to St. Francis Xavier’s labours in that country would appear in
time for use in the second volume of this work. I fear, however, that such will
hardly be the case.
The earlier biographers
of St. Francis must not be undervalued in comparison with their successors.
Turselline appears to me to have much of that charm which hangs about such
books as Ribadeneyra’s Lives of the Saints—a sort of quaint unction, a simple
Catholic spirit, uncritical, not so much in the sense of over credulity and
want of due examination, as in that of an absolute freedom from fear and
hesitation in dwelling on the religious and supernatural aspect of the subjects
treated of, and in supposing in the mind of the reader the same loving piety
and glow of devotion with which the writers themselves were kindled. I have
been fortunate enough to meet with an old English version of Turselline, which
has enabled me to put some of the wellknown facts of the history before the
reader in language corresponding to his own in this respect. Lucena’s Vida da
San Fraticesco is a grand work, possessing the same merit which I have
attributed to Turselline, and, moreover, based upon an accurate knowledge of
documents and of the history of the Portuguese in the East. It is a large work,
here and there diffuse, but it professes to be more than a Jiistory of the
personal exertions of St. Francis Xavier. I have also used the Portuguese
writer Faria y Sousa, who published the annals of Portuguese Asia, Asia
Portngnesa, at Lisbon in 1655.2 He was a voluminous and industrious writer, and
his facts may be thoroughly depended on. He appears to have consulted a very
large number of authorities in the compilation of his history. His style is
rather curt and pretentious, and he dwells entirely upon the military and political
side of history. I have found him frequently confirm the statements of the
biographers of St. Francis, of whom he always speaks with a veneration which
seems to reflect the high honour which was always paid to the Saint by the
Portuguese officers and governors of India, with a few notable exceptions.
There is every reason
for believing that, to speak in general, the history of St. Francis Xavier
rests upon human evidence of the very highest kind. All the marvellous actions
and incidents with which it is illustrated are supported by sworn witnesses,
who came forward when the Processes were formed in the East by the order of the
King of Portugal. The documents at the disposal of Bartoli and Massei
contained the depositions of the witnesses in each case—depositions as carefully
and conscientiously drawn as any that pass current in legal investigations.
Bartoli very frequently gives the exact words of the witnesses. It was not the
custom in his time to add footnotes and references: the story flows on from
page to page in his grand folios without interruption or the anticipation of
questioning, much as the narratives of Herodotus or Thucydides. In our days, no
doubt, he jvould add the names of the witnesses and the like : but to have done
it then would have been an anachronism. I have not myself consulted the immense
mass of the documents which still exist at Rome, but I have had the advantage
of using a manuscript Relatio super Sanctitate et Miraculis Francisci Xaverii,
drawn up before the canonization of the Saint by three distinguished Roman theologians,
auditors of the Rota in the time of Paul V., men of the very highest character,
who had examined the evidence formally as its judges, and who made their report
to the Pope in this'JZe/atio, upon which it seems very clear that the Bull of
Canonization was founded. In this document there is a full account of the
Processes, and each piece of testimony which is adduced is attributed to its
proper author, and it is stated whether he was an eyewitness, or merely one who
heard others speak of what had been done. I hope in the second volume to find
room at least for an abstract of this very interesting document, which is full
of consummate theological and ascetical learning.3
I may be allowed to
add, that I have made it the chief object of this work to draw out the
character of St. Francis Xavier from his own words and actions, rather than to
accumulate all the materials that are at the disposal of his biographers.
When the letters are added to the narrative of a life such as his, short
comparatively though it was, the work becomes almost too large, unless some
points are treated concisely. Thus, now and then an anecdote is omitted, or
placed in a note, not from the slightest wish to slur it over, but to economize
space where the reader was already familiar with the trait of character or the
evidence of power which the anecdote might illustrate. I can only pray that the
perusal of these pages may have to others the charm which their composition
has had to myself — that of making them seem to understand more familiarly the
workings of a noble, tender, and most affectionate heart, on fire with the love
of God and zeal for souls, and borne, under the guidance of the holy spirit of
charity, along a path of heroic enterprize and selfsacrifice by the side of
which the achievements of the great ones of the world look poor and unfruitful
indeed.
London, Feast of St.
Antony Abbot, 1872.
BOOK I. From the Birth of Francis to his Sailing for
India. 1506-1541.
CHAPTER I. Francis
Xavier at the University of Paris.
CHAPTER
II.
Labours in Italy and Rome.
CHAPTER III. Francis in Lisbon.
BOOK
II.
From the Sailing of Francis for India to
his first Voyage to the Farther East. 1541-1545.
CHAPTER I. Voyage
to India, and first Labours at Goa.
CHAPTER II. Francis Xavier among the Paravas.
CHAPTER III. The Fishery Coast and Travancore.
. . 245 Success of
his mission in Travancore 245
CHAPTER IV. Manaar, Jcifanapatam, and
Meliapor.
BOOK III. From the first Voyage of Francis to the
Eastern Archipelago to his Return to India. 1545-1548.
CHAPTER I. Francis
at Malacca.
CHAPTER II. The
Moluccas.
CHAPTER III. Four
more Months in Malacca.
BOOK I.
FROM THE
BIRTH OF FRANCIS TO HIS SAILING FOR INDIA. 1506-1541.
Francis Xavier at the University of
Paris.
In His last discourse
to His Apostles, before He went forth to the Garden of Gethseraani on the night
of the Passion, our Blessed Lord told them that their election to their high
mission in the Church and all their fruitfulness in it depended on Himself.
‘You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and have appointed you that you
should go and should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.’1
This truth necessarily holds good of all who, in any way or degree, have been
called in the history of the Church to a work or mission like to that of the
Apostles : their original vocation and their preparation for their office, the
power which has been with them in carrying it out, and the success and
permanence of their work, all have come from our Lord. But as the manner in
which He called or prepared the ApostleS was so various, as Andrew and John
were led to follow Him while they were disciples of the Baptist, as He called
Matthew from the receipt of custom, and St. Paul on his way to persecute the
Christians at Damascus, so it has been since. The manifold diversity of the
vocations of later Saints, of the methods by which they have been attracted,
and of the places or occupations in which the Divine Voice has made itself
heard by them, is as wonderful as the rich multiformity of their graces and
the teeming fertility of their labours. The three canonized Saints of the first
generation of the Society of Jesus illustrate this remark, for St. Ignatius was
called to God on a bed of convalescence, St. Francis Borgia in the midst of
active political services, and St. Francis Xavier from a career of honourable
study. It is with the call of the last-named Saint that we have now to do.
It is perhaps not
easy for us to understand fully how important to the Church, in the middle
ages and the centuries which immediately followed them, were the great
Universities of Europe, or the influence which they exercised on the intellectual
life of the time. The universality of printing and reading has to some extent
dispersed and distributed that power over the general thought which formerly
was, as it were, stored up in the great centres of learning. Again, the effect
of the movement of the sixteenth century has been to dissolve Christendom into
separate and hostile, though outwardly Christian, nationalities, and one part
of this process of disintegration has been the enfeebling of the attraction
which drew students to the great Universities without distinction of race or
country. The highest idea of a University is now that which represents it as a
national institution. Famous and influential as it may be within the shores or
the frontiers of a particular country, no University now aspires to be
European. Rome alone, in our time, has gathered within her halls the Catholic
students of every clime and race, and that she did so was, humanly speaking,
one of the supports of that power which the enemies of the Church' are striving
to root up by the destruction of the Temporal and independent Princedom of the
Supreme Pontiff. Moreover, the creation of clerical seminaries in the several
dioceses, which was one of the results of the Council of Trent, though it may
as yet have been only partially carried out in more than one Catholic country,
has tended to dry up the supply of students in philosophy and theology in
Universities strictly so called. For these and other causes, and notably on
account of the comparative fewness in number of the students now to be found
collected at any one spot, no modern University can be considered as an
adequate reproduction of the University of Paris in the days of which we are
about to speak—when it numbered among its scholars St. Ignatius, St. Francis
Xavier, and their companions, and became the providential mother and nurse of
the Society of Jesus.
It is not, however,
difficult to see the fitness of the place for the work which was to be brought
to its first maturity within its walls. Englishmen, at least, can well
understand, from the ecclesiastical history of their country during the last
forty years, how important it must always be for a religious movement that aims
at gaining any permanent hold on the intelligent and educated classes, to
seize on a great seat of learning as its own centre. The movement towards
Catholicism within the pale of the Anglican Establishment would never have
exercised so wide or so rapid an influence over the nation if it had not risen
up in the very heart of English cultivation. Elsewhere it would have crept
along in the dark, and it would have grown slowly and by fits—if it had not
been crushed out before it had the time to grow: at Oxford it placed itself at
once in the full light of day, and attained a vigorous manhood when, in point
of years, it was still in its infancy. Tractarianism sank into a pietistic decrepitude
as soon as it had run through that portion of its career towards Catholic
Unity which lay logically and consistently within the limits of obedience to
Anglican authorities, of maintenance of Anglican tests of doctrine, and of
adherence to the partial compromise on which the Establishment rests. When its
intellectual principles led its true followers beyond these bounds, its onward
course was necessarily and violently separated from the place which had
witnessed its birth : but it left behind it seeds of mental activity and a
thirst for truth and progress which have still their effect upon the
University, which, under many and great disadvantages, has been raised by these
and other influences from the comparative degradation which had characterized
it, with almost unbroken uniformity, from the days of the Reformation to our
own.
We are not about to
compare two things in themselves so different in principle and in history as
what is called the Oxford movement of our own time and the formation of the
Society of Jesus. Both, however, illustrate the importance of securing, as the
starting point of a powerful movement, some great centre of intellectual
activity, some stronghold of learning frequented by large numbers and
successive generations of students in the opening prime of life and in the
first vigour of mental energy. Every great movement, and, in particular, every
great religious movement, depends, as far as human means are concerned, on the
force with which it may draw to itself a larger or smaller proportion of the
rich growth of generous, intelligent, and powerful minds with which each
generation of a healthy Christian community may be assumed to teem; and the
place where such minds are collected, where they flourish and develope under a
congenial air, and under the influence of their own mutual attraction and
collision, is generally to be found in the Universities. Both of the movements
of which we speak illustrate, though not to an equal degree, the manner in
which minds which begin with a simple thirst for knowledge for its own sake may
become the most fitting and powerful instruments for ends far higher than those
which they at first set before themselves. Such minds are naturally to be found
at Universities, and when they are taken captive by some revelation of the
glories and beauties of the ancient Church, of the noble end for which man was
created, and of the importance of salvation and perfection, they are often
formed into the mightiest weapons of the armoury of the Church. They are 1
not incredulous to the heavenly vision/ and their devotion of themselves to its
behests is the welfare of thousands of souls. And those who have inherited the
benefits of the connection of the later movement with the great seat of
learned education in England may well linger with pleasure over the thought of
those few years, in the first half of the sixteenth century, when a little band
of students in the University of Paris found themselves united together under
the spiritual leadership of Ignatius of Loyola, for the purpose of following a
rule of life founded upon the Exercises, and with the determination to spend
their lives simply in work for the greater glory of God, and when the Society
of Jesus issued irom their union.
When, in February
1528, Ignatius arrived in Paris, he was already of middle age. Seven years,
full of events in his personal and spiritual history, had passed since his
conversion to God by the reading ofLudolph of Saxony’s Life of Jesus Christ and
the Lives of the Saints, as he'lay on his sickbed, slowly recovering from the
effects of the wound which he had received in the breach at Pampeluna. They had
been years of rare favours and lights received from God, of deep spiritual experience,
and of the most unquestionable fruits of the highest sanctity in the souls of
others whom he had laboured to win to God. They had seen him in his seclusion
at Manresa, and in his voyage and visit to that Holy Land which left such ineffaceable
marks upon his memory, and which drew to itself the first deliberate choice of
his apostolic zeal. Early in this time he had composed his book of the Spiritual
Exercises, and had had distinctly revealed to him the outline and plan of the
Order which he was to found upon them in the Church. He had lived with the
reputation of a saint at Barcelona, at Alcala, and at Salamanca; everywhere
persecution, the shadow of sanctity, as well as the admiration of good
Christians, had waited upon him. At Barcelona he had been assaulted and left
for dead by the agents of some gay cavaliers who could not brook the return to
strictness and cloistral observances which he had introduced into a convent of
nuns with whom they were acquainted. At Alcala he had been imprisoned on
account of the imprudent devotion of some noble ladies whom he had converted,
and who had set off alone and without money upon a long pilgrimage; and at
Salamanca also he had been imprisoned, on suspicion of being an unauthorized
teacher of new doctrines. In all these cases, the violence or the injustice
with which he had been treated had redounded to his greater credit and
attracted to him still greater veneration, and the inquiries that had been made
into his life and conversation had issued in the fullest and most formal
declaration of his innocence, and even of his sanctity. But he had as yet made
no progress towards the formation of that body of men who were to be his
associates and children in the great work for the glory of God, which was the
one engrossing object of his life. His first companions, men who had known him
at Barcelona, had gone with him to Alcala, and who had shared his persecutions
there, had fallen away from him; he had met
some who were
afterwards to be among the most eminent of his spiritual children—Martin Olave
had given him alms, and Francis Borgia, then a brilliant young noble of
seventeen, had seen him led through the streets of the same city between two
officers of justice. We shall find that some of his future companions were
afterwards attracted to Paris by the reputation he had left behind him in
Spain. Still, when he came to the French capital he was alone. Even his first
converts in Paris afterwards fell off—Juan de Castro, Peralta, and another,
whom he had nevertheless admitted to those Exercises which he often long
delayed in the case of souls from whom he hoped much, and who, as a proof of
their sincerity, had sold their property, given it to the poor, and taken up
their abode at St. Jacques de l’Hopital, living upon alms.
After his return from
the Holy Land, we see nothing more in Ignatius of that overpowering love of
solitude and seclusion which had characterized him in his earlier fervour in
the cave of Manresa; henceforth his time was to be given to the great centres
of life, as if in obedience to that characteristic love of such scenes of
action which was afterwards impressed on his Society, and which is commemorated
in the well-known Latin distich, which we may thus paraphrase—
In sheltered valleys
Bernard loved to dwell,
St. Bennet chose the
mountain’s lonely crest,
In towns St. Francis
fixed his peaceful cell,
But mighty cities
pleased Ignatius best.3
But it was not
every'great city, nor even every University, that could be the nursing mother
of such an Order as that which he was called to found. The severe orthodoxy of
the Spanish seats of learning saved them from the invasions of heretical
teachers and dangerous opinions, but they lacked also the stir of mind and
conflict of argument which accompany such invasions, and some experience of
which may be requisite in those who are to meet falsehood most successfully.
Perhaps the Society,
composed as it was at first in great measure of Spaniards, would have been too
exclusively national in character, if Alcala or Salamanca, instead of Paris,
had been the place of its birth. At all events, Ignatius failed if he really
attempted to found it in Spain. But his long-deferred success came at last. The
two first, and in some sense the two greatest, of his spiritual disciples were
awaiting him in Paris at the College of St. Barbara, where they had already for
some years been intimate friends, sharing even the same room.4 These
two were Peter Favre, a native of Villaret, in the diocese of Geneva, and
Francis Xavier, a native of Navarre, born fifteen years5 after
Ignatius himself, at the Castle of Xavier, a few leagues distant from
Pampeluna.
Our main business is
with the last and most famous of these two, but the beautiful and winning
character of Peter Favre tempts us to linger over the first mention of his
name. When Ignatius arrived in Paris, Peter Favre was in his twenty- second
year, and already far advanced in his studies in philosophy. Piety and
simplicity were combined in him with a singular love of study and a remarkable
appreciation of the value of intellectual gifts. His parents, though not
wealthy, had made great efforts to support him as a student, and this he
accounted as one of the great blessings of his life. At the age of ten, when
tending his father’s sheep, he had been inspired with a very ardent desire of
knowledge, and had begged most earnestly from his parents the privilege of a
good education. They consented, and placed him under the charge of a master,
Pierre Veillard, of whom he always spoke with the most intense gratitude, and
whom after his death he used to invoke as a saint. Veillard’s means raised him
above the necessity of teaching for gain, but he kept school for the love of
imparting knowledge, and he took care to season his lessons with instructions
in piety. Peter Favre said of him that he had a way of making the profane
authors whom he taught speak the language of the Gospel. The possibility of
this will be denied by no one who is acquainted with the spirit in which the
Catholic Church has, from the first, sanctioned the use of the great masters of
Greek and Roman literature in the education of her own children. The classics
are dangerous if taught ;n any other spirit, but when they are used
in accordance with this, they are not only harmless, but full of beauties and
fruitful in advantages which can be found nowhere else. After two years of
study under a master of this kind, we find the young Peter Favre solemnly
consecrating himself to God by a vow of chastity; and he has left it on record
that his fondness fcr study helped him greatly to keep his vow, as well as to
escape numerous temptations and to make progress in virtue. At the age of
eighteen he went to the University of Paris, and began his philosophical
studies under Juan Pena, at the College of St. Barbara. He became at once the
most distinguished and favourite pupil of his master, and when Ignatius presen
ted himself for the same purpose, and took up his abode in the same room with
Peter Favre and Francis Xavier, Peter was selected by Pena to ‘ repeat’ the
lectures on philosophy to the new student, with whom he soon became very
intimate.
Francis Xavier, with
whom Ignatius was thus brought into contact at the same time as with Peter
Favre, was of a different character from the gentle and simple Savoyard,
though like him in the purity of his life, in the excellence of his intellectual
gifts, and in his devotion to study. The youngest son of a large and very noble
family, he had early surprised his relatives by preferring the pursuit of
letters to that of war. The name of his family came from his mother, the sole
heiress of the houses of Azpilqueta and Xavier. His father, Juan de Jasso,6
was also of noble and ancient family, but he was a man of the robe and the pen,
high in employment with the King of Aragon, and he was not sorry to see Francis
inclined to a career more like his own than that of a soldier; so he made the
effort that was required to send his son to Paris without reluctance, though
not without difficulty. It is disappointing that we should be left so very much
to our imagination if we would form a picture of the earlier years of one who
became afterwards so singularly attractive as well as so wonderfully holy. But
no one has preserved for us any childish anecdote of St. Francis which may be
placed by the side of St. Teresa’s youthful attempt at martyrdom, when she set
out with her little brother to seek it at the hands of the Moors. We are left
to infer his sweetness of disposition, his high and quick spirit, his
generosity and courage, as a boy or a youth, from the evidence of these
qualities which meet us in him in after years. We can draw no picture on which
we can rely of the family group at the Castle of Xavier. There was the highborn
tender mother, who may have loved him specially as the youngest of her children,
and whom in after years he was to pass by unvisited on his road to the Indies,
not only, perhaps, that he might fulfil to the letter the injunction of our
Lord,7 but also because it might have cost him too much to expose
her and himself to the sorrows of a parting interview. The father, the man of
business, skilled in the management of affairs, and the trusted servant of his
Sovereign, would be of a different character, while the many sons probably
despised their father’s profession, and considered that Francis had made a
strange choice in giving himself to letters. There was one of the sisters,
Maddalena, who might have trained him in saintly ways, as she became herself
renowned for sanctity, but she probably left her home early to hold a post at
the Court of Queen Isabella, before she renounced the world to become the
famous Abbess of the Poor Clares at Gandia.
The scanty account
which we have of Francis Xavier as a boy represent him as piously brought up,
and carefully trained even in such book learning as was then given to youth. ‘
He was of an excellent constitution and comeliness of person, of a great and
sharp wit, given more to his book than usually children are. None more
innocent, none more pleasant, none more affable than he: which made him beloved
of all, both at home and abroad.’ His purity was remarkable at this early age,
and he preserved it unsullied to the end of his life. ‘ His chastity/ continues
the same author, ‘ as is the nature thereof, sharpened his wit, and prepared
his mind as a most pure soil to receive the seeds of wisdom. Therefore, making
no account of his brothers* words, who went about by warlike discourses to draw
him to be a man of arms (the ancient ornament of their ancestors), he stuck
close to his resolution, and whether stirred up by the late example of his
father, or drawn by the delight of knowledge, or moved by divine instinct, he
preferred the glory of learning before warlike praises.’ But he still preserved
‘ the desire of honour, and was of a high and lofty spirit.’ Both these
qualities of purity and nobility of aim were needed when, in the eighteenth year
of his age, he was sent by his father to the University of Paris, where he was
already well-known and highly distinguished when, four years later, Ignatius
followed him thither. He finished his earlier studies, and was made Master of
Arts in 1530. He then lectured for some time on the logic, metaphysics, and
physics of Aristotle, at the College Beauvais. The University was at that time
neither perfect in discipline nor immaculate in morals, or even in orthodoxy.
The multitudes of young men who flocked thither from all parts were probably
exposed to as great temptations as are now incurred by the students of any
Continental University, and on account of the entire absence of moral
supervision, to greater than are to be met with, as an ordinary rule, under the
collegiate system of Oxford and Cambridge. Francis was brilliant and
industrious, and his whole character and bearing breathed a singular purity—a
virtue against which many snares were sure to be laid in an atmosphere like
that of Paris, and which the scanty discipline and independent life of the
students did not do much to protect. That he lived pure is a sign that he could
not have been eaten up by pride, vanity, and ambition; but at the time of which
we are speaking he enjoyed his own great reputation and success, and the
perfection of Christian humility and love of contempt had not conquered in his
heart the high thoughts of opening manhood and the native haughtiness of his
race. He had a heart capable of the largest devotion and the fullest self-sacrifice,
a vigour of will that could never have stopped short of success in any career
to which he had once given himself, a mind above the world, and yet—because the
light from heaven which was to guide him to the high sanctity to which he was
destined had not yet shone upon it—inclined for the moment to occupy itself
with such glories as that of a great teacher of philosophy, a renowned doctor,
or a brilliant Prelate. He himself tells us, in the first of his letters, that
he had not escaped exposure to the danger of the corrupt doctrines which were
insidiously disseminated among the youth of the University. He had been too
ready to trust the fair appearances of some men of his own age, of ready wit
and great accomplishments, who were infected by heresy, and who might in time
have led him astray after them. From this danger he was saved by means tof
the greatest of all the blessings he received at Paris—the friendship of
Ignatius.
Yet, strange to say,
Francis Xavier was by no means easily won to accept this friendship as a
blessing, and his case is not altogether uncommon or unintelligible. There is
often an air of sadness and a reserve about men of lofty minds and large intellectual
powers who have not yet been ennobled by a great religious vocation, as if
they, most of all men, felt instinctively the little that the world can ask
them to do and the emptiness of its rewards, and yet were not awake to the
opportunities of mighty work and of glorious crowns which are open to those
whom God calls to His service. When their own vocation becomes manifest to
them, their trial corresponds exactly to that of the young man in the Gospel,
whose eagerness in asking his question as to perfection was a proof of the
uneasiness with which his soul was secretly consumed. Quid adhuc mi hi deest?
are the words of one who feels a want he does not know how to supply. Then
comes the revelation of the truth which tests their hearts to the very core—Si
vis perfectus esse, vade, et vende omnia quapossides, et da pauperibus, ethabebis
thesaurum in cmlo, et venij sequere Me ! : and when those who have been more
faithful to so gracious though so severe an invitation than he to whom it was
first given, look back on their state before their surrender to grace,—whether
that surrender be made at once or only after an internal struggle,—they are
often inclined to accuse themselves of pride, of vanity, of a contempt of
littleness and humility, which certainly at the time were not conscious and
deliberate faults. Another characteristic of minds as yet in a state of
struggle and uncertainty is a sort of instinctive fear of, and shrinking from,
the persons or things which seem either to rebuke their hesitation or to have
the power of forcing upon them a clearer and keener light as to the will of
God. They feel themselves in the presence of a master whose eye is reading
their soul, and they often take occasion, from any mistakes that may be made in
the manner of dealing with them, or even from personal and accidental
circumstances of birth, or condition, or character, or antecedents, in those
who approach them, to recoil from advances* made to them, or interest and
kindness displayed towards them. ‘ The word
of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword,
and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also
and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’9
The presence of those who have the gift of making us read our own characters
and vocations more clearly than before is often felt by human nature as that of
a sword pointed at our hearts.
Peter Favre and
Francis Xavier stand by themselves at the head of the famous six men who formed
with Ignatius the first members of the Society of Jesus. The other four had
high qualities enough to interest us intensely if they were not somewhat cast
into the shade by those two. We must mention them very briefly, in order to
pass on to matters more immediately belonging to our subject. Simon Rodriguez
of Azevedo was the first in order of time to form acquaintance with Ignatius.
He was a Portuguese, born atVinzella. Both his father’s family —he was a
Gonsalvez—and his mother’s, whose name Simon took, are illustrious in the
annals of the Society. He was a child in arms when his father died, and the
good Gonsalvez had commended him prophetically to the special care of his
mother as one for whom God intended a great destiny in the Church. The King of
Portugal had at his own expense sent him to Paris to study, and his devotion had
inspired him with designs somewhat like those formed by Ignatius himself, of an
apostolic life in the Holy Land. When, therefore, he made acquaintance with
Ignatius, he was easily disposed to join him and put himself under his
guidance. We have a special debt of gratitude to Simon Rodriguez, as he alone
of the first disciples of Ignatius has left us in writing an account of the
early years of the Society. After Simon, we find James Laynez, Al- fonsus
Salmeron, and Nicolas Bobadilla, joining the silently formed company; silently,
indeed, for each one was unaware of the thoughts and intentions of the rest,
and supposed himself to be the only friend and associate of Ignatius.
Laynez was about the
same age as Peter Favre and Francis Xavier; Salmeron was younger still—but
little more than eighteen—but he was already known as a prodigy of learning.
These two men, who of all the first companions of Ignatius were the most
learned, and were destined to become the most conspicuous as theologians, were
yet attracted to Paris, as we are assured, from Alcala, where they had made
their studies, less by an esteem for the advantages of the great University
than by their desire to make the acquaintance of Ignatius, of whose sanctity
they had heard so much in the very place where he had been persecuted and
imprisoned. We are told that Ignatius chanced to pass as they were dismounting
from their horses on their arrival at Paris, and that Laynez at once felt sure
that it was he of whom he had heard so much, and went up to speak to him.
Theology, properly so called, was the study in which Laynez particularly
excelled; Salmeron was famous for his knowledge of the ancient languages,
including Hebrew. Salmeron’s character is stamped for us on the admirable and
copious commentaries on the New Testament which he has left behind him, which
combine to a degree uncommon even among Catholic and religious commentators the
qualities of solidity, clearness, piety, and the soundest judgment. Salmeron
was also a great, fluent, and very effective preacher, and it is this perhaps
which gives their peculiar character to his commentaries, which sometimes seem
about to glide into sermons. They may be considered, indeed, in many respects as
furnishing the type for those Lectiones Sacrce, or Lectures on Scripture in the
form of Sermons, which afterwards became an institution in the Society and in
the Church, and which have often been published in books of great value. The
splendid career of Laynez as a theologian at the Council of Trent, his
succeeding Ignatius as the second General of his Order, and the design
seriously entertained by a large number of the Cardinals to raise him to the
Pontifical throne after the death of Paul IV., are too well known to be dwelt
upon in detail here. He left behind him, we believe, several treatises of
theology in manuscript, and we can hardly imagine a more valuable monument of
the soundest theology of the age of the Council of Trent. But, though the
manuscript exists, the handwriting is said to be absolutely illegible. Nicolas
Bobadilla completes the inner circle of Parisian students around St. Ignatius.
He had studied 4 humanities’ at Valladolid, and had come to Paris to
study philosophy. Ignatius was already well enough known to be continually supplied
with alms for his own support, and these were even more abundant than his
necessities required. The Spanish merchants in the Low Countries, and still
more those in England, gave liberally to him. He was thus able to pursue his
studies without interruption, and also to help other students like himself.
Nicolas was poor and unknown, and became the friend of Ignatius in the first instance
by being the receiver of his charitable aid. He was a man of great ability and
devotion, more fitted, however, to be guided than to guide, and whose zeal in
after years not unfre- quently overcame his prudence. It is strange to remember
that he it was of the first companions of Ignatius who, if the arrangement
first made had been carried out, would have had the great work assigned to him
which was accomplished by Francis Xavier. Providence overruled the plan, by
keeping Bobadilla on a bed of sickness until the time had passed for the Father
demanded by the King of Portugal to set out from Rome, and so Francis Xavier was
sent instead. Useful as Bobadilla might have been, we can hardly think that the
Indies lost by the exchange.
It takes but a short
time to run through the few particular details which require notice as to the
seven years (1528—1535) which were passed by Ignatius in Paris, and which
witnessed the quiet and deliberate formation of the first Fathers of the
Society. We catch glimpses of his visit to Flanders and England for the
purpose of obtaining alms, of the widespread influence which he exercised in
Paris over many besides those who became his intimate companions, of the
opposition which a character and a work like his was certain to meet with, of
heroic acts of charity and mortification, of persecution and public suspicion,
and of one or two attempts at violence against him. It cannot surprise us to
hear of his failure in some cases to win the souls to which he laid siege. Many
must have turned away from him sorrowfully, and it seems certain that if the
results of his labour for souls at the University were to be measured by the
actual numbers of those whom he induced to join his Society, he might to human
eyes have appeared to have toiled almost in vain. But, in fact, his apostleship
was far too wide in its influence to be estimated by this test, and he was
himself too clear-sighted, too prudent, and too single-minded to wish to shape
all the souls that came under his influence in the particular mould and form
which characterized the men of the Society. The anecdotes which remain to us
of this time show us how he was perpetually on the watch to do good in any form
or degree. His charity was remarkable for its refined ingenuity. He brought
the victim of a criminal passion of the worst kind to abandon the occasion of
sin, by placing himself up to his neck in water under a bridge, over which the
man had to pass in his evening visits to his mistress, and calling out to him
that he was there to do penance for him. He won back to strictness of life a
lax religious, by making a general confession of the whole of his own life to
him with the greatest compunction and exactness. He converted a Prelate of
expensive habits and worldly life, by accepting his challenge at a game of
chance, at which he happened to find him playing, on condition that the loser
should become the servant of the winner for a month. By the side of records of opposition,
persecution, and deafness to his influence, we find the most indisputable
evidence of the deep general respect in which Ignatius was held, and we are
told of the very large numbers whom he induced to lead a more perfect life, or
to enter the religious state in various institutions. For his own body he
gained a few noble and devoted souls, and we cannot doubt that his chief care
was their gradual training and formation. One greater than any of the saints,
One Whom Ignatius constantly set before himself as his Pattern and Master, had
spent three years of the most active apostolical life, made luminous to the
whole world by a perfect constellation of the most marvellous miracles, and at
the end of that term the visible fruit of His labours seemed to be confined to
a dozen intimate followers—not strong enough to stand by Him in the hour of
trial —a few devout women, and some scores of less matured disciples. Yet the
Church was formed in the formation of the band of the Apostles, and in her the
great instrument of the regeneration of the world was brought to perfection.
It may be that there is often this analogy between the most real and lasting
work of the great saints, and the secret, quiet, and almost invisible labour
of the Incarnate Son of God in the hearts and souls of His Apostles. Certainly,
in respect of the point of which we are speaking, as the solid foundations of
the Church were laid in our Lord’s three years’ ministry, so the seven years
which passed between the arrival of Ignatius in Paris and the departure of the
first Jesuits from that capital on their way to Venice, embrace the time during
which the founder of the Society of Jesus stamped with indelible characters the
essential features of his institute on the souls of his companions, and moulded
them into that spiritual form which they ever afterwards retained. At a later
time, he had no leisure for this work. After this time he became the ruler, the
prudent guide, the administrator of the affairs of the body, and its
representative before authorities, secular and ecclesiastical, and before the
world at large. At this stage he was, as it were, the master of novices, the
patient cultivator of a few chosen souls, who was hereafter to reap the fruit
of his prayers and penances and continual watchfulness in seeing his children
serving the Church in her great Council, restoring the use of the
long-neglected Sacraments, staving off the ruin of tottering orthodoxy in
Germany, reforming the courtiers of Spain, Portugal, or Austria, beginning
that internecine war with heresy and infidelity which has ever been the chosen
service of their successors, or bearing across the Atlantic, or to the
newly-opened worlds of India and the farthest East, the treasure of that
Catholic faith which was being spurned by so many nations who had formerly been
among the most devoted handmaids of the Church.
Peter Favre, the
first of the disciples of Ignatius, is perhaps that one of them all as to his
dealings with whom we have the most detailed account. Peter was tormented with
scruples, as well as with temptations against the angelical virtue which he had
so early in his life vowed to God to preserve unto the end, and this interior misery
seems to have driven him for the first time to open his heart to his friend,
who seemed to possess a serenity and peace of mind, and a gift of discernment
as remarkable as the purity of his life and his zeal for souls. Ignatius,
without at once teaching Peter to meditate on the great mysteries, or
initiating him into the Exercises, taught him great watchfulness over himself,
and some of the methods of what is called the ‘ discernment of spirits.’ He
further recommended him to make a general confession, and to adopt the then
unusual practice of weekly confession and communion. He taught him also the use
of the ‘particular examen,’ for the purpose, first, of overcoming one by one
the faults that he discovered in his own character, taking the most predominant
first, and then of acquiring in the same manner virtue after virtue,
continuing the exercise as to each till he had acquired the habit of it. He
continued him in this simple method for two years, the term afterwards fixed in
the Society for the duration of the noviceship. It was not till after Peter
Favre had made very great progress under his direction, and had resolved on
placing himself in his hands for the whole of his life, to live after the example
of the Apostles in poverty and labours for the glory of God, and not till after
he had revisited his home to bid it farewell, and had returned to Paris, that
Ignatius allowed him to go through the Spiritual Exercises in the midst of a
very cold winter, which gave his penitent an opportunity of practising the
severest mortification by exposing himself to the cold, as well as by
prolonging his fast for several days. This fast cured him of a troublesome
inclination to over-eating with which he had been beset. Thus Ignatius prepared
him for receiving the priesthood—first of all the Society. In the summer of the
same year Peter Favre celebrated his first mass on the Feast of St. Mary
Magdalene, and, nearly a month later, it was he who said the mass at the church
of our Lady at Montmartre, when all his associates received Communion at his
hands, and, for the first time, made their vows of poverty and chastity. It was
the Feast of the Assumption, 1534.
It is remarkable that
at this moment, from which may be dated the birth of the Society of Jesus,
there was but one other of the little band of the followers of Ignatius who had
not yet passed through the Spiritual Exercises, which had been so long delayed
in the case of Peter Favre. That one was Francis Xavier. That it should have
been so -shows the singular patience and caution of Ignatius in dealing with
this great and heroic soul, though it appears that a secondary reason for the
delay existed in the occupation of Francis as a lecturer in philosophy. Yet it
seems hardly likely that this alone would have caused him to wait. It is not
impossible that Ignatius, who afterwards put off the celebration of his own
first mass for so many months after his ordination as priest,10 may
in many cases have refrained from giving the Exercises to souls in whom he
hoped after a time to see the most perfect possible dispositions for so great a
spiritual act, the fruits of which must always depend in considerable measure
upon the fervour with which it is entered upon. He often used the Exercises, or
some part of them, for the awakening and conversion of persons who were leading
lives below their Christian profession ; but they were also, in his hands, the
frequent means by which a sacrifice and consecration of self to God which had
already been carried very far might be consummated according to the
requirements of the sublimest perfection. The truths of the Exercises, like
certain graces of the Sacraments, will produce some of their most marvellous
effects upon the souls which receive them most worthily.
We have already
remarked that Francis Xavier was at first somewhat inclined to turn away from
Ignatius, from whom he shrank with a sort of fear, which readily disguised
itself under the mask of contempt for the gentleman of noble lineage who had
demeaned himself so lowly as to beg for alms and lead the life of a pauper. We
can hardly help seeing a prudent care in dealing with such souls as that of Xavier
in the celebrated remonstrance with the rector of the College which Ignatius
made in the early beginning of his own philosophical studies, against a public
chastisement to which it was intended to expose him on account of the influence
which he was exercising over a large number of young men, whom he seemed to be
withdrawing from their proper pursuits as students for the sake of giving
their time to exercises of piety. His conversation on divine things was
irresistibly attractive, and it may well have been that in many cases the
bounds of discretion were passed by his scholars. The voluntary disputations
held on feastdays in the College were neglected, and the time was spent in
church instead of in the schools. The professor, Pena, a worthy man in his
way, was displeased; he remonstrated in vain, and at length laid the matter
before the rector, Andrew Govea, who determined to inflict on Ignatius the
ignominious form of punishment known as a public * hall.’ This punishment was
a lasting disgrace. All the masters and students were called together by the
sound of the bell into the public hall, where the disputations were usually
held. The masters had rods in their hands, and with these they touched the
shoulders of the culprit, who was considered ever afterwards as a person to be
shunned and avoided.
The reader of any one
of the numerous lives of St. Ignatius will remember the oft-repeated story, how
he at first recoiled from the idea of submitting to so great an indignity, then
how he overcame the risings of pride by the love of the Cross and of humility;
and how, after he had presented himself as usual at the College, after the
gates were closed behind him, and the students assembled by the sound of the
bell to be witnesses of the chastisement which was to degrade him for ever in
the eyes of the University, he sought an interview with the rector, and, in a
few gentle and earnest words, set before him the dishonour that would be done
to God if any one were punished publicly whose only crime was, in substance, a
burning desire and zeal to make others love and serve better His Divine
Majesty. Govea, the rector, was converted on the spot, and, taking the hand of
Ignatius, led him into the hall, where the members of the College were
assembled in expectation, and there threw himself at the feet of the saint,
acknowledging his own error, and bearing the most honourable witness to his
goodness and sanctity. If the scene which had been prepared by the enemies of
Ignatius might have been calculated most seriously to injure him in the yet
wavering mind of Francis Xavier, we can hardly imagine anything more likely to
force on him a true estimate, not only of Ignatius himself, but of the cause of
which he was the representative and the advocate, than the very different
scene which actually took place. Here was something higher, better, nobler than
the applause which waited upon the ordinary triumphs of the University. Francis
was at that time teaching philosophy with great success, and his biographers
have all related how earnestly Ignatius set himself to win that noble heart,
praising him to himself and others, and doing ajl in his power to increase the
number of his pupils. It appears, too, from the first letter in our
collection—the earliest which remains to us from the pen of Francis Xavier—that
Ignatius also supplied him with money during some part of his career at Paris.
By so many various means did he seek to secure the confidence and the respect
of Francis, and when these were gained he used them to open to himself the
opportunity of conversing with his friend and disciple on spiritual subjects,
and of sounding in his ears the maxim of Jesus Christ—‘What shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?5
We may judge of the state of mind in which Francis then found himself from his
own famous letter about the doctors of the University, written several years
later, when he was in the midst of his career as the Apostle of the Indies.
‘ They labour night
and day to acquire knowledge, and they give all diligence to mastering the
subjects of their studies, but if they would spend as much trouble in that
which is the solid fruit of learning and in teaching the ignorant those things
which are necessary unto salvation, they would certainly be far better prepared
to meet their Lord when He says to them, “ Give an account of your
stewardship.” I fear very much that those who spend so many years in our
Universities in studying the liberal arts, do so rather with a view to empty
honours and ecclesiastical titles, than to the duties and the burthens which
are connected with those distinctions. It has come to this pass, I perceive,
that those who are the most diligent in their studies of higher literature,
make open profession that their object in doing this is to gain a reputation
for learning, and so obtain some ecclesiastical dignity through which to serve
our Lord and His Church. Miserable mistake ! it is their own profit, not the
profit of the public, that they are seeking by their studies. They are afraid
that God will not choose what their own desires point to, and so they are
unwilling to commit the whole matter [of their vocation] entirely to the will
of God’11 These may well be the words of one who had had intimate
experience of the struggle which is inevitable when the soul that wishes to
serve God has conceived desires of its own as to the manner in which it is to
serve Him; and we can understand how the conversation of a saintly friend,
persistently harping on the great maxims of Christian perfection, must have
caused sorrow and disturbance in a generous mind until the moment came when the
battle was won.
Spiritual
conversation, indeed, was, both now and at other times, the great weapon of
Ignatius. We hear of his preaching in Spain and even elsewhere, but his sermons
probably derived their power far more from the fervour of his charity and the
authority of his example than from any gift of eloquence, native or acquired.
But the art of winning souls to God by holy conversation may almost be called
one of the incommunicable privileges of true sanctity, and it was this that
made Ignatius a power in the University of Paris, as a similar gift had made Socrates
so powerful with the thinking portion of his countrymen at Athens. It was this
that gathered round him the small circle of immediate disciples of whom we are
now speaking; it was this that bound them to him by so intense and solid a
devotion, and that gave him so wonderful an influence over a far wider circle
among the companions of their studies. As we have seen, Peter Favre was made
his disciple by this means alone, and, in the same way, it was by this that his
empire over the soul of Francis Xavier was gradually gained.
The remaining
obstacles to the perfect adhesion of Francis to the plans of Ignatius, came, as
has often been related, from without. His father had put himself to
considerable expense for the sake of supporting him at the University of Paris,
and he thought of sending for him to his own country, where, of course, his
chance of ecclesiastical preferment, to which the father naturally looked as
the fruit of all his own sacrifices, would be the greatest. Indeed, we hear of
the offer of a canonry at Pampeluna made to Francis just before he finally left
Paris. At an earlier period, when his theological studies were as yet far from
complete, and when his ideas of what became his birth had made him spend rather
more money than was convenient to Don J uan, his father is said to have been
deterred from recalling him only by the intercession of his own daughter
already mentioned—the holy nun in the Convent of St. Clare at Gandia —who wrote
to tell him that God had chosen her brother for a great work in the Church. We
shall never know, in this world, how much this saintly and heroic soul, who
died about the time of the final conversion of her brother in 1533, had to do
with the secret formation of his great sanctity. She died a death of terrible
suffering, which she prayed might be hers instead of that of another religious
of the same Convent. Another effort to hinder his onward course was made by a
dependent of Xavier’s, who attempted to assassinate Ignatius, when he saw the
ascendancy which he was acquiring over his patron. We are not told of the exact
moment at which Francis took his final and irrevocable resolution to give up
the world. Such designs often mature very gradually in hearts like his.
When we consider the
work actually performed by the religious body of which these immediate
followers of Ignatius became the nucleus, and compare it with the designs which
they had conceived at the time of their first solemn consecration of
themselves to God in the church of Montmartre, we are inclined to be surprised
at the discrepancy between the issue and the intention. The Holy Land was the
great object of their ambition—not merely that they might visit it as pilgrims,
as Ignatius had done, but that they might obtain leave to remain and to preach
there. Even at the outset, however, they seem to have understood that this
design might never be fulfilled. Still, it was the original plan of the whole
body. They were to wait a year at Venice for the opportunity of passing to the
East, and only when that space of time had been passed in fruitless expectation
were they to proceed to Rome to place themselves absolutely at the disposal of
the Supreme Pontiff. And yet it is known that Ignatius had had the whole
outline and plan of the Society which he was to form set before him at Manresa.
Can it be that, but for the war between the Venetians and Solyman, the Society
of Jesus would have pursued so very different a career from that which has
actually been its portion ? Would it have left heresy unopposed in Europe,
would it never have undertaken the renovation of Christian education and the
reformation of manners at home, would its name never have been heard of in the
schools and its services never rendered to literature in every branch from
theology and philosophy down to physical science and grammar ? The answer is
surely to be found\in the character of the men whom Ignatius had gathered
round him, and
in the importance
which he invariably and at so much cost attached, both in his own case and in
that of others, to intellectual cultivation and deep theological learning. His
object was in the first instance to form them in the true Apostolical spirit
after the model of our Lord, to detach them perfectly from all earthly things,
and inflame them to the utmost with the fire of the love of God. It was his
object in the second place to arm them in the most complete intellectual and
theological panoply that could be acquired anywhere in Christendom, and so to
fit them to carry on the Apostolical work in any region whatever of the world,
civilized or uncivilized, Christian and Pagan, with those full resources even
of human learning of the use of which we see so marked an instance in the
career of St. Paul. We may judge of the universality of his aim from the large
range of acquirements, spiritual and intellectual, with which he sought to
store his followers—content, with such an end in view, to wait for so many
precious years before he launched them on the world.
If it appears to us
that Palestine might have been no fitting field for the labours of men of this
stamp, it may be that we have too long accustomed ourselves to accept the
present state of things in the East as something to be acquiesced in without an
effort, something which the sober judgment of Christian men is to consider as
beyond the hope of change. Palestine was not to be the providential scene of
the labours of the companions of Ignatius, but we cannot conclude from this
that the very greatest results, even for Europe, might not have issued from
their enterprize if it had been the will of God that it should be carried out.
The East is nearer to us than India, China, Japan, or the New World. Whenever
the day of regeneration shall dawn for the East, for Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt,
and the region of the Euphrates and the Caspian, then a blow will have been
struck at the power which hinders the progress of God’s Kingdom upon earth such
as it has never yet felt. That region is the very heart of the world, and its
conquest to the Church would even now, humanly speaking, ensure the accomplishment
of that great work which has been
for so many centuries
prevented by the Greek schism and the dominion of Islam—the work of the
Christianization of Asia. But great as this blow would be even now, it may be
said that its consequences would have been far greater then, when the Turks
were still a power which kept Europe in awe by sea and by land, when Lepanto
had not been fought, nor Malta besieged, nor the flood of barbarian invasion
rolled back from the walls of Vienna, and when the colossal power of Russia had
not yet risen up to aid by its strength the schism of Constantinople. We shall
follow Francis Xavier in his labours in the still farther East—labours the
fruits of which it cost the Church incredible efforts to keep up and develope
for more than two centuries by supplies from Europe, supplies which always
depended in great measure upon the goodwill of politicians, and which were at
last dried up, almost entirely, by the triumph of the Bourbon Courts in the
suppression of the Society. The evangelizing of the far East, bright and grand
as its history is, might Jhave had annals far brighter and grander if the work
had been begun in Palestine, and had advanced steadily eastwards. We shall find
Francis, at the very end of his short career, renewing in some sense the design
with which he began, in his intention to preach westward from China until he
came again to the shores of the Mediterranean. Such are the dreams of saints.
But we must not measure them by our narrow views of expediency or possibility,
and we may feel assured that, if Ignatius and his companions had really been
sent by Providence to Palestine, they might not have done the less in their own
persons and in those of their followers in the battle against heresy or
worldliness or ignorance in the Catholic countries of Europe. At all events,
Ignatius never changed his mind about the importance of the Holy Land, nor laid
aside his wish that the Society which he had founded might be allowed to fix
one of its chief seats at Jerusalem, the one place of Christian pilgrimage
which can never lose its attraction, under whatever external circumstances of
disadvantage, as long as this world lasts, and which is so obviously fitted to
be the centre from which all good influences may flow over the whole
of the long-desolate
Eastern world. In the very last year of his life, we find Ignatius refusing to
give up his hqpes. Don Pedro de Zarata de Bermeo, a knight of the Holy
Sepulchre, obtained in 1554 a bull from Pope Julius III. for the foundation of
three Colleges of the Society in the East—in Jerusalem, in Constantinople, and
in Cyprus. Ignatius made many efforts to bring about the accomplishment of this
design; but he was always thwarted by the apathy of the persons to whom he addressed
himself, or other causes. Even before the bull was actually obtained, he had
sent Simon Rodriguez—mindful of that early attraction to the Holy Land which
had first brought them together — as far as Venice on his way to Jerusalem,
where he was to wait for a suitable opportunity of establishing the College.
But Rodriguez fell so ill at Venice that he was unable to go farther. Still,
when in 1556 the Franciscans urged him to renounce the right which the bull of
Pope Julius had given him, Ignatius declined to do so, saying that he did not
think he could do so with a clean conscience, even though it might seem
unlikely that the design could be carried out in his own lifetime.12
We must pass rapidly
over the time—a space of two years and three months—which passed between the first
happy meeting of the companions of Ignatius In the crypt at Montmartre, where
they pronounced their vows and received communion
12 The history of this plan of Zarata’s is
related at length by F. Genelli in the fifth chapter of his second part of his Life
of St. Ignatius (Eng. Tr. pp. 260263). The Bollandists give the letter, which
is quoted by F. Genelli, in which Ignatius refused to renounce his right. ' As
we do not know,’ he says, ' what God our Lord may be pleased to do through the
poor instrumentality of this little Society, it does not seem to me to be
right, or conformable to the Spirit of God, to consent to the closing of the
prospect of having a College in the Holy Land. A nd even were I to renounce it,
this act would not bind the Society in any future time. And I do not think I
can consent with a free conscience to a renunciation of this kind, even though
it should appear unlikely that we should found a College there during my
lifetime. It is of course quite possible that this design may never be carried
into execution, but we must not engage ourselves by a promise that it shall not
be done.’ We may add, that our own days may very possibly see a great change in
the state of affairs in the East, one of the results of which may well be the
accomplishment of the long-cherished designs of St. Ignatius for the benefit of
its peoples.
---------------- / —
from the hands of
Peter Favre, to the 15th of November 3:536, when, they finally left Paris on
their road to Venice, there to attempt the accomplishment of their design of
passing to the Holy Land. We are not told at what exact point in his academical
career Francis Xavier left off the teaching of philosophy and devoted himself
to the study of theology, but we know that the completion of their theological
studies was the chief reason for the delay resolved upon by Ignatius. It would
take us too long, also, to follow Francis through the Exercises, which he made
some time after the day of the first vows. The rules of the little Society were
few and simple. They were unable to live in common, but they met on Sundays and
feasts, were as much in one another’s company as possible, and, for the
purpose of fostering charity and of that immense spiritual profit which comes
from intercourse with congenial souls on fire with the love of God, they
invited one another to their simple meals, and thus renewed the ‘ Love- feasts’
of the early Christians. Ignatius himself was with them only till the end of
March in the year following the meeting at Montmartre. He went to Spain, partly
for his health, and partly also that he might arrange the private affairs of
some of the little body, Francis Xavier, Laynez, and Salmeron, who thought it
more prudent not to revisit their homes for such a purpose. The vow of poverty
which they had made at Montmartre consisted in the renouncement of all
possessions and dignities in this world, and as this renouncement could not be
carried out while they remained in France as students, they had fixed a time at
which it was to be formally effected. This was the business which Ignatius was
to perform for them at their homes. One more associate, Claude Le Jay, of
Geneva, had been added to the little Society before Ignatius left. Two more,
who raised the number of the original Fathers to ten, John Codurius and
Paschase Brouet, were gathered in after his departure, when Peter Favre was a
sort of father and superior to the rest in the place of Ignatius. They
practised weekly confession and communion, daily meditation and examination of
conscience, and spiritual reading in the Bible
and the Initiation of
Christ. The rest of their time was given to study and to such good works as lay
within the sphere of students such as they were.
It takes but a few
lines thus to describe the life led by Francis Xavier and his friends during
their last years at the University. But the happiest, the brightest, the most
peaceful stages of our lives, those which influence the remainder of our course
because they have been the seedtimes of our minds and souls, those which mould
and develope our affections, and to which our memories turn back with the
fondest thankfulness, are often those which can thus easily be summed up. Tranquil
times have little history, but they are yet the times of growth and of maturing
life. ‘ So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth,
and should sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow
up whilst he knoweth not. For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first
the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear. And when the
fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the
harvest is come.’13 The harvest was to come in its time for Xavier
and the rest. Meanwhile their life was steady, uniform, obscure. They passed
from their rooms to the schools or to the church, from the schools and the
church to the meadows and walks on the banks of the Seine, to Montmartre and
its quarries, or on some hidden errand of mercy or charity. Ignatius had so
formed each one that his presence was not needed to guide them at every moment,
or to retain them in their unity of purpose, or to prevent them from falling
asunder. They enjoyed the highest of Christian delights in their own mutual
love and confidence, at the same time that they were adding daily to their
stores of intellectual and spiritual wisdom. They were never again to be so
much together, so much at peace and at rest. But wherever they went in after
years, in the Old World or the New World, to Court or Council or Bishop or
King, among Catholics or heretics or the heathen, they would retain their
affection for one another, their brotherhood of spiritual form- n St. Mark iv. 26-29.
ation, and the
intellectual development and the theological learning which they had so
patiently acquired within the bosom of the great University.
The journey of
Ignatius to Spain, which we have already mentioned, gave occasion to the first
letter of Francis Xavier which remains to us. It is addressed to his elder
brother, and contains a kind of vindication of himself, as well as the
strongest possible recommendation of Ignatius. Its style has still much of the
formality and stateliness of the Spanish nobleman about it, and in this
respect contrasts strongly with the later letters we possess from the same
hand.
(i.) To the Captain of
Azpilqueta, his eldest brother.
My good Lord,
I have lately written
to you more than once by different hands. I had several powerful reasons for
doing so, the first and strongest of which was the tie of natural duty which
binds me to you, and that feeling of pious respect which, next to the love of
my parents, is due in the highest degree from me a younger to you an elder
brother, the firstborn of our family. Beside this there was the gratitude I
feel for your great and manifold kindnesses to me. These have been indeed so
many and of such a kind that I fear I shall never be able to repay them as they
deserve, and that I must expect to appear ungrateful in the eyes of those who
judge of ray will only from my deeds.
I am therefore most
anxious to find all possible ways of showing you what I think and feel with all
the strength of the most sincere and earnest attachment, in order, if possible,
to make you some return for your charity towards me, which is ever showing
itself by the most conspicuous proofs. Often, indeed, to my great sorrow and
trouble, I fail to find any such ways, and I feel often compelled, in the
anxious disquiet of my love for you, to suspect that those many letters which I
spare no pains to send to you, as witnesses of my tender and respectful
affection, by the hand of every one who leaves this for
your parts, are not
all faithfully conveyed to you, more particularly when I consider the immense
extent of country and the almost insurmountable difficulties of communication
between Paris and Obanos.
It is most probably
on account of some cause of the same kind that I receive answers from you less
frequently than I desire. I feel sure that it is not that you have given up
correspondence so delightful and so longed for by me, but that either the
faithfulness, the industry, or the good fortune of your messengers has failed
to be answerable to the efforts of your unwearied care concerning me. For,
indeed, the accounts of our friends, and other proofs no less certain, have
fully convinced me that you have a cordial sympathy for the sufferings to
which my labours as a student and my dwelling in a foreign land expose me, and
that in your residence at Obanos, with every comfort round you, you feel the
troubles of my watchings, and the difficulties with which I have to contend, as
much as I feel them myself in Paris, where I am often without the necessaries
of life, for no other reason, I feel certain, than that your unfailing
readiness to come to my aid has not been sufficiently informed as to the
numberless wants which I suffer,—wants, the particulars of which sound, for the
most part, minute and insignificant when spoken of, but which are yet very hard
to bear. The only thing that keeps me up in the midst of them all is the hope
that I have in that kindness of yours which I have so often experienced, and
this hope makes me confident that as soon as you know what and how much I want,
you will abundantly supply all that is required, and that the straits in which
I now find myself will be at once turned into abundance by a large outpouring
of your liberality.
A few days ago I had
a long talk with the Rev. Father Vear, who has lately come to the University.
He spoke long and most pleasantly concerning you all, and then took occasion
gradually to let me know plainly that grave complaints of me had been made to
you by some persons who bear me ill will. At my request he told me openly every
particular. If you will do me the favour to believe my solemn declaration that
these
charges
have absolutely no foundation, and that they are maliciously laid to the score
of your innocent brother, I am sure that you will share my grief at them, and
understand the sharp pain which calumnies of such a kind must have given one
who is conscious of being entirely undeserving of these reproaches. And yet I
tell you the simplest truth, when I say that I felt more patient as to the
undeserved loss of my own reputation than as to the grief which these reports
must have caused you. When Father Vear was telling me about this, I felt each
word before he uttered it; for I could easily understand, without being told
it, knowing as I do the warmth of your love for me, how much this wicked
accusation must of necessity have wounded you to the heart. ,
But it seems that
these same detestable sycophants have not been afraid to associate with me in
their calumnies the most innocent and the holiest of men, Master Don Ignatius.
As for this charge, you will see a first proof of the innocence of his life and
the purity of his conduct in the step he has, of his own accord, taken of going
to visit you in your own house and to deliver into your own hands, in private,
this letter which I have charged him to convey to you. Were he indeed what the
false colours of calumny have painted him, were he not, on the contrary, full
of the greatest confidence in his own conscious integrity, he would certainly
not venture, unarmed and alone, to place himself in the power of persons whom
he would remember to have grievously injured, and whom he would also know to
be perfectly aware that he had so injured them.
But that you, my lord
and elder brother, so worthy of my tenderest reverence, may well understand
clearly what a signal grace of God our Lord it has been for me to have for a
friend a man so perfect as Master Don Ignatius, I hereby solemnly declare, as
if this was a duly signed document, certified with all the sacred obligations
of an oath, that the services which this friend has rendered me infinitely
outweigh all that the most devoted gratitude from me during the course of my
whole life could either repay or answer to, even in part.
For, in the first
place, in the serious private inconvenience
which the distance
that separates me from you has often occasioned, he has always come
opportunely to my aid, both by putting at my disposal the funds which I needed,
and by assisting me in a thousand other ways, either by his own means or by
the intervention of his friends. And, in the second place, what is of infinitely
greater importance, he has preserved the thoughtlessness of my youth from the
deadly danger of forming friendships with men strongly inclined to heresy,
numbers of whom are to be met with in the present day in this University of
Paris; persons of my own age, who craftily hid under the specious veil of
attractive gifts of cultivation and talent their corruption as to faith and as
to morals. Ignatius alone has preserved my too yielding inexperience from
engaging myself in these pernicious friendships, by showing me the mischief of
wiles of which I was quite ignorant. So great was the evil from which I was
saved by this kindness of his, that I should never have thought the whole world
too dear a price to pay for such deliverance if it had been in my power to pay
it. And were this the only good that Master Don Ignatius has done me, it would
still be of such a kind that I do not know how or when I could repay it
worthily, or be grateful enough for it. For certainly, but for his
intervention, I should never have escaped falling into intimacy with those
young men, good in outward appearance, but inwardly corrupted with vice and
heresy, as their own deeds and the event Afterwards made clear. I beg and
entreat of you, therefore, by the ties of kindred and by the share that your
brotherly love for me prompts you to take in my feelings, my wishes, and my
obligations, do all that is in your power, as you would if I were present to
make the request, to omit nothing as regards assistance and attention to make
welcome the one person of all the world to whom I profess and acknowledge
myself most deeply indebted for the inestimable services he has rendered me.
After having made
this earnest request in the interest of Don Ignatius, I will add another on
your own account. I pray you to take advantage of the opportunity now offered
to you to enjoy the conversation and familiarity of a man of the highest
VOL. I. D
wisdom, whom God has
adorned with singular gifts. Trust my experience, you will gather abundant
spiritual fruits and the greatest consolation from his earnest admonitions and
prudent counsel. Open to him with confidence all the troubles that afflict your
mind; set before him any doubts you may have. Listen to his advice and obey his
counsel. You will find by your own experience the truth of my promises as to
the incredible advantages you will gain from knowing and conversing with a man
so filled with the Spirit of God. He will give you, moreover, the fullest
information you can desire, and all that it is so much my interest that you
should have, about myself and the present state of my affairs here. And I beg
of you to have the same confidence in his statements that you would have in
mine if I were with you. He is, in f^ct, most thoroughly acquainted with my
heart. He knows most accurately and minutely all the particulars of my private
concerns, and he knows, I may almost say, better than myself, the nature and
extent of my needs and of the assistance I require from you.
After what he tells
you shall have explained my necessity, if, as I feel sure you will, you intend
to come to my assistance, I beg of you to make him the medium of your favours.
It is true, he is not returning here so as to be able to bring to me in Paris
what he has received from you; but he has at his command a very safe means of
sending anything to me. There is here a young man from Almazan,14 a
friend of mine, who is following the same course of study: he receives from
his family the sums necessary for his maintenance by regular remittances which
never fail. This young man, when Don Ignatius left, gave him letters for his
father, with a commission to act for him in a certain business, and for this
purpose Don Ignatius must, on leaving you, pass through Almazan. I will ask
you, therefore, to intrust to him when he leaves you whatever money you wish to
send me. He will faithfully place the whole in the hands of the worthy
gentleman of Almazan, the father of my fellow student, who will send the
pension you intend for me by the same means and in the same money (so as to
have as little
11 This was,
of course, Laynez.
loss as possible in
exchange), as the yearly allowance which he transmits for his son’s expenses.
His son, at my desire, has asked him to do this in the letter which he has now
sent him.
I once more earnestly
entreat you that, now that you have so favourable an opportunity of sending me
some funds, you will not let me any longer grow old in such wretched
destitution.
As to our family
concerns here, I have nothing particular to ' tell you worth the writing,
except our good cousin’s disappearance from this University. The news came to
me late, and I got a carriage and followed the boy for some time, hoping to
catch him and bring him back if I could. My labour was in vain, for, after
pursuing him, with the fastest horses I could get, for as much as twenty-four
leagues from Paris to Notre Dame de Clery, I was obliged to give it up in
despair and turn back. Pray do not forget to let me know by the first
opportunity whether the runaway has turned up in Navarre. I have great fears
about the recovery of a character so headlong in its bent to evil. You will
hear, much better than I can tell you, from Master Don Ignatius how Church
matters stand here, and the direction in which our lately threatened heresies
have begun to break out, and I shall therefore say nothing about this. And so I
end, my dear lord, by kissing a thousand times, as well as I can at such a
distance, your dear hands and those of my sister, your lady wife, and I pray
God to preserve you both and crown you with all prosperity and happiness of
life, and to give you good fortune for many years, according to the desires of
your pious and generous hearts. God grant it! Such is my prayer.
Your most devoted
servant and younger brother,
Francis
Xavier.
Paris, March 24th,
1535.
It is not very easy
to imagine what the calumnies can have been from which Francis here clears
himself, unless they related to his manner of life. They possibly involved the
charge of novelty in doctrine, which may have been regarded as bringing
disgrace on the family. Whatever the charges were, they were shared by
Ignatius. The strong petition for help in money
may have been
prompted by the necessities of his position at Paris, where he was yet to
remain for a year and a half after the letter was written. Many things in the
letter seem to imply that Don Juan de Jasso, the father of the saint, was
dead, but as to this we have no certain information. The eldest brother may
have settled at Obanos on his marriage as the representative of the Azpilqueta
family, and come into possession of the corresponding portion of his mother’s
property. He may thus have been independent of his father, and so able to help
Francis.
Francis
Xavier
was in his thirty-first year when he left Paris (November 15th, 1536) with his
companions for the purpose of joining Ignatius at Venice at the beginning of
the ensuing year. He had spent twelve years in the University, and was on the
point of taking the degree of Doctor in Divinity, the usual crown of studies
such as his. He was never again to spend any great length of time in a single
place; and we shall see from his letters how much the University had moulded
his character, and how frequently his thoughts recurred to the place which,
longer than any other, had been his earthly home. Paris had done for him what
it cOuld, and he was certainly not an ungrateful son. It would seem that he and
his companions, especially Peter Favre, were highly valued in the University.
Great opposition was made to their departure. Simon Rodriguez tells us that
they consulted two learned and pious doctors as to their plans, which were
approved, while they were at the same' time warned that their execution would
be full of difficulty. Another theologian came to Favre, and told him that he
thought he was forsaking a sphere of great and certain usefulness for one of
much hazard and uncertainty, and that he could not do so without incurring the
guilt of mortal sin. At the same time Francis Xavier received from Spain the
news that he had been nominated to a canonry at Pampeluna.
Nothing of this sort
could shake their resolution. But how were the companions to get to Venice?
They were mostly Spaniards, and war was now raging between Charles V. and
Francis I.1
They determined to take a long and circuitous route for the sake of safety,
though it was certain, especially during winter, to be a cause of much
inconvenience and many sufferings. They would pass from Paris eastwards into
Lorraine, the Duke of which country was at peace with both the belligerents.
Then they would make their way to Basle and Constance, and so, probably through
the Tyrol, to Venice. They provided as well as they could against the dangerous
questions which their appearance was sure to occasion. They wore the long dress
and hat of the Parisian students. Each one had his pilgrim’s staff, his leather
satchel on his shoulders —in which he had a Bible, a Breviary, and his
manuscripts containing his theological notes taken while at Paris—and his rosary
round his neck. They gave their money to the poor on leaving Paris ; but it was
afterwards agreed that they should accept as alms and carry with them a
sufficient sum of money for their journey, as they might otherwise be involved
in inextricable difficulties in the heretical countries through which they
were to pass. As long as they were in French territory the Frenchmen among them
were to answer, in the name of all, the questions which might be addressed to
them, and if the Spaniards were asked about themselves, they were to say that
they were students of Paris on a pilgrimage. There was a famous shrine of St.
Nicolas on the German border of Lorraine, beyond Metz, which lav on their
road, and they were to be pilgrims to this shrine until they reached it. After
this
1 In this war Charles V. had invaded the
south-eastern provinces of France (in July), and had found the frontiers
unprepared for attack. Frartcis I. had ordered the devastation of the whole
country between the sea and the Durance, the Alps and the Rhone ; Arles,
Tarascon, and Marseilles alone were to be defended : even the towns, and Aix
itself, the capital of Provence, were destroyed, in order to hinder the
invasion. The Dauphin died on August io, with suspicion of poison, which was
attributed to the Emperor : but there seems to have been sufficient natural
cause for his sudden death. Charles laid siege to Marseilles, but was forced to
retreat with loss, on account of want of food and disease among the troops, in
September. The northern frontiers of France were also invaded from the Low
Countries. There would have been, therefore, the greatest exasperation
everywhere against Spaniards, and the whole of the south of France must have
been miserable as well as hostile enough to make our travellers choose the
route by Lorraine.
they would pass into
German territory, and here the Spaniards were to come forward in the name of
all, and the Frenchmen, if they were separately questioned, were to give the
same answers which the Spaniards had given before, only that it was to be the
Holy House of Loreto to which their pilgrimage was directed. Each day they
spent a considerable time in united prayer, morning and evening, before they
lefc their resting place for the night, and on their arrival. Those that were
priests said mass every morning whenever they could, and the others received
holy communion. The whole day was so arranged that prayer, meditation, and
spiritual conversation, occupied them during the journey.
The perils and
adventures with which they met on their way were neither few nor trifling, and
Simon Rodriguez, as we have mentioned, wrote down his reminiscences concerning
them many years later, at the request of the General, Everard Mercurian. At the
very outset of the pilgrimage, Francis Xavier seemed to be in danger of his
life. He had bound cords round his arms and thighs in a spirit of penance,
having to reproach himself—as we are told—with a certain amount of vanity and
selfsatisfaction in which he had formerly indulged on the score of his agility,
activity, and nimbleness in running and leaping in the games played by the
scholars at Paris. These cords he had not removed on starting, and, notwithstanding
the severe pain which they must have caused him, he persevered until his
strength entirely gave way. It was found that the cords had buried themselves
deeply in his flesh, which had swollen round them so that they were hardly
visible, and the surgeons who were called in despaired of being able to cut
them. His companions betook themselves to prayer, and the next morning the
cords were found to have broken of themselves, and the swelling had passed
away.
The first stage of
the travellers was Meaux. Two or three days’ journey beyond the town they were
pursued and overtaken by friends from Paris, urging them, in vain, to return.
The hostels along the route were full of heretics, to whom the devotions which
were openly practised by the pilgrims on ar
riving and setting
forth were the subject of frequent remark, either of amusement or astonishment.
The companions always avowed their creed, and had many controversial
discussions with any more learned men of the Lutheran party who might be called
in to the aid of the more ordinary disputants. On arriving at the frontier of
France towards Lorraine, they all went solemnly to confession and communion—as
it were, to bid goodbye to France, says Simon Rodriguez. Lorraine was at first
more dangerous to them. It was full of French soldiers returning from a raid
into the Low Countries, and, as was usual in those days, treating the
inhabitants of the neutral country not much better than if they had been
enemies. Metz was shut against these freebooters as against a hostile army, and
it was with the greatest possible difficulty that our travellers obtained
admission, along with some poor country folk who were flying from the soldiers.
They spent several
weary weeks in their journey from Lorraine into Italy. Once in Germany, they
had a new difficulty to encounter in their ignorance of the language of the country.
They were thus unable to ask the way, and frequently lost it for hours
together. It was winter, and the country was covered with snow. The narrative
of Rodriguez shows us incidentally the miserable moral and religious state of
the towns through which they passed. They stopped three days at Basle—which was
openly heretical, and in which Carlstadt2 then resided. Here they
had many disputes for the faith. Another time they wandered by chance into a
village, which was keeping high holiday for the marriage of its parish priest.
A short time before they reached Constance they were challenged to controversy
by another parish priest, who was already married and had a large family of
children. He invited them to supper, but they declined to eat at the same table
with him. After some further dispute, he was reduced to silence, and then
threatened to have them imprisoned and punished. Early the next morning they
were roused by a ‘ fair and gracious young
2 His real name was Bodenstein, but he is
more commonly known from the place of his birth.
man of-about thirty,’
who guided them along paths quite covered with snow for some miles, and then
left them after pointing out the road along which they were to proceed. Constance,
like Basle, had apostatized from Catholicism : mass was only allowed in a
church outside the walls of the town, and all who assisted at it had to pay a
certain fine. A little further on, at a place whose name Simon forgot, they
came upon a hospital, at the door of which an old woman met them, who began to
genuflect, kiss their rosaries, and cry out in German that she was an old
Catholic, delighted to see men who were still faithful to the Church. She ran
in, and brought out a lapful of rosaries, legs, arms, and other fragments of
sacred statues, and the like, which were all venerated by the Fathers, much to
the old dame’s delight, who began to scold the people of the hospital who had
told her that all the world had become heretical like themselves.
These few incidents
paint for us the hardships and difficulties of the journey to Venice, at which
city the band of companions arrived about the Epiphany 1537. Ignatius was
there to await his spiritual children, and their joy at meeting him may easily
be imagined. Ignatius had arrived at Venice a few days only before his
companions. He had sailed from Valencia to Genoa, and the vessel in which he
was had nearly been lost in a storm. 1 While the other
passengers abandoned themselves to terror and alarm, Ignatius spent the time in
calmly examining his conscience, which only reproached him with not having
corresponded to the graces he had received as faithfully as he deemed he ought
to have done.’3 He had other troubles by land. He had made his way
from Genoa to Venice by Bologna on foot, and had suffered very greatly from the
weather, the bad roads, and absolute destitution. Several months were to pass
before they could sail to Jerusalem, and it was determined to spend a part of
this time among the poor in the hospitals at Venice, and the rest in a journey
to Rome to obtain the blessing of the Pope. We thus find these first Fathers
of the Society practised at once in the * experiments’ which were afterwards
8 Cenelli,
Eng. Trans, p. 132.
insisted on in the
case of those who joined themselves to the body, when its rules and
constitutions had been put into shape. Francis Xavier was one of those
appointed to the Hospital of the Incurables. He was to be the servant of all
there, to wait upon the sick, dress their wounds, sores, or ulcers, make their
beds, prepare their food, sweep the room, and the like, and he was also to take
care of their souls, instructing them, consoling them, preparing them for the
last sacraments, and after their death carrying them forth for burial. It was
here in Venice that he won the grace, never to find any wound or ulcer, however
loathsome in itself, a cause of horror or disgust to him. The grace, however,
was won by a signal victory over his natural delicacy, when, finding a great
and sickening repugnance rising in him on having to dress an ulcerous wound of
the most disgusting kind, he forced himself to lick it and suck it to the very
last drop of the nauseous matter of which it had been full.4
After nine or ten
weeks thus spent in Venice, the little company of the disciples of Ignatius set
out on foot for Rome. There were prudential reasons why Ignatius himself should
not accompany them. Somehow he had incurred the hostility of the newly made
Cardinal Carafa, who had lately helped St.
4 This is the account given by Turselline,
who is quoted in the abstract of the Processes made for the canonization of St.
Francis. Turselline, like all the writers of his time, does not give his
authority. The valuable account of this period drawn up many years after by
Simon Rodriguez at the desire of Everard Mercurian does not mention the
incident, at least does not mention it in exactly the same form, and it appears
from internal evidence that Simon was one of the companions of Francis at the
Hospital of the Incurables. He seldom mentions names, but he speaks of ‘one of
the Fathers.’ A man covered with what seemed to be leprosy called this Father
to him and asked him to rub his back. Then the feeling of nausea came on, as
well as the fear of contagion, and Francis first scraped the ulcerous sores
with his fingers, and then put them into his mouth, licked and sucked them. He
told his companion of it the next day, saying that the night before he had
dreamt that the leprous matter had stuck to his mouth, and that he had in vain
tried to cough it away. It is quite possible that this may be another anecdote,
but it seems almost certainly to refer to Francis Xavier, who was very intimate
with Simon, and told him such things as his dreams more than once. Simon adds
another similar anecdote, which is probably of himself. One of the companions
begged the infirmarian to place in his bed a beggar
Cajetan in founding
the Theatine Order, and was afterwards Pope Paul IV. Carafa may perhaps have
disliked the notion of the Order which Ignatius seemed to be trying to found,
as being so very like his own. At a later time he wished the Theatines to be
fused with the Society, but Ignatius declined. Ignatius was also afraid of
finding an enemy in Pedro Ortiz, the representative of the Emperor at the Papal
Court, who was one of those who had denounced him to the Inquisition in Paris.
His expectations, however, were very happily disappointed in the case of Ortiz.
The journey of the nine companions occupied several weeks, and gave them an
occasion of continued and immense suffering. It was determined that they should
practise the strictest poverty—another of the experiments of the Society—and
this precluded them from taking with them any provisions or money whatever. It
was Lent, and they would not seek any dispensation from the strict law of
fasting. They were a large body to support themselves all at once by begging,
as well 'as to find lodgings from charity. The roads were extremely bad, the
rains incessant, the country in many parts flooded. From Venice they begged their
way to Ravenna by land, thence they embarked for Ancona, and then passed on
through Loreto and Tolentino, across the Apennines to Foligno and Spoleto, and
thence, as it appears, by Terni and Narni to
covered with leprosy,
whose application for admission had been refused on the ground that there was
no room for him in the Hospital. On rising the next morning he found himself
covered with leprosy; but the next day he was entirely and suddenly cured. This
narrative of Simon’s, which here adds other particulars like those which we
have now quoted, has been used by Mariani, the best Italian writer of a Life of
St. Ignatius. This Life has been translated in the Oratorian Series. Mariani
inserts the anecdote from Turselline, given above in the text, as well as that
contained in this note; but he gives no references. Simon’s narrative was
printed at Rome in 1869. (De Origine et Progressu So- cietatis Jesu usque ad
ejus confirmationem. Commentarium P. Simonis Rodriguez, qui fuit e novem
sociis S. Ignatii Patris: Romse, 1869.) The passage we have been quoting is at
pp. 34, 35. Simon tells us a little further on that when the Fathers first
entered Italy, the practice of confession and communion had become so rare,
that any one who approached these sacraments once a week was talked of
everywhere, and his doing so was mentioned in letters as an extraordinary piece
of news.
Rome. The first part
of the journey was the most trying. The people were afraid of them, supposing
that they must be men who had formed part of the army which, under the
Constable Bourbon, had some years before taken and sacked Rome, and were now on
their way, in a pilgrimage of penance, to obtain pardon at the shrine of the
Apostles.
Whenever they
obtained admission to the hospitals, which seem at this time to have generally
served as the ‘night-refuges’ of mendicant travellers, they edified every one
by their patience and humility, and the piety and zeal with which they instructed
and exhorted the poor sufferers who were the permanent inmates of these
charitable resting places. But they had often no shelter at all for the night,
and were sometimes whole days ivithout food except the cones of pine trees. The
simple tale of Simon Rodriguez draws a touching picture of their sufferings,
and of the self-reproach which some of them felt at having wasted their
strength by an excess of mortification as to food while they were sojourning at
Venice. Often only the worst and foulest beds in the hospitals were offered
them; the ferrymen at the rivers refused to take them across without payment;
they had sometimes to give their shirts or their inkstands in lieu of coin. At
Ancona they were not allowed to land because they could not pay the fare, and
one had to get leave to go into the town and pawn his breviary to deliver the
rest. Simon gives us a scene in the marketplace of Ancona, describing one of
his companions, who seems to have been Francis Xavier. He was barefooted, his
robe tucked up to his knees, going about among the market women, humbly begging
from one an apple, from another a radish, or some other vegetable; and this was
the young noble, the glory of the University of Paris for his learning and
mental gifts ! The market people at Ancona were liberal, and that day, Simon
says, they had enough for a joyous and frugal repast to satisfy their hunger,
as well as for the redemption of the breviary. Loreto consoled them, as it has
consoled thousands of saints before and after them. They spent two or three
days in prayer at that sweet and beautiful sanctuary.
At Rome each one went
to the Hospital of his own nation. They were at first thought to have come to
seek some benefices at the hands of the Curia, or, as before, to have come for
pardon for great crimes, or to get rid of the vows of some religious order to
which they belonged. But they were soon found out, and were all taken into the
great Hospital of San Giacomo, that of the Spanish nation. Pedro Ortiz himself
presented them to the Pope, Paul the Third. When the Pope heard that they were
theologians from Paris, he desired them to dispute before him with some of the
Roman Doctors during his dinner, and was delighted at the combination of so
much learning with so much humility. He gave them the leave which they desired
to go to Jerusalem, adding, however, that he feared they would not have the
opportunity of accomplishing their purpose. He already knew that war was
brewing between Venice and the Turks. He gave them, also, leave to receive
sacred orders on three consecutive feast days without the usual 1
interstices/ at the hand of any Bishop they might choose. Their learning was to
be instead of the required ‘patrimony.’ Paul III. gave them, moreover, a
considerable alms to enable them to pay their passage to the Holy
Land—conscious as he was that the voyage would never take place—and this sum
was increased by the contributions of some pious Spaniards in Rome to the
amount of 210 ducats. It was sent by letter of exchange to merchants at Venice,
and was afterwards duly returned by Ignatius and his companions when their
design of going to the Holy Land was finally abandoned.
The party of pilgrims
returned to Venice after a short sojourn at Rome, and resumed their labours of
charity at the hospitals. Their next step was to avail themselves of the Pope’s
permission to receive sacred orders. Before doing this, they renewed their vows
of poverty and chastity in the hands of Monsignor Girolamo Veralli, Archbishop
of Rossano, who was residing in Venice as Nuncio from the Pope. Their ordination
followed in a few days. The sacred rite was administered by Monsignor Vincenzo
Nigusanti, Bishop of Arba, on the Feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24, 1537.
Meanwhile
the approaching war
between the Turks and Venice, which the Pope had been able to forecast, seemed
to become a certainty, and there could be no opportunity of sailing to the Holy
Land for that year. It was determined that another year should be passed before
any further step was taken, that they might not lose any possible opportunity
of fulfilling their vow.
The companions now
resolved to disperse themselves in the neighbourhood of Venice, and prepare
themselves solemnly and as perfectly as possible for the great act of the first
celebration of holy mass. Vicenza, Treviso, Bassano, and Mon- selice — not far
from Padua—were pointed out to them as places which they might find suited for
their purpose of spending some time in quiet contemplation and the exercises
of penance. Two, Bobadilla and Brouet, went to Verona; two others, Laynez and
Favre, accompanied Ignatius to Vicenza; Le Jay and Simon Rodriguez went to
Bassano; Codurius and Hozes (a new addition to their number, who was, as it
turned out, the first of all to die) went to Treviso; and Salmeron and Xavier
to Monselice. These were all places within the Venetian dominion. The Nuncio
had given them, soon after their ordination, faculties in writing to say mass,
administer the sacraments, preach, explain Scripture, and absolve from reserved
cases, within the states of the Republic.
In the arrangements
now made among themselves, we again find the object of practising the religious
rule steadily kept in view. It is probable that the number of the companions
would have been too large for them to establish themselves anywhere, as yet, as
one religious community, and such a step would at once have caused enquiry as
to their Institute, which had not yet received any approbation, either written
or verbal, from authority. This may have been another reason for their dispersion.
But the little parties of two or three began now to practise obedience
regularly, though the vow on this subject had been omitted when they originally
made their vows, and when they renewed them before Monsignor Veralli. Each one
was Superior for a week, and then in his turn obeyed his companion. When
afterwards they went to reside in Rome, this
system was
continued, the period of authority being extended to a month. It was thus that
obedience and discipline were practised among them until the formal election of
a General in the person of Ignatius. Up to that time, he had taken his turn
with the rest, although he was always respected and honoured by them all in a
singular manner. v
The austerities of
the Fathers at this time were almost excessive, and their sufferings from
weakness, poverty and bad lodging were very great. Ignatius and Simon Rodriguez
fell ill, but recovered. After a time, Ignatius collected them all in the old
ruined monastery at Vicenza where he had taken up his quarters, and thus it
happened that several of them, and among them Francis Xavier, said their first
mass at that place. It was then determined, probably because the hopes of Palestine
had grown visibly fainter,5N that after finishing their
appointed time of retirement they should disperse, until the year of waiting was
out, into some of the chief cities of Italy, in order to labour for the good of
souls. Ignatius and his two companions of Vicenza were to go to Rome itself,
Salmeron and Brouet to Siena, Xavier and Bobadilla to Bologna, Le Jay and
Rodriguez to Ferrara, and Codurius and Hozes to Padua. It was agreed that they
were to continue the same rule of life and the same exercises of charity and
zeal as before. Ignatius told them that when they were asked who they were,
they were to say that they belonged to the Compania, or band, of Jesus.
While these
arrangements were being made at Vicenza, Xavier, with one of his
companions—perhaps Rodriguez—had fallen'ill, and had been moved to the Hospital
of Incurables in the town, that they might be somewhat better tended than was
possible in the old ruin already mentioned. They had, however, only one bed
between them; and as the one required as much warmth as possible, and the other
was at the
5 F. Genelli remarks (p. 139, Eng. Trans.)
that on account of the war ‘it was impossible to cross the sea to Syria during
the whole of that time during which Ignatius and his companions had made a vow
to wait; and it was exactly after this time had elapsed, and after they had
given up the intention of their pilgrimage, that the war ceased and the sea was
again open for the passage.’
height of a raging
fever, it was not easy for both to enjoy at once the little comfort that might
otherwise have been at their command. It was here that Francis Xavier had a
vision in which* St. Jerome, to whom he had a great devotion, appeared to him
and consoled him, promising him at the same time a far severer cross at
Bologna, to which city he was to be sent, and naming at the same times the
several cities in which his companions were to labour.
In the choice made by
Ignatius and his associates of the cities in which they were to place
themselves, it is not difficult to see the same love for large centres of
population, especially when such cities were also seats of intellectual
activity, which we have already remarked upon. Bologna, the first scene of
Francis Xavier’s priestly labours, seems to have received him with special
affection, and to have gained a place of peculiar regard in his heart. He was
forced by the importunities of Jerome Casalini, a Canon of St. Petronio and
Rector of the church of Santa Lucia, to accept a lodging in his house instead
of in the common hospital; but Francis would never consent to live upon
anything but the alms he collected himself. 1 he Canon’s sister, Isabella, had
been attracted by the extraordinary fervour and devotion with which Francis
celebrated mass at the tomb of St. Dominic. His time was spent in preaching in
the public piazzas, in hearing confessions, visiting the prisons and hospitals,
and catechizing children. He spared himself so little that he soon fell ill of
a dangerous quartan ague, which was the cross predicted to him by St. Jerome.
He had nearly recovered, when he was summoned by Ignatius to Rome, towards the
end of winter.
Ignatius, with his
two companions, Laynez and Favre, had arrived in Rome, it seems, in the course
of November 1537. The Pope received him graciously, and appointed Favre to
lecture in positive theology, Laynez in scholastic theology, in the University
of the Sapienza. Ignatius occupied himself chiefly in giving the Spiritual
Exercises, and many men of distinction placed themselves in his hands for this
purpose. Among these was Ortiz himself, who took Ignatius with him
to Monte
Cassino,6 where he went through the Exercises with the utmost fervour,
offering himself, at the end of his retreat, as a member of the new Society.
Ignatius, however, dissuaded him on the ground of his age and the importance of
the business with which he was charged by the Emperor, whose representative
he was in the matter of the divorce sued for by Henry VIII. from Catharine of
Aragon. At Monte Cassino, while hearing Mass, Ignatius was made suddenly aware
of the happy death of Hozks, his lately acquired associate, who fell a victim
to his own zeal at Padua. ' v
The ordinary abode of
the little party was in a vineyard near the Trinitk di Monti, but when about
Easter the remainder of the companions were summoned to join the three already
at Rome, they removed into the heart of the city, to the Torre del Melangolo in
the Piazza Margana, near the present convent ofSta. Catarina dei Funari. As
soon as they were all assembled, Ignatius submitted to them his thoughts concerning
the erection of the Society into a religious order. It cannot be doubted that
this had been all along his intention, and indeed it was well known in after
years that the whole plan of the Society had been set before him at Manresa.
But it was the method of Ignatius to proceed in all things with the fullest
deliberation, and to let every onward step in the accomplishment of his plan
be the issue of prayer and the workings of the Holy Ghost on the hearts of
those who were concerned. Alcazar has preserved to us the address in which he
expressed his thoughts.7 The purport was that they had not indeed been
able to pass to Palestine according to their vow, but that in Italy, the centre
of Christendom, they had seen with their eyes and tested by their own
experience how vast a field God had laid open to their apostolic labours, and
how plentiful a
6 We are told
by Alcazar (Chrono-Historia de la Compauia de Jesus en Ij. Provincia
de Toledo, i Part. Lib. Prelim, c. vii.) that one of St. Ignatius’ favourite
means of doing good was to give away spiritual books, and that he gave each
monk at Monte Cassino a copy of the book de Conicmplu Jllundi, i.e. the
Imitation of Christ, which Spanish writers of that time, such as Louis of
Grenada, call by that name.
7 See Alcazar, at the place quoted above,
§ 4.
VOL. I. E
harvest He had
enabled them to reap in their efforts for the conversion and reformation of
souls. This, then, was the en- terprize to which God now invited them, and with
His aid they might hope to carry on the work begun by the Apostles, to ‘ root
up and plant,’ combat heresy and vice, and extend the faith of Jesus Christ
over the whole earth. The means of doing this most surely was to bind
themselves by a permanent bond, under one head, adding the vow. of obedience to
the vows of poverty and chastity, which they had already taken. They would thus
perpetuate, beyond the span of their own lives, the bond of charity which
united them, erecting their Company into a religious Order which might multiply
itself in all countries and last until the end of time. This new bond of union
would alter nothing, it would only strengthen themselves and ennoble the
designs which they had conceived. God seemed to show that this was His design
by the great fruits which they had already reaped, and by the men of ability
who were daily brought to them as fresh companions. There would be no guarantee
for such in the future unless the body were made permanent. However, Ignatius
added, he did not insist on an immediate answer to his proposals, he would have
them all take time, reflect, and pray that God would make known to them His most
holy Will, that their final determination might result in His own greater
glory, which was and always had been the rule and end of their desires.
In the May of this
year 1538, Paul III. went to Nice to meet Charles V. and Francis I., in hope of
bringing about a peace between these two inveterate rivals. Cardinal Carafa was
left as Legate at Rome, and he gave Ignatius and his companions the leave to
preach and hear confessions which they so much desired. The two professors at
the Sapienza continued their courses, but took their turns in preaching as
well, Favre assisting Francis Xavier in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso,
and Salmeron preaching in that of Santa Lucia del Gonfalone. Ignatius himself
preached in Spanish at the Spanish church, Santa Maria in Monserrato (the rest
preached in Italian), Laynez in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, Le
Jay at San Luigi dei
Francesi, Rodriguez at Sant’ Angelo in Pescheria, and Bobadilla at SS. Celso e
Guiliano ai Banchi.
They had little
reason to* expect great success. Ignatius speaks, even after this time, of the
soil of Rome as * sterile of good fruits and fertile of bad fruits.’ They had
already many enemies who were industriously spreading evil reports against
them, and who delayed for a time the issue of their faculties by the Legate
there. It was also unusual for preachers to appear in the pulpits except
during the sacred seasons of Advent and Lent, and the population was
accustomed, after the effort required for the performance of their Easter duties,
to relapse into enjoyment, if not into sin. Moreover, they thought, as Ignatius
says, that they had but little elegance or attractiveness to draw audiences to
them. Nevertheless, the fruit was great, the Sacraments began to be frequented
more regularly, and a striking reformation of manners was the result.
It could hardly be
otherwise, considering the evident sanctity and fervour of the preachers,
their holy and austere lives, and the high character which their learning gave
to them. But the new association was to be tried by persecution. Our Lord had
appeared, we are told, to Ignatius when he reached the little village of La
Storta, so well known to travellers as the last stage before Rome is reached,
on the roads Lxom Florence or Loreto, and He had promised him His protection in
the iamous words, Ego vobis Roma propii^is ero. The favour thus promised was to
be purchased and secured by a heavy cross. Many writers have told the history
oi the accusation made against Ignatius and his companions, o: its prompt
refutation, of the delay on the part of the Legate and the Governor of Rome to
give a distinct sentence in their favour on account of the high standing of
some of the persons concerned in the propagation of the calumny, of the
persistence oi Ignatius in demanding a full trial and public decision, and of
the providential presence in the Holy City of so many persons of authority who
could bear witness to his past career,—Juan Figueroa, the Vicar-General, who
had imprisoned him at Alcala, Gaspar de Doctis, the official of the Legate at
Venice,
who had inquired into
their lives and doctrine before they first began to preach in the dominion of
the Republic, the Inquisitor of Paris, Ori, who had also examined him there,
and the Bishop of Vicenza, in whose diocese some of the companions had preached
and laboured. The story belongs rather to the history of the Society, or to the
life of Ignatius, than to that of Francis Xavier, but it must have had, with
all else that passed during these two years at Rome, an effect' upon the full
formation of his Apostolic character. The Pope’s return to his States in the
autumn saved Ignatius and his companions from the blight which would have
fallen on their reputation if the calumnies had been allowed to linger on
without positive condemnation from authority. Ignatius had a long interview
with Paul III. at Frascati, before the time of the villegiatura was ended, and
the result was a peremptory order to the Governor Conversini, to bring the
affair to an issue. Paul had now come under the influence of that peculiar
charm which the sanctity and noble simplicity of Ignatius enabled him to
exercise on all who conversed with him intimately. The Pope spoke openly in
favour of the companions, even in their own presence—for they were admitted
once a fortnight to dispute on theology in his presence during his meal. The
deferred sentence bears date November 18, 1538. In a letter written about a
month after this time,8 Ignatius mentions that they had then been
allowed a further liberty in instructing children in schools—one of the works
of the Christian ministry on which he set the highest value.
The winter which
succeeded this first year of the labours of the companions now in Rome gave
them another opportunity of winning for themselves the esteem and love which
always, in the long run, find out true devotion and ardent charity. A severe
famine fell upon the city, and thousands would have perished from hunger or
disease consequent upon privation, but for the exertions of this handful of
strangers, who had but just been
8 To Elisabeth Roser in Spain, Dec. 19,
1538; Menchaclia, Ep. S. Iqn. 1. i. ep. 8.
vindicated from
charges which represented them as the most worthless of men. Very soon they had
under their charge in one large building four hundred poor, for whom they
begged food, clothing, bedding, and all other necessaries, and of whose souls
they took care after they had cared for their bodies. A great movement of
charity was the natural result of their noble example, and the poor were
supported by large contributions until the spring had set in.
Meanwhile, several
men of distinction were applying for admission into the Company, and Ignatius
had also been requested to send some of his labourers to other cities in
Italy. He had been unable to receive recruits, because one of the charges
brought against him and his friends had been that they were endeavouring to
found a new religious order without leave from the Holy See. It had also seemed
inexpedient that they should separate, although they did not yet live what is
called a strict ‘ community life/ without first determining on many essential
points. In fact, several months in the year 1539 (the last of Francis Xavier’s
life in Rome and as a companion of Ignatius) were spent in prayer,
deliberation, and consultation as to the future of the Company. They laboured
in their works of charity by day, and spent part of the night in their consultations.
We have an account of these deliberations from Ignatius him self,9 and it
shows how slowly and prudently the plan of the Society was matured. If the date
given by Alcazar of the proposals submitted to- the companions on their first
assembly in Rome be correct, a whole year must have elapsed before the vital
question of obedience under one head, in which the whole existence of the
Society as an order was involved, was finally determined. There were
difficulties internal and external. The chief difficulty as to the formation of
a body under one head seems to have consisted in the intention of the
9 The original of this most interesting
document is, or was, in the Archivium of the Society at Rome, in Latin, in the
handwriting of St. Ignatius. Alcazar l(.c.) gives an exact translation in
Spanish. The deliberations began after Easter 1539 (‘after Lent was passed’).
Easter-day fell that year on April 6th. The paper mentioned a little further on
was signed on Tuesday, April 15th.
companions to offer
themselves unreservedly to the Pope. If the Pope were to send them hither and
thither, were they to keep up as before their mutual relations one to another ?
There were also great external difficulties which had, in fact, to be overcome,
and which it cost Ignatius many prayers and sacrifices to dispose of. The
religious orders at that time were in so bad a state generally, that there were
thoughts in high places either of abolishing them altogether, or of reducing
them very greatly in number. The idea of a new order would hardly be tolerated;
a new order, moreover, which, as the companions were fully conscious, would
require the permission on the part of the Holy See to depart in some very
essential particulars from any existing type.
The question as to
the retention at all costs of the union in which they had found so much
happiness and profit was resolved unanimously in the affirmative. The question
as to the obedience to one head cost much deliberation; and it was at one time
thought that it would be expedient for them to retire for some such space as
forty days into absolute solitude, spending their time entirely in prayer and
austerities, in order to solve it. This idea was abandoned, partly from fear of
the scandal that might follow if they seemed to disperse or to leave Rome.
Ignatius gives us the reasons which were urged on both sides. The decision, however,
was at last unanimous in favour of the addition of a third vow of obedience to
the vow of poverty and chastity; and a document was drawn up, and signed by all
the companions on the 15th of April 1539, which pledged them all to enter the
Society as soon as it was approved by the Pope. The fourth vow, which is now
taken by the Professed of the Society, to go on any mission on which the Pope
shall send them, whether among Christians or among the heathen, was decided on
the 4th of May. Other arrangements as to the teaching of children, the duration
of the Generalate, and the 1 experiments’ to which those who
wished to enter the Society were to be subjected, were added, and the whole
plan was then put on paper and submitted by Ignatius to the Pope. The Pope gave
it for consideration to the Master of the Sacred Palace,—
the great order of
St. Dominic being made, as it were, to stand sponsor for the original
constitution of the Society founded by Ignatius. Father Badia returned it to
the Pope with great commendations, and it was finally approved, but only
verbally, by Paul III. on Sept. 3, 1539, at Tivoli. The formal approbation, as
to which the Pope at first hesitated, and which at one time seemed extremely
improbable, on account of the strenuous and obstinate opposition of Cardinal
Guidiccioni, who had taken up strongly the opinion that all religious orders
ought to be reduced to four, was not granted till more than a year later, when,
on the Feast of SS. Cosmas and Damian, Sept. 27, 1540, Paul III. signed the
bull Regimini militantis Ecclesice. Before that time Francis Xavier had left
Rome and the side of Ignatius for ever. The bull was not formally promulgated
till the spring of 1541.
Soon after the last
points submitted for deliberation had been settled, the dispersion of the
members of the future Society had begun. In May, Simon Rodriguez and Brouet
had been sent to Siena, along with Francis Strada, a young Spaniard whom
Ignatius had fallen in with more than a year before, on his return from Monte
Cassino. The object of the Pope in sending the Fathers to Siena was the
restoration 01 discipline in a certain convent, but the benefit of their
presence was soon felt in the whole town. Codurius preached in the summer at
Velletri, and in the following Advent at Tivoli. Laynez and Favre were sent to
accompany the Cardinal of St. Angelo in his Legation to Parma, where Jerome
Domenech and some other valuable recruits were gained to the Society. Laynez
laboured also at Piacenza and Reggio; Bobadilla went to help in reviving
religion, and indeed civil peace and order itselr, in Ischia, and preached with
much fruit in Naples itself. Meanwhile Salmeron continued his lectures at
Rome, and preached and heard confessions also : Codurius, Le Jay, Ignatius
himseh, and Francis Xavier made up the- little company. Francis Xavier was the
secretary, and kept up the correspondence with the absent members. He thus
began to be the chief letter writer of the Society—but unfortunately those
first Fathers were too busy
and too frequently
changing their abodes to keep letters. Thus the months passed on, until on the
15th of March 1540, Ignatius called him to his room, and told him that it was
his lot to leave Rome the next day in company with the Portuguese ambassador,
Pedro de Mascarenas, to join Simon Rodriguez, who had already sailed for Lisbon
from Civita Vecchia, in the first missionary expedition of the Society to the
East Indies.
It was one of those
providential arrangements which seem the result of simple chance. Govea, the Superior
of the College of St. Barbara at Paris, who had been so nearly betrayed into
an act of so much hostility and unfairness to Ignatius as the infliction upon
him of a public flogging, and who had been converted to a better mind by the
interview which the Saint sought with him, was now the trusted adviser of John
III., King of Portugal, a zealous Christian Prince, most desirous of doing all
in his power to further the spread of the Gospel truth in the new empire which
had fallen into his hands in the extreme East. Govea had written to Ignatius
about the great wants of the Indies, and he had recommended the King to apply
for several of the companions of Ignatius as missionaries to the heathen there.
The King ordered Mascarenas to make the request. The ambassador asked for six,
Ignatius would only give two, and the Pope declined to force him to do more.
Ignatius named Simon Rodriguez, naturally acceptable to the King, as he was
himself a Portuguese of noble family, and Bobadilla, who was still labouring in
the kingdom of Naples. Rodriguez sailed, as we have said, at once: he had but
just returned from Siena, and was troubled with a quartan ague; but nothing
could stop him. He took with him as a companion Father Paul of Camerino, who
had lately joined the companions, and of whom we shall hear more in the
letters of Francis Xavier. The second, or rather the third, of the missionaries
was to travel to Portugal by land with Mascarenas. But Bobadilla only reached
Rome just before the time appointed for the departure of the ambassador, and
when he arrived he fell so ill as to be unable to travel. The ambassador could
not wait, and would not go without the promised missionary. A substitute
bad to be found at
the last moment, and Ignatius gave to the Indian mission his very right hand,
his secretary, the man for whose conversion he had laboured so industriously
and so perseveringly at Paris. Xavier had just time to receive the parting
blessing of Paul III., and then he embraced Ignatius for the last time, and set
forth on the long journey, or series of journeys, which was to end twelve years
and a half later on the little island of San Chan within sight of the shores of
China.
The appointment of Francis Xavier to the mission of the Indies appears,
as we have said, to have been brought about by chance, and was certainly a
variation from the original intention of Ignatius. It is nevertheless true
that it was not unexpected by Francis himself. He had heard of the wonderful
field opened to Apostolic labourers in the Indies by the establishment of the
Portuguese dominion in those countries, and of the miserable darkness which
involved so many millions of souls redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. He
had longed to offer himself for such labours, and those who knew him most
intimately had heard him utter strange words concerning them. Laynez used to
relate afterwards how, when he was sleeping in the same room with Francis, he
had sometimes been awakened by hearing him cry out as if under the strain of a
great burthen, and how Francis had afterwards confessed that he had seemed to
have been carrying on his shoulders an Indian, the weight of whom had seemed
almost to crush him, and how he had found himself perfectly exhausted by his
exertions. Simon Rodriguez, whom he was once nursing during an illness, had
heard him cry out in his dreams, ‘ More ! more !’ and when Francis parted from
him on his own voyage to the East, he told him as a last secret that he had
then had represented to him a vast scene of toil—labours, dangers, and sufferings
which he was to undergo—and how God had given him the courage to desire that
the sufferings might be even increased. These things show how much his mind was
turned in that direction, as well as the magnanimous courage with which he was
ready to encounter the career of toil now opened to him.
The Society was not
yet approved by the Holy Father
except by word of
mouth. The conclusion of the affair was expected daily, but it did not really
take place till half a year after the time when Xavier left Rome. He placed in
Laynez’s hands a letter to be used when the time came for the members of the
Society to give their suffrages. It contained three declarations. First of all,
he declared that he accepted beforehand all the rules and constitutions which
should be made by those of the Society who might be conveniently assembled at
Rome, as soon as his Holiness granted his approbation to their plan. He knew
that the companions would soon be dispersed into various countries, and he
promised acquiescence in the arrangements of those who might be assembled, if
only two or three or whoever they might be. This he signed with his name. A
second part contained his suffrage for the election of Superior. He declared
that he thought it right, in his conscience, that their old and true Father,
Master Ignatius, who had brought them together with so much labour, should be
their Superior. * He will know best how to preserve us, guide us, and urge us
on to better things, because he thoroughly knows every one of us.’ After his
death, Master Peter Favre should, he thought, be chosen. A third declaration is
added, in which he promises ‘now for then, when the Society shall have been
collected, and a Superior chosen, perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience
therein.’ He adjures Laynez, his dearest Father in Christ, to offer these his
vows for him to the Superior who shall be elected.1
It was late in Lent
when Francis left Rome. The account of his journey to Portugal, which lasted
till nearly the end of June, is chiefly derived from his own letters, though
they naturally omit certain details as to himself which he was very unlikely
to have mentioned. He reached Bologna soon after Easter, having passed through
Loreto, where he paid his devotions, again, and for the last time, in the Holy
House of Nazareth. At Bologna he was received with enthusiasm, for the memory
of his labours there two years before had not died away. On the first day of
his arrival the church of Santa
1 We print this letter in the Notes to
this Book.
Lucia, where he was
to say mass, was full, two hours before day, of people who desired to assist at
it, and he spent a great deal of time in hearing confessions and seeing old
friends.2 He had a long interview with the Cardinal Legate, who promised
his favour to the Society. The following letter, in answer to one which he had
received from Ignatius, gives a short account of his proceedings, thus far, and
it is full of that tender feeling of personal affection which made his
apostolical exile from his friends a sacrifice of peculiar intensity to him.
May the grace and
love of our Lord Jesus Christ be ever with us, to help and favour us ! Amen.
On Easter Day I
received your letter which came with the despatches of my Lord Ambassador; and
I cannot express all the joy and consolation which it has caused me—God our
Lord alone knows it. For what is left of this life, I am well assured, it will
be by letter only that we shall hold intercourse— in the other life, we shall
be facie ad facievv5 and embrace one
2 Some years after this, the church of
Santa Lucia itself was given to the Society.
3 Codacio was a priest, a native of Lodi,
of a good family and considerable wealth (sacerdos honestus et clarus e
PontificiS. famiM—of the Pope’s household—nec parvis Ecclesise opibus ac
facultatibus prseditus) says Orlandini (ii. 66), who was the first Italian to
enter the Society, and had begged to be allowed to act as its Procurator in
temporal matters. Orlandini tells us that he was so useful to it that some
people called it Codacio’s Society.
4 The original of this letter was
preserved at Bologna, in the College of St.
Lucia, and
Father Menchacha, the very careful editor of the Epistles of St. Francis, says
that he copied it out from the Spanish. (Proleg. p. liv.) It appears, however,
somewhat altered in his text, as that part of his book had been printed before
he made the comparison. We follow the original in our translation.
6 P.
Poussines, who published a large collection of the Letters of St. Francis in
1666, tells us in his Prolegomena, that whenever the Saint, writing in Spanish
or Portuguese, puts in a few words in Latin, either as a quotation or
otherwise, he has left them in italics in his own text. We shall insert them
either in the text or in notes. See Menchacha, Ep. S. Francisci, t. i. p.
xxxviii.
another perpetually.
So what remains to us is that for this little time which we have still to pass
in our mortal exile, we should take frequent looks at one another by means of
letters, and for my part, I mean to do just as you bid me in this matter, and
to keep the rule which little girls observe of writing constantly to their
mothers.
‘I have had a long,
leisurely, and perfectly open conversation with my Lord Cardinal of Ivrea,6
as you commissioned me in your letter. He received me in the kindest way,
offering with great earnestness to favour us in everything that lies in his
power. The good old man embraced me when I left him and kissed his hand : and
while he was talking, I could not help throwing myself at his feet, and kissing
his hand in the name of all our Society. As far as I could judge from his
answers to me, he highly approves our way of going on.
The Lord Ambassador
heaps so many favours and attentions upon me that I should never finish if I
were to tell you all, and I don’t know how I could ever have consented to
accept them, if I did not reflect, and were not convinced, that in India I
shall pay for them at the cost of my life and nothing less. On Palm Sunday I
heard his confession in the Church of our Lady at Loreto, and gave him holy
communion. I did the same to a number of his people. I said mass in the Chapel
of our Lady, and the good ambassador got all the people of his suite to receive
holy communion with him in that Holy House. Again on Easter I)ay I heard his
confession, gave him absolution, and afterwards communion, as well as to other
good and religious persons of his household. His domestic Chaplain commends
himself very much to all your prayers. He has promised to go with us to the
Indies.
Please, my dearest
brother Don Pedro, to give my salutations to Donna Faustina Ancolini, and
remind her in my name, if it is not too much for you to do, to keep her promise
to me that she would go to confession and communion. Tell her also, if you
please, to write and let me know that she has done so, and how often. Tell her
that I have said one mass
6 Philibert Fcrrcri, Bishop of Ivrca,
Cardinal Legate of Bologna.
for her and my dear
Vincenzo, and that to-morrow I shall say one for herself. She may be quite
sure, moreover, that I shall never forget her, even when I am in India. And
tell her from me that if she wishes to do a thing that will give real pleasure
to her and my dear Vincenzo, she will forgive those who killed her son, for
Vincenzo certainly prays a great deal for them in heaven. Here in Bologna I
have more to do hearing confessions than I had lately in Rome at San Luigi. My
tenderest love to all of you ; if I do not mention each one by name, it is not,
you may be quite sure, that I forget any one.
Your Brother and
Servant in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Bologna, March 31st,
1540.
We must suppose that
the lady here spoken of had lost her son in one of the quarrels so frequent
among the young men of the time, and had been consoled by Francis before his
departure.
The next letter which
we possess is written from Lisbon some time after his arrival there.
(hi.) To the Fathers and
Brothers of the Society of Jesus at Rome.
May the grace and
love of Christ our Lord be always our support and help ! Amen.
We have received from
Christ our Lord many and continual favours all through our journey from Rome
into Portugal, which has taken us three months. That all that distance and
time, through so many difficulties and toils, my Lord Ambassador and all his
suite, from the highest to the lowest, should never have ceased to enjoy
perfect health, is a matter for which we ought certainly to give great thanks
and praise to Christ our Lord, especially as over and above ordinary helps He
has held a hand of particular protection over us to deliver us from all
dangers, and was also pleased to inspire my Lord Ambassador with wis
dom and prudence to
keep all his people in so holy an order, that they have seemed to be rather a
religious community than a secular household. He managed this by himself
frequenting the sacraments of penance and holy communion : his servants
consequently did the same of their own accord, induced by so noble an example;
and this they did so often and in such large numbers, that often as we went
along it was easy to foresee that when we got to our hostel we should have far
too little time and too scanty convenience for satisfying the wants of so many;
and so I was obliged now and then to turn aside from the road and dismount and
find a convenient place, so as to hear a part of the retinue beforehand.
We had not yet got
out of Italy when our Lord was pleased to show His power in a manner quite
miraculous, on one of our company, a servant of my Lord Ambassador. It was the
same man whom you saw at Rome first put off, through weakness and cowardice,
the design he had formed of embracing the religious life, and afterwards
abandon it altogether. We came on a large river, and no one knew whether or
where there was a ford. This poor man was urged by his own rashness to try to
find it, though we all cried out to him not to do it; all in vain, for he rode
on into the channel of the stream, though he knew nothing of its depth.. He had
not gone far, when the force of the current overpowered his horse, and carried
it away together with its rider. We all looked on in heartfelt pity. The stream
bore him down in a moment, quite as far as the distance from your house at
Rome to San Luigi’s. And then our Lord God vouchsafed to hear the ardent
prayers which His servant, my Lord Ambassador, poured forth at that pitiable
sight, praying, and all his servants with him, non sine lacrymis, for what was
in all human appearance the desperate case of that poor fellow. Our Lord heard
their prayers, and saved him from the very jaws of destruction by a manifest
miracle. The man was Master of the Horse in my Lord’s household. No doubt when
he was being carried along by the whirling stream he would much have preferred
the inside of a monastery to his present case. And his greatest trouble at this
time, as he told me
himself afterwards,
was the memory of the opportunity he had refused, and which then he would have
willingly regained at any price whatsoever. He told me that he was much less
overwhelmed by horror at the danger he was in at that dreadful moment than by
the sting of his conscience, which keenly reproached him with having led a
careless life without making provision for death, and he added, that at that
critical juncture he was tormented above all by tardy repentance for having put
off his entrance into religion, to which he had felt that God certainly called
him. He was so full of these thoughts when we recovered him that he fell to
exhorting the whole company not to sin in the same way. His face and
countenance were all changed, pale beyond expression, and marked with the sense
of the danger he had run; he seemed a man come back from hell, and all this
gave great weight to his words. He discoursed long and pathetically upon the
torments of the damned, like a man who had experienced them : and he said over
and over again that it was vety true indeed, that a man who during life had not
thought of preparing for death, had no time to remember God when the necessity
of death was upon him. Such was the discourse of this good man, discourse not
gathered from reading books, or from studious meditation, but dictated by his
own experience. And when I think this over, I am deeply moved at the very
similar carelessness of many whom in various ways we have made acquaintance
with and known as friends, whom I see putting off in the same way the execution
of good plans and holy desires to serve God, which they acknowledge to have
felt. And I fear very much that they, too, may find themselves some day
surprised by a time when they may most ardently desire to accomplish what they
had determined and will then have no power of accomplishing.
[The lives of Francis
Xavier are unanimous in attributing the miraculous rescue of the poor man here
mentioned to the prayers of the Saint. It needs but little acquaintance with
the manner of speaking and writing of matters in which they themselves are
concerncd which is common to great servants
65
of God, to see
through the veil which his humility has here thrown over his own part in the
affair, as well as over his influence in producing the marvellous piety and
regularity which prevailed in the whole company during the journey. Two other
instances of his charity and its preternatural reward are mentioned in the same
histories. In the first case he is said to have risked his own life to save the
secretary of the ambassador, who had fallen over a precipice in the Alps into
a deep cavity in the snow, and in the second to have saved another of the party
who had ridden on in advance and fallen under his horse in a very dangerous
manner.
Francis also makes no
mention of an incident on the journey which has often been mentioned as an
instance of that close adherence to the words of our Lord and to the spirit of
an Apostolical vocation which is characteristic of men such as he. The road
through Spain passed at no great distance from the Castle of Xavier, where his
mother, of whom he was the youngest and perhaps the darling son, was still
living. The ambassador knew this, and was expecting Francis to apply to him for
leave to turn aside for a short time, in order to visit his mother for the last
time. When Francis said nothing, Mascarenas began to urge him to take the
opportunity, and to offer to make arrangements for his convenience. But he only
answered that they would meet with all the greater joy in heaven for having
taken no leave of one another on earth. As Francis only knew of his destination
for India the day before he left Rome, and travelled quite as fast as an
ordinary messenger could have travelled, it is certain that he could not have
apprized his family of his journey, and that therefore they would not have
expected him. The pain of foregoing a last tender interview was all his own.
The letter, which we
have for a moment interrupted, continues as follows:]
On the very day of
our arrival in Lisbon I fell in with Master Simon, who was expecting the access
01 a quartan fever, which, as was thought, was due at that very time. But
vol. 1. F
he was so extremely
glad to see me—not more glad than I was to see and to embrace him—that his joy
sent away his fever and all its effects, and neither that day, nor ever since,
has he felt anything of the kind, though it is now a month since our arrival.
He is perfectly reestablished in health, and labours hard in our Lord’s
vineyard, not without gathering in much ffuit.
The number of persons
here who are friendly and well disposed towards us is very great, indeed so
great that I am much concerned not to be able, on account of their multitude,
to return to all of them, one by one, all due observance in the way of
salutations and visits, which it would certainly be a duty to return, if time
allowed us to fulfil the obligation, on account of the honourable and
conspicuous dignity of the greater part of these persons. I have also observed
a great many who are inclined to good things, and desirous of serving God, to
whom it would be a most salutary thing to give some of the Spiritual Exercises,
in order to help them to form the resolutions of executing at once what they
go on putting off de die in diem. For whatever haste men may make to execute
what they know they ought to do, it is not easy for them to escape having
something to answer for to God on the ground of overmuch delay, and thus it is
well to use great attention in putting to flight the excuses which occur for
continuing to temporize. The full knowledge of this obligation puts very
salutary spurs to many men’s sides, which make them feel as if they were roused
from a sort of lethargy, so as to see that where there is no peace to be found
they will never find it — those men especially I speak of, who against all
reason try to draw God whither they wish, and refuse to go where He calls them,
allowing themselves to be moved more by their own disordered affections than
by the good desires which He breathes into their hearts. Far more worthy,
certainly, of pity than envy ! All those whom we see straining themselves to
climb up a path so steep and rugged, toiling up hill with continual labour, are
seeking after all nothing but the risk of a headlong fall, or rather the
certain catastrophe of a miserable ruin.
After we had been in
this royal city three or four days, the King sent for us, and received us with
the utmost kindness. He was alone, in his cabinet, with the Queen.7
We remained with him for an hour, or a little more. Their Highnesses asked us many
questions, particularly about our Institute, how long ago and in what manner we
had come to know one another and unite ourselves in a body, then what had been
the scope of our first plans, and lastly about the persecutions we had
suffered. They were delighted with our account of the manner in which the truth
had at last been discovered, and praised us in particular for having carried
the matter on with constancy and courage to the extreme issue of a judicial
sentence. The King expressed a desire to see with his own eyes th6 sentence by
which we were absolved. It is certainly the general opinion of all that we
acted both piously and wisely in never letting anything persuade us to desist
from urging on the cause 'to the final publication of the sentence. Most people
here go so far in praising us for this, as to say that they cannot help
expressing the opinion that if we had not done what we did, it appears to them
that we should never have been in a position to reap any fruit from our
ministrations. So, as I said, they are never tired of praising our constancy in
braving it out intrepidly on to the final issue of the sentence which at length
put the truth forward in full light. To return to the King and Queen, they were
much pleased with all the details which they heard from us of the form and
system of our houses, and of the object and scope of our ministrations, and of
the whole Institute. During our audience, the King sent for the Infanta, his
daughter, and the Prince Royal his son, that we might see them, and told us in
the kindest manner how many sons and daughters the Lord had given him, and who
of them were dead and who living.
Both their
Highnesses, King and Queen alike, have showed us great affection. The King
urged us with much earnestness, on the very day of our first interview, to hear
the confessions of the pages of his household. For he has ordered that all
7 The Queen was Catharine of Austria,
sister of the Emperor Charles V.
the young noblemen
who frequent the Court should go to confession once a week, and he has
seriously charged us to look to the execution of this order and to have our
eyes on all these youths. He gave the following reason for his care in this
respect, that he considered that if young men in this position were accustomed
from their childhood to know and serve God, they would grow up in later life
good and virtuous men.8 Then if the nobles are what they ought to
be, the common people will doubtless form itself after their example, and thus
the hopes of restoring good morals among all the seculars of the kingdom turn
upon the good education of the youth of the upper classes. For it certainly is
beyond doubt that if that first order in the kingdom were conspicuous for
holiness, a large part of the remainder would be drawn to follow their example.
We have certainly
great reason to praise God for the religious disposition and the zeal of this
excellent King for the promotion of the Divine glory, and for the great piety
with which he is inclined to everything that is good and holy; and we of the
Society of Jesus in particular are very much his debtors, for his extreme
kindness to all of us, to you at Rome as well as to us who are here. The
ambassador, who has had a conversation with the King since our audience, told
me that he had said that he should be greatly delighted if he could collect and
have near him all those who have as yet entered the Society, even though the
cost of feeding them and furnishing them with necessaries were to consume a
large part of the revenues of the Crown.
We know that a great
number of our friends here are making efforts to oppose our departure for
India, because they think that here we should reap greater fruits by hearing
confessions, by familiar instructions, by giving the Spiritual Exercises, and
by exhorting all the faithful to make frequent confessions and communions; in
short by working diligently in that same sort of teaching which we mean to
adopt in the Indies. Among
8 One of these young nobles was Miguel de
Souza, who entered theSocicty, and was a man of conspicuous virtue.
the persons who think
this are the Confessor and the Preacher of the King, who both urge him to keep
us here in the hope oi more abundant fruit. Certain others hold different language,
and talk wonderfully about the results that may be expected from our ministry
in India. Those who speak thus are men of authority on such subjects, having
lived many years in the Indies. They say that they have remarked that the
native tribes are very well disposed to accept the religion of our Lord Jesus
Christ, if it be offered them by representatives and teachers such as we
are—they mean whose way of proceeding is far removed from all appearance of
avarice. If therefore we retain out there also what we show here, the same
abstention from and contempt of worldly convenience and gain, they say that
without any doubt we shall in a few years convert two or three kingdoms of
idolaters to the faith of Jesus Christ, and that the people will not hesitate
to believe us and trust us, as soon as they have found out for certain that we
seek nothing but the salvation of souls. These assurances, given us by persons
of such character, who have had experience on the spot, and who have, as I
have said, passed many years in India, beget in us a great confidence of
reaping in that country most abundant fruits for the glory of God.
Here we are taking
great pains to find out priests who, setting before themselves no reward but
that of serving God and helping the salvation of souls, may be willing to go
with us to India, and indeed we can see nothing by which we can, at this
moment, do more service or give greater pleasure to our Lord than by gaining
such associates. For if we could but gather together a band of only as many as
twelve such priests, who would be willing to unite themselves to us with one
heart in these plans and purposes, it is unquestionable that we should find it
well worth our labour. And already some such offer themselves to us. We have
fallen in with a priest whom we knew in Paris, and who has promised us to come
and remain with us until death, sharing our manner of life and all our designs.
We think ourselves certain enough of him, for he has given us fair proofs and
pledges of constancy of will. There
is also another, a
subdeacon, who will soon be a priest, who offers himself for the same object
with great fervour. And further, a certain Doctor of Medicine, who was at one
time a familiar acquaintance of ours at Paris, has promised to sail with us to
India, and that there he will avail himself of his medical knowledge, as far as
shall be expedient, for the good of souls, and to draw them to the saving
knowledge of their Creator, without seeking any temporal reward by his
services. This one thing above all we keep in view always, that those whom we
take as companions should be entirely free from all desire of gain. Nor will
this in itself be enough, unless we are also altogether free from even the most
distant appearance of it, so that neither in ourselves nor in those who have
near relations with us, shall there be seen anything at all which may give rise
to the slightest suspicion that we have come there to seek and acquire temporal
rather than spiritual goods.
His Highness has
spoken to the Bishop, who is our friend, and also to his own Confessor, about
using us as public preachers in the sacred pulpit. But as we desired to begin
with more lowly offices, we at first put the matter off and showed our wish not
to occupy ourselves in preaching, although those who know us are very desirous
to hear us in the pulpits in the churches. But one day the King sent for us,
and, after many other things, told us that it would gratify him if we were to
preach. So then we offered ourselves for the work with the greatest readiness,
not only on account of our eagerness, and indeed our duty, to follow the
injunctions of his Highness, but also on account of our hope, founded on the
help of Christ our Lord accompanying our efforts, of spending our labours with
some useful profit for souls. We shall begin next Sunday week; and the special
goodwill which is shown to us on all sides by the inhabitants of this city
forbids us to doubt of a favourable reception. What we implore of our Lord with
repeated prayers is this, that He will be pleased to increase the faith of those
who charitably hope for some good from us.9 And this good opinion
concerning us which has got abroad so happily in
9 ut angeat eorum fidem qui de nolis
aliquam expectationem habent, (Orig.)
these
parts will, we hope, be an occasion to God, out of His immense goodness, in
which alone we trust, of imparting to us, if not for our own sakes, at least
for the sake of the people here who show so much faith and devotion in
listening to us, such knowledge and grace that we may be able to console them,
and to speak to them the things that are necessary or useful to them for the
salvation of their souls.10 #
To all of you, my
dearest in Christ,
Francis.
Lisbon, July 3d,
1540.
The sanguine
hopefulness which was always characteristic of Francis Xavier, and which is so
often allied with that great affectionateness of heart which became in him, as
in St. Paul, the foundation of many of the distinctively Apostolical graces
which he received, is hardly more conspicuous in this letter than the strong
feeling, almost of indignation mingled with alarm and pity, with which he
regarded the case of so many who seemed to him to be resisting or trifling with
a high vocation offered to them in the counsels of God. He will be content
with a band of only twelve priests, who were to live the same sort of life with
himself and have the same single aim in the preaching of the Gospel. It does
not appear that he meant them necessarily to become members of the Society. We
shall find that these moderate expectations were to turn out to be very far in
excess of what the future reserved for him in the way of companionship. We
cannot tell whether the priest from Paris persevered in his desire of entering
the Company, but he did not sail for India. The subdeacon, if he were Francis
Mancias, who Xavier afterwards says was not yet in any holy orders, went to
India, and though he did not always remain with St. Francis, we owe much to
him for having preserved to us a large number of the letters of his Apostolical
Superior. Nor do we hear anything more of the Doctor of Medicine. Francis
Xavier might have been disconcerted if he had known,
10 utpossimus consolari eos, et qua vel
nccessaria vel utilia sunt ad anima rum salutem dicere. (Latin words in the
original.)
too, that Simon
Rodriguez, his own intimate friend, was to remain in Portugal, and that he was
himself to be the only one of the original companions who took the voyage to
the East. But, as we shall see, there was at one time great danger lest the
Eastern mission should be abandoned altogether, as far as Francis and his
companions were concerned. All of the first disciples of Ignatius seem to have
been endowed in some high degree with that charming attractiveness which is one
of the prerogatives of great holiness, and which sometimes is imparted in a
measure even to those who have had much intercourse with men who have the gift
in its perfection. Certainly of all these Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez
were not the least likely pair to win to themselves the hearts of those among
whom they moved. Their manner of life was humble and morticed. They lodged in
the Hospital, though an apartment had been prepared for them in the Palace, and
they lived on alms which they collected for themselves daily. After a time,
however, their spiritual labours increased so much and required so much time,
that they judged it expedient to beg alms only once or twice a week, as an
exercise of humility and mortification, and they lived on the food sent to them
from the Palace, or rather on a portion of it. The rest they gave to the poor.
Shortly after their arrival, the prisoners of the Inquisition were placed
under their spiritual charge by the Cardinal, Don Henry. Their conversation and
character drew all to them, and the King began to consider that they might do
less good in the distant East than in the capital of his own States. The
question thus raised is mentioned in the following letter, written before the
end of July, about three weeks after the preceding. We shall see that Francis,
even after so short an interval, speaks much more moderately as to his hopes of
companions for India.
(iv.) To the Father Master
Ignatius of Loyola.
May the grace and
love of Christ our Lord ever help and favour us! Amen.
After I had written
the other day at great length about affairs here, certain points have occurred
to me which I then omitted. Here are some. If the Brief which concerns the
whole Society is as yet published, send us, I beseech you, a copy. The King and
all our friends in Portugal will be glad to see it, as well as the sentence of
the Governor of Rome, when we were declared innocent. The King has asked for
the book of the Exercises, wishing to see it. If you think proper to send us
also one of the corrected copies, it would give his Highness much pleasure.
This great Prince is, in fact, wonderfully well disposed towards the whole
Society, and it seems as if nothing that we can do for him would be too much in
the way of gratitude for the singular and very great love which he bears us. I
have received two letters from you, both very short: one dated the 8th June,
the other the ist May. It will gratify my Lord Ambassador very much to receive
a letter from you. You would hardly believe how carefully he keeps that one
which you did write to him, ancl which he received on our journey from Rome
into Portugal; he preserves it with the greatest care. If you cannot write to
him yourself, manage at least that the letters which we receive from Strada may
be such as we can show him.
At this moment we are
preparing to give the Exercises to two licentiates in theology, one of whom is
a very famous preacher, and the other preceptor to the King’s brother, the
Infant, Don Henry. We are striving also to make other persons of distinction
desire to have them, for we are convinced that the more earnestly they wish for
them the more abundant fruit will they reap from them. There is really great
reason for praising God our Lord, when we see the number of persons here who
frequent the sacraments of penance and holy communion.
Determine what you
think best to do with Francis Strada, whether you will like to send him to the
University of Coimbra. In that University neither he nor others will want the
resources necessary for their studies, if we may judge from the fact that
people there are very well inclined to all that is pious and good. Hence we do
not doubt that before long some kind of a College of ours will be founded in
that University. When an opportunity offers we shall not fail to treat with the
King about getting up a College of Students: but for this we shall want to be
told what your mind is as to the form of such an establishment, and the method
of life to be followed in it, the person who is to rule the community, and the
discipline under which the members are to live, in order that they may grow in
spirit more than in letters.11 We want this, that when we speak with
the King, we may explain to him the kind of life which is to be led by those
who study in our Colleges. On all this subject, then, I wish very much that you
would write at good length. It does not seem as if anything would prevent our
having a house built there for receiving our Masters and Scholars, or indeed
other houses of our Institute. People here would very willingly build houses
for us, if there were any persons to inhabit them.
Our friend, the
Bishop, has told us that the King has not yet made up his mind whether he will
send us to India, because he thinks we should serve our Lord as well in
Portugal as there; but two Bishops, who judge differently, have urged that we
ought on no account to be kept here, but by all means be sent to India, because
they think that in that case some Indian King will be converted. We keep
ourselves intent upon aggregating companions, and I think, as things become
gradually more clear and definite, we shall not fail to find some. If we
remain here, we shall found several houses. It will be easier to find people
who will join us to remain in this country, than to go to India; but if we go
there, and if God our Lord grant us some years of life, we will found with His
help some houses in India and Ethiopia.
11 ut crescant magis in spiritu quam in
Uteris. (Orig.)
If the Brief about
our whole Society is not yet issued, at any rate I entreat you to see that we
have powers granted us to found houses of the Institute among the heathen. But
whether we are to remain established here or to sail for India,
I beg of you, for the
sake of the love and service of God our Lord, to write to us the method and
order which we should observe in receiving new members into our Society, and to
• do this multum ad longum, for you know well enough how very little cleverness
we have; so that if you don’t help us, an occasion of promoting the greater
service of our Lord God may be lost on account of our want of experience in
managing such business. Farewell.
Your holy Charity’s
least son in Christ,
Francis.
•Lisbon, July 26,
1540.
It is in such private
letters as this last—for the former must have been meant to be passed from hand
to hand—that the beautiful humility and self-diffidence of Francis Xavier most
frequently break out, especially when he is addressing his most tenderly loved
father, Ignatius. The mention of the University of Coimbra in this letter shows
us that the mind of Francis was much occupied with the desire of seeing the
Society permanently established in the great seat of learning in Portugal. The
Constitutions of the Society were, of course, not yet in existence, and there
was the greatest need of some definite plan on which such foundations as that
contemplated in the letter should be framed. Francis had an uncle at Coimbra,
the cele brated Master of Azpilqueta, called Navarrus, or the Doctor of
Navarre. He appears to have earnestly desired to see Francis, and even to have
requested the King to send him to Coimbra. He offered to give two courses of
lectures more than he was obliged to give if the King would consent, and at a
later time offered himself to go to India, but Francis told him that a man of
his age and acquirements was better employed at home. We have two letters from
Francis to Doctor Martin, which may be here inserted.
(v.) To the very Reverend my
Lord the Doctor of Azpilqueta, at Coimbra.
Very Reverend Sir,
Since I have been in
this city, I have received two letters from you full of tenderness and charity
towards me.12 May our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of Whom moved you
to write to me, reward you duly for your so great kindness ! lor I, wish it as
much as I may, am unable to discharge the debt for myself, or to answer as I
ought to your extreme benevolence to one so unworthy and so poor. So I must
acknowledge and confess my inability in this respect, and understanding as I do
by the mercy of God,13 Whose singular gift it is that we know
ourselves, how useless I am for everything good,14 I shall make some
little effort, such as I may, to discharge this duty, and then I have
determined to place all my hope and confidence in God, seeing that I am unable
to return to any one favour for favour in equal measure, and in truth I find
great consolation in the thought that God is able to return to that holy soul
of yours and to others like you a most abundant recompense on my behalf.15
With regard to the
wish that you manifest of knowing of my affairs, and especially of my rule of
life,16 it would be a great joy to me if we could have an
opportunity of meeting, for no one could be readier than I am to tell you with
the utmost fulness all that you desire to know in this respect. And I am not
without hope that God our Lord, among the many favours with which His Divine
Majesty most indulgently and mercifully loads me day by day, may -add also this
very special grace to
12 arnoris ac
pietatis erga me plenas. (Orig.)
13 per Dei clementiam. (Orig.)
14 quam inutilis ad omnia sim. (Orig.)
15 This is in Latin in the original: studui
spern omnem etfiduciam meant in Deo ponere, videns me nemini posse cequam
gratiam referre ; et hoc me plu- rimum solatur, quodpotens est Deus sanctce
animce tuce et similibus rctributi- onem amplisshnampro me dare.
16 etprczscrtim
de mece vitce instituto. (Orig.)
all the rest, that I
may see you for once in this life and talk with you at leisure, before my
companion and I set sail for the Indies. There will be time for me to give you
the most ample account of all things as to which you question me in your letter.
There is too much of them for me to do it conveniently in writing. You add,
that people talk a great deal, as men will talk, about our Institute. As to
this, for the present I will only answer, It matters little, most excellent
Doctor, how we are judged of by men, and especially by men who judge of matters
before they understand them.17
Bias Lopez, who will
give you this letter from me, wishes earnestly to place himself under your
patronage and teaching. I love him very much, and he in return has a singular
love for me, and for the sake of this bond between us, I beg of you to be good
enough, if prayer of mine have any power with you—and so great is your
goodness, that I know my prayers have no little such power18—accept
kindly, as from me and on my recommendation, the great devotion which he offers
you, wishing above all things to serve you .as his good Patron, and to place
himself under your teaching as a Master. So, I pray you, put him down as one of
your own people, in which, besides that you will do, as I hope, a thing
pleasing to our Lord God, you will also confer a singular favour on me. I shall
indeed be obliged to you, as for a great and peculiar favour, if you will have
the condescension to take charge of this good youth and to direct and help him
in his studies. His intention and desire is to devote his youth to the careful
study of those branches of learning in which you excel so much. You may well
consider how much you owe to God, Who has enriched you with that rare talent of
great learning—not certainly for your own benefit alone, but that you may be of
assistance to many others besides yourself. But may God our
17 Here also the original has the Latin
sentences : multapro hominum con- suetudine de nostro Instituto did—and again, ■fiarum
refert, Doctor egregie, ab hominibus judicari, prcesertim ab iis qui priiis
judicant quam intclligant.
18 The original inserts the Latin words: si
preces mecs apud te quidpiam possunt (possunt autcm multum per tuam humaniiatem).
Lord have us both
alike and always in His holy keeping ! Amen.
Your servant in
Christ, while he lives,
Francis
Xavier.
Lisbon, Sept. 28,
1540.
(vi.) To the Doctor Martin of
Azpilqueta.
The letter which you
wrote to me on the 15th of October has caused me so much joy and consolation,
that I find nothing gives me so much refreshment as to read it over, after
having longed for it no very short time.20 It lets me see all the
piety that animates those holy labours and occupations in which you spend your
time; for a work of great piety indeed it is to instruct in learning those who
desire learning only for the sake of giving themselves wholly and singly to the
service of Jesus Christ our Lord. And so I do not feel that pity foi your
Reverence which I really should feel if I thought that you did not use, as a
faithful servant should use them, those very excellent gifts with which it has
pleased Christ our Lord to adorn you, for I am quite sure that, however great
and fatiguing may have been the toil by which the prize is won, very far
greater will be the prize itself, when one who has been faithful in little
shall be set over many things.*1 And if just at present you have to
exert yourself particularly in giving a lecture or two more than is your wont,
yet, after all, you ought to find fresh strength for this, so as to do it with
the utmost willingness, in the thought that there may have been times when you
have been less industrious than the excellent talent given you by God might
require. And we certainly, who rejoice in all that is good for you, are
delighted to see you work off old obligations in this way yourself, rather than
leave them to be discharged by those who are to come after you. For there are
many who suffer punishment in the next
19 Tuus in Christo, quoadusque vixerit. (Orig.)
20 a me per
multos jam dies optata. (Orig.)
21 quando super multa erit constitutus, qui
in modico fuitfidelis. (Orig.)
world because they
have trusted more than was right to the executors of their wills, and in this
way it is a terrible thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God, and most
especially in giving an account of our stewardship.22
May God, Who has so
liberally given you such an abundance of learning that you have plenty to give
to others, make you equally liberal in imparting it to those who desire only to
know how to serve the Creator and Lord of all, setting before your eyes the
glory of God and the increase thereof! Most certainly the Lord of all law and
justice will grant to us that, if in this life we have been companions in His
sufferings, in the next we shall be companions in consolation. So it will infallibly
be, most excellent Doctor.23 I won’t say more at present, putting
it off till the day when I may talk to you face to face. That day will come, though
you do not think it will. That special love to me, which your letter shows me,
makes it impossible that I should refuse to do as you wish in this matter. As
for the love I bear to you, I say nothing of it. Our Lord, Who sees to the very
bottom of the hearts of both of us, knows how dear you are to mine. Adieu,
excellent Doctor, and keep me in your wonted love.24
Your humble servant
in Christ,
Francis
Xavier.
Lisbon, November 4,
1540. •
We have no record of
the meeting between uncle and nephew of which this last letter speaks as
probable. Master Azpilqueta mentions that Francis wrote to him at his
departure, in answer to his offer to go to India himself, comforting him for
their separation with the hope of a speedy meeting in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Neither have we any more detailed account of the life of Francis in Lisbon
during the remainder
22 et ideo horrenduvi est incidere in manus
Dei viventis, prcsscrtim in red- dendd villicationis ratione. (Orig.)
23 dabit Dominus juris (et ita fiet, Doctor
egregie) ut in a lid vitci socii con- solationum simus, si in hac fuerimus
passionum comiles. (Orig.)
24 Ego vero meum erga te amoris vinculum
taceo: Dominus novit, qui am- borum mentem solus ipse rimat, quam mihi sis
intimus corde. Vale, Doctor egregie, et me, ut soles, ama. (Orig.)
of the year 1540,
except such as is contained in the next hasty letter in our series, written
some weeks earlier than the last to Dr. Azpilqueta. It appears that there was
still some hesitation entertained by the Pope as to the Society, and that
Ignatius had asked Francis to induce the King of Portugal to exert his
influence for the furtherance of their interests. Ignatius had as yet not been
able to give a distinct answer to the College at Coimbra.
(vn.) To the Father Master
Ignatius of Loyola and Peter Codacio, at Rome.
May the grace and
love of Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
The courier is ready
to start and in a great hurry, and we are obliged to write these few lines as
fast as we can. We can just tell you we are well, and are increasing. We are
now six here, all acquaintances in old days in Paris, except two, Fathers Paul
and Emanuel a Sancta Clara. Thus has it pleased our Lord to prosper our desires
and exertions, by giving us these fellow labourers with us for the purpose of
making His name great among the nations who know Him not.
We attribute the
fruit which we here reap from our ministrations to the favour of God which you
at Rome gain for us. This fruit far surpasses our capacity, learning or
intelligence. Such numbers of persons, and persons oi the highest rank, come to
us to open their consciences in holy concession, that we have not time enough
to satisfy them all. The Prince Don Henry, Grand Inquisitor of the Kingdom, and
the King’s brother, has often urged on us to take spiritual charge o 1 the persons
in the prisons oi the Holy Inquisition. We visit them every day, and apply
ourselves to make them understand how great a favour God has done them in
placing them in this school of penance. Once a day we give them all together an
exhortation, and we also give them the Exercises oi the first weeks, to their
great comfort and advantage. A large number
of them tell us that
they acknou ledge it as a singular favour of God that they now hear as they do
from us, what they have never heard before, so many truths, the knowledge of
which is necessary for their salvation.
A few days ago we
sent you letters from the King to the Holy Father and to his ambassador at
Rome, in w^hich he recommends the interests of our Society as if they were his
own. To obtain recommendations of this kind from the Court here we have no
longer need of any third person, we can do it all ourselves. And now too, if
the King were not in great grief on account of the death of Prince Edward, he
would have written again to his Holiness and to the Cardinal of the Quattro
Coronati, as well as to other persons at Rome whose favour may be necessary or
useful for our interests. But he is, as I say, so overwhelmed with grief, and
so struck down by the ' death of the Prince his brother,-5 that he
is shut up at home and receives no one. All business is suspended by this sad
grief. We must allow a certain respite to such affectionate sorrow. In a few
days, after the keenest pangs are past, we will obtain as many letters as you
can wish to whoever you may name from this excellent King.
We have here living
in community with us a person who has finished his course at Paris. Master
Gonsalvo Medeiros is his name; he is not yet in orders. We beg of you from the
service of our Lord God to obtain and send here a rescript of the Pope, by
virtue of which he may be ordained extra consueta tempora, and may receive the
sacred orders on three successive feasts, so that he may be ordained priest
before we sail for India.26 It might be necessary also that the
privilege should be obtained, to be communicated to six clerics at our choice,
of using the new Breviary.27 This might be of some use in
25 This brother was the Infant Edward,. Duke
of Guimaraens, the sixth son of Emanuel the Fortunate. He had two daughters,
one Oi whom married the Duke of Braganza, whose grandson succeeded to the
throne in 1640 as John IV., on the revolution which overthrew the Spanish
domination in Portugal.
26 This Father, however, remained in Portugal
with Simon Rodriguez.
27 This must have been the short Breviary
arranged by Cardinal Quignon in 1536.
VOL. I. G
more readily inducing
some to be willing to follow us to India. We conjure you, by the love of our
Lord, to get the Brief under which we are to be sent to India forwarded to us
as quickly as possible. The time for setting out is coming near. We have great
hopes of plentiful fruit to follow from our voyage.
Let us know, we
beseech you, as soon as possible, how we are to arrange as to those who have
either been to Paris for their studies, or are going there. Give us also a
clear answer as to what I wrote about Strada, and touching the plan of founding
a house for our students in the University of Coimbra; for we can depend for
this work and other pious works of the same sort upon the favour of the Princes
and the liberality of rich men here. Let us know therefore at once what you
have settled upon as to this, that according to what you may command we may
endeavour to carry into effect what shall seem to be most expedient for the
glory of God.28 The man is snatching this out of my hands,
reproaching me for keeping him so long. So what I have thus far written is to
do duty for a letter of Master Simon as well as of my own; and he shall put his
signature in the name of both of us, which is to stand for the seal.
In the name of both
of us,
Master
Simon.
Lisbon, October 12th,
1540.
Before this letter
was written, all doubt as to the Institute of the Society was removed by its
confirmation by Paul III. on the 27th of September. A great number of masses
and prayers had been offered by Ignatius and his brethren for the influential
persons who opposed the approbation which the Pope was inclined to give, and
these had their effect in the wonderful conversion of Cardinal Guidiccioni to
the cause of the Society. He was a man of much weight from his learning and
virtue, and had formed one of a commission a year or two before, ordered to
examine into the abuses of the clergy, which had reported to the Pope that
great scandals existed in monastic
23 magis expedire ad laudem Domini. (Orig.)
houses. He
was known to be strongly bent against the foundation of any new orders.
Indeed, that commission had actually proposed to the Pope to extinguish all the
orders by forbidding them to receive novices; after they had died out, a new
generation might revive the primitive fervour. Guidiccioni had been appointed
by the Pope one of the three Cardinals who were to examine the proposed plan of
the Society; and St. Ignatius and his companions met his opposition by prayer.
He would not at first look at the papers : but after a time he desired that
they should be read to him, and then approved them entirely. There can be no
doubt that this wonderful change in so important an opponent must have helped
on the approval of the rule in a singular manner. The bull Re^imini militantis
Ecclesice, which gives a succinct account of the principles and objects of the
Society, was, as we have said, not published till the April of 1541, just about
the time of Francis Xavier’s departure for the Indies from Lisbon. The only
restriction placed upon the Society in this bull, a restriction afterwards
removed in 1543, was that which limited the number of its professed members to
sixty. *
In the course of the
autumn, however, the floating notions as to the retention of the two Fathers in
Portugal, already briefly mentioned, took the form of serious negotiations, set
on foot between the Courts of Portugal and Rome, which at one time seemed to
threaten to prevent the enterprise on which our Saint’s heart was now set. The
great good done by the two companions in the Court and country of Portugal
suggested naturally enough the idea that they should be retained there, and
that other less distinguished missionaries might be sent to the Indies. Few
words of our Blessed Lord have been more constantly and uniformly fulfilled in
the history of the Church than those in which He declared that the harvest was
plenteous, but the labourers few: and now that the King of Portugal had come to
know the value of the two labourers whom he had obtained from Ignatius, it is
not wonderful that he should have felt a scruple as to (depriving
himself, his capital, and the whole country over which he reigned, of
spiritual advantages
so singularly great. It was a time when no country in Christendom was well
furnished with learned preachers, and even where the priesthood was in its best
state it is probable that the number of priests who devoted themselves
unremittingly to the more active duties of their calling was comparatively
small. We have seen that even in Rome, when the companions of Ignatius began to
preach, it was an unheard-of thing for a sermon to be given out of the more
sacred seasons of Advent and Lent. To all who had the good of the people at
heart, such workers as Francis and Simon were very precious. The question was
argued in the Royal Council, and although the Cardinal Don Henry advocated the
cause of the Indies with much earnestness, he was overruled, and a proposal was
sent to Rome that the King should be authorized to retain Francis and Simon
Rodriguez for the benefit of his subjects at home. 'It was a delicate thing
then for the Pope or for Ignatius to refuse. The King had conferred very
singular benefits on the Society. The mere fact of his coming forward
unsolicited, the first of all Catholic Princes, to ask for several members of
the new Order—not as yet sanctioned by the Pope—must have had much weight at
Rome, even with the Pope himself, in favour of the Society, and he had at the
same time, both by his ambassador and by his own letters, pleaded its cause
directly and urgently. At the moment, he was the most powerful and valuable
friend whom it possessed, and Ignatius was a man deeply and tenderly alive to
the feeling of gratitude. He managed the affair, however, with his usual
consummate prudence. The Pope gave it as his opinion that the two Fathers
should be placed at the absolute disposal of the King, and letters to this
effect were written from Rome. But Ignatius also sent a letter—it does not seem
certain whether to Mascarenas, the former Ambassador, or to the Fathers
themselves—saying that if the King wished to know his private opinion, he had
thought of a middle course: that of sending Francis Xavier to the Indies, while
Simon Rodriguez remained in Portugal, where he might be useful to the mission
as well as to the kingdom itself by pro
viding a seminary
from which future missionaries might proceed to the East. This proposal was
agreed to, and the decision was announced to Francis Xavier by the King
himself.
As the time for
sailing drew on, in the spring of 1541, John III. showed himself full of
interest in the Society, and desirous to provide in every possible way for the
success of the Indian mission and for the comfort of Francis and his
companions. These were now reduced to two—two out of all the number on whom
Francis had reckoned, and who had in various ways, as we see from the letters,
offered their aid. His disappointment was very great, and we may observe how he
feeds himself in the remaining letters written during this period on the hope
of a speedy and numerous reinforcement. During the whole of his after career,
the two greatest sorrows which he had to contend with were the hindrances put
in the way of the Gospel preaching by the bad and tyrannical conduct of the
Christian traders and officers, and, in the second place, the poor and
sometimes very troublesome materials with which he had to work as his
companions and subjects.
But we
need not anticipate the troubles of which we shall hear enough by and bye. Only
one of Francis’ companions was a Priest, Father Paul of Camerino: the second
was the Portuguese, Francis Mancias by name, simple, ignorant, dull, not yet in
any holy orders, and with literary acquirements so scanty as to make Francis
fear very much that he would break down in any examination to which he might be
subjected as a condition of ordination. It is perhaps this that made him
willing to put off his ordination till they reached India, where it was
probable that the standard of learning was not very high, and that the Bishop
might not be very particular. Such was the little band of missionaries
destined to do so much among the poor Indians who had become the subjects of
the Crown of Portugal. '
Francis himself was
laden with favours by the King. John III. had procured four Briefs from the
Pope, two of which gave him the amplest possible spiritual faculties and
jurisdiction, appointing him moreover the Apostolic Nuncio in the
Indies. The other two
Briefs recommended him to the especial care and protection of all native
Princes from the Cape of Good Hope eastwards, and especially to the Emperor of
Ethiopia, of whose conversion to the Catholic faith some hopes were now
entertained. The King also enjoined on Francis to write to him frequently and
to give him an exact account of all that was done or required for the
advancement of religion. Francis was to sail with the new Governor of the
Indies, Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa, of whom he speaks in the highest terms in
the letters which we shall presently translate. This officer had already
distinguished himself greatly in the Indies, and the highest expectations were
formed of the success of his new government. These expectations were not
altogether fulfilled in the event, but Sousa was an upright, honourable man,
and a zealous pious Christian, and desirous of showing every honour in his
power to the missionaries who were to accompany him. But it was not easy to
overcome Francis Xavier where his humility' and love of poverty and suffering
were concerned. The King had commanded the Conde de Castaneras, who held an
office which we might call that of Purveyor-General for the Fleet, to provide
Francis with everything that he desired for the voyage. The order was
intimated to Francis, but the Conde waited in vain for a list of the articles
which he was to provide. Francis, when questioned, said that he professed
religious poverty and would rely only on the Providence of God. He could only be
induced to accept a few books of devotion and some warmer clothing for the
storms of the Cape of Good Hope. The Purveyor insisted— ‘ at least he would
have a servant allotted to him ? It would not become the dignity of an
Apostolic Nuncio to cook his own food and wash his own linen?’ Then it was that
St. Francis gave his memorable answer, his face burning with indignation, that
as long as God gave him the use of hands and feet no one should wait on him but
himself—that there was no occupation so lowly as that he would not glory in it
in the sight of the whole world, that he would never fear for his dignity
unless it should befal him to incur the mark of sin,
and that this over
attention to human wisdom, which was so opposed to the wisdom of God, was exactly
the evil which had reduced the Church to so lamentable a state.
The two following
letters', written on the same day, about three weeks before his embarkation,
give us a picture of the warmth of his affection for the friends he was never
to see again, his love for the Society, and his sanguine hopes as to the
success of the mission he was about to undertake.
(viii.) To the Society at Rome.
May the grace and
love of Christ our Lord always help and favour us! Amen.
We have received your
much longed for letter, and it has done our souls all that good which happy
news of their mother ought to produce in the souls of children. We learn from
it the healthy and flourishing state of the whole Society, the pious and holy
works to which you are given up at Rome, the edifices, spiritual and material,
that you are founding and building, thus providing for future generations as
well as for the present, that both may be well furnished with the means for
labouring in the Lord’s vineyard,and may be able to urge on and carry out to
the end which we all desire that work which has now for some time been begun
with so great a hope of giving extraordinary delight to our Lord God. I pray
that our Lord may be pleased to help us also—so far absent from you in body
though ever with you in heart, and never more so than now30—that we
may imitate you, when He has shown to us also the way in which we are to serve
Christ our Lord.
Now as to what may be
good for you to know of matters here. The King, who greatly approves our way of
life and conduct, and who, from his experience of the spiritual fruits which
have already come from our labours, is induced to hope
29 subsidiis ad laborandum in vined Domini.
(Orig.)
30 absentes tantUm corpore, licet prcesentes
animo nunquam rnagis quant nunc. (Orig.)
for still
greater advantage to souls if the number of our labourers be increased, has
determined to found one College and one House of ours, that is of the Society
of Jesus. Three of us are to remain here for these foundations, Master Simon,
Master Gonsalez, and another priest well learned in canon law. Many others
declare themselves day by day, and offer to enter the Society. This project of
his Highness to build these two houses is no crude or passing idea, he is
strongly bent upon it. For some time back, whenever we have been to him, he
has, of his own accord, declared his intention, always being the first to
introduce the matter, without any suggestion from us or from any friend, whom
we might have asked. He has come into the plan of building these houses
altogether of his own choice and judgment. The place where he intends to put
them is the city of Evora. I believe he is writing to the Pope to send some one
or more of the Society, to help Master Simon in the commencement. I must say
that this good King, in his very great affection to our Society, the increase
of which he desires as if he were one of ourselves,31 doing all this
out of the simple motive of his love and veneration to our Lord God, does
really put us in truth under a very strict obligation of professing and
affording to him unceasing service for the sake of God.32 Nothing
less than this is due to the thorough beneficence and constant good will which
he has shown us, a good will which has by no means confined itself within the
limits of an intention which costs nothing, but which has made him, without
being asked, and with the utmost liberality, sedulously take every opportunity
of deserving practically bur greatest gratitude. And on this account, if we
were not to acknowledge and publicly declare how much we owe to him, if we did
not, by daily prayers and sacrifices, do what little lies in our poor power
towards trying to repay the very great deserts of those who so signally
distinguish themselves before God by helping and supporting us for His divine
service, we should really contract a very serious fault, and should be
ignominiously branded with the foul disgrace of extreme in-
31 tanquam umis ex
nobis. (Orig.) 32 propter
Dcum. (Orig.)
gratitude. And we
should be unworthy of life itself, if any day were to come down to the very end
of our lives, however long they may be, which could reproach us with having
forgotten to keep in mind with the most affectionate and grateful service the
name of King John of Portugal, our most liberal Patron and Benefactor.
Father Paul, another,
who is a Portuguese, and myself, three in all, are to sail this week for India.
We are full of great hopes, trusting in the merciful help of God our Lord that
we shall there bring a large harvest into the garners of the Church. We think
this from the wonderful things that we are told by good persons who have been
eyewitnesses, having been many years in India, and who speak of the very
favourable dispositions of those nations to listen to preachers of good, and
to embrace the salvation of their souls when it is offered to them.
The King sends us
away full and laden with favours of every kind from himself, and has also
recommended us very particularly to the Governor whom he is sending this year
to India. We are to sail with him in his own flagship. He has shown us much
kindness, as far as to take upon himself the care of everything for our
passage, and to forbid us or any one else to trouble himself about the
preparations, or equipment necessary for us while we are at sea. He has already
settled that we are to be his guests at table every day. This I mention, not
so much to show off whatever honour or convenience for us this implies, as if
we took pleasure in the advantage to ourselves,—which we would certainly rather
go without,—but that you may understand, and in your zeal for God’s glory may
rejoice in, the good ground which we have in this great affection for us on
the part of the supreme Governor of the Indies, for hoping for great assistance
from him towards that on which our whole heart is set, the conversion of the-
heathen there, and may congratulate us on the favourable opportunity opened to
us, of carrying the name of Jesus Christ before the native Kings of India, with
whom, as every one knows, the authority and influence of the Portuguese
Governor is supreme.
Our confidence is
also strengthened by what we gather, partly from our own observation, partly
from what we have been able up to this time to learn from others, of the sentiments,
conduct, qualities, and aims of the Governor himself. In the first place he has
great experience and familiarity with Indian affairs, and has spent many years
in these countries with the highest reputation for integrity. You know how
sharp and keen is the judgment of a Court as to the lives of men, and the Court
here is agreed that he is a man of the highest virtue. According to good
authorities, he is believed to be very much wished for in India, both by our
own people and the natives. I had a friendly talk with him the day before
yesterday, and he told me that there is an island in India peopled solely by
heathen, without any mixture of Mahometans or Jews, and he added that he hoped
there for great and speedy fruit from the preaching of the Gospel, and indeed,
when he recollected what he had observed when there as to the direction in
which men’s minds were turned, and the strength of these tendencies, he had no
doubt that the King of the country himself, and, after a little, the whole
island with him, would openly embrace the religion of Jesus Christ.
The ground on which
experienced persons of this sort think they may argue well of our success is,
that they have thoroughly seen and approved the manner of our Institute and
ministrations of which they have had satisfactory specimens here; and although
we on our part are intimately conscious of our own slender stock of virtue and
our great weakness, nevertheless we think that all these good wishes and
auguries will not come to nothing, for we are animated by the belief that God
is now going to take pity on the miserable blindness of all these nations who
live destitute of all helps to salvation, and that it seems as if He would
therefore make merciful use of the service which we, however weak and worthless
servants we be, are most ready to render, that those nations who now know not
God and worship devils instead of Him33 may be recalled from the
error and deplorable. misery in which they
33 gentes
qucs Deuni ignorant et damonia colunt. (Orig.)
now lie. And, to lay
our most secret thoughts bare to you, it is only on this foundation of the hope
we have of presumably very powerful and efficacious assistance which may
probably be expected from God that our whole confidence in undertaking so
great a work rests and is supported, and it is this that gives us courage and
alacrity, this that feeds our hopes of a happy issue to our exertions, which we
mean to strain to the utmost to give help to those most unhappy of men, to draw
them to a true knowledge of our holy faith and religion, with no motive for our
labours but to show love and do service to God our Lord, Whom we hold it for
most certain that we shall please and serve in this work which we undertake.
And now we beseech of
you in the strongest possible manner, to prepare for us in good time and at
full leisure long and very particular instructions, which may be forwarded to
us by the ships sailing from Lisbon for India in the March of next year. We
desire and most humbly beg of you that they may contain directions written at full
length by you and descending to all particulars, explaining minutely, what we
are to do there, how we are to do it, with what precautions, and what rule of
life and method of working we are to follow among the heathen. For although we
are not without confidence that experience upon the spot will instruct and
direct us to some extent in all this, still the chief hope we have of
discerning what in the whole management of this matter is most pleasing to God,
rests upon your suggestions and advice. We are persuaded that our Lord will
inspire and guide you as to what He requires us to do, and to what extent, and
that He will deign to declare to us His mind and the good pleasure of His
Heart, as to the kind and manner of our life and ministry, by means of you whom
He has hitherto made the interpreters of His will to us. And what moves me34
again and again, and with all the urgency that you see, to beg this of you, is
the fear that I have lest that should happen to us which so frequently happens
to many in such positions to their very great hurt. I mean that, either by some
negligence in considering and ex-
34 The change of number to the singular is
in the original.
amining all the
circumstances of place, business, or of duties in which they find themselves,
or again, from some pride which makes them trust themselves too much, and so
not condescend to consult others in doubtful matters, and to follow the counsels
of men wiser than themselves, they displease God, and are deservedly punished
by being deprived by Him of many graces and much profitable knowledge, which He
would mercifully have given them had they humbled their own minds and
judgments, so far as to confess their own ignorance and weakness by asking the
help and assistance of others, more especially of those by whose means God is
wont to let us know in what and how He desires to be served by us. We beg of
you therefore, dear Fathers, and implore you again and again in our Lord, by
that tender and intimate union in Christ Jesus which binds us together,35
do not think it too much trouble to write out for us diligently and at length,
advice, orders, instructions which may teach us minutely and in particular,
what is to be avoided, what followed, what to be guarded against, and what
embraced, by men who wish what we wish with all our hearts, that is, in our
whole life, and above all in the office of promoting the salvation of souls, to
conform ourselves exactly to the will of God, which we are confident will be
made known to us more by your hints and precepts than by anything else. And we
trust also that your prayers will help us, weak as we are, to carry into
execution whatever you shall so prescribe to us. And these prayers we beg you
may be made for us in a very special way, besides the usual remembrance which
we all make of one another.36 And surely there is reason enough for
this in our necessities, so far greater than usual, in the extraordinary
dangers of our long voyage, and in what is to come after that, the continual
intercourse we are to have with the heathen Indians, a race of men lost in
vices of all sorts, the contagion of which may well hurt men so tepid and
ignorant as we are; and that it may not do so we must
85 oramus
ergo vos, Patres, et obsecramus iterum atque iterum in Dotnino, per illam
nostram in Christo Jesu conjunctissimam amLciliam. (Orig.)
36 ultra consuetam mcmoriam. (Orig.)
strive and fight hard
with all the most abundant grace and most efficacious helps from God which we
can gain.
We shall write to you
at full length from India by the first ships that sail after our arrival. Our
letters will be on the same subject and in the same sense with those which we
are to send to the King, in obedience to his Highness’ commands. For when he
bade us farewell for the last time before our departure, this good Prince most
earnestly and strongly enjoined us, in the name of God our Lord and for His
love, to inform him fully and exactly what appearance there may be in India of
a disposition to the conversion of those miserable souls. He declared that he
was burnt up and tormented with continual internal anguish at their unhappy
lot, that his wish was, and that for the hope of this there was no price that
he would not pay, to prevent the continuance of those offences against the
Creator and Lord of all men on the part of His creatures, made after His own
image and redeemed at such a cost, which have hitherto prevailed there. So
ardent is the zeal for the glory of Christ our Lord and for the salvation of
his neighbours which burns in the heart of this excellent King. For my part I
feel incited to render endless praise and thanks to God for letting me see a
King of immense power full of so much piety as to religious matters, and I must
say with all truth, that unless I had had the evidence of my own senses to
convince me, I could hardly have persuaded myself to believe that any secular
person, especially one who as a Prince is at the very summit of worldly
greatness, and amidst all the tumult of a great Court, could have a heart
capable of such exquisite devotion and charity. I pray God that it may please
Him to increase in the King these great gifts and multiply the days of his
life into many long years—since he spends them in so holy a manner, and is so
useful and so necessary unto his people.37
Thus much as to the
King: now about the Court. No-
37 tarn utilis et necessarius est fiopulo
suo. (Orig.) Francis probably alludes to the traditional anecdote of the saying
of St. Martin, ‘ Dotnine, si populo tuo adhuc sum tiecessarius, non recuso
laborem
thing can be more
thoroughly well ordered—it is more like a religious community than a secular
Court. There are so many who approach the holy sacraments of penance and communion
weekly, that we unceasingly give great praise and thanks to God when we see and
wonder at them. We have so many confessions to hear, that if there were twice
as many of us, there would be plenty of work for all. We sit in the
confessional whole days and part of the nights, and yet none but the people of
the Court are allowed to come to us, all others are excluded. I recollect
observing when the King was staying at Almerim how the people who came to the
Court on business used to be surprised at what was to them a new custom,
especially in followers of the Court, and how astonished they were to see so
many of them going to communion every Sunday and on the Feast Days besides. A
good many too of them imitated what they wondered at, purified their own souls
by penance, and began to frequent holy communion. If there were here confessors
enough to hear the whole crowd of people that usually come to the Court when it
is in its progress, there would be hardly any one who comes to do business with
his Highness who would not first settle his affairs with God. As it is, many
who want to confess find no one to hear them, though, as I said, we do not
spare ourselves, so little indeed, that we have been so constantly in the
confessional that we have had no time for preaching. After due consideration we
concluded that it was more for the service of God our Lord to give ourselves up
to hearing confessions than to preach, because there is no lack of preachers
in this Court, but considerable scarcity of practised confessors. So we have
left the pulpit for the confessional.
And now we have
nothing more to tell you, save that now that we are on the point of starting
for India, we pray to our Lord God that in a better life He will vouchsafe to
bring us together again with you from whom we are now separating ourselves for
the sake of Him. In this life we can hardly hope to meet again, both on account
of the immense distances of sea and land which divide Rome and India, as also
because
the abundant harvest
which awaits us in those countries will probably shut us out from all thought
or power of looking to other fields or spheres of labour, as offering to us
opportunities of working with more fruit for the garners of the Lord of all,
to whose service we have devoted ourselves. Whoever, therefore, of us may be
the first to arrive at that Blessed Life, and there not to find the brother
whom he loves in the Lord,38 let him remember to make his prayer to
Christ our King that He bring thither his brother also and make us all once
more companions in His glory.
To all of you dear
ones in our Lord at Rome,
Francis
Xavier.
Lisbon, March 18th,
1541.
Francis wrote on the
same day another letter to two of his first companions, Father Laynez and
Father Le Jay, who at the time at which he wrote were labouring, the one at
Parma, the other at Brescia, but were soon to be called to Rome for the
election of the first General in the person of St. Ignatius.' We have only a
fragment left to us of this letter:
(ix.) To the Fathers Le Jay and
Laynez.
With regard to the
King and the alms that he intends for the building of the house,39 I am writing to Peter Codacio what he ought to do at Rome. It seemed to
me that just now, during this spring quarter that is beginning, the matter
might present itself rather unseasonably, as it would be in the midst of the
preparations which are making for a war which is said to be on the point of
breaking out from the neighbouring coast of Africa. News comes frequently, and
always to the same purport, that all the tribes of the Moors are in league,
38 non
invenerit fratrem quem in Domino diligit. (Orig.) The allusion
is to St. Paul, 2 Cor. ii. 13.
39 The Society had already taken possession
of the church of Sta. Maria della Strada, which stood where the present church
and house of the Gesu stand. It was Codacio who had got the church made over to
the Society. The house for which alms were to have been sought from the King of
Portugal was probably the house for the Fathers adjoining the church.
and threaten a
formidable invasion of the Portuguese dominions.
When times are more
quiet, itv would help much for our business to gain at Rome the good
offices of the Cardinals who stand best with the King, if they would be so very
kind as to inform him accurately by letter how very profitably his Highness
would spend his money on such a foundation. I. think Cardinal Carpi is one of
these Cardinals: I fancy this, because I know he is very intimate with Don
Pedro (Mas- carenas), and thus letters of recommendation coming from him, as
well as from the Cardinal of the Quattro Coronaii and others, whom you may know
to be on good terms with his Highness, would be extremely useful to us. And if
for any reason these Cardinals were to decline to write direct to the King,
still I suppose they might, with no great difficulty, be induced, especially
Cardinal Carpi, to write privately to Don Pedro to beg him to speak to the King
and undertake the promotion of so excellent a work with his Highness. Besides,
if the King’s ambassador at Rome is well disposed towards the Society, it would
be of the greatest service to obtain letters from him to the same effect,
explaining to the King how much our interests at Rome are in need of the favour
of his Highness.
Do not forget to
write yourselves to Don Pedro de Mas- carenas. I can’t find words to tell you
the pleasure he takes in your letters. Be quite sure that he loves you very
much in the Lord;40 he keeps with the greatest care the letters
which he has from you, he reads every word in them over and over again with a
pleasure and spiritual fruit which make his face shine with joy. Indeed, when I
see by these clear proofs how devoted he is to you, I feel as if I ought to
devote all my life to his service. We have been thinking here, saving better
judgment,41 that it would be well for you to write to the King to
thank him for the desire he has shown of founding here a house or college for
the Society. Good offices and observances of this sort are a frequent,
established, and required
40 multum in
Domino. (Orig.) 41
saivo meliori judicio. (Orig.)
custom in the Court
here, and I am certain, from what Don Pedro told me, that such a letter would
please the King much. You should mention in it that you have been informed by
us of the generous intentions expressed by his Highness of erecting a college
or a house of our Society. This would be, as the proverb goes, to spur the
willing steed, and would urge him all the more strongly to cut short all delay
in the matter. Another thing I know, and I may as well tell it you,—you may be
certain that the letters you write in the way I have suggested will pass
through many hands and be read by many eyes.
Now let me tell you
of Francesco Mancias. He is not yet in any sacred orders at all. There is a
Bishop in India who, we trust in the Lord, will make no difficulty as to ordaining
the good man, though it is certain he has a larger store of zeal, virtue, and
simplicity, than of any extraordinary learning. Unless Master Paul can
communicate to him some part of his own great knowledge, I am terribly afraid
that without special aid from God he will hardly be found up to the mark in the
examination which ought according to rule to precede the conferring of holy
orders. If this were to happen it would upset our plans altogether. At all
events, in the prospect of any such event, he would desire that you would get
him letters from Rome excusing him from any very elaborate preparation for
holy orders, and which might authorize him to receive extra tempora the three
sacred orders, on three successive Feast days, on the title, as it were, of
‘voluntary poverty and (very) sufficient’ simplicity.42 In order to
obtain this favour, it may with truth be pleaded that in his case the
deficiency of learning is supplied by much goodness and holy simplicity. In
fact, if he had been as intimate with Bobadilla as he was with Cacerez,43
he would, as so often hap-
42 ad titulum
voluntariespaupertatis et sufficient issimce simplicitatis. (Orig.)
This is a play upon the formula used in ordinations, when the candidates are
declared to be ordained, some 4 titulo religionis,’ others, ‘titulo
beneficii,’ and others 4 sui sufficients patrimonii.’ x
43 This chance mention of Cacerez has hardly
perhaps been noticed by the writers of the life of St. Ignatius. At the head of
the list of signatures to the
VOL. I. H
pens, have got from
the friction of daily familiar intercourse, something rather more like the
erudition of the former than the ignorance of the latter, and we should not be
in our present difficulty; in that case, we should certainly have had him
moving at full sail over the vast ocean of the sacred Scriptures, and learning
would burst from his lips spontaneously. Moreover, both Mancias and Don Paul
would like to obtain from his Holiness the favour that every time they say
mass, it may be as if at a ‘ privileged altar.’
The number of masses
that we have already celebrated for Cardinal Guidiccioni amount to two hundred
and fifty, from the time of our leaving Rome up to the present day. May God our
Lord grant us grace to offer the rest in India! Indeed, when I think within
myself what fruit and what spiritual joy I have always up to this time felt in
offering sacrifice for this very reverend Prince of the Church, I feel drawn to
recommend him to God our Lord in every mass that I shall say during the rest
of my life.
[It appears that the
news of the approval of the Institute, so long delayed by the opposition of
Cardinal Guidiccioni, had now reached Portugal, and this accounts for the
joyous burst of gratitude which the last quoted sentences of the letter contain.
Francis had at least the consolation not to sail for the East before the good
tidings reached him. His mind at once turns, as we see in the next paragraph,
to those souls of whom he has already more than once spoken, who had thought of
paper drawn up in
1539, by Ignatius and his companions, about adding the vow of obedience to the
other two vows, and, in fact, entering the Society as a religious body under a
Superior, as soon as it was approved of by the Pope, appears the name of
Cacres. It has always been a puzzle to the historians, as no such Father is
elsewhere mentioned, and all the other signatures are those of the well- known
‘ Companions.’ Two letters of St. Ignatius, written in 1536 to a nun in Spain,
mention a Carceres or Cazeres as a friend of them both who has "been
giving her some instructions in spiritual matters. Cacerez may well have been
one of those who dropped off after intending to join the Society. We gather
from the present letter, which draws a playful picture both of Mancias and Bobadilla,
that Cacerez was no great loss to the Society in point of learning. Where
Mancias had fallen in with him, must be left to conjecture.
joining the Society,
but could not muster up courage for the final step.]
We want much to know
whether, now that our rule is confirmed, those persons to whom we used to say
we were so largely in debt in the matter of mutual love on account of the very
great and kind interest they voluntarily showed us in this business of ours,
promoting it in every way and by every effort, whether these persons, I say,
have either yet entered the Society or are on the point of doing so. I suspect
there are some among them who would be glad to find peace to their souls,
without undertaking this humble and painful life of ours. Whether they will
find that peace I know not. It may well be that what they seek where they wish
to find it, they will only find at last where they are afraid to seek it, if
they ever manage to make up their minds to go there. I say this not only as to
Francesco Zapata—I mean to include the worthy Licentiate, who, I imagine, won’t
know much of the quiet of a mind at rest while he haunts, as he does, the
palaces of the great. As for the Doctor of Medicine, Ignatius Lopez, it seems
to me that he will bring discredit on his own reputation and have to give up
his profession altogether, if he withdraws without having perfectly cured the
weak stomach of Father Ignatius and the deranged humours of Bobadilla. As to
Diego Zappata and others like him,44 I have nothing to say, except
that it is very probable the world will find them useless, and so get rid of
them, doomed to labour hard enough for the rest of their lives in a difficult
search after any one who will care to have them.
I do not know how it
is, but, since the King has settled that some of us are to remain here and
others to go, I can’t drive out of my mind an image that is continually
presenting itself unbidden, the image of our dear brother Antonio Araoz, whom
my prophetic mind sets before me as coming out by and bye to us in India,
accompanied by six clerics at the least
44 et ei similibus. (Orig.) The spelling of
the name Zappata is different in the two places in this page.
and a fitting
following of others; and if the men he brings us are not all prodigies of
science, yet if they are well disposed to spend what remains of their life in
the service of God our Lord, and are besides free from all appearance of
avarice, we hope that their coming will be of the greatest use to us. And even
if you should not send us any of this sort this year (that is to say, in the
March of the year after this), but only two years hence, when you will have
been able to receive letters from us in India, it would be no great
inconvenience, so long as at the last date I have named we might have without
fail the reinforcement of a certain number of good labourers sent out by you to
us. We leave the whole of this affair to your wisdom: but we are most anxious
that when you deliberate upon the point, you should seriously consider what I45
assure you of most positively, that I am entirely convinced that the fruit of
our labours in India will be by no means slight. Pray don’t think that this is
the mere guess of a mind that flatters itself. It is the constant assurance
given us by men who have been there for many years that obliges us to hope it.
How we find things on the spot you will learn from our letters, in which we
mean diligently and fully to set forth from knowledge gained by our own eyes
what is the true state and disposition of the country and its inhabitants, as
far as concerns the affair of the salvation of souls, and the hopes and means
of extending the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. We expect, * as I said just now, that
the singular favour of the Governor, which he manifests by doing every possible
kind of service to us, will be of the very greatest and most universal help to
insure the success of all the efforts we shall make of this kind, on account of
the extremely high influence which he may well be expected to have with the
kings and rulers of the countries who are allies of the King of Portugal, both
on account of his own virtues, which are so well known of old in those parts,
as well as on account of the new dignity with which he is now invested as the
holder of the highest office in the government and as the representative of his
Highness.
45 The change of number is in the original.
If you think that any
of the spiritual favours which can be got from the Pope would be useful to us
by increasing the efficacy of our work out there, do as your charity and wisdom
may suggest. One favour in particular we should like to obtain, and to have it
sent to us in a regularly sealed diploma, as soon as may be, that is, the
faculty granting by the authority of the Pope to ours in India, that they may
receive sacred orders extra tempora, without patrimony or benefice, under the
title of voluntary poverty which they have promised to God; with exemption when
necessary from the canonical impediment resulting from illegitimate birth.
Last of all, we implore you, when you write to us in India, not to do so by any
means perfunctorily or shortly. We most earnestly wish you to tell us in
particular about all and each of ours; what they are doing, how they are, what
plans they have, what hopes of themselves, what fruit they produce. This ought
not to seem a very severe task for you to undertake, since you will have no
opportunity of writing to as except once and no more in each year. Do please
manage to make your letters from Europe furnish us with abundant reading for a
full week. We promise solemnly that we will do as much for you. Farewell.
In the name of all
your dearest brothers here,
Lisbon,
March 18th, 1541. FRANCIS XAVIER.
The bright and
cheerful tone of this familiar letter to his old companions makes us wish that
we had more such relics of the heart and hand of St. Francis. At the time at
which this was written, the first Fathers of the Society were meeting in Rome
for the purpose of electing their first General. When more than a fortnight
later St. Francis set sail from Lisbon (on his thirty-fifth birthday, April 7;
the Thursday in Passion Week), the election was actually proceeding, and his
vote for St. Ignatius was counting with the rest.46 Three others of
46 Most of the suffrages are dated April 4,
that of Ignatius himself April 5. Three days of prayer preceded the voting, and
after the votes had been sealed up, three days more of prayer followed before
they were opened. St. Ignatius, after much resistance on his own part, entered
on his duties as General on the Easter Tuesday, April 19. .
the original ‘
companions’ were absent besides himself, Peter Favre, who was in Germany,
Bobadilla, who was detained at Bisignano in the kingdom of Naples, and Simon
Rodriguez, who accompanied him on board the Governor’s ship, the St. Janies, to
give and receive a last loving embrace. They were to meet no more in this
world, and Francis was never to return to Europe. It was then that Francis
revealed to Simon the secret of the words, ‘ Yet more, Lord, yet more,’ which Simon
had heard him utter in his dream in the sickroom at Rome, as well as another
secret. Simon was again being nursed by him at night, and Francis had fallen
asleep from fatigue at the foot of his patient’s bed. Suddenly he had been seen
to struggle violently in his sleep, and at last a quantity of blood burst from
his mouth. Simon could never get him to tell him what had then passed, but now,
in the openness of a soul that was wishing a dear friend goodbye, Francis
avowed to him that by the grace of God he had never been stained by any, even
the slightest, impurity, and that at that time an evil dream had tormented him,
and his struggles in resisting it had been so violent that a small bloodvessel
had been burst. It was solemnly attested after his death that this spotless
purity of his had never been tarnished in the faintest degree. All the rest of
his life was to be the fulfilment of the other vision. His brave, ardent, and
most tender heart, which had then been endowed with so keen a thirst for more
and more suf- - fering, labours, and sorrows for the sake of the advancement of
God’s glory, was now to begin its career of sacrifice by a lifelong separation
from the * brethren whom he loved in the Lord.’
NOTES TO BOOK I.
(i.) Suffrage of St.
Francis Xavier in the election of a General for the Society of Jesus.
The paper spoken of
in p. 59 as having been left by St. Francis Xavier in Rome to be used when the
occasion came for the election of a Superior for the Society, after its
approval by the Holy Father, is considered by F. Menchacha to be rather a
letter than a formal suffrage. The original, which was all in St. Francis' own
handwriting, was inscribed on the outside, ‘Esta es la Carta de Francisco para
los de la Compatiia' (This is the letter of Francis for those of the Company).
The proper word for ‘ paper’ would have been ‘papel’ (Menchacha, Episiolce S.
Fr. Xaverii, t. ii. p. 501). The letter is printed by the Bollandists in the
Life of St. Ignatius (Acta Sanctorum Julii, t. vii. in Comm, prsevia de S. Ig-
natio Loyola, § 35, num. 360 seq.). It runs as follows :
1. I Francis say that, when his
Holiness grants us our mode of life, I assent to all that the Society shall
ordain concerning all our Constitutions, Rules, and manner of living, those
Fathers being assembled at Rome who can be conveniently called together and
assembled. And since his Holiness is sending many of us to different parts out
of Italy, and all cannot come together, I declare by this letter and I promise
that I will consider fair and good whatever those may ordain who are able to be
present at the meeting, whether they are two or three, or whoever they may be.
And so I declare by this present signed by my hand, and I promise that I will
hold as binding all that they may do. Written at Rome in the year 1540, March
15. Francis.
2. IHS. I Francis also declare and affirm
that, in no manner persuaded by man, I judge that he who is to be elected as
the Superior of our Society, to whom we are all to owe obedience,—as what
seems to me just and speaking according to what my conscience dictates,—that
our Superior should be our old and true Father Don Ignatius, who brought us all
together
with so
much labour. He,—not without labour also,—will know best how to keep us as we
are, to govern us, and to make us advance from good to better, for he
thoroughly knows every one of us. And after his death, speaking according to
what my soul feels right, as if I were now at the point of death, I declare
that Father Master Peter Favre should be chosen. And in this respect God is my
witness that I say exactly what I think. In witness of which I subscribe this
with my own hand. Done at Rome in the year 1540, March 15. Francis.
3. In like manner, after the Society
shall have been assembled and shall have chosen a Superior, I Francis promise,
now for then, perpetual obedience, poverty, and chastity. And so, my dearest
Father in Christ, Laynez, I beseech you for the service of our Lord God, in my
absence to offer for me this my will with the three vows of Religion to the
Superior, whom you and the rest shall have chosen. And from now, as from the
day on which he shall be elected, I promise to observe them. In witness of
which I have prepared this declaration signed with my own hand. Written at Rome
in the year 1540, March 15. Francis.
(2.) Letter of St.
Ignatius to his Nephew, recommending to him St.
Francis Xavier a?id the Ambassador of the King of Portugal.
The following letter,
which we quote from Menchacha, Epis- tola S. Ignatii (1. 1, ep. xii.), shows,
among other things, the great hurry in which our Saint left Rome for Portugal.
To Beltran, Lord of Loyola,
JESUS.
May our Lord ever
help and favour us ! Amen.
I am altogether
prevented from writing to you at any length, as I would wish to do, by the
great and extreme haste with which we are pressed at a moment’s notice to send
some of our Society to the Indies, some to Ireland, and others to different
parts of Italy. The bearer of this is Master Francis Xavier, of Navarre, son of
the Lord of Xavier, one of our Society. He is going [to India] by command of
the Holy Father and at the request of the King of Portugal, as well as two
others who are on their way to the King by sea. From the same Master Francis
you will learn everything, and he will speak to you on any subject in my name,
as if I myself were present. You should know that the ambas-
sadorof the King of
Portugal, whom Master Francis accompanies, is allied to us by the bonds of the
closest friendship, and that we owe him very much indeed, and that he hopes to
be a great protector to us in matters which relate to the service of God with
his King and with all others with whom he has influence. I beg you therefore,
for the service of our Lord God, to receive him when he comes to your parts
with the greatest honour and as splendidly as you can. If Araoz is with you,
let him consider this letter as written to him. You may believe and rely on
Master Francis in my name as much as on myself. I pray you commend me much to
your lady wife, and to all your family. May our Lord ever help and favour you!
Your poor one in
goodness,
Inigo.
Rome, March 16, 1540.
The third member of
the Society who is here mentioned as having sailed with Simon Rodriguez for
Portugal is evidently Father Paul of Gamerino, who ultimately left for India along
with Francis Xavier and Francis Mancias. It has been thought that the letter
implies that St. Ignatius had not yet abandoned the idea of sending Bobadilla;
but he could not be one of two who are mentioned as being already on their way
by sea to Lisbon.
Antonio Araoz was a
near relation of St. Ignatius, who had joined the Society the year before this
letter was written, and was now in Spain. He afterwards became very celebrated
among the earlier Fathers of the Society, was a great preacher, and filled many
important offices. At this time he was not yet a Priest.
(3.) Don Pedro
Mascarenas.
The Ambassador
Mascarenas was one of the most distinguished servants of the Portuguese Crown.
He had served in Africa with distinction, and had been a splendid ambassador at
Brussels and at Rome. He was afterwards appointed tutor for a time to the
Infante Don Juan, and ended his days, curiously enough, in India, where he was
sent two years after the death of St. Francis, being himself seventy years of
age, as Viceroy, much against his own will and the earnest entreaties to the
King of his wife. The Portuguese annalist of India speaks of him in the highest
terms of praise. ‘ It was believed that if he had continued in that government
some years, he would have reestablished truth, justice, and honesty in
India.—Don Pedro Mascarenas had such
an awful presence and
majestic deportment, that nobody before him durst do or say anything indecent.’
One of the acts of his government in India was to send a Father and Brother of
the Society to the Emperor of Ethiopia—‘Prester John’—to induce him to become
Catholic—‘para persuadir al Preste Juan a que dexasse los ritos antiguos de la
Christiandad profanada, que sigma.’ See Faria y
Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, t. ii. p. 2, cap. xi.
FROM THE SAILING OF
FRANCIS TO INDIA TO HIS FIRST VOYAGE TO THE FARTHER EAST.
I54I-IS4S.
Voyage to India,, andfirst labours at Goa.
The
missionary
of our own time usually embarks for India or China at Southampton or Marseilles
in a large, swift, and well- appointed steamer, and finds himself, after a
short experience of the Bay of Biscay or of the Mediterranean, at Gibraltar or
at Malta, and then after another short interval at Alexandria, whence he mounts
the Nile to Cairo and reaches Suez by a few hours of railway travelling, to
find another steamer waiting for him which carries him to India in the space of
not more than a few weeks. He has little in common, as far as the dangers and
sufferings of the voyage are concerned, with St. Francis Xavier and his two
companions on their long and weary sail to the Indian coast from Lisbon.
Although the ships which in the sixteenth century were used for distant
navigation were huge in size as compared with the ordinary vessels of the time,
they were slow, unsafe, and of small accommodation when contrasted with
passenger steamers or clippers of our own century, and, as they carried large
freight in the way of merchandize and were also transports for soldiers, they
were usually extremely crowded, with little space to spare, and the long time
spent on board must always have been a period of suffering and confinement to
all.1 The voyage from Lisbon to Goa generally lasted about six
months, and was considered in itself as an enterprise of no common danger. We
are told that the seas about the Cape were particularly dreaded, and that
passengers ordinarily provided themselves with a windingsheet, that their
bodies might be committed to the waves, in case of their death, with some
1 Bartoli, in the first book of his Asia
(p. 26-31, first ed. Rome, 1653), gives a long description of the ships used
for these voyages, of the great dangers of the navigation, and of the virtues
required in missionaries for India.
appearance of
Christian decency. Before the storms at the Cape, there were the terrible calms
off the Guinea coast, and the scurvy, the peculiar scourge of long and confined
sea passages, not to speak of the very possible accidents of shipwreck and the
like, as well as some which we should consider imaginary, such as the poisonous
showers which were said to fall under the torrid zone, and the huge sea
monsters which roamed the Indian Ocean, and could easily send a vessel to the
bottom with a single stroke of their tails. The ships, which were dispatched
only once a year, were crowded with inmates, and sailed in company. They
carried a wild and motley multitude —merchants, soldiers, adventurers of every
sort, as well as Government officials and an occasional missionary, and we are
not surprised to learn that the confinement, hardships, and privations of the
seafaring life, the enforced idleness, the bad food, the close lodging, the
fierce climate to be passed through, as well as the excitement of anticipated
adventures, the hopes of riches or advancement, and the recklessness produced
in wild natures by the near neighbourhood of danger from the sea or from some
sudden disaster, not to speak of warfare, worked rather upon the bad elements
in that strange society than on the good, and made it more irreligious than
ever instead of more pious. The restraints of ordinary life were thrown off,
and the license which was the condition of existence in India was too often
anticipated on the voyage.
The company in which
Francis Xavier and his two associates sailed was to some extent exceptional.
The Governor2 was a thoroughly religious man, and the same may very
likely have been the case with many of the officers; but we cannot expect the
crew, the soldiers, and the adventurers, as a rule, to have been above the
average. Francis was entirely in a new sphere. Hitherto he had lived either
with students like himself, before he joined Ignatius, or with his own
religious brethren. Even in the Court of Portugal he could have seen but little
of
2 Don Martin Alfonso Sousa is usually
called Viceroy in the Lives of St. Francis, but he was one of the Governors of
India who had not the additional title of Viceroy.
the rough selfish
greed and brutal vice which so often characterize the class of men who seek
their fortunes in a new world after having failed at home, and if he had known
the lower strata of humanity as an active preacher and confessor in Italy, and
in the prisons and hospitals which he had always made it his business to
frequent, at least he had never been brought into that close contact with rude
boisterous license of every kind which was inevitable to him now that he was
cooped up for a six months’ voyage within the planks of a galleon with nine
hundred or more of his fellowbeings, whose reasons for the long and dangerous
voyage which made them his companions were so very different from those by
which he was moved. He was of a refined, delicate, even haughty, nature, and we
see in his earlier letters some traces of what might be thought to have been
severity of judgment as to even the ordinary secular life, if it were not so
evidently the fruit of his own intense conviction of the reality of the maxims
of faith,— perhaps also of the recollection of the struggle which it had once
cost him to surrender himself to their guidance. We might have expected many
men of the same character with St. Francis to shut themselves up in their cabin
during the voyage, and hold as little intercourse as possible with the strange,
wild, coarse, and violent world around them.
It was, however, on
this voyage that Francis first began the practice of what has been called
‘Apostolical conversation/ which he afterwards never intermitted for the rest
of his life wherever he had occasion for it. It had been, as we have said, the
great weapon of Ignatius : it had been the means by which Francis himself had
been won to the pursuit of the greater glory of God. It was practised with the
most careful and prayerful study by Peter Favre, as we find from his own notes,
and it now became one of the most successful instruments of the salvation and
improvement of others in the hands of his dear friend and brother to whom the
Indies had been committed as the field of his Apostolate. Many years later, a
Portuguese gentleman happened to find himself in the same vessel with Francis. He
had long been desirous of knowing him, on ac
count of his great
reputation for sanctity : on asking which he was, he was shown a person
standing in a group of men round a table where a game of chess was going on. He
was talking with the soldiers, the crew, the merchants’ clerks, and others, of
whom the crowd was made up, at his ease with all, and all at their ease with
him. The gentleman was scandalized, and declared to a friend that the Padre
Santo, as he was called, was just like any other priest. At the end of the
voyage, however, he sent a servant to follow and see what became of him.
Francis went aside into a wood and began to pray, and the servant soon ran to
call his master to see the Saint in an ecstasy lifted from the ground in his
prayers.3
There was ample field
for his zeal on board the ship in which he sailed—which carried, as we are
told, very nearly a thousand persons. He mixed freely with all, especially with
those who had most need of him—and it was soon found that he had won upon them
so far that the habit of swearing was going out, and that many enmities had
been made up. He began to hear confessions regularly and frequently. Under the
Line the scurvy broke out so violently that it became a sort of plague :
friends neglected friends, the sick were left to themselves, the medicine ran
short, there was no one but Francis and his companions to tend the sufferers.
Francis washed them and their linen, dressed their food, and fed them with his
own hands. He had a little cabin of his own, but he gave it up to the sick. He
had refused to take his meals at the Governor’s table, but not to receive the
daily portion of food which was sent him from it: this he divided among the
sick. On Sundays he preached on deck, the Governor himself attending the sermon.
Francis himself
appears to have suffered greatly from sickness in the first part of the
voyage, which was lengthened beyond the usual time, probably by the calm which
often detains vessels near the Equator. It was the custom of the Portuguese
3 This anecdote will be found in Massei,
1. ii. c. 15, p. 471. The gentleman was a famous Captain, Don Diego di Norona,
whose name often occurs in the Asia Portuguesa of Faria y Sousa. See t. ii. p.
2, ch. x.
navigators to sail at
a distance round the Cape, so far southwards as to reach a latitude where the
cold was sensibly felt. The ship did not reach Mozambique till late in August,
at a time when under ordinary circumstances it would have been approaching Goa;
and the lateness of the season as well as the prevalence of sickness determined
the Governor to winter in the island. The letter which we are about to insert
gives some account of the island,4 and of the number of sick in the
hospital where Francis took up his quarters. He makes no mention, however, of
his own sufferings from a violent fever, which we learn from the testimony of
others. He would not accept of the better lodging and care which were offered
to him by many of the Portuguese inhabitants, and took his chance with the rest
of the sick in the hospital. Indeed, the physician found him, in the height of
his fever, visiting and instructing the others. On one occasion when he was
ordered to bed, he is said to have answered humbly that he was anxious about
the case of one, who had not made his peace with God, and that as soon as he
had attended him, he would take rest himself. It was a poor sailor whom fever
had already made delirious, and of whose recovery little hope could be
entertained. Francis had him conveyed from the ship to his own bed : the next
day the man was sensible enough to make his confession; but he died at night,
after having received the sacraments, full of confidence in God. Francis then
consented to be nursed himself, and was soon able to resume his usual labours.
Another anecdote of his stay at Mozambique has been preserved to us. While he
was attending the sick in the hospital, news was brought him of the sudden
death of a boy who had sailed in the Governor’s ship with him. Xavier asked
whether he had attended the Christian doctrine—as the teaching 01 the
Catechism is called among Catholics. He was filled with griei and selfreproach
when he was told that the boy had apparently never had any instruction, and
told the Governor, who strove to console him by saying that as he had never
4 The Portuguese settlement was fixed in a
small coral island close to the shore, which was well 1‘ortified, and contained
large public buildings.
VOL. I. I
known of the lad’s
ignorant state he could not be responsible for it, that the simple fact that
there should be any one in the same ship with him in need of instruction
without his knowing it was a reproach to him.
We may leave the
further details of the voyage to India to be gathered from the following
letter, written from Goa some months after his arrival at that city.5
May the grace and
love of Jesus Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
When on the point of
sailing from Lisbon with Father Paul and Francis Mancias, I wrote to you a long
letter about our voyage to India. And now, as you asked me to let you know of
our Arrival in India as soon as I should have leisure to do so, I send you this
account of our voyage. We left Lisbon on the 7th April 1541, and reached India
the 6th May of this the following year, having thus spent a year and more in
the voyage, which is generally made in about six months. We sailed in the same
vessel with the Governor, who treated us the whole time with great
consideration : and we had all of us fair enough health. All the time there was
no lack of confessions to hear, either of the sick, or others, and we never
missed preaching on the Sundays. I count it a great favour from God that, while
I was passing over the realm of fishes, I found men to whom to announce the
Divine mysteries and to administer the sacrament of penance, quite as necessary
on sea as on land.
In the course of the
voyage we touched at an island called Mozambique, where we wintered for six
months, together with the whole multitude of persons belonging to five large
vessels. There are two cities in the island, one garrisoned by the Por-
5 A close inspection of this and the other
longer letters of Francis Xavier will enable the reader easily to detect that
they were written at intervals, not all at once. Thus in the present letter he
relates his arrival at Goa, and then goes back to Melinda and Socotra.
tuguese,
the other occupied by friendly Mussulmans. While we were wintering there a
great number of persons fell ill, and as many as eighty died. We quartered
ourselves in the hospital all the time, employing ourselves in the service of
the sick. Father Paul and Mancias waited on their bodily necessities, I
attended to their souls also, hearing confessions continually and giving
communion, but, alone as I was, I could not do all that was wanted for them. On
Sundays I preached to a very large audience, as the Governor himself attended:
and I was also often called away to hear confessions elsewhere. So that all the
time we were at Mozambique we had always plenty to do. The Governor, his suite,
and all the soldiers showed us great courtesy, and by the favour of God we
spent those six months greatly to the satisfaction of all and with much
spiritual profit. -
Mozambique is about
900 leagues distant from India. The Governor was desirous of pursuing his
voyage as soon as possible, but owing to the season there were still a great
number of persons ill. So he asked that some of us might remain in the island
to help the sick who were to be left there, and who could not at once continue
the voyage on account of their health. As he thought it best, Father Paul and
Mancias remained. I accompanied the Governor, who was himself by no means
well, that I might hear his confession, in case his malady got worse and led to
anything more serious. So it is now some time since I reached India in his
company, and I am now daily expecting my companions by the vessels which
generally arrive from Mozambique in September. We are now in the fifth month
since we arrived at Goa, the capital of India. It is a fine-looking city,
entirely in the hands of Christians. It has a convent of Franciscans, really
very numerous, a magnificent cathedral with a large number of canons, and
several other churches. There is good reason for thanking God that the Christian
religion flourishes so much in this distant land in the midst of heathen.
Our voyage from
Mozambique to Goa lasted two months and more. We stopped ior a few days at
Melinda, a port in
habited by Mussulmans
who are friendly to the Portuguese, of whom there are some there, chiefly
merchants. If any of them happen to end their days there, they are buried in
large mounds, which are to be seen here and there with crosses over them which
mark them out. The Portuguese have erected near the city a large and very
handsome stone cross,6 which is gilt all over. I cannot express to
you what joy I felt in looking at it. It seemed like the might of the Cross
appearing victorious in the midst of the dominion of the unbelievers.
The King of Melinda
came on board our ship to compliment the Governor, and received him with
kindness and friendliness. While I was at Melinda we celebrated the funeral of
a man who had died on board our ship, and we had the full service for him, much
to the approval of the Mussulmans, who admired our funeral ceremonies very
much.
One of the principal
Mahometan inhabitants of the city asked me whether our temples in which we go
to pray were generally filled with Christian people, and how fervid and diligent
Christians were in worshipping Christ; for, said he, all piety had long ago
grown cold among his own people, and he wished to know whether the same was
usual among Christian men. There were seventeen mosques at Melinda, but three
only were attended and even those by very few. The good man was quite
perplexed, and knew not what to make of it, having no idea how it was that his
own people had lost all religion. He said it could only be on account of some
great sin of their own. We had a great deal of conversation about this, and I
told him that God, most Faithful and True, held the misbelievers and their
prayers in abomination, and so willed that their worship, which He rejected
altogether, should come to nought. My friend, who had very different notions
from, mine, was not satisfied, with this, and then a Saracen Caciz—
6 This erection of crosses seems to have
been a practice among the Portuguese navigators. Vasco de Gama, in his
celebrated voyage in 1497-99, when he first rounded the Cape of Good Hope and
reached India, is said to have set up six crosses at different places, one of
which, called after the Holy Ghost, was at Melinda, which town he was the first
of his countrymen to visit. See Asia Portvguesa, by Faria y Sousa, Eng. Trans,
t. i. p. 50, comp. 42,
a Caciz is a teacher
of the Mahometan law—came up, a man of very eminent‘learning, and he declared
that if Mahomet did not appear again on earth to visit them within two years,
he himself should renounce that religion. One sees in such cases in what
anxiety and despair the life of unbelievers and wicked men is so often passed:
and indeed this in itself is a blessing sent them by God, that they may be
thereby warned of their state and led to conversion.
After sailing from
Melinda we touched at Socotra, an island about a hundred miles in
circumference. It is a wild country with no produce, no corn, no rice, no
millet, no wine, no fruit trees: in short, altogether sterile and arid, except
that it has plenty of dates, out of which they make bread, and also abounds in
cattle.7 The island is exposed to great heat from the. sun; the
people are Christian in name rather than in reality, wonderfully ignorant and
rude : they cannot read or write. They
7 Socotra is here described with
very fair accuracy. Its real length is 70 miles, by an average breadth of 15.
The first Portuguese to visit it were Tristan de Cufia and others under his
command in 1508. The old Portuguese account, Faria y Sousa, t. ii. p. 2, ch.
i., says, ' Athwart the middle of it runs a ridge of hills as high as the
clouds, yet not free from the sand of the shore, which is carried up to the
very top by the north winds, and it is therefore barren, not only of plants but
trees, only some small valleys that are under shelter of those winds. . . .
Those valleys that are sheltered from the sand produce apple and palm trees,
and the best aloes, which for its excellency is called Zocotorinos. The common
food is maize, or Indian wheat, tamarinds, and milk. They are all Jacobite
Christians, as the Ethiopians. The men use the names of the Apostles, the
women chiefly that of Mary. They worship the Cross, which they wear on their
clothes, and set up in their churches, where they pray thrice a day in the
Chaldean language alternatively as in a choir : they receive but one wife, use
circumcision, fasting and tithes. The men comely, the women so manly that they
follow the war, and live like Amazons. . . . Their clothing, some cloth and
skins, their habitation in caves, their weapons, stones and slings. .. . They
were subject to the Arabian King of Caxem. Cuna found here an indifferent fort,
not ill manned nor unprovided.’ The writer then goes on to relate the brave
feat of arms by which the fort was carried, and all the Moors put to death,
except two. ‘ The natives, who had kept off, hearing of our success, came with
their wives and children to thank our commander for delivering them from the
heavy yoke of those infidels; and he, to their great satisfaction, received
them under the protection of the King of Portugal. The mosque was cleared and
made a church of our Lady of Victories, and many were there baptized. ’ This
confirms the statement in the letter oi St. Francis about the absence of
baptism among these nominal Christians. ^
have consequently no
records of any kind. Still they pride themselves on being Christians. They have
churches, crosses, and lamps. Each village has its Caciz, who answers to the
Parish Priest. These Caciz know no more of reading or writing than the rest;
they have not even any books, and only know a few prayers by heart. They go to
their churches four times a day—at midnight, at daybreak, in the afternoon, and
in the evening. They use no bells ; but wooden rattles, such as we use during
Holy Week, serve to call the people together. Not even the Caciz themselves
understand the prayers which they recite : which are in a foreign language (I
think Chaldean). They render special honours to the Apostle St. Thomas,
claiming to be descendants of the Christians begotten to Jesus Christ by that
Apostle in these countries. In the prayers I have mentioned they often repeat a
word which is like our alleluia. The Caciz never baptize any one, nor do they
know the least what Baptism is. Whilst I was there I baptized a number of
children, with the utmost goodwill of their parents. Most of them showed great
eagerness to bring their children to me, and made such liberal offerings out of
their poverty of what they had to give, that I should have been afraid to
refuse the dates which they pressed upon me with such great goodwill. They also
begged me over and over again to remain with them, promising that every single
person in the island would be baptized. So I begged the Governor to let me
remain where I found a harvest so ripe and ready to be gathered in. But as the
island has no Portuguese garrison, and it is exposed to the ravages of the Mussulmans,
the Governor would not hear of leaving me, fearing that I might be carried off
as a slave. So he told me that I should soon be among other Christians who were
not less, perhaps more, in need than the Socotrians of instruction and
spiritual assistance, and amongst whom my work would be better spent.
One day I went to
Vespers as recited by the Caciz; they lasted an hour. There was no end to their
repetitions of prayers and of incensations : the churches are always lull of
incense. Though their
Caciz have wives, they are extremely strict in regard to abstinence and
fasting. When they fast they abstain not only from flesh meat and milk, but
from fish also, of which they have a great supply. So strict is their rule that
they would rather die than taste anything oi the kind. They eat nothing but
vegetables and palm dates. They have two Lents, during which they fast; one o*
these lasts two months. If any one is profane enough to eat meat during that
time, he is not allowed to enter the church.
In a village in the
island there was a Mussulman woman the mother of two young children. Not
knowing that their father was a Mussulman, I was going to give them baptism,
when they ran off, all of a sudden, to their mother to complain that I was
trying to baptize them. The mother came to say that she would never let me
baptize her children. She was a Mahometan, and would never have her children
made Christians. Upon this the people of Socotra began to cry out that the Mussulmans
were unworthy of so great a blessing; that they would not let them be baptized
however much they desired it, and that they would never permit any Mussulman to
become a Christian. Such is their hatred of Mussulmans.
We set sail from the
island at the end of February, and the 6 th of May, as I have told you, we
arrived at Goa.
[The five
vessels which we left at Mozambique sailed thence in March. One of these, the
largest of all, and laden with valuable merchandise, was wrecked and lost. The
crew were saved; the other four arrived safe.8] .
Here at Goa I live in
the Hospital, administering to the sick the Sacraments of confession and
communion. But, be-
8 These few lines must have been inserted
in the letter by some copyist. St. Francis speaks a little further on of the
arrival ol F. Paul and Mancias, who must have been on board these vessels, as
still expected by him. He is to leave for Cape Comorin, and the Governor
promises to send them after him. The ship which was lost seems to have been the
largest of the whole fleet, from which the Governor transferred himseh and his
suite on leaving Mozambique. It is said (see Massei, 1. i. ch. iii. p. 58) that
St. Francis always spoke oi the ship as if she were destined to some great
calamity. Predictions ol this kind are irequent in his life.
sides the sick, such
numbers of other persons want me to hear their confessions, that, if I could be
in ten different places at once, I should never lack penitents. After attending
to the sick, I gave my morning to hearing confessions: after midday I used to
go to the prisons, and after giving the prisoners instructions as to making
their confessions, I heard the confessions of their whole life. When I had got
through this, I went to the Church of our Lady, which is near the Hospital, and
there I began to teach the children—as many as three hundred were often
present—their prayers, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. Upon this the
Bishop of Goa ordered the same to be done in the other churches, and it still
continues to be practised. The fruits gained from it surpass all expectation,
and have delighted the whole city.
Whilst I remained at
our Lady’s Church I used to preach in the morning on Sundays and holidays to
the people promiscuously. In the afternoon I explained the articles of the
Creed to the natives, and the crowd of hearers was so great that the church
could hardly contain them. I afterwards taught them the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail
Mary, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments of the Law of God. On
Sundays I used to say mass for the lepers, whose hospital is close to the city,
heard their confessions, and gave them communion. There was not one of them
who did not approach the sacraments: and after the first sermon I preached to
them they were all devoted to me.
I am now setting out
by the Governor’s order for a country where there is reason to hope that many
will become Christians. Three students from the same country go with me, two of
whom are deacons, fairly acquainted with Portuguese, as well as with their
native tongue : the third has only received minor orders. I am in good hopes
that my labours there may produce precious fruits for our holy religion. As
soon as Fathers Paul and Mancias arrive from Mozambique, the Governor has
promised to send them to join me. The place I speak of is called Cape Comorin,
six hundred miles distant from Goa. I pray God, that for the sake of your
prayers, He may be
pleased to forget my sins and to grant me all the grace I am in need of, that I
may do Him good service in those parts.
All the sufferings of
the long voyage, all the charge of bearing the sins of others while one has to
bear the weight of his own, the having to live a long time together among unbelievers,
and the extreme heat of the sun in this climate—all these trials, if borne as
they ought to be borne for the love of God, turn out to be very great
consolations and the subject of many and intense spiritual delights. I am
perfectly persuaded in my own mind that the lovers of the Cross of our Lord
Christ consider a life of trials of this sort a blessed life, and that to fly
from or to be without the Cross is death to them. For can there be a more cruel
death than to live without Jesus Christ, after having once known Him, or to
forsake Him for the sake of following our own desires? I assure you, dear
friends, no cross is to be compared to such a cross as that. On the other hand,
how blessed it is to live dying a daily death, breaking our own wills, that we
may seek, not what is our own, but what belongs to Jesus Christ!
And now, dearest
brothers, I entreat and conjure you by God to write to me about every single
member of our Society, that as I have no hope that I shall see them in this
life, as St. Paul says, facie ad faciem, I may at least see them per (Enigma, in
a dark manner, that is by means of your letters. Unworthy as I am, do not
refuse me this boon. Remember that God has made you such, that I have the right
to expect great consolation from you, and to receive it. Give me diligent
instructions what method I should pursue in dealing with the heathen and the
Mussulmans to whom I am sent, for I look forward to learning from God, through
what you write to me, how I am to make them Christians without difficulty, and
I expect to come to see, from your instructions, and so to correct, any
blunders I may commit while I am waiting to hear from you. Meanwhile I don’t
despair, that by the merits and prayers of our holy Mother Church, on which I
rely greatly, and through the prayers of you and others her living members, our
Lord
Christ may deign to
sow the seed of the Gospel by means of me, wicked servant though I am, in the
land of the heathen, more especially since, as He uses so poor a creature as I
am for so great a work, it will put to shame men who are born with capacities
for great things, as well as be a spur to others of we'ak courage, when they
see me who am but dust and ashes and the vilest of men made to bear witness
from my own experience to the extreme scarcity which here exists of Apostolical
labourers. Ah, how gladly would I make myself the slave during my whole life of
any who would come out here and devote themselves to labour in the vineyard of
the Lord of all!
And thus, then, I end
my letter, imploring God, of His infinite mercy, to gather us all one day into
that blessed joy of His for which we are made, and here in this life to
increase our strength, so that we may labour in His service with the diligence
which it deserves, and thus make ourselves entirely and altogether conformed
unto His holy decrees and will.
Your useless brother
in Jesus Christ,
Francis
Xavier.
Goa, September 18th,
1542.
It may here be
remarked that this letter, which is a fair specimen of those which Francis
Xavier wrote from time to time during the remaining years of his life to his
friends in Europe, leaves out, as might be expected, the circumstances most to
his own personal credit. It is hardly necessary to repeat that nothing else
could have been expected, not only from a person of singular holiness, but even
trom a person of ordinary modesty and good sense, and that few things can be
more absurd than to question the many personal details which have been added to
our knowledge by the companions and friends of St. Francis, on the ground that
he himself makes no mention of them. We may add, also, that his life, even on
board ship, and much more when he was once launched on his missionary career in
India, was a life of extraordinary labour and active occupation, and that it is
really wonderful that he
should have found
time to write letters so long and so full in detail as many that remain to us,
which, however, represent only a percentage of the whole number which he is
known to have written.
Before we proceed
further, a few words may be added as to his efforts in favour of the
inhabitants of Socotra. We do not possess the letter which Francis Xavier wrote
to the King of Portugal concerning these islanders, but we know that he
represented their case so strongly, that a Portuguese fleet was ordered to call
there on its way to India, and the island conquered from the Mussulmans. At a
later period, Xavier sent some members of the Society to preach to the people.9
It is not difficult
to believe the deplorable accounts which are given us by the biographers of
Xavier of the state of religion at Goa at the time of his arrival in that
city. The circumstances of the case explain them and almost require them. The
Portuguese were masters at Goa and in a number of othei towns, chiefly along
the coast, where their garrisons and factories were established, and the
general supremacy of the Portuguese crown was recognized to a certain extent
by many of the native Princes in the interior. Goa itself, the capital, was a
city of much beauty and size, strong in its insular situation, possessing fine
buildings and some handsome churches. But its population was a mixture of
Portuguese, Mahometans, and native Indians. The Portuguese were comparatively
tew, though of course dominant, and a great number 01 them were adventurers of
all sorts, merchants, soldiers, and the like, who had either left behind them
in Europe, as it is too general for Europeans of all nations to leave behind
them, even the semblance of outward religion and morality, or who had at all
events become utterly corrupted by the temptations of their new position and
the vices of their Mussulman neighbours, the influence of the climate, and the
ease with which the Asiatics under their dominion lent themselves to be the
instruments and victims of their profligacy. We shall find in the course of
9 Turselline, lib. i. ch. xvi. But Bartoli, Asia, 1.1. p. 439,
does not mention the fleet, and puts the mission of the preachers after the
death of Francis.
the narrative of the
life of St. Francis many instances of highly religious officers and merchants,
men really desirous of advancing the glory of God and the spiritual welfare of
the native population, and willing to put themselves to great expenses and to
incur severe dangers, for the purpose of aiding the Apostle in his works of
charity and zeal. But the majority of the Portuguese, even after the reform
introduced by him, and much more before that time, seem* to have been such in
their lives and conduct as to merit the severe language in which many writers
speak of them. The Mussulmans, and some of the native heathens, were rich and
powerful, important to the Portuguese Government on account of their numbers,
influence, and the commerce which was kept up through them, and they made no
pretence of hiding their religions or desisting from their most abominable
practices even in Goa itself. The lower and poorer orders among them were even
oppressed and persecuted if they showed any inclination to adopt Christianity,
and indeed the lives of the majority of the Christians were such as to scandalize
and revolt them. Many of the Portuguese led the most licentious lives, as too
many of the European officers and officials in India do at the present time.
Few Portuguese ladies could venture as far as India, and an almost recognised
system of concubinage prevailed among the Europeans, who differed very little
in this respect from the Mussulmans themselves. When marriages had been
contracted the women had become Christians, but they were extremely ignorant of
the religion which they had adopted, and their children were growing up almost
entirely without instruction.
On the other hand,
there were not wanting attempts at better things, which, however, had hitherto
failed of success. The Bishop of Goa was an old Franciscan friar of the name of
John Albuquerque, a good and holy man, but his jurisdiction was extremely
extensive, embracing the whole of India and the Portuguese settlements in the
East, and his activity was not equal to his piety and personal holiness. As a
rule, the priests and religious to be found in Goa confined their labours
to the Portuguese,
and made few attempts at the conversion of the heathen. We must remember also,
that in Europe itself, at the time of which we speak, the frequentation of the
Sacraments had in many parts died out, and that, as we have mentioned above,
even in Rome, it was strange to go often to Communion or for priests to preach
except in Lent and Advent. A zealous Franciscan friar, Diego de Borba, a
disciple of John of Avila, had been four years in Goa and had begun a good work
in which he found many associates, for the benefit of the Indians. A College
had been founded at Goa, through his exertions,10 in which a large
number of native boys from all parts of India were educated, with the intention
that they should ultimately become Priests for their own countries, or at least
interpreters and catechists for other missionaries. The College was endowed
with an annual revenue by the Government out of funds which Were taken away
from the idolatrous priests. We shall hear more of the College, which was then
called the College, of Santa Fe, and afterwards of St. Paul. There was also a
flourishing * Confraternity of Mercy,’ an institution to be found in most of
the Portuguese settlements, devoted to works of active charity. These were
elements of good among the Portuguese of Goa which only required the breath of
Apostolic zeal to quicken them into life, and we read of no opposition offered
to St. Francis when he began the work of reform.
On landing at Goa, he
took up his abode, as usual, in the hospital—for a hospital answering, as we
have already said, the purposes of ‘ poor house’ as well, was sure to be found
in every such city. He then went to the Bishop, and informed him of his mission
from the Pope and the King—showing him his letters and faculties, including
that which appointed him Apostolical Legate. At the same time he declared that
he had no desire or intention of using the extraordinary powers conferred upon
him, except so far as it seemed good and advisable to the Bishop himself. This
absolute deference to the ordi-
10 The chief founder of this College was the
predecessor of Martin Alfonso Sousa as Governor, Don Estevan de Gama, a son of
the famous Vasco de Gama.
nary ecclesiastical
authority was a fixed principle with him during the whole of his missionary
career, as it was also uniformly insisted upon by St. Ignatius in Europe.
Francis adopted the principle not merely out of prudence, but in order that his
work might have the blessing of obedience upon it as well as that of perfect
union with the representatives of Divine authority in the Church.
We may also notice
here, at the outset of his career in the East, other features of the method
which he uniformly pursued, when it was possible, in the work of evangelizing
the populations to whom he was sent. The practice of personal poverty, and of
spending a large part of the night in prayer, while the day was given to active
works of piety and charity, the devotion of his first care to those who most
closely resembled our Lord in His suffering life, the sick, the lepers, and
the prisoners, and a peculiar attention to the instruction of children and the
most ignorant, are some of those features which are copied directly from the
example and precepts of our Lord.
It is hardly
necessary to add, that the good Bishop’s heart was won at once by the humility
and zeal of the new Apostle, and that from the first he became the fast friend
of Francis. Indeed, the whole city was soon devoted to him, and in the space of
five months a very great change for the better in matters of religion was the
fruit of his labours. The particulars given in the letter last cited may serve
as a summary of these happy results. A few details have been added by his biographers,
gleaned from the memories of those who were at Goa at the time. The Governor, a
pious and earnest man, as we have seen, took from Francis the custom of
visiting the hospital and prison in person once a week, and this custom was
afterwards recommended by the King to his successor. We are also told of
Francis’ manner of adapting himself to the character of the various persons,
whom by private conversation he endeavoured to win to a more Christian life,
sometimes admonishing them with the greatest gentleness and affability, at
other times putting the great truths of eternity, ot death, judg
ment and hell before
them in the strongest and most terrible language. In this way a great number
were induced to make their confession after a long period of disorderly life,
to break off unlawful connections, or to render them lawful by marriage, as
well as to make due restitution of unjust gains. The peculiar position of the
Portuguese in India made the first of these kinds of disorders the most
difficult to remedy in the majority of cases. Turselline, the first and in some
respects the best biographer of St. Francis Xavier, has summed up so happily
the tradition of his manner of dealing with these cases, that we may give it
here in his words instead of in our own. ‘ Xavier,’ he says, ‘thinking within
himself that he ought to apply some remedy to this great evil, began to dispose
them with all the endeavour he could use. And first he went about to win them
by all courteous means; then, as he met them in the streets, he would merely request
them to invite a poor priest to their ordinary fare; which they willingly
accepted of. He now sitting at table would before, or at, their repast,
entreat his host to cause his children to be called; whereupon the little children
coming presently at their father’s call, Francis would take them up in his arms
and hug them to his bosom, thanking! God Who had given the father such children
for the hope of his family, and withal would pray God to grant them a good and
holy life. Then would he desire that their mother might be called (a thing
which in another would have been temerity, but his sanctity easily excused it).
When she was come, he would speak sweetly unto her, and commend her heartily to
his host, thereby to draw him* to take her to his wife, saying that doubtless
she was of an excellent disposition and lovely countenance, so that she might
well be accounted a Portuguese, that the children which he had by her were
certainly worthy of a Portuguese to their father. Why therefore did he not marry
her ? What wife could he have better ? And he should do well to provide with
all speed for his children’s credit and the woman’s honesty.
‘ Which wholesome
counsel of his proved not unprofitable. For by his words and authority without
great difficulty he per
suaded many of them
to marry their mistresses, being himself witness thereof. But if by chance he
lighted upon any one who had by some illfavoured Indian woman children like
unto herself, then assuming great indignation thereat, he would cry out, Good
God ! what a monster have we here ! Do you keep a devil in your house? Can you
keep company with this ugly beast? Can you have children by her? Follow my
counsel: drive this monster, this prodigious creature, presently out of your
house, and seek you a wife worthy of yourself. So in putting away his
mistress, he married a wife.’
We may add, to
complete the picture, what the same writer adds of another practice of Francis
Xavier: ‘ He, thirsting more after the salvation of souls than his own praise,
was always thinking of some new ways how to help them, for the performance
whereof there was nothing which he would not do. And amongst the rest he had
one invention which, in such a man as he, gave an admirable example of
Christian simplicity, and was also more profitable in effect, than fair to
show. He being a man of grave years and authority, went up and down the
highways and streets with a little bell in his hand (so far was he from
thinking anything disgraceful to him that might be grateful to God, and profitable
for man’s salvation) to call the children and' servants together to Christian
Doctrine, at the corners of the streets and crossways, sometimes stirring up
the inhabitants to piety with these or suchlike words : “ Faith ful Christians,
for the love which you bear to Christ, send your children and servants to the
Christian DoctrineWhich new invention made infinite numbers of children,
slaves, and others to run flocking unto him from all places: all whom, he himself
marching before, he would lead into our Blessed Lady’s Church, singing aloud
the Catechism unto them, and teaching them the same, thereby to cause them the
more willingly to come and hear him, and so the more easily to remember what
was taught them in the manner of singing—both which proved afterwards to be so.
And herein he used no less prudence than diligence. For knowing very well that
his labour would then be profitably employed, if those things which ought to
be learned were well
understood, all that he sung he would explicate largely and clearly, according
to the capacity of his auditors.
‘To the ruder sort
and to slaves he would purposely speak after a rude and homely manner, that
their own fashion of speech might keep them more attentive and make deeper impression
in their minds—which endeavour of his was neither fruitless nor in vain. For
from hence arose that so worthy a custom of teaching and learning the Christian
Doctrine which is at this day practised in India. And because men reaped more
fruit by it than was expected, the Bishop caused the same to be practised by
others in the other churches, so as, advancing himself in this new piety,
those of the Society following Francis’ institution, others stirred up
thereunto partly by the Bishop’s command, and partly by the example of the
Society, it came at last to be a custom throughout all India, to the great
advancement of the Christian ’cause. For this practice so spread itself abroad
both in Goa and in other places, that everywhere in the schools, highways,
streets, houses, fields, and ships, there were instead of vain and idle songs,
sung and heard the principles of Christian faith with great delight. Wherefore
it grew to a custom that children who could scarce speak did strive to sing
most of those verses by heart. And in this exercise Xavier gave no less noble
proof of his temperance and moderation, than of his industrious labours. For of
all that was given to him under the title of alms, he received nothing to
himself, but gave all to the sick and poor in the most private manner he
could, to the end that human praise might not deprive him of any reward in the
sight of God.’11
The work of teaching
the Christian doctrine, or Catechism, to children and the ignorant was
considered so essential by the first Fathers of the Society, that it had been
proposed during their deliberations in Rome, when the form of the Institute
was to be drawn up and submitted to the Pope, to join a clause relating to this
duty to the fourth and distinctive vow of the Professed,—that, namely, which
binds them to special
11 Turselline, lib. i. c. 3.
VOL. I. ' K
obedience to the Pope
as to any missions on which he may send them. This proposal was abandoned on
account of the opposition of one only among the Fathers, Nicolas Bobadilla, but
the fact shows the very high importance which Ignatius and his companions
attached to the subject. Francis Xavier uniformly acted in the matter as if he
had been bound by the proposed vow. The plan of setting the Christian doctrine
to simple music, and teaching it in the way just mentioned by Turselline, was
characteristic of his practical sense and joyous simplicity, and we find it
specially mentioned as having been kept to throughout his career. In the
Moluccas, the Processes tell us, he used to spend the day, after saying mass,
in hearing confessions and teaching the rudiments of the faith to children and
adults of both sexes in a church of our Lady, a great crowd attending his
instructions; and from this the custom became general of the natives singing
the prayers of the Doctrine as they were carrying their wares on board ship,
and at night in their houses, * which thing,’ it is said, * greatly moved all
hearts to devotion. And not only there, and in Amboyna, and at Cape Comorin,
but everywhere else where he taught, his prayers and teaching sank into their
hearts as if they had been taught them by the Apostles themselves; and his Catechism
was taught all over India, the children singing it as they went to and came
from school; and in the streets at night the slaves and boys and girls as they
passed about were heard to sing no other songs than his.’12
The last letter of
St. Francis, which we have inserted above, makes mention of his approaching
departure on his first missionary expedition, in aid of the recently converted
Christians of the Fishery Coast. This coast and the neighbouring parts of
Southern India formed the scene of his earliest labours in that kind of
Apostolate which was to be his chief occupation for the remainder of his short
life, and we are fortunate in possessing details of considerable importance
concerning his method of action as well as the severe difficulties under which
his work had to be carried on. There is some
12 Relatio super Sanctitate et Miraculis
&c. in cap. de Fide.
little uncertainty as
to the length of his first stay at the Fishery Coast, as there is not perfect
agreement between the different editors of his Letters as to the date of some
of them which were written from Goa after his departure for the Coast, and
which make it evident that he returned to that city after his first stay among
the natives. But the question is not of any real importance, and we shall take
the liberty of inverting the order in which these letters are usually printed,
for the sake of afterwards considering at one glance, and without interruption,
all that remains to us concerning the mission to the Fisheries.
The two following
letters may probably, as we have hinted, have been written from Goa during a
short visit paid by St. Francis to that city in the later months of 1543, after
he had spent a year on the mission. They relate entirely to matters which
concern the interests of religion in Goa, and were no doubt the fruit of many
conferences between St. Francis and the Governor, Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa,
over whom, as we have seen, he had acquired so excellent an influence. The
second looks like a formal document, drawn up in such form as to be laid before
the Pope or any of the authorities at Rome whom he might depute to consider
whether the requests made in the name of the Governor could, be granted. It
asks for a plenary indulgence to be gained after confession and communion on
the Feast of St. Thomas, the first Apostle of the Indies, and during his
octave: for the same favour for the inmates of the hospitals of the city of
Goa, and for those who wait upon them, every time they approach the sacraments,
and also at the hour of death, and again for all the faithful on the feasts of
our Blessed Lady, and for the members of the ‘ Confraternity of Mercy’ ancl
their wives, once a year and at the hour of death. Another demand is that on
account 01 the very great distance between the various Portuguese settlements
under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Goa,—the Moluccas and Malacca in the
far East, Ormuz on the Persian Gult, Diu, Sofala on the African coast, and
Mozambique—a distance which prevented the Bishop from visiting them regularly,
he might be allowed to delegate to his vicars in those places the
power which, under
such circumstances, is sometimes committed to priests, of administering the
sacrament of Confirmation. The last request ^strikes us as very strange,' and
is put forward with some appearance of hesitation as to the possibility of the
concession. It is proposed that as the climate and seasons of India so far
inverted the ordinary course of life for the Portuguese in the East as to
occupy them in the active pursuits either of commerce or warfare during the
spring, which is there also the hot season, and as this led to a general disregard
of the observance of the Lenten fast, the Church should change her seasons to
suit the convenience of her children, and transplant the fast of Lent to the
months of June and July. The grounds for all these requests are formally given
in the document which we shall presently quote.
The other letter
which we shall place before that of which we have been speaking, is written
with more freedom, though perhaps not with that entire abandonment of reserve
which characterizes St. Francis when he is writing to St. Ignatius, with the
certainty that he alone will see his letter. We see the warm and grateful
interest which Francis felt towards the Governor de Sousa — a good and pious
man, who afterwards proved, we are told, wanting in firmness in his arduous
charge —and his ingenious charity in suggesting to Ignatius the little
attentions which will go most nearly to the heart of Sousa. His sanguine
desires as to the large supply of missionaries of the Society are put forward
under the authority of the Governor. Francis had probably already begun to
find out what was to be a very principal cross to him for the remainder of his
life. The work at the centre of the Church is at some times so overwhelming
that even the largest-hearted men at home are fain to shrink from the sacrifice
involved in sending the best instruments at their disposal to a distance among
the heathen. Later on we shall find Ignatius coming even to the conclusion that
he must withdraw St. Francis himself from the East: and we may well imagine how
the eager Apostle of the Indies felt at Goa, with the fine college of Santa Fe
ready for his workmen, with so many new fields of labour opening out
daily before him, as
month after month passed without bringing him the long-desired reinforcements,
or even a letter from his tenderly loved brethren in Europe to assure him of
their sympathy.
(xi.) To the Father Master
Ignatius of Loyola,
May the grace and
love of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
Some persons out
here, guided, it is clear, by the inspiration of God, have lately founded a
College at Goa, and no work could be named of which there was greater need in
these parts. It increases daily, and we have great cause for giving thanks to
God for the establishment of such a house for the instruction, I trust, of many
converts * and the conversion of many infidels. The building of the College is
in the hands of men of great virtue and high position. The Governor himself
favours the business greatly, and is so convinced that the design is one which
tends to the advancement of the Christian religion, that it is chiefly with his
funds and by means of him that the buildings destined for the purpose seem
likely to be enlarged and finished in a short space of time. The church, which
is close to the College, is of a very handsome design. The foundations were
laid a long time ago, now the walls are finished, and they are putting on the
roof. It will be consecrated next summer. If you want to know its size, it is
twice as .large as the church of the Sorbonne at Paris. The income allotted to
the College is large enough to support easily a hundred students, and people
think it will be further increased continually.13 Indeed, we hope,
with God’s help, that in a few years many will go forth from this place who
will do good service to religion in these countries, and extend far and wide
the boundaries of holy Church.
Judging from these
beginnings, I hope that by six years’ time the students of the College will
number quite three hun-
13 The College was endowed originally with
an annual sum of 800 crowns, which, as has been said, had formerly gone to the
maintenance of pagan priests.
dred, youths of all
races, nations, and tongues, and that by their labours the number of Christians
will be very greatly increased. The Governor has promised that as soon as the
heathen give him a little leisure (for he is constantly at war with them), he
will get the College buildings rapidly finished. He has made up his mind that
there is no work to be done in India more pious and holy than this, that the
dedication of such houses to Christ has enabled him to win many and great
victories which he has already won over the heathen, and he trusts with the
help of God to win by and bye even greater. So I do beg of you over and over
again, by Christ our Lord and His religion, to pray yourself for Don Martin
Sousa, and have him commended to the prayers of the Society, that God may
supply him abundantly with counsel and help from on high to govern well this
immense province of India, so that he may so pass through things temporal as
not to lose things eternal.14
And indeed, if I
thought there was any room for recommendation from me, I should commend him to
you as I would myself. His great virtue has rendered him so dear to me, that I
do not love him less tenderly than he appears to love me, though all our
affection and mutual services have the single object of the glory of Jesus
Christ. Heaven forbid I should ever forget him. If I were to do so, I should
expect to have to pay very severe penalties to God for so much ingratitude.
The Governor is writing to the King about the College, that, if it seems well,
his Highness may write to the Holy Father to urge him to send some of our
Society to India, to be the future props of this College. Some people call it
the College of the Conversion of St. Paul, others the College of the Holy
Faith. This last name appears to me the best name for it, as its students seem
to be educated for the purpose of sowing the seed of the Christian faith in
the minds of the infidels.
The Governor has
charged me to write to you at length about the College and its establishment,
and I therefore do
14 Latin words in the original: ut sic
transeat per bona temporalia, ut non amittat ceterna. The words are taken from
a collect in the Missal.
so. The object of the
institute is to bring up native boys of various nations in the Christian
religion, who when sufficiently instructed may be sent home to teach their
fellowcountrymen. I can find no words to tell you how much the Governor approves
our Society and its institute. He considers that as you have been the means by
which God has called us all into the Society of His Son, he owes it to his duty
to God and his office to take care that you are informed by letter how very
necessary it is that the youth of the College be instructed, in order that you
may think of sending over here some of the Society for this purpose. He says
that it is his business to finish the buildings of the College, and yours to
provide it with competent teachers for the young men. He thinks also that it is
important for the dignity of religion and the increase of piety in this
country, that the Pope should be induced to grant to the high altar of this
church the privilege of the liberation of a soul from Purgatory each time that
mass is celebrated thereon for. the dead, just as if it were at what is called
a privileged altar at Rome. And .that all question of gain to the priest who
may wish to celebrate the mass there, may be excluded, he wishes the grant to
be made out so as to contain the condition, that the privilege may only be
gained when the priest says mass at this altar gratuitously, with no
expectation of fee or human consideration, and when the person who gets it said
goes to confession and receives communion at that mass. It is certainly quite
fair that one who would set free the soul of another from Purgatory should
first set his own free from hell and eternal damnation. The Governor’s reason
for wishing that some special Indulgence should be granted by the Pope to the
priests who say mass at the altar, is that they may be attracted by such an
advantage and be desirous of saying mass there; and he is very anxious that
this Pontifical favour should be granted, in order to enhance the veneration
for the shrine and increase the piety of the people. All these requests of his
will be enough to make you understand the character of the good man, who feels
so rightly about holy things and matters of piety, and is so painstaking about
them.
I do not doubt that
when you send some subjects out here, one or indeed many of them will be of
approved virtue and constancy, as men should be who will have to administer a
College like this, and to undergo all the many trials which this country is
sure to afford. Sea and land alike will put their strength and virtue
abundantly to the test. The work requires men of strong constitution and in
vigorous health: young men will do better than old men, though we will not
refuse the old, if they are hale and active. All who come will be welcomed with
kindness and good will by the people here, and will be asked at once to hear
confessions, to give pious meditations, and to preach. The harvest will be
great and abundant. We have already more than sixty native children ready who
are now being instructed by Diego de Borba, an excellent Franciscan friar. At
the beginning of the summer they will move into the College. Most of them know
how to read, several know how to write and are far enough on to be taught grammar.
I tell you this that you may send us a good master for them, and, when he
comes, he will find plenty of work in the discharge of his office.
His Excellency also
hopes that, among those whom we ex* pect from you, there may be one who is a
Preacher, who may give instructions to the priests in things of necessity,
lecturing on a part of the Scriptures, or the sacraments (for the generality
of those who come out here are not overburthened with learning), and at the
same time rouse them up to the love of God and devoted care of the salvation of
men, as well by his example as by his teaching. I need not tell you that deeds
are more persuasive than words. As for the rest of our people, he wishes them
to be such as may labour with diligence in hearing confessions, administering
the sacraments, and converting the heathen. This island itself may yield an
abundant harvest in the conversion of heathen.15 A great number of
these lie utterly destitute of help in the darkness and night of super-
13 He speaks of the island, or peninsula, in
which Goa stood, which contained a large heathen population. The Epistolce
Indiccs of subsequent years speak of numerous conversions among them.
stition, ignorant
altogether of the God Who made them and Who is their Lord. So the Governor
expects you to send him three Priests and a Master of Humanities. He is also
writing himself to the King, if I am not mistaken, to beg him to ask the Pope
for four of our Society. He also asks for certain Indulgences, a list of which
I send in a separate letter, so that when they have been granted, at the King’s
petition, our brothers who are to come out may bring them to India. I would
have you thoroughly to understand that this service will win them the good will
of all the Portuguese who are in India, and give them much consideration and
authority, which will be found of the greatest value when they have to implant
divine truths in the minds of these people. Of all the nations that I have
seen, the Portuguese is the one which seems to. me to go furthest in prizing
Indulgences from Rome, and to be the most drawn to the frequentation of the
sacraments by attractions of this kind. So I trust that, both to cherish this
devotion of the nation that I mention, and also in consideration of their
profound devotion to the Holy See, the Holy Father will be pleased to show
himself very liberal in granting the request of children so obedient to Him.
Whatever graces of this sort may be obtained from the Holy Father you will take
care to have sent to us with the documents in full form, that there may be the
greater certainty and dignity about the concession.
His Excellency, I
think, is writing to you himself. Though he has never seen you, he is devoted
to you and to all the Society as well. Pray write to him and send him a couple
of rosaries with the Papal Indulgences attached, as a present for himself and
his wife. They will please him very much, both for the sake of the Indulgences
and because they come from you. He begs you, moreover, because he has so much
confidence in your influence and friendship, to obtain for him as a favour from
the Pope, that every time he, his wife, or his children go to confession, they
may gain all the Indulgences of the Seven Churches at Rome. If you do this for
him, he will be greatly indebted to you. Moreover he will think that I have
really some little influence with you, if you obtain these
favours which I have
mentioned from the Pope in consequence
of this letter which
I write to you in his name. But now I
make an end,
conjuring Jesus Christ our Lord, Who in His
infinite mercy has
united us under the same rule of life here,
to be pleased to
unite us after death in everlasting happiness.
The least of your
sons, and the most distant from your
presence, _
r Francis.
Goa, Oct.
18, 1543. x
(xn.) To the Father Master Ignatius
of Loyola.
May the grace and
lo've of our Lord Jesus Christ always assist and favour us! Amen.
The Governor of
India, to whom we are all greatly indebted, both those of us who are here and
who are at Rome, on account as well of his great zeal for the worship of God as
of his especial love for our Society, has asked me to write to you concerning
various spiritual wants of these countries. He is himself so much disposed to
religion, and his requests are so conformable to piety and virtue, that I willingly
undertake to make these petitions to you in his name.
In the first place,
as the people of India honour with an especial worship the Apostle St. Thomas,
the patron of India, the Governor, with a view to increase and honour this
their veneration and worship, would wish that his Holiness should grant a
Plenary Indulgence on the day of the Feast of that Apostle and seven days
after, to those only who within that time shall duly go to confession and
communion. He has named this condition, that the people may be induced to approach
the sacraments, and that the feast day may be kept with due piety and
observance, and this all the more because Lent falls in the summer in these
countries, when everybody here is soldiering. The Indians are masters on the
land, the Portuguese at sea. The consequence is that the holy season of Lent is
spent in military occupations and in navigation, and thus the soldiers and the
merchants have commonly no time to approach the sacraments of penance and holy
communion.
The Governor
therefore, that men may be attracted to the sacraments, asks the Holy Father to
grant them the inducement of this Indulgence, which is likely to be a sort of
Lent.
In the second place,
he prays you to obtain from the Holy Father in favour of the hospitals of the
city, that the sick and those who wait upon them may obtain a Plenary
Indulgence as often as they go to confession and receive holy communion, and
that the dying may receive the same Indulgence. He asks this in order that the
sick may be induced to approach the sacraments more frequently, that -the
others may more willingly wait on the sick and give themselves to pious works
with greater fervour, and that all, sick and strong, may worship God in purity
and piety, and set a good example to the heathen among whom they live and
dwell.
Again, his Excellency
is remarkably devout to the Blessed Mother of God, and keeps her festivals most
religiously. By far the greatest part of the year he spends at Goa with a large
Court. Goa is a city in the island of the same name, about ten miles broad :
and in this island there are several churches of our Lady, really very
devotional and rich, well worth notice as to architectural beauty, vestments,
sacred vessels, numbers of priests, and celebration of worship. As those
churches keep each in their turn the festivals of our Lady with great magnificence,
the Governor, in .order to increase the number of worshippers and the true
veneration of the Blessed Virgin, asks that any one who may visit these
churches on those feast days after having been to confession and communion, may
gain a Plenary Indulgence. Such graces are really more needed in India than
elsewhere in Christian countries, because, the number of Christians being very
large—for the Portuguese are very numerous, the Indian converts are numerous,
and a large number are continually being received—still the number of priests
is wonderfully small. They are quite unable to hear all the confessions in
Lent. So the Governor, in order that no one out here may live without
confession and communion, makes these requests to the Holy Father through you,
in order that every one may have a wish to receive the sacraments, and that
all may make use of
these true treasures of grace left to us by our Blessed Lord for the attainment
of eternal happiness.
Again, we have in
this city, as well as in most other places where Christians have settled, a
Confraternity of good men who undertake the relief of the poor among the
inhabitants whether old Christians or converts. It is called the Confraternity
of Mercy, and consists entirely of Portuguese. The ardour and perseverance with
which these pious people serve God by relieving the poor is quite incredible.
In order to kindle still more their charity, the Governor asks the Holy Father
to grant them a Plenary Indulgence once a year, after confession and communion,
and the same at the hour of death. As most of them are married, he would like
these favours to be extended to the wives as well as the husbands.
The Portuguese are
not only masters of th£ Indian sea, but they also occupy different places on
the coast, where they reside with their wives and children. These places are
very far apart. Thus, from Goa to the Moluccas,16 where the King of
Portugal has a fortress, is about iooo leagues; to Malacca, a city where the
Christians are very numerous, 500 leagues; to Ormuz, a famous city, much
frequented by the Portuguese, 400leagues; to Diu, 300 leagues; to Mozambique,
900leagues; to Sofala, 1200 leagues. In each of these cities the Bishop of Goa
has a Vicar-General, being unable to visit them regularly in person on account
of the great distance. The Governor therefore, knowing how necessary the
sacrament of Confirmation is to Christians living among savages and
continually at war with the infidels, would ask the Holy Father, with the
object of fortifying the Christian faith in India, to give the Bishop of Goa
faculties to delegate to his Vicars the power of administering Confirmation,
since a single Bishop could never satisfy the wants of places so far distant,
let him be ever so willing to do so.
In these countries
nature has so completely inverted the regular order of the seasons, that when
on the other coast of India it is full summer, here on this side we are feeling
the
16 Francis speaks of ‘ Molucco’ as a single
place.
winter ; and so on
this, when they are under the winter colds, we are burnt up by the summer
heats. And the heat in summer is something incredible. The sun is so hot, that
fish begin to rot as soon as they die. So, during the hot season, when the sea
on this side is navigated, it is shut on the other on account of tempests which
frighten every one from sailing at that time. And, as I said before, in the
season of Lent all the troops take arms and go on board the vessels for a sea
campaign, and the merchants in like manner are in perpetual motion to and fro.
For the Portuguese here, having greater command of sea than of land, are
engaged in commerce, and support themselves and their families thereby. Thus,
what with the excessive heat which I speak of, and what with the almost
continual voyages of the Portuguese, Lent is disregarded and few persons
observe the law of fasting. The Governor has charged me to lay all these facts
carefully before you, and to beg of you in the name of God, that if such a
thing be possible, you will get the Pope to change the time of Lent in these
parts to the months of June and July, at which time of year the heat begins to
relent, and there is much less navigation, on account of the roughness of the
sea. So the milder temperature would make it easy for most people to fast, and
the return of Lent at that time would be a sort of reminder, and they would
then easily obey the precepts of the Church as to confession and communion.
This measure is one which seems of the greatest importance for the service of
God, unless you see any objection to it. The Governor entreats you earnestly
not to let anything that can be done in this matter be left unattempted through
any want of exertion on the part of his advocate. You will be rewarded for your
trouble by the gratitude of all the inhabitants of these countries, and you
will have a share in the fruits of the divine worship and the merits which will
be acquired in consequence of all those graces. Adieu.
Goa, Oct. 20, 1543.
P.S. As I was leaving
Lisbon, I wrote to you about a
College of the
Society which the King was thinking of establishing at Coimbra, in the public
University. He commissioned me to write and ask you for some of our Society
for the purpose, and to offer his own assistance and favour for the buildings,
as well as an endowment, for there is a great dearth in Portugal of men well
fitted to instruct their heathen fellow- subjects,1? separated from
them as they are by such an immense distance, in the faith and precepts of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Pray let me know as soon as possible what you have done in
the matter.
Your child in Christ,
Francis.
17 ethnicos populares suos. The words are not quite free from ambiguity, but
they seem to refer to the Indians; and the College of Coimbra, which Simon
Rodriguez stayed in Portugal to found, was intended by St. Ignatius to feed the
Indian mission.
It has
already been mentioned that the first mission undertaken by St. Francis Xavier
beyond the limits of the Portuguese city of Goa, was to the native Indians in
the extreme south of the peninsula, dwelling along the coast which stretches
eastwards from Cape Comorin as far as the point opposite the island which the
old geographers called Rammanakoyel, at the northwestern extremity of the ridge
of shoals known as Adam’s Bridge, which reaches as far as Manaar close to the
coast of Ceylon, and forms the boundary of the modern Gulf of Manaar. The whole
of this coast derives its chief celebrity from the pearl fishery, which is
carried on by the inhabitants, and which is probably the most famous in the
world, though the Bahrein pearls are now said to be finer than those here
obtained. The natives of the coast of which we speak, the Paravas, were low in
caste, poor, and ill able to defend themselves against tyranny and aggression.
When the Portuguese first came to India, and indeed down to a short time before
the mission of St. Francis Xavier among them, they had been made subject by the
Mussulmans—retaining, however, their own nominal chiefs—and the fisheries had
been carried on by them for the benefit of their masters. A chance outrage, however,
had opened the way alike to Portuguese influence and at least a superficial
introduction of Christianity among them. At Tuticorin, a considerable town on
the coast, about half way between the two extreme points, a Mussulman had wantonly
torn an earring out of the ear of a Parava. This act was considered as the
extremity of insult, and the- Parava at once killed him. A conflict ensued, in
which many Paravas
lost their
lives. They retaliated by collecting assistance from a number of their
villages, and making a massacre of the Mussulmans. .
But the Paravas were
the weaker party, and this was perfectly well known to their own chiefs, who,
in the accounts that remain to us, are called kings. These seem to have been
frightened by the great preparations made by the Mussulmans, especially by sea,
and hastened to make terms with them, undertaking, as it would seem, to punish
their own subjects severely. The Paravas, an unwarlike and mild race, were in
the greatest perplexity and alarm, and at the suggestion of a ‘ Christian
Knight,’ a converted native noble, who had gone to Portugal and been received
with favour by the King, they applied for assistance from the Portuguese
authorities at Cochin, sending a number of their Patangats, or
Patangatins—officials somewhat answering, it appears, to the ‘
maires-de-village’ in Europe—as ambassadors to plead their cause. The mixture
of religion and policy in the advice of this Joam de Cruz is characteristic.
‘He,’ says Turselline, ‘being a man both grave and pious, and hoping this fear
of theirs might be an occasion to bring in the Gospel of Christ among them, so
as at once they might be set free from the misery both of their war and their
superstitions, told them his opinion was that in this extremity of danger they
were to fly to extreme remedies; and seeing, contrary to all justice and
equity, they were betrayed by their own kings, and hardly charged on all sides
by their enemies’ forces, they should implore aid of the Almighty King of
Heaven and of the Portuguese their friends, who were His devoted and religious
servants: that so, protected by the Portuguese and the Divine assistance, they
might not only defend themselves, but also triumph over their enemies. For if
they would yield themselves subjects to the Christian religion and to the
Portuguese, they certainly would fight with all their forces for them, both
from regard for religion, and because they were now become their subjects, and
would also, by the help of God, carry the whole business with as good success
as valour. And having conquered and overthrown the
Saracens, the deadly
enemies of Christians, they might also perhaps give up the fishing of pearls
(as taken from the Saracens by right of war) unto the Paravas, in respect they
were become Christians, as a pledge of their religion.’1 It appears
that the Mussulmans had before this seized on the pearl fisheries, forcing the
natives to work only for their profit. The advice of Joam de Cruz was taken,
and the Patangatins who went as envoys to Cochin all received Baptism, and
promised that their whole nation would do the same. The Portuguese accepted
their terms, routed the Mussulman fleet, and gave the fisheries back to the
Paravas. Some priests were also sent among them, the chief of whom was Miguel
Vaz, the Bishop of Goa’s Vicar, and the whole people was rapidly baptized.2
This
wholesale conversion took place in 1532, ten years before the arrival of
Francis in India. The work was not kept up in any way, and when St. Francis
first heard of the Paravas from Miguel Vaz, who entreated him to go and
evangelize them, rhey were entirely destitute of Priests, and very little seems
to have been done after their first conversion to instruct them and maintain
them in the faith. Francis found them ignorant of everything except that they
were Christians. He left Goa late in the autumn of the year in which he arrived
in India. We shall first give the letters in which he relates his mode of
proceeding to St. Ignatius and his brothers at Rome, and then add what is known
of his life at this period from other sources. e
1 Turselline, lib. ii. c. 5.
2 Bartoli (Asia, t. i. lib. i. p. 49)
tells us that the first Paravas who were baptized at Cochin were seventy in
number. The Mussulmans, he adds, sent in alarm to Cochin to offer a large sum
of money to the Portuguese, in hopes of buying them off, but the officer in
command refused to traffic with the souls of the Paravas. After th^ defeat of
the Mussulmans as many as twenty thousand, the inhabitants of thirty villages,
became Christians.
VOL. i.
L
(xm.) To the Reverend Father
Ignatius? General of the Society, at Rome.
May the grace and
charity of Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
I wrote you a long
letter from Goa'about our voyage from Portugal to India. Now, because such is
your wish, my best and sweetest Father, I will give you a little account of my
expedition to Cape Comorin.
I set out with
several native students from the Seminary at Goa, who have been under
instruction, ever since their early youth, in the ceremonies of the Church, and
are now in minor orders. We went through all the villages of the converts who
were made Christians a few years ago. This country is too barren and poor for
the Portuguese to live in, and the Christian inhabitants here have had no
priests; they just know that they are Christians and nothing more. There is no
one to say mass for them; no one to teach them the Creed, the Pater, the Ave
Maria, and the Ten Commandments of God. So I have been incessantly occupied
ever since I came here. I went diligently through the villages one after
another, and baptized all the children who had not yet been baptized. In this
way I have christened a multitude of children who, as the saying is, did not
know their right hand from their left. Then the young boys would never let me
say office, or eat, or sleep, till I had taught them some prayer. It made me
understand for the first time that ‘ of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’3
Their petition was too pious for me to refuse it without impiety, so I began
with the profession of belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,4
and then taught them the Apostles’ Creed, the Pater Noster, and the Ave Maria.
I have found very great intelligence among them: and if they had any one to
instruct them in religion, I doubt not they would turn out excellent
Christians.
3 Latin in the original: talium esse
regnum coelorum.
4 That is, the sign of the Cross, with the
words which usually accompany it.
One day I turned out
of my road into a village of heathens, where no one was willing to become
Christian, though all the neighbouring villages had been converted, because
they said that the lord of their territory, a heathen, had forbidden his people
to do so. There was there a woman with child, who had been three days in labour
with so much difficulty, that many despaired of her life. Their prayers for her
were not heard, for the prayer of the wicked is an abomination in the eyes of
God, because the gods of the heathen are all devils.5 I went, with
one of my companions, to the sick woman’s house, and began with confidence to
call upon the Name of the Lord,6 forgetting that I was in a strange
land. I thought of that text, ‘ The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness
thereof, the compass of the world and all that dwell therein.’7. So
I began, through an interpreter, to explain to her the articles of our religion
; and by the mercy of God, this woman believed what we taught her. At last I
asked her whether she wished to be a Christian. She replied that she would, and
gladly. Then I recited a Gospel over her—it was the first time, I suppose, that
such words had been heard in those countries. I duly gave her Baptism. Not to
make a long story, immediately after Baptism this good soul, who had put her
hope in Christ,8 and believed, was delivered of her child; and I
afterwards bap-, tized her husband, his children, the infant (on the day of its
birth), and all the family. The whole village was soon full of the news of the
miracle which God had wrought in that house. I went to the chiefs and bade them
in the Name of God to acknowledge His Son Jesus Christ, in Whom alone the
salvation of all mortals is placed. They said they could not venture to leave
the religion of their ancestors without the permission of their master. Then I
went to the steward of this chief, who happened to be there to exact some taxes
due
5 quoniam
omnes diigentizim dcemonia. (Orig.)
6 invocarc
nomen Domini. (Orig.) *
7 Domini
est terra et plenitudo ejus, orbis terrarvm, et univcrsi qui habitant in eo. (Orig.)
8 qua in Christo speravit ct credidit.
(Orig.)
to his lord. When he
had heard me speak about religion, he declared that he thought it a good thing
to be a Christian, and that he gave leave to all who liked it to embrace the religion
of Jesus Christ. But though he gave this good advice to others he did not
practise it himself. However, the chief people of the place, with their whole
households, were the first to embrace the faith, the rest followed their
example, and so all, of every class and every age, received Baptism. This work
done, we went straight to Tuticorin. The people there received us very kindly,
and we have begun to hope that we shall reap an abundant harvest of souls in
these parts.
The Governor is
wonderfully fond of and kind to these converts, and not long ago gave them help
against the Mussulmans who were annoying them. Most of them are fishermen
living on the coast, and supporting themselves and their families by the
fishery, chiefly of pearls. The Mussulmans had lately carried off the barks
which they use in this fishery. When the Governor heard this, he attacked the
Mussulmans with a strong squadron, defeated them with great slaughter, and took
away all their ships.9 He gave the richer converts their own barks back again,
and made the poorer presents of the Mussulmans’ boats, thus crowning his
victory by a signal act of generosity. He himself had had experience of the assistance
of God in his victory, and he wished to let the Chris
9 The Portuguese annals of India relate
two expeditions of Martin Alfonso de Sousa, which may possibly have included
this act of justice in favour of the Paravas, but the dates are not distinctly
given. It was probably in 1542, the same year in which Francis Xavier first
went among the Paravas, that the Governor with a large force went to Batecali,
a city in the territory of Canara,
‘ about 25 leagues
from Goa' to the south (Baldasus), the queen of which was accused of refusing
to pay her tribute and of harbouring pirates. The town was taken, and the
Portuguese began to quarrel among themselves for the plunder. This encouraged
the enemy, who put the Portuguese to flight, after which the Governor in
revenge burnt the city and ‘ destroyed’ the country. ‘ The city ran with the
blood of all living creatures of both sexes and all ages, before it was burnt,
and the country was laid waste and all the woods cut down’ (Faria y Sousa, t.
ii. p. i. ch. xi.). Later on, and probably in 1543 or 1544, the Governor must
have sailed along the Malabar and Fishery Coasts with a fleet of 45 sail, with
which he had intended to attack and plunder a famous Pagoda in the kingdom of
Bisnaghur, not far from Meliapor, called Tremele. It is said
tians experience his
own great kindness in their turn. The Mussulmans are quite cast down, and in a
state of prostration. Not a man amongst them dares raise his eyes. Every one of
their chiefs has been slain, and indeed every one else among them who seemed to
be at all powerful. On account of all this the converts love the Governor as a
father, and he on his side looks on them as his children. I can hardly tell you
how earnestly he commanded this newly planted vineyard of our Lord to my care.
He has now got a grand plan in view which will be a matter for history to note
as well as a great benefit to religion. He thinks of collecting all these
native Christians who are now scattered at great distances from each other, of
transplanting them to a certain island, and giving them a King to administer
justice and look after their safety and interests. I am very sure that if the
Holy Father only knew what great pains this Governor of India takes to advance
religion, he would give him some mark of his approval for his very great
diligence and exertions in the holy cause. So, if you think good, you might
manage that the Holy Father should write to him to tell him how much he is
delighted with his services. I do not mean that he should commend the converts
to his care, for no one can have that matter more at heart than he has already,
but rather that he should praise and thank this very
that this assault was
ordered by the King of Portugal himself, in revenge for some ravages on
territory friendly to him—it may be ravages such as those of the Badages, of
whom we shall hear in the next chapter—but it is probable that the great
richness of the heathen shrine was a part of the attraction. The attempt was
abandoned, as the design was betrayed and discovered. Then, as Faria y Sousa
tells us, the Governor was persuaded to plunder other pagodas instead of that
which he had failed to surprize, and he actually despoiled a pagoda at
Tebelicate near Calecoulan, which must have been in the territory of Travancore
or one of the neighbouring kingdoms. A large sum of money taken from this
pagoda was sent to Portugal, and afterwards restored by order of the King, who
disapproved of the breach of faith. It is quite possible that in either of
these expeditions Sousa may have taken the opportunity to humble the Mussulman
oppressors of the Paravas in the way mentioned by St. Francis, and to do it
would have cost him so little, as there is no mention of any Mussulman force
on the spot, that it would hardly seem an exploit worthy of mention to the
Portuguese annalists.
religious ruler as he
deserves to be praised and thanked for taking so much care of the interests of
the faith, and for watching so solicitously over the flock of Christ, lest any
part of it be torn to pieces and destroyed by those wolves of heathen. And I
would have you write to him yourself at all events, for I know how delightful
your letter will be to him. And at the same time pray God for him, you and all
the Society, that He may grant him His Divine assistance, and the grace of
perseverance in his good beginnings. For it is not he who has begun well, but
he who shall persevere to the end, who will be saved.10
As for myself,
trusting in the infinite goodness of God and in your sacrifices and prayers as
in those of all the Society, I hope that we shall see one another again, if not
in this life, at least in that blessed life which is to come, whose joys far
surpass all that we could have here.
Your child in Christ,
Francis.
Tuticorin (in the
Spring of 1543).11
✓
The next letter,
which is much fuller in its account of the mission among the Paravas, seems to
have been written at the end of the same year (1543), after St. Francis had
taken Francis Mancias back with him from Goa to help him in the
10 quiperseveraverit usque adfinem, hie
salvus erit. (Orig.)
11 The date of this letter is differently
given by the two authorities Turselline and Cutillas. It cannot have been
written in October 1542, as Turselline states, as it is clear that the writer
had been some months in the country—he says that he had spent four months in
translating the Catechism, &c.—and Francis Xavier did not probably leave
-Goa before September 1542. Cutillas, who has altered a great many dates
without giving his authority, gives for this date, May 23, 1543. He was a
careful writer, and had many opportunities of ascertaining the truth, as there
were several copies of the Letters, and in some cases, perhaps, the originals,
at Madrid, where he wrote. In not giving his authority, as is now the custbm,
he only did what was usual in his time. If the letter was written towards the
end of May, and the expedition of Martin Alfonso Sousa, mentioned in the
last'note, may be fixed for the year 1543, it would be very natural for St.
Francis, writing at Tuticorin, to mention any act of protection to the Paravas
which had taken place. He tells us himself above (p. 141) that the military
expeditions usually took place in the time of Lent.
work. Francis
probably had some occasion to go as far north as Cochin, whence the letter is
dated.
(xiv.) To the Society at Rome.
May the grace and
charity of Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
It is now the third
year since I left Portugal. I am writing to you for the third time, having as
yet received only one letter from you, dated February 1542. God is my witness
what joy it caused me. I only received it two months ago—later than is usual
for letters to reach India, because the vessel which brought it had passed the
winter at Mozambique.
I and Francis Mancias
are now living amongst the Christians of Comorin. They are very numerous, and
increase largely every day. When I first came I asked them, if they knew
anything about our Lord Jesus Christ? but when I came to the points of faith in
detail and asked them what they thought of them, and what more they believed
now than when they were Infidels, they only replied that they were Christians,
but that as they are ignorant of Portuguese, they know nothing of the precepts
and mysteries of our holy religion. We could not understand one another, as I
spoke Castilian and they Malabar; so I picked out the most intelligent and well
read of them, and then sought out with the greatest diligence men who knew both
languages.. We held meetings for several days, and by our joint efforts and
with infinite difficulty we translated the Catechism into the Malabar tongue.
This I learnt by heart, and then I began to go through all the villages of the
coast, calling around me by the sound of a bell as many as I could, children
and men. I assembled them twice a day and taught them the Christian doctrine :
and thus, in the space of a month, the children had it well by heart. And all
the time I kept telling them to go on teaching in their turn whatever they had
learnt to their parents, family, and neighbours.
Every Sunday I
collected them all, men and women, boys
and girls, in the
church. They came with great readiness and with a great desire for instruction.
Then, in the hearing of all, I began by calling on the name of the most holy
Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and I recited aloud the Lord’s Prayer,
the Hail Mary, and the Creed in the language of the country: they all followed
me in the same words, and delighted in it wonderfully. Then I repeated the
Creed by myself, dwelling upon each article singly. Then I asked them as to
each article, whether they believed it unhesitatingly; and all, with a loud
voice and their hands crossed over their breasts, professed aloud that they
truly believed it. I take care to make them repeat the Creed oftener than the
other prayers; and I tell them that those who believe all that is contained
therein are called Christians. After explaining the Creed I go on to the
Commandments, teaching them that the Christian law is contained in those ten
precepts, and that every one who observes them all faithfully is a good and
true Christian and is certain of eternal salvation, and that, on the other
hand, whoever neglects a single one of them is a bad Christian, and will be
cast into hell unless he is truly penitent for his sin. Converts and heathen
alike are astonished at all this, which shows them the holiness of the
Christian law, its perfect consistency with itself, and its agreement with
reason. After this I recite our principal prayers, as the Our Father and the
Hail Mary, and they say them after me. Then we go back to the Creed, adding the
Our Father and the Hail Mary after each article, with a short hymn; for, as
soon as I have recited the first article, I sing in their language, ‘Jesus, Son
of the living God, grant us the grace to believe firmly this first article of
your faith: and that we may obtain this from you, we offer you this prayer
taught us by yourself' Then we add this second invocation: ‘ Holy Mary, Mother
of our Lord Jesus Christ, obtain for us from your most sweet Son that we may
belirue without hesitation this article of the Christian faith! We do the same
after all the other eleven articles.
We teach them the
Commandments in the following way. After we have sung the first, which enjoins
the love of God,
we pray thus : \
Jesus Christ, Son of the living Godgrant us the grace to love Thee above all
things ; and then we say for this intention the Lord’s Prayer. Then we all
sing together, ‘ Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, obtain for us from your Son
the grace to observe perfectly the first of His Commandments and then we say
the Hail Mary. So we go on through the other nine, changing the words of our
little invocation as occasion requires. Thus I accustom them to ask for these
graces with the ordinary prayers of the Church, and I tell them at the same
time that if they obtain them, they will have all other things that they can
wish for more abundantly than they would be able to ask for them. I make them
all, and particularly those who are to be baptized, repeat the form of general
confession. These last I question after each article of the Creed as it is
recited, whether they believe it firmly; and after they have answered yes, I
give them an instruction in their own language explaining the chief heads of
the Christian religion, and the duties necessary to salvation. Last of all, I
admit them thus prepared to baptism. The instruction is ended by the Salve
Regina, begging the aid and help of our Blessed Lady.
As to the numbers who
become Christians, you may understand them from this, that it often happens to
me to be hardly able to use my hands from the fatigue of baptizing : often in a
single day I have baptized whole villages. Sometimes I have lost my voice and
strength altogether with repeating again and again the Credo and the other
forms.
The fruit that is
reaped by the baptism of infants, as well as by the instruction of children and
others, is quite incredible. These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of
God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the
Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and
imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into
feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it,
they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act
of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children,
who very soon load the devil with a greater amount
of insult and abuse than
he has lately received of honour and worship from their parents, relations, and
acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break
them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short
heap on them every possible outrage.
I had been living for
nearly four months in a Christian village, occupied in translating the
Catechism. A great number of natives came from all parts to entreat me to take
the trouble to go to their houses and call on God by the bedsides of their sick
relatives. Such numbers also of sick made their own way to us, that I had
enough to do to read a Gospel12 over each of them. At the same time
we kept on with our daily work, instructing the children, baptizing converts,
translating the Catechism, answering difficulties, and burying the dead. For
my part I desired to satisfy all, both the sick who came to me themselves, and
those who came to beg on the part of others, lest if I did not, their
confidence in, and zeal for, our holy religion should relax, and I thought it
wrong not to do what I could in answer to their prayers. But the thing grew to
such a pitch that it was impossible for me myself to satisfy all, and at the
same time to avoid their quarrelling among themselves, every one striving to be
the first to get me to his own house; so I hit on a way of serving all at once.
As I could not go myself, I sent round children whom I could trust in my place.
They went to the sick persons, assembled their families and neighbours, recited
the Creed with them, and encouraged the sufferers to conceive a certain and
wellfounded confidence of their restoration. Then after all this, they recited
the prayers of the Church. To make my tale short, God was moved by
f 12
* to read a Gospel,’ i.e. a passage from the Gospel, usually the passage from
the first chapter of St. John, which is read at the end of mass (St. John i.
1-14). This it was and is customary to read over the sick, as a profession of
faith in the Incarnation. Another custom of the same kind is the carrying about
the person a copy of this passage of the Gospel, in the same way as an Agnus
Dei or a scapular. The Ritual for the Visitation of the Sick contains a number
of such portions of the Gospel, interspersed with appropriate prayers, which
may be read over the sick; and St. Francis may probably mean any one of these
when he speaks of ' a Gospel’ in the text.
the faith and piety
of these children and of the others, and restored to a great number of sick
persons health both of body and soul. How good He was to them ! He made the
very disease of their bodies the occasion of calling them to salvation, and
drew them to the Christian faith almost by force !
I have also charged
these children to teach the rudiments of Christian doctrine to the ignorant in
private houses, in the streets, and the crossways. As soon as I see that this
has been well started in one village, I go on to another and give the same
instructions and the same commission to the children, and so I go through in
order the whole number of their villages. When I have done this and am going
away, I leave in each place a copy of the Christian doctrine, and tell all
those who know how to write to copy it out, and all the others are to learn it
by heart and to recite it from memory every day. Every feast day I bid them
meet in one place and sing all together the elements of the faith. For this
purpose I have appointed in each of the thirty Christian villages men of
intelligence and character who are to preside over these meetings, and the
Governor, Don Martin Alfonso, who is so full of love for our Society and of
zeal for religion, has been good enough at our request to allot a yearly
revenue of 4000 gold fanams for the salary of these catechists. He has an
immense friendship for ours, and desires with all his heart that some of them
should be sent hither, for which he is always asking in his letters to the
King.
There is now in these
parts a very large number of persons who have only one reason for not becoming
Christian, and that is that there is no one to make them Christians. It often
comes into my mind to go round all the Universities of Europe, and especially
that of Paris, crying out every where like a' madman, and saying to all the
learned men there whose learning is so much greater than their charity, ‘ Ah /
what a multitude of souls is through your fault shut out of heaven and falling
into hell V13
Would to God that these men who labour so much
13 In Latin in the original: Heu, quam in
gens animorum numerus vestro vitio exclusus ccelo deturbatur ad inferos /
in gaining knowledge
would give as much thought to the account they must one day give to God of the
use they have made of their learning and of the talents entrusted to them! I am
sure that many of them would be moved by such considerations, would exercise
themselves in fitting meditations on Divine truths, so as to hear what God
might say to them,14 and then, renouncing their ambitions jand
desires, and all the things of the world, they would form themselves wholly according
to God’s desire and choice for them. They would exclaim from the bottom of
their hearts : *Lord, here am I; send me whithersoever it shall please Thee,
even to I?idia /'15 Good God ! how much happier and how much safer
they would be ! With what far greater confidence in God’s mercy would they meet
their last hour, the supreme trial of that terrible judgment which no man can
escape ! They would then be able joyfully to use the words of the faithful
servant in the Gospel: ‘ Lord, Thou gavest me five talents; behold, L have
gai?ied beside them other five.r
16 They labour night and
day in acquiring knowledge^ and they are very diligent indeed in understanding
the subjects which they study; but if they would spend as much time in that
which is the fruit of all solid learning, and be as diligent in teaching to the
ignorant the things necessary to salvation, they would be far better prepared
to give an account of themselves to our Lord when He shall say to them : ‘ Give
an account of thy stewardship^'1 I fear much that these
men, who spend so many years in the Universities in studying the liberal arts,
look more to the empty honours and dignities of the prelature than to the holy
functions and obligations of which those honours are the trappings. It has come
to this pass, as I see, that the men who are the most diligent in the higher
branches of study, commonly make profession that they hope to gain some high
post in the Church by their reputation for learning, therein to be able to
serve our Lord and His Church. But all the time they deceive
14 ut audirent quid in eis loqueretur
Dominus. (Orig.)
15 Domine,
ecce adsum ; mitle me quocunque tibi cordi est, vel usque in Indiam. (Orig.)
16 St. Matt. xxv. 20. 17 Redde rationem villicationis tuce. (Orig.)
themselves miserably,
for their studies are far more directed to their own advantage than to the
common good. They are afraid that God may not second their ambition, and this
is the reason why they will not leave the whole matter to His holy will. I
declare to God that I had almost made up my mind, since I could not return to
Europe myself, to write to the University of Paris, and especially to our
worthy Professors Cornet and Picard, and to show them how many thousands of
infidels might be made Christians without trouble, if we had only men here who
would seek, not their own advantage, but the things of Jesus Christ. And
therefore, dearest brothers,
‘ pray ye the Lord of
the harvest that He send forth labourers into His harvest.’is
I wrote to you a year
ago about the College which has been begun at Goa, and which is being built
with dispatch. A considerable part of the building is already finished. A great
number of pagan youths of different nations are taught there. Some learn Latin,
others to read and write. Father Paul is their Superior as Rector of the
College. He says mass for them every day, hears their confessions, and gives
them religious instruction continually. The College is very large, it will
hold as many as five hundred students, and has revenues enough for their
support. Great sums of money are given to it as alms by many persons, and
especially by the Governor. And well indeed may all Christians give thanks to
God for this seminary, which is called the College of Santa Fe : for we hope
that within a few years multitudes of heathens will by God’s favour have become
Christians, and that the pupils of this College will shortly be the means of
extending the limits of the Church far and wide in the whole East.
We have in these
parts a class of men among the pagans who are called Brahmins. They keep up the
worship of the gods, the superstitious rites of religion, frequenting the
temples and taking care of the idols. They are as perverse and wicked a set as
can anywhere be found, and I always apply to them the words of holy David,
‘from an unholy race and a wickea
18 orate Dominum messis ut mittat opcrarios
in messem suam. (Orig.)
and crafty mail deliver me, 0 Lord.n§ They are liars and
cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly
the simplicity and ignorance of the people. They give out publicly that the
gods command certain offerings to be made to their temples, which offerings
are simply the things that the Brahmins themselves wish for, for their own
maintenance and that of their wives, children, and servants. Thus they make the
poor folk believe that the images of their gods eat and drink, dine and sup
like men, and some devout persons are found who really offer to the idol twice
a day, before dinner and supper, a certain sum of money. The Brahmins eat
sumptuous meals to the sound of drums, and make the ignorant believe that the
gods are banqueting. When they are in need of any supplies, and even before,
they give out to the people that the gods are angry because the things they
have asked for have not been sent, and that if the people do not take care, the
gods will punish them by slaughter, disease, and the assaults of the devils.
And the poor ignorant creatures, with the fear of the gods before them, obey
them implicitly. These Brahmins have barely a tincture of literature, but they
make lip for their poverty in learning by cunning and malice. Those who belong
to these parts are very indignant with me for exposing their tricks. Whenever
they talk to me with no one by to hear them they acknowledge that they have no
other patrimony but the idols, by their lies about which they procure their
support from the people. They say that I, poor creature as I am, know more
than all of them put together. They often send me a civil message and presents,
and make a great complaint when I send them all back again. Their object is to
bribe me to connive at their evil deeds. So they declare that they are
convinced that there is only one God, and that they will pray to Him for me.
And I, to return the favour, answer whatever occurs to me, and then lay bare,
as far as I can, to the ignorant people whose blind superstitions have made
them their slaves, their imposture and tricks, and this has induced many to
leave the worship of the false gods, and
19 Psalm xlii. i.
eagerly become
Christians. If it were not for the opposition of the Brahmins, we should have
them all embracing the religion of Jesus Christ.
The heathen
inhabitants of the country are commonly ignorant of letters, but by no means ignorant
of wickedness. All the time I have been here in this country I have only converted
one Brahmin, a virtuous young man, who has now undertaken to teach the
Catechism to children. As I go through the Christian villages, I often pass by
the temples of the Brahmins, which they call pagodas. One day lately, I
happened to enter a pagoda where there were about two hundred of them, and most
of them came to meet. me. We had a long conversation, after which I asked them
what their gods enjoined them in order to obtain the life of the blessed. There
was a long discussion amongst them as to who should answer me. At last, by
common consent, the commission was given to one of them, of greater age and
experience than the rest, an old man, of more than eighty years. He asked me in
return, what commands the God of the Christians laid on them. I saw the old
man’s perversity, and I refused to speak a word till he had first answered my
question. So he was obliged to expose his ignorance, and replied that their
gods required two duties of those who desired to go to them hereafter, one of
which was to abstain from killing cows, because under that form the gods were
adored; the, other was to show kindness to the Brahmins, who were the
worshippers of the gods.20 This answer moved my indignation, for I
could not but grieve intensely at the thought of the devils being worshipped
instead of God by these blind heathen, and I asked them to listen to me in
turn. Then I, in a loud voice, repeated the Apostles’ Creed and the Ten Commandments.
After this I gave in their own language a short explanation, and told them
what Paradise is, and what Hell is, and also who they are who go to Heaven to
join the company of the blessed, and who are to be sent to the eternal
punishments of hell. Upon hearing these things they
20 primum, ut aistinerent ccede vaccarum,
quarum specie dii colerentur; deinde, ut Brachmanis deorurn cultoribus benigne
facerent. (Orig.)
all rose up and vied
with one another in embracing me, and in confessing that the God of the
Christians is the true God, as His laws are so agreeable to reason. Then they
asked me if the souls of men like those of other animals perished together
with the body.21 God put into my mouth arguments of such a sort, and
so suited to their ways of thinking, that to their great joy I was able to
prove to them the immortality of the soul. I find, by the way, that the
arguments which are to convince these ignorant people must by no means be
subtle, such as those which are found in the books of learned schoolmen, but
must be such as their minds can understand. They asked me again how the soul of
a dying person goes out of the body, how it was, whether it was as happens to
us in dreams, when we seem to be conversing with our friends and acquaintance ?
(Ah, how often this happens to me, dearest brothers, when I am dreaming of you
!) Was this because the soul then leaves the body ? And again, whether God was
black or white ?22 For as there is so great a variety of colour
among men, and the Indians being black themselves, consider their own colour
the best, they believe that their gods are black. On this account the great
majority of their idols are as black as black can be, and moreover are
generally so rubbed over with oil as to smell detestably, and seem to be as
dirty as they are ugly and horrible to look at. To all these questions I was
able to reply so as to satisfy them entirely. But when I came to the ' point at
last, and urged them to embrace the religion which they felt to be true, they
made that same objection which we hear from many Christians when urged to
change their life, —that they would set men talking about them if they altered
their ways and their religion, and besides, they said that they should be
afraid that, if they did so, they would have nothing to live on and support
themselves by.
21 mint animus hominumt item ut caterorum animantium, simul cum cor- pore interisset. (Orig.)
22 qua morientis animus exiret? qui fieretf
ut in somnis cum amicis tiotis- que versari nobis videamur ? num quia animus
exiliat a corpore f denique, albusne an ater sit Deus ? (Orig.)
I have found just one
Brahmin and no more in all this coast who is a man of learning : he is said to have
studied in a very famous Academy. Knowing this, I took measures to converse
with him alone. He then told me at last, as a great secret, that the students
of this Academy are at the outset made by their masters to take an oath not to
reveal their mysteries,23 but that, out of friendship for me, he
would disclose them to me. One of these mysteries was that there only exists
one God, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, whom men are bound to
worship, for the idols are simply images of devils.24. The Brahmins
have certain books of sacred literature which contain, as they say, the laws of
God. The masters teach in a learned tongue, as we do in Latin. He also
explained to me these divine precepts one by one; but it would be a long
business to write out his commentary, and indeed not worth the trouble. Their
sages keep as a feast our Sunday. On this day they repeat at different hours
this one prayer: ‘I adore Thee, O God; and I implore Thy help for ever.’25
They are bound by oath to repeat this prayer frequently, and in a low voice. My
friend added, that the law of nature permitted them to have more wives than
one, and their sacred books predicted that the time would come when all men
should embrace the same religion.26 After all this he asked me in
my turn to explain the principal mysteries of the Christian religion, promising
to keep them secret. I replied, that I would not tell him a word about them
unless he promised beforehand to publish abroad what I should tell him of the
religion of Jesus Christ. He made the promise, and then I carefully explained
to him those words of Jesus Christ in which our religion is
23 primum omnimn illius Academia
discipulos a magistris adigi Sacramento, ne ipsorum mysteria enuncient. (Orig.)
24 unum esse
Deum, cceli terrceqtie conditorem ac dominum, illumque ab ipsis coli oportere;
nam idola nihil aliud esse quam dcemonum simulacra. (Orig.)
25 Veneror
te, Deus, tuamque opem in perpetuum imploro. (Orig.)
26 uxorum
multitudinem ipsis naturee lege permitti; atque in suis litte- rarum monumentis
esse, tempus aliquando foret cum mortales omnes unavi re- ligionem
amplecterentur. (Orig.)
VOL. I. M
summed up: ‘He who
believes and is baptized shall be saved.’27 This text, with my
commentary on it, which embraced the whole of the Apostles’ Creed, he wrote
down carefully, as well as the Commandments, on account of their close
connection with the Creed. He told me also that one night he had dreamt that he
had been made a Christian to his immense delight, and that he had become my
brother and companion. He ended by begging me to make him a Christian secretly.
But as he made certain conditions opposed to right and justice, I put off his
baptism. I don’t doubt but that by God’s mercy he will one day be a Christian.
I charged him to teach the ignorant and unlearned that there is only one God,
Creator of heaven and earth ;28 but he pleaded the obligation of his
oath, and said he could not do so, especially as he was much afraid that if he
did it he should become possessed by an evil spirit.
And now I have
nothing more to tell you except that so great is the intensity and abundance of
the joy which God is accustomed to bestow upon those workmen of His vineyard
who labour diligently in cultivating this barbarous part of the same, that for
my part I do really believe that if there is in this life any true and solid
happiness, it is here. It often happens to me to hear one whose lot it is to
labour in this field cry out, (0 Lord,, I beseech Thee overwhelm
me not now i?i this life with so much delight, or at least, since in Thy
boundless goodness and mercy Thou dost so overwhelm me, take me away to the
abode of the blessed. For any one who has once known what it is to taste in his
soul Thy ineffable sweetness must of necessity think it very bitter to live any
longer without seeing Thee face to face’-v
It is one of my
greatest consolations, dearest brethren, to think often of you, and to call to
mind that sweet and tender intercourse with you which God of His immense*
goodness vouchsafed to me of old. At the same time it makes me think
27 Qui crediderit et baptizatusfuerit salvus
erit. (Orig.)
23 unum esse Deunt, cceli
terrcequeprocreatorem, rcg7iantem in ccelo. (Orig.)
29 Qucesote, Domine, noli me tanta latitia
perfuvdere in hac vita, aut certe quando pro tua infinita bonitate ac
misericordia perfundis, transfer me in domic ilium beatorum. Siquidem, qui
tuam semel dulcedinem interiom gustavit sensu, vitam sine tuo aspectu
acerbamputet, necesse est. (Orig.)
over and feel very
keenly, how much precious time I then spent uselessly, and gathered so little
fruit from your holy example and conversation, and from your knowledge of the
things of God. However, I owe it to your prayers for me that God has given me
the blessing, absent as I am from you in the body, of having, by means of your
care and intercession for me, the infinite number of my sins shown to me from
God, and of having courage and strength given me to cultivate with all
diligence the soil of heathendom. Endless thanks to God’s goodness, and to your
charity!
Among the many great
blessings of my life past and present, and for which I have to thank the mercy
of God, I count it as the greatest that I have heard the tidings of the approbation
and confirmation of our Institute by the Holy Father. I give God endless thanks
{hat He has now at last ordained to be publicly ratified by His Vicar, so as to
be remembered by posterity for ever, that same rule of life which He Himself
laid down in secret to His servant our Father Ignatius.
Here, then, I will
leave off writing, begging of God that since in His goodness He has united us
in a common way of life, and then has separated us so widely for the good of
the Christian religion, so also He will be pleased to bring us together again
in the abode and home of the Blessed. That He may grant us this grace, let us,
if you will, plead the prayers, among others, of the infants and children whom
I have baptized with my own hand, here, and whom God has called away to His
mansions in heaven before they had lost their robe of innocence. They are, I
think, more than a thousand in number, and I pray to them over and over again,
begging that they will obtain for us from God that for what remains of this
life, or rather of this time of exile, He will teach us to do His will, and to
do it so completely as to accomplish all that He requires of us exactly as He
Himself desires it to be done.
_ _ .. _ Francis.
From Cochin, Dec. 31,
1543.
These two letters are
all that remain to us from St Francis himself as to what we may call the first
period of his preaching
among the native
Indians. It appears that at first he had no one with him but the young students
from the College of St. Paul or Santa Fe as his companions: Mancias and Father
Paul of Camerino had not arrived from Mozambique at the time of his sailing for
Tuticorin. He must probably have returned to Goa after some months among the
Paravas, during which visit he might have written, at the request of the
Governor, the letters given in the last chapter concerning the indulgences and
other spiritual favours to be asked for from the Holy Father. He then returned
to the Fishery Coast, taking with him Mancias, and leaving Father Paul of
Camerino as Superior at the College. As the very interesting series of letters
to Mancias which we shall have to give in the next chapter does not begin till
the March of 1544, we must suppose that up to that time Mancias was his
companion, and was being trained up foi work by himself. He was not as yet a
priest. The lives of St. Francis, which, as has been said, are derived from the
processes taken in India and elsewhere with a view to his canonization,—processes
which were begun almost as soon as his death was known in Europe,—now become
our guides, giving us a great amount of information supplementary to that which
the letters disclose either openly or by implication. A careful consideration
indeed of the letters, if it be enlightened by a knowledge of the manner in
which the chosen servants of God who are called to the Apostolic ministry are assisted
by Him on the one hand, and are wont to imitate our Lord in casting a veil over
their own great gifts on the other, will prove to us that there is hardly a
single feature, however marvellous, in the narratives of other writers
concerning this period of the life of St. Francis, which may not be traced in
some way or degree in his own account of his proceedings given to his brethren
at Rome and St. Ignatius, his father and Superior. The whole picture, when duly
combined, gives us a very clear insight indeed into the conditions under which
his ministry was carried on, and enables us to understand his marvellous
success.
It must always be
borne in mind that the natives to whom St. Francis was originally sent, the
pearlfishers of the Comorin
coast, were already
nominally Christians. They had, as we have said, been baptized and very
partially instructed some years before by Miguel Vaz and others; but the
hardships and dangers of a life among them in a part of the country which was
very poor and unhealthy, and where there were no Portuguese settlements or
garrisons—except, it would seem, at Tuti- corin and one or two other
places—were too great for the courage of the ordinary Portuguese priests, who
besides had plenty of occupation among their own countrymen in the garrisoned
cities and forts along the coast. The work was preeminently a work which called
for an Apostle, a man who would combine the heroic selfdevotion which was
required for the full instruction of these poor natives, with the organizing
power necessary for the establishment of a perfect system of religious teaching
and administration of the sacraments among them, in so much completeness and
fulness of growth as to stand by itself after he had left the spot for other
fields of labour.
The beginnings, as
the letters inform us, were toilsome and slow. The circumstances under which
the Paravas had embraced Christianity naturally directed the attention of
Francis Xavier to the children, in the first instance, as the best hopes for
the future, and it was his principle, as we have seen in his work at Goa, to
attach immense importance to elementary instruction, catechizing, and the
like. His first occupation, however, was the simple act of charity to go about
and baptize the infants who were as' yet unbaptized; and to this, and to the
care of the sick, the dying, and the dead, we find him afterwards recurring
when he found himself from time to time unable to communicate with the people
around him on account of ignorance of their language. Then came the great
labour of translating the Catechism into the Malabar tongue, which he tells us
occupied him and his catechists for as much as four months. The next step was
to learn the new Catechism by heart, and to go from one village to another
teaching the simple elements of Christian doctrine in the native language. We
may well magine with what bright affectionateness and gentle condescension the
Saint made his way to the hearts of the swarms of
Indian children who
gathered around him, who soon began to take so important a share in his
missionary work, and whose prayers he constantly solicited when about to incur
any extraordinary danger. After a little time, as he tells St. Ignatius, the
children would not leave him alone; he had no time after his daily rounds and
course of teaching to say his office, take his slight repast of rice and water,
or the scanty rest which he allowed himself.30 They were never tired
of learning prayers from his mouth. His evenings were also devoted to receiving
visits of persons who had any questions to ask him or wished to consult him,
and it was then too that he attended to such matters as bringing about
reconciliations or rectifying irregular marriages.
The account given in
the letters which we have last inserted of his method of catechizing tallies
exactly with a paper drawn up by him for the instruction of the catechists of
the Society in India, which was long preserved in the archives of the College
at Goa. The catechist is to begin with the sign of the Cross, and two boys are
to repeat in a loud clear voice the Pater Nosier (in the native language) after
him. Then he is to invite the people to profess their faith and make acts of
the three great theological virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity. The exercise of
faith consists in the Credo, which is to be gone through, the people being
asked whether they firmly believe each truth, and then praying to our Lord and
His Blessed
30 The Processes relate that St. Francis was
in the habit of abstaining not only from flesh and wine, but even from wheaten
bread, except when he was being entertained by others. (For this they quote the
witnesses examined on oath at Goa and Bazain.) The same witnesses testify that
he used to manage that what food he took was not well prepared—‘insulse conditus.’
He took food only once a day, and made no difference whether he was journeying
or not. He usually went on foot, and without shoes, living only on roasted
rice, which he begged as he went on. These facts are stated on the evidence
taken at Coqhin and Bazain. Massei tells us (also from the Processes) that on
certain feasts he would have a cake made of rice, and exhort his companions to
thank God for such delicacies, and take what was necessary to support them in
their labours for souls. He seldom slept more than four hours, giving the rest
of the night to prayer or to visiting the sick, and he slept on the ground with
a stone under his head. These facts all rest on the same authority.
Mother to give and
obtain for them the grace to do so, reciting the Pater Nosier and Ave Maria.
In the paper just mentioned the Credo is summarized, rather than simply
repeated article by article, the truths about our Lord and the Incarnation
being grouped together, and at the end, after the people had professed their
belief in the existence of Hell, Paradise, Purgatory, the sacraments, and all
that is taught by the Church, the catechist instructs them to pray to the Holy
Ghost for His seven gifts, those especially which can help them to believe the
Catholic faith. Then follow an act of hope and an act of love and contrition.
After this preliminary service, the catechist is to proceed to the explanation
of some particular truth, or of some virtue, or one of the sacraments, or the
doctrine of prayer, and the like, speaking very plainly and simply, and adding
an ‘ example,’ or story, at the end to illustrate the argument. Then he is to
recite with the boys the form of general confession, bidding the people
meantime make interior acts of contrition or sorrow for sin for the love of
God, then three Ave Marias are to be recited, one for the absent, the others
for any particular intention.
There can be no doubt
that this paper, which is printed among the Letters of St. Francis Xavier by
Poussines and Menchacha, represents to us quite faithfully the Saint’s way of
proceeding at those meetings of the converts. Perhaps when he or any other
priest was present the conclusion would be different. The form is drawn up for
the use of meetings in which the catechist was a layman. He tells us himself
that he had appointed some one in each village to look after the further
instruction and catechizing, and had obtained an allowance from the Governor
for the payment of these persons. It was his method, as we shall see from his
letters to Mancias, to be liberal to these schoolmasters or catechists, to pay
them a part of their salary in advance, to encourage them in every way, at the
same time letting them feel that they were carefully watched and must be on
their guard not to fail in their duty. They were to baptize newborn infants,
publish marriages, preside at the prayers, and perform other offices of the
same kind. The four
thousand fanams which St. Francis tells us were allotted by the Governor for
the payment of these cate- chists or Canacapoli, as we find them called, seem
to have been taken out of a sum paid out of the revenues of India for the
expenses of the wardrobe of the Queen of Portugal, and was supposed to keep her
Highness in slippers. Francis wrote to her to say that the prayers of the poor
Paravas would be the best sort of slippers for her to mount up to Paradise in.31
Francis tells us in
the letter to his brethren at Rome, that he left a copy of the Christian
Doctrine, or Catechism, in each of the villages when he departed, which was to
be copied out and frequently recited. This may perhaps mean only the form of
which we have been lately speaking. But we possess a rather long explanation of
the Apostles’ Creed, which he composed two or three years later for the people
of the Moluccas, and if this was not the identical statement of Doctrine which
he used when among the Paravas, it is at all events a fair specimen of his
teaching under this head, and probably differs from what he may have drawn up
on the Fishery Coast only in being somewhat more elaborate. In this document he
goes through the whole Creed, giving a full doctrinal and historical
commentary, which is pointed, as it were, at the errors most likely to beset
those for whose benefit it was made. Thus he begins with the Creation, and he
points out how the fact that
31 M. L^on-Pagds (Lettres de S. Francois
Xavier, t. i. p. 83) tells us that the fanais, fanes, or fanams were the Indian
gold coins, much alloyed, equal in value to 12 reals (about halfacrown). Four
thousand of these would make 500/. sterling, a very large sum for the sixteenth
century. We are almost inclined to suspect that Turselline s statement is
right; he makes the money four hundred crowns. It is also not quite certain
that there were not two allowances : one by the Governor, a gift of a certain
sum, and another, a continuation of the same gift as an annual contribution
from the Queen. Turselline says, 1 This said money was accustomed to
be paid to Queen Catharine of Portugal, to buy her shoes and pantofles. Wherefore
Francis wrote unto her Majesty, very pleasantly and piously, that she could
have no fitter shoes or pantofles to climb to heaven than the Christian
children of the Piscarian coast, and their instructions. Therefore he humbly
entreated her to bestow her shoes and pantofles, as a tribute, unto their
teachers and instructors, thereby to make herself a ladder to heaven, for she
might be glad of such an occasion, than the which she could not perhaps have
wished a better' (L. ii, c. 8, p. 140).
God gave one wife to
Adam shows the unlawfulness of polygamy, as well as of that miserable system
of concubinage in which so many Christians in those countries indulged. He also
speaks strongly in the same place against idolatry, superstition, dealing with
the devil, and suchlike evils. Each article of the Creed is attributed by him
to one of the Apostles, the first to St. Peter, the second to St. Andrew, and
so on in order, according to an old tradition of which many traces remain to
us. The fall of the Angels.and the seduction of man are related immediately
after the first article. The actual accomplishment of the Incarnation in the
fulness of time is attributed immediately to the prayer made by St. Michael
and the holy Angels who had remained faithful to God when Lucifer and his
companions fell. After the article in which the birth of our Lord is spoken of,
a tolerably full account of His life is given as an introduction to the
Passion. After this St. Francis gives a short description of Limbus, Purgatory,
and Hell, before speaking of the descent of our Lord. The mystery of the most
holy Trinity is shortly explained before the article on the Holy Ghost, in
connection with the sign of the Cross. The sacraments are spoken of under the
head of the Communion of Saints and the Remission of sins.
These documents, when
put by the side of what we know of the laborious manner in which St. Francis
devoted himself to catechetical instruction everywhere, and especially whenever
he found himself among people so ignorant and simple as the Paravas of the
Fishery Coast, enable us to understand what we-are told by missionaries of a
later date with respect to the thorough knowledge of the Catholic faith which
these Christians were found to possess, as if its doctrines had been engrained
in their minds. But they do not explain to us, nor does anything that St.
Francis Xavier himself tells us explain to us, other facts such as those which
are hinted at in the longer of the two letters now before us, as to the immense
crowds which came to place themselves under instruction and to receive
baptism, or as to the extent to which he was besieged by requests to go to
visit and pray over the sick. It is clear
from his own account
that his ministry was by no means limited to the instruction of the Paravas who
had already received baptism, and* of their children. Thousands of heathen
were baptized, and the presence of the Father was required on all sides. What
was the attraction that brought so many to his feet? What was it that made them
so ready to believe that his prayers and blessing could benefit the sick, and
so eager to fetch him to the bedside of any of their own relatives who were in
danger of death ? His own words to St. Ignatius, in that private and familiar
letter which seems to have been meant for him alone, his ‘best and sweetest
Father,’ partly lift the veil, for he there speaks of the miracle wrought upon
the heathen woman, who was so safely delivered of her child immediately after
baptism, in language the purport of which can hardly be mistaken. He could
write to his own intimate friend and guide of such a miracle, because it was so
closely connected with the administration of the Sacrament of regeneration,
and he could attribute it, as our Lord attributed His own miracles, to the
faith of the person on whom it was wrought: but, we need hardly add, it would
surprize us quite as much to find him giving in other and more public letters,
or even in this, a long catalogue of miracles which had attended and confirmed
his preaching, however true the facts might have been, quite as much as it
would surprize us to be told that multitudes of persons of various nations
flocked to his preaching and believed him to be a teacher sent from God, who
had power to heal the maladies of the body as well as to enlighten the soul,
without having had some tangible ground for supposing that this belief was
true.
There is, in fact,
every fair reason for believing that the life of Francis Xavier began at this
time to be adorned by that very frequent and splendid exercise of the gift of
miracles which is from time to time imparted to the Saints, especially to those
who have the Apostolical mission. None of the great Saints of God are probably
left altogether without gifts of this kind, but they seem to be especially
frequent, as, so far as we can judge of such questions, they are also
especially natural,
in the case of great
Apostolic preachers, and this not only among the heathen. Few lives contain
more illustrious examples of this great gift than those of St Bernard, St.
Anthony of Padua, and St. Vincent Ferrer, all of them great preachers among
Christian nations, and St. Bernard’s most marvellous period was while he was on
his mission through certain parts of Europe to organize a crusade. Like another
great gift, of a more interior kind, of which we shall have to speak presently—that
of immense consolation and spiritual joy amid external sufferings and
dangers—the gift of miracles seems to find its natural place in the case of the
Saints who have to do exactly what the Apostles were sent to do, at the time
when the signs that were to ‘ follow those who believe' were promised by our
Lord—to c go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every
creature.’32 The Processes which were care- fullyformed in India
after the death of Francis Xavier are abundant in their evidence as to the
magnitude and multitude of his miracles, and they often speak particularly of
those which took place on the Fishery Coast during this period ofhis preaching.
We shall follow his former biographers in mentioning a few of these; but it
must be remembered that when the gift of miracles has really existed, no
account which is made up merely of selections from those particular instances
as to which ocular and sworn witnesses happened to be at hand some years later,
can possibly give any but a very inadequate idea. It is probable that as St.
John protests at the end of his Gospel, that our Lord did many other signs *
which are not written in this book,’ and that cif all that He had done
were written, the world itself would not contain the books which should be
written,’ so also the most copious collection of evidence that the most
diligent inquiry can furnish will never give us a true picture of the daily
marvels with which the active Apostolic life of some of the more miraculous
Saints have been illustrated.33
32 St. Mark
xvi. 15.
83 There are traces of times in the history
of the Apostles when miracles must have been of daily and almost hourly
occurrence ; as when ‘the sick were brought into the streets and laid on
couches, that when Peter came, his shadow
We may begin by that
which, in the case of the Apostles themselves, was the 4 beginning
of signs,’ that is, the gift of tongues. Many misconceptions may be current as
to the nature of this gift as imparted to the Apostles and others who have had
to tread in their footsteps. Nor is there any reason for supposing that it
always took the same form with them or with their contemporaries. The ‘gift of
tongues,’ indeed, of which St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians and elsewhere,
was not always precisely that gift which enabled the Apostles on the day of
Pentecost to make themselves understood by men of so many different nations at
once. The natural interpretation of the words of St. Luke (Acts ii. 4, 6) seems
to be, that while the Apostles spoke with 1 divers tongues,’
* every man heard them speak in his own tongue,’ and that the miracle must have
been twofold,—in the possession of new languages by the Apostles, and in the
hearing of the multitude that came together, on whose ears the same sound fell
in many different languages at once. We may add that no one, as far as we know,
has ever supposed that the Apostles and their companions became necessarily
possessed of all the different dialects enumerated by the sacred historian in
such a manner as to have them at their command for the ordinary purposes of
life, so as to have been able to read or write them, to compose books or
catechisms in them, or to be in any way independent, where the particular
occasions for the miraculous gift ceased, of the ordinary difficulties in
intercourse with persons of different nations which are the results of the
confusion of tongues. No one has ever supposed that, because St. Peter or St.
Paul raised Tabitha or Eutychus to life, either of those Apostles had the power
of raising every dead person they met with, or of preserving themselves from
the natural doom of death. Both these remarks are necessary for the
illustration of the evidence which has
at,the least might
overshadow any of them, and they might be delivered from their infirmities’
(Acts v. 15); and in the case of St. Paul when God wrought by his hand ‘ more
than the common miracles (Svvdfieis ov rds Tvxofoas), and persons were healed
and delivered from devils by the touch of ‘ handkerchiefs ’ that had touched
him (Acts xix. 11, 12).
reached us as to the
possession of the gift of tongues by St. Francis Xavier. This evidence
witnesses to his having had the power of speaking freely and clearly in the dialects
of the numerous different tribes among whom he preached in the south of India,
and those of Cape Comorin and the Coromandel coast are particularly named. The
same statement is made as to the Moluccas, and as to Japan. Altogether it is
supposed that he must have had to preach to as many as thirty different
nations, a number which will not seem surprizing when we remember that the
witnesses are here speaking of tribes, with dialects of their own. as separate
nations. It is particularly stated in the evidence that his possession of this
gift was notorious, and that it was considered by the natives themselves as a
mark of his mission from God, and this illustrates the words of St. Paul, that
* tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers.’34
People were led to hear him and receive the truths which he preached by finding
a man who could never have learnt their language addressing himself to them
with ease, and by observing that bystanders whose dialect differed from their
own were as well able to understand him as themselves. The occasions on which
this took place were when he preached to a crowd, and we do not find it stated
that he could dispense with an interpreter for more familiar conversation; nor
is it said that there were never times at which he did not possess the gift
even for public instructions, which he was often in the habit of giving by
means of such interpreters.
The gift of tongues,
moreover, was but one of a number of marvellous powers imparted to Francis in
the way and in the degree in which such powers are often bestowed upon the
Saints. The number of his miracles on the Fishery Coast and in the adjacent
parts was so great, that we are assured that they would of themselves fill a
large volume. Some few of the more signal of these miracles may be rapidly
mentioned. A beggar covered with sores and putrid wounds asked an alms
84 i Cor. xiv. 22. We hope to give a short
abstract of the results.of the evidence as to the gift of tongues in the case
of St. Francis further on (Book v. note 2).
of him, and Francis
washed him with his own hands, drank some of the water, and sent him away
perfectly cured and sound. He was about to say mass in a little church at Com-
butur, when a crowd entered with the corpse of a boy who had been drowned in a
well. The mother threw herself at the feet of Francis Xavier, who had baptized
her child, and implored him to restore him to life. After a short prayer, he
took the dead child by the hand and bade him arise. The child rose up at once,
and ran to his mother. One of two youths who accompanied him as catechists was
bitten at night in the foot by a cobra da capello, and was found in the morning
to be dead. Francis touched the foot with the saliva from his mouth, made the
sign of the Cross over him, took him by the hand and bade him rise in the name
of Jesus Christ. He rose at once, and was able to continue on their journey immediately,
as if he had been simply asleep. There are other cases related of his raising
the dead in this part of the country, and it is even stated in the Processes
that one of the children whom he used to send about in his name to the sick
raised two dead persons to life.
We have here touched
upon another class of the prodigies wrought by Francis Xavier—those which were
brought about by means of the Christian children. He mentions in his letter
igiven above, that such things frequently took place, but he omits to add that
the children usually armed themselves with something belonging to him, his
rosary, or reliquary, or crucifix, and that after they had recited the prayers
of the Church and asked the sick person whether he were ready to receive the
Christian faith, they used to make the sign of the Cross over him, and that
complete restoration to health ordinarily followed. The same method availed
sometimes even for driving out devils. These children, as has been said, play
quite an important part in this wonderful mission of the Fishery Coast. They
instructed their own parents in the truths which they themselves had learnt at
school, they witnessed against them fearlessly in case of their quarrelling or
using bad language, they were keen after any one who made idols or got drunk,
and their greatest
delight of all was to assist at the demolition of the idols in the heathen
temples.
The opposition which
Francis everywhere met with from the Brahmins was natural and to be expected,
and in the letter to his friends at Rome he speaks of them as he had found
them. The Paravas, for whom he principally laboured, were of a low caste, and it
is not likely that Francis had come across any very perfect information as to
the extremely powerful influence which the system of castes exercises on
Indian society. More than half a century was to elapse before the attempt made
by the saintly Robert de5 Nobili at Madura to convert the higher
castes of the Indians, for which purpose he was obliged to separate himself
entirely from the Portuguese, who, though still in unbroken power and empire in
India, were held in abomination as men who ate beef, drank intoxicating drinks,
and held communication with pariahs. The great ascendancy given to Francis
Xavier by his character for sanctity, his miracles, his preternatural devotion
to labours and sufferings of every kind for the benefit of others, is shown in the
sort of deference which the Brahmins seemed to have felt obliged to pay him,
if not from their own convictions, at least out of regard or fear for the
popular opinion concerning him. He has spoken at some length concerning them,
but he is entirely silent in the letters which we have as yet seen concerning
another class of opponents, who were perhaps more mischievous to the cause of
religion, and who were certainly causes to him of far more intense suffering.
These foes were some of the Portuguese, and, among them, many officers in the
service of the crown and in posts of authority along the coast, who treated the
Indians in general, without making any exception in favour of the newly made
Christians, with every kind of cruelty and injustice. If we were to judge only
from the letters given above, comparing them with others which we shall
presently have to translate,' we might imagine that, in respect at least of any
annoyance or opposition which might or might not have been met with from these
representatives of a Catholic nation and sovereign, the first year of the
preaching of Francis among the Fishers of
Cape Comorin was a
time of peace and unchequered progress and victory in the cause of God. But the
letters to Mancias, which we shall have to give in our next chapter, reveal a
state of things the existence of which is not compatible with such a
supposition. The miseries brought upon the Indian Christians from the
misconduct and rapacity of the Portuguese are not there spoken of as anything
new, but rather as old sores, which have long been festering, and which have
almost determined St. Francis to give up his mission altogether.
We have now, perhaps,
gone through the principal elements which must be combined and blended if we
stre to give ourselves some faint picture of the daily life of Francis Xavier
at this period. It was a life of very great hardships, courted and even
enhanced by his heroic spirit of mortification, and his ingenious love for
poverty and humiliation. It was a life of incessant labour, toilsome service in
waiting on the sick, instructing the ignorant and the children, burying the
dead, settling disputes, listening to questions, and answering difficulties;
but every pain and fatigue v)as sweetened and gilded by the intense charity which
animated every action. It was, as we shall be able to show more fully in the
next chapter, a life liable to frequent changes and interruptions, in which
sudden dangers had to be met, great exertions were called for, consummate
prudence, ready resolution, and rapid decision required to ensure safety and
avert calamity, and, as will also be seen from the letters to Mancias, it was a
life of great solitude in the midst of crowds and of the busiest occupation, if
solitude is to be measured by the absence of true companionship and sympathy.
It was a life beset by frequent risks and deadly hostility, and the darling aim
of which was constantly and fatally thwarted by persons who ought to have been
the first to further it with the utmost devotion. It was made splendid and
luminous to the whole populations among whom Francis was moving by the habitual
exercise of the gift of miracles, and by a repetition of the external wonders
which had astonished and helped to convert the hearers of the Apostles. We are
told that in Portugal the name of ‘Apostle’ clung to the members
of the Society on
account of the impression produced by the life and teaching of Francis and
Simon Rodriguez. On the Fishery Coast Francis now came to be commonly spoken of
as ‘ the Holy Father.’
A few more words
complete what we know of this period. To all these features we must add
another, to name which is to name that which to Francis himself was
overwhelmingly predominant, and gave its own character to the whole tenour of
his existence, and yet which it is given to few, and those only men like
himself, even to understand in any perfect measure. More than once he bursts
out in his letters about that which is usually the treasured secret of souls
like his, but as to which either he was unable to keep silence, or he thought
it well to speak for the glory of God and the encouragement of others to tread
in the same path of devotion to the cause of the conversion of the heathen.
This feature was the immense overpowering sweetness and consolation with which
God so often flooded his whole soul—the joy which he felt too much for him here
below, so that he was fain to pray that either that intense rapturous delight
might be modified, or he might be taken awray to see without
interruption or veil the Face of God from Whom it came. The present reward of
his share in Apostolical labours was a share also in the incommunicable
consolations which are the peculiar privilege of such ministrations—
consolations which none but those who have tasted them can ever distantly
imagine, and which reflect, perhaps, in some faint degree the joy of the Good
Shepherd Himself when * He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said, I confess to
Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hidden these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.’35
When we consider that interior and sensible happiness of this kind was probably
as habitual to Francis Xavier at this time as the gift of miracles, we are able
to see in part how very faint an idea can be formed from without of the
conditions and characteristics of an existence such as his.
35 Ltike x.
21.
VOL. I.
N
The Fishery Coast and Travancore.
We
have seen how, in his letters to Europe, Francis Xavier made no mention of two
very important though very different elements which influenced in no slight
degree, in their several ways, the life which he led at the time of which we
are now speaking. He made no mention either of the multitude of constantly
recurring miracles by which his mission was authenticated, or, on the other
hand, of the frequent obstacles placed in the way of the advance of the Gospel
by some of the Portuguese officers and traders who had dealings of various
kinds with the natives, either Christian or heathen. Of this last element of
annoyance, which probably in the end prevented him from attempting even more
than he did attempt for the benefit of the various tribes and kingdoms in the
south of India, we shall find abundant mention in the series of letters which
remain to us to illustrate the second year of the labours of Francis in that
part of the world, and we shall also find in the same documents a quantity of
striking evidence as to another feature in his life at this time, which
consisted in the comparative poorness of the tools with which he had to work,
and the entire absence from his side of any one whom he could constantly look
to as a companion and a brother, as had been his lot when he first began to
labour in Italy for the good of souls. .
It is indeed the almost
inevitable lot of the great Saints who have to labour as Apostles in the Church
of Christ, and especially of those whose vocation it is to bear the light and
grace of the Gospel to heathen nations, that they should have to work in great
loneliness, and find but little sympathy and few congenial hearts among subh
companions as may join
themselves
to them. It is almost a part of the character on which the great graces which
are so often given to them are grounded, to be tender, sensitive, sympathetic,
prodigal'of affection to an extraordinary degree, and the quickness, largeness,
warmth, and depth of their feelings are enhanced and intensified as divine
charity more thoroughly penetrates and possesses them. But the hearts that are
most ready to give love are also most eager for its return, and most poignantly
disappointed by its absence. The hearts of the Saints approach more and more
nearly the intense delicacy and tenderness of the Heart of the Saint of
Saints. To one who practises attentive and thoughtful meditation on the life of
our Lord, His own great loneliness will, perhaps, sometimes dawn in a fresh and
more powerful light, as a feature in the history of which a cursory
acquaintance with that history had given him a very inadequate idea, and we find
the same feature in that picture of the mind and heart of the great Apostle of
the Gentiles which has been drawn for us by himself in his Epistles, especially,
for instance, in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, and in his Epistles to
St. Timothy. The Cross of the Sacred Heart itself was wrought to a great extent
by the coldness, dullness, and narrowness of those whom our Lord loved so
tenderly, and in this respect even His friends and dearest Apostles had some
share in the wounds which pierced It. One heart alone beat entirely and
unceasingly in accordance with His own, and from that motherly heart He was
often separated outwardly by the Providence which guided His steps on earth. .
In the case of St.
Francis Xavier it could hardly be otherwise. Almost every line of his letters
shows his intense affectionateness. He had left the men who had been for so
long his brothers in heart and life behind him in Europe, and before he set
sail from Lisbon he had to abandon the hope of having even the single companionship
of Simon Rodriguez in his labours in the East. His letters show us how he
yearned with all his heart for marks of their sympathy from a distance, and how
large a part of his thoughts and affections was ever
occupied with them,
and with that other and ever increasing band of brethren whom he had never seen
in the flesh, but who were so closely linked to him by the spiritual ties which
united all the members, living or dead, of his religious Society one to
another. When one lonely heart is thus joined to many at a distance who have
abundance of companionship to surround their daily life, it is but natural that
the yearning for some sort of communication should be more deeply felt in the
case of the first than in that of the last. So we may suppose it to have been
here. While Francis was full of thoughts of his brethren, and writing to them
at every opportunity, it would appear—not indeed that he was forgotten, for St.
Ignatius, to speak o f no other, was not a man to forget one who had entered
so deeply into his heart as Francis Xavier—but that the multiplicity of their
occupations and the immense distance between them made letters and
communications to him from Europe few and far between. Other companions whom he
hoped for and seemed to reckon upon in Portugal had failed him also. Those who
went with him, Father Paul of Camerino and Francis Mancias, were good and
zealous in their way, but we are sorry to find that they both gave him a good
deal of trouble, nor were they men at all capable of repaying in kind the
intense and watchful affection which he lavished upon them so freely. We shall
have to make the same remark on some, at least, who joined him from Europe, for
where there is a great scarcity of able workmen in the Church, and a great demand
for the work of such men at home, it is almost inevitable that distant missions
even of the highest importance should fare comparatively poorly, and have but
little choice as to the men who are spared for their needs.
Francis had returned
from the Fishery Coast to Goa, as has been said, towards the end of 1543.1
He had some business to transact with the Governor, and was probably more open
to him about the misconduct of the Portuguese than to his friends at Rome. He
must at this time have arranged about the'revenue to be allotted to the
Canacopoli out of the
1 Father Menchacha places it as early as
September.
money which was
usually paid for the shoes and slippers of Queen Catharine of Portugal. He
found at Goa his two companions from Lisbon, Father Paul of Camerino and
Francis Mancias, and, after settling that the former should govern the College
of St. Paul for the Society, he returned to the Fishery Coast with the latter,
as well as with two native priests, Francis Coelho and Joam de Lizana, with
Joam d’Artiaga, a layman who had become attached to him after having been
converted from a worldly life, and some other assistants of the same kind.2
We hear only
occasionally of the greater part of this little band; but we may perhaps fairly
suppose that Francis Mancias did not receive more of the attention of St.
Francis than the rest, though we happen by a fortunate accident to hear a great
deal about him. We have no accurate information as to the posts allotted to
these different missionaries and cate- chists, and the names of places which
occur in the letters which we are about to insert are in most cases names and
nothing more. It is clear, however, that this little party was dispersed among
the various villages of the Indians along the coast, each one having a small
circuit of his own allotted to him, within which he was to keep passing from
village to village. Mancias himself was probably the companion of Francis
Xavier during the earlier months of the period of which we speak. After a time
he was placed by himself, and was, most happily for us, in constant need of
direction and encouragement, which he received from St. Francis in a series of
letters, many of which are most fortunately preserved to us. Some of these
letters are no more than short hasty notes. Francis sometimes wrote more than
one on the same day, containing repetitions of instruction or advice, which he
sent by different messengers so as to make the safe arrival of the contents
more sure. The letters to which these were answers are not in our possession,
but if they were, they would hardly, perhaps, add
2 The letter to the Society, last
inserted, was written from Cochin, which place Francis must have visited on
some business after returning to the Fishery Coast.
very much to our
knowledge of the character of Mancias himself, which is unconsciously
pourtrayed by his correspondent. Mancias was not yet a priest when these
letters were written (except the last). He did not ultimately persevere in the
Society, and we can see traces in the correspondence of some of the faults of
character which brought about his dismissal. But we are, as we have said,
greatly his debtor for preserving to us this series of notes and letters, which
make us, indeed, long for more records of the same sort, but which still throw
a very great light upon the character of Francis Xavier. Most of these letters
were unknown to his earlier biographers, and they have hardly been sufficiently
used even by the later writers on his life. They come from his heart, and
enable us to form a far more lively picture of the difficulties of his
missionary career in India than if we possessed only a simple narrative of his
labours. They certainly give us a great idea of his extreme activity in his
correspondence with his fellow labourers and subordinates.
Among the
difficulties with which St. Francis had to deal, we must in the first place
reckon Mancias himself. He seems to have been hot tempered and violent, easily
moved to anger and indignation, apt to have recourse to severity on every occasion,
and at the same time—as is often the case with men of strong temper—easily
disheartened, and wanting in energy and perseverance in his w^eary and
apparently thankless work. This work was neither specious nor easy; it required
strength, resolution, and immense patience. It was, as we have seen already, of
the most elementary and laborious character. Francis Xavier had early learnt
that the greatest hopes of the future Christian community, which was to be
formed out of the native population, lay in the children. We have seen how,
writing to his religious brethren in Rome, after having spent a year on the
Malabar coast, he spoke of the intercession made in heaven for him and his
friends by more than a thousand children whom he had baptized with his own
hand, and who had died before attaining to the age of reason. He was always
zealous to baptize and cause to be baptized all the newborn
The Fishery Coast and Travancore.
children that he and
his fellow missionaries met with in the lately converted populations, and this
was one of the charges which we find him most frequently repeating in the
letters to Mancias. He had also made provision, as we have seen, for the
constant teaching of the Catechism to all children of an age to learn,
appointing native masters in all the villages, and securing them a salary.
These men required continual supervision and encouragement, and it was very
necessary to make them feel that a watchful eye was kept over them, and that
their salaries might depend on the zeal with which their duties were performed.
Then there were the meetings of the adults on Sundays and Feasts to be looked
to. Men and women were to be assembled separately, to repeat the Creed, the
Commandments, and the prayers which Francis had taught them. Besides this,
there were the adults to be baptized as soon as they were sufficiently prepared
and proved, the sick to be visited and prayed over, the poor to be attended to,
and numberless affairs to be settled by the missionary, who was to be father
and ruler to these ignorant and indolent people as well as religious teacher.
His time could not be spent in any one place; he was to travel from village to
village, baptizing, catechizing, visiting the sick, examining the schools and
urging the catechists to their duty, and as soon as he had made his round
through the circle of country committed to him, he was to begin again and again
in the same way. This is what Francis himself had done during the first year of
his work among the natives, and to this work he now had to keep Mancias.
The first letter of
the series now before us shows that Francis already felt that his companion’s
courage was likely enough soon to give way. The Commandant mentioned in the
second part of the letter must have been the Portuguese officer in command of
the fort at Tuticorin, a certain Cosmo de Payva, of whom we shall hear more as
a great thorn in the side of St. Francis.
(xv.) To Francis Mancias ?
setting out for Comorin.
May the grace and
charity of Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
My dearest Brother,
I am most anxious to
know what you are doing; and therefore I beg of you, for the love of Jesus
Christ, to write to me accurately, taking plenty of time over your letter,
everything that in any way concerns yourself and your companions in those
parts. I will write to you as soon as ever I reach Munahpaud to tell you of my
arrival.
Remember the
instructions which I gave you in writing when we parted, and pray to God to
strengthen you with great patience, the quality necessary above all others in
dealing with the people you have to do with. Make up your mind that what you
are to suffer among them is to be to you instead of your Purgatory, and that
you are to pay now here and at once the penalty of your faults. And acknowledge
how great a favour it is that God grants you, to be able while still breathing
the breath of life to make atonement for the sins of your youth, while you have
the opportunity of gaining grace by it (which could not be in Purgatory), and
at the same time have so much less pain than you might have there.
You will tell Joam
d’Artiaga that the Commandant writes me word that he has paid him ten gold
crowns to be placed to my account, but that I have replied to the Commandant
that neither you, nor Joam d’Artiaga, nor myself are in want of any money
before his own return from the Fishery Coast, and that I have given orders to
Joam d’Artiaga, to return this sum to him. Tell Artiaga from me to do this,
unless this money, instead of being a gift, should be a payment which is owing
to us, and to which we have a right, on some other account, which I have some
reason to suspect. I have heard something to the effect that the Governor who
furnishes us, by the King’s orders, with what is necessary for our living and
main
tenance, has sent a
bill for ten pardams to the Commandant here that he may get us an interpreter.
It may be that the Commandant, not seeing any present opportunity or future
hope of getting us an interpreter, and not wishing to keep other people’s money
in his hands to no purpose, has at once sent it on to those for whose use he
knew it to be destined. If this is so, keep it by all means; if not, then let
the Commandant have his money back at once, and I wish Artiaga to repay it
immediately. I wish for you all the grace from heaven to enable you to serve
God, that I desire and pray for for myself. Farewell.
From Punical,
February 22, 1544.
I do not write to
Joam d’Artiaga, because this letter is for him as well as for you.
Your most
affectionate brother,
Francis.
The next, ten days or
so later, contains the same urgent entreaty—to which he adds a concession to
the severity of Mancias, sending a beadle, or some officer of the kind, to
punish drunken women.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
Your letter has given
me great comfort. I implore you over and over again to deal with that poor degraded
people as good fathers do with bad children. Don’t let your courage give way,
however many may be the depraved and wicked things you see them do : for God
Himself, Whom they so grievously offend, nevertheless does not kill them, as He
might by a single nod. He does not cease to supply them with what they need for
their life and support, and yet, unless He were to keep His bountiful hand open
to them, all these things would fail, and the poor wretches would perish for
want, as indeed they deserve to perish. I would have you consider
this example of God,
and conform your mind to greater indulgence by it, casting aside all needless
worry and distress of heart.
Your labours where
you are are more fruitful than you think, and although you may not make all the
way that you desire, still, take my word for it, you are doing very sufficient
work, and work which you will never repent of. And, after all, whatever may be
the success of your labours, you have a sure consolation in the fact that it
was not your doing nor your fault in any way that it has been otherwise than
could be wished. For the rest, as we have good precedents as well as good
reason to show us that we may lawfully use the King’s authority to break down
the indomitable and stiffnecked obstinacy of a race over which he rules, I
send you an officer whom I have asked of the Governor, who is commissioned to
exact a fine of one fanam (two silver pieces) of any woman who continues to get
tipsy on arrack, contrary to the edicts lately issued, and also to cast any one
found guilty of such intemperance into prison for three days. And you must
take care to have it published with all possible clearness throughout all your
villages and dwellings, that this law will in future be inexorably enforced,
and tell the Patangatins (the heads of the villages) that if after this any
arrack is drunk in Punical, they must themselves expect severe punishment from
me.
Exhort Matthew to
behave to me like a good son; and say that, if he does this, I will give him
far greater good things and advantages than he could ever have expected from
his own parents. And just in this interval during which I am prevented from getting
to you, as I am in haste to do, give some serious warnings to those Patangatins
you speak of; tell them, if they are wise, to amend their bad ways, otherwise
that I have made up my mind to use the power which the Governor has given me,
and that all whom, when I come, I find still addicted to their favourite vices,
I shall order to be taken in chains to Cochin; and they need not flatter
themselves that they will soon get off with a light punishment. I have firmly
resolved on what I now declare, that I will take good care
that they shall never
be allowed to return to Punical. It is as clear as it can be, that all the many
crimes and wickednesses that are committed in their country are to be laid to
the fault and charge of these Patangatins alone.
Mind to. take the
greatest care to baptize as soon as possible all newborn infants. And directly
they are past infancy and are able to begin to be taught anything, begin as
early as may be to teach them the rudiments of Christian doctrine, as you may
remember that I enjoined you to do most earnestly. Every Sunday also you must
give the Catechism to all the people together, men and women, boys and girls,
training them well in the prayers and acts which it is my custom to teach them,
as you know, and you should add to this a short sermon on some subject that may
be practically useful. Watch with all diligence, even going so far as to visit
and examine the workshops of the artisans, to prevent any one from carving or
making idols. I hear that a letter has been sent directed to me, to where you
are, from Alvarez Fogaza : do not send it here, but keep it for me till I come.
May our Lord God fill
you, in this life and the next, with all those mighty consolations which I pray
to Him to grant to myself. Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud, March
14, 1544.
The Matthew here
mentioned seems to have been a lad whom St. Francis had left with Mancias as an
assistant, and the letters frequently speak of him in a playful way, as will be
seen in our next extract. Mancias must have written, in the course of the same
month, to tell Francis that he was well and enjoying great consolation and
delight in his work. The answer is full of joy, sympathy, and, at the same
time, warning.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
Your letter has given
me incredible joy, and done my soul immense good, because it tells me that you
are very happy m your mission and are visited by God with wonderful
consolations. And now that you have had experience that God remembers you, do
not let yourself ever forget Him. Beware of growing weary of your work, however
ungrateful it may be, and don’t let any kind of disgust weaken you so as to
relax your keen and unconquerable perseverance in the good which you have
begun. Keep always a humble and lowly spirit before God, with a meek feeling of
internal thankfulness that He has chosen you for so lofty an office as that
which you are discharging. You have the paper of injunctions that I gave you; I
have nothing to add to them, nothing new to recommend. Remember me always, for
I never forget to think of you. Tell Matthew to be my good child, and that he
will find me a good father. I am always on the lookout for occasions of helping
him on. Tell him also that I order him, on Sundays, when he repeats in church
the answers to the Catechism, which you have taught him at home, to speak so
loud that not only all the congregation may hear him, but that his voice may
reach us here at Munahpaud. Let me know also about the Christians of Tuticorin,
in what state they are, and whether the Portuguese who have stopped there give
them any'trouble; also what news there is about the Governor— whether he is to
pass the winter at Cochin, or not.
Here we have an
affair of great magnitude just beginning —one that promises a splendid opening
for the service of God our Lord. I beg you to pray to Him very urgently that He
may be pleased to bring the hopes which He has let us entertain to a
prosperous issue, and ripen the good beginnings of the opportunity which we so
much desire.
I entreat you to show
continual marks of very great love to the whole of the people you are among,
rulers and nobles, and
also the lowest
classes. The consequence will most certainly be that they will love you in
return, and, if you once get to that, the ministry by which you are trying to
lead them to the knowledge and worship of God our Lord will find its course
more easy and its fruit more abundant. Accustom yourself to bear with great
patience all their weaknesses and their slips from frailty, keeping up in your
mind the merciful and charitable hope that though they are not yet good, they
will one day become so. And, after all, if you can’t make them advance quite
as far as you intended, still don’t repent of having tried, and take that
little good which you have been able to beat out of them as a sufficient
reward. For my part, this is the way I comfort myself in suchlike troubles.
May God be
always with you, and give us grace that we may serve Him for ever ! Farewell. •
Your brother in Jesus
Christ,
From Munahpaud, March
20th, 1544.
We here come for the
first time upon a direct mention of the trouble caused by the Portuguese to the
native Christians. There has probably never yet been a zealous European missionary
in any part of the heathen world in which Christians from his own country have
been settled, or which they have occasionally visited for purposes of commerce,
who has not found among them the worst enemies to his work. No exception can be
made as to this lamentable truth in favour of Catholic nations: Spaniards,
Frenchmen, Portuguese, have as much to answer for in this respect as Dutchmen
and Englishmen. Some Catholics, under such circumstances, have done infinitely
more for religion than can be claimed for Protestants, and we shall find noble
instances of this among the Portuguese merchants, as well as among the officers
of the Crown, in the time of St. Francis. But many Catholics have done quite as
much against religion as any others, and we shall now find this dark thread of
the bad treatment of native Christians on the part of the Portuguese settlers,
merchants, soldiers, and even officials, running through the whole of the story
before us.
The letter also
alludes to another plan which now occupied Francis. He had now fairly provided
for the regular teaching of the converts on the Fishery Coast, and though»the
priests were few, it was quite possible for them, by frequent visits to the
several villages, to administer the sacraments at stated intervals, while the
ordinary instruction and the conferring of baptism in cases of necessity could
be looked to by the cate- chists and Canacapoli. He was desirous of extending
the range of his missionary action, and bringing yet more of the natives into
the kingdom of Jesus Christ. On the western shores of the tongue of land which
ends in Cape Comorin, and between the Fishery Coast itself and the Portuguese
settlement at Cochin, lay the Kingdom of Travancore, and it was a part of the
plan of the Saint to preach the Gospel to its inhabitants. It is not easy to
settle with perfect clearness the exact relation which the Rajah of Travancore
held towards other princes of the south of India, and it is probable that the
relations between them were continually changing. At this time he seems to have
been a potentate of considerable magnitude, though in the next century his
successors had sunk into the lords of a small territory, tributary to the King
or Rajah of Madura or Bisnaghur. At the time of St. Francis, he was known in
his own country as the Maharajah or great Rajah, a name probably acquired by
his success, shortly before, in bringing under his authority a number of petty
princes, or, more properly speaking, nobles, who had up to that time ruled the country,
each as the small tyrant of his own neighbourhood. These were the Pulas, or
Polygars, of whom mention is made in the letter which will follow immediately;
they dwelt in small castles or fastnesses on the high grounds, and kept the
country round them in terror and subjection.3 The position of a
prince who had reduced this troublesome class to tacit submission may well be
ima-
3 We find these details in M. Ldon Pages’
admirable French translation of the Letters of St. Francis (t. i. p. 100). He
adds that the Mudaliars, whose name will occur further on, were a class on the
Coromandel Coast, belonging to the Vaicyas (merchants and cultivators of the
soil), the third caste among the Indians, who enjoyed great influence from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth cen-
The Fishery Coast and Travancore. 19 r
gined, and we can
easily understand that the ‘ Great Rajah’ of Travancore was anxious to secure
the support of the Portuguese against these subordinate rajahs, who were
certain to revolt as soon as it was in their power to do so with hopes of
success, and who, moreover, might purchase for themselves the alliance of the
Portuguese against him unless he anticipated them. How far these political
reasons weighed with the Rajah of Travancore, Iniquitribirim,4
cannot be known for certain; but he appears thus early in the year to have
shown signs of a friendly disposition to St. Francis, even if the latter had
not already, by his leave, preached in his country, which soon after this, at
all events, became the scene of his most active labours, as well as of some
most remarkable miracles. These facts explain to us the indignation which is
expressed in the following letter at the thwarting of his plans by an act of
unjustifiable violence on the part of some Portuguese adventurer.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
No words could
express the earnest desire which weighs upon me to get to you on the coast. I
declare to you that it is the strict truth that if this very day I could find a
ship that was leaving for those parts, I should at once embark in it.
Here are three nobles
come to me from the Court of the Rajah of Travancore, complaining of a
Portuguese who, they say, has arrested at Patanai a slave of their prince
Iniquitribirim, and taken him in chains to Punical. They hear that the man
boasts that he will take him to Tuticorin. Find out what the truth of the
matter is, and write about it, I beg you, to the Commandant. And if it should
be that the Portuguese be
tury. There are many
ruins now to be seen of the fortresses built by them, and the common answer to
an enquiry about a ruin in those parts is, that it was built by so and so, who
was a Polygar, or a Mudaliar. A fact like this shows their importance, and the
difficulty which the Rajah must have had in keeping them in order.
4 The name is so given in the letters, but
it is said to be hopelessly unlike any conceivable Hindoo name.
found there, whoever
he may be, turn every stone that the poor prisoner be set free at once. If it
be that he owes the Portuguese anything, let the complaint be laid before his
own prince, who is sure to decide what is just, and who will maintain, as he
always does, the rights of our people. This advice is no doubt given too late,
for this is what they should have done in the beginning, and no subject of an
allied prince ought to have been seized and taken out of a place in his dominions
without his being consulted. How absurdly we use our strength ! We spare our
enemies and plunder our friends. This act of injustice shuts me out from access
to the Rajah, who is otherwise well disposed, for it would be the unwisest
thing in the world for me to present myself to an indignant Court, boiling over
with the sense of so grave an insult lately received. I can well forgive their
anger, which has a just cause to kindle it. For what can be more intolerable
than that men who call themselves the allies of a Rajah should lay violent
hands on the servant of one of his friends in his own dominions, without
waiting for or asking his consent? an outrage never heard of even in the time
of the Pulas, when they ruled in those parts in a manner that was simply
tyrannical. As for me, I really don’t know what line I shall take, so entirely
are all my measures and precautions upset by the inconsiderate outbreak of this
reckless miscreant. I feel strongly urged to be off and have done with it; for
why should we waste more time here, among men who are utterly regardless of any
considerations of justice, and who never care a straw at the cost of what
damage to religion or to the State they indulge their own passions? above all,
whose outrages are encouraged by impunity ? Every one can see that if the men
who were concerned in that shameless robbery of the myoparon5 the
other day had been punished as they deserved, we should not find the Portuguese
now breaking out in outrages of the same sort. It will be a narrow escape for
us now if the Rajah of Travan-
e A
myoparon was a large flatbottomed boat—a sort of barge. We are without
information as to the details of this outrage—one, probably, of a number that
were constantly recurring.
core, irritated by so
wanton an insult, do not take some severe measures against the Christians who
are his subjects.6
I wish you to write
and tell the Commandant how much I am distressed at this act of violence on the
person of the Rajah of Travancore’s slave, not only on account of the bad
feeling which so scandalous a crime must produce, but also on account of the
positive evils which threaten us in consequence of it. I myself have almost
made up my mind never to write again on such matters, for these people want to
do just what comes into their head, and they can’t bear to be told what is
disagreeable to hear. They seem to think that it is an injury and an insult to them
if any one dares to open his mouth while they are trampling on rights of all
kinds. If it should happen that you get certain information that the slave
carried off by the Portuguese is at Tuticorin, then, I conjure you, by all the
desire you have to please God, go yourself at once to the Commandant, and work
upon him by all the means in your power to get the poor fellow set free at
once. And let the Portuguese who had him arrested come here and make his claim
or his complaint, and he will find all that consideration of his rights which
is needed to give him full satisfaction.
I wonder whether the
Portuguese would think it good if, when one of the natives happened to have a
dispute with one of themselves, he was to seize the Portuguese by main force,
put him in chains, and have him taken out of a place in our territory and
carried up the country? Certainly not. The Indians must have the same feelings;
why should we do to them what we don’t wish to be done to oui selves ? Why
should we be astonished that they, like ourselves, are indignant when they are
injured? There would be more to excuse the aggression if they denied us
justice; but what plausible excuse can we plead now, when they undertake to do
justice with the utmost faithfulness, observe exactly all the conditions of the
6 This seems to show that the conversions
in Travancore had already begun. But it would appear that the * Great Rajah’
had at least some authority at Mu- nahpaud itself, whence Francis writes, and
the whole Fishery Coast may have been under his suzerainty.
VOL. I. O
alliance, and when
they keep the peace and deal with all the equity we could desire in their
intercourse with us? Where can we possibly find a pretext to cover even
speciously the shameful disgrace of our faithless breach of agreement? If any
insurmountable obstacle should prevent you from going yourself at once to the
Commandant, send Paul Vaz to him with a letter from you.
I declare once more
that this news has disturbed me more than I can express by letter. May our Lord
God give us the strength of mind that is needed for us to bear with becoming
patience such reckless excesses as this ! Though what I have said about the
affair has been ascertained on good authority, still please not to think it too
much trouble to write to me a thorough account of the whole matter, as far as
you can find out on the spot. Is it true that a Portuguese has seized a slave
of the Rajah of Travancore within the territory of the latter ? If he has, what
reason does he allege for it, and does he really intend to take the man to
Tuticorin, and for what? 1 should be very glad to hear something at least which
may diminish the atrocity of this detestable action, and prove that report had
exaggerated it. If there is no way of lightening the ill feeling which has been
caused, and if the facts really are what they are said to be, then I must give
up my plan of going to see the Rajah, with whom I was going to treat of matters
concerning the service of God. You well know how these people are incensed at these
seizures of slaves, especially from territory of their own; and there can be no
doubt that they must all be calling out for vengeance, and heaping reproaches
upon the whole race of Portuguese, and even on the Christian religion. It would
never be wise for me to expose myself to all this hostility. No, I shall have
to think of going elsewhere. I have long thought of it, and now shall have to
set myself to work to carry it out. I have long had the idea suggesting itself
to my mind, and it really seems very attractive, of leaving India altogether,
where so many obstacles are placed in the way of the advancement of the Gospel
from quarters from which least of all such obstacles should arise,
and going instead to
Ethiopia, where there is a great and probable hope to invite us of advancing
signally the glory of our Lord God by preaching the Gospel, and where there
will be no Europeans to oppose us and pull down what we have built up. I cannot
hide from you that I feel so strongly impelled that way, that it is not
unlikely I shall embark at Munahpaud on one of the little country vessels,7
of which there are plenty, and go to Goa at once to prepare all that is
necessary for my departure for the dominions of Prester John.
May God grant us His
help and grace ! Amen.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud, March
24th, 1544.
It may surprise the
reader to hear Francis Xavier speak of going to Prester John. The Portuguese
conquests on the coast of Africa, and their interference in the affairs of Abyssinia,
had awakened in Europe a great interest in the almost nominal Christians of
those countries. The famous expedition of Don Cristoval de Gama, who with 400
men marched with ease about the country which it cost an English army so many
millions of pounds to penetrate a few years ago, took place in 1540. John III.,
five or six years later, asked for missionaries of the Society, and the
negotiations issued in 1556 in the mission of Father Nunez Barreto (as
Patriarch) and several others, to Claudius King of Abyssinia, who occupied the
place of the so-called Prester John. It may be feared that Francis Xavier would
have found troubles enough in Abyssinia as well as in India.8 At all
events, hfe intention of setting off at once was not carried out. His next
letter was written from the same spot, only a few days later. It mentions
another outrage committed by the Portuguese, this time on the Christians.
7 quos tonos vocant. (Lat.)
They seem to have been little more than rowboats, and a voyage to Goa in one
of them would have been hazardous enough.
8 See Genelli’s Life of Si. Ignatius (Eng. Trans.), p. 267 seq,
I was delighted to
learn what your letter tells me about you. I can see from it how great are the
fruits of your zeal where you are. May our Lord Whom we serve prosper your
diligence in the future also, and give you in His mercy sufficient strength to
make you equal to a continuance of your exertions, so as to bring always to
greater and greater perfection the good you have done, and, in short, to
persevere courageously to the end, and so entirely overcome the obstacles and
troubles which you may have to meet!
To hear as I do that
our Christians are persecuted and oppressed both by the heathen and by the
Portuguese, is a ' thing which wounds my heart to the very core, so atrocious
and so mischievous is it. But I have had so much of this sort of thing, that
if, as they say, the sting of such sorrows could be dulled by frequent
practice, I ought long ago to have lost all feeling about it. Somehow I cannot
find any relief or alleviation for this misery in the medicine of habit and
lapse of time. It racks me with intense pain every time that I either see for
myself or hear from others how these tender sucklings ot the Church are exposed
to every kind of violence and outrage from the very persons in whom such
conduct is most shameful—how, new and fresh as they are in the faith, like
iniant children in the holy religion they have adopted, and when they ought to
be indulgently cherished and nursed up by kindness on the part of their elder
brothers, rather than left in neglect and contempt, or even subjected to
violence and injury by them, they are cut to pieces and plundered by savage
attacks, which no efforts we can make for their protection are able to delay,
much less to avert. Wherever I go I carry this grief like a pain which eats out
my heart. I heard three days ago from the Patangatins of a most wicked act of
violence —the seizure of several slave girls—committed at Punical by certain
Portuguese. As soon as I heard the miserable news
I wrote to the
Bishop’s vicars at Coulan9 and Cochin, begging them earnestly to
publish a threat of the major excommunication against the ravishers, and to
make a public inquiry who they are, that their names may be known, their prey
rescued from them, and the penalty enjoined by the law inflicted on them to
warn others by their example.
[However, all his
indignation against ihese Portuguese miscreants does not prevent him from
descending to minute practical matters, such as the provision for the .boy
Matthew, of whom Mancias was probably frequently complaining—perhaps not
without reason—and the correction of a mistake in the translation of the Credo
made by Mancias himself.]
Do not forget to give
Matthew all he wants for his clothing. And do all you can by showing him all
the kindness of an indulgent father, to attach him to yourself. In that way you
will make him willing to live with you. You know he is free and his own master,
and he can be attached to our community only by the bonds of affection. When
he was with me, I took all possible pains to keep his affection, by showing him
almost the tenderness of a mother, and I should very much wish that you would
do the same.
In your translation
of the Apostles’ Creed there is something which I think it well to tell you.
It is not right to translate the words Credo in Deum by the word Enaku-venum;
for in their dialect the word venum answers to volo, I will, I want. Thus you
see at once that it won’t do to say, Volo in. I think you should use the word
vichuam10 instead of venum. That word answers in the language of the
country to the Latin word
9 Coulan, now Quilon, lies about halfway
between Cape Comorin and Cochin, on the western side of the peninsula, and
consequently on the Travancore coast. There was a Portuguese station there, and
it was the most important port south of Cochin. It was the scene, as we shall
see, of one of Francis Xavier’s most remarkable miracles.
10 Baldseus, a Dutch writer of the next
century, who was present at many of the battles in which this part of India was
conquered by his countrymen from the Portuguese, and afterwards settled there
as a Protestant pastor, gives a short account of the Malabar tongue, which
includes the Our Father and Creed in that dialect. The word there used for ' I
believe in’ is written by him vichu-
Credo. Again, in that other article of the Creed where the Passion of
Jesus Christ is spoken of, take care not to use the words Vaopinale: the people
here use them generally in a sense which includes some notion of coercion. Now
Jesus Christ did not suffer of necessity, but of His own accord and free will.
When any who are
passing from the Fisheries come to where you are, lose no time in visiting the sick
among them, and wherever you go take a boy with you as you go from cottage to
cottage to recite over them the prayers which you find inserted in the written
instructions I left you. After these prayers and the service content yourself
by reading once the usual passage of the Gospel* For the rest, remember always
to show great signs of charity in your intercourse with these people, making it
a point of careful study to win them to love you in return. I should be very
glad if you could tell me that none of them now drink arrack or carve idols,
and that they all come on Sundays to recite the prayers. But if it should
chance that we can’t always have these things as we wish, we must not let our
courage break down, but rather say to ourselves that if from the beginning of
their conversion these poor wretched people had always had diligent teachers at
hand to teach them what is necessary, as you are now doing, they would
certainly have been infinitely better Christians than they are.
May our Lord grant
you all the consolation in this life and glory in the next that I desire for
myself! Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Munahpaud, March 27,
1544.
We pass over a few
pages, and we find St. Francis in comparative quiet and good hope. The report
about the Travancore outrage must have died away, and he is expecting some
communication from the Governor about the terms which he may offer to the Rajah
of Travancore, who was seeking the
vadieren. His work exists in the third volume of the English collection
of Churchill, Collection of Voyages and Travels, London, 1745. The Creed is
given in Malabar at p. 600. The Tamil words in the text would, we believe, be
written differently now.
Portuguese alliance
to ensure himself against his insurgent vassals. But another trouble is upon
him, in the instability of Joam d’Artiaga, who had been named in a former
letter as companion to Mancias himself. He seems to have left his post, and
then to have left St. Francis. *
My dearest Brother,
It is a wonderful joy
to me to hear of your having gone to visit the Christians scattered over the
country whom I recommended to your care, and I am still more rejoiced to learn
from persons who have come hither from your parts, of the abundant fruits that
your visit has produced for the gain of souls and of the Church.
I have been expecting today or tomorrow a
message from the Governor, and if it brings the news which I hope, I shall not
delay my journey to your mission, and I will turn out of the road as I go that
I may meet you in passing wherever you may be. I long to see you extremely,
though the eyes of my spirit are always upon you, even in absence.
Joam d’Artiaga has
gone off, carried away by some disturbing imagination which left him no peace
of mind, and which came, as far as appears, from the Evil Spirit. But this he
neither sees himself, nor goes the right way to learn. He told me when he left
that he was going to Combutur11 to teach the people there. He said
also that he chose a place not far from where you are on purpose to be near
you. He may have wished this at the time, but whether he will persevere in it I
know not. You know what an inconstant fellow he is, and how every wind turns
him. However, whatever happens, if he comes to see you, I hardly think it will
be worth your while to spend any length of time in talking with him.
II Some of the translations of the letters
have identified the place with Coim- batoor, in the Carnatic. But Coimbatoor is
far to the north, and inland. The place here spoken of is evidently, as we may
gather from the Letters, on the coast, not very far from the place whence St.
Francis writes (Munahpaud).
I have written to the
Commandant to supply you with what you want. I have also begged Manuel da Cruz
to lend you money as often as you want it, and he has very obligingly promised
me to do so. Take great care of your health, for that is a necessary means in
order for you to serve our Lord God so usefully. Tell Matthew it is my decided
will that he should do what you tell him, and diligently obey you in all
things. I wish him to understand clearly that I have often promised him to be
as a father and mother'to him, it will depend on your giving him a good
character; but that otherwise, unless you can witness to me that you have found
him perfectly good and obedient, I sha’n’t think that I have any reason to
take so much trouble about him, nor make his interests of so much importance. I
wish you, on the other hand, to give him liberally whatever clothing he may
require.
In your visitation of
the scattered hamlets which you are now making, this is what I wish you to do.
In each village that you come to, bid all the men assemble on one day, and on
another all the women, and teach each of them separately all that they must
know to escape sin; and don’t think it enough that they can repeat by heart in
those assemblies the prayers of the Church, which all Christians commonly know,
but make them say the same prayers morning and evening at home, and give them
diligent orders to do this. Also baptize all that have not yet received
baptism, adults as well as children.
Meanwhile, that you
may have no selfcomplacency in the fruits of your work which meet the eye,
consider that if the mill has ground good wheat, all the glory is due to the
great Master and Lord Who makes the stream flow which makes the millstone go
round, and the whole machine move and work.
May God our Lord keep
you, and guide you and help you on! Farewell.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
From Munahpaud,
April 8th, 1544. FRANCIS.
There were the
elements of a good deal of trouble in the wayward conduct of this Joam
d’Artiaga, who was not a mem
ber of the Society
and not strictly under regular obedience to Francis or any one else. He might
get his friends into some conflict with the native authorities, and they were
sure to have the credit of any eccentricities of which he might be guilty. We
shall be glad to find further on that he seems to have come round again, won,
probably, by the influence exercised upon him by Francis in some personal
interview. The letter which has last been quoted was written on the Tuesday in
Holy Week, and the provisions which it mentions for the support of Mancias seem
to fall in with the conjecture that Francis was now meditating an excursion
into some new part of the country. The next two letters are written from
different spots, the exact position of which, as well as of the post at which
Mancias himself was stationed, it is impossible to identify. Francis seems to have
been moving about the country towards Travancore, and to have meant to meet
Mancias on his way, then to have proceeded to Tuticorin, which, as we have
said, was about the centre of the Fishery Coast opposite Ceylon, on account of
some dissensions between the natives, which had to be settled for fear of their
growing mischievous. With this short commentary, we must leave the three
letters which follow to speak for themselves.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I long immensely to
see you, and I have reason to hope that God in His mercy will soon grant me my
prayer. Meantime not a day passes that I do not watch you in spirit. I doubt
not that it is the same with you, and that we continually enjoy the presence
of one another in heart. Now, for the love you have to God, write, I pray, and
tell me about yourself and all the Christians; how you are, what you are doing,
how all your affairs are going on. And I wish you to tell me all minutely and
precisely. Here I am, a whole week waiting for a Pula from Travancore. I don’t
think he will fail, for he wrote to say that he should come within that time.
How am I my
self, you ask ? Well,
my heart is strong with a lively confidence in the goodness of God, that
something will come of this interview which will have somewhat to do with His
own service and honour. Whatever comes of it, I will let you know at once, that
you may give thanks to God our Lord. I am writing to the Patangatins to build
the chapel of green branches. I used to think it a good plan to assemble the
women in the church on Saturday morning, as they do at Munahpaud, and the men
on Sunday. But I leave all to your discretion. When you want to write to the
Commandant to supply any need that you have, do not wait till you are in
extreme necessity, but give him notice in good time beforehand, so that if he
requires some little space to provide what you want, you may not have to suffer
the pangs of destitution meanwhile.
As to Joam d’Artiaga,
I should be glad to hear from you where he is, and whether he is serving God. I
am very much afraid that he will not persevere as the interests of God’s kingdom
and His greater glory require. You know how inconstant he is. The Father who is
with me is quite well, and so am I. Tell the boy, I mean Matthew, from me, to
go on being good, to speak up when he repeats at the catechism what you have
taught him and to pronounce the words well. When I come to see you, I am going
to bring him a little present which I know he will be delighted with. Write me
word whether the children come regularly to say their prayers together at the
appointed time, and how many of them can say them rightly by heart.
I want you never to
spare words or paper in telling me about these things very particularly. And
give your letters to the first person you come across, who is coming this way,
to bring to me.
May the Lord be with
you, as I pray that He may be with me!
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Livare, April 23d,
1544.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
To-day, the first of
May, I have got your letters. I can’t tell you on paper how much pleasure I
have had in reading them. I have been ill the last four or five days with a
burning and constant fever and have been bled twice. Now, by the grace of God,
I am better. I have almost lost all recollection of the illness I have just
gone through, in the joy of the good news you give me.
I hope with God’s
help to go to you at Punical next week. We thought the Pula of Travancore would
be here today, at least tomorrow morning. When I am with you I will tell you
what has passed with him. May our Lord God grant that something may result from
it by which we may advance His service. Father Francis Coelho is sending you
two umbrellas. As I shall so soon be able to see you I have no more to say now
except my usual prayer that our Lord God may be pleased to help us with His
grace, so that we may serve Him faithfully. Farewell.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Nare, May ist, 1544.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
God, from Whom
nothing is hidden, knows how much happier I should be spending a few days with
you than to be kept for the same time at Tuticorin. But as it is necessary for
me to remain here awhile, in order to settle certain quarrels which are setting
the people here by the ears in a way that threatens danger, we must both of us
be willing to postpone the consolation of seeing one another, which we have
been longing for, to the great advantage which may be expected to the service
of God from this peace which I hope to make, and
we must rejoice that
we are to be, not where we might wish to be, but where the most holy will of
our Lord God and the interests of His kingdom and of His greater glory
require. I must again and again pray you, do not get angry with these poor
folk, however much their faults and frailties move your bile. I know what an
extreme annoyance it is to be perpetually interrupted, when one is thoroughly
absorbed in some work, by persons calling one away to attend to their own business,
which is all they care for. Never mind, gulp down their importunities, keep a
quiet mind all the time, and lend yourself tranquilly to the occupations which
come of themselves to you from every side. Just do what you can do, and what
you can’t do now, let it go or put it off, and, when you cannot give them
satisfaction in deed, take care to make it up in word, excusing yourself
kindly, saying that you are not as able to help them as you could wish, and if
you can’t give them what they want, give them some hope of it in the future—a
thing which generally softens people when they are disappointed as to getting
what they desire. You owe great thanks to our Lord God, and I suppose you give
them, for placing you where you can’t be idle if you would, where so many
affairs surround and besiege you at every moment with something to be done, one
upon another, but where—what is the sweetest of all condiments to any toil,
however great—everything of this kind which besets you is clearly a call which
belongs to the service of God.
I send Peter to you,
and do you send us Antonio in return, as soon as he is well, which we hope may
be in six days or a week. I have sent to Manuel da Cruz a careful letter,
pressing him both by entreaties and arguments to make haste about finishing the
church.
Send me my little
case12 by the first boat that sets out for this place. I shall get
through the work I have here on hand as soon as possible, and then be off to
you; for in truth I long much more, I think, than you suppose, to stay and talk
12 Cafsulam. It may have been a satchel in
which he carried what he wanted for the celebration of mass on his journeys.
with you for some
days. Let me know by letter at once whatever you want either of help or
advice. You will be sure of finding a messenger, there are so many going to and
fro daily. Bear these people, as it were, on your shoulders, treat them with
unwearied patience and longsuffering tolerance, keep them from evil and advance
them in good as much as you can, and be content. And then, after all, if you
find some whom you cannot win to their duty by indulgence and kindness,
consider that the moment is come for that work of mercy which consists in the
timely chastisement of those who deserve punishment, and who cannot be driven
to good except by severity.
May God help you, as
I pray that He may assist myself! Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ, Tuticorin, May 14th, 1544. FRANCIS.
After this last
letter the correspondence with Mancias is interrupted for more than a month
(May 14—June 20), and there is a similar break later on, as we have no letter
between September 29 and November 8. In fact, the letters are. extremely
irregular in their distribution; sometimes several are crowded together within
a few days, at others, as we have said, long intervals separate them. When we
consider the evident care with which Mancias has preserved what remains to us,
it seems unlikely that he received many more. The probable solution of the
apparent difficulty lies in remembering that the care of the Fishery Coast
itself, which involved frequent correspondence with Mancias, Coelho, and the
other assistants of Francis Xavier, was only a part, and even only an
occasional part, of his occupation at this time, and that he was very
frequently at a distance from Munahpaud, Punical, and Tuticorin, which seem to
have been places where he had the appliances necessary for maintaining a
correspondence, and that he wrote his letter to Mancias when he found himself
at these spots, to which it is very possible that the answers and other
communications to him would be addressed. Any one who reads cursorily over the
series of letters on which we are now
engaged might think
that St. Francis was fixed on the Fishery Coast for nearly the whole of the
year 1544. This, however, would be a mistaken conclusion, for his own letters
to Europe, written early in the year 1545, and in which he speaks of the
progress of the Gospel during the previous year, mention other parts, as the
coast around Coulan, and the kingdom of Travancore, as the scene of numerous
conversions, and we know in the same way that he visited Ceylon, and towards
the end of the year sailed up the whole western coast of India to the extreme
north, in order to meet the Governor at Cambaia, returning thence to Cochin,
from which place the letters are written. The letters to Mancias, therefore,
are strictly letters confined to the business of the moment as far as Mancias
was himself concerned in it, and looked upon in this light, they give us an
idea of the extreme activity of St. Francis at this time, when the affairs with
which they deal formed but a part of his work. The biographers of Francis have
not thought it necessary to dwell at any length on the letters now before us,
probably for the reason already hinted at, that the more important labours of
this year are not mentioned in them. These letters are valuable to us chiefly
on account of the intimate knowledge which they afford us of the character of
their writer, of which, indeed, in this respect, they form a monument almost
unique. We must fill up the picture of the work of the year very mainly from
other sources.
The most prominent
part of that work was undoubtedly the conversion, in great measure, of the
inhabitants of the kingdom of Travancore, of which we have already said something.
It cannot be ascertained except conjecturally at what period of the year
Francis first entered the kingdom, but we may perhaps place it conveniently at
that point where the letters to Mancias break off for a month, without thereby
implying that even at an earlier period Francis may not have preached in parts
of Travancore. But the letters which we have already inserted show him to have
been expecting some communication from the Court, and to have been inclined to
defer a projected visit to the Rajah himself on account of the
rumour about some
Portuguese outrage. This visit to the royal residence may have been put off,
and yet Francis may have preached in the country with the leave of the Prince.
In a letter written early in the following year he mentions having baptized as
many as ten thousand in the space of a month, and his giving this exact measure
of time would fit in very well with the conjecture that the weeks between the
middle of May and the middle of June were spent in this undertaking. The
letter to which we refer gives also an account of his method of proceeding,
which is almost the same with his method on the Fishery Coast, if we allow for
the important difference, that in the case of the latter he had to do with
people already nominally Christians. The people of Travancore were partly
Mussulmans and partly idolaters. We must suppose, from an expression in a
letter to the King of Portugal, in which the ‘ coasts of Coulan’ are spoken of
as being under his authority, that the Portuguese exercised some sort of power
along the whole seaboard, and not only in their fortified settlements; but the
whole country, except the fringe of land along the sea, was under the Rajah,
who was an ally of Portugal. In accordance with his custom, Francis would endeavour
to obtain, as St. Augustine asked from Ethelbert on his landing in England, the
Rajah’s acquiescence in his preaching to his subjects. This seems to have been
readily given, and the conversions followed rapidly. No doubt the fame of the
life and miracles of St. Francis had already spread far and wide through the
whole coast of India: and the Processes assure us that neither the gift of
tongues nor the other great signs of an Apostolate which had been seen on the
Fishery Coast were wanting in Travancore. Village after village received him
with joy; and after the instruction and baptism of the inhabitants, the heathen
temples were pulled down and the idols broken to pieces. As he went on he left
behind him everywhere a written abridgement of Christian doctrine, and made
provision for its, regular teaching to the children and in the weekly
assemblies of the new converts. By the end of the year it is said that no less
than forty-five infant churches had
been founded in this
way. He was accompanied in his mission for six months of the year by the Paul
Vaz, mentioned a few pages above, who returned to Europe some years later, and
whose report as to the method of life and preaching of Francis is preserved to
us by Bartoli. He mentions the number just given, of forty-five churches
founded in Travancore. Francis, he says, always went barefoot, with a poor torn
cassock and a sort of cap of black stuff on his head. He was always called the
Great Father, and the Rajah had issued an edict that his own brother the Great
Father was to be obeyed as himself, and that any one was at liberty to become
Christian. The Rajah gave him large sums of money, the whole of which he spent
in the relief of the poor. He could speak the language excellently, though he
had never learnt it, and the people flocked to hear him, five or six thousand
at a time, so that he was obliged to preach from a tree in the open fields,
where also he used to celebrate mass in the presence of multitudes, under a
canopy made of the rails of the boats. When he left the country, it was in
great part Christian.
This result, however,
was of course not obtained within the short space of time of which we are now
speaking. Not long after the middle of June we find St. Francis again on the
Fishery Coast, just in time to hear of the ravages of the Vad- houger,13
who are called in the translations of the letters and in the current lives of
St. Francis, the Badages. These terrible brigands—for it seems most natural to
call them by that name
13 See P6re
Bertrand, La Mission du Maduri (Paris, 1548), t. ii. p. 2. The many
various statements concerning them may not be really conflicting. They were a
tribe from the north (Bisnaghur), settled in the interior of the kingdom of
Madura, which lay east and northeast of Travancore and the Fishery Coast At the
time of which we speak, they had an independent territory—the state of
Pandi—but the Naicker or Rajah of Madura was their immediate sovereign, and
they were commissioned, or allowed by him, to collect tribute due to him from
the neighbouring states under his supremacy. We have no absolute certainty as
to the relations, in the time of St. Francis, between Madura and Travancore,
which may often have shifted, and as Travancore seems to have been in an exceptional
state of relative prosperity and influence, it may easily be supposed that
these vassals of the Rajah of Madura may have been to some nominal extent under
the authority of the Rajah of Travancore. Madura seems to have been
—were probably only
too glad of so good an excuse for plundering the villages on the Fishery Coast
as that which was afforded them by the fact that the inhabitants had become
Christians, which in their eyes amounted to a desertion to the common enemies
of all the independent natives of India—the Portuguese. They had fallen
suddenly, a horde of well-armed horsemen, upon the feeble and defenceless
natives, before they had time to collect in one spot to oppose force by force,
and the issue is related in the following letter :
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I arrived on Saturday
evening at Munahpaud. On the road at Combutur I met with very sad news about
the Christians at Cape Comorin, which has made me quite wretched. The Badages
have fallen upon them with the sword, and driven them from their homes,
plundered them, made a great number of them prisoners, and the rest have taken
refuge in the caves of the rocks which run out into the sea, where they are
perishing of hunger and thirst. I am going to their help as fast as I can, and
set sail this very night with twenty tones from Munahpaud. Pray to God for
these poor creatures and for us; and see above everything that the children
pray to God for us.
At Combutur the
inhabitants have promised me to build a church, and Manuel de Lima has promised
to give a hundred
generally the more
dominant state of the two. In 1609 the Paravas were tributaries of Madura
(letter of F. A. Laerzio, quoted by Bertrand, 1. c.). In 1700 we find
Travancore also tributary to Madura {Lettres Edifiantes, t. x. p. 77), and the
Vadhouger, or Badages, entering the territory of the former year after year to
exact the tribute. F. Organtino, much nearer to the time of which we are
speaking (1568), speaks of the Badages as people from Narsinga (a kingdom north
of Madura, lying close to Bisnaghur), and calls them 'regiorum fcrme
vectigalium exactores’ (Maffei, Sel. Epist. ex Indid, 1. iv. p. 431). If we
suppose these curious freebooters to have had a special hatred to everything
Christian and Portuguese, we have exactly the conditions required to explain
the whole itory concerning them contained in the lives and letters of St.
Francis.
VOL. I. P
fanams of his own
money to help the building. Go over there and press on and arrange the work.
You may set out on Thursday or Friday, and next week, God willing, you shall go
to visit the Christians who are scattered up and down the country between
Punical and Alendale; go into each cottage, baptize all whom you find who have
not yet received baptism, and give to all the instructions and advice they
want. Take particular and vigilant care to baptize everywhere the newborn
infants. See to whether the persons who have to teach the children and to
assemble them at appointed hours, do their duty.
Charge Manuel da
Cruz, who is living at Combutur, to pay great attention to those two Christian
villages of Careans, taking diligent care, in the first place, to extinguish
at once any rising quarrels among them by reconciling the parties while the
matter is yet in its infancy; and in the second place, to prevent any one from
carving idols or getting drunk with arrack. Every Sunday let the people all be
assembled to repeat their prayers and hear the Catechism; the men in the
morning, the women in the evening.
If Francis Coelho be
with you, tell him to come hither at once, and that this is my order.
May God keep you in
His holy protection ! Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
From
Munahpaud, Monday,14 June i6th, 1544. FRANCIS.
41 It is
necessary to suppose some of the dates of these letters to have become confused
in transcription. The Latin date given for this letter is unusually precise, ‘
h&c feri& secundi, xii. Kal. Jul. (June 20) 1544.' St. Francis hardly
ever gives the days of the week, but it is probable that the date of Monday is
exact, as he would naturally set out to the relief of the Christians as soon as
he'could, and he arrived at Munahpaud on Saturday evening. But June 20th was on
a Friday, not a Monday, so we must alter the date to June 16th. The letter (p.
212) dated June 30th speaks of his return to Munahpaud, after having failed to
reach the Cape, and having been a week at sea, as * last Tuesday’—that would be
June 24th, and would just leave a week between the two letters. The
intermediate letter dated Virandapatanam, June 22, would seem to have been
written at a moment in the struggle to get along the coast where Francis may
have put to land. The boats were sometimes towed along shore, so that he might
easily be on shore to write a short note. This is evidently very hurried.
Francis Xavier seems
to have set out at once for the Cape by sea, but to have failed in reaching it.
The next two letters carry on the history.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
This to tell you
that, by God’s grace, I am very well. May He Who is pleased to give me health
also grant that I may use it in His service !
Let me know daily how
things are in your parts, how your affairs get on, what the Christians are
about, and so on. Work as hard as you can to get the church built. Let me hear
at once when it is finished. I send with this a letter to the Commandant,
which please to put into the hands of a very trusty messenger. Again and again
I beg of you to give your first attention to the education of the children. And
I am also very anxious that you should take the greatest care to baptize
yourself every newborn infant as soon as it is born, or as soon as possible,
that Paradise may be peopled by their souls at least, most of which leave their
little bodies before the age of reason, since we cannot get the grownup folk to
go there, either by punishment or promises of good.
Greet Manuel da Cruz
much for me. I exhort Matthew to persevere and to improve in all good. Take
pains to show yourself kind and affable to the people, particularly to the
magistrates and to the village chiefs—Adigares, as they are called. May our
Lord be with you always Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
From
Virandapatanam,15 June 22, 1544. FRANCIS.
This conjecture would
account for the unusual announcement that the writer was in good
health—notwithstanding the sufferings to which he had been exposed. [It is as
well to state that we here omit a letter inserted in the. Latin collection. It
is given in the notes.]
15 Probably Viranda and Patanam—perhaps
begun at one place and ended at the other—unless this was really a place
combining the two names, Virandapatanam.
The next letter
relates the issue of the unavailing attempt made by Francis to reach the Cape
by sea.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
On Tuesday
last I came back to Munahpaud, and God our Lord knows what I have gone through
in my voyage. I had set off with twenty tones to comfort the Christians whom
the Badages have driven into flight, who, as I was told, were dying miserably
of hunger and thirst amongst the rocks which bound the shores of Cape Comorin;
but I met with strong winds from the opposite quarter, and neither by rowing
nor by towing could we make head against the sea, and I was not able once to
get a single vessel to the Cape. If these winds fall, I shall go there again to
take what relief I can to these poor creatures in their extreme distress; for a
man must be harder than iron if he could give up making all efforts in his
power to relieve the miserable case of these people, who are our brethren in
the worship of Christ—a case I really think the most calamitous that can be
found anywhere. Many of the fugitives arrive every day at Munahpaud without
clothing, nearly dead with hunger, and destitute of everything. I am writing
to the Patangatins of Combutur, of Punical, and of Tuticorin, to collect for
them some little alms, and get them sent to us : but bidding them, however, to
exact nothing from the poor, but simply to ask the captains of vessels, and
others who have some means, of their own free will to contribute to so pious a
work. But though I have enjoined this, still, as I know what sort of persons
the Patangatins are, I very much fear that they may make this an opportunity
for extorting money from the poor. n
I should like you to
tell me how the building of the church at Combutur is getting on. Let me hear
all particulars, and whether Manuel de Lima has yet paid the hundred fanams
that he promised for the work. I should like you to give me at the same time a
long and full account how your excursion
through the villages
and your instructions of the outlying farms went off, in what state you found
the Christians, how you left them, whether the men whom we have appointed to
instruct the children throughout the country everywhere do their duty well. I
have been most faithful in paying them regularly the salary which was promised
them, but I can’t myself watch over their behaviour when I am away. So I wish
you to let me know about this accurately, and also about yourself, how your
health is, how you find your present abode, what is going on there, and how
religion fares.
We were a whole week
at sea, and you know by experience what it is to be on board a tone, especially
with violent winds blowing in your teeth, as we had,—and we couldn’t make our
way against them by any skill or force whatever.
May God our Lord
protect you ever ! Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud, June
30th, 1544.
After this letter the
correspondence fails us again for a month, and we are therefore unable to trace
the footsteps of Francis Xavier by its aid. He seems to have been out of reach
of Mancias, and to have found letters from him when he himself returned to
Munahpaud. We conjecture that they were out of reach of one another during this
time, because the next letter which we shall insert, which is dated at the
beginning of August, carries on the narrative of the relief of the Christians
from the point at which the last leaves it, though several weeks passed between
the two letters. We also suppose that during this interval Francis again
plunged into the kingdom of Travancore.16 Indeed, it is probable
that we must fix upon this interval as the time for one of tlie most famous
actions of the Saint in this country. The Vadhouger, or Badages, of whom we
have already heard so much, seem to have either continued their raid westwards
at some little distance inland, or to have
16 In the next letter, where he speaks of
the Christians to whose relief he had set out, he does not say that he had
taken them to Munahpaud, but that he had provided for their being taken thither
(curavi deportandos).
returned after a
short interval and shown an intention of falling upon the villages on the
western slopes of the mountains which end in Cape Comorin. About four leagues
north of the Cape lay the city of Cotate, which a century and a half later than
this time was of considerable size, but may in the time of St. Francis have
been only a large village. A church, we believe, still exists on the plain a
few miles north of Cotate, which commemorates the heroic action of which we
speak. From the account given in Bartoli, it would appear that the invasion of
Travancore was made by a more regular and formidable army than had been
collected for the ravaging of the defenceless pearl fisheries along the
south-eastern coast of the promontory. The Naicker of Madura was himself with
them and in command, and the Rajah of Travancore himself was in motion with a
considerable force of his own subjects to resist the aggressors. However this
may have been, the attack was directed principally against the villages of new
Christians, and Francis Xavier immediately flew to their assistance. When the
Processes for his canonization came to be formed at Cochin, more than a dozen
witnesses came forward to testify to the fact that the whole country was full
of the story how, with a crucifix in his hand, he had gone forth alone to meet
the invaders, and severely rebuked them in the name of God, how the front ranks
stopped on their march before him, and how, when they were urged on by those
behind them and encouraged by their leaders, the soldiers replied that they
could go no further, because a man of great height, of terrible and majestic
presence, in a black robe, overawed and frightened theip, that no one could
bear the fire that flashed from his face and eyes. The leaders themselves fell
under the same overpowering influence, and the whole army turned upon its
march and left the Christians in peace.17
17 See Bartoli, Asia, t. i. 1. i. p. 72. He
is copied by Massei, Vita de S. Francesco Xav. 1. ii. c. 2, and Bouhours, 1.
ii. Bartoli extracted his facts from the Processes ; and the references, number
and character of the witnesses, and other details are given in the Relatio
stiper sanctitate ct miraculis F. Xaverii, written at Rome by the Auditors of
the Rota in the time of Paul V.
We shall hear more of
these freebooters presently. Francis may probably have spent the greater part
of July in preaching in Travancore, baptizing heathen, and instructing his
converts. This country became the scene of a number of his most wonderful
miracles. He is said to have raised four persons from the dead. In these cases
no particulars are given. There are other instances of the same power in him,
of which we have full details, and it may be worth while to relate them shortly
in the words in which the evidence is summed up in the Relci- tio, prepared in
the time of Paul V. The scene of the first of these miracles was Mutan, a town,
as it seems, on the coast, where, as he was passing through the street one day,
he met a funeral procession, as our Lord met that which was bearing to the
grave the widow’s son. The body was that of a youth who had died of a malignant
fever, and had been kept twenty- four hours unburied in a shroud, ‘ as the manner
is of that country/ says the writer before us. When Francis ‘ met the bier and
saw the dead youth, led by the prayers of the parents and pitying their
bereavement, he knelt down, and raising his eyes to heaven, prayed to God for
the life of the lad ; then he sprinkled the body with holy water and bade them
cut open the funeral shroud, and when the body was seen, he made the sign of
the Cross over it, and taking him by the hand, bade him in the name of Jesus to
live, and at once the youth rose up alive, and he gave him sound and in good
health to his parents.18 And they that stood by,’ he adds, ‘
marvelled, and held what had been done for a great miracle, praising the
holiness of Francis, and in honour and memory of the deed erected a cross on
the spot and held there a festival.’
The other miracle of
the same kind took place at Coulan or Quilon on the coast. Francis had been for
some time preaching there without producing much effect upon the peo-
18 This miracle, as well as that which
follows, has been selected by the Auditors of the Rota as resting upon
incontrovertible evidence. It rests on the testimony of two witnesses whose
names are given, Emanuel Gago andjoam Audicondam, who were present and saw what
passed, one other who had heard of the miracle from the person himself who was
raised from the dead, and several others who bore witness to the notoriety of
the fact.
pie. Coulan was a
seaport—a place in which men of all nations met for purposes of traffic, and
where the Christian law was frequently and openly dishonoured by those who bore
the Christian name. Francis felt himself baffled by the obstinacy of the hearts
which he was trying to soften. He was in a church, for the Portuguese had a
station there, and a man had been buried there the day before. He paused in his
sermon, and prayed awhile silently with tears. Then he addressed his audience
with burning words, telling them that God was pleased to raise the dead in
order to convert them. He bade them open the tomb, take out the corpse, and
tear open the shroud in which it was wrapped. Then he prayed again, and the
dead man rose up to life. A large number were converted, praising and blessing
God for the holiness and power He had given to His servant.19
We must take these
miracles as but specimens—though no doubt splendid and remarkable in their
kind—of the signs which waited upon the Apostolate of Francis Xavier in Travancore.
His life at this time must have been extremely active, for we know him often to
have been elsewhere, and yet we have seen that the fruits of his preaching
during this year remained in the establishment of as many as forty-five Christian
communities or villages in the country. Towards the end of July he is again on
the Fishery Coast, and writes to Mancias a letter which continues the subject
of his last.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
May God our Lord be
pleased to watch over and keep you ever, and grant you good health and great
strength, that you may spend all for Him ! Your last letter, which I have just
received, gave me the greatest pleasure, inasmuch as it gave me manifest proofs
of your great diligence in fortifying
19 This miracle rests upon the testimony of
Diego Fernandez, who was present and saw the whole, and of several other
witnesses who testify to the notoriety of this fact.
and preparing the
people against the invasion of the Badages, that they may not be suddenly taken
by surprise by them.
I went off, after
all, by land to the Cape, to visit, those unhappy Christians who have survived
the plundering and cruelties of the Badages. A more miserable sight could
nowhere be seen; faces white with exhaustion, livid with hunger; the fields
covered with dead and dying, the disfigured corpses which had had no burial, or
the poor creatures who were at the point of death from wounds untended or
sickness unrelieved. There were old men there utterly powerless from age or
hunger, trying in vain to drag themselves along—there were women giving birth
to children in the public roads, their husbands moving about them, but unable
to help them, so universal and common to all was the very extremity of
destitution. If you had seen this as I did, your heart would, I am sure, have
been pierced with a pang of pity you would never have got over.
I had all the poor
taken to Munahpaud, where the greater part of this most afflicted people is now
collected for us to take care of as well as we can. Pray to God that He may
touch the hearts of the rich with some mercy for so many miserable creatures,
pining away in the utmost distress.
I hope to go on
Wednesday to Punical. Don’t relax your watchfulness for the people, I entreat
you, until it is well ascertained the Badages have gone back to their own
territories. Tell Antonio Fernandez lo Grosso and the Patangatins of Old Chael
that I expressly forbid the new colony to go and haunt s the old
place from which they came, that I will severely punish them if they attempt to
do so. Take pains to tell Manuel da Cruz and Matthew also that I send them much
love and all kinds of good wishes.
May our Lord be with
you, and may He strengthen us by His grace, so that we may serve Him with all
our might! Farewell.
Your brother in Jesus
Christ,
From
Munahpaud, August ist, 1544. FRANCIS.
From the mention of
the Badages in this letter it is clear
that the danger from
them had by no means passed away, and indeed the subsequent letters are full of
them. Early in the same month of August he writes to Mancias, who seems to have
been himself in danger, and to have desired to retire from so arduous a post.
He promises him that he would never himself rest until he had set him at
liberty, if he should happen to be taken prisoner. He then tells him that he
has sent a priest to warn the people in the parts where Mancias is, having
received private information that the Badages are again on the move against
them.
May God be with you
ever!
My dear Brother in Jesus
Christ,
The different kinds
of news given me in your letter affected me each in its own way when I read it.
I felt the greatest delight in that part of it which tells me how you have gone
through your late visitation of the villages with very great spiritual fruit;
but on the other hand, the mere mention of your being taken prisoner, which you
tell me, and which, I see well enough, is possible, struck me with grief and
raised a painful image before my mind. If that were to happen, I would never
take a moment’s rest until God gave you back, which I should think would be
very soon. » Some of us, as you know, have had the experience of troubles and
dangers of the kind. May all things turn out to the honour and glory of our
God, wonderful in goodness and in power !
I have sent one of
our priests into your parts, who is to tell all the villages to get their boats
ready and launch them all along the coast, so that they may all embark and get
out to sea before these savage brigands come down on them, for I have good
grounds for thinking that they will soon be pouring down upon this country, as
I am informed that they are arming themselves and assembling their forces, in
order to lay waste the whole coast down to the water’s edge. So I am told by
one
of the principal
Canacars,20 a friend to the native Christians. I had sent to him a
man with a letter addressed to the Rajah of Travancore, begging him to deliver
it in person, and also to employ his favour with that prince, one of whose
intimate friends he is, to get him to lay strict prohibitions on the Ba- dages,
forbidding them to molest our unhappy Christians, any harm done to whom the
Governor of India would consider done to himself, and would avenge it.
I had reason to hope
that he would do what I asked, for he is my friend, and as I have said, is well
affected to the Christians, among whom he has several relations and connections.
He came'himself to see me, not only to pay his respects, but to help me,
offering all the assistance in his power very earnestly. I wrote to him that if
the Badages were so uncontrollable that the Rajah’s authority was not enough
to prevent their ravages, I begged that at least I might have timely notice
given me of their intended invasion on the coast when it was about to take
place, and so be able to send the Christians on board ship and get them out to
sea, so as to escape by flight from massacre and spoliation by land. And now he
has with great good faith given me notice that it is to be.
I have also written
to the Commandant, begging him to send one of the larger craft (‘ catures’)
well armed, to serve as a protection for all the boats of the Christians, which
are quite unarmed. And do you over and over again enjoin on the inhabitants,
and especially those most distant from the sea, to set faithful and watchful
sentinels at the proper points to report how things are hour by hour, that
they may not be caught by a night attack of the horsemen before they are able
to get to the boats, which they have made ready, and set in safety off the
shore. But even when you have told them all this as urgently as you can, I
would have you put but very little confidence in their doing what you tell
them. I know too well their laziness and obstinate stupidity, and I quite
expect they will grudge spending two fanams to pay the necessary expenses. So
do you by yourself, and by means of persons whom you can
£0 The
Canacars were native officials, probably collectors of revenue.
trust, undertake all
the watching and all the care, urging them to get the women and children on
board the boats, which are already launched; and take the opportunity of this
time of calamity to require of them all, and especially of the weaker in sex
and age, to have recourse to God by reciting their prayers. Fear is a grand teacher
of prayer, especially when, as is the case with these poor folk, they have no
one to look to for help but God alone.
I have no
writingpaper here. I left a good deal at your place in a box, and I shall be
glad if you can send me enough for present use by a messenger with great
despatch. I shall expect a letter from you by the same hand, to tell me whether
the boats are already at sea, and whether the poor furniture and slender
properties of the families who are in danger on land have been placed in them, with
the wives and children. If this has not been done, let it be seen to
immediately. Go in my name to Antonio Fernandez lo Grosso, and conjure him by
his friendship for me to pour out the whole of the love he bears to me in the
work of saving these poor wretches, and to use his authority in hastening their
flight, and even forcing them to it, as the only chance of saving their lives
and not only their liberty. I say, their lives and lifeblood, because as to
those who are better off than the rest, the greedy robbers may perhaps look for
more gain by having them ransomed and bought off, and so may carry them away
alive; but their avarice can expect nothing from the poor, and so these will be
cruelly slaughtered. Again and again I insist, be sure to have sentinels on the
watch, in many different places of the coast, all night, especially now that
the moon is at the full and gives convenient light for any expedition by night.
May God keep you
under His protection, the only .protection worth trusting to ! Farewell.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
From
Munahpaud, August 3rd, 1544. FRANCIS.
A fortnight later we
find him writing again most urgently to Mancias to do all in his power to
relieve the misery of the
Christians. There was
now danger in another quarter. Tuticorin, to the north, on the eastern coast
of the extremity of the peninsula of India, has been threatened. There have
been disturbances of some sort, in which we gather that it is only too probable
that the Portuguese—a small garrison, apparently, holding a fortress of some
strength, rather than the whole town—have had something to do. Francis is
afraid that all this will make the case of the Christians harder than ever.
Reports reach him that some Portuguese have been wounded, if not slain. Mancias
must have been at Tuticorin, or nearer to it than Francis, for the letter
requires him to let him know how things are. Then there is a postscript: he has
just heard that the Christians had been plundered and chased into a forest by
the Badages. ‘We are overwhelmed with bad news from every side. God be praised
always !’
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I have another
opportunity of writing, so I again urge upon you what I did this morning. I
implore you again and again to relieve and console with every exertion in your
power these unfortunate people in their deep distress; and also, what I shall
count as the greatest kindness you can do me, in your charity to send me at
once a faithful account of what has really taken place at Tuticorin.
I very much Year that
these troubles at Tuticorin may somehow add fresh ruin and misery to our poor
Christians, who have already miseries enough to bear. People here are in such
consternation with anxiety about impending calamities that no words can
describe it; I could not bear to think, and I hope no one else could, of our
abandoning these people at this moment of uncertainty and affliction. So do not
go with Joam Artiaga where he wishes to take you, as long as there is any
danger at all from the Badages where you are; and when you have got any news
about them, let me, I beseech you, have it from you at once.
The Rajah of
Travancore is sending a Brahmin to them, who takes with him the interpreter of
our Commandant to try and persuade them to peace. No one knows what wall be the
result. We have both the envoys here at Munahpaud just about to embark. I am
very desirous to know what has been going on with the Portuguese at Tuticorin;
and again and again I entreat you to write to me the whole story minutely and
particularly, and to write at once; as soon as you have any news, write it down
and send it off. I am in a perfect fever of anxiety and care and trouble, and
nothing but letters from you can deliver me from it. There is a report here, that
some Portuguese and Christians have been wounded or even killed; and whether it
is true or not, whether anything has happened, and what and how, I am burning
for you to j tell me. As to your journey, we will either settle it when next we
meet, or if the storm from the Badages should blow over first, I will write
very soon and tell you what I think.
May our Lord be ever
with you ! Amen.
- From Munahpaud,
19th August, 1544. .
At this very moment I
have a letter from Guarim, in which, my dearest brother, he sends me word that
the Christians have fled into the forest, after having been stripped of
everything by the Badages, who have wounded one of them, as well as a heathen
native. Bad news comes pouring in on all sides. God our Lord be praised for
ever and ever!
Your .most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
The next day he
writes, evidently in answer to a letter from Mancias, speaking very severely of
the complicity in the misfortunes of the Christians of some one who ought to
have been on their side—probably the Portuguese commandant. He is mentioned in
a later letter as having been the cause of some homicides at Tuticorin, and as
having extorted money from natives who were afterwards put to death. Mancias,
like the Apostles in the Gospel, has been inclined to call down the vengeance
of heaven on the offender.
May God be with you!
Amen.
My dearest Brother,
Those words of our
Lord, He that is not with Me is against Me, will make you understand how
destitute we here are of any friends to aid us in bringing this people to Jesus
Christ. But we must not despond, for God at the end will render unto each one
according to his deserts, and it is very easy for Him, when He pleases, to
accomplish by means of a few what seemed to require the work of many. I say
again and again, I feel far more of compassion for those who fight against God,
than of any desire to call down greater vengeance on their heads—they are
already miserable enough in the mere fact that they do so fight. Why should we draw
down on them God’s vengeance, which will certainly not fail at its own time ?
And how severe are the punishments which God at last inflicts on His enemies,
we see well enough, as often as we tjirn our mind’s eye to the inextinguishable
furnace of hell, whose fires are to rage throughout all eternity for so many
miserable sinners.
The Brahmin I wrote
to you about yesterday is going to you with the Rajah’s message to the Badages:
do your very best, I entreat you, that he may find a ship ready to take him
safely and quickly to Tuticorin. I adjure you, as you love God, to write me
word fully at once and diligently, what has happened and is happening there ; I
mean all about the Commandant, the Portuguese, the Christians of Tuticorin;
tell me all most distinctly, if you care to relieve me from very painful
anxiety.
Say a great many kind
things to Joam d’Artiaga, and also to Manuel da Cruz, from me. Tell Matthew
that he is not to think he is working in vain; I am getting ready for him a
great many more good things than he expects or wishes for.
May our Lord be with
you ! Amen.
From Munahpaud,
August 20th, 1544.
Pray, for the love of
God, take care that the Brahmin meets with no delay in setting sail. Get the
Commandant to receive him honourably, at least with kind words and looks.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Again we have another
letter on the following day. Mancias has been asking to be removed to a more
secure spot. Francis tells him that he will send a priest in his stead as sopn
as his country is free from the alarm of the Badages : he is to go to Manaar,
an island off Ceylon, of which we now hear for the first time, but which soon
became famous in the Christian history of India. Francis himself is at Punical,
where Mancias had been at first stationed. He has no interpreter, but finds
work enough to do in baptizing children and taking care of the sick and poor.
He is going off to Tala, to comfort the sufferers from the late raid; but the
Badages have left his part of the coast free for the present. He hopes to
reduce them to peace by the authority of the Rajah of Travancore. We give this
letter, as well as another written on his return from Tala, which goes
considerably into details as to his wish to visit the Rajah.
May God be always
with you ! Amen.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
Your last letter
gladdened my heart, giving me so much news that I was anxious to have, and
which it will be of use for me to know. I am still expecting to hear again from
you that your people and the country about you are entirely safe from the
Badages, and I beg you to tell me of this as soon as ever you can do so with
truth. Then you will be able without danger, and without giving your present
people any ground of complaint, to go elsewhere, where, as you know, there is a
bright hope and fair occasion of doing something good for the service of God. I
shall then send you Father
Francis Coelho to
take your present post. Thus you will be quite free, and will leave with the
approval of all, and go where there is great expectation of fruitful labour for
the glory of God, to baptize the natives of Careapatana, and work in other ways
for the service of religion with the Carean people of Beadala and the ruler of
those parts, whom they call the Mu- daliar. The Governor of the province of
Negapatam has great influence and favour with the Rajah of Jafanapatam, under
whose dominion the isles of Manaar lie, and his disposition is such that we may
well hope that he will protect them with his favour with his sovereign. As
soon, therefore, as the people where you are are in perfect tranquillity, and
entirely free from all fear of the Badages, you must send a messenger to let me
know this, that I may send without further delay Francis Coelho with money,
letters of introduction, where they are wanted, and written instructions, as to
what I send you to Manaar to do, how it is to be done, and for how long.
I recommend our
brother Joam d’Artiaga most particularly to your kindness; and write me word
what he is in need of, that I may provide it duly for him. I am almost alone
here, since Antonio has remained ill at Munahpaud, and what is very
inconvenient, I am working in the midst of a people whose language I do not
understand, and I have no interpreter. The only shifts for an interpreter that
I have had are Rodriguez, who is here now, and Antonio when he was here. You
can tell yourself how much they know of our language. So you can easily imagine
how I live here, what sort of instructions I can give, when the persons who
ought to explain to the people what I say don’t understand me, nor I them. My
only way of eloquence at present is that of signs. However, I am not without
something to do, for I do not require an interpreter to baptize the little
children just born, or those whom their parents bring to me for baptism, and
when I see people without clothes or worn with hunger, the mere sight of them
and their whole appearance tells me what they want. I am so well occupied in
these two chief kinds of most useful work that I have no regret as to the time
spent in them. The
' VOL. I. Q
Badages, who were
infesting this coast, are all gone to Cabe- cate, leaving us free and without
fear for the present; but those who were ranging through the interior of the
country are still committing most cruel ravages there, nor will they cease from
rapine and violence, until peace or a truce is made with them by the authority
of the Rajah of Travancore. I told you we were trying to bring this about.
May our Lord be ever
with you ! Amen.
From Punical, August
21, 1544.
This night I sail for
Tala, to comfort, if I can, the poor indigent folk who, I am told, are there
in great numbers, suffering the utmost distress.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
It is important to
notice the date of this last letter, as it makes it clear that as early as the
August of 1544, Francis had received overtures from the inhabitants of the
island of Manaar, who sent to him to beg for instruction and baptism. The fame of
his miracles and sanctity had flown across the gulf which separates Ceylon and
its little adjacent islands from the mainland of India. We shall presently
have to relate the issue of this Manarese deputation, which came at a time
when, as we shall see from the next letter in our series, Francis was very
anxious to secure the work on which he had lately been engaged in Travancore
from ruin by means of the protection of the (so called) ‘ Great King.’ We have
already spoken of the system adopted by Francis for the prosecution and increase
of the faith among his converts on the Fishery Coast. Such system required
considerable organization. The priests need not be very numerous; but there
must be a building for religious meetings in each several village, and besides
these, there must be persons appointed to take the lead at these meetings, to
teach the Catechism to the children, to baptize newborn infants in cases of
danger, to announce marriages, settle disputes, and the like; and the method
adopted by Francis Xavier required that these should be well paid, and kept
regu
larly to their work
under the supervision of the missionaries, who were to move about from place to
place, making several circuits in the course of the year. All this, together
with the provision for the priests themselves, and the security of the new
converts from the tyranny of their own local Adigares, as well as' from the
ever recurring danger of a raid from the Ba- dages, had to be looked to, and it
is evident that Francis was in hopes of inducing the Rajah himself to make
arrangements for it. But so many demands required full exposition, and the
personal influence of Francis himself to enforce them. The Rajah had already
shown himself very favourable, as will be seen from the following letter, but
there was still much to be done before the whole plan could be organized. We
may reasonably suppose that it was this which had occupied Francis, and made
him give up the thought of going himself to Manaar, while at the same time he
was doubtful whether it would be prudent to venture to ask so much, as long as
the Court of Travancore had just reason to feel indignant at the misconduct of
the Portuguese.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
The Prince who
resides at Tala, and who is related to the Rajah of Travancore, is so friendly
to us, that as soon as he heard of the wrongs done by the Adigares to the
Christians of those parts, he sent at once one of his household in his own
name with a letter for the Adigares, bidding them to permit free exportation of
food and other necessaries from the continent to the islands where the
Christians are, and to help them with every other kind of friendly assistance
of which they are in need. He charged this officer to find put from the
Christians the names of the Adigares, so as to communicate them to me, and
bring him also a written list of them, that if he has occasion by and bye to go
to visit the Rajah, he may be able to tell him the names of the men who holding
the rank of Adigares have abused their authority to vex the
Christians, so that
the Rajah, who shows us favour, may prevent them from such conduct in future.
I want you to arrange
with the Patangatins that the person sent by the Prince to aid the Christians
may be received by them with every mark of honour, that they may give him a
present as a reward, paying him gratefully and well for the journey and trouble
he has taken on their account. I cannot do it myself, nor can the people here,
we are so poor just now. The Patangatins must not be afraid to spend in this
useful and pious way a small sum out of the public money, which they very often
spend so mischievously on dances, banquets, and other profane pleasures of the
same kind. And do you yourself, out of your own poverty, give something to win
the man’s favour, that he may be softened by all these little presents, and
discharge with greater alacrity and efficacy his commission, which is to make
the Adigares afraid in future to annoy the Christians, as they have done up to
the present time, to their great loss and suffering; and, on the contrary, to
constrain them to show our people all those kindly offices which are to be
expected from good and friendly neighbours in the thousand daily occasions of
mutual intercourse and commerce.
I am most anxious to
know what you have heard with certainty of the affair which has made so much
noise here. It has been reported everywhere that a Portuguese had carried off
one of the Rajah of Travancore’s servants, and had taken him in fetters to
Tuticorin. Now I know that rumour often reports things which are either without
foundation, or much exaggerated by illwill. Tell me first whether the fact be
true; then, if it be so, what right the Portuguese alleges on his own side,
what occasion or pretext he would have had for such an act. I have already
written to you at length touching this business and the reports which are
current about it. It is the more necessary for me to know exactly how the truth
is, as my plan of going to visit the Rajah depends on what I may hear. For if
this crime has really been committed, and an the way report says, I think it
will be better to put off the whole thing and not to go to that court, where
the very sight of a European would be hate*
ful, and where I should
have to face the responsibility of so inexcusable an outrage. Any one can see
how detestable the whole country and especially the Court itself must think it,
that a foreigner should dare to lay violent hands on a servant of the Maharajah
in a place under his dominion, especially when that prince is behaving so
differently to us. Just lately he received Father Francis Coelho with
wonderful courtesy, and granted him absolutely every favour that he asked for
the Christians; indeed, he showed himself so very well inclined to benefit
them on representations of this Father, that, to give him some striking proof
of his regard, he, of his own accord, created four of our Munahpaud Christians
Patangatins, and this without any fees from them, and without any cost to the
people, for he formally forbade the exaction of any money on this occasion, as
was formerly the custom in the time of the Pulas. Besides this, he has created
three other Christian Patangatins in other places without any expense to the
inhabitants, declaring with the greatest kindness 'that he did all this out of
regard to Father Coelho, who had been to visit him, as I told you.
I conjure you, by the
love you bear to God, write to the Commandant as precisely as possible in my
name, to say that I entreat him over and over again that if he has any regard
for me he will abstain during this whole month of September from any offence or
violence whatever to the subjects of the Maharajah, and not permit any
Portuguese to treat any of them injuriously during the same time. Give him as a
reason, what is qujte true, that we find this nation of the subjects of the
Rajah of Travancore more easy to persuade and better disposed than any other in
all that concerns the interests of religion and of the Christians. If the
Commandant will only believe this, I cannot doubt that he would see most
forcible reasons in it for granting my request that he will do no harm to
people who deserve so well at our hands. You will easily see what I am at in
making this compact for a kind of truce for this next month. You know that I am
thinking, on account of important interests of religion, of going to the Rajah
within
the time I have
named, and I should be annoyed and grieved beyond measure if my access to him
were to be hindered by any new matter of complaint that might arise against our
countrymen.
However, as I said, I
have not positively settled whether I go or not. I am waiting to hear what
plausible defence can be given as to this reported seizure of the Rajah’s
servant; and for this it is that I want you so much to write. If you can tell
me what I wish, I shall set off without delay, embarking first for Cochin. But
now mind that I wish this letter, on which my decision depends, should not be
in your hand nor signed with your name. I remember that you gave me to
understand that you had some things to tell me about this business which could
only be told by word of mouth, when we were together. I can’t help suspecting
that there is something at the bottom about the Commandant himself, or the
Portuguese, or possibly the native Christians, which it is well I should know,
that I may remedy the evil, and well also that it should not be trusted to
black and white, for if the letter were to chance to be intercepted, it might
put you out with the persons among whom you live. I highly approve your
caution, but, all the same, as just at this moment we cannot meet, and as my
affairs are just at that, turn when I can’t do without this intelligence, I
have made up my mind that you must let me know about the matter, whatever it
is, by a letter written by some one else, and which, if it fall into any one’s
hands, may not be brought home to you by your handwriting or your signature.
This letter send me by some very faithful messenger, and then, having had all
information, I shall decide whether it is worth while for me to go to the
Rajah. But I have already determined, if this crime by which the Rajah has been
insulted is clearly proved, and as shameful and inexcusable as report makes it,
I shall not go there at all.
May God our Lord
always give us His aid and His grace!
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud,
September 2, 1544.
The caution used by
Mancias as to the information which he had to communicate concerning the
outrage on the Travan- corese noble throws considerable light on the conditions
under which the missionary enterprize of Francis and his associates was carried
on. They had not only to deal with the difficulties which consisted in the
ignorance, idleness, and voluptuousness of the natives themselves, in their
inveterate tendency to relapse into idolatry or superstition, to drink arrack,
or revolt against the severity of the Christian law of chastity and monogamy.
Nor did the external dangers to their faith or to their Christian practice lie
only in the suspicion with which every convert, much more every convert
community, must have been regarded by the remainder of the Indians, and by the
Mussulmans and Jews, who were in great numbers and very influential in the
country, in the tyranny of their own magistrates, or in the danger from foreign
marauders. The Portuguese, as we have already said, were the great enemies of
the converts, both directly, in the outrages which they so frequently committed
upon them as well as upon the other inhabitants of the country
indiscriminately, and indirectly in the odium which their outrages excited,
and which fell upon all Christians, and notably upon these neophytes and their
teachers. These last, as Francis Xavier seems to have felt, were particularly
liable to be made responsible for the misdemeanours of their fellow countrymen,
as they were undoubtedly in many cases the promoters, at least indirectly, of
peace and alliance between the latter and the Portuguese, the good faith of
which alliance was so frequently broken first on the Christian side. Their
position is in some degree like that of the Catholic missionaries of our own
time in North America, who often render great services to the Government of
the United States by prevailing on the Indian tribes under their influence to
accept terms of peace, which imply great concessions on their part, while all
the time the Government is in truth unable to control the violence and wanton
cruelty of its own settlers along the extreme frontiers of the civilized
regions, whose barbarities sometimes exceed those of the unconverted Indians
themselves, and very naturally
place even the lives
of the missionaries in danger. Francis Xavier may not have been exposed himself
to this particular peril, but we see clearly how hopeless he felt it to be to
struggle on for the free establishment of the Christian religion among these
nations, with the enormous weight against him of the hostility so justly
aroused by the wicked licentiousness and rapine of those Portuguese who looked
upon India as a country in which their one business was to enrich themselves
and indulge their own passions without regard to God or man, and who
considered the Indians as hardly having the common rights of human beings when
they came in the way of their own avarice or lust.
We have seen how
Francis, in his last letter, was sanguine enough to hope that the Commandant of
Tuticorin, Cosmo de Payva, would appreciate the force of the consideration he
there urged in favour of peaceable conduct to the natives. There had as yet
been no open breach between them, though the character of the man and the
opinion of Francis concerning him are sufficiently indicated in the letter
alluded to. It turned out, however, that nothing was to be hoped for in this
quarter. We know Cosmo to have been one of the very worst of the bad Portuguese
officers, of whom there were but too many in India, who on account of their own
interests and the great opportunities which they possessed of furthering them
with impunity at the expense of the cause of religion, became in fact more
deadly enemies of the Gospel than the Badages themselves. He may have been led
by his own guilty conscience to suspect that Francis had written to Goa to
complain of him. At all events, he had written to Francis before his letter
could reach Mancias, declaring that he would have nothing to do with his
friendship, and loading him with reproaches and insults. It is quite clear that
Francis must have crossed him unwittingly in some of the measures he had taken
for the protection of the Christians, or to curb the aggressive and tyrannical
violence of the Portuguese. But the poor man was soon an object of pity to all,
as well as to the Saint. It would appear from one of two letters written only
two days after the letter mentioned
above, that he had in
some way played into the hands of the Badages, instead of protecting the
Christians, and had thus tried to purchase the friendship of the invaders for
himself. His reward was that he shared the fate of the Christians of Tuticorin:
his ship was burnt, as well as the building or fortress occupied by him on the
shore, and he was driven like the Christians first of Cape Comorin, and then of
Tuticorin, to take refuge on some barren islands off the coast to save his
life. Francis was eager to help and save him. He urged Mancias to get
provisions on board some boats—water to drink especially—and set off at once to
his relief, and he wrote also to the native magistrates along the coast to do
the same. He would go himself, he says, but he has just received the letter in
which the Commandant renounces his friendship,J and he would be sorry to pain
him at such a time of extremity by the sight of one to whom he could use such
language.
This calamity, which
befell the Christians of Tuticorin, as we may suppose, the Christian natives
living around that town, and the Commandant himself &lso, gave occasion to
the two letters which next follow. We put that which relates to the Christian
natives first.
May our Lord God
always be with you with His aid! Amen.
v 1
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I am in much anxiety
about the Christians of Tuticorin, who are in the greatest possible misery with
no one to care for them. I beg and pray you, by the love you bear to God, use
the utmost diligence to find out at once, and to let me know, the real truth of
the matter and in what condition they are. If you think it would be for the
service of God to go to them, then go at once with all the boats you can get at
Combutur and Punical, and transport the poor wretched people from the barren
isles where they now are, partly to Combutur,
partly to Punical and
Trinchandour. Set off at once, pray, and without delay, go as fast as possible
with all the tones that you can find at Punical, and send them word at Combutur
to follow you with all theirs.
I conjure you by our
Lord never let it be that Beterbemali, the leader of these robber Badages, and
all his horde of plundering ruffians, should have their hearts’ desire
fulfilled, that the remnant of this most afflicted people, who have been driven
out of their homes and country by terror of them and their insolence, should
perish of hunger and thirst because you were slow in succouring them. Fine
watch indeed was kept over them by that Commandant of yours ! It would
certainly have been somewhat more reasonable for him to take care of the
Christians committed to his ward and charge than to have chosen rather, as it
appears he did, to make his own peace by presents with Beterbemali and his
bloodthirsty horsemen, who fly all over the country, laying waste everything
with fire and sword 1 I am writing to the Patangatins of Punical and Combutur,
telling them to put themselves under your lead, and come at once with all the
boats they have at hand to the succour of the Christians at Tuticorin, who are
dying of hunger and thirst in those arid islands, destitute of all the
necessaries of life, and to take them away at once.
The order I thus give
you to go there is to be understood as depending on whether you think that your
going is necessary to carry out the business effectively. If, when you have
delivered my letter to the Patangatins, you see they are zealous enough and
take up the thing heartily of themselves, that you can trust them to do what is
necessary with thorough vigour without you, then by all means stay where you
are, for I well know how much the need of your care on the spot may make you
wish to stay at your work. You must therefore weigh in the scales of charity
and balance duly one against the other the two claims on you, that of the
extreme distress of the Tuti- corinians on the one hand, and that of the good
of the people amongst whom you are working on the other, and give the preference
to the most urgent. If without your going there the
death of so many poor
creatures, who are already at their last gasp, cannot be prevented, then leave
all else and go there as fast as possible. Settle yourself what is best, I
leave the whole matter for your judgment to decide on the moment. What you must
provide for is that, whether you go or whether you send some one else in your
place, the boats go at once to these starving and thirsting wretches, and that
they carry sufficient water and provisions to relieve as soon as ever they
arrive the hunger and thirst of so many fellow creatures of every age and sex,
who are dying on those inhospitable rocks.
May God our Lord be
ever with you ! Amen. Tell me as soon as you can whether Manuel da Cruz and
Matthew have got the better of the state of grief in which they were when I
last saw them. Farewell.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
September 5th, 1544.
It seems that just
after writing this Francis received the news that the Commandant himself was in
the same plight with the people whom he ought to have protected.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I have the saddest
possible news about the Commandant. His vessel has been burnt, and the whole of
his residence on the shore has also been burnt, and he himself, ruined and in
want, has taken refuge in the islands, where he is in extreme want and barely
alive. Go at once to his aid, I beseech you, for the love of God. Get together
as quickly as you can all the barques- of. the Punical people, as many as you
can find, and put supplies on board, especially of water, and go yourself to
the spot. It must be done with all despatch: his condition is as bad as it can
be, and admits of no delay. I am writing most urgently to the Patangatins to
aid you to the utmost in this most necessary work of assist
ance to the
Commandant. I have told them to load as many barques as they can send off with
all that can be of use in such a case, specially water to drink, as every one
knows that the islands are entirely devoid of it: and I want the barques that
are sent to be as many as possible, that there may be enough to bring back to
the land the very large number of people of all ages and sexes who have been
driven to take refuge on those inhospitable rocks by the same storm which has
fallen on the Commandant.
I would go myself and
leave you quiet at Punical, if I thought my presence would be pleasing to the
Commandant, but quite lately he renounced all friendship with me in a letter
full of the most atrocious charges. Among other things he said that he could
not without grave scandal mention the evils which he felt that I had brought on
him. God knows whether I have ever done him any harm, especially such as could
not be mentioned without scandal. But this is no time for defending myself or
making complaints; what is of present importance is that we understand that in
his present state of feeling towards me, I should for his own sake avoid
meeting him. The poor man’s calamities are abundantly great as they are, and I
might add to them some new annoyance if now at the moment of his deepest
distress I were to force on him the sight of one whom he dislikes so much. It
is this fear, chiefly, that prevents me from going to him, though there are
many other reasons against my taking the journey. So do you, for God’s sake, do
all that I should do myself with the greatest diligence. I am writing to the
Patangatins of Combutur and Bembare to get together immediately all the boats
they can find everywhere, load them with food and water, and sail at once to
the Commandant. And if you wish to please God, put your hand to the work with
all vigour, and determine not to allow yourself ever to have the selfreproach
of having left out anything that could be done in the way of the utmost
exertion to relieve before it is too late the extreme distress of this
Commandant, which calls on us for the greatest possible display of mercy and
charity. And of course your care must extend itself to the
numbers of unhappy
Christians who have been struck by the same blows of fortune. The regard I have
for them makes me more urgent, and again and again I pray you to leave nothing
undone to supply with all haste, promptly and efficiently, the very urgent
needs of so many unfortunate creatures.
May our Lord be ever
with you ! Amen.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
Alendale, September
5th, 1544.
It will seem almost
hard to believe, but the very next letter of St. Francis, written two days
later (September 7), speaks of a fresh provocation given on the part of the
Portuguese, not to the Rajah of Travancore, who seems, as far as we can gather,
not to have resented the injury already mentioned to his noble, but to the
terrible Badages themselves in the person of their leader, Beterbemali. St.
Francis had gone off, after giving directions to Mancias and others for the
relief of the Commandant, to visit some Christian settlements on the western
side of Cape Comorin, and was proceeding on his road, when he was arrested by
the news that some Portuguese had seized and carried off the brother in law of
Beterbemali himself. The act may perhaps have been one of reprisal. The
Portuguese were generally safe enough in their vessels or their fortresses,
though the late calamity at Tuticorin may have warned them not to be too secure
even there, and they may have had little fear of any revenge that the Badages
might take. That revenge would be taken on the defenceless native population,
who had placed themselves in so questionable a position in the eyes of their
fellow countrymen by becoming Christians—a position which gave them the
character of friends of the foreigner without ensuring to them protection from
him. They were like the Catholics in England after the attempt of the Catholic
King to overthrow Queen Elizabeth had failed, save that these had more claim on
the forbearance of their countrymen on account of their own tried loyalty. It
was easy work for the unscrupulous men who formed these garrisons to commit
outrage
upon outrage, for
which the native Christians were to pay, and this abundantly explains their
aggressiveness, and the position of St. Francis with regard to them. The
Christian populations were nothing to them and all to him, and he had not only
to convert the heathen, form the new converts into Christian communities, and
then secure them at least liberty and toleration from their natural rulers, but
also to meet storm after storm which swept over them in consequence of the
depredations and outrages of the Portuguese.
In the case before us
we have a letter of unusual length, in which he explains to Mancias what steps
he has taken. The Badages had sworn vengeance against everything bearing the
Christian name, but they were pretty sure to confine their revenge to those
Christians who were at their mercy. The whole of the Christian population of
the Comorin coast was in danger of the fate which had already befallen them
once before, and which now was befalling the people of Tuticorin. Coelho, the
secular priest already named, seems to have been left in Travancore by St.
Francis in the course of his preaching there, and he is now sent to protect the
Christians on the spot, and to use the name of Francis to pacify them. He hopes
also in future to secure for the converts an asylum, not under the illusory
protection of the Portuguese, but in the territories of this heathen king, who
had become his friend, and who had also political reasons for hoping some
advantage to himself from the friendship of the Governor. We give the letter in
question, which shows how confidently St. Francis could speak of his own
influence.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
May it please God to
grant us His most holy grace ! For in this world truly we have no help but in
Him alone. I was at Trinchandour and on the point of setting off for
Virandapatanam to visit the Christians there, as I had done at Alendale,
Pudicurim, and Trinchandour. I had found plenty
to do everywhere, and
to convince me how necessary such visits are. Well, as I said, I was in the act
of setting off again, when a number of messengers from all parts came to tell
me in the greatest alarm that the whole savage race of the Badages was in
excitement and all but up in arms. The cause of their fury is that the
Portuguese have seized and taken prisoner a near relation of Beterbemali, their
leader, in fact his wife’s own brother. The Badages, exasperated by this
affront, were all vowing to exterminate everything Christian throughout the
whole coast of Comorin.
As soon as I heard
all this, I wrote at once to Father Francis Coelho that immediately on
receiving my letter he was to hasten to the place where the Christians of
Comorin have taken refuge, to protect as far as may be by my influence these unfortunate
people, and preserve them from the terrible disasters which threaten them on
this occasion. I know that amongst the Badages there is a great deal of talk
about my credit with ^Iniquitribirim, whom they call their Rajah, though they
are far from obeying him implicitly, and indeed some of them, who follow
Beterbemali, have openly shaken off his authority. But the greater part have
still a certain respect for the Rajah’s name, so I hope that Father Coelho, as
sent by me, and representing, as he does, me, may find some respect paid him,
and be able to protect these cruelly used people. I have all the more hope of
this, as I learn from Father Coelho’s letter that it is not only the rebel
Badages that are incensed at the capture of Beterbemali’s brother in law, but
that the rest of the nation is being roused to arms against the people of
Comorin by a relation of Iniquitribirim, Rajah of Travancore, who has lately
gone among them. Now with this chief a recommendation from me seemed likely to
be of some use in preventing him from using violence against the Christians, because
he knows that L am in some sort of account and honour with his Rajah. My hope
was strengthened by news which Coelho gives me in the same letter, written
quite lately, that the Rajah of Travancore had sent three or four of his
principal courtiers to see me, who would have been here already if the
fatigues of the
journey had not made them halt at Munahpaud to take some repose. They are the
bearers of a letter from the Rajah, in which he begs me not to think it too
much trouble to come to him, and not to delay, for that he has to communicate
some business of very great moment, which it is of much importance both to him
and to us that he should talk over with me. As far as I can fathom the matter
at this distance, I think I see reason for supposing that the Rajah takes this
line because he feels himself in much need of the protection of the Governor of
India. Current reports say that the subordinate chiefs who are not loyal to
him, the Pulas of whom we have heard so much in these parts, have grown very
powerful and become very rich from long prosperity, so that the Rajah has some
reason to fear that they may make large presents to the Portuguese Governor,
and get him on their side, so as to help them with some troops.
Knowing all this of
the state of Iniquitribirim’s affairs, I am the more ready to believe the
letter which I have this moment received from him. In this he promises me, in
the strongest and plainest terms, that he will show all favour to the
Christians, whom he even invites into his dominions, answering for it that
they shall live in perfect security and tranquillity. So I shall go to him
with all speed, and intend to leave this tonight. My chief motive is the
anxiety which I feel so strongly to do something at once for our unfortunate
Christians who have been driven out of Tuticorin and Bembare, and to secure for
them a fixed and safe place of settlement in the dominions of the Maharajah.
The first thing that I shall settle with Iniquitribirim, and with the utmost •
diligence, will be to get him to assign a certain territory where these most
miserable exiles may dwell unhurt and in peace.
Meanwhile I wish you
to use every means that occurs to you with all diligence to get them over from
the desert islands, where they are being killed by want, to Combutur and Puni-
cal; and see that they are hospitably entertained there until, as I said
before, I can provide for them. Remember to write to me fully and minutely
about the affairs and conditions of
the Christians,
especially the Commandant and the Portuguese, how each one is, and how their
affairs get on. I should like you also, if you can steal so much of time from
your more urgent occupations, to make an excursion to visit the Christians at
Combutur, as well as the Careans on the Fishery Coast and those who live in the
village where Thomas de Motta is head of affairs, and lastly, those who live
near Patanam. It would delight me very much if you found leisure to visit them
all, for I know the need they have of such lookings up. Would that I had time
myself to go there now! I should like nothing better than to inspect all those
places and make an accurate visitation of them all.
I beg of you,
therefore, do all this for me, and inquire particularly how the instruction of
the children is getting on everywhere, and whether it is faithfully performed.
You know that in all these places I have established schoolmasters. For the
salary which I have promised them you can take a hundred fanams, which is
deposited for this purpose with your friend Manuel da Cruz, who lives at
Punical. You must spend this sum in paying the schoolmasters and catechists
their salary, each one will tell you how much I usually give him. Don’t think
that any money or time can be better employed, and rely upon it you will do a
great deal for the special service of God our Lord, if you take pains and care
to have this instruction of the young, a thing more necessary than any other,
assiduously and diligently carried on. The man who is going to your parts, and
to whom 1 have given this letter for you, appears very good, and inspired with
great desire to serve God. Receive him kindly, and keep him with you till I
return from Tniquitribirim; or, if you think it advantageous for the service,
of God, and if he would like it also, leave him at Combutur, he may do what he
can in the building of the church. I hear a report that a certain barber is
setting out from where you are. I shall very likely meet him on the road I am going,
so pray write by him a full account of everything. I am very uneasy as to how
things are, both with the Portuguese and Christians.
VOL. I. R
May our Lord grant us
in the next life more tranquillity and consolation than we find in this !
Farewell.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Trinchandour,
September 7, 1544.
In the next letter, a
few days later, he speaks of other concessions which he hopes to gain.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I could not tell you
if I tried the heartfelt joy your letter gives me. It has taken away that
wearing, burning anxiety of heart which I felt about the Commandant and the
others who, like him, were driven from house and home by the late storm. May
God our Lord dwell with them all, as 1 pray that He may be with myself!
On Tuesday, about two
hours before daybreak, I sent Father Francis Coelho to the Prince, the Rajah
ofTravancore’s relation, who is now staying at Tala, about two leagues from
Munahpaud. Father Coelho was most graciously received by him. I sent him in
hopes of thus giving peace to all this country, which is now in suspense,
disquiet, fear, and indeed in perfect consternation at the threatened inroad
of the Badages. I should like, before I go away from this, to leave these
afflicted people, if not at perfect peace, at least with some truce to their
miseries. The Prince told Coelho that Beterbemali was making great haste to
meet the Maharajah by sea, with the intention of giving him battle. Another
reason for my sending Coelho was to obtain letters from the Prince to the
Adigares, commanding them to allow the exportation of rice and other useful
articles of food. On the afternoon of the same Tuesday I got your letter, I
immediately sent off a safe person to Father Coelho, with a letter which he was
to deliver from me to the Prince. In this letter I have begged him to write to
the Adigares of your country not to oppose, as they have hitherto
done, the importation
of provisions to Punical, nor to continue to vex the Christians, but rather to
treat them with kindness. In short, I am doing all I can so as to leave this
coast in some sort of tranquillity before setting out on my journey to Iniqui-
tribirim. I hope to return armed with more effectual powers under the royal
authority itself to resist the injustice of these Adigares.
Tomorrow morning I
shall write to the Commandant: I can’t write now, for the messenger is in such
a hurry to set off. I am expecting Francis Coelho tonight. Tomorrow morning I
shall send you a farther letter. For the present remember me most kindly to
Paul Vaz, and tell Matthew that I am writing to Manuel da Cruz to pay him the
twelve fanams which he asked me for his father and for that sister of his who
is so poor. Francis Coelho will bring me news enough, enough to fill a longer
letter, as I have promised. May our Lord be pleased to bring us together in His
kingdom ! Amen.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud,
September ioth, 1544.
The next very short letter
is important as giving us a clue to the movements of the writer after it was
sent. Francis had made up his mind, it seems, to go to the Rajah, and he begs
the prayers of the children for the success of his undertaking and the safety
of his journey.
(jxxxvii.) To Francis Mancias.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
Antonio is ill in
bed, and can do nothing for us. Send me immediately to Munahpaud Antonio the
Parava to act as servant to us. Write to me, I beseech you, and tell me whether
those poor afflicted people are well treated. My anxiety for them accompanies
me everywhere, and leaves me no rest, and the only thing that comforts me is to
have from time to time news of how they are going on.
As soon as I get to
the Rajah of Travancore, I will take care to have orders dispatched by him, and
I will send them to you, commanding all the Adigares throughout the country to
treat the Christians well. Pray to God for me, and tell all the children to
remember to commend me to God in their prayers. I have addressed a bill of
exchange to Manuel da Cruz, on account of which he will give you 100 fanams to
pay for the instruction of the children. I send it to you with this letter.
May our Lord ever
assist you with His help and favour ! Amen.
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Tuticorin,
September 20th, 1544.
How exactly Francis
fared in his journey to the Rajah of Travancore, we have no precise
information; but we can gather a good deal from incidental expressions in
subsequent letters, as well as from the details afterwards gathered on the
spot. We find him not long after this writing to St. Ignatius as to the sort of
persons who are fitted to be missionaries in the countries in which he has been
labouring; and when he speaks of the strength and courage which are required,
he mentions that there are sometimes occasions when life itself has to be
risked in the cause of God. We may well understand that in proportion to the
hold which his character and miracles gave him upon the people would be the
hatred with which he was regarded by the Brahmins and the teachers of the false
religions which he overthrew. He never made any compromise with them, and one
of the first steps which he took after baptizing the inhabitants of a village
was to destroy the idols and their pagodas. It is natural enough that frequent
attempts should have been made on his life. The cottages in which he rested
were burnt down, sometimes three or four in one day. Once he was saved, like
Charles II., in the thick branches of a tree, around the stem of which his
enemies were seeking him to slay him. He always had a desire for martyr
dom, and was almost
reckless in exposing himself to danger. From a letter of the next year to
Mancias we find that the Rajah had given him a sum of money for the purpose of
build: ing churches for the converts, and from this we may conjecture
that a considerable part of the concessions which Francis desired to obtain
from him was granted on occasion of this visit. It is certain that religion
took deep root and flourished in Travancore from this time.
Manaar, Jafanapatam5 Meliapor.
We have already mentioned the little island of
Manaar, which gives its name to the gulf between Ceylon and the Fishery Coast,
in which the pearl fishery, of which we have heard so much, was carried on.
Manaar lies a little off the northwestern coast of Ceylon, separated from the
larger island by a narrow but deep and turbulent channel, the remaining and far
larger width of the belt of sea which lies between the continent of India and
the two islands being at that point crossed by the remarkable ridge of shoals
which goes by the name of Adam’s Bridge, which almost connects Manaar with the
island of Rame- serum lying just off the mainland. Manaar is described as a
sandy and not very fertile island, with one good port and a considerable
traffic. It was greatly inferior in all material and natural richness to its
beautiful neighbour Ceylon, called by its own inhabitants the Land of Delights,
and traditionally regarded as the site of the terrestrial Paradise. Manaar was
subject to one of the several small kingdoms into which Ceylon was
divided—that of Jafanapatam. We are not told precisely at what point of the
preaching of St. Francis on the Fishery Coast and in Travancore it was that the
inhabitants of this little island sent to request him to come to instruct and
baptize them, nor do we know whether, in their case as in the case of the Paravas,
there were any motives of policy to help in inclining them to desire to receive
the faith. They proved the sincerity of their conversion, after it had taken
place, in the noblest manner. Francis wished himself to go in answer to the invitation,
but the affairs of the Travancore mission were then at a critical point, and he
had also to provide for the protection of the Christians of the Fisheries. He
sent therefore, in his place, one of the secular priests who had accompanied
him
from Goa, and in a
short time received the news of the instruction and baptism of a considerable
number of the Manarese.
The position of the
Portuguese in India was at that time such that it was quite natural for any of
the native princes, either on the mainland or in Ceylon, to look upon the conversion
of their subjects in any numbers as an act of dangerous rebellion on their
part, and as involving further aggression and a further advance in power on
that of the formidable strangers from Europe. The Rajah of Jafanapatam immediately
took the alarm, and treated the Manarese with the utmost severity. He was a bigoted
heathen, hating everything Christian, all the more because he was obliged from
motives of fear to pretend to be a friend to the Portuguese. The insular
position of Manaar might make it very easy for the Portuguese to seize it
under the pretext of protecting the new converts. Moreover, the Rajah was an
usurper, and his elder brother, whom he had dethroned, was still alive. All
these motives for fear made him act at once, and endeavour to tread out the new
faith before it had made further progress. A considerable force was sent into
the island, and the new Christians, after having been commanded and having
refused to renounce their religion, were put to death. The number of men,
women, and children who thus suffered is given as six hundred.
Some writers continue
the story of the persecution in Manaar by connecting it with the conversion of
a young prince of one of the kingdoms of Ceylon which happened at this time,
but which appears more likely to have taken place at Candy than at Jafanapatam.1
It is characteristic of the times and of
1 Bartoli, who is followed by Massei and
others, tells us that this prince was the eldest son of the Rajah of
Jafanapatam himself. This is hardly consistent with the way in which Francis
Xavier speaks of him in a letter which will follow soon. Lucena, a very
careful and sagacious writer, thinks it must have been the Prince of Candy, as
Don Joam de Castro afterwards put that kingdom, as well as that of Jafanapatam,
into the hands of a fugitive prince who had come to Goa, and been made a
Christian. This would just suit the case of the cousin of the youth of whom we
are now speaking. See Lucena, Vida de S. Francisco de
Xavier, liv. ii. c. 19.
the Portuguese
character that we should find that it was not unfrequent for the merchants who
traded at the various heathen ports in the East to take on themselves the part
of missionaries of the Gospel, enlarging on the beauty and blessings of the
Christian faith to those with whom they dealt. One of these merchants had come
to be received with great favour at Jhe Court of Candy, and had made so much
way with the eldest son of the Rajah as to persuade him to receive instruction
as a preparation for baptism. The Rajah heard of it, and the youth was at once
put to death by his order.2 His body was left naked and exposed on
the ground; but the Christian merchant buried it in the night. In the morning
the earth was found to have opened itself over the corpse in the shape of a
wellformed cross, and this prodigy was repeated in spite of the efforts of the
heathen to fill up the cross again and again. Moreover, a cross of red light
was seen by multitudes in the air over the grave : a great number of converts
were made, many of whom were put to death, others flying the country to escape the
fury of the Rajah. Among these fugitives were two young princes, the brother
and the cousin of the youth who had been martyred.3 The mother of
one of these princes, the aunt of the other, appears to have connived at their
conversion, and she sent them secretly out of the country to preserve their
lives. They were placed under the protection of the Portuguese, and came to
Francis in Travancore on their way to Goa. At the same time the brother of the
Rajah of Jafanapatam, already mentioned, seems to have found fresh reason for
feeling himself unsafe while within reach of his brother. He made his way with
some adherents to Negapatam, a port on the eastern side of the Indian
peninsula, at the very southern extremity of the long sweep of coast which
forms the shore of the great bay of Bengal. From Negapatam he passed overland
to Goa, where he placed him
2 Lucena speaks of him as baptized in his
own blood.
3 The historians tell us that the latter
of the two was the heir to the throne, it being the custom in India for the
Rajahs to be succeeded by the children of their sisters, rather than by their
own, real or supposed, it being thought that the royal line was more certainly
secured in that way.
self under
instruction, undertaking, if his kingdom were/ restored to him, to
make it Christian as well as tributary to the Portuguese crown.
All these affairs, of
which St. Francis speaks summarily in one of the letters which we shall have
presently to insert, turned his thoughts at this time to a journey and voyage northwards,
that he might confer concerning them with the Governor of India, who, if he did
not need any one to urge him to punish the Rajah of Jafanapatam for his cruelty
to the new Christians, might perhaps require advice and influence that might
induce him not to carry matters too far or with too high a hand.4 We
see also in the letters some hint of arrangements to be made with him on the
part of the Rajah of Travancore. The two following letters of the series which
Mancias has preserved to us speak of the intention of Francis Xavier to go and
see the Governor. He seems to have supposed that Sousa might be at Cochin,
though it turned out that he had sailed as far to the north beyond Goa itself
as Cambaia. The considerable interval which separates the letters at this
point may be accounted for either by the absence of Francis in Travancore, from
which country he never seems to have written, or by the certain fact that at
some period of the later autumn Mancias was his companion in an expedition to
Ceylon itself, of the circumstances of which we have no details.
The two following
letters were written, as it seems, at the same date, and in fact are very
similar in their contents. It has been thought that they are but different
forms of the same letter; but as each contains much that is wanting in the
other, it is well to print them both, especially as the latter gives us an
insight, not very clear, it is true, into another of the troubles which beset
the native Christians at this time. The earlier paragraphs of the first letter
are almost a repetition of former admonitions given to Mancias, to urge on him
the forbearance and patience necessary for his arduous duties among the
natives.
4 Francis says in his letter on the
subject that he had to exert himself to prevent the Governor from taking too
severe a revenge. See below, p. 282.
I beg and entreat you
most earnestly, my dearest brother, to show the people you are with, and
especially the grown-up men and old men, very great kindness and charity, and
to aim at making yourself beloved by them in return. Be quite sure that if you
are beloved by them, you will be able to turn their hearts whatever way you
wish. So bear with moderation and wisdom all their weaknesses and infirmities, and
say to yourself that if they are not yet all that you desire, in time at least
they will become so. If you cannot get out of them all the good you ask, take
what you can get. You know this is my way. You should make up your mind to be
to them what a good father is to bad children, and never give up caring and
providing for them, though you see them all the time covered with many vices.
God Himself, though often offended by them and by us, does not cease to heap
His benefits upon us. He might most justly destroy us, but in His mercy He very
often seems blind to our sins, and helps us in our difficulties, that He may
overcome evil by good.5 And so you, if you cannot do all you wish,
be glad to do what you can, since it is not your fault that all the progress
which you might desire has not been made. If you sometimes find yourself so
distracted by a number of duties that you cannot manage them all, do as much as
you can and be content with that, and even give thanks to God for the
particular blessing that He has led you to work in a place where there are so
many sacred duties to be performed that you cannot be idle, however much you
might wish it, for this is in truth one of the greatest blessings that God
bestows. Imagine yourself in Purgatory, making satisfaction for your sins; you
will think yourself very happily dealt with in that God gives you the troubles
of this life instead of the torments of the fires of Purgatory. But if,
perchance, men turn out so wicked that you can do nothing with them by gentleness,
then sometimes use
5 ut vincat in bono malum. (Orig.)
severity; for, after
all, it is a work of mercy to correct those who are wrong, and be sure that it
is a great sin not to chastise sinners, especially when they cause scandal to
others.
Nevertheless, I do
not think you should give these people up now that they are in so much trouble,
or indeed ever. At this time more than ever you must bid the children whom you
have under instruction to ask of God to defend and help us, for in these
countries we have no protection at all, except the protection of God. For if
that saying of Him Who is the Truth be true—‘ He who is not with Me is against
Me'6— any one can see how destitute we are of all human aid when we
have so few who are with us to convert these people to the faith of Jesus
Christ. But we must not lose heart: God will reward every one according to his
merits; He can bring about wonders however great by means of a few, as well as
by means of many. I am much more inclined to grieve for the lot of those who
are against God, than to call down punishment upon them. God Himself, of His
own accord, will take terrible vengeance by and by on His enemies, as we see
plainly enough in the case of those who are undergoing the eternal pains and
punishments of hell.
I am going to
Travancore to meet the Governor. I shall go by land, at least as far as Cape
Comorin, and visit the Christian villages as I go, and baptize the infants. I
want you to pray much to God for me, and to get the young children you are
instructing in the Christian doctrine to pray also. Their prayers will be a
defence and guard to me, with which I shall make light of the dangers with
which my friends try to deter me from this land journey; telling me that I
shall have to ' pass through a country that hates everything Christian, and me
in particular. But I tell you plainly, I am sometimes weary of my life, and
think I had better rather die for religion than live in the sight of so many
and such grievous outrages upon the majesty of God, especially when I cannot
help seeing them and yet cannot prevent them. Rather than see and hear them,
6 Qui non est mecum contra me est. (Orig.)
I would go to
Ethiopia or into the dominions of Prester John, where one might work very hard
and well for God with no one to oppose. Nothing gives me so much pain as to
have been wanting in sharp resistance to those whom I see outraging His
Heavenly Majesty. May God in His infinite goodness be pleased to forgive them ;
and I pray and beseech Him to abide with you always and to accompany my steps !
Farewell.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Munahpaud,
November 8th, 1544.
The first part of the
next letter is full of references to matters with which we can only be
imperfectly acquainted. It seems that the Governor Sousa had sent a Portuguese
officer, a relation of his own, to treat with the Pulas or subordinate princes
or nobles of Travancore, who, as the reader may remember, are mentioned in a
former letter as not unlikely to attempt to negotiate on their own part with
the Portuguese, with a view of rendering themselves independent of the king of
their country. The negotiation would seem to have failed, and the officer was
displeased with the Pulas. The second paragraph relates to some tyrannical
proceedings at Tuticorin, of which we have no other account. It would almost
seem as if some sort of legal persecution had been raised against the Christian
converts on the part of powerful heathen or Mussulmans, who had been supported
by the Portuguese authorities, turned the Christians out of their homes, and
found others more pliant, who occupied them on some terms derogatory to their
religion. This at least is what we gather from the language of the letter,
which orders that the new tenants shall not be permitted to take part in the
pearl fishery, and adds a severe reprimand and warning to a certain Nicolas
Barbosa, who was probably a Portuguese who farmed some crown rights, or employed
the divers on his own account.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
I had arrived at
Munahpaud, and was on the point of going to meet Alexis de Sousa when two Nairs7
met me, bringing me a letter from a Portuguese, in which he informed / me that
urgent affairs detained him at Bearim, that he had for me a letter from the
King’s Treasurer, and other commissions which he was charged with for me, but
that he could only give them to me or explain them to me in person. He could
only tell me that his commissions were such as to make it necessary for me to
see Iniquitribirim again. Alexis de Sousa has gone to Coulan. It is said he
went away very much irritated against the Pulas. Whether this is an unfounded
report I cannot as yet well make out. I am now going hence'by land from the
Cape, to visit as I pass the Christian villages which lie on my way, and to
baptize the newborn infants and any adults that I find sufficiently disposed.
I wish that next
Monday, unless you prefer another day (which I leave to your discretion), you
would visit the Christians who have been expelled from Tuticorin, and as in
the new and temporary dwellings where they now are they have no place to meet in,
collect them outside the enclosure of their huts in the open field, and then
give them instructions and administer the sacraments. I beg of you strictly to
charge Nicolas Barbosa not to summon to the pearl fishery any of the people at
Tuticorin who have established themselves in the dwellings of those who are now
in exile. The King and the Governor have given me a certain authority in this
matter, and I will not have it that Christians in revolt and rebellion, or to
call things by the right name, apostates, should partake in the fruits of the
sea which belongs to us. It may be allowed to the people of Punical; and if any
of them are disposed to go and dive off the isles of Tuticorin to bring up the
mother of
7 The Nairs were a high caste, the members
of which generally embraced the profession of arms. Lion Pages.
pearl shells from the
bottom of the sea, they have my leave. So Barbosa may employ them to work for
his profit. If he show himself inclined to resist this, give him a stern
admonition from me,—that he had better take very great care on his own account
not to be guilty of any fresh fault, for he has committed a very great number
of transgressions in times past, of which many are quite as mindful as himself.
I rely much, for the
aid of God to help me in the hazards of my journey and in the doubtful issue of
the affairs I have to manage, on your prayers for me and those of the children
where you are, and I beg of you not to let my request for them be in vain. They
will be an assistance and a shield to me, and I shall go with head erect and
heart undaunted to confront all the terrors which the Christians vie with one
another to frighten me with, insisting on it that for me to undertake a journey
by land through those countries is to run into almost certain destruction,
because they think that the barbarous tribes who inhabit them will certainly
pour forth all their burning hatred for our holy religion on my head as on its
principal support. But, to tell yoij the inmost thoughts of my heart, I am so
weary of my life that the very thing which they make an objection of in order
to frighten me from the journey is an attraction to me the other way; I really
think it a thousand times better for me to be killed out of hatred to our holy
faith than to live on and witness so many sins against God, committed every
day under our very eyes, which we try to prevent and cannot. It is the real
truth; nothing in myself has disappointed me more than that. I have been
unable to oppose the men who—you know whom I mean—who are guilty of offences so
enormous against God. May our Lord help and favour you for ever ! Amen.
From Munahpaud)
November ioth, 1544.
I am just starting
for Pudicar. Father Francis Coelho is going to visit the Christians who are at
Atanapatanam.
Your most loving
brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
After this letter we
hear no more of Francis Xavier till the middle of the following month of
December, when he arrived at Cochin. He had thus spent more than a month on his
road, and had no doubt lingered in many places for the sake of instructing and
baptizing converts. What dangers he may have run during this month we cannot
tell, but we may be sure that it was a time of great consolation to him, as he
found himself alone and far from all his usual annoyances, preaching to the
fishers scattered along the coast of Travancore. On arriving at Cochin he found
that the Governor was not there, but, as has been said, far to the north at
Cambaia. But a very dear friend met him at Cochin; no other than Miguel Vaz,
the vicar of the Bishop of Goa, who had been the first to suggest to him to undertake
the instruction ofthe Paravas, and who could thoroughly sympathize with all his
desires, and all the anxieties regarding the position of the native converts in
India. The conversations which they had together ended in important steps for
the benefit of the Indian Christians, of which we shall presently speak. But
another great pleasure was awaiting him at Cochin. That year’s ships from
Portugal had arrived at Goa in time for the letters, and the news which they
brought, to be sent on to Cochin before he reached it, and he was thus greeted
with many pieces of happy intelligence, as well as with a bundle of
correspondence which filled his affectionate heart with joyous and tender
thoughts of the friends who had sent it.
Miguel Vaz, as has
been said, was entirely of the same mind with Francis Xavier as to the
miserable influence on the native Christians of the example and conduct of the
Portuguese, and as to the many abuses which needed severe and immediate
correction at the hands of the government at home. Some of the more crying
evils in the state of things at Goa itself had been corrected by the preaching
of St. Francis; at least, many Portuguese had given up their practice of
concubinage; the neglect of the sacraments, which in men who led such lives as
the majority of the Europeans had been looked upon as the only mark left in
them of the fear of God, had ceased; and the diminution of scandalous vice
had probably
occasioned a proportionate falling off in the quarrels and assassinations which
naturally resulted from the general licentiousness of manners.8
There were still remaining other great scandals, which had more particular
reference to the honour due to religion, and the support which the true faith
ought to receive from a Christian government. The first of these scandals was
the open toleration of idolatrous worship, even in Goa, while in the towns
around it there was no attempt made to check either idolatry or the
superstitious customs and immoralities with which it was connected. Then again,
the public offices under the Crown were sold, and Mussulmans frequently
allowed to hold them, while the native Christians, on account of their poverty,
were excluded. The Paravas on the pearl coast, who had to pay a certain royalty
to the Crown out of their gains, were thus brought under the power of
officials, often Mussulmans, who forced them to sell their pearls at so low a
price as to render the transaction a simple robbery. Christian converts, also,
were frequently sold as slaves to Mussulmans or heatjiens. At Cochin itself,
the second city in Portuguese India, and entirely at the command of the
Christian government, the native Rajah was in the habit of confiscating the
property of any of his subjects who became Christians, and this abuse was
allowed to go on without even a remonstrance. As the two friends talked over
these scandals and bewailed their evil influence on the souls for which both
were so anxious, Miguel Vaz offered of his own accord to go to Portugal and lay
them in person before the King. The abuses in themselves were not beyond the
reach of cure, though it is likely enough that neither Martin Alfonso Sousa,
nor any other Governor, could have dealt with them satisfactorily singlehanded.
But they implied a state of things which nothing but
8 Bartoli, Asia, t. i. p. 43, enumerates
among the abuses prevalent in Goa before the arrival of Francis Xavier, the
practice of the Portuguese of the purchase or seizure of slave girls who were
made to carry on the most infamous traffic and pay their masters a certain sum
out of their earnings, and the selling of justice in the courts to the highest
bidder. The mention of these abuses illustrates some of the letters which we
have lately given, in which similar practices on the part of the Portuguese on
the Fishery Coast are alluded to.
a very radical change
in the whole Portuguese population in India could have set right. They were
exposed to unusual temptations, and a higher standard of public morality would
have cut the evil at its root. The government might certainly do something by
precepts and injunctions, but who was there to carry them out and insure their
general observance? St. Francis, as we shall see, hit upon the best possible
expedient when he proposed to the King to send out an independent minister with
full authority, whose one business it should be to protect the interests of
religion; but it may be questioned whether if such an official had been
appointed, he might not have been himself carried away by the current of
corruption all around him, or at least have been intimidated by the union of
influences of all kinds which would have joined to resist him in the execution
of his duty. However, Miguel Vaz and Francis Xavier did their best for India
when they resolved that one of them should go in person to plead the cause of
religion with the King.
The letters from
Europe which Francis found at Cochin were full of interesting news. The Society
was flourishing and increasing: the limitation at first imposed by the Pope as
to the number of the professed Fathers, who were not to exceed sixty, had been
taken away; many pious works, which remain to the present day, had been started
by Ignatius in Rome, and progress had been made towards the building and
completion of the permanent house of the Society, which is now the Gesii, close
to the little church of Sta. Maria a Strata. Peter Favre and Bobadilla were
active in Germany and in the Low Countries, Laynez had done much in Venice,
and Salmeron in Modena. Many distinguished recruits had joined the Order— among
others, the pure, brilliant, and candid youth who was afterwards known as Peter
Canisius. Perhaps the brightest part of the news, at least to St. Francis,, was
the great advance of the Society in Portugal, where the College at Coimbra was
being built by the King, the establishment being already at work in a temporary
dwelling, where there were as many as sixty students of the Society. All this gave
good hope for the future of the
vol. 1. s
Indian mission, and
the heart of its great Apostle was swelling with thankfulness and hope when he
wrote from Cochin, almost immediately after his arrival, to Mancias, telling
him that he was to be ordained priest, and to take charge at once of the
mission of Travancore. Francis himself was to set sail at once for Cambaia, to
arrange with the Governor about the affair of Jafanapatam.
My dearest Brother in
Jesus Christ,
The day before yesterday,
the 16th of December, I arrived at Cochin. Before I got there I had baptized
all I could reach of the Matchuas,9 a race of fishermen who live in the kingdom
of Travancore. God, Who sees our inmost heart, knows how gladly I would have
returned thither at once to baptize the people of another tribe which lives
there, who are not ill disposed to embrace the yoke of Jesus Christ. But the
Vicar-general, Don Miguel Vaz, thinks that it is now of importance, for the
greater service of our Lord, that I should go to the Governor, to arrange with
him about the affair of Jafanapatam. So in two or three days I shall sail for
Cambaia in a well appointed barque,10 soon, I hope, to return with
the affair settled as we could wish—as the interests of religion and of the
glory of God require.
His Lordship the
Bishop is not coming to Cochin this year, but the Vicar-general will sail by
the first vessel for Portugal. He will very soon come back to us, as I hope
from the goodness of God, knowing how important to the service of God it is
that he should do so. Diego, who is at Goa in the College of St. Paul, is
burning to come here. Father Master Diego and Master Paul and all the College
are in good health. I have received a great number of letters from Portugal,
which have lately arrived at Goa. Among them is a rescript to authorize you to
receive the holy priesthood without producing
9 Matchoua is the Sanskrit name for the
caste of fishermen.
10 A cature—apparently a large, swift,
undecked boat.
the usual proofs of
having sufficient patrimony or title or the revenues of an ecclesiastical
benefice sufficient for your maintenance ; but I think you have no occasion to
use this faculty, since the Bishop is ready to pass over all such requirements
and ordain you priest, as he has lately ordained Father Manuel and Father
Gaspar, who are now here with us at Cochin, and who will soon set out to gather
fruit in the same part of our Lord’s vineyard with you. The letters I speak of
say that two of our brothers had set sail from Portugal hither, and I am very
uneasy about them, because they have not yet arrived. I fear much they may
either be wintering at Mozambique, or have been forced to turn back to Portugal
by adverse seas and tempests. They tell me one is Portuguese by birth, the other
an Italian; and the King in his letter to me sounds their praises loudly. May
God be pleased to bring both of them to us safe and sound ! I know neither of
them, for they are not any of those we left at Lisbon. More than sixty young
men of our Society are now studying in the University of Coimbra, and the
accounts we get of them, their religious character, their modesty, and their
abilities, give great reason for praising and thanking God for them as much as
possible. They are nearly all Portuguese, of which I am exceedingly glad. There
is also very joyful news about our brethren in Italy. I will not say more of
all this now, because I hope in less than a month to be with you, and then you
shall have all these letters from Europe to read.
And now for yourself.
As soon as you get this, I most earnestly entreat you again and again, as you
love God our Lord, and desire to please Him, set out at once to visit those
newly made Christians whom I lately baptized in great numbers on the coast of
the kingdom of Travancore. Set up a school in each village, where the young
children capable of instruction may assemble every day under the direction of a
master, and appoint one to teach them. For his salary and any school expenses,
you may take, I should think, 150 fanams of the money reserved for this
purpose. This sum you will divide among the masters of the different village
schools, as
soon as you see that
they have begun their work and got it into order; and don’t go away from any
place without giving the master at least a part of his salary, so that they may
work on more zealously, and look forward to proving how well they have done, by
having some progress on the part of the children to show when we go there
again, as well as have the hopes of future pay. Don’t leave a single hamlet, in
all the district right up to the Great Fishery, in which you have not yourself
been present at these daily assemblies of the children, and also provided
aright for their continuance after your departure. For your own support get money
from the Commandant.
At Munahpaud get a
boat to take you to Careapatana; but before you get there, turn aside to
Monchur. It is a village of Matchuas not yet baptized, not much more than a
league from the extreme point of Cape Comorin. Baptize them, for they are
sufficiently prepared for it, and have often shown that they desire it, by
sending some of their people to entreat me to have the kindness to go and
baptize them all. I was willing enough to satisfy their pious desire; but
though I have often attempted to get there, I have always been detained by more
urgent affairs. Antonio Fernandez, one of the Malabar Christians, is soon to
follow you, and may probably join you very soon, being on board a very light
and swift boat. You must take him with you everywhere, as a companion and
adviser in all that you do on this coast, until you have baptized all the
inhabitants. He is a very good man, burning with zeal for the glory of God. He
knows by experience the ways of the people, in what manner and with what
precautions they are to be dealt with; so do whatever he thinks good, and never
disagree with him nor prevent him from doing good. He is a man that one can
well trust. I always trusted him when in those parts, and never repented of it.
So that I not only advise you to defer to his advice and let him manage
everything, but I pray and beseech you to do so.
Take with you Matthew
and the royal officer who used to go with me from Viranda to Patanam; also your
servant lads and a Canacapole who knows how to write, and who can tran
scribe for you the
prayers which the children and other catechumens are to be taught by heart by
the care and diligence of the teachers of Christian doctrine who are appointed,
copies of which you can leave behind you everywhere. Employ the same secretary
to write the letters you want to send anywhere as you think well, and also to
read and help you to understand all those that are addressed to you from time
to time from different parts of the country. Pay the Canacapole’s salary, not
out of the money set apart for the instruction of the children, but out of
that which the King has ordered to be paid for our use and maintenance, which
the Commandant will give you in the regular instalments.
On leaving where you
are, intrust the work which you have been doing, of baptizing and instructing
the people of the Comorin district, to the good priest Joam de Lizana. Francis
Mendez, who is to take this letter to you, is ready to start, and in such a
hurry that for the present I can write no more.
May our Lord be
always your helper, as much as I pray that He may be my own !
Your most
affectionate brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Cochin, December
18th, 1544.
As soon as this
letter was dispatched, St. Francis embarked for Cambaia,11 where the
Governor Sousa was to be found. This northward voyage gave him the opportunity
for one of those beautiful conquests of charity which were so frequent
11 In some old maps of India the peninsula
of Gujerat is called Cambaia ; but the name is at present limited to the city
of Cambay, at the head of the gulf of the same name, which separates Gujerat on
the south-east from the mainland. The Portuguese had a fortress at Diu, a town
on the southern coast of the peninsula, and disputes were now arising
concerning the observance of the terms of a treaty of peace made some years
before by the Viceroy, Don Garcia da Norofla, which had permitted a native
prince to build a wall between the fort and the part of the town inhabited by
the Mussulmans. This wall was being made a fortification; and there was a
league among the Indian princes to attack and take the fort.. This and other
matters mentioned by Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, t. ii. p. I. c. xiv.,
probably occasioned the presence of the Governor in those parts.
during his life in
the East, where his constant passages from place to place brought him across so
many wild and rough characters, in whose hearts the seeds of faith had not been
altogether destroyed even by a career of licentiousness. On this voyage he found
himself the chance companion of a man of rank and high office, whose impiety
and wicked life were so notorious as to be a cause of scandal even to the
heathen. Francis made himself his familiar friend, and at last endeavoured to
lead him to converse on matters of religion. He made very little way with him,
however; and when he asked him about going to confession, the other broke out
into blasphemous language, declaring that nothing should ever induce him to do
it. So matters went on, day after day, St. Francis always paying him great
attention, and seeming to court his friendship, until they arrived at Cananor,
a port on their route, and, as the vessel stayed there for a few hours, the two
friends landed and walked together into a palm grove that was near the shore.
Then Francis Xavier threw himself on his knees, laid his shoulders bare, and
began to scourge himself cruelly with a discipline, until the ground was red
with his blood and the whole grove sounded with the noise of the blows. Then he
began to tell the man that it was for him that he was doing this penance, and
he had cost far more than this to his Saviour Jesus Christ, Whom he implored to
look upon the price of His own Blood, to send His light into that poor soul,
and stretch out His hand to save him. The other was overwhelmed, and cried out
in his turn that Francis had conquered him, begging him to hear his confession
and reconcile him to God at once; and so great was his sorrow that Francis was
able to receive his confession and absolve him before they returned to the
boat.12
12 We have another anecdote of this visit to
Cananor preserved to us, which, like all the incidental information that exists
as to this period of the life of Francis Xavier, bears witness to the esteem in
which he was universally held, and the common opinion of his sanctity. A good
Christian father came to him to bewail his own wretched lot, on account of the
bad behaviour of a son of his, as yet a lad. Francis consoled him, by saying
that age would probably bring with it an improvement; and then, after a few
moments of recollection, he
Francis had little
difficulty in persuading the Governor of India to undertake the punishment of
the usurping Rajah of Jafanapatam for the cruelty with which he had treated his
Christian subjects. Martin Alfonso had lately terrified him into a sort of
submission to the supremacy of the Portuguese Crown by the payment of an annual
tribute of 4000 ducats ;13 and he was ready enough to order
immediately an expedition against Jafanapatam which would show to all the
princes of India and Ceylon that it would not be permitted them with impunity
to persecute Christians. The subordinate officers along the coast received
orders to collect their forces in men and ships, and Negapatam was named as
.the place at which the armament was to rendezvous. When we remember the severe
way in which Batecala had been treated by this same Governor, it is not
surprising that St. Francis should have been anxious rather to mitigate his
wrath than to inflame it. The fact that the execution of the punishment was to
be committed to the local commandants, whose character Francis had already had
so many occasions of learning, was not a very favourable omen; and he seems to
have readily fallen in with the suggestion that he should be on the spot when
the armament sailed. Indeed, a part of the Governor’s order was, that the
offending Rajah should be placed at his disposal; an arrangement which, if the
expedition had succeeded, would probably have saved his life if he had been made
prisoner.
It appears from a
passage in a letter to Simon ^Rodriguez, written by Francis after his return
from Cambaia, that he stop-
seized the hand of
his friend with great signs of joy, and told him to be of good heart, for his
son would become a Franciscan friar, and be renowned both for learning and
holiness. The prophecy turned out true : the youth grew up to enter the
Franciscan Order, became famous for learning and virtue, and died a martyr’s
death in Ceylon, whither he was sent to preach.
13 See Faria y
Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, t. ii. p. i. c. xiii. § 5. This was at the
time of the expedition spoken of above, when the pagoda ofTebilicare was
plundered. At the same time, the writer informs us that the King ‘called “
Grande’’ at Comorin’ made the Governor a large present out of fear. This was
probably the Maharajah of Travancore, whom we know from the letters of St.
Francis to have been desirous of conciliating the Portuguese.
ped for a short time
at Goa before proceeding to find the Governor. He does not seem to have
lingered there on his return, as we find him again at Cochin in the middle of
January 1545, from which place he wrote several letters to be sent to Europe by
the same ships which were to take Miguel Vaz on his embassy of charity. Perhaps
Miguel himself may have been still at Cochin.14 Three of these
letters must now be inserted. The first was addressed to King John of Portugal,
recommending Miguel to the favour and attention of the King, and insisting,
with true apostolical liberty, on the duty incumbent on his Highness’
conscience of providing for the advancement of religion in India, and in
particular of punishing by something more forcible than a mere reprimand or
expression of his will the officers under the Crown who did so much mischief by
their violence and cruelty towards the new converts. The other letters which
remain to us are to the Society at Rome and to Simon Rodriguez in Portugal, who
was also to read the letter to Rome before it was sent on.
14 We find another of St. Francis’
occasional prophecies connected with his stay at Cochin. His great friend,
Cosmo Anez, one of the benefactors of the College of Santa F6, who held some
office like that of Treasurer under the Crown, had bought a very valuable
diamond for the King, on his own responsibility, and sent it to Portugal.
Francis asked him which ship it was in, and when the ship was named, said he
would rather have heard him say any other. This frightened Anez, who begged him
to pray for the safety of the vessel. Some days after, he was again at table
with Anez, who was anxious about his jewel, and then Francis turned to him, and
told him to give thanks to God, because the diamond was safe in the hands of
the Queen. It turned out afterwards that the ship had been in great danger
from a large leak which had suddenly appeared, and which made the captain
think of running her on shore, and trying to save the crew and cargo ; but the
leak had been stopped, as suddenly as it appeared, without any one being able
to explain the favourable turn of the matter. This anecdote, taken by Bartoli
from the Processes, will be found in Massei, Vita di S. Francesco, t. ii. c.
vi. Cosmo Anez was the friend who challenged Francis about the miracle at
Mutan, related above. Francis cried out, ‘Jesus ! how can you believe that a
man so miserable as I am could raise the dead !' and confessed that the young
man was ‘ found to be alive, ’ and that "the people ‘ imagined' a miracle.
(xli.) To John III. King of Portugal.
Sire,
I would
fain that your Highness may be fully convinced, and that the reflections of
your own heart may continually tell you, that God our Lord has given to your
Highness, before all other Christian princes of the earth, the empire of the
Indies, in order that He might therein test your virtue, and prove with what
faithfulness you discharge the work committed to you, and with what active
gratitude you answer to His benefits : and that God’s purpose in this was not
so much to enrich your royal treasury with the profits of precious fruits from
distant lands and the influx of wealth from abroad, as rather to present to
you occasions of heroic labours and afford your intense and religious devotion
the means of making themselves pleasing to Himself, in bringing, by your own
burning zeal, and by the work of skilful ministers employed by you, the unbelievers
of these countries to the knowledge of Him, the Creator and the Saviour of the
world. .
Justly and rightly,
therefore, does your Highness recommend to those servants of yours whom you
send hither to exert themselves much in propagating widely our holy faith, and
in the advancement of religion. Since your Highness well understands that God
will require of you an account of the salvation of so many nations, who are
ready to follow the better path if any one will show them it, but meanwhile,
for want of a teacher, lie in blind darkness and the filth of most grievous
sins, offending continually their Creator, and casting their own souls headlong
into the misery of eternal death. .
Your Highness will
receive a report from Don Miguel Vaz, who has been the Vicar-general of the
Bishop of Goa, and is now leaving us for Portugal, as to what his experience
has been of the readiness of these nations to be taught the faith, and of the
other openings which present themselves here for the good progress of religion.
He has left among them so great an amount of regret at his departure, that his
return at the end of a year is very advisable for their consolation and pro
tection; though there
is quite reason enough for his return in your Highness’ own interests. I mean
that you may thus confide to a servant so entirely competent and industrious
the grave duty which is urgent upon you of advancing the glory of God in India.
If you set this faithful and experienced steward over this business, you may
rest in full security, for you may rely on his eminent virtue, proved by so
many years’ experience, and which has won for him the veneration of the whole
population here, for losing no opportunity of defending or advancing religion.
Again and again I
entreat and conjure your Highness, that if you wish to provide well for the
service of God and the interests of the Church, if you have any regard for all
the good well reputed persons who live here in India, for the Christians
lately converted to our holy faith, and I may add, if you wish to do me a real
kindness once in this life, order Don Miguel Vaz, who is now leaving us, to
come back again. I have no other reason for begging this than the service of
God, the increase of our holy faith, and the discharge of the conscience of
your Highness. God our Lord is witness that I say the truth. I know how much a
man like that is regretted here, and how useful he is. And so, to fulfil my
duty and to discharge my own conscience as well as yours, I declare and protest
to your Highness, that it is quite essential, if you desire that our holy
faith should be promoted and spread abroad here in India, and if you wish those
who are already gathered into the Church not to be torn from her and to fall
back into their old superstitions, scandalized and scared away by the many
grievous injuries and vexations which they suffer—and especially from your
Highness’ own servants—that you send hither again Don Miguel Vaz, who has so brave
a heart and so constant a courage in resisting those who persecute the
Christians.
Although the Bishop
is a prelate of all that consummate virtue which he in truth possesses, yet, as
your Highness is aware, he is now bent down with old age, and has besides so
much to suffer from diseases, as no longer to possess bodily
strength sufficient
to undergo the very great labours which are required for the exact discharge of
all the duties of the Episcopate out here, however much he abounds in vigour
of mind, and, indeed, increases in it daily. There is a reward which God is
wont to grant to those who have persevered for many years in His service,
spending all their life and prime in undergoing great labours for His sake,
until they have attained to an almost entire victory over the rebellion of
their body against the spirit. To such men God gives in their late old age this
victory as a fruit of their continual struggles, and that others their subjects
may see their example and imitate their perseverance, that they feel themselves
as it were growing young again in the renewal of spiritual strength just at the
time when nature gives way under the weight of all the troubles of decrepitude
and old age. They have spent their lives in the practice of virtue, and, as
strength gradually fails them, the earthly body is changed into a heavenly
spirit. So it is with our good Bishop, and the time has come when he needs
assistance for the labours which his office lays upon him.
I entreat you, my
lord King, and conjure you for the sake of God’s service, that, as I write what
follows with the purest intention and in the most perfectly sincere
truthfulness, so also your Highness may be pleased to receive what I suggest
with like kindness, favour, and goodwill. It is indeed with the single motive
of advancing the service and honour of God, and out of the desire which I feel
to deliver your royal conscience from a heavy burthen, that I entreat and
beseech you not to be content with recommending to your servants here the
interests of religion by letter, but also to make your recommendation
authoritative and weighty by letting men see examples of just retribution in
the punishment of those who have failed in their duty in this respect. For
there is danger that when our Lord God calls your Highness to His judgment
—which will be when it is least expected, and there will be no hope or method
of avoiding it—there is danger, I say, that your Highness may hear angry words
from God, * Why didst, thou not punish those who owned thy authority and were
thy
subjects, and who
were enemies to Me in India? Thou wouldst surely have been severe in punishing
them, if they had been found negligent in their care of taxes due to thee and
in matters of thy revenue.’ Nor do I know, Sire, what weight in excusing you at
that moment will be allowed to the answer you may make, and say, ‘ Every year
when I wrote to ray ministers, Lord, I recommended to them the interests of Thy
divine service.’ For the answer will come at once, * But those who altogether
trampled upon those solemn commandments thou didst allow to do so unpunished,
and at the same time those whom thou didst find unfaithful and remiss as to
their attention to thy own interests, thou didst duly chastise.’
Again, Sire, by all
the zeal which bums in you for the glory of God, and by the very great care
which I am sure you have to discharge before God the obligations of your royal
office, and to keep your conscience free from burthen, I conjure and beseech
your Highness to send to India a special and competent minister, armed with
all due authority, whose single office it may be to provide for the salvation
of the countless souls here which are now in danger of being lost. And let him
have for his discharge of this duty powers from you quite independent of all
authority or command of your officers whose duty it is to attend to the revenue
and management of your government. In this way the troubles and scandals may be
avoided which have hitherto so grievously and so frequently disturbed the
progress of religion.
I would have your
Highness take an exact account, and add up the full sum of all the revenues and
temporal advantages which, by the goodness of God, you receive from India.
Then deduct what you spend here for the service of God and the cause of
religion. And then, when all has been fairly reckoned up, make such a division
of profits between what is to go to your royal purse and what is to be given to
God and His heavenly kingdom as shall seem just and good to your grateful and
religious heart, taking care that the Creator of all things may never seem to
be repaid poorly and charily by
your Highness by too
small a portion of the gifts which He has poured so lavishly into your bosom.
And let your Highness do this without any delay or procrastination, for,
however quickly it be done, it will always be later than it ought. What urges
me to write is the true and burning charity of my heart towards you; for, in
truth, I seem to hear voices rising to heaven from these countries against your
Highness, complaining, on the part of India, that she is dealt with in a
niggardly way by your Highness, since while your treasury is being enriched by
immense revenues from her, you barely give in return so very small a pittance
in aid of the relief of her most grievous spiritual necessities.
It will not, I think,
be unpleasant to your Highness, on whom lies this duty of providing for the
salvation of souls in this your people of India, to know how the affairs of
that salvation stand at present. In Jafanapatam and on the coast of Coulan it
may well be that before the end of the year more than a hundred thousand souls
will have been added to the Church of Christ. I do not speak of Ceylon. Would
to God that the Rajah of that island were at all softened by the great favour
your Highness shows him, so as not to be so cruelly adverse to admitting our
Lord Jesus Christ into any part of his territories!
Send out to us, Sire,
as many labourers as possible of oui Society, that there may be enough not only
to baptize and instruct in the Christian doctrine the great numbers who are led
to embrace our holy faith here, but also some who may be spared to be sent to
Malacca and the countries near that city, where there are many converts.
Father Master Diego
and Don Paul are at the College of Santa Fd. As they are now writing at full
length to your Highness about that holy College, I will say nothing of it at
present except that I beg as a special favour that your Highness will be at the
trouble to write to Cosmo Anez, that as he began and has carried on the
foundation of the College, he is not to give up completing it and bringing it
to full perfection, nor by any means to be conquered by this labour, for that
he. will
certainly have a
worthy reward for so good a work, first from God, and then from your Highness.
Francesco Mancias and
myself live on the promontory of Comorin, among the Christians converted by Don
Miguel Vaz, the Vicar-general of India. I have now with me three priests,
natives of the country. The College of Cranganor,15 which is the
work of Fra Vincenzo, makes great progress, and will advance from good to
better if your Highness continues to favour it as heretofore. There is really
the truest reason for giving constant thanks to God for the great fruit to the
service of Christ our Lord which has arisen from that holy College. There is a
very probable hope that it will send forth religious men who may make the whole
of Malabar, which is now sunk in vice and error, feel a saving shame at its own
state of misery, and may bring the light of our Lord Jesus Christ to the benighted
minds of the people, and make His Holy Name manifest among them all, by the
work and ministrations of the disciples of Fra Vincenzo. I beseech and implore
your Highness, for the sake of God, to vouchsafe to show him favour, both by
other proofs of your royal goodwill and also by granting him the alms which he
asks of you. As I expect to die in these Indian regions and never to see your
Highness again in this life, I beg you, my lord, to help me with your prayers,
that we may see one another again in the next world, where we shall certainly
have more rest than here; asking for me of our Lord God what I in return ask
for your Highness—that is, that He may give you the grace so to think and act
now as at the hour of your death you would be glad to have thought and to have
acted.
Your Highness’
servant,
Francis.
Cochin, January 20th,
1545.
15 Brother Vincent de Lagos, a Franciscan
friar, accompanied to India, in 1538, Donjoam Albuquerque. Great fruits resulted
from his labours at Goa and Cranganor. He founded, in 1540, a College in the
lastmentioned city, under the name of St. James, and taught there during ten
years. He converted a great number of Greek and Armenian schismatics in the
kingdom ot Tanor. He died in 1550. {Lion.Pagts.)
We can hardly account
for the very great anxiety with which Francis urges on the King to send back
Miguel Vaz; an anxiety which shows itself also in the letter to Simon Rodriguez
which was written at the same time. Perhaps it was merely that Miguel was the
one person he had met with in India who most thoroughly sympathized with him in
his zeal for the native Christians, as he was apparently the single person in
high position whose voice was always sure to be lifted in their defence. It may
be, however, that this very quality in the Vicar- general made him odious to
some of the Portuguese in India, who would not augur any good to themselves
from his presence at the Court, and who might be very willing to see him
detained in Portugal rather than sent back with powers for the protection of
the natives. The next letter is to St. Ignatius.
(xlii. ) To the Reverend Father Ignatius of Loyola,
General of the Society of Jesus, at Rome.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
If you would do what
is greatly desired by all who take an interest in the College of Santa F6, and
especially the Governor, the most devoted of them all, I do beseech and conjure
you, by our Lord, to send us, at least if it can be done, the faculties that
have been asked of you; I mean what they wanted you to get for them from the
Holy Father, that the high altar of this College may be privileged for one soul
as often as mass is said on it, on the conditions that I wrote you two years
ago in the name of the Governor. We are also waiting for the other graces about
which I wrote to you’at the same time by his order.
Any of our Society
who are not fit for hearing confessions or preaching, or for discharging the
other functions of the Society, would be of great use here after having been
duly practised in meditation and spending some months in humble and abject
services, if they had good strength of body and
virtue of mind. For
here, among the heathen, great learning is not needed. It is enough if they are
not altogether uneducated, so as to know how to teach children and ignorant
persons the usual prayers of the Church; and to go round the towns and
villages to baptize newborn infants. Many of these die without baptism, because
we cannot be at so many places, so distant, too, from one another. So any men
that you may come across of this sort, who, not well adapted for our Society in
Europe, and whom you see to be fit for going about here to baptize newborn
children and teach the Catechism to the ignorant, send them out to us, for here
they will do a very great deal of good. I want them to be thoroughly strong in
body, and well able to bear fatigue. This is a most trying and fatiguing
country, both from the excessive heat, the scarcity of wholesome water, and
also the poorness of the food. Rice, fish, and milk are what we live on and
nothing else; no bread, no wine, none of the other things that you have plenty
of. So I want young men and hale men, not weak and old men, that they may bear
the fatigue of continual baptizing, teaching, and going about, as they will
often have to do, not only to baptize newborn children, but to protect the
Christians from the fury and rage of the heathen. Sometimes God gives us here
the singular blessing of being obliged to risk our lives for His sake, and of
having no way of avoiding the risk without breaking the law of charity. They
must remember that we are born mortal, and that for a Christian nothing can be
more desirable than to suffer death for Christ. So they must be armed with a
brave heart and strength from above.
And as I, who have
none of this courage and virtue, am now setting off for countries where I shall
have the very greatest need of heavenly aid, I conjure you, by God and His
holy religion, to remember me by name in your holy sacrifices, and also take
diligent care that I may have the protection of the prayers of the whole
Society. I am quite persuaded that I have already been delivered by God from
many and great dangers by your intercessions and that of the Society. I write
this to you that you may understand what sort of men we want.
However, if you find
any strong enough to bear all the labours and inconveniences of which I have
spoken, but not very ready or eager to risk their lives, I would have you send
them still, for there are many regions here vhere they may work for religion
without any danger of death. Remember always that to catch these heathen there
is no need of great learning. Men, such as I speak of. after they have been a
few years in these countries, will have added to them from Heaven strength and
courage for greater works. You may also send us men capable of hearing
confessions and of giving the Spiritual Exercises, even if they are not able
to bear harder work; for they will reside at Goa or at Cochin, in which towns
they will be able greatly to serve religion, and have plenty of everything themselves,
just as in Portugal. For these towns are full of Portuguese families, and
there will be no lack of what is wanted to relieve them in case of delicate
health or illness; in both places there are plenty of physicians and plenty of
medicines. In other places where the Portuguese do not live, such as those
which we are now going through in our> missions, there is no provision or
help for the sick. But in both the cities I have named great good may be done
by teaching the inhabitants the practice of the Spiritual Exercises.
It is four years
since we sailed from Portugal, and during this interval I have received from you
one letter and no more. I have had two from Father Simon, from Portugal, and I
long very much, my Father, to hear something at least once a year about you and
our other brothers. I do not doubt that you write to me every year, as I do to
you; but I fear that the letters on both sides miscarry, and that you
desiderate mine as I yours. Two of ours were coming to India this year, but
their vessel has not yet reached Goa. Whether it has returned to Portugal or
passed the winter at Mozambique, as Portuguese vessels often do, I know not in
the least.
I should like to hear
whether our old friend still goes about upon a mule. If he does, as he did when
I left, he must be very infirm not to have recovered the use of his feet, after
so many physicians and so many remedies. I have no other
vol. 1. t
news to teil you,
only that you are to send here as many as you can, for we are in extreme dearth
of workers for God. I pray God that if we are never to see one another again in
this life, at all events we may do so in that blessed life which is to come,
where there will be so much more peace than we can enjoy now.
Cochin, January 22d,
1545.
This letter seems to
begin abruptly, and we might suspect that its first paragraph, as well as the
signature at the end, may have perished under the hands of the relic hunters,
who have certainly destroyed for us a great number of the letters of the
Saints. But it is clearly meant for St Ignatius alone, and may have been a note
to him of the things which St. Francis wished to suggest, particularly as to
the sort of subjects to be sent out to India, and so may have been written
originally as we have it. We may remark that it contains the first allusion to
the intention of St. Francis to proceed to the further East— at least we may so
interpret his words about his own great need of the protection of prayer. The
passage about the old friend and the mule is probably an allusion to some
domestic joke current among the early companions of St. Ignatius; and it shows
us that Francis had received a budget of personal details in the letters from
Rome, which he is answering. We subjoin the letter written at the same time to
Simon Rodriguez, who seems to have been expressing a desire to come out to
India himself. The Fernandez mentioned in the second paragraph was a friend of
Simon’s, who seems to have had some idea of entering religion in India. The
letter contains the strongest possible denunciation of the conduct and maxims
of the Portuguese officials, as well as an earnest entreaty to Simon to use his
influence with the King to prevent any hindrance being put in the way of Miguel
Vaz’s return. We may add to this letter another written to the Society at Rome
without further comment.
(xliii.) To Master Simon
Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus.
May the grace and
love of Jesus Christ our Lord always favour and help us ! Amen.
The letters that I
write to Rome I send open to you, that you may read them through first and
become acquainted with the state of things out here, and so be stirred up to
send us out every year as many as possible to labour in the preaching of the
Gospel. However many may come, they will find abundant scope for" great
work in the service of God. As to your coming hither yourself, for my part, if
I could feel sure that your strength and powers of body were equal to the
vigour of your mind, I should have been the first to invite you, and should
have prayed you very much to be so very good as to come, supposing, that is,
that our Father Ignatius approved and had himself suggested the idea to you.
For he is our Father, and we must obey him, and it would be wrong to move hand
or foot without his orders.
Now I must tell you
of Diego Fernandez. I saw him at Goa in excellent health about a month ago. He
lives very happily and quite to his own taste in the College of Santa Fe with
Master Diego de Borba and Don Paul. He works hard and strenuously in the
service of God, and is so happy in it, that he does not regret living there nor
working as he does. He told me he was writing you a long letter, and I should
be strongly for your answering him, as he loves you very much and is much
influenced by you. A letter from you would give him incredible pleasure,
especially if you tell him that you approve of his living in the College of Goa
where he now is.
Francis Mancias and I
commend ourselves to your fervent prayers and to those of all our brothers. We
are here in these countries at an immense distance, poor clients and dependents
of yours, and we cling to your help and protection as what are
to provide for all
our hopes and interests. It is a work well worthy of your charity,—and here I
address my letter to all of you together and to each one in particular,—it is a
worthy work for your goodness and piety to plead our cause with God most
earnestly with prayers and sacrifices kindled by a holy sense of duty, and to
obtain for us the many helps and blessings for body and soul which we so
urgently need, and to get for the same intention the prayers of others under
your spiritual direction. I also beg you very much and I pray you for the love
of God, write to me ; or if you cannot do it yourself, bid some other of our
Society to write, but you must all of you write at good length ; not giving me
only heads and general facts, but particulars and minute details, telling me
of all and each of our brothers who are in Portugal, at Rome or elsewhere. I
assure you that we have nothing left in this life which does our souls more
good than what we get from such letters when the ships come in from Portugal.
The letter that I am now writing to our brothers at Rome, if it is not too much
trouble, show to our excellent friend Pedro Carvalho, and tell him from me that
as I look on him as one of our brothers at Rome and in Portugal, I consider the
letters I address to them as belonging also to him, and that therefore I have
not written to him separately. And I should be glad if you would make all our
brothers who are with you at Lisbon understand the same, that so great is my
true love for each one of them that I should have written separately to each,
if I had not felt confident that each would consider this one letter as
entirely his own, and that so it would supply the place of many. This saving of
time is a benefit to them and a necessity to me.
A long time ago, at
the request of the Governor, I took measures to have certain graces and
indulgences asked for irom Rome, for the great benefit of these countries, and
I am writing concerning them this year to his Highness. I entreat you, by all
the desire you have for the consolation and spiritual progress of the people
out here, and by all the care you have to please and do service to our Lord
God, see that his Highness does not forget them, and that he may please to
have the dispatch of
these graces urged by his ambassador at Rome. I wrote some years ago now, and I
have written again this year'to our Father Ignatius to obtain from the Pope in
favour of the high altar of the church at Goa, which serves for die members of
the College of Santa Fe, a privilege like that with which several altars at
Rome are distinguished, namely, that every time a priest offers the holy
sacrifice there he delivers a soul from the flames of Purgatory. And if you can
yourself in any way contribute to the accomplishment of this wish, you will do
a thing very pleasing to the Governor, who earnestly solicits the favour, and
all this venerable College and its founders, who so well deserve to have their
hopes gratified.
Send us all the
subjects you can into India. The greater the number the wider will be the
extension of the limits of holy Church. I have learnt by experience the
mischief occasioned here from the want of men on fire with zeal for the increase
of the holy faith and religion of Jesus Christ our Lord, and this is why I so
often urge the request that labourers may be sent into the field which is
already white for the harvest. God, who sees the inmost recesses of the soul,
knows how I long to see you. It would be an incredible joy to me to press you
to my heart and talk with you face to face. It cannot be otherwise, considering
your virtues and the other gifts that God has so abundantly shed abroad in your
soul. The hope of reaping the fruit of these by real and actual intercourse
makes me desire so very intensely to see you again. If it were in accordance
with the greater advantage, or even the equal advantage, of the service of God,
that we should be together again, how I should be penetrated with the sweetest
possible joy, and howl should delight in having you here to wait upon, God
alone, who sees all the secrets of our hearts, can truly understand.
Do not allow any of
your friends to be sent to India with the charge of looking after the finances
and affairs of the King. To such persons we may most truly apply which is
written—
* Let them be blotted
out of the book of the living, and let their
name not be written
among the just.’16 However great may be your confidence in any one
whom you know and love, trust my experience and oppose him on this point, and
fight to the last to prevent him from being exposed to this greatest of
dangers. Otherwise, unless he be confirmed in grace as were the Apostles, do
not expect to see him persevere in his duty or remain constant in innocency.
There is here a power, which I may call irresistible, to thrust men headlong
into the abyss, when beside the seductions of gain, and the easy opportunities
of plunder, their appetite for greed will have been sharpened by having tasted
it, and there will be a whole torrent of bad examples and evil customs to overwhelm
and sweep them away. F^obbery is so public and common that it hurts no one’s
character, and is hardly counted a fault: people scarcely hesitate to think
that, what is done with impunity, it cannot be bad to do. Everywhere, and at
all times, it is rapine, hoarding, and robbery. No one thinks of making
restitution of what he has once taken. The devices by which men steal, the
various pretexts under which it is done, who can count ? I never cease
wondering at the number of new inflexions, which, in addition to all the usual
forms, have been added, in this new lingo of avarice, to the conjugation of
that illomened verb ‘ to rob.’ And when, in the midst of it all, these unhappy
men are called out of this world, it is wretched to see in what a miserable
state of utter neglect and desperate confusion, as to all that relates to their
hopes of salvation, their poor souls have to present themselves before the
inexorable tribunal;
Miguel Vaz, who has
been Vicar of the Bishop here, is going to Lisbon. You could hardly find a man
more burningly and zealously devoted to the glory and service of-God. I have no
doubt that you will see him and talk with him; and I am sure that, from the
peace and joyfulness of soul which you will remark in him, united with so vehement
a desire for the glory of God, you will gather a knowledge and a just estimate
of his virtues and merits. You may trust entirely to all he says,
18 Psalm
Ixviii. 29. Dcleantur de libro viventium, et cum justis non
scri- bantur. (Orig.)
and I am sure he will
give you a full and ample account of everything here. I am writing to the King
about him, urging him as strongly as I can, for the relief of my own conscience
and that of his Highness, to send him back as soon as possible. He is a man
needed here more than can be told, for he it is who defends the lambs of Jesus
Christ against the violence and snares of wolves whom nothing will satisfy.
Miguel Vaz is a brave intrepid man ; nothing ever prevents him from raising his
voice against the persecutors and despoilers of the new converts to the
religion of Christ. If the King were to think of sending some one else here in
his place, where—to speak of the very least of his merits—could his Highness
find a person equally experienced in Indian affairs, which during the last
twelve years he has not only taken part in, but actually directed ? Where
would he find any one as much beloved by the good, and as much feared by the
bad ? Depend upon it, if the King looks out for any one else, whatever pains he
may take in his choice, he will run a great risk of failing to attain the
object he desires. So pray work, I entreat you, with much earnestness upon his
Highness to send back Miguel Vaz and no one else. Farewell.
Your true and most
loving brother in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Cochin, January
22d, 1545.
(xliv.) To the Society, at Rome.
May the ^race and
love of Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen.
God knows, my dear
brothers, how much more happy I should be to see you, than to write you this
letter, which must run its chance as to reaching you on account of the distance
which divides us. For in truth the Providence which has put our bodies with an
almost infinite space between them, while our minds are all the time most
closely united, has not loosened the tie of affection which binds us together.
It is true, we are no longer living together as we used to live, but we are
almost
perpetually looking
on one another with the eyes of the mind. Such is the power of true and genuine
friendship, that absent friends are present to each other, and enjoy one
another’s presence and conversation in heart. I know that I am always thinking
of you all, my brethren, and that I do this is a blessing for which I am
indebted to you rather than to myself; for your prayers and holy sacrifices
which you continually offer for me, a miserable sinner, awake in me all this
tender remembrance and longing for you. It is you, my beloved brothers, it is
you who stamp on my heart your own images; and if I am so mindful of you, I am
ready to confess that you are still more mindful of me. May God reward you as
you deserve ; for I can give you no other satisfaction than to confess that I
can in no way repay your deserts, for I see very clearly how much I owe to
every one and all of the Society.
Now to speak of what
I know you are most anxious to hear about—the state of religion in India. In
this region of Travancore, where I now am, God has drawn very many to the
faith of His Son Jesus Christ In the space of one month I made Christians of
more than ten thousand. This is the method I have followed. As soon as I
arrived in any heathen village where they had sent for me to give baptism, I
gave orders for all, men, women, and children, to be collected in one place.
Then, beginning with the first elements of the Christian faith, I taught them
there is one God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and at the same time, calling on
The three divine Persons and One God, I made them each make three times the
sign of the Cross; then, putting on a surplice, I began to recite in a loud
voice and in their own language the form of general Confession, the Apostles’
Creed, the ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Salve
Regina. Two years ago I translated all these prayers into the language of the
country, and learned them by heart. I recited them so that all of every age and
condition followed me in them. Then I began to explain shortly the articles of
the Creed and the ten Commandments in the language of the country. Where the
people appeared to me sufficiently instructed to receive baptism, I
ordered them all to
ask God’s pardon publicly for the sins of their past life, and to do this with
a loud voice and in the presence of their neighbours still hostile to the
Christian religion, in order to touch the hearts of the heathen and confirm
the faith of the good. All the heathen are filled with admiration at the
holiness of the law of God, and express the greatest shame at having lived so
long in ignorance of the true God. They willingly hear about the mysteries and
rules of the Christian religion, and treat me, poor sinner as I am, with the
greatest respect. Many, however, put away from them with hardness of heart the
truth which they well know. When I have done my instruction, I ask one by one
all those who desire baptism if they believe without hesitation in each of the
articles of the faith. All immediately, holding their arms in the form of the
Cross, declare with one voice that they believe all entirely. Then at last I
baptize them in due form, and I give to each his name written on a ticket.
After their baptism the new Christians go back to their houses and bring me
their wives and families for baptism. When all are baptized I order all the
temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken in
pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done,
witnessing the destruction of the idols by the very people who but lately
adored them. In all the towns and villages I leave the Christian doctrine in
writing in the language of the country, and I prescribe at the same time the
manner in which it is to be taught in the morning and evening schools. When I
have done all this in one place, I pass to another, and so on successively to
the rest. In this way I go all round the country, bringing the natives into the
fold of Jesus Christ, and the joy that I feel in this is far too great to be
expressed in a letter, or even by word of mouth.
The island of Manaar
is about 150 miles from this place. Its inhabitants sent me some of their
people to beg me to go there to baptize them, as they had determined to become
Christians. I was occupied on affairs of the greatest importance, relating to
the interests of religion, and so could not go myself; but I persuaded a
certain priest to go instead of me
and baptize as many
as possible. He had already baptized a great number, when the Rajah of
Jafanapatam, under whose dominion the island lies, most cruelly put to death a
large number of the converts, simply because they had become Christians. Let
us give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ that even in our time He does not let
us lack martyrs, and that while He sees so few souls avail themselves of all
His divine mercy and indulgence to work out their salvation, He permits, in the
mystery of His Providence, that human barbarity should fill up the destined
ranks and number of the blessed.
I have already
written you word how great a friend the Governor of India is to me and to all
the Society. He was so angry and indignant at the horrible slaughter of the converts,
that as soon as I began to speak to him about it, he ordered a powerful fleet
to be fitted out for the destruction of the tyrant, and I was obliged myself to
restrain the warmth of his most righteous indignation. This same Rajah who has
put the Christians to death has a brother, the legitimate heir to the crown,
who lives in exile for fear of his brother’s cruelty. This prince has promised
that, if he is put in possession of his dominions by the Governor, he will
become Christian as well as the principal persons of his kingdom. The Governor
has given orders to his officers to restore him to the throne if he embrace the
Christian religion, and to put to death the Rajah who persecuted the converts,
or to treat him as I shall think proper. I do not doubt that the prayers of the
converts whom he has rendered martyrs may win for him the grace to acknowledge
his wickedness and blindness, and that after doing a wholesome penance he may
obtain pardon from God for so much crime and barbarity.
The island of Ceylon,
whither I lately went with Francis Mancias, is about 120 miles distant from the
Indian continent; there a prince, son of one of the Rajahs, had resolved to
become Christian. When the Rajah heard of his intention he had him put to
death. The persons present at his execution declare that they saw a cross of
fire in the heavens, and that on the spot where he was slain the earth opened
in the form of a
cross. They add, that
many of the inhabitants at the sight of these prodigies became disposed to
embrace the Christian faith. A brother of the prince I have mentioned, touched
by these marvellous events, persuaded a certain priest to give him baptism. He
has now taken refuge with the Governor of India in order to ask his assistance
against the Rajah who killed his brother. I met and talked with this prince in
the course of his journey, and I have great hope, from what he said, of seeing
that kingdom before long embrace the faith of Jesus Christ. The people are
strongly moved by the prodigies and signs which have taken place; and the
prince who has lately become a Christian is the heir to the throne.
In the kingdom of
Macazar, about 500 leagues distant from Travancore, three of the chief princes
and many of the other inhabitants came into the Church of Jesus Christ eight
months ago. They have sent messengers to Malacca, a city belonging to the King
of Portugal, to ask for persons able to instruct them in the law of God; and
have declared that, having lived hitherto like animals without reason, they
intend for the future to live like men, as soon as they shall have received
the knowledge and religion of the true God. The Commandant of Malacca has sent
them some priests who are to instruct them. You may judge from this alone, my
very dear brothers, what great and what fertile harvests this uncultivated
field promises to produce. This part of the world is so ready, so teeming with
shooting corn, as I may say, that I hope within this very year to make as many
^s a hundred thousand Christians. Pray the Lord of the harvest that He
sendforth labourers into His harvests If any persons come to these countries,
where the fields are already white unto the harvest,18 in the desire
of extending the worship of God and propagating religion, they will be received
not only courteously but with real affection by the Portuguese, so that they
will have all necessaries supplied them in abundance. The Portuguese nation is
in fact so desirous of the extension of the Christian
17 rotate Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios
in messetn suam. (Orig.)
18 ubi campi jam sunt albi ad messem.
(Orig.)
faith, that if there
was no other motive, this pious zeal of theirs and their great friendliness to
our Society ought certainly to draw many of you hither. And now what ought you
to do when you see the minds of these people so well prepared to receive the
seed of the Gospel ? May God make known to you His most holy will, and give you
at the same time strength and courage to carry it out; and may He in His
Providence send as many as possible of you into this country!
The least and most
lonely of your brothers,
Francis.
From Cochin, January
27th, 1545.
We need hardly make
much commentary on the earlier paragraphs of this last letter. There is the
same immense overflowing tenderness of heart in the passage in which St.
Francis speaks of his constant memory of his distant brethren. The account of
the work in Travancore shows us that he kept to his usual and most laborious
method in evangelizing that new tract of country, and we may fairly gather from
it that the work was almost complete, at least as to the foundation ofthe new
Churches. The affairs of Manaar and Ceylon have already been specially
mentioned. The last paragraph of the letter, however, refers to some events
which had a very great influence on the course of St. Francis’ labours in the
East, and the thoughts which they suggested to him as the direction of his
future career had been now for some time working in his mind. The whole story,
like that of the expedition against Jafanapatam, is thoroughly characteristic
of the times and of the proceedings of the Portuguese in the East, and deserves
to be given almost as we find it in the old annalists of their empire.
The island that
Francis Xavier calls Macazar is that which is now known generally by the name
of Celebes, Macazar or Macassar being the name of one of many small kingdoms or
territories into which it was divided. Portuguese traders had for some years
visited it for purposes of traffic, the sandalwood and other productions of
the island being much in request among them. St. Francis mentions eight months
before the date of his letter as the time at which the conversions of
which he speaks took
place. They were brought about by a captain named Antonio de Payva, who was in
charge of a ship belonging to Rodrigo Vaz Pereira. It appears that Payva had
some time before made the acquaintance of the petty King of Sian, which is
called by some one of the territories of Macazar, by others a separate
island,and had begun to talk with him on matters of religion. But he had to
sail away without having finished the King’s conversion. On a later voyage he
came to Supa, a port of Celebes, the capital of another small kingdom. The
King of Supa was an old man of seventy, who came down to the sea to meet the
Portuguese merchant, with a youth the heir to his throne and a court of thirty
ladies, splendidly dressed and loaded with jewels. Payva accepted his
hospitality, and before long began to talk about religion, a subject very much
discussed in those parts at that time, as the Mussulmans of Java were
endeavouring to induce the Malay princes to adopt the creed of Mahomet. The
King asked Payva why the Christians hated the Mussulmans so much, and received
in answer an instruction on the filthy sensuality of the Mahometan law, and the
purity and holiness of the Gospel.
Payva then left the
old King half persuaded, and sailed away to his former friend at Sian. Here, as
we are told, he had a long discussion, first as to what was meant by holiness,
and then as to what was a lie. Payva’s speech on this latter question is
singularly characteristic. He told the King that he would tell him the truth
with all the openness and sincerity which were due to the sublime nature of the
religious subjects on which they were discoursing, and also to a prince so
highly gifted with good qualities as himself. To lie to a King, who represented
God on earth, was to lie to God, and God would not so far abandon him as to let
him do this. He would speak out of obedience and a sense of duty—only, let the
King promise him one thing,—that if he made him angry by what Ke should say,
that anger might fall on himself and not on his innocent companions. He might
freely risk his own life, but
19 There is an island, Siao, not far to the
northeast of Celebes.
not theirs, although
they would all die gloriously in an attempt to bring about the salvation of the
King and his people. After receiving the pledge he required, Payva said boldly
that the best instance of a lie which he could name was the religion which the
King and his subjects professed, in which devils, the authors of all evil since
the beginning of the world, were worshipped instead of the true God, the
sacrifices and rites of which were abominable, as well as false, the doctrine
more fabulous than the merest dream, and the manners taught by which were more
fit for wild beasts than for men; and all the while they had no knowledge of
Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and
their whole existence was so encompassed and penetrated with lying, that they
asked what it was, as a thing which they knew not. Jesus Christ was the Truth,
and the King’s religion was a lie. It seems that at the time of Payva’s visit
the island was in want of rain, after a long drought, and while he was speaking
the sky became overclouded, and one of £he violent rainstorms of the tropics,
with thunder and lightning, came on. It was looked on as a sign from heaven
that Payva’s words were true.
While the King was
still hesitating, a fleet arrived in the harbour, which at first caused some
alarm, as it was well armed and numerous: but it turned out to be the fleet of
the King of Supa, who had come with a large court to seek for Payva. He asked
whether the King of Sian had been baptized, and was told that he had taken time
to consider. A thing so important as the salvation of the soul, he answered,
was not to be put off, and he asked himself to be baptized at once. The
Portuguese had no priest with them, so the oldest man baptized him by the name
of Don Luis: his queen followed his example, with a large number of the nobles
and soldiers in her train; and the ceremony of baptism was accompanied by the
discharge of all the artillery, by music, and all the other resources of oriental
feast-keeping. The example of the court of Supa was irresistible to that of
Sian, and the King with a large following was baptized, taking the name of Don
Juan or Joam, after the King of Portugal. ‘So,’ says Faria y Sousa,
‘two Courts and two
Kings at the same time placed their necks, untamed throughout so many
centuries, under the sweet yoke of Christ, by one of the most rare and
unexpected means which that divine husbandry ever made gain by. So did Antonio
de Payva, passing from his profane trafficking to a so illus trious and
abundant merchandise, come to make himself the fellow of the sacred Evangelist
Matthew, who had the wit from being a man of trade to change himself to an
Apostle.’20
The newly converted
princes sent, as St. Francis tells us, to the Governor of Malacca for priests
to instruct them, and the tidings of this application had reached Xavier some
time, as it appears, after his arrival at Cochin on his way to meet the
Governor at Cambaia. These tidings seem to have fallen upon him with the weight
of a providential intimation that it was for him to undertake the farther
conversion and instruction of the people of Macazar—a work which had many
attractions in itself, as the natives of Celebes were Malays, and there was as
yet no mixture of false religions among them, Mahometanism not having as yet
taken root; moreover, there seemed, as we shall find farther on, a chance that
the good done by the missionary would not be frustrated and spoiled by the
misconduct of any Portuguese officials. The coming of the new Fathers from
Europe gave him an opportunity of supplying the missions of Travancore and the
Fishery Coast with priests, so that his own presence was no longer absolutely
necessary. Perhaps, too, he felt that until Miguel Vaz should return and bring
with him the strict injunctions and measures of retribution which were so
urgently needed, he himself would labour with little hope of effecting
permanent good in the continent of India. When we look at the remainder of his
Apostolate in the East, we can see how his voyage to Malacca and his designs
on Macazar led him on in the end to Japan and to the
20 Asia Portu%uesa, t. ii. p. 1. cap. 13. Bartoli, Asia, t. i. p. 88, tells the story rather differently from Faria
y Sousa, but the substance is the same. In his account the speech about lying
is addressed to the King of Supa, and Payva, in his last discourse to the King
of Sian, dwells particularly on the beauty of Christian works of mercy. The
rainstorm, also, is omitted by Bartoli.
coast of China, and
how the news of the success of Antonio de Payva was, in fact, a turning point
in his career. But the matter as yet presented itself to him only as an
uncertain prompting, and it was long before the light fully dawned on his soul
which made it clear to him that it was the will of God that he should now
proceed farther eastward.
Francis sailed for
Negapatam, taking Ceylon, Manaar, and a small island called De las Vaccas, near
Manaar, in his way, not long after the date of the letter which we have last inserted.
The voyage to Ceylon was signalized by another wonderful conversion. This time
it was the pilot of the vessel; a man who had for years led a licentious life,
neglecting in consequence the sacraments; he had two mistresses on board the
ship during this very voyage. Francis won his heart by kind familiar
conversation, talking to him on the subjects connected with his business, the
weather, the stars, and the like, leaving the poor man himself to begin to
speak on religion. At last the pilot opened his heart to him, and told him how
long he had been without confession, promising to approach the sacraments as
soon as they got to land. When the time came—it is not certain whether it was
at Colombo or at Galle—he repented of his promise, and avoided the sight of
the Father. He met him, however, by chance, on the shore, and rather out of
shame than any better feeling, asked him when he would hear his confession.
Francis told him to begin at once, and they paced up and down for a time, while
the pilot confessed some of his sins in a perfunctory way, without, however,
being interrupted or reproved. Grace meanwhile was working in his heart, and
he began to be pierced with true contrition. Then Francis led him aside into a
little chapel, brought him a cushion or mat to kneel upon, and helped him to
make a thorough and perfect confession, which led to an entire change of his
life.21
21 The Processes relate two celebrated
miracles of St. Francis at this time. He raised a child to life on the island
De las Vaccas. When he landed at Manaar a pestilence was raging, and about a
hundred died every day. The people came to beg him to pray for them. He retired
for three days, which he spent in prayer, after which the pestilence ceased.
When he arrived at
Negapatam, Francis found the Portuguese armament almost ready to sail, but the
expedition was put an end to by a strange accident. A Portuguese vessel, richly
laden with merchandise from Pegu, ran ashore on the coast of Jafanapatam, and
was at once seized by the Rajah- The Portuguese officers at Negapatam were
either interested themselves in the cargo or had friends whose money had been
staked in it, and they thought of nothing for the jnoment but of recovering it
from the Rajah by negotiations'. He was probably glad enough to buy them off
so easily; at all events, the expedition was abandoned. It is probable that the
unpopularity of the Governor, of which we hear much in the annalists, and the
want of real Christian zeal on the part of many of the officers, had much to do
with the failure of the enterprize.
It does not seem to
have been finally abandoned when the following letter — the last of the series
to Mancias, now a priest in charge of the Travancore mission—was written from
Negapatam.
(xlv.) To Father Francis Mancias.
My dearest Father and
Brother,
God, the witness and
judge of my inmost feelings, knows how far rather I would talk with you face to
face than write to you from a distance, for so I could more fully and
diligently give you by word of mouth the form and method which you should use
in your work and your conduct in the country where you are, so as duly to
discharge the grave duties incumbent upon you of doing service to our Lord God
by the right administration of that newly founded Church, and by watchfully
keeping guard on every side and in every way over the tender flock of
Christians newly gathered into the fold of Christ which is committed to your
care. But now I mean to give you hints about all this in a few words, in the
best manner that I can, for I am quite uncertain what is before me, and so I am
bound to snat'ch whatever opportunity I can get of giving you counsel.
vol. 1. u
May our Lord grant us
soon what we so ardently desire, and have been long waiting for—some certain
indication of His most holy will as to the work and the place in which He
desires that I should employ myself with the greatest usefulness to the
interests of His divine service ! We hang upon His nod, and by His grace are
entirely disposed to follow out at once what and whatsoever it may be to which
He may show that His will inclines. He has sometimes wonderful means of
manifesting His will,—secret touches, which pierce the depths of the soul and
flood it with light from heaven, so that the soul which is struck by these
divine beams can feel no doubt at all where God desires it to go and what work
to undertake. ' It has been most truly said of mortals such as we are in this
life, that, in order to acquit themselves of what is required of their state
and condition, they ought to be as strangers and travellers, who are entangled
by no attachment to place or thing which might prevent them from flitting
freely hither or thither, and starting up in all readiness at a moment’s
notice whithersoever the purpose of their journey and the object in which their
hopes are summed up may invite. Just in this way we, first of all, ought to
have our minds prepared, to be standing with girt loins, glowing with alacrity
for either of different and even contrary occupations or scenes of labour,
equally disposed to obey any yet uncertain command, and to fly whithersoever we
may be directed by the indication of the will of Him Who sends us. East, west,
north, or south, all are the same: the single thing in all that has to be
noticed as making any difference in our choice being the consideration which we
see of more or less opportunity promised us of advancing God’s honour most
usefully and most conspicuously.
I learn from certain
information that a great door is opened to the Gospel in the neighbourhood of
Malacca, and that a field is there to be found in which it seems that any
industry of ours may give itself full course, with the most probable hope of
seeing great rewards for its labour in the service of God. They say the
harvest is ripe and only wants reapers; that it is certain tHat the only reason
why great numbers out there do not adopt
the religion of Jesus
Christ is because no one calls them to it. I confess the opportunity of
increasing the kingdom of Jesus Christ and extending the boundaries of the
Church has a most fascinating attraction for me; but I am detained here by this
affair of Jafanapatam, the issue of which still hangs in doubt. This is the
only difficulty which prevents my making up my mind to go to Malacca, and if
time shall settle it—I was in hopes it would be settled in the course of this
next May—I shall go thither at once, and if then I can see for certain that God
wishes to use my work in the island of Macazar,—where it is said that many
persons have lately become Christians, and as letters inform us, the king of
the place himself has asked for preachers of the Gospel from Malacca, whom I am
afraid he may not have been able to get, for I think there are no fit persons
to be found there,—I say, if I make up my mind before the end of May to go to
Malacca, I shall not sail without having dispatched a message to my Lord
Governor, to let him know my resolution, and to ask for letters of introduction
to the Commandant of Malacca, ordering him to assist and further our work in
whatever way we want his help in serving God our Lord in the conversion of
those nations. If these things fall out as I have arranged, and it should be
necessary for me to sail to Macazar, I shall still not embark without writing
to you from Malacca, and informing you of the whole matter.
Meantime I beg you
not to lose heart or to let your courage be worn out, and never slacken your
efforts in the long and toilsome work of cultivating those poor ignorant people
where you are. Keep on going round the villages, preach to the people every
day, and especially be most diligent in your vigilance to leave no newborn
infants unbaptized. Pay the greatest attention everywhere to the instruction
of the children in the day schools of the Christian doctrine, and take constant
care to make the masters who are set over them do their duty with the greatest
faithfulness. You will receive from Joam de Cruz 2000 fanams, a sum which he
has collected to be applied to instructing the children. Ask, also, Father Joam
de Lizana to give you the sum of money which you left with him, destined
to the same purpose;
and if anywhere you find it necessary, set up new schools or repair the old,
taking all pains and care that in every single village and hamlet in the whole
coast the children are constantly taught the elements of the Christian
doctrine, and the prayers which they ought to know by heart. Do not fix your
own dwelling place or even stay long anywhere, but constantly visit over and
over again all the churches, as I used to do when I was in this country. And be
quite certain that in this way of action you will gain great favour with God.
When I was
at Munahpaud I learned the mischief that had been done to the church of that
place, and I made an exact calculation of the sums necessary to repair it.
Diego Rebello must be applied to for this money, in whose hands I have placed
2000 fanams, which the Rajah of Travancore gave me for building Christian
churches in his states. Father Francis Coelho has already spent a part of this
sum. He can tell you himself how much it is. Those other 2000 fanams in the
hands of Joam de Cruz are to be spent, as long as they last, solely for masters
and schools. And I seem to myself never to have said enough about one thing,
and this it is which I wish you above all else to take care to do most
constantly and most diligently—I mean the perpetual going round all the
villages, one after another, never omitting to preach the word of God and to
administer the sacraments, as you find the people, wherever you go, to need
them ; and I do not commit to your charge the laity alone, but the priests and
clergy who have been ordained from among the Malabars. Look up these first of
all, give them serious admonitions, and make use of any means which circumstances
may require to make them live in piety and chastity, exercising their ministry
for the glory of God, and giving wholesome examples of innocence and virtue to
the people. ^
I forgot, as to Joam
de Lizana, to tell you to deduct from the sum he has in his hands and which you
are to ask him for, a hundred fanams which he lent me when you were at Punical,
and which I spent on the ordinary service of the churches and catechetical
lessons. You must therefore deduct this sum
from the amount of
the funds set apart for the expenses of the schools. I moreover enjoin you to
avoid most scrupulously employing for any other purpose, however good, the
money collected for the salaries of the catechists and teachers.
I am rather afraid
you may be angry with me, as if I distrusted your memory, and so went on for
ever thrusting on you the same advice over and over again. But you must forgive
my anxiety, which may perhaps go beyond measure, and make me more careful than
I need be in my overflowing desire to secure what I want, and take in good part
that I again most urgently beg of you always to give the'first place in your
care to those two heads which I most earnestly commend to you, as matters which
in my judgment are of the very highest moment. The first relates to your going
perpetually round and round to visit the villages most assiduously, and without
giving yourself any rest or stopping long anywhere; everywhere baptizing newborn
infants, and instructing or providing for the instruction of the elder children
who are capable of being taught. The second has reference to the sharp and
careful vigilance to which I wish you to devote yourself in searching out the
conduct of the native clerics of Malabar, and the example which they set the
people; lest they not only incur eternal damnation themselves, but draw others
also with them to hell. If you find anything wrong in them, put it down at
once, for God’s sake, and chastise them quickly and severely; for if we were to
let the full powers which we have for this remain unused, like a sword in its
scabbard, when occasion urged us to punish very serious offences against God,
especially when there is cause of scandal to many, it would be imputed to us as
a great crime hardly to be expiated by much punishment.
Do all you can to
help Cosmo de Payva to rid his conscience of the burthen of the many thefts
and acts of rapine by which he has so licentiously made the whole coast full of
his deeds of violence, as also the exactions, the criminal acts and murders
which were committed at Tuticorin on account of his unbridled avarice. Go and
see him in private,
and show him kindly
how much it concerns his honour to make restitution of the money which he
extorted from the poor wretches whom the Portuguese put to death. I would write
to him myself if I had any hope that the fruit of my doing so would be any
amendment in him. But I wish you to tell him in my name that I can never cease
from the duty incumbent upon me, of making known to the King and to the Lord
Governor of India, by letter or word of mouth, his most wicked crimes, that
they may punish him as he deserves; and also of applying to Prince Don Henry,
the President of the Holy Tribunal for Capital Questions in Religion,22
that in virtue of his supreme authority in foro ecclesiastico he act against
him according to law, as one who hinders the conversion of the heathen by
barbarously persecuting the converts who have lately received the holy law and
faith of Jesus Christ; and add at the end that there is only one way of closing
my mouth and averting the severe punishments which are on the point of
overtaking him. This way is a speedy and conspicuous repentance, showing
itself in works which may satisfy the public scandal he has caused, by
restoring at once all his ill acquired treasures, and giving the other public
proofs, such as our Christian discipline exacts, that he sincerely repents and
condemns his past crimes, and promises to lead an innocent life for the future.
If Joam d’Artiaga is
still on the coast, it is my wish you should not allow him to reside there any
longer; and in order to oblige him to go away, you will give strict charge to
Cosmo de Payva not to remit any more money for his support, at least from any
funds that would be charged to our account, because we do not consider it
expedient that he should stay any longer in the country. Receive with all
hospitality Vasco Fernandez, who will deliver this letter to you, for I hope
from the goodness of God, which has already begun to shed on him singular
graces, that some day he will make one of our Society. He is a young man of
excellent conduct, and burning with great desires of serving God with
generosity; and how right it is
22 The Holy Office.
for us to help on and
encourage such with all our might, I am sure you will understand of yourself,
even if I do not tell you. I expect to receive full and careful letters from
you, telling me at good length all particulars, how your health is, how you
succeed in your work, whether the Christians whom you have the care of are making
progress and how far, whether Cosmo de Payva has at all come to a better mind,
and whether he has given back what he took away to the Christians whom he has
robbed. May God our Lord be with you all, to give you all the aid that I desire
from Him for myself! Farewell.
Your brother in Jesus
Christ,
Francis.
From Negapatam, April
7th, 1545.
This letter to
Mancias—the last which remains to us of those addressed to him by Francis
Xavier, and perhaps the last that was actually so addressed—is remarkable on many
accounts. It was written after the abandonment of the expedition against
Jafanapatam, of which, however, Xavier seems to have been so reluctant to give
up all hopes that he speaks as if it were still undecided. We find him saying,
in the letter immediately following this, that he had been prevented from
returning to the Fishery Coast or Travancore from Negapatam by the unfavourable
winds, and that he had taken the impossibility of sailing westward as an
intimation from above, and determined to visit Meliapor, or the city of St.
Thomas, to seek for light from heaven at the shrine of the first Apostle of
India. He says nothing to Mancias about the causes of the failure of the
expedition, but we may guess that he did not think of returning to the parts in
which Mancias was labouring, by the urgency of his instructions as to the
carrying on of the work, and by his seizing the occasion which presented itself
to write. We are told that Francis had embarked for Meliapor on Palm Sunday,
March 29. After proceeding some distance, the vessel was caught by a storm,
which forced it to take shelter under the lee of a projection of land, where it
remained during Holy Week, which Francis passed on shore in prayer and the most
rigorous fasting. They set sail again about Easter Day, but
were again driven
back by a tempest,23 this time to Negapatam, whence the letter was
written on Easter Tuesday. The week spent in prayer and contemplation of the
Passion of our Lord had not, as we see, revealed to Francis any clear knowledge
of his future destination, and, as he tells the Fathers at Goa to whom the next
letter is written, it did not come to him till he had been some time at
Meliapor. There is great gravity and even severity about many of the
directions. The letter is unlike those written to Mancias before he was a
priest, and he is exhorted to look after the Malabar priests as well as the
laity, and to take great care lest the former set a bad example and lead a life
unworthy of their sacred calling. The passage about Cosmo de Payva is in the
same strain of apostolical liberty with the letter to the King of Portugal
already given. Joam d’Artiaga has again been giving trouble, and he is dismissed
altogether from the mission.
The tempest which had
driven back the ship in which Francis Xavier was sailing to Meliapor did not
prevent his departure for that city. He made the journey overland on foot, and
must have suffered great hardships and even dangers on the way : but he was now
in one of those stages of his life when he was drawn specially to give himself
to prayer and the most earnest seeking for light from God, and at such times he
was 'most disposed to be alone and to embrace penance of every sort. He arrived
at Meliapor in the course of April, and took up his quarters in the house of
the Vicar (or parish priest), Gaspar Coelho, which was close to the church of
St. Thomas.
The fame of the
shrine of this Apostle, and the frequent miracles wrought there, are attested
both by the historians of India and the biographers of Francis Xavier.
According to old tradition, he had been martyred at Salamiua, a city out of the
ruins of which Meliapor seems to have risen. Maffei24 relates how
the Apostle was said to have predicted that when
23 Francis is said to have predicted this
tempest, urging the captain to put back to port, before there were any signs of
a storm.
24 Hist. Indie,
t. ii. p. 37.
the sea reached a
certain stone cross which he had erected, which was then ten leagues from the
shore, white men would come from the most distant parts of the earth to revive
the religion which he had preached in India. The sea gained upon the land for
centuries along that coast, and reached the stone at the time of the arrival of
the Portuguese. Thus the ancient city had been in great part swallowed up.
Meliapor, however, was the chief city and mart on the Coromandel Coast, and a
place of great importance. One of the first orders issued to the Governor of
India by King John of Portugal, on coming to the throne in 1521, had been to
search for the relics of the Apostle and show them due honour. The constant and
universal tradition of the country pointed out the spot. Maffei in another
part of his history gives a detailed account of the discovery of the body of
St. Thomas,25 which was found with a staff, the lance which had been
the instrument of his martyrdom, and a little vessel containing some blood.
The relics were afterwards removed t;o Goa, but at the time of the visit of
Francis Xavier they were still in the church at Meliapor. A fine church had
been built by the Portuguese over the little chapel of wood which was said to
have been built by the Apostle, and by the side of this, in a smaller chapel,
the sacred body rested. Here it was, then, that Francis Xavier spent many a
night in prayer, .communing, as it were, with the first preacher of the Gospel
in the Indies as to his own future course of labour for the salvation of the
East. He stole Out at night, across the little garden which separated the house
from the church, as soon as he observed that the Vicar, who slept in the same
room, was fast asleep. Here he is said to have been frequently molested and
even beaten and bruised during his long vigil by the devil, and at other times
to have been disturbed and annoyed by strange phantoms. He persevered through
all, and obtained, as we see from the following letter, the divine illumination
which he sought so earnestly and faithfully.
25 Hist. Indie,
t. viii. p. 157. The spot is now a suburb of Madras.
(xlvi.) To the Fathers Diego de Borba and Paul of
Camerino (at Goa).
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
The Jafanapatam
expedition has just come to nought. So the Rajah, who had promised to become
Christian, has not been reestablished in his dominions. An accident ruined the
whole thing. A vessel of the King of Portugal’s, returning from Pegu to the
Indies with a full cargo, was driven ashore by a storm on the coast of the
kingdom of Jafanapatam. The Rajah immediately seized the cargo. The Portuguese
have been pleased to put off the war till they have recovered their property.
Thus it is that what the Governor ordered has not been done. But it will be
done yet, if so it please God.
I stayed several days
at Negapatam, and then the wind, which was adverse to our return westward,
prevented my setting out homeward. So I took this accident as a piece of advice,
and betook myself to the city of St. Thomas. Then in the holy church of the
Apostle I set myself to implore God, with continual prayer, to be pleased to
make known to me His will, which I had fully made up my mind not to fail in
accomplishing, for I was confident that He Who gives the will would give also
strength to accomplish it.26 And so here God in His infinite mercy
has been pleased to remember me. With my soul flooded with an indescribable
joy, I understood that God desired me to go to Malacca, and from thence to
Macazar, where a great number of natives have lately become Christians, and
there confirm these new converts in the faith which they have embraced.
I have had translated
into their language, with short explanations, the elements and precepts of the
Christian religion. It is quite right that those who have of their own accord
become Christians should receive from us every kind of assistance, and that to
be able to ask God to increase their faith and to
26 Qui dcd.it
velle, daret etiamperfictre. (Orig.)
give them strength
necessary to observe the divine law, they should have at hand prayers
translated into their own language, the Pater Noster, the Hail Mary, and other
prayers, and especially the formula of general confession. If they make use of
it every day to confess their sins to God, it will take the place of
sacramental confession until they have priests amongst them who know the
language of Macazar.
Father Francis
Mancias, with some Malabar priests, remains among the Christians of Comorin.
Where they are my work is not wanted. The Fathers who have wintered at Mozambique,
and others whom we expect from Europe this year, will accompany the Cingalese
princes when they return to their own country. I hope much that God will give
me great help for my voyage, since, as I have told you, He has condescended to
let me know, with so much interior delight in my soul, what it is that most of
all He requires of me, and I am so firmly resolved to accomplish what by His
divine inspiration I have conceived, that if I were by any chance to leave it
undone I should simply seem to myself to fight against God, and to have no
right to hope for anything either in this life or after death. So if this year
I can find no opportunity of going by a Portuguese ship, I shall not be afraid
to trust myself to a Mussulman or heathen vessel sailing for Malacca. And I
have so much confidence in God, for Whom alone I undertake this voyage, that
even if there were to be no merchant vessel this year, and some open boat were
to set out from hence to Malacca, I should not hesitate, relying on the help
of God, to make the voyage in that. In truth, all my hope is fixed and rests in
God. For His sake, therefore, I beg of you, my dearest brothers, not to cease
to commend me, a poor sinner, to Him in your daily masses and continual
prayers. I think I shall set out for Malacca towards the end of August, for the
ships which are to sail thither wait for favourable weather, which generally
comes about that season. I have asked the Governor of India for an order in
writing to the Commandant of Malacca to provide me with a vessel and all other
things necessary for the voyage to Macazar. I charge you of your charity to see
that this order
is made out and sent
by the bearer of this letter. Send me at the same time a small Roman Breviary.
Say a great many kind things in my name to Cosmo Anez, our very good friend and
the most faithful of men. I do not write to him separately, because this letter
is intended for all three of you.
If any members of the
Society arrive who are foreigners and ignorant of the Portuguese language, they
will have to learn it, otherwise there will be no one in these parts to understand
what they say. I will write to you from Malacca, to tell you about the
conversions already made and how the heathens are prepared, so that you may
send us thither men fit to propagate our holy Christian faith among them, for
you must make the house which is called after the holy faith justify its name.
I will write to you more fully by the para- messes27 which will sail
in July. May our Lord bring us together in His blessed kingdom! for I know not
whether we shall ever see each other again in this life.
Francis.
The city of St.
Thomas, May 8th, 1545.
Meliapor was a city
of predilection to Francis Xavier. It was not by any means free from the
scandals which prevailed at Goa and elsewhere. There were only about a hundred
Portuguese families settled in the place, and the evil influences of the pagan
corruption around them, as well as the enervating effects of the climate, had
made large inroads on their Christian virtue. Nevertheless, the city won
Francis’ heart, for he found its people docile and ready for improvement, and
no doubt the immense consolations which he received at the shrine of St.
Thomas, after his future course had become clear to him, made him love the spot
on which he had been so blessed. He spent four bright happy months at Meliapor.
His days were given to labours for the spiritual good of the inhabitants, and
his nights, except the short portion which he allotted to necessary rest, in
prayer and contemplation. Some anecdotes of this time are given in the biographies.
They all witness to the kind of magic which his presence exercised over the
popula-
27 native boats.
tion, especially the
Portuguese, who, even when they were leading vicious lives, still preserved
their faith, and were easily won by his sweet gay affability and the charm of
his eminent holiness. All over the East he was already known as the holy
Father, and so many of his wonderful sayings and predictions had come true that
every one was convinced that neglect of his admonitions would be speedily followed
by punishment from heaven. Once, as if forced by poverty, he asked a rich
cavalier to give him a dinner. The man was living in open sin with a mistress
to whom he was fanatically attached, and this lady was at table, and the walls
were hung round with licentious paintings. Francis took no notice of anything,
spoke to the lady as if she had been the cavalier’s wife, talked pleasantly and
at the same time seriously till dinner was over, and then took his leave with a
thousand thanks to his host for having been so charitable as to feed him. The
man’s heart smote him as soon as Francis was gone, and when he thought of all
that his guest’s virginal modesty must have had to suffer during the repast, he
was melted at the thought of so much charity. He was soon at the feet of
Francis, asking him to hear his confession, and became a changed man for the
rest of his life.2S A certain Jerome Fernandez used to tell
afterwards how he had been on a vessel which had been taken by pirates, and had
only escaped by swimming ashore without anything but his clothes. He applied
for &lms to Francis, who put his hand into his purse and found nothing, and
then, raising his eyes to heaven, and bidding him* not despair, so great was
the mercy of God, he took out of it a handful of gold fanams, and gave them to
Fernandez. Another, a merchant, went to ask his blessing, as he was going on a
distant voyage. Francis took his own rosary and gave it him, telling him that
it would be of use to him if he had confidence in the prayers of the Blessed
Virgin. The merchant was saved on a plank from a shipwreck
18 Massei, 1. ii. c. 7. Massei says he had
not been to confession for fifteen years. Another penitent is mentioned by
Bartoli, who had been away from the sacraments for twenty years, and was for a
fortnight seen in the church daily, making his confession.
in which most of
those with him were lost, calling on our Blessed Lady, and holding the rosary
in his hands.
The story of Joam
d’Eyro, a young merchant who gave his goods to the poor and became Francis’
companion in his voyage to Malacca, is told by all the biographers of St.
Francis, and is alluded to in the first letter which was written by the Saint
after his arrival at that place. We may give it partly in the words of the
English translation of Turselline, partly in those of Lucena, who had seen the
sworn deposition. * There was a certain young man, a merchant, called John
d’Eyro, who came to Francis to confession, and hearing him discourse of divine
matters, found there were certain other merchandize far richer than those with
which he trafficked, and of which he had never heard before. Wherefore, giving
over his former trading, and desirous to become a merchant of more precious
wares, he entreated Francis to receive him for his companion.’ [The writer
means his companion'in the Society.] ‘He at first refused him absolutely
(because, perhaps, he saw in him a secret inconstancy and intractable
disposition), yet at last, by much entreaty, he obtained his desire, and so,
settling his affairs, began to distribute his goods among the poor. But in
executing of this his good purpose he was more forward than constant. For
whilst he was busied about selling of his wares, he was vehemently solicited by
the common enemy of mankind, who did so work upon him that having set his hand
to the plough, on a sudden he began to look back, and sought again most
greedily after those things which a little before he had contemned. Being thus
wholly changed in mind, he packed up his merchandize in the most private way he
could and conveyed them into a ship, intending to be gone. But although he
deceived others, yet he could not deceive Francis, the which he most of all
sought to do. Now having gotten all things together which he thought requisite,
as he was about to take shipping, Xavier upon a sudden causeth him to be called
unto him.’29 He sent after him a lad called Antonio,
says Lucena. The young merchant thought at first to brave it out. ‘You
29 Turselline, lib. ii. c. 17.
are wrong, my child,’
he said, * I am not the man you seek.’
‘ What,’ said the
boy, * are you not called Joam d’Eyro ?’ * Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, sir, Father
Master Francis sent me to run quick, and find and call to him Joam d’Eyro.’
There was a battle in the man’s heart; but at last he determined to go,
trusting in his own great secrecy, says the account, that Francis could not
know what had happened; but he was undeceived as soon as he came into his
presence. Francis said simply, ‘You have sinned, Joam d’Eyro, you have sinned,’
but so forcibly that Joam threw himself at his feet, saying, ‘Yes, father, it
is true, it is true, I have sinned.’ ‘ Confession ! confession ! my child,’
said Francis; and, adds Lucena, ‘ the same day he confessed, the same day he
sold his ship that he had bought, the same day he gave the price of it and all
the rest he had to the poor, the same day he ended with more grace, and rose to
a better life by penance than he had lost by his fault, having gained besides,
by the experience of his own weakness, a great advance in the knowledge and
distrust of himself.’30
The time at last came
for Francis to sail for Malacca, and we are told that so great had been the
change wrought by his influence in the moral and religious state of the
Portuguese, that there was no one left, when he set sail, who was known to be
leading a bad and unchristian life. Francis left the people with blessings and
predictions of happiness and prosperity, which were signally fulfilled, and
they on their part showed so much grief at his going as to remind the
Portuguese historian of the parting between St. Paul and his friends at
Miletus. We find almost invariably that the sea voyages of Francis Xavier
—which occupied a very large portion of the short period of years during which
his Apostolate was carried on—are signalized each in turn by some miracle of
charity or some anecdote of his gracious, affable, and playful sanctity. This
voyage from Meliapor to Malacca has its story of this kind. A soldier was on
board, very fond of cards, which were in great request to cheer the tedium of
the passage. One day he was unlucky, and lost, first all his own money, and
then a large sum, some
30 Vida da S.
Francesco, 1. iii. c. 9.
hundreds of crowns,
which had been committed to his care by a merchant at Meliapor, to be conveyed
to a correspondent at Malacca. When all was lost, the poor man broke out into
blasphemies against God, and then sank into a deep melancholy which brought
him to the point of throwing himself into the sea. Francis was told of his
danger; perhaps, as was so often his wont, he had been looking on at the game,
talking with the players and bystanders. He took the man aside, and began to
comfort him as well as he could, but it seemed impossible to make him
resigned. Then Francis borrowed fifty reals of a friend, and brought them to
him with a bright smile on his face, telling him to go and try his luck again.
Before the play began, he took the pack of cards in his hands, turned tliem
over once or twice, and then gave them to the players. This time the luck was
all on the side of the soldier, who soon won back all that he had lost. He was
going on with the game, when Francis forbad him to continue, and then taking
him aside, spoke to him sweetly and gravely of the risk which he had run of
throwing away his soul as well as his life. The man became truly penitent, and
never touched cards again.
These anecdotes of
Francis in his intercourse with his chance companions on his numerous voyages
might probably have been multiplied almost indefinitely if there had been any
one at hand to collect them at the time. We gather from them a picture of the
Saint as individual and distinct in its features as that, for instance, which
the mind forms to itself as it considers the several stories about St. Francis
of Assisi, in his love for birds, animals, and the lower creation generally.
The beauty, the simplicity, the exquisite gentleness, condescension, and
charity of the picture assure us of its general truth, apart from the authority
of the testimony on which each particular instance may rest. Amid all the wild
roughness, the free license, and the reckless passions which had their play
among ‘the Portuguese mariners of the time, and the crowd of men of all races
and creeds who were to be met with on board the merchant vessels of the
Eastern seas, it was the fruit of no slight
and feeble virtue to
preserve purity, charity, meekness, justice, and temperance, without stain or
flaw. A far more consummate sanctity must that have been which could mix so
freely and easily with the crowd, and condescend so thoroughly to its ways and
practices, and yet not only remain pure as the sunbeam that pierces the foulest
dungeon, but be also a source of light and moral health and renovation to all
around it.
We must suppose that
Francis received, before sailing for Malacca, the letter for the Commandant of
that place, which he had asked for from the Governor Sousa. If Sousa sent it to
him, it was his last act as Governor in favour of Francis Xavier. About the end
of August of this year a new Governor arrived, Joam de Castro, whose name
became very famous ii the annals of Portuguese India. Martin Alfonso de Sousa
had been unsuccessful, at least he was unpopular with the Portuguese. He had
lowered the pay of the soldiers, and at the same time opposed nimself
rigorously to the practice common among them of quitting the King’s service to
become traders. Other measures of his, which are mentioned by Faria y Sousa,
seem to have had the same tendency to thrift, economy, carefulness in watching
the interests of the revenue, and the like. He was also naturally severe and
hot tempered. He is said to have so earnestly desired the arrival of his
successor as to have adjured a friend of his, who was setting out for Portugal
a few days before Joam de Castro arrived, and was hearing mass with him at the
time, to tell the King to send him a successor, as he dared not govern India ‘
because men are so changed from truth and honour.’ And he swore ‘by that sacred
Host, and by the true Body of Christ, which he saw therein with the eyes of
faith,’ that otherwise he would open the ‘ patents of succession’—sealed
papers sent out by the King, with names of officers in them who were to succeed
to the Governorship in case of a sudden vacancy—and resign the government to
the first who should be named.31 Don Joam de Castro brought with him
three Fathers of the Society for the service of the mission.
31 Faria y
Sousa, Asia Portugziesa, t. ii. p. i. cap. xiv.
VOL. I. X
(i.) Daily Exercise
of a Christian, drawn tip by St. Francis Xavier.
There are in the collection of the Letters of St.
Francis Xavier several documents which are rather to be classed among his
‘works,’ than among his letters. It is much to be regretted that there are not
more of these relics of his wonderful industry and diligence, for his own
letters, and the writers of his time, mention several which do not seem now to
exist. At least, they have never been published. There is so much to be learnt
from his manner of setting forth even the simplest and most elementary truths,
that it would be a pity to omit altogether the documents to which we refer; and
we shall, therefore, place them here, where they may be considered as a
commentary on what has been said in the text and his own letters as to his
methods of practical instruction. The first document, which we find in the
collection of F. Menchacha (Epistolce Sti. Francisci Xaverii), is a rule of
daily life for a Christian. It seems not to be intended so much for the Indian
converts as for the Portuguese, as it clearly implies that the person following
it can go every day to mass. It was the habit of St. Francis, as F. Poussines
informs us, when he had won any body back from a bad life, to give him a method
of living well and piously. This he used to teach to the ignorant viva vocet and to others he gave it
in writing. There were thus many copies of it in existence, indeed he sometimes
fixed it up in a public place, where people might copy it. We owe the copy
which we possess to the zeal of Father Philippucci, an Italian Jesuit who had
been miraculously healed by invoking St. Francis Xavier, and afterwards got
leave to go and labour in India, whence he sent a large number of copies of
letters of the Saint to P£re Poussines. Philippucci obtained several copies of
the instruction which follows, and comparing them together, selected the best
text he could find, and translated it into Latin. (Philippucci lived at the end
oi the seventeenth century.) The title of the paper is given as follows :
To souls desirous of eternal salvation.
The
Christian who is not satisfied to be one merely in name, but who would truly
and practically act up to what he professes, should on awaking in the morning
turn his mind to make three acts especially due to God and pleasing to Him. The
first is the confession and adoration of the most Holy Trinity, the mystery of
God one in Nature, three in Persons. The profession and confession of three
divine Persons in one Essence is the distinctive mark of the Christian faith,
and this we openly declare by making the sign of the cross and pronouncing at
the same time the names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as the Church
teaches her children to do, if only we accompany the movement of our hand and
the sound of the tongue by devotion and attention of mind. The moment you
awake, therefore, sign yourself on the forehead and the breast, and pronounce
at the same time the solemn invocation of the Holy Trinity, with the deepest
reverence of a devout mind, so to adore God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
One Eternal Almighty God Infinite in goodness. .
The second duty is
the exercise of the three theological virtues, thus to consecrate to our
Creator the first fruits, as it were, ox the day, and to gain to ourselves
beforehand His favour which we so much need for everything. Repeat, therefore,
the Creed, pronouncing each of the articles with your whole heart, and making
an act of the strongest adhesion to all the dogmas it contains concerning the
nature of God, the divine Persons, the Incarnation, life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, the holy Church, and all the rest, saying in your
heart as you give utterance to the words : O my God, Three Persons in one God,
I believe in my heart all that the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church
believes and teaches concerning Thee ; all that she believes and teaches
concerning the Son of the eternal Father, Who for me was made man, suffered,
died, and rose again, and Who reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Holy
Spirit: and all the other articles of faith which this holy Church teaches and
proiesses. I am ready to lose everything, to suffer all violence, and more than
that, to pour forth my blood and my life, rather than allow this faith to be
torn from me, or allow the least doubt as to any part oi it. I am fully
resolved to live and die in this profession, and if speech shall fail me when I
come to my last hour, now at this moment, instead oi then, I declare in words
which express my whole heart that I acknowledge Thee, O Lord Jesus, ior the Son
of God, I
believe in Thee, and I submit most humbly to Thee all my thoughts. Amen. N
From Thee also, O
Jesus Christ my Redeemer, and from Thy divine mercy, I hope that through Thy
merits, assisted by Thy grace, I corresponding to this grace by good works, and
fulfilling the precepts of Thy holy law, I shall one day come into the glory
and happiness for which Thou hast been pleased to create and call me. Amen.
I love Thee also, O
my God, above all things, and I hate and detest with my whole heart the sins by
which I have offended Thee, because they are displeasing in Thy sight, Thou Who
art supremely good and worthy to be loved; and as I acknowledge that I ought to
love Thee with a love beyond all others, and strive to show Thee such love, so
also I count Thee in my judgment infinitely above the worth of all things most
fair and excellent, and I firmly and irrevocably resolve never to consent to
offend Thee, or to do anything in any way which may displease Thy sovereign
goodness and put me in danger of falling from Thy holy grace, in which I am
most firmly determined to persevere to my last breath. Amen.
In the third place,
in order to begin the day and the hours of light well, we must ask of God our
Lord the assistance of His grace that we may observe exactly the ten
commandments of His most holy law: for no one can arrive at eternal salvation
except by observing them. Therefore, the precepts of the Decalogue should be
repeated distinctly ; and after having pronounced them slowly and attentively,
these words should be added: God our Lord says that those who observe and
practise these ten commandments will go into Paradise and there enjoy
eternally supreme happiness. God our Lord says that those who do not observe
and do not put in practice these ten commandments will go into hell, where they
will be tormented eternally.
These two prayers
should be added in order to obtain grace to observe the commandments of God :
I pray and beseech
Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, to grant me grace this day and during my whole life
to observe perfectly the ten commandments.
I beg and entreat
thee, holy Mary, my Sovereign Lady, intercede for me with thy most blessed Son
Jesus Christ, and obtain from Him, to grant me this day and all my life grace
faithfully to observe these ten commandments. Amen.
Afterwards should be
said, with an attentive and devout heart, this prayer to God our Lord :
O Almighty God,
Father of my soul, Creator of all things that are in the world, in Thee, my God
and Lord, the source of all my good, I place my whole confidence; I hope,
without any doubt, that I shall obtain eternal salvation from Thy grace through
the infinite merits of the Passion and death of my Lord Jesus Christ, although
the sins which I have committed from my tender years up to this day are very
great indeed and very many. Thou, O Lord, hast created me, and given me body
and soul and all that I have. Thou alone and none else hast formed me in Thy
image and likeness. I return to Thee, O my God, endless thanks and praise,
especially for the blessing Thou hast granted me of knowing the faith and the
true laws of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Weigh in the balance, O Lord, my sins
against the merits of the death and Passion of my Lord Jesus Christ, and not
against my own slender merits, which are indeed none at all; and so I shall be
free from the power of the enemy, and shall go and enjoy eternally the glory of
Paradise. Amen.
Prayer to our most holy Lady.
O Mary, my Lady, the
hope of Christians, and Queen of Angels and of all the saints who are with God
in heaven; I commend myself to thee, my Lady, and to all the saints, now, as if
I were at the hour of my death, to preserve me from the world, the flesh, and
the devil, the enemies who plot against my soul, employing all their power, and
hoping with deadly hate to thrust, it down into hell. Hinder this, O most
tender Mother, I pray and beseech thee. Amen.
Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
O my most excellent
Patron, holy Archangel Michael, defend me against the devil at the hour of my
death, when I shall stand before the judgment seat, giving to God an account of
all my life. Amen.
Prayer to the holy Guardian Angel.
O Angel of God, who, by Divine appointment,
art my guardian to watch over me in all my ways, be pleased this day to
enlighten, preserve, rule, and govern me, whom the goodness of God has committed
to thy charge.1
1 O Angele Dei,
Qui custos es mei,
Me tibi commissum pietate supemd Illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna.
After this usual
formulary (Angel of God, who art, &c.), should be added: I beseech thee, O
holy and blessed Angel, to whose care and providence I am entrusted, be always
at hand with help for me at the time of need. Bear my prayers into the sight of
God our Lord, and let thy voice plead in His merciful ear, that by His mercy
and through thy intercession, He may grant me the pardon of my past faults, a
true knowledge of my present faults and a true contrition for them ; and
lastly, efficacious care to avoid those of which in future my frailty may be
in danger, and that He may also grant me the grace to do good works and to
persevere in so doing to the end of my life. Drive far away from me, by the
virtue of Almighty God, all the temptations of Satan ; and what I cannot merit
by my own works, obtain by thine own gracious and powerful prayers to Him Who
is the Lord of both of us, that no mixture of sin, no leaven of wickedness may
have place in me. And if at any time thou seest me wander out of the right way
and fall off to the crooked way of sin, use every means to bring me back again
to seek my Saviour in the paths of justice. If thou seest me fall into
tribulation and distress, then in thy kindly charity use all thy sweet offices
with God to obtain from Him for me at once the help which I need. I beseech
thee never to desert me, to protect me ever, visit me, help me, and defend me
from all the vexations and assaults of evil spirits, watching over me night
and day, at every hour and at every moment; direct me whither thou wouldst have
me to go, and go with me and guard me. But above all things, O my guide and
holy guardian, again and again I pray and beseech thee, bend all thy powers
and redouble thy care for me at the time of my departure from this life, and
permit me not to be terrified by the attacks or spectres of my enemies the
devils. Let them find me shielded most efficaciously by thee, so that I fall
not into despair, and leave me not before thou hast led me in unto the beatific
sight of God our Lord ; where with thee, with the most blessed Mother of God
ever Virgin, and all the saints, we may enjoy for ever the glory of Paradise,
which is to be given us through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who, with the Father and
the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever. Amen.
After having begun by
these prayers, it is well for the faithful Christian, before giving himself up
to the occupations of life, to meditate a certain space of time on the law of
the Lord, which he may do profitably by renewing every morning the following
exercise. Prostrate before God, let him go through and meditate se
parately the ten
commandments of His law, according to this form. The first commandment of the
divine law of my Lord and Creator is this: * Thou shalt love and worship the
Lord thy God with all thy heart,’ &c. Then let him think over with himself
and call to mind all the faults which, from his earliest years, he has
committed against this precept during his whole life. Then, condemning and
detesting them with his whole heart, let him implore God to pardon those
faults, and make a firm resolution to avoid henceforth sins of this kind, and
rather to incur the risk and loss of all his property, his health, and even his
life, than commit anything contrary to a commandment so just and salutary.
Let him add two
colloquies, in some such words as these. First to Jesus Christ let him say : I
pray and beseech Thee, O Jesus my Lord, grant me to-day and all the days of my
life, the abundance of Thy grace to observe this first precept of Thy holy law.
Then to the blessed Mother of Jesus Christ : O my Lady, holy Mary, I beseech
thee to pray for me to the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus Christ my Lord,
that this day and all the remaining days of my life He may mercifully supply
to me abundant grace to perform fully all that is prescribed to me by this first
commandment of His most holy law. In the same way let him go through the nine
other precepts of the Decalogue.
This exercise, if
gone through faithfully at the beginning of each day, is of the highest
importance for securing eternal salvation. For as the Christian’s whole hope
and only way of arriving at the happiness to which he is called lies in his
doing good works and avoiding evil works, of which the former are commanded and
the litter forbidden by the ten precepts of the divine law, it is easy to see
how much it will conduce to this end to consider exactly and distinctly each
one of the divine precepts, and thus to have set before us as in a mirror the
stains of our souls which must be removed, and how much is still lacking to us.
From this springs true contrition, whereby we efface our old sins, and alsc
that we guard ourselves beforehand against those faults into which we are in
danger of falling on account of the treacherous occasions of daily life, and
are able to weaken the power of bad associations and vicious habits, and daily
acquire fresh strength from the firm and deliberate resolutions which we form,
as also by imploring so continually the aid of God to resist the temptations
to evil which may occur to us in all kinds of wickedness, every one of which
falls under the ban of some one of the ten commandments oi God, and
consequently may be thought of with
the greatest profit
to our souls in this daily examination of those commandments, made in this
consideration of them.
Here is also a remedy
for that blindness of the spiritual eye so common in all those who live without
reflection, who let themselves fall into sin without feeling it, and in whom
long habit has so blunted the sting of conscience that they drink in iniquity
like water, not knowing what they are doing, while they are preparing for
themselves destruction at the end, and like gamesters, stake their eternal
salvation or damnation on a chance throw. In this exercise care must be taken
to dwell the longest time on those precepts as to which each one offends most
often and most seriously ; exciting a more lively sorrow for such sins in
particular out of love for the Divine Majesty which they have offended, and
gathering up all the strength of the soul to form an irrevocable resolution of
abstaining from them henceforth, avoiding also the occasions of them, and
taking all fit ways and means to root up the bad habit which carries us
headlong into them, especially imploring the help of God’s grace chiefly for
this purpose.
After having gone
through the ten commandments, the Christian should pronounce with the greatest
attention these or the like words : I most firmly believe that if, which God
forbid, death should surprise me before I had obtained the pardon of any grievous
sin, committed against one of these ten divine commandments, immediately, and
without any hope of a remission of the sentence, my poor soul would be damned
and cast into the everlasting fire of hell, to be there tormented throughout
eternity, without any redemption; also I am certain that if, as I desire and
hope, when I yield my last breath, I am free from any mortal sin, and if I
begin from this moment to correct in myself the bad habit of sinning against
the ten divine commandments, then God our Lord will have compassion on my soul,
and however jreat may have been the number of sins in my life, will lead ms to
eternal salvation, that is to say, to the glory of Paradise, after I have
expiated the stains of my sins, by the trials and sufferkigs of this world patiently
endured, 01* by the pains of Purgatory.
Every morning when he
leaves his home the Christian’s first steps should be to the church, and there
let him be present at the holy sacrifice of the mass. While mass is being said,
he may say within himself, or with his lips if he like better, these prayers,
or others like them :
O Lord Jesus Christ, love of my heart, by
the five wounds which Thy love for us inflicted on Thee on the Cross, help Thy
servants whom Thou
hast redeemed with Thy most precious Blood. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ,
most merciful Saviour of men, by the holy Cross which Thou hast consecrated by
the touch of Thy most pure Body, and which Thou hast purpled with Thy most
precious Blood ; by the virtue of the Passion and the death which Thou didst suffer
for me thereon, forgive me my sins as Thou didst forgive the ihief crucified
beside Thee; give me victory over the enemies of my soul; and by Thy grace
bring the men who are against me to a true knowledge of Thy Divinity, and to
true repentance of their sins. Amen.
When the most holy
Body of the Lord is elevated and shown to the people, let him say :
I adore Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, and I
bless Thee for having ransomed the world and me by the holy Cross. Amen.
When the sacred
chalice of the precious Blood of our Lord is elevated, let him say :
I adore Thee, O most sacred Blood of Jesus
my Lord, shed upon the Cross to save sinners and me. Amen.
And as it is fitting
that the Christian should be careful not only for his own salvation, but for
that of others, I should advise every one to repeat this prayer for the
conversion of infidels at the moment the priest consumes the sacred Body and
Blood of Jesus Christ in consummating the sacrifice :
O Eternal God, Creator of all things,
remember that the souls of infidels have been created by Thee out of nothing,
and formed after Thine image and likeness. Behold, Lord, to the dishonour of
Thy name, hell is peopled with them. Remember that Jesus Thy Son suffered for
their salvation the most cruel death : permit not, I beseech Thee, O Lord,
that Thy Son be any longer held in contempt by these infidels ; but, appeased
by the prayers of Thy chosen Saints, of the Church, the most holy Spouse of Thy
Son, remember Thy mercy, forget their idolatry and infidelity, and grant that
they may at length acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, in
Whom is our salvation, our life, our resurrection, by Whom we have been saved
and set at liberty, and to Whom be all glory for ever and ever. Amen.
During the day the
wear and tear of life and our promiscuous intercourse with men usually offer
dangerous allurements to sin, especially to persons who by many sins in time
past have contracted a habit of doing wrong. These last ought to recollect continually
the shortness of this life, the nearness of death, the account
they must render to
God of all the actions of their life, the universal judgment when we shall
appear before the inexorable judgment seat of Jesus Christ, the everlasting
flames of the damned, and the eternal happiness of Paradise for which we were
created, which is to be irreparably lost by any mortal sin. A person who is
habitually filled with these thoughts, when he betakes himself to the daily
occupations and recreations of life, will certainly fall far more rarely than
others, and will rise again more easily after he has fallen: and he will
generally be found ready and disposed to do that during his life which at the
hour of death he would wish to have done. It will also be good for every one to
be fully persuaded and thoroughly to understand that there is a great
difference between sins of frailty, which are wrung as if by stealth, by the
power of temptation or the unexpected snares of some false attraction, from
persons otherwise well disposed to good, and the great sins of inveterate habit
which have been long continued openly and shamelessly. The latter are
incredibly greater than the former, the former more easily forgiven than the
latter. So
I should not be without hope that the
repentance of persons whom a last illness might surprise in some fault of the
first kind might profit them, but I should have great fears for people of the
other sort, for such persons seem to me not so much to leave their sins as
their sins to leave them ; and it seems to me likely that there exists as it
were an agreement between the divine mercy and justice of God, by which the
indulgent kindness of His mercy may be allowed to cover those whose life has
been once virtuously ordered, but who out of weakness and from the treachery
of occasions of sin which they never sought may have'been so unhappy as to
fall into mortal sin, while those who, giving themselves an uninterrupted
license in sin, are so bold as to carry on an open profession of wickedness to
the very end of their life, will be sacrificed to the vengeance of the justice
of God.
These things I
especially commend to the thoughts of those who have hitherto found the holy
war against sin a war of doubtful issue, and marked by successive alternations
of fortune. As to those who are rather further advanced in the interior life
and who have begun to taste how gracious is the Lord, I advise them often during
the course of the day to raise their hearts to God, to make again and again
acts of faith, of religion, of hope, and above all of pure and unmixed charity.
It is a good thing to know by heart iorms of these acts, taken from the psalms
or sacred hymns, and to repeat them from time to time. They may also be
expressed
in common language,
or even sung. Here is a metrical exercise of the love of God, without any
mixture of our own interest, for the use of those who like it.
[Here follows the
rhythm commonly known as the Act of Love or Contrition, of St. Francis Xavier.
There is a question whether it was not originally the composition of St.
Ignatius; indeed, the Spanish sonnet is attributed to him by Father Menchacha,
who thinks St. Francis made a shorter and more popular form of the same,
perhaps in Portuguese. The Spanish runs thus :
No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte El cielo que me tienes prometido :
Ni me mueve el infiemo tan temido Para dexar por esso de ofenderte.
Tu me mueves, Senor ; mueveme el verte Clavado en essa cruz, y escarnecido
;
Mueveme el ver tu cuerpo tan herido ;
Muevenme tus afrentas, y tu muerte.
Muevesme al tu amor en tal manera,
Que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara;
Y aunque no hubiera infiemo, te temiera,
No me tienes que dar porque te quiera ;
Que aunque quanto espero, no esperara,
Lo mismo que te quiero, te quisiera.
The common Latin
version, which, as will be seen, though it gives the same thoughts, is not by
any means a strict translation, is as follows:
O Deus, ego amo Te,
Nec amo Te, ut salves me,
Aut quia non amantes Te /Eterno punis igne,
Tu, Tu, mi Jesu, totum me Amplexus es in cruce ;
Tulisti clavos, lanceam,
Multamque ignominiam,
Innumeros dolores,
Sudores, et angores,
Ac mortem, et haec propter me Ac pro me peccatore.
Cur igitur non amem Te,
O Jesu amantissime?
Non ut in ccelo salves me,
Aut ne in seternum damnes me,
Nec prcemii ullius spe ;
Sed sicut Tu amasti me,
Sic amo et amabo Te,
Solum quia Rex meus es,
Et solum quia Deus es. Amen.
The following English
translation is considered as the classical form of the rhythm in our language,
and is attributed to Dry- den:
‘ O God, Thou art the
object of my love,
Not for the hopes of
endless joys above,
Nor for the fear of
endless pains below Which those who love Thee not must undergo :
For me, and such as
me, Thou once didst bear The ignominious cross, the nails, the spear,
A thorny crown
transpierced Thy sacred brow,
What bloody sweats
from every member flow!
For me in torture
Thou resign’st Thy breath,
Nailed to the cross,
and sav'dst me by Thy death :
Say, can these
sufferings fail my heart to move ?
What but Thyself can
now deserve my love ?
Such as then was and
is Thy love to me,
Such is, and shall be
still, my love to Thee.
Thy love, O Jesus,
may I ever sing,
O God of love, kind Parent, dearest King!
Amen.’
We do not possess the
common Portuguese form which was current in India when F. Philippucci made his
collection of copies of letters and the like. If we may judge from the Latin
version given us by Poussines and Menchacha, there were several thoughts in it
which do not occur in the other forms; the latter part especially, is very
different. For this reason we subjoin it:
UtTe colam, Deus
meus,
Non me movet terror
Tuae Manus vibrantis fulmina;
Nec horror ignis
Tartari Urentis setemum reos.
Tu me, Deus, perTe
moves,
Tu, Christe, transfixus trahis,
Crux urget, incendit cruor,
Jesu, tuis plagis fluens.
Si cesset inlerni metus,
Tollatur et spes glorice,
Ego tamen, mi Conditor,
Te, dotibus captus Tuis,
Te, numen admiransTuum,
Sublime, sanctum, providum,
Amore inempto prosequar.
Te, Christe, Te Fili Dei,
Te Virgo proles
Virginis,
Mansuete, fortis,
innocens,
Dignate pro nobis
mori,
Gratis merentem
diligam.]
After the occupations
of the day, when night, the time for rest, arrives, a Christian must never
allow himself to trust his soul to sleep, which is the likeness ox death,
without being prepared as for death itself. For who can promise him that on
the
morrow he will awake
in health of mind and body ? If he is wise, he cannot doubt that most surely
during the night which is about to begin many in this wide world will be
overpowered by some accident while they sleep, and so pass from sleep to death.
And since no one is able to guarantee him from being of the number, it would be
unheard of folly to neglect those precautions, the irreparable omission of
which may perhaps be matter for eternal sorrow. Therefore, let him kneel down
before God, our sovereign Judge, and first give Him thanks for the great and
innumerable blessings that He has given him during the course of his life,
especially in the day that has just passed, as far as he knows them and can
give thanks for them : then having first implored light from above to recognise
his faults, let him set on the other side the evils he has committed, calling
to mind and confessing with shame whatever sins, especially that day, he may have
committed, against or beyond the law of God, in omission, deed, will, thought,
or word.
Having thus collected
his heap of sins, let him first condemn them in his own heart and abominate
them with piercing sorrow, and then do away with them by the fire of the love
of God, which alone has power that can destroy them, and by means of true
contrition, conceived entirely out of perfect charity for God Who deserves
infinite love, root out their remains and utterly blot them out, using all the
force of his heart in this contrition ; and then let him make a firm resolution
never to consent to the like again, either for any hope of enjoyment or profit,
or from the fear of any danger whatsoever. With these things in his mind let
him repeat the ordinary form of confession of sins : I confess to Almighty God’
&c. Let him also implore the help of God to perform what he has promised,
making, for this purpose, prayers to Jesus Christ, to His most holy Mother, to
the holy Guardian Angel, and to the Saints inhabitants of Heaven, like the
prayers set down before.
Parents and the heads
of families ought to take great care to accustom their children, both boys and
girls, from their tenderest years to make these exercises daily morning and
night, or others of the same kind, as far as the capacity of their age allows ;
and if they are not able to pray mentally, let them order them at least
vocally, in the morning when they rise and before going to sleep at night, to
pray to God on their knees, reciting three times the Hail Mary, according to
the custom of the Church, as well as the Lord’s Prayer and the holy Creed
taking care to dwell rather
more
distinctly in thought on the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. .
(2.) Method of
catechizing the Ignorant.
A good deal has been
said, both in the Letters and in the text (pp. 152, 166), about Francis
Xavier’s method of catechizing, or rather of holding a Catechetical Service, as
it may be called. The following form is from the same source as the preceding
Daily Exercise. It is addressed To the Catechists of the Society of Jesus iti
India.
I am going to lay
before you, my dearest brothers, the form and method of teaching the elements
of Christian doctrine to these ignorant nations which my own practice and its
results have approved to me, hoping that if you observe the same you may find
yourselves gathering satisfactory fruits for the glory of God our Lord and for
the salvation of souls. _
The people being
assembled, whoever is to give the explanation of the Catechism should first
make the sign of the cross, and then, with his head uncovered and his hands
raised to heaven, he should pronounce in a clear and intelligible voice, with
two boys ready to repeat it after him, the Lord’s Prayer, he saying each word
by itself, and the boys each word at once after him.
Then the catechist
says to the congregation : ‘ Now, my brethren, let us make profession of our
faith, and let us make acts of the chief and most excellent virtues, which are
called theological, and which are faith, hope and charity.’ Then he is to begin
with faith, asking the people, * Do you believe in One only true God, Almighty,
Eternal, Immense, infinitely Wise ?’ All are to answer : ‘Yes, Father, by the
grace of God, we do believe.’ The catechist must go on: 4 Then all
repeat together after me this prayer : O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living
God, grant us grace most firmly to believe this article of our holy faith: let
us add in order to obtain it a Pater Nosier* This prayer is to be said by all
to themselves in secret. Then the teacher, raising his voice again, says : ‘
Now, then, all repeat after me: O holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, obtain for
us from God the grace to believe most firmly this article of our holy faith;
and in order to obtain this favour from her, let us all say to ourselves, in
her honour, the Hail Mary' After all have secretly repeated it, the teacher
continues : ‘ Do you believe, my brethren, that this true God is the One only
God, One in Essence, and Three in Persons—
God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?’ All are to answer : ‘Yes, Father, by the
grace of God we believe this.’ Then the two prayers mentioned above are to be
repeated, and the Pater and Ave said secretly by the people, each standing in
his own place. Then the next question is to be put. ‘ Do you believe, my
brethren, that this same God is the Creator of all things, that He is our
Saviour and Glorifier ?’ And all answer : ‘We truly believe this, Father, by
the grace of God.’ Then they say the two prayers, and the Pater and Ave. In
this way all the other articles of the Creed are gone through, principally
those which relate to the humanity of Jesus Christ our Lord ; and this is the
form in which the questions are put: ‘ Do you believe, my brethren, that the Second
Person of the most holy Trinity, the only-begotten Son of God, conceived by the
Holy Ghost, was made flesh in the womb of the most pure Virgin Mary, and was
born of the same Mary our Lady, ever Virgin ?’ The people answer : ‘Yes,
Father, by the grace of God we believe it.’ Then again is to come the
repetition of the two prayers and the Pater and Ave, in the form prescribed
above. The catechist goes on : ‘ Do you believe, my brethren, that this same
Son of God, made man, was crucified, died, and was buried; that He descended
into hell, and that He set free the souls of the holy fathers who were there
expecting His holy coming ?’ They answer : ‘ Yes, we believe it, by the grace
of God,’ and add the usual prayers. The teacher asks again : ‘ Do you believe that
this our Lord rose again the third day, and that He ascended into heaven, where
He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He will come
again to judge the living and the dead; to examine and reward or punish,
according to their merits, the good and wicked actions which they have done ?’
The people answer, that all this they perfectly believe, by the grace of God ;
and they add the usual prayers, with a Pater and an Ave. The catechist
continues : ‘Do you believe that there is a hell—that is to say, an eternal
fire, where those who die out of the grace of God will be tormented
everlastingly ? That there is also a Paradise and an eternity of glory, which
virtuous persons will enjoy who have ended their life in the same grace of God
? Lastly, that there is a Purgatory, where souls satisfy for a certain time
the justice of God, by undergoing the punishment of their sins, in case that
having in their life done away with the guilt of them, they have yet not fully
acquitted the debt of pain which they had incurred ?’ Then he should add: ‘Do
you believe in the seven Sacraments, in all
the doctrine of the
holy Gospels, and in all else that the holy Roman Church believes and professes
?’ The people answer : ‘We believe all these truths, by the grace of God.’ They
add the two prayers, with a Pater and an Ave, The teacher goes on : ‘ Let us
here offer to the Holy Spirit these seven Paters and Aves that we have just
repeated, that He may be pleased to enrich our souls with His seven gifts, especially
those which may help us to believe most firmly all that the holy Catholic faith
teaches us.’ After which he is to add : * And now, my brethren, we have made
profession of our holy faith.
‘ It now
remains to make the acts of the two other virtues of which we spoke in the
beginning, of hope and charity. Come, then, and say with me : O Jesus Christ,
my God and my Lord, trusting in Thy divine mercy, I hope that by virtue of Thy
merits, directed and assisted by Thy grace, corresponding myself to this grace
by Christian works, and observing all Thy commandments, I shall arrive one day
at the glory and happiness for which Thou hast created me. -
‘ I love Thee, O my
God, above all things, and with all my soul. I repent of having offended Thee,
being what Thou art, most worthy of all praise, veneration, and service,
because of the infinite love which I owe Thee, and because I esteem Thee far
above everything else, however great; and I make the firm resolution never to
do anything which may be contrary to Thy divine will, and put me in danger of
losing Thy holy grace. Amen.’ Such should always be the opening service of the
catechetical schools. After this the catechist should enter into a particular
explanation of some one of the dogmas of our holy faith, of a sacrament, a
virtue, or prayer, or some of those things which it is for the good of a
Christian to understand ; setting it forth in a continuous but plain discourse,
adapted to the intelligence of the ignorant, explaining what he teaches, and at
the end confirming it by relating some example. After this he should repeat the
form of general confession for them, the children following him word for word ;
at the same time bidding all present to make, with all their heart and soul, an
act of true contrition—that is to say, of sorrow for sin, formed from the pure
love of God Whom they have offended. At the end he should tell them all to say
three Hail Marys, the first for those present, and the two others for different
intentions, as they may choose.
(3.) St. Francis
Xavier's Explanation of the Creed.
It will be convenient
to give in this place another document which remains to us of the same kind
with the last. It is a long explanation of the Creed written by St. Francis for
the people of the Moluccas. We have referred to it above (p. 168), and it may
safely be assumed that it represents the ordinary manner in which Francis
Xavier explained the articles of the Creed to the ignorant and to converts from
heathenism. Theologians will be much struck with the refined and careful tone
of the doctrine on certain more difficult points, as for instance, the
salvation of the heathen, and the like.
Catechetical Explanation of the Creed for the Inhabitants of the
Moluccas.
1. It delights Christians to hear and learn
the manner and the order in which God made all things out of nothing, for the
use and service of man. In the beginning He created the heavens and the earth,
the Angels, the sun, the moon and the stars, the day and the night; plants and
herbs of all kinds, roots and berries, and fruits of trees; the birds and
animals which live upon the earth ; the sea, the rivers, and lakes, and all
things living in the waters. And after all these things had been created, He
made, last of all, man, whom He formed after His own image and likeness.
2. The first man created by God was Adam, and
the first woman Eve. Having formed and breathed into them both the breath of
life, and having placed them in the terrestrial Paradise, He blessed them,
betrothed them to one another, and united them in the bond of marriage, and
commanding them so united to produce children, and fill the earth with
inhabitants. Of this pair, Adam and Eve, we are all born ; from them all
nations everywhere have sprung. In this first type of our race we see an example
of the unity of human marriage. For, as the God of all wisdom, the Author of
nature, did not give Adam more than one wife, it is plain how contrary to the
authority of God is the license in this matter which Mussulmans and idolaters
and—what is still more wicked and deplorable—bad Christians also sometimes
take, to have many women at once living with them ; and even those who live
with one concubine alone do not escape the condemnation from this primitive
law; for God did not permit Adam and
vol. 1. y
Eve to beget children
till they had first been united by the bond of lawful marriage by their
Creator.
3. Therefore fornicators, inasmuch as they
are rebels against God Who made them, must expect punishment fitted to their
crime. Let those also who worship idols understand from this how great a crime
they are guilty of; leaving and despising the one true God, the only true
Creator of all things, they worship, in their fanatical error, mute idols and
phantoms of hell; and though sound reason plainly shows us that we ought to
seek the rule of our life from Him Who gave us the principle of life, they, in
their sacrilegious folly, trust all their hopes and all their actions to
witchcraft, the casting of lots, and the pretended foretellings of diviners.
They pay to the devil—the implacable enemy of their salvation—the faith and
veneration which they owe to God, the Author of all good things, from Whom they
have received their soul, their body, all that they are, all their powers, and
all that they possess. Impiety not more shameful and detestable in itself than
fatal to the poor wretches who are guilty of it; for this senseless
superstition excludes them from heaven, where a dwelling place of eternal rest
full of all delights is prepared for souls who worship God—the blessed abode of
that felicity for which the Creator, in His infinite goodness, made mankind.
4. How much wiser are real Christians !
Faithful to God their Lord, they believe in Him and worship Him in spirit; and
with all their mind and all the affections of their heart embrace Him, the one
only true, supreme, and eternal Spirit, the Maker of heaven and earth; and they
show this the religion of their heart by outward signs of devotion, by
frequenting the sacred churches, where they see around the altars erected in
honour of the living God images of Jesus Christ His Son, of the Virgin Mother
of God, and of the Saints, God’s servants, who, after a life passed faithfully
in His service, reign with Him in the glory of Paradise.
5. In the midst of these solemn figures,
which fill them with holy memories of the things and persons which they
represent, kneeling on the ground, their hands raised to heaven, towards which
they turn their eyes and hearts, they confess their belief in God, Whose
dwelling place it is, in Whom alone they place all their happiness and
consolation, by these words attributed to St. Peter: ‘I believe in God, the
Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.’ God created the Angels in heaven
before He created man on earth. Now, the larger number of the Angels eagerly at
once adored their God, rendering thanks, atfd glorifying Him for the
blessing of creation.
Lucifer, on the other hand, and many Angels with him, refused to pay due
adoration to their Creator; they said in their pride, Let us rise up, and make
ourselves like unto God, Who reigns in the highest heavens. To punish this
proud rebellion God cast Lucifer and the Angels who followed him out of heaven
into hell.
6. Lucifer, thus cast down from heaven, saw
Adam and Eve, the first of mankind, and was jealous of the grace in which God
had created them ; and to cause them to fall thence, he put into their hearts
pride like to that which had made him fall from heaven. He met them in the
earthly Paradise, and set before them the false hope of attaining honour equal
to that of God, if they ate of the fruit forbidden by their Creator. Adam and
Eve were lifted up in heart at the false representation that they would become
like God, and, consenting to the temptation, ate of the fruit of the forbidden
tree, and at once fell from the grace in which they had been created, and
presently, as a punishment for their sin, God drove them out of the earthly
Paradise. From that time they lived in banishment from the abode of bliss in a
condition of toil and labour during nine hundred years, doing penance for the
sin they had committed, the guilt of which was so beyond all expiation, that
however great an amount of the most severe sufferings Adam and his children
might pay, all would be insufficient to blot out the stain, and restore to them
their former hope of gaining eternal happiness, which they had been deprived
of, as a just punishment for the mad pride in which they had desired to become
like God. So that, from that time, the gates of heaven remained closed to them
by impenetrable barriers, which inexorably shut out Adam and his posterity
from all access to that glory which he had irreparably lost, by committing a
sin which involved the ruin both of himself and oi all his children.
7. O Christians, what then will be our
miserable fate ? L so many Angels for one single sin of pride were driven
headlong from heaven and cast into the depths of hell—if Adam and Eve for a
like sin of pride lost the blessed possession on the earthly Paradise—what
hope, what means have we, who are degraded by a great flood of sins of all
kind, of ever rising out of the impurity which holds us iast, 01 washing away
our stains and soaring to the highest heaven, where an abode 01 immortal
blessedness has been prepared by God for immortal souls ? Alas, all hope was
lost; the damnation and eternal ruin oi the human race were certain, without
any way oi escape being open, when St. Michael, our truest
friend, and the
Angels who, like him, had remained dutiful and obedient and were in possession
of the reward of their constancy, the most blissful enjoyment of eternal glory
in the heavens, all together, taking compassion on the calamities of the human
race, fell in humble supplication at the feet of God, and endeavoured to win
from Him by prayers some remedy for the immense evils which, by the sin of Adam
and Eve, had spread like a great flood over all their descendants; making their
prayers in some such way as this :
8. ‘ O God of goodness, most merciful Lord
and Father of all nations, now at last the time is come, the day so much
expected from the beginning of ages has begun to shine, the day which Thou hast
destined from all eternity and prepared, to show in it Thy mercy towards lost
mankind. We see already the dawn of that day which is to open again the gates
of Heaven to the children of Adam, once more restored to the grace of being
Thine adopted sons; since now, from the holy Joachim and Anne, is born a
daughter, that Virgin most holy above women, in whom is not the sin of Adam, Mary
by name, whose virtues and holiness surpass incomparably in excellence all
beings lower than God. And this Virgin being so pure and noble, it seems a work
not unworthy of Thy infinite and most wise Omnipotence to form of her virginal
blood, as it is easy to Thee, O Lord, to do, a human body, as of old, O Lord,
Thou didst form the body of Adam, when so it seemed good to Thy holy will. And
into this body, formed of the most pure substance of the Virgin, Thou canst
also, Almighty Lord, at the same time create and infuse, uniting them by the
most intimate union, some chosen and most beautiful soul, surpassing in
holiness all the souls that Thou hast ever yet created or ever wilt
create’—[Meantime God had resolved, in the secret counsels of the Holy Trinity,
to join a Divine Person with our human nature in the womb of the Blessed
Virgin Mary,]—‘in order that of this Virgin, the most perfect of all others,
should be born Jesus Christ, Thy Son, the Saviour of the universe. And thus,
O Lord, will the Scriptures be accomplished,
thus will the promises be faithfully fulfilled by which Thou hast bound
Thyself to the prophets and patriarchs, Thy friends, who, relying upon them,
are now waiting in Limbus Thy Son Jesus Christ, their Lord and their Redeemer.’
9. At this prayer of the holy Angels, the
Most High, the sovereign Lord and Almighty God of all, touched by infinite compassion
for our immense misery, most clearly known by Him, sent
from heaven the holy
archangel Gabriel to the city of Nazareth, where the Virgin Mary dwelt; and
this angel, as he had been ordered by Him Who sent him, said to her, ‘ Hail,
Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among women ; the
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow
thee ; and the Holy One Who shall be born of thee shall be called Jesus Christ,
the Son of God.’ On hearing these words of the Archangel, the most holy Virgin
Mary answered : ‘ Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according
to thy word.’ At the very moment that the most holy Virgin gave her consent to
what was proposed to her from God by the holy Archangel, God formed in the womb
of the Virgin, out of her most pure blood, a human body, to which He most
closely joined a soul created at the same instant ; and then the Second Person
of the holy Trinity, God the Son, became Incarnate in the womb of the Virgin
Mary, uniting to His divine Person that soul and that body, both infinitely
holy.
10. After this, nine full months having elapsed
from the day in which the Son of God became Incarnate to that of His birth,
Jesus Christ the Saviour of the whole world, true God and true man, was born of
the Virgin Mary ; and this is what St. Andrew professed in these words : * I
believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God our Lord to which St. John added
at the same instant : ‘Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary.’ Christ our Lord and Redeemer was born at Bethlehem, near Jerusalem. It
was there that the Angels, and the Virgin His Mother, with St. Joseph and the
Three Kings of the East, and many others besides, adored Him as their Sovereign
Lord.
11. Meanwhile Herod, who was reigning in
Jerusalem, fearing lest his kingdom, to which he was passionately attached,
would be taken from him by this Child, desired to kill Him. But his cruel
intention was baffled, Jesus was taken away in time. Joseph having been warned
in a dream by an Angel, had fled from Bethlehem into Egypt, carrying with him
Jesus Christ and the Virgin His Mother ; and he remained there until Herod
ended his life by a most wretched death. So great had been his barbarity, that
he had slain in Bethlehem and round about all the children of two years old and
under, thinking that Jesus Christ would be included in the massacre. That
however was false, for Jesus was saved, as we have said, and He returned with
the Virgin His Mother and St. Joseph into their own country and to the city of
Nazareth, Joseph having been warned in Egypt by an Angel.
12. When Jesus had reached the age of twelve
years He went up from Nazareth to Jerusalem to the Temple, where were the
doctors of the law, and He explained to them the Scriptures of the prophets and
the patriarchs, who had foretold the coming of the Son of God, teaching them
with so wonderful a show of rare wisdom that all who heard Him wondered. From
thence He went back to Nazareth, where He remained till He was about thirty
years of age, when He went to the river Jordan, where St. John the Baptist was
baptizing great numbers of persons who came to him, among whom John baptized
Jesus Christ Himself in the waters of the Jordan. From thence Jesus withdrew to
a desert mountain, where during forty days and forty nights He abstained from
all meat and drink. On this mountain the devil, not knowing that Jesus Christ
was the Son of God, strove to make Him fall into the three sins of gluttony,
covetousness, and vainglory.
13. But, repelling all these temptations and
victorious over the devil, Jesus quitted the mountain and descended into
Galilee, where He converted great multitudes, cast out many devils from the
bodies of men possessed by them, commanding them to depart thence, and even
these obstinate and rebel spirits instantly obeyed Him; the people being justly
filled with admiration, publishing everywhere the fame of His divine doctrine,
set forth in discourses of infinite wisdom, and also of His wonder-working
power, which was revealed by the healing of all sorts of sickness. Hence many
were persuaded to give heed to the discourses of a Teacher of so much
authority, and vied one with another in bringing to Him all the sick persons
afflicted with whatever disease ; and Jesus touching them with His most holy
hands, did away with all their maladies, and sent them home, at once healed and
filled with gratitude.
14. After this Jesus called twelve Apostles and
seventy-two disciples, whom He took round with Him in His journeys from city to
city and village to village, teaching the mysteries of the kingdom of God and
preaching to the crowds who came together, confirming the truth of what He
taught by numberless and great miracles ; for in the sight of all the people,
in the presence of His Apostles and disciples, He used to restore sight to the
blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, movement to the lame and to the
paralytic ; and the sight of these daily miracles confirmed His Apostles and
disciples more and more in their faith in Jesus Christ, Who communicated to
them so much power and wisdom that, though rude and illiterate fishermen, they
preached
to the people, the
divine doctrine of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, supplying in them the want of
study and human learning. Moreover, by the invocation of His name, the
Apostles themselves also wrought wonders, delivering men from different
maladies and from the possession of evil spirits, and by these works,
surpassing all human power, setting a seal to the truths which they announced
as to the coming of the Son of God ; so that though these truths were so new,
they were proved and made abundantly credible by the witness of so many
miraculous signs bearing the undoubted character of Divine testimony.
15. The great fame of Jesus and of His
disciples having spread throughout Judea, came to the notice of the chief men
of the nation, men full of a vain opinion of themselves, and of those
especially who were called Pharisees, supercilious despisers of everything excellent,
who used to be angry if any party or any sect except their own obtained even a
slight renown for learning : and so it may easily be imagined what a bitter
pang it must have been for these proud persons to find Jesus Christ, Who
censured their doctrine, listened to with applause by the people, and so highly
esteemed and considered in the enthusiasm of the multitude, that it seemed
almost to be imminent that they themselves would be thrust out of the highest
place in authority and reputation which they had so long held, and the new
Teacher raised to their place with the handful of fishermen who formed his
train. Moved, therefore, by the fury of hellish envy, they determined to put in
motion all the artifices of calumny in order to take away both the reputation
and the life of Jesus Christ.
16. With this intention they beset with artful
words those who were at the head of affairs, and also persuaded Pilate, at that
time governor of Judea, after having plied him with entreaties, suggestions of
suspicion, and direct charges, to grant them the arrest of Jesus, which they
clamoured for as necessary for the public peace. The foreign governor allowed himself
to be so far gained over by the crafty machinations of these men ; not that he
was ignorant that their allegation of the public good was only a veil to cover
their own envy, but either from weariness of resisting their importunate
demands or from a desire to win favour with the more powerful of the people, he
thought it worth while to purchase his own tranquillity or the favour of
others at the cost of an illustrious man, who seemed quite of the same stamp as
Elias and Jeremias among the ancients, or John the Baptist among men of that
time, but whom he did not suppose superior to human nature. For if he had
clearly
known that Jesus was
the Son of God, it does not seem that any influence could have prevailed upon
him to deliver Him to the fury of His envious enemies.
17. Jesus being thus taken prisoner by the
authority of the government, His enemies out of their own malice went on
further to insure themselves that He should be treated with all possible
cruelty and ignominy by their own servants. He was dragged through the ways and
principal places of the city, in the midst of a crowd who offered Him every
sort of outrage, hurried with violence from one house to another before
different tribunals, mocked, reviled, spit upon, and beaten with blows, and so
at last brought before Pilate, with false witnesses against Him, amidst the
furious clamours of the excited mob, who cried out for His death and for His
death upon the cross. Nevertheless the judge hesitated, knowing the innocence
of the accused ; until they suggested to him that he would lose Caesar's favour
if he set free a man designated King of the Jews and Who would, soon raise a
revolt; and thus he was made to yield to the wishes of the accusers, and gave
up Jesus. After he had caused Him to be inhumanly torn by scourges over His
whole body from head to foot, he delivered Him up to be crucified by the Jews,
who demanded this with savage clamour.
1 S. But before they crucified Him, the
emissaries of the Pharisees, having dressed Him in mockery with the robes of a
king, with a crown of thorns on His head, a reed for a sceptre in His hand,
made sport of Him, bowing the knee before Him in ironical homage, and hailing
Him King of the Jews, and then spitting in His face, striking Him on the cheek
again and again, and snatching the reed from His right hand to strike Him with
it on His head crowned with thorns. At last they nailed Him to a cross on Mount
Calvary, near the city of Jerusalem. Thus Jesus Christ died upon the cross, in
order to save sinful men; so that His most holy soul was truly separated from
His most precious body at the moment that He expired upon the cross, and yet
that both His soul and body, although disunited, never ceased each to remain
joined to the divine Person. And as the spirit fled without ceasing to be
united to the Divinity, so also the lifeless body, whether when it hung on the
cross or was laid and buried in the tomb, always and everywhere had with it the
inseparable company of the Divinity most closely joined to it, and was never
separated from that Divinity.
19. Moreover, at the death of Jesus Christ the
sun was darkened and lost its light, the whole earth trembled, the rocks were
rent
and dashed against
one another, the graves of the dead opened of themselves, and many bodies of
the saints came forth, who showed themselves restored to life to many in the
city of Jerusalem. At the sight of these prodigies, those who stood by Christ
as He died were convinced, and cried out: Truly this man was the Son of God!
All these things which we have just related are contained in the profession of
the Apostle St. James, who added to the words expressed by the preceding
Apostles : ‘ I believe in Jesus Christ, Who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried.’ Jesus Christ was God, since He was the second
Person of the most Holy Trinity; at the same time He was truly man, being the
son of the Virgin Mary, and possessing a rational soul and a human body. In so
much as He was man, He died really upon the cross while He was nailed to it.
For death is nothing else but the separation of the soul from the body, in
which and with which it has lived. And the most holy soul of Jesus Christ was
separated from His body when He expired upon the cross.
20. And then that most sacred soul separated
from His body, and remaining united to the Divinity of the Son of God, as it
had always been since our Lord God created it, descended into Limbus. Limbus is
a place beneath the earth in which were detained the souls of the holy fathers,
prophets, patriarchs, and many others, assembled there waiting for the coming
of the Son of God, by Whom they knew they should be delivered and transferred
from this abode to Paradise. For from the beginning of the creation there have
always lived in the world good men, who, as they had been friends of God, had
freely professed the holy truths they understood and never dissembled what they
believed before the wicked who opposed them. They reproved sinners, blaming severely
the wickedness of any who rebelled shamelessly against God, the one Creator of
all. But wicked and criminal men would not endure their censures : and so, by
the inspiration and assistance of the devil, their sworn accomplice, under
whose banners they were enrolled, they persecuted the good men, the friends of
God, with every kind of evil deed, making them prisoners, banishing them, and
vexing them with every kind of injury and insult.
21. Corresponding to this great difference
between the lives of the good and the wicked was the very different condition
of their souls when death had separated their souls from^their bodies. All the
souls who during their life had been virtuous went, when death had set them
free from the bonds of the body, to the place just now mentioned, which I said
was called Limbus, which being sunk far
down beneath ^the
surface of the earth, is also called hell; not that there, as we understand
when we speak of the place called simply and properly hell, there was any fire
to torment them, or any other hurtful power to give them pain. Such punishments
are reserved for the wicked, whilst the souls of the just, as became souls free
from stain and dear to God, rested in the repose of a most blessed peace.
22. But below this abode of bliss is a lower
region called Purgatory, because it is as a sort of cleansing place for
purifying and making beautiful those souls who have ended their mortal life
guiltless of heinous sin, in the grace of God, but who still have the lighter
marks of venial faults, or who have not yet acquitted the debt incurred by
mortal sins, which have been indeed retracted by salutary penance, but not so
fully and perfectly as to get rid of the whole debt of the punishment due to
their guilt. Here they continue to rub off, by the continued action of severe
torments, the stains which still cling to them from the foul sin which of old
encrusted them, until at length they have balanced the whole account as to
guilt and as to pain which they were charged with, and got rid of all remains
of either of these by means of suffering ; and so their spirits have become
clean even to extreme brightness, and are allowed freely to behold their
inheritance, the delay of the possession of which for a certain just time they
have had to bear as a punishment.
23. The last of these abodes beneath the earth
is Hell properly so called, a most miserable abode of flames for ever inextinguishable,
and of such unutterable and intolerable torments of every other kind, that if
living men were only to apply themselves seriously each day for the space of
one little hour, in picturing to themselves, even as imperfectly as the dimness
of our present state permits, the nature of these torments, they would
certainly feel greater horror of making themselves guilty of all the crime and
wickedness by which they do not hesitate, almost in sport and with easy
carelessness, to incur the sentence of having to endure these fearful torments
throughout all eternity. There is Lucifer, prince of the spirits who rebelled
against God. There are all the devils who followed his party, and were cast
down thither with him from heaven. There are all those men who, from the
beginning of the world, have breathed their last out of the grace of God and
guilty of mortal sin. Those who have once been cast into these flames of hell
suffer and groan there eternally and hopelessly, ever tormented by the keenest
sense of immense and numberless pains, of
which they know for
certain that they can never have, from any quarter at all, throughout an
eternity of ages, any remedy or any relaxation or any consolation, however
small.
24. O my brethren, what madness is this of ours,
that we go on living so careless as we do of all fear of hell, while we are all
the time preparing food for those undying flames by heaping upon our
consciences the burthens of sin ever worse and worse ! Is not this a plain sign
that our faith is, I do not say small, but altogether none ? We profess it
indeed with our mouths, but our deeds and our life refute it far more cogently
; for one who calls himself a Christian, and allows himself that license in sin
which the Mussulmans and idolaters take, must certainly be thought a deceiver
and liar when he says that he believes in the everlasting fires and punishments
of hell reserved for those who violate God’s law. The Church, whether of the
faithful who are militant on earth, or of the Saints who reign with God
triumphant in heaven, never prays for the dead who have been cast into the pit
of hell; for she well knows they are shut out from Paradise for all eternity, that
their hope is absolutely lost, their ruin irreparable. But the Church, both on
earth and in heaven, aids with charitable prayers the souls who suffer in the
pains of Purgatory, and is also full of care for the souls who are still in
this world; she strives to obtain them grace from God, by means of which they
may escape the utter misery of falling into the everlasting flames of hell.
25. Jesus Christ died on Friday, and His most
holy soul, always united to the Divinity, descended into Limbus, and led from
thence all the souls whom He found there awaiting His coming; and then on the
third day, which was Sunday, He rose from the dead, reuniting His most holy
soul to the body which it had quitted when He expired upon the cross.
Presently, in His recovered life and in full possession of all the qualities of
immortality, He appeared first to His most sacred Virgin Mother Mary, then to
His Apostles and disciples, and others dear to Him, so that all that most
bitter grief which they had suffered at His death was wiped away and abundantly
compensated. He also offered, by means of His Apostles, pardon to His enemies
and to those who had crucified Him, and granted it to all who consented to
receive this grace. There were great numbers of these ; for it turned out
wonderfully that many of those who had obstinately refused to believe in Jesus
Christ when He was alive, preaching, and confirming what He taught by great
miracles, yet,—when He was no longer seen or heard, but believed, on the
testimony of His
Apostles, to have
risen from the dead,—these same put full faith in Him, placed all their hope in
Him, and professed His religion and His worship, as the religion and the
worship of God and the Saviour of men. And that what we have thus been putting
forth is true, affirmed by St. Thomas in these words : * I believe in Jesus
Christ, who descended into hell, and the third day rose again from the dead.’
26. Jesus remained upon the earth after His
resurrection from the dead for forty days, for two reasons, as far as we can
understand. First, in order fully to convince His disciples of His resurrection,
and secondly to teach them what they must do. They had been so disturbed by the
most unexpected event of His death, they had been so swallowed up by sorrow on
that account, that they were brought with the greatest difficulty to believe in
His resurrection ; nor was it enough for Him to appear to them once or twice ;
there was need of time, and the multiplication of the most manifest possible
proofs of His really having returned to life by means of repeated meetings with
Him. So our Lord, so full of condescension and kindness, that He might do this
in a sweet gentle way, adapted to the infirmity of human nature, put off for
forty days His triumphant entrance into heaven, and during this interval He
instructed His disciples, in frequent discourses, what they were to believe,
what they were to do, what they were afterwards to teach all nations, and what,
after having convinced them of His doctrine, they were to enjoin on them to do,
in order that they, and all those who should believe their preaching, might be
able to reach the kingdom of heaven, and in due time follow Him there, whither
He was to go before them.
2 7. Having fully gained both these ends,
having entirely driven from the minds of His disciples all doubt concerning the
death and resurrection of Himself, the true Son of God and Saviour of mankind,
and having taught them sufficiently all things concerning the kingdom of God,
that is, about founding the Church, the doctrine to be taught in it, the
sacraments, and all other points of Christian discipline, which the Apostles
were to institute throughout the whole world—then Jesus Christ, having no
longer any reason to remain on earth, went forth with the Virgin Mary His
Mother, the Apostles, and many others, to Mount Olivet, and there in the sight
of them all ascended into the highest heavens, taking with Him the patriarchs
set free from Limbus. Then opened wide the lofty gates of heaven, and all the
Angels came forth to meet our Lord in His triumph, and made for Him a glorious
train up to the
throne prepared for Him at the right hand of God the Father. Then He returned
to the place whence He had come down to take upon Him our flesh in the holy
womb of His Virgin Mother. There He sits now, the advocate of sinners, pleading
our cause with His Father and disarming His lawful wrath, and sending us aid,
by help of which we may be able to escape the danger of eternal damnation. And
this is the meaning of the article of the Creed which is attributed to St.
James the Less: ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, Who ascended into heaven, and
sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.’
28. But since this world, which had a beginning,
must also have an end to close it; and that this its last scene may be as it
ought to be, and in accordance with the divine Providence of its Creator, the
intercourse of human society and the succession and change of different
generations, propagating themselves far and wide, will not cease before a just
judgment shall have been pronounced on the thoughts and words and actions of
all men, allotting to each its due recompense. Jesus Christ, the supreme
Judge, is to descend from heaven to pass this judgment on the causes of all men
; and that this should certainly be was declared by Angels on the very day of
His ascension from the earth. He will open His court, in which all men who have
lived in any age and in every place will have to make appearance before the
inexorable tribunal of the almighty allknowing Judge from Whom nothing is
concealed, and will have to answer the questions, whether they have believed
the dogmas proposed to them by the Church, and whether they have kept the
commandments. Those who have done this will be admitted into the glory of
Paradise ; those who have refused to believe, as Mussulmans, Jews, and
Gentiles, will be given up to everlasting fire, from which there will be no redemption
; and those who have professed the faith, as bad Christians have done, but
have neglected to obey the commandments of the Decalogue, those in like manner
will be condemned by the irrevocable sentence of Jesus Christ to flames which
are to burn for ever.
29. Before these things come to pass, and when
the end of the world is at hand, all men then alive must die ; for death is a
debt of nature which every one must pay. Every man is born on the condition
that one day he cease to live, and since not even Jesus Christ Himself, the Son
of God, was exempted from this law, it is plain that it would be a rash and
foolish hope in any one else to promise himself the privilege. But Jesus Christ
did not die for
Himself, but for our sins, and He rose again by His own power, that by His own
resurrection He might ratify our hope of one day rising again, and to make the
bitter necessity of death more tolerable to good and pious men, His friends, by
Himself sharing it to be our example. So, even if perchance there were to be
found when the end of the world is at hand some saints perfect in all virtue,
we must not think that they would pass to the happiness which they have hoped
and merited without death. They also must taste of death, and then with the
rest of men they will be restored to life, each one taking again the body which
he had before, but that body transformed into a better condition by the
attributes of beatitude ; and so they will enter into the plenitude of their
promised bliss.
30. When Jesus Christ shall thus descend from
Heaven to hold the last judgment, all men from first to last who have before
died shall rise again, all shall be judged by Him, good and wicked alike, but
with an immense difference between them which can never be changed throughout
eternity; the good passing on to everlasting joy, and the wicked to death and
endless woe. This is the truth which St. Philip professed, saying, 1
I believe in Jesus Christ, Who will come to judge the living and the dead.
31. And now, Christians, when we sign ourselves
with the sign of the Cross, we profess our certain faith in the most Holy
Trinity. This mystery of the Holy Trinity is this : we believe and adore One
only God in Three Persons. The First Person is God the Father, Who is neither
made, nor created, nor begotten ; the Second Person is God the Son, Who is
begotten of God the Father, not made, nor created ; the Third Person is God the
Holy Ghost, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, but is neither made nor
created. This we indicate every time that we sign ourselves, by making with the
hand the form of a Cross. For we put the right hand to the forehead and we say,
In the name of the Father, and thus we show that God the Father is neither made
nor begotten. Then bringing the hand down to the lower part of the breast, and
pronouncing these words, Atid of the So?i, we signify God the Son, Who is
begotten of God the Father, but not made, nor created. Finally, we touch with
the hand the left shoulder, saying at the same time, And of the Holy, and then
the right shoulder, saying the word Ghost; and thus we declare that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
32. This is the faith which every good Christian
is bound to hold and to confess without any hesitation,. believing, adoring,
and
glorifying the Holy Ghost, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and
proceeding from them both ; Who by His holy inspirations calls us back from
sin, and moves our hearts to* observe the ten commandments of the law of God
our Lord, and the precepts of our holy Mother the Catholic Church ; and Who
prompts us on to practise the works of mercy both spiritual and corporal. This
doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Ghost St. Bartholomew professed in these
words, «I believe in the Holy Ghost.’ ,
33. All we who have embraced the Christian
religion have resolved to observe its duties and keep its faith, and we ought not
only to believe without doubt and as truths necessary to salvation all things
concerning Christ our Lord, God and man, that the apostles, disciples, martyrs,
and saints have believed ; but at the same time we are also all bound by the
same necessity to be perfectly convinced that He has instituted the Catholic
Church upon the earth, the rulers of which are directed by the Holy Ghost; so
that it is not permitted us in any way to doubt that what they prescribe as to
be observed and what they teach as to be held is right and true. For in all
things which by universal consent they decree to be done or avoided by all
men,—as, for instance, in what after mature counsel they define concerning
ancient dogmas, or controversies concerning these dogmas, which arise from time
to time,—they have assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to them, by which
they are not permitted to err. Therefore, the sacred canons of the Fathers, the
decrees of the Councils, the universal edicts of the Supreme Pontiffs, which
are set forth by the Cardinals, the Patriarchs, the Archbishops, the Bishops,
and the other Prelates of the Church, ought to be received by us with humble
veneration, certain faith, and ready obedience ; and we ought to be firmly
persuaded that these things are enjoined and taught by the authority and wisdom
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who continues to govern the Church, and guide it to
its appointed end of eternal happiness by means of the ministers whom He has
put in His own place. This is what the holy Apostle and Evangelist St. Matthew
commended to us when he said, ‘ I believe in the holy Catholic Church.’
34. Another thing which we believe most
certainly, if we do not bear falsely the name of Christian, is that the immense
merits which Jesus Christ, by the heroic works performed during His mortal
life, both by His actions and His sufferings, and His obedi’ ence to His
Father, heaped up in store for the salvation of men,
are communicated to,
and by a certain inward influx are profitable to, all true Christians who remain
in the grace of God. So that as in the natural body, the members communicate to
each other what each has of good, the vital strength spreading itself principally
from the head over all the limbs, so in a mystical body such as is the Church,
of which Jesus Christ is the Head, all the single members, that is to say, all
the faithful universally, derive a secret sap of life by means of which they
flourish and increase, from Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, to Whom
as their Head they are joined. For inward nourishment of heavenly food flows to
them from Him, principally by the channels of the seven sacraments : these are,
Baptism, Confirmation commonly called holy Chrism, the Eucharist, Penance,
Extreme Unction, Orders, and Marriage. Those who receive these sacred mysteries
with the due and fit dispositions, receive habitual grace, or the increase of
this grace—a lifegiving quality of the soul which God has granted to men,
unworthy in themselves of such a blessing, for the sake of the holy works which
Jesus Christ performed during His earthly life. For because Jesus Christ, to
obey His Father, endured so many ills, suffered of His own free will so many injuries
and insults, the most bitter sorrows, the cross and death, He has merited any
reward, however great, by this. But possessing of Himself all happiness, He
needs no reward, and He transfers His right to such reward to us, and sets down
as paid to Himself the profit that we gather therefrom. Hence the grace which
is conferred upon us is the fruit of the merits of Jesus Christ, and is like an
influence spread from the head over the members.
35. And as in the natural body it is not the
head alone that gives nurture, strength, and life to the members which are
subject to it, but also the members themselves produce these effects by secret
influences on one another ; so it is principally, but not altogether solely,
from our share in the treasures which Jesus Christ has accumulated by His
merits, what He did well and suffered patiently during His mortal life, that we
are enriched. For Jesus Christ has willed that something should fall upon us
and come to us from the store of favour with Him which has been acquired by His
servants our brethren, by their virtuous actions and laborious endurance ; so
when they pray, grace is granted to us ; when they suffer for us, or offer
their former sufferings for us, we are set free from the penalty we owe to
God’s justice. Lastly, all their good works of every kind, as long as we remain
in the grace of God and the unity of the body of the Church, profit us in
various ways, their
superabundance being
communicated to those united with them, and flowing over them with saving
power.
36. We acknowledge also and confess that in God
our Lord dwells power and authority to remit sins, that is to say, to efface
the stain and remit the punishment of guilty actions, by which, abusing our
gift of free will, we separate ourselves from God and rebel against Him; thus
deservedly falling from His grace, to which He had before so kindly admitted
us. We also confess and believe that this same power has been given and communicated
by Jesus Christ our Lord to the priests of the Catholic Church, and that by the
effect of this communication they now have authority to absolve from their sins
whomsoever they find sufficiently disposed to be lawfully loosed, before God,
from the bonds of their faults.
37. For this reason, those who feel themselves
guilty of having offended God ought to labour earnestly to dispose
themselves', showing due repentance for their faults, to obtain their pardon,
and so secure the salvation of their soul. The cause is tried in the sacred
tribunal which sinners approach, the priest being judge whether the penitent is
worthy or not of the benefit of absolution ; the accuser in this court is the
saiae as the accused. The priest, as judge, takes cognizance of the cause,
diligently considering everything as becomes so sublime an office. . The
penitent ought to make an entire and full confession of all mortal sins, unless
time should be just wanting to go through all, as might happen in cases of
extreme peril. When all sins are sufficiently known, and the priest pronounces
the sentence of absolution, then the grace of God is poured afresh into the
soul of the penitent, and by it are effaced the sins by which the soul had
before been disfigured, and the certain remission of eternal punishment which
had been incurred by these sins is granted to them. These two articles of
Catholic doctrine are comprised in these words of St. Simon : 41 believe in the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins.’
38. But as injustice would be done to the
infinite goodness and justice of God, unless we believed firmly that God would
never fail to reward abundantly those who serve Him faithfully by exact
observance of His holy law, or, on the other hand, to visit with condign
punishment the wicked despisers of His Godhead and the obstinate transgressors
of His commandments ; therefore we firmly believe that there will be a
resurrection of the body, that is to say, that all men without exception, those
who
vol. 1. z
have lived in times
past, those who are alive to-day, or who shall live after us, will again come
to life, and resume at the end of the world the same bodies which they had when
they died, and will live thenceforth for ever therein either in torments or in
glory. Because it is clearly necessary that God our Lord, in His most righteous
and incorruptible justice, should, on the one hand, comfort with eternal joys
the bodies of the Saints, who, during their mortal life, have made their senses
and members subject to continual toil, even enduring, so as not to be
separated from the love of God, many insults and blows from their persecutors,
who have striven by all violence and savage cruelty to force them to offend
God. For though what was virtuous and manly in this belonged to the soul, which
remained constant in duty, yet the body also, having been deprived of many
goods proportioned to it, having been pained, tormented, and oftentimes
inhumanly torn to pieces on such occasions, is worthy, as well as the soul, of
having its proper share in rest, pleasure, and glory.
39. On the other hand, it was equally proper
that the bodies of those wicked men who, during their life, regardless of the
divine law, have stained themselves with all licentiousness and every kind of
vice, following their passions of gluttony or impurity in contempt of the
commands of God, should be punished in their turn, and should, by having to
bear for ever, against their will, fires that can never be quenched, expiate
those pleasures on which they fed their appetites in the indulgence of unlawful
lust, and thus, though too late, they should know how great an evil it is for a
poor worthless creature to have dared to despise and provoke the supreme
majesty of God, adorable above all. For these reasons, as I said, all mankind,
the good and wicked alike, will rise again at that day of final Judgment, and
their souls will put on again the same bodies which they received at their
birth, and which they animated till the term of their death. They will be
thenceforth united to them by a bond which will never be dissolved, and go
with them, according to the merits of the life of each of mankind, either to
heaven, to reign with Jesus Christ in the glory of Paradise, or to hell, to be
with the devil in endless woe. This is what St. Jude confessed when he said, ‘
I believe in the resurrection of the body.’
40. But as our soul, which was created in the
image and likeness of the Almighty God, inasmuch as it has a spiritual nature,
is endowed with faculties which represent the divine perfections, that is to
say, the will, the intelligence, and the memory, and as
such has from its
creation been impelled by a certain innate desire inspired by its Creator, of
uniting itself to Him of Whom it is the image, we cannot believe that so
excellent a creation of God had this ever active instinct and longing given to
it by its Creator for nothing. We ought rather to believe undoubtingly, as all
Christians are persuaded, that by the divine assistance the human soul, unless
it prevent this of itself, will hereafter have its desire satisfied, and will
come even to the possession of that sovereign good which we call eternal life ;
and even before the resurrection of the body the souls which have died in the
grace of God, and have been completely purified from all remains of sin, enter
into possession of this life eternal, being admitted from that moment to the
sight and the enjoyment of God.
41. Hereafter these souls, having again taken
and united to themselves their bodies, in a state far better and more perfect,
will enjoy that happiness, of which we are speaking, uninterruptedly for an
unending eternity. All that endless space of time the souls of the Saints will
enjoy with God in heaven, along with the choirs of numberless blessed Angels
and jubilant and triumphant hosts of Saints from among men, the loving and
beatific presence of God the Creator and Lord of all, Who will heap on every
one of them all the blessings of heaven. The excellence of these blessings is
so sublime, that however much in the mortal life we may strain ourselves in
thought or by reasoning, we can never set before our minds any idea or picture
of them which approaches even at a long distance the truth of what they are. So
far transcending all our powers is the magnificence of God when it sheds its
whole self on the Saints whom He loves! Nevertheless, the little which we can
as it were stammer out concerning that ineffable felicity, abundantly suffices
to show us how greatly we ought to desire it.
42. There then the Saints live happy and at rest
in a glorious peace, with no complaint or offence of any one, with nothing to
complain of in any one, loved and honoured by all there, all bearing to all the
sweetest mutual love and veneration, abounding in all goods, I do not say which
they need, but which they can possibly desire to make their enjoyment and glory
perfect. They can feel no evil, nor be assailed by any, nor have the fear of'any
: and on the other hand, so great and so profuse is their most blessed
abundance in all goods of every kind, as to surpass all their wishes, and to be
enough for the enjoyment of endless ages. And all this blessedness is so
certain and so securely guarded for them, that there can be no fear or risk of
its being overturned or diminished
for ever. And this is
what St. Matthias understood when he said, ‘ I believe in the life
everlasting.'
(4.) Other Writings
of St. Francis Xavier.
We find in a letter
(which will be inserted in the second volume of this work) written in 1552,
that Francis Xavier tells St. Ignatius that he has written a book in Japanese
‘explaining the origin of the world and all the mysteries of the life of
Christ.’ It may perhaps have been a version of the explanation of the Creed
which we have just given, with perhaps some special passages to meet the
peculiar errors of the Japanese. This book, he adds, he has also written out
‘in Chinese character,' meaning to take it with him to China. If this was not
the same in substance as his explanation of the Creed written for the people of
the Moluccas, it is lost to us. Orlandini also tells us (Hist. Soc. Jesu, 1.
xiv. n. 133) that Francis wrote a book at Cagoxima for the Japanese which
contained a life of Christ, the penitential psalms, the litanies, and the order
of the Church festivals. And in another place (n. 147) he tells us that some
sermons were composed by Francis in Spanish, which the Japanese convert, who
took the name of Paul of the Holy Faith, translated into Japanese. These also
are lost, as far as is known, though it is impossible to say that they do not
exist in Japan. We may add to our list two of his writings which are not lost.
The first is the form of profession of faith which Francis taught his
catechumens to learn by heart and to repeat before receiving baptism.
Profession of Faith.
O my God, I truly confess, as becomes a good
Christian, the most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Three Persons in
one God; and I firmly believe, without hesitation, whatever our Mother the
Roman Church holds and believes, and so I promise that I will live and die in
the holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, God and Man, Who died for us,
and now, for and instead of the time at which I am to die, in case I be not
then able to speak, I confess my Lord Jesus Christ with my whole heart.
The second is a
Prayer to the Five Wounds of our Lord.
Prayer.
O Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose power all
things are, and there is no one who can resist Thy will; Who didst vouchsafe to
be born as man, to
die, and to rise again: by the mystery of Thy most Sacred Body, and by Thy Five
Wounds, and the shedding of Thy most precious Blood, have mercy upon us,
according as Thou knowest what is necessary for our souls and bodies; deliver
us from the temptations of the devil, and from all things by which Thou knowest
us to be oppressed, and keep us safe and strengthen us in Thy service unto the
end ; give us time to do true penance, and give us the remission of all our
sins when we die ; make us also to love one another, our brethren, our sisters,
our friends, and our enemies, and hereafter to rejoice for ever with all Thy
Saints in Thy kingdom, Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and
reignest God for ever and ever. Amen.
A supposed Letter to Francis Mancias omitted at p. 211.
The letter mentioned
in the note to p. 211 is almost certainly a sort of abridgment of other letters
in the collection, if it should not rather be called a piece of patchwork made up
by some copyist. F. Menchacha, Pr0leg07nena in S. Xaveriiwi, p. lxii., tells us
that he inserts it ‘ instar cujusdam breviarii’ of other letters. Such as it
is, we subjoin it here. It is singular among the series to Mancias (if we
except the first letter), in having the full formal salutation at the
beginning.
To Francis Mancias.
May the grace and
love of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us 1 Amen.
I most earnestly beg
of you, my dearest brother, to keep up a continual visitation of the coast
where you are, going through the villages one by one, baptizing the newborn
infants and instructing the rest. Assemble the men and women separately ; make
them all repeat the Catechism together ; make them do the same frequently in
private. Be on your guard against staying too long in one place, but go round
the whole of the villages again and again, as I did when I was there, and as I
do now where I am, though I have no interpreter. This fact will make it easy
for you to imagine what kind of life I lead, and what sort of conversations I
hold, when neither I nor the people here understand one another. However, I
baptize the children, which does not require an interpreter, and I look to the
wants of the poor, whose miseries and penury are manifest enough without one.
What I want you to do
most particularly is to go on without ceasing baptizing the infants and
instructing the children ; for even if the grown up people and the fathers and
mothers lose the happiness of heaven, at least the little ones, and the
children who pass from this life before they have lost their baptismal innocence,
will enjoy it.
As soon as the
converts come back from the pearl fishery, visit the sick, if there are any,
and provide them with what is necessary. At the same time let the children say
the several prayers over them, and you yourself read the Gospel, just as you
saw me do when I was in those parts.
I am now setting off
for Cape Comorin, where I am taking twenty boats laden with provisions, to
assist those poor converts who, terrified at the approach of the Badages, who
are the fiercest possible enemies of all Christians, have left their villages
and taken refuge on the little barren islands ; and there they are now, exposed
to all the heat of the sun, and the extremes of hunger and thirst. Some of them
are even dying under their sufferings, and my heart is pierced through and
through at their wretched lot. I beg of you, over and over again, go on praying
for us. I am writing to the Patangatins and to the magistrates on your coast,
to ask them to help these poor folk with their alms. I want you to take care
that these alms are not extracted from the unwilling and the poor, but from
willing and rich givers. Let the collection be made with all consideration of
the inclination as well as of the powers of those who are canvassed for it.
Farewell.
FROM THE FIRST VOYAGE
OF FRANCIS TO THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO TO HIS RETURN TO INDIA.
I545-I548.
The years spent by Francis Xavier in the
peninsula of India itself, before sailing to the farther East, which was to be
the scene of so many of his most glorious labours and most wonderful miracles,
are quite exceptional as regards the number of his letters which remain to us.
We must not expect in future anything like the almost daily chronicle with
which, for a short space of time, the letters to Mancias have furnished us; and
we must be content to take that series as giving us an insight into the
affectionate charity and ingenious industry with which he helped on his
subordinates, and looked after the interests of the converts under their
charge, which we may be quite sure reveals to us what was ordinary in him, but
of which we shall not hereafter be able to furnish so much unconscious evidence
in his own words. The two years and a half (to speak roughly) which followed on
his departure from the shrine of St. Thomas for Malacca and the Eastern
Archipelago are, comparatively, barren inde.ed in correspondence; and although
there are abundant facts, attested by authorities in which we can place the
greatest confidence, preserved to us as to his life at this time, we cannot but
lament that we shall have to rely so much more on the evidence of others than
on his own accounts. These were > ears even unusually full of incident, of
great successes, strange adventures, dangers, and escapes. They showed in the
most striking way his wonderful power of winning souls, his influence on the
public mind, his immense supernatural courage and confidence in God, his zeal
and charity, and his miraculous gifts. Full of spiritual conquest themselves,
they opened to him—as if in fulfilment of the promise implied in the Divine
call which bade him leave India to help the new
converts in
Celebes—fresh fields of labour and enterprize for the glory of God, of which he
had had no thought before. It is not too much to say that, at their close, his
name filled the whole Eastern Archipelago as that of a great Saint and Apostle
of God, gifted with the most marvellous miraculous powers, and that it seemed
only natural to look forward for him to still grander achievements. In those
days of ever fresh energy and wonder, when islands and countries, which had
before loomed like shadows upon the bordering mist between the realms of
knowledge and of imagination, were daily coming forth into the light, in all
their fairy beauty and mythical richness, as the mariners and merchants of
Portugal and Spain pushed their venturesome prows further and further into a
mysterious and seemingly limitless world, a man had at last appeared in the
East who would go, for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, wherever he
could find a ship to take him, who feared nothing but that he might himself
begin to fear, and who seemed to wield an imperial sway alike over the powers of
nature and the hearts of his fellowmen.
Francis Xavier
reached Malacca towards the end of September 1545. Malacca was then at the
height of prosperity and pride. Originally a small town, it had gained immense
importance from its convenient situation as a meetingplace for the merchandize
of the two great divisions of the Eastern world—Arabia, Persia, India on the
one hand; China, Japan, the Philippines, the Moluccas on the other; it was a
port for Siam and Pegu, and fronted the great island of Sumatra on the south.
At the time of the Portuguese conquest, under Alfonso Albuquerque, it is said
that the town, which now seems almost confined to the neighbourhood of the
river which divides it in two,1 stretched along the seacoast for as
much as a league. The Portuguese had gained possession of it more than thirty
years before the visit of Francis Xavier; they had built a strong fortress, and
appear also to have fortified the town itself, which became their chief seat in
the regions beyond the Ganges— much what Singapore is to the English at the
present day.
1 Wallace, Malay Archipelago, vol. iv. p.
39.
In fact, Singapore
has now succeeded to the place in mercantile importance once occupied by
Malacca. The writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are loud in
their praises of the beauty of its buildings, its soft luxurious climate, the
happy mixture of moist mists and fresh breezes which temper the otherwise
sultry atmosphere, and keep the land clothed with the verdure of perpetual
spring, even under the torrid zone. Its inhabitants were, and indeed are, a
motley population, the indigenous Malays predominating then, as the Chinese
are said to predominate now. They had a character through the East for courtesy
and refinement, but were conspicuous also, even among Oriental populations, for
corruption and license of every kind. All the vices and miseries which Francis
had found at Goa he was sure to find here, aggravated in the case of the
Portuguese by the greater distance from Europe and from the seat of government;
though, as there were no native communities of Christians to plunder or to
protect, he would breathe freely at least from the annoyances of such men as
Cosmo de Payva^ and not have to exert himself to remedy the mischief caused by
their tyranny.
The fame, of the
‘holy Father’ had been wafted over the Gulf of Bengal as it had before crossed
the more narrow seas between Cape Comorin and Manaar, and the coming of Francis
was expected and even known before he landed. It was never discovered how the news
flew about, that the ship which hove in sight on that September day bore an
Apostle on its deck, but so it was—the whole shore was crowded when he came to
land, and young and old, men and women, were eager to catch the first sight of
one of whom they had heard such wonderful things. The children in particular
crowded round him, or were presented to him by their mothers, and it was noted
that as he took them in his arms and placed his hand on their heads to bless
them, he Called them all by their right names. The general corruption of
manners did not make the people the less vie with each other to do him honour,
and to offer him a lodging in their houses; but, as usual, he took up his abode
in the hospital, though after a time he seems to have left it to live in
the house of some
poor friends, close to a part of the wall which surrounded the city. The house
stood on a high point over the shore, and was long considered to have been
specially blessed in consequence of having harboured such a guest, and tales
were told of persons who had fallen over the wall on to some rocks far below,
and been taken up unhurt.2
The work at Macazar
which Francis Xavier had specially had in view when he sailed from Meliapor had
been anticipated when he arrived at Malacca. The Commandant there had already
sent a ship to Celebes with a priest on board and several Portuguese laymen.
Francis determined to await its return before proceeding further. Meantime he
would give himself to the immense spiritual needs of Malacca itself. He began
by very great austerities and continual prayers. He is said to have passed two
or three days together without eating; his nights were spent in prayer, save a
few short hours which he gave to necessary sleep. Two brothers, by name
Pereira, watched him by night, and afterwards related how they had seen him
immovable on his knees before a crucifix, his eyes swimming with tears, and
his face burning like fire. The whole of the day, after he had said mass and
recited his office, he gave to the exercises of charity of various kinds which
he had already practised in Goa —visiting the sick in the hospital, the
criminals in the prison, waiting on them, instructing them, giving them the
sacraments, or hearing confessions and teaching in the churches; gathering the
children together for the Catechism, teaching them pious songs, with which, as
time went on, the houses and the streets began to ring; and going with them
through the city at nightfall, calling on the people, by the sound of a bell,
to pray for those in mortal sin, and for the suffering souls in Purgatory. He
preached to the people on Sundays, but his instructions to the children were
given daily, and he frequently found time for the slaves, who were in great
numbers in the city.
Malacca was never thoroughly
converted by Francis Xavier, though he spent more labour upon it, perhaps, than
upon any other city in the East, and though it was the scene of some of
2 See {e.g.) Massei, 1. ii. cap. 8. He
mentions two children and a woman.
his greatest and most
famous miracles. He left it at last—as the Apostles were told to leave the
cities which would not listen to them—shaking off the dust from his feet as a
witness against it, ordering the priests of the Society to withdraw from it,
and having prophesied calamities which were to befall it. But this was as yet
future. For the time Malacca was notably improved. An abominable custom, which
allowed fullgrown girls to go frolicking about the city in male attire and
without any escort, and which naturally resulted in the ruin of many, was put
an end to. The obscene songs which had resounded in the streets were changed
for Christian hymns. Many great conversions took place, and the scandals which
came from the open practice of concubinage were in several cases set right. But
there were persons of influence, and even high ecclesiastics, who set the
example of turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances and exhortations of Francis;
and with this bad example to encourage them, the mass of the inhabitants
treated him with respect, reverence, and admiration, and that was all. Nothing
is more hardhearted than frivolous voluptuousness—the spirit of Herod and his
Court, who would gladly have seen our Lord work a miracle to supply them with a
new excitement, but before whom He, Who had so many words for the heathen
Pilate, resolutely held His peace.
The accounts that
remain to us of the four months which Francis spent at this time in Malacca,
represent him as straining to the utmost the condescending charity of which we
have already seen more than one example. He was to be found talking familiarly
with rude soldiers, looking on at their games, interesting himself in their
success or in their bad fortune. More than this, he put in practice all the
devices which the extreme ingenuity of his zeal for souls could suggest to win
scandalous sinners by degrees to a better life. He invited himself to the
table, or accepted the invitations, of the men who were known to be living
openly with the objects of their unlawful love, and, treating the poor victims
of shame as if they had been virtuous ladies, he brought about in some cases
their marriage and in other cases their dismissal. One rich and
notorious sinner had
as many as seven of these poor creatures living with him, and Francis managed
to induce him to part first with one and then with another, until at length he
brought him to his senses, made him dismiss the remainder with suitable
portions, and then heard his general confession and reconciled him to God,
determined to lead in future a life of virtue and piety.3 Another
remarkable conversion, of a different character, was that of a Jewish Rabbi,
who was highly esteemed among his own people, and had distinguished himself by
the abuse which he had poured upon Francis whenever his name was mentioned in
his presence. Francis, hearing of this, made special prayers for him, and then,
as he often did, went and asked the Rabbi to give him a dinner. The Jew,
knowing the esteem in which Francis was held in Malacca, did not like to refuse
him, but received him at first without any cordiality. Francis won him by his
charming, bright, and humble conversation. He did not speak a word of
controversy, but took his leave with great expressions of gratitude, his host
accompanying him to the door, and refusing to let him go away without
promising to come again. A friendship thus sprang up which ended in Francis
convincing the Rabbi of the truth of the Christian religion, and his being
solemnly baptized to the great joy of the city.
There was no lack of
miracles to authenticate the mission of Francis, and to give force to his words
at this time. Indeed miracles seem to have become almost matters of course, as
if to make the obstinacy of those who could not be converted by his preaching
more inexcusable. ‘ He wrought so many,’ says
3 It was at Malacca, after his return from
the Moluccas, and consequently not precisely at the time of which we are
speaking, that Francis is related to have converted one of these unhappy women
in a still more wonderful manner. He had supped with a merchant in whose house
she was living, with another companion like herself; and on being shown to his
room, he asked to see the woman. Then he began to scourge himself on the
shoulders with an iron chain, and, holding out another to the woman, bade her
do for herself what he was doing for her. The merchant rushed in, and threw
himself at the feet of Francis, crying out that he was the one who deserved
such punishment ; and both he and his two companions, who were well provided for
in marriage, began to lead a thoroughly Christian life.
Bartoli, ‘ that in
the account given of them afterwards, in the sworn testimonies of that time,
the miraculous cures are not counted one by one, or many together, but all in a
mass, it being said then that he healed all the sick people whom he touched,
and that his hands were believed to be endowed by Heaven with universal virtue
against every sort of malady.’4 There was at least one very
conspicuous miracle, the recalling to life of a girl who had been three days
buried. She was the daughter of a lately baptized woman, and had died at a time
when Francis happened to be away from the town. * The mother/ says Bartoli, ‘
who had sought him everywhere when her child was lying ill, as soon as she
heard of his return, took courage to think that he might be as able to raise
her now she was dead as he would have been to heal her when she was sick; so
she went at once to him, and throwing herself at his feet in floods of tears,
began to say to him, exactly as Martha to 6ur Saviour, that if he had been
there, her daughter would not have died; but that nevertheless, if he were
willing, he
4 Asia, lib. ii. p. 104. He mentions, however, several particular
instances, x. Antonio Fernandez, a youth of fifteen, who was possessed by a
devil, as well as sick of a mortal disease. His mother had recourse to an old
Indian witch, whose incantations only made matters worse. At last, a pious
woman of her acquaintance induced her to send for Francis Xavier, at whose
approach the demoniac began to writhe and howl. Francis prayed.by his side,
read the Passion of our Lord, and applied a reliquary to the boy, who ceased
from his contortions, and remained apparently senseless. Francis bade the
mother give him some food at a certain time, when he would wake up and be able
to take it, and bring him for nine mornings to the Church of our Lady del
Monte, where he himself would say mass. The lad was quite cured the first
morning. 2. Francesco Lopez Almeida, who was nearly in his agony, and was
cured by Francis laying his hand on his head. 3. A brother of Rodrigo Diaz
Pereira, who had been unable to take food for three days, and was cured on
making his confession. 4. A child in convulsions, cured after the reading of
‘a Gospel' oyer it. 5. He also mentions one of the remarkable predictions which
are common in the life of St. Francis, as to the great danger which a certain
vessel would incur, in which a merchant had embarked a valuable cargo. Francis,
after praying a moment, told him to go, in God’s name, with the ship, and on no
account to throw the goods overboard. The ship, in the course of the voyage,
got aground, and it seemed inevitable that the cargo should be sacrificed, but
the merchant pleaded the prediction and order of Francis, and after a short
time the sea rose enough to lift the ship off the shoal.
could make her return
to life, that nothing was difficult to God, and that He would grant everything
to his prayers. Francis marvelled to see so great faith in a woman who had not
long ago been baptized, and as she seemed to him worthy of the grace which she
asked, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and prayed God to grant her that
consolation; then he turned to her and said resolutely that she was to go, that
her daughter was alive. She, between hope and fear, did not disbelieve his
word, but because he had not offered himself to come with her to the place
where the dead child was, to raise her to life, she answered that she had been
three days buried. “ It matters not,” said the Saint; “ go and open the grave
and you will find her alive.” The woman made no more question, but with great
faith and rejoicing ran to the church, and there, in the sight of many others
who ran together with her at the miracle, caused the stone to be raised from
the grave, and found the child alive.’5
Francis stayed at
Malacca till January 1546. We must now give some letters which he wrote, before
leaving, to Portugal and to Goa, which will almost explain themselves. The
first is nearly repeated in the second, but we are inclined to think that the
two are distinct, the first having been written soon after his arrival at
Malacca, and the second in December. He probably repeated what he had already
said on account of the uncertainty which existed as to the safety of letters
sent to so great a distance.
(xlvii.) To the Society in Portugal.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
I wrote to you,
dearest Brothers, from India that I was going to Macazar, where two kings have
lately become Christians. On my way I went to the city of St. Thomas (where
all the people, both Christians and heathens, affirm that the body of the most
holy Apostle St. Thomas lies), intending 6 Asia, lib. ii. p. 106.
to sail thence for
Malacca. As I was waiting at that town for an opportunity of sailing, a certain
merchant, by name Joam d’Eyro, was guided by an inspiration from above to join
me as my companion. After spending some days with me, and getting to know a
little about heavenly things, he began to perceive that there were certain
traffics and wares far superior to his own, of the existence of which he had
never up to that time had even a suspicion. So he left his old merchandize and
gave up his trade altogether, and embraced evangelical poverty. We have lately
both arrived at Malacca, which is more than five hundred leagues distant from
Goa, and we are already on the look out for an opportunity of sailing on to
Macazar. People who come here from that island tell us that the nation there is
wonderfully fit and ready for the religion of Christ. They have no temples of
gods, and no priests of any sort to urge the people to their worship. In fact,
the sun is the only thing that they worship as a god, and they have no other
religion at all. So I pray you over and over again, dearest brothers, for your
love to Christ, to come hither many of you of the Society every year, for there
is the greatest possible dearth of workers such as you. Be quite sure that for
bringing these heathen to the flock of Christ, there is no need of great
learning, but of great practice in virtue, and of great force of the Holy
Ghost. May God of His goodness give us all that gift! Amen.
Malacca [September]
1545.
(xlviii.) To the Society in Portugal.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
I wrote to you about
my affairs at some length from India, before I set off on my voyage towards
Macazar, where we have heard that two kings have become Christians. I have been
waiting now for a month and a half at Malacca, looking out for a favourable
occasion to sail for Macazar. We shall sail thither,
VOL. I. A A
God willing, in about
as much time more. Macazar is more than a thousand miles from Goa. Persons who
have come here from thence tell us that the natives are very well fitted for
the Gospel, so that a great number of Christians may be made in those parts.
There are no temples of gods there, no priests of false religions; they worship
the rising sun, and nothing else. On the other hand, the tribes are always at
war with one another.
Since I have been at
Malacca, which is a city on the sea, a famous and crowded mart for merchants, I
have had no lack of holy occupations. On Sundays I preach to the people, though
I admire my own sermons much less than those do who are so good as to listen to
them. Every day for an hour, and sometimes more, I teach the children the usual
prayers. I live in the hospital, I hear the confessions of the sick, say mass
for them, and give them holy communion. I am so overwhelmed by the number of
persons who come to confess, that
I cannot satisfy them all by any means. I
also employ a considerable time in translating the Catechism from the Latin
into a language which the people of Macazar understand f for it is very
troublesome to be absolutely ignorant of the language of those one is living
among. On my way from India, I went to the town of St. Thomas, where the
natives affirm that the body of the Apostle is preserved. There are there more
than a hundred Portuguese families. People visit the church, which is really
very devotional, and all the inhabitants and neighbouring people agree in
declaring that the body of the Apostle is laid in it.
Whilst I was waiting
there for an opportunity of sailing to Malacca, I met with -a merchant who had
come there with a ship full of merchandize. This man, as soon as he got to have
a little insight into spiritual things, easily understood that there were
certain other wares far more precious than his own, which he himself had never
before met with. So he gave up his ship and his merchandize, and became my
companion
6 This was the Malay language, which was
generally understood throughout the Archipelago.
in my voyage to
Macazar. His name is Joam d’Eyro; and he is now fully resolved to embrace
poverty for his whole life and to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. He is
thirty-five years of age, and has come to our Lord after serving in the ranks
of the world all his life. He very much desires that you will pray for him and
commend him to God.
At Malacca several
letters were delivered to me, some from Rome and some from Lisbon, and it is
quite incredible how much joy they gave me and still give. Every time I read
them —and I read them often and often—the ejfect on me is that
I fancy I am over there with you, or that
you are here with me. If this is not allowed us in body, at least it is allowed
us in spirit. The Fathers who have come with Joam de Castro have written to me
here from Goa about their arrival. I am now going to write back to them, that
two of them are to go to Cape Comorin to help Francis Mancias, whom I left
there with three native priests instructing the Christians of Comorin. The
third I order to remain at Goa to teach humanities to the youth in the College
of Santa Fe. The ship by which this goes is hastening its departure, so I will
not speak of the matters about which I wrote from India. Next year I will write
some long letters about the people of Macazar, if God. so will. One thing I
beseech you, dearest brothers—to come out here as many of the Society as
possible, every year. Here we want a great many of you, and for the conversion
of the heathen we do not require much knowledge of theology, but a great practice
of virtue. So I end, praying God that He will both show to us His holy will and
give us the power to carry it out.
Malacca, November
ioth, 1545.
(xlix.) To Father Simon Rodriguez.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
I beg and implore you, by the heart of our
Lord Jesus Christ, to send out here as many as possible of the Society : but
all of them, whether preachers or others, let them be men
of proved virtue. For
the enticements to sin which offer themselves out here are very many. So, even
if they are not excellent in learning, I pray you over and over again, let
them anyhow be excellent in virtue; for in these parts men look up to virtue
more than to learning, though the thing which carries all before it is virtue
adorned by learning. The fortified cities and Portuguese garrisons in India
require, as a general rule, learned men. We are very greatly indebted to the
King of Portugal, our most excellent patron, and to the Portuguese who are in
India, for their, great benevolence and liberality to us. If we have any way at
all of repaying them in kind for all their deserts to us, it is this one—as
they are entangled in many great matters and enterprizes, to settle their minds
and consciences for them, so that they may have clearly explained and laid
open to them what they must do to be saved. May Christ our Lord, out of His
goodness and mercy, hire many and good labourers into His vineyard, and bring
us together again, wherever it may please Him, if not on earth, then at least
in heaven. Amen.
Malacca, December
5th, 1545.
The letters which
Francis Xavier mentions as having caused him so much delight must have
furnished him with news of the progress of the Society up to the spring of the
year in which he received them (1545). The annals of the Society for the
previous year are full of the exertions of Peter Favre at Louvain and Cologne,
and mention how he had been able to send a large band of recruits, mostly
novices, and all men of literary culture, to Simon Rodriguez in Portugal, to
add to the number of students in the rising College at Coimbra. They sailed
from Antwerp with the Archbishop of Compostella, and were carried by a storm to
Coruna, where one of them, Francis Strada, was asked to preach. He preached
with so much vigour and unction, that one of the canons of Coruna renounced the
world and joined the little band of Jesuit pilgrims on the spot. They went on
to Compostella, and thence to Coimbra. The name of the canon was Joam Beira, and
we find that he was
thought fit to be
sent almost at once to the Indies, forming one of the band of three Fathers,
who were the first recruits who reached Goa after Father Paul of Camerino and
Mancias. The state of the College of Coimbra was flourishing and fall of the
best hopes, and it was perhaps the news of this which made Francis write so
joyously to the Society in Portugal.
Hewouldhave been
still more delighted if he had known that his own letters were beginning to
bear the fruit which he desired, and that they had made a conquest of one whom
he must have known well at Paris, and who was soon to become one of the
greatest supports of the Society in Europe. This was Jerome Nadal, whom
Ignatius had in vain endeavoured to convert at Paris, where, using one of his
many skilful devices to gain souls, he had led him aside one day, and read to
him a letter which he had just written to his own nephew in Spain about
renouncing the world, and providing for the salvation of his soul. Nadal saw
his design, and producing a copy of the Gospel, which he carried with him,
told Ignatius that he knew what to follow, but that as for him and his plans,
he could not tell in what they would end. He went back to Majorca, his native
island, and there lived for many years, well off and prosperous externally, but
never feeling as if he were in his right place. Some holy souls with whom he
was familiar taught him to give himself to prayer, and he had a design of
collecting a little company of preachers, and devoting himself with them
entirely to the good of souls. By chance, in the beginning of the year, a copy
of one of Francis Xavier’s letters from India was placed in his hand. It was
that, if we may judge from the description given of it by the anecdote, in
which Francis describes his method of proceeding with the Christians of the
Fishery Coast, and which contains so many burning words about the need of
labourers in the great harvest
7 See Orlandini, Hist. Soc. Jesu, 1. v. c.
6. He says of the letter, ‘ubi, post commemoratam ingentem inter Indos animorum
messem, de confirmataSocietate ab Apostolica Sede Franciscus plurimas Deo
gratias agebat. ’ It may be remarked that Francis was aware of the confirmation
of the Society before he left Portugal, but he could not have heard of the
promulgation of the Bull until the first arrival of letters in India after he
had been some time there.
which was so ripe to
be gathered in in India.8 Towards the end of the letter there was a
passage in which Francis spoke of the delight which he felt in having at last
heard of the solemn confirmation of the Society by the Pope. Nadal had never
heard of the confirmation; indeed, he seems to have lost sight of Ignatius
altogether. But the words of Francis Xavier brought back to his mind all that
had passed at Paris, and how his confessor there had urged him to become one of
the disciples of Ignatius. He went to Rome, and there, after a time, made the
Exercises, in which he experienced the greatest possible difficulty in making
up his mind, till at last the light broke in upon his soul, and he made a vow
to enter the Society.
We hear nothing more
of the Fathers who were expected when Francis left India, having, as he
supposed, wintered at Mozambique, of whom the King had written in such high
terms. The three whose arrival was announced in the letters received by Francis
at Malacca came to India in the company of the new Governor, Joam de Castro,
whose voyage out was unusually short. They arrived at the beginning of
September, before Francis himself had reached Malacca. Either at this time, or
by former letters, Francis had been appointed Superior of the Society in the
East, and the letter in which he allots them their work is written in that
capacity. But even as Superior he seems to prefer entreaty and request to the
simple language of authority.
(l.) To the Fathers Paul of Camerino, foam Beira, and Antonio
Criminals.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
In a long letter that
I sent you by the Commendatore9 I gave you detailed information that I was all
ready to start on my
8 See above, pp. 155, 156.
9 This was the letter given above (p. 298)
from Meliapor. The ' Commen- datore’ must have been some officer who took the
application from Francis to the Governor of India for letters of introduction
to the Commandant at Malacca.
voyage towards
Macazar; but we have had later news stating that affairs there are not in so
good a state as we had thought, and so I have not gone there. I am now thinking
of Amboyna, where there are already many Christians, and people say so much of
the docility of the rest that the addition of great numbers more seems very
likely. I will write to you from thence what I shall see of the state of the
country on the spot, how the natives are disposed towards the faith, and of the
fruit we may reasonably expect from labours to be spent amongst them. The
experience I have already gained of the state of Cape Comorin and Goa, and that
which, by the Divine blessing, I shall acquire of Amboyna and the Moluccas,
when I have seen them, will enable me to write to you in which of these regions
it appears that your industry may best employ itself, so as to be most
profitable for the greater service of God.
For the present I beg
of you two, my dearest Fathers Joam Beira and Antonio Criminale, as soon as you
have read this letter, to get ready to go at once to Cape Comorin, where you
will work with more usefulness to the service of God than at Goa, and you will
take with you from Goa, if he is there, Fr. Francis Mancias; for he knows the
country perfectly, and you will understand from him in what way you must live
and work there. It is my particular desire that, if this letter finds Father
Mancias at Goa, you both of you, with him as a third, set out together for Cape
Comorin. I beg you in the name of God not to do otherwise; nor, whatever be the
cause that stands in the way, let anything make you give up this journey, which
is my positive wish, and I consider it as absolutely necessary. Father Nicolas
Lancilotti will remain in the College of St. Paul, where he is to teach
grammar, for which he has been sent from Portugal. As I am confident that in
your great charity you will do what this letter prescribes and nothing else,
I shall say no more on this point.
Now, my dearest
Father Paul of Camerino, I pray you very much, for the love you have for Jesus
Christ, to watch with the greatest care over the interest and preservation of
the College. Above everything, I commend to you over and over
again, to show prompt
and perfect obedience to all those who have authority of any kind in it. Be
sure that in no way can you do a thing more pleasant or sweeter to me than by
entire obedience to them in all things. I declare, if I were myself where you
are, I would do nothing, however small, contrary to or without the authority
and pleasure of those who have the government of that holy College; I should
make a point of obeying them most diligently in all that they should command
me. I desire and hope that God may be pleased to breathe His holy inspiration
into the very inmost core of your soul, that you may be entirely convinced that
you can by nothing make yourself more pleasing to Him, or do more for His service
and glory, than by denying your own will out of love for Him.
Write me word, I
entreat you, about all of our fathers and brothers, especially Fr. Francis
Mancias, by the vessel which will soon be sailing from Goa for the Moluccas. I
am sure you will do this at good length and diligently, and I am already
enjoying in hope and desire the pleasure which I shall have when I read the
letter. I beg of you, my dearest brothers, to remember me constantly in your
holy conversations with God and in your holy sacrifices. I feel peculiar need
of this assistance from you, on account of the dangers I am about to incur, as
I am going to sail to barbarous countries, infested by dangers of every kind.
Simon Botelho, who is leaving this place for Goa, is very favourably disposed
towards your holy house. He will give you a minute and full account of me and
my affairs. He treats me as a great friend, and I have a great affection for
him, for he is a truly good man, and one who sincerely loves God. I beg you to
cultivate his friendship diligently. He has rendered me all the offices of a
real friend, having sent me as a gift all that was necessary for the expenses
and provision for the voyage I am undertaking, showing all the kindest possible
proofs of most exquisite charity. May God, Who has the power, reward him in my
stead, for I really feel how much I owe him.
May God our Lord, my
dearest brothers in Jesus Christ,
bring us together in
His holy glory, since in this life we have to live scattered in so many various
places !
The least of your
brothers in Jesus Christ,
Francis.
From Malacca,
December 16th, 1545.
The urgency with
which Francis expresses his wish that the two Fathers from Portugal should
proceed at once to the Fishery Coast must be explained by a fear which he may
have had that efforts would be made to detain them at Goa. The letter is
written in such terms as to enable them to plead that they had no choice in the
matter left them by their Superior. The exhortation to Father Paul about
obedience to the rulers of the College shows us that, in the very delicate
position in which he was—for the College was not yet made over to the
Society—he was often provoked to acts which might have embroiled him with the
authorities. We shall hear more of this in the next letter to him*
St. Francis Xavier sailed from Malacca for
the isles of the Eastern Archipelago on the ist of January 1546. His immediate
destination was the island of Amboyna, though the ship in which he sailed was
bound for the island of Banda, somewhat to the southeast of Amboyna, and
further from Malacca. He was now entering upon one of the most adventurous
periods of his missionary life, sailing away almost beyond the reach of
communications from India or Europe; for on his return he wrote to his friends
at Rome, that a letter to the Moluccas from thence could not be answered, under
the most favourable circumstances, in less than three years and three quarters.
He had with him none of the Society, unless we count Joam d’Eyro, who still
accompanied him : but he found Portuguese merchants and even settlers in most
places which he visited, and his principal stay was in islands under the
Portuguese crown, where there would be garrisons, churches, and priests, though
not in any great numbers. It is not wonderful that our accounts of his
proceedings during the year and a half on which we are now entering should be
comparatively meagre, and somewhat confused. He wrote, as we shall see, very
few letters that remain to us before his return to India in January 1548, and
even the letters which have been preserved are written with all his usual
reticence as to his own great conquests for religion, and are evidently, moreover,
meant rather to give specimens of the work that could be done than a narrative
of what had actually taken place. He gives indeed sufficient details and even
notes of time to
enable us to set
before ourselves a kind of outline of his labours : but it is an outline which
makes us long very much for more explicit delineation from himself, while the
facts concerning him, which rest on evidence from others which there is no
reason to question, are just enough to reveal to us how immense his activity
must have been, how ubiquitous he seems to have made himself, how unsparing of
himself he was, how many dangers he braved, and the wonderful success which
attended him.
There is, as we have
said, some uncertainty in the story when we try to arrange the facts which
belong to this period of his life, and which are connected with the various
places in that part of the Malay Archipelago which goes or went by the general
name of the Moluccas.1 His own language leads us to suppose that he
used the name in a large sense to designate a tract of ocean sprinkled over
with islands, but that he also looked on one country2 as giving its
name to the whole. Happily, the picture which the combined accounts furnish
us, of his method of dealing with the people in this remote part of the world
and of the traits of his character in which we are most interested, is not
affected by our inability to trace his
1 We have already noticed that Francis
Xavier speaks of Molucco (Molucum) as a single place, at the same time that he
speaks of it as a region, and also mentions the ' Molucca’ islands. Strictly
speaking, the Moluccas are the five islands which lie in a string from north to
south along the western shores of the large island of Gilolo, to the east of
Celebes. They are all small—Temate, Tidor, Motir, Macian, and Batchian. But in
a more general sense a great number of islands, sonie larger than these, are
included in the Moluccas. Mr. Wallace allots them a space of ten degrees of
latitude by eight of longitude, and they thus embrace the islands and groups
between the Philippines and Timor, New Guinea and Celebes {Malay Archipelago,
ii. 138). He counts among them Ce- rama and Bouro, as well as Gilolo, three
very considerable islands. In the letters of St. Francis we shall find
distances given, as to which we cannot depend on the accuracy of the copyists
or translators, who had never been in that part of the world or seen a good map.
He seems by Molucco, when used as the name of a single island, to mean Ternate
: but Temate is in sight of Gilolo, which some writers identify with the
‘island of the Moors,"of which we shall hear so much ; which, however, St.
Francis is made to place at the distance of sixty leagues from ' Molucco.’ We
discuss elsewhere where this island—or islands— should be looked for.
2 He uses the words in continenti.
footsteps everywhere,
and give an exact account of each week of his time. As to this last point, we have
enough from himself to mark the chief divisions of the period, and we must be
content to follow former writers on the subject in placing the details which he
does not mention where they most conveniently adapt themselves to those chief
divisions. Francis Xavier never afterwards spent any time in the Moluccas,
though he must have passed near them on his voyages to and from Japan and to
the coast of China. When the evidence as to his ac- tipns came to be collected
and his life to be written, on the testimony of persons who had been his
companions or with whom he had met in the Moluccas, a number of beautiful anecdotes
came to light, which relate to places which he had himself never mentioned,
and works of charity or of preternatural power over which, as usual, his
humility had drawn the veil of silence.
The history' of
Christianity in the Moluccas had hitherto been chequered by the action of the
same conflicting causes which we have seen at work in India. Not many years
before the arrival of Francis Xavier at Amboyna there had been a great movement
towards the faith, and two kings in particular, one in the island ‘ of the
Moor’ (as to the exact site of which there must remain some doubt), and another
in Ternate, had become Christians. The avarice, tyranny, and licentiousness of
the Portuguese, added to their quarrels among themselves, had led to a general
league against them and a massacre known as the Molucensian Vespers. Affairs
had been in some measure restored, and religion greatly promoted, under the
governorship of Antonio Galvan, one of those admirable men who occur from time
to time in the history of Portuguese Asia; but a petition sent to King John
III. by the native princes and people, to continue him in his authority as long
as he lived, had not reached Lisbon till long after his successor had arrived,
and affairs had fallen back into their former state, to the great detriment of
religion. The history is too long to be related here, but what has been said
may suffice to explain more than one passage in the letters of Francis Xavier.
The vessel in which
he sailed from Malacca had a crew made up of Lascars and other heathens, many
of them different in race and language one from another. The voyage lasted six
weeks, and Francis found occupation enough for his charity and zeal in
preaching to and instructing these wild mariners. The evidence of the Processes
proves to us that on this occasion he had ‘ the gift of tongues’ in the form
in which it was imparted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, that is, that
men of different languages understood him at the same time, each in their own
dialect, and this miracle went far to make them docile to his teaching. He
found Amboyna, as to Christianity, in the state which might have been expected
from the .history to which we have alluded. There were seven villages of native
Christians, but the priest who had been their pastor had died or had been
killed at the time of the general rising against the Portuguese, and the
Christian natives were extremely ignorant, as well as strongly prejudiced
against the Portuguese. They were also exposed to the depredations of the
fierce islanders of the ‘ Moro’ to the north, as well as to persecution from
the Mussulmans in Amboyna itself. St. Francis was much touched, as we see by
his letter, by the number of children whom he found unbaptized, and who died
soon after they had been made heirs of the kingdom of heaven. He catechized the
other children and the adults, and carried out as far as was practicable the
method which we have seen him use in India and at Malacca. We are also told
that he converted a number of heathens, and founded many churches on the
island.
A great part of his
time, however, was taken up by some unexpected visitors from Europe. The first
voyage round the world had been made some years before by Magellan, who had
sailed round South America for the express purpose of reaching the Moluccas
from the western side, and of claiming them for the crown of Spain. He was then
in the service of Charles V. The Moluccas were supposed to lie just on the line
which separated the new part of the world allotted to Spain from that which was
to belong to Portugal, and, in fact,
the Philippines lie
almost in the same longitude. Charles V. ultimately made over all his rights to
them to Portugal, and thus the dispute was settled.3 But other
expeditions from * New Spain’ seem to have followed in the track of Magellan;
and when Francis Xavier was at Amboyna, a fleet with Spaniards on board touched
at the island, and remained for more than two months.
These Spaniards had
been for some years in the Moluccas, endeavouring to establish themselves, now
in one island, now in another, and claiming them as ‘ the possession of
Castile/ notwithstanding the treaties. The Portuguese Commandant at Ternate had
had considerable trouble with them. In 1544, Giordano de Freytas had made a
truce with their commander, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, for eight months, that he
might get instructions from Goa. Discord broke out among the Spaniards, and
many of them deserted to the Portuguese. In the course of the next year, 1545,
Fernando de Sousa y Tavora, a Portuguese captain, was sent against them, and
forced Villalobos and his men to come to terms. They were to be provided with
all necessaries at Ternate until they could be conveyed to India, where they
might either remain in the Portuguese service, or be sent to Spain, as they
wished. This is the meaning of the Spanish fleet commanded by a Portuguese
officer. Villalobos himself had died at Ternate. Fernando de Sousa y Tavora
was conducting his dangerous captives—if such they
3 Magellan sailed in 1519, and lost his
life in one of the Philippine Isles, which he had discovered, in 1521. The
first arrangement as to the discoveries in the New World had been made by Pope
Alexander VI. who, in 1493, had decreed that a line should be drawn a hundred
leagues west of the Azores. Portugal was to have all to the east, Castile and
Aragon all to the west of that line. This did not satisfy John II. of Portugal,
who thought the line too near the Azores ; and by the treaty of Tordesillas,
made in the next year, 1494, the line was removed two hundred and seventy
leagues further west. Under this line the Portuguese claimed Brazil, when it
was discovered. At the same time the Portuguese were limited eastwards by a
line to be drawn one hundred and thirty-two degrees east of Paris, from north
to south. It was supposed that the Moluccas were outside this line, but it just
includes them. They were discovered in 1511. ^,1529, as is said above, Charles
V. sold all his claims on the Moluccas to Portugal for 370,000 gold ducats.
could be called—out
of the region of the Moluccas, where they had been, and might still be, so
mischievous. There were also two Portuguese vessels in port at the same time,
and a contagious disease broke out among the crews of the fleets, which gave
Francis a fresh occasion for the exercise of his fearless and indefatigable
charity, while it at the same time disposed the mariners and soldiers to listen
to his preaching. He devoted himself to hearing confessions, preaching,
ministering to the sick, and reconciling persons at enmity—an office of charity
of which we hear a good deal while he was among the Portuguese. Great fruits
resulted from his exertions, and not the least of them was the extreme
kindness and benevolence shown by the Portuguese merchants to the Spaniards in
their distress, as they could hardly help looking upon them as intruders, who
had already caused some trouble, and might hereafter cause more.4
This chance visit of
the Spaniards gave Francis Xavier an occasion of gaining a very important
recruit for the Society and for the heathen missions, to which his own heart
was devoted. This was a priest of Valentia, Cosmo Torres, who had for many
years felt a strong inward call to perfection, which he had never hitherto seen
the way to fulfil. The first sight of Francis Xavier, his evident sanctity, and
his extreme humility and charity, conquered him at once. He would have stayed
with
4 One of the anecdotes of this time might
be used in a commentary on the text which tells us that ‘ God loves a cheerful
giver.’ A rich Portuguese merchant, Joam dArahujo, was frequently asked by St.
Francis for wine for the sick. He always gave it, but with a certain
difficulty. One day St. Francis sent another person to ask for him. Arahujo
gave him the bottle, and told him not to come again ; the wine he had, he
wanted for himself. When Francis was told of the answer, his face kindled with
zeal, and he said, ‘ Does Arahujo think that he will enjoy the wine he denies
to Christ ? He will die before he has consumed it, and this land of Amboyna is
the last that he will see.’ He warned Arahujo himself afterwards to prepare
himself, for he had not long to live. Soon afterwards, Francis left Amboyna,
and one day at Ternate, while he was saying mass, he begged the people to pray
for Arahujo, who was just then dead at Amboyna. It turned out that the merchant
had died at that very time. Joam d'Eyro, who had been left at AmbOyna, wrote to
Ternate to announce it, as well as another, named Carvaljo, who was present
when Arahujo died.
him at Amboyna, as it
appears, but he was either bound in some way to the Bishop of Goa, or at least
was obliged to go and ask his leave to labour as a missionary. He went to Goa
with the fleet, and there remained for a time working as a parish priest; but
he soon made the Exercises and entered the Society. His name became very famous
as a second father to the rising Church of Japan after the death of Francis.
It is evident, from
the following letters, that Francis Xavier found great promise of success for
apostolical labours in the Moluccas during these few months at Amboyna. He
arrived in the island in the middle of February, and in May he is already
writing for some of the Fathers to join him. We shall add to the letters
written from Amboyna at this time others which give a general account, as far
as we have it from himself, of his labours in the Moluccas.
May the grace and
charity of Jesus Christ our Lord be with us ever ! Amen.
On the i st of
January 1546 we sailed from Malacca for the Moluccas. We landed at Amboyna on
the 14th of February. This island is about ninety miles in circumference; it
is well peopled with natives and foreigners. It contains six Christian towns or
villages, which I visited one after another as soon as I landed, and where I
baptized a great number of infants and children. Soon after, the fleet under
the command of Fernando de Sousa touched at Amboyna, with Spaniards on board,
who had come from New Spain to the Moluccas. The great number of vessels caused
such a confluence of spiritual occupations, as it was necessary to hear
confessions, to preach in public, to wait on the sick, and assist the dying,
that time did not permit me to satisfy all duties. I have been able to form
some idea of the character and disposition of the inhabitants, and I have come
to hope that as soon as the lord of the island returns—he is a Portuguese of
high rank, very devoted to religion, and now in command of the royal garrison
at Mo-
lucco—I hope, I say,
when he returns, that we shall gather in here abundant fruit of souls.
About four hundred
miles from Amboyna is a country called the Land of the Moor, where ma^y Christians
are living in entire ignorance of the Christian law and worship. I am going to
this country, in order to provide for the salvation of so many souls. I am
persuaded that I ought, even at the peril of my life, to snatch their souls
from destruction. I am resolved to meet any risk of death, even clear and
plain, for I have placed all my hopes in Divine Providence, and I wish to obey
those words of the Gospel, ‘ He that will save his life shall lose it, and he
that shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.’5 And believe
me, my dearest brothers, that although the words of this sentence are in
general very easy to understand, yet when the time comes when you have to make
up your mind that you must lose your life for God, and incur the danger of
death, then that saying, clear as light though it be, becomes so very obscure,
that he alone can understand it to whom God, in His goodness, makes it plain.
At such times indeed it is that one sees quite clearly how weak and frail human
nature is. May God therefore, in His measureless mercy, so confirm and
strengthen us in such dangers, and at such times, by His own might, that we may
bravely undertake such risks and bear them to the end; and may He also remain
with us always! Amen.
From Amboyna, May
8th, 1546.
(lii.) To Father Paul of Camerino.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us always ! Amer.
O my Paul! what 1 hd,ve so often entreated
of you when I was with you, and have so often also begged of you by letter,
that same thing I now most earnestly ask and pray,—that in
6 Matt.
xvi. 25. Qui voluerit animarn suam salvam facere, perdet earn, qui
autemperdiderit animam suam propier Me, inveniet earn. (Orig.)
VOL. I. B B
all the affairs of
the College you obey sedulously the Superiors If I were in your place, I should
have nothing more at heart than to do all they wished. I want you to believe
me, and be convinced, that nothing is so safe, nothing so secures us from going
wrong, as to desire to be always ruled by others, and to obey their commands
from the heart. On the other hand, it is a perilous and hazardous thing to live
as one’s own master, casting off the authority of superiors. For even if you do
a thing rightly when you depart from what is prescribed you, yet be sure,
dearest brother, that there is more bad than good in it after all. You will
therefore accurately obey in all things Father Diego de Borba, whose will
agrees with the will of God, and be altogether under his power. If you will do
this, you will do a thing pleasing not only to me, but also to God.
Send me two of our
fathers who are now at Cape Comorin, particularly Joam Beira, and in their
place substitute two of those who are lately arrived from Portugal. And I
beseech those who are to be sent hither, that as, considering the multitude of
stations and the magnitude of matters we have to attend to, we of the Society
are too few, they make an effort to bring with them some men not of ours, who
may serve and help us in teaching the Christian law and religious instruction
to the villages in these islands. If they are not priests, at least let them be
persons who have had rough handling from the world, the flesh, and the devil,
and who desire to punish in themselves their own injuries and those of God.
They must bring with them the sacred vessels and vestments for the holy
sacrifice. But the chalices should be of tin; they will be safer than chalices
of silver a genie non sancia—I mean the heathen among whom we are always
living.
Some Spanish friars
of St. Augustin are going from Am- boyna to Goa; you may learn from them
anything about me that you wish to know. I earnestly commend them to you, and
beg you to help them in any way you can, showing them the highest marks of
kindness and goodwill. They are excellent religious and very holy men. I am
setting out for the Land of the Moor. May God abide with you; may He go
with me, and, after
this life, may He be pleased to transfer our souls to His own kingdom, where we
shall attain and enjoy a great deal more peace and bliss than here!
From Amboyna, May
ioth, 1546.
P.S.—Send the
enclosed letter to our brothers at Comorin immediately, that they may have time
to reach Goa, and sail for the Moluccas at the beginning of April next year.
(liii.) To the Fathers of the Society at Comorin, Antonio
Criminale and Joam Beira.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ be ever with us ! Amen.
Last year, when I was
at Malacca, I wrote you two letters to the same purpose, begging in the name of
God you two, Joam Beira and Antonio Criminale, to set out without delay for
Cape Comorin. I thought it well that you should go there to instruct and
nourish those poor neophytes with Father Francis Mancias, whom I had left
amongst these Christians with Joam de Lizana and,three other native priests.
And to make your act more meritorious, I commanded it formally in the name of
your love of obedience. I doubt not that this letter reached you, and that you
acted in obedience to it. I left Malacca on my way to Molucco the 1st of
January, and on the 16th of February I landed on the island of Amboyna.
I immediately went through all the
Christian villages of the isle, and baptized all the newborn infants. About
that time, D. Fernando de Sousa, with a fleet of Spaniards who had come from
New Spain to the Moluccas, arrived at Amboyna. There were eight vessels, which
gave me more occupation than I can describe. I had to be always hearing
confessions, preaching on the Sundays, to bring many persons to make peace one
with another, to visit and console the sick, and to assist and encourage the
dying, so that I had no time free either during Lent or after it. I also got to
know the disposition of the
natives; and I hope,
with the help of God, that when Giordano de Freytas, Governor of Molucca, and
Sovereign Lord of Amboyna—a man very zealous for the propagation of religion—
comes to fix his residence and home here, which is likely to be in less than a
year from next November 1546, all the inhabitants will follow the faith of
Jesus Christ. The island is about ninety miles in circumference. It contains a
number of villages, of which seven are Christian. About four hundred miles from
Amboyna, there is a country called ‘ of the Moor/6 where I am told
there are a great number of Christians, but all utterly ignorant of the truths
of religion. I am to go there very soon.
I am anxious that you
should know this, that you may understand how much your work is needed in these
countries. And though I am not ignorant that where you are you are not idle,
yet as you are absolutely necessary here, I beg of you, in the name of Jesus
Christ, you, Francis Mancias and Joam Beira, to come hither as soon as
possible, and that this voyage may give you an opportunity of greater obedience
and merit, I formally command it. If, by chance, either of you shall have
quitted this mortal life, let another take his place at the choice of Father
Antonio Criminale; but so that, in any case, one of you three remain with the
native priests among the Christians of Comorin. If any of the Society arrive
this year from Portugal to help our work, I entreat them, in the name of God,
to proceed to Cape Comorin to instruct the Christians there. If there be any
news from Portugal, write it to me, and give the letters from Portugal in
charge to the Fathers who are to come hither. And that the new Fathers from
Portugal may have greater merit by obedience, I command them, in virtue of my
authority as Superior, to go to Cape Comorin.
And—as I perceive
that this letter will hardly reach you before the beginning of March next
year—one of the King’s vessels will be going in May from Goa to the Moluccas,
on board of which will be the King of Molucco, who some time
6 Regio est in continenti. It does not
seem to have been clear then whether it was an island or a continent.'
ago was taken away as
a prisoner; I wish you to come by that vessel. So as soon as you have read this
letter, go at once from Cape Comorin back to Goa, and prepare yourselves, as I
have said, to sail to Molucco. The people are hoping that the same vessel will
bring their prince, whom they are always expecting. The Portuguese also think
that the new Commandant of Molucco will be on board that vessel. If the King,
of whom I speak, has received baptism at Goa, I have great hopes that a large
number of his subjects will become Christians. But even if he should not have
become a Christian, you may still render very great service here. Each of you
should bring all that is necessary for the holy sacrifice; but let the chalices
be in tin, in order to preserve them more easily from the greedy hands of the
unholy race7 among whom you will have to live. And now, as you are
members of the Society of Jesus, and I have full confidence that you will
execute all that I have asked you in the name of Jesus Christ, and that, for
your love of obedience, I have commanded you, I shall add no more, except that
you come without delay; for I am anxiously looking foiward to your arrival. I
feel sure that your coming, by the grace of God, will be well timed in itself,
acceptable to Jesus Chris", and salutary to the people. I beg of you, my
brothers, to bring with you some of the seminarists from Goa, who are priests,
that they may be able to help you in teaching the Christian doctrine to these
islands. Anyhow, let each one of you bring with him one companion at least, and
if they are not priests or clerics, let them be at all events enemies of the
world, the flesl, and the devil, and determined to have vengeance for the
ir.juries they have received from them. May God, of His goodness bring us together
in this life in His service, and, in the next, in His kingdom, where far
greater rest and joy await us than we can have here.
Francis.
From Amboyna, Miy
ioth, 1546.
7 a gente non sancta. (Orig.)
(liv.) To the Society at Rome.
May the grace and
love of Jesus Christ our Lord always help and favour us ! Amen. '
I wrote to you a year
ago that two princes in the island of Macazar and a great number of their
subjects had been led to the Christian religion. I thought this would be an
opportunity for advancing the. Gospel far and wide, and felt invited by the
occasion of doing a good work for God; so I set out a^ once from Cape Comorin
to go to Macazar as soon as I could. Macazar is more than two thousand seven
hundred miles from Cape Comorin. Before embarking, I took diligent c/lre that
the Christians of Comorin should not be left without anything that was wanted
for the rites of religion, and the cultivation of piety. I set over them five
priests — Francis Mancias of the Society, three native priests, and Juan Li-
zana, a Spaniard by birth.8 The Christian inhabitants of the island
of Ceylon, at no great distance from Cape Cdmorin, are well instructed by two
Franciscans and two secular priests. These two churches consequently had no
need of my labours ; and the other Christians, who reside in Portuguese
settlements, are taught by the vicars of the Bishop of Goa. peeing, then, that
my work was not necessary in India, I went to Meliapor, which now bears the
name of St. Thomas, in onfer to go from thence to Malacca. I there met with a
merchant^ who entreated me to hear his confession. After having made; his
confession duly, he was so strongly moved by Divine gra^e, that the next day he
distributed to the poor the sum he gdt by the sale of his merchandize and his ship,
and following Ch/ist in His naked poverty, he joined himself to me as my
companion.
Sailing from
Meliapor, we came to Malacca, a much frequented city, belonging to the King of
Por^igal. There the Commandant told me that he had lately sent to Macazar a
priest of great piety, with a considerable number of Portuguese, who were to
protect the new Christians n case any trouble
8 The text says Francis Lizana, but it
seeps a mistake.
should arise. So he
told me to remain at Malacca till the ship which had taken them should return
and bring news how things were. I followed the advice of the Commandant, and
remained more than three months at Malacca. During this time there was no lack
of opportunity for gaining merit. On feast days and Sundays I preached to the people
in the chief chirch; the rest of the time I spent generally in hearing the
cor.fessions of the sick in the hospital where I lived, and relieving their
miseries. I instructed new converts, and espe- ciallj the children, in the
elements of Christian doctrine; and I brought about reconciliations among the
soldiers and the inhabitants, who had quarrels and feuds one with another.
Every day after sunset I went about the city ringing a bell, to warn the
inhabitants to wake up and pray for the mercy of God on the souls in Purgatory.
A crowd of children from the catechetical school used to follow me as I
repeated this call, and made a great stir in the city.
Whet I saw that the
winds which would have been favourable to ships returning from Macazar had
ceased to blow, and that nothing was to be heard of the priest and soldiers who
had been ^ent there, I thought I ought not to wait any longer, and quitting
Malacca I sailed for the Moluccas. The King of Portugal possesses a fort in the
Moluccas called Ternate, in the most distant part of the Indies. About two
hundred miles from this place, nearer to India, is Amboyna, an island about
ninety- four miles r6und, with a large population, not only of natives, but of
foreigners. The King of Portugal has given this island to a Portuguese nobleman
illustrious by his virtue and piety, who, it is said,'is intending in less than
two years to settle there with his wife, l|is children, and all his household.
Here there are altogether seven towns of Christians, all of which I went
through and baptized all the newborn infants and the children not yet baptized.
A great many of them died soon after their baptism, so that it was clear enough
that their life had only been preserved by God until the entrance to eternal
life should be opened to then). About the same time some Spaniards in eight
ships came to the island, and remained about three months. All
that time
how I was distracted with occupations I can hardly tell you. I stirred all the
crews up to a regular and virtuous life by sermons; I heard their confessions,
I visited their sick,^, and encouraged them at the hour of death to leave this
world with resignation and confidence in God; a very difficult thir^ for those
who have been by no means obedient to His diviAe laws. The more daringly they
have rolled in all sin and criine, the less hope and confidence in the mercy of
God have jney when they die. A good many also who wrere carrying
onjseri- ous feuds with one another—a fault very widely spread awong
soldiers—were, with the help of God, brought to make /eace. The fleet sailed
from Amboyna for India, and I with m/ companion, Joam d’Eyro, of whom I have
spoken to you, sailed in the opposite direction to the Moluccas. I
Nearly two hundred
miles beyond Molucco thpre is a region which is called ‘ Maurica.’ Here, many
years agJ, a great number of the inhabitants became Christians, but having been
totally neglected and left, as it were, orphans by the death of the priests who
taught them, they have returned to thAir former barbarous and savage state. It
is in every way a land full of perils, and especially to be dreaded by
strangers on account of the great ferocity of the natives and the many kinds of
pc/ison which it is there common to give in what is eaten and 4Kink. The fear
of this has deterred priests from abroad from g&ing there to help the
islanders. I have considered in what great necessity they are, with no one to
instruct them or give them the sacraments, and I have come to think that I
ought to provide for their salvation even at the risk of my life. I haye
resolved to go thither as soon as possible, and to offer my life to the risk.
Truly, I have put all my confidence in God, and I wish as much as is in me to
obey the precept of our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘ He that will save his life shall
lose it; and he that, shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.’9
Words easy in thought, but not easy in practice. When the hour is come when
life must be lost that you may find it in God; when danger of death is
9 Matt. xvi. 25. Qui voluerit animam suam
salvam facere, perdet earn, qui autem perdiderit animam suam p?-opter Me,
inveniet earn. (Orig.)
on you, and you see
plainly that to obey God you must sacrifice life, then, I know not how, it
comes to pass, that w’hat before seemed a very clear precept is involved in
incredible darkness. Not even the most learned men attain to the full force of
these wonderful words, but those only whom God, the Teacher Who speaks to the
soul, enlightens by a special favour. It is in such matters that we see clearly
how great after all our weakness is, how frail and unstable is our human
nature here. Many friends of mine prayed me earnestly not to go amongst so
barbarous a people. But afterwards, when they saw that they gained nothing by
prayers or tears, they brought me each what he thought the best possible
antidote against poison of all sorts; but I have unrelentingly sent them all
back, lest after burthening myself with medicines, I should have another
burthen which I was before without, that of fear. I had put all my hope in the
protection of Divine Providence, and I thought I ought to be on my guard, lest
relying on human aid I should lose anything of my confidence in God. So I
thanked them all, and earnestly entreated them to pray to God for me, for that
no more certain remedy than that could possibly be found.
But I must return to
my voyage to the Moluccas. We had a very bad time Qf it; many dangers from
pirates, many more from tempests. The greatest of our perils was this, that we
were in a very large vessel, and she was driven by the violence of a storm upon
some shallows, and for three miles she went on with the bottom of the rudder
perpetually grazing the sand. So that if she had come across any hidden rocks,
or, what we were perpetually fearing, if the shallows had got still more
shallow, we should certainly have been shipwrecked and she would have perished.
I saw a great deal of weeping there, and a great deal of trouble and anxiety,
for all were in expectation of momentary death. But God did not desire to
destroy us, but rather to instruct us by the danger we ran, so that we might
understand how poor our strength is when we have only our own forces or human
protection to lean upon. For when you have found out how empty your hopes are,
and, altogether ceasing to trust to human power, have placed all your hope on
the
Lord of all, Who
alone can easily defend you from any danger which you have come under for His
sake, then indeed you will know by experience how God governs all things by His
will and word, and that danger to life, however great, is to be despised in
comparison with the heavenly joys which on such occasions and at such times it
is His wont to impart. Not even death itself is any-matter of fear to those who
enjoy this divine sweetness. For although somehow it seems to be that when we
have escaped dangers we can find no words to express how great they were,
nevertheless there remains unfaded the extremely sweet memory of the benefit
which God has bestowed. And this recollection is day and night a spur to us
either to undertake willingly or to bear bravely to the end other toils for
that best of masters, and makes us also have a very great veneration and love
for Him all our life long, hoping that in His infinite goodness He will add to us
always fresh courage and strength to work diligently and constantly for so good
and kind a Lord.
When I was at
Malacca, I fell in with a Portuguese merchant, lately come from the very rich
kingdom of China. He told me that he had been asked by a Chinese—a good and
honourable man, who had been a good deal in the city where the king
dwells—whether Christians ate swine’s flesh? and that he answered that
Christians had no objection to swine’s flesh, but that he should like to know
why on earth he asked him such a question. Then the Chinaman said that there
was a nation in the middle of China, shut in by mountains, whose manners and
laws were very different indeed from those of the Chinese, and that this nation
altogether abstained from swine’s flesh, and, besides, kept many festival days
in a very solemn manner. When the merchant told me this, I could not make a
satisfactory conjecture whether these might be some of the Christians who unite
the rites of the Hebrew law with the religion of Christ, as we know that the
Ethiopians who live on the shores of the Red Sea do, or whether they were Jews,
some of whom are scattered over all the world. I hear that all are agreed that
they are not Mussulmans.
A great many
merchants go from Malacca to China every year. I have charged many of them to
find out with diligence what are the manners and rites and laws and
institutions of this nation I speak of, so that by means of these marks I may
find out what it is, and settle the question whether they are Jews or
Christians. There are many who say that the Apostle St. Thomas penetrated as
far as China, and that he made a great many Christians among that people. For
before the Portuguese conquered India, the Greek Church used to send bishops
there to take care of the Christians who were converted by St. Thomas and his
disoiples; and when the Portuguese first began to get possession of India, one
of these Greek bishops of whom I speak is said to have affirmed, that he knew
from other bishops whom he had found in India that St. Thomas had entered
China, had gone through the cities, publishing the Gospel, and had converted
many of the natives to Christ. As soon as I know anything certain, whether from
what others find out, or from what I discover myself, I will let you know.10
Before I left
Malacca, I heard that three of our Society had arrived at Goa, who wrote to me,
and had my letters from Rome sent to me with theirs. When I read those letters,
O, how I triumphed with joy at hearing about the affairs of the Society, just
the things which I desired the most! As one of these three had come to be a
master of grammar in the College of Santa Fe, and the other two to be employed
wherever it seemed to me that they could be of the most use to religion, I
wrote to them at once to leave the master at Goa, and that the others should go
to Cape Comorin, and there join Francis Mancias in instructing the new
converts. Now I have changed my mind, and am ordering them to come next year to
the Moluccas, for I see in these parts a much greater opportunity of spreading
the Christian religion.
Molucco is a region
of small and almost numberless distinct islands, and it is not yet certain
whether any part of it belongs to a continent. Generally, all the islands have
many villages of inhabitants. The inhabitants would easily become
10 This nation must have been the Jewish
colony of Khai-Fong-Fou.
Christians, but for
the want of people to preach to them. If we had somewhere here a house of the
Society, the majority would be Christians. So I have made up my mind to bring
it about that in these extreme parts of the world there should be a house
somehow or other planted for our use: for I can already see in prospect how
many nations that step would bring into the fold of Christ
In this island of
Amboyna the heathen are far more numerous than the Mussulmans, and there is a
bitter hatred between the two; for the Mussulmans compel the natives either to
become Mahometans or to be their slaves, and the heathen, hating even the name
of Mahomet more than the yoke of slavery, repudiate altogether the superstition
of the Mussulmans. If there were people here to teach them the true religion,
they would join the fold of Christ without much difficulty, for they have much
less objection to the name of Christ than to that of Mahomet. It is about
seventy years since the plague of Mahometanism invaded this island: before that
time all the inhabitants were heathen. The evil was introduced by some
Mahometan cacizes (ministers of religion), who came from Mecca in Arabia, where
the accursed body of Mahomet is honoured with great superstition, and drew a
large multitude of people to their own sect. The native Mussulmans are altogether
ignorant, and know nothing of the pestilential doctrine which they profess to
follow, so that I am led to hope that they may be easily converted from the
Mahometan religion.
I write all this to
you at so much length that you may share my solicitude, and conceive, as is
only right, an immense sorrow at the miserable loss of so many souls who are perishing
daily, utterly destitute of aid. And those who desire to help them, don’t let
them delay; for even if they are not very well furnished with learning and
other gifts, they will be quite fit for the work of which I speak, if they have
made up their minds to come hither for the sake of Christ alone, to live with
the people here, and breathe out their last in earnestly carrying out this
resolution. If only a dozen would come out every year, so disposed, there would
be an end altogether of this sect
of Mahomet, and all
would shortly be Christians. And what would result from this would be, that the
majesty of God would not be insulted by so many atrocious and impious sins as
is now the case at the hands of this nation, because they are ignorant of the
true religion. For the inhabitants of this island are for the most part savage
and barbarous men, remarkable for perfidy and wonderfully ungrateful.
There are also some
islands in this part of the ocean the people of which eat human flesh,
especially the flesh of their enemies who have been killed in battle. If any
one of their own people dies by disease, they do not touch the rest of the
body, but they cut off the hands and feet, and consider them great delicacies.
And if we are to believe what is reported of them, they have even got to that
excess of savagery, that when any one is preparing a specially elegant banquet,
he asks his neighbour to give him his aged father, whom he kills and serves up
to his neighbours to feast upon, and this request he makes on the understanding
that he in turn promises to do the same for the man from whom he asks the boon,
if ever he should wish to give a similar entertainment. And so great and so
barbarous are the lusts to which they are subject, that they take up with all
kinds of impurity. Within a 'month’s time I intend to go to an island where,
besides other unheard of crimes, each of the enormities I have mentioned is
commonly committed, that is, they both eat the dead slain in battle and also
give up their aged parents to one another to be banqueted on. The reason why I
go there is that I understand they are willing to be converted from all their
detestable wickedness to Christian piety.
The islands have a
wonderful climate; they are full of large and dense trees, and have frequent
rains to water them. They are defended on every side by steep rocks, and are so
lofty and high that their inhabitants have no need of fortifications to repel
hostile attacks. When war comes on, they think themselves quite safe enough if
they can betake themselves to these rocks, the paths among which are so steep
and so blocked up with stones that they never use horses, nor can use
them. Moreover, there
are frequent earthquakes among them, so great that mariners sailing by think
that their ships have met with rocks. There is at the same time such a rumbling
in the ground, that every one is frightened beyond all belief. Many of the
islands send up fire to a great distance, and the flames burst out with a crash
greater than that made by any brass gun, however large, when firing at full
charge. Immense stones are sometimes cast up by the force and impetus of the
fire. It would seem that as these men have no one to warn them about the
punishment of the wicked, God has been pleased as it were to open to them the
abode of hell, and give them some pictures of the fires in which sinners are to
be for ever, tormented, so that they may be admonished by that awful sight, and
come to understand what punishments will await them unless they abandon their
abominable vices and crimes.
All these islands
differ among themselves in language, and indeed in some of them the inhabitants
do not all use the same, but different villages have different dialects.
However, all understand the Malay language, on account of the commerce. For
this reason, when I was at Malacca I had the Creed, with an appropriate
explanation, the form of general confession, the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary,
and the ten commandments translated into the Malay tongue, that when I spoke to
them about Divine truths they might better understand what I said. They have
no literary monuments, and commonly do not know how to read or write; some few
write in Malay words and Arabic letters. This is because the teachers of the
Mahometan superstition, called Cacizes or Alfaquis, have lately taught, and
are still teaching, some of the natives how to write. Before Mahometanism was
introduced, there was absolutely no writing or reading among the natives.
In the island of
Amboyna I have seen what no one would believe, and what has been unheard of
till now; so perhaps it will be worth while to tell you. I saw a he-goat giving
suck to his young kids with his own milk; he had one breast, which gave every
day as much milk as would fill a basin. I saw i
with my own eyes—for
I would not believe it without seeing it. A respectable Portuguese has the
goat, and is taking it away, meaning to carry it to Portugal.
But now to return to
my intended voyage : I beseech you, my dearest fathers and brothers, by Jesus
Christ the Lord of all things, by His most holy Mother, and the Saints of
heaven who are in eternal glory, I pray and beg of you to remember me, and to
pray God continually and most earnestly to be merciful to me. You see in how
great need I am of protection. And I have often known that, in many dangers of
soul and body, your prayers have been my saving. For my part, that I may not
forget you, I carry about with me all your names, as they are written by your
own hands as signatures to your letters to me, together with my solemn form of
profession; and for the wonderful pleasure which I receive from that most
delightful remembrance I give thanks first of all, as is right, to God, and
then to you, my sweetest fathers and brothers, whom God has adorned with so
many virtues. And as I have the confidence that some day I shall have far
greater pleasure from the enjoyment of your company in life .eternal, I now forbear
to converse with you any longer for the present.
From Amboyna [May
1546].
The date of this last
letter is not quite certain. It is given in the printed copies as May 1546, but
the highest authority on the subject, F. Menchacha, thinks that it must have
been sent from Amboyna a year later, after the return of Francis to that island
from Ternate and the region of the Moor.1.1 In that
11 The internal evidence is contradictory;
and therefore by no means conclusive either way. The chief reasons for
postponing the date are, 1. that no other letter exists written in 1547 (but
this argument may cut both ways, as it would tend to show that Francis was out
of the way of opportunities till he returned to Malacca): 2. that the letter
contains an account of the attempt made by his friends to prevent his going to
the ‘ Isle of the Moor,’ which attempt was made at Ternate after he had left
Amboyna (but it is by no means certain that no attempt of the kind was made at
Amboyna ; and he most' certainly contemplated going to ‘ Maurica' when he was
there, and wrote about the dangers and his own apprehension of them to F. Paul
of Camerino from Amboyna): 3. that he distinctly says (p. 376), that when the
Spaniards sailed from Amboyna towards India, he set out with Joam d'Eyro in the
contrary direction to Molucco (Ter-
case, we may probably
suppose that it was written at different times, and finally sent off when
Francis found himself again at Amboyna. If it was written, however, as seems to
us more likely, before his voyage northwards from Amboyna to Ternate, it
illustrates many of his characteristic traits of character: his diligence in gathering
all possible information beforehand as to the places to which he was bound, his
sanguine hopefulness as to the results of Apostolical labours, his zeal for the
perishing souls of the poor heathen, and the like. In this case the danger
which he mentions, when the ship in which he sailed was so nearly aground in
shoal water, must have occurred on the voyage from Malacca to Amboyna. The
ending of the letter, where he speaks of having carefully put together the
signatures of all his brethren, and carrying them on his person, together with
the formula of his solemn vows, gives us another touching proof of his intense
love for the Society, and for all those with whom he was united therein.
In order to complete,
as far as may be, Francis Xavier’s own account of this period of his preaching,
we shall place here the greater part of a letter which he wrote immediately
after his return to India in January 1548.
nate). This is the
only peremptory argument, but it depends on the translation of a single word.
Ifpetiimus ought to have been written petimus (I am going to), the argument is
without force, and it is worthy of remark that the words, ego cum Joanne Dnro
contrario cursu Moluccam petiimus, are not strictly verified, because Joam
d’Eyro was at first left at Amboyna. On the other hand, all the internal notes
of time favour the supposition that the date as printed is right. 1. The
expectation of the people of Amboyna that Giordano de Freytas would come and
live among them, intra biennium, is expressed in the letter to Antonio
Criminale and Joam Beira in the same way, proximo anno a Novembri hujus anni
1546 : 2. the' language about the ‘ Isles of the Moor’ seems to imply that
Francis had not yet gone there : 3. Francis speaks of his ordering the fathers
to come, to the Moluccas, in the present tense, venire jubeo. But this order
was given in 1546, and obeyed in *547 : 4. the request, at the end, for prayers
to help him in great dangers, agrees more with the prospect of a first voyage
to Ternate and the Maurica, than with that of a return to Malacca and India.
Moreover, when Francis was in Amboyna in 1547, being on his way westward, he
would not be so likely to dispatch his letter from that island, as he would
have had to take it with him to Malacca. Nor is there any mention in it of an
intention to return homewards ; whereas it is customary to him to speak of his
immediate future.
May the grace and
charity of our Lord Jesus Christ always help and favour us ! Amen.
In the year of our Lord
1546 I wrote to you a long letter about the Molucca islands, which are situated
about sixty leagues from Amboyna. In that island of Amboyna, where the King of
Portugal keeps up a garrison, a great number of Portuguese reside who frequent
the Moluccas, which are exceedingly fertile in all sorts of spices. This is
the only place where the clove grows, which we call commonly the girofle.12
At Amboyna, which contains seven Christian villages, I stayed three months,
and during that time I baptized a great number of children, whose salvation was
in great danger from the want of any priest. The priest who had the charge of
the mission died a long time ago. I had visited at leisure all the villages and
baptized the children, when there arrived seven vessels, of which some were
Spanish. These last came from New Spain, commonly called the West Indies,
having been sent out by the Emperor Charles to discover new lands. They stayed
at Amboyna about three months, and gave me plenty of occupation. I had to
preach on Sundays and feast days, to hear many confessions every day, to
appease differences, and to visit the sick. It was quite that kind of work,
that, having to do with an unholy and quarrelsome set of people, I had very
little hope of gaining so much fruit in the way of peace as I did. I give
endless thanks to God, Who was so wonderfully good in pouring peace into the
hearts of men who, I may almost say, make it a matter of profession to be never
at peace either with God or man. After three months the Spaniards sailed for
Portuguese India, and I lost no time in passing over to the Moluccas, where I
spent another three months preaching on feast days, hearing confessions
continually, and teaching the Catechism every day to children and converts. On
Sundays and feast days, in the afternoon, I gave the converts a full explana
12 cariophyllus,
Lat.
VOL. I. ' CC
tion of the Apostles’
Creed; so that on these days I gave two instructions, one at the hour of mass
to the Portuguese, the other in the afternoon to the converts.
I have very good
reason to thank God for the fruits which came of this work. The converts took
up the practice of singing hymns of the praises of God with so much ardour,
that the native boys in the street, the young girls and the women in the houses,
the labourers in the fields, the fishermen on the sea, instead of singing
licentious and blasphemous songs, were always singing the elements of the
Christian doctrine. And as all the songs had been put in the language of the
country, they were understood equally well by the newly made Christians and the
heathen. And, by the favour of God, the Portuguese in the country and the rest
of the inhabitants, both Christian and heathen, took such an affection for me
that I found favour in their eyes.13 I passed from thence into the
islands that are called ‘of the Moor,’ about sixty leagues from Molucco. There
were here many Christian villages unattended to for a length of time, both on
account of their great distance from India, and because the natives had put to
death the only priest who was among them. In these islands I baptized a great
number of children, and in the space of three months, for I remained that
length of time, I visited all the Christian villages, and made them devoted to
Christ and to myself. All these isles are full of dangers, on account of the
feuds which rage among the inhabitants and their civil wars; the race is
barbarous, totally ignorant of letters, devoid of any written monuments of the
past, and without any notions of reading or writing. It is their practice to
take away the lives of any whom they hate by poison, and in this way a great
many are killed. The soil is rugged and destitute of productions which support
life. There is no corn nor wine; the natives scarcely know what flesh meat is;
they have no herds nor flocks, nothing but a few swine, which are rather
objects of curiosity than food. Wild boars abound; good water is very rare;
rice is plentiful; there are also trees in great
13 ut invenerim gratiam in oculis eorum,
(Orig.)
numbers from which
they get a kind of bread and of wine, and others out of the woven bark of which
the clothing which they all use is made. I have written all this to you, my
dearest brothers, that you may know how much these islands overflow with heavenly
joys. All these dangers and discomforts, when borne for the love of our Lord
Jesus Christ, are treasuries filled full with heavenly consolations, so much so
that one might think these islands were just the places where in a few years
one might lose one’s eyesight from weeping so abundantly the sweetest tears of
joy. Nowhere do I remember either to have been so flooded with so much of
limpid and perpetual spiritual delight, or to have borne so lightly all fatigue
and bodily trouble, though I was going about islands begirt with enemies,
inhabited by not the most trustworthy friends, and entirely destitute of
anything that could help in sickness, or could defend and preserve life when
endangered. In short, it seems as if these isles should rather be called the
Islands of Divine Hope than of the Moor.
There is here a race
of men, enemies to Christianity, called Javars. They believe that to kill any
men they can get hold of is a sort of immortal life. And it often happens that
when they have no strangers to kill, they kill their own wives and children.
These Javars make great slaughter of the Christians. One of the islands is
almost continually, throughout its length and breadth, shaken by earthquakes,
and it sends up flames and ashes. The natives say that the violence of the
subterranean fire is so great, that the strata of rocks on which a certain
town is built are all on fire. What they say seems credible; for it often
happens that large redhot stones, as big as the largest trees, are hurled into
the air, and when there is a very strong wind such a quantity of ashes is sent
up from the cavities that the men and women who are at work in the country come
home so covered with ashes that you can hardly see their eyes or nose or face.
You would think they were rather demons than human beings. This is what the
natives tell me, for I have not seen it myself; during the whole of my stay
there were no tornadoes. I also heard from them
that during these
violent winds the ashes are carried up into the air in such quantities that
numbers of wild boars are blinded and suffocated by them, and that after the
storm they find them dead in the fields.
They say, too, that
during these tornadoes numbers of dead fish are found on the shores, killed in
the same manner—the proof of this being that fishes who have drunk water in
which ashes are sprinkled generally die. They asked me what it all meant. I
told them this place was the abode of hell, into which all would be cast who
worshipped idols. How severe the earthquakes are, you may judge from this—when
I was saying mass on the feast of the Archangel St. Michael, the earth was so
violently shaken that I was in great fear the altar itself would be upset.
Perhaps St. Michael, by his heavenly power, was driving into the depths of hell
all the wicked spirits of the country who were opposing the worship of the true
God.
After having visited
all the Christian villages, I returned to Molucco,u where I again
spent three months more in preaching twice on feast days, in the morning to the
Portuguese, and in the afternoon to the converts; hearing confessions every
day, morning and evening, and teaching the Catechism besides. After having gone
all through the Catechism, I explained on Sundays and feast days the articles
of the Creed to the native Christians, taking one article day by day, and
always speaking strongly against the worship of idols. On Wednesdays and
Fridays I instructed the native wives of the Portuguese by themselves in the
articles of the faith, the ten commandments, and the sacraments of confession
and communion.
It was then the
season of Lent, so that many of them approached the holy Eucharist, who had
never done so before. During the six months I stayed at Molucco, both the Portuguese,
their wives and children, and also the native Christians, made great progress
in piety. After Lent I quitted Molucco and sailed towards Malacca, having
received very great proofs of affection, not onlyfrom the Christians, but also
from the heathen. I had no lack of work during the voyage. I met on a certain
14 i.e. Ternate.
island with four
Portuguese vessels, and I stayed twenty days with their crews. I preached to
them three times, heard many confessions, and brought many to peace and concord
among themselves. When I left Molucco, to avoid the lamentations of my friends
and of the neophytes at my departure, I went on board suddenly at night. But
that: was not enough to keep my going away secret In short, they caught me, and
indeed this running away by night from the children whom I had begotten to Jesus
Christ so affected me that I began greatly to fear lest my departure might have
a bad effect on their salvation. So I enjoined them all to be diligent in
carrying on the exercise of the Catechism in a certain church daily, and the
converts to learn by heart a short explanation of the Creed, which I had given
them. A pious priest, a very great friend of mine, took upon himself the charge
of instructing them for two hours every day, and of speaking once a week to the
native wives of the Portuguese on the articles of the faith, the sacraments of
confession and the Eucharist.
When I was
at Malacca I established the custom that at the beginning of night the souls in
Purgatory, and the souls of the living who are in a state of worldly sin,
should be recommended to the prayers of the pious in all the streets. This
practice not only encouraged the good, but threw terror into the wicked. The
city appointed a man for the purpose, to go round the town,jvvith a lantern in
one hand and a bell in the other, and calling out from time to time in a loud
voice a strain of this sort, * Pray for the souls of the faithful Christians
who are suffering in Purgatoryand then, ‘Pray also for those who, lying under
the burthen of mortal sin, take no pains to be delivered from it.’ _
The Mussulman king of
Molucco is under the sovereignty of the King of Portugal, and thinks it an
honour to be so. Whenever he names him, he calls him his Lord. He speaks
Portuguese well. The Molucca region forms no part of the continent, but is
entirely composed ol islands. All the principal of these are under the
dominion of the Mussulmans. The king himself is prevented from becoming
Christian less by his
Mahometan religion
than by his passions and the habits of a licentious life. Indeed, he has nothing
of the Mahometan about him, except that he was circumcised when a child, and
has been married a hundred times, and besides his hundred wives he has
innumerable concubines.
The Mahometans in the
Moluccas are very ignorant of the law of Mahomet. They have hardly any cacizes,
and the few they have are very uninstructed and come from other countries. The
king received me in the most friendly manner; so much so that the lords of his
court did not like it at all. He sought my friendship, holding out hopes that
he might one day embrace the Christian religion; he begged me not to keep at a
distance from him because he professed Mahometanism, for he said Mahometans
and Christians worshipped the same God, and a day would come when .both would
adopt one and the same religion. Every time I went to see him, he seemed highly
delighted with my company; but I could never prevail upon him to become a
Christian. All I got out of him was a promise from him that he would have one
of his children baptized—he has a great number—on the understanding that this
one becoming a Christian should have the sovereignty of the Mauric isles.
In 1546, when I was
setting out for Molucco, I wrote from Amboyna to our brothers who had just
arrived from Portugal, that in the next year some of them should sail to
Malacca by one of the ships which go thither yearly from India. They did this,
and three of our Society, of whom two are priests, Joam Beira and Ribera,
arrived most opportunely at Malacca just as I landed on my return from Molucco.
We spent a month together to my very great delight. I have not a doubt that
they are quite the persons to render the greatest service to religion in the
Moluccas. They set out for these islands in August, and the passage takes about
two months. While they were at Malacca I made them acquainted with the manners
of the country, and, from my own past experience, I gave them instructions how
to deal with the people there. They are so far from India that we can only have
letters from them once a year. I have also told them to write to Rome every
year about
the extension of the
Christian religion in these countries, and the hopes that appear for the
future, and they promised to do so.
I stayed four whole
months at Malacca, waiting for a favourable season for the passage to India;
the time was not. without its spiritual occupation; and, as I could not alone
satisfy the wants of all, I had to hear the complaints of some ; but as their
taking offence came from their repentance for sins, this did not afflict me,
but rather gave me pleasure, as it was a proof of holy resolutions. I also
spent much time in doing away with quarrels and enmities, which easily spring
up amongst a fighting set like the Portuguese. After I had gone through the
Catechism, I taught the children and the converts the explanation of the Creed
in the common native tongue of the country, so that everybody might understand
it. I had done the same in the Moluccas, in order that after their idolatrous
superstition had been overthrown, I might lay firmly in their minds the
foundations of the Christian religion. This instruction can quite well be
given in a year, if only twenty words are learned each day, so as to be easily
committed to memory by ignorant converts. Meanwhile you must often repeat the
history of the coming of Christ, that it may plant itself and take root in
their hearts as well as the explanation. It is only by this means that the
people come to know the truth, and to look with abhorrence on the fables and
witcheries held in renown by all heathen, ancient and modern.
I have diligently
charged a certain priest here to supply my place, and to go through with them
the same lessons in the forenoon. He has promised, and I hope by the favour of
God that the work will hold on its course. When I left Malacca the principal
inhabitants pressed me strongly to send them two of the Society to preach the
Word of God to themselves, their wives, and the native Christians, and also
instruct in my place their children, servants, and servant-girls in the Christian
doctrine. They asked it with so much earnestness, that I think we ought by all
means to satisfy their pious request in every way in our power, especially
coming as it does from persons who have deserved very well of our Society.
We break off this letter
for the present at this point, as the latter portion of it has reference to the
great design on Japan, which began to occupy the thoughts of Francis Xavier
from the time of his return to Malacca. What has been quoted of this letter,
put by the side of that which precedes it, contains the only general sketch
which we possess from his own hand of his labours in the Moluccas. We now
proceed to supplement the statements of these letters from other authorities,
whose accuracy cannot fairly be called in question. It is well to premise, that
there is nothing to surprize us in the incompleteness of the statements of
Francis Xavier himself; that he should leave out a great deal that would tend
to his own praise is only natural in a man of his deep humility and saintly instincts.
That he should omit all mention of the many deplorable proofs which he must
have come across of the evil influence of some Portuguese here, as in India,
on the cause of religion, is to be accounted for in many ways, among which we
may mention the consideration already spoken of, that he must have been fully
aware, as he has phrased it in an earlier letter, that what he wrote would pass
through many hands and be submitted to many eyes. He could write boldly and
openly enough to King John of Portugal, but there was no need to fill the
houses of the Society and the minds of the Society’s friends with attacks upon
particular governors or commandants. But beyond all this, we must remember,
that unless Francis Xavier had kept a careful daily journal of the expeditions
which he seems to have made from Amboyna, from Ternate, and other places where
he lingered longest, it would have been a real effort to him to recall all the
islands w^ich he had visited, and the particular circumstances connected with
each visit. He speaks of going about from one to another, as if they were very
numerous, and the letter which we have now before us —the only letter, as we
think probable, which he wrote describing the Moluccas after having been among
them—was written many months after his return to Amboyna, and some months after
he had reached Malacca. Again, there was probably considerable sameness about
the character of the
people he met with,
their reception of him, and his efforts for their benefit, just as there must
have been much sameness about the more active portions of our Lord’s public
life, or as the characteristic features of any prolonged course of public
elementary teaching in one place after another must necessarily be very much
alike. The incidents which stand out in such a career are more novel to the
people among whom the missioner, the apostolic preacher, or the wonderworking
saint passes about, than to him, and their tongues are likely to be freer, as
their minds are likely to be more pointedly struck, by just those doings or
sayings which his own humility will conceal and easily forget. In this manner
we account for the number of anecdotes of Francis Xavier, which undoubtedly belong
to this time, for which his own letters might seem hardly to leave, room,
unless all the circumstances of the case are duly considered.
We have already
spoken of some of his doings in Amboyna. Amboyna, as a short glance at a good
map will show the reader, has a great many islets and islands in its
neighbourhood. Francis went to visit several of these, the exact position of
which it is not possible for us to identify, at least without the aid of other
than modern maps. He went about, we are told, in a caracora—a native vessel, we
may suppose, smaller than the prau in which Mr. Wallace made his voyage from
Macazar to the Am Islands.15 A little to the north of Amboyna lies
the large island of Ceram, which, from the names of some of the towns in it, we
may conjecture to be the Baranura which is said to have been visited by St.
Francis, and to have been the scene of one of the playful wonders which
sometimes are to be found in the lives of the Saints, as in Scripture itself.
We have the anecdote given in the Relatio (from the Processes) in the precise
and simple words of an eyewitness, Fausto Rodriguez, who was an old man of
eighty when he gave his evidence in the capital of the Philippines. They were
sailing to Baranura when a sudden storm came on, and to appease it, Francis
Xavier took from his neck a crucifix (‘one finger long,’
15 Malay Archipelago, ii. c. 28.
Rodriguez says, so it
was the small crucifix that he wore on his heart), and dipped it into the sea,
leaning over the boat’s side. It chanced that it slipped from his hand into the
sea, which accident so greatly afflicted Xavier that he gave great signs of
grief. On the morrow they reached Baranura, in which is the town of Tamalo
(Tamilan), to which the crew were bound; so the vessel was drawn to the shore
and Xavier got out, and with one companion (Rodriguez himself) walked along the
shore towards Tamalo. And when they had walked half a mile, and were now many
miles away from where the crucifix had been lost, ‘ behold a sea crab runs out
of the sea on to the shore with the aforesaid crucifix, holding it in his claws
on either side, upright and lifted up, and so ran to Xavier and stopped in his
sight. And Xavier flung himself on his knees, and the crab waited until he had
taken the crucifix from its claws, and then ran back again into the sea whence
it had come. And Xavier kissed and embraced the crucifix, and crossing his arms
on his breast, lay prostrate on the ground in prayer for half an hour, and his
companion, who was by his side, did the same, thanking the Lord Jesus Christ
for so strange a miracle.’
Francis preached to
the natives of Baranura, and after a week went on to another island (or city)
which goes by the name of Rosalao, where his labours were entirely unfruitful,
except in the conversion of a single convert, who afterwards became a soldier,
and died from a wound received in battle with the name of Jesus in his mouth,
as Francis Xavier had promised him should be the case.16 In another
little island called Ulate, also close to Amboyna, a great success awaited him,
to compensate for the disappointment at Rosalao, which last place he had left
solemnly shaking the dust off his shoes against it. Some enemies, it seems
Mussulmans, were besieging the chief town, and the ‘ king,’ or chief, was
thinking of surrendering on account of the want of water. Francis passed
through the besieging force, and promised him plenty of water if he would
16 The Processes say that a number of
Portuguese and natives gathered round to see him die, as the prophecy was well
known.
allow him to raise a
cross in honour of God. This was done in the presence of a great crowd, and
then Francis knelt down and prayed, {and there was a great rain.’
The people were baptized, and the enemy went off in despair.
Francis Xavier now
passed on to Ternate, which he calls ‘ Molucum’ in his letter to the Society at
Rome. Here he spent the three months of the summer of 1546, arriving there, we
may suppose, early in June. Religion was in a bad state at Ternate. It had
suffered much from the tyranny and bad example of the Portuguese, who allowed
themselves every kind of license. The Soldan or King of Ternate was a bigoted
Mussulman, who had reason to resent the harsh treatment he had met with from
the Portuguese Commandant, Giordano de Freytas, who had sent him in chains some
time before to Goa, on a mere suspicion of disloyalty. Joam de Castro found him
at Goa when he himself entered on his governorship, and one of his first acts
was to send him back with all honour to Ternate, condemning Freytas to pay all
the costs and damage of his imprisonment, and appointing a new Commandant,
Bernardino de Sousa y Tavora, instead of Freytas, who was called to Goa to give
an account of himself. These acts of high justice were not uncommon in the
Portuguese governors. Another King of the Moluccas, Tabarigio,—who is also
described as King in Ternate, and seems to have been the elder brother of the
other—had been in the same way sent to Goa a year or two before, and had been
acquitted with all justice, but he had died a Christian at Goa before he could
be restored, and he had left the Portuguese crown heir to his rights. The King
of whom we are speaking —called Aeyro in the history—as St. Francis tells us,
did not become a Christian, but he was friendly to the apostolical missionary,
and like Herod * heard him gladly,’ though his own passions kept him in a
bondage from which he was unable to free himself. That Francis should have
acquired so much influence over him as he did is one of the strongest proofs
which could be given of the wonderful power of his holiness, and the ineffable
sweetness and simplicity in which it was clothed.
We shall find that
Francis Xavier’s efforts at conversion were not so fruitless in the case of
another royal personage in Ternate; but it is right to speak first of the
influence which he exercised over the Portuguese and those who were already
Christians. We find in all the lives of apostolic men a reflection of the
various shades of success and failure in different places which are to be observed
in the preaching of our Lord and of the Apostles. Meliapor had responded to the
teaching of Francis better than Malacca, Ulate better than Rosalao. Ternate
was a place where he had very great success. He went to work, as was his wont,
with penance and prayer, constant preaching, hearing confessions, catechizing,
setting the children to sing the Christian doctrine, wakihg up the streets at
night with calls to prayer for the souls in Purgatory and for men in mortal
sin, and the like. He soon changed the face of the whole Christian population :
scandals were removed, the sacraments frequented, feuds given up ; the
Confraternities of Mercy and of the Blessed Sacrament got rich with the number
of offerings added to their funds by persons who had made unjust gains and were
not able to make restitution to those whom they had defrauded. They had been
very poor before, and now they were better furnished with money for charitable
and pious purposes than any other such confraternities in the Indies. Gentile
converts flowed in in numbers as the Christians became more worthy of the name
which they bore, and a flourishing community of neophytes was formed, who were
destined, not many years after this time, to show their constancy under great
persecutions.
The converts seem to
have been made both from Mahometanism and heathenism. There was one lord or
chief of a village in the island who took the name of Francis, and was promised
by the Saint that he should never abandon the faith. He stood firm, amid many
strong temptations, when the time of persecution came. The most distinguished,
however, of the converts was an ex-queen, Neachile, a daughter of the King of
Tidor, and wife of a former King of Ternate. She was kept in close confinement
by Aeyro, and she had suffered very much
in her family through
the Portuguese, who had brought ruin upon as many as three of her sons, who had
been successively heirs to the throne. She was a clever acute woman, hating
Christians, and thought to be very learned in the Mahometan doctrine. Francis
Xavier visited her, and found her ready with a number of argumentative
difficulties, which it took him some time to remove. In the end she was
baptized, taking the name of Isabella, and finished her days in practices of
piety and penance, a great example of patience, humility, and resignation.
The conversions at
Ternate were probably helped on by some exercise of the preternatural power
which ordinarily accompanied the labours of Francis Xavier; but we find but
little mention of particular miracles. He had sailed from Amboyna in company
with another vessel on board of which was a certain Joam Galvan, and this
vessel had been separated from that in which Francis was by a storm. . Nothing
was heard of1 Galvan, but his friends had not given him up when
Francis, preaching in the church, suddenly recommended his soul to the prayers
of the people. It turned out that the ship was lost, and Galvan drowned. But
the standing miracle which seems to have broken down all opposition in Ternate
was the heavenly character and charming sanctity of Francis himself, and we
find evidence, both in his own direct statements and in the facts of the
history, of the singular devoted affection with which he was commonly regarded.
One part of this evidence lies in the earnest resistance made by his friends
at Ternate, as well as at Amboyna, to his design of passing over to the ‘ Isles
of the Moor’ of which we are now to speak.
It seems as if St.
Francis Xavier made it a rule to himself, to leave unvisited no neglected communities
of native Christians within reach of which he came. He was always ready to
labour for the revival of faith and manners among Europeans settled in the
islands across which he came; and, again, he was ready and anxious, whenever
opportunity presented itself, to preach to the heathen who had not yet received
the word of God. But the congregations of natives who had been made Christians,
especially those who had fallen back into ignorance
from want of priests
or other such causes, may be said to have exercised an irresistible attraction
over his fervent heart. We have seen how devotedly he laboured for the Paravas
on the Comorin Coast, and we shall have to see hereafter how strong a hold they
retained upon his affections. They had been the firstfruits of his apostolical
zeal; and whenever he heard of any nations in a position analogous to theirs,
he seems to have deemed that it would be an abandonment of duty on his own part
if he did not visit them and revive among them the religion which was dying
out from no fault of theirs.
Early among the
people of the Moluccas, the inhabitants of the Isles of the Moor,1?
in large numbers, had received Chris-
17 It has already been hinted that there is
considerable difficulty in identifying the ' Isle or Isles of the Moor,’
though they are frequently mentioned in all the histories which relate to the
affairs of the Moluccas. Lucena tells us that the name included several
islands, and he mentions one called Batechina del Moro, which can be no other
than Batchian. He also speaks of Morotoria, which may very well be Morty
Island, to the north of Gilolo. The difficulty is in the distance from Molucco,
or Ternate, which Francis puts in his letter (p. 386) at sixty leagues.
Otherwise, we should say that Gilolo, or Almaheira, as it is properly called,
was the chief island of the Moor, and that Morty and perhaps Batchian was also
included in the general designation. The distance would suit the northern part
of Celebes, where we find the name of Tolo, a place frequently said in the
histories to be in the 1 Isles of the Moor.’ The probable solution
of the difficulty seems to be this. St. Francis Xavier wrote his first account
of the Isle or Isles of the Moor when he was at Amboyna in 1546, and could only
know about them what he was told. The name 'Maurica,’ ’of the Moor,’ is clearly
a name by which a large tract of sea or land would be designated, rather than
one particular island. Then the navigators of those days had no very accurate
ideas of distance. The Moluccas, as we have seen, were supposed to be further
east than they actually are. There are also frequent instances of peninsulas
and high portions of land being set down as separate islands ; and, moreover,
the whole of the Archipelago, including therein the Philippines as well as
Japan, was but just emerging into the clear atmosphere of European knowledge.
The most accurate account which exists of the Moluccas is to be found in the
Dutch writer, Valentyn, who had been a * minister’ in Amboyna, Banda, and other
islands. It is contained in his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (Dordrechdt and Amsterdam,
1724), 5 vols. He gives a map of the Moluccas (vol. ii. part ii. p. 2), which
seems to explain our difficulty. In this Gilolo is called Halmaheira, and the
northeastern peninsula of the island is called Kust van Moro. Off it lies
Morotay, or Morty, quite as far from Ternate as Ternate from Amboyna. But St.
Francis says that the distance between the two last is “sixty leagues.’
Otherwise, Mr. Wallace’s description of North Ce\ebes(Afa lay Archipelago, i.
c. 17) reminds us in many points of what St. Francis says of the natives of ‘
the Moor.’
tianity. One of their
kings had become a convert; but the tyranny of the Portuguese, which seems to
have been exercised more recklessly in those distant islands than in India
itself, alienated the minds of the natives, brought about the general
combination, against the foreigners, of which mention has already been made,
and Simon Vaz, one of the priests of the ‘ Isles of the Moor,’ was murdered by
those among whom he was labouring, his companion, Francis Alvarez, escaping covered
with wounds. This happened in 1535, more than ten years before the arrival of
Francis Xavier at Ternate. Since that time no priest had visited the islanders,
and though there had been some apostacies—brought about, probably, by the
influence of the native chiefs—the majority of the Christians remained such in
name, though, from ignorance, in little more.
If Gilolo be the Isle
of the Moor, or if it were supposed to consist of more than one island, so as
to form with Morty and a number of small islets the group called by that
general name, it must have been frequently gazed upon by Francis Xavier from
the town of Ternate. But he would not need to have his eyes continually upon an
island of which he had heard much, and the case of whose people was already
stirring his heart to some generous enterprize in their favour. He has told us
in both the letters last quoted, of the strong efforts made by his Portuguese
friends to dissuade him from venturing on so inhospitable a soil, how he was
threatened with certain death from the violence or treachery of the natives;
and he has also intimated how his own nature shrank with fear from the certain
danger which he seemed to be incurring. His language about the obscurity which
comes over the meaning of the famous text about losing and finding life gives
us a glimpse into his interior life, like that which is afforded afterwards by
the words in which he speaks of the immense and ineffable consolations with
which his soul was overwhelmed after he had made the venturesome passage, for
which his friends,—like those of St. Paul when Agabus predicted his sufferings
at Jerusalem, as Lucena says,—used so many efforts to
frighten him.18
We can hardly imagine that a heart so very quick, tender, and sympathetic as
that of Francis Xavier can have been cold, phlegmatic,'unimpressionable, when
great danger was presented to it. On the contrary, there appear to be frequent
indications in his letter that, without being less brave than the ordinary
crowd of good and upright men, he was by no means indifferent to the risks of
life and death, and that his calm heroic courage came rather from grace than
from nature- These considerations make his own account of the discussion more
interesting than ever. We see a supernatural instinct, also, in his refusal to
arm himself with antidotes against the poisons which were so much in use among
the people to whom he was going: it was the same instinct which made David
decline the armour of Saul. He would trust to God, but to nothing else. It is
said that the Commandant of Ternate forbade any one to furnish him with a boat
to cross to the dreaded island: but this difficulty seems to have been overcome
by the firmness of Francis himself.
When the ship in
which he sailed to the dangerous island drew near the shore, it was seen that
the people were ready to receive him with every mark of reverence and
affection. The fame of the holy Father had reached even to those poor barbarians,
and after a time he soon made himself as dear to them as to the other
populations among which he had preached. He followed his usual method,
baptizing the children, catechizing, preaching, teaching the boys and girls
songs of the Christian doctrine, visiting the sick, and the like. Once he is
said to have been in danger as he was preaching to a band of savages by the
side of a deep river, and they took offence at the freedom with which he
upbraided their predominant vices, and began to cast stones at him. He thrust a
huge beam or trunk of a tree that was lying by into the water and leapt upon
18 Lucena gives a long account of the
attempt, and devotes a whole chaptcr to the reasons which Francis alleged in
reply. It is quite in keeping with what was usual to the writers of his day,
who seem sometimes to have put in speeches and arguments like ancient authors,
where in modern times we should put a pictorial illustration.
it: an invisible hand
guided him in safety to the other bank. Conversions became very numerous. The
large city Tolo, of twenty-four thousand inhabitants, is said to have been
entirely Christian when he left the island, and the number of small towns and
hamlets where churches had been founded was very great. The island was
volcanic, and subject to frequent earthquakes, and we have seen how Francis
took occasion to instruct the natives concerning hell from the phenomena to
which they were so accustomed.
No words can express
better than those of Francis himself the wonderful consolations with which his
soul was visited at this time. Nowhere had he had greater interior joy, and the
gift of.tears was so excessive in its sweetness and abundance that he might
have lost his eyesight by perpetual weeping. He spent three months in this
island or islands, which we may suppose to have been the September, October,
and November of 1546. The whole sea in that part is as it were sown with
islands. At the end of the seventeenth century the * King* of Ternate claimed
more than eighty as under his rule. We may well imagine that Francis visited
many of these islands, though we have no record of his presence in them. In the
Isles of the Moor, we are told, he left the Christians as well provided as he
could with the teaching and repeating of the Christian doctrine organized, but,
as it would seem, with no priest among them. He had already, however,
determined that a house of the Society must be founded in the Moluccas, and was
about to send some of his religious brethren at once to take up the work which
he had begun. When the three months of which he speaks were over, he returned
to Ternate, where he was received with immense joy, and remained till the end
of Lent in the following year. He has given us his own account of his ordinary
occupations during this time, of his attempt to get away by night to avoid the
pain of parting with so many who had become tenderly attached to him, and of
the arrangements which he made for the continuance of the exercises and services
to which he had accustomed them.
We must most probably
place at this time a remarkable
vol. 1. dd
incident, which is
mentioned on the sworn testimony of a num&er of witnesses in the Processes,
and was selected as specially worthy of notice by the Roman theologians who
drew up the Relatio, to which reference has already been made. The city of
Tolo, it seems, soon after its conversion to Christianity, was assailed by the
Mussulman ‘ King’ of Gilolo, who, partly by persuasion and influence, partly by
force, induced the inhabitants to throw off the kind of allegiance which bound
them to the Portuguese, as well as their newly acquired religion. Some who
stood firm were put to death, but the majority yielded : the churches and
crosses were pulled down, and the Christian religion publicly insulted in every
way. The news came to Ternate, the seat of the Portuguese Governor, while
Francis was there, and he at once urged Bernardino de Sousa to revenge the
insult offered alike to religion and to his sovereign. The Relatio speaks of
endeavours first made by Francis to bring the people to their senses by
persuasion and prayer, and he may perhaps have still been in the island at the
time, or may have gone over on purpose. An expedition was organized, consisting
of only twenty Portuguese and about four hundred Ternatese. Francis promised
them success, and went with them. The town is described as placed on a height,
in a position extremely strong by nature, which had also been carefully
fortified. Iron spikes had befen placed in the only path by which access was
practicable. Francis knelt down and prayed, and then the mountain close by
began to send forth smoke, cinders, and stones, which it had not been known to
do before that time; an earthquake accompanied the eruption, which cast down a
part of the fortifications, as well as many houses. The inhabitants fled to the
woods, and soon came to supplicate Francis for pardon, and were forgiven and
reconciled on duly doing penance and rebuilding the church, which had been
destroyed. In later years we find the Christians of these islands very bravely
suffering persecution, many becoming martyrs for the faith.19
59 This
incident of the ' victory' of Tolo, as it is called in some historians, i
perfectly well authenticated by sworn testimony, collected in the Processes,
Francis remained at
Ternate during the Lent of 1547, practising severe austerities, as well as all
his usual works of charity and zeal for souls. Ternate, as we have said, was
one of his places of success and consolation, and he parted from its people
with the greatest regret at Easter. He seems to have sailed to Amboyna, but we
may well suppose that he stopped here and there on the way. Soon after Easter,
however, he was there, to find four Portuguese ships full of mariners and
and is mentioned in
the Bull of the Canonization of St. Francis, as well as in the Relatio of the
theologians. But it is placed at a different time from this by Bartoli, and
Massei who always follows Bartoli. Bartoli puts it in 1552, the year of the
death of Francis Xavier, at a time when it is indisputable that Francis was on
his last voyage—that to the coast of China. In order to make this date agree
with the history, he is obliged to suppose that Francis appeared miraculously
at Ternate, where the expedition was fitted out, and that his presence during
the whole time was either visionary, or owing to what is called ‘ bilocation.’
There are certainly many instances of ‘ bilocation’ in the lives of the Saints,
and there is at least one well authenticated occasion in that of Francis
Xavier, when he seemed to be with a party of sailors in a small boat, who had
lost sight of the ship to which they belonged, and were lost for three days,
while it is certain that he never left the ship. But in the present case there
seems no need for any such hypothesis as that suggested by Bartoli and Massei,
as the incident can very well have taken place at the time when Francis was in
the Moluccas. There was certainly an attack on Tolo by the Portuguese forces in
1552 (though Tolo is not named in the annalists), and it was under the command
of Bernardino de Sousa, who was also Governor of Ternate at the time of St.
Francis’ preaching in the island of ' the Moor.' Faria y Sousa gives an account
of the expedition and of its success, which says nothing about an eruption or
an earthquake, and in which the city is said to have surrendered after a siege,
for want of water. The numbers of the expedition are also altogether different.
The whole army consisted of 5000 men, of whom 180 were Portuguese. Bartoli was
probably led into error by the name of Bernardino de Sousa ; and this officer,
we are expressly told, returned to Ternate in 1552 after a short interval,
during which there was another governor. Lucena and Turselline place the
incident at the present point of the life of Francis Xavier. The Relatio and
the Bull of Canonization say nothing precisely as to its date, but the language
of the Relatio is in favour of that which we have adopted. There is no mention
either there or in the Bull of any bilocation, or of any visionary appearance.
The account in Faria y Sousa of the later siege of Tolo is plain and
straightforward enough. He is a writer who looks on everything from a '
secular’ point of view, but he would certainly have mentioned the presence of
Francis Xavier, if he had heard of it, as he is fond of introducing him when he
can, as we shall see in the next chapter. His book, though tiresome in its
dryness and curtness, is founded on a very large number of excellent
authorities. The passage to which we refer in this note is to be found in Asia
Poriuguesa, t. ii. p. 2, c. 9.
soldiers, whose
spiritual needs had to be attended to, and he had also to visit the Christian
communities in the island.
He was at Malacca in
July, and as the direct voyage between Malacca and Amboyna would take about
six weeks, he would have been able to visit a few islands on his way westward,
and it is perhaps at this time that we must place his short stay at Macazar
itself, the conversions at which had been the original occasion of his leaving
India for the further East. It is a characteristic of the lives of the Saints,
that they so often seem to themselves to be called in a certain direction for a
particular work, which, as it turns out, they are not to do, while another,
which they had no thought of, takes its place. The fruits of Francis Xavier’s
expedition to the Moluccas were very great in themselves, and they led him on
to further enterprizes for the glory of God. He had now laid the foundations in
these islands on which others could build, and the history of Christianity in
that part of the world, where the new Christians were soon put to the test by
persecution, shows how solid those foundations were. He now hastened westwards,
that he might look after the affairs of the Society in India itself, send missionaries
to the Moluccas, and prepare the way for the establishment of a house of the
Society, to be the centre of evangelical work in that teeming world of souls
made after the image of God. There is evidence in the Processes that he visited
Macazar at some time, and that he there baptized many converts, among whom were
a king and his son. The Bull of Canonization mentions also several nations to
whom he preached, among them the people of Java and Mindanao. The first
mentioned island lay, like Macazar itself, on the direct route between Malacca
and Amboyna. Mindanao is the most southern of the larger Philippines, and
Francis may have gone in that direction while he was at Ternate. The number of
places which claim his presence, and where there is good evidence that he
preached and converted unbelievers, is altogether so great, that nothing short
of the most marvellous activity on his part could have enabled him even to
accomplish the distance from spot to spot within the intervals of time which
are set down in his own letters.
Francis
Xavier
arrived at Malacca, on his return from the Moluccas to India, in the middle of
July 1547. He had been absent a year and a half, and could have had but very
scanty intercourse with the Christian world which he had left behind him during
that space of time. He was overjoyed on arriving at Malacca to find there three
members of the Society—the first recruits whom he had seen face to face since
he left Europe more than six years before. They were men entirely unknown to
him, Joam Beira, the former canon of Coruna, whom we have already mentioned,
Nunez Ribeiro, a Portuguese priest, of whose antecedents we are told nothing,
and a student, Nicolo Nunez, not yet a priest. Francis had ordered Father Mancias
to accompany Father Beira, but his former companion, with whose name and
character we have become familiar, felt his courage fail him, and he preferred
to remain where he was, among the Christians of the Comorin Coast. This
disobedience cost him his dismissal from the Society by Francis Xavier. He
seems to have remained in India, and probably laboured on as a secular priest.1
The three whom
Francis found waiting for him at Malacca brought also good news concerning
further supplies of Christian labourers from Europe : seven more of the
Society, four of whom were priests, had arrived in the autumn of 1546 at Goa,
and were already distributed along the Fishery Coast and in Travancore. There
was news also from Europe, a bundle of letters we cannot doubt, which gave
Francis intense pleasure after his long exile from the comparative nearness to
home of
1 He was one of the witnesses whose
depositions are collected in the Processes, and died very piously at Cochin in
1565. (L£on Pag6s.)
India and Cape
Comorin. To make up for the silence of more than a whole year, he had probably
two collections of letters to read about this time; for the Fathers would have
brought the correspondence of 1546, and it is probable that that of 1547
reached him before he left Malacca. There was a great deal for him to hear
about the progress of the Society, especially in Spain and Portugal. He would
be told of Jerome Nadal’s tardy but yet complete victory over the obstacles
which had so long hindered him from entering religion, and of many other things
which would have rejoiced his heart. Lay- nez and Salmeron had distinguished
themselves equally for learning and for religious modesty at the revived
Council of Trent. St. Ignatius had healed a difference between John King of
Portugal and the Pope, and Le Jay, by the exertions of the1 same
prudent father of the Society, had escaped a bishopric, which Ferdinand the
King of the Romans had determined to force upon him. The Duke of Gandia,
afterwards St. Francis Borgia, had procured from the Holy Father a solemn
approbation of the book of the Spiritual Exercises, and had secretly promised
to enter the Society himself as soon as he could rid himself of the multitude
of secular business which his great position in the world forced upon his attention.
But the piece of news which must have touched most tenderly the heart of
Francis was that Peter Favre was dead. He had been sent to Spain for a certain
time, and when the time was over— though he had already had a fever at
Barcelona before embarking—he hastened to Rome. He had been asked for by John
III. to go as Nuncio to Ethiopia, where there were some hopes, as has already
been said, of bringing the Emperor back to Catholicity, and at the same time
the Pope had asked that a third theologian of the Society might be sent to the
Council of Trent, and St. Ignatius had intended that Favre should go. But Rome
is often fatal, even to men of robust health, if they enter it in the dogdays.
It was near the end of July when Favre arrived, and Orlandini tells us that
Ignatius held a consultation of some fathers as to the prudence of allowing him
to enter, and that he was overruled by them to permit
this, against his own
better judgment. The joy of being once more with Ignatius revived Favre for a
time, but he soon fell ill, and died after a week, on the feast of St. Peter’s
Chair, the 1st of August 1546, just ten years before St. Ignatius, who died on
the last of July 1556.2
For a full month
Francis Xavier enjoyed the companionship of his new brethren, and gave them
the fullest possible instructions as to the state of things in the islands to
which they were to proceed, and the method to be followed in deal' ing with the
inhabitants. Beira and Ribeiro were both excellent devoted men, and laboured
with great fruit, the first in the Moluccas (properly so called), the other in
Amboyna, where, about two years after the time of which we are speaking
(August 1549), he died of poison administered to him by the natives. The
missionaries sailed for their destined fields of work in the August of 1547.
Francis remained, waiting for a ship to take him to Goa, and in the mean time
practising his usual austere penances and carrying on the work of the Apos-
tolate at Malacca. Malacca had soon to thank him for exertions of another
kind. When we consider the distance between the Portuguese stations in the
East, especially beyond the Ganges, when Malacca, Amboyna, Ternate, and perhaps
one or two other places were their only strongholds—a distance to be reckoned
by the difficulties of the navigation and the infrequency of communication
between the several ports—it becomes rather a matter of surprize that they
should have maintained their ground so constantly and with so much superiority
over the hostile powers by which they were surrounded, than that they should
have been often attacked, and sometimes brought to the verge of serious danger.
The Mussulmans throughout the East were brave and warlike, and the native
princes were rich and had abundant resources of men and materials. Even in
India itself the Portuguese were often on the defensive, and had to exert their
utmost force to maintain their position. The year before this, 1546, had
witnessed the conclusion of the siege of Diu, which at one time had been in
2 Vita, P.
Fabri, t. i. cap. 22^
the greatest danger,
and had at last been relieved by the Governor himself, who gained a brilliant
victory over a numerous Mussulman army oil St. Martin’s Day, November nth. But
the garrison had at one time been almost overpowered, and the account of their
brave resistance reads almost like a fable. The siege lasted more than nine
months.3
It need not surprize
us, therefore, to find that Malacca was in considerable danger at the time of
this second stay of Francis
3 See Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, t.
ii. p. 2, cap. i, 2, 3. At one time the'fort was so badly off for provisions,
that ‘a crow taken upon the dead bodies was a dainty for the sick, and sold for
five crowns.’ At the same time the ammunition was almost spent. Another time,
says the annalist, ‘ thirteen thousand of the enemy attacked the breach which
they had made ; only five soldiers resisted them, till Mascarenas (the
Commandant) came with fifteen more.’ At onetime, when the garrison was reduced
to two hundred men, Don Alvaro de Castro, the Governor’s son, arrived with a
reinforcement of four hundred more : but this accession of strength made them
imprudent enough to attack a numerous army of besiegers in the open field, and
they were driven back with the loss of sixty men, Don Alvaro himself being
mortally wounded. In the final battle, which took place, as we have said, after
the arrival of the Governor himself with reinforcements which raised the
Portuguese army to between two and three thousand men, we are told * the
Portuguese were almost as good as lost, when Father Antonio del Casal, the
Franciscan " Guardian," appeared running before them with a crucifix
on the point of a lance raised on high, exhorting them all with religious
words. They rallied themselves, and with a rapid charge y catolico furor
covered the field with heads and arms, and legs and trunks, and dead. Rumecan’
(the Mussulman Commander) ‘fled, but returning to the fight with wonderful
courage, forced the Portuguese to retire in very dangerous disorder. The
Governor suppressed it less by words than by exposing himself to danger in such
a manner as to displease his captains, old and young. At this time a stone
broke an arm of the crucifix which the Custode held up on high. This was the
turning point of the day, for the priest began to exhort the soldiers so
powerfully, and the arm of the crucifix hanging from the nail, swinging about *
as if making signs to them to avenge the sacrilege, ’ inspired them with so
much courage, that they attacked the enemy with irresistible violence, and
drove them
1 into the city’ (the part of Diu outside
the fort). It is curious to find the name of Cosmo de Payva among the officers
who distinguished themselves on this occasion—he died fighting very bravely.
Rumecan rallied again, and appeared on the field at the head of eight thousand
men, but he was utterly defeated and slain. * The enemy confessed, ’ adds Faria
y Sousa, ‘ that while one of the battles of the siege lasted, they saw over the
church of the place a beautiful Lady, clothed in white, who with her great
brightness blinded them, and that in this day's battle they saw men whom they
did not know in the field with lances, who did them the greatest harm,’ This
siege of Diu is a good specimen of the exploits which occur frequently in the
Asia Portuguesa.
Xavier. At the
extreme western tip of the Island of Sumatra there is still a petty state
called Acheen or Atchen, the Soldan of which seems to have been a more
important potentate in the time of which we are speaking than in our own. He
was, and indeed is, master of a considerable territory in Sumatra; and his name
frequently occurs in the annals of Portuguese India as that of a great enemy to
everything Portuguese and Christian. ‘In Malacca there was war with the
implacable Acheen/ says Faria y Sousa (Asia ‘Portuguesa, t. ii. p. 2, cap. 4).
He sent an expedition of sixty ships and five thousand men against Malacca in
the dead of night. The General was a ‘valorous and daring Moor,’ called the
King of Pedir. Some were to land and surprize the fortifications, others were
to set fire to the shipping in the harbour. It was the night of October 18.
The men who were to surprize the castle came back again with some geese which
they had captured, to show their King that they had at least landed; but these
noisy birds aroused the city, says the chronicler, and he goes on to mention
the geese which saved the Capitol, and to remark that no incident in the
history of other nations is wanting in that of the Portuguese. But the harbour
attack did not fail: all the ships except a few were burnt, the. mariners being
so much astonished and taken by surprize, that they stood looking on without as
much as attempting to save them. The * barbarians’ sailed away in triumph, ‘ as
though they had gotten a notable victory,’ says Turselline, and happening to
intercept a few fishermen, they cut off their noses, ears, and heels, and ‘
sent them to the Governor of Malacca with a letter written in their own blood,
wherein most proudly and insolently they provoked him to battle. When the'
fishermen had given this letter to the Governor, he caused it to be publicly
read before the soldiers, who were no less moved at the insolent brutishness
of their enemies than at the miserable spectacle of their friends, who were
thus mangled and disfigured by their wounds, and every one had his heart full
of pity and indignation.’
Faria y Sousa tells
us that there was a disposition on the part of the ‘Capitan,’ Simon de Melo, to
make a joke of the
challenge, which it
was by no means convenient to accept. There was a very small force in the city,
and—as he hints, by the neglect of those in authority—it would not have been
easy to arm an expedition. The ships, moreover, had been nearly all burnt. *
Pitiable joke, indeed !’ he says. ‘ But there was at Malacca then the great
modem Apostle of Asia, St. Francis Xavier, who was not less zealous for the
honour of our King than for the worship of our God, and he very earnestly disapproved
the jest to the Capstan and the others, and urged them in some way or other to
wipe out the injury.’ They excused themselves, as there were but eight ships
left, and these had been beached as rotten and unfit for service.
But Francis would not
be put off. He was keenly sensible that, poor as was the support which the
Portuguese gave to the cause of religion in many respects, still that cause was
much bound up in the East with the prestige and power of Portugal. He had
perhaps some of the old Spanish feeling about the Mussulmans—the feeling that
made St. Ignatius, in the early days of his conversion, hesitate whether he
ought not to have run a Moor through who vilified the blessed Mother of God. At
all events he set to work. ‘ So much did that holy wrath of the great Xavier
bring about/ says Faria y Sousa, ‘ that he prevailed, with his zealous
discourses, upon some rich merchants so as to get these rotten vessels put into
such a state that the soldiers and sailors might safely embark in them.’ After
all, there were only 180 Portuguese to go on board. Francis exhorted them,
heard their confessions and gave them holy communion before they set out, and
promised them a certain victory. He would have gone with them himself, but the
people would not allow it. The armament set out to look for the enemy, who had
waited out of sight; but disaster came at once, as the Commander’s ship sank
almost in the port itself. Francis revived the drooping courage of the soldiers
and people by promising that they should have a reinforcement of two ships
before night. The people were looking out from the heights all the afternoon,
and it was already getting late when two sails were seen in the offing. They
were the ships of a
famous merchant of
those days, one Diego Soarez de Melo, called the Gallego or Galician, and he
intended to sail by Malacca, without stopping, from the Moluccas, in order not
to pay the harbour duties. Francis had made his acquaintance on his own voyage
to India, as Diego had fallen in with Martin Alfonso de Sousa between
Mozambique and Goa, and been pardoned by him, says the annalist, because ‘ he
pretended he could say much against Don Stephen/ that is, Don Estevan de Gama,
the outgoing Governor whom Sousa was to succeed. The Gallego was then under
sentence of death for some crime, and had taken to piracy. Francis went out to
sea in a boat to intercept him, and persuaded him to join his galleys to the
slender fleet which was to vindicate the honour of the Christian name against
the infidels, and which he had christened the ‘armament of Jesus.’ The Gallego had
with him sixty men, and* his son Baltasar, a good officer.
The fleet sailed,
under the command of Don Francisco Dega, a relation of Simon de Melo, and for
several weeks nothing was heard of it at Malacca. A rumour was spread during
this interval that the Portuguese had met with the enemy, and had been defeated
and put to the sword. The people began to lose heart. The Capitan did not
venture to show himself in public, as he was considered responsible for the
loss of so many men, the husbands or sons or fathers of those who were left
behind. Francis went on quietly at his usual occupations, only, on two
occasions in each week on which he preached to the people in general, he always
exhorted them, at the end of. the sermon, to pray for the success of the expedition
and the safety of those engaged in it. People began to murmur that the prayers
had better be said for the souls of the departed than for the safety of the
living. Some took to superstitious incantations to find out what had been the
issue of the conflict, and these Francis sternly rebuked. Time went on,
however, till the second Sunday in Advent (Dec. 4), and Francis preached to the
people as usual at the principal mass. ‘Being, therefore,’ says Turselline, ‘to
conclude his sermon, upon the sudden he turned both himself and his speech unto
the Crucifix, and by Divine instinct, and with great motion of body, breaking
forth into a prophecy, he began by strange ejaculations to describe in words
the first encounter of the two navies, to the admiration and astonishment of
his auditors. Then, with an inflamed look and countenance and abundance of
tears gushing out at his eyes, he cried out aloud, “0 Jesu, God of my heart! I
humbly beseech Thee by the last torments of Thy life that Thou wouldst not
leave them whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood!” Having uttered
these and other such like words, which fear and confidence then suggested unto
him, and growing weak and faint with the violent agitation of his body, he
leaned awhile with his head upon the pulpit. Then, by and bye, as if he had
awaked out of some ecstasy, lifting up his head he cries out on a sudden, with
a cheerful and joyful countenance, “ O ye Malacensians ! cast off all sadness
and rejoice, for now at last our fleet hath overthrown the enemy in battle
without any bloodshed on our part, having lost but three men only; so little
hath so noble a victory cost us ! And in a most triumphant manner will they
presently return home laden with spoils and pillage of the enemy, together
with many ships which they have taken from them, and forthwith (he appointed a
certain day) will they be safe with us. Come on, therefore, and in thanksgiving
to God, the author of the victory, let us say together once Paicr and Ave for
the same, and repeat it again for those few of ours that be slain in the
battle.”’ The same afternoon he preached to the wives of the Portuguese in
another church, and told them the day on which tidings would arrive of the
safety and victory of their husbands.
It was found afterwards
that the decisive moment of the conflict had agreed exactly in time with the
sort of ecstasy which had come over Francis in the pulpit on that Sunday. The
enemy’s fleet had sailed off about two hundred miles along the coast of the
Chersonese on which Malacca lies, and had posted itself at a point on what was
then and still is the coast of Siam, not far from Quedah, where they hoped to
intercept a Portuguese fleet of merchantmen from Bengal and Pegu, every
Christian on board which they meant to put to the sword. It was for this very
country of Pegu that Diego the Gallego was bound when he thought to pass
Malacca, and he would have run into the enemy’s mouth if he had pursued his
course. They had ravaged the country in the neighbourhood of Paries, a city not
very far from the coast, and the King had taken to flight. The fleet lay in a
sheet of water formed by a river of the same name with the city, which flowed
thence in a large rapid Stream into the sea.
The Portuguese fleet
had instructions from Simon de Melo not to venture further along the coast than
an island called Pulo Cambilam, which was either what is now called Pulo
Penang, or somewhere near it, and which was the limit of the territory of
Malacca. It is not very far from Quedah, and we must suppose the Acheenese
fleet to have lain somewhat beyond that place. At all events the Portuguese
could hear or see nothing of their enemies, and were turning reluctantly towards
Malacca again, when a violent wind came on, blowing in their teeth with such
force that they were obliged to cast anchor, and remained windbound for more
than three weeks. This was considered a great marvel, as it was in the middle
of the season of the southwestern monsoon, which would have taken them easily
back to Malacca.4 The delay caused by the adverse wind nearly
exhausted the provisions of the armament, and as they could make no headway
against the wind, they were obliged to turn their backs once more on Malacca
and sail for a friendly port (Jungalao or Tenessari, says Lucena) on the
Siamese coast to revictual. They did not get as far, and near Paries itself
fell in with some fishermen who told them where their enemies lay. The
Commander dressed himself as for a feast, had the ships’ standards hoisted,
ordered the men to regale themselves, and fired a general salute with his
artillery, which was heard by the Acheenese, who at once prepared to descend
the river to fight the Portuguese. Dega exhorted his men, reminding them that
they were fighting for the cause of God, and that Francis Xavier had promised
them a secure and full victory.
Between nine and ten
on that Sunday morning the Acheen- ese fleet came down the river. The stream
was full and rapid, and Dega had skilfully drawn up his little fleet—there were
but eight ships—under the lee of a tongue of land which ran out into the
stream, and made a small bay in which the water was comparatively still. This
disposition, together with the utter want of judgment in the arrangements of
the Acheenese commander, gave the Portuguese an easy and decisive victory,
which may as well be related in the words of Turselline, with whom Lucena
mainly agrees.
‘ In the mean time,
the enemy’s navy being set in battle array, came down the river with the
stream, and the banks and shores on both sides sounded forth with horrible
shoutings and confused noise of drums. The first squadron was led by the
admiral of the barbarians’ fleet, guarded on each side by four Turkish galleys.
Then followed six other galleys, with nine ranks of ships’ [he means ten rows
of six ships each], ‘ and all abundantly appointed, not only with great
ordnance, but also with plenty of small shot. The admiral, therefore, of the
Portuguese, as soon as the first rank of the enemy was discovered, maketh towards
them presently at unawares with three ships, commanding the rest to follow as
they were ordered for the battle. Whereupon the barbarians, whether for want of
skill or rather by God’s ordinance, sailing on headlong with fury, discharged
all their great shot against the Portuguese before they could so much as reach
them, so as the bullets fell all into the water without doing any harm. But a
Portuguese gunner, shooting a very great bullet out of the greatest ordnance,
struck the admiral of the Acheenese so flat, that presently he sunk and drowned
her, which was not only a presage of a future victory, but rather the
conclusion of the combat itself. For the Turkish galleys, staying their course,
left off the fight and began to help the captain and other principal men
swimming to save themselves, which caused both their own and the fleet’s whole
overthrow. For the Turks had placed their galleys over thwart the river, and so
had taken up a good part of the same, to receive in those that could swim unto
them, not once thinking of the danger themselves were in, God had so besotted
them. The six other galleys which followed the first squadron, coming down with
the stream, ran upon the former which lay athwart, and all the rest of the nine
ranks which came after fell against those which went before, and became so
entangled one with another, and so dashed together, each one" striving to
get free from his fellow by force, that one would have thought there had been a
battle among themselves. The Portuguese, perceiving manifestly that God’s hand
was in the business, failed not to follow the victory which was thus offered
them from heaven. Wherefore presently calling out aloud upon the sovereign name
of Jesus, they began to grapple with their enemies, and on every side to play
upon them with their ordnance, lying there so entangled and burdened one by another
that they were not able to stir. Thrice did they send out with all the violence
they could the shot of all their great ordnance upon their ships, and no one
shot was made in vain; nor was the enemy able to resist or make any use of
their own artillery, being so thrust up together, and this without any loss to
the Portuguese that assailed them. Now within a little while they had sunk nine
of the enemy’s ships and battered more to pieces, with no small slaughter of
the barbarians/5
In short, the
barbarians were absolutely routed, and most of them threw away their arms, and
tried to save themselves by swimming—a large number, however, being drowned in
the rapid stream. All the ships were taken except those which were sunk, three
hundred pieces of artillery, and an immense booty in armour, and other
articles. A great number of the chief officers in the Acheenese fleet were
killed, and the whole number of slain amounted to four thousand. Twenty-five
ships were taken to Malacca by the victors, and the rest were set on fire. Two
or three days after the battle, a messenger arrived at the city with the news
of the victory, as Francis had foretold, and he was soon followed by the
triumphant fleet.6
The news had even
been anticipated by intelligence from a certain King of Bintang—an island
opposite Singapore—who had been hovering near Malacca with a large fleet, in
expectation of the issue of the war. He had some claim, as it seems, to
Malacca itself, and was nominally a friend to the Portuguese, though ready to
declare against them whenever it suited his own interests. However, he heard of
the destruction of the Acheenese fleet in time to retire in all haste with his
fleet before he had given any sign of sinister intentions on Malacca. A day or
two after, as we have said, the victors themselves appeared in triumph.
‘Infinite, therefore/ says Turselline, * was the joy which on a sudden
surprized the Malacensians, when, so far beyond all expectation, they saw eight
ships bring home twenty-five captives. As soon therefore as this victorious
navy was arrived, the whole city (their great fear being now turned into
excessive joy) went, out to see and congratulate the same. And Francis himself,
to whom a great part of that noble victory and triumph was due, goeth amongst
the first, and, as soon as the general was landed, he embraceth him and the
other principal captains of the navy, congratulating them for their fortunate
success/7 And Lucena tells us how Francis bore in his hands a crucifix, and was
followed reverently by the ‘Capitan’ and the chief men ofthe city, while
salutes were fired in its honour on land and sea; and how he reminded the
victors that their true general had been He in Whose honour they had fought,
and Who had given them strength and valour to gain their victory.8
We may now resume the
letter which was interrupted in the last chapter, written after the return of
Francis to India, whither he sailed a few weeks after the victory over the
Acheenese. It gives, as we shall see, the first account of a great scheme for
the glory of God and the good of souls, which was now taking its place in his
thoughts and prayers.
Faria y Sousa says it
was on a Sunday, which was also a festival—that of St. Nicolas. But St.
Nicolas’ Day (Dec. 6) that year was on a Tuesday. It may have been that the
first news of the victory was received on the Tuesday.
(lv.) To the Society at Rome.
[continued.]
At Malacca, a
Portuguese merchant, a man of great devotion and faith, told me a great many
things about some very large islands which have lately been discovered. The
country is called Japan. He told me that much more progress may be made there
than in India in the propagation of the religion of Jesus Christ, because the whole
nation in Japan surpasses others in its desire for knowledge. A certain
Japanese came to me with this merchant. His name is Anger, and he had made up
his mind to come and talk to me, from what he had heard from the people at
Malacca. In Japan he had consulted some Portuguese merchants, his friends, and
had laid open to them the wounds of his conscience, asking them for some remedy
to heal his soul and appease God. These merchants had advised him to come to me
at Malacca. He did as he was told, and embarked in their ship. But when he
arrived at Malacca I was in the Moluccas. When he heard this, he set out for
home with a sorrowful mind. He was already in sight of Japan when a storm came
on suddenly, and an adverse wind drove the vessel after great danger back again
to Malacca. He there heard of my return, and came to me most anxiously desiring
to learn the Christian religion. He has some knowledge of Portuguese, so we
conversed together without an interpreter.
If the rest of the
Japanese have the same ardour for gaining knowledge that Anger has, then they
surpass in genius all nations anywhere found. He was present at the
explanation of the Catechism, and with the greatest accuracy wrote down in a
book the articles of the Creed. Often, too, in the church, with all the people
present, he repeated urom memory the lessons he had learned, and asked many
questions full of intelligence. In truth, he has a great thirst for
knowledge—a thing which avails very much for a quick perception oi truth. A
week after his arrival at Malacca, he set out for India. 1 wished to get him to
take the vessel in which I was to sail ; but, from his great familiarity with
other Portuguese merchants, who were going to India, he did not like to leave
such great friends, to whom he owed so much. I expect him at Cochin within ten
days. *
I asked this Anger,
whom I have mentioned, whether he thought, in case I accompanied him to Japan,
the inhabitants would become Christians. He replied, that his countrymen would
not give assent instantly to everything they heard, but that they would be sure
to ask a great number of questions as to the religion I was introducing; and
that, above all, they would consider whether my actions agreed with my words.
If I could do those two things—satisfy them by a consistent statement as to the
questions they would ask, and give them no cause for finding fault with the
goodness of my life—then, when the matter had been fully examined and taken
cognizance of, the King, the whole nobility; and all the other grown up men
would certainly join the flock of Christ—for theirs is a nation which follows
the guidance of reason.
My friend the
Portuguese merchant, who has been a long time in Japan, left me some very
carefully drawn up papers, containing a description of the country, and the
manners of the inhabitants, and other things—partly what he had himself seen,
partly what he had learnt from good authority. I send you these notes herein
inclosed. All the Portuguese merchants who come back from Japan assure me, that
if I make this voyage, I shall spend my labour much better than in India, inasmuch
as I shall have to do with a nation that is governed by reason. My mind seems
to forebode, that in less than two years I or some one else of the Society
shall go to Japan, though the voyage is very dangerous, both on account of the
incredible storminess of those seas and the depredations of Chinese pirates —so
that many vessels are lost from both of these causes.
So do you, my dearest
fathers and brothers, pray to God for our safety in this voyage, in which many
have perished. Meantime Anger will learn Portuguese thoroughly; he will become
well acquainted with the resources of the Portuguese, the arts of Europe, and
our manner of life; he will prepare himself
duly for baptism, and
will work for me in translating into Japanese the Catechism and a detailed
explanation of the history of Christ, since he writes Japanese very well.
I have been in India
a week today, and have not yet been able to see our brothers; so I can say
nothing of the fruits that have been gathered in these countries during my
absence. But I suppose that our brothers will themselves have written you an
account of their affairs. In returning from Malacca to India I went through
some great dangers: for three days and three nights the vessel was at the mercy
of a tempest such as I never remember to have seen before. Many on board were
already bewailing their certain death, and made vows that if, by the help of
God, they escaped this peril, they would never again go upon the sea. The
merchants were obliged to ransom their lives by the casting overboard all
their goods. In the height of the storm I made supplication to God, calling in
as intercessors on earth, in the first place, the men of our Society and its
friends, then all Christians; hoping that by the Church, the Spouse of Jesus
Christ, whose continual prayers even while she dwells on earth are heard in
heaven, we should be most diligently commended to the Heavenly King. Then I
implored the aid in order of all that are in heaven, and I especially invoked
Peter Favre and all our brothers there, so as to use both living and dead
intercessors to soften the anger of God. Lastly, I called upon all the choirs
of Angels and all the different classes of the Saints one by one; and to obtain
more easily the pardon of my numberless sins, I put myself under the patronage
of the most Holy Mother of God, the Queen of heaven, who always obtains from
her Son without trouble whatever she asks. Lastly, on putting all my hope in
the infinite merits of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, I enjoyed, surrounded
as I was by so many and so powerful protectors, far greater pleasure while in
danger in that horrible tempest than afterwards when I was delivered from the
urgent peril. I am filled with confusion, that I, the most wicked of all
mortals, should in that last moment of danger have shed so great a flood of
tears out of heavenly joy. So then I prayed humbly to Jesus
Christ our Lord not
to deliver me from this peril unless He reserved me for equal or even greater
dangers by and bye for His service and glory. It has often happened that God
has made known to me by an interior instinct how many bodily dangers and
occasions of spiritual loss have been prevented by the prayers and holy
sacrifices of my brothers, partly those who are still militant on earth, partly
those already enjoying the rewards of heaven. My object in writing this, my
dearest fathers and brothers in Jesus Christ, is that for so many and so great
benefits which I have received, you should yourselves repay my debt, both to
God and to yourselves, as I am quite unequal to repaying it.
When I once begin to
speak or write of our Society, I know not how to stop; but the haste of the
ships to depart obliges me against my will to leave off and close my letter. I
cannot finish better than by making that old declaration : ‘ If ever I forget
thee, O Society of Jesus, may my right hand be given to oblivion !’9 so clearly
have I seen how much I owe to all my brethren, and on how many accounts I am
their debtor. God has been led by your prayers to grant me this very great
boon, that according to my poor capacity I should understand how much I owe to
our Society. In me there is no power or strength of mind which would make me at
all able to take in the idea of such an accumulation of obligations; but, that
I might in some measure escape the reproach of ingratitude, God in His goodness
and mercy has imparted to me some amount, small though it be, of knowledge on
this score. But let me make an end. I pray Jesus our Lord, that as He has
brought us together in this miserable life by calling us all into His own
Society, so He may hereafter bring us together in that eternal blessedness of
His by calling us all into the society of those who reign in heaven—especially
since in this life for the sake of Him we are so far scattered in body one from
another.
If you ever send us
any commands at any time, either while we are in the Moluccas or if we are to
go to Japan, you must remember that no answer can reach you before three years
and nine months are over. The reason is quite plain. Your letters arrive in
India in the course of the ninth month after they are sent; then there is an
interval of eight months more, that the ships may have favourable winds to
proceed to Malacca ; and in the going thither and returning thence, let them
have the fairest possible voyage, twenty one months are spent. Then after all it
takes eight months more for the letters to reach Rome, and that when the
navigation is favoured by good winds and fair weather. Sometimes, on account of
the unfavourable weather, more than a year is spent in the passage to Rome.
Cochin, January 21st,
1548.
The story of Anger
(Han-Sir), the Japanese convert, is not quite fully told in the letter before
us. In the heat of passion he had committed homicide in his own country, where
human life neither was nor is of much account should passion or interest be
concerned to sacrifice it. He was pursued either by the officers of justice,
or, as what is known of Japanese manners makes us think probable, by the
relatives of the man whom he had slain, and had taken refuge in a monastery of
bonzes, expecting to find there not only protection from the avengers of blood,
but also peace for his remorseful conscience. He found safety for a time, but
was not secure against punishment ; and his own conscience gave him no rest.
His acquaintance with some Portuguese merchants led him to open his heart to
one of them, Alfonso Vaz, who offered him all the help in his power, and
suggested that he should secretly depart from Japan in one of the Portuguese
ships. In India he would find persons who would assist him to set his soul in
order and regain his peace of conscience. Vaz was not about to sail immediately
himself, so he gave Anger a letter to another merchant, whose ship was to
start sooner than his own. This was a certain Ferdinand Alvarez, but the
Japanese took the letter by mistake to another Alvarez, George by name, who
received Anger with great kindness, dissembled the mis
take, and carried him
off to Malacca, talking to him a great deal on the voyage about Francis Xavier,
who was his great friend. Anger became extremely desirous to see Francis, whom
he already looked upon as a man sent from heaven to heal the wounds of his
soul; but when he arrived at Malacca, Francis had not returned from the
Moluccas, and after waiting for some time, the Japanese gave up his intention
of applying to him, and started on his voyage homewards. He was within sight of
Japan when a tempest drove his ship back, and he was forced to land on the
coast of China, and when he sailed again from China towards Japan, another
storm forced him to put back into the port whence he started. Here he met again
with Alfonso Vaz, who persuaded him to return to Malacca, and on his landing
there, the first person he fell in with was his old friend Alvarez, who took
him at once to Francis, who had arrived in the mean time from Amboyna. The rest
of the history of Anger will be related in a future page.
It was now nearly
time for Francis to sail for India. Before doing this, he had to part with the
companion whom he had picked up at Meliapor, and who had remained faithfully
with him during his adventures in the Eastern Archipelago. Joam d’Eyro had
shown some instability of character, as we have seen, at the time of his
conversion from a worldly life, and we may imagine that he would have given
Francis trouble now and then during the time spent in the Moluccas. He was
affiliated in some sort to the Society, as Francis speaks of him as his own
companion and as vowed to the practice of evangelical poverty: but at the time
when Francis left Europe there were not as yet any lay brothers, or temporal
coadjutors, in the Society, nor do we know that that very important class of
members formed a part of the original design of Ignatius. They were added, as
well as the class of priests called ‘ spiritual coadjutors,’ about the very
time that Francis became acquainted with Joam d’Eyro, that is, in 1546. But
though Joam d’Eyro may not have been, strictly speaking, a ‘lay brother,’
Francis considered him bound to the observance of poverty, especially in all
that concerned the temporal assistance which he received from
friends of Francis
himself, and which he administered for the maintenance of both. Joam seems to
have been desirous of rather more comfort than Francis thought good to allow,
and he received money for the purpose ‘more freely than discreetly,’ says
Turselline, ‘under the colour of alms,’without telling his master, and Francis
was much displeased, and * he presently banished him for a time into an island
near by, lying right against the harbour of Malacca, which had in former times
been well stored with inhabitants, but was now left desolate. D’Eyro
therefore, living there, saw upon a time in a certain church (whether awake or
asleep is uncertain), the Mother of God sitting at the high altar upon a
cushion, under a canopy richly adorned ; with her he saw the child Jesus, Who
endeavoured to allure D’Eyro, being much ashamed of his fault, by sweet means
to come unto His mother. She at first, as though she had been angry, turned
from him and put him away; then, aiter he had humbly entreated and beseeched
her to pardon him, she at last received him, and admonishing him of certain
faults, she left him suddenly, and, together with her child Jesus, mounted up
to heaven. This vision was altogether secret, no mortal man knowing thereof but
D’Eyro himself, nor had he spoken thereof to any. Being, therefore, after a
while called back to Malacca, and making his confession to Xavier as his custom
was, he said nothing of the vision. But Francis, knowing it by Divine
revelation, asked him what that was which happened to him lately in a church
of the island where he was ? ‘‘To me?” quoth he; “I remember nothing.” The
father gently urged him to tell, but D’Eyro refused and utterly denied to have
seen anything; and being in this manner often times asked . . he still answered
to the same purpose. Then Francis, when he saw that he had to do with one of so
obstinate a nature, began himself to recount everything in particular, as if
he had been present.’10 Joam d’Eyro was astounded, and became very
penitent. Francis forgave him, and sent him to Goa in charge of some children
whom he had brought from the Moluccas to be educated at the College: but it
seems that Joam was not to be his companion any longer. He afterwards became a
Franciscan friar, and lived and died holily; and Lucena tells us that he had
entered the order at the advice of his former master. The ship in which he
sailed with the boys was in great danger during a storm near Ceylon, which
Francis had foretold; and when all hope seemed to be lost, Joam d’Eyro
comforted the crew and passengers by telling them how Francis had predicted
their danger, but had also promised that they should escape it. The prophecy
came true.
Francis himself
embarked in another vessel, belonging to Gar$ia de Sousa, and which was bound
for Cochin instead of Goa. He had determined to visit the Christians on the
Comorin coast before proceeding further northward. This ship also Had a
terrible tempest to brave, and we have some account of it jn the latter portion
of the two letters last inserted in the text. A few details which he has
omitted are preserved by others. He has said nothing about his own exertions in
hearing the confessions of the passengers and in exhorting all to perfect
resignation to the holy will of God. After he had done what he could in this
way, he retired to a corner and became rapt in prayer. Francis Pereira went to
seek some comfort from his conversation, but found him immovable before his
crucifix, and was sufficiently consoled by the mere sight of him. At last, when
the three days and nights were nearly spent, he arose, took a sounding rope
from the steersman, and flung a portion of his robe into the sea with it,
calling on God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to have pity on the
crew and on himself. Then, as those who were present declared, there was
suddenly a great calm. The writers of his life suppose that his meaning in
dropping the portion of his robe into the sea was to plead before God that he
was a member of the Society, of which he speaks so tenderly and lovingly at the
end of the letter.11 In a few days after the storm he landed safely
at Cochin.