These interior employments did not hinder him from the labours of his ministerial vocation, nor from succouring the distressed in the hospitals and prisons.  On the contrary, the more lively and ardent the love of God was in him, the more desirous He was to bring it forth, and kindle it in others.  His charity caused him often to relinquish the quiet of solitude, and the delights of prayer; therein following the principle of his Father Ignatius, that it was necessary to forsake God for God.

The season began to be more moderate, and Xavier was disposing himself to set sail for the Cape of Comorine, when a Portuguese vessel arrived from Mozambique, which brought in her live missioners of the society.  The most considerable of these missioners, and of five others which came along with the fleet, was Caspar Barzaeus, a Fleming by nation.  Father Francis had already heard speak of him, as an excellent labourer, and a famous preacher; but his presence, and the testimony of all the ship, gave the saint such great ideas of his merit, that he looked on him from thenceforward as an apostle of the eastern countries.

He passed five days with these new companions, on the fourth of which he caused Father Gaspar to preach before him, that he might see his talent for the pulpit; and discovered in him all the qualities of a perfect preacher.  Many Portuguese gentlemen, who had been much edified by the virtues and conversation of Barzaeus during all the navigation, which had been exceeding dangerous, came and fell at the feet of Xavier, desiring that he would please to receive them into the society.  The captain of the ship, and the governor of one of the chief citadels, which the Portuguese enjoy in India, were of the number.  He admitted some of them before his departure, and deferred the rest till his return; but he would that all of them should perform the spiritual exercises of Father Ignatius.

At length Xavier embarked, on the 9th of September, for the fishing coast.  There he comforted and confirmed the faithful, who were continually persecuted by the Badages, those mortal and irreconcileable enemies of the Christian name.  He also encouraged the gospel labourers of the society, who, for the same reason, went in daily hazard of their lives.  Having understood, that Father Francis Henriquez, who cultivated the Christianity of Travancore, was somewhat dissatisfied, and believed he lost his time, because some of those new converts, shaken either by the promises or threatenings of a new king, who hated the Christians, had returned to their former superstitions, he writ him letters of consolation, desiring him to be of good courage, and assuring him, that his labours were more profitable than he imagined; that when all the fruit of his zeal should be reduced to the little children who died after baptism, God would be well satisfied of his endeavours, and that, after all, the salvation of one only soul ought to comfort a missioner for all his pains; that God accounted with us for our good intentions; and that a servant of his was never to be esteemed unprofitable, who laboured in his vineyard with all his strength, whatever his success might prove.