Almost every hour, words of life and fire burst and sallied as it were from out his mouth, which were indeed the holy sparkles of a burning heart.  As for example, “O most Holy Trinity!  O my Creator!  O my Jesus!  O Jesus, the desire of my soul!” He spoke these words in Latin, that he might not be understood by the common people:  and being on the coast of Fishery, at the kingdom of Travancore, and at the Moluccas, he was heard to speak so many times every day these words, O Sanctissima Trinitas! that the most idolatrous barbarians, when they found themselves in extreme dangers, or that they would express their amazement at any thing, pronounced those very words, without understanding any thing more of them than that they were holy and mysterious.

Even sleep itself had not the power to interrupt those tender aspirations; and all the night long he was heard to say, “O my Jesus, my soul’s delight!” or other expressions as full of tenderness, which shewed the inclination of his heart.  Being out of his senses by the violence of a burning fever, both at Mozambique and at Sancian, he spoke of God, and to God, with more fervency than ever; insomuch, that his delirium seemed only to be a redoubling of his love.  He was so sensible of the interests of the Divine Majesty, that, being touched to the quick with the enormity of those crimes that were committed in the new world, he wrote to a friend of his, in these very terms:—­“I have sometimes an abhorrence of my life, and would rather chuse to die than to behold so many outrages done to Jesus Christ, without being able either to hinder or to repair them.”

For the rest, that he might always keep alive the fire of divine love, he had incessantly before his eyes the sufferings of our Lord.  At the sight of the wounds and of the blood of a crucified God, he fell into sighs and tears, and languishments, and extasies of love.  He was consumed with the zeal of returning his Saviour life for life; for martyrdom was his predominant passion, and his sentiments are a continual proof of it.  “It sometimes happens, through a singular favour of the Divine Goodness,” says he in one of his letters, “that for the service of God we run ourselves into the hazard of death.  But we ought to bear in mind, that we are born mortal; and that a Christian is bound to desire nothing more than to lay down his life for Jesus Christ.”

From thence proceeded that abundant joy which he conceived, when the faithful poured out their blood for faith; and he wrote to the Fathers at Rome, on occasion of the massacre of the baptized Manarois;—­“We are obliged to rejoice in Jesus Christ, that martyrs are not wanting, not even in our decaying times; and to give Him thanks, that, seeing so few persons make the right use of His grace for their salvation, He permits that the number of the happy shall be completed through the cruelty of men.”  “Admirable news,” says he elsewhere, “is lately come from the Moluccas; they who labour there in the Lord’s