vineyard suffer exceedingly, and are in continual hazard of their lives I imagine that the Isles del Moro will give many martyrs to our Society, and they will soon be called the Isles of Martyrdom.  Let our brethren then, who desire to shed their blood for Jesus Christ, be of good courage, and anticipate their future joy.  For, behold at length a seminary of martyrdom is ready for them, and they will have wherewithal to satisfy their longings.”

The same love which inspired him with the desire of dying for our Saviour, made him breathe after the sight and the possession of God.  He spoke not but of paradise, and concluded almost all his letters with wishing there to meet his brethren.

But his charity was not confined to words and thoughts,—­it shone out in his works and actions, and extended itself to the service of his neighbour.  Xavier seemed to be only born for the relief of the distressed; he loved the sick with tenderness, and to attend them was what he called his pleasure:  he sought out not only wherewithal to feed them but to feast them; and for that purpose begged from the Portuguese the most exquisite regalios, which were sent them out of Europe.  He was not ashamed of going round the town with, a wallet on his back, begging linen for the wounded soldiers; he dressed their hurts, and did it with so much the more affection, when they were the most putrified and loathsome to the smell.  If he happened to meet with any beggar who was sinking under sickness, he took him in his arms, bore him to the hospital, prepared his remedies, and dressed his meat with his own hands.

Though all the miserable were dear to him, yet he assisted the prisoners after a more particular manner, with the charities which he gathered for them; and in Goa, which was the common tribunal of the Indies, he employed one day in the week in doing good to such who were overwhelmed with debts.  If he had not wherewithal to pay off their creditors entirely, he mollified them at least with his civilities, and obliged them sometimes to release one moiety of what was owing to them.

The poor, with one common voice, called him their Father, and he also regarded them as his children.  Nothing was given him, but what passed through his hands into theirs, who were members of Jesus Christ; even so far as to deprive himself of necessaries.  He heaped up, as I may call it, a treasury of alms, not only for the subsistence of the meaner sort, who are content with little, but for the maintenance of honourable families, which one or two shipwrecks had ruined all at once; and for the entertainment of many virgins of good parentage, whom poverty might necessitate to an infamous course of living.