amongst them in his outward behaviour, for fear of giving them any disgust of his company, he underwent most rigorous penances to obtain the grace of their conversion, and used his body so unmercifully, that he was languishing for a month of those severities.  When Xavier had reduced his penitents to that point at which he aimed, that is, when he had brought them to confession, they cost him not less pains than formerly.  He always begged of God their perseverance with his tears; and frequently, when he had enjoined them some light penance, paid for them the remainder of their debts with bloody disciplining of his own body.  But when he lighted on intractable and stubborn souls, he left them not off for their contumacy, but rather sought their good opinion; and, on occasion, shewed them a better countenance than usual, that thence they might be given to understand how ready he was for their reception.

When he went from Ternata to Amboyna, he left but two persons who were visibly engaged in vice:  The first opportunity which the vessels had of repassing to Ternata, he writ expressly to one of his friends, that he should salute those two scandalous sinners with all tenderness from him, and let them know, that, upon the least sign which they should make him, he would return to hear their confessions.

But these condescensions, and this goodness of the apostle, had nothing in them of meanness, or of weakness; and he knew well enough to make use of severity when there was occasion for it.  Thus, a lady who had accused herself in confession, to have looked upon a man with too alluring an eye, was thus answered by him:  “You are unworthy that God should look on you; since, by those encouraging regards which you have given to a man, you have run the hazard of losing God.”  The lady was so pierced with these few words, that, during the rest of her life, she durst never look any man in the face.

By all these methods, Xavier made so many converts.  But whatever he performed, he looked on it as no more than an essay; and he wrote, in the year 1549, that if God would be pleased to bestow on him yet ten years more of life, he despaired not but these small beginnings would be attended with more happy consequences.  This ardent desire of extending farther the dominion of Jesus Christ, caused him to write those pressing letters to the king of Portugal, and Father Ignatius, that he might be furnished with a larger supply of missioners:  he promised, in his letters, to sweeten the labour of the mission, by serving all his fellows, and loving them better than himself.  The year he died, he writ, that when once he had subdued the empire of China, and that of Tartary, to the sceptre of Jesus Christ, he purposed to return into Europe by the north, that he might labour in the reduction of heretics, and restoration of discipline in manners; that after this he designed to go over into Africa, or to return into Asia, in quest of new kingdoms, where he might preach the gospel.