and that the heavenly pleasures, which he confers on his servants on such occasions, ought to make us despise the greatest hazards; even death itself has nothing in it which is dreadful to them, who have a taste of those divine delights; and though, when we have escaped those perils of which we speak, we want words to express the horror of them, there remains in our heart a pleasing memory of the favours which God has done us; and that remembrance excites us, day and night, to labour in the service of so good a Master:  we are also enlivened by it to honour him during the rest of our lives, hoping, that, out of his abundant mercy, he will bestow on us a new strength, and fresh vigour, to serve him faithfully and generously, even to our death.”

“May it please the Divine Goodness,” he says elsewhere, “that good men, whom the devil endeavours to affright in the service of God, might fear no other thing besides displeasing him, in leaving off what they have undertaken for his sake.  If they would do this, how happy a life would they then lead! how much would they advance in virtue, knowing, by their own experience, that they can do nothing of themselves, but that they can do all things by the assistance of his grace!”

He said, “that our most stedfast hold in dangers and temptations, was to have a noble courage against the foe of our salvation, in a distrust of our own strength, but a firm reliance on our Lord, so that we should not only fear nothing under the conduct of such a general, but also should not doubt of victory.”  He said also further, “that, in those dangerous occasions, the want of confidence in God was more to be feared, than any assault of the enemy; and that we should run much greater hazard in the least distrust of the divine assistance, in the greatest dangers, than in exposing ourselves to those very dangers.”  He added, lastly, “that this danger was so much the more formidable, the more it was hidden, and the less that we perceived it.”

These thoughts produced in the soul of this holy man an entire diffidence of himself, together with a perfect humility.  He was the only discourse of the new world; Infidels and Christians gave him almost equal honour; and his power over nature was so great, that it was said to be a kind of miracle, when he performed no miracle But all this served only to raise confusion in him; because he found nothing in himself but his own nothingness; and being nothing in his own conceit, he could not comprehend, how it was possible for him to be esteemed.  Writing to the doctor of Navarre, before his voyage to the Indies, he told him, “That it was a singular grace of heaven to know ourselves; and that, through the mercy of God, he knew himself to be good for nothing.”

“Humbly beseech our Lord,” he wrote from the Indies to Father Simon Rodriguez, “that I may have power to open the door of China to others; where I am, I have done but little.”  In many other passages of his letters, he calls himself an exceeding evil man; a great sinner; and conjures his brethren to employ their intercessions to God in his behalf.  “Bring to pass, by your prayers,” says he to one of them, “that though my sins have rendered me unworthy of the ministerial vocation, yet God may vouchsafe, out of his infinite goodness, to make use of me.”