Since the time that the Holy See has placed the apostle of the Indies in the number of the saints, it is incredible how much the public devotion has every where been augmented towards him.  Cities have taken him for their patron and protector; altars have been erected, and incessant vows have been made to him; men have visited his tomb with more devotion than ever; and the chamber wherein he was born, has been converted into a chapel, to which pilgrims have resorted in great crowds, from all the quarters of the world.

For the rest, it was not in vain that they invoked him; and if I should take upon me to relate the miracles which have been lately done through his intercession, they would take up another volume as large as this.  Neither shall I go about to make a recital of what things were wrought in succeeding years at Potamo, and Naples; but shall content myself to say, that in those places God was pleased to honour his servant by the performance of such wonders as might seem incredible, if those which preceded had not accustomed us to believe all things of St Xavier.

I shall even forbear to speak of the famous Father Mastrilli, who, being in the agony of death, was cured on the instant by the saint; and who, going to Japan by the order of the saint himself, to be there martyred, built him a magnificent sepulchre at Goa.  It is enough for us to know, that never saint has been, perhaps, more honoured, nor more loved, in the church, than St Francis Xavier; and that even the enemies of the Society of Jesus have had a veneration and tenderness for him.

But these opinions are not confined to Catholics alone; the very heretics revere Xavier, and Baldeus speaks of him in these terms, in his History of the Indies:  “If the religion of Xavier agreed with ours, we ought to esteem and reverence him as another St Paul; yet, notwithstanding the difference of religion, his zeal, his vigilance, and the sanctity of his manners, ought to stir up all good men, not to do the work of God negligently; for the gifts which Xavier had received, to execute the office of a minister and ambassador of Jesus Christ, were so eminent, that my soul is not able to express them.  If I consider the patience and sweetness wherewith he presented, both to great and small, the holy and living waters of the gospel; if I regard the courage wherewith he suffered injuries and affronts; I am forced to cry out, with the apostle, Who is capable, like him, of these wonderful things!” Baldeus concludes the panegyric of the saint, with an apostrophe to the saint himself:  “Might it please Almighty God,” says he, “that being what you have been, you had been, or would have been, one of ours.”