But it is to be observed, that these words, Non scitur certo annus quo natus est P. Franciscus Xaverius, are dashed out with the stroke of a pen.  There is also a line drawn over these other words, Natum eum dici millesimo, quadragintesimo, nonagesimo-sexto:  and this is written over head, Natus est P. Franciscus Xaverius anno millesimo quingentesimo sexto.  Father Francis Xavier was born in the year 1506.  There is also written in the margin, Natus est die 7 Aprilis, anni 1506.  He was born on the 7th of April, 1506.

That which renders this testimony more authentic, is, that at the bottom of the letter, these words, in Spanish, are written by the same hand which corrected those two passages of which I spoke:  Hallo se la razon del tiempo que el S. P. Francisco Xavier nacio, en un libro manual de su hermano el Capitan Juan de Azpilcueta:  la qual saco de un libro, de su padre Don Juan Jasso; viz.  “The time when the blessed Father Francis Xavier was born, is found in the journal of his brother Don Juan de Azpilcueta, who extracted it from the journal or manual of his father Don Juan Jasso.”  ’Tis on this foundation, that, before I had read the Life written by Father Massei, I had already closed with the opinion of Father Poussines.

As to the precise day of the father’s death, I have followed the common opinion, which I take to be the most probable, in conformity to the bull of his canonization.  For the historians who have mentioned it, agree not with each other, on what clay he died.  ’Tis said in Herbert’s Travels to the Indies and Persia, translated out of the English, “St Francis Xavier, the Jesuit of Navarre, died the 4th of December, 1552.”  Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, the Portuguese, affirms, that he died at midnight, on Saturday the 2d of December, the same year.  A manuscript letter, pretended to be written by Anthony de Sainte Foy, companion to Xavier for the voyage of China, the truth of which I suspect, relates, that the Saint died on a Sunday night at two of the clock, on the 2d of December, 1552.  Now ’tis most certain, that in the year 1552, the 2d of December fell on a Friday; so that it is a manifest mistake to say, that St Xavier died that year either on Saturday or Sunday the 2d of December.

I should apprehend, lest a life so extraordinary as this might somewhat shock the profaner sort of men, if the reputation of St Francis Xavier were not well established in the world, and that the wonderful things he did had not all the marks of true miracles.  As the author who made the collection of them has well observed, the mission of the saint gives them an authority, even in our first conceptions of them:  for being sent from God for the conversion of infidels, it was necessary that the faith should be planted in the East, by the same means as it had been through all the world, in the beginning of the church.