The first saint’s day, when the Father preached to the people, he stopped short in the middle of his discourse, and said, after a little pause, “Pray to God for the soul of John Galvan, who is drowned in the gulph.”  Some of the audience, who were friends of Galvan, and interested in the caracore, ran to the mariners, who had brought the Father, and demanded of them, if they knew any certain news of this tragical adventure?  They answered, “that they knew no more than that the storm had separated the two vessels.”  The Portuguese recovered courage at those words, and imagined that Father Francis had no other knowledge than the seamen.  But they were soon undeceived by the testimony of their own eyes; for three days after, they saw, washed on the shore, the corpse of Galvan, and the wreck of the vessel, which the sea had thrown upon the coast.

Very near this time, when Xavier was saying mass, turning to the people to say the Orate Fratres, he added, “pray also for John Araus, who is newly dead at Amboyna.”  They who were present observed punctually the day and hour, to see if what the Father had said would come to pass:  ten or twelve days after, there arrived a ship from Amboyna, and the truth was known not only by divers letters, but confirmed also by a Portuguese, who had seen Araus die at the same moment when Xavier exhorted the people to pray to God to rest his soul.  This Araus was the merchant which refused to give wine for the succour of the sick, in the Spanish fleet, and to whom the saint had denounced a sudden death.  He fell sick after Xavier’s departure; and having neither children nor heirs, all his goods were distributed amongst the poor, according to the custom of the country.

The shipwreck of Galvan, and the death of Araus, gave great authority to what they had heard at Ternate, concerning the holiness of Father Francis, and from the very first gained him an exceeding reputation.  And indeed it was all necessary; I say not for the reformation of vice in that country, but to make him even heard with patience by a dissolute people, which committed, without shame, the most enormous crimes, and such as modesty forbids to name.

To understand how profitable the labours of Father Xavier were to those of Ternate, it is sufficient to tell what he has written himself:  “That of an infinite number of debauched persons living in that island when he landed there, all excepting two had laid aside their wicked courses before his departure.  The desire of riches was extinguished with the love of pleasures.  Restitutions were frequently made, and such abundant alms were given, that the house of charity, set up for the relief of the necessitous, from very poor, which it was formerly, was put into stock, and more flourishing than ever.”