anthem of praise and adoration to their Creator. There for a while reposing from labors such as few or any other of the sons of men have undergone, he consumed days and weeks in meditating prospects beyond the reach of any vision unenlarged by the habitual exercise of beneficence and piety.

"I

Scarcely four years had elapsed from the first discovery of Japan by the Portuguese, when Xavier, attended by Auger and his two servants, sailed from Goa to convert the islanders to the Christian faith. Much good advice had been, as usual, wasted on him by his friends. To Loyola alone he confided the secret of his confidence. can not express to you" (such are his words) "the joy with which I undertake this long voyage; for it is full of extreme perils, and we consider a fleet sailing to Japan as eminently prosperous in which one ship out of four is saved. Though the risk far exceeds any which I have hitherto encountered, I shall not decline it." Xavier left behind him a code of instructions for his brother missionaries, illuminated in almost every page by that profound sagacity which results from the union of extensive knowledge with acute observation, mellowed by the intuitive wisdom of a compassionate and lowly heart. The science of self-conquest, with a view to conquer the stubborn will of others, the act of

winning admission for painful truth, and the duties of fidelity and reverence in the attempt to heal the diseases of the human spirit, were never taught by uninspired men with an eloquence more gentle, or an authority more impressive. A long voyage, pursued through every disaster which the malevolence of man and demons could oppose to his progress (for he was constrained to sail in a piratical ship, with idols on her deck and whirlwinds in her path), brought him, in the year 1549, to Japan, there to practice his own lessons, and to give a new example of heroic perseverance.

Carrying on his back his only property, the vessels requisite for performing the Sacrifice of the Mass, he advanced to Firando, at once the seaport and the capital of the kingdom of that name. Some Portuguese ships riding at anchor there, announced his arrival in all the forms of nautical triumph-flags of every hue floating from the masts, seamen clustering on the yards, cannon roaring from beneath, and trumpets braying from above. Firando was agitated with debate and wonder; all asked, but none could afford, an explanation of the homage rendered by the wealthy traders to the meanest of their countrymen. It was given by the humble pilgrim himself, surrounded in the royal presence by all the pomp

which the Europeans could display in his honor. Great was the effect of these auxiliaries to the work of an evangelist; and the modern, like the ancient Apostle, ready to become all things to all men, would no longer decline the abasement of assuming for a moment the world's grandeur, when he found that such puerile acts might allure the children of the world to listen to the voice of wisdom. At Meaco, then the seat of empire in Japan, the discovery might be reduced to practice with still more important success, and thitherwards his steps were promptly directed.

At Amanguchi, the capital of Nagoto, he found the hearts of men hardened by sensuality; and his exhortations to repentance were repaid by showers of stones and insults. They drove him forth half naked, with no provision but a bag of parched rice, and accompanied only by three of his converts, prepared to share his danger and his reproach.

It was in the depth of winter; dense forests, steep mountains, half-frozen streams, and wastes of untrodden snow, lay in his path to Meaco. An entire month was consumed in traversing the wilderness, and the cruelty and scorn of man not seldom adding bitterness to the rigors of nature. On one occasion the wanderers were overtaken in

a thick jungle by a horseman bearing a heavy package. Xavier offered to carry the load, if the rider would requite the service by pointing out his way. The offer was accepted, but hour after hour the horse was urged on at such a pace, and so rapidly sped the panting missionary after him, that his tortured feet and excoriated body sank in seeming death under the protracted effort. In the extremity of his distress no repining word was ever heard to fall from him. He performed this dreadful pilgrimage in silent communion with Him for whom he rejoiced to suffer the loss of all things; or spoke only to courage of his associates. At length the walls of Meaco were seen, promising a repose not ungrateful even to his adamantine frame and fiery spirit. But repose was no more to visit him. He found the city in all the tumult and horror of a siege. It was impossible to gain attention to his doctrines amidst the din of arms. Chanting from the Psalmist-When Israel went out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from a strange people—the Saint again plunged into the desert, and retraced his steps to Amanguchi.

sustain the hope and

Xavier describes the Japanese very much as a Roman might have depicted the Greeks in the age of Augustus, as at once intellectual and sensual

voluptuaries; on the best possible terms with themselves, a good-humored but faithless race, equally acute and frivolous, talkative and disputatious-" their inquisitiveness," he says, "is incredible, especially in their intercourse with strangers, for whom they have not the slightest respect, but make incessant sport of them." Surrounded at Amanguchi by a crowd of these babblers, he was plied with innumerable questions about the immortality of the soul, the movements of the planets, eclipses, the rainbow-sin, grace, paradise, and hell. He heard and answered. A single response solved all these problems. Astronomers, meteorologists, metaphysicians, and divines, all heard the same sound, but to each it came with a different and an appropriate meaning. So wrote from the very spot Father Anthony Quadros four years after the event, and so the fact may be read in the process of Xavier's canonization.

In such controversies, and in doing the work of an evangelist in every other form, Xavier saw the third year of his residence at Japan gliding away, when tidings of perplexities at the mother church of Goa recalled him thither; across seas so wide and stormy, that even the lust of gold hardly braved them in that infancy of the art of navigation. As his ship drove before the monsoon, drag