rs. "The Jesuit missionary," says Stephen, "with his breviary
under his arm, his beads at his girdle, and his crucifix in his hands,
went forth without fear, to encounter the most dreaded dangers.
Martyrdom was nothing to him; he knew that the altar which might stream
with his blood, and the mound which might be raised over his remains,
would become a cherished object of his fame and an expressive emblem of
the power of his religion." "If I die," said Xavier, when about to
visit the cannibal Island of Del Moro, "who knows but what all may
receive the Gospel, since it is most certain it has ever fructified more
abundantly in the field of Paganism by the blood of martyrs than by the
labors of missionaries,"--a sublime truth, revealed to him in his whole
course of protracted martyrdom and active philanthropy, especially in
those last hours when, on the Island of Sanshan, he expired, exclaiming,
as his fading eyes rested on the crucifix, _In te Domine speravi, non
confundar in eternum_. In perils, in fastings, in fatigues, was the life
of this remarkable man passed, in order to convert the heathen world;
and in ten years he had traversed a tract of more than twice the
circumference of the earth, preaching, disputing, and baptizing, until
seventy thousand converts, it is said, were the fruits of his
mission.[1] "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, when exploring
the prairies of the Western wilderness, "is an envoy of France to
discover new countries, and I am an ambassador of God to enlighten them
with the Gospel." Lalemant, when pierced with the arrows of the
Iroquois, rejoiced that his martyrdom would induce others to follow his
example. The missions of the early Jesuits extorted praises from Baxter
and panegyric from Liebnitz.

[Footnote 1: I am inclined to think that this statement is exaggerated;
or, if true, that conversion was merely nominal.]

And not less remarkable than these missionaries were those who labored
in other spheres. Loyola himself, though visionary and monastic, had no
higher wish than to infuse piety into the Catholic Church, and to
strengthen the hands of him whom he regarded as God's vicegerent.
Somehow or other he succeeded in securing the absolute veneration of his
companions, so much so that the sainted Xavier always wrote to him on
his knees. His "Spiritual Exercises" has ever remained the great
text-book of the Jesuits,--a compend of fasts and penances, of visions
and of ecstasies; riv