ithin the modern period very many examples which enable us to
study the evolution of legendary miracles. Out of these I will select
but one, which is chosen because it is the life of one of the most
noble and devoted men in the history of humanity, one whose biography
is before the world with its most minute details--in his own letters,
in the letters of his associates, in contemporary histories, and in a
multitude of biographies: this man is St. Francis Xavier. From these
sources I draw the facts now to be given, but none of them are of
Protestant origin; every source from which I shall draw is Catholic and
Roman, and published under the sanction of the Church.

Born a Spanish noble, Xavier at an early age cast aside all ordinary
aims, devoted himself to study, was rapidly advanced to a professorship
at Paris, and in this position was rapidly winning a commanding
influence, when he came under the sway of another Spaniard even greater,
though less brilliantly endowed, than himself--Ignatius Loyola, founder
of the Society of Jesus. The result was that the young professor
sacrificed the brilliant career on which he had entered at the French
capital, went to the far East as a simple missionary, and there devoted
his remaining years to redeeming the lowest and most wretched of our
race.

Among the various tribes, first in lower India and afterward in Japan,
he wrought untiringly--toiling through village after village, collecting
the natives by the sound of a hand-bell, trying to teach them the
simplest Christian formulas; and thus he brought myriads of them to a
nominal Confession of the Christian faith. After twelve years of such
efforts, seeking new conquests for religion, he sacrificed his life on
the desert island of San Chan.

During his career as a missionary he wrote great numbers of letters,
which were preserved and have since been published; and these, with the
letters of his contemporaries, exhibit clearly all the features of his
life. His own writings are very minute, and enable us to follow him
fully. No account of a miracle wrought by him appears either in his own
letters or in any contemporary document.(290) At the outside, but two
or three things occurred in his whole life, as exhibited so fully by
himself and his contemporaries, for which the most earnest devotee could
claim anything like Divine interposition; and these are such as may be
read in the letters of very many fervent missionaries, Protestant as