ese refer frequently to Xavier,
there is no mention of a miracle wrought by him in any of them written
during his lifetime.

For, shortly after Xavier's heroic and beautiful death in 1552, stories
of miracles wrought by him began to appear. At first they were few and
feeble; and two years later Melchior Nunez, Provincial of the Jesuits
in the Portuguese dominions, with all the means at his command, and a
correspondence extending throughout Eastern Asia, had been able to hear
of but three. These were entirely from hearsay. First, John Deyro said
he knew that Xavier had the gift of prophecy; but, unfortunately,
Xavier himself had reprimanded and cast off Deyro for untruthfulness and
cheatery. Secondly, it was reported vaguely that at Cape Comorin many
persons affirmed that Xavier had raised a man from the dead. Thirdly,
Father Pablo de Santa Fe had heard that in Japan Xavier had restored
sight to a blind man. This seems a feeble beginning, but little by
little the stories grew, and in 1555 De Quadros, Provincial of the
Jesuits in Ethiopia, had heard of nine miracles, and asserted that
Xavier had healed the sick and cast out devils. The next year, being
four years after Xavier's death, King John III of Portugal, a very
devout man, directed his viceroy Barreto to draw up and transmit to him
an authentic account of Xavier's miracles, urging him especially to do
the work "with zeal and speedily." We can well imagine what treasures of
grace an obsequious viceroy, only too anxious to please a devout king,
could bring together by means of the hearsay of ignorant, compliant
natives through all the little towns of Portuguese India.

But the letters of the missionaries who had been co-workers or immediate
successors of Xavier in his Eastern field were still silent as regards
any miracles by him, and they remained silent for nearly ten years. In
the collection of letters published by Emanuel Acosta and others no hint
at any miracles by him is given, until at last, in 1562, fully ten years
after Xavier's death, the first faint beginnings of these legends appear
in them.

At that time the Jesuit Almeida, writing at great length to the
brethren, stated that he had found a pious woman who believed that a
book left behind by Xavier had healed sick folk when it was laid upon
them, and that he had met an old man who preserved a whip left by the
saint which, when properly applied to the sick, had been found good both
for their bodies a