o governed the Society in Portugal, had
great credit at the court, Father Xavier writ to him at the same time,
desiring him, he would support his demands with his interest. He
recommended to him in especial manner, "That he would make choice of
those preachers, who were men of known virtue, and exemplary
mortification." He subjoined, "If I thought the king would not take amiss
the counsel of a faithful servant, who sincerely loves him, I should
advise him to meditate one quarter of an hour every day, on that divine
sentence, 'What does it profit a man to have gained the world, and to
lose his soul?' I should counsel him, I say, to ask of God the
understanding and taste of those words, and that he would finish all his
prayers with the same words, 'What will it profit a man, to gain the
world, and to lose his soul? 'Tis time," said Xavier, "to draw him out of
his mistake, and to give him notice, that the hour of his death is nearer
than he thinks: that fatal hour, when the King of kings, and Lord of
lords, will summon him to judgment, saying to him these dreadful words,
'Give an account of your administration.' For which reason, do in such
manner, my dear brother, that he may fulfil his whole duty; and that he
may send over to the Indies all needful supplies, for the increase of
faith."

Xavier also wrote from Cochin to the fathers of the society at Rome; and
gave them an account, at large, of his voyages to Malacca, to Amboyna, to
the Moluccas, and the Isle del Moro; with the success which God had given
to his labours. But he forgot not the relation of his danger in the
Strait of Ceylon, and made it in a manner which was full of consolation
to them.

"In the height of the tempest," said he in his letter, "I took for my
intercessors with God, the living persons of our society, with all those
who are well affected to it; and joined to these, all Christians, that I
might be assisted with the merits of the spouse of Christ, the holy
Catholic Church, whose prayers are heard in heaven, though her habitation
be on earth: afterwards I addressed myself to the dead, and particularly
to Piere le Fevre, to appease the wrath of God. I went through all the
orders of the angels, and the saints, and invoked them all. But to the
end that I might the more easily obtain the pardon of my innumerable
sins, I desired for my protectress and patroness, the most holy Mother of
God, and Queen of Heaven, who, without difficulty, obtains from her