that they durst not spit upon the ground, if we may believe the testimony
of those who were natives of the country.

The Pagans had a custom, that, in confirmation of a truth, they would
hold a red-hot iron in their hands, with other superstitions of the like
nature; but after that Father Francis came to be held in so great
veneration through the Indies, they swore solemnly by his name; and such
an oath was generally received for the highest attestation of a truth.
Neither did any of them forswear themselves unpunished after such an
oath; and God authorized, by many proofs, this religious practice, even
by manifest prodigies. Behold a terrible example of it: An Idolater owed
a Christian a considerable sum of money; but as he denied his debt, and
no legal proof could be made of it, the Christian obliged him to swear in
the church, upon the image of St Francis: the Idolater made a false oath
without the least scruple; but was scarcely got into his own house, when
he began to void blood in abundance at his mouth, and died in a raging
fit of madness, which had the resemblance of a man possessed, rather than
of one who was distracted.

Neither was his memory less honoured in Japan than in the Indies. The
Christians of the kingdom of Saxuma kept religiously a stone, on which he
had often preached, and shewed it as a precious rarity. The house wherein
he had lodged at Amanguchi, was respected as a sacred place; and was
always preserved from ruin, amidst those bloody wars, which more than
once had destroyed the town. For what remains, the Indians and Japonians
were not the only people which honoured Father Xavier after his decease;
the odour of his holy life expanded itself beyond the seas into other
Heathen countries where he had never been. And Alphonso Leon Barbuda, who
has travelled over all the coasts of Afric, reports, that in the kingdoms
of Sofala, beyond the great river of Cuama, and in the isles about it,
the name of Father Francis was in high repute; and that those Moors never
mentioned him, but with the addition of a wonderful man So many
illustrious testimonies, and so far above suspicion, engaged the king of
Portugal anew to solicit the canonization of the saint; and in that
prospect there was made an ample collection of his virtues, of which I
present you with this following extract.

No exterior employments, how many, or how great soever, could divert the
Father from the contemplation of celestial things. Bei