ds.

Though all the miserable were dear to him, yet he assisted the prisoners
after a more particular manner, with the charities which he gathered for
them; and in Goa, which was the common tribunal of the Indies, he
employed one day in the week in doing good to such who were overwhelmed
with debts. If he had not wherewithal to pay off their creditors
entirely, he mollified them at least with his civilities, and obliged
them sometimes to release one moiety of what was owing to them.

The poor, with one common voice, called him their Father, and he also
regarded them as his children. Nothing was given him, but what passed
through his hands into theirs, who were members of Jesus Christ; even so
far as to deprive himself of necessaries. He heaped up, as I may call it,
a treasury of alms, not only for the subsistence of the meaner sort, who
are content with little, but for the maintenance of honourable families,
which one or two shipwrecks had ruined all at once; and for the
entertainment of many virgins of good parentage, whom poverty might
necessitate to an infamous course of living.

The greatest part of the miracles, which on so many occasions were
wrought by him, was only for the remedy of public calamities, or for the
cure of particular persons; and it was in the same spirit, that, being
one day greatly busied in hearing the confessions of the faithful at Goa,
he departed, abruptly in appearance, out of the confessional, and
from thence out of the church also, transported with some inward motion,
which he could not possibly resist: after he had made many turns about
the town, without knowing whither he went, he happened upon a stranger,
and having tenderly embraced him, conducted him to the college of the
Society. There that miserable creature, whom his despair was driving to
lay violent hands upon himself, having more seriously reflected on his
wicked resolution, pulled out the halter, which he had secretly about
him, and with which he was going to have hanged himself, and gave it into
the Father's hands. The saint, to whom it was revealed, that extreme
misery had reduced the unhappy wretch to this dismal melancholy, gave him
comfort, retained him in the college for some time, and at length
dismissed him with a round sum of money, sufficient for the entertainment
of his family. He recommended, without ceasing, his friends and
benefactors to our Lord; he prayed both day and night for the prosperity
of King John III.