me light
penance, paid for them the remainder of their debts with bloody
disciplining of his own body. But when he lighted on intractable and
stubborn souls, he left them not off for their contumacy, but rather
sought their good opinion; and, on occasion, shewed them a better
countenance than usual, that thence they might be given to understand how
ready he was for their reception.

When he went from Ternata to Amboyna, he left but two persons who were
visibly engaged in vice: The first opportunity which the vessels had of
repassing to Ternata, he writ expressly to one of his friends, that he
should salute those two scandalous sinners with all tenderness from him,
and let them know, that, upon the least sign which they should make him,
he would return to hear their confessions.

But these condescensions, and this goodness of the apostle, had nothing
in them of meanness, or of weakness; and he knew well enough to make use
of severity when there was occasion for it. Thus, a lady who had accused
herself in confession, to have looked upon a man with too alluring an
eye, was thus answered by him: "You are unworthy that God should look on
you; since, by those encouraging regards which you have given to a man,
you have run the hazard of losing God." The lady was so pierced with
these few words, that, during the rest of her life, she durst never look
any man in the face.

By all these methods, Xavier made so many converts. But whatever he
performed, he looked on it as no more than an essay; and he wrote, in the
year 1549, that if God would be pleased to bestow on him yet ten years
more of life, he despaired not but these small beginnings would be
attended with more happy consequences. This ardent desire of extending
farther the dominion of Jesus Christ, caused him to write those pressing
letters to the king of Portugal, and Father Ignatius, that he might be
furnished with a larger supply of missioners: he promised, in his
letters, to sweeten the labour of the mission, by serving all his
fellows, and loving them better than himself. The year he died, he writ,
that when once he had subdued the empire of China, and that of Tartary,
to the sceptre of Jesus Christ, he purposed to return into Europe by the
north, that he might labour in the reduction of heretics, and restoration
of discipline in manners; that after this he designed to go over into
Africa, or to return into Asia, in quest of new kingdoms, where he might
preach the