iron, and disciplines, pointed at the ends, and
exceeding sharp. He treated his flesh with great severity, by the same
motive which obliged St Paul, the apostle, to chastise his body, and to
reduce it into servitude, lest, having preached to other men, he might
himself become a reprobate.

At sea, the ship tackling served him for a bed; on land, a mat, or the
earth itself. He eat so little, that one of his companions assures us,
that, without a miracle, he could not have lived. Another tells us, that
he seldom or never drank wine, unless at the tables of the Portuguese;
for there he avoided singularity, and took what was given him. But,
afterwards, he revenged himself on one of those repasts, by an abstinence
of many days.

When he was at Cape Comorine, the viceroy; Don Alphonso de Sosa, sent him
two barrels of excellent wine. He did not once taste of it, though he
was then brought very low, through the labours of his ministry, but
distributed the whole amongst the poor.

His ordinary nourishment, in the Indies, was rice boiled in water, or
some little piece of salt fish; but during the two years and a half of
his residence in Japan, he totally abstained from fish, for the better
edification of that people; and wrote to the Fathers at Rome, "that he
would rather choose to die of hunger, than to give any man the least
occasion of scandal." He also says, "I count it for a signal favour, that
God has brought me into a country destitute of all the comforts of life,
and where, if I were so ill disposed, it would be impossible for me to
pamper up my body with delicious fare." He perpetually travelled, by
land, on foot, even in Japan, where the ways are asperous, and almost
impassible; and often walked, with naked feet, in the greatest severity
of winter.

"The hardships of so long a navigation," says he, "so long a sojourning
amongst the Gentiles, in a country parched up with excessive heats, all
these incommodities being suffered, as they ought to be, for the sake of
Christ, are truly an abundant source of consolations: for myself, I am
verily persuaded, that they, who love the cross of Jesus Christ, live
happy in the midst of sufferings; and that it is a death, when they have
no opportunities to suffer. For, can there be a more cruel death, than to
live without Jesus Christ, after once we have tasted of him? Is any thing
more hard, than to abandon him, that we may satisfy our own inclinations?
Believe me, there is no o