the conversation expressed great
surprise that Xavier should have come all the way from Portugal to preach
to the Japanese.

The biographers of Xavier have given us the fullest details of his life
and works. That he was a man of the most fervent piety as well as the most
conspicuous ability, is apparent from the energy and success with which he
conducted his short but brilliant mission. Both in their accounts of him,
as well as in the papal bull announcing his canonization, the claim is
distinctly set forth of his possession of miraculous power. He is
represented as having raised a Japanese girl from the dead; as possessing
the gift of tongues, that is, as being able to speak in fluent Japanese,
although he had not learned the language; as having given an answer which
when heard was a satisfactory reply to the most various and different
questions,(148) such as, "the immortality of the soul, the motions of the
heavens, the eclipses of the sun and moon, the colors of the rainbow, sin
and grace, heaven and hell."

[Illustration]

St. Francis Xavier.

Yet it must be stated that Xavier himself does not claim these miraculous
powers. Indeed among the letters published by Father Horace Tursellini is
one in which he thus speaks of himself: "God grant that as soon as
possible we may learn the language of Japan in order to make known the
divine mysteries; then we shall zealously prosecute our Christian work.
For they speak and discourse much about us, but we are silent, ignorant of
the language of the country. At present we are become a child again to
learn the elements of the language."

The desire for trade with the Portuguese seems to have been a principal
reason for the ready reception of the missionaries. And when the
Portuguese merchant ships resorted to Hirado, an island off the west coast
of Kyushu, instead of the less accessible Kagoshima, the Prince of
Kagoshima turned against the missionaries and forbade them from preaching
and proselyting. From Kagoshima Xavier went to Hirado, where he was
received with a salvo of artillery from a Portuguese vessel then at anchor
there. Here he made a short stay, preaching the gospel as usual and with
the approval of the prince establishing a church. Leaving Kosme de Torres
at Hirado and taking with him Fernandez and the two Japanese assistants he
touched at Hakata, famous as the place where the Mongol invaders were
repu