d broken the commerce of the Levant, and stopt the
passage to the Holy Land; insomuch, that the ship of the pilgrims of
Jerusalem went not out that year, according to the former custom.

This disappointment wonderfully afflicted Xavier; and the more, because
he not only lost the hope of seeing those places which had been
consecrated by the presence and the blood of Jesus Christ, but was
also bereft of an occasion of dying for his divine Master. Yet he
comforted himself in reflecting on the method of God's providence; and at
the same time, not to be wanting in his duty to his neighbour, he
disposed himself to receive the orders of priesthood, and did receive
them with those considerations of awful dread, and holy confusion, which
are not easy to be expressed.

The town appeared to him an improper place for his preparation, in order
to his first mass. He sought out a solitary place, where, being separated
from the communication of man, he might enjoy the privacies of God. He
found this convenience of a retirement near Monteselice, not far from
Padua: it was a miserable thatched cottage, forsaken of inhabitants, and
out of all manner of repair. Thus accommodated, he passed forty days,
exposed to the injuries of the air, lying on the cold hard ground,
rigidly disciplining his body, fasting all the day, and sustaining nature
only with a little pittance of bread, which he begged about the
neighbourhood; but tasting all the while the sweets of paradise, in
contemplating the eternal truths of faith. As his cabin did not unfitly
represent to him the stable of Bethlehem, so he proposed to himself
frequently the extreme poverty of the infant Jesus, as the pattern of his
own; and said within himself, that, since the Saviour of mankind had
chosen to be in want of all things, they who laboured after him for the
salvation of souls, were obliged, by his example, to possess nothing in
this world.

How pleasing soever this loneliness were to him, yet, his forty days
being now expired, he left it, to instruct the villages and
neighbour-towns, and principally Monteselice, where the people were
grossly ignorant, and knew little of the duties of Christianity.

The servant of God made daily exhortations to them, and his penitent
aspect gave authority to all his words; insomuch, that only looking on
his face, none could doubt but he was come from the wilderness to
instruct them in the way to heaven. He employed himself during the space
of