le ages, but has been
practised in modern times, as is evident from the two following miracles
ascribed to the celebrated Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, who died in 1552.
It is said that during his residence in Japan a woman of his acquaintance
lost her daughter, after having sought in vain during her illness for St
Francis, who was absent on some journey. At his return the bereaved mother
fell at his feet, and said, weeping, like Martha to our Saviour, "Lord, if
thou hadst been here, my daughter had not died,"--(John xi. 21.) The saint,
moved by the entreaties of the mother, ordered her to open the grave of
her daughter, and restored her to life. Another time the same saint said
to a father whose daughter had died, in the same manner as Jesus Christ
said to the centurion whose servant was sick, "Go thy way; thy daughter is
healed."(73)

Had these miracles been performed in our part of the world, they would
have converted crowds of Protestants, and thus greatly advanced the
principal object of the order to which St Francis Xavier belonged; but the
air of Europe seems to have been unfavourable for such wonderful
experiments, since the good saint was obliged to betake himself to Japan
in order successfully to perform them.

It is true that the legend writers make no attempt at concealing these
imitations, but, on the contrary, insist upon the likeness of the miracles
performed by their saint to those of our Saviour, as a proof of the high
degree of sanctity attained by the former. No saint, however, of the Roman
Catholic or Graeco-Russian calendar had so many miracles ascribed to him,
particularly of the kind mentioned above, as St Francis of Assisi, the
celebrated founder of the mendicant monks, and who, considering the
immense influence which his disciples have exercised on the Catholic
world, was perhaps one of the most extraordinary characters which the
middle ages produced.

It has been frequently observed, that genius is akin to madness, and that
the partition by which the two are separated is so thin that it
occasionally becomes quite imperceptible. Such a condition of the human
mind has perhaps never been exemplified in a more striking manner than by
the life of this famous saint, which presents a strange mixture of the
noblest acts of charity and self-devotion, the wildest freaks of a madman,
and of genial conceptions worthy of the most eminent statesman and
philosopher. The best proof of his genius is the great