Introduction

Look at the apostolic life and labours of St. Francis Xavier!—is frequently uttered as a taunt against Protestant Missionaries by Romanist writers, and is too often echoed by Protestant authors of repute.

But where shall we obtain any certain knowledge of the life and labours of Xavier? Shall we turn to his biographies? The earliest of these was a short sketch of Xavier's life and labours, drawn up by Emmanuel Acosta, a Jesuit Father, out of the notices which had been given in “Letters from India.” This narrative was published by Maffeus in his volume of the letters and acts of the Jesuits in the East, 1573.

Tursellinus, a Jesuit Father, who had no personal knowledge of India, wrote a life of Xavier in Latin, in 1596, forty-four years after Xavier's death. In 1682, a French Jesuit, Father Bohours, wrote a life in French, of which James Dryden, the brother of the poet, gave an English translation. These are the most celebrated biographies of Xavier. But if any one tolerably acquainted with the subject will apply to these works the usual tests of credibility, he will soon detect such irreconcilable contradictions between Xavier's own letters and the assertions of his biographers, together with such loose statements, and so many geographical mistakes as to destroy all confidence in the competency or the historical fidelity of the authors.

There is, however, one existing portrait bearing throughout an evident stamp of truthfulness, and enlivened with such vivid colouring, that it is impossible to contemplate it without a satisfactory conviction that we see the very man, and are made acquainted with the main facts of his history.