Chapter XVII: Book V (5)

The other prince, whose conversion gave so much joy to Father Xavier, was the king of Trichenamalo, who is one of the sovereigns of Ceylon This king, while he was yet an infant, was set upon the throne, and afterwards dispossessed by an usurper, when he was but eight years old. The tyrant, not content to have taken the crown from him, would also have murdered him, but was prevented by a prince of the blood-royal, who carried him out of his reach, being accompanied by forty lords of the loyal party, and sought sanctuary for him on the coasts of Fishery. The Paravas received him with all the charitable compassion which was due to his illustrious birth, to the tenderness of his years, and to his misfortunes; they also promised his attendants to serve him what was in their power; but, at the same time, advised them, to procure him a more durable and more glorious crown; and withal informed them of what they had been taught, concerning the adoption of the sons of God, the kingdom of heaven, and inheritance of the saints. Whether those considerations prevailed upon the prince of the blood-royal, or that the spirit of God wrought powerfully on his heart, lie consented to what the Paravas desired, and put himself into the hands of Father Henriquez to be instructed. The rest of the lords followed his example, and were all baptised together with the king, who seemed at his baptism to have an understanding much above his years. The rulers of the Christians on the fishing coast having afterwards made up an army, supplied with what ammunitions of war, and other provisions which the country could furnish, passed over into the Isle of Ceylon, under the conduct of the prince and the forty lords; but the usurper was so well established in his possession, that the Paravas were forced to retire with speed into their own country. As for the young king, he was brought to Goa; and the Portuguese, who took the conduct of him into their hands, put him into the college of St Paul, where he was virtuously educated by the Fathers of the Society. Xavier praised Almighty God to see the great men of the earth subjected to the empire of Jesus Christ, by the ministry of the children of Ignatius; and rejoiced with his brethren so much the more, because the bishop of Goa, Don Juan de Albuquerque, was so well satisfied of their conduct.

This wise and holy prelate communicated to the Father a letter, which he had written on that subject during his absence to the general of the Society. The letter was in Portuguese, dated from Cochin, November 28, in the year 1550, and is thus translated into our language: "The great performances of your children and subjects, in all the dominions of the East; the holiness of their lives, the purity of their doctrine, their zeal in labouring the reformation of the Portuguese, by the ministry of God's word, and the sacrament of penance; their unwearied travels through all the kingdoms of India, for the conversion of idolaters and Moors; their continual application to study the tongues of this new world, and to teach the mysteries of faith, and principally at the Cape of Comorin,--all this obliges me to write to your reverence, and to give testimony of what I have beheld with my own eyes. Indeed the fathers of your Society are admirable labourers in our Lord's vineyard; and are so faithfully subservient to the bishops, that their endeavours for the good of those souls with which I am intrusted, give me hope of remaining the fewer years in purgatory. I dare not undertake the relation of all their particular actions; and if I durst adventure it, want time for the performance of it: I will only tell you, that they are here like torches lighted up, to dissipate the thick darkness wherein these barbarous people were benighted; and that already, by their means, many nations of infidels believe one God in three persons: for what remains, I freely grant them all they require of me for the good of souls. Every one of them partakes with me in my power and authority, without appropriating any of it to myself: and I look upon myself as one of the members of that holy body, though my life arises not to their perfection. In one word, I love them all in Jesus Christ, with a fervent and sincere charity."

The rest of the letter is nothing appertaining to our purpose, and therefore is omitted.

The man of God received intelligence, at the same time, that the ministers of Portugal at Goa had sent word to Lisbon of the great progress which the Society had made; and that, in particular, the new viceroy, Don Antonio de Norogna, had written, that the Indies were infinitely satisfied with the Jesuits; that none could look on the good effects of their labours without blessing the name of God for them; and that their lives were correspondent to their calling. The saint also was informed, that the king of Portugal had sent word of all these proceedings to the Pope; especially the conversion of the king of Tanor, and the martyrdom of Father Antonio Criminal: That he had communicated to his Holiness his intentions of founding many colleges for the Society, to the end the East might be filled with apostolical labourers; and that, in the mean time, he had ordained, that all the seminaries established in the Indies, for the education of youth, should be put into the hands of the Society, in case it was not already done: Lastly, it was told to Father Xavier, that the viceroy of the Indies, and the captains of the fortresses, had orders from King John III. to defray the charges of the missioners in all their voyages; and that this most religious prince had discharged his conscience of the care of souls, by imposing it on the Society; obliging the Fathers, in his stead, to provide for the instruction of the infidels, according to the ancient agreement which had been made with the Holy See, when the conquests of the East were granted to the crown of Portugal.

Amidst so many occasions of joy and satisfaction, the ill conduct of Antonio Gomez gave Xavier an exceeding cause of grief. Before his voyage to Japan, he had constituted him rector of the college of St Paul, according to the intention, or rather by the order, of Father Simon Rodriguez, who had sent him to the Indies three years after his noviciate; and who, in relation to these missions, had an absolute authority, as being provincial of Portugal, on which the Indies have their dependence. Gomez was master of many eminent qualities which rarely meet in the same person: He was not only a great philosopher, divine, and canonist, but also an admirable preacher, and as well conversant as any man in the management of affairs; and, besides all this, was kindled with a most fervent zeal for the conversion of souls; always prompt to labour in the most painful employments, and always indefatigable in labour: but wonderfully self-opinioned; never guided by any judgment but his own, and acting rather by the vivacity of his own impetuous fancy, than by the directions of the Holy Spirit, or the rules of right reason. As he was of a confirmed age at his entrance into the Society, so he had not soon enough endeavoured to get the mastery of those headstrong passions which ran away with his understanding. And when he had once taken upon him the charge of rector, he began to govern by the dictates of his own capricious humour, even before the face of Xavier, ere he departed from the Indies for Japan; and the Father, who easily perceived that the government of Gomez was not in the least conformable to the spirit of their Institute, would at that time have withdrawn him from Goa, and sent him to Ormuz: but the viceroy, to whom Gomez had been powerfully recommended by one of the chief ministers of Portugal, would not suffer him to be transplanted, or that his authority should be taken from him: so that all Xavier could do, was to temper and draw off from his jurisdiction, by establishing Father Paul de Camerine superior-general of all the missions of the Indies.

But when once the saint was departed from Goa, Gomez usurped the whole government; alleging, for his own justification, that Father Rodriguez had given him an absolute power; and that Camerine was a poor honest creature, more fit to visit the prisons and hospitals of Goa, than to manage the missions, and govern the colleges, of the Society. He began with prescribing new rules to his inferiors; and declared to them, in express terms, that they must return into their mothers' wombs, that they might be born again into a spiritual life, and transformed into other men. Not that they had any need of reformation, they who were themselves the models of a perfect life; but the business was, that he had brought with him out of Europe, I know not what contrivance of new living, framed according to his own fanciful speculations. He undertook then to change their domestic discipline, and to regulate the studies of the Jesuits by the model of the university of Paris, where he had been a student in his youth. There was nothing but change and innovation every day; and he exercised his power with such haughtiness and magisterial hardness, that it appeared more like the dictates of an absolute monarchy, than the injunction of a religious superior: For, to make himself obeyed and feared, he went so far as to tell them he had received an unlimited power from Father Simon Rodriguez, in virtue of which he could imprison, or remand into Portugal, any person who should presume to oppose his government.

His conduct was not less irregular in respect of the young men who were educated in the seminary, of whom the greatest part were Indians. Though they were yet but novices in the faith, and scarcely to be accounted Christians, he enjoined them the practices of the most perfect interior life, which they could not possibly understand; and as they could not acquit themselves of those exercises, which were too sublime for them, he failed not to punish them severely. From thence arose murmurs and combinations, and even despair began to seize on those young ill-treated Indians; and from thence also it came to pass, that many of them, not able to endure so violent a government, leapt over the walls by night, and fled from out the college. Gomez, who could not bear the least contradiction, upon this became more assuming and fantastical; so that one day he turned out all the remaining scholars of the seminary, as if they had been incapable of discipline, and, receiving into their places seven and-twenty Portuguese, who desired to be of the Society, without having any tincture of human learning, he changed the seminary into a noviciate. As he had gained an absolute ascendant over the mind of George Cabral, at that time viceroy of the Indies, no man durst oppose his mad enterprizes, not so much as the Bishop Don Juan d'Albuquerque, who was unwilling to displease the viceroy, and feared to increase the distemper by endeavouring to cure it. Neither was the rector so confined to Goa, that he made not frequent sallies into the country; whether his natural activity would not suffer him to take repose, or that his zeal required a larger sphere; or that, in fine, he looked upon himself as superior general of the missions, and therefore thought it incumbent on him to have an inspection into all affairs, and to do every thing himself.

The town of Cochin being willing to found a college for the Society, he went thither to receive the offer; but he spoiled a good business by ill management. The captain of the fortress immediately gave him a church, called the Mother of God, against the will of the vicar of Cochin, and in despite of a certain brotherhood to which that church belonged. The donation being disputed in law, Gomez, who had it still about him to make a false step, that is, having much _opiniatrete_, great credit, good intentions, took upon him to stand the suit, and to get the church upon any terms. This violent procedure exasperated the people, who had been hitherto much edified by the charily of the Fathers; and the public indignation went so high, that they wrote letters of complaint concerning it to the King of Portugal and Father Ignatius.

This was the present face of things when Xavier returned from Japan; and it was partly upon this occasion that the letters which he received at Amanguchi so earnestly pressed his coming back. His first endeavours were to repair the faults committed by the rector; and he began with the business of Cochin: for, in his passage by it, at his return, knowing the violence of Gomez, he assembled in the choir of the cathedral the magistrate of the town, with all the fraternity of the mother of God, and, in the presence of the vicar, falling on his knees before them, he desired their pardon for what had passed, presented to them the keys of the church, which was the cause of the dispute, and yielded it entirely to them. But submission sometimes gains that, which haughty carriage goes without: The fraternity restored the keys into the hands of Xavier, and, of their own free motion, made an authentic deed of gift of their church to the college of the Society. As for what relates to Goa, the saint dismissed those Portuguese whom Gomez had received into the Society; and, having gathered up as many as he could find of those young Indians, who had either been expelled, or were gone out of the college of their own accord, he re-established the seminary, whose dissolution was so prejudicial to the Christianity of the Indies.

It was only remaining to chastise the criminal, who had made such evil use of his authority. Xavier would make an example of him; and so much the rather, because, having told him what punishment his faults had merited, he found him standing on his terms, insolent, and with no disposition to submit. He judged, upon the whole, that a man who was neither humble nor obedient, after such scandalous misdemeanours, was unworthy of the Society of Jesus; which notwithstanding, he was not willing to pull off his habit at Goa, for fear his departure might make too great a noise; but having made the viceroy sensible of the justice of his proceeding, he sent him to the fortress of Diu, towards Cambaya, with orders to the Fathers residing there to give him his dismission, and to use all manner of persuasions with him that he would return into Portugal, by the opportunity of the first ship which went away. All was performed according to the intentions of the holy man. But Gomez embarking on a vessel which was wrecked in the midst of the voyage, was unfortunately drowned; giving us to understand, by so tragical an end, that the talents of nature, and even the gifts of grace itself, serve only to the destruction of a man in religious orders, who is not endued with the spirit of humility and obedience.

THE LIFE OF ST FRANCIS XAVIER.