8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Acosta, De Quadros, and others, the story wavers between one and 

 two cases ; finally, in the time of Tursellinus, four cases had been 

 developed. In 1622, at the canonization proceedings, three were 

 mentioned ; but, by the time of Father Bouhours, there were 

 twenty-five. 



It seems to have been felt as somewhat strange at first that 

 Xavier had never alluded to any of these wonderful miracles ; but 

 ere long a subsidiary legend was developed, to the effect that one 

 of the brethren asked him one day if he had raised the dead, 

 whereat he blushed deeply and cried out against the idea, saying : 

 " And so I am said to have raised the dead ! "What a misleading 

 man I am ! Some men brought a youth to me just as if he were 

 dead, who, when I commanded him to arise in the name of Christ, 

 straightway arose." 



Noteworthy is the evolution of other miracles : Tursellinus, 

 writing in 1594, tells us that on the voyage from Goa to Malacca, 

 Xavier having left the ship and gone upon an island, was after- 

 ward found by the persons sent in search of him so deeply 

 absorbed in prayer as to be unmindful of all things about him. 

 But in the next century Father Bouhours develops the story 

 as follows : " The servants found the man of God raised from the 

 ground into the air, his eyes fixed upon heaven, and rays of light 

 about his countenance." 



Instructive, also, is a comparison between the accounts of his 

 great miracle among the Badages at Travancore in 1544. In 

 Xavier's letters he makes no reference to anything extraordinary ; 

 but Acosta, in 1573, declares that "Xavier threw himself into the 

 midst of the Christians, that reverencing him they might spare 

 the rest." The inevitable evolution of this matter goes on ; and 

 after twenty years Tursellinus tells us that at the onslaught of 

 the Badages, " they could not endure the majesty of his counte- 

 nance and the splendor and rays which issued from his eyes, and 

 out of reverence for him they spared the others." The process of 

 incubation still goes on during ninety years more, and then we 

 have Bouhours's account : having given Xavier's prayer on the 

 battle-field, Bouhours goes on to say that the saint, crucifix in 

 hand, rushed at the head of the people toward the plain where 

 the enemy was marching, and " said to them in a threatening 

 voice, ' I forbid you in the name of the living God to advance 

 further, and on his part command you to return in the way you 

 came/ These few words cast a terror into the minds of those 

 soldiers who were at the head of the army ; they remained, con- 

 founded and without motion. They who marched afterward, see- 

 ing that the foremost did not advance, asked the reason of it ; the 

 answer was returned from the front ranks that they had before 

 their eyes an unknown person habited in black, of more than 



