IX

FRANCIS XAVIER’S TEXT

It is one of the most stirring dramas of the faith — a drama in three acts.

I

Scene: ’Neath the Shadow of the Pyrenees.

   He is a gay young cavalier. It is the golden age of Spanish story. Ferdinand and Isabella have brought the whole world to their feet. Castile speaks; the peoples tremble; no dog dares bark. Spain is mistress of mart and of main. Columbus has just added a new hemisphere to her wide dominions. The atmosphere of Europe is trilling with music and tingling with sensation. And, in the very year in which the discoverer of America died, our cavalier is born. His home — a splendid palace — adorns the pine-clad slopes of the stately Pyrenees. Its turrets seem to point proudly to the snow-clad heights that glitter gloriously above. He was cradled in the lap of luxury. He caught the spirit of the romantic period, and flung himself with a will into its revelries and chivalries. Life becomes a frolic to him. He is a champion in every tussle for the trophies of the field; he is first in every contest for the laurels of the schools. In running and in fencing, in singing and in dancing, he is without a rival. The chalice of life sparkles as he lifts it to his lips, and his eyes gleam as he quaffs the intoxicating cup. In camp, in castle and in court none are more admired, more applauded, more beloved. He is the darling of society. And so, amid scenes of splendour and of gaiety, denied nothing that can minister to his vanity or increase his delight, five-and-thirty years whirl themselves merrily away.

II

Scene: By the Banks of the Seine.

   He is in Paris. Even now, in the early part of the sixteenth century, it is a centre of gaiety. He is in his thirty-sixth year. His enthusiasm for pleasure has yielded somewhat to his thirst for knowledge, and his love of learning has begotten a laudable desire to teach. He is lecturing; and among his hearers a strange, ungainly figure hovers in the background. This student of his is a man of fifty, but looks older still. His name is Ignatius Loyola. He is bent and broken, and is pitifully lame. But the fire of a holy enthusiasm burns in his eye. He has marked the brilliant young teacher for his own, and is determined to win him. He makes friends. After each utterance he congratulates the lecturer, and adds significantly: ‘But what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

The whole world! His own soul!
To gain the world! To lose his soul!
‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’

   He lounges with the lecturer in the solitude of the study, he accompanies him in his evening walks along the banks of the Seine; they explore together the dense woodlands which occupy the site of future Parisian suburbs. But whether in springtide rambles among the lilies and the daffodils, or in riverside strolls by sunset, or in halls of feasting and music and pleasure, or in silent study, or in the stately academy, the strange student asks, and repeats, and asks again one incessant question:

‘But what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
The whole world! His own soul!
To gain the world! To lose his soul!
‘But what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’

   A hundred times, as he painfully hobbles along beside his brilliant young master, the deformed pupil reiterates his unanswerable query. And at last, the master mind capitulates to the pitiless and resistless logic of that immortal question. The great professor becomes the lowliest of penitents. Student and lecturer kneel side by side, and, in a tempest of tears, the young lecturer dedicates all that is left of life to that Saviour into whose awful presence his student has ushered him. The lecturer has learned more from his listener than he could ever have imparted.

III

Scene: On the Seashore of Siam.

   He is a monk. His face is drawn with suffering. Fasts and vigils have left their mark. But, great as are the tortures of his body, the anguish of his mind is greater still. Having himself heard the Story of the Cross, a new idea haunts and possesses him. He is horrified by the fearful reflection that the nations sit in darkness and know not the light which has irradiated him. Not a moment must be lost! Thousands are dropping daily into Christless graves! It is an alarming and terrifying discovery!

   He will set out at once, and the peoples shall hear from his own lips the story of redeeming love! There are no trains or coaches. He will tramp through the world till his limbs are swollen and his nerves are numb. He sets out. He visits India, and hastening from province to province, picks up the languages as he goes along by happy intercourse with little children. He stands one day amidst the dazzling splendour of an Oriental palace; on the next, he pays court to a rajah and his native staff; on the third he moves amongst the filthy huts of the fisher-folk of Malabar, But every day, and everywhere, he tells with agony and tears, his strange and wondrous tale. Ridiculed, stoned and persecuted, he presses tirelessly on, always uplifting the Cross with his right hand, and with his left, ringing the bell that summons the people to attend. Having made converts, and planted churches, he loses not an hour, but hurries off in search of fresh fields to add to his Divine conquest. He labours for twenty-one hours out of every twenty-four. In the course of ten short years he learns and preaches in twenty different languages. Now he begs a passage in a troopship, and anon he sails with idolatrous pirates and blasphemous corsairs. He tumbles about the oceans in vessels that would not now be permitted to navigate a river. And at sea, as on land, the passion of his sacred purpose consumes him still. He haunts the forecastle, pleading, one by one, with every soldier and sailor on the troopship. He proclaims to robbers and to slaves the glowing words of life eternal. Across burning deserts and over snowy ranges he threads his fearless way. The fierce blaze of equatorial suns, and the piercing cold of slippery mountain glaciers, alike fail to baffle or deter him. He throws himself into scenes of battle and of carnage that he may strive for the souls of the wounded and the dying. Whilst the very earth rocks beneath his feet, he stands on the shuddering slopes of blazing volcanoes that, amidst scenes of exquisite and majestic horror, he may urge the panic-stricken natives to flee from the wrath to come. He visits leper settlements, and, with all the tenderness of a woman, nurses hideous human wrecks the very sight of whom would sicken a less intrepid spirit. He boards ships whose crews are perishing of loathsome pestilence, and, unafraid of contracting their disgusting maladies, he ministers to the diseased, and kneels beside the prostrate forms of the dying. He comes like a ghost upon wild, untutored inland tribes; he bursts into the island territories of fierce and untamed cannibals. He invades the secret lair of the bandit, and penetrates to the lonely tent of the Bedouin. He passes spectrally from shore to shore. He startles armies on the march, and arrests the progress of the journeying caravan. His limbs are often paralysed with fatigue. He tramps across continents until, from sheer exhaustion, he drops upon the hard and inhospitable soil; and then, having rested for an hour, he rises and staggers on again. He dares death in every form; he shakes hands with every ailment and disease ; he endures all the pangs of hunger and all the horrors of thirst; he suffers desolating shipwreck and bitter persecution. He can rejoice in any privation if he may but uplift the Cross on every shore, and preach the gospel to every creature. And it is always observed that, on whatever coast he lands, and in whatever language he preaches, whether he addresses the nabobs of Mysore or the Mikado of Japan, whether he speaks on the deck of a pirate or in the hovel of a slave, he echoes endlessly one everlasting question:

‘But what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’
The whole world! His own soul!
To gain the world! To lose his soul!
‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’

   At last, absolutely worn out after ten short strenuous years, at the age of forty-five, he lays his wasted, worn, emaciated frame upon the sea-beach of Siam, and, unnursed and untended, resigns his soul to God. He dies, as he lived, with a smile upon his face. His winsomeness was as wonderful as ‘his daring. Little children simply revelled in his company. His life is the most stinging rebuke that history has ever administered to apathy. His record is a stimulus to every church, and a challenge to every age. It must quicken the’ blood, and fire the fervour, of good men till his great Master come. It will accelerate the triumphant progress of all noble enterprises till time shall be no more.

   And the rest of the acts of Francis Xavier, and all that he did, and the things that he suffered, and the peoples that he reached, and the churches that he planted, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of Christendom?

F. W. Boreham