On the contrary, we find his own statements as to his
personal limitations, and the difficulties arising from them,
fully confirmed by his brother workers. It is interesting, for
example, in view of the claim afterward made that the saint was
divinely endowed for his mission with the "gift of tongues," to
note in these letters confirmation of Xavier's own statement
utterly disproving the existence of any such Divine gift, and
detailing the difficulties which he encountered from his want of
knowing various languages, and the hard labour which he underwent
in learning the elements of the Japanese tongue.
Until about ten years after Xavier's death, then, as Emanuel
Acosta's publication shows, the letters of the missionaries
continued without any indication of miracles performed by the
saint. Though, as we shall see presently, abundant legends had
already begun to grow elsewhere, not one word regarding these
miracles came as yet from the country which, according to later
accounts accepted and sanctioned by the Church, was at this very
period filled with miracles; not the slightest indication of them
from the men who were supposed to be in the very thick of these
miraculous manifestations.
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