But on the same page with this tribute to the great
missionary Acosta goes on to discuss the reasons why progress in
the world's conversion is not so rapid as in the early apostolic
times, and says that an especial cause why apostolic preaching
could no longer produce apostolic results "lies in the
missionaries themselves, because there is now no power of
working miracles." He then asks, "Why should our age be so
completely destitute of them?" This question he answers at great
length, and one of his main contentions is that in early
apostolic times illiterate men had to convert the learned of the
world, whereas in modern times the case is reversed, learned men
being sent to convert the illiterate; and hence that "in the
early times miracles were necessary, but in our time they are not."
This statement and argument refer, as we have seen, directly
to Xavier by name, and to the period covered by his activity and
that of the other great missionaries of his time. That the Jesuit
order and the Church at large thought this work of Acosta
trustworthy is proved by the fact that it was published at
Salamanca a few years after it was written, and republished
afterward with ecclesiastical sanction in France.
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