The next year, being four years after Xavier's death,
King John III of Portugal, a very devout man, directed his
viceroy Barreto to draw up and transmit to him an authentic
account of Xavier's miracles, urging him especially to do the
work "with zeal and speedily." We can well imagine what treasures
of grace an obsequious viceroy, only too anxious to please a
devout king, could bring together by means of the hearsay of
ignorant, compliant natives through all the little towns of
Portuguese India.
But the letters of the missionaries who had been co-workers
or immediate successors of Xavier in his Eastern field were still
silent as regards any miracles by him, and they remained silent
for nearly ten years. In the collection of letters published by
Emanuel Acosta and others no hint at any miracles by him is
given, until at last, in 1562, fully ten years after Xavier's
death, the first faint beginnings of these legends appear in them.
At that time the Jesuit Almeida, writing at great length to
the brethren, stated that he had found a pious woman who believed
that a book left behind by Xavier had healed sick folk when it
was laid upon them, and that he had met an old man who preserved
a whip left by the saint which, when properly applied to the sick,
had been found good both for their bodies and their souls.
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