This work shows
a vast increase in the number of miracles over those given by all
sources together up to that time. Xavier is represented as not
only curing the sick, but casting out devils, stilling the
tempest, raising the dead, and performing miracles of every sort.
In 1622 came the canonization proceedings at Rome. Among the
speeches made in the presence of Pope Gregory XV, supporting the
claims of Xavier to saintship, the most important was by Cardinal
Monte. In this the orator selects out ten great miracles from
those performed by Xavier during his lifetime and describes them
minutely. He insists that on a certain occasion Xavier, by the
sign of the cross, made sea-water fresh, so that his
fellow-passengers and the crew could drink it; that he healed the
sick and raised the dead in various places; brought back a lost
boat to his ship; was on one occasion lifted from the earth
bodily and transfigured before the bystanders; and that, to
punish a blaspheming town, he caused an earthquake and buried the
offenders in cinders from a volcano: this was afterward still
more highly developed, and the saint was represented in engravings
as calling down fire from heaven and thus destroying the town.
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