“Sometimes I can hardly use my arms after baptising entire villages, and I lose my voice completely with all the preaching." So wrote Francis Xavier, one of the most remarkable soul-winners in the history of Christianity. Article by Trevor Saxby.

FRANCIS XAVIER was born in a castle in 1506, son of a Spanish aristocrat. As a boy he already showed the passion and courage which would mark his later years. He was also deeply spiritual. At university in Paris, he met Ignatius Loyola, who was planning to found a new missionary movement in the Roman Catholic Church. Xavier encouraged him and in 1534 was one of seven men who made a pledge of lifelong loyalty and service to Christ - a covenant which they kept to death.

Xavier was ordained by Loyola. He had always been excited by stories of the Indies. His heart burned to take Jesus to lands where He was hardly known, so he volunteered for service in India. In 1541 he left Europe, never to return. He would only have 11 years before his early death, but in that time he and his team planted churches in India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan, and led (by some estimates) almost a million souls to Christ.

On arrival at Goa he found Europeans living lives that disgraced Christianity, and locals hungry for truth. He plunged into the work. He rebuked godless Western merchants and got the bishop to pass orders restraining their activities. He visited hospitals and prayed for the sick.

One of his most successful methods was to begin a children's work, teaching them about Jesus. "Give me the children until they are seven," he used to say, "and anyone may have them afterwards." He knew that by then children could give their heart to Jesus for life. Many adults were won to the faith when they saw the new joy and love for God in their children.

What contributed to Xavier's amazing fruitfulness? First, a lot of tough work and hardships. In his letters we read of months spent learning languages; of frequent tropical fevers; of dangers from pirates and bandits; and of journeys through waist-high snow, his bare feet leaving trails of blood. Always his followers could hear him praying for souls and for the building up of churches.

Alongside this, Xavier was a man of power in the Holy Spirit. He burned with love for Jesus. Sometimes he appeared to "drift off" in a trance; he had visions of Jesus. He had an accurate prophetic gift, foreseeing storms, dangers and political events. He spoke in tongues, and on a few occasions actually preached in a language he had never learned.

Most of all, Xavier moved in miraculous power gifts. Many demons were cast out. In Malaysia he prayed for a girl who had been dead for two days, and she was restored to life. Other raisings of the dead took place when he and his team prayed. There are hundreds of recorded healings from blindness, deafness, ulcerated limbs and tropical fevers.

This power opened people's hearts wide to the gospel. Xavier wrote to Loyola of his heartache that the harvest of souls was immense but that European Christians were too fearful or self-satisfied to come and help reap it. "Again and again I have thought of going around the universities of Europe and crying out: 'What a tragedy! How many souls are being shut out of heaven, thanks to you!'"

Finally, worn out by fevers and his many labours, Francis Xavier died, aged 46, while awaiting permission to enter China. His body was not transported home to rest in some ornate cathedral. It was buried simply in his beloved Goa, among the people he had won for Jesus.

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