The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

www.freecatholicebooks.com
into Tonquin as a merchant; but this would have been a lie, and he would
not suffer any other to give in such an answer for him. Father Matthew,
a priest of the same order, after having preached ten years in Tonquin,
was seized while he was saying mass; and because he refused to trample
on a crucifix, was condemned to die in 1743; and in May, 1744, was
brought into the same prison with F. Gil. The idolaters were so
astonished to see their ardor to die, and the sorrow of the latter upon
an offer of his life, that they cried out: "Others desire to live, but
{365} these men to die." They were both beheaded together on the 22d of
January, 1744. See Touron, t. 6, and Lettres Edif. of Curieuses des
Missionaires.
Many other vast countries, both in the eastern and western parts of the
world, received the light of the gospel in the sixteenth century; in
which great work several apostolic men were raised by God, and some were
honored with the crown of martyrdom. Among the zealous missionaries who
converted to the faith the savage inhabitants of Brazil, in America, of
which the Portuguese took possession in 1500, under king John II., F.
Joseph Anchieta is highly celebrated. He was a native of the Canary
islands, but took the Jesuit's habit at Coimbra; died in Brazil, on the
9th of June, 1597, of his age sixty-four; having labored in cultivating
that vineyard forty-seven years. He was a man of apostolic humility,
patience, meekness, prayer, zeal, and charity. The fruit of his labors
was not less wonderful than the example of his virtues. See his life by
F. Peter Roterigius, and by F. Sebastian Beretarius. The sanctity of the
venerable F. Peter Claver, who labored in the same vineyard, was so
heroic, that a process has been commenced for his canonization.
F. Peter Claver was nobly born in Catalonia, and entered himself in the
Society at Tarragon, in 1602, when about twenty years old. From his
infancy he looked upon nothing small in which the service of God was
concerned; for the least action or circumstance which is referred to his
honor is great and precious, and requires our utmost application: in
this spirit of fervor he considered God in every neighbor and superior;
and upon motives of religion was humble and meek towards all, and ever
ready to obey and serve every one. From the time of his religious
profession, he applied himself with the greatest ardor to seek nothing
in the world, but what Jesus Christ sought in his mortal life, that is,
the kingdom of his grace: for the only aim of this servant of God was,
the sanctification of his own soul, and the salvation of others. He was
thoroughly instructed that a man's spiritual progress depends very much
upon the fervor of his beginning; and he omitted nothing both to lay a
solid foundation, and continually to raise upon it the structure of all
virtues; and he sought and found God in all things. The progress which
he made was very great, because he set out by the most perfect exterior
and interior renunciation of the world and himself. Being sent to