CHAPTER VIII - XAVIER'S ATTEMPT TO REACH CHINA—DEATH AND CHARACTER

Summary

Xavier's voyage to China, and Death

Xavier first conceived the idea, during his residence in Japan, of opening a Mission in China. Having failed, as we have seen, to acquire the Japanese language, he felt, as he tells us, that he could be more useful as a pioneer in a new field, than by remaining in Japan. Besides which, he found that the respect of the Japanese for China was so great, that, if China could be gained, Japan would follow. The Japanese regarded China as the fountain of their arts and of their literature. Xavier incidentally mentions various other circumstances which increased his desire to visit China. Among these, he says that he had ascertained that there were Jews residing in the interiorj and that there was a road from China to Jerusalem.

Xavier's discovery of Jews in China is thus related:—“I met at Malacca with a Portuguese merchant who had recently returned from China. He told me that he had been asked by a grave and honourable Chinese resident in a royal city, whether Christians fed upon swine's flesh. To this the merchant answered that Christians did not refuse; but why was the question asked? The Chinese replied that there was a certain tribe in the interior of China, shut in by mountains, whose customs and manners were widely different from the Chinese, and that they abstained entirely from swine's flesh, and celebrated with solemn observances many festivals.