there were some in hell who had put many souls into heaven.

...when we come to realities we find a wide difference between fancying danger and encountering it. He gave them to understand that if one of them, or even if two together, happened to find themselves in a strange country, knowing little or nothing of the language, surrounded by suspicious eyes, looked upon as savages, refused a shelter, and perhaps in constant risk of death, they would be liable to temptations they had little dreamt of: the empty bubbles of spirituality would be of no service to them here. Let them, therefore, lay in a stock of solid virtues, such as humility, patience, union with God, purity of soul, obedience, and, above all, a perpetual abnegation and renunciation of self; and let them remember that he who has not courage to overcome himself in small things will have still less courage to confront great ones. Let them not reason in this style : — " If God favors and consoles me so much, now that I am attending only to myself, what will he not do for me when I am trying to gain the souls of infidels? Such persons may convince themselves that they will then meet with as many occasions of losing themselves as of gaining others. ...

If they hoped to do much good in others, they must first be good themselves ; and he reminded them that there were some in hell who had put many souls into heaven. What then would it profit them to gain the whole world, if they lost their own souls? He encouraged them, however, not to be desponding, or to lose heart, but, on the contrary, to endeavor earnestly to acquire those virtues, without which it would be vain to hope for a happy issue to the good begun; and, for this purpose, let them study to know themselves; and then, far from presuming on themselves, they will place all their confidence in God, who replenishes with himself and with his gifts those whom he finds empty of self esteem and self love; and this, because he will not allow that which is the work of his mercy and omnipotence to be attributed to any other cause than to himself.

Such is the summary of the saint's letter of advice to the fathers of Goa ; and he desired that copies of it should be taken and sent to all the other fathers who were dispersed about in the different kingdoms of the Indies. It would seem surprising that he who wrote such pressing letters to the King of Portugal, to St. Ignatius at Rome, to Father Rodriguez at Lisbon, and to other parts of Europe, so earnestly entreating them to send more missionaries, where souls were actually perishing from sheer want of them, should nevertheless proceed so cautiously in summoning his own subjects from Goa, and should make them employ so much time upon their own perfection. As I say, at first sight this may appear strange, but not to those who understand true spirituality, and who know how deep a fund of virtue is required in men called to so arduous an apostolate as that of the Indian missions.

He was the superior of the Society in the East, and, as such, gave a sketch of what those workmen ought to be who intended to labor there ; and no one understood what was due to their vocation better than himself, — viz., that, though it was their duty to do much for the salvation of others, they were bound to do quite as much for their own perfection. Besides, with respect to laboring for the benefit of one's neighbor, it is certain that God, in whose hands men are but instruments, concurs to the general good all the more largely, in proportion as he finds the said men more closely united to himself by sanctity of life and by the virtues adapted to so exalted a ministry. And hence it is that the holy self-hatred which we find in good evangelical laborers, their perfect obedience, and other virtues, turn to the advantage of those for whom they labor.

The Life of St. Francis Xavier By Daniello Bartoli