But, having done so, we are entitled to speak of Francis Xavier, and of his life and his work. The date of his birth is apparently fixed by a manuscript note in Spanish in a family record possessed by the Xaviers, which places it upon April 7th, 1506. His father was Don John Giasso, a man of legal acquirements and of good social position. He was at one time auditor of the royal council under King John III. For a wife he chose Donna Maria d’Azpilqueta y Xavier, and the child Francis was born at the castle of Xavier, a few miles distant from Pampeluna in Navarre, on the southern slope of the Pyrenees. He was the youngest of a large family, and the castle where he saw the light gave to him the patronymic by which he is always known. The family were originally called Asuarez, but altered their name to Xavier when King Theobald gave them this property. The mother’s title was thus perpetuated in one of her sons, but there seems to be some confusion still remaining, for a brother of the missionary was Captain John Azpilqueta, who also apparently had exchanged his father’s name of Giasso for one of the designations borne by his mother. The biographies of Francis Xavier are naturally of a kind to excite the critical instincts of a scholar. They are, from the original life by Torsellini, to the latest Jesuit compilation, remarkable for their enthusiasm and unlimited credulity. It is only in such calmer treatises as those of Nicolini, Stephen, Venn, and others, that we get the more just conception of his character. But to be entirely fair to him we should take him from the picture painted by his co-religionists, refusing only those things which are manifestly incongruous or absurd. The work of Bartoli and Maffei may, for example, be regarded as entirely safe in its general statements. From the portraits left to us and preserved in the pages of Nicolini and Mrs. Jameson, we derive a vivid impression of the man’s personal intensity. His eyes are deep and thoughtful; his nose strong, rather blunt, and withal sagacious; and his face is that of a mystic. He is usually represented as gazing upward in religious rapture and his lips are parted. His features are more rugged and forcible than refined. They indicate a rude strength of body and of will rather than a delicate and sensitive nature. Should we have met him personally, he would have given us the impression of an enthusiast, deeply affectionate and profoundly loyal to anything like a military organization. These opinions would have been approved by the fact.