The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16Dryden, John
History
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16
Dryden, John
English literature
The example of the two missioners drew many Portuguese to that kind of
life, of which they both made profession. The most considerable of all,
was a young gentleman, whose name was Juan Bravo; who, by his noble birth
and valour, might justly hope to raise his fortunes in the world. But he
preferring evangelical poverty, and religious humility, before all those
earthly expectations and establishments, was just then ready to have
taken ship for Goa, there to execute those thoughts with which heaven had
inspired him, when he was informed, that Xavier would take Malacca in his
way. He therefore waited for him, and in the mean time lived with Perez
and Oliveira as if he had been already of the Society. At least he
conformed himself as much as he was able to their manners, and habited
himself like them; that is to say, instead of rich garments, he put on an
old threadbare cassock, with which he looked the world in the face
without having yet forsaken it. He performed the spiritual exercises for
a month together, and never came out of his retirement, but to employ
himself in works of charity in the hospital. There, for three months, he
attended the sick, living in poverty, and begging his bread from door to
door, even in the sight of James Sosa his kinsman, admiral of the fleet,
which was rigging out for the Moluccas.
These trials obliged the Father to receive Bravo into the Society. He
admitted him almost immediately to take the first vows; and finding in
him an excellent foundation for all the apostolical virtues, he took care
to cultivate him, even so far, as to leave him in writing these following
rules, before his departure to Japan.
"See here, my dear brother, the form of life which you are constantly to
practise every day. In the morning, as soon as you are awakened, prepare
yourself to meditate on some mystery of our Lord; beginning from his holy
nativity, and continuing to his glorious ascension: the subjects of the
meditations are marked, and put in order, in the book of Exercises.
Employ, at the least, half-an-hour in prayers; and apply yourself to it
with all those interior dispositions, which you may remember you
practised in your retirement of a month. Consider every day one mystery,
in such manner, that if, for example, on Monday, the birth of our Saviour
was the subject of your meditation, that of his circumcision shall be for
Tuesday, and so in course, till in a month's time, having run through all
the actions of Jesus Christ, you come to contemplate him ascending into
heaven in triumph. You are every month to begin these meditations again
in the same order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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