Francis, a distinguished Indian missionary of the Church of Rome, was born of a noble family at the Castle of Xavier, in Navarre, on the 7th of April 1506. His talents, and his devotion to study, induced his parents to send him, at the age of eighteen, to the college of St Barbe at Paris. It was while resident in that city that he made the acquaintance of the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola. (See JESUITISM.) Xavier joined Loyola in Rome, and actively assisted him in his scheme of collecting a band of devoted men for the special service of the Church. Gouvea, a Portuguese envoy of King John III., at Rome, spoke in terms of high commendation to his royal master of the new society which had just sprung up under the care of Loyola. The king at once applied to the founder of the Jesuits for missionaries to go and christianize his distant Portuguese colonies in Asia. Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez were the men who were ultimately fixed upon to go to India. They set out from Rome on the 15th of March 1540, and, after a very tedious voyage, they reached Goa, the Portuguese seat of government in India, on the 6th of May 1542. Xavier set to work with singular devotedness to reform the character of the Christian community of the place, who were living almost as loose a life as the professed heathens. From the Christians his zeal extended to the heathen. After a short residence among the pearl-fishers of Cape Comorin and the island of Manar, he proceeded to the kingdom of Travancore. He tells us he there baptized 10,000 Indians in a single month! This was, in truth, quite miraculous; too much so, we fear, to gain for the statement universal credence at the present day. Xavier visited Malacca, the islands of Banda, and Xenocrates, Ceylon, where he converted the King of Candy. After revisiting the scenes of his former labours in Goa and Malacca, he set sail for Japan, and reached Cangoxima on the 15th April 1549. He met with little encouragement at first in the Japanese empire, but proceeding to Miao, their capital city, his Jesuitism stood him in good stead. At first the inhabitants slighted him for his mean attire and wayworn appearance; but returning a second time with a rich suit, and followed by gorgeous attendants, it is said that he baptized no fewer than 3000 persons in that city! Leaving other Jesuits to carry out the good work which he had begun, he returned again to Malacca, whence he set out on a voyage of exploration to the Chinese seas. Balked in his endeavours to effect a landing on the Chinese coast, he fell sick, and died on the 2d of December 1552. His body was removed to Goa, where it was deposited in the church of St Paul, on the 15th of March 1554. Francis Xavier was beatified by the pope in 1619, and canonized as a saint in 1622. His festival is observed by the Romish Church on the 3d of December of each year.