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Lanka, and then to Malacca where he converted a Japanese resident. The two set out to convert Japan and they landed at Kagoshima in 1549. Such was their success that 400,000 converts are said to have been made.
When he understood that the Japanese had long considered China the source of wisdom and knowledge, Xavier made up his mind to bring the Christian message to that vast country. After failing to persuade the Governor General of Goa to send an embassy to China so that he might accompany it and thus evade the laws against foreigners entering the Imperial Empire, the missionary decided to proceed privately.
He joined a group of merchants and in 1552 reached the small Portuguese settlement on Sanchuang Island, south of what was later to become Macau. However, he was stricken with fever and the merchants, fearing official reprisals, refused to take him to Canton. Undaunted, Xavier intended to carry on by junk; but his fever worsened and, in a miserable hut on the shore, on December 3, 1552, he died.
A colleague recorded:
"I went at once to the ship to obtain vestments and all else necessary for the burial ... some of those on the ship returned with me and we made a wooden coffin in which we placed the body clothed in priestly vestments. It was very cold; so most of them stayed aboard, and there were only four of us at the burial, a Portuguese, two slaves and a Chinese."
Today relics of the saint can be seen in three places. His body lies in an ornate shrine in Goa and it is exhibited to pilgrims at intervals of several years. The saint's right arm up to the elbow was removed in 1614 and was sent to Rome where it has been venerated in the Jesuit Church of Gesu for more than 300 years.
The sole remaining relic is the fragment of bone in the tiny Macau church.
In 1619 three bones from the elbow to the shoulder of the right arm were extracted at Goa. One was sent to Cochin, now Southern Vietnam, another went to Malacca and the third went to Macau. By this time the Portuguese empire was faltering and