In other lands the missionary record was singularly barren during the decade. In Brazil the fathers still wandered in the forests, slowly winning the confidence and allegiance of the natives by medical and other humane services. Abyssinia was once more invaded, and some of the fathers entered the Congo, but both missions were destroyed after a few years. In Egypt an attempt was made to induce the Copts to recognise the authority of the Pope. Rich presents were made to the Patriarch, and the Papacy was flattered for a time by reports of success; but the adventure ended in the painful and ignominious flight of the missionaries from the country. The Japanese missions also were almost destroyed in the course of the decade, and two ingenious attempts to enter China proved unsuccessful. In 1556 Father Melchior Nuñez was permitted to reach Canton, but his very diplomatic account of his object did not convince the mandarins and he was politely expelled. In 1563 a further attempt was made. The mandarins were informed that an embassy had arrived from Europe with valuable presents for the Emperor. The cautious mandarins asked to see its credentials, and, when they were told that these had been accidentally destroyed on the voyage, they again amiably conducted their visitors to the frontier. There were three Jesuits, in disguise, among the "envoys," and it is clear that the whole expedition was a fraudulent attempt of the merchants and missionaries from Goa to break the reserve of the Chinese. Such were the fortunes of the Society of Jesus during the decade which closed with the death of Lainez in 1565. The hundred establishments which Ignatius had bequeathed to him in 1556 had now increased to a hundred and fifty; the thousand subjects had become three thousand. From Portugal to Poland the Jesuits were the most ardent soldiers in the war against the advancing heretics, and there was hardly a Catholic court in Europe that did not welcome the children of Ignatius and bow in secret to their advice. Yet a keen observer like Lainez must have perceived that this prosperity was less solid than it appeared, and his last years were saddened by announcements of hostility and defeat. In France and Belgium the gain was wholly disproportionate to the exacting struggle they had maintained; in Portugal the material success and political action were lowering the ideal of the Society; in Spain the Catholic monarch, the Inquisition, and the higher clergy were hostile; and England kept its doors sternly closed against the Jesuits. The future was still uncertain, and another Caraffa might at any time accede to the papal chair. With a last glance at the ex-Duke of Gandia, as if to intimate that Borgia was the fittest to take up the burden he laid down, the second General of the Society, able, energetic, and high-minded to the last, sank wearily to his rest. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: _Relatio ad Reges_, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.] CHAPTER IV