The order had not yet been approved by the Pope, when John III. of Portugal, by means of his ambassador D. Pedro de Mascaregnas, asked of him six missionaries to be sent to the East Indies. The Pope, who was undecided whether he should consent to the establishment of this new order or not, thought this a plausible pretext to get rid of them altogether, and asked Loyola for six of his companions. But Ignatius was not the man to consent to the suicide of the intended Society, and offered the Pope only two members for the undertaking. The choice fell upon Rodriguez and Bobadilla. The first set out immediately, but Bobadilla falling ill, Ignatius called Xavier, and said to him, “Xavier, I had named Bobadilla for India, but Heaven this day names you, and I announce it to you in the name of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Receive the appointment which his Holiness lays upon you by my mouth, just as if _Jesus Christ_ presented it himself. Go, brother, whither the voice of God calls you, and inflame all with the divine fire within you—_Id y accendedlo todo y embrasadlo en fuego divino_.” Ignatius often used these words, and in his mouth they were a talisman which fanned the flame of enthusiasm. It is impossible to describe the exultation of Xavier at the thought of the boundless regions which would open before him there, to exercise his unbounded charity and love of mankind. Xavier went to receive the Pope’s blessing, and the very next morning he left Rome—alone—penniless—clothed in a ragged cloak, but with a light heart and joyful countenance. He crossed the Pyrenees without even visiting his father’s castle, and hastened to Lisbon, where he joined his companion Rodriguez. Portugal at this epoch was experiencing the influence of the wealth brought from the recently conquered provinces of India. Eagerness for pleasure, effeminacy of manners, relaxation from every duty, had completely changed the aspect of the nation. These two Jesuits, by exhortation and preaching, endeavoured to stem the onward march of that fast spreading corruption. Their panegyrists assure us that they succeeded in their efforts, but the subsequent history of Portugal gives them the lie. To no man is given the power to stop the propensities or the vices of a nation, when they are in the ascendancy. Xavier may perhaps have made the Portuguese nobility for a moment ashamed of their luxurious and profligate life; but if so, a more complete abandonment to a life of idleness and pleasure succeeded a fugitive shame.