was successful in a great variety of cases. The first leaders, like Loinez, Salmeron and Bobadilla, had no magic power at all, but later successors, like Ochioa Carrera and Kepel, displayed it in a surprising degree, although Ochioa's gifts were distinctly limited to the healing of the sick by the imposition of hands. The whole period of this intense excitement extended only over sixteen years, from 1540 to 1556, after which the vivid faith, which had alone made the cures possible, disappeared. It is worth mentioning that the Jesuits themselves and most of their historians deny that they ever had power to perform miracles, and ascribe the cures to the faith of the patients alone. St. Xavier, it is well known, brought the dead to life again, and even if we assume that they lay only in syncope and had not yet really died, the recovery is scarcely less striking. The most remarkable of these cases is that of an only daughter of a Japanese nobleman. Her death stunned the father, a great lord possessed of immense wealth, to such a degree that his friends feared for his reason; at last they urged him to apply to the great missionary for help. He did so; the Jesuit, filled with compassion, asked a brother priest to join him in prayer, and both fell upon their knees and prayed with great fervor. Xavier returned to the pagan with joyous face and bade him take comfort, as his daughter was alive and well. The nobleman, very unlike the father in Holy Writ, was indignant, thinking that the holy man either did not believe his child had died or refused to assist him; but as he went home, a page came running up to meet him, bringing the welcome message that his daughter was really alive and well. She told him after his return, that her soul upon leaving the body had been seized by hideous shapes and dragged towards an enormous fire, but that suddenly two excellent men had interposed, rescuing her from their hands, and leading her back to life. The happy father immediately returned with her to the holy man, and as soon as his child beheld Xavier and his companion, she fell down at their feet and declared that they were the friends who had brought her back from the lower world. Shortly afterwards the father and his whole family became Christians. (Orlandini, Hist. Soc. Jesu., ix. c. 213.) The case seems to be very simple, and is one of the most instructive of modern magic. The girl was not dead, but lay in a cataleptic trance, in which she had visions of fearful scenes, and transformed the fierce hold which the disease had on her body into the grasp of hostile powers trying to obtain possession of her soul. At the same time she became clairvoyant, and thus saw Xavier and his companion distinctly enough to recognize them afterwards. The cure was accomplished by the Almighty in answer to the fervent prayer of two pious men filled with pure faith, according to the sacred promise: "The effectual, fervent prayer of a