Those familiar with the condition of ecclesiastical affairs in Europe at that time, and especially with the immorality prevailing at Rome, will not be surprised at this description of things at so remote a place as the Portuguese possessions in India. Of course, such tendency to demoralization could not long exist anywhere without producing absolute social degradation. To prevent this, the king of Portugal made an attempt to reform these abuses, influenced probably by the twofold purpose of desiring to spread Christianity and to improve the commercial interests of his subjects. Xavier, therefore, was sent to India under his auspices, and was better fitted for that purpose than Loyola himself would have been, because he was less ambitious, less selfish, and more conscientious. Whilst he possessed some commendable traits of character and wonderful energy, much that has been written about him by papal and Jesuit authors can only be considered as imaginary, and as deserving no permanent place in history. The character assigned to him is perfectly angelic, with scarcely any mixture of humanity; and, like Loyola, he is represented as having performed a vast number of miracles, even to the extent of restoring the dead to life! With regard to these, he is said to have resembled Loyola in another respect--in that he, too, performed more miracles than Christ! It is not difficult to perceive the object of all this, when it is considered that the pretenses were set up at a time when an unenlightened public were easily misled by them. They, like the innumerable myths of the Middle Ages, answered the ends of their inventors, and are no further useful now than as they serve to show, not only the character of the society which required them to be accepted as absolutely true, but that of those who invented and employed them to mislead the credulous and unsuspecting multitude. The entire account of Xavier's mission is so mixed up with these idle tales that the time spent in their perusal would be wasted, but for the reason that they bring prominently before us some of the distinguishing characteristics of the Jesuits, under the tuition and during the lives of the founder of their society and his most confidential colleague.