That first generation under Loyola’s zealous leadership rode full gallop into their new assignments: convert the heathen, reconvert Protestant Europe. Francis Xavier leaped from India to Southeast Asia to Japan, a country that had never before heard the Christian message. More than any others, the Society of Jesus stemmed, and sometimes reversed, the tide of Protestantism in France, the Low Countries, and Central Europe. When Ignatius died in 1556, his order was nearly one thousand strong and had dispatched its apostles to four continents.