arms. On arriving at his friend's, he sent back the two servants who had attended him; and then, without the knowledge of his friends at home, he set forth on a mule, and took his way alone across the peninsula to Montser

His purpose in going to this place was to visit a famous monastery, where was a noted confessor, to whom pilgrims from all over the land flocked to confess their sins. Yet pale and feeble from his sufferings, he appeared before the confessor, who "listened to his words, which were those of an agonized soul." "For three days," says his biographer, "upon his knees, interrupted only by his own sighs and lamentations, did Ignatius pour into that sympathizing ear the tale of his sins, his sufferings, his conversion, his purposes, his temptations, and his fears." On the third evening he left the confessional, and went forth under cover of the darkness, sought out the poorest beggar he could find in the place, and to him he gave his own costly apparel, and clothed himself with the coarse gown of a pilgrim. That night, as the clock tolled the hour of twelve, he went forth to the church to pray before the altar of the virgin. There, at the midnight hour, as the stars looked down upon him, he took the sword which still hung by his side, hung it upon a pillar near the shrine, and dedicated it for ever to his holy mis tress. Until the morning he knelt or stood and prayed before the altar, beseeching a forgiveness of his sins. When the morning came, with one foot bare, with the other sore and clouted, with uncovered head, he turned his back upon the world, and set his face towards the Holy Land!

But at this time a terrible pestilence was raging in Barcelona, the port whence he proposed to sail, and he therefore, for a season, took up his abode in a hospital at Manresa. While here, he had a desperate warfare with the flesh and the devil. He thought on what he had done, how he had left his home, his kindred and friends, and the tempter whispered to him to return. A terrible despair siezed upon him, and he contemplated casting himself from the window of his cell, and thus ending his troubles. But at last it occurred to him that all this was but the whispering of the adversary, to conquer whom a desperate warfare ensued. He girt himself with an iron

chain, wore a shirt of the coarsest hair, fasted one day, then two, then three, then four, then an entire week, and he would have gone farther had not his confessor told him it was contending with the Almighty, and threatened to deny him the communion if he persisted in such a course. His bed was the ground, and three times each day he applied the scourge to his flesh. Seven hours of the twenty-four he spent upon his knees, in agonizing and prayer. To eradicate entirely the vanity he had felt for his personal appearance, he daubed his face with dirt, allowed his nails to grow like eagle's claws, and his hair to become matted and foul. In this condition he went painfully limping from door to door, asking alms-a thing so revolting that the children hooted at him in the streets, and stoned him as he passed along. In this he rejoiced. At length however it began to be whispered about the town that this loathsome beggar was a grandee of Spain, and men now began to whisper as he passed, a saint. When this report reached his ear, he fled, and sought refuge in a lonely cave. Here he continued his course of fasting and scourging and praying.

Finally the pestilence at Barcelona was stayed, and he left his cave a mere skeleton from his scourgings and fastings. His first business was to go to Rome, to obtain the pope's blessing, before setting out on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Having secured this, he went to Venice, from which place he sailed, and on the 31st of August, 1523, he landed on the consecrated soil of Palestine. Here was the field that he had long earnestly desired to occupy; here was the Mount of Olives; here was the Lord's Sepulchre; here was Calvary and Bethlehem; and to rescue these he would convert to Christianity those who held possession of them. He made known his intention to the pope's representative at Jerusalem, but instead of encouraging him in the work, this functionary bade him return forthwith to Europe. To this he replied, "Nothing but the fear of displeasing God shall make me leave the Holy Land." "Why then," said the holy father, "you shall be gone to-morrow; I have power from the holy see to send back what pilgrims I please, and you cannot resist me without offending God." Without one word, he bent to the authority of the church, resigned his

new ambition, and when the sun rose on the morrow it found him sad of heart leaving Jerusalem for Italy. On his voyage back he reflected on the great design he had formed of converting the disciples of the Arabian prophet in the Holy Land; and although he had been sent home, he still clung to his determination. But a new thought took possession of his mind. He came to the conclusion that it needed human learning, as well as divine, in order successfully to prosecute his work; he therefore deter mined to put himself under an instructor, and to learn the Latin tongue. For this purpose he took up his abode at Barcelona. He was now thirty-three years old. devout lady of the city, together with the school-master, learning his intention, combined to support and instruct him, and every day he might be seen going with the little children to school, to recite his lesson. Aside from the weariness of learning the rudiments of a language, Loyola encountered another great difficulty. So long had he been training himself in devotional habits, that he found it a most difficult task to discipline his mind to the declension of nouns and the conjugation of verbs. One word in his lesson that had a religious significance was enough to take his mind and soul away from his grammar, and off they would go in prayer or religious exercise, and all that he had learned was forgotten, and had to be gone over again. In this perplexity he bade the teacher use the rod on his back when he failed, or was imperfect in his recitations, as well as to punish the little boys. This we are told his teacher promised faithfully to do a circumstance which employed the genius of the artist in the picture, "St. Ignatius whipped at school." He remained at this school two years, and then, for the purpose of prosecuting higher branches of study, he went to the university at Alcala. Here he applied himself not only to study; but in the highways and byways, in hovels and prisons, in the hospitals and at the sick bed, among the dissolute students at the university, and with the groups of little children that met in the streets,-whereever he could get an ear to listen, he taught and prayed. And during this time he gained a scanty support by begging.

While Loyola was thus studying and preaching and

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working in Alcala, Luther was thundering his great truths in Germany. The world was filled with terror in view of the commotion caused by the "German heresy." The church, therefore, had its ears wide open to catch the sound of any discordant notes that might be uttered within its own pale. As men saw the work Loyola was doing, they began to whisper that he was secretly in league with the Reformer. These whisperings found their way to the ears of the Spanish inquisitors, and they hastened to Alcala, and summoned the begging student before them. His life was examined, but no heresy could be found, and he was dismissed with only an injunction that he should no more go barefoot. But new suspicions were constantly springing up, and he was again arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained six weeks. Again is he examined and acquitted, but with this, to him, terrible penalty, that if he preached any more until he had completed four years of study, he should be excommunicated. Hard was it for him to lay with broken and deformed limb in his father's castle, and to feel that never again could he vault into the saddle and take his place in the ranks as a brave and handsome cavalier; hard was it for him to be driven from the Holy Land, and abandon for the time his plans for the conversion of the Turks; but now to be bidden by one who, as he thought, spoke in God's stead, not to preach any more to reclaim souls, for so long a time, was a severe trial indeed. He humbly remonstrated against the requisition, but was answered that he must not preach novelties. "Novelties!" exclaimed Ignatius, "I did not think that to preach Jesus Christ was a novelty among you. I appeal to the archbishop." He was received with courtesy by the archbishop, who advised him to go to Salamanca to pursue his studies. By him he was therefore sent on his way, and his purse replenished with four pieces of gold. But he was not to find peace here; his boldness in addressing people of all classes, exhorting them to repentance and piety, and the crowds that gathered to hear him, excited the distrust and envy of the church authorities, and he was again arrested and thrown into prison. After more than three weeks' imprisonment, he was brought into court to hear his sentence. He was declared innocent of heresy, was allowed

to preach to the common people, but until he had studied. divinity four years he was commanded not to touch upon those difficult questions relating to "mortal and venial offences." The voice of God and the voice of the church seemed to him to conflict; and finding himself moreover "cabined, cribbed, confined" in Spain, he turned his back upon his native land, and resolved to complete his studies in Paris. In the winter of 1528 he started on foot and alone, and for more than a month the lame soldier of Pampeluna pursued his way. Look for a moment at this scene. That man, whose name is to be linked forever with that of Jesuitism, limping his way through cold and storm and snow, up the slippery sides of the Pyrenees, passing the bands of robbers that infested the mountain, and after a long and perilous journey standing on the heights of Montmartre that look down upon the gay cap itol of France. And there he stands alone, not a friend in all the vast city before him, unacquainted with the language spoken by its inhabitants, his mind still far away in the consecrated land of Palestine, his determination still unbroken to rescue the sepulchre of his Lord.

Loyola remained in Paris seven years. An incident while here illustrates his character. A man whom Loyola trusted, but who had run away with his money, was taken sick at Rouen. In this condition he had the temerity to write to Loyola telling him of his condition. Forgetting all that had passed, he started immediately for his relief. He begged enough to obtain a passage for the wrong-doer to Spain, and then he returned to his work in Paris. One great object which engaged his attention, was the reclamation of the sinful. To do this, no labor, no suffering, no privation was too great for him to endure. One case will show how far his fanaticism carried him in this regard. He had labored with a certain licentious young man, urging him to abandon his wickedness, but all to no avail. "One night," says the record, "he placed himself by the side of the road, along which the offender was to pass, plunged to the neck in a half-frozen pond, and as the young man came near, there was heard, as from the earth, a voice picturing God's punishment for sin. Startled by such sounds in the partial darkness, the youth trembled and stopped. It is I,' said Ignatius; and, as