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 SAINT IGNATIUS LOYOLA 
 
 Rev. F. GOLDIE, S.J. 
 
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5y 
 
 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA 
 
 (1491—1556) 
 
 BY THE REV. F. GOLDIE, S.J. 
 
 In the summer of 1521, a handful of Spanish soldieia 
 were holding the unfinished citadel of Pamplona, against 
 an invading army of the allied French and Navarese. A 
 cannon shot from the assailants dislodged a fragment 
 of stone which wounded the left leg of a young Spanish 
 officer, while the ball itself broke his other leg. He fell, 
 and, as he had been the soul of the defence, the fortress 
 fell with him. The conquerors honoured the bravery of 
 their gallant foe ; they dressed his wounds, and carried 
 him gently to his home not very far distant, and there 
 set him free. 
 
 His name was Inigo or Ignatius de Loyola, one of the 
 sons of a nobleman of ancient family, whose old castle 
 (ay in the broad and beautiful valley from which the 
 family surname was derived. Young Inigo had been 
 sent as page to King Ferdinand the Catholic, the first 
 monarch of a united Spain. But the youth wearied of 
 the soft life of court; he longed to be a soldier. His 
 relative, the Duke of Najera, took him into his service 
 and Ignatius won his spurs in actual war at the conquest 
 of the town from which the Duke took his title. He 
 was as true as he was brave, and universally popular. 
 Though a man of the world, and fond of society, his 
 lips were never sullied with ,a r foul word, nor his life 
 by a disgraceful deed. *He was a poet too in his 
 own way, and sang the praises of St. Peter in a long 
 epic. 
 
 The army surgeons had very unskilfully set his broken 
 leg, and he had to go through such horrible operations 
 that his life was despaired of. On the eve of SS. Peter 
 and Paul he received the last Sacraments. But that 
 
2 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 very night St. Peter appeared to him, and he perfectly 
 recovered his health. Still he was deformed and 
 crippled ; for not only was the leg that had been broken 
 much shorter than its fellow, but the bone stood out with 
 an unsightly lump. The fashionable hose of those days 
 would reveal the deformity, and the young officer bade 
 the surgeons, at the cost of any torture to himself, to 
 reduce the disfigurement and to stretch the limb. He 
 bore without flinching a very martyrdom of vanity. For 
 an active mind like his the sick room was itself a torture; 
 and to quiet his mind and to kill time, he asked for a 
 novel of the period — some romance of knight-errantry. 
 But books were rare in those days, and there were none 
 of that kind in the Castle of Loyola. They brought him 
 a Spanish translation of Ludolf of Saxony’s Life of Christ, 
 and a volume of the Lives of the Saints. For want of 
 anything more to his taste, these he read and read again. 
 Inigo, with the spirit of a soldier who never flinched 
 before any odds, said to himself : “ What St. Francis 
 did, and St. Dominic did, why cannot I do?” What 
 most attracted his fearless soul were the self-inflicted 
 penances of the Saints. This seemed to him the chief 
 point in which he ought to imitate them, and he only 
 longed to gather strength and to leave his bed, in order 
 that he might put in practice his stern resolve of leaving 
 house and home and all the world holds dear to lead a 
 life of austerity and seclusion. 
 
 Those were days of tremendous issues foT God’s 
 Church. The riches and the luxury of the time, the 
 ferment of new ideas which the learning of the east and 
 the invention of printing had produced, the newborn 
 paganism and laxity of life, all had made the soil ready 
 for a rank crop of evil within the Church, and even of 
 revolt against her teaching. At this very time Luther, 
 the apostate monk, had thrown aside the mask and 
 publicly burnt the Pope’s Bull as a sign of open rebellion. 
 In England and in France, as in Germany, error was 
 lifting its head, and everything presaged a mighty moral 
 convulsion, of which even the most foreseeing could not 
 measure the results. 
 
 One night Inigo, stirred by his longings for higher 
 things, leapt from his bed ; and, kneeling before a pic- 
 ture of our Lady, dedicated himself in an ardent prayer 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 3 
 
 to his Blessed Mother. A tremor as of an earthquake 
 shook the castle, and split the solid walls with a rent, 
 which can be seen to this day. Hell seemed to 
 have realized how great a recruit had been enrolled 
 in God’s army. Mary appeared to her servant with the 
 Blessed Child in her arms, and accepted by her presence 
 the offering thus made. Long before his strength had 
 fully returned, Inigo bade good bye to his brother, 
 who was then the head of the house. The lord of 
 Loyola had half divined the purpose of Ignatius, and 
 strove in every way to retain him. But our Saint tore 
 himself away under the pretext of being obliged to pay a 
 visit of compliment to his relative, the Duke of Najera,. 
 No sooner had Inigo fulfilled this duty, than he sent 
 back his two attendants, and on his mule, for he was 
 still very lame, he pushed right across the North of 
 Spain to that great sanctuary of our Lady which nestles 
 under the crags and peaks of Montserrat. On his way 
 he bound himself by a vow of chastity in honour of our 
 Lady. Shortly after he fell in with a Moorish gentle- 
 man, many of whom were then still in Spain. The 
 Mahomedan denied the virginity of Mary after the 
 birth of our Lord, and Inigo strenuously upheld it. 
 When the Mussulman had left him, it seemed to the 
 converted cavalier that he had done wrong in allowing 
 the blasphemer to go unpunished ; and in doubt as to 
 what he ought to do, he let his mule go its own way, 
 ready to revenge the honour of his Lady if it should 
 follow the Moor. However it turned off by another 
 road, and Inigo was saved from staining his hands with 
 blood under a misguided impulse. 
 
 When our Saint had scaled the precipitous mountain, 
 he made a most exact and general confession to one 
 of the Benedictine monks, a saintly Frenchman. It was 
 so broken with sobs and tears of contrition that it was 
 not completed for three days. Then, at nightfall, on 
 the vigil of the Annunciation, he stripped himself of all 
 his fine clothes, to his very shirt, and gave them all 
 to a poor man, putting on a rough dress of sackcloth, 
 which went down to his feet. In this his new armour, 
 like the squires of those days before receiving knight- 
 hood, he spent the night at the statue of our Lady, on 
 his knees or leaning on his pilgrim’s staff, within the old 
 
4 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 church. There, at Mary’s shrine, in the first light of 
 dawn, he hung up his rapier and dagger — the badges of 
 a gentleman in those days — and then approached Holy 
 Communion. 
 
 Before day had fully broken over the huge spires of 
 Montserrat, with one foot bare, but the other, still 
 swollen and sore, in a rough sandal of esparto grass, 
 such as the Spanish peasants wear to this day, he came 
 down the rough mountain side. He had given his mule 
 to the monastery. Some kind souls showed him the 
 road to a shelter in the nearest town, and there, in the 
 poor-house or hospice of St. Lucy in Manresa, he went 
 to live among the poor of Jesus Christ. He made 
 himself the poorest of the poor. Once so particular 
 about his appearance, he now let his hair and nails 
 grow r , and tried to conceal under squalor and neglect 
 all signs of his noble birth and breeding. He begged 
 his food from door to door, and gave the best he got to 
 the sick and hungry. His only food was bread and 
 water; save that for his Sunday dinner he added a few 
 herbs savoured with ashes. The most fetid and loath- 
 some of the sick were the object of his tenderest care, 
 and no service was too revolting for him. Seven hours 
 of his day were spent in prayer, without counting those 
 which he gave to hearing Mass and attending the public 
 services of the Church. But Ignatius, as he now began 
 to be called, wished for a spot where his prayers and 
 penances might be unobserved. He found it in a long 
 narrow cavern in a defile not far off running down to 
 the swift river Cardoner. Its entrance was hidden by 
 a rich growth of thistles and thorns, while from a fissure 
 in the rock he could look out on the jagged heights 
 of Montserrat. There he was free to pass his time in 
 prayer, there he could spend his days in absolute fast, 
 there he could wield the scourge unseen or unheard, 
 and bind his waist with the cruel girdle of prickly leaves, 
 still to be seen at Manresa. But there too, in return, 
 God communicated to him His choicest gifts. Within 
 that cave was revealed to him that system of Christian 
 perfection which is known by the name of the Spiritual 
 Exercises , taught him by our Blessed Lady and impres- 
 sed on his soul by practical experience and fidelity to 
 grace. 
 
 v 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 5 
 
 There is hardly a spot in that picturesque town which 
 does not remind us of God’s dealings with St. Ignatius, 
 and of the heroic penance and profound humility which 
 prepared him for the great work God destined for 
 him. 
 
 There is the Cross of Tort, looking out over the bright 
 river and rich valley, with Montserrat rising up dark and 
 weird beyond. On his knees before this sacred sign the 
 mysteries of the Catholic Faith were revealed to St. 
 Ignatius with such vividness, that in after life he used to 
 say that even if those truths were to be made known to 
 him in no other way, he was prepared to die a martyr’s 
 death for each doctrine of the Church from the knowledge 
 of it which he received in Manresa. There too is the 
 Church of the Dominicans, such kind friends to the Saint, 
 where the ineffable depths of the Blessed Trinity were 
 opened to him, and where he was privileged to understand 
 the mystery of the presence of our Lord on the Altar. 
 There in the adjoining convent, now alas ! a theatre, 
 he was tenderly nursed by the good Fathers through 
 a severe illness which was the result of his awful 
 austerities and his still more terrible scruples. There 
 again within the ruins of the Hospice, covered by a 
 fair chapel, is the spot where was his little room which 
 looked out on the old Church of St. Lucy. This was 
 the scene of the marvellous rapture, like to the sleep of 
 death, lasting for a whole week and more, during which, 
 in spite of the reserve under which Ignatius hid the 
 favours of God, it seems certain that he saw the future of 
 that Society which he was called to found. 
 
 Temptation of disgust at his squalid, hard, cruel life ; 
 temptations of vain-glory at the honour which his mar- 
 vellous virtues began to win for him ; doubts about the 
 genuineness of his past confessions — all these trials and 
 many others gave him a practical insight into that 
 mysterious warfare which is waged with more or less 
 violence in every soul which lives for God. 
 
 A year or so had now gone by since Ignatius came to 
 Manresa. He had passed through a fiery probation, by 
 which the old life was burned away, and the soul purified 
 and free was ready to receive like molten metal a new 
 form. The life of our Lord had, by prayerful study and 
 painstaking practice, become his life. It was time fur 
 
6 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 work. Longings which had not yet taken perfect shape, 
 the seeds of mighty works for God, were stirring in his 
 soul. And so he left Manresa, and made his way alone, 
 though many would have gladly borne him company, to 
 the beautiful city of Barcelona, with its church towers 
 rising from gardens of myrtles, and cedars, and orange 
 groves, there to take ship for Civita Vecchia, and for the 
 Holy Land. While waiting for a fair wind, a fortnight 
 or so went by. Through a fierce storm, in the early 
 spring, Loyola crossed the Mediterranean. 
 
 They were wild and lawless times for the weak and 
 defenceless, but Ignatius, on landing at Gaeta, pushed 
 forward to Rome, and there he spent Holy Week and 
 Easter week. On Low Sunday he was admitted to 
 receive the blessing of that great and good Pope, the 
 Belgian Adrian VI. Every one told Ignatius that it was 
 useless for a poor man to think of going to the Holy 
 Land. The Crescent was everywhere victorious, and the 
 brave knights of St. John had just been forced to yield 
 up their fortress of Rhodes. But our Saint, who had 
 learned for Christ’s sake to love poverty and pain, went 
 on to Venice, and even gave away what had been forced 
 upon him to pay his passage. He begged his food by 
 day and slept by night like a vagrant under the arcades 
 in the great square of St. Mark. One of the Council of 
 Ten, Mark Antony Trevisano, a Venetian nobleman, 
 was wakened up at night by hearing words like these : 
 “ While you are sleeping in a soft bed, my servant is 
 lying on the bare ground ! ” He got up at once, and 
 went to look for this servant of God. He stumbled 
 upon the sleeping stranger, and made him come to his 
 palace. But Ignatius disliked its luxury and splendour, 
 and succeeded in obtaining a free passage on a Venetian 
 man of war bound for Cyprus. So boldly did he reprove 
 the bad life of some on board, that, but for a contrary 
 wind, the sailors would have cast him away on some 
 desert island. At Cyprus Ignatius found a pilgrim ship, 
 and on the last day of August he landed at Jaffa. To be 
 in Jerusalem was to him such a happiness that he would 
 have stayed there all the rest of his life, if God, by means 
 of the Provincial of the Franciscans, had not bade him 
 depart. 
 
 Two months brought Ignatius back to Italy, and he 
 
7 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 set off from Venice poor as ever and on foot for Genoa. 
 But Lombardy was ablaze with a fierce war, and the 
 pilgrim fell in with a party of Spanish soldiers who 
 stripped him and searched him with* every insult, and 
 then dragged him as a spy before their commanding 
 officer, Ignatius had assumed a rough and country 
 fashion of speech, to suit the humble state of life he 
 had chosen. But now there came the doubt whether 
 he ought not to address the officer with respect, lest 
 he should expose himself to even worse treatment. He 
 decided to invite reproach ; and, with the exception of 
 denying that he was a spy, he said not a word when 
 cross-questioned. He had but to tell his name, and he 
 would have been saluted with applause as the hero of 
 Pamplona. As it was, the commander bade the men let 
 him go, and soundly scolded the men for bringing in 
 one who was evidently mad. The soldiers vented their 
 anger on Ignatius, kicking him and beating him un- 
 mercifully. But again the Lord comforted him with the 
 thought of His sufferings at the hands of the servants 
 of the high priest and of Herod. An old friend, the 
 Admiral of the Spanish Galleys, whom he chanced to 
 meet at Genoa, carried Ignatius on board his fleet to 
 Barcelona during the Lent of 1524. 
 
 / He was then thirty-three. His scheme for evangelizing 
 the Holy Land had fallen through. His heart burned all 
 the more to labour for souls. Now for this some educa- 
 tion was necessary, and he began heroically to learn his 
 Latin in a public school. But strange to say, amidst the 
 toilsome drudgery of the Latin grammar, he found his 
 soul carried away by a torrent of devotion such as he had 
 never experienced in the time of prayer, or of penance, 
 or even in Holy Communion. In vain he strove against 
 the strength of its sweetness. But long watchfulness and 
 his practised eye soon detected the enemy ; and taking 
 his teacher into the Church of our Lady of the Sea, he 
 solemnly promised that for the next two years he would 
 devote himself with all diligence to his lessons, and he 
 begged him on his knees to flog him as he flogged any 
 boy-idler in his class, if he caught him with his mind 
 away from his work. 
 
 1526. Two years of study had at length fitted St. 
 Ignatius to go on to his higher studies, and he went bf 
 
8 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 advice to the new University which the great Franciscan 
 statesman and Cardinal, the holy Ximenes, had then so 
 lately founded at Alcala. There Loyola threw himself 
 with fervour into his studies. But he aimed at so much 
 at a time that he made but little progress for all his 
 labour. However, he sought and found his consolation 
 in slaking his thirst for souls. And wonderful were the 
 conversions he wrought ; so wonderful, that in the days 
 when many wolves were about in sheep’s clothing, he 
 excited the suspicions of some of the authorities of the 
 University. He was arrested and carried off to prison. 
 As he was hurried along to gaol, there was among the 
 lookers-on Francis Borgia, the young son and heir of the 
 Duke of Gandia. 
 
 1527. Ignatius’ friends flocked to him in his 
 trouble, and he spoke to all so marvellously, and with 
 such enthusiasm, of the love of God and of the grandeur 
 of suffering for Him, that one of the most learned profes- 
 sors of the University forgot his lecture in the delight of 
 listening to the poor prisoner, and when he rushed back 
 breathless to his class, his first words were, “ I have seen 
 St. Paul in prison.” Ignatius was set free, but for- 
 bidden to work for souls till he had completed a course 
 of theology. He was taken aback by this decision, 
 and resolved to go to the older University of Salamanca ; 
 and to Salamanca he went. But either rumours of his 
 late troubles had gone before him, or his ceaseless zeal 
 among the students and townsfolk gave rise to sus- 
 picions. Ignatius and his companions were once more 
 sent to gaol. Though not thrust, like some of his party, 
 among the felons, the room in which he was confined 
 was unsavoury and filthy, and he was fettered to his 
 fellows by a long chain which was fastened to a stake 
 in the floor. But all these aggravations of his hard 
 lot were so many additional delights to one whose sole 
 desire was to suffer like his Lord. “There are not in 
 all Salamanca fetters and handcuffs and chains enough 
 but that I would wish to bear more for love of God,” 
 was his answer to those who compassionated his 
 hardships. 
 
 Again he was closely cross-questioned on matters high 
 and deep on theology, and even a knotty point in Canon 
 Law was proposed to him. He humbly avowed his 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 9 
 
 ignorance, but when pressed for a reply he completely 
 satisfied his examiners. 
 
 Gradually the plans of God were making themselves 
 known to His servant. It had begun to dawn clearly 
 upon him that, in face of the altered state of things, a 
 new Order was required, and he had commenced to 
 gather in companions. So now a fresh horizon seemed 
 to open out before him. He must not confine his work 
 to Spain alone. Paris, the metropolis of the student, 
 the first University of its day, where the new learning 
 and new heresies were in open contest with the old and 
 the true, that was the place for Ignatius to begin the 
 work with which God was charging him. 
 
 The war was still raging between Spain and France. 
 The good people of Salamanca were very sorry to lose 
 our Saint, and grim horrors were foretold him ; but 
 the hand of God was leading, and nothing could 
 affright him. So, bidding his companions to follow him, 
 he went, in 1528, to Paris. Their courage, however, 
 failed, and they did not go. 
 
 One thing Ignatius had learnt by experience : that 
 order and method, doing one thing at a time, was as 
 much needed in education as in most other things ; and 
 he therefore resolved to/begin all his studies afresh from 
 the very beginning and to go to class again with boys to 
 learn his Latin grammar, as he had done before at 
 Barcelona. So too he accepted the alms sent to him 
 from his old and fast friends at Barcelona, in order to be 
 able to devote himself without other worries to his books. 
 But a rascally companion, to whom he had given hos- 
 pitality, made away with all he had ; and he was forced 
 to seek refuge as a pauper in the Spanish Hospital of 
 St. James, at the opposite end of Paris to the College of 
 Montaigu, where the Saint was attending the classes 
 of grammar. The doors of St. James’ Hospital closed 
 too early at night, and opened too late in the morning, 
 for him to be able to follow the lessons as regularly ab 
 he desired. There was nothing for it but to go, at the 
 advice of a religious, to beg for alms during the summer 
 vacations from the Spanish merchants at Antwerp, 
 Bruges, and London, so as to be able to take a lodging 
 nearer to his school. 
 
 It was in 1530 that St. Ignatius came to our great 
 
io St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 capital to seek the aid of the Spanish colony in London. 
 They lived in those days for the most part about old 
 Broad Street, under the shadow of the Church of the 
 Austin Friars, and round about the Spanish Embassy, 
 which seems to have been lodged in that religious 
 house. The dark cloud of the divorce of Henry VIII. 
 was gathering thick over the realm, and things looked ill 
 for England’s faith. How changed is that ancient place, 
 in the very heart of the city ! 
 
 Ever full of desire to win souls to God ; Ignatius began 
 after his return to Paris to cast out the nets of earnest 
 exhortation, which derived their power from his fervent 
 prayers and constant penance. Three youths had, after 
 making the Exercises , left their Colleges, to share the 
 hardships and poverty of the hospice with their new 
 master and guide. The disputations on Church holidays 
 began to be ill attended, as so many young men gave 
 their time to prayer and going to the Sacraments, while 
 others left the world altogether and entered religion. 
 The professors were ill pleased at the apparent inter- 
 ference of our Saint. They viewed him as an innovator 
 and a reformer. He was accused before the Inquisition 
 by one who was hereafter his close friend, the learned 
 canonist Dr. Ortiz. Though he cleared himself from 
 any suspicion of error, the students took the law into 
 their own hands. They tore the young men from the side 
 of Ignatius and carried them back to their colleges. 
 Thus he found himself again without a companion. 
 
 The wretch who had robbed our Saint had quickly 
 squandered all his ill-gotten money, and had fallen ill 
 at Rouen, where he had gone to take ship for Spain. 
 As soon as Ignatius heard of his distress he determined 
 to visit him, and more than this, for the benefit of this 
 man’s soul, to go fasting and on foot the whole way. 
 Three days of swift walking, though without food or 
 drink, brought him to the bedside of the sick man. 
 The heroic sacrifice was accepted ; and Ignatius put 
 him on board ship, rejoicing and forgiven. At Rouen 
 the Saint learnt of the charge laid before the Inquisition 
 against him, and fearing lest he should seem to have fled 
 from justice, he hastened back to Paris, and under these 
 circumstances appeared before the Inquisitor, Father Ori, 
 who ever after proved his defender 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 1 1 
 
 Ignatius had at last efficiently completed his prepara- 
 tory studies and, in the October of 1529, he entered 
 the College of St. Barbara, which was close by his former 
 College of Montaigu. He was given a room in an old 
 turret, where he found a young Savoyard, Peter Favre, 
 who had already taken his degree in Philosophy, and 
 who, at the request of his professor Pena, undertook to 
 help him in his course. His room was shared by a young 
 professor, Francis Xavier, who took his name from his 
 birthplace, a castle in Navarre, not far off Loyola. Francis 
 was of high family, very gifted in body and mind, but he 
 cared little for the pious sayings and unworldly ways of 
 Ignatius. However, constant acts of kindness, the power 
 of example, and the often repeated reminder, “ What does 
 it profit a man if he gain the whole world ? ” broke down 
 the stubborn will of the young professor, whose dreams of 
 earthly glory made way for an all-absorbing thirst for suffer- 
 ing and humiliation, in order to be like His Lord. Two 
 other Spanish students, who had known St. Ignatius at 
 Alcala, James Lainez and Alphonsus Salmeron, followed 
 him to Paris, and soon renewed their acquaintance with 
 him. Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese, who had a scholar- 
 ship at St. Barbara^ and a Spaniard, Nicholas Bobadilla, 
 who was attending the lectures of Xavier at the College 
 of Beauvais, were joined to this close circle of friends. 
 
 But the heads of the College still looked with little 
 favour on the influence which Ignatius exercised ; they 
 remembered the flight of his former companions to the 
 Spanish hospital, and the falling off of the attendance at 
 the public discussions. It was Pena, the professor of 
 philosophy at St. Barbara, who urged the Rector of the 
 College, James Gouvea, a Portuguese, to inflict upon 
 Ignatius a public flogging, or as it was called at Paris, 
 a hall, the chastisement reserved for students who were 
 incorrigible or convicted of leading their comrades 
 astray. Ignatius was warned by his friends of what was 
 in store for him, and at the first hearing of it he trembled 
 at the very thought of the indignity. But he quickly con- 
 quered himself and forced himself to embrace the shame. 
 However, on more mature thought he saw that if he 
 were to be so flogged it would be impossible for him to 
 be of any further good to the students, as he would be 
 disgraced and therefore shunned by all. He went 
 
12 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 
 
 straight to the Rector, who had not as yet left his room, 
 and told him frankly and briefly that, while willing as far 
 as he himself was concerned to accept the ignominy, he 
 feared lest it should be a hindrance to his future use- 
 fulness. 
 
 The Rector listened to him, and whether it was that 
 he felt he had acted hastily and harshly, or that the very 
 sincerity of Ignatius won his heart, he took him by the 
 hand, and led him into the hall, and there before them 
 all, knelt at his feet and begged his pardon, the good 
 man’s tears proving the sincerity of his regret. From 
 that time Gouvea, Ortiz and Pena became the fast 
 friends of Ignatius. He was looked up to and venerated 
 by all, and one of the leading men of the University 
 wished to have him made a Doctor of Divinity, though 
 he was then only a student of philosophy. 
 
 One story must be told out of many of what Ignatius 
 / did for souls. A young man was carrying on a criminal 
 \ intrigue, and our Saint knew that on his way the sinner 
 \ used to cross a bridge over a branch of the lake of 
 Gentilly. It was a bitter night, and Ignatius stood up 
 to his neck in the icy water, and there awaited his 
 ( coming. “Go,” cried the Saint, as the youth passed 
 \_by ; “ I will do penance here every evening till you 
 amend.” The sight touched the sinner’s heart, and he 
 turned home a penitent. 
 
 Ignatius finished his philosophy in 1534, when he 
 took his degree of Master of Arts. He began at once 
 his theological studies at the great Dominican College 
 close hy. Meantime he saw the hour had come to give 
 some permanent shape to his work, and thus prevent 
 the new band of followers from drifting away under any 
 storm of difficulty that might arise. Five 6f the six 
 companions had made the Exercises with extraordinary 
 fervour under Ignatius. Xavier’s duties as professor 
 alone had debarred him from so doing ; and to each 
 our Saint commended his rules for the choice of a state 
 of life. To none but Favre had he revealed his own 
 design of going to work for God in the Holy Land. He 
 invited each separately and under promise of secrecy to 
 make up his mind by a certain time, and on that day 
 to come to him with his decision. To their surprise 
 the six friends when they met found that they were all 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 »3 
 
 of one mind, ready to go with St. Ignatius to the end in 
 close following of Christ, their King and Captain. 
 
 Their resolve was to bind themselves by vow to 
 perpetual poverty and chastity, and to visit the Holy 
 Land; and if, as had happened to St. Ignatius, they 
 could not remain there, or were even prevented from 
 going, they would put themselves entirely at the disposal 
 of the Pope. 
 
 On the slope of Montmartre, not far off the busy 
 Boulevards, is now a convent of nuns of the Order of 
 Reparation. In St. Ignatius’ days, when this was a 
 mile or so outside Paris, there stood here a quiet church, 
 called the Martyrs, where tradition, says that St. Denis 
 and his companions gave their lives to God. It was a 
 Priory dependant on the great Abbey of Benedictine 
 Nuns, the Church of which is still standing near the 
 votive Church now rising to the honour of the Sacred 
 Heart. Beneath the Church of the Martyrs was a 
 crypt, and there at early dawn an Altar was prepared, 
 and B. Peter. Favre, the priest of the little band, said 
 Mass. At the Communion he turned round with his 
 Sacramental Lord in his hands, and St. Ignatius made 
 his vows and received His Divine Master. He was 
 followed by the others, Favre turning to the altar at 
 the end and making his offering like the rest. This was 
 on Mary’s great feast of the Assumption, and the year 
 was 1534, that of England’s apostacy. The craven 
 Convocation and Parliament had at the bidding of an 
 adulterous tyrant rejected the authority of Christ’s Vicar, 
 and befoie the year was out they would choose that 
 monster, instead of the Pope, as head of the Church 
 of England. Joshua and his faithful few were called 
 by Heaven in this hour of need. 
 
 The rest of that day was spent near St. Denis’ fountain, 
 which is not far off the Martyrs’. Their hearts were 
 overflowing, and they could talk of nothing but of the 
 days when they could give themselves up entirely to 
 work for souls. Nor did they return home till the late 
 summer sun set behind the spires of Paris. 
 
 Time passed on in study and prayer and penance. 
 One of the pits which honeycomb Montmartre, and from 
 which the well-known plaster of Paris was drawn, served 
 Ignatius as a cave for hidden contemplation and austerity. 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 *4 
 
 His favourite church within the city wall was Notre 
 Dame des Champs. But his health gave way so utterly 
 that the doctors said there was no remedy for him but 
 to give up his studies and try a change to his native 
 air. 
 
 It was a bitter parting, between Ignatius and his 
 followers, though it was arranged that at the end of 
 1536 they should all meet in Venice, there to take ship 
 for Palestine. So in the spring of 1535, mounted on a 
 sorry horse, which his companions had procured for him 
 as he was too ill to walk, Ignatius set out for Spain. 
 He had determined not to go to his old home, but to 
 steal in unawares to the neighbouring town of Azpeitia. 
 However, when two leagues from Loyola, he was recog- 
 nized by an old friend who rode full speed to take the 
 news to his brother’s castle. As a precaution against 
 any honours, Ignatius had left the high road and taken 
 an out-of-the-way and dangerous mountain path ; but all 
 was of no avail, and, as he drew near, a procession of 
 the clergy and a number of his relatives came forth from 
 the town to meet him. But nothing would induce him 
 to stay anywhere except at St. Mary Magdalen’s hospice 
 for the poor. Once, and once only, was he persuaded 
 by the entreaties of his sister-in-law to pay a brief visit 
 to his home. But his brother sent down to St. Mary 
 Magdalen’s a fine bed with silken hangings ; and a basket 
 of provisions came from the Castle every day. It was 
 soon found out, in spite of his efforts to conceal the fact, 
 that he slept on the hard floor ; never did he touch the 
 Castle fare, but went round the town begging for his 
 food, and giving the best he obtained to others who were 
 door like himself. 
 
 The journey had already restored his health, and 
 Ignatius not only resumed his terrible austerities, but 
 devoted himself heart and soul, for the short time he 
 spent in his native land, to work a great change in 
 Azpeitia. Clergy and people alike were brought back 
 to God. He used to preach from the entrance of the 
 little chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, just opposite the 
 poor-house; and crowds came to hear him. From the 
 chapel porch a farmhouse across the stream can still be 
 seen a long way off, to which, according to tradition, his 
 voice reached. 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 15 
 
 It was with difficulty that he could get away from the 
 good Basque folk, and from his relations. He went a 
 long journey through Spain to settle the affairs of St. 
 Francis Xavier and other of his companions, who were 
 anxious to rid themselves of their property, in accordance 
 with their vows. At length he reached Valencia on the 
 Mediterranean, near to which he paid a visit to one of 
 his former companions, then a novice in the Charter- 
 house of Val de Cristo. To him he talked about the 
 new Order he was about to found, and from him he 
 asked counsel and the aid of his prayers. 
 
 From Valencia the Saint took ship to Genoa. A 
 furious storm broke the rudder, snapped the rigging of 
 the vessel, and threatened the crew with instant ship- 
 wreck ; but amidst the cries and lamentations of all, 
 St. Ignatius felt but one trouble — he had not been grate- 
 ful enough for the marvellous favours he had received 
 from God. The storm abated and they reached port. 
 But winter had commenced, and the pilgrim had a 
 fearful journey among the Apennines, where he lost his 
 way and was forced to crawl on his hands and feet 
 amidst the precipices of tne mountains. He used to say 
 in after life that never had he been in such peril. The 
 year 1535 was closing, when at length Ignatius reached 
 Venice and there awaited his companions. The follow- 
 ing year was fruitful in good for that rich and gay city, 
 and the zeal of St. Ignatius won to God many a noble 
 soul, of whom more than one joined him in his life of 
 devotion and zeal. 
 
 In the beginning of January, 1537, after a journey 
 full of hardships, through hostile armies, through the 
 snows and frost of the Alps, and through countries and 
 towns full of hostile Protestants, the companions whom 
 he had left in Paris came to forget all their sorrows in 
 being once more with their father Ignatius. To him 
 and to them it was an additional pleasure to see their 
 little band increased by two fresh recruits from Paris, 
 and others from Venice. The hospitals were their 
 home, and the scene of their marvellous devotion and 
 victory over self in the service of the sick and poor. 
 When Lent arrived, St. Ignatius sent them all to Rome 
 to spend the Holy Week there, and to get the Pope’s 
 blessing and the leave from him to receive Oiders 
 
lb 
 
 St. Ignatms Loyola 
 
 and to preach and hear confessions. He did not dare 
 to go himself, for he feared to meet Dr. Ortiz, who was 
 then at Rome as one of the agents of Charles V., 
 pleading the cause of our brave Queen, Catherine of 
 Aragon. Ortiz proved the very best friend of the 
 pilgrims, for he presented them to the Pope, Paul 
 III., who sent them back with all and more than 
 they had dared to ask or hope for. On the Feast of 
 St. John the Baptist, St. Ignatius and those of his com- 
 panions who were not priests, were ordained priests at 
 Venice, and then one and all retired into solitude to 
 prepare for their apostolic work, and wherein the newly 
 anointed might make ready for their first Mass. St. 
 Ignatius, B. Peter Favre, and Father Lainez took up 
 their abode in a ruined monastery outside the walls of 
 Vicenza. There were neither doors nor window-frames 
 in the building, and their food was the hard dry crusts 
 which they begged. But the forty days in that desert 
 were turned into Paradise by the glimpses of heavenly 
 things which made all suffering forgotten. That period 
 over, the Fathers went out into the streets of Vicenza to 
 preach and to instruct, and though they knew but little 
 Italian, their zeal, the sight of their wearied and wasted 
 forms, and the power of their holiness wrought wonders 
 among the people. 
 
 All the companions then gathered together at Vicenza; 
 and there it was agreed that, as the way to the Holy 
 Land was indefinitely closed by the war between the 
 Catholic powers and the Turk, they should offer their 
 services to the Pope. Accordingly, St. Ignatius, with 
 B. Peter Favre and Lainez went on to Rome, to put 
 themselves and their brethren entirely at the disposal of 
 the Pope. As they drew near the city, close by the site 
 of ancient Veii, in the broad Campagna which spreads 
 around the capital of the Christian world, there is a way- 
 side chapel at a place called La Storta. As St. Ignatius 
 had journeyed along, the two Fathers who were w r ith him 
 had said Mass, and the Saint had approached Holy 
 Communion each day. His heart was full of thoughts 
 of love towards his Sacramental Lord. He entered the 
 chapel to pray, and when he came out, it was evident 
 that he had been deeply stirred. “ I know not,” he 
 said, “what awaits us in Rome. Perhaps we shall be 
 
7 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola i 
 
 crucified there.” In fact, as he went on to tell, Jesus 
 had appeared to him bearing His Cross, and the Eternal 
 Father had commended Ignatius to the care of His 
 Blessed Son with these words, “Receive this man as 
 Thy servant.” Then our Lord had turned to him and 
 said, “ I will be favourable to you in Rome.” 
 
 It was in the November of 1537 that St. Ignatius 
 arrived there with his two companions. Those whom he 
 had left behind were busy gathering in the harvest of 
 the souls in various cities of Italy, nor could St. Ignatius 
 remain idle in face of so much to be done. Pope Paul 
 III. received him and his companions with the greatest 
 kindness. He appointed FF. Lainez and Favre as 
 lecturers in the Roman university, while he left Ignatius 
 free to exercise his zeal. 
 
 By the Easter of 1538 God’s time had come for 
 laying broad and deep the Constitutions of the new 
 Order, and St. Ignatius in his wise humility summoned 
 around him all his brethren, to aid him by their prayers 
 and counsel in this most important work. By the orders 
 of the Vicar of the Pope, Cardinal Carafa, the pulpits of 
 various churches were assigned to them, and marvellous 
 was the change wrought by their burning discourses and 
 bright example. 
 
 But none had the power of St. Ignatius’ words, simple 
 and straightforward, without adornment, a soldier’s 
 speech, but irresistible because the expressions of 
 deepest conviction and the fruit of perpetual prayer. 
 He preached in his native tongue in the Spanish Church 
 of Our Lady of Montserrat, hard by the English hospice, 
 which is now the venerable English College. So en- 
 grossed were these apostolic men with their work, that 
 it sometimes happened that night came upon them 
 before they had had time to remember that they had 
 not yet broken their fast. 
 
 But a sudden tempest arose. One or the many 
 whom the moral corruption of the time and the wide- 
 spread attacks against the faith had led astray, an 
 Augustinian Friar from Piedmont, had come to preach 
 in Rome, under the patronage of persons of high rank. 
 The followers of St. Ignatius soon detected that his 
 sermons contained, under a careful disguise, the errors 
 of Calvin and Luther. They be&an at once to treat 
 
1 8 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 in their instructions, without any allusion to the preacher, 
 upon various points on which the Piedmontese friar was 
 leading the people astray. His defence was to retort 
 upon St. Ignatius the accusation of heresy, and openly 
 to assert that, over and over again, our Saint had been 
 convicted of false doctrine. His assertions were sup- 
 ported by a group of men who came primed with false 
 evidence. The accusations were destructive of all 
 prospect of future good, and St. Ignatius, so willing to 
 court contempt and ignominy when only himself was 
 concerned, boldly demanded a public inquiry and a 
 sentence in the public courts. God took the matter in 
 hand ; the four ecclesiastical judges before whom he 
 had been tried were all, for one reason or other, in Rome 
 just at that very time, and their evidence was conclusive. 
 An attempt was made to hush up the affair in order to 
 shelter some persons, high placed, who would have 
 been compromised by an official sentence. But St. 
 Ignatius was convinced that an authoritative recognition 
 of his innocence and freedom from error was absolutely 
 necessary to prevent the old accusation from continually 
 reappearing. He went to the Pope, then at his country 
 house at Frascati, and boldly laid the whole matter 
 before him. A full and judicial sentence was published 
 in due form in his favour. The friar escaped to Geneva, 
 and there openly professed Lutherianism. 
 
 On Christmas night that same year, 1538, in the sub- 
 terranean chapel of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, 
 where the relic of the holy crib of Bethlehem was kept, 
 St. Ignatius said his first Mass. He had not thought 
 a year and a half too long a preparation ! 
 
 Now that peace had been restored, it was time to 
 settle definitely the form and shape of the Order. Igna- 
 tius recommended the others to seek in prayer and 
 penance and at the Holy Sacrifice the light they re- 
 quired ; and there is still existing a sort of diary in 
 which he used to note down the thoughts vouchsafed to 
 himself at that time in prayer. There are, too, at Rome 
 the minutes drawn up and signed by the Fathers during 
 their careful and prolonged deliberations. Not to inter- 
 rupt their labour for souls, they only met at night-fall, 
 and then discussed at length the various subjects which 
 were before them. 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 *9 
 
 The resolutions of the Fathers were laid before 
 Paul III. on September 3rd, 1589 , by the fast friend 
 of St. Ignatius, the great Cardinal Contarini, — who was 
 also the friend of our Cardinal Pole. The Pope gladly 
 gave a general approval. But St. Ignatius was desirous 
 of a still more explicit recognition. The scheme was 
 handed over to a commission of three Cardinals, of 
 whom one especially was strongly opposed to the 
 approbation of any fresh Religious Order in the Church. 
 But the prayers and penances of our Saint won the day, 
 and even Cardinal Guidiccioni, who had been most 
 determined, owned that some irresistible impulse forced 
 him to give a consent against his own wishes. Paul III. 
 read over the scheme himself with great attention, and 
 exclaimed on doing so : “ The finger of God is here ! ” 
 On the 27th of September, a bull of the Pontiff set the 
 seal of Christ’s Vicar on the work of St. Ignatius. 
 
 Already B. Peter Favre had been sent as the coun- 
 sellor of Ortiz to the conference on religion at Worms, 
 while at the suggestion of Gouvea, the old rector of St. 
 Barbara’s, John III. of Portugal had asked and obtained 
 St. Francis Xavier and F. Rodriguez as missionaries for 
 India. Four of the other Fathers had been called away 
 to labour in various parts of Italy. It was absolutely 
 necessary, before they were scattered over the world, at 
 once to elect a Superior. The four were recalled to 
 Rome, and in the Lent of 1541 they were all gathered 
 into the narrow and poverty-stricken house beside the little 
 Church of Santa Maria della Strada, which had been 
 given to them. Three days were spent in prayer ; no 
 discussion was allowed ; the result was to come from 
 God. On the day fixed the votes of those present and 
 of those who were absent were opened, and all, save the 
 vote of the Saint himself, fell on Ignatius. He declared 
 most positively that the sins of his present and past life 
 totally unfitted him for such a post ; and, spite of the 
 protest of his brethren to the contrary, insisted that a 
 new election should take place, after four days of fresh 
 prayer and consideration. The second voting had the 
 same result. Ignatius refused as absolutely as before; 
 no persuasion could change his mind, till at length, as 
 a compromise, he volunteered to lay bare all his defects 
 and crimes to his confessor, a Franciscan Father, and 
 
20 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 abide by his decision. He never doubted what the 
 result would be. 
 
 Accordingly he spent the last three days of Holy Week 
 in the Franciscan house of St. Peter in Montorio, the 
 traditional scene of St. Peter’s crucifixion, which looks 
 down from the Janiculan hill upon the domes and bell- 
 towers of Rome. Ignatius spent the time in earnest 
 effort to paint his own character in the blackest colours 
 and so to prove his utter unworthiness for the office of 
 General ; and then on Easter day, he went triumphantly 
 to his father confessor to hear his verdict. “ By your 
 refusal you are acting against the Holy Ghost,” was the 
 friar’s only reply. Even then Ignatius begged him to 
 reconsider his opinion, and when he had done so to write 
 his answer to the Fathers. Then and then only did 
 St. Ignatius bow his head, and in accepting the painful 
 burden of Superior, his life henceforward was merged in 
 the sorrows and successes 1 of the Society. 
 
 On the Friday in Easter week St. Ignatius and his 
 companions went on that touching pilgrimage, trodden 
 by so many millions of Catholics, to the Seven Churches 
 of Rome. It brought them at length to the solemn 
 Basilica of St. Paul, so stately in its solitude, with its 
 forest of marble pillars and its glittering mosaics. There 
 at the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, before a picture of 
 our Lady and Child, then at the left of the venerable high 
 altar, St. Ignatius said Mass, and at the Communion, 
 with the paten in one hand and the formula of vows 
 in the other, he made his solemn profession, sealing it 
 with the reception of his King and Captain, and the 
 five other Fathers then followed his example. After 
 Mass, they went to visit each of the privileged altars of 
 the basilica, and then meeting round the high altar, 
 which is still standing, they gave each other the kiss of 
 peace, their hearts full of gratitude that it had been 
 given them to fulfil publicly and in face of the world at 
 the shrine of the Apostle of the Gentiles, what had been 
 begun in the secret vault of Montmartre. 
 
 The remaining sixteen years of his life were chequered 
 with many clouds of trouble, consoled though they were 
 by the steady progress of the Society in unwearied 
 struggles with vice and with error. Ignatius himself 
 never left Rome, save on two occasions, when he went 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 21 
 
 as peacemaker to Tivoli, and once to a castle of the 
 Colonnas in the territory of Naples. But he followed 
 with the deepest interest the labours of St. Francis 
 Xavier in India and Japan, of B. Peter Favre and his 
 other Fathers in Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, 
 in Savoy, in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere, cheering 
 them with frequent letters. B. Peter he welcomed home 
 when at length, after eight years’ absence and hardship, 
 obedience brought him back to Rome to die in his arms. 
 St. Francis Borgia, Viceroy of Catalonia and Duke of 
 Gandia, left his state and broad lands to fill the void 
 caused by Favre’s death. St. Ignatius made every son 
 of his, however distant, in India or in Brazil, feel the 
 warm beatings of a father’s heart in those wonderful 
 letters which tell better than anything its tenderness, its 
 courage, its strength, and, when needs were, its sternness. 
 
 To far off Japan, to mysterious Abyssinia, to Ireland 
 torn by heresy and faction, to Scotland tottering to its 
 ruin, to the Congo, opened out long before the days of 
 modern travel by the children of Ignatius, the General 
 from his little room at Santa Maria della Strada, sent his 
 brave sons on the message of peace. To England he 
 would have sent them if his zeal had not been baffled by 
 politicians. Then as ever his children had to suffer even 
 from Catholic hands and in Catholic countries, and every 
 sorrow of theirs found its echo in his soul, so jealous for 
 the glory of God, and so sensitive to their sufferings, so 
 indifferent to his own. 
 
 The walls of his humble rooms still exist, their holiness 
 is still respected, and they could tell that the source and 
 force of all he did was his constant union with God, a 
 prayer which found its food in every creature of the 
 Creator. For each flower, each star, each beautiful 
 object in creation lifted his heart up to Heaven. He 
 loved to step out at night on a balcony, which has been 
 preserved, and to gaze upon the calm stillness of a 
 southern starlit sky, as if lifting his eyes longingly 
 towards his home, and he would sigh and say, “How 
 vile the earth is when we look at heaven ! ” So constant 
 grew this his habit of looking upwards that he was known 
 familiarly to passers-by as the man whose eyes were ever 
 heavenward. Such was his devotion at office that his 
 tears flowed in such streams that there was peril of his 
 
22 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 losing his sight; and it was at length found necessary 
 to obtain for him a dispensation from the Pope and a 
 prohibition to say his breviary. At Mass his devotion 
 got the better of him so completely that he often spent 
 an hour at the altar, and was forced to celebrate in 
 private, while the saying of two Masses on Christmas 
 night threw him into a fever. 
 
 St. Ignatius was naturally very fond of the chants and 
 services of the Church, but he sacrificed this pleasure 
 and departed so far from the practice of former days as 
 to lay no obligation of choir on his order. He felt the 
 absolute need of devoting all their time to the active 
 work of teaching, of preaching and administering the 
 Sacraments, and he would leave to others that sublime 
 duty of echoing on earth the perpetual service of the 
 blessed before the Throne. Still he valued at its full 
 the Liturgy, and when the ceremonies of Holy Week 
 were to be gone through in his church, he was so anxious 
 that they should be done as well as possible, that he 
 used to send for those who were to take part in them, and 
 make them rehearse them several times in his presence . 1 
 
 Much as the Saint valued prayer, much as he sought 
 in it the light and grace which he needed for himself, 
 and which he asked for others, yet he ever taught by his 
 own practice how necessary it was to join to it self- 
 conquest; for otherwise, as he remarked, persons given 
 to prayer easily become too wedded to their own ideas. 
 His constant prayer was, “ Grant me, O God, humility 
 and loving reverence.” His lowly opinion of himself 
 was shown, not only in his first refusal of the office of 
 General, but in his effort to resign the post, even long 
 before his health had so far incapacitated him that pity 
 for his feeblener forced his children to accept the 
 resignation. His plea was that it was easy to find one 
 who would fill the post better or less ill than he. He 
 even feared that others should take him for anything 
 more than he was. His confessor had hinted that if he 
 outlived the Saint he would have marvels to disclose. 
 The Saint gave him a severe public penance ; and when 
 the Father died before his penitent, his friends suspected 
 that this was in answer to the prayer of St. Ignatius. 
 
 1 Words of his contemporary, F. Oliver Manare, who lived with 
 him in Rome. 
 
St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 23 
 
 The holiness of our Saint stood the test of the Apostle’s 
 saying, for never did he offend by the tongue. He was 
 most careful not to exaggerate or to use superlatives, so 
 common in southern speech. Never did he say a word 
 against another nor use a harsh word of reproach, nor 
 did he allow himself to express an unfavourable judgment 
 of any one. He always preferred to get those who were 
 in fault to acknowledge their error, so the more success- 
 fully to be able to correct them. What was perhaps 
 most notable in him was the complete control which he 
 had obtained over his naturally fiery temper. He was 
 sweet and gentle, when sweetness and gentleness were 
 needed, and yet could at the right time speak with such 
 severity as to make the offender tremble before him, 
 though the next moment he would return to his usual 
 calm. He adjusted this severity to a nicety according to 
 the virtue of the person with whom he had to deal, and 
 while considerate and gentle with the weak, he might 
 have appeared hard and exacting to a fault when dealing 
 with men of tried virtue, like Lainez. 
 
 A proof of St. Ignatius’ wise foresight and of his 
 blindness, when needs be, to thoughtless faults, was best 
 seen in his long suffering the freaks of the boy novice 
 Ribadeneira, whose grateful pen was afterwards to give 
 us the charming biography of the Saint. In one of his 
 fits of juvenile waywardness the youth showed the power 
 which Ignatius could exert over hearts, by walking all 
 the way from Louvain to Rome in the midst of a cruel 
 winter to seek comfort in his troubles in the sight of his 
 friend and father. The sick had a special place in the 
 heart of St. Ignatius. When he had ordered some extra 
 comforts for the invalids and the bursar told him there 
 was not money in the house even to buy food for the 
 community, he bade him sell some of the very small 
 supply of crockery and furniture which the house then 
 possessed and get the delicacies for the sick. 
 
 His hidden life is told us in the more than human 
 wisdom of his Exercises , of which it was ever the out- 
 ward expression. Therein we can read the maxims 
 which he carried out in every detail of his life. The 
 secret of his success, the source of the courage which 
 supported him, are to be found in his quiet trust in 
 God. Yet he fully recognised how God demands that 
 
24 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola 
 
 man should do his part. However stiff and decided he 
 might be in carrying out his resolves when once he saw 
 it was God’s wish, his action was wisely slow, and he 
 studied carefully and chose the best times and the seasons. 
 At all other times he anxiously sought and readily followed 
 the opinion of others. 
 
 He had also a Saint’s discernment when to lay aside 
 human prudence and cast his care on God. His hands 
 were already well filled with pious works, beyond and 
 above his care of the Society, and yet he undertook the 
 whole responsibility of the refuge for fallen women at 
 St. Martha, and braved the scoffs and vile insinuations 
 of the wicked, and the worldly-wise criticisms of the 
 good. No labour was too great, he urged, to prevent 
 one single mortal sin, or to promote God’s glory in any 
 way; and once, when that was at stake, he stayed 
 fourteen hours waiting without food for an audience at 
 a great man’s door. 
 
 C The reward came at last. Ignatius was now sixty-five. 
 He was constantly prostrated by illness. Age had not 
 bent his upright form, nor blanched his hair, his face was 
 winning and full of a noble dignity. Yet the responsibili- 
 ties of his world-wide w r ork, and the heats of a more than 
 usually hot Roman summer brought on a fever. But 
 it did not seem serious. On the last day but one of 
 July, 1556, he suggested to his vicar that it was time to 
 go and beg for him the Papal blessing, as he was near 
 his end. Neither the doctors nor the Fathers could 
 believe this, and so the message was delayed ; even the 
 last Sacraments were not administered. Next morning 
 was Friday, and at early dawn St. Ignatius was found 
 actually dying, and before the holy oils could be brought, 
 about an hour after sunrise, he expired with his watch- 
 word, “Jesus, Jesus,” on his lips. 
 
 In 1622, Gregory XV. canonized our Saint. His 
 relics lie in a sumptuous chapel, within the Church of 
 the Gesu, which was built in the place of Santa Maria 
 della Strada 
 
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 U —Feb., 1898. 
 
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 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ST. WINEFRIDE 
 
 By FATHER PHILIP METCALF, S.J. 
 
 Edited by the 
 
 REV. HERBERT THURSTON, S.J. 
 
 Father Philip Metcalf’s Life of St. Winefride was first 
 printed in the year 1712, and embodies the legend of the Saint 
 as it was recounted for pious pilgrims more than two centuries 
 ago. The present reprint was undertaken at the request, anc by 
 the interest, of the late Lady Mostyn ; it is a textual reproduc- 
 tion of the old Life and the original Frontispiece. Fathei 
 Thurston, S.J., contributes an historical Introduction and notes, 
 together with a supplementary section recounting some of ‘he 
 more remarkable of the cures at St. Winefride’s Well in modern 
 times. The book is thus an interesting record of the famous 
 Holywell shrine, as well as a biography of the Saint in whose 
 honour the shrine was established. A copy of this little volume 
 would form an admirable birthday or feast-day gift to those 
 who bear St. Winefride’s name. 
 
 1 
 
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 “This pretty little volume is published at an appropriate time 
 Interesting as the story is, its value to most readers will lie in the 
 duction and the appendix contributed by Father Thurston. FI 
 summarized succinctly the history of the shrine and furnished an 
 of some of the more remarkable of the cures which have taken 
 the Well, beginning with that of Winefride White in 1805 and con 
 with one as recent as July 1916. The book is charmingly prodi: 
 Catholic Times. 
 
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