he had refused the offer of an ass to ride on. It is probable that at this time the following circumstance occurred. An officer of justice came in haste after him, and questioned him whether it was he who had given a rich suit of clothes to a poor mendicant, as the man asserted; adding that he had been put in prison because his story was not believed. Ignatius, much distressed to find that his charity had brought this affliction on the beggar, assured the officer that he had given him the clothes, but refused to answer when questioned further about himself, and about his motive in what he had done.

When the travellers came near the little town of Manresa, Agnes sent on the pilgrim with one of her companions who was a manager of the hospital, and recommended him to special care, she herself sending him food from her own table. The hospital was named St. Lucy's, from the neighbouring church, and was distant about forty yards from the town. This latter is situated on the banks of the Cardenero, a stream that flows into the Llobregat, or Red river, and at that time contained somewhat less than three thousand inhabitants, though it had once been the seat of a bishopric. The appearance of Ignatius at Manresa caused unusual sensation, as the story of what he had done at Mont Serrat had received many embellishments, and the most strange and extravagant reports of his fortune and condition had been spread.* It would be hard to imagine why St. Ignatius stopped at this place instead of departing immediately for Jerusalem, did we not know that besides his intended pilgrimage he had the design of going to hide himself in a desert to practise penance, after the example of the Fathers of old. It mattered little to him where the place was, provided he was unknown and undisturbed, and as he found what he wanted at Manresa, he had no need to seek any further. The manner of his life there was as follows. Every day he devoutly heard Mass, and attended at Vespers and Compline, and went to Communion regularly every Sunday. He set apart in particular seven hours for prayer, which he always made upon his knees, and these he divided between day and night. He allowed but very little time for sleep,

* Gonzalez.

and had for his bed the bare ground, for his pillow a stone or a piece of wood. As soon as he rose, he scourged himself to blood, and this he repeated three times a day, and sometimes oftener. He begged his food day by day, eating only once, and selecting by preference the hardest and blackest crusts; his only drink was a glass of water. On Sundays he added a glass of wine and some vegetables, which he sprinkled, as he one day admitted to Father Lainez, with ashes to make them more unpalatable. Under his garb of coarse stuff he wore a hairshirt next his body, to which he afterwards added an iron chain as a girdle. He sought, moreover, to act in direct opposition to all he had hitherto loved and desired. For example, he took pleasure in the company of children and the poor, and imitated their expressions and actions. He served the sick in the hospital, choosing out those who had the most loathsome disorders, or the most disagreeable humours. He joined the company of beggars, neglecting his person and letting his hair grow, and his beard get disordered; but all he could do, he could not pass himself off for one of them, but, as is inevitable in such a case, received only jeers and laughter for attempting it. The children cried after him in the street when he appeared, "Here comes the man in sackcloth!" and followed him with mockery and derision.

This was the very thing he sought, and he knew how to turn it all to the most exalted purpose, taking his delight not in these things themselves but in the virtues which they gave him occasion to practise. He bore with patience not only the contempt which was of his own seeking, but that which came upon him from an unexpected source, which was a much more trying test in a character so fiery and so sensitive in point of honour. An idle young man, from the natural opposition of vice to virtue, conceived against him so violent a hatred that he endeavoured, not only to make him pass for a hypocrite, but turned into ridicule his whole manner and behaviour, and after thus making game of him, loaded him with every species of abuse. This conduct he repeated every time Ignatius entered the town; and when we remember the former life of the Saint, we cannot sufficiently admire his heroic virtue in conquering himself under such circumstances. On one occasion, while he was in the

hospital attending the sick, the sensibilities of nature awakened for a moment to show what strength still remained in them, had they not been brought into sub

jection to grace. He felt suddenly an unconquerable

aversion to all that is most painful to sense-the ill-humour, the rude manners, the disgusting maladies, and the coarse habits of the mendicants. But reflecting at once that it was the love of God which had from the first led him to seek such things, he would not allow himself to be deterred by such motives, but courageously pursuing the course directly opposed to that which was counselled him by flesh and blood, he immediately mixed with the company of some of the poorest, and, by embracing them, stifled the temptation in its first beginning.

Ignatius, however, was not always destined to remain in the narrow sphere of an attendant in a hospital and in the company of mendicants, nor was he to confine himself to giving to such a small circle as this an example of self-abnegation and piety. This was not enough for a man whom God called to a loftier scene of action; it was therefore necessary that he should pass through other trials. Whether it was that his mind, so thoughtful and well regulated, perceived of itself that a new period of the spiritual life was necessary for its development, or whether it was an inspiration of grace directing a deep feeling of the wants of his soul, or perhaps a combination of these motives, but, after having spent about four months in the manner above at the hospital of Manresa, he came to the resolution of seeking a more retired and complete solitude.

CHAPTER III.

IGNATIUS RETIRES INTO A CAVERN NEAR MANRESA. HIS SICKNESSES, HIS TEMPTATIONS, AND HIS REVELATIONS. HE RESOLVES ON QUITTING MANRESA.

TWO HUNDRED PACES from Manresa, at the foot of the rocky sides which inclose the delightful valley called by the people of the country the Vale of Paradise, stands a dark and lonely cave. Not far from it runs the stream of the Cardenero, between the cavern and the highway to Manresa. This cave is twenty-six spans long, eight wide, and eleven in height, but at the further end the level of the floor is much lower.* Towards Mont Serrat is a fissure in the rock, through a crevice of which that mountain may be seen. As the cave was unused its entrance was overgrown with brushwood, through which Ignatius had to make a passage. Here he redoubled his prayers and penances, passing sometimes whole nights in meditation and three or four days without food, scourging himself to blood, or, like St. Jerome, beating himself on the breast with a stone. He was, moreover, exposed to the dampness of the floor on which he lay down to sleep or knelt in prayer. But the most trying of all his sufferings in this cave were the interior pains that he then began to experience. Hitherto he had felt continual peace and joy, and his soul was filled with delightful transports, but had these been his only experiences he would have remained still a novice in spiritual things. Suddenly a tempest arose in his soul and began to darken its serenity. A thought abruptly presented itself to his mind with a furious and violent assault, without any previous notice or occasion to give rise to it" How

* Bartoli is wrong in the distance at which he places the grotto and in its dimensions. He is corrected by the Bollandists.

canst thou endure this kind of life so austere for the forty years which thou mayest perhaps yet have to live?" Perceiving in this access of melancholy and lowness of spirits a temptation of the enemy of all good, he armed himself quickly with a holy indignation, and cut short his sophistries, exclaiming "Wretch, canst thou promise me with certainty an hour of life?" The lesson he had to learn on this occasion is that of all beginners. Grace had hitherto borne him upon its wings, and the rigours of penance had for him unspeakable charms. But as human nature is free it must be strengthened by the trial of its energies; accordingly, grace withdraws its consolations, and a void ensues painful to the soul that, feeling its own burden and deprived of the heavenly comfort for which it sighs, it finds a disgust for its new life, and for the thorny paths which are wounding it. The devil tries to regain his own in this condition of mind, and aids by his sophistries the pleadings of sensitive nature.

SO

After this first assault followed a continual alternation of consolations and desolations. Ignatius passed from one state to the other, like a man, as he himself describes it, who changes his clothes. "What is this?" he exclaimed. "What strange kind of life is this that is coming upon me?” When he had conquered this revolt of the flesh against the spirit, he was assailed by a more subtle temptation still.. He felt himself tempted to dwell with self-satisfaction on the merits which he had acquired by his austerities. Having fallen into a state of health which endangered his life, the devil endeavoured to fill his mind with thoughts of vanity, and to persuade him that he ought to die with joy, having now merited Heaven. To these suggestions he made reply by recalling all the most humiliating events in his past life, and he besought the pious persons who tended him in his sickness to say to him from time to time-" Sinner, remember all thine offences against God." But this temptation is deeply rooted in human nature, and notwithstanding the heroic means he made use of to subdue this enemy of flattery and self-complacency, he could not gain a complete victory till after two years of hard combat.*

The Bollandists, p. 634, in the Preface to the Acts of Father Gonzalez.