The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-03
IGNATIUS LOY0LA.
BY MRS. MARGARET BROWN.

Iuo G1lIl66nI0 C0llU VI d Spanish uODle,
born in 1491, at his fathers castle of
Loyola. His full name was lingo Lo-
pei di Ricaldi, but he is better known
to history as Saint Ignatius Loyola.
His career is as fine an illustration of
the value and power of the personal
element in human affairs as profane
history affords, perhaps. "The real
strength as well as the worst vices of
Jesuitry were inherent in the system
from the first, and in it we have, per-
haps, the most remarkable instance on
record Of the evolution of a cosmopol-
itan and world important organism
from the embryo of one mans concep-
tion." Ignatius spent his boyhood as
page in the service of King Ferdinand,
the Catholic, whence he passed into
that of the Duke of Najara, who was
the hereditary friend and patron Of his
family. The Spaniards bad terminated
their long struggle with the Moors,
Columbus had discovered the New
World; Spain was at the height of her
national career, and her people infamed
with military fervor, romantic adven-
ture and religious zeal. All this had
its own legitimate influence upon the
mind of this youth. The leading feat
ures of his character were a soaring am-
bition, the piety of devotee, and attend
ency to view life as a romance, and reli-
gion as romantic fiction. Ignatius was
barely twenty when the events happened
which determined the future of his life.
Considering all the circumstan-
ces, the Catholic Church could cas-
lily be forgiven if it should claim a
special divine interference in its behalf
in the affections and peculiar expert
ences which befell this romantic, am
bilious youth. In the defense of Pam
peluna, the capital of Navarro, against
the French, on May 20, 1921, bullet
shattered his right leg, while at almost
the same moment his left foot was in
jured by fragment of stone which was
detached from a breach in the bastion.
He was conveyed from the field to his
fathers castle, where he suffered great
ly under the hands of unskilled medical
attendants. The bone had to be broken
and reset twice; and when at last it
joined the young knight, found himself
cripple for life. All hope of military
preferment, of chivalrous adventure,
of success in love or war, was at an end.
fe9ror months dearn mad stared at him,
and would often have been welcomed
as release from his anguish. He prayed
fervently to st. Peter, and when at
length he rose from his bed of sickness,
he firmly believed that his life had been
spared by the intercessiOn of this patron
saint. Cut off from martial fame he
conceived the idea of becoming knight
of Christ and Our Lady He read with
wonderful fascination the lives of the
saints and of Christ. The legends of
the saints and martyrs pointed out a
career no less noble and useful, and
more enticing to the fancy even than
that afforded by military life. Ami
mated with this thought he fled from
his home in the spring of 1922, being
then thirty-one years of age. He took
VOWS of chastity and abstinence, and
began, in spite of the opposition of
friends, pilgrimage to our Lady of
MOntserat. Here he hung up his arms
as votive offering, and performed the
vigil which chivalrous custom exacted
from a squire before the morning of
his being dubbed knight BY self
dedication he had now made himself
the Knight of Holy Church. He re-
tired to a Dominican convent at Man
risa. Here he abandoned himself to
the cruelest self discipline; feeding
upon bread and water; kneeling for
seven hours together Tapt in prayer;
scourging his flesh three times daily,
and reducing sleep to the barest min
imum, seeking thus to win the crown
of sainthood. At last outraged nature
gave way, and he fell dangerously i'll.
In this exper.e .ence he learned to con-
denim the asceticism of anchorites, and
it formed no part of the rule of his or
der. Severely as it had been tested by
self-imposed suffering and diseased hal
lueination, his native good sense was
not corrupted. Enough remained of
his fanaticism, however, to make him
understand the worth of some such
spiritual training and exercise of the
imagination as the beginning of a de-
voted life. In this convent Ignatius
remained for ten months, and in the
study of its manual of devotion he laid
the foundation for those famous exer-
cises for putting young converts
through the proper training for admis-
sion to his society.
He travelled from Manrisa to Pales-
tine. When he had arrived at the Holy
Land he was greatly shocked and dis
/ appointed to find himself treated with
coldness as an ignorant enthusiast. lie
returned to Spain almost Immediately
and put himself to school for two years
] at Barcelona. From there he went TO
Salamanca to study languages, gram