"Another of his biographers conjectures that the prince of the apostles effected his restoration to health, because he had a special interest in the cure of a man destined by heaven to maintain the authority of the Holy See against heresy. However this may be, Ignatius assuredly recovered, although a slight deformity remained on his leg, caused by the protrusion of a bone under the knee. Grievously afflicted that the symmetry of his person should be thus spoiled, he determined to have the obnoxious bone cut off, and the operation was performed almost without producing a change of countenance in the hardy soldier. Notwithstanding all his care, however, his right leg always remained somewhat shorter than the left. Restrained from walking, and confined to his bed, he requested, in order to amuse himself, to be furnished with some books of chivalry, the sort of reading which chiefly occupied the attention of people of quality at that time; but instead of Palmerin of England, or Amadis of Gaul, they brought him The Lives of the Saints. At first he read them without any other view than that of beguiling the time; but by degrees he began to relish them, and at length became so absorbed in the study of asceticism, that he passed whole days in studying The Lives of the Saints, and finally made a

resolution to imitate men who had so distinguished themselves by warring against their own flesh and blood. These aspirations were succeeded by his former desire for military glory; but after various mental conflicts, and a great deal of reflection, the charms of penance at length completely triumphed.

"For the purpose of gratifying this passion, he determined to go barefoot to the Holy Land, to clothe himself in sackcloth, to live upon bread and water, to sleep on the bare ground, and to choose a desert for his abode; but in the mean time, as his leg was not sufficiently well to allow him to carry his wishes into effect, in order in a slight degree to satisfy the longings of his soul, he spent part of the night in weeping for his sins; and one night, prostrating himself before an image of the blessed Virgin, he consecrated himself to the service of her and her Son. Immediately he heard a terrible noise. The house shook, the windows were broken, and a rent made in the wall, which was long after, and probably may at this day be seen. These extraordinary signs are not noticed by Maffei; but his less cautious brother, Ribadeneira, relates the fact, although he is in some doubt whether it was a sign of the approbation of the Deity, or of the rage of the devils, at seeing their prey ravished from them.

"Another night the Virgin appeared to him, holding her Son in her arms; a sight which so replenished him with spiritual unction, that from that time forward his soul became purified, and all images of sensual delight were for ever razed from his mind. He felt himself re-created, and spent all his time in reading, writing, and meditating on performing something extraordinary. At length he sallied forth from Loyola, where he had been conveyed after the siege of Pampeluna, and took the road to Montserrat, a monastery of Benedictines, at that time famous for the devotions of pilgrims, making by the way a vow of perpetual chastity, one of the instruments with which he proposed to arm himself in his contemplated combats. He had not ridden far before he fell in with a Moor, with whom he entered into conversation, and amongst other topics engaged in an argument about the immaculate purity of the blessed Virgin. The Moor agreed, that until the birth of Christ, Mary preserved her virginity; but he maintained, that when she became a mother she ceased to be a virgin. The knight heard this treason against his lady with the greatest horror; and the Moor, perceiving the discussion was tending to a disagreeable point, set spurs to his horse and made off. The champion of the honour of the blessed

rat.

Virgin was for a while in doubt whether it was required of him to revenge the blasphemies of the Moor. He, however, followed him, until he arrived at a place where the road parted, one branch of it leading to Montserrat, and the other to a village whither the Moor was going; and being mindful of the expedient which errant knights of old frequently adopted to solve a doubt, he very wisely determined to be guided by his horse, and if the animal took the same road as the Moor, to take vengeance on him; if not, then to pursue his way in peace to MontserThe horse being of a peaceable disposition, took the road to Montserrat; and having arrived at a village, at the foot of the mountain on which the monastery stands, his rider purchased the equipage of a pilgrim, and proceeding to the monastery, sought out an able spiritual director, and confessed his sins, which he did in so full and ample a manner, and interrupted it with such torrents of tears, that his confession lasted three days. The next step which Ignatius took was to seek out a poor man, to whom, stripping himself to his shirt, he privately gave all his clothes; then, putting on his pilgrim's weeds, he returned to the church of the monastery'.

Here,

1 Let the reader here turn to the "Life of Alexius," and particularly to pages 66, 67, of this volume.

remembering that it was customary for persons to watch a whole night in their arms, previously to their being knighted, he determined in like manner to keep his vigil before the altar of his Lady; and suspending his sword upon a pillar, in token of his renouncing secular warfare, he continued in prayer the whole night, devoting himself to the Saviour and the blessed Virgin, as their true knight, according to the practice of chivalry.

"Early in the morning he departed from Montserrat, leaving his horse to the monastery, and receiving in exchange certain penitential instruments from his ghostly father. With his staff in his hand, his scrip by his side, bare-headed, one foot unshod, (the other being still weak from his wound) he walked briskly to Manreza, a small town about three leagues from Montserrat. Resolved to make Manreza illustrious by his exemplary penance, he took up his abode at the hospital for pilgrims and sick persons; he girded his loins with an iron chain, put on a hair shirt, disciplined himself three times a day, laid upon the bare ground, and lived upon bread and water for a week. Not content with these mortifications, he sometimes added to his hair shirt a girdle of certain herbs full of thorns and prickles. He spent seven hours every day in prayer, and frequently