CHARON. What? SOUL. I made war against the Turks. SOUL. I did them all the harm I could. CHARON. And how did you come to think that you were rendering God a service by so doing? Don't you see that the more harm you did to the Turks, the more they hated Jesus Christ, and became more obstinate in their opinions? SOUL. Well, in what way would you have us make Christians of them? CHARON. After you had governed your own subjects well, in peace and prosperity, and you and they were leading good Christian lives, then it would have been soon enough to try to convert the Turks. The first thing would be to use them with great kindness, in order to win them to our faith by means of love, as the Apostles did when they preached the gospel of Jesus Christ; and afterwards, if they could not be converted by means of love, and there was no other way to safeguard the honor of Jesus Christ, then you might proceed to convert them by force, but you should act with such great moderation that the Turks would know that you were not making war for conquest, or for robbery, but solely for the salvation of their souls. Tell me, then, is that the way you went about it? SOUL. Of course I didn't act in that way; nobody ever advised me that such was the way to do. CHARON. Then you may take it from me that before you shall turn Turks into Christians you will have turned your subjects into worse than Turks. This is a satire. Valdés no more than Erasmus, would have dreamed that preaching the gospel was a practicable means of converting the Turks; but Ignatius did. St. Francis had gone to Egypt and tried to convert the Soldan by preaching; why should he not at least try to convert infidelity in the most sacred of cities, and thereby bring all the world into one fold, under one shepherd? His ambition was very great, he was confident in what Father Gonzalez calls "la voluntad que el mismo Diós le avia dado por servirlo-the steadfast will that God Himself had given him for His service," and up to this visit to Italy he had lived in a world of medieval thought. Infidels were the enemies of God, whether they were Moors, Arabs or Ottoman Turks. All Spaniards had been taught this from infancy. Might it not be that he was God's chosen instrument to accomplish by humility and love, what force and arms had failed to achieve? I think it will help to explain his state of mind if I quote what a recent historian writes of Christopher Columbus, himself the best exponent of ideas that helped shape Ignatius's character in his youth: Christopher Columbus was wedded to an ultimate purpose, one which dominated his life and which in dying he bequeathed as a legacy to his heirs,-the institution of a new Crusade and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. All else that he proposed or accomplished was subordinate and subsidiary to this absorbing project. This was his mission. He believed that to effect this he had been brought into the world, a predestined agent of God to restore to the Christian world the birth-place of the Saviour. He believed himself a messenger of the Most High charged with the deliverance of Jerusalem. . . . We can comprehend him only when we see him as he saw himself, when we realize that he held himself a Divine agent selected to execute a grand design, the accomplishment of which he believed would close perhaps the last chapter of the world's history and introduce the thousand years of peace. But Columbus meant to conquer Jerusalem and put down infidelity by force, while Loyola proposed to follow the example of St. Francis. So strongly did this idea dominate him, that even fifteen years later, after he had seen much of the world, he remained outwardly at least, faithful to it, and proposed to lead his little band of disciples to Palestine. I do not mean to deny that Loyola wished to benefit his own soul by undertaking the holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem, by no means: he always held to the double purpose of saving his own soul and the souls of others. But I cannot but feel-though I must admit that the scanty words of his Memoirs, our only direct evidence, do not justify it-that he hoped to convert the Turks and win Jerusalem single-handed; I think that he had infinite confidence in the power of the Christian God and felt that prayer, preaching and example were the right methods to overcome an enemy. Loyola had two sides, of so different an aspect that it seems almost incredible that they belonged to one man, the mystical Loyola, who fixed his eyes on heaven, beheld visions, dreamt dreams, was subject to ecstasy, and the intensely practical Loyola, who kept his eye on the earth, estimated human capacities and weaknesses with the nicety of a diamond cutter, knew how to play upon hope, ambition, desire and fear, was patient, laborious, contriving, and full of resources. And strangely enough, if this be psychologically possible, while his waking consciousness was lost in dreams, down in the depths of his nature his practical genius was considering how to put those dreams to use; and, vice versa, while his senses were busy with the actual his mind's eye gazed into the far future. For instance, in the midst of his spiritual devotions something within him brooded over the plan of a society; and, again (so at least it seems to me), while he was teaching some young novice the elementary rules of self-discipline, primarily for the purpose of saving his soul, his visionary eye already beheld the boy, a grown man, master of himself, preaching the true faith to the weak, the deluded and the tempted, or risking corporal life in order to save the souls of savages in Ceylon or Brazil. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I cannot but suspect that the practical Loyola, as soon as he got to Rome and learned a little of the real state of things, down in subconscious depths became aware that this plan of converting Turks was, to say the least, by no means possible, and that this subconscious knowledge was the real cause why when he actually got to Jerusalem he did not stay. With this digression I return to my story, and give his narrative, somewhat abbreviated. He reached Barcelona in the end of February, 1523, and set about finding passage by sea to Italy, the first stage of his pilgrimage. Friends wished to go with him, but he refused. He said that he desired no companions but Faith, Hope and Charity. In order to have his companion Faith without flaw, he proposed to take absolutely nothing except gown and staff. But the captain of the ship, who was ready to give him a passage gratis, put his foot down and said that he must take his own food. Ignatius hesitated. However, compelled by his confessor, he acquiesced, but the coins which were given him while begging, he left on the beach. This spirit of ascetic piety was personal to Ignatius, not a mere appurtenance of the times. Records show that pilgrims to the Holy Land took good care of the body, making provident bargains for its keep; "for breakfast three rolls and a brimming glass of Malvoisie; for dinner, soup, two kinds of boiled meats, cheese, and wine; for supper, a roast, two dishes again of boiled meats, and cheese; and two hours later a cup of wine." The voyage to Gaeta lasted five days. In company with several fellow travellers, including a mother and daughter, Ignatius started on foot for Rome. They begged their way. The first night they lodged at a farm, the women in the house, Ignatius in the stable. At midnight he was roused by cries of the women that they were assaulted. He rushed to their rescue, shouting, "Shall we submit to this?" frightened off the assailants and got the women away. The pilgrims took to the road in the dark. They reached some town, but finding the gates locked, slept in a church. The next morning they had nothing to eat and were still excluded from the town for fear of the pest which at that time ravaged the country. Ignatius was exhausted and could not walk, the others went on. By good luck a great lady passed that way, and procured his admission to the town, where alms were given him; and after two days' rest, he was able to proceed to Rome. He arrived there on Palm Sunday, and stayed about a fortnight; he visited the seven churches, saw Pope Adrian officiate, and then started on for Venice, where he intended to take ship for Jaffa. At Rome he must have heard the alarming news that the Turks had captured the island of Rhodes, that they were shouting "Italy! Italy! On to Rome!" that their spies had just been caught in the city, that some of the rich inhabitants frightened out of their wits were preparing to leave, and how the Pope had levied taxes for a crusade and was trying to rouse Europe to the common peril. Naturally enough people sought to persuade him to abandon so foolhardy a pilgrimage. Nothing, however, but a direct command from some ecclesiastical authority ever deterred Ignatius from his purpose. He yielded, however, to friendly apprehension so far as to accept some money for his journey, but soon felt ashamed of this lack of faith in Providence and gave it away. St. Francis had been wedded to Lady Poverty, and why not he? The journey to Venice was hard. He was feeble and ill; he could speak neither Italian nor Latin; he could not keep the pace of his fellow pedestrians; his purse was quite empty; shut out of towns from fear of the pest, he slept in the open, or at best in the portico of some church. At the boundaries of the Venetian state he had his reward, for Christ appeared to him in a vision, to his great consolation; and when he reached Padua, he was permitted to enter (through divine interposition, as he believed) without a health certificate, and again at Venice, although other travellers were obliged to present theirs. At Venice, he slept on the piazza of St. Mark's, continued his practice of begging his food, and did nothing towards finding a way to make the voyage to Jaffa. Was not his life of more value than many sparrows? His faith was his fortune; he felt an inward certitude that God would provide, and his faith was justified. One day a rich Spaniard accosted him, asked what he was doing, what he wanted, and took him to his own house. In Venice, as in Rome, people tried to persuade him to forego his dangerous pilgrimage, but he said that if a single plank should cross the sea to the Holy Land he would go upon it. And his host, who had taken a great liking to him, just as both men and women had done at Manresa and Barcelona, for there was something very attractive in this |