his confidence in God, when he suddenly heard the
rapid beat of horses' hoofs behind him. Suspecting what it meant, he
quickly entered a by-lane, and the occupants of the carriage rushed by
without seeing, or at least, recognizing, him in his disguise.

Stanislaus continued his pilgrimage in peace, begging his way, for he
had no money, and after two weeks, he saw, with inexpressible joy, the
roofs and spires of Augsburg gleaming in the setting sun. At last he
had reached the haven of rest, and with a bounding heart, the weary
boy knocked at the door of the Jesuit college. But alas, for all his
hopes! the provincial had gone to Dillingen. The Fathers urged him to
stay and rest with them until the provincial's return, but Stanislaus
would brook no delay. At once he wended his way toward Dillingen,
which he soon reached, and when he knelt at the feet of Blessed
Canisius, two saints were face to face. The superior pressed the boy
to his heart, and kept him in the college for a few weeks. But as both
the elder and younger saint thought Germany still too near the
influence of his father for safety, Stanislaus, in company with two
religious, set out on a further exhausting walk of eight hundred miles
to Rome, where he was received as a Jesuit novice by the General of
the Order, St. Francis Borgia.

The angelic boy had at last finished his long pilgrimages, he had
entered the earthly paradise for which he had yearned, and for which
he had forsaken home, rank and country. But the happiness of religion
he soon exchanged for the joys of heaven, for before completing his
eighteenth year, and while still a novice, he closed his eyes on this
world to open them in company with Mary and the angels on the Beatific
Vision.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PARENTS' PART

The home is the nursery of vocations. Most religious can trace the
beginnings of their resolve to leave all to the influence of saintly
parents and a Christian home. If the parents cultivate faith, charity
and industry the fragrance of these virtues will cling round the walls
of their dwelling, and perfume the lives of their children.

Every Christian home should be a convent in miniature, filled with the
same spirit, productive of the same virtues. It should be a cloister,
forbidding entrance to the world and its vanities, and harboring
within gentle peace and happiness. Poverty should dwell there, not in
the narrower meaning of distress and want, but in the wider
acceptat