t if he were
to say the contrary, it would seem to him as if he were telling a lie.
He brought with him from Monte Cassino Francis Strada. After his
return to Rome, he labored for the help of souls, and gave the
Exercises to two different persons, one of whom dwelt near the Sixtine
Bridge, the other near the Church of St. Mary Major. Soon the people
began to persecute Ignatius and his companions. Michael was the first
of all to be troublesome and to speak wickedly of Ignatius, and had
him summoned before the governor for trial. Ignatius showed the
governor a letter written by the same Michael, in which he commended
Ignatius very highly. The governor examined Michael, and the result
was that he was exiled from Rome. After him followed Mindarra and
Berrera, who said that Ignatius and his companions were fugitives from
Spain, Paris, and Venice. Finally, however, in the presence of the
governor and ambassador then at Rome, both acknowledged that they had
nothing which they could say against them with regard to their
doctrines or their lives. The ambassador ordered this lawsuit to be
abandoned. Ignatius objected, saying that he wished the sentence to be
made clear and public. This did not please the ambassador and the
governor, nor even those who had previously taken sides with Ignatius.
A few months afterward the Roman Pontiff returned. While he was at
Tusculum Ignatius was admitted to an audience with the Holy Father,
and having given some of his reasons, he obtained what he wished. The
Pope ordered sentence to be passed, and it was given in favor of
Ignatius and his companions.
Through the labors of Ignatius and his companions, certain pious works
were established at Rome, as that of Catechumens, that of St. Martha,
and that of the Orphans. Master Natalis can tell the rest.
APPENDIX
ST. IGNATIUS AND HIS WORK FOR EDUCATION
In the kingdom of Navarre, in the north of Spain, among those
mountains whence the armorers of Toledo drew their metal and forged
for the world their trenchant steel, in a region where the generous,
passionate, valiant people seemed to have formed their character on
the austere grandeur of nature itself, St. Ignatius was born.
The world represents him as a man of few and stern words, in
appearance severe and dark, and yet a man in whom intellect is ever
prominent, but intellect elevated by the grandeur of a soul of
chivalry and by an exquisite delicacy of charity--this was the real
ch
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