an to become a member of the Church
militant.

One of his most frequent visits was to the Hermitage of St. Dismas, high
up amongst the rocks. Here dwelt a saintly priest, Juan Chanones, who
gave Loyola much holy counsel. It must needs be that Loyola earnestly
weighed the cost of what he contemplated; impossible but there were
moments when the tempter placed before him in the strongest colours
imaginable the allurements of the life he was renouncing. When the final
die was cast there must be no turning back, no lingering regrets. Loyola
was one of the last men to be vacillating or lukewarm; with him it was
ever one thing or the other; and so in the quiet monastery, far out of
the world, he considered well his decision.

Chanones was the very man for such a crisis. The hermit was one who
imposed upon himself every possible penance. He fasted, wore a hair
shirt, and spent many hours of the twenty-four in long prayers and
devotions. Loyola had begun by confessing to him the whole of his past
life, and confiding his hopes and aspirations for the future: how he
wished to become a monk and devote his days to religion. He was already
a mystic, full of ecstasies, seeing visions and dreaming dreams.
Chanones strengthened his resolutions and fired him yet more with the
spirit of mysticism.

Under his influence, the night before leaving the monastery he hung up
his sword and dagger beside the image of the Virgin as a sort of votive
offering, declaring that henceforth he had done with the world and with
wars. His only warfare should be spiritual: fighting against the powers
of darkness and the influence of evil. He spent the whole night in
prayer before the altar; where according to his mystic moods, visions
and revelations had been vouchsafed to him.

But earlier in the evening a slight event had happened.

It was the eve of the Annunciation, in the year 1522. Loyola had come
down from the hermit's cave dressed in the rich garb of a cavalier which
as yet he had not thrown off. In the Hospederia of the monastery were
many poor pilgrims; beggars dressed in rags. Meeting one of these,
Loyola persuaded him to exchange his rags for his own splendid dress.
Disguised in his sackcloth gown and girdle, few would have recognised
the once magnificent knight. His head, accustomed to a helmet, was now
bare. His left foot was unshod, on his right he wore a sandal of grass.
He was lame from that wound in his leg which had been the turning-po