in these spheres of action. But the legends of
saints and martyrs pointed out careers no less noble, no less useful,
and even more enticing to the fancy. He would become the spiritual
Knight of Christ and Our Lady. To S. Peter, his chosen protector, he
prayed fervently; and when at length he rose from the bed of sickness,
he firmly believed that his life had been saved by the intercession of
this patron, and that it must be henceforth consecrated to the service
of the faith. The world should be abandoned. Instead of warring with the
enemies of Christ on earth, he would carry on a crusade against the
powers of darkness. They were first to be met and fought in his own
heart. Afterwards, he would form and lead a militia of like-hearted
champions against the strongholds of evil in human nature.

It must not be thought that the scheme of founding a Society had so
early entered into the mind of Ignatius. What we have at the present
stage to notice is that he owed his adoption of the religious life to
romantic fancy and fervid ambition, combined with a devotion to Peter,
the saint of orthodoxy and the Church. Animated by this new enthusiasm,
he managed to escape from home in the spring of 1522. His friends
opposed themselves to his vocation; but he gave them the slip, took vows
of chastity and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of
Montserrat near Barcelona. On the road he scourged himself daily. When
he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and
performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before
the morning of his being dubbed a knight. This ceremony was observed
point by point, according to the ritual he had read in _Amadis of Gaul_.
Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and assumed the garb of a
mendicant pilgrim. By self-dedication he had now made himself the Knight
of Holy Church.

His first intention was to set sail for Palestine, with the object of
preaching to the infidels. But the plague prevented him from leaving
port; and he retired to a Dominican convent at Manresa, a little town of
Catalonia, north-west of Barcelona. Here he abandoned himself to the
crudest self-discipline. Feeding upon bread and water, kneeling for
seven hours together rapt in prayer, scourging his flesh thrice daily,
and reducing sleep to the barest minimum, Ignatius sought by austerity
to snatch that crown of sainthood which he felt to be his due. Outraged
nature soon warned him that h