THE STORY OF ST. STANISLAUS KOSTKA-

OEHAMPTON : PRINTED BV JAMES STANLEY.

QUARTERLY SERIES. VOLUME THIRTEEN.

THE STORY OF ST. STANISLAUS KOSTKA

Of the Society of Jesus.

EDITED BY

THIRD EDITION, ENLARGED.

LONDON :

BURNS AND OATES, LIMITED.

1893.

(

[All rights reserved.]

NOTICE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Father Coleridge brought out the first edition of the Story of St. Stanislaus Kostka in 1875, and a second in 1877. The work was in part a translation of Father Boero's Storia della Vita di S. Stanislao Kostka, Turin, 1872, in part from the graceful pen of Father Coleridge, while the remainder was by the Editor of the present volume.

The appearance, in the Analecta Bollandiana, in 1892, of the first part of the hitherto unpublished MS. Life of the Saint, written by Father Urban Ubaldini, circ. 1666, showed that it was neces- sary to revise, and in great part to re-write, the new edition. Father Ubaldini had exceptional opportunities for this work. He was named in 1662, by John Casimir, the King of Poland, as well as by the Father General Oliva, Promoter of the Cause of St. Stanislaus' canonization in behalf of the Society of Jesus. His residence, in

V

NOTICE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Rome and Poland, and his official position, opened to him all the sources of information.

His work is entitled, Stanislaus Kosika calamo Urbani Ubaldini S.J. apud Alexandrum VIII. pro ejus canonizations procuratoris in Urbe regii deli- neatus olim. The MS. passed from the library of the Society at Przemysl into the hands of a Polish priest, who sold it to the Abbe de Maison- neuve, by whom it was presented to Father Ivo Czezowski, S.J., . of Cracow, in 1870. The troubles of Poland and of the Society explain its remaining so long unpublished. Father Arndt, S.J., of the Austrian Province, employed it for his Der heilige Stanislaus Kostka, Ratisbonr 1888, and by him the MS. is being edited for the Analecta Bollandiana. Father Agusti has made large use both of the MS. and of Father Arndt's work in his Vida de San Estanislao Kostka, Barcelona, 1893. The unpublished portion of the MS. was also kindly lent to the present Editor, The references to the Analecta are given by volume and page, while those to the MS. by part and chapter.

Among the many to whom the Editor is under

NOTICE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

vif

the greatest obligation for assistance in his work, he may be allowed to single out the well- known Polish scholar, Mr. Edmund Naganowski, Mr. Butterfield, the Bollandist Fathers, and the Fathers S.J. of Exaeten in Holland, and of Vienna in Austria. The notes will show the sources which have been consulted.

Wherever it has been possible, the passages written by Father Coleridge, such as that which now serves as the Preface, have been preserved in their integrity. They all betray the delicacy of touch so well known to the many readers of his many works. This is a natural place to express affectionate regret at the loss which the recent death of Father Coleridge has brought to the English Province of the Society of Jesus, as well as to all Catholics who read books written in the English tongue. — R.I. P.

Francis Goldie, SJ.

31, Farm Street, London, W.

Feast of St. Bonaventure, iSgj.

PREFACE.

The Church of God, which is the garden of the Heavenly King, has its flowers of every kind and hue, both on earth and in Heaven, the variety and the contrast of which enhance its beauty and the glory of its Lord. He Himself, in His earthly sojourn, chose to pass through every stage of human life from infancy up to mature manhood, -and to be in each such stage the Example of His followers and the Source of their strength and grace. If there is something specially attractive and winning about the Holy Infancy and Youth, it may be said also that their attractiveness and charm have been very abundantly reflected in the life of the Church, for she has sent far more •children than adults to Heaven and, guided as .she is by the Holy Ghost in her selection of

PREFACE.

ix

■saints for canonization, she has enthroned many of the most tender age upon her altars.

The Holy Innocents were the first to give their blood for our Lord, and amid the white-robed .army of martyrs who have followed in their train there have been crowds of holy children, who have been old enough deliberately to choose •death rather than deny the faith or the law of their God. As if to show how precious in the sight of our Lord is the imitation of the virtues of His youth on the part of the faithful, it has been arranged by Providence that many striplings and young maidens have been pre-eminent for sanctity, adorned by great spiritual favours and blessings during their short life, and glorified by miracles after their death.

In many others the perfect beauty of their mature sanctity has grown like a mighty tree out •of the tender shoot of a youthful innocence, which has become less conspicuous because it has been but the beginning of a career along that path of the just which, "as a shining light, goeth forwards and increaseth even to perfect day."1 But for

1 Prov. iv. 1 8.

X

PREFACE.

youthful saints, the special growth in the Church of the seed sown by the youthful life of our Lord, we are led naturally to look rather to those whose career has been cut short, and to whom, as the Church sings in her Collect for the feast of St. Stanislaus, God, amidst the other miracles of His wisdom, has granted even in tender age the grace of mature sanctity.

The following pages are to be devoted to the short life on earth of St. Stanislaus, of his holy childhood and youth, and in him we find, as has- already been hinted, that particular beauty of contrasted and multiform grace which is one of the ornaments of the Church. It is strange to meet with so ripe a soul in so young a body, so perfect an appreciation of the eternal things in a mind so fresh to the seductions and dangers of those of time. It is wonderful to find so fair a gleam of childish beauty amid the first generation of a Religious Order, the first members of which were all mature and well-formed men, men of learning and study and experience, who united themselves in the " Compania " which afterwards- became so famous for the purpose of putting at

PREFACE.

xi

the disposal of the Militant Church a body of trained warriors who might be turned to account in a thousand different needs.

But very early in the history of the Society it discovered its special vocation for the instruc- tion and education of youth — a vocation which, more perhaps than anything else, has made it the object of jealousy, persecution, and calumny,, and the hatred of all the enemies of the Church. And if it was to devote itself in a special manner to the young, it was only natural that as years went on it should number among its members a choir of youthful saints, a part of whose particular office it might be to bear witness to the virtues of Christian youth, the virtues practised by our Lord in the holy house of Nazareth, as well as to that special lesson of the obligation and constraining force of a high vocation manifested in early years, which is embodied in that single mystery of His life which breaks the even tenour of the thirty years, when our Lord left our Lady and St. Joseph without a word of warning, in order that He might be about His Father's business.

xii

PREFACE.

St. Stanislaus Kostka leads the band of these youthful flowers of the Society, three of whom have been canonized, while the memory of many others has remained fragrant within the body itself, though unknown to the Church at large. In one particular, indeed, he precedes all the other Saints of the Society, even St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier, in that he was the first to receive from the Supreme Pontiff the title of " Blessed." The generation of the Society to which he belonged has been called the heroic time of the Order, and in consequence of this fact we find his life intertwined with the careers of other eminent Saints. It was the Blessed Peter Canisius, the spiritual child of the Blessed Peter Favre, who sent him to Rome, and, as we shall see, it was a spiritual child, in another sense, of the same first companion of St. Ignatius, who received him on his arrival. For the readers of the Life of Blessed Peter Favre will remember the influence which he exercised upon the deter- mination of St. Francis Borgia, then Duke of •Gandia, to leave the world. They will recall too the marvellous manner in which the great

PREFACE. xiii

Spanish nobleman seemed to step into the place of the simple Savoyard peasant when Peter died in the dog-days at Rome, from having travelled thither under obedience at that unhealthy time. The Life of St. Francis Borgia may, we hope, some day form a part of the same series to which that of Blessed Peter and the present volume on St. Stanislaus belong.

H.J. C.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF ST. STANISLAUS.

PAGE

1550.	Oct. 28.	Birth of St. Stanislaus	15
1564.	July 25.	St. Stanislaus arrives at Vienna	22
1565-	March.	He takes lodgings with Kimberger	26
1566.	Dec. 18.	The Saint falls dangerously ill .	46
		He receives Communion from an
		Angel ......	50
		The Vision of our Lady	57
1567-	August 17.	St. Stanislaus' flight from Vienna	59
		His second miraculous Communion .	77
		He meets Blessed Peter Canisius at
		Dillingen . . . >	78
1567-	Oct. 25.	St. Stanislaus enters Rome	1
If	Oct. 28.	He joins the Novitiate	87
1568.	August 1.	Exhortation of Blessed Peter Canisius	144
II	August 10.	The Saint falls ill ...	149
> 1	August 15.	His death ....	155
1605.	August 14.	Beatification of St. Stanislaus .	190
1607.	Nov. 13.	Death of Paul Kostka ** .	183
1674.	Jan. 10.	St. Stanislaus declared Patron of
		Poland	212
1726.	Dec. 31.	His Canonization ....	214

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

Notice to Third Edition . . . . v

Preface . . . . . . . viii

Chapter I. The meeting of two Saints . . i

,, II. Parentage and Birth of St. Stanislaus ,, III. Vienna, 1564 . . . . .20

,, IV. Persecution and sickness, 1565 . . 35

V. Flight, 1567 . . . . -53

,, VI. Stanislaus Kostka and Peter Canisius, 1567 . 73 ,, VII. The fellow-novices of Stanislaus Kostka, 1567 87 ,, VIII. In the Novitiate, 1567, 15C8 . . .116

,, IX. Last illness and death, 1568 . . . 141

,, X. Honour after death .... 156

XI. Paul Kostka . . . . .165

,, XII. Glorification of St. Stanislaus . . 1S5

,, XIII. The relics of St. Stanislaus . . . 216

Appendix A. The Examination of St. Stanislaus on

entering the Novitiate . . . 231

., B. The Church of the Society and the House

of St. Stanislaus at Vienna . . 232

1 1 C. Themes of St. Stanislaus on Controversial

subjects, written at Vienna . 235

>. D. The H or tus A uim (E .... 239

• > E. The meaning of the Examination . . 240

>> F. Professor John Pappus . . . 240

>■ G. Father Rhem .... 241

11 H. Father Oborski .... 242

ii I. The House and Burial-place of the Kostkas 242 >■ J. Lancisius on devotion to St. Stanislaus . 243 m K. Translation of a letter of Dr. Charles Klein 250

Inde* • 2<2

CHAPTER I.

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS. 1567-

It was on the 25th of October, 1567, that a youth of sixteen entered Rome by the Flaminian Gate.1 He was short in stature, poorly clad,2 wrapped in a short cloak with a faded velvet collar.3 His dress and face showed that he was a foreigner, but the guards would let him pass without inquiry, for he had two companions who wore the cloak and cassock even then well known as the habit of the new Society of Jesus. Of these, one was a man of forty years, the other a youth somewhat older than their companion. All were travel-stained and way- worn, and bore on their faces the evident marks of delicate health and of great fatigue. But the youngest of the party, in spite of his beaming

1 The gate on the ordinary high-road from Germany, by Lombardy, Ferrara, and the March of Ancona, now called the Porta del Popolo.

2 Evidence of Stephen Augusti who met him on his arrival. Boero, p. 89.

8 MS. Archiv. S.J. quoted by Boero, p. 88. B

2 THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

countenance and joyful looks, could hardly bear up against his fatigue as they went down the long street of the Corso, under the Arco dei Portogalli, as the Arch of Domitian was then called.1 The one of them, whose looks betrayed his southern birth, had been to Rome before. So turning to the right at the end of the straight street, which was the wonder of Europe, and passing beneath the frowning battlements of the Venetian Palace, then the summer palace of the Popes,2 they came to a small piazza in the very heart of the city, into which five great arteries ran.3 A clearance of buildings was being made for the new church, which was so soon to rise with the name of the Gesu. Mediaeval palaces of the Astalli, the Altieri, and Frangipani formed the irregular square. A street but lately opened ran straight up to the foot of the " cordonata," which was crowned by the new palace of the Capitol. At its entrance to the left was the Church of Santa Maria della Strada, of which the travellers were in search. Simple in its first design, it had undergone many changes, and was much enlarged since it had been obtained by Father Codacio,

1 So Schott, in his Itinerarium Italicum, calls it. Hubner, Sixte ■Quint, Part vi. c. 2, names it the Arch of Marcus Aurelius. It has since been destroyed.

2 Victor de Buck, Le Gesu di Roma, p. 23, Brussels, 1871.

3 Hist. S.J. Pars i. c. ix. n. 4.

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

3

the first Italian who joined the Society, for the use of St. Ignatius and his companions. To the right of Santa Maria was the low long house, the home of the founder, the place of his death.

The three halted at the humble door and sent in their credentials. It was the letter of a Saint to a Saint, and it will tell us who the travellers were.

To the Very Reverend Father General, Master Francis Borgia.

The bearers of this letter are, by the Divine Providence, sent from this our Province. The first is James, the Genoese, who is well known to your Paternity, and whom you ordered to be sent back to Rome, as he wished himself, in order to continue his studies with greater convenience. He has lived in two of our Colleges, conducting himself as a good and obedient religious ought. I hope that he will enjoy better health in the climate of Italy. The second is Master Reyner, of Liege, who has taught rhetoric for many years, with great reputation, in the College at Munich, besides lecturing on the principles of logic. The Father Visitor1 has pronounced him ready

-RWSi' Jlrancis BorSia ^ the previous year, while restoring fussed Canisms to the position of Provincial, which he had

to ben/ f bidding °f Pius IV- t0 leave in 1566. in order Father t ?6'S °rderS t0 the German Bishops, had sent

Cthern pme-Nadal fu" P°wers as Visitor °f a" the

tllern Provinces of the Society.

4

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

to go through his course of philosophy at Rome, and then to begin the study of theology. He is of a gentle disposition, and perseveres in his vocation, whilst his candour and simplicity of soul are such as to win for him the good-will and affection of everybody. The only thing I am afraid of is that his health may suffer if he stays too long in the Roman climate. The third whom I send is Stanislaus, a Pole, and a noble, virtuous, and studious little youth, whom our Fathers at Vienna were afraid of receiving among their novices for fear of offending his family. He came to me with the intention of accomplishing his long-cherished desires, for he had dedicated himself by an interior vow to the Society some years before. So in order to prove him, I placed him in our College of convictors, where he showed himself diligent in every duty and constant in his vocation. He wished, meantime, to be sent to Rome, in order to be at a greater distance from his family, whose persecution he dreads, and to make more progress in piety. He has not yet lived with our novices, but he is ready to be admitted among them in Rome, to com- plete his term of probation. I look for great things from him. I hope that your Paternity will not object to his going to Rome without being summoned thither, not only because so good an opportunity of sending him has offered

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS. 5

itself, but because he most ardently desired to go, as he has not been fully accepted by me.

Peter Canisius, S.J.

From Munich, Sept. 25, 1567.1

Already the post had brought another letter from Ingolstadt from Blessed Canisius, then Pro- vincial of Upper Germany, to the saintly General, dated the 18th of September. In it he had written :

" I have received the letter of your Paternity, dated August the 23rd, in which you desire me to send our Brother James Levanzio, the Genoese. He will very soon be with you, together with Master Fabricius Reyner, and, most likely, Stanislaus, a very good young Polish noble, who is anxious to embrace our rule of life, even though his relations are against his doing so."2

St. Ignatius had laid it down as a law that every child of the Society should receive a hearty welcome on his arrival at any of its houses. No such law was required for a heart like that of St. Francis Borgia to force him to show all kind-

1 Boero, pp. 83—85. Blessed Canisius wrote again on the • 4th of October, 1567, from Augsburg: "During the past week I have sent to Kome our very dear Brothers, James the Genoese and Master Keyner of Liege, Professor of Rhetoric, and Stanislaus, a Pole, a good youth of gentle blood." Boero, p. 85. St. Francis replied: "Brother James the Genoese, with Master Reyner and btamslaus the Pole, have arrived, all in good health."

6 THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

ness to any children of his, who came at the voice of obedience from distant lands. The Father General received the young Saint in the little ante-room in which the holy Founder had written the Constitutions of the Order, and where from the balcony of the window he loved to gaze up at the star-lit sky.1 He knew already, by a long letter from Father Piringer of Vienna,2 the history of Stanislaus Kostka, but the words of such a man as Peter Canisius, " I expect great things of him," would have been enough to make him take a more than ordinary interest in the young Polish gentleman, coming as he did to offer himself as a novice. So that, even though we read of it in no early record of the Saint,3 we could not doubt that he was introduced to the Father General, and received from him the customary embrace.

St. Francis was growing old, but austerities rather than years had changed the handsome and burly Duke of Gandia into that thin and wasted

1 Le Gesii, p. 62.

2 Vide infra, p. 68.

3 Patrignani in his Menologio, 1730, and d'Orleans in his Life, which bears evidence of being coloured in the manner of his time, 1727, state the fact, and d'Orleans puts a speech into the mouth of St. Francis Borgia. The record of his entry into the house of Santa Maria, with the date, Oct. 28, 1567, and the usual declaration required from postulants — " willingly to do whatever Superiors judge best in the Lord " — and signed by our Saint, is still preserved. Boero, p. 91. See Appendix A.

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

7

form, so simple, so lowly, and so gentle which met St. Stanislaus' reverent gaze. We cannot be surprised if the youth felt a genuine reverence towards one who was known throughout Catholic Europe by his "great refusal," by his rejection of a most splendid position and of princely wealth for love of Christ. The name which he bore required to be purified. Neither the splendid alliances which had made his family second to none in Europe, nor even the royal blood of Spain which through his mother, Jane of Arragon, flowed in the veins of Francis Borgia 1 could have purified it, or raised it from disgrace. The virtue of the humble Saint has transfigured it, and given it a true lustre.

The story of his conversion, if conversion there could be in a stainless life, the change wrought by the sight of the corpse of his royal lady, the Empress Isabel, is too well known to need repe- tition. These first impressions were deepened by the words and instructions of Blessed Peter Favre, whom he met in 1542. But this has been fully recorded elsewhere.2 One of the last deeds of that saintly man was to give the Duke, then staying at Gandia, the Exercises of St. Ignatius,

1 Connected with the D'Este, the D'Albrets, &c. St. Francis Catholi™0111^'3 Side the Sreat-Srandchild of Ferdinand the

2 Life of Blessed Peter Favre. (Quarterly Series.)

8

THE MEETING OF TWO SAINTS.

during which Francis finally determined to enter the Society. The loss that it was to sustain in Blessed Peter's death God thus supplied.

The sacrifice of all that the world esteems made the young Stanislaus feel a special sympathy with the holy General, for this is a point of resem- blance between the old man and the young which the story of Stanislaus' life will bring out into clear light. Nor were the companions of his journey, we may be sure, forgotten in this welcome, before they left the house to go to the Roman College. It was the destination of both, a rambling building as it stood then, until the generosity of Gregory XIII. had carriedto com- pletion what St. Francis Borgia had begun.

Two or three days of thorough rest were needed by Stanislaus after his long journey. For though he was not actually ill, he required tender care and nursing before being allowed to begin the life of a novice.1

And now we must go back in time, and go far off in place, to tell the history of the young man who had thus come to add another light to the glorious galaxy of holiness that then was gathered within the walls of Rome, when St. Pius V. was on the throne, when St. Philip Neri, with Baronius and Tarugi at St. Girolamo, and Blessed John Leonardi, one of the many who were attaining 1 Evidence of Augusti, Process of Recanati. Boero, p. 89.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

9

perfection under his guidance, and St. Felix of Cantalice at the Capuchins, and our own St. Francis Borgia, were practising their heroic virtues in the holy city.

CHAPTER II.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF ST. STANISLAUS.

It was in Catholic Poland, and in the most Catholic province of Poland, in the duchy of Masovia, that Stanislaus was born. Julius III. — Del Monte — was Pope, and Sigismund II. the last of the line of Jagiellos, was King. The religious revolt had swept like a torrent over Germany, and had overflowed into Poland, but Masovia, in the midst of the free-thought and time-serving of the hour was like an island rock high above the raging and turbid flood. The Kostka family were of the old nobility in a land which was ruled by an aristocratic common- wealth, of which the nobles — gentry or free- holders— were at once the Parliament and the electors of their King, while most of the peasantry were serfs. The spiritual lords, the Bishops, possessed large revenues. The Palatines, lieu- tenants, almost sovereigns of the various provinces

10

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

or palatinates into which Poland was divided, the Castellans, lords of smaller subdivisions and governors of the royal castles, with the Chan- cellor, formed the lay lords of the Senate.

The Jesuit College of Posen used to possess a genealogical table of the house of Kostka, made for the Duchess of Ostrog, one of the family, which claims descent from Jastrzembiec, one of the companions of the fabulous King Lech, the founder of the Polish dynasty. This table does not appear to be in existence, and consequently while borrowing the details from Ubaldini, the relationship in which many of the various members of the family stood to one another cannot be told. It asserted that the second of the name, a pagan general, was the inventor of horse-shoes, and by their means won a victory over the Russians on the ice, and so took for his arms an inverted horse-shoe on an Azure field. Do we touch solid ground when we find the third of the name being bap- tized at Gnesen with King Miecislaus, in 965 ? On that occasion, so we are told, his sovereign added a cross or to his device. The same table asserts that the first Polish prelate, John, Bishop of Breslau,1 was of the family, and that the sixth of the line in the eleventh century, on account of

1 Gams, Hierarchia, p. 263, gives a Joannes I. Polonus, as Bishop, 1063 — 1072.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

tt

his holiness, gained the title of Pobog, or pious, which became the surname of his descendants.

A suspicious gap of more than a century makes all this previous lineage open to grave doubt.

In the middle of the thirteenth century Pribis- laus of Rostkow, palatine of the old duchy of Masovia,1 received from Conrad, Duke of Masovia, the grant of the town of Prasnycz and some neighbouring property for the period of thirty years. In 1247 Boguta of Rostkow was Com- mander-in-chief of the Duke's army. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, a number of the descendants of Pribislaus and Boguta were settled under various family names in different parts of what is now the Kingdom of Poland- Dlugosz, the earliest of the Polish chroniclers, mentions the Kostkas in the fifteenth century, and it is at that period that they come to the fore in Polish history. James, the son of Navoy of Rostkow, purchased the estates called Stem- berg (or Steinberg) in West Prussia, and he was the first to be called by the name Sternberg Kostka.2 Of this family we find shortly after a John Kostka, Palatine of Pomerania, Peter,

1 This includes the present Governments of Warsaw, Kalisz, and Lublin.

2 Paul, the brother of St. Stanislaus, wrote on the genea- logical table that the name Kostka was given to him because he had a wart (in Polish, Kostka) on his face.

12

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

Bishop of Culm,1 Stanislaus, Chief Justice of Culm, Christopher, Palatine of Pomerania, George, Palatine of Marienburg, and another John, Palatine of Sandomir.

When, in 1574, Henry III. left the crown of Poland and fled away to secure the crown of France, the Palatine of Sandomir's claims were pressed upon the electors by Sultan Solyman, who, like other sovereigns, was represented at the Diet. John's modesty, we are told, alone prevented his success, and Stephen Batory was chosen King. Through the marriage of this John Kostka with Sophia de Sprowo, the heiress of the family of Odrowaz,2 and grand-daughter of a Duchess of Masovia, the Kostka became connected with the old royal House of Poland, of which St. Hyacinth was the truest glory, and with the Hapsburgs, who intermarried with that house. Francis, the brother of St. Aloysius, married the grand-daughter of a Kostka. Bibiana Pernstein, his wife, was the daughter of Wratis- law Pernstein, High Chancellor of Bohemia. Francis had met her, no doubt, when page at the Court of Emperor Rudoff, whose ambassador he afterwards became. The mother of Wratislaw

1 He called in the Society of Jesus to open a College in Thorn, Prussia.

2 She founded the Jesuit College of Jaroslaw, and her daughter added to its endowments. The a represents the sound of the French on.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 13

was a Catharine Kostka. Anne Kostka, the only child of John and Sophia Kostka, the heiress of the enormous estates of the duchy of Jaroslaw, married Alexander, Duke of Ostrog, Palatine of Volhynia. She had two sons and three daughters, all fervent Catholics.1 One of these three married Thomas Zamoyski, the Chan- cellor of Poland. Their daughter, Griselda, by her marriage with Jeremias Korybut Wisni- owiecki, of the royal house of Piast, became the mother of poor King Michael, who was elected to the troubled throne of Poland in 1669.

Christopher Kostka, Palatine of Pomerania, was the father of another Sophia, who married a Batory, one of whose family, Stephen, was the successful competitor for the crown of Poland with the Palatine John Kostka. Stanislaus, an uncle of our Saint, was Treasurer of Prussia, while another John Kostka, the father of St. Stanislaus, was Castellan of Zakroczym and Senator of Poland.2 There was in fact no family of any note either in Poland or in the sister- country of Lithuania which was not in after years connected with the Kostkas. The Czartoryskis, Zamoyskis, Leszczynskis, Maciejowskis, Radzi-

1 Gaspar Cichowski, quoted by Ubaldini.

2 Ranke says that the Kostka family owed their advancement to their conversion to the Catholic faith. History of the Popes, vol. ii. p. 141. Bohn, London, 1853. But there seems no authority for this statement.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

wills, are among the better known of a long list.

Nor was Margaret Krzycka, the wife of John Kostka, of less noble blood. She was of a family known by the surname of Prawdzic — truthful. Her brother, Albert, was Royal Judge of Plotsk, and had been sent by his Sovereign on important embassies to Pius III., to the Emperor Ferdinand I., and to Philip II. Another near relative was Stanislaus Krzycki, Palatine of Masovia, whose father, Felix, was Lord High Chancellor, and very distinguished for his eloquence.

Some months before the birth of St. Stanislaus, Margaret Kostka saw before her, in a dream, the most holy Name of Jesus, traced in letters of glowing crimson, and surrounded by rays of glory. A few. days later the same Name encircled by the same sort of aureole suddenly appeared upon her bosom. At first, as it often happens with regard to signal and exceptional Divine favours, she was startled and disturbed, but this feeling soon passed away; for how could that sweet and life-giving Name be a sign of aught but of blessing and good ? She told her secret to her director, a pious priest of Przasnysz, begging him to say what he thought of the matter. He replied that he had no doubt that it was mira- culous, and that it could only be the work of God, and a sign of the great future holiness of

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

the child she bore in her womb. More than this it was impossible for him to say; but he was very sure that God by thus marking her with His Divine hand, had taken her unborn child for His very own, and that she was bound to remember this in rearing and educating it, as it belonged to Him in a particular and extraordinary way. She ought to consider herself as a happy and privileged mother, for most certainly God intended that infant, to which she was to give birth, to do great things for the glory of His holy Name.1 This was but ten years after the lowly beginning of the Society of Jesus : none of its children had ever set foot in Poland, its very name was un- known in the remote duchy of Masovia, and no human conjecture could have interpreted this sign of the Name of Jesus as the enrolment of Stanislaus by God's own hand in the ranks of that Society of which it is the badge and the watchword.2

It was on the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude, the 28th of October, 1550,3 in the family

1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. r. p. 13.

2 These wonderful circumstances are recorded by Martin Baronius, a priest of Jaroslaw, who wrote a Life of the Saint, published at Cracow, in 1609, when many of the near relations of Stanislaus were living, and they are confirmed by many witnesses in the different Processes of Przemysl, Posen, and Rome as notorious facts. The work is entitled Vita B. Stanislai, Cracoviae, apud Basilium Skalski, 1609, p. 34.

Paul Kostka was born towards the beginning of August, 1549.

1 6

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

estate of Rostkow, in the district of Ciechanow, in the duchy of Masovia, that our Stanislaus was born. A large number of the neighbouring gentry and of the relations escorted the infant to the parish church of the martyr-Archbishop St. Adalbert, at Przasnysz, for solemn Baptism. The minister of the sacred rite was a priest of the name of John Dunikowski. Andrew Radzanowski was the child's godfather. No sooner was the baptism performed, than he took the infant in his arms, carried him before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, and there laid him on the ground. The child hereafter was to be in a special way the favourite of our Lord in that adorable Mystery.

There were no parish registers of baptism until the Council of Trent ordered them to be kept, but we have undoubted evidence of that of Stanislaus, in a document attesting that an old lady of eighty had declared that she had been present and seen the baptism and the offering of the child at the altar. This was signed by the municipal authorities of Przasnysz in 1621. We have also the additional testimony of a very aged priest named Adalbert Kurek, who was a hundred and ten years of age in 1629, and who stated that he too was an eye-witness of the baptism, as he was a curate of Przasnysz at

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

i7

the time.1 The Church of St. Adalbert was afterwards destroyed by the Cossacks, but the font survived its ruin, and for the sake of St. Stanislaus the spot is held in veneration to this day.

Stanislaus was the second son. His eldest brother Paul was about a year his senior. There was another and much younger brother, Adalbert. They had a sister who in after life married the Senator Radzanowski, Castellan of Sierpsk, the godfather of our Saint.

The parents of Stanislaus, especially his mother, watched carefully over the child, and his dawning sanctity soon justified the hopes called forth by the wonderful event before his birth. A former servant of the family, when a priest and ninety years of age, said that his father and mother saw in him a gravity beyond his years, so tender a devotion, such modesty and purity of soul as to draw from them the loving words, "that he was an angel now, and would be a saint by-and- bye."2 There seemed to be nothing of a child about him but his sweetness and innocence ; his whole delight was in holy things and exercises of devotion ; and he himself, when in the Novitiate at Rome, confided to an intimate friend that the first thing he could remember was that he offered

1 Ubaldini, p. 424, 1. 32. Bartoli, 1. i. c. ii. quoting the Process of Przemysl, p. 61. C

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.

himself entirely to God, and promised to remain faithful to the end in His service.

His first master and tutor was John Bilinski,1 a young man of good family, who afterwards took the degree of Doctor in Philosophy and Medicine, and became Canon of the Churches of Pultawa and Plock.

John Kostka, like the chief Polish nobles of his day, lived in great state. As Castellan he was surrounded by a little court, and he kept open house at Rostkow for high and low. When Stanislaus was at table and any of the guests ventured to speak coarsely, he used to cast his eyes up to heaven and lose all consciousness, so that he would have fallen lifeless to the ground had not those who were next to him caught him in their arms. This fact was well known to all the household, and it so astonished every one as effectually put a stop to all unseemly conver- sation.2

Paul Kostka, the Saint's brother, has left an

1 An inscription, cited by Ubaldini, p. 427, in the Church of the University of Cracow, states that Dr. Gregory Vigilantius, of Sambor, a religious poet, who wrote the Life of our Saint in verse, was the first master of St. Stanislaus. However, there seems to be no authority for this statement. He died in 1573, and the monument was only erected in 1656. Gregory published his Life, the first to appear, in 1570, at Cracow. Ubaldini gives as the title, Divi Stanislai Costuli Poloni Vita. Annal. Boll. t. ix. P- 363 )

2 Evidence of Paul Kostka, narrated by Father Kanski, S.J., in the Process of Cracow, 1630, fol. 89.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 19

account of their training, so interesting that it merits to be given in his own words.

" Our parents wished us to be brought up in the Catholic faith, to be instructed in Catholic belief, and to be kept from all self-indulgence. In fact they were rather severe and strict with us ; and they themselves as well as their servants were ever urging us to piety, modesty, and thrift, so that not one of our numerous household might have any cause of complaint against us. Each one had just as much liberty as our parents to remind us of our duty, and to administer correc- tion. The result was that we showed respect to every one, as if they were our masters, and we were loved by all." Paul goes on to relate the circumstances which have been already mentioned with regard to his brother's marvellous purity, and the supernatural effects that it occasioned. When he had said this much in his evidence relating to his brother's sanctity, his tears choked his utterance, and Bilinski had to answer the rest of the questions.1

1 Process of Cracow, 1630.

CHAPTER III.

VIENNA . 1564.

St. Stanislaus was now in his fourteenth year, and it was time to send him to school. The times were evil and the struggle between Catholicity and the new and various sects that the religious revolt had brought forth, was in no place hotter than in Germany. Ferdinand I. had invited the Society of Jesus in the lifetime of its Founder, and in the year following our Saint's birth, 1551,1 had opened a College for them in Vienna. It was only in 1554 that they had acquired permanent buildings. A large house with a noble church was standing vacant in the Am Hof, the chief square of the city, then but a small town in comparison with the Vienna of to-day. This house occupied the site of the old Palace of the Dukes of Austria.2 . The spread of Protestant- ism in the capital made it necessary in 1560

1 Stewart Rose, St. Ignatius, p. 451, 1891.

3 Socher, Hist. Prov. S.J. Austria, p. 46. See Appendix B.

VIENNA .

21

to provide a boarding school for gentlemen's sons next to the College. The house which served for this purpose belonged to the Crown and was lent by the Emperor Ferdinand. He had endowed it in the hopes that it might be the means of rescuing the new generation of the Austrian aristocracy from the errors of the Reform. But Protestantism had taken so firm a hold of the majority of the parents that they could not be induced to entrust their sons to the Jesuits. Poland was at that time without a Jesuit College.1 But as that kingdom formed part of the Austrian Province of the Society of Jesus, it is no wonder that John Kostka should have resolved to send his boys to the new school at Vienna. In fact the Catholic aristocracy of Poland hastened to profit by the advantages it offered. And so many of the nobility of Dalmatia, Bohemia, and Germany, and even of Italy sent their sons there, that fresh accommodation had to be found.

It was owing to the great increase of numbers that the students at Vienna had to share the refectory of the adjoining College. Thus they learned the practice of many penitential exercises, such as taking the discipline in long procession, and in common, as they had seen the religious do. The grace of God brought forth abundant 1 Hist. Lithuan. Prov. S.J. p. u.

22

VIENNA.

fruit in many of these youths. Several, though children of Lutheran parents, had been sent to the Jesuit College entirely for the sake of the secular learning and high moral training which was to be found there. On their return home, they proved to be so firmly grounded in the Catholic faith, that it was impossible to bring them back to the heresy from which by God's providence they had emancipated them- selves. Many of these young confessors withstood not only entreaties and threats, but blows and ill- usage, and protested that their faith and practice should always be such as they had learnt at Vienna. Some of these generous souls, "forgetting their own people, and their father's house," gave up their inheritance and the comforts of home, because the exercise of their religion was denied them there, and " having nothing, yet possessing all things," begged their way to a Catholic country. Others had the happiness of bringing their parents back to the true faith by means of their good example, and of the arguments which they had learnt from their solid religious education.

It was on the 25th of July,1 1564, that Stanislaus and his elder brother, Paul, arrived at Vienna. They were accompanied by their tutor, John Bilinski, and attended by Pacifici, a Bavarian body-servant, and two other domestics. The

1 Letter of Paul Kostka to Father Lanciski. Ubaldini, p. 430.

VIENNA .

23

happiness of Stanislaus on coming to this school of learning and piety can easily be imagined. But surely he must have taught even more than he learned, for his very looks, and much more his innocent and holy life, were in themselves a daily lesson to his companions. One of these, Antony de Meier, afterwards Grand Almoner to the Empress Dowager Mary,1 and Prelate in ordinary to her household, bore witness in the process of our Saint's canonization, that he was irresistibly attracted by his angelic modesty and recollec- tion. On Sundays and holidays, when the services were celebrated with great magnifi- cence as a reparation for the irreverence and neglect which the new ideas had produced in Germany ; "it made us feel ashamed of ourselves," says this witness, " to look at him." And he goes on to add that it was not only whilst engaged in exercises of devotion that Stanislaus seemed, so to speak, to move in an atmosphere of sanctity, but in the discharge of his every-day duties, and m familiar conversation. He loved silence, and seldom talked except when the rules prescribed it. All his free time was given to God, and he often remained for hours on his knees without any idea °f the lapse of time, till he fell fainting from

1 Daughter of Charles V., and wife of Emperor Maximilian III. er husband died in 1563. St. Aloysius was her page for some me. See Cepari, Life of St. Aloysius, p. 45, London, 1891.

24

VIENNA .

exhaustion.1 Although so young there was a maturity and seriousness in his every movement, and in all he did, more like what we find in a grown-up man than in a boy. He could not bear boyish fun and jokes, much less anything in the least degree unseemly. His words and acts were so modest and gentle, his ways so humble, that there beamed from his eyes and his whole person the innocence of his soul.

Antony used to watch Stanislaus in consequence of the general opinion that he was a saint, and he saw him, on more than one occasion, while assisting at Mass or Vespers in the church of the College, in a state of ecstasy, and raised from the ground.2 His devotion to our Blessed Lady was deep and tender " and this he argued from having seen him very often kneeling with clasped hands at the altar-rails of the high altar, and in the choir stalls, devoutly reciting her Office and Rosary."3 Nicolas Lassoicki, a canon of Cracow, who was also with Stanislaus in the school at Vienna for six months, tells us that the holy boy begged him to speak for him to the Fathers, that

1 See Bartoli who, however, while quoting from the Process of Rome, p. 741, gives as his final reference Canon Warscewizki's Reges Sancti etc. Poloni. Rome, 1568, under the title of Vita di Stanislao. See Annal. Boll. torn. ix. p. 364.

2 This was confirmed by two of his masters, Fathers Michael Pold and Theodore Buys. Process of Prague, 1603.

3 Process of Madrid, 1602.

VIENNA.

25

he might be admitted into their Novitiate and their Order. When he used to hear the Salve Regina chanted in the Jesuit church, his whole face glowed and he seemed as if in an ecstasy.1 This anthem seems to have been a special favourite of our Saint, as he wrote a paraphrase of it in Latin, which one of his schoolfellows cherished in after years as a relic.2

He assured Nicholas that it was his consolation to keep away from laymen, and though humble, obliging, and submissive to every one with whom he had to do, for this reason was hated by his tutor and brother, who nicknamed him the Jesuit. Every day, when he was able, he heard three Masses, and prayed with great fervour, turning his face to the benches so as not to be seen.3 Indeed so great was the impression left upon the minds of his companions by his beautiful character, by his sweetness and amiability, that they never ceased to love him and to speak of him as an angel in human form. Two afterwards became eminent, Bernard Macieiowski, in 1604, was chosen a Cardinal. He sent presents to Stanislaus' tomb at Rome from Cracow and promoted his canoni- sation by all the means in his power. John Tarnowski was raised to the Primatial dignity of Archbishop of Gnesen, and he died with a relic of

1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. 5. 2 Boero, p. 126.

3 Process of Gnesen, 1606.

26

VIENNA .

our Saint on his breast, repeatedly invoking his name.

The happy life in the school of the Jesuit Fathers was of short duration. The Emperor Ferdinand died the day after Paul and Stanislaus arrived at Vienna. His son and successor Maximilian, who had strong leanings towards Lutheranism, eight months after his accession, in the March of 1565, claimed back from the Fathers the house occupied as a school. The students were all dispersed, some returned to their homes, others found lodging as best they could in Vienna. Paul Kostka determined, with Bilinski's approval, to take lodgings in the house of Senator Kimberker, a violent Lutheran. This was a serious trial for Stanislaus. The only reason which seems to have induced Paul to take this step was that the house was in one of the most fashionable quarters of Vienna. It was in vain for Stanislaus to make objections, Paul was bent on his own will, and he had begun to treat his brother in the domineering and tyrannical way which soon became downright persecution. Stanislaus comforted himself by the reflection that he should still be able to attend the College of the Fathers and the meetings of the Confraternity of St. Barbara, to which he belonged.

The house of Kimberker is at the corner of

B©ST0N C0hL%QE LIBRARY CBE&VMV* HIIL, MASS.

VIENNA. 27

two narrow streets — Steinl and Kurrent Strasse — and our Saint's room, which was on the first floor, looked out on the apse of the Jesuits' church and on the back of the College. The church has now become parochial and the house itself is the presbytery.1 The room where these wonders took place is now and has been for many centuries a chapel.

Several other young men shared their rooms with them. Two were their relatives, one a namesake of our Saint, Stanislaus Kostka, and amongst the others a Count Rozazewski, and Bernard Macieiowski, the future Cardinal.

During the three years Stanislaus was at Vienna he studied in succession " Grammar," " Humanities," and " Rhetoric." His master of the class of " Humanities " was Albert Teobulk m 1565 — 6,2 with whom he had lived when in the Jesuit school. He gives the following account of his saintly pupil : " There was in him an entire absence of all levity : and though but sixteen he was wonderfully serious, bashful and sedate in his demeanour, of few words, and with an unruffled and modest countenance. It was his custom to hear on week-days three Masses,

1 See App. B.

~ A scrap of the Saint's writing was seen by Father Ubaldini, '' a.d. i565> un(jer Master Albert, of the Holy Imperial College." " gives parsing of nouns and verbs. Ubaldini, p. 431, 1. 29.

28

VIENNA.

one before class, one after his first lesson, and a third at the closing of the schools ; on Sundays and holidays he would remain in the church to hear as many Masses as was possible. I have heard it said that he never knew a distraction in prayer, or a temptation to disobedience. He had a great knack of turning the conversation from unprofitable and trivial subjects to those of spiritual edification."1

Theodore Buys was his master in the class of "Rhetoric" at the time he was living in the house of the Lutheran senator. He was one of three brothers, all of whom entered the Society, near relatives of Blessed Peter Canisius, and his fellow-townsmen, from Nimeguen. Father Buys had not at this time been very long in the Society, but he was specially noted for his skill in teaching, and, what is a still higher gift, his power for good over the boys entrusted to his charge. His whole life was spent in their service.2 He gives much the same testimony as Father Teobulk, adding that Stanislaus was in the habit of going to confession and Communion,

1 Process of Posen, 1602.

2 It was his namesake and fellow-townsman, apparently his uncle, who afterwards became Provincial and finally Assistant, or representative of the German, Belgian, and English Provinces at the Curia of the General of the Order. St. Stanislaus' master died at Neuhaus in 1609 at the ripe age of sixty-seven. Hist. Prov. Aust. S.J. p. 558.

VIENNA.

29

not once a month only, as was the rule for the scholars of the Society, but very often, and always on Sunday. He usually fasted the day before his Communion, and would make some excuse for leaving before supper-time, that he might not be forced to eat by his brother and tutor. Father Buys says that he had an insufferable objection to being obliged by obedience to take dancing lessons.

The name of another master, John Matthias, is mentioned, possibly his Professor in the first term our Saint spent in Vienna, and who, like the rest, had much to say about his pupil's holiness.

At first Stanislaus did not shine among his class-fellows, but he soon took the lead when he was in the division of " Rhetoric." He worked very hard and made very good use of his time. He was so engrossed in his books, that except when he was praying, he was always reading. He even carried a book to bed to study till he fell asleep.1 He left nothing undone which would improve his style or strengthen his memory. He jotted down any special beauties of diction in Latin, and did all he could to write a good hand. One of his note-books used to be kept at Kalisz with the title: "Liber ellegantia- rum (sic) scriptus per me Stanislaum Kostka sub

1 Ubaldini, p. 434, 1. 16.

30

t

VIENNA.

R.M. Alberto Theobulcio, S.J." The hand- writing was irregular and boyish. Father Theo- bulk, when an old man at Posen, kept some of his themes and his tickets of monthly confession as a treasure.

Another of his note-books was given by Bilinski to Father James Korytowski at Pultava. It was bound in vellum with red boards. In the beginning there were some grammatical themes written by St. Stanislaus, and the rest of the book contained extracts from the Spiritual Exercises. This was sent to Father Claudius Acquaviva, with the exception of the title-page and some few other leaves. Father James had also a MS. of the Saint : " Qusedam recte scri- bendi sive orthographise prsecepta a M. Alberto Polono in Collegio Viennensi Csesarese Majes- tatis almse Societatis Jesu," — " Rules for Compo- sition and Orthography by Master Albert, the Pole, of the Imperial College of the Society of Jesus, Vienna." Several other of his themes were to be found in various houses of the Society in Poland. Another very interesting set of his notes on controversial questions were taken down during his last twelvemonth at Vienna.1

St. Stanislaus took such pains to learn German that he was able to translate the tone or model

1 See Appendix C.

VIENNA.

3i

sermon into that language when at the Novitiate in Rome.

He always dressed with an extreme simplicity, so contrary to the gorgeous and Oriental costume affected by the Polish nobility. He wished to avoid having any witness to his devotion and to the wonderful favours which God so often bestowed on him at the time of prayer. These were, however, so frequent and so well known that it was impossible to keep them secret. It is certainly providential that they who knew most of his life, and who, from no creditable motives, watched him so closely, should become the strongest witnesses hereafter to his holiness and to the miraculous favours he received from Heaven. And to this they gave such clear and full testimony, when the grace of God had enlightened their hearts to see that they were, to use Bilinski's words, " as much beneath him as the earth is beneath heaven." For both he and Paul suspected that Stanislaus would some day escape from them and enter the Society, and so gave orders to the servants to follow and watch him whenever he went out and see whither he was going. But the Saint's ingenuity baffled them : he made some excuse and slipped out while the servants were dining at the second table, and his brother and tutor were playing cards or dice after their dinner, and hurried off

1

32

VIENNA.

to the church of the Society. It was his custom to prostrate himself there in the form of a cross, then to rise and retire to some quiet corner where frequently the servants found him kneel- ing in an ecstasy, raised from the ground. When he came to himself, and he saw how startled and terrified these were by what they had witnessed, he turned to them with a smile," saying, " It is nothing, do not be frightened."1

Stanislaus did his best to conceal these extra- ordinary graces. Father Maggi, Provincial of Austria, wrote many years after, in 1602, of this to Father Lanciski : "I remember very well our dear and blessed Brother Stanislaus, for I knew him and had to do with him while he was a boarder in our College at Vienna, where he was looked upon as an angel because of his angelic modesty and piety ; but as to the more intimate dealings of God with his soul (cose sue particolari) I cannot speak, for they were kept secret. I can only state that his marvellous composure, modesty, and devotion, made him greatly loved and admired. I rejoice greatly, and thank God," he adds "that He is pleased to manifest this His servant, of whom I once had some charge, and who will, I hope, remember me in His presence Whom he now enjoys revelatd facie."2

1 Bilinski's evidence. Process of Cracow, 1630. 2 Autograph letters cited by Boero, p. 28.

VIENNA.

33

Bilinski declared that the three things to which in his opinion the extraordinary sanctity of Stanislaus was due were his avoidance of bad young men and his love of good company, his intense desire for the religious life, and his wonderful fervour in prayer, which he practised assiduously, never allowing himself to be turned away from it.1 His whole life, indeed, was divided between study and prayer, and the solitary attraction of Kimberker's house in his eyes was that it was so large, and contained such a great number of rooms, that it afforded him many opportunities of retiring apart to pass long, blissful hours in communion with God.2 All his compositions turned on some of the glories of our Blessed Lady, and his childlike and simple love for her led him to write her name, together with the ejaculation, 0 Maria, sis mihi propitia, on the margin of any book he was using either for devotion or study ; so that when the words met his eye, he might reverently kiss that sweet name and lift up his heart to his Queen and Mother.3 Never did he enter or leave the schools without visiting and adoring his Divine Master in the Blessed Sacrament, and asking His blessing.

He took very little rest at night, and always rose at midnight. He then spent several hours in

1 Process of Przasnysz, 1603. 2 Bartoli, 1. i. c. iii. 3 Process of Posen.

D

34

VIENNA .

meditation with his arms extended in the form of a cross, for as long as possible, and then folded over his breast. We owe our knowledge of these long vigils to the domestic spies who watched him so continually. The length of his prayers was fixed, not by the clock, but by his own fervour. At its close he took the discipline and with such severity that his clothes were dyed with blood, and it was a continual cause of complaint with Bilinski, who tried every means to induce him to desist. But the only effect of his remonstrances was that Stanislaus took care not to let his clothes get stained, and so bear witness against him. Nor was this the only kind of bodily mortification which he used. It might seem, indeed, that one so pure and innocent had small need of chastising the flesh, which had never, in his case, warred against the spirit ; but, wise with the wisdom of the saints, he used the same means to prevent what others need to subdue. And the saintly youth with all this hard life, and these severe penances, far from having anything sombre or melancholy about him, was always bright and joyous with that indescribable gaiety which is the inseparable companion of innocence and penance.1

But what must have been the gladness of that •blessed soul, so faintly reflected in his happy

1 Bartoli, i. i. c. ii.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

35

face, the soul, which for long hours of day and night was rapt in the enjoyment of God, and bathed in the bliss of Heaven ? Safe, with his God, " from the strife of tongues and the pro- voking of all men," his secret was known to no human heart.

CHAPTER IV.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS. 1565-

It seems difficult to imagine how any bitter feelings could have been excited by the gentle, affectionate boy, whose holiness had, as we have seen, nothing forbidding or austere about it. But this is not the only instance of violent anger being produced in worldly persons by the sight of great and singular virtue. Paul Kostka seems to have been a youth whose high spirits and proud temper made him overbearing. The only person who could have kept him in order was Bilinski, but he had a very lax idea of authority, and being, moreover, a thoroughly worldly man, as Pacifici describes him, he exercised no sort of restraint over Paul, who, naturally, grew more and more tyrannical every day. His two relations who lived with

36 PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

Paul were as gay and as frivolous as himself, and these three began a continued system of persecution, in order to induce Stanislaus to become as they were. Their whole time was spent in visiting and amusement ; they dressed gaily and expensively, regularly frequented the theatres, balls, parties of pleasure, went rarely to the sacraments, and never engaged in any act of Christian charity.1 Stanislaus, with his holy life and unworldly way, was a stumbling-block and daily cause of irritation to them ; the very sight of him was a reproof.

The oft-repeated tale came true once more, and the words were verified of the worldlings in the Book of Wisdom : " We are esteemed by him as triflers : ... he is become a censurer of our thoughts ; he is grievous unto us even to behold, for his life is not like other men's and his ways are very different." 2 Paul could not endure the tacit protest of his brother's sanctity ; his avoidance of the noisy supper-parties in which he and his companions delighted, his silence during their unrestrained conversation, his simple dress, his frequent visits to the church, the hours he spent in prayer: all these were so many offences which roused Paul to a perfect fury. Bilinski seems to have been less violent, but the line he took must have been very trying 1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. iv. 2 Wisdom ii. 14—16.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

37

to a shy, sensitive nature like that of our Saint. He used to speak contemptously of the devo- tional practices he loved, as only suited to common and uneducated persons. He asserted that a nobleman might lead a Christian life without being singular and extravagant, that God only required the allegiance of the heart, and that in external matters it was his duty to conform to the ways of the world. He said that there was surely something arrogant and conceited in one so young, imagining he was pleasing God by opposing his father, who had sent him to Vienna for the express purpose of mixing in the society of men of family.1 Bilinski was irritated beyond measure at the ill-success of all his lectures, and hurled at his refractory pupil the name of "Jesuit," which Stanislaus considered the most glorious name that could be borne by man.2 Never did the blessed youth get a good word from Paul.

The persecution soon grew from insulting words to cruel ill-usage. Paul repeatedly knocked his brother down, beat him with a stick, merci- lessly kicked and stamped on him, so that Bilinski more than once had to drag him away, and insist on his letting his victim alone. He did not, however, spare poor Stanislaus even then, for he never failed to tell him that all he 1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. iv. 2 Process of Cracow.

38 PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

had to suffer was due to his own fault, because he had made an enemy of his brother by his own obstinate folly. Nor was all this merely a passing storm. With scarcely any intermission it lasted for more than two years, from the March of 1565, when they left the Jesuit College, till the August of 1567.

St. Stanislaus slept in the same room with his brother Paul and his two other relations. Rozrazewski when an old man, would relate with tears of deep contrition how when he saw Stanislaus rise from bed and prostrate himself on his face in prayer, " he would get up, and go quietly up to him, and pretending that he did not see him, would kick him savagely, and jump upon him with all his weight."1 And all the time Stanislaus never moved but lay like one dead. Perhaps his soul was in an ecstasy, with God.2

" One night when they had all gone to bed, except Stanislaus, who remained up praying and reading spiritual books, Rozrazewski spoke sharply to him, saying that he was both injuring

1 Process of Cracow, 1630.

2 Father Oborski, who is quoted as the authority for this and the succeeding paragraph, was ordered by Urban VIII. at the request of Sigismund III. to inquire into and to report upon the miracles wrought by the intercession of St. Stanislaus, of which he published an account in Cracow in 1630. Bartoli, 1. i. C. iv.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

39

his health and disturbing the others. Upon this the gentle boy rose from his knees, and lay down, keeping a candle burning at the head of his bed that he might go on with his book. Presently he fell asleep, and the candle guttered and melted, and at last burst into a flame and set fire to the bed." " The smoke and flame awoke me," says Rozrazewski, " and when I saw the fire all round Stanislaus, I thought he must be half burnt to death, and I shouted at the top of my voice, ' Stanislaus.' He awoke and jumped at once out of bed. We ran to his aid, but although we found all the sheets and pillows burnt, he was not a bit injured — not so much as a hair of his head."]

Stanislaus Kostka, the relation and namesake of our Saint, had a Sister, Anna, who became the Abbess of a convent of Benedictine Nuns at Jaroslaw. In 1629 she made the following deposition before the Ecclesiastical Court at Przemysl : " When I was a child, my brothers Christopher and John, who became the abbot of Oliva, told me that Blessed Stanislaus was the son of our relatives John Kostka and Margaret Krzycka. My brothers went to Rome, and were received most kindly by the Pope, who spoke much in praise of the house of Kostka, especially

1 Father Golenowski, on the authority of Rozrazewski's wife. Process of Posen, 1628.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

that it had never borne the taint of heresy. There was present at the audience a Polish noble of high birth, but in secret a heretic. This audience, by God's grace, led him to abjure his errors, and to the wonder and delight of every one, he was reconciled to the Church. I knew also Paul, the brother of Blessed Stanislaus, a man of very great piety and devotion, who was not only a very great friend, but a generous benefactor to our convent. . . . When the first engravings of Blessed Stanislaus appeared, and were circulated through the kingdom to obtain public veneration for him, I sent one to a brother of mine, called Stanislaus Kostka, Treasurer of the Province of Prussia.1 He came to the convent, and thanked me very much for the present I had sent to him, and taking the portrait out of his pocket, kissed it again and again with deep feeling, and burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming, ' Oh ! how often have I stamped upon that blessed youth, when we were students abroad, and he was prostrate in prayer on the ground, while the others were asleep ! ' And he went on to tell a number of details about his innocence, charity, modesty, and uprightness."2

The persecutions he endured proved and strengthened the virtue of the young Saint. Far from yielding to his brother's solicitations,

1 Then a part of Poland. 2 Process of Przemysl, 1629.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

4i

or being shaken by his cruelty, he did but increase his prayers and penances. He main- tained an unruffled sweetness and patience, and thanked God secretly that he was allowed to suffer for the sake of pleasing Him. To quote with Bartoli, the words of St. Ambrose : " He did not carry the banner of Christ wrapped around the pole, so as to hide it from His enemies, and thus escape persecution, but he went generously to the battle, holding it unfurled on high."1 When Paul urged him to consider appearances, and live more like other people, he would give this answer : " I was not created for this world, but for eternity; and for eternity, not for this world, I will live."

It must have cost a good deal to the retiring nature of Stanislaus to make his bold profession, and more still to his loving heart to stand firm against all Paul's entreaties to give in, at least in some degree, to his wishes ; for he was ardently attached to his brother, and delighted in doing him all sorts of little services, even those that are usually performed by a servant, such as sweeping his room, cleaning his shoes, and other things of the sort, and, whenever his conscience allowed him, he cheerfully acquiesced in Paul's wishes. Though he would not be attended by a servant when he was going to church, or to see the Jesuit 1 In S. Lucam, 1. vii.

42

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Fathers, his visits to whom were a constant subject of vexation to his brother, at other times he made no difficulty about it. When unable to absent himself from the supper-table the day before he went to Communion, he took some food rather than annoy his tutor. He consented even to take the dancing lessons, which were such a penance to him, hoping that his brother, seeing his willingness to obey him in indifferent things, would not press him in matters where his conscience made him refuse. And it must be remembered that this obedience was shown to a brother only a year older than him- self, who had no right to claim it from him. He never complained to his father, who loved him better than all his other children, nor to his mother, to whom he was not only a darling child, but something sacred beyond words ; everything was borne in silence, and with a gentleness which never varied.

There is something very lovely in the simple picture drawn of Stanislaus at this time by his servant, Lawrence Pacifici, a Bavarian from Wiirzburg, who afterwards became a priest, and had a benefice in S. Mose, at Venice. In the May of 1601 he was summoned to give his evidence before the Papal Nuncio :

" When I was about eighteen years old I went to Vienna to see the world and be educated. I

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43

chanced to get into the service of a Polish gentle- man named Paul Kostka, then about twenty years old,1 who was with a master, by name John, who was also a Pole, a man of about thirty, and a younger brother of Paul's, all of whom were at Vienna, in the house of a senator called Kim- berker, whom they paid for their bed and board. The two brothers, Paul and Stanislaus Kostka, attended the schools of the reverend Jesuit Fathers, and I along with them. However, Paul Kostka, the elder brother, led rather too free a life, and he was somewhat wild, and given to as great vanity in his style of dress and in his con- versation as his tutor would allow. Stanislaus Kostka, the younger brother, was as yet without the vestige of a beard, his face full, white and rosy, with an amiable expression such as would move any one to sympathy who looked at him ; his eyes were gladsome and yet tearful. I knew him, because I lived, ate, and slept in the same house with him for one or more years, I cannot recollect which. He was always extraordinarily given to prayer. And though he went to the schools of the reverend Jesuit Fathers, and studied rhetoric along with me, he never took to worldly eloquence, but always sought in that study for pious subjects.

1 Pacifici evidently makes a mistake here, as Paul could not nave then been sixteen.

44

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

Thus his speeches, such as the students are accustomed to deliver, were generally about our Lady. He had acquired a great devotion to her, not merely in the Congregation of Our Lady and St. Barbara, which is kept up there with very special devotion, and of which he, with numbers of the pupils of the Society of Jesus, was a member, but also from a book that he was always reading, the Mariale, by Frederick Nausea, Bishop of Vienna, if I remember rightly, which treats with much piety of all our Lady's feast-days. It was an octavo volume, and Stanislaus always had it before him, and read it, as well as another book called Hortulus Animcz — the Little Garden of the Soul.2 Stanislaus Kostka was also much given to prayer and to fasting. He always had by him his ebony rosary. He loved solitude as much as he could consistently with his position, and with- drew from society, even when it was all that could be desired. In conversation he was cheerful and amiable, though very modest. He talked

1 The real title of the book is Heptalogus in VII. festivitatcs B.M.V. Frederick was chosen Bishop in 1541, after having been coadjutor to his predecessor, John Faber, for four years. Both of them were devoted and zealous prelates. Frederick died in 1552. See Socher, Hist. Prov. Austria, S.J. p. 18.

2 This excellent collection of prayers was frequently reprinted, and several editions of it are to be found in the British Museum, going back as far as 1500. That of 1518 was printed in black letter at Nuremberg, and is the one nearest our Saint's time. See Appendix D.

t

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS. 45

with pleasure to simple folk, readily took pity on others, and was always the first to rise from table.

" He went to confession and Communion very often, and heard every day, when able, several Masses, for which he had a great devotion. He seldom went in the streets with a footman in attendance, unless forced to do so by his master, or by his brother. In the house where we were living, he always sought out-of-the-way rooms and quiet corners. He was always at his prayers, and I never remember having seen him studying anything, except it were pious reading or prayer. He liked simple and plain clothes ; quite different in that from his brother. I never saw him wear gloves. Such a very retired life, and so opposite to that his brother Paul was leading, as they were both of noble birth, gave rise to constant and almost daily disturbances, to such a degree that Paul was for ever reproaching him, and very roughly too, and sometimes with injurious words, for his too austere way of living, and now and again John, their tutor, was forced to inter- fere."

We shall have occasion elsewhere to quote the next sentences. Pacifici's closing words are as follows : "I believe without doubt that Stanislaus died a virgin, so very modest was he in words and actions ; in all his conduct he was shy

46 PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

and bashful : nor was there anything that could be said against his manner of life, though his brother, as a man of the world, looked upon it as blameworthy, just because he would not pay any attention to the follies to which Paul gave himself with his whole heart. In fine, this is the truth, that Stanislaus, young as he was, was a great servant of God and full of virtue, of a very wonderful and exemplary life ; and I know that he scourged himself constantly. This was the reputation he enjoyed among those about him. And so I beg him to deign to intercede for me, because I hold firmly that he is a Saint in Heaven."1

This simple and rather disjointed story of the Minor Canon of St. Mose loses nothing from the way it is told ; its very incoherency gives it the stamp of truth.

About the 18th of December, 1566, Stanislaus became seriously ill. The sickness was owing no doubt to his vigils and penances, and to the ill-treatment of his brother. At the very beginning of his illness an enormous black dog sprang upon the bed as if to tear him to pieces. Stanislaus recognized in this a phantom of the enemy, and calmly made the sign of the Cross, and so drove it away. Three times it returned to the attack, and three times it was vanquished. Then the 1 Process of Vienna, 1601.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

47

monster vanished, and with tears of gratitude Stanislaus gave thanks to God for his deliver- ance.1

From that day Stanislaus rapidly grew worse, and there was very faint hope of his recovery. Far from dreading death, he ardently desired it as the means of perfect and eternal union with God ; but there was one thing which filled his soul with intense sadness. Kimberker would not allow the Blessed Sacrament to enter his house, and poor Stanislaus vainly again and again implored his brother and tutor to intercede for him with their host. They did not dare to do so, feeling convinced that he would rather turn them and the sick youth out of his house than admit a Catholic priest or the adorable Sacrament. They tried to comfort Stanislaus with the un- meaning assurances that he was not ill enough to require the last sacraments, and all would be well if he but kept up his heart.

So poor Stanislaus lay between life and death, hungering for the Bread of Life, pining for the embrace of his only Love, but, we may be sure, making acts of conformity to the holy will of God, if He did not choose to give him the one Object of his loving desire. But it was not so. His Heavenly Father loved His dear child too tenderly to deprive him of this supreme consolation, and 1 Attested to by Theobulk in the Process of Posen. Boero, p. 46.

PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

He Himself taught him the way He willed that he should obtain it.

About a fortnight before Stanislaus fell sick, he had been keeping the feast of St. Barbara, on the 4th of December, with extraordinary devo- tion. He had read in her Life that she was wont to obtain for her devout clients the immense grace of never dying without Holy Viaticum, and he had earnestly besought the holy virgin martyr to receive him in the number of her devoted servants, and to obtain for him this great grace. And now, when the time of his extreme need was come, all this came back to his mind, and he fervently prayed to St. Barbara, laying before her with many tears his grave necessity. He begged her to use, in his behalf, the privilege God had bestowed on her, and not to forget him, her least and lowest servant, in this his hour of need. What followed had better be told in Bilinski's own words.

" I nursed him, staying up seven nights running, as I feared some sudden change for the worse, such as often comes on those who are danger- ously ill. One night, while I was near his bed, he told me in clear and explicit words to make a genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament which was being at that moment brought to him, in presence of St. Barbara. And as soon as he had said that, he grew quite recollected, and remained

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49

with his whole body in a reverential attitude. I myself saw and heard all this ; and I am certain that Stanislaus was not at all out of his mind through the violence of his sickness."1 A later witness adds some very interesting details which he had from the tutor's lips : " Canon John Bilinski has often told me with tears in his eyes, that while watching at the bedside of Blessed Stanislaus when he was dangerously ill, the Saint one night with great fervour shook him and said, ' Kneel down, kneel down ! ' See St. Barbara is coming into the room with two angels, who are bringing me Holy Communion.' And there- upon the holy youth got up and fell on his knees, said three times the Domine non sum dignus, and Deus cordis mei — ' God of my heart ! ' and opened his mouth and presented his tongue, most devoutly and humbly. 'And,' added Bilinski, ' I remained stupefied, as though out of myself with amazement.' "2

But we have another witness to this wonderful grace besides Bilinski ; no other than the Saint himself. When he was in the Novitiate at Rome he was much in the company of a Modenese lay-brother, Stephen Augusti, in whose pure and simple soul Stanislaus especially delighted, and with whom he was in the habit of conversing very

1 Process of Poltova, 1603. 2 Father Jemalkowski, S.J. Process of Posen, 1628.

E

5o PERSECUTION AND SICKNESS.

unreservedly. When this Brother was interro- gated on oath as to what he knew about the miraculous Communion of St. Stanislaus, and the visit of St. Barbara, he replied : "When Stanislaus Kostka and I were in the Novitiate at Rome, he was talking to me, as he often did for the sake of learning Italian, on a day very near the feast of St. Barbara. He said, ' O brother Stephen, how much I owe to God and to that holy martyr ! ' I answered that all men owe much to God, but that as to St. Barbara, if he had any particular devotion to her, I should like to hear something about it. He required a little pressing on the subject, but at last he said, ' Well, once when I was ill, in the house of a heretic, I had an intense longing for Holy Communion, and I recommended the matter to St. Barbara. While my heart was full of this desire, she suddenly appeared in the room accom- panied by two angels bearing the Blessed Sacra- ment, and I comunicated with great joy.' When he had said this, he gave a great sigh, coloured deeply, and remained silent, so that I did not dare to ask any more." 1 Stanislaus afterwards begged his friend to keep the secret, which he did till after the death of the Saint, when it seemed to be for the glory of God to make it known.

He never doubted that the Communion he had received at the hands of an angel was intended 1 Process of Recanati.

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to be his support and cousolation in the hour of death, for this was what he had asked of St. Barbara, and this is the blessing which she is wont to obtain for her faithful clients. And so it seemed that it was to be, for he grew rapidly- worse, and prepared with the most devout sentiments for the moment which all thought imminent. Suddenly, the Blessed Mother of God, whom he had always loved so tenderly, appeared before him, holding her Divine Child in her arms, and coming to the bedside, with a sweet and smiling countenance, she laid the Infant Jesus on the bed, and He and the sick youth embraced and caressed each other.1 Perhaps this visit of our Lady would never have been known if Stanislaus had not confided it to his confessor, Father Nicolas Doni, in order to induce him to help him in obeying the command to enter the Society of Jesus, which the Blessed Virgin gave him before she left the room.2

St. Stanislaus told these facts after to Father Warscewizki in confession when he was with him in Rome, who made them known after the Saint's death.3 Nicholas Lassoicki, who was a student at the German College in Rome at the

1 Processes of Pultowa, Venice, Cracow, and Posen.

- Processes of Madrid and Warsaw. Cf. Hist. Prov.Austr. S.J. P_ 147- Father Theobulk who was at Vienna at the time speaks of the fact as well known. Process of Gnesen, 1606.

3 Process of Cracow, 1630.

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time of the Saint's death, says : " The fact that our Lady appeared to Stanislaus, and placed the Divine Child in his arms, was learnt from Father Stanislaus Warscewizki, to whom the blessed youth had confided it, under promise that he would not reveal it till after Kostka's death." 4

Bilinski shall relate what followed. " I had been watching by blessed Stanislaus for so many nights that I was worn out, and I asked some of the servants to take my place for one night. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep immediately and did not wake till morning. Day was just breaking as I crept quietly into the sick-room ; the servants were asleep, and by the light which was burning, I saw Stanislaus, who affectionately beckoned me to him, telling me that he was perfectly well. I really thought he was wandering, but soon I perceived that what he said was true, and I was very much amazed. He begged me to give him his clothes that he might go at once to the church to give thanks for his recovery, but I said that he must not do so till he had leave from the doctors. When they came and felt his pulse and recog- nized the prodigy, they said that contrary to all antecedent probability, there was every sign of complete recovery. But as they feared a relapse, they ordered him to remain in bed for 4 Process of Posen, 1605. Boero, p. 54.

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a time. He did as he was told. When, how- ever, they were gone he laughed quietly at their prescription, which he asserted was not needed. Shortly after this, he persuaded me to allow him to dress himself, and we went together to the church, nor was there a trace left of his desperate illness."

CHAPTER V.

FLIGHT. 1567-

This order given by our Lady to Stanislaus was not the first intimation of God's will that he had received. For sixteen months before his illness he had been conscious of an interior voice calling him to enter the Society of Jesus, and his whole heart was filled with the desire to do so. But his extreme bashfulness as well as his fear of his father's anger held him back, so that for a long time he kept his own counsel, and never said a word about his vocation even to his confessor, although he was frankness itself in every other respect. But his brother had suspected, as has been seen, what was passing m the mind of our Saint. It would, indeed, have been a hopeless undertaking to ask his father's

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sanction for this step, and Stanislaus was afraid that to do so would only result in a storm of indignation, in his losing all the blessings he was enjoying in Vienna through being summoned back to Poland, as he was sure he should be, and in people saying he had not dared to carry out his desire of giving himself to the service of God. In after days he bitterly reproached himself for his want of courage and generosity in thus delaying to obey the Divine Voice.

The struggle with himself was a very painful one, and had some share, most likely, in bringing on the mortal sickness of which he was mira- culously cured. After that however he delayed on longer, but went straight to Father John Nicolas Doni, his confessor, and told him, with floods of tears, about his vocation, his hesitation, and the wonderful things that had happened in his late sickness. The Father was a man of great piety and prudence, qualities which merited for him in after years the Rector- ship of the College at Vienna.1 No sooner had Stanislaus spoken than his soul was filled with the utmost peace and consolation, beyond any- thing he had ever experienced, an abundant reward for the victory he had gained over himself. He always called this delay of his by much harder names than any one else would do, 1 Socher, Hist. Prov. S.J. Austr. p. 254.

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describing what surely was only timidity and perhaps excessive diffidence as pusillanimity and ingratitude. And ever afterwards, when he found in the Society the intense happiness which made it to him like a foretaste of Heaven, he would remember that he had risked the losing of it by his long silence, and would adore the Divine goodness in not withdrawing from him the grace which he had hesitated in accepting. He always called this the greatest of his sins.

Now, however, there was no further delay. Stanislaus at once and most earnestly besought the Provincial, Father Lawrence Maggi, to receive him into the Society. The Provincial could not receive him except with his father's consent. As John Kotska was a man of such high standing and influence in Poland, a great deal of mischief might be the consequence of their admitting Stanislaus against his desire or without his knowledge. Maggi had to consider the interests of the Society. He was on the point of visiting officially that portion of his Province, and he knew that apart from every other reason, to receive Stanislaus would be to raise a storm which would easily bring about the destruction of the newly planted houses in that kingdom.. There had been, indeed, not long before a good deal of trouble from this very cause in the case of some youth of good family at Vienna. It

56

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was true that the decision of the Fathers not to admit any of the young men of their school without their parents' consent did not strictly apply to Stanislaus now that the house was broken up, but still it was felt that the circum- stances were not thereby materially changed. There seemed no hope at all of his desire being accomplished, for he well knew that his father's natural disposition and his extreme affection for himself would be insuperable obstacles in the way. Cardinal Commendone1 was the Papal Legate at the Imperial Court, of St. Pius V. He had been in Poland, and had shown himself the friend and protector of the Society. He was well acquainted with the Kostka family : his elevation to the purple having taken place whilst he was ambassador at the Court of King Sigismund II. Stanislaus implored him to become his inter- cessor with the Provincial, Father Maggi. That Father, however, was convinced that prudence forbade his granting a request, which otherwise would have been very dear to his heart, knowing, as he did, the beauty and the holiness of the young student's character. The apparent hope- lessness of his cause did not discourage Stanislaus. That sweet and powerful voice of the Mother of God was for ever ringing in his ears and heart.

1 Commendone will be remembered as the Papal envoy sent to England on the accession of Mary.

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It had given him an evident intimation of the Divine will, for this he knew her command to be. Mary had bidden him do this thing, so it must be possible, however difficult. He renewed the vow he had already made some months before to enter the Society,1 and, if all other means failed, to beg his way as a pilgrim to wherever there was a Jesuit College, and not to return to his native country, but to go on making his request, first in one place and then in another, till it was granted.

One day— it was in the August of 1567— he was unburthening his weary heart to Father Francis Antonio,2 a Portuguese, who had been for seven years missioner and then Master of Novices in Sardinia. He afterwards filled the office of Councillor and Preacher to the Dowager Empress Mary, the daughter of Charles V., and to the Italians and Spaniards at her Court.

1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. vi ; Boero, p. 59 ; Ubaldini. quoting Liber Novit. Roman. 437, 20.

2 Father Southwell, in his Bibliotheca Script. S.J., Rome, 1676, p. 212, says that Antonio -was the confessor of Blessed Edmund Campion. This must have have been during his stay at Prague ■where the Empress Mary was residing at the time. See Hist. Prov. Austr. S.J. t. i. 1. iv. passim. Blessed Edmund alludes to her in one of his letters. Simpson, Campion, p. 87. It is an interesting fact that, as St. Aloysius joined the suite of the Empress on her journey, in 158 1, to Spain, and was with her for five or six months, he must have met with Father Antonio, who accompanied Mary to Madrid. See Cepari, S. Aloysius, P- 45-

58 FLIGHT.

Stanislaus told the Father his design and resolve. Antonio saw that the refusal of the Provincial was dictated by wisdom, and on the other hand that Stanislaus was no hot-headed enthusiast, but older than his years, full of discretion as well as of piety, and firmly convinced that he must do God's will at all risks and obey Him even at the cost of displeasing his father. Still the Father wisely gave no hasty reply, but made his decision wait upon his prayers. Then and then only did he approve his scheme,1 and counsel him to apply to Blessed Peter Canisius, the Provincial of Upper Germany, whom he believed to be at Augsburg.2 But, if he failed in persuading him, his advice to Stanislaus was to go straight on to St. Francis Borgia, the General of the Society, in Rome ; and he pro- mised him letters to them both.3

Stanislaus felt he had now taken the first step towards attaining his heart's desire. Not a doubt, not a fear was in his soul : the ten hundred miles that lay between him and the

1 Father Sacchini seems rather to think that he had more zeal than prudence, at all events on this occasion, and takes the case in point as an instance how God overrules for His ends any error on the part of man.

2 Blessed Peter was making arrangements for founding a Jesuit College in that venerable city (see Agricola, Hist. Prov. S. J. Germ. Super, p. i. p. 102), and had been taking an active part in the Diocesan Synod. Sacchini, Vita P. Canisii, p. 242.

3 Process of Madrid, 1602.

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Holy City, the journey on foot, a beggar's garb, a beggar's life, the numberless trials which the high-bred young noble would have to face — nothing of all this daunted the generous spirit which looked eagerly on to the end of the pilgrimage, and never glanced at the perils or difficulties of the way. He had put his hand to the plough, and he was not one of those who look back. The only thing now was to find some concealment for his flight. He began to make longer visits to church, so that his friends would cease to be anxious, if he were absent. A pretext was needed for leaving Vienna. He had not long to wait. The next time that Paul ill-treated him, instead of bearing his cruelty as usual in uncom- plaining silence, he told him that if he went on in that way he would be forced to leave, and that Paul would have to answer for it to their father. " Go out of my sight," cried his brother, in ungovernable fury. "Off with you."

Here was his opportunity. He had already provided himself with a dress of coarse stuff and a peasant's hat.1 The Saint passed the night in fervent prayer to God, and in commending himself with many tears to the protection of his Blessed Mother. He went out early on Sunday morning, the 17th of August, 1567,2 heard Mass, and went to Holy Communion

1 Bartoli, 1. i. c. vi. 2 Ubaldini, 439, 25.

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in the church of the Society. He then called on Father Antonio for the promised letters of recommendation and for his blessing, and began his pilgrimage. As soon as he had passed through the Scottish gate1 of Vienna he once more renewed his vow to God and our Lady, and with so much gladness of heart that he felt he would be amply recompensed for all his toils, if at the end of a life-long pilgrimage it were granted him to die in a house of the Society. When he had got some way out of the city, he went aside from the high-road, and stripped off his gentleman's clothes, put on the pilgrim's weeds he had prepared, tied a rope round his waist for a girdle, and hung thereon his beads. Thus, with staff in hand, he went gladly on his way, and gave his fine clothes to the first beggar he met.2 His flight was by the Rossau,s then a broad meadow, now covered with houses, on the banks of the Danube. He then evidently left the river-side, and crossed the Weiner-Wald, with its steep ascents and thick forests.

Pacifici, the servant, in his account of the

1 This gate was the nearest to the Am Hof. The Schotter Bastei and the Schotter Ring still keep alive the memory of this gate.

2 Bartoli, 1. i. c. vi.

Benner, Lebensgeschichte des H. Stanislaus Kostka, p. 21. Vienna, 1887.

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flight of Stanislaus, says : " Stanislaus came to me very early in the morning, while his brother Paul and his tutor were still asleep, and told me that when dinner-time arrived I was to say that he could not dine at home, because he had been invited elsewhere. I did say so, and the dinner passed without his flight being suspected. But when the evening went by, and he did not return home to sleep, my masters began to suspect that he had entered religion in the house of the Jesuit Fathers at Vienna. The Fathers, however, said that they knew he was not in their Province, but that they believed he was gone to Rome, on which they went home in a great rage, inquired particularly what he had said to me, and leaving me in charge of the house, drove off in a carriage in pursuit of him. This was the following morning:1 they presently returned after a fruit- less journey, and, as far as I could make out when they spoke German, for they spoke Polish to each other, they had actually seen him on the

1 Sacchini says, quoting from a letter written on the ist of September, 1567, to the Father General, that a witch was con- sulted, who told in what direction Stanislaus had gone, and on what road he would be found, that the host (Kimberker?) at once drove off in a light carriage that very evening, and when he had just got up to the fugitive, the horses grew so restive they could not be got to move on. The driver was annoyed, and exclaimed that never had such a thing happened to him efore. The host, frightened out of his wits by this wonder, stopped the pursuit.

~)2

FLIGHT.

road without recognizing him. I remember too that some miraculous circumstances were men- tioned, the particulars of which I cannot now recall to memory."1

Bilinski, in his brief deposition, says: "Though we followed him with all possible speed, going some ten miles in a very short space of time,2 God so ordered it that we could not overtake him. He had confided everything before his departure to a young Hungarian, whose name I forget, and who gave us a letter which Stanislaus had left between the leaves of a Greek lexicon,3 in which he explained what he had done to us and to his parents."

In addition to these statements of Pacifici and Bilinski, made many years after, we have, fortunately, that of the Saint himself, written at the time.

In a letter sent by St. Stanislaus to Ernest, apparently the Hungarian friend mentioned by Bilinski, he says :

My very good lord and friend, — My best wishes to you. Thanks be to God and to the inter- cession of the Virgin Mother of God, I have got half way safe and sound. Jesus and my Virgin

1 Process of Venice, 1602.

2 A distance of about forty-five English miles, a long journey for Stanislaus under an August sun.

3 Ubaldini, 438, 27.

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Mother have given me plenty of crosses on the road. Close to Vienna two of my servants (aulici mei) overtook me. As soon/ as I recognized them, I hid myself in a wood hard by, and thus escaped their onset. After climbing a number of hills, and passing through many a wood, when I was refreshing my wearied body with some bread by the side of a clear stream, I heard the tramp of a horse. I got up and looked at the rider. It was Paul ! His steed was covered with foam, and his face was hotter than the sun. You can fancy, Ernest, how frightened I was.

All chance of flight was gone because of the rate at which he was riding. So I stood still. And plucking up courage, I went to the horse- man, and just like a pilgrim begged respectfully for an alms. He asked about his brother, described his dress and his height to me, and said he was very like myself in appearance. I replied that in the early morning he had gone along this road. Without waiting a moment he put spurs to his horse, threw me some money, and went off at a gallop. As soon as I had thanked the Most Holy Virgin, my Mother Mary, I betook myself to a cave near by to avoid being pursued. After staying there a short time, I resumed my journey.

Let me tell you another misfortune and of what crosses Jesus my Lord made me a present,

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and learn from this to join me in praising Him, My brother had paid the guards at the gates of the towns and villages to look out for his run- away Stanislaus, to cross-question and examine him, and he had given them -a full description of me. This was a great trouble to me, but I chanced to meet one of the Society of Jesus, who was on his way, by order of his Superiors, from Vienna to Dillingen. He recognized me, and I told him the reason of my journey, of my disguise, and of my brother's pursuit, and I explained to him the difficulties I had to encounter at the gates of the various towns. Accordingly to evade the two first posts he took me in a carriage. He would have driven me the whole way to Dillingen, if my desire to be unknown and to suffer for my Jesus had not stood in the way.

At length, after going through so many troubles, I reached Dillingen, where I was most kindly received by the Fathers of the Society, and was presented to the Reverend Father Provincial, from whom I received the favour I so much desired of being accepted. O Ernest, if you knew how happy I am ! I find a heaven in the midst of saucepans and brooms. I beg you when you get this letter to pray that my Jesus may deign to show His love to me by manifold crosses and afflictions, and to keep me as His sinful little

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servant among His holy ones. And may you, Ernest, be faithful to your holy vocation. I shall not forget you ad limina apostolorum — at the Apostles' shrines.

Your Excellency's friend and servant,

Stanislaus Kostka.

P.C. — When in a great hurry and all ready to start, I went to the altar of our St. Barbara to bid her good-bye with a prayer or two. I laid down the hair-shirt and discipline, which I had brought away from my house and was carrying with me, on the right hand side of the altar in a corner, and forgot all about them. Dear Ernest, say everything kind to that servant of mine who knows all our secrets ; ask him to look for them, to use them, and to pray for me.1

But there is a further record from the Saint's own lips : " I one day asked Stanislaus," says his brother-novice Augusti, " in the Novitiate at Rome, how he had managed to escape, and he told me that he had borrowed some common clothes, and started very early; that his friends followed him with many horses, and came up with him, but that they did not know him, and turned back, thinking he had gone some other road. This he thought was ordered by the providence of God, to Whom he gave thanks

1 Ubaldini, 442, 5.

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for the happiness of having been able to continue his journey."1

Paul told Antony Meier, crossing himself as he spoke, that he would never more go in pursuit of his brother, after the miraculous things he had witnessed. Antony had heard the story again and again, both from Paul and the others, who had joined in the pursuit, and he said that for some days everybody in Vienna was talking about it, especially the students of the University.2 Some of these youths made it the subject of their poetical compositions. The letter which the young Hungarian gave to Paul left no doubt in his mind as to Stanislaus' flight.

Paul started at once for Poland, and a letter which he bore from the College of Vienna, dated five days after St. Stanislaus had left, throws some light on the past, and shows how well Father Antonio had kept his secret.

To the Very Rev. Father in Christ, Francis Xumier [Sunner] , Visitor of the Colleges of the Society of Jesus in Poland.

I send you this by Paul Kostka, the brother of Stanislaus. For nearly two years the latter has been determined to enter the Society, and so strongly that we could hardly refuse him. But our answer always was we could not do so

1 Process of Recanati, 1602. 2 Process of Madrid, 1602.

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without his parents' consent. Yet he laid a petition before the Papal Nuncio, begging him to order us to receive him. We replied as before that we were not able. But when he saw he could not induce us, he planned another way by leaving Vienna, from which ours tried to dissuade him. However, one Sunday he went off very early, without telling any one where he was going. His brother, his tutor, and others sought for him and could not find him. They think we have sent him away to some other place. If any one shall say anything about it to you, you can freely declare that he was not persuaded by any one ; on the contrary, that everything was done to dissuade him. I am writing in order that you may know the whole affair and may answer according to the facts of the case. Even I have not said a word about it. I am sorry for the youth wherever he may be. They only say that he has gone. No doubt he must have had much to suffer on the way. Up to this time we do not know where he is. I desired briefly to inform you of this.

Vienna. The Imperial College, S.J. [Friday] August 22, 1567.

Your Reverence's servant in Christ,

Emerick Foster [Forster] }

1 Ubaldini, 439, 33. Father Sunner was Vice-Provincial of Poland at this time. Cf. Rostowski, Lithuan. S.J. Hist. p. 14.

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Another letter, a few days after Stanislaus was gone, was despatched to Rome from Vienna by- Father Wolfgang Piringer1 to St. Francis Borgia, containing a detailed account of the flight of Stanislaus.

Though the greater part of the details has been already given, the letter has a special interest as giving us the impressions of the Fathers at Vienna at the time, and enabling us to measure St. Francis Borgia's feelings towards the young postulant when he received him at Rome.

Very Reverend Father in Christ, — A Polish youth of noble birth, but nobler still by his virtue, has been for full two years begging to be received, and yet his request could not be granted, not merely because he had been our convictor, and was still a scholar in our College, but for certain other reasons. In despair of getting his parents' leave for this step, a few

He was the first Provincial of Poland, when, in 1575, it was made a distinct Province. Father Forster, when Rector of Gratz in 1585, was accused of declaring that if Sixtus V. altered the Constitutions of the Society the Jesuits would rather leave the Order than submit. The Pope would not be satisfied till the Father appeared before him, and Father General Acqua- viva sent him orders to come without delay. Sixtus examined the Father himself and was perfectly satisfied that the accusa- tion was false. Hist. S.J. P. v. t. i. p. 233.

1 Father Piringer was preaching the following year at Olmiitz, in Bohemia. Hist. Prov. S.J. Bohem. t. i. p. 261.

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days back he left the city with the fixed intention of trying if he could obtain what he desired in some other place. He was a great model of firmness and piety, dear to all, a trouble to none, a boy in age, a man in prudence, small in body, great and lofty in mind. Every day he heard two Masses; and he went to confession and Communion much oftener than the other students. He was constant in prayer, and in his studies — rhetoric — he not only got up to his class-mates, who at first were ahead of him, but even got before them all. Day and night his only thought was Jesus and the Society. Oftentimes with tears in his eyes he implored the Superiors to accept him, and begged the Nuncio by letter to force them to do so. But when he saw that all was in vain, he determined, even against the will of parents, brothers, and friends, to run away, and by some other means to get an entry into the Society. If he could not obtain this in the place to which he first went, then he was resolved to go as a pilgrim for the rest of his life, m utter poverty and loneliness, for the love of Christ. Those of ours to whom he disclosed his design, tried to dissuade him, and urged him to go with his brother, who it was said was soon returning to Poland, assuring him that when his parents saw his constancy they would without difficulty consent to his lawful request. But he

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maintained firmly that he knew his parents better than they, that it was vain to expect anything of the kind from his family, and that he fully resolved to put into execution what he had promised to Jesus Christ.

So, when neither his master nor his confessor had been able to shake his purpose, one morning, after he had been to Holy Communion, without a word to his tutor or to his brother, caring nothing for his great fortune, he took off the clothes he used to wear at home and at school, put on a wretched canvas dress, and stick in hand, like a poor country lad, he set off from Vienna. His landlord, his brother, and his tutor came to the College to ask where he was. On ours answering that we did not know, for we had not seen him when he left, they at once hired horses and went off in different directions in pursuit.1 The story runs that they consulted a witch, and that she told them the gate of the city by which he had left, and the road he had taken.2 They went at full gallop, and reached the place where the soldier of Christ had halted, but they could not get hold of him. For they

1 This confirms the statement of St. Stanislaus, that, contrary to the received story, based on the depositions of Father Antonio (Boero, p. 66) and of Pacifici, Paul was not with Kimberker at all events during the whole time of the pursuit.

2 Paul indignantly denied that either he or Bilinski had recourse to the witch. Boero, p. 71.

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say that the horses stopped dead with fatigue, nor would they go a step further, at which the driver exclaimed in amazement, that he had never seen the like. The result was that, alarmed at this apparent miracle, they desisted from the pursuit. What will next happen, God only knows. However, we believe that all has fallen out by God's design, "Who wished the youth to escape. This is certain, that he has always shown such constancy as to appear as if he were moved, not by boyish ardour, but by an inspiration from on high.

It may easily be imagined that there was great excitement among the fellow-students of our Saint, who reverenced him as much as they loved him. The fact of his desiring to enter religion could surprise none of those who had seen his beautiful and unworldly life, by which he so plainly showed how truly he realized what he used to say to his brother, that he was not made for time, but for eternity. But very great was their wonder to think of the high-born boy of seventeen begging his way, for Christ's sake, fearing neither danger, nor want, nor suffering. We cannot but think that many a young heart must have burnt with emulation on hearing these things, and been drawn from this world to God by the fair example of him who so counted all

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things but loss that he might win Christ. But these things spoke to none as they did to Paul Kostka : for then, as we may well believe, was sown in his heart that good seed which was to bear abundant fruit by and by, when his con- version and penitence, his holy life and death, due to the graces won by the prayers of his saintly brother, were to be among the brightest jewels in the crown worn by the Saint in Heaven.

CHAPTER VI.

STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS.

1567.

The story which Paul had to tell his father,1 though supported by the letters which he carried with him, had no power whatever in convincing John Kostka that his son's religious vocation was the work of the Holy Ghost, or that the non- recognition of St. Stanislaus, or the sudden refusal of the horses to continue the journey, were due to a miraculous interposition of the Divine Providence, in order to secure the successful issue of his flight. It is strange to think that what was so plainly supernatural as to carry conviction to the mind of the heretic Kimberker, who at last confessed that the evidence was irresistible, should not have satisfied a good Catholic like John Kostka. It only shows how violent prejudice and anger can obscure the reason and judgment. For one would have thought that the wonderful

1 Bartoli, followed by Boero, says that Paul wrote to his father. But Father Forster's letter given above, p. 66, shows that Paul went himself to Poland.

74 STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS.

circumstances preceding the birth of Stanislaus, his holy childhood, and his extraordinary faintings would of themselves be enough to prepare his father almost to expect a miracle in the case of his son, much more to believe it when attested by persons, one of whom certainly was not likely to be too easy of belief in the matter.

It may be remembered that the servant Pacifici in his deposition referred to certain miraculous circumstances which at that time, thirty-four years after their occurrence, he could not accurately remember. It seems very likely that he alluded to the account which his fellow-servant, who made one of the pursuing party, was in the habit of giving of some things which he had noticed : how he had seen Stanislaus cross from one bank to the other of a river, walking on the water as if it had been dry land, and so considerably shortening the way, whilst they had to go a long way round in order to reach the bridge. Pacifici also declared that he had often heard it said at Vienna, that when Stanislaus left, a white swan guided his steps and showed him the road. And this may have been a sign of God's protection.1

John Kostka received the news of his son's flight with a storm of indignation. He thought that Stanislaus had disgraced himself and had insulted his family by running away in a beggar's 1 Ubaldini, 439, 14.

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dress and asking alms as a beggar, in order to become a religious, and he vowed vengeance both on his son and on the Society of Jesus, which he held responsible for the injury done to his honour. He wrote a violent letter to Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, Bishop of Ermeland, and formerly one of Pius IV. 's legates at the Council of Trent, in which he threatened to dis- solve the neighbouring Jesuit College at Pultowa, which had been founded about two years before by Andrew Noskovski, Bishop of Plotsk,1 adding that he would take good care to prevent any member of the Society from ever again setting foot in Poland. He repeated the same thing in a letter to Stanislaus, whom he vowed he would have brought home in chains.

Meanwhile our Saint continued his journey. We are told that his eagerness to reach the end of his journey was such that he walked as much as thirty miles a day, and this could hardly have been accomplished by a delicate youth of seventeen, unaccustomed to fatigue and privation, except by an extraordinary assistance from Heaven. It seems hardly possible to believe that Mary, at whose bidding this cherished child of hers was making his way on foot to give himself unreservedly to the service of her Divine Son, did not support and embrace him with a mother's

1 Rostowski, Lithuan. S.J. Hist. p. 12.

76 STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS.

love, and enable him to accomplish all that his fervent zeal led him to undertake.

At length, after a journey of over three hundred miles, he arrived at Augsburg, and immediately sought in its broad and frescoed thoroughfares for Blessed Peter Canisius.1 He found that he was absent, and had gone to Dillingen, which is quite a day's journey, some thirty miles or more, from Augsburg ; but such was the zeal and eagerness of Stanislaus to be made one of his beloved Society, that without delaying to take so much as an hour's rest and refreshment, he immediately set out again, with that unwearied vigour of a loving heart which Thomas a Kempis describes —

Ubi amatur non laboratur, Aut si laboratur, labor amatur.

He was again accompanied by one of the Society, probably Father Reyner, a circumstance which has preserved for us the record of a very great and signal favour which God bestowed upon him. When he and his companion had left Augsburg a few miles behind them, they entered a small village, and finding the door of the church open, and some country people going in, they too went in, as Stanislaus greatly desired to hear Mass and to receive Holy Communion. Our

1 There was not at the time either a college or a settled residence of the Society of Jesus in Augsburg.

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Saint saw at a glance that the church was in the hands of Lutherans, and so bitter was his disappointment at not being able to receive his Lord, and still more at finding a Catholic sanctuary in the hands of the heretics, that he could not restrain his tears. But he did not weep long, for very sweet and very wonderful was the consolation given to him by God. There suddenly descended before him a band of angels, so bright and beautiful, that he instantly recog- nized them for what they were. They came around him, and all knelt down, save one, who carried the Blessed Sacrament with the most profound reverence and love, and advancing to Stanislaus, gave him Communion. They left him so filled with consolation, and so refreshed and invigorated in soul and body, that it seemed to him as though he could have walked to the ends of the earth and never known weariness.

Only Stanislaus saw the angels, but he must have told what happened in this Lutheran church to his companion, for Father Albert Teobulk gives an exact account of the occurrence in his evidence at the Process,1 and says that it was related to him " by a Father of the Society, who happened to be the companion of Stanislaus on his journey." The miracle is also reported in the deposition of Father Nicholas Oborski, and it 1 Process of Posen, 1603.

78 STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CA NISI US.

was generally known and spoken of at the time.1

This favour divinely consoled and strengthened him, and our Saint continued his journey, and on arriving at Dillingen, at once went to the College.2 There he presented himself to the saintly Provincial, and kneeling at his feet gave him the letter from Father Antonio. As soon as he had read it, and heard from the lips of the holy youth what was the one overwhelming desire of his heart, Blessed Peter Canisius raised him from the ground and embraced him affectionately. Stanislaus opened his whole heart to him, as to a father, and with tears in his eyes begged him to receive him into the Society. He protested that, as he had undertaken so long a journey to gain this grace, so he was quite ready to go on to the world's end if so be he could obtain it. Father Canisius wished to receive him on the spot for his own Province of Upper Germany, so well could a saint's eye detect true sanctity. But the young postulant thought he was still too near Poland to be safe from his family, and they would, he felt sure, make every possible effort to remove him from the Society. There were two others whom the saintly General had

1 Process of Kalisch. Oborski says an angel descended.

2 The College had been begun by the liberality of Otho Truchses in 1563. Hist. Prov. Germ. Sup. S.J. t. i. p. 16.

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summoned to Rome for their theological studies, so Blessed Peter arranged that Stanislaus should travel with them.

Meanwhile, till the time for starting came, the holy Provincial, after giving him the happy assurance that he was already counted as a novice, thought well to exercise the new candi- date in the mean and humble occupations which fall to the lot of a novice ; and this not only to prove his virtue and resolution, but to remove the doubt which naturally exists until a very young and ardent nature has been exercised in this way, lest his fervour should be greater than his solidity and constancy.

At that time the Jesuit Fathers had a very flourishing establishment at Dillingen, for the education of youths of high rank, under the patronage of St. Jerome, to whom the church and house were dedicated. The Academy of St. Jerome was one of the many great and good works of Cardinal Otho Truchses, the Bishop of Augsburg. From the first days of his episcopate, in 1543, he had planned a College of higher studies for the nobility of Suabia. Father Le Jay, one of the first companions of St. Ignatius, had most strongly encouraged this his idea, and soon, under the rectorship of an eminent scholar from Louvain, Cornelius Rosendael, of Haarlem, or Harlemius, as they styled him, it became one

8o STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS.

of the first places of education in Europe. Among its professors it counted the Dominican Peter de Soto, and Martin Olave, as well as the Scripturist Dr. Lindanus, and Martin Rythove, both of them distinguished students of Louvain, and afterwards bishops in Belgium. The wars dispersed the various professors, and when peace returned, on St. James' day, 1564, by Father De Soto's advice, and with the Rector's full assent, the Academy was re-opened by the Society of Jesus. Theodoric Canisius, half-brother to Blessed Peter, was the Rector Magnificus when St. Stanislaus arrived. Father Thomas Darbyshire,1 while yet a novice, had been appointed, in 1564, Superior or Dean of the College. But he left for Scotland in 1566, with the Nuncio Lauri and Father Edmund Hay, on an embassy to Mary Stuart.2

Here Stanislaus was placed, and his duties were those of a common servant, waiting on the students at table and attending on them in other ways.3 The holy Provincial had a two-fold object

1 Father Darbyshire, Dean of St. Paul's in the reign of Queen Mary, was one of the many who sacrificed all his endowments for the faith on the accession of Elizabeth. He became a novice of the Society at Rome when forty-five, in 1563.

2 Hist. S.J. p. iii, I. ii, § 6, p. 51.

3 The building which now exists, and is at present the Seminary of the diocese of Augsburg, only dates from 1621. There is a tradition, however, that our Saint served in the great refectory. Possibly that portion of the old College was pre- served.

STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS. 8r

in view, to exercise our Saint in the virtues of humility and self-abnegation, and to give the young men of the College the opportunity of profiting by his example. Both these ends were fully answered. Stanislaus accepted his new duties with the greatest joy and readiness, and discharged them with admirable diligence and modesty. He made so good and thorough a servant, that no one would have imagined that he had not been regularly taught and trained in these menial offices. His waiting at table specially excited surprise and pleasure in every- body because of his respectful behaviour and his attention to the wants of those he was serving. When it began to be whispered among the students that the man-servant, whose manners struck them so much, was equal by birth and breeding to the highest among them, and that he was doing that work simply for the love of God, and to obtain the favour of being received into the Society, they regarded him with the utmost veneration, and many of them were led, by his example, to leave the world and enter the religious state. One of this number was John Peleycius, of Ulm, in Suabia, who a few months later followed St. Stanislaus to Rome. He had been received as a novice in Germany, but he completed his novitiate in Rome, and was there at the time of the Saint's death. He was a true G

82 STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER C A NISI US.

labourer in the vineyard, and after a long life of writing, of teaching, and preaching, in 1606, when sixty-five years old, as Rector in Oettingen, he gave his evidence that he knew Stanislaus during his stay for about a month in the Academy of St. Jerome at Dillingen, and remembered his arrival there from Vienna, as a poor penniless pilgrim, and his waiting on himself and his companions at table. It was not till 1623 that the good old man went to his rest, when eighty-eight years old.1

All this time Stanislaus was continually lifting up his heart to God that He would grant him the fulfilment of his dearest wish, and hasten the happy day which was to give him entirely and for ever to the service of His Divine Son in the Society which is especially His own. His prayers were accompanied by very great penances, and it was particularly noticed that he observed an almost unbroken fast, so that it became a saying in the house that "though Stanislaus is always at work, he never eats nor drinks." This saying was reported by one of the witnesses, who said that when he was studying theology at the University of Ingolstadt, in 1655, he had heard it from Father George Herzer, of the Society, who said that several Fathers older than himself

1 Agricola, Hist. Prov. S.J. Germ. Sup. P. v. Dec. ix. n. 311, p. 347, and Process of Freysingen, 1606.

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had told him of the almost perpetual fast observed by blessed Stanislaus all the time he was at Dillingen.1

It is certain that we know a very small part of these voluntary mortifications of our Saint ; but that they must have been very severe indeed we gather from a mere hint on the subject given by one of the witnesses who says, " Blessed Stanis- laus, when he was placed by Father Canisius in the College of Dillingen, to wait on the students, and to perform the humblest offices, had so much to suffer, that it seemed as if Almighty God had sent him there to gain an abundant crown of merit, as was said by several Fathers of the Society who were well acquainted with the circumstance."2

We are surely justified in referring these expressions to the voluntary mortifications which Stanislaus imposed upon himself, for externally his only sufferings could have been such as were occasioned by his deep humility at seeing the affection and reverence with which he was uni- versally regarded. Hardly had he left Dillingen, than he became an object of pious veneration there, and after his death the room which he had occupied was turned into a chapel.

Meanwhile Blessed Peter Canisius had left Dillingen to continue the visitation of all the

1 Process of Posen, 1663. 2 Process of Kalisch, 1628.

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Colleges within his Province. He had fully satisfied himself of the virtue and constancy of Stanislaus, and was convinced that not only for his sake, but to avoid the scandal of the violent measures which his father would in all probability employ against the Society, it would be advisable to let him start at once for Rome. The wisdom of this decision was evident, for if, as will be seen, John did not scruple to send his son Paul there, with authority to use all possible means to bring Stanislaus back with him to Poland, he would certainly have acted with still greater violence if his son had been in Germany, where there were so many Protestant princes and nobles who would have been only too ready to give him their assistance.

On the 18th of September, the Provincial wrote from Ingolstadt the letter already quoted,1 to St. Francis Borgia, giving him notice that he expected very shortly to send Stanislaus and the two other students to Rome.

By the end of the month Stanislaus was judged to have been sufficiently tried to be allowed to enter on his novitiate, and accordingly he and the young James Levanzio left Dillingen for Munich, where they were to find their other companion, Fabricius Reiner, waiting for them. Reiner as the eldest no doubt had charge of

STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS. 85

the other two. There, too, they found Blessed Peter Canisius, who made Stanislaus change the very miserable clothes in which he had travelled from Vienna for others more fit to protect him from the sharp winds among the Alps and the Apennines which they were to cross in the autumn. When the three pilgrims came to take leave of him he embraced them, gave them his blessing, and furnished them with their letter of recommendation to the saintly General.

Fabricius had entered the Society when thirty- one years old, eight years before this time, at Cologne. He did not stay long at Rome, for he took the three solemn vows in 1569 at Augsburg. He had much to suffer as Professor of Eloquence at Ingolstadt, from the jealousy of the Senate of the University. And, owing to some action of his when Dean, he was the unwitting cause of the Society having to leave the town. But not long after the Society was recalled with honour, and he was reinstated in the Senate. He passed the last ten years of his long life at Biburg, going, spite of his feebleness, almost every day to visit our Lady's shrine at Allersdorf, a walk of more than a mile. He returned to Ingolstadt only to die, and went to his rest with the names of Mary and Stanislaus on his lips, in the Jubilee year of 1625, at the great age of

86 STANISLAUS KOSTKA AND PETER CANISIUS.

ninety-seven.1 He never forgot his journey to Rome, and often loved to talk of his saintly companion. He lived to see him beatified, and to take part in the solemnities and rejoicings that followed that event.

The long journey led them through the green alps of the Tyrol, and across the Brenner Pass into Lombardy. It was occupied with pious conversation, and an ever succeeding round of mental and vocal prayer. His two companions used afterwards to relate that, whenever they passed a statue or picture of our Lady, in Tyrolese valley or on Italian woodside, Stanislaus slipped away from them and went close to it. And standing there, with his fervent soul speak- ing through his bright eyes, as though he were holding converse with Mary, he made a brief stay and then rejoined his two brother-travellers.2 They must have passed by Loretto before crossing the Apennines and then trending westward and southward they came to Rome.3

1 Hist. Prov. Germ. Sup. S.J. P. iv. Dec. g, n. 274, p. 338. 8 Bartoli, 1. i. c. viii ; Boero, p. 94.

:J The high-road in those days from the North through the Romagna, by the old Via iEmilia and Via Flaminia.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FELLOW-NOVICES OF STANISLAUS KOSTKA.

1567-

It was on Tuesday, the feast of SS. Simon and Jude, October the 28th, the birthday of St. Francis Borgia, that St. Stanislaus was received as a novice, and from that day he dated his entry into religious life.1 And this entry is recorded in a venerable MS. book, wherein are the answers to the prescribed interrogations made to the novices on the threshold of their reception.2

When we say that St. Stanislaus spent his novitiate at the Casa Professa of Santa Maria della Strada, at the Roman College, and at Sant' Andrea on the Quirinal, the reader must not fancy that the present buildings were then existing. The House of Santa Maria was that which St. Ignatius had erected, or rather it con- sisted partly of new, partly of old, buildings added

1 In many places and for several years, the feast of the Saint was kept after his beatification, on the Sunday before the 28th of October. Boero, p. 91.

2 v. Appendix E.

S8

FELLO W-NO VICES.

to, and made as best they could to serve their new purpose. Two alleys ran through the block which St. Francis Borgia had just purchased and was pulling down to build there the new church and house. Instead of the magnificent Gesu, which the princely Cardinal Farnese afterwards built, the first stone of which was laid the very June before our Saint's death, there was the old church of Santa Maria della Strada. It was one of the many parochial churches of Rome, till the Society obtained that its parish should be transferred to St. Mark's close by. The house was overcrowded and inconvenient.1 When Cardinal Edward Farnese, the great-nephew of the builder of the church, reconstructed the house, the old rooms alone, hallowed by their association with St. Ignatius, were religiously preserved.

Of the Roman College of St. Stanislaus' day nothing is left, save a portion of the church. It then consisted of a large irregular building, a portion of which had been the palace of the Cardinal Caraffa, who afterwards became Pope Paul IV. His niece, Victoria della Tolfa, widow of Camillo Orsini, Marchese della Guardia, had determined to turn the palace into a convent, and had added considerably to it. The whole was standing empty when Pius IV. came to the Papal throne, and he persuaded the charitable 1 Le Gesu de Rome, p. 12.

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lady to make it over to the Society. The Jesuits built in addition the small church of the A nnun- ziata, which some years afterwards was incor- porated into the immense building dedicated to St. Ignatius.1 In 1582, Gregory XIII. began- the new College, the one now in existence.

As was naturally the case in the infancy of the Society, it was impossible at once to organize the Order completely, and it was only during the Generalate of Father Laynez, in consequence of a decree of the first General Congregation, that an effort was made, but in vain, to establish separate Houses of Novitiate. On Laynez' death, in 1565, the second General Congregation commissioned his successor, St. Francis Borgia, to draw up rules for such houses, and to procure, what his pre- decessor had found impossible, separate buildings for the Novitiate. St. Francis took the work at once in hand, and on the 20th of September of that year drew up a set of regulations, which have been embodied in the Inst'itutum, or code of laws by which the Society of Jesus is governed. A copy of these rules exists in St. Stanislaus' handwriting. Just at that very time the oppor- tunity presented itself for procuring a suitable site for the Roman Novitiate. Mgr. John Andrew Croce, Bishop of Tivoli, himself a noble- man of that town, one of the Fathers of the 1 Cepari, St. Aloysius, pp. 389, 390.

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Council of Trent,1 was proprietor of a parish

church on the Quirinal called Sant' Andrea, to

which were attached two small houses and a

tolerably large garden. He had a brother,

Lucius, in the Society; and, as the spot was

considered a healthy one, the Father pressed the

Bishop2 to make it over to the house of Santa Maria

della Strada, to serve as a sort of sanatorium for

the sick and invalided. In fact, close by, the

Popes had begun their summer palace, which was

subsequently to grow into that stately building,

so full of the memories of Pius VII. and Pius IX.

and so desecrated in these our days. Mgr. Croce

obtained from the Pope, St. Pius V., the transfer

of the parish to another church, and made over

the whole property to St. Francis Borgia, who

had not then as yet been elected General. The

next year, 1566, the Professed House was so

overcrowded that what had been decided on in

principle became necessary in fact. Another kind

friend was found, Dona Jane de Aragon, Duchess

of Tagliacozzo, mother to the hero of Lepanto,

Mark Antony Colonna. She possessed a property

adjoining Sant' Andrea, consisting of a house and

vineyard. As soon as she heard of the General's

intention, she became desirous of the privilege

of being the foundress of the Novitiate, and

not only made over this property, but gave in

1 Ughelli, Italia Sacra. Tibur. 2 Sacchini, Hist. S.J. P. iii. 1. ii. § 16.

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addition six thousand. ducats.1 The lay-brothers set to work to make the necessary alterations and to adapt a portion for a chapel, and so quickly was it done that at the beginning of August, the great missionary, Father Julius Man- cinelli, brought the first nine novices from the Professed House to train them up in the solitude and seclusion of a place so soon to be hallowed by a novice-saint. Still, the larger portion of the novices continued to remain at Santa Maria della Strada under Father Alphonsus Ruiz, while some were, at all events from time to time, as we shall see, at the Roman College. The new, or second Novitiate, as it was called, had thus only been opened on the Quirinal the very year before St. Stanislaus came to Rome. The building was however rather a hut than a house ; and though only twenty people lived there in all at the beginning, they were in sad straits for room. Sacchini, from whom we borrow this account, writing in Sant' Andrea's, some- where about 1620, says that the Novitiate had then been so enlarged that, without counting the aged and invalid Fathers, it held over a hundred. On St. Andrew's day, 1566, the foundress had come with her son to the Mass and sermon, and there in presence of a number of Cardinals and people of family, a large wax taper, the sign of 1 About £1,200. See Boero, p. 94.

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gratitude to founders, was offered to her, and she placed it in her son's hands, as her successor.

We are not told how long was the stay which Stanislaus made at the different houses ; we learn only that after leaving Santa Maria della Strada he was sent to work in the kitchen of the Roman College, no easy task where there was a community of a hundred and thirty.1 But in neither of these did he make a long stay, only just long enough to bless with his presence these two religious houses, the chiefest of the Society. For he spent almost ten months at Sant' Andrea. Father Boero has printed a list of his fellow- novices, and certainly Sacchini says with truth that a nobler band have rarely been gathered together. During the period ■ that Stanislaus passed in the noviceship, about one hundred and seven came and went. But it is impossible to know which of these actually lived under the same roof with him, as we have seen that they did not all live together. They were of very varied ages. Many were over thirty, about the same number were youths of our Saint's years, but most of them were men between eighteen and thirty. The very large majority, more than half the entire number, were Italians, from every portion of the Peninsula ; there was a fair sprinkling of Spaniards, there were Germans,

1 Sacchini, Hist. S.y. P. iii. 1. ii. n. 14, p. 52.

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French, Scotch, English, Flemings, and four Poles, besides the subject of our story. Twenty- eight entered as lay-brothers, and of these twenty- two were Italians ; but few of them had proper names to record on the register. •

Antony de Madrid, though already thirty-eight, and a man well-educated and of gentle blood, had chosen the lowly status of a Brother, and for his reward had, as infirmarian at Sant' Andrea, to nurse St. Stanislaus in his last illness, to lay him out, and bury him when dead. Antony was the nephew of Father Christopher de Madrid, who, when hardly more than a novice, was appointed by St. Ignatius, at the close of his life, to assist Father Polanco, the vicar of the Saint, in the government of the whole Order, and who afterwards, before he had made his solemn vows, was chosen Assistant by Father Laynez, and by St. Francis Borgia, Superior of the Professed House of Santa Maria. This last office he held till his death, 1571.1 The humble lay-brother was for many a long year assistant to the Master of Novices of Palermo, and so gentle was he in his charge that the novices used to say they had found a more tender mother in religion than God had given them in the world. The example of his sainted fellow-novice was always on his lips as a lesson to the young men. He 1 Hist, S.J. P. iv. 1. i. § 38, p. 8.

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had learnt from him his love of the Blessed Sacrament, so that when old age prevented any active duties, he would spend hours, four hours at a time, before the Tabernacle, erect, without resting upon anything, the love of his heart supporting the weight of his four-score years.1

First on the list of the novices, given in order of arrival, is John Hay, born at Dalkeith, of the Hays of Dalgety, and nephew of Father Edmund Hay, first Rector of Pont-a-Mousson, who held such high posts in the Society. Uncle and nephew had left Scotland together in 1562, and John had studied his philosophy at Louvain before going to Rome. Ten years later, as a Doctor of Theology, he defended the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, at the College just opened at Vilna, before a number of Calvinists, none of whom dared to descend into the arena for the three days that he propounded his thesis.2 His Rector, Father Warscewizki, who presided at the one-sided conflict, had been, as we shall see, his fellow-novice at Rome. Six years later we read of him, when called to Pont-a-Mousson from Poland, and staying for his health with a doctor at Strasburg, taking up the defence of the same Mystery with equal success against Professor Pappus of that University. He was

1 D'Aguilera, Hist. S.J. Prov. Sic. an. 1609. 2 Sacchini, Hist. S.J. P. iii. I iv. § 123, p. 296.

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dressed as a layman, but the Chancellor saw through his disguise and declared he must be the devil or a Jesuit.1 In 1579 he spent ten months in his native Scotland, labouring for God, and sheltered by his relatives, who were of the noblest of that kingdom.2 He passed thirteen years in Belgium, and died in 1607, sixty-one years old, at the University of Pont- a-Mousson, of which he was Chancellor. Another Scottish novice there was, Thomas Smeaton, but he did not persevere in his vocation.

Three months after Hay's arrival, on the 24th of April, entered Lelius Sanguigni, a Roman, of man's estate, who, when four-and-thirty, lost his father, murdered by the hand of a relative. Lelius forgave the assassin, and God recompensed him by a call to the Society. He begged the Father General, Everard Mercurian, to take him to St. Pius V., and there he implored mercy for the murderer. Three years later, in 1569, when a body of Pontifical troops had been sent into France to support the Catholic cause against the Huguenots, and three Jesuit Fathers accom- panied the soldiers, Lelius and another Brother went with them. Worn out with fatigue and

1 Sacchini, Hist. S.J. P. iv. 1. iv. n. 131, p. 114. Cf. I'Univer- sit'e de Pont-a-Mousson. Par le P. Adam, p. 104.

2 See Letter of Father Hay. W. Leith Forbes, Narratives of Scottish Catholics, p. 141.

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sickness, Lelius was the last to succumb, doing the work of five, even burying the dead. When Father Possevino arrived to their aid, Sanguigni fell under the work and was called to his crown, after three short years of religious life.1

On the ioth of September, a year before St. Stanislaus, Bartholomew Pamfili Ricci, a youth of twenty-two, born at a place now of melancholy renown, Castel Fidardo, joined the Novitiate. His happiness it was in after years to be for some time the Novice Master of St. Aloysius ; and when he held the same post at Nola, Blessed Charles Spinola was living in that town with his uncle, the Cardinal Philip. Father Bartholomew knew the young man as he was attending the Jesuit College, and he foretold to him his future vocation, and his glorious but terrible death in the great holocaust of Japan. Not long after this, Blessed Charles Spinola enrolled himself among his novices. Father Ricci died in Rome before his prophecy was fully accomplished.

One Judas there was among the hundred ; and that one, alas ! our own countryman. Christopher Perkins had taken his degree at Oxford, when he left England2 and entered the Society a month or so after Father Ricci. He spent many years in Germany, where by his turbulence he was

1 Sacchini, Hist. S.J. P. iii. 1. v. § 149, p. 236. 2 Ibid. P. v. 1. iii. § 97, p. 130.

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the cause of much trouble, and in 1581 he was dismissed. He returned to Rome and contracted a friendship there with William Cecil, afterwards the Earl of Exeter, who persuaded him to go with him to England.1 Here the wretched man apostatized. Cecil recommended him to Lord Burleigh, his great uncle, and in answer to his constant pleadings for money and promotion, obtained for him, mere layman though he was, the deanery of Carlisle. Queen Elizabeth en- trusted him with diplomatic missions and made him her Latin secretary, and King James, in reward for his activity against the Catholics, honoured him with knighthood at Whitehall, on July 23, 1603.2 The unhappy man, not content with such pay, aimed at a connection with the favourite Buckingham, and married a widow, the aunt of the Duke. But he won but little happiness or esteem for his pains.3 Christopher Perkins died in 1622, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, a daughter of Lady Perkins appears to have left England to become a religious.4

1 Dodd's Church History.

2 A. Mary Sharp, History ofUfton Court. London, 1892, p. 229.

3 Note of Father Persons. Father Grene's Collectanea, Stony- hurst MSS. P. fol. 48.

4 MS. note-book of Dr. John Southcote, in the possession of the Bishop of Southwark. Cf. Foley, Records of the English Province S.J. vol. ii. p. 340, and the History of Ufton, pp. 231— 236.

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About a fortnight later than Perkins, on November 8th, 1566, Paul Neiikirk arrived from Prague, where he had already been received into the Society. His after life was to be a striking contrast to that of his unhappy fellow-novice, which has just been described. After some six years spent in Rome he went to study his theo- logy at Vienna, and then in 1576 was sent as Professor of Philosophy to Prague. Blessed Edmund Campion was there at the time as Professor of Rhetoric, and when Father Neiikirk two years later was ordained priest and vacated his chair, the future martyr was appointed his successor. Paul's life was a full and useful one. He governed in succession the Jesuit Colleges of Prague, Gratz, and Vienna. In this last city he died when fifty-three years old.1

A week after the young Bohemian, there arrived a venerable priest whose life had been more stirring, and whose end was singularly blessed. Lewis Corbinelli, a Florentine gentle- man of ample means, had entered the priesthood, when a sort of constitutional depression induced his medical advisers to send him in pursuit of distractions across Europe. He was able to pay the expenses of some cheerful companions, and wherever there were any grand festivities, there Corbinelli was sure to be found. Naturally

1 Hist. Prov. Bohem. S.J. P. ii. 1. iii. n. 397, p. 276.

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enough the double royal wedding at Paris in 1599 attracted the party. Its splendid gaieties were brought to a sudden close by the death of Henry II., and Lewis was actually present at the tournament when the King was wounded. The blow smote the priest's heart, and read him a lesson which he did not forget, and he determined, spite of his delicate health and advanced years, to enter the Society of Jesus. He lived long enough to be the happy sharer of St. Aloysius' dying hours, for into the infirmary, which was Lewis' home, the Saint was carried when the fever came upon him. The aged priest persuaded the Brothers to bear him to the bedside of the young man, and compelled him to give him his blessing. Again and again, though lying in different apartments, he appeared to the Saint begging his prayers. He asked and obtained the favour to be laid in the same grave as Aloysius, and left this world nineteen days before him. Gonzaga told Father Bellarmine that Corbinelli's soul had tarried but a moment in Purgatory.1

But Corbinelli was not long the oldest novice of his day. On Epiphany — the first who entered in the new year, 1567 — came Francis Torres, a Spanish priest, who had grown grey

1 Jouvency, Hist. S.J, P. v. t. ii. 1. xvi. n. 4, p. 35^, cf. Schroeder,, St. Aloysius, p. 224.

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with many long years of study. Like his uncle Bartholomew, the celebrated Bishop of the Canary Isles, he had gained even among his countrymen a great name for his profound philosophical and theological lore. There was hardly a library in Europe unvisited by him. And the Pope had paid him the special compli- ment of sending him as one of his theologians to the Council of Trent. It was during its sessions that he came to know and to esteem the new Order of St. Ignatius, till at last, not- withstanding his age — he was sixty-five — he put his neck beneath the yoke and became a child again for Jesus Christ. There is a pleasing memory attached to his death. Just as Cardinal Bellarmine died on the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis, a feast whose extension to the Universal Church he had obtained, and the Office for which he had arranged, so Father Torres defended by his learning the feast of our Lady's Presentation, which some critics had proposed to strike out from the calendar, and it was on that day, in 1584, that his soul went to God.1

Others there were who, though comparatively young, had made their mark in the world. Dr. Francis de Leon, of Burgos, had gained such a repute as a jurist as to have been one of those chosen by Gregory XIII. to revise the 1 Hist. S.J. P. iii. 1. iii. § 47, p. 100, cf. P. v. 1. iv. § 20, p. 106.

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Decree of Gratian;1 Dr. John Francis Prandi, who, as Bartoli tells us,2 was but twenty-seven on his entry into religion, had previously held the first chair in the University of Bologna, and had achieved great fame in philosophy ; and another Doctor, of the same age, Francis de Ribera, a Professor in the University of Sala- manca. He was received into the Society by Father Martin Gutierrez, who was to die from ill-usage at the hands of the French Huguenots.3 On July 22nd the same year, 1567, there came from the Vatican Claudius Acquaviva, the son of the Duke of Atri. He had been the major- domo of two Popes. The highest honours were open to him both in Church and State, for two of his uncles wore the purple. But he was to win a wider fame as the future General of the Society. At home, at College, at Court, he had borne a spotless name. His mother, of the great house of Spinelli, a woman of rare virtue, had taught him piety in his earliest days, and he never forgot her lesson. His family put no obstacle in his way, much less did the saintly Pontiff, though he lost in him a very trusted and dear friend. " If the Holy Spirit calls you, there will be certainly no hindrance on our part. Go in God's name, and may He bless and prosper

1 Hist. S.J. P. iii. 1. iii. § 50, p. 100. 2 L. i. c. ix.

3 Chrono-Hist. Pvov. de Toledo, S.J. torn. ii. p. 437A.

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you ! " Nor did Claudius remain a night away when once the Pope's leave had been obtained, though it was midsummer, and the narrow novice house was heated like an oven by the southern sun. He it was who took charge of St. Stanislaus on his arrival, and gave him the Exercises, but he soon perceived that the scholar knew more than he could teach him.

We cannot resist telling two anecdotes of his novice life. Light-hearted as a novice, he was rushing along one day with a basket containing the dinner of some one who had come to make a retreat. In his haste he charged up against poor old Brother Torres. The venerable novice, accusator sui, went down on his knees to beg pardon for being in his way, while Claudius in turn threw himself at Torres' feet, and each excused the other and begged the other's forgive- ness. Claudius did return once more to Court, but it was with a novice, one of the Visconti of Milan, who was older than himself, each dressed in tattered cassocks with an alms-sack on their back. Thus they went right up even into the Papal ante-chamber. The Pope's nephew, Car- dinal Alessandrino, and others of the Sacred College, and some noble ladies who were present, wondered at the strange change in these two of almost royal birth.1

1 Sacchini, Hist. S.J. P. iii. lib. iii. § 56, pp. ioi, seq.

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Another of equal nobility in the world was Fabius de Fabiis, who, like Claudius, had ever kept himself singularly innocent in spite of his splendid position in society. Like Claudius, too, he did not enter the Society until in full manhood — at the age of twenty-four. Unlike Claudius, he was short and deformed, and many stories are told of how he turned this natural defect into a source of self-humiliation. In 1594, as' the acting Superior of the Professed House at Rome, he had the arduous duty of receiving and entertaining the Fathers who came from every quarter of the globe to take part in the fifth General Congregation, or Assembly of Deputies from the whole Society. He met them as they arrived, took them to their rooms,, washed their travel-stained feet, and went on any errand they might ask. His simple manners and plain looks, his few words and active readiness, made them take him for a lay-brother, and they gave him many an order and many a commission that they would not have liked to give to a Father. As soon as they found out their mistake, they hastened to make their apologies. He only laughed, and ran off to seek fresh work and fresh humiliations. Even though he did not, as his family boasted, come down from the Fabii, he had a soul worthy of so good a stock; and, in the many high places of trust he held, he always

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proved as large-minded and gentle-hearted as he was humble and mortified.

He met his death out of pity for a bull, which, being driven with a herd of cattle along the road to St. Paul's, had fallen down through weariness, and was being worried by a dog. Father de Fabiis, though more than seventy years old, ran up to beat the dog off with his cloak. The bull suddenly got on its legs and charged its protector, and if the young Michael Perretti, grand-nephew of Sixtus V. had not been riding by on his return from hunting, and shot the infuriated animal, the poor Father would have been gored to death on the spot. As it was, he lingered but for a short time in great agony, an agony which the horrid remedies of the surgeons only served to aggravate.

Two other fellow-novices of St. Stanislaus may be mentioned together — Benedict Giustiniani, of the great Genoese family, and Jerome Piatti, or Platus, as we best know him. Benedict, with Austin Giustiniani, son of the Doge Paul, was Professor of Philosophy to St. Aloysius in 1591. He won a great name as a preacher and as a theologian, and for twenty years was Rector of the House of the Penitentiaries of St. Peter's, where he died in a ripe old age in 1622. Jerome was of a noble Milanese family. He had, like so many, a hard fight for his vocation, and the love that he bore it is written in his well-known work,

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The Happiness of the Religious State. In after life, while Consultor at the Gesu, he had the care of St. Aloysius, who was then a novice ; and it was as Novice Master at Sant' Andrea on the Quirinal that Father Piatti ended his useful life.

For his brother Flaminius, who had just been made Cardinal, he wrote a treatise on the duties and dignity of that state, but he never attempted to publish it ; it only appeared after his death. Another work on The Excellency of the Marriage State had an untimely end. He had written it, through love of poverty, on odds and ends of paper, and on the backs of letters, and when it was nearly completed, a well-intentioned lay- brother, who had come in to sweep out his room, seeing his table littered with heaps of scraps, carried them off and threw them all away. Father Piatti told him what an amount of work he had undone, without another syllable of reproach or blame.1

There was among the novices, Jerome, a brother of the Father Martin Olave, so well known to any that have read the Life of St. Ignatius, the learned Doctor of Trent who entered, as did Jerome, late in life, and who was on his death- bed when his holy Founder died. A few days after Olave there arrived, on May 3, 1567, a father and son, Tarquin Peruschi and his boy

1 Patrignani, Menologio, August 13.

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Pliny. Pliny changed his pagan name into that of John Baptist, and in after life was the first Superior of the Professed House of Venice, and first Provincial of the newly-created Province of Milan.1 A physician from Brescia, Augustine Mazzino by name, came two days before the first and the last Christmas that St. Stanislaus spent in religion. Augustine died, an old man of sixty- seven, an apostle in his own country, labouring for souls in his native place.

If the apostate Perkins was a disgrace to the soil from which he sprang, England has no reason to be ashamed of the three other fellow-novices of our Saint. These were Giles Fesard and the two Rastalls, all of whom came after St. Stanislaus had arrived. Giles was thirty years old when he joined the Society on February 23, 1568, the year of the Saint's death. When he had com- pleted his studies he was sent to Prague, to be Socius or Assistant to Father John Paul Campano, an Italian, the Novice Master of what afterwards in 1625 became the separate Province of Bohemia. His gentleness and willingness to oblige made him beloved by all. A holy lay-brother, the cook of the house, was meditating, on the feast of the Visitation, 1571, upon the wonders of that day, when he saw the whole place where he was kneeling ablaze with light far brighter than that

1 Hist. S.J. P. iv. 1. vi. § 15, p. 170.

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of the summer sun ; and in the midst of this glory he beheld our Blessed Lord raising up, with outstretched hand, Father Giles, the Englishman, — for so they called him. The Brother told his Rector, and three days after a deadly fever fulfilled the vision. Venite exultemus Domino ! Exultate justi in Domino ! was Fesard's answer to the notice of approaching death.1

Edward and John Rastall were the sons of the eminent lawyer Judge Rastall, who, faithful to his religion, abandoned place and country to settle and die in Louvain, where his body rests with that of his worthy wife, Winifred Clement, at the right hand side of our Lady's altar in the great Church of St. Peter in that town. The Judge's father was a well-known printer, who married a sister of the martyr Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Good blood therefore ran in the veins of the brothers, both of whom had been born at Gloucester. Edward, the younger of the two, entered the first, being then twenty-five ; he began his theological studies in the Roman College in 1570, and went with his brother to Germany, there to complete his divinity at Ingolstadt, where he died on June 17, 1577.2

1 Nadasi, Annus dier. memorab. Jul. 4.

3 Hist. Prov. S.J. Germ. Sup. Dec. iv. n. 264, cf. Foley, Records, viii. pp. 638, 1449, and MS. notes of Father Morris from the Necrologe at Ingolstadt.

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His brother John, thirteen years his senior, entered three weeks later, on April 6, 1565. He had been as a boy at Winchester School, and so moved up naturally to New College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow ; but, like his father, he sacrificed everything for the Faith, and followed him to Louvain. He was already a priest. He became noted for his skill in con- troversy, and was a great adversary of Jewell. After his noviceship he was sent as confessor and consultor to the Jesuit house at Hall, then to Augsburg, and finally to Ingolstadt, where he was in 1577 Vice-Rector of the College of the Society.

While he filled that office, Father Paul Hoffseus, the zealous fellow-labourer of Blessed Canisius, then Provincial of the Province of Upper Germany, fell ill at Augsburg. Father Rastall bravely offered his life to God for one he prized more highly than his own. He made his subjects pray for a recovery which meant his own death, and even went in pious pilgrimage for the same end to a sanctuary outside the town called Our Saviour the Greater. God heard his prayers ; he sickened of the same illness of which the Provincial was suffering, and died. Father Hoffseus then and there recovered.1

The mention of Germany reminds us of Matthew 1 Hist. Prov. Germ. Sup. Dec. iv. n. 263.

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Mairhofer, a Bavarian, who came to the Novitiate the same day as the two Peruschi, a youth of seventeen, born at Landshut, and who in after life was to be the first professor of the Society to lecture publicly at Munich, his lectures being on moral theology. For twenty years he was Rector in the Jesuit College of that capital, and he died at the great age of ninety-one, in 1641.1

The countrymen of St. Stanislaus were four in all. One of them, who arrived a month after the Saint, with two other postulants, members of his household, deserves a special mention. He was of the same province as Kostka, bore the same Christian name, and was afterwards to be the first to write and publish his Life. Of noble family, Warscewizki had been sent in the earlier days of the Reformation into Germany, where he fell under the influence of Melancthon and, like so many of his countrymen, " drank in from the golden cup of literature, the heresy which was offered to him,"2 and abandoned the Faith. Yet for all that he was received at the Court of King Sigismund Augustus of Poland, he was sent by him on embassies to the Turk and to other powers, and he even received from his Sovereign's hands ecclesiastical benefices, though he had no

1 Southwell, Bibliotheca Scriptonmi Societas Jesu. " Jouvency, Hist. S.J. P. v. 1. xxiv. § ii. p. 774.

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idea of abandoning his errors. It was only quiet thought and study that brought him back to the Faith ; but when he fully realized what he had done, he at once changed his whole life, and withdrew from Court. That he might gain others back to God he became a priest, but refused a bishopric that was offered to him, and used his brilliant talents in preaching to the people. From Cardinal Hosius he heard of the new Society of Jesus, which that great prelate had learnt to appreciate at the Council of Trent. The Cardinal took him over to see the College he had founded for the Fathers at Braunsberg. Strangely enough he recognized the place as one that he had seen in a dream when but a child. He made the acquaintance with the Rector, Father Phae, and through him heard for the first time of the Exercises as the means best suited to enable him to decide the difficulty which was uppermost in his mind as to the choice of a state of life. Stanislaus began his retreat and studied prayer- fully the golden rules of election. He recognized clearly the call, but found it no easy thing to bring his proud soul under the cross of obedience. God's grace triumphed, and he arrived at the Novitiate of Rome on November 24. It was zeal for souls that had been his great attraction, and a plentiful harvest he had in his new life. Warscewizki was a hard and successful labourer

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for the faith during twenty-four years in Poland, in Sweden, and in Wallachia, until, in 1591, he gave up his life, a martyr of charity assisting the plague-stricken at Cracow.1

The next arrival was a Christopher Laynez. His is a curious story. He was the brother of Father James, the distinguished companion of St. Ignatius, and like him was received by the Saint into the Society, but the holy Superior was forced to dismiss him. When however his brother became General, James had pity on him and took him back. But he too had to send him away. St. Francis Borgia in his turn yielded to Christopher's petitions ; he re-admitted him and thus he became a fellow-novice of St. Stanislaus, only to be dismissed a third time. Another fellow-novice of the poor man, Father Acquaviva, for the sake of the name he bore and touched by his tears, received back the wandering sheep, and Christopher at last died a peaceful and happy death in the Society.2

Our list has been a long one. Two more names yet remain, perhaps the worthiest of record, though we can give them little space. Both were to work in the same field ; one was to win the crown of martyrdom, the other, like St. Francis Xavier, was to seek it in vain. Alessandro

1 Lithuan S.J. Hist. pp. 12, 13, 168. 2 Chrono. Hist. Prov. de Toledo, S.J. t. i. pp. 145—147.

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Valignani, son of a gentleman of Chieti, first turned his thoughts to the army, then, warned by, what looked like a Divine interposition, the words of a stranger, took to study, and gained at Padua the much coveted degree of Doctor when but nineteen years old. Meantime his father's friend, the former Archbishop of Chieti, Cardinal Caraffa, had become Pope, and the young Doctor went to Rome to seek ecclesiastical preferment. Already he was auditor or counsellor to the great Cardinal Altemps, and his way to honour seemed easy, when God called him to the Society, and St. Francis Borgia had the consola- tion of receiving into the noviceship one who was greatly to serve the Order. From that day, May 27, 1566, he never looked back. As a pledge of his resolve to conquer himself he put on a hair- shirt, nor did he ever lay it aside till his death. So swift and sure was his flight, that he who had been so lately a novice was soon to be appointed the Master of Novices ; and in 1578 he was made, by the General, Visitor with full powers over all the houses and missions of the Society in India, China, and Japan. For thirty-three years he laboured, and he never rested till he met his death like St. Francis Xavier on a small island facing Macao. His life would be a real history of some of the greatest triumphs Christianity ever attained.

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"3

Blessed Rodolf Acquaviva was the head of the band who laid down their lives for Christ in the Goanese Salsette. The future martyr showed of what stuff he was made when as a mere boy he battled for his entry into the Society. By dint of constant entreaty, he at last persuaded St. Francis Borgia to admit him to the Novitiate at Sant'Andrea, subject to his father's approval, whose consent he had in vain tried to obtain. Delighted at his partial success and at finding himself among the novices, his joy was brought to a sudden close by the arrival of his eldest brother Julius, the future Cardinal, with the news that his father, the Duke of Atri, absolutely refused his approval. His uncle, Claud, then a novice, was sent by the General to bid Rodolf to obey and go home. Somehow or other the boy suspected what was going on, and wished to hide himself. All urged him to obey, but no arguments were of avail, and they had to drag him to the door. There a fresh scene ensued, for Julius and some young nobles were awaiting him, with St. Francis Borgia. He clung to his vocation to the last, and St. Pius V. had at length to intervene, and the Pope persuaded the father to stand out no longer against so clear and strong a call. For Rodolfs vocation was not the outcome of mere fancy ; his life had been one of most rare holiness, all his leisure time had been given to prayer and to acts I

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•of charity towards the sick and poor ; nor was it from any passing attachment to his uncle Claud, for he offered the General to go, it did not matter where, so long as he would but receive him into .the Society.

Ten years later, 1578, Rodolf had won another favour. He was, after many a refusal, sent to the East Indian missions. Five years of hard labour yet remained to him. He was the chief ■of those who at the request of the Emperor Akbar, then in the height of his power, went to Fatehpur-sikri, the city which that great ruler had just created, and the ruins of which still attest his power. It was on his return to Goa that he received the appointment of Rector of the College in the peninsula of Salsette. He had hoped to have received his long-wished-for crown while in the centre of India, and, when the news of the deaths of the two Jesuit martyrs, Blessed Edmund Campion and Blessed Alexander Bryant, reached him, "Ah!" he exclaimed, "these, these are men; we poor creatures do not deserve such a lot." It was not so long after1 these words that, the first of a band of five, Rodolf fell beneath the blows of the idolatrous Hindoos of the village of Kunkolim. His blood was the seed of other martyrs, for it was on learning what had happened

1 Though Father Campion died in 1581, the news does not .seem to have reached India for more than two years later.

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"5

that Blessed Charles Spinola made up his mind to enter religious life.1

With these companions, then, did St. Stanislaus pass the days which God had still reserved for him in which to perfect his crown. Of such various ages, of so many tongues, from such different stations of life, grave professors, cour- tiers, peasants without a surname, nobles whose families dated from the days of the Roman Republic, all were of one heart and one mind, a beautiful concert of service and praise to God, Stanislaus' the clearest, the sweetest, the purest voice, the rest catching some of his fervour and of the richness of his grace.

1 Vide The Martyrs of Salsette. (Quarterly Series.)

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE NOVITIATE. 1567 — 1568.

The life of the novices in the Society of Jesus, and, indeed, in almost any Religious Order, is made up of a regular succession of duties. Many of these may seem insignificant and even trivial to those who only read of them, and who do not consider either the intention with which they are all performed, or the continual action on the soul of obedience which enforces them. For this reason it is hardly possible to convey by descrip- tion a fair idea of the daily routine of life on which Stanislaus Kostka entered when he went to live at Sant' Andrea. But, as it happens, the order of the day is still in existence and has been followed faithfully in all substantial respects since his time. It was drawn up by the holy General, St. Francis Borgia, who admitted him into the Society. This was transcribed by our Saint, and the MS. was preserved as a precious treasure in the relic chapel of the Jesuit Church of SS. Peter and Paul at Cracow. An authentic copy was

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made of it for the processes.1 It may be well to set out in a few paragraphs the main features of the regulations under which so many happy souls have been trained to perfection.

The time of rising is not fixed in this copy of the rules : it must have been very early, and nearly seven hours after the retiring to bed for the night. The novices were roused by a bell, after which they had half an hour allowed for dressing, during which they were to say some short prayers, for covering up their beds, and other such duties. They might spend what they had to spare of this time as a preparation for their meditation, in spiritual reading, or prayer, according to the direction of the Master of Novices, and to the method laid down in the Additions, or at all events in something of the kind. The visit to the Blessed Sacrament, in the domestic chapel, which is now customary before mental prayer in religious houses, was not introduced into the Novitiate at that time.

Next came an hour spent in prayer, mental or vocal, according to the capacity of each novice and the instruction of their Master. It was his business diligently to look after this, and see that each one was well trained in the kind of medita- tion or vocal prayer which suited him best, as a means of the highest importance for attaining 1 This is printed by Boero, p. 277.

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IN THE NOVITIATE.

the end of the Institute. After prayer, there was another half-hour, during which the novices arranged their rooms, and noted down any thoughts or affections which were worthy of preservation. They examined themselves at the same time as to how they had conducted them- selves in their prayer, and thanked God for any fruit they might have gained ; and if they remarked any defects into which they had fallen, they made resolutions to amend them. Then followed Mass, which was succeeded every other day by a lecture, or spiritual exhortation, from the Master of Novices, chiefly on the Rules and Constitutions of the Institute, and especially on the Examen and on what is contained in the third part of the Constitutions. This exhortation lasted half an hour, after which another half-hour was spent by the novices broken up into parties pf three or four, in going over among themselves what had been said, or in discussing, but humbly and modestly, some other kindred subject. It was set them by the Master, who, according to the rules of St. Francis Borgia, was to be present at the time. On the alternate days the time of the exhortation was to be spent in " conferences, or collations," as to the practical carrying out of what had been taught the day before. These were to be no mere intellectual exercises, and great care was to be taken to preserve simplicity,

IN THE NOVITIATE.

humility, and all that may conduce to spiritual advancement. Some one was to put the question,, for instance, how a difficulty which had arisen in the matters talked of the day before was to be overcome, how it began, and how it might be remedied. Some of the novices were to give their opinion, and then the Master was to sum up with a practical decision.

The dinner, or mid-day meal, came early in those days, and there could not have been any great space of time left, after the exhortation and conference, to be filled up. Dinner was always preceded by the examination of con- science, and the novices were also to spend a quarter of an hour in attending to the little duties in the house which each one had to discharge, or in some manual labour which the Master was to set them : "writing, for example," says the regulation, "that they may learn to improve therein," or something else, according to the capacity of each. Two things, moreover,, were to be " exercised " before dinner : the memory, for which they were to learn something; every day by heart out of the Rules or the: Catechism, or whatever might be set them by the; Master; and the body, in order to the better maintenance of health.

Dinner was taken by the community in two divisions, at the "first" and "second" table,.

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one immediately after the other, and after dinner there was an hour's recreation or conversation for all, till the bell rang one hour after the end of each table. Then the novices went to their cells, unless occupied in some duties elsewhere, to read or write, recite Vespers and Compline, or do anything else that the Master set them. This was, therefore, almost the first time in the day when the novice found himself alone. After an hour thus spent, they again went to the Master's room to say by heart what they had committed to memory in the morning. Next came, on alternate days, " tones "—very short sermons — preached in turn, as an exercise, by one novice after another, or an explanation of the 'Catechism. These were to last for half an hour.

In order to teach them how to catechize, some one was to ask questions, and the others to answer him. " Conferences " were also held on the subject of the Catechism. When this was over, they again returned to their offices or to manual work. There was another half-hour of mental or vocal prayer, followed by free time before their evening meal. After supper there was a second hour of recreation. At its close they might spend a quarter of an hour in reciting Office or the Rosary. The Master of Novices could take that time, as well as other spare moments in the day, for seeing his novices

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privately, and letting them give an account of themselves to him and open their hearts to him. To encourage them in this he was to be careful to be full of kindness and paternal interest in their progress. The last thing before retiring to rest was the examination of conscience. Silence was strictly prescribed out of time of recreation, except with permission.

Such was the daily routine of the house at Sant' Andrea, where St. Stanislaus spent the few remaining months of his life in the company of the many distinguished men and youths who have been enumerated in the foregoing chapter. The incidents of his novitiate— a term the happiness of which is not impaired by its monotony and uneventfulness — are not many. Not long after his entrance he received an angry letter from his father, which he had to answer. Parents in the position of John Kostka may easily be pardoned if on such occasions they speak or write in a manner not consistent with the faith which they profess, as to the supreme dominion of God over His creatures, and the dignity and blessedness of the religious vocation. The letter, as we are told by Father Fazio, con- tained the commonplaces usual on such occasions. The house of Kostka had been disgraced because Stanislaus had been seen in Germany and Italy in the habit of a beggar. His father would come

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to Rome and take him back to Poland. He would find there no collars of gold, but gyves for his feet and chains for his hands, and he would be shut up in perpetual confinement, far from the company of friends and kinsfolk. He had better come to his senses and return of his own accord, otherwise he would have to do so perforce.

Stanislaus read the letter carefully. The only feeling it left in his heart was one of compassion for his father at the mistaken views he held. He was ordered to answer it, and so wrote sweetly and gently in reply : " Why, dear father, are you so much afflicted at my entrance into the Society of Jesus? You ought rather to be glad and to thank God again and again. Parents wish nothing better for their children than to see them enter the households of the great, though these may die, and leave them any moment. How much more delighted ought you to be that I have given myself entirely to God, Who not only can never fail me, but Who can in this life and in the next most faithfully recompense even the least service rendered to Him ! Do not hope that you can ever move me from my resolution. I have bound myself already to God by the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience,1 and there is

1 The vows which he had taken must have been vows of devotion only.

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no evil, no torment, no death that I would not readily accept rather than give up the state of life which I have chosen. You will prove how truly you love me if you pray God to bless my holy resolutions, and to give me grace to persevere therein unto death, that the end of my course may worthily answer to its beginning. By doing this, you will acquire great merit before God, and I shall be eternally bound to you by the dearest ties of gratitude."1

A few days after, Stanislaus learnt from another source the state of mind in which his father was. One of his fellow-students at Vienna, Nicolas Lasocki, arrived in Rome to enter the German College, and visited Stanislaus at the Novitiate. He told him that he had passed by Heilsberg, and had seen there a letter written to Cardinal Hosius from John Kostka, full of anger, and breathing resentment and threats of revenge. Stanislaus listened to his friend's story, and then, smiling through his tears, said : " My father would certainly write and think in another strain if he could but see my heart, and understand the joy with which it overflows, and the immense benefits which God had bestowed upon me by bringing me to His Society." John Kostka seems to have given up the idea of coming himself in pursuit of the fugitive ; but he sent Paul to Rome 1 Fazio, Vita B. Stanislai, quoted by Boero, p. 98.

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IN THE NOVITIATE.

after Stanislaus. He came too late, only to find his brother dead.

From the first moment that St. Francis Borgia had given him the customary embrace, and made him feel that his highest hopes were achieved, so deep a joy sprang up in the heart of St. Stanislaus as far to outweigh all the hardship of his long pilgrimage; and as the day went by this joy only grew deeper and broader, till he could hardly contain himself with delight. But he realized too the greatness of his new obligations, and carefully watched his companions, to each of whom he looked as to an example and mirror of virtue, that he might catch the right way of doing every action and the exact fulfilment of every custom and rule.

But he very soon became the object of admira- tion and veneration to all, and his Novice Masters would point him out to their charges as an accom- plished pattern of what a Jesuit novice ought to be. Not that there was any singularity in him, save the singularity of perfection.

To Claud Acquaviva, as has been already said, was assigned the duty of giving the Exercises to the new-comer. But hardly had he begun to propose the points of meditation than Stanislaus became so inflamed with the thoughts suggested, his face flushed, his breast heaved, and his eyes overflowed with tears. Claud owned that he felt

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ashamed to teach one to whom evidently the Holy Ghost designed to be a master.1

The manuscript notes of these Exercises sur- vived oar Saint's death and have been printed by Father Boero.2 They are dated November 7, 1667, and we gather from them that the Exercises, as given to him, did not go beyond the first week and just the beginning of the second. Probably the remainder of the Exercises were given as is often the case, later on, and the Saint has left us the points of the meditations on the Passion. There are eight Exercises in all, including the Founda- tion, so that it seems likely that a day was given to each subject. The order of the Exercises is closely followed, except that two meditations on Death and on Judgment, are inserted before the meditation on Hell. These two are written out at full length, apparently just because they are not to be found in the Exercises. They are lull of thought, and it may be remarked that in each there is a strain of joy. One of the points in the meditation on Death is on the delight which the just will feel on account of what they may have done or suffered for God, and on account of the deliverance of their soul from its

1 1 tartoli, 1. 1. cix.

- They were kept in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul belong- ing to the Society at Cracow, and were copied tor the process. From these authentic copies Father Boero has printed them,

r- 265.

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earthly prison ; and the ending of the whole meditation is to be the use of the verses, Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur, or Quemadmodum decider at cervus ad fontes aquarum, &c. And one of the points in the meditation on the Judgment is, in like manner, the joy of the good at their reward. We cannot, however, be sure that these meditations were written by Stanislaus himself. It is probable that the points were suggested to him by Acquaviva, and that the full working out is his own.

Warscewizki, who came but a short month after Stanislaus, though so much his senior, said he required no other Master than he in the spiritual life.

The noviceship of Stanislaus lasted for not quite ten months, nor was it unlike that of other novices in the quiet and unbroken tenor of its holy monotony. What distinguished it from the ordinary course of a Jesuit novice, was the con- summate perfection with which its duties were discharged, and the fragrance of exquisite sanctity which it left behind it in the minds of those who were the companions of the Saint and the witnesses of his daily actions. A large number of these were examined in the course of the "processes" which were instituted in order to bring about his canonization, and our ideas of the character of his sanctity must be entirely

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derived from them. The most important of these witnesses, as having had, at the time, the greatest experience in spiritual matters, and also as having been the Master of Novices, whose office it was closely to watch the progress of the holy youth, and to be his confessor and the chosen confidant of his inmost thoughts, is Father Julius Fazio, whose deposition is to be found in the Process compiled at Coimbra. He wrote a Life of St. Stanislaus.

Julius had been received into the Society when young by St. Ignatius, and had been sent to his studies in Portugal. He took Father Mancinelli's place. His after career, and the important posts he held in the Society, add weight to his words. He used to call Stanislaus omnipotent, because no order could be given him, however difficult, which he was not ready at once to execute without the slightest interior thought or incli- nation to the contrary.1 The exactness of his obedience was attested afterwards by Claud Acquaviva, who used to relate, as an example of that virtue, in his domestic exhortations in after years at Sant' Andrea, how when he was with Stanislaus under the orders of the cook, who bade them move a quantity of logs of fire- wood from one place to another, so many at a time, he found that he could carry more than

1 Evidence of Anthony de Madrid. Process of Palermo.

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the appointed number, and did so. But Stanislaus gravely smiled, and said that to be quite obedient he would not add a single stick to his burden.1

And when Claud became General, and gave his authorization to an edition of Father Sacchini's Life of St. Stanislaus in 1612, he wrote : " I do this all the more readily, in order to pay this tribute and witness to our holy Brother and fellow-novice. For it pleased the Divine Goodness that I should be an eye-witness of his extraordinarily innocent life, and of his perfect pattern in every virtue, but especially in obedience, and prayer, union with God, and charity. Sometimes I was admitted to a still closer and most saintly familiarity with him, and came thus to see nearer at hand the treasures of heavenly graces which filled that blessed soul."

Father Fazio speaks too of his great sweetness and meekness in conversation : that he was never heard to say a single word that was offensive or bitter in any way. At the same time he was very considerate in speech, thinking twice before he spoke. John Peleycius, who had been so long in great intimacy with him, bore witness that he had never heard him utter a single vain or idle word.2 His gravity and affability, Fazio goes on

1 Father Nicholas Oborski in the Process of Kalisz, 1606. He was in the Novitiate in 1570. a Process of Frisingen.

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to say, were equally remarkable, his countenance was always calm and open, his look joyous and modest. Others speak of the air of purity which seemed to breathe from his face, as if even his fresh beauty inspired those who looked on him with the love of the angelical virtue.1

Marius Franchi, one of his fellow-novices, relates that one day, being in great trouble of mind, he met Stanislaus, and begged him to pray for him. " He cheered me up with gentle words, which I do not now recollect, and we went together to our church of the Roman College, before the Blessed Sacrament. There he prayed a short time for me, and all at once the worry left me, and my mind became very calm and consoled."2

All agree that his conversation had a wonderful charm, as well as a singular maturity of judgment,, and all were greatly delighted when they were allotted to him as companions, on account of the: beautiful and winning way in which he spoke of the things of God. " His conversation," says. Father Fazio, " was full of fire, and showed the spirit of charity which burned in his heart, which roused all who listened to him to fervour, and produced in them the fruits of tender piety and devotion. He had a dexterous way of his own

1 Bartoli, 1. i. c.xi.

2 Evidence given in Tivoli, August 27, 1600. The Process o£ Rome, p. 788.

J

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of turning off all worldly or useless conversation, and used instead gracefully to introduce some miracle of our Lady, or some remarkable action of the saints." Our Lady, and the wonderful grace of the religious vocation, formed the two favourite subjects of his conversation.

Greedy of all help to advance towards God, St. Stanislaus was most careful to note down every word of instruction he received from his spiritual guides. He left among other notes after death a book which contained all his lights in prayer, and the favours which God vouchsafed to him. Besides these, he transcribed the whole letter of obedience of St. Ignatius, the well-known verses of Father Des Freux,1 and the order of the day already given. St. Stanislaus wrote out, too, with great care, an exhortation of Father Ruiz on humility, and the MS. was for a long time preserved among the treasures of SS. Peter and Paul's College at Cracow.

Father Fazio notices also the great progress which Stanislaus had made in the spirit of morti- fication and his love for the practice of penance. He had taught himself to hate all that could give pleasure to the flesh, and eagerly to embrace all that afflicted it. " Hence he had a great desire to take upon himself the losses and

1 Stewart Rose, St. Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits, p. 57, London, 1S91.

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sufferings of others, and to suffer for Christ, as the martyrs suffered, torments and a cruel death." As for exterior mortifications and penances, he practised them as far as he was allowed by obedience, which was obliged to restrain his fervour, for the fixed attention of his mind to heavenly things threatened to break down his feeble frame.

The natural gifts of mind of St. Stanislaus were in full harmony with the supernatural favours which God had lavished upon him. From child- hood he had always been wise beyond his years, while the Holy Ghost had ever taken him as His privileged pupil. He spoke readily German, Italian, and Latin. In the Novitiate this double gift of natural and supernatural wisdom showed itself in the easy and natural way in which he talked, and the marvellous manner in which his wise and holy words went right to the hearts of those who heard him. He had not the gushing readiness of a novice, but rather the slow maturity of a grown-up man ; and his weighed words were full of lessons. Yet there was a sprightliness and flavour about his talk that made it always pleasant. Once a Novice Master asked what he would get if told to set out for the Indies. " A good hat of patience, a cloak of charity, and shoes of mortification." Father Antony de Madrid tells the story.

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Both Father Ruiz and Father Fazio, to whom every secret of his soul was laid bare, attest that he came spotless into religion, and bore his lily untouched with him to Heaven. It was this conviction which made his brethren do, what then was a thing unheard of in the Society of Jesus, scatter flowers over his tomb.1 His very portrait after death, as his face did during life, breathed out such an atmosphere of chastity as to banish evil thoughts in others, and Father Mlodzianowski2 told Father Ubaldini at Posen that a great French Bishop had a beautiful picture of St. Stanislaus in his palace, to which all who were troubled with evil thoughts went to find certain help.

The outcome of this singular purity of heart naturally was seen in his whole man. Sacchini writes of him : " The modesty of his face and eyes, of his walk, and his gait, his care of his tongue and choice of his words were extra- ordinary. Still he never looked sad or downcast, but joyful and pleasant ; his countenance was wonderfully loveable and calm, for his happy soul, which was filled with the joys of the blessed, much

1 Ubaldini, P. ii. c. 2.

2 There are two Fathers of this name mentioned in De Backer, Andrew of the Lithuanian Province of the Society, and Thomas of the Polish Province. They were contemporaries, and both of them authors. But Thomas amongst a large number of other works, published a sermon on St. Stanislaus.

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*33

more than his youth, touched his cheeks with a delicate bloom. For he did not merely sip now and again from the fountain of all good, but as far as mortal could, to it his lips were ever pressed."

While Stanislaus was at Sant' Andrea, James Bosgrave came to complete his education at Rome, where in 1564 he entered the Society of Jesus. One day while walking about the city he chanced to meet Stanislaus, with a number of his fellow-novices. Our Saint was pointed out to him by his companions. The memory of that face so devout and recollected never left him. Even the terrible imprisonment and racking which he bore when in the Marshalsea and the Tower with Blessed Campion did not blot out the impression. Father Bosgrave was taken from the hurdle on his way to Tyburn, and reprieved at the prayer of King Stephen Bathory, with whom he had been very intimate. After two weary years of close confinement in the Tower, he was sent into exile in 1585, and lived in Poland till his death, which took place at Kalisz in 1623. In his latter days he was a living reproduction of the holy novice whom he had seen in his youth.1

There are many evidences of his very great confidence in prayer. Three things are particularly

1 Foley, vol. iii. p. 289; More, Hist. Prov. S.J.; Ubaldini, P. ii. c. 4.

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noted of him as to his extraordinary fervour in prayer. They may be taken as indicating his own great devotion to that holy exercise as well as the special grace bestowed upon him therein. The first of these was the gift of being able to pray without any distraction. His possession of this rare gift was attested by Father Alfonsus Ruiz, who was for a short time his Master of Novices while he was at Santa Maria della Strada. One day Stanislaus found Stephen Augusti melancholy and low-spirited. When asked the reason, Stephen replied that it was on account of the distractions which seemed to him to prevent him from making his prayer. " What is a distraction ? " asked the Saint ; "I do not know what you mean."1 For so deep was his loving affection to God and to His Blessed Mother and the Saints, that even while engaged in external things, his mind was always raised towards God.2 Father Warscewizki declared that all the time which he did not spend in sleep was full of the thought and of the love of God :3 and Father Mai'rhofer relates that he usually kept his eyes down, but that from time to time he raised them towards heaven with a deep sigh, and that he used to go about the house like a person who had lost his way and was entirely absorbed in

1 Ubaldini, P. ii. c. 7. 2 Process of Recanati, 3 Vita Sancti Stanislai.

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God, without noticing at all outward things and what went on around him.

Once, when he was ill, it was felt necessary to .slacken his intense adherence to God in prayer, and shorten the time he gave to it. For the moment St. Stanislaus felt this keenly, but he submitted promptly and absolutely to the Rector's decision. Only by one who, like him, has tasted of the sweetness of the Heavenly Food, can the privation be fully realized.

The companions of his journey from Germany told that, on his way to Rome, whenever he stopped at an inn, he used to put up a sort of little altar with pictures of the saints, and then satisfy his love for prayer before it.

The Blessed Sacrament was naturally his central devotion. On Maundy Thursday, accom- panied by Matthias Mai'rhofer, he went round with deep devotion to visit various sepulchres of Rome.

This leads us on to the second of the marvellous gifts which resulted, as it appears, from his close union with God. It consisted in the gift of tears and in a kind of splendour which sometimes beamed from him in the time of prayer.

On one occasion, in the hall of Santa Maria della Strada, the novices were praying together. It was the month of May. A light shone forth from the Saint's face. When the prayer was over —

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possibly it was the examen of mid-day — and they had all got up, Stanislaus washed his face, but the flame was still there.1 Nor was this a solitary case. Antony was told by the Infirmarian to give Stanislaus a draught after he had finished his prayer, and when he went to him he found his face shining, with certain rosy streaks upon it, which seemed like the effects of ointment, but his face remained with the same light upon it after he had washed it.

Cardinal Bellarmine mentions in one of his ascetical works2 that " streams of tears used to flow from his eyes, especially in time of prayer." His eyes, in fact, were noticed almost always to be suffused with tears. Father Antony de Madrid bears witness that he spoke little, and then of spiritual things, and that he went about his ordinary occupations muttering to himself as if he were still praying.

The third evidence of his ardour in prayer is almost still more extraordinary. It is told us on the best authority. St. Francis de Sales in his book on the love of God, says, " St. Stanislaus was so violently assailed by the love of our Saviour

1 This Father Bustronius told Father Ubaldini he had learnt from Father Acquaviva, to whom it had been narrated by two of his Masters of Novices. Bustronius was a Greek born in Venice, and Penitentiary in St. Peter's at Rome for over thirty years. See Sommervogel.

2 De Gemitu Columbce, Ep. Dedic.

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as often to faint and suffer spasms in consequence, and he was obliged to apply cloths dipped in cold water to his breast in order to temper the violence of the love he felt."1 One day he was found by his Superior walking alone at night- time in the little garden which the Novitiate then possessed, when a very bitter cold wind was blowing, and on being asked by the Father Rector what he was doing there, he replied with all simplicity and straightforwardness, " I am burn- ing, I am burning," as he felt his heart still all on fire with the love of God, although his prayer was over. Stephen Augusti bore witness to the fact that the Socius to the Master of Novices, Father Lelius Sanguigni, had often to bathe his chest to temper the scorching heat.

When it has been said that Stanislaus was so powerfully attracted to the most intense love of God as to be in a certain sense the victim of his own ardent affections, it is natural to expect that the next thing which has to be told of him is that he was most tenderly devoted to our Blessed Lady. We have already seen that from his earliest youth his heart had been in a special manner consecrated to the love of Mary, and how

1 L' Amour de Dieu, I. vi. c. 15.

2 Antony de Madrid, Julius Bassi, Matthias Mai'rhofer, and others bore witness to the knowledge of the fact. See Boero, pp. 122, 123. Leonard Magnani, in the Process of Vercelli, gives evidence that he had to bring him the water for this purpose.

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the gracious Mother of God had requited the affection of her child by special favours at Vienna, among which was the command to enter the Society of her Son. It is almost superfluous to add that this love of Stanislaus for her of whom he spoke in the tenderest manner as his own Mother, went on increasing when he was in the Novitiate. He had made a practice of collecting anecdotes concerning our Lady, apparitions, miracles, favours, which he would relate to his companions at recreation or in their walks about the city, and his narration was full of beautiful and loving truths which made even old and learned Fathers delight to hear him. Stanislaus hunted in the Fathers and Doctors of the Church for passages containing fresh titles of honour for her whom he loved to call his " dear Lady." " He seems to be pained at not finding words to express his ideas about her, and to tell her worth and her praises. Every day he said the Rosary and Little Office, and in reciting them he had such an affectionate and reverent appear- ance, and yet so joyful, as to picture the loveable- ness, the devotion, the recollection of Mary herself. Thus in saying, as he did very often, the Hail Mary, he relished every word and every thought. Now and again he became almost ecstatic and out of himself."1 When at Sant'

1 Julius Fazio.

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Andrea, which is at no great distance from the most famous shrine of our Lady at Rome, where the ancient picture said to have been painted by St. Luke is preserved in Santa Maria Maggiore, he got the custom introduced among the novices of turning towards that Basilica the first thing at morning and the last at night, to ask a Mother's blessing from the Madonna.

Very few anecdotes of the novitiate of Stanislaus seem to have been preserved : the days in which he lived and died were days when such memories were not thought of so much importance as in our own. The story has been already told of Claud Acquaviva and the firelogs. Another day, Cardinal Commendone, on his return from his Nunciature at Vienna, came to visit the young novice at Sant' Andrea. As has been seen, he had known our Saint in Austria. Stanislaus was at the moment occupied in some humble work in the kitchen, and had on a short and shabby cassock fit for the purpose. He was eager to go to his visitor in this dress, in order to humble himself the more, but the Superiors insisted on his appearing in the usual habit of a scholastic novice. This was only one instance of his great love for humiliation and mortification ; a love which he showed on all occasions. Thus he never said a word about his family, and always tried to be thought the lowest of the low. If

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ever mention was made of his noble birth and high station in the world, he would manage at once skilfully to turn the conversation into another direction. Equally great was his love for the Society. He never spoke of the blessings of his vocation without his face flushing, and tears rising to his eyes. He never alluded to it without showing how deeply unworthy he felt himself to be of so great a privilege, and how ungrateful he had been for