The retreat upon which the boy at once entered on his arrival at the seminary extended over ten days. During this time there were periods of solitary meditation––hours when his lonely heart cried out in anguish for his beloved mother––visits to the blessed sacrament, recitations of the office, and consultations with his spiritual advisers, at which times his promises to his parents and the Archbishop, coupled with his natural reticence and the embarrassment occasioned by his strange environment, sealed his lips and prevented the voicing of his honest questions and doubts. It was sought through this retreat to so bring the lad under the influence of the great religious teachings as to most deeply impress his heart and mind with the importance of the seminary training upon which he had entered. His day began with the dreaded meditation at five in the morning, followed by hearing the Mass and receiving Communion. It closed, after study and class work, with another visit to the blessed sacrament, recital of the Rosary, spiritual reading, and prayer. On Sundays he assisted at solemn High Mass in the church of the Seminario Pio. One 31 day a week was a holiday; but only in the sense that it was devoted to visiting hospitals and charitable institutions, in order to acquire practical experience and a foretaste of his future work among the sick and needy. Clad in his little violet cassock, low-crowned, three-cornered hat, and soprana, he might be seen on these holidays trotting along with his fellow-students in the wake of their superior, his brow generally contracted, and his childish face seldom lighted by a happy smile.
The first year passed without special incident. The boy, filled with that quenchless ambition to know, which characterizes the finest minds, entered eagerly upon his studies and faithfully observed his promises. If his tender soul warped and his fresh, receptive mind shriveled under the religious tutelage he received, no one but himself knew it, not even his fond mother, as she clasped him again in her arms when he returned home for the first summer vacation. With the second year there began studies of absorbing interest to the boy, and the youthful mind fed hungrily. This seemed to have the effect of expanding somewhat his self-contained little soul. He appeared to grow out of himself to a certain extent, to become less timid, less reticent, even more sociable; and when he returned to Seville again at the close of the year he had apparently lost much of the somberness of disposition which had previously characterized him. The Archbishop examined him closely; but the boy, speaking little, gave no hint of the inner working of his thought; and if his soul seethed and fermented within, the Rincón pride and honor covered it with a placid demeanor and a bearing of outward calm. When the interview ended and the lad had departed, the Archbishop descended to the indignity of roundly slapping his ascetic secretary on his emaciated back, as an indication of triumphant joy. The boy certainly was being charmed into deep devotion to the Church! He was fast being bound to her altars! Again the glorious spectacle of the Church triumphant in molding a wavering youth into a devoted son!
Four years passed thus, almost in silence on the boy’s part. Yet his character suffered little change. At home he strove to avoid all mention of the career upon which he was entering, although he gave slight indication of dissatisfaction with it. He was punctilious in his attendance upon religious services; but to have been otherwise would have brought sorrow to his proud, happy parents. His days were spent in complete absorption in his books, or in writing in his journal. The latter he had begun shortly before entering the seminary, and it was destined to exert a profound influence upon his life. Often his parents would playfully urge him to read to them from it; 32 but the boy, devotedly obedient and filial in every other respect steadfastly begged permission to refuse these requests. In that little whim the fond parents humored him, and he was left largely alone to his books and his meditations.
During Josè’s fourth summer vacation a heavy sorrow suddenly fell upon him and plunged him into such an excess of grief that it was feared his mind would give way. His revered father, advanced in years, and weakened by overwork and business worries, succumbed to the malaria so prevalent in Seville during the hot months and passed away, after a brief illness. The blow descended with terrific force upon the morbidly disposed lad. It was his first intimate experience with death. For days after the solemn events of the mourning and funeral he sat as one stunned, holding his mother’s hand and staring dumbly into space; or for hours paced to and fro in the little patio, his face rigidly set and his eyes fixed vacantly on the ground beneath. The work of four years in opening his mind, in expanding his thought, in drawing him out of his habitual reticence and developing within him the sense of companionship and easy tolerance, was at one stroke rendered null. Brought face to face with the grim destroyer, all the doubt and confusion of former years broke the bounds which had held them in abeyance and returned upon him with increased insistence. Never before had he felt so keenly the impotence of mortal man and the futility of worldly strivings. Never had he seen so clearly the fatal defects in the accepted interpretation of Christ’s mission on earth. His earlier questionings returned in violent protests against the emptiness of the beliefs and formalities of the Church. In times past he had voiced vague and dimly outlined perceptions of her spiritual needs. But now to him these needs had suddenly taken definite form. Jesus had healed the sick of all manner of disease. He himself was being trained to represent the Christ on earth. Would he, too, be taught to heal the sick as the Master had done? The blessed Saviour said, “The works that I do, ye shall do also.” But the priests, his representatives, clearly were not doing the works of the Master. And if he himself had been an ordained priest at the time of his father’s death, could he have saved him? No, he well knew that he could not. And yet he would have been the Saviour’s representative among men. Alas! how poor a one he well knew.
In his stress of mind he sought his uncle, and by him was again led before the Archbishop. His reticence and timidity dispersed by his great sorrow, the distraught boy faced the high ecclesiastic with questions terribly blunt.
“Why, my Father, after four years in the Seminario, am I 33 not being taught to do the works which our blessed Saviour did?”
The placid Archbishop stared at the boy in dumb astonishment. Again, after years of peace that had promised quiescence on these mooted points! Well, he must buckle on his armor––if indeed he had not outgrown it quite––and prepare to withstand anew the assaults of the devil!
“H’m!––to be specific, my son––you mean––?” The great man was sparring.
“Why do we not heal the sick as he did?” the boy explained tersely.
“Ah!” The peace-loving man of God breathed easier. How simple! The devil was firing a cracked blunderbuss.