Along the highway to Augsburg flew the equipage containing Paul and three companions. Meanwhile, little Stanislaus was trudging bravely along, putting all his confidence in God, when he suddenly heard the rapid beat of horses' hoofs behind him. Suspecting what it meant, he quickly entered a by-lane, and the occupants of the carriage rushed by without seeing, or at least, recognizing, him in his disguise.
Stanislaus continued his pilgrimage in peace, begging his way, for he had no money, and after two weeks, he saw, with inexpressible joy, the roofs and spires of Augsburg gleaming in the setting sun. At last he had reached the haven of rest, and with a bounding heart, the weary boy knocked at the door of the Jesuit college. But alas, for all his hopes! the provincial had gone to Dillingen. The Fathers urged him to stay and rest with them until the provincial's return, but Stanislaus would brook no delay. At once he wended his way toward Dillingen, which he soon reached, and when he knelt at the feet of Blessed Canisius, two saints were face to face. The superior pressed the boy to his heart, and kept him in the college for a few weeks. But as both the elder and younger saint thought Germany still too near the influence of his father for safety, Stanislaus, in company with two religious, set out on a further exhausting walk of eight hundred miles to Rome, where he was received as a Jesuit novice by the General of the Order, St. Francis Borgia.
The angelic boy had at last finished his long pilgrimages, he had entered the earthly paradise for which he had yearned, and for which he had forsaken home, rank and country. But the happiness of religion he soon exchanged for the joys of heaven, for before completing his eighteenth year, and while still a novice, he closed his eyes on this world to open them in company with Mary and the angels on the Beatific Vision.
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE PARENTS' PART
The home is the nursery of vocations. Most religious can trace the beginnings of their resolve to leave all to the influence of saintly parents and a Christian home. If the parents cultivate faith, charity and industry the fragrance of these virtues will cling round the walls of their dwelling, and perfume the lives of their children.
Every Christian home should be a convent in miniature, filled with the same spirit, productive of the same virtues. It should be a cloister, forbidding entrance to the world and its vanities, and harboring within gentle peace and happiness. Poverty should dwell there, not in the narrower meaning of distress and want, but in the wider acceptation of simplicity, frugality and temperance as opposed to extravagance, display and ostentation. Purity, too, should reign as queen of the hearth, regulating the glance of the eye, the conversation, and even the thoughts of the occupants. And union and harmony of wills, without which the idea of home is inconceivable, can come only through obedience which binds the children to parents, wife to husband, and all to God.
But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. From many domiciles peace and tranquillity have fled, giving place to frivolity, vanity and worldliness and all their attendant train of vices. How many parents, deceived by the wisdom of the flesh, seek their own gratification in all things, and denying their children nothing that luxury or extravagance craves, pamper and spoil them by indulging their every whim. To train up the young to the steady and uncompromising fulfilment of duty is the only means to produce a hardy and sturdy generation of men and women, whose fidelity can be relied on in the trials and emergencies of after-life.
But some fathers and mothers, when their children call for bread, reverse the parable by giving them a stone, and when they ask for an egg, give them a scorpion. We can imagine with what righteous indignation Our Lord would have denounced such a mode of action. Foolish parents even of limited means dress their girls in expensive and gaudy apparel, which not only offends against taste and economy, but sometimes transgresses the laws of modesty and decency. Familiarity between the sexes is permitted and encouraged by doting and foolish mothers, who introduce their sons and daughters to juvenile society functions, receptions, parties and unbecoming dances; so that children who should be at their lessons or playing healthful games with suitable companions, are taught to affect society manners after the most approved fashion of their silly elders. Persons of this stamp may prepare for a rude awakening, for the day of reckoning for themselves and children will be sure and terrible.
Many parents, while indeed quite solicitous according to their lights, for the temporal good of their offspring, training them to a trade or profession, or settling them in marriage, devote but little thought to their spiritual welfare. They dread a vocation in their family as a catastrophe. It would be well, indeed, for persons of this character to ponder the words of the Pastoral Letter of the Second Council of Baltimore: "We fear that the fault lies in great part with many parents, who instead of fostering the desire so natural to the youthful heart, of dedicating itself to the service of God's sanctuary, but too often impart to their children their own worldly-mindedness, and seek to influence their choice of a state of life by unduly exaggerating the difficulties and dangers of the priestly calling, and painting in too glowing colors the advantages of a secular life."