But Martin didn’t begrech the time. “For,” sez he, “I want to see the spot where the man was born who has exerted the greatest power of any man on earth—Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits.” Sez he—
“I shall be asked if I went there, and I want to be able to say yes.”
How different I felt on the subject, and how different Al Faizi felt! I see in that heathen’s rapt eyes as we talked about it on the way the same emotions I felt—a deep admiration for the grand, heroic character of Loyola, a deep horrow of the power he sot to goin’, not knowin’ how fur it wuz a-goin’ to move, nor how much blood it wuz a-goin’ to wade through.
I’d hearn his history rehearsed a number of times by Thomas Jefferson, and I knew all about it. He wuz a favorite at court, with beauty and wit and good sense, a brave warrior, brought down to death’s door by the enemy’s sword. When he wuz thirty years old, as you can see by the inscription over his front door, “He gave himself to God.”
In that same hour he wuz converted, there hain’t a doubt of that; nobody ever had more faith than he had. Why, he see for himself the water and the wine changed right before his eyes into the blood and body of our Lord.
Some say it wuz a vision caused by his religious ecstasy. But he saw it, and forevermore he doubted not—he knew what he believed, and with all the ardor of his immortal faith, with all the brave generalship learnt by his warlike trainin’, he led on his countless troops aginst the Wrong as he see it.
Nobody can doubt the sincerity and single-mindedness of Loyola; he give proof of it in his life of self-denial and fastin’ and prayer. He changed his clothes with a beggar, eat the most loathsome food, and to mortify his pride begged from door to door. Why, he who wuz ust to the soft couches of a court dwelt a hull year in a cave in plain sight of a convent built to the Virgin Mary. He lay here on the ground a hull year, three hundred and sixty-five nights, so that he could show that he wuz indeed a worm of the dust in sight of his Maker.
Havin’ prepared himself thus, he went to the shrine of the Virgin Mary and spent a hull night in prayer before the altar, then laid his sword upon it to show that he laid aside all dreams of earthly honor. And here he took his vows—to give his heart’s deepest love, and his hull life’s devotion.
These vows he kep’ to the last minute of his life. In a church built to his honor are those words that ruled him:
“To the Greater Glory of God.”