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In the mean time, Ignatius, who found in himself an inward call to the Holy-Land, for the conversion of Jews and Infidels, discovered his intentions to Xavier, which he had already communicated to Le Fevre, and four other learned young men, who had embraced his form of life.
The Hospital nuns sent us letters of compliment very early in the morning; and the Ursulines sent us some beautiful presents, with candles, rosaries, a crucifix, etc., and, at dinner time, two excellent pies. I sent them two images, in enamel, of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier.
Ignatius is described as offering himself voluntarily that he may suffer as a martyr, and as telling those to whom he writes that his supreme desire is to be devoured by the lions at Rome. "As many as are of God and of Jesus Christ," says he, "they are with the bishop." "It is good to recognise God and the bishop!" The internal evidence furnished by the Ignatian Epistles seals their condemnation.
The king, on all occasions, shewed them a most particular affection; and Xavier, ravished with so many expressions of his goodness to them, gives this account of it to Father Ignatius. "Our whole society stands obliged to his majesty, for his singular favour to us; as well the rest of you at Rome, as we in Portugal.
In 1620, according to Felibien, the Jesuits celebrated the canonization of the founder of their order, Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, on which occasion they determined to display a series of pictures by the first artists in Paris, representing the miracles performed by their patron saints.
Returning to Paris Ignatius heard many rumors connecting his name with that of Caceres and Peralta, and learned that he had been summoned before the judge. As he did not wish to remain in doubt, he went of his own accord to the Inquisitor, a Dominican friar. "I heard that I had been sought for, and I now present myself."
He goes to Rome, and from thence returns to Venice. He prepares himself to celebrate his first mass. He celebrates his first mass, and falls sick after it. St Jerome appears to him. He goes to Bolognia, and labours there with great success. He relapses into his sickness, and yet continues preaching. He is recalled to Rome by Father Ignatius, and labours there with great success.
I promised Father Ignatius to give up Ann, and, on my home-coming, to submit in all things to my uncle and to agree with him as to what each should yield up and renounce to the other as though it were a matter of merchandise in spices from the Levant, or silk kerchiefs from Florence; and thereupon the holy Friar gave me his benediction, as though my salvation were henceforth sure in this world and the next.
Seeing the harvest so great, and the labourers so few, he wrote earnestly to Father Ignatius in Italy, and to Simon Rodriguez in Portugal, for a supply of missioners.
Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, names only seven letters as attributed to Ignatius; but long before the days of Luther, more than double that number were in circulation. Many of these were speedily condemned by the critics of the sixteenth century.
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