by Charles Swan
¶ Alexis in a mornynge on a good frydaye gaue his soul to god, and departed out of this worlde. And ye same daye all the people assembled at Saynt Peters churche and prayed god yt he wolde shewe to them where the man of god myght be founden yt prayed for Rome. And a voyce was herde that came fro god that sayd. Ye shall fynde him in the hous of Eufemyen. And the people said unto Eufemyen, Why hast thou hydde fro us, thou hast suche grace in thy hous. And Eufemyen answered. God knoweth that I knowe no thynge therof.
¶Archadius and Honorious yt were emperours at Rome, and also ye pope Innocent commaunded yt men shold go unto Eufemyens hous for to enquyre diligently tydynges of the man of god. Eufemyen went tofore with his servauntes for to make redy his hous agaynst the comynge of the Pope and emperours. And whan Alexis wyfe understode the cause, and how a voyce was herde that came fro god, sayenge. Seche ye ye man of god in Eufemyens hous, anon she sayd to Eufemyen. Syr se yf this poore man that ye have so long kepte and herberowed be the same man of god, I have well marked that he hath lyued a right fayre and holy lyfe. He hath euery sondaye receyved the sacrament of the awter. He hath ben ryght religyous in fastynge, in wakynge, and in prayer, and hath suffred pacyently and debonayrly of our servauntes many vylanyes. And when Eufemyen had herde all this, he ran toward Alexis and founde hym deed. He dyscouered his visage, whiche shone and was bryght as ye face of an aungell. And anone he returned towarde ye emperours and sayd. We have founden the man of god that we sought. And tolde unto them how he had herberowed hym, and how the holy man had lyued, and also how he was deed, and that he helde a byll or lettre in his hande which they might not drawe out. Anone the emperours with the pope went to Eufemyens hous, and came tofore the bedde where Alexis lay deed and sayd. How well that we be synners, yet neuertheless we governe ye worlde, and loo here is ye pope the generall fader of all the chirche, and gyve us the lettre yt thou holdest in thyn hande, for to knowe what is the wrytyng of it. And the pope wente tofore and toke the lettre, and toke it to his notary for to rede. And ye notary redde tofore the pope, the emperours and all the people. And whan he came to the poynt that made mencyon of his fader and of his moder, and also of his wyfe, and that by the enseygnes1 that he had gyuen to his wyfe at his departynge, his rynge and bocle of his gyrdle wrapped in a lytell purple clothe at his departynge. Anone Eufemyen fell downe in a swoone, and whan he came agayne to hymselfe he began to draw his heres and bette his brest and feil downe on the corps of Alexis his sone, and kyssed it, wepyng and cryenge in ryght grete sorrowe of herte, sayenge. Alas ryght swete son wherefore hast thou made me to sufTre suche sorowe, thou sawest what sorowe and heuynes we had for the, alas why haddest thou no pite on us in so long tyme, how myghtest thou suffre thy moder and thy father wepe so moche for the, and thou sawest it well without takyng pyte on us. I supposed to have herd some tydynges of the, and now I se the lye deed, whiche sholdest be my solace in myne age, alas what solace may I haue that se my right dere son deed, me were better dye than lyve. Whan the moder of Alexis sawe and herd this, she came rennynge lyke a lyonesse and cryed, Alas! alas! drawing her heere in grete sorrowe, scratchynge her pappes with her nayles sayenge. These pappes haue gyven the souke, and whan she myght not come to the corps for the foyson of people yt was come thyder, she cried and said. Make rome and waye to me sorrowfull moder yt I may se my desyre and my dere son that I have engendered and nourisshed. And as soon as she came to the body of her sone, she fell downe on it pyteously and kyssed it, say-enge thus. Alas for sorowe my dere son, ye lyght of myn age, why hast thou made us suffre so moche sorow, thou sawest thy fader, and me thy sorowefull moder so ofte wepe for the, and woldest neuer make to us semblaunt of sone.1 O all ye yt haue ye hert of a moder, wepe ye with me upon my dere sone, whome I haue had in my hous vij. yere as a poore man, to whome my servauntes have done moche vylany. A! fayre sone thou hast suffred them right swetely and debonayrly. Alas, thou that were my trust, my comforte, and my solace in myn olde age, how mightest thou hyde ye from me, that am thy sorowfull moder, who shall gyve to myn eyen from hens forth a fountayn of teres for to make payne unto ye sorowe of my herte. And after this came the wyfe of Alexis in wepyng throwynge herselfe upon the body, and with grete syghes and heuyness sayd, Eight swete frende and spouse whome longe I haue desyred to se, and chastely I haue to ye kept myselfe lyke a turtle yt alone without make2 wayleth and wepeth, and loo here is my ryght swete husbonde, whome I have desyred to se alyue, and now I se hym deed, fro hens forth I wote not in whome I shall haue fyaunce ne hope. Certes my solace is deed, and in sorowe I shall be unto ye deth. For now fortho3 I am ye most unhappy amonge all women, and rekened amonge the sorowfull wydowes. And after these pyteous complayntes ye people wepte for the deth of Alexis. The pope made the body to be taken up and to be put into a shryne, and borne unto ye chirche. And whan it was borne through ye cyte ryght grete foyson4 of people came agaynst it and sayd. The man of god is founden yt the cyte sought. Whatsomever sike body myght touch the shryne, he was anone heled of his malady.
There was a blynde man yt recouered hys syght, and lame and other he heled. The emperour made grete foyson of golde and syluer to be throwen amonge ye people for to make waye yt the shryne myght passe. And thus, by grete labour and reuerence, was borne the body of Saint Alexis unto the churche of Saynt Bonyface, ye glorious martyr. And there was the body put in a shryne moche honourably made of golde and syluer, ye seuenth daye of Juyll.5 And al the people rendred thankynges and laudes to our lorde God for his grete myracles, unto whome be gyuen honour, laude and glory in secula seculorum. Amen.6
From the preceding narratives, the reader may discover some of the most prominent features of Roman Catholic worship. Let us glance at the story. Here is a young man connected by the closest of all ties to a deserving female, whom he marries to read a theological lecture, and then leave a prey to irremediable regret. He associates with a number of squalid wretches, and exists on the precarious bounty of strangers in the most unprofitable, not to say knavish, indolence. In the mean time his broken-hearted parents are devoured by an intense anxiety, of which he is totally regardless. I pass the miraculous part of this veritable history; if Prince Hohenlohe’s marvels deserve credit, it would be incongruous and inconsistent to refuse it here. Our “pious Æneas,” disguised in the accumulated filth of seventeen years, returns to his father’s house. Here he breeds a race of vermin; and luxuriously battens upon the garbage, which the servants, aware of his peculiar taste, plentifully, and one might think, properly, communicated. All this while he is an eyewitness, and an ear-witness, of the misery his absence occasions; and, as if to complete the perfection of such a character, he leaves behind him a scroll, of which the only effect must necessarily be to arouse a keener agony, and to quicken a dying despair. And this is the monstrous compound, which a voice from heaven proclaims holy, and which miracles are called in to sanction! This is to be emphatically, a “MAN OF GOD !” He who neglects every relative duty; he who is a cruel and ungrateful son, a bad husband, and careless master; he whose whole life is to consume time, not to employ it—to vegetate, but not to exist—to dream away life, with every sense locked up, every capability destroyed, every good principle uncultivated—and that too in the most loathsome and degraded condition—THIS, is to be a Man of God!
That the story before us contains a faithful picture of the times, and of many succeeding times; that it describes the prevailing tenets of popery, will be generally admitted. Some, indeed, whose charity “hopeth the best,” will be ready to believe that the colours of an imaginative mind have been scattered along it; and that, however correspondent the outline may be, the sketch has been filled up by aid of exaggeration, while embellishment has stepped into the place of truth. But we have unfortunately too many prototypes in nature ; history is too copious in examples to oblige us to have recourse to fiction for an illustrative comment. The life of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesus, presents a very singular and apposite confirmation of the remark: and I am happy to have received a most obliging permis
sion to extract an able article on this subject from a late number of the Retrospective Review—a work which I have no hesitation in commending, whether for the soundness of its principles, the depth and accuracy of its researches, or the high intellectual superiority with which it has hitherto been conducted.1
“We must commence our history in the year 1491, which was rendered important by the birth of Ignatius, who first saw the light in Spain, in the district called Guipuscoa. Being descended from an ancient family, the lords of Ognez and Loyola, and moreover well-shaped and of a lively temper, his father destined him for the court, where he was sent at an early age as page to king Ferdinand. Incited, however, by the example of his brothers, who had distinguished themselves in the army, and his own love of glory, he soon grew weary of the inactivity of a court life, and determined to seek renown in war. He applied himself with great assiduity and success to his military exercises, and soon qualified himself for the service of his prince. It is said that on all occasions he displayed great bravery and conduct; but the writers of his life being more interested in the detail of his theological warfare,, have passed his military achievements with a slight notice, except the affair which was the more immediate cause of what is called his conversion. This was the siege of Pampeluna by the French; on which occasion Don Ignatius, then about thirty years of age, displayed great gallantry, and was wounded by a splinter in his left leg, and his right was almost at the same moment broken by a cannon shot. The wounds were for a time considered dangerous; and the physicians declared that, unless a change took place before the middle of the night, they would prove fatal: it was therefore thought advisable that the sacrament should be administered to him. This fortunately happened to be the eve of St. Peter, for whom Ignatius had a special veneration, and in whose praise he had formerly indited certain Spanish verses. This early piety, says Maffei, produced no small fruit, for before the critical time of the night arrived, the apostle appeared to him in a vision, bringing ‘healing on his wings.’
“Another of his biographers conjectures that the prince of the apostles effected his restoration to health, because he had a special interest in the cure of a man destined by heaven to maintain the authority of the Holy See against heresy. However this may be, Ignatius assuredly recovered, although a slight deformity remained on his leg, caused by the protrusion of a bone under the knee. Grievously afflicted-that the symmetry of his person should be thus spoiled, he determined to have the obnoxious bone cut off, and the operation was performed almost without producing a change of countenance in the hardy soldier. Notwithstanding all his care, however, his right leg always remained somewhat shorter than the left. Restrained from walking, and confined to his bed, he requested, in order to amuse himself, to be furnished with some books of chivalry, the sort of reading which chiefly occupied the attention of people of quality at that time; but instead of Palmerin of England, or Amadis of Gaul, they brought him The Lives of the Saints. At first he read them without any other view than that of beguiling the time: but by degrees he began to relish them, and at length became so absorbed in the study of asceticism, that he passed whole days in studying The Lives of the Saints, and finally made a resolution to imitate men who had so distinguished themselves by warring against their own flesh and blood. These aspirations were succeeded by his former desire for military glory; but after various mental conflicts, and a great deal of reflection, the charms of penance at length completely triumphed.
“For the purpose of gratifying this passion, he determined to go barefoot to the Holy Land, to clothe himself in sackcloth, to live upon bread and water, to sleep on the bare ground, and to choose a desert for his abode; but in the mean time, as his leg was not sufficiently well to allow him to carry his wishes into effect, in order in a slight degree to satisfy the longings of his soul, he spent part of the night in weeping for his sins; and one night, prostrating himself before an image of the blessed Virgin, he consecrated himself to the service of her and her Son. Immediately he heard a terrible noise. The house shook, the windows were broken, and a rent made in the wall, which was long after, and probably may at this day be seen. These extraordinary signs are not noticed by Maffei; but his less cautious brother, Ribadeneira, relates the fact, although he is in some doubt whether it was a sign of the approbation of the Deity, or of the rage of the devils, at seeing their prey ravished from them.
“Another night the Virgin appeared to him, holding her Son in her arms; a sight which so replenished him with spiritual unction, that from that time forward his soul became purified, and all images of sensual delight were for ever razed from his mind. He felt himself re-created, and spent all his time in reading, writing, and meditating on performing something extraordinary. At length he sallied forth from Loyola, where he had been conveyed after the siege of Pampeluna, and took the road to Montserrat, a monastery of Benedictines, at that time famous for the devotions of pilgrims, making by the way a vow of perpetual chastity, one of the instruments with which he proposed to arm himself in his contemplated combats. He had not ridden far before he fell in with a Moor, with whom he entered into conversation, and amongst other topics engaged in an argument about the immaculate purity of the blessed Virgin. The Moor agreed that, until the birth of Christ, Mary preserved her virginity; but he maintained that when she became a mother she ceased to be a virgin. The knight heard this treason against his Lady with the greatest horror; and the Moor, perceiving the discussion was tending to a disagreeable point, set spurs to his horse and made off. The champion of the honour of the blessed Virgin was for a while in doubt whether it was required of him to revenge the blasphemies of the Moor. He, however, followed him, until he arrived at a place where the road parted, one branch of it leading to Montserrat, and the other to a village whither the Moor was going; and being mindful of the expedient which errant knights of old frequently adopted to solve a doubt, he very wisely determined to be guided by his horse, and if the animal took the same road as the Moor, to take vengeance on him: if not, then to pursue his way in peace to Montserrat. The horse being of a peaceable disposition, took the road to Montserrat; and having arrived at a village, at the foot of the mountain on which the monastery stands, his rider purchased the equipage of a pilgrim, and proceeding to the monastery, sought out an able spiritual director, and confessed his sins, which he did in so full and ample a manner, and interrupted it with such torrents of tears, that his confession lasted three days. The next step which Ignatius took was to seek out a poor man, to whom, stripping himself to his shirt, he privately gave all his clothes; then, putting on his pilgrim’s weeds, he returned to the church of the monastery.1 Here, remembering that it was customary for persons to watch a whole night in their arms, previously to their being knighted, he determined in like manner to keep his vigil before the altar of his Lady; and suspending his sword upon a pillar, in token of his renouncing secular warfare, he continued in prayer the whole night, devoting himself to the Saviour and the blessed Virgin, as their true knight, according to the practice of chivalry.
“Early in the morning he departed from Montserrat, leaving his horse to the monastery, and receiving in exchange certain penitential instruments from his ghostly father. With his staff in his hand, his scrip by his side, bare-headed, one foot unshod (the other being still weak from his wound), he walked briskly to Manreza, a small town, about three leagues from Montserrat. Kesolved to make Manreza illustrious by his exemplary penance, he took up his abode at the hospital for pilgrims and sick persons; he girded his loins with an iron chain, put on a hair shirt, disciplined himself three times a day, laid upon the bare ground, and lived upon bread and water for a week. Not content with these mortifications, he sometimes added to his hair shirt a girdle of certain herbs full of thorns and prickles. He spent seven hours every day in prayer, and frequently continued a length of time without motion. Considering, however, that this maceration of his body would advance him but a little way to heaven, he next resolved to stifle in himself all emotions of pride and sel
f-love, and for this end, he studiously rendered himself disgusting, neglecting his person, and, to hide his quality, assuming a clownish carriage. With his face covered with dirt, his hair matted, and his beard and nails of a fearful length, but his soul filled with inward satisfaction, he begged his bread from door to door, a spectacle of scorn and ridicule to all the inhabitants and children of Manreza.2 He persevered in this course, notwithstanding the suggestions of the wily enemy of mankind, who wished to tempt him to the world again, until a report was circulated that he was a person of quality, and the feelings of the people were converted from scorn and ridicule to admiration and reverence, whereupon he retreated to a cave in the neighbourhood.3 The gloom of his new abode excited in him a lively, vigorous spirit of penance, in which he revelled with the utmost fervour, and without the least restraint. He chastised his body four or five times a day with his iron chain, abstained from food until exhausted nature compelled him to refresh himself with a few roots, and instead of praying seven hours a day, he did nothing but pray from morning until night, and again, from night until morning, lamenting his transgressions, and praising the mercies of God. These excessive indulgences mightily impaired his health, and brought on a disease of the stomach, which at intervals afflicted him, until the time of his death: the spiritual joys which they had formerly brought suddenly disappeared, he became melancholy, had thoughts of destroying himself, and then recollecting to have read of a hermit who, having fruitlessly petitioned for a favour from God, determined to eat nothing until his prayers were heard, he also resolved to do the same; he persevered for a week, and then at the command of his spiritual director left off fasting. His troubles ceased, and he now began to wax into a saint. He had a vision of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of which he spoke, although he could only just read and write, with so much light, and with such sublime expressions, that the most ignorant were instructed and the most learned delighted. Nay, he wrote down his conceptions of this mystery, but we lament to say that his manuscript was unfortunately lost. His visions began to multiply, the most remarkable of which was an extacy, which lasted eight days, neither more nor less. These illuminations were so convincing, that he was heard to say that had the revelations never been recorded in Scripture, he would still have maintained them to the last drop of his blood. The heavenly favours he thus received he opened in part to his ghostly directors, but with this exception, he shut them up in his own heart. His efforts to conceal himself from the eyes of men were vain; his austerities and extacies, aided by the belief of his being a man of quality in disguise, attracted crowds of people to see and hear him, and he was pronounced—A SAINT.
