For Greater Things | Page 5

heads or swerving a hairbreadth from the straight line of a most uncommon and most impressive kind of common sense.
Unless we keep before our eyes this mainspring of a Saint's life, that life will be as enigmatical to us as it is to the world. Jesus balked at no test of the love which He bore towards us: nay, He devised tests passing all human imagining. Let Him make trial of our love for Him! We are unhappy till He does! And with this daring spirit in his heart every Saint enters upon a career of Romance in its sweetest and highest form. And, we submit, to recur to the literary style of the following biography, Romance is light-hearted, light-stepping, cheerful, with the starlight on its face and in its eyes.
James J. Daly, S.J.
CONTENTS
Chapter I
ON THE ROAD
Chapter II
THE PURSUIT
Chapter III
EARLY DAYS
Chapter IV
OFF TO VIENNA
Chapter V
SCHOOL DAYS
Chapter VI
IN THE HOUSE OF KIMBERKER
Chapter VII
THE TEST OF COURAGE
Chapter VIII
IN DANGER OF DEATH
Chapter IX
VOCATION
Chapter X
THE RUNAWAY
Chapter XI
AT DILLIGEN
Chapter XII
THE ROAD TO ROME
Chapter XIII
THE NOVICESHIP
Chapter XIV
GOING HOME
Chapter XV
AFTERMATH
FOR GREATER THINGS
CHAPTER I
ON THE ROAD
Mid-August in Vienna, the year 1567: when Shakespeare was still a little boy; twenty years before Philip II fitted out the Spanish Armada; forty years before the first English colony settled in America. The sun had just well risen, the gates of Vienna had been opened but a few hours. Through the great western gate, which cast its long shadow on the road to Augsburg, came a strange-looking boy.
He lacked but a month or two of seventeen years, was some five feet two or three inches in height, had an oval face of remarkable beauty and liveliness, jet black hair, and eyes in which merriment dwelt as in its home. He was dressed as became a noble of the time, and in apparel of unusual splendor and costliness; plumed bonnet, slashed velvet doublet, tight silken hose, jeweled dagger at his girdle.
But it was odd to see so brilliant a figure on foot in the dusty highway; still more odd that be carried a rough bundle slung on a staff over his and that, peasant fashion, he munched at a loaf of bread as he trudged the road.
By no means stalwart-looking, still he swung along with an easy stride and a confident strength that many a stouter man might envy. He was bound for Augsburg, 400 miles to the west, and he set himself thirty miles a day as his rate of travel.
He wore splendid clothes, because he was Stanislaus, the son of John Kostka, Lord of Kostkov, Senator, and Castellan of Zakroczym in the Duchy of Mazovia, Poland. He ate his rough breakfast, like a peasant, on the road, because he had just been to Mass and received Holy Communion at the Jesuit church in Vienna. He carried a bundle on his staff, because he laughed merrily at fine clothes and had in the bundle a coarse tunic and a stout pair of brogans, which he meant to put on as soon as he got well out of the city. And his face and his eyes shone with joy, because he loved God most wonderfully and was as happy a boy as ever moved through this dull world.
Every age has its adventurers: men who for fame, or for place, or for money, cross wide seas, fight brave battles, endure great hardships. The age in which Stanislaus lived was filled with them. All the world reads with delight the story of such men. And every decent boy who reads feels himself, if only for the moment, their fellow in spirit, eager to do what they did and as bravely as they did.
But was there ever adventure finer than this, ever spirit more gayly daring? Stanislaus Kostka, son of a noble house, a boy in years, starting without a copper in his pocket to cross half of Europe afoot! And for what? Not to have men say what a brave chap he was; not to win a name, or rank, or money: but because God would be pleased by his doing it, because God called him to do something which he could not do in Vienna.
He felt he had a vocation to be a Jesuit. He knew his father would not consent. He took six months to think it over, to pray for light, to make sure it was no mere whim or fancy of his own, but the very voice of God. And when he felt sure, he left a letter for his brother Paul and his tutor, Bilinski, with whom he had been studying in Vienna; he gave his money to a couple of beggars; he said, "If God wants me to do this, He'll furnish the means"; he put on his best attire, tied up a rough suit in a cloth, took