For Greater Things | Page 9

was called to enter the Society of Jesus. He had
to do what God wanted of him. He knew they would prevent him if
they could. And so he just went. He left them messages of affectionate
regard, and begged them to forward his letter to his father.
Bilinski sent this letter on at once. Paul also wrote, as did Kimberker
and even the servant who had gone with them in the carriage. Each
tried to shift the blame from himself, told of the strange behavior of the
horses, explained that everything possible had been done to overtake
the fugitive.
And when their letters came, there was high wrath in Kostkov. The
Lord John raved and swore. He blamed everybody, but most of all
Stanislaus and the tricky Jesuits who, he said, were back of the whole
scheme. He wrote to Cardinal Osius that he would not rest until he had
broken up the Jesuit college in Pultowa and driven every schemer of
them out of Poland. As for Stanislaus, he would follow him across the
world, if need were, and drag him back to Kostkov in chains.
He was a great lord, the Lord John. He loved his second son, Stanislaus,
most dearly, and he loved dearly the honor of his house, which he
thought that son had stained by hi& conduct. A son of his in beggar's
garb, tramping the highways of Europe, begging his bread from door to
door! It nearly broke his heart.
He had princely blood in his veins, he was a Senator of Poland, he
might even become a king. His dearest hopes were in Stanislaus, his
second son. Paul, the eldest, was wild and unsteady. And though there
were two other sons and a daughter, none gave such promise as
Stanislaus. So that the Lord John looked chiefly to him to carry on the
great name and make it more glorious still. No wonder he raged!
Stanislaus had figured all that out beforehand. It hurt him too, hurt

terribly. But what can one do when God calls? God had made all the
Kostkas, given them name and rank. God was the Lord of Lords. It was
heart-breaking to Stanislaus to leave his father in anger. Yet he trusted
that since that was God's will - well, God would find a way to bring
peace out of all this trouble. He put all his fears and heartache away
from him, and went out to do what God wanted.
He had always done that, even when he was a little tad in the rough
castle at Kostkov. God had taught him, God had helped him
wonderfully. But more wonderful still to our eyes is the way the boy
listened to God's teaching and obeyed it.
We think things come easy to the saints. We read or hear of wonders in
their lives, which are evidently God's doing; and we say:
"Of course the saint was good and holy. But it was all done for him.
God made everything smooth. The saint was never in my boots for a
minute."
And all the time we forget the things which the saint himself did, the
superb efforts he had to make.
So Stanislaus began to pray as soon as he well began to speak. Do you
think he would not sooner have kept on with his play? Do you think he
did not naturally hate the effort just as any boy naturally hates effort?
He lived amongst rough men, men used to the ways of camps and the
speech of soldiers. Yet he not merely kept his own lips" clean, but he
shrank, as from a blow, from every coarse or indecent speech in others.
He did not go around correcting people. He was too sensible for that.
He was not a prig or a prude. But he knew, as we know, that vile
speech is hateful to God; and, as so many of us do not do, he set his
face against it.
Did that cost him no effort? Had he no human respect to fight against?
Think of how many times you may have grinned, cowardly, at a gross
remark or shady story of a comrade - because you were not fighter
enough to resent it! And then give this Stanislaus, who did resent,

credit for his stouter courage, his more manly spirit.
His biographers tell us that he was simply' free from temptations
against purity. That does not mean what many may think it means: that
he was physically unlike other boys, that he had no animal desires, that
he had nothing to fight against. It means that he was such a magnificent
fighter that he had won the battle almost from the start. It means that he
was not content, as so many of us