The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

could they divine the splendid career, and the
immortality of fame, which were to emerge from
this present squalor and debasement. But not for
one moment did Loyola's own faith falter in his
great destiny. He had the art, known only to those
fated to act a great part, of converting impediments
into helps, and extracting new experience and fresh
courage from disappointment. His repulsion from
the "holy fields" had taught him that Christendom,
and not Asia, was the predestined scene of his
warfare, and that he was to do battle, not with the
infidels of the East, but with the ever-growing
hosts of heretics in Europe. But to meet the
Protestant on his own ground, and to fight him with
his own weapons, was a still more difficult task
than to convert the Saracen. He felt that meanwhile
he was destitute of the necessary qualifications, but
it was not too late to acquire them.
Though a man of thirty-five, he put himself to
school at Barcelona, and there, seated amid the
youth of the city, he prosecuted the study of Latin.
Having acquired some mastery of this tongue, he
removed (1526) to the University of Alcala to
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