object of his ambition; and that right reason would require him to prefer
that which was eternally to last, before what would vanish like a dream.

Then it was that Xavier began to see into the emptiness of earthly
greatness, and found himself touched with the love of heavenly things.
But these first impressions of grace had not all their effect
immediately: he made frequent reflections within himself, of what the man
of God had said to him; and it was not without many serious thoughts, and
after many a hard struggling, that, being overcome at length by the power
of those eternal truths, he took up a solid resolution, of living
according to the maxims of the gospel, and of treading in his footsteps,
who had made him sensible of his being gone astray.

He resigned himself therefore to the conduct of Ignatius, after the
example of Le Fevre, who had already reformed his life, and was inflamed
with the zeal of edifying others. The directions of a guide so well
enlightened, made easy to Xavier the paths of that perfection which were
hitherto unknown to him. He learnt from his new master, that the first
step which a sincere convert is to make, is to labour in the subduing of
his darling passion. As vainglory had the greatest dominion over him, his
main endeavours, from the very beginning, were to humble himself, and to
confound his own pride in the sense of his emptiness, and of his sins.
But well knowing that he could not tame the haughtiness of the soul
without mortifying the flesh, he undertook the conquest of his body, by
haircloth, by fasting, and other austerities of penance.

When his time of vacancies was come, he performed his spiritual
exercises, which his lectures of philosophy had till then hindered. Those
very exercises I mean, which Ignatius, inspired of God, had composed at
Manreze; and of which I have drawn the model, in the life of that holy