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 a stout staff in
his hand, and with God's blessing upon him and His Eucharistic
Presence in his heart, stepped out cheerfully on a journey that
would stagger most men.

That is the stuff of which heroes are made. If Stanislaus had done