"After his death I got my father's leave to go and study at Louvain. I
passed there the most wretched years of my life. Father Lewin's death had
thrown me into an extraordinary dejection, which seemed to have taken
from me all the joy of my faith; but at Louvain I came very near to
losing it altogether. It came, I think, from the reading of some French
sceptical books the first year I was there; but I went through a horror
and anguish. Often I used to wander for a whole day along the Scheldt, or
across lonely fields where no one could see me, lost in what seemed to me
a fight with devils. The most horrible blasphemies--the most subtle, the
most venomous thoughts--ah! well--by God's grace, I never gave up
Confession and Communion--at long intervals, indeed--but still I held to
them. The old Passionist father, my director, did not understand much
about me. I seemed, indeed, to have no friends. I lived shut up with my
own thoughts. The only comfort and relief I got was from painting. I
loved the studio where I worked, poor as my own attempts were. It seemed
often to be the only thing between me and madness.... Well, the first
relief came in a strange way. I was visiting one of the professors, an
old Canon of the Cathedral, on a June evening. The Bishop of the See was
very ill, and while I was with the Canon word came round to summon the
Chapter to assist at the administration of the last Sacraments, and to
hear the sick man's Profession of Faith. The old Canon had been good to
me. I don't know whether he suspected what was wrong with me. At any
rate, he laid a kind hand on my arm. 'Come with me,' he said; and I went
with him into the Bishop's residence. I can see the old house now--the
black panelled stairs and passages, and the shadow of the great church
outside.

"In the Bishop's room were gathered all the canons in their white robes;
there was an altar blazing with lights, the windows were wide open to the
dusk, and the cathedral bell was tolling. We all knelt, and Monseigneur