For Greater Things Part 3

Sodalities were rare in those days; but the college boys of Vienna had a sodality, devoted to the honor of our Lady, and under the patronage of Saint Barbara. At their meetings; the sodalists in turn had to address their companions, give a little talk about the Blessed Virgin, or on some virtue, or the like.

Whenever Stanislaus' turn came, the boys were all expectation. He was no older than most of them; indeed, younger perhaps. But he had an older head. He had done more thinking than they, and a deal more praying. He had no false shame or babyish timidity. If he had anything to say, he was not afraid to say it. And he certainly had something to say. It had come to be as easy for him to talk about our Lady and heaven as for other boys to talk about their mothers at home. He had treasured up stories of the Blessed Virgin's help, with which Catholic Poland was filled. He spoke simply, unaffectedly, of our Lady's love for us, of her power, her willingness to aid us. And from him, though simply their school mate, the boys heard these things eagerly. He seemed well privileged to speak, as indeed he was.

To talk about pious things, and do it acceptably, is a mighty hard matter. You have to know how. And the first part of knowing how is to be at home with pious things, to have thought about them, often and long, to have woven them into your life as Stanislaus had done.

The trouble with us is that we live so far removed from thoughts of G.o.d, of His Mother, that they never cease to be strange to us. We go blunderingly about mention of them, or we lack the courage to speak at all. But why should they be strange or remote? We are destined to live forever in heaven, we are the daily recipients of G.o.d's favors, we are sheltered, protected, every way by our Lady's loving care.

The things that touch us most nearly are the things of the spiritual world; they are the most thrillingly important; they are the only really important things. We are not afraid to talk baseball, or politics, or business. Why be afraid to talk of G.o.d's power, His dominion over us, His love for us, our duties to Him, the helps He gives us, the reward He holds out to us? There is only one answer: we don't think enough about these things. There is only one remedy: do thing about them, as Saint Stanislaus did.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE HOUSE OF KIMBERKER

The house which the Jesuits in Vienna used for their boarding college was not theirs. It belonged to the Emperor Ferdinand I, who had merely loaned it to them. Now the Emperor Ferdinand had died on July 25, 1564, the day before Paul and Stanislaus came to Vienna.

The new Emperor, Maximilian II, left the house with the Jesuits for a time; but in March, 1565, withdrew it from their use. Of course, that meant the breaking up of the boarding-school. The Fathers still had their own residence, and they could teach a small number of day scholars. Many of their pupils went to their homes when they could no longer live with the Jesuits. Those who remained had to take lodgings elsewhere in the city.

It was decided that Paul and Stanislaus should be amongst the latter number. At once Bilinski set out with the two to get a house. In the Platz Kiemark, a fashionable quarter of the town, there was a splendid mansion, belonging to a Lutheran n.o.ble, the Senator Kimberker.

It took Paul's fancy immensely. On inquiry, they found that Kimberker used less than half of the house, for it was a huge building with many rooms, and that he was more than willing to rent the unused rooms to the young Poles. Stanislaus felt a little ill at ease over living with a Lutheran. But Bilinski and Paul pooh- poohed at his fears, and had their own way in the matter.

So in a few days they moved in, and fitted up a couple of the vacant rooms. Stanislaus was to live more than two years in this house, two years filled with a great deal of annoyance and pain, and yet blessed in wonderful ways. His difficulties began almost at once, and they were no slight difficulties. Of course, he and Paul went daily for cla.s.ses to the Jesuits' house, and met daily the few boys who continued their studies in Vienna. But the old companionship, the old life of the boys in common, was gone. Only two or three of his best friends remained, and these were scattered through the city. He saw them for a little while after cla.s.ses, he might now and then go out with them on a holiday. But for the most part he was thrown back upon the company of his tutor and his elder brother.

Both Paul and Bilinski liked a good time." They were far removed from the authority of home. Bilinski, who was in charge, was only a few years older than Paul; and whilst a good fellow in the main, was little able, or perhaps little willing, to put much check upon him.

And Paul was a pretty gay blade. Rough, boisterous, wild in manner, he picked companions like himself. Kimberker' 5 house soon became a noisy place. There were dinners at which the wine went round very freely, plenty of cards and dice, now and then brawling quarrels.

It did not suit Stanislaus at all. He was too much of a gentleman, and too good, to act unpleasantly or resent the rough company that Paul brought home. But he could not mix freely with them, he did not like their talk or their manners, and he slipped quietly away from their noisy gatherings as soon as he decently could.

And so he was left alone; and lonesomeness for a boy of fourteen is a very unpleasant thing. He still did well in his cla.s.ses, but he was no book-worm. When he had done his duty in study, the books had no further claim upon him, and no attraction in themselves. And yet he kept up his wonderful brightness and cheeriness all the time; so that Bilinski often wondered at him. And it was worth wondering at, for there is nothing, as everybody knows, which sooner breaks down one's spirits and brings on the blue devils than being left alone, without friends and companionship.

How did he do it? The fact is, he refused to be alone. As his friends in Vienna left him, he simply turned more to his friends in heaven. And heaven came down to him. Any old vacant room in the big, half-empty house was his chapel. And through the long, lonely days, often through great part of the night, he prayed.

If you could have seen him pray! Imagine any good-hearted boy who has been away from home for a long stretch, say a couple of years, and who comes back and meets father, mother, brothers, sisters. He may not say much, but he LOOKS a good deal, and he feels more than any words can say. That is the way Stanislaus prayed. He just turned to G.o.d and his Mother in heaven, with all his love in his eyes and immense happiness in his heart. And if he spoke, or said things to them in his mind, he could speak simply, like a little child, because no one else would hear him and he would not need be shy or bashful.

If you could have seen him pray, you would never think, as so many do, that praying is a gloomy business. His face was lit up, his eyes bright, his whole body spoke of peace and courage and joy. He kept thinking so much about heaven that he seemed to live there in advance. Everybody knows how, when the school year is nearly over and vacations are at hand, there is a joyful atmosphere about the days. Lessons do not seem so hard, though they really are just the same old lessons. Cla.s.ses seem to have more life and spirit in them. Boys are in better temper. Every detail of work and play is colored by expectation, as if the relief of vacation were already foretasted. Stanislaus looked forward just that way to the Great Vacation, to going Home forever. He knew that even the longest life. ends soon, that all its difficulties and troubles pa.s.s away and eternity begins; and he felt so light-hearted looking ahead to that eternity that nothing happening here could sadden him - except sin, and he kept away from that.

Paul and his boisterous fellows thought that Paul's younger brother was a queer chap. But they liked him, just the same, because he was always pleasant and smiling. He never said a word to them about their conduct. But when they talked to him, he naturally spoke of the things he was always thinking about. And they did not like that. Such talk tended to stir up their consciences, even to frighten them. And they did not want their con-sciences stirred up.

You can often see that. You may have noticed in yourself that, if you are not living as you ought to live, any word about G.o.d or death or heaven or our Blessed Lady irritates you, makes you feel horribly uncomfortable. And so Stanislaus became a puzzle to them, because they would not see. And little by little they left him alone, or only spoke to him to tease him or make fun of him.

CHAPTER VII

THE TEST OF COURAGE

Paul was the worst at this teasing; nor did it stop at mere teasing.

He was not a really bad fellow, but he was selfish, set upon having his own will in everything, and had a very quick and fierce temper.

Stanislaus' quiet refusal to join in the noisy revels of himself and his companions, his unaffected piety, his long hours of prayer, were things he could not understand. They seemed a sort of standing rebuke to him, and they constantly nettled him. Of course he sought reasons to justify himself, as we all do when we are in the wrong.

When they were alone, he and Bilinski fell to scolding Stanislaus.

"You shame us!" Paul would cry. "You do not act like a n.o.bleman, but like some boorish peasant."

Then Stanislaus would be troubled. He knew he was in the right. He simply could not stand the free ways and freer speech of Paul and his companions. But how could he justify himself? How could he defend his own position without at least seeming to attack his brother's? And that last he would never do. S6metimes he tried to smooth matters over by saying:

"We take different ways, Paul. I do not condemn yours. Why not let me alone in mine?"

But oftenest he could only smile and say nothing. And whether he answered or kept silence, Paul was sure to grow more irritated. Then Bilinski tried to exert his authority.

"Your father gave you into my charge," he would say. "I order you to act like the rest of us and not make yourself odd and shame us by your conduct."

But Stanislaus knew well enough what were the limits of Bilinski's authority and he was not at all the sort of boy to be easily bullied by a mere a.s.sumption of authority that did not exist.

The result always was that Stanislaus continued to do what his own conscience urged him to do, and that Bilinski and Paul felt helpless in the face of his quiet, fearless persistence. And that made them the more vexed with him. They nicknamed him "The Jesuit," they mimicked him, they sneered at him. He had a pretty hot temper himself, but he kept himself well in hand, and was always kind and pleasant with these cross-grained comrades. He was not the least bit afraid. Whenever he thought that speaking would do any good, he spoke up without hesitation. Many a time, when Paul taunted him with acting in a way to bring discredit upon his name, he answered:

"No man shames his name by trying to please G.o.d. As for what men may think or say, that does not matter much. Do you think we shall bother much about that in eternity?"

There were two cousins of theirs who often stayed with the Kostkas; one of them was also called Stanislaus, the other, who afterwards rose to high rank in his native country, was named Rozrarewski.

These sided with Paul and did their best to help him in making Stanislaus' life miserable.

It was not long before Paul went on from words to blows. One day Stanislaus quietly tried to answer some of Paul's sneers. Paul sprang at him in a rage and, striking out savagely, knocked him down. Bilinski interfered, and when he had drawn off Paul, proceeded to scold Stanislaus as being the cause of all the trouble. Such meanness and injustice must have made the boy's blood boil. But he mastered himself and said nothing.

That afternoon Paul was going out riding. He could not find his spurs.

"Take mine," said Stanislaus, pleasantly, as if nothing had happened.

And Paul took them, a little ashamed, saying to himself:

"He's a decent little beggar, after all - if only he weren't so insufferably pious!"

But Paul, though he might be touched for the moment by his brother's readiness to forgive, continued to grow even more irritated with him. Many and many a time he struck Stanislaus; and often, after knocking him down, kicked him and then tramped on him. And Bilinski always took the same line, trying to make peace by blaming everything on Stanislaus.

Now Stanislaus was very nearly Paul's equal in size, and easily his match in strength. He lived simply and frugally, kept himself in condition, did not over-eat and over-drink as Paul did. He could, without much difficulty, have met Paul's brutality in kind, and very likely have given him a good beating. And he knew well enough that if he did so, Paul would let him alone. For when was there ever a bully who was not also a coward?

And you may be sure he felt like doing it. He was in the right, and knew he was. He was high-spirited and utterly without fear. And yet he never even defended himself. lie let Paul bully him and beat him.

He endured to have himself looked upon as a coward - although you may observe that all the time he did not budge an inch from the line of conduct he had chosen. And why? Well, for a lot of reasons.

In the first place, he kept saying to himself, "What difference does it make for eternity? Then, he knew his own high temper and he would not let himself go, for fear he should commit a sin - and he hated sin with all his soul.

And then he recalled what our Lord had suffered for him, and he said:

"If you will give me the courage to stand it, I'll be glad, Lord, to suffer this much for You."

And that last was the reason why, in the midst of this real persecution, he never lost his cheerfulness. More than that, he never missed a chance to do Paul and his friends a good turn. He said:

"When men were treating our Lord worst, even killing Him, that was when He was opening heaven for them. And I'm sure He would like me to be kind as He was kind to those who treated Him meanly."

He did what he could to avoid annoying Paul. He kept out of everybody's way when he wanted to pray. He used to wait at night till the others were asleep, for they all slept in one great room together, and then slip out of bed and on to his knees. Sometimes his cousins, thinking it a great joke, would pretend to stumble over him in the half-dark, and kick him as hard as they could.

And this went on for two years. He could have stopped the whole matter with no trouble at all, by simply writing to his father. But he never so much as hinted to any one at home of the way Paul and Bilinski and his cousins treated him. He was as plucky as he was gentle and forgiving. Although, for good reasons, he would not quarrel, he had the tenacity of a bull-dog, he held on to the hard purpose he had formed and nothing could beat him off.

And that is the very highest sort of courage, the courage that endures, that has no show or heroics about it. Again I say, if he had done all this, put up with all this, to gain riches, to make a name for himself, the world would understand and would praise him tremendously. It is his motive that leaves the world cold, it is the source and reason of his courage that the world cannot understand.