When his pilgrimage was completed, and he was restored to his native country, his passion for religious enterprise and distinction did not in any degree abate; but he soon discovered that his literary acquirements were wholly insufficient for his purpose. He began therefore, at the age of thirty-three, to apply himself to the rudiments of grammar; and endeavoured to regain lost time by his zeal and industry. He commenced his labours at Barcelona, and remained there till his pious attempts to reform a convent of abandoned nuns brought down upon him the vengeance of their lovers. Thence he retired to Alcala, where an university had lately been founded by Cardinal Ximenes. Here he pursued his studies with great ardour till the year 1527: he attempted at the same time the three sciences of logic, physic, and theology, and was bent on accomplishing by a single effort what results to other men from the patient employment of much time and labour. But it was too late in life. His mind had been already formed to more active pursuits, and he could not bend it to the acquisition of learning. A confused mass of knowledge, directed by no reflection, and founded on no principles, could neither be applied nor retained; and his endeavour to grasp so much, at so great a disadvantage, ended, where it was sure to end, in entire ignorance. He discovered his failure; and thenceforward directed his energies to a more attainable end: and, though he desisted not entirely from his tardy struggles after learning, he seems rather to have looked for success from the influence which personal intercourse generally enabled him to acquire over those about him. Some lectures, however, which he delivered at Alcala, gave offence to the authorities of that university; and after an imprisonment of forty-two days, he was prohibited from public preaching, until he should have completed a course of four years in theology. It seems too, that, together with two or three companions, he had assumed a peculiar dress, which they were ordered to lay aside. From Alcala he removed to Salamanca; but there too he had no sooner resumed his preaching than the Inquisitors laid hands on him; and after a second confinement, with severer treatment, he and his companions were again dismissed, under a sentence not widely differing from the preceding. On these occasions it was not so much the character of his sermons which gave the offence, as the circumstance that they were delivered by a layman.