When sufficiently restored to health he set out for the sanctuary of Montserrat where there is a Madonna whose thousandth anniversary was celebrated a few years ago. It is placed over the main altar of the church of a Benedictine monastery, which stands three thousand feet above the dark gorge, through which the river Llobregat rushes head-long to the Mediterranean. You can get a glimpse of the blue expanse of the sea in the distance, from the monastery windows. Before this statue, Ignatius kept his romantic Vigil of Arms, like the warriors of old on the eve of their knighthood; for he was about to enter upon a spiritual warfare for the King of Kings. He remained in prayer at the shrine all night long, not however in the apparel of a cavalier but in the common coarse garb of a poverty-stricken pilgrim. From there he betook himself to the little town of Manresa, about three miles to the north, on the outskirts of which is the famous cave where he wrote the "Spiritual Exercises." It is in the face of the rock, so low that you can touch the roof with your hand, and so narrow that there is room for only a little altar at one end. Possibly it had once been the repair of wild beasts. It is a mistake, however, to imagine that he passed all his time there. He lived either in the hospital or in the house of some friend, and resorted to the cave to meditate and do penance for his past sins. At present it is incorporated in a vast edifice which the Spanish Jesuits have built above and around it. Perhaps no book has ever been written that has evoked more ridiculous commentaries on its contents and its purpose than this very diminutive volume known as "The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius." Its very simplicity excites suspicion; its apparent jejuneness suggest all sorts of mysterious and malignant designs. Yet, as a matter of fact, it is nothing but a guide to Christian piety and devotion. It begins with the consideration of the great fundamental truths of religion, such as our duty to God, the hideousness and heinousness of sin, hell, death, and judgment on which the exercitant is expected to meditate before asking himself if it is wise for a reasonable creature who must soon die to continue in rebellion against the Almighty. No recourse is had to rhetoric or oratory by those who direct others in these "Exercises," not even such as would be employed in the pulpit by the ordinary parish preacher. It is merely a matter of a man having a heart to heart talk with himself. If he makes up his mind to avoid mortal sin in the future, but to do no more, then his retreat is over as far as he is concerned. But to have even reached that point is to have accomplished much.