Afterwards, he would form and lead a militia of like-hearted champions against the strongholds of evil in human nature.
It must not be thought that the scheme of founding a Society had so early entered into the mind of Ignatius.

What we have at the present stage to notice is that he owed his adoption of the religious life to romantic fancy and fervid ambition, combined with a devotion to Peter, the saint of orthodoxy and the Church.

Animated by this new enthusiasm, he managed to escape from home in the spring of 1522.

His friends opposed themselves to his vocation; but he gave them the slip, took vows of chastity and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of Montserrat near Barcelona.

On the road he scourged himself daily.