With such sentiments he could not long escape the influence of the Church.
On all the roadsides in the environs of the city there were then, as now, numerous chapels.

Very often he must have heard mass in these rustic sanctuaries, alone with the celebrant.

Recognizing the tendency of simple natures to bring home to themselves everything that they hear, it is easy to understand his emotion and agitation when the priest, turning toward him, would read the gospel for the day.

The Christian ideal was revealed to him, bringing an answer to his secret anxieties.
And when, a few moments later, he would plunge into the forest, all his thoughts would be with the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who placed himself in his path, saying to him, even to him, "Follow thou me." Nearly two years had passed since the day when he felt the first shock; a life of renunciation appeared to him as the goal of his efforts, but he felt that his spiritual novitiate was not yet ended.

He suddenly experienced a bitter assurance of the fact.
He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more than ever possessed with the desire to lead a life of absolute devotion, when at a turn of the road he found himself face to face with a leper.