It was not sufficient to have only preserved Xavier from error, but it was farther necessary to wean him altogether from the world:  these favourable dispositions which appeared in him, encouraged Ignatius to pursue his design, and gave him hope of a fortunate success.  Having one day found Xavier more than ordinarily attentive, he repeated to him these words more forcibly than ever:  “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and to lose his own soul?” After which he told him, that a mind so noble and so great as his, ought not to confine itself to the vain honours of this world; that celestial glory was the only lawful object of his ambition; and that right reason would require him to prefer that which was eternally to last, before what would vanish like a dream.

Then it was that Xavier began to see into the emptiness of earthly greatness, and found himself touched with the love of heavenly things.  But these first impressions of grace had not all their effect immediately:  he made frequent reflections within himself, of what the man of God had said to him; and it was not without many serious thoughts, and after many a hard struggling, that, being overcome at length by the power of those eternal truths, he took up a solid resolution, of living according to the maxims of the gospel, and of treading in his footsteps, who had made him sensible of his being gone astray.

He resigned himself therefore to the conduct of Ignatius, after the example of Le Fevre, who had already reformed his life, and was inflamed with the zeal of edifying others.  The directions of a guide so well enlightened, made easy to Xavier the paths of that perfection which were hitherto unknown to him.  He learnt from his new master, that the first step which a sincere convert is to make, is to labour in the subduing of his darling passion.  As vainglory had the greatest dominion over him, his main endeavours, from the very beginning, were to humble himself, and to confound his own pride in the sense of his emptiness, and of his sins.  But well knowing that he could not tame the haughtiness of the soul without mortifying the flesh, he undertook the conquest of his body, by haircloth, by fasting, and other austerities of penance.

When his time of vacancies was come, he performed his spiritual exercises, which his lectures of philosophy had till then hindered.  Those very exercises I mean, which Ignatius, inspired of God, had composed at Manreze; and of which I have drawn the model, in the life of that holy founder of the society of Jesus.

He began his retirement with an extraordinary fervour, even to the passing of four days entire without taking any nourishment.  His contemplations were wholly busied, day and night, on divine matters.  And an ancient memorial assures us, that he went to his devotions with his hands and feet tied; either to signify, that he was desirous to do nothing, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or to give himself the same usage which was given to the man in the parable of the gospel; “who dared to appear in the wedding-room, without cloathing himself in wedding-garments.”