d to show it to his
preceptors and discuss it with them! But his courage failed when he
faced this thought. However, another expedient presented: he would
write a treatise on the New Testament, embodying the salient facts of
his translation, and send it out into the world for publication in the
hope that it might do much good. Again, night after night in holy zeal
he toiled on the work, and when completed, sent it, under his name, to
a prominent literary magazine published in Paris.

Its appearance--for it was accepted eagerly by the editor, who was
bitterly hostile to the Church--caused a stir in ecclesiastical
circles and plunged the unwise lad into a sea of trouble. The essay in
general might have been excusable on its distinct merits and the
really profound scholarship exhibited in its composition. But when the
boy, a candidate for holy orders, and almost on the eve of his
ordination, seized upon the famous statement of Jesus in which he is
reported to have told Peter that he was the rock upon which the Lord's
church should be eternally founded, and showed that Jesus called Peter
a stone, "_petros_," a loose stone, and one of many, whereas he then
said that his church should be founded upon "_petra_," the living,
immovable rock of truth, thus corroborating Saint Augustine, but
confuting other supposedly impregnable authority for the superiority
and infallibility of the Church, it was going a bit too far.

The result was severe penance, coupled with soul-searing reprimand,
and absolute prohibition of further original writing. His translation
of the Testament was confiscated, and he was commanded to destroy
all notes referring to it, and to refrain from making further
translations. His little room was searched, and all references and
papers which might be construed as unevangelical were seized and
burned. He was then transferred to another room for the remainder of
his seminary course, and given a roommate, a cynical, sneering
bully of Irish descent, steeped to the core in churchly doctrine,
who did not fail to embrace every opportunity to make the suffering
penitent realize that he was in disgrace and under surveillance. The
effect was to drive the sensitive boy still further into himself,
and to augment the sullenness of disposition which had earlier
characterized him and separated him from social intercourse with
the world in which he moved apart from his fellow-men.

Thus had Jose been shown very clearly that i