Book Fourth

CORNELIUS JANSSEN, so well known by the name of Janse­ntus, after having completed his humanities in Holland, stu­died theology under Jacques Janson, a man very much at­tached to his own opinions, and who greatly preferred the doctrine of Baius, to that of the sovereign pontiffs who had censured it. It was in the school of this doctor, that Janse­nies imbibed the first principles of his system on grace. To strengthen him in it, Abbé Saint-Cyran, who had known him in Paris, caused him to come to Bayonne, where he procured employment for him. They both applied themselves to the reading of the Fathers, and particularly St. Augustin. This last was the one for whom Jansenius had all his life a decided preference. Although his health was rather weak, he read the works of the holy doctor ten times, and those which he composed against the Pelagians, nearly thirty times.

Such continued study did not prevent him from trying his pen upon matters which had not much connection with grace and charity. His .Mars Gallicus, in which the French nation and its monarchs are very badly treated, is an incontestible proof of it. This extravagant satire merited the bishopric of Ypres for its author; and it was in that see, that Jansenius, after twenty-two years labor, finished his dugustinus. How­ever right his system may have appeared to him, he himself was sensible of its rigor. He did not fail to put it under the protection of Saint-Cyran. He was particularly desirous that some congregation would adopt it, being persuaded, as he told his friend, that ” such people, when they once espouse a cause, go beyond, all bounds.”

The bishop of Ypres proposed to himself nothing less than to reform the ideas which the Catholic schools of his time held with regard to grace. This project was doubtless great, but corresponded to the views of him who had formed it. Jansenius thought that not only the Dominicans and Jesuits were a hundred miles from the truth, but he also believed that for five hundred years the ancient doctrine was unknown both to people and pastors; that it no longer subsisted, except in prayers, of which those who used them understood nothing; that the scholastics appeared to know “neither faith, nor hope, nor sufficient grace, nor efficacious grace, nor vice, nor virtue, nor actual sin, nor original sin, nor the liberty of man, nor his slavery; in a word, and this will be saying every thing, neither the Old nor the New Testament.”

So many blind persons stood in need of befog enlightened; it was necessary to put into their hands the thread of tradi­tion which they had lost for five centuries. Jansenius under­took it, and we shall soon see in what manner.

He lays it down as a principle that from the sin of Adam, pleasure is the only spring which sets the will in motion; that without an attraction inclining it to good, it cannot do good, as it cannot do evil without an attraction to evil; that these two attractions act by degrees, so that the stronger over­comes the weaker, and so invincibly overcomes it, that it is as impossible for man to act against a superior attraction, as it is impossible for him to act without any attraction, or even without knowledge.

From this principle of a delectation, which man cannot procure for himself when he possesses it not, because it is in-deliberate; and which he cannot conquer, when he possesses it, because it is irresistible; from this principle, I say, which Jansenius without ceremony places to the account of St. Au­gustin, he concludes, 1. that there is no more liberty upon earth; or if there be any, it must he compatible with the most powerful necessity; 2. that grace has not, nor can have any other effect than that which is actually produced in a heart captivated by concupiscence; 3. that the just man him­self, when he is in want of a grace superior to concupiscence, cannot, whatever pains he may take, whatever efforts he may make, accomplish the law imposed upon him; 4. that since God wills the salvation of those only, to whom he renders salvation possible, the Redeemer, whose will was always con formable to that of his Father, did not shed his blood for the salvation of those who perish. Jansenius is so violent on this last article, that, to be a Catholic, according to him, it becomes necessary to publish upon the house_ tops, that Jesus Christ died no more for the salvation of so many unfortunate men who are every day lost, than he died for the salvation of the devil¹. Such is, in substance, the system of the bishop of Ypres, and we are ready to show that we have not changed it.

That prelate had been carried off by pestilence two years, when his book made its appearance. This posthumous fruit was soon a cause of trouble and discord. Although Saint-Cyran found blemishes in it, he spoke of it as a third gospel upon grace, and his judgment gave the tone to that of Port Royal. But this favorable prejudice was balanced by an un­fortunate counterpoise. The Augustinus had but just ap­peared, when Urban VIII branded it on the 6th of March, 1641. It underwent the most violent attacks in the capital of this kingdom, but it also found there the most vigorous de­fenders. Isaac Habert, prebendary of Paris, combatted it pub­licly in three sermons preached in the cathedral. Antoine Arnauld opposed three apologies to these three sermons. On both sides they wrote, but each one became more confirmed in his first opinion.

Many sensible persons, who lamented these divisions, thought that the most imposing authority should he substituted to disputes. It was with this design that Nicholas Cornet, syndic of the faculty of theology, made from the book of Jan­senius an extract which he reduced to five propositions, which since that time have become so famous in the church. This summary, which the great Bossuet always looked upon as the most beautiful abridgment that could be made of so large a volume as that of Jansenius, was presented to the Sorbonne on the 1st of July, 1649. It was determined by a plurality of voices that the propositions should be examined.

The defenders of Jansenius, who did not like this kind of ex­amination, except when they calculated upon its being entrusted to them, parried the blow by an appeal to the parliament. What was to be done in such a conjuncture? After many deliberations, it was thought that the shortest way was to beg the common Father of the faithful to pronounce upon a difference, which began to exasperate the minds more and more. Mr. Ha­bert, who from being prebendary of Paris had become bishop of Vabres, drew up a letter to Innocent X, who was then in the chair of St. Peter. The principal bishops of the assembly of the clergy signed it separately, and it was sent into the provinces, in order that the pope, being urged on all sides, should not defer the judgment which was asked of him. St. Vincent of Paul, under whose eyes and in whose house this letter was composed, neglected nothing to multiply the signa­tures, and his solicitude was not useless.

Whatever might be the contempt entertained for Vincent by a party which spared only those wedded to its interests, it is certain that, even after the death of Saint-Cyran, great efforts were made to win him to Jansenism. But, had he not been disgusted with the horrors which that desperate system inspires, he must, have been so with the caprices and variations of its defenders. At a time when they should have acted with cau­tion, unexpected propositions escaped them, which revealed a disposition for innovation. The Abbé de Barcos, without any reason, foisted one into the preface of a book on Frequent Com­munion, in which he taught that ” St. Peter and St. Paul are two heads of the church, making but one.” This proposition was censured at Rome, and Vincent had a great share in its condemnation.

It appears from several of his letters that he would not have been sorry, had the book on “Frequent Communion” experienced the same fate. That in which he expresses him­self most at large, is addressed to Jean d’Horghi, one of his first seven companions. D’Horgni had talents, zeal, and a certain taste for reforms, which itself stood in need of being a little reformed. As he had for Vincent of Paul all that re­spect with which the holy man inspired those who knew him, he thought it his duty to propose to him the difficulties which he had with regard to the book of Jansenius as well as that of Mr. Arnauld. He did so in two letters, but in such a manner as to create a fear that he had already taken his deter­mination. Vincent answered him likewise in two letters, and although I have read many of the kind, I have met with none of Isis, in which there is so much fire and vivacity. Both of them, but particularly the last one, speak of the book on “Frequent Communion.”

Vincent says there in substance, that it may be that some persons have profited by that work; but that, ” if it has been of service to a hundred by inspiring them with greater re­spect for the sacraments, there are at least ten thousand whom it has injured by keeping them away from them altogether;” that we no longer see the holy communion frequented, even at Easter, as it formerly was ; that many curates in Paris complain of it; that it is true there are but too many who abuse the holy Eucharist, ” and wretch that I am,” says he, “1 more than all;” but we must not correct one abuse by another; and it is a great one, to keep away from the holy table, not for eight or ten days, but for five or six months, good religious per­sons who lead very pure lives, as it is known that “these new reformers” are in the habit of doing; that St. Charles was very far from this excess, when he recommended nothing so much in his councils as frequent communion, and decreed severe penalties against preachers who should dissuade the faithful from it, directly or indirectly.

As in order to defend the book and the author, D’Horgni repeated what was then said, that the doctor Arnauld only designated those who admit sinners too easily to the partici­pation of the holy mysteries, Vincent acknowledges that it is an evil which St. Charles deplored; but he contends at the same time that the book on ” Frequent Communion” goes far­ther, since it highly ‘extols in the preface, page 36, the piety of those who wish to defer communion till the end of their lives ; that it asserts, in the second chapter of the third part, that it is speaking in an unworthy manner of the King of heaven, to say that he is honored by our communions; and that when it contends, as it does without any modification, that those alone are permitted to communicate who are en­tirely purified from the images of their past life by a divine love which is pure and without mixture, who are perfectly united to God alone, entirely perfect and entirely irreproacha­ble; we would have to conclude with it, that those who, ac­cording to the practice of the church, communicate with the ordinary dispositions, are dogs and antichrists. No, continues he, with such principles, communion is no longer suited to any one but Mr. Arnauld, who, after having placed his dis­positions at so high a point, as to terrify a St. Paul, does not fail to boast several times in his apology, that he says mass every day.

The saint combats with the same force all the objections of Mr. d’Horgni, particularly one in which he undertook to justify certain texts of Arnauld, by other texts which were opposed to them. He shows him by the example of Calvin, that it is customary with innovators to sow contradictions in their works, and procure an issue which may answer their pur pose. “I heard the ]ate Mr. de Saint-Cyran declare,” con­tinues he, “that if he had pronounced truths in a room where there were persons capable of understanding them, and from thence should go into another place where there were persons incapable of it, he would tell them the contrary” He even pretended that our Lord did so, and he recommended the practice of it.

As d’Horgni had not adduced the authority of the prelates and doctors, who had approved the book on ” Frequent Corn munion,” the servant of God did not speak of it. Had he been urged on this point, he would, no doubt, have answered, as others then did, first, that more than eighty bishops., al­though earnestly solicited to approve the work, had constantly refused ; secondly, that amongst those whose names are still seen at the head of the book, there were some who had never read it. Of this T have an incontestable proof under my eyes².

The other letter is almost entirely devoted to the book of Jsnsenius. The saint therein says very wisely, that the as­siduous perusal which that prelate had made of St. Augustin, proves no more in favor of his followers, than it would prove In favor of Calvin; that the council of Trent understood the holy doctor better than the bishop of Ypres and his adherents; to a word, that St. Augustin must be explained by the coun­cil, and not the council by St. Augustin, because the first is infallible and the second is not. He adds, that in the present affair, we have nothing to do with Molina, nor with the mid­dle science, which is not an article of faith; that if this doc­trine is new, it is not so with the one establishing that Jesus Christ died for all; that it is that of St. Paul, of the apostle St. John, of St. Leo, and of the last general council. He reasons in the same manner on the possibility of the observ­ance of the commandments of God, and on sufficient grace. He proves both by texts which error may elude, but can never destroy.

With regard to the advice which d’Horgni had given him, to suffer each one of his congregation to think as be pleased on these matters, he contends powerfully against it; and after having indicated in two words, the fatal effects which diver­sity of opinion would produce in a community, he concludes, that if any one of his company should adopt the new opinions, he would do well to leave it, and the company would do well to beg him to do so.

However severe these last words may appear, the saint did not come to such a painful extremity,untilafter having ex­hausted all the means which charity and prudence furnished. He prayed much, made his companions pray, and did not adopt his last resolution, until he had consulted those whose knowledge and experience enabled them to give him good advice.

Such violent remedies, which he perhaps used but once, cost his tender heart a great deal: he feared nothing more than to find himself forced to use them frequently. Night and day he hoped that authority would settle this dispute, which had already produced so much excitement in the clergy, both secular and regular. As his respect for the vicar of Jesus Christ led him to believe that his decision would again unite all minds, he used every endeavor to engage as many bishops as he could, to subscribe the letter which was to be sent to the pope. He told them in substance that they could not too soon arrest an evil, which was making addi­tional progress every day ; that it was believed at Rome that the greater part of the bishops of France professed the new opinions, and that it was proper to show that there were very few; that as the situation of Europe did not permit to assemble a general council, recourse must be had to the first See, to which the Church refers us in the council of Trent; that although some persons of Saint Cyran’s party might not yield to the decision of the pope, since that abbé did not believe even the councils, as he knew from frequent intercourse with him; still it would not be so with the greater number, as it appeared from the prompt conclusion of the affair of the two heads making but one. The saint did not fail to adduce the number and authority of the prelates who had already subscribed. He insisted particularly on the ex­ample of the virtuous and penitent bishop of Cahors who had recognised, in a libel which the party had just scattered abroad, the spirit of imposture which accompanies heresy, and had made it a motive for taking up arms against the enemies of the church.

If Vincent had reason to be satisfied with the answers given him by almost all those whom he had invited to sign the letter to the holy Father, he must have been afflicted at the one given him in common by his two great friends the bishops of Aleth and of Pamiers. “Under pretext that minds were too much agitated, they proposed a middle term, which would not have failed to sanction error, by placing it upon a level with truth. They wished that the holy see, instead of decid­ing the affair fully, should prohibit under several penalties the agitating of the question both in the schools and in the pulpit. Vincent thought it his duty to reply to their letter. He did it forcibly, but in a respectful manner. He repre­sented to them that, if to condemn the dogmas of Luther and Calvin, delay had been used until their partisans had been in a disposition to submit, the heresy of those two innovators would have seduced a much greater number of persons ; that it is true that in the present affair each one believed he had rea­son on his side; but that all heretics had said the same; that there was this difference between the two parties, that the one asked for judges and the other did not want them ; that the defenders of Jansenius declined the judgment of the holy see, because they knew it possible; and they pretended to ask that of a council, because they believed it impossible in the present state of things; and if they thought it possible, they would reject it, as they rejected the other; that, moreover, the ques­tion was not about a point confined to theory; that the faithful could not live much longer uncertain whether Jesus Christ died for them or not; for there had been some found who seeing that the dying were exhorted to put their confi­dence in the goodness of our Lord, who died for them, told the sick not to trust to that, because Jesus Christ did not die for all.

If this letter did not produce all the effect which Vincent of Paul expected, it at least disposed these two bishops to submit to the judgment of the apostolic see. The bull by which Innocent X condemned the five famous propositions, met with no contradiction at Aleth ; it was there received and published as it has since been throughout all the kingdom. The author of the life of Mr. Pavillon remarks it. This pre­late held still many years afterwards the same opinions. I know, says the illustrious and pious de Rancé, that he changed them afterwards, but I know also what address and what artifices were made use of, to bring him to it.

Vincent, who was no longer upon earth, had not the grief of witnessing the fall of a man who was dear to him. But if it would have surprised, it would not have shaken Lim. He continued always to believe that it was of the greatest consequence that the common Father of the faithful should make them hear his voice, and he had the consolation to see in a short time eighty-eight bishops soliciting his judgment. On their part, the defenders of Jansenius, who feared nothing more than the decision of the pope, did not forget themselves. Desperate at seeing that a writing in the form of a circular letter, which they had addressed to the bishops, had not pre­vented many from signing the address, they resolved upon movements at Rome itself, and by multiplying obstacles, they endeavored to avert, at every cost, the blow which threatened them. They had already an agent in that city, who neglected nothing to protect their doctrine. Fearing that one man alone could not calm the storm, they sent him a reinforcement of three other doctors. Mr. de Saint-Amour, furnished with a letter from ten bishops who did not think with the rest of their collengues, was at the head of the deputation. St. Amour was full of zeal for the doctrine of Jansenius, and would have given his life, to prove that it was perfectly conformable to that of St. Augustin. Had he read carefully the works of that doctor ou grace? This I know not; but I do know, what I could not have believed, had he not himself written it, that he had never read the book of Jansenius.

Vincent of Paul had no sooner been informed of the ma­noeuvre of these gentlemen, than he thought that, what had been done for error, should be done for the truth. Messrs. Hallier, Joisel, and Lagault, who were all three doctors of Sorbonne, offered to undertake the journey; and our saint, with whom these three respectable men were strictly united, promised them not to abandon them either in France or Italy. Hallier rendered on this occasion great services to the Church; and we shall see in a moment that the holy see did not forget him.

These deputies soon perceived that their journey was ne­cessary. The doctor Saint-Amour, whom letters from Rome described as one of the most artful men, endeavored to persuade the Dominicans that the efficacious grace of the Thomists was no less attacked than that of the new Augus­tin, and to impress the cardinals with the belief that he was neither a Jansenist nor a defender of Jansenius. “For our parts,” said Mr. Lagault, “we loudly proclaim, that we only aim at Jansenius, who has been troubling the Church for ten years ; that if these gentlemen are unwilling to defend him, we have nothing to do with them, and that notwith standing we will not tail to urge one point.” They did it in fact, but with infinite trouble. No one can read without emotion the obstacles which they had to encounter. Their letters, the originals of which are still extant, state in sub­stance that every means were employed to spin out the affair, that it was to be feared that the end could not be reached in a court which advances at so slow a pace and under a pontiff who was very old; that these delays exposed them to very con­siderable fatigue; that they had daily to undergo, on the part of the Jansenist ambassadors, numerous contradictions, suppo­sitions, and black calumnies; that they were astonished how persons who made a profession of piety, could resolve to quib­ble so grossly in point of religion and to lie so insolently; and that no one but a sacrilegious man would, in order to re­tain people in a false doctrine, employ the horrible lies which had been circulated throughout France and Italy by the emissaries of a party which boasted of its sanctity.

This information, which could not but greatly afflict a man so sensible to the evils of the Church as Vincent of Paul, was almost always mingled with something well calculated to console him. He learned from the beginning that Innocent X was resolved to settle the affair; that notwithstanding his advanced age, he labored with indefatigable zeal in the exami­nation of the five propositions ; that it was an admirable thing, which could only come from God, that his holiness, at the age of eighty-one, should, contrary to his disposition and the custom of the country, assist with inexpressible attention at the congregations which often lasted four hours, and which were held sometimes thrice a week; that the cardinals, ani­mated by such an example, abandoned every thing to occupy themselves in this affair. Vincent, on his side, encouraged the deputies by frequent letters. “I hope,” said he in one of those which he wrote to Mr. Hallier, ” that the divine good­ness will soon restore peace to his Church, and that by the aid of your proceedings, the truth will be recognised, and your zeal exalted before God and man.” We might take these last words as a prophecy, when we behold, some years after­wards, Mr. Hallier appointed bishop of Cavaillon by the pope.

The censure of the five propositions for which the servant of God waited with so much confidence, was soon announced to him in a more precise manner. The letters which he re­ceived from the anti-Jansenist envoys, stated that in the audience which the ambassador of France had procured for the two new deputies of the opposite party³, instead of saying a single word of the matter in question, they had amused them­selves in railing against the Jesuits, and in offering to prove that they were the authors of more than fifty heresies; that the holy Father, who had granted them eight or nine audi­ences, although he had,granted but one to Mr. Hallier and his companions, had declared to them that he was ready to bear them if they had any thing new to produce; that for a whole year they had been entirely at liberty to instruct the cardinals and consultors personally or by writing; that they had refused four or five hearings which had been offered them; that they acknowledged that the writings of their adversaries had been communicated to them ; that in fact it was useless to hear them any more than their antagonists, since the only question was a hook, which was alone to pronounce its own apology or censure; and that in fine after twenty-five congre­gations, besides ten others which the pope had caused to be held before him, he had given his bull; that those gentlemen, with tears in their eyes, had promised perfect obedience to this decree, but that there was reason to doubt of their sin­cerity, since they had told confidents, that their sense, which was that of Jansenius, still subsisted.

Vincent of Paul, after having returned thanks to God for the protection, which he had just given his Church, thought of nothing but of the means of procuring a prompt submis­sion to the apostolical rescript. His first care was to prevent those who had the advantage in this kind of combat. from exhibiting towards their adversaries those airs of triumph which are looked upon as insults by vexed minds. Full of zeal against error, and charity towards those who had been its victims, all his attention was directed to smooth the way for their return to unity. With this design he paid visits to superiors of communities, doctors in theology, and several other persons who had embraced Jansenism. He represented to them modestly, and with his usual prudence, that to re-unite minds, it was necessary to keep within the bounds of the most exact moderation, to advance nothing either in sermons or private conversations, which might humble those who had supported the proscribed dogma, to show them a real friendship in a conjuncture so humiliating for self-love, and to gain, by the most respectful treatment, persons who would he shocked by any other method.

It was with these feelings, so prudent and so Christian, that he paid a visit of civility to such of the disciples of Saint-Cyran as had retired to Port Royal. The report having been circu­lated that they submitted without restriction, he congratulated them on it; and during two or three hours which he passed with then, he gave them particular evidences of his esteem, affection, and confidence. He afterwards went, to see some persons of distinction, who held a considerable rank in the party. All promised entire submission to the apostolic de­cree. Some, at the head of whom appeared the pious and learned Thomassin, were faithful to their word: unfortunately it was not so with the greater number.

In fact, it was soon known both in Paris and Rome, that their beautiful protestations were in no ways sincere. The famous writing in three columns, which these gentlemen distributed in public, proved that, under pretence of rejecting a purely Calvinistical sense, which was not in question, they continued to maintain the whole error of the sense of Jansenius, which alone was in question, and the only one which’^–the Pope intended to condemn. This Dr. Hal lier explains much at length in a letter, in which he tells St. Vincent that the Jansenists have no solid ground, when they endeavor to cover themselves by such ridiculous ter­giversations; that the propositions being clear, they endeavored to render them ambiguous by explanations remote from the natural sense of the words and from the sense of Janse­nius; that Innocent X had testified that he condemned them in as much as they contained the opinions of Jansenius, which are the same as those of the Jansenists, as appears by their apologies of Jansenius and the rest of their books ; that the pope had given in his bull a sense to the filth proposition, be­cause it was not contained in the words, but only in Janse­nies, and that he has condemned it in that sense, which is that of the book and its defenders. &c.

After having proved that, by following the method of these new doctors, there is no bad proposition that may not escape censure, Hallier demonstrates by a great number of facts, that there can be no doubt of the intention of the sovereign pontiff. “If it be true,” says he, ” that the sense of Jansenius is pro­tected, why did the pope refuse bulls to a man, whose only crime was his having sigoed the Augustinus of that prelate? Why did he cause a general of an order who favored the Jansenists to be deposed’? Why, without any other reason, did he banish another religious to Malta? Why did he give a bishopric in the kingdom of Naples to an Augustinian who, in the congregations, had defended the Catholic faith against the Jansenists, and even against his own superior’? Why did he offer me the bishopric of Toul,” &c. ” In fact,” adds he, “The Jansenists know better than any one, that it is they who are aimed at; and it is for this reason that they fled shamefully from Rome, without taking leave of any of the cardinals of the congregation,” &c.

It appears from subsequent letters, that it was feared at Rome lest Vincent, accustomed to judge of the uprightness of others by his own, might suffer himself to be caught by the equivocal marks of submission given by the party. But the deputies had time to be convinced that they had taken the alarm too easily. Without transgressing the bounds of a just modera­tion, our saint knew so well how to combine his arrangements, that he removed the error from all the places, the guardian­ship of which had been committed to his care. His congre­gation, was, as it ought to he, the first object of his attention.

He studied the inclinations of all his priests, well resolved to rid himself of those who, being duly warned, should prefer their own judgment to that of the first pastors. He endeav­ored above all to give to young people, only such masters as had openly declared their opinion; and to begin by an exam­ple calculated to make an impression, he dismissed one of the professors of St. Lazarus, because he found him to be one of those men of equivocal submission, who never explain themselves with embarrassment, except when faith is to he explained. He told another, who had through inadvertence expressed himself in a manner somewhat favorable to the in­novators, that Jansenism was one of the most dangerous er­rors that had ever troubled the church, and that he could not thank God too much, for not having permitted its first defend­ers, who were his friends, and had taken inconceivable pains to seduce him, to succeed in their undertaking.

What the holy man did for his children, he did likewise for a great number of religious and secular communities of which he was the superior. It was thus that, as we have al­ready observed, he prevailed upon the ladies of the Visitation to refuse a considerable sum, with which error would not have failed to insinut,te itself amongst them. Thus it was also that he taught the Sisters of Charity, whose establishment was his favorite work, to be satisfied with lamenting the evils of the church, and to reduce all their science to that general submission which requires neither reasoning nor discussion. He infused the same sentiments into the secular congrega­tions of Providence, of the Christian Union, of the New Ca­tholics; and the first of these communities acknowledges to this day the greatest obligation it owes to St. Vincent of Pau], foi having inspired its members, from the beginning, with a perfect submission to the church, and a profound respect for those who govern it.

Although the holy priest was not ignorant that in all ages error has counted amongst its defenders such men as Tertullian, Origen, Theodoret; yet he was more sensible to the fall of those who believed they were paying an homage to God by combat­ting his church, It was for this reason that he labored so much to bring back the famous Jean Deslions, dean of Senlis. He procured for him answers from Rome, and letters from the bishop of Pamiers. He saw him shaken several times. It even appeared that he deferred declaring himself more openly only to bring back the duke and duchess of Liancourt. But his engagements with Arnauld detained him. He was ill requited for his complaisance, and every one knows that in the affair of Pérette Deslions, his niece, no one spared him less than Arnauld.

I shall conclude this matter with a reply which the holy priest’ made to a pious individual who, being dazzled by the alms distributed by certain people of the party, made a scruple of condemning them. In a visit which he paid to Vincent, he asked him if there was no means of moderating the warmth, with which the gentlemen of Port Royal were per­secuted. ” ‘Would it not be better,” said he, ” to come to an accommodation; they are disposed for it, if treated with more moderation, and there is no one better suited than you to mitigate the irritation on both sides, and to effect a good re­conciliation.”

Without stopping to reply, that, if the devil has his virgins and martyrs, he may well have persons who fast and give alms, Vincent went directly to the ground of the difficulty. His reply was, that when a difference is judged, there is no other agreement to make, than to submit to the judgment pro­nounced; that these gentlemen, who had taken the highest tone before the decree of the holy see, had labored since its publication only to elude it, even at the time when they pre­tended to submit to it; that in matters of faith all accommo­dation is reduced to a true and perfect obedience; and until the party should come to this, there was nothing to be done but to pray to God for their conversion.

Such was the language, such the conduct which Vincent of Paul held in the course of this unfortunate affair. He had feared all his life that some new error would arise in his time. The evil which he dreaded had arrived. He had the grief to see the most consoling dogmas of religion attacked by his friends. Flesh and blood never restrained him, and his zeal did not hurry him away. He was not willing to judge rashly of any person, or through a charity ill understood, to judge favora­bly persons who should be considered as heretics or suspected of heresy. It is very remarkable that he never believed that a real Catholic could remain in a kind of indifference and neutrality.

Although he was much pleased to see the learned conse­crate their time to the defence of truth, he always believed that prayer was the best remedy that could he opposed to heresy. He knew that, when nothing is required but wri­ting, the most desperate innovators have never kept silent, and have given even to the worst systems an air and a color calculated to deceive. It was in God that Vincent put his confidence. He begged him, and he wished his friends to beg him, not to permit persons able to serve him to go astray, and that the faithful might not continue exposed to the efforts of the spirit of falsehood. He said that the best arms to fight against error, are prayer- and the exact prac­tice of the virtues opposed to the faults of those who support it; that we must oppose a profound humility to their self-esteem on account of their talents; a sincere love of con­tempt and abjection, to that frivolous praise which they lavish on each other; great uprightness and perfect simplicity of heart, to the artifices, disguise, imposture which they employ to cover their error and hide its deformity ; in fine, ardent charity to the inflexible hatred and outrages with which they are accustomed to pursue those who oppose their opinions.

In spite of the trouble which the new heresy caused Vin­cent, he was able to continue the good works which had hith­erto occupied hint. Besides the mission at Rueil, at which he labored that same year as a man of forty years of age would have done, he kept up in the diocess of Paris alone four bands of apostolical men; and whilst in conformity with the wishes of the Propaganda, he consented to send for the third time some worthy priests into the Hebrides, he cultivated at Paris a numerous nursery of young Scotchmen, who were one day to perpetuate in their own country the good which those of his company could only commence.

But the most beautiful action that signalised his seventy-eighth year, was without doubt the establishment which he made of an hospital for a great number of old persons. As this action, although considerable in itself, was still more so on account of its consequences, it will not be improper to enter into it somewhat more at length.

A citizen of Paris, who knew the prudence and charity of the holy priest, came to him in 1653, acid told him that he felt himself interiorly urged to do something for the service of God; that in order not to resist a motion of the Holy Ghost, he had the intention to devote a considerable sum; that hav­ing nothing particular in view, he ratified beforehand the pious use which he might think proper to make of it : that the only condition he required of him was, that, wishing to be known to God alone, he should never be mentioned. This last arti­cle was promised at once, and it has been faithfully executed.

Vincent of Paul, after having consulted the Lord, thought that if a place could -he established for the retreat of a num­ber of poor mechanics, reduced io their old days to beggary, and forgetful of the affair of their salvation, it would be very pleasing to God. The benefactor liked the idea, but he re­quired that thè saint and his successors should take upon themselves the direction of this little establishment.

Without any delay Vincent purchased two houses and con­siderable ground in one of the suburbs of Paris. There he fitted up a small chapel, and furnished it with ornaments. As soon as all was ready, he received into this new retreat forty poor persons of both sexes. He placed them in two separate parts of the same building, but so well arranged that men and women all heard the same offices, and the same lecture at table, without seeing one another. He appointed Sisters of Charity to wait on them, and one of his priests to distribute to them the bread of life, and administer the sacra­ments. He was himself one of the first to instruct them, to recommend peace and union to them, form them to tender piety, lead them to bless with their dying breath the adorable hand which, in acknowledgment of its mercies, only asked of them the sacrifice of their last years.

When the house of the Name of Jesus, for this was the title given it, had assumed a proper form, many of the ladies of the famous assembly of the holy priest, went to visit it. They wished to see every thing, examine every thing, and hear an account of every thing. The more they examined it, the more they were edified. Forty aged persons, who lived in the most perfect union, who knew nothing of murmuring or scandal, who, at the first sound of the bell, went to their little employments, and more willingly still to their exercises of piety, who all testified by their words, and sometimes by their tears, that they had never been so contented ; in a word, forty old people who had more the air of a religious commu­nity than of a dwelling of seculars, appeared very affecting and consoling in the eyes of faith. A comparison almost imper­ceptibly suggested itself between poor people so well regulated, and that multitude of vagabonds, without shame, without re­ligion, who walk the streets of Paris, crowd the churches, and often with a sword at their side, demand alms in such a tone, as to leave to the liberality of the faithful but little merit. So much fervor on the one hand, such libertinism on the other, made a contrast which gave rise to many reflections.

One of the most important was, that it was necessary to en­gage Vincent of Paul, to do for all the poor found in the capital, what he had done for those of the Name of Jesus; that God was visibly with him, and that provided he would put his hand to the work, it would succeed. The first ladies who had this thought, communicated it to others. It did not ap­pear too much for persons who had served their Apprentice­ship in the school of the holy priest. They returned a second and a third time to the house of the Name of Jesus. They caused those who had ncit been there before to admire the order that reigned in it. The project which they had al­ready formed, appeared more beautiful than ever. It was determined that on the first assembly they should propose it to the holy priest; and they were so well assured that the thing was done, if he would only put his hand to it, that they thought of nothing but of persuading him to consent to it. At the very outset, one of the ladies promised fifty thousand livres, and another a revenue of three thousand livres.

However accustomed the servant of God was to great un­dertakings, the plan of a general hospital for an army of forty thousand beggars who were then in Paris, filled him with astonishment. He bestowed great praise upon those who had formed it, but he represented to them at the same time that an affair of such importance deserved to be maturely examined, and^.that it should be earnestly recommended to God. Eight days afterwards it was examined again. The deliberation did not last long. Not a voice voted in the negative, not even for a longer delay. The saint was obliged to yield to the torrent; and as it required- an immense place for such a prodigious multitude of poor, he asked and obtained from the king the vast house of the Salpetrière.

Such a happy commencement inspired courage, indeed al­most more than was necessary. Some of the ladies, whose zeal was most active, would have wished every thing to be done in a day. The saint whose steps were marked by more discre­tion, thought it necessary to moderate an ardor which might insensibly introduce trouble and division into his assembly. To manage persons whose fault was an excess of good will, he saw them individually, and told them with that gravity, replete with mildness, against which well regulated souls never held out, that the works of God have their progress; that when he wished to save Noah and his family, he ordered him to construct an ark which might have^–been finished in a few months, the construction of which, however. took up a cen­tury; that he did not bring the children of Israel into the land of promise, but at the end of forty years; that to give a Re­deemer to the world, he awaited the plenitude of time. From all these examples the holy man concluded, that they ought to go on leisurely, pray to God a great deal, act in concert, and be on their guard against the temptation to do every thing at once.

After having calmed their minds, he proposed his own idea to them ; it was to make only a trial at first, to limit them­selves in the beginning to one or two hundred poor persons, and only to take those who should of their own accord ask to be received. He added that people who would find themselves well treated, would induce others to come to share their good fortune, and that then the number would increase in proportion as Providence would augment their funds. Thus thought Vincent, and he thought correctly. He was soon obliged to temporise himself, perhaps more than he would have wished.

As, after much reflection, it was discovered that an affair of such importance could not be carried into execution without the authority of the magistrates, it was resolved to present to the parliament the letters patent of the king, and cause them to be registered. In great bodies, as elsewhere, every one has his own way of considering things. There were judges of weight to be found, who, struck by the great number of vaga­bonds wandering through the streets, and embarrassed by the difficulty of placing all these vile and audacious characters under the same roof, looked upon this project, as a beautiful and chimerical speculation. All the prudence of Vincent of Paul, all the zeal of the ladies of his assembly, all the credit of the first president, Pompone de Bellièvre, were necessary to surmount this unexpected obstacle. After many conferences the matter was settled. But it was resolved, against the first opinion of the holy priest, that all the beggars should be obliged, either to labor for their support, or to enter the Sal­petrière, which from that time took the name of General Hospital. The greater part of those men, who were enemies to order, retired into the provinces; and of that class of peo­ple accustomed to do nothing, there were only, as Vincent had foreseen, four or five thousand who profited by the good will manifested towards them.

It was, however, a great consolation for the servant of God and for his assembly, to see this great work sustained by pub­lic authority. He mentioned it to a confidential person, and there is nothing wanting to his recital but what could redound to his own glory. He did not say that it was himself who gave occasion to the first idea of this glorious undertaking, who removed the principal difficulties, who got the neces­sary articles of furniture made by the laborers of his house, and who found so many resources in the ladies of the assembly, only because he had taught them for nearly twenty years, to attempt what seemed impossible, and to succeed in it.

The king, by the advice of the duchess of Aiguillon, had confided the spiritual direction of this great hospital to the missionaries. Vincent of Paul, after deliberating on it with his priests, renounced it by an authentic act. But lest his refusal might stop the work of God, he gave it in charge to one of the most wise ecclesiastics of his conference, who, by prudent missions, spread gradually throughout it the spirit of order and penance.

It was thus that Vincent executed in Paris what St. Chry­sostom had formerly tried in vain for the city of Constantino­ple; what Henry IV had unsuccessfully projected; and what Mary of Médicis would have considered one of the most splendid monuments of her regency, could she have executed it in a solid and permanent manner⁴. In order to do justice to some of those who, after Louis XIV, had the greatest share in this prodigious establishment, we will add that Car­dinal Mazarin contributed to it one hundred thousand livres in one day, and sixty thousand livres at his death, and that Mr. de Pompone, who at first gave to it twenty thousand crowns, bequeathed still more by his will.

Whilst the institutor of the mission labored with so much ardor to procure the glory of God, God labored, it would appear, to purify him more and more by sufferings and afflic­tions.

Without speaking of the impotent fury of a crowd of beggars, who preferred a wandering and dissolute life to the honest retreat which the holy man had procured for them, and who broke out in abusive language against him, he ex­perienced in the space of two years and à half very consider­able losses by the death of several excellent subjects of his congregation, whom various diseases carried off one after another in Madagascar, in Poland, and in France. He found himself defamed, in a manner, by a young German Lutheran, who, in the dress of a missionary, which he had purloined, went to the meeting house of Charenton, and gave the honor of his conquest to the minister Drelincourt. He was obliged to withdraw from Rome those of his priests who were Frenchmen, because they had given, by order of Innocent X, an honorable retreat to Cardinal de Retz, to whom Mazarin was pleased to show that his power could be felt beyond the Alps. A short time afterwards, he had the grief to learn that a man, whom he had sent into England to visit his brethren from whom he had received no news, had been obliged to escape by flight the pursuit of Cromwell ; that three others whom he had despatched to Madagascar, far from being able to reach it, had only escaped perishing with their ship, through a singular protection of God; and that one of his company, who performed the functions of consul at Algiers, was daily exposed to perish in torments.

It is true that God sometimes tempered this bitterness with a share of consolation ; and that our saint had that of seeing some of his children solidly established at Genoa through the beneflcence^.of the illustrious Marquis de Pianeze, his institute confirmed. by Alexander VII, with a prohibition against taking solemn vows, and, what perhaps affected him more, a brave and virtuous nobility, guided by his advice, and animated by the example of Marquis de Fénélon and of the intrepid Marshal Fabert, renouncing all duelling by an oath taken with much solemnity in the seminary of Saint-Sulpice. Dui these moments of joy passed quicker than the rays of the sun in winter. An item of favorable information was accompanied by twenty occurrences which could not hut afflict him. The pestilence which began to desolate Italy, and threatened more than other persons, priests as laborious as his were, made him tremble for them : and soon the reality of the evil succeeded to the alarm. It is true that God divided his victims; but if he was pleased to spare him whose loss would have been most sensibly felt by the holy man⁵, it must be acknowledged that his mercies cost him very dear. Of eight priests at Genoa, that is to say, of eight apostles whose labors had so often moved Cardinal Durazzo to tears, death removed seven in less than twenty days, and there remained only one who returned as soon as he got well to the service of the sick. In giving this information to his community, the saint afflicted them as much as he was afflicted himself. But as his love was greater still than his grief, he taught his companions rather to bless Him who is and will always be, than to regret those who were no more.

He blessed him himself by such assiduous labor, that it can­not be conceived how he bore it at such an advanced age. We have but a very small portion of the letters which he wrote in France, to Barbary, and to more distant countries: yet those we have are so numerous, that we are terrified at their multitude and the variety of matters upon which he was obliged to write. Here it is a bishop, an abbé of great rank, a director who consult him on delicate and important matters. There princesses who ask him either for missions for their territories, an aid which he never refused, or per­mission to visit the monasteries of which he was superior, a permission which he almost always withheld. At one time, it is the congregation of the Propaganda which conjures him to send some of his children to Grand Cairo; at another, it is Mr. de la Meilleraie, who, after some coolness asks them for foreign countries. One day, it is an afflicted mother who from the extremity of the kingdom where his charity had made her acquainted with him, begs him to interest himself for a son, who, being a captive in Algiers, is in danger of losing his life or his faith ; another day, it is a renegade, who addresses him from Algiers, to discover in his charity the means of repairing his apostasy. To-day, it is an abbess, who discouraged at the difficulties of governing, knows not what to do; to-morrow, it will be a young lady, who after some months of noviciate, is tempted to go hack. Often it is, the nuncios Bagrio and Piccolomini, who wish to have, by word or letter, his advice upon some difficult points which relate either to the particular advantage of some diocess, ofto the general good of the church more frequently it is some good religious who have recourse to him, as to a father always ready to aid them, either in the reformation of their orders, or in other affairs almost as difficult. In the morning, it will be the illustrious house de la Mothe Fénélon, to wham he predicts, to prevent opposition to a marriage, that it will give birth to a son⁶ who will be the glory of his name; in the evening, and there is no exaggeration in all this, it will be the head of a great company, coming to concert with him some of those judgments, which policy may disapprove, but which equity and religion will always acknowledge. Sometimes it is a missionary who needs being encouraged or brought back to his original fervor; at other times, virtuous priests who know neither relief nor repose, and whose zeal must be moderated in order that it may last longer.

As long as he lived, the house of Saint-Lazarus was always what the house of the Seeing was in the time of the judges of Israel. It was like an emporium, whither every person who had the intention of doing some good work flocked from Paris and the provinces, to derive from the coun­sels of the man of God the light of which they stood in need. Besides the conferences of his own house, of the ecclesiastics, and of the ladies of his assembly which amounted to five every week, he was often called to the deliberations of pre­lates, doctors, superiors of communities, either to put a stop to some disorder, or to establish good government. So that, ex­cepting the time which he gave every year to his spiritual retreat, he went out almost every day, sometimes even twice a day, for the affairs of charity, which tore him from his soli­tude. As soon as he returned to the house, after having reci­ted his office on his knees, a practice which he never omitted until his infirmities compelled him to do so, he listened with admirable patience to those within or from without who had business with him. If to his great and serious occupations we join those given him by the different houses of his con­gregation, those of the Sisters of Charity, and the ladies of the Visitation, who, until the day of his death, would never have any other superior, can we help acknowledging that his years were full, and that with him there were none of those vacant months condemned by the scripture.

That which always gave a great price to the labors of our saint, was the peace and confidence which accompanied them. At the time when death deprived him of so many virtuous priests, he always calculated that Providence would be pleased to replace them by others who would be worthy of them; and heaven did not disappoint his expectations. Italy furnished him an internal seminary, which under the direction of Mr. Joli was a nursery of apostolical men. That of Paris was always well filled. Vincent even received into it towards the close of his life some subjects, who although incapable of performing the functions of his company on account of their advanced age, proved the esteem which the great ones of the world had for it. The first was Charles d’Angennes, ancient count of la Rochepot, brother-in-law of Madame de Gondi, who had been formerly ambassador in Spain. This gentleman, who found in the simplicity of our saint a light which the most brilliant portion of the world does not possess, not being able to obtain of him bis reception as a boarder, placed himself amongst his children, and continued to edify them greatly to the time of his death. The second was René Almeras, the father of the second superior general of the con­gregation. This respectable old man, the head of an illustrious family, and eighty years of age, forced Vincent of Paul by his importunity to receive him into his congregation. His sacri­fice did not last long; and God granted him at the eod of twenty-two months the recompense which be has promised to those who become children through the love of him. The third was Louis de la Rochechouard, abbot of Tournus, so well known by the name of Mr. de Chandenier. As he only took the habit of the mission on the eve of his death, and as that death was for our saint one of those great trials by which God disposed him to sanctify his own, we shall speak of it more at length hereafter.

Vincent rendered himself worthy of so many graces, by the exact practice of that virtue which costs human nature the most. His house suffered, and he was forgetting its wants, to occupy himself with those of the daughters of Providence, whom the death of their pious foundress would soon have annihilated, if, by a letter in which he used the pious artifice found in that of St. Paul to Philemon, he had not interested in their favor the duchesses of Liancour and Aiguillon.

After all, this noble disinterestedness, this spirit of libe­rality, which so many lessons cannot teach to the rich of the world, was, as it were, the basis of the disposition of our holy priest. He was often accused of carrying it to an excess. Far from opposing, as some of his friends begged him to do, the establishment of some new companies, the rules of which were in some measure copied from his own, he offered to abandon the very name which the ecclesiastical and civil pow­ers had given to his congregation, because these companies wished to appropriate it to themselves, which might have been a source of confusion, disputes, and scandal. He was on the point of making, the following year, a sacrifice no less generous. It is well known that the mission of Madagascar had cost him a great deal, both in money and subjects. It is not less known, that he had not engaged in it of his own accord. The company carrying on the trade with that part of Africa, had urged him to it; Cardinal Bagny, who was then nuncio in France, had begged him to make that new effOrt for religion; the congregation of the Propaganda had autho­rised it; and he had just incurred new expenses for the only one of his priests who was left in that land. It was in these circumstances, that he found himself on the point of being dispossessed of that mission. Marshal de la Meilleraie, who had got himself substituted to the ancient company, thought that Vincent betrayed his interests ; and, as on occasions of rivalship, to have pleased one party is almost a reason for displeasing the other, the report was spread abroad that this gentleman, to exclude the priests of the mission, had made arrangements with the Capuchins, and that on the first voyage he would send twenty-four of them to the island of Saint Lawrence.

The holy priest was not without resources. He had credit at court: he was respected in Rome, which does not like to have his work overturned. He could at least re-. present his rights and titles to those whom they wished to send in the place of his priests, and who, as they were full of equity, would have been the first to acknowledge that those who had sowed, should reap the harvest. He did, however, nothing of all this. “If the marshal prefers these good religious,” said hé in a letter to one of his company, “I shall recall ours from Madagascar. Our maxim is always to give place to others, believing that they will do better than we.” It must be acknowledged that this philosophy, if it ever could be in vogue, would spare the public and the church many scandalous scenes.

Vincent was not obliged to make the sacrifice which he meditated, and which would have exempted him from many others much more severe. La Meilleraie, either having got rid of his prejudices, or being persuaded that his proceeding would do him no honor, informed Vincent of the day of embarca­tion. The saint sent him four of his priests, upon whose virtue and zeal he greatly calculated. But the vessel expe­rienced, the day after sailing, such a violent storm, that they were all, during eight days, on the verge of destruction. At last, having refitted at Lisbon, they again set sail: but soon afterwards they were attacked and captured by the Spaniards; and it was only after a sort of captivity that the missionaries were released in Galicia, and succeeded io returning to France.

Whilst the servant of God formed such unsuccessful pro­jects for the salvation of Madagascar, he made for the sancti­fication of the people of Metz preparations which had a hap­pier result. The court being in that city in 16,57, Ann of Austria saw with grief that God was not well served there, and that there were abuses which required reformation. On her return to Paris she told our saint, that having wit­nessed the good results of the missions, she intended to have one made at Metz. Vincent, instead of his priests, whom the laws of his institute did not allow him to employ for missions in large towns, when others could be found, chose out of the great number of those who formed his conference, forty eccle­siastics of merit and good will. He placed at their head the Abbé de Tournus, a man whose name and virtues were of a happy presage. But a general and awful inundation gave to the pious band and to him who sent them, the most serious uneasiness. Twenty days elapsed without his receiving any news of them. At length he learned that they had reached their destination. He blessed God for it with the persuasion that his mercy having been pleased to preserve them, they would labor efficaciously for his glory. He was not deceived. The mission of Metz succeeded perfectly, and the queen, to whom the Abbé de Tournus gave an account of the labors and success of the mission, was so much edified that she resolved to establish the priests of St. Vincent in that city, that they might do at least in the country, what they could not do else­where, except in case of necessity.

The servant of God, during the inundation of which we have just spoken, rendered for the third time to the village of Genevitliers a service similar to that which we have descrihed more at large. He had some time before relieved the neces­sities of the inhabitants of Boulogne in Picardy. Shortly afterwards, he sent a band of Sisters of Charity to the aid of five or six hundred soldiers, who had been transported to Calais, after the famous battle of the Dunes : but were we to detail all the good he did or caused to be done, we should never finish.

There is, however, one good work, which he did this same year, which essentially belongs to his history. I mean the rules which he at length gave to his congregation. It had been established more than thirty years, and as yet had no writ­ten rules. It is true that his companions had heretofore found in him a perfect model : but this model could not last much longer; and it was proper to prevent, by clear and precise regulations, the very shadow of the doubts to which the restlessness of the human mind might thereafter give birth. Vincent, notwithstanding his great occupations, thought of it daily, and he thought of it solidly. Although three or four hours’ reading would be sufficient to peruse entirely the constitutions he gave to his company, there are discovered in them maxims so wise, means so well proportioned to the end, such sure ways of arriving at Christian and sacerdotal per­fection, such efficacious remedies against the corruption of the world, such prudent counsels for the sanctification of the people, that a great bishop to whom our saint made a present of them, carried them always about him, as the most beauti­ful abridgment that could be made of the Gospel.

The principle with which he sets out is, that the little con­gregation of the mission purposes, as much as is in its power, to take Jesus Christ for a model: he concludes from this, that after the example of that divine Saviour, its members must do and teach ; labor first for their own sanctification ; then announce the gospel to the poor, and above all to those of the country; at last, aid the ministers of the Son of God in acquir­ing the science and virtues proper to their state.

To attain this threefold end, the wise founder requires that his children should be attached to our Lord’s maxims, to his pover­ty, his obedience, his charity for the infirm, his modesty, his manner of living, acting, treating the neighbors, his conduct in the functions which he fulfilled with regard to the people. He desires above all that simplicity, humility, mildness, mor­tification, zeal for the salvation of souls, should be, as it were, the seal of his congregation, and that each of their actions should bear its impress. To these virtues he joins those of which the Son of God made use to combat the devil and overthrow his empire, that poverty which did not afford him a place of rest, that perfect purity which even envy never attacked, that obedience which led him to die, and to die upon the cross.

Vincent resumes these three last virtues, and treats of them at some length. Although those of his congregation, forming only a secular body, cannot be deprived of their right to their property, he directs them to live as if they possessed none. In their furniture there must be nothing curious, nothing superfluous.

With regard to chastity, a virtue so much the more neces­sary to the priests of the mission, as they are exposed, by their calling to many dangerous occasions, he enjoins the most severe precautions. It is not sufficient for him that they should possess that virtue in a certain degree above me­diocrity, he requires that they should be out of the reach of the slightest suspicion, being persuaded that a suspicion alone, however unjust, would do more injury to the congregation, than the idea of any other crime with which calumny could charge it.

As to obedience, the saint gives it a more extended object. The pope, the bishops, the superiors of the company, must rely upon a ready, holy, reasonable docility. If there he rea­sons for thinking differently from those who govern, they are to be exposed with simplicity, and the remonstrants are not to think hard, when their obervations are not acquiesced in.

A man so full of charity has not omitted the sick. Ser­vants, strangers, and above all the poor in the missions, must be visited, consoled, eddied, relieved, both for soul and body. If the infirmarian has his rules, there are some also for the sick. The bed of pain upon which they lie, is a pulpit from which they must preach at least by example, patience, and entire submission to those who are appointed to take care of them. These must use every endeavor to give proofs of a prompt and ardent charity.

Although in all this there is nothing which the holy canons do not prescribe to ecclesiastics who do not live in commu­nity, the servant of God was too well acquainted with human weakness, to hope that, without a special grace, a road of itself painful to nature could be long persevered in. To obtain this precious grace, Vincent prescribes a number of pious exercises calculated to obtain that spirit which gives and preserves life. His children must make every day in common an hour of mental prayer, confess at least once a week; the priests must celebrate every day, if nothing prevents them; those who do not, must receive communion on Sundays and festivals; all must read a chapter of the New Testat tent, and make a spiritual lecture; give every year eight days to a spiritual retreat; have a spiritual director; adore by frequent acts of faith the unspeakable mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation; honor with particular veneration the august sacra­ment of our altars; have a tender devotion to the queen of virgins.

The saint concludes by proposing to his brethren sure means of, sanctifying the functions of their state of life. He desires that, at the beginning of each action, and above all, those which are most important, they should propose to themselves nothing but to please God alone; that they should stifle even the first risings of a desire to satisfy themselves or please men ; that when they have been any ways successful, they should renounce that vain complacency which affords aliment to self-love; that when unsuccessful, they should humble them­selves without being discouraged. After any public action, he equally disapproves of praise which flatters pride, and in­discreet censure which discourages uselessly. Simplicity, the first of the five virtues which constitute the spirit of the congre­gation, must shine particularly in the discourses addressed to the people, and even to the ecclesiastics. They must be free from those soft and studied expressions, those far-fetched thoughts, those vain subtilities which the Saviour never em­ployed, and which his first disciples held in horror. The holy founder insists on what is true and solid throughout. He wishes -neither mere opinions, nor singular ways, nor vain curiosity ; still less the ambition to excel others. Each of his company should wish with Moses that all were prophets, become participant in the good done by other companies, by the joy which he ought to feel at their success, rejoice at being despised, whilst they are loaded with praise. If, with all this, a missionary should be more tenderly attached to his own state than to any other, it is because a good son loves.his mother, although covered with rags, more than the most beautiful princess in the universe.

Such is an abridgment of the constitutions or rules of the institutor of the mission. Although written with simplicity, they hale in the original a character of light and unction, of which a summary is incapable. Vincent of Paul, before dis­tributing them, represented to his companions, that, although the congregation had been established nearly thirty-three years, there had as yet been no written rules, because precipitation in this matter would have been subject to many serious incon­veniences; that it had been proper to try by long experience what would suit and what would not; that if God had been pleased to make use of the company to effect some good in the church, it was only because they had preserved the order and customs prescribed in the constitutions which he now placed in their hands. “What then remains for me to do ?” continued he, ” but to imitate Moses, who, after having given the law of God to the people, promised every kind of bles­sings to those who would observe it. Give yours, O Lord, to this little book; accompany it with the unction of your spirit, that it may operate in the souls of those who read it, estrange­ment from the world, the practice of virtue, and union with you.”

Vincent pronounced this discourse in a moderate tone of voice, but with so much meekness and humility, that the feel­ings of his heart were communicated to the hearts of those who listened to him. The assistant of the house having cast himself at his feet, to beg him to bless the company once more, the saint exclaimed with redoubled affection and ten­derness; ” O Lord! who art the eternal and immaculate law, who dost govern the whole universe by thy infinite Idisdom; thou, from whom all laws and regulations for living well emanate as from their source, be pleased to bless those to whom thou hast given these rules. Give them, O Lord, the grace necessary to observe them inviolably until death. It is with that confidence, and in your name that, miserable sinner that I am, I am going to pronounce the words of benediction.”

Thus ended this day, which the man of God must have Considered one of the most beautiful of bis life. Whatever desire he had to die, to be with Jesus Christ, he had always feared being taken away before his congregation had a form of government which could be no more changed. If his fre­quent infirmities made him run the risk of leaving his work incomplete, it was that he had for a constant maxim to ad­vance towards what was better, when not absolutely obliged to be satisfied with what was good.

In consequence of having seen in the life of our saint, sufferings following so close upon consolations, we are almost ready to expect that the joy which he experienced at seeing his institute cemented as well as it could be, would be soon mingled with bitterness. It was, in fact, a short time after, troubled by one of the most unfortunate affairs of his life. The fact will not detain us long; but here as elsewhere, the sentiments of Vincent of Paul deserve all our attention.

We have said more than once, that he had great regard for the former prior of St. Lazarus. The latter took advan­tage of it, to engage him in an affair to which he had a great repugnance. A proposition had been made to him for two years of a life annuity; but the annuity was so great, and the times so bad, that Vincent would not listen to it. Mr. Le Bon, at the solicitation of the interested parties, caused him to change his mind ; and the saint signed the contract, after hav­ing consulted persons of experience who assured him he had nothing to fear. Never did property cost him dearer; he paid, punctually the rent stipulated in the agreement; and caused considerable improvements to be made on the property which he had acquired. He saw it more than once reaped by the Fronde, just as he was on the point of gathering the fruits; and to complete his misfortune, after the death of the one who sold it, he was deprived of it by a judgment.

It is seldom we meet with a man, who, when a stroke of the pen deprives him of fifty thousand livres in his most pressing necessity, remains as calm as if he had obtained them. It is still more rare for him to continue to possess himself, when on one hand he has every thing to fear from the adverse party, and on the other he finds a division of sen­timent with regard to the judgment given against him. But that which is but seldom met with amongst the rest of men, was abundantly found in our holy priest. On the first news which he received of the loss of his suit, he begged Mr. de Bordes,’auditor of the chamber of accounts, a man who had always loved the congregation, to unite with it in thanking God for the favor he had just done it, in visiting it by so sen­sible a trial. He inspired with the same feelings many of his friends who conjured him to right himself by a civil petition, and one of whom, though in other respects not prodigal, would take upon himself the expenses of the new proceeding. Above all he tried to inspire his children with the spirit of submission with which he was filled. ” It is you, O my God,” said he in one of his conferences, where his sim­plicity aided by his unction gained every heart; “it is you who have pronounced the sentence; it shall be irrevocable; and that the execution of it may not be deferred, we now make a sacrifice of this_property, and of all that we possess to your divine majesty. O my brethren!” continued he, “if it pleased God that this temporal loss should be recompensed by an increase of confidence in his providence, abandonment to his guidance, detachment from the things of earth, renun­ciation of ourselves, how happy should we be! I presume to hope that his paternal goodness will grant us this favor.”

The loss of a considerable revenue afflicted the holy mis­sionaries less than their fear of losing their holy institutor. He had now passed that term, when, according to the expres­sion of the royal prophet, life is naught but pain and infirmity. To a swelling of the legs, of which he had an attack at a less advanced age, were added ulcers, which, followed by a slow fever, excited fears for him. It appears that he’ was one of the first to condemn himself. At least he took the precau­tions of a man who calculates no longer upon life. His first care was to write to the Rev. Father de Gondi and to the Cardinal de Retz, his son. He gives them the most humble thanks for all that he had received from them. He asks par­don for the pains which a man so rude as he pretends to to be, could not fail to give them. He assures the father and son that if God, in his infinite mercy, is pleased to give him a place in his kingdom, he will redouble his prayers for them and for their illustrious family. The cardinal in his time experienced the efficacy of his prayers. After having a long time wandered through the neighboring kingdoms, where the hand of God and that of the king pursued him, he was at length so alarmed at the irregularity of his former conduct, that he would have renounced the Roman purple, had not the pope and the sacred college been opposed to it. He sold his land of Commerci to liquidate a part of his debts, and paid three millions of them. As penitent as a solitary, he wished to be treated in the refectory of Saint•Mihiel as a simple religious. A general acknowledgment of his faults, which he confided to the breast of an enlightened director, was one of the first steps which he took to return to God; and that step was followed by a great many others which cannot be suspected. Happy was he to have been able towards the end of his life to remember the important lessons which Vincent of Paul had given him during his infancy, and to acknow­ledge at last that the frivolous phantom of glory, after which he had so long run, was nothing but vanity before God, and af­fliction of spirit before men. The same happened, but much sooner, with the celebrated Armand Jean le Boùthilier de Rancé, who, in the retreat which he made at St. Lazarus under the direction of the servant of God, conceived an idea of privation and perfection which astonished his age, and which future ages, if Christian, will never be tired of admiring. But let us return to our history.

The holy priest did not recover perfect health ; we shall see that the rest of his life was but a train of sufferings ; but God gave him sufficient strength to do many things which should not be forgotten.

He had for a year procured a considerable sum for a Capu­chin Father, who had come from mount Libanus to Paris, to seek a remedy for the vexation which the Maronite Christians experienced from the Turks.

This affair, which was a long time and maturely dis­cussed, was not yet finished when another, no less important, arose. The waters of Sainte-Reine, and the frequent miracles which God works at the tomb of that illustrious martyr, drew thither from Burgundy and many other provinces, a great number of poor, who came to seek the cure of their dis­orders. Vincent learned from a pious citizen, named Des Noyers, that these unfortunate people, reduced to the neces­sity of sleeping in a barn, or upon the pavements of the streets. died deprived almost as much of spiritual as of corporal aid. He saw very well that a large hospital would be a great resource, but he saw at the same time that this project,” uselessly formed by the Baron de Renty at a less unpropitious time, would be•very difficult of execution in a time of war and storms. However, after having spoken much concern­ing it with God, who was always his first oracle, he con­firmed Des Noyers in the plan he had formed of undertaking it. But he warned him to be patient, because he would have violent assaults to sustain, even from those who would sup­port him. The event justified the prediction. Envy and false policy crossed the work of God. But, by means of a hundred thousand livres which Vincent procured, it was hap­pily terminated; and the following year the pilgrims began to lodge in it. More than twenty thousand pass there yearly; and those who, by entering into the Piscina, thought only of recovering transient health, have more than once recovered that which is infinitely more precious. It is upon this ground that, when Gabriel de Roquette, bishop of Autun, wrote to Clement XI for the beatification of the servant of God, he assured that pontiff, that Vincent of Paul had rendered two important services to his diocess, one by using the.credit which he had in the ecclesiastical council to establish reform in the celebrated abbey of Benedictines at Autun, the other in pro­curing for the pilgrims of Sainte-Reine an hospital, for the want of which a great number had perished every year.

As the holy priest saw that his death could no longer be very distant, one of his cares was to inspire those who could protect religion and the poor, with the feelings which God had given him on these two great objects. It was with this view, that he wrote to the queen of Poland to felicitate her on the services she had herself rendered to the sick in the hos­pitals, and that, to prolong the life of Cardinal Durazzo and of the bishop of Toulon, who were wearing themselves out by immoderate labors, he begged them to spare their health for the good of religion, which calculated upon finding in them what she had just lost in the holy bishop of Cahors⁷.

Finally, it was for this reason that, to promote in the person of St. Francis of Sales the honor of one of the most beauti­ful models that the priesthood ever had, he wrote in favor of his beatification a letter in which each word is an eulogy, and each eulogy an homage to the truth.

Hitherto he had lived in such a manner as to deserve, that the same eulogy should be one day given to him that had just been given to his former friend. God, who wished to add to his crown that of the most heroic patience, was pleased to make of Vincent of Paul, during the last years of his pilgrimage, a victim to pains and afflictions. To arrest the course of a fever which returned very often, he was obliged, during the greatest heat of summer, to make of his chamber a kind of sweating room. Then there was no rest for him, no sleep, no truce to the agi­tation produced by almost stifling heat. His mattress, his sheets, his quilt were all soaked. The day which succeeded such had nights did not indemnify him; he did not repair by any voluntary repose that which he had lost. At last, the af­fliction in his legs became so great, that to bear it required all the patience of the saints. Ulcers were formed in them; during the day a stream of watery matter flowed from them, which, stopping in the joints daring the night, caused him redoubled pains, the continuance and violence of which con­sumed him by degrees. In so painful a situation, which, however, did not prevent him for a considerable time from rising at four o’clock in the morning, making his meditation with his community, nor from presiding at the ecclesiastical conferences which were held every Tuesday; nor sometimes from the meetings of the ladies of his assembly, who preferred to go from one end of Paris to the other, rather than be de­prived of the consolation of hearing him; in this situation, I say, the holy man had no need of new trials. But because he was just, it was necessary for him to be filled with tribula­tions. In less than four months death carried off from him four persons who were the support and consolation of his old age.

Antoine Portail, a priest of real merit, profound humility, exemplary charity, and who, united with our saint for nearly fifty years, aided him on numberless occasions, was the first of whom God required the sacrifice. His death was followed, one month after, by that of Madame Le Gras. She had always feared lest she could not he assisted by her pious director in her last moments; and so it happened, for when she was attacked by her last sickness, Vincent was no longer able to be up. But one of the severest crosses which our saint had to bear in the course of his last year, was the loss of the Abbé de Tournus. This worthy nephew of Cardinal de la Rochefoueault had such a tender affection for the man of God, he had rendered such important services to the con­gregation, that they could not refuse him a small apartment in the house of St. Lazarus. He lived there with Abbé de Moutier-Saint-Jean, his brother, in the practice of the most austere virtue. For a long time he had conjured Vincent of Paul to receive him into the number of his children ; hut his birth and reputation, titles which elsewhere would have facilitated his object, constituted an almost invincible obstacle to his desires. It was only at the last extremity that his per­severance forced the barriers which virtue opposed even to virtue. Having fallen sick at_ Chambery, he received the habit of the congregation from a missionary who had accom­panied him to Rome. This little change of condition filled. him with a holy joy, and he praised God for it to his last breath. • Vincent rendered; and caused to be rendered to the illustrious deceased all the duties prescribed by piety and grati­tude. He recommended him to the prayers of all his houses, as a benefactor and a missionary. His body was brought from Savoy to the church of St. Lazarus. The example of his virtues still lives, and his memory will always be in bene­diction there.

So many severe, and closely succeeding blows, did not sat­isfy the justice of Him whose penetrating eye discovers what is weak in the most beautiful works. Our saint found him­self in danger of again losing the first man of his congrega­tion, René Almeras, son of that good old man, who, as we have said, became a missionary and died a seminarist. God at last restored him to his prayers; and after a long and se­rious illness by which he was attacked at Richelieu, he had him brought to Paris in a litter. It was time for him to arrive; three days afterwards Vincent died.

The state in which we left this worthy priest, before enter­ing upon the recital of the crosses which he experienced in his last year, showed evidently enough that the end of his course was drawing near. Although on the score of his mind and natural qualities, no decay nor alteration was per­ceptible; although those from without and within found him at all hours of the day with a serene countenance, with that tone of voice, those manners,.^–replete with mildness, which evince perfect tranquillity; although by a sort of prodigy, of which, taking his situation in view, there are few exam­ples, he still governed from his retirement his company, that of the Sisters of Charity, and a great number of communities of which he was the superior, with as much presence^–of mind as if he had been in the days of his best health; yet it was evident that he could not last long. The information reached Italy, and whilst Alexander VII, to spare a person so dear to the church, dispensed him by an apustolical brief from the recitation of the breviary, Cardinals Durazzo, archbishop of Genoa, Ludovizio, the grand penitentiary, and Bagni, formerly nuntio in France, wrote him separately to beg him to moderate his labors. These letters, and the favor of the pope, arrived only after his death. It was discovered by chance that, for eighteen years he had prepared himself daily to render his account to the Great Judge, in case he should be pleased to call him. To dispose himself more immediately for it in his last sickness, he recited every day after mass the prayers for those in their agony, and he at length found him­self on the eve of reaping the fruits of them. On the 25th of September, 1660, towards midday, the drowsiness caused by a want of sleep, became heavier than usual. Notwith­standing this, he heard mass the following day, which was a Sunday, and received the communion as he had done every day, since be was unable to celebrate. As soon as he was in his chamber, his drowsiness returned. He was awakened several times. Always like himself, the virtuous sick man answered with a smiling and affable countenance. But his tongue soon refused its office to the tender emotions of his heart; after a few words it was silent. At these alarming progoostics, the physician recommended extreme unction.

Then it was that his children knew without any doubt, that they were on the point of losing the best of fathers. They hastened to profit by his last moments; one of them begged his blessing for all the rest. The holy man made an effort to raise his head; he cast upon the missionary a look full of kindness and tenderness, and having commenced aloud the words of benediction, finished them in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible.

He passed the night in a sweet and almost continual appli­cation to God. When he dozed more than they would have wished, it was sufficient, to awaken him, to mention the name of his Divine Master. He appeared to be particularly fond of those words so suitable to the condition of a dying man : “In­cline unto my aid, O God!” and he immediately answered by those which follow: O Lord! make haste to help me.”

About a quarter after four in the morning, an ecclesiastic of the Tuesday conference, who was then making his annual retreat in the house, having learned that the sight of the saint was failing, entered his room and begged him to bless his bre­thren for the last time, that the company might not degenerate. Vincent contented himself by answering with his usual hu­mility : “Qui ccepit opus bong, ipse perficiet.” Shortly af­terwards, he expired like a lamp which has no more oil; and without fever, without effort, without the least convulsion he gave up to God one of the most beautiful souls that ever ex­isted. It was at the hour when his spiritual children com­menced their meditation; that is to say, at the very moment on which during forty years he had invoked the Holy Spirit upon himself and his companions. His countenance did not change, and his body remained as pliable as it had been before. The surgeons who opened him, reasoned a great deal upon a bone which had been formed in his spleen, and which did not a little resemble an ivory counter. Many persons who had studied the servant of God closely, attributed this unusual production to the violence which he did himself, to combat a severe and melancholy disposition which he na­turally possessed.

He remained exposed on Tuesday, the 28th of September, 1660, until midday. His obsequies were honored by the pre­sence of the Prince of Conti, the archbishop of Cesarea, nun­tio of the pope, many prelates and a great number of ecclesi­astics, regulars, and seculars, of different orders. The duchess of Aiguillon, who was of his assembly, was there also, and with her many gentlemen and ladies of distinguished birth. The people and the poor, for whom he had done so much, ran thither in crowds. His heart was enclosed in a silver vase, and his body was interred in the middle of the choir, with this epitaph, which corresponds with the simplicity of the father and the children.

Hic facet venerabilis vir Vincentius
A Paulo, Presbyter, Fundator, seu Institutor,
Et primus Superior Generalis Congregationis
Missionis, necnon Puellarum Charitatis.
Obiit die 27 Septembris anni 1660, aetatis
Vero suae 85.

The death of this great man afflicted the most virtuous people of the whole kingdom. Never perhaps, from the throne to the poorest of the nation, were the suffrages so unanimous. The queen-mother exclaimed that the church and the poor had met with a great loss. Mr. Picolomini, nuntio in France, made use of the same expressions, and they were thoseovhich arose most naturally in the public mind. The queen of Poland, the marquis of Pianeza, the illustrious first president, Mr. Lamoignon, the bishops of Pamiers and Aleth, and numberless others, spoke in the same manner. The prince of Conti, whose judgment was very correct, pro­nounced this beautiful eulogium of the deceased : “I have never known a person in whom there appeared so great humility, so great a detachment, such generosity of heart as in Mr. Vincent. The church has lost in him a man filled with every virtue, and above all, a charity Ivhich reached every where.” Even those who did not like him, spoke like the rest; and a writer, who, under pretext of pronouncing his eulogy, endeavors to diminish his glory, does not hesitate to acknowledge that ” the piety of this virtuous priest was extraor­dinary ;” that “kindness, simplicity, uprightness, charity, and other virtues, are gifts which every one knows he possessed.” He looks upon him, and we also look upon him, as a man whose public reputation is so well established, that it will be sufficient, in the course of ages, ” to destroy every thing that envy or calumny may advance against him.”

Although all were persuaded that this worthy priest of Jesus^–Christ had, on leaving this world, found a place of peace and refreshment, yet as the first of the apost’es teaches us that even the just are saved with difficulty, the victim of pro­pitiation fur the sins of the world, was offered for him in every direction. A multitude of priests, secular and religious, of communities, even of cathedrals, paid him this duty of charity and gratitude. The celebrated metropolis of Rheims, which was indebted to him for the numberless benefits conferred upon Champagne, was among the first to show him this mark of gratitude. But the ecclesiastics of his conference distinguished themselves in this point, as well as in others. They performed in the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, a solemn funeral service. Henry de Maupas du Tour, who was then bishop of Puy, and afterwards of Evreux, delivered the funeral oration. His auditory was composed of a great number of prelates, ecclesiastics, religious, and an incredible number of people. The orator, who had known the saint perfectly, spoke of him with so much zeal, piety, and feeling, that he edified, and was admired. His discourse lasted more than two hdurs, yet he did not finish it. Indeed he acknow­ledged that the matter was so abundant, that it would have been sufficient fbr a whole lent. This expression was strik­ing; but it will appear just to those who, after having fol­lowed the great actions of the holy priest, will follow us in the detail of his virtues, of which we shall speak, after having sketched his portrait according to custom.

Vincent of Paul was of a middling size, but well propor tioned. He had a large head, somewhat bald; a broad fore­head; eyes full of fire, but of a fire tempered by mildness; a grave and modest carriage ; and an air of affability for which he was less indebted to nature than virtue. That simplicity which announces calm and uprightness of heart, reigned in his manners and countenance. He was of a bilious and san­guine habit; but his constitution was strong. His sojourn at Tunis had affected it, and after his return to France, he was always very sensible of the changes in the air, and con­sequently very subject to attacks of fever.

He possessed a comprehensive mind; he was circumspect and fit for great things, and was with difficulty taken by surprise. When an affair was confided to him, he applied himself seriously to it, discovered all the circumstances, pene­trated all its relations, and foresaw all the inconveniences and consequences of it. When he could avoid giving his opinion at once, he delayed it until he could weigh the reasons for and against. Before giving a final decision, he consulted God in prayer, and conferred with those whose pru­dence and experience enabled them to enlighten him. This character, absolutely at variance with precipitation, prevented his ever taking a false step, and did not hinder him from doing “more good than twenty other saints have done;” these are the expressions of a very respectable person, Mlle. de Lamoignon. His history, in which however we have suppressed so many things, is an incontestable proof of it.

If he did not hurry matters, he was not alarmed by their number, nor by the difficulties he met with. He perse­vered with a strength of mind superior to every obstacle. He bore the burthen and delays with a tranquillity, of which only great souls are capable. When in an assembly any im­portant matter was treated, he listened with great attention to those who spoke, without ever interrupting any person. _ If any one interrupted him, he stopped short; and as soon as the person had ceased, he resumed the thread of his discourse peaceably, and with an admirable presence of mind. His reasoning was just, nervous, always very precise; he ex­pressed himself in good language, and with a certain natural eloquence, not only calculated to develop his thoughts, but also to move, persuade, and entice, particularly when he endeavored to incline others to virtue. When he spoke first, he laid down the question in a manner so profound, and at the same time with such order and clearness, that it astonished the most expert. Deeply skilled in the great art of making himself all to all, and accommodating himself to every mind, he lisped with the child, and spoke the language of the most sublime reason to the perfect. “In discussions of little im­portance, the common man would think himself upon a level with him; in the management of the greatest affairs, the proudest geniuses never found him below them.” This is the testimony of Chrétien François de Lamoignon, president of the parliament of Paris, and what a testimony from a ma­gistrate so capable of appreciating merit!

Vincent was an enemy to all duplicity, he spoke as he thought; but in his sincerity, there never was any thing impru­dent. He knew how to be silent, when silence was proper, or, what was the same thing with him, when it was useless to speak. Above all, he was extremely attentive that nothing should escape him that savored of anger, or showed too little es­teem, respect, or charity even for the vilest and most ahject man.

In general his character was at variance with singularity. One of his principles was, that when things are well, we ought not to change them, under pretence of making them better. He mistrusted every new proposition, whether in speculation or practice. He said : ” that the human mind was quick and active; that the most active and enlightened minds are not the best, if they are not the most discreet; and that we walk in security, when we do not go aside from the road in which the bulk of the wise have travelled.” These few words are worth a book.

One of his most beautiful gifts was that of the discern­ment of characters. He seized with so much penetration the good and bad qualities of those of whom he was obliged to render an account, that Mr. le Tellier, the chancellor of France, never spoke of him but with admiration, and as the best head in the council of the king.

The qualities of his mind seemed to yield to those of his heart. That heart was noble bncl generous, liberal, tender, compassionate, firm in sudden events, intrepid wl:en duty was in question, always on its guard against the seductions of favor, always open to the voice of indigence, which never experienced from him that first coolness which disconcerts it, and which, at every moment of the day, found him as acces­sible, as if he had lived for it alone.

It was this kindness of heart that bound him so perfectly to those who professed to love virtue. Yet he had so abso­lute an empire over his inclinations, that it could scarcely be perceived. Being a good father, still wise and orderly in his tenderness, each of his children was satisfied with the place he thought he possessed in his heart; and in his family, although numerous, there was no Joseph, who furnished cause of jea­lousy to his brethren.

Finally, although it cannot be said that he was without fault, since, by their own acknowledgment, even the apostles were not free from it, we may say that there scarcely ever were seen men engaged as he was in all sorts of affairs, obliged to deal with an immense number of persons of all kinds and conditions, exposed incessantly to the most dangerous occa­sions of taking some false step, whose life has been not only more above suspicion, but more universally esteemed. It has been also remarked that the Son of God was always so present to his eyes, that he submitted to him all his actions and all his words.

It is true that he has been reproached with two things, one that he was too slow in making up his mind in business, the other that he said too much good of his neighbor, and too much evil of himself.

We will acknowledge without difficulty that he was a little singular in these two points, and particularly in the latter. But that singularity, in which he will have very few imita­tors, might give occasion to say of him, what a father of the Church, St. Jerome, said of St. Paul, that his faults would have been virtues in others.

As to the dilatoriness of which he was accused, it is evi­dent, and I have said it already, that he was an enemy to precipitation. But we must ‘only place this to the account of his virtue and the abundance of his knowledge. He dis­covered in affairs, and above all, in such as he had to manage, many windings which escape those who wish to be short with matters. Hence’he often said, that he saw nothing more common than the bad success of hurried affairs. Thus virtue had a great share in his slowness, or rather in the maturity of his deliberations. “He dreaded,” as he was used to say, “to encroach upon the designs of Providence. On the other hand he had such a low opinion of himself, that he thought he was only calculated to hinder good, or to mingle great imperfection with it, or diminish it. However, God has fully justified the conduct of his saint; and the true children of wisdom have made an apology for theirs, by agreeing that he commenced and finished in less than forty years, what a great number of others would not have completed, nor perhaps even attempted in whole centuries.

With regard to the manner in which he spoke of himself on every occasion, it is very certain that it is contrary to com­mon custom. True humility is very rare, and religion has scarcely an exercise which costs nature more. Vincent possessed it in so eminent a degree, that Cardinal de la $ochefoucault has often been heard to say, that if true humi­lity was to be sought upon earth, it must be found in that holy priest. In fact, although it is saying a great deal, we can assert that this faithful imitator of our humble God, never suffered an occasion of humiliation to escape him. He was so full of the idea of his wretchedness, that he saw in himself nothing but the impression of vice and corruption. This was his whole excess; for he was not one of those morose devo­tees, who are almost as much dissatisfied with others, as they are with themselves. He shut his eyes to the faults of his neighbor, particularly when he was not charged with his direction. He esteemed greatly the character of those good souls, who in the order of charity and prudence, think always advantageously of their brethren, and who cannot see virtue without loving those who profess it. This was his practice; but wisdom and discretion always ruled him. If he willingly rejoiced with others for the graces which God had bestowed on them, he was more reserved with regard to his own chil­dren. He loved them tenderly; but he rarely praised them in their presence, unless the glory of God and their own good obliged him to act otherwise. We relféat it then confidently: those to whom conduct so holy seems a kind of fault, must de­sire that these pretended faults may be multiplied, and honestly agree that they very much resemble the most sublime virtues.

To finish his portrait, it will be sufficient to add that Jesus Christ was his only model. He had him so deeply imprinted Upon his heart, that he showed it in his thoughts, in his con­versations, in all his actions. It was in him that he sought his morality and all his policy. He had contracted a pleasing habit of honoring him in all men, and all men in him. He considered him as head of the Church in the successors of St. Peter, as prince of pastors in the bishops, as the only teacher in the doctors, as judge of the judges of the earth in magistrates, as the son of a mechanic in those who live by their labor, as infirm in the sick, as agonising in the dying. In fine he was so filled with him, that those who have studied him most, have considered those beautiful words which escaped him once in a transport of love as his device : “Nothing pleases me but in Jesus Christ.”

But in him love was not confined to affection and feelings: he wished it to be effective, active, always ready to declare itself by works. He loved much, and he often repeated those words of a great servant of God : ” Totum opus nostrum in operations consistit.” He considered as nothing, or as trifling what is called ravishments and extacies when they are separated from works. With such principles, the office of Martha is united to that of Mary ; and it was this that our holy priest did with an activity which neither the greatest persecution, nor the frost of age could ever suspend. The history of his virtues upon which we are about to enter, will prove more and more that he did it with a degree of perfec­tion, which must place him upon-a level with the greatest saints; and that it was not without reason that a wit of the age said, “that we have only to read his life to he convinced that he was not too easily canonised.”

1. Jansenius, lib. 3, de Gr. chr. cap. 21.
2. See the large life of St. Vincent, vol. i, p. 532
3. These last deputies were Father Desmarés and Doctor Ma­nessier. They came to the aid of Mr. de la Lane. and Angran and de Saint-Amour.
4. Mary of Médicis began in 1612 a sort of General Hospital, but it only subsisted six years.
5. This was Mr. Edme Joly, of whom the saint had predicted to the duchess of Aigillon, that he would be one day superior general of the congregation.
6. Mr. de Fénélon, archbishop of Cambray. It was from a lady of his family that we learned this prediction.
7. M. Alain de Solminihac who died in odor of sanctity, on the 3rd of December, 1659.