WE have seen that the closing years did not bring outward peace into M. Vincent’s life ; the tragedy of the Madagascar Mission overshadowed him, and he was never free from anxiety regarding the j ansenist peril. But in many directions the seeds that he had sown sprung up, and there were signs of steady growth. In their differing tasks and widely separated dwelling-places the Mission Priests and the Sisters of Charity were testifying that it was by God’s prompting that their Founder had drawn them from the ways of ordinary life into the path of consecrated service. In Paris many dreams for the linking of rich and poor had been fulfilled, and S. Lazare itself had become a centre for work of a kind not attempted anywhere else. It is hard to summarize all the varied endeavour that the mere name of S. Lazare suggests. M. Vincent, referring to the gathering of retreatants, observed that the house resembled Noah’s Ark, because it sheltered specimens of every kind; yet it was not among the retreatants that its strangest inmates were to be found, nor was their claim the most searching that their hosts were required to meet.<\/p>\n
M. Le Bon had accepted the care of a few insane persons who were lodged within the precincts of S. Lazare, and it was part of his contract with Vincent de Paul that this responsibility should be continued. It had, in fact, a special attraction for the new Superior. As he told the Company, the service of the insane had this peculiar merit : that, besides being repugnant to natural inclination, it excited no admiration from onlookers nor gratitude from its recipients, and that therefore it was specially accept\u00adable to God. At a moment when their right to the great Augustinian Monastery was contested by another Order, he had tried to discover in the recesses of his own mind the chief reason for regret if their adversaries were success\u00adful, and he had found that there was nothing of all that they would lose so precious to them as this task of caring for those whom no one else would care for<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. In addition, by the choice of the Superior the Company undertook the charge of those whose moral capacity was lacking. Although it might be less hopeless, this was a more difficult enterprise than the tending of the insane. The black sheep of a respected family is not a welcome guest either in a private house or a public institution, and may be an endless source of misery so long as he is left at large. The idea of assuming a responsibility that was repudiated by everyone else appealed to M. Vincent. Mental defi\u00adciency was not more pitiable in his eyes than its moral counterpart, and he was indifferent to the damage that might result to S. Lazare if it was regarded as a place of detention for bad characters.<\/p>\n We have no statistics relating to this experiment of M. Vincent’s, and a good deal of mystery necessarily attached to it. Young men were confided to his care by their relations on an order from a magistrate, and he was authorized to detain them so long as he thought well. They were not sent to him unless they were thoroughly depraved, and it was his intention not to let them return to the world until they were really reformed. In the interval there was time for the patience of the Mission Priests to be tested on lines that differed from their ordinary experience. But there seems to be evidence that the culprits did really profit by the influence of S. Lazare, and though this imprisonment there lasted for long periods, they looked back on the scene of it with affection, and not with resentment. This labour appeared to the contemporaries of Vincent de Paul as another work of charity undertaken to relieve despairing parents of a difficulty with which they could not cope; but this was not the only aspect in which he himself regarded it. He desired that the Home of the Mission Priests should be a House of Prayer, that prayer as much as any of their special activities should be characteristic of them, and he argued that, if this desire was realized, the atmosphere of S. Lazare must have power to cure moral disease and restore the sufferer to his normal place among his fellows. In this, as in his generous welcome to retreatants, he did not always secure the agreement of the Company. Sometimes it was represented to him that one of these inmates was a hopeless case, and that it was both dangerous and a waste of labour to allow him to remain; and sometimes there would be remon\u00adstrance against the arduous burden as a whole, on the plea that there was nothing in the Rule that claimed the charge of lunatics and malefactors. On the one point M. Vincent replied that the culprit would be the cause of greater danger and distress outside S. Lazare than he was within, and that the difficulty of control proved how essential it was that he should be retained in safe keeping. The other point touched a principle, and for it he had a deeper answer.<\/p>\n ” As to our Rule,” he said, ” in regard to this our rule is Our Lord Himself. He chose to be surrounded by mad\u00admen and idiots, by the tempted, and by the possessed. They were brought to Him from all parts that they might be healed, and in His loving-kindness He healed them all How is it that we are criticized and blamed for trying to imitate Him in a thing that was His chosen work ? If He received the lunatic and the possessed, shall we not receive them also ? We do not go out to look for them, they are brought to us ; and how can we be sure that God, Who has so ordered it, does not intend to use us for the healing of these poor souls for whom Our Saviour had such great compassion that He seems to have desired to have part with them ? Ah ! my Saviour and my God, grant us grace that we may see in these things even as Thou Thyself didst see !”<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n There is an indication here of the strength that lay beneath all M. Vincent’s gentleness\u2014the strength that made him able to rule others even when he was most distrustful of himself. A little world of differing char\u00adacters and interests was contained within the walls of S. Lazare, and M. Vincent, who had been the visible agent for its formation, presided over it, and guarded it from evil up to the hour of his death. He had tried once to lay down his charge<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, and at an Assembly of the Company had resigned his office of Superior; but by a unanimous vote he was re-elected, and it was plain that any further effort at retirement would have been meaningless. There\u00adfore he ruled, and while he held the responsibility he required compliance with his directions from the Com\u00adpany. We have seen that he could be severe when the occasion demanded severity, and that he was able to disregard the opinion of others. He had shown this in his dealings with the Court and with the people, and had in the process of time earned the highest possible tribute of respect from every class. In long-ago days he had been independent of the opinion of M. de Gondi; he had dared to interfere with the prejudices of class on the question of duelling; he had ignored the possibility of his patron’s wrath when a spiritual prompting called him to Ch\u00e2tillon. There is little doubt that it was because he had touched the real strength of Vincent de Paul that M. de Gondi himself in due course renounced his rank and riches, and accepted a life of hardship and humility. The same capacity that gave M. Vincent power in the world served for the moulding of the Company; it was his aim to offer himself hourly to God, and to spread out every action and every decision when he knelt in those long hours of prayer that began the day, and afterwards to act on that which he had learnt with courage. This system involves the danger that ensnared the followers of Mme. Guyon, but M. Vincent guarded himself against it.<\/p>\n ” Among the crowd of thoughts and ideas that come,” he said, ” some appear to be good which in fact do not come from God and are not according to His Will. By what means can these be recognized ? Our only chance is to reflect very carefully, to refer everything to God in prayer, asking Him to give us light, and then to consider the motive, the end, and the means of that which we intend to do, to see if it is in conformity with His good pleasure. We should also ask advice of those who are wise and possess the knowledge of God. If we do this, we may be sure we are following His Will.”<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> ” If you ever want to know why you have failed in any under\u00adtaking, you will find it is because you relied upon your\u00adself. If a preacher or a Superior or a confessor trusts to his own wisdom and learning and capacity, you will see how God deals with him. He will leave him to himself, and, however much he works, there will be no real result until he sees his own uselessness and understands that all his experience and all his cleverness are nothing unless God is working with him.”<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n It was this particular species of humility which made M. Vincent confident in enforcing the decisions that nominally were his. In his old age he attained to a position of sell-distrust that seems to have required neither consideration nor effort, and he insists on the im\u00admolation of conceit in his Sons as the essential prepara\u00adtion for faithful living. ” I give thanks to God,” he wrote to one of them<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, “because He has shown you how to tear yourself to pieces\u2014that is to say, the means of becoming really humble by realizing and acknowledging your faults. You are right to regard yourself as you do, and to consider yourself quite unfit for any sort of office. That is the foundation on which Jesus Christ can build up His purpose for you. At the same time, while you consider your own inward state, you should lift up your soul towards realization of His supreme goodness. There is great reason that you should distrust yourself, but there is much greater reason that you should have entire trust in Him. It is well that you should devote more thought to His love than to your own unworthiness, to His strength than to your weakness.”<\/p>\n As a basis of prayer the direction had its value, and, indeed, M. Vincent would have desired all his spiritual direction to his Sons to rank merely as suggestion for their prayer. As we have seen in his exhortation on the subject of early rising, he regarded this as the chief duty of their day. He knew very well, however, that time nominally given to prayer may be time wasted, and that the fact of routine and obligation would tend to check the possibilities of fervour in some natures. For this reason, and also because he desired to increase his own intimacy with the members of the Company, he instituted certain meetings\u2014two in every week\u2014where the subjects and the fruits of prayer might be discussed; and it was his custom to question three or four of those present on their own recent experiences during their time of meditation. In hands less dexterous than his these meetings might have been productive of harm\u2014the devout would have been tempted to pose and the wilful to invent; but M. Vincent had deep knowledge of human frailty, and he watched over the conference with the utmost care.<\/p>\n In any detailed biography of a pious individual of that period (and of these many have been written) there will be found some reference to a nun or a recluse with the reputation of being specially illuminated in the ways of prayer. These were the product of an epoch of extremes, and were probably genuine in their profession of sanctity. But M. Vincent did not encourage a tendency to eccen\u00adtricity in this direction; he acknowledged that special gifts were bestowed upon a few, but he thought that they were claimed by many who had not received them. It was better, he once observed<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, to be incapable of any\u00adthing but the simplest form of prayer and to be diligent in the correction of one’s faults, than to go into spiritual ecstasies and to speak evil of one’s neighbour. His system of discussion, while it served to awake the stagnant soul to effort, was also a defence against spiritual vagaries. Simplicity was as needful in prayer as it was in action, and on this subject he opened his mind to his Sons of S. Lazare when the period of his visible presence with them was drawing near its end.<\/p>\n ” If you are seeking fine ideas in your prayer,” he said, ” and amusing yourself with complicated thoughts\u2014. particularly when you do this with the intention of ad\u00advertising yourself when you are giving an account of your prayer\u2014you are guilty of a sort of blasphemy. In fact, you are making an idol of yourself, for in your intercourse with God your object is to foster self-complacency; you are using time that should be sacred for your own satis\u00adfaction. In flattering yourself that you have beautiful sentiments you are offering a sacrifice to the idol of your own vanity.<\/p>\n ” Ah ! my Brothers, let us be clear of such follies as these. Let us realize that we are full of all that is evil, and let us seek only that which may teach us to be more humble, and to do the thing that is right. In prayer let self become nothing, and when we speak of our prayer let us relate our thoughts humbly; and if there are any that seem to us to be fine, let us be distrustful of them and afraid, lest they were suggested by vainglory or by the Devil himself. And because there is always this possibility, directly we think we have a fine inspiration, we must humble ourselves utterly, whether it comes to us in prayer, or when we are preaching, or when we are talking to others.<\/p>\n ” And then, when our prayer has brought us to the making of resolutions, we must implore the Grace of God, and be free of the least suggestion of trust in ourselves. And when in spite of this we fail, not once or twice only, but repeatedly during long spaces of time, and even when we have never brought one to any real fulfilment, we must none the less renew them, and throw ourselves on God’s mercy, that we may have His Grace to help us. It is well that past sins should humble us, but they must not rob us of our courage; and however deep the sin into which we fall, it is not a reason for abating the confidence that God requires we should place in. Him. We must always resolve afresh, and trust to His Grace to save us from another fall. We do not find that doctors cease to treat the ills of the body because at first their remedies appear to do no good; and if they persevere with physical maladies, although there are no signs of improvement, how much more must be we patient with our spiritual diseases, for which the Grace of God can work wonders of healing ?”<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n There was, indeed, only one remedy, only one source of strength and of wisdom. The Superior of S. Lazare had undertaken far too much for human capacity\u2014a brief review of all that was in his hands will prove that it was so but it was not on human capacity that he depended. The direction of a single soul would have seemed too high a task for his unaided powers, and he feared always lest the success of a system should tempt his Sons to forget that they needed constant renewal of inspiration. If the spirit of dependence became clouded, the service of the Mission Priests to God or to their fellows would have no further value.<\/p>\n ” How may we hope to do our work ?” he said. ” How can we lead souls to God ? How can we stem the tide of wickedness among the people ? How can we instil the idea of virtue and discipline in those who are entrusted to our care ? Let us realize that this is not man’s work at all\u2014it is the work of God. It is the same work as Christ came to do, and human energy will only hinder it unless God directs.<\/p>\n ” The most important point of all is that we should have real touch with Our Lord in prayer. When we are in any doubt turn instantly to God and say : ‘ Lord, Who art the Source of knowledge, teach me what I ought to do in this matter.’ And this not only in moments of difficulty, but also that we may know directly from God what we ought to teach. And, further, we must turn to God in prayer to preserve in our own souls the love and the fear of Him, for, alas i it is necessary that we should know that many who intend to bring others to salvation come to destruction themselves. To avoid this we must be so closely united to Our Lord that we cannot lose Him, lifting up heart and soul towards Him constantly, and saying : ‘ Lord, do not suffer that I myself should fall in trying to save others. Lead me Thyself, and do not with\u00adhold from me the grace that by means of me Thou hast given to others.’ We must resort to prayer also that we may place the needs of those whom we direct before Our Lord. It is quite clear that we shall gain more result by this means than by any other. Jesus Christ\u2014Who should be our guide in all things\u2014did not think it suffi\u00adcient to preach, to labour, to fast, and to die for us, He prayed also. For Himself He did not need it; it was for us that He prayed so continually, and to teach us to do the same on our own behalf, and also for those whom He is helping us to save.”<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n This is simple teaching; but M. Vincent’s life, in so far as it has been possible to gather knowledge of it, appears to have been formed on the lines that are here laid down. He never suggests that he had spiritual experiences that were denied to others; his teaching on prayer is insistent, but it is given in terms of his own knowledge, and his hearers may always infer that his knowledge is easily within their reach if only they will seek for it. Yet perhaps there were some who, if they tried to follow in his footsteps, discovered that the way on which he led them was not an easy one. ” To be so closely united with Our Lord that we cannot lose Him, lifting up heart and soul to Him continually,” is a condition that demands more capacity for detachment than the majority of mankind possess. M. Vincent was never sensational in his method of instilling the principles of the spiritual life. His listeners were not always aware of the full import of his maxims, but when he was dealing with those who aspired to the vocation of the Mission Priest his intention was to draw them onwards to the heights of real self-surrender.<\/p>\n ” Indifference,” he said, ” is a state wherein we are almost free of desire for one thing rather than another, As a virtue, it is not only very valuable, but also of infinite assistance for advance in the spiritual life. It may be said, indeed, that for those who would give perfect service to God it is indispensable, for how may we seek the Kingdom of God and devote ourselves to converting sinners if we ourselves are clinging to the comforts of this present life ? How shall we accomplish the Will of God so long as we cling to our own ? How can we deny ourselves as Our Lord has bidden us if we are always looking about for praise and recognition.”<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n We have seen that the sacrifice of life itself was re\u00adquired not infrequently of a Mission Priest, and such sacrifice was to be made as part of the vocation he had accepted. ” If there be one of us,” cried the Superior, “who fears to lose his comforts, who is so dainty that he grumbles at anything that may be lacking, and desires to change his post because the air is unhealthy or the food is bad, or because he is not sufficiently free to come and go\u2014if, in short, there is anyone who is still the slave of his own desires, let him realize that he is unfit to hold the office to which God called him. We see others risking their lives for the service of God, and we remain as fluttered and as timid as so many damp hens.”<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n This was the vigorous spirit of renunciation which sup\u00adported M. Vincent’s prayer, and if we are able to form an idea of its reality, we shall understand the motives that prompted Fran\u00e7ois de Sales to choose the peasant priest before all the learned ecclesiastics then in Paris as Director of his Order of the Visitation. It was a deep testimony to his position as a man of prayer and of that wisdom which real prayer engenders. The honour was one which M. Vincent would gladly have escaped, and it was only his reverence and affection for the Founder and for Mme. de Chantal, the first Superior, that induced him to accept and to retain the charge, for he looked on the guidance of Religious as an office outside the sphere of the Mission Priests, and the members of the Company were forbidden to undertake it.<\/p>\n The nuns of the Visitation had dedicated their lives to prayer, and therefore their conditions differed entirely from those of the Sisters of Charity; also, their Community was intended for women of gentle birth, and this intensified the contrast to the homely order of Servants of the Poor. It is plain that it was not among these well-born ladies within their convent walls that M. Vincent felt himself at home. In their reminiscences of him<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, which cover a period of thirty-eight years, we hear much of his wisdom, his intuition, his careful maintenance of discipline ; but the record might apply as well to M. Olier or M. Bourdoise, or even to Fran\u00e7ois de Sales himself. There is no touch of description distinctive of that singular personality, so uncouth of aspect, yet possessed of such infinite attraction, which was known to the world of Paris as Vincent de Paul. With his Sisters of Charity M. Vincent spoke what was in his mind without reserve, and it is to them\u2014though they were devoid of culture or literary attainment\u2014that we owe the most living portrayal of him. He has no place among the writers of Spiritual Letters, and among his contemporaries he was never known as a confessor and director of the devout. Many of the avenues to intimate knowledge which are open in the case of Fran\u00e7ois de Sales, of Bossuet, of F\u00e9nelon, or of many other saintly natures, are closed when we consider Vincent de Paul. The brilliant women of the world whose difficulties and honest aspirations called forth words of wisdom from those whom they consulted were not part of the charge of the Superior of S. Lazare. His letters to the great ladies of the period are letters of business. As a rule he did not undertake the spiritual direction of private individuals, and all his inter\u00adcourse with women was limited with extraordinary strict\u00adness. Nevertheless, there was in his own nature both the tenderness and the intuition that are characteristic of the woman rather than the man. Throughout his life as a priest\u2014from the moment that he said his first Mass in the lonely chapel of Our Lady at Buzet\u2014he had had a special devotion to the Mother of Our Lord; and there was reason that in his active life he should place deep confidence in the courage and sell-devotion of women. No one, perhaps, has ever had more real understanding of a woman’s character.<\/p>\n The absolute command which M. Vincent exercised over the wayward and undisciplined natures that were to be found among the Sisters of Charity was not due to his eloquence or to his reputation so much as to his habit of taking them into his confidence and of making them feel that they really had part with him in the ” Con\u00adferences ” where he met them face to face. With his Mission Priests he sets a standard, but with his Sisters of Charity he seems to unveil himself with the desire to make the way easier for them by the knowledge of his diffi\u00adculties. It is no wonder that his confidence in them provoked response, and that the sealed and hidden chambers of their hearts were thrown open at his summons. A veteran Sister at the close of one of their assemblies knelt down before him and confessed, so that all might hear, that in long past times she had taken a book from one of her companions, and then denied possession of it, because she desired to keep it. The original owner being dead, she there and then restored it publicly to M. Vincent<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. This avowal entailed a complete sacrifice of reputation, and it is hard for us to estimate the cost. It would have been very easy for the offender to acknowledge her fault in secret on the plea that a younger generation might be harmed, but she had touched reality as she sat listening to M. Vincent, and she could not rest till she had made the fullest reparation that was possible. It was not his method to calculate the possible ill-effects of honesty. ” It is well to have the habit of stating things as they actually took place,” he said. ” For my own part God has given me so strong a conviction of this that I call it my Gospel, and I am specially helped in telling the exact truth be\u00adcause to do so is in conformity with the Spirit of God.”<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Accordingly he does not hesitate to tell his hearers of his repeated loss of temper with the Brothers or Priests of S. Lazare, of his sense that he must try the patience of many of his Company, of the forgetfulness that has brought him unprepared to a ” Conference,” or the mismanage\u00adment of time that has caused him to neglect them for so long<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. The note of unworthiness is present as much in rebuke as in exhortation; his own weakness is a hindrance to them and to his own Company: ” Tout le <\/i>mal qui <\/i>se fait d la Mission, <\/i>dites que c’est <\/i>Vincent <\/i>qui <\/i>le fait.”<\/i><\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n It is the consequence of his own strong sense of sin that he is so infinitely compassionate towards sinners. In many varying directions all through his ministry we have proof of it; it was a foundation of his power with the ignorant. He might preach the fear of God and uphold the necessity of penitence, but it was by love and patience, not by the threat of penalty, that he drew offenders to him; and it is by the understanding of their weaknesses that he made the Sisters of Charity so inseparably his own. We have a special instance at the time when some of them had failed notably in the house at Nantes; the violence of their quarrels had become a scandal in the town, and warnings and reprimands from headquarters produced no effect. It became necessary to send a chosen few from Paris to reform the existing condition and bring the rebels to a better mind; but in doing so M. Vincent’s sympathies went out to those under rebuke; he was fearful that the representatives of order might fail in tact, and his charge to them as they set forth is characteristic of his tender heart :<\/p>\n “Because you are Sisters of Charity you are bound to aim at perfection,” he told them<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, “that is expected of you. And, because you are so, you have been chosen to go to the help of the wounded. You know that in war we take up arms, we fight; and some are killed, some wounded; some conquer, and others are conquered. In this way our Sisters have been wounded in the battle, our Enemy has declared against them. They are not to be despised for that, they are still worthy of admira\u00adtion; but the demon of contention made a cruel attack upon them.”<\/p>\n It is a heavy blow for those who hold office to be super\u00adseded because of failure, but under M. Vincent’s authority the penalty lost some of its harshness, and the law of love had opportunity to gather force. We have, of course, only a little knowledge of his dealing with his children during the last seven years of his life, but it is enough to show us that his hold upon their hearts must have grown closer with every month that passed. In those years he was no longer distracted by claims to attend the Queen’s Council; Mazarin had triumphed, and Vincent de Paul had lost the influence at Court that he had once possessed. Moreover, the Regency had ended, and with it the time of transition wherein enthusiasts had hoped to lay the foundation of a glorious future. The enthu\u00adsiasm of Vincent de Paul never waned; his faith in the power of righteousness could not be disturbed by any passing events; but he had to learn that the new order of which he dreamed was not to come while his earthly eyes might look on it, nor was he to have any part in bringing it about. After the Fronde was ended he with\u00addrew more and more into seclusion at S. Lazare. He had never been courted for his brilliant parts, he was not eloquent nor very learned, and death had thinned the ranks of those who were ready to support a scheme of his at any sacrifice. It was inevitable that in his extreme old age his hold on the great world should loosen, and he was the more ready to accept retirement because of the ecclesiastical dislocation which had set the authority of the Church and the Crown at variance. Vincent de Paul had preached loyalty unswervingly all his life, but Mazarin and de Retz had brought about a situation which forced him to keep silence; and if he, who had been labouring for reform for thirty years, must hold his peace in sight of terrible abuses, it was better that he should also hide his eyes.<\/p>\n A cloud of sadness and of disappointment hangs over him in his relations with the world in those final years, though there is no failure of hope. ” The spirit of charity is lessening in Paris,” he wrote in 1657, ” and where we used to gather 16,000 livres we now get no more than 1,000.”<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Possibly the shrinking of generosity was due chiefly to his absence from the assemblies where charitable undertakings were discussed, and such absence was in\u00adevitable, for in 1657 he was eighty-one and in a state of extreme bodily infirmity. But if his outward work had not fulfilled its promise, the close of his life was cheered by the final touches to the foundation of his Company. It was in September, 1655, that the Pope sanctioned the Constitution of the Mission Priests, and in May, 1658, M. Vincent gave the Rule to his sons. It was the last great event of his career. In the year that followed he lost M. Portail, his closest friend and companion, and in the spring of 166o Mlle. Le Gras, and he knew the hour of his own departure must be near. His position forced a certain loneliness upon him. He was Founder and Superior, and it was for him to give encouragement and inspiration; there was no one from whom he might receive it. But his faculties were not enfeebled to the very last. Two months before his death he held a “Conference”<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span> for the Sisters of Charity, in which his capacity for eliciting their real opinions is still apparent, and in the spring of that year he had guided them through the time of un\u00adcertainty and consternation consequent on the loss of Mlle. Le Gras. He had thought to spare, also, for the distresses of private individuals. There are letters of his at this period that go into the detail of difficult family affairs as if these were his sole concern. His bodily con\u00addition does not occupy his thoughts any more than it had done in the prime of life. His only complaint is at the luxuries that are forced upon him. Of his own free will he would never have relaxed the extreme austerity of his habitual practice, but superior authority compelled him, when he had reached the age of eighty-two, to accept a fire in his room and a coverlet in the cold weather.<\/p>\n He had been afflicted for years with a malady of the feet and legs which made walking a matter of infinite difficulty, and he never recovered from the hardships of his perilous wanderings in 1649 (he is said to have increased them voluntarily that he might make an offering of his bodily suffering in the hour of national disaster). In his last weeks many ills took possession of him, and he spent long periods in torture. He was of very strong con\u00adstitution, and lingered on for days after those about him had believed that death was imminent. On Monday, September 27, 166o, he died.<\/p>\n The manner of his end was in keeping with his life. There was nothing that was dramatic or could appeal to the imagination. He took his share in the dire experience of suffering which comes sooner or later to the ordinary human being; he had to bear the long strain on faith and fortitude, the humiliation of protracted helplessness; and he was patient under it. It is worthy of remembrance that his followers were so imbued with his spirit that they give us the simple history of an old man’s last days without elaborate eulogy of the courage and self-restraint that was a part of his being.<\/p>\n When his body lay in state in the church of S. Lazare, rich and poor flocked thither in such numbers to look for the last time on the familiar face, that the six Mission Priests who watched over him had hard work to defend the coffin from the pressure of the crowd; and not only the poor whom he had loved, but Princes of the blood and civic dignitaries, were at his funeral. All Paris mourned for him.<\/p>\n But though the manifestation of national regret was due to him, he had never cared for public honours. The tributes of sorrow he would have valued were paid, one may believe, when the news spread to distant country places; when Mission Priests, stirred to new effort by their sense of loss, faced once again the searching claim of their vocation; and Sisters of Charity, those homely, nameless Servants of the Poor, knelt down, at the first impulse of their love and grief, to pray for the departed soul of him who had taught them to renounce the pleasant things of life and choose the way of unremitting labour\u2014for the soul of their friend and leader, Vincent de Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"