Chatillon in the diocese of Lyons was so poor that no one could be induced to accept it, he at once concluded that it was the place above all most suited to himself. He resigned the offices which he held, and applied for and obtained the pastorship of Chatillon. Here he accomplished quick and marvellous results. In six months the parish was completely changed, the manners and the character of the inhabitants being transformed into the image of him whom Providence had sent amongst them. In Chatillon it was his purpose to live and die, and to prove to men, as he himself said, how great a thing a good priest is. But one more change in a life full of changes awaited him.

With exceeding reluctance he was induced by his friend and patron the Cardinal de Bérulle to undertake the education of the children of the Count de Joigny. Among these was one who afterwards became famous under the name of the Cardinal de Retz. Vincent de Paul passed the greater part of the year with his pupils in the country, at Montmirel, a château of the count. All the leisure time which his duties as tutor left him he employed in giving religious instruction to the peasantry. In order how ever not to diminish the fruits of their labour he chose their hours of toil for the communication of his precepts. While they were working for their daily bread he was scattering amongst them the bread of life. Vincent de Paul remained three years in the Count de Joigny's family. The count had charge of all the galley-slaves in the kingdom. This circumstance perhaps suggested to Vincent de Paul the idea of visiting the galley-slaves in the metropolis, which he did regularly whenever he happened to be there with his pupils. The sight of so much wretchedness excited his deepest, tenderest pity, and inspired one of those sublime resolutions which appear like madness to an age like our own. With out communicating his intention to any one he set out for Marseilles to become missionary to the galley-slaves there; and, such was the force of his words and the power of his example, that, according to the testimony of the Bishop of Marseilles, he caused the praises of God to be uttered by many

mouths which had never uttered anything before but blasphemies.

Among the prisoners was a young man whom even the eloquence of Vincent de Paul failed to inspire with resignation. He had committed one single act of smuggling and had been condemned for it to the galleys for three years. The disgrace and the severity of his punishment and the separation from his wife and children made him inconsolable. Vincent de Paul, seeing all his appeals to the unfortunate creature unavailing, determined to obtain for him that for which he panted so much-freedom. But by what means? By soliciting and receiving permission to be put in his place. And for eighteen months— being the remainder of the young man's term of imprisonment-we are told that he was chained, and underwent all the hard work and harsh treatment of the other felons. How incredible should we have considered this incident if we had found it in a book of fiction!

To escape from the importunate admiration which this wonderful sacrifice brought upon him, Vincent de Paul hastened to quit Marseilles the moment the fetters of the galley-slave fell from his limbs; though, as his feet are said to have remained swollen all his life after, he carried with him wherever he went the glorious marks of what he had done and borne.

Shortly after he left Marseilles, Louis the Thirteenth, hearing of his heroic and holy deeds, created him Almoner-General of the galley-slaves. It might have been supposed that this appointment would have afforded abundant occupation to his activity and zeal. But we find him presently afterwards at the head of a vast organisation for establishing and consolidating missions in France and in foreign countries. Those of our readers whose studies and sympathies have been turned to such matters cannot have failed to become intimate with this important chapter in the history of missions.

We have already said that the source and substance of whatever Vincent de Paul did was pity. For ever memorable as a proof thereof will be an institution which afterwards was extended and praised throughout all Europe, that of the Filles de la Charité.

It was his inexhaustible feeling of compassion which sent forth these Daughters of Charity to minister to the wretched, the diseased, and the homeless. Assuredly never has an institution been so filled and fired by the spirit of its founder. All that those noble women have done to prove themselves angels of love to humanity has been nothing more than the simple embodiment of his counsels to them: "You must have no other monasteries but the houses of the poor; no other cloisters but the streets of cities and the wards of hospitals; no other veil but your modesty; you must treat the sick and the suffering with all the care and tenderness that a mother lavishes on her only son."

A true and holy love is never at a loss for objects on which to expend itself. In returning from one of his missionary journeys, and when close to the walls of Paris, Vincent de Paul beheld a beggar occupied in mutilating the limbs of a child, with a view to its becoming an object of profitable compassion. Impelled by indignation, horror, and disgust, Vincent rushed forward, exclaiming-" Wretch, you have deceived me; at a distance I took you for a man." He snatched the child, which was a foundling, from the arms of the beggar, carried it through the streets of Paris, and narrated to every one he met the barbarous scene of which he had just been witness. A crowd gathered round him, accompanied by whom he went to that place in the metropolis which was allotted for the reception of foundlings, and where they were heaped and huddled together like beasts of the field. greater number died from barbarous neglect, the rest were sold to beggars, to become instruments for exciting the commiseration of the public. The sight prompted Vincent de Paul to a good work, which he began at once. In the presence of the crowd, he took twelve of the foundlings, and, blessing them, declared his intention of keeping them at his own expense. This example quickly secured him the co-operation of his faithful Filles de la Charité. By their aid, and the contributions of friends, a large number of the foundlings were provided for; but there were so many more for whom no provision could be made that

The

his co-operators became discouraged. What was to them a source of dismay inspired new hope and energy in him. He called together in the church of Saint Lazare all who were favourable to the grand purpose which now inspired him. By his command five hundred foundlings were brought to the church in the arms of the Filles de la Charité. He ascended the pulpit, and appealed so eloquently and effectually to the assembly that it was determined to establish without delay a foundling hospital in Paris. It was immediately endowed with a large sum, and gave origin to similar institutions in the whole of France and throughout the rest of Europe.

Paris was infested by forty thousand beggars, many of whom were so from necessity, not from choice. Vincent de Paul saw here a fresh field for his active, diffusive, indefatigable love. He threw into this work his whole soul, with all its religious zeal and all its boundless charity. The result was that such of the beggars as were disposed to be industrious had secured for them the means of living, and the rest ceased to find tolerance for their vicious laziness.

Champagne, Picardy, Lorraine, Artois had been devastated by long wars. The inhabitants of entire villages were dying of famine or of contagious diseases. The unburied bodies of those slain by the plague, by hunger, and by the sword lay scattered in the fields. Vincent de Paul procured the distribution in those provinces of more than twenty millions of livres, a sum equal to a million sterling.

He had not forgotten, as he grew old, his slavery in early life in Barbary. He devoted twelve hundred thousand livres out of the immense sums placed at his disposal for the redemption of captives, besides causing an hospital to be built at Algiers, and adopting means to improve their condition when funds were not sufficient to pay for their liberation.

He did also all in his power to bring succour and consolation to the criminals condemned to the galleys. Through his efforts an hospital was founded for them at Paris, and another at Marseilles.

We could fill many pages with an account of the numerous other hospitals

and philanthropic institutions which his immense and prodigious charity called into existence; but to attempt an enumeration of them without much copiousness of detail would have all the meagreness of a mere catalogue.

Nor did his great and yearning heart limit the gifts of his hand to his own country. Besides his efforts to mitigate the cruelties suffered by the captives in Barbary, he sent alms and missionaries to the Hebrides, to Poland, and Madagascar, aided the Maronite Christians oppressed by the Turks, and succoured the English Catholics in the time of the Commonwealth.

When Louis XIII. was on his deathbed, Vincent de Paul had a touching proof of the esteem in which he was held. Louis, sinking slowly into the tomb, and quite aware of his condition, thought he could not better prepare for eternity than by the counsels and consolations which so holy a man could give. He therefore, about a month before his death, appointed Vincent de Paul his chief spiritual adviser. Always accumulating good upon good and blessing upon blessing, Vincent here fulfilled a double office. In that chamber, where a king lay dying, a little child of five years old was often present. That child was destined himself to be for more than seventy years a king under the name of Louis XIV. Vincent de Paul, while incessant in pouring comfort into the father's soul, seized every opportunity of impressing on the mind of the son those religious truths which he conceived to be the best food for the heart

It

of every man, the real strength of a monarch's sceptre, and the greatest ornament of a monarch's crown. is said that Louis XIV. never forgot those solemn and beautiful teachings. Louis XIII. also derived as much resignation from the lessons in righteousness given in such interesting circumstances to his heir as from the words of peace, and hope, and joy which Vincent de Paul gave to himself. The sight of the child in the arms of Vincent de Paul inspired Louis with the idea of urgently exhorting Anne of Austria to consult the saint in all ecclesiastical appointments during her regency, which she promised to do, and faithfully kept her word. She placed Vincent de Paul at the head of her Conseil de

Conscience, and thus was secured, better than by any other means, the nomination, while the regency lasted, of pastors and bishops animated by motives worthy of their sacred profession. As Louis's last hour approached he testified with much earnestness his anguish of conscience to his ordinary confessor. The confessor, one of those base creatures who think flattery acceptable to all men, and on all occasions, said to him, "It suffices to see with what piety the king looks at the crucifix in his hand to be convinced of the good understanding which exists between their divine and human majesties." Louis, disgusted, turned to the other side of the bed in silence, and, as soon as the confessor was gone, sent for Vincent de Paul, who consoled him as potently in those mournful moments of departure on the great journey as he had instructed him wisely during the weary weeks when he was preparing to depart.

Vincent de Paul took no further part in the troubles of the Fronde than to soften, as far as he could, the exasperation of the contending parties. Strange to say, it was during the anarchy which those troubles caused that his most fecund deeds of mercy were done, and his most splendid institutions of mercy created.

Whence, it may be asked, did the immense sums arise by which Vincent de Paul was enabled to do such marvellous things? It may with all truth be answered that they came from the magic of Vincent de Paul's own example and words; from his singular eloquence of heart and that boldness which love inspires. It was said by one of his contemporaries that men followed the movements of so pure a spirit as if they had been the orders of Providence. Out of many instances we may take these two. A lady called de Gras, who afterwards became the first mother-superior of the Filles de la Charité, placed in Vincent de Paul's hands more than two millions of livres to employ as he thought proper. Requiring funds for an hospital, Vincent de Paul called on the queen, Anne of Austria, to solicit her contributions. She said that the great misfortunes which had befallen France had left her nothing to give. "Have you not your diamonds, madame, and

has she who is queen any need of diamonds?" She immediately gave him her diamonds, but urged him to keep the gift a secret. "No," he exclaimed, "I must not keep it a secret; I have much good to do; and for the sake of the poor so great an example of charity ought to be known by the whole kingdom."

It was a saying of Vincent de Paul in whatever he undertook, "Let us only begin the work of mercy, God will finish it." And when in any new undertaking he had applied unsuccessfully to every quarter, he was accustomed to cry, "God's turn is come at last; the power of Divine Providence is about to be manifested."

Vincent de Paul had one other excellence in as great a degree as love; it was humility. As an example of their mingled force and beauty we may mention that to each of his meals he invited the first two poor persons whom he found at his door, gave them the places of honour at his table, served them with his own hand, and treated them with the utmost tenderness and respect. It is recorded of him, also, that in his extreme old age, having been forced much against his will to accept the gift of a coach from the queen regent that his labours of love might be less crippled by the burden. of his infirmities, he could only be induced to use it by employing it to convey, as he went along, the sick to the hospitals, and the old and the poor to their places of abode. It is in harmony with these incidents that we learn that before each of his repasts he lifted up his voice to Heaven to implore a blessing on the good and honest peasants whose labour had produced the bread he was about to eat.

Vincent De Paul died on the 27th of September, 1660, as beautifully as he had lived. The church of Saint Lazare, in which he was buried, was destroyed during the reign of terror. At his interment, and in the midst of

his weeping friends, the Princess De Conté recalled to them that one of the schemes of that apostle of mercy now departed was to open an asylum in Paris for the orphan children of poor artisans, and that those who had cooperated with him so long ought not to let that intention remain unrealised. It was immediately resolved to found and to endow the asylum. What nobler funeral oration was ever pronounced over a grave?

Vincent De Paul was canonized on the 16th June, 1737, by Clement XII. on which occasion twelve criminals, who had been condemned to the galleys for life at Marseilles, were, by order of Louis XV. set at liberty. Whatever notions we attach to canonization it was, in the case of Vincent De Paul, at least a proof of the reverence and admiration entertained for his memory. The documents relating to the canonization, which were published at Rome, occupy four folio volumes.

On the fourth of March, 1785, Cardinal Maury delivered his famous panegyric on Vincent De Paul. After listening to the eloquent cardinal, Louis XVI. directed a statue to be raised to the saint in the palace of Versailles.

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The Life of Vincent De Paul has been written by Abelly, bishop of Rhodez, by Collet, and by others. We have derived our materials chiefly from Maury's panegyric, though there the incidents are often disfigured by an excess of rhetorical embellishment. The moral of the life itself is, that the spirit of mercy in its grandest manifestations has always had a religious motive; that philanthropy severed from religion degenerates into formalism or fruitless theorising, or into fragmentary and isolated efforts; that it is as remote as possible from that charity which hopeth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth.