These aspersions from his colleagues were disseminated among the people, so that many of the faithful, influenced by the mistaken opinion of their spiritual leaders, took upon themselves the liberty of defaming their pastor. Some went further and wrote and left at his door notice containing coarse and dishonorable remarks. To such an extent had these ideas progressed that some persons attributed the furrows with which penitential works had seamed the brow of the humble priest to an immoral mode living.
With touching patience and resignation Father Vianney bore those years of bitterness. His zeal never relaxed for a day, and the interior agony which he suffered was not observable in any of his pastoral duties. At that time he frequently repeated those memorable and beautiful words: "We can do more for God when we perform our duties faithfully, without interior gladness and a certain relish in fulfilling them."
The profound repose of his inner life will appear still more admirable to those who learn what cunning snares were prepared for him at the same time by the arch enemy of the human race.
When news of the diabolical visitations to which Father Vianney was frequently exposed, reached his colleagues, they laughed aloud. They declared that he was a dreamer, whose brain was disordered.
With his accustomed composure the humbled curé bore the derision of his colleagues, and of the faithful who agreed with them. Far from being weakminded, as his associates represented him to be, Father Vianney at first refused to believe that it was the powers of evil that were persecuting him and depriving him of his night's rest in order to render him unfit for his pastoral duties. When the nocturnal rappings became more pronounced, he begged some courageous men of the parish to assist him in discovering the evildoers or thieves, as he at first considered them, whose purpose he thought was to carry off some of the costly articles which had been presented for the parish church. Those men came to keep watch with him, and for many nights in succession they heard the same sounds which Father Vianney had heard, without seeing any person or thing to account for them. Like their pastor they were much wrought up over the strange occurrences.
One winter's night, however, when the rappings upon the front door were louder than usual, the curé sprang from his bed and hurried to the courtyard, believing that he might find traces of the marauder in the freshly fallen snow. But there were no foot prints to be seen. Then Father Vianney no longer doubted that it was Satan that was persecuting him and this conviction removed all sentiments of fear from his soul, for he knew well how to combat the enemy of God.
These violent satanic assaults were kept up against Father Vianney for the space of thirty-five years. That a man so tortured and deprived continually of his needed rest, so enfeebled by the mortifications which he imposed on himself, did not die earlier than his seventy-fourth year, seems almost more miraculous than the inexhaustible activity of his life.
Meanwhile his enemies had advanced a step further in their efforts to render this zealous pastor's position precarious. They calumniated him to the bishop of the diocese of Belley, to which Ars now belonged, saying that their pastor was unfit to be entrusted with the care of souls. The bishop, however, would not condemn the poor priest without a hearing. He sent his vicar-general to Ars and informed Father Vianney that in future he must submit to the episcopal jurisdiction all difficult cases of conscience coming before him as well as the decision he has passed upon them himself. The investigation was welcomed by Father Vianney, and he very soon submitted over two hundred cases. Bishop Devie, of Belley, examined these himself and found that the decisions reached upon the difficult points (excepting only two cases in which his opinion differed), were correct. From that moment he would not suffer anyone to speak, of the curé of Ars as an incapable pastor. About this time, moreover, the bishop personally visited Father Vianney at his house in Ars, and found there a zealous and holy man, instead of the ridiculous figure which the curé's enemies had made him out to be. Speaking one day to his assembled clergy, in regard to the curé of Ars, he said: "Gentlemen, would that you all had a trifle of the foolishness about which you make so merry. It would not prejudice your intelligence in the least!"
Yet, far more than the protection thus afforded by the bishop, did the unalterable humility and amiability of Father Vianney bring these opponents to reason. In the course of a few years this noble character ceased to have any enemies among the clergy. Laymen likewise stopped their calumnies, even if they did not cease their ridicule altogether.
But God had prepared a new trial for His servant. We have already told how Father Vianney had founded and under great difficulties had carried on the home for neglected children called the "The Providence." The time had come when this useful institution was to be taken from his control. The board of education had found fault with the home as being neither a regular school nor a hospital. The clergy criticised its management by lay persons, until at last the bishop was prevailed upon to put the institution in charge of a religious order, and the curé, although sore at heart, subscribed to the deed of surrender in November, 1847. Thereupon the Sisters of St. Joseph from Bourg were put in charge of the institution, which came to be known as a "Free School for Girls." Soon it became evident that this blow, hard as it was, but in which Father Vianney as ever beheld the finger of God, turned out to his profit, for all the powers of his body and mind henceforth were devoted to the single purpose of the conversion of sinners, who kept coming to Ars in ever increasing numbers.