The Nineteenth Century Apostle of the Little Ones

by E. Uhlrich

Don Bosco found that the boy did not even know how to make the sign of the cross. Yet this poor, untaught child of the street became the corner-stone, so to say, of Don Bosco's life-work. In a little while Bartolomeo brought friends of his along, and they in turn brought their friends. By the 25th of March, in 1842, there were thirty members of Don Bosco's class. Some of them were apprentices to the different trades, some were street vagabonds, and some of them grown men. The next year there were three hundred of them. Don Bosco had to find a place of meeting larger than his little sacristy; but, alas! no sooner was he well established in his new quarters than notice was given him to move.

People insisted that they did not want him and his noisy, disreputable vagabonds in their own respectable neighborhood. When, at last, there seemed no hope of finding a suitable meeting place in the city for his boys he did not despair. For two months, each Sunday he led them out into the suburbs of Turin, said Mass for them in some church, then taught them under the open sky. Afterwards he let them play games and amuse themselves, and in the evening the whole crowd went back into the city, singing hymns as they went.

In 1844, with the help of some kindly priests, Don Bosco opened the first night schools, teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools were soon imitated all over Italy.

Don Bosco, however, continued to meet with trials and tribulations in his work, as seems true in every good cause. His plans were so novel and so large that he was even accused of being crazy. A crazy man, however, ought to be out of harm's way, and so it was quietly arranged that Don Bosco should be taken to an insane asylum. Two prominent gentlemen of Turin were to manage his transfer to the asylum. They hired a closed carriage and drove to Don Bosco's house. He received them very kindly, and soon was talking to them enthusiastically about the oratorium and the great church he wanted to build, the schools and the workshops which would be grouped around this centre. He spoke so glowingly that one could have thought he saw the whole thing before his eyes. The gentlemen looked at each other knowingly, as if to say: "It is plain that he is out of his mind."

"A little fresh air will be good for you, Don Bosco," one of them ventured. "We have a carriage outside. You might drive a little way with us."

Don Bosco smiled and went out with the two gentlemen. They stepped back in order to let him enter first, but he begged them to precede him. They did so and then Don Bosco hastily shut the carriage door and called out to the driver, "Ready."

The driver had been instructed to drive to the asylum as fast as the horses could go, and not to mind any possible protests or resistance. So he started off at a gallop at Don Bosco's word.

When the carriage arrived at the asylum, the gentlemen inside were in such a rage that the superintendent ordered them put into separate cells at once, and, if necessary, in straitjackets. Luckily for them, the chaplain of the asylum knew them, and they were let go about their business. However, they at least were convinced that Don Bosco was saner than some people thought him, and did not wish to be the agents of any more forced cures for him.

Don Bosco's trials now took another form. The police of Turin began to take note of his boys and to suspect in them potential socialists. Indeed, the very existence of the work was threatened, when King Charles Albert, then King of Sardinia, took personal action in behalf of "Don Bosco's young rogues," as he put it, and even sent sixty dollars to help the work along. With that the worst storms were over. Don Bosco organized his Oratorium of St. Francis of Sales, as he called his meeting place, for he had a special devotion to St. Francis. He chose the name "Oratorium" because the earliest meetings were in the chapel in which he met that first, pitifully ignorant street boy.

In the spring of 1846, however, he was homeless once more—put out again for the sake of his boys. Thereupon he leased a piece of enclosed land outside of the city. Here, in the open air, under the free sky, the Sunday meetings were again held undisturbed. Early in the morning Don Bosco was there, seated on a grassy mound and hearing confessions. Some of the boys were kneeling near by, waiting their turn, others were saying their prayers, and still others, farther away, were quietly playing. At nine o'clock Don Bosco called his boys together. He had no bell, so one of the boys beat on an ancient drum as a signal. Then he separated them into little divisions, and sent each division into a particular church to hear Mass. Later they returned, and there was Sunday-school, games, and singing.