Finding himself in the presence of cholera the abbé reflected a second, then wrote some words upon a detached leaf of his note-book. "Here," said he to the elder of the two porters, "is an order and five francs. Run quickly to the apothecary's! I will take your place until you return." The priest took the cloths and rubbed the poor unfortunate. Under his skilfully applied friction the sick man became calm; but upon seeing the costume of the priest he could hardly contain himself with terror. "My God!" cried he, "must I die? Yes, they have brought me a confessor." The abbé assured him he would be better. The messenger returned bringing the medicines. The priest remained three hours by his bedside, and when the doctor arrived he declared him out of danger.
In the south, the people are sensational and carry their feelings to great excess. We can hardly wonder, then, that in their enthusiasm the woman and porters carried the Abbé Bernard out to the street in triumph. Unhappily, while enthusiastic, they are superstitious. The crowd immediately spread the report that the priest had power to cure the cholera. At the end of the street, a woman, upon seeing the abbé, threw herself upon her knees, exclaiming with sobs: "Father, my child is dying; I have only him on earth; in the name of the Holy Virgin save him." The indefatigable apostle of charity followed her to the poor little creature only five or six years of age, whom he found rolling in agony. God has not given to man the power of staying the angel of death when he turns from his path to strike the infant in its cradle. Prayers and science are often powerless. Notwithstanding, the child was saved.
The worthy abbé did not regain his hotel until a late hour, greatly overcome with fatigue. The next morning he did not leave his room. Toward noon, fearing he was ill, they visited him, and found him with closed eyes and a smile upon his lips. He was dead. The good pastor had given his life for his flock.
Such was the man I had for a neighbor at one of the sermons of Père Lacordaire. Such was the man whom memory recalled to my thoughts yesterday while listening to the last discourse of Père Hyacinthe.
Original.
The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.
by Clonfert.
Chapter I.
The Emperor's Feast
It is now over seventeen hundred years since late on an evening about the Ides of December, two men, with flowing palliums drawn closely about them, met near the statue of Janus, in the street of the same name in Rome.
"Ho! well met, Sisinnius. Coming from the baths, and, like myself, bound for the emperor's feast!"