"That must be so," he continued, "for you never argued with me, and yet now I'm a Catholic. O happy day when Nat Putnam met Mary O'Brien! And while I will strive by every honest means to improve my worldly condition, I will remain true to the faith. Illinois is a wilderness now, but they're coming, Mary, they're coming; and, before your raven hair turns gray, a city will stand on this prairie; and opposite our corner-lot shall be a church with a cross upon it—a Catholic church. And 'twill be thanks to you, my 'Blessing;' yes, thanks to the shamrock gone West."
SAYINGS OF THE FATHERS OF THE DESERT.
An aged monk said to a brother who was tempted by evil spirits: When the evil spirits begin to talk to thee in thy heart, do not reply to them; but arise, pray, and do penance, saying: Son of God, have mercy on me. But the brother said to him: Behold, O father, I do meditate, and there is no compunction in my heart, because I do not understand the meaning of my words. And he replied: Yet do thou meditate; for I have heard that Abbot Pastor and other fathers have spoken this proverb: The charmer knows not the meaning of the words which he says, but the serpent hears, and knows the virtue of the charm, and is humbled and subjected to the enchanter. So also with us, even though we be ignorant of the meaning of what we say, yet the evil spirits, hearing, tremble and depart.
Abbot Pastor said: The beginning of evils is to distract the mind.
Abbot Elias said: I fear three things. One, when my soul shall depart from the body; the second, when I shall come before God; the third, when sentence shall be pronounced upon me.
Archbishop Theophilus, of holy memory, when he was about to die, said: Blessed art thou, Abbot Arsenius, because thou hast ever had this hour before thy eyes.