One day, while giddily indulging in his ordinary diversions, he met with a fall and broke his ribs. As he would not apply any remedy, the mischief grew worse; the various parts of his body 'died little by little,' and he was entirely paralysed. What a change in his life! Poor Bartholomew, who had been so proud of his beauty, now weak, brokendown, deprived of the use of his limbs, unable any more to associate with his friends, was obliged to keep in his father's shop all day long. He was deeply distressed, not only by the severe pains he suffered, but more by the sight of his deformity. Sitting near the window, he had no other amusement than to watch the passers-by, and his temper being still the same, or rather soured by his misfortunes, he was not sparing of his sarcasms. One day, seeing one of the evangelicals passing before the shop, he began to insult him, and 'to scoff at the terrible majesty of God.'—'Holloa! Lutheran!' he called out, adding all sorts of taunts. The christian stopped; he was touched when he saw the pitiful condition of the wretched individual who insulted him, and going up to him, said affectionately: 'Poor man, why do you mock at the passers-by? Do you not see that God has _bent your body in this way in order to straighten your soul_?'[148] These simple words struck Milon: he had never thought that his _soul_ was _bent_ as well as his body. 'Can it be true,' he asked, 'that God has made these misfortunes fall upon me, in order to reform his misguided creature?' He lent an ear to the Lutheran, who spoke with him, and gave him a New Testament, saying: 'Look at this book, and a few days hence you will tell me what you think of it.' Milon took the Gospel, opened it, and having begun, says the chronicler, 'to taste the fruit of this reading, he continued at it night and day.' This little volume was enough for him: he had no need of any teacher. The sword of the Word of God pierced to the bottom of his heart, and his past life terrified him. But the gospel consoled him: 'It was to him like a loud trumpet sounding the praise of the grace of Christ.' Milon found the Saviour: 'Mercy has been shown me,' he said, 'in order that the love of God which pardons the greatest sinners, should be placed as on a hill, and be seen by all the world.' He had now a curb that restrained him, and prevented him from 'indulging in abuse, quarrels, bickerings, squabbles and contentions.' The wolf had become a lamb. Bartholomew imparted the riches he had found in the book of God to his father, to the other members of his family, and to all the customers who visited the shoemaker's shop. There was not a room in Paris that offered a spectacle at once so interesting and so varied.