(M102) John Sarcander was born at Skoczovia, in Upper Silesia, in the year 1577. He obeyed the call of God and joined the ranks of the priesthood. When ordained priest, he showed himself in every way a pattern of excellence—by his good works, his science, the integrity and gravity of his character. He was appointed, accordingly, to the charge and guidance of souls. He fulfilled so well all the duties of a good pastor that the four parishes to which he was successively called by episcopal authority received him as an angel sent to them from heaven, and bore witness by their tears to their regret when they were deprived of his presence. Meanwhile, the ministers of the sect of Pikardites were driven from the parish of Holleschow, where the scourge of heresy, like the wild boar of the forests, had spread devastation during eight years. John Sarcander was selected in order to repair the incalculable evil that had been done to that unfortunate vineyard. He shrunk not from the struggle which it behooved him to maintain in the cause of the true faith. He was in every sense an example to his flock. He exhorted, beseeched, reprimanded with patience and wisdom, neglecting nothing that was calculated to strengthen whatever was weak and heal what was sick, to reunite those who were separated, to raise up the fallen and seek such as were astray. Such exemplary conduct only excited the extreme hatred of the heretical party, and he was obliged to leave Holleschow and retire to Poland. But moved by the dangers to which were exposed the people whom he loved so dearly in Christ, he returned to his parish, after having venerated the Holy Virgin at her shrine of Crenstochow, in fulfilment of a vow which he had made. Soon after his return the heretics cast him into prison as a traitor to his country, but, in reality, on account of his zeal in preaching the Catholic faith. He was subjected to vigorous interrogatories, and in order to induce him to reveal what the supreme head of the administration in Moravia had confided to him in confession, he was made to undergo the most exquisite torture. Preferring a glorious death to a miserable life, he combated to his last breath for the work of Christ, and gave up his soul to God, leaving to all the people the remembrance of his death as an example of fortitude and courage. Fearfully tortured on the rack for three hours, burned slowly in almost every part of his body, by torches and bundles of feathers steeped in rosin, oil, pitch and sulphur, he was carried back almost lifeless to his prison. There he lingered a whole month, suffering more than the pain of death, whilst his mind and heart were so fixed on God that he ceased not to sing His praises as long as life remained. He fell asleep in the Lord, the sixteenth of the calends of April, 1620. It was not appointed that such heroic suffering should be doomed to oblivion. Public report, the witness of contemporary writers,