He offered up to God all his mortifications for the welfare of his people, increasing these exercises habitually as Easter approached, and whenever it was a question of touching the heart of a hardened sinner. He joined prayer to fasting. At two o'clock in the morning he arose and said the night-office of the breviary. At four o'clock he entered the church to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and then said his Mass. After Mass he gave instruction in catechism and heard confessions. So steadily was he occupied in this work that he seldom left the church until noon-time. He devoted the afternoons to visiting the sick and spent the rest of the day in the church, where, to the edification of all, he held evening devotions in public. What could the Lord refuse to such self-sacrificing love? Vianney himself used to say: "I obtained from Him everything that I wanted!" The progress in the spiritual condition of the congregation at Ars necessarily became known in the surrounding country and Father Vianney's fellow priests of other parishes begged him to help them in the pulpit and confessional. These requests Father Vianney never refused, so that, in the space of two years, he became the real apostle of the cathedral circuit. So great was the success of his spiritual labors that the faithful who desired his assistance no longer waited until he should come again to their parishes, but themselves visited him at Ars. Soon the high road to Ars was filled with pedestrians and vehicles carrying a great number of visitors, and this procession of pilgrims increased when reports were spread of the miracles which took place at Ars. CHAPTER III. THE "HOUSE OF PROVIDENCE" AND THE TRIBULATIONS. IN 1825, seven years after Father Vianney had been appointed to the parish at Ars, he resolved upon a new and important undertaking. He wanted to bring together in one home all the neglected poor and orphan children of Ars and the surrounding country, and to provide at one and the same time for both their physical and spiritual needs. Facing the village green there stood a desirable house, which he would gladly have acquired for this purpose. One day he received from an anonymous donor a considerable sum of money for charitable purposes. He immediately betook himself to the owner of the house in question, and without much difficulty was enabled to purchase it. And this was the beginning of the "House of Providence." As directresses for this home he selected two young women of the parish and placed them in charge, but without imposing upon them any religious vows. The home soon sheltered many little ones, either neglected or homeless, who were fed, clothed and cared for, and whose instruction in the catechism Vianney took upon himself daily. By degrees the grown up parishioners came to assist at these instructions, which took the place of those which had been held in the parish church.