The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, MarchButler, Alban
Religion
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, March
Butler, Alban
Christian patron saints -- Biography; Christian saints -- Biography
"I was so happy as to succeed in it within a short time. His lordship,
the bishop, condescended to wish the joy of it, and intrusted me with
the design he had formed of honoring the assembly of his vicars-general,
by making him our colleague. I was present when he delivered to him his
credentials; which moment will never forsake my remembrance. I beheld
your dear uncle suddenly casting himself at the prelate's knees, and
beseeching him, with tears in his eyes, not to lay that burden upon him.
_Ah! my lord_, said he to him, _I am unable to fill so important a
place_; nor did he yield but upon an express command: _Since you require
it shall be so_, said he, _I will obey; that is the first of my duties_.
What an abundant source of reflections was this for me, who was then but
twenty-six years of age. It was then especially that I resolved to make
up for my inexperience, by taking him for my guide who had been giving
me that great example of Christian humility.
"The bishop had already showed him his confidence, by placing his own
nephew in the English college, as also that of the bishop of Senlis, his
friend, and the son of one of his countrymen. I had the charge of
visiting them frequently. I used to send for them to dine with me on
every school holiday. If one of them had been guilty of a fault, the
punishment I inflicted was, that he should desire Mr. Butler to keep him
at home. But it almost always proved useless; he would himself bring me
the delinquent, and earnestly solicit his pardon; _Depend upon it_, said
he to me one day, _he will behave better for the future_. I asked him
what proof he had of it. _Sir_, answered he, in the presence of the lad,
_he has told me so_. I could not forbear smiling at such confidence in
the promises of a school-boy of ten years old; but was not long before I
repented. In a private conversation he observed to me, that one of the
most important rules in education is to impress children with a
persuasion that the vices we would keep them from, such as lying and
breaking one's word, are too shocking to be thought possible. A maxim
this worthy of the great Fenelon, his beloved model, and which common
tutors do not so much as surmise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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