"The reapers and vintagers are never happier than when they are heavily laden, because that proves the harvest, or the vintage, to have been plentiful. In truth, if those who wait on us, whether in health or in sickness, are only considering us, and not God, and are only seeking to please us, they make so bad a use of their toil that it is right they should suffer for it. He who serves the prophet for the love of the prophet shall receive the reward of the prophet. But, if they serve us for the love of God they are more to be envied than pitied; for he who serves the prophet in consideration of Him who sends him shall receive the reward of God, a reward which passes all imagination, which is beyond price, and which no words can express." In his visiting of the sick when on their death-bed our Blessed Father was truly an angel of peace and consolation. He treated the sick person with the utmost sweetness and gentleness, speaking from time to time a few words suited to his condition and frame of mind, sometimes uttering very short ejaculatory prayers, or aspirations for him, sometimes leading the sufferer to utter them himself, either audibly, or, if speech was painful to him, secretly in his heart; and then allowing him to struggle undisturbed with the mortal pains which were assailing him. He could not bear to see the dying tormented with long exhortations. That was not the time, he would say, for preaching, or even for long prayers; all that was needed was to keep the soul sustained in the atmosphere of the divine will, which was to be its eternal element in heaven, to keep it up, I say, by short beatings of the wings, like birds, who in this way save themselves from falling to the earth. UPON SPEAKING WELL OF THE DEAD. When any of his friends or relatives died he never tired of speaking well of them nor of recommending their souls to the prayers of others. He used to say: "We do not remember our dead, our dear ones who have left us, nearly enough; and the proof that we do not remember them enough is that we speak of them too seldom. We turn away conversation from that subject as though it were a painful one; we let the dead bury their dead, their memory die out in us with the sound of the funeral knell, seeming to forget that a friendship which can end even with death can never have been a true one. Holy Scripture itself tells us that true charity, that is, divine and supernatural love, is stronger than death! It seems to me that as a burning coal not only remains alive but burns more intensely when buried under ashes, so sincere and pure love ought to be made stronger by death, and to impel us to more fervent prayers for our deceased friends and relatives than to supplications for those who are yet living.