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me. Not even the memory of my ingratitude towards our good God makes me unhappy, for all sadness is banished by joy, beholding what a Redeemer my sins have gained for me, and knowing, too, that “there is more joy in heaven before the angels of God over one sinner doing penance, than over ninety-and-nine who need no penance.”
The following is an extract of a letter written during
Christmas week:—
If I reject the luxuries of the world, it is not, I trust, like Diogenes, with greater pride than that with which the world makes use of them, but because I feel that they are not for me, though, perhaps, very well in their place.
We celebrate this week the birthday of Him who, born in a stable, died upon a cross, and as he has left us no other model than himself, his poverty is as much a matter of imitation as his other virtues.
Ought we then, who are named after him, Christians (and much more Jesuits), to aspire to a higher station than that of our Lord?
From these letters we see the devout channel in which his thoughts flowed while at the Novitiate, and the earnest sincerity with which he had devoted himself to his work.
In the month of February (1860) his health failed, in consequence of his severe personal discipline, the deprivation of the comforts to which he had been accustomed, and his hard labors and studies.
By the advice of his spiritual counsellors he abandoned his purpose, at least for a time, and returned to
Boston, to his father's house.
He then entered the office of William
Brigham,
Esq., as a student at law, and took up again the threads of his former life.
He resumed his very active labors with the Sabbath-school children, and among the poor of the city, and was especially interested in St. Mary's Catholic School in Endicott Street. Among other efforts in this cause, he delivered two lectures,—one at the
Tremont Temple, on the education of Catholic children; and another at the
Music Hall, on the history of the Society of Jesus.
During this year he took an ardent interest in the state of the country, and in the political campaign, and worked zealously for the election of the late
Hon. William Appleton as member of Congress from the Fifth District.