Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

""His"HIS LAST SICKNESS. 329burning, vitiated, deadly air, which is fatal to humanlife. It killed him at last ; he sank under this slow andpainful martyrdom.Yet we were far from anticipating his end ; soaccustomed were we to enjoy his presence, to believein the miracle of his preservation such care did he;take to conceal to the very last moment the prostrationof nature. We only know that, when he rose in thenight to return to his dear sinners, he had several timesfallen down in his room or on the stairs. And whenwe remarked that the sharp cough, from which he hadsuffered for five-and-twenty years, was more tearing andincessant than usual, he only answered with a smile :is troublesome ; it takes up all myIttime. The Cure ofArs had exhausted all his remaining strengthin thislast struggle of his closing years, this desperate conflictwith the infirmities of age. He was at the haven wherehe had desired to be. And when death came, he hadnothing to yield up to its power but members broken bylabours, vigils, and fasting a body reduced by a slow;and cruel immolation to the transparency of what theancients were wont to call a shade.end was remarkable only for its astonishingsimplicity. His death was as hidden as his life hadbeen.Many expected to see, at the last moment, a manifestation of those transports of love, those raptures, thoseburning words and holy tears, the source of which hadbecome daily more abundant. But nothing of the kindappeared. It seemed as if he still desired to shroudhimself a.s much as possible in silence and obscurity.He had the very manner of death he would have preferred, had the choice been left to him."