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

"""ESCAPE AND CONCEALMENT. 29fession only once a fortnight, and the Cure of Noes wasnoted for the strictness of his principles. He was somodest, recollected, and exemplary in all his conduct,that pious persons would come from the neighbouringvillages to make his acquaintance, and to pray or singcantiqueswith him. When the return of summer andthe press of field-work emptied his school, he turned hishand to other labours; and during the haymaking workedso hard in the service of his neighbours, that he broughton an attack of inflammation of the chest, which confinedhim for several weeks to his bed.The villagers of Noes understood thevalue of theirguest, and were so much afraid of losing him that theyused to station scouts on the surrounding heights to givenotice of the approach of the soldiers. One day he wasdriven to seek shelter in a hay-loft over a stable, where hewas nearly suffocated by the quantity of hay heaped uponhim, and by the effluvia from the stable. He was obligedto remain there for some considerable time, and usedafterwards to say that he had never suffered so much ason that occasion, when he made a solemn promise to Almighty God, if he would vouchsafe to deliver him fromthat fearful extremity, never to complain of any thingagain, whatever might happen to him. And I think,"he used to add with touching simplicity, I have prettynearly kept my He was word."very fond of talking ofhis stay at Noes. That place, with its simple, kindlypeople, had wound itself closely round his heart. Hewould have liked to have been nominated to its cure, andto have ended his days there ; and in 1841 he said toJean Marie Fayot, who came to Ars to make his confessiontohim,If 1 ever obtain permission to retire from thesacred ministry, I mean to come and die in the midst of