was
still quite clear, and the Superior asked him to give his
blessing to the Brothers who were kneeling round him, as
well as to all the rest of the Community. He raised his eyes
to heaven, stretched out his hands, and said, "The Lord
bless you all."

'Later in the day he became unconscious, and the prayers for
the dying were said; but again he revived. About midnight
the death agony came on: it was the night of the Agony in
Gethsemane. It lasted till after two: then there was another
interval of comparative ease, and he was able to speak. The
Superior asked him whether he accepted willingly all his
sufferings. "Yes," he replied, "I adore in all things the
dealings of God with me." These were his last words; at
three o'clock the agony returned, but only for a short hour.
At four o'clock in the morning of Good Friday, the 7th of
April, 1719, he fell asleep.

'As soon as the news of his death was spread abroad, the
house was beset by crowds desiring to see him. All revered
him as a Saint, and wanted to look once more on the
venerable face, and to carry away something in remembrance
of him. He had nothing belonging to him but a Crucifix, a
New Testament, and a copy of the Imitation; but his poor
garments were cut up, and distributed in little bits to
satisfy the people.'

The Christian Brothers since the death of their great founder have
steadily continued their charitable self-denying work. They have
received much encouragement from high authorities in Church and State,
much also from the good opinion which their work has gained for them
wherever it has been known. Their history, however, records reverses:
the chief of them connected with the catastrophe of the great
Revolution. With regard to this, it might have been expected on general
grounds, that in a social upheaval, which was essentially a rising of
the poor and oppressed against the rich and the privileged, a society
which had poverty as its foundation principle, and the free education of
the children of the poor as its only reason of existence, must have been
spared by general consent in the midst of the social ruin by which so
much was overwhelmed. At first it seemed that this might have been so;
when the Religious Orders were suppressed by decree of the National
Assembly in 1790, exception was made in favour of those engaged in
public i