fidence (although everyone said that he was already dead),
he approached the unconscious sick man, and said: "Clement" (such was
his name), "dost thou hear us, my son?" He opened his eyes and said:
"Yes, Father." Then the father bade him invoke the most blessed name
of Jesus, and the most sweet name of Mary, and aided him with some
nourishment; the sick man regained consciousness, and some strength,
and at the end of a few days made his confession, and died in the Lord.
Ours had been asked to visit a sick man, and, when the visit to him
was ended, the father, while descending from the house, was seized
with the desire to ascertain if there were any other sick person in
the vicinity. In the next house he found an old woman, an infidel,
ninety years old, although not very sick; he approached her, gave
her instruction, and baptized her. On the following day, when he was
setting out from the village at the same hour, his heart would not
allow him to depart without first visiting his sick people. He gained
the little hut, and found therein a dead person, shrouded. He inquired
who it was and they told him that it was Ana (the name of the woman
whom he had baptized the day before). He continued his way, praising
the divine Providence and judgments of God, who had thus predestined
the lot of that soul. We were informed that a sick man lay at the
point of death, far out from the village. The road thither was hard
to descry in the darkness of the night, and abounded with serpents,
which were continually encountered, stretched out in the road. In
addition to this, a very broad river must be passed, with rapid
current and full of crocodiles--which, when they become ravenous,
rush upon anything. Yet all these obstacles were of less importance
than one soul redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; so the father
went to visit his sick man, and, with a certain medicine, in the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord, cured and comforted him. But the marvel was
that on the way he found another sick person, a woman, apparently in
less danger; he baptized her, and she died immediately, while the sick
man, for whom the father had undertaken all that hardship, was healed.
An Indian, finding himself in the clutches and jaws of a crocodile,
covered with wounds, and almost dead, began to invoke the most holy
name of Jesus, which a little before he had heard in the sermon
of a father; and our Lord was pleased that the savage beast should
release him.
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