Saint Vincent Ferrer

When he was seventeen, his father made him three proposals. The first was to enter the Order of Saint Dominic, in accordance with the vision he had had before he was born. The second was to marry, which he could do very advantageously, having many assets and the qualities of body and mind necessary to make a great fortune in the world. The third was to go to Rome or Paris to make use of the extraordinary talents that God had given him. Vincent did not deliberate much on these three things: he told his father at once that he chose the first, to which God had destined him from all eternity. This choice caused extreme joy to both his father and his mother: they did not cease all day to show him their satisfaction, very different from those cruel parents who turn their children away from the religious profession, and prefer to see them engaged in the vices of the world rather than in this holy condition, where one makes it a point to fight and overcome them.

The next day, his father took him himself to the convent of Saint Dominic and presented him to the prior. The whole community received him and admitted him to the number of postulants, and three days later, on February 5, 1367, the feast of Saint Agatha, he took the religious habit with extreme contentment of soul, and in the midst of the general joy of those present: it was clearly seen that his vocation had God as its author; thus he was considered as a light rising on the horizon of the Church. His novitiate was a perpetual imitation of the life of Saint Dominic, which he read with great assiduity and application; so that he had no difficulty, at the end of the year, in being received to make his profession.

After his vows, knowing that to succeed in preaching the Gospel—the end of his religious vocation and that of his Order—three things were necessary: continual prayer, the study of theology, and the reading of Holy Scripture, he applied himself to them seriously, and amassed, by this means, a treasure of light and unction that would later serve to enlighten all of Europe, and to touch and convert an infinity of hearts. A few years later, he was obliged to teach philosophy to the young religious of his monastery; and he performed this task in such a way that more than seventy seculars also came to hear him.

His superiors, admiring his erudition more and more, sent him to Barcelona, where the most learned men of their Order were at that time; and from there to the University of Lérida, where, being only twenty-eight years old, he was made a doctor by Cardinal Pedro de Luna, at that time legate in Spa in, and later in France cardinal Pierre de Lune Pope who established the Institute as a religious Order in 1725. , at the court of King Charles VI. Having been honored with the doctor's cap, he returned to Valencia, the place of his birth and his profession, where he was received with great respect by several persons of quality, who went out to meet him and showed him singular esteem. A few days having passed, the bishop, with his chapter and the magistrates of the city, begged him to publicly expound Holy Scripture and to give lessons in theology. He did so with such success, and preached to the people with such zeal and edification, that people came from all sides to hear him. Whether student, professor, or preacher, he always practiced the advice he himself gives in his admirable Treatise on the Spiritual Life: "Whatever breadth of mind one believes o ne has," he says, "one must Traité de la vie spirituelle Major ascetic work written by Vincent Ferrer. never omit the practices of devotion; while reading and studying, one must always raise one's heart to Jesus Christ, to ask Him for the grace of understanding; and it is necessary to often withdraw one's eyes from the book to hide oneself interiorly in the wounds of the Crucified."

This was the method he kept while studying, especially after he had entirely devoted himself to the exercise of preaching, which was his principal talent; for he usually composed his sermons at the feet of the crucifix, to draw from the wounds of Jesus Christ crucified the light and fire he needed to touch his listeners, and, after the sermon, he would again place himself at the feet of the crucifix to attribute all the success to His glory and to renew his resolutions to practice first what he had taught to others. One day, as a great lord was to attend his preaching, instead of following this method, he prepared himself with labor and with great application of mind, but he did not succeed as usual. Making himself heard the next day before the same lord with the dispositions he was accustomed to bring, he preached incomparably better and with much more unction and force. This prince, who noticed it, asked him the reason; he replied ingenuously that it was because Vincent had preached the first time, and that Jesus Christ had preached the second. One should not be surprised, therefore, if this zealous preacher made so much noise with his sermons, and if one never left them without a composed heart, and with the intention of leaving sin and beginning a better life.

The demon, unable to bear that he was walking with such great strides on the path of perfection, and that he was taking away from him every day such a great number of souls of which he believed himself to be the master, used various means to ruin him or to stop him in the happy progress of his course. One day, he appeared to him in the guise of an anchorite: he claimed to be one of those ancient solitaries who had lived with such holiness in the deserts of the Thebaid; he recounted that, being young, he had enjoyed himself, but that this had not prevented him from arriving, subsequently, at a great purity of life; he advised him not to weaken himself so much in his youth by austerities and vigils, but to give something to the weakness and necessities of the body, especially since he needed strength for preaching, and that discretion was the mother of all virtues. There was nothing more plausible or more artful than this temptation; but the Saint, having discovered it, courageously repelled the demon, both by the sign of the cross and by saying to him: "Go, Satan, I do not wish to give my youth to God any less than my old age." Another time, this enemy of men appeared to him in the guise of an Ethiopian, and threatened to wage a continual war against him, from which he would finally emerge victorious; but the threats did not succeed any better than the ruses, and the Saint confounded him by answering that He who had given him the strength to begin would also give him the courage to persevere. Finally, Vincent having read, in the book of Saint Jerome on the virginity of the Mother of God, these words of the Sage: "No one can be continent unless God sustains him with His grace," and having immediately knelt before an image of Our Lady to ask her for the preservation of his virginity, this infernal monster had the effrontery to form a voice from the side of this image, which said that he had been a virgin until then, but that he would soon lose such a precious flower. One cannot conceive what the pain and confusion of this fervent Religious was upon hearing these words; but the Blessed Virgin, who did not want to leave him in distress for long, appeared to him immediately with an admirable beauty, and made him know that the first voice came from the enemy, and that, as for her, she would never abandon him. The presumptuous spirit was covered with such confusion that he dared not use the same weapons to attack him again.

But as his pride always rises and never surrenders until our death, he took other measures to wage war on the Servant of God. He put it into the mind of a woman to pretend to be sick, to summon him to her home to confess her, and there, to show him a violent and criminal passion. The Saint told her that she should blush at such great effrontery; and, without relying too much on his own strength, nor pretending to remain near the fire without burning himself, he immediately took flight, and left this impudent woman full of confusion and fury. However, as she feared being denounced by the holy Religious, she wanted to cover her honor by shouting with all her might that her confessor had tried to do her violence; but God, the avenger of injuries done to His servants, permitted the demon to enter her body and to torment her with such cruelty that it was clearly visible that it was a punishment for her slander. Exorcisms were employed to heal her; but she could only be healed by the prayers of Saint Vincent.

Certain envious people, irritated by the praises that were constantly given to his virtue, and pushed by a diabolical inspiration, persuaded a woman of ill repute, by the lure of a large sum of money, to introduce herself secretly into the cell of the Saint. They helped her to get there on a winter evening while he was prolonging his prayer at the church. When Vincent opened the door of his cell and found this miserable woman sitting at the foot of his bed, he first thought it was a trick of the demon who wanted to tempt him in this seductive form. He made the sign of the cross, and he cried out: "What are you doing there, Satan, enemy of God?" "I am not Satan," replied the courtesan, "but a young girl who can no longer resist the love she has for you"... She was about to continue, but the Saint interrupted her, and in a brief and imperious tone: "Go away, wicked woman," he cried to her, "and take care that a sudden death does not punish you for your hideous iniquity! How did you dare to try to defile my body and my soul, which from my childhood I have consecrated to Jesus Christ?" Whether from fright or excess of audacity, the unhappy woman remained motionless. Then Vincent scattered burning coals from a brazier onto the floor, and, kneeling on the coals, he said to the courtesan: "Come, if you dare, come and throw yourself on this fire; it is not as terrible as that of hell." At this sight, the woman fell half-dead, weeping, sobbing, asking the Saint for forgiveness, and promising him to change her life entirely. She revealed to him the names of those who had led her to this act. Vincent made her leave, ordering her to keep the names of her accomplices hidden. But she did not promise silence. The very next day she told everything, and covered with shame those who had wanted to slander and dishonor the Saint. The sinner made a sincere conversion.

This double victory did not weary the tempting spirit. He led an old sinner, whom the Saint had rebuked, to disguise himself in a religious habit, to then go and see, at night, a woman of ill repute. The latter, before he left, wanted to know his name: "My name is Vincent Ferrer," he said mischievously, "but I conjure you not to speak of our meeting to anyone." She promised, then hastened to publish it with such specific circumstances that even the friends of Vincent did not know what to think.

The Saint had humbled himself before the Lord; he awaited his justification from divine mercy and prostrated himself, full of resignation, at the foot of the altars, with the hope that his innocence would triumph over this odious slander. Indeed, Boniface, his brother, then a magistrate in Valencia, took advantage of a sole mn occasion to have Boniface, son frère Brother of Vincent, magistrate in Valencia and later prior of the Grande Chartreuse. the culprit recognized by the person who was looking for him. Father Vincent was shown to her, but she replied that she knew the servant of God well, although she did not know his name, that she had heard him preach four times, and that the one she was asking for was already advanced in age. The impostor was discovered, and his infamous stratagem gave a new luster to the innocence of the Saint.

It is said that in the end this old man, struck by the gentleness of Vincent, converted, and, a rare thing, he abandoned in an advanced age the habits of his youth that had grown old with him.

At that time, Clement VII, who had always presented himself as the successor of Saint Peter against Pope Urban VI, having died, the famous Pedro de Luna, of whom we have already spoken, was elected in his place by the votes of the cardinals of that party, and had himself Benoît XIII Pope who established the Institute as a religious Order in 1725. named Benedict XIII. One of the first things he did after his coronation was to send for Saint Vincent, whose great merits he knew, and to oblige him to come to his court. When he had arrived, he took him as his confessor and gave him the office of Master of the Sacred Palace. The Saint had an aversion to these honors, which often drew him from his cloister and distracted him from the exercises of study, prayer, and preaching; nevertheless, he accepted them out of obedience, knowing well that God would lead him out of them according to the invariable order of His designs, when it pleased Him. If one is astonished that a man so holy and so filled with the love and light of God followed the party of a schismatic pope, and was even his confessor, one must consider that God enlightens His greatest servants only as much as He pleases and at the time He pleases; moreover, the matter of the legitimate succession of Saint Peter was then extremely confused and difficult to resolve, each of the three who called themselves popes claiming to be the true Pope; the party of Benedict was followed by France and Spain, and judged the best by a great number of persons eminent in learning and holiness. We hold without doubt as an article of faith that, as there is only one Catholic Church, there can also be only one sovereign Pontiff; faith does not, however, oblige us to believe that this sovereign Pastor is the one who is recognized as such by a portion of the faithful, when other faithful recognize another, when the matter is obscure and difficult in itself, and has not yet been decided by the judgment of the Church.

However, a great number of princes and prelates, having worked in vain to put an end to this great schism, cast their eyes upon our Saint to neg otiate a matt grand schisme Crisis of the papacy whose end Elizabeth predicted. er of such importance. He made several journeys for this purpose, both to the Emperor Sigismund, who was then in Catalonia, and to Charles VI, King of France, and to Martin, King of Aragon; he had even persuaded Benedict XIII to renounce voluntarily this supreme dignity, and to trample underfoot the honors of the world to give peace to the Church. But this pope did not persevere in such a holy thought; he did not consent any more than his antagonists in Rome: Boniface IX, Innocent VII, Gregory XII; no more than the popes of the Council of Pisa, Alexander V and John XXIII, or even less, to abdicate, for the unity and peace of the Church, an office which, broken into two or three, torn to shreds, usurped, was much less powerful in warding off anarchy and discord from the mystical body of Jesus Christ. These misfortunes did not cease until 1417, with the election of Martin V Martin V Pope who confirmed the tradition by a bull in 1437. as the sole pope.

When he saw the futile efforts being made to induce the Pope to lay down the tiara, Vincent was seized with profound sorrow. The stay at the pontifical court became a burden to him, and he obtained permission to retire to the convent of the religious of hi s Order Avignon City of which Saint Rufus was the first bishop and founder of the church. in Avignon. Such was his sadness that he fell gravely ill; fever devoured him; no remedy could diminish the intensity of the malady that was exhausting him. He had been bedridden for twelve days, and he awaited death, which was to put an end to the bitter sorrows that were consuming him. On the eve of the feast of Saint Francis, October 3, 1396, he had such a severe crisis that all those who surrounded his bed of pain were dismayed and believed he was about to draw his last breath. But God then wished to verify in His servant what He had said in the book of Job: "When you think you are on the point of perishing without resource, then you shall rise like the morning star."

Suddenly, Vincent's cell was filled with a prodigious light and a celestial splendor.

The Savior of the world, accompanied by a multitude of angels and the glorious patriarchs Dominic and Francis, appeared to the sick man. "Rise, safe and sound, Vincent," He said to him, "and take comfort: the schism will soon end, and it will be when men have put an end to the many iniquities with which they defile themselves. Rise, therefore, and go preach against vices; it is for this that I have chosen you specifically. Warn sinners to convert, because My judgment is near."

The Savior spoke to him further of three things. He told him first that, to make him capable of hearing and pursuing the apostolate with which He was charging him, He confirmed him in grace: a singular favor, which must have extraordinarily rejoiced a soul so full of humility and fear. He added that he would emerge victorious from all the persecutions stirred up against him, and that in his struggles divine help would never fail him, until, after having preached the judgment in a great part of Europe, with great fruit for souls, he would end his life holily at the extremities of that part of the world. Finally, He gave him various instructions on the manner in which he was to exercise his apostolic ministry. His historians have not transmitted the details to us, but it is easy to guess them from the admirable order invariably followed by the new apostle in the exercise of his miraculous ministry. Upon ceasing to speak to the Saint, the Lord, as a sign of love, touched his face with His right hand. "O my Vincent, rise," He said to him a second time; then He disappeared. The divine touch had produced its effect. Suddenly, Vincent felt perfectly healed and his heart was filled with ineffable consolations.

This marvelous apparition, recounted by the oldest biographers of the Saint, is all the more worthy of belief in that the Saint himself confirmed it in a letter he wrote to Benedict XIII fifteen years later.

The cell where Saint Vincent Ferrer received such a remarkable grace and such a miraculous mission was changed into a chapel that became the object of great devotion. The revolutionary cataclysm destroyed it along with the convent that housed it.

The day after his miraculous healing, Vincent went to the Pope. The latter was as joyful as he was surprised to see in perfect health the man whom, the very day before, during a benevolent visit, he had seen at the gates of death. He was even more surprised, but less joyful, when he heard the Saint ask him for permission to leave the city and to go preach the Gospel freely and in poverty from region to region. Benedict XIII did not believe he should give him this permission for the moment: he needed him. Vincent did not wish to disobey; he knew that private revelations must be submitted to the control of the Church of God; he therefore resigned himself to postponing the execution of his project to another time. This wait was long. He was kept for two years, during which he served with heroic patience and exemplary fidelity, in the office of Master of the Sacred Palace, the one he regarded as the true vicar of Our Lord. Finally, he obtained the just subject of his requests. To retain him and attach him forever to the cause of the Avignon popes, he had been offered the bishopric of Lérida and the cardinal's hat; Vincent had refused. "I must execute," he said, "the order I have received from God, and God has commanded me to go preach the judgment to all nations." One day, therefore, when, desolate at the resistance of Benedict XIII to his most ardent wishes, he was praying with tears before his crucifix, and offering to God the sorrow of his soul, the Savior consoled his sadness by having him hear miraculously these words: "Go, I will still wait for you: Vade, adhuc expectabo te." He understood that his solicitations would no longer be resisted, and, indeed, Benedict XIII permitted him to travel the world as an apostle and to preach the Gospel to all the peoples of Europe. He granted him for this the most extensive powers, powers which were confirmed later by the Council of Constance and by Pope Martin V.

Vincent began his new apostolate in Avignon itself on November 25, 1398.

Then, in a short time, he traveled through a large part of Europe, preaching in Catalonia, Provence, Dauphiné, Savoy, Lombardy, Genoa, Germany, Lorraine, Flanders, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Kingdom of Granada, and almost all of Spain, in several other cities and provinces of Italy and France, and finally in Lower Brittany, where we shall see him end his days, once we have said something of his virtues, to avoid repetition.

Although he was provided with the most extensive authorizations from the sovereign Pontiffs, Saint Vincent Ferrer never preached in any place without the blessing and consent of the diocesan bishop, nor the permission of the superiors of his Order. He imposed upon himself the rule of always traveling on foot when he went from city to city and from country to country, regardless of the distance, the difficulty of the roads, and the harshness of the seasons. It was only towards the last years of his life that a painful sore on one of his legs forced him to use a mount. But even in this, he observed the spirit of simplicity and poverty. He refused horses and traveled on a scrawny donkey, so as to have a new trait of resemblance to the Savior of men.

Before entering a city to evangelize it, he would throw himself on his knees with his entire retinue; then, lifting his eyes to heaven and shedding abundant tears, he prayed for the people to whom he was about to preach the judgment. His entry was usually very solemn. Bishop, clergy, magistrates, nobility, a large crowd, and waves of people would run to meet him. He was led under a canopy; he was honored like a royal personage, or rather like an apostle, an angel from heaven. Hymns, psalms, and sacred canticles were sung with indescribable enthusiasm. Sometimes people would travel entire leagues to go and meet him. The place where they joined him was adorned with a cross intended to perpetuate the memory of this happiness. Such was very often the concourse of people who came before him that, in order to prevent the multitude, too eager and too agitated, from pressing him, knocking him down, and trampling him underfoot, it was necessary to enclose him within a solid wooden barrier; a precaution often useless against the popular vehemence and indiscretion, so much did they desire to see him, hear him, and even touch him. In the midst of these prodigious ovations, his humility was perfect; in these moments, he had constantly in his mind and on his lips these words of the Psalmist: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name alone give the glory."

When there was a convent of his Order in the city, he would go to stay there, unless the bishop compelled him to come to his palace to be more useful to the people. But in villages where his Order had no house, he would go to lodge in a monastery of religious or at the parish priest's house.

While heading toward the place chosen for his dwelling, he would sing with those of his company the litanies of the Virgin or some pious prayers.

Despite the fatigues of the journey, the Saint did not rest upon entering the house he was to inhabit. He continued his exercises in the accustomed order, fasted, kept abstinence, prayed, read the Holy Scripture, and took a very frugal collation. It is known that the Rule of the Friars Preachers does not oblige under any pain of sin, and we add this: outside the convent it admits an almost general dispensation from the observances that constitute monastic life; our excellent religious was nevertheless as faithful to it as the most fervent novice. He kept all its austerities; he even added others. Thus, he wore a rough hair shirt continually; every evening, before his collation, he administered a bloody discipline to himself; and when he was too weak to act himself, he would ask one of his companions, in the name of the Savior's Passion, to perform this good office for him and not to spare him.

The man of God went to bed late, and he allowed himself only five hours of sleep; his ordinary bed was the ground or some bundles of small branches. A stone or the sacred book of the Scriptures served as his pillow. He always rose at midnight to say Matins, and he recited his office on his knees, very distinctly and with great devotion.

His chastity was admirable. He never looked a woman in the face; never, for thirty years, did he see any part of his body other than his bare hands. He had such a great love for evangelical poverty that he exhorted everyone to embrace it; many very wealthy people, of all kinds of conditions, distributed their goods to the poor to follow the poor Jesus Christ, following the example of his servant.

Moved by the miracles of the Savior, and desirous of hearing his doctrine, a great crowd followed his steps through Judea and Samaria, where he went, preaching the kingdom of God. It was a similar sentiment that grouped around Saint Vincent Ferrer some people, happy to follow him and to walk under his direction in the ways of salvation. The Saint felt he should allow these people to attach themselves to him. Their number did not take long to increase; soon it was necessary to count by the thousands the devout pilgrims who associated themselves with his travels. The troop of our Saint comprised three main categories: the first formed of his coadjutors, whose number rose to about fifty religious or priests; the second, composed of a fairly considerable number of Tertiaries of the Order of Saint Dominic; the third, gathering a multitude of penitents whose number sometimes reached the enormous figure of ten thousand. The spectacle of the heroic virtues practiced by these pious pilgrims was a sermon that spoke to the eyes with as much eloquence as the master's sermons resounded in the ears. One received at once the precept and the example of Christian piety. This numerous personnel accelerated the religious movement. Some instructed the ignorant, others gave to each in particular the advice that Saint Vincent gave to all in general. They excited one another to a prompt imitation, and they added to the great religious exercises a pomp, an enthusiasm which, little by little, did not take long to win over all hearts through a salutary contagion.

The Saint had prescribed very wise regulations, whether for the admission of the faithful into this holy company or for their way of life. Those who did not enjoy a good reputation were turned away. Public sinners had to perform a very rigorous public penance beforehand, and even then they formed a separate section, called the flagellants, where one saw thieves, assassins, courtesans, magicians, and sorcerers who expiated their crimes through edifying austerities. Confession and communion were customary at least once a week. This double practice contributed to uniting hearts to God by closer bonds, and to tightening the knots of Christian charity between the members of the society.

His prayer was continuous; and the presence of God was so familiar to him that he never diverted his mind or his heart from it. He gave only five short hours to sleep, and even then he could say, like the bride, that if his senses were then asleep, his heart did not cease to be awake; for he never stopped, during all that time, thinking of God and occupying himself with eternal truths. He always had the crucifix in his hand, or hanging around his neck, to better preserve the memory of his Savior's Passion: and he called it his great bible, because he found there all the treasures of the science and light of God, which are spread throughout the Holy Scriptures. He confessed every day before celebrating the Holy Mass; and, when he was at the Canon, the anointing of grace with which his soul was filled dilated so much that he shed tears in abundance. Devotion toward the Blessed Virgin always increased in him with age, and he worked ceaselessly to implant it in the hearts of his penitents and his listeners. When he arrived in a place, he never failed, whatever the hour, to go to the church to greet the Blessed Sacrament, like a well-born child who does not enter his father's house without paying his respects and greeting him.

Most often the church was too small to contain his numerous audience. He then chose a vast square or a nearby plain, and had a platform built there, wide enough to support an altar on the right and a pulpit on the left. He celebrated a solemn mass every day, accompanied by the singing of several skilled clerks and the grave music of an organ that followed him everywhere.

After Mass, mounting the pulpit adorned with precious carpets and a canopy that protected him from the sun's rays, and at the same time allowed his voice to reach with more force to the extremities of his numerous audience, Vincent would speak, and letting himself go to all the ardor of his zeal, he would expound with an irresistible force, an eloquence entirely divine, the great truths of religion.

After the sermon, he would stop for some time at the foot of the pulpit to offer his hands to be kissed by the people and to bless the sick who were presented to him in crowds. He recited prayers over them, which often miraculously restored their health. A bell warned the people of this moment, and it was called the bell of miracles.

When he had finished this work of charity, our Saint would go to the church with other priests, his companions, to hear the confessions of those who had been converted, and he would remain there until noon, the hour of his meal. While providing for the necessities of life with a frugal meal, he would have a reading from the Holy Scripture; his meal finished, he would continue this reading himself, where he would meditate in silence for an hour. The reading finished, and Vespers recited, he would preach another great sermon to the people. The rest of the day was spent listening to confessions, preaching in private to monks, nuns, priests, and certain private meetings, where divine inspiration led him; there, he often shook hardened people, reconciled adversaries, made them restore unjustly acquired goods, and consoled the afflicted.

Toward evening, he would tell one of his brothers to ring the *bell of miracles*. At this well-known sound, the sick would gather at the church to receive health. Finally, at the onset of night, he would preside over a procession of penitents who publicly disciplined themselves, and it was with this ceremony that Vincent ended the public exercises of his ministry.

In addition to sanctifying graces, he was admirably endowed with those we call gratuitous, which are given for the salvation of one's neighbor. Among others, he eminently possessed the gift of speaking with clarity, force, unction, and divine eloquence. When he treated a subject of compassion and love, he did so with such great sweetness and such pathetic speech that he softened every heart. But when he preached on sin, death, judgment, purgatory, or hell, it was with such strong and thunderous zeal that he struck terror into the most hardened souls. This is what happened to him one day in Toulouse: preaching on the Last Judgment, and repeating these words of Saint Jerome: "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!" he frightened his listeners so much that he made them all tremble and shudder. Another time, speaking again on the same subject in the middle of a public square, several thousand people who were listening to him were seized with such great fear that they fainted. During most of his sermons, one could hear the cries and groans of a great number of those present, so that he was often obliged to interrupt his preaching and stop short, until the sobs of his listeners had ceased. His discourses were not only affective: he also fortified them with such powerful reasoning, and with so many authorities drawn from Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, that one would have said he knew all the holy books by heart or had them before his eyes. His voice was at once strong and pleasant, and however great the multitude of his listeners, the most distant heard him as easily as those who were closest. It even happened sometimes, by a great miracle, that people several leagues away, who had not been able to come to his sermon, heard him as distinctly as if they had been in the middle of the assembly. He had the gift of tongues so eminently that the language he used in the pulpit became intelligible to all kinds of nations, and there was no one in his audience, whether French, Italian, German, English, Greek, or Barbarian, who did not hear and understand what he said as perfectly as if he had spoken the very language of all these different countries.

The predictions and miracles he performed at every moment show clearly that he had the gift of prophecy, and those gratuitous graces that give the power to heal diseases and perform all kinds of wonders. He predicted to the mother of Alfonso Borgia, when he was still a child, and later to Alfonso Borgia himself, that he would be Pope, and that in this sovereign dignity he would do him a very great honor; which proved true: for, after the death of Nicholas V, Alfonso, wh Alphonse Borgia Pope who ordered the revision of Joan's trial. o had become a great jurist, and who had been made Bishop of Valencia and Cardinal, was finally created Pope, under the name of Callixtus III, and canonized our Saint. One day, when he was preaching in Alexandria, a city in Liguria, he stopped short in the middle of the sermon, and said to his audience: "I bring you good news that Our Lord has shared with me today; it is that there is among us a young man who will one day be the honor of the Congregation of Saint Francis, and who, through his preaching and his holiness, will render very great services to the Church: he will be invoked publicly with prayers before me." It was Saint Bernardine of Siena, the light of Italy and of the Order of Saint Francis, who was canonized by Pope Nicholas V, in the year 1450, five years after this holy Preacher. He warned two religious, one of his Order and the other of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, to confess promptly, because they would die suddenly that very day; they did so, and, a few hours later, they died as he had predicted t o them. By the same proph saint Bernardin de Sienne Franciscan saint whose canonization drew Didacus to Rome. etic spirit, he saw absent things, even though they were extremely far away. The death of his father and that of his mother were revealed to him while he was preaching, so that he could recommend them to the prayers of his listeners.

One of those who had joined the pilgrims following the Apostle of God had a mind ill-disposed enough to inwardly doubt the miracles and conversions he saw performed by the thaumaturge. He observed all his words and actions to find fault with them, in the manner of the Pharisees, whose eyes were always fixed on the Savior of men in the hope and desire to catch him in a fault. One day Vincent approached him, looked at him fixedly, and began to reveal to him through his speech all the thoughts of his heart, all the criticisms and doubts that were pressing upon his soul regarding his apostolic conduct; he did so with such truth and force that the disciple, confused and repentant, threw himself at his feet and humbly asked his pardon. Vincent granted it to him with a good heart; but at the same time he addressed a paternal warning to him: "Think," he said to him, "of what you yourself are doing, and not of what others are doing."

Not only did Vincent practice this virtue which makes a man lovable to those who live with him, but he insinuated it to others with great skill. One day, a woman came to find him, complaining bitterly of the ill-treatment she endured from her husband. "Teach me, my good Father," she added, "an effective way to have peace in the house, so that this man does not mistreat me continually in word and deed." The Saint let her speak at her ease; he soon understood the cause of the evil for which she was seeking a remedy; it was only her loquacity and petulance; she excited her husband's anger with her chatter and insolent retorts. Then the Saint said to her: "If you wish to put an end to these unfortunate dispositions, go find the brother porter of our convent, and have him give you in a vessel some water from the well that is in the middle of the cloister. When your husband enters the house, immediately take a sip of this water without swallowing it, and keep it in your mouth for a long time. If you do this, I assure you, your husband will no longer get angry and will become as gentle as a lamb." Immediately the woman hastened to carry out the Saint's advice, finding that the remedy was not difficult. When the husband entered the house, beginning to get irritated, she ran to the vessel and drank her sip of water, which she held as long as she could; which meant that, finding no answer, the husband fell silent in his turn. He himself was amazed that she said nothing, and he thanked God for having changed her heart and closed her mouth, from which all their disputes originated. When the fact had occurred several times, always with the same success, the woman returned to find Saint Vincent, and thanked him effusively for having taught her such a remedy. Then the Saint, speaking to her with sweetness, but with clarity, said to her: "The remedy that I taught you, my daughter, is not the well water, as you believe, but silence. By keeping silent you have brought peace between you and your husband. Scarcely in the house, you irritated him with importunate demands, and he went away in anger; it was your fault if this anger kept growing; your insolent retorts were the cause. In the future keep silent, and you will always be at peace with your husband." Hence the common proverb in Valencia; when a woman complains about her husband, they answer her: "Fill your mouth with water, and what Saint Vincent said will happen to you!"

When he confessed sinners, Vincent helped them miraculously to discover faults that had not come to their minds. But what is even more singular is that during his preaching it happened that he would fix his eyes on certain people whom he had never seen and of whom he had never heard, and then he would broach the question of the sins into which they usually fell, and he would enter into such particular and individual circumstances that the sinners were accustomed to say of him: "This man is truly a saint, he knows everything that is most hidden in our interior." Was it a usurer, an adulterer, a thief, a murderer, a man guilty of abominable crimes? The word of Vincent went so straight to the wound of the soul, it discovered so much of the secret of the heart, that in the end, aided by tight reasoning and by an eloquence inflamed with love, he succeeded in converting them from the vices in which they were plunged, and in returning them to the path of justice and penance. God had shown the prophet Ezekiel the abominations of his people at the time when that prophet lived, so that he might exhort them to penance. He gave Vincent Ferrer the same lights. Everywhere he went to preach, he saw the sins of the people and the wounds of the souls; this is what gave his word such a wise, prudent, and effective direction for the correction of disorders. If it had not been so in any of the places where his apostolate was exercised, Vincent could not have known the particular sins, the abominable secrets of many; he could not have fixed his gaze on them, convinced them of their wickedness, and effectively led them to penance.

Striking miracles supported his mission; their number is incalculable. More than eight hundred and sixty are recounted in an inquiry made in Avignon, Toulouse, Nantes, and Nancy; he himself, in Salamanca, confessed that he had already performed more than three thousand. God seemed to obey the will, and so to speak the orders, of his apostle. During the period of his apostolate, he performed them regularly every morning after his preaching: "Ring the bell of miracles," he would say to one of his disciples. Sometimes, inwardly inspired, he did not heal all those who presented themselves; but when they returned at the appointed hour, which they did not fail to do, he always ended up restoring their health. Had he performed only eight miracles a day in the course of these twenty years, one would arrive at the figure of fifty-eight thousand four hundred. But this calculation is obviously too low, since, it is a constant fact, our Saint performed them not only in public assemblies and in the pulpit, but also while walking, while staying at home, at every instant, so to speak; hence this common saying among the historians of his life: "It was a miracle when he did not perform miracles, and the greatest miracle he performed was to perform none." The grave word of Saint Louis Bertrand confirms their testimony: "God," says this Saint, "has authorized the doctrine of Vincent Ferrer by so many miracles that, from the Apostles to our days, there is no Saint who has performed more. God alone knows the number, as He alone knows the number of the stars that populate the firmament." His virtue was so sovereign in matters of healing that he communicated it to others, and even to inanimate objects that had been in his use. Often the people gathered to ask him for a grace of this kind; Vincent would turn to one of his companions and say to him: "Today I have performed enough miracles, and I am tired of them. Do yourself what is asked of me; the Lord who works through me will also work through you." Four hundred sick people recovered their health just by lying on the bed where he had died. We will report here some of these miracles, to give an understanding of what must have been the admiration of the populations who were the happy witnesses of these wonders.

One of the main ones was the resurrection of a child that his mother had killed, cut into pieces, and had roasted in a fit of frenzy, to which she was subject. His father, who was lodging the Saint during the mission, and who, at that time, was attending his sermon, having returned home, was seized with such great horror and such vehement pain that he was as if beside himself and did not know what to resolve; but Vincent having followed him, and having arrived at his lodging, consoled him, assuring him that God had only permitted such a tragic accident to draw his glory from it. Indeed, having had the limbs of the dead child brought to him, he reunited them all one to the other, and by the efficacy of his prayers and the strength of the sign of the cross, he restored this body in its entirety and returned life to it: a prodigy so singular that one finds almost no similar one in all of ecclesiastical history. It is said that this wonder happened in Gascony or Languedoc.

In Valencia, a beggar woman, infirm and mute, was presented to Vincent. The Saint made the sign of the cross on the forehead and on the mouth of this woman and asked her what she wanted. "I ask for three things," she said, "the health of the body, the daily bread, and the use of speech." The man of God replied to her: "Of these three things, two are granted to you, the third is not suitable for the salvation of your soul." The suppliant replied: Amen, and became mute again as before.

In Ecija in Andalusia, a very rich Jewish woman came out of curiosity to hear him preach; but not liking his doctrine, she flew into a rage, then headed for the door. The people opposed her passage: "Let her go out," cries Vincent, "and let everyone withdraw from the portico of the church." At that instant the portico collapsed on the head of the Jewish woman; she was found broken and dead; but the Saint, from the top of the pulpit, began to pray and resurrected her in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The first words of the Israelite were that there was no true religion but that of the Christians. She converted, and to perpetuate the memory of this event, she established a pious foundation in this church.

We do not mark here in particular the sick he has healed, the blind to whom he has given sight, the deaf he has made hear, the mutes he has made speak, the pregnant women he has relieved in their pains, nor the paralytics he has put back in a state to act and walk. What must not be omitted is that he has often multiplied a little bread and wine so prodigiously that there was enough to feed sometimes two thousand, sometimes four thousand or six thousand people: after this distribution the bread and wine were as whole, and even more abundant than before. This shows us that Our Lord does not perform lesser miracles through his servants than those he has done by himself.

The procession of the disciplinants was capable in itself of softening the most hardened souls. It took place every evening at sunset, whatever the weather, even in rain, snow, wind, and storm. One saw people of all conditions, nobles and commoners, great and small, even children of four to five years old who did not fear to strike themselves with a holy cruelty, in order to expiate the sins of the people. This troop left the church, divided into two parts, that of the men and that of the women. They walked two by two, barefoot, faces veiled, the sack of penance at the loins and shoulders bare, in such a way, however, that modesty was not offended. Each penitent struck himself with a discipline, thinking of the Passion of the Savior. The blood flowed, and even, carried away by fervor, a great number went so far as to cut the flesh and detach shreds from it by the violence of the blows. And yet, a truly surprising thing, God permitted it so! never did any of these austere penitents suffer in their health following this exercise; our Saint himself pointed this out, in order to show the people how much this demonstration of sensible penance was pleasing to God; in twelve years not a single one of the people who formed the special company of the disciplinants had yet died.

While this procession crossed the streets of the city, women of ill repute were gathered in the church, and one of Saint Vincent's companions preached to them on sin, on penance, on hell. Many of these unfortunate women did not resist the pressing exhortations addressed to them. The next day one saw them break all the ties that attached them to vice, and become part of the public penance procession.

What resulted from all this? It is that from the moment of Vincent's entry into a city, that city took on the aspect of Nineveh when Jonah was preaching penance there. People wept when they heard the Saint's mass, but above all they shed abundant tears when he exhorted his listeners to repentance. It was then burning sighs, deep sobs, cries that resounded in the air. One would have said that everyone was weeping for the death of a firstborn, a father, or a mother. The squares and plains that his audience covered gave an idea of the universal judgment: it was, in effect, like the future terror and the lamentable complaint of all the tribes of the earth in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Now, remarks Nicolas de Clémangis, an eyewitness, the emotion reached the coldest souls, and hearts of stone softened to the point of melting into tears, groans, and heartbreaking accents.

Let one imagine furthermore the extraordinary influx of populations. The Saint's audience was not composed only of the inhabitants of the city where he was preaching. It often happened that he saw around his pulpit more than fifty thousand people, even though he only preached in small villages. People willingly traveled several leagues to hear him. While he was preaching, all the craftsmen abandoned their work, and the merchants their shops. In university cities, the masters suspended their lessons. Bad weather, wind, rain, did not prevent the crowd from going to the public squares where the Saint was to speak. The sick who had enough strength to walk abandoned their hospitals, others had themselves carried; all hoped that their bodies would be healed at the same time as their souls, and this hope was often realized.

One can judge in some way, by the following fact, of the ardor that the Saint's word inspired in the people for penance: wherever Vincent arrived, the public squares were invaded by merchants whose trade consisted solely of disciplines, hairshirts, iron chains, sacks of penance, and other instruments of mortification.

Must one therefore be astonished if his word has produced so much fruit, and if it is said that he converted eighteen thousand Moors, Turks, or Saracens; twenty-five thousand heretics or schismatics, and countless thousands of peasants who were no less coarse and ignorant in matters of faith than the pagans themselves? Certainly, this great preacher lowered himself to catechize and instruct the idiots and children; he taught them to make the sign of the cross, to say the Pater, the Ave, the Credo, the Confiteor, and the Salve Regina; and to often invoke the most holy names of Jesus and Mary. Finally, he withdrew from vice, in the course of his mission, more than one hundred thousand sinners. There was no need to fear, when he had preached in some place, to see in the church women with an exterior contrary to Christian modesty and the respect they owe to the angels; for he always carried this advantage over persons of that sex, that they renounced luxury, vanity, and everything that was not according to the rules of decency. Saint Vincent preaching one day in the city of Tortosa, against the schism of Benedict XIII, before Queen Margaret, widow of Don Martin, King of Aragon, this princess felt so vividly touched by regret for having supported this antipope, that she wept bitterly before the whole assembly, and later entered a monastery near Barcelona, where she ended her days in the practice of great humility.

His exhortations in the confessional were so effective that penitents died at his feet from the excess of contrition he had excited in their hearts. When Saint Vincent Ferrer was in France, there was in Béziers a man who had committed great crimes, among others that of incest, and furthermore he despaired almost entirely of divine mercy. The Saint having gone to preach in the city inhabited by this great criminal, the latter went to hear him, and he was so penetrated by the fire of his words that he came, all contrite and humbled, to throw himself at his feet to make his accusation of his sins. Effectively he confessed with such great contrition that Saint Vincent, having imposed seven years of penance on him, he exclaimed: "How, my Father! for such grave sins such a light penance! — Yes, my son, replied the Saint, and I even want to diminish it for you. Your penance will not be a fast of seven years, but only of three days on bread and water." The pain of this true penitent increased upon hearing the Saint thus diminish a penance that already seemed too light to him, and he replied: "But, my Father, is it possible that for such grave faults you impose such a light satisfaction on me?" To these words Saint Vincent replied with a holy resolution: "Come, my son, I do not want to impose any other penance on you than this: three recitations of the Pater." The sincere and submissive penitent bowed his head humbly, and began to recite his three Paters. But his pain was so great, his contrition so perfect that, not being able to finish his penance, he fell dead at the feet of the holy confessor. The following night, the glorious soul of this penitent appeared to Vincent: "By the great mercy of God, it said, and because of my perfect contrition, the Lord has granted me his complete pardon, and I have entered paradise without passing through the flames of purgatory."

In another place, a woman who led a scandalous life had come to the church to hear the Saint preach. But as she had gone there for any other motive than that of hearing the divine word, she placed herself in a very visible place, in order to be better seen by her admirers.

The man of God mounts the pulpit, and he begins to preach against the vain ornaments of women and against the sins of the senses. He exhorts his listeners with force to detest them as so many very grave offenses of God. O admirable power of the divine word!... the exhortations of the Saint penetrated the heart of the courtesan, to the point that the contrition with which she was seized made her shed a great abundance of tears of repentance; her pain was even so vivid that she was suffocated by it: she fell dead on the ground in the sight of the whole audience. All those who were present had been witnesses of her pain and her tears, but nevertheless they trembled for the salvation of her soul. Seeing her die thus suddenly, they took this sudden death for a punishment from God, and they deplored her loss, which could be eternal. But the holy orator consoled them promptly: "My good people," he said to them, "do not fear for the salvation of this woman, because her perfect contrition has saved her. Pray for her." At these words, the holy preacher was interrupted by a voice from heaven that said to him: "It is no longer necessary to pray for her, but pray that she intercede for you, because she is already in paradise." Thus was confirmed what the Saint had announced, that perfect contrition had saved this woman, and that she was already enjoying the crown of glory among the souls of the true penitents who are in heaven.

Let us now resume, in a few words, the course of his life since the great illness he suffered in Avignon, where Our Lord appeared to him, charged him with the functions of the apostolate, and restored him to perfect health (1398). Having left Avignon, he traveled through the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, where, in less than two years, he made innumerable conversions and restored piety on all sides in the cities, towns, and villages.

At the beginning of the 15th century, our holy Missionary went to France. The weakness of Charles VI, the scandalous divisions of the most powerful lords of this kingdom, and the disastrous consequences of the schism had reduced the Gallican Church to a pitiful state; ignorance and the corruption of morals were wreaking the greatest havoc there. It was necessary to raise one's voice, to thunder with force, to revive the faith, to stir consciences, and to tear sinners away from their criminal lives. It was a difficult task; Vincent acquitted himself of it as an apostle.

He first evangelized Provence and the Dauphiné, then he went to Piedmont and from Piedmont to Lombardy: everywhere he produced the same fruits of salvation. While in Piedmont, the inhabitants of Moncalieri complained that, every year, a storm ruined their vineyards when they were close to the harvest. He gave them, as a remedy, to throw holy water on them: which had such a good effect that when the storm occurred, it could not harm the vineyards that had been sprinkled, while it ravaged those of the unbelieving masters who had neglected the means the Saint had provided. From Piedmont he came to the Dauphiné in the year 1402, which he evangelized several times. Three valleys especially were the theater of his labors and the miraculous successes of his preaching: Argentière, Freyssinères, and Vallouise, all three situated on the right bank of the Durance, between Embrun and Briançon. They were then populated by heretics, renowned for their violence, for their p rofound Vaudois A dissident religious group that Vincent fought in the Alps. immorality, and known by the name of Waldensians.

The accounts given to our Saint regarding the dissolute and barbaric habits of these heretics and the dangers of a mission in the midst of the wild gorges they inhabited, far from discouraging him by frightening him, inflamed his zeal with a holy ardor. He therefore penetrated among them; he preached, and he rose up with force against the monstrous errors of their faith and the infamous disorders of their lives. Three times they attempted to take his life, and three times he was divinely protected. Finally, these men, conquered by the virtues and eloquence of the pious missionary, abjured their beliefs and returned in crowds to the bosom of the Church. The transformation was such that one of these valleys abandoned its name of Val-Pute or Valley-of-Corruption, and took the name of Val-Pure or Valley-of-Purity, a name it exchanged, under Louis XI, for that of Vallouise, which it still retains.

From the Dauphiné, he entered Savoy. His mission in Savoy was in the years 1402 and 1403. In 1402 occurred the seventh septennial jubilee or great pardon of Notre-Dame de Liesse, in Annecy, which he preached. It is noted that in this country the Saint had to fight the cult of the Grand-Orient, probably already a Masonic sect. In Chambéry, he founded a convent of his Order. He then traveled through Piedmont and the diocese of Lausanne, where he destroyed the sun worship established among the peasants. Passing to the borders of Germany, he went to Lorraine, where one can still see in Toul the pulpit from which he announced the word of God. In Genoa, in the year 1405, and although he spoke his natural language, which was Spanish, foreigners of all kinds of nations who were in this merchant city did not fail to understand him perfectly. He returned to France, where, having passed through Paris, he continued his mission as far as Flanders, whose entire country he enlightened by the light of his preaching. The King of England having urged him to come also to his States, he embarked for England, Scotland, and Ireland; he traveled through them during the years 1406 and 1407. Then he returned to France and preached in Poitou and Gascony until the Lent of the year 1408, which he spent preaching in Auvergne. It was there that he received letters from Aben-Ava-Macoma, King of Granada, who begged him to travel to his kingdom in order to instruct him in the mysteries of the faith, which he intended to embrace. This fervent preacher, seeing such a beautiful opportunity to fight the Alcoran and to banish Mohammedanism from Spain, did not fail to fly there, and, in the three weeks he preached before the king, he won him over so well that he also obtained permission to work for the conversion of his vassals. But the great men of his State, animated by the demon, having threatened to incite all the people against him and to make him lose his crown if he did not promptly drive out this new preacher, this pusillanimous king, seized by a vain fear, dismissed Saint Vincent without being baptized, and died miserably, shortly after, in his infidelity.

The Saint, leaving Granada, came to Barcelona and to the whole country of Catalonia and Valencia, where he brought about restitutions and reconciliations that seemed impossible. He had to console Don Martin, King of Aragon, for the disastrous loss of his only son, King of Sicily, who died in the midst of a signal victory won over the peoples of Sardinia. He also predicted the death of the same King of Aragon while preaching at Morella, near Valencia. After the death of this king, great troubles having arisen in Spain regarding the succession to the crown, Vincent went to Italy, where he preached in Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, and several places around. But John, King of Castile, having called him to put an end to the divisions of which we have just spoken, he happily succeeded; everyone deferred to his judgment regarding to whom the crown of Aragon should belong. He was also fortunate enough to withdraw the King of Castile from the party of Benedict XIII and to oblige him to recognize as Pope whoever would be named by the Council of Constance, which was being assembled for this purpose.

One cannot believe what he did afterwards throughout all of Spain; for there was hardly a city, town, or village, even as far as the island of Majorca and Minorca, where he did not carry the torch of the Gospel and the light of truth. This great mission completed, he returned to France, preached on all sides in Languedoc, Berry, and Burgundy, and filled these three provinces with the reputation of his holiness, through the great miracles he performed there.

Saint Vincent Ferrer was at Le Puy-en-Velay when an ambassador of the Duke of Brittany, John V, delivered a letter from his sovereign, who begged him to come to his states. He told him that several cities in Brittany had entirely forgotten the doctrine and law of Jesus Christ, to the point that they seemed to be inhabited by pagans. These words deeply afflicted the Saint; however, he could not determine the time of his passage to Brittany, because he first wanted to go to the Council of Constance. While he was performing miracles on his way, he received a second and a third ambassador from the Duke of Brittany, who begged him again to consider how necessary his presence was in his states. The faithful no longer knew the religion there; the ecclesiastics barely knew the ceremonies of the Mass. The laity, for lack of anyone to instruct them, were ignorant not only of the commandments of God, but even of how to make the sign of the Cross. This ignorance produced a host of disorders, even to enchantments and sorcery. Such a distressing picture could not fail to move the heart of Saint Vincent. He resolved to go to Brittany as soon as possible, and towards the end of January 1417, he made his way through the Bourbonnais, Burgundy, Dijon, Clairvaux, Langres, Nancy, Berry, and Touraine, whose capital was a Babylon of iniquities. In Angers, having preached against the excessive luxury of women, he put an end to the scandal. In Nantes, he was received like an angel and healed several sick people. In Vannes, where the Duke resided—who earned the nickname of the Good for hi Vannes Birthplace of Saint Emilion. s singular gentleness—the bishop, assisted by his canons and all the clergy, and the Duke himself with the Duchess and all the nobles, magistrates, and people in the city, came to meet him as far as the chapel of Saint-Laurent, half a league from the gates. He was led in this manner with a thousand acclamations of joy into the cathedral church, where the bishop wished him to give the blessing. The next day, a large platform was erected in front of the portal, where he said Mass; after Mass, he preached on this passage from chapter VI of Saint John, which had been read in the Gospel: "Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost," and urged his listeners with marvelous force to profit from the remains of the feast of the word of God that he was bringing, as if he had wanted to signify that his mission would soon end with his life. He predicted to the Duchess that she would give birth to a son who would reach the crown of Brittany, which was verified; for, although this prince was not the eldest, he nonetheless became Duke, Francis I, his brother, having died without children.

Although the work of this mission was very arduous, because of the corruption of morals and the inveterate vices of the Bretons, the Saint extended his zeal even into Normandy. A poor wretch, being in despair for having given the demon a paper signed with his hand, by which he abandoned himself to him, the Saint compelled this enemy of men to bring back this paper publicly, to be torn and cut to pieces. He also delivered a girl whom the demon had seized because she had not made the sign of the cross during a great tumult that he had himself excited in her father's house: but if he drove him out of some bodies, he made him leave an infinity of souls, who had rendered themselves his slaves through sin. And all these countries have long felt the change he had made there by the force of his admirable preachings. It is even said that the presidial court of Caen, after the preachings of our Saint, went several years without having any lawsuits to judge, Christian charity itself rendering justice and ending all the disputes of the parties.

The demon did everything he could to prevent these great fruits: he sometimes disguised himself as a hermit and mingled among his listeners to discredit him and turn them away from hearing him; other times he excited storms and made thick, black clouds appear in the air, ready to resolve into rain and hail, so that the people who were at the sermon, in the open country, would withdraw promptly and go seek shelter in houses. He also took the figure of fiery horses that seemed to come to swoop down on the audience, to disturb their attention and interrupt the Saint in the middle of his discourse. But this admirable man always discovered his ruses and dissipated his evil designs. One day, this monster told him that it was with reason that he was called Vincent, since he was always victorious, and that all of hell could not resist him.

The persecution of slanderous tongues was much more sensitive to Saint Vincent than that of the demons; and, to tell the truth, this was the touchstone by which Our Lord wanted to test the constancy, fidelity, love of neighbor, humility, and generally all the virtues that were in him. Indeed, there were people, even having some appearance of piety, who charged him with insults, and who treated him as a wanderer, a buffoon, a hypocrite, and a false prophet; others said that he was a preacher of fables and daydreams, and that he only undertook these great missions to flee solitude, to evade the obedience of his superiors, to have entry among the great, and to make himself adored by the people. One can even still see today prisons that are said to have been sanctified by his humility and his invincible patience. But all these contradictions were only jewels to compose his crown, and to make him appear before God as gold purified by fire and exempt from all mixture. His life, more austere than that of the most rigorous solitaries, his aversion to the charges and dignities of the Church, his continuous miracles, and the inestimable success of his preachings, clearly showed the injustice of all these reproaches, and that Saint Vincent was an apostle extraordinarily sent from heaven for the reformation of the morals of the faithful. God also performed wonders to punish these slanderous tongues; and most of them, struck by his hand, were obliged to have recourse to the Saint to be delivered from the scourges they had brought upon themselves by their calumnies.

After having traveled through Normandy, he returned to Vannes Vannes Birthplace of Saint Emilion. to continue his work there. But the five companions he always took with him, to assist him in confessions and to have a holy company with whom he could keep a form of community outside the convents of his Order, seeing that his health was notably declining and that he could not live much longer, begged him with much insistence to return to Valencia, so that this city, which had been the place of his birth, would also be that of his burial. He resisted them for some time; but, finally, yielding to their advice, after having exhorted the inhabitants of Vannes to never forget the truths he had preached to them, he left at night with his brothers to take the road to Spain. They walked until sunrise and already believed they were several leagues away from the city; but, the day having risen, they saw that they were still at the gates. Vincent, seeing this prodigy, said to his religious who were with him: "Let us return, my brothers, God wants me to die here, and Valencia will never have my bones, because it did not want to follow the advice I gave it."

They returned to the city, and the joy there was so great that people ran to the churches to ring the bells. But it did not last long; for, shortly after, Vincent fell ill and declared to the bishop, who was Amaury de La Motte, and to the magistrates who came to see him, that ten days later he would depart from this world. He did not want to have any doctors in this illness, because he knew that it was ordained by God to prepare him for death; but he confessed every day, considering the sacrament of Penance as a sovereign remedy against the diseases of the soul. On the Monday of Passion week, he had the plenary indulgence applied to him that Pope Martin V had sent him for the hour of death; he was convinced that, despite the works one may have undertaken for the glory of God, one is always an unprofitable servant and that one always has need of his indulgence and his mercy. Finally, after having received the last Sacraments from the hand of the grand vicar of the cathedral church, he rendered his spirit to God in the presence of the Duchess Jeanne of France and all the ladies of the court, on Wednesday, April 5, in the year of Our Lord 1419, and of his age the seventieth.

Saint Vincent preached from 1398 to 1419. By the fruits he produced, one could not say that any other missionary has surpassed him. He was the man of Providence to maintain the people in the faith, at the time of the Western Schism.

It would be curious to draw up a table of all the places, and especially those of our country, where Vincent left, so to speak, the imprint of his steps: we will name some localities where the memory of his passage has lasted the longest.

Carpentras preserved with veneration, until 1793, the pulpit in which Vincent preached on December 14, 1399; — one recently saw in Clermont the one he mounted in 1407; — one also read in a church in Nevers an inscription that recalled his preachings in that city.

In Rodez, tradition holds that he preached in a large meadow of the priory of Saint-Félix, which is not far away. — In Saint-Omer, his hair shirt was long venerated.

In Graus, in Catalonia, he instituted the procession of the disciplinants, and he laid the foundations of this marvelous company of holy souls who accompanied him in his apostolic peregrinations. In this same city of Graus, he left, as a souvenir, a crucifix that was requested of him by the inhabitants. This image became the instrument of several miracles.

The angels visited him often; but one of the most beautiful angelic manifestations made to our Saint was that of the guardian angel of Barcelona. Upon entering the city, he saw, near the gate, a young man resplendent with light, holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The Saint asked him what he was doing in this place with these weapons. "I am the guardian angel of Barcelona," he replied, "this city is under my protection." In the first sermon that followed this marvelous vision, Vincent recounted what had happened to him, congratulated the inhabitants of Barcelona on their happiness, and begged them to render thanks to the angel who guarded them; which they did by building a small chapel at the very spot where the angel had shown himself to the holy preacher. An enormous statue of an angel still surmounts today (1872) the customs palace at the entrance to the port of Barcelona: it is, in another form, the souvenir perpetuated of the vision with which Vincent was favored, and whose account must have extremely rejoiced the hearts of the Barcelonans.

We do not know if the history in images of Saint Vincent has been made; it seems to us that one could tell it in the following way:

1st. Taken out in procession, while he is still in the cradle. A long drought was devastating Valencia. One day when his mother, sharing the common sadness, expressed her anxiety, she heard her swaddled child pronounce these words distinctly: If you want rain, take me in procession. Little Vincent was carried there triumphantly, and barely had the ceremony ended when an abundant rain fell for several hours on the parched earth; such is the immemorial tradition of the inhabitants of Valencia. — 2nd. Saint Dominic holds the young postulant by the hand and presents him to the prior of the monastery of Valencia: the latter had indeed had this miraculous vision the day before the day when Vincent came to knock at the door of the Dominicans, accompanied by his father (February 2, 1367). — 3rd. A poor man stops his mother in the street and says to her: Madam, why are you sad...? Constance Miguel, indeed, after having consented to her son's entry among the Dominicans, went one day to solicit him with tears to enter the secular clergy. Vincent reminded her of these words of Saint Bernard: He who leaves the convent to return to the world leaves the company of the Angels to take that of the demon... The noble lady having gone to look in the house for an abundant alms to reward the poor man, the consoler, for his good words, she did not find him anymore, despite her searches; it was an Angel. — 4th. On his knees, before his work table, he exhales toward heaven an ardent prayer; for as studious and as learned as he was pious, his custom was to go from study to prayer, and from prayer to study. Vincent knew Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek. — 5th. Another scene that relates to the time of his studies: One night, among others, when he was praying before the crucifix of the Martyrs, and when he was meditating on the pains of Jesus while contemplating the wounds of his hands, his feet, and his sacred side, he felt softened to tears, and in his vivid compassion he cried out: "O Lord, how you have suffered on the cross!" The crucifix turned its head to the left side where the Saint was praying, and answered him: "Yes, Vincent, I have suffered all these pains and more still." This miraculous crucifix, whose head kept the position it had taken while pronouncing these words, has been religiously preserved to our days. — 6th. Standing on a boundary stone, in the middle of the Brou square in Barcelona, then afflicted by a horrible famine, he represents to his listeners how much the forgetting of divine laws attracts scourges on Christian peoples and predicts that at the entrance of night, two ships solely loaded with wheat will enter the port: a murmur welcomed this prediction of the young orator; but to the great surprise of all those whom his prophecy had irritated, the announced ships were able to dock, despite the frightful storm that had been agitating the sea for several days (1372-75). — 7th. A miraculous cloud makes him invisible to Violante, Queen of Aragon, wife of John I. This princess, who had placed herself under his spiritual direction, one day had the curiosity to go see him in his cell, despite the express prohibition he had made to her. The cell was opened to her by the religious: they found him on his knees and praying, but it was impossible for the queen to see him, although he was in front of her. I am here, said Vincent, but as long as the queen does not leave, she will not see me. She finally left, and when she was about to leave, he made himself visible, but armed with a severe face...; — 8th. Another episode shows us that Saint Vincent was little tender for the great of the earth, among whom he never or almost never wanted to lodge. One day when he was preaching on the wood market in Valencia, Princess Jeanne of Prades, sister of the Queen of Aragon, was attending his sermon. Now, it happened that an enormous stone, come from who knows where, fell on the head of the princess and left her half dead. It is nothing, said Vincent; this stone did not fall to kill the princess, but only to knock down the tower she carries on her head: he was thus designating the extravagant ornament of her hair. Then he cried to her: Princess Jeanne, rise. To the great astonishment of all, she rose again safe and sound. — 9th. The Savior of the world, accompanied by a multitude of Angels and the glorious Patriarchs, Dominic and Francis, appears to him when he is sick in Avignon. We have recounted this vision above. — 10th. He heals the sick by laying his hands on them. One cites especially a merchant, named Seuchier, inhabitant of the town of Bram, in the department of the Aude, to whom Vincent restored sight, during the mission of Montolieu (March 25, 1426); a paralytic from the surroundings of Lérida, whom the Saint saw with the eyes of the spirit dragging himself half a league from the place where he was preaching and whom he sent to be fetched by two servants of the King of Aragon. — 11th. Here is the subject of a beautiful painting: Vincent is near the bed of a dying man in despair, who answers all his exhortations with these horrible words: I want to damn myself to the displeasure of Jesus Christ! Vincent, full of confidence in the mercy of God, turns toward the dying man and says to him: Despite you, I will save you. He invites the people present to invoke with fervor the holy Virgin, and the Rosary is recited. God wants to show how much the heroic hope of his servant pleases him; before the Rosary is finished, the room of the dying man is filled with light; the Mother of God appears carrying in her arms the divine child, but all covered with bloody wounds. The sinner, witness of this spectacle, asks for pardon from God and men. — 12th. He orders a child still in swaddling clothes to walk. A woman had just brought a child into the world, and her husband, who was looking for a pretext to leave her, accused her of infidelity. The desolate woman had recourse to Vincent: "Come to my next sermon," he said to her; "pray your husband to mingle with the audience, and do not fail to have your little child carried." When Vincent had finished his discourse, he ordered the mother to place her child on the ground, and for the latter to go find his father; the child began to walk and picked out, in the middle of the crowd, the one who was really his father. Such an extraordinary miracle could only bring peace back into the household. — 13th. He puts a crucifix on the mouth of an ecclesiastic of Avignon, constituted in dignity. One day, one came to tell him that this personage was not living in accordance with the dignity of his state. He spends the whole night in prayers, and at daybreak goes to the prelate's palace with his hands armed with a crucifix, enters, and arrives at the room where he was lying! "My son," he says to him, "Jesus comes to find you, make peace with him"; while saying that, he puts the crucifix on his mouth and leaves rapidly. The noble ecclesiastic, struck with stupor, returned into himself and went to make his confession to Vincent. — 14th. He changes into marble statues two fishermen hardened in crime. Preaching one day in Pamplona, he is seized by a sudden rapture in the middle of his discourse, which he interrupts. Returned to himself, he warns his audience that God orders him to leave his preaching there to go prevent a grave offense that was being committed in the city. Immediately he heads, followed by a curious crowd, toward a sumptuous palace; he touches the closed doors with his hands; they open by themselves. One hears the voices of two people who are giving themselves over in a room to the pleasures of enjoyment. Vincent addresses them from the outside and threatens them with a terrible punishment: they mock him. Then God struck the mockers and they were changed into two marble statues. Immediately Vincent enters and shows the audience the terrible effects of divine vengeance. However, touched by compassion, he approaches, and blowing into the mouths of the two statues, he restores their life to them. The two unfortunates recognize themselves as guilty and confess one after the other. Barely had they received sacramental absolution when the vehemence of their contrition gave them a second death at the feet of the Saint. — 15th. He receives a paper descended from heaven. Preaching one day in Spain, he is called to assist a dying man even more burdened with sins than with years. To all the advances of this ardent hunter of sinners, the dying man only answers with refusals. I assure you, Vincent says to him, that God has forgiven you; I take your sins upon me, and if I have any merit I abandon it to you. The troubled soul of the sick man is reassured, and he ends by adding: I will confess, but you must first put in writing for me the request for pardon and the proposed donation. Immediately Vincent wrote everything on a sheet of paper and put it in the hands of the sick man: the latter entered into a sweet agony and expired peacefully. Barely had he rendered his last sighs when the petition disappeared to follow the soul to the tribunal of the sovereign Judge. Some time later, as Vincent was preaching on the public square to more than thirty thousand people, one saw a sheet of paper descend from heaven that placed itself in the hands of the preacher: it was the one he had given to the dying man. Vincent then explained a mystery that surprised everyone. Let one judge the impression produced on the crowd by the account of this surprising miracle; — another time, called to Pamplona, near the deathbed of a hardened public sinner, he tells her that he would have her absolution come from heaven, if she promised to confess. "If it is so, I am very willing," answered the courtesan. Then he traced these words: "Brother Vincent begs the most holy Trinity to deign to grant to the present sinner the absolution of her sins." The writing flew to heaven and returned a few moments later bearing traced in letters of gold the following commitment: "We, most holy Trinity, at the request of our Vincent, we grant to the sinner of whom he spoke to us, the pardon of her faults; we dispense her from all the pains she had to endure, and if she confesses, she will be in half an hour carried into heaven..." — 16th. He sees Saint Colette, his contemporary, in prayer at the feet of the Savior and hears Jesus Christ who says to him: Your tears are agreeable to me, my daughter; but the men who blaspheme my name are very little worthy of pity; — 17th. While he is celebrating Mass, in Valencia, a woman appears to him as if on the altar surrounded by flames and holding in her arms a bruised child. It was his sister Françoise who, married to a rich merchant, had committed adultery with one of her servants, during her husband's absence. Covered with shame, she poisoned this man, and caused the fruit of her womb to perish, before it came into the world. To top off the misfortune, she did not dare to confess these faults in confession. Finally, she met an unknown priest, confessed her crimes, and died three days later. She had been dead for a long time when she addressed her brother to obtain that her punishment be shortened. Vincent prayed, and at the end of three days she appeared to him crowned with flowers, surrounded by Angels and ascending to heaven. — 18th. Entering a house, he obtains for an ugly woman the gift of beauty; in Valencia, which was very often the theater of the most striking miracles of our Saint, it happened that, passing one day through a certain street, Saint Vincent heard noisy voices and cries of rage coming out of a house, accompanied by perjuries, blasphemies, and horrible imprecations. The Saint, entering this house, saw the head of the family coming out suffocated by anger, and he found his wife who continued to curse him and to vomit execrable blasphemies. Immediately Vincent undertook to appease her. He asked her why she was so furious, and for what reason she was uttering such detestable blasphemies. The woman answered while sobbing: "My Father, it is not only today, but every day and at all hours of the day, that this wretched man, my husband, comes to persecute me, and he never finishes beating me and tearing me with his blows; it is not a life, my Father, it is a continual death, a damnation of the soul, and a hell worse than that of the demons. — No, my daughter, do not speak thus, answered the Saint with extreme gentleness; this anger advances you nothing, except to offend God even more greatly, he who for your love suffered on the cross and on Calvary. But tell me, by grace, for what reason your husband persecutes you and mistreats you in this way? — It is that I am ugly, answered the woman. — And it is for that, answered the Saint, that he offends God so strongly!" Then, raising his right hand on the face of this woman, he added: "Come, my daughter, now you will no longer be ugly; but remember to serve God and to be a saint." At the very instant this poor wretch became the most beautiful woman who was then in Valencia. After that, the man of God exhorted her with much gravity to serve the Lord very faithfully and to be a saint, assuring her that in the future her husband would no longer have occasion to insult and mistreat her because of her ugliness. Then he left, content to have thus removed from this house the occasion to offend God so grievously, and to have remedied the eternal fate of this man who mistreated his wife with so much cruelty. This miracle has become so famous in Spain that in our days still, when one meets a deformed woman, one says by way of proverb: "This woman would really need the hand of Saint Vincent"; — 19th. Thing that seems incredible! an entire public saw him in the middle of his preaching suddenly take wings, fly into the air, disappear to go very far to console and encourage a sick person who was claiming his assistance, and then return in the same way after having fulfilled this act of charity, to continue his preaching. That is why one represents Vincent with wings, like the angels. — 20th. The Angels play another role in the images of our Saint. At the moment when his very pure soul was leaving his body, the windows of the room where he was expiring opened by themselves suddenly, and one saw enter a crowd of very small birds, no bigger than butterflies, very beautiful and whiter than snow; they filled not only the room, but the whole house. When the Saint had rendered his last sigh, these marvelous birds disappeared, but they left the place perfumed with a delicious scent. Everyone was convinced that they were Angels who had shown themselves in this form to come to fetch the Saint, and lead his soul in triumph to paradise; — 21st. But there is a third trait in the life of the Saint which is the main reason for which one attributes wings to him. The Saint, preaching one day in Salamanca to several thousand people, stopped his discourse for a moment; then he began to say to the astonished crowd: "I am the Angel announced by Saint John in the Apocalypse, this Angel who must preach to all peoples, to all nations, in all languages, and tell them: Fear God and render him all honor, because the hour of judgment approaches." Saint Vincent, seeing the people surprised and appearing even not to want to add faith to his words, repeated these words: "I tell you it one more time, I am the Angel of the Apocalypse, and of this affirmation I want to give you a manifest proof. Go to the gate of Saint-Paul, you will find there a dead woman who is being led to burial; bring her here, and you will have the proof of what I announce to you." Just as the Saint inspired by the prophetic spirit had said, one found the dead woman; one led her to the square, and one put the coffin in such a way that everyone could see it. Saint Vincent ordered this dead woman to return to life. "Who am I?" he said to her while commanding her to speak. The dead woman rose immediately and said: "You, Father Vincent, you are the Angel of the Apocalypse, just as you have announced." The Saint then asked the resurrected woman if she wanted to die again, or if she would still willingly remain on the earth. She answered that she desired to live still for a good number of years. Which happened effectively. — 22nd. Another prodigy no less extraordinary than that of the appearance of the butterflies was done at the moment of his death, which can provide one more motive for artists. Jean Liquillie, of Dinan, had in his possession several candles that had served at the Mass of the Saint, and he kept them preciously in a chest locked with a key, in his own room. On February 2, 1419, desiring to have them burned in honor of the Virgin, he goes to take them; but he does not find them at all. All his investigations to know what they had become are vain. But what is not his astonishment, on April 5 of the same year, in seeing all these candles on his chest, where they were miraculously lit. He went to fetch his wife to contemplate this marvel, but he did not understand its significance at first. When later he knew that this very day was that of the death of Saint Vincent, then he explained the prodigy to himself. — 23rd. One could add the donkey. We have already said that, poor and humble, the religious Saint Vincent went on his missions and everywhere on foot, until finally, some years before his death, having a wound on his leg, he was in the necessity of having himself transported. The poor man of Jesus Christ did not want to choose any other mount than a puny donkey, that is to say the most vile and abject animal. He accepted one as an alms; he had no money to buy it; his poverty besides was so great that he did not even have enough to have it shod. One day he led it to a farrier, begging him by charity to be willing to shoe his beast for him. When the operation was finished, the farrier, not thinking at all to have worked by charity, asked the religious for the price of the labor and his supplies. "I have nothing to give you," the Saint said to him, "but God will reward you for your charity." — "Eh Father!" replied the worker, "I cannot work solely by charity: I am, you see, burdened with a family... Pay me," he added, "or I will not return your donkey to you." The good Saint begged him again, while exhorting him to make him this alms; but the farrier answered again: "It is certain that I cannot do it, and you will have neither the beast nor the shoes until you have paid me." Then the Saint, O unheard-of prodigy! turning to the side of the beast, said to it: "This man does not want to give the shoes he put on you, because I cannot pay him; come, return them to him, and let us leave." At these words, the animal, as if it had understood, shook its feet one after the other, and miraculously threw the shoes that the farrier had placed on it. At the sight of this miracle, the worker, stupified, threw himself at the knees of the Saint, asked him for pardon for his obstinate avarice, and, shoeing the donkey again, he gave him the shoes and his work by charity. He contented himself with recommending himself humbly to the prayers of the religious, recognizing that if a Saint as great prayed for him, his intercession would bring him back much more than all the gold and all the treasures of the world. — 24th. And the cross. One day Vincent had himself introduced into the synagogue of Salamanca by an Israelite with whom he had linked himself in friendship for this motive. He entered it with the crucifix in his hand, which put confusion and trouble among the assistants. But the Saint reassured them by telling them that he had come to speak to them of an important affair, and he really thought so, for he found no affair more important than that of salvation. At this word of important affair, the Jews imagined therefore that it was to speak to them of some public interest, and they listened to him with great attention. Then, using sweet and suave words, Vincent began to speak to them of the holy Christian faith and particularly of the Passion and the death of the Son of God. While the holy preacher was striving to persuade the infidels of the glories of the cross of Christ the Redeemer of the world, there appeared a great number of crosses on the clothes of each of those who were gathered in this famous synagogue. But what is even more prodigious is that the crosses that appeared on the outside on the clothes of the men and women penetrated invisibly into their hearts, and, moved by divine grace, they all became Christians. The consolation of the Saint was so great in this prodigious conversion that he wanted to baptize them all with his own hands. Then he had this synagogue consecrated into a church which was called the True-Cross. — 25th. Father Cahier, in his *Characteristics*, reproduces a very beautiful figure of Saint Vincent Ferrer. Draped majestically in his ample Dominican toga, wings are attached to his shoulders: our readers now know the significance of this attribute. With his right hand, he who qualified himself as the Angel of the Apocalypse points to heaven, and his left hand holds with ease an immense trumpet, as a souvenir of his preachings on the last judgment; — the same author indicates the following attributes, as being more especially characteristic of the Saint in popular art: the monogram of the name of Jesus, by allusion to these words that opened to Saint Paul and to all missionaries the career of the apostolate: "He will carry my name before the peoples and the kings"; these words of the Apocalypse, traced on a banner: "Fear the Lord, and render him the honor that is due to him, because the hour of judgment approaches"; a pulpit, because one traces back to him, if not the establishment, at least the propagation of the usage of invoking the holy Virgin, before the sermon; a cardinal's hat, at his feet, to express his refusal of ecclesiastical dignities; a flag, as a symbol of the preachings by which he enrolled converted sinners under the banner of Jesus Christ; the child, cut into pieces, to whom he restored life; a flame on the forehead, as a symbol of inspiration (a way not very recommendable); the lily, symbol of virginity, preserved until death. — According to the same author, Saint Vincent Ferrer is the patron of brickmakers, tilers, plumbers, and roofers. We have not discovered the motive for this patronage. Would it be because of the numerous dead he resurrected? (History has recorded forty resurrections, operated by Saint Vincent, among others that of an architect.) And because the men of these diverse professions are more particularly exposed to mortal falls?

Let us finish with the portrait of Saint Vincent. Our blessed Preacher was endowed with all the oratorical qualities capable of impressing the multitudes. An agreeable exterior first predisposed in his favor: he was of medium height, well-proportioned, unencumbered, beautiful of face; golden hair formed his crown; it whitened slightly towards the end of his life; his forehead was broad, majestic, serene; the contour of his figure was admirably drawn; his large brown and lively eyes breathed brilliance, no less than modesty; in his youth he had a white complexion, colored with a vermilion redness; his long mortifications gave his figure an austere pallor, an irrefutable sign of his penance. His mere sight, as soon as he was in the pulpit, inspired a marvelous composition in the heart of all, so much did the holiness and the diverse virtues that accompany it shine on his face; On the end of his life he preached with so much force and vigor, with so much liveliness in the gesture, that he seemed not an old man beaten down by age and fatigue, but a powerful young man heated by an impetuous ardor and having barely arrived at his thirtieth year. This sudden deployment of force during his preaching was like a daily miracle that delighted the assistants. The sermon finished, he became again weak, infirm, exhausted; his face was pale, his walk slow, he needed to lean on the helpful arm that had helped him to mount into the pulpit; one could not believe that it was the same man, and one said to oneself that while he was preaching, the Holy Spirit was acting in him to revive his feeble body and to communicate to him a miraculous energy.

## RELICS AND WRITINGS OF SAINT VINCENT FERRER.

His body was solemnly deposited in the choir of the cathedral church of Vannes, where he performed a great number of miracles, which led Pope Callixtus III to put him in the number of the Saints, on June 19 of the year 1455, although the bull of canonization was only dispatched under the pontificate of Pius II, his successor, the year 1458, on October 7. Everything that had served him, like his habit, his staff, the mattress where he had slept during his illness, and the water with which one had washed him after his death, which has always remained incorruptible, has made a quantity of miraculous healings. After he was canonized, one raised his tomb, and his sacred bones were transferred into a chest closed with three keys; some vertebrae were left in the sepulcher, and the lower jaw was put into a rich reliquary.

The inhabitants of Vannes have seen themselves more than once exposed to the danger of losing the body of Saint Vincen t. Towards Calixte III Pope who ordered the revision of Joan's trial. the middle of the 16th century, a body of Spaniards sent by Philip II having protected the city effectively against the efforts of the heretics, the chapter of the cathedral wanted to testify to the leader, Dom Juan d'Aguilar, its gratitude, and offered him a considerable fragment of one or of the ribs. But the soldiers formed the plot to carry off the body entirely. Fortunately, the canons were warned in time. They therefore hid themselves, during the night, the chest that contained the body of Saint Vincent, and they did it with so much secret, that this chest remained unknown and as if buried in oblivion from the year 1390 until 1637. At this epoch it was discovered by the bishop of Vannes, Sébastien de Rosnader. The holy relics were verified very exactly, and one made a second translation of them on September 6, a day from then on consecrated to renew the memory of it every year.

The solemn translation of these holy relics took place, indeed, on September 6. Formerly the feast was celebrated each year on the same day. But, since the Concordat, it is celebrated on the first Sunday of September.

During the revolutionary troubles, the people of Vannes had the happiness of subtracting the relics of Saint Vincent Ferrer from the sacrilegious hands that were profaning the churches to seize their spoils. Time has not diminished the devotion of Brittany towards its Apostle. Each year, the first Sunday of the month of September, the insignia relics of Saint Vincent are carried through the streets of Vannes, escorted by the civil, military, and judicial authorities, and by an innumerable crowd; it is priests who have the honor of carrying this precious pledge of a constant protection. All the houses are hung with white draperies. During the cholera of 1854, a similar procession consoled the people of Vannes and diminished the intensity of the scourge.

Here is the title of the booklets that Saint Vincent Ferrer left:

*The Treatise on Dialectical Suppositions.* He published it being only twenty-four years old.

*Treatise on the Spiritual Life.* Excellent work and several times translated; very useful and proper to console in temptations against the faith.

Saint Vincent de Paul recognized Saint Vincent Ferrer as his special patron. He studied his life incessantly, and incessantly he had in his hands the *Treatise on the Spiritual Life*, in order to conform his heart and his acts to it, and to conform also the heart and the acts of the priests of his institute to it.

*Treatise on the new schism that has broken out in the Church*, addressed to Peter, King of Aragon. This treatise has for subject the great Western Schism which, at this epoch, was devastating the Church.

*On the end of the world and the time of the Antichrist.* Epistle written to Benedict XIII, residing in Avignon.

*Epistle to Father de Puynois, General of the Order of Preaching Friars*, to give him knowledge of his apostolic works.

*Fragment of an Epistle to his brother Boniface*, then prior of the Grande-Chartreuse.

*Fragment of an Epistle to Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris.* This epistle was written during the holding of the Council of Constance.

*Two Epistles to Don Martin, Infant of Aragon; Epistle to Ferdinand I, King of Aragon.*

All the works indicated above are in Latin; except the two letters to the Infant Don Martin, which we have just cited, and which are in Catalan.

*Suffrage for the election of Ferdinand, King of Aragon.*

*Sentence that nine chosen men carried in favor of the Infant Ferdinand, in the year 1410.*

All these booklets of Saint Vincent were collected by Father Vincent Justiniano, and published in an in-8° volume, in Valencia, in 1591.

One attributes still to the same Saint two other booklets; one, in Latin, has for title: *Review of the interior man*, and the other, written in his mother tongue, treats of the ceremonies of the Mass.

The first who wrote the life of Saint Vincent was Pierre Ranzano, of the same Order of Saint Dominic, and bishop of Lucera, in the province of Apulia. Since then, Father Alexandre le Grand, of Morlaix, and Father Jean Rebac, called of Sainte-Marie, have also worked on it: it is from these authors that this summary was drawn by Father Giry. — We have sensibly modified and augmented the text of the previous edition by means of the *Life of the Saint*, by the R. P. Pradel, of the *Dominican Year*, and of diverse diocesan hagiographies: Nevers, Avignon, Vannes, Arras, etc.; by means also of local notes.