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 spirit of the Gospel, the spirit which attains its highest point in that great precept of Christ: 'Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect'; and then to do good to others, embraces a mission in some sense apostolic…… Therefore, if the Salesian Co-operators exclude no work which concerns the material good, particularly of the working classes, and of the young, from the sphere of their activity; if, indeed, they seem to have for these a special impulse, the chief object must ever be the spiritual and moral elevation of the people, particularly of the most neglected, to make of them truly the people of God, to form of them the gens sancta, of whom the Holy Spirit speaks."

Don Bosco submitted the revised rule to Pope Pius IX in 1874. His Holiness not only gave the new society his approval and blessing, but graciously placed his own name at the head of the list of Co-operators, at the same time according to it all the indulgences granted to the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. Leo XIII was equally favorable to the new association, and claimed the honor of leading the names in this catalogue of Salesian benefactors. The male members were affiliated to the Society of St. Francis of Sales and the female associates to the Society of Mary, Help of Christians.