Page:Don-bosco-pine.djvu/188



My Generous Benefactors, 

I feel that the end of my life is now near at hand, and that, at no distant day, I shall have to pay that tribute to death which is common to us all, and to go down into the grave.

But before uttering my last farewell to you upon this earth, I am anxious to discharge a debt of my own towards you, that I may so satisfy a need which I truly feel at heart.

The debt which I have contracted towards you is one of gratitude. You, in fact, have efficiently assisted me in giving a Christian education to a -multitude of poor children, and in placing them in the path of virtue and honorable toil; enabling them to become a consolation to their families, to be useful to themselves and to society at large; and, above all, to attain to eternal happiness by saving their souls.

For me, without your help, nothing of all this would have been possible. Your charity, blessed by the grace of God, has dried up many a fountain of tears and saved a great number of souls. In the many homes which we have established through