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God, the Omnipotent, takes strange ways, simple and sometimes even apparently foolish ways of beginning a great and sublime work. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, December 8, 1841, Don Bosco was vesting for Mass when he heard the sacristan scolding a strange boy who entered the church for refusing to serve at the altar. "But I don't know how," said the poor little fellow. "Then be off with you," and the sacristan gave him a rough push.

Don Bosco turned to him: "Why do you ill-treat the child?" he said gently. "Call him back; I want to speak to him." Quite ashamed the sacristan obeyed, and Don Bosco told the boy to come to him after Mass. The sacred function concluded, he made the child sit down by him and began a series of questions. "My name is Bartholomew Garelli," he answered to the first. And I want my readers to remember the name, Bartholomew Garelli, because that little boy of fifteen, fatherless, motherless, homeless, began all the great, miraculous, boy-saving works which have made Don Bosco great on earth and great in Heaven. That boy of fifteen could not read or write, he had not made his First