Page:Don-bosco-pine.djvu/58

 with danger. Four tragic months they labored heroically in the service of the sick and dying under the eye of their beloved master.

Don Bosco was everywhere; he was confessor to open the gates of heaven to the departing souls, to speed them on the way with the Bread of Life; he was physician and nurse, loving and skillful, not disdaining the most menial acts in his widesouled devotedness. After the toils and hardships of the day, he sought repose still dressed, ready for any emergency, and was called more than once during the night to afford aid to the dying. In the Oratory all was activity. Demands on Margaret's patience, time and supplies were unceasing. She gave at last the table linen and even the altar linen for the relief of the suffering.

But the dread ordeal came to an end. God's Providence had watched over the Father and his children, and the relentless herald of Death had not been allowed to claim one victim.

Cardinal Cagliero, the celebrated Salesian, now seventy-eight years of age, in a recent lecture in Rome (Feb. 1916) on his apostolate in Patagonia and the Argentine, told the following thrilling experience of his own during this period. "In the August of 1854," said the venerable Prince of the Church, "the cholera raged at Turin and I lay sick in the infirmary of the Oratory. I was then sixteen years of age, and the physicians vowed I had come to the end of my life. In the house it was said I was reduced to this state