Page:Life of Dominic Savio.djvu/109

 But Dominic was under no misapprehension; he replied that he was going away and he knew quite well that he would never return.

On the evening before his departure he stayed with me a long time, so much so that he had no wish to leave me. He had a great many questions to ask, concerning chiefly his own method of action as an invalid, which now he was, and how he might make that state meritorious. I told him that he should offer his illness and his life to God. He was anxious about his past faults and whether I thought he would be saved. I assured him that whatever he might have committed was forgiven, and that he need have no fear of being saved. In regard to temptations, I counselled him to reply to the tempter that he had already given his soul to Our Lord, who had redeemed it with His Precious Blood.

He had many further questions about dying and about Heaven, and he seemed like one who had his foot upon the threshold of Heaven and wanted to know beforehand what it was like.

The day for his departure happened to be the day for the exercises of a happy death, and these he made with the utmost fervour. In fact I have no words in which to describe the devotion with which he approached the Sacraments, though it made a deep impression on me. He regarded