THE VENERABLE DON BOSCO
for an amelioration of his condition, a hope which was re-echoed by all Turin, and, indeed, by the whole Catholic world. But his physicians never shared these illusions. Dr. Fissore asserted:
"Don Bosco is dying. He is attacked by a cardiopulmonary affection; the liver is affected; the spinal marrow presents a complication causing paralysis of the lower limbs. This illness has no direct cause, it is the effect of a life exhausted by labor; the lamp dies out for want of oil."
Cardinals and archbishops and many persons of the highest rank, as well as pilgrims from Home, besought the honor of seeing the venerated invalid. The Archbishop of Paris, Msgr. Richard, visited him on January 24th, and having given him his blessing, he knelt humbly to receive that of the "Father of Orphans."
"Yes," said Don Bosco, "I bless your Grace and I bless Paris."
"And I," said the Archbishop fervently, "shall tell Paris that I bring Don Bosco's blessing."
On the following day, the feast of St. Paul, the patient fell into intermittent delirium, his unconscious lips breathing prayers and the names of his benefactors. The Holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction were administered on January 29th, the feast of St. Francis of Sales. During the day he frequently raised his arms toward heaven, repeating, "Fiat voluntas tua"; but gradually paralysis seized the right side and speech failed. On Tuesday, January 31st, at two o'clock in the
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