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THE VENERABLE DON BOSCO

beginning of many blessings to the empire.

During the same year Don Bosco dispatched a number of Salesian Fathers to London, England, where they founded the Institute at Battersea, now one of the most prosperous houses of the Society. Other flourishing foundations have since been made in England. The Salesian Fathers are held in the highest esteem by His Eminence Cardinal Bourne, whose reverence for the Venerable Don Bosco is manifested in the words I quote:

"It is a life-long memory to have known personally one in whom the Church already discerns tokens of heroic sanctity. It was my privilege to see Don Bosco when he visited Paris in 1883, and to be a witness of the extraordinary impression which the fame of his holiness at once produced upon that city.

"Two years later, after my ordination to the priesthood, it was given me to visit Turin and to see the Venerable Founder of the Salesian Congregation in the midst of his religious family at the Mother-House of the Institute.

"In the autumn of 1887 I was able, at his direct request, to render some slight personal service to his sons on their arrival among us to found the first Salesian house in any English Speaking Country.

"Don Bosco teaches us that God still raises up the weak things to confound the strong…… The Providence of God has rarely been manifested more plainly or more decisively than in the origin and growth of the Salesian Congregation."

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