This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE APOSTLE OF YOUTH

your charity, thousands of orphans have found a shelter. Drawn forth from their uncared-for state, rescued from the danger of losing their faith and their virtue, they have, by means of a good education, by application to study, or by apprenticeship to a trade, become good Christians and useful members of society.

The missions, which by your generosity have been established, reach to the uttermost corners of the earth through the hundreds of apostolical labourers whom you have sent forth into the distant regions of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in order to cultivate and enlarge the vineyard of the Lord.

Printing establishments have, by your charity, been founded in several towns in different lands, whereby many millions of books and publications of various kinds, all of them consecrated to the work of defending truth, of kindling a spirit of piety and of encouraging the practice of virtue, have been circulated amongst the people; and lastly, your charity has raised up a goodly number of churches and chapels, which, through ages to come, if not even to the end of the world, will daily re-echo the praises of God and of the Blessed Virgin; and in them will salvation be found by an innumerable multitude of souls.

Convinced as I am that, after God, this your charity has effected the immense amount of good mentioned above, and also other still greater things, I feel the need of openly expressing to you

155