CHAPTER XI
INTERIOR LIFE OF DON BOSCO. HIS DEVOTION TO MARY, HELP OF CHRISTIANS
Would it were possible to supplement the large details of his life of stupendous activities for the glory of God, with a companion picture of Don Bosco's interior life, his ways of prayer, his gradual ascent to that continual and intimate union with God ever present in the soul, which alone can effect great works.
Whence came Don Bosco's marvelous achievements? people asked. Some of them sprung up like exhalations. How did he bring about those profound and multitudinous transformations of souls from vice to rare and permanent virtue? And the proved miraculous effects of his prayers, the words of prophecy of which they saw the fulfillment with their own eyes—more than all, the heroic fortitude, even joy, with which he bore the most cruel persecutions and reverses, from individuals of low and high degree, from ecclesiastics, from governments, coming out unscathed with supernatural winnings and human successes and victories more prodigious than ever—what was the secret, the mystery of it all?
So close to the invisible world from childhood, the favored disciple of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, who unfolded to him secrets of the future, we may
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