Ladislaus of Gielniów

ON B. LADISLAUS OF GIELNIÓW

OF THE ORDER OF THE FRIARS MINOR OF THE OBSERVANCE,

AT WARSAW IN MAZOVIA A PROVINCE OF POLAND.

A.D. MDV

Ladislaus of Gielniów, of the Order of the Minors of the Observance at Warsaw (B.)

G. H.

[1] Warsaw, an ample city of Poland on the river Vistula, and the head of Mazovia, is ennobled by the ordinary residence of the Kings and the public Diets of the kingdom. In this B. Ladislaus, of whom here we treat, began his monastic life, Places visited by him. and in the same made the end of living, in life and after death famous for several miracles; surnamed of Gielniów, inasmuch as born in the town of Gielniów of the Palatinate of Sandomierz, district of Opoczno, of the Archdiocese of Gniezno near the river Pilica. Cracow was for him the wrestling-school of studies, a most noted city and the head of greater Poland. Nay the whole kingdom of Poland can assume his patronage to itself, because five times Provincial Vicar of all the convents of the said Order he surveyed that kingdom by going around it, of all which he can be reckoned Patron. and sent the first Brothers of his Order to inhabit the Duchy of Lithuania, and procured for them the place of Skępe in the diocese of Chełm of Red Ruthenia, sacred to the Virgin Mother of God. Why should not also Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia be able to claim him for themselves, the convents of which regions too, not yet divided from the Polish ones, he visited in his first Vicariate?

[2] B. Ladislaus was born about the year of Christ MCCCCXL, professed the religious life in the year MCCCCLXII, The time of his life at which time Casimir III Jagellonides was reigning over the Poles: by whom the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance was admitted into Poland, B. John of Capistrano introducing them, whose Acts are to be illustrated on the XXIII day of October:

meanwhile we treat of him also below on XX May at the Life of S. Bernardine, by whose industry the said Observance was very greatly promoted in the Order. But of King Casimir it was treated on IV March, at the Life of S. Casimir his son. To him succeeded another son John Albert, and he reigned even to the year MDI; under whom the kingdom of Poland exposed to extreme danger, is said below to have been brought back into a better state by the prayers and aid of B. Ladislaus. At length, another son of Casimir III, Alexander, reigning, B. Ladislaus migrated from this mortal life in the year MDV on the IV day of May, and afterward in the year MDLXXII, on Low Sunday the XIII of April, his body, with most solemn apparatus, and of his Translation. in the general Diet of the kingdom, before the King and Princes, was raised, and placed at the right side of the high altar. Very many miracles were wrought by his intercession, and, an informative Process being instituted, legitimately approved, which anew, by the special mandate of Urban VIII, according to the style of the Roman Church, were subjected to examination.

[3] The Life of B. Ladislaus, both in good and entire faith, as he prefaces in the title, Vincent Morawski wrote, The Life written by Vincent Morawski in the year 1633. Definitor of the same Order, Lector of Sacred Theology, and Preacher, and general Procurator for his Canonization, and published it in three books at Warsaw in the year MDCXXXIII, citing the Lives of the first and second edition, before which are to be esteemed the very ancient monuments of letters, alleged at num. 105 to which the life of this holy man was entrusted, and the ancient Chronicles of the Polish Province indicated at num. 130, whence some miracles were received: wherefore we have asked these to be described, to serve at least for a Supplement of the work if they be sent. Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1505 num. 29 alleges a Life, printed by the same Vincent Morawski in the year MDCXII at Cracow, which at least is one of the cited prior editions. There is prefixed in the last edition a dedicatory Epistle to the King, the Bishop of Poznań, the Princes of the kingdom and citizens of Warsaw, in which Vincent at length deduces why he called this Life the Lamp of Christian perfection. To this epistle are subjoined the approbations of various persons, the license and faculty of printing, then the epigrams and poems of eight different persons to the praise of B. Ladislaus, and then are cited various Authors, from whom those things which are contained in the books were assumed. Besides there is added a Proem, in which it is taught that all men everywhere can come to perfection, by the example of B. Ladislaus. All which, as less pertaining to the historical truth of the Acts, we omit, and begin from the Prologue to the Reader, in which, if any things before were cursorily indicated concerning the Life, are more accurately set forth.

[4] The author divided his work into three books, each book into ten chapters: this partition, because it seemed to us also convenient, retaining, we thought it enough to reduce the titles of the chapters to the form of ours: and because the history is recent, we did not think it needful to illustrate it with laborious annotations, how it is here reprinted more correct. but thought it enough to conform the marginal synopsis to our institute. Our greater labor was, in purging that edition which we follow from the infinite faults with which we received it defiled, for the greater part to be imputed to the negligence or unskillfulness of those who, the author being absent or otherwise hindered, presided over the impression, to be made from his manuscript. For both were so great, that it appears, not only in single little pages a grave error by omission, alteration, or perverse joining or disjoining of letters; but more often it is necessary to stick fast on account of the defect of some one or several consequent words, without which, the pen or mind being substituted, no sound sense can be had. All which or their chief and graver errors if I wished to subjoin to single chapters, as elsewhere Annotations; I fear lest I should seem not so much to have wished to free my own credit, as to insult the former editors, to whom I would rather owe thanks, that they brought forth the life of the Blessed even so. Yet this had to be prefaced in this place, lest anyone falling unwarned into that edition, and comparing it with this our own, should suspect that not only the faults were taken away, but the style too was changed, which we everywhere profess we do not do.

LIFE

By the Author Vincent Morawski a Pole of the Order of the Minors.

Ladislaus of Gielniów, of the Order of the Minors of the Observance at Warsaw (B.)

BY VINCENT MORAWSKI.

PROLOGUE

to the devout Reader.

[2] In the great abundance of things, nature shows one path to one, another to another. It is beautiful to do well, also not absurd to speak well. Both those who have done, and those who have written the deeds of others, many are praised. But of all the business which is exercised by genius, that especially the memory of deeds done, the documents of every example, The causes which induced the Author to write, set in an illustrious monument, is of great use, will teach the beholder. Thence for yourself and your commonwealth you will take what to imitate: thence foul in undertaking, foul in issue, what to avoid, you will take. Moreover those to whom the resources of genius were abundant, wrote at length the affairs of many men: for me, to whom there is slender ability, of one man only, most illustrious for holiness and the greatness of miracles, the egregious specimens of virtues, to be narrated by my words, I have assumed. But by what causes induced, hear.

[2] Excellently and truly testifies, the Prince of genius and eloquence, Marcus Tullius Cicero, in the book which he wrote on Friendship, that nothing is more lovable than virtue, The love of virtue. nothing which more allures men to love; since on account of virtue, and probity, we in some way love even those whom we have never seen. Agesilaus once saw this, and so felt; who being asked, how anyone might be approved among men? If he should say, said he, the best things, and do the most honest. For virtue is of such a kind, that by the things themselves it at once so affects men, that they not only admire the works, but are also kindled with the highest zeal toward the author. And this indeed is the first cause of this my undertaken labor, the love of virtue. For since virtue is loved even in an enemy; in a religious and holy man, by a religious Priest, especially of the same institute, the son of the same Father, it is clear that it ought altogether to be loved. For both the ancient Historians and Poets consecrated the deeds of illustrious men to the monuments of letters with no other end; than that they might show themselves allured by the sweetness of their virtue, and might commend to posterity the memory of the good and the worthy encomia of virtue abundantly enough. For not the least reward of virtue, and the illustrious fruit of probity is reckoned, to be celebrated by the words of the learned. The deeds of the Athenians, says Sallust, as I judge, were ample and magnificent enough; but yet somewhat less than they are borne by fame: but because there arose there the greatest geniuses of writers, throughout the world the deeds of the Athenians are celebrated for the greatest. So the virtue of those who did them is held as great, as the illustrious geniuses could extol them in words.

[3] But there comes the recollection of another cause too, that by a domestic example our Poles may more easily be kindled to cultivate the studies of virtue. A domestic example, For two things especially are wont to move us, likeness, and example. What is done by example, that men think is also rightly done. Long is the way through precepts, short and efficacious through examples. In all things B. Ladislaus offered himself an example of good works: in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity, he pleased his neighbor unto good for edification. His progress is manifest to all: and he was an example of the faithful in word and conversation, in charity and faith, in chastity always without complaint, a good odor of Christ and a shining luminary in the midst of his nation. Attend, O Poles, to this Father of yours, be imitators of him, as he too was of Christ. I do not exhort you by speech, I do not persuade by words; examples are stronger than words, and it is fuller to teach by deed than by voice. But what exacts the force of greatest consideration, is that domestic exemplar which I offer for virtue, a spur to obtaining holiness.

[4] Nor is to be wrapped in silence the fame and glory of our Polish nation, which thence arises among foreign nations. The fame of the Polish nation. For if a wise son gladdens the father; but a foolish son is the sadness of his mother, Prov. 10; surely a good son, innocent, holy, unpolluted, known to God and men by the glory of holiness, will be an ornament to his fatherland. Not the least that praise was always held by the cities of Christians, to be adorned with the sepulchers of Saints. Jerusalem exults in Stephen, Rome in Peter and Paul, Venice in Saint Mark. Our Cracow rejoices, and diffuses the offshoots of its praise far and wide thence, that in its Cathedral, it beholds that most sumptuous Mausoleum of Saints Stanislaus its own Bishop, and Florian Martyrs: in the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity it gazes upon the lofty and splendid sarcophagus of S. Hyacinth the Pole of the Order of Preachers: in the church of S. Bernardine of the Friars Minor Observant it venerates with the highest honor the most adorned monument, containing the body of B. Simon of Lipnica, of the same Order, once a most fervent Herald of God: in the temple of S. Francis of the Conventual Fathers, it admires the most perfect sepulcher of B. Salomea once Queen of Poland, a Nun of S. Clare: in the building of S. Anne it celebrates the magnificent tomb of B. John Cantius, the excellent Doctor of the Academy of Cracow: in its own magnificent Parochial church of B. Mary the Virgin of Cracow, it possesses a marble chest, embracing the body of B. Stanislaus Baryczka a Priest Martyr: in another Parochial church of Kazimierz, a burial-place conspicuous for various structures and paintings, containing B. Stanislaus of Kazimierz of the Order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine, is held in the highest devotion and veneration: in the temple of S. Mark of the Order of S. Mary de Metro, there is a place skilfully formed at the wall, and shining with due adornment, in which the venerable bones of B. Michael Giedroyć rest: finally in the convent of S. Catherine, of the most ample Order of the Hermits of S. Augustine, the relics of a Brother of the same profession, Isaiah a Doctor, are honorably preserved in one chapel. But if of very many other bodies of various Blessed ones, entombed in divers places, that city rejoices and exults; why should not also our Duchy of Mazovia and its Metropolis Warsaw, glory in its Ladislaus? A torch of an honest mind, the glory of our province, no small glory arises thence, while the memory of this Saint is everywhere celebrated. And that the splendor of the good name of this Saint, together with that of our Fatherland, and of its fame flying through divers regions, may be diffused on swift wings, it pleased to undertake the service by writing. Let God be praised in His Saints, and let our pious mother Poland not be defrauded of her praise. It pleases to bring forth also the last reason of my institute.

[5] Who is ignorant that to have pleased eminent men, is not the least praise? The princes of the people, the Saints of God, To deserve well of the Blessed, are named by the mouth of all. To wish to deserve well of all these, who will deny to be a thing consonant with truth? But to follow the Saints with due cult, and to celebrate their virtues and illustrious deeds by writing in letters, has always been held and observed with even balance and equal measure. But since a new cause of treating this

stirs up the mind, so much the more must one labor in bringing forth the praises of the Saints. But lately, about six years ago, when by my Superiors there was committed to me the province, by a public instrument and mandate, of investigating the holiness of life of B. Father Ladislaus, his deeds examined at Rome. of collecting his acts here and there, of inquiring about miracles, of bringing the things inquired into the deputed judgment by witnesses and counter-witnesses, of writing down the things approved, and of forming a process by the authority of the Most Reverend Lord Ordinary of the Place over all these, and finally of presenting all these things made and completed to the Roman Curia: and when, supported by the singular aid of God, I had not unhappily completed all things; and anew the Sacred Congregation of Rites, by the special mandate of our Most Holy Lord Urban VIII happily reigning, had committed to me a new process, by Apostolic authority according to the style of the Holy Roman Church, over the same holiness of life and miracles of B. Ladislaus, to be fabricated by Remissorial and Compulsorial letters, there acceding to this besides the will and precept of the Most Reverend Father General of our Order: therefore those things which by my modest labor I have heaped together here and there concerning the life of B. Ladislaus, I have resolved to set forth to the knowledge of men and the public light; lest this lamp lie hid any longer under a bushel, but set upon a candlestick may illumine the eyes of all. These therefore are the causes which drove me to complete this work.

FIRST BOOK.

The deeds of B. Ladislaus. Various virtues of the same.

CHAPTER I.

Nativity, boyhood, education.

[6] Before I begin this Chapter, the words of the most illustrious and most holy Doctor of the Gentiles D. Paul must be commemorated, thus writing 1 Cor. XV: Not first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal, then that which is spiritual. The first man of the earth earthly, the second man from heaven heavenly. With no different reason it must here be said by us; since B. Ladislaus bore the image of the earthly, and the image of the heavenly man. It is clearer than the noonday light, that he was born of the earthly, and afterward as it were again, begotten of the heavenly Father: wherefore the series of both his generations must be described by me. But because that which is animal is first, of this, which is made of bloods and of the will of the flesh, it pleases to institute the discourse. And first it pleases to consider the native place, whence B. Ladislaus is sprung. The most ample, most powerful, most abundant kingdom of Poland, In the kingdom of Poland, although it has very many cities, most fortified by nature and art, for every event raised from the foundations for the adornment of the fatherland, by the multitude of citizens, by the abundance of merchandise heaped from almost the whole world, by the variety of buildings, by the plurality of temples and colleges, best furnished, and adorned with high walls, citadels, towers, and fortresses; yet not so frequent are they to be seen in it as in other parts of the world. So from the beginning it was persuaded to our ancestors, it is in memory; that against hostile attacks the breasts of those opposing themselves are stronger than the strongest walls of cities. And they, relying on those arts, never yielded place even the least to any enemy: and it is incredible to relate, how easily they extended the bounds of the Kingdom far and wide; and made their state, augmented with citizens, morals, fields, prosperous and powerful enough: but on divers nations they cast the yoke of their dominion, and joined their provinces to their own bounds.

[7] Therefore the town of Gielniów of the Palatinate of Sandomierz, in the district of Opoczno, of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, is indeed in situation mediocre, constructed with wooden buildings; and in the Town of Gielniów he is born about 1440 but thence the splendor of glory is rightly and deservedly attributed to it, that it begot, educated, nourished and brought forth this most illustrious man B. Ladislaus. By the Roman Catholic faith always illustrious, and never contaminated by any blemish of heresy hitherto it was: which is to be asserted especially and most securely of that time in which B. Ladislaus was born and lived, about the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and forty and many years after. Since in the whole kingdom of Poland Christianity with all purity, simple Catholicism with pious fervor most zealous, flourished in all the inhabitants of this kingdom, under the most pious Kings Wladislaus Jagello, and his sons Wladislaus and Casimir; and the latter's posterity Kings successively; John Albert, Alexander, and Sigismund the First: under whose happy government this B. F. Ladislaus was born, and led his present life; no paganism now, no schism, especially in the Provinces of the Polands (for in the great Duchy of Lithuania and the Duchies of Ruthenia, that plague still lay hid) no heresies at all vexing these shores, nay the laws punishing with capital penalty those infected with these filths.

[8] In that town therefore B. Ladislaus, having passed the threshold of his mother's womb, came forth into this light; received by his parents, whose life, coupled by the holy bond of matrimony, was well known and renowned enough among their fellow-citizens by honest morals, by the fame of a good name, by the light of the Catholic Religion, by the glory of the best conversation. most diligently instructed in Christian institutes, In the Parochial church of the same town washed in the sacred font of baptism, he obtained the name of John. From his very infancy instructed in the fear of God, imbued with the doctrines necessary to salvation and the first foundations of letters in his fatherland, he is handed over to be educated in the wrestling-school of the muses. But straightway, new indications of future fertility appeared in that age. Diligently to be wakeful over letters, to go willingly to school, to obey the commands of the teacher, to be present frequently at and to minister at the divine Offices and the sacred sacrifice of the Mass, to approach the altars, to sing, to chant; to recite hymns and psalms, to commit them to memory: to depend wholly on studies and divine offices; and so to institute his youth, that in a short time, a good and fertile field, he was recognized as fit to produce rich crops of doctrines, and was kindled by others to higher studies. He is sent to Cracow to be instructed in the Academy. To Cracow therefore, aided by his father's expense, where the Academic University, the fruitful mother of all sciences, brings forth very many sons useful to the kingdom and fatherland, with the most ample praise of erudition, he betook himself. That fertile field and garden of spices (without envy be the honor and cult due to it from us) the place of sciences and the paradise of learned men; but also the nest of piety, in which educated B. John Cantius, the egregious Doctor of that Academy, known to all by the glory of great holiness, from the same breasts, almost at the same time as our Ladislaus, sucked the milk of probity, and drank of that torrent of piety, and exalted his head even to the heavens.

[9] Having entered that wrestling-school, to be nourished not by the breasts of vain Pallas, but of Christian Philosophy; not to be educated to the lyre of fallacious Apollo, but to be instituted by the most salutary Theological dogmas of the holy Fathers; not to be joined to the consort of the empty Muses on pleasant Parnassus, but to be aggregated to the sodalities of devout youths, he profits in doctrine and piety, a youth prompt in mind and strong in genius: having entered, I say, the pleasant grove planted with the densest trees of sciences, he began with eager mind and swift hand to collect the flowers of good arts, the herbs of virtues, the fruits of examples, to aggregate the heaps of all good things, and to carry them into the granary of his breast; to be present at public lectures, to perceive the sense by ear and intellect, to observe the hour and time; to listen sedulously to private masters, to flee idle confabulations, to avoid the consorts of the insolent, to abhor the custom of those whom he understood to have doctrine and piety not at heart, but sloth and laziness adhering to their senses. To go frequently to the temples, to behold the life of the religious, to advert to the ceremonies, to admire the piety and devotion; and thence to have his breast kindled to the imitation of them, and to have thought of that matter, to commend the business to God, and to wish to consecrate himself in the first flower of his youth to Him who had commanded by law the right of first-fruits to be offered to Him. And surely so the matter stands, that whom God almighty decrees to allure and call to His service, these from their very infancy He draws in the cords of charity, and straightway from the tender little nails fosters with wonderful grace. Witness of this matter Joseph the Patriarch, witness Samuel the Prophet, witnesses others without number the holy Martyrs and Confessors. No doubt but that also of this Saint the sparks of future holiness shone forth; but either on account of the profound submission of his mind hidden, or little known by others; brought into the dark sepulcher of oblivion, they did not behold the light.

[10] Happy this youth, born in a happy nay golden age, in which no heresies, no barbarity of an infernal sect, no plague of a perverse opinion in the faith poured out its venom within its bounds. Pure gold, in a most happy and most quiet time. like pure glass; the whole kingdom was as it were one church, the whole commonwealth as it were one house, under the government of the best Father. No dissensions (according to the Chronologers of that time) peace, quiet, concord flourished: good morals at home and in war were cultivated: right and good with our ancestors was strong not more by laws than by nature: citizens with citizens contended about virtue: in the divine services magnificent, at home peaceful, to friends faithful they were: by these two arts, audacity in war, and where peace had come equity, they cared for themselves and the commonwealth. By this felicity of the times, then those many and flourishing Blessed, coruscating with miracles, John Cantius, Simon of Lipnica, Stanislaus of Kazimierz, in Cracow alone; more through other places, as S. Casimir at Vilna, shone with virtue. Then too our B. Ladislaus was born, when the state of religion in the flower of holiness produced the richest fruits; when the honor of virtue was in the embrace and favor of all; and an honest manner of life was in price among mortals. Therefore the mind of the holy man, even from his entering age, prone to the arduous specimens of virtue, the divine grace inspiring, could easily be kindled by the example of all the good; and the rays of domestic piety, shining everywhere, could without doubt inflame a fit mind to embrace holiness of life, according to that of Psalm XVII, With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be perverted.

CHAPTER II.

The coming of the Order of the Minors of the Observance into Poland.

[11] Having followed the words of the Doctor of the Gentiles S. Paul, we have now seen, First the animal, then that which is spiritual; Among the various Religious institutes, this consequently is to be considered. No one is ignorant, that when anyone, the message of the world's allurements being dismissed, has bound himself to the religious life, he is said to die to the world, and to live to Christ, like him who said to the Galatians II, I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. Wherefore, he who dies to the world, receives the end of the worldly life; of that life, I say, which has much consort with the brute animals; but begins to live to Christ, and embraces that condition of life which approaches most nearly to the lot of the Angels. Therefore he who begins to lead another life, it behooves him to be born: for none will live, unless first he be born. But he is born by dying to the world, and by adhering to Christ; to whom he who adheres, is made one spirit with Him. Of such a life moreover the seed-beds are the various Religious Orders, approved by the Church, of which the chief are four, named from four Founders and Rules divinely

given, namely of S. Basil, S. Augustine, S. Benedict, S. Francis: from which as from fountains the rest draw their origin, in which those living are said to live the Angelic life, inasmuch as dead to the world, to themselves, and to the flesh, through those three essential vows; of obedience, by which they die to themselves; of chastity, by which to the flesh; and of poverty, by which they die to the world.

[12] In this place, others being passed over, for I treat of the most holy man professing the Rule of S. Francis, of the sole Religious Order of the Friars Minor I shall commemorate a few things; After the order of the Minors instituted and multiplied by S. Francis, and of that only, which through the Blessed Bernardine of Siena and John of Capistrano was restored to the primitive Observance. The Order therefore of the Friars Minor, from humility, so called by its Founder S. Francis, now for two hundred and more years flourished with the highest praise of holiness, filling almost the whole world with its monasteries. It abounded with a multitude of Brothers, so that while yet S. Francis was leading his mortal life, to one Chapter five thousand Brothers assembled; and in the same Chapter, another five hundred were received into the Order. There were then not few laborers in the vineyard of the Lord, ever ready for the harvest, that with exultation they might carry their sheaves into the granary of their Lord. Already it had inserted into heaven S. Anthony, S. Bonaventure, S. Louis, S. Bernardine, very many Martyrs and Confessors, innumerable most illustrious for miracles, others refulgent with the pen, tongue, genius, virtue, and holiness, it worshiped them like stars in heaven.

[13] But much more amply, more clearly, and more perfectly, about the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and forty, when now, the reduction being made by S. Bernardine and B. John of Capistrano, and after the new observance introduced, to the primitive institute as regards the observance of the vow of poverty, a new, clear, more secure and more perfect declaration of the Rule being obtained from Martin V, the Order had reflourished, like a fruitful garden after the falling rain, fragrant flowers appeared in our land; so that very many Brothers, men conspicuous for wonderful deeds done to the world and for the holiness of life, of the Observants alone are reckoned in the register above six thousand, all even to this present day coruscating with miracles, whose memory, consecrated to the monuments of letters, is held in hands. For some by austerity of life, some by the praise of sciences, some by sedulous care and labor in converting the nations, drew almost the whole world into admiration and love of them. Hence Kings, Princes, Dukes, kingdoms, provinces, cities to desire their society, to demand their consort, and to invite them to their own homes; to offer places to be inhabited, to build monasteries, to erect temples; to supply with sufficient abundance alms of all things necessary to food and clothing; with the utmost effort to strive, that they might adorn the cities, towns, villas of the peoples entrusted to them, as with men most acceptable to God, and might move them to virtue and the best manner of living by their example, and at the same time constitute them suppliants with God and friends of their Provinces.

[14] Which counsel too had come upon the mind of our King Casimir Jagellonides too, and vehemently kindled it, by King Casimir, so that after he heard of the works and plantations of B. John of Capistrano in Germany, he sent solemn messengers to him, urging with many prayers, that he would not disdain to visit his kingdom too, and would grant his Brothers and disciples to his kingdom. B. John of Capistrano was endowed with excellent doctrine and exceptional holiness, and for that time made Legate of the Apostolic See with plenitude, and instituted Inquisitor of heretical pravity. Much gravity was in the man, profound knowledge of divine things, B. John of Capistrano being summoned, the highest dexterity in conducting affairs, also a truly Apostolic power divinely conferred of exhibiting miracles on frequent occasions, freedom of speaking, an ardent spirit; but most of all a certain force infused from above was present in that man, for bringing men back to the way of salvation, and removing them from the paths of iniquities. By which arts he had procured the greatest glory of his name in all places, in which he had at any time conversed.

[15] Scarcely had the fame reached Cracow, and signified that new Fathers were coming, when behold the word came to the King himself, and touched his heart. he is received at Cracow, Soon he rose from his throne, exulted as a giant to run the way, and resolved to go forth to meet the servants of Christ coming into his Kingdom. That fame too brought to the ears of the Nobles and Citizens, set the King's example to be imitated by all. There is made a huge concourse of men leaping forth here and there. The King himself, like a bridegroom proceeding from his chamber, girt with a most numerous household, descended from the citadel. There preceded very many glittering with gold, he himself in the midst between two chief ones, amiable in countenance, displaying the gladness conceived from the coming of the new men, went; there followed innumerable ones; the bodyguards armed with iron spears girt his sides. The Magistracy of the city, the Clergy of all the churches, the cohorts of the Religious, the columns of students, the copious multitude of the common people, followed the footsteps of the Prince. There was present in that splendid concourse also the Most Serene Queen, Sophia the King's mother, a woman who merited great praise of piety, with her retinue, surrounded by a great crown of illustrious women. Not few Princes, Dukes, Barons, Senators, Nobles, and Counsellors of the King, who together with their King went forth to meet those Fathers, having gone out not only outside the walls of the City, but beyond Kleparz too, a huge town adjacent to Cracow, in that place are joined.

[16] And behold there proceed with their Leader, the poor and needy servants of the heavenly King, with humble gait, head inclined, eyes fixed on the ground, with the pious Brothers, hands folded together, face attenuated by abstinence, bodies wearied from the journey; with bare feet. Their bodies a simple garment made of rough wool covered; a rope girt their loins, and the want of poverty adhered to all. Stupor had invaded the King's breast, and that austerity rarely seen in our Kingdom was observed by the eyes of all. All to wonder and to emit profound sighs; they recognized God Almighty to be wonderful in His Saints: to some too it came into mind, that that life, though austere, was worthy of the imitation of many. To certain too it came to remembrance, that the Fathers by their very example solidly demonstrated, that narrow is the gate which leads to life, wide that which spreads the way to perdition; that it is of God in fine and not to neglect human salvation, and to send to pleasure and concupiscence to be eradicated from the minds of men strong and not light laborers; to teach them by example, what they were taught by others by word. They bid them go strong, go happy, render the issues equal to the undertakings, hope for favor and benevolence, liberality in alms to be bestowed by them.

[17] They are present, and now near the King's side they stay their step. Their leader John of Capistrano comes forth into the midst. Hail, said he, illustrious King. he addresses the King: To Thee and Thy Kingdom, to the praise of God and the reformation of the Church, I present new soldiers, desirous of no other prey but Thy salvation, and that of Thine. They need not temporal goods, nor burn with the desire of villas or estates: cultivators of poverty, content with food and clothing alone; thou shalt have, oppressed by the mass of the Kingdom's affairs, continual suppliants with God; and if thou shalt invite them to any work, thou shalt recognize strenuous laborers, untiring, and servants prompt of hand. Take these and foster them, the promoters of Thy salvation and of Thy subjects'. May He whose example we follow in living, exhibit us commended to Thy royal breast, and take care of us with Thee, O King, and with Thine. I have spoken. To these the King through his Chancellor briefly answered, that he gave thanks to God the author of all good things, that he owed much also to the Apostolic See, by whose benefit it was permitted to behold guests so welcome. That he would give pains, that they should not repent of the journey into his kingdom, he is admitted by him and others, undertaken not without grave trouble. That there was no doubt, that that Order in a short interval of time would experience happy successes in his Kingdom. They should also turn their eyes to the multitude of men meeting them; of whom very many of them, provoked by their example, would follow the wrestling-school of virtue and probity. At length cast down to the King's knees, by the same they are embraced with paternal affection. Then right hands being joined, those Fathers, kindly and hospitably saluted by the known and unknown, and a joyful day made to all. As they pass by the various assemblies of men, and the temples, whatever comes to mind, they pray, That God may send that column favorable and happy into their fatherland, and make it grow into many thousands. But most of all the Blessed youth Ladislaus, then called John from baptism by his parents, diligently considered the austerity of life of the Brothers of this Order, the holiness of their conversation, the most fervent proclamation of the Word of God, the just performance of the religious office; but on the contrary the fraudulence of the world, and the vanity of all things contained in it. B. Capistrano therefore being introduced to Cracow, a lodging being assigned. placed in a certain lodging of the Circle of Cracow, remained so long, until a place was provided for the convent and church to be built.

CHAPTER III.

The Order of the Friars Minor introduced to Cracow: a colony led to Warsaw.

[18] A colony of the family of D. Francis of the Observance being led to Cracow, it is incredible to relate, how easily it grew. For it was a work of the right hand of the Most High, whose works are always held magnificent, and wonderful things are done in our eyes. Therefore those Brothers being introduced into the place designated for them, with all their strength and whole heart applied themselves to the study of virtue. On account of the pious exercises The divine offices, rising at midnight to confess to the name of the Lord, to celebrate, with religious chant and ecclesiastical manner, with continual prayer, with ardent preaching of the divine word, and with fervent example of exercising good works to precede, and with frequent exhortation to kindle, to shine to all unto edification, to diffuse the sweet odor of good conversation they studied. But now austerity of life, gravity of morals, profound submission of mind and humility of mind, the modest composition of the members of the whole body, also holy and exemplary conversation with men; then too the harshness of garments, applied only to ward off cold, not for adornment, began to be in the eyes of all. Insinuating to the memory of men, that Narrow is the way which leads to life, plain and spacious that which leads to destruction. Hence a more frequent use of the Sacraments to be made, the temples to be filled with a more copious multitude, to assemble huge concourses of men to hear sermons devoutly, the rich crops of virtue to rise up, the useless herbs of vices dried up to perish, the flowers of piety to bud, and the fruits of probity to ripen they begin.

[19] But most of all the youth, flexible by their own nature to all things; but when an author is present, prompt and prone also to undergoing the wrestling-school of virtue and piety; of that religious life, first by stupor and admiration to be taken, but now by love to be drawn, at length to the imitation by spurs sent from above to be allured and impelled. many being allured receive the habit of S. Francis. Wherefore very many, the allurements of the world being despised, demand that light yoke and sweet burden to be imposed on their necks; they renounce the world, and desire to be obliged by the sacrament of the religious soldiery: they cast their backs to secular

desires, but with cheerful brow they are eager to take up the new institute of the new life: they contemn the perilous navigation of the world, they choose a safer state of life, as it were a port alien from all tumult of worldly solicitudes, and a quiet like to that of the heaven-dwellers. From the twenty-eighth day of the month of August, which day is destined for celebrating the festivity sacred to D. Augustine, in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and fifty-five in which B. John of Capistrano with his soldiery entered Cracow, even to the ninth day of the month of February adorned with the martyrdom of S. Apollonia, the number of those Brothers was increased in a wonderful manner: so that in the public procession on that day, more than eighty Brothers appeared, the other officials and the rest more occupied being meanwhile detained in the convent. It was then permitted to see the mother rejoicing in her sons, and that new plantation to have begun so great an augmentation of itself, not without admiration and stupor to have appeared to the sight of all.

[20] It was the time in those days, famous for the solemnity of a Royal wedding. King Casimir had sought by Legates to be coupled to himself by the indissoluble bond of matrimonial friendship, Elizabeth, The Queen Elizabeth the bride daughter of Albert the Austrian Emperor. Welcome to the Emperor was the coming of the Legates, the just desire of the King too not frustrated of his wishes. The daughter given in matrimony, best furnished with feminine adornment and a dowry ample enough, is sent with the Legates into Poland. To the new bride coming the King proceeds to meet, girt with a most ample retinue: but when many spectacles were beheld set forth for receiving the coming of the new Queen, conspicuous with royal splendor, that especially seemed admirable to the eyes of all, the column of Brothers of the Order of the Minors of the Observance, lately introduced into the kingdom of Poland, having gone forth to meet, multiplied in so short an interval of time, poured forth from their convent to meet the new Queen. Nor ought it to be a wonder to anyone that this was done: for the Academy of Cracow alone, within a few months, is said to have happily supplied to the pious mother, herself a fruitful parent, a hundred and thirty and more youths of the best disposition: of whom some illustrious for the supreme degree of the mastership, some marked with the first laurel, 130 admitted at Cracow, most celebrated for the encomia of studies and the liberal arts. All these, the allurements of the world being postponed, put their hand to the plow in the field of God, and so with happy success were wakeful over the begun work, that they thought there should be no looking back, but held the journey snatched up always to the higher summits of Evangelical perfection.

[21] With the same flame burned B. Ladislaus, who beholding with attentive consideration the institute of this most holy Order, hastened as soon as possible to be joined to their consort. not without a pious impulse of Ladislaus, The painted splendor of the world displeased the excellent youth, and the foul odor of temporal goods grew filthy in his nostrils: the austerity of that life, the holiness and piety of Evangelical perfection, had settled in his mind. And now in mind he was wholly in religion, meanwhile continuing the studies begun in the Academy, the blessed youth only watched for the time and occasion: which afterward divinely offered, with both hands and feet, as they say, he seized. There was also invited to that wedding Anna the Duchess, by the Duchess of Mazovia consort of Wladislaus already for that time the deceased Duke of Mazovia, a woman of great name. She, when she saw the number of the Friars Minor of the Observance multiplied in a short space of time, and those small grains most happily grown into rich crops, rapt into vehement admiration, confessed, that the Finger of God had effected this, whose force it was, to give increases of fruits, and from few grains to constitute the richest heaps. Thence having searched out with diligent zeal and care, what was the institute of life, what the morals of the Brothers, what the observances, and what the course of things; instructed, that they were men addicted to piety, contemners of the world, poor in spirit, fervent preachers of the Divine word, followers of the religious life and Evangelical perfection; deeming that they would be for a good example to her subjects, she proposed that they should be led to Warsaw, where then, the Prince being dead, she lived as a widow.

[22] Therefore B. John of Capistrano being called to her, she herself opened her mind: that it was at her heart, as soon as possible to behold the family of D. Francis led into her Duchy: that this would much profit the Church of God and the Order, that she too must undertake the care, that she might show a mind that would in no business be wanting to promoting the Order: that she asked besides urgently, that they would not wish her desire to be deferred; but rather would send together with her, those whom she might lead to Warsaw. Place is given to the pious petition: certain ones are chosen from the number of the Brothers: Brother James of Głogów is set as Guardian, to whom six other companions are joined. they construct a convent They accompany the Duchess, come as far as Warsaw, receive the place offered to them for these things, which hitherto at present they obtain, paying their vows to God, and always diffusing the sweet odor of holy conversation. Little indeed in the beginning had the structure of that convent succeeded, for to those digging the foundational solidity of the earth could in no way be found. and a church And now the mind had failed of pursuing the fabric of the church: but S. Anne the mother of the Virgin Mother of God appearing, and admonishing that they should dig a little while; firm dry ground was found, upon which an excellent temple, under the title of the same S. Anne firmly built, even to the present day endures. And as at Cracow so also at Warsaw, in the second convent of this Kingdom of Poland, that Order, a few months interposed, came to be augmented with a copious number of laborers. To this convent the blessed youth Ladislaus, I know not by what occasion, had resolved to hasten: I believe because the Cracow convent abounded amply enough with the number of Brothers, the future dwelling of B. Ladislaus. he was directed from Cracow to Warsaw by the superiors of the Order to augment the new Colony; or certainly the Holy Spirit sweetly disposing all things, who, while He designated other Saints to be retained at Cracow, this holy youth being destined for the Warsaw convent and the Duchy of Mazovia, came to the place designated for him, and earnestly asked to be received into the Fraternity of the Order; and so ardently insisted by asking, that place was left to his petition, and he himself was received into the Order, to the great advantage and emolument of the Holy Church of God and of the Order.

CHAPTER IV.

B. Ladislaus's reception in the Warsaw convent, the arguments and indications of future holiness.

[23] B. Ladislaus's affairs, now free hence and snatched from the fallacies of the world, are to be carried out holily and piously in the holy Order. Received into the Order by the consent and favor of all the Brothers on the very Kalends of August, On the feast of S. Peter in Chains which day is held famous for the festivity of the Chains of the Prince of the Apostles D. Peter, B. Ladislaus deemed that he had got a favorable omen, from the day and the Saint to whom the day is dedicated; truly a favorable omen and a lucid argument of future true holiness. For on that day, the Chains were loosed from the members of D. the Apostle, the guards deceived and taken by sleep, the doors opened, the gates lying open, the expectation of the enemy frustrated, and the cruelty of the Tyrant Herod himself eluded: the Church rejoiced in Apostolic liberty, and the whole assembly of the faithful obtained the happy issue of their prayers. For the Angel of the Lord was present to Peter, awakened the sleeper, snatched him from the chains, opened the gates, led him out free and immune. This too was bestowed on B. Ladislaus by the Father of lights: B. Ladislaus chooses the Religious life: his chains were broken, he was led out of the prison of the world: the snare was crushed, and he himself was freed from the snare of the hunters; because his help was in the name of the Lord. The Angel of the Lord was present, and inspired into the ear of the Blessed youth, How long, wilt thou be detained by the chains of this world? how long, good youth, wilt thou tarry among the guards of temporal goods? how long wilt thou perilously rejoice in the consort of secular men? The world is a dark prison: its goods and occupations, iron chains: the guards of its goods are men, little mindful of their salvation and eternal felicity. Rise thou, and walk. Whither? To the Order of the Minors of the Observance, difficult indeed by austerity of life, but sweet and pleasant by the contemplation of heavenly goods and the consort of good Brothers. Come, youth, those sparks of piety, set in thy breast from thy very tender age, now stir into an ardent flame of divine charity. Let those little fires grow into a great conflagration. Now let that lamp, long ago kindled by the grace of the Holy Spirit, be set upon the candlestick of the Order, that it may shine henceforth to all who are in the House of God. Thine is, if thou art a man, the kingdom of heaven: raise thyself, and follow God as leader, who will exhibit this illustrious head, suffused round about with the divine light of holiness, to the world. Now let the heavenly flame stir thee, now awake truly. Behold those who are in this Order, now reign in mind and affection with God, and God with them.

[24] He heard the voice of the Lord, nor hardened his heart. He came to the gate of the convent, knocks, he asks to be admitted the gate is opened, and what he wishes, is asked. Lead me, said he, to your Superior, one great petition I am about to bring to him. Satisfaction is made to his petition, he is admitted into the sight of the Superior; whom when he saw, suffused with a virginal blush, he fell down at his knees. Lifted up by his hand, he is asked what he sought. I flee, said he, the world and its concupiscence, I demand your consort. But thou art a youth, the years of thy life will not be able to sustain the harsh condition of our custom: thy tender body too, how will it be patient of vigils, abstinence, cold, frost? That he could do all things in Christ the blessed youth answered, that all the chains of the world must be broken: that the Angel of peace was present, and God Himself the promoter of good will: that D. Peter too would be present to his endeavors, and from that time would be his Patron: that heaven open and Jesus standing in aid was seen by S. Stephen, would render the same favor to all sincerely serving Him.

[25] Therefore his name is replaced in the catalogue of the Brothers. He is stripped of secular garments, and forthwith he himself too strips off the old man with his acts. he is clothed with the religious habit, He is clothed with a harsh hair-shirt and a vile tunic: but at the same time he puts on Christ the Lord, the heavenly man, about to be a heavenly inhabitant. He is admitted into the camp, and the most eager youth is obliged by the sacrament of the Christian soldiery. The most brave recruit is set in the battle-line of the fighters, after a short time, not only a most strenuous soldier of Christ, but about to be also a Leader of the army. He is girt with the girdle of purity, a strong rope, and at the same time armed with the breastplate of austerity. He takes the hood upon his head, the helmet of salvation, the efficacious protection of divine contemplation. He seizes the sword of mortification, about to imitate in all things D. Peter the Apostle, also begotten of a father Peter. And thus bound to the holy Order, deeming that idleness must not be indulged, he imitated that happy grain cast into the blessed earth, begun to be mortified, nay dead to the world, that afterward it might become fit for bringing forth very many fruits, planted in the house of the Lord in His holy court. While he shows himself humble in all things, he excels in pious morals: he recognizes the rivulets of divine grace flowing down into the valley of his breast. To rise to the elders by birth, to obey his Superiors, not to envy the juniors; in the temple, in the choir, in prayer to be present frequently; to act modestly in all things, to those passing by

to incline his head, to contradict no one, to follow the examples of virtue, to chastise his body with floggings and to reduce it into servitude, in all things to show himself a good and diligent novice.

[26] The year of probation being completed, when now the time had come of emitting his perpetual profession, with prayers to fatigue the Superiors, Fathers, Brothers, all, that they should suffer him as soon as possible, bound to God and the Order by the eternal and inviolable bond of profession, to begin his life: that this was his mind, he emits his profession that he should never wish to return to the world, but bound to the divine service should lead his life even to the last fatal period in the Order. Wherefore the circle of the year being revolved, on the same festivity of D. Peter, under the banner of D. Francis, about to fight the battles of God in continual conflict, he is constituted an eternal soldier of Christ, and by the strongest bond of Profession, is joined to the consort of the Brothers. He casts the chains of Christ and the burdens of religion at the feet of his affections, he announces perpetual silence to the concupiscences of the senses: he strives to observe to the line the purity of the Rule, of the Constitutions; the precepts of the religious exercises; the Ordinations: he receives and professes the Order of the Minors of the Observance with all affection. And indeed he so gloried in that state, that as a victor he triumphed as if a prey were taken, and continually retaining the memory of his conflict and the begun soldiery, he exulted, which he testified by these verses:

In the year a thousand, four hundred, and sixty-two, in the year 1462: The chains at kindly Peter's I received, the chains of the cloister. Peter begot me of Gielniów, and kindly Peter Shut me in the cloister; He alone loosed my chains, I render thanks to God, singing with the Harper: O God, lo Thou hast broken all my chains: That I may well complete it, let grace be to the wretched.

[27] Then, confirmed by his emitted Profession, he came forth into the line a strong athlete of Christ, took into his hands the shield of faith and the munitions of his Rule with the declarations of the Supreme Pontiffs, and resolved these to be retained with firm purpose. The soldier of Christ is therefore armed with that mind and takes that will, that in all the enclosures and precepts of his institute he keep the laws inviolable, and so direct the course of his religious life, that he should resolve rather to undergo death than to contravene against the ordinations of his institute. Deeming too that the societies of other virtues must be applied to that purpose, he is exercised in all virtues: he joined a pact of friendship with probity, having followed the examples of all virtues. What in others he saw best he was busy to excite that in his breast by imitation: so observing his Rule in all things, mindful of his religious vows, he kept the flower of Angelic chastity perpetually in its splendor and odor. So addicted to obedience, that in no matter would he presume to gratify his own will. But so studious a cultivator of poverty, that besides Christ and Him crucified, he knew and had nothing.

[28] Hence it came to pass that by that swift course, he quickly arrived at the highest summit of perfection; and snatched the palm before the other Brothers, in all holiness and justice, made a mirror of all virtues; and abounding with the riches of heavenly gifts, not only made welcome and acceptable to his Order, but kindled most vehemently toward himself the zeal of the whole people. and he profits notably, For it comes to pass that God almighty fosters those panting after His services with the increases of His grace, and exhibits them amiable to all. But both benefits B. Ladislaus had obtained, whom for the various virtues of his mind, all followed with the highest love, and as a man illustrious for the glory of holiness, with all cult and reverence venerated. God too almighty, when He recognized that His grace was not void in that man, but always tended to higher things; added a spur to the runner, and inflamed an ardent desire of proceeding from virtue to virtue. And it came to pass that B. Ladislaus, among his own was held a most perfect and most holy man, and his holiness was most diligently before the eyes of all the Fathers and Brothers; by the people too with the voice of all he was judged a nursling of great holiness, and a most diligent cultivator of all virtues. And thus most welcome to God, most acceptable to the Order, most religious to the people he was seen, held and reputed. And let these things said of the beginning of his conversion suffice for now.

CHAPTER V.

The Priesthood. Various Prefectures administered. Constitutions established.

[29] I proceed and produce the begun work: for not only in the beginning of his conversion did the good soldier of Christ show himself a strenuous warrior, but he was busy to grow more and more by much labor, vigilance, solicitude, and much care: therefore with many and admirable virtues this blessed Father Ladislaus was full, and scarcely was it plain to all that any one was wanting to him. Which thence can easily be gathered: since in those beginnings of the Regular Observance revived, all studied to contend in virtues, and one took care to precede another in goodness. Very many conspicuous for holiness, and illustrious for miracles; many with holiness of life, most learned in all science; not few outstanding by nobility of birth, with the said splendors of gifts joined to them, Among the holy most holy, existed in this Polish province of the Regular Observance. Yet among all this blessed Father Ladislaus, like the sun among the glittering stars shone; and had come to such brightness, that vehemently dear to all his own, he was a terror to the wicked and demons. And indeed what is most difficult of all, both in battle in subduing the enemies of the soul and in routing the vices he was strenuous, and good in counsel in averting the snares of enemies.

[30] Made a Priest, strong in the powers of eloquence, robust in genius, he is consecrated a Priest; he did not give himself to be corrupted by luxury nor by inertia; but as is the custom of this Order, to serve God with whole spirit and body, to occupy his mind with contemplation, his body with labor and various exercises, to contend about divine things and heavenly goods with his equals both in conversation and discourse. And although in all the rest he surpassed the others by the glory of virtue, yet to all he was dear. Besides this to spend most times in praying, the infernal lion going about, and seeking whom he may devour, and the cruel beasts of the other vices, first and chiefly to strike, to repel from his soul, and by his example to induce others to perform this: to do very much, and to speak very little of himself. By all which things the Order of the Minors glad at the beginning, esteemed, that those virtues of B. Ladislaus would be for glory to its Order. Whence because he was prompt of hand and desirous of the glory of virtues, in the sublime summit of honors, skilful in carrying out the affairs of the Order: offices, governments, and dignities of its Province it resolved to place him, and to set him over the Province to be governed. Who, as he was of an untiring and eager genius, in the Magistracy committed to him wished to be wanting in nothing. Almost all difficult and harsh things through him the Order to do, to have him among its friends, more and more daily to embrace him began: for his counsel was neither begun in vain. To this was added greatness of mind adorned with religious humility, and the skill of genius in the procuration of the Order's affairs so often exhibited; by which things he had joined to himself many men of both conditions of state by familiar friendship.

[31] At that time in the Order of the Minors of the Observance there were very many good and outstanding men, to whom honest arts and the studies of virtues, and the best morals in Religion, were preferable to riches and all the goods of the world: among very many excellent in the order. at home zealous and fervent imitators of Christ, among foreigners illustrious and honest, who had merited no mediocre praise of holiness. Yet among all, the holiness of B. Ladislaus obtained the first chair. And even thence the holiness of this man may be beheld. For when in that memory the Order of the Minors in the kingdom of Poland was affected by the benefit of recent foundation in many places, it had this especially at its rise to care for, that it should excel in the glory of all virtues. All therefore applying themselves with whole heart to the study of virtue, various gifts were conferred from heaven. Some by the grace of cures, some by the interpretation of speeches, part by the science and knowledge of various things, by serving the church of God, had turned the faces and gazes of all upon themselves. The rumor flows through the whole kingdom: they bear the servants of God to heaven with praises. That one family had undergone the yoke of piety, that war, which is in all against the rulers of these darknesses, as if chiefly turned into the private care of that Order, into their private arms: if there were more of the same fortitude in our nation of that state, the people of God leading a tranquil life, all the enemies of souls could be subdued, and the monsters of vices easily subjected. Such then was the fame of the holiness of the Order of the Minors of the Observance; although in the memory of all men, even to our age, its odor is recognized not to have grown obsolete. Never did the army of Christ, neither greater in number, nor more illustrious by fame and the admiration of men, march in our kingdom.

[32] Yet among all B. Ladislaus was found, to whom the helms of this most holy Order should be left. he is held most fit for government: Very often elected to govern the Order existing in the kingdom, to retain perfect and sincere Observance, to guard and augment good morals, he so bore himself, that always he was judged worthier to hold the helm in the Order. By the consent of all he entered the Magistracy: and if at any time he desired to abdicate the same, again to undergoing the province of governing he was compelled by the desire of all, and frequently the command over the Brothers was prolonged to him. This the memory of deeds done testifies, brought forth even to our times. That he functioned five times in the office of Provincial Vicar in the whole kingdom of Poland, with huge increment of the Order and the glory of God's name, the Chronicles say. For not yet were the Provincials, for that time assumed to govern the order, called Ministers: but those who were elected to exercise the governance, were named Provincial Vicars: but the titles of the other Magistracies and Prefectures were safe and entire to the Conventual Fathers, the use of them not yet transferred into the Order of the Minors of the Observance. Moreover as said above, for exercising the office of the Vicariate, among many cultivators of religious perfection, most able by the judgment of all many times B. Ladislaus was elected. Which thing testifies not obscurely that the holiness of the man was exceptional and by no means common, and insinuates that he was the light of his nation, the salt of the earth, and an example unto the odor of sweetness.

[33] It pleases to celebrate with a clearer style the memory of his governance; and the first thing that occurs to be said is this. In the year of the Lord MCCCCLXXXVII at Warsaw was announced the Diet of the Order of the Minors, over the celebrating of which presided the Reverend Father Brother Marian Jeziorko, a man most outstanding for holiness and doctrine. in the year 1487 elected Provincial Vicar, Then B. Ladislaus being elected Provincial Vicar, entered the Magistracy, the Brothers praying that he might experience that office favorable and happy. The following year the same B. Ladislaus celebrated at Cracow a Chapter, in which he promoted with chief care this, that it might be permitted him to depart the office of the Vicariate, deeming that among the chapels and altars he would lead a placid and quiet life. But that matter turned out far otherwise than he hoped; for the opinions, voices, and votes of all, judged that he should be retained in the same Magistracy. Again he in the year of the Lord MCCCCLXXXIX announces a Convent of the Brothers in the Przeworsk monastery. There are present very many of the Fathers, about to hold salutary consultations of the common good.

in the year 1489 he is confirmed. There B. Ladislaus moved every stone, that to him, the burden of the load being laid down, it might be conceded to lead a private life with the other Brothers, using to promote that cause various arguments of reasons. That he lacked the resources of mind and genius, to sustain that office of governing; that the Province should be committed to one more diligent and prudent; that they should grant him, less fit, to quiet and a private life: that he did not refuse the labors of the Order, but recognized his own defects; that those delights seemed to him preferable, to be subject than to preside. But he gave words to the wind, and sang a tale to the deaf. For again to be wakeful over the office of the Vicariate, and to preside over the Order to be governed, compelled by the voice of all, he put his arms under the imposed burden.

[34] A much heavier burden was added to the burden and the office of the blessed Man multiplied. he sets out to Italy to the general Diet: Into Italy to celebrate the general Diet of the whole Order, the desires of all demanding it, he is elected into the Discreet of the Province, and a long pilgrimage, deputed Messenger by the Order, he is compelled to undertake. About to carry thither the affairs, cares, studies, necessities, sheepfolds, petitions of the whole Order, alone about to carry out and promote the cause of all the Brothers, he girded himself for the journey, abundantly satisfying in all things the burden imposed on him. Returned from Italy, the affairs duly completed, to his domestic home (when it behooved him to take rest) again he stretched out his hands to labors, for eight years he preaches: he writes books, for nearly eight years succeeding one another. To bestow effort on giving sermons to the people, to apply himself to writing books, to adhere to continual lectures, invited to adorn the obsequies of Nobles and Magnates with Ecclesiastical eloquence to run, to be fatigued by no labor and care, to flee idleness, and always with the talents entrusted to him gaining others and others. And while he was occupied with these pious occupations in the Order, there came a messenger, announcing a Chapter to be celebrated at Opatów in the year of the Lord MCCCCXCVI. in the year 1496 again he is elected Provincial Vicar: The author and chief moderator of that Chapter was a certain one, named P. John the Glazier. He then, outstanding in the dignity of the Vicariate, held the first parts in the convent of the Brothers. There was present at the same Chapter B. Ladislaus, and turned the eyes of all upon himself, and kindled their zeal. The solemnity was held on the very day of S. John the Baptist the Precursor. To Blessed Ladislaus, none greater, better, worthier seemed to rise, in piety and the opinion of holiness among all those gathered Fathers. All delighted by his presence, and very much consoled and edified by his consort, congratulated themselves, and venerated that man with all reverence and cult. There though much reluctant, he is ordered to obtain the place of Provincial Vicar. He resists, but washes the Ethiopian, the desires of all urge, let him take the first seat, let him rule, govern, preside happily over the Order. At length fatigued, he acquiesces to the consent of all: he takes into his hand the rod of governance, and exercises the committed Province.

[35] But from that time, he undertook the care and governance only of those Brothers, whose monasteries stood within the bounds of the Kingdom of Poland; for to this time Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia, and Austria, together with Poland, bore the title of one Province: but in this Chapter Poland separated from them, began to contain itself within its own limits, and to undergo the name and governance of a Province. B. Ladislaus ruled his Poland for a whole year, and began to weary of that life: accustomed to contemplation, to be tortured by its desire, to aspire, and to desire as soon as possible to return to the placid state of the contemplative life. Wherefore to the town of Warta he convokes the chief heads of the Order, and to those gathered into one he insinuates, that as the hart desires the fountains of waters, then at Warta he is confirmed. so his soul desires the Lord his God. Let the Fathers permit him to be dissolved from the office of his governance, and to be joined through continual degrees of contemplation with Christ. That he had borne the burden to the utmost of his strength; now broken by labors, that he wished to be free for the sweetness and quiet of heavenly meditation: let them substitute another, whose strength and skill of mind was richer; let them suffer him, now destitute of strength, free from governance, but subject to the religious laws, to live. This first seemed bitter and unworthy to the Fathers, that the Order should be deprived of that excellent governance. Thence from the matter a counsel arose, that he must be fatigued with prayers, that he should be willing to take the care of all the Brothers, to exercise the command prolonged to him over the Brothers, and not desert the flock committed to him; that the will of God was this, of which an evident argument, the votes of all the Brothers carried into one for electing him: that the Holy Spirit must not be resisted, nor the desires of all the Brothers postponed. These things said all rise up, and exact consent from the reluctant one; and at length with huge gladness of their minds obtain it.

[36] Before I lead this Chapter to the prefixed goal, I have thought a testimony of B. Ladislaus's holiness worthy of diligent attention must be subjoined. Since the governance of the whole magistracy, which the Order required, was many times with him; instructed by very experience the mistress of things, he betook himself to establishing new laws of the Constitutions. The laws and constitutions enacted by him the Fathers in the Chapter, as premised, of Cracow, the Commissary General (who was Louis della Torre) presiding, and with huge expectation of all the good, he established new constitutions, the Tables of the Laws being proposed, called the Convent to a sermon together with the Commissary: and that they might be supported with the value of greater authority, and the laws of the Constitution be made more august, they resolved that they should be promulgated under the name of the aforesaid Commissary; and, that it might be good and favorable to their Commonwealth, to themselves and their successors, they ordered the proposed laws to be perceived by the ear and seen by the eyes. That they, as far as by the regard of piety and the acumen of genius they could provide, had equalized the laws to all the highest and lowest. Some attempted to impede and intercede, casting them about by various murmur as grave and intolerable; yet they were overcome by the assent of the others, and those Constitutions are brought forth in silence. And when they seemed corrected enough, received by all, and exhibited to be observed, seriously they bound the consciences of all who professed that Order, a bond of obligation being struck. It was treated of this matter in the General Chapter, gathered at Urbino in the year of the Lord MCCCCXCVIII on the XXVIII day of May; in the year 1494 in the general Chapter, and a counsel entered upon, whether those Constitutions are to be observed by the whole Order of the Minors. That the geniuses and counsels of many were strong: let them revolve in their minds with themselves each thing, then agitate them with discourses, and confer into the midst what in each thing was more or less; that the Order would have those laws added to the Rule, which the consent of all could seem not so much to have ordered to be enacted, as to have borne. They were full of piety, and proceeded from piety; and therefore could not be contemned and cast away. By the applause of all therefore praised, it pleased that they be received.

[37] By the example also of the Commissary himself faith and authority is said to have been added to the matter: who, the codex containing those Constitutions being taken into his hands, and approved by the Commissary General. came forth into the sermon, with tears poured out from devotion, using these words to the gathered Brothers: To me this is the mind, that the spirit, to the last line of life, to preserve and observe these pious laws, these holy statutes, as the holy Gospel. Not sooner shall I suffer myself to be torn from observing them, than, my life being snatched from me, pale death shall have put the sharp scythe under my neck. The same end to me of observing these laws, as of ending my life. To live fortified with these pleases me: and to die armed with these is agreeable. These will be to me remedies against vices, these salutary medicines against the diseases of the mind; these monuments to the living, these solaces to the dying. Wonderful indeed how great was the faith to that man announcing these things, and how vehement the desire of all the Fathers was kindled to observe those Constitutions, and a contest of minds too of imitating them, and a desire of living according to the manner of them invaded. Hence is gathered, with how keen judgment, with how skilful genius, with how ardent piety B. Ladislaus was; from whose mouth the precepts brought forth for governing souls and the Constitutions of laws established, so sweetly and prudently written, pleased the whole Order, that as to be received by all, and to be observed in perpetuity, all the chief ones defined. From a pure fountain the purest rivulets must be derived, and from the abundance of the heart the tongue breaks forth into words. From the treasure are brought forth new and old things. From a dark cave, what else but venomous animals, stench and dung? From the fruits the tree is known, and from the claws the lion. Say to the just man, that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his inventions. Right inventions, which not only to B. Ladislaus himself, but to the whole Order of the Minors, stood for great use and advantage.

CHAPTER VI.

Brothers sent into Lithuania.

[38] It pleases to make mention of other heroic specimens of virtues, worthy of eternal memory, exhibited by B. Ladislaus; to whom that especially was a care, to diffuse the light of the Catholic faith, and the light of good works, into all parts of the world, to scatter the rays of virtues everywhere, and by his own and his Brothers' example to carry the knowledge of God, good morals, the mysteries of the Catholic faith, into the minds of as many as possible, hither and thither to dispatch Brothers for disseminating the word of salvation, by example and salutary doctrine to shine before all. There was master of the highest affairs at that time in the Great Duchy of Lithuania Alexander Jagellonides, Into Lithuania, uterine brother of John Albert King of the Poles, who for that time moderated the reins of the Kingdom. He, following the example of the prior Kings, asked of B. Ladislaus, then Provincial Vicar, that Brothers of the Order of the Minors of the Observance, for instructing the people subject to his dominion, should be sent into Lithuania and White Ruthenia. The matter the Father did not spurn, greedy of human salvation; he promised he would send them, and with no delay interposed stood by his promises.

[39] The matter here seems to demand, to set forth in few words the state rather than the situation of Lithuania, the cult rather than the morals; and to touch the dogmas of that nation, with which in the beginning there was war with the Kingdom of Poland, now friendship and fraternity. All that I am about to say, in very few words, to the praise of a most excellent and most devout nation, my mind is to complete. a most excellent region, The Great Duchy of Lithuania extending most widely, yet containing very many places, on account of the harshness of the country, and likewise solitudes, woods, marshes, less frequented, has from the North Muscovy, a nation though Christian, yet obstinate in the Greek schism, with which too with various fortune it has waged and wages very many wars: from the East Ruthenia, infected with the same hardening as Muscovy formerly almost wholly: from the West it is joined to Prussia and Livonia, formerly little Catholic, now ill-smelling with heresy: from the South it is coupled by a neighboring embrace to Poland. The soil fertile of crops, good for cattle, fruitful of trees: likewise most teeming of beasts not only the non-rapacious, wolves, bears, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers, martens, but also those serving for human food; besides hares, roe-deer, stags, also great abundance of bisons, elks, boars, likewise birds, partridges, capercaillies, black grouse, hazel-grouse, thrushes, of various kinds, and of very many others, not easy to relate.

[40] The human race of healthy body, patient of labors, rustic and harsh, formerly without the laws of the true Christian faith, without the command of the Church, free and loose, long given to idols, poured forth into all things, a long time lived. Afterward, when the Royal command was transferred to Jagello

their Duke, the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland consenting to him; and he, joined by matrimony to Hedwig Queen of the Poles, received the light of the Christian faith, consecrating his name to Catholicism; made a son to the Roman Pontiff through obedience, he endeavored also to lead his nation happily into the same way of salvation. But before the light of faith was brought to those barbarous men; serpents, toads, oaks likewise, groves, fire, shades, they worshiped for gods. Wladislaus Jagello their Duke, made King of the Poles and a Christian, drew them not so much by doctrine as by command, made Christian by Jagello, by fear rather than by love, by his own example rather than by the recognition of truth, to baptism in troops. Nevertheless yet at that time, in which Prince Alexander, grandson of Jagello, presided over the administration of the Duchy, it is established that very many were still wrapped in the fog of errors, many infected with the Ruthenian or Greek schism, innumerable harsh by an innate and not yet polished barbarity; but those who were illumined by the light of the Catholic faith, like infants, who needed milk and not solid food, were tottering. The tender plantation had need of frequent irrigation, and of the rain of divine eloquence, and of the shower of heavenly dew: the harvest was great, the laborers few.

[41] he destines the Minorites: To succor and bring aid to these, solicited by the prayers of the Prince, B. Ladislaus resolved. He destines to cultivate that field untiring laborers, and gives mandates, that they should set about that uncultivated vineyard to be purged, with diligent labor, toil, and zeal: let them collect from it the stones of scandal; let them pluck up the thorns and briers of iniquity; let them eradicate the useless herbs of vain superstition; let them expel the bears and wantoning swine; let them altogether cast out the monsters of idolatry, and the rabid beasts of the schismatics, and the rapacious wolves: let them build up a hedge of good works, with which they may surround and fortify like a strongest rampart the Lord's flock, and let them build a wall in the midst of it touching heaven with its top; let them instill into the minds of men the knowledge and love of the only true God: let them also build up a wine-press of the various sciences of the learned, pressing out for souls a salutary drink. The blessed Father adds, that they should first shine before by example, then teach men by word, present themselves an example in every word and work.

[42] The soldiers instructed with these arms, from their Commander take their journey as far as Polotsk. to Polotsk It is a city situated in the bounds of White Ruthenia and the Province of the Duchy of Lithuania, best fortified by art and nature. They were sent as sheep into the midst of wolves, their loins girt, clothed with the breastplate of justice, and their feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace, the Father Brother Leo of Łańcut being assigned to them as Prelate. Therefore when they entered the bounds of Lithuania, and other cities, everywhere intent on the spiritual soldiery, to hasten, to prepare, one to exhort another, to go to meet the vices, to preach the Catholic faith, Christian liberty, the heavenly glory, to cover themselves with the arms of virtues. Afterward when they had driven off dangers and envy by virtue, to their associates and friends, the Parish-priests I mean and Curates, they carried aids: and more by giving and exhibiting spiritual benefits, than by receiving alms they procured the friendships of the faithful. Legitimate command to administer the care of souls, by the Privilege of Sixtus the Fourth Roman Pontiff, such as was conceded to the Holy Land and the Bosnians, they had. Chosen, those whose body was infirm with years, but whose genius was strong with wisdom, consulted for the Christian Commonwealth, received confessions; and these either by age or by likeness of care, even to the present, by a common appellation are called Fathers.

[43] Now first all those Fathers, as soon as they were patient of the spiritual war, in subduing the monsters of vices, in overturning the simulacra of idols, in washing away the garrisons of schismatics, through continual labors, learned the soldiery of Christ by use: and they had more pleasure in the comely arms of virtues, than in the occupations of this age. Therefore to such men no labor was unaccustomed, no place harsh or arduous, virtue had tamed all; but of promoting the Christian faith, and augmenting the glory of God there was the greatest contest among them. Each one to break an idol, to expel error, to lead souls from the lake of ignorance, to promote the good of faith, to be seen while he wrought such a deed hastened; those they thought riches, that good fame and great nobility. Greedy of multiplying the divine praise, they were contemners of money; they wished for huge glory, honest poverty. I could relate, in what places they expelled the greatest copious darknesses, and brought in the light of faith, what engines of idols and various errors of the gentiles they broke, were not that matter to hold me longer from the undertaking. where they convert innumerable Russians, An ancient codex of the Annals relates that more than ten thousand, snatched from the darkness and shadow of death, from the error of paganism by those Fathers, and illumined by the light of the Christian faith. The matter in few words: they fought the good fight, as becomes strenuous soldiers of Christ. Nor was the Lord wanting to their pious endeavors, but both favored their works, and exhibited a spiritual supplement to their labors. And it came to pass that the Russians, separated by the pertinacity of schism from the union of the Catholic Church, and so the pure oil of true and inviolate doctrine failing, the lamps of faith, from the rushing wind of vain superstition, now shining somewhat darkly, and the darknesses of ignorance pouring themselves in for light; looked back to the light of truth, and turned their feet from error, and their eyes from vanity, and desired the society and friendship of the Roman Church. And they remained in the faith of society and friendship, as long as those Fathers, by doctrine and example, shone before them. But Polotsk being taken and laid waste by the Muscovite, some there being slain, others moreover removed in various ways, the ardor of faith too had to suffer detriment. This is certain and clearer than the noonday light, that by the diligent labor of those Fathers, the Catholic faith greatly reflourished and long flourished in that Region, rustic morals were transformed into more humane ones, the seeds of virtues germinated, good works were in frequent use. Not to be passed over in silence the great piety and fervor of Prince Alexander, who studied to help and favor those laborers with aid, help, favor, in fine by every way and reason, to the utmost of his part.

[44] he undertakes the place of Skępe, In the same year too the same B. Ladislaus, at the town of Skępe, received a place, known to the whole kingdom for very many miracles. That place sacred to the B. V. Mary: the same pious Mother taking the care of the afflicted with her Son, many benefits are received by the faithful, who flock thither in troops for the sake of help, not without miracle, by the merits and intercession of the B. V. Mary the Patroness of the place, of which more will be brought forward below. Then in the following year, a Chapter being gathered at Warsaw, B. Ladislaus departed the magistracy. After he governed the Province for six years, fortified with the best laws and statutes nay also declarations of the rule, he discharges his office. he handed it over into the hands of another to be governed, having merited great glory of his holiness and name. I conclude, that this Blessed man was conspicuous for great glory of holiness, who so frequently was master of the command of the family to be governed. For unless before the rest he had shone with the chief prerogative of holiness, by no means in those beginnings, when the principle was fervent, and the ardent zeal of the Observance brandished flames, would he have held the principality among those Fathers. A great document indeed this of his holiness, and such as by its own force can confirm the minds of all with firm strength concerning his true holiness.

CHAPTER VII.

The profound humility of B. Ladislaus, and his Angelic Chastity.

[45] The all-powerful God had adorned His servant B. Ladislaus with the most precious pearls of virtues, the most splendid stones of merits, and the incomparable treasure of gifts and graces, whom He was about to set forth to the whole world as beholdable, He is eminent in profound humility, admirable, to be worshiped, and to be imitated henceforth. For wonderful humility shone forth in him, the foundation of the other virtues, the guardian of graces. It is known to all, that every edifice must be raised from the foundations: if this be weak and infirm, no one doubts that the walls too and the roof itself can easily be demolished by the storms of tempests. An edifice reaching even to heaven, is the strongest citadel of all virtues gathered into one: whose very summit it is established must be ascended by all, who strive to set foot into the tabernacles of the heavenly province. But the foundation of all virtues no one will find other, except humility alone; all the doctors of the Church bearing testimony to it. the foundation of virtues, John Cassian, in book XII of his Institutes, let us hear what he says. In no way in your soul will the structure of virtues be able to rise up, unless first there be cast in our heart the foundations of true humility, which most firmly placed may be strong to sustain the summit of perfection and charity. Humility is the mistress of all virtues, it is the firmest foundation of the heavenly edifice, it is the proper and magnificent gift of the Savior. S. Cyprian too on the Nativity of Christ says: This is the first entrance of religion, as the first ingress of Christ into the world, that whoever wishes to live piously, should think humbly of himself, nor presume to walk above himself in wonderful things. The foundation of holiness was always humility, nor in heaven could proud sublimity stand.

[46] From this foundation B. Ladislaus began to raise the structure of Religious perfection: and therefore with happy success he led to the very summit the begun edifice of holiness: for everyone who shall be humbled shall be in grace, and he who shall incline his eyes shall himself be saved. He had learned from the Lord, to be meek and humble of heart; to be humbled under the mighty hand of God, by inward sense, that he might be exalted in the time of visitation. His soul was subject to the Lord, and from Him his patience. The greater he was, the more in all things he humbled himself, and therefore before God he found grace. He had it for a custom, that not only by speech and external action he should depress himself; but truly in his mind he should learn to think humbly of himself and his own merits, according to that of Christ Luke XVII, When you shall have done all things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Then having followed the example of Christ the Lord, who, death impending, rose from supper, girt himself with a linen cloth, put water into a basin, washed the feet of the disciples, and among them those of Judas the traitor; he too was wont to exercise humble offices, to go to the kitchen, to wash with his own hands the pots and all the other vessels destined for the use of the kitchen, and by external services, to purge with brooms the more secret places, to wash, to cleanse; and to perform those things which slaves of the lowest condition carry out, and with cheerful brow to go about those duties, which use and custom hands over to be gone about by cooks and vile servants. It pleases to remember King David, who would not doubt, naked, though his wife Michol laughed, before the ark of God, for the sake of religion to dance; whom when the Lord had preferred singularly to all, he himself by subjecting and equalizing himself to the least, and by exhibiting abject things, despises himself. And not only, while still the ardor of youthful age, inclined the holy Man to that lot of embracing humility; but even in old age, though fatigued and debilitated by continual labors, affected, even in old age, from that humble kind of services he would not draw back his right hand. Hence, by the example of so profound humility, to all the rest to show the way to that virtue, to add a spur to the runners, the path

to show, and by his own edification to shine before; and indeed in so efficacious a manner and reason, that even to the present day and to our times, the vestiges of that humility, strongly impressed, observed by holy custom, appear: to which the Fathers and Brothers of every age think it the highest comeliness to adhere.

[47] But not here nor in these abject works did he resolve to set the goals and limits of humility; he produced further crags and bounds, and in this virtue he wished to place most deeply the soles of his feet; and others especially the juniors by birth, he prescribes humble exercises, to embrace the offices of humility, exercises being brought into the midst, he attracted. And these are of this kind: to be dragged about with a rope put round the neck, to be prostrated at the feet of those passing by, and to subject himself to be trodden by the soles of others: at the threshold of the house in the very doors to lie prone on the ground; to be rolled to kiss the feet of others, his face veiled; to be agitated by injurious, vilifying, threatening words, and those breathing reproaches; to be vexed by contumelious and accusatory speech: to be mocked by his defects being reproached, to be postponed to all, and to be pronounced unworthy of the consort of the Brothers, and to be trained by other exercises inclining to humility: which to be in use in the holy Order the present age too beholds and admires. To exercise alone perpetually the study of modesty, to usurp no arrogance in speech, nor to display proud diction. To show himself courteous toward a friend, gentle toward a household-member, patient toward the rash, humane toward the humble, a patron to the afflicted, to visit those set in grief: in sum to contemn no one: besides to demonstrate himself sweet in address, eager in response, dexterous and open to all, neither to celebrate his own encomia, nor to suborn others who should do this, nor to admit dishonest fame of his neighbor; and to cover his own virtues and prerogatives, as much as could be done: but for the sake of sins to accuse himself, to do the same as the just man, who in the beginning of his speech accuses himself. Besides this, that holy man was not troublesome and severe in chiding, nor petulant nor with commotion of mind did he reprehend anyone, moderate in reprehending, nor for modest faults did he condemn, as a rigid exactor of the law; but those who offended, by the example of S. Francis his Father, he embraced, and spiritually instructed; and expended as much zeal that he should not be held glorious among men, as others expend that they may be glorified. For nothing is so welcome to God, as to count oneself among the extreme sinners. This is the beginning of all wisdom, and unless upon the stable foundation of humility, the spiritual edifice can by no means stand.

[48] These foundations being cast, B. Ladislaus easily constructed the rest of the edifice, and erected a most lofty tower of perfection, to be beheld in the midst of the Christians. Deeming that above the foundation of humility he should place the three vows of Religion, abundantly commended through Christ the Lord; to their observance he directed all his strength, A lover and cultivator of Chastity, and turned his mind. First occurs chastity, a most beautiful virgin, a comely maiden, and unknown to man. This he greatly loved, and had among his delights. For he knew that the will of God was, his sanctification, that he should abstain from fornication, and should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of desire. All ponderation was not worthy of that continent soul itself, which surely was a sealed fountain and an enclosed garden. B. Ladislaus did not build up, upon the foundation of humility, wood, hay, stubble: but gold, silver, and precious stones of virginity and continence, who had crucified his flesh with its vices and concupiscences. Sixty strong ones of Israel surrounded his bed, all holding swords and most skilled in wars, the sword of each upon his thigh, on account of fears in the night, the guardianship of the Angels I mean, who are always present to the chastest thoughts, and preserve the minds of God's servants unharmed from foul lust: or also the examples of the Saints, by whose force the hearts of youths are wont vehemently to be kindled, to love chastity with whole affection, as S. Augustine says, Chap. VIII of the Confessions. There was opened from that part, toward which I had bent my face, and whither I trembled to pass, the chaste dignity of continence, serenely and not dissolutely cheerful, honestly coaxing that I should come, nor doubt: and stretching out to receive and embrace me her pious hands, full of flocks of good examples: there so many boys and girls, there much youth and every age, and grave widows, and virgins and old women; and in all continence itself, by no means sterile: and they mocked me with a mocking exhortation, as if they said: Canst thou not, what these men and these women can? Having imitated the examples of the Saints B. Ladislaus always loved the virtue of continence, nor from its love to the left of carnal pleasure did he ever bend; but chaste in mind and body, he bore the unconquered name of holiness. In the storming of strong infamy, he was armed with chastity, by whose reins all obscenity is bridled, and by whose fetters checks are set to raging lust. Surely that holy man, sublime in glory on account of the virtue of continence, shone in the eyes of all, and never was marked with the sinister opinion of lust; so that deservedly he is said to have trodden down the infirmity of petulant wantonness, to have taken the protection of probity, to have taken the victory of the soul and the prey of the body, by cultivating chastity.

CHAPTER VIII.

The zeal of Poverty and Obedience.

[49] Now it pleases to proceed further, it pleases also to look into the fabric, which the Holy Spirit, by inhabiting His servant, raised on high. May it please to behold the mansions of this palace, made by God in B. Ladislaus. The spiritual edifice of this holy man grew daily more, He proceeds from virtue to virtue: and more upward rose up. For the grace of the Holy Spirit knows not slow endeavors; and it is the virtue and property of Christian perfection, that it can always be augmented in this life. For such is the nature of man, that he does not suddenly come forth supreme in the study of virtue: but first is as it were an infant by beginning, secondly grows up by profiting, thirdly becomes a man, that is comes to due perfection. In charity (says Paul to the Ephesians IV) let us grow in Him, and to the Philippians I, This I pray, that your charity may more abound, and to the Thessalonians I, May the Lord multiply you and make you abound in charity. B. Ladislaus proceeded from virtue to virtue, a man just and perfect, he walked with God: and the more he approached the port of life; the more fervently he gave himself to the studies of virtues. Blessed truly the man, who is found without spot, and who went not after gold, nor hoped in the treasures of money, and did wonderful things in his life, esteeming all as dung that he might gain Christ. Touched with no cupidity of gold and silver, he was as rich though he had nothing, and as poor though he flowed with the very many riches of heavenly gifts. studious of religious poverty, He looked at the birds of the air, for they sow not, neither reap, nor gather into barns, and our heavenly Father feeds them. He knew that he had brought nothing into this world, no doubt that neither could he carry anything away. But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these he was content. He had left all things, and followed Christ. He had renounced all things, which he had ever possessed, and in all things showed himself as a minister in much patience, and thirst, and cold, and nakedness: accustomed to know how to be filled and to hunger, to abound and to suffer want: warring for God he did not entangle himself in secular desires: he possessed not gold nor silver, nor money in his girdle, nor had a scrip in the way, nor sandals. But clothed in a simple habit, he never gloried in garments: never solicitous of the morrow: for the morrow was solicitous for itself.

[50] The monasteries of the Province, built in divers places, distant by a long interval from one another (there were then in number twenty-four convents already erected), going with bare feet he visited; he visits the convents on foot: not carried in a chariot, not sitting on a horse, not brought by vehicles, by the hardest stretch of journey he was fatigued. Into Italy twice, driven by the mass of his province's affairs, the long and troublesome enough way of pilgrimage he performed on foot. That journey full of weariness and difficulties the zealous athlete undertook, and accomplished: in which journey among foreign peoples, it was necessary for him to give many documents of patience. For the most part wont to feed on bread alone and water, he sought no irritants of the palate: food was to him against hunger and thirst, not for lust nor luxury; content with the least food he lives, the smallest gold and silver shekels were never found in his hand to sustain life; through begged suffrages he procured food: he followed what was just, and sought the Lord: he attended to the rock whence he was hewn, and to the cavern of the pit from which he was cut: he attended to Abraham (understand D. Francis) and to Sara (understand holy Religion) which bore him, since the Lord called him one and blessed him, and multiplied him, who had chosen to be abject in the house of the Lord: and he wished to obtain the possession of no even least thing in this world, desiring to be sustained by alms, and to feed on bread offered for the love of God, and to be satisfied with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich. He knew too that it was a custom of Religion, to seek food from door to door, and to require food from the liberal hand of benefactors: and because he acted as its supreme Prelate, he judged it unbecoming, the army hungering, for the commander to live delicately and softly; and the same law for himself, which the Brothers kept, he had fixed to be held: nor did he judge that the tongue must be recalled from asking alms by shame or modesty. That he had gone forth naked from his mother's womb, that he would also return naked, and carry nothing with him of his labor he knew for certain: that the Son of man too had not where to lay His head, and was laid in another's sepulcher he had read.

[51] The year of the Lord was running its course MCCCCLXXXIX when again to B. Ladislaus the office of governing the Province was conferred. He undertakes troublesome journeys and offices even as an old man. The office too of Discreet (whom the use of the Order now calls Custos of Custodes) being imposed (for in that memory it was lawful to attend to both offices one and the same) the old man accustomed to labors bore; and now that a troublesome care was enjoined him into huge merit he patiently bore. Afterward in the year of the Lord MCCCCXCVIII the time of the Diet of the Order to be celebrated had come, in the most noble city of the Milanese: thither too compelled to undertake the journey, and to take the way on foot, content with one sole companion, addicted to patience he did not refuse. Thence too to Rome he betook himself, about strenuously to plead the cause of the Order. And since by the impious mouth of detractors, he knew that his Order existing in the kingdom of Poland, defamed, was ill spoken of; he opposed to the calumniators the strongest shield of innocence: and the life of his rightly and piously living Brothers and the best state of the Observance in all things being brought into the midst, he stopped the mouth of those speaking iniquities, and by his care and diligence the best estimation and fame of the Order remained, in nothing injured. Clearly therefore it is plain, that this blessed Father was instructed with every kind of virtues, whom, set in

the greatest poverty, no adversity could overcome.

[52] But of his obedience, in all things most prompt, the arguments are not few, and those by no means slight, those deeds of his, by which he proved the total abnegation of himself and resignation into the hands of his Superiors. from the merit of Obedience he acts: The contest of labors never deterred him, because the greatness of rewards invited him: and therefore girding himself to this virtue of obedience, which, instructed in the school of the Seraphic Father, he knew could not be true, right, pure, and firm, unless each one reckon himself dead, or in all things like to a dead man; he had so abnegated himself, that he wished to do nothing at all, which was not adorned with the merit of obedience; which also in his Savior he had read and most often repeated, made obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross. He had read also that, which once Samuel the Prophet said, Does the Lord wish holocausts and victims, and not rather that the name of the Lord be obeyed. 1 Kings 15 B. Ladislaus had learned obedience, that he should obey the words of the Lord, and do whatsoever they should say, who presided over the place which the Lord had chosen. Matt. 23 Upon the Chair of Moses, the Scribes and Pharisees sat, all things therefore whatsoever they should say to him, he kept and did. To the higher powers his soul was subject, and he himself obeyed his superiors, and lay subject to them. He, when he was an obedient man, spoke victories, and the Lord was made his protector, and his reward exceeding great. His food was, that he should do the will of Him who sent him: he obeyed his Superiors with fear and trembling, in the simplicity of his heart as Christ. The holy man knew best, that obedience alone is the virtue, which inserts the other virtues into the mind and guards them when inserted.

[53] It will suffice out of the many arguments of B. Ladislaus's obedience even one testimony brought into the midst; and that is such, [on account of old age in the Chapter bidden to choose a companion and rest at pleasure,] that it may be held most worthy of the admiration and likewise the imitation of all. In the year of the Lord MDIV B. Ladislaus, when he had come to old age, and had debilitated the flower of youth and the strength of manly age by continual labors, and had wholly lost his pristine vigor, and had now functioned five times in the office of the Vicariate, had sustained the office of Preacher and Guardian many times with huge praise of his name, and had been wakeful with assiduous endeavor on other cares and labors in the Order; summoned to the Chapter to be celebrated in the Cracow Convent for the Feast of the B. V. Mary's Nativity, was present. The President of the Chapter was the Venerable Father Fr. Luke of Rydzyna, a man most illustrious for the praise of holiness, the glory of doctrine, and a pilgrimage undertaken to the places of Jerusalem, and by signal piety welcome and acceptable to the whole Order. And when in that Council of the Brothers, many and those useful things were decreed for the Order, Presidents were given to places, worthy men to offices, and finally convents were determined for each of the Brothers to stay in, and Fathers and Brothers necessary for the convents; there came also into the mind of the Fathers deputed for defining the causes and affairs of the Order, this advertency, that they should regard the old age of B. Ladislaus broken by continual labors; and should give pains, that, weighed down by the debility of age and the burden, they should not trouble him any longer anxious with any cares of affairs; but rather after the long navigation, in the port of quiet placidly and tranquilly living, and awaiting the term of his life, should let him live, aided by the solace and service of a companion chosen by himself. To all the Fathers, especially those worn out by old age, the best proposition pleased, and it came into mind, that they were navigating in the same skiff and hastening to the port, and that it would be welcome to them if the same care were had of their old age.

[54] The opinion is at last brought forth that one of the Fathers must be sent, named Father Stanislaus of Slapii, also worn out by old age, and once a faithful companion of his pilgrimage, who in the name of all should report; That his piety and virtue were before the eyes of all; that the labors, which with happy and prosperous success he had endured in the Order, were not buried in the oblivion of ingratitude, but kept in the archive of recent memory by the whole Order: and that all were inclined to that opinion, that account should be had of his old age; and that he should have a solace of his approaching death, who in his life for the sake of religion refused no arduous business and service. He should declare himself what chief benefit he desired to be exhibited to him by the Order: the Fathers would be wanting to him in nothing. he prefers to obey unto death. That it pleased the Fathers indeed, that he should choose for himself a place, which was dear to his mind, to stay in: that he should have a companion, whom he desired, to render services; that he should now abstain from labors, and take pleasing rest. To wonder at this B. Ladislaus, and at first as if astonished to hold his voice barred, then with his eyes raised to heaven and then turned upon that messenger, wondering, grieving, and groaning within himself, with a high, clear, and great voice, which he had from nature, he says: O Father Stanislaus, what is this matter? what new thing do I hear? Do you bid me live by my own law and according to the opinion of my mind? Are you ignorant that I strive to the utmost of my strength to persevere in rendering obedience to my Superiors even to the last period of life? Have you not learned that I have bound my conscience, by the given faith of an oath, to observing the vow of obedience even unto death? Far be from my breast that mind, that elation of soul, that election of my own will. Whatever shall be the will of the Superiors, it pleases my mind to execute it. To my own desires I declare a hostile mind. There will be no place for my affections: I will acquiesce to the judgment of the Superiors; and whatever I shall know to be determined concerning me by them, without delay I will commit to execution: because now I feel strength in me, and I can do all things in Him who comforts me. Let him go to the Council of the Fathers and report my answer: that it is far from my mind to acquiesce to my own will; to their mandate and disposition I consecrate the remaining time of my life, and refer it to their good pleasure; about to refuse no labor, whatever they shall say must be undergone; that place moreover I shall have, which they shall deign to assign me to dwell in.

[55] He reported to the Council, not without stupor of mind, all praising the deed. suffused with tears. All heard, and wondering vehemently adorned it with worthy encomia of praise: they resolved that example of true obedience to be commended and proposed also to posterity for all; and many then said: How great a man, and with how ardent charity toward God and neighbor inflamed, who, to exalt the glory of the divine name, and to promote the salvation of his neighbor, suffers not himself to be broken by labors, nor distracted by continual cares, nor called away by the debility of old age, nor alienated by offered rest! O truly holy! O truly blessed! O truly obedient servant! to whom a greater mind for fulfilling obedience, than for undertaking the care of his health; a prompter mind for accomplishing another's commands than for obtaining the offered rewards for his so many labors; a more cheerful mind, for executing the will of his Superiors, than for taking the offered repose.

[55] Moreover a care came upon those Fathers, with what convent, and with what offices they should adorn the excellent old man, He is appointed Guardian and preacher of Warsaw. and the Father who had best deserved of the whole Religion. The Warsaw convent seemed very opportune for this, in which place they knew that he had exercised the beginnings of his novitiate in the Order, had emitted his profession, had consecrated himself to God, had conceived the spirit of devotion by which inflamed he came to so great perfection; and therefore they found that that convent was dear to him. All received that proposal, and subscribed to this opinion. He is therefore designated Guardian and at the same time Preacher ordinary for that convent, because they knew for certain that he was full of doctrine, zeal, spirit, and did not doubt that he was most greedy of disseminating the word of God: that labor was to him delights, rest a punishment. There is sent from the temple, one who should signify that it had pleased the council, to create him Guardian and Preacher of Warsaw, that he should undertake the imposed burden, and execute it faithfully: that so it seemed to the Holy Spirit and the Fathers, and that it would be welcome too to the Warsaw inhabitants, who were held by desire of him. The obedient son acquiesced: the strong athlete of Christ stood in the place assigned him: and so he applied himself to the committed office, that thence the increase of God's glory, the Brothers an example, the seculars a solace, all of a pious mind huge joy took. By this example he drew very many devout Fathers in this religion to his imitation: who accustomed to labors in religion from their youth, even their strength being broken, could never be idle or rest from labors, and indulge their senile members: whence when they were appointed Guardians, at the same time they assumed the office of preaching. In which as in all other things, this blessed Father Ladislaus was most happy: who in all his acts, had easy imitators, especially in his not common devotions, spiritual exercises, the method of teaching the Christian disciplines, and the rest, as below in the following Chapters will more amply appear.

CHAPTER IX.

The zeal of B. Ladislaus in seeking the salvation of his neighbor.

[57] The bowels of this servant of God B. Ladislaus were dilated, full namely of the most fervent love of God and charity of neighbor, so that he studied most holily to live not for himself alone, but cared also to profit others as much as he could to the utmost of his strength. From the zeal of pleasing God, Excellently said by the Prince of Philosophers, that the good is diffusive of itself. And truly, that the matter is so the cause is at hand. For as envy, hatred, malice, draws all things to itself, and grieves vehemently that favorable winds breathe to a neighbor; so the goodness set in pious minds rejoices to be of use to all, to wish well, to promote the good of a neighbor, and to desire that in all things they may experience prosperous successes and rejoice in a happy lot. The holiness of B. Ladislaus did not lack that exceptional prerogative: for there was to him a continual study of pleasing God, to instruct himself with spiritual arms congruent to the greatness of the war. He had clothed himself with the armor of God, that he might be able to stand against the snares of the devil: since his wrestling was not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places. He stood therefore his loins girt in truth, and clothed with the breastplate of justice, and his feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace, in all things taking the shield of faith in which he could extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one, and he took the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, by all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the spirit, and in that prayer watching, in all instance for all the saints and for himself. The Lord had set His zeal in him, and his zeal was kindled like fire: he had taken an iron frying-pan, and set it an iron wall between himself and the city: and by divine zeal for he strove to send fire into the earth, and willed that it should be kindled. In the fire too of God's zeal he spoke to the nations: for he knew that to almighty God no sacrifice is such, as is the zeal of souls.

[58] Through the whole time therefore of his Vicariate, by night

and day he did not cease, admonishing with tears each one of his own: and he was through humility a companion to those acting well, and against the vices of offenders erect through the zeal of justice, that both he should in nothing prefer himself to the good, and against the fault of the depraved should exercise power; so that, his honor being suppressed, he should think himself equal to the well-living subjects, and against the perverse should brandish the rights of fortitude. he seeks the salvation of men He attended to himself and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had placed him to act as Pastor of the Lord's flock, which He acquired with His blood; providing not by constraint but spontaneously, according to God; not for the sake of filthy lucre, but voluntarily; nor as lording over the family, but made from his heart a pattern of the flock, he reproved sinners before all, urged in season, out of season, besought in all patience and doctrine. The Lord had segregated him from his mother's womb, and called him by His grace, that He might reveal His Son in him, and that he might evangelize Him among the peoples, who emulated them with the emulation of God, and acquiesced not to flesh and blood. in giving sermons, Wherever he had betaken himself, always to scatter the seeds of the Word of God, to promote the studies of virtues, to remove vices, to serve the salvation of his neighbors, to become all things to all, that he might gain all: to consolidate what was infirm, to heal what was sick, to bind up what was broken, to bring back what was straying, to seek what had perished; and exceedingly to be vigilant, as about to render an account for the souls entrusted to him, to minister to Christ, to preach His blessed name to whom he could, to admonish his sheep, to teach, to exhort, and to correct, to expend benevolence, and to exercise discipline; in his house to fulfill an Ecclesiastical and in some way Episcopal office, and so by the virtue of zeal and the ardor of caring for souls to merit of God, and to do the most divine of all divine things by cooperating with God in the conversion of sinners.

[59] Besides this not only by word and example, but also by writing and pen he wished to profit all. in writing sermons, For he wrote sermons, adorned with the flowers of erudition and piety, breathing vehemently the odor of devotion: for the festivities of the Saints too and the Sundays running through the whole year he composed many sermons accommodated and left them consigned in letters; thence desiring the profit of souls and the increase of God's glory. But because he had explored that his nation was delighted by pious songs, he resolved to bestow effort on composing them. in composing pious songs, Wherefore he produced from the treasure of his breast many hymns, sweet songs, verses bound by certain numbers, concluded by rhythmic concert, some Psalters, singing the praises of Christ the Lord and the specimens of the virtues of the B. V. Mary. Some were digested in the Latin idiom, some composed in the vernacular tongue: yet all seasoned with the same ardor of piety and sweetness of divine love. Then indeed to exhibit those prepared foods to the faithful souls, to reach them to the juniors, and at the table in the midst of the church to offer them to those coming to partake: in the schools as it were the milk of piety to the boys to learn these to exhibit, and by those songs to cultivate the B. V. Mary vehemently to kindle. And in this way to instill the sweetness of piety into the souls of the young.

[60] In the churches too of his Order in the afternoon time, when now the sun, the middle of its journey being done, which after sermons he orders to be sung with the greatest fruit begins to direct its chariot to the west, a signal is wont to be given by the greater bell, to call out the peoples from their carousings, that they may run to hear the sermon which at that time was wont to be given from the pulpit. The sermon being finished B. Ladislaus had ordered those hymns and songs, publicly in sweet concert, to be chanted with a clear voice, and so the people to learn many means to piety, and thence to be inflamed to virtue by prudent spurs, and the hearts of the faithful to be moved, and made ardent to the sweetness of spiritual things. Which thing best in invention, holy in success, also fruitful in event and exceedingly useful was found. For also the people allured by the chant modulated with piety, more frequently to go to the temples, to spurn tables, cups, drunkennesses, to flock in troops to the churches of the Friars Minor, to pre-occupy places for sitting, to anticipate the coming of the Preacher, to await the comer with desire, to hear avidly him making his discourse, to aspire to heavenly things, to dread the infernal torments, and gradually to hold the allurements of the world in contempt; the sermon finished, to bring forth songs about Christ the Lord and about His most holy genetrix the B. V. Mary, to chant them clearly and devoutly, to commit them to memory, to consider them with diligent attention. Some you would have seen pour forth tears, others bring forth tearful groans, certain ones beat their breast, bear to heaven with praises the piety of the Order of the Minors and of B. Ladislaus, proclaim it, and stimulate and inflame all to imitate it. For chant is, the Angelic Doctor asserting, the exultation of the mind concerning eternal goods, breaking forth into voices, and so inflaming with an efficacious motion to gladness and spiritual joy. That too is true, that songs more sweetly and happily adhere to the memory; which is explored in boys, who more quickly learn the songs, which they rarely hear; than the Our Father, which compelled they daily repeat: and therefore by the use of songs the mysteries of faith, the examples of piety, the germs of virtues, flow into the minds of men, send roots, and afterward make worthy fruits of piety in the Church of God.

[61] In this part B. Ladislaus followed the example, of the Christian faith disseminated in the first spring and the first age, exhibited through the Kingdom of Poland, and terminated with happy effect. For there had come into his memory S. Adalbert, as S. Adalbert taught the Poles the mysteries of faith, formerly of Prague, afterward our Archbishop of Gniezno: who, offended by the insolent life of his Bohemian nation, spurning his monitions and pastoral doctrines, when he had betaken himself into the Kingdom of Poland; found a rude nation, and to the light of faith, as in a dark place to a burning lamp, in some way blinking with the eyes, sitting; therefore the holy man, full of the Apostolic spirit, had undertaken Poland to be illumined and the more instituted. But that he might more easily induce the dogmas of faith into the minds of the Poles, deeming that the use of songs would conduce most to effecting this, he undertook this labor, and made a most sweet song, in whose bowels he comprehended the mysteries of the Christian faith. That song obtained a name, from its first word with which it begins, Bogarodzica. Published and handed to universal use, incredible to say, how avidly it was accepted by the faithful, and enclosed in the treasure of memory: and the use afterward obtained, that men of every state and condition learn it, and on occasion celebrate it in chant: especially it was received by custom for soldiers, that when the trumpet-call is sounded, they too bring forth that song with eager voice, and by its virtue incite themselves to bravely join standards with the enemy. There shone before by a recent example to augment and conserve that custom, made of immortal glory, the Illustrious and Generous D. Bartholomew Nowodworski, Professed of the Military Order of S. John the Baptist of the Maltese Congregation, a man prompt of hand, strenuous in war, and illustrious for many victories happily obtained over enemies; who from Gregory XV of Blessed memory sought and obtained certain Indulgences, to be gained by those, who shall undertake to celebrate that song in chant. But let us hasten to other things.

CHAPTER X.

In the extreme dangers of Poland the enemies routed.

[62] It escapes no one, that the zeal, with which the Saints are wont to burn, is joined with huge grief, as is plain by the example of D. Paul the Apostle, while kindled with zeal he writes to the Rom. IX, Great sadness to me, and continual grief, to my heart: for I myself wished to be anathema from Christ for my Brethren, who are Israelites: and to the Phil. III, Many walk, To prove the charity of Ladislaus of whom I often told you (but now weeping I say) enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is the belly. Our B. Ladislaus wept, had been afflicted, as another Jeremiah the Prophet, over Jerusalem; he lamented with contrition, and was tortured with that zeal, that again and again he broke forth into these words; Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is scandalized, and I am not on fire? B. Ladislaus, touched with vehement grief, when he saw the wrath of God raging against his nation, by various modes and prayers and mortifications studied to placate it, and pleaded the cause of his people with God: which virtue of his that it may be more in the open, I deem certain things must necessarily be brought by us into the midst.

[63] In the year of the Lord MCCCCXCVIII, in which B. Ladislaus, as said above, was now acting the fourth time as Vicar of the Province, a new and mournful disaster was brought upon the kingdom, fortune heaping one upon another in that year. John Albert the King, a great band of soldiers being collected, the expedition of John Albert the King against the Turks whose number comprehended eighty thousand men, about to avenge upon the impious Turks the slaughter of his uncle Wladislaus, formerly King of the Poles and at the same time of the Hungarians, cruelly slain by these fierce enemies; invited by guile by Stephen the Prince of the Wallachians, and incited by the same to war against the Turk, promising counsel, favor, and all (as if he were a friend) aid; the King incautiously trusting much the perfidious Prince, by him is led into the narrowest woodland places, called Bukovina, among mountainous and rocky and inextricable crags, with his whole army there miserably to be routed. For the impious Wallachians, by the perfidious mandate of the Prince (who feigned to favor the Poles), had cut the trees of those woods, right and left about the way, so that they stood unmoved, and at a slight impulse would fall in a moment. When afterward the Royal army entered, unlucky by the guile of the Duke of the Wallachians, then they push the extremities of the cut trees, and so one falling into another unstable and ill-cohering, with a doubtful slaughter they overwhelm arms, men, horses, so that scarcely any escaped from this disaster. For when thus very many were slain by the trunks of the trees and the fragments of the branches, the rest of the multitude too they invade with an unexpected onset, and slay the trembling and wretched soldiery everywhere; and besetting the whole glade armed, if any of the Poles slipped away, they kill him; so that of so great a number, scarcely seven thousand escaped with the King. There very many Magnates and Nobles, strenuous soldiers and most brave men, leaving the spoils of their bodies to the perfidious men, miserably fell. The King, the disaster received, first betook himself to Lwów, afterward to Cracow.

[64] Meanwhile in the first spring, the enemies exasperated, the King's expedition being accomplished little happily, the Turks namely with the Tartars, with a hostile column invade the dominions of the Poles. For a huge army being gathered together they enter the bounds of the Kingdom to lay them waste. Not long did the enemy contain himself in the bounds: he proceeds thence hostile into the fields of the Poles: there followed the vernal irruption of the Tartars into Ruthenia, where since no one met them not even unarmed, and they found all the places, not only not provided with garrisons, but even by rustic cultivation altogether uncultivated and neglected, they came as far as the towns of Kańczuga and Sanok, leveling all things with iron and fire to the ground. All things deserted, without a head, without strength, all lay open to the incursions of the enemies. The towns

given to plunder, the fields laid waste, the villas consumed by fire. No less a slaughter of men, above a hundred thousand led away into hard servitude by the fierce and cruel nation are recorded. All the armies routed, a horrible spectacle in the open fields, in the villas, in the towns, men and women afflicted, horses, cattle, beasts of burden, animals scattered. Many, wounds received, neither able to flee, nor to have rest; only to strive, and at once to fall; the field strewn with darts, arms, corpses, and meanwhile the ground stained with blood. Such slaughters they made everywhere, on whatever men they fell. The horrible savagery of war raged; you would have seen virgins, boys, old men, and youths, and women snatched away; children torn from the embrace of their parents; shrines and houses despoiled, fires made and slaughters.

[65] Doing such things and pervading all Ruthenia and its richest Provinces, in which 100,000 were driven into servitude Podolia, Pokuttya, Volhynia, and the Cismontane region, far and wide laying them waste they had run as far as the river Wisłok; and consuming all the fortifications with fire and iron, they struck huge terror into Poland, no one being either prepared or animated to ward off the enemy, but all looking to flight and hiding themselves not only in the most remote fortifications, but in the pathless mountains and woods: whence yet very many mortals, of both sexes and every age, Order, state, and dignity, dragged out by those searching, were led away into miserable servitude and dispersed, so that Thrace, Macedonia, Scythia and Asia, were filled with Ruthenian slaves, with a huge prey of flocks and herds and every kind. Among the rest Father George of Nowe Miasto Guardian of Sambor, accompanied by eight Brothers of the Minors Observant, when he wished to decline the onset of the enemy, lest he should be in their way turned aside from the road keeping to pathless places; but unexpectedly he fell upon the troops of the enemy, by whom he was led away into captivity, where all worn out by squalor and grief died. the same is repeated in July There had remained in the convent the two others, but exposed to the cruelty of the same enemies they ended their life by the sword. Nor indeed was this then the end of the evils of Ruthenia and Podolia. For the Tartars, the prey deposited in Taurica, in the month of July again about the feast of S. Anne, ran through the same regions with horrible raiding, at which time the harvest of the crops is performed with all zeal. These an onset being made drive the prey, with iron and flame lay waste the labors of men. Everywhere the rumor flies, that the enemies have descended into their bounds: no one was found who brought help: if any remained unharmed, they extend their flight farther. And not so long after, toward the end of November, seventy thousand Turks poured themselves through Wallachia into Ruthenia, and in November, laying waste with iron and fire all that shore which is toward the Dniester and about Halicz, Żydaczów, Drohobycz and Sambor, and driving the prey. Nor would the Barbarians have set any limit of advancing and laying waste, no one opposing himself to them, unless, God having mercy on His people, they had been repelled and indeed routed.

[66] There was no man, then in the whole Kingdom, who resisted so great a power, no one who succored the calamity, all rather fleeing the hostile hand, on this occasion B. Ladislaus excites the people to piety: and betaking themselves into safer and more remote places. Meanwhile B. Ladislaus, then Provincial Vicar, to admonish, to exhort, to exalt his voice in sermons like a trumpet, to announce their crimes to the people. While the fatherland destitute lacks human aids, he bids the people cry to God Almighty: the Brothers whom he governed he orders to insist on continual prayers: he exhorted moreover with the most fervent sermons, which (running through the several cities and villas met with) he made continually, the whole people; nay he urgently solicited even the secular Clergy itself to do the same, that moved by the miserable disaster of their own they should pray God, between the porch and the altar, namely that they should set themselves a hedge between God and the people, with whom the Lord was offended; and weeping as true ministers should say: Spare, O Lord, spare Thy people, and give not Thy heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. And to this end he made this Antiphon, though brief, yet efficacious and devout: Let Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews arise, and crush the nations of the Pagans, and grant victory to the people of the Christians, that almighty God may be praised for ever and ever, Amen. With this salvation-bringing title, as with a triumphal banner, as always in all his sermons he came forth against vices, so also against the visible enemies of the fatherland he deemed that he and the whole people must boldly proceed, full of hope of victory. He knew that those days were the days of the Lord's fury, days of mist and darkness: he knew the strength of the enemy, before whose face a devouring fire, and after him a burning flame. Those Ruthenian regions were before as it were a garden of pleasure, and after the departure of the enemies a deserted solitude: from their face the peoples were tortured, and all faces were reduced into a pot, as the Prophet Joel prophesied.

[67] And truly when now in the sight of the enemies our land had been silent, so that now the name of the Poles seemed blotted out, and foreigners esteemed that our nation could be deleted to extermination through the immanity of the enemies; the Lord remembered the affliction of His own, and he himself implores the help of God, and to so great waves of this sea He opposed a bar, and said, Hitherto thou shalt come, and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves. Thence gradually the strength of the enemies began to be diminished, the minds of the Poles to be raised, a new light to arise seen for the kingdom, joy, gladness, and dancing. To another Mordecai, through the beautiful Esther, the ardent prayer I mean, placating and mitigating the wrath of God, the nations, which had assembled to crush and delete our name, were slain with slaughter. B. Ladislaus cried to God, and the Lord saved His people, and freed them from all evils, and made great signs and portents among the nations. For when so great a devotion to God, B. Ladislaus exhorting and inviting all, was made through the Kingdom of Poland, now the third time in the same year, in the last days of November, the Turks with the Tartars had crept into the bounds of the kingdom, and had fortified the camp of one army between the said rivers, named the Pruth and the Dniester; both of which glide with a rapid and swift course, and divide the kingdom of Poland from the Province of Wallachia; but they are crossed by middling boats, they abound in mud, and in fish of various kinds. Then the Lord our God gave His voice, by whose acting the whole hostile army miserably perishes. before the face of His people, whose camps are very many and strong and doing His word: having pity I say on His people, He overwhelmed the army of the insolent enemies with so many victories and prey, by a sudden inundation of the two said rivers, overwhelmed it with falling snow, shut it in by the congelation of the inundating waters, and finally killed it with excessive cold.

[68] For in that place, when now the camp was fortified, suddenly the waters began to grow, to swell, to be diffused most widely with the most rapid course, and the Lord established a huge inundation. Afterward when the frost and cold more vehemently exerted their forces, the congealed waters, walls as it were made of ice, shut in the enemies. Soon a dense snow falling the camp was overwhelmed, and to men and horses extreme necessity brought death. Some killed by cold, some overwhelmed by the waters, some opening the bowels of the horses with swords, and wishing to be warmed within them, together with the beasts miserably the wretches perished. So God Almighty with His heavenly arrows destroyed those enemies: so that of seventy thousand there escaped and evaded death eight thousand; but not even these with firm and entire health. Who yet scarcely extricated themselves from those plagues, were afterward so crushed by the faith-breaking Stephen Prince of the Wallachians, that scarcely four hundred escaped; a rumor being spread before, that it was his Polish army, that so he might seem to keep entire the friendship with the Turks which he feigned. These nevertheless four hundred, though they escaped the face of the sword, yet seized by a contagious disease, which is commonly called the French disease, brought into the bounds of the fatherland (otherwise unknown to them) that blemish, which mutual conversation and the contagion itself spread. Many most illustrious historians, who wrote Polish affairs, mention this miraculous slaughter. The Turks themselves too, though lacking the light of true faith, considering nevertheless the various event of things, said, that heaven itself fought for the Poles, and therefore esteemed that that nation was no more to be infested with war. So the Lord was zealous for His land, and spared His people.

[69] That this slaughter befell the enemies, on account of the most devout prayers, zeal, care, and ardent sighs of B. Ladislaus to God, who of extreme madness will deny? Whom, I beseech, does it escape, or to whom is it not explored, that formerly the Lord God wished to prepare a succor for the city of Jerusalem, and to make pardon and grace of its offenses, if it should oppose to His wrath as a bar the piety of some man famous for holiness? For thus He complained: I sought among them a man, who would interpose a hedge, and stand opposed against me for the land, that I should not destroy it, and I found not. Ezek. 22, And I poured out upon them my indignation, in the fire of my wrath I consumed them. Ladislaus is compared with David slaying Goliath Happy indeed our mother Poland, which, the fury of the Lord raging, then had that man, endowed with exceptional holiness, who was strong to restrain the hand of God, and to put again into the sheath the unsheathed sword of His fury. Goliath (understand the Turk) reproached the army of the living God, who came with sword, spear and shield. But Blessed Ladislaus came in the name of the Lord of hosts, and the Lord gave him into his hands, and he struck him, and took away his head, and gave the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines (understand Turks and Tartars) to the birds of the air, that all the earth might know, that there is a Lord God of Israel; and that the whole Church of God might know, that not in sword nor in spear does the Lord save: for the war was His, and the Lord delivered them to an evil end. Likewise David played the harp, and the evil spirit departed from Saul, nor could he endure the sweetness of the chant, and David playing the harp before Saul. which David with the harp brought into the ears of the King, with a sweet motion. The harps in the hands of the elders seen in the Apocalypse, denoted the prayers of the Saints: and our B. Ladislaus, with fervent affection to be intent on holy prayers, to play the harp, to repel the malign enemy, to subdue the most wicked spirits, to procure rest for the afflicted inhabitants of the Kingdom, to demand peace, to soften the wrath of God was recognized. whose Canonization the author desires to be promoted. So too formerly Eliseus, three Kings being reduced to straits while he desires to placate the Lord, bids a psalmist to be summoned; by whose psalming inspired by the spirit of God, he announces that a victory over the enemies will be reported by them. The fervent prayer of B. Ladislaus; the songs composed by him to this end, the Antiphon written for this, the vehement sermons, effected, that the Lord reconciled to His people gave peace, and brought death upon the enemies, conferred victory on His own, ignominy on the enemies, blessed the flock, repelled the rabidity of the wolves, and turned every plague of war upon the enemies

themselves. Let the Lord be blessed in His Blessed Ladislaus.

[70] We, mindful of the benefits, exhibited to us through him by God the Father almighty, let us study to compensate them with every kind of offices, to have them in eternal memory, so to promote and proclaim his holiness, that the glory of God thence may have its increases, and the piety of the holy man may obtain from the Church of God the worthy reward of relation into the catalogue of the Saints. Let the fatherland urge this business, of which he living on earth showed himself the Patron, and no doubt, that living a happier life, he will show himself a most loving father to its inhabitants: let the Duchy of Mazovia urge, which rejoices in so precious a treasure: let the city of Warsaw urge, which contains his holy Relics in its sarcophagus: let all Poland urge with all its adjacent provinces, which he imbued with salutary doctrines, and supported with prayers; which by him as author was found worthy, on whom from heaven very many gifts and benefits by God almighty have been most widely conferred.

SECOND BOOK.

The last labors. Ecstasies. Pious death. Burial. The elevation of the body.

CHAPTER I.

The singular devotion of B. Ladislaus, especially in reciting the Crown of the Virgin Mother of God.

[77] Plainly a great man and illustrious for the marks of many virtues was B. Ladislaus: and so what kind of devotion was in that man, By pious devotion he perfects prayer: let us consider: for this virtue is first in order, which is the foundation of all the rest. He was mindful of God and was delighted. His devotion was, a pious and humble affection toward God: humble from the consciousness of his own infirmity, pious from the consideration of the divine clemency. Meditation gave him knowledge, knowledge compunction, compunction devotion, devotion perfected prayer. The Lord had granted him the desire of his heart, and defrauded him not of the will of his lips: and as the hart desires the fountains of waters, so his soul desired toward his God. As with fat and fatness was his soul filled, and with lips of exultation his mouth praised his Creator. God had created a clean heart in him, and renewed a right spirit in his bowels. The Lord was his firmament, and refuge, and deliverer; he raised his eyes to the mountains whence help should come to him: and as the eyes of a handmaid on the hands of her mistress, so his eyes to the Lord his God. He had a heart prepared for the Lord and provided the Lord in his sight always. To adhere to God was good to him, and to put hope in the Lord his God. He was rich in charity, which is exhausted by no expenses, and from it easily he was able to offer marrowy holocausts.

[78] His hearts, sweating, poured forth everywhere the holy liquor, with which they were more fully imbued, when he spoke the great things of God, and stimulated to embracing virtue with continual exhortations. For with so great an abundance of devotion was B. Ladislaus filled, and in others he excites the fervor of divine love: that not only in himself he continually excited the fervor of divine love, but studied to promote the same in others by a singular way and reason: so that of himself he could deservedly say that of the Wise man, Behold I have made for myself an abundant path and my river drew near to the sea, for I illumine doctrine for all as the morning-light. Ecclus. 24, 43 Since he illumined his doctrine for all as the morning-light, an abundant path of the spirit of divine love, from which the fervor of devotion, like a rapid river, went forth; while by his example he in some way snatched very many to a like devotion, and at the same time led them by divine eloquence as by a river. And he drew near to the sea, that is he was strong to edify the whole people, and to move it greatly to piety, persuading that the highest good is in religion alone, that by this bond of piety we are bound to God, whence religion itself received its name; that nothing in human things is more excellent than religion, which is the true and heavenly worship, in which the mind of the worshiper sets itself an immaculate victim to God. Through this B. Ladislaus directed his affections to God, and his compunction was not of an hour, but continual. The blessed man dwelt in wisdom, and in sense pondered the circumspection of God: he sought the Lord assiduously, and was confirmed all the days of his life. He had God in mind, accustomed to do judgment, and to love mercy, and solicitous to walk with the Lord his God. And because he always remembered God, therefore his mind escaped into heaven. Truly the Lord was in the place of his heart: there was nothing there but the house of God and the gate of heaven.

[79] The exemplar of his piety and devotion confirms its fame and vestiges even to our times. The Crown of the B. V. Mary, not in the common manner, but by a certain special formula of devotion composed for reciting: He recites the Crown of the B. V. M. in a singular manner, after each word of the Angelic salutation, pious and devout meditations applied, fervent prayers, compunctions. But when B. Ladislaus bestowed effort on reciting a crown of this kind, when he first uttered the Ave Maria, standing with a profound inclination he sent his head downward. But when he pronounced those tremendous names Jesus Christ, he was wont suddenly to fall on his knees and incline his head to the ground: and so the whole Crown, consisting of eight Pater nosters and seventy Ave Marias, composed as it were of fragrant flowers, namely reddening roses and whitening lilies, or as compacted of the most precious gems and inestimable pearls, to God and the B. V. Mary each day most devoutly he recited. Which custom proceeding from him, for use by the Friars Minor of the Observance is inviolably observed, and daily for saying in that manner the Crown of the B. V. Mary a whole hour after Vespers are ended is destined, in all the convents of the same Brothers. thereafter observed by the Friars Minor For some, Vespers finished, not going out of the church, suddenly begin that devotion, deeming that hour insufficient for them, for so sweet a banquet: but others at once assemble, and no one is excepted from that holy custom, the feeble removed. And so each in their places, with all humility and devotion, intent on the holy prayer at the throne of the Divine majesty, holding vials full of perfumes; and with a profound inclination of the head and of the whole body, the knee bent in a sending down upon the knees, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and at the same time the Lady and Queen of heaven they venerate. There is also a great concourse of secular men elsewhere, especially in Lithuania and Samogitia, who kindled by the example of that devotion, and by many seculars willingly assemble to render cult to the B. V. Mary, and the Brothers praying, they likewise, in the same way and manner of ceremonies, strive to cultivate and observe the Mother of mercy. Of which egregious deed since B. Ladislaus showed himself the author and leader, surely he showed a great affection of devotion toward the Mother of mercy, and at the same time gave an example to his Brothers and the other faithful, to cultivate the genetrix of Christ the Lord: that as he did, so also his successors in every age and memory should accustom themselves to do.

[80] There is a report that the B. V. Mary declared by a signal testimony, that that manner of reciting the crown was welcome and acceptable to her. For certain of the older Fathers related that the B. V. Mary had been seen by them, at the time in which her Crown was recited, passing through the midst of the choir, in which the Brothers then persevered praying; and in the midst of the Brothers, as if allured by the sweetness of that prayer, now to stand still, lovingly to behold each one, to gladden them with her glorious countenance; now to approach each of the Brothers, and her Only-begotten, whom she bore in her arms, as if to exhibit Him to be kissed. It was observed also this, that she passed by those Brothers, nor reached her Son to them, who recited indeed that Crown, but abstained from the profound inclinations and genuflections: but to those alone she rendered that benefit, who with the customary ceremonies applied for reciting the Crown expended care and the affection of devotion. The B. V. Mary wished to insinuate, that that obsequy of prayer, adorned with inclinations and humility, was pleasant to her sight and most welcome to her heart. For of humility, with which the most blessed Virgin together with her most loving Son is supremely delighted, that act of profound inclination bears the type; and of the honor, which the Blessed now coreigning with God in heaven exhibit, befitting His Divine majesty. Then by such ceremonies not only is the due honor exhibited to God, but also the torpor which often invades those praying is repelled, fervor is roused in the one praying, attention is continued, humility is exercised, and finally the spirit is renewed and more inflamed. No doubt but that by God Himself that manner of praying was infused into B. Ladislaus, by internal inspiration; and that for duly and worthily cultivating and honoring the most pure Virgin, His most worthy genetrix.

[81] In all things B. Ladislaus was great, but also in fervent prayer he obtained the principality, and snatched the palm before the rest. He immolated to God the sacrifice of praise and rendered to the Most High his vows. In all prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, his petitions became known before God, whom he himself cultivated and besought for sins, and contained himself from them. Among his other salutary monitions and precepts, B. Ladislaus gave the form of praying to the B. V. Mary, as has been said, he himself intimated and instructed what we should pray. He himself was prudent and watched in prayers, to pray without intermission, to give thanks in all things, to insist on prayer, to watch and not to fail; and thence to effect, and his prayer was efficacious with God, that he was held worthy, to whom God should give wisdom affluently. And when like another Moses he prayed on the mountain, in the battle-line he conquered the Amalekites: for through the prayer of B. Ladislaus, as is piously believed, the enemies of the fatherland were deleted, and reduced wholly to nothing, as said above. Nor wonder: for he was delighted in the Lord, and the Lord gave him the petitions of his heart. His heart did not reprehend him, therefore he had confidence toward God, and whatever he asked he received from Him, since he kept His commandments, and did those things which are pleasing before Him. The eyes of the Lord were upon him as upon the just, and His ears toward his prayers.

[82] Let us imitate therefore this man, signal in the piety of devotion: let us pray in every place, keeping pure hands without wrath and disputation. Let it not shame us, by the example of this Saint, by genuflection and profound inclination to send our heads down to the ground. Chrysostom on Matthew Homily V, of the prostration on the ground, used by Christ and S. James, asserts that with the assiduity of prayer and continual prostration of the whole body on the pavement, his knees too were overlaid with a callus, so that nothing differed almost from the hide of a camel. S. Anthony having entered the cave of S. Paul the first Hermit, saw with knees folded, the neck erect and the hands spread on high, a lifeless body; and the manner of praying such as that of the Saints. and thinking him to be alive and praying, together with him he too

falling down prayed. But after he heard no sighs of one praying as was wont, rushing into a tearful kiss he understood, that even the body of the Saint prayed God, to whom all things live, by its gesture. This gesture and others more profound, his Brothers, as said, B. Ladislaus taught; and it avails to declare the promptitude of mind, to show our want and imbecility, for which we implore succor from Him to whom we direct our prayers. Especially that Mother, whose humility God regarded, in that manner of praying we shall always be able to incline happily to our vows, and to effect that to our petitions she may kindly respond and acquiesce to our requests.

CHAPTER II.

A place, famous for the apparition of the B. V. Mary and miracles, given to the Friars Minor.

[83] About this time, namely in the year of the Lord MCCCCXCVII, when B. Ladislaus by word and example commended to all that norm of reciting the crown of the B. V. Mary; in the territory of Dobrzyń near the town of Skępe very many things happened beyond belief from heaven, without doubt of revelations, Near Skępe miracles exhibited. At a short interval of place from the public road, by which the footsteps of those departing lead to another town in contiguous vicinity, called Lipno, a certain stone of middling size, within and without marked here and there with very many images of the salvation-bringing Cross, and in some manner like veins in that mass distinguished and disposed in every part, at a stone marked with Crosses was beheld. The thing began to be held by all in place of a miracle. But a certain horror of majesty, set in that place, augmented the admiration of the thing: for whosoever dared to approach little honestly and circumspectly, drew near to it; or the drunken, or those behaving irreverently, or conferring dishonestly among themselves, or certainly handling or doing some other unworthy thing passed by, incurred notable damages. and venerable with a sacred horror Sometimes a cart was overturned with them, they were dashed to the ground, and by a certain terrible spirit prostrate were rolled over; those especially who by a wanton or petulant gesture, or by a dishonest word, gave signs of insolence, together with their vehicles were rolled in the dust or mud: but sometimes the wheels and axles broken were scattered, or finally something unwonted befell them.

[84] And when all rapt into admiration, were detained as to what that matter might be, and conferred and consulted about this matter more often among themselves; there came up a certain old man, known to all, grave in age, honest in fame, sedate in morals, commended by all in his conversation, though pressed by the want of poverty, simple, upright, and fearing God; who under the attestation of an oath and the faith of his conscience asseverated, that near that stone the B. V. Mary had been beheld by him shining with an admirable light, the B. V. M. appearing indicates that she has a sacred place there a virgin exceedingly gracious, instilling these words into his ears: This place will be acceptable to God and to me; holy ground, welcome to us, and chosen: and from this time consecrated to the divine cult and honor, ought to be kept intact by all. And I wish to have Religious welcome and acceptable to my Son, to be placed here for His services and bound to the divine offices. These things said that most blessed Virgin vanished from his eyes, and he remained stupefied and astonished, at the novelty of the unwonted matter. That vision being so divulged, and by public fame disseminated first to the nearer fathers, then also to the more remote, faith was easily had; and the place began to be venerated with honor, and to be fortified from the injuries both of animals and of evil men. There followed frequent concourses of men, suppliant to God and the B. V. Mary. Many seized by sicknesses, very many driven by the force of various necessities, some pierced by the hard darts of difficulties and calamities, which being made more illustrious by miracles, offered vows to their God and the B. V. Mary, and all having obtained the desired end and prosperous event of their desires, departed consoled. Some recovered their lost health, part obtained the benefits sought; some snatched from evils, tasted the sweetness of consolation. That place became more and more illustrious daily, and was held by all worthy of greater veneration.

[85] In the same year, when in the same place now, on account of the greater devotion of the people and the designation of the place, a Cross was being erected; more than a hundred men for the sake of discharging a vow in that course of time assembled; of whose number it was permitted to see two wretched ones, possessed by an evil demon, likewise two demoniacs to whose malice subjected by God's permission, they were vexed in a cruel manner. These were led by friends pitying their calamity, and when now they approached the aforesaid place, where first they beheld the same with their eyes, slipped from the hands of those leading them, they took flight into the nearest wood: but at length by the greatest force of their friends eagerly pursuing them caught, to the designated place, striving nevertheless to resist, they were led. Led they broke forth into horrible clamors, vociferating that by the B. V. Mary they were reduced into straits and vehemently tortured, complaining of the force brought upon them by the same. They added besides, that a short time after in this place certain barefoot Religious would be placed, but this place would be theirs perpetually for ever, nor ever to be subjected to the jurisdiction of secular Priests: predicting that the place would be given to Religious they are freed. that never too would it be, that as in the town of Sierpc (where also an image of the B. V. Mary glitters votive with very many miracles) a college of secular Presbyters should preside over that place; that the eternal possession of that place would remain to Religious welcome to God and the B. V. Mary. And without delay these words being uttered, deserting the possessed bodies and leaving them free, suddenly they sought the infernal caverns. But those who had been possessed, having obtained peace and deliverance in the said place, gave thanks to God and the B. V. Mary.

[86] There presided at that time over the workmen laboring about the erection of the Cross, a certain man, strong in authority over them, trustworthy, and famous for the praise of a good name; who narrated to those whom it concerned that all those things were done in his presence; subjoining, that it had then come into no one's mind, that he had spoken the truth the issue taught. of what Religious those evil demons spoke; and that the memory of all those things had been suspended so long, until, a colony of the Friars Minor of the Observance being led to that place, it was found that the evil spirits had foretold the truth, God so disposing. For before that time the Brothers of that Order were altogether known to none of the inhabitants. Many other signs and prodigies too were exhibited in the same place, which are kept diligently written in the archive of the same convent, especially concerning those who resisted the foundation of the Brothers, whom now the blessed Father Ladislaus, as Provincial Vicar, had designated to undertake that place. Of many I shall make mention of one and another example, from which it can easily be gathered that that place is most welcome to the B. V. Mary; since she altogether wished it to be had in the care, not of others, but of the Friars Minor of the Observance, and to be provided for by their services: for whosoever dared to contradict, not many remained.

[87] Most signally this had experienced in his own body, the Rector of the Parochial church of the town of Skępe. He had borne it ill that the Brothers of the Order of the Minors had built a chapel in that place, but the Parish-priest opposing himself to the Minors complaining that thence there arose to him a detriment in his revenues. Licentiously therefore to inveigh against the same, to curse the place, and to persecute the new Order: to say besides that he would not suffer another church to be built in his parish while he lived, and a new fabric to rise to his prejudice. But when by certain timorous men he was admonished, lest he should resist the divine will; exacerbated, agitated by the spurs of envy and chafing, he machinated I know not what evil. It happened that certain devout persons in his presence followed the holy place with praises, that wonders were done in it, by which God declares its prerogative to the world: among the rest, that there were certain trustworthy men, who affirm by oath, that in the newly erected chapel, at dead of night they hear the most sweet concerts of Angels psalming. That Parish-priest kindled with vehement anger breaks forth into words of blasphemy; that the place rather resounded with the roar of demons and evil spirits, and the howling of infernal wolves, than with the sweet melody of Angels: nor content with words of blasphemy, he resolved to proceed to a work of malice. He happened then to be passing by the chapel: approaching therefore very near to the wall, with the sole of his foot he struck the shrine, as if striving to push it, murmuring in his fury; that in this place the rabid vociferations of evil demons were heard, but not the sweet and pleasant voices of Angels. for blasphemy he is struck by God. Scarcely had he poured the impious words from his mouth, when behold from behind him God the avenger: the impious man suddenly fell to the ground, seized by an unwonted sickness. Carried, no one bringing him aid, to his house, the manifest virtue of God being recognized, he was agitated by the greatest torments of pains.

[88] And so when more and more the force of the disease was spread through his members, he betook himself to a better mind: he recognized his fault, confesses the punishment justly imposed on him, repenting of the deed begins to invoke the Most High, that He would grant him life, now set in his last breath. He bewails his crime, and demands pardon of the committed offense: he invokes the B. V. Mary with a tearful voice; that she would be willing to offer vows for him to her beloved Son, about to have henceforth from a blasphemer a fervent preacher of her praises: he vows if he be restored to his lost health, to the chapel erected for her cult, by a vow to the B. V. M. he is healed. as soon as he should rise from his bed, that he would go, would exhibit honor and cult votive to God and to her; nay would induce the inhabitants of the whole town and the Clergy and Ministers of the Church, with a public chant through a solemn procession, to this. The vow being emitted, no delay interposed, he was made whole. Therefore the people being gathered by the greater bell into the church, with a brilliant oration he celebrates the B. V. Mary, confesses the benefit of health conferred on him through her: he discloses his vow, to fulfill which he asserts that his mind is set; the pastor invites and asks his sheep that they would be present to him going to that chapel, the congregation assembling to the ecclesiastical banner. All accepting that request, there is a huge concourse of men, leading their Pastor to the aforesaid chapel. Where to confess his guilt, to recognize his fault, to make it openly with grief, to deprecate the punishment, to be reconciled to the Brothers of D. Francis; after these things to celebrate solemnly the sacred rite at the altar, marked with the image of the Queen of heaven, and to give thanks for the docile correction; to testify to all that the works of God are magnificent, to subjoin too that if they had any enemy of the begun work or a plotter against his salvation, they should send him thither and would receive him scourged, if however he escaped; because in that place there is a certain virtue of the Most High, who is the helper of that place, and destroys with perdition those coming to do evil.

[89] This very thing which that man experienced in fact, and testified in eloquent words, a little after was found out in fact in another Parish-priest of another parish, and that in plainly the same manner. A certain noble man, surnamed Kobiernicki, led by devotion toward the Church and Clergy, the Parish-priests both of the church of Skępe, and of another neighboring,

parish, persuading that the Minors should be driven thence, with his assistant Presbyters and the other servitors of the temple, invited to a dinner. Before they sat at table, water is given, as is the custom, to wash the hands. While the water therefore was being poured over the hands of the guests, the neighboring Parish-priest addresses the one of Skępe: What is this matter, Reverend Sir, do you permit these Mendicants to erect a new chapel at your side? do you suffer detriment to be made of your affairs? Are you ignorant that the common people are desirous of new things? Your Church will so become desolate, will stand as a widow despoiled of the people, a sheepfold without sheep, the pastor will be without a flock, for from devotion all will run to the chapel. Or perhaps have you forgotten that to your care the souls of all are committed? What if those betaking themselves thither be led rather into error than into the ardor of devotion? That his silence, his patience, displeased him; if he were a man, he would care to remove that tabernacle together with the Brothers; that he, eagerly, if that business lay upon his care, would perform what he said, and would remove all impediments from his parish. The one of Skępe answered, that the place was welcome to the B. V. Mary, chosen by her, and in her protection; that those Brothers, not others, she had accepted: that he would attempt nothing against the will of the Mother of God, and a blasphemer against the Mother of God, nor commit himself to danger, lest in it he should be imperiled: that the Divine will must be acquiesced in, and the cult of the B. V. Mary preferred to his own advantages rather than that, for the sake of lucre, the good pleasure of the Virgin should be violated. To these things he laughed, at length brought forth words of blasphemy. But forthwith, is made dumb and demented. like that former one too, he recognized the hand of the Omnipotent. For falling to the ground, crying with a horrible voice, wailing and chafing, soon he lost speech together with reason. So carried into his house, when he had returned to himself, recollecting himself, he recognized his great error, namely that he had persuaded that the will of God must be resisted, had said that war must be declared against the Virgin Mother of God, had been a scandal to the people. This he grieved at heart, made a vow that with his Clergy and ministers he would go to the place chosen by God, and repenting is healed. and would celebrate a Mass in the very chapel despised by him of the B. V. Mary. Which when he had fulfilled in fact, the most Blessed Virgin assented to his vows, pitying him; and she who is the mother of mercy, made him return to his pristine prosperity of life: and by that severity of punishment taught all, that she wished that place to be immune and free from all violation; that those contradicting would incur the indignation of her son and her own. They all therefore thereafter were silent and intent held their mouths.

[90] But those Brothers, sent by B. Ladislaus to the foundation of the place, having obtained eternal possession, with the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Nicholas de Koscielec Koscielecki, The Minors sent by B. Ladislaus hitherto reside there. Bishop of Chełm, promoting the consummation with all help and expense, settled; and even to our times by day and night, free for the divine offices, the Lord and the B. V. Mary always illustrating that place with recent signs, happily pay their vows. And even hence it may be gathered, that B. Ladislaus burned with a signal love of devotion toward this B. V. Mary, and was of signal holiness; under whose no less prudent than happy governance, his whole holy family, was found wholly welcome to God and the B. V. Mary; and which in the place chosen by her, as in her delicate little garden, to guard and cultivate the same, it pleased her to place. And to the present day this happy little plant of B. Father Ladislaus, in the same devotion, with which he instructed it, of reciting the Crown of the holy Virgin Mother of God remains, God the best and greatest confirming its cult with frequent miracles.

CHAPTER III.

The religious labors of Ladislaus: the good name of the Order defended.

[91] Fleeing idleness, Among the other arguments of religious perfection not the last place held the flight of idleness, and the desire of labor and occupation: for everyone who follows idleness is most foolish, and shall be filled with want: much malice too idleness taught. and this was the iniquity of Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and her daughters. Every tree therefore which makes not good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire. Even in paradise God placed man that he should work and keep it. Man is born to labors, and the bird to flying. Let none hate laborious works and husbandry created by the Most High: and he who will not work shall not eat. Hence the monasteries of the Egyptians held this custom, that they received no one without the labor of work, not so much on account of the necessity of food, as on account of the salvation of the soul, lest the mind, led away, should wander with pernicious thoughts. Therefore also in the exercise of this virtue our B. Ladislaus was delighted. He conserved time and declined from evil, nor was he defrauded of seeing good things, and a particle of the gift did not pass him by. always to labor He always did some work, that the devil might always find him occupied. To covet the silver and gold of none, and to minister all things which were needful to him with his own hands, to do his business by himself, to be quiet and to work with his own hands, to walk honestly toward those who are without, and not to eat bread for nothing, but in labor and weariness to work night and day; nor to burden anyone, not as though he had not power, or prayer, but to give himself a pattern, to imitate Christ; to desire nothing of anyone, to withdraw himself from every man walking inordinately. Nor only with Mary Magdalene this faithful servant of God B. Ladislaus, applied himself to divine contemplations and pious meditations, and vocal prayers both private and public in the choir, with the other Brothers chanting the Divine office to the most high Lord (which never, unless impeded by grave occupations, drawn from the choir by inevitable necessity, did he omit) but also with Martha he was busy about frequent ministry.

[92] For from his first entrance into holy religion, with labors and exercises, or applies himself to the vile services of the monastery. no less corporal than spiritual, about the domestic matter he occupied himself. None was prompter than he to labors, to services, to business, even unequal to his shoulders. The dinner being finished, when others according to custom, for the sake of relaxation of mind, occupied themselves with an honest walk or mutual conversation; he alone to purge the garden, to cast out the cuttings, to pluck up the useless herbs, to collect stones, to cut off the noxious leaves, to prepare wood for the use of the kitchen, to draw water, to cleanse the interiors of the cloister, and to render every other abject and vile service, never to be idle, but always to labor with his own hands, in the sweat of his face to eat bread, to place no hours ill, to do good and not to fail, a good measure of good actions, both pressed down and shaken together, and running over to give into the bosom of his mother holy Religion, and for its augmenting to sweat much and to move every stone; set on the summit of governance to administer all things eagerly, to show himself a great and wise man. For marked with the honor of the Provincialate, not only by edict, but by example and care and vigilance, all abuses if any then were to remove, to plant virtues, to institute all he was busy. Moreover he set art and measure in all things. using meanwhile great discretion toward his subjects. By ardent exercises daily he induced to virtue, and fortified with the rampart and ditch of humility, set frequent vigils, in which he himself was always first by very frequent prayers. Yet by the multitude of the divine office and the plurality of prayers, now introduced by various zealots, he did not wish the Brothers to be overwhelmed, lest in the way of long devotions they should be too fatigued. Whence also that to the recitation of the seven Psalms daily in the choir the Brothers were held by no law he declared, in this dispensing with them by his authority.

[93] And although best all the laws of the Rule and of the statutes under his lead were kept, and all things prosperously done; nevertheless envy arising from virtue, hence hatred, afterward traductions, detractions, maledictions, through certain external Religious, envious of the good name, grew up: that the Brothers had far departed from their laws, had violated discipline, had made the longest leaps from the vestiges of their elders: he defends the good name of the Order, for labor sloth, for temperance and equity drunkenness, idleness and inertia they complained: that all things finally had gone to the worse, that such a fame went forth among the common people, that now from the conceived opinion of the Brothers' holiness it much fell short, and was defiled with daily scandals. The rivals to promoting such evil more and more insisted, the perverse mouth and the lips of detractors freely raged in the fame of the Brothers: that most holy Order was everywhere ill spoken of, traduced by the impious; sluggish, unwarlike, patient neither of observance nor of labor, prompter in tongue than in hand, without religious command, and held without modesty: finally whatever reproaches of sloth can be said or feigned, were attributed to that Order. But in that difficulty Blessed Ladislaus, no less than in prosperous things, was found a great and wise man. With so great wisdom, temperance and prudence of mind, amid those storms of detractions, he held himself moderate, that it was permitted to see him changed not at all. Already before to him by more frequent experiences it was known, that the evil demon had always built snares for that Order, and had armed the tongues of many to persecute it. Therefore widely to explore all things, to defend the good name of the Order, to refute calumnies and reproaches, eagerly and prudently to attend equally the affairs of his own and of his enemies, to know what was good of either part, or the contrary: to explore counsels, and to anticipate their snares; to suffer nothing remiss with himself, nor safe with them. Therefore to Rome, whither the Order was traduced, he directed his journey, about to plead the cause of the Order.

[94] Alexander the Sixth then held the helm of the Roman Church; to whom B. Ladislaus admitted, for himself, and having set out to Rome before Alexander VI briefly and moderately; concerning the injuries brought upon the Order by calumnies, discoursed much, finally laid open to the Pontiff, that to him neither anything greater nor dearer was than the authority of the Apostolic See from his adolescence; that so he and his Order were addicted to virtue, that they were approved by every best man; that by virtue, not by malice, his Brothers had pleased the chief Princes of the Christians: that for the same arts they were called into the kingdom of Poland by King Casimir; that for the rest, the more many things they had done well and strenuously, the greater envy they had incurred: that very many plotting against the fame of the Order, what they had found out about them, had brought to him as supreme Judge; but that he, Vicar of his Province, would not act rightly nor for the good, if in that injury of the Order he were silent: finally that about all things about to instruct the most Holy Pontiff, he had come from Rome; asking besides, that he would not think his own other than they had been known from the beginning. Which after they were known to the King and other Princes, that B. Ladislaus was at Rome, and was pleading the cause of the Order ill traduced; they resolved as soon as possible aided by the letters of the Princes, to send letters to Rome, by which they would ask of the Supreme

Pontiff, that he would not suffer the gravest injury to be brought upon the holy Order, and would provide with paternal care, that to the detractors a condign punishment should be assigned; that to them was best explored the piety, the institution, the conversation of that holy Order: that the Religion well instructed with good arts and constitutions, was iniquitously and unjustly torn by the teeth of enemies.

[95] King Wladislaus too, who was set over the supreme affairs among the Hungarians and Bohemians, and of Ladislaus King of Hungary, the brother of the King of Poland (whom those injuries of the Friars Minor of the Observance, of which he had heard, had vehemently wounded) treated with the Supreme Pontiff of the same matter; where he gives a brilliant testimony of the holiness and innocence of the Brothers of the Order of the Minors Observant, that for the future this opinion should be set received in his mind, that for the most holy Order he would wish to undergo every danger, would decline no battle with the adversaries; and would so strenuously bestow effort, to repress the tongue of the wicked, that to them without condign punishment and grave animadversion it might not be permitted to depart; that he would crush the jaws of the iniquitous, and from their teeth take away the innocent prey: that there would come from his mouth a North wind, would dissipate the rains, and the sad face, the detracting tongue, he would exterminate. That he wondered, to see the worst men a mote in the eyes of their brothers, and not to see a beam in their own eye. Unless they be restrained by the rigorous mandate of the Apostolic See, that to him there was abundance of wood for burning the detractors: but if that failed, that water would not be wanting for submerging them: but that there was enough both of woods and of rivers for persecuting with every kind of punishments the detractors, the persecutors of the good. Perpetual hatred, and enmity and contumely, to those mockers from him he expended. That they have nothing less, who secretly detract, than if a serpent bite in silence: that men bound in words of reproach, all the days of their life, are not to be instructed. That he would not be mingled with detractors, and that the whisperer and double-tongued was always cursed, because they are wont to trouble many having peace, and because their perdition rises suddenly. That detractors are hateful to God: and an abomination of men is every detractor. Moreover that the Supreme Pontiff ought to extend the hands of severity upon those, who detract their Brothers, or judge them; for they detract the law and judge the law: that all the pious awaited and desired this: that to all the Princes of the Christians too this would be welcome.

[96] Moved by the piety of the man the Supreme Pontiff, made certain too by the letters of the Princes of the innocence of the Brothers, enjoined silence on the detractors; but Blessed Ladislaus to have among his friends, he obtains the cause more and more daily to embrace: who with much labor and much care undertaken for the Order, in a short time had come to so great brightness, that vehemently dear to his Brothers, he was the greatest terror to the envious and detractors. Therefore after B. Ladislaus accomplished so great a matter without any inconvenience of his own, great and illustrious before, he began to be held greater and more illustrious. For all his undertakings and counsels were drawn into virtue. The Brothers, held by a modest command, and at the same time declared innocent, to bear him to heaven; but the enemies to fear him more than a mortal; finally all the envious and hostile to believe, that he had either a divine mind, or that all things were portended by the nod of God. But B. Ladislaus, when that matter turned out well, into the fatherland (having tarried five months at Rome) proceeds, is received with most joyful minds, equally dear to the Order and the Fathers.

[97] Many straits of difficulties like these, very many storms of persecutions, thence returning to his own, innumerable whirlwinds of detractions, for defending the Order it was necessary for him to bear: nor yet was the best Pastor fatigued by those labors, and the diligent Commander of his soldiers; he went to meet all dangers, removed all difficulties, underwent all burdens, lest his Order should suffer any detriment. Scarcely returned from Italy, exhausted with cares and labors, again to put his hand to the plow, to be occupied with giving sermons from the pulpit to the people, and always to live in such a way, that altogether he should either sustain the laborious burden of governance, or, that being removed, should apply himself to the office of Preacher and nowhere recall his hands from labors, he gives most useful service to the Order, now in the first line by governing, now in the last by going about abject services; to be present by word and example, to move to virtue, everywhere to succor those laboring, to consult the Brothers, to help with the hand, and with all help to wish to profit all. Surely it behooved this blessed man to be endowed with great fortitude of mind, huge force of soul and body, strong counsel of mind, who could resist all adversaries, conquer the mind of the Supreme Pontiff, possess the favor of Kings and Princes offered unbidden: and who knew how to oppose to calumnies the holiness of life; to lies innocence, to envy virtue, to darkness light, to brought contumelies probity. Who else would have effected these with happier endeavor, except him to whom abundantly was at hand the copious supply of holiness, the resources of virtue, the riches of genius, the treasures of probity and piety? relying on which, he was wont to undergo the most difficult things, to perform all things prosperously, and with favorable winds to lead his studies to a happy port.

CHAPTER IV.

The preachings and ecstasies of B. Ladislaus.

[98] Although this blessed Father Ladislaus was distracted as by continual labors, in the offices with which he was burdened, and various difficulties, both by going around the Convents, most far distant from one another, through greater and lesser Poland, through Mazovia, Ruthenia, Prussia, and the great Duchy of Lithuania, even to the bounds of Muscovy, [Wont to be distracted by no occupations and difficulties from internal recollection,] the widest and amplest Provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, in all of which he had Convents; and also by overcoming many other difficulties, and treating affairs, all of which devolved upon him as upon the Ordinary Prelate, and which by their nature call the mind away from those things which are of God, perturb and disquiet the mind, render a man sluggish and difficult to spiritual things, far remove from the contemplation of heavenly things, so that scarcely with great endeavor can he be recollected, especially if they are continual, such as here; nevertheless this blessed Father remained in so great serenity of mind, even implicated in these distractions; that the unwearied study of prayer, with continual exercise of virtues, he never omitted; always striving to exhibit his spirit present to God. As at home shut in his cell, so in all his journeys, within and without, laboring and free, praying and transacting business, he was so immersed in spirit in God, that it plainly seemed to him, whatever was in him not only of heart and body, but also of work and time he had consecrated. Truly Christ the Lord felt and said, Whosoever shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven: but B. Ladislaus eagerly having executed both, obtained the palm of that greatness. Matt. 5. Now because we have above declared clearly enough, that he, instructed with every kind of virtues, diffused everywhere the rays of most excellent holiness, attained the supreme degrees of governance, touched the highest summit of religious perfection; it remains to be declared, that by word, doctrine, science, sermons, the same holy man and fervent preacher brought the exceptional light of piety into the minds of the faithful, dissipated the errors of infernal darkness, kindled the light of divine knowledge and the flame of love.

[99] It is certain that that holy man burned with so great zeal of God in speaking, he gives useful preachings: that he seemed to have come forth as another Elias. By no acceptance of persons was he bent at all, by no adulation was he softened; nor did popular favor and opinion snatch him aside; but according to the voice of the Prophet, as a wagon threshing, having serrated beaks, he crushed the mountains, and set the hills as dust. From his sermons the prudent drew, whence he might become wiser; there the warrior found, whence he might be strengthened in virtue of mind; thence the Prince received how he should dispose his subjects under the equity of justice. His life, leaning on no crimes, his irreproachable morals, and the best proof, added great authority to his sermons. A venerable Doctor, possessing the name with the reality, he always admonished those present of the divine fear, of conserving the bond of twofold love, of the obedience of the Lord, and the honor of the higher powers. He went about through villages, camps, cities and fields, and everywhere scattered most largely the seeds of life; and kindled with vehement zeal of souls everywhere also in the fields and villages, he ran about, and altogether wished all rest interdicted to himself. He had the science of discerning between the holy and the profane, between the polluted and the clean; and taught the children of Israel all the legitimate things of God. And so great was the science and erudition of the servant of God, that both his gestures, and motions, and his very voice, seemed full of wisdom. He conceived truth in his mind, and resounded it in his whole habit and adornment: so that whatever he did, whatever he spoke, was a doctrine of the peoples. To be irreproachable, prudent, a doctor, an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, to attend to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine; to do the work of an Evangelist, to fulfill his ministry: his words chaste, silver and gold tried by fire, purged of the earth, refined sevenfold.

[100] And the crowds were stupefied at his doctrine. For he was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes. he instructs the rude and boys: To rude or carnal men, plain and common things, not the highest and arduous he preached, lest they should be oppressed by the immensity of the doctrine, rather than instructed. Nor only the advanced in age, capable of sublime things, did he instruct, but also by visiting the Convents of his Order, and passing through villas and villages, he instituted boys called out, teaching them how they should sign themselves with the Cross, pronounce the Lord's prayer and the Angelic salutation and the Symbol of faith, cultivate and love God, have honor toward parents and every neighbor, and pay their due offices. From all which it is established, that his word was a lamp to the feet of the faithful, but he himself was a leader of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness, an instructor of the unwise, a master of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Hence all to receive his discipline and not money, to choose doctrine rather than gold: for wisdom was better to them than all the most precious riches, and everything desirable could not be compared to it. And his speech was efficacious in the breasts of the hearers, and the salutary doctrine fixed roots, so that, vices, crimes, he routs vices: and whatever grave sins being routed, not few were brought back to the amendment of life, and gave their hands to temperance. Those obedient to carnal desires, having become chaste consecrated their bodies; those seduced by error, submitted their sense and reason to truth; those taken by avarice, exhibited liberal hands in bestowing alms; those blinded by envy and wrath, returned into favor with their neighbor: many goods always arose and were produced from his preaching.

[101] But especially about weighing, meditating and contemplating the death and passion of Christ the Lord, he was as it were assiduous; in weighing the Passion of Christ he suffers an excess of mind. and in so far in recogitating it was he affected, that many times suspended by an excess of devotion, rapt above himself, and feeling something beyond human sense, what was then done about him he altogether ignored. Which certainly was no slight argument of divine grace and of the chief love, by which namely God all-powerful makes His lovers, though as yet imperiled amid the adverse straits of the present life, however gross be their bodies and by their own

nature bodies nodding toward the earth, through delightful raptures and into God fervent recesses of the soul, in some measure partakers of the divine glory. Whence from his breast, full of divine fervor, the spurs of divine love leapt out; which he in his sermons was busy to inculcate into the ears of the hearers, and to commend the exceptional charity of Christ. Therefore all his sermons from that most holy title of the Cross, from the title of the Cross he begins his Sermons Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews, to begin, and as from an inexhausted fountain the rivulets of concepts running down thence to deduce, and into the minds of the people present to bring: to all his discourses, that title as a golden diadem to prefix, and all his sayings to that end to direct, and with an egregious discourse to apply, and in a certain wonderful manner the memory of the passion of Christ the Lord in all his sermons to include, and with ardent affection to instill into the hearts of the hearers. Full are his sermons with the salutary continual remembrance and repetition of the death of Christ the Lord, abounding with signal erudition and strong exhortation. From which it is easily concluded that the holy man, kindled with the heavenly breath, glowed with the heat of the divine fire; and that those sparks of the love of Christ leapt forth from the furnace of conceived charity, and descending into the souls of the sons of God, often moved their breasts to compunction, and kindled them to the love of God.

[102] There were besides to that holy man, besides the gifts conferred from heaven for preaching, by nature attributed chief endowments, with which adorned, in the school of the recogitated passion of the Lord divinely instructed, he was an exceptional preacher of the divine word: who by his fervid spirit and his eloquence drew almost the whole people to himself, instructed for this with illustrious endowments: and kindled them in divine love; called them away from vices, instructed them in virtues. His words were not vain, worldly, curious, and empty: they were full of the virtue of the Holy Spirit, they were penetrating the bowels of the heart. His voice and elocution of the words of God was not inflected, soft and feigned; but real, clear, fervid and devout; so that not only the hearers he converted into vehement stupor, and the hearts of those obstinate in vices by virtuous efficacy he converted to a better fruit; but also by a certain hidden force those nourished in sins he compelled to return to God, deterred from the custom of the worst, and forced to enter the way of justice. For not only had the singular divine grace made him an Apostolic man; but nature too had formed him a most excellent herald. Firm sides, a sonorous, high and trumpet-like voice; a broad breast, a face full of graces, a head patient of labor, exhausted indeed by abstinence and labors, but adorned with a just and elegant stature, even by his very aspect instilling a wonderful love into the beholders. Adorned with which gifts, easily the affection, which he conceived within, he expressed, and impressed on the hearts of the hearers what he intended; so that they were easily converted into other men. For his spirit, in that furnace of the Lord's passion, in recogitating which he was wholly, purged of the dross of carnal things, could belch nothing, except divine, nothing except profitable to salvation. The matter in few words. B. Ladislaus was a man mighty in work and speech.

[103] Moreover his conversation was in heaven. He had not here an abiding city, but sought a future one. And since he knew this to be eternal life, that we should know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent; given to contemplation, the contemplation of God, among the other exercises of virtues to be cultivated and frequented he assumed. For to contemplate his Creator and to know Him man was created; that he should always seek His face, and dwell in the solidity of His love. But man so rightly fashioned by God, to praise Him perpetually; while yet in Paradise sent out of himself through disobedience, lost the place of his mind (which is God); because by dark journeys his spirit went far from the inhabitation of the true light. But the Lord had shone in the heart of B. Ladislaus, to the illumination of the knowledge of the brightness of God; to whose mind two excesses of contemplation adhered, by intellect and affection: one in intellect, the other in affection, one in light, and the other in fervor; one in thought, and the other in devotion. A pious affection indeed, and a breast warm with love, and the infusion of holy devotion, and a spirit filled with vehement zeal, tasted that contemplative life, exceedingly amiable; whose sweetness he experienced, which snatches the soul above itself, opens heavenly things, but shows that earthly things ought to be in contempt, lays open spiritual things to the eyes of the mind, hides corporal things. Often therefore the soul of B. Ladislaus, when it wished to understand either divine things, or God, or itself, and to consider its own virtues; abstracted itself from all the senses of the body, by which it was not aided, except to perceive corporeal forms and colors; but by spirit and reason it beheld itself, and by meditation and contemplation ascended to God, abstracted from the senses of the body, but God by revelation and His inspiration descended to him; and so he meditated on all the works of God, and was exercised in the deeds of His hands. For the invisible things of God from the creature of the world, through those things which are made, understood were beheld; because entirely and perfectly, according to the word of the Wise man, he had delivered his heart to watch in the morning to the Lord who made him, and in the sight of the Most High he prayed; and at the same time with all his vows he studied according to the Prophet Isaiah, to prepare the ways of the Lord, to make straight the paths of his God: to whom with another Prophet it was permitted to say: My eyes are always to the Lord, because he provided the Lord in his sight always, wherefore he received a blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Savior. Ecclus. 39, &, Isaiah 40, 3, Psal. 24., Psal. 15.

[104] He was indeed frequently visited by the Lord, nor ever was ignorant of the time of his visitation. For in such contemplations very often he was kindled with the fire of fervid love toward his beloved Jesus. he is rapt into ecstasy, raised from the ground, Most frequently he was wont to experience this sweet enthusiasm: very often he was raised from the ground on high; but alienated from the senses, pleasant colloquies with God, as a friend with a friend, he was wont to have. By the consideration of the eternal fatherland from its place his soul was moved; because the lowest things being abandoned, in the supreme thoughts it was placed: through ardent love his soul was joined to the invisible spouse, by His desire his mind burned; and as he coveted none of the things which are in the world, so he deputed the length of the present life a punishment, hastened to depart, and in the embrace of love rested in the vision of the heavenly Spouse: he received no consolation of the present age, but to Him, with whose desire he burned, from the marrow he sighed, glowed, panted, was anxious. Vile to him was the health of his body, because he was transfixed with the wound of love. Clearly the very ancient monuments of letters testify, to which the life of this holy man was entrusted, that very often at the time of prayer he was rapt by an ecstasy, and frequently with a vivid understanding divinely irradiated he transcended the bounds of human industry, that the memory of present things fell from his mind, and that into a certain state of soul foreign and unknown to human industry by the transfiguration of the divine operation he passed, and in that contemplation the fire of love vehemently blazed: inasmuch as a heart pure from vices, free and immune from sins, and therefore easily could be raised to higher things, and sweetly, as said, through long delays he was held suspended by stupor and ecstasy. Such suspensions, raptures, and fires of divine love led him even to the last and consumed him, withdrew him from the age, but joined him to God about to live for ever. Deservedly this blessed Father could say that of the Psalmist, My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire shall burn: but a fire no other than God, whom in his heart he always bore, who is a consuming fire. Psal. 38, 4 And these things thus far of the life of B. Ladislaus. The end of his life, and his death, and those things which followed thence call away the pen.

CHAPTER V.

Ecstasy in the sermon on the passion of Christ, thence sickness, death.

[106] That the chief reward of a life passed and piously and holily finished is a good death, the unanimous consent of the Doctors admonishes, nay the light of all the Doctors Divine Paul manifestly declares the same, when he says; Be not deceived Brethren, For what a man shall sow, that also shall he reap; and he who sows in blessings shall also reap of blessings. Gal. 6. He sows in blessings, who while he enjoys the usufruct of this life, is occupied with holy and pious works; he reaps of blessings, because at the hour of death summoned by the Father of the family from the vineyard, he merits to be inscribed in the catalogue of the blessed, and to obtain the heavenly reward, and to be refreshed from the fountain of eternal blessing. I add, that not only those prevented by death His elect friends God of all blessing is wont to clothe with an incorruptible garment; but before death too, while yet existing among the living, The Saints even in this life are adorned with the signs of beatitude, by the admirable prerogative of His love and the singular glory of brightness to prevent them, and in the eyes of men with the belt of eternal nobility to mark them He has for custom. There occurs S. Nicholas of Tolentino, who six months before his death, each night heard an Angelic concert, by whose sweetness when he now pre-tasted the joys of Paradise, frequently he repeated that of the Apostle, I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. S. Mary Magdalene, then too S. Mary the Egyptian, the hard course of many years of the harshest penitence being passed, in deserts remote from the fellowship of men, both had merited from the Angels, long before their death, to be raised on high from the ground, to hear the most sweet melodies of the heavenly inhabitants.

[107] S. Francis, while by the Seraphic ardors of desires he was carried upward into God, and affected with a compassionate tenderness was transformed into Him, whom from excessive charity it pleased to be crucified, one morning before the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, by the example of S. Francis stigmatized, praying on the side of the mountain, saw as it were the likeness of one Seraph, having six wings as resplendent as fiery, descend from the sublimity of the heavens, who with a most swift flight coming to a place of the air near the man of God, appeared not only winged, but also crucified; and in a certain wonderful manner, impressed the stigmata on the hands and feet and side of the man of God, and two years before his death made him like to Christ in all things. There are also very many other examples of this matter, relating very many Saints contemplating the glory of the Lord with revealed face, transformed into the same image. Nay He Himself who shone in our hearts, to the illumination of the knowledge of the brightness of God, Christ Jesus; before His death, on Mount Tabor, transfigured by a certain heavenly metamorphosis, His face representing the rays of the sun, but His garments approaching most nearly to the whiteness of snow, appeared in the eyes of the Apostles: by that deed insinuating, that the end of holy men is to be adorned with the immense glory of brightness by the heavenly Father; and that it would be, that whosoever shall have led their life holily and piously, may experience the last times of living illustrious and desirable.

[108] So great a benefit of grace to our B. Ladislaus was not denied. He entered the possession of this

gift; and now near death, B. Ladislaus nearly 50 years being completed in the order, he recognized in himself the manifest documents of future beatitude. He had now completed forty years and nine months in the holy Order; and through that long enough interval of time, with no rest, withdrawn from continual troubles of labors, at all times addicted to continual cares, vigils, difficulties, studies, lectures, pious and holy works, to the last time of life with a laborious course he strove. Always in the battle-line of God, in the way of His commandments, in the right paths of justice, he directed his steps, nor declined to the right or left; from the begun journey of holiness he never moved his feet, nor running to the prize turned his eyes elsewhere, abstaining from all things, until he should come to the prefixed goal of perfection and receive the prize. The strength of the body now failed; broken by the debility of old age, it seemed little fit for the labors now to be undergone: yet he, accustomed to display fortitude of mind, and to rouse himself to sustaining burdens, did not abstain from being recalled to the troubles of labors. At length the Most High, who is a just Judge, about to render him a crown, willed the end of his life to be at hand: and in this age, resolved to manifest the holiness of His servant to His people, and at the same time to demonstrate in the midst of the Church, with how ardent charity toward Himself he had been kindled, and had strongly been wakeful for the cult of His name. The matter was done in this manner.

[109] It was the sixth weekday of the Greater week, which they call the Parasceve, on the Lord's Parasceve, a time deputed for deploring the passion and death of Christ, by the devout use of the Church. B. Ladislaus with all zeal and affection of compassion armed himself to preach that exceptional benefit of Christ dying for us, and studied with all his power in his accustomed manner in most devout contemplation, that from the chair he might instill into the minds of the hearers the memory of Christ's passion, and impress on their hearts the effigy of Christ crucified. It was explored enough by the whole people, before a great multitude, that that holy man would apply his effort to recalling Christ's death: wherefore from every place a huge concourse of men flowed together to hear him. From the villas and towns, lying nearest to Warsaw, a great congregation of nobles, a very great throng of the common people, a multitude too of citizens of every age had filled the temple, all kindled with ardent desire, to hear the word of God from the mouth of the holy man. And so when suspended by expectation they awaited the desirable sermon of the preacher; at midnight, as is the custom, in which the mysteries of the Lord's passion are treated later, this divine preacher (when now the sword of compassionate grief had transfixed his heart) wholly mournful and clothed with the huge squalor of grief, his face attenuated by abstinence and vigils, ascending the chair with a singular motion. sad and pale, bringing forth most profound sighs, ascended the chair, and so began his sermon, that he seemed to assume rather the mourning of dragons and ostriches, than to act the orator of the divine word: so that the hearts of all the hearers he filled suddenly with grief, their eyes with weeping, their bowels with sorrow, their bodies with stupor; and made them groan like turtledoves, nay rather to chafe in spirit. The whole church then seemed filled with sobs, sighs, grief, sadness: bathed with showers of tears, it overflowed with the spurs of sorrows and the bitterness of grief. For it was to see that preacher wholly inflamed; to hear a vehement, but mournful voice; to behold a man, not a man, but an Angel in the pulpit; a face venerable with old age, but irrigated with tears; a countenance amiable, he discourses on the passion of Christ: but scintillating with sorrow. The thing preached was the most bitter passion of Christ the Lord our Redeemer, declaimed by that Angelic mouth, exaggerated with amorous affection, demonstrated with mournful gesture. O who would not weep, if he saw, if he were present, if he heard, if he perceived with the heart!

[110] This tearful commotion endured, he so preaching, until a new change, and a new and more ardent commotion in the people hearing, but much greater and more vehement in the preacher discoursing, and more continually inflamed, supervened. But this holy preacher proceeded in his sermon, and had now advanced no small way in narrating the Lord's passion; but now was being disposed to his stupendous transmutation, and more and more in the love of Jesus was kindled. There leapt out the sparks of fiery affections, there broke forth the little flames of amorous compassion, frequent sobs, grave sighs, much wailing; the voice of the tongue stuck, copious tears fell. The people diligently beheld his face, stupor at each of his motions contracting them more and more, who was rendered as if now insensible; and even stony hearts were broken by the hammers of his vehement words. But when he had come to that point of the Lord's passion, where he was about to narrate the thing full of gore, reddening with the effusion of the innocent blood of Christ, to be detested for its immane cruelty, the flagellation (I say) of Christ; a column being now set in a fitted place, with rods, pointed scourges, chains, to represent the atrocity of the flagellation set before his eyes, while he represents the flagellation of Christ, the icon of Christ now denuded, bound to the column, fitted for the cruel flagellation; the instruments of cruelty taken into his hands, his eyes turned to the denuded image of Christ, bound to the column, with a mournful head inclined; with a tearful, vehement, and atrocious voice beginning to exclaim: O Jesus, O Jesus, O my beloved Jesus! suddenly with his whole body he trembled, his tongue stuck, his heart overwhelmed with the vehement affection of compassionate grief grew stiff: he wished to speak further, but oppressed by grief could no more, full of sorrow and destitute of strength.

[111] Then now of the ardent fire of divine love, kindled in the furnace of his heart, the vehement flame, not able to be contained within; as from a furnace, burning sevenfold more than before, suddenly so far broke forth to the outside; that visibly, before that whole gathered multitude, all clearly beholding, men and women, old and young, sinners and just, devout and undevout, it raised him on high; so that, he appears hanging in the air: all seeing, and at the novelty of the thing otherwise unheard astonished, some loudly exclaiming Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! some falling to the ground, some from stupor, fear, and the novelty of the thing as if alienated from their senses; above the pulpit raised in the air hanging he appeared. He stood sublime between heaven and earth, supported by no prop of human help, through ecstasy raised upward (the air itself, in place of a solid body, lending its ministry to sustaining his body) as if he wished to go into heaven clearly seen. He remained so a just space of time, nor could he speak further, set in languor, and wholly immersed in God. O truly Seraphic love! which when it had invaded the heart of the holy man, as if desiring to possess the Lord alone, pressed the ministries of the tongue, and compelled it to acquiesce to its affections. O that fiery breast! which warmed by the heavenly flame, seemed to retain in the heart the benefit of respiration. O heart toward its beloved moved with that virtue of love, that it left the body snatched into its power, and destitute of senses!

[112] So God Almighty wonderful in His Saints, not only in private places and separated from the consort of men, deigned to honor His blessed faithful servant Ladislaus with such His divine visitations; but also in a place so public and eminent, before a most populous multitude, on the most devout day of His most sacred passion, made an imitator and type of Christ in His passion, at that time in which Jesus Christ in the furnace of His most ardent love through the most bitter torments of His passion was consumed, His servant too and true imitator B. Ladislaus to burn and be burned He willed. And as He on the mount of Calvary, raised on the altar of the Cross on high from the ground, all Jerusalem beholding, nay the whole people of the Jewish nation, who had assembled thither according to the precept of the Mosaic law for the most celebrated feast of the Passover, suffered; so B. Ladislaus in the church, on the chair erected on high, preaching the Lord's passion, and representing the mysteries of the same passion, whither had assembled the whole city of Warsaw and much nobility and common people from the towns, villages and villas lying around to hear such a preaching, to which a more frequent people than otherwise is wont to assemble, in the Metropolis of the Duchy of Mazovia, to Christ having suffered, armed with the same thought B. Ladislaus, was assimilated. To the hearers of that sermon taken with admiration it came into mind, that Christ the Lord, at the time in which He deigned to undergo death for our sake, wished to render His faithful little servant like to Himself: and as He between heaven and earth fixed to the cross was dying, so His servant B. Ladislaus raised from the ground, between heaven and earth by the force of compassion vehemently suspended, bore the type of Christ crucified. To some too it came into mind, that there is the heart of man, where also his treasure is hidden; and therefore B. Ladislaus was raised upward, with various motion of the hearers: because in the heavenly things was the treasure of his heart, and above all the beloved spouse of his soul Christ Jesus. But to some that concept arose, that fire always tends upward, and that this is attributed to it by nature: so B. Ladislaus, inflamed with the heavenly fire, could not be contained on earth; but that flame tending upward, the same was strongly raised, and tended to heaven. To certain ones it seemed, that the holy man, snatched by the heat of compassionate grief, wished as it were to approach Christ's column, and sweetly to embrace his beloved bound, and to receive on himself the blows brought upon His body. But all the Nobles, Clergy, nobles, citizens, and the simple and laborious, of all whom a huge supply was present at that sermon, to praise God in the holy man, with common and full mouth and voice and consent to proclaim him a Saint, to call him a friend of God, and to be worthy, to whose prayers all should commend themselves, and demand the patronage of so holy a man. The fame of that miracle seemed to be celebrated with discourses, and to be diffused into all the limits of the kingdom; very many moved by that matter, though far removed, began to demand his prayers, to request his patronage, to offer vows, and all to obtain their wishes, and to taste the desired sweetness of consolation.

[113] Therefore descending from the air with a slow motion, he felt himself affected with vehement debility; seized by languor, carried to the place deputed for the sick Brothers, hence carried he is sick a whole month, the disease invading his body, he lay in bed; and for the space of one month detained by the sickness of infirmity, a contemner of earthly things and always desirous of heavenly ones, he wished to be fortified with the Sacraments of the Church, and to be occupied with continual piety of devotion, and to pray without intermission. Now leaving human things, treating divine ones, now he seemed not an earthly but a heavenly man. and fortified with the last rites, At length well fortified with all divine aids, and best prepared and instructed, in the most intense infirmity which he suffered, the most fervent preacher, the perfect religious, the man of God full of fear, the nursling of true holiness, the chief cultivator of religious perfection, glad and rejoicing about the glory of future retribution, rendered his spirit to God, and closed the last day of his life, in the year of the Lord MDV on the IV day of May; he dies 4 May in the year 1501. and to that eternal rest,

about to receive the reward for his labor the faithful servant of God, as a good laborer in the vineyard of the Lord passed over, carrying with him with exultation the sheaf of a full harvest, of good works, virtues, and merits, in the heavenly fatherland he obtained much grace from God almighty; those bewailing his death, not only the Brothers bereft of so great a Father, but almost all the inhabitants of the city and his acquaintances, and bitterly deploring their bereavement. Such indeed was the issue of the life of B. Ladislaus, the best and most perfect servant of God, who be blessed in His Saints.

CHAPTER VI.

The sense of His Holiness left from his death.

[114] After B. Ladislaus paid the debt of nature, the whole city of Warsaw struck by a sudden emotion, held a mournful silence for no small time: then taken with a vehement desire of him it lamented that the lamp of its city was extinguished, the light obscured; the star bright with holiness of life, He is bewailed by all, wrapped in the mist of mortality; its rays obscured by a dark cloud, that all were pressed by grief, to be deprived of so good a man, the comeliness and ornament taken away, the Duchy of Mazovia bereft of a most celebrated inhabitant. But now, that many had celebrated his humanity, had praised his labors in preaching the word of God and his ardent zeal, had succored many in their gravest affairs by counsel, aid, patronage; that the physician of their souls had died, all the elders and juniors with tears arising wept, that that man through all things useful and necessary had departed. and is desired as Patron: The best man, well deserving of the Church, they assume as Patron of the city of Warsaw and of the whole Kingdom; they demand peace with prayers, that as a perpetual Patron he might always preserve safe the progeny of his own. Within a short time, as much as it then could the city made apparatus: but a much greater honor to his death was the public mourning, signal before all things therein, because men of every age, as their own parent they mourned him, because he had been a keen and zealous promoter of the salvation of souls. Wherefore a multitude of men of every condition and kind to touch and kiss the garments of the dead man; and, if that were less permitted on account of the multitude of those approaching the coffin, at least from afar to behold the lifeless body, and by the sight of it to console the mourning conceived about his death.

[115] Then a certain illustrious virgin, daughter of the Palatine of Mazovia, A certain one not being able to pray for him, of the Order of the Third Rule of S. Francis, on the day of the death of the holy man, several times strove to say one and another Pater noster for the soul of the deceased; yet she could in no way proceed. Again and again to recite the same prayer she wished to accommodate her tongue and affection; and always she stuck, nor could she proceed further: and the more she had studied to pray for his soul, the greater impediment she affirmed she was withdrawn by. Fixed with stupor, when she was distracted into various opinions of mind, and pondered what the matter was, that she could not say the Lord's Prayer for that deceased Father; memory suggested to her mind, that the holy man needed not human aid, who in the heavenly fatherland now enjoyed eternal joy. Then that Virgin exclaimed, and into these words with ardent affection broke forth: she is impelled to commend herself to him. I recognize, holy Father, that thou perhaps needest not the prayers of a sinner, but that thou now enjoyest the felicity of eternal beatitude: but I have need of thy prayers, and therefore I commend myself to thy holiness. Which words when I said within myself (that virgin related) there invaded me suddenly, with my huge admiration, so great a sweetness and wonderful pleasure of spirit, and I felt a most sweet refreshment, there occurring unexpectedly to my memory the declamation of the salvation-bringing title of the Cross, by this Blessed for many years preached, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews, with that sweetness such as I never before had, and never remember to have had. By which deed it was manifestly demonstrated, that the holy man, by the contemplation of Christ's Passion and of its triumphal title, had ascended the summit of great holiness, and by the same force had attained the glory of the heavenly kingdom and obtained eternal gladness.

[116] A little before he had yielded to nature, a fame anticipating that he had exchanged life with death had been spread, and that immature messenger had come to the ears of a certain noble man, who, distant one mile from the city of Warsaw, detained by vehement sickness, drew his breath in slender hope. He, when he first conceived by his ears, a dying man imploring the patronage of him not yet dead is healed: that the blessed man had died his last day, touched with grief inwardly; I grieve, said he, that my fatherland is bereft of so holy a man: to his prayers I commend myself, whom I believe to have been endowed with exceptional holiness, and most firmly hold to have been brought to the heavenly seats; and humbly by prayers I ask, that he would be willing to bring aid to me afflicted, and to restore to me my lost health. Holy Father, pray for me an unworthy sinner, and succor one now about to die. Scarcely from his mouth had the sick man poured these words, when behold he perceived the force of the disease repelled from him, as if a most grave burden had been removed from him, under which pressed he was at his last gasp; and at once he knew that his strength was restored to him, and that he recovered the virtue of health entirely, that his limbs returned to their pristine vigor, and that his whole body convalesced. He rises from bed, much rejoicing at his recovered health: and that he might show himself grateful for so great a benefit, without delay he came to Warsaw, to venerate the burial-place of the blessed Father Ladislaus, lately as he had understood buried. He goes therefore to the convent, and inquires where in that place he was committed to the earth. It is answered him, that he had not yet led his life to its last period; but yet that he was near death, and approached the threshold of the sepulcher. But he, magnifying God in His Saint, whom He deigned to declare so welcome to him still existing in mortal mobility; discloses what was done with him: namely that, oppressed with the grave trouble of infirmity, he had touched the threshold of death, and now the scythe of envious death being put to his neck, an entrance had been laid open to the cruelty of the Fates. Then he, set in straits, had fled to B. Ladislaus; had invoked the aid of him, whom he knew to be always most acceptable to God; had emitted a vow that he would visit his sepulcher; and so had suddenly obtained the desired health by his patronage: and because fame had commonly delivered him as dead, that he had come to his sepulcher, about to discharge the vow made, and satisfy his promises. The Brothers hearing the man relating, wondered at the matter, and venerated the holiness of the holy man. Wonderful how great faith was given to that noble man announcing these things, and how huge the desire of B. Ladislaus among the whole people, the faith of his immortality and holiness being made, was augmented.

[117] The sword of grief passed through the breast anxious with cares of Anna the most illustrious lady, widowed Duchess of Mazovia, when the death of the blessed Father was brought to her ears, the Duchess of Mazovia celebrates his memory, by which then most of all she bitterly wept herself a widowed and bereft woman by the departure of her Father. She related, mingling with her words tears flowing from her eyes, that whensoever in arduous however great affairs she required his counsel, and demanded that prayer be made for her, she always recognized prosperous successes in all things, and that all things succeeded for her according to the opinion of her mind; but now, he departing to the heavenly ones, much was taken from her felicity, that she had lost the master of life, the leader of the way, the spiritual Father, the Angel her guardian, who showed her the way of life: that to her Duchy too a precious treasure was taken away, and a never sufficiently to be deplored detriment of bereavement brought. But the elder men of the city and parents, the elders inculcate the same to posterity, for whom life had stood next to the confine of death, to admonish the juniors and their sons, that in the years succeeding to all those, whom the future age would supply to them ceasing, they should relate the integrity of the holy man's life, and at the same time announce that they should demand his patronage with ardent vows; that it would be that in all things they would obtain a sure expectation. Parents too, especially at that time in which their life is terminated by its last line, to leave in commands to their sons and to provide by testament, that they too should conserve the memory of the holy man, and hand over the same to be conserved by the generation to come, and as by the right of hereditary possession, leave to posterity his patronage to be invoked and sought.

[118] Many too at this time, mindful of so pious an admonition of their grandfathers especially in the city of Warsaw, it is proved by various witnesses; asserted to me, compiling this history, that they had received this from their elders. But the chief relator of this matter was a certain renowned man Francis Seliga, decrepit with senile age, who said that he had been instructed by his father with that admonition: and said that he was now the third inhabitant of the city of Warsaw, and that he remembered there was always a signal devotion to B. Ladislaus, and a fame and inviolable opinion of his holiness implanted in minds. The same song an honest matron worn out with old age, Catherine Badowska, brought forth, that she had had from her parents the devotion declared toward B. Ladislaus, and at all times had conserved it in her breast. A doctrine not different from the mouth of her predecessors, a matron abounding with very many years of life and honest morals, of good name, once the consort of Balthasar Giza, proclaimed, and said that she had received from her elders, that B. Ladislaus in the very sermon raised sublime from the pulpit, in that ecstasy seen by all then present, after a short time prevented by death, had departed from this world, had left a great desire of himself, and had impressed the signal vestiges of true holiness in the minds of all, was worshiped by all as a Saint, and by the elders to the youth his memory, cult and devotion was commended with this intention, that they, departing to the way of all flesh, others and others succeeding into their place, among the other goods to come by right of inheritance, should commend also the memory of the holy man, as Patron of the kingdom of Poland, perpetually to be retained.

CHAPTER VII.

The burial of the body, and its decreed solemn elevation.

[119] Although B. Ladislaus, while yet he was among the living, by very many arguments proved the holiness of his life; and the Lord God, delighted too by the variety of his virtues, by many miracles wrought through him illustrated his best manner of living; and besides, an admirable death intervening, called him to the heavenly things, and demonstrated this by various testimonies; nevertheless to the Brothers, existing in the Warsaw convent for that time, it seemed, that that man the master of profound humility should be adorned with no pompous expense of a sepulcher, or certainly honored before others with a higher monument. They decree a burial common with the rest for the best man, they insert his body into the bowels of the sandy earth, that, I say, magnificent tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. Moreover that at some time hereafter the monument of so egregious a man might be distinguished from others, He is buried in the midst of the choir, a great stone being placed: they superimposed a great stone on his tomb, that at least by that indication the memory of the buried man might be consulted. He was buried therefore in the church of his Friars Minor of the Observance, called of S. Anne, in the city of Warsaw, in the midst of the choir, in that place where the lamp before the tabernacle, situated on the high altar, kindled to the most holy Eucharist, scatters its shining rays in honor of so great a Sacrament. O happy place, in which

so precious a pearl was laid! O blessed field, in which a precious treasure remained hidden! Truly it was a garden, in which the tree of life had been planted. For in that little body remained He; who deservedly named Himself the way, the truth, and the life.

[120] For a long space of time, namely for sixty-seven years, that blessed body, enclosed in the dark womb of the earth, rested, no other public honor, by the consent of the Brothers, being applied: only an ardent desire of devotion, left in the breasts of the faithful, and by the elders commended to posterity with much piety, fostered the memory of the blessed man. For to the place of his burial, when men came with kindled candles, with bent knees they prayed, they touched the sepulcher with kisses of the lips and a profound inclination of the head, he is honored with various votive offerings: they brought candles glittering with light; images partly made of wax, partly elaborated of silver, partly formed with the colors of painters, for the sake of discharging a vow they devoutly offered, miracles again and again glittering. Moreover there were very many who, approaching the place of the sepulcher in their necessities, delighted with the benefit of consolation, returned home, truly proclaiming the blessed man and the holiness of his life with common voice, and exalting the benefits conferred on them through him (as they piously believed) with the grateful ministry of the tongue. The fervor of this devotion burned, and that flame of piety toward the Blessed man shone for sixty-seven years, namely from the year of his death MDV even to the year MDLXXII, no human zeal and labor promoting it: the grace of God alone and singular providence conserving the holiness of His servant and his fame, and illustrating it with frequent and continual miracles. At length it pleased the Most High, from the turbid and misty place, into a serene and tranquil light, to bring forth the bones of the holy man: nor was there wanting an occasion of disposing all things sweetly, which to have been offered in this manner, is the tradition of the ancients.

[121] The Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Stanislaus Karnkowski, Stanislaus Karnkowski of whom that document of the sacred letters can be used, Behold a great Priest, who in his life propped the house, and in his days strengthened the temple; the height too of the temple was founded by him, a double building and the high walls of the temple. Ecclus. 50, 1. For he, the storms of heresy raging in the kingdom of Poland, opposed the unconquered strength of his mind; by word, pen, the counsel of learned men applied to that end, he went to meet the rushing plague; in the General Diets of the kingdom for many years to the heretics, requiring confederation no less powerfully than audaciously, the protector of the Catholic Rights and liberties he resisted to their face, and always opposed himself an adamantine wall; and much succored the Catholic faith greatly slipping, whose memory be in blessings. from Bishop of Kujawy Archbishop of Gniezno. He had acted as Bishop of Kujawy and Pomerania; in which office having functioned with huge praise, and summoned to the government of the Metropolitan Church of Gniezno by the judgment of that most powerful Prince Stephen Báthory the King, Primate of the Kingdom, First Prince, Legate born, he exercised the office of a true Watchman. It was a continual custom to the best Pontiff, not in most sumptuous palaces, with which in his cities, towns and villas he abounded, to tarry; but wherever he betook himself in the monasteries of the Friars Minor of the Observance, almost all the time of his life to dwell, to converse with them, to live with them, to use their devotions: with these were his delights, his pleasures, his sweetnesses: since with a wonderful affection of love, and truly paternal affection he was bound to this Order.

[122] In the year therefore of the Lord MDLXXII the General Diet of the Kingdom was celebrated, to which this Pontiff for his Senatorial office invited, in the year 1572 in the Diet turning aside to the Friars Minor, came; and according to his custom, as is premised, received most gratefully in lodging by the Friars Minor Observant, remained with them, and through the whole time of the Diet conversed with the same. It happened on a certain day that that Pontiff went to the temple for the sake of devotion, and wished, going through the midst of the choir of the Brothers, to approach the high altar (for this man was much instant on prayers, wakeful in devotions, continually free for pouring out prayers to God, and therefore hastening to inhabit the monasteries of the Observant Brothers, in whose devotions he was delighted) going therefore suddenly in an uncertain place he fell to the ground, impelled by no chance. Rising easily, he was greatly stupefied, seeing no cause of his sudden fall. Yet the most prudent man, judging that such a lapse of his was not vain, from the fall over the sepulcher he receives knowledge of B. Ladislaus. nor without divine disposition had he fallen; calls to himself the Fathers of that convent; narrates what had happened to him; that he had fallen on the ground in such a place, and by an unexpected chance his step had been hindered with his feet; that it came into his mind that this had not happened in vain: let them declare what that place was, or whose sepulcher covered with a great stone above was beheld. They answer that it was the place of the burial of B. Ladislaus, formerly Superior of this convent and a most fervent preacher, illustrated with many miracles by the Lord God, that that place was supremely to be observed, to which also from more remote places great concourses of peoples are made, and very many benefits men receive by his intercession. The best Pontiff understood that that ground was holy, and that in that place a precious treasure hidden was concealed, and that he was admonished by the lapse of his body, that he should be willing and care to have the bones of the holy man replaced in a more honest place.

[123] Then turned to those present Fathers, with a contracted countenance he said, he desires the body of him to be elevated: that their negligence was worthy of reprehension, who for so long a time, in that place so precious a treasure of their Order, the comeliness of religion, so pious a Patron, kept as it were without honor. That he would no more suffer the bones of so holy a man to lie hid in that darkness; and that he would give pains, that as soon as possible this burning lamp should be brought forth from under the bushel, and set upon the candlestick. From that time therefore this best Prelate was busy that the bones of the Blessed should be raised from that dust, and the more kindled to terminate so pious a work, he invoked the aids of B. Ladislaus himself. His prayer was not vain: for at a certain time, by a clear vision Blessed Ladislaus himself was seen by him, stimulated by B. Ladislaus appearing, admonishing that it was of the divine will, that his bones should be replaced in a more honest place and one fitter for the consolation of many. He added besides that it was unworthy, that those should be trodden in the earth by the feet of those passing, which God Himself most clement deigns to honor in heaven: wherefore let it be his care, that as soon as possible they should obtain a more honest and fitter place. These things said being made sublime he disappeared. The heart of the most pious Bishop, already before armed with that thought, is more inflamed. Therefore not only by the affection conceived before, but more confirmed by the revelation, and driven by the mandate of God through His servant B. Ladislaus, all his zeal, to raising the bones of the blessed man, he wholly turned: that of him whose soul in the heavenly fatherland he had known made a partaker of the eternal light, the same one's bones on earth he might dignify with the condign honor of place. The whole series of this matter a certain honest matron, an octogenarian and above, Catherine Gnatowska, an inhabitant of Warsaw, narrated, who related that she had perceived all those things from her husband, now long deceased, who marked with the character of the minor Orders of the Clericate, was present at the raising of B. Ladislaus, and had been a partaker of the secrets of the aforesaid President.

[124] There were present at that time at Warsaw two Purpled Princes and Fathers, whom the Curia commonly calls Cardinals; one of them named Commendone, but the other Vincent Porticus; both in the procuration of the affairs of the Apostolic See, thither he invites 2 Cardinals. to the Most Serene Sigismund Augustus, are related to have been Legates from the side of the Supreme Pontiff. To these the most devout Antistes went: with a grave oration he laid open the whole business: he narrated that it was the Divine will, that the holiness of His beloved servant, prevented with due cult by the faithful, should be observed with greater reverence; and that the bones of the holy man raised from the dust, exposed in a higher place, should be exhibited to the assembly of the faithful; that he desired to use them, supported by the authority of the Apostolic See, for so egregious and celebrated a work; that they, for their innate piety, would be willing to bestow effort on his endeavors, by the authority with which they were much strong, he insisted, and applied ardent prayers. The Purpled Fathers answer, that that piety pleased them, and they promise that they would not be wanting to so equitable and just desires. They themselves too inquire of the Brothers of that Warsaw convent, and with a diligent examination of inquisition, they are busy to know and understand the true holiness of B. Ladislaus, illustrated with certain miracles proved by public faith; they give their assent, and decree the bones of the Blessed to be raised. But although for this work the Ordinary of the place, who is the Bishop of Poznań, by the very law commanding should have been employed; nevertheless yet to the aforesaid Most Illustrious Lord Stanislaus Karnkowski, they commit that act to be exercised; who from heaven had been designated to execute it, by the apparition exhibited to him by B. Ladislaus himself, laying open the will of God; since him, as another Paul, falling to the ground by a lapse he had admonished. But he who recognizing the finger of God seemed to answer, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? showed himself most obsequious to the mandates. Therefore by the vows, voices and acclamations of all, the decree, that the Ordinary of the place should be silent in this passage, was brought forth, accepted, and by common consent praised.

CHAPTER VIII.

The solemn elevation of the body.

[125] As B. Ladislaus, after the manner of the other elect Saints of God, was beloved of God and much amiable to men, so too God made him like in the glory of the Saints, and not only magnified him in soul (as we piously believe) in the heavenly fatherland, but also in this vale of tears, honored his body with the honor of the Saints; the bones namely, though after the manner of the rest of men subjected to corruption referring the same form of mortality, in a decent place, convenient for veneration, raised from under the dust of the trampling people; and placed in a sublime sarcophagus he glorified in the sight of Kings, Princes, Prelates, Nobles; and ordered it before his people, and showed it his glory. For as this B. Ladislaus, the most high Lord at no other time than the most solemn, most devout, and observable to all, in which the memory of His Passion is recalled, magnified living, by raising him on high in the sight of the whole people, while pouring out the sacred words he made showers of tears; so dead, lying hid in the dust of the earth, at no other time He ordered him to be raised thence, At a most solemn time in the Diet of the kingdom, than at a most populous and most frequented, plainly in the eyes of the Kingdom of Poland, in the face of his whole nation, and not of his own only, but of very many foreigners. I say more, in the sight of the Church, when two most illustrious luminaries had stood at the same time at Warsaw, two Purpled Fathers dignified with the most ample honor of the Cardinalate, both sent by the Supreme Pastor and Vicar of Christ, bearing his person, who is the visible head of the Church, who the supreme judge, who the Father of all, who a terrestrial God, if it is lawful to say. I report the matter more clearly.

[126] When now the legates of the Apostolic See had the matter best examined, by the consent of the 2 Cardinals, to them by the Most Illustrious Stanislaus

Karnkowski Bishop of Kujawy proposed and expounded; and they had known by several arguments the exceptional holiness of the blessed Father Ladislaus; and now both had consented upon the aforesaid Prelate, that he and no other should carry out the business revealed to him by the Blessed and committed by God, should open the sepulcher, seek the sacred Relics, collect them, carry them out, and place them in another more honest place; on what day chiefly this should be done, counsels were held among several; the matter too brought to the Most Serene King, was pondered. There were found some, who said it should be done rather by night than by day, secretly not publicly, the church being locked, the tumultuating people excluded, and that for the gravest causes, as it then seemed to them, because the General convention of the Kingdom was then being held. But on the contrary all the best men insisted, that a business so holy, a public elevation is decreed a most celebrated act and most rare in these parts, for the cause of God and His faithful servant, should be celebrated in the open not in the hidden, publicly not privately, the due ceremonies of solemnities being employed, and that this matter should not lightly or cursorily be brought to the desired effect, and the Divine will be committed to execution. So let that light shine before men, that they may see the works of the Saints, that they may glorify our Father who is in heaven, that in His Saints God may be blessed, that every nation and age and sex may say, O how good it is for a man to bear the yoke from his adolescence! truly now we know and are taught by living experience, that to serve God is to reign. The latter opinion was praised and accepted, as the nobler reason and more useful to the common salvation.

[127] And so it is consulted what day more convenient should be assigned for this. Low Sunday of all most especially smiled: that he who with Christ on the day of the Parasceve, burned by the furnace of most ardent ardor and the flames of compassion, and that on Low Sunday it should be done 13 April. languishing in his beloved failed, and was made conformed to Christ Himself; on the Octave of His most glorious and triumphal Resurrection, in some manner triumphing over the miserable condition of corruptible human nature, for this state, should rise from the dust of the earth, and laid in a more honest place should become much more glorious, and show the beginnings and indications of his glory in heaven. Such a day pleased all, which was both convenient to the act, and condign of the holy man and his life, and which was not far distant from the time and day of the month of his passage out of this world. The day therefore being announced and assigned, Low Sunday (which is the Octave of the solemnity of solemnities, namely the Lord's Resurrection) is proclaimed by the preaching voice in all the churches: public fame is made through the city and nearer places; the hearts of the faithful are gladdened, the desires of all are kindled, minds are prepared for so unwonted a solemnity. On that day therefore eagerly, in the early morning, even anticipating the hours before dawn, there assembles a people of every state, sex, and dignity, contending about place, regarding not priority but convenience, not dignity but proximity to it. It did not irk the devout people to hasten with a hurried and swift step, even anticipating the signals, and to run to the church of the Bernardine Fathers: it did not weary the good folk, to wear out one and another hour or several others more, in awaiting the act of the raising and the convention of the Magnates.

[128] At the due hour there were present the Most Serene King Sigismund Augustus, Before the King, Cardinals, Bishops and Princes summoned to the Diet, with his Most Serene sister Anna a most devout Virgin; the Most Eminent Purpled Fathers, and Princes of the Holy Roman Church Cardinals Commendone and Vincent Porticus, Legates of the Apostolic See from the side; the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Bishops of the whole Kingdom of Poland, Abbots, Provosts and the other Prelates, in whatever way pertaining to that General Diet convention of the kingdom; Princes, Palatines, Castellans, officials of the Kingdom, the land Nuncios and the other Senators; Barons, the Nobility and a copious multitude exceedingly, exceeding the capacity of that very great church. All these to see, to touch, to contemplate the holy bones, with kindled hearts they desired; all to be rolled and prostrated on the ground, if it were lawful, that they might commend themselves to the Saint, they desired. All therefore being gathered into one, who were long awaited; the most illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Stanislaus Karnkowski designated for the work to be exercised, proceeded to the place, crowned with the Episcopal tiara, and marked with the other Pontificals, with the Clergy likewise candidly resplendent. Coming to the place, prostrate on the ground, to all the rest by their example they commanded likewise to adhere on the ground. after the sacrifice of the Mass The most holy sacrifice of the Mass the most devout Prelate celebrated of the Holy Spirit, meanwhile musical instruments resounding, and the cantors harmoniously singing the most sweet melodies. Afterward, the grace of the Holy Spirit being invoked by the customary hymn, the suffrages of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the aid of the Saints of God being implored, they approached the burial-place.

[129] The very great stone superimposed the Antistes orders to be removed, which, without delay and not with difficulty removed, is set aside. And behold a stupendous thing, a new miracle set forth to the eyes of all beholding. the bones of B. Ladislaus found on the surface of the earth The holy bones namely, on the very surface of the earth sprinkled only with a little dust, disposed in a wonderful order are discerned. So immediately under the stone found, formerly sixty-two years before deeply with the recent body buried in the earth, all wonder, recognize a miracle, give thanks to God; who as the holy soul of the blessed man, sublimated into the supreme region of the heavens, He crowned with glory and honor: so his bones from the bowels of the earth, by the ministry of the Angels, He raised even to the surface of the earth: insinuating, that though his body be dissolved into dust, for the condition of corruptible flesh; yet the bones not in the dark womb of the earth, but in a magnificent monument erected above ground, altogether should be replaced, and held in great veneration by all. The holy bones therefore raised from the dust are washed with wine, replaced in a wooden chest, they are placed at the right of the high altar. and in a place now duly prepared for this at the right of the high Altar decently and honestly enough are placed. Many sick run up, take moderately of the wine with which the holy bones had been washed, and are healed, are filled with consolation, are raised by aid, everywhere proclaim the Holy servant of God, bear him to heaven with praises, kindle the devotion of the rest.

[130] All things being duly performed the monument is closed: the huge stone, on which the effigy of B. Ladislaus, of the whole body lying supine, is beheld sculptured, is rolled to the monument: which still is discerned, and is held in the highest devotion of the people and veneration. Above an image not small, depicted from the face of the same B. Ladislaus, is superposed: in whose head, with rays going forth from a circle after the manner of the sun in sign of his holiness, the splendor demonstrates a heaven-dweller. But at the side, a radiated image is placed, standing at the right of the sepulcher, contiguous is an altar, in which the most holy office of the Mass, daily is celebrated by several Priests, for the most part at the instance of those, who for the sake of discharging a vow recur to the Blessed. There are beheld here as it were without number, both on the wooden tablet with the icon of the Blessed superposed on the sepulcher, and on the very altar eminently rising, with many votive offerings golden and silver tablets of no small quantity, jewels and images: then too round about images cast of wax, which all in sign of received benefits and gratitude are hung up. Very many men flock hither for the sake of discharging vows, very many obtain their wishes and desires, and report benefits in soul and body, in goods and fortune. Not few from the very threshold of death are called back to life; as from our third book, where not few miracles of the innumerable will be enumerated, it can be understood, the miracles are duly approved. which duly through trustworthy witnesses deduced, officiously approved, received and through a Notary instituted by Apostolic authority, specially designated and assumed for this, diligently annotated they are: which can easily by all, below be understood. Yet much more and as it were innumerable are others, than those which here are related; but those only in this place are described, which either in the ancient Chronicles of the Polish Province are found annotated, or of which evident knowledge is had. It remains, that by a salutary mutual exhortation we too all may be roused, that more often to this servant of God in our necessities we may approach as suppliants; that as those who were present at the raising, praised God with full affection in that Blessed man; we too falling on our knees, may adore the Lord, wonderful in His Saints; and may demand B. Ladislaus with prayers, that he be willing to impart peace to our fatherland, which begot him, to the Most Serene King long prosperity of health, to the inhabitants safe liberty and immunity from plague, famine and war, to the city of Warsaw felicity, to all the afflicted consolation, and finally to all imploring his aid in their necessities, to obtain the wished benefits from God the author of good things, who be blessed for ever.

CHAPTER IX.

Testimonies of Pope Sixtus V, of the Cardinals and of the Archbishops of Gniezno.

[131] To have pleased eminent men is not the last praise; nay from them the chief reward is owed to virtue: good and illustrious men through Princes are raised to the supreme degrees of dignities, the wicked and depraved are affected with punishment. I could for the sake of this matter bring into the midst many examples of the heathen; but let men wrapped in errors be left to lie hid in their darkness: to the Christian reader rather are to be suggested the monuments of deeds done of the same Religion, of which the Sacred and Ecclesiastical books are full, in which it is permitted to see some by God Himself, like Abraham and David, men according to the heart of the Lord praised; others by holy Scripture itself celebrated with worthy encomia; some by writers of deeds done proclaimed. Excellently that kind of office, of celebrating virtue, the Ecclesiastical Annals, published by the most noble author Caesar Baronius, carry out: and those books, which on the Lives of the Saints Laurence Surius entitled, are recognized to weave the same web. B. Ladislaus is praised by the most illustrious men, It is free to go to the fountains themselves, and as much as anyone shall wish, even with full mouth to drink: for me from my purpose not a nail's breadth must I depart. The virtues of Blessed Ladislaus, celebrated and sung by the writings of many most illustrious men, I produce: for this too I judge not the last praise of his holiness. From the first Prince of the Church and supreme Pastor let the beginning be made. Since to B. Anthony of Padua too, of the same Order of the Minors of S. Francis, poured from the mouth of the Supreme Pontiff, a testimony is greatly esteemed, accommodated to the Ecclesiastical lessons to be said for his festivity, which is thus: By the wisdom and abundance of speaking he so profited, and stirred so great an admiration of himself, that the Supreme Pontiff at some time hearing him preaching, called him the Ark of the Testament.

[132] Of our Blessed Ladislaus too from the Supreme Pontiff likewise a praise and honorific mention, by the pen transmitted to posterity, is read. by Pope Sixtus V This was Sixtus the fifth, an exceptional cultivator of justice, a vehement and untiring adversary of all vices, much delighted by the glory of virtue and doctrine. That man being raised to the summit of the Supreme Pontificate at Warsaw, in the Church of the Order of the Minors of the Observance, of the Confraternity

of S. Anne the mother of the B. V. Mary, a beginning had been made of it to be happily erected. The ardent zeal of piety of the Most Serene Queen of Poland Anna, consort of the Most Serene King Stephen Báthory, had cast the foundations of that spiritual edifice. But to raise the walls, and to perfect the entire structure their zeal and effort had conferred, likewise the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord George Radziwiłł, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Bishop of Cracow; and John Demetrius Solikowski, Archbishop of Lwów. These all treated with the Apostolic See, that the newly erected Confraternity, under the title of S. Anne the Third (Mettertia), should be stabilized with the strength of Apostolic confirmation, and the authority of the Supreme Pontiff acceding to their piety, on the rock of the devout Sodality the magnificent structure should be placed. To the pious endeavors the piety of the Pontiff was not wanting: there was exhibited a diploma of confirmation under lead, whose exordium is such: From the office of Apostolic servitude incumbent on us from above, &c. Given at Rome at S. Mark in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand five hundred and eighty-six, on the eighth of the Kalends of October, in the second year of our Pontificate. Register book 5 fol. 9. In which diploma indeed His Holiness, among the other praises of the Warsaw Church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, attributed also this, that by the body of B. Ladislaus resting there it is signal and most celebrated. calling him Blessed, The words of the diploma are these: Besides, since the town of Warsaw, of the Diocese of Poznań, in which the general Diet of the whole Kingdom of Poland is wont to be held, and the venerable body of B. Ladislaus in the church of the house of the same S. Anne of that town of the said Order is laid up, is most celebrated and signal, and there the said confraternity canonically instituted is found, &c. Of great men, a great testimony for illustrating the holiness of Ladislaus! a signal encomium of praise thence attributed to the city of Warsaw!

[133] Nearest to the Apostolic authority is the Cardinalitial dignity, from whose magnificent splendor the holiness of B. Ladislaus took a splendid enough light and a brilliant testimony of truth. by the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church There were two Purpled Fathers, as we said above, who, a diligent examination being made and vigilant care applied, understood from the discourses of many that the holiness of B. Ladislaus had been exceptional, true, sincere and pleasing to God; the miracles too they heard and admired done only from heaven to illustrate his holiness; they praised the devotion of the people toward the blessed man, by common opinion sanctioned the bones of the blessed man to be raised from the dust, and adorned the act of the raising with their presence; and in all the faithful, as befitted the Legates of the holy See, by their example toward the blessed man kindled an ardent devotion the more, and inflamed piety; and at the same time demonstrated their mind, illustrated by the Holy Spirit, and moved with heavenly light to exercise that pious work, all the good exalting and devoutly praising God in B. Ladislaus.

[134] The Episcopal dignity too, in the Catholic Roman Church held in the highest estimation, exhibited its favor to B. Ladislaus, by the Archbishops of Gniezno, and toward illustrating his holiness wished to undergo the service of writing, compendious indeed, but most consonant to truth. Andrew Krzycki, Chancellor of the Queen, a most skilful and most prudent man, afterward Bishop of Przemyśl, by Andrew Krzycki and finally Archbishop of Gniezno, a noble man, and held by all most learned and most wise in that age, of B. Ladislaus in this manner discoursed in writing. Brother Ladislaus of Gielniów, of the Order of S. Francis of the Observance, endowed with wonderful holiness of life, illustrious for doctrine and the morals of life, by purity and innocence still from boyhood entire; in fastings, vigils, and preachings beyond what can be said unconquered; in the observance of Religion and the cult of God, especially of the Virgin Mother of God sedulous, in whose praise he published many rhythms and songs: in conversation benign and gentle, in reprehension rigid, in the prefectures of religion diligent, and to all was an example. On the sacred day of the Preparation preaching a sermon to the people, when he was about to come to His flagellation, was seen by all publicly to be raised above the pulpit by no human prop, finally gradually to fail, as if rapt in mind to be unable to speak further. Whence soon seized by languor, and for one month lying on his bed, with the highest devotion and alacrity in the hands of the mourning Brothers he left his desire to all, and most gloriously dead in this place was laid in the year of Salvation MDV. His merits and holiness God the Best and Greatest by manifest and admirable indications soon began to declare and illustrate. narrating certain miracles, For a girl laboring with a grave disease, and washing his pillow tinged with blood from her nostrils, suddenly convalesced. Thereupon a certain noble boy struck by a horse, and forthwith dead, by the tearful invocation and vow of his parents to Blessed Ladislaus, all astonished revived. Another boy too no less signal, seized by disease, and now wholly extinct, was restored to life. Then a girl fallen into a river, and scarcely after four hours found lifeless, by a vow brought to this tomb, received life. And other infinite and innumerable benefits are afforded to those, who implore the aid of that blessed Father with a faithful mind. These for thee, reader, briefly, lest thou be ignorant, annotated, mayest thou thyself more clearly know, when thou shalt wish to follow him with prayers and some merits, and to observe him. These he.

[135] Likewise I do not think to be passed over the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Stanislaus Karnkowski, likewise Archbishop of Gniezno, and by Stanislaus Karnkowski whom we mentioned above. He replaced the bones of B. Ladislaus dug out of the dust and out of the bowels of the earth, in a higher monument and a more honest place; a great stone, marked with the effigy of the blessed man, he moved to the same monument; with a brilliant oration, given to the people, he proclaimed him blessed; and admonished all by word and example to exhibit honor and veneration to him, as to a faithful servant of God and a holy man. Of which Archbishop whosoever shall understand the life, piously and holily passed, and his works written in letters, and the egregious affairs carried out for the Church of God; will easily come into this knowledge, that he was a man abundantly instructed with heavenly gifts, and by God as author honored the holiness of B. Ladislaus, by words, deeds, and every better manner adorned it, raised the bones, and replaced them in a decent place; and all those offices of piety which he exhibited toward B. Ladislaus, were perfected by the supreme wisdom; and that, the Holy Spirit inflaming the servant of God, he was honored by the best Prelate with an ardent affection of devotion. There is beheld enduring even to our times, the effigy of B. Ladislaus on the stone, placed on his monument, sculptured. His head is girt with a gilded circular shade, representing the type of holiness. Moreover these verses are added:

The bones of Blessed Ladislaus this tomb covers: Who in no wise favored the wicked iniquity of the world, He coreigns with the Saints, succors the debilitated.

CHAPTER X.

Testimonies of the Canons and Senators of Warsaw, of the Town of Gielniów, and of others.

[136] In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word stands, it is commonly said. But also from Him, in whom the heavenly Father placed all the treasures of the sciences, For the greater certainty of the matter Matt. 20 Christ, a document brought forth we hold in memory. Where two or three shall be gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Thence arose the certain and by no confine near to falsity opinion, That the voice of the people is the voice of God: that the saying of many approved men is a sure testimony of truth; and where many counsels, there safety is found; where many colloquies of the good, there necessarily truth is produced; that the consent of very many prudent men is called and named an indication of the divine opinion. Hence gather that Blessed Ladislaus shone with signal holiness in the Church of God, who by the mouth of many is proclaimed Blessed, Holy, a man acceptable to God. And although the opinion of the common people joined by the consent of minds is not to be contemned; yet the consent of spiritual persons, and of Priests bound to the divine cult, whose lips guard truth, in any matter, and an opinion coupled by the bond of unanimous concord, has a just weight of authority, and for conciliating truth to things decreed by themselves the force of fortitude and strength.

[137] Such a testimony for illustrating the holiness of the blessed Father Ladislaus was not wanting. The venerable college of Canons of the Collegiate Church of S. John the Baptist of Warsaw, They testify the holiness of Ladislaus did not wish its effort and zeal of devotion toward B. Ladislaus to be later than the piety of others; nay not by a bare series of speech, nor by a simple tenor of words, which poured from the mouth together with the sound reduced to nothing vanishes; but by the monuments of letters, whose long life takes the times of eternity with posterity, they exhibited a manifest signification of their devotion toward Blessed Ladislaus. For when through the space of many years, the Canons of Warsaw the illustrious fame of the holiness of Blessed Ladislaus diffused its rays into all parts, and partly men of every age and condition flocked to his sepulcher; and there obtained the happy effects and prosperous events of their vows, humble supplications, ardent desires; and not only those who came from a near place, received many and various kinds of benefits at his monument, but also others existing in distant places, and imploring the help of the same blessed man, having obtained the wished benefits rejoiced, it pleased and seemed good to the Venerable College of Canons above named, to the greater glory of God and to augment in the people the devotion toward the man of God, by a public testimony, to which the seal of the same Chapter was affixed, with a subscription, that they might build greater faith, by an authentic writing, signed in the year 1603, to render it ratified and welcome and to corroborate it: which indeed was done with the consent of all acceding. Of this so egregious deed the authentic is kept in the archive of this Religion, and in the Consistorial acts of the aforesaid College is found, given in the year of the Lord MDCIII on the XIII day of January. The value of which testimony I greatly esteem: for there are in that College of Canons men entire, conspicuous for piety and doctrine; and (since in that City the General Diet of the whole Kingdom is celebrated, and the Most Serene King himself with his whole Curia has there his customary residence) by birth, doctrine, dexterity of conducting affairs the chief men are enrolled and assumed into that College.

[138] Not to be passed over nor to be passed by with a dry pen I esteem the testimony exhibited by the Senate and the whole city of Warsaw, complying by a public writing with the holiness of B. Ladislaus. That city has many men, the Senate of the city strong in genius and counsel, armed with zeal of God and strong constancy toward the Catholic faith, and so kindled by God against those infected with the sects of heresy, that they suffer none to enjoy the right of the city, who holds an opinion in faith different from the Catholic Roman. The Senate abounds with learned men and well instructed with the knowledge of various things, the love of piety and a certain innate benevolence toward Religious persons adheres to all. These many times recognizing the patronage exhibited to their city through B. Ladislaus, attesting benefits afforded several times not only to particular persons, but to the whole university of the people (as below will appear), lest perchance they should incur the mark of ingratitude, willingly came into this opinion, that by a public writing, fortified with the seal of their city, they should reverence their Patron and Protector

their own. in the year 1604 Given at Warsaw in the year of the Lord MDCIV, on the XV day of June.

[139] It pleases to descend from public to private things. To those descending first occurs the most fervent herald of the divine word, Fabian Orzeszkowski R. P. Fabian Orzeszkowski, a most eloquent preacher, near to the times of B. Ladislaus: who when he had known many certain arguments of his holiness from the Brothers, who together with the blessed man had lived in the Order; and had found out from other pious men, to whom he was known, very many things about his immaculate life; these comprehended in rhythmic verse, he transmitted to posterity, in this tenor:

D. O. M.

Lo the most holy Father lies entombed, Who in the little town of Gielniów was born: this rhythmic epitaph being published And in the Church duly baptized, By his parents was called John.

He as a boy in his fatherland is given to schools, Studying more than the rest of his peers he is made illustrious, At length by his parents he is destined for Cracow, And in a short time is approved learned.

Hence by divine gift he began to meditate, Wishing to become a monk in some Order: The petulance of the world he began to detest, To the Minors he passed over, to dwell with them.

Ladislaus by name by them he is called, Humble and patient, uprightly conversing, Chaste from infancy, and welcome to all, Soon to the Sacrifice he was ordained.

He to the Virgin Mary was made devout, In whose service he was wholly ardent: Living by her grace removed from reproaches, Reciting the Crown on his knees bathed with tears.

He undertook the office of Preacher: comprehending the virtues of his life And, lest he be a scandal, he wears his body with thongs: Weighing vices with an even balance, by the force of the Author He feared no one, by the command of the Redeemer.

The enjoined offices joyfully he went about, Free from business, soon he went to the temple: Groaning he deplored the crimes of sinners, The little ones, the doubtful, he strengthened in faith.

He wrote here very many festal sermons, He published of the Time and Sunday ones, In metre and verse, and which we used to read, When in the schools of Pabianice we acted.

The most holy man made many songs, Of Christ, of the Virgin, pious and pleasant: He in the year one thousand five hundred and five spread His bed, lying with a fever, migrated to Christ.

Soon he began to become famous with many miracles, and some miracles of him dead. With various languors, of boys, of adults, He is present to those invoking living and dead: Here he recalls to life, gives health to all.

When the girl touches the bloody pillow Sick of the Father; forthwith all whole she rises, Here he raised two noble dead, For first the boy, whom a horse trod;

And a certain young girl, who for four hours, Submerged in a river, was the force of grief To her parents: an alleviation of mourning They take at the tomb, an effect of sweetness.

And this Epitaph the Master read over Porticus Vincent, and confirmed it, As Apostolic he dictated it to be read, To those reading he approved all the particulars true.

[140] But it is wonderful, that formerly the Bishop of Mantua Francis Gonzaga, Francis Gonzaga Bishop of Mantua, also praises him: of the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance, before General Minister of the whole Order of the Friars Minor, raised to the summit of that Episcopate, a man illustrious for the praise of holiness and miracles proving the same (whose name that it may be referred into the Album of the Saints, the ardent desire, favor, and zeal of all the good in this age laboriously is wakeful) and a signal writer by works of letters published into the light, in the Chronicle of the Seraphic Order, instituting a description of the Polish Province, makes mention of B. Ladislaus of Gielniów entombed in the Warsaw convent; although, the matter being ill understood and imperfectly known from others relating, he retains indeed the truth of the history, but confounds the series of the matter. but does not sufficiently distinguish him from the other Ladislaus For there were two of the same name, and both called Ladislaus, both offspring of the same Order, both illustrious for holiness of life, marked with the title of beatitude. But a different origin separated each: for one a Hungarian is buried at Cracow, and illustrated with miracles: the other, of whom our discourse is, of the town of Gielniów, dead at Warsaw, and in the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance laid in a monument rests. The former, before the Order of these Brothers was beheld in the kingdom of Poland, bore the yoke of the Order; our B. Ladislaus, after the Brothers were introduced into the kingdom in the year of the Lord MCCCCLIV, received the habit of holy religion in the year of the Lord MCCCCLXII. He was the first Guardian of the newly founded Cracow convent; this one is read never to have governed the Cracow convent alone. Yet that Most Reverend Bishop, desiring from his heart truly to describe our B. Ladislaus, attributes to him certain things, which are proper to that Blessed one, whose bones the Cracow church holds; but the rest are true encomia of our B. Ladislaus of Gielniów, resting in the Warsaw church.

[141] Nor is the fatherland always ungrateful. The town of Gielniów, in which B. Ladislaus beheld the first light and passed the first years of infancy, the people of Gielniów assume his effigy for a seal bears a singular devotion toward the blessed man, and is vehemently affected to follow piety through the light of the domestic example; and B. Ladislaus, as the treasure of its field, the cluster of its own vine, the fruit of its native tree, the once happy inhabitant of its town, bone of its bones and flesh of its flesh, its Brother and neighbor, it follows with ardent love. To his patronage they subject themselves and all theirs, and place much hope and confidence in the merits of the blessed man: to whose prayers they continually commend and consecrate their town. Not the last argument of this devotion is, that the citizens abolished the ancient seal of their town, and for a new arms assumed the effigy of B. Ladislaus, and by that deed declared, that no other Patron was dearer to them and Protector of the city more faithful. The Magnificent and Generous Lords of Brzeziny, hereditary possessors of that town, by no means suffer the palm to be snatched from them by their subjects in the devotion to be exhibited toward B. Ladislaus. And as they excel them by the splendor of nobility and the abundance of goods, the Lords of Brzeziny set forth his image. so by the zeal of piety and devotion they strive with the utmost effort to precede them. An image of B. Ladislaus, exceptional in workmanship, adorned with comely painting, of signal size, in their parochial temple they caused to be erected; to follow which with due cult, a very great throng of men assembles, and according to the measure of devotion also receives the grace of consolation.

[142] Finally I esteem a thing worthy of memory. Under the image of B. Ladislaus, Eulogies of him under the tablet on which the tablets promised by vow are affixed, these words for many years written about him are read. B. Ladislaus, a man most noble in the summit of evangelical perfection, and in every part in his life blessed, after many specimens of humility and abstinences and all virtues left to the whole Order, after the most sweet ecstatic recesses into God frequently, after many labors drained out by zeal of the honor of God and of the Catholic religion, full of days rendered his spirit to heaven in the year of the Lord MDV on the IV day of May. Lastly that too is not to be omitted, that the Most Reverend Father Brother Mark of Lisbon, Bishop of Porto assumed from the Order of the Minors of the Observance, and in Mark of Lisbon in the third part of the Chronicles book 8, chap. 33, of this blessed man in the Italian idiom writes, which is thus in Latin. At Marsom in the Province of Poland departed out of this world that burning and shining lamp Fr. Ladislaus: who was very illustrious by his wonderful doctrine and holiness of life, not without miracles. He made an exposition upon the old and new Testament: he wrote in verse on the Master of the sentences &c. So indeed Mark, writing Marsom for Warsaw not rightly; yet not in Italian, as the author thought (although his work in Italian, Spanish, and French rendered by others is held) but in Portuguese: which observed I finish with the author this second book, saying that of the testimonies of the holiness of the life of B. Ladislaus, exhibited by the most illustrious men, it suffices thus far to have said.

THIRD BOOK.

Eighty miracles wrought after his death.

CHAPTER I.

Immediately after his death, the dead raised, the dying and others healed, plague removed.

[143] The immense Majesty of God, sometimes in various things showing the greatness of His power and virtue, Miracles not only to build up faith while it works those things which seem not able to be done by human geniuses, converts men into admiration, and on this account things of this kind received the name of miracles; with which the Christian Religion in all the memory of men greatly abounded, as the most learned Alphonsus de Castro of the Order of the Minors Observant, and after him Robert Bellarmine on the marks of the church teach. Yet most of all for truly illustrating the faith of God miracles have been wrought, according to that of Matthew XX, Going preach the Gospel to every creature, teaching; The kingdom of heaven has drawn near, &c. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, &c. True miracles too are done, not always to confirm faith, but sometimes to illustrate the probity of the life of the Saints. For when miracles are done to demonstrate the glory of some Saint, they show, that that man is acceptable to God, can much for mortals with Him, and that his aids in our necessities are efficacious. Moreover what kind the life of B. Ladislaus the most faithful servant of God was, and how welcome and acceptable his works stood in the sight of the Most High, God Himself glorious wonderfully and abundantly declared to all the faithful. but also to show the probity of the Saints are exhibited. For immediately after the happy end of his life, when now the blessed servant of God, stripped of the mass of flesh, had come to those ineffable joys which God prepared for those loving Him; so many and so illustrious, evident and magnificent prodigies were done by his merits and intercessions, so many benefits to men of both sexes, of every state and condition imploring his aid the divine goodness clemently exhibited, that in no wise can in so many portents truth itself be denied, with which the holiness of B. Ladislaus so before many other Saints abounds, that an infinite multitude of gifts is recognized to have fixed its seat in him: which if you should wish all to be recounted, the present volume would seem to be augmented into immense magnitude. We in all things desire to study brevity: and therefore from all, which the memory of deeds done and the truth of history offers us, the more outstanding being chosen, which to the eye manifest the holiness of B. Ladislaus, those we shall simply relate; the rest, as an infinite thing, we shall omit. To writing therefore the miracles (the life now by the grace of God not unhappily digested and written in letters) we apply the pen. Thou who art wonderful in Thy Saints, O God almighty, bring help to the writer: and Thou who didst confer great grace of holiness on B. Ladislaus, bestow much virtue on the studious cultivator.

[144] Let the beginning be taken from that first, after his happy passage from this world to a better life, exhibited prodigy. For when now detained by grave infirmity B. Ladislaus, awaited the coming of death; more and more the languor of sickness oppressed his weak and broken limbs: which to be alleviated,

and that they might be supported with a softer bedding, the Brothers had received on loan two pillows from a certain Virgin, called Margaret, daughter of the Palatine of Mazovia, a nun of the Third Order of S. Francis, to be placed under the head of the blessed Father, to mitigate for a while the fury of the raging disease. They served the necessity of B. Ladislaus even to the last hour: but nature struggling with death, as frequently is wont to come to pass, the blood flowing from the nostrils of the blessed man, had left its bloody vestiges in those pillows. But when the holy man paid the debt of nature, without delay the pillows were returned to the aforesaid Virgin. She took them in her hands, but when she saw them bloodied, a pillow tinged with the blood of B. Ladislaus heals a sick woman: transfixed with a natural and so much the more feminine horror, suddenly she removed them from herself. But another Virgin, her companion, called Sister Catherine Swiderska, devoutly received them into her hands; and kindled with an ardent affection toward the blessed man, whom living she had venerated with the highest cult as a Saint, with cheerful brow and prompt hands, though afflicted with a grave disease, washed them: and forthwith from that most grave infirmity, with which she was affected, made free and immune, she recovered her lost health; and strengthened in her whole body and exulting, began devoutly to praise God, to proclaim the holiness of the blessed man, and to boast herself happy.

[145] But behold a pious envy. The aforesaid virgin Margaret daughter of the Palatine, confounded with stupor, from the deed which had befallen the sick Sister, began to grieve, that she had despised the blood of the blessed man, and to envy the felicity of the Sister with such envy, as David, observing the house of Obed-edom filled with divine blessings, from the Ark of the Lord inhabiting it, caused it as soon as possible to be brought down into his own Royal house, panting with whole breast to abound with divine graces. For by most turbulent internal tempests, and the swelling waves of temptations, the small skiff of the conscience of the aforesaid Sister Margaret was tossed, assiduously near the danger of shipwreck. And therefore vehemently solicitous, lest dashed on the rocks, the ship broken, she should sink the precious pearls of the collected virtues into the depth of the abyss; another by a vow being made is freed from temptations. provoked by the benefit afforded to Sister Catherine, she vowed a vow, that she would go to the sepulcher of the blessed man, and would offer five kindled candles. After the vow emitted, she felt that a certain confidence arose in her breast, that she would namely be free from all danger of salvation. Favorable winds blew, as soon as she satisfied her promises: the sea was silent, those winds and storms of temptations utterly extinguished; and from a turbid day a serene and tranquil light returned. Grateful for so great a benefit, she related to many the grace afforded her.

[146] Even from the very jaws of death the patronage of B. Ladislaus could snatch him, who taken away by fate, had ceased to enjoy the usufruct of this light among men. The matter is thus. A certain Polish Knight, in the district of Czersk, Matthias Piotrowski by surname, with sure and undoubted faith, also with a most copious shower of tears, flowing from his eyes, proving his narration, related, that his Son, namely Stanislaus three years old (which age and puerile innocence supplied the most grave grief to the eyes of the parents) had been seized by a most dangerous sickness, and had come to the last, had breathed out his soul, and in his hands had finished his life; that his eyes, as is the custom, of the deceased he had closed with his own fingers; that he had laid down the bloodless body left, and disposed it for burial: The dead one is recalled to life moreover from the little body now departing from him, that a huge grief had penetrated his heart and that of his afflicted mother, that copious tears had leapt forth, that the whole house had resounded with mourning and mournful song. Then into the mind, he said, of both of us it came, that to imploring the help of the Saints for restoring our son's life we should flee. The pious purpose pleased. Therefore now to this Saint, now to that, as memory and affection suggested, to offer prayers, to raise our hands to heaven, to ask help and aid, to supplicate, to sigh, to bewail our bereavement we began: yet in vain we felt our prayers go. At length my wife sad enough, Come, said she, O husband, the signal fame of the holiness of B. Ladislaus, lately deceased, everywhere divulged by all, exhorts my mind, that we demand his patronage in this our tribulation. The mind of the husband gladdened, his soul full of confidence, is wholly poured out toward the holy man. Both therefore rolled on their knees, with devout mouth pour out an ardent prayer to the Blessed. There is added to the prayers a vow, that they themselves together with the little son, to venerate his sepulcher, would undertake a pilgrimage, and would adorn it with a worthy gift. The words were recognized to have their weight, and the intercession of the blessed man stronger than death. The boy returned to life, a prey snatched from death! the vow emitted the motion of the palpitating heart began to rise, the eyes to open, and at length words to the parents to pour forth that one began, who deceased of life, cut by the scythe of death had fallen. Huge joy, gladness, dancing. The vow was fulfilled by them in the year of the Lord MDXIV, and the matter done brought to the knowledge of all, illustrated the holiness of B. Ladislaus.

[147] Not only this is implanted in men by nature, that of those whose benevolence they have once experienced, to them in their necessities again and again they recur; but to brute animals too that is common, that pastures once known fat they seek again. The daughter of the same noble man above said, into the danger of an almost like infirmity was cast: for there had invaded her that force and rabidity of disease, that having once cast her into bed it in no wise dismissed her; nay extending its virus more and more, The dying girl is healed once now was compelling her to be at her last gasp. Moved by the vehement danger of their daughter the parents seek the known medicine: to the fountain, from which lately they had drawn the water of consolation, and had given it to be drunk for recalling to life the deceased son, and through him had recovered him living, hastening as soon as possible, namely Blessed Ladislaus, that again he would send down the flowing rivulets of blessing from heaven, they ask: that he would obtain health and life for their daughter, restore the young girl subject to sickness to immunity, who lately deigned to render the deceased son, now absorbed by death, living to the afflicted parents: that they would be mindful of the received benefit, would lead their daughter to his sepulcher, and with her would perform thanks to their Patron. B. Ladislaus was present with aid. The girl suddenly convalesced, rose from bed, and was made whole: whom the parents, as they promised, led to the sepulcher of the Blessed.

[148] The daughter of a certain signal man a citizen of Warsaw, whom her parents held in their inmost affection, lay with a grave and lethal disease. The physicians employed profited nothing by their counsels: the medicines given, and another and the various modes of helping the girl, did nothing. She hastened to the term of life, by the force of the disease and continual vigils wholly exhausted, so that nothing but skin and bones remained, and now she was at her last gasp. Her father, beholding his dearest daughter now in extremity, her health wholly despaired of; and foreknowing her near to death, lest he should be compelled to see the straits of the dying one, from the house, weeping and touched inwardly with grief of heart, went out. But carrying his foot out of the house, mourning he intimated to his wife, that she should bind the dying little daughter by a vow to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, that he would deign to bring help to her as to very many. He himself meanwhile in the greatest weariness and vehement mourning, to the nearby Parochial church of S. John the Baptist, suppliant about to deprecate God for his daughter, turned aside, and prostrate gave himself to prayer. A thing wonderful to say! When the mother instructed by her husband had made the vow, the virus of the disease, like fire by water, was extinguished: the vehement pantings ceased, the heat cooled, the flaccid limbs were invigorated. The first voice of the speechless girl was asking food, as worn out with hunger. To the prepared victuals by her own strength she rose from bed, without another's prop she approached the table, and thence refused to return to her bed. The afflicted father, refusing to go from prayer to his dead daughter; when he had understood his house filled with the mercies of the Lord, returning rejoicing, found his daughter now well whole: and afterward, without delay, at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus discharged the vow most devoutly with his wife and daughter.

[149] The mercies of the Lord, who disdains not to succor the afflicted through His Saints, those invoking Him. Attend what in the suburb of Warsaw, most divulged to all, happened. A certain honest matron, a woman of good name and unblemished fame, on a certain feast day having gone out of her house, went to the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, in which the venerable body of B. Ladislaus rests, about to hear a sermon. She departing from home, left her only daughter five years of age. And so that mother being occupied in hearing the divine eloquences in the temple, the girl led by puerile levity, was playing with the domestic cat and amused herself with idle play. The cat slipped from the hands of the girl, took flight into the garden contiguous to the house. The girl following it, while incautiously she pursues the beast, ignorant of the impending danger, into a deep ditch, filled with water, which the cat easily crossed, the submerged girl is restored to life fell: and since there was no one to be a spectator of the danger, destitute of all help, suffocated by the waters, she lost life, found death. The mother returned home, suspecting no evil, when she did not find the little daughter, vehemently terrified, began to call out her name, to seek in all places, to inquire of the neighbors, anxious to scrutinize all places. And when she understood that she was seen by no one in the public places, and beheld her not appearing within the space of four hours; it came into her mind to look into that ditch. She runs up, looks in, inquires: and behold a sad spectacle: there appears in the waters the suffocated infant; she is drawn out, lies on the dry ground, rivulets of waters flowing from her. The mother dissolved into tears, began to vociferate, to accuse her misfortune, to tear the hair of her head, to lament, to wail, and to admit no consolation. At length returned to herself she is busy to flee to God the author of life, to implore the help of B. Ladislaus, to emit vows to visit his sepulcher; that he would be willing not to be wanting to her bereavement who deigned to favor the prayers of many. Scarcely had she finished the vows emitted: behold the girl, four hours lying hid submerged in the waters, by the motion of her little body, as if awakening from a grave disease, shows that she lives after death endured: full of vital spirit, from the place by her own strength she rises up, addresses her mother, living, sound, entire is beheld, all with the mother both rejoicing and being astonished, and admiring and proclaiming the miracle; the mother especially from excessive gladness weeping, attesting herself unworthy of so great a benefit, and toward B. Ladislaus exhibiting all the benefits and offices of gratitude, by voice, devotion, narration of the deed done. All these things the aforesaid matron related to the Friars Minor, with the highest devotion and attestation of conscience, presenting also her daughter miraculously resuscitated; and discharged the vow with the hymn Te Deum laudamus, those being the helpers.

[150] In the same year MDXIV in which most of all the devotion of the people toward B. Ladislaus had grown, on account of the most frequent miracles, which God all-powerful, wishing to honor His servant B. Ladislaus, deigned to permit to be done; another no less stupendous happened. The Generous Lord John Psarki, Notary of the district of Sochaczew, by a public recognition testified, that in his house a prodigy worthy of admiration was done. Namely that he had had a son, to whom from baptism

the name Stanislaus had fallen, held among his delights, a young lad of great expectation and the best disposition now in his fifth year, whom the slender flower of that age wonderfully adorned. He delighting beyond measure in horses, more often entered the stables, and on the Saturday of holy week, a boy struck by a horse's shoe is resuscitated, on which the mysteries of the Lord's Resurrection by all the faithful with serene minds begin to be celebrated, by a shod horse he was struck with so strong a blow, that in the same place, into which supine from the blow he had fallen, he poured forth at once his spirit and life. The father made certain of the unhappy chance of the slain son, struck with vehement grief, runs up, takes the body, searches for the breath, but in vain. He perceives that he had died, and that there was no other hope for him except God, and that by no human help could the deceased son be resuscitated. To the mountains therefore he raises his eyes, whence help might come to him. B. Ladislaus came into his memory. Him therefore with a mournful voice he addresses: O most blessed man, said he, whose holiness God manifests with many miracles, let pity of me too take thee: succor wretched me: the son, whom the chance of misfortune dashed to the ground and adjudged to death, do thou render to life and to his mourning father. Let the prayer of thy holiness avail more with God, than the cruelty of death in the little body of the boy. If by thy help I shall obtain my son restored to life, mindful of the benefit afforded, prostrate at thy sepulcher I will pay congruent thanks, the son too snatched by thy patronage from the tyranny of death I will lead to that place, and thy benefit in the midst of the church with a clear voice I will bring forth. To the knocker the door being opened, and to the prayers place was conceded. The son who was dead, as if loosed from a heavy sleep, returned to life, stood on his feet: his head, shattered by the horse's shoe and pierced with a grave wound, returned to its pristine state; and the pain departing entire health came. That miracle was done in the year of the Lord MDXIV, and faithfully related and annotated by the Brothers of that convent, to whom the aforesaid Lord Psarki, the benefit so entirely afforded to himself and his son, grateful and mindful is written to have related.

[151] Wonderful were the things which we have now said, but no less to be wondered the things which follow. When the calamitous heaven had caused a pestiferous air round about the shore of Warsaw, pestilence raging at Warsaw so that an epidemic plague cruelly infested the people, the heaven worsening daily, a grave time, a pestilent year was that MDXXII. That contagion in almost all the houses of the city of Warsaw spread diseases and deaths: very many of the citizens were infected; almost all the youthful age, the greater part of the women was taken away. Hence followed famine, since no one dared to bring into the market things necessary for food, the mandate of the Superiors withstanding, lest the laborious peasants affected with the pestiferous contagion, should bring the same into their villas. When therefore the savagery of the pestilence and the rabidity of famine both with joined hands raged through that city, slaying whomsoever it met this one or that (for it was not easy to procure aliments for sustaining life, set in such dangers) a certain woman, two of her sons taken with her, her stomach barking and almost failing from hunger, resolved to consult for her life by the deadly fruit of acorns, and to bring help to it. Into the nearby wood therefore having gone out of the city she departed: behold them returning home a certain admirable vision presented to their eyes, fixed them with stupor and admiration in one place. For that woman with her boys saw, about the bank of the Vistula toward the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, a certain heavenly arch, glittering with admirable splendor; and in its midst sitting as it were a Judge, terrible in aspect and majesty, to whom very many cohorts of Angels stood here and there, ready to render every service. And when so all together, without any terror, after a vision appearing in heaven, they beheld the majesty offered to their sight; they saw in the air a certain Friar Minor, with bent knee and hands extended praying the judge: for no voice was heard, only the lips were discerned to move and open. From this magnificent vision another terrible spectacle called their eyes: for there appeared vestiges of greater horror: a most foul dragon of huge magnitude, an immane and exceedingly formidable beast, from the other part of the Vistula river at the village called Praga appeared, by its tortuous position seemed to wish to gird the city, from its mouth it vomited a fiery flame toward the city with rapid breath. The thing was terrible to see, and horrible with stupor and horror equally and admiration: at these things seen, the woman fixed, trembling with the boys, immovable stood.

[152] Meanwhile there came up a certain man, grave in old age, a cultivator of the cobbler's art, who also for the same cause was making his way toward the wood, that with acorns he might ward off the hunger pressing him. Him when first the woman saw, with words she retained him, and asked him to stop a little while, saying, Come friend stay thy step, and begin with us to wonder, what our God has deigned to reveal to sinners. Raise thy eyes, behold the heaven, consider the admirable works of God. Fix thy gaze upon the Vistula, what things are done opposite the cloister of the Bernardine Fathers, namely the Minors Observant. Seest thou this great vision? He answered, that of these things he saw nothing at all, and discerned nothing new. Let us pray, said the woman, that the Lord may deign, the same things which I see to reveal to thee too, and to open thy gaze to behold these wonders. Those all falling together on their knees, and the Pater noster &c. simply praying, the eyes of that man were opened, and then at last he asserted that he saw clearly that great vision. So all those beholding, and as if existing in a certain rapture, that most foul Dragon, the foul beast, burst in the middle with a crash, and a sound brought forth through the air, as if a thunderous engine were exploded. There also sounded a voice diffused through the regions of the air, and a heavenly voice being heard. descended from the magnificent glory, He who prays the Judge, is a great Lord before God almighty: Warsaw, be grateful. Afterward that whole vision disappeared, and from that time, peace and health being obtained from all-powerful God, the epidemic disease ceased to rage, the bodies infected with diseases began to be healthier, the virus of the pestilence removed, the rabidity extinguished, and as after a vehement hail serenity, health succeeded. Many other prodigies were done immediately after the death of B. Ladislaus, by which his succors to human infirmity were shown. But, as I said, the more select I have chosen, some being passed over; to the more recent, approved and accepted by witnesses in judgment, I direct my course, and this first chapter I close.

CHAPTER II.

Ten miracles wrought from the year MDCXIII to the year MDCXXIII.

[193] Although never, for nearly eighty years, did miracles cease to be done at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, Miracles wrought for 80 years were not written: and those stupendous, as from certain men worn out by old age I have understood; that by his merits very many dead were resuscitated, more blind illumined, the lame rectified, the infirm with various pains brought back to pristine health, those vexed by the falling sickness utterly freed from it, paralytics healed, plagues quieted, and other innumerable inconveniences removed: yet because no one cared to write these in letters, and to commend them to posterity and eternal memory, therefore all things as it were buried were given to oblivion. The argument of truth is this firm one, that never was the devotion, never interrupted the recourse to his sepulcher, and the continual devotion of the whole people; but continued graces and consolations, aids of those asking from this Blessed. In this our age, when now a more accurate diligence and care about investigating the miracles, which are done, began to be had, that first occurs, which happened to Catherine, called Luszkowska from the surname of her former husband, who departed from the living, lately again joined in matrimony, and called Golianowska.

[194] She affected with a most troublesome and likewise most grave pain of the eyes, In the year 1608 there is healed with much expense from the professors of the medical art sought remedies, yet she lost oil and effort, seeming to beat an ass; and the more diligently she sought it, a woman becoming blind. the more vehement the pain that oppressed her, she had to undergo a disaster near to blindness. So ill affected her Confessor visited her, about to offer spiritual solace to the afflicted woman. To her complaining that the medicines could bring her no help, he says, that, human aids failing, the divine help must be sought. To her inquiring by what art she could attain this, he answered, that she had need of the patronage of B. Ladislaus: that she should emit a vow of presenting herself at his sepulcher, if through him she should be permitted to enjoy her wishes. The woman consents, and with whole affection of devotion recommended herself to the holy man. And behold she feels the bloody callus, with which the eyes were overlaid, flow down; and a little after the sight and salubrious acuteness of the eyes return. Rejoicing vehemently, she gave thanks to God and to holy Ladislaus: and discharges the vow emitted without delay to faithful execution in the year of the Lord MDCVIII.

[195] That too did not lack admiration, which by the relation of the same Matron was transmitted to posterity, that the Most Serene Prince John Albert, son of Sigismund the Third the King, in the year 1612 the Prince son of the King of Poland, raised first to the summit of the Warmia, afterward of the Cracow Episcopate (to nourish whose infancy by the ministry of her breasts the aforesaid Matron, being his nurse, complied) had been seized by an excessive pain of the heart, and that evil in the tender little body of the Prince had so fixed its roots, that to eradicate and utterly remove them the counsel of no one sufficed. The nurse alone, the human help limping held in contempt, sought the heavenly. B. Ladislaus to bring help to the infant, with humble prayer she invites: the boy a vow being made she offers. Which emitted, the savagery of the raging pain tamed is quieted, the pain hostile to life is driven off; and on the same day the lost sweetness of health, the whole court rejoicing, was found in the year of the Lord MDCXII.

[196] This too can be numbered among the wonders, which of an honest matron a citizen of Warsaw, Hedwig Herlerowa of despaired health, an aged woman, Hedwig Herlerowa, was entrusted to writing. She for the interval of three months, detained by an infirmity overcoming the strength of the body, lay in bed; and since she abounded with copious supply of all things, she pursued the effort of physicians, in driving off her sickness, with liberal money. Nor were they wanting to her, and relying on their precepts, to the raging storms of the infirmities, opposed these and those strongest (as they themselves testified) bulwarks. She spoke to a wall. The rabidity of the disease mocked the arms of the physicians, and held their counsels for vile chaff. It happened that a certain one of the family of the Minors Observant, for the sake of visiting her, had turned aside thither: by whom after pious colloquies asked, whether she wished (the hand of mortals recoiling from bringing help) to be raised by heavenly aid: she groaned, and said that willingly she wished to be helped by so salutary a help, which also she demanded. Then he subjoined: that Blessed Ladislaus, a man of signal piety and admirable for holiness of life, had exhibited faithful help to many in a like case; that he would not be wanting to her either, if she would promise to visit his sepulcher. She answered that his sepulcher was unknown to her, nor explored to her, in what place that Blessed

man rested laid. Instructed by the same Father that his sarcophagus, in the temple of the Bernardine Fathers, in a place conspicuous enough, was seen; Willingly, said she, I will go, and that I will do this I swear, and bind myself by a vow. Wonderful! She recovered her strength, and obtained health in a very short time, and so entirely beyond hope and opinion convalesced. She went to the sepulcher of the Blessed, and the benefit exhibited to her with a clear confession before the Brothers and the people she celebrated; she praised God in the holy man, and paid thanks with a grateful mind. These things happened in the year of the Lord MDCXII, in the presence not only of the household, but also of very many foreigners.

[197] In the same order we shall place the case of the daughter of the same Hedwig Herlorowa, Barbara, afterward joined by the matrimonial sacrament to John Delpace, Barbara Delpacina dying of plague, a citizen of Warsaw. She, the plague raging within the walls of the city of Warsaw, lest she should succumb to the venom of the pestiferous contagion, chose rather to yield her place, with this her daughter and the other household. Into the nearby village called Raszyn therefore she betook herself, about to remain in that place so long, until, the diffused rabidity of the pestilence coming to its prefixed goal, should break its swelling waves. To that place too her daughter, the aforesaid Barbara Delpacina, equally with her mother had migrated, by the fear of the same danger removed from the city of Warsaw. They remaining some space of time in that village, a vehement disease invaded the daughter, the virus of its malice and power into her it infused, and so by its force oppressed the members of her body, that worn out by the languor of debility, fixed to her bed, she remained continually unmoved. Daily the disease to grow, the body to be debilitated, life to be imperiled, health to be broken, and all the members to cease from their wonted services: the senses themselves defrauded without strength, the tongue too deprived of its innate ministry had lost speech; the hands trembling, the feet unable to take steps, fear, vehement weariness, loathing of food, the impending danger of death. She is fortified with the sacraments, and anointed with the holy oil of extreme Unction. The evil is augmented, and the danger of her life is turned in the eyes of all, by the mouth of all the near period of life is proclaimed. The solicitous mother for her daughter to God in tears flees, in whose hand life and death, the breath too of Princes and the heart of Kings is held. The Priest Vicar of that temple the mother goes to, and suppliantly treats with him, that with knees bent before the altar, he should offer her daughter to God and B. Ladislaus; and a vow being emitted should promise that she, as soon as she recovered the strength of her body, would go to the sepulcher of the blessed man, would venerate it, and would offer a condign gift to his holiness. It was done as she had asked: the most holy office of the Mass too to that intention was held, and the vow according to her mind emitted. And therefore the lethal arrows were removed from the body of the sick woman, the bitterness of the tedious infirmity taken away, and the despaired sweetness of health rendered. She convalesced at length, and the plague ceasing returned to Warsaw, and what she had promised by word, by the deed exhibited she attested.

[198] Of no less admiration worthy is that which follows. The noble virgin Sophia Wolinska, of advanced age, a woman laudable enough for the zeal of devotion and diligent effort in completing prayers, on a certain occasion came to her uterine brother, Albert Wolinski, dwelling in the hereditary possession of the village Klębów, to congratulate him according to the custom of consanguinity. And behold in her brother's house she found gold obscured, light turned into darkness, Stephen Wolenski an epileptic, joy into mourning: she tastes for grapes wild grapes, for fragrant roses she gathers pricking thorns; she found the son of her brother, named Stephen, subject to the epileptic disease now for ten years so, that in her presence seven times he was seized by the horrid fury of that evil. The parents grieving vehemently at so great a calamity of their begotten offspring, nor finding a remedy, even the virgin herself touched inwardly by such a spectacle, as by a sharp dart of grief, and dissolved into tears, hastened to the temple; with hands spread before the altar of the Lord prostrate on the ground on her face, pouring out at once her heart with tears and fiery prayers before the Lord, deprecates that He would be willing to pity her nephew, and conserve him free and immune from that unhappy calamity. Blessed Ladislaus too she devoutly invokes, the life of her nephew subjected to the horrible disease she commends, and earnestly insists with prayers, that snatched from that misery of calamity by the patronage of the same blessed man, he might experience a happier condition of life: having obtained her wishes she promises that he should be brought to his sepulcher, and every office of gratitude toward B. Ladislaus for him should be exhibited. Returned into her brother's house, she found the same nephew struggling with the same disease; who as if bidding it farewell, and about to migrate elsewhere from the possession of his body, had yet seized him that one time; and as if driven by force and destitute of strength, thence flew away, nor could it any more have the faculty of returning. The youth was made whole from that time: and the vow emitted most devoutly discharged.

[199] Equally among the wonders comes, what of the same Albert Wolinski was committed to memory. Him the sciatic disease, the father of the same laboring with sciatica and fever, which as to sense bitter enough, and as to the danger of health perilous enough, had invaded; and for a long time so racked by the grave trouble of that evil he groaned, that a fever being contracted thence continual and vehement and no less perilous, he was in danger of life. It seemed to the household, no delay interposed, to announce the danger of the brother to the aforesaid virgin Sophia; and at the same time to ask of her, that as the nephew, by a like reason the brother too, she would render commended to B. Ladislaus by vow and prayers. Moved by the danger of her brother, with whole affection of heart at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus she conceives vows, and for the health of her brother the faithful servant of God vehemently prays. Nor was she frustrated of hope. After some days came a messenger, asserting, that from both diseases her brother free and immune had convalesced, and now his strength being received had recovered health. Glad at the prosperity of the messenger, she admonishes her brother by letters, that as soon as possible he should satisfy the promise poured from his mouth, and compelled by the vow emitted, should come to the sepulcher of the most liberal Patron, and show himself of a grateful and mindful of the received benefit mind: which also was faithfully done, the same performing his promises.

[200] Not to be passed over also that, which from the same virgin Sophia Wolinska we have received related. She had for domestic services a maidservant, and a maidservant having a fever, named Hedwig, whom a quartan fever, relying on its strength, for some months detained vexed with troublesome anxiety. That happy virgin wont to recur to B. Ladislaus, and always experiencing his benevolent aid, resolved to succor the maidservant by the same way, requires the same aid and obtained it; B. Ladislaus she invokes, and is heard. The fever flees, nor any more returned; health came back, and the maidservant freed began to taste a happier lot of life.

[201] Among the wonders too that prodigy must be commemorated, the greatest of it for this, that the same Sophia Wolinska giving the cause, it was wrought (as is piously believed) by the same B. Ladislaus as author and Patron. There is a congregation at Warsaw of those women, to whom the occupation of devotion in following piety exhibits a common consort. likewise of a bone sticking in the throat, despaired, The foundations of that congregation the Most Serene Queen Anna, consort of King Stephen Báthory, had cast. They live under the obedience of one, whom the office of governance over the rest given has raised. Of their number was a certain virgin of senile age, Catherine Ribinska. She when she was eating flesh, by a fortuitous chance little providently swallowed a bone hiding within the flesh, which in the very throat crosswise strongly stuck; nor from its place, the woman striving with the utmost effort to that, could it in any way be moved. Hence the other present women were struck with excessive terror: for by an unwonted motion of the head, by the gaping of the mouth, by a grave motion of the lips, by the throat coughing, and the breathing as it were stopped, the wretched woman strives to indicate her danger: likewise the eyes are overlaid with bloody gore, the face is clothed with redness, all the limbs are filled with horror. She had now begun to fail and to be wholly at her last gasp, to struggle with death, and for a whole hour to be oppressed by vehement danger of health. All who were present, thought it was over with her, and the matter itself indicated her shortly about to die. The remaining Sisters, destitute of human help, flee to prayer: Sophia Wolinska several times betook herself to the known protection; to B. Ladislaus she commended that arduous case, the impending danger of the Sister's life she suppliant offered, and emitted a vow of presenting her at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus. Which done, suddenly with one impulse, she cast the bone overlaid with gore from her throat, and so escaped the danger. All with one voice exclaimed: Great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised, and wonderful in His Saints.

[202] Nor less wonderful, what to the honest man Joseph, afflicted with a grave pain of the foot. gardener of His Majesty, befell, sick in his feet. He had felt most vehement torments in his foot, of which the force was such, that it seemed to him, from the magnitude of the pain, that the leg itself was divided into two parts. With huge clamor and frequent wailing he attested those straits of his: nor did the medicaments employed afford the favor of mitigating. Wherefore he admonished his wife, that she should go to the neighboring devout women; and joined to their sodality, should commend the huge troubles of his body to the Lord God: that he trusted that by their prayers he would obtain some alleviation. She obeyed the monitions of her husband, and sedulously treated that business. Nor did hope deceive the sick man; the pain was met, and command was given to the infirmity, that it should remove the force of the torments and the spurs of the pain from that man. From heaven that benefit was afforded, by the heavenly inhabitant Blessed Ladislaus, with God almighty by faithful patronage obtained. For one of those devout women, the others aiding her faith with prayers, the aforesaid sick man, as soon as she promised by a vow to present him at the sepulcher of the blessed man, forthwith made him whole.

[203] More of admiration was in the resurrection of a certain boy. For in the year of the Lord MDCXXIII a certain Noble, a dead man is recalled to life. separated by no long interval of place from the city of Warsaw, had come to the convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance; who addressing kindly the superior of the place summoned to him, says that he had brought a living host to God, and a sacrifice to be bound to the Divine cult, and through his hands to be offered to God; that not of the fat grease of oxen or rams, nor of the blood of animals a holocaust to God almighty he exhibited, but a son born of himself. Thence vehemently to insist, that he should receive him into his sodality, that to the family of D. Francis he had vowed him; and that he would not that he should ever return home with him, but rather that under the banner of D. Francis, in his Order of the Observance, he should undergo the burden of the spiritual soldiery: that a just reason of equity exacted this from him, that he should be bound to that Order, by whose benefit he enjoyed life. He subjoined more clearly, that the son whom he had brought, had now been snatched by death, and had died by the common fate: that the same offered to B. Ladislaus, and consecrated to this holy religion, had revived, and (as is seen) had returned to life. Wherefore it was at his heart to commit to execution the vow emitted, and to consecrate his son to the holy Order. I present, I offer, I render: take, said he, your debt, and the sacrifice

this dedicated to God and B. Ladislaus by me receive. The Superior of the place gladly heard so admirable a deed. But since the boy was only twelve years old, which age can by no means suffice for one entering the Order, the mandate of the Ecclesiastical Canons prohibiting it, for that time the father with the son suffered a repulse, and dismissed a congruent satisfaction being received gave thanks to God the supreme consoler, and at the same time to B. Ladislaus, at his sarcophagus as to the best mediator and most efficacious intercessor, who could obtain life for the dead by his prayers and merits most acceptable with God.

CHAPTER III.

Other ten miracles done about the year MDCXXV and the following.

[204] Sometimes also the bodies of the Saints enclosed in sepulchers, nay even the sepulchers themselves exhibit admirable arguments too of their holiness, which also of our B. Ladislaus is read to have been done. The Illustrious and magnificent Lady Margaret Zaliwska, consort of the Castellan of Warsaw, an oath being interposed and the testimony of conscience applied, clearly narrated, that she had with her eyes beheld, some nuns of the third Order of S. Francis praying together with her at the sepulcher of Blessed Ladislaus, The tomb of B. Ladislaus was seen to be raised, the tomb of B. Ladislaus, covered with a great stone in the midst of the choir (for this happened in the immediate days before the raising of his body) to move, and upward from the earth to be raised, and in some manner the blessed man from the dark sepulcher, in which laid he had rested from the beginning a long time, to wish to come forth into light, and to hasten his egress. This was wonderful to those looking and to those devout women seeing, but also they said that a huge flame of devotion thence arisen kindled in their hearts glowed, and detained by vehement stupor they accommodated the gaze of their eyes to so stupendous a miracle.

[205] Nor in silence to be wrapped is the grace, exhibited to the Generous Lord Peter Kruszewski, the same B. Father Ladislaus helping. He was sick: and indeed an infirmity near to danger, seemed to plot against his very life. The heart itself, the root and foundation of life, the palpitation of the heart is cured. set in danger, brought a not contemptible terror. A certain tremor, as if conceived from a sudden fear, with assiduous palpitation agitated the heart, and with an unwonted motion brought force to nature. The aforesaid Lord Peter was not wanting to fortifying his life from danger, and used various remedies, but little prosperous and wholly empty. Induced by the counsel of certain ones he resolved to go to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, and in effect went: and immediately remained safe and immune from the danger.

[206] I shall relate a greater thing, which not so long ago happened in the city of Warsaw, A fire arisen near the convent, and was found out with sure faith. The suburb of Warsaw, in which place the convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance is beheld situated, seized by a grave fire, conceived a flame devouring in many places the contiguous houses. A clamor thence arose in the whole city, the bells and trumpets giving the signal, by which the sleeping awakened from sleep should quickly rise, the waking should run to extinguish the flame, the rest should beware and look out for their buildings. A great tumult thence, an innumerable concourse of men, noise, vociferation, mourning, fear, the horrid fury of the fire everywhere resounds. The flame growing the roofs fall, smoke and burning sparks occupy the air. Some of the men flee, some carry out their furniture, others carry away their children; the women weep, the boys cry, those lament who behold their houses consumed by the fire burned. In this tumult a certain man, venerable for the hoariness of his head, named James, then languishing with a huge infirmity, terrified at the clamor of many, led out beyond the threshold of his house; when he turned his eyes to the raging flames of the fire, and noticed them approaching the church of the Minors and the convent; he began vehemently both to be saddened and to fear at the same time, lest, the fury of the fire raging, the church being seized, together with the convent, should undergo the last danger. Therefore God and the Patrons he began to invoke for help. To him praying, a vision worthy of admiration was revealed. For he beheld above the convent, by B. Ladislaus appearing it is warded off, in the very region of the air, B. Ladislaus with hands spread instant on prayer, and protecting the convent from the glittering onset of the fire. And what augments the miracle, he beheld him so meeting the flames, that by the smoke and flames growing and covering him, he was deprived of the power of seeing him any more. That horrible fire had leveled to the ground more than fifty houses, which were nearest in situation to the convent and its church: but B. Ladislaus protecting his monastery, the fiery arrows of the horrible fire could not have harmed it.

[207] Admiration too merits this prodigy, which follows. Hedwig, a woman of the village of Nieporęt, of servile condition, seized by paralysis fell. Three days had passed, there is cured paralysis, yet the disease was so far from receding, that more and more it was recognized to pant after extinguishing life. It had deprived one hand and one foot of heat and natural motion, had despoiled the tongue of speech, and so had cast down the wretched woman destitute of all help, that by the judgment of all she was deemed to be enrolled in the catalogue of the dying. Her mistress, trusting in the patronage of B. Ladislaus, vowed her to be presented at his sepulcher: and behold shortly, the infirmity cast into exile, sound she rises from the prison-house in which she lay, no defect of health any more appearing.

[208] In part too similar was, what I bring forward. The Illustrious and magnificent Lord Stanislaus Zaliwski, sciatica, Captain of Warsaw, very often was seized by the sciatic disease; and that troublesome punishment of the body was the graver to him, because for driving off the evil the remedies applied by the counsel of many brought no convenience and help. He complained often before many of that his troublesome enough impediment of health. Among others his Confessor was Father Ambrose, called Smętek, very old, of the same Order of the Minors of the Observance; who to that complaint of the Lord Captain answered, that, human aids profiting little, heavenly aids must be sought, and makes honorific mention of B. Ladislaus: he exhorts, that he should visit his sepulcher, and offer the Lord's prayer with the Angelic salutation five times repeated. The counsel pleases; the vow is emitted, by execution terminated, the disease driven off, and for a long time warded off from the body.

[209] ulcerous pustules This being interposed, the benefit exhibited through the same B. Ladislaus to the above-said maidservant Hedwig compels me again, to bring forth some words about her anew. She had her skin sprinkled over the whole body with certain foul pustules breaking out like ulcers, which in a wonderful manner tortured the ill affected members of the body, and so by vexing pressed her, that they altogether prevented her from taking sleep, nor permitted her even for a modest time to rest. Wherefore mindful of the former benefit exhibited, when she flees to the same B. Ladislaus, again she received health.

[210] In the year of the Lord MDCXXVI, a wonderful deed was transmitted to memory; that the son of the honest man Andrew Buba, otherwise called Mathak, a citizen of Warsaw, named Matthew, a disease believed to verge to death, given over to the most vehement torments of adverse health, had endured for some weeks so great spurs of pain, that destitute of strength he seemed to have lost all appearance, to have put off the form of the body, to have lost the whiteness of the face, but to have retained only bones and dry skin. No sound of voice, nor heat of breathing, but a certain horrid crash of the heart was heard. Bloodless, pale, and dried up in his whole body, the future prey of death, the spoil of life, the guest of the sepulcher to be, by the judgment of all he was asserted. And truly so it was; no hope of life, death too in desire, that it coming the end of the pains and torments, to which that little body lay subject, might be terminated. The father, whose son was infirm, earnestly asked a certain one of the College of secular Priests, that the next day at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, by the sacred office of the Mass to be celebrated, he should commend the life of his miserable son to God almighty, and ask of Him mercy. The Priest acquiesced to his requests, and according to the desire of the father, for the health of the son, offered to God the Father the salutary host, invoking the patronage of B. Ladislaus, and requiring from him the medicine of despaired health. Meanwhile the father was engaged in the procuration of things necessary for food in the market: and behold the boy, now debilitated in every part, and aided before by no help of body, raises himself in the bed, sits, and a little after rises; rejoices, and as if having endured nothing adverse, asked from another boy a knife and a piece of wood, which by cutting into parts he delighted for a while, mingling puerile discourses with his companion. There came up meanwhile the father, and him whom he had left near death a short time before, restored to life and health he wonders at: he is stupefied, and from gladness pours forth tears; he clasps the boy with embraces, praises God, celebrates B. Ladislaus, fulfills the vow, and bears a grateful mind.

[211] Notable is, what of a certain Anastasia a widow, an inhabitant of Warsaw, is reported: paralysis. namely that she seized by paralysis, for the interval of five weeks endured that hard scourge; and destitute of hope of recovering health, by a certain Father of the Order of the Minors of the Observance, to whom she entrusted the secrets and hidden things of her conscience, was admonished, that she should confer care and all zeal to obtaining the patronage of B. Ladislaus: and should promise by a vow that his sepulcher would be visited, and that she would present herself in that place. She obeyed the salutary admonition, and forthwith from her body were removed the scourges of adverse health. She survived afterward a whole two years, with all affection and gratitude proclaiming so great a grace exhibited to her.

[212] When in the year of the Lord MDCXXV the plague raged in the city of Warsaw, as the custom of the fatherland bids, very many into the free villages or other safer places, fleeing the danger of life, slip away; then also to Religious persons is not denied the faculty of protecting their life, and migrating elsewhere. Hence a certain Father, named Francis, of the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance of the Warsaw convent, driven by the fear of the raging evil, tarried in the village called Kalina of the diocese of Płock. But our Fathers, who in the pestiferous time slipped away through the villages dwell outside the cloister, are wont, with the license of the Superiors, to serve the salvation of souls according to the grace given them, nor to indulge idleness: which in the same village the aforesaid Father we have learned to have done. Summoned this Father by a certain inhabitant, to expiate a sick man by the sacrament of Penitence and to refresh him with the salutary food of the Eucharist, having entered the house, happily complied with the infirm man. And behold the son of the head of the family, Paul by name, ten years old, in the presence of that Priest, the falling sickness invaded, and in a horrible manner dashed to the ground, and vehemently afflicted. To the Father pitying, and inquiring how long and how frequently he endured the torments of that adversity, the household answered; that for three years, twice or thrice in a month, that rabidity of disease the wretched boy was wont to suffer. That Father subjoined: Have firm faith in the Lord, and place your hope in the merits of B. Ladislaus; to whom a vow being made, offer this afflicted boy. Let us bend, said he, our knees, and implore the help of the blessed man. All embraced the counsel, The falling sickness, and indeed with happy success. For after some months, when now the epidemic fury had quieted, the parents of the boy, coming to Warsaw to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, narrated; that from that time in which they had emitted the vow, no vestige of epilepsy in their son had ever appeared.

[213] In equal danger the wife of a certain charioteer of the Most Serene Queen, affected with the huge difficulty of childbirth and the magnitude

of the evil, had now stood with one foot in the skiff of Acheron, A woman in childbirth is freed from the danger of death. and seized by grave health, bore in her body the image of death; nor was there hope of rising from bed, all destining her to the caverns of the sepulcher. Yet it seemed to some, that she should be offered to B. Ladislaus a vow being interposed. They went on foot into the opinion; the breeze of prosperity was present: recalled from the gate of the sepulcher, she was enrolled among the company of those living salubriously.

CHAPTER IV.

Other ten miracles wrought at the same time.

[214] As a wonderful thing and worthy of knowing committed to writing I found; that the Generous Lord Nicholas Cierniakowski, of the diocese of Płock, felt so vehement a pain of the head, that he was altogether violently withdrawn from taking sleep, and oppressed by the continual vexation of pain. There are cured pains of the head with the lost sight of one eye, Thence followed another evil, which deprived one eye utterly of sight, but had debilitated for the great part the gaze of seeing of the other. The rabidity of the disease was most troublesome, and besides destitute of human counsel; wherefore snatched by the impulse of desperation, he belched terrible clamors, and again and again broke forth into horrible vociferations. An occasion offered had drawn a certain Priest of the Order of the Friars Minor Observant into his house: who made more certain of his calamity, went to him; and asked of him, whether at any time of B. Ladislaus, who rests at Warsaw, he had received any fame with his ears. He answered that a message had been brought to him at a certain time of his holiness, and that his mind was held by the desire of emitting a vow to him, and of imploring his help: let the Father teach the manner, by which those promises and vows are to be celebrated and emitted. The Father going before that man followed, and to the teacher assent is given. A notable remission of the pain followed the promise made by vow, and a little after perfect health was recovered. To his promises he afforded truth; and what he had promised he would do, after the received benefit he executed.

[215] In the place of a portent too was held, what of the Magnificent Lord Martin Volinski we have received related. an unknown and incurable disease, There had occupied the members of his body that force of disease, whose malice the science of physicians could not attain by knowing: it raged in an ardent manner, and was superior to all the art of physicians; it overcame the remedies applied, and the more diligently it was undertaken to be expelled and driven off, the harder torments it brought. Very many to wonder, and all to be stupefied, that they could in no way conceive the nature of the evil. Some deeming it consumption, most said poisonings, part called it an unknown disease. By a certain chance there had come into his house one of the Fathers of the Order of the Minors Observant from the Warsaw convent: with what miserable calamity the Lord was oppressed, and in what an unhappy state of life he led a life more bitter than death, when the household related, he grieved with it with Christian affection; and when the faculty of seeing the sick man was offered to the same Father, a salutation given to and fro, he admonished, that to B. Ladislaus by a humble supplication he should offer himself, and from him by a fervent prayer ask help: that it would be, that he who exhibited like benefits to very many, would afford the same grace to him desiring it. He promised that he would visit his sepulcher, and to discharge this bound himself by a vow. Thereupon the disease began to lose strength, to lose vigor, and all the virus to be removed. But the Lord himself within a few days, who now exhausted and destitute of strength looked forward to the sepulcher, made whole, and his body returning to its lost state freed from all danger, was placed among those living happily.

[216] A wonderful thing too happened in our age. The renowned man, Sebastian Branski, the Royal charioteer, had wholly lost the gait of both feet, a disease impeding. If the necessity of going anywhere impotence of walking, had compelled him to go out of the house; he could not otherwise pursue the way, and pass from place to place, except by props put under the armpits, his feet not being able from pain to touch the ground. The pains sometimes agitated the man with the sharpest spurs, and reduced to those straits tormented him, so that the legs seemed to be divided into parts and shattered. That wretched man was not wanting to himself, nor would he spare expense; he demanded the effort of surgeons and physicians: but they, adhering to the precepts of their art, brought forth vain medicaments, which yet could not exhibit efficacious help. At that time of the Most Serene King to Częstochowa, signal for the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an escort was being prepared. All were ordered, who for expediting the journey were held to exhibit services to the Royal Majesty, to be ready to undertake the way. To him too, whom the disease had occupied, the command brought forth pertained. Anxious he, what chiefly he should do, knew not. Going therefore into various thoughts of mind, it came into his memory, that he should present himself at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, and from him ask mercy and patronage. He calls to him the household, opens his mind, and orders himself to be led to the sepulcher supported by the aforesaid props. Not without difficulty and trouble brought to the place, he fulfills the vows conceived, procures the sacred office of the Mass to be celebrated, insists on prayer: and behold he feels the disease gradually debilitated, the feet strengthened, the strength to return, the troubles of the pain broken, and at length the soles to be adapted to making steps. He raises himself on his feet, and with a strong gait stands; he feels too clearly, that affected with the benefit of health he can walk without props: he tries the deed, and experiences perfect health offered. Glad he exclaims, gives thanks, proclaims God in B. Ladislaus; the wooden props, with which before he used to go forth from home, taken into his hands he carries home rejoicing, no more in the following years afflicted with that sickness.

[217] How many other miracles were exhibited through B. Ladislaus, witness is the noble and generous Lord Samuel Drohojowski, huntsman of the land of Nur; who by the subscription of his own hand bore testimony to truth, and by a manifest declaration testified, that to himself and his consort, nay to his whole house, very many benefits had been conferred through the intercession of B. Ladislaus. But especially a signal miracle, exhibited concerning his son, he related not without tears, with all thanksgiving. Very often by the epileptic disease his son was greatly agitated: and when most frequently he had endured that horrid plague, at a certain time, in the presence of one Bernardine Father from the Convent of Praga, a mortal epilepsy in one, seized by that terrible rabidity, so with vehement torment agitated he fell, that his breath being stopped supine on the ground he lay; with no motion of the lips, no breathing of respiration, no cordial and arterial pulse either, he showed the vestiges of life. Held therefore for dead, he was by no means hoped to return again to life. Three hours had passed, and he with no sense, no argument of life, no indication, was recognized to enjoy the benefit of living. The Father, who was present, addressed those present: To God, said he, let us commend the business: but this boy to B. Ladislaus, a promise by vow being made, let us offer, if he shall rise from the dead, to be presented at his sepulcher. The Lord heard them and consoled them. As if loosed from a heavy sleep the boy revived, endowed with that prerogative of felicity, that thereafter by no torment of the epileptic disease he was oppressed, but from it safe and unharmed made he led a sound life.

[218] The likeness of the matter bids to subjoin another example, seen in the same family. The son of the same Lord John Samuel Drohojowski, and another boy, Stanislaus by name, not yet having passed the age of infancy, whom a life of twelve weeks held still hanging on the breasts of his nurse, God permitting cast into the straits of the falling sickness, for three continuous days was tortured. And indeed the force of the disease was such, that twelve times in one day it exerted its tyranny on the infant limbs. Necessity compelled the parents into vows. Having approached therefore with intrepid prayer B. Ladislaus, a vow being emitted they offer the infirm son to him, and fulfill their words with deeds: thence they received the son sound, and for all the time of life immune from that evil they possess him.

[219] Not only to his children, but to the aforesaid Lord John Drohojowski himself alone too the same B. Ladislaus afforded the service of his favor. a lethal disease: Prosperous health of his body had yielded its place, migrating from his members; adverse health rushed upon him, and occupied the place; and endeavored to found its dominion with so strong a possession, that to returning health no entrance any more lay open. The physicians summoned girt with a siege the enclosed enemy: after this were applied the warlike instruments of the salutary antidote, and all the remedies of the medical art set, to drive the enemy from another's house. Strongly had the disease fortified itself, nor did it fear at all the balls of pills, beating the girt walls. Thence arose desperation, that the adversary could not be taken, nor was expugnable, and therefore the siege must be raised, and the effort applied in vain removed. He alone who felt the straits, to ask the help of God, and to invoke the effort of B. Ladislaus endeavored; to whom eagerly the help asked was exhibited. The enemies driven off, all danger of life removed, health was entirely restored.

[220] Nor does it lack admiration, what from the same D. John Samuel Drohojowski we have heard related. Plague is warded off, In the year of the Lord MDCXXVI the most savage plague raging through all the cities, towns, and villas of Mazovia, that the family of the aforesaid D. Samuel Drohojowski infected with the same plague brought him much terror. Three in number of his chamberlains had now been taken away by the plague, whose ministries and accustomed services and intimate presence made them adhere to the side of their Lord; therefore also they seemed to make him a partaker of the danger. His villa, in which he resided called Warsawice, infected with the same pestiferous venom, he beheld the corpses of twenty men now extinguished by that disease: of whose labors as of subjects since the Lord made use, the census and money due from the same, ignorant of the danger, he received. the Fate is made easier, Vehemently terrified at the danger and death of many, he vowed a vow to the Lord, together with his consort, and bound himself by an oath, that he would not make his word void, but would fulfill all that he promised, and would visit the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, if power were given of escaping so evident a danger. He asked the Lord and He heard him, and from all tribulation snatched him, B. Ladislaus, to whom he had vowed himself, his house, and his subjects, for him (as is piously believed) interceding. After the vow emitted, the cruel Fate is driven from his house and from his villa, the pestilent breeze is extinguished, the danger removed, the most brilliant Phoebus the father of life arises, the serene day of prosperous health returns: thereafter no one was snatched by the onset of death, one girl alone excepted, who yet incurred death, not by the pestilential malice now extinguished, but by another different (as by the household, who well knew the cause, was asserted) occasion.

[221] In the same way the wife of the aforesaid Lord Samuel Drohojowski Barbara, experienced the faithful patronage of B. Ladislaus. She was pregnant; and when the time of bearing had come, compressed with huge pain, she endured the greatest torments; nor yet, hindered by the difficulty of bearing, could she bear. There were present all the aids prepared for such a business: yet all help, if any was applied, was in vain. The anxious husband and compressed with vehement solicitude, mourned,

all the household, an incurable ulcer is cured, cast into the highest mourning, lamented, beholding the lady subjected to the manifest danger of death, deplored. She more and more to strive to bear, but also so much the more to be tortured, and to approach death. At length admonished by a pious recollection, together with her mother, who adhered to the suffering woman, to B. Ladislaus by a devout sigh and prayer she fled; and from him in that necessity, and so evident a danger of death, help she demands. And without delay, she obtains childbirth without danger. Delivered she satisfied with the highest gratitude of mind her promises; and at the sepulcher, venerating the Blessed, discharged her vow.

[222] Great health was made by God to this house of Lord Samuel Drohojowski, an inestimable treasure of benefits there placed by the merits and patronage of B. Ladislaus; not only in his hall, but through that whole villa was diffused the grace, and the divine blessing, as from the above said now clearly appeared. But besides these still a third son, Andrew by name, struck by a certain incurable ulcer in the foot, felt most troublesome pains. The surgeons summoned with all zeal endeavored to meet the raging evil. There were applied these and those cataplasms, ointments, plasters, and that kind of medicaments: they augmented more, than they healed the ulcer. Various interior and exterior aids applied since they brought no alleviation, the disease eluded their vain effort. Thence the evil to grow more, and the virus of the disease more vehemently kindled proceeded to that of malice, that it cast the knee-pan out of the knee: fragments too of the bones, and those not small, a hundred and fifty and more together with the matter flowed out. Thence fear came upon the mournful parents, lest hence their son should be utterly deprived of the use of the foot and become lame. To those bewailing the disaster of the son, more desirable seemed death, than his life subjected to so great a calamity, and they had it in desire. For a whole year that evil crept, until the devout mother fled to the known protection: namely soliciting Blessed Ladislaus with ardent prayer, that he would succor the son, by herself presenting him at his sepulcher. A short time after that virus began to rage more mildly, at length wholly to be extinguished and to perish; and it being finally totally removed, the boy convalesced, limping a little. In sign of gratitude, mindful of so great a benefit the parents, by a silver foot, affixed at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, attested a grateful mind.

[223] Before I close this chapter, another exceptional miracle must be written, exhibited in a village of the district of Sochaczew called Kulczowice. That village, of which the Generous Lord Nicholas Jordanowski obtained the possession by hereditary right, was a tavern or public inn. And since from divers places divers men making their journey were wont to turn aside thither, easily it remained infected with the plague, which at that time everywhere raged. The first was the keeper of the inn or stableman, whom we call the innkeeper: him seized by the plague death had taken away from the living. The fate of the subject came to the ears of his Lord, to whom he was subject. The wife of the aforesaid Lord Jordanowski, as are the minds of women flexible to compassion, having entered the inn, grieving with the weeping mistress of the house with her children, with her own hands wrapped the body of the deceased in a winding-sheet, and prepared it for burial ignorant of the danger. She followed too the corpse to the temple, carrying the infant of the deceased with her in the same cart, and besides with all who dwelt in that house most familiarly conversed. Such service to the deceased duly paid, returned home, she is made more certain of the danger. the danger of the plague is shut off. For all, whom the walls of the inn contained (and they were seven men in number) began to be ill affected; to display the signs of the pestilence; and at length shortly all by the plague, one after another, were taken away, and brought huge terror to their lady. Nor is there doubt but that the plague would have poured its virus into her too, had it not, restrained by a heavenly command, recoiled, strongly repelled. There was in the sodality of the Nuns of the Third Rule of S. Francis a daughter of the aforesaid Lady Jordanowska, named Apollinaris; she as soon as by a message brought to her she learned, that the life of her parents was turned in the highest danger; vowed them to be presented at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, with tears most devoutly invoking this Blessed for aid to her parents; and fortifying them with such a remedy, by which they should be preserved from the pestiferous rabidity of the contagion. And therefore to no one in that whole house was the virus a harm, the vow interceding.

CHAPTER V.

Ten other miracles recounted.

[224] There can best be joined to the preceding example, another in all things similar. For in the year of the Lord MDCXXVI, in which, the rabidity of the plague raging everywhere, death absorbed many thousands of men, the epidemic disease invading also the house of a certain citizen of Warsaw, with raging brooms, by scrutinizing every most hidden place, so exactly cleaned it, that it suffered no one, who tarried within the walls, to remain among the living. Patronage in the time of plague obtained, But that house, oppressed by the want of poverty, sought its food by the labors of the hands; but especially by washing the linens, towels, and other that kind of garments of the nuns of the Third Rule of S. Francis, which by their maidservants and servitresses were carried into that house to be cleaned, and washed were carried back by the same to the Convent of the Nuns. Hence the aforesaid servitresses carrying them, made subject to the danger of the plague, brought terror of the same danger to the nuns themselves too. Besides this the magnitude of the danger was augmented by the death, begotten of the plague, of the wife of that citizen, who presided over the kitchen of the nuns. Struck with so great fear the Sisters, prostrate in prayer, dedicated themselves to the patronage of B. Ladislaus; and trusting in that remedy, no contagion at all having harmed, immune and safe they remained.

[225] Pleasant to relate is this. Sister Domitilla Bariczkowna, of the third Rule of S. Francis of the Warsaw monastery, seized by a most grave and most perilous disease, was vexed and exhausted by a quartan fever for two years. Scarcely did she breathe: at length affected with a certain much graver infirmity she fell, and was destitute of all human help, and all avidity of food being lost, she seemed to transgress the limits of life, and to prepare a setting out into the region of death. The physicians themselves too made no hope of her health, nay affirmed that after three hours or sooner she would pour forth her spirit and life. Therefore fortified with the protections of the Sacraments, anointed too with the oil of extreme Unction, she awaited the last end. The Sisters, who were present to the gravely sick woman, sent to the Brothers, earnestly with prayers treating, that at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus a fervent prayer should be held for her. The dying woman is healed after a certain vision in a dream, Therefore the Brothers persevering in prayer, a sweet sleep embraced the infirm woman. To her sleeping thus, it seemed to her that a certain one appeared and reached her a cup, and said: Drink the medicine from B. Ladislaus offered to thee from heaven; by whose virtue recreated, thou wilt be brought back to pristine health. These things heard, after she had, as it seemed to her, sweetly drunk that cup, and felt its taste pleasant enough; she believed that it had passed into a singular antidote for her. Loosed from sleep, she felt herself more mildly, and all the limbs of her body to remain much more quiet. Glad she related the salvation-bringing dream, and convalesced in strength. At length when all the others, then she herself too knew in fact that she had returned from the doors of death to the threshold of life; and within one week, having obtained the benefit of perfect health, she convalesced.

[226] To these is numbered another Sister of the same Order, rule, and convent, named Petronilla Brodowska, likewise another afflicted with a strange disease. agitated by the torment of a certain most grave and incurable disease, for a whole decade: Plica, in our vernacular tongue gozdziec, that disease is called. This evil and virus, not only about the hairs, but also in the veins, nerves, muscles, flesh, and bones sticking, vehemently tortures and racks men; the bones sometimes not only moves from their place, but also breaks into minute parts; rages perniciously through all the members, spurns coarser foods sometimes admits delicate drinks alone; otherwise ready for the fight begets the matter of the greatest pains, and by tortures lays waste all the bowels of the body; penetrates too the inmost of the limbs, instilling vestiges full of pain; especially in all the Provinces of Ruthenia brings forth pernicious germs. To such a disease that virgin had succumbed. On her head was beheld a lock twisted and tangled into itself, dense like a peg, which bound by the thickness of the hairs mutually connected, called Koltun by the Russians, hung from her head, begetting huge pain. Therefore that Virgin, on the very day on which the examination of the holiness of B. Ladislaus's life and miracles was instituted, approached one window of her convent, looking straight toward the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, in which the sepulcher containing the venerable body of the same B. Ladislaus is had with all devotion: and her eyes turned, bathed with a flood of tears, toward the temple she directed a prayer kindled with the ardor of fervor, and clothed in the vile cloak of humility, to B. Ladislaus the messenger of her calamity, suppliantly asking of him, that by his intercession, the cross of that torment might be removed from her body. The prayer finished, she asks a certain devout woman summoned to her, that she should take in her hand a little kerchief, and wipe with it the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, and sanctified by that contact (as she trusted), and filled with a virtue divinely curative, restore it to her. She having executed her prayers, returns the kerchief; which the Virgin devoutly receiving venerated, and held her ill affected head wrapped in it. On a certain night, sleep departing from her eyes, she felt that lock, as before thickened, torn from her head, lying at her side; and suffused with vehement gladness, she rose from bed; and recognized all sickness driven from her. In memory of so great a benefit she used the effort of the same woman, that she who had carried back to her the little band imbued with a healing force from heaven, the same at the sepulcher should give thanks to God and B. Ladislaus, and in memory hang that lock at his sepulcher, ever grateful for so great a benefit conferred.

[227] It had happened in the year of the Lord MDCXXVI that the same Virgin again fell with another most grave infirmity, and incurred that danger of life, that to all both the physicians, who well knew that state of life, the dying are restored to health, and the other skilled ones, she seemed about to enter the way of all flesh, and now to depart from the midst of the living. And therefore by extreme Unction, as is the custom, prepared for the last struggle with the evil demon, the Priest by whom she had been armed with the unction of the sacred oil, she begged with a prayer in that strait of her scant life, that by a vow to B. Ladislaus her Patron he would offer her life to him. He executing the promises and the business commended to him, the Virgin is recalled from the threshold of death to the benefit of life and immunity, by an evident miracle.

[228] The same happened to the Illustrious and Magnificent Lord Adrian Radziminski, Captain of Liw. He still set in puerile age, when in the college of Pułtusk he cultivated the Parnassus of the Muses, seized by lientery: gravely affected by the disease which is called lientery, and now seized by a flux of blood, came to manifest danger of life. His sister instructed, a Nun in the Warsaw monastery, of the danger of her own brother, called Mariana Radziminska, to B. Ladislaus at once for the health

of him offered a vow. And it came to pass that within seven days, the trouble of the sickness being repelled, he obtained the grace of health.

[229] Here too is to be numbered a certain devout virgin, Anna Mirkowska, of whom that is memorable: a message being brought she learned that her parents infected with the plague had died, blinded by grief and tears, she oppressed with that magnitude of grief, that by no reason did she admit any consolation; and perpetually occupied with mourning, tears continually sprinkling her face, indulging incessant weeping, had incurred an excessive pain of the head; the gaze of her eyes too dulled by the shower of tears, she underwent the plague of blindness, and for three days could see nothing at all. On the third day at length, which was dedicated and destined for celebrating the festivity of S. Bonaventure, she beheld in her sleep such a vision presented: by an apparition of the B. Virgin Mary, a Lady of ineffable beauty (the Queen of heaven she called her, the Mother of God) glittering with admirable splendor, accompanied by very many choirs of Angels approached her, and from her mouth she heard a voice sweetly flowing; bidden she went to the tomb of B. Ladislaus, and recovered her sight: that she should betake herself to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, confess her sins, and be refreshed by sacred Communion; that by that way and no other could the lost health be recovered: these things said the same disappeared. Instructed by such salutary monitions and such an oracle the Virgin obeyed, caused herself to be led to the sepulcher of the Blessed, procured a Mass there for herself, and when at that sacred office to be listened to she was present at his sepulcher and insisted on prayer, at the time of the elevation of the most holy Body of Christ, the right eye its sight recovered beheld the salutary Host: but when she was refreshed by sacred Communion, the other eye having obtained the same benefit of seeing, affected her with great joy. Grateful for the received benefit, she revealed to all the grace afforded her, paying the greatest thanks to God, the B. Virgin Mary, and Blessed Ladislaus.

[230] That too of the same Virgin is clear, that for the interval of seven years, the same afflicted with the falling sickness, the falling sickness exercised a horrid tyranny in the members of her body; and that she each month, on certain days many times was wont to endure that grave burden. She said that poisonings had been the cause of that evil. A vow being made of going to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, she hastened to apply her effort to fulfilling her promises. It was winter, the feast too of the Purification of the B. V. M. was at hand, at which time the greatest frosts and the highest harshness of winter extend their hard dominions; the widest rivers too congealed with ice afford to horses, men, vehicles, a safe way like a bridge; for carts laden with the greatest burdens too a free passage lies open anywhere over the backs of the rivers. The aforesaid Virgin, for the sake of discharging her vow, two two-cubit candles being bought, a winter vehicle being mounted, took her journey from Praga to Warsaw, she is carried from Praga to Warsaw over the frozen Vistula, taking with her in company a certain woman. Over the river Vistula, wide and deep enough, yet covered with ice, the way to the church of the Friars Minor had to be pursued. They were now on the way, sitting in the sledge; and behold the horse with poured-out and rapid course together with the sledge snatched away, ran most swiftly, and was carried with so pertinacious a motion, that in no way could it be reined in and restrained by the driver. At the bank of the river a very great ditch was beheld, by the rapid onset of the inundating waters long ago prepared: to it by a straight way the blinded horse was carried, and a manifest and full of terror danger of life was presented. The trembling women, a clamor being raised, implore the help of B. Ladislaus with tearful voices: O Blessed Ladislaus, help us, she escapes the danger of life, pray for us; for the cause of thy service and praise we came hither. O blessed Ladislaus, thy devotion roused us, by thy benevolence toward us we were drawn; help thy imperiled handmaids, nor permit the incautious ones to perish. At this voice was offered help from heaven; the horse in that swift course fell on its knees, and immovable in its place stood; and thence suddenly changed, and from untamed made tamed, performed the rest of the way with a slow and lingering gait. Having entered the church the virgin, while she is wakeful to expiate her conscience by sacramental Confession; began to be vexed by the epileptic disease, whose accustomed signs she now bore. The grace of absolution being received more quickly, she was led to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus. and at the sepulcher she is healed, To prayer prostrate on the ground so great a multitude of tears flowed from her eyes, that it abundantly irrigated the ground, and her face stuck in the mud. Then sensibly she recognized herself given liberty from the vexation of her calamity. The Mass heard, and returned home she had very many vomits, and felt a struggle with coughing. But from that time the falling sickness, despoiled of its possession in her body, departed; in whose place she was wont to have vomits some times, affected with no burden of the aforesaid disease.

[231] Besides these the same virgin, deprived of the gait of one foot on account of its bad affection, to her is restored the faculty of walking: kindled with an ardent desire of visiting the churches designated for gaining the Jubilee, when the infirm foot denied the ministry of walking; she went herself as she could limping, not without the aid of other women, to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus: prayers she applied with this mind, that at least she might obtain a truce of ten days from the trouble of the disease. It is wonderful, how the faculty and fortitude for walking suddenly came conceded; the truce given; she obtained her wishes; visited the churches; and the Jubilee gained, gave thanks to God.

[232] That certainly to many men, who both saw and some still live, was manifest, which deed from many trustworthy persons we have received. The noble and devout Christiana Jaroszewska, by condition a widow, from the impious and pernicious mire of the Arians, the divine grace recalling, brought back into the way of salvation; the evil demon suggesting, that as a neophyte easily succumbing to such temptations, she held in some way a doubtful opinion of the miracles of the Saints. She having set out to Częstochowa, in which place the miraculous image of the B. Mary V., painted (as is reported by ancient tradition) by the hand of B. Luke the Evangelist, is venerably kept, led with her as a companion a certain woman, for ten years dumb; who on account of a contusion of the throat and breast, made by a certain chance, as she herself indicated, could not (as has been said) speak for a decade. Returning home from Częstochowa, her devotions and vows now discharged, she stopped a little while in the city of Rawa, indulging her body wearied from the long journey. To her existing there came into her memory the mention of B. Ladislaus, and the recollection came upon her mind of the miracles, exhibited through his patronage, as was commonly celebrated. About to explore the truth, and to recognize it by experiences themselves, she treated with a certain secular Priest, that he should perform a sacred rite according to her intention: the dumb woman recovers speech: which that he might do more willingly, she offered him a liberal hand: but she intended the speech of the dumb woman, to be obtained by the patronage of B. Ladislaus. The office of the sacred Mass being offered by the Priest, she girded herself to continue the journey. And while walking together they take the way, behold that speechless and dumb woman, breaks forth into these words: Lo we have strayed from the way: let us return, about to seek another. Lady Christiana made master of her vow, seeing the impediment of the tongue removed in the woman, gave thanks to God with all hers; and the more confirmed in the Catholic faith, expelled all doubts and scruples from the house of her breast. But the dumb woman, the obstruction of the tongue removed, until death rightly spoke.

[233] Moreover the same Christiana Jaroszewska, also subject to the falling sickness herself, the epileptic woman is healed. most frequently was compelled to have huge torments by its tyranny. A vow being emitted to B. Ladislaus, she had one and that the last struggle with it after such a vow; it being no more strong to extend its jurisdiction. She convalesced perfectly, remained immune from that tyranny henceforth, God and B. Ladislaus assenting to her vows.

CHAPTER VI.

Other ten miracles done in the dead, the dying and other sick persons.

[234] There thrusts herself upon the miracles and examples to be recounted, a certain noble woman, formerly tarrying in the town of Opatów, whose name for reasonable causes and at her ardent instance is here passed over in silence. A most lazy girl She had for her services a girl twelve years of her age, so given to sloth, laziness and somnolence, that as if by nature that vice attributed to her seemed strongly to have adhered. Slow to rise from sleep, quickly and through the day frequently and at any work to desire the rest of dozing, nor (though called with many words) from somnolence to render an answer, but as if with stopped hearing to snore: not to return, if she were sent anywhere by her mistress and the young ladies, unless a very long delay being interposed; nor with eager zeal to perform anything, but all things with a slow gait, with a motion tedious to the beholders to execute. whom the mistress raging Thence her mistress was more often kindled with fury, stimulated by anger, pursued her with harder words, followed her with maledictions, even sometimes rendered curses: and at length was moved to inflicting scourges on the lazy body. Many times beaten with rods, struck with fists, slaps and cuffs, and affected with other punishments, made no better, she remained sluggish. At length on a certain day in the year of the Lord MDCXXVII, kindled by the spurs of anger the mistress, having chastised her atrociously with rods, cast her out denuded beyond the threshold of the house outside: on which day the horror of the raging winter and the most intense frost, all places set with ice and snow, brought a hard turn of cold to human bodies. There stood for no small time the wretched girl, now raised from the rest of sleep, hardly chastised and quite denuded, in the vehement cold of the snow chilled and weeping, trembling, groaning and wailing. in chilling winter had expelled her naked Now all her tender members and bowels had penetrated the burning frost. Not content with the gravity of the chastisement and the horrid inclemency of the heaven and the penetrating harshness of winter raging on the body of the girl, and with her so great rebukes (since there is no anger like that of a woman) she ordered the coldest water, drawn from under the ice freshly from the river, to be brought in a great pitcher: the wretched girl being seized, now from the excessive cold failing, naked furiously into the pitcher she cast, rolled, agitated. Hence the girl, first foul choleric matter violently cast out by the mouth, with teeth compressed began to agonize, and soon was utterly extinguished, displaying the signs of death in the lifeless body. No rhythm of the veins, then immersed in the cold had killed her, no sense of the vital spirits, no commotion of the muscles, but mere lividity and chill, the little body deprived altogether of all vitality and the ministry of the living soul lay. The aforesaid mistress noticed this, and seized with vehement fear terrified, she lamented that she had perpetrated the crime of homicide. There were present also other women of the household, who provoked by her mourning, with all effort strove to succor by these and those devices the extinguished girl, still doubtful of her life, namely by warming the corpse, by injecting distilled waters into the mouth, by agitation, &c. But with vain endeavor, for to recall the step from the gates of death is the work of divine power alone. A certain one then of those women, mindful of B. Ladislaus, vowed that if the girl were rendered surviving to life, she would go to his sepulcher. O power of God! The girl who now for four hours computed among the dead, lay to be rendered to the earth; she is resuscitated: restored to life rose up, and the food offered her she ate with relish. The mistress much afflicted both by her death, and by the fear

of the impending difficulties and troubles by which she was to be agitated by the parents of the girl (who themselves too were nobles) gave the greatest thanks to God and Blessed Ladislaus.

[235] But because the discourse is of recent things, what, I beseech, more illustrious example can be brought than that, which with the noble man Christian Rubach, Advocate of Galachów, Prefect of the Royal salt-works of the district of Zakroczym, in his house was exhibited? And it is such. The son of this man, named Constantius, a boy four years old, affected with adverse health, was deprived of the benefit of life by a long lying-abed. And now the evil daily growing, he looked toward the way by which an entrance lies open to death; and now as if departing and hastening to another region, the mournful parents followed him with weeping, having best deserved of the state of the Religious and Priests. Meanwhile a certain Father of the Order of the Minors Observant of the convent of Nowy Dwór coming up, a little boy is recalled from the threshold of death, about to bring the highest solace to the afflicted parents, entered the house; and approaching the bed, sprinkled the infirm boy himself with holy water. Then prostrate on the ground with bent knees, and admonishing all the household to do the same, B. Ladislaus with a suppliant mind and a vow he invoked, imploring his help and patronage. The vow being emitted, he inquires of the boy, how he was? He answering suddenly (who now had lost the power of speaking, the malice of the infirmity binding his tongue) that he was better, only that his head pained him; he ordered food and drink to be given him. Which taken, he began to convalesce, and convalesced in a short time. These things were done in the year of the Lord MDCXXVII.

[236] I come also to another example of recent memory. The noble and generous Lady Dorothea of Oyrzyn Oyrzynska, consort of the generous Lord Adam Gumowski, skilled in distilling wine by fire, was bestowing effort in distilling the materials prepared for it. A woman scorched by the flames of distilled wine, And now the work being completed, while she tries to inspect with a candle the vessel placed to receive the rivulets of the flowing distilled liquor; incautiously unexpectedly a spark leaping back from the lamp, fell into the vessel full of the fiery liquor. Without delay the thunderous vessel conceives a flame, and boiling with a perilous and exceedingly horrid heat, breaks forth with a furious onset. Terrified vehemently the aforesaid lady, is wholly poured upon the flame, wishing to check it, bringing a fire to the household. Destitute of a more salubrious counsel and help, she does that which sudden temerity suggested: the hem of her garment with which she was then covered being seized, the flame now raging in the vessel, its mouth being stopped, she tries to suffocate. Alas the unhappy chance! The victorious flame prevailed; her garments themselves first the linen, then the rest greedily it invades and pervades impetuously; and the fire conceived the youthful body of the woman it cruelly lays waste, so that from the sole of the foot to the navel health was far from that flesh, the fire through all the parts of the burning producing heat. Aided by the slow help of the household, vehemently scorched, a place, in which for a little she might be freed from the most intense pains, she did not find. The garments consumed by fire, the tender flesh afflicted in a cruel manner, the veins contracted by the burning brought the greatest pain, by which without cessation agitated she could not move herself from her place. And if necessity of raising herself or of turning her wearied right side to the left urged, the faculty was in no way given. By so atrocious a chance of his beloved wife vehemently afflicted the husband, hastened to Warsaw for the sake of seeking medicine, and on the very journey having met the convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance of Nowy Dwór, turned aside to it: by whom kindly received, in the very hour in which the absent husband had made a vow for her announcing the miserable fortune of his consort, he commended her despaired health to their prayers. Willingly the Brothers assent to his requests, yet they give a salubrious counsel conceived, that he should seek a more efficacious medicine and a much more salubrious antidote for his wife; namely that he should offer the infirm woman to B. Ladislaus, who rests at Warsaw with the Fathers, by a vow, the most holy sacrifice of the Mass too at his sepulcher by some Priest being applied, most devoutly. He receiving the counsel forthwith, solicitous for the health of his dear wife, when he came to Warsaw, executed the said things. The matters therefore duly accomplished he returned home, mournful entered the inner chamber, but having beheld his wife at the first sight, finding her wholly changed from her tearful state, glad he saluted her, bringing forth the medicines; and how he had vowed her to B. Ladislaus, she is found healed. and procured devotion to be made for her, he narrated. She in turn related how in that hour the fiery pains had been extinguished, with her vehement admiration; how likewise the scorched skin had easily fallen; the burned flesh restored to its first vigor, the scorched veins vivified, and all the roasted members, by their own nature healed: the body hardened by the flames, now diseased, tender and tractable: and indeed so with favorable winds, that she could rise suddenly from bed, and take her step whithersoever she wished, in that very interval of time. Wherefore without delay rendering a grateful mind to God and B. Ladislaus, exalting the magnitude of the benefit, they appeared at his sepulcher in the year of the Lord MDCXXVII.

[237] But in the very city of Warsaw too a miracle done, equals to itself all the said things, or even surpasses them. There was John Dabski, a citizen and apothecary of this city, who for the sake of quenching thirst, caused by the heat of burning choler, had taken a drink, called hydromel (commonly called lipiec); thence, as his opinion bore, there happened to his body a choleric vomit, mixed with blood in the middle. This easily cast out, having entered his chamber, on account of the copious vomiting of coagulated blood he feels greater and more vehement motions in the heart. Hence huge and violent dejections flowed from his mouth, one after another: and what brought greater horror, they were full of bloody gore: nay coagulated blood in so great abundance piecemeal flowed from the mouth, that for receiving it the vessels did not suffice. The great danger of the head of the family moved the household to bring help. Remedies were sought, the physicians too summoned entered into counsel, in what manner the impending danger and so great an evil should be met. It seemed to all, adjudged to death by the physicians, that a vein should be cut, and certain medicines taken. It was done so: but of these nothing could bring any aid to the injured health. The medicaments applied therefore in vain cut off all hope to the physicians: whence going from his house they admonished his wife, that at dead of night her husband would depart from life, nor any longer endure except by Divine power. All therefore deserted him: the sick man alone did not desert himself: he caused a Confessor of the Order of the Friars Minor Observant to be summoned to him, for the sake of expiating his conscience. Therefore he confesses his sins, conceives grief over the committed guilts: expiated by the Sacrament of penitence in the hands of the Confessor, he made a vow to God, asking that by the intercession of B. Ladislaus, by whose patronage he confessed he had before received offspring, in the danger too of life he might experience the help offered. The vow being emitted, on account of the incision of the vein and on account of the continual vomits cast from the mouth, weary and fatigued sleep oppressed him. To him sweetly sleeping a certain voice was heard, Lord John. by a miraculous voice he is healed. Awakened by its sound, he felt a sudden vigor in his body, the lost strength returned, and the vigor restored to him. Knowing too his mind filled with an admirable sweetness, he asked food to be given him, which offered he ate with relish: and again fell asleep. Loosed from sleep, he required food again. But the household relating, that it was the middle of the night, fitter for sleep than for food, he abstained; and therefore committed himself to sleep. From which at length the sun being now risen awakened, and refreshed with food, he affirmed that he had strength and that he was whole, and therefore for the sake of discharging the vow, emitted in the danger of life, he wished to go to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus: and he would have gone: but because the silver tablet (the sign of the vow and the received benefit) to be hung at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, which he had ordered to be made hastily, had not yet received the last hand of the craftsman; and the debility from the grave fatigue and infirmity was not yet repelled from his body; his friends persuading, he deferred to another time the promise to be executed. Which yet a short time after, girt with a crown of friends, the solemn office of the Mass of the Most Holy Trinity by a Priest being held, with all thanksgiving he discharged to B. Ladislaus, testifying that he owed much.

[238] The benefit conferred on the father redounded too on his only son, the same B. Ladislaus as author. For that boy, also called John, a boy is preserved from death: sprinkled with smallpox on the breast or infected with pustules, was gravely sick. The force of the infirmity had grown strong, and a more evident danger of death appeared, when the said measles having put on the color of blackness, began to be hidden within the flesh. But the mournful parents noticing this, and, what very experience taught, knowing that now the force of the disease and the coming of rushing death was foretold; procured a Mass for the health of the son to be celebrated at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, and relying on that remedy received their son sound.

[239] In the same city of Warsaw a no less admirable miracle befell. John Gasiorek, an inhabitant of the same city, cast into the hottest bath of a glowing fever, for the space of six days, endured ardors fervid enough; by which continually agitated, for a whole week he abstained from food, from a continual fever given up by the physicians he is healed: and was turned in manifest danger of health. And since in human things he had no confidence, he resolved to experience the favor of the Divinity's right hand through B. Ladislaus. He sent to the Friars Minor of the Observance, with ardent vows demanding, that they should make mention of him before God by a fervent prayer, and a vow being made to B. Ladislaus should commend to him his imperiled life. The Brothers were unwilling to be wanting to his just requests. A prayer being poured to God, and a vow made to B. Ladislaus, they answered his desire. In the same hour, in which this was done, the fever left him; he hungered, and ate with relish; and him whom the opinion of the physicians had adjudged to death, the grace and benevolence of B. Ladislaus restored to life.

[240] From the house of the same citizen John Gasiorek it is not yet permitted to go forth; the case of his son recalls the step from the very threshold, of John also called. This little infant, an infant crushed by a fall is restored to health: was placed on a table on a cushion or pillow by his mother; but she for the occupation of a certain business going off into the hall, the infant fell from the raised table to the ground by chance. The most tender age, little fit to undergo a grave fall, incurred a great detriment of health: the whole crown of the head pushed in within, made as it were concave; the cranium too remained sunk into the very brain; scarce some vestiges of a living man remaining. No fitter remedy for alleviating so great an evil seemed to the mournful parents, than that they should succor the infant the help of B. Ladislaus being implored by prayers. They executing their promises, no human help being applied, that same night the cranium returned to its place; and the infant while these things were done, a slight weeping being emitted, refreshed with maternal milk fell asleep; and was made sound from then.

[241] And this too is of our age which I bring forward. For in the year of the Lord MDCXXVI the son of the Noble and Generous Lord Krakowicki, an epileptic is cured. pressed under the most grave and most troublesome burden of the falling sickness, every day was fed on its gall, the parents thence saturated with great bitterness. At length certain friends persuading, to whose knowledge the holiness of B. Ladislaus was best known, that they should vow to the same blessed man the ill-affected son, they did; nor were frustrated of hope.

For the disease being driven off the boy made immune they offered at the sepulcher of the blessed man, giving thanks to God, and venerating B. Ladislaus with a grateful mind, because after such a vow never did epilepsy vex their son.

[242] The Divine power showed itself present to a certain countryman, subject of the Illustrious Lord Theophilus Grzybowski, supreme land Judge of the district of Warsaw, in his village called Lewiczyn, to whom for giving faith the hoariness of his age attributed much authority, and his rustic simplicity bore testimony of truth. He related to his Confessor, who was one of the number of the Friars Minor of the Observance of Warsaw, that when an atrocious pestilence made great slaughters everywhere through cities, towns, villas, it had filled his house too with the same destruction, and raged with so violent rabidity, that all whom his house embraced being taken away, his wife, children and household, as many as there were, being killed, he alone remained. And now he too dying, full namely of more than fifty (as he himself asseverated) pestilential ulcers, awaited death, which he had more in desire than life, partly from weariness and a melancholic humor, vehemently afflicting him, partly from mourning over the taking away of so many of his dear ones, partly from the pains which those ulcers inflicted on him. And that he might more quickly come to the goal of life, on that bed he lay down on which his household taken by the plague had met death. And when by rolling himself hither and thither he drew into himself with full mouth and breath the poison of the virulent plague, [Infected with the plague he is taught by a heavenly voice to recur to B. Ladislaus.] he felt a voice brought to his ears. What dost thou, O man? Vow to the Lord that thou wilt visit the holy bones resting at Warsaw, and thou shalt be safe. Admonished by the heavenly voice, he groaned; and resolved with firm purpose, that he, as soon as he should recover strength and health, would obey the words. Forthwith the ulcers opened in his flesh cast out copiously the pestiferous matter: but he made whole, after he had learned from his Father Confessor of the place of the sacred deposit, most promptly satisfied the mandates, and remained free henceforth from all contagion.

[243] A not dissimilar miracle several years before happened, namely in the year of the Lord MDCX. A certain man intent on performing scholastic offices, Nicholas by name, conversing among the Ecclesiastical Cantors at the parochial church of S. John of the city of Toruń, the condition of his state exacting it, A Clerk by a fall made dumb and deaf had ascended the tower adjacent to the church to ring the bells, where by a certain terrible chance struck by a bell, he fell down taken up for dead: then aided by the hands of those lifting him, from the place indeed half-alive he rose, but made deaf and dumb, and in all things rendered useless for performing ecclesiastical offices, expunged from the catalogue of the servitors of the temple, was enrolled henceforth in the register of beggars. For four years tarrying in the same place a beggar, affected with a certain weariness, he had resolved to change his place, and was completing the journey begun into the Duchy of Mazovia. As he passed through a wood near the city of Sochaczew, it pleased him to enjoy rest under a certain tree, and to indulge his wearied body. Sitting and deploring his miserable condition, with tears arising in the bitterness of his soul he emitted grave sighs to God, and by humble prayer raised his afflicted heart upward to God, supplicating that, for His benignity, the merciful God would restore to him his pristine lost health, and bring back the happier condition of his former life. He persevering thus in weeping and the bitterness of grave sighs, behold a voice sounded from behind: Know, O man, that thou wilt recover health, if only coming to Warsaw thou shalt visit the church of the Bernardines, by a heavenly utterance he received medicine. and shalt have confessed thy sins, and there for this benefit shalt have given thanks to God. He was astonished, and hearing looked back, his mind kindled with desire of knowing, whose were the voices so sweet and pleasant: and he saw in white the likeness of a man, but quickly noticed that he had disappeared. All these things to his Father Confessor, then to all the other Brothers with the highest devotion, his health now recovered, that man related: but the Father Confessor showed him the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, as the place where he should give thanks to God and B. Ladislaus, by whose merits his former health was restored to him.

CHAPTER VII.

Other ten miracles recounted.

[244] Very many wonderful and stupendous deeds of B. Ladislaus having now been related, still much more nay innumerable remain worthy of relation. There occurs for now an aged woman of eighty and more years, conciliating faith to her words by her long age of living, for a certain woman an epileptic son is cured: Catherine Lugowska a widow. She with clear and devout words testified, that from this tree, situated in the midst of the paradise of the Seraphic Religion of Francis, very many fruits plucked by her had stood for the great advantage of her own life and the salvation of her own. That namely many benefits had been conferred by the patronage of the blessed Father Ladislaus, and that she had also drawn and drunk rivulets of consolation from that fountain to satiety. That she had had a son, who for whole five years suffered the hard servitude of the falling sickness. Remedies applied in vain since they profited nothing, the counsel poured from the mouth of her Confessor profited the raging evil. He persuaded that to B. Ladislaus in such a danger of life recourse must be had, by the sacred office of the Mass to be celebrated at his sepulcher. That woman, as soon as she brought to effect the counsel offered, happily rejoiced over the health conferred on her son, who from then was always free from that evil.

[245] To the same woman a signal grace of consolation exhibited recalls the pen hastening elsewhere, and compels me to say not nothing about her again. About the year of the Lord MDLXXXVII her husband out of his mind, the husband to a sound mind from his own house secretly all being unaware having slipped away, through woods, groves, fields, and other pathless places many days wandering, by his absence caused his wife solicitude, tribulation, nay also a sinister suspicion: but to his kinsmen and relatives brought care, murmur, and great anxiety about him. For his friends together with the kinsmen coming together into one, conferred various discourses among themselves, and distracted into various opinions, inquired of one another about the friend not appearing for so long a time. To all that opinion seemed best, that the wife should be interrogated about her husband: since she bound by the Sacrament of an oath, by the matrimonial vow too was held to have care of the husband's life. There are chosen from the number of friends who should go to her, inquire, learn, where in the world her husband was: that she now made a companion to his life by an indissoluble bond, ought to be a partaker of the husband's affairs, works and counsels. She answering, that she altogether was ignorant of the state of her husband, nor could know whither he had betaken himself; forthwith to all a sinister opinion fell about her, conferring with a silent murmur among themselves, that the husband had been secretly given to death by the wife, and is led back to the house whence he had fled. and cast into some dark cavern lay hid. Therefore having addressed her with a threatening speech, they shake the afflicted enough woman with terror, that unless she tell the truth, she must be sought with the noise of the law. The wretched woman seized with vehement terror, and fearing for her life, and lest interrogated by the laws about her husband she should be compelled to undergo the force of tortures; again to her Confessor the aforesaid Father Stanislaus Zdziarski she recurs, asks counsel. He admonishes the same, to avoid so great a difficulty and danger, the way to be held; that the help of B. Ladislaus the most holy office of the Mass being applied must be implored. Which when it was done; the same day the husband returned home, gladdened all by his return, and freed his wife from danger.

[246] Nor is this to be neglected, nay among the miracles done through the intercession of B. Ladislaus to be numbered I deem, of a woman, Eve by name, wife of Valentine of Lwów a furrier, a citizen of Warsaw, obtained by a vow and prayers. The epidemic contagion raging through all Warsaw, the pestilent spirit had invaded her house, and now had killed her two household members with cruel death, had cast them out beyond the threshold, had hidden them buried in the earth. It had leaped also upon her son, whom by its first onset it struck with a most evil ulcer in the navel, directing him to the gate of death. The house infected with the plague is freed and the son is healed, The mother, admonished by the danger of her son, commended herself, her whole house, and her now plague-full son to the patronage of B. Ladislaus. Nor was aid wanting to the afflicted woman. The ulcer of the son broken flowed out, so great a vestige being left in the body, that the bowels lay open to be seen by the beholders. Quickly however, not without a miracle and the admiration of all, he received health; and the whole house free from danger, beheld the corpse of no other dead person.

[247] This most salubrious antidote for subduing and extinguishing the plague, the protection of the blessed Father Ladislaus, exhibited to the aforesaid woman, easily came also to the ears of others. There were two secular Priests, infected with the plague, and therefore separated from others, Two Priests are freed from the plague: awaiting death as it were now inevitable. These through sure messengers besought the aforesaid woman with solicitous prayers, that for the sake of conserving their health, she should procure the sacred sacrifice of the Mass, to be celebrated at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, in their name. When to their vows the desired remedy acceded, they remained preserved from the plague. Impelled by the same spirit of devotion toward B. Ladislaus, a woman with a fever is cured: so often having experienced his prompt intercessions the aforesaid woman, when she had vowed another son of hers, by an acute fever cast into the danger of death, to the same Saint, she beheld him suddenly sound. Nay of herself too she related, that by the impediment of a huge ulcer her throat was shut, and an ulcerated throat: and that she could receive no aliment of food. Hence arose the pricking spurs of pains, and a manifest danger of life: but the help of B. Ladislaus implored was so quickly present, that at what time the aforesaid impediment and the very virulent ulcer was removed, she did not plainly notice.

[248] A wonderful thing, and that no small one, which of the Magnificent Lord Stanislaus Smiecinski, land Notary of the district of Warsaw is read. That he about the year of the Lord MDCIX was afflicted with so atrocious a punishment of sickness, that for the space of two weeks, no rest from the urging disease offered, from various infirmities a dying man is healed: he was continually afflicted with pain; the remedies too of the physicians given, were recognized far inferior to the magnitude of the disease; and now by their opinion destined to death, he was thought to undergo the hazard of one agonizing. Such was the force, fortitude and malice of that disease, that it took to itself as a companion the falling sickness: which rushing suddenly upon the wretched old man, raged with such fury and onset in the members of the sick man, that through a natural day eighty times it repeated its pernicious incursions. Oppressed with so huge an evil of infirmity, he was at his last gasp; and therefore the Priests and household, with all things necessary for the soul's departure, assisted him, awaiting the hour. Meanwhile certain friends, of those adhering to him then, trusting in the patronage of B. Ladislaus, decree and vow that if restored to life he should recover the benefit of health, he should be presented at his sepulcher with offerings. Among them his wife joined by the matrimonial bond, the nearer she was to him, the more fervent the devotion with which she was busy to offer her husband to the same blessed man: she brought forth sighs, conceived vows, and uttered devout prayers. And without delay: the promise being established by vows, vigor being received, life together with health

obtained, he was recalled from the gate of death; and as a perpetual testimony of gratitude, he affixed a silver tablet to the sepulcher: by a writing too prolix enough the most wise man followed up that benefit by recognizing it, living a long time after in a good old age.

[249] But I cannot temper myself, but that to this great man, miraculously restored to health, I subjoin another benefit exhibited to a certain most noble matron. And she was the illustrious and Magnificent Lady Hedwig of Przerąb Przerąbska, legitimate consort of D. Stanislaus Paris Castellan of Warsaw. She bore in her womb offspring slain by death, enclosed for six whole weeks. A grave business and grief that case caused the woman in childbed: by an offspring long dead the mother is freed: she carried about a putrid corpse in her womb, a continual torment, produced lasting pains. Whosoever heard the discourse scattered about that unhappy case, with unanimous opinion judged the lady near to death, having endured an inevitable one indeed. The mother of the pregnant woman, mindful of the impending danger, having compassion on the pains which the afflicted daughter suffered, a vow being named to B. Ladislaus, resolved with firm hope that the danger should be met. She vowed therefore, that, if the dart of death being driven off she remained surviving and a partaker of life, she would be led to his sepulcher. To this end was applied a prayer by the Confessor, assisting her there, composed of B. Anthony by S. Bonaventure, but by that Father with the name changed brought forth of B. Ladislaus. These promises, vows, and devotions duly performed, behold the birth of the fetid corpse without great pain was present; the difficulty of bearing taken away; the members of the woman bearing and striving to bring forth the foetus most gently complied, the body so rendered flexible, that with no trouble the fruit of the womb or rather the putrefaction went out: those assisting the infirm woman scarcely being able to depart from the inner chamber, there followed a tearful with joy birth, and the abominable offspring with gladness and congratulation cast into light, which so long enclosed in the womb, remaining putrid, threatened torments and intolerable pains and finally a lethal destruction to the maternal little body. In sign of gratitude an image cast of silver, hung at the sepulcher by the same lady, in the year of the Lord MDCX, is beheld.

[250] Memorable too is the case of the Generous Albert Vituski, who when he gravely pained in the foot, and of both deprived wholly of the ministry for making steps lay; the affected feet are cured and his wife feared, lest he should contract some inconvenience or some limping; admonished of the danger, made a vow to the God of heaven, asking that by the intercession of B. Ladislaus, His most miraculous servant, the help of health from heaven should be exhibited to her husband, and he be freed from the evil. Hence quickly she beheld her husband sound, whom no man could heal. Finally a certain honest woman, Catherine Sweykowska of Miedzeszyn, when seized by a long infirmity she was aided by no aid of human art; and dropsy. the evil of adverse health growing daily, she contracted also dropsy, which a root being sent into her body, could in no way be eradicated, and the dominion once obtained suffered not itself to be despoiled. It rejoiced in a long enough progress, and strove to drive its root deeper: thence pressed the fear of death, the human help limping. But when she demanded the divine help and implores the aid of B. Ladislaus, the swollen dropsy is driven into exile; and health into the house, whence driven for a long time it had been absent, is recalled.

CHAPTER VIII.

Other ten miracles brought forth.

[251] Although all births in the human race, by the decree of the divine malediction, are full of various difficulties, pains, straits, and dangers of life, by which the transgression of the command of God of our first mother was chastised, the Lord saying to her, I will multiply thy troubles and thy conceptions, in pain shalt thou bear children, and thou shalt be under the power of the man, Gen. III; yet some happen more difficult and more perilous than others from divers causes: whence very many in such an act, a torment rather, willing unwilling exchange life with death. This in herself experienced a certain woman, Dorothy Czwolczyna of Pariszów: who when for a whole day and night she had labored in evacuating the womb; could in no way come to the term of childbirth. Sooner the soul than the foetus would go out of that body those assisting hoped, because she was readier now for departure, than the foetus for birth: the enclosure of the womb stronger, than the bond of nature, and the connection of the body with the soul; this yielding to violence, that indeed remaining hardened, and obstinate to all the strokes of the remedies. A woman in childbirth escapes death by a vow. From heaven was need to summon the artificer of the enclosure. Invoked therefore by the devout bystanders B. Ladislaus, to visit whose sepulcher the woman in childbirth was decreed by a vow. While such a vow is conceived and promised, behold the enclosures being unbarred an unexpected birth is introduced, all rejoicing, and blessing God in His Saints, and magnifying together with the woman in childbed the power of God. These about the year of the Lord MDCX.

[251] Nor are wanting in the very Warsaw convent miracles exhibited. There was in that convent a certain Brother named Thomas Lada, of the number of the lay brothers, formerly in the world noble by birth and famous enough for the glory of secular soldiery. He seized by adverse health, hastened to the goal of life: and now destitute of senses, deprived too of the benefit of memory, lay as it were beyond the limits of life. A lay Brother miraculously healed Very much mourning and solicitude the Brothers took from that perilous infirmity of his: for by the labors of his hands, he brought much usefulness to that convent: for he was skilled in the art of making beer, which by exercising in faithful work he showed himself useful to the convent. Therefore for the sake of gaining his health a fervent prayer was poured by the Brothers; a vow too was emitted to B. Ladislaus to this end, that freed from disease he might succor the convent by his services. After therefore such a medicine was applied to the lying infirm man; he is made sound, so that the third day after the vow he was fit for all labors, and exercised them in fact; and the vows emitted for him he himself by himself fulfilled.

[252] Nor was another occasion wanting to the same Brother Thomas, of imploring help from B. Ladislaus by an efficacious prayer. For affected with a grave pain of one hand, also his hand he had lost its use and ministry. Necessity urged, and the burden of his office exacted, that with the service of both hands he should apply himself to the labor. The force of the pain set an impediment to executing this, and recalled the ill-affected hand from all work. Full of hope to B. Ladislaus he betook and offered himself: recovers the lost use: he approached his sepulcher, suppliant falling on his knees: he prayed humbly for the restoration of his hand. Then the prayer finished, the end of the pain came: as he receded from the sepulcher, all the infirmity too receded: and so the impediment being removed, noticing himself fit to exercise work; to right things his loins being girt he strengthened his arm, and to strong things put his hand, applying himself to his office, and bringing the work to a good effect.

[253] How illustrious also that example deduced of the noble Lord Lawrence of Raduanica Kaminski? This man was exposed on a certain night to the ardors of a hot fever rushing into his members, and they invading his body with so vehement an onset that he fell, There are cured the stone and other diseases, so that he was compelled to experience at the same time the punishments of other diseases, especially of the liver: he was agitated beyond measure by the torments of pains of the spleen, stomach, and head, more than nature could bear: and besides the most troublesome strait of the stone pressed him. Noticing himself afflicted with so many calamities; so many enemies of his own health rushing upon him, he judged that death too was present at the doors: but this most of all he grieved, and that anxiety beat his breast, that without the protection of the Sacraments and without the prayers of a Priest present, he felt his departure from life at hand. Hence his wife, together with his daughter Catherine the elder by birth, are busy with profound sighs, prayers, vows, continual prayers, to invoke the mercy of God, and at the same time to demand the help of B. Ladislaus, and to bind themselves by vows of going to his sepulcher. The help of the man of God was not wanting: forthwith the broken rabidity of the pains, like smoke from that body vanished: and he made whole, the next day, what he had promised both by his own mouth and that of others, by deed to execute with his wife and daughter he studiously wished and did.

[254] To me thinking to hasten to others too, behold in the same house of the same noble man his daughter Catherine occurs. She for the space of ten days agitated by a fever, abstained from all food altogether; and a continual fever. but the fever glowing, and like a burning flame through all the members of the body producing a fire, she seemed to all to hasten with swift course to the prefixed line of living, and to have come to this, that to death a greater faculty of killing her seemed given, than to life the power of retaining her among men conceded. Her parents take the way to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, and coming supported by hope and sure confidence, about the eighth hour the sun being risen prostrate on the ground, apply themselves to fervid prayer. Returned home, the same hour they find their daughter dismissed from the fever; much rejoicing at the signal benefit of health, conferred on their daughter through B. Ladislaus, whom on account of the violence of the disease the consent of all had adjudged to death.

[255] Nor was the wife of the same Most Noble Lord Kaminski set outside this lot, who, a malicious and contagious fever raging in her house, and the plague the impending danger of death and approaching most nearly to the pestilential, which the Poles call epidemic lozna choroba; seized by that evil, hastened to prepare her journey and setting out from this age into the region of the living. Such force of disease was infused into her body, that when aid was required from the physicians, and an answer was awaited from others knowing the malice of the disease, it is reported that such was given, that linen for wrapping that body was more necessary, and an urn to be prepared for laying up the same body, than medicine to be applied. Such human dispositions being understood, she is twice repelled. to the protection now many times known it seemed good to flee: and indeed with happy success. For a vow being emitted to B. Ladislaus, she who was destined for the company of the dying, returned to the consorts of the living, best sound. The virus of the same disease had infected the whole family of the Illustrious and Magnificent Lady Sophia of Działyń, consort of Nicholas Mniszech Captain of Łuków; and by the same remedy it was removed: the help of Blessed Ladislaus was invoked: it was present; and all who were infected with it it recalled to health, and freed from the raging plague. A tablet cast of silver, affixed at the sepulcher of the Blessed, displays an argument of the recognition of the benefit and of gratitude.

[256] Again the deadly plague of the raging pestilence offers itself. It made huge slaughters of men in the year of the Lord MDCIII at Warsaw, and to the Brothers dwelling in the Convent it brought the same destruction: by receiving the Confessions of men very many contracted that blemish; many infected lay sick, the plague raging in the convent of the Brothers and the nuns soon about to be the food of worms. The house of the nuns too, subject to the same disease, now beheld the corpse of one extinct of the number of the Sisters: some bore signs of the plague appearing in their bodies. The Superior both of the Brothers and of them, by that magnitude of dangers

admonished, prostrate in prayer at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, vowed both Convents to him: and it came to pass that all danger ceased, and the peril of life from both being removed departed: those who now truly burned by the plague of infirmity approached death, restored to health and life, made safe and immune, praised God and His servant B. Ladislaus.

[257] Having gone out of the convent of the Brothers, I enter the house of a Councillor of the city of Warsaw. Behold there meets me Gregory Badowski, Councillor of the city, a witness of the miracle exhibited in himself. The plague, said he, was laying waste this our city, when I was still a boy: which holding of little account by puerile judgment, a familiarity being contracted with the son of Simon a chest-maker neighbor to our house, I played with him; and conversing with him most amicably with coaxing colloquies, I drew from him the deadly plague, with which he was now infected. The boy died the next day: me too infected the same fever seized, and produced an abscess in my body. My mother, struck with huge danger, hastened to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus; procured the most holy office of the Mass to be said as soon as possible; multiplied vows, prayers, sighs; commended my life and the whole house to him. Returned she found me, whom she had left glowing with the fever, now glad, sound, and playing. And from then the whole house remained free from all contagion, nor did any vestige of the plague appear in it afterward.

[258] Not only in his youth alone did the said Lord Gregory Badowski affirm himself heaped with the benefits of B. Ladislaus; but with much more ample ones in the following ages. But among the rest he related, how in the year of the Lord MDCIX he was struck with a grave plague of infirmity, who otherwise agonizing is preserved among the living. with the hope of prolonging life wholly laid down, so judging of himself both the physicians themselves, and all others, who well knew that state of life. Me too myself (said he) the gravity of the infirmity, the magnitude of the pains, and the weariness of life so far induced, that I commanded myself taken down from the bed to be placed on the ground, with this mind that I might hasten the term of losing life. Satisfaction was made to my will: for taken down from the bed, placed on bare straw, I was now almost at my last gasp: and into my mind came B. Ladislaus my Patron; whose patronage, in my youth afforded me, resuscitated still hope in me and raised confidence to recovering health, and life again to be restored, if only to him suppliant I should recur. Therefore in that manner and affection, which the infirmity conceded and the debility permitted, with heart and mouth I invoked his help, made a vow to visit his body, implored aid. And behold, in that very motion of my mind and heart, I felt also a change in my members; vigor was restored to me, my senses sharpened, my spirit gladdened, the power of the disease debilitated, and the grace of health restored to me, I knew. To raise me therefore from the ground I commanded, and again to be replaced in bed: where I received so great strength, that the next day I could go to the sepulcher of the same blessed man: which without delay, as I had resolved, I did. Both these miracles, digested by his own hand, he commended to posterity.

CHAPTER IX.

The remaining miracles duly deduced in judgment. The King, the Palatine of Pomerania and others healed.

[259] Beautiful is and worthy of memory, the miracle which follows. Alexander a boy, son of the Magnificent Lord Stanislaus Lezynski and Anna of Rzuchów, struck by the hidden arrow of an infirmity, lay in bed. The deadly rabidity of adverse health pressed to cut off his life; and now set in the last agony, an onset of death being made, he was snatched away, the household grieving over him. The dying boy suddenly revived in the year 1611. His mother mournful enough with the bystanders, to B. Ladislaus a vow being conceived offered him, earnestly asking, that by his benefit he might still remain in the consort of the living. The vow being emitted, the grave panting and harsh respiration, which foretold the coming of death shortly impending, concluded by a term was silent. Then the mother weeping and wailing, deeming the boy now dead, breaks forth into lamentable voices and tears; and the mournful one begins a mournful song, all the household, who then stood by, the brothers and sisters and the other domestics, singing with her the same song. Weeping, wailing, lamentation is heard. Meanwhile the boy, as if awakened from a heavy sleep, addresses his mother with these words. What is this matter, lady mother? Why do you weep? No evil has happened to me: why do you lament? At this voice all were silent, and intent held their mouths. Sudden gladness occupied all, they wiped the tears from their eyes, the lamentation ceased: the boy rose from bed: and because it was the hour of dinner, he reclined at the table; as if he never suffered anything adverse, glad he ate his food with relish. The stupendous miracle kindled the zeal of very many toward B. Ladislaus.

[260] That too which follows is to be held no less wonderful and celebrated, The Palatine of Pomerania is healed. which happened to the Most Illustrious Lord Michael Konarski, Palatine of Pomerania. He was preparing a setting out in the procuration of certain affairs of the Kingdom, the gravest causes urging it: and behold a disease suddenly rushing set an obstacle to the swift expedition, and cast the Palatine himself seized by a hard scourge into bed. The disease augmented daily cut off the hope of recovering health, brought the fear of rushing death. And now to the household had adhered a more certain opinion, of the Palatine to be taken away by death, than to be retained in life. That fame came with swift course to the Royal Court, and among others most of all struck the daughter of that Lord Palatine, existing in the women's apartment of the Queen, with vehement mourning and fear, and the paternal danger terrified her. Helen Constance was the virgin's name; who having received license from the Most Serene Queen, hastened with swift course to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus mournful, and solicitous about the health of her most loving parent. Prostrate in prayer, with affection, tears, voice, and profound sighs of the blessed man, for the alleviating of her father's health, she implored and obtained help. For at the same hour, in which the prayer at Warsaw was offered for his health, he began to be better at his home, the violent motion of the disease to cease, and gradually to be silent and the strength of the body to return to him. Thence he to wonder, whence so sudden a change and health. He rises from bed, eats, walks, runs, and enters on the proposed journey. Made more certain afterward, by whose help raised he lived, he gave thanks to God, and followed B. Ladislaus from then with wonderful veneration and observance.

[261] So many miracles, wrought by the intercession and effort of the Blessed Father Ladislaus, now being dispatched, new and new ones were supplied. There are cured pains of the head, For the process being now shut up and sealed to be transmitted to Rome, very many of their own accord thrust themselves to recognize the miracles done concerning them, and especially a certain venerable Father Albert of Czeland, Psalmist of the Parochial church of S. John the Baptist of Warsaw. He when in the year of the Lord MDCXXVII he had come to Warsaw, to be marked with the sacred order of the Subdiaconate; on a certain night going out of his lodging, fell into so great a pain of the head, such as he affirmed he had never felt in his life: he remembered to have endured no bitterer infirmity at any time of his age in his body. By the persuasion and instruction of his uterine brother, the venerable D. Peter of Czeland a Presbyter, likewise Psalmist of the same church, induced, the day dawning, he went, pressed by the greatest pain of the head, to the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, about to recite the Lord's Prayer five times. And as he entered the temple, gradually he felt the force of the disease remitted: and at length the votive prayers being discharged before the altar of B. Ladislaus, continually and plainly free from the pain of the head, he returned to his lodging.

[262] A benefit once obtained rouses hope and mind to obtaining and acquiring others, especially in necessity. The same venerable Father Albert of Czeland the Psalmist, when at a certain time by an assiduous and acute fever for more than one week he was burned; a continual fever, mindful of the former divine benefit, by the intercession of B. Ladislaus obtained, he turned his heart suppliant to him, demanding by his merits and intercessions to be freed from that disease, and vowing that as soon as he should have come to Warsaw, he would perform the most holy sacrifice of the Mass at the sepulcher of the Blessed of the Most Holy Trinity. Which done soon the fever receded, certain pustules breaking out from the head and face. Afterward he felt no pain of the head, nor sustained any trouble or vexation of fever, and fulfilled the vow.

[263] Led by the example of very many the Generous Lord Peter Zaluski, Standard-bearer of Rawa, coming to Warsaw to bear testimony to truth, freely recognized, how by the benefit of B. Ladislaus he had been freed from his most troublesome sickness. gout, In the year of the Lord MDCXXIX the gouty affliction invaded him so vehement, that the torments, which it caused in his feet, seemed to him humanly intolerable; which for three weeks had withdrawn sleep from him, nor permitted him to take food except with great difficulty; wherefore he chose rather to desire death, than longer to endure that torment. No means, no refreshment, no remedy, which even for a modest time might mitigate the magnitude of the pain was found. His consort seeing with the other domestics that the pain was intolerable, to B. Ladislaus her Patron and of her possession Gielniów, in which this holy man was born, over which she then ruled, by a simple prayer recurs, and by a vow bound her husband to visit his sepulcher. This alone remedy, this efficacious medicine against the rabidity of that disease was. For immediately after the vow emitted, as a burning flame by the sprinkling of water, the ardor and spurs of that gout were compressed and extinguished: a placid sleep following vivified the senses, invigorated the members, and made the whole sound: so that the next day, he needed no more either the bed, or any aid, made sound. Which whole by the intercession of Blessed Ladislaus he obtained, he firmly believes and proclaims.

[264] Most frequent are the miracles of B. Ladislaus in his fatherland, who if of other foreigners, but especially of his own household, has care. a lethal paralysis. The only heir now of the town of Gielniów, the fatherland and native place of the blessed man, remaining is Casimir a boy, son of the formerly deceased Generous Lord John Dunin Brzezinski and Barbara of Walowice, now son of the wife of the said Lord Peter Zaluski's second nuptials. He still existing in tender age, seized by paralysis (by which infirmity his uterine brother too in a similar age was taken away) had lost the use of the right hand and foot and of the tongue; nay imitating his brother, adhering to his vestiges, he seemed to enter the same way of all flesh: to whom now agonizing the Parish-priest of Gielniów, R. D. Matthew Silnicki, was spreading the way to heaven by appointed prayers. There came into the mind of the mother B. Ladislaus; she asks the Presbyter, that by a vow he should bind her son to the holy man. He does it without delay: and behold the boy raises his right hand, the ill-affected foot lifts up, and as he could with infant tongue forms words, raises his eyes and finally demonstrates that he has recovered the health of his whole body, sound, by the grace of God and the merits of B. Ladislaus, to this very day.

[265] Not only within the domestic walls did B. Ladislaus, clothed with the divine virtue by the holiness

of his life, exhibit the forces of his power; but most widely too he sometimes expanded them through the whole kingdom, if living, as we recounted above, much more now, when in the heavenly kingdom the egregious soldier triumphs, laureled after so many most atrocious enemies vanquished. Of this his power in his fatherland signs, both worthy and pleasant to relate, he left. In the year of Christ MDCXXV certain licentious and insolent soldiers called Lisowczycy, very many places being laid waste, and provinces, cities, towns devastated, moving their column near the town of Gielniów, sent distributors of lodgings into the town; to whom while these were denied, because they did not depend from the arm of the Commonwealth; the whole troop impetuously invaded the town, the brigands hindered at Gielniów, about to avenge the pretended injury by fire and iron. And now the noble man Andrew Rucki, fleeing to the protections of the temple, with others in the very doors of the church being cruelly slain, and many outrages in the town being perpetrated; when they wished to enter the sacred building, about to despoil and burn it, they noticed the very great icon of B. Ladislaus on the wall: by whose excessive terror struck, trembling they draw back their foot, and terrified all flee; and leaving the town, into the nearby village called Wywóz, and at Wywóz, they direct their steps and forces; there about to invade the Lady of the town, called Barbara of Walowice Brzezinska a widow, and her hall, to despoil, and to burn with fire, in vengeance of the pretended injury. Now with swift course the furious men were carried toward the hall, breathing fire; but the Lady with hers, not able to resist so great an onset, gave herself to prayer, redoubles her Patron B. Ladislaus, invokes, beseeches; that he should show himself now a true pastor, defender, protector; O miracle! When the furious soldiers had come to the cross, marked with the image of the Crucified, situated before the hall; in no way could they proceed further, and pass the limits of the cross. The cruel men agitated their horses with spurs, scourges, heels: yet they did not profit, but only were driven in a circle. They notice at length that the finger of God is here; but yet they call the power of God baleful arts and incantations of charms. It was evident therefore that this Lady had been then by the mercy of God from the fury of those enemies, by the singular intercession and help of B. Ladislaus, whom she had invoked for her aid, freed and protected.

[266] The town itself too at another time experienced the singular protection of this its holy Patron. For in the year of the Lord MDCXXVI when the epidemic plague had crept into it, and had begun to rage in the native soil of B. Ladislaus, and had now killed thirty townsmen; the inhabitants of the town instituted a devotion, in which invoking the intercession and protection of their holy Patron, [the people of Gielniów freed from the plague, assume the image of the Blessed for an arms:] they vowed themselves. Which done soon the plague ceased to rage, nor any more did any vestige of its contagion appear in the infirmity or death of anyone. Which noticing the same inhabitants, in memory of the grace received, chose him anew as Patron of the town in a singular manner. For the arms of their town, which they used from of old, being cast away, they assumed for an arms and a badge the image of B. Ladislaus religiously clothed, holding in his left hand a column with Christ bound to it, and in his right a scourge, and use it as their own.

[267] Very many other miracles were wrought through B. Ladislaus, all which to distinguish in writing would be a work of immense labor, but especially in alleviating the infirm: but still I cannot contain myself from describing one and another. There is distant from the city of Warsaw six leagues a certain noble, an egregious benefactor of the Brothers, and addicted with singular affection to the Religion of S. Francis of the Minors Observant, Lord Martin Cieciszewski; whose wife of the Chlewicki family, when she had come to the point of childbirth, began to labor with various difficulties. Many women strong in the art of midwifery were called; they performed their office; but at length noticing the difficulty, despairing they receded, deserted the woman in childbed. There had assembled some noble Ladies from divers places, about to bring help, counsel, solace to the imperiled woman; but none so efficacious was found, a woman in childbirth is freed from the danger of death. which might in any way relieve the lying woman. The judgment of all was, and the voice and opinion unanimous, that she would sooner bring forth her soul, than the conceived foetus; and therefore she must rather be prepared for such a birth, fortified with the Sacraments, and instructed with salutary arms. There was called one Father from a nearby place of the Order of the Minors Observant, that he might beget a pure virgin soul for God. He came, asks, admonishes, invites, that all bending the knee should pray for her equally with him seven Pater nosters, and should name vows for her to B. Ladislaus. Those noble women answered, that they had vowed her to other Saints, one to S. Ignatius, another to S. Hyacinth, yet had not profited anything. The Priest nevertheless insists, and bids all to be of good cheer, and exhorts to pray seven Pater nosters. His girdle-cord being laid down from himself, he surrounds the infirm woman; he himself bends, prays, binds to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus. The others prayed with him, but attended more to the agonizing woman, than to the prayer. And behold unexpectedly the woman is delivered of the birth, brings forth the conceived: there comes forth into light what tortured, racked, killed the mother: she is made free. The confused and despairing women, rejoice with the lying woman in childbed: they proclaim great the Saint B. Ladislaus, by whose benefit in so manifest a danger of life, in so arduous a case, the woman easily brought forth the hindered womb, having brought forth what was strictly shut, nor could naturally be loosed except by cutting.

[268] Now approaching the goal of our digests, that miracle here we set down, which rightly and deservedly claimed for itself the first place, both by reason of the most worthy person, in whom God showed the signs of His power and mercy, and by reason of antiquity, because by priority of time it preceded the greatest part of the writings. But we set it in the last place, led by that reason, by which an orator at the end heaps the strongest arguments of his discourse, that namely at the end at least he may effect this, which by the whole oration he could not obtain. Wladislaus Sigismund King of Poland in his youth sick, Strength therefore, authority, weight, dignity, and a crown to the examples now written, by this last miracle I intend to add. Now at length let the Most Serene Wladislaus Sigismund come, by the favoring grace of God now the present King of Poland and Sweden, elected Grand Duke of Muscovy. He in the year of the Lord MDCXII, in the very flower of his youth, seized by a most grave disease, had undergone the perilous hazard of life. The truer opinion seemed, which said he would succumb to a deadly fate, than that opinion, which promised that he would be restored to health. To so great a Prince, and to all the inhabitants of the kingdom at all times most welcome, no aids of human art were wanting: the effort and continual zeal of the physicians was free for driving off the disease: but with vain endeavor the remedies sought were applied. A sinister suspicion arose about the life of the Prince, nay his health was despaired of: death without doubt impending drew near. For in that state was the health of the Prince, that the space of one hour, for retaining life, the speech of the five Physicians who stood by him scarcely promised him. The signs too of death and the indications of failing life brought forth the same opinion. despaired of by the Physicians. Not different from the opinion of the physicians was that of the Most Serene Princess Anna, Royal virgin of Sweden, the aunt of the Most Serene this our King Wladislaus Sigismund, of whom our discourse; who although she was alien from the Catholic faith, yet for driving off diseases and curing infirmities was held fortunate. She testified, that the healing of the Prince had been miraculous, in whom all vital signs had ceased, and all mortal ones had succeeded.

[269] Therefore the health of the Prince set in so evident a danger, a certain Chaplain of the Most Serene Queen, R. D. of good memory George Cerasinus, mindful of the benefits afforded to the other infirm through B. Ladislaus, deeming that recourse must be had to him, came to the Brothers of the Warsaw Convent; to the Nuns too of S. Francis he announces the same, that the Prince was turned in extreme danger of life, deserted by the physicians, and all hope of health being cut off, hastened with swift course to the gate of death; that they should have compassion on the youthful age of the noble adolescent; should grieve with the Fatherland losing a Prince of the best expectation, imperiled of life, and falling in the very flower of youth; that the hope of the Kingdom was perishing, an illustrious nature being taken away, the expectation of all the good eluded: that they should seize the protection of prayer, set the shield of vows to B. Ladislaus the Patron of the place, demand from God with ardent devotion the aid of despaired health, commend solicitously the whole business to B. Ladislaus, and implore the help exhibited to many in a like cause. The Tertiary Nuns, with kindled candles, without delay prostrate in prayer at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, with tears poured out cried to God, and required the help of B. Ladislaus. The same zeal of devotion the Brothers exercised, all poured out in supplication, some applying themselves to celebrating sacred Masses, some affixed at the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus, by the help of B. Ladislaus he convalesced. to pouring out prayers to God, others to reciting litanies, making disciplines, chanting psalmodies. Twice they wove the same web: for the disease again relapsing, the Prince seized had undergone the same lot of dangers. So the best Prince, by the benefit of B. Ladislaus, to whom by such ardent vows he was offered, by God having mercy on him restored to health, remained free from disease. May the happy great Prince live, and for long years of age experience happy progresses of life, we all pray, augur, and vow. Be it done. Be it done.

CHAPTER X.

The conclusion of the work.

[270] In this small volume, to conclude all the miracles which God the Best and Greatest deigned to work by the intercession and merits of His servant B. Ladislaus, is impossible: to investigate, to inquire, to scrutinize about them, is too arduous; to collect witnesses, to bring them to the office, to produce the miracles in judgment, to prove, to demonstrate, to discern the true from the false, is a work of intolerable labor, trouble, difficulty, solicitude. The infirmities of various persons cured: Therefore very many related by simple report we have on purpose omitted, although we knew for certain them to be most true. Of that number was the wife of the noble Lord Nicholas Czosnowski, who long infirm without hope of recovering health, by a vow to B. Ladislaus through a certain devout virgin, dwelling at Warsaw, her kinswoman, being bound, suddenly convalesced, with her vehement admiration: for she knew not, lying in the village, what was being done for her at Warsaw. Which likewise at another time to her husband then too and to her daughter to have happened, with sure faith it was related. A certain woman too, of the village of Białołęka, called Marina Łabęciowa, for fourteen weeks vexed by a grave and incurable infirmity, by a vow named to B. Ladislaus, was cured. Not to be passed over Lady Hedwig Zawadzka, who, death brandishing in her its lethal darts, snatched from danger, and made sound, when she had recurred by devout prayers and a vow to B. Ladislaus. Lo there is the Noble Lady Krosnowska, who from a malign fever having suffered detriment in sense and reason, by the same remedy was healed. benefits afforded to very many, Very many houses from the danger of the plague, even whole villages and cities; then various persons in very many places, covered with this shield, remained safe. Many women were relieved of the difficulty of childbirth: some from the dangers of robbers, rivers, journeys, B. Ladislaus being invoked escaped free. Others in the difficulties of affairs, contentions, dissensions

of law, committing themselves to the protection of B. Ladislaus, were consoled; and recognizing the benefits, carried silver tablets and other signs under that name to the sepulcher of B. Ladislaus. Yet more, which is to be grieved, withdrawn by an inordinate shame and modesty, lest they should betray their defects, which they wish to be hidden, are silent about the benefits received from the Blessed: others terrified by the difficulty, that testimonies are not to be deposited except an oath being taken, do not bring them to those to whom it pertains to know and approve the miracles done: the rest, benefits being received, by the merits of B. Ladislaus, partly through unskillfulness, partly through negligence, partly on account of the distance of the place, the difficulty of the journey and various other causes, are silent about them.

[271] Let it suffice to have brought forth these things at this first impulse, for having some knowledge of the holiness of this servant of God B. Ladislaus our Patron, that the people may the more confidently know how to invoke his holy help, and avail to the greater glory of God, and the honor of B. Ladislaus; whose holiness would that quickly might shine forth to the Holy Church of God, and be crowned with the glory of Canonization, and profit us imploring his help and patronage! Happy fatherland, happy city, most happy kingdom, which lacks not its Patrons, who set themselves a shield against the fury of the avenging God. Let them refresh their memory; of the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and six and seven, and the intestine motions stirred in this most flourishing kingdom of Poland; Poland aided by its Patrons in the year 1606 and 1607 in an intestine war, how atrociously it was agitated by most turbulent dissensions, discords, dissidences; when wholly in arms, to the most certain destruction, God so permitting, it was borne by an onset; so that not only the inhabitants, but also the other foreign nations, augured nothing but its destruction. This judgment was not vain nor specious. For at Rome in the same course of time there was a certain Father, B. Bartholomew Salutius, of the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance, then still existing among the living, a holy man, most celebrated still in life for miracles, of whose Canonization treatment is now had at Rome. He in a vision divinely exhibited to him, beheld this Kingdom of Poland, filled with infernal powers, striving by their stygian arts to prepare it for destruction; to whom the splendid Crown of the Holy Patrons of the Kingdom most strongly opposing itself, so resisted, that the forces of those darknesses being utterly broken, and their arts dissolved, soon easily and not unhappily, concord, love, and peace were restored, persevering holily even to this day. He is reported, that Father exulting, to have exclaimed: O Poland! many and strong Patrons thou hast, who if they had not now succored thee, into thy miserable downfall through the tartarean powers, made for thy destruction, led, thou wouldst now have passed.

[272] Why should I not say the same of the other dangers more often impending over our Kingdom of Poland? Let the provident reader remember, a few years interposed, in how great perils of its safety our fatherland was turned; why not also in the year 1622 against the Turks? when the Ottoman or Osman Emperor of the Turks, in the year of the Lord MDCXXII against it six hundred thousand, a most powerful and in these ages utterly unheard-of army, that he might storm it stirred with ardent fury, take away its liberty, delete the Christian name in it, subdue it to his most ferocious command, had led. Let him remember at the same time, that of Isaiah XLII and with a pious mind recall, Upon thy walls, Jerusalem, I have set watchmen, all the day and all the night for ever they shall not be silent. And who are these watchmen? not only by the Angels, The Angel-presidents applied by God to men I would say. Well indeed: for God has given His Angels charge over thee, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone, Psal. xc. Which also clearly Eliseus the Prophet, by his prayer obtained from the Lord, that Giezi his servant should behold the strong army of the Syrians, in the neighborhood now encamped round about, fearing exceedingly. For the Prophet praying for him, he saw: And behold the mountain full of horses and fiery chariots round about. IV Kings VI. Zacharias too in chapter II raising his eyes, saw Angels around Jerusalem going forth, and meeting one another. In sum the Lord Himself in Baruch VI with most brilliant words testifies this truth: My Angel is with you, but I myself will require your souls.

[273] But indeed this too no one can deny, that we should affirm the holy Patrons of places, cities, kingdoms, to be these watchmen. A most illustrious example offers itself in II Macc. XV, but also defended by them, may it be said? the most strong Leader Judas relating his vision in these words. Onias, who was the high Priest, a good and benign man, modest of look, gentle of morals, and decorous of speech, and who from a boy had been exercised in virtues, stretching forth his hands praying for all the people of the Jews. There follows another in the same place. After this another man appeared, admirable in age and glory, and of great comeliness in the habitude about him; but Onias answering said, This is the lover of his brethren and of the people of Israel; this is he who prays much for the people and the whole holy city, Jeremiah the Prophet of God. Very many other similar examples being omitted; here in our fatherland the most holy Patron Florian was once seen to defend his people of Kleparz from the flames of fires, as formerly were seen SS. Florian and Casimir, consuming the neighboring houses, and to extinguish those ardors. S. Casimir, born of a Royal bed, son of Casimir Jagellonides King of Poland, was beheld to have borne, after his happy death, a royal mind toward his Lithuanian nation, whose great Duchy he had holily administered, when to the army of his people proceeding against the Muscovite, showing himself visible, he afforded a leadership, sitting on a white horse, glorious preceding the very column by taking the way; in the most evident sign of victory, which soon followed, the enemies being turned to flight from fear.

[274] Of no less merit indeed with all-powerful God, and of singular affection toward his Fatherland, is to be deemed our B. Ladislaus of Gielniów; and equal to them B. Ladislaus. who as we related above, showed himself not only to private persons an intercessor with God and a helper in necessities, but also of the whole city of Warsaw, nay of the whole kingdom a pious Patron, Custodian, Protector, and Defender. O would that grateful for so great benefits received from him we all might show ourselves; whom God Himself honors, we too may not only follow him with condign reverence, but that also holy mother Church may quickly set him before us referred among the Saints, conspicuous, and to be cultivated with the cult of the Saints, with all zeal, work, solicitude, let us care, referring all things to the praise of almighty God; who be in His Saints blessed for ever.

PRAYER

To Blessed Ladislaus.

O happy Father, B. Ladislaus, amiable Father, O ornament of the Catholic Church, most fervent cultivator and zealot of Divine praise, director and singular protector of chaste souls, subduer of evil temptations after Christ and His Angels, Rector and faithful Patron of Warsaw. Come, take me and all my affairs, the holy Church of God, the Kingdom and all its orders, our Religion, and especially this province, my kinsmen, friends and benefactors, the city, and this place, into thy special tutelage and direction. In temptations, by thy pious prayers protect us; the enemies visible and invisible all repress and subdue, in tribulations console us and strengthen: a salubrious and fertile air, and also for our friends and enemies charity and concord obtain: this fatherland, with all dwelling in it, from all plague, famine and war, the ferocity and power of enemies, preserve unharmed: besides me and all my friends, with their afflictions, infirmities, sadnesses, and whatever indigences, to thee through the vision of the Divine Majesty known, I commend and resign: that all fleeing to thy singular intercession and protection, the grace of God almighty in the present life, and in the future the heavenly glory may avail to obtain. Through Christ our Lord.

APPENDIX

An authentic miracle of the year MDCLXIII.

Ladislaus of Gielniów, of the Order of the Minors of the Observance at Warsaw (B.)

FROM A MS.

[276] What of this Blessed is still desired. Thus far the Life, as it was printed in the year MDCXXXIII: which seeing to be extracted from the Processes, I did not doubt but that several other miracles were contained in the same, here omitted for the sake of brevity. I asked therefore the Guardian of the place, that not only the old monuments about this Blessed should be described for me, but also a supplement of miracles to be collected from the aforesaid processes should he procure; and to these add the rest, which from the year of the said edition I persuaded myself many things had happened, and with equal zeal had been annotated; nay also the effigy of the Blessed himself, which at num. 135 is said to be had engraved on the sepulchral stone, I asked to be delineated to the life, which could be engraved on copper for the memory of posterity. And of some image indeed (yet not of that which is there described) a delineation he sent, and that so rude, how his image is painted. that I despaired that anything good could be made from it: but a miracle only he sent, one. The miracle I shall presently transcribe: of the image this I would say, that there is painted in it B. Ladislaus with a radiant sun above his head, and with arms spread; so that the right hand holds an erect scourge, horrid with goads affixed to the extremities of the hanging parts; the left, a long and round column, and to it bound by hands and feet the effigy of the naked Christ. But in the recess of the tablet itself, on the right is discerned the same Blessed, kneeling on a hill, far from the city of Warsaw to put to flight an immane and flame-vomiting dragon, by which the contagion of the pestilent disease, which he is narrated to have repelled in the Life num. 150, the added writing signified. In a similar recess on the left, above the Warsaw (as the added name indicates) city, an iris drawn in the air has a figure sitting on it, brandishing a thunderbolt with one hand, holding a cross with the other: one would say it was Christ the angry judge, did not the explanation make one doubt by which it is said, Preaching the passion of Christ he is raised in the air: it seems therefore the Blessed himself too here is expressed: and the whole composition is such, that a larger altar tablet a painting of this kind could fill. The miracle, which I said, in proving form was thus transmitted.

[277] In the year of the Lord MDCLXIII, on Friday, the XX day of the month of July, Before the Official of Warsaw the Brothers of the Convent of S. Anne, at Warsaw before the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend D. Matthew Jagodowicz, Doctor of Both Laws, Apostolic Protonotary, Canon of Płock, Warsaw, Pułtusk, Vicar in spirituals and general Official of Warsaw and through the Duchy of Mazovia, Secretary of His Royal Majesty, sitting personally for the Tribunal to render the laws, there appearing the Religious, Francis of Warsaw, Master of Novices of the Convent of the Friars Minor of Warsaw at S. Anne of the Order of S. Francis of the Observance; and Elzearius Babski, Tertiary of the same convent, present in their own and in the names of the whole aforesaid Convent; a certain vision or apparition, made divinely to the same above-said Religious Elzearius, verified by the oath of the same Religious Elzearius bodily taken, conceived in writing below written, or an instrument of the miraculous recovery of the lost

sense of hearing, exhibit an instrument to be published, subscribed by the hands of the Religious Fathers Sigismund Janowski Guardian, Bonaventure of Mlacin Vicar, and of the other Brothers of the same Convent, and fortified with the seal of the Convent, for obtaining all better faith and effect and the strength of perpetual firmness, judicially exhibited: which to be admitted, and for the perpetual memory of the matter in all and each of its points, clauses, and articles universally, to be approved, confirmed, ratified, the strength of ordinary authority and perpetual firmness equally and a decree thereupon to be set, letters of approbation and confirmation and any other necessary ones to be decreed and given out; and the rest for the effect of the premises by law opportune to be done and sentenced, with due instance they asked and demanded. And the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord general Official of Warsaw and through the Duchy of Mazovia above-named, the petition of the instants being heard, the writing produced by them, authentic and making faith, to me the undersigned Notary publicly to be read and published gave, of the following tenor namely.

[278] In the year from the birth of the Virgin MDCLXIII, when the solemn Octave of the Visitation of the most blessed Virgin Mary, at her building, of Fr. Elzearius, his Tertiary, situated in the new city of Warsaw, was being performed; wonderful benefits concerning his despaired health, on the part of the wholly lost sense of hearing, conferred by the Most Blessed Virgin and B. Ladislaus, Fr. Elzearius Babski experienced, of the Rule of S. Francis in the Warsaw Convent at S. Anne, of the Order of the Friars Minor of Regular observance, commonly called Tertiary, on the VIII day of July then current. For from affliction and a more lasting pain of the head, on the IV day of July, who suddenly made wholly deaf, about the time of the common refection, so unexpectedly and violently he was made deaf, that he could hear neither voices, nor clamors, nor any noise; but only by nods or in writing for opportunity he had to be informed. Wearied of which affection the afflicted Brother aforesaid, began to despair of the help of human aid. Wherefore he resolved to visit the building of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary for the VIII day of July: but meanwhile in the time he supplicates B. Ladislaus, that by his intervention he would deign to conciliate for him the grace of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God. And because then by the concourse of the whole Clergy and people of the whole city of Warsaw a solemn procession, with triumph and most glad applause, to the building of the most blessed Virgin in the new city of Warsaw was instituted, for thanksgiving on the part of the dissolved knot of the bound army, the help of the B. Virgin being implored through the prayers of B. Ladislaus, and the restored peace within the bowels of the fatherland of the kingdom of Poland; this Fr. Elzearius satisfying his vow deeming it the best occasion, asks license from the most Venerable Father Custos, that together in the procession with the Brothers he might be permitted to visit the church of the most blessed Virgin: but hindered by the unfitness of his debility, by the discreet judgment of the Superior he is detained: the vow yet to be fulfilled in desire he does not give up, but for the solemn Octave of the Visitation of the most blessed Virgin disposes.

[279] The Brothers returning after the procession, asked Fr. Elzearius sitting at table by signs and nods, whether he had heard the sound and roar of the cannons, discharged in honor of the triumph: but he answered that in this part, as deaf, he was ignorant of what had been done. At length he reclined at table for the common refection: and the dinner finished, soon with a sadder and pale countenance, as if half-dead, he seemed to the Brothers: and rising from the table, he has this one and that one conspicuous in a vision, from debility collapsing, having gone out of the refectory, sat down in the ambulatory of the cloister: and soon by such a vision in waking, at the second hour of the afternoon, he is recreated. He sees with a comely countenance, in the Regular habit of the Friars Minor, a religious man, mature in age, venerable in appearance, with a Virgin associated to him at his right, refulgent in form and decorous dress, marked with a golden diadem, the hairs of her head parted, walking in the ambulatory of the cloister: whose so mutual conversation from both sides soon the same Brother Elzearius began to censure, interrogating with these words the Religious appearing before his eyes; I would wish to know Your Paternity, who he is, and whence he is? It appears that he is not of our province, since to discourse with Virgins through the ambulatory of the cloister is not in the manner usual to our Fathers: nay it is unbecoming, nor lawful here for any women to enter. To whom from then (as is believed) B. Ladislaus answering, said, Dost thou not even know me? Who answers, that he never knew him. To whom meanwhile B. Ladislaus says; by whom he is made more certain of recovering his hearing, Dost thou not know where my bones rest? and he added, I am one inhabitant of this place and Patron. Which words heard, wholly into stupor, from reverence and fear, Fr. Elzearius aforenamed was turned; daring yet to interrogate, who that Virgin associated to him at his right was. To whom the Virgin herself in her own person answered. Who I may be do not inquire, but know that from now thou shalt receive thy hearing. And Fr. Elzearius answered: Indeed, O Virgin, now I best hear and perceive those things which you confer among yourselves. Whom at once the most glorious Virgin exhorted with these words: Satisfy then thy vow, and visit my church as thou hast promised, and henceforth with sharp and good hearing thou shalt be strong.

[280] These discourses finished that vision disappeared; and in the head of Fr. Elzearius there was made so great a crash and most intense sound, that within the cranium of his head he thought some cannon had been discharged. soon he proves himself healed to the Brothers, These things performed rising from the place, he came to the Brothers, wishing to prove whether he could hear those things which they spoke among themselves. But they ignorant of the event of the matter, by nods only and signs declared their meaning to him. But he, as now strong with the best hearing, forewarned them that they should now answer him by voice and not by signs, since now, by the favor of the most blessed Virgin and the intervention of B. Ladislaus, he confessed that he heard best: and the whole series and event of the matter he soon narrated to them: and required by the Superior, and on bent knees adjured, the truth of the matter with good conscience, upon all and each of the things which he had seen and which had happened to him, he confessed. On the third day at length in turn of gratitude by the oblation of a Mass, for the thanksgiving of so great a benefit obtained, at the building of the most blessed Virgin Mary, situated in the new city of Warsaw, presently visiting he appeared. fulfilling the vow made to the B. Virgin; Which that they happened done in that series, sound he recognizes, to the greater honor of the Virgin Mother of God Mary, and to attest the faithful patronage of B. Ladislaus. In faith of all and each of which, we the Discreets, present, with the seal of the convent fortified, with our hands have subscribed. Given in our Convent of the Friars Minor of regular observance of S. Francis on the XIX day of the month of July in the year of the Lord MDCLXIII.

Fr. Sigismund Janowski, Custos and Guardian of Warsaw with his own hand. Fr. Bonaventure of Mlacin Vicar of the place with his own hand. Fr. Benedict Bilinski with his own hand. Fr. Francis of Warsaw, Master of Novices with his own hand. Fr. Adrian Costenus, Preacher of the nuns and Penitentiary with his own hand.

[281] After which publication, the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend D. general Official aforenamed, and the aforesaid all to be true under oath confirms. although indeed that same Religious Elzearius Babski, his recognition of this kind in the hands of the Discreet Fathers of the aforesaid Convent gathered had proved by oath; nevertheless yet for the greater firmness and subsistence of the truth of this kind, this same his assertion the said Religious Elzearius, by an official oath in the presence of the undersigned witnesses to verify he commanded. Which Religious Elzearius forthwith, upon all and each of the premises, a bodily oath, two fingers placed upon the image of the Crucified and on bent knees, judicially took in this formula. I Fr. Elzearius Babski, of the Order of S. Francis of the Observance of the Warsaw Convent at S. Anne a Tertiary, swear to God almighty, one in trinity, that all and each which in this paper schedule, from my true and faithful relation, are noted and written, are not vain or feigned, but really and undoubtedly and presently done: and that not in dreams, a phantasm, or a wandering of mind; but to me being of sound judgment, good memory, and right reason an apparition of this kind exhibited itself. So I recognize and so I assert, under the damnation of my soul; and so may God help me and His holy Passion.

[282] And from then the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend D. general Official and Judge above-named, the Official approving in the presence of witnesses, from the heard and well understood and maturely weighed and diligently balanced and considered narration of the inserted vision, and its juratory verification, by the same Fr. Elzearius aforesaid made, to admit the same, and in all and each of its points, articles and contents by ordinary authority to be approved, confirmed, ratified, the strength of the same authority and perpetual firmness equally and a decree thereupon to be set he judged; as indeed, in the name of the Lord, for the perpetual memory of the matter, he admitted, approved and confirmed and ratified, set the strength of ordinary authority equally and a decree, and decreed by his sentence that it ought to obtain the force of perpetual and inviolable firmness, and ordered the letters of approbation and confirmation to be given out, there being present the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Paul Klosowicz Doctor of Both Laws Apostolic Protonotary, Canon of Płock, Warsaw, Kielce, Pułtusk; Luke Zakrzewski, Commendatary of the Particular of Łowicz; Stanislaus Kaminski, Vice-Dean; Adam Wladislaus Sienkiewicz, perpetual Vicar of the ancient Collegiate church of Warsaw; then the Religious Gaspar Sargha of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Francis of Jesus-Mary and Sigismund … professed of the Fathers of the pious Schools of the Mother of God of the Warsaw Convent, and very many other witnesses assisting at this Act, and me Paul Augustine Pfzonha, public by Apostolic authority and of the Consistory of Warsaw for that time Notary.

[283] Extracted from the Acts of the Consistory of Warsaw, and fortified with the seal of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend D. Matthew Jagodowicz, Doctor of Both Laws Apostolic Protonotary, of Warsaw, as appears from the authentic copy. Canon of Pułtusk, Vicar in spirituals and general Official of Warsaw and through the Duchy of Mazovia, Secretary of the Royal and Reginal Majesties.

✠ Andrew Alexander Groszkiewski, Apostolic and of the causes of the Episcopal Curia of Poznań, as also Notary Actuary of the Consistory of Warsaw, Secretary of His Royal Majesty with his own hand.