THE VENERABLE DON BOSCO
your orphans, my fortune has become double what it was before." Another of our benefactors, Major Cotta, who frequently brought us an offering would often say: "The more money I bring you for your works of charity, the more I prosper in my own affairs. I find by experience that the Lord returns me, even in this world, the hundredfold of that which I give you for His sake." This excellent Christian was one of our foremost benefactors until, at the age of eighty-six, God called him to eternal life to bestow upon him the joys of Heaven in recompense for his charity here below.
Feeble and exhausted though I am, I feel I could never cease speaking to you and commending to your care those poor children of mine, whom I shall soon have to leave; but I must bring my words to a close and lay my pen aside.
Farewell, my generous Benefactors! my dear Co-operators, Farewell! Amongst you there are many, whom in this life, I have never been able to see. Let such find their consolation in the thought that in Paradise we shall all of us know each other, and that throughout all eternity we shall rejoice together over the good which, with the assistance of God's grace, we have been able to accomplish in this world, in behalf more especially of poor children.
If through the merits of Jesus Christ and the protection of Mary, Help of Christians, God in His Divine mercy shall deem me worthy of being ad-
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