THE APOSTLE OF YOUTH
cause I had committed the 'imprudence' of accompanying Don Bosco on a visit to the lazaretto. Don Bosco was requested by the doctors to visit me and to administer the last Sacraments. He came to my bedside. I remember him yet, just as if I saw him here this moment.
"'Which is better for you,' he asked me, 'to get well or to go to Paradise?'
"To go to Paradise, I replied.
"Very well,' he added. 'But the Madonna wishes you to be cured this time. You will get well. You will be a priest. And you will take your breviary and travel far, far, far.'
"A stupendous vision then opened before the eyes of the Father. Drawing near to my bed (he was to recount it only after thirty-five years) he saw it surrounded by a savage people of tall stature and fierce aspect, of copper-colored skin and with thick black hair tied by a string at the forehead. He did not know then to what race these figures belonged; and only later on he opened in secret a manual of geography and found there that they belonged to the type of Patagonians. To the mind of the Father there then opened out a vision of that immense region, which he foretold would be rich in minerals, in industries, in factories, in railways, blessed by the precious gift of the Christian faith through the labors and the blood of his own spiritual family.
"I certainly got well. In that moment the fever left me. And I did not even receive the Sacra-
45
