The Good Humor of the Saints [pp. 127-138]

1882.] TllE GOOD HUMOR OF THE SAJArTS. 131
pipe; fourth, a pair of shoes; total, four. Bed, none; chairs, none; table,
none. Such being my furniture, am I richer or poorer than the prophet?
This is a problem which is perhaps not easy to solve; for, admitting that
his room was more comfortable than mine, we must also consider that
none of the furniture belonged to him; whilst in my case, granting that
the candlestick belongs to the chapel and that the trunk was lent to me
by Mgr. Berneux, it cannot be denied that at least the pipe and shoes are
mine. The latter I only put on to say Mass in. As to the pipe, it serves
to keep one in countenance when travelling in a country where every one
smokes, though I have not succeeded in discovering any charm in it, and
have even been intoxicated by it after two experiments, which has quite
taken away from me the desire of making a third."
~Iere indeed is "holy simplicity," mixed with a keen and what
Father Faber would call an "honest" sense of humor which no
doubt helped its owner to endure the many hardships of his lot.
He makes no mournful parade of his tribulations, but tells them
with amusing frankness and with a real appreciation of the
comic side of poverty. Now to see the comedy in such situations when we read of them is possible to us all; but to see it jn
relation to our own trials requires more sanctity and a gayer heart
than most of us can lay claim to. It is no wonder that Bishop
Berneux, whose palace was "a room three yards long and two
wide," should quote Father F6ron with evident deJight in one
of his own letters to France. He had sent the holy and witty
priest to a post where "he had a better chance of finding pro~
visions than elsewhere," in consideration of his being a newcomer. But Father F~rnn is plainly anything but struck with
the sense of plenty, and writes to the bishop that, "compared
with Corean missioners, the Trappists are complete Sybarites";
adding, however, that he willingly accepts this "ultra-Trappist
regimen" and expects to become quite habituated to it before
long. And, indeed, those priests who were brave enough to select China for their field of action had ample opportunities to
grow "habituated "to every description of hardship, beginning
with exile and ending often with impflsonment, protracted sufferings, and death.
Whenever we see the lives of holy men written with that
accuracy of d~ail which is only possible when they have been
really known and loved by their biographers, we are apt to find
little traits of humor lurking in their every-day actions and
in their ordinary conversations. In such histories we are not
merely treated to a synopsis of the saint's or hero's many virtues,
recorded with`a systematic precision that dulls the mind and discourages the soul, but we are permitted to enter into his life and