United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


When you can say to yourself as you lay your head on the pillow at night, 'I have not sat in judgment on another man's work; I have given pain to no one; I have not used the edge of my wit to deal a stab to some harmless soul; I have sacrificed no one's success to a jest; I have not even troubled the happiness of imbecility; I have not added to the burdens of genius; I have scorned the easy triumphs of epigram; in short, I have not acted against my convictions, is not this a viaticum that gives one daily strength?"

But no matter; when we are hungry we shall rest in the shade, and you will find in my knapsack the usual viaticum apples and a crust of bread. The month of May is near; the Sisyphus should have appeared.

When you can say to yourself as you lay your head on the pillow at night, 'I have not sat in judgment on another man's work; I have given pain to no one; I have not used the edge of my wit to deal a stab to some harmless soul; I have sacrificed no one's success to a jest; I have not even troubled the happiness of imbecility; I have not added to the burdens of genius; I have scorned the easy triumphs of epigram; in short, I have not acted against my convictions, is not this a viaticum that gives one daily strength?"

A faint gleam of light from the setting sun, away on our port bow, shone through a mist of cloud that obscured the horizon to windward; and, as this disappeared, the skipper came to the end of the viaticum, when, at a signal from the boatswain, the plank was tipped and poor Jackson's body was committed to the deep with a sigh of regret at his untimely end, and the devout hope that though his earthly voyage had been cut short, he might yet reach that haven where there are no accidents nor shipwrecks, and where seas swallow not up, or stormy winds blow!

Now all of you who have hitherto followed the story of this great journey, put out of your minds the Alps and the passes and the snows postpone even for a moment the influence of the happy dawn and of that South into which I had entered, and consider only this truth, that I found myself just out of Faido on this blessed date of God with eight francs and forty centimes for my viaticum and temporal provision wherewith to accomplish the good work of my pilgrimage.

Don Clemente's arrival at that point gave him a moment of relief. "Now," he told himself, "he will help me." But, on the contrary, things were worse than ever. When he had heard Don Clemente's sad message the strange priest exclaimed: "You see! That is how these miracles end. You must not enter that heretic's house with the holy viaticum, unless he has first left it, and left it never to return."

Some time elapsed, perhaps an hour, perhaps more. The church grew lighter; the rain seemed to be stopping. It struck four o'clock. Don Clemente entered the church, followed by Maria and Giovanni who were glad to find Noemi there, for they had not known where she was. The sacristan, who knew Don Clemente, came forward. "Dunque? The viaticum?" The viaticum?

"Christians, gather here to assist in the ceremony of extreme unction which we are about to administer to the mistress of this house," he said, "you who join your prayers to those of the Church and intercede with God to obtain from Him her eternal salvation, you are now to learn that she does not feel herself worthy, in this, her last hour, to receive the holy viaticum without having made, for the edification of her fellows, a public confession of the greatest of her sins.

But then the Holy Communion is called by another name; it is called the Viaticum, and the priest uses a different prayer in giving it to the sick person. When a person dies, he goes, as it were, on a journey from this world to the next. Now, when persons are going on a journey they must have food to strengthen them.

Lorenzo outwardly conformed in his dying hours to the rites of the Catholic Church. He received the viaticum kneeling, he repeated the responses in an earnest and fervent tone, and then, when he felt that the grains in the hour-glass of life were running out, he pressed a crucifix to his lips and so passed within the veil.