He often went to carry consolation to prisoners, and sometimes accompanied
condemned criminals to the place of execution, that he might help them to
make a good death.
At such times, too, he kept to the methods we have already described as
used by him in his visiting of the rest of the dying. After having made
them unburden their conscience, he left them a little breathing space, and
then at intervals suggested to them acts of faith, hope, and charity, of
repentance, of resignation to the Will of God, and of abandonment to His
mercy; not adding to their sufferings by importunity, long harangues, or
endless exhortations.
So happily did the Blessed Prelate succeed in this method of treatment,
that sometimes the poor criminals whom he accompanied to their execution
went to it as to a marriage feast, with joy and peace, such as they had
never experienced in the whole course of their lawless and sinful lives,
happier far so to die than to live on as they had done. "It is," he would
say to them, "by lovingly kissing the feet of God's justice that we most
surely reach the embrace of His tender mercy.
"Above all things, we must be confident that they who trust in Him shall
never be confounded."