Judging from outward appearances, from the vigour of his frame, from his
sound constitution, and from the temperate simplicity of his manner of
life, it seemed probable that Blessed Francis would live to an advanced
age.
One day I said as much to him, he being at that time about forty-two or
forty-three years old. "Ah!" he replied with a sigh, "the longest life is
not always the best. The best is that which has been best spent in the
service of God," adding these words of David: _Woe is me that my sojourning
is prolonged; I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar, my soul hath
been long a sojourner._[1] I thought he was secretly grieving over his
banishment from his See, his beloved Geneva (he always called it thus),
wrapped in the darkness of error, and I quoted to him the words: _Upon the
rivers of Babylon there we sat, and wept._[2]
"Oh! no," he answered, "it is not that exile which troubles me. I am only
too well off in our city of refuge, this dear Annecy. I meant the exile of
this life on earth. As long as we are here below are we not exiled from
God? _While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord._[3] _Unhappy
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace
of God by Jesus Christ._"[4]
I ventured in reply to remind him how much he had to make his life happy:
how his friends esteemed him, how even the very enemies of religion
honoured him, how all who came in contact with him delighted in his
society.
"All that," he answered, "is beneath contempt. Those who had sung Hosanna
to the Son of God three days later cried out _Crucifige_. Such things
do not make my life any dearer to me. If I were told that I should live
as long again as I have already done, and that without pain, without
law-suits, without trouble, or inconveniences of any kind, but with all
the content and prosperity men desire in life, I should be sadly disturbed
in mind! Of what small account are not the things of time to him who is
looking forward to a blessed Eternity! I have always praised the words of
the Blessed Ignatius de Loyola, 'Oh! how vile and mean earth appears to me
when I meditate upon and look up to heaven.'"
[Footnote 1: Psalm cxix.]
[Footnote 2: Psalm cxxxvi. 1.]
[Footnote 3: Cor. v. 6.]
[Footnote 4: Rom. vii. 24-35.]