During this year my stupidity augmented and reduced me to a state next to folly, and it was my delight to be treated as a fool.

One day, when my fellow-students were treating me as such, and throwing earth at me, an ancient father, venerated for his gifts and virtues, suddenly turned around to them and with emotion exclaimed, 'You treat him as a fool and despise him; the day will come when you will think it an honor to kiss his hand.' At the expiration of the second year (at Wittem) the question came up again, what was to be done with me.

My superior put this question to me, and demanded of me under obedience to tell him in writing how, in my belief, God intended to employ me in the future.

Though the answer to this question was no secret to me, yet to express it while in a condition of such utter helplessness required me to make an act of great mortification.

There was no escape, and my reply was as follows: It seemed to me in looking back at my career before becoming a Catholic that Divine Providence had led me, as it were by the hand, through the different ways of error and made me personally acquainted with the different classes of persons and their wants, of which the people of the United States is composed, in order that after having made known to me the truth, He might employ me the better to point out to them the way to His Church.