Don Bosco would give complete
liberty to everyone to ask questions, expose burdens, defend himself or make
excuses. One day on being asked by one of his priests why he was so kind, he
replied jokingly in an attempt to gloss over his virtue, "do you know what
cleverness means? To know how to act the good-natured man! That is just how I
act I let them say all they want to say. I listen to one, I listen to another,
taking note of every word; afterwards in deciding I take everything into
account and thus come to know everything perfectly."
The pupils, in coming to speak
to him, never omitted anything demanded by good manners or by the reverence due
to a superior. Don Bosco irreproachable in himself as regards cleanliness of
person, demanded the same nearness from others. All the boys knew that when one
of them went to see him, the first thing he would do was to examine their coat,
collar and shoes and if he did not find them clean and orderly, he would at
once send them away to clean them. Therefore they always used to go to see him
in such a way that Don Bosco never could find cause for complaint. When they
entered his room Don Bosco used to receive them with the same respect as he
would have shown in receiving great lords. He would invite them to sit on the
sofa while he would sit at his table and listen with the greatest attention to
whatever they had to say as if it were the most important thing in the world.
Sometimes he would get up and walk up and down with them in the room. At the
end of their chat he would accompany them right in to the door, open it himself
and on parting with them would say: "henceforth we shall always be
friends."
One cannot imagine - the
discretion and wisdom Don Bosco possessed in giving opportune pieces of advice,
which if put into practice used to produce wonderful and beneficial
effects.
How many vocations had their birth in that room!
How many good boys were made better during those visits. One day he asked a
good boy: "would you like to make a bargain with me?" "What kind
of a bargain?" "I will tell you another time." The boy passed a
whole week full of curiosity and at the end of it on going to confession to Don
Bosco his first question was: "tell me, what bargain you wanted to make
with me?" "And tell me" replied Don Bosco "would you
willingly stay here in the Oratory in order to be with Don Bosco always?"
"Only too willingly" replied the boy without understanding however
what this proposal implied. "All right, go to Don Rua and tell him I want
to sign a contract with you." The boy immediately went to carry out the
message of Don Bosco. Don Rua himself did not understand at first what was
meant, then on realizing, he brought him to a conference which Don Bosco was
giving to the Salesian confreres. The boy attended this and many others. Later
he became a novice of the congregation and became a zealous Salesian priest
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