Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 627

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Life of Father G. Magaillans.

Nov.

'Three years

before his death, the wounds which he received in his feet, when he was put upon the rack, broke out again, which he en dured with an extraordinary patience. Two mouths before he died, these pains were accompanied with defluxions that stopped his respira- tion, so that he was constrained to sleep sitting up in a chair for fear of being choked; which was the reason that many times he never shut his eyes for several nights together. He wanted for no- thing during his sickness, but no remedies could surmount the force of the distemper, which daily increased; so that upon the sixth of May, in the year 1677, between six and seven o'clock in the evening, as he sat in his chair, and the distemper still urging with more vio- lence, he sent for the fathers who gave him the viaticum and ex- treme unction, after he had some days before made a general confes- sion. And so about eight o'clock, he placidly surrendered his soul to his Creator, in the presence of all the fathers, the servants, the neigh- bors, and the several Christian mandarins, who could not forbear weeping at his departure. The next day father Verbiest, now vice- president of the mission, went betimes in the morning to give notice to the king of the death of the father. The prince bid him return home, whither he in a very short time would send him his own orders what to do. Accordingly within half an hour, he sent three persons the most considerable in his court, with an eulogy in honor of the fa- ther, two hundred taels, or about thirty-three pounds, and ten great pieces of damask for his shroud, with a command to perform all the customary ceremonies before the corpse of the deceased, and to be- wail him after the usual manner, which the two messengers did, shed- ding a great number of tears in the presence of the whole assembly. The eulogy which the king gave the father was in these words: "I understand that Ngan Yuensoo (for by that name they called the father in China) has died of a distemper. I make him this writing, in consideration that while my father lived, who was the first emperor of our family, this same holy person by his ingenious pieces of art delighted the genius and humor of my father; aud for that after they were invented he took care to preserve them with an extraordinary industry, and beyond his strength. But more especially for that he came from a region so far distant, and on the other side of the sea to abide several years in China. He was a man truly sincere and of a solid wit, as he made appear during the whole course of his life. I was in good hopes his disease might have been overcome by reme- dies. But contrary to my expectation he is removed for ever from us, to the great sorrow and sensible grief of my heart. For that reason,