It was already seven o’clock, the weather was cold and the whole place was shrouded in a heavy fog, turning into a misty rain. One evening in autumn I was returning from Sommariva del Bosco and had reached Carmagnola where I had an hour’s wait from my train to Turin. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be our help in life and at our death and keep us safely on the road that leads to heaven. May Divine Providence, which instructs human beings by the lives of old sinners as well as young saints, grant us all the grace to find ourselves prepared at that last moment, the moment upon which depends a happy or unhappy eternity. I do nothing more than write down what happened under the gaze of a whole crowd of living individuals who can be questioned about the authenticity of what I have written. Every reader, anyway, is aware of the truth of these incidents.
But just because they are uncommon I felt that they merited being written down. You will also come upon certain acts of virtue, expressions that seem beyond a fourteen-year-old boy. You will find here many things you can admire and imitate. Michael listened to this loving call and constantly corresponding with divine grace and came to be admired by all who knew him, thus demonstrating how marvellous are the effects of God’s grace on those who make use of it. In Magone’s life we have a lad who, left to his own devices was in danger of treading the sad road of evil but fortunately the Lord invited him to follow Him. In the life of Dominic Savio you saw innate virtue cultivated to a point of heroism right throughout his life. Therefore, motivated by these requests and by the affection that I had for our mutual friend, as well as by the hope that this small work would be both pleasing and helpful to your souls, I made up my mind to write down what I knew about him and have it printed in a booklet. The singular, or better, the exciting life of your companion Michael aroused in you a desire to see it in print. He only had time to read a few pages of this life before the Lord brought his mortal life to an end to enjoy, as we most ardently believe, the peace of the just in the company of the friend he had made up his mind to imitate. All the time he was collecting things that were said about this model of Christian life he was trying his very hardest to imitate him, anxious that everything that was being said be written down, as he wanted to model his life on him. One of you who was anxiously awaiting the life of Dominic Savio to be published was Michael Magone. Bosco, Cenno biografico sul giovanetto Magone Michele allievo dell’Oratorio di S.
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