r
lords, to the holy war. Pope Innocent III. wrote to recommend these
religious to Miramolin, king of Morocco; and St. John sent thither two
of his religions in 1201, who redeemed one hundred and eighty-six
Christian slaves the first voyage. The year following, St. John went
himself to Tunis, where he purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten
more. He returned into Provence, and there received great charities,
which he carried into Spain, and redeemed many in captivity {381} under
the Moors. On his return he collected large alms among the Christians
towards this charitable undertaking. His example produced a second order
of Mercy, instituted by St. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.

St. John made a second voyage to Tunis in 1210, in which he suffered
much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting the
poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was
returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the
barbarians took away the helm from his vessel, and tore all its sails,
that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God,
begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions' cloaks for
sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands, kneeling on the deck, singing
psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in
Italy. Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order in France,
and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where stood before a
chapel of St. Mathurin, whence these religious in France are called
Mathurins.

St. John lived two years more in Rome, which he employed in exhorting
all to penance with great energy and fruit. He died on the 21st of
December, in 1213, aged sixty-one. He was buried in his church of St.
Thomas, where his monument yet remains, though his body has been
translated into Spain. Pope Honorius III. confirmed the rule of this
order a second time. By the first rule, they were not permitted to buy
any thing for their sustenance except bread, pulse, herbs, oil, eggs,
milk, cheese, and fruit; never flesh nor fish: however, they might eat
flesh on the principal festivals, on condition it was given them. They
were not, in travelling, to ride on any beasts but asses.[1]

* * * * *

St. Chrysostom[2] elegantly and pathetically extols the charity of the
widow of Sarepta, whom neither poverty nor children, nor hunger, nor
fear of death, withheld from affording relief to the pro