nction, which he received,
answering himself to all the prayers. After this he lay in peace and
joy, as appeared by the serenity of his countenance; and he was heard to
pronounce these aspirations: "Soon, soon will the God of all comfort
complete his mercies on me, and fill all my desires. I shall shortly be
satiated in him, and drink of the torrent of his delights: be inebriated
from the abundance of his house, and in him who is the source of life, I
shall behold the true light." Seeing all in tears about him, he
comforted them, saying: Death was his gain and his joy. F. Reynold said
he had hoped to see him triumph over the adversaries of the church in
the council of Lyons, and placed in a rank in which he might do it some
signal service. The saint answered: "I have begged of God, as the
greatest favor, to die a simple religious man, and I now thank him for
it. It is a {532} greater benefit than he has granted to many of his
holy servants, that he is pleased to call me out of this world so early,
to enter into his joy; wherefore grieve not for me, who am overwhelmed
with joy." He returned thanks to the abbot and monks of Fossa-Nuova for
their charity to him. One of the community asked him by what means we
might live always faithful to God's grace. He answered: "Be assured that
he who shall always walk faithfully in his presence, always ready to
give him an account of all his actions, shall never be separated from
him by consenting to sin." These were his last words to men, after which
he only spoke to God in prayer, and gave up the ghost, on the 7th of
March, in 1274, a little after midnight: some say in the fiftieth year
of his age. But Ptolemy of Lucca, and other contemporary authors, say
expressly in his forty-eighth, which also agrees with his whole history.
He was very tall, and every way proportioned.

The concourse of people at the saint's funeral was extraordinary:
several monks of that house, and many other persons, were cured by his
relics and intercession, of which many instances, juridically proved,
are mentioned by William of Tocco, in the bull of his canonization, and
other authors. The Bollandists give us other long authentic relations of
the like miracles continued afterwards, especially in the translation of
those holy relics. The University of Paris sent to the general and
provincial of the Dominicans a letter of condolence upon his death,
giving the highest commendations to the saint's learning and sa