Storia do Mogor 298.2

298.2

At this house of the Jesuits the father [Ephraim] was compelled to show that he was not exempt from the weaknesses of humanity. For, finding himself dealt with so harshly within a religious house, where charity is flaunted as motto, he was much affected. Still more was he so because these worthy fathers had on former occasions been most kind to him, showing him much [127] affection and civility. But what cut him to the heart was to find that he was refused confession and the Communion. The poor man grew so weak that he believed his end was approaching — so much so that he felt compelled to prepare for death, and to ask for a confessor with all the insistence that such a condition arouses in the heart of a good Christian. But they answered that there was no order to find him a confessor. At the sound of these words the worthy friar lost all heart and dissolved into tears. He said to himself: 'What! can it be that in a house of religion they refuse confession and Communion to a priest so near death ?' But if the harshness of the Jesuits went as far as this, he had afterwards ample cause, on the other hand, to thank for their gentle treatment the Cordelier fathers of the order of St. Francis and the Capuchins. Their tenderness to him was so great that he could never refrain, when on the subject; from according them a thousand praises, and even these, according to him, were far less than they deserved.