Brother Hermenegild Tosf

Life of Saint John Francis Regis: of the Society of Jesus Brother Hermenegild Tosf

This life of the sainted missionary, John Francis Regis, of the Society of Jesus, was undertaken by the author very much as a labor of love, and not altogether without a certain sense of justice, so to speak, toward a man highly honored in his own country, but of whom English-speaking readers of sacred biography know scarcely anything at all. Or, if indeed, a few may perhaps have heard of Saint Regis, still their ideas have been so obscured by the clouds of misunderstanding and even calumny which overshadowed the man himself , when he lived, that it were better to know nothing at all than to lend credence to some of the things said of this Saint,-for instance, that he was headstrong and untractable, that he was even dismissed from the Society of Jesus. It is the aim of this biography to tell in a simple and straightforward way the true story of what manner of man Saint John Francis Regis really was. The so-called "ultra-pious" method has been avoided,-yet, on the other hand, the idea of some recent writers, who seem to delight in emphasizing the human failings of the saints, is considered a more serious fault than over-idealization, and so finds no place in this book.