St. Anthony, Hair Restorer!

BECAUSE his wife was kind to the friars, a jealous husband ordered her to stop giving them alms. The woman knew her husband's orders were unreasonable, so she ignored them. The next time he found she had been giving things to the friars he became quite furious.

He laid hands on his wife and beat her unmercifully. He even dragged the poor woman around by the hair so that a good part of it was pulled out by the roots. When the woman saw this, she went to St. Anthony for help.

Anthony asked the rest of the friars to pray with him. By the time their prayers had come to an end, the woman's hair had been restored, even more lovely than before. When the husband saw the miracle worked through St. Anthony, he was throughly ashamed. He begged his wife's forgiveness and never more interfered in her works of charity towards the Franciscan friars.

Thy Sins Are Forgiven Thee!

ANTHONY the priest spent long hours in the confessional. There he was brought face to face with strange and sorrowful problems of all kinds. One penitent in particular found that, when he knelt at the feet of this young Franciscan priest, he was unable to confess his sins.

The sorrow which filled his heart was so great that he simply could not speak. Anthony read that heart and and knew that it was sincerely penitent. so he said to the man, "Go home, write your sins on a piece of paper, then bring the paper back to me."

The man did so. Anthony bade him read the list. Obediently the penitent started with the first. To his astonishment he saw that, as soon as he had told it, the name of each sin disappeared from the paper. So it went on. When the last sin had been confessed, the paper was perfectly blank.