With those houseless wanderers he peopled the
new villages his grandfather had erected in the midst of lands which
in former times were the haunts of wild beasts. Thaddeus participated
in the happiness of his grateful tenants, and many were the old men
whose eyes he had closed in thankfulness and peace. These honest
peasants, even in their dying moments, wished to give up that life in
his arms which he had rescued from misery. He visited their cottage;
he smoothed their pillow; he joined in their prayers; and when their
last sigh came to his ear, he raised the weeping family from the
dust, and cheered them with pious exhortations and his kindest
assurances of protection. How often has the countess clasped her
beloved son to her breast, when, after a scene like this, he has
returned home, the tears of the dying man and his children yet wet
upon his hand! how often has she strained him to her heart, whilst
floods of rapture have poured from her own eyes! Heir to the first
fortune in Poland, he scarcely knew the means by which he bestowed
all these benefits; and with a soul as bounteous to others as Heaven
had been munificent to him, wherever he moved he shed smiles and
gifts around him. How frequently he had said to the palatine, when
his carriage-wheels were chased by the thankful multitude, "O my
father! how can I ever be sufficiently grateful to God for the
happiness he hath allotted to me in making me the dispenser of so
many blessings! The gratitude of these people overpowers and humbles
me in my own eyes; what have I done to be so eminently favored of
Heaven? I tremble when I ask myself the question.
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