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"BLESSED JAMES OF ULM THE Order of Preachers, which is justly famous for so many illustrious theologians and apostolic preachers who have united learning to sanctity, has been no less remarkable for the holiness of its more humble members, the lay brothers of the Order, who, although not learned in the things of this world, have yet been models of all religious virtues. Amongst them, the Blessed James of Ulm holds a distinguished place. He was born in the year 1407 at Ulm, a wealthy city in the South of Germany. He was the second son of Theodore, a merchant of that town, who was very pious and noted for his charity to the poor. He lived to an honorable old age, ""without losing, '' as Blessed James loved to say, ""a single tooth from his head"" on account of his abstinence and regularity of his life. James was educated piously, and in his youth was employed in mechanical arts, but more especially in that of making stained glass windows, for which his countrymen have long been famous. He remained in the bosom of his family until he was twenty-five years old, when the desire to visit the tombs of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul determined him to undertake a journey to Rome. On setting out he knelt down and asked the blessing of his beloved father, who gave it to him in these words, ""Go, my son, call your Creator to mind during the whole of the road, and choose rather to die than sin in His sight. When you are at the holy places think of me, an old man who begot you. Return as soon as possible for you are my joy, my crown, and the staff of my old age. May the merciful Creator bless you, my dearest son, and make you a partaker of His eternal happiness."" This beautiful exhortation was not made in vain, for when he and some companIons, who were also bound for the Eternal City, began their journey, James said to them, ""Let each of us my friends, search his conscience lest this journey be spoilt by any sin, that we may with a clear conscience gain the indulgences granted to pilgrims;"" and the whole of the time they were on the road he kept himself always occupied with some holy work, praying or meditating, sometimes saying verses out of the psalms, sometimes reciting the Lord's prayer. They arrived in Rome about the beginning of Lent. He spent the penitential season in visiting the churches, and prepared himself to celebrate the feast of Easter by a general confession of his whole life. When Easter was over, having come to the bottom of his purse, he went to Naples to seek some means of subsistence. Being well-made and handsome, a noble lady of that town, who had many servants, having seen him, wished to take him into her service, but the virtuous young man, fearing some danger for his soul declined, choosing poverty rather than put himself wilfully in the occasions of sin."

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