312 
POP): sixTt.tci V. 
“When he began his j ourney,” says an old ms. life of him, he 
would have lUl. in his purse ; and at his coming home, he woidd be 
20 nobles iii debt, which he would always pay within a fortnight 
after.” In the gaols he visited, he was not only careful to give the 
prisoners proper instructions, but used to purchase for them likewise 
what necessaries they wanted. Even upon the public road, he never 
let slip an opportunity of doing good. He has often been known to 
take off his cloak, and give it to a half-naked traveller; and when he 
had scarcely money enough in his pocket to provide himself a dinner, 
yet would he give away part of that little, or the whole, if he found 
any one who seemed to stand in need of it. One day, returning 
home, he saw' in a field several people crowding together ; and 
judging something more than ordinary had happened, he rode 
up, and found that one of the horses of a team had suddenly dropped 
down dead. The ow ner of it declaring how grievous a loss it would 
be to him, Mr. Gilpin bade him not be disheartened: “I’ll let you 
have,” said he, “ honest man, that horse of mine,” pointing to his 
servant’s. — “ Ah ! master,” replied the countryman, “ my pocket W'ill 
not reach such a beast as that.” “ Come, come,” said Mr. Gilpin, 
“ take him ; and when I demand my money, then thou slialt pay me.” 
This excellent divine, who deservedly obtained the glorious titles of 
the Father of the Poor, and the Apostle of the North, died in 1583, 
in the 60th year of his age. 
Pope Sixtus V. 
This singular character w'as born 13th of December, 1521, in La 
Marca, a village in the seigniory of Montalto. His father, Francis 
Pereth, was a gardener, and his mother a servant maid. He was their 
eldest child, and^was called Felix. At the age of nine he was hired 
out to an inhabitant of the village, to keep sheep ; but disobliging 
his master, he was degraded to the keeper of the hogs. He was 
engaged in this employment, when F. Michael Angelo Selleri, a Fran- 
ciscan friar, asked the road to Ascoli, where he was going to preach. 
Young Felix conducted him thither, and struck the father so much 
with his eagerness for knowledge, that he recommended him to the 
fraternity to which he had come. Accordingly he was invested with 
the habit of a lay brother, and placed under the sacristan, to assist in 
sweeping the church, lighting the candles, and the like, for which he 
was to be taught the responses, and rudiments of grammar. His 
progress in learning was so surprising, that at the age of fourteen he 
was qualified to begin his noviciate, and was admitted at fifteen to 
make his profession. He pursued his studies with unwearied assi- 
duity,siand was ordained priest in 1545, when he assumed the name 
of Father Montalto ; soon after, he took his doctor’s degree, and was 
appointed professor of theology at Sienna; where he so effectually 
recommended himself to cardinal de Carpi, and his secretary Bossins, 
that they ever remained his steady friends. Meanwhile the severity 
and obstinacy of his temper incessantly engaged him in disputes with 
the monastic brethren. His reputation for eloquence, w'bich w'as now 
spread over Italy, about this time gained, him some new friends. 
