heretics and other enemies of the Church, it has demonstrated its
wonderful efficiency in individual cases of stress, and of such I will
mention a few instances. In the year 1578 a fearful epidemic devastated
the city of Pavia. The terrified people made a public vow to build a
chapel to our Blessed Lady of the Rosary if the epidemic would cease.
And the very day the vow was made the epidemic did abate. A similar
case happened in Cologne, where people were saved from an epidemic
after such a vow had been made. That cases like these are innumerable'
is manifested by the many chapels built as a result of such vows, and
by the votive tablets in pilgrimage churches dedicated to Mary. Sight
is restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, the
use of their limbs to the crippled, diseases of all kind are cured, by
invoking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin by means of the
devotion of the rosary.

The conversion of a hardened sinner is, after all, a greater miracle
than all cures of disease. And such conversions to this day are as
numerous as they were at the time the rosary was introduced. Entire
nations, provinces and cities have been converted to God through his
devotion. Blessed John, a companion of St. Dominic, wrote a book about
the miraculous power of the rosary. The blessed Alanus de la Roche
tells of a bishop, in whose diocese morality was decadent, who finally
took up the devotion to the rosary, explained it to his people, prayed
it with them, and had it introduced in all parishes. Soon the people
abandoned their evil ways.

St. Clement Hofbauer assures us: "When I am called to a sick man of
whom I know that he is averse to making his peace with God, on the way
I pray my rosary, and when I reach him I am sure to find him desirous
to receive the Sacraments."