From the book Lambs in Wolfskins by Eddie Doherty pgs 131-132
When Don Bosco chose St. Francis de Sales, among all the thousands of saints clustered about the throne of God, did he pickhim as carefully as he had picked his friends at school? Or did he choose him because of a sort of love at first encounter which had ripened with the years?
Certainly the immortal Bishop of Geneva was the type of saint Don Bosco most admired. He had been a missionary, a teacher of catechism, a writer of books and pamphlets, a great lover of the poor and a tremendous lover of Christ and Mary.
"Everything must be done by love," he had written, "nothing by force." "The measure of love is to love without measure." "Pluck out one of my eyes, and I shall look at you affectionately with the other." "Give me souls; take all the rest." "To speak well we need only to love well."
St. Francis de Sales, who died in 1622, one hundred and ninety-three years before John Bosco was born, took new life in his pupil's heart. Today he and St. John Bosco are closer than Saints Peter and Paul. They are inseparables.
St. Francis was born, Aug. 21, 1567, in the duchy of Savoy. He was, like John Bosco, first taught about God by his mother. When he was in his teens he was convinced that he was going to hell, to hate God throug all eternity. Therefore he humbly begged that he might love God in this life as much as a man could, and to love Him every minute of that life.
At the height of his despondancy he knelt before a statue of the Virgin and asked her help. He rose completely cured of any tendency toward despair. As a result, he consecrated himself to the Most Holy Lady, and determined to be a priest.
He was sent, as a missionary, into the Chablais district of Savoy, then almost entirely Calvinistic. It is said there were but 15 Catholics in the entire territory at the time. He preached constantly to the people, but no one listened. Then he began to write. He spent many hours producing leaflets that he threw away where the Calvinists would find them. When he left, out of a population estimated at 75,000 to 78,000, there remained only 15 Calvinists...
St Jane (Chantel) was given a vision St. Francis before she met him. She saw "an angelic countenance, one breathing of heaven"; and she was told, "This is the guide, beloved of God, into whose keeping you must give your conscience."
This was the man, beloved indeed of God, Don Bosco chose as his model wehn he wrote out his resolutions in the days before he was ordained.
"I shall try to carry with me everywhere the charity and gentleness of St. Francis de Sales. May this charity illumine every step I take!"