But

Frances of the Blessed Sacrament, however, presents us with such an interesting example of a long continued and heroic combat with the passions, that we cannot refrain from quoting it. Her life has been written by M. B. De Lanura, and he tells us, that she was naturally of an impetuous disposition, savage and fiery as an African. At the age of seventeen, she had formed a criminal connexion with a young man of her family, and nothing less than a miraculous apparition was necessary to draw her from this abyss. One day, it seemed to her that she saw the earth open under her feet, and she gazed with indescribable terror upon hell, yawning beneath her. She immediately entered the convent of discalced Carmelites at Soria, made a general confession, and commenced her noviciate. she had to endure a terrible struggle against her own nature and against the demons, who sought to drive her to despair, by the remembrance of her past sins; she was, however, consoled from time to time by other visions, and coming off victorious in this combat, she made her profession. New struggles, and still more terrible, awaited her. She was naturally impatient, and easily moved to anger. The least wrong that was done to her, rendered her spiteful and jealous, and to look at her the wrong way, was sufficient to excite her anger. This disposition drew upon her frequent penances; but, in spite of her good resolutions, she was continually falling. All her other passions had the same character of impetuosity. Her senses were unmanageable; she could neither recollect herself, nor taste spiritual consolations. But she resolved to struggle until she obtained the victory. For this purpose, she spared neither pains nor labour; she prayed continually, she fasted, she practised every kind of mortification,

she tore her flesh with long and cruel disciplines, she girded herself with cilices; nothing was neglected, no means left untried, in order to obtain the victory. The Lord one day appeared to her, and said: "Thou complainest to Me, and forcest thyself to walk in My presence; but thou shalt not obtain this by violence and force. Walk before Me in sweetness and a good conscience, and thou shalt be solaced." Indeed, the excessive mortifications to which she had condemned herself, could scarcely break her nature, against which she had to struggle, even to her old age.

She seems also to have been incapable of drawing any one to sympathize with her, so that she could not obtain the least consolation, or the least encouragement, to sustain her in her many trials. She spoke in a disagreeable manner, and her countenance, her bearing, her gait, her whole comportment had something in it repulsive, so that every one avoided her. At nearly every chapter she was severely punished by her superiors; she was reprimanded by her confessors, and accused by her own conscience. But she

never excused herself; she complained to God alone in prayers and tears. God, one day, said to her: "I wish thee to struggle against thy natural disposition; do not weep, therefore, but correct thyself." When she was upon the point of giving way to the violence of her temper, our Lord would appear to her with an angry countenance, and reprimand her severely. The Provincial having come to visit the convent, the sisters, as if they had been moved to do so by an evil spirit, all began to accuse her. She received a severe reprimand, and was condemned to seven months penance, separated, during three months, from the community, and deprived of the Holy Communion. Three times in succession, at the

visit of the Provincial, this trial was renewed. Plunged in the profoundest desolation, she, however, did not lose her calmness and resignation, although she was, besides this, troubled by the demons, who ceased not to appear to her, and torment her, even until the last four years of her life. In addition to all this, the flames of concupiscence were enkindled in her with incredible violence; every member of her body seemed to be burning with the fire of hell. This state lasted until she was sixty-two years of age; and the temptations with which she was besieged, ceased only after a struggle of forty-six years, a few days before her death, which happened in 1629, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.

if we

Surely the bright examples of these deeds of heroism are sufficient to make us resolve to begin, this very moment, the practice of the mortification of our passions. If we have neglected this necessary mortification hitherto, let us now begin. If the struggle should be long and painful, let us not despair; the reward of perseverance surpasses all that we can think or conceive. If a long series of years should pass away before the accomplishment of the task, let us not grow weary of the strife: "For in due time we shall reap; faint not." No matter what opposition, no matter what obstacles we meet with, let us never give up the struggle. When faint and weary, and exhausted with the labour of the combat, let us seek strength and refreshment, where alone it is to be found; where Juliana and all the saints. have found it; in God. "They cried to the Lord in their affliction, and He delivered them out of their distress."* Let us also, in imitation of Juliana and all the saints, call upon the Refuge

Psalm cvi. 13.

of the miserable and afflicted, Mary the Queen of Heaven; for this sweet Mother is never invoked in vain. But there is yet another source of Life and Strength, to which, during their combats, Juliana and all the saints frequently had recourse; and that is, to the life-giving Sacrament of the Eucharist. If, then, our combats are furious and prolonged, let us the more frequently fortify ourselves with this heavenly manna, for it will give us such life and strength and vigour, (if duly received,) that we shall be enabled to continue our journey, until we come to that place of joy and blissful rest, where we shall "sing the mercies of the Lord for ever and ever."**

CHAPTER X.

ST. JULIANA'S LIFE AT ST. MARTIN'S.-HER CHARITY TOWARDS HER ENEMIES.-HER RETURN TO CORNILLON.

THEY only who have been forced to leave the home of their childhood, can give an idea of what it must have cost Juliana to quit Cornillon. How frequently do exiles from their home call to mind the many well-beloved spots, which bring to their memory affectionate remembrances of the sweet and happy days of yore? Juliana had spent all her life in the Convent of Cornillon, her earliest remembrances and affections were bound up with the dear old place. But, besides the natural ties that make the home of our childhood so dear to

* Psalm lxxxviii. 1.

us, there was, in Juliana's case, other things that rendered the Convent of Cornillon doubly dear to her. It was here, that she had dedicated herself to the service of God, in pronouncing the religious vows, which bound her to Him for ever, and made her His spouse. It was in this place that she had learned to triumph over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Here it was, that she had received so many celestial favours, and such an abundance of Divine grace. How dear, then, must this old convent have been to her! How keenly she must have felt her exile from its much-loved walls, which had so long sheltered her, and preserved her from the many perils and dangers of this deluding and deluded world! But, keenly as she must have felt the separation, she was so resigned to the Will of God, that she departed without a

murmur.

Then, again, the circumstances under which she was compelled to leave, made the exile doubly painful. She was not compelled by poverty to seek an asylum elsewhere, but was driven out through the evil machinations of one who should have been her friend and brother. Had she been driven out by a foreign enemy, it would not have been so difficult to bear; but the enemy who drove her away was not a foreign, but a domestic one. There was also another source of trouble; she could not take all the sisters with her to St. Martin's, because Eva could not find room for all. In this case, what was to become of those she left behind? Would they remain faithful in the observance of their holy rule, or would they fall away? It is true they had promised to remain faithful to her, but would they? All this she must leave to God. He had permitted the thing to happen, and she was resigned to His ever adorable Will. And so, without the least manifesta