development much exercise and out-door relaxation. After seeing the portrait of the Saint, we no longer wonder that her health often gave her much trouble, and that she was subject to what we moderns would call hysterical attacks, and the ancients named ecstasies.

Many and various are the tales told of the singularly exemplary conduct of the Saint during her novitiate, as well as the strange manifestations of her gifts as a seer and a prophet. The perpetual state of nervous exaltation in which she lived at last affected her health, and no wonder, with her powerful frame. At the time of her profession she was so ill that she had to be carried to the altar on a couch, and for five years after she was subject to attacks in which she supposed herself to be tempted and tormented by demons. She struggled bravely, however, with what we should call her disease, and what her contemporaries called the temptation of the evil one. After this lapse of time it seems she was never again subject to these attacks. In 1598 she was raised to the dignity of mother of novices to the convent. In this post,' says her biographer, 'through that great light which she had, and the grace which was given her to see into the hearts of others, she knew the natures and inclinations of her children, and guided them with more than human prudence, accommodating herself to the capacities of each, being most severe with those that were most gifted; and what is astonishing, she had as many ways of governing them as there were creatures to be governed. And it was her special gift to be able to touch the hearts, and arrive at the inner inclinations of ⚫ each, so as to draw them towards perfection according to their natures, and establishing them in solid virtues.'

The virtues on which Santa Maria Maddalena laid most stress were obedience and humility. She did not even venture upon the practice of any extra devotion without obtaining leave of her superiors. Among the relics still preserved in the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi is a ladder, which is regarded as a monument to her obedience. It seems that she cherished a great reverence for a certain crucifix which hung up high on a wall, and towards which she used to climb for the purpose of kissing and embracing it. The Mother Superior, fearing an accident, enjoined upon her to use a ladder. She entreated at first to be allowed to reach the crucifix in the hazardous manner in which she had always attained to it, but being told that she was required by holy obedience to follow the injunctions of her

Superior, she obeyed without a murmur, and henceforth using the ladder, never forgot to go to fetch it, even if in a trance of ecstasy. She had a great dislike to being held in higher esteem than she considered she deserved, and was in the habit of doing the most ordinary work of the convent, such as sweeping, washing dishes, and so forth, as a corrective for any inclinations towards pride. Affectionate and skilful in attendance upon the sick, she once roused herself from a devout meditation in which she was engaged to go to tend a sick nun, remarking most touchingly that she left God for God's sake.

Meantime, her raptures and visions became more frequent and prolonged. Sometimes she spoke so quickly during her attacks, that the Sisters who took down her words were almost unable to follow them. It was natural, therefore, that when a vacancy occurred she should have been chosen as Superior to the convent, for the fame of her wonderful visions and still more wonderful cures had gone out over all the land. Even the ladies of the Grand-ducal family came to visit her, begging to be mentioned in her prayers. Among these visitors was the Princess Maria dei Medici, who went to bid farewell to the Saint before she journeyed to France for her marriage with Henry IV., King of Navarre. On this occasion the Saint made a request in favour of the Jesuit Fathers which has earned her their eternal gratitude. For she prayed the Princess as a grace, that she should procure from His Majesty the King, her noble spouse, permission for the Fathers of the Company of Jesus to return into his realms.

Undisturbed, unelated by all these marks of esteem, Sister Maria Maddalena continued to lead a most ascetic life, full of discipline and penitence, going barefoot and half-clothed in the coldest weather, eating only enough to keep body and soul together, and spending night after night in visions and prayer. Though her Jesuit biographer who records all these facts, will not admit it, it is easy to deduct from this narrative that the health of the reverend mother was gradually giving way under the severe hardships she inflicted on herself. She did not, however, take to her bed until 1604, when she was constrained to do so by obedience. Her sufferings, which apparently arose from rheumatism, were very great, but none the less because of her sufferings did she continue to instruct and control the rest, as if she had no illness at all. She held continually in her hand a crucifix, upon which she gazed with great devotion.' On the 12th of May, 1607, she received the Viaticum, and again on the 24th of the same month.

A few days before, she said, while speaking with the nuns who had been attending her, I cannot think, nor have I ever been able to understand, how it is possible for any creature wilfully to sin against God.' On the 25th of May, 1607, at the age of fortyone years, having been twenty-four years in religion, she, in great peace and quiet, gently expired amid the copious tears of all the nuns, shed I know not whether for grief at the departure of so holy a soul, or for the delight which they felt in the firm belief that she was going to be happy in Heaven.' The news of her death brought together a concourse of people, who all rushed to possess themselves of the flowers which were strewn upon her corpse. Without the intervention of certain gentlemen who were guarding the body, these enthusiasts would have left nothing upon her but the habit she wore. To satisfy them the flowers were renewed every few hours, and so fast as this occurred so fast were they again carried off. And then it was that took place her first miracle, for a young man of licentious and dissolute life, having approached the corpse of the Saint, of which the head was turned towards him, on a sudden beheld the face turn away from him, and move away to the other side, without any one having touched either the body or the bier. Astonished and terrified, the young man told a reverend Father of the Company of Jesus what had happened, and from that time repented of his evil life.

Such, briefly, the life of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi. Even when divested of the verbose laudatory and adulatory language of the enthusiastic encomiast, it is plain to see that she was a woman whose character and gifts were of no ordinary nature, which, if they had not been distorted and perverted according to a false and ascetic ideal, might have rendered her a blessing and an example to her own and future ages. The tendency of the period in which she lived was to foster in those who, to use the adopted phrase, were in religion,' an exaggerated and morbid devotion, which the worldly ones seem to have encouraged to use it as a set-off, as it were, against their own shortcomings, which were truly great and sore in those halfpagan days. This idea was utilised in the doctrine of indulgences, which is founded upon the theory of a sort of fund of virtue composed of the righteous deeds of the saints. There must be added to this that there was at the time a great rage, to use a current phrase, for exalting the gifts and deeds of certain distinguished devotees, which was especially encouraged by the Jesuits, whose favourite young confessor, St. Luigi of Gonzaga,

flourished at the same time as Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi. That her devotion, apart from its morbid character, was of a most pure and enlightened description, a few extracts from her maxims will serve to show. These are good for all time and all purposes, and deserve to be rescued from the tiresome and bigoted Jesuitical biography to which they form an appendix. There is in them almost a savour of the immortal 'Imitation' of Thomas à Kempis.

1. The strength of a building depends upon its foundation, and thus Christians cannot persevere in well-doing if all their actions and all their virtues are not founded upon simplicity and upon the truth of God. Without these two foundations it were better not to undertake the erection of the fabric of a spiritual life.

2. Purity is a rose which blossoms only in enclosed gardens and among thorns. Truth is so pure that if it admit any mixture of any other element it can be no longer truth.

3. Obedience must be accompanied by humility, cheerfulness, simplicity, readiness, and perseverance.

4. One drop of simple obedience is worth a thousand vases full of contemplation.

5. A good example is one of the highest honours we can render to God.

6. A closed and hidden virtue which does not communicate itself to others is no virtue at all.

7. Let your patience be strong and cheerful.

Exercise yourself in the practice of this virtue which is the straight road to Paradise and Eternity.

8. The soul clothed with Charity is omnipotent.

9. Compassion is the daughter of Charity.

10. It is not enough to be silent with the lips unless the soul also observe silence.

11. Never open your lips to speak without first considering whether what you are going to say is to the glory of God or for the benefit of your fellow-creatures, and whether it is right to say it.

12. Let your conversation be humble, gentle, cheerful, prudent, and considerate.

13. Keep your eyes open to the virtues and closed to the faults of your neighbours.

14. The soul should have two eyes within. One to see the enormity of her sins, the other to behold continually the benefits

she receives from God, and the small profit she derives from them.

15. Consider every action as if it were the last act of your life, decisive of an eternity of good or evil.

16. Count the day lost in which you have performed no act of obedience. Never refuse anything which is asked of you, if you are permitted to give it.

17. Never speak of the defects of any person whatever.

18. Virtue has nothing feminine about her except her name, all the rest is power and virile force.

19. The Holy Eucharist is our Capital and our Arsenal. 20. Your prayers should be humble, fervent, resigned, accompanied by perseverance and by the most profound reverence. Consider that you are in the presence of, and speaking to, that God before whom the celestial powers tremble with fear; and as the rose is only gathered among thorns, so God is seldom found in the midst of delights and sweet spiritual meditation, but in the practice of true and solid virtue.

21. When religious persons lead an evil life, the sun is eclipsed, the light is transformed into darkness, and things fall into confusion.

22. Respect for human opinion is a hungry wolf, a furious lion, which devours and swallows up the greater part of our good

works.

A few letters written by the Saint have been preserved, one among them addressed to Santa Caterina dei Ricci, but her epistles have not the homely charm, the quiet mother-wit of those of her Florentine contemporary. In her epistles Santa Maria Maddalena falls into stilted and exaggerated religious phraseology, and there is little that is concrete or tangible. Verbosity seems their distinctive feature, a curious one, too, in a person who spoke little, and when she did so, always to the point. Is it possible that the letters may have been written for her by some long-winded ecclesiastic, and that she merely appended her signature to the effusions? It is strange to find so crass a contrast between the terse, concise language of the meditations and the discursiveness of the letters. As a last instance, I will extract what she said concerning envy.

'Envy is that cursed vice which longs for and desires the things which are not its own. Envious creatures are like those owls who go about saying "Tutto mio, tutto mio, tutto mio" (Mine, mine, mine), and they are ready to rob even their brothers and sisters.