purgatory. For them she prayed continually, for them she applied her sufferings and mortifications, and offered to endure more, on condition of obtaining their eternal repose. The poor souls, knowing her generosity, sometimes came to ask her for suffrages, and were always well received. On a feast of Corpus Christi she asked our Divine Saviour to admit to glory thirty-three souls, in honour of the thirty-three years of His mortal career, and fifteen in honour of the fifteen mysteries of the Blessed Virgin. She entreated and supplicated so earnestly that the favour was granted, and the souls most devoted to the Blessed Sacrament were chosen, who had been sent to purgatory for some carelessness in preparing for Holy Communion, or in giving thanks after it. Another case, full of holy instruction, occurred on the feast of the Sacred Blood. Being ordered by her confessor to pray fervently for the blessed souls, she offered to suffer for them the torments of purgatory. On the moment her angel guardian appeared, and took her down to that scene of pain, and there she endured such sufferings that she said they were like the pains of hell. The angel showed her millions of souls buried in a sea of unutterable woe for slight defects through immoderate laughter, idle words, time lost, and other apparently insignificant faults. All sadly cried for mercy; and the charitable virgin, taking pity on them, redoubled her prayers, and had the consolation of seeing Jesus crucified pouring from His wounds streams of blood to extinguish the fire. Maria renewed her offer to suffer for them all the pains they were enduring, and having obtained her request she came up again, accompanied by her angel and an army of souls who blessed her for her charity. Those sufferings, voluntarily accepted, lasted only an hour and a half, which appeared to her like long ages. How mad we must be who, though we have it in our power, will not try to avoid these sufferings!

Some may believe that, with such beautiful dispositions, the servant of God must have had a sweet death, but

they are mistaken. Up to her last hour she had the grace of imitating Jesus Christ, who, when nailed to the cross, exclaimed: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Maria, though she knew beforehand the hour of her departure, had no consolation or joy on that account, but was, on the contrary, buried in a sea of anguish and pain. But bearing all with serenity of mind and Christian conformity, she delivered up her spirit to the Lord on the 18th of July, 1696, at the age of forty-three years.

BLESSED HENRY DE TREVISO, PORTER.

I.

BETWEEN Brescia and Trent, in the mountainous part of the Tyrol, there is a beautiful village, celebrated for its charming position, and still more so as having been the cradle of a poor porter, a beggar in the last years of his life, whose glorious name is inscribed in the Book of Life among the most famous monarchs of Christendom. This was Henry, a native of Bolzano. The poverty of his parents did not allow him to cultivate his natural gifts of intellect, for he never learned to read; but this did not prevent his acquiring from his earliest years the heavenly art of forming his soul in the school of divine love, which is the great science of the Christian, for which learning is not required, or wealth, a decided will to despise all things perishing being alone necessary. Instructed in this science of the saints, Henry made considerable advancement in virtue, daily becoming more beloved by good Christians, and abhorred by the wily heretics by whom he was surrounded. At the proper age he was married to a virtuous girl, and they lived together faithful imitators of the holy family of Nazareth. Such was the lustre of his virtues, such the clearness with which he defended the Catholic doctrine without other arms than the catechism, that the heretics, unable, like nocturnal bats, to bear the light of his arguments

and example, made war on him without quarter. To such a pitch did their persecution reach, that having lost his spouse, and anxious to live in peace, the saint went to Treviso, the capital of a province in the States of Venice. To provide the means of living he had here to depend on the labour of his hands, sometimes running errands, sometimes as a porter, or at whatever other work he was put to by those who paid his wages. He carried his burdens like another Simon of Cyrene, who had the happiness to bear the Saviour's cross, now offering the small toil of this life to God's glory, now murmuring his prayers by the way, now meditating on the stages of the history of Jesus. If you saw him working with his usual anxiety you would have believed he only wanted to please those who employed him that he might get better pay; but Henry, with higher views, laboured thus hard because he had consecrated his toil to God, to whom all works should be directed. He felt in his heart a holy envy of those who could read, not for the sake of satisfying his curiosity, but to instruct himself in the divine teaching by means of good books. But his pure heart and zeal taught him how to supply this want.

He never lost an opportunity of hearing the Divine Word, which made the deeper impression on him, as his desire of learning was very great, and recourse to spiritual reading was closed to him. Hence he always listened with attention and pleasure to the edifying examples he heard recounted, and never went from sermon or discourse without carrying with him some good maxim to feed his soul. Retired in some corner, where he could conveniently hear, he collected the eternal truths, which fell like fertilising rain on that well-disposed heart. Besides, he went daily to Mass, which he heard with the fervour of a seraph. He had by day and night stated times for his devotions, and in the midst of his labour he frequently raised his heart to God in sweet aspirations, particularly when he saw the Lord offended by any blasphemy or sin whatever. Who would imagine that

one so poor could find anything to give to the needy? And yet he was in this a perfect model. As he lived very sparingly, and led a very austere life, he daily gave to the poor the greater part of what he earned. He might, if humanly prudent, have saved no no small amount from the fruits of his labour for his old age; but, guided by another superior prudence, he preferred to trust himself day by day in the hands of Divine Providence, and give away the last farthing he possessed. Just and fearing God, though anxious to earn for the poor, he would never take more than he had a right to by equity and custom; and, even when denied his due, he would never become importunate or impertinent. But virtue is ever considerate and polite.

II.

It is said that the child of the alms giver had never to ask alms, for even in this life the Lord gives the hundredfold of what is distributed to His poor; but as He is generous in giving trials to those who ask for them with a high intention, so also in the case of those who renounce a percentage in this life to secure a greater reward in glory, the good Jesus usually accepts the offer, and leaves the alms-giver in poverty. This explains how Henry, after feeding the hungry with edifying charity even with his own food, when advanced in years, and unable to work, had to ask help for the love of God. But even then he divided with the poor what remained after his own wants were supplied, never reserving a mouthful for the next day. He took up his dwelling in a garret which James de Castegnolio charitably offered him; and there the saint led a hidden and despised life, which, however, drew down the benedictions of God on that house. And though he endeavoured to hide his good works, their extraordinary lustre was publishing his sanctity in all parts. All the poor whom he succoured with liberal hand were so many heralds to proclaim his charity and self-denial. His

gaiety and sweetness, ever constant and harmonised with his irreproachable conduct, revealed a heroic and holy heart. He never spoke of his own affairs either in praise or dispraise. In his misfortunes, in his attacks and afflictions he was never heard to complain. "Blessed be Jesus," he used to say in pain as well as in gladness. Injuries he repaid with kindness, insults with benedictions. When boys followed him and threw stones at him, as they sometimes do to feeble, ragged old men, the servant of God rejoiced to be able to suffer that little sacrifice for Jesus, received their treatment with a smile, and repaid it by praying to the Lord for them, and for their negligent and guilty parents. His humility and patience reached such a pitch that some thought he was devoid of feeling.

Badly dressed and barefooted, with a stick in one hand, and his beads in the other, he went the rounds of the churches to engage in prayer, visit some image, or attend the divine offices. After visiting them he would return, repeating the Rosary, to the cathedral, and there stand for long hours, hat in hand, before a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the portico. He frequently received Holy Communion with great fervour and recollection, and went to confession every day, not on account of scruples, but to preserve his soul pure from the slightest stain, and to become encircled with the grace of the holy sacrament. He was so delicate of conscience that if at any time he refreshed his senses by looking at a garden, or with the fragrance of a flower, or the song of a bird without offering it to the glory and praise of God, he would go immediately and reveal it to his confessor, and with tears bewail his imperfection. He once took a desire to eat some crabs, and having asked and obtained them as an alms, he not only did not use them, but let them rot, to punish himself for his fault in yielding to his desires.

III.

The Lord by wonders more than once manifested how 28