Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/215

211, and was immediately released from the duty of observing the common rules of the Convent, as the Superior considered her authority over her as having in a manner ceased.

It was affirmed that many priests had been taken to heaven, body and soul, after death.

The following story I was told by some of the nuns and the Superior while I was a novice, and it made a considerable impression upon my mind.—After catechism one day, a dove appeared in the room while the nuns were kneeling and engaged in prayer. It addressed one of the nuns and the Superior, not only in an audible voice, but in a string of French rhymes, which were repeated to me so often that I learnt them almost all by heart, and retain several to this day.

These were the first two lines. In the sequel the dove informed the audience that in eight days the spirit of the nun should be raised to heaven, to join its own, and that of other souls in that blessed place; and spoke of the honour thus to be conferred upon the nun, and on the Superior too, who had had the training of one to such a grade of holiness.

When the day thus designated arrived, a number of priests assembled, with the Superior, to witness her expected translation; and while they were all standing around her, she disappeared, her body and soul being taken off together to heaven. The windows had been previously fastened, yet these offered no obstacle, and she was seen rising upward like a column moving through the air. The sweetest music, as I was assured, accompanied her exit, and continued to sound the remainder of the day, with such charming and irresistible effect, that the usual occupations of the nuns were interrupted, and all joined in and sang in concert.