Page:Curiosities of Olden Times.djvu/217

Some Crazy Saints curled herself up into a ball, and began to roll round the room, "like a boy's ball, without any token of her limbs appearing." Then, all at once, she expanded flat on the floor, and ventriloquised. "No voice or breath issued from her mouth and nose, but only her breast and throat resounded with an angelic harmony." She concluded this exhibition by singing the "Te Deum" from the pit of her stomach, and then jumped up and ran away.

We can understand that at a time when hysterical disorders were completely misunderstood, such marvellous contortions and tricks were reputed to be due to spiritual agency, either divine or diabolic. Towards the close of her days she spent most of her time in the Convent of St. Catherine, and she was there when attacked by her mortal sickness.

When she was apparently insensible the Superior, Sister Beatrice, said to her, "Christina! you have always been obedient to me; return now to life, I have something I desire to ask of you."

Then Christina opened her eyes and said, "Why have you disturbed me? Be quick, I cannot tarry; tell me what you want, that I may be gone."

Then the Superior put the question, received her reply, and the next moment the poor clouded spirit fled. She died on 24th July 1224, at the age of eighty-four.

Twenty-five years after her death an old woman told the Superior, "I have come to you with a divine revelation, to say that the body of that most 205