Page:Purgatory00scho.djvu/41

 the place where this servant of God had ended his days, it was some time before I learned the particulars of his edifying death; all those who were witnesses of it could not behold without admiration how he preserved consciousness to the last moment, the tears he shed, and the sentiments of humility with which he surrendered his soul to God.

" A Religious of my community, a great servant of God, had been dead not quite two days. We were saying the Office for the Dead for her in choir, a sister was reading the lesson, and I was standing to say the versicle. When half of the lesson had been said, I saw the soul of this Religious come forth from the depths of the earth, like the one of which I have just spoken, and go to Heaven.

" In this same monastery there died, at the age of eighteen or twenty years, another Religious, a true model of fervour, regularity, and virtue. Her life had been but a tissue of maladies and sufferings patiently endured. I had no doubt, after having seen her live thus, that she had more than sufficient merits to exempt her from Purgatory. Nevertheless, whilst I was at office, before she was interred, and about a quarter of an hour after her death, I saw her soul likewise issue from the earth and rise to Heaven." Behold what St. Teresa writes.

A like instance is recorded in the Life of St. Louis Bertrand, of the Order of St. Dominic. This Life, written by Father Antist, a Religious of the same Order, and who lived with the saint, is inserted in the Acta Sanctorum on the 10th of October. In the year 1557, whilst St. Louis Bertrand resided at the convent of Valentia, the pest broke out in that city. The terrible plague spread rapidly, threatening to exterminate the inhabitants, and each one trembled for his life. A Religious of the community, wishing to prepare himself fervently for death, made a general confession of his whole life to the saint; and on leaving him said, "Father, if it should now please God to call me, I shall return and make known to you my condition in the other