a whole life of tortures, both of body and soul. Her journal of the period is most touching.

"The matin bells," she says, "awakened my soul to its most painful regrets, and filled it with an agony of sorrow which could not, at first, find relief even in prayer. In the little closet, from whence there is a view of the open sea, and the beatings of the waves against the high rocks at the entrance of this prison, which throw them violently back, and raises the white foam as high as its walls, I first came to my senses, and reflected that I was offending my only Friend and resource in my misery, and voluntarily shutting from my soul the only consolation it could receive. Pleading for mercy and strength brought peace, and with a cheerful countenance I asked William what we should do for breakfast. The doors were unbarred, and a bottle of milk set down at the entrance of the room. Little Anna and William ate it with bread, and I walked the floor with a crust and a glass of wine. William could not sit up; his ague came on, and my soul's agony with it. My husband on the cold bricks, without fire, lifting his dim and sorrowful gaze in my face, while his tears ran on his pillow, without one word. . . My William, wearied out, was asleep; Anna, with a flood of tears, said her prayers, and soon forgot her sorrows, and it seemed as if opening my prayer-book and bending my knees was the signal for my soul to find rest. . Our capitano brought us word that other five days were granted, and that on the 19th of December we were free. Poor William says with a groan, 'I believe before then.' We pray and cry together until fatigue overpowers him, and then he says he is willing to go. Cheering up is useless; he seems easier after venting his sorrow, and always gets quiet sleep after his struggle. A heavy storm of wind, which drives. the spray from the sea against our window, adds to his melancholy. If I could forget my God one moment, at these times, I should go mad; but He hushes all. 'Be still, and know that I am God, your Father.' Dear home dearest sisters my little ones well! either protected by God in this world, or in heaven. It is a sweet thought to dwell on, that all those I most tenderly love, love God, and if we do not meet again here, there we shall be separated no more. If I have lost them now, their gain is infinite and eternal. How often I tell my William, 'When you awake in that world, you will find nothing could tempt you to return to this; you will see that your care over your wife and little ones was like a hand only to hold the cup which God himself will give, if he takes you. Heavenly Father, pity the weak and burdened souls of thy poor creatures, who have not strength to look to thee, and lift us from the dust, for His sake, our resurrection and our life."

After recounting a vision of youthful days at home, she says,

"All this came strong in my head this morning, when, as I tell you, the body let the spirit alone. I had prayed and cried heartily, which is my daily and hourly comfort, and, closing my eyes, with my head upon the table, lived all those sweet hours over again-made believe I was under the chestnut tree - felt so peaceable at heart, so full of love to God such confidence and hope in him. The wintry storms of time shall be over, and the unclouded spring enjoyed forever. So you see, with God for our portion, there is no prison in high walls and bolts; no sorrow in the soul that waits on him, though beset with present cares and gloomy prospects. For this freedom I can never be sufficiently thankful, as in my William's case, it keeps alive what in his weak state would naturally fail; and often when he hears me repeat the psalms of triumph in God, and read St. Paul's faith in Christ with my whole soul, it so enlivens his spirit that he makes them also his own, and all our sorrows are turned into joy. O well may I love God, and well may my whole soul try to please him; for what but the pen of an angel can ever express what he has done and is constantly doing for me?"

Laboring incessantly for the body and soul of her sinking charge, she saw always light, bright as that which shone round Peter in his dungeon. Gifted with the warmest heart and the tenderest sensibility, she feels the sufferings of him she loved with a sympathy which left her no thought for her own, yet she was even more solicitous for his acceptance than for his comfort.

"The dampness about us would be thought dangerous for people in health, and my William's sufferings, — oh! well I know that God is above! Capitano, you need not always point your silent look and finger there. If I thought our condition the providence of man, instead of a weeping Magdalen you so graciously call me, you would find me a lioness, willing to burn your lazaretto about your ears, if it were possible, that I might carry off my poor prisoner to breathe the air of heaven in some more seasonable place. . . No one ever saw my William without giving him the quality of an amiable man; but to see that character exalted to the peaceful, humble Christian, waiting the will of God with a patience that seems more than human, and a firm faith that would do honor to the most distinguished piety, is a happiness that is allowed only to the poor little mother who is separated from all other happiness connected with this scene of things. No sufferings, no

weakness nor distress, (and from these he is never free in any degree,) can prevent his following me daily in prayer, in the Psalms, and in generally large readings of the Scripture. . When I thank God for my creation and preservation, it is with a warmth of feeling I never could know until now; to wait on Him in my William's soul and body, to console and soothe these hours of affliction and pain, watching and weariness, which, next to God, I alone could do; to strike up the cheerful notes of hope and Christian triumph, which, from his partial love, he hears with the more enjoyment from me, because to me he attributes the greatest share of them; to hear him, in pronouncing the name of his Redeemer, declare that I first taught him the sweetness of the sound-Oh! if I was in the dungeon of this lazaretto, I should bless and praise my God for these days of retirement and abstraction from the world, which have given me opportunity for so blessed a work."

The end came at last, and sooner than the devoted wife expected. The 19th of December was the much desired day of release from the lazaretto, and the invalid was taken to the elegant residence of Mr. Filicchi, where he lay "the greater part of the day on a sofa, delighted with his change of situation, and with the taste and elegance of every thing around him. We read, compared past and present, talked of heavenly hopes, and went to rest in hopes of a good night;" but in the night the fatal summons came, and a few more days put an end to hope and suspense. Mrs. Seton went through the last duties with a firmness which astonished all about her. The simple people around, who had been prevented by a vain fear of contagion from performing the usual offices for the corpse, exclaimed, "If she was not a heretic, she would be a Saint!" Perhaps they recognized the infallible marks better than their spiritual teachers.

Up to this period, Mrs. Seton had evinced no nearer leaning toward Romanism than might have been predicated of a highly imaginative and warm-hearted woman, who admired and loved Dr. Hobart and his teachings. But the generous and truly Christian kindness of the Filicchi family seems to have warmed into active life the seeds sown by the zealous high-churchman in New York. Those friends in a foreign land offered a home to the widow and her children, supplied her with every comfort and consolation possible, and when

she thought proper to return to her own country, one of the brothers accompanied her. Mr. Antonio Filicchi she thenceforth calls brother, and in a letter written a year afterward, addresses him thus characteristically, and as if the sun of Italy had put to flight every vestige of Anglo-Saxon reserve:

"Do you remember when you carried the poor little wandering sheep to the fold, and led it to the feet of its tender Shepherd? Whose warning voice first said 'My sister, you are in the broad way, and not in the right one'? Antonio's. Who begged me to seek the right one? Antonio. Who led me kindly, gently in it? Antonio. And when deceived and turning back, whose tender, persevering charity withheld my erring steps and strengthened my fainting heart? Antonio's. And who is my unfailing friend, protector, benefactor? Antonio! Antonio! commissioned from on high, the messenger of peace, the instrument of mercy. My God, my God, my God, reward him! The widow's pleading voice, the orphan's innocent hands are lifted to you to bless him! They rejoice in his love, O grant him the eternal joy of years!"

It is not to be supposed that Mrs. Seton's change of faith, which was perfected during the homeward voyage of fiftysix days in the society of Mr. Antonio Filicchi, was received by her family and friends without what her Catholic biographer calls a storm of opposition." He talks even of "persecution," and says that, had she remained a Protestant, she would have "inherited a large fortune." Who the persons were that thus punished her for leaving the Episcopal Church, we are not informed, but conclude they must have been unusually zealous members of that communion. The kind Filicchis stept in, and offered to provide for their convert, but this the proper spirit of Mrs. Seton declined. She wished to exert herself in the support of her family of five children, and although compelled to accept occasional aid from her Italian friends, she labored incessantly for the purpose. The generosity of these friends must have formed a striking contrast with the severity of Protestant relatives. After years of most liberal contribution to her support, Mr. A. Filicchi writes, urging her to draw on his New York agents to any amount she desired: "If you attempt to disregard your brother's direction in this respect, I will not write to you any more. I will try

not to think of you, if possible. My means are to-day double what they were at the date of my subscription, (of $400.) A special Providence is visible in every step of ours. If you are heard so much in Heaven in my behalf, should I be so ungrateful as to desert you on earth? It is mortifying to receive, but mortification is the duty of a Christian." After the removal of Mrs. Seton to Baltimore, and the adoption of her plan for a Catholic school for girls near that city, Mr. Filicchi again writes, and we mention such particulars with express reference to the example set by these disciples of Rome, not of munificence to secure a convert, for this one had long been beyond doubt or fear, but to further the interests of the religion they professed to believe, and to honor the name of Christ in comforting one of his humble followers" To promote the establishment you intimate, you will please draw on my agents for one thousand dollars, charging the same to the account in the world to come of my brother Philip and your brother Antonio. If any thing more should be wanted, you are commanded to quote it to me plainly and positively." The occasion for another thousand came in due season, and was promptly met; and two sons of Mrs. Seton were successively received for mercantile education and profitable employment by these untiring friends, whom we are disposed to class, if not among the Saints, among those who méritent bien de l'être, as true and warm lovers of God and

man.

The steps by which Mrs. Seton was led to undertake the founding of a sisterhood we need not recount. Through the influence of a benefactor, Emmetsburg was chosen as the seat of the new nunnery; and, whether from some unhealthiness in the site, or in consequence of extravagant austerities, the mortality among the inmates of the convent seems to have been terrible. Mrs. Seton herself lost two daughters and two sisters-in-law; and the small community, in about ten years, some fifteen of its members beside. The weakness and unconscious impięty of the ascetic life, so lauded throughout this biography and elsewhere, never struck us so forcibly as in reading this account of a lovely woman, possessed of almost genuine and undoubted piety, yet whose mind, in VOL. LXXVII. - NO. 160.

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