Volume 7 — Translated From The French. An Italian Girl Of Our Day.

Concluded.

To any one who has read this sweet and pious correspondence I need not point out how strongly toward the end it inclines to heaven. Was it a presentiment of death? It may have been. We cannot deny to certain souls the grace of having heard from afar the call of God. For me, I think I see in this case the natural movement of a very pure love in a lofty soul. There are souls that see God everywhere. She of whom I speak was one of these, and, from her infancy, all that was beautiful on earth had been for her but a veil designed to temper the brightness of the Eternal Beauty. Thus in the new and unknown regions of earthly love, through the first wonder and the first dreams, she soon found again the divine countenance; but this time more radiant than ever, more vivid, more irresistible; and that chaste flight which had carried her to the hopes of earth passed beyond and bore her away to heaven.

That a person has not had the happiness to feel this heavenly attraction, is no reason that he should either wonder at it or attempt to deny it. It is in the logic of our heart, and I believe there are few souls that in various degrees have not felt its power. It was known to ancient philosophy, whose greatest glory it is to have expressed by the mouth of Plato, its king, the progression of love from bodies and from souls to ideas and to God; and St. Augustine, who bore in his heart the gospel of Jesus Christ, has not rejected this part of the ancient heritage. Who has not read that conversation at Ostia, in which two holy souls, beginning with the love that united them on earth, came at last to touch heaven? "We were speaking sweetly together, ... and whilst we converse and look up to heaven, we reach it with the whole aspiration of our heart." [Footnote 182] It is this soaring, this upward flight that I speak of; this it is, I believe, which carried the soul of the saintly young bride to the desire of that eternal region where all desires are satisfied.

The heavenly instinct had not deceived her. Two days after that on which she wrote the last letter we have given, a death-bearing blast was breathed upon her, and she was seized with a slight fever which at first gave no uneasiness except to the ever-anxious heart of a mother. Yet on the very first day she had said to her, "Take my little desk and keep it in memory of me." These words were startling, coming from a person so clear-sighted. The illness suddenly assumed an alarming character, and the physicians recognized it as the miliary fever, a terrible epidemic which was then desolating Tuscany, and which seemed to pick out only choice victims. The young patient had divined her danger; she at once asked for the sacraments, and received with a humble and tender love the last visit of that Saviour whose blood never fails us, from our cradle, which it sanctifies, to our death-bed, where it strengthens and consoles us.

The patient now felt herself better. "Great and happy day!" she said; "if I am restored to health, never shall I forget it. What strength there is in the holy viaticum! My dear mother, how sweet and consoling is our religion! Ah! believe me, if any one feared death, he could do so no longer after having received the blessed Eucharist." Then she called her betrothed. "Gaetano," she said, "if it is the good pleasure of God to unite us on earth, he will restore me; but if he has other designs in our regard, then, my Gaetano, we must be resigned and adore his holy will, must we not?" The young man could not answer.

She continued: "In my English prayer-book there is an act of thanksgiving for the reception of the holy viaticum: take the book and read it to me." And a voice, tremulous with sorrow, began to read the following admirable prayer:

"Glory and thanksgiving be to thee, O Lord! who in thy sweetness hast been pleased to visit my poor soul. Now let thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. "Now thou art come to me, I will not let thee go; I willingly bid farewell to the world, and with joy I go to thee, my God. "Nothing more, O dear Jesus! nothing more shall separate me from thee: in thee I will live, in thee I will die, and in thee I hope to abide for ever. "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ; for Christ is my life, and to die will be my gain. "Now I will fear no evils, though I walk in the shadow of death, because thou art with me, O Lord! As the hart pants after the fountains of water, so does my soul after thee: my soul thirsts after the fountain of living water. Oh! when shall I come and appear before the face of my God? "Give me thy blessing, O divine Jesus! and establish my soul in everlasting peace; such peace as only thou canst give; such peace as it may not be in the power of my enemy to destroy. "Oh! that my soul were at rest in thy happiness, and in the enjoyment of thee, my God, for ever! "What more have I to do with the world? And in heaven what have I to desire but thee, my God? "Into thy hands I commend my spirit. Receive me, sweet Jesus! In thee may I rest; and in thy happiness rejoice without end. Amen."

When the reader's voice had ceased, the young patient wished to take some repose. But she still seemed collected, and continued to pray.

Her brother was expected to arrive from Florence. "Settle the room," she said to her mother, "and put back upon my table the things that were taken off it when it was prepared for an altar. I do not wish that poor Antonio should perceive, on entering, that I have received the last sacraments; but remember, dear mother, always look upon that little table as a sacred thing, for it has borne the body of Jesus Christ." All that day she held her mother's hand, and spoke of nothing but the happiness of having received the holy communion. Toward evening she remembered that she was to have visited such and such poor persons that day. This thought troubled her, and she could be calmed only by the assurance that before night some one should carry to those poor persons their accustomed succor. From this time she began to converse with Jesus Christ, speaking to him with an ardor which the violence of her sufferings rendered more intense. "O Jesus! this bed seems to me of fire—but no, I will not complain. Thou willest that I should serve thee in suffering, and in suffering I will serve thee. Thou knowest that I should not grieve to die if my death did not cause such great affliction to those who love me. If thou seest that I should make a good Christian wife, I would say, 'O Lord! heal me!' But what is it that I am asking? No, not my will, but thine be done!" In the middle of the night, seeing her mother's shadow still bending over her pillow, she exclaimed, "O the heroic love of mothers!" She thought so much of the least things that were done for her. "My poor father," she said, "how good he is; what care he takes of me; for my sake he deprives himself entirely of sleep. He has called in three physicians, and he wishes one of them to remain night and day near my room. It is too much, my God! Mother, what say you of my Gaetano? Ah! now indeed I feel how happy I should have been with him; for the more I know him, the more I feel that he loves me, as you love me." She asked to have prayers recited by her bedside, and began herself in a low tone the prayers for the agonizing. Her mother interrupted her. "Rosa, my child, why these sorrowful prayers? You will recover, my child; do not always be thinking of death." She answered, "Ah! but if all day I have not been able to think of anything but death; if Jesus wishes to take me, must I not be ready?" She suffered terribly; one moment nature prevailed, and she uttered a complaint. Her betrothed said to her, "Rosa, think of what our Lord suffered." "Thanks, Gaetano; ah! how that thought consoles me!"

The dawn of the following morning only brought an accession of the malady. Three skilful physicians saw all their efforts powerless against its violence. One of them, who loved Rosa as his own child, wept. The patient became delirious. "Let us go! let us go!" she cried; "dear mother, adieu! my home is not here, my home is above! Let us go! let us go! adieu!" She repeated these words, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian. She called her father, when he was absent, talking to him as if she saw him beside her; when he was present, looking for him and calling him still. She wept over the misfortunes of a poor widow whom in her dreams she saw left destitute; the next moment it was a little orphan that she cradled in her arms, and that drew tears from her eyes. Nothing could calm her delirium, which was still full of these charitable memories and images. At one time she seemed to see the ladder of Jacob, and she exclaimed: "But I—am I pure enough to go up with these angels? may I go forward? may I join their choirs, I who was preparing for earthly espousals?" She then recovered her consciousness, and asked for a chapter of the Flowerets of St. Francis on holy perseverance, during the reading of which she cried out suddenly, as if struck with horror, "O the evil spirits! the evil spirits!" Her mother hastened to her, threw her arms round her, and pressed her to her heart, saying, "Listen to your mother, Rosa, my dear child. Why these cries? why these terrors? You need not fear the evil spirits, my child; and they are not devils that surround your bed, but the angels of heaven. Have you not always loved God? have you not loved the poor? have you not been a good and obedient child?" But her countenance grew stern. "Hush," she said, "tempt me not to pride." And her face was overspread with the shadow of a profound and austere humility.

Her delirium returned, and now with a violence that neither words nor remedies could calm. As a last resource, her mother said to her, "Rosa, my child, I am quite exhausted. If you could calm yourself a little, I might lean my head on your hands and sleep. Calm yourself, my child, for my sake." And saying this, she affected to fall asleep. From that moment the poor child was silent; love was stronger than delirium.

A long stupor followed; an ivory paleness overspread her features; the veil of death was upon her brow. The victim was ready. But there is no victim without sacrifice, and no sacrifice without pain. Jesus trembled and wept, and was sorrowful even unto death in the Garden of Gethsemane. The hour of cruel sacrifice was come for this young Christian. She felt the cold iron of the sword, but again divine love remained victorious. Suddenly she wakes, opens her large, terrified eyes, while the blood rushing from her heart in an impetuous tide, crimsons her face and lights up her eye. She seems to come out of a dream, and now for the first time to understand all. "It must be, then!" she cried, "it must be! I must die! I must leave my father's house! I must leave my betrothed! No, no! I am to live with him, I am to make him happy!" A flood of tears bathed her countenance; a cry of anguish burst from her soul. "Adieu, Gaetano, adieu! we shall see each other no more!" It was a terrible struggle in that poor heart. The joyous preparations for her wedding had suddenly given place to the dismal preparations for the grave. The bride seemed to entwine her dying fingers in her nuptial wreath and to clasp it convulsively—but, if it be God's will?

Her mother put to her lips a picture of our Lady of Good Counsel, which the young girl had near her bed. Instantly she became calm, joined her hands, bowed her head, and remained perfectly silent. What was passing at that moment in the superior part of that beautiful soul? The eye of God alone, infinitely holy, can read such secrets. What we know is that, after this long silence, the dying girl pronounced in a clear, firm voice, the words, "Thy will be done." And from that moment the name of Gaetano was never upon her lips.

She recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. At the invocation, "Gate of heaven, pray for us," she pressed her mother's hand and smiled. Did she then see the eternal gates opening?

The Prior of San Sisto, her confessor, was by her bedside. She asked for extreme unction, and answered distinctly to all the prayers. An extraordinary grace of peace and resignation seemed from that moment to have entered her soul. She needed consolation no longer; it was she who now consoled and encouraged all around her. Her poor mother, wild with grief, threw herself upon her bosom. "I still hope," she said, sobbing; "yes, my Rosa, I still hope that you will recover; but if this be not God's will, oh! pray to him, supplicate him to call me also to himself. I will not, I cannot live without you!" But Rosa said, "No, mother, you must not wish for death. You have too many duties to accomplish upon earth; remember the mother of the Machabees." Then stretching out her hand and laying it on the head of the sorrow-stricken woman, she said, "I bless her who has so often blessed me! O Blessed Virgin! change the sorrow of this poor mother into the consolation of the poor, the afflicted, and the sick; and do thou, O my God! grant that we may all adore unto the end thy holy decrees." She drew from her finger a little ring, and said to her mother, "Keep that in remembrance of me;" and placing in her hands the ring of her betrothal, she said, "Give that to—you know whom—it is a noble soul." But she spoke not his name.

The end drew near; her family and friends surrounded her bed; every one was weeping. She said smiling, "You are all around me, I am very happy; thanks." Then suddenly, "Who wishes to have my hair?" No one ventured to answer. A long, half-reproachful look was cast on the weeping faces around. A voice cried, "I do." Rosa recognized it and said, "My mother shall have it."

She motioned to the Prior of San Sisto to come to her, and said to him in a whisper, "I beg of you to return this evening to my poor mother and do all you can to console her." From this time she seemed to retire to the feet of God, henceforth to speak to him alone. She said, "I suffer, my Jesus, but all for thy love! I do not fear hell, because I love thee too much. I am on fire, I am in flames! O Jesus! burn me, consume me in the flames of thy love!" It was now with difficulty that these holy ejaculations came from her oppressed bosom. Again, however, and for the last time, she rallied. Death had a hard struggle with her vigorous and innocent youth. This time the dying girl spoke the very language of the saints, and her farewell to earth was worthy of a St. Catharine of Sienna. "O Lord!" she said, "bless all men! bless this city of Pisa! bless her people! bless her bishop and her pastors! bless the Catholic Church! bless her sovereign Pontiff! bless her ministers and her children! Have pity on poor sinners; enlighten heretics; be merciful toward those who believe in thee, merciful also to those who believe not. Pardon all; be a loving Father to the good and to the wicked. Have pity on my soul, O Immaculate Virgin! Give to all thy peace, O Jesus!—that peace—" She was silent. A film gathered over her eyes; they saw no longer the things of earth, but a better light began to dawn on them. "Yes, yes," she murmured, "I see now; I begin to see—O the heavenly Jerusalem! O the angels! oh! how many angels! How beautiful! Yes, certainly, willingly, my God! Where am I? who calls me? where then? Let us go! let us go, my God! Let us go forward! Andiamo! andiamo! avanti!—" The words died on her lips; she made the sign of the cross, kissed the crucifix, and while mortal eyes still sought her upon earth, she was following the Lamb in the eternal choirs of the virgins.

Such is this beautiful death, every detail of which we have learned from her who, after having assisted at the sacrifice, did not die, but, like Mary, had to come down living from Calvary.

Will I be pardoned if I add some reflections on these letters and this narration? I said when commencing them that, as it seemed to me, they glorified Christianity in the two-fold transfiguration of love and of death. It seems to me yet clearer, now that I have finished them, that this is indeed their characteristic and their merit.

Yes, it is the glory of Christianity to have rendered possible, nay frequent, this sanctity of love which ancient philosophy pursued in its dreams, but which it had never either contemplated or exemplified. It is the glory of Christianity to have so well schooled, so well regulated the heart of man, to have made that heart at once so virginal and so strong, as to be capable of loving more, and better than ever, all that is lovable on earth, and at the same time capable of always loving it less than God. It is the glory of Christianity to have made a young girl—not a philosopher, not a poet, but a simple and pious girl—to realize unconsciously in her heart that sublimest conception of human wisdom; the continual, incessant passage of love from the shadows of being and of beauty, to the infinite being and the infinite beauty, from "divine phantoms," to use the expression of Plato, to the eternal reality. It is the glory of Christianity to have in all things opened to man a road toward God; to have taught him to make all his affections serve as so many steps whereby he may ascend to the absolute love: "In his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps." [Footnote 183] In fine, it is the glory of Christianity to have worked this prodigy, that a holiness so extraordinary, a perfection so superhuman, neither destroys nor fetters the pure affections of earth; so that the saints did not attain to the loving God alone by stifling in their hearts all love for their fellow-beings; but, on the contrary, they learned to love all mankind more than themselves, by first loving God above all.

Whoever, after seeing this, will meditate on the nature of the human heart, and on its history when abandoned to itself, will be forced to admit that here is indeed a transfiguration.

And as regards death, I find this transfiguration to be, if possible, more striking still. Death learned upon the cross that its highest office is to be the auxiliary of love. There an indissoluble fraternity was established between these two great forces; and there love received its mission to transform death into sacrifice. The ideal statue of the dying Christian is not then the ancient gladiator, falling, resigned but passive, his head bowed, his dim eye fixed on the earth which is fast escaping from him, impatient for the approach of nothingness, plunging willingly into eternal night. No; his ideal is the Crucified, dying erect, above the earth, "exaltatus a terra" in the attitude of the priest at the altar, pardoning all men, loving them to his latest breath, acquiescing in his death, nay, willing it, making himself the solemn deposit of his soul into the hands of his Father, at once the subject and the king of death, at once priest and victim.

Such is the Christian fraternity of Love and Death.

Hence it is, that through the differences of ages, of conditions, of minds, all holy deaths resemble one another; it is still love ruling death and transforming it into sacrifice. We have just portrayed the last hours of a betrothed bride who died in sacrificing to Jesus Christ her nuptial crown; ere while we followed through tears of admiration the account of another death, grander, more celebrated, more striking. [Footnote 184]

Now, what similitude could we expect to find between the last hours of a holy religious, an illustrious orator, a great and heroic soul, and those of a simple young girl, strong only in her innocence? And yet I venture to compare these two deaths, and the longer I consider them the more do I find that they resemble each other, that they are blended together in one ruling sentiment; they are both a sacrifice, and a sacrifice conducted by love. Sacrifices very different, victims very unequal, I admit. What peace in the death of the holy Father de Ravignan; or rather, what triumph of the Christian will over death! How he rules it! He speaks of "this last affair which is to be conducted, like all others, with decision and energy;" he gives the directions for the sacrifice; he offers it himself! When did he more truly live than on that bed of death? when was he more wakeful than in that seeming sleep! Then was he so strong and vigorous that he seemed to dominate death itself; in this resembling, as far as is possible to man, Christ upon the cross, whom, say the doctors, death could not approach except by his express order. What love, in fine, in his every word and in those desires of heaven, for the impatience and the ardor of which he reproaches himself! For my part, I fancy I see him welcoming death, for which he had been preparing himself for more than thirty years, with that grave, sweet smile whose charm was so extraordinary.

The young bride of Pisa is far from this severe grandeur. There are tears, there are regrets in her last farewell. There is one earthly name that lingers on her lips even to the confines of heaven. She does not command death—she obeys it; and yet here, too, I see an altar, a victim a sacrifice. Here, too, I see the will, more tremulous, more surprised, indeed, than in the great religious, but still armed by love, ending by conducting itself the last affair, and by absorbing death in its victory. Once again, what becomes of death in such deaths? where is it? It seems to disappear: "Death, where is thy victory? Where is thy sting? It is swallowed up!"

Let our souls become inebriated with hope at the recital of holy deaths; let us yield ourselves without fear to the attraction which they give us for the life to come. Undoubtedly, the true secret of dying well is to live well; and our imperfection does not allow us to treat death as may the saints. But surely the love which transfigured their death, is at least begun in our souls; it may increase, and, the hour come, may transform for us also the supreme defiles into regions of light and peace.

Among the paintings which have been found in the catacombs of Rome, there is one that has always struck me as having a profound meaning: it is a jewelled cross, from all sides of which spring stems of roses, which bloom around it, and cover its severe nudity. [Footnote 185]

It is very rarely that the cross is found in the catacombs. Perhaps for the tender faith of the neophytes it was dreaded-the sight of that instrument of torture which was yet odious to the whole world, and was dragged daily through the streets for the punishment of slaves. It was, doubtless, to assist the transition from horror to love that the Christian instinct had covered that cross with precious stones and blooming roses, red still with a blood shed by Divine love for the salvation of mankind. Be that as it may, this symbol seems to me to express gloriously the transfiguration of death by Christianity. Ah! neophytes that we are, neophytes of death and a life to come, let us regard the dying moment as a cross which Jesus and his saints have covered for us with encouragement and hope. When the children of the first Christians wondered to see a gibbet on the altar, their fathers pointed to the jewels and roses, and told them of the Redeemer's love. If death terrifies us in its austere nakedness, let us look at the love which can transfigure it, and can make our last hour the happiest, and above all, the most precious in our life.

Rosa Ferrucci was mourned. The whole public press of Tuscany told of her death; poets chanted it; inscriptions were composed in her honor,—the Italian scholars excel in this art so little cultivated among us;—I transcribe one which I think touching:

CHASTE YOUTHS, TENDER VIRGINS, DECORATE WITH TEARS THE TOMB OF ROSA FERRUCCI, SWEETEST GIRL, IN THE POLITE ARTS VERSED BEYOND THE CUSTOM OF WOMEN; WHO, ON THE VERY EVE OF MARRIAGE, WHILST UNACCUSTOMED JOYS FILLED HER SILENT BREAST, COMPLETED HER YOUTHFUL LIFE SECURE.

Secura! beautiful word—word full of peace! and yet less eloquent than one single word which I once read on a fragment of marble taken from the Roman catacombs, [Footnote 186] and which I now bring to the tomb of her who has passed from earthly espousals to the nuptials of the Lamb. The case here also was that of a young Christian maiden. Was she affianced like Rosa Ferrucci? Was it the hand of a betrothed spouse that closed her tomb? The word we speak of, does it indicate her virginal glory, or was it her name? The little stone saith not. All that we know is, that the hand which carried into the consecrated galleries the mortal remains of the young Christian, after having marked the place of her repose, took a fragment of marble, laid it against the opening, fastened it by a little clay, and choosing a word among those which the Gospel had just given or explained to the world, engraved these six letters:

"Chaste,"