S. Baring-Gould

“ Benedict had been thirty-six years a monk before he came to Monte Cassino, and we know nothing of his sister’s life through all these years, save that she had maintained a still and holy converse with God. It is most probable that she had never tarried very far from her brother. Now that he settled at Monte Cassino, she came and planted herself with a little community of pious women at the foot of the mountain. Scholastica was as white in soul, as earnest, as devout as was Benedict. ”

“ Those on one side of the amphitheatre, the slaves on the highest row, could see, vaporous and blue on the horizon, above the crowded tiers opposite, the chain of the Alps, their crests white with eternal snows.
“No sooner was the chief magistrate seated, to the blare of trumpets, than the martyrs were introduced. Sanctus had to be supported; he could hardly walk, he was such a mass of wounds. All were now stripped of their garments and were scourged. Blandina was attached to a post in the centre of the arena. She had been forced every day to attend and witness the sufferings of the rest.” ”

“ Hildegarde’s “Natural History” is a very funny book. She did not pretend to derive her knowledge of the property of things from inspiration, but there can be little doubt that, at the time when it was issued, those who regarded her prophecies as infallible, looked also on her enunciation of the properties of natural objects as inspired.
She begins the book by likening the world to a human body: the earth is the flesh, the rocks are the bones, the moisture of the stones is the marrow, the slate rocks are the toe and finger nails, the plants are the hair, and the dew is the perspiration. ”

“ The mob swayed and quivered with indignation; women wept and fainted. Then with a roar broke forth the execration, “Cursed be Diocletian and all his gods!”
Thereupon Hiera sent a girl running to the convent to Bryene to tell her all. And the old abbess flung herself on the ground sobbing, “Bra, bra, bra! Febronia, my child!” Then raising her arms and straining her eyes to heaven, she cried, “Lord, regard Thy humble handmaiden, Febronia, and may my aged eyes see the battle fought out, and my dear child numbered with the martyrs.” ”

“ Elfleda was in great anxiety about her headstrong brother, and she went to see Cuthbert concerning him. He and the abbess met, having gone by sea to the place appointed for the interview. She threw herself at his feet and entreated him to tell her what the issue would be—would Egfrid have a long reign?
“I am surprised,” answered Cuthbert, “that a woman well versed, like you, in the Scriptures, should speak to me of length of human life, which lasts no longer than a spider’s web. How short, then, must life be for a man who has but a year to live, and has death at his door!” ”

“ Then Hiera, bursting into the arena, stood wild with indignation and anguish before the judge, and shrieked, as she shook her hands at him,—“O monster of cruelty! shame on thee, shame! Thou, born of a woman, hast forgotten the obligation to honour womanhood, and hast insulted and outraged thy mother in the person of this poor girl. God, the Judge above judges, will make a swift work with thee, and cut it short, and root thee out of the land of the living.” ”

“ When daylight came S. Theresa was aghast to see how ruinous the house was: the hall, which she had hastily converted into a chapel, was so full of cracks that the Blessed Sacrament was exposed to the sight of those who passed in the streets, and she saw that the repairs of the dilapidated mansion would cost money and take time. She was much dispirited, for she began to fear that she had undertaken what she had not the power to carry out—her intention being to make this a convent of nuns, and then to found, if possible, in the same town, a monastery for reformed Carmelite friars. ”

“ Unquestionably, in community life, this masterfulness in the character of Sister Dora might have been subdued, but—would she have then done the same magnificent work? It seems to me—but I may be mistaken—that we should suffer these strong characters to take their course, and not endeavour to crush them into an ordinary mould. It is precisely those who soar above the routine-bound souls that, among men, make history—as Cæsar, Napoleon, Bismarck—and let me add Lord Kitchener. And in the Church it is the same. ”

“ Almost immediately after the sisters had fled, news reached those who remained that the governor had arrived. Febronia heard her aunt sobbing. She looked at Thomais, and asked, “I pray you, dear mother, what is the great mistress” (for this was the title of the abbess) “crying so bitterly about?”
“My child,” answered the old nun, “she is sore at heart about you. We are old and ugly, and all that can chance to us is death; but you are young and fair, and there are things we fear for you of which you know nothing. ”

“ One morning Sister Dora came to me and said, ‘Do you know, I have an idea that if some one could be got to go to the epidemic hospital in whom the people have confidence, they would send their friends to be nursed, the patients would be isolated, and the disease stamped out?’” This was because a prejudice was entertained against the new small-pox hospital, and those who had sick concealed the fact rather than send them to it. ”

“ Another of Bridget’s nuns was named Dara, who was blind—indeed, had been born without sight.
One evening Bridget and Dara sat together and talked all night of the joys of Paradise. And their hearts were so full that the hours of darkness passed without their being aware how time sped; and lo! above the Wicklow mountains rose the golden sun, and in the glorious light the sky flashed, and the river glittered, and all creation awoke. Then Bridget sighed, because she knew that Dara’s eyes were closed to all this beauty. So—the legend tells—she bowed her head in prayer ”

“ Germany was wholly pagan, a breeding-place of hordes that burst forth periodically to devastate the land that had been cultivated, and to extinguish the light wherever it burned. Gaul had been overwhelmed by successive waves of barbarism. Spain was ravaged by Visigoths, Suevi, Alani, and Vandals. These latter had swept over Northern Africa, and had given it up to unpitying persecution. Britain had been invaded by the Anglo-Saxons, who had driven the Britons and their Christianity to the mountains of Strathclyde, Wales, and to the peninsula of Cornwall. ”

“ When the Roman world, undermined by corruption and imperial despotism, fell to pieces like the arch of a cloaca, there is no better indication of the difference between 256the debased subjects of the empire and their conquerors, than that sanctity of conjugal and domestic ties, that energetic family feeling, that worship of pure blood, which are founded upon the dignity of woman, and respect for her modesty, no less than upon the proud independence of man and the consciousness of personal dignity. ”

“ She was full of impulse and had a soul desirous of better things. Not for a moment did the thought dawn on her that these good women might be made useful in their generation. A woman is hardly ever an innovator, and the notion of innovation never entered the mind of Theresa. The only course that she could take was to make the enclosure of the nuns strict, and to impose silence on their flow of silly talk. Consequently she brooded on the idea of a reform, and a reform in this direction.
Theresa returned to the Encarnacion after a serious catalyptic attack, on Palm Sunday, 1537. ”

“ He was told that she was called Geneviève. The pleased parents now stepped up, and the venerable bishop asked, “Is this your child?”
They answered in the affirmative.
“Then,” said Germain, “happy are ye in having a child so blessed. She will be great before God; and, moved by her example, many will decline from evil and incline to that which is good, and will obtain remission of their sins, and the reward of life from Christ.” And then, after a pause, he said to the young girl, “My daughter, Geneviève.” She answered, “Thy little maiden listens.” ”

“ She, to whom everybody had learnt instinctively to turn for help and consolation, on whom others leant for support, must she now come down to ask of them sympathy and comfort? The pride of life was still surging up in her, that pride which had made her glory in her physical strength for its own sake, as well as for its manifold uses in the service of her Master. ”

“ As soon as the bishop and clergy of Sibapte heard that the governor purposed coming to the place, they dispersed and secreted themselves. The sisters of the convent in great agitation waited on the abbess, and entreated her to allow them to escape for their lives.
Bryene bade them entertain no alarm, as the danger only threatened, and was not at their doors: such humble, insignificant folk as they might expect to be overlooked. At the same time she was really distracted with anxiety, as Febronia was not strong enough to be removed, and she could not leave her. ”

“ Such a life is not needed now-a-days. What is now required is one like that of Angela, in Sir Walter Besant’s “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” who will plunge into the sordid wretchedness of the slums of our great cities, and labour there to bring happiness to the dull lives of the toilers—who will labour to ameliorate the condition of those that are the slaves of our nineteenth-century civilisation. ”

“ So she gave to Caedmon clergy who translated the Scripture narrative from Latin into homespun Saxon. He listened, took his harp, the fire came into his grey eyes, and he sang it all in verse. Ninety-nine out of a hundred other women would have said, “This is very interesting, but the man must be snubbed; he is only a keeper of cows, and he must be taught not to presume.” Hilda, however, was above such pettiness: seeing a divine gift of song, though granted to quite a common poor man, she at once endeavoured to ripen it, and to turn it to a practical, good end. ”

“ They will all confess Christ.”
Selenus reluctantly gave orders for the release of Hiera, and directed the current of his rage on Febronia, now unconscious. He ordered first her hands, then her feet, and finally her head to be struck off; and when all was finished, rose from his seat, turned to Lysimachus, and saw that his face was bathed in tears. He hastily withdrew to supper, angry with himself, his nephews, and the mob.
Lysimachus and Primus descended to the arena, and standing by the mutilated body, vowed to renounce the gods of Diocletian and to worship the God of Febronia. ”