that it was not there; 'for,' she would add, 'people are constantly saying in
these days that you need read nothing but the Bible, which contains
everything, etc., etc.'

The real task of her life was to suffer for the Church and for some
of its members, whose distress was shown her in spirit, or who asked
her prayers without knowing that this poor sick nun had something more
to do for them than to say the Pater noster, but that all their
spiritual and corporal sufferings became her own, and that she had to
endure patiently the most terrible pains, without being assisted, like
the contemplatives of former days, by the sympathising prayers of an
entire community. In the age when she lived, she had no other
assistance than that of medicine. While thus enduring sufferings which
she had taken upon herself for others, she often turned her thoughts to
the corresponding sufferings of the Church, and when thus suffering for
one single person, she would likewise offer all she endured for the
whole Church.

The following is a remarkable instance of the sort: During several
weeks she had every symptom of consumption; violent irritation of the
lungs, excessive perspiration, which soaked her whole bed, a racking
cough, continual expectoration, and a strong continual fever. So
fearful were her sufferings that her death was hourly expected and even
desired. It was remarked that she had to struggle strangely against a
strong temptation to irritability. Did she yield for an instant, she
burst into tears, her sufferings increased tenfold, and she seemed
unable to exist unless she immediately gained pardon in the sacrament
of penance.

She had also to combat a feeling of aversion to a certain person