away from myself. A strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of
the wars and commotions then raging in the Low Countries--or rather,
perhaps, the very craving to become interested in something external,
led me into the thick of the struggle then going on with the
Austrians. The cities of Flanders were all full at that time of
civil disturbances and rebellions, only kept down by force, and the
presence of an Austrian garrison in every place.

I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was
away in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the
Convent of Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could
only see the dim, pent-up, gray walls, shut closely in by narrow
streets, in the lowest part of the town. My landlord told me, that
had I been stricken by some loathsome disease, or in desperate case
of any kind, the Poor Clares would have taken me, and tended me. He
spoke of them as an order of mercy of the strictest kind, dressing
scantily in the coarsest materials, going barefoot, living on what
the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to bestow, and sharing even those
fragments and crumbs with the poor and helpless that swarmed all
around; receiving no letters or communication with the outer world;
utterly dead to everything but the alleviation of suffering. He
smiled at my inquiring whether I could get speech of one of them; and
told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the purposes of
begging their daily food; while yet they lived, and fed others upon
what was given in charity.

"But," exclaimed I, "supposing all men forgot them! Would they
quietly lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?"

"If such were the rule the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but