unconscious helplessness is in part repealed. The soul, habituated to
incessant and self-collected action, wakes and lives, while ordinary
Christians slumber, and as it were are dead. The infliction of other
severe bodily pains co-operates in the purifying process, and enables
the mind to disregard the dictates of nature to an extent which to
many Catholics seems almost incredible, and to the unbeliever an utter
impossibility. Physical life is supported under conditions which would
crush a constitution not supported by the miraculous aid of almighty
power; and feeble men and women accomplish works of charity and heroic
self-sacrifice from which the most robust and energetic of the human
race, in their highest state of _natural_ perfection, would shrink
back in dismay as hopeless impossibilities. The senses are literally
tyrannised over, scorned, derided, insultingly trampled on. The sight,
the smell, the hearing, the touch, and the taste, are taught to exercise
themselves upon objects revolting to their original inclinations. They
learn to minister to the will without displaying one rebellious symptom.
Matter yields to spirit; the soul is the master of the body; while the
perceptions of the intelligence attain an exquisite sensibility, and the
mind is gifted with faculties absolutely new, the flesh submits, almost
insensible to its condition of servitude, and scarcely murmurs at the
daily death it is compelled to endure.

The process is the same in all that regards the affections and passions
of the mind itself. The heart is denied every thing that it desires,
which is not God. However innocent, however praiseworthy, may be the
indulgence in certain feelings, and the gratification of certain
pursuits in ordinary Christians, in the case of these favoured souls
nature is crushed in _all_ her parts. Her faculties remain, but they are
directed to spiritual things alone. Possessions of all kinds, lands,
houses, books, pictures, gardens, husband, wife, children, friends,