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The Catholic Magazine.

THE MAGDALEN.

"OH MARY, CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN, PRAY FOR ME WHO HAVE RECOURSE TO THEE."

"VIOLETS, violets, who will buy my violets?"

The feeble voice was lost in the uproar of the crowd who had assembled on the occasion of some public rejoicing. "Violets, violets, who will buy my violets?" This time the mournful petition was uttered before the doors of the opera-house. It was received by one with a smile and idle jest, by another with an expression of brutal indifference; and if it touched some hearts yet unhardened by contact with the world, the rapid passage from the carriage to the house prevented any charity more efficient than an exclamation of pity; and the emotion caused by real misery was soon lost in the more powerful one created by the imaginary woes of the heroine of the stage.

"Violets, violets, who will buy my violets?" The flower-girl had now paused in the porch of a church, whither a few devout adorers were flocking for a late service of the evening. The feeble cry arrested the attention of a young man who was about to enter. He looked at her with an expression of deep commiseration on his face. She held a bunch of withering flowers, and said, in a low, sad voice, "Will you not buy some violets ?"

"Poor child," he muttered, "like yourself, they are fair and faded.” He placed some money in her hand; a smile brightened for a moment on her face, then she grew deadly pale, and fell fainting to the ground. The young man to whom she had addressed herself, was a member of the Society of St. Vincent of Paul, which had just then been established in Paris for the relief of the poor. Without a moment's hesitation, he lifted the poor girl up in his arms, and carried her into a shop which was close at hand. Starvation was too plainly written in her face; but though she revived a little on their forcing her to swallow a few drops of wine, her eyes continued wild, and her frame seemed to burn with incipient fever. A little crowd had by this time collected round the shop, and one of them hearing that the girl still continued unconscious, went in search of a physician, who soon entered the shop, and offered his adNO. X.-VOL. II.-OCT. 1843. 13

vice. He looked at the girl, and shook his head. "Great care and perfect quiet are the only things that can save her; she is in the last stage of starvation, and fever of the worst description is preying on her frame."

"Can she not be conveyed to the Hotel Dieu, sir?”

“Impossible; in her state of weakness, the attempt would be probably fatal." The young man turned to the master of the house:

"Can you give the poor girl a room in your house for the present ? I will procure a sister of charity to nurse her, and will be answerable for all expenses."

"And I,” said the physician, " shall be too happy in giving her all the assistance in my power."

The man they addressed was good and charitable, and willingly consented to this arrangement.

The young man placed some money in his hands, and left the shop; but he soon returned, accompanied by the nurse he had gone to seek. This was a nun of that order of charitable sisters who attend the sick at their own houses. She was of approved piety and skill, and now she came to her labour of love with such a look of gentle happiness as if the anticipation of weeks spent in the atmosphere of disease and death was something pleasant to her feelings. It was not that she rejoiced in the sight of pain, for her heart was feelingly alive to the sufferings of others; but sister Placida was so thoroughly imbued with a conviction in His words, "What ye do to the least of my brethren, ye do unto me,” that she received her poor patients as gladly as she would have welcomed Him, served them with the same affectionate zeal she would have shown to Him, and made them share largely in the love which she cherished in her heart for Him, her crucified Lord and Saviour.

Weeks passed away, and the poor patient still lay stretched upon her bed, amid all the horrors of delirious fever; but the skill of her charitable physician, and the care and attention of her voluntary nurse, triumphed at last over the fell disease. One evening, she awoke from a profound sleep, and her eyes met those of the nun, who was anxiously watching her slightest movement. When sister Placida perceived that the crisis foretold by the medical attendant had taken place, and that the girl was out of immediate danger, she could not refrain from tears of gladness; and stooping down, she kissed her poor patient's brow, praying at the same time most fervently that He who had in mercy spared her life, might also guide her to the paths of religious peace, from whence it appeared too likely she had strayed. The sick girl

gazed upon her gentle nurse with the feelings of one not yet quite awakened from a dream; and there was a look of sympathy, a touching gentleness, in the expression of that pale face, which made her feel as if she were breathing an atmosphere of peace never known before. The heart which but a short time before had throbbed in such desperate despair, was now subdued to the gentleness of a child's; and when the nun tenderly raised her to arrange her pillows, she laid her head on that innocent bosom, and wept like an infant on its mother's breast.

“Hush, hush," said the nun, gently; "you have been very ill, but you are safe now, and you must not cry or speak, or you will be ill again, my poor child, and we shall have to watch you again as we have watched you already for many a long week."

The poor girl was utterly exhausted; but even if she had not been so, there was something in the kindness of sister Placida's voice which made her obey with the docility of a child. So she lay back quietly on her pillow, and contented herself with watching the nun; and whenever their eyes met, a smile brightened on her wasted features. It seemed as if her soul reposed on that of dame Placida's, and drew peace from the serenity by which it was surrounded. Thus she continued for many days, gradually acquiring strength, and with strength came the recollection of all she had suffered before Providence conducted her to the gates of the church of Our Lady; but amid the dark visions of her former life, the distorted recollections of her hours of madness, the look of sympathy which had greeted her return to conscious existence, never for a moment passed away from her thoughts. Sleeping or waking, it was always before her; and as a traveller lost in an unknown cave hails the returning light of the sun as a sign of deliverance, so she dwelt upon the memory of that look, as if it were her sole assurance that there yet remained kindness for her upon earth,—her sole hope that there yet might be pardon for her in heaven. One evening she ventured to speak upon the subject.

"You were glad, dear sister, when you found I was better at last." "I was glad, my poor child, to find you no longer suffered; most glad to find that Almighty GoD in His goodness had spared you to make your peace with Him, if indeed you are not in His peace already." "If!" said the girl, sadly. "Oh, sister Placida, had you known what a wretch I am, you would have fled from the contagion of more rapidly that others fly from the infection of the body." "Had I known it," said the nun, gently, "I would, if possible, have watched you more tenderly,-have prayed for you more fervently,-

my soul

because I should have known that, abandoned both by GoD and man, you would have more needed my cares for your temporal welfare, and more entirely required my prayers (unworthy as they are) for your restoration to the peace of your heavenly Father."

"Then you will not scorn me," said she, weeping bitterly, "if I confess to you, good sister, that I am the wretch you describe. I have forsaken GOD, and GOD and man have forsaken me."

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Why should I scorn you, my dearest child, when our good JEsus did not scorn the thief on the cross. Let he that is without sin throw the first stone; which of us are sinless before GOD? which of us, in the same situation, can say that we would not have done the same ?”

The girl had once been innocent and well-instructed in all religious matters, and the words of the nun fell upon her soul like a strain of long forgotten music, which wakens every feeling it could once inspire. She wept; but there was no bitterness in her tears,-while the nun continued:

"But though man may not condemn, GOD by his justice must do so, if, in spite of His mercies, we continue in sin. Let us mourn then for our sins, but let us mourn them as Magdalen mourned them, at the foot of the cross. She shared in her Saviour's sorrows,-she knew that she had caused them by her sins; but she also knew that in those sufferings was her salvation. Let us endeavour to share her feelings; let our sorrow be mingled with consolation, and our love with a gratitude that will lead us (while we shun sin for our own sake) to hate it for His, to whom it caused the agony in the garden, and the dereliction on the cross." The girl clasped her hands fervently together.

"And this good JESUS will pardon even me? Oh, dear sister, neither death nor torture can induce me ever to offend Him again."

"With the assistance of His grace," added the gentle nun.

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'Ah, yes, without Him I know too well I am worse than nothing. But how am I to begin? Alas, alas, the world is closed to such as me." "The world, dear child, but not those who have renounced the world. There are good nuns who have devoted themselves to the care of those poor sinners for whom the world has only scorn. In the convent of the Good Shepherd you will find time for repentance and repose."

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Oh, let me go there directly; how can I too soon begin to repent my wicked life ?"

The nun smiled kindly.

"You must get stronger first; but hark, I hear the knock of the good father, who comes here to enquire about you every day. Will you see him?"

The

poor girl covered her face with her hands.

"I fear him, good sister. I fear all good people but you."

"But you must not fear him. He comes to you on the part of the good JESUS you love so much."

"But oh, sister Placida, my sins, my shame, my sorrow!"

"Magdalen only thought of her sins and sorrow. She forgot all shame, when she entered the presence of the proud Pharisee, and declared herself a sinner at JESUS' feet. 6 Many sins were forgiven her, because she loved much.' Will you, dear sister, be less loved, less par doned ?"

"Oh no, no! To the whole world would I now declare my guilt. Dear sister, pray him, for sweet JESUS' sake, to have pity on the sinner." The father of the Bon Pasteur now entered the room. He had been sent for in the beginning of the girl's illness, and ever since had continued to pay her daily visits. He was old; but the years which had blanched his hair and bent his form, had only added strength to his intellect, and given a child-like tenderness of manner to his natural child-like tenderness of heart. He wept with the poor sinner, prayed over her, consoled her, and encouraged her. He entered into all her feelings as if they were his own. He shared in her sorrows, pitied her weakness, mourned over her sins, led her without violence from the contemplation of the past to the hopes of the future, and left her with a heart penetrated by a sweet sense of the consolations of religion and the goodness of GOD, and a soul firmly resolved and burning to expiate her sins by a life devoted to penance and religion. From this time she saw the good father daily; and her mind being no longer tortured by remorse, she rapidly recovered. One day he came rather earlier than usual, and told her that the brother of the Society of St. Vincent to whose charity she was indebted for her life, was most anxious to see her, and to hear her story from her own lips. The poor creature coloured deeply; she had never been hardened in sin, and now she could not speak of her departure from virtue without the acutest feelings of shame and anguish. The priest saw her trouble.

"He has explained his reasons to me; and had they not been of importance, I assure you I never would have consented to a proposal which I knew would give you pain. But perhaps it would spare your feelings you make me the medium of the communication ?"

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'No, my good father, no," she answered, in a sweet sad voice. "I

have deserved all this, and more. I was not ashamed to sin, therefore am I put to the shame of confessing myself a sinner."

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