another lodging, the window of which looked out upon a garden. The condition of the saintly nun became day by day more painful. Her stigmas were a source of indescribable suffering to her, down to the moment of her death. Instead of allowing her thoughts to dwell upon those graces to the interior presence of which they bore such miraculous outward testimony, she learned from them lessons of humility, by considering them as a heavy cross laid upon her for her sins. Her suffering body itself was to preach Jesus crucified. It was difficult indeed to be an enigma to all persons, an object of suspicion to the greatest number, and of respect mingled with fear to some few, without yielding to sentiments of impatience, irritability, or pride. Willingly would she have lived in entire seclusion from the world, but obedience soon compelled her to allow herself to be examined and to have judgment passed upon her by a vast number of curious persons. Suffering, as she was, the most excruciating pains, she was not even allowed to be her own mistress, but was regarded as something which everyone fancied he had a right to look at and to pass judgment upon,—often with no good results to anyone, but greatly to the prejudice of her soul and body, because she was thus deprived of so much rest and recollection of spirit. There seemed to be no bounds to what was expected of her, and one fat man, who had some difficulty in ascending her narrow winding staircase, was heard to complain that a person like Anne Catherine, who ought to be exposed on the public road, where everyone could see her, should remained in a lodging so difficult to reach. In former ages, persons in her state underwent in private the examination of the spiritual authorities, and carried out their painful vocation beneath the protecting shadow of hallowed walls; but our suffering heroine had been cast forth from the cloister into the world at a time when pride, coldness of heart, and incredulity were all the vogue; marked with the stigmas of the Passion of Christ, she was forced to wear her bloody robe in public, under the eyes of men who scarce believed in the Wounds of Christ, far less in those which were but their images.

Thus this holy woman, who in her youth had been in the habit of praying for long hours before pictures of all the stages of Christ's painful Passion, or before wayside crosses, was herself made like unto a cross on the public road, insulted by one passer by, bathed in warm tears of repentance by a second, regarded as a mere physical curiosity by a third, and venerated by a fourth, whose innocent hands would bring flowers to lay at her feet.

In 1817 her aged mother came from the country to die by her side. Anne Catherine showed her all the love she could by comforting and praying for her, and closing her eyes with her own hands—those hands marked with the stigmas on the 13th of March of the same year. The inheritance left to Anne Catherine by her mother was more than sufficient for one so imbued with the spirit of mortification and sufferings; and in her turn she left it unimpaired to her friends. It consisted of these three sayings:—'Lord, thy will, not mine, be done; ' 'Lord, give me patience, and then strike hard;' 'Those things which are not good to put in the pot are at least good to put beneath it.' The meaning of this last proverb was: If things are not fit to be eaten, they may at least be burned, in order that food may be cooked; this suffering does not nourish my heart, but by bearing it patiently, I may at least increase the fire of divine love, by which alone life can profit us anything. She often repeated these proverbs, and then thought of her mother with gratitude. Her father had died some little time before.

The writer of these pages became acquainted with her state first through reading a copy of that letter of Stolberg, to which we have already alluded, and afterwards through conversation with a friend who had passed several weeks with her. In September 1818 he was invited by Bishop Sailer to meet him at the Count de Stolberg's, in Westphalia; and he went in the first place to Sondermuhlen to see the count, who introduced him to Overberg, from whom he received a letter addressed to Anne Catherine's doctor. He paid her his first visit on the 17th of September 1818; and she allowed him to pass several hours by her side each day, until the arrival of Sailer. From the very beginning, she gave him her confidence to a remarkable extent, and this in the most touching and ingenuous manner. No doubt she was conscious that by relating without reserve the history of all the trials, joys, and sorrows of her whole life, she was bestowing a most precious spiritual alms upon him. She treated him with the most generous hospitality, and had no hesitation in doing so, because he did not oppress her and alarm her humility by excessive admiration. She laid open her interior to him in the same charitable spirit as a pious solitary would in the morning offer the flowers and fruit which had grown in his garden during the night to some way-worn traveller, who, having lost his road in the desert of the world, finds him sitting near his hermitage. Wholly devoted to her God, she spoke in this open manner as a child would have done, unsuspectingly, with no feelings of mistrust, and with no selfish end in view. May God reward her!

Her friend daily wrote down all the observations that he made concerning her, and all that she told him about her life, whether interior or exterior. Her words were characterised alternately by the most childlike simplicity and the most astonishing depth of thought, and they foreshadowed, as it were, the vast and sublime spectacle which later was unfolded, when it became evident that the past, the present, and the future, together with all that pertained to the sanctification, profanation, and judgment of souls, formed before and within her an allegorical and historical drama, for which the different events of the ecclesiastical year furnished subjects, and which it divided into scenes, so closely linked together were all the prayers and sufferings which she offered in sacrifice for the Church militant.

On the 22nd of October 1818 Sailer came to see her, and having remarked that she was lodging at the back of a public house, and that men were playing at nine-pins under her window, said in the playful yet thoughtful manner which was peculiar to him: 'See, see; all things are as they should be—the invalid nun, the spouse of our Lord, is lodging in a publichouse above the ground where men are playing at nine-pins, like the soul of man in his body.' His interview with Anne Catherine was most affecting; it was indeed beautiful to behold these two souls, who were both on fire with the love of Jesus, and conducted by grace through such different paths, meet thus at the foot of the Cross, the visible stamp of which was borne by one of them. On Friday, the 23rd of October, Sailer remained alone with her during nearly the whole of the day; he saw blood flow from her head, her hands, and her feet, and he was able to bestow upon her great consolation in her interior trials. He most earnestly recommended her to tell everything without reserve to the writer of these pages, and he came to an understanding upon the subject with her ordinary director. He heard her confession, gave her the Holy Communion on Saturday, the 24th, and then continued his journey to the Count de Stolberg's. On his return, at the beginning of November, he again passed a day with her. He remained her friend until death, prayed constantly for her, and asked her prayers whenever he found himself in trying of difficult positions. The writer of these pages remained until January. He returned in May 1819, and continued to watch Anne Catherine almost uninterruptedly until her death.

The saintly maiden continually besought the Almighty to remove the exterior stigmas, on account of the trouble and fatigue which they occasioned, and her prayer was granted at the end of seven