Authentic history, conceiving herself justified, probably, in leaving a saint in the hands of her own professional advisers and chroniclers, has meddled so little with Catherine biographically, that it was easy to give within the limits of a short chapter a tolerably complete summary of all that can be said to be really known of her story. The professional records of her career as Saint and Thaumaturgist on the other hand are exuberant, minute in detail, and based on abundance of that sort of evidence to their veracity, which the writers of such narratives are wont to consider as most irrefragable and conclusive. And these stories are by no means deficient in interest even to those, whose habits of mind lead them to distinguish widely between such and the materials for what they would admit to be history. For it is a genuine historical fact, and one of no light importance, that these things _were_ believed, were written by men of learning, and are _still_ believed by thousands. It is an historical, as well as a very curious psychological fact, that the statements in question were considered by the writers and thousands of readers of them during many generations to have been proved to be true by the evidence adduced. And it is an historical question, far more interesting, unfortunately, than easy to be solved, who were the believers of the officially received narrative, and who were not. [Sidenote: HER AUSTERITIES.] For these reasons the Church view of the case, is at least as important a part of any satisfactory account of the Saint as the lay view, which was the subject of the last chapter. But all attempt to state the former with the completeness with which it has been sought to lay the latter before the reader, would, within any limits endurable by Englishmen of the nineteenth century, be wholly futile. It will be necessary to proceed by way of specimen-giving. And in the present case that compendious mode of examination will not be so unsatisfactory as it sometimes is found to be. For the masses of visions, penitences, revelations, and miracles recorded, with their respective confirmatory evidences, are so perfectly homogeneous in their nature, that the handful may very confidently be accepted as a fair sample of the contents of the sack. The austerities and self-inflictions by which she prepared herself for her career internally, and at the same time gave proof of her vocation externally to those around her, began at an almost incredibly early age, and went on increasing gradually in intensity and monstrosity till they pass from the probable to the highly improbable, and thence to the manifestly impossible and miraculous. The line of demarcation which limits the latter, will be differently drawn by different minds. But the perfectly authentic records of human achievement in this department, are such as warn us against absolutely refusing our belief to any horrible self-torment under which life may possibly be retained.