I, vile slave, who am placed in the Field, where blood was shed for the love of Blood--(and you have left me here, and gone away with God)--shall never pause from working for you. I beg you so to do that you give me no matter for mourning, nor for shaming me in the sight of God. As you are a man in promising the will to do and bear for the honour of God, do not then turn into a woman when we come to the shutting of the lock; for I should appeal against you to Christ crucified and to Mary. Beware lest it happen later to you as to the abbot of St. Antimo, who, through fear and under colour of not tempting God, left Siena and came to Rome, supposing that he had escaped his prison and was safe; and he was thrown into prison, with the punishment that you know. So are pusillanimous hearts cured. Be, then, be all a man: that death may be granted you. I beg you to pardon me whatever I might have said that was not honour to God and due reverence to yourself: let love excuse it. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. I ask your benediction. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love! TO URBAN VI This is the last letter to Urban that we possess. If, as seems likely, it is also the last that Catherine wrote to him, it must have been written on the Monday after Sexagesima, 1380, under circumstances which she describes for us in the next letter to be given. She had already at the time entered upon the mystical agony which preceded her _transitus_. The letter alludes to historic details of which we have no knowledge and for which we do not care. Yet it has rare interest. That exquisite sweetness which often blends in so unique a way with Catherine's authoritative tone, was never more evident. Urban's impetuous inconsistencies, and the irrational gusts of anger which were by this time alienating even his friends, could not be more clearly nor more gently rebuked. One's heart aches at the thought of what manner of man he was to whom this sensitive and high-minded woman was forced by her faith to give not only allegiance but championship. Not once during Catherine's active life was she allowed to fight in a clear cause, or at least in a cause in which sympathies could be undivided; the pathos of the situation is evident in the meek and patient firmness of her tone. But the letter has a deeper interest, if it is really the last she wrote to him. Knowing the circumstances of its composition, we must be amazed at the lucidity of her thought and words, at the steady and definite wisdom with which she discusses the movement of events in the outer world. It is surely significant to the psychologist that a woman in the throes of such an experience as the next letters present, could write in such a strain. The whole life of Catherine, indeed, refutes the popular opinion that mystics cannot be trusted to sane judgment or sustained wisdom of action in the confused affairs of this world. In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary: