The Apostle's saying, that 'all things work together for good to those who love God,' remains always true. Rita had passed from the state of virginity to that of matrimony, yet this step towards a lower state was destined to lead her to a higher grade of glory. Thus St. Monica, whose faithful follower our heroine was ever to be, would not have been St. Augustine's mother by nature, and in the order of grace would not have drawn the erring Patrizio, her husband, to God, would not have so wide a field wherein to exercise her patience and fortitude, would not have left all those examples of virtue which her son Augustine admires and exalts in his book of 'Confessions,' if Divine Providence had not led her by that path which, long after, her daughter Rita followed. The ways are diverse and diverse are the gifts, but the Spirit is the same which guides souls in a wonderful manner towards greater good. The way of tribulation was that which the Lord opened to our saint, and by the means of matrimony He wished her to pass through fire and water--in other words, through every sort of danger, temptation, and persecution, in order to prove and purify her, as gold is purified in the furnace, and thence to receive her into heaven as a most pure holocaust. Hence the God whose wish placed her in the married state so disposed it that she should pass from her original life of filial submission to that of slavery under a tyrannical husband. Thus it was that hardly had a few days passed after the marriage than her unworthy husband began to illtreat the innocent Rita with reproaches, abuse, threats, and even blows, of which the only cause was his own brutal inclination. But our gentle heroine had studied in the school of the Crucified One; she had already learned how to conquer her passions even to the extent of rejoicing in the midst of tribulation, for she was convinced that tribulation is the food of Christian patience, that penitence is the great proof of real virtue, and that on the exercise of it is based our priceless hope of eternal good that shall not fail us.