republics that had begun to taste the almost forgotten fruits of peace. But neither in Cascia nor elsewhere were good morals to be found; they seemed to have barely secured a refuge in the cloisters. Hence Rita was sighing night and day for the sacred shelter, and although she had till then bloomed as a stainless lily among thorns, yet she did not consider that she could live secure in the danger-laden atmosphere that surrounded her. But how could she aspire to a cloistered life when all hope seemed futile after the repulses she had received? Yet to that life she aspired, and not in vain. For those undertakings which seem arduous and sometimes impossible become not only practicable, but easy to heroic faith. The invitations which Divine grace held out to her and the refusals with which Rita was met by the nuns were nothing more than the loving pleasantries of her heavenly Spouse, and but trials of her virtue and constancy. Therefore the more her wishes were frustrated, the more frequent became her prayers and the more fervent the sighs of her heart. She had recourse, too, to the mediation of the saints, and did not fear to make herself importunate to her protectors, St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine, and St. Nicholas. And the measure of the effect which her prayers produced was, as St. Augustine teaches, the fervour of the love that preceded them. She merited the favour she sought, and received it. Here is how the incident is related by the writers of her life: The saint was one night kneeling on the ground, rapt in prayer, her hands extended to heaven after her usual manner and as the royal prophet teaches, when she suddenly heard a knocking at the door of her house, and someone calling out her name. The first feeling of the lonely widow was one of trouble and fear, but she invoked the Divine assistance, took courage, and went to the window--but nothing was to be seen or heard. She returned to her prayer, but was interrupted by the same unknown voice calling her. Her fear increased, but she went to the window again--and again there was only darkness and silence without. She then began to think it might be some trick of the devil, and, puzzled between doubt and fear, she threw herself at the feet of Jesus Christ, and besought Him more fervently to enlighten and to help her, and that He would be pleased to make known His Divine will, whether what she had experienced was a delusion of the devil or a voice from heaven. Her short prayer was so pleasing to God that Rita soon felt herself rapt in ecstasy, and then she saw and heard clearly, and her fear was changed into joyful consolation. She saw her three holy patrons, and heard the joyous words with which the spouse of the Canticles called his beloved, 'Arise, make haste, my love, and come--come, for it is time at last to enter the cloister from which thou hast been repulsed so many times.' As soon as these words had been uttered, the rapture of her ecstasy ceased, but she still