The wayward, troubled soul of Lola Montez at last tasted peace--thanks, perhaps, as much to the consolations of true friendship as to those of religion. She abandoned the Methodist connection, and embraced the possibly less gloomy tenets of the Episcopal Church of America. She passed much of her time in deep retirement, reading and studying the Bible. One who knew her at this time says that her bearing was calm, graceful, and modest; of her beauty there remained no trace except her deep, lustrous Spanish eyes. A conviction that she was soon to die of consumption possessed her, and she spent the rest of the year 1860 in preparation for her end. "So far as outward actions could show," says her spiritual adviser, Dr. F. L. Hawks, "with her 'old things had passed away, and all things had become new.' With a heart full of sympathy for the poor outcasts of her own sex, she devoted the last few months of her life to visiting them at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York, warning them and instructing them with a spirit which yearned over them, that they, too, might be brought into the fold. She strove to impress upon them not only the awful guilt of breaking the divine law, but the inevitable earthly sorrow which those who persisted with thoughtless desperation in sinful courses were treasuring up for themselves. Her effort was thus to redeem the time as far as she could; and the result of her labours can only be known on that day when she will meet her erring sisters at the impartial tribunal of the Eternal Judge." Lola's premonition was verified. In December 1860 she was suddenly struck down--not by consumption, but by partial paralysis. She was conveyed to the Asteria Sanatorium, where Mrs. Buchanan took charge of her. She lingered in great pain, patiently borne, for several weeks, and it was seen that there was no hope of her recovery. Dr. Hawks visited her frequently. To him, her chosen confidant at this final stage of her chequered life, and the most fitted to sympathise with the ideas that then dominated her, may be left the description of her last hours. "In the course of a long experience as a Christian minister, I do not think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition of soul and more of bitter self-reproach than in this poor woman. Anxious to probe her heart to the bottom, I questioned her in various forms; spoke as plainly as I could of the qualities of a genuine repentance; set forth the necessity of the operations of the Holy Spirit really to convert from sin to holiness, and presented Christ as all in all--the only Saviour. For myself I am quite satisfied that God the Holy Ghost had renewed her sinful soul into holiness.