About thirty years ago a little girl in the town of N--, in France, had been much struck with the mention of Purgatory. It made a very great impression upon her. She used to picture it to herself as a dark closet, in which a little friend of hers who had lately died was perhaps shut up, whilst she herself was playing in the garden and running after butterflies; and she kept longing to open the door and let her out. This little girl was subsequently educated in one of the Convents of the Sacred Heart, and learnt in that school lessons of self-devotion and ardent zeal for souls which were hereafter to bear fruit. She has retained to this day an enthusiastic affection for the religious teachers of her childhood; and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the principal devotions of the order she has founded. The thought which had occurred to her almost in infancy continued to haunt her in another form as she grew older. She kept asking herself," How could I help God? He is our helper: how can we help Him? He gives me everything: how could I give Him everything?" And the answer which grace put into her heart to these oft-repeated questions was always, "By paying the debts of the souls in Purgatory." The inevitable result of this thought was the desire to have wherewith to pay these debts. For this object the necessity of a perfect life, of a daily sanctification, of an ever-increasing store of merits and satisfactions, was obvious. Hence naturally arose the idea of the community-life, of the practice of the evangelical counsels, and of a meritorious, arduous, self-sacrificing charity towards the poor, in order worthily to pray, to act, and to suffer for the souls in Purgatory--to become, as it were, a co-operator with our Lord, by aiding His designs of mercy towards them, whilst satisfying His justice by voluntary expiation. This lady was not led by one of those startling bereavements which close a person's prospects of earthly happiness, and leave them no object to live for but the hope of winning mercy at God's hands for some dear departed one; or by the terrible anxiety about the state of some beloved soul which forces on the survivor the practice of a continual appeal to His compassionate goodness. Her zeal for the souls in Purgatory was perfectly free from any earthly attachment; it was as disinterested as possible, and sprung up in her heart before she had known what it is to lose a friend or a relative, before she had experienced the keen anguish of bereavement. She was a happy, contented girl, living in a cheerful and comfortable home, beloved by her family, enjoying all innocent pleasures, going occasionally into society, and amusing herself like other young people; devoted, indeed, to good works, and taking the lead in the numerous charities existing in her native town. But this was not to be her eventual mode of life. It was good as far as it went; but she had been chosen for the accomplishment