"How pale he was when he came in! He could scarcely stand. It is strange! An old man such as he--a soldier too! I could see fifty regiments stretched in ambulances, and not shake so." ---------- {32} Translated From The Historisch-politische Blätter. Maria Von Mörl. In the beginning of this year a remarkable human life came to a close. That wonderful being whose name and fame travelled from South Tyrol all over Germany, and made her residence become a frequented pilgrimage without her will--but for the great consolation of multitudes during a whole generation--that extraordinary woman is no more. Maria von Mörl died on January 11th, 1868, in the fifty-sixth year of her age, and in the thirty-sixth of her ecstatic life. It is now over a score of years since the masterly pen of Görres sketched, in his _Mystik_, so striking a portrait of Maria von Mörl, and still the attention of the believing world is attracted to the life of the ecstatic virgin. Since then thousands have gone to the South Tyrol markets to behold as a reality what would sound legendary to read or hear, and to bear testimony to the truth of what Görres wrote about the stigmata of that holy woman. All the pilgrims found his statements perfectly correct. Although Görres, in describing the phenomena, abstained from a definitive judgment regarding her sanctity, according to the rule that no one must be called a saint before death, we are not restrained any longer from expressing our convictions, now that she is no more. Her happy and holy death is the strongest confirmation of her unimpeachable life. We have now all the necessary documents to form a correct estimate of her holiness. Let us glance at the most interesting events in her life, and sum up briefly and simply the chief traits of her inner and exterior character. Three miles south of Botzen, in a charming landscape, with a prospect extending over a wide and smiling valley, lies the vine-crowned spot in which Maria Theresa von Mörl first saw the light of day, on October 16th, 1812. She was the daughter of a reduced, but noble, vine cultivator in Kaltern, [Footnote 3] Joseph von Mörl, of Mühlen and Lichelburg, who was blessed with a very large family, but not with sufficient means to raise them as became their blood. [Footnote 3: Kaltern is the German for the Italian Caldaro.--Tr.]