We have mentioned women in every sphere and state of life, social and domestic, as endowed with confessedly heroic powers, and capable of attaining high and noble ends in the field of religion, of art, and of philosophy. One class of women, however, remains still to be noticed, and it is perhaps the greatest proof of the church’s universal and instinctive tenderness toward the sex, that among that unhappy class she alone has been able to make fruitful the call of God. The Catholic Church has set upon her altars and in her calendar the names of many illustrious penitents and anchorites, side by side with stainless virgins and matrons of unblemished fame. The Catholic Church alone can restore to fallen woman her rightful inheritance, and so efface the brand of sin that its shame shall be merged into a glory as pure as that of baptismal innocence. To take among the martyrs but one instance of this rehabilitation, let us see what history relates of Afra, the courtesan of Augsburg, in the Roman province of Rhetia, and the present kingdom of Bavaria. Afra was of noble birth, and had many slaves and possessions. She was converted by St. Narcissus, a Christian bishop who was fleeing from the persecution then raging in Gaul. Her household as well as her mother followed her example. She succeeded in concealing Narcissus and his deacon Felix for some time in her own house, and meanwhile diligently applied herself to making converts of her friends and former associates. Denounced in her turn a little later, and sneered at for the contradiction between her past and present life, she answers the judge boldly, admitting humbly that she is unworthy to be called a Christian, yet affirming that the threatened torments will cleanse and purify her body, while the proposed sacrifice to the gods would only further stain and disfigure her soul. Bound to a stake and burned with slow fire, her intrepidity only redoubles, and, having sinned through the weakness of undisciplined nature, she shows a more than manly courage through the new-born strength of grace.