Marie Lataste was born in the department of the Landes in 1822, and died a lay sister of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart in the year 1847; so of her it may be said that she compressed a long career of virtue into a brief compass of time, and earned by intensity of work the crown which is most frequently won by many years of laborious effort. No sooner had she made her First Communion than our divine Lord began to attract her most powerfully to himself as he exists in the sacrament of the altar. As a little girl she had been wilful and rebellious, and with difficulty was brought to study her catechism and the merest rudiments of learning. Indeed, her schooling never went beyond the art of reading and writing, so that the wonderful theological and ascetic knowledge which her letters disclose cannot be otherwise regarded than as revealed to her by God. After her First Communion a wonderful change was made manifest in her. Thenceforth her sole delight was to commune for long hours at a time with our divine Lord in the tabernacle, to converse familiarly with him, and to hold him for ever in her thoughts. She was never easy when other occupations kept her aloof from him, and when released from these she sped to him again with all the ardor which could impel a loving heart. Nor did our Lord fail to reward in a signal manner this intensity of devotion to the sacrament of his love. One day, towards the close of the year 1839, as Marie was repairing to the village church to perform her usual acts of adoration, a mysterious but irresistible force hurried her along; earthly objects faded from her view, the Spirit of God filled her soul, and when she entered the sacred edifice she beheld our Lord himself upon the altar, surrounded by his angels. “She did not,” the recital states, “see him at first with perfect distinctness. A thin cloud, like an almost imperceptible veil, appeared partially to conceal him from her sight.... At last Jesus descended from the altar and approached, calling her benignantly by name and raising his hand to bless her. Then she beheld him with perfect clearness in the brilliant light with which he was invested.” “From that moment,” she said, “the society of mankind has never ceased to be displeasing to me; I should wish to fly from them for ever and shut myself up in the tabernacle with him.” Thus did her interior life at once ascend to the highest plane of sanctity, and she, the poor, almost illiterate peasant girl, began to experience those intimate dealings and relations with our divine Lord which are usually deemed to be the prerogative of the greatest saints—of those in whom supreme holiness goes hand in hand with profound knowledge.