referred to; eight became blind; two lost their reason; several others were maimed and crippled in various ways; so that, in the year 1845, out of the three united communities (which at the first had numbered fifty-eight) only four, of whom Makrena was the chief, retained the use of their limbs! These heroines of faith and endurance contrived at last to effect their escape from Polosk, from which place it had been resolved to transport them to Siberia; and, through a thousand difficulties and dangers, Makrena Mirazylawski made her adventurous way to Rome. The sufferings and the wrongs of this interesting stranger found a ready sympathy in Cardinal Mezzofanti’s generous heart. He listened to her narrative with deep indignation, and took the liveliest interest in all the arrangements for her safe and fitting reception and that of her companions. I was naturally anxious to hear what, on the other hand, were the abbess’s impressions of the cardinal. In reply to the inquiries of my friend, Rev. Dr. Morris, she “spoke of him in the very highest terms.” “He was,” she said, “a living saint,” and she described both his charity and his spirituality as very remarkable. When Father Ryllo (the Jesuit Rector of the Propaganda before F. Bresciani) left Rome for the African Mission, Cardinal Mezzofanti became Mother Makrena’s director, and continued to be so for two years. “He spoke Polish,” she declares, “like a native of Poland, and wrote it with great correctness.” Having ascertained that the abbess had had a considerable packet of papers written by him in Polish, generally on those occasions when he could not come to her as usual, on various spiritual subjects, I was most anxious to obtain copies of them; but I was deeply mortified to learn that they were all unfortunately lost in the Revolution, when she was driven out of her little convent near Santa Maria Maggiore. This humble community was afterwards increased by the arrival of other fugitives from different parts of the Russian Empire; nor did the cardinal cease till the very last days of his life his anxious care of all their spiritual and temporal interests. Another religious institution to which he devoted a good deal of his time was the House of Catechumens, of which, as has already been stated, he was Cardinal Protector. When M. Manavit was in Rome the inmates of this establishment, then in preparation for baptism, were between thirty and forty, several of whom were Moors or natives of Algeria; and there are few who will not cordially agree with him[543] in looking upon “the modest Cardinal, catechism in hand, in the midst of this humble flock, as a nobler picture, more truly worthy of admiration, than delivering his most learned dissertation on the Vedas to the most brilliant company that ever assembled in the halls of the Propaganda.”