This most painful scene over, the remaining trials seemed easy to bear. She bade adieu to her weeping relatives, and even to her aged father, without betraying a symptom of the agony which rent her soul, and then, on the 25th of January, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, in the year 1631, she left her sister's house, accompanied by numerous friends. The little procession was headed by her niece whom she had asked to precede her with a crucifix, the standard which she had ever so faithfully followed, and to which she was now proving the truth of her allegiance by the severing of every human tie, and the sacrifice of every human feeling. At her side walked her little son, silent and tearful, but quiet and resigned. She alone of the whole party manifested no agitation; her step was firm; her demeanour calm, her countenance beaming as if with light from heaven. Yet the superhuman victory was not achieved without mortal anguish; every tear of the weeping child at her side made her heart bleed afresh; every sob seemed to lacerate her soul, but she says, in alluding afterwards to her emotions on the occasion, "Much as I loved my son, I loved my God far more." At the door of the monastery, she smilingly repeated her farewell to the child and the rest of the party, and a moment after, was joyfully and lovingly welcomed by the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Convent. CHAPTER IX. SAINT ANGELA AND THE URSULINES. It was in the sixteenth century that the Ursuline Order took its rise. The epoch was one peculiarly disastrous in the Church's history. Luther's heresy was working evil on a gigantic scale. It had spread from nation to nation with the rapidity of a pestilential contagion, blighting with its deadly venom all it touched, and everywhere marking its progress by a wide track of spiritual ruin and desolation, as well as of political anarchy and social disorganization. Each new success of its unholy work, necessarily inflicted a new pang on the heart of the sorrowing Spouse of Christ. Day after day, she had to weep afresh over some new profanation of her sanctuaries, some new desertion of her faithless children, some aggravated treason against her God. Nor was it only the ravages of heresy that she had to lament, but perhaps still more, the disloyalty of too many among her still nominal adherents. While a vast number of her disciples revolted openly against her authority, others who recognised it in words, rejected it in practice. Where the light of faith had not been utterly extinguished, the fire of charity had but too often cooled. The lower classes were ignorant, the better instructed careless; both more or less indifferent. Worse than all, the very guardians of the fold had in too many instances proved false to their sacred trust, so intent on the advancement of their own worldly interests, as to concern themselves very little for the protection of their perishing flocks. The ever spreading