sacrament of the altar.” And in a book of devotion, composed by her for private use, she gave expression to sentiments too much savoring of undivided affection to Christ to escape the censure of the Church. It was dragged to light and condemned at Rome[26]. There is reason to believe that, under the direction of M. de St. Cyran, her religious sentiments, as well as those of her community, became much more enlightened. Her firmness in resisting subscription to the formulary and condemning Jansen, in spite of the most cruel and unmanly persecution, and the piety and faith she manifested on her death-bed, when, in the midst of exquisite suffering, and in the absence of the rites which her persecutors denied her, she expired in the full assurance of salvation through the merits of the only Saviour, form one of the most interesting chapters in the martyrology of the Church. But St. Cyran aimed at higher objects than the management of a nunnery. His energetic mind planned a system of education, in which, along with the elements of learning, the youth might be imbued with early piety. Attracted by his fame, several learned men, some of them of rank and fortune, fled to enjoy at Port-Royal des Champs a sacred retreat from the world. This community, which differed from a monastery in not being bound by any vows, settled in a farm adjoining the convent, called Les Granges. The names of Arnauld, D’Andilly, Nicole, Le Maitre, Sacy,[27] Fontaine, Pascal, and others, have conferred immortality on the spot. The system pursued in this literary hermitage was, in many respects, deserving of praise. The time of the recluses was divided between devotional and literary pursuits, relieved by agricultural and mechanical labors. The Scriptures, and other books of devotion, were translated into the vernacular language; and the result was, the singular anomaly of a Roman Catholic community distinguished for the devout and diligent study of the Bible. Protestants they certainly were not, either in spirit or in practice. Firm believers in the infallibility of their Church, and fond devotees in the observance of her rites, they held it a point of merit to yield a blind obedience, in matters of faith, to the dogmas of Rome. None were more hostile to Protestantism. St. Cyran, it is said, would never open a Protestant book, even for the purpose of refuting it, without first making the sign of the cross on it, to exorcise the evil spirit which he believed to lurk within its pages.[28] From no community did there emanate more learned apologies for Rome than from Port-Royal. Still, it must be owned, that in attachment to the doctrines of grace, so far as they went, and in the exhibition of the Christian virtues, attested by their sufferings, lives, and writings, the Port-Royalists, including under this name both the nuns and recluses, greatly surpassed many Protestant communities. Their piety, indeed, partook of the failings which have