The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16Dryden, John
History
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16
Dryden, John
English literature
During the course of her life, she had great communications with God; and
one day he gave her to understand, that she should die a sweet and easy
death; but, on the contrary, one of her nuns was pre-ordained to die in
strange torments. The intention of God was not thereby to reveal to the
abbess what was really to happen, but rather to give her an opportunity
of exercising an heroic act of charity. She comprehended what her
heavenly Father exacted from her, and petitioned him for an exchange.
God granted to her what himself had inspired her to demand; and was
pleased to assure her, by a new revelation, that he had heard her
prayers. She made known to her ghostly father what had passed betwixt God
and her, and time verified it: for the sister above mentioned died
without sickness, and appeared in dying to have had a foretaste of the
joys to come. On the other side, the abbess was struck with a terrible
disease, which took all her body, as it were, in pieces, and made her
suffer intolerable pains; yet even those pains were less cruel to her,
than those inward torments which God at the same time inflicted on her.
She endured all this with wonderful patience and resignation; being well
assured, that in the whole series of these dispensations there was
somewhat of divine.
For what remains concerning her, from the first years of her entry into a
religious life, the gift of prophecy shone so visibly in her, that none
doubted but that she was full of the spirit of God; and 'tis also
probable, that she left a legacy of her prophetic gifts to her spiritual
daughters. For, after her decease, the nuns of Gandia foretold many
things, which afterward the event confirmed; as, amongst others, the
unhappy success of the expedition to Algier; of which the Duke of Borgia,
viceroy of Catalonia, gave the advertisement from them to Charles V. when
he was making his preparations for that enterprize.
It was six years before the death of Magdalen, that Don Jasso, her
father, writ to her concerning Xavier. After she had received the letter,
she was illuminated from above; and, according to the dictates of that
divine light, she answered Don Jasso, that he should beware of recalling
her brother Francis, whatsoever it might cost him for his entertainment
in the university of Paris. That he was a chosen vessel, pre-ordained to
be the apostle of the Indies, and that one day he should become a great
pillar of the church.
These letters have been preserved for a long time afterwards, and have
been viewed by many persons, who have deposed the truth judicially in the
process of the canonization of the saint.
Don Jasso received this answer from his daughter as an oracle from
heaven; and no longer thought of recalling his son from his studies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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