The Anglo-Saxon Nuns (part 5 of 6)
who formed almost a tribe, and of whom none remain. We
have neither son, brother, father, nor uncle: we have no more than an only daughter, deprived of everything she loved in the world except her mother, who is very old, and a son of her brother, who is also unfortunate, though without any fault of his, because the king hates our family. There remains, therefore, not one person in whom we can put ouv trust. God has taken all from us by different means. Some are dead in their country, and wait in their dark graves the day of the resurrection and the last judgment, the day when envy shall be overcome and consumed, and all mourning and pain shall disappear from the presence of the elect. Others have left their native shore to confide themselves to the plains of ocean, and to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs. For all these reasons, and for others which could not be told in a day, not even one of the long days of July or August, our life is a burden to us.
" Every being that is unhappy, and has lost confidence in himself, seeks a faithful friend to whom he can open his heart and pour forth all its secrets. Ah! how true is what they say, that nothing can be sweeter than to have some one to whom we can speak of everything as to ourselves. Now, we have sought for that faithful friend in whom we could have more confidence than in ourselves; who should regard our pains and distresses as his own; who should pity all our evils, and console them by his salutary counsels. Yes, we have sought him long. And at last we hope to have found in you this friend whom we have so long desired and eagerly hoped for.
" Oh that God would deign to carry us in the arms of His angel, as He did of old the prophet Habakkuk and the deacon Philip, into the far countries where you travel, and make us to hear the living word from your mouth, which would be sweeter to us than honey! But, since we do not deserve this, and that we are separated by land and sea, we will nevertheless use our confidence in you, brother Boniface, to tell you that for a long time Ave have desired, like so many of our kinsmen and friends, to visit that Rome which Avas once mistress of the world, to obtain the pardon of our sins. I above all, Eang-ytha, who am old, and consequently have more sins than others, I have this desire. I confided my plan formerly to Wala, who was then my abbess and spiritual mother, and to my daughter, who was then very young. But we know that there are many who disapprove our intention, because the canons enjoin that each should remain where she has made her vow, and give account of that vow to God. Troubled by this doubt, we pray you, both of us, to be our Aaron, and to present our prayers to God, that by your mediation He may show us what will be most useful for us, to remain at home, or to go on this holy pilgrimage. We entreat 5^ou to answer what we have written to you in a style so rustic and unpolished. We have no trust in those who glorify themselves in the sight of man, but we have much trust in your faith and charity to God and your neighbors.... Farewell, spiritual brother, faithful, amiable, and beloved with a pure and sincere love. ... A friend is long sought, rarely found, and still more rarely preserved. Farewell; pray that our sins may not bring us misfortune." '^^^
'^^ " Amantissime frater, spiritalis inagis quara carnalis, et spiritaliura gratiarum munificentia inagnificatus, tibi soli indicare voluimus et Deus solus testis est nobis, quas cernis interlitas lacrymis.... Tanquam spumosi maris vortices verrunt et vellunt undarum cumulos, conlisos saxis, quando vcntorum violentia et procellarura tempestates sajvissime enormuni euripum impellunt et cymbarum carinai sursuni inimutate et malus navis deorsum duratur, haut seous aniuiaruni nostrarum naviculaj.... Quas seniinat oniniuin bonorum invisor; qui... inter omnes homines spargit, maxinie per nionasticos et monachoruni contubernia.... Angit prajterea paupertas et penuria rerum temporalium et angustia cespitis ruris nostris et infestatio regalis.... Et ut dicitur, quid dulcius est quam habeas ilium cum quo omnia possis loqui ut tecum?... DiuquEesivimus. Et confidimus quia invenimus in te ilium amicum, quem cupivimus, et optavimus et speravimus.... Vale, frater spiritalis fidelissime atque amantissime et sincera ct pura dilectione dilecte;... Amicus diu quferitur, vix invcnitur, difficile servatur." — Epist. 14, ed. JaflPe. We have already quoted a letter in which Boniface replies to an Abbess Bugga on the subject of a pilgrimage to Home {Epist. 88, ed. Jaffe). I do not think that this reply belongs to the letter I am about to quote, because it says nothing of the mother Eangytha, and because it is filled with various subjects of which there is no question in the letter of the mother and daughter.
^^^ ^^^ ^°^^ ^"™ *° *^® beautiful and learned Lioba {die Liehe, the beloved), and observe the means she took while still very young, from her convent at Winbourne, to make herself known to the great man who afterwards called her to his aid to introduce the light of the Gospel and monastic life among the German nations: —
" To the very reverend lord and bishop Boniface, beloved in Christ, his kinswoman Leobgytha,^^^ the last of the servants of God, health and eternal salvation. I pray your clemency to deign to recollect the friendship which united you to my father Tinne, an inhabitant of Wessex, who departed from this world eight years ago, that you may pray- for the repose of his soul. I also recommend to you ray mother Ebba, your kinswoman, as you know better than me, who still lives in great suffering, and has been for long overwhelmed with her infirmities. 1 am their only daughter; and God grant, unworthy as I am, that I might have the honor of having you for my brother, for no man of our kindred inspires me with the same confidence as you do. I have taken care to send you this little present, not that I think it worthy your attention, but that you may remember my humbleness, and that, notwithstanding the distance of our dwellings, the tie of true love may unite us for the rest of our days. Excellent brother, what I ask you with earnestness is, that the buckler of your prayers may defend me from the poisoned arrows of the enemy, I beg of you also to excuse the rusticity of this letter, and that your courtesy will not refuse the few words of answer which I so much desire. You will find below some lines which I have attempted to compose according to the rules of poetic art, not from self-confidence, but to exercise the mind which God has given me, and to ask your counsel. I have learned all that I know from Eadburga,^^*^ my mistress, who gives herself to profound study of the divine law. Farewell: live a long and happy life; intercede for me.
" May the Almighty Judge, who made the earth, And glorious in His Father's kingdom reigns,
^®^ She had also two names in Anglo-Saxon, Truthgeba and Leobgytha but she received the surname of Lioba or Lieba, under which she is generally known, because, according to her biographer, she was beloved by every one. — Zell, op.cit.,T^. 262.
'*^ This, then, is a third Eadburga, who was mistress of of the novices at Winbourne, and must not be confounded either with Eadburga, Abbess of Thanet, or with Eadburga, surnamed Bugga, both of whom appear in St. Boniface's correspondence.
Preserve your chaste fire -warm as at its birth, Till time for you shall lose its rights and pains." '"
Beside the celebreted Lioba, let us quote au unknown nun, who calls herself Cena the Unworthy —Pontifici Bonifacio Christi amatori Cene indigna — but who writes to the great apostle with a proud and original simplicity which goes to my heart, and which I thank the ancient compilers for having preserved along with the letters of the great apostle. " I confess, my dearest," she says, " that, seeing you too seldom with the eyes of my body, I cease not to look at you with the eyes of my heart.... And this I declare, that to the end of my life 1 shall always recollect you in my prayers. I entreat you, by our affection and our mutual faith, to be faithful to my littleness, as I shall be faithful to your greatness, and to help me by your prayers, that the Almighty may dispose of my life according to His will. If one of your people ever comes to this laud, let him not disdain to have recourse to my poverty; and if I can render any service, either spiritual or temporal, to you or to others, I will do it with all my might to the great profit of my soul." 1*^^
This letter was addressed to Boniface, then a bishop, very probably by one of those whom he had transplanted from England into Germany.
Let us now listen to another Anglo-Saxon maid, a contemporary of his youth, Egburga, whom some theDesosuppose to have been that daughter of an East Anglian king who was the abbess and friend of St. Guthlac.^^^ She wrote to Boniface while he was still abbot of an English monastery, to confide to him her private griefs — " To the holy abbot and true friend, Winifred, full of knowledge and religion, Egburga, the last of his pupils, eternal greeting in the Lord. Since I have known the blessing of your affection, it has remained in my soul like an odor of incomparable sweetness. And though 1 may be henceforward deprived of your temporal presence, I do not cease
'" I reprint the translation from the excellent work of Ozanam, La Civilisation Chreticnne chez Ics Francs, p. 226, from which I shall have many other quotations to make if I am enabled to continue my work, and to relate the conquest of Germany by the Anglo-Saxon monks.
''^ " Jam fateor tibi, carissimc... et hoc tibi notum facio, quod usque ad finem vittc meaj te semper in meis orationibus recorder, et te rogo per creditam amicitiam ut meje parvitati fidelis sis, sicut in te credo." — Ej^ist. 9i, ed. Jaffe.
'** See p. 688 of this Tolume. to embrace you as a sister. You were already my kind brother; you are now my father. Since death, bitter and cruel, has snatched from me my brother Oshere whom I loved more than anybody in the world, I prefer you to all other men. Neither night nor day passes that I do not recall your lessons. Believe me, for God is my witness, I love you with a supreme love. I am sure that you will never forget the friendship which united you to my brother. I am good for very little, and much inferior to him in worth and in knowledge; but I yield nothing to him in my affection for you. Time has passed since then; but the heavy cloud of sorrow has never left me. On the contrary, the longer I live the more I suffer. I have proved the truth of what is written, that the love of man brings grief, but the love of Christ lights the heart. My heart has received a new wound by the loss of my dearest sister Wethburga. She has suddenly disappeared from my side— she with whom I grew up, who has sucked the same milk, as I call Jesus to witness."
Here the poor nun, no doubt desiring to show to her ancient master that she was not unworthy of his lessons, proceeds to quote Virgil: —
" Crudelis ubique
Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago." '^''
But she quotes wrongly without perceiving it, as has been the case with two or three terrible solecisms which occur in the preceding part of her letter.^^i After which she continues: —
" I should have wished to die had God permitted it. But it is not cruel death, it is a separation still more cruel which has withdrawn us from each other; she to happiness, as I believe, but I to misfortune, since she has left me as a sort of pledge to the service of the world, while she whom I love so much is now shut up, according to what I hear, in I know not what prison in Rome.^^^ But the love of Christ which
'"o ^ncid, ii. 369, 370.
191 " Ego autem licet scentia tardiora et meritis viliora illo sim, tamen erga tuaj caritatis obsequium dispar non sura." I shall perhaps be reproached for lingering over these minuti<B. Let it be so; all that relates to the history of the soul, especially in the cradle of the faith, attracts me irresistibly. What is more touching than these imperfections of style in a classic tongue from the pen of a half-civilized woman, who at all risks must express to the heart of a friend the emotions which fill her own?
192 u jyjg ygj.Q infelicem, quasi quoddam depositum, huic sseculo servire permisit, sciens enim quantum illam dilexi, quantum amavi, quam nunc, ut audio, Romana career includit." — Epist. 13. The anonymous author of blossoms in her heart is stronger than all bonds. She will ascend the strait and narrow way, but I am left lying in the depths, enchained by the law of the flesh. In the day of judgment she will sing joyously with the Lord, ' I was in prison, and thou visitedst me.' You too, in that day, will sit where the twelve apostles sit, and will be proud, like a glorious chief, of having led before the tribunal of the eternal King so many souls won by your labors. But I in this valley of tears weep for my sins which have made me unworthy of such company.
" For this reason the seaman, beaten by the tempest, does not long to enter the port, nor do the parched fields thirst for rain, nor the mother wandering along the winding shore in the agonies of suspense await her son, with more anxiety than that I feel in my desire once more to enjoy your presence. My sins prevent it, and I am in despair. But, sinner as I am, prostrated at your feet, I implore you from the bottom of my heart— I cry to j^ou from the ends of the earth—
blessed lord, that you will carry me to the height of the rock of your prayers, for you are my hope and my citadel against the enera}^ visible and invisible. To console my great grief, to calm the waves of my trouble, to give some support to my weakness, send me help, either in the form of holy relics or at least by words from your hand, however short, that I may always look at them as at yourself" ^^^
Thus we see how warm still were the natural affections in these impetuous hearts, without wronging the new bonds of friendship and fraternity which religious life, with its active and extended connections in the spiritual order, developed in
Notes on St. Hilda and St. Bega concludes from this passage that Egburga had succeeded her sister Wethburga as abbess, and that it is the latter who is alluded to in the letter to St. Boniface as being already fixed at Kome. This conjecture appears probable enough. The two sisters, with an elder one, all three daughters of a king of East Anglia, would thus have been successively abbesses of Ilackness. Sec genealogical table ix., p. 576.
^^^ " Abbate (sic) sancto veroque amico... "Wynfrido Egberg ultima discipulorum seu discipularum tuarum.... Caritatis tuae copulam fateor; ast dum per interiorum hominem gustavi, quasi quiddam niellitai suavitatis meis visceribus hie sapor insidet. Et licet interim... ab aspectu corporali visualiter defraudata sim, sororis tanien semper amplexibus collum tuum constrinxero.... Credo milii, Deo teste, quia summo te complector amore.... Sed,.. ut scriptum est: Amor hominis deducit dolorem, amor autem Ohristi illuminat cor.... Non sic tempestato jactatus nauta portum desiderat, non sic sitientia imbres arva desiderant, non sic curvo litore anxia filium mater expectat, quam ut ego visibus vestris frucre cupio.... Vel paucula saltini per scripta beatitudlnis tua) verba, ut in illis tuam presentiam semper habeam." — Epist. 13. them. The invaluable collection of the Epistles of St. Boniface encloses several letters from Anglo-Saxon nuns to their brothers, always in Latin, and in very unclassical Latin, but all bearing the marks of tender and sincere affection. " To my only and beloved brother," writes one of these, who describes herself as the least of the servants of Christ. " How, dearest brother, can you make me wait for your coming so long? Do you never think that I am alone in the world? that DO other brother, no other relation, comes to see me? You do this, perhaps, because I have not been able to do all I wished for your service; but how can you so forget the rights of charity and kindred? Oh, my brother, my dear brother, why do you thus by your absence fill with sadness my days and nights? Do you not know that no other living soul is more dear to me than you are? I cannot say in writing all that I would; and, besides, I feel that you have ceased to care for your poor little sister." ^^
The name of the writer of these words is unknown; and
^^^® name, but nothing more, is known of another nun whoso Only brother was among the companions of Boniface. She would not be comforted for his absence. absence, and poured out her sadness in writing to her brother with a poetic and pathetic voice which recalls the wail of St. Radegund, two centuries earlier, in her convent at Poitiers, when thinking of the troubles of her youth.^^^ Our Anglo-Saxon nun also attempted to interpret in Latin verse the sorrows of her heart. But her verses are far from having the merit of those which Fortunatus placed at the service of the abbess-queen of St. Croix. Her prose is at once more correct and more touching. " To Balthard, my
194 u Fratri unico atque amantissimo... N. H., ultima ancillarum Dei.... Quare non vis cogitare quod ego sola in hac terra?... O frater, o frater mi, cur potes mentera parvitatis meae assidue moerore, fietu atque tristitia die noctuque caritatis tuse absentia affligere?... Jam certum teneo, quod tibi cura non est de mea parvitate." — Epist. 144, ed. Jaffe.
1^ See vol. i. p. 489. M. Zell believes this Bertgytha to be the same as the nun of that name who accompanied Lioba to Germany, and that it is from thence she writes to her brother; but this supposition is irreconcilable with the text of the letters, where it is said that the sister had been abandoned very young by lier parents, while the only historian who speaks of the companions of Lioba says that Berchtgyd went to Germany with her mother, and that both became abbesses in Thuringia. — Othlo, Vita S. Bonifacii, ed. Jaffe, p. 490. The messenger who bore the con'espondence between the brother and sister was Aldred or Aldraed, who carried from Germany to England the messages of the deacon Lullius, the chief assistant of Boniface {Epist. 78), from which it has been supposed that the brother of Berchtgyd might have been employed on the same mission. only brother, loved in the Lord, and more loved than any one in the world. ... I have received with tender gratitude the message and gifts which you have sent me by your faithful messenger Aldred. I will do, with the help of God, everything you tell me, but on the condition that you will come back and see me. I cannot exhaust the fountain of my tears when I see or hear that others meet their friends again. Then I recall that I was forsaken in my youth by my parents, and left alone here. Nevertheless I have not been forsaken by God, and I bless His almighty mercy that He has preserved your life as well as mine. And now, dearest brother, I implore and beseech you, deliver my soul from this sadness, which is very hurtful to me. I declare to you that even if you only staid with me one day and left me the next, grief would vanish from my heart. But if it is disagreeable to you to grant my request, I take God to witness that never at least shall our tenderness be betrayed by me. Perhaps you would prefer that I should go to you instead of awaiting you here. For myself, I should willingl}' go where the bodies of our parents rest, to end my life, and to rise from that spot to the country of those beings whose peace and joy are eternal.... Farewell, dear servant of the cross, beloved of your sister; keep your good fame forever."
On other occasions she writes again: " My soul is weary of life, because of my love for you. 1 am here alone, for-
saken, deprived of all kindred. My father and my mother
have forsaken me, but the Lord hath taken me up. Between you and me there is that gulf of great waters of which Scripture speaks; but we are united by love, for true love is never overcome, neither by space nor time. At the same time I acknowledge that I am always sad. My soul is troubled even in sleep, for love is strong as death. Now I beseech you, my beloved brother, come to me, or let me go to you, that I may see 3'ou again before I die, for the love of you will never leave my heart. My brother, your only sister greets you in Christ. I pray for you as for myself, day and night— every hour and every minute. ... I pray, weeping and stretched on the earth, that you may live happy here below, and that you may become a saint." ^^^
196 (t Dilectissitno fratri in Domino et in carne carissimo lialthardo Bcrthgyth.... Et nunc, frater mi, adjuro te atque deprccor, ut auferas tristitiani ab anima mea: quia valdo nocet miiii.,.. Sin autem di^plicet tibi implere petitioncm meam, tunc Deum tcstem invoco, quod in me nunquam fit derelicta dilectio nostra... .: —
I pity those who, either from sceptical contempt for all religious tradition, or modern rigorism, can listen with indifference or contempt to the cries of love and grief which sprang more than a thousand years ago from the depth of those Anglo-Saxon cloisters, and which attest, before and after so many other witnesses, the immortal vitality of the affections and wants of the human heart, in all climates and all forms of society. What can be more touching than these outbursts of human tenderness amid the rude kindred of the Anglo- Saxons, and under the rugged bark of their wild nature? What more interesting than the effort of these souls to interpret, in a language which they supposed more cultivated than their own, the emotions which moved them, and, above all, to renew themselves continually in the truths and precepts of the Christian faith, which had for so short a time taken the place of the worship of their fathers among them! For my own part, I listen, across past centuries, to these yearnings of the heart, to these voices of the soul, with interest a thousand times greater than to the victories and conquests which have absorbed the attention of historians; and 1 offer up my heartfelt thanksgivings to the biographers of the saints and the editors of their works for having infolded in their volumes, like flowers in an herbal, these early traces of human love and the storms that assail it.
" It would be singular," says the austere and tender Lacordaire, " if Christianity, founded on the love of God and men, should end in withering up the soul in respect to everything which was not God.... Self-denial, far from diminishing love, nourishes and increases it. The ruin of love is self-love, not the love of God; and no one ever met on earth with affections stronger and purer, more ardent, more tender, and more lasting, than those to which the saints gave up their hearts, at once emptied of themselves and filled with God." ^^'^
" Have, crucicola care, salutate a sorore;
Fine tenus feliciter famam serva simpliciter....
" Tsedet animain meam vitae meae propter amorem fraternitatis nostrae.... Multffi sunt aquarum congregationes inter me et te.... Tamen caritate jungamur; quia vera caritas nunquam locorum limite frangitur..., Neque per somnium mente quiesco.
"Vale vivens feliciter ut sis sanctus simpliciter.... Precibus peto profusis fletibus; solo tenus sspissima." — Epist. 148, 149, ed. Jaffe.
'^^ Lacoedaiee, Leitres a des Jcunes Gens. Toulouse, Nov. 9, 1852.
VI.
But the storms of the heart, like the storms of life, have an end which is death — that death which delivers from everything — which crowns and sometimes explains everything. How did our Anglo-Saxon nuns die? As far as we Jy^.^^^ ^^^^ can make out, they died happy and even joyous, not end the without contradicting or giving up the tender affections which had agitated their hearts and animated their life. It would be a mistake to suppose that they only, or that even they the first, among the monastic classes of old, kept up those beautiful and holy friendships to their last days. St. Gregorj' the Great has preserved to us the recollection of the noble Roman, Galla, daughter of the patrician Symmachus, who became a nun in a monastery near the Basilica of St. Peter, and being attacked by a fatal illness had a vision three days before her death. The prince of the apostles appeared to her in a dream and announced to her that her sins were pardoned. She would not content herself with that supremo grace, but ventured to ask from her holy protector that another nun, sister Benedicta, whom she loved most in the community, might die with her. The apostle answered that her friend should not die at the same time, but should follow her in thirty days. The next morning Galla told the superior what she had seen and heard, and everything happened as she said. The two friends at the end of a month were united by death.^^^
The great Abbess Hilda, of whom we have spoken so much, and who was for thirty years the light and oracle of Xortbumberland, had also in her community a favorite nun, or one, at least, who loved her, says Bede, with a great love. This nun had not the happiness of dying at the same time as her friend. But when the holy abbess, who had been consumed for seven years by a cruel fever, which did not for a single day interrupt the exercise of her spiritual maternity, came at last to the end of her trials — when she had given up her last breath in the midst of her daughters
'^* " Gothorum temporibus, liujus urbis nobilissima puclla.... Ex aniore sumens audaciam... quia quamdaru sanctiinoniulcm feniinam in eodein monasterio pnu cajteris dilij,'ebat... sul)junxit: Koi;o ut soror Benedicta mecum veniat. Cui ille respondit: Non, sed ilia talis vcniat tecum: ha;c vcro, quam petis, die crit trigesinio secutura." — S. Gkegob., Dial., 1, IV., ap. JJrev. Roman. Off Propr. Oler. Rom. die 5 Oct.
61* collected round her bed to hear the last exhortation, in which she besought them to keep the peace of the Gospel between them and all men,— her friend, who was at that moment detained in the novitiate, in a distant corner of the monastic lands, had the consolation of seeing in a dream the soul of Hilda led to heaven by a shining train of angels.^^^ Etheiburo-a LcBta mortem vidit: she saw death with joy. and her ° These words, spoken by Bede of St. Hilda, seem to have been applicable to all the female saints, and even to all the nuns, whose recollection he has preserved to us. There was one at Barking, who, after having been for long the humble and zealous assistant of the first abbess, Ethelburga, was warned of the death of that abbess, her friend, by a vision, in which she saw her dear Ethelburga wrapt in a shroud which shone like the sun, and raised to heaven by golden chains which represented her good works. Deprived of her spiritual mother, she lived for nine years in the most cruel sufferings, in order, says Bede, that the furnace of this daily tribulation might consume all the imperfection that remained among so many virtues. At last paralysis assailed all her members, and even her tongue. Three days before her death she recovered sight and speech: she was heard to exchange some words with an invisible visitor. It was her dearest Ethelburga, who came to announce to her her deliverance. " I can scarcely bear this joy," said the sick woman; and the following night, freed at once from sickness and from the bondage of the flesh, she entered into everlasting joy.^^^
199 (< jn quQ ^Qto tempore nunquam... commissum sibi gregera et publice et privatim docere praiterniittebat.... Septimo infirmitatis anno... circa galli cantum, percepto viatico sacrosanctse conimunionis, cum accersitis ancillis Christi... de servanda eas invicem, immo cum omnibus pace evangelica admoneret: inter verba exhortationis lata mortem vidit.... Nunciavit matrem illarum omnium Hild abbatissam... se aspectante cum luce immensa ducibus angelis ad seternae lumina lucis... ascendisse.... Ferunt quod eadem nocte... cuidani virginum Deo devotarum quae illam immenso amore diligebat, obitus illius in visione apparuerit." Bkde, iv. 23.
200 a Cj^rjsti famula Torchtgyd... adjutrix disciplinas regularis eidem matri, minores docendo vel castigando curabat.... Vidit quasi corpus liominis, quod esset sole clarius, sindone involutum in sublime ferri... quasi funibus auro clarioribus.... Per annos novem pia Redemptoris nostri provisione fatigata, ut quicquid in ea vitii sordidantis inter virtutes per ignorantium vel incuriam resedisset, totum hoc cominus diutine tribulationis excoqueret.... Nequaquamhceclcctaferrequeo.... Interrogata cum quo loqueretur: Cum carissima, inquit, maire mea JSdilbcrge.... Soluta carnis simul et infirmitatis vinculis, ad aeternas gaudia salutis intravit." — Bede, iv. 9.
A monument which is called the Maidens' Tomb daughis still shown in the fine church of Beverley"; it is the grave of two daughters of an earl, a benefactor of the great Abbey of St. John, who had taken the veil there. On Christmas night, according to the legend, they were the last to leave the midnight mass, and did not reappear in their stalls. After the service of the following night, the abbess, made anxious by their absence, went to look for them, and found them asleep in each other's arms. When they woke it was found that they supposed themselves to have slept only an hour, and had dreamt of paradise. They went down to the choir, and there, kneeling before the abbess, after having asked and received her benediction, died, still embracing each other.201
One of the most celebrated heathens of our century, Goethe, died asking for light. " More light! " these were, it is said, his last words. They recur to the mind involuntarily, when we read of the happy and joyful death of these virgins, sweet and full of light, who prepared, in the depths of their cloisters now despised or forgotten, the conversion of the country of Goethe. Light above all, a heavenly and supernatural light, floods over their deathbeds and their tombs.
These visions full of light, and these happy deaths, seem to have been specially accorded to our Anglo-Saxons, and not only to those who died upon their native soil, but also to those who had passed their lives in foreign cloisters. At Faremoutier, in France, the daughter of a king ?er'of tuf^' of Kent, Earcongotha, of whom we have already spoken,^^ had edified all the inhabitants by the miracles of her virtue. Being warned of her approaching end, she went from cell to cell in the infirmary of the monastery asking for the prayers of the sick nuns. She died during the following night at the first glimpse of dawn. At the same hour the monks who occupied another part of the double monastery heard a sound like the noise of a multitude, who to the sound of heavenly music invaded the monastery.
*°' Earl Puch, the father of these two sisters, is mentioned byBede (v. 4), who describes the miraculous cure of his wife by St. John of Beverley. One of their daughters was named Yolfrida; the narrative states that she became a nun at Beverley, and died there in 742. " Puch dedit cum tilia manerium do Walkington." Puch lield the manor of South Burton, two miles from Beverley. — Dugdale, Monasticon, i. 170; Mabillon, Act. SS. 0. S. B., vol. iii. p. 413.
^'^ See above, pp. C64 and 671.
When they went out to see what it was, they found themselves in a floo3 of miraculous light, in the midst of which the soul of the foreign princess ascended to heaven.^^s And the ^^ *^^® Same cloister at Faremoutier, where the wntesinda *^^"g^it<3i' ^f the kings of Kent, the grandchild of Clovis and Ethelbert^ thus lived and died, a humble lay-sister, also an Anglo-Saxon, had, like her royal companion, a joyous presentiment of her death, and a shining train of angels to escort her to heaven. One day when Willesinda (as she was called) worked in the garden of the monastery with the other lay-sisters, she said to them, " One of those who cultivate this spot is about to die; let us then be ready, that our tardiness may not injure us in eternity." They asked her in vain which one of them it should be. Soon after, she fell ill, and during all her sickness she looked up to heaven with eyes shining with happiness, repeating long passages from holy Scripture, though she had never learned them by heart. Like the cowherd-poet whom the Abbess Hilda brought into monastic life and to a knowledge of the Bible, she astonished all present by repeating to them the Old and New Testament in their order.
After this she began to sing with wonderful sweetness the services as she had heard them sung by the priests. Then all at once she said to her amazed companions, " Room, room, for those who are coming! " No one was seen to enter, but conversation was heard, which the sick woman kept up, bowing her head with an expression of respect and joy. " Welcome, my dear ladies, welcome," she said. " To whom are you speaking? " they asked her. ^' What! " she answered, " do you not recognize your sisters who have left this community for heaven? Look, Anstrude, there is Ansilda, your own sister, who has been long dead. She is clothed with the white robe of the elect." After this she breathed her last, and the choir of angels was immediately heard coming forth to meet the saved soul.^o*
203 u Magnarum fuit virgo virtutum.... Hujus multa ab incolis loci illius Solent opera virtutum et signa niiraculorum usque hodie narrari.... Ccepit circuire in monasterio casulas infirmarum Ciiristi famularura.... Ipsa autem nocte... inoipiente aurora... niulti de fratribus... sonitum quasi plurimce niultitudinis monasterium ingredientis; mox egressi dignoscere quid esset, viderunt lucem coelitus emissam fuisse permaxiuiam, quaj sanctam illara animam ... ad aiterna gaudia ducebat.... Tantae fragrantia suavitatis ab imis ebuUivit, ut cunctis qui adstabant fratribus ac sororibus, quasi opobalsami cellaria esse viderentur aperta." — Bede, iii. 8.
'°* " Qusedam ex genere Saxonum Willesinda nomine,... quadam die dum in hortum intra monasterii septa laboraret, cum sodalibus locuta est
But it was especially among the learned ladies of vision of Barking, in the monastery which had made so warm s'hroild"'"" a response to the classical teachings of Aldhelm and Marking. Boniface, that death was sweet and radiant. During the great pestilence of 664, which so cruelly desolated the newborn Church of England, the nuns went out one night from their church, at the end of matins, to pray at the grave of the monks who had preceded them into the other world, when all at once they saw the entire sky lighted up and cover them all as with a radiant shroud. They were so terrified that the hymn they were singing died on their lips. This light, which was more brilliant than that of the sun, guided them to the burying-place in which they were themselves to rest, and then disappeared; and they understood that it showed them at once the heaven which awaited their souls, and the spot of earth in which their bodies were to await the day of resurrection.205
Among those who died in so great a number dur- ^j^^ ^.^.^^^ ing this fatal year, there are two whose humble ^{;"®'^J,.^| memory the Anglo-Saxon historian has not scorned to mingle with his narrative of the political and military events of Essex and East Anglia. One of them was still in perfect health, when she was told that a little child, who had been received and taken care of by the sisters, had just died, and with its last breath had called her thrice, " Edith! Edith! Edith! " Immediately she lay down on her bed, and died the same day, to follow her innocent forerunner to heaven.^O'^
Cito a nobis quae in hac area excolimus una itura est.... Coepit Iffita ad coelum vultus reforre, et ignotas sibi dudum scripturarum paginas enarrare, exorsaque a principio libros JMoysis per ordinem recitare, Evangeliique vitalia sacramenta ac Apostolica post veterum documenta narrare. Onmesque deinceps scripturas ex ordine memorare.... Hilari vultu, capiteque inclinato dixit: Bencdicite doming meaj, benedicite dominaj nicae. Inquircntesque quce adstabant quibus salutem prajmitteret, respondit: Non cernitis sorores vestras quae de vestro collegio migravcrunt ad coelos? Quasrentesque illae si agnosceret, increpanti voce ad unani earum Ansitrudem nomine loquitur: Vel tu, inquit, non agnoscis sororem tuam Ansildem, quaj dudum ad coelos migravit candidataruni ohoris insertam." — Vita S. BurgundofarcB, c. vii., ap. Mabillon, Act. SS. 0. S. B., vol. ii. p. 425.
205 ii Egressas de oratorio famulaj Cbristi... ecce subito lux cmissa coelitus, veluti linteum magnum... tanto eas stupore perculit, ut etiam canticum quod canebant tremefacta; intermitterent. Ipse splendor cmissie lucis, in cujus comparatione sol meridianus videri possit obscurus.... Ut nulli esset dubium, quin ipsa lux quaj aninias I'amularum Cliristi esset ductura vel susceptura in ccelis, etiam corporibus earum," &c. — Bede, iv. 7.
206 II puer trium circiter annorum.., qui propter iiifantilem adlmc ajtatem in virginum Deo dedicatarum solebat cella nutriri ibique medicari... Clamavit... proiirio cam nomine quasi prajscntem alloquens, Eadgyd,
Another, who was very young, but had been long iH^ and was now in extremity, commanded those who watched her to carry away the lamp. " Put it out — put it out," she said, without ceasing, though she was not obeyed. " You suppose me mad, but I am not mad, and I tell you that I see this house full of such a light that your lamp troubles me with its obscure glimmer." Afterwards, when nobody would listen to her, she resumed: " Light your lamps then, and keep them as long as you please. But as for me, I have no need of your light; mine is elsewhere, and at dawn it will come for me." At dawn she was dead.^o^
VII.
History has retained but these few names, and it is not without difficulty that even these can be gleaned from chronicles and legends. The veil of forgetfulness and indifference has fallen between us and the distant centuries. That great fire, lighted by faith and charity in the souls of so many new and fervent Christians, is now extinguished: a few feeble rays scarcely reach us through the night of ages. That great garden of fragrant flowers, of blessed and glorious fruit, is now seen and enjoyed only by God; scarcely does a passing breath waft to us the faint lingerings of its perfume. Myriads of souls, candid and worthy, simple and delicate, sweet and fervent, which must have peopled these immense and numberless monasteries of old, will never be known to us! How many young and touching lives are thus buried in the darkness of forgetfulness, until the day when before the assembled universe they shall shine with the brightness of everlasting glory
!
But in those distant ages they formed, for the honor and consolation of their country and the Church, a great army, numerous, hardy, and dauntless, bearing the glorious ensigns of sacrifice with magnanimous serenity and humble fervor.
Eadgyd, Eadgyd.... Ipso quo vocata est die... ilium qui se vocavit ad regnuni cceleste secutaest." — Bede, iv. 8.
-°'' " Coepit subito circa mediam noctem clamare petens ut lucernam... extinguerent; quod cum frequenti voce repeteret.... Scio quod me hsec insana inente loqui arbitramini.... Vere dico vobis quod doiinim banc tanta luce impletam esse perspicio, ut vestra ilia lucerna niibi omnimodis esse videatur obscura.... Accendite ergo lucernam illam quamdiu yultis attanien scitote quia non est mea; nam mea lux, incipiente aurora, mihi adventura est." — Ibid.
They confessed victoriously before the new-born Christianity and the beaten-back barbarism of their age, as their sisters in the present time confess, in the face of our over-proud civilization, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the atonements of suflFering, and the immortal empire of the soul over inferior nature.
In all these noble maids, betrothed to God, there appears a sort of courage and strength which is above their sex. It is the special attribute of monastic life to transfigure human nature, by giving to the soul that which is almost always wanting to it in ordinary ex- part'ofTue* istence. It inspires the young virgin with an element of manfulness which withdraws her from the weaknesses of nature, and makes her at the necessary moment a heroine; but a soft and tender heroine, rising from the depths of humility, obedience, and love, to reach the height of the most generous flights, and to attain everything that is most powerful and light-giving in human courage. It fills the heart of the true monk and true priest with treasures of intelligent compassion, of unlimited tenderness, of gentleness unmixed with laxness, and of an unremitting patience such as the heart of woman alone seems capable of containing. And sometimes to both, to the bride of God and to His minister, to the heroine of charity and to the master of doctrine and preaching, it adds by a supernatural gift the incomparable charm of childhood, with its artless and endearing candor; then may be seen upon a living countenance that simplicity in beauty, and that serenity in strength, which are the most lovely array of genius and virtue. Thus it happens by times that all that is most grand and pure in the three different types of humanity, the man, the woman, and the child, is found combined in one single being, which accomplishes all that a soul can do here below to rise from its fall, and to render itself worthy of the God who has created and saved it.208
I speak in the present tense, for all this exists still, and is found and repeated every day in the bosom of our modern civilization.
Every trace of the ancient world of which we have been endeavoring to seize an impression, has
'^ Aubrey de Verb, Thoughts on St. Gerirude. Cf. T. "W. Allies, ^'Ae Formation of Christendom, 18C5, Part I., Lect. G, Creation of Virginal Life. disappeared— everything has perished or changed, Irafy o^^ except the army of sacrifice. The vast and magnificent edifice of the ancient Catholic world has crumbled hopelessly to pieces. There will rise, and already, indeed, there does rise, a new world, which, like the ancient, will have its own greatness and its own littleness. But that of which we have just told the history has lasted, still lasts, and will endure forever.
Twelve centuries after the Anglo-Saxon maids whose devotion we have related, the same hand falls upon our homes, upon our desolate hearts, and tears away from us our daughters and sisters. Never since Christianity existed have such sacrifices been more numerous, more magnanimous, more spontaneous, than now. Every day since the commencement of this century, hundreds of beloved creatures have come forth from castles and cottages, from palaces and workshops, to offer unto God their heart, their soul, their virgin innocence, their love and their life. Every day among ourselves, maidens of high descent and high heart, and others with a soul higher than their fortune, have vowed themselves, in the morning of life, to an immortal husband.
They are the flower of the human race— a flower still sweet with the morning dew, which has reflected nothing but the ra3^s of the rising sun, and which no earthly dust has tarnished — an exquisite blossom which, scented from far, fascinates with its pure fragrance, at least for a time, even the most vulgar souls. They are the flower, but they are also the fruit; the purest sap, the most generous blood of the stock of Adam; for daily these heroines win the most wonderful of victories, by the manliest effort which can raise a human creature above all earthly instincts and mortal ties.
Have you seen in March or April a child breathing in the first fresh breath of nature, the first gleam of admiration lightening in his bright eyes as they meet the gleam of awakening life in the woods and fields? There does the spring-time of life meet with the spring-time of nature, and to witness this meeting is a delight and a charm. But still more enchanting and more enrapturing by far, a rapture by which the soul is borne away to the utmost height of human emotion, is the sight of a virgin creature already budding into womanhood, radiant with youth and beauty, who turns away from all the fragrance of life to breathe only the breath, and look only towards the glories, of heaven.
What a scene is this! and where can one be found which manifests more clearly the divine nature of the Church, or which throws more entirely into the shade the miseries and stains with which its heavenly splendor is sometimes veiled?
But, let us again repeat, this sight is ajBforded to us everywhere, not only in our old and unhealthy Europe, but in that America ^'^^ which all generous spirits regard with hope and confidence. Wherever ^^nrfn the the Gospel is preached, wherever a crucifix is raised, everywhere does Christ, with His irresistible arm, pluck and uproot these earthly flowers to transplant them nearer to heaven.
Spoilers and oppressors may in vain resume their persecutions, which are daily predicted and provoked by the writers of revolutionary Ccssarism. Devoted and outlawed chastity will resume its task. In the garrets or cellars of the palaces inhabited by the triumphant masters of the future, over their heads or under their feet, virgins will be found who shall swear to Jesus Christ to belong only to Him, and who will keep their vow, if necessary, at the cost of their life.
In this age of laxity and universal languidness, these gentle victors have kept the secret of strength, and in the weakness of their sex, let it once again be repeated, they exhibit the masculine and persevering energy which is wanting in us, to attack in front and to subdue the egotism, cowardice, and sensuality of our time and of all times. They accomplish this task with a chaste and triumphant hardihood. All that is noble and pure in human nature is led to the fight against all our baseness, and to the help of all our miseries. Speak not of the charms of a contemplative life, of the peaceful joys of meditation and solitude. These are but the lot of few. Nowadays the great self-devoted crowd throws itself into quite another path. They rush forth to the rescue of the most repulsive and tedious infirmities of poor human nature, lavishing upon them unwearied cares; they swarm wherever they are wanted to cultivate the deserts of igno- ^ "We are penetrated with the most profound respect for those holy virgins who fill our religious communities. Wc fulfil one of the pleasantest of duties in giving public witness to the virtue and heroism of those Christian maidens, whose lives exhale the sacred odor of Jesus Christ, and who, by their devotion and their spirit of sacrifice, have contributed more perhaps than any other cause to produce a happy change in the minds of those estranged from our faith." — Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, assembled in, full Council at Baltimore, Oct. 21, 18G6.
VOL. IL 62 ranee and of childish stupidity, often so intractable and restive. Braving all disgusts, all repugnance, all denunciations and ingratitudes, they come by thousands, with dauntless courage and patience, to win, caress, and soothe every form of suffering and of poverty.
And, along with their strength, they have light, prudence, and true insight. They understand life without having experienced it. Who has taught them all these sad secrets? Who has taught these beings, at once so pure and so impassioned, at an age when the heart begins to be consumed by an insatiable thirst for human sympathy and human love, that such a thirst will never be satisfied in this world? Who has revealed to them the disgraceful frailty of earthly affections, even of the noblest and sweetest, the fondest and most deeply rooted, even of those which believed themselves everlasting, and held the greatest place in the hearts out of which they have miserably perished? Nothing but a divine instinct which frees them by withdrawing them from us. They are delivered from that withering amazement of the soul which meets disappointment, betrayal, and scorn, instead of love, and sometimes, after so many struggles and so many delusions, the silence of death in the fulness of life. They have forestalled their enemy, unmasked, baffled, and discomfited him. They have escaped forever: " Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the net of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped."
Thus they go bearing off to God, in the bloom of youth, their hearts, full of those treasures of deep love and complete selfrenunciation which thej^ refuse to man. They bury and consume their whole life in the hidden depths of voluntary renunciation, of unknown immolations.
When this is done, they assure us that they have found peace and joy, and in the sacrifice of themselves the perfection of love. They have kept their hearts for Him who never changes and never deceives; and in His service they find consolations which are worth all the price they have paid for them — joys which are not certainly unclouded, for then they would be without merit, but whose savor and fragrance will last to the grave.
It is not that they would forget or betray us whom they have loved, and who love them. No; the arrow which has pierced our hearts and remains there has first struck through theirs. They share with us the weight and bitterness of the sacrifice. Isolation from the world is not insensibility. It is only a false spirituality which makes the soul hard, arrogant, and pitiless. When religion dries up or hardens the heart it is but a lying tyranny. Here, in true sacrifice, in supreme self-mortification, human affection loses none of its rights. They are all respected, but all purified, all transformed into an offering to God, who has promised to comfort us more than a mother — " So shalt thou be son of the Most High, and He shall love thee more than thy mother doeth." The warmth of tenderness, afilicted yet so pure, so straightforward, and so sure of itself, glows forth in every word, in every look. The blessedness of belonging to God will never close a noble heart to the griefs of others, or deprive it of any generous emotion. That heart becomes, on the contrary, more tender and more closely entwined to those it loves in proportion as it is entwined into a closer bond with the heart of Jesus.2W
Is this a dream?— the page of a romance? Is it only history— the history of a past forever ended? No; once more, it is what we behold and what happens amongst us every day.
This daily spectacle we who speak have seen and undergone. What,we had perceived only across past centuries and through old books, suddenly rose one day before our