AN EXTRACT.
THE last illness of Madame de Courtiaux lasted six weeks, during which the clergy on the one side and the nuns on the other beset her dying-bed, persecuting and tormenting her with every device that could suggest itself, and exhausting every argument, threat, and. insidious persuasion to induce her to sign the formulary.
Two days before the close of her life the bishop, who was as usual standing before her bed, exhorted her to reflect, for she would soon be in the presence of God.
“My lord," replied the Prioress, "God is continually present with His children. It was in His light only that I ever sought light; it is then because it is His word, and not merely because I have weighed it during a solitude of six years, that I assure you my decision is made. It is because it was made in His presence that it is not now to be re-made.”
“But," continued the Prelate, after an exhortation of about two hours' length, "who will present you to God.? It will not be the Church, which you refuse to obey; nor yet will it be myself, who am pastor only to the sheep within her fold. What will you, do when you have to appear before God, bearing the weight of your sins alone?”
The dying nun paused, as if deeply affected; then, fixing on him a mild but steady eye, replied, "Having made peace through the blood of His cross, my Savior hath reconciled all things unto Himself in the body of His flesh, through death, to present us holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight; if we continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel." (See Col. 1:20-2320And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 23If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; (Colossians 1:20‑23).) Then the dying prioress, rising in her bed, with clasped hands and fervently uplifted eyes, exclaimed, "In Thee, O Lord, I have trusted, nor wilt Thou suffer the creature who trusts in Thee to be confounded.”