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110 AUTOBIOGRAPILY.
to give them to others. In a word, I was during two years
a Catholic enthusiast, but became, in the mean time, a bet-
ter, purer, more virtuous being than I had been before. I
studied the Bible assiduously. I was often, very often, on
my knees; yes, rose in the night to pray for light and
peace. <A breath of the celestial children’s wings fanned
now and then my heart. The fruit of such a moment is
the passage in “ The Solitary One,” beginning with “ Now
is peaceful, blessed rest,” &c., &c. I had indeed moments
of inexpressible happiness; but my feelings, like billows,
rose‘and fell; I felt no settled calm. A warm feeling of
piety filled my soul. My doubts were not solved, but I had
faith and hope; I had a measureless love for all sufferers ;
for all who were in affliction; for all unhappy ones. To
exercise this love unwaveringly, during the whole remain-
der of my life, became my sole wish, and I made the firm
determination, that, as soon as I should become my own
mistress, I would enter a hospital as a “Sister of Charity,”
and devote my days to tending the sufferers of the poorer
classes, little caring for what the world or my own family
would say of it ;—so little was at that time the right appli-
cation of the “ principle of usefulness” understood by me.
With my soul full of the determination to devote my life
to God in this way, I drove one Sunday, a gloomy winter’s
day, alone to church, in order to consecrate myself, as it
were, to a new life by taking the Sacrament. I remember
still, with a feeling of pleasing melancholy, how I was
sitting alone in my pew, shivering with cold, while, with a
calm pleasure in my soul, I contemplated the altar-piece,
representing the Resurrection, and heard how the congre-
gation, one by one, with heavy footsteps walked up the aisle
and entered the pews. All of a sudden the sun shone out
brightly, and threw his life-giving rays upon me. They
continued during the whole service to warm me gently, and
with blissful tears I felt this as a blessing from Heaven.
At the foot of the altar, I laid down the. offering of my
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