of Theresa was found fresh and uninjured, and miraculously strewn with fresh flowers, which was interpreted to prove that hor incestuous marriage was, because of her ignorance, not imputed to her as a sin. AA,SS, Henriquez, Lilia. Bisoo, Beyes de Leon. Florez, Beynas.
B. Theresa (6), Tarasia or Taraja, Sept. 3, + 1266. Patron against ear- ache. She was a servant to the priest of tho church of Ourem or Santarem, near Lisbon. One day she saw a beggar naked at the gate. She gave him an old cloak, which her master had left off using. When he heard of it, he was very angry and insisted on her making good the loss to him. She represented to him that he had plenty of clothes lying in a chest in danger of being eaten by moths; but he continued to revile her for what she had done, and to insist on her getting back his cloak. In her perplexity she remembered that Qod was . more liberal than her master. She prayed to Him. An angel brought her a cloak like the lost one, and she gave it to her master, but next morning, as he was going into the church to say mass, he saw the beggar wearing his old cloak ; and understanding what had happened, he treated his servant with greater respect ever after. One day, in church, she was so absorbed in religious contemplation that she did not hear the doors shut or the keys turned, and so she had to stay there all night. She slept, and when the gates were opened in the morning, she lamented that she could not make the bread ready in time ; but when she went into the house, she found that the angels had not only baked the bread but had taken it out of the oven and put it in the cupboard, where it was still warm and ready for use. AA.SS,
St. Theresa (7) or Teresia of Jesus, Oct. 15, Aug. 27, 1515-1582. Patron of Spain, of the Carmelite Order and of Avila.
Represented (1) as a Carmelite nun ; (2) as a Doctor of Theology, holding a book and a pen, a dove hovering near her ear, to symbolize direct inspiration ; (3) in a group with the four saints canonized on tho same day ; (4) conversing with St. John of the Cross, her spiritual son and the first monk who took the habit under her reform ; (5) holding a flaming heart, emblem of piety and love ; (6) her heart pierced by an angel with a dart ; (7) with a scroll bearing the words, ^^Aut pati aut mori^" or " Miserecordias Domini in Aetemam can- iaho;'* (8) meeting the Child Jesus in tho cloister of her convent.
Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahu- mada was born of an ancient family at Avila, " the grim border fortress of Castillo." Alfonso Sanchez de Cepeda, her father, was twice married ; Teresa was the third child of his second wife, Beatriz Davila y Ahimiada. Her parents were devout people. " It helped me," she wrote, " that I never saw my father and mother respect anything but goodness." Alfonso loved good books and had them in the Spanish tongue that his children might read them. The lives of the Saints impressed the practical mind of his little daughter in a way which he had not expected. At seven years old she set out with her brother Bodrigo to seek martyrdom at the hands of the Moors, because martyrs went straight to heaven. From her mother, whom sho lost when she was twelve years old, Teresa inherited delicate health and a taste for the romances of chivalry. Tho brothers and sisters used to sit up at night reading Bolando, and Don Beliania and Amadis of Oaul, " So completely was I mastered by this passion," Teresa says, that I thought I could not be happy without a new book." A year and a half spent in the Augustinian con* vent of Sta. Maria da Gracia, where girls like herself were educated, put an end to the romance reading and the small vanities incidental to girlhood. Between the years 1532 and 1533 Teresa was balancing in her mind the married life her sister had chosen, against a religious vocation. A visit paid to a saintly uncle, who was about to enter a monastery, turned the scale in favour of the convent. "Though I could not bend my will to become a nun," she says, " I saw that the religious state was the best and the safest, and thus, little by little,
