of eternal flames, nor the hopes of divine mercy could bend this unfortunate man, who was plunging into hell with all his crimes. The curate who saw death approaching, was absorbed in grief: he returned with the morning dawn, and renewed his pressing efforts: but all proved useless. The unhappy man repulsed his discourse and refused him presence. He sunk deeper and deeper into final impenitence, and committed that sin against the Holy Ghost, by which the mercy of God is turned aside - naught awaited him but the chastisements of an irrevocable justice.
Friar Thomas, the Confessor of Catherine, was acquainted with what was passing. Grieved at the loss of this soul, he hastened to his penitent, and asked her, in the name of obedience and charity, to interest herself in this miserable man, and cry to God until she would procure his pardon. When he arrived Catherine was in ecstacy, and it was impossible to draw her from her heavenly contemplations. As he could neither speak to her nor wait for her, on account of the approaching night, he recommended one of her companions, named Catherine, and who is still living, to explain to the servant of God, as soon as she came to herself, the object of his visit. Catherine did not recover from her ecstacy until near five o'clock in the morning: her companion immediately gave the Confessor's commission and enjoined her, in virtue of holy obedience, to ask for the conversion of the hard-hearted sinner. At this news Catherine, all inflamed with charity and compassion, began to pray to God with her whole strength, protesting that she could not allow her equal, her countryman, and her mother, because redeemed by the same Saviour, to perish in eternal flames.
