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SAINT THERESA OF AVILA.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.
If a chronicler living in the year 1515 had been asked to relate the striking events of that year in Europe, he would doubtless have mentioned early in the list the great victory achieved by Francis I. over the Swiss near Marignano; afterwards, if conversant with the progress of the arts, he might have recorded the completion of Michael Angelo’s great statoe, Moses; then, if keenly sensitive to the theological tendencies of the times, he might have seen such significance in the Wittenberg lectures as would warrant him in making note of the lecturer,—the stout German monk, Luther, just returned from Rome, filled with indignation against that corrupt city. All these signs of the times he
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