to do, and went at once to her confessor for advice and consolation. The priest, seeing that her heart was touched and completely changed, told her to go to the church, kneel before the altar and there beg of God to reveal to her what He wished to effect in her by such a sudden death. She followed the advice, and daring her meditation received an inward inspiration, as if some one was speaking into her ear, saying: wilt thou not at last begin to prepare better for death? How long wilt thou still wait before laying aside thy vanity, tepidity in My service, inordinate love of creatures and the vices to which thou art grown accustomed? On what dost thou rely? On thy youth? But the dead page was much younger than thou. On thy health and strength? He was much stronger than thou. Dost thou expect to have time to prepare for death during a long illness? Thou hast seen that one may be surprised by death without any illness; if a sudden death had hurried thee off, as it did thy page, where shouldst thou be now with thy conscience weighed down with sins and faults? Where shouldst thou be with thy own sins? Where with the many sins thou hast caused others to commit by thy extravagance in dress, or to which thou hast given occasion by thy caresses? The princess, terrified at this, fell down at the priest's feet, and with tears in her eyes cried out: Ah, father, have patience with me; I am determined not to leave this church before I have done two things: the first is to make a good general confession of my whole life, and the second to make a better rule and daily order for my life in future. She carried her resolution into effect, and lived ever after such a pious and holy life, that when, after some years, she was at the point of death and saw those who were standing round her bedside weeping, she commenced to laugh, and said to them: "Why are you so troubled on my account? You must know that death is nothing new to me; I have been thinking of it every day, and for many years I have awaited it with composure." Ah, my dear brethren, would that we, too, thought and acted in the same manner; we should soon find a great change for the better in our lives. "Nothing is so powerful to keep us from sin as the frequent consideration of death."
The thought of death is an incentive to virtue.
And again, there is no more powerful incentive to practise virtue than the frequent thought and consideration of death. I will explain this to you briefly. The motive and the end are with philosophers one and the same thing. For instance; the