Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III A THORNY PATH THERE are Sardinian girls in the present century who lead much such a life as that which Catherine Benincasa had chosen. Taking the three vows common to all monastic orders, they enter no convent but live at home in a little room set apart for them, having no communication with the outer world except when visited by their confessor; their food is silently handed in to them, and they are supposed to spend their lives in meditation and prayer. Such an existence may end in apathy, or early death, or insanity, or again, where there is the mystic temperament, it may rise to intense devotion, and the happy visionary may be enraptured by heavenly sights and sounds, as was Catherine, after the hard struggle which for a time racked soul and body. The three years spent after that time were a period of exquisite peace and joy, during which she grew more and more in knowledge of herself and of heavenly things. But suddenly on her reluctant mind was forced the conviction that she must renounce this life of contemplation, and, returning to the daily round, seek to help and teach her fellow townsmen. It was a repetition on a far larger scale of her childish perception that instead of being a hermit she must go home. She strove hard not to believe it, praying with tears to be spared this trial. How could she teach and exhort, she pleaded, weak and liable to temptation as she was, of no rank or importance, ST. CATHER1NE UV COZZAKKI.LI and only a woman ? "I have a mission for thee," the inward Voice answered, " and it is My will that thou should'st appear in public. Wherever thou goest I will be with thee and never leave thee." Then Catherine submitted, saying through tears, " Thy will be done in all things, Thou art light and I am darkness ; Thou art, and I a...