all further efforts on his part would be ineffectual, made himself visible, and said, Vicisti me, Sara, vicisti! But holy Sara, as it became her, disclaimed the glory, and made answer, Non ego vici te, sed Dominus meus.

If the Egyptian Abbess had followed Chæremon's directions, she might have obtained a victory in far less time. That Abbot, being questioned concerning the time which was necessary for attaining this virtue in perfection, delivered it as his opinion, that if any person would abstain from all idle conversation, eschew anger, keep himself from worldly cares, allow himself no other food than two biscuits per day of six ounces each, and not more than three, or at the utmost four hours sleep, he might rely upon it, it would not require more than six months, with God's help, to make him sensible that it was not impossible for him to attain the virtue of perfect chastity. This, however, has been censured as a temerarious opinion. Even had it been approved, it could not have been followed without a total retirement from the business of the world for the time required, which, for most persons, is impossible. Therefore, as there is nothing for which the Romish

* Cassian. Coll. xii. c. xv. p. 420.

Church cannot devise a substitute, the Dominicans (who have been the great manufacturers in this line) brought out an invention adapted to general use, whereby the virtue might be obtained at little cost, and "without inconvenience, interruption of business, or loss of time." The hint was taken from that memorable incident in the life of the Angelical Doctor which has been before related.

I hope, for the honour of a man whose extraordinary powers of mind few persons are competent to appreciate, (and certainly I am not of the number,) that Thomas Aquinas was not the inventor of this gross and palpable fable, but that it must be ascribed to that brother Raynaldus, who, after Thomas's death, related it on his alleged authority. His contemporary biographer, F. Gulielmus de Thoco, recorded it as an actual and undoubted vision, the reality whereof was proved by the pain which the Saint suffered, and the cries he uttered at the time, by its permanent effect during the remainder of his life, and by his dying attestation. The Dominicans, however, ventured in due time to produce a more substantial proof; they exhibited in their Convent at Vercelli* the

It was said to have been presented to that convent by one

identical girdle* with which the Angelical Doctor had been cinctured by the Angels. Pope Pius V. was desirous of enriching Rome with so singular a relic, and proposed to purchase it from the Convent by giving them in exchange other relics of great reputation; but providentially, before this could be effected, the Pope died, otherwise Vercelli and its Convent would have been deprived of this unique and inestimable curiosity. The Friars then became more sensible than ever of its value; and F. Cypriano Uberti (who was an Inquisitor in those parts) was moved by divine inspiration to have girdles of the same size and pattern manufactured by the Nuns of St. Margaret's Convent, to be worn as an approved preservative of chastity, and an immediate remedy for all thoughts and feelings inconsistent with purity of mind. The facsimiles were perfect in all respects except the material, for what it was of which the original was composed, no human investigation had been

of its members, Joannes Vercellensis, who took his name from the place, and was elected General of the Order in the year of the Saint's death.-Acta SS. Mart. t. i. 745.

* Alardus Gazæus. In Annot. ad Cassiani Coll. p. 310.

+ Sed providit Deus, Pontificis morte anno 1572 interveniente, ne tanto thesauro Vercelle privarentur.--Acta SS. Mart. t. i. 746.

able to ascertain. The imitation, however, was as exact as possible in all other points, and the virtue was the same, being communicated to the new girdles by contact with the celestial pattern. With what joy would St. Peter Damian have sung his Nunc dimittis, if he had lived to see this invention! A canon requiring the clergy to make St. Thomas's girdle a part of their dress at all times, would have made celibacy easy, and removed all those scandals which he so vehemently deplored.

The Angelical Thomas himself had given a hint for this invention, reminding his Order twice by miracle of the miraculous exemplar in their possession, as if he were impatient that they were so slow in imparting its benefits to the world at large. One of these hints was in the case of the blessed Estefania de Soncino. It was not till she had stript and rolled herself among thorns, to subdue temptation, after the example of the Benedictine and Seraphic Patriarchs, that calling to mind it was the eve of St. Thomas Aquinas's day, she bethought herself of an easier remedy, and prayed to him that he would deign to gird her as he himself had been girt with what we may venture to call the Cestus of Diana. The prayer was granted, and immediately she was constringed so tightly

by the unseen and spiritual cincture that, as St. Thomas had done, she cried aloud for pain. Here the interference and the miracle were known only by their effects. They were visible in the other instance. The blessed Columba of Milan, under a like paroxysm preferred a like prayer, and behold St. Thomas Aquinas appeared, with two Angels in his company, and a girdle whiter than snow in his hand. The Angels came as his assistants, because it would not have been decorous for the Angelical Doctor himself to have fastened it on. He sanctified it with the sign of the Cross and delivered it to them; they put it round the Beata,* and from that moment she became as unsullied in mind as the mystic cestus in hue with which she had thus been favoured.

After these examples it is not surprizing that the manufactory for girdles should have been set up in St. Margaret's Nunnery. It was so successful that F. Camillo Quadrio declares it would require whole volumes to contain the cases in which these girdles had† performed

Acta SS. ut supra.

+ Paria asseruit P. Aurelius Corbellinus ex Ordine Eremitarum D. Augustini, et sacræ Inquisitionis Vercellis Consultor, atque mulicris unius sigillatim meminit luxui per multos annos deditæ, et P. Cypriani prænominati monitis nullis ab impudicitiá revocabilis,