Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical

by Mrs. J. Sadlier

THE MARQUIS BE CIVRAC. (From une Commune Vendéenne.)

The belief that the living friends may be of use to their friends in the grave, has in it I know not what instructive and natural which one meets in hearts the most simple and unsophisticated. A pious peasant woman of La Vendée kneeling on the coffin of her good master, the Marquis de Civrac, cried out: "O my God, repay to him all the good he has done to us!" Does not this fervent cry of grateful affection signify: "My God, some rays are perchance wanting in the crown of our benefactor; supply them, we beseech Thee, in consideration of our prayer and all he has done for us?" and this is precisely the consoling doctrine of Purgatory.

GRATITUDE OF THE HOLY SOULS.

[Rev. James Mumford, S.J., born in England in 1605, and who labored for forty years for the cause of the Catholic Church in his native country, wrote a remarkable work on Purgatory; and he mentions that the following incident was written to him by William Freysson, a publisher, of Cologne. May it move many in their difficulties to have recourse to the Holy Souls.]

One festival day, when my place of business was closed, I was occupying myself in reading a book which you had lent me, and which was on "The Souls in Purgatory." I was absorbed in my subject when a messenger came and told me that my youngest child, aged four years, showed the first symptoms of a very grave disease. The child rapidly grew worse, and the physicians at length declared that there was no hope. The thought then occurred to me that perhaps I could save my child by making a vow to assist the Suffering Souls in Purgatory. I accordingly repaired at once to a chapel, and, with all fervor, supplicated God to have pity on me; and I vowed I would distribute gratuitously a hundred copies of the book that had moved me in behalf of the suffering souls, and give them to ecclesiastics and to religious to increase devotion to the Holy Souls. I had, I acknowledge, hardly any hope. As soon as I returned to the house I found the child much better. He asked for food, although for several days he had not been able to swallow anything but liquids. The next day he was perfectly well, got up, went out for a walk, and ate as if he had never had anything the matter with him. Filled with gratitude, I was only anxious to fulfill my promise. I went to the College of the Jesuit Fathers and begged them to accept as many copies of the work as they pleased, and to distribute them amongst themselves and other communities and ecclesiastics as they thought fit, so that the suffering souls, my benefactors, should be assisted by further prayers.

Three weeks had not slipped away, however, when another accident not less serious befell me. My wife, on entering the house one day, was suddenly seized with a trembling in all her limbs, which threw her to the ground, and she remained insensible. Little by little the illness increased, until she was deprived of the power of speech. Remedies seemed to be in vain. The malady at length assumed such aggravated proportions that every one was of opinion she had no chance of recovery. The priest who assisted her had already addressed words of consolation to me, exhorting me to Christian resignation. I turned again with confidence to the souls in Purgatory, who had assisted me once before, and I went to the same church. There, prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, I renewed my supplication with all the ardor with which affection for my family inspired me. "O my God!" I exclaimed, "Thy mercy is not exhausted: in the name of Thy infinite bounty, do not permit that the recovery of my son should be paid by the death of his mother." I made a vow this time, to distribute two hundred copies of the holy book, in order that a greater number of persons might be moved to intercede for the suffering souls. I besought those who had already been delivered from Purgatory to unite with me on this occasion. After this prayer, as I was returning to the house, I saw my servants running towards me. They told me with delight that my wife had undergone a great change for the better; that the delirium had ceased, and she had recovered her power of speech. I at once ran on to assure myself of the fact: all was true. Very soon my wife was so perfectly recovered that she came with me into the holy place to make an act of thanksgiving to God for all His mercies.—Ave Maria.

A STRANGE INCIDENT.

A young German lady of rank, still alive to tell the story, arriving with her friends at one of the most noted hotels in Paris, an apartment of unusual magnificence on the first floor was apportioned to her use. After retiring to rest she lay awake a long while, contemplating, by the dim light of a night-lamp, the costly ornaments in the room, when suddenly the folding-doors opposite the bed, which she had locked, were thrown open, and, amid a flood of unearthly light, there entered a young man in the garb of the French navy, having his hair dressed in the peculiar mode à la Titus. Taking a chair and placing it in the middle of the room, he sat down, and drew from his pocket a pistol of an uncommon make, which he deliberately put to his forehead, fired, and fell back as if dead. At the moment of the explosion the room became dark and still, and a low voice said softly: "Say an Ave Maria for his soul."

The young lady, though not insensible, became paralyzed with horror, and remained in a kind of cataleptic trance, fully conscious, but unable to move or speak, until, at nine o'clock next day, no answer having been given to repeated calls of her maid, the doors were forced open. At the same moment the power of speech returned, and the poor young lady shrieked out to her attendants that a man had shot himself in the night, and was lying dead on the floor. Nothing, however, was to be seen, and they concluded that she was suffering from the effects of a dream. Not being a Catholic, she could not, of course, understand the meaning of the mysterious command.

A short time afterwards, however, the proprietor of the hotel informed a gentleman of the party that the terrible scene witnessed by the young lady had in reality been enacted only three nights previously in that very room, when a young French officer put an end to his life with a pistol of a peculiar description, which, together with the body, was then lying at the Morgue awaiting identification. The gentleman examined them both, and found them to correspond exactly with the description of the man and the pistol seen in the apparition.