She acknowledges that the hardest trials of resignation are found in those misfortunes irreparable here on earth. Such are death, old age, physical infirmity, loss of worldly honor, final impenitence. But the death of those we love, she says, may be deeply mourned in the midst of resignation; and our own certain death affords not only a counterbalance to such affliction, but also to the other evils of life. Old age is a halt between the world overcome, and eternity about to begin. Physical infirmities make us live in the atmosphere of the gospel beatitudes; we are then truly the poor ones of Christ, or rather poverty itself. The world sometimes forgets, but never pardons; what matters, provided virtue remain unscathed, or that it be restored through repentance?
"Suffering teaches us how to suffer; suffering teaches us how to live; suffering teaches us how to die."
And here we take our leave of this remarkable woman, who offers such a bright example to our generation.
From The Dublin Review.
RECENT IRISH POETRY.
Lays of the Western Gael and other Poems. By SAMUEL FERGUSON. London: Bell & Daldy. 1865.
Poems. By SPERANZA (LADY WILDE). Dublin: Duffy. 1864.
Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland. A modern Poem. By WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. London: Macmillan & Co. 1864.
Inisfail, a Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland. By AUBREY DE VERE. Dublin: Duffy. 1864.