"How can I take you?" replied the priest; "you know well that I have a wife already." Whereupon the gruff bass voice answered, with mocking laughter, "Ha! ha! ha! what matter for that? Take more wives!"
Here some of the young novices laughed, but others who had never wept bis dato, now broke out in violent weeping, and the abbess exclaimed, "Oh, merciful God! who hath ever heard the like from this our chaste sister, whom we have known from her youth up? Oh! deliver her from this wicked devil who reigns in her soul and members!"
But at the mention of the holy name, the evil one raged more furiously than ever within her. He tore her, so that she foamed at the mouth, and—ah! woe is me that I must speak it—uttered coarse and shameful words, such as the most shameless groom or jack-boy would scarce pronounce.
These sent all the novices flying and screaming away; but the abbess remained, with some of the nuns, also the priest, who prepared now to exorcise the devil with the most powerful conjurations. Yet ere he began, a strange thing happened; for the possessed maiden became suddenly quite still, all her members relaxed, and her eyes closed heavily as if in sleep. But it was not so, for she then began, in her own soft, natural voice, to chant a hymn in Dutch, although they all knew she never had learned one word of that language. The words were these:—
"Oh, chaste Jesu! all whose being
Was so lovely to our seeing,
Thoughts and speech, and soul and senses,
Filled with noblest evidences.
Oh! the God that dwelt in Thee,
In His sinless purity!
Oh, Christ Immanuel,
Save me from the sinner's hell!
Make my soul, with power divine,
Chaste and holy, ev'n as Thine!"
Then she added in her own tongue—"Ah! ye must pray much before this devil is cast out of me. But still pray, pray diligently, and it will be done.
"Guard, Lord Christ, our deepest slumber,
Evil thoughts may come in dreams;
And the senses list the murmur,
Though the frail form sleeping seems.
Oh! if Thy hand do not keep us,
Even in sleep, from passion's flame,
Though our eyes close on temptation,
We may fall to sin and shame!
Amen."