St. John names in the Revelation,) that they would be with her father Joachin in his sickness, and comfort him, and console him in it; and thus they did. And for the last hour of his transit she sent all those of her guard, and besought the Lord that he would make them manifest to her father for his greater consolation. The Most High granted this, and in every thing fulfilled the desire of his elect, unique, and perfect one: and the great Patriarch and happy Joachin saw the thousand holy angels who guarded his daughter Maria, at whose petition and desire the grace of the Almighty superabounded, and by his command the angel said to Joachin these things: "Man of God, the Most High and Mighty is thy eternal salvation, and he sends thee from his holy place the necessary and timely assistance for thy soul! Mary, thy daughter, sends us to be with thee at this hour, in which thou hast to pay to thy Creator the debt of natural death. She is thy most faithful and powerful intercessor with the Most High, in whose name and peace depart thou from this world with consolation and joy, that he hath made thee parent of so blessed a daughter. And although his incomprehensible Majesty, in his serene wisdom, hath not till now manifested to thee the sacrament and dignity in which he will constitute thy daughter, it is his pleasure that thou shouldest know it now, to the intent that thou mayest magnify him and praise him, and that at such news the jubilee of thy spirit may be joined with the grief and natural sadness of death. Mary, thy daughter, and our Queen, is the one chosen by the arm of the Omnipotent, that the Divine Word may in her clothe himself with flesh, and with the human form. She is to be the happy Mother of the Messiah, blessed among women, superior to all creatures, and inferior only to God himself. Thy most happy daughter is to be the repairer of what the human race lost by the first fall, and the high mountain whereon the new law of grace is to be formed and established. Therefore, as thou leavest now in the world its restauratrix and daughter, by whom God prepares for it the fitting remedy, depart thou in joy; and the Lord will bless thee from Zion, and will give thee a place among the Saints, that thou mayest attain to the sight and possession of the happy Jerusalem.' "While the holy Angels spake these words to Joachin, St. Anna, his wife, was present, standing by the pillow of his bed; and she heard, and, by divine permission, understood them. At the same time, the holy Patriarch Joachin lost his speech, and entering upon the common way of all flesh, began to die, with a marvellous struggle between the delight of such joyful tidings and the pain of death. During this conflict with his interior powers, many and fervent acts of divine love, of faith, and adoration, and praise, and thanksgiving, and humiliation, and other virtues, did he heroically perform and thus absorbed in the new knowledge of so divine a mystery he came to the end of his natural life, dying the precious death of the Saints. His most holy spirit was carried by the Angels to the Limbo of the Holy Fathers and of the Just: and for a new consolation and light in the long night wherein they dwelt, the Most High ordered that the soul of the holy Patriarch Joachin should be the new Paranymph and Ambassador of his Great Majesty, for announcing to all that congregation of the Just, how the day of eternal light had now dawned, and the day-break was born, Mary, the most holy daughter of Joachin and of Anna, from whom should be born the Sun of Divinity, Christ, Restorer of the whole human race. The Holy Fathers and the Just in Limbo heard these tidings, and in their jubilee composed new hymns of thanksgiving to the Most High. "This happy death of the Patriarch St. Joachin occurred (as I have before said) half a year after his daughter, Mary the most holy, entered the Temple; and when she was at the tender age of three and a half, she was thus left in the world without a natural father. The age of the Patriarch was sixty and nine years, distributed and divided thus: at the age of forty-six years, he took St. Anna to wife; twenty years after this marriage, Mary the most holy was born; and the three years and a half of her Highness's age make sixty-nine and a half, a few days more or less. "The holy Patriarch and father of our Queen being dead, the holy Angels of her guard returned incontinently to her presence, and gave her notice of all that had occurred in her father's transit. Forthwith the most prudent child solicited with prayers for the consolation of her mother St. Anna, entreating that the Lord would, as a father, direct and govern her in the solitude wherein, by the loss of her husband, Joachin, she was left. St. Anna herself sent also news of his death, which was first communicated to the Mistress of our divine Princess, that, in imparting it, she might console her. The Mistress did this, and the most wise child beard her, with all composure and dissimulation, but with the patience and the modesty of a Queen; but she was not ignorant of the event which her Mistress related to her as news."— Mistica Ciudad de Dios, par. 1, 1. 2, c. 16, § 664-669. Madrid, 1744. It was in the middle of the seventeenth century that the work, from which this extract is translated, was palmed upon the Spaniards as a new revelation. Gross and blasphemous as the imposture is, the work was still current when I procured my copy, about twenty years ago; and it is not included in the Spanish Index Expurgatorius of 1790, the last (I believe) which was published, and which is now before me. He could not tarry here. -Canto IV. st. 67. A case precisely of the same kind is mentioned by Mr. Mariner. "A young Chief at Tonga, a very handsome man, was inspired by the ghost of a woman in Bolotoo, who had fallen in love with him. On a sudden, he felt himself lowspirited, and, shortly afterwards, fainted away. When he came to himself, he was very ill, and was taken accordingly to the house of a priest. As yet, he did not know who it was that inspired him, but the priest informed him that it was a woman of Bolotoo, mentioning her name, who had died some years before, and who wished him now to die, that he might be near her. He accordingly died in two days. The Chief said he suspected this, from the dreams he had had at different times, when the figure of a woman came to him in the night. Mr. Mariner was with the sick Chief three or four times during his illness, and heard the priest foretell his death, and relate the occasion of it." - Mariner. The following similar case appeared in a newspaper :"Died, on Sunday evening, the 14th instant, John Sackeouse, aged 22, a native of the west coast of Greenland. This Eskimaux has occupied a considerable share of the public attention, and his loss will be very generally felt. He had already rendered important service to the country in the late expedition of discovery, and great expectations were naturally formed of the utility which he would prove on the expedition about to sail for Baffin's Bay. The Admiralty, with great liberality and judgment, had directed the greatest pains to be taken in his further education; and he had been several months in Edinburgh with this view, when he was seized with a violent inflammation in the chest, which carried him off in a few days. He was extremely docile, and, though rather slow in the attainment of knowledge, he was industrious, zealous, and cheerful, and was always grateful for the kindness and attention shown to him. His amiable disposition and simple manuers had interested those who had opportunities of knowing him personally, in a way that will not soon be forgotten. To the public, his loss, we fear, is irreparable — to his friends, it is doubly severe. Just before his death, the poor Eskimaux said he knew he was going to die; that his father and mother had died in the same way; and that his sister, who was the last of all his relations, had just appeared to him, and called him away."— Edinburgh Courant, Feb. 19. ALL FOR LOVE, OR A SINNER WELL SAVED. TO CAROLINE BOWLES. Could I look forward to a distant day Keswick, 21 Feb. 1829. The story of the following Poem is taken from a Life of St. Basil, ascribed to his contemporary St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium; a Latin version of which, made by Cardinal Ursus in the ninth century, is inserted by Rosweyde, among the Lives of the Fathers, in his compilation Historia Eremitica. The original had not then been printed, but Rosweyde obtained a copy of it from the Royal Library at Paris. He intimates no suspicion concerning the authenticity of the life, or the truth of this particular legend; observing only, that hæc narratio apud solum invenitur Amphilochium. It is, indeed, the flower of the work, and as such had been culled by some earlier translator than Ursus. The very learned Dominican, P. François Combefis, published the original, with a version of his own, and endeavored to establish its authenticity in opposition to Baronius, who supposed the life to have been written by some other Amphilochius, not by the Bishop of Iconium. Had Combefis possessed powers of mind equal to his erudition, he might even then have been in some degree prejudiced upon this subject, for, according to Baillet, il avoit un attachement particulier pour S. Basile. His version is inserted in the Acta Sanctorum, (Jun. t. ii. pp. 937-957.) But the Bollandist Baert brands the life there as apocryphal; and in his annotations treats Combefis more rudely, it may be suspected, than he would have done, had he not belonged to a rival and hostile order. Should the reader be desirous of comparing the Poem with the Legend, he may find the story, as transcribed from Rosweyde, among the Notes. "Thy name is Eleëmon; Proterius's freedman thou art; And on Cyra, thy Master's daughter, Thou hast madly fix'd thy heart. "But fearing (as thou well mayest fear!) The high-born Maid to woo, Thou hast tried what secret prayers, and vows, And sacrifice might do. "Thou hast prayed unto all Saints in Heaven, "And thou, I know, the Ancient Gods, In hope forlorn, hast tried, If haply Venus might obtain "On Jove and Phœbus thou hast call'd, And on Astarte's name; And on her, who still at Ephesus "Thy voice to Baal hath been raised; "Their Images are deaf! Their Oracles are dumb! And therefore thou, in thy despair, To Abibas art come. "Ay, because neither Saints nor Gods Thy pleasure will fulfil, Thou comest to me, Eleëmon, To ask if Satan will! "I answer thee, Yes. But a faint heart While Eleemon listen'd He shudder'd inwardly, At the ugly voice of Abibas, And the look in his wicked eye. And he could then almost have given His fatal purpose o'er; But his Good Angel had left him When he entered the Sorcerer's door. So, in the strength of evil shame, "Let thy Master give me what I seek, O Servant of Satan," he said, "As I ask firmly, and for his Renounce all other aid! |