Youth without faith, age without belief, purity without grace, virtue without holiness, are only more hideous by their seeming beauty--whited sepulchres, glittering rottenness.

I know this--I know it; but the human man is strong within me.

Strengthen me, that I pluck it out; so that, by diligent and constant struggle with the feeble Adam, thy servant may be reduced into a mere machine, to punish the godless and advance the Church." Here sobs and tears choked the speech of the Dominican; he grovelled in the dust, he tore his hair, he howled aloud: the agony was fierce upon him.

At length, he drew from his robe a whip, composed of several thongs, studded with small and sharp nails; and, stripping his gown, and the shirt of hair worn underneath, over his shoulders, applied the scourge to the naked flesh with a fury that soon covered the green sward with the thick and clotted blood.

The exhaustion which followed this terrible penance seemed to restore the senses of the stern fanatic.