.

Open one of the devotional books which are printed in the country.
Here is one selected at random, 'The Life of St. Jacintha.' It lies on
a young girl's work-table. A knitting-needle marks the place at which
the gentle reader left off this morning. Let us turn to the passage.
It is sure to be highly edifying.

"_Chapter V.--She casts from her heart all natural affection
for her relations._

"Knowing from the Redeemer himself that we ought not to love
our relations more than God, and feeling herself naturally
drawn towards hers, she feared lest such a love, although
natural, if it should take root and grow in her heart, might
in the course of time surpass or impede the love she owed to
God, and render her unworthy of him. So she formed the very
generous determination of casting from herself all affection
for the persons of her blood.

"Resolved on conquering herself by this courageous
determination, and on triumphing over opposing nature
itself,--powerfully urged thereto by another word of Christ,
who said that in order to go to him we must hate our
relations, when the love we bear them stands in the
way,--she went and solemnly performed a great act of
renunciation before the altar of the most holy Sacrament.
There, flinging herself on her knees, her heart kindling
with an ardent flame of charity towards God, she offered up
to Him all the natural affections of her heart, more
especially those which she felt were the strongest within
her for the nearest and dearest of her relations. In this
heroic action she obtained the intervention of the most holy
Virgin, as may be seen by a letter in her handwriting
addressed to a regular priest, wherein she promises, by the
aid of the holy Virgin, to attach herself no more either to
her relations, or to any other earthly object. This
renunciation was so resolutely courageous and so sincere
that from that hour her brothers, sisters, nephews, and all
her kindred became to her objects of total indifference; and
she deemed herself thenceforth so much an orphan and alone
in the world, that she was enabled to see and converse with
her aforesaid relations when they came to see her at the
convent, as if they were persons utterly unknown to her.

"She had made herself in Paradise an entirely spiritual
fa