f it had not. Besides,
these immoral results do not proceed exclusively from Molinosism, a
doctrine at once imprudent and too evident, and which they would take
good care not to profess. They spring naturally from every practical
direction that lulls the will, taking from the person this natural
guardian, and exposing him thus prostrate to the mercy of him who
watches over the sick couch. The tale told more than once by the
middle ages, and which casuists have examined so coldly, the violation
of the dead, we here meet with again. The person is left as
defenceless by the death of the will, as by physical death.

The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the _Spiritual
Guide_, says that this admirable book is most especially suitable to
the _direction of nuns_. The advice was understood, and turned to
account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, "That sins,
being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven,"
the Molinosists drew this consequence--the more we sin the higher we
ascend.

There was among the Carmelites of Lerma a holy woman, Mother Agueda,
esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring
provinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the
spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the
church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir; and there she
cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain
miraculous stones which she brought forth, as they said, with pains
similar to those of childbirth. This miracle lasted twenty years. At
last the report spread that these confinements were but too true, and
that she was really delivered. The inquisition of Logrogno having made
a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the
other nuns, among whom was the young niece of the Saint, Donna
Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the
commerce that her aunt, herself, and the others had had with the
provincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Lerma, and other friars of
the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece
showed the place where the children had been killed and buried the
moment they were born. They found the skeletons.

What is not less horrible is, that this young nun, only nine years of
age, a dutiful child, immured by her aunt for this strange life, and
having no other education, firmly believed that this was reall