dolce mio Signore, ora aiutami in ogni
mio ministero. Cristo amore. Cristo amore.' The reiteration of the
word 'love' is most significant. It was the key-note of her whole
theology, the mainspring of her life. In no merely figurative sense
did she regard herself as the spouse of Christ, but dwelt upon the
bliss, beyond all mortal happiness, which she enjoyed in
supersensual communion with her Lord. It is easy to understand how
such ideas might be, and have been, corrupted, when impressed on
natures no less susceptible, but weaker and less gifted than S.
Catherine's.

[1] The part played in Italy by preachers of repentance
and peace is among the most characteristic features of
Italian history. On this subject see the Appendix to my
'Age of the Despots,' _Renaissance in Italy_, Part I.

One incident related by Catherine in a letter to Raymond, her
confessor and biographer, exhibits the peculiar character of her
influence in the most striking light. Nicola Tuldo, a citizen of
Perugia, had been condemned to death for treason in the flower of
his age. So terribly did the man rebel against his sentence, that he
cursed God, and refused the consolations of religion. Priests
visited him in vain; his heart was shut and sealed by the despair of
leaving life in all the vigour of its prime. Then Catherine came and
spoke to him: 'whence,' she says, 'he received such comfort that he
confessed, and made me promise, by the love of God, to stand at the
block beside him on the day of his execution.' By a few words, by
the tenderness of her manner, and by the charm which women have, she
had already touched the heart no priest could soften, and no threat
of death or judgment terrify into contrition. Nor was this strange.
In our own days we have seen men open the secrets of their hearts to
women, after repelling the advances of less touching sympathy.
Youths, cold and cynical enough among their brethren, have stood
subdued like little children before her who spoke to them of love
and faith and penitence and hope. The world has not lost its ladies
of the race of S. Catherine, beautiful and pure and holy, who have
suffered and sought peace with tears, and who have been appointed
ministers of mercy for the worst and hardest of their fellow-men.
Such saints possess an efficacy even in the imposition of their
hands; many a devotee, like Tuldo, would more willingly greet death
if his S. Catherine were by to smile and lay her ha