ming for her the usual service, she arose suddenly, and
went as high as the beams of the church, as lightly as a bird. Being
returned into the house with her sisters, she related to them that she
had been led first to purgatory, and thence to hell, and lastly to
paradise, where God had given her the choice of remaining there, or of
returning to this world and doing penance for the souls she had seen
in purgatory. She chose the latter, and was brought back to her body
by the holy angels. From that time she could not bear the effluvia of
the human body, and rose up into trees and on the highest towers with
incredible lightness, there to watch and pray. She was so light in
running that she outran the swiftest dogs. Her parents tried in vain
all they could do to stop her, even to loading her with chains, but
she always escaped from them. So many other almost incredible things
are related of this saint, that I dare not repeat them here.

M. Nicole, in his letters, speaks of a nun named Seraphina, who, in
her ecstasies, rose from the ground with so much impetuosity that five
or six of the sisters could hardly hold her down.

This doctor, reasoning on the fact,[238] says, that it proves nothing
at all for Sister Seraphina; but the thing well verified proves God
and the devil--that is to say, the whole of religion; that the
circumstance being proved, is of very great consequence to religion;
that the world is full of certain persons who believe only what cannot
be doubted; that the great heresy of the world is no longer Calvinism
and Lutheranism, but atheism. There are all sorts of atheists--some
real, others pretended; some determined, others vacillating, and
others tempted to be so. We ought not to neglect this kind of people;
the grace of God is all-powerful; we must not despair of bringing them
back by good arguments, and by solid and convincing proofs. Now, if
these facts are certain, we must conclude that there is a God, or bad
angels who imitate the works of God, and perform by themselves or
their subordinates works capable of deceiving even the elect.

One of the oldest instances I remark of persons thus raised from the
ground without any one touching them, is that of St. Dunstan,
Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 988, and who, a little time
before his death, as he was going up stairs to his apartment,
accompanied by several persons, was observed to rise from the ground;
and as all present were astonished at the c