an iron
discipline or scourge, studded with nails, which is a memorial, not only
of his own self-inflicted sufferings, but of those of his Italian
family. The object of those sufferings was as remarkable as their
intensity; penance, indeed, is in one respect the end of all
self-chastisement, but in the instance of the Passionists the use of the
scourge was specially directed to the benefit of their neighbour. They
applied the pain to the benefit of the holy souls in Purgatory, or they
underwent it to rouse a careless audience. On their missions, when their
words seemed uttered in vain, they have been known suddenly to undo
their habit, and to scourge themselves with sharp knives or razors,
crying out to the horrified people, that they would not show mercy to
their flesh till they whom they were addressing took pity on their own
perishing souls. Nor was it to their own countrymen alone that this
self-consuming charity extended; how it so happened does not appear;
perhaps a certain memento close to their house was the earthly cause;
but so it was, that for many years the heart of Father Paul was expanded
towards a northern nation, with which, humanly speaking, he had nothing
to do. Over against St. John and St. Paul, the home of the Passionists
on the Celian, rises the old church and monastery of San Gregorio, the
womb, as it may be called, of English Christianity. There had lived that
great Saint, who is named our Apostle, who was afterwards called to the
chair of St. Peter; and thence went forth, in and after his pontificate,
Augustine, Paulinus, Justus, and the other Saints by whom our barbarous
ancestors were converted. Their names, which are now written up upon the
pillars of the portico, would almost seem to have issued forth, and
crossed over, and confronted the venerable Paul; for, strange to say,
the thought of England came into his ordinary prayers; and in his last
years, after a vision during Mass, as if he had been Augustine or
Mellitus, he talked of his "sons" in England.

It was strange enough that even one Italian in the heart of Rome should
at that time have ambitious thoughts of making novices or converts in
this country; but, after the venerable Founder's death, his special
interest in our distant isle showed itself in another member of his
institute. On the Apennines, near Viterbo, there dwelt a shepherd-boy,
in the first years of this century, whose mind had early been drawn
heavenward; and, one day,