a "religious life". I longed
to spend my time in worshipping Jesus, and was, as far as my inner life
was concerned, absorbed in that passionate love of "the Savior" which,
among emotional Catholics, really is the human passion of love
transferred to an ideal--for women to Jesus, for men to the Virgin Mary.
In order to show that I am not here exaggerating, I subjoin a few of the
prayers in which I found daily delight, and I do this in order to show
how an emotional girl may be attracted by these so-called devotional
exercises.

"O crucified Love, raise in me fresh ardors of love and consolation, that
it may henceforth be the greatest torment I can endure ever to offend
Thee; that it may be my greatest delight to please Thee."

"Let the remembrance of Thy death, O Lord Jesu, make me to desire and
pant after Thee, that I may delight in Thy gracious presence."

"O most sweet Jesu Christ, I, unworthy sinner, yet redeemed by Thy
precious blood.... Thine I am and will be, in life and in death."

"O Jesu, beloved, fairer than the sons of men, draw me after Thee with
the cords of Thy love."

"Blessed are Thou, O most merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to espouse me
to the heavenly Bridegroom in the waters of baptism, and hast imparted
Thy body and blood as a new gift of espousal and the meet consummation of
Thy love."

"O most sweet Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of my inmost soul with
that most joyous and most healthful wound of Thy love, with true, serene,
most holy, apostolic charity; that my soul may ever languish and melt
with entire love and longing for Thee. Let it desire Thee and faint for
Thy courts; long to be dissolved and be with Thee."

"Oh, that I could embrace Thee with that most burning love of angels."

"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is better
than wine. Draw me, we will run after Thee. The king hath brought me into
his chambers.... Let my soul, O Lord, feel the sweetness of Thy presence.
May it taste how sweet Thou art.... May the sweet and burning power of
Thy love, I beseech Thee, absorb my soul."

To my dear mother this type of religious thought was revolting. But then,
she was a woman who had been a wife and a devoted one, while I was a
child awaking into womanhood, with emotions and passions dawning and not
understood, emotions and passions which craved satisfaction, and found it
in this "Ideal Man". Thousands of girls in England are to-day in exactly
this mental