ARTICLE IX.-CATHARINE ADORNA.

THERE is a strong desire on the part of many professing Christians for higher attainments in holiness. The standard to which the majority of Christians aspire is felt to be below that which the New Testament sets forth. It is felt to be not enough to have a comfortable hope that one is renewed of God, and is numbered among the true friends of Christ. Something higher, more sure, and therefore more satisfactory, is sought.

It is indeed known and felt to be a privilege to cherish a comfortable hope, even a feeble hope, of acceptance with God. The soul has gone to the fountain that Christ has opened. The taste of those living waters is sweet and reviving. In the weariness of the way, the toil and trial of travel, that fountain offers coolness and refreshment; and the pilgrim, who came to it dusty and way-worn, departs with renewed energy and joy. But he is not satisfied with the taste. He wants the fountain within him, welling up into continual nourishment and life. He must have something more than a timid, uncertain, wavering hope. He wants assurance of faith, a joyful, confident trust in the Redeemer, in which the soul can abide peacefully, through the events of a turbulent life, and the last conflict, and the entrance upon the realities of the future.

Christians of this type desire to "walk with God," tɔ enjoy His recognized presence, to live daily as seeing Him who is invisible. They open their Bibles, and they find many expres sions there applied to believers which have never been realized in their experience, but which they would like to have so realized. They do not yet know what it means to live by faith. They know that their only hope is in the Redeemer, that they trust Him for their salvation; that they have gratitude, deep, heartfelt, for that. But the principle of faith, rather faith itself, is not with them a controlling, animating reality. The whole spirit and life are not permeated and transformed and transfigured by it. There is something in such a passage as this: "For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God:"

which is beyond them. They have not reached its fullness. They are not yet dead to the pulsations of sin and of the world. They are conscious that they walk by sight, and so that their life is not hidden in God. They would have rest, some repose of soul that shall be satisfactory, above the region of mists and tempests, in the calm and light of assured faith.

As far as we have observed, this desire belongs to intelligent and thoughtful Christians, not to those who are preeminently so, but are so in fact. It is often the issue of severe trial, under which the soul has lost, in some measure, its relish for the world, and has come to feel that the only good is in God; or it is the ripened fruit of a prolonged Christian experience and the study of God's word; or, sometimes, it is the consequence of a new consecration to Christ after a period of great worldliness, or a serious violation of solemn vows. Whatever the cause, the desire is one of deep and permanent power. We have known of those who have sought for years, with intense interest, for a personal solution of this subject in their own experience, but have failed to reach the fullness of peace which they had hoped to gain.

However we may theorize about it, the aspiration is one of great practical importance, and one that challenges attention and study. No doubt there are times when it is felt, to a greater or less degree, in the history of every true Christian. There are conjunctures of experience when the believer is peculiarly wrought upon for his sanctification. There are blessed seasons, when hopes cherished through wintry months are ready to burst into beautiful blossoming, and when the fruits of labo rious culture can be gathered in glad and abundant harvests. There is a spiritual perihelion when the soul is brought near to the central sun, the source of all its light and growth, and is drawn with divine attraction and power into the kingdom of grace. There are periods when the soul is powerfully summoned to new and greater devotion to God, and to an unwavering faith in Him; when upon all around us we see the titles of vexation and vanity, and feel that God alone is our unchanging and satisfactory portion. There are propitious junctures of mercy, when prayers, long offered in faith, are to meet with blessed answerings; when the longings of burdened hearts are

to be realized; when divine truth, which has been apparently "as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again," is to be made savingly effective; when the world, as the supreme good, is to be utterly renounced, and God is to receive an unalterable trust.

It is not enough, at such seasons, to exhort the Christian to labor for Christ. That he longs to do; that he does. He is glad to serve one so worthy as he then realizes his Saviour to be. But in his work he desires an inward experience which cannot come from external activity. He desires to labor with the right emotions, not for them.

The prevalence of these feelings has caused a demand for certain writings, and has given favor to the views of certain "schools," which set forth a peculiar doctrine of holiness, which has met, correctly or otherwise, a want in many Christian hearts.

The "Life of Madame Catharine Adorna," by the late Professor Upham, is a little book which has been extensively read by the class of Christians here alluded to. It is a pleasant and popular study, and contains much cheering utterance for one who is inquiring for the "way of holiness." Its complete title. is: "Life of Madame Catharine Adorna. Including some leading facts and traits in her religious experience, together with explanations and remarks, tending to illustrate the doctrine of Holiness."

The life of Madame Adorna, and the facts and traits in her experience, however, are not the substance of the book. It is the book of the writer. He speaks in it, and Madame Adorna and the facts of her life, are illustrations of the truth which he would enforce. But this is a pleasant feature of the little work, and shows the philosophy of the author. We prefer to hear the utterance of one who lives in our conditions, and who has an understanding of our times and our environment, rather than to listen to the voice of one who belonged to a different or a distant age, especially if the matter concerns present practical experience. While the Life which illustrates the truth may as well be the charmed life of a saint of the fifteenth as of the nineteenth century.

Little therefore need be said of the life of Madame Catharine Adorna, or, to speak in the language of her times, Saint Catharine of Genoa. She was born at Genoa, in luxury, and was the descendant of an illustrious Italian family. Her early religious experience was interesting; and at the age of twelve years she exhibited the marks of saving grace. At the age of sixteen years she was married to Julian Adorna, a gay young noble. man of the city.

There was no harmony in their character, so that her life with him was one of peculiar trial. By his excessive dissipation, her husband soon squandered his entire property, and so she lacked even the advantage from union with such a man which wealth would have purchased. Her trials, which should have led her to God, and which were designed ultimately to do so, caused her for a while to seek satisfaction in the gayeties and frivolities of life. But the experience of their worthlessness became the means, by the grace of God, of drawing her nearer to Him. For she still had love to God in her heart, and the consciousness of her folly and guilt led her to deep repentance and to a new consecration to Him who had bought her with His blood. Having tasted the fountains of the world and found them bitter, she was not again so strongly tempted to forsake the living fountains of salvation. From great wanderings God had called her to Himself; and she abode with him. The world and its pleasures were from that time forsaken. Still mournful memories haunted her mind so that her religious life was of mingled sunshine and shadow.

At the age of twenty-four years she entered a new era. In connection with a pious priest, who apprehended the soul's need and the divine plan for our recovery, new and blessed light beamed into her mind. Her own wretchedness and God's goodness appeared in strange and striking and overpowering forms. She fainted; and when she came to herself her soul was attracted by a wonderful power to God. She saw all excellence in Him; the sweetness and beauty and glory of His perfections entranced her. From that time her course was onward and upward. She loved God, as the narrative tells us, with an undivided affection. She felt that she could not serve God and Mammon. She consecrated herself, mind and body, to the

Lord. She gave Him all that she possessed. She felt that she was bought with a price, and therefore she desired to glorify God in her body and spirit, which were God's. She practiced many of those austerities which were common, and which were enjoined, in the age in which she lived; and she endeavored in various methods, to subdue the carnal appetites and affections. In consecrating herself to God, she consecrated herself to His service. Her life was to be a holy, active life. While her sympathies went forth to the perishing abroad, she did not neglect her domestic duties. Soon, as the result of her radiant and holy life, and in answer to her fervent, believing prayers, God permitted her to rejoice in the conversion of her husband. The heart of the proud, gay nobleman was subdued; he became as a little child before God; and during the short period that he lived, after this change, he exhibited the evidences of a new life.

The death of her husband gave to Madame Adorna a wider sphere of usefulness and benevolent labor than she had before occupied. She devoted herself to the care of the sick in the great hospital of Genoa, where she lived for many years as the Mother Superior of the House. There she performed the most disagreeable duties, relieving the sick, soothing the miserable, and pointing all the sufferers to the Great Physician. Nor were her charities and sympathies confined to the hospital; they extended to the smitten and wretched throughout the entire city. Amid all her varied cares and duties, she lived the life of faith. Her confidence in God was increased by all that she constantly experienced of His love; and the sweetness and sincerity of her life proved that the smile of the Father was upon her soul.

The close of her days was marked by peculiar physical suffering; exhibiting one of those mysterious events, under the providence of God, which are beyond our finite comprehension, and which lead us to say with calm submission and confidence, "Yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight." Her faith did not fail her as she went down into the dark valley; for it was of that nature that it took a firmer hold of God the greater was the need of divine strength.

On the fourteenth of September, 1510, in the sixty second year of her age, she fell asleep in Christ.