CHAPTER XLI.

Of interior sufferings.

WHEN the Servitor’s spiritual daughter had read the account of the grievous sufferings just related, and had shed many tears over it through pity, she prayed him to explain to her in the next place what is the nature of interior sufferings? He answered:—I will tell you two things about interior sufferings. There was a man of high position in a certain Religious Order on whom God had laid an interior suffering; and the poor brother’s heart and spirits were so overwhelmed by it, that he ceased not night and day from tears and cries and lamentations. At length he came with great devotion to the Servitor of the Eternal Wisdom, and told him his distress, and besought him to pray to God for him that he might be delivered.

Early one morning, when the Servitor was sitting in his chapel and praying for the brother, he saw the evil spirit come and stand before 215 him, under the form of a hideous Moor, with eyes of fire and a terrific hellish look, and with a bow in his hand. The Servitor said to him:—I adjure thee by the living God to tell me who thou art, and what thou wantest here. He answered in a very fiendish fashion:—I am “Spiritus Blasphemiae” (the Spirit of Blasphemy), and thou shalt soon know what I want.

The Servitor turned towards the door of the choir, and, as he did this, the suffering brother came in by the same door on his way to the choir for Mass. Thereupon the evil spirit drew his bow and shot a fiery arrow into the brother’s heart, so that he almost fell backwards, and could not come into the choir. The Servitor was greatly pained at this, and severely reproved the devil for it. On which the proud fiend became exceeding wroth with him, and drawing the bow once more, with a fiery arrow upon it, tried to shoot him also through the heart. But the Servitor turned quickly to our dear Lady for help, saying:—"Nos cum prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria” (O Virgin Mary, bless us with thy gentle Babe); and immediately the devil’s strength left him, and he vanished out of sight.

When morning came, the Servitor related 216what he had seen to the suffering brother, and consoled him, and at the same time told him the remedies which would be of avail, as they are set forth in the sermon of his which begins:—"Lectulus noster floridus, etc. *

Among the many persons afflicted with interior sufferings who sought his help, there once came to him a secular man from a foreign country, saying:—Sir, I have within me the greatest of all sufferings which a man ever had, and no one can help me. A little while ago I despaired of God, and I was so despondent, that through excess of anguish I resolved to destroy myself, and kill both body and soul. In this agony of mind, just as I was on the point of springing into a raging torrent, and had already taken a run with the deliberate purpose of drowning myself, I heard a voice above me say, “Stop! stop! Put not thyself to this shameful death: seek a friar preacher.” And the voice named you to me by your name, which I had never heard before, and it said, “He will help you and set you right.” I was full of joy at this, and gave up the thought of killing myself; and I have sought you out by asking after you, as I was bidden. When the Servitor saw the miserable state in which the man was, 217he turned lovingly to the poor sufferer, and comforting him, made his heart light, and taught him what to do in order to avoid, by God’s help, falling again into such a temptation.