here it is she herself that is her own executioner, and tears herself in pieces. Now, as to that interior fire and unspeakable despair, which comes in to "complete so many horrid torments; I own I am not able to describe them. I saw not who it was that tormented me; but I perceived myself to burn, and at the same time, to 'be cut as it were, and slashed in pieces: in so frightful a place, there was no room for the least hopes of comfort; there was no such thing as even sitting or lying down: I was thrust into a hole in a wall; and those horrible walls close in upon the poor prisoners and press and stifle them. There is nothing but thick darkness without any mixture of light, and yet I know not how it is, though there be no light there, yet one sees there all that may be most mortifying to the sight. Although it is about six years since this happened which I here relate, I am even now in the writing of it so terrified that my blood chills in my veins. So that whatsoever evils or pains I now suffer, if I do but call to my remembrance what I then endured, all that can be suffered here appears to me just nothing.' So far the saint, whose relation deserves to be pondered at leisure: for if such and so terrible torments had been prepared for her, whose life, from her cradle, setting aside a few worldly vanities which for a short time she had followed, had been so innocent, what must sinners one day expect?
5. Consider, that there is no man on earth, that has not quite lost his senses, who would be willing, even for the empire of the world, to be broiled like.a Lawrence on a gridiron, or roasted for half an hour by a slow fire, though he was sure to come off with his life; nay, where is the man that would even venture to hold his finger in the flame of a candle for half a quarter of an hour, for any reward that this world can give? Where is then
