to so long and terrible a Purgatory. We know that Innocent III., who presided at the celebrated Council of Lateran in 1215, was one of the greatest Pontiffs who ever filled the chair of St. Peter. His piety and zeal led him to accomplish great things for the Church of God and holy discipline. How, then, admit that such a man was judged with so great severity at the Supreme Tribunal? How reconcile this revelation of St. Lutgarda with Divine Mercy? I wished, therefore, to treat it as an illusion, and sought for reasons in support of this idea. But I found, on the contrary, that the reality of this apparition is admitted by the gravest authors, and that it is not rejected by any single one. Moreover, the biographer, Thomas de Cantempre, is very explicit, and at the same time very reserved. " Remark, reader," he writes at the end of his narrative, " that it was from the mouth of the pious Lutgarda herself that I heard of the faults revealed by the defunct, and which I omit here through respect for so great a Pope." (See Note 7.)
Aside from this, considering the event in itself, can we find any good reason for calling it into question? Do we not know that God makes no exception of persons — that the Popes appear before His tribunal like the humblest of the faithful — that all the great and the lowly are equal before Him, and that each one receives according to his works? Do we not know that those who govern others have a great responsibility, and will have to render a severe account? Judicium durissimum his qui prcesunt fiet — "A most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule." [1] It is the Holy Ghost that declares it. Now, Innocent III. reigned for eighteen years, and during most turbulent times; and, add the Bollandists, is it not written that the judgments of God are inscrutable, and often very different from the judgments of men? Judicia tua abyssus multa. [2]
The reality of this apparition cannot, then, be reason-
