the virtue of the Divine Sacrifice, an expiation of several centuries was reduced to thirty days.
This example shows us at once the duration of the pains which a soul may incur, and the powerful effect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when God is pleased to apply it to a soul. But this application, like all other suffrages, does not always take place, at least not always in the same plenitude.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Duration of Purgatory — The Duellist — Father Schoofs and the Apparition at Antzverp.
The following example shows not only the long duration of the punishment inflicted for certain faults, but also the difficulty of inclining Divine Justice in favour of those who have committed faults of this nature.
The history of the Order of the Visitation mentions, among the first Religious of that Institute, Sister Marie Denise, called in the world Mdlle. Marie Martignat. She was most charitably devoted to the souls in Purgatory, and felt herself particularly drawn to recommend to God in a special manner those who had held high positions in the world, for she knew by experience the dangers to which their positions exposed them. A certain prince, whose name is not given, but who it is believed belonged to the House of France, was killed in a duel, and God permitted him to appear to Sister Denise to ask of her the assistance of which he stood so greatly in need. He told her that he was not damned, although his crime merited damnation. Thanks to an act of perfect contrition which he had made at the moment of death, he had been saved; but, in
