physician not to fix his thoughts so constantly on death, Cardinal Baronius said: Is it lest the fear of death should shorten my life? I fear not; on the contrary, I love and desire death. Of the Cardinal Bishop of Rochester, Saunders relates, that, in preparing to die for the faith, he put on his best clothes, saying that ho was going to a nuptial feast. When he came within view of the place of execution, he threw away his staff, and said: O my feet, walk fast; for we are not far from Paradise. ”Ite pedes, parum a paradiso distamus." Before death, he wished to recite the TE DEUM, in thanksgiving to God for permitting him to die for the holy faith; and, full of joy, he laid his head on the block. St. Francis of Assisium began to sing at the hour of death. Brother Elias said to him: Father, at the hour of death, we ought rather to weep than to sing. But, replied the saint, I cannot abstain from singing at the thought of soon going to enjoy God. A nun of the order of St. Teresa, in her last moments, said to her sisters in religion, who were in tears: O God! why do you weep? I am going to possess my Jesus; if you love me, weep not, but rejoice with me. (Dis. Parol. i. 6.)
18. Father Granada relates, that a certain sportsman found in a wood a solitary singing in his last agony. How, said the sportsman, can you sing in such a state? The hermit replied: Brother, between me and God there is nothing but the wall of this body. I now see that since my flesh is falling in pieces, the prison shall be destroyed, and I shall soon go to see God. It is for this reason I rejoice and sing. Through the desire of seeing God, St. Ignatius, martyr, said, that if the wild beasts should spare him, he would provoke them to devour him. "Ego vim faciam, ut devorer." St. Catherine of Genoa was astonished that some persons regarded death as a misfortune, and said: ”O beloved death, in what a mistaken light do men view you! Why do you not come to me? 1 call on you day and night”(Vita, c. 7.)
19. Oh! how peculiarly happy is the death of the servants of Mary! Father Binetti relates, that a person whom he assisted in his last moments, and who was devoted to the Blessed Virgin, said to him: ”Father,
