went with this little sum—­a perfect fortune for a poor peasant-girl—­to a pious organist of Coesfeld, whose daughter she had known when she first lived in the town.  Her hope was that, by learning to play on the organ, she might succeed in obtaining admittance into a convent.  But her irresistible desire to serve the poor and give them everything she possessed left her no time to learn music, and before long she had so completely stripped herself of everything, that her good mother was obliged to bring her bread, milk, and eggs, for her own wants and those of the poor, with whom she shared everything.  Then her mother said:  ’Your desire to leave your father and myself, and enter a convent, gives us much pain; but you are still my beloved child, and when I look at your vacant seat at home, and reflect that you have given away all your savings, so as to be now in want, my heart is filled with sorrow, and I have now brought you enough to keep you for some time.’  Anne Catherine replied:  ’Yes, dear mother, it is true that I have nothing at all left, because it was the holy will of God that others should be assisted by me; and since I have given all to him, he will now take care of me, and bestow his divine assistance upon us all.’  She remained some years at Coesfeld, employed in labour, good works, and prayer, being always guided by the same inward inspirations.  She was docile and submissive as a child in the hands of her guardian-angel.

Although in this brief sketch of her life we are obliged to omit many interesting circumstances, there is one which we must not pass over in silence.  When about twenty-four years of age, she received a favour from our Lord, which has been granted to many persons devoted in an especial manner to meditation on his painful Passion; namely, to experience the actual and visible sufferings of his sacred Head, when crowned with thorns.  The following is the account she herself has given of the circumstances under which so mysterious a favour was bestowed upon her:  ’About four years previous to my admittance into the convent, consequently in 1798, it happened that I was in the Jesuits’ Church at Coesfeld, at about twelve o’clock in the day, kneeling before a crucifix and absorbed in meditation, when all on a sudden I felt a strong but pleasant heat in my head, and I saw my Divine Spouse, under the form of a young man clothed with light, come towards me from the altar, where the Blessed Sacrament was preserved in the tabernacle.  In his left hand he held a crown of flowers, in his right hand a crown of thorns, and he bade me choose which I would have.  I chose the crown of thorns; he placed it on my head, and I pressed it down with both hands.  Then he disappeared, and I returned to myself, feeling, however, violent pain around my head.  I was obliged to leave the church, which was going to be closed.  One of my companions was kneeling by my side, and as I thought she might have seen what happened to me, I asked her when we