“Love of God, of course, is eternal; but each age must love God in its own fashion, and our religious sentiments are not those of the Middle Ages.”  The exercises of St. Ignatius did not appeal in the least to Father Daly, who disapproved of letting one’s thoughts brood upon hell; far better think of heaven.  Too much brooding on hell engenders a feeling of despair, which was the cause of Sister Teresa’s melancholia.  Too intense a fear of hell has caused men, so it is said, to kill themselves.  It seems strange, but men kill themselves through fear of death.  “I suppose it is possible that fear of hell might distract the mind so completely—­Well, let us not talk on these subjects.  We were talking of—­” The nun reminded the priest they were talking of the exercises of St. Ignatius.  “Let us not speak of them.  St. Ignatius’s descriptions of the licking of the flames round the limbs of the damned may have been suitable in his time, but for us there are better things in the exercises.”

“But do you not think that the time spent in meditation might be spent more profitably, Father?  I have often thought so.”

“If the meditation were really one.”

“Exactly, Father, but who can further thoughts; thought wanders, and before one is aware one finds oneself far from the subject of the meditation.”

“No doubt; no doubt.”

“It was through active work that Sister Teresa was cured.”  “If any fact has come to your knowledge, Sister, it is your duty to tell it to me, the spiritual adviser of the nuns, notwithstanding all the attempts of the Prioress to usurp my position.”

“Well, Father, if you ask me—­”

“Yes, certainly I ask you.”  And Sister Winifred told how, through a dream, Sister Cecilia had been unable to go down from her cell to watch before the Sacrament.

“We are not answerable for our dreams,” the priest answered.

“No; but if we pray for dreams?”

“But Cecilia could not desire such a dream?”

“Not exactly that dream.”  And so the story was gradually unfolded to the priest.

“What you tell me is very serious.  The holy hours which should be devoted to meditation of the Cross wasted in dreams of counterparts!  A strange name they have given these visitations, some might have given them a harsher name.”  Father Daly’s thoughts went to certain literature of the Middle Ages.  “The matter is, of course, one that is not entirely unknown to me; it is one of the traditional sins of the convent, one of the plagues of the Middle Ages.  The early Fathers suffered from the visits of Succubi.  What you tell me is very alarming.  Would it not be well for me to speak to the Prioress on the subject?”

“No, on no account.”

“But she must be exceedingly anxious to put a stop to such a pollution of the meditation?”