deplorable state into which thou hast fallen.  Woe unto thee, if thou refusest to listen to the voice of God, who conducts souls into solitude that he may speak with them.”  “So saying,” he continues, “he abruptly left me.  I remained alone drooping under the weight of a misfortune, which was the more severe, because totally unexpected.  I stood, I know not how long, in the same position, but on recovering from this lethargy, my first idea was of flight.  But this thought was at once abandoned.  There was no possibility of flight.  Without giving a minute account of the manner in which I passed my wearisome days and nights in this prison, let it suffice to say that they were spent in listening to sermons preached to me four times a day by the fathers Giuliani and Rossini, and in the most gloomy reflections.

“In the mean time the miseries I endured were aggravated by the heat of the season, the wretchedness of the chamber, scantiness of food, and the rough severity of those by whom I was occasionally visited.  Uncertainty as to when this imprisonment would be at an end, almost drove me wild, and the first words I addressed to those who approached me were, ’Have the kindness to tell me when I shall be permitted to leave this place?’ One replied, ‘My son, think of hell.’  I interrogated another; the answer was, ’Think my son, how terrible is the death of the sinner!’ I spoke to a third, to a fourth, and one said to me, ’My son, what will be your feeling, if, on the day of judgment you find yourself on the left hand of God?’ the other, ‘Paradise, my son, Paradise!’ No one gave me a direct answer; their object appeared to be to mistify and confound me.  After the first few days, I began to feel most severely the want of a change of clothing.  Accustomed to cleanliness, I found myself constrained to wear soiled apparel. * * * For the want of a comb, my hair became rough and entangled.  After the fourth day my portion of food was diminished; a sign, that they were pressing the siege, that it was their intention to adopt both assault and blockade—­to conquer me by arms, or induce me to capitulate through hunger.  I had been shut up in this wretched place for thirteen days, when, one day, about noon, the Father Mislei, the author of all my misery, entered my cell.

“At the sight of this man, resentment overcame every other consideration, and I advanced towards him fully prepared to indulge my feelings, when he, with his usual smile, expressed in bland words his deep regret at having been the cause of my long detention in this retreat.  ‘Never could I have supposed,’ said he, ’that my anxiety for the salvation of your soul would have brought you into so much tribulation.  But rest assured the fault is not entirely mine.  You have yourself, in a great degree, by your useless obstinacy, been the cause of your sufferings.  Ah, well, we will yet remedy all.’  Not feeling any confidence in his assurance, I burst out into bitter invectives and fierce words.  He then