Providence
has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our
wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself
of one who will not cease to pray for you in father
"FRANCIS."
Constantia saw that the handwriting agreed with the contents of the
letter; and, upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the
behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her
confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After
having wept with tears of joy, "It is enough," says she; "Theodosius
is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace."
The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in
the nunnery where she resided; and are often read to the young
religious, in order to inspire them with good resolutions and
sentiments of virtue. It so happened that after Constantia had
lived about ten years in the cloister, a violent fever broke out in
the place, which swept away great multitudes, and among others
Theodosius. Upon his death-bed he sent his benediction in a very
moving manner to Constantia, who at that time was herself so far
gone in the same fatal distemper that she lay delirious. Upon the
interval which generally precedes death in sickness of this nature,
the abbess, finding that the physicians had given her over, told her
that Theodosius had just gone before her, and that he had sent her
his benediction in his last moments.
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