without the loss of any feature. And I have often heard Manuel say ; "such and such a Priest will receive his bouquet to-day;"-or, that he had been to see such a Priest, or such a Priest, who was confined by disease; and that, among other things, he said to him; "Be patient;-to-morrow, or in a day or two, you will receive your bouquet."-Every Convent is said to have a room set apart to sufferers of this unhappy description ;—and its inmates are not allowed to put on their habits until they have received the bouquet. I never saw but one bouquet ;-and that, Manuel was sorry for having showed me, because it filled me with such awful impressions of my own doom. A friend of his loaned him one that he had from the Superior of the Convent, on Confession, and for a remembrance to re strain his passions. It was a drawing representing the countenance of the Priest getting well, on a body, gouty, swelled, and disfigured. Cherubs guarded the gouty Priest's head. Before him stood the representation of a beautiful female dressed in the highest fashion, at whom he sorrowfully gazed. She seemed to be returning his repentant look, with bewitching smiles. But, behind her, and above her, was the arm of the Prince of Darkness, reaching from darkness, and grasping the severed head of a lady by the crown, and drawing its ghastly features away in a black cloud. There were, I should think, two quarto pages of poetry in Spanish, underneath the drawing. Manuel would not suffer me to read it. When I saw it, the whole came home to my heart. I felt as if there was no hope for me. It was my own self that had no cherubs to flutter around my head; no angels to defend me from the Old Adversary; but there the Wicked One seemed to have me by the crown, bearing me away to perdition, for living with a Priest. It distressed me exceedingly; and Manuel, in the last year of my residence with him, in order to break my spirit, often alluded to this grasp of the Great Enemy on the crown of my head; and the allusion never failed to do it. F would then retire, and fall before the image of the Virgin Mary, and pouring out my grief to her, I felt some relief. My confidence in the Virgin was strengthening every day in Cuba, from the relief I experienced in communing with her image. The Priests have a separate room in their Convents for the blind people, of whom there are a great many living on the island. I have frequently been in the room in St. Francisco Convent on a Sabbath morning, and saw them kneeling down, praying to our Saviour, and the Virgin Mary. In this room they go to Confess, and have Masses read, for which they are obliged to pay the Priests. They are let out every Friday, and then only to beg for the Priests. Two things I have heard said, which I will mention here. Manuel and others have boasted in my hearing, that, whatever else had overtaken them, they never had a bouquet. Again, when the Priests are confined by sickness, the ladies often send them little refreshments and presents suitable for the sick; and when it has happened to them, to be so favored in this particular room, I have heard Manuel and others laugh and say, "the sick Priest would not have received this kindness, if the lady had known what ailed him." The sight of the bouquet did me a great deal of good. I had no idea how wicked I was, like that which this drawing impressed upon me. It quickened and strengthened my resolution to forsake the life I was leading, and to escape both from Cuba and the Priest, and the hand of the Evil One. Through the Lord's mercies this painful drawing, which was shown to me to impress me with the Priests' superior-interest in the Divine favor, was made instrumental of leading me heartily to seek the forgiveness of God, and an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ; in the possession of which, I am sometimes ready to rejoice, that I ever went to Cuba, and suffered many sorrows there; for, through them I have been led, as by a way I knew |