The Nevada journal., 1855-08-24
Sr. Rose OF LrMA.-St. Rose of Lima

ST.. Rose OF LGMA.-St. Rose of Lima
canonized by Clement x. A. D., 1873, was
the most precocious of saints Born oil
Christian parents in South America, she,
from the period of her birth, shone with
the presages Of future holiness 1t is said
that the face of the infant being miracu-
lously transfgured into the image of a
rose, occasioned her being called by this
name, to which the Virgin Mary added
the surname-commanding her thence
forth to be designated the rose of St. Ma
ry. She vowed perpetual virginity at
the early age of FIVE years! The follow
ing affecting account of the austerities she
practiced is extracted from her canoniza-
tion, and affords pitiable specimen of re-
ligious fanaticism
"She changed the stones and crosses
with which, when going to prayer in her
childhood, and as yet ignorant of the use
of whips. she was loaded by her maid Ma
rianne, who was almost the only person
conscious of her notifications, into iron
chains, which she prepared as scourges,
and, after the example of ST. Dominic,
every night she offered herself bloody
victim to God to avert his just anger, even
to the copious effusion of streams of blood
either for the sorrows Of the holy church,
or for the necessities of the endangered
kingdom of the city of Lima, or for COM
pensating the wrongs of sinners, or for
making an expiation for the souls of the
dead, or for obtaining divine aid for those
who were in their last agonies-the SER
want being sometimes horror-struck at the
defraud blows of the chairs. And when
the use of these were forbidden her, she
privately encircled her waist with one OF
them, bound thrice around her, so that it
never was apparent that she wore it, ex-
| ccpt when she was under the tortures of
the aciatica, which chain was afterward
loosened only by miracle. It's links at
ter the virgins death were found to emit
i wondrous and indiscribably sweet odor.
Lest any part of her innocent body should
be free from suffering, she tortured her
arms and limbs with penal chains, and
stuffed her breasts and sides and with
handfuls of nettles and small briars. She
afterward increased the sharpness of the
hair-cloth that reached from her neck be-
meath her knees, by needles mixed up
with it, which she used for many years,
until she was ordered to put it off on ac-
count of the frequent vomiting of blood.
When she laid aside this punishment she
substituted another garment less injurious
to her health but not less troublesome; for
beneath it every movement was painful to
her. Her feet only were free from these
suferings, which, either by hitting them
with stones, or by the burning of au oven,
she did not suffer to be free from torture.
"She fixed upon her head tin crown
with sharp, little nails in it, and for some
years never put it on without receiving
wounds. When she grew older, this was
replaced by one which was armed by
ninetynine points.
"She desired the hardness of her bed to
be such that it should rather drive away
than invite sleep; so that when about to
sleep the same should be both a bed to
her and an instrument of torture. Her
pillow was either an unpublished trunk, or
stones concealed for this purpose, which
bed she afterward so filed with sharp pie
ces of tiles and triangular pieces of bro
ken jugs that the sharp points of each
should be turned to her body; nor did she
try to sleep until she had cmbittered her
body; nor did she try to sleep until she
had embittered her mouth with draught
Of gall.
''Ncar the time Of her death Rose,
throughout Lent, alternately sang the
canticles and praises Of God every day