7. Of the various illnesses and pains that tormented her day and night

In this virgin was accomplished what is read of blessed Job. " In the night my bone is pierced with sorrows; and they that feed upon me do not sleep: with the multitude of them my gar ment is consumed" (Job xxx 17). And so with the failure of medical arts and of the nourishment of food, her weakness daily grew worse. And the maiden pitiably afflicted lay upon a hard couch and was eaten by worms which, rising from her virginal body out of the putre faction, consumed her flesh : and never theless no stench proceeded from them. These worms were of a grey colour full of grey water, having black heads, large as the thickness of the end of a spindle, long as the measure of the small joint of a man's finger.

She had also, disciple of the holy Trinity, in her body three large open ings, from one of which in the stomach the aforesaid worms sometimes flowed ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM abundantly. To this wound was placed a plaster made up of fresh wheat and honey, that the generated worms might feed on this mixture and other in gredients; for else they would have eaten her even to death. And when these plasters were taken off to be changed, there remained on them little grey worms with black heads, giving forth from them no bad odour, but offer ing a sweet smell to those who beheld them. The same virgin then was cor rupt in the lower part of the body with a permanent and large wound; and that her holy bowels might not altogether fall out, they closed the opening with some soft bandage.

It happened at that time that the famous physician of the Duke of Holland, Master Godfrey of Hague, came to visit this maiden with the Duchess Margaret, to examine the cause of her maladies; in order to give the maiden some whole some remedy if he could. Who, as was permissible and befitting, having seen some of the intestines of her stomach which were taken from her body and placed in a dish, found that the aforesaid worms came from the putrefaction of the spinal cord of her back ; and that that ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM putrefaction was caused by a natural consequence, because she ate no salt. After which, seeing that he could do no good for her, he bade that the intestines be replaced again in her stomach. The same doctor also remarked, that in a short time she would be dropsical. And she contracted this dropsy about nine teen years before her death, during which she took neither food nor drink nor sleep. And as she received no nourishment, so she voided no natural superfluities.

About the year of the Lord, 1412, this sacred plant of God, dug about by the long hoe of suffering, from the vehe mence of her pains vomited by little pieces her lung and liver, with several intestines, but without any stench, as was proved by many. For those who touched them with their hands, felt a sweetness cling to their hands for nearly a day. From the fourteenth year until the twenty-first she could nowise move or turn herself ; and she lay on her back that seven years and after even to death, nor could any part of her body move, except her head and left arm with the shoulder. But when she was moved or turned in bed, then it was necessary to ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM bind round her shoulders with a cloth or soft bandage; otherwise there was a danger that she would fall to pieces.

Very many other maladies also the virgin of Christ girded with most cruel scourges suffered ; which were inflicted upon her not to the loss of her soul, but to her greater merit as on holy Job, so that afterwards she might be the more capable and meet for angelic and heavenly consolations, the more dis tressed and desolate she lay upon earth. She often had excessive headaches even unto death, very often manifold tooth ache even unto death, divers fevers also even unto death, a long dropsy even unto death, at the time of pestilence three abscesses, a very great stone also before death, with which likewise she paid the debt of death. All this for very many years she suffered most patiently, that her soul might be saved for ever, and with Christ exult in the delights of Paradise. For the more bodily sick nesses abounded in her, so much the greater grew in her the love, strong as death, of God and her neighbour. For from the plenitude of her charity and the urgency of her internal fervour, she dared in a certain way to provoke the ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM Lord to multiply upon her miseries and pains. Arid the Lord hearkening- to her prayers, when she had two abscesses in her body, added a third on her breast. In fine, she suffered from all the common infirmities wherewith men are usually afflicted, the which she lovingly bore with wondrous and unparalleled patience for the love of Christ, mindful of all His even greater dolours. There was scarcely any part of her body which did not waste away with some special afflic tion of suffering. For on her forehead she had a fracture extending to the middle of the nose; likewise on the lower lip and chin a cleft congealed with blood, and because of this malady she could hardly speak. Her right eye was altogether sightless; and her left re mained so weak, that it could make use of no material light by day or by night, yea even she felt torture from any bright ness of light. Wherefore she constantly lay in darkness; and a simple curtain surrounded and veiled the place of her bed, so that seldom was she openly seen by men. But yet she very often saw an angel of light to the comfort of her ex ceeding great torture.