excited. The adoration paid him both by Young and Old, by Man
and Woman is unexampled. The Grandees load him with presents;
Their Wives refuse to have any other Confessor, and he is known
through all the city by the name of the ''Man of Holiness''.'

'Undoubtedly, Segnor, He is of noble origin--'

'That point still remains undecided. The late Superior of the
Capuchins found him while yet an Infant at the Abbey door. All
attempts to discover who had left him there were vain, and the
Child himself could give no account of his Parents. He was
educated in the Monastery, where He has remained ever since. He
early showed a strong inclination for study and retirement, and
as soon as He was of a proper age, He pronounced his vows. No
one has ever appeared to claim him, or clear up the mystery which
conceals his birth; and the Monks, who find their account in the
favour which is shewn to their establishment from respect to him,
have not hesitated to publish that He is a present to them from
the Virgin. In truth the singular austerity of his life gives
some countenance to the report. He is now thirty years old,
every hour of which period has been passed in study, total
seclusion from the world, and mortification of the flesh. Till
these last three weeks, when He was chosen superior of the
Society to which He belongs, He had never been on the outside of
the Abbey walls: Even now He never quits them except on
Thursdays, when He delivers a discourse in this Cathedral which
all Madrid assembles to hear. His knowledge is said to be the
most profound, his eloquence the most persuasive. In the whole
course of his life He has never been known to transgress a single
rule of his order; The smallest stain is not to be discovered