Here sobs and tears choked the speech of the Dominican; he grovelled in
the dust, he tore his hair, he howled aloud: the agony was fierce
upon him. At length, he drew from his robe a whip, composed of several
thongs, studded with small and sharp nails; and, stripping his gown,
and the shirt of hair worn underneath, over his shoulders, applied the
scourge to the naked flesh with a fury that soon covered the green sward
with the thick and clotted blood. The exhaustion which followed this
terrible penance seemed to restore the senses of the stern fanatic. A
smile broke over the features, that bodily pain only released from the
anguished expression of mental and visionary struggles; and, when he
rose, and drew the hair-cloth shirt over the lacerated and quivering
flesh, he said--"Now hast thou deigned to comfort and visit me, O
pitying Mother; and, even as by these austerities against this miserable
body, is the spirit relieved and soothed, so dost thou typify and
betoken that men's bodies are not to be spared by those who seek to save
souls and bring the nations of the earth into thy fold."