POPE LEO ON EXCESSIVE FASTING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 95, 22 April 1879, Page 4

POPE LEO ON EXCESSIVE FASTING.

(Corr. Whitehall Review, Jan. 18) Miss Edith Potter, only daughter of ' Thomas Berely Potter, M.P. for Roch- ! dale, and the fidus Achates of John Bright, was recently admitted into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Manning himself. She soon substituted for her ordinary domestic duties a series of ascetic penances, and abandoned her social circle, wherein abe had previously shone and to which Bhe was deeply endeared. Some montbs ago she left England with ber parents. She hardly ever exchanged as much as a syllable with either, but was absorbed in contemplation, and chastened herself with fasting pertinaciously. At Florence Ber health fairly broke down, and she waa immediately moved to Rome, in the vain hope tbat the change of air and scene might bring ber round. Here, however, her state became critical, and when she lay hovering

between life and death at the Hotel de Londres most providentially Dr Erhardt was coiled in. This able physician at once took an accurate diagnosis of the case and stated unequivocally that the symptoms were attributable wholly and solely to morbid excitement aod playing unwarrantable tricks with her conslitnlion, adding that it waa but one of a class which too frequently cnme under his notice, aod which resulted from an ill-judged^asceticism. The confessor who cams to administer the last s;croment to poor Mies Potter, Father O'Brien, very honorably reported the medical opinion to bis ecclesinstiool superiors, ond eventually it reached the ears ofthe Pops through the intervention of Monsigoor Sioner. His Holiness, on being informed of ail the circumstances, manifested the liveliest indignation, and is understood to h .ye expressed his opinion thut to submit newly sdmi'l. d convprts to rigorous discipline is the surest w_y to produce a reaction against Cstlulieism, both in their minds and those of others who could not bring themselve. to approve of su ob pernicious asceticism. Mons'isnor Stoncr, co it is paid, a idresscd hiraar-lf personally to Miss Potter and pointed out that the course Bhe had followed hud been the outcome of self-will and was unjustifiable. As I write, Miss Potter is on the wny towards recovery. Pope Leo is fully alive to the unwisdom of perniiuiD* fdin.le converts to reduce themselves to a state of hysteria or phthisis, and he at ones advised tbe representatives of the Roman Church in England of his decision.