In the novel's closing scene, the Abbess receives a visit from Doña Clara, who is grieving the loss of her mother, Doña Maria. The Abbess shows Doña Clara around the abbey, which houses people who are too poor, sick, or disabled to live independently. Doña Clara is amazed by the Abbess's passion for her work and her single-minded advocacy for a more just and caring world. The Abbess's ongoing monologue during the tour is an example of pathos:
“I can’t help thinking that something could be done for the deaf-and-dumb. It seems to me that some patient person could [. . .] could study out a language for them. You know there are hundreds and hundreds in Peru. Do you remember whether anyone in Spain has found a way for them? Well, some day they will.”
Informal yet also wise and passionate, the Abbess's speech gains authority by displaying her genuine altruism and appealing to the reader's emotions. (Note, however, that "deaf-and-dumb" is now an outdated and pejorative way to refer to disabled people.) In her letters to her mother, Doña Clara has appeared as a shallow and self-absorbed woman, chiefly concerned with status and etiquette. Here, the Abbess shows her a way out of her narcissism by articulating a more purposeful way of life based on altruism and service to others. After the novel's many depictions of hyprocrisy, especially within the Catholic Church, the Abbess's meaningful way of life comes as a relief to the reader—and shows that despite the behaviors of priests like Brother Juniper and the Archbishop, religious institutions can be forces for social good.
Importantly, Brother Juniper has tried and failed to gain authority and convert Native Americans to Christianity through logos. By rationalizing the deaths of the bridge collapse victims, he's trying to definitively prove God's existence. Even the Abbess has not always been able to live up to her ideals: She eventually realizes that in worrying about whether her work will survive her, she's been indulging in a selfish obsession with her personal legacy that distracts from the task at hand. Only once she overcomes this inner hurdle is she able to achieve tranquility and recruit others, like Doña Clara, to her cause. While science and rational inquiry are necessary to a society, Wilder suggests here that moral and philosophical questions are best approached through the emotional qualities like radical sympathy that the Abbess possesses.
