Saint Cajetan lived in Rome in the early 1500s. He went to Venice and then returned to Rome to found the order of the Theatines.

Saint Teresa of Avila wrote many letters, which are collected here. Her correspondence was most extensive, including bishops, archbishops, kings, ladies of rank, gentlemen of the world, abbots, priors, nuncios, her confessors, her brothers and sisters, rectors of colleges, fathers provincial of the Society of Jesus, nuns and superiors of her convents and monasteries, learned doctors of different religious orders, and even most eminent saints, such as .St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Francis Borgia, St. John of the Cross, &c. In the Letters of St. Teresa it seems to me that all her admirable endowments, both of nature and of grace, can be more clearly discovered than in any of her other works. When we peruse her Life, or The Interior Castle, one is at first inclined to imagine that the Saint was altogether unearthly, unfit for the cares and troubles of life that all her time must have been spent in holding sweet converse with her Beloved, and sighing for the hour when she should be united with Him for ever, and that visions and raptures must have engrossed all the powers of her soul. Others, again, might fancy that the Saint must have been very grave, austere, solemn, exceedingly scrupulous, and given to melancholy. Some might also be inclined to believe that she was quite an enthusiast, led away by the ardent temperament of her character, or the vagaries of an unsteady imagination. But how quickly are such erroneous ideas scattered, when we read her admirable Letters. They soon convince us that the Saint possessed what we call common sense" in a most remarkable manner that so fur from being an enthusiast, she was endowed with a solidity of judgment, and a prudence and sweetness in all her actions, which won the admiration of everyone; that she was so careful to guard against melancholy, as never to allow any one to enter the Order who seemed to be the least infected with it. With regard to herself, we shall see, by perusing her Letters, that she was cheerfulness itself, even in the midst of her greatest trials and afflictions, and withal exceedingly witty, lively, and jocose; indeed, her naivetr is one of the greatest charms of her Letters. These will show us, too, that her raptures and visions did not, in the least, interfere with her ordinary duties, for she was an excellent and most admirable woman of business. Considering her numerous labours, duties, journeys, sicknesses, and infirmities, is it not surprising how she could find time to carry on such an extensive correspondence? Juan de Palafox, the celebrated bishop of Osma, remarks, "that it was principally by her Letters the Saint was enabled to effect the reform of the Carmelite Order."

The doctrine of hell is one of the four last things. Father Schouppe gives a terrifying presentation of this doctrine that will inspire people to avoid this horrible place and to save their soul. We need to study this truth carefully so that we realize just how important it is to become a Saint. Let us consider this story: The following incident happened in 1837. A young under-lieutenant, being in Paris, entered the Church of the Assumption, near the Toilers, and saw a priest kneeling near a confessional. As he made religion the habitual subject of his jokes, he wished to go to confession to while away the time, and went into the confessional. "Monsieur l'abbe," he said, "would you be good enough to hear my confession?" "Willingly my son; confess unrestrained." "But I must first say that I am a rather unique kind of a sinner." "No matter; the sacrament of penance has been instituted for all sinners." "But I am not very much of a believer in religious matters." "You believe more than you think." "Believe? I? I am a regular scoffer." The confessor saw with whom he had to deal, and that there was some mystification. He replied, smiling: "You are a regular scoffer? Are you then making fun of me too?" The pretended penitent smiled in like manner. "Listen," the priest went on, "what you have just done here is not serious. Let us leave confession aside; and, if you please, have a little chat. I like military people greatly; and, then, you have the appearance of a good, amiable youth. Tell me, what is your rank?" "Under-lieutenant." "Will you remain an under-lieutenant long?" "Two, three, perhaps four years." "And after?" "I shall hope to become a lieutenant?" "And after?" "I hope to become a captain." "And after?" "Lieutenant-colonel?" "How old will you be then?" "Forty to forty-five years." "And after that?" "I shall become a brigadier general." "And after?" "If I rise higher, I shall be general of a division." "And after?" "After there is nothing more except the Marshal's baton; but my pretensions do not reach so high." "Well and good. But do you intend to get married?" "Yes, when I shall be a superior officer." "Well There you are married; a superior officer, a general, perhaps even a French marshal, who knows? And after?" "After? Upon my word, I do not know what will be after." "See, how strange it is " said the abbe. Then, in a tone of voice that grew more sober: "You know all that shall happen up to that point, and you do not know what will be after. Well, I know, and I am going to tell you, After, you shall die, be judged, and, if you continue to live as you do, you shall be damned, you shall go and burn in hell; that is what will be after." As the under-lieutenant, dispirited at this conclusion, seemed anxious to steal away: "One moment, sir," said the abbe. "You are a man of honor. So am I. Agree that you have offended me, and owe me an apology. It will be simple. For eight days, before retiring to rest, you will say: 'One day I shall die; but I laugh at the idea. After my death I shall be judged; but I laugh at the idea. After my judgment, I shall be damned; but I laugh at the idea. I shall burn forever in hell; but I laugh at the idea ' That is all. But you are going to give me your word of honor not to neglect it, eh?" More and more wearied, and wishing, at any price, to extricate himself from this false step, the under-lieutenant made the promise. In the evening, his word being given, he began to carry out his promise. "I shall die," he says. "I shall be judged." He had not the courage to add: "I laugh at the idea." The week had not passed before he returned to the Church of the Assumption, made his confession seriously, and came out of the confessional his face bathed with tears, and with joy in his heart.

When we read in the New Testament how our beloved Lord Jesus Christ "went about doing good" in the land of Judea, preaching heavenly truths, imparting saying grace to men of good will, and infusing peace into the hearts of all, we are apt to indulge in feelings of regret that we too did not live in those happy days, that we were not permitted to enjoy his sacred presence and to hearken to his voice. Let us therefore examine and study carefully the plan adopted by our Saviour whereby he continues still to dwell on earth, forwarding the work of salvation in all lands and during all time. What method has Christ followed in order to effect this object? He delegated his threefold office and character-namely. His teaching office, his priesthood, and his kingly authority to a manner of chosen men, in union with whom he continues to act as Teacher, Priest, and King to the end of time.

This is a photographic reprint of the original to insure accuracy. OF all the old English ascetical works which were extant before the Reformation none have maintained their reputation longer than Walter Hilton's "Scale of Perfection." Hilton was a canon of Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire, and died in 1395. His "Scale of Perfection" is found in no less than five MSS. in the British Museum alone. Wynkyn de Worde printed it at least three times-in the years 1494, 1519 and 1525. Many other editions were printed at the same period. After the Reformation it was a favourite book of Father Augustine Baker's, the well-known author of "Sancta Sophia," and his comments on it are among his manuscripts at Downside. In 1659 Father Baker's biographer and editor, Dom Serenus Cressy, O.S.B., published an edition of the "Scale," the title-page of which claims that "by the changing of some antiquated words it is] rendered more intelligible." Another edition appeared in 1672, and yet another in 1679. Within our own times two editions have been published-one by the late Father Ephrem Guy, O.S.B., in 1869, the other, a reprint of Cressy's, in 1870.

The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages I mean the history of Christendom) self-knowledge. As a man in the confessional accuses himself of what he knows to be true and what other people cannot judge, so a Catholic, talking of the united European civilization, when he blames it, blames it for motives and for acts 'which are his own. He himself could have done those things in person. He is not relatively right in his blame, he is absolutely right. As a man can testify to his own motive so can the Catholic testify to unjust, irrelevant, or ignorant conceptions of the European story; for he knows why and how it proceeded. Others, not Catholic, look upon the story of Europe externally as strangers. They have to deal with something which presents itself to them partially and disconnectedly, by its phenomena alone: he sees it all from its centre in its essence, and together. I say again, renewing the terms, The Church is Europe: and Europe is The Church.

THE Arch-Confraternity for the relief of the souls in Purgatory, being favored in a most extraordinary manner both by the Holy See and the Heads of several Heligious Orders, a quarter of a century had not elapsed after its establishment, when four hundred confraternities were already incorporated with the mother association at Rome, the number of its members exceeding one million. Thus it became an absolute necessity for the Very Rev. Father Brixious Queloz C. S. S. R. Chief Director of the Arch-Confraternity, to compile, for the use of its members the manual of devotion. This manual has been translated into several languages, and as the Arch-Confraternity has already been established in. six dioceses of this country, and continues to spread rapidly, the many and pressing demands of its members have made the translation of this manual an absolute necessity. The translation is substantially the same as the original, with the exception of some additional prayers, devotions, and instructions, mostly taken from the writings of St. Alphonsus, and more especially adapted to this country. In the selection of prayers, the translator was guided both by the advice of St. Alphonsus, viz: that our prayers should be petitions rather than affections, especially for the grace of divine love and final perseverance, and by the later and more stringent rules of the Church concerning prayer books, and as this manual has already become the favorite manual of thousands of pious Catholics throughout Europe, the translator confidently presents it, not only to the members of the Purgatorian Arch-Confraternity, but also to the public in general. As a prayer-book it combines force and solidity, and is well calculated by the pious instructions on Purgatory which it contains, and the extraordinary spiritual advantages and privileges which it holds out to induce the clergy as well as the laity to promote to the best of their power the spreading of this pious Association. Finally, this manual will not fail, as general experience has proved, to stir up in the hearts of the faithful both great charity toward the suffering souls in Purgatory and true love of Jesus Christ, inspiring them, by the reflections on the Purgatorial torments with a holy fear of the severe chastisements of Almighty God, with a true hatred of sin, both mortal and venial sin, and an effectual desire to perform works of sincere penance and charity whilst they have time and grace to do so.

This book is a translation, the only one from the Latin, of the Preces Gertrudianae, a manual of devotions compiled in the seventeenth century from the Suggestions of Divine Piety of St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde, nllns of the Order of St. Benedict. Of this work Alban Butler says, in his life of St. Gertrude, that it is perhaps the most useful production, next to the writings of St. Teresa, with which any female saint ever enriched the Church. Care has been taken to preserve, not only the substance, but, as far as might be, the form, of the original prayers; and a few others, well known and much valued, have been added as an Appendix. Let us consider this advice: When you are distracted in prayer, commend it to the Heart of Jesus, to be perfected by him, as our Lord Himself taught St. Gertrude. One day, when she was nluch distracted in prayer, he appeared to her, and held forth to her his Heart with his own sacred hands, saying: Behold, I set My Heart before the eyes of thy soul, that thou mayest commend to it all thine actions, confidently trusting that all that thou canst not of thyself supply to them will be therein supplied, so that they may appear perfect and spotless in my sight. Remember always to say the Gloria Patri with great devotion. The hermit Honorius relates that a certain monk who had been accustomed to say his office negligently appeared to another after his death and being asked what sufferings he had to undergo in punishment of his carelessness, he said that all had been satisfied for and effaced by the reverent devotion with which he had always said the Gloria Patri.

THE Revelation of God came to the world through the Hebrews, a people unused to abstract speculation, their very language too bald for Philosophy, so that Theology had to take the language of poetry, concrete images taking the place of definitions or syllogisms. These characteristics, whilst they prevented very great development of doctrine, were a safeguard against its perversion. When in the fullness of time Christ brought that complete Revelation of which Judaism was but the prologue, it was to the Hebrews that He spoke. He gave them His whole teaching-but in their own tongue, their own forms, not only of speech but of thought. Yet His Church was to be no longer the Jewish Church, but the Catholic Church. His Revelation was to all mankind and was to be received and assimilated not by the practical ethical Hebrew only, but by the subtleminded Greek, by the Eastern mystic, and by the childlike, untrained mind of far-off Goth and Barbarian. When on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended upon that little band which Christ had formed and trained, they went forth to bring all minds into captivity to the truth; and these were not minds empty, waiting passively for the truth, but minds already active, with ideas, theories, and habits of thought of their own. Into minds thus preoccupied the Christian Faith was to enter-to seize and act upon and mould them, and, within certain very rigid limits, to be reacted upon by them. When Revelation took its rightful place as Ruler and Judge, then all of natural truth or mental power that a man had was enriched and crowned by it; al1 that was false or imperfect being abolished or rejected. The Faith itself being more clearly set forth, more deeply penetrated, as the minds of men were brought to bear upon it, gave forth all its strength, light, and sweetness. That way lay development-a process which began the first moment a Christian meditated on Christ's teaching, and it shall not cease as long as one of the Faithful remains to keep the Faith. But whenever Faith came to a mind not prepared to give it the first and ruling place, but determined to judge and test it by its own prepossessions, its own prejudices -then the truth became perverted, one-sided: and so were born heresies: so began the first heresy: so will heresies arise until Christ returns and Faith ends in Vision. Well might the Apostles have quailed at the task before them. Silnple Palestinian Jews, how should they commend their faith to the whole Gentile world, a world whose thought was so alien from their own? But their Risen Master had promised that the Holy Ghost should bring to their minds all things whatsoever He had told them. In this knowledge, with this strength, they went forward knowing that whatever their personal weakness, however limited their individual knowledge or capacity, their mission could not fail, for He who had sent them had promised that the gates of hell should not prevail against them and that He would be with them even to the consummation of the world.

About twenty years ago a certain Benedictine Abbot suddenly ordered one of his monks, still young and inexperienced, to deliver before an important community the conferences usual in the course of the annual Retreat. As this Retreat coincided with the week of Pentecost, the monk thought that he could not do better than dmTIonstrate, from the manner of life of the primitive Christians immediately after the descent of the Spirit, the origin and model of the life that should be led by monks. So he took for his text the verses from the Acts of the Apostles ii. 37-46, not commenting upon the whole passage in order, but confining himself to the principal features which referred to his subject. The notes which he made for these conferences were for a long time forgotten, unless occasionally one of his brethren used them for giving spiritual exercises in his turn. Certainly, if the author had followed his own feeling, they would never have been used at all. But lately he has been obliged to consent that the substance of them should be published in a little review, called the Messenger of Saint Benedict, and this first publication, although fragmentary and lllixed up here and there with sketches on different subjects, has aroused in a certain number of people a strong desire to see the whole collected and brought out in its original form. After having resisted as long as he possibly could, the author at last gave way, thinking that it was his duty to put aside his personal disinclination for the sake of the spiritual advantage of his neighbour, which, he was told, rightly or wrongly, was concerned in this publication. Naturally, certain details have been eliminated which belonged to the particular conditions of the audience for whom these pages were prepared. But, on the other hand, the references of most of the texts and quotations have been added in notes. Of most of them only; for there are some which come from purely oral instruction-from Dom Gueranger, for example; from Maurus Wolter, and other great monks of our time. The author has no longer within his reach the works from which he borrowed two or three other quotations without always noting accurately the place whence they were taken. The reader must be so good as to trust him on this point, and believe that everything that he attributes to an author is really by that author. Having made the search for and worship of the truth the principal business of his life, he would never allow himself to deceive in this matter, even with a view to edification. Neither must it be forgotten that these pages were written long ago, and many points would have required completion. Perhaps, on the other hand, certain pages would not appear, if they had been written more recently. After all, there will not be nluch cause to complain of that. Origen says, in his eighteenth Homily on Exodus, that the preacher of the Gospel should have that enthusiasm and youthfulness of soul attributed to Judah in the "Blessings of the Patriarchs"- Oculi ejus rubri a vino. No coldness, no feebleness, no colourlessness in his language; but a kind of holy inebriation, something that rejoices the friends of God and heals the wounds of the soul. Happy are they who have received this gift of spiritual youth, and the power of communicating it Happy, above all, are they, and much more rare, who have known how to preserve and cherish it, even to old age.

The Fathers of the Council of Trent showed at a very early date that they were satisfied with none of the existing works, and that they were fully alive to the need and necessity of preparing an authoritative Catechism. The realisation of their desire, however, was retarded for several years by events over which they had little control; and when the work was finally taken in hand another idea prevailed, resulting in the publication of a manual for the use of the clergy, and not, as originally suggested, a Catechism for children and uninstructed adults. Of the countless Catechisms that continued to appear, two - those of Bellarmine and Canisius - have steadily held their ground ever since, and to a large extent have served as the models of nearly an subsequent compilations of the kind. The influence of Canisius, however, has on the whole been limited to Germany; whereas Bellarmine's Catechism, which was written by command of Pope Clement VIII in 1597, has been copied in almost every other country in the world. At an early date it was translated into Arabic, Latin, Modern Greek, French, Spanish, German, English, and Polish. It had the warm approbation of Clement VIII, who prescribed it for use in the Papal States; of Urban VIII, who directed it to be adopted in all the Eastern missions; of Innocent XIII and Benedict XIV; particularly of the very important Council of all Italy, held at Rome, in 1725, which made it obligatory in all the dioceses of the peninsula; and finally of the Vatican Council which indicated it as the model for a proposed universal Catechism. Though Bellarmine's Catechism was largely followed as a model all over the world, yet, owing to the modifications introduced in diocesan editions, it came to pass in the course of time that almost every diocese had its own Catechism, differing in many respects from the Catechisms of other dioceses. The obvious inconvenience of this bewildering multiplicity of Catechisms occupied the attention of the Fathers of the Vatican Council, the great majority of whom were agreed as to the desirability of having a uniform small Catechism for the faithful all over the world. Early during the sittings of the Council, forty-one of the assembled Fathers devoted six sessions (February 10 to February 22) to an examination of the question; and the report which they drew up occupied the attention of the whole Council during the sittings of April 29 and 30. The question being put to a vote on May 4, an immense majority was found to be in favour of the compilation of a small uniform Catechism, to be compiled in Latin, translated into every language, and made obligatory in every diocese. But the approach of the Italian troops towards the walls of Rome brought the Council to an untimely end and there was no time to promulgate the constitution on the proposed uniform Catechism, so that it has not the force of law. The idea, however, has never been lost sight of. During the sitting of the first Catechetical Congress in 1880, the then Bishop of Mantua (later St. Pius X) proposed that the Holy Father be petitioned to arrange for the compilation of a simple, plain, brief, and popular Catechism for uniform use all over the world. Shortly after his elevation to the Chair of Peter, Pius X at once set about realising, within certain limits, his own proposal of 1880, by prescribing a uniform Catechism - the Compendium of Christian Doctrine - for use in the dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Rome, at the same time indicating that it was his earnest desire to have the same manual adopted all over Italy. The text selected was, with slight modifications, that which had been adopted for some years by the united hierarchy of Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia, and Tuscany.

The Roman Breviary is full of inspirational material. This book gives the wonderful hymns from this sacred work. Also included are the sequences from the Missale Romanum (in translation), which are also wonderful. These hymns and sequences will provide much fruitful material for prayer and meditation. Not only are the more common hymns and sequences included, but several from proper Offices, such as Our Lady, Help of Christians and the Crown of Thorns.