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.

Some persons derive most benefit from reading the Lives of the Saints in which the supernatural and the extraordinary abound. They delight to see the wonderful display of the power of Divine grace in so frail a creature as man. These biographies, that are written more for our admiration than for our imitation, strengthen our faith in the supernatural, and inspire us with a great confidence in the goodness and power of God. And certainly in these days we need to stimulate and strengthen the life of faith and trust in Providence. The rapturous flights of St Joseph of Copertino have hardly a parallel as to frequency and duration in the lives of the saints. What is related of Christina Mirabilis, who lived 1150-1224, has been suspected of exaggeration, but our saint, having lived in more recent times, this his miraculous characteristic could easily be established in an authentic manner. Father Pastrovicchi wrote his life of St. Joseph on the occasion of the beatification of the saint, 1753. Pope Benedict XIV, to whom the work is dedicated, wished that for each fact related the episcopal and apostolic processes should be cited. This was done. Father Suyskens remarks that the caution of citing the official documents was well employed. "Since the words of the Psahnist, ' God is wonderful in His saints' (Ps. 67, 36), were verified in a singular manner in the life of St. Joseph, it was fitting that the extraordinary facts of his life should be attested in such a manner that credence could not be denied them." Father Gattari regards these miracles as wrought in support of the doctrine of the Real Presence, the authority of the Pope, sacramental Confession and the veneration due to saints, truths which in the time of the saint were impugned by the followers of Luther and other heretics. The fame of the fltights of St. Joseph spread throughout Europe and led to conversions as in the case of the Duke of Brunswick.' Another explanation offered is, that these miracles counteracted the diabolical arts (witchcraft and necromancy, especially in the kingdom of Naples) and superstition then prevalent To a degree our biography is a .. panegyric," with its drawbacks of "generalization" and "superlatives," but it is by no means "a dreary inventory of virtues and miracles." Some of the narratives, as in Chapter VI and IX, are very charming, "invested with all that tender simplicity and charm which voiced itself in the poetic narratives of the Fioretti." This first extensive biography of St. Joseph of Copertino in English was made from Sintzel's German translation of Fr. Pastrovicchi's Life of the saint. Only after years was it possible to procure the Italian original and verify the rendering. In the editions of Pastrovicchi of 1753 and 1767 the text is not divided into chapters; these (thirty in all) are indicated by Roman numerals at the beginning of paragraphs; the chapter titles and the references to the Acts are printed in the margin. The division of the text and the chapter titles in the present work are new. The original marginal titles are preserved in part as sub-titles in the Table of Contents. The numerous references to the Acts in the original have been omitted; likewise, in the interest of delicacy or conciseness. several passages in the body of the work. Details of the canonization, sanctuary, etc., have been added. Other small additions have been made throughout the work, dates and names have been inserted, and obscure passages made clear. The editions used for these changes are marked in the bibliographical list. Saint Joseph is also known as Saint Joseph of Cupertino.

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."

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 first lecture, which he has entitled the war of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, is intended to treat, in as brief space as possible, the whole question of Secret, Atheistic Organization, its origin, its nature, its history in the last century and in this, and its unity of satanic purpose in a wonderful diversity of forms. To do this with effect, it was necessary to go over a large area of ground, and to touch upon a great variety of topics. The writer was conscious that much of this ground and many of these topics would be very much better known to a large n umber of his readers than to himself. Nearly every matter he had to speak about had been already very frequently handled ably and exhaustively in our Catholic revews, magazines and newspapers. But notwithstanding this fact, very few, if any, attempts have been made in our language to treat the subject as a whole. Many articles which he has seen, proposed to treat some one feature only of the A theistic conspiracy-for example, Freemasonry; or the Infidel war upon COhristian education and Christian InstItutions; or the Revolution in Italy; or the efforts of sectaries against the Temporal Power of the Pope, and ag inst the welfare of Christian States generally. Several writers appeared to assume as known that which was really unknown to very many; and few touched at all upon the fact-a fact, no doubt, difficult to prove from the strict and ably guarded secrecy which protects it-of the supreme direction given to the universality of secret societies from a guiding, governing, and even to the rank and file of the members of the secret societies themselves-unknown and invisible junta ceaselessly sitting in dark conclave and guiding the whole mass of the secret societies of the world. The Holy Father, in his late celebrated Bull, Humanum Genus, has, therefore, manifested his desire that the bishops, the clergy, and even the laity of the Church should join in exposing Freemasonry and other such societies. But without a proper knowledge of the conspiracy as a whole that cannot be done. The author attempts to give such knowledge; but he hopes that his efforts may be improved upon by others more able than himself, and that he may have the happiness before long of seeing some compendium of the whole subject in English which might form a text book for seminarists and others to whom the future fate of the people of God in dangerous days is to be committed.

These beautiful prayers of the Catholic Church for the holiest week of the year should be studied by all Catholics. THE week before Easter has been called by several names, from the great mysteries and various ceremonies celebrated and performed in it. The Greeks and Latins anciently called it the Great Week, the Holy Week - sometimes the Painful Week-that is, the Week of Austerities; also, the Week of Sorrows, the days of the Cross or of sufferings. "We call it the Great Week," says S. Chrysostom, on Ps. 145, "not that it consists of a greater number of days, or that the days in it are longer;- but on account of the great things which God has wrought in it; for on these days was the tyranny of the devil overthrown, death disarmed, sin and its curse taken away, heaven opened and made accessible, and men made fellows with the angels." The chief object of the Church in this week is to celebrate the memory of the passion and death of her Redeemer. Every part of the sacred liturgy is directed to this end; the Church's offices, more solemn and more multiplied in this week than in any other during the whole year, are most especially adapted to excite in the hearts of the Faithful those various sentiments of love and gratitude, of compassion for the sufferings of our Lord, of sorrow and detestation for sin, which every Christian ought to cherish in this holy time. It is with the sincere desire of exciting pious sentiments in the hearts of the faithful that the whole liturgy of the Church for Holy Week has been collected in this volume, and is presented to the public, both in the Latin and English languages. Thus, while the pious Christian unites his voice with that of die priest and of the choir, he may also penetrate the sense of the divine office, and sanction by the fervor of his heart what he pronounces with his tongue. For this reason, the editor flatters himself that this book will not fail to please all those who still entertain a due sense of piety and religion; and may profit even those who, through a want of instruction, seldom or never reflect on the great mysteries which the Church commemorates during Holy Week. The very reading of this most pious and affecting part of the Church's liturgy is capable of exciting in their hearts a true and solid devotion.

Part of the Sabbatine Privilege is for those who can read to recite daily the Little Office of Our Lady. And yet, this recitation can be dry as dust without a proper understanding of these holy prayers. Although this book has been written primarily for the use of religious, I have borne in mind the wants of that everincreasing number of the laity who prefer to find their devotion in the Church's prayers, where all is staid and sober and short, rather than in the utterances of private individuals, which are often the reverse. In days gone by the Little Office in English was the favourite devotion of our Catholic forefathers. Happy for England when our prayers once more take such forms, and we build our spiritual life on the simple direct spirit of Holy Mother Church, instead of 011 those so-called devotions which the late saintly Cardinal Manning was wont to count as some of the greatest evils of the Church to-day. As to the book itself. I have divided the treatise into three parts: - In the THEORETICAL part, I inquire into the nature and excellence of Liturgical Prayer; and then discuss the materials which compose the Little Office; lastly, I give an historical account of the growth and development of the Prayer as we have it to-day. In the PRACTICAL part, I consider the best means of saying the Office with fruit and according to the mind of the Church, and I also make various suggestions to this end, and treat of some difficulties. The EXEGETICAL part consists of a full and complete Commentary, drawn from the Fathers and great mystical writers, on every verse of the Psalms, together with a full explanation of the hymns, lessons, responsories, antiphons, versicles, and prayers. To this is added by way of Appendix a Ceremonial and the latest decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites upon the subject. As to the use to be made of this book. It is not intended to be read through once and then laid aside, as a mere book of reference. But, as the Office is a daily work, so should this treatise be made a daily handbook for reading and studying now one part, and then another. I recommend that first of all the book be read through, in order to grasp the general subject. Then that portions of the Third Part be studied daily. On retreat days, the First and Second Parts may be read with advantage. Again, a verse of a Psalm with its commentary may be usefully taken as the subject of mental prayer, and the lights which are gained during the recitation will prove abundant food for this time. And for spiritual reading, slow and thoughtful, what can be better than a commentary on the Psalms; for here we have the Holy Ghost speaking to us directly in the words of the Scripture i and His saints explaining them to us. The main point I want to arrive at with those who use this book is the value of the Public Prayer above all private prayer, and the consequent necessity of making a deliberate study thereof.

The original title of this book, which was compiled from a series of lectures delivered in Edinburgh in October, 1884 by Mgr. Dillon, was The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization. The author wrote it "in order to do his part in carrying out the instruction given by the Sovereign Pontiff in the Encyclical Humanum Genus when he called upon the pastors of souls, to whom it was addressed, to 'instruct the people as to the artifices used by societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of their acts'. Mgr. Dillon's work has already been honoured by the Holy Father himself with so marked and so unusual an approbation that there is no need for us to accord it any further praise than merely to take note of the fact. The book was presented to His Holiness, accompanied by an Italian version of its table of contents, and of long extracts from its principal sections, and Leo XIII was pleased to order that the Italian version should be completed, and the book printed and published at Rome at his own expense." (The Month, Sept. 1885). Despite the fact that the lectures were delivered by a Catholic prelate to an audience composed mainly of members of his own faith, we feel that the subject of international political skullduggery is one which cannot fail to interest Catholic and non-Catholic alike, the more so indeed since events in the course of the decades following the original publication of this book have confirmed the lecturer's thesis. The last four editions have appeared under the title of Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked. Mgr. Dillon does not speak explicitly of the two currents of thought and action proceeding from the Masonic French Revolution, namely, the current of Rousseauist-LockianMasonic Liberalism and the current of Socialism and Communism. Implicitly, however, he does so when, on the one hand, he foreshadows the United States of Europe and World Federalism and, on the other, quotes the infamous Declaration of the International in 1868. This Declaration, formulated at the International Congress held at Geneva in 1868 and quoted by Mgr. Dillon in his preface, is well worth reproducing, at least in part. It runs as follows: "The object of the International Association of Workmen, as of every other Socialist Association, is to do away with the parasite and the pariah. Now what parasite can be compared to the priest. "God and Christ, these citizen-Providences, have been at all times the armour of Capital and the most sanguinary enemies of the working classes. It is owing to God and to Christ that we remain to this day in slavery. It is by deluding us with lying hopes that the priests have caused us to accept all the sufferings of this earth. It is only after sweeping away all religion, and after tearing up even to the last roots every religious idea that we can arrive at our political and social ideal. "Down, then, with God and with Christ Down with the despots of heaven and earth Death to the priests Such is the motto of our grand crusade." In a note on page 20 of the original edition Mgr. Dillon returned to the question of the direction of Freemasonry, which he had mentioned in his preface. He there says: "The Jewish connection with modern Freemasonry is an established fact everywhere manifested in its history. The Jewish formulas employed by Freemasonry, the Jewish traditions which run through its ceremonial, point to a Jewish origin, or to the work of Jewish contrivers .... Who knows but behind the Atheism and desire of gain which impels them to urge on Christians to persecute the Church and destroy it, there lies a hidden hope to reconstruct their Temple, and in the darkest depths of secret society plotting there lurks a deeper society still which looks to a return to the land of Judah and to the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem?"

'Read Me or Rue It' and 'How to Avoid Purgatory' are accompanied by several other useful instructions and several devotions for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. The devotions include the 'Novena for the Relief of the Poor Souls in Purgatory' and the 'Daily Pilgrimage to Purgatory. The Office of the Dead is included for use with the burial as well as for private devotion. 'How to Grieve for your Dead' is also included to help those who have lost a loved one.