THE following Discourses or Meditations are intended to furnish matter for a Retreat of eight or ten days. Each of them consists of devout considerations, followed by points for mental prayer. The considerations are to be read over slowly and with devotional attention; and the points are to be wrought out with as much fervour of affective acts as may be possible. Each discourse, with its affections, is calculated to afford matter for about an hour's exercise. The Retreat is intended for priests, religious, and persons in the world. Here and there will be found remarks addressed more especially to one or other of these classes; but the point of view taken is, on the whole, one which concerns the human soul in its relations with its Creator and Redeemer, and which does not depend on any obligation arising from vows or state of life. Even in such meditations as "The Religious Promise," "Obedience," and "poverty," principles are treated which lie at the root of all Christian practice, and aspirations are proposed which will be found natural and useful by every heart which seriously desires to give itself to God.

St. Alphonsus writes: "a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery." Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: "There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals ' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty " We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original The original has been inspected and many imperfections in the existing copy have been corrected. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.

Bishop Hedley writes: "The "Following of Christ," the "Spiritual Combat," the "Devout Life" of St. Francis de Sales, and other books of a like nature, are at once a guide to virtue, an encouragement to prayer, and an influence drawing the heart daily nearer to God. The reading of Holy Scripture, of the sermons and conferences of distinguished preachers, and of the penetrating devotional books in which our language is by no means deficient, is adapted to sanctify the house, and to keep out of it, to a greater or less degree, that flood of objectionable printed matter which overflows the land at the present moment. Priests and laity cannot do more for souls than to encourage by every means in their power good and cheap Catholic literature instruction, devotion, tales, and periodicals and to bring it within the reach of every class of the faith ful. All read; they must read, and they will read. Let us strive to check the evils of bad reading by the dissemination of that which is good." This Bishop from the nineteenth century wrote to his flock many good instructions, which are also applicable today. Let us consider another good quote from this wonderful book: "Now love consists of four principal acts;-To prefer God before all things; to dedicate to Him all we have and are; to detest all that opposes Him; and to do His will in all things." St. Alphonsus writes: "a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery." Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: "There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals ' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty " We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original The original has been inspected and many imperfections in the existing copy have been corrected. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.

Let us consider this: "WHICH of the two is the more striking-the thought how far God is away, or the thought how near He is? God's invisibility, or His undeniable and unmistakable presence? His unapproachable hiddenness, or His fatherly Providence and His untiring love? We call only say that under both of these aspects He is worthyof praise, and glorious, and exalted above all for ever and ever. Everyone of His attributes is a great deep; and it is the roar of these mighty abysses, calling to each other and answering to each other in the obscure night of human life, that fills the listening heart with awe, and at last gives the mind to understand how great a universe there is outside of this world and beyond the bounds of time and space. But this much at least is true-that it is this very invisibility, spirituality, hiddenness, and inaccessibility of God that have given occasion to the most astounding triumphf of His power and providence. God cannot, of course, cease to be the Absolute and the Infinite. He cannot cease to dwell in light unapproachable. Man, on his part, cannot, during this period of probation, have any access to God except such as is afforded by inference, by analogy, by effort; we do not yet see Him "as He is," or " face to face." Thus there is a great chasm between the Creator and the faculties of the creature. Yet what has been the history of God's dealings with man except the constant effort on the part of God, Who has created all things, to reach us, to touch us, and to draw us near to Himself 1 It is not merely that He has given to Himself, in this visible universe as seen by the light of man's Godlike reason, a witness and a mighty preacher. What He has done is far beyond this. He has brought into the very frame of nature herself that august and startling element which is called the supernatural. He began-not in the order of time, but in the counsels of His wisdom-by the Incarnation. He" took up" our nature, as the Fathers say, and united it to His own so closely that, without ceasing to be God, He was called, and He really was, and is, .Man. He decreed, next, that He would dwell in every man (unless man rejected Him) by means of gifts and qualities so Divine that when they came into the human soul it could truly be said that He Himself had come. And He so lifted up human destiny that we were to inherit, not any ordinary happiness or union with Him, such as our nature would seem to challenge, but that Vision of Him face to face which no created intelligence could even look upon without being specially strengthened and elevated, and which is the Beatific Vision and Bliss supernatural. It is neither of the Incarnation nor of Life Everlasting that we are now to speak, but of this present life, with its effort and its vicissitude, and of the part which is played therein by the supernatural. For Faith, Hope and Charity are the supernatural element in human life. It should be well understood that the word supernatural is here used in a very adequate, strong, and complete sense. The Supernatural, as understood by those who treat of the dealings of God with man, is that which is above and beyond human nature, or human faculties, if left to themselves. Human nature would not be human nature at all without certain constituents, powers, and endowments. These things human nature has of itself, without any further action on the part of God than is implied in His creation and His general providence. But the being of man, though it cannot demand to be lifted above its sphere, is perfectly capable of opening itself to whatever the beneficence of its heavenly Father may send it. Thus, although it is natural to us to suffer dissolution or temporal death, yet if immortality were conferred upon our bodies, there is nothing to prevent our becoming immortal.

St. Alphonsus writes: "a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery." Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: "There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals ' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty " We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original. The original has been inspected and some imperfections may remain. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.

St. Alphonsus writes: "a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery." Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: "There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals ' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty " We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original. The original has been inspected and some imperfections may remain. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.