supplies data for correcting any imperfect or mis leading comments. The practice of meditation on the Gospels, as set forth in this book, is really a method of bringing the Christian into closer communion with Christ, and so of learning more, and more perfectly, than any human writers can teach. If there is any thing still retained which goes beyond the liberty which the Church of England allows to her children, he implicitly disallows and rejects it.

It is not intended to vouch for the accuracy of the Vulgate renderings (as, for instance, the text quoted in p. 13, "ipsa conteret," where, however, no comment is grounded on the mistranslation), or of the quotations from other writers.

The Meditations and Prayers have been retained in Latin rather than translated, as experience shows the value in private prayers of a foreign language, the very effort to interpret which keeps attention awake; especially when that language is precious to us as the tongue of so many Saints and Doctors. No prejudice is meant thereby to the laudable practice of the Church of England in having public worship "in a tongue understanded of the people."

February, 1872.

VITA ET DOCTRINA

JESU CHRISTI,

EX QUATUOR EVANGELISTIS COLLECTA,

ET IN MEDITATIONUM MATERIAM

AD SINGULOS TOTIUS ANNI DIES

DISTRIBUTA.

PER NICOLAUM AVANCINUM, SOCIETATIS JESU

AD USUM CLEBI ANGLICANI ACCOMMODATA.