COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY "THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK." PRINTED AT THE COLUMBUS PRESS, 120 WEST 60TH ST. 103 PREFACE. HIS work is a contribution to the devotional THI study of our Redeemer's teaching and example. It engaged the author's best thoughts and endeavors during several years. It is hoped that it may help the Catholic reader to a more vivid appreciation of our Lord's life and doctrine; its main purpose is to move hearts to love Him fervently. Perhaps He may bestow a blessing upon this humble offering; for though in itself of little enough value, yet it is given with all the love of which the author is capable. And he trusts that this Life has some special features which will recommend it. One of these is that it contains the entire Gospel history, omitting only strictly verbal repetitions. The reader will thus have the four-fold narrative of the inspired authors blended together into the continuous account of our Saviour's career from first to last, together with such passages from the other books of the New Testament as furnish additional testimony. This portion of the work is, for the most part, ruled off separately from the text; and the writer hopes that it will always be read, piece by piece, and very carefully, as a preliminary to each chapter. To help the reader to understand and appre ciate this divine narrative has been the author's only purpose. He has closely followed the most generally used Catholic versions, and on disputed points has adhered to the more commonly accepted views. Another advantage is in the use made of the modern art of pictorial illustration. The book is full of pictures, so numerous and so carefully selected as to make a Life of Christ by themselves. The publishers have been aided in this by skilful artists, and certainly have reproduced those contributions of Christian art most helpful to a devout realization of our Redeemer's mission. This book is intended to be the religious photographic album of the Catholic household. * It is hardly necessary to add that the Life, besides giving our Saviour's history, affirms and briefly proves the doctrines He taught and delivered to His Church, whose divine authority, whose sacraments, and whose incorporation into a living body are all fully explained. Of course there is not, nor could there be, any claim to originality in this work. Readers acquainted with Le Camus's beautiful Vie de Jésus will, perhaps, notice the influence of the earlier chapters of that inspiring writer. The author acknowledges his debt to him, and also to other Catholic biographers of our Lord. * Especially by Rev. P. J. McCorry, C.S.P., to whose artistic skill and taste we are mainly indebted for the illustrations. |