We are all apt so to idealise the Saints whom we love to study and honour, and strive to imitate, that we are in danger of forgetting that they possessed a human nature like our own, subject to many trials, weaknesses and frailties. They had to struggle as we have to struggle. The only difference is that their constancy and perseverance were greater far than ours. Biographers are often responsible for the false tendency to which we allude. They like to give us the finished portrait of the Saints, and only too often they omit in great part the details of the long and weary toil that ,vent to make the picture which they delight to paint.In the case of some of the Saints we are able to come nearer to the reality by reading the letters which have been preserved, in which in their own handwriting they have set down, without thought of those who in later days might read their words, the details of their daily life and struggle. Thus in the few selected Letters of the holy foundress of the Visitation which are now being published in an English translation we get glimpses of her real character and spiritual growth which may be more. helpful to us than many pages of formal biography. In one place she excuses the brevity of a letter because she is If feeling the cold to-day and pressed for time." In another she tells a Sister, “do everything to get well, for it is only your nerves." Nerves are evidently not a new malady nor a lately devised excuse. She knew the weariness of delay: “still no news from Rome. ... I think His Grace the Archbishop would be glad to help us. . .. Beg him, I beseech you, to push on the matter." Haste and weather had their effect on her as on as: I write in such haste that I forget half of what I want to say. ... we will make a chalice veil for you, but not until the very hot weather is over, for one cannot work properly while it lasts." What mother, especially in these days of sorrow and anxiety, can read unmoved the Saint's own words as she speaks of her daughter's death, and of her fears about her son. I am almost in despair … so miserable am I about it that I do not know which way to turn, if not to the Providence of God, there to bury my longings, confiding to His hands not only the honour but even the salvation of this already half lost child. Oh! the incomparable anguish of this affliction. No other grief can come near to it." And then we feel her mingled grief and joy when at last she learnt that this, her only son, had given up his life, fighting for his King, after a humble and fervent reception of the Sacraments. Thus in the midst of the daily small worries of life, and of the great sorrows that at one time or other fall to the lot of all, we see a brave and generous soul, with human gifts and qualities like to our ownJ treading her appointed path to God.No one can read her words without carrying therefrom fresh courage for his life, and a new determination to battle steadfastly to the end.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1918 Edition.

The first point that must be made of this book is that the dialect is older English."But now, my good uncle, the world is here waxen such, and so great perils appear here to fall at hand, that me thinketh the greatest comfort that a man can have is, when he may see that he shall soon be gone." (Pg 1-2)The reader will have to accustom themselves to a learning curve.In the first Chapter St. Thomas More, tells us that philosophers of old created ways to be comforted in tribulation. These pagan philosophers told their followers that they should place of little value on worldly goods and honors. But as the Saint continues on,"for they never stretched so far, but that they leave untouched, for lack of necessary knowledge, that special point which is not only the chief comfort of all, but, without which also, all other comforts are nothing. That is, to wit, the referring of the final end of their comfort unto God, and the repute and take for the special cause of comfort, that by the patient sufferance of their tribulation they shall attain His favour, and for their pain receive reward at His hand in Heaven." (Pg 9)He ends the first chapter by saying, "Honorsa medicum; propter necessitatem etenim ordinavit eum Altissimus." - honor the physician for him hath the high God ordained for thy necessity. (Eccl 38) St. Thomas more points to this heavenly physician as Christ Himself applying His own blood as our medicine.The second chapter tells us that it is faith that must be the foundation for men's comfort. "That is, to wit, the ground and foundation of faith, without which had ready before, all the spiritual comfort that any man may speak of can never avail a fly. For likewise as it were utterly vain to lay natural reasons of comfort to him that hath no wit, so were it undoubtedly frustrate to lay spiritual causes of comfort to him that hath no faith." (Pg 11)St. Thomas More in the third chapter assigns the first comfort as the following: "...the desire and longing to be by God comforted." (Pg 14) St. Thomas more writes that those who seek comfort in anything outside of God will never become comforted. He quotes St. Bernard: "He that in tribulation turneth himself unto worldly vanities, to get help and comfort by them, fareth like a man that in peril of drowning catcheth whatsoever cometh next to hand, and that holdeth he fast, be it never so simple a stick; but then that helpeth him not, for that stick he draweth down under the water with him, and there lie they drowned both together." (Pg 15)The fourth chapter bring forth the idea that tribulation was meant to bring men of good will (Luke 2:14) to closer to God. "Some are in the beginning of tribulation very stubborn and stiff against God, and yet at length tribulation bringeth them home." (Pg 18)St. Thomas More continues to bring this point home by writing: "The proud king Pharaoh did abide and endure two or three of the first plagues, and would not once stoop at them. But then God laid on a sorer lash that made him cry to him for help, and then sent he for Moses and Aaron, and confessed himself a sinner, and God for good and righteous, and prayed them to pray for him, and to withdraw that plague, and he would let them go. But when his tribulation was withdrawn, then, was he naught again. So was his tribulation occasion of his profit, and his help again cause of his harm. For his tribulation made him call to God, and his help made hard his heart again." (Pg 18)

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Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.