connect the New with the Old Testament, without becoming too diffuse. My original intention was to have gone on with the Books of Esther, Tobias, Judith and the Maccabees. But I found that this would have so swelled the work as to render it too cumbersome. Such as it is, I hope it may be, in some measure, useful. The knowledge of Scripture is not only an advantage, it is, especially under our circumstances, a necessity. Holy Scripture is the inheritance of the Catholic Church, which alone is its Guardian and its Interpreter. The study of the Scripture has ever been the constant and favourite study of the bishops, the doctors, the monks and the religious, and it is only in the unity of the Catholic Faith, that the Sacred Scriptures can be thoroughly valued, safely read, and rightly understood. W. G. TODD. Blackheath, Feast of St. Patrick, 1873. |