PREFACE.
That the true religion may be honored and loved by all men, the first requisite is that it be made clearly known to all. Many persons are aliens to Catholicity because they do not understand it as it is; many members of the Church do not love it as they should, and do not live up to its laws, because their knowledge of it is very imperfect. The conviction is general among educated Catholics, that a more thorough study of our holy religion is, just now, a special desideratum in this country. This study must be promoted chiefly among the young, on whose proper education the future of religion principally depends.
To accomplish this object, it is the received practice in many Catholic colleges and academies to teach religion to the more advanced students by series of lectures, rather than by recitations from text-books. This practice has much to recommend it. In particular, it enables the teacher to adapt himself to the capacity and the stage of mental development of his pupils, to address by the liv- ing voice their hearts as well as their intellects, to throw^ his whole soul into his subject, adding charm of style and elocution, which this study so richly deserves.
But there is one serious inconvenience in this system, which outbalances many of its advantages, namely that most students find it beyond their power to remember the explanations with such accuracy as the importance and
