children, while the less credulous may discover some difficulty in rejecting consequences which correctly flow from facts sustained by respectable testimony. No one however is required to give to purely historical facts a credence beyond that demanded by merely human testimony, and even the more timid will be shielded by the remark of the learned and critical De Feller, in his Historical Dictionary, speaking of St. Catharine, that " The canonization of the Saints does not ratify either their opinions or their revelations," and he quotes the remark of Gregory the Great, "That Saints the most favored by God frequently deceived themselves, by mistaking for a divine light, that which was merely the effect of the activity of the human soul." St. Jerome well remarks upon this point, "That they are nevertheless the effect of a piety to be always much respected, both in its principle and in its object."
The confidence extended, both in Italy and France, to this life of St. Catharine, should recommend it to the English reader; and the fact that the venerable author has already received from the Church the title of Blessed testifies that the pages of the volume are free from serious or obnoxious doctrines.
