TO PETER AUGUSTINE BAINES, D.D., BISHOP OF SIGA, VICAR APOSTOLIC IN THE WESTERN DISTRICT MY LORD, NOTWITHSTANDING the very kind and flattering manner in which you have permitted me to dedicate this Prayer Book to your Lordship, it were indecorous in an anonymous writer to express, in this place, the admiration and gratitude which every English Catholic must feel for those exertions and privations which you have undergone while endeavouring to provide for the spiritual wants of his brethren in Christ, and to raise religion, in this country, from the state of depression in which long years of persecution had left it. But as none are more active in the cause of religion, so no one will more readily appreciate, than your Lordship, the importance of bringing piety home to every breast with truth, with charity, with unction, and with decorum : Sit laus plena, sit sonora, While endeavouring, in this compilation, to avoid the opposite extreme of fervour and insensibility, it has also been my wish to modify those expressions of devotion which, translated from the vocabularies of more energetic nations, appear familiar and even profane to our sober habits of thought; and to expunge all declarations of exaggerated feeling, ali self-accusations of heinous and excessive guilt. These are often indecorous :-presenting images foreign to the sentiment to which they are allied, and inapplicable to those who hold the even tenor of their way, and endeavour to walk in the path of the Lord, and to possess their souls in peace. To these surely the majority amongst us!-it is unadvisable to dictate feelings proper only to the more hardened, to the more desperate, sinner. In a word, I have endeavoured to compile a FAMILY Prayer Book :-one that should not raise a plush on the cheek of happy innocence, nor deepen the crimson occasioned by passing faults of surprise; one that should induce a sentiment of hopeful gladness rather than of gloom; one that should not exhaust the strongest expressions of feeling on occasions of familiar sorrows, familiar hopes, nor, alas! of familiar and domestic failings. Should your Lordship deem that I have, in any degree, accomplished my undertaking, I hope that you will honor my little work with your approhation, and that you will bestow your lessing upon one who well knows how to value the boon. ΦΙΛΑΛΗΘΗΣ. On the Eve of the Festival of Sts. Peter and Paul, 1839. ADVICE ON CONVERSATIONAL CONTROVERSY A MODERN author says, "Let me caution you to avoid all argument on points of doctrine: excuse yourself by simply answering that such is the faith of the Church. The Catholic Church has succeeded to the authority possessed by Moses and the prophets; and they who wish to dispute her doctrines should first disprove her authority. Until they have done that, it is sufficient for you and for them that the doctrine in question is taught with her sanction." This is most excellent advice. But such as may ask, in the spirit of honest enquiry, what is the foundation of this your reliance upon the infallibility of the Church, you may remind that contradictory doctrines cannot all be true: and that, according to the words of Christ himself, there can be only one true church, only one church that teaches a true doctrine: St. John x. 16," And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." Eph. iv. 4, 5-"There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism." ་་ That the church once established by Christ must continue for ever to teach the true doctrines of Christ, is evident: Matt xvi. 18, 19-" And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Chap. xxviii. 20-"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." St. John xiv. 16, 26-" And I wil pray the Father, and he shall give you anothe Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shal teach you all things and bring all things to you. remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Chap. xvi. 13-" Howbeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will shew you all things to come." No variation whatever from the doctrine of that church appears to be admissible: St. Matt. v. 19-" Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach |