KNOWLEDGE of the theory and practice of the spiritual life is essential to solid virtue. Without it the soul drifts on a sea of doubt and uncertainty, and wastes time, grace, and opportunity of merit and spiritual progress. With this knowledge an ordinary good will suffices to appreciate how sweet is the Saviour's yoke and how light His burden. Like the ladder which the patriarch Jacob saw reaching from earth to heaven the service of God becomes attractive in proportion to our knowledge and application of the teaching of holy faith.
A favorable sign of Catholic life in our day is the desire for religious information among our people. Not only are the clergy and the religious alert and anxious to use every means to qualify for their labors and to promote their spiritual welfare, but there is a growing class among the laity that relishes the higher things. While " The Narrow Way " is specially intended as a Manual of the Spiritual Life for the Laity, it will equally serve as a handbook for postulants, novices, and seminarians that will introduce them to the principles of the spiritual life and enable them to appreciate and derive profit from larger works. May Providence use this Manual to lead many souls on the way to intimate union with a loving and merciful God.
Thomas. P. Brown, C.SS.R., Sup. Prov.
St. Louis, Mo.
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