Lectures on the Holy Eucharist

These, be it said, are essentially popular lectures. Consequently, the more recondite aspects of the profound subject, set forth with such lucidity, are but slightly touched on. Moreover, the lectures, when delivered, were limited to time, and therefore make no claim to be exhaustive. Nor, as the speaker's object was exposition and not controversy, does he directly and formally attempt to confute the usual host of Protestant objections; though, to a thoughtful mind, the exposition itself will easily suggest satisfactory answers. The appearance of these lectures in book form will, I hope, prove acceptable to the public at large. Those especially who listened to them at the time of their delivery-whether in the North or in the South, for they have been often repeated-and who can remember the interest they excited, and the favour with which they were received, will doubtless be glad to have them in this permanent form, and will find the private perusal of only less utility than was the public hearing of them. Our Holy Father has insisted much of late on the obvious, but too much neglected, duty of Christians to make better acquaintance with the essential dogmas of the Faith. A little volume like the present makes it possible for the busiest and least instructed to gain clear ideas concerning this vital mystery of religion--the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. Nor will the professed student find that the lecturer has failed to provide him-without, at the same time, mystifying readers of the more popular type-with ample matter for reflection. Thus to crystallize into popular form Catholic doctrine - philosophy, dogma, and theology- concerning the Holy Eucharist, in these days when this mystery of religion is, alike by the erudite and by the man in the street, so largely misunderstood and so widely misrepresented, is certainly a boon. These lectures, unmarred by a single unkind word about opponents, march uncompromisingly in logical sequence from prophecy to fulfilment, from promise to performance, from doctrine to dogma, from dogma to devotion. For from the mists of ancient prophecy they manuduct us into the full light of Christian fulfilment; from the red altar-stone of typical Jewish sacrifice they lead us to the foot of the bloodless altar of the Immolated God, to that Emmanuel in Whom the types of old find their verification.