This little book is written in the hope that it may assist youngpriests and ecclesiastical students to meet the demands which thelife before them has in store.
Works specially suited to the priest, the layman and the nun arehappily abundant; but to the young man standing on the thresholdof his career as a priest, how few are addressed. Yet it is whilehis character is in the formative stage, and his weapons arestill in the shaping, that advice and direction are of mostpractical value.
The writer brings to his task only one qualification on which hecan rely—his own personal experience.
After having gone through a long course of preparation in Irishecclesiastical colleges, he lived for nearly thirteen years onthe Australian mission, and is now completing a decade spent ingiving missions and retreats in all parts of Ireland. Of thecollege, therefore, and of the foreign and home missions he canspeak with whatever authority a long experience and ordinarypowers of observation are supposed to give.
In dealing with the foreign mission he does not rely solely onhis own judgment. Many matters here treated of he heardrepeatedly discussed by priests abroad, who bitterly deploredthat, while in college, they knew so little of the life beforethem, and regretted that there was then no kind friend to takethem by the hand and show them what was in store when the daycame for them to plunge into a life that was strange and entirelynew. It is to be hoped that this modest volume will, in part atleast, discharge the office of that friend.
It may appear, at first sight, that when writing the fourthchapter, "On Pulpit Oratory," the author had before his mind anelaborate discourse, such as is expected only on great occasions.This is not so.
It is true that the various parts of a sermon, when detailed inanalysis, may seem, like the works of a watch spread out on atable, bewilderingly numerous and complex. But when we come toconstruct, it will be found that in synthesis the distractingnumber of small parts will disappear, to coalesce and form thefew main principles on which either a sermon or a watch is built.These principles are essential to every discourse, no matter howbrief. As the humble seven-and-sixpenny "Waterbury" requires itssprings and levers equally with the hundred-guinea "repeater," sothe twenty minutes' sermon, to be effective, must have a fixedplan and definite sequence as well as the more ambitious effort.
Most of these chapters were written originally for the "MungretAnnual," with a view to assist the apostolic students who arenow, as priests, rendering such splendid service to the Church ofGod abroad. And it was the very generous reception accorded thearticles in the ecclesiastical colleges that suggested the ideaof presenting them in the more lasting form of a book.
Sacred Heart College, Limerick, March 17, 1909, Feast of St. Patrick.
The rapid sale of the first edition of this work surprised no onemore than the author. It was not addressed to the public ingeneral, but to a limited section; the price, while moderate,could not be called cheap; yet within a little over two monthsthe entire edition was exhausted.
It is impossible to express my deep gratitude to