opinion that the translation of a book of this character could not but
tend to nourish piety, without, however, countenancing that weakness of
spirit which is disposed to lend more importance in some respects to
private than to general revelations, and consequently to substitute
matters which we are simply permitted to believe, in the place of those
which are of faith.

We feel convinced that no one will take offence at certain details
given on the subject of the outrages which were suffered by our divine
Lord during the course of his passion. Our readers will remember the
words of the psalmist: 'I am a worm and no man; the reproach of men, and
the outcast of the people;' (Ps 22:6) and those of the Apostle: 'Tempted in
all things like as we are, without sin.' (Heb 4:15). Did we stand in need
of a precedent, we should request our readers to remember how plainly
and crudely Bossuet describes the same scenes in the most eloquent of
his four sermons on the Passion of our Lord. On the other hand, there
have been so many grand platonic or rhetorical sentences in the books
published of late years, concerning that abstract entity; on which the
writers have been pleased to bestow the Christian title of the Word, or
Logos, that it may be eminently useful to show the Man-God, the Word
made flesh, in all the reality of his life on earth, of his
humiliation, and of his sufferings. It must be evident that the cause
of truth, and still more that of edification, will not be the losers.


INTRODUCTION

The following meditations will probably rank high among many similar
works which the contemplative love of Jesus has produced; but it is our
duty here plainly to affirm that they have no pretensions whatever to