The honourable testimonies which are cited by my author, just before the
conclusion of his work, and one of them in particular from a learned
divine of the church of England,[3] though they slur over the mention of
his miracles, in obscure and general terms, yet are full of veneration
for his person. Farther than this I think it needless to prepossess a
reader; let him judge sincerely, according to the merits of the cause,
and the sanctity of his life, of whom such wonders are related, and
attested with such clouds of witnesses; for an impartial man cannot but
of himself consider the honour of God in the publication of his gospel,
the salvation of souls, and the conversion of kingdoms, which followed
from those miracles; the effects of which remain in many of them to this
day.

But that it is not lawful for me to trespass so far on the patience of
your majesty, I should rather enlarge on a particular reflection, which I
made in my translation of this book, namely, that the instructions of the
saint, which are copied from his own writings, are so admirably useful,
so holy, and so wonderfully efficacious, that they seem to be little less
than the product of an immediate inspiration. So much excellent matter is
crowded into so small a compass, that almost every paragraph contains the
value of a sermon. The nourishment is so strong, that it requires but
little to be taken at a time. Where he exhorts, there is not an
expression, but what is glowing with the love of God; where he directs a
missioner, or gives instructions to a substitute, we can scarcely have a
less idea than of a St Paul advising a Timothy, or a Titus. Where he
writes into Europe, he inspires his ardour into sovereign princes, and
seems, with the spirit of his devotion, even to burn his colleagues at
the distance of the Indies.

But, madam, I consider that nothing I can say is worthy to detain you