The reply of Maximilian to the wealthy courtier who tendered him a
goodly purse of gold for a title of nobility, was worthy of that
emperor: "I can enrich thee," he said, "but only thy own virtue can
enoble thee" All true grandeur, excellence, and dignity, are the
offspring of virtue. Even the most renowned oracles of paganism
proclaim this, and the very persecutors of holiness are often
constrained to pay homage to their victim. No wonder, then, that
whenever we are privileged to find one of those rare mortals, whom
virtue has unmistakably marked as her own, we lovingly attach an
exceptional importance to everything connected with his history. Such
assuredly was he whose "account of what befel" him during his first
ten years in America, is now for the first time published in English.
A brief sketch of the religious Order to which he belonged, of the
life he led, and of the Monastery he founded, may give added interest
to his own simple and edifying narrative.

What Scripture terms "the world," and so emphatically denounces as
such, is the poisonous source of the mother-evils described by St.
John as "the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the
eyes, and the pride of life." Flight from the contamination of this
threefold inordinate love of pleasures, riches and honors, being
essential to salvation, is most easily, most surely and most
meritoriously achieved by those who, in answer to a Divine call,
consecrate and give themselves wholly to God, by the practice of the
evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience. Those who
embrace this angelic profession form the choice portion of the fold
of Christ. They rank as His spouses, and, by the holy ambition of
their virgin love, console Him for the craven defections or the cold
indifference of so many Christians.