TO TAKE A DEEP AND ACTIVE INTEREST IN THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK, BUT
WHO WAS NOT PERMITTED TO SEE ITS COMPLETION, BEING CALLED HENCE,
SCARCELY THREE MONTHS AFTER HIS ORDINATION, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH
CONSECRATED TO THOSE Holy Souls, _November 14th, 1885._

R. I. P.




INTRODUCTION

I have written many books and translated many more on a great variety
of subjects, nearly all of which, I thank God now with all my heart,
were more or less religious, at least in their tendency; but the circle
of these my life-long labors seems to me incomplete. One link is
wanting to the chain, and that is a work specially devoted to the souls
in Purgatory. This omission I am anxious to supply while the working
days of my life are still with me, for, a few more years, at most, and
for me "the night cometh when no man can work."

As we advance into the vale of years and journey on the downward slope,
we are happily drawn more and more towards the eternal truths of the
great untried world beyond the grave. Foremost amongst these stands out
more and still more clearly, in all its awful reality, the dread but
consoling doctrine of Purgatory. When we have seen many of our best
beloved relatives, many of our dearest and most devoted friends--those
who started with us in "the freshness of morning" on the road of life,
which then lay so deceitfully fair and bright before them and us--they
who shared our early hopes and aspirations, and whose words and smiles