xlvi. PROLEGOMENA. 



are, I hope, allowable. St. Jerome condemned 

 himself in the Avilderiiesss for his attachment to 

 the classics, saying that he felt as if he were 

 leaving Christ for Cicero. But his lore was 

 sanctified by the use he made of it to oppose 

 the subtil heresies of the times. I confess 

 candidly that what little I have learned of the 

 classics, and of the opinions of the mathematicians 

 and metaphysical philosophers, has been of no use 

 to me sufficient to counterbalance its abuse, and 

 that if I had my life to come over again, I would 

 rather choose to learn all the necessary truths of 

 Catholicism, in seclusion from the world, in 

 ignorance of contending opinions and of science, 

 and in a state of discipline that would exclude 

 the exercise of private judgment in any question 

 of moment. For the ignorance, which is bliss, 

 and which makes wisdom appear like folly, is the 

 absence of those sophistries of argument that ex- 

 ercise a tyrannical sway over the mind in youth, 

 and print on the tablet of memory, when soft, ialse 

 impressions, that the discernment of age may see 

 through and condemn without being able to 

 efface. 



Christ, the rule of the Catholic Saints. 



In the ensuing short lives of the Saints, which 

 follow each day in this book, I advise the young 

 reader always to ponder on the leadi^ig traits in 



