PREFATOEY LETTER 



FROM 



FATHER HYACINTHE 



To the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon-, Brooklyn :— 



Reverend Sir — I am as much gratified as sur- 

 prised at the honor you are disposed to do to the few 

 discourses I have published in Europe. Some of them 

 are actually the production of my pen ; but these are 

 very few, and relate to circumstances of time and place 

 which I fear will have no interest for American readers. 

 The others, more important in their object, since they 

 are part of the course of Conferences instituted at Notre 

 Dame by the Archbishop of Paris, are extant only in 

 detached parts, taken down hastily in short-hand, and 

 the gaps filled by an imperfect summary. 



I should have been glad, I acknowledge, if I could 

 have brought to America something less unworthy of 

 the sympathy with which I have been welcomed here, 

 and which I shall always reckon among the greatest 

 honors and the purest joys of my life. 



Such as they are, however, I commit these rude pro- 



