CONFERENCES OF THE REV. PÈRE LACORDAIRE, DELIVERED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, IN PARIS. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY HENRY LANGDON. DEDICATED TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WISEMAN. LONDON: THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON, MDCCCLIII. TO THE MOST EMINENT AND MOST REVEREND NICHOLAS, CARDINAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP, THE Conferences of the Reverend Father Lacordaire have been, for a great number of serious minds in France, the means of recalling them to the belief in, and the practice of, the Catholic dogmas; because they have found in these brilliant discourses a revelation of the reality, the unity, the grandeur, and fecundity of the ideas and sentiments which those dogmas contain. It has appeared to me, my Lord, that these same Conferences may produce an equal success in our own country; for we are affected, perhaps, in a greater degree than any other nation by the religious movement which now agitates Europe, and which will, I hope, lead it back to the bosom of the Church, our Mother, the eternal source of liberty as well as of authority. With this view, my Lord, I have undertaken the accompanying translation, which I venture to dedicate to your Eminence, in the hope that you will be pleased to accept this homage; for, with a sacred character of a higher order, your Eminence has desired to accomplish for England much of what the illustrious Dominican has done for France; the works of your Eminence have been among us the signal of a visible return towards that Catholic faith of our ancestors, which but yesterday was so misunderstood, so generally despised, and is now so loved and so conscientiously practised by many even of our greatest men of learning and genius. It is then natural that I should desire to place under the protection of your Eminence the translation of a work which so much resembles those eminent productions which have called forth universal admiration, and one which is especially calculated to multiply and perpetuate their salutary effect. Your name, my Lord, will lessen the weight of my responsibility in the difficult task which I imposed upon myself, by endeavouring to render in our own language that style, so graceful, so delicate, and yet at the same time so full of energy, in which the Reverend Father Lacordaire presents his ideas to the world; it will also render more familiar to our country the name of this distinguished apostle, who is not only one of the greatest among those great men who have adorned the Christian pulpit, but also one of the most pious models of sacerdotal and religious life which our age has seen. With this confidence, and with sentiments of the most profound veneration and respect for your Eminence, I have the honour to be, Your Eminence's devoted Subject and Servant, HENRY LANGDON. |