Preface

The doctrine taught by the Catholic Church is vitally necessary for the modern world. We have all been forced to see as with our own eyes what even the highest human culture becomes when it is deprived of the salt of Christian teaching. During the years in which I was engaged in teaching Moral Theology this truth was constantly brought home to me. From time to time I wrote down my thoughts on some particular question of Moral Theology and sent the result to one of the Catholic magazines. The chief portion of this book consists of such articles. I hope that they will illustrate the truth which I have just stated, and that they will help to bring back to public knowledge truths that should never have been forgotten. Other articles treat of questions which were either specially difficult, or which formed subjects of controversy, but all of them treat of matters of importance, unless I am mistaken. They are here reproduced not only for the clergy, but for the intelligent laity, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

My thanks are due to the proprietors of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, the Irish Theological Quarterly, and of the American Ecclesiastical Review for permission to republish the articles which belong to them respectively.