Amid the present darkness and distress this little book may help to minister consolation and inspire drooping hearts with courage, by reminding them that suffering is the Church's heritage, the very condition of her well-being, nay, her highest privilege, inasmuch as it renders her most like to her Divine Spouse and is the pledge and surety of her triumphs. As of the Lord Himself (Luke 24:26), so of His Church it may be truly said that she ought to suffer these things and so to enter into her glory. Her most signal successes have been preceded, and indeed attended, by humiliations and...