The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

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with that people? if this mode of instruction was found useful when the
knowledge of the Lord was confined to one province, should it not be
preserved when that knowledge covered the whole earth even as the waters
cover the sea? And is it not therefore with justice we have said that
"The Lives of the Saints" might not improperly be designated "an
historical supplement to the Old and New Testaments?"
And in good truth, who can peruse the life of Peter, and not be animated
with a more lively faith? Who can read of the conversion of Paul, of his
zeal and labor, and unbounded love,--who can enter with him into the
depths of those mysterious truths which he has revealed, and contemplate
along with him the riches of the glory of the grace of God, and not
esteem this world as dung; or experience some throes of those heavenly
desires, which urged him so pathetically to exclaim, "I {011} wish to be
dissolved, and to be with Christ?" Who can read the life of the
evangelist John, and not feel the impulse of that subdued spirit, of
that meek and humble charity, which so eminently distinguished him as
the "beloved disciple of the Lord?" And if we advance through the
several ages that have elapsed since our Saviour ascended into heaven,
we shall find each and all of them instructing us by examples of the
most heroic virtue. The age of the martyrs ended, only to make room for
that of the doctors and ascetics; so that each succeeding generation of
the children of God presents to us the active and contemplative life
equally fruitful in works of sanctification. An Athanasius, a Jerom, a
Chrysostom, or an Augustin, are scarcely more precious as models in the
house of God, than an Anthony, a Benedict, an Arseneus, or a Paul. Nor
has the Almighty limited his gifts, or confined the mode of instruction
to those primitive times when the blood of the Mediator was as yet warm
upon the earth, and the believers in him filled more abundantly with the
first-fruits of the Spirit. No; he has extended his grace to every age!
Only take up the history of those holy persons, men and women, whose
lives shed a lustre upon the Church within these last few centuries, and
you will acknowledge that the arm of the Lord is not shortened, and, to
use the words of the Psalmist, that "_Sanctity becometh the house of the
Lord unto length of days,_" or to the end of time.
As therefore it hath pleased God to raise up for our help and
edification so many and so perfect models of Christian perfection, and
disposed by his all wise providence that their lives should have been
written for our instruction, we should not be faithful co-operators with
the grace given to us, if we did not use our best efforts to learn and
to imitate what our Father in heaven has designed for our use.
But "The Lives of the Saints" are a history, not so much of men, as of
all ages and nations,--of their manners, customs, laws, usages, and
creeds. And in this licentious age, an age of corrupted literature, when