We have in Latin, in French, in Italian and Spanish, many

well digested works which explain these duties very fully and

with great accuracy; but we have few works of the kind ia

English. We have, it is true, plenty of spiritual and ascetical works

^suitable for Religious, but none which define for us the exact law

of the Gospel according to the maxim : hoc oportet facere et illud

f^ ^on omittere. In tr3dng to supply this want, I have had to read

^ many works of Theology and Canon Law treating on this subject

r and to condense the opinions of others wiser than myself.
The old Canon Law arranged most of the duties of Religious
rr and defined their scope. In more recent times, many improve-
pments and changes in the Church's discipline relative to
Conventual life have been found necessary, and on this account, in
reconciling the old with the new state of things, many difficulties
it present themselves to those who have to deal conscientiously
with these matters. ,/-:

The germs of the Religious Life were planted by our
\ Saviour's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and grew to



If



If



▼1 Preface,

perfection shortly after the first christian Pentecost. We see-
the community of goods, the virgins living in their father's
houses, and the obedience to the voice of an Apostle frequently
referred to in the pages of the New Testament. And the hisiory
of the first centuries of the Church gives us heroic examples of
those, who observed the evangelical counsels both in the solitude
of the desert and in the midst of the persecuted christians in
the large cities.
