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The fact that this book is intended for Catholic readers, is no reason why it should not be useful for non-Catholics. I sincerely hope that our separated brethren, as well as those who are of the household of the Faith, may derive some good from it. I have endeavored to put into what we may call foundation chapters - "The Existence of God," "The Divinity of Christ," "Miracles," etc.-a little more argument and information than are commonly found in popular books on such subjects. Mybject is not to convince Catholics, but to give them ready reasons for their faith in these subjects now-a-days so much talked of. I will not state as an excuse for defects, that the book has been written during the leisure hours of a busy year. If it is worth reading, then it should be read. If it does not repay perusal, then, no matter under what circumstances it has been written, its place should be with the many furniture books that afflict humanity. THE councils of the Church have been convoked mostly because of some attacks made upon her, either in doctrine or discipline. When a person is attacked, naturally enough he is unwilling to yield any uncontested- ground to his aggressor. So also with the Church. Under pressure of an onslaught she states her doctrines in a way, true of course, but uncompromising; sometimes using forms for the proper understanding of which an explanation is necessary. The phrase at the head of this chapter is an illustration. We find it in the Fourth General Council of Lateran, held in the year 1215, and called together to protect the Church principally against the errors of the Albigenses who taught the subversion of ecclesiastical authority; the belief in two Creators and two Christs; that the Sacraments are useless ceremonies that the body does not rise from the dead; and that the soul is a demon confined within the body in punishment of sin. Ecclesiastical history, we are told, is the l'ight eye of dogmatic theology, and studying the phrase, "Out of the C