A commentary on Ecclesiastes

by Thomas Pelham Dale

“It is easy to see that Henri Perreyve, Professor of Moral Theology at the Sorbonne, was a Roman Catholic priest of no ordinary type. With comparatively little of what Protestants call superstition, with great courage and sincerity, with a nature singularly guileless and noble, his priestly vocation, although pursued, according to his biographer, with unbridled zeal, did not stifle his human sympathies and aspirations. He could not believe that his faith compelled him ‘to renounce sense and reason,’ or that a priest was not free to speak, act, and think like other men. Indeed, the Abbé Gratry makes a kind of apology for his friend’s free-speaking in this respect, and endeavours to explain it. Perreyve was the beloved disciple of Lacordaire, who left him all his manuscripts, notes, and papers, and he himself attained the position of a great pulpit orator.”——Pall Mall Gazette.

THE LAST DAYS OF PÈRE GRATRY. By Pere Adolphe Perraud, of the Oratory, and Professor of La Sorbonne. Translated by special permission. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

S. FRANCIS DE SALES, BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA. By the Author of “A Dominican Artist,” “Life of Madame Louise de France,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo. 9s.

“It is written with the delicacy, freshness, and absence of all affectation which characterised the former works by the same hand, and which render these books so very much more pleasant reading than are religious biographies in general. The character of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, is a charming one; a more simple, pure, and pious life it would be difficult to conceive. His unaffected humility, his freedom from dogmatism in an age when dogma was placed above religion, his freedom from bigotry in an age of persecution, were alike admirable.”——Standard.

“The author of ‘A Dominican Artist,’ in writing this new life of the wise and loving Bishop and Prince of Geneva, has aimed less at historical or ecclesiastical investigation than at a vivid and natural representation of the inner mind and life of the subject of his biography, as it can be traced in his own writings and in those of his most intimate and affectionate friends. The book is written with the grave and quiet grace which characterises the productions of its author, and cannot fail to please those readers who can sympathise with all forms of goodness and devotion to noble purpose.”——Westminster Review.

“A book which contains the record of a life as sweet, pure, and noble as any man by divine help, granted to devout sincerity of soul, has been permitted to live upon earth. The example of this gentle but resolute and energetic spirit, wholly dedicated to the highest conceivable good, offering itself, with all the temporal uses of mental existence, to the service of infinite and eternal beneficence, is extremely touching.... It is a book worthy of acceptance.”——Daily News.

“It is not a translation or adaptation, but an original work, and a very charming portrait of one of the most winning characters in the long gallery of Saints. And it is a matter of thankfulness to us to find a distinctively Anglican writer setting forward the good Bishop’s work among Protestants, as a true missionary task to reclaim souls from deadly error, and bring them back to the truth.”——Union Review.

THE SPIRIT OF S. FRANCIS DE SALES, BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA. Translated from the French by the Author of “The Life of S. Francis de Sales,” “A Dominican Artist,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo. 6s.

A SELECTION FROM THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF S. FRANCIS DE SALES, BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA. Translated by the Author of “Life of S. Francis de Sales,” “A Dominican Artist,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo. 6s.

“It is a collection of epistolary correspondence of rare interest and excellence. With those who have read the Life, there cannot but have been a strong desire to know more of so beautiful a character as S. Francis de Sales. He was a model of Christian saintliness and religious virtue for all time, and one everything relating to whom, so great were the accomplishments of his mind as well as the devotion of his heart, has a charm which delights, instructs, and elevates.”—Church Herald.