In the first place, ordinary, well-meaning Christians feel disheartened when they find saints ready to be canonized from their infancy, and cannot think of the Magdalenes when they find the calendar full of Marys, and Agneses, and Teresas. Neither will they reflect much on an Augustin, when the majority are Sebastians and Aloysiuses. Here is an example to help these people on; and they are the greater number. {xi} We have therefore shown Father Ignatius's weak points as well as his strong ones; we have brought him out in his written life precisely as he was in reality. He comes before us with a mind full of worldly notions, he traces his own steps away from rectitude, he makes his confession to the whole world. How many will see in the youth he passed, far away from God and grazing the edge of the bottomless precipice, a perfect illustration of their own youth. Let them then follow him through life. They shall find him a prey to the worst passions, anger, pride, and their kindred tendencies. They shall see him put his hand to the plough, and, according to the measure of his grace and light, subduing first one, and then another of his inclinations. They can trace his passage through life, and see that he has so far overcome his passions that an equivocal warmth of temper is a thing to be wondered at in him. There is a servant of God that gives us courage, we need not despond when he leads the way for us. Occasional imperfections are mentioned towards the latter part of his life. These only show that he was a man and not an angel, and that a defect now and again is not at all incompatible with great holiness. There was a reality about the man that can never leave the minds of those who knew him. He hated shams. He would have the brightest consequences of {xii} faith realized. He would not have the Gospel laws be mere matter of sentimental platitudes, but great realities pervading life and producing their legitimate effects. He went into them, heart and soul; and the few points in which he seemed to go this side or that of the mean of virtue in their observance, we have recorded, that others may see how he observed them. Exceptions show the beauty of a rule; and this is the second reason why we have written as a historian and not as a panegyrist. And now for an account of the materials from which the memoir has been compiled. He wrote an account of his life about the year 1836. He was then on a bed of sickness from which he scarcely expected to rise; but we shall give his own reasons for writing what he has written. The autobiography begins thus:--