the difficulty of the matter require. If attempts are made to take notes during the lectures, it is usually found to be impossible by such jottings to do justice to the subjects treated. A set of printed syllabi, put at the disposal of the hearers for reference and preservation, would certainly be of the highest value. By this means many details may also be supplied for the information of the students which the lecturer might judiciously have omitted in his discourse.
To furnish such an abridgement of a full course of Catholic doctrine is the direct purpose of these pages. In preparing them, the author has found it difficult to combine the necessary brevity of such syllabi with the clearness and fulness of doctrine desired in them. But instead of being induced by this difficulty to abandon his design, he has been the more convinced by it of the need of just such a volume as this for the systematic study of religion. If an old professor finds it a hard task to compose such a compendium of Catholic doctrine as is evidently needed, the notes taken in class by the average pupil must certainly be most unsatisfactory.
While thus providing a compendium of lectures supposed to be orally delivered to students, the author has taken care to make his work so clear, full, and explicit throughout, that even those pupils who have not the advantage of assisting at such lectures can use this volume with profit, either as a text-book to prepare for class recitations, or for private perusal without the aid of any teacher.
He takes pleasure in acknowledging his very great indebtedness, in the preparation of this work, to the excellent volumes of the late Rev. Sylvester Joseph Hunter, S. J., entitled "Outlines of Dogmatic Theology". With
