Page:AceticLibraryV2PreparationForDeath.djvu/20

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heavenly home for the faithful, i. Beauties of heaven. 2. In it is the fulness of desire. 3. It is an ocean of delight, and an existence of continual joy. 4. Its enduring nature. III. The dreadful home of the lost. i. It will be a place of straitness and confinement. 2. A place of destitution, forsaken by all, forsaken by God. 3. A home of your own choice. 4. A state of endless pain. But several of the points are richer in material than the one to which reference has been made.

With regard to the translation; it is sufficient to observe that the Italian is rendered into as literal English as the differences of idiom between the two languages would admit. In some cases it may be feared that the English has been made to give way somewhat too much an error on the safe side; so uncertain and unsatisfactory is a loose paraphrastic style of translation. A few omissions are made. Two Considerations are rejected as unsuitable for our present use. The repetition of the same anecdote is avoided. A few irrelevant miracles or stories do not appear. Occasionally a reading from the Apocryphal has been replaced by one from the Canonical Scriptures. And in all things, that spiritual edification which was the one object of the author in writing this book, has not been lost sight of in the preparation of this English edition. But while