I present for your Lordship's kind acceptance and patronage the first work which I publish as a Father of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. I have a sort of claim upon your permission to do so, as a token of my gratitude and affection toward your Lordship, since it is to you principally that I owe it, under God, that I am a client and subject, however unworthy, of so great a Saint. When I found myself a Catholic, I also found myself in your Lordship's district; and, at your suggestion, I first moved into your immediate neighbourhood, and then, when your Lordship further desired it, I left you for Rome. There it was my blessedness to be allowed to offer myself, with the condescending approval of the Holy Father, to the service of St. Philip, of whom I had so often heard |