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The two papers in Part I have been published in the AmericanChurch Magazine. Of Part II Chapter 1 has been publishedseparately; Chapters 2, 4, 7, 9 and 12 have been published in theHoly Cross Magazine. The rest of the volume is here published forthe first time.
I would emphasise the fact that the contents of Part II is aseries of sermons which were prepared as such, and were preached inthe Church of S. Mary the Virgin, New York City, for the most partin the Winter of 1921-22. In preparing them for publication in thisvolume no attempt has been made to alter their sermon character. Itis not a theological treatise on the Blessed Virgin that I haveattempted, but a devotional presentation of her life.
I have added to the text as originally prepared certain prayersand poems. The object of the selection of the prayers, almostexclusively from the Liturgies of the Catholic Church, is toillustrate the prevalence of the address of devotion to our Ladythroughout Christendom. The poems are selected with much the samethought, and have been mostly gathered from mediaeval sources, andso far as possible, from British. I have no special knowledge ofdevotional poetry, but have selected such poems as I have from timeto time copied into my note books. This fact has made it impossiblefor me to give credit for them to the extent that I should haveliked. I trust that any one who is entitled to credit will acceptthis apology.
Much of the difficulty felt by Anglicans at expressions commonlyfound in prayers and hymns addressed to our Lady is due toprevalent unfamiliarity with the devotional language of theCatholic Church throughout the ages. Those whose background ofthought is the theology of the Catholic Church, not in any oneperiod, but in the whole extent of its life, will have nodifficulty in such language because the limitations which areimplied in it will be clear to them. To others, I can only say thatit is fair to assume that the great saints of the Church of God inall times and in all places did not habitually use language whichwas idolatrous, and our limitations are much more likely to be atfault than their meaning. It is not true in any degree that theteaching of Catholics as to the place of the Virgin intrudes on theprerogative of our Lord. It is, as matter of fact Catholics, andnot those who oppose the Catholic Religion who are upholding thatprerogative. This has been excellently expressed by a modern Frenchtheologian. "We are established in the friendship of God, in thedivine adoption, in the heavenly inheritance, solely in virtue ofthe covenent by which our souls are bound to the Son of God, and bywhich the goods, the merits, and the rights of the Son of God arecommunicated to our souls, as in the natural order, the property ofthe husband becomes the property of the wife. Surely, one can saynothing more than we say here, and assuredly the sects opposed tothe Church have never said more: indeed,