Practical Piety as Set Forth by St. Francis de Sales

It remains to say a few words respecting the selection from St. Francis de Sales’ Letters and Discourses, now for the first time translated into English. Though originally addressed, for the most part, to religious, perhaps few manuals of devotional reading could be mentioned which are more admirably adapted to persons living in the world. There breathes throughout it such practical wisdom, such gentleness, such sweetness, and frequently .what we may call such a majesty of holiness, which, whilst it enters into the difficulties and scruples of the weakest, furnishes food for those who are strongest, that we seem not so much to be reading the writings of a saint, as hearing his living voice addressed to ourselves.

It remains to say a few words respecting the selection from St. Francis de Sales’ Letters and Discourses, now for the first time translated into English. Though originally addressed, for the most part, to religious, perhaps few manuals of devotional reading could be mentioned which are more admirably adapted to persons living in the world. There breathes throughout it such practical wisdom, such gentleness, such sweetness, and frequently .what we may call such a majesty of holiness, which, whilst it enters into the difficulties and scruples of the weakest, furnishes food for those who are strongest, that we seem not so much to be reading the writings of a saint, as hearing his living voice addressed to ourselves.