The following pages are by no means intended as a defence of the Catholic Religion, but only as an explanation of what led the Author to embrace it. He has endeavoured to throw himself, as far as possible, back into the position he was in at the different times spoken of, and to give as faithfully as he could the light in which things then appeared to him. Divine things as well as the objects in a landscape wear a different aspect according to the position of him who looks at them. If the Author has seemed harsh or careless of the feelings of others, he must ask his reader to give him credit for not meaning to be so. And if Catholic doctrines be defectively stated, he trusts it will be charitably put down to his, as yet necessarily, very imperfect knowledge, and not to any wish to misrepresent the teaching of the Church to whose judgment he unreservedly submits.
William Robert Brownlow