I present for your Lordship's kind accept ance 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.