The purpose of this article is to call the attention of lovers of the Imitation to James Merlo Horstius’s edition of it, the Viator Christianus.

An old copy of this rare, and exceedingly interesting, book—to which a reference is made on page 745 of the lovely English translation (Burns and Oates, 1912) of the Paradisus Animae—came into the present writer’s possession a few years ago. It was published at Cologne in 1643. Its full title is ‘Viator Christianus recta ac regia in caelum via tendens, ductu Thomae de Kempis.’ It is a Latin edition of the Imitation, with quaint marginal notes and curious allegorical prints, and a picture representing Thomas a Kempis himself offering his book to Our Lady. At the top of the picture is the legend ‘In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angello cum libello,’ and at the foot ‘Thomas a Kempis canonicus regularis Obijt A° 1471, 25 Iulij. Ætat 92.’

James Merlo, called Horstius from the place of his birth, was born at Horst, a German village, in 1597, and died in 1644 at Cologne, where he was parish priest of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Pasculo. He was the author, or compiler, of several devotional books besides that unrivalled collection, which every wise Catholic knows well, The Paradise of the Christian Soul. He tells us there that he has surveyed ‘the gardens and pleasure-grounds of every author,’ and culled thence ‘the most notable plants, flowers and shrubs,’ and planted with them ‘a new kind of Paradise.’