Death! What is death but home? ‘At the hour of death call me.’ That is the prayer that we have put on our lips by the Church. One of those old prayers, prayers that endure, solid prayers, no nonsense about it, one of those prayers that carries with it a fortifying power. People are sometimes frightened of talking of death; we shrink from death naturally, rightly, it is the breaking up of all we know, it is the putting away of familiar things, it is venturing into a strange country; about it there must be a certain strangeness and fear and sense of disaster—and yet, why? ‘At the hour of death call me.’ That is all death ever is—just a voice calling.

There is no doubt that of the many methods of prayer which the Church has placed in the hands of the faithful for their sanctification, the holy Rosary is among the surest and best. It is a well of grace whose source is the God-Man himself; not above even the least of his little ones drawing therefrom the sweet, fresh waters of everlasting life; inexhaustible to the most profound intellects, a summa theologica of the Catholic Faith. It is safe and sure because it is sound theology, and assures to prayer that objectivity which it should possess if it is to avoid the easy pitfalls of idle dreaming and speculation, and it fixes the gaze of the mind and the aspirations of the heart on the precious mysteries of our Lord's life, rather than a barren and too often harmful preoccupation with our own interior life, which is so characteristic of this age of amateur psycho-analysts and morbid introspection.

This extract is from a 15th-century MS. Laud miscell. 330 on the religious life, written probably for Benedictine nuns, relating the external and interior life to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in an unusual order. The first chapter occupies almost half the work with a rambling commentary on the whole of the religious life, rule and customs as worked out under the guidance of holy fear. Of the other more brief chapters, the last two dealing with the higher gifts seem worthy of transcription. The unknown author's originality of approach and tender devotion, his shrewd insight into character and the directness and charm of his language raise the piece above the commonplaces of religious exhortation, so that it is still attractive and convincing to the simple of heart to whom it was dedicated four hundred years ago. The spelling has been modernised.

Few paradoxes can be more important for the Christian in quest of the true life than that between the multiplicity of Christian praying and the single unity of Christian prayer. This is especially applicable to the Christian who has made some progress in grace and is beginning to live a life of union. Mother Julian in her fourteenth revelation includes a short treatise on the prayer of beseeching in order to show how that type of prayer is part and parcel of the prayer of love, which is her one prayer. But from the very first she was confronted by many forms of prayer contrasted with the simplicity of God's goodness.

Though the term ‘spiritual director’ is of modern origin, the vocation it denotes is very old. Wherever men have devoted themselves to the pursuit of perfection they have felt the need for guidance from someone more experienced than themselves. Even among those remarkable old monks and hermits that peopled the deserts of the eastern part of the Empire from the fourth century onwards, St Nilus is an outstanding figure. Perhaps his most striking characteristic is his gift for spiritual direction in the full modern sense of the word. The old legend that made him a high official at Constantinople who left the court late in life in order to become a hermit on Mt Sinai agrees ill with this office of a spiritual guide as he is represented in his many letters and several weighty treatises. But this ancient, story is no longer accepted by scholars; according to their general opinion we have to think of St Nilus as the experienced superior and novice master 01 a monastery at Ancyra in Galatia.