Foreword

THE literature of Pastoral Theology has grown apace of late and, with the addition of some recent works, begins to approach a completeness of treatment which the growing sense of its importance more and more insistently calls for. There is still room, however, for special presentation of particular aspects and departments of the subject, such as the care of the individual soul, including that of the priest himself, with which it is the aim of this short treatise to deal.

On the subject-matter of these Studies, the author was peculiarly well fitted to speak from a long experience both as Parish Priest and Lecturer in Theology. In both of these relations, within the sphere of his influence, he occupied a position almost unique inCanadianChurchlife during the greater part of the last half-century.

In these pages the judicious reader will observe an independence of treatment which, if in part removed from some of the more prevalent currents of present-day thought and practice, reveals a rich spiritual experience, a profound knowledge of human nature, and a fine insight into ” the deep things of God.”

The editor’s labours have been reduced to a minimum by the work already done on the

vi FOREWORD

manuscript by the Rev. R. J. Shires, B.D, sometime tutor at Bishop’s College and a former pupil of Dr. Allnatt s. As a labour of love, Mr. Shires undertook to type the whole work, most of it at the author’s dictation, and it is due to the pains taking care which he has given to its arrangement that the manuscript appears in a fairly complete form for publication. The fact that the work was unfinished accounts for the abruptness of its con clusion, and also for the form of some of the sentences which appear just as they were dictated, but which would doubtless have been somewhat recast by the author with his accustomed care and exactitude.

It had been Dr. Allnatt’s intention to complete the work himself in the summer of 1920, but God willed otherwise, calling him to higher service, and it remained for other hands to give it some finishing touches and send it forth as a small memento of a singularly rich and fruitful life, and as a last message to those who knew and loved him as well as, it is hoped, to a wider circle, from a faithful priest and servant of the Lord, who herein “being dead, yet speaketh.”

G. ABBOTT-SMITH.

MONTREAL, Easter, 1922.

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