PREFACE OF THE FIRST EDITION.

persevere to the end. So great were the charity In this context, charity refers to the theological concept of "caritas"—a selfless, divine love for God and others. and fervour of this Mother, such her solicitude for the perfection of her daughters The nuns in the convents St. Teresa founded were often referred to as her "spiritual daughters.", that she did not content herself with the good example and the instructions she gave while alive, but wished that, even after her death, her words might remain and continue the work she had begun on earth. As one truly hungering after our Lord, and greatly experienced in all that concerns the religious life A technical term for the life led by those who have taken formal vows in a religious order, such as poverty, chastity, and obedience., she wrote the advice and the explanations contained in this book, so that the sadness caused to the nuns by her bodily absence might be counterbalanced by her spiritual presence ; for, indeed, she seems living even in the dead letters This is a metaphor suggesting that her vibrant spirit is so well-captured in her writing that she feels alive to the reader, despite the "dead" or inanimate nature of ink on paper.. This, then, is one of the consolations with which her spiritual daughters may alleviate the sorrow caused by her death ; another being the certainty that, where she now is, she will not abandon those whom she so ardently loved, because, so far from being smaller, charity is much greater in heaven than on earth.

It is no small consolation to see, albeit after her death, her spirit still alive in the doctrine of this book, which she composed through zeal for the spiritual improvement of her daughters, and which she earnestly requested me to get printed The first official collection of St. Teresa's works was printed in 1588, six years after her death..

There being various manuscript copies, it was unavoidable that there should be many passages at variance Before the printing press was widely used for her works, her writings were copied by hand. This led to many "variations" or errors where different scribes accidentally changed her words. with what she had written ; this could only be obviated by printing the whole