FOREWORD. Y giving to the public the present Life of Venerable Père Eymard the publishers have added to Eucharistic literature a volume of no little interest. It opens to our gaze the secret recesses of a soul who, to purchase "the pearl of great price in the monstrance set," gave all that he had. He relinquished home, family, the closest spiritual friendships, health, life itself to possess what to him was the one thing necessary-Jesus Hostia. The following pages reveal the workings of grace in one whom the Holy Spirit led to most exalted heights of love divine. While living in closest mystic union with his Divine Master, Père Eymard also taught others to love and serve devotedly Him who so craves the affection of men. For this ardent apostle the Blessed Sacrament was more than a mere Presence. It was the living personality of Jesus of Nazareth with His oft-repeated "Come to Me." Very aptly has Père Eymard been called "the Priest of the Eucharist." He is still in our midst, exerting his uplifting influence over souls by the work of his zealous spiritual sons, the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament. This Society has placed before English readers the four volumes from Père Eymard's pen which portray his character more clearly than any mere Life could do. Still a short account of the incidents of his fifty-seven years will cause readers of these pages to delve more deeply into his writings and there learn the secret of becoming adorers in spirit and in truth. Such is his message to us of the twentieth century, a message which is fraught with much meaning if we would respond to the pleadings of the Sacred Heart in these days of daily Communion and annual Eucharistic Congresses. May this volume accomplish the one aim of Venerable Père Eymard's life: "Adveniat Regnum Tuum Eucharisticum!" March 13, 1914. S. J. F. Venerable Pierre Julien Eymard THE PRIEST OF THE EUCHARIST FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT. "W I Birth and Early Youth. ITH what love God has loved me! He has, as it were, led me by the hand to the Congregation of the Most Blessed Sacrament. All His graces have been graces of preparation, and the Blessed Sacrament has dominated my whole life. The Most Blessed Virgin Mary strengthened this affection in me. She herself gave me Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament." These are Venerable Père Eymard's own words. The end that we propose to ourselves in this sketch is, as the title indicates, to make known the Founder of the Society of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Apostle of the Eucharist. A rapid glance over the past will reveal to us, and not without great profit to ourselves, the commencement of and the favors bestowed on the Order of the Blessed Sacrament, whose complete expansion we behold even during the last years of Venerable Père Eymard. Pierre Julien Eymard was born February 4, 1811, at La Mure, on L'Isère, a little town in the diocese of Grenoble. His family was profoundly Christian. His grandfather was held in high consideration, and Jules Eymard, the father of the subject of this sketch, was equally faithful in the observance of the laws of Holy Mother Church. Full of energy and naturally very clever, he was engaged at one and the same time in the different occupations of cutlery and the oil-press. By a first marriage, he had one daughter named Marianne. In 1804, he contracted a second marriage, at Frenay (Oisans), with Marie Madeleine Pelorce, who rivalled her good husband in piety and wisdom. The Reverend M. Col, since deceased in the odor of sanctity was at this time the Curé of Oisans. He predicted to the pious couple that of their marriage. would be born a son, who would become a priest and the Founder of a new Religious Order devoted to the Most Blessed Sacrament. They had successively three sons, who all died in baptismal innocence. The fourth was the child of promise. While his mother bore him in her womb, she never ceased consecrating him to Jesus Christ and begging that the child's whole life might be devoted to His divine service. The day after his birth, he received in Baptism the name of Pierre Julien. May we not see in this name a predisposition of Divine Providence? Petrus, which signifies rock, and it was upon this rock that Jesus Christ was to establish His Eucharistic Throne, and perpetuate the feast of Corpus Christi, begun in the Church by Saint Julienne. The child conceived a great devotion to his two patrons, as also to his mother's patroness, Saint Mary Magdalen, who had so ardently loved the Saviour of the world. The relations of little Pierre with the Blessed Sacrament date from his tenderest infancy. While still at her breast, his mother often |